you can't handle the truth: john gardner exposed everything that i am about to say is the absolute truth. i swear to jeebus. i wouldn't lie. i am not that kind of person. there are certainly a lot of secrets out there about john gardner (dirtylilbeast) so i feel it is my obligation to reveal some of these secrets so that all of his "friends" can know the truth about his darker side. i am not writing this to be mean, just out of my enduring respect for veracity.
i apologize in advance if i inadvertantly reveal anything about other individuals in john's life that they would rather not have exposed. just know that i am being equally honest about unfortunate aspects of my own life as well.
employment, unemployment, part time employment and THE TRUTH:
when john and i were deciding on whether or not to move to washington d.c. so that i could get my phd, he had originally told me that he had been given a transfer from his job at verizon wireless to (verizonwireless) a store in virginia. however, when we finally arrived here he informed me that he had made the whole story up, and in fact he never had a job at verizon wireless in the first place. everytime i went to the mall to meet him for lunch in tucson, he always left his real place of employment and went to wait for me outside the verizon store. his real place of employment was orange julius.
of course, orange julius wouldn't give him a transfer out here, because the east coast juliuses require a more extensive training program than the west coast ones, and he wasn't qualified. he assumed that when he got out here, he would find a new job. but in reality, he expected me to take care of everything myself.
for months i was forced to go to school every day and then work full time on nights and weekends in order to pay our rent. i got a job at the zoo doing night feedings for the hippopotamous. every morning i would come home stinking of hippomeal (tm) only to find john passed out in a pool of store brand fritos in front of tvland reruns of wings. when i asked him if he could please get a job to help out, he told me that he was actively involved in the job search, but was holding out for a management position.
after about a year he finally did get a job, but once again this was not at verizon wireless as he has been telling everyone. now he works part time at a local korean smoothy and bubble tea shop in the dirt mall. it was the only thing that his level of drink preparation education qualified him for. he couldn't even get hired making blizzards at the dq. he had an interview, but he put too many heath bar bits in the ice cream and that was that.
secretly manipulative, openly asstastic:
when my college friend megan (megiknit) came to visit for a few days last year john immediately went to work sewing his fabric of deceit. somehow he talked megan into having her picture taken naked in a variety of degrading bondage poses. i knew she was uncomfortable the minute she put that gimp's mask and ball gag on, but, being the nice person she is, she went along with it for her friend. john told her he was taking "art shots" for a community college class he was taking, and he told her noone would ever see the photos, but of course the minute she was out the door the pictures were for sale on ebay.
in order to make money, john has resorted to a variety of get-rich-quick schemes in addition to the online auction fetish porn business. one of his favorite pasttimes, for example is to sit on his aol account for hours sending emails to literally millions of people advertising cialis. they pay him .1 cents per thousand messages he sends. he also started this one scheme where he claims to be a nigerian dignitary attempting to deposit money in a u.s. account. it is really chilling.
secretly disloyal, secretly distempered:
every day john comes home from the bubble tea hut, who do you think is the first one there to greet him at the door? that's right, it's his extremely loyal beagle friend jake (jakerokz). but do you think john does anything to reciprocate this tremendous loyalty? if you said, "yes," you obviously haven't been paying attention thus far.
this winter, jake was coming down with something, but john said there simply wasn't enough money around to take him to the vet, since we were saving up to buy him the family matters box set for christmas. after a couple weeks it was getting worse and worse. jake was suffering from fever, loss of appetite and mild eye inflamation. eventually, realizing he had distemper, i was forced to give him a handful of pills from the medicine cabinet, and thank gawd he recovered. it wasn't until a few weeks later that i finally realized how jake had contracted distemper in the first place. it was john that had distemper first and gave it to jake. and even though jake was such a good friend, and even though he was the one that made him sick in the first place, john would rather watch his friend suffer if it meant satisfying his lust for urkel marathons.
living a lie, actually lots of them:
here's just a few: 1. john told me once that he was against a congressional bill authorizing stem cell research, since he believes that stem cells are jesus tears. well then why did i catch him making a twelve-stem-cell omelet the other night when we ran out of eggs? 2. john doesn't want anyone to know that he isn't the picture of health, so he hides the fact that he has cystic fibrosis. 3. the other night john was going out with his friend butch (sweetass48) and he told me he would call me to let me know when he would be home, and he didn't call me. plus, he robbed a liquor store. 4. john pled guilty to foot tapping at the minneapolis airport restroom, but then he told everyone that he didn't really mean it and he wasn't in fact guilty, but he later told me that he just wanted some hot man love. 5. john told me he was a sagittarius when we met, but he is actually a pisces. he lied because everyone knows that hitler and idi amin were pisces, and he was worried that someone would find out about the war crimes he committed in bosnia.
