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Mon | November 28, 2005
another day at kap
I have no one to go to this poetry reading with tonight.* Of course, it would help if I had more than two friends.
I am wondering if I would prefer to be here full time, anyway-- to get up and do this relentlessly, day in and day out. I always come to the same conclusion: that there are pros and cons of every situation and I must play to the advantages of whatever I've got.
Advantages of not having a full time job:
- I am not a zombie
- Tomorrow I do not need to get up so early.
- There is something really mind-numbing about work, that incapacitates me the rest of the night. I just end up watching tv or doing I don't know what. I lose the whole day, not just the time I am here.
- I can stay up late
Disadvantages of not having a full time job:
- I feel weird.
- I waste a lot of time wondering why I am so bad at getting jobs, even the ones right in front of me
- It leaves me with too much to prove
*an example of bad sentence construction, I think.
journal | Posted by Lily at 01:35 PM
Thu | November 24, 2005
my birthday
It's my birthday today. It's also Thanksgiving.
It's 11 pm. I'm still in my pyjamas. I stayed in bed until noon. I did it on purpose. I looked at the clock and waited. I figured then half the day would be gone and I'd only have to get through the other half. It's not actually true, mathematically speaking-- there are fewer hours in the morning than in the afternoon plus evening. But psychologically noon feels like a halfway point.
I went back to Kap last Friday. I saw all these people with full time jobs and normal lives and wondered what the hell was wrong with me. I started to write about it and stopped. I don't think about work and jobs very well. I am better at thinking about love and relationships. I don't remember when I started or stopped working at places but I remember all the relationships and would-be-relationships. Maybe because they are fewer. But I don't think so.
We had turkey at around 1. Thanksgiving is a lunchtime thing in my house. Sometimes the relatives come; sometimes they don't. This year they didn't. It had to do with my mother inviting only my aunt and uncle, and not their children. I think that's what happened. I don't really know. I felt that I didn't have the energy to make things into what they ought to be, and it would be easier to just let them be whatever they were.
My plan for the day was: nothing. To do nothing and to do it shamelessly. To expend no energy, to think nothing, to evaluate nothing, to regret nothing.
I slowly shopped online at anthropologie for like six hours, on and off. At anthropologie you can drop two hundred dollars on a brass necklace. It's a dangerous place. I wasn't going to buy anything, but I finally caved in and got a bunch of clothes I will never wear, except maybe to Kap, where they will be like, what the hell are you so dressed up for. And I'll be like, because I felt like it. I do that sometimes. Most of that stuff probably won't fit and I'll return it to the store. This is how they get you with their convenient return policies. But anyway, it's my birthday.
They have cute drawer pulls. Maybe I'll redo my drawers. Maybe I'll just make that my goal, for awhile-- to decorate my room. I wonder if the drawer pulls would work on my dresser. I also wonder how I would hang a heavy mirror on my wall. I wonder what it would be like to buy whatever I felt like. If it were just my job to decorate the house. Would I feel happy or empty?
journal | Posted by Lily at 10:53 PM
Mon | November 21, 2005
everything that has happened to me so far today
12:26 AM. Call Sharif. I am about to tell him I can't sleep when he says, "You only ever call me when you have a problem or can't sleep."
"That's not true," I say. It isn't true.
"I have to get something upstairs," he says. "I'll call you back."
"Hum, okay," I say. I hang up the phone. It chirps. Low battery. I turn it off. I know he won't call back.
2:47 Call Sharif again. He says he was going to call back, that he always does. "You're full of lies," I say. Sharif lies and exaggerates. We talk for ten minutes or so. Towards the end of the "conversation" he gives the phone over to "some drunk kid who stays with us sometimes."
7:00 Wake. Think: I am glad I do not have to do this every day. Write in journal.
7:30 Get out of bed. Stand next to my closet and dresser for ten minutes trying to think of what to wear. Put on the clothes I wore yesterday.
7:52 Say hi to crossing guard at corner of Myrtle and Summit. She is on the lawn with her golden retriever. She feels the need for something else. I know this because of her silver convertible, and the way she says hi.
