UUUUUUUUnnnnnnnnnggggghhhh. (Fade to soft weeping sounds in background.)

Captivity Log: Day One

I thought I might tell you about how I spent my first working hour of the year listening to drug-addled, lily pulitzer-clad crones demand that I wear a gold cardboard crown on the first day of school, but I decided that was just too pathetic. I considered whining about how I endured an hour-long presentation on Outlook calendars, but, really, who needs to relive that inanity? I almost wrote about how we were forced to make lists of words that described our motivations for teaching, but my chosen words - ignorance, privilege and revenge - don't really show me in my best light.

So, I'll just tell you this: vodka and pomegranate juice. It's all you really need to know.

Note: I have other things in the works, but I'm not yet blogging about them. Hubris will bite you in the ass. Every time.

The Last Ding-Dong of Doom

One

I cannot sleep. Maybe I'll fall asleep at the beginning of the night, or maybe I'll fall asleep at its rosy-fingered end, but there will be vast stretches of wakefulness. I like to use these extra hours of consciousness to re-examine embarrassing things that I've done. I also like to think of all the ways that next year could potentially go to pot. Either way, it's time well spent.

Two

We just bought another car. This means that we are a two-car household. This shames me deeply. Although there is a tiny part of me that emits small squeals of delight, since I will now be able to leave work any old time I want. The car serves at the pleasure of the me.

Three

Work. Starts. Tomorrow. If I weren't so tired, I'd cry.

To blog

I never kept a journal. Oh, I started many, but I always felt foolish after a page or so. I didn't know what to say or how to get things started, and I felt like I was ripping off Anne Frank, but, you know, without horrific life events to lend poignancy to my daily musings. I've come across a few of these abandoned logs, and I'm often nauseated by the overwhelming banality of my entries:

Dear Diary,

J is totally not into me; I think he likes C. God, I hate them. He probably doesn't like me because I'm fat. I need a pair of Gap jeans. I've gotta go, but more later, for sure.

LYLAS,

Me

Then I cringe over those entries where I tried to be all deep and shit.

Dear Diary,

Today I knew how the trees feel when they lose their leaves - suddenly naked, but unashamed.

Peace and Light,

Me

Fuuuuuuuck. Terrible shit, fo shizzle.

But after blogging a bit, I've realized the real reason I never succeeded in keeping a journal - you're just f*cking talking to yourself. No one's going to compliment you on being witty or funny. No one's going to tell you that they feel the same way. No one's going to yell at you to get the f*ck over yourself. I don't need to hear any more from me about me; I talk to myself all the f*cking time, and I clearly don't know shit from shine-ola. I need to hear from you, and I love hearing from you. And that, dear readers, is what keeps me coming back to I Have Happy. Thanks.

addendum to Singing Opera

6) And sometimes I just enjoy a good fit of the sullens. Back the f*ck off.

Singing Opera *

Sometimes life is staggeringly depressing. It seems so swift and pitiful, and I wonder whether the only things I'll remember at its end are those times when I was truly mean. I reflect on how I probably peaked at 25 and how pathetic it is that I'm relieved to see people older than I am doing impressive things - writing novels, finishing PhDs, publishing cookbooks - because then it seems like I'm still young enough to do something surprising, which, of course, most folks thought I'd do back when I was 25.

Thinking this way makes me a tool. Seriously, sometimes I'm so overcome by my own fruitlessness, I cry in the shower. What a loser. I'm blaming this particular bout of boring, self-indulgent, ridiculous ennui on a few things:

1) My second year of teaching. I generally stop doing dissatisfying things after one year. Something about motion feeling like progress.

2) n.o.c.'s heinous work life. When he's really exhausted and downtrodden, he starts thinking about could haves and should haves. This kind of talk generally makes me insane, but it is contagious.

3) Hormones. Bastards.

4) The end of the summer. This is somehow different from the beginning of the school year - it's melancholy and overextended and worn out by its own energy. I'm ready for a bit of crispness in the air, if you don't mind.

5) Various and sundry projects and aspirations that make me fear potential goods will be thwarted by lack of ambition. (See that? I'm even depressed by all the good things I have going on in my life! Could I be more pathetic?)

Anyway, I'm putting on my big girl panties and getting the f*ck on with it. Just wanted to hug it out, and I'm the only one here.

*When one participates in boring, self-indulgent, ridiculous ennui, The Rog says that they're "Singing Opera." You know, "Me, me, me, me, me!"

When you go to Georgia

There are things you should do. First, start out with a beer at the airport. Prime the pump, if you will.

Then arrange to be greeted at the airport with a cooler-full of homemade buttermilk-and-tabasco fried chicken. I shit you not.


Since most things you consume while in Georgia tend toward the fatty, start your mornings with fresh figs - nothing gets you going better!


Sloth (it's a verb now) by the pool with your bellyfull of figs and drink gin and tonics. Instead of fretting about the inevitable ill effects of your sun exposure, end the day at the best seafood shack in Georgia - Jim Shaw's.


There are some dishes you must try:

Hushpuppies. This is a hushpuppie (Technically, I suppose it's about half a hushpuppie. Delayed gratification is not among my strong suits.):

These are what grits look like... Or is it, "This is what grits looks like"? I believe public opinion is divided. Nonetheless:

Fried pickles, odd but good:

Blackend oysters - soooo delicious:

Fried crab claws:

The next day, get yourself some peaches. Procure them here, since this, um, enthusiastic stand is conveniently adjacent to the gas station:

Eat peaches and drink gin and tonics. Inexplicably, your hunger will return. Eat ribs (cooked for 18 hours) and mac and cheese.


When you return home, step on the scale with trepidation. Be pleasantly surprised to discover that you gained nary a pound. Know that it's from all the limes in the gin and tonics - cuts the fat, you know.