thatnight.net

A lot of jobs I’ve had have influenced certain qualities in myself, but not in ways I would’ve guessed when I took them. Working as a maid in a retirement home resulted in my tendency to rarely be grossed out by anything. Working as a college tour guide gave me the remarkable ability to improvise statistics on the fly. Working one holiday season in the Best Buy media department, under speakers which continually cycled the same five hot music clips for three months, made it so whenever I hear Dashboard Confessional my stomach shrivels to the size of a penny and my hair turns the color of sludge.

Last summer I was a seamstress at a bridal salon and no one, not even the elderly women who would call the front desk if their bed was made four minutes behind schedule, could compare to the scorn of an anxious girl in a white gown who is accompanied by her mother and has probably been on a baby carrot diet for the last seven months of her life.

Around that time, I also had a paper route, which on several occasions, required me to clarify that no, it’s not anything like that image that comes to your head. I don’t pull on britches and a nice cotton cap, sling a gaping sack over my shoulder, and peddle on my little red road bike as the sun comes up.

Derrick, who at the time was working long hours at a car shop, would leave the house with me at 3:30AM, and we would drive to a giant warehouse where we would assemble and stuff five hundred papers before we loaded them up into one of our cars and heaved them onto doorsteps for what felt like twelve years.

It wasn’t so bad through the summer and fall, until winter hit, and we’d been doing it seven nights a week for six or so months. By that time, the hell that is the Pittsburgh holiday season made it so the papers were bigger, and the weather at 4AM was around kill you degrees, which isn’t so bad in a car except that in order to eject those bricks from the front seat, the windows had to be left down.

We were both working so much that the only quality time we were able to spend together was during those few bitter, miserable, tired hours of the day. And to have that feeling attached to the person you’re living with is like swallowing hornets. While listening to Dashboard Confessional.

I got a lot of that’s a bad idea’s when Derrick and I were thinking about living together that involved socks on the floor! and dirty dishes! and beer signs in the living room! Why these were always the given excuses for us to not live together is beyond me, because I will spend my day with one foot immersed in a bucket of grime left over from the bottoms of dirty soup bowls that my boyfriend forgot to rinse if it means that we’d never have trouble paying rent.

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I started writing this post a while ago, uncertain of where I would end up going with it.

A lot has changed with this website over the past few years. I started out completely anonymous, and even then, there are certain things I wouldn’t touch, even though, in a way, I started writing primarily to get that stuff out there.

The internet is a scary place to put those things. People will grimace with their interpretations. They will presume. They will challenge the sincerity of what you write, comparing it to how they think you should have presented it. They will ask why you presented it at all. More importantly, they will immediately offer alternatives for how you could’ve better handled your situation, whether it be your actions or your emotions or choosing to share them. They have seen it all before, you know, and while they’re playing around with their magical crystal balls, will feel the need to warn you that your experiences will most likely unfold the exact same way theirs did, and their friend Cheryl’s did, and their mother’s hairdresser’s twin’s (who is now divorced) did, and it’s better if you just inject some of their DNA directly into your spinal cord now because by following your own formula you’re doing it wrong.

You may call them ulcers. Ulcers gorged with pus, aka internet superiority.

Although, even now, this has already gotten awkward. It has that tone, which is slowly making me sickish. Like, this morning? I was emptying out a purse I haven’t used for a while and found an old receipt, and although it’s just a sheet of paper, its contents immediately provoked the parts of my brain known as uneasy and ick.

It’s kind of like that.

I have a feeling this is going to be a long post. I hate when she writes long posts.

A while ago I did an entry listing things I don’t like to write about. It may have been my way of testing the waters. I’ve already broken a couple. This is where I transition.

During the later portion of high school, for the span of time during which Derrick and I were just friends, I got caught up with a boy who would go on to show severe signs of bipolar disorder. It affected our relationship, our mutual friendships, and the majority of people I struggled to keep out of the picture (my family, my school, Derrick).

Although it started during my junior year, the sequence crept into college, lunged full force, and even now, four years later, continues to touch upon many aspects of my life.

I will never broadcast unkind or harmful opinions of him or his actions, or attempt to speculate his perspective. From the time we met and until now, I continue to hold his family in the highest regard. For that reason, I also wouldn’t disclose his real name.

