Reefer madness.

After work and armed with some birthday funding, I headed to Best Buy (which has prices I love but a staff that I despise) to try and find the Criterion Collection edition of DAZED AND CONFUSED to immediately rectify the apparently giant mistake I made by not watching it over a decade ago.

So I go to the new releases, then the comedy shelf, then find a salesman shelving a giant cart full of DVDs. (I'm amazed he didn't run from me, lest I actually require assistance.)

I asked him if the Criterion edition was available. He walked to the shelf, showed me only the fullscreen edition of the original version and told me that they were out of it.

"It would be right here if we had it, so I guess we're out," he said.

"Um, can you check?" I asked, forgetting where I was. He returned to his GIANT CART FULL OF DVDS, though he didn't think to check the computer or look on the GIANT CART FULL OF DVDS for it.

No, he ignored me.

I found a $10 widescreen edition, not the Criterion, and figured it'd suffice if I just wanted to watch the movie.

Having saved money, I then looked on the salesman's GIANT CART FULL OF DVDS. (I'm practically a customer-service nuisance at my store. I ask EVERYBODY if they need help, and I actually try to help them and get them out the door.)

I didn't find the Criterion edition on the cart. I did find the first season of WEEDS on the cheap, and I'd been curious about that show. I love Mary Louise Parker, even if a hairdresser I met told me that she was a pain.

So I considered it and picked it up.

When I got to the cashier's desk, the blue-shirted worker looked at the two DVDs I'd brought up, then looked at the bags under my red eyes, my three-days-unshaven face and my untucked shirt. (I've not been sleeping well lately.) Then she looked again at the DVDs and smiled big at me, saying, "You have a really good night, sir!"

It wasn't until I called Lupo that I realized why she found me so funny.

"You bought DAZED AND CONFUSED and WEEDS together?" Lupo asked. "Having a theme night?"

I hate Best Buy.

NOTE: Oh my God, the workers at Best Buy are so STUPID! I just checked, and the street date for WEEDS isn't until JULY 11! I swiped it off that fool's cart and got it early!

Things to do while revisiting Brideshead.

- All this week, I've been watching the 1981 BBC miniseries for BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, and I swear to you up and down that it's one of the best DVDs (if not the best) that I've ever seen in my life. I started into it because it came recommended to me by friends. I watched the first episode a couple times, shocked at how gay the whole damn thing seemed to be. I mean, it was on PBS, and people LOVED it. No one who recommended it to me told me that it was completely homosexual. But in the first episodes, Charles Flyte, an Oxford student played by a young, pretty Jeremy Irons, speaks of falling completely and utterly in love with this rich, brilliantly dressed, beautiful, foppish kid named Sebastian, played by Anthony Andrews. Andrews looks like a sullen, blond Jude Law. The whole thing is set in the 1920s, and Sebastian's supposed to be from this really religious family - except the family doesn't seem to care that he's a 19-year-old boy who wears a pink suit and carries a teddy bear, sunbathes and cuddles naked on the mansion roof with Charles, professes his love for Charles constantly and even takes Charles to Venice so that they can cuddle in gondolas together. Apparently, in the '20s Britain, I could've just made out with guys constantly or paraded around naked with them, and people would've thought that we were just good chums carrying on. (Now, when I do that, people call me a slut and tell me to put my clothes back on.) BRIDESHEAD fucking rules. Great acting, great clothes, great story. It's based on a classic Evelyn Waugh novel. It even has Sir Laurence Olivier in it. Drama, drama, drama! It's way better than QUEER AS FOLK, for QAF wasn't all about being gay - while pretending that nobody was gay. I keep queening out and yelling things at Jeremy Irons onscreen, like "GIRL, don't break up with him, even if he is a lying drunk! HIS CATHOLIC MOTHER IS A STONE COLD BITCH!" and "NO, DON'T FUCK YOUR BOYFRIEND'S SISTER, even if he is a lying drunk! YOU LOVE HIM, NOT HER!!!" The show is 11 hours long, and I am hooked.
- I bought my mom the latest Stephanie Plum mystery today, even though it's been out over a week. Janet Evanovich's latest is called 12 SHARP.
- I bought Dashiell Hammett's THE GLASS KEY on a bargain table tonight. I've not read any Hammett before, and that's a situation I should rectify.
- PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST seems to me like the sort of movie that I should be going apeshit over, but the mood hasn't quite hit me yet. That first movie was so good, and Johnny Depp was so good in it. I just don't want them to spoil it.



