last year's halloween party left our crappy little apartment looking like a bunch of dirty vagabonds had trampled through it. there were black footprints all over the kitchen tile, the carpeting was covered with leaves from the outdoors and discarded red party cups, and there was a major spill in my bedroom, among other messes. last year's halloween party found me and chris fighting the night before about whether or not we should move one of the couches from the living room into our bedroom. somehow, the fight had escalated and i believe i threw a red bull can at him, although the details are now rather fuzzy. last year's halloween party involved a friend kissing me after everyone else had fallen asleep. there were a series of small discussions, and now we are not friends anymore, which is kind of a shame. if only i weren't so desirable.

last year's halloween party was a ton of fun. michelle had the best costume- sally, from 'nightmare before christmas'- but there were several runner-ups, including lisa as the runner-up in a beauty pageant (complete with empty booze bottle and runny mascara from tears), her boyfriend jason as a male witch (we stuffed his shirt and even gave him candy malt ball nipples), emily as an inflated pumpkin, several characters from 'the royal tannebaums,' and brent, who had a costume involving a pretty lethal sword. costumes with weapons are automatically winners.

tonight's our 2nd annual halloween party (or, at least my 2nd annual party- chris and his friends have been doing this for a whil), and i hope it all goes off without a hitch. the apartment's not exactly huge. i mean, it's huge with love, but, space-wise? 1000 square feet somehow shrinks when you have a lot shoes.

also, socks.

wearing sunglasses indoors is guaranteed to make you look like an alcoholic.

wearing sunglasses indoors while holding a baby makes you look an alcoholic mother.

my ring makes me think of a green lime floating in a golden corona beer.

one of my old retail managers used to say, "i deal with the public." that had a ring to it that i found kind of pompous. i deal with the public? what are you, an aide to the mayor?

i feel like i've been lied to yet again. this whole "let's write 50,000 words in one month" thing is driving me mad, and the one month has yet to start. i can't back out now because i've been shooting my mouth off all over town, but even though the instructional book for this month is called "no plot? no problem!" i feel that no plot is indeed a very big problem. i got nothing. you're not supposed to use old ideas for this crazy month of keyboard pounding, and who am i to disobey rules that aren't going to be monitored or enforced and were made up by some guy living in oakland who devotes a whole chapter of his book on what to eat and drink while writing your 50,000 words? methinks that, in this case, he was just trying to waste some words.

so, i tried asking my significant dude for some plot help. these are the ideas he gave me:

a boy and his fishsticks.

a boy and his fish.

a boy and his bird.

a boy and his dog.

two boys drinking cosmopolitans and they aren't gay.

a boy and his socks.

there were others. i'm blocking them out.

anyhow, now i just feel awful. i can't even think of an interesting character, except of course when i "create" that character in my own likeness, with maybe bigger boobs and a car that doesn't drift to the right when she lets go of the steering wheel to eat her soup. jeez.

in other news, i found a fingernail on my desk yesterday morning, and it wasn't mine. who the hell is clipping their nails on my desk when i'm not around? my coworker presented the idea that maybe the fingernail was attached to my dunkin' donuts coffee.... and that just gave me a real bad feeling.

"you're giving out gifts?"

"um, yes."

"i have a lot of money at this bank. can i get a gift?"

"sure... you just need to take some of that money and open a new account."

"i don't want to open a new account. i just want the gift."

"sure, we can give you a gift. you just need to refer somebody. they open an account, they get a gift, and then we send you this coupon for..."

"this is ridiculous. i have, like, five hundred dollars here and you can't give me a gift?"

"i'm sorry, those are the rules. this promotion just started."

"i want a gift. and i ain't leaving until i get one."

"how about a lollipop instead?"

"you people are awful."

"listen, lady, it's not even that nice of a gift."

"i told you, i ain't leaving."

my mother found my diary from sixth grade and packed it into a box along with some other mementos of my life that she had run across: junior high yearbook in which all the faces have been decimated by red marker, my puppet 'margarita,' a bird mask, a blue plastic piggy bank with a whorishly painted face, two and a half sets of woolen gloves, bank statements from 1999, a bottle of 'pumping curls' spray, and six year old tampons. "i don't really need the bird mask," i told her, "and i'm afraid to use these tampons..."

