We Love You So

So I still have not seen The Wild Things directed by Spike Jonze ( I almost typed in Spike Lee and I realized how funny that adaptation would look with Lee's direction). I haven't seen it for the same reason I haven't seen Precious (aka Push), The Men Who Stare at Goats, and any other books adapted to a movie. When you work at a bookstore it is sort of disheartening to see people come in looking for a book because they saw the trailer for the movie. People don't seem to realize that Push was out for like 10 years, and don't even get me started on Where the Wild Things Are.

For this reason I don't watch movies adapted from a book until long after they have come out. Or I don't read the book until long after the movie has come out. I didn't really have to do that for where the wild things are, because it's been out forever and it takes minutes to read. But there is something so interesting about the movie, and I had to stop myself from saying 'fuck it' and buying a ticket to go see it.

I think what Spike Jonze captures so well, is the wildness that encompasses being boy. I mean girls have it too, but if you ever watched two young boys act out some pirate fantasy you realize it is a different sort of wildness. One you wish you could hold on to forever.

I have listened to the score by Carter Burwell a million times, and I get teary eyed every time I hear it. Especially during the We Love You So track. It's then that you realize the real tragedy of childhood is how quickly it escapes you. How, sooner or later who will encounter the real world, and all of the imaginary friends from you youth will disappear.

My nephew died a year ago. He was a year and 2 months. He slept with a blanket and could eat enough for two babies. And I loved him, even though I didn't really know him. And there was something about this movie depicting this incredibly wild boy that resonates with me. That makes me sad and yearn for the nephew I will never have in the one I lost. And I hate that he won't be able to be a boy. I hate that he won't be able to sail the Indian Ocean or Slay Dragons. Or relish in the sound of toy trains hitting each other. That he won't be able to be a boy. Any boy.

And it's been difficult this last couple of weeks because for some reason he invades my thoughts. I wonder who he could have been, what his voice would sound like, what his face would look like when he is sad, happy, and full of life. And honestly outside of my family and Marie no one knows about the loss that we are still dealing with. And it's hard because at work I am pleasant and happy and sweet. And I don't let whatever is going on inside my head affect my interactions with my co-workers.

But it doesn't mean that I don't want to confide in someone from time to time. Especially during days where the grief seems unbearable. I remember being overcome with emotions one afternoon for no reason at all. I was angry at life and at death and in the god I sometimes believe in. I barely got myself together before work, and no one asked me how I was doing because I am a pro a faking it. But other times I physically feel myself reaching out to people for comfort, but I pull back before revealing to much. Grief is a weird thing.

A week or two ago I was asked to set up a promo table at work. This meant that I had to go in our receiving area, filled with 50 or so unopened boxes, and look for the items designated for that table. I am short and I weigh like 110lbs. I am strong for my size but good god these boxes were heavy. My manager told me to be careful while I was going through them because the boxes (stacked on top of one another) have a tendency of toppling over. When she left McAbs stopped by to see what I was doing. The receiving area is way in the back of the store so we didn't have to worry about a manager stopping us. I told him that I had to dig through most of these boxes and he sort of laughed like "they made you, of all people do this". I asked him, in a joking way, if he could listen out for me if he was back here. Just in case a box came crashing down, I wanted to make sure someone knew I was back there.

He shrugged his shoulders and said "sure whatever" and went back to work. Surprisingly for the next three hours McAbs stopped by every 30 minutes to make sure I was okay. No lie. And when he heard some random boxes fall near where I was working he called my name from the hallway to make sure I was okay. But I didn't hear him at first, and the next thing I heard was "Beckett, Beckett, Beckett" followed by him running down the hall and into the receiving room. I was sweating and tired and kneeling near another box, and when I turned to him he looked angry:
"I called your name, you didn't answer. I thought you fell or something"
"Sorry?"
"It's cool, just answer next time okay, you freaked me out"

That night he asked me if I wanted a ride home. This was after I had that very explicit dream about him, and I was about to say no but my feet hurt, and my hands hurt and I wasn't looking forward to walking home by myself. I wasn't looking forward to crying down the street, because I had a tendency of doing that too when I get sad. So I said yeah because I knew if he drove me home I would be distracted from my own thoughts. He would be the distraction I needed.

I waited until he changed his clothes and then we headed to his car. I mentioned half way that my feet were killing me because I never wear socks with my flats and I was doing a lot of climbing and walking and blah blah blah. "I could carry you" he interrupted. But he was so freaking serious I hit him in the arm and brushed him off. We were crossing the street when my shoe literally fell off, and i told him to wait and he looked back to see me hobbling towards him with my shoes in hand.

"Come here" he said, and when I made it to the curb he looked amused (similar to the dream much). "Let me carry you to the car. We will get there a lot faster". I looked at him like he was crazy but then I looked at my feet and I thought "well..." but I still said no, and I said something along the lines of "it's kind of inappropriate". But he really wanted to carry me to the car, and I really didn't feel like walking and through this we agreed that a piggy back ride is harmless. And so he bent down and let me hop on his back and he carried me to his car.

A piggyback ride is not harmless. Especially when you are attracted to the person giving you one. I realized that my boobs were pressed against his back, and that I naturally wanted to place my head on his shoulder. But that would be too much physical contact and he has a girlfriend, and I would potentially kiss his neck or something. So I leaned back as much as I could so that my boobs weren't touching his back and so my mouth didn't find it's way to his neck. This made for an uncomfortable piggy back ride on his part, because I was essentially choking him because I couldn't relax. He would say "you are choking me" "Sorry" "still choking me". We almost made it to the car without any problem but I didn't know what to do with my legs, and I refused, REFUSED to wrap them around him ,so I awkwardly slid down back to the ground.

"I feel like I need a cigarette" he said, with the most inappropriate smile I have ever seen. "But you don't smoke" "I know".

Of course after he dropped me off at my aunt's (in his car) I regretted the whole thing. Because it was an innocent exchange that felt all kinds of dirty. He has a gf. He has a life outside of the bookstore. And there I am crushing on him hardcore to the point where innocent piggyback rides seem wrong. But I discarded that feeling because damn it he has nice muscles.

However the next night I was not in the best of moods. Despite my encounter with McAbs, I woke up from a nap feeling that sense of grief that has a way of creeping up on me. It doesn't help that We Love You So is a constant song playing in my ear. And as I headed into work, where we are surrounded by images of Where The Wild Things Are, all I could think of was Danny and how he won't ever get to grow up. And sometimes at night I pray that wherever he is, that he is allowed to be a boy. He is allowed to be so much more than a person who never got to grow and love life. And eat doughnuts or see Ghostbusters, or hear AC/DC. And I hope that there are things or people telling him how much he is loved. That he was loved. And that I'm sorry he had to leave so soon, but that we think of him often. And if we could go back, we would in a heartbeat, and hold on so tight until ...

And I just felt horrible at work. Because I didn't have anyone to go to about any of this. I cried during my break, and I tried to stay away from as much people as I could. And there are so many new faces at work that I felt lost. And around 6, I knew that he was at work and I wanted to just go him and be like "my day sucks. It sucks so hard let me tell you about it". Not even because I like him, but because he is familiar and sort of a buddy. But he was no where to be found, and when we did cross paths he felt like a stranger. I had to go into receiving again, and he popped in to say 'hi". He was smiling as usual and didn't notice that I was sad. He told me he was sneaking back here to call his girlfriend and I said something snarky like "Tell her I said hey". I made a quick exit. The rest of the night he tried to get my attention, but I was sort of over it. Because it was then that I realized that he isn't mine. I have no access to him. I can't confide in him, I can't go to him with my problems. He is only McAbs and apparently only available for piggy back rides and playing where's waldo in the kids department. And I need more than that, I want more than that. Even in just a friend.

And I feel like he knows that i am this nice, sweet, innocent girl and that he has the upper hand in our budship. Because naturally he is dominate and I am willing. And sometimes that can come off as submissive which I'm not. Because when he is being a guy (the strong silent type), it's because I am in a way allowing him to be that guy that I want him to be. But unfortunately the more I get to know him, the guy I want him to be isn't possible. Because what I want is someone available for me to come to when the shit hits the fan, or when I am mourning.

So later that night, while he was in the cafe he asked me if I wanted a ride home. He expected me to say 'yes', I expected me to say yes. But I couldn't. Because I really didn't want a ride, and I also don't want him to think I rely on him to drive me home on Sundays. I don't want him to think that I can never say no because he is too attractive and I am too...plain.

So I told him I'd take a rain check. And he pouted, and tried to lure me with candy and control over the radio dial. But I couldn't, because I like him more than I should. More than is appropriate for a guy with a girlfriend. And because I can't have him the way I want him, and he doesn't know when I'm upset. He doesn't even care. So I have to create a boundary that we both can't cross. I have to create a healthy friendship with him, because he isn't mine. He can never be mine. And maybe that's a good thing.

This grief thing is hard. I called Marie on the walk home. It was raining. And I was soaked and I asked her if I am acting out in response to grief. If this need for sort of physical comfort is in response to being a mess inside. I mean luckily I am not a skanky skank. But I can see myself wanting to find comfort in types of people instead of trying to deal with my grief. Because I don't know how articulate it, or make sense of it. I feel angry, and sad, and confused and I want to punch a wall or lay against someone back as he carries me home.

And it has a lot to do with being afraid. And completely devastated about his death. And I am scared that because he isn't here anymore, he doesn't exist anywhere. And instead of contemplating all of those things, I distracted myself in the pedestals I put people on, mainly guys. But when I am able to face myself, and sometimes to face Danny...I am filled with sadness. And I only find comfort in illusions....that somewhere, he never stopped really existing. That he is on an island, far out of reach surrounded by creatures who "love him so, they'll eat him up"

Another Brick Wall

I am a dreamer.

