snow

there is snow EVERYWHERE. piles of the stuff heaped up in corners and on the side of the road and taking up two whole parking spaces in my lot to the tune of five feet tall.

i missed the storm. dammit. i drove with the roomies down to GA to drop the car and one of them off at a monthlong school. me and J flew back. well, eventually we flew back. we were supposed to be back sunday night, but when i called the airline to confirm everything on sunday morning, the lady just laughed.

we got back tuesday morning. i was completely out of underwear, socks, and money.

so then it snowed again on wednesday and the temperature hasn't gotten above 20 and so nothing is melting and it is EVERYWHERE.

i do like the sound it makes when you walk on it. squeakycrunchsqueakycrunch. very satisfying.

i work today. i don't normally work fridays. people are excited about it. that's one thing that will end up holding me in this job longer than is best for me--it turns out i don't mind having my ego fed.

i met a nice southern boy in myrtle beach. he says things like sweetheart and darlin' and we talk about whether the scene in baz's "romeo and juliet" in which juliet's mother is introduced was overdone or not. (for the record, i say yes, he says no.) it's fun.

happy friday, ya'll!

opposable thumbs

i've gotten my cats into the habit of being locked up in my bedroom with me at night. it's where the poopbox is, and i'm trying to keep the fat one from having all-hours access to his food.

it's been going well now that they're used to it, and they usually curl up on either side of me and pin me into one uncomfortable position that i can't roll out of for the rest of the night. like being tucked in by someone who doesn't like you very much.

tonight, though, i'm in my roommate's room using the computer. my cats are on the other side of my bedroom door. sammy used to try and dig his way out of the room, but the last few nights

and i'm not making this up

he immediately goes for the doorknob. it rattles and turns, but never enough to free the thingybobber from the doorjamb.

granted, it took him since august to figure out that the doorknob was the key to getting out of the room, but he IS just a cat.

i'll never know what his attempts look like, because if i'm in the room with him he loses interest in trying to get out. but i picture him up on his little black tippytoes, stretching his white socks up into the air, hoping upon hope that this time he can manage to get a good enough grip to turn that fucking doorknob far enough to open that fucking door.

he curses like a sailor, that one.

then and now

the biggest difference between my life in cali and my life in providence is verbosity.

in cali, i lived alone and worked in a tiny office with nothing but a computer for company. all the time i was hungering for human contact. conversation. comraderie.

in providence, i've got two roommates and i work in an environment where i'm expected to give everyone a big smiley song and dance.

it's no wonder i have nothing left to say to anyone by the time i get home at night. i've not got the energy to relate to the television, nevermind a real human being who wants to interact with me.

my roommates sometime worry that i'm depressed, but most of the time i just walk in the door and go straight to my room because the thought of having to ask how anyone else's day has been makes me want to vomit on shoes.

it's beginning to carry over to my internet and telephone life as well. i'm not so desperate for online time anymore (though some of that is due to the shitty condition this particular computer is in). i have had my phone turned off for the last two days and can't believe how freeing it feels to not be looking at the fucking thing all the time to see if someone has called.

that said, i still don't necessarily feel overstimulated. i've just lost most interest in the meaningless polite conversation. just cut to the chase. wow me. let me talk about something besides the weather or cranston's mayor.

i think it's time for another job change. any ideas?

against all odds

back in 93, when i was just starting college in buttfuck, virginia, i discovered on a lonely night that the school library kept some vhs tapes on hand for free overnight rental. the selection was not that good, and far from current.

i saw two movies quite a bit, because anything else remotely interesting to an 18-year-old had already been checked out. "body heat" and "against all odds". AAO became a favorite. in high school i owned the cassette of phil collins' greatest hits, and i listened to it at night in my room with the lights out. i had always had an affinity for the theme song to AAO, but hadn't seen the movie.

obsessive love, angry boyfriends, hot sex in caves at the beach. that movie is pretty awesome. i can't really remember all the plot points, but i remember james woods getting mad, and a scene in a bar, and the fucking, and something about someone who was an ex-football player.

ANYway... i don't know why it took me so long to discover that the postal service did a cover of the song for the soundtrack of "wicker park." another movie about obsessive love that came out last year. josh hartnett is in it, and he's hot, and the two chicks from "troy" are in it, but i haven't seen it yet so maybe it's not any good.

after visiting three stores last night, i finally had a copy of the soundtrack in hand.

the cover of AAO by the postal service FUCKING ROCKS. i've had it on repeat for the last 18 hours. the thing with the song is that it's done by one of my favorite bands, it's one of my old favorite songs from a movie that brings back college memories, and it's fitting for the goodbye i had to give last night.

yes, another song i've allowed myself to tie up with romantic memories. i'm dumb. and yes, there was more trauma drama in the MG department, culminating in a mature (but still teary) mutual goodbye via phone last night that was prompted by unforeseen tragedy.

i know. very dramatic. after telling D the story, he said, "see, this is the part of the movie where you would lose your audience because they just wouldn't believe it." and he's seen a lot of movies, so he should know.

but yeah, the postal service's cover of phil collins' "against all odds" is pretty fucking sweet. i highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already.

what would courtney do?

on new year's eve, we played a little drinking game at C's house. it was a GREAT game. you get assigned a fake name by your friends. you have one or two vetos, but can't really pick your own name.

everyone else has to call you by your fake name for the rest of the evening, and you have to remember everyone else's fake name. everytime you accidentally use someone's real name, you have to take a drink. if you forget your own fake name, you have to finish your drink. you think that wouldn't happen, but it does.

it seems when one is getting used to a new name, one tends to talk about one's self in the third person a lot, thus making it possible to let a real name slip out.

so my name was courtney for the evening. i didn't really approve of it, but that's besides the point.

the interesting thing was how fast people learned and responded to the fake names. it didn't take long for everyone to start formulating new identities to go along with the new names.

C's boyfriend, for example, had decided that his new Danny identity required him to be grumpy and unsocial. it was awesome.

courtney really started getting ahold of me. she's not afraid of conflict, like i am, and she can be kind of a bitch. she know's what she wants from the people in her life, and she doesn't let men walk on her. she never would have gotten involved with a married guy (except maybe for one mattress-tussle. she has needs, too.).

so as i'm trying to come up with a new year's resolution, since my last two tries at making 2003 and 2004 my selfish years didn't quite work out, it occurs to me to let courtney drive 2005.

so 2005 is the year of "what would courtney do?" 'cause courtney doesn't put up with shit from anyone.

of course, knowing my memory, i'll probably forget all about her by next week.