I have been right this entire time

Ahem. For every 16 point raise in IQ, a man is 35% more likely to get married. For every 16 point raise in IQ, a woman is 40% less likely to get married. Yeah.

So, I am not crazy - I HAVE BEEN RIGHT THIS ENTIRE TIME.

Once you wrap your head around this fact, start telling people and watch their reaction. I've gotten everything from denial to apathy to giggles to people questioning my mental health. Just don't tell any evolutionary psychologists, because a) their reactions will make you want to punch them in the esophagus and spit in their eyes, and b) no one really wants to talk to an evolutionary psychologist anyway. Kind-of like Bush supporters.

Super colossal cold front

One of the things that is ridiculous yet somehow lovable about Texas - cold fronts. All of the weather reporters have been going on and on and on about what a big, no giant, no massive cold front we are about to experience. Massive, monster, mammoth. And once this super colossal cold front comes through, just how bone-chillingly cold will it be? 88 degrees. A mere 88 degrees.

What is oh so lovable is that everyone has been looking forward to this stunningly cold 88 degree weather. I am wearing a long-sleeved shirt! And I am excited about it! When I walked out of my apartment this morning, and the sky was overcast and the breeze was actually cool, I nearly wept. No exaggeration, no poetic license - I felt so grateful I really wanted to cry. And then I walked to the bus stop in the wind, listening to the trees crinkle and murmur above me, and I thought about all of that space above my head, up and up and up, space that I never pay any attention to. And I felt grateful.

Gratitude is an unusual emotion for me, probably because I rarely appreciate what I have. But I have been feeling it a lot lately. And I just want to take this little moment to tell everyone who I've met along the way - thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You probably won't hear it from me again, so you better revel in this little moment and soak it up before it vanishes entirely. So, before it's gone, I want to write again - thank you.

Maybe I can be an adult

"That's why I like you. Because you want a cone of probability for your birthday. Does that settle it?"

Yes. Yes it does. Hopefully.

"Then we'll whistle and go fishing in heaven."

My new-to-me favorite folk / coutry singer-songwriter is John Prine.

Yay! Free ticket to ACL!

"Man I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same"

I've been listening non-stop to KGSR in an attempt to win ACL tickets, and they just played "One Headlight" by the Wallflowers. This song will forever and always remind me of when I first moved to Austin - the two are inextricably intertwined. I had an absurd car, as always, a 1986 Mercury Cougar, affectionately known as the "Great White Slug," or slug for short. The slug had faulty seatbelts, no air-conditioning, only one window capable of rolling down, and its very own ant colony, whose inhabitants would skitter up my leg at inopportune moments, such as when I was changing lanes, dancing vigorously at stop lights, or runnin' from the law. At the time, I lived in a messy apartment off of Riverside and worked at Barnes and Noble at the arboretum. This was before there was an overpass from IH-35 to 183, which meant I had to sit at that god-forsaken intersection for at least two rounds of stop-lights, usually ten minutes or more. Sweating and listening to the radio. No cross-breeze. Giant summer clouds above. Heat. Watching cars zip by, off to work or families or errands or lovers or studies. And almost every time "One Headlight" would come on. The first few measures of that song instantly transport me to that time and place. I feel like that person again. The thing that strikes me about that time is the faith that I had in my future. Even though I was young, and insecure, and poor, I truly felt like life was going to provide me with amazing opportunity after amazing opportunity, all lined up one after another for fabulous me. Nothing but insights into the world, big-ass love, beauty, and marvelous jobs that challenged me and paid me oh so well.

Add ten years and what do you get? A nihilistic secretary with a pointless master's degree and loads of student loan debt. With no idea what to do with her time here on earth. And a blog. Still has a messy apartment, still has an absurd car, still poor.

I wonder what I would say to 19-year old Wendy, with her soft, unshakeable optimism, sitting at that light under the big sky. What can anyone ever say to younger versions of themselves? Avoid that job, that man, that thought? The rub being, of course, that you become who you are precisely because of that job, that man, that thought.

Isn't my current unknowing a gift? Is it? "The realization of the fact that he has no aim and that he is not going anywhere is the first sign of the approaching awakening of a man or of awakening becoming really possible for him. Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go." Gurdjieff, in "Search of the Miraculous" by P. D. Ouspensky.

Am I really where I need to be?

I <3 aquatic ape theory

I forgot how much I love the aquatic ape hypothesis. Yea yea yea!

I am going to stay in bed all day and write bad poetry.

