I have 9 months to get back into good shape. I’m calling it the Ministerial Makeover… and it’s what I need to do to feel good for Theresa’s wedding.

Nine months. I can do it. I start tomorrow…

Why? Tonight, I went wedding dress shopping with Theresa. She found a beautiful dress and is probably going to buy it. She looked lovely. Truly - she was just so glowing and happy in the dress, I gave her a hug because I was so happy to see her happy.

And while we were talking before we went shopping, I told her that I wanted to feel all nice for her wedding and not have to worry about hiding from the camera because I’d ruin the photos or just not enjoy myself. That, and I’ll be officiating and would like to be an acceptably OK-looking minister-type person.

OK. It’s getting late again. I had lots of thoughts and things I wanted to write about tonight, but that will wait until tomorrow. My reward for treadmill time will be writing tomorrow night’s entry. Until I do my exercise, I don’t get to do happy fun lazy things like this

no energy to write complete sentences
long day work meetings
stay late
go new york
restaurant dinner talking eating for hours
leave on time
PATH train running late
miss last train home
wait for someone to pick me up
dropped off at parking lot
drive home
wash face brush teeth drink water type rants
sleep
tomorrow will be easier

My plan to wake up early and catch the early train was totally foiled. Insomnia prevented me from getting up early enough to catch the early train. Utter stupidity on the part of my family caused me to miss my normal train entirely (the parking situation in the driveway was beyond ridiculous and everyone who could help alleviate the situation was either in the shower or in a state of slumber so deep, my attempts to wake them resulted in pointless conversations composed of non-sequiturs) and I ended up driving into work and missing the first 20 minutes of the meeting I was rushing in to attend in the first place.

Luckily, it wasn’t anything majorly earth-shattering and there were handouts that caught me up on what I’d missed.

Then I left work with a few folks in my group and we went over to the hotel at which they were hosting a company dinner. Seating was arranged so that people wouldn’t be sitting with their buddies; however, I got a table where half of the people DID know each other and chatted with each other to the exclusion of everyone else and where the other half were so busy talking about themselves, they never bothered to ask the other people around, “…and what do you do?” I learned about one woman’s nephew and his experiences in the army, and her brother who lives in the Middle East and another brother who lives in the Northeast and what his house looks like and what her husband thinks of people from New England and far more than I needed to know. Then another girl seemed to be trying to talk about religion since she brought up the fact that America is a country without values and that our society is dictated by our television programming and video games… and the first lady picked up on this and started in on, “Well I go to church every Sunday and I’m very involved in my church community, but I still watch TV. I don’t think TV is our society; it’s just that parents don’t teach their kids values anymore. They just let them do what they want to do…”

I had to agree with the latter portion of that, mostly, but I do think that our TV programming, etc., is a reflection of our society. If the things that we have on TV and on movie screens weren’t resonating with people on some level, there wouldn’t be as many reality TV shows and Jerry Springer-like talk shows and other crap that’s around on TV. Supply and demand.

However, I didn’t get involved in that conversation. I just used my facial expressions and occasional nods and “mmm-hmmms” to indicate my active interest IN the conversation while not becoming a part of it, for fear of getting into an inflammatory debate with people at work who have been there longer, are more connected and just generally senior to me.

The most stimulating part of the conversation was discussing vegetables with two of the gentlemen sitting to my right. We started with a discussion of the green beans served alongside our meals (I had the filet mignon, they had the fish - which we were trying to identify) and this moved into a forum about which green vegetables we all enjoyed or didn’t enjoyed. I was alone in my enjoyment of beets (not a green veggie, I know… but I didn’t bring it up… I just defended it) but not alone in liking lima beans and collard greens and spinach and sugar snap peas and chard and kale. So that was a good feeling… a vegetable community.

I left dinner around 8:15 and got back to my car around 8:40, then drove home… got here around 9:15 and promptly got ready for bed. So here I am, and tonight I am taking the sleeping pills so I am certain to sleep through the night and be able to wake up in the morning so I can get dressed up and whatever else.

