My personal experience of 2k10 (part 2/2)
2010 in…
FAVORITE THINGS THAT I WROTE
- “The Opposite of Lonely” on This Recording
- I Told Santa I Was Jewish, the webzine that I “edited”
- “How to Be a Totally Crushable Celebrity Dude” on The Hairpin
- Dude advice from Karen O on this blog
- Review of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self on Bookslut
- my thesis essay on Frida Kahlo
- Three aughts pop-culture outlets re-imagined with Claire Danes on this blog
SOCIALLY AWKWARD
- I asked my coworker what we were having for catered lunch, she said “Middle Eastern food” and before I knew what I was doing, I made devil horns with both my hands
- At Beauty Bar, a guy approached my barstool, smelling of smoke. This exchange happened:
“This place is just so surreal. I mean, there’s the glitter, the cut-outs, the salon chairs, the disco ball. It’s such a sensory overload.”
“It might be more of an overload in some frames of mind than in others.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I’m trying to say is that you smell like weed.”
- I tried to tell my male coworker to “gimme a sec” but pressed the x key by accident
- I went to a reading with my friend Matthew and introduced him to two dudes named Steve and Stephen.
“You’re a minority here!” I said, because of his name. Then I looked around and realized he was the only black person at the bar.
MOVIES THAT WHIT STILLMAN UNKNOWINGLY MADE ABOUT MY LIFE
- I saw Last Days of Disco for the first time and wrote about it here.
GRISLY HIGHWAY CAR PILE-UPS
I graduated college with high honors, a prize for my thesis, Phi Beta Kappa, and departmental honors. I figured that my chances in the job market were as good as anyone’s. Since I had my heart set on New York, I applied to publishing jobs since December of 2009, hoping to land one and move East. I didn’t even get an interview, and my family got financially sucker-punched in a way that I can’t talk about here.
Either way, I realized I had about two months to find a Chicago-area job before my lease expired and I’d put even more financial pressure on my family. I had to put my hopes for a publishing job on the shelf, and I’m extremely lucky I landed a job on such short notice.
I was sick, and in bed, three times between July and September. I missed most of Pitchfork Festival this year because I was on antibiotics and tired/oversensitive to the heat. Summer is usually my favorite time of year, and Pitchfork is always a highlight. I was indoors and exhausted, masochistically imagining how much fun everyone else was having outside. When I got my wisdom teeth pulled, the Vicodin was too much for me, and I vomited some blood. It made me feel sorry for myself, and scared.
I felt like I’d worked hard, and instead of retrieving a reward, I got this uncomfortable and disappointing stasis. A couple of my friends moved across the country; I missed them and was lonely. I was in empty Evanston after school had let out, walking to and from the lake, wishing I could cool off.
Of course, there is more that happened that I can’t talk about here. I just had never felt so disappointed in such a pervasive and lasting way, and perversely, I couldn’t wait for the summer to be over. I couldn’t wait for something new to start.