"just take the whole box," she insisted. "these five gloves look like they're in great condition."

at home, i flipped through my old diary, delighted, at first, to have come across these archives from my past. my delight quickly turned to horror when i actually started reading. the awful truths relayed from these pages ultimately made me throw the diary away, as i just couldn't stand to have it in existence. i was a mean, bitter, nasty little girl with the handwriting of an illiterate stroke victim. i was truly a horrid person- a horrid person with an incurable crush on the son of a baseball player. every other entry mentioned this little boy. "i will always love him. sometimes i like to picture our wedding." while reading, the bile rising from my throat was almost too much to swallow; i wanted to go back in time and smack my eleven year old self, yell at her to work on her math homework, maybe take up ballet.


the worst entries almost made me cry. i was terrible to my two closest friends, constantly playing one off the other in an attempt to make sure they didn't become closer to each other than they were to me. i also would have spurts of pure hatred towards my one friend, s, for reasons that i can't explain, except by using the weak and worn excuse of miserable childhood experiences. "i hate the little scrunchies that s. wears in her hair. sometimes i just want to grab that ponytail and yank back her head. s. thinks she's so great. i'm glad her parents are out of work." holy crap. holy crap. i also put an egg in her backpack one day. "'i know you put the egg in my backpack,'" she hissed at me. i responded, 'i did not. but maybe someone else did. a lot of people hate you, you know.'"

how was the son of a baseball player ever going to fall in love with a girl who treated her best friend like dirt?

i couldn't believe that was me, but it was. all the memories came flooding back like a wave rising out of a sea of shit, and i wanted so badly to repent for my sins. immediately, i thought about trying to contact s., to apologize for not only the sixth grade stuff- but the seventh grade stuff, the eighth grade stuff, the sophomore year stuff, the huge, final argument junior year that, at long last, stopped us from speaking forever. she probably should have stopped speaking to me years before, when that first egg appeared in her backpack. some people are forgiving. other people, like me, are just kind of jerky.

not that she was a total saint or anything. but, me? i should have held myself to higher standards. i was a quiet, dorky girl wearing too-short pants. people probably thought i was relatively harmless. in reality, i was a cruel, stone-cold bitch.

it was a bad idea to keep a diary that year. looking back, it was a bad idea to keep a diary any year. blogging's probably not the best plan either.

we went to see baby allison yesterday afternoon, and if she isn't the most adorable little girl in the world, then i'm a big pink elephant. i guess it's been a little while since my grandmother's had a little baby to play with; she seemed to go a little overboard with the fussing the fun making. She propped this four week old infant on the tabletop next to the cake that said "welcome home, baby allison!" and the baby nearly toppled over onto the cake while the cameras snapped. "go ahead," my grandmother encouraged allison, "put your face in the cake! put your handprint in the frosting." the baby seemed to know better.

i felt i also hogged the baby a little while i was there, holding her more than fair, allotted amount of time. my grandmother also encouraged this. while she was holding the baby in her lap, she told allison to wave at me. there was a girl, eight year old rachel, standing between my grandmother and me. my grandmother said to this little girl, "you, move," pushing her aside roughly so the baby could get a good look at me in order to attempt this wave. little rachel slinked off, and, appalled, all chris and i could do was laugh.

another priceless moment came when my aunt suddenly handed off allison into my mother's arms. the look of shock and alarm on my mother's face was absolutely comical; she nearly fell of her chair as this unexpected gift was dumped into her arms. my mother is not exactly comfortable with babies and children; i'm surprised little allison didn't start wailing the second that she came into contact with my mother.

not all babies are cute. some are downright ugly. this baby, however, is absolutely gorgeous. sigh.

the month of november will now have meaning. i am participating in national novel writing month; between november 1st and november 30, i will write 50,000 words. for real. you can check out my progress on nonstickcoatings.blogspot.com. of course, there won't be any entries on that blog until november 1st, when i will write my first 1666.67 words. that's how many words i have to write per day in order to make the 50,000.

