Well, When Exactly Do You Mean? 7/30/04

When things feel a bit sad and shabby in my own life, fresh perspective is needed. Luckily, this morning I read a personals ad written by a woman about some man she saw on a subway train FOUR YEARS AGO. Why did this strike me so soundly as utterly pathetic? Is it because I am so desperately in need of a shot in the arm myself that I actually derive some senseless superiority from this desperate display? Maybe. Yeesh. I walked up to a fella just last week and introduced myself�and I don�t think he�s going to be the love of my life or even a central character in it, but still. It�s always invigorating to invite possibility into an otherwise dull, uninspiring, rather silly existence. I can understand shyness (ahhg, Smiths lyrics pounding uncontrollably at back of skull) and self-loathing and lots of the nasties that one is capable of summoning to make ye olde ego wither and give the Elephant Man�s self-image a run for its money. No stranger to me to be sure. But to dwell on a stranger on a train for FOUR YEARS? They didn�t even talk! Yah, lady, yah!!!!

Some other things that I have found annoying lately are:

1) People have stopped giving you your change when it is just pennies. If you stand there waiting for it, you look cheap and desperate. These days, I am just that.

2) This Zach Braff movie �Garden State.� Do I love Zach Braff or hate him? Am I just being nitpicky about this movie because it has the same title as Rick Moody�s first novel that happens to hit any number of the same totally beaten down nails on the head: Yes, you can never go home again unless it is to N.J. and you have been taking too many prescription drugs and you have an ironic slant on the whole idea of self, of place, of future. Yawners. But I will go and see this and probably like it. Damn it.

3) Photos of Britney and her fianc�. At what point do we stop giving her the celebrity treatment? Or at what point do random photos of unattractive young couples from Anyplace, USA become scintillating? Either way.

4) The phrase �no pun intended.�

Some things from which I have derived some semblance of pleasure lately are:

1) Watching a guy play mad spoons to great raunchy honky-tonk on his wife�s ass at the last wedding I attended. I love me some spoons, I tell you.

2) Barak Obama. Teresa Heinz Kerry. Jimmy Carter! Good speechmaking in general. It�s been quite a while, folks. Plus do you think the new administration could find a place for Ben Affleck? They better! He is smart and dreamy! (yah, yah, uhg.)

3) Making out for hours like a high school kid on a summer night.

4) Free zucchini from other people�s gardens.

5) Gin.

6) Tonic.

7) Ice.

8) Lime.

Ok. I know this post blows. Lately I�ve just been working on keeping it all together. Or playing at keeping it all together. Sometimes I feel like I�m trying to solve a Rubik�s cube made out of Jell-O.