Okay, so I went Internet stalking and I've been listening to hip hop all day.

What are you, like forty now?
Still no time to settle down
I hear that, I'm not settled either
Pushin' thirty, thought I'd be there
Still kinda wish I could trade for your career
But I know I still have to be patient and prepare
My brain my heart my soul are still confused
They still want to learn from men like you
Sure it's just a waiting game
But I'd like to have it all the same
You set fire to my standards
And I keep coming back like a moth to a flame

I'm trying to write.

I can only come up with a few things to write about. They aren't necessarily congruous.

* I want to live, I just have trouble seeing why I should keep doing it.

* The kind of thing I'm looking for is out there; it's just not looking for me.

* My greatest fear is loneliness and yet I keep isolating myself from others.

* I am like a shadow walking among people. Like a ghost they can see.


The funny thing is that I'm not depressed right now. In fact, if you put me to work I feel like I'm in the middle of a manic phase. It's just that I'm having trouble getting work...I don't know if that's hurting or helping, since I feel so very tired too. It's like winter has set in inside of me and my body is responding to some cosmic message from the magnetosphere that is telling me to hibernate. I'm having trouble running, I'm having trouble eating, I'm having trouble doing anything at all. It's not because of depression either, it's just that I'm tired. So so tired.

Maybe I should take a nap.

Hey, Jealousy

There's this girl who works on my job. She's nice, but more importantly she's pretty. I can't help but notice that she gets an overwhelming amount of "friendly" attention from the guys around, including my boss. I'm nice. But I'm just not as pretty, I guess, because I'm lucky if they talk to me at all.

I'm totally infatuated with this 22 year old boy, and I REALLY notice when it's he paying that attention and then totally passing me by. We kissed one night, drunk in his hotel room. He totally freaked out about my age. He thinks I'm old. That makes me feel old. That I'm totally infatuated with him makes me feel stupid. That he's not infatuated back makes me feel rejected.

I have a date tomorrow with a detective named Kevin. I don't know what he detects. I'm not feeling well. I hope I feel better so I can wow him with my awesomeness. I hope I don't spend the entire time thinking about the 22 year old boy. Or Thinky Face. I suspect I'll probably think of both fleetingly.

I hope Halloween comes quick so I can get on another job without that boy. I hope I find enough time to not be excluded from the dance troupe understudy thing anymore. I hope I can come to terms with the things that aren't right in my heart (and secretly also hope to lose another fifteen pounds) so that I can be the pretty girl one day. I hope my chance for that isn't slipping away. I'm turning 29 in 10 days...

kyle the girl
(on iPhone)

Things I can't seem to figure out

Why are bicycle dudes STILL so hot to me?

When will I learn not to be disappointed about stuff I can't do because of work?

How come the word "broads" seems offensive to me but "dames" or "chicks" is fine?

Do I really have to wait until July to move?

Do I really wanna be an AD? Aren't I more the art department type?

Since when am I so damn shy with men I like? I seem to be able to flirt with all the men I DON'T like just fine...

Where are all the girls who like girls?

Why do I continue to feel unable to relax? What is this annoying "mom" instinct thing that keeps raging from inside me?

How come I always feel like I'm two steps behind everyone else at everything I do?


kyle the girl
(on iPhone)

Cardiac Arrest

It seems like I'm always losing things...keys, papers, money, friends...I've put in place rather efficient systems for keeping keys and papers and money in their proper places where I can find them, but friends aren't that easy. You can't keep a friend in the same pocket and expect it to be there every time you reach in. Friends are people, with lives and issues and obligations to third parties. And it hurts worse when you lose your friends than it does when you lose your keys.

To avoid the hurting I've put in place an efficient system; when friends suddenly aren't in the place I've made up for them in my life I give up. I sew up the pocket so that it doesn't seem so empty. I pretend to be blithely irked, or slightly disinterested, or in cases of great hurt I may even grow haughtily angry. But really I'm just clutching the pocket closed with all my might, as if all the warm happy friendliness I have will spill out onto the sidewalk, never to be recovered. The clutching gives me a similar false sense of security to the one I experience when friends do stay in the right pocket.

I don't know what to do when things change suddenly. I usually freeze, unable to move, terrified and quite positive that I am about to experience another loss. So many friends have come and gone...but it's still hard every time. I mean, it's hard for me when I lose a t-shirt at the cleaner's, so of course I hold my friends dear and clutch desperately for their hands in the dark.

What if one day they're not there anymore?

Father's Day

I'm changing a lot lately. Moving furniture, purging from my life things I don't need, getting rid of unwanted baggage and cleaning out the junk. Every time I make a change I gain momentum as if I'm dropping off excess weight during a race. At the finish line is feeling good an happy and whole again. My friends and family are cheering me on along the sidelines. I'm doing it for them.

