well, it's not the Wall Street Journal....

...but you can check out my first published article on Lumino.

Enjoy!

'round here

and lest any of you 3 loyal readers think i am actually as pathetic as that last entry implies, i'll have you know that i did leave my house tonight. karen and dan and i went down to Barton Springs, since it's free between 9 and 10 every night. and there seemed to be an unusual amount of absurdly hot men swimming in their underpants and changing clothes on the lawn. god, i love this city. i guess hippies are sometimes good for some things, and making austin into one of the most laid-back, liberal, amazing cities in america is one of their greatest accomplishments. Barton Springs also has lovely open-air locker rooms. i took a shower in front of dan. it made me feel a little funny, but we've been skinny-dipping together, so it wasn't that big a deal, i guess. and he was naked too. though he wasn't showering.

okay, seriously, i'm going to stop now.

i could be the vice president!

as it happens, i've found myself perusing the Craigslist ads for "Men Seeking Men" these days, being newly single and all. i can say that in the last 3 months of Singledom, i've only ever hooked up with 1 guy on there. or maybe 2. or maybe 87, i forget. but whatever the number, i actually find myself more fascinated, usually, than actually searching for sex. i will find it forever interesting what turns people on, or what they're looking for, and will occasionally find one that turns me on particularly, or that has a hot picture attached (aka, real-life porn, which is so much more interesting than the manufactured bullshit). and aside from that, trying to recover from a relationship that had really good sex that came from a place of true passion and love, casual sex just no longer has the allure that it once did.

tonight, however, i came across one that especially struck me, as the headline was "i don't think i'll be looking for any HOT COCK TO SUCK TONIGHT." did the person mis-type? what was going on here? i read the ad, and it was basically along the lines of deriding men for just always being on the prowl for casual sex. he said he would like to maybe have a couple of beers first, maybe go on a couple of dates, see a movie, before the HOT COCK-SUCKING began. and then went on to talk about his fondness for breakfast tacos, Dave Foster Wallace, and that he was composed of billions of molecules (was this my ex-boyfriend? no, he isn't, actually, as he was a 24-year-old grad student, neither of which my ex-boyfriend is).

i found him to be cute and kind of clever, and maybe or maybe not hot, so i decided to respond to his ad, by basically saying that in my extensive research, i've come to the conclusion that Curra's has the best breakfast tacos, and that i never finished "Infinite Jest," though i came within 200 pages of finishing it.

i sent the email, not expecting him to respond, and not really wanting him to, either. i was just being flirty. he still hasn't responded. but the point of the story is that when describing my favorite breakfast taco at Curra's, i said i liked mine with bacon, eggs and potatoe. it wasn't until after i sent the email that i realized i put an "e" on the end of potato.

naturally, i was mortified, and even worse than this guy thinking i was cruising Craigslist looking for sleazy hookups (which i was), i couldn't stand the thought of him thinking i couldn't spell. i deliberated for over an hour about whether or not to correct my mistake, which i eventually did, by sending him a second email with the subject line of "oh god...." and the body of the email explaining that i was aware that i accidentally put an "e" on the end of potato.

so now, in addition to this person thinking i'm some sleazy psycho-slut, he thinks i was sitting around waiting on him to email him back, and that i'm probably already stalking him, and that i clearly read my original outgoing email at least a second time. which i only do when the email is really important, like when i'm drunk and emailing my ex-boyfriend a novel-size email detailing all of his faults and why the demise of our relationship was all his fault, or totally inappropriately declaring my love for someone completely inappropriate for me to be in love with in the first place. which could also be my ex-boyfriend, but in this particular case, was not. long story.

so now i'm also totally pathetically lonely. okay, i'm going to go watch more "Six Feet Under" now.

mark of the beast

mark was berating me yesterday for not updating my blog enough, and it stirred up this weird conundrum inside me. it's interesting, b/c i originally started this blog to be totally private, just for a place for me to basically keep a journal of myself, and what was going on in my life, for myself more than anyone else. but now that several people know about it and apparently read it on a fairly consistent basis (and, as i discovered yesterday, i now have a new reader: hey Megan!!! it's good to hear from you!), i find myself censoring it more than i ever wanted to.

