deviously, totally...

LANDRY: ha
you are a very very smart woman

GORMLEY: hahaha
C and i had this exact conversation last night
and i said that im not that smart when it gets right down to it
im clever, and manipulative, which makes me appear smart

L: hmm, you cant be successfully manipulative without being smart. i think you are smart... and i think manipulative isnt right

G: im def manipulative - even if i am smart

L: MANIPULATIVE:
1.To influence or manage shrewdly or deviously: He manipulated public opinion in his favor.
2.To tamper with or falsify for personal gain: tried to manipulate stock prices.

G: #1 -def

L: ha, but that infers a bit of falsehood

G/L: side discussion of business deal...

L: thats business... thats how it works
you are not a social worker

G: HAHAHHAHAHA

L: i dont like manipulative people
they usually do not have much to offer
so they have to be kniving

G: kniving
is the funniest fucking word EVER
i want to be kniving people

all

the

time

"PopUp Hate"

So last night found me on Landry's couch as she made a tasty Lemon Parmesan Pasta - which sounds classy, and was - but it is important to note that we're still among our people considering we were eating stale goldfish out of a bowl with "cheap, sweet, trashy" wine and a few Stellas...

Anyway...

So we're sitting on the couch watching "The Dog Whisperer" on the National Geographic channel, waiting for JM (who really shouldn't be allowed to dress himself) and enjoying our BF, the host, Cesar, retrain the owners of psychotic dogs who turn their normal pets into raving lunatics who need behavior modification....

I'm rambling because I haven't had coffee yet - which is stupid....

My brilliant idea of last night during one particularly disturbing segment of the show was to do "PopUp Hate" ala "PopUp Videos" where Landry and I get to sit on a couch - with the tackiest box of wine we can find - and make snarky comments which would appear on screen for the public. Gems from last nights segment would have been (and insert that charming PopUp Video bubbling noise before each quote):

Trophy Wife laughs and playfully swats arm of Old Busted RICHASFUCK husband: "Oh dear, you're so funny..." Thinking: Oh dear, when you die soon, I get all of your money...

OBRAFH: Nodding in agreement to a dog suggestion... Thinking: no way this guy isn't white and he's in our LA living room.

TW: Nodding in agreement as she considers recovering the chair... Thinking: my pants match my sofa... (bewildered) did someone say something?

TW and OBRAFH: "It's amazing the difference in the dog with these few simple steps!" Thinking: We're going to let the gardener take care of the dog from NOW on!

I need a coffee AND a rifle today.

HOT!

7:30
I walk the beast every morning at 7:30.
this morning I was lucky
As I was walking home my future husband leaned into me as i walked past him
and growled low:
"Hey sexxxxy"

I was carrying a plastic bag full of Great Dane shit

I have never felt sexier
and i was so happy that someone was there to appreciate it.

I have been inundated in the subway stations with a gauntlet of religious fervor and everyone shoving pamphlets at me.

All I want to do is go to my capitalist job.
Make my stupid widgets.
Make fun of ugly babies and go to happy hour.
I gave my $6 to Christ,
leave me alone, especially before coffee.

Then I have these moments of something approximating nervousness because these pamphlet pushers seem to be growing exponentially.
Maybe they know something I don't.
Maybe god slipped them a note.
Their deadline for saving everyone is coming fast and if they don't get their noses to the grindstone they are fired.
So the slackers and underachievers and procrastinators of Gods Army are stepping up to the plate.

I have my own chats with the 'big one'.
Mostly it doesn't consist of talking to some omnipotent being that I can't see but must be there.
It’s me checking in with my conscience.
Which, secretly, is what I think god is
but most people are not smart enough to think that abstractly.
So they create an angry (or somewhat benevolent) man with a white beard and a long flowing robe that they can make pamphlets about.
Pamphlets that end up on the train tracks no doubt causing fires
which in turn makes people late and very very angry.
That's not very god like.
My 'god' (ie my common sense and conscience) have advised me that we are, in fact, all going to die soon.
But that isnt because we are not 'pious' as most people understand it.
it because we are stupid.
and dont adapt and change to fit our circumstances
and we think that we are smarter than nature (the other part of the mysterious 'god')
we could all stop lying and cheating and fornicating tomorrow (or in my case a few months ago) and we would still die.
Because we are so amazingly stupid that we think that we can beat the crap out of each other
and the earth
and that miraculously,
if we pretend to be holy,
God will save us.

