Thanks to everyone who supported me last week in my existential crisis. My feelings had been boiling over, and I needed to write them all out. I feel much better now that I’ve pissed my feelings all over. On friends, on strangers and on possible job recruiters who will never ever call me. Aaaaahhhhh. Much, much better. I’m pretty sure this honesty is so freeing because I spent about 83% of my life NOT being honest.

1991
Mom: You want to Pizza or Chinese?
Me: I just want whatever you want.

1996
Friend: Let’s put these jeans on under our jeans in the dressing room and walk out. Nobody will know.
Me: I don’t think we should, but okay.

2000
Boyfriend: Let’s have sex in my car even though it’s 3am and you’re really tired and drunk and won’t enjoy it at all.
Me: I guess if you want to.

I want to go back to my younger self and shake her. It took me a while to figure out how to say ‘NO!’ or ‘I want THIS,’ but I guess that’s part of growing up. Right? We grow up and learn how to talk about where we are in life, stick up for ourselves, and share our emotions. Right? Once we hit thirty we reach a point where we say goodbye to codependence and know exactly what we want and how to ask for it. Right? RIGHT?

No.

The answer is no. Not everyone is comfortable talking about their feelings or communicating their needs. I have become acutely aware of this because, during this stint in psychology school, ALL I WANT TO DO IS TALK ABOUT MY FEELINGS AND NEEDS. So much so that I even annoy myself:

Me: I feel like walking to Subway for a Veggie Delight submarine sandwich.
Myself: Would you like to explore those feelings fully?
I: Yes, as this is bringing up some memories that need to be healed.

I’ve noticed that I’m annoying others too (read: I don’t have friends anymore). Especially men. I guess not all men. I don’t want to generalize here because that’s a cliché, and I hate when I’m a cliché because then I might as well just say ‘Don’t push your luck.’ or ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,’ which I would never say. So, I guess I just mean to say that this one man really hated everything about feelings.

We’re not dating anymore.

We had been romping it up since a wedding in October (Weddings. They ruin everything). And then December rolled around. That meant two whole months of doing that cute smiley stuff like holding hands and overlooking the fact that he used the same sponge to clean the dishes and the countertops.

I decided to have a talk with him about feelings. I swear it wasn’t meant to be the cliché ‘talk,’ because, as stated, I don’t like clichés and I might as well just say that ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’ I naturally wanted to talk about my feelings because, as stated above, IT FEELS GOOD.  It’s nice to let someone know with words that being with them sparks your heart and your groin area. Okay, and I wanted to know if he felt the same way too, which I guess means it was supposed to be the cliché talk. DAMMIT.

We curled up at a dark restaurant and ordered some wine.

“I really like you,” I told him.

I don’t know what I said next. I think I tried so hard to not sound like the typical girl that I sounded exactly like the typical girl. (I never actually said that I was GOOD at communicating my feelings. I just said that I liked it.) So, I spit out some words, and they might have been filled with clichés. In fact, I might have accidentally said that curiosity killed the cat (read: Where do I stand with you?). Ugh.

But, STILL! I was happy that I had gotten out my feelings. There they were. Right on the table next to the hummus dip: I like you. It would make me happy to know if you like me.

His face went flush and twitched a bit.

“I can’t talk about this…. with food on the table.”

He gasped for air.

“I understand,” I pleaded. “It’s okay. I’m going to go to the restroom to give you some air.”

And so I went. And I waited in there for a bit, thinking about how I had just ruined our two months with my stupid rush to be in a stupid relationship. But I had been picking out curtains for our new place in my mind, and you kind of want to know where you stand if you’re picking out curtains in your mind. Or you kind of just want to know anything! Because, as evidenced EVERYWHERE IN THIS BLOG, being honest is oh so freeing.

And then I stepped back outside, ready to tell him we could wait until he was comfortable or go find a location with no food in sight.

But it seemed like he had already done that.

There was our table. It had been bussed and cleaned.

There was no man. Gone.

GONE!