there are lots of things i feel i could write about, but that it would be boring, or somewhat disrespectful, like how i got really upset with my mom this week for something she did that i felt really jilted by, and was made to feel guilty about, and for which i feel i shouldn't have (felt guilty). but i don't really feel very comfortable writing about it, b/c i don't really think it's anyone's business to know. or i might just sound whiny writing about. if i put out there everything that's going on in my head, i would sound like the most ungrateful, whiny, neurotic wretch on earth, even though i don't think i am. everybody's life has static and upheaval and pain, but i don't necessarily think it should all be broadcast for the whole world (or, like, 5 people) to know everything about. it's a weird feeling. and one that kind of makes me regret ever having told anyone that i do this. but as good as i am (most of the time) at keeping other people's secrets, i'm horrible at keeping my own. and aside from that, there's not that much that's interesting going on in my life right now. i've been watching season 2 of "the OC," which i'm actually finding incredibly boring and tedious. but i want to get through it so i can start watching season 4 of "Six Feet Under," which also came out on DVD this week. this is what my life has become these days: scheduling proper viewing orders of TV shows that i'm catching up on on DVD. compelling stuff, for sure. and, you know, a lot of xanax and beer and cigarettes. more than is really acceptable, of all 3, actually. but there you have it.

The Wonders of Pittsburgh Boys

so, it's officially official. i'm going to Pittsburgh, Steel Town, USA. i'm very excited. i got my plane tickets yesterday, and reserved a room at The Priory this morning. i got a very good rate on a tiny old monk cell with a twin bed. i haven't slept on a twin bed in years, but to stay in this place for $79 a night, right downtown, is a steal, for sure. and i actually really like the idea of it being very small and compact. it makes me feel weirdly safer. especially in a big, strange city.

so, i have plans for things i'd like to do. mostly i plan to just walk around and explore, but i have to go to The Mattress Factory of course, and perhaps the The Andy Warhol Museum, even though i'm not particularly a warhol fan. i just think i should see it. and of course do the Duquesne Incline.

but mostly i want to just walk around, get a feel for the place, experience a real autumn, which i haven't in a while. that will be really nice. i believe in mid-september the weather there is typically in the low 70's during the day. which is profoundly perfect.

i also found this guy on Friendster who has agreed to meet up with me, show me around a bit. he seems pretty cool, like some kind of communal hippy of some sort, but i figure someone like that would probably know the most interesting places to go, or things to do. and he looks kinda hot. :)

i know the main intention of this trip was to be alone, and i plan to. i want to spend the majority of my days alone, with no one else's itinerary, or agenda, or pressure. i want to be able to take as long as i want sitting at an outdoor cafe, drinking coffee and having a cigarette. or if i just want to sit in a park and people-watch, or write, or whatever, for 3 hours straight, i'll do it. this trip is all about me. but having said that, it would be nice to have dinner with someone, or maybe go out to a bar one night with someone, experience some night life. i don't know. i'm trying to go there with no agenda myself, either, and just see where each day leads me. it's exciting. i got a really strong rush of both adrenaline and anxiety yesterday when i actually purchased my plane tickets. it was really real, and i was doing it. go me. some people might be wondering why it's such a big deal to me, and i can't even explain it exactly, except to say that i have a really really hard time being alone. period. ever. it's something i'm addressing in therapy; what makes me so uncomfortable just being in my own skin. and i have no idea. but i think doing this, and facing one of my biggest fears (traveling and being a big city alone) is a really big step and it makes me feel really good to be doing it. plus it's something very exciting to look forward to. which i need.

this is your life, there are no second chances

i've decided that what i really need right now is a vacation. the idea of traveling alone has always terrified me to no end. i've always been so afraid of getting myself in some kind of bad situation with no one to bail me out, or just getting really lonely or bored, or simply becoming horribly lost in a strange and unfamiliar city. but the conclusion that i came to this morning is that i think nothing would be better for me right now than going someplace entirely unfamiliar, and potentially frightening, and getting totally and completely lost, and having to rely on no one but myself to figure it all out (and maybe the kindness of strangers). call it a test of my will, or just finally doing something i've wanted to do for years but have been putting off because i was waiting for the right time.

so, i'm doing it: i'm taking the plunge, and i'm planning a vacation to take by myself in 3 weeks to Pittsburgh. ever since becoming aware of Michael Chabon, the city of Pittsburgh has always had a really captivating appeal to me, and i've dreamed since then of visiting and exploring it with a lover, but since i'm all out of those at the moment, i'm just going to go it alone. and, ironically, joe just got back from there on a work trip and sent me an email telling me how much i would love it. so fuck it, i'm going. and i'm going alone. for 3 days. and i'm going to have a really good time eating alone, walking around alone, going to museums alone, jogging in the park alone, and doing whatever else alone. i'm actually really excited about it.

this is a pretty bold new step for me. i can barely even go anywhere in austin alone. but it seems very valuable and important for me to do something like this and just go for it.

