[11.07pm]

Today I woke up to what I thought was an accidentally set alarm. It was a phone call, this is the problem with having one of my ring tones as an alarm. I didn't answer it, just pushed that little ignore button on the side. What a beautiful button.
I thought about making tea but I remembered that I still needed to put my pants in the dryer and that distracted me from my body.
Later, after waking Martha and kissing Tyler (who had fallen asleep on the couch) I did my make-up in bed. This has always been my favourite place to put on make-up. It's like taking a pretend nap. Here is what I do: I grab my little double zippered Dior bag of necessities, pull the curtain slightly back from the window (for natural light), find a good movie, and tuck in. It really makes my morning routine less tedious and somehow just from this simple multi-task I feel like I'm getting a more relaxed morning. If I could get ready for the day entirely in bed, I would. I love when I have to dress myself under blankets because the bedroom air is still too cold from night.
I took the bus downtown and thought more about how with each year my resolve to never drive strengthens. I ate and shopped alone. I took the long way to every store because I could. And in the evening found a coffee shop to drink cold tea at. I love cold tea almost as much as hot tea.
And now, I'm telling you.

[I don't mind]

I have been considering telling you everything. But where would the mystique be?
maybe I should stick with what doesn't give you a thing because this doesn't, none of this does. I could go on all day about how this rash on my foot, my left foot, is finally gone- after 6 years it just left for no reason and it fills me with this hollow happiness.
Although there isn't much mystique. I can recognize that. You get the sadness and the every day in between. It isn't much.
Maybe I am already saying everything. But I don't mean to. I'm just, I'm stuck in this place and I couldn't tell you for the life of me what it is.

[But Abraham Lincoln was the great emancipator]

On Friday night we bought a new throw-rug for the living room. We'd been eyeing this one specific brown shag for a while and it went on sale so we snatched it up. Here's the thing with fresh shag though, apparently it sheds, a lot, even after you give it a few vacuums. Party on Saturday night = brown fuzzies everywhere.

The party was a success, I think. I baked two apple pies, fluffy white cupcakes with pink cream cheese frosting, samosas, savory chicken crescents, and pinwheel sandwiches. We have all (martha, tyler, me) done very little drinking in the last several months. Especially me. I don't know why but there you go: I was trashed by 9pm and in bed by 11.30, because you see- I am WILD. Three beers and two cocktails. Apparently I also forgot how to pace myself. And how to eat. I was stressed about everything coming together and the house being ready and people were showing up all day earlier and I didn't know why. I took two crying breaks while cooking. And each time Tyler would see and follow me into the bedroom and lie next to me and kiss my cheek and tell me things were okay. I'd breathe carefully a lot and then go back to getting everything ready. I forgot to eat or drink anything. while drunk I was extra in love with everyone and everything. I probably would have made out with everyone just so they would have understood how much I loved them. Thank goodness everyone else seemed to be less drunk, except tyler, who did put his tongue down my throat but that's good stuff.

I was so sick all yesterday, and have called in sick to work today. I am not as sick today but happen to feel a million times too depressed to do anything. So I'm not going to. And I may call in all week. Maybe I should just quit and be melancholy in bed for a few months. I can think of very little better right now. Or at least indulgent. I am too depressed to do a thing and at this point I'd rather give in than blindly fight. We'll see. It is all heaviness and I am sick of writing about it. or thinking about it. Or feeling it, for that matter.

I bought a gym membership a month ago and have only gone once. Clearly I think wasting money is a lot of fun. Also, that everything there is too triggering for me. I want to take pointe again. Oh, I'm just going on now....

[you'd think after 22 years I'd be used to the spin]

Today is my half birthday. 22 and one half. Exactly I think. I know I was born between 1 and 2am. So, there you are. And here I am.
Mid-wives and soggy rain in a small house. But it's August and nothing is like that.

Tomorrow is a big birthday party for friends. I am going to bake things and wear a red 50's cocktail dress. I think that's all I know right now. Everything else could go any which way, as things tend to go.

I am wondering lately, when everything is going to stop?

[Saturday]

I'm just saying that on a random Saturday night I sometimes like to go out. Especially when I am too warm and antsy; it has been a while since I've really gotten dolled up. All our friends have babies now though, who goes out on a whim at midnight? me, but I guess that's it. Tyler's at work and I am bored. I am also extra down lately. I thought going out alone today might help but it may have made things worse.

