Spiderman

“Where? Oh, God! Get him off me!”

TiVo has changed more than just one aspect of my life.

I’m not naming any names, but there were boys screaming in my living room the other day. I heard the word, “Spider!” screeched, and I thought perhaps I was needed to remove a spider from the room.

No. They were watching a documentary on spiders. They were huddled around couch cushions, screaming, “NO!” and “Mother fucker! Mother fucker! Would you look at that!” I walked towards the remote to shut the show off and they screamed again, “NO! Leave it! You have to see this! It’s the scariest thing ever!”

Not Halloween or Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Exorcist. Documentaries on spiders. One of the boys pointed and screeched, “Look! The spider is on his face! On his face! Ahh!”

Television shows of spiders. That’s all it takes.

Last night I went to a bar with some friends and I saw two of my favorite Mr. Show people in the world sitting at the opposite table. I dorked out and called people to tell them. For real. Then a group of people from my school came in and sat at another table. A friend from Texas was sitting at the bar. I looked around the room and saw that I knew about half of the people in the bar, some well, some not so well, some only by their work and I was sitting at a table with some of my closest friends in Los Angeles and there was something very comforting about it.

I needed some comfort, as I almost ate Tyson’s pack of cigarettes raw. Two months. It’s almost two months. And I just want to say, “No, it’s been, I guess…huh… about nine years, I guess.” It feels like I haven’t had a cigarette in nine years. It’s so pussy to be like, “Eight weeks! Give me a medal! Give me cash! I deserve things!” Eight weeks isn’t really an impressive amount of time.

And my break-up with cigarettes has reached that, “Oh, I’m cool and don’t need cigarettes,” but secretly I’m stalking cigarettes, trying to figure out why someone else gets to smoke cigarettes and I don’t. That bitch at the bar is too skanky to be with cigarettes and doesn’t know how to love cigarettes like I do. I still smell cigarettes on me every once in a while and I get all misty-eyed. I miss the hell out of cigarettes like, every five days. Then there are times I don’t think about it at all. It’s not that it’s getting easier, it’s just a different way of missing them. My friend Jessica is on her like, fifteenth day of not smoking. That’s an accomplishment. Between the two of us we’ve smoked more cigarettes than James Dean ever did. If the two of us can quit, anybody in the world can.

I like that people say it’s harder to quit smoking than to kick heroin. This makes me feel really good because now I know I can develop a heroin addiction and quit it. Obviously I’ll be able to.

These are just good things to know.

But knowing your roommates weaknesses is the most important. Not that he’s one of the nameless spider boys.

Randomly

I have this thing about going to parties where I don’t know everyone there. I’m pretty sure that by the end of the party one of the strangers thinks I’m an asshole. I tend to get pretty loud and excited when I’m with a group of friends because I’m a hyper-active thirteen-year old boy like that, and I end up looking like a total tool. Tonight I think I made at least three strangers want to stab me in the eye because I kept shouting out possible fish names in my horrible, horrible Adam Sandler impersonation.

My eye, for those of you concerned, is doing much better today. I think the chamomile tea bags helped. Thanks to the sixty of you who played Mom for me and sent me so much advice. You ranged from “Idiot! Get thee to a hospital, for you are about to go blind!” to “Just keep your eyelid clean, kid.” I look much more human today and was totally happy to run around, drive my car, annoy a group of party people and goof around with friends.

Oh, man. Yesterday I was watching the weather forecast and the man was standing in front of a map of the United States, and he pointed at a speck that said “Los Angeles,” and then he pushed his hands towards the circle labelled “Dallas,” and then just kept pushing his hands all the way to the opposite end of the country where it said, Atlanta and I got so bummed out. Atlanta. So very far away.

I still sometimes catch the Hollywood sign in my rear view mirror and think, “Well, would you look at that.” It’s not that I forget I live in Los Angeles, it’s that I forget that I live in Hollywood. For some reason every third car here has a Texas license plate. There’s something comforting in that, even though I’m sure it’s just people driving stolen cars from Texas to L.A.

It’s very quiet in my house right now. It’s loud outside. When I was away for the wedding last month, I was struck at how incredibly quiet it was at night. I never thought I’d get used to the sounds of whooping girls and speeding cars, but now I don’t even blink when I hear them. Helicopters and sirens and bottles breaking are just the noises of my street. It’s strange how quickly we adapt to our environments.

Oh, man. I can’t believe I just wrote that last sentence. I hate it when I get stupidly introspective and don’t actually say anything that’s even close to being profound. I’m all, “Ice cream sure can be cold if you bite into it.” Great knowledge there, ass.

“I wonder what will happen to me next month.” Probably you’ll still be whining around about how you have too much to do and you haven’t done anything you said you were gonna do. Sloth.

“The weather is different here than in Texas.” You went to college with that brain?

“I don’t have much money these days.” It’s called flying around to Texas and Pittsburgh in between traipses to the beach. Get a job. Like the rest of the world. Grow up.

Now I’m just arguing with myself and insulting myself. That’s even worse. Clearly I shouldn’t be up writing this late.

I’m thirsty.

Man. Lame. I ran out of funny somewhere around that party where people thought I was the most unfunny girl they’ve ever met.

I’m one step closer to taking this town by storm, I tell you! Now I just need headshots, an agent, a manager, a literary agent, and to book maybe a gig or two.

I’m fooling no one.

Hollywood Hot Babe

yeah, that’s me

I can’t leave the house. For real, for real.

