.oh my darling clementine.

so i'm at the bar last night– the windowless one attached to the awful chinese restaurant. my favorite bartender is working, with spice-girl pigtails and wicked quips.

i'm sitting with kate, my ex-ex, who i'm finally over. and it's nice to chat as friends and without the din of insecurity and reading-too-much-into-things in my head. the pabst tallboys keep on coming.

the guy sitting two bar stools over flashes us a bright and leering smile: "how're you gals doing tonight?" we're cheerful enough to engage in conversation with the man, whose name i learn later is floyd. he's from atlanta, but his accent is too viscous for a city boy. he luxuriates on every vowel, and stretches out over the word "ya'll" like a cat waking up after an afternoon nap in the sun. i keep my voice cautiously cold and fight the grin induced by three pabst tallboys.

it turns out floyd doesn't hit on either of us. sure, he's a southern gentleman and he whips out a lighter before i even lift a cigarette to my lips. he buys us another round. he makes frequent reference to "his girl" and engages only in sincere and interested conversation.

we talk for over an hour about cats. i show him the picture on my phone of gordon, my gentle oaf of an orange tabby. he tells me about smokey, the stray from his childhood who wandered into his family kitchen on the evening of thanksgiving and went straight into his arms. we talked about the physiology of purring, and the soul behind yellow feline eyes. "spay and neuter!" i bellow dogmatically, waiving my cigarette in his face. "you tell everybody to spay and neuter!"

what strikes me about floyd is the sincerity with which he tells stories. he pauses at length to recall childhood details. "it was cold out. i remember it was cold out when smokey came in because the door was open. the door was open and i could feel the wind blowing in." his eyes focus somewhere inside his head and he waves his arm toward him in a tender gesture of wind.

it didn't occur to me that he could have been fabricating any of these sweet details on the spot. especially not when floyd launches into a tale of tragic loss on a recent fishing trip in alaska. on the ocean in alaska with a crew of fifteen people, it's a significant loss when someone goes overboard. that's what happened one night amid a particularly wicked storm. they shouldn't have even been out at sea, and certainly not above deck. most waves were 40 knots, some 45, occasionally over 50.

apparently, a wave holds all of its power in the body. the crest is the froth and grandeur.

one of the sailors went up on deck to perform some important fisherman task, something that had to be done despite the danger of waves. his name was clementine. and he was one of the most experienced of the bunch.

nobody would have noticed the accident, except that the cook had emerged from below to haul a sack of garbage onto the deck. it happened at the moment the cook poked his neck up: a strong and sudden wave hit the ship. clementine ducked and braced against the rail when the crest enveloped him, but let go once the body rushed over, tipping the boat.

the other 14 men searched for 12 hours. it only takes five minutes to die in a cold alaska ocean. a miracle could sustain you for another hour. the hours two to twelve were spent merely searching for a body, a shoe, a token to take back to clementine's family. he was lost and gone forever, oh my darling clementine.

i recall thinking that clementine was not a very manly name for a burly fisherman, but i was enthralled in the emotion and high drama of the story and didn't pause to consider the coincidence of clementine's story's similarity to the folk song.

and it makes me wonder if floyd is less a gem of genuine emotion and more a skilled storyteller.

Drove she ducklings to the water
Ev'ry morning just at nine,
Stubbed her toe against a splinter,
Fell into the foaming brine.

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
You were lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.

Ruby lips above the water,
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine,
But, alas, I was no swimmer,
So I lost my Clementine.

.frustrate: (v.) to prevent from achieving a goal.

i hate my job.

everybody hates their job, it's just part of life. there are fabulous things that everybody in the western hemisphere anticipates with collective eagerness: three-day weekends, friday evening, sunsets, ice cream, the next big blockbuster movie. going to work in the morning is not one of those things.

i believe, however, that i am special. i have demonstrated the capacity to work hard and to love it. so i should be able to find a job that rocks my socks off on a daily basis. i should be able to find a job that is challenging, interesting, meaningful, and satisfying. i should also be able to find a job that i am good at.

i know that this is a tall order. i want my dream job. i don't want to clean toilets, wash dishes, greet customers, book plane reservations, or update spreadsheets. i want glory and prestige, creativity and meaning, and a living wage.

i believe that i should have this job, but i don't believe that i ever will.