Gone like the wind. Gone like poof!

I stayed calm. He must have been just getting air. He would be right outside the door.

But, NO. No, HE WASN’T just outside the door. And so I thought that he must be by the car because he was probably just excited to get to that new spot so we could talk in a place without food. Yes, that had to be it.

Nope. I got to the parking space and the car that we had both come in was gone.

GONE.

A MAN LEFT ME AT A RESTAURANT!
I stood alone in that empty parking space and laughed. I was trapped in my very own romantic comedy, only the guy who left me did not look at all like Hugh Grant or Matthew McConaughey.

I stayed calm and breathed through it. I called him. He came back. Then he dropped me off and went to a party.

This is the part where I failed: We dated for another month. Yeah, we did. Because I didn’t want to let go of those curtains. Fuck you, curtains.

When we finally broke up, my friend said, “I knew he wasn’t for you when he left you at the restaurant.”

Oh yeah. Me too. But sometimes you fall in love with the headlines: Reunited at a wedding! Guy who can’t explore feelings learns how! Imagined curtains come to life in cute new couple’s home!

Siiiiiigh.

I am taking a break from dating. I’m going to stick with psychology school and be a PROUD cliche who is “working on herself.” If I do ever date someone again, may it be a man willing to discuss feelings at length. It doesn’t have to be every day. It doesn’t have to be about everything. It just has to be in the same room.

A few weeks ago, I published an article on Tiny Buddha, an online magazine for spiritual enthusiasts. It was an old blog post that I sent in for fun. The editor edited out a few jokes (ugh, I hate when they do that), and put it up. Some people liked it. Some people didn’t. You can’t please everybody.

Those that didn’t like it sure were vociferous though. It was an article on how we learn from every relationship, even ones that end. Some people felt that they knew everything about me from that one article. They thought they had free reign to judge me:

“Sounds like you could use a break from dating. Break free from the codependent loops for a while and gain some perspective. That way on your death bed, if there isn’t a ring on your left ring finger, maybe you won’t feel like a failure.”

“There is a lot of sarcasm here to mask the bitterness that obviously wants to surface.”

“An article like this is more for yourself then any theoretical reader. By putting it ‘on paper’ you’re hoping to rationalize and justify your past failures.”

And my favorite: “You got serious issues.”

Of all the comments, only about ten were harsh. It’s funny that I’ve published things on the Huffington Post, KCET, here, and a in a few other online magazines, and the most judgmental reactions came from a ‘spiritual’ outlet. I would be totally judgmental if I said they were doing spirituality wrong, so I won’t say that.

It wasn’t the specific comments that bothered me. What they said wasn’t based on anything, and I don’t really care what these people hiding behind computer screens may think about my dating life.

But it did make me think: Why am I putting my personal life out there? Why am I being so honest so that other people can see? Why am I making myself so vulnerable? Why am I creating an environment that allows for people to judge my life? WHY AM I DOING THAT?!

That day, my professor of psychology asked me about a project I had chosen to do. She asked, “Are you doing it because you want to or because you feel like you’re supposed to?”

I began asking myself that question about everything. And thus began my existential crisis. Am I writing about my personal life because I feel obligated? Do I secretly feel not creative enough to invent fictional characters? Am I writing jokes about life because I want people to like me?

Then I got scared. We have all seen those Facebook status updates: “I’m doing everything I’ve ever wanted to do with my life. My life is the best.”

Nobody believes those posts. Everyone (well, me, I guess) thinks that those are just for show. Those super positive posts are there to make people think we’re perfect. (This is my way of judging, but since this is my post I allow it.).

Is this blog my way of showing some caricature of myself? Is it really me, or is this space right here just one HUGE annoying Facebook status update? Am I even being honest about myself at all? Was I so mean in high school (yes!) and drunk in my twenties (yes!) that I want to now prove that I SWEARIMNOTLIKETHAT anymore? Or, do I think I’m not a real writer since I haven’t published anything in print, so I have to prove that I’m a writer HERE, where I have the final say?

