Present Imperfect

On This Day, Thirty Years Ago... | September 23, 2003

Man, I should be depressed more often. I got more, uh, feedback about that entry before last than any other entry ever.

On that note...I'm FINE! Honest. Everybody has bad days, you know?

Also, I am thirty today. It feels about the same as 29. Especially when you spend 20 minutes waiting in line at the bank. Exactly the same.

Tomorrow I am going to go out and buy myself lots of presents. They seem to be thin on the ground this year for some reason.

Okay, that's not strictly true. Eric took me to see Eddie Izzard last week. My family sent me cash. Sadly, I had to use a lot of it on cleaning supplies when we moved. You always run out of Pledge, 409 and dryer sheets at the same time.

But, back to the presents. Tomorrow, I will buy (maybe):
A new cell phone (screw you, AT&T!)
A new watch band (really, I'm gonna)
Some underpants (can't go ten days in New Zealand without having ten pairs of new underpants, can you?)
Some toiletries
Some long-sleeve tee shirts
An iPod (probably not)
A Game Boy Advance SP (almost certainly not)
A book (or two)
Sunglasses
More DDF sunscreen (it kicks ass)
$100 U.S. worth of $NZ (stupid, stupid falling dollar)
New blue corduroy jeans

The Ring of Fire | September 12, 2003

From Yahoo! News:

Truck driver Bobby Williams of Spokane, Wash., en route from Tennessee to Tampa, Fla., stopped and bowed his head for a moment when he heard Johnny Cash had died.

"He was the greatest man ever picked a guitar. He spoke to the American man. He did songs people could understand and relate to," said Williams, who then sang a few lyrics of his favorite Cash recording, "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky."

Bronwyn Has Sent You an Evite to Her Pity Party | September 11, 2003

Okay, I'm having a sad week. On Monday, as you may recall, I wrote a bunch of stuff about hating stuff and junk. I still sort of hate my job and feel like I'm completely wasting my life, but today I'm getting all teary-eyed over James Kochalka's bandmate Jason's weird episode. I've even gone so far as to read most of his online journal.

Now I know that if someone's journal is online and accessible to millions of people, it's probably okay to read it in its entirety. But I do feel a little creepy about it because I'm actually worried about this guy who I've never met and who could very well be a big assface who just happens to be drawn like a cute little doggie in an online comic strip. What the hell is wrong with me? Am I having some sort of estrogen upsurge? On Monday I was all freaked out because my ex-boyfriend had a hernia operation and I subsequently had bad dreams about him getting baby arms grafted to his forehead.

Not that there's anything wrong with being worried about people. Worry=care=sensitive, nice-person feelings. It's just that my worry seems to be attached to a kind of woeful nostalgia. I really didn't expect to have a turning-30 crisis, since it's all so fucking arbitrary, but maybe I am. I'm worried about other people and I'm worried about myself and what's going to become of me ten years from now, ten months from now, ten minutes from now. I feel my life slipping out of control, precisely because it's so horribly under control.

I miss my dad. I miss the east coast. I miss the smell of dying leaves. I miss college and my friends in Pittsburgh. I miss places I've never been to because I'm afraid I may never get there. I miss feeling like I have all the time in the world.

Yutaka Seto Got a Fucking Fork | September 08, 2003

Oh, I am a wretched blogger. And today, I feel like a wretched human being. We wasted our weekend painting (though it will look nice when we move in...finally), I'm tired and my feet hurt and I hate my job and I'm going to be 30 in two weeks and I have nothing to show for my life.

So, how've you been?

I need a new book. I finished Battle Royale last week. Oh, a workster lent me A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, so I suppose I could take that home and give it a whirl. Mostly, I just like the jimmies on the cover. Drug addiction anecdotes be damned.

Now I want ice cream.