Now, I’m so bored, I’m almost crying. People think the expression “bored to tears” is based on hyperbole. Not so. Not always. My job is getting so boring, it hurts. Or rather, it would hurt, had not my nerves been irreversibly dulled due to overexposure to the photo-flash of the copy machine.

Used to be, copy machines everywhere were my nemeses. I’d approach one, and it would start to freak out, spontaneously combust, just plumb shut down. I'd try to appease it by pressing buttons or poking around in it’s bowels, to no avail. It would soon cease to be a copy-machine and go on strike, beginning a new stint as an over-sized paperweight.

That has changed. I am now so familiar with the inner and outer workings of all of our office machines, that they tremble when they see me coming. We bicker every so often, they try to throw me for a loop by flipping a lever and causing a bottle-neck of copy output, but they know who's in control. I’m at the point where I know when those fuckers are gonna bust; I can hear it, smell it, see the visible cues. I’m like a prison marm: ain’t no getting’ nuthin’ past me.

I am not happy about this. It was never my intention to become so intimately familiar with the anatomy of office machines, and it does not tickle me.

My power makes me suspicious. They’re just lying in wait, those machines. I imagine that after hours, the fax machine, the copy machine, and the shredder all gather together and host salons during which they smoke aromatic cigarettes, plan a civilized revolution, and chuckle over how they’ve got me by the short curlies.

I was copying a huge booklet (“huge booklet?” Is that an oxymoron? Should it be a “booklissimo?”) when the damn machine jammed. Unphased, I gutted it, removed the obstruction, smacked the side of the machine, and muttered, “You whore” as it started up again. Yes, our copier has sex for money. (What?) That fucking Savin 550 DP copy machine is my bitch.

I’ve been weighing a few options that could help alleviate the mundane tedium of my job. I could:

1) Dramatically faint in the 2nd floor atrium, and plummet over the balcony to the lobby (appealing not only because of dramatic effect, but because the fall may render me comatose for a few months, which I’d bet would be a surefire weight-loss strategy).

2) Have a nervous breakdown (would definitely get me out of work, provide great insight into insanity for future artistic endeavors … yeah, if you believe that bullshit, then I think you owe me money).

3) Piss myself (funny, but messy and embarrassing … altogether, probably not the best strategy for amusing myself).

4) Set something on fire (becoming increasingly tempting … surrounded by so much paper … so many flammable office liquids … pretty flames).

5) Burst into flames, myself (I’m working on it. I’ll keep you posted).

I am eating a pear.

I am inexplicably horny.

I hate these pants.

Now, how can I combine those seemingly unrelated details into a more useful, single fact? Go ahead, use your imagination. I, myself, am above such base musings.

So, that’s my today. Tonight, I very well may do my laundry, and clean the half-inch of dust that has recently blown in my window as a result of the construction being done directly outside. And by “directly outside,” I meant that work is being done by men standing on scaffolding on the outside wall right by my window. It's like being stalked by Spiderman. Since my building is constantly being scaled by construction workers, I’ve had to watch my nakedness lately. (Pshh … naw. I just draw the shades. Usually.)

AND NOW …

AS PROMISED …

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO …

THE LONG AWAITED, MUCH TALKED ABOUT …

Everyone can now exhale.

So, yesterday, Monday, I took the day off from work to go the dermatologist in the lovely Rolling Hills, IL, to have a legion of warts frozen off of my hands like Napoleon’s troops crossing the Russian tundra. (Kill me.) Horribly uneventful … For about 45 minutes, I waited in the rather Orwellian waiting area, a big, empty room with chairs set up along the periphery, facing toward the center of the space, as if to allow us sitters to await the materialization of some being in the middle of the ugly carpet. Seriously, I felt like I was being watched, and that whatever was watching me was expecting for me to watch something else. It was an awful building.

After filling out endless scores of paperwork declaring that neither I nor any members of my family had suffered from beriberi, glaucoma, syphilis or smallpox, I was ushered by the doctor’s assistant into the doctor’s office where I waited for another 30 minutes. There was nothing patient-oriented in that office. How odd. As it’s pretty much a given that any visit to the doctor, especially when HMO is involved, is 90% waiting, 10% visit, the office and waiting spaces are usually geared towards allowing the patient to amuse him/herself. Thus the well-known proliferation of magazines and crossword puzzles in such areas.