Is that what I’m doing?

And if this is true, have I been lying to myself since 2008? Have I been thinking that I enjoy writing when really I have been trying to prove myself?

Just then, I started to read a book required for school, Creativity Revealed. The first part talks about Plato’s description of perception: If a group of human beings grow up with their bodies and heads bound to face the back wall of a cave, they can’t see each other or what is behind them. They’ve never experienced life outside, but they see the shadows of people walking by projected onto the cave wall. And for them, that’s what life and humans are: shadows. Because that’s all they see. Their reality is shadows.

Then the book says: Could we, as human beings, be the ones bound and tied, observing the projections and considering them reality? For millennia, sages from all the great traditions have been telling us the answer is: YES!

Great. So, in the first few weeks of 2012, I have not only learned that my favorite thing to do is a lie, but MY WHOLE LIFE IS A LIE. Reality is not real. I am looking at a cave wall. I am a lying hack. I am stuck in a codependent loop. AND I HAVE SERIOUS ISSUES.

Full. Existential. Crisis. Mode.

This is when I stopped doing laundry and brushing my teeth. I have cried more in 2012 already than I did in the entirety of 1986 (and that was the year I rode my tricycle down the stairs and broke my collarbone). With those questions only came more questions: WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THEN? WHAT IS REAL? ARE HUMANS EVEN REAL? AND IF NOT, CAN THEY BE FUNNY? WHO AM I IF I’M NOT A STRUGGLING WRITER? WHY CAN’T I PAY MY PHONE BILL ON TIME? WHY IS IT SO COLD IN LOS ANGELES? WHERE ARE MY PANTS?

I have ditched many friends lately. I have cried in my car, on my living room floor, and at the beach. I have not been able to stop eating butter. Yes, butter. Sometimes butter JUST HELPS OKAY. And underneath all the questions and anxiety is fear. FEAR. My dad killed himself, and as each day passed with more tears, my anxiety level rose: Will I ever get over this shit? Am I going to wallow in my apartment drinking alone until I die? Fuck. More butter.

And then yesterday I realized something: I haven’t been writing. Yesterday, I felt like I could not go a day longer without writing about these feelings. I’ve talked them out. I’ve scared my mom. I’ve made my friends take me to IHOP (they have good butter). But, it wasn’t enough. When my friend Mike DeStefano died, I HAD to write about it immediately. Writing is just how I think. Writing is how I breathe. Putting this shit on paper is how I figure it all out. And that’s when I realized: I’m not a faker! I am doing this for ME. BECAUSE I WANT TO. I NEED to write every day. Or else. It’s for my sanity. And I put it on here because why? I don’t know. To find people like me? To make others think? To create a community? Or is it because if I don’t, then I won’t write?

That’s what it is. (And I just figured this one out right this second through writing. Hallelujah).

If I don’t feel pressured to get something up here every week, I WONT DO IT. And if I don’t do it, I GO INSANE and eat butter. I’m like a tea kettle that’s screaming, and if I don’t pour out my stories, they boil over back inside me and wash away my organs.

So, there.
Ah.

Fuck, I feel better.

I still don’t know how I feel about the cave. Or the confused reality. Or the EVERYTHING ELSE. But one thing is clear, and that is that I MUST write.

So, that’s good. And also time consuming. But good. This crisis has had me questioning everything, but it has secured a few truths for me too: I don’t like the font ‘Arial.’ Sweatpants can be so comforting, but the moment they start to smell bad they are depressing. The beach feels and smells good. Crying alone in movies is the best. I LOVE CAPITALS. I love my mom. I’m fragile. I like butter better than cheese. Humans are definitely funny (If we are in fact humans. Not sure).

Through this whole thing, I’ve been so supported by so many people. Friends have let me talk their ears off (That’s a metaphor. Don’t worry. No ears actually fell off.). Even strangers on Twitter kept me company when I wasn’t sleeping but just laying in my bed staring out my window and wondering if what I was seeing was real. Relationships are so hard but so rewarding, and I guess if that’s all I get out of life, then I don’t fucking care if anything else is real.

