death of a dream

so, i am not ashamed to admit i love shitty blockbuster heist flicks. anytime, anywhere, i'll watch slick bastards damn the man and possibly wield naughty weapons.

so in a day of nostalgia and joy, i slipped in Mission Impossible for the first time in years. A mainstay of my video collection, and an early member of my adoration of all things espionagy.

fair enough the make-up is dated, the technology looks archaic, and the soundtrack gimicky. these are the small things one must forgive - like with Sneakers or Charade.

but i cannot get over what the last year or two has done to tom cruise.

i used to see that wild enthusiastic look in his eye and think "gosh, it's so crazy it just might work! you clever bastard." (and want to name my sons ethan hunt) and now i see it and think "that man possibly ate placenta and believes aliens came to earth. you psycho fucker." (and want to never see that manic look again).

it is truly scarring.

invalid

i am not a necessarily active person. in fact i often am the human embodiment of lethargy and sloth (my second favourite sin).

i can do a pride and prejudice marathon without batting an eye, and often without even switching positions. a day off, more often than not, is pretty much 8 solid hours of silent sitting and reading. one of my best talents is forming nests (not unlike the home of the mad sleeping demon) from any available textiles and nestling for days on end.

but enforced rest is climbing the charts of tortures i cannot endure.

the second i am required to sit, unable to move, restricted from action, i seriously freak out. i feel caged. panic sets in. i am restless and lonely and regularly crave active hobbies i wouldnt dream of attempting when at my full capacity.

it is claustrophobic, this lack of mobility. i have never wanted to run or scream more.

i am trapped. teathered. arrested.

i remember when i was on swim team, we would have a taper in training before league meet. everyday would be easier until i swear to god we floated around for half an hour and then got sent home. my body was used to swimming at least 5 miles a day. That friday, at my grandmas house, I went for a walk on her treadmill to stretch my restless joints while she sat on the adjecent bed and we chatted. Before I realized it, I had run 3 and a half miles and had barely lost my breath.

I just needed to get it out of my system. I never ran that far again.



tuesday i could limp. wednesday i could walk short distances with only a slight wimper. so by friday i thought i could have an easy day at work. by lunch i was sent home for hobbling.

i think i am the first person to ever go to work out of boredom - and fail.

so now i am back on my sofa, determined to have a full day of recovery so i can get the hell out of here tomorrow.

it's slowly killing me, but i am determined to try. i have gathered comforts around me and take yoga breaths everytime i think about the fact i cant even get to my backyard (megan, the fear of paralysis is becoming all too real).

and part of me wonders if i could keep this active energy when not propped up by pillows and antinflamatories, would i? i think a world of yes. from the retrospect view of the sofa, it's a shame i waste so much time lolling about. i cant afford to waste my good(ish) health only to feel like this in my decrepit rag of a body for years to follow.

it's sickening. the only time i am halfway inspired to contemplate excersize is when i am physically incapable of doing it. that's irony for you. welcome to my life.

stories

my new friends (aka the ones who met me in a professional capacity and have not yet (or at least rarely) been exposed to my drunken lunacy, vixenish mania, or general idiotic frivolity outside the office) have begun remarking with regular frequency how all my stories are weird, ridiculous, and sometimes frightening.

fair enough, the hole in the picture of my brain i don't remember getting because my sister hit me on the head with a hammer is weird.

or the dog running away from the boy in the bodycast and the lady with no memory not knowing how to pick him up, so calling her high school best friend's mom (the only phone number she remembers) can be uncomfortable (but very funny).

the time andy got drunk and complained how drew got laid more than him is a good one too, but only when one explains the entire andy-andy height comedy value.

or when bridget and i smuggled greasy mozzerella sticks in to see the hours under my shirt and i burned my stomach. that's classy.

soon Cruella (her heavy make up runs when her eyes water. a lot.), the psycho flatmate who hates me for kicking her out (she took it kind of personally), and slept with all my friends, will be in regular rotation too, but not til she actually leaves.