I mean that in the literal and figurative way. I sleep a lot, which causes me to have very vivid and realistic dreams, and by nature I am a naive optimistic. It's because I live in my head. A lot. I have waking fantasies about my future and present that cause me to drift off into to another world sometimes. Marie explains it the best. I am a fish in the sea, and she sometimes has to reel me back in from going to far out into the depths of the ocean. I don't need to be on land, particularly, but just close enough to the shore so that I don't get caught up in the waves.

I follow my astrological sign sometimes. And though I know it's a complete pile of horse crap most of the time, I can't help but seeing the similarities between my sign (Pisces) and myself. A sign symbolized by illusions, secrets, but more importantly dreams. Which is why I cherish my dreams, not because they are unconscious representations of my life but because they are a unconscious representation of how I am. Of how I am struggling to become.

2 weeks ago I had a...interesting dream about McAbs. Okay, by interesting I mean we consummated our weird budship against a brick wall somewhere in westchester county. Thank god it was only a dream. But damn it all to hell I woke up in the morning feeling like the skankest skank of all. Let me explain. I know that I have a tendency of creating something out of nothing regarding guys. I did it with Art Boy, and the Older Guy a work, and let's be honest with most of my crushes. I have scaled back some in doing this, thanks to therapy and my increasing self confidence.

See the problem is, I feel like I don't deserve a normal nice guy. I feel like I have this big huge scarlet letter on my shoulder for Broken or Weird. Anxious and Unwanted. Scared and Vulnerable. Because of this, I know that when I put a guy I like on a pedestal I won't be able to disappoint him because I could never be the girl he wanted me to be anyway.



I'm still trying to overcome this. it's hard though. My experiences in High School and Middle School beat the hell out of my identity. I have spent the last ten years trying to rebuild it.


For some reason, being in New York has helped. I notice that I am not as awkward around people as I was once was and as a 23 year old that seems like a long time coming, especially when I can't help but want to create and sustain relationships that are both healthy and lovely. Especially when it comes to guys. I have tendency of falling for a particular 'type' of guy. Nerdy, Literate, Funny, and Shy. You'd think these would be the easiest guys to talk to. But No! I See a guy dressed like a indie nerd and I go running in the opposite direction.

McAbs is not like any crush I have ever had in recent years. He is nerdy but...popular/built/nice/charismatic and in complete control of himself. By that, I mean he is confident. We were talking about horoscopes one day when he told me that he was a Leo. This struck me as interesting because of my obsession with horoscopes from time to time. Leo, being the sign of the lion, is not the most compatible sign for Pisces, the fish...because cats dominate fishes. They don't mean too but you put a cat by a pond and their first instance is to dive right in and grab what's there's.

But, I am sort of attracted to his dominate personality. Very attracted to it. He doesn't second guess himself, like I do. He doesn't hide from his emotions, like I do. And he has little secrets, which I possess. He says what he wants, he does what he wants inside the confines of contained circle, and damn it all to hell he has muscles that ripple. Ripple I tell you. Where I am use to crushing on guys who I know I will try to take care of, he is someone who likes to take care of things. He is a guy who doesn't mind being the GUY and making the decisions. And there is something attractive about that. I think it's the one thing I am really attracted too (outside of the muscles).

So then I have this dream. I have contemplated writing it down because of its personal nature but here goes nothing....

In the dream McAbs is walking me home. It is past midnight. The street is isolated and dark, and it's cold outside. But there is nothing creepy about it. He makes me feel safe as we are leaving work, and playfully lean against like girls usually do. We are walking in New Rochelle, which is where I use to live when I was a kid. New Rochelle is the town that borders the Hudson river. Because of this it has a marina like quality to it, because you are surrounded by water on almost all sides. We are walking down curvy hill, past the hardwood store I sought refuge in during the blizzard of '96 and past the boat dock where the boats never really sail from.

Before we even get the end of the street, the sky opens up and it begins to rain. I hear a huge sound like thunder splitting the earth open and then rain pours down, so hard that it pounds against the payment like rocks. He grabs my hand and attempts to pull me into a run, to escape the weather and get inside the closest building. But I don't want to run. I like the way it feels. I tilt my head up towards the sky and let the drops hit every part of me. It is only then that he lets go of my hand, and when he does I kneel to the ground to take my shoes off so I can feel the the wet grass beneath my feet. My back is towards him, but I know that he is watching. I know that he thinks I am crazy for wanting to stay in the rain. That I don't care how soaked we are going to be when we get wherever we are going to go.

While kneeling, I turn my head to look up at him. He is smiling sort of. Amused mainly, and I ask him if he wants to join me. I extend my hand then, wanting to pull him down to where I have decided to let the rain hit me. But he pulls me up, so quickly that I sort of fall into him for a moment. I realize that it is time to go. And I push away from him playfully and he captures my hand again before we continue down the street. We head down past the dock where the boats never sail and I say something stupid, funny stupid, awkward stupid, but stupid nonetheless. And he stops. Right there as it is still raining, and if what have said has ruined the moment. But I decide to keep walking, but am only able to take a few steps before I realize that he has not planned on moving.

hmm...So I turn to him, and it's still raining and still very cold outside, and it's my turn to smile at him like "what are you doing now". But my smile starts to fade , when I realize his intent and I realize my impending and willing submission to his intent. And I don't feel like I am in danger. I am not scared or threatened because I know he's in control. And some how that makes me in control. And I let his hands and they are now lightly guiding back, against this brick wall that I have never seen before. And I know then, that our intentions for one another is suddenly going to become action, and I look away back up against the sky that is a mixture and grey and purple and I wonder who I am in that moment. Who I've become. But I don't resist. I don't resist any of it. The force of his body against mine or the moment just before we have lost control, just before I hesitate and cry. Because I know that we can't go back. And yet. And yet. We continue, and the rain hits us both. And I don't know who I am, because the as the rain comes down we become a blur and I can only sense myself dissolving under the weight of him. And then I wake up.

Damn waking up and your stupid waking life.

I think I know what the dream was about outside of sex. But it didn't make it any easier when I had to face McAbs the next day at work. I feel like it was about control and my wanting it to not be this pivotal block for me. It was about wanting to relinquish this 'brick wall' that I have constructed to protect myself and my feelings. And though McAbs was the leading man, it had more to do with me than I am willing to admit tonight.

This dream is a prelude to the piggy back ride and my subsequent falling out of lust with McAbs. But I'll have to save that for later. I have embarrassed myself enough for one night.

Life on A Train.

I have spent a lot of my time on trains lately. From going to Connecticut every week, to the 15 hour train ride to South Carolina. Maybe I have a career as a conductor in the future? Okay maybe not.



I am very sleepy. Trying to get some shut eye on a crowded amtrak train is very hard to do. I sat next to a very nice college guy who spent most of the train ride texting and watching movies on his laptop. The train was relatively quiet outside of some outburst from children and some crazy (and potential) drug dealer a few seats back talking on the phone. Something about her (yes her) saying "if you don't get my money I will get my boys on you" drew me to that conclusion.



I spent most of my time, not writing, not reading but instead texting Marie and my mom and trying to find a way to position my body in a way that would bring about sleep. But I nothing worked. I'd get a good hour of something that resembled sleep and then BAM....awake again.



So currently I am in bed. Ready to fall into one of the best sleeps I have had in 3 months. My body has spent that many months sleeping on a very uncomfortable couch in my very uncomfortable living situation. But for now, I am home in a full size bed, with three fluffy pillows cradling my head. My mom made soup, my brother and I played Rock Band and the adapter for my computer works. Life is good.

In other news:



I'm glad there is interest in this GREAT MIX CD EXCHANGE! I am excited about this. Very excited and Xmas is the perfect time to send them out and stuff. I figure those who want to participate can leave their email address in the comments (which will be deleted as soon as I have it written down). Or I could just post my email address ( Postscript: the one I just created for this particular project). I don't know. Let me know which is better.

I think they should then be sent out the week of Christmas. The theme is yours to choose from so you can be as creative as you want. I would love to know what type of music you all are listening too, or what type of songs you'd think I'd like. My mix tapes will be a mix of the two, based on who I am composing the track list for. Obsessively I have 'known' some of you longer than others (Jon, Frogboots) but don't fret the mix cd's will still be intimate and personalized!

Post your emails as soon as you can (I will leave mine up for the weekend, which you can access from my profile), so I can successfully send these out in time (I have a serious case of procrastination. It may be a life long disorder).

A real post tomorrow, for sure. I have not forgotten the list of things I want to write. But for now sleep, a mighty good sleep if I do say so myself.

Vacation, All I've Ever Wanted!

I'm going home tomorrow! Too excited for words.

My computer wire was shipped home (as expected) so on Friday I will have access to my laptop again and I won't have to come to the library to compose a post. Not that I don't LOVE the library but writing personal stuff in public was never my thing.

A lot has happened in the last couple of days that I have been dying to write about:

1) As of yesterday I am no longer an intern at a publishing house. After 3 months, can you believe it, of throbbing members and passion pearls I have successfully finished my gig. And I didn't even have to come up with some lame excuse to get out of it. I emailed them last week about the close of the internship and within days they had another chick, Lauren, to fill my space. I thought it would be a weird and awkward goodbye. I wasn't the most ambitious intern. I was quiet, sleepy most days, and I ate so much candy there it was ridiculous. But when I was fully present, I did work my ass off, even with all the craziness that is, and was, Crazy Lady.

They bought me a card and some cookies and told me how much they would miss me there. I also walked away with some free books, published by them of course, and I have at least a months work of trashy books to read. That's a job well done if I say so myself. It was weird. I was actually sad and happy to be leaving. I mean 3 months ago I was about to run for the hills, but I am glad that I stuck with it (thanks frogboots!). I mean I still think publishing is a boring career and I would rather be a writer than a desk sitter. But I learned something there.

2) I still hate the new girl at work.

3) I broke up with McAbs. So technically we were never going out. And I don't even think he knew there was this thing going on between us. But I have made a decision to not let his hotness rule my life. Or something like that.

