virulent.nu

I AM GOING TO SEE THIS MOVIE ELEVEN BILLIONTEEN TIMES.

Directed by Brad Bird! Voices of Patton Oswald, Ian Holmes, Janeane Garofalo, and Will Arnett!

In addition to spending the majority of my time pants-less (weather), I’ve been doing some neat things. Sometimes it is karaoke at the gay bar, sometimes it is a twelve dollar metal show, sometimes I get dates because of public transportation.

I have never been to a legitimate metal show. That being said, I did not know that legitimate metal shows were full of fifteen year old boys. Those that were older fell under an Am I Indie or Not? query that remained unanswerable.

Tight pants? Yes.
Small T-shirt? Yes.
On the fringes of a mosh pit? No!

The sub-cultural laden attire of women is inconsequential. I am Indie as Fuck by comarison. I should mention that I look completely different now - I hacked of my hair, lost a few pounds, and replaced my glasses with contacts. My wardrobe would suggest I am trying. Think of an indie rock Posh Spice without the boob job, nose job, apparent Spice Girls reunion tour, plus the requisite post-modern irony (something which is leading me to the suburbs tomorrow night to see a cover band called Bon Journey).

I suppose my appreciation for the headlining band, Chariot, is not ironic, because you should see their BEARDS and the sound will destroy your UNIVERSE.

I wish I could say I’ve been getting lots of valuable work done while on summer vacation. I am supposed to be working on a scientific paper for publication, working on poetry since I will be doing a large, well-publicized reading at the Carnegie Library in the fall, and planning lessons for sixth graders on the virtues of non-traditional poetry. Instead I am just rotting my brain with Netflix and drinking beer. I would say that there is virtue in this, however, because the less light that passes through a beer the more I like it. Also there are several nature documentaries to enlighten and enthrall.

I’m still boring the crap out of myself writing this.

I met a guy on the bus a week or so ago, reunited by myspace, with plans for what may be an actual date instead of the usual “I know you and we’re drunk, so let’s make out.”

There must be a way to quickly balance out my unwavering desire for solitude, rejection of intimacy, and need for entertainment.

I think the answer is five dollars worth of Erotic Photo Hunt down the street.

I made this nearly-elaborate cardboard rat playground, but then I realized that I don’t have any tape.

I also don’t have a dustpan, a pair of scissors, or any vacuum cleaner bags.

When I pay twelve bucks for a concert, I do not expect my head-bobbing experience to be limited by the gaseous omissions from someone else’s inconsiderate ass.

The National attracts a pretty boring crowd, and that is OK, but I do not expect to be farted on for dancing. At the first whiff I thought well, maybe this guy has a digestive problem. After the third or fourth incident of this sulfur-mine construction, I figured that this had to be intentional so I flicked him off a bunch from behind the speaker because, well, sometimes passive aggressive behavior is all we have in public.

The site linked makes me wonder if there is any kind of note that is not inherently passive aggressive. If this is the case, then, text messages may be considered a kind of note. We know where this is going.

More importantly, I need a breathalyzer cell phone, because while I am not a regretful person, I do wonder from time to time how last weekend would have been different if I was not permitted to text message.

Would I still have worn a sombrero and a gigantic poncho and hid behind a bush as the cops rolled by? Yes. Would I have still jumped into the bush? Yes. Would I understand heart rate or breathing the same way? Maybe not.

Summer makes me feel like I have never been lonely before.

Apparently I am now sending out deep, cosmic links throughout the United States which has caused not one, but several old boyfriends or boyfriend-type friend-things to contact me within the last 72 hours.

I have not determined whether this is chemical or electrically based, but it involves mainly text.

It is great to hear from these kinds of people because it allows you to play a nostalgia game of What Was I Drinking that Year of High School (Mad dog!) or Did We Make out on the Side of my Mother’s House? (sorry, mom!)

Which then leads to: oh Jesus, how many people did I suck face with in high school? (more than your mom)

While this may result in back-pedaling in a decade, I do not wish to marry. On my part, this decision is rooted in the very problematic nature of marriage as a cultural axiom which upholds unfair power dynamics, that I am surrounded by poor models of heteronormative commitment (which is often independent of the people involved), and there are legitimate benefits to simply having a domestic partnership. You can also clearly raise children and have a family without being married.