even small everyday occurances like how the special ed kid proposed to me in the lunch line everyday for a year or i broke my arm playing gym class soccer and my teacher didnt believe me or even just the fact i used to be a butterfly swimmer gets a chuckle. these are now hilarious anecdotes well and truly out of the scope of these tame british people. i am like a sitcom without the studio audience.

i was mostly amused at my novelty act, that any awkward pub conversation or bad encounter can be salvaged by a sara-story is a handy weapon when one knows mostly tools.

i was getting used to idea that i was just a better storyteller than i used to be, and the fact that i laugh through most of the horrific and sometimes gory memories of my childhood and beyond i thought was a step forward from the cowering and crying that occupied my early years.

julie once said (i think i was in the midst of the broke-the-arm-falling-off-the-vaccuum-cleaner story) "don't you have any normal stories?".

i don't think i do, and i am totally okay with that. at first i thought maybe this was just my schtick, but turns out i was wrong.

jennie came last weekend. and she told the bat story and mentioned both the time i passed out and threw up jungle juice in our dorm and the time she puked on our kitchen floor. in fact we did a lot of reminiscing and at our picnic i missed my lady death strike nails a lot.

and it could have been julie again, but i don't remember, anyway someone said "god, don't your friends have any normal stories about you either?".

and then i got a letter from my brother. a real hand written ledgible letter (i know. i got all weepy happy) and the whole first page was a story about how mom was excited to see the strangers with candy movie and the only interview with amy sedaris was in playboy, so she bought it. not only bought it, bought it from the 7-11 at jolly and okemos so now the kid behind the counter (who tom went to school with) gives him the shifty eye all the time because he knows our mom buys porn.

and although this is a very funny story, especially if you know mom, it made me realize the storytelling isn't just my thing. it's how we all are. it's how everyone at home i know is and is possibly one of the things i miss most.

maybe it's my secret password, this ability to have ridiculous embarassing things happen and then laugh about it later. lord knows no one would survive with me very long if they couldn't laugh at kate's double broken feet or being cast as the lover of your arch-nemesis in the school play. (especially that time my skirt fell down in the school talent show). i break, ruin, or screw up a lot. and it's funny.

lordy, if jennie hadn't been amused or at least tolerant of my destroying the car, being convinced we were going to be raped in a cornfield, and positive obsession with fazolis within the first 24hours of our roadtrip, i don't think we'd be friends. but she did. and we are. and i am glad.

anyway, you may wonder (if you are still reading) why i am ranting on and on about stories and screw ups and silliness.

because, yet again, i have done it.

i am bedridden.

last night i helped liam move - from one 5th floor flat to another - and all the stairs and heavy boxes were too much for my knee. my patella tendon is so seized up i can't move my leg without grating pain not unlike the staples that used to hold it together. and i had to call into work because i could not stand up this morning. seriously. no good deed goes unpunished indeed.

so here i am, stuck in bed, writing an email to my boss since i cant reach the phone, and all i can think is, she will so not appreciate the hilarity here within.

ready for something

i didn't know you could be overwhelmed by nothing.

nothing has changed here. same job, same glorious weather, same stupid boy making stupid mess i don't want or need. same missing my sister, same joy at having had visitors, same flatmate drama (well not exactly the same. she's taken it to a whole new level of 7th grade passive aggressive. but its the same story with the same ending.) same humous picnic lunches and freckles on my nose.

and somehow, every flicker of movement, every glance, every everything seems heavy and burdensome. and my brain, already overactive to the point of dangerous (have you seen the brainscan?), is in overdrive. i am pretty sure cartoon steam is about to come out my ears. my spidey-senses are tingling at the slightest twinge of anything and it's highly distracting.

perhaps what i need is a little distraction. today's line-up: superman-stormbreaker double bill, and a manuscript copy of the new artemis fowl. nothing feels better than a little comicbook action and teen fantasy to lighten the load.

hatched

lauren has inspired me. of course i shamefully eat up any likeness to celebrity hoping it'll shed light on what i look like as no two cameras, mirrors or pairs of eyes seem to agree. and my unending fascination with celebrity whoredom always helps.

so, in the lazy summer sunlight i started recalling all the past ingenues and vixens i've resembled or replayed.