There’s another business dinner tomorrow night, but it’s going to be the folks in my department only, so I will know everyone I might happen to sit with. We’re going to craftbar, and I checked out the menu a few minutes ago. Here’s what caught my eye (though the menu varies by season and I might be out of luck):

Appetizer: Warm Pecorino Fondue with Acacia Honey, Hazelnuts and Pepperoncini
Entree: Roasted Striped Bass with Fennel and Artichoke à la Grecque

Normally, I eschew fish. I don’t do it. But I’ve eaten bass before and it’s mild enough to keep me from feeling gross… and I actually really like fennel and artichoke. So it could work. If I change my mind and want to avoid the fish, my secondary entree selection is a pasta dish:

Orecchiette with Braised Chicken, Swiss Chard and Parmesan Broth Mmmm. I like orecchiette. They have a great little shape; the name means “little ears.” I don’t know about that connection (judge for yourself using the picture at left), but I like them.

I need to find some interesting new sites and update the music and movies pages on this site. Those have nothing to do with one another; they just came rumbling into my brain one right after the other.

Thoughts do that sometimes.

I thought I’d be asleep by now. This insomnia hit me quite unawares.

The thoughts just won’t stop. After I got back from dinner with the happy couple, I watched, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” with my mother and my cousin. My mother adores that movie, and my cousin had never seen it. Since I’ve been pretty busy and absent all week, I wanted to watch it with them. At some point, I made a comment to the effect of, “gee, I’m glad Dad doesn’t expect me to just get married and have babies.”

My mother replied, rather off-handedly, that, “Well, he doesn’t say anything to you about it…” and I gave her a look of disbelief and said, “What?”.

“Nevermind.”

Since I didn’t want to get into a fight with my mother in front of my cousin, and over something so inflammatory no less, I decided to drop it. However, it’s clearly not been dropped from my mind. I’ve been in bed since 9:45 doing the little puzzles in my head and realizing that my parents are in-the-closet with their old-school beliefs. Little things are coming together:

- My father asking me if I was spending too much time with my female friends.
- My father asking me if my friends make fun of me because I don’t have a boyfriend.
- My father telling me it was a waste to educate me.
- My father constantly harping on me about my weight and my appearance.
- My father constantly harping on me about “earning peanuts” and not making enough money to, “be happy.” My response addressed that money is not the only reason a person works… and that I’m very happy doing what I’m doing. This fell on deaf ears since my father is very old-school about that, too. You work in order to suffer and sacrifice and earn money. Work is not a place to have fun or enjoy yourself. How things have changed… or what a lucky girl I am, with respect to my career.
- My father constantly lecturing me about being too smart “for my own good” - he means I’m not docile enough and will scare away the men looking for a good little Polish wife.

The man is evidently not concerned with my own mental well-being. Rather, he wants to make sure that I’m married off to someone with a large income. In order to “help” me achieve this most elevated and all-important status (that of Married Woman), I believe my father sees all his emotional abuse as inspiration and support. If he tells me that he’s ashamed of me, perhaps it will teach me something; that since the only man in my life who is supposed to love me unconditionally is ashamed of the way I look, then I’d damn well better change the way I look and act if I ever want anyone to love me, period.

It’s such a crock of shit. And it’s kind of sad and pathetic that he doesn’t know me well enough to know that I don’t change myself for anyone other than myself. I’ve never changed myself for his benefit or anyone else’s benefit. When I found the discipline and energy a few years ago to lose a bunch of weight, it was because I was happy and feeling energetic and WANTING to be healthy. I didn’t do it for anyone other than myself.

