|
|
Note: I am aware that this looks God awful in IE. Do yourself a favor and get you some Firefox before you get lost in the big scary world out there.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Prepositions
Flann O'Brien made me sad when he said, "After great merriment comes sorrow and good weather never remains forever," except that that's the way it goes. I was having an easy day at my internship, and then they had me go around and survey angry people. I was thinking of going down to the waterfront to get some ice cream, and wound up going to the waterfront to prevent my mom from killing herself. The guinea pig has done nothing but provide hours of entertainment for this house, especially for Greta who, since Pig's move to the coffee table, has not left her side for thirty-six hours and has given the family another talking point (the original Odd Couple), but then also Cocoa Bean escaped her cage and we've heard coyotes lately and I just hate so badly that that is most likely her fate because we can't find her, and it reminds me of the time two years ago when Tub was lost for sixteen days and no one seemed to understand or still seems to understand just how heart-wrenching and devastating that entire saga was.
I've got a lot of memories, a lot of bad ones, and sometimes I think about them too much and I start daydreaming about getting into big brawls and punching the shit out of everyone, but then little four-year-old girls come into work and tell me they love me and they just make me want to have all the children in the world, and I remember that bad attitudes attract no one and if I attract no one then no one will ever tell me they love me again.
And then I wonder who I'm writing to, or what I'm writing for.
-- 10:38 PM
Monday, June 11, 2007
No spoilers
I've complained about a lot of things since about the moment I was born, but one of the most grating and repetitive bones of contention I've had over the past few years was the fact that I was never allowed to watch The Sopranos. Every Sunday at nine, a whistle and a jerk of the thumb meant, "Get out, too many swear words and naked women," like I didn't experience either one at some point during the day anyway. When this trend first started (Dad jumped in about the end of second season), I was in high school and I was in a mood. I've got diary entries covered in blood about how ridiculous and unfair it was that they did not find me mature enough or did not respect me enough to realize that I wanted nothing to do with the stupid show and just let me write my paper.
Though of course, being about a thousand times more rational than I was then, I completely understand it now. If they ever swear in front of me, I get the hell out of the room or tell them to cut it out, because that's just not right. We are not a family that curses together. So I get why my dad would be so adamant that I as a twelve-year-old not be around that language. However, I'm almost twenty now, and it has actually become absurd to have me leave the room. Fortunately, I'm a little less sensitive than before, so lately it's mostly just funny. It's been a lot of: "Hey, nine o'clock, you gotta get out of here." "Oh, what, I'm a stupid baby?" "Yep, a stupid baby who I don't want to hear any swears." "I use more swears than every character put together. In one day." "I don't care, not around me." "Fine. Tony's going to die, you know." "So is Harry Potter."
I sent my dad an email earlier this week telling him that I knew he had the big series finale to watch, but to get over it quickly because Brian Regan's new stand-up special premiered immediately after. The agreed-upon plan was I would get out of the room and do whatever I wanted for the big hour, then recount whatever jokes he missed when I came in at ten.
But somehow, things were said and deals were made, and I was allowed to experience this epic television event with him.
I don't suppose anyone can really understand what a big deal this is, and I didn't even really care until after the show was over and my dad and I shared our thoughts (mine especially provoking, I guess), he said, "You should write about it in your blog. I don't know if you have a blog, but...." (Which to me says, "I know you have a blog and I read it secretly at work," in which case, hi Dad! And probably Mom!)
Knocking down the seven-year-long barrier known as The Sopranos is comparable to a father buying his son his first beer or a mother shopping for bras with her daughter. It's some kind of weird progression where you make another dent into adulthood. Like, I don't know, being accepted as not just a daughter but as a human. It's a fear I've had for a long time, that he's found the things I do--writing and music and theatre--all a little too pansyish. And when he said that, "You should write about it," I got this overwhelming sense that he actually respects what I do, and something else in his voice told me that he thinks I have what it takes to produce something as amazing as The Sopranos if I wanted to.
This speaks on about a thousand different levels for me, but friends respect each other. My dad is one of my best friends, not because he's made me think he's supercool by cursing or buying us kids drinks or any of that, but because we admire each other deeply and equally. And I think that's the way it has to be in everything. I think that's where Augustine hit the nail on the head.
-- 12:03 AM
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Her little black baby
"Wow. Well, Miss Molly, it sounds like you have a very full summer ahead of you."
