Monday, Mar. 10, 2003 / 9:52 p.m.

~Searching For Normalcy Amidst the Oddness of the Day~

I've gone just a little banner/button crazy lately, so be sure to scroll all the way down the page to see them all. And please, click on some! Or all of them! You won't be disappointed. And if you are, I'm sure you'll tell me.

I've got the Marry Me, America show on in the living room, only because, I don't know. I was flipping, there's essentially nothing on, but this day already feels really weird, so I've got to have something on, as a sort of comfort factor. The young, anti-Corporate America, anti-Television, anti-Society people wouldn't understand, but those of us born at the tail end of the Baby Boomer Generation grew up with TV, and to a lot of us TV is comforting. Thus, I've walked in and seen strangers propose to strangers, and it's kind of fun.

Looks like 'America' chose the French guy, Xavier, to marry the woman from Atlanta. Cool. I guess from here on out they follow these 'couples' around, see how they're relating, give them five weeks to actually get married. How very strange.

But I'm here now.

I slept way too late today, and ever since I got out of bed I only wanted to lie down. I was tired, I was without a schedule, without the ability to make anything happen, not that there wasn't motivation, not that there weren't goals, desires, but it was hard, awfully hard to do anything.

I finally took a shower and washed my hair and decided to get something to eat, McDonald's junk food, then come back home, then go back out to a bookstore to look at computer books.

Or go to the movies, to see "Chicago", but I didn't really want to sit through a movie. I couldn't decide on anything. It was horrible, but I was dead set on leaving, at least for food, then the rest would fall into place.

I walked down the stairs, saw my downstairs neighbor talking to some white guy, which is always weird, to see white people here, but I said Hello and got in my car and he came up knocking on the side of my car, told me I had a flat. What?

And he offered to change it. A young woman sat on the back of a car watching all of this, and I turned to ask her if she was with him, waiting for him, Yes, and I told her what a good man he is, Yes, she knows, he is always helping people with their cars.

He says he likes to hang out in the parking lot, to meet neighbors, he lives here with his sister. He told me he is from the Country, from Alabama, asked me if I'm from here, told me there is overpopulation here, people live too close together, and he likes to work on cars, and he must loosen the lug nuts with the car on the ground before he jacks it and isn't there a wheel lock, right, I forgot. He put on my spare, talking the whole time, calling me "Ma'am" until I told him that makes me feel old, and he asked how old I am, if I don't mind saying, No, I don't mind saying, I'm 42 next month, "Oh, that's young!", he says.

It was quick and I drove right down the street, literally, right down the street, to Firestone and asked if they could fix it. Just a little while watching "Oprah" in the waiting room, then listening to the woman with the baby in the carriage, and the little girl, talking on the cell phone, talking to her husband, describing the punishment she's inflicting upon the little girl, for not 'focusing' in school. No TV, no VCR, no DVDs, no Playstation, she's taking all those games she bought her for Christmas back to the store, she's buying something SHE wants to play.

She put the little girl on the phone with the DAD, the little girl could barely get out, "Yes. Yes. Yes.", and a few more. I felt so sorry for her. It seemed so severe, whatever was going on. Meanwhile the baby with the big fat cheeks and the very dry skin slept like a rock in the carriage, soft snores emanating.

The tire had 'cracks' on the inside sidewall, one that finally split open. How very peculiar. And I should've taken it, the tire, to Sears, which is where I bought it less than 2 1/2 years ago, but Firestone is just down the street, literally, remember? I'm so bad at being responsible, at being a grownup, a car owner. I hate stuff like that. Car repairs. Apartment leases. Broken appliances. I just don't handle things well.

But I did, I mean I did, it's fine. I was lucky, so very lucky, I told Caroline, she's read all this already, via email, today. But I was. What were the chances of getting in my car and having some young guy there who wants to help me, right THERE?! Like he was sent to help me. It was great, but I was SO out of it, I was SO groggy tired from dreams of having to feed mice to kangaroos, but the mice were happy with their plastic eggs, and then the guys in the band who were going to start their own restaurant and I was dating one of them, and I was feeling selfish, like this would take him away from me, all his time would be in this restaurant, this was a disaster. I slept way too long.

New tire. New cheap tire with road hazard protection, spare thrown willy nilly back in the car, I must correct it tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.

But tonight, after it all, after I went to McD's and got really bad food, really good food that is bad for me, and ate, I went back out, I went Targeting, and I shopped impulsively and I am happy with my purchases, they're fun and colorful and semi-unique. I want to carry around my new purse with the beads and the picture of the elephant, the man riding atop, the big red flowers in the foreground and beads at their centers.

And I actually have Hello Kitty shower curtain hooks now, because Hello Kitty is Japanese, and funky Japanese kittys are cool, Hello Kitty rocks.

And scented candles, the kind with three different layers, in really neat frangrances, colors. Fun. And new pajamas and underwear, and pajama pants too, separate, yellow with blue outlined flowers. I don't mind, any of it, I don't mind having spent money, there is no buyer's remorse in this, it felt like it had to happen. Not that purchasing things I don't need is all that could make me feel good, but that purchasing things that make me feel good is a good thing.

No justification, just observing the shopping phenomenon firsthand. It's not the norm for me, not anymore. There was a time when I shopped for the sake of shopping, but it's been years, I put it behind me when I ran out of money.

Fuck Bush, Fuck the Economy, the WAR, I wanted to buy a silk beaded covered journal to write in. Why the hell not?

And I bought a new tire, but I had to. It's okay.

And really, I hope I buy fruits and veggies and whole grains and organic things tomorrow. And I hope I cook, I hope I don't have to go out for food, I hope I have to go no further than my own kitchen. The luxury.

Now that the weirdness is out of the way, I can lie down as I wanted. And I need to have a cat or two on my lap, they need that too. They're just as out of sorts as I am. Maybe we'll watch "Guiding Light"s on tape, what could be more normal?

Gladys' ears are twisted backwards, she turns them when I stop typing. The other day she was on my lap and I closed the folds of one ear with my fingers, said, "Can you hear me now?" and it made me laugh. That phrase is now a part of pop culture, just like, "Where's the Beef?" and "I've fallen and I can't get up", which indicates some brilliant ad work on the part of some agency.

Guess I'll go be normal now, it's about that time.

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