Category: Journal

Ah! Apparently I dazzled Family Video well enough to get called back.  The problem with my trying to get a job is that usually somewhere during the application process I realize that I absolutely do not want the job.  This is what happened at Shawnee North (though, it turned out, they did want to hire me).  It’s also what happened at Michael’s (even though I love Michael’s I wouldn’t want to work there cos it would taint something I enejoy). Basically, it’s what happens everywhere.  So most of my jobs are the result of my mom getting pissed and calling people to see if they’ve considered my application.  She’s a hero, that one.  I’m so spoiled with jobs like the Cap-J and the History Dept. and the Leadership Institute because I have so little work to do and I like the people I’m around… and whee all those things are great.  So I only want a job if I think I’ll like doing it.  And that never ever ever happens.  Until today.  Today, I went for the open interviews at the family video and when I got there I was like “yay! MOVIES I LOVE MOVIES YAY!” and so I tried really hard during the interview.  I even chose my “favorite movies” for the application based on different genres so I wouldn’t look like a  low budget film snob.  Lol.

I got called back by like 6:30 and they only stopped doing interviews at 6… so hopefully that means something good… and hopefully this works out well for me.  I still have to take a skills test tomorrow which will take about an hour apparently… which seems ridiculous.  So anyway, I’m excited.  And I hope the process keeps going well… cos the odds that I’ll find another job which I want are slim to none.

Kyle took me gooney golfing today at the sports center after much ado on my part. I wasn’t sure when I’d get to see him again on account of my having a kitty to stay home with and his brother being in town so our usual split week in Topeka and Blue Springs wouldn’t work out after today and my mom and I have been fighting non-stop about the cat (mom is projecting. you know how she gets upset when things change and she feels like she’s losing me so she’s blaming everything from my being unbelievably irresponsible to Kyle for her anger toward me. and she’s probably going to screw me out of 80 dollars which is stressing me financially. and she’s telling me i look fat in all of my clothes and just generally making me feel like shit about myself.) So anyway… I wasn’t sure when I’d make it to blue springs or have Kyle make it here again and I spent the whole law and order block fretting on the couch about mom and things so then i needed cheering up so i convinced kyle we could go gooney golf and get ice cream. luckily, he agreed. and then he commented that he hated how i swindle him into things 🙂 I claimed that I don’t swindle him, and i don’t think i do, but we had a fun time when we went.

Kyle golfed a 51 and I golfed a 59, meaning he technically won by 8 strokes. I had seven strokes on a par 2 because I’m bad at the one where you have to get the ball into the snail’s shell so it will come out onto the back part of the green. Suckage. I also got a hole-in-one cos i pretty much rock when put to the test. This is how that happened…

Kyle: Heh, this one seems like the type you could make out in.
[Kyle hits ball into love-hut element and it bounces into and out of the hole.]
Jess: D’ya want me to just give you that one? Cos I’ll just give you that one.
Kyle: No, I’ll just take my 2 cos it’s not like you’ll do better.
[Jess sinks hole-in-one. Celebrates.]
Jess: I’m awesome!
Kyle: Good job, baby.
Jess: C’mon. Wanna make out in the hut?

We’re adorable. And we’re spoiled on each other this summer. Between our comfy bed, our mutual adoration of the Jacks (McCoy and Bauer), and the amount of fun we have in each other’s company… the school year will be hard. On the bright side, we’ll both be incredibly busy and after the year is done… we’re golden.

Things are really comfortable with his parents now. After spending Sunday and yesterday around them, I think we’re all warming up to each other and that makes me happy. Plus, the dog loves me a whole lot. Mostly cos the dog likes to chew on feet and hair and I’ve got both. The dog does its part by reminding me why I never want to have a puppy.

Saturday night we went over to Chad and Lilia’s and spent some time with them. That was a whole bunch of fun. I really like Lilia a lot, and Chad too. So it’s nice to keep in touch with people from around and it’s fun to have “couple friends” I think as well. Ah.

I promise I’ll be posting pictures of the apartment soon. Now that I feel like I’m actually settled in and almost have everything all set up, it makes sense to take pictures of all of it. Yay!

And I’m going to open interviews at Family Video tomorrow. Wish me luck! I need a second job so badly!

