Whine whine whine

I have decided that staying at home for more than a couple days at a time is no longer an option in the Julia-life. This past week and a bit has made me mean like irritated mongeese. This is sad, because I love my family lots, but my sociopathic younger sister is destroying me.

Gem. is what is politely called a "commanding" girl. Everything is very serious to her except the comfort of those around her and her own deportment. In the past 3 days alone, she has caused me easily 5 panic episodes of varying severity and has made my Mum cry which is unforgiveable. She is meddling, bossy, and goes into snits that would be unbecomingly immature for a socially backwards toddler. Plus, although her room is off limits (because she needs her privacy, right?), she has spent the last couple days in my room "cleaning", which so far as I can tell mostly means moving furniture to ensure maximum impracticality, reading my papers (don't write me any racy love notes. She's spent several days hinting to my parents that I may- gasp!- be having sex with the Boy. F'really? Who'd have thought? And how is this her business? It's like morals police.), sitting on my sheets (not the coverlet, but the sheets. My sheets. The sheets on which I slumber. I have a bit of a fixation about this.), trying on my clothing, and stealing small odds and ends like my favorite black tank top and my amber beads. And of course my residence in that room is immaterial because the basement contains excess household furniture, etc.

I get panicy when I do not have an area that I cannot be alone in. I need a place where people are only allowed to come in if I let them in. I mean, I can share space with others, but only if I trust them. That's understandable, right? Well, not the panic attacks but the need for a secure space. And my parents can't stop this milchviper from meddling, because then she will be so actively bloody that everyone in the family will suffer.

I wonder if she has an actual reason for this- hormonal inbalance, mental disorder, something? I know I get pretty bad, but I don't really hold grudges. I don't understand it when people go out of their ways to make life unpleasant for others. I think she may just be a bitch, but she can be sweet to people outside of our family. She has friends. Where the 7 holies did she get the idea that living with others involves making them very very unhappy? I don't even think she hates me, she just has no respect for my comfort. And although I deal well with people hating me, I can't stand that I am bound to love her and be polite to her because I have a smidge of respect for the family and hate to see my parents feel as if they're failing to raise us right. She's beginning to remind me of vengeful landladies in Dickens novels and I swear I feel ominous chills when she enters the room.

So I need out. The Boy is coming back tonight, so I can resume my existence as a live-in popsy, but this isn't really a permanent solution. Next summer, no even pretending to live at home.

And I had fun things to write about too. Boo hiss.

Julias: Brownies :: Zombies: Brains

Plans with S. to hit Ben's Chili Bowl for lunch tomorrow. Then M.'s party on Friday. He promised me freaks. And drinks with the NY Times researcher last night to talk about books.

Other than that, Henri Rosseau's paintings at the National gallery (tigers!), Beerbolhm's Zulieka Dobson (shades of Young Werther), that Bookseller of Kabul, which was not as bad as it might have been but more of a downer than a bestseller has any right to be, and One Hand Clapping, which is, I think, even more an example of Burgess' genius with writing in a character voice than A Clockwork Orange.

Got some more Walker Percy, my Rosseau, and some obscure Muriel Spark. Still haven't found an alarm clock. I spat on a taxi that was blocking a crosswalk and then decided to honk loudly and attempt to pull into my legs during a walk light. That was the most exciting walk from Metro to bookstore I've had in weeks.

And my sister made brownies, of which I consumed too many. Arrrgh. Satisfyingly full, in a sickly way.

Disassemble

Nervous, edgy day. Snapped at too many people, was dazed and drear and observant as a dying animal, nothing in me but a detached hyperawareness. Right now it seems as if everyone I know thinks of me as a harmless emotionless pet or a mindless willing orifice. I feel like destruction.

Do I not deserve the people I have? I know rationally that some of them must love me, respect me, maybe even admire me, but I feel like a clown. I am a joke obvious to everyone but myself.