My left eye is so gross. It’s swollen and leaks things and in the morning my eye is crusted shut and I have to put a hot washcloth on my face so I can melt the crusted goo and open my eye. It hurts. My eye hurts. I hate everything.

People look at me with this look of incredible pity. It looks like I’ve either been punched in the face (since there’s a bit of bruising under my eyelid) or I’ve been crying for six hours. My eyeball itself is fine. I can see (except when the pus makes my vision blurry), and my eyeball isn’t red. But it hurts to blink and close my eye and open my eye. It hurts so much to lean forward — there is a lot of pressure on my eye and it feels like my eyeball might pop out. It hurts to brush against my eyelid or clean it or wash my face or just live.

It hurts to live.

My nose keeps bleeding, as well. The weather here is dry and now the inside of my nose is just a series of scabs and dry patches, and every once in a while my nose starts bleeding like I’ve got a movie-style brain tumor. I lack that certain glamour needed to look like the beautiful girl struck down in the prime of her life.

I keep biting the inside of my lip for some reason.

I was so much prettier when I smoked. My nose ran from the cigarettes, keeping my nose scab-free. My eyes weren’t irritated by anything, since they had to be used to cigarette smoke wafting into them all day long. My mouth wasn’t cut up because I ate less and smoked more. Do you see why I need cigarettes again?

I can’t even go to the doctor because I got turned down for health insurance. They basically said that birth control costs too much per month. When I insinuated that it was sexual discrimination to turn me down for the cost of birth control, they pointed out that in the past year I went to the doctor for allergies. I explained that the weather in Austin is different than here in California, but the basic argument that they had was, “When you’re sick you go to the doctor, so you’ll cost more money than you’re going to be worth.”

So, I learned another important lesson: lie. Lie all the time and then you can get what you want. If I just hadn’t told the health insurance people that I used to smoke, am on the Pill and have allergies, then I’d be insured right now and I could go to the doctor and get drops for my scary, leaky, goo eye.

My eye’s all swollen and leaking, I’m getting random nosebleeds and my mouth hurts too much to eat. I look like such the Hollywood “And then times were tough for the starlet” girl. All gross and bleeding, looking like a coked-up trash girl who has an abusive rockstar boyfriend. Suddenly I’m noticing all of the pretty girls at the coffee shop because right now I look so gross and scary. I’m hideous.

It started with a twitching in my eye last Sunday, and then the outer corner of my lower eyelid hurt and then it felt better and now it’s just all completely swollen and leaking.

The Internet is only making things worse. After a quick Google search, it looks like I either have a form of a stye that has to have surgery to be treated, or I’ve got a disorder that will stay with me my entire life, or I’m in serious need of plastic surgery. The Internet makes me feel even uglier. I can convince myself that I have all of these things.

Hideous.

Time for another hot compress.

i’m hideous

please don’t look.

I went to sleep a rather pretty girl. I woke up a monster.

So, the supposed pink eye I was discussing went away without a problem by Thursday morning. The swelling went down and there was only a slight amount of pain when I touched my eye. Last night I put on a touch of make-up (this means a swipe of eye shadow and one application of mascara) and went out. I washed my face when I got home and noticed that my eye was a bit tender again.

This morning it hurt like a bitch. It felt like I had slept with a zipper in my eye. I took a shower and then finally saw my face:

I’m hideous. My eye is all swollen. Just the lower lid, but it’s swollen for about an inch. My eye is all squinched up like someone punched me in the face. And then I remembered that the when my eye started hurting in the first place was right before Radiohead when I had put on the same make-up. So, I guess it’s time to ditch that eyeshadow and mascara. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to go through all of my make-up and get rid of the old stuff. I know I’m supposed to do it but I never do. I have lipstick from like, 1992 in there. You should also take this moment to toss out your old stuff before you’ve got a giant left eye like I do. The only person that can pull off this look is Thom Yorke. I look exactly like this. Exactly. And I don’t have his voice. Or his angst. Or his band.

By the way, I found this picture here. Radiohead fans might get a few laughs out of it.

Continuing with the links, there are not one but two Making the Band recaps up. Sign up for the mailing list, read the pages, support my stuff. Please? I’ve been reading through my old journal and old letters of mine and it’s starting to take a horrible toll on my writing here. It helps when recapping Making the Band, though.

Shit, it hurts to blink. I need to put more ice on my eye and sit around watching Girl, Interrupted and have unhealthy Angelina Jolie thoughts.

Well, right now Allison and Chris are staring their giant move to Atlanta. I can’t believe they’re making even more miles between us. And now I have to find reasons to visit Georgia? Do you know there are months that go by where I never even remember there’s a state called Georgia? And now I have to make plans to visit? Man, being a friend never stops, does it?

I can’t believe it’s already been eight months since I moved here. The days are flying by. My life changes more and more each day and I can’t predict what’ll happen from month to month. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing two months from now. I know that my life is about to make a change. I’m wondering where it’s going. I hope it’ll be fun.

I moved around so much growing up that it’s much easier now for me to move into a new place and meet new people (or keep to myself around new people). I find what I like about the new city and concentrate on it, and try not to dwell on the parts I hate. I’d always do that for so long that by the time I found things I liked about the city it’d be time for me to move again. I’m hoping Allison and Chris quickly find what they love about Atlanta and surround themselves in it. I’m assuming that since it’s the first time they’re going to really be together, they’re not going to have a hard time finding the parts they love.