Here is a list of famous people involved in marriage alternatives. Must they be famous because to validate this behavior? Well, no, but there is a substantial lack of single female role models (except my mom!) Media make them appear goofy (Bridget Jones) or falsely empowered (Sex & the City). I also question the movie Elizabeth which suggests that the Queen receives the preface of “Virgin” after a failed love affair with one of the Finnes.

Am I simply over-compensating because I am single? Am I trying to justify my recent life decisions? Unlikely. I feel happy, well-adjusted, and have stopped second guessing myself. One of my well-traveled, more articulate friends said something like: well, if you put as much time into your friendships and family as you would in a romantic relationship, your life will be pretty successful.

Especially if these friends and family like beer, perogies, Saturdays that last until Sundays on stoops, art & concerts, watching drunk teenagers face plant on downtown concrete, turning over trashcans, kid’s movies, things I yell at strangers after a bar crawl, and rodents.

For all the years my father has pretended to be a blind skiier, acted mentally retarded in public during my pre-teen years, and continues to give me poor, unsolicited career advice for the sake of annoying me, he does show the occasional moment of human weakness.

After a deserving-only-because-I-am-his-daughter trip to Cost-Co, we took a brief trip to a tiny neighborhood called Duck Hollow, where my dad freaked out local residents by backing his SUV into a telephone pole. The tire casing pushed through the shell of the hatch back, but there were no scratches. This is important because unless you’reattentive, you can’tnotice the misaligned tire case or how the skin of the car looks like it was halfway hole punched.

In voicemail: Jacquelyn, [my stepmother] hasn’t noticed the car yet. [hint of sarcasm] I am having a moral dilemma. Woe is me.

I consider this a personal victory, not because my dad is actually having a moral dilemma, but because I have hit a pole in most city neighborhoods, Duck Hollow excluded.

My father has also taken to shooting pidgeons in his backyard. My step-mother likes bird feeders and photographic birds about as much as I like beer, so the yard is something of an aviary. Pidgeons are not prefferable as they destroy the neighbor’s roofing, and since they complained, rather than take the bird feeders down my dad poses on a lawn chair with a pellet gun resting on his legs.

“You know, Jacquelyn, if you’re hungry I have two dead ones in a can over here. I don’t understand why you don’t wanna go to one of those MD/PhD programs… I mean, I know a guy who can get you in down at the University…”

Ad nauseum.

Also, man just walked into the bookstore with a fucking snake wrapped around his neck.

Why is it so easy to make fun of anarchists?

I feel like I should have a punch-line waiting.

In protesting the G8 summit, several local establishments have seen bricks flying through their window. Oddly enough, this has included a vegeterian coffee house in my neighborhood, on the street which borders between my neighborhood and “bad black” neighborhood. I mean, the place has delicious brunch, but apparently their “slow-moving white gentrification” deserves some weakly executed anarchy symbols and a bunch of broken glass.

I’m not sure how inconviencing some stoned baristas begins any constructive dialogue regarding climate change, global poverty, or AIDS.

Maybe these anarchists are against brunch and if this is the case, they better watch their fucking backs.

A few months ago this girl, maybe nineteen, asked for a copy of Ishmael. We didn’t have it, and she explained that she couldn’t find it anywhere. You can basically get a trade paperback copy of it in any retail bookstore. This prompted a moral assault, I don’t buy from corporations, which she repeated like a mantra.

I wanted to shake her and say, really quickly as I tend to do when excited: are you fucking daft, lady? All of those stupid books people overpay for at Chain Bookstore are the reasons why Bantam (owned by Random House!), the publisher of Ishmael, can afford to keep printing it.

I want people to take their anger and channel it into pulling up weeds for the parks conservancy.

The problem with not having any more Internet is having no way to spur of the moment write out to it. So I guess I will be working on this.

In the mean time, a list.

1. Once again I have started off the summer with a break-up. This is disturbing, but I am not sure if this is surprising.
2. Most calories come from beer.
3. 1&2 are related because really, who eats when this happens?
4. Have been contemplating the inherent passive-aggressiveness of interactions and paper.
5. Purchased rat toys.
6. They love so hard.
7. Will be preparing another paper for Impressive Science Publication status. By prepare I mean write and by write I mean fear. I will also be teaching sixth graders the wonders of non-traditional poetry in a month and a half.
8. Some calories come from cheese.
9. I should probably start getting into more underground graphic novel type things because made me cry at least seven times.
10. I am spending my weekend at a lake in upstate NY.