bad butter

Tuesday, March 26, 1996
9:40am, G train platform

This is terrible, waiting for the train. Every morning I’m consumed with anxiety and frustration. Ten minutes I’ve been waiting here at Greenpoint Ave, stomach getting acidic, neck hurting like hell. Hurt my neck last night sucking on stage at the comedy club. Got off stage in the middle of a joke, that’s how discouraged I was.

One theme in my dream last night: Carrying a cat around like a baby. Need to take a pregnancy test, I told Ted. One broken condom and you have to stress all month.

I dropped off my package to Paper yesterday but forgot to put my name on the envelope. Man, is my stomach fucked up.

I always play the cute, cranky thing around Ted because that’s how I feel. I can’t tell you how exasperated I was last night; no clean pans or pots to cook in, bad butter. How will I ever possibly cook with all the anger I feel? It makes me want to puke everything.

Hopefully I can just do my own thing at my desk today and won’t have any pesky work to do. So tempting to make a big stink. “I’m leaving. Don’t ask me for shit. I won’t be here much longer.” It’s been driving me crazy for a while.

Oh God. It’s got to be 10 to 9 now and I’m still in Queens. I hate NYPress. I’m so angry. I wonder if I can function through it, around it. I mean as we’ve proved, I can survive anything and I am a champion coper, but I have nothing left to give myself at the end of the day. All my energy is sapped just trying to keep my stomach from crawling out from my ass.

Somebody just said its 9:50. Who cares? I’ll come in when I want to. I’m not happy there. I’m not happy anywhere. I’m especially not happy here crawling through the tunnels. Come on, let’s go. I’m furious. I can’t take anymore. Move this fucking train.

I don’t know what to do about my job or my career. I don’t even know what that consists of. I wish I was 19, even 22, or that I had a fatter bag of pot on me than I do. I don’t think this book I’m reading is so great. Why do men rattle on, piling details up just to show off and amuse themselves? I’m jealous of people who have written books.

The way I’ve dealt with people like Maddy and Ian so far has allowed them to treat me in their own particular shitty ways.

If I stick up for myself in a calm, rational way, that proves I believe in my own case. Prove to who? World, leave me alone.

Later, home

FUCK THE PRESS. I told Sam I was submitting to Paper, and he said, good, go ahead.

Man, oh, man, I hope they take it. Man, oh, man, wouldn’t that be great? That’s it. I’m polishing my resume this weekend and faxing it around on Monday.

Thursday, March 28, 1996
12pm, home

Two environmental factors to be noted:

1. I’m home because my period started at 6:00 a.m. and was incredibly painful. Took a bath, cried, didn’t get back to sleep until 7:30.
2. I’m smoking a joint.

Didn’t want to have to take the day off; right decision body-wise, poor decision job-wise. Saying to Ted last night, maybe I’m overreacting to an isolated incident. Maybe a new job would suck more or just as much in different ways. The truth is, the problem I have at work is personal. I am having personal difficulties with personalities around me.

Glad to stay home today, maybe I can finish reading this David Foster Wallace book. I need to be writing a book so badly. I don’t really want to write about my life so far. I don’t know what I should be writing about. It should be happy and entertaining to read, even if elements are tragic. I want people to enjoy it.

Ted says NYPress has a reputation for being assholes and I shouldn’t doubt myself. Our relationship, for all its distance, is intense. We spend a lot of time in each other’s faces and a lot of that time talking. We’re going away this weekend and we’re going to take some mushrooms.

I feel too insecure at this moment to reread the notebooks; they feel so volatile and unsafe. Like I’ve said and felt terrible things that prove I’m crazy.

I bet this David Foster Wallace guy smokes a bunch. Read some, now I’m flip-flopping between rereading the notebooks and scribbling away. I have time today for all 3.