4)Now that I am sans internship, I will actively pursue my interest in film production and writing. It's going to be hard, I may feel desperate and depressed all over again. But now I can continue to pursue my dreams. Yeah? Dreams

4.5) Me and a girl at work made playlists for each other and exchanged mix cd's this monday. I have never made one for someone before, or more importantly I have never had one made for me outside of my brother throwing crap tracks together. But there was something so personal about her putting together 15 songs she thought I would love. And I did. I am now obsessed with this idea of mix cd's. If you want one. Let me know. Christmas is coming up and I am feeling musical. Think about it.

5) Finally, and after my 9 day holiday I will officially be paying rent in my new house...I mean room-in-a-house. I am nervous, scared, thrilled, and worried. But now i can extend my time in New York without the threat of my aunt kicking me out. I like it here, even when it sucks huge throbbing members. I like it here more than I care to admit.

I can't wait until I have my computer back. This library stint sucks. You'd think at 10:34 in the morning the place would be empty. But no, everyone is here. EVERYONE.

Until Friday

Becks

Not Dead.

So the adapter on my computer has died for the third time in three years. I wonder if best buy has it out for me. Without a warranty, I forked over $53.00 to replace my now broken adapter. I literally have no one to blame but myself. You know those movie montages where a series of scenes replay a character doing something repetitive so the audience gets a glimpse at who this person is. Where somewhere there should be a montage of me repeatedly dropping the adapter on the floor followed by me apologizing to it. I don't know what this says about me, maybe that I have clumsy hands. These clumsy hands are costing me.

Best Buy, damn you, said that the package would be mailed monday and would take 4-6 days to reach me. In 4-6 days I will be in south carolina so I called them last night and asked if they could ship it to my moms house instead. The plan being that I would be there next Friday and the adapter would be waiting for me, in my big room, with my big bed and desk. Turns out Best Buy not only wants all my money, but they are liars. My package was mailed Wednesday and is in New York today. But because I had them send it to South Carolina there is no way they can drop it off today. So I am without a computer for a couple of days, and the library is my new friend.

I am feeling a tab bit better these days, hence the normal font, and whatever spell that washed over me last week is tailing off. I can feel it. I think the waves of anxiety, moodiness and general suckassness that I have been feeling these days is growing pains. Becoming an adult is exhilarating and fantastic but there is a place right in the middle of all that which sucks...hardcore. I am learning to deal with it, I think. I am learning to survive it perhaps.

I put in my two weeks notice at the internship. But I feel they had a replacement for me in the store anyway. I was starting to feel like they wanted me to move on already, if they only knew I was ready to leave as soon as I started they would have planned a replacement three months ago. Bethany seems to be the only one who will miss me, and I am going to buy her a card or something to thank her for toughing it out with me.

I would explain the McAb story (the word Marie and I have made up for you know who) but I am in the library and this story deserves careful analyzing. There are moments when I want nothing more from him than friendship. I am use to having guy friends who are awkward, shy, and nerdy just as I am. I mean Mike, a GREAT example, was my sole friend in college. And I felt like I all the control in that friendship. He was as indecisive and emotional as I am, and in the end I felt like he needed my approval more than anything. McAbs in different (yes. GF poses a problem). And this difference makes me want more from him some days than friendship. He is this guy who is aware of his guyness. And there is something attractive about that.

Some days I go from being madly in like with him to sheer ambivalence. This week was madly in like with him, especially because of the new beautiful girl who is working with us. The girl that I am training but whose guts I hate. Not because she's pretty but because she came on too strong to quick and thought she could boss people around. She is a bitch, this is no exaggeration and she has rubbed customers and employees the wrong way. She came in with guns blazing but no target, and we are all out for revenge. Anyway, ever since she started working there I have become very protective of the co-workers I consider friends. Especially McAbs. Not in a weird psycho way, but where I have neglected telling them how much their friendship means (because I don't know how) I have tried to make it more clear. McAbs is a nice guy, and I have a tendency of warping nice into HE LIKE ME, HE LIKES ME! But I am confused by the attention he gives me. I am confused by his nice comments and flirty ways. I am confused. Very confused. And I don't know how to claim him as a friend without wanting to claim him...

I will tell you more when I can. This is not the place to do that. And yes he did give me a piggy back ride. But it was only because I said my feet hurt when we were walking down the street, and he offered to carry me but i said that would be weird...so he said not if it's a piggy back ride. Who have I become?

My mom might get the adapter tomorrow or monday so she may mail it to me express or just keep it safe at home, until I get there. But I am not dead. Not even close. I am doing okay. I am pulling myself out of the darkness. Whatever that means.

2 minute overview.

There is a new girl at work who sucks hardcore. She sucks the life out of the place and she threatens the nice little clique of intellectual misfits we have created. I was uber rude to her last night because she is abrasive and approaches people like a salesman. I despise her and they want me to spend the next week training her. What to do. What to do.

Connecticut time.

Is that You?

Guess who saw this little fucker walking through the store yesterday. No lie.

Don't know who he is? Google Star Trek or Termination Salvation, and his face may start to look a little familiar.

I was walking through the fiction aisle the other day, contemplating the state of my life when I saw a cute guy flipping through a book. He was wearing all black, expect for a gray scarf wrapped around his neck and naturally his skinny awkward stance drew my attention.

I was going to do my usual, yeah he's cute but time to get back to work thing, when I knew that i had seen him before. That for some reason his face was much more familiar than it should be. I am very (very) good with faces and within seconds (despite the fact that he had on a beanie) I knew who it was. But I didn't remember his name, because it was Russian, and I didn't know who to tell because I wasn't sure they would know either.

He was in the store for a good half hour, all of which I spent convincing my co-workers that it was him. Yes, I am that person who not only yells fight, when one is occurring but I also spot out celebrities and rile the crowd up. I don't mean too, I just get a little too excited. We, the "new guy" and the "sort of new girl" followed him to the philosophy section just so we could walk past him and confirm my suspicion. Even then, no one believed me.

Luckily the head cashier, a Star Trek follower, confirmed it was him as soon as Cute Young Actor came up to the cash register. He was a lot skinner in person and his eyes were blood shot. He also had horrible eye contact and looked sort of anxious but the moment Head Cashier saw him, I knew that before me stood Anton Yelchin, because I heard my co-worker stop breathing for a few seconds. Not only did he stop breathing but he was frozen in his tracks. I rang Anton Yelchin up (he bought the communist manifesto. Kids these days) and he was out the door. As soon as he left, I heard my co-worker exhale and say "dude you just rang up Pavel Chekov". Tell me about it. I know hot young actors when I see them.

I continue to struggle with whatever is going on in my head. I feel at a lose for things but I know I am slowly recovering from the suckassness of my life. I may have found a place to live. It's near my aunt's old place and the room is what I need. It is in a private house and the room is...just right. I am stopping by tomorrow to put down the security deposit and by December 1st I should have a place to stay.

Maybe this is the beginning of things falling into place. I do not know. I am very weary of making assumptions these days but it will be nice to have a place that I know I can come back to. That I know I can make feel my own. I am excited about this venture, and I am trying to stay as optimistic as my little heart can. We'll see. I have more to write but I am falling asleep at the keys.

Tomorrow: The Janitor and The Piggy Back Ride. He makes my head hurt. More on that tomorrow though.

Ugh, What a Week

So this week has been hard. Very hard. Can't you tell via my return to small text. Last month I applied to an internship with This American Life. It was a long shot, a shot in the dark, something I knew that I probably would not get. But that didn't stop me from praying to god every night. I was hoping that getting this position would make my life better. I would be a paid intern at a pretty cool job, I would be able to afford a place to live and finally quit my shit job at the bookstore.

I worked incredibly hard on the application. Turned it in a few weeks ahead of the due date and waited patiently. For a month. And then on Monday I get the email that someone else got the position. Someone who isn't me. I didn't even get an interview. My resume and application weren't even good enough to get me in the door. Depression looms. Why does life suck so bad.

I am really trying to be optimistic here, I know that there are a bunch of people like me (recent grad, no prospects) out here trying to land a job but damn it all to hell. What the fuck. I am so over the struggling and the suffering, and the annoyance of life right now. I am standing on the edge, and I am ready to jump. I don't care where I land as long as it isn't here.

It also sucks that I have no one to go to for all this....Thing (that's what I am calling the tension these days. A malignant Thing) that is building inside of me. I feel like a shell because the insides don't exist anymore. They have disintegrated and left me hollow. Maybe it's depression, it feels like anxiety and more recently pure unadulterated rage. Why can't i catch a break, why have I managed to screw up my life in such a way where my home is a couch and my life is spent working for free or passionless at the bookstore.

And this rage, it's not like anything I have ever experienced before because I am not seething red or taking out innocent victims on the street. I am filled with an array of emotions all boiled into one that pours out in tears rather than screams. But I don't really know how to cry, not real guttural ones any way, so even when my eyes begin to tear up I resist the urge to let them flow and instead suck in my breath deeply and will the negative thoughts away. But they never fully go away.

I have been going along with the motions lately. I am doing quite a job of resembling a functioning human being. But I am tired, and low. very. very. low. And I have to get ready to see another potential room that will be my home for as long as I can stand to be in New York. I am starting to fucking hate this place, and anyone who says differently can....see the random rage! I need a break. I need someone to take me away. I need to take myself away. Where can I run? Where can I go and hide?

Letting Little Shop of Horrors Interptet My Life....

Life sucks. But I don't know how to write about it. Rick Moranis knows how I feel....He can explain everything for you.

Calling out Sick

Yeah...that's what I did today. Am I sick, not really. Am I really exhausted, yes. Do I deserve one day off, out of the zero I have had in the last 6 weeks. Yes, yes sir I do.

My day off was nice. I forgot how it was not having to wake up early to be somewhere. I am not lying when I say that I work seven days a week. Five days I am at the bookstore, and the other two days I am in Connecticut trying not to gauge my eyes out with random office supplies including but not limited to: staples, paper clips, and pens, we have a lot of pens in the office.