contessa of condescension:
when our friend tamara (amberoid) told john in confidence about her private feminine problems, john sat and listened and pretended to be understanding. inside, he was just cooking up another one of his schemes. even though he told tamara that it was something that we all have to deal with from time to time and that she shouldn't be ashamed, he went out of his way to disparage her behind her back. within weeks, john had already sold his treatment of a nonfiction book to penguin, titled, "my friend and her ordeal with cleavage worms." now it has been turned into a screenplay, and the film is going to be released next oscar season starring felicia rashad.
holes in the holes of his wholesome holiness:
john thinks he's all that, but he's not. he's really none of that. every sunday he tells me he is going to mass at the wiccan temple, but i found out that in fact he spends three hours every sunday morning at denny's chowing down on grand slams. so if you are as tired as i am about him telling you that you need to get a little pagan spirituality in your life, you can let him know that you know his spiritual essence comes from two strips of bacon, two sausage links, and a ham steak. and the next time he gives you the necronomicon as a birthday gift, make sure you give him a bottle of imitation maple syrup.
i am sorry that i have been forced to debunk the myths of john gardner, but i couldn't live with the lie anymore. i think we will all feel better knowing that the world has just gotten a little more truthy.
would anyone believe me if i said i invented post-its? i am having a very romy and michele day today. yes, i got the registration forms for the kenyon reunion, and no i can't think of a single reason why i would want to participate in something that is almost sure to depress me well into 2009. i am gonna end up surrounded by all of these successful lawyers and doctors with money and houses and families and i am just going to want to crawl under a rock and die. i really don't know if i need to take this opportunity to be reminded of what a complete and utter failure my life is at this point. so unless i can find a job, lose 25 pounds, or maybe actually accomplish something in the next two months (hence, the post-its idea) i really don't know if i can do this. not that there aren't people who i'm sure will be there that i wouldn't mind getting back in touch with, but all of a sudden i am having flashbacks to what it was actually like being at kenyon, and how i was constantly trying to keep up. i just figure that romy was right when she said, what's the point of going if we're not going to impress anyone.
*watches msnbc, shudders* remember when fox news used to be the nuttiest cable news channel? well,. i have to say that as of last night, that position has officially been usurped by msnbc. i don't even think that the programming of msnbc even fits into the category of 'news' in the most general possible sense anymore. it is sort of the cable news equivalent of the jerry springer show.
a few months ago i was flipping through the channels one evening looking for something to watch, when i get to msnbc and what do you think they are showing? autopsies. that's right, they did an hour long programming about coroners, which consisted almost entirely of very graphic footage of people cutting into corpses. it was without a doubt the worst thing i have ever seen on television and one of the worst things i have ever seen in general. i only glanced at it for a split second, but it gave me nightmares.
then there is to catch a predator. do i even need to say anything about that? this show is absolutely, positively, without a doubt the most perfect and inimitable example of unethical journalism in television or print media today. that's right. the editors at in touch and star magazines are doing a BETTER job than the folks at msnbc. if you want to know how the good folks at msnbc make to catch a predator, go to this link. it is enlightening: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0529071nbc1.html
but all of this may have been eclipsed last night when, there being nothing at all to watch on television at one in the morning, i once again unwittingly flipped to msnbc. i knew as soon as i turned it on, that it was a bad decision, but decided to watch it for a few minutes anyway. they were doing a program called (i think) 'the ultimate betrayal.' on this particular program, a young woman sat with a journalist and talked in great and graphic detail about having sex with her mother growing up. yes, she was crying. yes, she was having trouble getting the words out. and, yes, apparently, the "reporter" continued to force her to talk about things like what it was like giving her mother oral sex. then, so as not to miss an ounce of potential salaciousness, the interviewer went to prison and the mother described the same events in her own words.
okay, well you may have guessed that there was a point to these descriptions. and you would have guessed wrong. there was really no point, other than to broadcast the details of what one social worker described as the worst case of child abuse she had ever seen. THIS IS NOT NEWS. it isn't even reminiscent of news a la weekly world news reports on bat boy. it is more like a spoof of news a la footage of police chases on spike tv. there are no words.
i for one can't wait for whatever wacky specials msnbc is working on for next season. will they be using a nine year old girl to go undercover in the child porn industry? or maybe they will give some female inmates cameras and have them made a video diary about lesbian prison sex. and i definitely can't wait for the half hour special 'bulimics: what does their vomit look like?' it's sure to be a hit.