read, comment. but don't be harsh; there will be no editing. and, currently, i have no specific plot in mind. but, as they say, "no plot? no problem!"

who's in with me? between now and nov. 1, i can't actually write anything- but, if you're up for it, maybe we can make a few word clusters in the mean time? think about it.

i do a lot of internet surfing while at work. more than once, i've caught myself answering the phone "(bank's name)-dot-com, this is (jook), how may i help you?"

moron.

after you're done reading every single one of my blog entries, you should check out queryletters.blogspot. que entertaining!

my friend eric, who is unfairly wealthy, has just purchased a home in the also unfairly wealthy neighborhood of deer park, right by barrington, which is even more unfairly wealthy. eric is a single man, age 29, with a solid career in optometry, who has a love of beer, beer nuts, and beer coolers. no girlfriend (ladies, let me know if you're interested) and no plans on having any children, ever, and he now was five spacious bedrooms at his disposal, along with four bathrooms, two living rooms, a huge kitchen, and an ever huger dining room. beautiful wood deck, stone fire place the size of a school bus (the long bus, not the short bus), and plans for the pool, hot tub, and wet bar are currently in the works. walking around his house last night, i grew insanely jealous. i almost ripped out my hair. what's he going to do with all this space? if i had all that space, maybe i'd start popping out kids right away. or... not. maybe i'd just create the personal library i've always wanted, or design every room around every possible mood. the happy room, the cranky room, the sad-for-no-good-reason room, the stomping-angry room, et cetera.

although even i, with all my myriad moods, don't need a house quite that big. i have been thinking about homeowning lately, though (my, aren't i domestic) and while i love my apartment, don't i deserve a kitchen large enough for a table? a set of stairs? a third bathroom and a basement for all my junk?

i guess for now i'll just continue keeping my junk in the corner of my bedroom. at least it's super accessible that way.

we've got interns. mostly, they come in and surf the internet; we'll hear them giggling in the corner over what's surely materiable of a questionable moral nature. sometimes, we'll have them do some light cleaning; i walked in once to find one of the boys wiping down the breakroom counter. another time, they were collecting scraps of paper off the storeroom floor for the garbage bin. witnessing all this makes me wish i had been an intern during college. what an easy way to earn a few credit hours; i could have handled checking out a few poker sites in between dusting or moistening a sponge. i'd have even been okay with making a few copies. even collating.

i didn't do any interns though during school. this is because i am short-sighted and have messed up priorities. instead of interning for free, i decided to make eight dollars an hour somewhere. or was it nine... or seven? also, becoming an intern might have necessitated a new wardrobe or learning another train/el route. if i'm interning, maybe that might cut into my otherwise rigid schedule of .... hmm, i guess i really didn't have that much else going on.

hindsight is 20/20, as opposed to my regular sight, which is something like 20/3,000. maybe that's another thing that prevented me from getting an internship- low vision. although, with my contacts in, my vision is actually so accurate that i can see not only 20/20 but also through time and walls.

you know what would have been fun? being a radio intern. i could have had my own show- jackie's power hour- where i give advice to lonelyhearts. also alcoholics.

i have horrible handwriting.

it's not cute or feminine. i don't dot my lower case j's with hearts or bubbles or tiny representations of various planetary bodies. my cursive is hard and jagged and full of angles. i can't stay between lines, and for the most part it's illegible and capable of producing migraine headaches.

the thing is, i'm out of practice. i use the computer for everything, so when i do have to write something down, my hand is forgetful on the proper way to grasp a pen. (if it's one of those little golf pencils, forget it. how do you hold those things without coming down with a sudden case of arthritis?) my attempt to scrawl out something as simple as a grocery list (eggs, beans, five, dentistry) is foiled by the fact that my brain can't communicate with my hands with my pen, and, boom, my grocery list resembles some language that doesn't use a coherent alphabet... and was invented by the imbeciles of some pantsless civilization, not the great leaders, thinkers, philosophers, etc.