I am not running on empty, but I am wearing myself thin. My patience, something I value greatly, has been very short these days and I am not displaying the best customer service at work. On Tuesday, it rained something awful. I mean your cliche 'cats and dog" down pour. Usually I love the rain. I believe firmly that nature heals, and there is something about the rain that reminds me of restoration. When it rains I can usually be found in bed, reading a book and listening to the radio on Itunes.

But instead I was awake at some ungodly hour (okay so it was 6:00 but still ungodly by 23 year old standards), ready to embark on a 2 hour trip to lull around at my internship for 8 hours, to only then embark on my two hour trip back to New York. All through the rain. I have to take a bus, a train, another bus, and then walk a block to get to this internship. And doing it two days out of a week is a pain in the ass most days. On Tuesday it was grueling. My shoes were wet, my socks were wet, I was cold and hungry and by the time I got there I was completely drenched.

Now, everyone is suppose to be there around 9:30 so I can be let into the office. I wasn't waiting outside or anything but I have to sit in the lobby until someone opens the door. I got there at 9:25 and spent the next 45 minutes wondering why i was the only one there and what the hell happened to everyone else. The big boss wasn't there, the second big boss wasn't there either and Bethany was a no show. In school this would be called "the 15 minutes rule". If a professor doesn't show up within 15 minutes after the start of class, you book it. You don't wait around, everyone leaves, and sometimes someone will write a note detailing why the professor (if he or she does show up)entered an empty room. I do not know if this works in the real world (probably not) but as I was sitting there, contemplating my life as a permanent intern, the countdown began. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and as I started packing my things I heard all three of them walking upstairs laughing around the 40 minute line.

Something happened to each of them that morning which made them late, and after 2nd Big Boss unlocked the door all I got was a "sorry bout that" from Bethany in a tone that was less than apologetic. Fucking eh. The rest of the whole morning (and day for that matter of fact) I was pissed, because in my mind I live 2 hours away, I don't have a car, I have to walk a huge portion of my trip and yet...I was on time. I was not only on time, but I was early and I don't even get paid to be there. Tuesday was not my most productive day, they didn't show up on time so I wasn't fully present for them. Get your own paper out of the printer!

I am a little over this internship, both because in a few weeks I will have officially completed my three months and because I have no desire to be a part of that industry. Where I love literature and writing, I despise editing and the checks and balance process. Okay I don't hate the last process, it's actually very productive but a little redundant and sometimes I feel like I have been working on the same material forever. But it is not where my heart is, and so I hate the feeling that I am putting in a 100% into...nothing.

There attitude of Tuesday along with my own annoyance about the whole situation (compounded with my lack of sleep the night before) gave me all the incentive I needed to call in sick. Or better yet, email the editor and tell her that i would be unable to come in on Thursday because of an "appointment" that could not be rescheduled. Oh yeah!

My Off Day went by a lot faster than I hoped for. I woke up sort of late, watched some daytime TV, headed to the library again (second time this week) and made spaghetti and meatballs. Oh, the life. As of late I am obsessed with Margaret Atwood (Canadian, Feminist, Explorer of Human Complexity) and I stocked up on some of her books to read today, including one called Margaret Atwood's Fairy-Tale Sexual Politics by Sharon Rose Wilson. The shit is trippy. I have a thing for fairy tales and ways that they are re imagined in art and literature. I read a bunch of her today, and she makes me think about my own writing and stories....pretty good Margaret Atwod, preh-tay preh-tay good.

My "sick day" was good. Not at all productive (can we say 2 hour nap in the middle of the day) but good. I need these days for myself. I miss them, I miss the time to myself where I can catch up with the person who seems to be spiraling a million miles ahead of myself. Or something like that.

I just spent 400 dollars to go home for a week. No lie. I am escaping for a little bit, just to South Carolina where the weather is hot and my bed is big. It's for Thanksgiving of course, but I am hoping that the Carolina slowness will restore me or at least that my mom will feed me something awesome while I am there. Um, I can smell the Turkey now.

Seriously

...I have long (and fake) hair for one day and the guys at work are treating me a little differently. Not that they were ever mean or inconsiderate towards me before, but I am use to being one of the guys more than I am ever considered a girly girl. But the moment I strapped on that wig (and really short skirt. Hey, I had tights on) all the guys at work started treating me like, dare I say it, a lady.



Seriously. The moment I walked into work wearing this ridiculous wig but authentic cheer leading outfit, I went from being nerdy Beckett to "hey how are you doing today". I am very open about my insecurities, at least on this online journal. I don't know where the insecurity comes from but it is there with me always. Outside of not being able to fully look myself in the mirror yet, I still feel like I did when I was in high school. Awkward, short, and not all too put together.

I don't remember if I wrote about the time I was a drama nerd in middle school. I was in the eight grade and as a way to compensate for the homesickness I felt I tried to mirror my life in New York by creating the same one in South Carolina. Moving from the North to the South was literally a change I was not expecting. It didn't help that the first week there, we got into that accident that rendered my face a little more than scratched up for a few weeks. I went from being this 12 year old girl falling into her life in New York, to a 12 year old pre-teen who spent her first summer in South Carolina in her house because of the scars present on my face.

I don't know if you've ever been smacked in the face with an airbag, but not only does it hurt, but it burns. Because of this, my face looked like someone took a fist to it repeatedly. It was difficult then for someone to say I was pretty, when all I could feel and see were these abrasions on my face.

By the time I started school, my face was healed but I was still self conscious and nervous as hell about emerging from my house because of the accident and because being 12 years old at a new school sucks. I tried to mirror my life in the North by doing similar school related activities in SC. I joined the orchestra (because I played the violin in New York), I participated in gym without complaint (because I was a sporty kid in New York) and, more importantly, I joined Drama because in New York I was heavily into plays. But those activities never meant the same thing to me then, the bizarro verision just never had much weight. In the eight grade, I auditioned and was accepted into the semester long drama program (she later admitted that a lot of that had to do with my clear accent). It was the most nerve-racking semester of the year because I was technically still the new girl, and here I was in a class of established thespians. You've seen Glee, don't lie, you know how those drama kids are.

Most of the kids in the program were either popular or super popular. I at the time was neither. I was the new kid, just trying to find my place, just trying to blend in rather than stand out. There was a boy in the class named Ezra, and you'd think with a name like that he would have been nice. But he wasn't. He was popular because he was the class clown, which means that he was "the guy who thought he was funny but was more of a jackass than anything else". A lot of the time we were scene partners because he was the shortest guy in the class (paired with me the shortest girl), but we never got along because I never thought he was funny and he though that I was plain.

One day everyone was sitting around, and someone brought up the conversation of prettiest girls in our grade. I sort of tuned out, until I heard the boys, Ezra mainly, starting to evaluate the girls in the class. When he came to my name and face, he looked at me really hard and said "you're not ugly, but...."

I have lingered on this 'but' for ten years. I feel like it has defined who I am. I am not ugly but "...I am not pretty", "...I could use some improvement" "...I could be pretty if I brushed my hair". The bell rang before he could finish the sentence, before I could hear from this jackass of a 13 year old about my prettiness or maybe lack there of (a few years later, he asked me out. No lie).

So, when I wore this wig on Saturday dressed like a cheerleader and sporting an awesome skirt I never grasped the fact that I may have looked pretty. That Ezra Pressley, was a stupid little jerk, who skewed some sliver of myself that I have yet to gain back

But on Saturday, I may have proved that little fucker wrong.The cafe manager was extra nice, along with the two Stephens, and one Bargain guy, and some customers, who have known to be jackasses, were extra patient on Saturday. I of course didn't care about any of them, I was waiting to see the janitors reaction because we haven't been on the best of terms lately (I've been sick, he's been having a girlfriend. You know, the usual). Needless to say, he did a double take when he saw me at customer service. At first he came over to sign in, and then he lingered for a while, and then he went somewhere and came back because he was looking for janitor stuff.

An hour later, I had to go to the back to get something, and the janitor was close behind. He was very nonchalant when he finally approached me(nice costume, nice wig, yadda yadda yadda). I explained to him that I was Buffy the Vampire Slayer and that my hair itched (because I don't know how to conduct myself in front of attractive boys). He was very nice to me the rest of the evening, offering to drive me home, but I was leaving a couple of hours before him, so I had to decline. But what is more interesting is that a day after donning the wig and outfit, he continued this new fond attention towards me. When I came in, I had an awful cough and he spent the next 10 minutes going around the store looking for a cough drop. Then he wanted to know, if I needed a ride home again but I told him that I was leaving an hour earlier than he was so that wouldn't work, and plus I had to go the supermarket.

Instead of saying, Oh Okay, he said he would drive me to the supermarket if I waited an hour. That wasn't going to work either, but I said that maybe I would just go to the supermarket and come back. I mean it's right down the street, I could go get my small groceries and then meet him back at the store so he could drive me home and so I could save 6 bucks. I told him if I didn't come back before 8, then he should just leave without me. He shrugged his shoulders and said that was cool, and then I spent the next 30 minutes running to the supermarket and throwing shit into my basket so I could make it back before 8. It's the muscles, sue me. An hour later I returned to the store, out of breath, and he was pretty much set to go. I started to ask him if he could take the heaviest bag out of my hands but before I could finish the rest of my sentence he had already taken the three bags I had, and started for the door.

Jesus Christ.

Are boys that weird or is being a girl that difficult. He was incredibly nice to me on the way home (and yes, I know that he has a girlfriend and no, I did not jump his bones when he dropped me off. I swear) and it just seemed so peculiar this new change in attitude after our really rough week. Can hair really do that to a boy? Are they so driven by the sight of long locks that they go into a frenzy at the sight of it. Or it could have been the short skirt. I don't know.

It did feel really good being a girly girl for a while, and not taking myself too seriously. I have a tendency of doing a lot of that these days.

Wait It Out

All in A Nights Work..

Today I went to work dressed as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was quite a sight. Not a bad sight either.