Off to go STOP thinking for a while. And then eat some butter.

My existential crisis is almost over. Allllmost. I can feel my questions coming to an end. Maybe. I still don’t know why I’m not a diving instructor in the Dominican Republic or a sherpa in Peru. Maybe because my ears can’t handle it. Maybe because I like sea level. Why am I in Venice? I don’t know. Why am I in my pajamas? I don’t know. But I’m getting closer to the answer. I’m happy to be doing this:

Regular posts will resume next week. Unless I decide to become a Buddhist nun, which is on my list.

You know those times when you wonder what you’re doing with your life and decide to move to Alaska where you won’t know anyone and you want to change your name to Michelle or Maria or something that will blend in and then marry someone quickly and then have twenty babies one after the other and then spend nights watching reality shows about antiquing?

That’s where I am right now. I’m thinking maybe Katie. Or Marie. Not sure, but nobody will be able to find me, and it will be marvelous.

It’s just your everyday existential crisis. There’s a bunch of doubt and questions swimming in my brain and shitting on my every thought.

So, I’m going to go away for a bit and figure out what’s up inside my cerebellum. Maybe it’s cobwebs. Maybe it’s a thought traffic jam. Maybe it’s too many yellow triangles. Or just the shedding of all the hard stuff so that 2012 can be fancy and free.

I’m getting off Facebook and the internet and everything (Okay, maybe not Twitter. Who do you think I am?). It is an experiment to see what will happen without all this social shit crowding my thought synapses. The pressure of making my life sound great on Facebook is just too much. Not really.

So, I’m off to go sweep out some spiderwebs (who really says ‘cobwebs?’). In private (WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO ME?!). In the meantime, if you have any suggestions on what YOU think I should do with my life, let me know. So far opening a dairy farm in Spain and opening a canoe rental place in Panama are the top two (opening a brothel in Afghanistan distant third).

Smell ya later (virtually). Like in a week. How could I live up to my title WORLD’S BESTEST BLOGGER (self-titled) if I disappeared for more than a week?

Every single New Year’s Eve, I marvel at how a whole year has passed since the last one. Wasn’t it just 2010? Wasn’t it just 1990? Wasn’t I JUST praying for it to be 2001 so I could have a valid ID and not have to pretend I’m some 40-year-old Mexican lady to get into dance clubs? Wasn’t I just deciding on the perfect dress to wear to the Y2K celebration in case I died in a midnight Earth implosion? Wasn’t I just getting fake drunk on the virgin margaritas my mom served to all my friends in fifth grade?

Oh, how time passes.
Sigh.
This year I have no plans for dresses or virgin cocktails. I have no plans at all. I could spend the Eve crashing parties or crying myself to sleep. Haven’t decided. The night is my oyster. Either way, I will be celebrating the enormity of 2011.

2011 was full of stuff. My friend, Rick, caps it off well with the best year-end review I’ve ever seen on Vice Magazine.  There was planking. Gay marriage in NYC. A whole bunch of murders and springing Arabs all over the Middle East. Japan exploded. Our country was captivated by Casey Anthony and the Kardashians. Many people foreclosed. David Duerson proved that brains can suffer. Joe Bodolai published a riveting suicide note.  I talked about suicide on stages all over LA.  Shit, this year sounds depressing. Good things happened! Thousands of blackbirds fell from the sky. Shit! Great things happened, I swear. We banded together to occupy things, standing up to our government! Yeah! We’re going to incite government change any day now. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head (depressing), but survived (yay!), confirming my stance on gun control. Fuck guns and Walmart (except when I need some cheap dish sponges). People went crazy because Steve Jobs died. I know he was smart and all, but people went really crazy. (spoiler alert: we’re all gonna die.) Elizabeth Taylor died too. We celebrated the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Lots of deaths, but great news too! I swear. Like… politics got really funny. Muslims protected Christians in Egypt. Humanity helped each other out in unexpected ways. Harry Potter ended. NASA discovered a new planet! And I shall mention it again: Gay Marriage in NYC!

