It’s been awhile and I’m bored. So I played a little blog game I’m calling “In my pants.” The game is as follows: play your iPod, or other collection of pirated music on Random. Add the words “In My Pants” at the end of the title to the first 30 songs. I’ve bolded the funniest since it’s such a long list.

1. Clemek: Supermarket In My Pants
2. Loreena McKennitt: The Mummer’s Dance In My Pants
3. Fiona Apple: O’ Sailor In My Pants
4. The Darkness: I Believe In A Thing Called Love In My Pants
5. Blue Six: Let’s Do It Together In My Pants
6. mcA T : Bomb A Head In My Pants
7. Rusted Root: Send Me On My Way In My Pants
8. Audioslave: What You Are In My Pants
9. Garbage: I think I’m Paranoid In My Pants
10. Manu Chao: La Primavera In My Pants
11. The Beatles: You Never Give Me Your Money In My Pants
12. Collective Soul: Needs In My Pants
13. The Who: 1921 In My Pants
14. Apartment 26: Axel Off In My Pants
15. Tomoyasu Hotei: Immigrant Song In My Pants
16. Loituma: Ieva’s Polka In My Pants
17. No Doubt: Different People In My Pants
18. Angel City: Love Me Right In My Pants
19. The Seatbelts: Fingers In My Pants
20. Death Cab For Cutie: The Face That Launced 1000 Ships In My Pants
21. Donovan: Mellow Yellow In My Pants
22. Europe: The Final Countdown In My Pants
23. Pink Martini: Amado Mio In My Pants
24. The Shins: So Says I In My Pants
25. Joan Osborne: St. Teresa In My Pants
26. Snap: Rhythm Is A Dancer In My Pants
27. Bright Eyes: Something Vague In My Pants
28. Live: The Waitress In My Pants
29. Melissa Etheridge: I’m the Only One In My Pants
30. The Rolling Stones: Mean Disposition In My Pants

One of my dreams is to earn a Master’s in creative writing.

One of my dreams is to live in Japan and teach English for a year—or two.

My biggest dream is to support myself with my writing. Of course I want to write the fun stuff—novels, short stories, movie scripts, an ocassional essay for the Paris Review. But I’m also happy with the “not fun stuff”—technical manuals and documents, web content, help articles. And I’m close to making a living writing the “not fun stuff”. The only thing stopping me is the “making a living” part. I have yet to earn enough money (or enough of a steady flow of money) to consistently pay the bills and provide medical care for both me and my aging dog. Hell, I don’t even ask for medical insurance right now, although it’s mighty nice to have. I just want a roof over my head and to be able to afford the dentist and my dog’s meaty perscription dog food. And I don’t want my boyfriend to continue footing the overflow of things I can’t afford.

I’ve had these dreams for a long time now. And I feel a significant part of my current depression stems from being frustrated at not having adequtely moved towards the life I dream about. Now, mind you, I’m not saying that my depression is only because I’m frustrated with where my life is (or isn’t), but that this feeling has made the dull seed of depression I’ve lived with since my mother died flare up.

Just the other day, I came across the following exerpt from a book written by Sonia Choquette, an apparent psychic and New Age guru:

Take fifteen minutes a day to mentally tend your imagination garden. Just before bed is often a good time. Because the subconscious mind responds very well to ritual, pick a special outfit to wear when going into your creative garden. (Pajamas are fine, if they are special.) Putting on special clothes will prime your subconscious mind and put it into the receptive mode.

…When I have created the proper ambiance, I close my eyes and meditate on my Heart’s Desire. I try to envision it as a movie that I am starring in, rather than simply watching from afar. I enjoy my creative movie for a few moments, then open my eyes. Finally, I write down what I want to create, and then I read it back, out loud.

I took the liberty to cut out parts where she talks about how she wears a sacred kimono, lights incense, and listens to soothing meditation music to create her proper ambience. Whacky spiritual New Age pajamas and music aside, I feel like Sonia is the best free counselor I could have accidently run into. And I have a random Google search on something completely unrelated to thank. Maybe it was a good, healthy dose of New Age Fate.

I strongly believe there is something to be said for the imagination and meditation. I can see how using those two together in the way described above makes one feel happier and more empowered. It also focuses the mind and allows for a clearer understanding of what one desires in their life, which in turn hopefully allows them to see a clearer pathway towards that desire.

Now excuse me while I go find some spirital PJs and dust off the high school flame’s CD full of New Age music he composed and performed. I have a happy imagination garden to go tend to, where I am a well-fed writer earning royalties from a movie script and few literary novels.

I’ve been carefully censoring everything I write here due to my paranoia that people at every job I apply to make their way here from my portfolio site. And while censoring, I’ve noticed that my writing has become stale and deflated. I don’t enjoy it anymore because I think about every little detail and whether or not it will come back to haunt me.