I know I said I’d stop dwelling in the past with this memory box I’ve uncovered, but this letter should really be shared. In it I’m exposing all of my dork self in all of my dork glory. I think I’m in the fifth grade, here. please don’t look.

PRIVATE Letter

Read by yourself.

FROM PAM

Dear Sara,

Boy is my life a mess!! This should be a long letter.

First, I was going with a boy. (I’m writing in cursive so my sister can’t read it) Anyway the only words I could think for him were Cute
Adorable
Georgious
Nice
Out-a-sight
Awesome
Mine

We were going together for 3 weeks. would have been 1 month 4 days later.

He kept asking me to kiss him at school and I didn’t think that I was ready yet. He didn’t mind too much, I guess.

On the day of our big field trip was when we really showed that we liked each other. We were singing songs on the bus and one went like this:

Boom Boom Checks Out
Boom Boom Checks Out
Roll Call
Boom Boom Checks Out
Boom Boom Checks Out

And they’d say a person’s name say- Becky. She’d say:

My name is Becky,
(we’d say ‘Check’)
I am a girl
(check)
I like Sara
(check)
So check me out
(so check her out)

Boom Boom Checks Out
Boom Boom Checks Out

And so forth. So they got to my boyfriend (by the way, he’s name is Matt) And he said:

My name is Matt
(check)
I am a boy
(check)
I like…………Pam
(check– and giggles!)
So check me out
(so check him out)

Then they did other people like Dimitri who said

My name is Dimitri
(check)
I am a boy
(check)
I hate this game
(check) I wish you hadn’t picked me
(check) I like not singing this
(check) So check me out
(so check him out)

Then they got to me! You can imagine what everyone wanted me to say. I said (with lots of giggles)

My name is Pam
(check)
I am a girl
(check)
I like……….Matt!
(check- OOOOOHHH!)
So check me out!!
(so check her out)

Well, the trip was okay except with a lot of “go stand by your boyfriend” stuff.

On the way home, (we had 2 hours on a greyhound luxury bus) Matt asked Becky and Becky asked me (because he sat so far from me) if I would kiss Matt and hold his hand. I asked where. She said at Six Flags in the Time Tunnel.

please don’t look. please don’t look.

Now the Time Tunnel is where everyone goes with their boyfriend. It’s a ride. It is a dark tunnel where you sit in a so called boat, and go through time from the past to present to future. Well you are supposed to have gum in your mouth so when you enter the tunnel you stick your gum on the celing with thousands of other chewed up gum pieces well people always kiss as they go through – it’s like a tradition.

I can’t go to 6 flags without an adult and he wanted me and him to go alone (know what I mean?) Plus, I am about the only 5h grader that doesn’t have a season’s pass. 6 flags is about 10 minutes away from where we live.

Well I said I can’t go and all the stuff I just told you- I didn’t tell him that I can go to the movies though. I was SO upset. So was he I guess cause he didn’t bother me anymore.

then, I got a lot of prank break-ups but 1 was really real. He acually wanted me to break-up. He said he wanted to be good friends. (Some line huh?) He couldn’t even tell me to my face. He got Matt Hollis to tell me.

Well, my life has gone on 2 weeks. I see him and my heart breaks every time. I can’t bieleve it. He was so nice. I was so nice. It didn’t work. BOO HOO

Bye 4 NOW

WRITE BACK

From,

Pam
Ribon

P.S. Now my best friend is going with him.

Man, seriously. Poor me. I remember all of that. I remember how Matt Hollis told me, “Matt doesn’t think that you’re pretty anymore, so he wants to break-up.” And I was all, “No, he doesn’t. Why doesn’t he tell me then?” And Matt was like, “Because he doesn’t want to talk to you anymore, either.” And he didn’t. Asshole. I moved just a couple of months after that, so I never heard from any of those kids again.

I’m such the loner. The rebel. Blowing in and out of towns. I just didn’t want my first kiss to be in front of the school and my mom wouldn’t let me go to Six Flags by myself. I mean, I’m like ten or eleven, right? I can understand.

I was so lame. I still remember that song, that “boom boom checks out” song. I remember how scared I was to sing that I liked a boy in front of people. I suck. Now I’ll just roll all over the floor in a crowded bar with a Karaoke microphone in my hand to tell the world how a boy makes me feel like a natural woman. I have no shame anymore.

Oh, and I’m hideous. Matt’s right. With my big ‘ol swollen eye, I’m really not pretty anymore.

So check me out.

BFF

girls at ten.

I know I was going to talk about my airport woes today, but I’ve got way too much Making the Band to recap and other work to catch up on and my day is totally gone already. Oh, and there’s something wrong with my left eye. It’s all swollen and it hurts and I’d like to publicly announce that Omar gave me pink eye, but I don’t think it’s pink eye. It just hurts and it kind of drains and it’s swollen just a bit and I’m hideous and I won’t leave the house today.

I found this letter from a friend. She must have sent it when I was about nine. No wonder I had such insecurities as a little girl:

Dear Pam,

Hi! How are ya? How’s your sister? Hows your parents? Im fine. Im sitting hear with Sara. Do you like any boys? I don’t. I wear a bra. And I need one too. Weather’s terrific over here, How about there. School ok here. But my teacher is a little jerk. Ha ve you gotten your peirod yet. I haven’t yet but I’ll probaly get it this summer. I mean Im that matured. I mean not to brag or anything. Give me your address ok? And write me. Do you still have long hair? I do in the back and short in the front. Whens your birthday? Mines February 25, 1975. Whats your favorite song? Remember Mrs. B, well she wears strip pants and Guess sweatshirts. She looks so funny in them. Read any good books lately? What did you get on your report card. We just watched the Kentucky Derbie. It was instertsing. Ferniand won. I wish I had Bloned hair.

