halftime show

Above me and to the left is a Norwegian poster for Deathly Hallows asking HVEM DØR? but obviously me and my currently tragic haircut are more interesting.

OK SO.

This is a blogpost in list form, the third-best form for a blogpost.

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MY LIFE:

--Running a lot.

--Working at Dillards to save up money to move to San Francisco.

--Working on a book, because who isn’t.

--Oh man, it’s so much fun doing that, though.  But not as much fun as this next one.

--Working on a comic with a friend.

--Found a place in SF.

--Living in limbo, I guess.

--At least SXSW is next week.

--Reading a lot of blogs of people whose writing ability I am just experiencing a jealousy manifesting as physical pain over.

WHAT I DID YESTERDAY:

--Dismembered like one hundred mannequins.

--Almost beat a mannequin to death with her own arms because I could not get the stupid arm magnets to connect who even designed those mannequins I looked like the Dillards Juniors Department Serial Killer.

Bits strewn about like I was getting a made-for-tv movie based on me.

--More importantly: Saw Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

 Which featured the sexy Phantom/Christine thumb war.
(That's about how high stakes it was, honestly.)
(God I loved it.)

THOUGHTS/QUESTIONS THAT WERE BROUGHT UP WHILE WATCHING LOVE NEVER DIES, MORE OR LESS IN ORDER:

--Did my eleven-year old self write this.  No seriously.

--Are they singing a walk of shame song. 

--Are Phantom and Christine the worst parents ever?

--It sure is nice Phantom has integrated into society so well that he I guess stopped being a psychotic serial killer (albeit a very sexy one) and is I guess the only viable romantic option?

--The many failings of this play raise some interesting questions about the strengths and weakness of a proper Gothic romance and Kantean aesthetics concerning the sublime (REDACTED BECAUSE SPOILER THEY ARE NOT INTERESTING QUESTIONS TO ANYONE BUT ME.)

--Holy crap I love freaky dark carnivals.  I LOVE THEM THE MOST.

THE MOST.

--Seriously worst parents ever.

--DID THIS PLAY JUST TURN INTO LAW AND ORDER: PHANTOM OF THE OPERA INTENT.

--How much of my life would I dedicate into getting Law and Order: POTOI to happen?  All of it, probably.  Obviously.

If I were more dedicated I would have posted Goren with a photoshopped phantom mask, but instead there's this.

This picture is the whole play summed up.

THINGS PHANTOM HAD IN HIS PERSONAL LIFE THAT I WAS QUITE ENVIOUS OF OTHER THAN THE ABILITY TO LOOK GOOD IN A SUIT AND A COOL MASK:

--A creepy little goth son he did not even have to deal with till the kid was old enough to watch himself

--A freaky cabaret carnival that he was the owner and artistic director of.

--A dramatic room to swoop around in and write stuff, and cry, I guess.

--Just like every member of the gender he was attracted to violently attracted to him

--An awesome wardrobe.

DOES THIS SILLY POST HAVE A POINT:

Kind of.

WHAT IS IT THEN.

Utah was a bit of a warzone for me.  Recently, on the same day, I found out about two things:  The Randy Bott being a racist (and by logical extension of his imbecilic argument, misogynist) thing going public—although I guess if I’m understanding correctly, that sort of thing had been going on in his classes for years.  That fact--and the fact that he went public--are being swept under the rug, as far as I can tell.  (I'm not talking about the church here, they released a statement which was great.  I'm talking about the public response of the religion faculty.)


This doesn’t surprise me, because that day I got the results back on my complaint about my sexist expletive of a religion professor—the investigator had talked to a bunch of his other students, and they found his “unconventional personality” and “sarcasm” charming, so, they were closing the complaint.  (Because, as you know, if there are two things that I just cannot wrap my mind around, it's sarcasm and anything unconventional.)  This is, I would argue, the tip of the cliché iceberg for all sorts of institutionalized crap in a few different institutions those guys were representing.