I wish David Bazan would come home soon and play a show. I know it might sound silly but I feel like every time I see him play it changes my life. And he hasn't played a local show in a while. I don't like having to wait more than four months. I am sure he is not everything, clearly but I feel like it is another one of those small very important things/moments that help me remain clear and hopeful. I have been on youtube almost daily pretending to be right there, it is not the same but it definitely helps.

[Friday]

I don't really have anything to say.
I am so ready for fall. I want September and October, over and over.
Work is warm, I would quit if I knew where to go next.
I'd rather not be working.
I'd rather be painting and sewing and colouring and writing poetry;
Can I get paid for that?

A mosquito bit my arm pit. the whole thing is swollen and gross.
Have I told you that I am so done with summer? Were there twice as much
camping with beer, maybe things would hold better
but they do not because there is only once as much.

[what is driving me crazy; in parts:]

Let's stick to basics though. No literal craziness, that is less interesting and more sad.

My back for one. And joints while we're on the subject of insides. I've just starting taking glucosamine though and am desperately looking forward to its benefits. I feel like an old achey woman with these hips and other such joints. I am also 80% sure that I have some sort of glucose intolerance since I pretty much want to die after eating anything. I've never had my food allergies tested but my mom and I are both pretty sure this may be another one. My previous doctor thought it was probably just psychological after effects from said eating disorder. guilt nausea and such. But I know that years of anorexia ruins bodies, and minds are wild things that can force food allergies all on their own. Either way, I just want to feel less physically shitty after eating. I want to feel good about foods other than rice and salad, all the time.

More importantly however, I'm sick to death of being a woman in current-day society. I am sick of catcalls and not being able to go to the grocery store without some man making rude comments to me. And I am even more disgusted that men seem to think I should take all this as a compliment- like they are doing me a fucking favour.

I don't drive which means I do a lot of walking and busing. This unfortunately also means that I am constantly being hollered at from cars, having men pull over and say whatever to me, and having men who are also walking make remarks and/or follow me around. I am not a sex object. I hate having to worry when I go out if I look to provocative. It's 90 degrees lately, I want to wear a tank top with my large breasts and not worry about you staring at them or thinking that my breasts imply that I'm Soooo easy. Most of the time though, it doesn't matter at all what I'm wearing. It is simply that fact that I'm a woman- I'm just inviting this sort of shit, aren't I? I have hips and a vagina so clearly I need you to harass me because I'm just looking for a reason to get in your pants.

Last week one of my co-worker's was letting me know that a former manager has become a new regional manager. Upon this promotion she met with our manager and told her that she thought, with the exception of the manager and the morning girl, that our coffee stand is the 'ugly stand' and that us girls are all ugly, fat, and gross. She also told her that she thought my manager should fire us and hire 'hot girls', like the stand she managed. When my co-worker told me this I was beyond furious. I wanted to cry. I was SO angry. I don't even care that she thinks we're ugly, fuck that, whatever... the 'hot girls' at her stand dress slutty and are all cookie-cutter tan, bleach blond, thinnish girls and I don't find that attractive. So, whatever. What really upsets me is that she's been promoted and clearly feels comfortable telling managers that this is the sort of business that her and upper-management want to run. I was under the impression when I was hired that our company's main emphasis was on quality coffee and good customer service. Not half-naked women who were 'hot.' My co-worker then went on to tell me that when girls apply at Regional Manager's stand, she has her employees write a sad face on the application when the girl is 'ugly' and a happy face when the girl is 'hot' --if the app. has a sad face, the applicant is never called. I want to quit. Even if my manager doesn't enforce this sort of thought, the idea of working for a company that does, makes me feel sick.

I have started getting more and more men at my work who think that because there are so many 'bikini barista stands' etc, that they can be completely disrespectful to me. It's mostly small, subtle things. A lot of the men that are straight up sleazy would probably be like that regardless of anything. Having worked in a different area, without the slutty stands near by, and in the last few months the growth of these stands, it is phenomenal the way we are being treated differently. It's like, they think because we are a drive-thru coffee place, that we are all the same and want to be treated like sex objects.

