long in the making

wednesday will begin a new era in my life. and it's going to change EVERYTHING.

it's a slow day

i was out of the office tuesday afternoon as well as all of yesterday on account of me being sick, but even though i don't feel in tip-top shape i dragged myself into work today. when i got here, bethany (my supervisor) told me it would a slow day, and lo and behold she was right. of course, there's always filing to do. but that involves getting up and trudging the necessary 5 paces to the filing cabinets, and frankly i don't feel well enough to stand up. oh, and i fielded a phone call from a cranky old woman in california who was sick of us flooding her mailbox. and since m.k. is at the outer banks until tues., i'm gonna have to create the high donor report for today, even though i haven't ever done one by myself, so i guess that will give me yet another opportunity to fuck things up. i also need to go pick up my macbook from gw. sure, it's fixed, but they had to replace the hard drive, and nothing from my old hard drive could be recovered which means i've got NOTHING. none of the old essays or papers i've written. none of my old music (though i suppose there's a way to transfer it from my ipod onto my comp.). NO-fuckin'-THING. i thought i'd be fine not backing things up (mainly because i didn't know how, lol) because i don't have anything THAT valuable on my comp., but now i'm actually pretty pissed that everything's gone. my papers, my movies, the short story i was working on. all gone.

i guess it doesn't really matter, anyway. like i said, i didn't have anything of that much value on my comp. i don't know. i guess i'm just ready for school to start back up again. i miss seeing my friends on an everyday basis. i miss having something to do during the evenings, even if it is agonizingly frustrating homework. i miss dating someone who actually cares about me. i miss not having to worry about not having weekend plans. i miss §.

i hope i'll remember all of this when i'm back in school in the fall.

almost a month into my internship? wtf?

i realized today that i haven't really written anything specific about my internship. in summary, i love it, even though i am COMPLETELY incompetent. i know that's not a smart thing to post on the internet where potential future employers could read this, but it's true. all of the other interns are either upperclassmen or grad students, and they all go to big name schools like duke, michigan, columbia, etc. in truth, while i'm completely capable of solving the arduous and complex tasks they dole out to me, it's the simple tasks that i seem to utterly fail at. like mailing things. leave it to me to fuck up folding, stuffing, and sticking a label and a stamp on the envelope. i also got bitched at last week by the head of the finance dept. for leaving some checks out on someone's desk. i should have known better, especially after 2+ years of cash handling experience.

i intern for an organization called the league of conservation voters. for being a non-profit lobbyist group, it actually has quite an impressive record. i work in the development department, so i actually play witness to the tens of thousands (!) of dollars that we accumulate DAILY. it's also so exciting playing a part in politics (albeit a minimal one) what with the upcoming election. i have seen senators kerry and liberman speak, and last week i actually got to MEET senators boxer and feinstein!! that was a really meaningful and special experience that somehow made the weeks of bitch work and upsetness over my personal failures worthwhile. for all the problems that california has, those women have actually done a fantastic job presiding over the golden state.

the people i work with are all actually very chill. there is one other intern in my department, named m.k., she goes to duke (obviously!) but she's been nice to me even though she's 5278536x more capable than me. most of the staff members in my department have been friendly toward me as well. i also am friends w/ some of the interns in the other departments, but i don't really know the staff members.

i actually think i might be the only intern who will be there past the summer. i think it will be mad exciting participating in american politics during the election season, though hopefully my competence will augment in the meanwhile. :)

as for the rest of my life... living in college park car-less is like living in the san fernando valley car-less! well, maybe not THAT bad, and certainly not as bad as living in ventura county car-less, but it really is a pain living 45 (!) minutes away from my office in farragut square. as much as i love the metro, wmata needs to get a grip on things. i think it could take a page out of the book of the nyc subway system, as far as multiple tracks, express lines, and flat fares go.