7:53 Wonder why I instinctively think about what everyone else needs.
7:54 While crossing Hillside Ave, realize I've forgotten my ipod shuffle.
8:37 Wedged between fat people on the train. Afraid their fatness and fat state of mind is being transferred to me by osmosis. Write a note about each person around me in my writer's notebook. The note is a problem that I see with that person. Examples: Fat. Too much makeup. Has leaf in hair. Has two bags.
9:20 Clean the grime off this desk. Get set up in remote location in the other wing. Like it.
9:33 Start turning one-blank sentence completions into similar sentence completions. It's a new question type for the GRE.
9:45 Wish I had Yahoo IM.
10:33 Have thoughts about the people around me, but can't write them. Write about my day so far instead.
journal | Posted by Lily at 10:32 AM
Fri | November 18, 2005
at a reading
I am at the Opium reading. It's at Happy Ending, an unmarked bar at the border of Chinatown and the Lower East Side.
I am here alone.
I am sitting next to a balding white guy. Todd later gestures to this guy and says to the crowd, "C___, very talented, will be reading on December 5th."
In front of me is a guy with curly hair who is eating pork lo mein. He is C___'s friend. I am at the corner of an L and they are the ends.
They don't talk to me; they talk to each other. They meet the girls on the right-- three of them, along the wall.
"We're friends of Todd," the one on the right says. It becomes evident that they don't have much to say. However they will laugh at anything you have. The conversation dies. I am relieved. I hate being an innocent bystander to conversations like that.
The guys go back to talking to each other. I feel that they want me to hear what they're saying, or that they're aware that I might be listening and take that into account. But I am not listening.
There is tension about my being there. Their conversation turns to the subject of my presence.
"Awkwardness is the next best thing to wisdom," curly-haired guy says to balding guy. Balding disagrees.
I take out my cell phone and start re-reading and deleting my text messages. They relax.
...
Now I am at the Delancey F/J/M/Z station. I feel like I am sitting in a clearing. There is a mosaic of cherry trees on the wall opposite the track.
The advertising inside the F is green. Anheuser World Lager. The best of both worlds.
...
I write all this on a napkin and type it up on the train ride home. Then I wipe my nose with the napkin.
The people across from me seem inclined to talk. They are impressed that I have my laptop plugged in.
"That's really neat," the woman says, in her best imitation of a teenager.
"How do you know where you can plug it in?" he asks.
"Where there's an outlet," I say, with an unintended tinge of sarcasm. "You just have to keep your eyes peeled," I add encouragingly, to make up for it.
He is in jeans and a charcoal fleece. I try not to make eye contact. When I look up, it's at the conductor at the entryway to the next car.
I get the feeling that I don't use good sentence construction. I try not to care.
nonfiction | Posted by Lily at 12:54 AM
Thu | November 17, 2005
Ava's Escape
Ava had a recurrent dream. She worked at an old building. It had a yellow glow instead of the fluorescence at the office where she worked in real life. She went out on the roof. A moment ago it was day, but out on the roof it was night. There was a playground-- a large plastic playground like the one she never had when she was a kid. At the top of the playground was a red, yellow and blue striped tent. The stripes ran vertically with the pomp of a flag. There was wet rain and a postcard view of the Manhattan skyline. She passed the playground. She went to the edge of the roof and --woke up.
Withdrawl. That is my method, she thought to herself, as she pushed 3, 5, 8 to get into the bathroom. I invite condescension. I bring it on myself. It's in the way I carry myself. Open, just waiting for someone to stab me. She looked down as she undid her grey plaid pants with the pink and yellow cross-hatches. As she sat on the toilet, she smoothed out the pink ribbon that served as a belt. She did not need to go to the bathroom. She had gone there to think.