I’m reading Ecstasia by Francesca Lia Block right now.  It’s fantastic, of course.  Cos She’s just completely fantastic.  I’m really enjoying reading some early work by one of my favorite authors, cos I don’t take the opportunity to do that often.  And it’s nice because most of her non-Weetzie Bat fiction is written in the form of a poem these days or at least the last few things I’ve read have been, and I really like having actual prose to work through.  Poems read so quickly. She certainly hasn’t came into her style yet with this book, but I suppose it’s a bit difficult to do that when you haven’t really had anything published (or much published cos Primavera may technically pre-date this one).

The concept of the book is pretty awesome though. So far, figuring out what the book is going to be about is about as far as I’ve gotten… but anyway, it’s about this place called Elysia which usually means a very pleasant place like a paradise or something, but to live in Elysia you have to leave the desert which surrounds the place.  And then once you age, you have to go underground because everything in Elysia is beautiful and so there can be no signs of aging.  Also, apparently people self-police this habit so they just go underground willfully most of the time.  It’s a metaphor for Los Angeles.  I’m so excited to read more, which I should get to doing.

Ah, I’m basically all moved-in to my new apartment. I’m so happy! I have my room set up pretty sweetly, I’ll post pictures at some point.. but for now just a description. The room is a rectangle with East-West being the long end and North-South being the short end. The door is in the Northeast corner of the room so logically I put my bed facing the North wall in the West corner. Yay. It’s a queen so it was really nice to sleep on last night and have tons of space. Space is really the best thing to have in a bed, I think. Kyle’s claimed the outside though which I suppose is cool.. but I really love the outside. He’s the one that has to deal with me climbing over him at all hours of the night and morning when he’s still asleep. It’s cool though. Last night we slept with my comforter and his mom’s flannel sheets but today we went to bed, bath and beyond and pimped my room. We got 350 thread count cotton jersey sheets, a good compromise i think. They’re all fancy-like which he likes and i still get to sleep curled up in tshirts so I’m happy too. AND I got a fiberbed. It was maybe more than I wanted to spend or would’ve spent yesterday… but… I woke up this morning and had a terrible tightness in my shoulders from sleeping uncomfortably so that helped me out a whole lot. James went pillowshopping with me and talked me into getting a mountain of pillows yesterday, so now i sleep in a comfortable coccoon. I love it.

So that wonderful mess of pillows and microsuede is in that corner and then I have this fantastic lamp that my mommy got me thats right next to my bed. It’s a floor lamp and it’s made out of wood and it’s amazing. I love it. I can’t even explain it really. It’s just all wonderful and curvy. I think everyone would adore it as well, and so far they have. I’m currently looking for mods to make to it via readymademag or other DIY sites. So if you have any ideas, let me know. I think I’ll end up just decoupaging the lampshade. I’m not sure. On the wall next to that I have a bookshelf and there’s another one between the closet door and the bedroom door. My desk is going to go next to the bed and my tv at the foot of the bed. Hooray. Being moved out is awesome.

Dear Jess, There are so many things to do that there aren’t enough hours in the day. Although you can enjoy the wide range of experiences, a part of you longs for deeper meaning. You may feel preoccupied by all the external noise in your life right now and wish that you had the time and wherewithal to delve into the pleasures that you know are waiting somewhere far away. Be patient; your chance will come. Love, the Aries starcast

Sometimes, I think my horoscope knows me a little too well.  I mean, I’m not the kind of person who believes everything that the stars say about her… but I believe somethings to be true.  I’m an aries.  I spend most of my days pretending I’m a ram that’s really pissed off when she doesn’t get her way.  Name me three people who will deny this about me.  I’m also a capricorn moon sign.  This also makes sense to me because that’s my emotional scope.  So usually what I’m doing outwardly will line up with what other Aries are up to while what I’m doing inwardly will line up with the Capricorns.  I’m a Sagitarrius rising.  This is what I blame my bipolar disorder on… Literally.  When I found out, I called Madeline and was like “Hey, i found out why i’m crazy…” lol.  Last summer, the Aries horoscope was dead on basically every day.  That continued basically until winter.  When I went crazy, the capricorn horoscope was pretty much true… though so were all of my paranoid suspisions… And since about January nothing has seemed to fit except for very occasionally.  Today being one of those days.