trouble loves me

i just had the craziest dream about pancakes, and now i'm craving some so bad i would kill my cat if somebody would come over and make some for me. not really, but i want some really really really really bad.

it's almost 8:00pm, and i have yet to put pants on today. it's been a pants-free day. and it's been good. i've also taken 3 extra-strength Vicodin.

for reasons that will heretofore go unmentioned, i hate hillary duff. i just decided. and how much fucking heroin is she on?

before it gets too far away, i want to send a massive THANK YOU to kurt, bryan, chris, and joe for really coming through for me this weekend when it really counted. you guys are Gold, and i thank each one of you from the bottom of my black, dead heart.

black-eyed

so, my septoplasty is tomorrow (my deviated septum surgery), and i'm so nervous, i'm literally trembling right now, and having trouble typing. i started doing some research on the internet earlier, about recovery and whatnot, and maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

it seems most people are fine, and up and back around within 2 or 3 days, but other people have horrible reactions to it, including vomiting up copious amounts of blood (apparently, you swallow more than a pint of it during the actual procedure!), deeply bruised black eyes that can last for a week or more, and lots and lots of dried up crusty boogers around your nose that keep appearing for about 2 weeks. i'm supposed to have some company to watch over me this weekend, and i'm starting to reconsider. i found several pictures, too, of some woman who went through it and had it all documented, and it wasn't pretty. i guess i just can't be beautiful all the time.

however, judging by what i've been learning in therapy, about letting people see the "ugly, messy" side of myself, maybe that's a good thing. being ugly on the outside as a metaphor for being emotionally vulnerable or something. anyway, it's totally freaking me out, and i'm sure i'll be fine, but me being who i am, i of course keep imagining all the most worst case scenarios playing out, including having the surgery not really take, or having my septum collapse again, and having to have it done a second time, which isn't unheard of. even my surgeon warned me that was a possibility.

but i know it's necessary, and i'll be so happy that i had it done, once i'm over everything. even if it means i can't show my face in public for 3 weeks, and i lose my job b/c i just don't go back b/c i feel so ugly and gross.

oh lord. i'm scared. but i'm sure i'll be fine. i just hope i don't projectile-spray blood and mucous all over kurt's car on the way home!

a field guide to getting lost

an excerpt from a collection of essays i'm currently reading by Rebecca Solnit:

...a relationship is a story you construct together and take up residence in, a story as sheltering as a house. You invent this story of how your destinies were made to entwine like porch vines, you adjust to a big view in this direction and no view in that, the doorway that you have to duck through and the window that is jammed, how who you think you are becomes a factor of who you think he is and who he thinks you are, a castle in the clouds made out of moist air exhaled by dreamers. It's a shock to find yourself outdoors and alone again, hard to imagine that you could ever live in another house, big where this one was small, small where it was big, hard when your body has learned all the twists and turns of the staircase so that you could walk it in your sleep, hard when you have built it from scratch and called it home, hard to imagine building again. But you lit the fire that burned it down yourself.

A happy love is a single story, a disintegrating one is two or more competing, conflicting versions, and a disintegrated one lies at your feet like a shattered mirror, each shard reflecting a different story, that it was wonderful, that it was terrible, if only this had, if only that hadn't. The stories don't fit back together, and it's the end of stories, those devices we carry like shells and shields and blinkers and occasionally maps and compasses. The people close to you become mirrors and journals in which you record your history, the instruments that help you know yourself, and you do the same for them. When they vanish, so does the use, the appreciation, the understanding of those small antecdotes, catchphrases, jokes: they become a book slammed shut or burnt.

i'm happy if you're happy, but it broke our heart

i had a very surreal experience on saturday, and that was meeting my ex-boyfriend's son. he's about 21 months old, and after nearly 3 years of silence, T. and i have started talking again recently, and it's been really really pleasant and nice. difficult, in a lot of ways, b/c i feel like i'm hanging out with a complete stranger sometimes, which, i guess in some ways, i am.

but seeing T. with his son made me really happy, actually. and kind of sad, but in a wistful, nostalgic way. i explained it to a friend earlier by saying that while it's good to see T. so happy and obviously very fulfilled, since the whole time we were together he was so unhappy and lost, it also makes me sad b/c that person that i really knew and loved is more or less dead and gone. which isn't a bad thing, just....sad. but only because of the loss of the familiar. i know that no matter how close he and i might ever get again, i'll never be able to know him the same way, or nearly as intimately, again. which is fine, i'm not yearning for that, it's just weird.

