Tuesday, June 21, 2005
inside jokes about monkeys...
Honey you are the sea
Upon which I float
And I came here to talk
I think you should know...
-Coldplay - Green Eyes
This little cartoon is for JaG, who likes monkeys. And it's for anyone else who knows enough about zoology to understand it. I don't put myself into that category. Cait, who sent it to me, had to explain the joke in painful detail before I finally got it.
I've had a kind of depressing couple of days, not really due to any objectively sad events in my life or in the world in general. I have just felt constantly on the edge of tears, and I actually cried for a good hour or two last night, not that it helped any. I could blame it on PMS, but that would be terribly tiresome and stereotypical of me. And besides, I really don't think they're related. I feel like shit all month long, so it's not as though I can attribute it to hormones for a week just for fun. That would be truly dishonest.
I have decided that sometimes I am good at making new friends. I am pleased about befriending Apple and saying hi to her when I go into the cafe now. And I'm pleased to be meeting April next week for that dance show. But I am perplexed by some people. Some people are just fucked in the head. Like Tara who spends all her time alternately criticizing my performance at work and complimenting me by saying things like "you look very pretty today." What a load of hogswallow.
Here's the thing about The Nome and compliments. I like compliments. Love them, in fact. I love to be complimented and I love to give compliments to other people. I think it brings us closer together and identifies us as human beings who truly appreciate each other. On the other hand, I have two hard-and-fast rules for compliments, and they are as follows:
1) A compliment must not be insincere. And that includes lying in response to "Do I look fat in this?" If the answer is yes, do everyone a favour and mercifully deliver a "it's not the most flattering on you," "the other outfit looked better," or "I don't think it's you."
2) A compliment must not be delivered as a means to an end. I am not impressed with people who try to flatter their way into bed with me. If there's one good lesson that life has taught me, it's that you know a shifty person when you watch them make someone feel good about themselves only so they can take what they want and then promptly disappear in a cloud of proverbial black smoke.
Tara's compliments always violate rules 1 and 2. And thus, while she's the only person who has told me I look pretty in a long time and I'd love to take the comment and run with it, I won't allow myself to feel good about it. Too bad, really.
She may have just said that today because it was sunny this morning and so I decided to dress up a bit for work. I was wearing my pink tank top with a pop-art-style flower on it and my pink suit jacket and a blue skirt with sandals. Of course, it started to pour rain halfway through the afternoon. Story of my life.
In the movies people are always massaging each other's egos when they need it. But this rarely seems to happen to me in real life.
last night I remembered the nicest thing The Romanian ever said to me. He said "You have so much to offer the world, and yet you keep it all locked inside. You have a great singing voice but no one ever hears it because you're too shy. You should sing more often." He was one of the very few people who ever heard me sing. My singing is pretty well the only gift I don't regret having given him. I appreciated his sincerity, plus he knew he didn't have to manipulate his way into bed with me. I consider that to have been a legal compliment, and a good one.
I am reading a marvelous book called The Star of Kazan. Julia and Emma are reading it too and they both love it. The descriptions bring Vienna in 1908 completely to life, and the story is exciting and at times deeply moving. I love it. Read it - it works on an adult level too.
I am so fucking irritated with P.R. At least Big and Carrie got to have great sex. All we do is argue, and then he tries to bully me into going out and drinking, and then I get irritated, and then he says I'm boring. Screw it. No more effort on my part will be expended to make him be a decent human being towards me.
Cris is being really nice to me at work. She buys dried cranberries and almonds and leaves them at the cash desk for me, and she tells me when Emma's having a bad day so I can be nicer to her than I already am. I quite adore her. I also met her son today, who is my brother's age. He goes to the high school for smart kids that I couldn't get into when I was his age.
I also met my brother's doppelganger today -- this kid about my age who looked exactly like him. It was weird because he is most unusual-looking and I have never seen anyone who resembles him before. Can reincarnation happen while the person is still alive?
I'm going to the island tomorrow for my much-anticipated days off, so I may not write until Thursday night.
Have to go pack and then go to a late movie.
My dad went on a rant the other night about how annoyed he is by all those "Kevin Saradino" movies like Pulp Fiction. We're still making fun of him about that.
Wish me a good unweekend.
And a good middle-'o-the-week to the rest 'o you.
-N