What makes Jen so great? She doesn't fool me for a second. I don't believe she's accomplished anything. I haven't either-- but at least I don't act like I'm so great. Ava wished she was a squirrel. She wished she worked at McDonald's. She wished life was simpler. She wished she was ugly and dumb. The ugly and dumb were never expected to do things. She was cute and smart. Everyone assumed that everything about her was peachy. She looked at her cute outfit and thought perhaps it was not such a good outfit. It made her look like a nice girl. On top she wore a cream cardigan. Her hair was in french braids. There was no one to look cute for. There were only people to look vulnerable to.
I bring it on myself. I act happy even when I'm not. I act happy especially when I'm not.
She had gone over to Mark's cubicle. Mark had always been nice to her. He had often caught her up in his girlish energy. He was tall and wore close-fitting black shirts. They looked plain and casual but they were very expensive.
"Hi," Ava said.
"Hi," said Mark. But he didn't look up. He flipped through his papers as if he were concentrating on finding something. Ava walked away.
She had almost gone to Nicole. Nicole was the office pariah. Her body was like a twig, like the letter K. She scurried around like a confused ant. She started every sentence twice. No one had the patience to talk to her. As beaten as Ava was, Nicole was abused even more-- and openly. Was there a word for this, Ava wondered? It was not shadenfreude. That was pleasure at seeing others suffer. She wanted a word that meant the relief you feel that someone is worse off than you.
Ava had nowhere to go so she went to the bathroom.
"I don't do the cataloging," Jen had said a few weeks ago, as if it were a low thing to do. Ava had been doing just that for the past several months. And now Jen had ruined the credibility of her current project. It would not matter what Ava did. Whatever it was would acquire a tinge of worthlessness because of how Jen spoke of it. Jen was above everything; thus Jen did nothing-- nothing but erode the reputation of Ava. All she did was judge and make everything good into bad. She was like Midas but worse. Everything she touched turned to shit.
Ava estimated that she had been gone about twenty minutes. She thought of what she would say when she got back. She would try and pretend nothing had happened. But during her time in the bathroom stall the emotions had built up in her, rather than subsided. She thought she might cry. She would say she felt sick and take the rest of the day off.
She left the bathroom and thought of something else. Instead of going back, she went into the stairwell. She had never been in the stairwell. Up and up she went. She went as quickly as she could, not noticing how far up she went. The exertion relieved her frustration and she kept going. As she neared the top she remembered her dream. She had never remembered it before. She had only thought, right after she woke up, that she had had it before. And then she forgot it.
It came to her as she got to the top and saw the black door with a bar and a wheel. She tried to remember if that was the door in her dream but she didn't know. She put her hand on the door and felt its coolness. It was locked.
She returned to her cubicle. No one had noticed she was even gone.
fiction | Posted by Lily at 07:38 PM
Tue | November 15, 2005
instant food
I'm baking Betty Crocker cranberry orange quick bread. I messed it up a little. You are supposed to stir the mix. I beat it with the electric hand mixer before reading the instructions. Beating something that is supposed to be stirred puts too much air in the batter. It will rise too much.
Bread in a box, cake in a box. They are so simple, one-step cooking, but then I mess up the one step. My problem is I think it is supposed to be easy so I don't pay as much attention.
I don't even measure the oil and water. I just pour some of each in. This never fails to rile Henry up. When Henry is about to microwave a Hot Pocket or pizza I always say, three minutes! or whatever I think is about the right time for it. I say this while he is trying to find the directions on the box. They are always in some obscure corner.
And my problem is that most of the time I get away with it. I'll probably get away with this too. I think I caught myself in time.
Maybe this isn't a problem. I just need to be ever so slightly more aware next time. It's not like driving where I could get in an accident.
journal | Posted by Lily at 06:37 AM
Mon | November 14, 2005
Tao Lin
Tao is applying to Kaplan. You don't need a job! I said, punching him twice in the arm. But he is like I was a few years ago. He wants a job; he won't feel normal until he has one. He is advanced of where I was; I burned a year in film and then another year or so at two ill-fitting jobs before landing at Kap. And hell, he knows he wants to be a writer. I didn't know that, or I didn't admit that, until January 2004. Then I didn't really do anything about it until January of this year. I mean I thought I was doing things, but I really wasn't. Maybe I'm not even really doing things now. But I think I am.