There was some charity-isque event going on in the store which was why we all got to wear our costumes. I spent most of the Friday asking everyone if they were dressing up, because I sure as hell didn't want to be the only fool doing it. But most of the guys my age were dressing up, and one of the managers. I didn't see why I shouldn't join in to. I spent all last week getting the items for this costume. My real cheerleader skirt came just in time, and all I needed to buy were tights and a wig (because cheerleaders have hair longer than mine).

There must be something about having long fake hair (thank you party city) a short cheer leading skirt (a shout out to that cheer leading site I ordered it from) and a v-neck sweater (forever 21) which turns you from being just a girl who reads Truman Capote during her breaks to a girl with purpose. I'm just saying. I knew that dressing up as Buffy the vampire slayer, circa the 3rd episode when she tries out for the cheer leading squad, would get interesting reactions but I didn't expect the general shock at my appearance!

I saw myself in the mirror yesterday, something I have not done in a long time and I didn't recognize who I was. I mean if I would have looked like that in high school I may have had a better time. I felt all feminine and then kick ass because of my converse shoes. I love Halloween.

I did however refuse to done a blond wig (for several reasons) a couple of weeks back! Me and Marie got in a huge argument about this because Buffy is a blond, I am not. I did not feel it would violate the costume if I wore a long wig my own hair color. Marie said that I shouldn't wear a wig at all if it wasn't going to be a blond one. Buffy was blond, wearing a long black wig would just be nonsense. The conversation got very heated and I eventually hung up on her.

When I was a kid Buffy was my hero. I mean I remember watching the first episode so clearly because this was when I had a TV/VCR and I stole my brothers blank tape to record the episode. I grew up wanting to be Buffy, of wanting to be an ordinary girl with this extraordinary destiny mapped out for her. But in my visions, I was always my version of the blond prototype. So maybe donning a long black wig (because my hair is not long enough for the full cheerleader hair; pigtails or ponytails) didn't fully follow the character but dammit all to hell I was Buffy the Vampire Slayer today. I don't care who knew it or not.

The costume was a success. So I may have gotten a lot more stares than I am comfortable with (and I think the Janitor said I filled out the outfit 'nicely"), but it was fun. To be honest being someone else for a while was what I needed. This week has been long and hard, like the fake stake a co-worker made for me out of cardboard box.

I am not terribly upset about the room, even though it was gorgeous, but more at the fact that the list of things I need to do in the next couple of months is stressing me out. I need a job, not because the bookstore is a bottomless pit of stupid questions and stupider customers, but because I can't afford to stay here without making the money to do so. And, because I am bright and smart. Right? Now, along with my never-ending job search, I have to find a place to live. It just seems all to much, I'd rather curl into a ball in a corner somewhere. A warm corner, but a corner nonetheless.

Yes, I am a person who rushes things. Yes, I expected my life to start the moment I walked across the stage with my diploma, but what my life is asking from me right now is a plan. And in all honesty I don't have one. I could apply to grad school again, and take the admissions process seriously this time. I could plunge into this job search thing hardcore (not that I haven't been doing that but..), I could run away to Maine or Spain or Costa Rica, which according to AOL.com I can fly to for $399. At this point I am not even wanting for my 'real life' to begin, I am not wanting everything to fall into place right now, I just want to feel like I am moving towards something, and that this wont suck forever. I don't even have faith in that.

But no more of that. My legs itch, my hair itches, and Cops is on. There is something about watching Cops that makes me feel a little better about my life. So yeah, I'm working minimum wage but I didn't just sell crack to an undercover cop. A lot of people featured on Cops can't say that now can they.

...

No word about the room yet. My stomach hurts. At this point I have been praying to every god and saint there is about this place. It's just that good and I want it that bad.



I couldn't even concentrate at the internship today. I kept envisioning the apartment and the room, and the huge bed that could be mine. I am worried that she thinks I am too young (because there is an ordnance about guest. That being NO OVERNIGHT GUEST) and that I will have wild parties in the apartment when the children aren't there (I did mention that the apartment is a daycare center in the morning. Right?) I am worried that she didn't see that I was and am completely in love with that place and the space and the peace of mind it offers.



Dear god don't fail me now. I tried to get my mind off of the apartment situation from time to time. This was made incredibly easy today because I had to edit a very explicit romance novel. Apparently Highlanders are freaky lovers and if I ever happen to run into one, remind me to protect my 'little passion pearl". I swear to bob, that is the exactly phrase used in the manuscript. Passion Pearl.


Me and the Janitor had a falling out last week. I think he was embarrassed about confiding in me about the cat situation so he ignored me for the whole week. As if I wold rub it in his face that he was sad and needed someone to talk too. Boys are weird. Because of this any day dreams at the internship have come to a halt. But today, via the help of passion pearls and fit Highlanders, he popped in my head briefly. If I am learning anything from this internships, it's that romance is a weird genre where the sex scenes are so dramatic and fanciful you can't help but get lost in them.

I need to get lost for a while. Just for a little while. If it takes my mind off of more important real life issues.

I sent an email to my potential landlord, stressing the fact that I am madly deeply in love with the apartment and I am willing to pay the deposit now to secure the room. I don't play around when it comes to things I want. I hope, I hope, I hope I get this place. I don't even mind that I can't bring Highlanders back to my apartment for overnight slumber parties. I just want to be in that apartment, with the bay window, and the old wooden doors, and the nice light.

Fingers crossed.

*Postscript* The landlord said she choose a tenant closer to Carrie's age (the other lady living there who is in her early 60's). Age discrimination much! So someone a lot older got my dream apartment. Does New York hate me or what?

*Please, don't go. I'll eat you up, I love you so

It's Monday. I don't know how Monday came by so fast. Between Thursday and today I:

Looked at the worst room in the whole entire world, had a security guard at work steal two cellphones and a Ipod, looked at another room which I am madly deeply in love with, and I think I am coming down with bronchitis. Yes bronchitis.

My mom thinks I continue to stay sick because of stress. I think she has a point. My body is just betraying me. Where I try emotionally to fake the happiness in my life, my body has other plans. I am weak, tired and hanging on with as much strength as I can.

The closet that I saw on Saturday (calling it a room is giving it to much credit) was horrible. I have never been apartment hunting before but I don't believe landlords should have access to my banking account number. I don't know. It was weird. He was weird. And I feared that long after I moved out of that hellhole, pictures of me changing in my room would be plastered on the Internet.

But I am a little desperate. So yeah I still have a couple of more weeks before my aunt officially gives me the boot, but I want to take it upon myself to be out of her house before then. I have something to prove to her, I have something to prove to myself, and I really don't want to hear her having sex anymore.

I won't say much about the place I saw today because I don't want to jinx it. But I am madly deeply in love. It's a house located near my aunts old place, and during the day it is a daycare center. After four though I would have the place to myself (along with one other tenant who I met today). There is a lot of light, a bay window, hardwood floors, and skeleton keys to open the old wood door to what would be my massive size room. It has charm, and good vibes, and I want it, I want it, I want it. I've said to much already.

I hate being an adult. I hate that I went from being a kid to a teenager to an adult before I had a chance to take it all in. I realized this adultness before I went to see the place. I was standing in the living room, getting ready for work, and contemplating if I should call that Dave guy back about the room. Suddenly it struck me that i am 23, and I wonder where all the time went. Wasn't I just complaining about college, and high school, and junior high. Wasn't I just crushing on a boy named Nicholas and going to parties at skating rinks. Wasn't I, wasn't I, wasn't I not in this place where I am having to make decisions for myself and not just any decisions ones that will work for me and my life.

I don't like all the aspects of being an adult. I do wish someone could do all this adult shit for me, I wouldn't mind taking a back seat to that. I wouldn't mind it at all.

Time for bed. I spent the last 2 hours sitting around in my Halloween costume. I am dressing up this year as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 1 to be exact). I got the idea from the episode where she tries out for the cheer leading squad only to run into a witch who is taking out the competition via some evil curses. Season 1 is so different from the rest because Buffy is sort of a pain in the ass. She's not even close to accepting her fate as The Chosen One, she wants to fit in, and she vacillates between duty and personal identity. I love that she is this Valley girlisque figure who hasn't quite come into her destiny yet. She still just wants to be a girl, a cheerleader at that, for normalcy despite the fact that the weight of the world is on her shoulder.

So I bought a real cheer leading outfit from some website and my co-worker is making me a stake (with a dull tip) to personalize that outfit. It's going to be fun to be someone else for a while, even if it's just for a couple of hours at work.

*Where the Wild Things Are:Beautiful

Sometimes It Ain't Beautiful and it Hurts...Bad

My god, I think I am dying. My throat hurts, my back hurts, and I think I lost my lung somewhere in Connecticut. Jesus Christ maybe it is the Swine Flu, a girl has never felt so bad in her whole entire life. Enough of the dramatics. I have taken a very nice pill, which will put me to sleep in about an hour. So here goes.

The aunt situation sucks majorly! When I went home for six weeks I knew it would be a hard to convince my aunt to stay with her again. You'd have to be in the family to understand the screwed up aspects of it. Outside of my brother, mom, and dad my distant family is not really that close. We call each other when someone dies and send out Christmas cards if we don't forget. I have come to accept this. I have come to accept that I will have a family of friends way before I have a family, of well, family. But this move out date that my aunt has imposed on me feels like a betrayal or worse, a personal attack.

When I moved here, I think she thought she was going to get a buddy. That she would have a niece who would hang out with her all the time, and listen to her bullshit like I had nothing else to do. Quickly I started to see the cracks in the way my aunt has carried herself all these years. I always thought she was the cool one, the street savvy, pretty popular aunt who lets who eat pizza for dinner every night. But what I didn't know was that she is an irresponsible excuse of a person who keeps no food in her house, does not pay any of her bills on time, and who has sex with a married man every Monday afternoon, despite the fact that i am in the living room trying to drown out of the noise of smacking (i may need to take Sex Ed over again, because I still do not understand why I heard that sound).