Whats your teachers name? Mines Mrs. T. The peppers are moving. I doubt you know them. Have you ever played truth or dare with boys? I’ts sort of fun. But you have to play with a boy you like. What’d you get for Christmas? I don’t want to go through what I got right now. there’s this guy named Chris, you know him proberly. Well anyway he has to take hieper pills. He’s REALLY HIEPER. I mean I don’t like him or anything. I wish you’d come back. It would be great if you did.

Do you go to camp? I do. Do you dress in style a lot? I sorta do.

Do you get Seventeen the magazine? I do, its good. You should get it. I heard about your friend and you. How’s it going with her? We had Sex Ed. It was boring but Im going to take it next year anyway.

Did you hear about Sara’s parents? I guess you have.

Well I gotta go

Love ya!!

BB

P.S. I miss you so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so much.

w/b.

(write back)

Love ya!!!

I remember reading that sixteen years ago thinking, “This is the dirtiest letter anybody has ever sent to me.” I was in trouble for reading Judy Blume. This was trash mail this girl was sending me.

No wonder I thought I was such a loser. That girl had Seventeen the magazine and sorta dressed in style a lot.

But I really did think that I was such a dork because this girl was hanging with boys and had grown-up big-girl issues and I was still wondering if I would get a Cabbage Patch Kid for Christmas and had the world put on hold every Sunday when Punky Brewster was on. This girl’s letter showed me that I wasn’t maturing as fast as some of my friends.

This was very apparent when I moved to the South. Y’all start kissing and macking in Kindergarten and it’s scary.

So, after this letter I think that’s the first time I bought a teen magazine. It was also about the time that I asked my mother if I could have a training bra. I think I might have also sat around waiting for my period.

I’m not proud, this is just what happened.

I have got to stop digging around these old boxes.

home again

I’m stuck in the Houston International Airport.

I’m delayed. I’m always delayed.

I can’t remember the last flight that I took that took off and landed on time. I don’t know if that’s ever happened, actually. Once, I think, when I needed it to. Usually, though, I’m calling someone announcing I’m going to be an hour late or so.

It’s been an interesting trip home. I told my mom I’d clean out some things she had of mine in the garage, and I ended up staying up all night long going through old letters, journals, stories and poems that I had written. I found boxes full of old letters from the boys in my life. And every time I read another I remembered the good parts of those boys.

During the break-up process we focus on the bad things about our exes. It helps us heal to only remember how they hurt you, or how miserable you could be around them. If you remember all of their good points all of the time, you drive yourself crazy wondering why you aren’t good enough, why you can’t make things work, why you always end up alone.

So you focus on the bad and you only remember your fights and all of the good parts are stored away. Well, I opened up boxes of the good parts.

What was really interesting to me was to see just how many times I repeated a pattern with boys that could never be loved enough. They constantly had to have something wrong. All of their letters started with apologies for something they had said the night before, and then they’d start talking about all of the things they were going through. There were constant fights.

But then there were some boys who only wrote the nicest of letters. They were stories of the good times we had, inside jokes and nicknames, quick love notes and some of the sweetest poems. The sad thing was some of these great letter-writers were never actually boyfriends. They remained boy friends, while I was working on my troubled Boyfriend. I felt like some relationships never got to grow into their potential because I was too busy fixing the Broken Boy. I had so many Broken Boys in high school.

A few relationships did stand out, though, as positive and sweet. I still look back fondly on those because they taught me how I want to be loved. They were all about kindness, fun and honesty. There was a tenderness to the love that meant we’d never intentionally hurt each other. And we never did. The pain was always accidental and full of remorse.

I ended up getting so obsessive over these letters that I started trying to figure out what exactly went wrong in each relationship. I found that I was remembering how some of them ended incorrectly. What I thought was something horrible he did was actually a high level of apathy on my part that drove him away. When I thought he dumped me for someone else, the truth was I was too busy to keep our relationship going and we drifted apart. When I thought he was too clingy, it was just me being scared. That didn’t happen in every case, and it’s not like these relationships hadn’t reached their conclusion anyway, but I wonder just how much longer we could have survived if I hadn’t made a cut. I wonder if I was supposed to end some of them sooner so they stayed sweet memories instead of the scary hormone-filled missives some boys were driven to write. We drive each other crazy for love, and in high school that love can be all-consuming.

That’s ridiculous. I’m twenty-six and I still think about love and relationships every day. For the past couple of years it’s been a major force in my life. My love life can sometimes take over everything, convincing me that I can’t be happy unless choices and promises are made. I always want to know what’s going to happen in the end, and when I don’t know that, when I can’t know that, I drive myself crazy wondering what the options are. There are a million ways to end my story, and I just hope that I’m happy at the end of it. I don’t want to screw up.

So, here I am pouring over these past crushes and loves, reading about boys that never knew I loved them, watching videos of boys that loved me, reading stories about boys that broke my heart and I start wanting closure. I wanted some sort of closure to high school telling me that I did everything okay and everyone turned out okay in the end. I wanted to know that we all ended up becoming the people we were supposed to be. I’m watching old videotapes of my high school theatre crew and I’m wondering if they all became the people we believed they were going to be.