"I certainly do."
"You are going to be the next Bill Gates!"
"Ha, ha. I know, that's what I'm setting out for."
"Molly Griffin Gates."
"Is that how it works? After I reach a billion trillion dollars I just take on his name, just add it to the end?"
"No, you should just stick with Molly Siobhan. That's what everyone will call you."
"Yeah, you just wait, Grammy, I'll be the next Time Person of the Year, I'll be on all the magazines, everyone will know me."
"And do you know what?"
"What?"
"You will be the first Irishman with an African middle name."
-- 12:15 AM
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Which is something I also do a lot
Another thing about me is that when I have my most special week of the month, I go absolutely bananas over food. And by that I mean, I eat absolutely no bananas, but I eat just about everything else in sight. From the moment I wake up to the second I am lying in my parents' bed watching Leno, I guarantee I have a plastic bag of mini Oreo's perched on my stomach that I can will into my mouth with my mind power because I want them that bad.
It is only a development from this year and is definitely the reason why I packed on eight pounds at school, because it was so easy to satisfy there. I knew it was coming, so on the way back from class I just grabbed a shopping bag and bought Caramel Cone and chocolate croissants and donuts and a tower of cereal and Fritos, and then I'd make a pit-stop at the vending machine for Snickers and Twix and Starburst. And then some health-minded girls in the hall would ask if I'd had dinner, and would see my bed littered in wrappers and crumbs and the insatiable look on my face and reprimand me.
(It got so bad that for Lent I gave up the snack machine, and people laughed at me because what a pathetic excuse for a sacrifice, but it was actually the most legitimate thing I've ever given up, partly because I always forget to give things up, but mostly because I wanted that snack machine so fucking bad the entire time.)
But here, my mom can't possibly know what I'm going to be craving or when, and she can't possibly be expected to drive up to BC and ask for chocolate croissants, which leaves me with very few options this week. I finished off the mini Oreo's on Saturday, the Goldfish were stale, I certainly don't know how to make Belgian waffles bursting with candy, and I do NOT want Chips Ahoy! at all. Yesterday was an up-and-down day of going to the hospital and being disappointed by test results, and screaming in the car even though nothing would come out, and watching Unbreakable and feeling like a superhero, then watching Love Actually and crying like a poor shmuck, then standing in the rain and feeling like a beauty queen, then going inside for something chocolate and finding absolutely nothing.
Usually, the rage that then overtakes me is my strongest indicator that I am out of control and need to stop thinking I'm hungry because I'm not really. It's usually when I hit that point that I go back up to my room and resign myself to the fact that there's no more Cocoa Puffs and that's okay. Which marks yesterday as the first day I have ever been so food-frustrated that I got in the car and drove to the store for junk food just because I wanted it. I bought Oreo's and a tub of Chubby Hubby, and then I sat on the couch and ate it.
And then the dog stuck her nose at me to be cute, and I screamed my bloody head off. I screamed "NO GRETTY, NO, NO, NO, YOU DO NOT LOOK AT ME RIGHT NOW, YOU DO NOT TOUCH ME RIGHT NOW" so loud and scratchily that she actually left the room, I actually made her leave the room with her tail between her legs. Tub came in after and I did the same thing, I said, "NO, NO, NO, DON'T TOUCH MY FEET RIGHT NOW, DON'T EVEN TOUCH MY--YOU DID IT, YOU TOUCHED MY FOOT, I TOLD YOU NO, I TOLD YOU LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU CAT." And even he left, even a cat the size of a Great Dane that doesn't take anything from anyone left the room.
I started looking at this from a sad perspective, trying to figure out what dark corners of my mind these overreactions come from, but I decided to just pretend I was pregnant, and then it became a lot funnier.
-- 11:36 AM
Monday, June 4, 2007
Because I'm not
For two days I've gone over the same list of perfectly acceptable reasons for calling in sick to both jobs God only knows how many times, in my head, out loud, on paper, and it goes a little something like: I am sick, I am coughing things up, I am bleeding from my nose every time I think about it, I haven't had a voice in four days, I work with food and drinks, and I work with people. But it is consuming me, because I feel like I'm making up excuses, and I don't want anyone to think that I'm the type of person who does that. I've made too many good impressions this summer, and I don't need some laryngitis undermining that.
I am going to lay down for the next three days and then I am going to go back to being the best.
-- 01:44 PM