If I were god i would have killed everyone already.

For just about destroying my big, gorgeous plaything that I lent to you.
Even as amazingly tolerant of your idiocy as it is, you wrecked it.
I'd be really pissed too.
And more so because you are too ignorant to even realize that all your disgusting brown nosing and pamphlet pushing isnt going to fix the problem.

Hell in a hand basket is obsolete
hand baskets being outdated and not luxurious enough,
we are going to hell with a Louie Vuitton bag and in the comfort of a hummer.

unrequited love

“If you don’t brush your teeth right now they will all fall out, and when you wake up Elmo will be dead.”

if Landry was your pimp...

...this is what she wrote for me:

Straight (contrary to popular belief) white female ISO a discreet husband. Looking for an anti-social man who will keep me in grey goose instead of beer because my ass is getting big from 4 being the new 3 (and its only a matter of time before 7 is the new 6).

Please try not to be stupid or ask too many questions.

I am bossy, drunk and hate children.

''Nice'' people need not respond.

baby in a rubbermaid tub

Landry and I enter the Brooklyn Lowes with J yesterday. Its raining. We're all feeling like surly damp cats... but the following exchange would have occured regardless:

Landry: (eyeing a terrifyingly red headed child in the lobby) "omg she should have drowned it before it got too old to struggle."

Gormley: (struggling not to choke laughing...)

L: "i mean... one look at her husband and she should have known..."

G: "sorry dear... I just can't seem to get pregnant..."

L: "she could put it in one of those rubbermaid tubs with a lid and some water..."

G: "or just do a 'officer I just left him alone in the tub for a minute...'"

evolution

i am starting to feel predatory.
.....maybe

quotes of the weekend

"i just gave $6 to Christ"

"I am too old to have sex with random people in bar bathrooms, but you have a few years in you"

"This would be really perfect if I could just get Jesus out of it"

"Bring beer over. I only have 6 and you know that 3 is the new 2"

''i could fly in to LA then meet you but it makes me want to slit my wrists''

''4 is definitely the new 3''

''i should put up your profile on friendster for a model of more people I want to meet. because if you die in a fiery crash I'm screwed''

reparations....

The irony of the purple heart stamp that the postman handed me
from behind his bulletproof glass window did not escape me.
The obvious cosmic zing because of where the letter was headed
did not for one second escape me.
It had taken me damned near 8 years to write it
yet it contained no more than 10 sentences.
All of them humble. All of them sincere.
Less than 60 words
(including the greeting and signoff)
to try to appologize for,
not every problem we ever had,
but specifically my disregard for gentle handling of
something fragile..
I knew that once I put it in the box it was out of my control
and I was going to have to let it be whatever it was going to be.
if I hadn't prepared myself to do that prior to kissing the envelope
and dropping it in the brass surround of the shoot,
I knew I'd be a goner.
Waiting for yet one more life altering thing was more than my brain could handle.
so off into the swell of mass mailings and letters home,
lost notes to santa
and careless postal workers
it goes.
I will only know where it ended up if
I get the call or the email that I have been preparing for for so many years.

...if I squint.

Amid the joking about being evil. or spiteful. or hateful... I like to believe I'm a good person. Someone who wants the best for perhaps not the whole world, but my friends and family. And those who have been my family.

Secretly?

I think I might not be all that good. I think I just hide it better the worse I get.

Secretly?

I hope someday that he feels abandoned... and so wounded that after a year he still can't see straight some afternoons.