Right now, I’m preparing myself for another round of self-discipline and ass-kicking. Why? The reason this time is that I want to be in good shape for my dear friend Theresa’s wedding in nine months. I want to feel confident and beautiful - and not to outshine her, but just to feel even 1/10th as wonderful as she will feel on that day. I drove around my neighborhood today, resetting the trip meter to zero at several points and plotting out several walking/jogging routes… I’ve got a 1.5-mile, a 2-mile and a 4-mile planned out. I can run on the treadmill, too, but if I take it easy outside and bring a big bottle of water, I should be able to keep my allergies from getting too bad. I won’t be able to run outside, but I can walk energetically. I read an article by a personal trainer in a magazine the other day and she was giving advice to a woman who couldn’t run because of some serious knee problems. She told her that she doesn’t have to jog or run and that walking is fine - as long as you walk “like you’re the baddest bitch out there”… strong heel-to-toe action, confident stride, etc. I liked that. I can subscribe to that mind-set.

Tomorrow will clearly not be a good day to start this regimen since I’ll be waking up at 6:30 after having only gotten 4 or 5 hours of sleep, and then I’ll be on the run until about 9 or 10 at night. It will be a bit too late to go walking then. However, on Tuesday morning I can get up at 7 and walk for a half hour before I shower and start getting ready for work. I worked with my weights today and did some arm work. I couldn’t lift a heavy weight with my left hand (the cripple wrist began to hurt, even with the brace on) so I took a smaller weight and did some shoulder presses since my shoulders and neck have been feeling weak lately.

It’s almost 1 a.m. I hate this. I really do. I’m absolutely wide awake and thinking absolutely shitty and angry thoughts. It’s hard to fall asleep angry… and it’s far too late to take any sleeping pills to knock myself out.

I have to be up earlier than usual tomorrow so I can catch the 7:47 train to work. I have a 9 am meeting, so being there early is de rigueur.

Today, I had dinner with Kofi and Theresa and they asked me somewhat officially to officiate their wedding ceremony. I’ll have to get a certificate from the Universal Life Church just in case the county clerk wants to see my ordination certificate. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the exact date of my ordination - except that it was in the summer of 2002. I will have to write a letter to the ULC headquarters and get that info. I looked into the regulations for New Jersey, and this ministership is recognized by the state, so it will be legal and lovely:

New Jersey 37:1-13.

Authorization to solemnize marriages 37:1-13.

Each judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, each judge of a federal district court, United States magistrate, judge of a municipal court, judge of the Superior Court, judge of a tax court, retired judge of the Superior Court or Tax Court, or judge of the Superior Court or Tax Court, the former County Court, the former County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, or the former County District Court who has resigned in good standing, surrogate of any county, county clerk and any mayor or the deputy mayor when authorized by the mayor, or chairman of any township committee or village president of this State, and every minister of every religion, are hereby authorized to solemnize marriage between such persons as may lawfully enter into the matrimonial relation; and every religious society, institution or organization in this State may join together in marriage such persons according to the rules and customs of the society, institution or organization.

I’m excited about putting together a ceremony with them. There is a book about that, too, so I’ll add it to my Amazon.com wishlist. I’m sure I can come up with something creative, but I want to be sure that it’s not so avant-garde and creative that I lose people in the process.

Theresa invited me along to check out wedding dresses on Wednesday night, so that will be lots of fun After my work dinner tomorrow night, I’m going to head over to Barnes and Noble and check out the wedding planners so I can give her one as a gift. There are also come cool ones at Copabananas, so I will stop there later in the week as well.

I have to touch up my nail polish and fold my laundry fold my laundry and touch up my nail polish. I have my clothing planned for tomorrow, so at least that’s settled. What am I wearing? Grey pants, a pink shirt and the new pink Coach pumps. I have a black cardigan I’ll throw over the shirt if it’s cold in the hotel/restaurant.

I learned tonight that someone from my high school has been trolling mySpace trying to “gather” everyone together for the 10 year reunion. It’s almost too convenient that I removed my profile several months ago… and even then, I didn’t list my high school or hometown. Mwahahaha. OK, if they Google me, they’ll find me. But my spam filter is pretty gestapo like and will probably delete the offending email before it gets to my inbox.

