miss soft serve

overheard at nasty's: (from saturday night) the two vodka tonics and stella i had were not enough to hear that. one girl was talking about how, back in the '80s, one of her aunts was "abducted" into scientology. and that the fbi got involved, but only because a family member was in the fbi. and that "the second best de-brainwasher in the country" de-brainwashed her aunt. riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. second was some guy complaining to another guy how his girlfriend/wife (couldn't tell), who was there with them, was such a drag to live with because she wouldn't pay for the extra sports channels to watch on his new, fancy hdtv. um, if you can afford a new, fancy hdtv, couldn't you just pay for the extra sports channels you covet yourself? dick.

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just a hobby: one of the things that really used to irk me about one of my old bosses, named rob, was that he always used to tell me how i was a great writer. now, mind you, i tend to shun any compliments that come my way, but this writer schtick from rob really irritated me because he based it off e-mails i'd send about one of our clients and why their corrections were not grammatically or stylistically correct. so i always took this as "you're a great technical writer". because, really, that's what i was doing. and nothing against technical writers, but that's not a way i'd like to see myself.

it takes me back to my first interview with rob to work at the first ad agency i worked at. he kept on asking me if i wanted to write. i said no, that i just wanted to proofread. but he asked it several times in the interview, and finally after my last no, he said that he'd dealt with proofers and editors before who would just use the position to try and work their way up to a writer position. i had no lofty goals like that. in fact, at the two ad agencies i worked at, they almost reinforced me not wanting to be a writer, because i saw how much creativity gets sucked out of having to be a "creative" writer for an ad agency, because just because you think something is nifty, well, after the client sees it, they make it their own and it's nothing like your original idea.

back when i was in high school (my sophomore year more specifically), we were required to take a "creative writing" class. it was really just another way for the district to inflict more TAAS preparation on us. yeah. because learning how to write a formulaic essay is really "creative". i particularly hated my teacher for the class, a certain mrs. lucio. (she is the sister-in-law of a certain texas state senator, and she dropped his name much like birds drop their shit on sidewalks and unsuspecting pedestrians.) she, oh man, i failed that class (and i was oh so proud of how that F lowered my until then perfect GPA). because when we were supposed to do actual creative writing, i turned in unhappy stuff. one assignment was to write a poem, any poem, on any subject. i wrote a poem in iambic pentameter revolving around how my parents cheated on each other and how it made me feel like shit because they blamed the cheating on me. she gave me an F on the assignment. when i asked her about the grade, in front of the class, she told me that i received it because it wasn't upbeat. i called her out on it. i asked her if, well, people like sylvia plath and emily dickinson and edgar allen poe and anne sexton weren't worth shit because they didn't fit her point of view. i asked her if in fact her personal view means shit compared to how these other poets were concerned in academic circles and in society. she told me that she didn't care for any of them, and that negativity is such a horrible thing. i told her to fuck herself and that i hoped one of her children ended up gay and died of AIDS. i got sent to the principal's office for that.

when it comes to creative writing in an educational setting, i've always had bad experiences. the one creative writing class i took at ut-brownsville, i almost immediately dropped after the first assignment, which was to write something about an observation. i wrote a poem about observing someone playing the piano in the student center. no one in the class got it. they thought i was talking about someone typing at a computer. peons. similar happened at swt. only this time, i felt offended by the professor a bit, who was a verily open homosexual. his gaydar obviously worked on identifying me, and ridiculed me on my first two assignments because i didn't write on homosexual themes. yeah. fuck that.

i used to write a lot when i was younger. in fact, i used to convince myself that i got into horrible relationships just so that, when the eventual bad ending came, that i'd be creatively stimulated and be able to write and write on end. (it's only been until recently that i've come to the conclusion that i pretty much only get into relationships that i know will end badly so i can blame myself for them, much like how my parents would blame their sexual indiscretions on me.) during most of high school, i had this pen pal that lived in leander. we met at some weird sciencey convention at a&m, traded addresses, and would write to each other about life and share our writing. he was one of the only people i've ever actually accepted a compliment from about my writing (besides my original high school journalism teacher and my junior/senior year high school english teacher).

so lets get back to the present. for the first time in, like, ever, i have this inspiration to write that isn't connected to pain. it's a little weird for me. but great at the same time. because in the past, i always felt like i had to be in pain to write something worthwhile. but now i see that i don't. sure, pain is a good creative instigator, but so is laughter and happiness and simple observation. i find myself wanting to write more about things i encounter on my deliveries than i do about how stupid i feel around michael. i find myself wanting to write a semi-autobiographical novel like the bell jar, about a young man who was down on his luck, got a job typical for a college student, and was able to use that to crawl out of the abysmal place he was in. for the first time in a long time, i feel really inspired. i feel really alive.

it's weirding me out a bit.

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beerland karaoke is dead to me: it really fucking is. i've given it so many chances. but it hasn't been the same since evan stopped hosting. the times i've shown up since he left...no regulars. no camaraderie. just a bunch of douches that i want to impale with broken lonestar bottles. and the current host has just struck me wrong on so many levels. and the fact that they haven't gotten any new songs since, well, uh, '05. yeah. you'd think the last time i went there with leanne would've been the last straw. but no. tonight was. tonight, i really just wanted to go there and drink and heckle. but i was just not drunk enough to heckle. i skipped heckling and went straight to "oh my fucking gods, would it be socially acceptable for me to go up there and stick my lighter down their fucking throat so as to horrible scar their vocal cords? because they deserve it!" yeah, i felt that about the fucking white girl that tried to do "gangsters paradise". um, yeah, michelle pfiefer and annie potts could've sang that better. they might've actually gotten it in the right key and not make people want to stick pointy glass directly into their ear canals.

so yeah, i'm done. i love beerland and always will. but mondays there are now dead to me. deader to me than zoolander's dead mother. i knew i should've just gone to barflys tonight. oy.

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um, venom isn't goth: at beerland karaoke tonight, there was a guy there, that, well, he would've made more sense next door at elysium. (in fact, while i was outside smokking, he attempted to go into elysium, apparently unaware [how not goth of him] that it's closed on mondays.) anyway. i found myself nitpicking this guy and his goth-ness.

first of all was the bluetooth earpiece. i'm sorry, a piece of technology that advanced is so not goth. and plus, pretentious. i fucking hate bluetooth earpieces because they are like "oh, look at me, i'm so important, i need to take a call wherever i am." you're dressed like you want to be goth. you probably are a college student or someone without a job that requires you to be on the phone all the time. you don't need a fucking bluetooth earpiece, and you certainly don't have to wear it when you're in beerland, you fucking douche.

secondly, the venom shirt. now, this may just be the comic fanboy in me, but venom isn't fucking goth. venom is an alien symbiote that fucking takes over your body and makes you do things, evil things, you wouldn't do. like murder. all the time. it takes you over, and you have almost nothing to say about it. sure, that sounds a little goth, but, um, isn't being goth all about you doing those things and not having some alien creature take over your body and doing them?

thirdly, the matrix-like trenchcoat. i don't think i have to say more than that.

in conclusion, um, you're not goth. give it the fuck up. and burn that venom shirt; you give fanboys like me and other painfully shy recluses a bad name. and for fuck's sake, shove that bluetooth earpiece up for ass before i fucking do it for you.

prick.