The hour badly spent

livejournaley, hell is other people, everything old is new again, word vomit, cherry bomb, winter of our discontent, epistolary, facebook, sonnet 30, losing friends and alienating people, modern romance, saucy aussie, tmi, blogsome nymphet, passive-aggressive notes, hipsters can't love, this blog is not deadAugust 25, 2008 1:14 pm

I knew, after our talk, during Friday’s annoyingly poetic thunderstorm, that eventually you would get bored or curious and click on that link (I don’t mind that anyone finds it; it’s right out there in the open on my Facebook profile). Then you would read back and see "how I really felt," how childish and petty I really was, how prostrating and selfish I really was, how arrogant and judgemental I really was, how lonely and bitter and embarrassed I really was, but mostly how drunk I really was.

So I knew you would find The Hour Badly Spent and that you would tear through all those posts, and I thought of how easy it would be to just make them private, but then why did I put them there in the first place? Also: I am extremely lazy, so much so that I can’t even be bothered with extra mouse clicks. Also: it’s not really a big deal anyway. Nobody reads this shit except for a few people to whom I’ve given obnoxious nicknames [ed. note: I’m tired of trying to amuse my readers — all 3 of them — with with creative monikers. We’ll be on a first name basis. Except for Professor Potts and Doctor Dodd, because that sounds like they teach at Hogwarts. And Doctor Hately. She went on and on about how hard she studied for that title, la dee da, and if the rest of us don’t damn well recognize or whatever, she is not afraid to shank us. Then she downed a shot of Vegemite with horseradish and yelled "Huzzah, beehotch!" at Princess Glitter Bunny, which was utterly terrifying but also kind of hot*].

This stupid blog was not meant to be some sort of cudgel. So, about all those verbal swipes; umm, my bad. Skimming back through them, I’m actually terribly embarrassed. They weren’t really about you; they were about me: a tabloidey chronicle of what the f, exactly, I am doing here, because otherwise I’ll forget. And if now, I am sometimes disturbingly quiet, it is not because of you or any you-and-me stuff. I had a pretty bad summer, during which I made a terrible mistake and now I’m a thousand miles away and cannot fix it. I don’t mean to play the mystery man but I also really don’t want to talk about it. However, it’s on my mind a lot, and at times it will make me kind of withdrawn and surly until I can think of a witty declaration of some sort, which will usually come in the form of a Russian reversal ("In Russia, declaration think of YOU!"), because those are cheap and easy. Everybody knows how I feel about cheap and easy.

Anyway. So. Not to be all "the only emperor is the emperor of ice cream" over this but it really is all kind of old. A month in blog time is like two years of reality. I’ve aged TEN YEARS since, you know, back then. Which makes me forty-fucking-six. And not to diminish what happened, either, because we did, in fact, have a good time.

It was a good time because you took me to Lawrence in the winter, which was beautiful and white everywhere, and to that party full of Lawrence hipsters — who are much better than Manhattan hipsters because in Lawrence their dresses are smaller. It was a good time because of that morning we laughed together for five straight hours, even though I know you are not that funny and neither am I. It was a good time because we drank way too much and spent nights together and all that other stuff, and perhaps there was just not enough "other stuff" but whatever; you get the point.

Let this be the last of these pretentious livejournal-ish rants of mine. And I’ll try to cool it on the Sonnet 30 references. The Collegian is out! Let’s go make fun of it. And maybe while I’m at it I’ll write more coherently.


*This never actually happened. But it definitely should have because isn’t it awesome? Plus you can totally picture it.

livejournaley, facebook, losing friends and alienating people, grey lady, parting is such sweet sorrow, fond farewellsJuly 15, 2008 3:12 pm

Right before Grey Lady, friend of this blog, left Facebook earlier this week, she poked me one last farewell.
Can't poke back!

