.inchoate and under cover.: April 2005

.even the rich and famous are poor.

celebrity spotting in portland consists of rifling through 50% off racks at old-navy during your lunch break to see the yodling cutie-pie lead singer of sleater-kinney bargain-binging along with you. ok, corin tucker was looking through full-priced clothes- but she was scrounging at old navy along with the rest of us poverty-stricken impulse buyers.

this is, i dare say, even more exciting than when i saw janet weiss in the frozen food section at the hawthorne fred meyer.

watch out carrie, you're next.

i know that everyone's reaction to seeing a celebrity is the same- they're thinner/fatter/shorter/less beautiful/more beautiful than i expected. they didn't glow or sparkle or float three feet off the ground. they seemed like a pretty normal person. and that's been my experience, except corin tucker looks like a pretty hot normal person. my friend susie tried to get me to hit on her, and if i were wasted and didn't know she was married and has a kid and stuff, i totally would. because she's adorable in a normal-person way.

spotting one of my teenage idols in between the messy racks of portland's scummiest mall just makes me love this town even more. i know that portland is utopia for idealistic, educated 20something white kids whose parents will spot their rent while they search for gainful employment or "make art" or "work on their novel" or "find themselves," and i sure do fit in with this open-minded upper-class. but we pampered and progressive citizens flock here for a reason- because it fucking rocks here. houses are quant, neighborhoods are small, people smile and say hello, even the cool people aren't asshole (for the most part), and- according to recent revelation- even the celebrities are poor.

.blessed vices.

are they really (as i am reluctant to acknowledge) an image, carefully marketed and eagerly consumed, an ideal, an excuse? they sure do seem an easy prop, a beer and a cigarette, coffee, bourbon, to boost esteem and soothe angst. the icon lends glory and gloom to the james deans and ethan hawkes and tom waits of every generation, but only on the screen. in the morning, into the kleenex they cough the same yellow phlegm as the rest of us real people.

sobriety has been looming big in my mind ever since i've been trying to be sober. more. it seems like i'm not the only one to wonder when was the last time i didn't have a beer? and is it, maybe, not so cool to drink every night? and does it matter anyway- does it make a difference if i have a beer, if i smoke a joint, or if i don't? does it change the experience i'm having today, does it make it better, more pleasurable, does it numb it, blur it, smear it into the next and ultimately wipe it away?

sometimes, while i'm driving to work or home from the store, i listen to the same cd that i listened to a few months ago, when i was drinking on a daily basis and smoking cigarettes every hour on the hour. i listen to the same cd and i hear something different. it's alarming, actually, like someone has sneakily installed a brand new car stereo with clearer sound and crisper voices, deeper bass. i turn up the volume and turn it back down, but the music sounds vivid either way.

this car-stereo fiddling makes me wonder if something in my mind has been changed from all of this abstinence. could it be that a cup of tea instead of bourbon makes for mental clarity? and is this knowledge old news to sober america and an embarrassingly stale revelation for me?

my friend tonia quit smoking cigarettes last june. she says she didn't feel all that hot, and the drinking that she used to do every day didn't feel all that fun anymore. and tonia-- who's dorm room once smelled like the collective ash tray of ten of our friends, who's jacket pocket was never without the bulge of a pack of camel lights, who would step outside with you for seven minutes no matter the weather-- tonia joined a gym.

tonia shares my reluctance to hang up her old habits once and for all.

"i'm 23," she says. "how old am i? i'm too old to be sitting at home drinking tea and reading a book."

but her voice sounds calmer, warmer, and more even-paced than the last time we spoke two years ago. over a cigarette.

choose your own adventure.

am i depressed because i sit around feeling sorry for myself all the time, or do i feel sorry for myself because i'm tragically and hopelessly depressed?

(i think the answer's in the question.)

in a usual monday morning, how-was-your-weekend email, i described mine as the following:

i had the shittiest weekend, man.

it started on friday, when i couldn't go get snacks with you guys cuz i couldn't get out of bed. and ended on sunday, when i couldn't get out of bed. basically, sat in bed all weekend, watching depressing movies and not really feeding myself. i found out that my roomate went to a party on saturday night and happened to run into all of my friends (who did not invite me). also, tried to force myself to be social by going to get snacks with kate on saturday (cuz i woke up at 5 pm after sleeping all day) and she YELLED at me, TWICE. worried about self. please come up and smack me around and tell me to snap out of it.

and upon further reflection, it occured to me that i could present the same weekend's events in a much more positive, much less whiny light. for example, i could have said:

it was nice- pretty low-key. i rented a surprisingly successful batch of movies- blue velvet, the days of wine and roses, season six part two of sex and the city (!). the cats had two hours of outside time on saturday while i chopped up a downed tree in our backyard. they were very well-behaved- ate grass, rolled around, didn't run away. i went for a hardcore run (and by hardcore, i mean 20 minutes without stopping). i developed prints (this time using PRINT developer, not film developer) and they came out with all of the blacks and whites that i was hoping for- made me feel artsy and productive. cleaned house, knitted, cuddled with the kitties, got a lot of rest. oh- and didn't smoke a single cigarette even though i went to a smoky bar!

see- both of these descriptions are equally true (pardon a few melodramatic exaggerations in the first one), but the second one is a bit more fun. if i forced myself to, say, look on the bright side, list off the positives (of which, it is tough to admit, there are many), might i be a more palatable friend?

might i be-- happy?