I want to be better, of course, but it's for them not for me. I would never ever want someone to have to miss me the way I miss you. I couldn't do that to them. It was a really shitty thing to do, Dad, leaving us without you like that. You really fucked up my life and I'm angry about it. It wasn't fair, you had a responsibility, if not to Mom than to us. I know you were sick, but that doesn't make it any less acceptable. I'd rather have a dad in a loony bin or jail or even just out there in the world on his own than no dad at all.

At least maybe you could have waited? Like ten or fifteen years? You could have seen me grow up...didn't you want that? I think you'd be really proud of me. I've worked hard and come a long way...but I wish you'd been there to see it, and maybe to talk me out of some of the dumber things I've done.

I miss you. I've missed you every day since the police came to our little white house and told us you were dead. And as pissed as I am about it all, I still love you. I'm trying really hard to forgive you, but first I think I have to forgive myself for all the time I've spent being angry. I need to let it go.

Friday night

Pleasantries exchanged and adorable smiling, little quips within conversations always revolving back around to each other. Did you notice? Did you see me dancing? I had fun with the groups within out group, bringing out my social butterfly, always at ease in a crowd of friends. I can't believe I'll miss you tomorrow. I'll be far away from here and you'll be there without me and then we'll be on other jobs and goodness knows if we'll ever meet again. Anyway, it was fun while it lasted.


kyle the girl
(on iPhone)

The bus

The bus is all blue. Smile at the driver and say hello. Fall to the back. Nestle into the single seat by the door. Dangle my legs like a little girl, happily thinking of you, my friend. Listen to music and enjoy how it makes me feel connected. For a moment I am out of the water, warm and dry, able to breathe. The sun shines through the window. I wonder when I'll see you again, when you can come out and play. I cross my ankles and swing my feet. I would like to go to the park and feel grass under my toes and make daisy chains out of dandelions. Can you come out and play? The world seems big. I feel so little. The sun is kissing my cheek.

kyle the girl
(on iPhone)

Arlen and Sandy

So I'm standing in the lobby sort of area outside our production office eating a popsicle, and the usually-annoying TV suddenly flips to Arlen Specter becoming a Democrat.

Cool, right? Suddenly the Dems are filibuster-proof. Advance-a Obama Agenda.

This dude from one of the other companies that rents office space on our floor looks over at me and goes "It sure makes you wonder what they offered him, huh." All I could think was, Dude! Don't look a gift horse in the mouth!! I mean, it's good to question and everything, but to be that cynical right off the bat?

Upon further research, it so far appears that Specter is making the move out of a genuine shift in politics (from the article I linked above, it seems the politics shifted more than he did, which was the issue he had). I mean, it is kind of odd that the guy who invented the Magic Bullet Theory (not the blender, the Kennedy thing) would be the guy who gave the Democratic senators phenomenal cosmic power. But dude. Seriously, just go with it.

I finished my popsicle, thoughtfully watching reporters circling around Specter as he walked through some hallway somewhere in D.C. It was cherry flavored. I looked down at the stick when I was done, and the joke on it was this:

"What did the beachcomber name his daughter?"

The answer, of course, was "Sandy."

Miss Adventurous is doing fine. Except for the pleather dress she's missing.

Yay, I'm unemployed for a time. Fortunately I can collect unemployment, so I don't feel the need to panic or anything. I don't need to go work in PDF's tanning salon or find a table waiting gig or anything. I'll sustain just fine. Which absolutely does NOT mean I'll be resting on my laurels!

My plans are to write a bit, look for more work, get things done around the house... And also to do my own laundry for once!

Meanwhile my social life is doing just ducky and keeping me busy, which is mostly why I haven't written here much. I'm spending a lot of my time with my friends and less time dating, which is a very good thing. I'm tired of all that stuff and much happier hanging with people who aren't A) only interested in me if they think I'll have sex with them, B) intimidated by my brains and emotional intensity, C) turn me into some googly-eyed, lash-batting retard, or D) all of the above. I like to think that if I continue on this vein of quality friends over "making up for lost time" (which is totally a euphemism for being constantly on the prowl) I'll wind up having a lot more fun.

Also, I keep thinking of shutting down Miss Adventurous and moving to a new blog and a new (less emotionally intense) format. Or I guess what I would do is take Miss A private so I would still have a place to bitch about stuff. I know people read, I have more unique hits per day than ever. But my life has changed a lot since I showed up here in New York nine months ago and this super personal stuff could come up and bite me in the ass sometime. That threat has actually loomed a bit.