Whatever. Even if they did track me down, I wouldn’t feel compelled to or want to attend. Not my thing. I have more important things to prepare for. For example, my company will be celebrating a fairly significant anniversary soon and there will be a formal gala celebration and I would like to lose enough weight to fit into my Betsey Johnson dress by then (Jan or Feb 07, I think.) Then there’s the impending nuptial celebration for Theresa and Kofi which I believe is taking place late spring of next year. Again, enough time to make a nice dent, especially if the only exercise I can do is cardio (because of my busted and eventually cast-bound wrist.)

I read today that the movie option for Neil Gaiman’s book Coraline has been exercised and that the movie is in production. It will be a stop-motion animation film, slated for April 07 release, directed by Henry Selick (who did “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas”). The gals from Ab-Fab (”Saunders & French”) will be providing voices for some of the female characters. Sadly, wünderkind child star and pal of Tom Cruise Dakota Fanning will be providing the voice for the title character - and I don’t think the little angel can pull off a British accent, so part of the beauty will be destroyed. But so be it.

This afternoon, I started reading a new book by Mark Helprin called, “Freddy and Fredericka” - a satire of the British royal family. I’m enjoying it quite a bit so far - but I’m only about 50 pages into it. However, there’s already been some adultery and history and strangeness. There is a great interchange between the title characters, Freddy and Fredericka, when Fredericka calls Freddy to get a 5-minute primer on Samuel Pepys. Apparently, they’ve been invited (they are a married couple) to give a speech at a museum in London and Frederick doesn’t even know WHO Samuel Pepys is or how to pronounce his name. So, Freddy plays a little trick on her by providing her with completely false information and neglecting to correct her pronunciation of Pepys (she says is “peppies” and it should be pronounced, “peeps”). He knows she won’t bother to check into any of the information, so when she gives the speech at the museum, he expects to hear laughter or the most horrible public silence ever. Instead, Fredericka is applauded and Freddy realizes that her beauty, her fame and popularity, and her breasts pretty much overshadow anything she says… even if it’s egregiously horrible.

I’ll admit that I’m feeling a little down at this point today. It came on slowly… I made some realizations and then talked with my friend. Letting those thoughts out and making them into spoken words and a conversation only allowed me to cement them in my head a little more. It’s not something that I PLANNED on doing; it just worked out that way. It will be OK. Perhaps I just need to sleep on it. And read a book that takes my mind off of MY troubles for a while.

All manner of good things have been going on lately… not to me, per se, but to people I care about a lot.

For example, Michelle is blissfully beautifully in the early stages of preganancy. I saw her sonogram and it’s just amazing to think that my friend - whom I’ve known for more than 10 years and through many stages of her life - has gone from being a girl who didn’t drive and who lived in Maui, hitchhiking all over the place, to being a gorgeous woman, married and living in England with her husband, and pregnant with her first child. It’s something she’s dreamed of her entire life and I’m so happy her dreams are being fulfilled.

My friends Theresa and Kofi just got engaged early Friday morning. Kofi wore a t-shirt that said, “Will you marry me?” and had two t-shirts set out for Theresa; one with a “yes” on it and one with a “no.” Obviously, she put on the one that said, “Yes.” It’s one of the most original and cutest proposals I’ve ever heard of. I don’t go in much for the overly romantic saccharine methods, so this made me smile ALL friggin’ day. They’re both such absolutely wonderful people - and I am excited at the prospect of helping them plan or prepare in any way I can.