And I really wish people would stop telling me that I'm pretty. I personally don't find that to be true more than 30% of the time. That I'm not hideous- that ought to make me feel better about not having any talents, passions? I would rather be able to write a page without struggling or have a conversation where I don't fuck up every sentence as if everyone else is purposefully misunderstanding me or have an imagination of any sort. My hair is falling out and there are bruises still along my back, even though I've gained 3 pounds back. I don't feel pretty- I feel tired and old and worn out already. My hypothetical good looks are of no comfort to me.

Flaming insecurity, paranoia, and preliminary shots for that student film tomorrow. Nothing better than being filmed when you really want to spend a morbid day in bed, reflecting on your own meaningless past, present, and future.

The Family

Went to yet another libertarian shindig last night, this one tenuously connected to a debate, to accompany the Boy (who is kinda shocked and disgusted by how much I like political-ish events). Debate a total wash, was supposed to be a grand libertarian vs. conservative bloodbath but they were so sweet to each other. And the Boy got the best heckle in so I am exceedingly proud of him. Although someday I want an escort that remembers that I prefer cheap red reception plonk to cheap white reception plonk.

The libertarian afterparty was fun (free drinks for the J. from Reason mag., 2 NY Times employees ["I write for the business section of the Times. The New York Times. ", emphasis his, before he even told me his name. Gahhhhh. The research assistant was not only nicer but also v. much cuter. ADiz, I kept his business card. How persuasive can you be?], and a nice unemployed lawyer who wants to enter the Lovely Land of Politics, and of course, the Boy [cutest news-type I've ever had the joy to meet. Take that, NY Times!]). So I spent my evening chatting about English lit., annoying men (yeah, I'm talking about you, Business Section), my father and how he is a libertarian folk hero (he ought to align with them. The conservatives are rather embarassed by him.), and how weird DC is while drinking my delightful little face off. And I met Grover Norquist. In the bar. Weird. He has the most beautiful beard, like strange rich foreign furs...

And E. gave me her e-mail address. She is the coolest lib chickie ever, although I also adore the lovely V., who just assumed she'd see me again. And my Dad's intern studiously avoided me this time.

And tonight I went out to the local Italian joint with the folks and the 2 youngest sibs. I told my Dad about his legions of libertarian fanboys and -girls and he was bemused. My parents and I then spent the rest of the meal swapping lobbyist horror stories, many involving facial hair, germophobia, and ethnic rotisseries. My youngest brother, Thos., spent the meal playing his GameBoy and Gem. complained about my consumption of Supreme Eggplant (as the menu has it- basically eggplant parmesan stuffed with spinach over ziti) in her too-too-delicate presence.

And I'm using mah connexions to get an internship at the NRA next summer. The wheels, they are already turning towards destiny!

Invalid Guilt

Since I am still recovering, I ought not feel bad that I am taking advantage of others' sympathy, right? Extorted a new black bra from my Mum, escaped making emotionally satisfying but meaningless promises via IM to G. the Hat, plan on making the Boy snuggle me (but at least I'll get him dinner, and maybe make his night a bit better). I'm thinking of calling all the people I've been a crappy friend to and demanding their forgiveness. Plus, I've finished Lucky Jim (Amis, you mad thing!), and instead of reading some Rosseau or at least rereading Tom Jones, I am reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by the guy who wrote Wicked. My little sister lent it to me, saying it is really cool. I should just find a bloody Cosmo or something. Or the New York Times bestseller, or the Oprah Bookclub choice, or the Harlequin book of the month. I'm afraid I'm actually enjoying this poorly written sentimentalist tripe because it is so profoundly untaxing. It's like literary butterscotch pudding.

On a side note, my painkillers (I am going to blame them, otherwise it's too horrifying) made me have a creepy pseudo-Buddhist sex dream. Haunted by the memory of imagined sins. Gah. Maybe I should go to confession, because obviously Something is pissed at me.

Rabbit Surgery

Had my laparoscopy today. Painful, still groggy. They didn't find much irregular tissue, so now I get a painkiller with codine for my special womanly times because it may just be "irritable nerve reaction" to something unknown and inexplicable. Well, codine. Yippee.

Now I get to go clean my weeping abdominal incisions.