The truth (or particles of it) is that with me here she can no longer hide under the pretense of her life. She can't tell people she has it all together when she literally doesn't. I hate that she called my mom, instead of just coming to me and asking me how the job hunt/ apartment hunt was going. It would have been a passive aggressive way of doing it, but it would have been a lot better than calling my mom and telling her that she is giving me until the end of December. Yes, I planned on leaving in December anyway. Yes, this puts more fire under my ass to get myself (and money) together in order to stay in New York. But I now know that I don't have the support from a family member, my mothers sister, and I can't help but feel betrayed.

Soon after my mom told me about what my aunt said I saw a listing online for a furnished room, literally a block away. It's in a nice neighborhood and I wouldn't have to worry about not having a place to stay come December. I was suppose to check out the digs tonight but fate intercepted and the bus from Stamford to Westchester broke down. I called the Realtor and told him that I would have to reschedule, so now I am seeing the place on Saturday at 1:30. I have to be at work at noon, so hopefully my manager will let me take a weird break or I can stay a little longer to make up for my weird schedule. Some how I think telling them that my aunt is kicking me out of her apartment and I need to find a place to live or I can no longer work at the bookstore will sway them.

This week has been hard, and me being sick (very sick) is not helping. Last week I took a day off from the internship, and I did feel better. But the weather went from 70 degrees to 40 overnight, and the healthy feeling has been replaced with a fever, sniffles, congestion, and my body aches. I didn't know a body could ache that bad until I was sitting on the bus today and I felt like passing out. I may have even done the head tilt forward as the bus threw my body about. I bought medicine last week, but I have no idea where it is today.

Having cancelled on the Realtor (Dave) I was able to drag myself to target and stock up on drugs. Lots of pretty legal drugs. I need to feel better, I feel like I am heading into battle and I cant be coughing away as I slay down the obstacles. I am a lot more calm than I thought I would be. Yes my aunt is a bitch (I have called her every name in the book this last week including but not limited to: Mother Fucker, Douche Bag, Son of A Bitch, Evil Whore, and recently Cunt. But for some reason that one still sounds weird coming out of my mouth).

Outside of this blog I do not talk about my personal life. I mean people at work like me, because I appear to have no problems. I don't bring my bad days to the job, I try to make everyone feel good, and I don't bitch (even when I want to). This doesn't mean that i do not want to do all of these things, but I physically don't know how. I am much more of a listener than anything else, and I silently scream my problems from the inside hoping someone will take notice of the moments when I am not smiling, and when I am completely torn up about something. After learning of the news on Monday, I went to work feeling bad. But no one could tell, because I was personable and smiling and trying to be okay, for them, for me...for me.

But then I saw the janitor and I felt this need to have someone listen to me for once. For someone to ask how i was doing so I could spill the truth. I wanted that person to be him, maybe because I am attracted to his nice muscles, and he was wearing a blue sweater that almost made the uterus drop to the floor again. Whatever the case when I saw him, I wanted to talk, or more importantly I wanted someone to listen to what I had to say.

But The Janitor, proving that he may be a attention loving whore (who looks great in royal blue!) had his own problems he wanted to discuss, which I listened to for a good long time. His cat was hit by a car on Sunday, and he didn't want to come in on Monday but he didn't want to stay at home and have to deal with it. Apparently he loves animals so much that he looked almost distraught talking about the incident. It's not that I didn't care (because I do/did) but as I was standing there imaging him in that blue sweater and the muscles hidden underneath them, I couldn't help but wish that I had someone to listen to me. Even if for a moment.

At 23, it is something that I need, especially as I begin to develop relationships with people. Especially as I figure out a crap load of things about myself, and these weird things called needs/wants that make life a little easier. I need an apartment, I need a entry level career, I need this all to work out so that in the future I can look back on these times and laugh, instead of cry. But first I need to get some rest, I seriously think I'm dying. I hope this medication works.

Not Dead...

...Just very sick. Very very sick. I don't know why New York continues to treat me like crap. The moment I thought I was feeling better was quickly replaced with immense sickness. Swine Flu maybe?

I have a lot to talk about. The aunt thing, the janitor thing, the new guy I've been training thing. They are all very important things that need my self analyzation. But this sickness is killing me, and I don't seem to be getting better, and I think my aunt took the 7 dollar medication I bought. Fun times.

Tomorrow a real post. I am checking out a very small (small) studio tomorrow, which may be my future home. Tomorrow I promise. Now time to pass out.

every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end

I have no foreseeable break in sight. Other than my sort of lovely sick day (the being sick part put a damper in that) October is going to be a busy month. Busy.

There is conflict brewing at my aunt's house and I have been issued an eviction date. Let me explain. I was never close to this aunt growing up. When we all lived in the yellow house during my youth, I always seemed to annoy her. I am sort of tomboy (though Marie disagrees with this) in the family. I was never into looking pretty or frilly. I simply liked playing outside with the boys. It was my thing. She on the other hand, loves appearances and having the latest trendsetting item (despite lacking the funds for this extravagant life).

When I asked to come stay with her a year ago it was under the assumption that I would get a job right, find an apartment and be on my merry way. Unfortunately that didn't happen, and I have quietly been living in her house ever since. Outside of living under her roof, I support myself fully. I buy my own food, clean up after myself, use my own Internet service and phone, and I make sure that she lives her life the way she would live it if I weren't here. But my presence annoys my aunt. With me being here she can no longer pretend that she is living a life of luxury. The truth is worse. There is never any food in the house, the phone/cable/Internet is rarely on and when it is, it is under some one else's name (like Kelly. My aunt's name is not Kelly!). She is also having an affair with a married man, who I have the unfortunate pleasure of hearing from her bedroom during the odd afternoons when we are both home together.

Life is sweet.

I witness (and hear) every thing that goes on in this house, and I think this makes her uncomfortable to the point where she wants me out. She hasn't said this to my face, but yesterday she called my mom and asked her when I planned on leaving. This threw my mom for a loop because my aunt hasn't talked to my mom in a year. They have always had a touch and go relationship and it has been on the outs for the last two years. They talked for less then 5 minutes and then my aunt added "well, I'll give her to the end of December" before they both hung up the phone. Smack in the face. I planned on getting my own place by the end of December anyway, but I have a problem with being 'evicted' in a sense. I work 7 days a week. 5 full days at the bookstore, 2 full days at the internship. I am either never home when she is here, or I do not get home until 8pm. By then she is already in bed and Michelle is running wild.

So hearing that our living 'arrangement' is a bother for her, is not only devastating but it pisses me off. Because it's not as if I am just lounging around at her house, it's not as if I wasn't planning on moving out anyway, it's that she threatens to put a halt to my whole New York experience. And though I bitch and complain about...well everything, but mainly that nothing seems to be happening for me here, I do have a life I like here. I don't want to live in South Carolina anymore. I mean I love the south. I love the trees and the sky, and the small town living. I like not having to wear shoes outside, and sometimes my heart patters when I see a pick up truck, but realistically getting a job down there in production or publishing doesn't leave me a lot of options. And I like it here, the difference that I feel in myself here is intoxicating and for now, I couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

This sucks majorly. So I now have an official expiration date. I will no longer have a place to live at the end of this year, which is a couple of weeks away. All at once I am bombarded with the new changes in my life. I am anxious about the paid internship I applied for, along with the handful of other positions I have applied for. I am anxious about this boy that I like, even though I know it is wrong and complicated (don't worry I will continue to crush but that's as far as it can goes). I am anxious, a little scared and pump full of adrenaline.

I don't know if my life is falling apart, or simply falling into place but either way a change is a coming whether I like it or not, and I must prepare myself. I seem to keep repeating to myself these days "i am managing" "i am managing", that's all I can do at this point.

The Line Begins to Blur

It's raining outside. Hardcore, and I would have walked home in the rain but the janitor asked me if I needed a ride home and I couldn't turn the offer down. I still feel a little bit like shit, despite the fact that I woke up without the achy stuffy feeling. When I got to work, I started to feel down again and I struggled to make it through the night. Luckily the manager-on-duty, wanted to get out of the store as much as the rest of us did and by the end of the night we had about a half hour of cleaning to do.

Now... the janitor asked me if I wanted a ride home as soon as I came into the store (around 5). I protested at first but then relented because a) a free ride home is a free ride home and b) I've decided to let this crush thing go which means I have to learn how to be be friendly without taking things the wrong way. Around 10 however, he asked if I still wanted a ride home ( or rather, "am i still taking you home"). My first thought was that he offered me the ride prematurely and forgot that he had something else to do after work or someone else to pick up (like the gf). Before he could explain the reasons for not being able to drive me home, I gave him an out "it's ok, I don't mind walking if you have other plans". Being a nice guy he said that wasn't it, but that he would also be taking another Co-worker and co-workers gf (and former cafe chick) home.

I don't do well in crowds. Even as small as four. So anxiety isn't ruling my life, as much, but I am still apprehensive in crowds. I do not mind being judged by one person. I can take the critiques one at a time, but in a crowd I feel judged by a million eyes. I wonder what they think about me and if I am living up to their expectations, and instead of failing them in some way (or worse; not turning out to be the person they thought I was) I crawl into myself, like a turtle.

AND...I am not a huge fan of cafe chick, because she is ultra beautiful with her tall self and exotic name who also happens to be dating the co-worker who looks like a gothic version of Johnny Deep. She is very food conscious and constantly critiqued my cafe choices along with my pension for all things sweet. This is not a thing to go all ape shit about, but I have never really jelled with her and all of a sudden I was going to be in a car with her and her boyfriend plus the janitor guy. I knew what was going to happen. I would be insequential and uninteresting among these three people who have a history. I would be the one walking a few steps behind, wondering if they even remembered that I was there.

