YOU NEVER ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING IF YOU DON'T HAVE A PLAN

1. Go to the gym tomorrow morning. I mean it, dude! Just get your ass outta bed and go to the gym. You don't even have to be at work early.

2. For god's sake don't drink when the parents go away! They are going to Europe for a while and all I am responsible for is not letting the cats die of hunger and also not burning the house down, things that seem like monumental feats of skill when my own terrible behavior is involved. So I gotta say it somewhere in order for it to be said at all: just be good for a coupla weeks, okay scout?

3. Eat some more vegetables, girl. I was doing a mental survey recently of delicious fast food items I might get for breakfast near my workplace when very hungry, and realized that no place that is open early enough to get to before work sells anything containing vegetables! Except maybe like tiny flecks of parsley in a 3000-calorie breakfast sandwich egg patty. Now don't get me wrong, I eat shitty food like it's my job, but maybe just mayyybe I should eat some more green things for a while and see if I feel less terrible.

4. Remember Christmas? I don't, not really, but I did lose a bunch of weight by being on my feet all the time and also not having a lot of time to eat and generally feeling like a nonhuman robot. Like one time when I was getting out of the shower I was like Hey, ribs! Haven't seen so many of you in a while! Say hi to the organs for me! Which is creepy and all, but I think I just felt more fit in general. Like, nobody needs to eat as many desserts as I eat, but self-denial is hard and also no fun. So for now let's just say more vegetables, and speak nothing of the cupcakes.

I want to unbutton my cuffs on this shirt because it is kind of manly -- being as it is a man's shirt, size small, notably but not grossly oversized -- but I feel like being all covered up with the buttons is a nice safety blanket. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get dressed in the morning. I am running out of things that are clean. I could do some laundry but there are just so many things, and I'd have to prioritize them, including bedsheets and the comforter which I made a mess of the other night, long story, and besides, every night when I get home I just want to go to sleep. Though usually I will watch TV for an hour or two before this occurs. And then I wake up at seven or whatever and I am kind of mad that it is morning already. I am not much suited to consciousness this week.

Catalog of Physical Maladies Sustained Friday:
1. bruise, left elbow, as if from a fall
2. bruise, right elbow, more abraded skin than subcutaneous bleeding, as if from a fall
3. bruise, bottom of right knee, as if from a fall forward
4. bruise, upper right hindquarter, as if from a fall backward
5. bruise, mid-right thigh, front, as if from running into something solid
6. sore throat, not burning/stinging from cold or cough but deep muscular ache as if from prolonged alcohol abuse

I read that somewhere, that is makes your throat hurt something fierce. Fun week! It is going well. I am going bowling later.

Hey I almost learned how to use the internet! Right there is the crudest youtube video I could manage. I love how I occasionally remember that I have a webcam, which seemed like such an expensive dream six years ago and now it's a piece of crap attached to my computer that I notice when I'm drunk.

But! Whatever, it's entertaining. Kelly, I'm working on that comic. Those comics. The Janis one, I still need to think about that but I like it. As a bag lady myself, I find that it hits a little too close to home... Updates to come.

I feel like L, who I almost knew in college, is like when Daphne du Maurier fell in love with Ellen Doubleday -- though Daphne was born to good station and high intellect, Ellen was just so got-damn classy as to be untouchable. (Also she was married.) I wonder if I could have lunch with L when I am in the city in May, and thence to the Cloisters, and then illicit relations.

Hmmm. I should, naturally, be asleep.

SOME COMPLETELY SUPERFICIAL THINGS I AM THANKFUL FOR LATELY

1. Last week I bought myself not one but six MAC eyeshadows. Sometimes when I drink I buy things on the internet; of all the drinking habits I have, I kind of enjoy this one. Sometimes I don't quite remember what it is, so when it arrives it feels like a present.
2. I read on facebook yesterday that Nicki Minaj is going to be on SNL later this month. Hey sassy!
3. These new jeans are almost obscenely tight. I want to wear them all week.
4. Just got some more perfume samples in the mail. One is an Etat Libre d'Orange scent inspired by Josephine Baker. I have no idea what that means.
5. The Gap must have some serious vanity-sizing going on, because these jeans are a size two. What! Am I back in middle school? Still, I'll take it.
6. I bought myself a ring yesterday. Had to get it resized and can't make it back that way until next week, or else I would be gazing into its fiery carnelian surface right now.
7. I made a bunch of cookies to send people, and then dragged my feet on the mailing for too long to keep them fresh, so now I am going to EAT ALL OF THEM MYSELF.