Seriously I was incandescent for an hour, there.  (With rage, obv., which is my go-to emotion.  My little black dress of emotion.)  Like white-hot-destructive-anger-of-the-Erinyes upset, which happens every so often. This is due to some good reasons, but that doesn’t make it any more reasonable or easy.

But then I realized it doesn’t (more or less) matter for me any more.  I never have to deal with those people or institutions ever again.  And it’s not giving up—it’s making a life for myself where those things and people have no power.

Choose your battles, and all that.

UGH that’s getting cheesy.  So but IN SHORT:

The new plan is to move to San Francisco and just love it and somehow in the course of my life acquire and head up a freaky-cabaret-burlesque and have a real live lair to write in and a bunch of handsome genius gentlemen friends, and we can all swoon over each other.  In costume.

Spiky spindly costume.

Anyway, that’s how I will be measuring personal deep-inner-self-instantiating success from now on.  

Why did I come to this conclusion while watching the worst/best musical ever?  Because that's the kind of sophisticate I am.

keep on your mean side

 AAAHHH.

Saw the Kills on Wednesday—Alison Mosshart is a goddess that I either want to become or marry or both, jury’s out.  It was my first show back home, and come to think of it my first real show since like Arcade Fire which is a little depressing. 

There was 100% more Mostly if Not All Black and Leather outfits (which percentage I was contributing to) than the Arcade Fire show, and 67% more Cigarettes Being Smoked that Did Not Just Contain Tobacco, which I was secondhand partaking of because what use is a concert if you are not going to be in front, in the crush of people and the haze of smoke.

From which vantage point you can take one thousand terrible phone pictures because you are the one person without a proper camera.

Alison was of course an amazing if weirdly shy performer.  Like she would make eye contact and kind of interact with the audience—but mostly she would just dance and convulse and headbang in her own feverish little sphere.  She hardly spoke at all.  Jamie Hince, however, would play his guitar with this stance and this weird thousand-mile wide-eyed glassy stare like Javier Bardem in No Country and then after I thought that I couldn’t even take him seriously.

Jamie is on the left TELL ME I AM WRONG.

It was fun being back downtown—fun seeing Red River and Seventh, all the fauxglam hipster divebars.  Also I saw people I haven’t seen in EVER which was the best.

In other news I am having tremendous difficulty getting any sort of motivation back.  The last couple of years' crazy workload has been fueled by this really nihilistic self-loathing slash self-destructive streak that I wasn't happy about at the time, but at least I got stuff done.  Now that I’m happy about life I just eat ice cream and watch Law and Order: Criminal Intent with my mom and NOTHING GETS DONE.

Nothing.  Here's a half-hearted running picture.  I walked this.  That's how lazy I am now.

This obviously has got to stop if I’m not to move to San Francisco with nothing to show for the last few months but an enormous butt and a really good Detective Goren impression.  

The key is to turn sideways.

Which impression the enormous butt helps, actually, if I’m imitating post-fifth-season Goren, BUT IT’S NOT WORTH IT.

YES GOREN YOU SHOULD LOOK HURT I AM CALLING BOTH OF US FAT.

OH speaking of being inappropriately happy (which I was, right?) I’ve started the complaint process for that one creepy misogynist professor. Which I have all sorts of feelings about but I’m gonna wait till it’s all done before I talk about it more.

But hopefully it will all turn out great because revenge is justified if it's for the greater good, right?

Here's one last picture to head out on because I have a thousand of these.

meanwhile at stately wayne manor

This is just part of my usual jog.  Whatever.  

Austin.  Austin Austin Austin.  Have I mentioned it's the best?  It's the best.  Bands tour here.  The Drafthouses are here.  Town Lake is here.  Non-traditional gender and identity presentations are here.  There is more than one coffee shop per capita here.  Everything is here!

Seriously though at the risk of sounding really overdramatic I feel like I can like breathe freely here in a way that was not an option in Provo.

Did I mention our art deco power plant?  I should use another image where you can like actually see it but I took this one so deal with it.

