The Daily Durvy

Sometimes, usually when I start to think about my impending graduation from college or my preferred life path that leads me to teaching a screaming room of 6th graders how to read critically, I want to be a professional blogger/writer/published author/badass.

I mostly aspire to the badass part of that profession.

The problem is that I don’t think I have the chops to make it in such a competitve industry, and the first thing a life coach will tell you is that you have to believe in yourself. So really, I have fucked myself before I have even started.

It’s not that I am trying to sabotage myself per se, it’s more that I just have a negative self image of myself. And by negative I mean like horrible, bad, Hitler-negative. I mean, it a combination of not knowing what I want out of life and not seeing a therapist. I also stopped taking my meds, a decision that has been both fantastic and wonderful and horrible and insane. I’m not sure if I’m feeling better, but I don’t feel numb anymore either. I hated not feeling – I couldn’t feel when people physically touched me, and I couldn’t feel when I was sad or happy or alone. This is better in some ways, but unbearable in others.

I want to write here, in this imagined space – I love writing and I love people reading my thoughts, but I feel so horribly inadequate at the same time. I feel like my thoughts aren’t worth the time of day for the people who know me best – so why would anyone (strangers no less) want to read about them? Why do my thoughts and observations deserve an audience?

So for now, I’m not going to answer that question. I’m not going to feel bad if I don’t want to write here one day, because this is for me and no one else at this point. If that is different in the future, than my desire to write here will also change. Right now I’m going to let this be a space where I work through what I am thinking about – even if what I’m thinking about isn’t funny or witty or lovely or politically correct. I don’t have to write poetry and high prose to be a writer. And even though my self-image is shit, that doesn’t mean my writing is. My writing is what it is, independent of what other people (including myself) think about it. Regardless of my audience size or quality I am going to write. I am going to write about what I’m thinking about, without the strain of trying to impress or measure up.

I spend all of my time and energy trying to get people to like me, and I try to meet to a standard set so high that I crash and burn every time I reach for that perfection that I demand of myself. Maybe, just fucking maybe, I don’t need to set the bar so high for this one little area. I don’t need to impress anyone because no one is listening right now anyway. I can still try (and fail) to be perfect in other areas of my life, but I don’t need to be perfect here. At least for now, I can free myself from the constraints of perfection in my written life and let myself cry metaphorically, and save my anguish for my failed attempts at physical and spiritual perfection in my “real” life.

I can let my apartment stay messy, I can hate my hair for not staying perfectly poufed and teased, I can loathe my waist for not being 28 inches around and I can black out my mirrors in mourning when I don’t learn a new skill on they first try, but I’m going to let my writing suck. I’m going to be okay with the fact that I don’t write on my blog every day, like I wanted. Just this once, I’m not going to beat myself up for my utter lack of perfection in this one area. Just this once.

Hard.

On the plus side, I think I saw a crack whore today while I was at the drugstore getting more post-it notes.

Christmas is upon us.

This is a statement not predicated on the time of year or specific date. Rather, I say that Christmas is upon us because my favorite radio station has started playing nothing but Christmas music. Thank goodness, I was starting to worry that Christmas would never officially come due to a critical shortage of Christmas music airtime on oldies radio stations. Whew. I’m so glad that is not going to happen.

(Because apparently, there is a shortage of pumpkin this year, so many were thinking about canceling the Holidays. Apparently, there was a series of Unfortunate Events and Floods that resulted in a low pumpkin harvest, which means LESS CANNED PUMPKIN. Let’s all remember that PRE-MASHED CANNED PUMPKIN is a key ingredient in pumpkin pie. It was on the Sacramento news and everything. HOW CAN SACRAMENTO HAVE CHRISTMAS WITHOUT PUMPKIN PIE?)

(Answer: It can’t.)

(There seemed to be plenty of pumpkins when I was paying $10 for one to carve up for Halloween. I’m just sayin’)

Whenever I hear Christmas music on the radio, I always flash to that scene in Sleepless in Seattle where Meg Ryan is in the car singing along to “Jingle Bells.” I hold that scene as the standard of what singing along to holiday music should be like: ridiculous and alone in a 1990 Honda. Meg is horribly off-tune and off-beat and I try to emulate her exact tone whenever possible… “Horses… horses… HORSES!” I suggest running out and watching that movie immediately.

