I dunno…here’s a Gmail conversation with Lisa that sort of sums things up:

Me:  So…are you like the happiest person alive today? Because I am.   I seriously had some tears.
Lisa: Oh my god, I was seriously OVERJOYED.  I can’t even remember a time when I was actually, like, (CHEESY, sorry) proud to be an American.   HA.  You know what I mean?
 ME: Yeah. NO ME TOO!
  I really, really was.
Lisa: Like, patriotism I usually equate with asshole Republicans.
  And last night I was like, I LOVE AMERICA!
  Oh man.
 Me: I was proud about his efforts to get new voters, and I was proud of the voters themselves, and i was proud of his speech and how ELOQUENT it was, and gracious
 Lisa: YES.
  I LOVE him.
  Seriously love him.
 Me: I know, I know!
 Lisa: Not just “he’s the lesser of two evils.”
 Me: It seriously how our parent’s generation must’ve felt about Kennedy, you know?
  NO!
I agree…he is awesome.  Here’s what makes me proud: one of the girls in my class? Her 82 year old grandmother knocked on doors for obama.
 Lisa: AWWW!
  That’s AWESOME.
Me:  And watching CNN yesterday, and listening to a black woman who used to work in the fields for 25 cents a day…and she got to cast her vote for Obama.
 Lisa: Yea, yesterday’s Oprah was just all these people from other countries who had just become citizens, and it was their first time being allowed to vote…
  So touching!
Me:  I am so proud that THIS guy will be in meetings with world leaders.

 So there it is, our lovefest for the B-man.  Hope lives in 2008.

GOBAMA!

I am an idiot.  Seriously.

     Bristol Bar has quite possibly the best martinis in Columbus, and has long been a favorite haunt of the “late work crowd.” Right around eight or nine, lawyers, business people, artists and beatniks crowd into the tiny space to drink lavender infused concoctions and take in the Chicago-like intimacy of the brick interior.  Newcomers, however, may be shocked to see a large black sign plastered on the outside of the building sporting huge white letters that shout, “What part of ‘Thou Shalt Not’ don’t you understand?”  The billboard is then signed, inexplicably, by God himself (who, it seems, happens to prefer Helvetica for his John Hancock.)

     I am one hundred percent in favor of people expressing their religious views and convictions, but I feel as though that sign, and others like it, exist only to be inflammatory.  What, exactly, is someone marketing with this statement?  Good morals?  A church group?  If someone is trying to stop someone else from going into a bar, a few letters and a sign probably will not do it (and who’s to say that someone is only going into a bar to do something that God “Shalt ‘Notted’?”)  If a group or church is trying to get someone else to think critically about his choices, again, a sign that carries the weight of sarcasm in its message is not the best medium.

     If the sign is, in fact, an attempt by a church group to entice followers or to “send a message,” perhaps they are suffering from a faulty research problem.  Good marketers know that an effective survey is only as good as the question or problem it identifies (Franklin University, 2007).  Someone who wants to learn about the shoe buying habits of males and females ages twenty-one to sixty would not do well to frame the research question, “What sort of pants do people wear?” then compose a survey about shoes.  The answer will not correlate with the question.  So maybe the group that is posting these signs are asking the wrong questions, and unfortunately receiving answers that do not make sense or, worse, no answers at all.

Tonight–or was is this morning?–you told me you had it. Those three little innocuous letters followed by the word “Positive,” a word which is supposed to mean “happy, upbeat.” But the thing you have…though your doctor says it’s no longer the disease Adam White had, or the thing they sing about in Rent…means that–so far–you are on a different track than I am. A track that means a lifetime of being careful, of watching what you eat, exercising…of always wondering.

It’s different in America, I know. It’s not like those kids in Africa, or South America, who don’t really have a chance. But I still worry about you. I feel like–even though we will all die someday–that you are in fast forward now. That maybe you will leave me before I leave you, and I don’t know what to make of of that.

And I know it’s not nearly as bad for me as it is for you.

I understand now why the Broadway hit was such a phenomena, such a statement. I know it’s different in 2008 than it was in 1988, that people learn to live with their three letters and their plus sign for years and years, and yet I ache for you. I ache for what it means for each person you meet that you like…that you want to love, and there’s this thing…this thing that will inevitably exist between you and him, that doesn’t go away. It’s there. Always. And I hurt for the way some will react towards you…even though you are still you, plus sign be damned.

I hope you know that I love you…plus sign, minus sign, acronyms and all. I am not afraid to touch you, to hold you, to be your friend. Regardless of what happens, I am a better person for knowing you, for walking this path with you, for loving you no matter what…for having you in my life.

Let’s just take it a day at a time, you and me. Let’s cry in one moment and laugh the next. I will accept your “new normal” and be what you need me to be. Hopefully soon there will be days when we forget and we will have to say, “Oh yeah, things are different.” And hopefully we will chuckle when we think that, too.

We’ll be okay.

You’ll be okay.

Love,

Me

I have been swinging between complete hopelessness and anxiety with, well, myself, to brief moments of “I can do it!” accompanied by trumpets.  I don’t feel like writing, or moving, or doing anything relatively interesting except for maybe sleeping.  And perhaps I want to sleep because I haven’t been doing much of that lately.  This lack of sleep could be due to bad Feng Shui, or maybe just a couple of Satan’s kittens who believe that breaking votives in the middle of the night is a hilarious game.

And for all intents and purposes, I should be on Cloud 9 (or perhaps 9 3/4, which is way more cool and magical) since I just landed a new job which has kick-ass benefits, great retirement, and oh yes…pays for part of my school.  I have a great apartment, an amazing boyfriend and cute, fuzzy animals.  Instead, I just feel like crawling in bed for a nap, say, for the rest of my life.