But there are stories, significant memories, that despite their intensity and, at times, adverse circumstances, I refuse to let go of. Because until my sophomore year of college, when he passed away, I cared for him very deeply. All moments, even those ones, were experiences, and as bizarre as it is, I’ll always find ways to preserve them. Especially now, with hundreds of thousands going through similar ordeals, there are benefits to realizing you’re not so completely alone and violently powerless.

So why hit Publish? To continue to do what I’ve been doing. To chronicle. To make it so 2008 is more than getting cable shut off and having bank trouble.

I’m still not sure where I’m going, or how much I will eventually decide to reveal. I’ve always admired those who are able to share sordid details about the less-sunny aspects of their lives, because in some ways, they’re just as important as, if not more substantial than, the cheery ones.

I guess in the meantime, you can try to find something else to take away from this. For example, acknowledging an ulcer only makes it worse. And don’t let others make you feel regretful or uncertain of your own memoirs.

Also, never, under any circumstances, consume $2 well vodka beverages.

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I can’t stand gambling. I lost $20 the first day I was here and I am done. That got me a good 40 spins on a slot machine, which equals about five minutes, at the end of which I was all that’s it? Where do I get my refund? No refund? But I didn’t win anything.

So that’s it? I don’t understand.

Twenty dollars. That’s like a new shirt. Or 1/10 of an iPhone. Or enough gas to back out of my garage.

I did get to see Phantom, though, which was probably one of the best things I’ve ever done.

I’ve been waiting since my freshman year of college to see that show, which was the year the movie was released, which I saw twice in the theater, and proceeded to watch about forty seven more times when it came out on DVD.

I probably should have added that to Monday’s list.

I was pretty surprised about how true to the play the movie was (excluding Emmy Rossum’s crazy hotness, which was plastered all over the back of my dorm door. What?), and even though I was sitting there reciting the lines in my head as they happened, which was probably the most annoying I’ve ever been to myself, when that chandelier came crashing down, my face melted off.

On the way to the theater yesterday, as I sat next to my cab driver Mei Ma and twittered my excitement, he asked what I was doing, and, having no better explanation for Twitter, said, “Telling all of my friends what’s going on.” He replied, “Tell them I said hello.”

So, from the mouth of Mei Ma, there you go.

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You know how you have a list of things that you usually avoid bringing up, for fear of how it’ll affect others’ perceptions of who you are?

Here’s mine.

I only listen to mainstream music. I am more jealous of the girls my age who are starting families than those who are on their way to successful careers. I throw around the fact that I love to travel, even though I will dread for weeks the flight to my destination. I’ve never had a female best friend.

I haven’t once enjoyed college as much as I thought I was supposed to. I didn’t really have my first real drink until I turned 21, and I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with nightlife culture. I miss high school.

I’m holding myself back from blurting out a very public castration of one very icky ex (otherwise, I’ve dated a couple really awesome people, and am therefore not normally bitter). I don’t recycle on my own time. I constantly struggle over how far to go, and the tone I’m setting, with the things I write. During my first year of college, I skipped a few classes to teach myself how to code for the main purpose of improving the appearance of my blog. I critically regulate pictures of myself.

I thought Sex and the City was stupid. There are still some things I’m avoiding.

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Hey, you got a minute? Neat.

I’ve been required to spend nearly 10 hours outside every day since last Saturday. This span of direct sunlight has resulted in tennis shoe tan lines so extreme that it appears as if I’m wearing bright white socks (with realistic toe artwork) while barefoot, and has fried my brain to the point that I’m beginning to consider Kirsten Dunst a capable actress.

Other consequential misfirings of a fried brain include:

Picking up your cell phone mid-workday with the intention of calling the dog
Spending more than fifteen consecutive minutes surfing MySpace

The baking of my skin will wrap up just in time for my trip to Maryland this weekend, where I’m sure it’s a lot cooler. Upon my return to Pittsburgh, I’ll be leaving immediately for Las Vegas, where I’m sure there’s a lot less light.

I’ve never been so far behind on my blog reading, which is acceptable in this situation, as I’ll have plenty to look at as I writhe in horror at the airport before my plane takes off. Seems like a sufficient solution to self-medication. Thanks.

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It’s early Friday morning, and this weekend’s setting is Syracuse, NY. Characters include police officers and sweaty athletes. The plot will revolve around sunburn, rest stops, and one girl’s fascination with hotel rooms. And, scene.

