I’m sleep deprived and haven’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon when I had a glass of $4 champagne for lunch and a slice of cheese. I think now is a good time to write.
I’m not sure yet what I want to write about though. I’m recently unemployed and being unemployed has been ok so far. I am working out much more, getting outside more, it’s been nice. Also, I think being unemployed has helped my writing immensely. My sanity, I’m not so sure. The other day I laughed at my own Facebook status for a solid 5 minutes while sitting on my couch in my pajamas at 3 in the afternoon on a Thursday. And by pajamas, yes I do mean one of my soccer t shirts from when I was 9 and a pair of comfy shorts I have had for 10 years and the elastic no longer helps whatsoever in the effort to keep them above a PG 13 level on me. I think this experience has been good for me though. When you have this much time to just think and reflect you go deep within yourself and do a lot of self revision. I for one have discovered I do not like working. But I also do not like having no money. I think I just don’t like what I used to do for a living. If I was doing something I loved, that would be a different story of course. But the only two things I love are comedy and soccer. Although I am working out much more now that I have the time to, ever since I went on my champagne and cheese diet I am pretty sure I am just not in playing shape for soccer anymore. So that’s probably out. Hopefully comedy pans out. If not, I may need a new pair of comfy shorts to hang out in because these things just do not want to stay up.
My sister just called me and we got into a random series of conversations. One of which lead us to my computer illiterate family. So now I would like to take you down a little tangent with me. My sister and I are no computer geniuses, far from it. But we both have a pretty decent knowledge. When you look at my parents’ ability to understand technology it’s a wonder either of us are able to operate a window fan. They weren’t bad when we were younger. Mom and Dad seemed to have a good grasp on the home video player and the video recorder. We got a word processor when those were big, then a computer, it seemed like they were on top of it. It might just be because I was too young to see their severe illiteracy or maybe they actually were on top of their game back then. My Dad is tricky though you see. My Mom acknowledges she knows nothing about computers and is ok with it. When you put her in front of the computer she looks like she’s terrified of it. I also feel like she has watched too many 90’s sitcoms where people would hit one button and delete everything on the computer. That seems to be a fear of hers and as a result, every time she hits a button she cringes like it is about to explode. Her cell phone isn’t much better. Her voicemail message that she recorded for herself sounds like someone is holding a gun to her head forcing her to even have the thing in the first place. But at least she is not in denial. She admits it. My Dad, though gets tricky. He seems like he has a good grasp on things on the surface. But when you dig deeper you realize he is not much better off. When you get down to it he is still trying to figure out how to forward an email, but he spends hours on the computer at times. This is now, and will always be one of life’s great mysteries to me. I can’t understand what he does for hours when he in fact has no idea what he is doing on it. I’m fairly certain half the time is spent just staring at the screen trying to figure out what the glowing box is trying to say to him. I swear one day I am going to walk into the den at my parent’s house and see him pounding the computer monitor like a caveman grunting at it. I used the computer last time I was visiting home though, and man was it slow. So there is a good chance that’s just how long it takes him to post one of his responses to an article telling everyone what a jackass he thinks Rush Limbaugh is.
My Mom definitely gave me what I call “sitcom-idous”. It’s where I say things out loud that should be kept to myself, but I picture myself in a sitcom where it would be hilarious. When in fact when said in real life, will just make you look like a total jack ass. She doesn’t have that part of the syndrome, but she does have the part where she just gets herself into situations where you feel like it should be in a sitcom. Again, her technology skills playing a major role. My sister has tried convincing her that the DVR is not hard to operate, especially compared to the 1000 steps you had to go through on the old VCR’s to record and play back things which she always did just fine with. But she still won’t budge and insists she can’t do it. I think my sister finally believes her now though. They were watching Brothers and Sisters on the DVR one day when my sister had to go to the bathroom. She gave the remote to my Mom during the commercial and said you can just pause it when it comes back if I’m not back in time. Mom insisted she would screw it up, to which my sister laughed it off and said all you have to do is hit pause, you’ll be fine. When my sister came back my Mom was enthralled with the TV watching the screen intently. My sister sat down and looked up to see a black and white film of Eisenhower’s farewell speech that had aired on CSPAN 6 months ago. You really can’t make that stuff up. Of all things she could have done, she put on the most random opposite thing from what they were watching. She really out did herself. She could have just stopped it instead of pausing it, or hit fast forward by mistake, but no…she pulled out the big guns and somehow got an Eisenhower special on. Sitcom-idous at its finest my friends. My sister just asked my Mom what happened to which my Mom didn’t have much to say. She was obviously still shell shocked by the series of events which lead her to this program when her only instructions were to hit pause. We still don’t know what happened that day, but one this was clear; Mom could no longer be trusted with the DVR.
Tangent: complete. New tangent: begin.
I am beginning to get anxious to get a new place. I have already been here for 6 months. For a commit-aphobe like me that is basically a life time. I’m surprised I haven’t started breaking out in rashes yet. To start, I am 99% sure I live next to nocturnal deaf mutes who have the need to move furniture every night at 2 am. I never heard voices, just furniture sliding around and being moved all over the place. I feel like I’m one Mexican riding a forklift around away from living at an Ikea warehouse. Next, I am female and Caucasian and quite obviously the minority here. One of the only other white people I have met at my apartment has been the token drunk 50 year old woman who always smells of stale Newports and cheap whiskey and says things…wait, no yells things like “everyone wears tennis shoes!” for no apparent reason at me in the elevator. I fear if I stay here much longer that is my future. It has a community laundry room which I am always scared to go to. I have only lived one other place that had a shared laundry room. All of my other places had ones in the unit or the house. Community laundry creeps me out in general but it’s all made much worse by the eerie maintenance lady who always seems to be there, but never seems to be doing anything. She mainly stands in the corner fumbling with her keys and acting like she is getting cleaning supplies from the closet while staring at you out of the corner of her eye. Speaking of laundry mats too, you know what bugs me about a lot of movies? I don’t know where they get this stuff in movies where people meet and fall in love in a laundry mat. How many times has that happened in movies and TV? All the time! Two young, attractive, clean, sane singles meet at the laundry mat, and they flirt and talk and then end up dating and falling in love. No! That doesn’t happen. Anyone I have ever met at a community laundry facility either makes me want to shower in bleach immediately after or they scare me to the point that I avoid it all together and end up wearing my back up “last possible option” 12 year old Space Jam t-shirt when I go out because that is all I have left of clean laundry. If I ever fall in love at a laundry mat, kill me.
Well, I think that might be it for me right now. I always feel so cleansed after writing aimlessly. It’s like a spiritual experience. Or maybe it’s just me feeling light headed since I haven’t eaten since my slice of cheese yesterday. I felt very French, very European while doing it. You know Champagne and cheese on a nice Wednesday afternoon, so classy. But then I remembered it was $4.95 Champagne from Rite Aid and a Kraft single, the wrapper of which was stuck to the bottom of my thigh for most of the day which I didn’t realize. Life is good.
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