A few nights ago, I was waiting on three hell-spawned bitches who were so evil the entire waitstaff was soon clustered around the computers trading stories of their antics (apparently, they're notorious for coming in, throwing fits, and getting discounts on their meals). My coworker Tony made some comment about their size (they were, how you say, the two-plane-ticket type) and my other coworker Feda said, "I thought you liked big girls!" And Tony said, "No, I like girls with big asses, not big-ass girls!"

He gestured at me when he said "girls with big asses."

I took it as a compliment.

Right, so...when your life consists of shelving books, making copies, and faxing articles on obscure subjects like the phonetics of West African dialects, there really isn't much to write about. I suppose I could talk about politics and stuff, but let's be realistic.

On the other hand, I figured out (with the help of generous online resources) how to convert This American Life episodes to mp3, so I've been listening to four or five episodes per day. Today ended with Godless America (scroll down a bit to episode 290), which actually affected me very much, especially the second act. It was a piece by Julia Sweeney (of It's Pat fame, but bear with me) about how she lost her faith in Christianity, and then God altogether. Basically, after living her entire life as a Catholic, she actually sat down and read the Bible, and realized that it was totally bizarre, and that, frankly, she didn't believe a word of it.

Listening to it was surreal, because it was like someone pulled my own experience out of my head and read it on the radio. Abbreviated version: I was a very spiritual kid, and when I got to college had a mini conversion experience (I'd been raised Christian but hadn't gone to church since age 12), and started attending services at Brent House, the most level-headed (i.e. liberal) church I'd ever encountered. I also began taking a class they offered on the history of the church. About three weeks into it, I found myself skeptical, so I picked up the Bible and started reading the gospels on my own. Somewhere in the middle of Luke, I realized that I actually didn't like Jesus very much. In fact, I thought he was kind of an asshole. And a little bit crazy. Far from the level-headed, gentle friend to mankind I'd assumed he was. But most importantly, I didn't believe a damn thing I was reading. I just didn't believe it, not a word.

It's strange, though, how once the structure collapses, ALL faith goes with it. I needn't have lost my faith in any sort of higher power simply because I realized I didn't believe the Bible, but I did lose my faith - though, to be fair, my issues with the Bible weren't the only reason for that. I don't consider myself an atheist, but if God does exist in some form, I have absolutely no idea what that form could be. I have no idea how or where to begin to find out. It seems futile to even bother, at least within the specific parameters of figuring out what God's deal is.

But I do feel a loss. I do feel an emptiness. I want there to be a God. I really, really do.

Obviously there's more to say, but I'll stop.

It's when my life gets vaguely interesting that I stop posting, and by "interesting" I mean it starts consisting of more than internet-surfing and Target. I got a job as a care manager at a nursing home, but quit after one day of training because of the three-hour roundtrip commute, the crappy pay, and an unexpected offer of a job that's much closer and pays slightly better. I have to say, I would have loved to stay at the nursing home. I adore crazy old people. As always, I speak flippantly to mask my deep and sincere emotions. The truth is, I can't stop thinking about the residents I worked with, and I wish I could volunteer but when I told my ex-boss I was quitting I got the feeling she was rooting for my prolonged and violent death. Maybe I'll give it a couple weeks.

Instead, starting Monday I'll be a library troll. If anyone has an iPod they want to sell give away, let me know.

Shit

Anyone have fifty cents I could borrow?

I saw the most beautiful dog today. It was enormous, with tangled, shaggy white fur, and a loping gait. Its gentleness, though, was what struck me - it seemed genuinely kind. That's the kind of dog I want: huge, but sweet and loving. My longing for a dog is really the only thing drawing me to a stable, settled-down life. It's almost enough.

Anyway, this post really does have a point. Two points, in fact! First, my sister started a weblog, which will chronicle her journey to Thailand next September and the preparations theretofore. It's at http://thailanding.blogspot.com.

Second, you may have heard that a relatively well-known children's series will be releasing a new book this weekend. Now, I'm not implying that I'm not FAR too sophisticated and highbrow to be interested in the adventures of a boy wizard and his friends. Far from it! Are you kidding? The very idea! However, that's not to say that a couple friends and I won't maybe happen to decide that tomorrow night would be a good time to check out Randhurst Mall in Mount Prospect, despite (and definitely not because) a certain event celebrating the release of the aforementioned book will be occuring there at that time. Perhaps I will even leave the mall with the book, as a purely intellectual exercise on the sociology of popular literature. Perhaps I even pre-ordered the book. Perhaps I thought about reserving a t-shirt and a magic wand, but realized I didn't have enough money. Perhaps this really disappointed me. Perhaps if you're going to be there too, you should e-mail me at quandarical@gmail.com and let me know, and we can make plans to pretend not to know each other when we cross paths during Wizard Chess.