I had a crisis with my bank earlier this week, conveniently in the midst of my workday, during which time I learned that a paycheck I had deposited days earlier had magically vanished from my statement. Also conveniently, the customer service line could not tell me what was going on, as it was an issue with the branch I deposited my check at, which was SUPER CONVENIENTLY closed. I had paid off seven bills during this time, and with the invisible paycheck, was running a bank balance of $You are so screwed.

After the crying, anxiety, and pulling out of each of my hairs, my mother calmed me down, and I was temporarily distracted by some laugh-inducing visitors until the next morning when I was able to get to the bank.

Turns out that my check was deposited, posted to my account, and then the bank sent it off to Philadelphia or D.C. or wherever checks go to die, and it was lost on the way. Lost. And do you know what the bank’s solution is to losing a processed check?

If we don’t have it, it never existed! Phantom funds, they were! Make sure that girl’s account is promptly emptied of her magical dollars!

That is not ok. It is not ok that I have to travel to another state for work with a negative balance, nor that I was not notified, nor that it will take a few days to give me temporary funds until they are able to “figure out what went wrong.”

Would anyone like to buy me a drink? I’d buy them for myself, but, well…

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I had my cable turned off a couple days ago, and even though I’m unsubscribed, I have yet to unplug and return all of the boxes, so while I can’t actually watch any shows, the wonders of digital TV make it so I can still view the on-screen lineup. In short, I can see what I’m missing.

No, it should not, and will not.

Things I can tell people when they ask me why I do not have cable:

I just don’t think there’s any quality TV worth watching anymore
I’m trying to make my life simpler
I have a lot of projects I’m really trying to focus on right now
I’m avoiding any more bludgeoning of my brain by national news coverage, and therefore, clinical depression
I’m trying to clear my head of all the poppycock

The real reason I do not have cable:

I cannot afford cable

In truth, I really don’t watch that much TV anymore. I catch a few shows a couple times a week, but my biggest setback is that I haven’t slept without the TV on in about 2 years, and I only say 2 years because of that summer I was holed up in a cabin with thirteen other girls as a counselor at a summer camp. The noise-filled nights extended well before then, and besides, I don’t have much of a problem when there are other people in the very close vicinity. Otherwise, I hate the quiet.

I’m writing this at 11:00pm, anxious and a little afraid of a night alone in the harsh silence, and hoping I can manage to sleep hard enough to not hear anything.

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“Then hug Chuck,” or, “ThatNight.net”

I was terrified of fireworks when I was little. Besides that, I don’t remember too much about my previous Fourth of July’s, up until the summer of 2006 when I ran off to Maryland and met a bunch of foreign kids working in the states for the summer.

We decided to drive to New York City in the late afternoon, and whatever highway we were on provided the perfect panorama of Manhattan off to the right, amid the other surrounding areas. We were on that road when it got dark, and I was playing Twenty Questions with the guy named Guy from England next to me, trying to stump him with members of the British monarchy, of which I was possibly more interested.

I’d nearly forgotten it was a holiday until the fireworks started going off and we were surrounded on all sides by at least two dozen clusters. Since that night, for some reason, I was able to appreciate it to a greater extent.

I sat with Derrick’s family and we watched some last night, and they were nice.

I had more fun with a plastic bag full of cheaper ones, though, which we set off in a parking lot on the way home.

Even the smoke was sort of cool.

Before we left, after experimenting with spelling, we danced (I twirled) with handfuls of sparklers, and really, that’s all I needed.

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10 years old: It’s where teachers come from (”Mrs. Smith went there last year and she’s teaching us fractions and she’s SO SMART.”)

12: It’s mandatory (”It’s like, 13th grade, right?”)

14: It’s where you learn solely about the things you like (”I’m guessing I’ll have three photography classes and three where we take field trips to Egypt.”)

16: It’s indicative of the value of the rest of your life (”So this is the only road to success, right?”)

18: It’s a surefire way to a prestigious career (”So doing this means I’ll eventually have money, right?”)

19: It’s all about the major (”Journalism major = automatic job at newspaper. Got it.”)

20: It’s all about reputation (It’s a good school, even though I have to move to eastern Pennsylvania.”)

21: It’s all about lifestyle (”What the hell am I doing in eastern Pennsylvania?”)

22: It’s all about graduation (”Ok, Dr. Advisor, what do I need to do to make it so I no longer have to look at you?”)

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