i think i may have it as good as it gets at my current job. i have a livable salary, my own office, and a brand new powerbook g4 that i can take home and use for whatever the hell i want. i like my co-workers. i can come in late if i want to. i can park downtown for free. i get to wear heels, but nobody gives a damn if i wear jeans. i can say fuck, shit, damn, bitch, and cunt. loudly. and no one cares. there's a liquor cabinet in the kitchen and i can help myself to a top-shelf martini anytime i want. my job perks make all of my friends jealous.

but what i'm doing in my fancy little office is ordering room service, booking hotel rooms, being everybody's beck-and-call-girl. i update an array of spreadsheets, coordinate meetings, and take blame for things that aren't my fault. i'm expected to work at night and on weekends when necessary. i never get to write, strategize, or contribute in any creative or intellectual way. it fucking sucks.

and there are so many possible avenues of escape from this job, and not a single one that i'm sure i should take. they all seem drastic and divergent and mutually excusive.

i could go to grad school. for art. for photography. for teaching. for english. for creative writing. for non-profit management. for journalism. for business.

i could travel. to teach english in thailand, poland, istanbul. to work on a farm in new zealand. to work at a park in alaska. i could travel aimlessly and see where i end up. i could get a job abroad somewhere.

i could get a new job. here, in portland. i could work at a non-profit, doing development and grantwriting. i could work at omsi, the humane society, the food bank, the art museum, the library, a local college. i could get another job in pr or marketing. i could work for a company. i could babysit. i could farm. i could waitress. i could temp.

i could move to a new city and break into editing, publishing, magazine work, journalism. i could go to new york, chicago, boston, washington dc.

i could just stay put and make the most of my off time by writing, reading, taking classes. i could take a photo class, a pottery class, a yoga class, a cooking class. i could do like i'm doing and memorize zappos.com and blowdry my hair and drink increasingly girly cocktails in increasingly froufrou bars.

i could foster kittens. i could write a zine. i could get a tattoo

while the options are infinite, i can only pick one path to pursue. and in the interest of indecision, i'm staying right where i am.

.work on a saturday morning.

i woke up this morning, pulled on last night's jeans and a clean t-shirt, and drove to starbucks. one venti– or as i like to refer to it to the makeup-faced barista, the really big one– coffee later, i drive back to my house and sit down with my computer to tie up a couple of loose ends for work.

i get paid $32,000 a year, and i've already worked a fifty hour week. but snapping open my powerbook g4 (courtesy of work) and responding to my boss and the client with chipper alertness makes me feel cleansed of last night's cigarettes and whisky. i can't stop myself from sitting up a little straighter and thinking, "you're so on top of things!" and "they'll be so impressed!" it's sick.

don't get me wrong, i complain about it. on the phone to a friend, "well, i should go and do WORK now cuz i'm a goddamn corporate whore." but i do it anyway, work on a saturday morning, and nobody asked me to.

what is it, my compulsive need to go above and beyond what is required of me? is it a plea for praise and recognition? does it slather meaning and purpose onto the frightfully blank canvas of saturday afternoon? am i bored, a nerd, a hard-worker? it is obvious that the money is not the motivation here. the free laptop perhaps, but all of the overtime i work spreads $32,000 pretty thin.

i just want to be competent. i saw an interview with billy joel once on vh1, and the interviewer asked him how he managed to produce such consistently excellent music. billy joel answered: "i'm competent. i know how to write music, and most people don't know what they're doing. i just look excellent by comparison."

in this day we are pulled in so many directions by family, friends, work, phone, prime time television, emails, hour-long commutes, and endless errands and obligations. we don't have the time and energy to do anything well. not that anybody even values or expects quality. home-cooked means microwavable pre-cooked rice and frozen stir-fry in a pan. it's easier to throw things away than to maintain them, so all of our tools and possessions are disposable crap. t-shirts are two for $10 at old navy, and hardly last through the season. my point is corroborated by the swiffer, clorox wipes, the entire produce section of trader joe's: pre-cut carrot sticks, stir-fry in a bag, pre-diced onions. it's no wonder there are corners of our homes that haven't been thoroughly swept and scrubbed since we threw out our broom and mop in favor of the pre-moistened and sanitized swiffer.

it's true that when my mom kneels on her kitchen floor with a rag and a bucket of hot bleach and water, she will have the cleanest floor in the united states. and that's not because she's a mopping genius, it's because she's invested time and energy in performing the task correctly. she's a competent floor-washer, and that makes her an outstanding floor-washer by comparison to the rest of us.

i just want to go to bed at night and know that i completed the tasks of the day with integrity and sincerity. when i ship a package, i want to confirm receipt. when i write an email, i want it to begin with a greeting and end with proper sign-off. i want every comma to be in place and every word to be spelled correctly. (you'll notice that my blog contains no capital letters, but my tendency towards inconsistency and ambivalence is another blog entry all together.)

maybe i just want an a in a c average world.

