christmas 2010 in the can

Christmas is over! And I am bummed.

I am not 100% bummed. I mean, I love Christmas. I’m an atheist that loves Santa and all things Christmas (except Jesus, obviously) and spent most of my adolescence wishing I was Jewish, so I am a big fan of the winter holidays. But Christmas was basically a bust this year.

I ate some food and got some presents and had some good times, but I never felt the wintery-Christmas-sparkle and then BAM it was over. Lame. And it happens EVERY YEAR and yet every year I am surprised. Two thumbs, not so good with learning, etc etc.

Anyway, whatever, here’s some disjointed bullshit:

I am nothing if not really good at doing the same shit everyone else is doing!

But it’s SPACE, you guys. I would take a space flight even if they GUARANTEED that I would die on reentry. I mean, SPACE, guys. SPACE. Sending my name up is a pretty okay facsimile of space-travel-importance. It’s at least as good as going all the way through astronaut training and then not making the final launch team. BASICALLY. Self-aggrandizement is my 2k11 resolution numero uno.

 

A bunch of people are using their new Facebook ~photostream~ to express friendly/jovial sentiments. Or that thing where they break their face into pieces. I am not into either of those things.

 

Dyed my hair right before Thanksgiving and heard, “You look like a mermaid” three different times. I felt distinctly cartoonish and it took me three days to figure out that I was reminding myself of Sailor Neptune. Yeeeeeeeah! I think I have seen one half of one Sailor Moon episode in my entire life, but whatever, whatever, I DO WHAT I WANT.

 

Favorite new picture of my favorite person on the earth. She is getting peed on by a tree.

 

I have a couple of funny/interesting/whatever things to say that I have scribbled down in a notebook, but I am not feeling the focus to turn them into full-fledged words. Mostly all I am interested in right now is laying in bed and sleeping and not having to do anything except stay in blankets. I am like Scrooge McDuck if instead of swan-diving into a vault of coins, it was just a great big pile of dogs and blankets and he never surfaced for air.


(I would like to point out that this atrocious font is called “Thug” and 1. That’s racist 2. That’s stupid, and 3. I had to mouse-draw the plus and equal signs because they were just dots in the font. Like, wtf, thugs can’t math? Thugs need not plus and equal signs? RACIST, FONT, RACIST.)

 

I will, however, briefly talk about how “This Time of the Year” by Brooke Benton and “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys are great Christmas songs that INFURIATE me because “Christmas always comes this time of the year” and “Christmas comes this time of year” are the two most idiotic lyrics to ever occur in holiday music. NO SHIT IT ALWAYS HAPPENS AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR THAT IS WHEN CHRISTMAS HAPPENS. Christmas has been happening for like MANY YEARS NOW and for most of those it has been happening on December 25th. I THINK WE GOT THAT SHIT ON LOCK, SONGWRITERS. Sort it out.

Anyway:

Merry Belated Whatever-The-Fuck! Merry Past-Tense Ballsmas!


on eve 6 and the enormity of the universe

I have most of my brilliant ideas/thoughts/words/sentences in the two most inconvenient places for someone who has a memory terrible enough that if she has three thoughts in her head she has to write them down IMMEDIATELY because the instant a fourth one pops into existence one of those three turds of brilliance will be GONE FOREVER: the car and the shower.

Like, I am a good driver and all, but I am not good enough to just knock off some detailed notes in the middle of the 210 freeway while I am driving 85 miles an hour on my way to my afternoon class that I almost overslept. (It’s an evening class, if I’m honest, but I’m not, so…) Generally, I unlock my phone, fumble around blindly trying to remember which god damn page (folder now, THANKS STEVE JOBS!) I put the voice recorder on/in (OH I NEVER USE THAT, LET’S HIDE IT) while trying not to crash the car AND keep track of whatever idea prompted the suicide recording mission in the first place. IT NEVER GOES WELL.

Having a brilliant idea in the shower is like suddenly having to shit while you’re in there. You either admit defeat and get out, sit down on the toilet soaking wet and get toilet paper stuck all over your damp ass (writing equivalent: finding a notebook and pen while running naked through the house, then dripping all over it) or you finish the shower and shit when you’re done, basically defeating the entire purpose of the fucking shower (writing: lose the thought somewhere between getting shampoo in your eyes and accidentally douching with Dial). There is no in between, but 90% of the time I opt for the naked sprint. The other 10% of the time I just convince myself that the idea was fucking stupid anyway and should immediately be forgotten.

I also get excessively emotional in these two places way more often than should be even remotely possible. Like, sometimes I’m just showering and it’s a pleasant enough experience and I am suddenly like, “DAMN, no one is ever going to hire me for even a menial position after I’ve invested all this money and time into getting my MFA. GOD DAMN I FUCKED UP.” and then I start crying a lot and it’s gross and basically looks like one of those awful post-regrettable-sexual-experience scenes in bad movies. Not cute.

my actual real life

ACTUAL REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE.

