Friday, September 3, 2010

The Saga of Can-Do-Ismus & Work Work Play.

And suddenly it's September.

Friends, I had a remarkable revelation the other day--and no, it was not if you make Pinto's leg thump hard enough while scratching him he will fart, nor was it that it's probably time to buy groceries when there's only some sad eggrolls and a 2-liter of Coke (to be mixed with rum) in the fridge, nor was it oh, my underwear is inside out.

I learned this: if you taunt me in to doing something, I'll fucking do it.

Seriously! And this does not mean I did something insane the other day ("Hey Rachel bet you won't snort this line of ants off the front porch" "WATCH ME MOTHERFUCKER") but only that lately I am feeling pretty unfuckable, and I don't mean that in the copulative sense. The contrary, actually. As in, every cigarette is a victor-ette solely because it can be.

Hence the affliction, Can-Do-Ismus. This is the strange and wonderful phenomenon of doing things because you can't see a reason not to, and, more importantly, because you can. And I don't mean shoplifting. I don't mean running red lights. I don't even mean not flushing the toilet as soon as you use it.

I mean being content.

I've been rustlin' with this whole idea of happiness for oh, well, ever, and I sometimes hesitate to sit down and type on this very public narcissistic badly syntaxed bliggity blog because I have no conflict to report. And no one wants to read about Rachel's wonderful days. We want drama! Intrigue! Action!

Sadly, I must disappoint. Things are really, really good. Like freaky good, like "oh shit is this the best time in my life ever I THINK IT IS" good.

And that is fairly remarkable to me.

"But Rachel!" you cry, shaking the corners of your computer screen like a lover's lapels! "What are these things? Why must you wax so philosophical? You realize it is a Friday night at 11 p.m. and you are in your jimjams blogging for Pete's sake? Who is Pete, anyway?!"

Pete, incidentally, is a name I would only bestow on a cat, because cats, unlike dogs, are allowed to have person names, but it's much funnier when a cat is named after a trademarked thing (Kleenex, Velcro, Ziploc, etc--great cat names). Dogs, on the other hand, are only permitted to be named after inanimate objects and preferably those that begin with P (but that's a personal thing)--my next dog, because while normal people are out there making shopping lists for dinner, I am eating eggrolls and planning dogs, will be named Potato. Followed by Pimento. And possibly then Pinata.

The things are these. I have arbitrarily chosen three of them because it's a nice, curvy number.

ONE. Work.

At last! At last, the gilded deluge of a paycheck, albeit monthly!

One of the reasons I don't blog with any form of consistency, friends, is my insane work schedule. I have twin jobs, one sitting at a computer designing ads for fancy pants cultural events and writing press releases and clambering around campus display cases, and the other, as you know, at W HQ R. My daily schedule has three parts: job 1, job 2, and class. When I get home, 10 hours after I've left, Pinto has often demolished something, but who can blame the little guy? Ten hours is a long time to go without peeing. Try it sometime.

I should record this now before the new station manager arrives and rattles everything up, but I really, really love working in public radio. Sometimes the egos are a little asphyxiating and the quirks are borderline deadly, but you guys! I am "a voice"!!!! And I didn't think anything of it because I am just a little old intern at the end of the day, but I can't tell you how many folks come up to me saying "I heard you today! You were great!" This also might have something to do with my new stint as back-up host for Morning Edition, which means I wake up at quarter to five, let a very groggy Pinto out of his crate, brew some hideously strong coffee and clomp to the station in the pre-dawn dark; then I go live, and there are 40,000 people listening to me.

Did you catch that part? 40,000!

That is a whole lot of people!

So now I have added "professional voice work" to my infinite list of actually paying post-MFA potential job opportunities. I'm informed there's an anime studio in Wilmington that hires voice actors, so someday you might be watching some disproportionate big-eyed schoolgirl in a sailor suit as she battles (or gets screwed by, let's be honest here) an octopus monster and you'll think, "Wait, shit, is that Rachel?"

And maybe it will be!

Two. WORK.

I don't want to speak too much about it because I know I'll jinx the whole thing entirely, but this year I am writing a novel. I have around six dozen pages of diagrams and scribbles and strangely oriented fragments, but it's actually coming along. And yes, it's about Tulsa, and yes, there are dogs' perspectives in it, and yes, the Rock-a-Fire explosion, and beyond that I am not so sure. What I know, at least, is this thing has got to get written because I want to put Tulsa on paper. The Admiral Twin Drive-In burned down this afternoon, and the fact that I got so heartbroken, adding it to the list of Tulsa Lost (Bell's and the Metro and the Rose Bowl), actually made me think, "Holy cannoli, I'm actually going to write this thing, aren't I?"

Considering the last novel-length undertaking I took was Harry Potter fanfiction in middle school (unfinished, but still really awesome), this is kind of a big deal.

And I read an excerpt from it to some fine folks who gathered at the library, and while they did not lift me on their shoulders and go marching off into the night singing, they might as well have for how good I felt afterward. It went well. It went freaky well.

So that work, the real work, is likewise happily pooting along (like Pinto on a walk).

Lastly, THREE. Play.

As usual, I am living in the Hamilton mindset of work hard and play even harder. So I'm home on a Friday night because my throat feels like I ate a sandcastle (and now I have to take care of my voice because it's suddenly a product, a commodity, this shit is crazy!) because we gathered on a porch last night to welcome the season's first hurricane, Earl.

Long story short, the jerk didn't even call. Not a drop of rain. Just some breezes, and a lot of beer drinking, and I bought a pack before coming over and, well, it's got two left. Even typing that makes my lungs cringe.

But it's truthfully been one of the most fun summers of my whole little life--I am having far too good of a time. I am spending way too many hours on porch swings. I am taking far too many notes--but I'm not squirreling away this good and gladness because it's just the start of how things will be, because they can be good and they are.

Watch me, motherfuckers.

(Okay I feel bad about calling you guys motherfuckers. I didn't mean it. I love you all.)

Let's toast to ourselves and bake ourselves a cake! Because we can!


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