PO-et-TRy

face. hop. shushi shoe. matthew perry is not hot. akon did not get shot. LIAR! bird returns from winter break, i had a spicy steak. mouse. pad. frame doughnut bagel bialy. creamcheese, for which I freeze. curl. rock. i rewear socks. coffee morning.

bleach

I think they added "multiple washes" because after a garment has been washed many times, the fibers are weaker and the dyes are less vibrant, so the same caustic chemicals could potentially do more harm to an older item than a brandy ass arrogant unstoppable new shirt.

A healthy dose of bleach on an old bedsheet could do it in!


Someone doesn't do a lot of laundry...hmmmm

goals

So tonight, in the long and meandering conversation that is Jason and Amanda's relationship, I learned that I have no goals. And not only do I have no goals, but I have no wants. Wants besides "being really great" and "accomplished" and "beauteous." I'm not even sure if I want to have goals. Part of me romanticizes the unknown world of opportunity, the road ahead, the unmet people and the unrealized talents that float amorphously in my vision of the future. And part of me is sure that if I don't get my ass moving on something "significant" than I'll just have wasted my life, feel impoverished of soul and mind and be miserable and die as one of the hapless trillions whose only legacy to mankind are the original atoms they borrowed for their short existence.

Tonight I got myself all purdied up -- yes in a pretty silk dress with black high heels and diamond jewelry. And a side-swept curly, 1940's inspired hairdo. It was the screening party of Helen Hunt's directorial debut, a small budge indie Then She Found Me, starring Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick, Colin Firth and many more. I didn't see the movie, I only get to go to the parties. They were all there, except Colin, the only one I'd actually wanted to see. Sarah Jessica Parker was there as well. And swarms of other famous faces. I didn't talk to to many people. My sister and I ogled and judged as we ate our world famous sushi at the world famous Nobu 57. It wasn't an occasion for interviews, only for views.

I managed break the ice with this one guy, a former screenwriter for Mad About You and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, who was very nice and smart and I ended up lying to him about where I work. Not because I was outright trying to impress him, but a spy like me must be choosy about revealing herself. But the trouble with lying about what you do, even if the intentions are only to conceal one's shady intentions, is that it always calls attention to what you are not. Calls attention to the disparity between who you are and who you want to be.

I am generally pretty proud of working at In Touch. It's a huge publication: my writing gets read by a minimum of 1.5 million people a week. It's incredibly fun and glamorous and it's trained me well for more than just a career in journalism--opening my eyes to a lot of social dynamics i was retarded about for most of my life. So it's not so much that I'm ashamed, but after the initial satisfaction of impressing someone, I find myself having to defend gossip journalism and my own integrity, and inevitably say "well, obviously I don't want to do this for the rest of my life!"

But for godssssakkesss, what the FUCK do I want to do???!!!

Here are some options: painting, acting, screen writing, more journalism: serious news journalism, investigative reporting? women's magazines? MEN's magazines? Go back to grad school for errr English? Journalism? Art? Film? Public policy? Travel the world? Go to medial school? Be a fashion designer. be a teacher? A college professor? Rock star? Poet? Pornographer?

"I'm every woman. It's all in meeeeeee!"

But if I'm "everything" than I'm not really "anything." Just a dilettante

My new business card should say:

Amanda Mikes

Dilettante

Makes insightful remarks about things she really dosen't know about.
Paints, writes and cooks really well.

Okay this entry is getting postmodern.

{{end}}

How my brain works

As I was sitting on the can the other day, the closest reading material was the back of a bottle of bleach on the counter. I noticed a piece of text under the "Why Use Clorox Splash-less bleach?" section:

Fiber Safe
As safe on fibers as detergent alone after multiple washes.

Now, what is the point of adding "after multiple washes"???

So alls I can do while sitting there for the rest of my... appointment... is try and think of ONE good reason they would include that. Note I said GOOD reason.

This is how my brain works. Or what it spends its time doing, to be specific. To me, adding that extra bit is something of a mea-culpa. All they are doing is adding a condition to a strong statement, implying that they could not (legally?) simply say it's as safe as detergent alone.

My brain's premier explanations include:
-- this bleach is NOT just as safe as detergent on fibers (possibly because a "first dose" of bleach may do much more damage than subsequent doses, and only by referencing the subsequent doses' effects could they say it's no more damaging than detergent)
-- some common-sense-free committee decided that "after multiple washes" made the statement seem stronger because multiple washes is MORE than just one.
-- something else, but I already forgot. Sigh. Such is my brain.

If I were Amanda...

I would stop dissing Jason on IM and strike up some amusing conversation! I would also tell him my favorite comedy TV shows / movies, and proceed to quote several of my favorite quotes...

Words I like

acumen
anachronism
apocryphal
apoplectic
archaic
astute
bade
bastion
befuddled
blasphemous
bode
cavalier
chronic
coalesce
coda
comeuppance
comprehensive
comprise
concoction
constitute
contemporary
continuity
copacetic (how DO you spell that!?)
corollary
deliberate
deluge
delusion
demonize
depict
deprecated
destitute
diatribe
dignified
distinguished
encompass
exhaustive
expression
feign
feted
flummoxed
garrulous
gregarious
harangue
heretical
ignite
inclination
indecent
indiscriminately
inherent
innate
insidious
insolvent
intrinsic
katharsis
laden
macabre
magnanimous
malaise
manifest
missive
onerous
onus
parity
pedagogical
pique
polytomy
privy
profane
proselytize
reconciled
relic
sacrilegious ... NOT "sacreligious"! How bizarre is that?
salient
sanctimonious
spurious
stigma
tantamount
throttled
ubiquitous
unencumbered
unilaterally
unsubstantiated
vetted
willful

The most poetic justice ever

I have this ex-girlfriend named Vera from about 2 years ago. She started off kinda weird to start, but ended up on the completely "crazy" side of the spectrum... and I use the term literally, as she was in psychotherapy. Finally, (as I would find out a while later) when an ex-boyfriend of hers started flirting with her again to restart their relationship, she very cruelly and remorselessly ended ours.

Just before our breakup, I had a new roommate named Meg move in. Ironically, Meg told me how little she liked Vera from the start. Well, Meg ended up being the eponymous roommate-from-hell, as well as a nauseating flavor of crazy that made Vera look downright normal! In addition to punching me in the face, twice, she would be "unable" to pay rent for months-on-end (never even made deposit, actually). When finally I kicked her out, she still owed rent money, and actually stole some of my stuff on her way out. THEN, she had the gall to call the police to accompany her to demand the mailbox key and check for her mail... only to discover to her immense chagrin that I'd been truthful telling her that she'd received none.

Well about 6 weeks after that fun day, my landlady Jill dropped by to explain that, of all people, Meg and Vera (?!) had called her up and explained to her that they would love to rent our house... out from under us... should Jill be interested in kicking us out. Fortunately, Jill was well aware of Meg's dereliction, and had been quite leery of her in general since Meg suddenly adopted a 100lb, 1-year-old, blood-hound without informing anyone.

Shortly after that, we all found out that the two actually had moved in together in another house. I wished them both bad-riddance, assuming they could only make each other as miserable as they'd made me, and forgot about them until today.

If ever there was a question of the existence of Karma....

.

...Ha, ha, HA!

---

Update (3/9/2008 5:45pm):
Crap!! Returning home from the dog park, today, I discovered that Meg's new abode is but 3 blocks away from mine!!! If she happens to drive down my street, and notice my truck... NOOOOooOOOO!! I don't want slashed tires!