In my personal year, my friend and mentor Mike DeStefano died (Shit. More deaths.). I spent a month in Honduras writing a book on suicide and falling in love with Spaniards. I studied my brain in a school for brain study. I scored a new column on KCET and today I am on Tiny Buddha! I shot a video for Funny or Die! I’m in the middle of trapeze school and considering running away to be in the circus. For real. (anything to get away from cubicles). Most of all, I’ve learned to really enjoy myself and have more fun. I learned how to fall in love with people and life. I am slowly learning that I am enough just how I am. I am learning what really matters in my life (not money!). All this makes 2011 my best year yet. Despite all those deaths.

Love to all y’all in the new year and beyond. And all those past years too. Weren’t they JUST yesterday?

Did Joseph ever doubt Mary? A little bit?
“Hey, I’m, uh, a virgin but I’m pregnant. It’s God’s baby though. Swear.”
Come on.

Has anyone on Maury Provich ever tried that one?

Do farmers who actually sleep in barns with animals hear the story of Jesus’s birth and say, “So what?”

Did Jesus get any splinters on that cross?

If Jesus statues were painted his real skin color, would there be less Christian racists?

What is Jesus’s real skin color?

If Jesus accepted Mary Magdalene for being a whore, why does he hate gay people?

What is with all the sexual tension in ‘The Bells of St. Mary?’ Priests and nuns aren’t supposed to flirt.

Are priests and nuns supposed to flirt?

Are convents and churches really like sleepaway theater camps where everyone hooks up when the lights go out?

If Jesus was really the son of god, why didn’t he give us some clues about global warming/WWII/Kim Kardashian?

Why doesn’t anyone talk about what horrible gift givers the wise men are?

Did Mary return or regift the myrrh? It’s embalming oil.

Does Santa think he’s fat or is he okay with his body?

If he’s okay with his body, did he get to that point through affirmations? Yoga?

Are Jesus and Santa friends?

If so, do they compare notes on the naughty people?

What’s that? I’m being told Santa is not real.

Do some kids develop trust issues when they find out their parents have been lying about where their presents come from?

Does Pandora know what is in her box? Are there presents in there?

Is everyone’s holiday just a little bit boring?

Do some people really get mad if you wish them a Merry Christmas when they’re Jewish/Muslim/etc?

Or are we fighting over some deeper underlying issues?

Why can’t we all just get along?

What’s that? I’m being told that the world would be boring if we all just got along.

So… it would be like everyone’s holiday?

When other people are at home for the holidays, do their moms tell them what to do?

Gotta go. My mom’s telling me what to do.

Last year I wrote about my home-selling heartbreak. The house where I formed into being was going on the market. I found it painful to say goodbye to the tree that was planted on the day I was born and the street I can feel with my eyes closed in the backseat of my mom’s car. Selling that house felt like giving up my childhood. As an only child, it’s that house that will share my memories as I get older. Nobody else knows about my hiding spots and the treasures I have thrown dropped down the heating vents (Those were only child experiments. I also was positive there was buried treasure in the couch cushions so I cut them open and sewed them back again, thinking my mom would never notice. She did.)

 Saying goodbye to that house would be like saying goodbye to a parent, a grandma, a best friend, a leg. Still, my mom wanted to retire, hang out with other hip senior citizens, and maybe drive a golf cart in Arizona. I couldn’t blame her. Golf carts are pretty zippy.

We met with a real estate agent, and as fast as a Rascal scooter, we had a fake bed in the spare room and a ‘For Sale’ sign in the yard. I shed a few tears. I was officially bidding adieu to my childhood home. Heart. Breaking.