.lloyd dobler needs a restraining order.

other people go to happy hour after work. my work has happy hour right on the spot. 4:30 on a friday and out come the martinites. i always think to myself: bad idea. don't let yourself be vulnerable around co-workers. you can't hold your liquor. it's 4:30 in the afternoon. and every week when a drink is handed to me, i gratefully gulp it down.

we sit on stools in our bleak work kitchen: brick walls, toaster oven, industrial coffee maker, vinyl floor. everybody loosens up noticeably with each sip. by the end of a hard week of ten hour days and fending off near-misses with crazed clients, we're all lightweights. voices get louder and more eager. laughs come easier. and i start talking more than i should.

today the conversation rolls around to sexual harrassment. how it is unacceptable, hands down. we wouldn't think twice about letting go of a client who crossed that line. but we've been hoisted up on high horses by vodka and gin, and our ideals have eclipsed reasonable expectations. in my limited experience, innapropriate behavior is never obviously so. nobody ever steps up to you, unzips, and says, "fuck me or you're fired." it's always some confusing shade of gray. a look, a graze, an innuendo. nothing that– if you actually were attracted to the person– wouldn't be welcome.

it's the fine line between stalking and romance. romance is welcome; stalking is not. either way, the behavior is creepy.

the romantic notices the way your lips curl into a sneer before you laugh, how your voice drops suddenly when you're surprised. the romantic remembers that you salt your food before you've tasted it, and passes you the salt before you've asked for it. persistance is the mark of the romantic stalwart, and every romantic comedy since the birth of the silver screen corroborates this: lloyd dobler waited outside ione skye's bedroom with his boombox, and every woman who survived the eighties salivates at the thought.

it's unfair, but if john cusack were fat and pimply, we'd call the police.

.12 hour work day.

says a girl who hates her job: it's amazing how little positive feedback i need to be willing and eager to work a twelve hour day.

it's true. i'm a gluton for "good job!" and "thanks for staying late!" i'll do anything, apparently, as long as i can feel good at it. and i'm happier for it.

i've given up, suddenly, on all of my alternate plans. consequently, i'm down one obsessive preoccuption and in dire need of another. what's it gonna be? booze? work? maybe i should take a photography class? or a trip! maybe i should sew something or finish reading anna karenina. maybe i should decide that i'm insane and read webmd until i've diagnosed myself with an improbable disease and go around asking my friends: do i look jaundiced to you?

it's true, over an over. free time is a death wish. it doesn't take me more than a few hours of sitting around on saturday afternoon before i've given up all hope of happiness and hide under blankets and cat hair on my couch.

there are several preoccupations that i've had particular success with. the first and foremost is school, classes, homework. i can study harder than whores can snort smack off of public toilets. i can sacrifice sleep, food, exercise, and fun all for the illusion of greater meaning and purpose. as much as i complain about it, i'm never happier than when i'm working too hard.

number two is classic, but i feel like i put my own original spin on obsessing over relationships. imaginary are the best. the real ones don't seem to have the same pizzaz and possibility. the best relationships i've had are the ones where someone in the produce isle at the corner store grazes my sleeve and i spend weeks making up stories about it. about the build up, the watching and waiting over ripe bananas. the breakdown into ugly grunts and bruising embraces over the organic grapefruits. and please don't get the wrong idea: physical fantasies don't have shit on the twisted emotional dramas i engage in my head. don't get me started.

so i'm trying to get into a new groove. that is not to say that i will attempt not to obsess, because old habits die hard and this one is in my bones. it's just the way my neurons fire: quick and far in one persistent direction. the truth is i don't dislike it: i thrive on it. and i don't wish to change it. i just wish to indulge in productive delusions. perhaps: art, writing, reading? running?

it's too bad running doesn't tempt like cigarettes and destructive fantasies.

.bachelorette party.

