only too much is enough 08 019 2008

since we last spoke, grownup blog, some small happenings have happened. first, i cut bangs into my hair for the first time in years, i guess. i have thought of myself as having bangs since 2004, when i got an important haircut (it is pictured here grown out a little bit), but i have realized that having the shortest part of my hair falling longer than my chin is not really bangs. it is fake bangs. fangs. i was fooling myself. so, in spite of some justified apprehensions, and spurred in part by PANTS MOVIE: 2 — a film whose cinematic fortitude is greatly overshadowed by the lustrous beauty of each of the hairs on the ensemble cast’s head — i cut like five inches off my fangs and now am a legit part of the banged multitudes yet again.

additionally, i got a dog.

her name is josie pancakes and she sleeps most of the time and waking or sleeping she is a main source of joy in my life. what a beautiful baby!

on a different but probably more typical note, i fell asleep watching laguna beach last night and feeling a whole lot of feelings. i’m STRUGGLIN. i don’t know what it is but lately i’ve been feeling everything ultra-deeply, tiny things to big things, just getting really emotional about everything. i don’t know how to explain it. i don’t think it’s The Depression because man what a bummer that was and this is different, or at least some kind of milder and more comprehensive iteration of it. frankly i like not being medicated because the whole thing, however long it lasted (not that long) ended up weirding me out, but i don’t know if that’s the best decision, i guess. who can say. all i know is that i cried a little bit when my brothers left for college yesterday when i definitely didn’t cry when i moved out and went to college, i was overwhelmed with emotions about laguna beach — god damn — and when i accidentally saw a recent picture of someone who used to be real important to me (i guess that’s as vague as it gets!) i felt like i’d been punched in the stomach and really couldn’t breathe correctly for a little while. it’s not just bummer things, either, because i think that whenever i go outside i get so filled with contentment and relief about where i am and how beautiful and wonderful missouri is to me that it literally brings tears to my eyes. i think i’ve always been this way, but the amplification, however slight, is just a weird new thing and probably has a lot to do with me being at an Important Crossroads, et cetera — it just is like i have been given all these new things and i don’t have room for them yet but i think maybe i will soon. i also have had a lot of time on my hands recently and really miss my job, which thankfully starts back up again tomorrow.

anyway, my parents are out of town taking my brothers to school and so it’s just me and my sister until tomorrow night. i feel very grown up and housewifey and weird, getting up at 6am in order to take my sister to school, brewing coffee and sitting around watching morning tv, making sure the dogs are fed, making lists, eating shredded wheat (not even frosted shredded wheat — this is important) waiting for it to be 9am so i can run errands. i also took out the trash and realized the possibility that i have solved my pitbull’s tiny housetraining problem — she basically POOPS ON COMMAND now. outside! she is perfect.

modern guilt 08 012 2008

life is still bananas.

i feel like everyone is bummed out at me and like i’m making a lot of wrong choices. lately i’ve gotten a new job, given up the new job because it wasn’t what i wanted, went to chicago, planned interviews, ate a lot (a lot) of frozen custard and am now on a post-summer pre-semester break from my other job so i’ve got time to focus on things i didn’t think i would want to care about, ever. like lame artsy shit and making quilts. i didn’t realize it before, but quilts are like crazy puzzles that have to be organized in a beautiful way, and also you don’t have to make them boring or old ladyish at all. it’s kind of right up my alley and i didn’t even know it.

anyway — that shit is dumb. in other news, i feel like i’m being split in two and don’t know what to do about it. ha! a year ago i moved to north carolina and a year ago i never dreamed that a year from then i’d be where i am now. i still believe with everything in my still-beating heart that i am doing the right thing, but it’s hard to keep going on that kind of momentum when i still feel so secretly ashamed and bummed out about quitting & coming home. having panic attacks about what a lazy piece of shit i was for months and months at a time has not really trained me to make the best decisions for myself, and i am even now taking baby steps, all these hesitant stumbles in only sometimes-right directions because i am absolutely fucking terrified of being too selfish, too wrong, of giving up. it’s a weirdly bitter thing to realize, especially for me because i try so hard every day to be self-reliant and stand up to assholes who are making the world a worse place by being in it. case in point: giving up and quitting a job that i didn’t like, didn’t feel comfortable with, didn’t think matched at all with any of my professional ambitions, thinking my newboss was kind of a sexist weirdo, but feeling like total shit for it because what kind of idiot would quit a job after a week? me, that’s who. i can be a strong-minded, decisive woman who makes her choices absolutely in her best interest, but it doesn’t mean i’m responsible or happy all the time, and it’s hard. it’s a really fucking hard thing to balance.

tomorrow i am gonna: take my sister to the doctor, mail a package to galesburg, go to the fabric store (i know, right, seriously) and the boner store, apply for jobs with discretion, paint some shoes, look at how beautiful it is outside everywhere and not worry so goddamned much.