Apparently, my dermatologist in Rolling Meadows, IL had not heard of this time-honored tradition. No magazines, nothin’. Not even a plastic Playskool farmyard. So I lied there on my back, sort of napping, sort of contemplating playing with the stethoscope, until my doctor came in. Skinny young guy, a little spooky, somewhat devoid of personality, but nice enough. Probably the least offensive dermatologist I’ve ever met. Every other skin-doctor I’ve ever seen has just been utterly unlikable. Perhaps there are a few out there who are wonderfully charming, who dole out prescriptions for benzoyl-peroxide and Retin-A with humorous grace, who remember their recurring patients from one visit to the next, who listen to their patients and do not scoff at their concerns. If that’s the case, I apologize for the generalization. All of my dermatologists were as warm as frogs. Charming dermatologists, if you’re out there, you should advise your colleagues to stop hanging out with amphibians, as I fear the cold-blooded personality is rubbing off on them. Also, it’s hard for a patient to take skin tips seriously from a doctor who doesn’t have any pores. (Get it? Another amphibious reference? Woo, high-school biology. Next week: the Krebs Cycle.)

Anyway, so the doctor looked at my hands, croaked something about me not needing to freeze them off, and he hopped from the room to call a pharmacy and order some over-the-counter crap for me. So, sorry to disappoint, but there are no new holes in my hands.

The best part of getting that day off was that I bonded with my new friend Courtney, who very kindly drove me to lovely Rolling Meadows. We drove out, she waited patiently while I had my pointless appointment, we had lunch at Chili’s and we drove back to Chicago, getting hopelessly lost somewhere on Grand Ave. Something interesting about Courtney, other than the fact that she’s smart, creative, and fun: she’s very strong in her Christian faith. Having lacked faith my whole life, I find that fascinating.

But, that’s another entry.

So, I got home from the doctor, I went to the library, where I picked up Elie Wiesel’s “Night” trilogy, (I’m on a self-torment-through-Holocaust-memoir kick) and got hit on by some creepy guy who tried to pick me up with the age-old charmer, “Ma’am, have you ever eaten at that restaurant, ‘Patio Beef?’” No, I hadn’t eaten at Patio Beef. Obviously, my union with Creepy Guy was not meant to be.

I rented “The Basketball Diaries,” watched most of it, and went to bed. Great soundtrack, that movie. The whole film makes me want to nail me a bad boy.

OK, look. I’m sorry. I think I’m PMS-ing, and looking to couple with just about anything.

Tune in tomorrow, when Luvabeans’s hormones lead to indigestion and self-loathing!

Aaaaand, scene!

[CURTAIN]

This past weekend was fraught with significance. Well, for me, anyway. We’ll get to that.

Sunday, I woke up around 7:30 AM.

Dear Landlord,

Thank you for hiring construction workers to drill through the sidewalk on Sunday mornings, causing an ever-widening hole which, I can only assume, is soon to provide us with a valuable thoroughfare through the earth, directly to China. I have been very worried that the sidewalk outside my building would remain intact for longer than necessary, and that my Sunday morning would be needlessly wasted on sleep and recovery from post-Saturday-pokernight grog. It is more important, after all, to lie awake and contemplate rising for 2 hours than it is to spend those 2 hours in slumber. Thank you for addressing my concerns, and for reminding me of my priorities.

No, really. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Kelly

PS= I hate you.

Yup. Got up, worked out, showered, dressed, and went to rehearsal.

I met the femme-fatale puppet, modeled after Rita Hayworth, whom I will soon be operating and providing the voice for, instead of embodying the character myself. The puppet’s way hotter than I am, and too skinny to fully eclipse me. Awesome. No, but she’s beautiful, and I’m excited. Rehearsal ended early, and as I was leaving, people were making tentative plans to meet later that evening for live-band karaoke.

What? Live-band karaoke? Living out my rockstar fantasies by singing “Sweet Child o’ Mine” in front of a barfull of strangers who couldn’t give a crap? Perhaps a little early Madonna, before she started singing about bullshit like class conflict? Booze? All backed by a live rock band instead of a tinny glorified juke box?

In my head, I was so there. I went home and practiced singing Patti Smith’s “Gloria,” (best beginning to any song, ever: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine”) dancing around my apartment with no pants on, using my stereo remote as a microphone. I so would’ve rocked the fuck out of that song. But as the evening wore on, I became less and less able to convince myself that I could look cute enough venture anywhere into the outside world; never mind go to a bar where it was not guaranteed that any of my good friends would show up, spend money I don’t have, and hang out with my attractive, hopelessly unreciprocated crush and his girlfriend.

It would have been fun. I can be ridiculous sometimes. To sum up, it was a low-self-esteem evening, and I could feel that if I went out, it would have only depreciated in quality. Hoo. Bit of a tailspin, I’m in. Again, we’ll get to that.

I also could have gone to a jazz club with Baptista, but if I couldn’t handle low-key karaoke, there was no way I could have handled the loaded pretense of an obscure jazz club on an obscure Sunday night. The club in question is very male-heavy, especially on Sundays, and I wasn’t in the mood to watch a bunch of musicians batting their scrotums around in effort to attract my super-gorgeous friend. Catty, I know. I apologize. It was just my mood that evening.