i hate summer. if i could i would have the entire season stricken from calendars. i would make the year just nine months long and memorial and labor days could just make up one long weekend.
except for the amish. i would make the amish have summer. i hate the amish too.
and in dc. who the fuck cares about the people here. i would make the entire year in dc be summer. everyone there would have to experience summer 365 days a year. and hopefully there would be lots of tornados and stuff too. that would be cool.
of course i wouldn't be here anymore at that point. i would be on mount lemmon with jake eating vegetarian sausagez and making snowpeople.
or maybe i would go to pymatuning and bring a rake and then use that rake to create large piles of dead leaves in which to jump. that would also be cool.
and then i would go back to my farm in the country and sit down with my gaggle of pygmy goats and watch the weather channel so i can hear about how it is january and the amish and all d.c. residents are experiencing summer for the one millionth day in a row.
and that there was a tornado.
that would be cool.
by the way, how did i go through life all the way to this point not knowing who cazwell is? after discovering his music this week, i can't believe it. i wish i were cazwell. that would be fucking cool.
or if i couldn't be cazwell, maybe i could be zac efron. he is very cool as well. do you think he hates summer as much as me?
here is a picture of a pygmy goat.
here is a picture of cazwell.
here is a picture of the amish.
i'm pissed off cuz i never got to see the live earth concert because that was the day of john's mom's wedding and i forgot to tivo it. did anyone see it? was it any good?
(i did watch the madonna part on youtube though, of course).
does anyone else watch nancy grace. what the fuck is the deal with her lawyer susan moss? is that bitch for real? i mean, seriously.
it has been so long since i've been to ikea. i don't think i have been there in like over a month. i am starting to go into withdrawal. reason #3,687 to hate the summer: no money to go to ikea.
do you think the amish are allowed to go to ikea or do they have to make their own furniture? i bet sometimes they go to ikea because, let's be honest, the amish basically do whatever the fuck they want.
everyone is having babies lately i am fucking sick of it. i mean seriously, is it really an accomplishment that some bitch can take it up the vag, graze for nine months and then finally burst forth jello and womb fruits? listen up bitches: women have been doing this for at least hundreds of years. it isn't that much of an accomplishment.
and i don't need to see you breast feeding in public either. it is gross. can't you find a back alley or cave or somewhere to go do that?
here is a picture of jello.
i am not supposed to eat jello, because technically it is made with animal products. lately, however, i have been getting pretty sloppy at avoiding gelatin products. i even made a strawberry pie a few weeks ago. i am a bad veg.
i wish i had some strawberry pie now. or a no-bake cookie. i'm glad i'm not diabetic.
"Barbra Streisand has shocked hotel staff in a top London hotel by issuing a long list of demands during her stay in the British capital. The diva is staying in a $12,000-a-night suite in the city's Dorchester Hotel, and has reportedly issued employees with strict rules - including a demand not to look the singer in the eye. A source tells London's Evening Standard, "We were given a list of requirements that had to be met. Her manager said she needed certain things to make her feel like she was at home. She is using her own security team and will hardly set foot in the main areas of the hotel. It is easy to enter and exit the hotel from her suite without ever being seen." A source from the Dorchester Hotel adds, "We are used to famous people here, but Miss Streisand is almost on a different level. Johnny Depp was here a few weeks ago, but was very low key. He just sat with friends in the bar. He was drinking a $1,200 bottle of wine, but he did not expect any special treatment. But we are expecting everything to be different for her." Streisand begins a series of live dates at The O2 in London on Wednesday"
. . . okay. $12,000 dollars A NIGHT?!? i'm sorry but i don't think when you are paying that much for a hotel room any of your demands could POSSIBLY be termed "diva." if i were staying in that room i would demand that zac efron and gael garcia bernal wrestle naked at the foot of my bed for my amusement.
for kenyon people okay so i just sat down and read through the alumni bulletin that was mailed out this week. . .
has anyone read the last page written by (self-proclaimed?) "accomplished" author wendy mcleod? it is sooooo awful, embarrassing, mildly offensive, completely and totally NOT funny at all. is she senile? i am so embarrassed not only for her, but for whomever is editing this bulletin that actually thought this was worth publishing.
i think mcleod really should steer clear of print media and go back to writing failed pilots for the wb and plays nobody will ever perform. that is where her true "talent" lies.
my favorite song of the week with my recent discoveries of lily allen, amy winehouse and mika, in addition to the old standbys kylie minogue, goldfrapp, the scissor sisters and robbie williams, i think it is safe to say that british music is bizarrely superior to the repetitive crap being churned out in the states (you know the stuff that is always "featuring" timbaland, fergie or pharrell). i don't understand how so much great music, immensely popular in the u.k. is impossible to hear on any radio out here. not to sound like a cliched disaffected "american" youth, but gawd this country sucks.
anyways, here is my new discovery. it is called "i still remember," and it is by this british rock group bloc party. it is one of the sexiest songs i have heard in a long time. über-cool. "you should have asked me for it. i would have been brave" *sigh* god save the queen.
