Not In Kansas Anymore...

Click your heels, and see if home is where you hang your hat, or somewhere else inside yourself as this simple, postmodern girl takes on L.A.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

.Awake when I should be sleeping...

But that's pretty normal for me for the past year or so. I hate hot weather so badly that when summer rolls around I sleep during the day, almost instinctively. (I know I've complained a million and seven times that I think I have SAD in the reverse, andI'm SERIOUS. I'm not exaggerating the misery and sleeplessness that it inflicts. Every shrink agrees, but no one has a solution. THIS summer I have to come up with one. I'm already scheming...a pool? Tinted windows on my car. Ceiling fan? Tv in my bedroom so I can hole up in there with the window unit cranked high?) Then last summer I met Anthony, who's exactly 12 hours ahead of our time zone, so I was up all night, talking with him.

I've been breaking the habit lately, but today was irritatingly hot. I actually got up at the crack of dawn to go to the DWV to renew/change my license in CA, and all was well til I failed my written test. No, really. But here's an example question:

You may legally park your car:
a.) At the corner of an intersection
b.) Across a sidewalk if you are partially in a driveway
c.) In a bicycle lane if there is no sign forbidding it.

You'll never guess what the answer was. Well, I didn't, at least. I know a.) is absolutely insane, and while I got a ticket once for b.), it was in a certain neighborhood and they had strict rules about all kinds of crazy things. C.) to me seemed just as insane as a.), because that looks like trouble waiting to happen. So, I answered b.).
Of course, the correct answer was c.). Why? I don't know, it just is.
And the whole fuckin' test is full of ridiculous questions like that. Jeannie took it once and it asked her this question:

If you are at a four way stop and there is a police car, a fire truck and a mail truck at the other intersections, which of you has the right of way?
a.) the police car
b.) the fire truck
c.) the mail truck

Oh, go ahead and take a stab. I said, "the fire truck, of course." Jeannie said no. "The police car?" No. "Oh come on, not the stupid mail truck." Yup. Why? "Well, the question didn't say any of them had their sirens on. And neither sleet nor rain nor....."
My response: That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Her response: I got that question wrong, too, those fuckers.

Luckily you're allowed to take the test 3 times. It's just as well, because IL had put a stop on my license renewal. Why? Because I didn't pass the IL smog test. Because I was living in LA at the time. So I had to call the State Office of Transportation and let them know: I don't live there any more, you idiots. Luckily they were nice about it and all it took was a change in the computer and by Thursday I should be able to take the test again and get my CA license in hand. It's too bad I can't retake the picture, because it really sucked.


So I took a nap in the afternoon meaning to wake up just two hours later and actually slept 5. Sad, but true.

I'm writing and talking about myself, I suppose, because I'm getting close to my limit on Being Alone and Lonely. I'm done maligning Anthony for all his sins- it's done, and it's gone, and best to let it go. As the saying goes, "things without remedy should be without regard; what's done is done".
I want to meet someone new, but as you can imagine, I'm a little skittish on it. I don't feel up to anything serious, really, but if I don't get some male attention and affections soon, I will surely be in a bad mood. I've noticed that the longer THAT kinds of deprivation goes on, the more likely I am to jump into something ill-conceived, like Mr. Asshole.

Been thinking about this alot, and talking to my shrink about it. She seems to think I need more to do with my creative life and then I won't feel so , erm, um, lonely and....libidinous? She's probably right. And it's not like I'm thinking internet dating is oh-so-ideal at this point. I'm curious to look, but hesitant to get enthusiastic. I'm 0 for 3 from the past year, all of them men I got to know over the internet....and yet, what else is there? How does one date at 38 without the internet? A question I pose to anyone reading this and thinks they have some options.

Well, and on other fronts, I have other things to focus on, like, well, um, a JOB, I guess. Not surpisingly, no call back from Swanky Rehab. That's just fine with me....MOCA is hiring. So is the Skirball Cultural Center, all in positions in public education, of which I have SIX YEARS of experience!! If they don't at least call me for an interview, I may just go and tear my hair out on their premises.

I've been thinking ALOT about getting my Masters - in ANYTHING, since it appears to be the Path to $$. It's just the woooooork ( ::whining::). All the papers and presentations and wooooork. There's this small, all-girls Catholic college of a fine reputation ( and as it turns out, very similar to where I graduated from, which was also a small, private all-girls Catholic college at one time, and is still of fine reputation) in Santa Monica. They're offering an M. A. in Humanities that you can parcel out and get on the weekends.....of course, doing it that way takes 5 years. ( I suppose you could speed it up at any time and go straight through one year and get it over with...).
The thing is, I don't want to stay here for 5 years, that's for sure, even though I'm almost certain this is the program that would be best suited for me in terms of my capabilites ( with the illness and all) and my future plans ( Humanities is general enough to get you into anything else of a Ph.D should you want it and into almost any job I would be interested in anywhere). And I could probably get the State to shell out for it....but ugh. LA for another 2-5? I don't know. I just don't KNOW.

I mean, I'm at the point when I'm on vacation and it's time to go back to LA, while I DO go "whew, this place is a flippin' cow town ( no matter where I am), I need to get back to a metropolis", once I get on the plane and once I see the lights of LA and we start to land, I start to get anxious and cry. That's what happened last time, after Christmas. Of course I had the flu and all the rest, but UGH, is that a good sign???

I'm used to LA in a general sense by now, though, ( don't have the feeling that I can't feel the ground under my feet anymore, like I did for the first few years I lived here) and have found my ways to cope, more or less. I take advantage of the good things ( the fact that it IS a metropolis full of a never-ending supply of interesting adventures and great cheap clothes and free things and strange opportunitites). I try to ignore and hide from the bad things ( like the weather and the crazies and traffic and all that rot). But man, I hate this place. I always have, and I think I always might. It's one of those places you just revel in for about a month and then you snap out of it and go, "I gotta get out of here." I always hoped I'd get successful enough to be able to LEAVE and only come back for work. Alas.....

But I ramble. I'm rambling. "Lord I was born a...."( who sang that? Lynyrd Skynrd? How do you spell Lynyrd Skynrd? Lynrd Skynrd. Lynyrd Skynyrd. OOOOkay, I gotta go to bed. Getting slap happy). Have I mentioned it was 92 today in March? It's hot and I can't sleep. Grumble, grumble....alas....