but overall, i had a really great weekend. lots of swimming at Barton Springs and McKinney Falls, a totally racuous and joyous birthday party, where everyone got way too drunk and rowdy. we were knocking over each other's chairs, wrestling in the lawn of the frou-frou bar where we were hanging out, singing Magnetic Fields songs at the top of our lungs. it was lively and boisterous, and possibly one of the most fun birthday parties i've ever attended. everyone was just so fucking happy. no drama, no one was in a bad mood. just there to celebrate. i really needed it. i had breakfast with joe on sunday, which was alternately wonderful and extremely difficult. and my friends kurt and meredith, of course, got engaged. congratulations, guys!!

lord, i hope this day is good

yesterday was a really tough day, but i think i made some good breakthroughs. i went to my pre-op for the surgery i was supposed to have tomorrow, and i was told i'm going to have to push it back a week due to the fact that i started taking st. johns wort a week ago, and you can't have anything like that in your system, b/c apparently it fucks up your blood pressure.

it's not a big deal to push it back a week, but i was so mentally prepared to finally get all of this over with in 2 days, and it was a really big letdown. it was all i could do to keep from breaking out into convulsing sobs sitting in the nurse's office. having people carve up the inside of your skull is really nerve-wracking, and i've been psyching myself up for this for years, essentially. i know it's going to be so worth it when it's all said and done, but it's really scary.

secondly, i called my mom on tuesday night and just cried and cried to her. it felt so great. i haven't cried to my mom or really just been totally emotionally honest with her about anything since i was a teenager. it felt really good. she's suffered so much the last decade or so, and i've never wanted to burden her all these years, but finally i was just like, "fuck it, she's my mom, that's her job." she's supposed to protect me, not the other way around. it made me feel a lot better, and i feel like maybe some fences between the 2 of us that have been up for years are finally starting to sag a little bit.

i had another horrible anxiety attack at work yesterday, too, after returning from my pre-op appointment. i went into the bathroom and just couldn't stop crying, and eventually just had to go home. my friend here at work went outside with me and we had a really good talk, and again, i was able to really let myself go and cry in front of her, and then mark came back from lunch and sat with us for a bit, too. i've had so much trouble in my life making myself vulnerable in front of other people. i've always felt like i had to be this pillar of impenetrable strength, and never let people see the sometimes ugly, messy, uncomfortable, unattractive side of myself, but i'm learning to start letting all of that go. i know that people will still love me, and won't think i'm this blubbering, crying mess of an idiot who can't handle life. that's kind of how i feel right now, but i know it's a stepping stone and i'll get through it.

the therapy that i've been going to has been really intense, and this is one of the major issues we're working on, and my poor little tiny brain is just getting so overwhelmed with all of it. it's incredibly painful and shocking to learn that the emotional maps you've made for yourself over a period of a lot of years (roughly about 13 years, in my case), that you've always relied on to get you through, are doing nothing but fucking you up and in the end, making your life and your relationships that much harder. so learning to face those things head-on and really tackle them in a meaningful and useful way is so terrifying, it's almost inconceivable. it's almost like, you start becoming this other, unfamiliar person and you don't even recognize yourself when you look in a mirror. especially if your face is red and blotchy and tear-streaked and feels like it's been stretched. it's not pretty. and i've only been to 5 sessions. the fun is just beginning.

and lastly, after i woke up from my 5-hour xanax-induced coma yesterday afternoon, i called joe. it was the first time we'd spoken in about 5 or 6 weeks, and it was pretty intense. but overall, it was wonderful. we had one of the deepest, most open and intimate conversations we've ever had in our entire relationship. and while i'm still totally reeling from our breakup, and just so confused by it all, and having a really hard time making sense of it, we both agreed that neither of us can, or want, to walk away from this. we're going to cautiously try to be friends, and i really hope it works out and doesn't backfire on either one of us somehow. he's so important to me, but we were never really friends, just lovers, basically, and i'd like to try to do that. and even if it fails, at least we'll both know we gave it our all. it's another way i'm trying out with coping, since the total cut-off of all contact doesn't seem to be working, maybe this will. we'll see.

sorry if this post today seems a bit personal and weepy. i think it's good to get this stuff out there, and i don't even know if anyone even ever reads this thing. but i read it, and it's really just for me.

i'll take a quiet life, a handshake of carbon monoxide

so, i was watching Good Morning America (i can't get NPR reception in my new apartment, and i have to have something on in the morning) this morning while i was eating breakfast and there was a brief jennifer aniston interview on there, talking about brad and angelina, and i felt really really sorry for her. having the entire world know every single detail (and lots of lies) about such a personal and painful matter as a divorce must just feel like the end of the world.

i hate being reminded that celebrities are still real people and actually have feelings. i much prefer them to be heartless automatons to be scoffed at and mocked.