And then I started getting dumb about it. People, I tried to find an ex-boyfriend. It started innocently enough. I just wanted to know if he was okay. I knew he had some rough times after I graduated (he still was in high school when I left for college and we basically fell out of touch then). I knew he had moved a few times but was back in town. My sister had seen him working at a restaurant near my house. I had my mom drive me past there. He doesn’t work there anymore. I had her drive me to his old house. I was going to ask his parents if he was okay, see how his little sister turned out, find out if he can be reached.

And I’m standing in front of his empty house while my mom’s in the driveway with the car running and I think to myself, “What the hell is wrong with me?” I had been living in the past for the entire weekend and had somehow convinced myself that it was okay to just drop back into lives that had moved on without me. It was none of my business anymore how he was doing. He isn’t in my life anymore. He holds a very nice part of my past and we shared some wonderful times together, but I had no right to barge back in. What if he was in love with someone else and they were happy and me coming back brings up anxiety and regret and his girlfriend/fiancee/wife has to deal with the emotions I bring back up? That’s unfair to her. And what makes me think that I’m so important that he’ll even feel something if he sees me again? Just because I think fondly of him doesn’t mean that he has any nice thoughts of me. He might still dwell on our bad times. He might only remember the shitty parts of me. He might have been too young to have any of it mean anything. If he really wanted to talk to me, he could have. I seem to think he knows about this website. If my face still appeared in his thoughts and he wanted to check up on me, he could. He doesn’t. What makes me think I have any right to basically stalk this poor kid who’s just trying to live his life?

It’s not like I’d want some of my old flames to find me again. I’d like to know how they’re doing, sure, but to hear that they ended up happy and healthy and married to a woman that could make them happy in a way that I never could? That’s painful. And I can keep it in perspective as much as I want here by saying I know where these boys fit in my heart and I have a healthy attitude towards their memories and I can think good thoughts without it hurting, but I’m way too paranoid to be able to do the opposite. I’d want to know why they’re getting in touch with me. I’d want to know what I did, what I didn’t do, what went wrong, why it hurts to hear that he went and became the boyfriend I always wanted him to be with the very next girl he met. I don’t want to hear that he calls her what he used to call me. I don’t want to hear that he uses the same lines, the same stories, shares the same laughs. I don’t want to know how he describes me to her, if he even does at all. I don’t want to know if she has to live in my shadow, as I’ve had to live in the shadow of faceless ex-girlfriends that could do no wrong in memory. I’d never be as wonderful as they were. I’d never win. That girl that was gone won his heart and had it forever, even though she was with someone else. I couldn’t take any of that. I don’t want to know that even though I’m not with him anymore, he wants me instead. I don’t want to hear that we wasted time thinking we were mad at each other, when in reality we were both hurting and wanted to be with each other more than anything. I want to know what I did wrong, and I’m terrified to know what I did wrong. What pain is there inside the knowledge that both of you wanted the exact same thing but were too scared to say anything.

This is where I’d like to point out one more time that I had my mother drive me around to find this boy. How sad is that? I mean, we were out doing errands anyway, but my mom’s sitting in the running car while I try and find this boy. So sad. And probably worth a restraining order.

So, I stopped stalking my ex-boyfriend. I took some of my old journals and letters and videotapes back to Los Angeles with me. It’s important to have them with me, I think, to ground myself every once in a while. It’s good to see where you came from.

I imagine that I’m not that different as a girlfriend now. I’m probably not as much of a push-over as I used to be. I don’t let people order me around like I used to. But I see in those letters that most of the time I’m dating the same boy over again. He’s blonde, dimpled, silly and has a dark side that lashes out at me. And I’m all, “Y’all don’t know! He loves me!” And maybe he did. And I’m sure he’s not that same boy anymore and I’m sure he’s learned how to love someone. Maybe I helped with that. Maybe he’s happy he doesn’t date crazy, moody actress girls anymore who turn every single conversation into a sketch or a play or a story about pain and the stupidity of boys. Maybe we helped each other know what we didn’t want.

Yikes. People, if you’re going to wear short shorts and then sit down across from me, please, please, please keep your legs together. Lord, this man sitting across from me is just showing everything he’s got. I’m all uncomfortable like when you’re at the monkey cage and you wish they dressed the apes in diapers.

Continuing my high school flashback, last night I had to borrow my mother’s car to drive to a concert. I’m driving with the CD playing and my cell phone in my hand and I’m all, “How old am I?”

But Radiohead ruled. Seventh row. Beautiful seats where Thom was singing just to me. They played for almost two hours and did just about all of my favorite songs. I do believe it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. They were all smiley and jokey and thanked us for being “so sweet and lovely.”

I realize that I want every boy I date to dress like either a member of Weezer or Radiohead and I slowly start adding to the boy’s wardrobe until they look like the cool geek sad rocker boy and then somehow we break up and some other girl gets the cool boy I dressed up. I should keep them wearing the plaid and corduroy because then it’s the secret boy that I know is actually incredibly sexy but the other girls think is a waste.

I’m all high on myself today. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m all, “I created these men from little boys! I’m the greatest girlfriend that has ever lived!” I apologize. If you’re an ex-boyfriend that’s reading: again, I apologize. I know you were your own man before you met me. But you have to admit I got you to stop wearing those stupid pants.