AD's mother's response to him living with a lesbian...

AD: hey, I moved to Brooklyn
AD's Mom: Oh, yeah, where?
AD: Prospect Heights
AD's Mom: OOOH! I lived over there during the 70's it was pretty bad.
AD: no, actually it's very nice.
AD's Mom: are you living with someone?
AD: yes, I'm only there temporarily, a friend from college days was cool
enough to let me take her spare room for a few months.
AD's Mom: hmmmm... you only went to college with white kids, Is this a white
girl?
AD: Yes.
AD's Mom: watch out, she may just be wanting to experiment with the forbidden
fruit
AD: No, Ma! she's a lesbian.
AD's Mom: OHHH! That's excellent! I love Lesbians! they are familiar with the
struggle, she's ok in my book, bring her over for Thanksgiving dinner!

AD to Me: I don't think we need any futher confirmation.
BLACK PEOPLE AND LESBIANS....PERFECT TOGETHER!

Rodin

Its a strange thing to feel yr muscles in vivid detail.
How each one lays on top of,
or next to another one.
To experience them in a very specific way.
To feel different ones everyday so you can imagine them to be like the diagrams on the weight machines at the gym
showing what muscles you are working by coloring them red.
I'm sure its something that people who have been athletes all their lives have felt before.
But for me, having been sore from doing something strenuous is a different thing.
I can almost see how each muscle is shaped like by how it burns.
I don't think he understands exactly how much good this is doing for me
and on how many levels.

I feel like I am gaining some structure.
I've needed that desperately for a few years now and haven't been able to get it back.
I have been less distracted by things I have no control over.
I have been keeping the possibility of the looming depression at bay.
I am putting more thought into planning ahead.

Every so often I will catch him looking at me,
but it is a look that is stripped of any sort of desire.
He is looking at me like a sculptor would look at a piece of stone.
Trying to see what he can make of this little 'peasant-stock' body.

And?
I have always said that if I ever had an ass
I would be unbearable.
He's working on it.

urban beachball...

I spent the weekend trying to keep up with the boys
again
and reverting to my former girl-related social akwardness.
i do not know what to do around girls
especially if they are touching me
and i havent known them very long.
i stutter.
and say really dopey things

i feel like i have been re-released into the wild
amongst my own kind
and all i want to do is be back with humans.
so i run back to them and they keep sending me back
telling me its 'good for me'

so when i didnt have to
i felt better
we played beach ball on the sidewalk
with random people who were walking down the street
joining us and then leaving

but
i am starting to crave the company of my own kind
just a little bit.

trouble

it's lucky we found each other... or we probably would have wound up in jail individually.

...my own personal dictionary

So anytime I'm writing TMs to Landry (you can guess how often that is considering our constant proximity on Skype, IM, email and TM... or at the bar) I find that my phone doesn't love and understand me.

The following words it trys to 're-spell' for me... like it knows I surely didn't intend the following words:

filet au poivre
fucker
hooker
hell
crack whore
tart

and all while Gormley is conquering the world today.....

ooh the compartmentalizing in my brain right now.
the split down the center that allows me to keep moving forward.
take on more responsibility
attempt to tackle demons that have been sitting dormant since i learned to walk.

both times.

getting ready for a battle that i have no control over

sending letters
letting go
getting up
pushing through
holding in tears on the train
laughing at parties

and meaning it

laughing so that i can
let go
get up
push forward
hold in tears on the train
and laugh like i mean it

Thank you for registering for AIDS/LifeCycle 6
ALC6-SF

Welcome to AIDS/LifeCycle 6! Thank you so much for committing your time, energy, and heart to raising necessary funds and awareness so that together we might end the pandemic and human suffering caused by HIV. We at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation are so grateful for your extraordinary level of commitment, which in turn allows us to provide the necessary services and programs on the local, statewide and national levels.

Again, thank you for registering, and we look forward to joining you on the road
June 3-9, 2007!