Tao is like chococat. He has this spaceyness about him. I barely know him, which is why I can write about him. I think once you get to know people it's harder to write about them, because there's something at stake then. Also, once you get to know someone, you forget them a little. You forget your first impressions and you don't see their physical features anymore. Or I don't.
Tao has hair like black grass. Like the grass in a wooden box that you can put on your city apartment windowsill. I didn't remember his hair being this way before, but the last time I saw him, it was like this. Maybe he styled it that way. But I don't see him as someone who styles his hair. I see him more as someone who wears the same navy sweatshirt and pants for days on end. Who wakes up and lets his hair be whatever it is. Yet I may be confusing him with myself. I do that sometimes.
His brain is mushy and poetic. This is why he is so spacey. He's really overwhelmed by the world, in a way. He'll say things that are basic observations, as if they are big revelations to him. One Sunday at KGB there was this old man sitting nearby, and Tao said, "he's so old," drawing out the 'oh' in 'old,' as if he were old himself. As if by being near an old man Tao somehow experienced his oldness.
I met him at an Opium reading. He read some poems. One of his poems was called "some of my happiest moments are on IM." Or something like that. Another one had a line like, "I'd rather be unhappy and honest than dishonest and unhappy." Or something.
On his blog he writes that the people he likes never like him. I suppose that implies that he doesn't like the people who like him. (Or maybe it doesn't. When I took philosophy of logic I nearly failed it.) At any rate, since I like him, he probably doesn't like me. But I think he meant "like" as in, "like like."
Maybe we will continue to be acquainted and grow into friends. But then I would have to delete this post. I don't think there's anything up here he would object to, though.
I wonder if he will work at K. It seems to be the fate of Kaplan to employ every lost soul between the ages of 21-25.
nonfiction | Posted by Lily at 10:08 PM
Thu | November 10, 2005
edison election
liens | Posted by Lily at 11:15 PM
Tue | November 08, 2005
email time capsule
I sent a message to myself through an email time capsule.
liens | Posted by Lily at 03:18 PM
Sun | November 06, 2005
stranded in nyc
I forgot what day it was and got to penn station at the wrong time. I meant to catch the 11:49 but it doesn't exist, so now I'm just killing time til the 12:34. My brain is fried, I just want to go home and sleep. why is it sunday? it's so messed up. they should put the weekend night schedules on friday and saturday night, but they run them on saturday and sunday night. ben kunkel read at kgb tonight. he and his buddies seem to write about intelligent slackers. he is really cute. scruffy, arty, casual.
| Posted by Lily at 11:59 PM
Thu | November 03, 2005
First Smoke
I tried my first cigarette last night. I had mentioned to Steve some time ago that I had never smoked a cigarette.
"Really?" he said.
"Nope."
"Have you smoked pot?"
"Nope. I've been in a room where people have been smoking."
I've been missing Steve. I saw him last May and we started talking on the phone every once in awhile, through the summer and early fall. Now I feel out of touch with him again. I don't have any reason to call. And yet I didn't before, either. I think one definition of a friend is someone you feel you can call for no reason, with nothing in particular to say. Or maybe that's the definition of a good conversationalist. A combination of both, I think.
Lynn, one of my few New Jersey friends, went to Vanderbilt with her boyfriend this past weekend. Brian had an interview for dental school. Lynn doesn't want to move down there. "I don't want to hang out with hicks," she said.
"I think they're all right," I said. Steve works at Vanderbilt.
So the smokes. It happened last night after the event at the Brown club. As I was leaving, I ran into Bilal outside the building. Bilal was wearing a Brown sweater with a giant "B" on the front, and a Brown baseball cap. He has a pretty good sense of humor. "Let's get a drink," he said.
"I don't feel like it," I said. "I'm going to catch the subway."
"Let me say goodbye to this person," he said, looking through the glass at some people coming down the stairs. "And I'll come with you."