SCUM BAG OF THE EARTH i wish someone would jump out of a bush and bludgeon larry birkhead almost to death with a hammer but keep him alive long enough to castrate him and feed his testicles to a garbage disposal so that there is no chance that he will ever again sleep with a woman let alone father another child.
gawd, so how much did 2006 suck? i mean really. noone could possibly be more happy than me that this putrid year is nearly over. good riddance. i mean, 2006 was the year that rosie o'donnell returned to daily television, kevin federline released a rap album, john mark karr was interviewed by every journalist on cable, ray nagin was reelected mayor of new orleans, people killed eachother in the street over video games, paris hilton's wardrobe trumped national elections on cnn, wars continued to rage in iraq, sudan, afghanistan, israel and oaxaca and, to top it all off, i had to watch it all from the pit of hell that is washington, d.c. true, i did get my master's degree and see my first madonna concert and john got a promotion and jake had some good naps, but all in all, as 2007 looms, i say "i hope the exit is joyful-- and i hope never to return." that being said, here are some things i enjoyed this year:
my fave person this year. . . was probably rachael ray. she came out with her eponymous magazine and television talk show and published a couple new books. i swear to gawd when does that bitch sleep? in any case, i have watched an avg of 2 hours of rachael on tv a day for the past 12 months, making her my fave gal of the year. still, madonna comes in as a close runner up. i doubt that there has been a single day this year that i haven't listened to at least one song off the confessions cd. and then there was her totally amazing tour. plus she has taken on this new roll as philanthropist and is doing so much good work in the world that it is getting increasingly difficult to criticize her. i can't wait til her new tour dvd and cd come out in january.
my fave new person this year. . . was definitely perez hilton. he is exactly what queer people in the u.s. need right now. nothing infuruiates me more than people in this country with a voice who choose to present themselves as ashamed of their (homo)sexuality (see: lance bass, jodie foster, pre-2002 publicity tour rosie o'donnell, doogie howser, gayken, etc.) thank you to perez for standing up for his right to publish the truth even when the "celebs" wanted to keep it under wraps. and even though pretty much everyone on the west coast is suing him right now, i am sure he is a gazillionairre by now, so no worries.
my fave movie this year. . . was, surprise surprise, the da vinci code. so maybe it wasn't lawrence of arabia or anything, but so what? not every movie has to be a best picture oscar contender to be enjoyable. i definitely enjoyed the code more than anything else i saw all year. it is fast-paced, well put together, very visual- a generally captivating movie. john and i have watched it over and over again in the theater and on dvd. the runner up, albeit a very different one, is probably lars von trier's manderlay. yeah, yeah, every u.s. critic hated it. big surprise. it is von trier. but manderlay was the most brilliant movie i have seen about the "american" condition since dogville.
my fave music this year. . . (disqualifying confessions which really came out in 2005) was panic at the disco. first of all brendon urie is so friggin' beautiful you can't look away. when "i write sins not tragedies" came out, i was like, this is really catchy. and the video was awesome. but they arent exactly my kinda music so i didnt really think twice about it. then their next two singles came out and i realized that maybe they are my type of music. and since i pretty much only listen to dance music/madonna anymore, i gotta thank panic at the disco for expanding my horizons. paris hilton's cd come as a close second though. i can't believe how good it is. seriously.
my fave book this year. . . was a recent addition to my book shelf, amy sedaris' "i like you." john and i have been anticipating this book all year, and i finally got a copy for christmas. it is amy sedaris' version of a martha stewart-esque entertaining manual. that is, it includes recipes, decorating tips and other party ideas. for example, she advises that when attending a party "if you neglect to pick up the item you agreed to bring, you may as well not show up. You're better off lying and saying you were mutilated in a closing subway door." the whole book is chock full of helpful suggestions like that.