And of course. That is exactly what happened. I should have walked home. At least I would have had Marie (and the rain) to keep me company. I sort of just faded into the back, like I always do in these situations. I listened to the janitor and cafe girl talk about some party they were both attending with a kid name Jon, I heard them all laugh about some show I've never seen on Adult Swim, and I was present during the kinship they felt for one another as I wished that I was anywhere else. The ran poured down, and I didn't want it to stop. I didn't care that my shoes would further be ruined by the puddles that I stepped in, or that my hair would look like shit when I got home. I wanted it to rain, I wanted the sound of the drops hitting the ground to drown out the pounding of my heart, and the subtle cracking of my being. I wanted the drops to wash me away.

I hate that I am like this. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Tonight anyway. I hate that, even though he has a girlfriend I still want to be so interesting he doesn't care that the other broad is there to schmooze and talk with. I hate that I can't function when there are too many people to account for. I hate that I can't breathe, even though I know how. I hate relying on the rain to blur the tears on my face when it becomes to much to handle.

Late night rambling. I'll probably delete this post in the morning. Ignore that it ever existed.

Sick Day

I am not feeling too hot. Whatever bug I caught on Tuesday has not gone away and took a day off from my internship to rest. I haven't had a sick day in so long I almost forget how good it feels.



I had too options when I started to feel like shit a couple of days ago. Take a sick day from my low paying (but paying) job at the bookstore or take a sick day from my non-paying internship. It takes me almost two hours to travel to the internship and of course two hours back, and at the end of the day I decided missing one day at the boring internship wouldn't hurt anyone. I hope.



My brother and I use to fact illness all the time when we were young. Not because we were unruly rugrats (okay, a little) but mainly because there is something so bad about it that borders on fun. Yes, I really do feel like shit. My throat hurts, my head is pounding, and I am achy, very achy. But it doesn't mean I didn't feel weird having a day off. I haven't had a day off in about 3 weeks. During the performance review, the manager told me that she was increasing my hours so I could become better trained in more areas. Because of this, I have had amazing hours at the bookstore but no days off.

I think I am exhausted above all else and a little worn down. But have no fear, my Sick Day was a semi success. So I still feel shit (seriously, can you die from a cold) but I went to the supermarket and bought some of my favorite treats, and spent the day sleeping and reading. I love the Supermarket. I love shopping for myself. It's the only adult thing I do these days. In school, I lived in dorms which pretty much meant I didn't cook at all. Now I am pretty much obsessed with the supermarket and trying out different flavors. So far I only know how to make chicken but that's one more dish that I know how to make.

It was nice having the morning to myself. It was nice just being able to make food and feed myself. I made the caramel apple bat treat, hoping that having fresh apples would make me feel better. It didn't, but now I have a nice dessert waiting for me in the refrigerator. I didn't get as much reading done as I wanted too. I have a crap load of books to read from the library and then one that a co-worker let me borrow. I love literary books. I don't think there are enough of them. Maybe it's because I am bomboarded with trashy romance submissions but I sort of miss books that don't appeal to everyone but has merit.

When I think about what kind of writer I want to be, I can't help but wanting to be a literary one. This guy at work, Josh, and I discussed this because he has no problem being a one hit wonder. He wants to write one really good novel and live off of that. But when I have to examine and think about the career I want for myself , I want to be a very literary writer which is why I am drawn to books with great plot and character development.

I haven't worked on anything in a while though. I still struggle with anxiety about my writing. I hit this unconquerable block that stops me from doing anything that resembles writing. I open the word document, stare at the page that I have filled with my characters voice and then promptly close the document. I planned on using this sick day to get some writing done, but instead I kept the computer closed and passed out to another episode of Real World/Road Rules challenge.

Must work on this. Have to figure out how to overcome this anxiety, must get better and healthy, must discontinue this crush on janitor (because it apparently it's not the wisest idea). Time to hit the bed, the meds are kicking in and I feel a little loopy.

Oh Boy!

The janitor drove me home last night. Why, Oh Why, oh Why!

I am not really feeling well today. The change in the weather is having a huge affect on me, and it doesn't help that I drank some nasty hot chocolate this morning from Dunkin Donuts. Because of this, my energy is hella low and I feel too sickly ickly to even write an entry.

But my crush on this guy has intensified, so I had to put down what I could. Last night I had a closing shift. Sean, the guy in question, was also closing. Closing sucks because when the doors are locked at 10pm we have another mandatory hour straightening up after customers. It sucks. Unless you have to catch a bus, you have to stay at the store until 11pm, and then we still have to leave as a group before dispersing in whatever direction we live. Sean lives in the Bronx, and on the nights I have closed with him he always leaves early to catch the bus or train home.

But last night he had his car, and because of this he wanted to know if I needed a ride home. I wanted to say no, my mouth even began to form the word but instead, after fumbling for some lame excuse, Yes came out of my mouth. I don't know why I regret saying Yes, maybe because I am starting to have a crush on a dude who has a girlfriend, maybe it's because I found out last night that he in fact a graduate student who does this job on the side because it pays well, not because he has an ambition to clean the women's bathroom for a living. We joked all the way to his car, where he surprised me with a bag of skittles he bought for me out of the vending machine ('only because you gave me some of yours' earlier).

I cannot begin to like this guy, even though he played air guitar at the stop light while I followed suit with my air drum solo. I cannot like this guy even though he said I looked like I was into Classical Rock and that I was into authors like Truman Capote and Keroauc. I cannot like this guy, despite the fact that he likes literature even though he looks like a meat head (because of the muscles and all). I liked him on the drive home, away from everyone else where he complained about school and his dad. I liked him when he made a lame joke and then turned to me as if to confirm some suspicion about me with a smile. I liked him, I liked him a lot before remembering he has a girlfriend and all.He dropped me off at my aunts and waited until I was near the door before heading off, and I stayed outside for a while just to process my growing feelings about him.

Fuck. Everyone at work is very fond of Sean. Especially the girls, and I too have fallen under his trap. I know that he is just being a nice guy, and that we are just goofing off and establishing a very interesting 'budship' (new word) but I can't help but be a little smitten with him. Just a little. There's nothing wrong with that, right?

Must go to bed and get better. I hate being sick. Hate it.

What The Hell Sufjan

What happened to Sufjan Stevens? There are so many things wrong with this video. The fact that he is gripping the microphone like Christina Aguilera. The fact that the song is a little more pop than I like. And what the hell is up with that weird guitar/trumpet solo. Maybe it will grow on me, maybe I can come to like the backwards hat and lack of meaning in this song. But I don't think I like this new Sufjan stuff at all which is sort of a bummer if we are suppose to be getting married one of these days.

My night is officially ruined. Old Sufjan come back. I miss and love you.

Performance Review

I have been working at the bookstore for one whole year. Well a year and a few weeks. During that year, my progress as a bookseller has been documented for....the 2009 Bookseller Performance Review which I received today. Oh yeah! I get a .25 raise.

I cannot keep telling you how different I feel. I don't feel more like an adult, I don't feel entirely unlike the girl who started this journal 4 years ago. I feel exactly the same and yet altered. This year has been incredibly rough. I graduated thinking that I would land my dream job in publishing, that the path would be an easy one, that I would have everything together (in my little angst ridden way) but that was not the case.

The death of my nephew a year ago has been harder than I thought. He was just a year old, and by all accounts he was a being not yet developed, but it doesn't make his death any easier to handle. I had no time to grieve for the nephew I will never get to know, I had no chance to experience his life with him, to see him become someone more than just a baby. Some months after his death my mom told me that she couldn't look at herself in the mirror anymore. That she would pass mirrors without even glancing in it, because she wasn't prepared to face herself after the tragedy. She wasn't able to look at herself and realize that she was no longer a grandmother, that she no longer has a grandson to buy books for, and clothes for and all the other little things grandma like to do. She didn't know who would be staring back at her if she caught herself off guard one day in the mirror, when she wasn't trying to keep it together. When she wasn't trying to be all composed. I didn't admit it then, but I too was having (and still have) the same problem.

I am completely aware of who I am, I feel myself get sad, happy, depressed, and comfortable but I have not been able to look in the mirror for a very long time, for a whole year in fact. When I brush my teeth, ruffle my hair, wash my hands I avoid eye contact with the person ready to stare back at me. I don't know what it is, I don't know what I expect to see but I am not ready for it. I still cry on the walk home some days. If it's late outside, and I am the only one on the street, tears start falling. I whisper to a god I don't particularly believe in (all the time) and I cry for my mom for not having a grandson anymore, I cry for my brother for not having a son, and sometimes I cry for him. For not being alive anymore, for not being able to get to know us as much as I didn't know I wanted to know him.

And maybe that's why I don't like starring into mirrors anymore. Because I know what I will see, I know that I will not be able to hide from myself as much as I can hide from everyone else.

This inability to physically face myself is weird because in the year that I have been here, including my gig at the bookstore and at the production job, the year that I have made and lost friends, everyone keeps complementing me on things like my personality, youthfulness, and face. This has been the year of Performance Reviews, where I am getting high marks all around and yet....I do not see it.

During the review my manager sat me in the office and went over a two page performance report. Most of it was generic stuff, but on the second page she had to write up a summary about me. In it she called me 'outgoing and bubbly" and that my personality was contagious. She added that customers and fellow booksellers LOVE ME and that it was a pleasure to have me on the staff. After she read what she had to write up she wanted to tell me that they really do enjoy me being there. That no one has a bad thing to say about me, and that I brighten up people's day. This was coming from the manager I have not felt like I've completely gotten to know. She is a hard ass and sometimes can be a bitch, and I don't particularly talk to her a lot. But she was so sincere telling me all of this stuff and I could feel myself wanting to cry again, because I don't know who that girl is. I don't know who she was talking about because I haven't faced that girl in a long time. I mean i am that girl, in every way shape or form but I don't see her (maybe because I am not looking into the mirror to do so), I don't feel her, I don't know who she is.

I want to come to terms with myself, I want to come to terms with Danny's death, I want to fully accept who I am so I can stop hiding from myself and stop giving myself a bad performance review when everyone else says I am doing okay. Maybe I am.

