Lateshoes

Don’t you want to use your News and Media skills in the U.S. Navy???

Nice try, fuckers. I saw Private Benjamin!!

I want to compose a list, if only to show that I actually do indeed still exist. I haven’t been able to blog. I would say it’s because I have no time, but that wouldn’t exactly be true. I’ve made time for nothing besides the minimal 40-yard stare into my computer screen at work and the manic shuffling of papers for the occasions when my boss happens by. It’s sad really, but I just haven’t felt very energetic about life lately. Not that I’ve felt badly, I haven’t. I just feel lazy, unmotivated and all around lame. I would like to blame the toxic inversion poison I (and all Salt Lakers) have been breathing for more than a week now. It’s poisoning my will to live.
Here is the list, okay… it’s of things I want to do in 2007
1. Write a book. HA.
2. Get a new job that pays me what I’m worth
3. Fix the floors in my house and paint all the rooms
4. Walk more/ Exercise more
5. Try to think nicer thoughts about people
6. Move back toward completely cruelty free consumerism
7. Eat less meat
8. Do more drawing, writing, knitting…Be more creative in general
9. Buy or make all Christmas presents for next year by September ’07
10. Roller Skate more

So on that note, I’ve started formulating the idea for “my book.” Typing the words, “my book” almost made me puke…so bare with me, since I can’t handle my own pretentiousness. It is about a girl who tortures, kills and mutilates men (and a few women) and blogs about it. Her blog becomes an instant sensation…of course. It’s a satire…a response actually to Bret Easton Ellis’ novel, American Psycho; which is a great book, but one that made me and most of the women I know who have read it completely uncomfortable. Ellis uses the landscape of women’s dissected bodies as metaphor and while that’s brilliant, it’s also violating. I want to use the trope of the violation of male bodies in much the same way…to illuminate a different allegory. Big Word Nerd alert!!!

We’ll see. If I make it past the 10 page mark, I’ll let you know.

I very rarely find cause to criticise Keith Olbermann, but last night…his story about 24 being some tool of right-wing propaganda made me wonder if KO hasn’t been drinking some of O’Reilly’s alarmist juice. (That was much grosser than I meant) 24 is a television show…yes, it airs on the FOX network, yes, it’s about terrorism and torture and all of that… but, it’s soooo stupid. It’s stupidity makes it awesome. It’s ludicrous situations and outcomes make popcorn for the brain. The world is saved over and over again by one man…one Keifer Sutherland shaped man. Can Keith really be taking this show seriously?

Look if idiots like Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing crones want to glom onto the show and use it as a scare tactic against America’s mentally challenged… fine…but, don’t act like the rest of us are somehow being brainwashed into thinking that bombs could go off at any minute and stabbing a knife through some dude’s knee is the only way to stop it. It’s a fantasy. It’s entertainment.

I don’t think vampires are real just because I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m not looking into space waiting for a cylon base ship to appear just because I watch Battlestar Galactica, I’m not expecting the T.A.R.D.I.S. to land at any moment with the Doctor in tow to save the earth from an attack by Daleks and I don’t think that Jack Bauer is going to punch a “nucular” bomb to death. Why? Because I’m not a fucking rube. 24 is Sci Fi without the Sci…it’s as unrealistic as a show can get. If politicians are really trying to use this ludicrous television show to justify their wars and their own scare tactics…then America’s less brain-impaired should think about not voting for those guys again.

And that from a fucking LibNut.

Jesus. On some level I’m grateful that we were able to sell enough cds and find enough loose change to actually pay all of our bills and mortgage for the month…on the other hand…. okay, I’m still grateful, but would it have killed one of those white-belt wearing haircuts at the CD store to give us another 20 bucks?
I’m just saying.

I would really prefer not going into details, but lets jut say that last night I suffered a self-esteem blow akin to a pat on the head and a reassuring “Oh you poor dear” speech. I applied for a job – a job that I really wanted…that seemed the perfect fit and opportunity to get out of the hell-hole job I have and into something “career” like. When I saw the advert for it online my stomach started fluttering. THIS IS IT, I thought. I carefully crafted a cover letter, gathered some of my best writing samples and gave my resume one last polish before sending it all off in a dizzy email.

The savage job hunt, that strikes yours truly at least once or twice a month was spurned by two things:
1. I was ambushed by a boss of a boss about possibly being interested in another position at the library. I just stood there, mouth open and defensive, “uh…uh..well…uh.” To which, the boss responded, “Oh, it’s okay, I can understand if you want to ‘better yourself.’”
“BETTER” myself? Okay, it’s one thing to be stuck in a dead end job with crappy pay, but it’s quite entirely another for someone to act like that’s just the kind of job you deserve.
2. My college loan payment went up again, unannounced; removing 200 extra dollars from the Medley bank account without warning…leaving said Medleys 50, make that 70 bucks in the hole. There’s nothing quite like hating your full time job AND on top of it still having to worry about paying the bills. (And to that end…no pressure…but, I’ve added the Make a Donation! Button back to my sidebar).