And then I went to a bar down the street from that house and heard a few guys use the N word and light firecrackers inside. Then another told me how sorry he was for me because I wasn’t fully Italian. That’s my town, a Midwest Jersey Shore. (note: if you’re in the Chicagoland area and looking for a tanning bed, please visit Addison IL. We also have a bowling alley and shootings!).

The encounter with the judgey Italian made me feel slightly better about leaving my town for good. Then with each open house, I felt more and more closure. I could always come back and revisit my nooks, my heating vent treasures, the window where the birds make their yearly nest, and the old treehouse I made out of tires and plywood.

You know that financial/mortgage/lending crisis that seemed to affect everyone? I heard about it. I’ll admit that it hadn’t affected me much. I live on Venice Beach, right in the center of a touristy commercial hub. There are plenty of jobs in LA. I don’t own a home to lose. This lending crisis thing did not seem like a big deal. That sounds pretty ignorant, but don’t worry: there is some learning on the horizon.

A few years ago, our house was worth about $250,000 (Hey, Mom! I’m writing about our personal finances! You look sleepy. You should go now.). That was before the guy on our street killed his mother and a hooker (long story) and the dad two streets away killed his wife and kids on Thanksgiving (not really a long story). Not that those things ruin property values, but maybe they do ruin property values. They definitely make me proud to be from Addison, IL, home of weird murders (Remind me to tell you about the guy who killed a woman but cut open her belly to steal her unborn kid.).

Our real estate agent wouldn’t put our house on the market for anything more than $180,000. My mom almost had a heart attack, but we went with it. Anything to get closer to that golf cart.

During my last visit, as I took a walk around our neighborhood and counted the plastic ducks dressed in clothing (there is a surprising plethora), I noticed several vacant, boarded-up houses. There is a surprising plethora. People have left our neighborhood. Fled. Some streets look scary and war-trodden.

Those people probably got ARM loans and couldn’t pay. They should have invested in clothing for ducks, but they didn’t. They lost their homes. Those homes are on sale by the banks. Those homes are going for $60,000. Who would pay full-price for our house when they could get one for the price of a BMW?

After six months on the market, we took our house off. No more nice weather on the horizon for my mom. Instead of a golf cart, she’ll have to rider her Pontiac through a town where people feel bad for her ethnicity (She’s ONLY half Italian! Gasp!).

I was originally sad to say goodbye, but now my heart beats even more angst. My mom moved to the suburbs years ago so I could have a ‘normal’ childhood (if spending your childhood in tanning beds is normal). I want her to go have her zippy life full of senior activities in the sun.

Now that it’s no longer a possibility, I am absolutely okay with never seeing my tree again. Bye.

I recently heard a piece on the radio about how the mortgage crisis is the fault of all the house-flippers because they got shitty loans thinking they’d resell quickly. It won’t help to blame any group or the government or the banks. I want to, but it won’t help. Instead, I will say that this economy does affect everyone! And it stinks. And my mom deserves her golf cart!

If you know of anyone who would love to pay full price for a house in an area where weird murders are abundant and there are parks and racists, please give me a call. I can tell you it will be worth it. There are great schools in the area. There is a movie theater. There is one bar. And it’s just a 20-minute drive into Chicago. Plus, there is a tree here that shares my birthday. And…  treasures await you in the heating vents (at least one Barbie.). Call while supplies last!

This week was weird. I have since been fired from the cubicle I so feared last week. It wasn’t because I said derogatory things about said cubicle. It was simply because I am a freelancer and they didn’t need me anymore. That’s also what they said that one time I got fired on the spot my first day. I think they thought that hiring a female copywriter would mean I would be fashionable. So, they hired me to work on a stylish shoe campaign. And then I showed up wearing a sweatshirt and fake Toms from Payless. Whoops. For me that was ‘dressing up,’ as I usually wear my pajamas.

“Um, yeah, ummm… actually, we just talked to our finance guy, and we, um, actually can’t afford you. Sorry for making you, ummm, come all the way here.”