Em, fiction

Realized reading Delariver Manley's The New Atalantis that I prefer my early English fiction before the Enlightment or during the Enlightenment but scornful about it. I don't really like the Enlightenment or the pseudo-classical alligorical shite that it produced or the feeling that the divine exists due to humanity's sufferance of it. Cause humans are perfectible in themselves, y'see. I like real classical authors better, they don't insist on dragging nymphs into everything. And I'm sick of Jove as code for "the Christian God. Ha, just joking- we're not pagans! We like the socially-sanctioned Jesus. And the Church, and especially her powerful temporal representatives!" So maybe I need to seek out authors who are flippant about this inherent value of human subjectivity thing or who don't think about it at all. Seriously, Manley, if you want to write thinly veiled portraits of all of your peers who seduced virgins or gambled or committed incest or were lesbians, don't try to pretend that you are providing moral guidance of any sort, and I don't care about how many Virtues narrate the thing. You, madame, are scandalmongering, and I refuse to play along with your "Just make sure you don't do THIS:...." game. I need to read some Chaucer. Its lack of societially based moral judgements will make me feel better.

Doctors and Alberta, mostly

Too many tasty tasty (though too moist, not chewy enough) gingersnaps make little Js sugar-dopey enough to take the Metro to Columbia Heights (it takes like 45 minutes, even if you don't have to wait for trains. That's suuuuuuch a long time. I'm beginning to resent that train ride. So much. Damn it. So much.) to watch pirate movies (Burt Freakin Lancaster's The Crimson Pirate- v. homoerotic) with the Boy (who was still excited about the 2nd Pirates if the Caribbean movie), which Boy gets overly into pirate movies (which eventuated in Js being tickled at 3 in the morning, with cries of "Avast ye!" and suchlike and then pillowfights. It's like 6 year olds, but not so creepy when it smooches the back of one's neck. And what kind of night is it where you get no play except acting like pirates? Awesome.), which all ends up in gingersnap piracy. I think. I got a bit lost there.

And then today I went to see a doctor that gave me more psychotropic drugs and told me to gain 5-10 pounds. And she was rather amused that I showed up to my 2 pm appointment looking as if I had just rolled out of my bed of sin, shaking off lovers and lotharios along the way. Which wasn't exactly true- I got a sandwich en route. She pointedly told me that this drug has been known to decrease libido, and then she smirked. I like this one. I wish I'd saved her a gingersnap.

Afters, I went to the National Mall to see the Alberta bit of the Folklife festival. There were tourists gettin educated and Mountie dress uniforms, not containing Mounties, and Ukranian music and dinosaurs which made me sad that I didn't have a camera to take pictures of the dinosaur models and fossils and sign talking about how Alberta loves a) dinosaurs and b) giant roadside attractions, both of which combine to create the WORLD'S BIGGEST T. REX. It was so exciting I forgot my disappointment at the lack of Mounties.

And I got home, went to the pool and gossiped about Cheverly (D. R. got engaged! WTF?!?), ate couscous, and fed the cat more peas. Rotten Ralph really likes peas. They're like crack to him- he gets all melty and blissed and bites when you stop giving them to him. So I need to buy more peas.

Gingersnaps and Guttersnipes

Still feeling subpar. Argued (kinda) with the Boy, the parents, I., M., and can't find S. Love the amazing social life here in DC. Went to an actually amazing libertarian intern bbq and beer blast Saturday, though. Now want to intern for the NRA. I loves them gun nuts. Met another one of the Boy's unbelieveably great female friends. No wonder he doesn't appreciate me as he ought, when he knows these knockouts who are brillant and fond of him in unpossessive ways. Whereas, when I carry a drunk Boy around on the Metro, I want adoration and not questioning as to whether my mingling is perhaps a bit flirtatious. So I was chatting up some kid, so what? He gave me beer. The Boy ought to value the fact that I'm a cheap date, able to forage even in deepest suburbia.