So that last week of school was pretty insane for reasons that I will probably talk more about when it's all resolved slash I get my diploma in the mail so I know absolutely nothing can go wrong.  It involves a super-misogynistic professor and some weird power trips where he tried to, in his words, "teach me a lesson."  What a non-creepy charmer!!!!  Luckily, one of my superpowers is writing cutting correspondence.  Hopefully some formal complaints will make a dent.

This was at the bus stop.  SHORTS THAT DON'T COME TO YOUR KNEE??  YOU DIRTY SLUT.  Have some respect for yourself, as modeled by your invasive and judgmental friends.

That was the weird thing about BYU.  Like the vast majority of my experience was really positive and I had opportunities that I wouldn't have had anywhere else (wonderful wonderful friends and mentors and that stupid thesis and all sorts of things like that) but there were some decidedly weird undercurrents going on.

Stuff like this, of course, supersedes all that other crap.

But anyways.  What I have mostly done since I was home was chill the eff out.  This last year was one of the hardest ones of my life and I didn't quite realize the toll that it had taken.  Since I have been home I have done absolutely zero constructive things.

Except pose four of my siblings as the ice skating princesses they are.

What I have done, is I have gone ice skating.

Bradford is freaked out, since I have obviously unwittingly skated into a version of The Grudge starring Sophie.

I have been driven to a tiny Texas town by a closet barbecue connoisseur where we went to what was essentially a smokehouse and were served pounds of meat pulled from firepits in crumpled paper bags and I was convinced that some meat does not in fact need sauce and I ate one hundred pounds of pickles.

Everything was smoky and charred.  See those wooden crates?  That's where they'd pull your meat from.

Because that's where the fire was.

This was our wadded bag of crumpled meat and sausage and white bread.  Also, the most delicious thing ever.

There is a Hook showing and accompanying "feast"at the Drafthouse to which I am bringing everyone and I will be sorely disappointed if they don't give us empty pots at first so I can say PETER YOU'RE PLAYING WITH US in a creepy little-boy voice when they finally give us the food, which is from the movie if you didn't know, I'm not just being creepy.

"Don't try to stop me, Smee" is another family quote.

I have started jogging in earnest, because that's what happens when all you do when you get home is eat Nutella and Christmas candy and watch emotionally exploitative TLC reality dramas and police procedurals.  You gain ten pounds in three weeks.  That is a true thing.  So you run all the time because all the clothes you got for Christmas that fit you two weeks ago do not fit now.

This is literally a three-and-a-half-foot-tall vulture watching me run.  He obviously has zero faith in me.  Joke's on him, though, I didn't collapse till I got home!

I have also gotten a dinky job as a hostess at a restaurant, which is one step closer to my weird fantasy of working as a hostess at a Japanese superhero theme bar.

I have outlined a YA novel that I should be able to have a solid draft of written by the time I leave for SF in April.

And that is pretty much all, other than like the holidays.

I do miss Provo a million times more than I thought--or rather, the people in Provo.  I keep seeing fun things to do, and keep thinking "OH I HAVE TO TELL (Insert Provo person's name here)!" and then I realize they're a thousand miles away and I can't see them, and I get sad.  I also just miss seeing everyone and doing fun things.

I mean velociraptors do not glitter themselves.

But, I'll see everyone again soon, in April! I hope.  Nobody go anywhere.

it's a bright guilty world

Congress bridge at home in Austin at dusk.

Have I mentioned how much I love Austin?  Because I love it.  It has both the most music and the most Mexican Free-tail bats in the nation.  Okay, only the second one is actually vouched for.  But still!  Pretty awesome.

When I was little and we lived in Houston, my dad would come up to Austin all the time for business trips.  We would always go to Zilker Park and then go see the bats and that was pretty much my whole view of Austin—killer playgrounds with seal statues you could pretend to ride, and bats everywhere all the time.

Being home was the best even if it did mean I stayed up ALL NIGHT watching reality television and reading my brother’s scary books about the Amazon and researching shark-diving companies for reasons that will be explained later in this post.

Anyway: the future.

