Sunday, August 21, 2011

once.

I've been searching for an essay I wrote, in my final semester of college, with a sweet artsy ditsy professor. My very first essay was entitled "TO MY GODDAMN SELF." When I turned it in I covered up part of the title with one of those sticky flag notes so I wouldn't shock her. The title, I explained in another (larger) sticky note, just didn't work without it.
I can't find the essay on my computer (I save a lot of things, even from classes I failed, even freewrites I'm almost ashamed to look over now- not that my writing got much better, because I didn't try), or on my one memory stick. The memory stick DOES have some interesting old things, like things I  wrote about patriotism when I was studying abroad for the first time and the semester before that. There's also a picture entitled "sad blonde kid"- I'm glad the title made me laugh, because I did a TERRIBLE job in that Microbiology presentation. Mostly because I didn't know how much BETTER everyone else would do about it.

And I found old AIM conversations I had saved. I deleted a lot of them. A few were with people I once cared really deeply for, and some were with a man that I realize I cared for, but only when it was convenient, and with hesitations, and with no promises or commitment which is why it didn't last. But it was wonderful at the time, because we both only existed in snowglobes of time- suspended- no huge outside influence- just shake and replay and reflect on what once was. And smile. And put that memory back on a shelf, to remember again someday when you're older and lonelier (which is every passing day).

It struck me today that I am somebody's old flame. In fact I am probably a lot of flames and several flings. I am now something labeled dismissively when the "current squeeze" might ask about a picture or an old text saved on a computer's hard drive and not looked at for years. We were young once. Younger. Younger still. I'm burnt ashes and leftover soot, throwaway. But once, I was a fire, consuming, a light in the darkness.

feeling my age.

Lately I don't think I've really been feeling like myself. Which is strange, again, because whenever I really start wonder about how I "feel": about life, love, where my life is headed, what I am doing right now, etc: I usually conclude that I just don't feel much of anything.
The other day, just before going to work (all my form applications sent out online haven't scored me a job yet, but I remain hopeful), I was feeling very "twentysomething". Not particularly some kind of quarter-life crisis where I decide everything I've ever done wasn't really me. Just started wondering why I didn't see my friends more, if they didn't hang out with me, if it's just a change from college and walking down the hall (and really, did I even do that very often in college?) to actually having to spend money to go see somebody. Then I starting thinking how tired I already was about everyone I knew. Everything being said was inane, all this complaining about problems that aren't really problems was just a sneaky way of affirming how much better/wiser/more naive/more innocent/more special/more artsy/more whatever-the-hell you are. But what did I have to complain about? My rent? Which would sound like a sneaky way of saying "my problems are so much more grown up and REAL than yours are, because money is involved.".
So I'm just not winning it this weekend.
At work, though, as much as it blows (it's kind of like having any other job where you shake people's hands, only as a busser, it's kind of like they spit in their hand first, and then shook), I felt a lot better because I can distract myself with actually WORKING and doing something and not sitting around in my lonely house feeling sorry for myself and awkward about the world. All drive and no direction.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

A new month and ending summer.

A lot has been happening recently! Some good, some bad. My mother came to visit me, with a bunch of her friends, that was pretty hectic. The day after, I got fired from my job at the bakery. It wasn't at all undeserved, but looking back on my performance overall I also have a greater appreciation for a job where the boss is really a boss and protocol is established and followed. It's unfortunate that I lost a job that was so convenient to walk to, but my days were getting really unreliable- the last week I worked there I only worked three days, and my paychecks were less than half of what I had been expecting to make. Back to the job hunt for me.
The next week my mom came to see me again, which wasn't really planned, but it was a nice visit and I got to stock my fridge. I got cai leuk- also known as balut, these are eggs that have been fertilized and have a small bird-fetus in them. I know a lot of people find them gross, but I hardly eat the fetus AND I don't see how it's different from eating any other animal. Before we bred chickens to make unfertilized eggs, this is what eggs were- naturally, this is how eggs ARE. I find breeding a chicken to make a sterile egg- much more unnatural and strange. You've turned a normal chicken into a machine that births a foodstuff only for you to eat.
I liked having my mom around and hearing people speak Thai and Lao, and I met some really nice friends of her friends that I hope to see more often and spend more time with. However my patience was wearing pretty thin and my house was feeling pretty small by the time she was about to leave. I probably won't see her for another several months to a year, and I'm sure I'll miss her all over again then.
Dan's birthday just happened and we had a nice dinner at the restaurant where I work! It was quite fancy. Then we spent a day together relaxing before I had to go to work. I worked a forty-person party!
I have work again today and I'm scheduled all by myself.