I want to work and live some where that values me as an individual more often than not. I want to make really great coffee for a company that expects me to be genuine and kind and good at what I do. I don't feel like these are unrealistic hopes for myself. It makes me so crazy and so defeated feeling living and working here. I hate it and I know that I deserve better but I don't feel like anyone is going to change.

[Take your pick from a jelly-roll jamboree]

Last October when I got married, I asked my mom if she would give me cookbooks. I love cooking and a baking and thought that part of our first year married could be about discovering all sorts of tasty things while I learned to hone my kitchen skills. And how silly it has been: powder sugar bags melting on burners and then covering the kitchen in confectionery snow, cookies without flour, splenda in desserts (ahh!), vegan roasts, excessive amounts of cinnamon rolls, pizza dough, and warm breads. The cooking goes on and on. It has been a delicious 9 months.

One of the cook books my mom gave me was a 1960 Better Homes and Gardens Dessert Cook Book. It is filled with over 400 'all time favourites' and 'exciting new desserts' --which is true, very exciting, very favourite. I wish I'd taken photos of every dessert I'd made from this book. Each better than the last. What is possibly better than the recipes themselves are the little illustrations periodically found within:

In nearly every illustration there is this either a dark haired woman or this blond haired woman:

Apparently women only came in two types in the 60's. I believe that. Better than that though, is with the exception of maybe two pictures, there is at least one child helping cook. I find these illustrations sweet. When I first saw the blond wife (I'm assuming she's married, there's never a husband in the pictures but would she dare be a single mother in the 60's? ... perhaps) I thought- that's me! I too wear little cute dresses and flowery aprons when I bake. Okay, so maybe less on the dresses but my aprons are very lovely and I often wear pearls or kitten heals. And I definitely wear pink bows in my hair (it's true, ask Martha).

So, I have been thinking that I sort of want to get this little blond woman, this wife, mother, and presumably queen of the kitchen (and probably house) tattooed on me somewhere. The photo above is my favourite of her. Jelly-rolling in all her glory. Plus, this is me. Last night I made Tyler a casserole at 3am. I've forever made cookies and pies and cakes per request at all hours. I love it. I love the process and result as well as creating something scrumptious for someone I love. The hour of the baking seems to only emphasise my dedication, right? Sometimes I am half asleep. sometimes I am not. It doesn't matter, it is always welcome and fun.

For the upcoming Birthday weekend of Martha, Josh, and Jesse (with a 1950's theme) I am so far planning on baking a cake I found in this months Bon Appetit (subscribed for me as a wedding present from someone anonymous who must love me).

Even if mine doesn't look as good it will taste better.

[warm ramblings}

It is hot and I am dizzy from not eating. I should eat something but I am sticky and lethargic. I'll have to cook something and hot anything seems awful in combination with the sun. I've been trying to create some sort of wind tunnel involving fans and windows but with this humidity it is nearly pointless. I would also like to have sex but for these same reasons I am instead melting on a couch in front of a computer. Maybe wind tunnel sex? That seems complicated considering the 'wind tunnel' only really covers a couple feet.

I cannot wait for fall. Have I told you of my dislike for summer? It's the authentic heat that does it. I am a true lover of artificial heat. Blankets and heaters and cocoa. It's just, one can only get so naked.... even if I could remove my skin, I'm not sure it'd be enough. I've taken to walking around the house in undies and a bra. I'm not sure my weird neighbors mind or even notice. Tyler thinks they peak through their kitchen window into our kitchen window while I'm washing dishes in my bra and cooking in nothing but an apron. But I don't think they care. I think they're busy doing their own cooking in their own nudity.

I promise I will not stop whining about the weather until is the beginning of September. Just you wait and see.

[let it sink in]

I have this tendency to assume that everyone knows the same things as me. I don't know if it's a narcissistic thing or if I just believe that I don't know very much so everyone must already know what I know. Either way, I am constantly surprised in conversation when I make some sort of reference and this other person hasn't a clue what I'm talking about. I make this assumption with experiences too. I haven't done anything interesting so surely you've experienced all my boring things, right? I think it makes me come off as bitchy, or like I think I'm superior. It trips up great conversation. I am aware that I don't know anything generally, that others know. You'd think this would go both ways.
Do you do this too?

Something at work reminded me and now I've gone and forgotten a prime example.
I have to wake up in a few hours to be on a buses for three. I can't wait to be car sick. soon Edmonds though, and that is always nice.