- A new Guster album, GANGING UP ON THE SUN, came out two weeks ago, and they're one of Lupo's favorite bands. My favorite song of theirs is called "Two Points for Honesty," but it's off one of their earlier albums, LOST AND GONE FOREVER. Very good band.



- Lupo sent me a couple birthday presents this week, along with a lovely card. One of the gifts was the Criterion Collection edition of SHORT CUTS, as directed by Robert Altman. Lupo asked me today what I thought of the movie, and I admitted to him that, when I saw it in high school, it left me with this "Huh?" feeling. I'm eager to try it again.



- Lupo also expressed outright shock when he discovered this week that I've never, ever seen Richard Linklater's DAZED AND CONFUSED, which Lupo said was one of the best films of the 1990s. I told him that I never saw it because all the frat boys and stoner kids worshipped that film every week at Georgia Theatre when I was at UGA. My first day as a freshman on campus, I went sober to see PINK FLOYD'S THE WALL with a group of drugged-out friends on my first day at UGA, and I spent the entire night confused while the drugged-out kids had a great time. After that, I figured that stoner kids couldn't actually like something coherent and good, so I avoided DAZED AND CONFUSED. (Besides, it had Milla Jovovich and one of the London twins in it, so I thought I wasn't missing much.) Since I now love Richard Linklater and since Lupo says I should, I will try this again.
- Earlier this week, among friend, I compared an affair that I was considering to Charlotte Rampling's Nazi fetish sex in THE NIGHT PORTER. I'm not saying that, in my actual love life, I wanted to dress up like a Nazi stormtrooper and engage in some Holocaust-inspired fornication with a new friend, but the comparison seemed apt at the time. (Don't ask, really.) Anyway, though, I imagine that some of us, at least, have had romances that reminded us of movie romances or moments in life that felt like a moment from a movie. Maybe you were hanging out with a friend of the opposite sex and were suddenly, like, "This is so WHEN HARRY MET SALLY." Or maybe you were chasing your wife with an axe, then stopped and said, "Oh my God, this is so Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING." Catch what I mean? THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: When did your life feel most like a movie? Ever behave the way a movie character did? Ever say something, then realize you'd heard the dialogue on the big screen before? What's your best "This is just like that movie ..." moment?

Test.

The site was down. The site's back up.

Things you'd be proud to do.

- It's Pride in Atlanta again, and I'm working at the bookstore during the parade and throughout the weekend again. So I'm missing it, even though I've only ever been a marginal attendee at the Park. (Last time I was there for it was, ummm ..., two years ago.) But my friend Steven is new to being out, so the event is important to him. Steven's blogged about Pride for a week now (like I have about my birthday, which was terrific). Even my usual Pride companions Larry and Brad have skipped out on Pride this year to go to Europe, not that I blame them. Actually, if there's one thing I'm really going to miss about Pride this year, it's that I'm not going to get to see my friend Matt perform with the Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus. If you see them perform at all this weekend, cheer for Matt. He's the cute one in the glasses. Oh, and the Names Project's AIDS Memorial Quilt display is scheduled for Saturday afternoon, which I actually could attend. I've not seen quilt panels (the whole thing is too big to display anywhere) in a decade, so that'd be good to see. The Quilt is a beautiful, moving, sad thing to see.


- Is it wrong that I actually think the gimmick of Adam Sandler's CLICK may be worth the price of admission? I'm trying to remember the last time I actually enjoyed seeing Kate Beckinsale in a movie. (Her high-camp performances in PEARL HARBOR and VAN HELSING do not count. They were not intentional. And, don't even mention it, Kacoon, I thought that UNDERWORLD sucked.) It may well have been a decade ago. Beckinsale's like Rachel Weisz without the talent.



- This week I watched MY LEFT FOOT, THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA and AUDITION. Seeking a common theme, I discovered that they all featured - to a degree - people with severe mental problems and/or disabilities finding love. Of course, MY LEFT FOOT and THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA were sweet tearjerkers. AUDITION, meanwhile, is a sick, sick Japanese horror movie featuring this crazy-ass deranged psycho bitch who giddily lops off men's limbs with piano wire, keeps them alive yet deformed in her apartment and feeds them her own vomit. The last 15 minutes had me screaming at the television set. The course of true love never did run smooth.