1 - Anna Chulmsky (in My Girl). I think perhaps the neurotic conotrolling pre-teen image may have had something to do with it as much as a nose i've still barely grown into, as this was from the nanny who insists i almost killed her baby.

2 - Claire Danes. I'm pretty sure we're talking My So-Called Life here which is also fittingly neurotic and angsty with the uber-nose. One thing I am sure of, it was before her Mod Squad makeover when she lost all that weight. I am still the proud owner of that round Iowa face and the tits she forsook for Hollywood.

3 - Kate Winslet. Again, I am pretty sure the curvy women of Hollywood (in this case with both the nose and shocking eyebrows of my high school years) are called into play mostly because i am not nor ever will be waifish. that said, this was back when she was famous for empire waisted dresses and swooning.

4 - Kathy Ireland. My bunk buddy at camp likened me to a super model junior year. I was new to mascara and the perfected 90s side part of messy sexy glory (well, as much so as any 16 year old had the right to have. too bad I was almost a decade behind). I still wonder if she was hitting on me as no one looks that good in the blue lake polo.

5 - young Brooke Shields (no I don't believe in island incest). A brunch-friend who I barely know mentioned the other day, but as she was fucking hot (and this was before the disaster of a sitcom, the baby drama, or the cocaine), I'll take it. Though, I was just off a holiday tan and glowing from retail therapy, brownie kebabs and gossip. A good mood makes anyone more attractive. Unless of course you are one of those broody sexy men i find myself messily attracted to who are usually a disappointment when they finally smile.

6 - and now Kathleen Turner. And I'll take Joan Wilder with her 80s hair and Michael Douglas in white pants so long as no one mentions The Graduate or Baby Geniuses and I get Jessica Rabbit's legs. Christ, in the white dress from BodyHeat, I'd do her.

So I think we can all say I have grown here. In everything but sense (and especially vanity).

But all in all, I think we are headed in the right direction (and yes jennie, that is away from cable knits and plaid, too tight cut up tshirts, paisley velvet pants, and various other disasters of my previous incarnations. i shudder at the thought and blame all of you for not talking me out of these things but waiting for me to realize and relive the embarassment for years to come.).

but hallelujah. the duckling has sprouted. or at least stopped molting.

persephones poison (and other trivial bits)

there are many things to be said. but i seem to constantly be out of words and lost for breath. too little time.

but one, i am wishing all the best for my sister
two, i am in a calm(ish) place. the panic has left and i am ready to try now. i get so seized up with doubt and worry i forget to be me. and there is no point in beating myself up over it, just let it go. try again. i am worth more than this.
three, jennie will be here in roughly 10 hours. i must sleep and prepare myself for mania and fun (i just hope she isnt shocked i havent cleaned.). life is on hold for a reunion - and my secret patented daquiris (hint: there are pomogranates involved)

i am entirely zen. or as close as anyone in a week long stretch of insomniatic bleeding can be i guess.

there is a clarity in the incredibly ludicrous. when you have to distance yourself from the decent into madness for lack of other options. when suddenly you breathe in, blink or otherwise change nothing at all and in that moment see how superfulous its all been. and just laugh.

its a good feeling, this free fall.

and it allows me a minute of quiet - a moment of absolute thoughtlessness.

when you dive in a freezing cold pool and the shock of it overwhelms. when nothing exists but the cold, that's one thing. but when you resurface to the balmy air and suddenly your skin feels alive again, you feel connected. when there is nothing but the whisper of life over every inch of you and there is nothing else but that warmth.

i ain't no fucking dolly parton

i have officially become a working girl. no, i don't mean a lady of the night, though at this rate it has it's appeal. more the melanie griffith type - except less hairspray and harrison ford.