Instead, I rented “The Pianist” and tormented myself with the question: What would I have done if I had lived in Warsaw during World War II? Would I have helped Jewish friends? Turned a blind eye? Even supported the Nazi party?

There’s no way to answer such questions. They continue to be relevant today, but can’t be answered objectively due to the now universal horror over well-known past occurrences. You know? Before the holocaust, there was nothing to compare with such a horrific event. How could people have predicted their individual reactions? They couldn’t have. I’m not making excuses, I’m just playing devil’s advocate. There is no way you can say what you would have done.

Blah. Yet another subject for yet another entry. But, this recap is already getting obscenely long, so … ONWARDS AND UPWARDS!

“The Pianist” is an excellent film, by the way. Adrien Brody is a magnificent, not to mention … rowr. The character he creates is devastatingly believable; a survivor, but not entirely a “hero” in the traditional, swashbuckling, stand-up-to-the-baddies-and-fuck-the-norm sense. There is never any doubt that, throughout his ordeal, his character is scared shitless. Brilliant.

Saturday, guess what I did? I went to an eating disorders support group.

I’ve been pretending that I’m getting over this bulimia nonsense, that I’m OK, but that’s a big crock of shit. In many ways, I’m doing great. I’m not depressed like I used to be, I recognize many wonderful things about myself that almost compensate for the awful image I have of my physical self, but in truth, I’m far from OK, and it scares me. I still engage in such horrible, self-destructive habits, and it’s finally become evident to me that I can’t can’t can’t kick this shit on my own. I could go into seething detail on my rituals, my hiding and coping techniques, my ability to detach myself from the whole disgusting ceremony through use of my vivid imagination, distracting music, skillful timing, but I won’t. That’s far too humbling for me, and for this venue. I mean, there’s naked, and then there’s NAKED. Also, the last thing I need is to become a top Google hit for “bulimia tips.”

So, deep breath, and I went to a free support group. Such a strange experience … I walked into the room wearing my jovial “what’s up” face, sat down among the circle of women, and the first thing I saw was a full box of Kleenex on the coffee table, right next to a new-agey, ceramic blue orb.

What had I gotten myself into?

The shelves were stacked with books ranging from academic psychiatry books, to those awful self-help “Eat A Mango!” books by Sark. A copy of “The Velveteen Rabbit” lay on the coffee table.

The group itself consisted of women of all sizes, ages, and races, all of us representing various hues in the miserable spectrum of eating disorders. (I stood up, did a “raise-the-roof” gesture, and yelled, “Bulimia in da HIZ-OOOOUUSE!” No, I didn’t. Hey! Comedy! Yyyeaaahhh … I’ll take Transparent Coping Mechanisms for 500, Alex.) For 90 minutes, facilitated by a trained psychotherapist, we discussed our struggles and the commonalities among them all. It was moving, and helpful, and hopeful, and sad. We were all at different stages of denial and recovery, some of us had relapsed, some of us were better than we ever had been, but we were all still fighting. There was joy and sadness, anger and respect.

Something I noticed in myself: My first instinct was to protect these women. I don’t know if it’s just my way of coping with things, to draw attention away from myself … but I desperately wanted to yell to them all, “I THINK EVERY ONE OF YOU IS SO LOVELY!” I wanted to hold them and be responsible for them. These strangers. I just wanted to make it better, I knew I couldn’t and it was terrifying.

I’m glad I went. I hope to start private counseling soon.

You know, I say it’s “scary,” but I don’t know if that’s the right term. It’s as if I’m on the edge of a precipice, ready to jump, and perfectly willing to be ignorant as to where I’m going to land. Landing, falling, is not the concern. I just don’t know exactly how to push myself over the edge.

Jumping over is certainly far preferable to continuing on the long, tired road I’ve been travelling.

So, that was my Saturday afternoon. TAH-DAH!!!! Anyway, it threw me into a bit of an emotional and dietary freefall … which I don’t think I need to recount fully.

Yeah, but … fun? Saturday NIGHT, I got drunk and played poker with friends. Much laughter, much booze, a little weed, and a teeny kitten named Lulu. Oh, and a pack of pornographic cards entitled “Big Cocks.” I came home happy, and 87 cents richer than when I left, thankyouverymuch.

Saturday. Poof!

Jeezisgawd… What did I do Friday?

Oh!

James, the bitter, divorced friend that I’ve mentioned before, was in a sub-par play. Meh. OK, the play was actually less than “meh.” But, I went out for drinks and laughs with James, Cat, Troy, and Courtney afterwards, which was fun. Nothing momentous.

Badabing. Wish me luck.

This was exhausting. Are you still there?

~ Last Five Entries ~

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

One-Armed Paper Hanger Earns her Wings - 07.29.05

Sugar & Lemon - 07.28.05

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BUY JEN'S BOOK! BUY IT! DO IT!

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BUY DEAN'S BOOK, TOO! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA! SERIOUSLY.

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