- Hey, you know Brandon Routh, the guy who's about to play Superman. Yeah, I used to watch him on MTV's UNDRESSED and ONE LIFE TO LIVE. So, for those of you who develop a crush on him in the next few weeks, I saw him first. I have dibs.
- My friend Steven and I have arranged for a group outing to see THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA in the next couple weeks, and I am in the middle of the Lauren Weisberger novel right now. The trailer for the movie seems to play like a single scene of the film, so you can watch it without feeling as though the movie's being spoiled or that all the best jokes are being given away. And Meryl Streep looks fantastic. So I'm devoting this week's question entirely to her. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: What's your favorite Meryl Streep performance? Love her or hate her?

Not Born on the Fourth of July, 1976.

Fittingly, moments after turning 30, Benjamin thought back over the story of his own birth.

(Well, um, Benjamin actually thought over his mother's version of the story, told to him several times throughout his childhood. His father respectfully disagreed with this version, which is one of the many reasons why his parents are now divorced.)

"You were due on July 4, my perfect Bicentennial baby," his mother would narrate. "But, at the end of May or beginning of June, I had these contractions and told your dad that I was in labor. So he freaked out, put me in the Firebird and sped me to the hospital, and we got there and waited and waited and waited. For hours. But you never came, and the contractions never got any worse. And eventually, the doctor came to see us, and he told me that it was too early for me to be in labor."

"Way too early," Benjamin's father would interrupt if he were there to hear her tell this story. But she would ignore him and continue her version.

"Anyway, the doctor said that false labor was common, particularly with first-time mothers, and we shouldn't just head to the hospital every time I felt a little pain," she said sweetly to her boy. "He called it 'a little pain.' That's a typical male chauvinist response, son. When you get older, you should never say anything like that to your wife."

After the dramatic pause for his father's scoffing ended, Benjamin's mother told the story of his actual labor.

"So about three weeks after the first trip to the hospital, I start feeling these contractions again, and they keep coming and coming," his mother said. "So, of course, I told your father that I thought we needed to go to the hospital."

At this point in the story, she would glare at Benjamin's father.

"And you know what your father did, Benjie?" his mom asked.

No matter how often he heard this story, Benjamin never dared answer this question, for it was the best part of the whole story.

"Unlike most men willing to listen to their wives and eager to see their firstborn son for the first time, your father told me that I was just having another false labor, that it was still too soon!" she said dramatically. "Then you know what he did, Benjie??? You know what he did while I was in horrible, horrible pain???"

Benjamin often knew the answer to this one but didn't dare interrupt his mother as she mustered indignance.

"YOUR FATHER WENT OUT AND MOWED THE LAWN!!!!" his mother yelled everytime she got to this part. "WHILE I WAS IN PAIN FOR 45 MINUTES, HE FIRED UP THE RED SNAPPER AND MOWED THE GOSHDARNED LAWN!!!!"

At this, Benjamin's father would usually mutter under his breath, "Well, the baby didn't come for eight hours. I had time."

"When I FINALLY got your father to come back into the house and convinced him that I was serious, we went to the hospital in Marietta," Benjamin's mother continued. "And, as soon as we got there, your father started to fill out the paperwork, while I had to go to the bathroom. So, ever the genius, he told me to go ahead and kept filling out forms."

At this, Benjamin's father would start telling the story.

"So I'm filling out forms when the orderly and nurse come rushing up to me with this wheelchair, asking me in this frenzy where my wife was," his dad said. "So I told them she went to the bathroom. AND THEIR EYES GOT HUGE!"

And his mother resumed telling the story from there.

"And this shocked nurse comes running into the bathroom to get me, telling me that I'm not allowed to go. I end up in this wheelchair while people are yelling these questions at me about my water breaking," his mother said.

* * * * * * *

The baby wasn't born perfect.

The remainder of this story, surrounded in some family legend at this point, is unusual. Benjamin, two weeks' premature and underweight at 4 pounds and 11 ounces, was taken from his mother before she got to look at him. He was immediately placed in an incubator. He wasn't expected to live. The soft spot on his head was severe, for touching the baby on the head for just a moment would result in a handprint lingering for a moment on his. The baby bumped his head on his mom's thigh bone on the way out of the birth canal, which caused a birthmark on his forehead. (Originally, his mother told him that the birthmark was caused by Benjamin's giant brain, but his father eventually told her to stop saying that to the child.) Photos suggest that Baby Benjamin's left arm was shorter than an adult index finger.

