But I think that we are what erases the memories, not time. I'm not even sure I believe that time really exists anymore. I think that we, as human beings, remember on some level where we came from- and that is from a source of unending light and love... like when people almost die, and see an incredibly peaceful and bright light and are drawn to it. I think that most people just don't want to keep feeling bad things with regards to another person. Cause all we really want is to be happy.
SPEAKING OF HAPPY! I got a new job yesterday. It's ridiculously well-paying and ridiculously easy and I'm basically just getting paid for doing what I was doing before. It's a glorified (and indefinite) house-sitting job (but she has a middle school aged daughter). It's sort of random, since she doesn't know which nights she'll be out of town yet, and so she said, "Screw the hourly thing, it's too confusing. I'll just pay you $250 a week if I'm in town, $300 if I'm not."
Translation: Please let me pay you to come watch teevee and write at my 2800 square foot immaculately furnished house with Dish TV. What? You want to use my Beemer? Hey, no problem. Oh, here's money to go to the store, too. Oh! You have a 6:30-9:30 class on Tuesdays? Don't worry about it, we'll just make other arrangements for Christine if I'm gone those nights.
I'm being all bitchy about it, and if I didn't know better, I'd say I couldn't believe it. But I mean... here is a job I know I won't get fired from, that I know I won't fuck up, that is pretty much secure since it's my aunt, who I know can afford it. With the other income I have I'll be getting like $700/week from various sources. I know that I believed that money would start coming to me somehow, but now that it is, I'm just sort of dazed, like I won the lottery. Like, I can actually pay my parents back the money I owe them this month. That is astonishing to me. I can pay for my two tickets, I don't have to worry about it.
So, in honor of my cushy new source of income...
1. A full size electronic piano ($800)
2. A new laptop ($1200)
3. A way better digital camera ($300)
4. A looooot of new clothes ($500)
5. A timing belt ($250)
6. A carwash ($8)
Things I am going to do with all the cash that will be piling up
1. Pay off my debt! yay!
2. Take a road trip through Indiana for a few days to do research for the book that I'm writing. I keep getting inspired but then realize I don't quite know what I'm writing about, so I need to go to some small towns and talk to some small town folks and stay in some small town hotels and get a better idea what it's like living there. I cannot wait to do this. I've been wanting to ever since the beginning of June but have just been too poor.
3. Start going to St. Louis at least once a month. Life is too damn short for six months to go by with me not seeing my best friend.
4. Pay Lee back for the car
5. Take myself out to lunch when I get home! Yay!
6. I really, really want to take a trip to Italy, and to Ireland. I just need to figure out someone to go with who I think I could stand being around for a week, or whatever, straight. Adrienne probably would want to- especially to Ireland.
So that's the first good thing that happened to me yesterday.
The second good thing is that I went to the coffee shop across the street for the first time, and there was a fabulously gay or at least gayish guy who either owns it or works there most of the time. He was thhuuuuper friendly. We talked for a while about him and his mother getting a tarot card reading(there) and about how hers was so dead on- I think I'm just gonna have to get one on Saturday. I stayed there for a while reading and had a great mug of hot chocolate and it's officially my favorite place to be in the neighborhood right now. I feel disjointed in the neighborhood unless I know the people who own the businesses I go to, and my neighbors.
Speaking of neighbors, the couple that lives downstairs is hereafter known affectionately as "The Parking Nazis." This is because every single conversation I have had with them since I moved in- and there have been many- has included parking and/or the garage in some way. The old neighbors broke the garage door. You got a parking ticket? When? Where? For how much? How long have you lived here? That's not right. Did you find out more about that ticket? I looked online and you have a fifteen day grace period. Hey Maggie, can you please park a little further over on your side of the garage? I'm having to park really close to you. What? Somebody's blocking you in? Oh, it's Brad, he's working on the basement apartment. But he shouldn't be parking you in, call the landlord, make him move.
Speaking of Brad, who is working on the first floor. He has parked me into the garage every day for a week now, and I think maybe he is doing it on purpose so I will have to come get him to move. There is a full-size space in front of where he's parking that wouldn't park anyone in. Then again, maybe he's just an idiot.
But... I don't know. He's kinda cute, looks under 30, and could obviously snake my drain. (That one's for you, Justin.)
Maggie, giant smile on her face, cause this is the eighth time she's had to ask him to move: Hi!
Brad: Hey.
Maggie: Caaaaan you let me out-
Brad: Oh, I just watched you leave, haha, sorry. (gets up off the floor where he is tiling)
Maggie, startled: Oh my God.
Brad: Wha?
Maggie, astonished: You have the best curly hair I've ever seen!
Brad, bashful: Are you serious??
Maggie: YES! How did I not notice this before?
Brad: Oh, I was wearing a hat!
Maggie, entering garage: Ahh. I have such a thing for curly hair!
(garage doors open, and Brad is standing on the other side and says something unintelligible.)
Maggie: Wha?
Brad: I hate my hair.
Maggie: You're crazy. Why?
Brad: Cause it's a big afro!
Maggie: Whatever! I think you should grow it 2 inches longer!
Brad, feigning shock: And get a Jheri curl?
(Maggie pulls out of garage)
Brad: Hey so you live on the third floor?
Maggie: Yeah.
Brad: How's everything up there, everything working alright?
Maggie: Well, my bedsprings are wound a little too tight.
HAAAAAAAAA okay I didn't really say that.
Speaking of Jheri curls, I have to... I just have to ask this question. I know it's stupid, but I just don't get it. WHY do so many people hate black people for no reason?
It just seems frivolous, I mean, I hate everyone equally. I'm an equal opportunity hater.
So that was the third good thing that happened to me yesterday. I guess it is just restoring my faith that I still find members of the opposite sex desireable. I mean, I don't know if I'd want to go out with this guy. His hair is fucking awesome, and hey, he's employed. That's important. But he probably won't get up the nerve to just ask me out and I'm not doing shit at this point. I think I need a tee shirt that says "How do you spell apathet- eh, who cares". But, it made me realize that random interactions with interesting people happen to me all the time. And it made me smile all the way to Indiana.
The fourth good thing that happened was that my stepfather told me to print out all 1346 pages of this journal and give it to his sister-in-law, the literary agent, and she would figure out what to do with it. I almost can't believe how things are just falling into my lap, but isn't this what I always thought would happen? Cause the truth is, I can appreciate other people who feverishly try to get what they want, but that's never been me. I prefer to go with the flow. True that in the past I have worried incessantly about the flow and where exactly it was going, but I still went with it.
Today at least, I feel very comfortable seeing where it takes me.
Oh, and during June "fuck personal grooming" month, where I let the hair on my legs, well, basically all over my body, grow to about one inch long and didn't run a brush through my hair once (dude! I was totally a hippie!), I also ceased plucking my eyebrows. Lo and behold, they actually DO grow in all the way. I thought I had damaged the follicles in my left eyebrow and that it was permanently too short, which completely sucked. But, now my left eyebrow is rocking my forehead in a full-length sort of way. All is well in my world.
I've printed out the first 200 pages of this monstrosity and I'm going to go back to the gay coffee shop to start editing. And it is time for me to go take myself out to that congratulatory lunch. Not just for, well, doing nothing and getting everything I want, but also because there is a growing body of evidence that I am indestructable.
© beotch at
2:45 p.m.
comment