My friend Elizabeth sent me a text message this morning telling me that she got a wonderful email this morning. I got the text message when I got out of the shower, so I called her right away - hair dripping wet, wrapped in a towel, no less. Back story: about 7 months ago, I read about a book that was coming out in the late spring/early summer called The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting Your Divine Spark by a young woman named Sera Beak. I read the blurb and instantly thought about my friend Elizabeth and how this would be a great book I knew she would enjoy. So, when it was published, I got her a copy and gave it to her a few weeks ago when we hung out. She was in a bad way, so she said she’d probably just sit home and read that book and see if it would provide her with any inspiration. A few weeks later, she emailed me to let me know that she’d started a blog and website, called Bella*Punk. It’s a website, a blog and a philosophy/way of life for women. What inspired her to start this website? The Red Book by Sera Beak. Of course, since she was thusly inspired, she wrote a little review/blog entry about the book on the Bella*Punk blog. This morning, Elizabeth woke up and checked her eamil. She had an email from the author, Sera Beak, thanking her for her shout-out! She called me, just absolutely thrilled that her words were read by someone, and that that someone was the author of the book that inspired her to create her site! I think it’s pretty amazing, too. It’s just one of those things that makes you feel all connected to the world and people around you… through serendipity or chance or kismet or whatever you want to call it. It’s put her on cloud 9 and really made her feel like this is something worth putting her time and energy into. I might be helping her with the design, too So I’ll feel all kinds of Bella*Punk as well!

So… I was going to go see a movie by myself today, but I’m sort of liking this sitting at home thing. This week is going to be extremely busy and stressful since it’s sales conference week at work and my boss and I will be presenting all sorts of stuff to the various sales groups at work. Additionally, I have a company dinner to attend on Monday night, then our departmental dinner on Tuesday night, and possible plans with friends on Wednesday. Thursday is rescheduled Doin’ Dishes ceramics night with my mom, sister and cousin, and then it’s the weekend already. It’s going to be crazy. The Monday after that is the orthopedist for a follow-up visit - and I’ll have to tell him that this anti-inflammatory medicine hasn’t done jack shit for my wrist. It’s just as painful and inflamed as it has been… sigh.

My parents took my cousin to Washington, D.C. today. I passed since I’ve been there before and since I really did NOT feel like getting up at 6:30 this morning to head out. Nah. I cannot get up that early on a Saturday unless there’s something in it for me…
Oh. I have a confession to make. My friend at work, Todd, was shocked and dismayed to learn that I wasn’t a viewer of “Project Runway.” So, I promised him that I would watch. I watched an episode on Thursday night and I actually liked it. I find Heidi Klum more than a little annoying (it’s the voice, I think) but it’s fairly innocuous reality TV in that I don’t feel dirty watching it since it’s so OBVIOUSLY contrived and designed to create maximum drama. I will have to catch the re-runs this weekend to be caught up on what’s been going on.

And now, it’s time for something to eat. I’m waiting for my friend Vin to call me back. He found a great source for chai powder and ordered some for me when he was ordering it for himself. I would like to set up a chai pick-up meeting; perhaps in a parking lot so it seems illicit. But it’s more probable that we’ll run out to get a bite to eat later and I’ll just give him the money and he’ll give me the chai and all will be well.

I could go for some Indian food. Perhaps a sibling or two feels likewise inclined.

My friend Michelle is visiting from England for this month, so tonight Theresa and I went out to dinner with her. Michelle is now 3.5 months pregnant. While her husband has decided to call her baby bump “Cyril”, I’ve opted to call the bump “Pippa” - since I think the baby deserves an appropriate British girl name as well. We played around with some Italian names for the bump as well, to pay homage to its Italian heritage - “Carmine” was the clear winner in that discussion. Michelle’s sister Donna came up with that one.

For dinner, Theresa, Michelle and I went to a great Indian restaurant over in East Hanover (longer car ride allows extra time for chatting) called Saffron. Theresa and I both ordered a dish we’d never had before - something called Kashmiri Dum Aloo. The description read: “Golden fried potatoes scooped and filled with homemade cheese and dry fruit, simmered in rich tomato based Kashmiri sauce.” It was delicious; both savory and sweet, and a little spicy.