I’m still delayed, by the way. They gave me a lunch voucher. Now I have to pack all of my things up and see if I can make it to the lunch counter and back before we board. Not that we’re boarding anytime soon, but I’ve camped out a little corner here on the floor with an electrical socket for my computer and phone. That’s more than I usually get when I’m delayed. At least I can get work done.

And y’all love it when I’m delayed because that’s when I write the extra-long entries.

Oh, on my flight here I had a window seat and the women sitting next to me wouldn’t get up when I had to go to the bathroom. I’m not kidding, they asked me to just walk over them. Just squeeze between their knees and the back of the seat. I basically had to strattle their legs and hold myself up just over their heads on the back of their chairs. It looked like I was humping them. Why wouldn’t you want to stand up so I can get through?

I just had a conversation where I learned I’ve been using the word “Hopefully” incorrectly. As in, “Hopefully, I’ll be on a plane soon.” It should be, “I’m hoping I’ll be on a plane soon.” The other way says that I’ll be on an airplane, sitting there all full of hope.

Yeah, I’ve run out of stuff to write and it sounds like we just got delayed for another half-hour. That means I just lost my ride from LAX to home. Time to make more phone calls.

Dammit, I hate this. Every time I fly I’m full of hope again (ha), and then they just prove me wrong by having me sit in another airport all day long. I swear off airplanes and then I do it again. At least I used to be able to smoke while I waited for the plane. Now I’m just sitting here, typing away, sitting on the ground, miserable.

I think I’m getting a stye.

But at least I’ve left Houston. No more stalking the exes. Keep them all in Texas.

Oh, man. I’m a bad country song.

My flight finally took off at six Houston time. That’s right. A six hour layover. But that’s tomorrow’s story. For now I’m just happy to be posting in my apartment again. I’m home safely. Thanks to stee, djb, eric (happy birthday, you), my mom, my dad and Hugh Grant for keeping me sane during that time. Again, the story for tomorrow.

Major Thom

and some more links

Ladies and Gentlemen: I’ve finished my laundry.

This is a major accomplishment. It really, really is. It takes all of the strength I have in my body to pile my clothes up, put them in my car and then wash them. I get so frustrated that I start hating other people, clothing, places, events, nouns. I just want to go buy new clothes and throw my old ones over a bridge.

Another major accomplishment: I actually folded my clothes at the laundromat. AND I sorted my socks. But the biggest achievement? I threw out old pairs of underwear. I’m pretty sure I tossed a pair of panties I’ve had since I was fifteen years old. It was time. It was time for them to go. Sure, they’re period panties, but even those look tired after a decade of service.

Y’all know we have the period panties, right? Those are for days we’re pretty sure we’re going to do some spotting, and we’re pretty sure we’re not going to let you see us without any clothes on, and we’re very careful that you never see these underwear because often they’ve already lost battles for us in the past. They’re nasty and scary and we keep them only so the cute underwear we woo you with remains pristine. Don’t judge us.

Now I just have to put the clothes away. I need to finish the other giant hurdle of the day: I need to clean this house. I’m leaving tomorrow. Y’all, I’m going to see Radiohead! I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m in love with the world and everything will be okay when Thom starts singing to me.

I’ve never seen Radiohead before. I’ve been listening since Pablo Honey came out. That’s a very long time to be a Radiohead fan.

Since I won’t be able to update again until maybe Tuesday night, I’ll leave you with other things to read. My second Making the Band recap is up and it makes me giggle. Also, there’s a recap of the MTV Movie Awards. Find out what I’m typing when I’m not typing here.

Tomorrow Squishy turns three years old. I can’t believe I’ve been writing here for three years. I was thinking about that today while I folded laundry. I was thinking about all of the people in my life because of this little electronic newspaper. And the strangest thing about it is that so many things happen because of this site that have nothing to do with me. I get email from those of you who have met your best friend on the forum. You met the love of your life. You did something you didn’t think you could do. You finished a goal. You changed yourself for the better. You were inspired by the stories of other people on the forum or by something I wrote and you changed something about your life and you’re proud of yourself. That’s when I’m so proud of this site. It started as a little thing I was trying to do to work on HTML and keep myself busy at work and now it’s this community of people that are funny, smart, silly and fun. There’s a group of people from around the world that meet here and share their lives with each other. That’s amazing. Some of you wear t-shirts with my name on them. That’s fascinating. I’ve met so many people and experienced things I’d never thought I’d experience just because of this webpage. Three years ago I had no idea how I was going to become a freelance writer. It was just something I wanted to do. And now here I am with three years worth of stories shared on the net and I have a portfolio of work and a group of indispensable friends and memories that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

And when I make you feel something- when you write to say that you cried or you laughed or I made a shitty day seem livable- that’s the most rewarding thing. I know that you know much more about me than I know about you. You have an idea of who I am and what I look like and you might know that we’d be the best of friends if we ever met, but many of you are completely invisible to me. I don’t know just how many people out there I actually do know. People that I’ve known in my past or who know a friend of mine. I don’t know just how many of you there are out there that have met me before. And for those of you who I’ve never met at all, I find you even more fascinating. I find it fascinating that there’s something I do or something about me that keeps you coming back here every day to find out what I’m going to do next. Or to find out what’s going on in the forum. That sort of pull that Squishy has to keep people reading about me. That’s amazing to me. Thanks for being a part of this. Thanks for making me proud of my work.