Anyway.  I was so excited to move out yesterday.  And then I woke up this morning and started packing and I was still very excited.  Then I went to wake Kyle so we could start moving things and he pointed out that we had plenty of time and I was like “oh. alright. you’re right.” and let him sleep. So I decided to go ahead and pack more things and when I finished that I walked into the kitchen and immediately almost had a panic attack.  I have no idea why I do these things… I guess I just sort of like things to stay the same and be comfortable.  And I really like living around people and being part of a family.  So moving out is sort of uncomfortable.  It reminds me of this Fiona Apple lyric: “But he’s no good at being uncomfortable, so he can’t stop staying exactly the same.” Sometimes I feel exactly like that… and othertimes I get so excited for things to be different and new.  I think I just need to believe in myself a little bit.  Cos really, I’m probably not going to fall on my face.  And it will be so nice to have an apartment in town and not have to drive out north all the time.  And I really need to go through this uneasiness about moving out and being insecure about my ability to live by myself-ish now and not in Minneapolis or Wisconsin or Los Angeles or Austin or Chicago. Right? Right.

So that’s that.  And I sorta wish Kyle would’ve stayed tonight with me but he’ll be here for my first few days at the apartment and he really does need to get back to BSMo.  Mrh.

We had a good time last night.  We went out to the Dugout with Joey after I got off work.  It was dollar margarita and dollar twelve-ounce draw night at the bar so that was cool.  Though I don’t know that the Dugout would ever elevate itself to preferred bar status in my book.  I think right now that list goes something like Pigskins, Bullfrogs (the gage one, i haven’t been to the other) and that’s it.  The bars everywhere else are much better.  Like Gatsby’s in Carbondale.  And plenty of places in KCMo.  Anyway, so the night went well and Joey and Kyle got along really well.  I should’ve thought out better how that was gonna go, cos it was mostly just the boys talking about sports.  Ahhh.  Not that I can’t have a good conversation about sports,  but most of my sports conversation I already have with Kyle so I just sat smiling to myself. Cos I like it when a boy can carry a conversation about basketball.

I’m a basketball fan now.  Did I mention that yet?  I realized it when I was flying from Newark to Cleveland and I read an article in Maxim about Allen Iverson by choice.  And I enjoyed it.  I got a page in and giggled and then my head was like “Alert! Alert! You now like basketball! Fuck!” I mean, less dramatically.  I also read about the playoffs whilst in Germany because I cared about their outcome.  I’m such a girl though.  Liking the Cavaliers cos I haven’t put much thought into it and LeBron James is an icon.  And Kyle’s so cute about LeBron James. If you’d have asked me a year ago to pick a favorite basketball team by force I’d have said the NJ Nets.  Cos they’re part of the same corporation that owns the Yankees. Ugh. Maybe someday I’ll get my own opinion about the sport.. but for now… there’s only two teams to choose between anyway 🙂 and it will probably do me some good to start cheering for a losing team.

By the way: NY Yankees     33-31     (.516) That, my friend, is a winning record.  So there.  And… they’re still 8 games back in the AL East, but I believe.  Do you believe?  Of course you do.  Last night, Kyle dreamt he accidentally cheated on me by making out with Rachel McAdams while we dated in high school.  This lead to a discussion about our “lists” of people we should get a free pass on.  I realized Derek Jeter is probably still on mine.  Oh my…

I want to take a year off between my undergrad degree and my graduate degree and live in Kansas City.  Just because I love it so much.  But let’s face it. I was drunk when I first thought that would be a good idea and I know that there’s no way it would be a good idea.  For one thing, I’d fall madly in love and never be able to leave it.  So here’s to hoping Rockhurst is hiring when I’m looking for a career.

I just wanted to record the sweet things Kyle does.

[22:43] Jess: the other day i was home sick and he was supposed to bring me lunch from goodcents with a cherry coke cos i don’t like their regular coke
[22:43] Jess: and so he shows up with a new game for me to play on ds, season 2 of entourage.. rented, my goodcents, and a large coke and a large sweet tea from mcdonalds cos he knows i love those things the most
[22:44] Jarred: wow, i want to fuck him

the best part of the story was that he was running soooo late and i was soooo irritated and then he showed up and everything was immediately perfect. cos i think at some point during the time he was late i’d thought every one of those things… “maybe he’ll bring me diner dash.” and “maybe he’ll bring me sweet tea.” and “maybe he’ll bring delicious coke.” awh.  how awesome.