So since I felt down today, I went to the National Gallery's Venetian painting exhibit (fun, want poster of Titian's 'Feast of the Gods'), came home, started reading a trashy mystery in the bath (finished A Confederacy of Dunces, delightful, pity about the whole only book author suicide thing), and now am making a batch of gingersnaps with a dicey online recipe (should it have so much molasses?) while listening to the Buzzcocks' singles album. The gingersnaps are in the oven right now and soon I shall DEVOUR! them. Like dinosaurs, falling peckishly upon newly evolved ferns, I shall demolish them. It will be sublime (Kantian), and I may not save any for anyone else. Take that, cruel world. And while eating them, I will sing What do I Get? loudly and with my mouth full.

Dans le Metro

Actually am sick, no longer just becoming so. Feverish and mean, so best to watch it, yo. And DC is still raining so the remaindered 4th of July midwesterners are damply crowding the Metro, not just crowding it. A family of Kraft-fattened yokels, as I was wending my shivery and gross way home-yoiks, hit me with every one of their oversized LL Bean totes and some backpacks as well. Then, to add injury, their sneering youngest brat poked me in my already engorged spleen with a golf umbrella. Once they left, though, there was a seat for me. ME! Oh goody. So I sat. And since I finished Catch-22 yet again and have only sweet memories of Red Harvest (I returned it from whence it was borrowed) and Evelina now has Rosseau selections folded into it, making travel impractical, I looked at what everyone else was reading. So:

1 copy of The Da Vinci Code. What? You think this is last summer? Seeing the movie made you want to read it again? Questioning your decision to join a Catholic cult?

3 chick-lit novels: you can tell by the bright covers with the loopy, handwriting-"style" type. 2 of them were the hardcore inner-city kind, with non-WASP-y lovin.

2 thriller/mystery novels, variety best-seller. Most seemed to be by Grisham. Has he published anything new lately? Isn't he dead or summat?

1 Penguin Classic, couldn't see title. (NOICE! Rawwwr, coffee wench! Next time, let me see your tiiiiiitle!)

4 new translation Bibles, some with self-help sections.

1 financial planning book.

1 sheaf of much-highlighted xeroxed pages.

2 inspirational books.

1 computer programming book. Is teh tech boom over?

1 copy of the free weekly Spanish paper.

5 copies of the morning's Express. Buggering tragic! The gossipy back bits of today's were boring.

And that's what DC reads during evening rush hour, on the orange line, heading to Marralan, in this specific car, that I could see. Ahem. And none of the tourists was reading so much as a guidebook. And we all know they can't read Metro signs (esp. ones telling them about where trains are going, how to use fare machines, or the STAND-TO-THE-MOTHEREFFIN-LEFT signs). Therefore, cities make you literate even if they won't do anything for your taste. And this is what interests me when I'm damp and sick and unemployed.

Why does no one care about the intern thing?

Amazingly happy. Still unemployed and broke, was puked on in an elevator by some effin intern (someday I will dedicate my life to ridding lovely DC of em), may be getting sick. But still...

My parents met the Boy last night and seemed to quite like him. My Mum was extra-charming even for her, although she told a lot of stories about my "colorful" Uncle B. (the survivalist that lives in the garden shed entirely decorated with porn [my Mum called it "pin-ups"] who stockpiles tinned food and guns and buries valuable metals) and acquaintences drowning in flash floods in Rock Creek Park. Dad complimented his boots, talked about early Italian music (Dad's equivelent of talking baseball, shows comfort in the situation), and was impressed that the Boy had seen Beat the Devil. Of course, I spent the evening avoiding eye contact with the Boy, because we had been groping each other in the elevator on the way down to meet them and I didn't want to jump him. He makes it so hard to get anything done that isn't him. Although tonight, we have a date for cheap Greek food and Silk Stockings, the musical with a singing, dancing Peter Lorre!

Us, you don't have a telephone, right? (I miss y'all.) And you may not thank me for this, but I am attempting to convince the Boy that he wants to come up and meet you. I think he will, which is good because after the parents, you are the ones whose opinions I care about.

Am mailing stockings, Heath bars, ska compilation, and one special suprise up to Halifax once the post office opens up again.