Okay, no, you can have some too.


WAIT WAIT -- MORE SHALLOW EXCITING THINGS: I FORGOT THE TEEVEE EDITION
8. The Real Housewives of New York City are back in February. Thank goodness.
9. RuPaul's Drag Race volume 3 comes back... sometime this month!
10. Also I just watched the first new episode of Californication. Something rappers and I have in common: loving that show. Carla Gugino is his lawyer! With any luck this will mean shirtlessness at some point. One only hopes. Am I right, Drake?

HEY YOU GUYS

Here is a list, only slightly behind the times! Called: Movies I watched in the year 2010. Anything really impressive in bold! Anything I really hated in italics.


Movies I Saw In a Theater 2010
1. It’s Complicated
2. Avatar
3. Daybreakers
4. Up in the Air
5. Crazy Heart
6. Das Weiße Band (The White Ribbon)
7. Shutter Island
8. She’s Out of My League
9. Alice in Wonderland (3-D)
10. The Runaways
11. The Ghost Writer
12. Robin Hood (2010)
13. Sex & the City II
14. Io Sono l’Amore (I Am Love)
15. The Kids Are All Right
16. Scott Pilgrim Versus the World
17. Machete
18. Easy A
19. The Town
20. Due Date



Movies I Saw at My House or Somebody Else’s House 2010:
1. Meatballs
2. Darby O’Gill and the Little People
3 The Hangover
4. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
5. Police, Adjective
6. Falling in Love
7. Harold and Maude
8. Das Schloß (The Castle)
9. Inglourious Basterds
10. District 9
11. The Hurt Locker
12. Benny’s Video
13. Young Man with a Horn
14. Fish Tank
15. The Last Picture Show
16. How to Marry a Millionaire
17. New York, I Love You
18. Bronson
19. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
20. Fame (the 2010 remake)
21. Blind Date (American remake of Theo van Gogh)
22. She-Devil
23. Boogie Woogie
24. The Jerk
25. Performance
26. The Wolfman (2010)
27. Paris Is Burning
28. Switch (1991, Blake Edwards)
29. Extract
30. The Oxford Murders
31. Like Stars on Earth (India)
32. Double Indemnity
33. Bringing Up Baby
34. Coffy
35. Caravaggio (Derek Jarman)
36. The Invention of Lying
37. Resident Evil (the original one)
38. Wild at Heart
39. Slumdog Millionaire
40. Donnie Brasco
41. Bigger Stronger Faster (documentary)
42. Blonde Venus
43. Get Him to the Greek
44. Zombieland (had already seen in theater)
45. Morocco
46. Grandma’s Boy (expunged of curses and fun by FX)
47. The Fabulous Baker Boys
48. Dog Day Afternoon
49. Wittgenstein (Derek Jarman)
50. The Crazies (2010 remake)
51. Zandy’s Bride
52. Dirty Harry
53. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish one)
54. Next Stop, Greenwich Village
55. Zombie Strippers
56. Rebecca (1940)
57. Boondock Saints

OH YES WE ARE DOING THIS RIGHT NOW

Books I read in 2010: Kind of in an order

1. Pale Fire, Vlad Nabokov
2. Tell Me, Kim Addonizio
3. Just Kids, Patti Smith
4. The Bedwetter, Sarah Silverman
5. Orion You Came and You TooK All My Marbles, Laura Henehan
6. Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, Danielle Evans
7. The Snail-Watcher and Other Stories, Patricia Highsmith
8. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
9. Lit, Mary karr
10. The Blunderer, Patricia Highsmith
11. The Fates Will Find Their Way, Hannah Pittard
12. Seven Days in the Art World, Sarah Thornton

Man I did not read so very many books this year! But just now I did 200 situps. Beat that, smarts for brains.