Diner Dash for Nintendo DS is probably one of the best games every, by the way. It’s so much better than the computer version.  There’s more restaurants and more customers and more tricks.  Whee.  So fun, so fun.

Tomorrow I’m starting the process of moving in to my new apartment with Tim.  He’s already moved in (as of about two years ago) and I’m just super excited about getting to live with someone and getting to have my own place.  I might even get a Wii for it.  Because I hate being responsible and things.  I’m really happy that I’m excited about moving, I was really nervous for quite a while.  I kept having really bad dreams about moving out while I was in Europe and then I came back and got sick and wasn’t that excited about doing anything… Now that I’m wellish again though, I just can’t wait to get to move out and have my own things.   Two nights ago, I had two excellent dreams about having my own place and decorating it.  In both dreams, the apartment was much cooler than it actually is… but I’m just happy that I’m having happy dreams.

I’ve decided to decorate using this starched sheet idea.  It’s a really good way to cover walls when your lease is bitchy about you ruining things with paint and wallpaper.  So anyway, the idea is that you take fabric and you dip it in a bucket of starch and then you use a brayer to smooth it onto the walls.  When you’re ready to move out, you just tear it down and soap up the walls.  Hooray for simplicity and awesome wallcoverings.  James was looking through my ReadyMade book a few weeks ago and said that he thought it was cool that they’d taken a big canvas and just painted “i’m home” on it in really big letters.  So, I think I agree.  In the same vein, I’m going to paint my wall-fabric with a poem that’s clever and not too depressing and hopefully a little bizarre.  I’m choosing between the following:

Alicante by Jacques Prevert
Une orange sur la table (An orange on the table)
Ta robe sur le tapis (Your dress on the floor)
Et toi dans mon lit (And you in my bed)
Doux présent du présent (The gift of now)
Fraîcheur de la nuit (Cool wind of night)
Chaleur de ma vie (Passion fire of my life)
(It’ll be written in french only cos the translation is awkward and I’m not sure I trust the website I read it from.  This translater is no Lawrence Ferhlingetti… owner of city lights and author of the translations in my book of Prevert poetry… but there are some words that I didn’t know so I had to cheat).

and the following which is untitled by Jack Kerouac
The bottoms of my shoes
are clean
from walking in the rain

I’m torn.  I love Prevert and I think the poem is all awesome and sexy, but I’m also somewhat concerned by how incredibly emo it is to have a french poem in your bedroom.  But, none-the-less, it’s really awesome.  The Kerouac poem is awesome and I love his haikus the most besides his novels.  So it might be a good one to do too.  I’m gonna have to think it out. Any opinions?
I need my check from the masons to get here ASAP because I need to buy things at Target.  Specifically, I want a mattress topper cos I don’t think the mattress that Joe and I had was very comfy… even if you sleep in the middle of it.  Also, I need new sheets in part because I let Joe have the old ones and in part because I want different colors in the room even before I told them they were as good as  his.  My goal is dark blue.  Kyle is particular about what he sleeps on, apparently, which seems obvious from the quality of sheets in his room (always very nice).  I get finicky about sheets because I like my comforters to be so huge.  So since the comforter is microsuede I was sheets that breathe well.  He offered to buy the sheets because he wants a nice threadcount and I said that would be fine except that I don’t want satin.  In part because I need sheets to breathe as per my earlier statement but also because I can’t sleep on satin without feeling really awkward.  It’s too fancy.  And I think it’s kind of emasculating.  And if you’ve ever had unshaven legs which don’t have hair grown-out to the point of soft before… you’d know that sleeping on satin is like turning your legs into cacti and sleeping in any other bed.  I decided tonight that cotton sateen might be a good middle point.  But who knows.  I just want dark blue.  And breathable.  Let’s face it.  I prefer Cotton Jersey.  I think Egyptian Cotton is something the jews picked when they were enslaved in Genesis.

I also want a mattress topper and some cups.  I need some paint too so that I can paint the furniture that I want to paint.  And I should probably be realistic about my life goals and sand the furniture a bit so that the paint will stick.  Auuugh.  I’m just excited to be sitting around my new apartment with the boxes unpacked.  Why can’t that happen today?