my apartment is always messy. not as bad as my dorm was, but not up to my mother's standards either. kieran hangs out in the apartment a lot, but i myself avoid the trap of the college park bubble as if it were the plague. erin and yvette are usually at their families' homes in montgomery county (them richers!! jk... well, not really.). i'm also trying to learn how to cook. it's been rather unsuccessful.

i'm seeing my friends now more so than i did at first. i went to lisa's house in bethesda last night for a party and saw a.whit, patty, kaitlin and some other folks. that being said, i miss the camaraderie of thurston and long for the days that i could go into the room next door and see joanna and nords... :(

well, i think that's a pretty comprehensive report. i'm about to go out now. i find that if i sit in this apartment for too long, i get very depressed. and if i get depressed, then i write very emo blog posts. and NONE of us want that. ;)

a special shout-out to the infamous §. baby, i miss you so much. i know this has been a bad week for you, but know that my great gay spirit, like the humidity of south florida that you are so sorely used to, will always surround you.

a post written from joe's apartment

so i'm spending the night at jdhenchman's apartment and he says he wants me to write a new blog entry. holy shit, someone actually READS this thing???

i've also been perusing some of my old entries, god am i a moody s.o.b. for the 3 of you who read this, i don't know how you can stand it OR me.

anyway, nothing new to report. the internship is going well, i suppose, even though i'm not very good at it. i decided not to take that class through smc, only because i couldn't figure out how to register for it. sigh. whatever, i'm already like 21 credits ahead so i'm not TERRIBLY worried about having not matriculated. lol.

it's been raining a lot. i like it.

i still find my evenings primarily devoid of any activity, especially now that my macbook has DIED and i can't work on the quasi-story i've been writing (or update my blog..... heh heh). took it to sts today though, they say they can probs fix it. whoopie.

i'll try to write more even though i never have anything to say.

revenge of the homicidal weather patterns

despite the sheer awesomeness that was today, i've decided that i'm eating my words now when i said before that i could handle ANY weather. that was before it got so humid and sticky that my jeans have started sticking to my ass.

what i did after work today

why do i even bother going to the gym? it never has a lasting physical effect on me.

other than that, i've spent the last 4 hours in a room with kieran doing nothing. i need a life. my mom told me i should join a social club. do those even exist anymore???

i'm also thinking about taking a class online thru santa monica college since (a) i'd qualify for in-state tuition and (b) they offer a lot of classes online during the summer.

finally, i'm no longer going to nyc this weekend. poopie.

musings on rebecca (spoilers!)

having just finished my book, rebecca by daphne du maurier, has given me plenty to dwell upon, especially that pertaining to the subject of punishment. even after her untimely death, the title character continues to torment her surviving husband maxim, and in turn his new bride, the unnamed title character. rebecca punishes the new couple by driving a stake in their marriage, by creating chaos in their lives, and as the first chapter of the novel suggests, by forcing them into exile. even after her death, she has control over their lives, and late in the novel it is even suggested toward the end of the novel that she manipulated her husband into murdering her.

more than often, however, the punisher feels repercussions to their doling punishment:

betty: "you know we don’t talk to him. that's part of his punishment."
matthew: "how can you just sit here hour after hour and listen to that?"
betty: "well, that's part of mine."
— desperate housewives, episode 2.02

i suppose that's what i'm feeling right now. trapped in my tiny room in my tiny apartment in this tiny state. regretting so many of my actions from the previous week, when all i wanted to do was to get back at you. now i'm alone here and i'm realizing that in this way you got exactly what you wanted all along.

fuck you.

i wish i could go back to the days in which i was an intellectual. a bohemian. a believer in rationality. an enlightened and content individual. not one who is trapped midway between the punishing and the punishment. i think about this when i'm at work. i talk about this when i'm with my friends. it consumes my life.

and i want out.

i'm giving up the last of my remaining vices. i want to be known for my successful career, for my advanced educational level, for my strong network of friends and coworkers. i don't want to be known as someone who resembles a character from a queer soap opera.

and right now, i'm neglecting the rest of my life. i'm no longer healthy. i am weak. and i brought it onto myself.