3 days and counting...

to our month of organizing begins.

Between my mother and father I am a tangled mess of organization... confused?

my father:
1. Keeps a clipboard of ongoing projects at the ready near the dining table. My sister is famous for writing obvious bullet points down just to fuck with him... like "Breathe."
2. Sarcastic as hell.
3. Filthy sense of humor which he shares with my sister.
4. Is distracted by projects.
5. Can't multi-task without having hissy-fits to the delight of my sister, mother and me.
6. Doesn't cook sunny side up eggs near my sister and I because we stab them with a fork before they hit the table.
7. Eats the same lunch every day, and the breadsticks in the ziplock baggie have to FACE THE SAME FUCKING WAY. (Unsurprisingly, I think my mom, sister or I have at one point or another crushed them in the bag.)
8. Is fond of saying that I have 'broken his spirit'.
9. Has called me the 'eighth plague of Egypt' on more than occasion.

my mother:
1. Can cook the perfect meal out of old toast and a can of something... All MacGyver meets Gourmet Magazine photo ready and shit.
2. Can visually reorganize furniture before making someone else actually lift it.
3. Is one of the most creative people I know.
4. Snarky as hell when she needs to let it all out.
5. Is a natural leader.
6. Can do 80 projects at once, while figuring out the most efficient way to do each.
7. Takes care of everything/everyone in a 15 yard radius of her life.

Recently while moving from Boston to NYC, I called my father to go over the 'bullet points' of the million things I was trying to keep track of prenervousbreakdown (which has yet to happen by-the-by... I'll need to schedule one in...)

me: "So everything is all organized and ready?"

dad: "Yup."

me: "But what about..."

dad: interrupts.

dad: "Listen, I have my clipboard with everything written down... and not only is it alphabetical, its organized by friggin' weight of each item."

dad: "Jen, haven't you realized by now... mom and I are the reason you're so fucked up.... everything's taken care of."

... and it always is.

Things Gormley is taking care of
(in no particular order... - the Old Gormley would have alphabetized them.):

1. Buying a couch.
2. Repotting the 'divorce cactus' - I'm giving him a monster pot to grow into this year... he's already in a pissy mood from having to start over.
3. Ironing napkins (you can take the insanity out of the Gormley, but you can't... something, something...)
4. Set up bi-weekly dinners for friends... some of my best nights back in NYC have been laughing over Penne Vodka - well, I think the time I passed out at my own dinner party was a good night too, but I don't remember (Landry can fill in here...)
5. Hire enough people to balance out my team at work and avoid any of them shooting up the office... any Art Directors and Designers with Broadcast or ITV experience? Send them my way.
6. Spenidng more time reading in my soon to be furnished living room than the time it takes to whip up a vodkasodacranberrylimething.
7. Making curtains for the living room windows - Sadly, no more free show for/from the neighbors.

interestingly 'constructivist'....

Who has conversations about the aesthetics of Russian communist propaganda posters of the 1920's in their dreams besides me?
Because that, in addition to a few non-negotiables will get you a date.

"push gormley out a window"

...should have been the title of the imaginary playlist Landry ran through over dinner here as she loaded me up from her iPod with such gems as:

Come Pick Me Up

that, plus our move to vodka from beer is contributing to a melancholy mood. Where's anger when you need it? Fickle thing.

...your inner Betty Crocker

So Landry and I have been slumming it as of late... biding our time, and celebrating with a visit to CraftSteak on Sunday... Celebrating what? Why, the 'MONTH OF FUCK THIS LACK OF ORGANIZATION' of course...

Unsurprisingly, the only bit left of Old Gormley was her insane planning and organizational skills. New Gormley took that bit and said 'eff the rest'. Onward.