my fave television show (other than survivor). . . was campus ladies. obviously survivor remains the best thing on television, but the oxygen remake of strangers with candy, now in its second season, is freakin hilarious. my fave episode was either when joan and barry, menopausal college students experimented with lesbianism, but i also enjoyed the episode where joan had her first orgasm, when the ladies got locked up, naked, in a mexican prison while on spring break and when barry turned the ladies' dorm room into a xxx webcam internet site. a runner up in this category was project runway. it could have been my fave of the year if the finale hadn't been so monumentally disappointing. gawd i hate jeffrey. laura was robbed.
my fave discovery this year. . . was the swedish department store chain h&m. i swear to gawd those swedes are so fuckin efficient. i love going in to h&m because their stuff is so chic, but it is like half as much as a place like express or banana republic. (also, incidentally, madonna is the face of the chain) i definitely think that 2007 will be the year that i really develop a loving relationship with swedish clothes. a runner up in this category might be fainting goats. what's that? you haven't heard of the fainting goats?!? well then you have to watch this clip on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we9_CdNPuJg
my fave television discovery this year. . . was tom goes to the mayor, the fifteen minute cartoon on sunday nights on comedy central. this show pisses me off, because i wish i had thought of it first. there is pretty much no skill involved in producing it. john likes any episode where tom eats at gulliver's. i like episodes with tom's lovely wheelchair bound obese wife. i think the funniest episode was when tom was overcome by grief after the death of his son. HAHA. dark comedy anyone?
anyways, happy new year everyone-- john, megan, jake, jack, quik, gerson, tamara, nora, theresa, abeer, sasabe, and rachael. i hope that 2007 is leaps and bounds above 2006 for you all. the good news is, it couldn't possibly be any worse.
p.s. i knocked on wood after writing that last statement, which, as you all know, counteracts the bad luck cosmically inextricable with proferring such a prediction. don't worry.
i hate washington d.c. i swear to God that this absolutely has to be the worst place to live at least in the united states. it is the ugliest fuckhole of a city i have ever seen in my life. everything here is dead and fetid and smells like rotting garbage all of the time. the people are all waspy snobby ugly misanthropic miserable mother fuckers each and every one of them. either that or they are homeless criminals waiting in the shadows to shove a switchblade in your back for half a sandwich. there is absolutely not one motherfucking thing that anyone could possibly find to like about this city and i swear to motherfucking God that if you possibly can avoid it never come here. as a matter of fact don't ever come to the states of virginia or maryland just in case you accidentally stumble into this city. i would rather scoop out my eyeballs with a hot grapefruit spoon then pour boiling sulfuric acid and salt into the eyesockets while a 600 pound naked woman shoves toothpicks into my genitals than have to live in the fucking tenth circle of hell that is washington d.c. if only the british would have successfully burned this city to the ground in the war of 1812 then the world would be a better place. if a meteorite the size of texas were to land smack dab in the middle of the reflecting pool and the entire metropolitan area were completely leveled and every single person living here were killed suddenly and painfully i would come back to earth as a ghost and dance a jig of glee in the charred wreckage. if the exxon valdez were making a quick pitstop along the potomac and it just happened to spill a million gallons of oil over the city i would get in my car and drive down to the waterfront as fast as i could with a box of matches. if an earthquake were to rip a huge crevass down the center of the city that proceeded to suck buildings and people into the center of the earth i would be there wearing gloves and pushing as much stuff as i could into the growing pit. i hate every single detail, every single element, every single minute particle of this city. what do i like about it? absolutely not one goddamned motherfucking thing. this is the worst place on earth. there is nothing anyone could possibly like about it. it is hell. every single day that every single person spends here they are spending in hell. and i would like to swear to God that i will get the fuck out of here if it is the last thing i do, but i don't think it will happen. you can't get out of hell. it imprisons you. so here i am. in hell. and all i can do is warn every person to keep the fuck out of this fucking fuckhole and save your motherfucking lives. fuck.
some thoughts on where i grew up i've been thinking a lot lately about where i grew up. i mean, a long time ago, when i left really, i stopped thinking about it almost entirely. i usually try not even to say the city's name. so i don't know why right now i feel like i need to deal with things i haven't thought about in such a long time. in any case, i'm thinking that maybe if i write down some stuff i can kinda sort through things. hence the following stream of consciousness. . .