I know for a fact that some potential employers do find their way to this site. But I have only had one very uncomfortable experience where the woman interviewing me grilled me on comments I wrote three years ago in which she had completely misconstrued as an attack at the University of Washington (her employer).

Over a year after graduating college, I’m still not in a full-time permanent position and I’m beginning to feel that censoring myself doesn’t matter. I also have a lot going on in my life, and the best way for me to heal is to write about it. In the past, I’ve tried paper journals, filling a handful of pages maybe once every month. And while that may be the smartest option for me considering some of the touchy subject matter of my current life, this blog is the only thing where I am able to consistently write and heal. While I’m not planning on going into detail about interviews and other inappropriate subjects, I do feel that it’s time for me to open up more and talk about the depression I’ve been dealing with.

Depression is one of those illnesses that many people misunderstand, including me and my boyfriend—two people who live with it everyday. I was afraid that if I were to talk about my experiences, it would hurt any potential employment. However, I realized that I’ve been trying really hard to get better and that perhaps sharing my troubles and solutions might touch at least one person who stumbles upon this humble blog. Or it may not. But at the very least, I know releasing everything I’ve caged up will help me fight my illness. And if that means someone who intends to interview me stumbles across an entry about depression and decides not to interview me or offer me the job despite my efforts to become a happy and healthy person, then I don’t want to work for them anyway.

You know that knitting consumes your brain when you see someone pull a book from their backpack and swear that the title is “Sweatershop Warriors.” Surprised, you squint, trying to catch a glimpse of any patterns from your angle. Are the patterns warrior-like sweaters, or just really amazing delights designed by a gang of sweatershop warriors?

The person adjusts her book and then you realize that the title is in fact “Sweatshop Warriors.” You lose interest and stare out the bus window instead.

I’m warning you right now, this post really is one big, fat stress dump. You have been forewarned.

I have never felt as bad as I have this week. Things piled up on me, crushing my lungs and leaving me gasping for air day after day. Eating became part of the discomfort, disturbing the stress knot in my stomach and leaving me ill. Even a simple shower made me want to throw up.

The most tangible and obvious source of this stress was a the “Coproduction Contest” I signed up for months and months ago. Due to some rather confusing information, most of the groups that had formed in the beginning fell apart. This included the original group I had signed up with. I had made the mistake in assuming that was this was also the case with the second group I had joined. Sadly, while I lazed around and was consumed by the sin of sloth, my other three partners were working on their pieces of the project. Finally, out of nowhere, I received a message from the ringleader. I had a mere two weeks to pull through. And this at a time where I’m severely depressed and stressed because of work.

I continued to put the project off, because at that point, it just wasn’t worth it to me. I was supposed to build armor out of soda cans. I thought about it, moved the project through my synapses over and over again. All I could think about was how it was such a stupid idea that wouldn’t work with my resources. The picture they sent me also was intimidating. I was supposed to make this? Is this bloody thing even possible to make? It’s a freaking cartoon. It’s such a freaking cartoon that if you saw this thing on the street your brain would explode from how impossible it’s existence would be.

So, finally, after much consumption of the way of the sloth, I decided to finish the project. I attempted the soda cans, using beer cans I scavenged from our communal recycling bins. Using beer cans was the only thing I found remotely interesting/funny about this project, so I had hoped they would instill a little extra motivation within my usless slot body. But cutting the cans was a miserable failure. Even Tyler, the amazing boy-wonder of perfectionism, admitted it was impossible after giving a can a good stab with my exacto knife.

I screamed, I wept, I wanted to hurt myself. Oh to tear my hair out, to claw at my skin—how much better that would feel than the pain in my stomach.

Finally, I decided to use nasty shoulder pads that should have stayed in the 80’s and cover them with duct tape. And oh, how I covered those fuckers with duct tape. They became beastly saucers of shoulder doom, and would have been wonderful save for the visible seams and lumps of duct tape. My next step was to pump them full with a can of Rustoleum. However, the Rustoleum worked against me and made the tape peel, causing the seams to become even more visible and lumpy. After a night of drying, I remembered the self-leveling gel I bought for the purpose of making collages. I stroked giant globs of glue all over the doom saucers and let them dry for another day. Finally, the seams and lumps were slightly less visible. While still incredibly ugly, the doom saucers were a vast improvement from their original form. All that was left was to spray everything with gold spray paint, spend a few minutes sewing strips of elastic together, and then package and mail the beast.

I felt like this project was finally coming to a close. I felt like I would pull through for my group. The stress began to lift and I was finally able to eat an actual meal. And then, while addressing the package, I realized for the first time that I was mailing my item to Canada. The stress knot began to regroup in my stomach, threatening to catapult my lunch of butternut squash ravioli. I forced myself to stay calm and collected, at least until I made it to the Post Office and handed the package over to the clerk.