I think of this only, because a couple of months I sort of fell for a guy. Not in the art boy kind of way. I feel like I must reiterate this because my crush on art boy was fanciful at best. I mean I was, as I often am, madly deeply in love with him. He was cute, dorky, and a goalie. He was approachable, though I never approached him, and he was above all very nice. But for some reason I could never get past starring at him from a distance. I never had a full conversation with him that lasted longer than five minutes. From a distance I admired him while he sort of new of my existence.

And then when I started working for Lenny, I met that IT Guy, the one who talked me off of that freezing roof, the one who bought me a donut the second time I met him because I forgot my money in my jacket upstairs, and I kept talking about wanting to eat something sweet. The first day I met him, I hated his guts. He was sort of hard to read and he brushed me off as if I was just a seat filler. But soon after the roof incident, we had a common thing to talk about. He worked in the office some days and when he would we'd spend hours talking and this is not an exaggeration. While I have been unable to 'see' myself in a very long time, I felt completely comfortable around him. I did not stumble over words like I did with Art boy, I did not find myself lacking words to say like I did with Music Boy, and I didn't feel like an ugly duckling like I have around...well every boy.

But I haven't looked at myself in the mirror for a while. I do not see the loss of a few extra pounds that everyone points out, I do not see the nice color of my eyes, or the brightness of my smile. I am not aware of the person I am changing into, or the physical changes that should not make me feel awkward and self conscious anymore. I am coming into myself, though I am the only one not noticing this right off that back.

Anytime IT Guy was in the office he would make it a point to stop by my desk and talk to me. He'd come off the elevator, put his stuff away and then stay with me in the hallway until he was pulled away to answer a computer question from someone on the floor. He always initiated the conversations, while I'd sit nervously wondering why he wanted to talk to me, but I realize now that he wanted to know who I was, he wanted to listen to what I said (well as much as any boy can listen to a girl talk), and I think he dug me. And towards the end of the internship I started to dig him back, seriously.

There was one day, when no one was in the office except Lenny, IT Guy and I. Lenny was editing some footage in his office and IT GUY (whose name is Simon, yes I was called him Adam for the sake of privacy but now I don't have to worry about him or anyone from there stumbling across my dear journal) and I convened in the lobby. For three hours we talked about everything, inches away from each others face. I don't know how it happened, how we had gone with sitting across from each other legs crossed and spaced to heads almost touching, deep in conversation, eye contact locked in some weird understanding of each other. I have never felt like that before, like he was starring at me and seeing this person he enjoyed being around. And we were just at the point where he was telling me about his dad (because every guy I have ever liked always has some issue with their dad. I don't know why) , that he [Simon] was beat up a few years back by some kids in Harlem. He was walking down the street with his ex-girlfriend and when he passed this teenagers on the street he knew something was wrong. The next moment he was attacked from behind, knocked to the ground and beaten up while his girlfriend watched from the side (of course he had to tell me that he got in at least one punch that landed. One is better than none)

His dad is a doctor. So after the incident he went to him, not for medical reasons, but just to vent about the incident. His father, was unsympathetic, sort of nonchalant and distance as he's always been. It was then, listening to this story wondering why a boy like that would be confining in a girl like me. A girl who can't even look herself in the mirror, a girl who has skated on performing functions that resemble a human being but who sometimes wonder if the facade will hold up, that I felt okay. I mean our faces were so close yet entirely comfortable, I could smell his body spray, and feel his leg against mine, and I felt interesting for once, I realized how okay I felt in front of someone again (something I have not felt in a long time), and it was then that we both realized that if we just leaned in a little closer....

And then Lenny walked into the fucking lobby. We pulled away like two kids with their hand in the candy jar. Lenny just wanted to tell me that I could leave early because there was no sense me staying late on a holiday (Good Friday I think). I quickly said goodbye to Simon, and got on the elevator and crashed against the door. It was then that I could sort of see my image, distorted a little, in the steel doors and I wondered then like, I wonder now (after almost kissing a boy. A boy who is actually 32 ) if I am 'performing' this life well, if the face and person I present to the world is someone I could be proud of, if it's someone that I will end up liking as much as everyone else seems to.

And the moment I am able to look at myself in the mirror again, will be the moment I hope it all makes sense. When I start to feel whole again when I can give myself high marks suitable for a hefty raise.

Easy Tiger.

I've been inspired by this phrase all week. Seriously.

This week has been a step up from last. No old guy (with a stank wife) yelled at me, the cable has been turned back on (we'll see how long that last), I bought the 1st season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and my spirits have been lifted from the deepest of lows that struck last week.

I must admit, I have never been one to wait for things to come my way. I am very impatient. Not outwardly of course. I don't mind waiting in a long line for a pack of gum, I'm never in a huge rush to get any where important, I daydream while I walk down the street, I take my time in grocery stores, and I take forever to make decisions. Patience is almost my middle name.For the most part I am even tempered, mellow, a nice ripple in the sea. But this doesn't mean that I can't get restless sometimes. This doesn't mean that I'm not impulsive or ready for the next big thing to happen. In fact, in that regards, I am very impatient internally. I don't know what I want, but I know that when I get it I will be thinking of something else to grab on to.

The people who I trust dear, are use to this aspect of my personality. They often have to reel me back in from my quest to do everything, see everything, touch everything within my vicinity. I have heard the phrase 'slow down' more times than I would like to count, and Easy Tiger has not been far from that sentiment either.

This week, in between working, interning and sending out that important application, I tried to remember how to breathe. It's sort of an important and hard thing to do all at once. There is a reason why that Sylvia Plath quote (the one about the tree branches) remains my favorite line of all time from a book. I mean in an ideal world and planet I would be able to fulfill every living quest, venture, and passion I have ever set out to do but because it is impossible I get anxious about making sure to do as much as I can because I have eventually I will have to 'settle' down one of these days and pick something I want to do for the rest of my life, pick this person I want to be an present to the world. This is very hard to do.

There are just too many options. There are just too many paths I see myself on and none of them have converged into this perfect point, or meeting place. So sometimes I need to slow down, reel myself in, and remember to take it Easy Tiger (both my Chinese zodiac sign and the name of Ryan Adams awesome album). This week has been good because of that.

I have been too busy lately to even worry about the state of my life. The suckassness of September is gone replaced with the chilly but beautiful days of October. I am getting my Little Red Riding Hood outfit early to avoid last years problem. I will also be waiting anxiously for word about my very important application! I have a month or so left at the romance publishing internship, and I am learning a lot about the world of publishing. 1) that everyone believes they are writers 2) they most likely are not and 3) working at a place where I review romance submissions is messing with my dreams. Let me explain briefly.

As you may or may not know, I daydream. A Lot. I am probably daydreaming right now as I type this well known fact. My daydreams are influenced by a handful of things, the season, my mood, reading gross stories every Tuesday and Thursday. A part of my 'job' at the publishing house is to read manuscripts submitted by unagented and agented writers. As a writer myself, I have become a Little discouraged by the amount of people I run into who proclaim they are writers. I'd like to think that I am a good writer, that my words make sense on some level, that I have a somewhat unique voice. But in New York every corner you turn you run smack into a person penning the next best American novel, while I type away at my small Peru story (hey, I'm working on it).

Working in romance is worse than working in regular literary fiction. Romance itself is a cheesy genre. I mean even when I was really into the genre, I could not help but laugh at the absurdity of some of the situations. Of course, the ones I read where put through the arduous process of publication which involves debating whether rough sex is acceptable for romance readers. I don't know the answer to that question yet. The ones I read, were the cream of the crop of romance submissions. Of course, interning at a publishing house I rarely get to read the best romance submissions out there. I have to read the ones that a Kindergarten teacher penned on the weekends, or ones where the writer adds a picture of her and her pets with her manuscript. Of course, I then have to read the portions of the manuscript sent and needless to say I am over throbbing members. So over them, they have become flaccid members limp in disgust.

Reading all of this trash can be very boring, and because of this I drift off at my desk influenced by them. There is this new janitor at work ( me and these damn janitors) that I've quickly become friends with. He is way different than the creepy janitor formely known as my first real date. Sean, is my age, has a very dry sense of humor which I find funny, and is just cool to be around. We sneak each other food during our shift and sometimes he will come into the kids department and keep me company. He is a nice guy, with a girlfriend, but we are charting the friend territory. Unfortunately, what I was unaware of is that under the ugly janitor he is forced to wear at work is the body of a...gym buff. Not in that gross terminator way but in that I 'like to work outside a lot, and because of this my arms are firm and nice and I have abs' way.

I only discovered this when he stopped into kids to say goodbye, after a long day of straightening up the store and dismantling some shelves. I was putting away a book when I heard his voice and when I turned around he was wearing a shirtless sleeve and jeans. Before I could say 'see you later' i looked down to see well toned arms glistening with sweat, I think. It could have been my imagination. I am known to have a good one, but before me he was transformed into this Adonis, and Adonis who almost made me drop the kids books. I quickly averted my ass, regained some sense of composure and said goodbye. I don't think he noticed. I hope to god he didn't.

I am embarrassed to be writing this down. There is a point I swear, but for some reason ( after the glistening, firm arms incident) while I was daydreaming the other day I had a very disturbing daydream about him. I mean very disturbing. We were on a farm, and it was very hot and then all of a sudden he was chopping wood (because people chop wood in the summer) and there were muscles rippling and such. Before I could let the daydream progress I had to pull myself away before anyone could see the shamed look on my face or the embarrassment. The next day he was at work, and I was weird and awkward around him like the tramp that my mind made me out to be.

This publishing house is corrupting me. I use to be such a innocent girl until I step into that office. Now I spend my off time, dreaming up steamy scenes of a boy who has a girlfriend. What has happened to me. I am convinced though that if lame stories about Highlanders seducing poor young maidens can get published then someone somewhere will find an interest in my story, even if there aren't throbbing members and heaving bosoms, even if there aren't vampires and werewolves, I feel good about this story.

Time to catch up on my TV shows. I have a month of network shows to get acquainted with. After dateline of course.