Sometimes I think honest to myself in my poetry before I’m honest to myself in my regular thoughts and feelings, but maybe that’s not quite the case. Maybe it’s more that I’ll say things in poetry that I won’t say to other people because I figure people will skew the message enough to obscure the meaning completely. And, I guess that’s why I’ve always liked writing poetry. It’s easy to stay hidden behind words. But I’ve been reading a lot of my old stuff for the last half-hour or so, and I think there are so many things that I either knew, or wanted to admit to, that I just didn’t. And I wonder what the outcome would have been if I would have said things outloud. I guess there were a lot of things stopping me from having some conversations.

As the title suggests, I’ve been sick for three days.  I’ve been nauseated mostly on day one and day three.  My mom has the same thing and she’s had it for about 4 or 5 days.  Ugh.  This illness sucks so bad.  I’ve practically ran out of funny things to keep me entertained.  I’ve watched so many movies and tv shows in the past few days… I watched season one of entourage, paradise now, clerks ii, the first episode of season 3 of 24, i heart huckabees, and pay it forward (on tv, it was terrible).  I’m starting on volume 3 of aqua teen.  it’s pretty good.

All I want is some juice stop and someone to lay around and watch Family Guy with me. 🙁

I fall in love so quickly with cities and everything else, you’d say.  but, really, paris was wonderful.  we took a bus tour and i was pretty skeptical of it at first but then it got better.  i hate bus tours cos i like to actually see things and hang out in the sun.  i like carwheels on the grass and all of those sorts of things, especially when its so nice outside like it was yesterday.  i realized though that the bus meant seeing a lot more of Paris, in a way which was quick.  Plus, we stopped everywhere I would’ve stopped anyway.  well, i’m not positive i would’ve stopped at the hopsital of the invalids but it was pretty.  and our fairy-french tour guide said, “now you can get out and get a picture of the invalids!” which made it all worth it.  and by “it all” i mean, the entire trip.  hah.  and so photograph the invalids we did.  i would have liked to take photos at the arch de triomphe as well, but i did get to get out at the eiffel tower.  after the bus tour, we went to the cathedral of notre dame and the guide explained the symbolism of the facade to us.  i really love that i study art history.  it makes seeing things so much mor eitneresting cos i have an entire other context to place them in.  i remember learning about the catehdral and how it was the first of the gothic architectural movement, seeing the flying buttresses and the difference in the doorway arch decorations.  i just think it’s all so fascinating.  it’s amazing to me how permanently it conveys the power of God.  Even centuries later, I’m still overhwlemed by the beauty and open spaces.  it’s hard to imagine would it would be like hearing mass there in the pre-renaissance or seeing it destroyed after the revolution in 1789.  what history a building holds! i really appreciate the history of religious buildings.  esp after my SSPX in st. mary’s paper.  It’s fantastic! the identity which people attach to those sorts of buildings.  maybe i could study that… manu massa had that mosque in tenbuktu…  i could study that pretty entertained.  awh, this much time and i haven’t even made it in the building… so, the clerestory was really awesome.  i didn’t realize how dark it all still was though, even with the stained glass windows.  it was very solemn.

later, anyway, i took a break writing that and now i’m drunkish. which sucks.  so the cathedral was really beautiful.  i liked all of the chapel, but i wish that there was more to read about them, and i’m pretty positive i thought that Waewel was more beautiful, but that makes more sense as it was a royal cathedral and not just financed by aristocrats.  i’m glad we went there and went in.  i kind of wish i’d have gone to the second story, but it cost money and i’m poor.  So i didn’t go up.  Good.  After Notre Dame, we had a lot of free time which would be cool but there was basically nothing to do and i was sort of upset cos in my mind it was all cutting into the time at the louvre.  so then we went to tour the old aristocratic houses of Paris.  That meant travelling through the gay part of paris and the jewish aprt.  it was kind of interesting.  the gay part was indifferentiable from other parts of town except the men were better dressed.  our tour guide used to live there.  she said it was safe for a girl which makes sense, i suppose.  the jewish part of paris was marked only by a jewish bookstore.  odd.  The rich houses were pretty, but boring.  I liked the gardens and maybe the insides were nice.  (we didn’t see them) but I wish that we’d have not really gone.  it didn’t fit in with the rest of our trip.  I think.