I received the official job offer in my mailbox today which means:

1.     I didn’t just dream it and think it was true and then tell everyone.  (WHAT IF THAT HAPPENED.)

2.     I am asking for all business attire and professional lady accessories for Christmas instead of, like, comic books and silent German films.*

That’s pretty much it, actually.

Here’s my job:

I will be a systems integration analyst for Accenture in their San Francisco office. 

San Francisco.  Obvi.

Here’s what it says I will be doing on the website:

“Systems Integration Consulting involves working in teams with other knowledgeable and highly skilled individuals, which makes for an enjoyable and productive environment. You will likely work on complex projects for international companies. They will look to you to help them define their needs and then design and implement adaptable yet predictable and easy-to-maintain solutions that support their strategic business imperatives.”

Which is all very vague which they tell me is de rigueur in consulting.

Basically I’m a baby consultant.  In a few years if it all goes okay I’ll be a real

consultant.  I’ll go around places and learn things and then in a few years tell other people what to do.

I have been reluctant to post about it because literally I have the same superstitions of like a third century pagan hedge-witch (whaat where did that analogy come from?  I have a lot of superstitions, is what I mean) and I was afraid that if I posted about the job it would somehow jinx it and the offer would be rescinded.

So here’s hoping it’s still valid tomorrow.

Anyways: San Francisco!  I’ve been there twice and it’s extremely lovely.  I researched it online and I was reminded of a fact that I had repressed after reading The Devil’s Teeth.   Instead of bats, it has the most and/or biggest (I forgot) great white shark population in the nation ever. EVER. 

And they are friendly!  You can pet them!

I pretty much have what I assume millions of people share because for sure something weird fuels Shark Week, and what David Foster Wallace pretty aptly named “an atavistic shark fetish.”  Like, I have regular nightmares about these guys.

I don't know why.  He's smiling!  He's all, like, OH HI!!!

Nope, I guess I wasn’t going anywhere with that. 

Anyway:  SAN FRANCISCO!!  

The setting of many a film noir.

In whose Chinatown the finale of one of my favorite movies takes place.

I am kind of flashing back to my Orson Welles phase and cringing, also. 

 So it should be fun and I'm excited and hopefully I'll swim with sharks and have dramatic sexy shootouts in halls of mirrors.

*Hahaha like I didn’t also ask for comic books and silent German films.

oh don't be such a dramanticore

I have read the book this is from exactly one million three times.

This is a picture of Loki, the trickster god.

He is contemplating his children and probably regretting his decision to have children with as many ponies and giants as he did.

So when I'm stressed these days I like regress to childhood/adolescence and consume all the same things I did when I was younger.  In this case, my shiny copy of D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Myths which has an introduction by Michael Chabon so I can pretend it's a super sophisticated thing to do.

(YES I'm supposed to be studying for a D and C test right now that is why blogging is so urgent.)

I was going to make a larger point about how I kind of like the Norse mythos more than the Greek one because the gods are in fact mortal, and they totally know how their lives are going to end--which is bloodily and terribly and mostly at the hands of each other, which you think would make things awkward but they all deal with it pretty well it seems.

And then I was going to relate it to myself and how I cannot even make decisions right now but then I realized THAT IS SO BORING THE MOST BORING.

Suffice to say--I'm almost afraid to write this because it might jinx it, but I heard back from that job I interviewed with today.  The HR person said I did really well in my interviews and she's forwarded my info to the official recruiters of the various cities to see if there's demand for me.

I should hear back within the next week.

Of course that is all contingent on me passing this freaking test and so graduating, so I'm gonna get back to studying/weeping with boredom.

Mostly weeping.

just another future song

Good idea?  Yeah?

(What if I just listened to “Shake it Out” nonstop. ILU Florence.)

I got this email from the company that I interviewed with today, asking what my availability date might be and the my top three cities I might like to live in.

(Which is probably pretty good news—I mean if they weren’t even considering me, they probably wouldn’t care what cities I might like to live in.  Unless it’s part of a really cruel rejection policy where they get postcards from all the cities I put and write SUCKS FOR YOU YOU CAN'T LIVE HERE on them all and then mail them to me, which does seem a little unreasonable if just from a cost perspective.)

