Enough now.

Dear self,

You've been doing a really excellent job at feeling sorry for yourself lately, but the catch is, you don't really have anything to feel sorry for yourself ABOUT. It's annoying, and it's not your style at all. Worse yet, you're annoying yourself and we allllllll know how much more complicated it gets when you end up pissing yourself off too.

In fact, we're going to make a "things that are good about today" list just to stop you ACTING LIKE A BABY.

1) Day off!

2) It is gorgeous outside and it's not actually stupid humid

3) Because of aforementioned day off, I will finally have clean clothes

4) And be able to take a nap at 4:30 if I want to instead of staring with loathing at the filing cabinet

5) I know what's happening with both my jobs, so I can finally figure out when I'm going to California. This will give me a real thing to look forward to (besides my birthday).

6) EIGHTEEN DAYS. [I just realized that serendipitously, this ended up as item 6 - as in the actual day of my birthday - and I didn't even plan it that way!]

7) Laker game reminded me that actually, I do like sports. Boys like sports. Item 7 + item 6 = a new way to meet men. Let's go Yankees. [I really should start following the World Cup. Hot Europeans follow the World Cup.]

8) I have a voice lesson which, although painfully expensive, tends to always motivate me to get my ass in gear on my career (now to chase away the "I went out drinking" voice with many many cups of tea).

...I wanted the list to get to an even 10, because I'm a little OCD, but I haven't left my apartment yet so that's okay.

So okay. This is really, really, irritatingly positive and if I were NOT me I'd definitely read, roll my eyes, and judge me. But honestly the cause-less moping thing is equally as out of character as this motivational pep-talk business, so I'm thinking this is the lesser of two evils.

What does your email say about YOU?

So, okay, yes, I'm illegally posting this at work (at my new job, where there is a computer from the last 4 years and internet... aka the job in which I actually work in 2010 rather than 1995, as at Bronx House... but I digress).

Currently, my job is to compile a list of people who have come for bachelorette/birthday/what-have-you parties (this is a dance studio that teaches, along with ballet and hip hop, pole and belly dancing and thus does parties). And I just have to ask: dear grown people of the world - why is your email address still sexyfacesparkles123@hotmail.com? [not an actual email address]

Like really. I had bluglitterbug13@aol.com as my primary email address (as well as the equally stupid citygirlsk8@hotmail.com and, I believe, goldilocks1313@gurl.com AND rosesarered1313@hotmail.com) for a looooooong time, but when I was sixteen, I finally got embarrassed/realized that would look stupid as hell on a college application and changed it to my current email address which is comprised of, you know, just my name. You'll notice that I say when I was sixteen. I'm fairly certain the emails of everyone I'm seeing are AT LEAST eighteen, if not 21, at the youngest.

Come on now, ladies. It's time to put away sexykitty and sparklesgurl and superfunchik as your internet identities. Nobody cares what you do on your weekend, but in the real world, have an email I can logically guess from your first name. I'm looking at you, mybaby2146, sukimami06, and beautyandnotbeast [these ones all REAL emails].

Oh. Right. And dear people everywhere - get better handwriting.

OKAY SELF

"I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth."

Bonus points to anybody who can identify the quote. Double bonus points to anybody who can do it WITHOUT calling out what a colossal nerd I am.

Nonetheless, it's pretty apt to me lately - nothing's really wrong with my life, but here, a month out from graduation, I find myself dissatisfied. Antsy. Restless. Filled once again with an... existential angst, of sorts. I know what it is this time - I need to get myself in gear, I need to be acting, I need to be doing something that I care about as opposed to working a zillion hours a week at office jobs that matter to me, in truth, very little.

But I think it's good kinda. That I know that this restlessness, this fear of stagnancy is because I'm not doing what I care about. I just worry that the reason I'm not pursuing it at present is that age old failure insulation, protective laziness - if I fail, or in this case simply don't succeed (yes. different.), because I'm lazy, it's not as bad as failing because I can't do it.

I'm thinking about going home. I'm thinking about vacation. I'm torn each day between plain, simple, euphoric bursts of love for New York and an overwhelming desire to hail a cab and get to JFK and fly far away.

I'm torn between a desire to have too much fun (and believe me, as of late I've been doing extremely well at having a lot of fun - something I intend to continue with to the very, very, VERY best of my ability) and a desire to be busy and overloaded. I just... I am faced with one of those times where I simply don't know what's coming next, and so despite the to-do lists that I make and the projects that I set for myself, the same restlessness continues, like the proverbial itch I can't scratch.

Believe me. There will be interesting consequence. Stay tuned.

[Double believe me. There will be more fun had to compensate. To balance it out I'll put in more time at the gym. Where I did not go today. Whoops.]

Why do I have abusive relationships with inanimate objects?

No seriously!

So the original was with Downbeat. Oh, Downbeat. So much of my identity was consumed in my participation with you, so much of my love and energy and devotion went towards you, so many good times were had, so much quite literal pride and joy and laughter, so many wonderful memories and yet... so much slow soul death, iron-fisted fascism, tedium, and abuse.

One could probably argue that that was a microcosm of my relationship with Harker at large, but we'll just let it rest with Downbeat because that one is a messier, more complicated division between the love and devotion and the hatred and willing it to stop, a la abusive relationship.

Because, I am told, people who have been in one abusive relationship often find it hard to shake this pattern, I broke things off with tearful farewells and ultimately fond recollections only to leap headfirst into another, terribly similar relationship. This one would last me equally as long, but would be much more intensive. Oh, Strasberg, you were so very cruel to me and yet... I could never quite learn to walk away. Each time I would gather my strength to do it, to walk out for the very last time, you would apologize and make it all better and tell me things would be different this time. After three years of a lot of this back and forth, I once again was able to make the clean break, relieved I guess but nostalgic and sad and knowing that somehow, I would miss it deeply.

And then... GLEE. GLEE! Things started off so rosy, so perfect, only to degenerate into the nastiest cycle of all. It could be that you remind me of that first relationship with Downbeat. I don't know why, but I cannot walk away. You can TORMENT ME WITH THE WORST 40 MINUTES OF TELEVISION EVER CREATED only to suck me back in in the last 4 minutes with your Sue Sylvester witicisms and your adorable Matt Morrison singing and making me want him as my husband. DAMN YOU. When will I learn to break the cycle?!?

Disclaimer: So we're clear, I actually don't actually think of my relationship to Strasberg or Downbeat as abusive ex-boyfriends (most of the time). Nor do I mean to make light of actual abusive relationships. But SERIOUSLY GLEE? I HATE/LOVE/HATE/LOVE AHHH I'M SO CONFUSED BY YOU.

To Be Continued But...

Being that a blog is for the honesty of public accountability combined with the anonymity of the internet, I feel compelled only to say the following:

EXCUSE ME, PEOPLE OF THE WORLD?

Where the fuck do you get off deciding you get to treat people this way?

But more importantly, why do I put up with it so much more often than I ought to.