I don’t ever remember feeling this run down or useless…and I spent a year at the Word of Life Bible Institute, which is sort of like a work camp for Baptists.   I’m checking into possible causes, and I’ve come up with some options:

1.)  a severe case of almost-thirty lameness (it’s very, very possible that I am just a boring individual, and I am just now coming to terms with this fact)

2.) a lack of identity apart from major life turmoil (I am not involved in the theatre anymore, nor divorcing anyone, nor making poor choices with my finances…so WHO AM I????)

3.) hypothyroidism (my mom and sister both have this, and dammit, I think it makes you fat)

Wait!  Wait!   And now I’m almost finished writing and I’m starting to feel a bit better.  No, wait…gone.

Maybe I’m just depressed because of Palin’s “foreign policy experience.”  Did you know she’s very experienced because sometimes Russian jets fly through Alaskan air space, and, you know, you just gotta, well, know what to do?  Or maybe I’m just super glad that the American people now own AIG.  Neat.

My birthday is this Saturday…so all of you well-wishers have not yet missed the blessed event of my glorious appearing.  You were wondering why you hadn’t heard the songbirds?  Why bursts of beautiful light had not yet crossed the orbs to your soul?  Why your nether regions had not yet tingled with a surprising forbidden delight?  That’s why…my turning over into this last fateful year of my twenties has not happened yet.

But you’ll know.  You’ll know.

Still without electricity.  Apparently, this all will be a good excuse to clean my refrigerator.  And as I clean it, the sound of a large cash register will “ka-ching” over and over, as I throw out perfectly good money food into the trash can.   It will be one of the most depressing things I will do all year.  Kinda makes me wish I hadn’t bought that sweater, because now that sweater represents money I could use to replace all my frozen broccoli.  DAMMIT.

In other news, I went ahead and purchased Proactive (2 frozen pizzas, a gallon of milk, some cheese and a loaf of bread) and Jessica Simpson is right…this stuff is awesome, and there’s really no comparison with the store brands, which I’ve tried.  I already see and feel improvement, which means I will be like Diddy in no time.

I also stocked up on a few books this weekend (2 1/2 gallons of soy milk, 2 packs of bagels, 1 lb chicken breast) and have been enjoying, quite thoroughly, some short stories by Neil Gaiman.  Each little tale is just the slightest bit creepy, and often displays the baseness of humankind, while sprinkling in just a bit of the heart-warming so you won’t have weird dreams at night.   This has been one of the perks of the power outage (besides lots of boning).  Each night, we come home, light a million candles and read until we fall asleep.  It’s terribly romantic and sweet…the low light and the way it softens everything and makes me look not-so-fat, the way all the animals huddle and cuddle with us, and the way I am inspired by good storytelling.

So, even though the lack of electricity has been a major inconvenience and I’ve lost well over $200 in groceries, it reminds me that “simple” is okay sometimes.

It also reminds me why the Amish have so many kids.  Seriously, there is nothing else to do…

Kidding. Things aren’t that bad:

The boyfriend’s dad woke up and is doing well! He is slated to go home in the next day or two.

We got a great deal to a local gym and my ass is sore, but in a good way.

My accounting class is ALMOST FREAKING OVER.

Here’s what’s not the best:

Our power was knocked out Sunday around 5 pm. It has not yet been turned back on. It’s not a huge deal, since at least we still have warm water and I recently purchased giant packs of tea lights at IKEA , but yeah…I did spend $100 on groceries on Friday? And like, now they’re all ruined? And we are spending loads of money eating out, or totally constipating ourselves with way too much bread? Sweet.

My birthday party was pretty much a spectacular disaster, due to it being HOT AS BALLS and none of my guests (except for the ever fabulous Christopher and the hilarious Laura) showing up. I didn’t even throw up or fall down any stairs. And what’s a birthday party where the birthday girl doesn’t get to make a total idiot of herself? Instead, I just sweat a lot, and made nice with all of Lisa’s fiancee’s friends’ girlfriends…who are all really nice, but a certain level of decorum was in order, I suppose. Let’s just hope the whole ordeal is not indicative of the way my funeral will be attended, because it’ll be me dead, with all of Lisa’s friends there like, “Who’s the stiff?”, and all of my friends will text me posthumously to say, “SORRY. SO DRNK! C U SOON!”

I mean, cuz today I forced myself to go to the grocery store for the sole purpose of buying my neurotic dog some food, and $100 later, I walk out, fully stocked…with everything BUT dog food.  And that, on top of everything else, deserves a little down time, I think.

Also, my accounting class sucks balls.

So, instead of whining for paragraphs on end about how I’m not sleeping and my house is a mess and I don’t know how to help my boyfriend get through this, I’ll just list a few movies I’ve seen lately. Good times.

-Kabluey–Has Lisa Kudrow and a giant blue corporate mascot. Very sweet and funny.

-The Promotion–Stiffler’s in it. So is John C. Reilly and Pam from the office. Don’t buy the previews that it’s a raucous comedy. It’s not…and it’s better for it.

-Dan in Real Life–Again, not like the previews…thankfully.

-Baby Mama–Actually…a tad slow, I thought. The concept is cute, but I found the laughs to be farther apart than I anticipated. Also, most of those laughs were in the previews. Oh, and Tina Fey is hot and has a nice rack.

-Ironman–Nice pace, witty dialogue. Still annoying.

-Zombie Strippers!–This movie is incredible in that it actually makes you dumber. I am really not sure why we watched it. I think we were drunk. Yes…yes…definitely drunk.