After dinner, we went back to Michelle’s family’s house to sit and chat with her parents and sisters. However, jet lag kicked in and she started nodding off so we called it a night. We have plans for tomorrow to go see some Theatre Under the Stars since one of her sisters is in the cast. Here are the details:

West Orange Theater Under The Stars presents “Fiddler on the Roof”
(Thurs thru Sat) July 27, 28, 29, August 3, 4 & 5 at 8 p.m.
at the Oskar Schindler Performing Arts Center
4 Boland Drive, West Orange, NJ 07052
Exit 8B from Interstate 280
FREE ADMISSION
Bring chairs and blankets for seating

This is one of those great free events that come along once in a while. I’m trying to convince my mother and cousin to join us. I don’t think I’ll have to push hard - it’s live musical theatre out in a park, for free, and you can bring soda or iced tea or fruit and sort of have a picnic on the grass while watching a play. Even if they’re talking too quickly to be understood, there’s singing and the songs are good. It should be fun.

Miss Eva needs to get some sleep. I had a really restless night last night and woke up with the sheets all twisted and thrown around. I was exhausted.

Oh. One other story. We were discussing the DaVinci Code craze and Michelle was telling us about how she visited a small village in France where, legend has it, Mary Magdalene settled in and had a child after Jesus was crucified. Somewhere along the way, Michelle and her husband visited some of the sites and were then taking a gondola of sorts across a river. They asked the gondolier what he thought about the whole idea of Jesus having had intimate relations with Mary Magdalene. In his very “salt of the earth” way, the gondolier replied, “I’m sure that a 30 year old man felt the need for some kissing and cuddling.” Then someone made a comment to the effect of, “what else would he do with his time?” And I replied, “Play video games. It’s the only way he could’ve stayed a virgin until 30.” Theresa threw in “Play Dungeons and Dragons” (since we’d been discussing a friend of hers who is married but still goes to his weekly “meetings” to play the game). We both started laughing at what we knew we were going to say next:

“Jesus was a DUNGEONMASTER!”

I think I might need to add that to my roster of t-shirt designs.

Today was just a day full of sensations and thoughts - at least, more so than usual.

Perhaps because it was so DAMN hot, everything seemed amplified in intensity: sounds, the wind, the sun’s heat, time, Jersey accents, nihilism…

Um. Let me elucidate and/or enumerate these.

1 - at the train station this morning, the cicadas were incredibly loud. It was like something out of a film - you could barely hear the train whistle approaching since they were in the trees all around us, buzzing and whispering. Very iconic and representative of the summer; but a little annoying all the same.

2 - I had to hold my skirt in my hand today since the wind was so intense that it threatened to blow my skirt up around me, Marilyn Monroe style. Strangely, the intense wind did very little to help keep things bearable (since there was no chance that it would make it COOL.)

3 - When I walked in shade, I was fine. Hot, but fine. The minute the sun’s rays touched me, it was like I was springing a leak since I would start sweating instantly. Not pleasant.

4 - Time flew… maybe because everything was so hyperreal and crazy feeling. This might be a silly observation, but it seemed like that.

5 - Jersey accents. On the train home, I was seated in front of some women with quite possibly the heaviest New Jersey accents I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear. I didn’t see them when I sat down, so I was just creating a picture in my head of what they must’ve looked like, based on their voices and conversation topics. They were talking about selling property down in Florida and how the one couldn’t bring herself to do it, “because I have an emotional thing, you know?” There was further discussion about how rich she could’ve been had she sold the house and then discussion about how parents teach their kids to be racist… and the one woman started preaching to her friend about how she always prays for understanding and patience and prays to like “foive” different saints. I wish I had recorded part of their conversation because the accents were unbelievable. I was trying to figure out how to transcribe them, but I’d seriously have to review the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) and use that (after dusting off my textbooks from college! I can still tell you what a bilabial plosive is, but the rest is GONE from memory). Some of the vowel sounds they were creating don’t normally exist in the English language. Anyway, I was listening and cringing and wishing I had some way to share this with the world via sound… and I finally turned my head just a little to see if my mental picture of them matched their actual being.