I'm thinking a lot about what I want to focus on though. What my next project will be. Miss A has gotten me through the tough part of relocating, but now I'm ready for something bigger and more focused. Something less intense, less diary-like. But what?

The thing I keep coming back to is relationships and sex. I'm terribly fascinated with those two things, relative to one another and also separated. I feel like I have some insight there. I feel like I have something to say about it. I don't know for sure though. I'm uncertain because my current personal situation is not what most would call "successful" in that particular arena, although I feel like rejecting my unhappiness in favor of a new life in pursuit of a new happiness is definitely a success. I'm single and I love the freedom. I'm happy without a partner. I'm irritated only by the social norms that say I oughtn't be happy when single or that my life is somehow incomplete without a man or woman to make it complete.

Also there is a girl wearing pleather skinny pants on the 4 train. She's falling asleep while standing and I can't help but wonder if her pleather pants aren't contributing to her sleepiness by cutting off oxygen to her lower abdomen.

Really I'm just jealous though and I wish I had the stones to wear pleather skinny pants. I'd be much better off in a pleather dress. I used to have a red pleather dress and it looked awesome on me. I wonder what happened to it?

It's probably in that f'ing storage facility in Texas.

Goddammit. That's just one more thing I lost out of this whole hurricane/breakup/getting-screwed-by-buying-a-house-with-someone-I-didn't-marry thing.

Spending $50 that I just don't have.

Last Thursday:
Sitting post-seared-tuna-salad at Coffee Shop in Union Square with
Payroll. Ordered a banana split and a Cape Cod. Got crazy déjà vu
(again!) when I said, "it's all the same price; we might as well do it
up, right?"

Craving the company of someone outside my normal circle.

Glad to know Payroll thinks I'm going to make it in this business. I'm
glad that she sees me capable of producing some worthwhile content.
It's nice to have a vote of confidence from someone who actually knows
what they're talking about. Sort of.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Running writing and editing. I haven't
had a day for me in so long!

I hope I'll always be a little girl on the inside.

Payroll and I went to see Wall-E tonight. We bought tickets from a scalper.

I liked it so much! I know it's silly but I cried in the middle and at the end. Sometimes I feel like I've been alone for 700 years, trying to make sense of all the strange things around me.

Most people act like I'm strange for liking cartoons so much. PDF outright says he thinks it's stupid. JH always yelled at me for watching Foster's at every opportunity. My mom teases me about it. I could tell that Payroll thought it was kind of funny that I wanted to go see that particular movie so bad. I could tell she was indulging me. She liked it quite a lot too though, and thanked me for begging her to come.

I can't believe I cried at two little robots dancing around in space! I'm such a girl sometimes.

I'm wearing my Pippi Longstocking tee shirt today too. I don't know why but I think that's significant to this post.

-----
Update: I'm not the only one! The folks over at Geekanerd are all in love with Wall-E too! They even traced the design lineage for some of the characters! Check it out here.

It is what it is.

"BOOM!"

The cats just made a beeline for the bed, crawling underneath it to what they think is safety from the thunder and lightning and torrential rain outside.

I just hung up. I was on with The Grecian for two hours. Giggling and babbling and loving each other simultaneously over MySpace and the phone. For two hours. She called at 7:44. She called because I was crying. She knew because I texted her that I was crying. She asked.

It's so nice to feel like I can lean on someone for a little while, to have someone to giggle with again. To have someone to tell me stories about the ridiculous things that are out there, things that are so much more awful than anything I have to deal with.

I don't write about those things--those people, I guess--because I don't care about them. It's lackluster. I go, I make pleasant conversation, I pretend to be interested, but I'm just not, because I just have too much else going on. Bad music, cheap drinks, boring talk...it turns me on autopilot. I'm not there anymore. I'm wondering who to talk to about my next job, thinking about my documentary thing, wondering how to get The Big Idea going... And then suddenly I'm back, fending off a physical advance or muttering an excuse about how I have to be somewhere. Only once has my robotic lack of enthusiasm been recognized for real apathy. We talked about it, and my emotional impotence was understood. I felt better.

My only mistake right now is biting off more than I can chew.

I don't have time for them. I don't really want to get to know them. I'm going through the motions because I feel like I have to, or like I owe it to myself. I'm trying to make up for lost time. But my heart is just not in it, and I'm sick of going through the motions. And above and beyond that, I just don't have the time to get to know someone new! I really just want to settle in to what I have, my friends-my dear, sweet friends--and be done with it.

But I just hate being alone in a thunderstorm. It would be nice to have someone here to cuddle with and play video games.

"BOOM!"