10:04 am | 16 September 2004 | a day in the stupid life

Announcements

first off, everyone should be climbing Mount Awesome, 'specially if you are a creative or depressed or hopeful or transitory type and need encouragement. AND THEN ALSO (though this was featured on Mount Awesome i am crossposting because i know some of you are lazy/time-strapped bastards) this blog entry on being creative is SO SO fucking important for ANYONE doing any arts stuff at all, period. so read it. it's way more interesting and relevant than i will be until next week.

Excuses

Oh my gravy, I am so busy. Well, I alternate between being mad with busyness (or bizzy-ness, since my brain feels like a hornet's nest that someone's taking slingshot potshots at, and all this while I don't know like Twisted Sister plays in the background), so anyway, busy, but interspersed with extreme lethargy in the form of mornings. I set my alarm for about 6:01am but manage to lay abed until 7:18 (i don't know why i said "about" when i am fairly very particular about my times, mainly that they have to be aesthetically pleasing and an odd number, also my car clock is eight minutes fast, go figger). i had craftily gotten used to my original alarm tone so i reset it to the Jeff Buckley ringer (my alarm is on my phone) and maybe that's why i am CRIPPLED WITH MISERY in the morning hours. anyway.

Like a shit reality show

hey, what else do i do all day? i know you are burning to hear about it, so let's put on our classics and we'll have a little dance, shall we?*

so i get up at 7:18**, take a five-minute shower (whose duration is timed by singing/croaking Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Ponies' "Different Drum," one of the greatest songs of the '60s), rifle through my closet pretending like i'm gonna suck it up and wear "business attire," give that up and pick up jeans off the floor. i grab some wildly mismatched underwear (dood, being single: awse!) and get my kit on.

the dog uses this time to crawl up into my spot in bed and sleep on the pillow and it is fucking cute.

blah, whatever. i walk the dog, eat breakfast (this means: take a swig of soy milk and 500 vitamins and scrounge for some kind of cookie or biscuit, since i am a scumbag) and stagger to the car. maybe once a week i get coffee, to remind myself what feeling jittery is like, but for reasons that started with poverty and ended with laziness, i almost never touch caffeine anymore. weird.

i drive to work. it takes an hour. during that time i make phone calls, flip through magazines, sing along to stuff, try to understand Spanish morning shows, floss obsessively***, try to think of something to write up in this bitch, and foray further into Krazy Kat Lady territory by talking to myself waaaaaay too much.

at work i do some work, and some stuff, &c. i say "i am so bored" at least once a day. sometimes i have lunch.

i get out of work eight hours later and depending on traffic am home between 4:45 and 7:00pm, at which point the insanity starts. i take the dog on walk #2. i eat something dinner-ish, or meet someone for dinner, which is in itself a world of massive difference.

eating out with friend: usually either fish tacos or sushi or some vegetable thing, with the occasional greasy-spoon grilled cheese just to keep my digestive system confused.
eating at home alone: usually a bloodbath involving like "well all the tortilla chips are busted up so i will just stir them into this leftover tzatziki and then i'll fork some pepperoncinis out of the jar. hi ulcer!"

for an hour or so i pick up the house, with varying results.

for about two hours i do something writing/academic-related, either reading books in prep for a zine or trying to figure something out or flipping through the Dictionary of Theories (which is a MUST READ, btw) or revising some old work or plotting out a new story or editing a friend's work or whatever.

if that's going well i'll keep going until 1:00-2:00am with it, and then run the dog outside and pass out. if i complete a task or am not "feeling it" then i generally move on to another area, like i start making dioramas (ooooh, the new one has a burnt heart and stuff suspended on threads and is weird. i might cover the outside with feathers) or making stencils or plotting/drawing comics or whatever, what have you, you know. then i pass out.

so while i surely have my days where i just sit and listen to records and stare at the rug fibers really closely, i'm actually hella productive and insane. i attribute it primarily to being cheap and also not having a television. i have to do SOMETHING to keep from freaking out, and it looks like it's lots of pointless little projects. but so there you go: an entry, shoddier than most. clm.

*i'll seriously send a rad postcard to anyone who got this reference without googling. leave a comment.

**and what is that thing where, when you first wake up really early, you feel energized and alert, but THEN you think to yourself "wait, this is madness, i can lay here for 14 more minutes" and magickally, when that 14 mins has elapsed, you are dead tired/back asleep, and the second go-round with the getting up is NOT HAPPENING WHATSOEVER? what's with that? (Faith No More voice): what is it? also i make and then fail to fulfill stupid bargains with myself, all "well i need to decide what to wear today. i'll just lie here and think about it in bed. Zzzzzzz.

***Although apparently not obsessively enough, since one gum had been feeling touchy for a few days and yesterday, with a bent paperclip, i scrounged out a popcorn hull that had molded itself like the rubber Batman suit to my molar--especially revolting/scumbag because the last time i had popcorn was LABOR DAY, sorry, sick.