Frighteningly enough - it did not. I imagined them as heavier-set, 55+ Northern New Jersey Italian ladies with short poofy curly hair, dyed either red or unnaturally dark brown, wearing magenta lipstick that would be shiny and feathering into the wrinkles around their little prune-like mouths. Instead, these hag-like voices issued forth from slender YOUNGER women - perhaps in their late 30s at the MOST - with very short mannish haircuts, but equally bad makeup (overplucked eyebrows, streaky blush and bad eyeliner). But their youth really surprised me, especially after the real estate in Florida portion of their discussion. Strange.

6 - Nihilism. It fell into that progression nicely, really. I hung out with my friend LJ tonight and we ended up doing some shopping since he needed to get some things, stopped at a diner for milkshakes, and then went back to his apartment to watch an episode of “The X-Files.” Somewhere over the course of the conversation, he started talking about how he’s having a mid-life crisis of sorts (though he’s not even a full year older than I am), and getting freaked out by the inevitability of death, and the futility of accomplishing anything… the pointlessness of “doing.” This is one time when I feel I’ve truly already been there - at the edge of that pointlessness and futility of existence. True, it was for entirely different reasons, but the end thoughts were the same.

I find it interesting that though he and I share our beliefs in terms of not believing in anything supernatural (while watching “The X-Files”, I know… slight irony), not believing in an afterlife or a higher power, etc. I believe that when we die, we’re gone. That’s it. There’s no divine spark that keeps going after we croak. It’s all part and parcel of the whole human existence thing. It’s all got to end sometime. For some people, believing that there’s more makes death less scary - but I think it sort of cheapens life if you pretend that you get another shot at *this*, whether in another life or in a heavenly kingdom where you can make amends with the people who wronged you in high school, or finally say goodbye to the relative you didn’t get to see before he/she died.

I feel that this is all we have - “this mortal coil”, as Scully quoted from Hamlet in the episode we watched tonight. And really, Hamlet is sort of the grand-daddy of nihilism (edit: and Harold Bloom agrees with me! Yay!)

In case you’re not hep with the nihilism jive, here’s a pretty good explanation. Here’s a quote: “A universal definition of nihilism could then well be the rejection of that which requires faith for salvation or actualization and would span to include anything from theology to secular ideology. Within nihilism faith and similar values are discarded because they’ve no absolute, objective substance, they are invalid serving only as yet another exploitable lie never producing any strategically beneficial outcome.”

Yeah. So. Nihilism. Yay.

Anyway, I was just thinking about it on the ride home and I think that I’m a fairly “happy” nihilist. I am comforted by the fact that there’s nothing else after this. What I do every day either matters to me and the people around me for the moment or the day, week, individual lifetime… or it doesn’t. Either way is OK. I do the things I do to find fulfillment - not happiness, not my name carved in stone or in the record books. I have no need to leave anything behind. Whatever influence I have NOW, at this moment or this stage in my life, is what’s important to me. I think it’s a relatively sane way to live - I try not to beat myself up over the past (mostly unsuccessfully) but I also use any mistakes I make or things I learn to improve myself for the future… not so that I can make the Guinness Book of World Records for “Most Improved” or “Longest Fingernails”, but so I can feel good for 5 minutes or five years. It’s selfish - but it turns into something selfless since I feel good when I help people. It’s nihilistic, but believing that faith is empty forces me to take the responsibility for things on myself. I can’t blame or thank or otherwise involve a higher power when I bounce a check or meet someone really great or find out that a friend has gotten through a rough time.

This is rambling. I’m sure that if I re-read this post a few times over the coming weeks, I might be able to formulate a broad outline of my philosophy on life and whatnot. Rooted in nihilism, and really dependent upon The Self as a tool for everything.