I never rest, cheekbones tight
a thousand forgettings

my waist a river stone
dreaming of return
recalling the purr under the surface
patiently caressed over ever and over
ceaselessly, in the water soaked light

remembering

yeah, that was ugly

I hate my uterus. Part II

So I am on the phone with Chris, holding back tears in my office because, oh I don't know, a student who didn't speak English very well made me sad, I saw a bird with a limp, someone asked me for change on the street, I don't know what I want to do with my life, what's the point of all this anyway, etc., etc. And something starts to seem vaguely familiar. And it's not just that Chris is the person I always call when I am on the verge of tears. The poor bastard. And then I realize - this same thing happened exactly four weeks ago.

Holy fuck. I am a prisoner of my own reproductive system. And there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. Except bust out the champagne, measuring cup, and cigarettes.

Chris, thank you for being the bestest best friend a girl could ever wish for. I wish I was one of your internal organs, so we could always take naps together.

For some reason this reminds me of junior high. Without the ostracism.

I never thought I would write one of those "Oh, we were so drunk that a bunch of stupid shit seemed really funny the next day" posts, but here it is.

So, in the past 48 hours I have had the opportunity to Drink for Friendship and to Drink for Science. And I gotta say, strangely enough, that drinking for science is better. Drinking for science is superior mainly because of science's penchant for controlling things (Freudians, insert comment about science's overbearing mother and traumatic toilet training here). Controlling for this, controlling for that, controlling for everything under the sun. Normally I can control myself when drinking, but Saturday night was clearly the exception. So, in the name of science, I have decided to make a list enumerating why drinking for science is somewhat superior to drinking for friendship. Now I know lists in and of themselves are not scientific, but they are at least scintillatingly left-brained. So, without further ado, except for the ado of this sentence, we turn to...

Pros of Drinking for Science
1. Well, the obvious... drinking for science is free. Otherwise, you only get free drinks when stunned boys flutter wonderstruck around your blond friend (who is so hot she has men hitting on her within minutes of entering a gay bar) like moths to a Barbie doll. (I am pretty sure there is some kind-of misplaced modifier or other grammatical mishap in that last sentence, but damnit, I really wanted to write "moths to a Barbie doll").
2. You can be drunk in the late afternoon, sun shining happily outside, tra-la-la, and, here's the important part, all while 100 feet from your office. Drunk during the day at work? And your supervisor approves? Ahh, sweet Drinking for Science, you are a mysterious creature, with a soft underbelly and even softer eyes. How I love you...
3. You have scientific proof that you are the drunkest person in the room. It is best to announce this to the room every ten minutes or so, just to make sure everyone appreciates this fact as much as you do.
4. You learn exactly what .08 BAC feels like. Unfortunately .08 BAC makes you feel like if you chilled out and smoked a couple of cigarettes you could drive home. Luckily, science would never let you do that.
5. Science does not let you switch from whiskey sours to vodka and cranberry at 1 am. Similarly, science does not let you drink the vodka and cranberry three times as fast as the whiskey sours. Damn Drinking for Friendship, you capricious shiv-wielding slattern. Your profile burns.
6. Science doesn't let half of your friends suddenly disappear into a white PT Cruiser taxi at 2:30 in the morning, leaving the drunkest of the party to wander aimlessly down the street accompanied by random guys you don't know but who seem very nice.
7. You know where your car is. You know how you got to your car.
8. You don't have to weigh the pros and cons of making yourself vomit in the restroom of the 24-hour diner. Why the hell is there only one stall anyway? Don't 24-hour diners cater to drunk people? DRUNK PEOPLE NEED MULTIPLE STALLS.
9. Science has you safely home at 8pm and in bed at 10pm. Shiv-wielding slattern throws you out of the car at 4 in the morning.
10. Science doesn't let you call your meditation teacher at 4 am. That's right, I basically drunk-dialed my meditation teacher.
11. No. Torturous. Hangover. The importance of this cannot be overstated.

Pros of Drinking for Friendship
1. No one makes you wear a nametag. But the option of making one and forcing your friends to call you Brunhilda, Rupert or Thor still exists.
2. Spanking! Cleavage touching! Pictures!
3. I consider the ability to end every sentence with "bitch" a pro of Drinking for Friendship. Go ahead and disagree, bitch.
4. Running through fountains with cute strangers.
5. Even though the crippling headache the next morning is officially a con of Drinking for Friendship, it somehow leads to startling insights about life. Many of these revolve around your cat and how messy your bedroom is. This is probably because they are the only things you can see from your bed.
6. You get to leave exceedingly clever comments on Myspace the next day. The satisfaction this brings cannot be overstated.
7. Friendship, bonding, good times, etc....

Sadly, drinking for science is the clear winner. Poor drinking for friendship. At least I got to say "Happy birthday, Laura!"

Also, I have no memory of the above picture being taken. I am drunk girl #3.

No drama withdrawal

I think this is the calmest and most quiet my life has been since elementary school. Even more astounding, I am not creating drama to keep things crazy. Hmm...

"The real thing we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are." Pema Chodron

unkiss

melting desire brush the hair from my neck no restlessness