the good and the bad, maybe chronologically...

oh life, its bigger. i'm confused. there are very good things. there are also very bad ones. i'm soaking in it. it doesn't really matter how I feel about all of this, i'll let you decide how you feel. maybe your sentiments, your different perspective, can cheer me.

i went to a wedding last saturday. beautiful wedding. seriously. like, at a multimillion dollar home in the pacific palisades. two ponds, both with koi, one with a paddle boat. i wore a very nice dress that i got on supersale at anthropologie, cause the belt was missing. drank a lot of champagne. got extraordinarily sunburned.

later, we had to go to a wrap party for the silly tv show that the boy works on and doesn't want me to talk about. at a fancy schmancy restaurant in westwood, with valet parking (an aside about valet parking: i don't understand valet parking. i think that its actually the natural remedy to the too many people/not enough parking spaces problem that plagues this city, but what about the valet parking situations where there is LOADS of parking, and the guy makes you get out of your own car, to park it 4 feet from where you're standing, keeps your keys with him - which then necessitates, as those who know me well might already have guessed, the frantic "wherearemykeys?!" panicked purse purging whilst walking back to the car - and then just points to it as you walk up, your keys left in the ignition or on top of the passenger side tire of your car. this is california, people. i once had my car stolen three times in one summer! that's not cool! and now i'm supposed to tip you?).

i was very very sunburned for this event, in this weird pattern on my chest. it hurt. taking a shower hurt. i tried to wear the dress i had planned on wearing (black wrap around from target) but the v neck was too low and did not hide the ridiculous burn. so i threw that little eyelet bolero thing that i got at the gap years ago over it. it has a high neck, hid everything. and then, cause my hair was wet and we were late, put it into two loopy pigtails.

a waitress came up to me and told me i looked "just like maggie gyllenhaal" (obviously this falls into the good category. i was chatty and happy for three days over this).


because, see, i work at a strange place. a place very los angeles, where people love to work out and tan in booths, and get black low-lights put into their hair. i would rank me as, like, 7th on the attractive scale, out of the nine people who work here, the 1st being gorgeous, the 9th being, well not. keep in mind two factors: one, i admittedly think very highly of myself, and two, i usually don't think this way.
this is what its come to here.

i have not felt pretty or cute or even truthfully acceptable-looking here since the day i started. these are girls who wear size 4s and go to the gym EVERY DAY. they have hairdressers and their numbers in their cell phones.

so, yeah, i feel weird here. adding to it is that yes, as i've said before, i have nothing to do. its been two months and i have nothing to do. and yes, they're paying me, and one would think, one really would, that getting paid to do nothing is great, but let me tell you its not. its like prison. at least thats what someone said to me yesterday, and said it with such vehemency that i wondered if they had actually been in prison.

i have talked to people, asked, begged, still nothing. apparently there are some things that are going to be worked out soon, but...when? i don't know.

worse yet, my car battery keeps dying. but only when i'm here, at work. starts up fine to get me here.

also, went to a family bridal shower two weeks ago, to find out from a rather distant family cousin that my stepmother was in the hospital. after the shower, i went with my aunt to visit her. my dad was there. never said a word to me, never even looked at me. when i was leaving, after i offered my step mom help, if she needed it, with anything, she said, out loud and in front of 5 other people in the room, including the nurse, "i didn't even know you lived here until 2 weeks ago".

i have lived here for 6 months. jesus.

also, i think i have irritable bowel syndrome. do you, anyone, know anyone else who might have this? 6 am this morning found me alternatively on the toilet crying or on the floor of the bathroom, half naked and crying (sorry for the imagery, but this is how bad it is. and also: i live with two dogs and a boy, NO ONE wants to lay down on the bathroom floor naked). i have never been in such pain, and i have been in pain before. and then magically, gone. granted, my muscles in my stomach hurt from all the clenching in pain.

so see, i don't have to go to the gym like these girls. i can just writhe in pain on the bathroom floor. ugh.

i looked up my symptoms on the internets and was led to ibs. so glamorous. also found out that it is prevalent among people who had low seratonin problems. that 95% of the seratonin your body produces is used in your gut not your brain. brilliant.

i feel, and i'm so so sorry for this miserable sad post, just incredibly defeated.

and yet stupid, because its all been so much worse, you know? and so much is good, really i know this, but i just feel defeated by all the small things. you know, like the place where i spend 9.5 of my waking hours, the car that gets me there, but not home, and you know, the grossness of my bathroom floor.

i will not cry at work. i will instead bask in the idea that, to some misguided westwood cocktail waitress, i look like maggie gyllenhaal, and i will try not to think its because both she and i have chronically messy hair.

Comments

Tracy said…
i have lived in l.a. for 10 yrs and am still blown away by peoples' preoccuption with appearances here - hairdressers on speed-dial and the like. listen to the cocktail waitress. and your heart.

hope you are feeling better.
Sue said…
let's make a phone date for sunday and a trip to portland in august - are you up for it?

i miss you!!!
polly conway said…
ain't life a bitch sometimes? hope things are looking up.