When I worked at a home for developmentally disabled adults, we listed to Christmas music year round. Sadly, I did not get tired of it, and at times it was better than endless John Denver CDs. And it was WORLDS better than Sharon, Lois and Bram-style kid’s music.

I look forward to this time of year from about January 3rd of each year, and the closer Thanksgiving gets the more excited I become. I will admit that I am a sentimental person, and this time of year was designed for saps like myself. And I buy into it – why not? Life is just a little bit happier around this time, and the music a little worse. I’ll take it.

On Friday, Alex and I decided that we needed to go to the Apple Store. His phone wouldn’t respond to his touch (that’s what she said) and my computer would randomly close any program that I was running (that’s not what she said). What she started as a quick trip with Alex turned into me, Alex, and two of his frat brothers. The conversation in the car was about the merits of “douche nozzle” as an insult. I have to say, it is a much better insult than “douche bag.” What is so bad about being a bag? But I digress.

We made appointments with the Genius Bar for 5:00 and 5:15, and figured we could leave at 4:30 and get there in plenty of time. We are obviously stupid, because 30 or 45 minutes to get from DAVIS TO SACRAMENTO is obviously not enough time. This is not LA, it should not take more minutes than miles to get somewhere. Sacramento Arden Mall is about 23 miles away. It should take about 23 minutes to get to the mall. That’s called logic, unless you’re in LA. Then logic states something 23 miles away will take you 23000 minutes to get there, or about 16 days.

We were obviously late, so we had to go on the standby list. Have you ever been on the standby list for the Apple Store Genius Bar? I’m still on the Standby list. I could actually go 23 miles in LA before I would get helped on the Standby list.

About 40 minutes into our stay at the Apple Store, one of Alex’s bros suggests we go to Hooters for dinner. Which is obviously more classy than trashy, which is right up my alley, so I was totally happy.

Maybe it’s because in LA even the waitresses at regular restaurants look like young Cindy Crawfords except blonde, but I was not really impressed with the girls at this particular Hooters. I mean, they were cute, and they had big boobs, but they were just meh. Is that mean? Is that like calling a stripper flat-chested? Like calling a Hollywood starlet old? Like telling your old sorority sisters that you resent that you spent so much money trying to be their friend?

After all of that fun, Alex and I got home and, like the old farty couple that we are, we sat on our couch and watched The Office DVDs and lit our fireplace-scented candle and ate the last of our jelly beans. Because we don’t have a fireplace and we were really low on desserts. And when we ran out of soda we decided to go to bed. Because staying up is just no fun without Diet Dr. Pepper. LITTLE LIFE LESSONS, PEOPLE.

There is really nothing that makes me happier than nudity. Seriously, I like being naked, I like when other people are naked and I like seeing other people naked. I don’t know why this is such a ridiculous notion, but I usually keep this particular fact to myself because most people think it’s weird.

Anyway, nudity. I was watching Jimmy Falon and they were talking about the Italian Saturday Night Live. Apparently, in Italy, if the skit isn’t funny they just cut to a crazy-hot naked woman dancing. That is an excellent idea, because at least there is something going on.

(If you can’t tell, I’m also not a huge fan of Saturday Night Live. I’m sorry, it’s dumb. It used to be funny, sort of. Now SNL is actually the absence of funny.)

Why is nudity not allowed on television? Do we really have sticks so far up our butts that boobs make us uncomfortable? Is it the word? I mean, “boob” is pretty awkward. Or, if we look at shows like Gossip Girl, boobs are not allowed but skirts short enough to show Blair’s hooha are. Awesome guys.

Do you like my use of “hooha” as a substitute for “vagina?” My freshman year of college one of my roommates called her vagina her “koorah.” She was from Sacramento and we LA girls thought that was the cutest thing ever. So we made our 6-person suite into a sorority: Kappa Delta Koorah. We considered applying for a school charter, but we got drunk instead.