i come home from work, put on sweats, crack a beer and look forward to nothing more than emotional masturbation and the possibility of a bath if i can be bothered, which is unlikely. it's the opening of a pathetic girl movie in technicolor glory. cue carol king or kate bush or some shit.

to be fair though, i drink hoegaarden and have sexy hair today, which is better than girls like this usually do.

let us hope that is a sign this a temporary phase. that someday soon i will look back and laugh at my 9 to 5 heel wearing grin and bear it life. that someday i will do better than this. be better than this.

night of the living hedgehog (an ode to gameshows gone by)

so once upon a time, i lived with lauren. when she didn't hate me for filling the kitchen with ants or forgetting to pay the phone bill, it was really really great. especially when she could get drunk off 2 sminrnoff ices or indulge ourselves in flavo-ice and temptation island 2. or that time she needed help to band-aid over her nipples because her dress was too low for a bra and lord knows she wasn't going to nip out.

but all good things have a price, and hers was the random medical scares. (though, this is not the time for the insulin scare story where we went to the hosiptal in the middle of the night and i watched "aliens in the wild wild west" on disney only to run into a friend who got a broken beer bottle in the face while watching a child throw up in the waiting room. that's a different time.)

but once, when the pump was still newish lauren had to stay awake until her bloodsugar chilled the fuck out.

i don't remember what happened or why. what time of year it was. or what inspired us to watch TBS, back when it had just nixed it's "superstation" logo. But curled in our basement hell hole cubby; lauren, bridget and i wiled away the hours with old school Family Feud.

oh yes, it was the night of crazy grandma.

Now, I am not a huge family feud fan. But years of gameshow network with the girl had taught me to find Richard funny rather than pathetic and the retro-ness (sidenote: can you have a word that is only prefix-suffix without any actual content? is this postmodern lingusitics now?) of it all had it's charm. I still of course refused to watch the ones with Al from Home Improvement (except that time there was the Stars on Ice face-off. that was amazing.) and if anyone thinks Louie Anderson should still be alive, stop reading now.

Anyway, it was 3am. And it was old school family feud with the "ooh cheek or mouth Richard?" suspense and this tiny mad woman became my hero.

I wish I remembered more of it (It is times like these I miss diary-x for having lost all such carefully recorded memories I wrote down expressly so I wouldn't have to store them in my brain any longer), but her best two were:

question: Name a favourite pet
answer: hedgehog

question: Name someone you would leave your keys with
answer: mailbox
Richard notes this is not a person and gives her a rare, possibly unprecedented, do-over while trying not to fall over in gin-soaked, coconut-oiled laughter
new answer: mailman
she may have hastened to change this to "stranger" or I may have added that in later for effect. I have a tendency to do that.

Anyway, I wish I remembered more of that night. For all the drama of lauren's brushes with sugar-less death, it did make for some good times.

And I thought of it today because I found this. A pale comparison, but a fresh reminder of those classic gameshow days gone by.

worthy

i had always believed, or rather, hoped, adulthood would come with some degree of self awarness and possession.

i find i was yet again desperately wrong.

of course i also used to believe i would only have one overpowering feeling at a time.

today i find i am entirely tranquil, pleasant even, after a morning at the van gogh premiere at the dean and a lazy afternoon nap.

but neither of these glorious things has negated or even balanced my thick black anger-disappointment double header. It is unreasonable I can care so much when the last thing in the world I want is this unbridled attachment. It is unfair. It is bullshit. I want out.

