hannah's soul is the overweight man in old navy wearing both a blue tooth and a gray t-shirt that reads UP YOURS.
yesterday, after yelling at each other from our respective target stores a state apart, hannah says, "i just think it's a flimsy construct is all."
she's talking about the new year, specifically the group of us (in the millions) who turn over new leaves! close the doors on that shoddy 2007! her hatred of this american-pick-yourself-up-by-the-boot-straps-ritual has debilitated her. it's not the promise to do better; rather, the idea that we all do it at once on some arbitrary day.
meanwhile, i'm searching for the PERFECT NEW DAY PLANNER at target. i'm hitting up my list of things to do in the NEW YEAR. i've joined a gym. i've got a trainer. this year, no doubt about it, i'm going to become the most famous DJ in the states. samantha ronson is somewhere shivering. carmen from the L word is rolling over in her late night cable grave. bubba sparxx meets rilo kiley! the shins into common! also, my chest is going to magically develop without surgery or nothin'. i spend much of yesterday daydreaming about the stack of books that, by this time next year, will be conquered: don quixote, the brothers karamazov, sunday houses the sunday house, black boy... hell, by this time next year, i'll know french fluently and be able to play the guitar with my toes.
"listen," she says, "i think you're getting too many endorphins."
me: i think we just need things to look forward to!
her: no, seriously, i think you've been running too much or something. you're not on drugs. are you eating okay? i just think you need to cut some things out of your life. it's like you're some sort of kenyan mail delivery person.
me: isn't there anything that will make you feel better?
her: NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! click.
calls back.
her: maybe travel?
me, clapping hands: ooohhh! yea!
her: like iceland. or nepal?
silence. it's clear we will be traveling on separate trips.
my euphoria is unwavering. her scroogishness, also, is going nowhere. i don't get it, though, with all the goodness going on around. the biggest loser: couples! t minus 4 days until a new season of the L word!
let's be honest. we are a failure of a people. i, for one, rang in the new year waitressing. specifically, i waited on 20 FIFTEEN YEAR OLD'S who gave exact change, speparate checks. also, because we were overbooked, they made up a table for ten where we normally check coats. upstairs. watched my boyfriend drink more and more at the bar while i all but scrubbed floors, while drunks blew noise makers in my ear and spilled cheap cook's champagne down the back of my pants. somewhere else, too close by, the avett brothers were playing. also, widespread. also, sound tribe sector 9. this is why we write--to make things lovely again, to make even the worst heartbreak/embarrassment/financial tragedy/death into something else, something funny perhaps, something beautiful...to shape it with our own hands and hold it, still, inside of them. when everything else is slipping away. so why not give the millions of us a break if, for a day or a month or so, we think we are becoming better?
because it's bullshit, hannah says.
okay, so if our new year souls were on a game of family feud, it'd be like this:
TEAM HANNAH: salman rushdie, edgar allen poe, jeff tweedy, stephen colbert, janeane garofalo, keifer sutherland
TEAM MAMIE: jem and the holograms, star brite, kirsten dunst, the guys from ween in the "buddy holly" video, lisa kudrow
the epigraph to one of my student's final portfolio this semester is from bob hass:
"it's the moment when the burden of another person's life seems insupportable. we want to be reborn incessantly but actually doing it begins--have you noticed? to seem redundant."
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16 comments:
Wow. I agree with both of you. That has to mean something.
So why on the first of the year? If you really want to do something, you should just do it.
‘Well honey, because it’s January 1, 20blahblah, I’m going to give up pork and nothing’s going to stop me. Because you know, last month and the month before that and the month before that would have been just too damn hard.’
It’s a pipe dream. People set themselves up for failure more with this stupid resolution thing that anything else. You do realize that it’s ok to start something, going to the gym, eating better, stop smoking, etc., on days that aren’t the first of the year? I don’t get it. It’s silly. It’s illogical. It’s disappointment. It’s a freshly poured bowl of Fruit Loops, all nice and crispy on the top but with every passing second the milk is seeping into the loops, making them soggy and gross.
xoxoxox
Ps. Don't freak out, that was me who deleted the above comment.
Wait? Is it 2008? What did I do for New Years?!?
nipple confidence, mames.
why yes, eric, i do understand man's capability of joining a gym or giving up pork on, say, september 27th.
the eerie discipleship of the new year is not lost on me or many of the other millions living inside our naive, small-minded, idealistic new year snow globe.
Don't get me wrong, I'm idealistic. Tutoring illiterate adults b/c I have extra time, yes. Taking salsa lessons as a New Years resolution, no.
Btw, happy New Years. :)
jesus, e., this is precisely the point: NO ONE salsa dances anymore. that is entirely a resolution for the EARLY 2000's...say, 2003.
it's contra dance, bitches, contra dance all the way.
and, michelle, i meant to address the earlier breast comment:
the nipple is not the problem. mmmkay?
i wiiiiiiin.
now, back to reviewing bhutto's autopsy report w/c is available in a pdf file from cnn.
also, i made the kenyan mail runner comment before the riots today. 'the only truth on the streets is a machete.'
back to rejoicing and dropping those pounds!!!
precisely. it's what counts most. who wants to play hacky sack w/a gravity-stricken breasticle when they're 60? ok. i probably would, but that's beside the point.
can you guys blog more please? thx.
Buddy Holly was Weezer, not Ween. =)
shit. of course it was. i'm always idioting it up somehow.
maybe it's because i've had "baby bitch" in my head for a week...
**Kicks self for not busting Mamie on the Ween/Weezer f-up!** Damnit!
Fucking finally! A picture that makes sense!!!!
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