That’s that old shit right there.

Found some old stuff!

——

The last time I saw the dock I was sitting with James eating a peach and dangling my feet in the murky water. He sat next to me on the hot wood, tracing circles with the end of a burnt match. We had rented a paddle boat. The day was hot and still; the air lay close against my face. My stomach turned an easy somersault.

“So do you want to get in this boat or what?” he said.

His car was in the parking lot, packed with the detritus of four years gone wrong: books with endearments scrawled in the front, sweaters that my mother sent for Christmas, the tags still on. The cat had left the house when she saw the boxes in the hallway and returned three days later, all matted fur and contempt. She slept in the space between us in the bed, stretching her body across the distance.

“I guess we can get in the boat. I paid for it,” I said.

The boat wobbled and water sloshed over the edge as James set a wary foot inside. Our pace was slow and we moved in silent, deliberate circles around the lake.

“This is fun,” he said. He trailed his hand in the water and avoided my eyes.
“Yeah, this is great. What a good idea. Paddle boats. Who rents paddle boats anymore?”

Four years of living together had reduced us to an awkward first date, paddling aimlessly around a lake in July. We were tired.

The boat came to rest after ten minutes and bobbed gently on the waves created in our wake.

“Are you going to come visit me in Seattle?” he asked.
“I don’t know. No. Probably not.” I said.

We lapsed into silence, looking across the lake to the camp that was there. Kids in bathing suits and life jackets ran full til on the dock, bright colored dots moving on skinny legs. A girl sat on the dock, hugging her knees. Her friends looked back and waved and she shook her head as they jumped into the water one by one.

“I guess we better get back,” James said.

He started pedalling and I followed suit, going at a languid pace until we reached the dock.He offered his hand as we got out of the boat and I grabbed it. His palm was sweaty. We walked back to the end of the dock in silence.

“I guess I’m going to take off. You want a ride?” he asked.
“I can walk, it’s fine,” I said.
“I’ll call you in a couple weeks,” he said. The words fell flat.
“Have a good flight,” I said.

I watched his back disappear as he walked up the hill towards his car.

How To Handle Heartbreak

The First Night

For starters, turn on the television. Flip past anything with human beings interacting with each other. Settle on the Food Network. Watch Rachael ray make 30 minutes of dpressing chili. Wish you had the strength to leave your bed. Your stomach is oddly light, full of stones that weigh nothing. You sleep with your eyes open that night, tears drying on your cheeks. The light from the street lamp casts a long beam across your floor and you think before you go to sleep that you look like a painting, motionless, serene.

When’s the last time.

It’s been a sec. I haven’t done this in a long time, so now I will do this more often. Here’s a little ditty about some things I’ve been thinking about. I’m re-working my thesis after an inspiring conversation. I am in love with a bike. I’m not sure what San Francisco has done to me but I think it’s ok.

You never know how much it’s going to hurt until it actually happens. You expect romance novel bosom-heaving, throwing yourself face down into a pile of satin pillows, heart beating madly against your ribcage, dying to get out. Perhaps you need chocolates, potato chips, things to throw. You want to smash plates or stab a pillow just to watch the feathers fly about your head in slow motion.

Heartbreak is not this dramatic. It’s a quiet, slow pain. It takes a while to reach your heart. It starts in your stomach, a numbness that spreads to your extremties until you feel as if your head has removed itself from your body, floating free above the stem of your neck. You spend an hour or so wandering around your apartment chasing it, watching it bob on an invisible thermal just beyond your grasp. This feeling takes over each room slowly, filling the space with huge gray thunderclouds, pushing you out slowly until you’re clutching the walls. The only place you’re comfortable is the cool porcelain of the bathtub, the door to the bathroom closed behind you, the lights out. Sit in the bathtub. It feels strange at first. You’re not supposed to be in the tub with your clothes on. Something about this is familiar. Your mind wanders to bad metaphors about the womb, but you know that’s not it. The bathroom is quiet. The tub is cool. The space inside the bathtub with the curtain drawn is manageable. Here you can quietly sift through your emotions, take stock of your dignity. Moments that replay on an endless loop on a jumbo screen are minaturized, compressed into teensy moving figures like ants, images on a dollhouse television set.

You want to sleep in the bathtub. You can work from home from the bathtub, the cord of your computer stretching like a tightwire across your living room floor, snaking under the closed door. You can peck away at the computer with a renewed spirit, taking phone calls, hoping that no one hears the strange echo of your bathroom. A pillow would help. Your body starts to mold to its countours.  Bottles of half-empty shampoo form a cityscape on the edge. The light that filters in from the window is weird and clear and throws everything into focus.

Stay in the tub until the clouds retreat, until you no longer feel the need to belly across the floor, dodging memories. Stay in the tub until you know it’s safe to be outside again.

Ghetto revival.

I’m not quite sure what’s going on. I’ve been in California for 2.5 years now, which to me is a long ass time to be anywhere in these delicate years post-college. I’ve settled, made friends, started a little life. Shit is good. The last time I lived in California for any extended period of time was when I was 17. That’s 8 long years ago. When I was in high school, I was kinda ghetto. I think I’m experiencing a revival.