i have really bad handwriting. if i wanted to rob some retail establishment, and if i for some reason decided to rob them via handwritten note that i slid across the counter to the clerk, it might take her a few brow-crinkled minutes to try and decipher it, and even then there'd be confusion.

clerk: you want all the honey from the cats' renegade and don't creme because you've got some gum?

me: forget it. i'll just buy a cadbury egg and be on my way.

my dad took me to a discount chocolate store the other day. one whole wall was devoted to "defective" chocolates, which seemed a little forboding, and the prices were rock bottom. twenty cents for a chocolate almond bar missing the almonds. forty cents for a gift box of semi-melted chocolate mints. twelve cents for little mini bars with labels proclaiming "it's a booy!" or "congrads laura and adam!" my dad grabbed chocolates like they were going out of style, like he had once overbought those baby blue alligator polos. "this is for your aunt," he said of a big tin of misshapen chocolate squares marked down to sixty cents. "she's diabetic," i pointed out. he shrugged.

this store didn't have shopping carts, which made the venture a bit of a struggle. my dad had armfuls of chocolate, and he kept dropping candy bars. some of the bars had coupons on the back of the label. "get a free big mac!" one read, "offer expires 9-1-1995."

"coupons may go bad, but chocolate doesn't," my dad advised. "so load up."

eight dollars and a trunkful of chocolate later, we were on our way out.

my dad used this opportunity to lecture on how to enjoy the finer things in life while being a 'working class' person. "you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars in order to partake in luxuries. it's all about finding a deal." he then went out to discuss how he was now buying close-out cigars on the internet. true he had to buy two hundred at a time, and maybe the burn wasn't exactly even, but for fifteen dollars he was getting a closetful of cigars and living like a virtual king. he smirked, so proud of himself, and proceeded to eat a caramel bar from the early eighties, with a label on it that read "hyppa st. patrikc's dya!"

turns out i love to fight. it's actually a love-hate relationship with the fighting, which i hear isn't uncommon. some people thrive on controversy. i hate those people, but i guess i love them, too. so when i whine, "i don't really want to fight with you," what i'm really saying, "put on the gloves, mother f*cker, it's time to go."

why do i like to argue so much? is it an inherent belief that nothing is perfect, so if something seems to be going perfectly, then it's time to start nit-picking? i'm not licensed to analyze these things, so i guess i don't know. i can only state the facts. even then, i'm not sure what the "facts" really are. turns out that i'm not necessarily good at fighting. i lose my train of thought easily and have trouble connecting words with feelings with actions with... sandwiches? see, i forgot where i was going with that.

what i am really good at is not smoking. i've surprised myself with this one; i must have a special talent in abstaining from things that are fun. next up: alcohol, then meat, then television, then certain fabrics. maybe i should give up fighting? hmm... once i give up rayon, i should probably call it a day.

chris and i got our halloween costumes last night. we're doing a couple costume, which is pretty damn adorable. i was up most of the night laughing hysterically over chris' costume. for those of you coming to my fabulous halloween party, you'll see what i mean. until then, i can say no more.

i watched "the butterfly effect" this weekend. it's a double-sided dvd, which is a little annoying, and ashton kutcher is in it, which is also a little annoying, but, you know what? it was actually kind of good. i haven't seen a recent movie in a very long time, but fear not. i will catch up.

facts about my sister

* born five minutes before valentine's day.

* was walking through sears one day when, boom, her knee gave out. the paramedics had to cut her jeans to set her leg, and she was certainly not happy about *that.*

* had the title of "prettiest girl in tinley park" for five years running, until, you know, our mother stopped saying it.

* first job was at the drug store. couldn't figure out how to work the lotto machine, promptly quit.

* once recieved a haircut from her older sister jackie. jackie butchered her hair and marcia- that's her name- had to wear a ponytail for eleven months.

* her name is marcia. doesn't that sound like an italian swamp?

* used to turn the radio really high, and sit in the closet, while my parents fought. i always insisted on seeing and hearing the fights. key difference.

* used to own a lot of bodysuits. remember bodysuits?

* bone straight hair which she likes to say is "wavy."