See how it just hangs there all half-done, no "poke back" option? It’s the three-legged puppy of Facebook pokes. And much like a dog needing extra love, I will cherish it forever and never click remove, partly because I’ve got such a big heart, but mostly because my intertubes haven’t been working so well lately and I can’t get online much, so why waste valuable bandwidth on that? I know: I’m a terrible Facebook friend! And a bad blogger! And an awful person! But here’s the kicker:

 Ghosts in the machine

She left a message on my wall, but since she termed her account, the comment’s gone and I’ll never know what it is. Ahem, was. It would be irresponsible of me to speculate as to its content. Nevertheless, I’m going to assume it was pithy, clever, and saucy, and probably makes me look bad — which is not difficult, so I guess it’s for the best that no one can read it.

not afraid to be servicey, facebook, charts & graphs, losing friends and alienating people, modern romance, long hard equation, editorial 'we', we are not amusedMay 13, 2008 2:33 pm

We just found a new way to stalk you on Facebook. And "you" know exactly who we mean, COUGHCOUGH*sexycommunistspy*COUGHCOUGHCOUGH. Apparently, if you go to the search box and hit the [down] key update: hit the [period] key — Gawker.com), you get a list of five people. Who are they? The following prowlerey theories are circulating.

  • five people you’ve searched for the most.
  • five people who have searched for you the most.
  • five most recent people who have searched for you. Juicy! (we probably show up for The Grey Lady, Saucy Aussie, Princess Glitter Bunny, and Atomic Fireball Candy, and that girl you all thought we would hook up with the other night but didn’t. Did we leave anyone out?).
  • five people Facebook thinks you like. We could be wrong, but based on some tinkering and some guesswork, we think they use the following snippet of basic fucking arithmetic to figure this out:

Of course, that’s pure speculation. Just, umm, make sure you throw (= 5) somewhere up in there. Calculus is whatever we want it to be.

Go ahead and scope out ours, just for shits and giggles.

 

Who’s in your five?

livejournaley, hell is other people, everything old is new again, cherry bomb, pretentious literary douchebag, epistolary, hippies don't lie, sexy communist spy, freckle fetish, making passes at girls with glasses, oversharing, apology of sorts, losing friends and alienating people, modern romanceMarch 31, 2008 12:57 am

You somehow managed to hail mary right over my trenchant social analyses and hone in on the *other* posts. Those in which I invoke defense mechanisms and feed my delusions of grandeur with alcohol; the posts in which I am pompous, childish, desperate and whiney; petty, self-indulgent, shallow, obnoxious, and worst of all, too prolix (my bad). And in so doing you found that secret thing which unravelled me. Umm, sorry about that whole business, by the way.

And what, exactly, was it? That business?

Yes, there was a party, months ago.

She noticed me. Asked me questions. Got my jokes, even the sly, insiderey one I threw out just to see if anybody was listening. And yes, whatever, I know it was mind-numbingly awful, just like 95% of my "jokes."

Where’d my drink go?
Oh, was that yours, on the table? I finished it off. Forgive me. It was delicious; so sweet, and so cold.
I know what you’re talking about, she said, looking right at me.
Do you now? I tilted my head.

So yeah, I was weak and lonely and stupid (some things never change). One night there was a conversation. And promises.

And then, another night, she visited. Said all the right things. The sort of things you secretly always wanted someone to say to you? Those. "But how did she know?" I wondered afterward, dazed and smiling idiotically.

We partied in Lawrence one night. She invited me over some more; parties, get-togethers, studying, until by and by she didn’t. Then it was all missed phone calls, all sorts of excuses not to make dates, and then all of nothing.

As time wore on and the thing ran its course, I grew more ashamed angrier and angrier still with myself. I withdrew, even despite your kind efforts. Yours too, Sexy Communist Spy. Again, my bad.

 

In hindsight, this experience has helped me decide on something of great social imprtance which I’ve been mulling over for some time; I will no longer hit on any women under 40.

Except Dessa, of course.