Since this is much more efficient than giving people this link one-by-one, which is what I had been doing, here's what my mom called the funniest thing on the internet:

Weight Watchers Recipe Cards - 1974

I know it's old, and you've all probably seen it before, but my mom owns me.

Nothing much to say, except I forgot to mention that when I was at Target I bought a clearance-rack green purse that says "I [heart] BLING" in gold lettering. The next time I complain about never having any money, remind me that I seem to have enough to buy things like green I Heart Bling purses, and little poseable bears named Furry Furry West.

I've been hiding the purse because I'm afraid if my new roommates see it, they won't realize it's ironic.

IS IT ironic? I don't know anything anymore.

Today I walked all around Hyde Park. I went to Office Depot and bought some Pilot G-2 pens that I can't afford, stalked squirrels in Nichols Park, bought chips from the Co-Op, bought guacamole and jicama from Hyde Park Produce, shuffled through the fiction section of Borders, and ambled along 53rd street enjoying the air and my independence and my cute sparkly tank top. And my solitude.

My solitude. I have reached some slightly unpleasant but still illuminating and necessary conclusions about myself in the past few weeks. I have had a small handful of good friends throughout my life, have retained most of the them, have been partially destroyed by those I have lost. I don't make friends easily. I am emotionally skittish and self-centered, and those good friends I have made either resulted from living with someone and being forced to get to know them, or when someone has relentlessly pursued me. I consider myself a loner, for by default, that's what I am. I need my solitude. At times I am so fiercely protective of it that I will isolate myself like an animal in her den. I am a difficult person, melancholy and dyspeptic, and I abhor being a burden, and I misplace blame sometimes for my problems on those around me - like Raskolnikov, I sometimes mistakenly believe that if only I had always been alone, and no one had ever loved me, none of this, none of this, would ever have happened.

But also like Raskolnikov, whose redemption comes through love from and for other people, I have come to realize that solitude, by itself (so to speak), fades me into a shadow; I do need it, and I used to believe that only in solitude would I ever discover who I truly was, but in practice, I have learned more about myself - surprised myself more - with other people than I have alone. I have been unhappiest when alone, and happiest with other people. Alone I am more romantic, and with other people I am more grounded, and I hate to say it, but I prefer to be grounded.

So I must accept, I suppose, both that I need friends, I need people, but ALSO that given who I am, it's nearly impossible to find these friends. There has to be a way for me to be less passive.

But for those friends I have (and especially my family), although I am difficult, and although I may not deserve it sometimes, and although I don't always show it - I love you more than anything in the world.

That includes my cat.

Went to Target and Trader Joe's today. I'm so predictable. At Target, Sita and I were sidetracked by a display for a collection of little poseable animal characters called "Furryville." The mouse family was called "The Micebergs," the rabbits "Bunningtons," and the ducks "Duckinghams." The "Pigbys" had a little kitchen set with an oven tray covered with cookies shaped like pig heads. It was so unbelievably cute we draped over each other in hysterics for at least twenty minutes. And I bought a little bear in a cowboy outfit called - wait for it - "Furry Furry West." According to Sita when I saw it my face turned BRIGHT red. I never thought I'd end up a sucker for tiny plush animal figurines but let's face it, useless toys don't get any better than a cowboy bear named "Furry Furry West."

In more disturbing news, I'm reading a book called Smilla's Sense of Snow, and was flabbergasted by the following passage (not safe for young children and the elderly - hide your eyes, little Furry Furry West):

In our dawning, mutual intimacy, I induce him to open the little slit in the head of his penis so I can put my clitoris inside and fuck him.

HOLY SHIT! Can you even DO that???

I have often wondered how I would react if I were to get mugged or robbed. When I'm walking home from Leona's at one in the morning with my $150 in my moneybag ($150? HA HA! Just kidding. More like $55), I try to predict whether I'd cry, scream, fight, or acquiesce should somebody jump out of the bushes and point a gun at my head. My co-worker apparently got jumped by a pack of girls once on her way home and she fought back, which I guess means that though they took all her money, they couldn't take away her dignity. Anyway, when I'm walking home in the middle of the night, my soul withered and leathery from seven hours of waitressing, I really think I would try to argue with my attacker. I'd be all, "Look, I worked really hard for this money. Do you really want to do this? C'mon. Please. Why are you doing this? This sucks." And then I'd just hand over my stupid moneybag and go home not feeling too bad or shaken up, but just accepting of my sorry luck.

All of this is to say that this morning (er...afternoon) I was jerked awake by a door slamming and a scary-sounding male voice yelling something incoherent and then "HELLO?!?! HELLO?!?!" In my discombobulated state I thought: it's happening. It's finally happening. I'd been waiting for this day ever since I moved in a week ago and there was a little note on the front door that said, "Please keep door locked. My neighbors and I have both had robberies," and my roommates told me to ALWAYS lock the door and keep my stuff inside. And also I'm wary of any block other than 5500-5300 Woodlawn Ave, and this is, well, this is 51st and Greenwood.