Over the next couple days, Benjamin's mother was told that it would be a miracle if her newborn son survived at all. She was told that, if the baby lived, he would suffer from severe disabilities and mental retardation, his quality-of-life non-existent. They gave her little hope.

She thought her son was special. She took Benjamin home when they let her, cuddled and sang to him. She took him to the Methodist Church and had him baptized. Members of the congregation liked to hold him, for he smiled a lot.

And, on a random day some months after he was born, while his mother was singing "Old McDonald Had a Farm" to him, Benjamin sang "Ee-I-Ee-I-O" back to her.

If you ask her, Benjamin's mother will tell you that her baby sang it perfectly. (Of course, before having the baby in 1976, she was a music teacher, so this was a point of pride for her.) She sang him a verse, and he sang the vowels back in perfect pitch. She did it again, and he did it again.

And if she had to pinpoint it, that was the moment she most believed in miracles.

30 going on ...

For the record, at the moment of midnight on his 30th birthday, our hero Benjamin was sitting in a movie theater, watching Lindsay Lohan and Meryl Streep sing over the end credits of his favorite filmmaker Robert Altman's A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION. Benjamin liked the movie. Benjamin usually likes movies where Meryl Streep sings, though he didn't like that conjoined twins movie where she did the BONNIE AND CLYDE-inspired duet with Greg Kinnear. Benjamin usually likes movies where Lindsay Lohan sings, too, though he is less inclined to admit that to anyone.

At 12:05 on his birthday, Benjamin was standing in the lobby of the Phipps Plaza AMC movie theater, staring at the clock on the wall and pushing buttons on his cell phone. At 12:06, he left a message for Vickye, one of his best friends, for she'd told him it was OK to call around midnight. Of course, she didn't immediately answer the phone when he called. At 12:07, he called his drowsy-sounding friend Scott, a man that Benjamin used to call "Snapshot" when he was interested in nicknaming people, and announced to Scott that he'd reached 30 and it didn't feel so bad.

"I made it!" Benjamin shouted over the phone, only half kidding. "I survived my 20s!!! And they really sucked!!!"

Then Vickye called him back, and he clicked over to make essentially the same announcement to her.

They talked for about an hour, during which she said that she was coming to terms with her own approaching 30th birthday - which occurs exactly two months from today.

"Vic," Benjamin asked her later in the conversation. "What was the best part of your 20s?"

"That's a question that requires some thought," she replied. "It sounds like one of your blog entries, one that ends with a survey question."

"I should be able to write an answer," Benjamin said. "I've been contemplating 30 for months."

Trying to answer his own question, Benjamin thought back on the last decade of his life. He thought about how he spent his 20th birthday, which involved his mom forgetting to call him to wish him a happy birthday. It also involved him forcing his friends Amy and PG to spend time with him, for he didn't want to be alone. Amusingly, at one point on his 20th birthday, Benjamin ended up as a guest on his friend Travis's college radio call-in show, where our hero bitched about getting older until all four of the show's listeners called in and told him to shut the hell up.

This, sadly, was a theme of Benjamin's 20s, one he didn't hope to carry with him as much into the decade before him.

Benjamin, just now, concluded that he couldn't evaluate his last decade of life in that way, even if it would provide an answer to a really good blog question.

Life is life, Benjamin thought. Given good and bad, you cope, learn and hope to grow.

The gambit.

The week that Benjamin, our hero, turned 30, he purchased his first chessboard. He thought it was pretty. It was polished cherry, and it folded so that he could carry it around in the brown leather briefcase that he'd always intended to use more often. The chessboard reminded him of one that his grandfather owned. (Of course, his grandpa only used it for checkers.)

The chessboard seemed to Benjamin like the sort of prop that a distinguished man should own, the device of a man who knew where he was going. The briefcase struck him with the same notion. Benjamin, upon turning 30, had no idea where he was going, and that frightened him. He never expected to be this aimless. Somehow, the chessboard and briefcase provided him with comfort. His reasoning was funny. It seemed to him more likely that he could become the man that he wanted to be if he had the right props, even if he didn't know how to use them.

Thus, the chessboard was a birthday present he gave himself, along with a beginner's book on the game. More importantly, on this very page, he wrote down to himself what the board was for. He thought that writing it down might keep the board from being another whim purchase, that writing it down might stop him from continuing to be the same aimless guy he already was.