See this song? This song was my JAM senior year of high school, for serial. I have fond memories of dancing like it was my job at Grad Night at like 3 am to this song. I’m fairly certain that when this came on at my senior ball I screamed, hiked up my dress and did it cause I love it on the dance floor. It’s coming back. I’ve been listening to dirty-ass rap non-stop for the past two weeks, with no end in sight. I think this is a good thing, but who the hell knows. This might never end.

Hire me, goddammit.

I sent Gawker excerpts from Jenny 8 Lee’s new book because I had a review copy from work. I then had a brief email exchange with the book editor there and today she published the excerpts that I had sent, complete with the charming yet inane tags that I had given them. Food porn! I said it was food porn and then she used it!

Here’s my dream: Gawker book editor and I exchange a series of erudite emails establishing my quick wit and abundance of snark. In these emails, I mention that I am moving to New York in April. Gawker mentions they have a free associate editor position. Based on the strength of my carefully crafted emails, I start writing for them, perhaps covering race? I have no idea. Whatever. I want to be a part of their world.

Maybe my next step is to make up lit journals and write some clips and slap together a fake portfolio. Shouldn’t I try to live the dream? I’m not sure what the dream is.

On an unrelated note, I wish I used a zipline as my main form of transportation. Even though I am terrified of heights and the idea of my whizzing through the air clutching onto a small piece of metal, a zipline as transport seems to be the funniest/best way to go about matters. I would wear a helmet. It would rule.

Shake it, don’t break it.

I have had a dream since I was about 14. This dream is to become a video ho. I want to dance in a pair of hot pants and a wifebeater while some rapper pontificates about the size of my ass and what he’d like to do to it. To work towards this dream, I often dance like the women featured in the videos below in my room with the door closed.

If I could get my ass to do what these ladies are doing, I would be that much closer to nirvana.

This entire video contains some of the most amAAAzing shit I have ever seen ever. My love fore Beyonce runs deep. When I learn how to do what this bitch is doing in this video, that is the only way I am going to walk for the rest of my life.

I love Flight of the Conchords.

Happy New Year. It’s 2008. I toyed with the idea of coming up with large, over-arching themes for this year. Big in ’08, Grad School in ’08, New York State in 2008. These didn’t really stick. Whatever. New year, new change. Here’s a resolution: QUIT SMOKING. We’ll see how this works out.

I love Flight of The Conchords and I think that each and every one of you should too. Here is a clip from the show.

This song makes me pee my pants. This entire show makes me pee my pants. It is on DVD now and it is dirt cheap and hilarious. It is a blustery day here in SF. This is what I have been watching all evening.

Look what my friend did.

Dan went to Nepal and he climbed up some shit. Then he came back, made a little documentary and sent it to Current TV. Listen to him as he narrates about climbing, Everest and the plight of the sherpa.

Here is a link to the actual video. I am having troubles like whoa cracking the intricate code of HTML otherwise I would’ve had the image link to the video instead of posting a shitty screenshot. Whatever. We’re not all perfect. Just watch the thing. It’s great.

Oh my god.

This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

These are a few of my favorite things.

I like lists and I like a lot of things. Here is a space for me to post some of those things I like so much.

1. This song is fucking amazing. Look how happy these people are to be washing a car, dancing in the streets, hanging out by a pool. I often make telephone calls sitting on my bed in a lime green, high waisted bikini. It’s one of my Saturday morning rituals.

2. These are delicious treats from the Far East. They are filled with chocolate and have depictions of koalas performing a variety of activities, including playing a triangle, driving a car and eating eucalyptus.

3. <b>The New Yorker</b> is one of my favorite magazines. I have a copy sitting on my coffee table right now. Typical but I still fucking love it.

4. Trivia night at the Bitter End, followed by bubble tea at Genki. There’s something to be said about the establishment of rituals that really make a place feel like home.

5. Charts and graphs. Perhaps my new job as a nerdy ad implementation guru has encouraged this but I now really love charts, graphs and things of that nature. I just discovered that Flickr has a stats feature that allows you to see referrer sites and all sorts of other shit. Totally fucking dorky, but also awesome.

6. My new bathrobe is one of the most amazing items of clothing I have purchased for myself in a long while. I got it at Target one hung-over Saturday in San Bruno with Elena at the Tanforan mall. First of all, Tanforan is named for what I believe was an old racetrack and also Japanese internment camp. Now it’s a mall. WTF. Secondly, that mall is the worst possible place to be hung over in, ever. The entrance to Target is stationed at what I view to be the gates of hell, i.e the children’s play pit, full of screaming toddlers and their disinterested parents.  Kill me. The bathrobe is pretty sweet though.

7. I don’t drive, but I love being in cars. I love being driven. This is a bad thing, because I don’t have a car and must depend on the generosity of friends, but still. I love love love it.