And then in the car it’s always because I am all wrapped up in some bullshit song like “The Ice Is Getting Thinner” by Death Cab for Cutie (BULLSHIT SONG) or like, “Twilight” or “Miss Misery” by Elliott Smith which is so cliché it’s EMBARRASSING.

But then one time I was twenty years old and driving home from college for the weekend and I was REALLY INTO LED ZEPPELIN at the time and I was jamming and then “Stairway to Heaven” came on and look, okay, this is my mom’s FAVORITE SONG OF ALL TIME since she was like… sixteen or some shit and I grew up hearing it ALL THE TIME and I know that someday when my mom dies she wants this god damn song played at her FUNERAL she loves it that much, but I had this moment where it was like I heard it for the first time and I started SOBBING UNCONTROLLABLY and there was snot and it was so bad I had to pull to the side of the freeway and have a panic attack.

I BET I LOOKED WAY WORSE

I WAS THIS FUCKING MOVED OKAY.

And that’s some serious bullshit! No one should ever cry at Led Zeppelin unless Zeppelin IV was playing while you watched your entire family murdered. It’s just unacceptable.

So whatever, anyway, my car and my shower are basically my two most important creative outlets and I spend a lot of time thinking in those places and sometimes some brilliant shit comes from it like some of my favorite lines/moments from the in-progress first novel and the idea for the second novel which I am not even allowed to think about until the first one is done and a couple of pretty boss academic papers and a poem or two and a short story and a lot of really great music mixes… and whatever.

I think about a lot of stuff while I am occupied by menial, ordinary tasks. THAT’S HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN WORKS. And it’s probably one of the only normal ways in which my short-circuited mass of brain cells does work.

So anyway, I’ve been like this for my whole life, essentially, and at some point (I think in college, but this revelation has become so much a part of me that I can’t even remember when it happened. It was like realizing my body breathes without me telling to do it!) I was in the shower and I was washing my hair and I was like, “DANG, someone in the world’s favorite band is Eve 6! That shit is crazy!”

I know that doesn’t seem like a big deal and it’s not even really interesting and it was a fucking long road to sow to get to this point and it’s a weak point, I admit, but COME ON. There is someone out there in the world who is REALLY into Eve 6. There are probably multiple people who, when asked “What kind of music are you into?” actually say, “Well, I listen to everything, but my favorite band is Eve 6.”

I think it really boils down to like, the world is SO FUCKING BIG and there are SO MANY PEOPLE LIVING IN IT, that SOMEWHERE OUT THERE is a person whose FAVORITE BAND IN THAT GIANT WORLD is EVE 6.

How is your mind not blown right now?

Bob Dylan or the Beatles or the Ramones or Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber or Elliott Smith or Tom Waits or Black Eyed Peas or the Black Keys I can accept, but somehow EVE 6 is the one that blows my mind.

My in-depth research for this post (lurking this message board, basically) I even found the one thing that could further blow my mind.

dedicationAN EVE 6 TATTOO.

This dude HAD an Eve 6 tattoo, possibly one that he got when they were marginally popular on modern rock stations in 1998 and then he got a great big angry jester tattoo many years later in a place that would allow for a PERFECT COVER-UP of that Eve 6 tattoo, but instead, his love for Eve 6 is still so strong that he instead incorporated it into his new piece. That’s love, guys.

FOR REAL, in the world RIGHT NOW in 2010 there are people walking around in the world with Eve 6 ephemera indelibly inked into their human meat! There are enough people to keep an Eve 6 internet message board semi-active! THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO FREELY AND PROUDLY ADMIT THAT EVE 6 IS THEIR FAVORITE BAND IN THE WHOLE WORLD! STILL! NOW! IN 2010!

Anyway, I am NOT mocking these people. Korn was my favorite band for like eight years. And, had my parents let me have my way, I would have an ugly, faded reminder of that fandom somewhere on my back to mock me EVERY SINGLE DAY OF MY LIFE.

NO REALLY UGH

Ugh, I am so glad I will only have been a teenager once.

So, seriously, not mocking, it is just mind-breaking to me in the way that the size of the universe and the infinity of space is.

Anyway, FINALLY, I would just like to point out:

“I would swallow my pride, I would choke on the rinds, but the lack thereof would leave me empty inside. Swallow my doubt, turn it inside out, find nothing but faith in nothing. Want to put my tender heart in a blender, watch it spin around to a beautiful oblivion. Rendezvous then I’m through with you.”

Lyrics to Eve 6’s “Inside Out”. The song which launched them to temporary stardom in the late spring of 1998. All typed straight from my memory. The same shitty memory that cannot keep track of birthdates, the locations of my keys or wallet, more than three thoughts at the same time, or whether or not I put on deodorant before I left the house.

They must’ve done something right.