I BELIEVE....in Netflix Instant

Today I'm glad I didn't post yesterday because it would have been an emotional spewage of worry and apathy and the like. Although the office at which I'm interning is the most laid back possible arrangement of kind people and moderate work, it still causes me stress. Yesterday I felt stressed and with so much time spent making spreadsheets, my mind wandered too far. Usually, it wanders down dark paths, where images of myself as a homeless, careerless, loser blur reality and reasonableness like getting dosed in the face with pepper spray (I imagine). So, yesterday was not a good day for expressing myself because it would have been a depressing mess like the doldrums in The Phantom Tollbooth...sucking everbody and everything down into apathetic, oozy, nothingness.

Instead I escaped into my safe place: Netflix Instant & unhealthy food (this time, noodles, doritos, and half a Skors bar...today that sounds disgusting)

And so, I gave up my evening to the X-files and the lovable duo of Dana Scully and Fox Mulder and their delicious sexual tension. When I first revisited the X-files this past semester, I invited a friend to watch it with me and we played a drinking game where we'd drink at every awkward sexually-charged/suggestive interaction between Scully and Mulder. Suffice it to say, we got drunk. Not as drunk as all the times I've played the Big Lebowski drinking game where you ingest alcohol at each "dude" or version of the word "dude". Let's just say I still haven't gotten to the end of that movie.

Anyway, mixed feelings come in about watching shows and series because I know so many people who don't know about anything else except their tv-lives. What I mean by that is that lots of people spend their time focusing their attention and building knowledge about fake stories and getting attached to fake characters and developing big, fake perceptions of relationships/events/violence/sex, etc. But, shit, I can't think of anything better than sucking drama in through my face when the drama is detached from me. When all I need is a reason NOT to have to focus on my life there's no amount of "going to the gym" or "taking a walk" or "taking a bubble bath" that will cleanse me of my sins and anxieties like eating nachos/sandwiches/spaghetti/whatever and watching Dexter, the X-files, Twin Peaks, The Office, 30 rock, etc.

Of course, the other issue is that I am not even good at being one of those tv/pop-culture nerds. People who really love shows and tv can always remember actors' names and details and can watch the show over and over again. I lack that type of attention to detail (although in other areas of my life, detail is huge) because I am rather a get-caught-up-in-the-plot-then-reach-a-climax-then-lose-interest kind of movie/show watcher (and incidentally, the same thing happens when I read books, which is why Anna Karenina is glaring at me, unfinished, from the book shelf)...(and incidently, the same applies to my recent relationships).

I love getting to the next, to the next, to the next episode/part/page. I love the tumbling sensation of accelerating emotional/action moments which is why, I cannot stress enough, the new Karate Kid with Jaden Smith absolute ripped my heart into shreds (in a good way). So, it's hard for me to remember quotes or watch things over again beacause the whole passionate part is gone. The same does not apply to movies for some reason.

So. although I'm an avid series watcher, I'm no expert. Many shows, like Lost, suffer the fate of not keeping up with my desire for blood/tears/the "next" thing or get too long winded and then I just drop them forever, never to return. Sorry, Lost. Sorry, Curb your Enthusiasm.

Sorry, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (I loved you for so long, why did you have to start trying too hard?)

Although, of course, many shows I become addicted to are very long-winded but because I've fallen madly in love with pretty much all the characters, or just the general feel of the show, I keep watching. And becasue I'm already writing this entry at work instead of...making spread sheets, I might as well indulge in a random oozing of girlish love at this random set of hot agents/law enforcement/detectives/main characters that have been fluttering in and out of my thoughts as I avoid thinking about my future or the empty wallet that keeps haunting me:

1) Agent Cooper of Twin Peaks. Truly, my first series love and still the sweetest of them all.

2: Agent Fox Mulder. Enthusiastic, flighty, crazy, moody, suspicious, loves dark and mysterious things...basically, my soul's counterpart. Also, hot.

3: Dexter Morgan, he doesn't "fit in" and feels like he has to pretend with people all the time. I identify with that. He incidently also kills people, whatev. My most recent crush, and wow, I fell hard for this one.

The one I can't wait to fall in love with:

Jonathan Ames of Bored to Death. How will I watch this? This may be one of my goals...to get a tv (maybe Netflix ISN'T ENOUGH, GASP!?). Which means I have to get my own apartment in which to fit my tv, right?. And...I can only afford an apartment in the south! Boom, decision made about my future. See? That's much easier a future to work towards than the whole job/boyfriend nonsense. Thanks, Jason Schwarztman for coing to my rescue again.

So, after yoga and some frozen yogurt tonight (it's one of those "healthy days") I will blissfully let Agent Mulder drug me with alien conspiracy theories. Even abductions where they test you with those razor drills sounds better than facing my resume right now.

Holla, the talent of television.

Couldn't be a better/worse day

This all started when I, confronted at work with having to practice "customer service" skills when faced with awkward interactions, suggested to a man he should try all the egg cream flavors we have at The Candy Shop and make a blog about it. This was meant to be a wry joke that would end all further conversation since there's about 15 flavors you can choose from, and egg creams are weird anyway. Unfortunately, instead this led to a conversation about "do you have a blog? why don't you have a blog? what do you mean you have nothing to say?" etc.

So, feeling a sense of fateful urgency, I'm making this blog to prove to this egg cream man I may never see again that I do have something/nothing to say. Of course the problem is, is that I have an awful lot to say but everything I have an opinion about has all sorts of positive and negative aspects, few of which are enlightening or memorable. Not that I think it's unusual to have varying opinons. Nor is it unusual to approach life with the "pros & cons" list immediately tallied in one's brain...but sometimes even I am amazed/disgusted by just how quickly I can see-saw from gloomy to oozing-love-at-everything.

To keep the first blog short and interesting I will briefly describe today's mixed-review feelings:

About my future: Stay in New York or move back home?

Plus side of staying in New York:

1)Falafel

2) All bands will inevitably play here

3) Interesting shit happens. After work I stopped at an Italian restaurant/bar in St.Marks just so as to delay the routine homeward bound subway ride. Here, I got an extremely strong whiskey drink, met a nice couple who chatted with me about the cost of living in new york (the girl had tiny hands!), and a waiter with sketchy intentions brought me a free plate of decadent chocolate-dipped strawberries with whipped cream. My love-at-everything feeling sky rocketed.

(pic taken at the 23rd street station (C train))

Down-side

1) The inescapable smelliness of people on public transit

2) Trendy people making you feel fat and unfashionable

3) When you're poor, you can't do all the fun things available to you

4) The lack of real nature

Going home (The south- where everything's gentle)

Pros:

1) False friendliness that lulls you into false sense of security...mmm

2) Driving long distances with music and enjoying spooky forests and fireflies and such

3) Family

Cons:

1) Family

2) Confederate Flags

3) Too many fat Christians

That's all for now.

Let's see what I feel like tomorrow...will it be a mostly pro day or a mostly con day? Or balanced (gasp!)?