i admit, there were things i liked about east palestine. if you walk up the hill in front of my old house, past the shooting range, the blackberry field and the gravel pit and turn left at the boarded up metal factory, there is a path that leads up into the woods. i used to walk my dog charlie up there all the time. she liked to chase deer, which was fun because she always managed to flush them out of the bushes for me so i could watch them. one time, fooling around in the woods, i got off the path and found this little pond all hidden by weeds and stuff. it was pretty unpolluted because there weren't any streams leading into it or anything. it was always all full of snapping turtles and bullfrogs and sometimes blue heron sat by it too. if you walked up to the pond real carefully and didn't mess with the brush too much you could sit and watch the animals. i spent a lot of time up there in the summers. i especially liked to take charlie up there on thanksgiving morning. until i was a sophomore in college (and she died) i took her up there every thanksgiving to watch for deer. it was kinda important to go on thanksgiving, because a day later deer hunting season started and you have to be careful not to walk up in those woods then. that's technically still in the city i think, so you aren't really allowed to hunt there, but it is the boondocks so nobody pays much attention. as a matter of fact i think the only time i ever saw anyone else up in those woods was the few times i went up there during hunting season and ran into a deer hunter.
right on the edge of the woods is a dry grassy field. there are a few hills where the field meets the woods that i think someone put there to ride dirt bikes on, but i doubt that i ever saw anyone using them for that. the other kids in the neighborhood and i used to ride our bikes there sometimes in the summer. in the middle of the field is a huge rock that seems totally out of place. it had to have been there pretty much forever, because i can't imagine a person actually taking the trouble to move it there, and there are no other rocks like it nearby. next to it, practically growing out of the rock's side is a big tree with low branches that made it easy to climb up on top. i used to sit up there and carve things in the tree's bark. since the field is pretty open, i found out at one point in time that you could get a pretty good view of the fourth of july fireworks in the park about a mile away if you lied on top of that rock. i don't remember why i didn't just go to the park to watch the fireworks instead, but it doesn't surprise me now. i spent a lot of time growing up looking for places where i wouldn't run into anybody else. it was just safer that way.
growing up like i did in east palestine you came to be really familiar with the five and ten store. it was on the corner of main and market streets and had a red glass cornice that ran all around it with the words five and ten on the front in gold lettering. this wasn't like the regular dollar stores you see everywhere today that sell discount laundry detergent and plastic dinnerware. it was one of the olde time five and ten cent stores that was probably left over from like the thirties. i don't really know how old it was but it closed up when i was in high school, and i remember it being a big event for the community. if you needed anything in east palestine, the chances are you would probably go to the five and ten to get it. upstairs there were racks and racks of candy in the front near the register. in the back were tools and gardening supplies, and off to the right were racks of tshirts and cheap jeans that i don't really remember anyone buying. under the registers there were watches in a glass case. downstairs you could get lost between the too-close racks of bedding and throwpillows and dishes and things. the back right corner of the basement was probably the most popular part of the store, where there were so many tyoes and colors of yarn that always amazed me and lots of other sewing supplies. and in front of that was a small pet area with parakeets and hamsters and goldfish and bags of food and supplies.
every year around this time, some saturday in the beginning of december, there was a big sale at the five and ten. i don't really know why it was such a big deal exactly, but i know that my dad would go down there early on that saturday, at like 8 or 9. this was before the friday-after-thanksgiving-hysteria when stores all started having these early morning sales, so it was an important event in the community. i think there was even a sales flyer that went out in advance that my dad would read to see what he would buy. this the one time of the year that i ever remember my dad being somewhat enthusiastic about shopping. i know the sale was always before christmas, because at this time there were christmas decorations for sale. this is what my dad usually bought. he would replace damaged strings of lights and buy wrapping paper and christmas tree bulbs and things. he would also buy boxes of "expensive" candy for my mom that he wouldn't normally get like cherry cordials. sometimes he would take my brother and i along with him. everyone in town would be there, and pretty soon the racks would be picked over and the christmas supplies and candy and skeins of yarn would be cleaned out. when i was older, like in middle school, my brother and i would ride our bikes or walk down to the five and ten and buy candy and school supplies and food or bedding for our hampsters. but when i was in high school, i don't remember ever going in there. the last years it was open, i probably didn't see it at all. i always hated going downtown, even to rent a movie or pick up a pizza, and the only time i would go in any of the stores there is when my mom would ask me to pick up something or other at sparkle market. for me, these weren't stores in which i was really welcome.