Hey hey, it's another Saturday morning, and naturally I am annoyed at the world. Not the world so much as the store. Have you ever noticed that an Australian accent is really unpleasant on a woman? Well, that's not nice, maybe there is just a crop of unpleasant Australian women around here. Come to think of it I have never noticed any Australian men around here at all. I guess I am so annoyed because there is really no one I can get to work from 9-10am with me on Saturdays, and my therapist was adamant that the management should not expect me to work alone -- a young woman! alone! -- I mean she was really incensed when I told her this, but there's not a lot to do about it I said, the front desk is expected to take care of its own so it's my job to resolve or not resolve. And the resolution is that there's nothing really to do, even though I should say B. just came in at twenty after, which was nice of him, to finish organizing the section out front which is an unholy mess right now. Ugh this store is so tiring. I had a dream that I came in early and as I went to the back door to open up there was H., useless H., blameless H., standing there with her stupid hair just waiting by the door and expecting me to put her back on the schedule for that day, and I knew I had to do it because she's family and besides, no one can say no around here to anything.

Tired. Head hurts. Sent a probably ill-advised email to several managers on opening about how I'd rather not work alone in the morning like this, then quickly got a phone call from one of them which revealed that someone else was in fact in the store. Oh well. I guess I should deal with my own.

My morning routine includes driving to work in a mounting state of panic and annoyance, arriving at the store, turning on the lights, setting out money in trays, then finally unlocking the door, which introduces a period of at least two solid hours of hate and resentment while dealing with customers. By 2pm I usually feel somewhat more hospitable toward my fellow person.

While on one hand I find my dislike of these environs perfectly reasonable, some other part of me knows that my brain likes to focus on that negative state, and that plenty of people are mildly but not hair-tearingly dissatisfied with their workaday lives. There must be a way to focus on the positive, or to at least not dwell painfully on the negative.

What gets me lately is how it took everybody so long to realize they couldn't work as much as they said they would. S2 I can understand, as she was just beginning to negotiate a new courseload at school with working more than three days a week, and perhaps I should have seen her cut-back coming and planned around it; S1 has no excuse in my mind, as six hours a week at the family business does not seem incredibly onerous to me no matter what your workload otherwise. Family business is the burden one must bear, and of course in a corresponding way I will have to deal with her when she drops out/changes her mind/has some spare time and wants back onto the schedule.

Whatever. Really my beef is I hate training new people. I wish we could just download a disc of information into their brains and I wouldn't have to tell them how to do stuff right, or feel bad about repeating things or telling them to change what they're doing, or notice only after I've hired them that they have an unpleasant bodily odor. Seriously, that wasn't there in the interview.

I hate to admit it but I am just perpetually in a bad mood these days. At least at times when I am at or near work, which is six days out of seven and doesn't look like changing soon. Remember because everybody waited so long to tell me they were dropping out of their shifts, so now I've hired somebody but not for enough time, and even if I were supported in the venture of hiring another person to fill in, I'm just so tired and annoyed with the whole hiring process from the last round that I hardly give a shit. Okay, I'll take the extra shifts, whatever. It's your store, bucko; I get paid the same hourly wage no matter what I do, so if this place goes down in flames, it's your pile of money, and I'll most likely be out in the parking lot smoking and wondering what they'll put up in the empty lot.

I would not be such a grumpus if every customer were as nice as that last guy I just talked to. I have a soft spot for people who go digging for change in their pockets and produce nothing but a well-used red cigarette lighter.

Jesus christ, I don't want to do all these jobs. I would love to just peace out of here right now. So now the boss says will I call the new hire and tell him he got the job and do all that business, which I guess is not so unreasonable, andy after all called me to offer me this job, but I don't want to, it's like one tiny part of the job that I wish they would not add to the heap. I don't want to think about logistics, I am just tired, somebody else do it.

I am prone to these fits of hysterical anger related to job stress. I would almost rather work every day myself than have to train new people and change circumstances.

Also I don't know exactly what it is, maybe my bourgie upbringing saddled me with the assumption that I would find something other than retail work to do after college, isn't that why I always told the therapist I didn't want to kill myself when they asked, because I was vaguely and optimistically interested in college and things after that? And I know intellectually that 1) this is a phase of work and the sheets will smooth out once you ruffle them; and 2) even if this isn't a phase, if this is all I will ever do (my god i hope not), the bourgie upbringing was lying to me, not everyone is destined for greatness, don't be so presumptuous that your brand is anything special.

Ugh I am just tired of standing here.