Before I get to bed though (it’s now after midnight) I want to share something magical and mystical. I’m almost certain many of you have seen this already, but a co-worker shared it with me today and I was at a loss for words:

Leslie Hall of Leslie and the Lys, as well as GemSweater.
Watch a video.

Read an article.

Check out some pictures. (Only pay attention to the ones where you see someone wearing gold or pink lamé!)

I have a mosquito bite on the knuckle of my left pinky finger, as well as on my left inner thigh. These are both very awkward places for mosquito bites - difficult to scratch (in general or in public) and annoying as crap. They’re the big welt-like ones, which I surmise means that the mosquitos took a nice drink of me.

I got home about half an hour ago after attending a work party in NYC. It was held at The Frying Pan, a restaurant on Pier 63 in New York, right near the Chelsea Piers. It was pretty cool - both literally and figuratively. The breeze off the water was the only thing that kept me from fainting from the heat - it brought things down to a balmy 80 degrees or so. The food was pretty good, too - really great ribs, NICE fried calamari, and some good chicken wings, too. The ribs and calamari were my favorite bits of yummy, though.

It was a long day, but a pleasant one - and I got to drive my co-workers into NYC with me in my air-conditioned car, rather than making us all take the PATH and subway on a day when the heat index made it feel like over 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

The only annoying things were the weird little men who wanted to talk to me at the event. No, it wasn’t a convention of little people or anything. It just seems that the attention that I get from males (more often than not - or, rather, when I get attention at all) is from this one sort of stereotypical-middle-aged-comic-book-store-fat-and-balding type of guy. There were two at the event tonight who struck up conversation and wouldn’t leave me be… and several of my co-workers noticed, and tried to rescue me, but it was difficult since the dudes just kept talking. Ugh. The one insisted that we’d worked together last summer - I told him I didn’t think so, but he insisted. I didn’t get a chance to tell him it was impossible (since I didn’t start working at this new job until October - and because I would have NO reason to interact with him since I’m not in PR) because he started to do the “I’m so busy and get so much email, but your name stood out!” thing. So as he was radiating this bullshit, I had to sort of smile and nod and wait until he stopped to take a breath so I could excuse myself. Unfortunately, since it was a work function, I couldn’t call him out on his bullshit and tell him off.

After the party, I drove my boss and my cubicle neighbor to the appropriate subway station, and then dropped off another co-worker buddy at her apartment in Hoboken (since I had to get back into Hoboken anyway, more or less, to get on the road home).

Since I was sort of tired and on auto-pilot after I dropped her off - as well as singing along to Fischerspooner’s “Emerge” - I sort of went the wrong way and got a little lost in Jersey City, then Secaucus. I followed signs for a detour that would lead me to Route 3, and found myself in the truck depot/loading dock/parking for some shipping company. I doubled back to see if I missed something or if the sign was turned around, but the bright orange detour arrows and signs (all four of them!) indeed pointed to the truck lot I found myself driving into. There was no exit, no road, no nothing. HOWEVER, there were some gigantic potholes and I just barely missed one - and totally expected my tire to blow out. I cussed to myself and then asked myself an important question: “Where the F*** am I????”

I turned around, followed the road back out as well as I could and saw a sign for Route 3, entirely obscured by foliage on the right side of the road. I was driving 15 miles an hour at this point since I was still kind of lost and in a carless area (creepy, but OK) so it’s sort of good that I was because I would’ve missed the sign otherwise.

After an unintended 30 minute detour, I finally got back onto Route 3 and made my way home. Changed into pajama pants. Ate some dinner. Drank some milk. Checked email. Opened new Netflix. Flipped through new issue of Time. Considered washing off eye makeup but I sweated most of it off and I’m just too damn tired and lazy to take care of it. So there. I’m a rebel and I’ll never ever be any good.