Then Tuesday I heard from an agent. An agent who sells books. She has been ‘reading’ my ‘book’ for two months. She told me it would take two weeks. As the days on my desktop Dilbert calendar ticked away, I figured she had accidentally sold it to a big publisher and would soon be sending me an advance check. Nope. She just wrote back and graciously included a link to a website with tips on how to write a story. Yep. Thanks.

But the most interesting part of the week was today. I paid $8 for a juice. Not a gallon of juice that you would find in a store. Nope. A jar of juice. One serving. The label got to me. It said, ‘Look how healthy I am. You are not. You have had Taco Bell in the recent past. You need to drink healthy juices and eat organic rice cakes.’

What’s that you say? You say that an $8 juice isn’t interesting. Well, how about this:
I have been using this organic lotion on my face. It is light and smells like vegetables. It was not $8, but a free sample. Each morning, I commented out loud to myself about how light it is. I finally looked at the label to find out where to buy it, and the label said, ‘Apply to towel-dried hair and leave in.’

Labels are jerks.

I sat there laughing to myself and fearing for my skin. I really wanted to tell someone about it, and when I finally did, they didn’t think it was that interesting. So I wrote it here! You’re welcome.

I have been using conditioner on my face. And because it had a fancy name with an accent in it, I totally thought it was something really good that would take my wrinkles right off. It’s kind of the same thing as the juice. That juice was gross, by the way. Don’t put cucumbers in juice. It’s not becoming. The lesson here: don’t be gullible.

These things still aren’t interesting, are they? SHIT! Do not not worry. I am now equipped with a link that will totally help me write a story, so I’m good.

Next week, just wait! There will be some REALLY great interesting stories RIGHT HERE.
In the meantime, I have to go to this meeting about timeshares. The ad said it would be really fun and good for you.

They say that when you want to really see something, you should step away from it and come back later. I’m not sure they really meant ‘cubicle’ when they said such things. But I’m gonna say that’s exactly what they had in mind, those they.

After seven long, glorious months, I have, my friends, returned to a cubicle. For the last seven months, I have been purposely unemployed. Haven’t stepped a pinky toe in an office building. I don’t like to tell people what I do because it changes every day and then people are asking you about that book you wrote and then you hate it and then you have to backpedal and muh muh muh.

But here’s the truth: I took those seven months off because I thought I’d really really try to make it in the mean world of freelance writing. And I have. Oh yes. I now have a column on KCET. I write for the Huffington Post and Tiny Buddha. I have another inspirational blog on Stratejoy. I’ve written for Nerve and The Next Family. And I have edited at least 50 stories for Taboo Tales. Plus, I’ve had the pleasure of being rejected or ignored by countless others! AND… I did happen to finish a book in there somewhere.

After all that, I have made…. wait for it….. drumroll please…

$230.
Two-hundred-and-thirty dollars (I thought if I wrote it out like that, it would seem like more. It’s not working, is it?).

$230. In seven months.
Yep.

I’m a struggling writer!
“It sounds much cooler than it is,” I said as I stole ketchup packets from McDonald’s.

Just before I began re-using my toilet paper, I got a call to come back to an advertising agency. A cubicle. I have always had a hate/hate relationship with cubicles because they’ve represented claustrophobia, a stifling, a boss. Nobody puts baby in a cubicle. Some people like cubicles though. They do. They like the structure of a solid job. The insurance. The daily meetings that give them validation. The strange smells that cloud the office around lunch time. I applaud those people. I believe happiness is a choice, and I was never able to make that choice in a cubicle before.

Now that I’m back in a cubicle and I am seeing things anew, it’s become clear to me that the majority of people DON’T like to work in cubicles. They don’t. Yet they do it. Oh, they do it. Every day. And then, they go to the kitchen to complain about it. My new carpeted box happens to sit next to the kitchen.

“Is it Friday yet?” I hear constantly. “This project sucks.” “Can we go home yet?” “So-and-so is totally inept.”