* first relationship lasted over three years. his name was mitch, and he wore ladies' jeans.

* marcia loves to buy irregular pants.

* enjoys the punk rock.

* second job was at tj maxx, where she took every opportunity to tell off people who left messes in dressing rooms.

* has inherited the money-saving gene. i don't think i'm overestimating when i say that she somehow has about $20,000 put away. that's what you get when you only buy irregular pants off the discount rack.

* loved to wash the dishes as a little girl. loved to sweep and vacuum and dust and windex. lately, her bedroom resembles a hotel room, minus the mint on the pillow.

* took a ceramics class, churned out about half a dozen kick ass vases. some of them with gambling themes.

* wants to major in accounting, but does not want to be an accountant. once said, "maybe a low level accountant" to my friend tony, who replied, "you mean a cashier?"

* her third and latest job is at the same optical i used to work at, with all the same people. a little creepy, huh?

* her glasses are always crooked.

* calls me once a week after nine p.m., when the minutes are free. starts each conversation with "'tsupitchoo?"

* is awesome. is what the hallmark cards mean when they say, "there's nobody like my sister."

answers to "why are you crying?"

- a particularly disturbing episode of "sex and the city."

- i realized i was clipping coupons.

- frustration from not understanding why a monthly interest rate, when calculated for the full year, doesn't equal twelve times the annual percentage yield.

- newspaper article about little boy.

- his grandfather reminds me, lately, of my grandfather. despite the fact that they're nothing alike at all.

- jeff buckley's death was so senseless and poorly timed.

- i don't know what to do with my arms.

- he's always beautiful. sometimes it just hits me harder.

- and what have i done to deserve it?

- didn't wash mushrooms thoroughly; mouthful of dirt.

- "wild horses," rolling stones.

-maybe it's all a waste.

- maybe, if i don't get that root canal soon, all of my teeth are going to fall out. and my eyeballs too.

- the word daddy.

- got hair caught in window, yanked head to the right, really fucking hurt.

- no reason. why?

as some of you may know, i have a nasty habit.

well, i have a couple of nasty habits, but i'm talking about one nasty habit in particular. i'd like to blame chris for this nasty habit- before meeting him, i was just the kind of smoker who enjoyed a cigarette with a cosmo on saturday night. or friday night, or tuesday morning- whenever, you know, i was having said cosmo. he was a casual smoker, as well. then, somehow, together we became not-so-casual smokers. cigarette after every meal. cigarette with morning coffee. in a car? the window's rolled down, no matter how cold, and a cigarette is being puffed at. one cosmo is no longer equal to one cigarette, it's equal to *five.* and, being a working girl and all, there's no better excuse for having to step outside than that need for tobacco.

i've made a decision. no more.

i want to keep my five dollars per pack. i don't want to smell like smoke. i want to start breathing again. hell, maybe next i'll report that i've become a gymnast or something. you don't hear about gymnasts that smoke.

i'm only on my second day, and it's already tough. so we'll see where i go with this. i may have to steer clear of the cosmos for a few weeks.... and coffee.... and meals... and driving... and working... and, shit, how did it become this bad?

my lungs hurt from not smoking. isn't that funny?

"amnesic man forgets wife is fat." sounds like the premise for a jack black movie.

i love it when balls fly all over the place. especially in situations regarding money....

i'm sick, and when i get sick, everybody has to know it. some people collect bottle caps or dolls or things related to walruses, but me? i collect pity. i want people to fuss over me, to "oh dear" me while i lay coma-like on the sofa, or sit coma-like in my chair, amid a pile of soggy tissues and empty cough drop bags.

i watched the debate last night. there's 90 minutes of my life i'm not getting back. bush looked so aggravated whenever kerry spoke, shaking his head and scowling. this is probably why the campaign managers demanded that the opposing candidate not be shown while the first candidate was answering a question. a *thirty-two page* list of rules! what a job, to be able to write out those rules! "the phrase 'butt-munch' may only be used once in a twenty minute period." how come i never get consulted for the interesting stuff?

after today, i finally understand the agony of being a cubs fan.