the christmas parade was probably the biggest event in east palestine outside of high school football. i think it was probably even more important and anticipated than the fourth of july fireworks or the summer craft fair in the park. this was because, in east palestine, every club, team and organization takes part in the parade in some way, and nobody isn't affiliated with some group in town. my parents were eagles, and there was always a post-parade christmas party in the lodge for the members' children. that was when we sat on santa's lap and gave him our christmas lists. my brother and i were also in the cub scouts, and we always decorated and rode along on a float. winning the best of show ribbon at the parade was a big honor, and my mother, the overachieving scout leader always had us put together some elaborate crepe paper display of some sort on the flatbed of someone or other's tractor. one winning year in particular she taught us to make giant snowman heads out of balloons and papier mache. even if you weren't marching in the parade, it was fun just standing in front of the hardware store and watching from the sidelines. men representing the elks and masons and vfw lodge would dress up like elves or whatever and toss candy and paper-wrapped popcorn balls to you. the parade would begin and end in the city park. i remember it always being very cold and often snowing on parade day, and afterwards we would walk to the city historical museum (a log cabin with some coonskin caps under glass) where some american legion wives or somebody would serve hot cocoa.
the only annual event possibly more anticipated among east palestinians than the christmas parade was probably the summer street fair. when i was little they would close down all of market street (the main drag through town) and some of main street and fill it up with rickety metal rides and stalls selling sausage and peppers and elephant ears. i think the novelty of the street fair for me wasn't so much the rides and games and food, but really the fact that everything took place on the main street in town, and you could walk right down the center of the road where normally there would be cars. i liked standing in front of a cotton candy stand with my mom and looking over her shoulder and seeing that we were standing on the double yellow line in front of the gas station. it was just amazing to me that something that seemed so immutable, so enduring and indelible, like the very roads on which traffic traveled, could just be shut down and everyone would continue to play and have fun, noone seeming bothered. when i was a teenager, they stopped having the fair on market street and instead moved the bulk of it to the parking lot behind michael's pharmacy and the small cross street there. i think that the local store owners must have complained that the three day event took away too much of their business and successfully lobbied to have it moved one block west. i never went to the street fair after it was moved though. by that time, i knew better than to hang around downtown, at night, invariably alone or with my mother, in a shadowy parking lot where no doubt three quarters of the people around would know me. i also stopped going to the christmas parade, even though i don't really remember ever making a conscious decision to do so. it was just natural for me at the time. i knew i wouldn't enjoy being there i suppose.
i know these memories all sound pretty banal. honestly, i am not even sure why i have them. these are things, largely, that i probably haven't thought about in seven or eight years. but, if you lived in east palestine like i did, you would realize why each of these memories is so strange in ways that i never really noticed until i had some distance from them. east palestine is a very small community, isolated even, and there is little deviation i think in the activities of the residents. everyone shops in the same stores. everyone goes to the park to see the fireworks on the fourth of july. everyone goes to watch the christmas parade. everyone walk around downtown when the street fair is in town. but i didn't do any of these things. i also didn't go to football games or school dances. i never went out to eat at a restaurant in town. i never exercised in the city park. and it wasn't like anybody ever told me: you aren't allowed to do these things. and i never made a conscious decision not to do so. it is more like i policed myself. i knew where i should and shouldn't be, and i complied. i understood what would happen to me if i stepped out of bounds and i was almost understanding of it. i just took it as, this is the way things are supposed to be. and when bad things happened to me, i never got angry at the people who did them to me. i got angry with myself for letting them happen.
fucking stupid. i spent most of high school behind closed curtains in my bedroom. friday and saturday nights were always scary for me, because kids i went to school with would be out and about and they too often stopped by my house on the edge of town to smash in my mail box with baseball bats, throw rocks at my windows and spraypaint graffiti around. normally i think i would go off into the woods or something where i knew nobody could find me, but i couldn't at night, so i would just be scared. it's funny and sad that i see so much of myself back then still in me today. i look back to college at kenyon where so often i could have been out with my friends, but instead i turned down invitations so that i could stay in my room with the door locked. i think about living in my apartments in columbus, tucson and d.c. where everytime i hear people talking or a door close i always go to a window or the peephole in the door to see what is going on. i have always done this since high school when anytime a car drove by outside my window i would peek through the curtains to make sure everything was okay. i think more and more that living in east palestine has shaped my life in ways that i will never really understand or be able to get over. it has been years and years since i have even seen the city, and yet i have too many memories of it, too few good ones. and i almost wish i could just forget about it entirely, but it is like engraved upon me, and i just can't get rid of it and i think about it sometimes and put my hands over my eyes and just press as hard as i can almost like i am willing myself to never have that memory again, trying to literally push it out of my head. or i am taking notes in class and i spontaneously and unintentionally think of something and i just start writing x's on the page, pushing down hard on my pencil and i don't even know why except i am like trying to cross something out.