Out the door came a well-groomed Indian woman and a bald white man with a rim of white hair. His head was shiny and phosphorescent. We chatted for a few minutes. I don't remember what was said.
"What do you want to do?" the bald white man said to the Indian woman.
She murmured something indefinite.
"It's up to you," he said.
"I'm going to catch the subway. Where is it?" I asked the woman.
"I'm not a subway person," she said. She meant she cabs it everywhere.
"I think it's that way, where that "M" is," said Bilal.
"Thanks," I said. I bid them goodnight and left. I wondered if I should have tried harder to save the beautiful Indian woman from the disgusting white man.
I was swiping myself through the turnstile when Bilal appeared behind me.
"___ is so obnoxious!" he said. I do not remember the name.
"Who?"
"The bald white guy!"
"Oh."
"He spit in my face! He wouldn't stop talking!" Bilal exclaims everything.
I started walking over to the tracks, but he wandered to the newsstand. "Do you smoke?" he asked.
"Nope."
He got a pack of cigarettes from the vendor. "Do you want anything?" he asked.
"Nope. Well-- gum," I said. He got some gum.
"This is my favorite gum," he said. It was cinnamon, the kind that you pop out of the foil casing.
We got on the N. I looked over and Bilal was stuffing pieces of gum in his mouth like the cookie monster.
"How much gum are you eating?" I exclaimed.
"Just- four."
I took the empty foil package from him. "That's six!"
"No, it's four, you had one, and this one is in my hand, I haven't put it in my mouth yet."
We talked about his apartment in Tribeca, which he claimed was the size of six subway cars. It seemed preposterous.
"There aren't apartments that big in Manhattan," I said.
"Yes, there are. I live in one. Of course I will have to move out when I finish with it." He turns real estate, I think, for a living. I was somewhat taken with the idea that I wanted to see this apartment.
"Let me buy you a drink," he said.
"I'm going to K-town to check email," I said. "You can come if you like."
We got off at 34th Street. It was nearly ten. I walked in my usual direction. I had half an hour to check my email, and then catch the 10:39 train. "Where are you going?" he asked.
"To K-town," I said. As we walked down the street he pulled out his cigarettes.
"Do you smoke?" he asked.
"No," I said.
By this point Bilal had proposed a drink about a dozen times, and he was now waving to the Korean über-hipsters hanging out on the sidewalk at every storefront.
"Let me try it," I said, holding my hand out for the cigarette. He started to hand it over but then changed his mind. This began a discussion that lasted the entire walk to Net Zone. He did not want me to become addicted to smoking. I said I would not. He said I would. I said I would not, I would never smoke again. I just wanted to try it. He made me promise. I promised. He was not convinced. We stopped in front of the stairs.
"It would make my night," I said.
"Really?" he said.
"It would be like, I did something new," I said.
And so he taught me to smoke. Or, he gave me the cigarette and looked anxiously on as I figured it out myself, and asked him for clues.
"Like that?"
No answer.
"You didn't--"
"What?"
He took it back. He took a drag.
"I don't think I did anything," I said.
"You didn't," he admitted. I took it back. I felt the resistance as I sucked the cigarette this time. I let the smoke out of my mouth.
I gave it back to him. He had the look of someone who had gotten away with something.
"Wait-- do you have to inhale?"
I took it back.
"Like that?"
"Yes," he said.
He asked again about the drink. "Why are you so abhorrent to getting a drink?"
This started a conversation about the word abhorrent, and better words that might have been used.
"Oh, let's go to a café," I said. By this time it was too late to go up to Net Zone. I only had ten minutes. We went across the street and got a mini-cheesecake but they would not let us sit there if we did not buy drinks. Koryodang has weird rules.
We walked to Penn Station. The Dover train was already boarding. "I don't want this," he said, handing me the bag with the cake, "so I'm just going to give it to you."
"Okay," I said. It was my mother's birthday. She could use a little cake.
nonfiction | Posted by Lily at 12:07 PM