“ps I’m reading Kendra’s autobiography “Sliding Into Home” — Of course you are Megan. Of course you are.
[video]
For awhile, a few months ago, maybe more…it feels like more, I used to hate-read the blog of a girl I really don’t like. (Am I the only one who does this? I hope not). When I was feeling low, or masochistic, I’d let myself get sucked into a vortex where I’d suddenly realize I was twenty pages deep in the archives - despising her for writing it, and despising myself for reading it.
She has this amazing life. She’s tall, blonde and a professional athlete with a kickass life in California. She’s also superficial, spoiled, and she really dicked over a good friend of mine, so I’m entitled to harbor unproductive-yet-satisfying spiteful feelings towards her.
She writes about the amazing places she’s going and the work that she’s doing. She also posts pictures of the sunset from her bedroom window, or recounts a particularly satisfying cup of coffee she had that morning. What always gets me is how well she acknowledges it. All of it. It’s not, “I just got back from a trip to Miami.” It’s, “I just got back from Miami, and I can’t believe I’m so lucky.”
It’s this attitude that keeps me from flat-out hating her. Instead, I wonder what makes her tick. Is she happy all the time because her life is so awesome? Or is her life awesome because she’s committed to being happy all the time?
On the one hand, I want to think, of course she’s happy. Look at all the cool stuff she gets to do. But I kind of get the sense that, given different circumstances (if she was, say, a teacher on a modest salary, instead of a pro athlete paid to travel the globe and play sports), she’d still be a really positive, contented person just because it’s her personality.
I wondered if I should be saying that kind of stuff more often. “This cool thing happened, and I’m really excited about it!”
For awhile, I told myself, no, that’s not really me. I’m just not naturally an ebullient person like this girl is. But now I think I was just always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Literally, always. I’d let slip something good happening in my life, or even the glimmer of something good on the horizon, and I’d be afraid something else would happen to counteract said-good thing. And then I’d feel like an asshole for telling anyone how happy I was.
But that’s bullshit. It took me way, way (way) too long, but I’m finally coming around to the understanding that I deserve to be happy and to have good things happen, because I work really fucking hard, and those good things do stick around. Not always, sure, but usually.
So now, I’m slowly making my way towards optimism, coming at it from the side rather than head-on. Day by day, I sneak up on it a little closer, closer. For now, it’s, “Hey, this great thing happened, and man, somebody’s gonna figure out I’m a hack soon enough and it’ll all be gone, but I’m gonna ride the wave for now!” Hopefully soon enough, it will lapse into “Hey this great thing happened, and I’m ridiculously happy about it.” To get from the former to the latter, I suppose I’ll just keep riding the wave.
I’ve been made aware by several people that Buddy Garrity was on last week’s Parks & Rec. As was Bradley Whitford.
First of all, thank you to all the friends who know me well enough to alert me of any and all FNL and West Wing character cameos on anything ever. Second of all, I’m just going to go out on a limb and designate the episode as the best yet.
[video]
I had a really great weekend
Gothamist: Community Board Launches Assault On W'burg Brunch -
“First, they came for our Eggs Benedict…”
“We kind of sit in bed at his house or my house and order burritos and, like, pitch back and forth.” —
Nicholas Stoller on his work process with writing partner Jason Segel. So…basically my dream job.
(via nymag)
I don’t get the girls who think it’s cool to be fucked up. The ones who tell you how wasted they got the night before - so much so that they have no idea how they got home, or who they left with - all relayed with a three-pack-a day rasp of a laugh. I don’t want to hear how much you hate your father in a casual aside that somehow relates to what you had for lunch. Please don’t name drop the guy you’re sleeping with even though you know he has a girlfriend because you “can’t handle” a relationship.
Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think any of that is cool. Especially here in nyc, there’s these girls who just…brush dysfunctional attitudes and unhealthy habits off their shoulders like lint, and it makes me horribly, horribly sad. They want you to laugh along with them at the pitfalls and foibles of their drama-filled lives, “ha ha ha, aren’t I screwed up? Isn’t it just ama-a-a-a-z-e?” But it’s not. I want to ask if they’re okay. If I should put on the kettle and make some tea. Maybe call their moms and suggest a visit.
Of course, you can do whatever you want, but don’t make me feel bad for being - oh shit, dare I say it? - normal? And y’know what, yes, normal is not calling your parents “assholes” to anyone who will listen past the age of thirteen. Normal is wanting the guy you’re sleeping with not to be sleeping with anyone else. To not need pills to wake up, then more pills later to fall asleep. Normal is to seek out supportive friendships. A stable relationship. A career. Weekends without large chunks lost to alcohol or drug-induced blackouts. To be happy.
Of course, maybe I’m just being overly sensitive, since I find lots of things horribly sad. People eating alone in restaurants. Movies where the protagonists don’t get together in the end. The thought of my grandma waking up every day without my grandpa, even after he’s been gone five years. Sometimes just imagining the amount of loneliness in the world feels so heavy on my chest I can hardly breathe.
…And then, of course, I get over myself and realize that if you let everything that was wrong with the world bring you down, you’d never peel yourself off the pavement. But I don’t have to like it. And I don’t have to accept it. And I certainly don’t have watch as these girls flash the sadness in their life around like it’s a new pair of shoes. Especially when they have no intention of doing a damn thing to change whatever it is that’s making their life so awful in the first place (or the second, or the third..). We’re not in high school anymore. If you’re still acting out for attention, get over yourself. The rest of us have.