Did I tell you about my plan to get out next summer? I probably didn't tell anybody except my therapist and my cat or something, so of course you don't know. Thing is, I hate very nearly every single day here, just find it grinding and grating and disappointing -- in myself and the management and the behavior of customers -- and the idea of getting out is seriously the most exciting thing going on in my head for possibly several years. So. August 2011, get used to the sight'a my backside, or a cloud of dust, or an empty porch swing wheeling forlornly on the wraparound, because homegirl is outta here. Only ten months left. Ugh.

Man I hope no one actually reads this blog.

UGH.

Naturally I got here late, just at the crisp of 9:30 when we're supposed to open, despite having left the house at 8:15 which seemed like enough time. Not plenty of time mind you, had I really been trying and thinking about the welfare of the store like it was my goddamn useless baby I woulda left at 8, or even minutes before 8! Such is the devotion necessary to swaddling and keeping safe a crazy house such as this one.

UGH I HATE MY JOB.

The cleaning man who is nearly a thousand years old and very congenial but who I have of course soured to is very keen on saying "Should I open er up?" as he leaves in the morning after his weekly cleaning routine, meaning he is exiting through the front door and is kindly offering to unlock the outer door on my behalf; the only problem being that I am or Sarah is on occasion (most of the time) still setting out money in register trays or fixing pieces of paper in their proper places or god forbid mixing granules of sugar into a sour cup of coffee, and of course my weak protestations to this effect do not deter Cleaning Man Sam, he is just so excited at the prospect of unlocking a door on his very own and being The Guy Who Opens The Store that no gail forcewind will prevent him putting key to lock. I just want to punch that guy in the face. Go out the back door, old man.

And then, new contemplative paragraph, I feel bad being an asshole to the aged cleaning man, his adjective and noun being both factors in that feeling though perhaps moreso the noun as I don't want to be classist, sniffing at the actions of the help so to speak, but in truth we are all in some social subservient service work position here, and also sometimes you just don't like somebody regardless of their social position, so it is.

And I was and perhaps still am a hair's breadth from sending an annoyed and most likely annoying email to be upper-boss to the effect of "Make him stop doing that!!!!" but after all that is unwise I guess because didn't Upper Boss say a while back that part of this job is managing people, duh, and I oughta not be so uncomfortable with that? Didn't?

Ugh. If I were Geena Davis I would tell this job to suck my dick.

I wonder if I can just run the fuck out of here without anyone noticing.

1. People who shop at this store are annoying as shit. They can't find anything. I want a job where I don't have to talk to these assholes.

2. Admittedly I am not well today.

3. That does not change the fact that this job sucks. Apparently there is a study where thirty percent of people are going to leave their jobs when "the recession" "ends." It might be twenty years but I am leaving next July, you can bet on that.

It's like I have some kids, and they are disappointed in me.

Christ, the internet is confusing. You can follow me on twitter under the name seldomavailable. When I say "you" I mean about three people. Two of which already know all that. Good lord, what is the point.

You know what movie I really enjoyed? "Withnail & I." I am having a sneezing fit at the moment.

Orders of Business:

1. Not everything is my fault.

2. Fuck you, place where I work, I'm allowed to take two days off in a year when I worked all the extra days you asked me to, I came in on my day off after I had to take a fucking standardized test I didn't even want to tell you about, so I can apply to something else and get the hell out of dodge; I can take two days off to visit my best friend and not have to make up one of them on my day off, thus giving me a six-day work week coming up, the shittiest of fates. Oh, wait, I can't? Okay, sure, I guess I'll work that day, too. I don't care what fucking program I get into, I'm leaving you.

3. Diplomacy implores me to go back and take out some of those fucks, but, hmm, no, I think not. I'll take out those fucks when you learn that it's not beneath your other employees to operate a cash register, when you decide that maybe you could hire enough staff to cover for my TWO DAYS OFF oh no, that's asking too much, that's when I'll take out those fucks, that's when.

4. I'm gonna start writing poetry again, that was the only thing that made anything worthwhile. Kinda.

5. Seacrest out!

6. I might also have the flu. Still I'mma leave in all those fucks. Also I don't blame B. for any of this; he deserves days off too. I'm just saying, there are other people in the world, and maybe some of them could help out from time to time. JUST SAYIN.

7. http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2010/02/learning-to-write-the-mfa-poem-by-nin-andrews.html

SCENE.

When I do something stupid, the problem is that I know I am always always always going to do it again, later on.