Lots of things happened the week Benjamin turned 30. The chessboard wasn't even the first. He just bought it for himself so that he could have a tangible reminder of his plans. He intended to accept himself more. He intended to change. Benjamin wanted a life of embraced possibility.

So what if he wasn't very good at chess?

Things to do the week I turn 30.

- Yep, come this year's first day of summer, my Gemini-Cancer cusp ass escapes the tumultuous twenties. And I've decided to do a number of things about it, during it, for it and about it. This is good. This is really good.
- After a most excellent trip out-of-town toward people I felt connections with and a job search that is bearing more fruit than any other search I've attempted in six years and a slow dance with a cute guy have shown me that I still have lots of untapped potential happiness within me, I have decided - brace yourself - to like myself and enjoy the funny little things that I do.
- My scarce writings of the last month have reminded me of the "mental regression" chapters in FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON. This shall not continue.
- Went with my friend Dena to the launch party for Emily Giffin's really good new book BABY PROOF, a chick lit novel that dares to have its heroine not want to have kids with Mr. Right. The party and its crab puffs and Amaretto Sours ruled, though it was very Buckhead Betty. We walked in, amidst about 100-150 fans, and Emily saw me and took the time to give me a personal hello, which impressed the heck out of Dena. And then Emily's dad told me to call him by his first name. And then her husband and I debated how damn good the new book is. And then her cute, well-dressed St. Martin's publicist named (cough) Stephen (cough) said to me, "Oh, you're Benjamin! She talks about you a lot. It's nice to finally meet you." Anyway, Dena went home after the party, where she read the first two chapters of BABY PROOF, and ordered all Emily's paperbacks to read.
- Five of my close friends are in Europe now, so there will be no cool, butter-creme-frosted cakes this year. I wish I could say that they took me with them so that I could finally see Paris, but there's always next year. Actually, I have the rest of my life.



- THE LAKE HOUSE actually sounds really interesting, and I (ahem) like Sandra Bullock in romantic movies. It has a better premise than Keanu's SWEET NOVEMBER, and it's based upon a supposedly sad Japanese movie. And it's my birthday week. So yay. (One time, my friend Vic and I saw Sandra Bullock stumbling around drunk atop a float at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.)
- I've been coughing at work everyday. I think I'm allergic to my job. Either that, or I've followed the Emily Dickinson stereotype and become a writer with tuberculosis.
- I can't decide if I should read RABBIT, RUN or some other book from the New York Times' list of the greatest books of the last 25 years. It's either RABBIT, RUN or the new Nick Hornby novel about suicide. I keep waffling, but I think I should read something deep.
- An ink pen just exploded all over me. I am naked and speckled blue.
- I don't want to see THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT. I've actually never seen a F&F movie ever, even though I think Paul Walker is hot. Frankly, I feel old just knowing that funny-voiced kid from SLING BLADE and Lil' Bow Wow are both driving age.



- Saw THE OMEN with my friend Kacoon, then lied and told her that Damien reminded me of her little boy. About THE OMEN, though, Mia Farrow RULES.



- I will leave my job. I will leave my job. I've gotten in the habit of humming "I'm Checkin' Out" from POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE to myself. I like that song. Speaking of Meryl Streep songs, has anybody here seen my hero Robert Altman's A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION yet? I really want to see it, and I know nothing about Garrison Keillor. And it's not just because Lindsay Lohan plays Meryl's daughter in it.
- I didn't get to tape THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA off of PBS this week. Did anybody tape it? I really want to see it, and I'm afraid Tony Award-winning lead actress Victoria Clark won't come with the touring company to Atlanta, even though she's not exactly famous.