So, it was in that frame of mind that I found, what I thought would be…the perfect job. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence that I found this job…available on this day of all days. Could it?

At 9pm I checked my email and found this:

Hi, Tracy,

Thank you for your interest in working at *** *******.

You have some interesting experience. Unfortunately, not much of it
is in *****.

We are looking for someone with significant experience as a ******
******* for a ***** *********. Therefore, I must reject your
application.

Interesting experience? Under normal circumstances I would take that as a compliment, but in this case it was humiliating, horrid and hateful. Goddamn my interesting life. Fuck it. Fuck it in the ass! At 32 “interesting” means “sorry kid, maybe you shouldn’t have changed your major three times. But, don’t worry…we’ll find some talentless little butt-kisser with all the right credentials to do this job.”

It would have been better had he not responded at all. At least then I could have pretended that my application just got buried in some pile of Harvard grads.

*Update: In the end I realized that I don’t even want that stupid job. I just want some job, any job to:
1. Pay me what I’m worth.
2. Respect me.
3. In some way utilize my talent. (I know, there are so many to choose from)
4. Give me weekends and holidays off.
5. Have decent insurance.
6. Be interesting…just like me.

So, in settling into my new haircut…I’ve decided that I hate it. It’s not that it’s so bad, but my hair really needs a lot of layering and whatnot in order to not look like a frizzy poo-wig and now officially…after washing it with shampoo that regular humans can afford…it’s officially stupid. It’s officially a poo-wig.
Also, the bangs. I’m not sure how bangs can be both too short and too long, but mine have managed it and there are also too many of them hanging in a thick, lifeless chunk at the front of my head. This haircut makes me feel fatter and somehow less stylish. Like when you’re chubby aunt comes home fromt he salon with a new short perm.
Maybe it’s just me. Perhaps I’m starting my period.

Running The World

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Tawnya has been my best friend for…uh, 13 years now and tomorrow is her 32nd birthday. So, far, besides the saggier tits and eye-wrinkles, I’ve really liked being 32 and I hope she does too. The first night I can remember hanging out with Tawnya was the summer she graduated highschool, 1993. She came over with some mutual friend or something, I honestly don’t remember. We were listening to the Beatles and I was having one of those purge-moments, where I spent the entire evening doling out my superfluous possessions. Tawnya was a bright spark in a bad time (friend-wise) in my life. I don’t know if all women go through this, but I had just discovered that all in my circle of friends were evil, backstabbing hookers who couldn’t stop talking behind each other’s backs. One day it hit me: Hey, I bet these dirty hookers are talking about me behind my back. Damn. It was a liberating moment because it freed me from three lousy friendships with just about the biggest assholes that ever lived …and opened the door to a new kind of friendship and though it’s cheesy, I’m going to say it; sisterhood.
Tawnya is the first friend I’ve ever had that felt like family…like a real sister. We argue and we piss each other off, but at the end of the day I know that she will tell me the truth and I can tell her the truth…and we can still make each other laugh a lot.
She’s one of the more special people on the planet and I don’t mean that she’s retarded. What I mean to say is she’s just about the kindest person I’ve ever known. She really tries to find a way to understand everyone she knows. She cuts people slack even when they don’t deserve it and from my perspective of like, really hating to cut slack….I’m envious. It’s a real gift to love almost everyone unconditionally…but, that’s who she is. She’s also a terrible driver, but that’s for another post.
This is this, Tawnya. This ain’t something else. This is this.

Jack Bauer’s Man-purse filled with guns and knives and probably tampons
Originally uploaded by lateshoes.

Kiefer’s Man-bag on Season 5 of 24 makes me ovulate.

In 1977 my family lived in Khorramshar, Iran. I always knew that we lived in Iran when I was young, but couldn’t remember where exactly. This year for Christmas, I transferred my parent’s 8mm Home-Movies to DVD and with the help of some amazing footage of Iran; pre-Revolution, pre-hostage crisis, pre-Saddam, my father revealed that we had lived in Khorramshar, in a pink house, which I remember very well. Houses there were connected like they are in San Francisco and ours was pink. There are several things about Iran that I remember better than I remember most things: the unleavened bread, the drain on the kitchen floor, Spider-Man in Persian, my parents giving my Atari to their friend’s kids while visiting Tehran, the snowy train-ride to Tehran, our neighbor’s children jumping over burning sticks for fun and one of the son’s pulling my extremely blond hair.
Khorramshar, as it turns out was completely decimated in 1982 by Iraqi forces (i.e. Saddam), which makes my plan of going back some day to find our little pink row-house pretty moot and also completely depresses me.
I’m going to work on uploading some clips of our Home-Movies.