But so instead of being happy, because I obviously enjoy suffering, I instead launched myself into this weird stomach-turning vertigo spiral (which emotion is pretty much on my proverbial speed-dial at this point). I have like not countenanced actually graduating, much less getting a job, etc.  Not to be all angsty but for various reasons it’s always been kind of hard for me to actually imagine, like, any sort of good future at all.  So I couldn't even choose and instead just called everyone for advice.  

(Sorry, people I called!  You were very sweet and patient and helpful.)

Spoiler: I pulled myself together enough to respond.

I decided on:

            

            1. New York

            2. San Francisco

            3. Seattle

            3b. Minneapolis

So I guess we’ll see in a few weeks.  Even if I don’t get the job, which, I mean, let’s keep our expectations realistic, it was good to kind of start thinking about that sort of thing.

Also.

Here are some entries from the “Classic Literature in One Interaction” Series that Madeline and I have going:

She's like....maybe not.

Phantom of the Opera:

PHANTOM: HEYCHRISTINEI’MYOURDAD.

CHRISTINE: Awesome!

PHANTOM: I mean…let’s have sex?

CHRISTINE: Uh…nah.

Chose this one for a reason.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:

JEKYLL: I’m nice and awesome!
HYDE: JK LOLZ.

JEKYLL: Dammit.

Or more.

Pride and Prejudice:

DARCY: I’m a huge jerk!

ELIZABETH: Yeah you are.

DARCY: (leaning in and whispering) but a sexy jerk.

ELIZABETH: LET’S HAVE FIVE THOUSAND BABIES.

This is before Voldemort lost all his hair.

Wuthering Heights:

HEATHCLIFF. Man I’m a troubled youth!

CATHERINE: LALALALA LOOKITME.

HEATHCLIFF: Ohmigod I love you.

CATHERINE: Nope byeeeeeeeeee

HEATHCLIFF: Sadface. ANGRYFACE.

CATHERINE: LALALALA LOOKITME I’M A GHOST.

HEATHCLIFF: Ohmigod I love you.

OK YOU WIN EVERYTHING IS THE WORST.

All Cormac McCarthy:

CORMAC: Everything is terrible forever but at least I have this thesaurus.

well I remember halloween

my spirit animal.  (not power animal.  maybe.)

This week I defended my thesis and flew to San Francisco for a job interview and went to two haunted houses and dressed up as Marla Singer and saw my awesome awesome cousins and became addicted to Mac makeup and had a story published and made a playlist of Nightmare Before Christmas, Space Oddity and its covers, and 4 jillion hours of childrens choirs covering rock songs and rock bands covering opera songs and then listened to it for 4 jillion hours.

I want to write about these things but I'm a little frazzled, and there's also that Halloween marathon on.

Here are some other things instead.  Some of them happened.  Some of them I wrote down on a piece of scrap paper that I use when I'm working to kind of siphon stray thoughts or phrases, pensieve-style.

--What do you even do if this happens:

During my thesis defense, my advisor was telling me I needed to organize my graphs in a more clear manner, so it would be immediately clear what information I was trying to convey.

"These sort of [clear, punchy, aha-moment] graphs," he said, "is what we call in academia: the money shot."

And inside I was all like HAHAHAHA THAT'S NOT AN ACADEMIA TERM.

And then he just, like, kept saying it.

Should I have said something?  Pulled him aside later?  Just did what I did and have him keep cracking up undergrads?  WHO KNOWS.

--I cannot handle grown women wearing fuzzy hats with ears especially when they go on and on about how tiny they are among other unforgivable things.  I'm sorry I tried and I just can't.

--I effing love Halloween and haunted houses.  I like old horror slasher movies where the rules are so archaic and the acting so bad it's pretty much religious pageantry.

--San Francisco is beautiful; I think the interview went okay; I love the ocean and non-traditional gender presentation.

--Good luck to all delicate sardines in the Mediterranean sea.