- Oh, did you see LaChanze won a Tony for THE COLOR PURPLE? I met her when she was doing the show at the Alliance in Atlanta. She came into my bookstore to buy an Alice Walker book that she'd ordered, but her order didn't come in. Stalling for time while trying to track the book, I asked her if she'd seen THE COLOR PURPLE at the Alliance. She said that she was in it. "Who do you play?" I asked. "Celie," she said. I freaked the hell out, asked her about the show, told her that I'd heard really good things about it from friends. She showed me a piece of purple jewelry that Alice Walker had personally given her. Now, she's got a Tony. I haven't written the Great American Novel yet. Heck, I've not written a good American sentence in a while. Anyway, good for her, for she was nice. And my moment will come.
- On my actual birthday, my friend Vic and I are enjoying a rare evening alone with one another. She got me tickets to see CHICAGO at the Fox. I think it's got Peterman from SEINFELD, the guy who lost DANCING WITH THE STARS to Kelly Monaco, in it. The show and the time with my friend is gonna be great, and I'm really excited about it. She and I haven't been to the Fox alone together since we saw THE NUTCRACKER there in 1998, I think. We love the Fox.
- I miss my blog. I miss you guys. I want to reconnect with people I enjoy. I want to be happy. It is my goal.
- Of the summer movies I've seen so far, I found X-MEN: THE LAST STAND to be the most satisfying, M-I:3 to be the most mindless, THE DA VINCI CODE to be the most boring and talky, CARS to be the most disappointing and POSEIDON to be the most stupid fun (even though the gay Richard Dreyfuss character totally should've hit on every hot, drenched guy in that upside-down boat ... and it really, really needed Shelley Winters in it). I've not seen THE BREAK-UP, though I was told to avoid it. I want to see AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. I'm excited about SUPERMAN RETURNS on IMAX, that movie MONSTER HOUSE and, of course, SNAKES ON A PLANE. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: What do you think of this summer's entertainment thus far? Any good movies? Any good TV? Any good European nations you've visited on your honeymoon? What are you looking forward to?

Things to do at a gay wedding weekend.

- As previously reported, my best friend Lupo is getting married - yes, it's a legal, actual marriage - to his boyfriend Kenn in Northampton this weekend, and, thanks to funding from my mother and a prostitute friend, I'm going to be in attendance. If I'm able to find an Internet connection anywhere and can find any inspiration in the proceedings, which I should because the days will likely be filled with true love and alcohol, I will buckle down and blog for you guys. Karaoke is planned. I've been invited to give a toast. And Lupo's gonna wear some cool new clothes. So, for the first time in a while, expect something from me.
- During a meeting in the conference room of my office wherein we discussed another change of our daily work schedule, something that happens every three months, I looked out the window and contemplated hurling myself and my wheeled office chair down three floors. I think it's time I leave that damn place. Last week, a co-worker essentially yelled at me for not being a good worker, called me into a meeting with a manager and then started crying when the manager suggested she'd gone too far. Since that confrontation, I've been advised by management to "let it go, forget it happened and continue to improve the work I've been doing." I should let it go. I should let it go.
- I had a date with a guy last weekend, and I actually had a lot of fun with him. Given my luck at spending time with people I actually enjoy, of course, I'm still waiting for him to call me. It's only been two days since I tried to initiate a phone call, so it's still reasonable that he'll call me. Tell me that again on Saturday when he still hasn't called. Like the last one. I shouldn't write that, for he might read it. But nobody's been reading this lately.
- I didn't end up going to XPT this year, for I was busy having some sort of breakdown. Nonetheless, I'm sure that the guys down at the Center for Puppetry Arts put on an excellent show.



- My friend Emily Giffin's new book, BABY PROOF, is excellent, and it comes out in bookstores on June 13. Seriously, if you like smart chick lit, check it out. I'm going to the official book release party. Yay!
- The bookstore has cut back my hours in June to one day a week, even though I'm considered a very good salesman by management and co-workers. They say it's not personal. I'm the one music seller with another income, and other people need the paychecks. I depend upon my supplemental bookstore paycheck, but I can make it work. Hard times.
- I have to figure out where else I should send the essay that the Oxford American rejected. I haven't written anything new in ages.
- I turn 30 in less than three weeks.
- I've been listening to Sia, The Fray, the Matthew Sweet-Susannah Hoffs cover album, the soundtrack to WICKED and some songs by Macy Gray lately.
- I have to go pack. And find my way back to the laundromat sometime tomorrow in between my two jobs.
- I've had an odd cold for over a week now, and some odd bruise has arrived on my forehead.
- I can't believe I just wrote all this. I'm fine, really. I think I just really, really, really, really need a vacation from my annoying job (which I now do without distractions like the Web or such for hours and hours and hours), from my empty apartment, from my messy car, from my prostitute friend, from Memorial Day barbecues where my stepbrother tries talking to me like he doesn't know why I avoid him.
- Miss Gibson was in Atlanta this weekend, spreading beauty, joy and culture to all who encountered her. I miss London, which I only saw for a week but would love to see again.
- I'm going to go watch BUFFY episodes. Both parts of "Becoming" may cheer me up.

I hate my job.

Once again, I want to leave my job. Once again, I'm going to bitch about how unsatisfied I am.

Oh well. No, I'm not. I'm just annoyed.