It’s the thing to do, I guess. Complain. It bonds corporate colleagues. There’s some secret rule that says, ‘I’m gonna always be miserable and you be miserable too. And that’s what we’ll have in common. If we do it together, neither of us ever has to have the courage to change. And we’ll always talk about our misery in kitchens and bathrooms.”

My desk is also next to a very loud talker. She talks loudly because she wants everyone to know how much work she is doing.
“I JUST GOT TEN NEW EMAILS,” she says to No One.
“I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING AROUND HERE,” she says to the kitchen.
And then when No One or Kitchen says nothing, she sighs. Really loudly.

I brought headphones.

Then I went to a meeting. I don’t yet know the politics of this particular office, but I gathered that we were all supposed to be scared of the one lady at the head of the table. Someone brought her some lunch in the middle of the meeting. She complained about it and told everyone they were doing a bad job. And then the meeting was over.

In actuality, I’m having lots of fun at this job. I’m finding it nice to be a microscopic observer. But what I’m observing is that people don’t want to be there. But they’re there anyway. I watch them stride in reluctantly from the parking lot. And I want to scream at them and say, “You don’t have to be doing this if you don’t want to!”

And I know what they’ll say. They’ll say ‘The economy is so bad. I’m lucky I have a job.’
And I’ll tell them that’s a shitty excuse. Because I really feel like it is a shitty excuse. Any excuse is shitty. I don’t care if you have five kids or you are here illegally or you have only three toes or you can’t see. People change jobs and persevere and reinvent themselves every day. I realize that I myself am writing this from a cubicle. But it’s temporary. I swear. RIGHT? I mean, right? There’s a guy I talked to who has worked here for twelve years. He has a band. He is not doing anything about his band. It hurts to see this. Soon he’s gonna retire and then die, having not tried.

If you really want to do something, DO IT. Stop waiting for it to happen. Yeah, I’m a struggling writer, but I’m a writer. I’m doing it. And it’s hard. And maybe I’m going through a period where I can’t have as much fun as I would like because I’m writing all the fucking time and pitching myself to strangers and making awkward jokes at lame media mixers. But I will turn it around. I’ll sell my book. I’ll one day have a column that pays me more than it costs to write the column (ahem, KCET).

Anyone who doesn’t think they can also fulfill what they want in life is letting fear feed them a bunch of excuses. They’re letting their low self-confidence tell them that this is as good as it gets. But it’s not true. It’s never as good as it gets until you decide it is.
So get the fuck up. March out of your cubicle. Do the best you can with your day. And stop congregating in the kitchen to complain. You’re better than that.

And, you, yeah you: Stop taking the elevator from the third floor to the second fucking floor.

And this concludes the meanest inspirational speech ever. Steve Jobs was better at this. Too bad he died.

I realized yesterday that Thanksgiving is quite an American holiday. We’re already known for overeating, and on this special day we get together so we can overeat in front of people. It’s just like every other day for me, but I normally overeat burritos.

After the strangely delicious Tofurkey last night, I rushed to Target at midnight to get a flatscreen TV at a discount. No I didn’t. But I guess other people did. Other people camped out in front of Best Buy for days. Nothing like being the first one to buy electronics from a tired man in a blue polo shirt. Are the discounts really that spectacular?

Violence around the country? A woman pepper spraying people in line? To get fifty bucks off? This is why people in other countries hate us, my people! We’re obsessed with more more more more more more more (and they also hate our loose morals).

I am sitting in a cafe watching the world go by and steering clear of any type of store. I hate stores, which is why I still have the style of a clubgoer from 1998. I haven’t gone shopping since then. Shopping is a torture for me. Stores are chock full of decisions, and there’s nothing worse than decisions. I’ll just sit here and contemplate…


What do Indians do on Thanksgiving?

Why didn’t they drop the name ‘Indians’ the moment they realized they weren’t in India?

How do Indians from India feel about Native Americans having their name for so long?

Do Native Americans enjoy black friday?

Has any store ever offered to open their doors early ONLY for Native Americans?

Why is butter so fucking good?

What am I doing with my life?

Happy Black Friday!