and for some reason i just feel like everything i hate about myself is a product of that place, and all the things that make me feel good about myself, all the things that happened outside of and in spite of east palestine are just tainted by all the bad feelings that city put into my head. instead of fading away like memories do when one is distanced from them in time and space, they keep coming back to me stronger and stronger and i don't know why.
and so often i am afraid that if i fail, if i don't do what i set out to do, then it will be because of east palestine. it will be like that place will have won. it will have proven it was right all along. and all the time i spent assenting to my position there, all the time i spent so willingly hiding from view will come back and i won't ever be able to feel good about myself again.
i've never written about any of this before, but there is a lot more to say. maybe i will come back to it.
every day that i feel things can't get any worse in my life, they do, so what i really need to do is stop expecting things to turn around. the day i give up all hope of anything good ever happening to me again is when i will stop feeling so miserable maybe and at least lapse into complacency. i keep thinking that i can't possibly hate living in washington this much forever. i mean no matter how unhappy i am living here, it will have to get better eventually. there has to be something i like about this city, even if i dont know what it is. well i have been living off that hope for three months now and i have only grown to hate it more here. i have kept going on the hope that the holidays are coming up and maybe that will give john and i some time to mend fences and start getting along better. maybe we will be able to spend more time together and be nicer to one another. i know that isn't going to happen. all we do is fight with one another and most of the time i don't think he can even stand having me around. i keep thinking that if i stick with school it will grow on me and people there may even start liking me more. a couple times i thought i was catching on to my coursework and i was like, see, this is a sign, i maybe can actually do this. the truth is i am doomed. it is only a matter of time until i fail at this. and if i don't fail i will spend the rest of my life miserable and lonely among an entire department full of people who think that i am not good enough or smart enough to be around them. i haven't given up hope that maybe i can work something out with my family and we could get along like normal families do. i talk to my mom on the phone and think, this is almost a normal conversation. but then reality sets in that i havent seen them in two years and we can barely tolerate eachother. basically i am lonely and sad and i am going to continue to be lonely and sad. so i may as well try to accept that, and maybe then i can be at least a more content person or something. i just need to give up. that's what i need to do.
some personal thoughts on world concerns #1 deelishis, on "flavor of love" is a man. i don't understand why noone has pointed that out yet. they showed her in her underwear the other day and i think i saw her penis. and when she isnt made up and doesnt have her wig on, it is unmistakable that s/he is a trannie. in any case, it couldnt be more obvious that she is going to win the show on sunday. i dont understand!!! she is a gigantic manly ass beast. and p.s. what the hell is the deal with her shoulders? she has like some weird birthmarks or something. why hasn't anyone mentioned that? argh. i am rooting for new york. that bitch rocks my world. and her mom is effing awesome. i think next year they should produce "flavor of new york's mom."
#2 "degrassi" has returned and i couldnt be happier. not only that, but previously absent sean, ashley and (i think) craig are back too. i didnt see last night's episode yet, but i saw the premiere and, as you might have guessed, it went there. i can't wait to see darcy turn into a christian slutbag this season. did anyone notice toby isn't in the opening credits anymore. he is listed like under guest actors. he is so gonna be killed off. john and i are taking bets as to who is going to abort the first baby this season. my money is on marco.
#3 "starting over" is gone for good, which makes me sad-- boo hoo. but it has been replaced by "rachael ray," which makes me happy-- yee ha! as everybody knows, rach is on the shortlist of women i would give up my heterovirginity to if ever provided with the opportunity (alongside salma hayek, madonna and miss evonne from peewee's playhouse). but, regardless of my obsession with her, her show is totally enjoyable. john and i watch it every night before bed now. i love when she comes down to the stage in her little elevator, and it cracks me up when she asks her guests questions and then refuses to stop talking long enough to hear their answers. she is so cool.
#4 what the fudge was up with vincent on the "project runway" reuniion show? i always knew he was a delusional freakjob, but i didnt realize he was also a total creep. apparently the show, in not realizing the genius of his outfits that only he can see, failed to live up to his standards. hahaha. prick. i am so glad that laura made it to the end. obviously nobody has a chance of beating michael in the final four, but i still heart laura and am rooting for her. besides, she is the closest thing to a gay man that is left in the game at this point so i have to go with the team.
#5 i realize that i am working on my phd now and probably shouldnt be watching so much television, but if i spend all my time thinking about my program and how incredibly behind i am i will probably shoot myself. so i need to watch reality television and soap operas for three hours every night after class to preserve my sanity. so shoot me.
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