lists

and some links

Allison was just talking about how she’s found comfort in writing lists. I’ve been doing it for a long time now. I find it’s the only way that I can realize just how many things I need to do. There are always things on my list I’ll never get around to, but knowing that I’m thinking of them makes me feel like I’m working on them, even if it just means they’re bumping around inside my head. I work best with a deadline, and often I find I can’t quite write anything until I have a due date. This way things stay in my head and I work on them and then right before they’re due, right before I couldn’t possibly wait another moment, I crank out the work and it’s just how I wanted it. But for some reason I can’t write a minute sooner than that or I hate it. Sometimes if I start too early I’ll end up not finishing it. It’s terrible and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve been writing for three hours straight now because I have that much work to catch up on. And there’s even more work behind it. Because I’m now at the point where I can’t think of all of the work I need to do, I had to stop and write a list.

The only problem is that my list tends to talk to me and make me worry about things.

Hi, I’m your webpage. You need to figure out what your contract’s going to be for the next year. You know, if it’s not all worked out you can’t keep writing this webpage. It costs money you know. And the forum is jam packed and you’re having to delete old threads every other day or so because you’re almost at your disk space limit. It’s time to figure out what you want to do with me. Did you know that it’s my three-year anniversary on Saturday? It is. You didn’t even give me a birthday week like you did the first two years. You don’t love me like you used to. That’s so sad to me. I’ve given you good times and given you great friends. Sure, sometimes it’s hard. All good relationships are. Update me. Make sure Buffalo Bill updates. You need to stay on it. You need to make sure you get all of that contract stuff out of the way. You need to make more money.

Yeah, I’ll take it from here, webpage. Hi. It’s the bank. Just letting you know that you shouldn’t be bopping around thinking you’re gonna have a great summer. We need cash, girl. Write something sellable. Finish all the shit you started. You spent three hours the other day making a fake wish list for a fake serial killer. Is this what you want to do with your life? Is it? Man.

‘ello, Pamie. Tis I: Harry Potter. You’ve seem to abandoned me right at the very end of our first journey. Don’t you want to know what’s going to happen with my friends? Don’t you care about Gryffindore… or my head scar? I thought we had a wonderfully smashing time that afternoon you spent reading me in the sun. Didn’t you love it? There’s only ten pages or so left, Pamie. You can do it!

She’ll never do it. She no read all her books. She went and bought new books and will never ever read me, Amy Tan Bonesetter’s Daughter. She so happy to read new Amy Tan that she put on bookcase forever. Read about tiny wizard boy instead. Disgrace. She buy new Chuck Pahlaluhlahalak and new Nick Hornby instead. She no finish Harry Potter and will never ever remember me. Bonesetter Daughter. I work hard. She play in sun.

It’s not like she’s going to get around to me, the giant stack of print-outs of past recaps she needs to read so she can crank out her summer work. I mean, I represent money. Sure, she’s put some time into lovingly cutting and pasting the words on this page and then she hit the “print” button. But it’s not like she’s read a single page. She’s all, “I’ll read it this weekend.”

I’m the CD she’s never sent to blurboy from the Mix CD exchange VERSION TWO. They’re on like, six now. She’s that lazy and dumb. Blurboy has stopped even thinking that she could possibly be cool. This CD is now filled with oldies.

Hi. I’m your weekly column for the Austin-American Statesman. Remember your nice boss, Omar? Yeah. You know how he’s getting his eyes sliced today? You think you could turn in an article or two on time so he can read them without ripping his eye stitches? You lazy, inconsiderate waste of a girl, you. That guy in Austin who sent you that email was right. You are pale and scary and should go to Hippie Hollow with him. You just sit there thinking, “Poor Omar” and then you immediately think, “I wonder if I still have a Strawberry cereal bar in the house.” You disgust me. Come visit, though. Austin misses you.

Hi, I’m the baby that your friend’s going to have today. Do you feel bad for naming me JuJuBi yet? I’m going to hate you for it in ten years. That’s the worst nickname ever. Ever! I’m a helpless baby, you heartless child. You think you could call and find out if we’re all okay? I’m a baby. I’m important. You’ve never had a friend have a baby before. It’s pretty crazy, isn’t it? I mean, just a few months ago we were all dancing around drunk, talking about wine slushies. Now I’m going to call her, “Mom.” How are your ovaries doing? You still thinking about being single and kidless? Tick-tock, that’s all.

You shut up, Baby. I need her to come and pick me up today. Hey, pamie. It’s me, The Pill. Don’t forget you need to pick me up today. Today. That’s not tomorrow. No time tomorrow. Tomorrow is all laundry, all day. Remember to pick up water and Diet Coke when you come and get me. And maybe some juice? And Pirate Booty. Everyone loves that stuff and I’m next door to the only Trader Joe’s you know. Can you try and not pick up unnecessary hair products at the cheap store next door? Thanks.

Hey! Cal and Taylor will appreciate you remembering to pick up me– Advantage! You called it in yesterday! Time to go and get me!

I’m just wondering if you’re going to remember to set me, TiVo, to tape this week’s Making the Band. And that’s TWO episodes. Not one. Two. And, uh, good job getting that first recap in before the show is cancelled.

Hi. I’m email. Wow, are you ever behind.

Hello, I’m amazon.com. I’ve tried to deliver a package for about three days now. Why are you never home when we knock on your side door? We’re just going to send the package back to whence it came from. I like saying the word “whence.”