But things couldn’t get any worse than when I found out how express Express Global shipping was. I wanted my project to be in the ringleader’s hands by Friday, but shipping will take three to five days! Three to five fucking days! And that’s assuming customs doesn’t find my package suspicious, as they always seem to do.

And my only consolation in all of this is that:

1. The beast is gone and I’ll never have to look at it again (unless customs returns it).
2. Tyler keeps telling me that the project was a turd from the beginning and all I’ve been doing is polishing it. However, I polished it really well, considering it was just a turd.

Sometimes, I wonder about creepy internet stalkers. Are the watching me? What are they thinking? What are they looking for as the comb through my archives? I know it’s a silly thing to worry about, these stalkers, considering the newly minted adage of “laying oneself bare on the internet.” But, due to extenuating circumstances, I know there’s a stalker or two watching this modest little blog.

And I think of how funny it would be to implement secret posts like at the Amick Family blog. I could title an entry “At the strip joint,” or “The worst day of my life,” or “I know you’re there, Internet Stalker(s).” And then I could lock said post, basking in the impish pride of knowing that their stalker interest has shot past chartable levels because they can’t read the sweet pomegranate words.

$1.75 of which I was willing to spend.

Damn vending machines. I’ll remember this.

Here’s some more spam— but this time it’s highly educational. I’m also quite fond of the story excerpt that comes from nowhere.

A message someone sent this morning in response to my Etsy shop:

I thought about writing a long critique about how you’re an idiot if you think you can get away with scamming someone by throwing some text through an online translator. But then I realized that these scams must work on someone, otherwise they wouldn’t exist. Then I thought about writing how this scam message actually made me realize that there truely are real people writing these atrocious poxes of grammatical evil rather than one Spam Demon. But then I realized I still have no proof that this wasn’t the fault of the Great Overlord Spam Demon. So, I guess I’ll just let the message stand alone since I feel it properly conveys all the ideas in my head without any needed explanation.

Oh, and I’m feeling really tired and lazy and should technically be editing atrocious poxes of grammatical evil to actually make a difference in this world&#8212or at least, in the greater UW community.

I needed space for my editing books at work, so I decided it was time to clear out the dust-covered TV and a box of yellowing, homeless printer trays. The decision didn’t come easy as I felt the TV lended a certain playful atmosphere that countered the very droll Accountant-filled atmosphere surrounding me. And while I wasn’t as fond of the box of printer trays, my feelings about them morphed over this past month and half. Instead of the yellowing computer hardware perception I originally held, they transformed into an art exhibit of sorts. The sharp, angular plastic hiding in the shadows of a table—bending this way and then suddenly that way—was a tribute to the lost world of the UW’s inner workings, and by extension, the lost world of any well-established non-profit organization. And I’ll be honest: having junk surround me was comforting if only because it reminded me of working at Hillel, which remains my favorite job to date. But in the end, I felt space for work-related materials was more important than dusty, unusable furnishings.

Just three feet away from my cubicle is a closet crammed so full that the door is permanently held open by a monstrous mess. The mess has grown sporadically for so many years that it reaches upwards with spindly appendages—much in the same manner as a plant with too little light. Inside the closet doorway—at the bottom of the mess monster—is another TV. I felt this was a most appropriate place to stick my TV and printer tray art exhibit, so I did just that. After some twenty minutes of puzzle-packing my desk-space refuse, I stood back and enjoyed the fruits of my labor. Balanced at a sixty degree angle atop of the mess monster was the box of printer tray limbs. Wedged at the very bottom of the mess monster was the TV, where it snuggled happily next to the other TV so that they could easily breed like fervent rabbits and make new baby TVs for me to sell.

After successfully match-making the TVs, I forgot about my adventures with the mess monster and attempted to accomplish something during my remaining three hours.

This morning Bill, the manager of the division where I reside though am not technically a part of, peeked over my cubicle wall and said, “I need to ask you a quick question.”

Delighted by the human contact, I excitedly looked up from my project and yelped a resounding “Sure!”

“I see the contents of the closet have grown…” he started.

“Oh, yeah. I moved the TV and a box of printing trays in there yesterday,” I said.

“Is that it?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Well, we’re going to do something about this closet because it’s gotten a bit out of hand. And, I just wanted to know the origins of everything… But it seems the closet has gotten… a bit more full since yesterday,” Bill said.

“Oh, sorry. Is there somewhere else I should put all the junk?” I asked.

“No, it’s fine. I was just surprised by the appearance of three TVs.” he said.

“Three? Three TVs?” I jumped up and looked over into the closet. There, in front of my eyes, amidst a mess monster much bigger in size than anything I contributed to the day prior, were three TVs. My TV, the original mess monster TV, and a third TV about half the height of the other two and wedged right between the happy TV couple.

Holy crap! The things in this office do breed!