I want to believe me.

death of the bookseller?

it is 18:18.

i am still at work.

it is my first day back.

i need a new job.

that said, i am killing time until a book dinner where i am contemplating getting ridiculously drunk on free wine and possibly making enough of a fool of myself to bar me from the publishing world forever.

if that isn't passive aggressive masochism i don't know what is.

addendum:

so after the ranting (and a furious email to my mother), i calmly cleaned my room, made my bed, and proceeded to get directly back in it for a do over. i read a little, napped a little, thought a little, and got up a few hours later ready to begin again.

and it ended up okay. i ran my errands, visited my favourite graveyard, did the ironing, and now have taken a nice long bath.

and things are okay.

perhaps jean grey wasn't a total cunt

didn't you ever wonder if the phoenix was really jean grey just snapped? she was sick of the fake and the wimpy and the dictation and the lame sweetness and just fucking flipped and went on a rampage? that the whole suspended animation thing was just a flimsy cover up?

because scott wouldnt put out and the professor wouldnt let her use cerebro and the team shunted her to recon and research. that she fainted at every breath and constantly had to fend off logan. that 20 years in that school and she was still just an assistant. that she had to wear nude colored cargo pants. i'd have done more than a poorly executed apocalypse, that's for sure.

today it feels like that.

like the well of frustration is running over and this tub of me has no overflow drain.

i feel in a rage. or rather, like in the very near future i soon will be.

granted, part of this will be it is the morning of my last day of vacation and i have done absolutely nothing. and part of me is still a whinging toddler who hates the end of things.

but it is seriously more than that.

i bit liam saturday. hard. he was mad at me for something i hadnt done and stormed out of a party. i left soon after in a drunken rage of disappointment and libido. i ran into him on the street, my mind too fuzzy to know if it was on purpose. i didnt have words. i had what equates to pg angry sex. standing on a street corner. hot and fast and rushing and a little bit violent. i felt caged. and it felt great. and if fucking scares me.

sometimes he is so terribly frustrating. harsh. cruel. cold. and most the time i am yoga-goddess weatherer of storms. but every once in a while he gets in and tears me apart and i flood like the hoover dam. and it makes me hate both of us. and i dont know which frightens me more; that we got ourselves here or that when the chips are down and i've lost control, i hurt him.

it also doesnt help i was in a mood that whole night because it was phils goodbye party.

and for all our mess and his silliness and everything we have ever screwed up between us, he was so easy. to be with and not be judged or used or feel compelled to talk. he was a guy in the very best of ways and i will miss him.

plus, he gave me his return of the jedi pillowcase. i have no words for how much this means to me. he has had it since 1983. it was always the one i used. on drunk nights when i crashed on the sofa. on the infamous walk of shame morning i was too hungover to go home and lay around his all day, grateful he didnt ask. as a seat cushion for arrested development marathons. my arm rest for blue jays games. my pillow that one night we "napped". and he gave it to me. he was always a sentimental guy. and now it sits on my chair, and i dont have the heart to use it.

and of course there should have been a party to see him off. he always complained he had no friends but me and jack. and truth be told it was sarah's friends and my co-workers and random neighbors. girls he'd slept with and pub aquaintences. the party went on for hours after i waved goodbye to the taxi. but a little piece of me wanted to say goodbye to my boys - for jack took him to the airport - on my own. not with strangers passing a fag an armsbreath away and my own drama waiting for me upstairs. it felt rushed. cramped. amputated. and he was worth more than that. i hope he knows it.

sorry, i am just full on whinging now.

last night having to talk on the phone right before bed was horrible. which dont get me wrong, it can be lovely. but it can be so full of heavy silences and pregnant phrasology i rarely have the energy for much less sleepy hung over and lonely. plus, it is infinately worse when it is all just flippant chatter and errands i dont want to address from bed on a sunday. sometimes it only reminds me how far away you are. i know i am a freak about the phone, but it put me in a mood straight away today.

anyway, i should stop. cut myself off before i say something really horrid i dont even mean. just to feel it in my mouth. let me watch the dominoes fall. pick at the scabs and watch them bleed.

i am going to have breakfast and pay my council tax and play my violin and then i think take a bath. and hopefully this tar, this thick creeping bile, will be seeped away. gently excreeted from my every pore until my insides are clear again. i am clear again. i am clean.