Call your mother.

We’re kitty litter. We smell like poo!

Running low on me, cat food, here.

Aren’t you thirsty? You haven’t had time to have a hit with me in the corner. I’m coffee! Watch what happens if you don’t drink me: upi md i[ wprighing otj upir ajnmds pnm thjw pml glesu/ . isn’t that sad? You’ll end up writing entire paragraphs with your hands on the wrong keys. Come and get some of this, baby. Latte, Youte.

I am The Book. TICK. TOCK.

I am the Spec Script Idea. Good thing you moved to Hollywood, kid, so you could see other people do what you want to do while you sit around making lists and writing stupid stories about your kitty litter talking to you. Thanks for using that fucking college education you’re paying off each and every month. Good job on that one, there. Why don’t you use that car you’re paying off to raise kittens in? Makes about as much sense.

I am underwear. You’re gonna have to go commando in about three days if you don’t do something. Nice ratty seventh-grade panties there, girl. Real classy. That’s an ass that’s cared for, right there.

I HAVEN’T BEEN FED AND I FORGOT TO TOUCH LINT SOCK CHEESE MEAT! HEY HI! I BITE YOU! HI!

If you ever remember to get around to me, I’m the bed. Sometimes, when you remember, you sleep in me. Sleep. That’s where you close your eyes and you go off to the dream land where you have a different list of things to do, but usually it involves naked celebrities and jam. Try and find some time for me, okay?
I’m off to silence a few voices in my head.

the breeze

enjoying life dot com

I’m wearing a nice breezy summer dress. I just found out recently that Houston was hit pretty hard with some storms. My family’s home is safe, but I’m wondering what it looks like out there. I hear that Texas is already that kind of hot where you don’t move inside your car because you’re afraid you’ll die of heat stroke just because you looked in your rear view mirror. You drive like a coma patient.

It’s so easy to forget how hot it must be down there right now. The weather here seems to never change. Every day it’s kind of cloudy in the morning and then very sunny in the afternoon and just a bit chilly at night. It’s the same every day. That’s what I kept reminding myself last summer when I was worried about moving and wondering every five minutes if I was making a mistake. It’s days like today when it’s so nice outside and everyone’s in a great mood that I know I made a good decision.

Over the past few weeks there’s been a sort of hazy sadness over everyone I know. It’s nice to see it’s starting to lift. People are making changes and decisions and moving forward and I think the spring is changing to summer and the answers are becoming clearer. I know the things I want to do over the next few months. I’ve given myself some bold, large goals. I hope I complete them. Wait, I take that last sentence back. I will complete them. I just wonder what I’ll think of myself when I do.

I saw startup.com last night (a documentary that follows one dot com from the beginning to the end of the company) and seeing all of those cubicles and meetings and whiteboard scribbles and tension — I just remembered how happy I was to have left that scene. That wasn’t something I was good at. Going to work every day wondering if that’s the day I’m getting fired, wondering what was going to happen to me, wondering what was next– I hated it. And the funny thing is, I am a dot com right now and every day I don’t know if I’ll have work tomorrow. As a freelancer, I’m constantly looking for extra gigs. I’m balancing deadlines and trying to keep my Tofutti breaks in with the work and I have to talk about merchandise and have last-minute phone conversations and meetings discussing when things are due and I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. It’s enough to drive me to run-on sentences. The difference is I’m in a business I care about. Before I was working for a machine. I worked for a company that had nothing to do with who I was. Now I’m representing me and my work and I care what happens every day.

Hell, maybe there’s absolutely no difference. I just think it’s an amazing time to be in the workforce. I’ve been blessed with jobs that I never would have been able to land if I was a woman with my education just a few years before. I have a background in technology and an understanding of the Internet that wasn’t taught in any school I attended. I am my own business and I have a degree in acting. For this I feel very lucky. But watching that movie last night reminded me just how much I hated the corporate world. I really hated the bullshit of downsizing and meetings and dividing up responsibility so that each person was managed by about six other people. I hated the threats of losing privileges. I hated the forced camaraderie of retreats and socials. It all seemed so fake and silly to me. The t-shirts, the stolen office supplies, the gossip, the worries, the constant threat of losing your job. It was so much fun when it all started, when the promise of a billion dollars was just one great idea or one profit share away. But that soon became a miserable place to be.

Right now I’m wondering if I have anything to offer, really. It’s a terrible time to be a freelancer. I’m so lucky to have the jobs that I have. The Internet isn’t offering the cash it used to. I am a web designer in a market that doesn’t need them. I’m a content provider in a market that’s afraid of content-based websites. I have a website that doesn’t actually provide a service to a definitive demographic, so I’m not the target website to plaster with ads (since some of my content readers, or “visitors” feel that ads mean I am selling out).

Look at that paragraph. Here I am bitching about my corporate America background and then I’m corporate speaking myself left and right. Three years in tech support, marketing, web design and corporate branding taught me more than I ever realized. Without those two companies taking their time with me, teaching me everything I wanted to know and allowing me to work on my own personal websites to enrich my knowledge I wouldn’t be where I am right now. My dot com experience was more like a mentoring program. As much as I don’t want to go back to an office every day and deal with the corporate machine, I don’t regret my time there. I appreciate my current situation because of it. I have the skills to market myself, to organize my time and become the worker I want to be. I set goals and reach them. I sell myself. I am proud of my work. I like the finished product. And in the case of pamie.com, the finished product is me.