So at first I ignored the scary voice and wondered if I should crawl out my bedroom window. My cat was by this time seeking solace under the bed and I thought, Should I drag him out? I heard a door slam. I wasn't scared. I got up and shut my bedroom door. Then opened it again. The voice said, "HELLO?!!!" again. I stood up. I was wearing pajamas and my hair was all afrizz. I prepared myself to face my fate. I really wasn't scared. I was resigned. An enormous man in filthy clothing stood at the other end of the hall. We looked at each other. He said, "Hi, K&G here. I have your new dishwasher."

You knew that was coming, but is it really so unbelievable that if he'd really been a robber, I would have sat down and blogged about it immediately afterward?

The Daily Asshole

Three kids asked me to split their bill. The guy who paid his $17.38 share with a credit card carefully penned in a 62-cent tip on his receipt. 52 cents of that went to the busboy, so after tipout I was left with a grand total of one dime for serving his sorry ass. I hate waiting on teenagers.

Apologies for this generic bitching session. This is what I have become. This is what Leona's has made of me.

I just got back from seeing War of the Worlds and Mr. & Mrs. Smith with Sita. The latter led to a discussion at Chipotle (our new hangout, apparently) about assassins when I realized that I just don't know the following: Do they really exist? I mean, obviously, they exist, but does there actually exist a giant web of assassination corporations who dispatch black-clad gun experts to eliminate the inconvenient? Or even anything slightly less glamorous? Are they run by the government, or are they privately owned? Or is it all just a Hollywood creation?

If you laugh at me for being dumb, you have to laugh at Sita too, because she didn't know either.

Fireworks

Always lovely. Never long enough. And the next day, my web browser (Firefox, if you must know) is filled with curmudgeonly grouching about how irritating they are. How can you dislike fireworks? Can't we have one ritual that people don't take issue with? I understand annoyance at our silly country and its silly holiday, but don't take it out on the fireworks. They didn't do anything except sprinkle glitter through the sky.

I went to the last day of Taste of Chicago yesterday with my pal Sita. She enjoyed a very phallic meal of a bratwurst sandwich and a frozen banana covered in chocolate and nuts. I had corn on the cob, sweet potato fries, fried plantains, and a chicken taco. Nothing too unconventional. Shortly after, Sita felt tired, so I decided to trek out to Navy Pier on my own. I'd only been there once before, but let's not talk about that. I left ambivalent. Navy Pier teeters between charming (animal apparel store, indoor garden, children's museum) and tacky (hemp boutique, golden arches painted on the ferris-wheel cars). I also learned, while awaiting the fireworks among a thicket of people, that as annoying as you may find a rumpled-looking guy lecturing about Christ and the Holy Ghost and Heaven and Hellfire, it's infinitely more annoying when the punk sitting next to you starts yelling back "SMOKE MORE HEMP" and "TAKE A VOW OF SILENCE!" Grow up, dickwad.

Stuff

• I know that talk about dreams usually ranks with pets and grandchildren in relative dullness, but check this out: I lucid-dreamed last night! For about five seconds! I was flying, which I know is so pedestrian as to be embarrassing, but I think its obviousness is what triggered the "Wait - just what is going on here?" reflection and the resulting "I'M DREAMING!!! HOORAAAAY!" epiphany. "I can explore the world!" I thought, and as I soared through the sky I reached over to touch some leaves, and...I couldn't. To my shock and disappointment, I found I was enclosed in an electrified dome that went "WhhhOOOoom...Bzzz!" when I brushed against it. Shortly thereafter I happened to land in an old-folks' home where I took on the role of third-person limited narrator, and promptly forgot I was dreaming again. However, I am thrilled by the destruction of my fear that should I ever lucid-dream, I will never wake up again (a notion that the movie Waking Life did not assuage).
  
• I need to find a job that doesn't make me hate myself and want to die. Leona's turns me into a petty monster who will abandon her system of ethics for the possibility of two extra dollars. Please help.
  
• I'm reading Possession by A.S. Byatt, which was first recommended to me exactly five years ago. However, I think my Medicine & Culture professor gave away the ending three years ago, which imbues me with a sense of stressful apprehension as I cross the halfway point. That's all I have to say about that.
  
• I woke up two nights ago to find my cat trying to open one of my drawers with his paws and teeth. It's cool, I mean, whatever works, but is that normal?

I'm filthy and you're gorgeous

I'm heading over to my first night back at Leona's. This marks the beginning of a summer that'll be filled with thrills, spills, and lots of nightmares about taking a table of ten, forgetting about it, and then going home for a nap. That's not a joke; I really did have a dream like that last May. I told my boss about it the next day and he said, "You got fired in that dream." Hahaha.

Also, I enabled comments...please try to preserve what's left of my dignity.