9 p.m. last night, three friends and i pull up to the alibi. the alibi calls itself something like a tiki bar, and has walls made of straw and thickly-mortared rock. sea shell lamps hang from the ceiling and the menu wreaks of grease and pinapple.

i'm slightly off my rocker, in that haven't-eaten-since-breakfast, still-slightly-hungover, have-taken-three-zantac-and-still-have-heartburn kind of way. i'm rambling at an accelerated pace about innapropriate personal idiosyncracies. this is my m.o.: to advertise my quirkiest and ugliest traits and musings. it's a bizarre coping mechanism for shame.

we're sucking down rapid rounds of vodka sodas and have already begun to fill the ashtray with crumpled butts of camel lights. i'm hoping that liquor will take the edge off more than just the heartburn and manic twitching, but also the sting and whip of feeling particularly raw. on certain days i feel as if my skin is on inside out, and i am overwhelmed with an unbearable sense of vulnerability.

it's at this point that five woozy ponytails and low-cut shirts slide into the booth next to us, fingernails fluttering and voices vulgar and hoarse and sloppy. who's getting marries? asks the flighty waitress, between what i imagine are sneaked shots of vodka in the back room. it's droopy eyes. she's far past the point of perky-drunk and appears pointedly lethargic. the waitress serves her up a martini anyway.

it's then that the homeliest of the group whips out a light-up dildo on a stick that could do double-duty as a lightsaber and a big plastic cock and balls. conversation at our table stagnates, and we become a patient and attentive audience for the bachelorette party.

it's an ugly scene. the homely girl spends the rest of the night with plastic balls jutting out of her shirt, between her cleavage. she alternatively sings into it, like a microphone, and licks it. her voice is manly and completely monotone. (our table agrees she bears likeness to chris farley.) her eyes flutter and roll back. we decide that the whole bachelorette party is on drugs, but the tequila shots and budweisers keep on coming.

i'm mesmerized by the girl licking balls and laughing hard at the spectacle. i stare as if at an accident and laugh as children do at the kid with the limp. it's a mean, cruel laugh. it's the kind of laugh that doesn't seem far removed from crying, and has the same hysterical intensity. by the end of the night, several of the women are sprawled out on the floor under the table. breasts are easing their way out of the sides of tanktops. there's an empy martini glass upside down on the floor. i don't know it yet, but the cops are on their way.

i feel safely separate from the likes of this sloppy crowd. even though i've had several drinks and words catch on my tongue, i feel like jackie kennedy: poised and dignified and stylish. thank god i'm not that desperate and pathetic.

the waitress brings us our bill and explains that we've had nineteen vodka sodas and three gin and tonics. it comes to $105.

four faces cringe and consider our likenesses reflected in the wretched gaggle.

.i don't know what color my goddamn parachute is.

it seems like everybody else in the world has some idea what they're doing. or what they want to do.

fucking this american life guy, ira glass. he seems to have things pretty figured out, what with changing the face of public radio and all.

my friend sara, starting midwifery school this fall. at yale. selling her first house. at age 24.

my friend kari, head brewer at terminal gravity brewing. has a master's degree in brewing beer. just bought her first house.

my friend meredith, just got back from the peace corps in madagascar. moving full speed ahead in her career of progressive waste management. i don't even know what that means. oh, and also getting her master's in public administration.

me: sitting at my kitchen table, lights off. windows closed so that cats don't jump out. listening to built to spill next to a pot of dead cat grass. eating soggy greek salad that i stole from work. i work for a high tech marketing and pr firm. i am absolutely unfulfilled, clueless, and miserable.

and everyday i have a new escape plan. today: peace corps. yesterday: organic farm apprenticeship in san jose. two days ago: join the student conservation association and live in backwoods alaska. i would even get to carry a gun.

today, sara says i should check out the almunae network and find a mentor. all of these friends (excluding ira) have all attended wellesley college, the school from that movie with julia roberts, "mona lisa smile," and yes. it's just like that movie. bunch of high-achieving cunts. and they all seem to have their shit figured out. i don't belong on the almnae list.

so i'm sorting through the alumnae list, and instead of feeling inspired i compare myself to every single person and my heart starts pounding because i'll never be the research assistant at the metropolitan museum of art like one of my classmates. i'll never be head of graduate admissions at yale. fucking yale. fucking elitist, prestigious meaningful career paths.

i can't even grow cat grass.