So Landry and I, over happy hour at La Linea last week (pre 22 year olds party. The idea of someone being 22 still kills me)... and rattled off the list of things that need to be addressed. Couches. Painting. Having food in the fridge other than Vodka and cheerios (although that has been the Martini of choice lately... the Cheerio Martini. Sad, right?) and a million other things that have been driving us both insane. So we're dividing and conquering. Anyone who wants to contribute to painting and unpacking boxes on weekends will be repaid in some form or other.... and any Betty Crocker out there who can figure out how to make coffee with Vodka gets our special appreciation. The month begins 7/15.

xxx

If I were either David...

...I would sue his stupid hat wearing ass.

Last night at the 22 year old (really, 20fucking2) birthday party, the new Justin Timberlake song came on, and while drunk we had a brief discussion with MD (I believe) who was saying that he liked it... and to be fair to dopey Timberlake, he's made worse songs that I haven't been able to avoid on the radio. BUT... this quote shut everyone up:

Justin on the first single from the album, "SexyBack":
"SexyBack" features a pounding bass beat and electronic sounds, and does not include the falsetto singing that has become Timberlake's trademark. "The best way I can describe that song is say David Bowie and David Byrne decided to do a cover of James Brown's 'Sex Machine,' " Timberlake told reporters.

CNN doesn't lie. and neither do I.

there is hope for me still

ah 22.....

Landry and Gormley go to a 22nd birthday party
(Gormley: who turns 22 anymore?!)

We are reintroduced to MD we met him a few weeks ago during our 'drunk phase' so we only sort of remembered him.

Landry: Hi I know we've met... I'm jenn.
MD: jenn?
Landry: yeah
MD: are you jenn landry?!!?!?
Landry: yeah....
MD: OMG! You're FAMOUS!!
and you are Jennifer too? Whats your last name?
Gormley: Gormley
MD: Oh!!! You're sort of famous too.
....for being straight.


Several hours later at the Pheonix....

MD: this is Jenn Landry. She is a genius.
Landry: (shaking girls hand) im not really a genius.
Girl: I don't know..... MD's a smart guy I trust him.
So over what field do you spread your genius?
Landry: math....

not sure where to start.

I must be feeling better because I'm reading the newspaper again.
News makes me angry.
Newspapers are nothing more than "Stupidity Digest"
Rounding up all the asinine and idiotic things that people do and say
into one neat and well laid out dog shit picker upper.

I bought a NYTimes yesterday and spent every minute of my commute cursing the world.
and questioning evolution

and being so overwhelmed
i am going to have to ease into venting
get ready.....

...waiter, there's a hair in my dog...

Dinner table, 4th Street, 9:38 PM
Back story: Breakfast ate the fuck out of a dog in Landry's neighborhood and they are having her pay the vet bills to the tune of 300 dollars. My take? The Shiba Inu was a snack and B should have sent it back to the kitchen.... 'waiter, theres a hair in my Shiba Inu entree...'


Landry: I got a call from the people with the dog.

Gormley: The dead dog?

L: The half dead dog...

G: You better hope that dog doesn't die in the next few months or they're going to blame you... 'the dog never recovered from the attack...'

G: ...cranky, cross-eyed Shiba Inu.

L: ...and throwing itself against the wall every time it passes by a big dog.

G: HAHAHAHA

G: You better keep an eye on shelters in the area to find a possible repalcement Shiba Inu... 'excuse me, when are you putting that dog to sleep...?'

L: ...13-year-old broken dog...

L: ...NY 'replacement value' law.

G: have B drop it off on their doorstep in her mouth...

L: HAHAHAHA

G: God hates us.

L: No he doesn't... if God hated us that dog would be dead already.

where is my rifle....

I have boyfriends.
I have them everywhere.
I have them hissing
and cat calling
''beautiful!!''
''gorgeous!!!!''

something about me is appparently a little more approachable these days.

Aren't.
I.
Lucky?

If they only knew that I would kill them if I could.

tired bunny.

gold star...

He said this morning that I was quiet.

Over brunch I realized how buried I was in my own head. How lucky I felt to have someone notice I was quiet. How grateful I was to know the usual suspects were also keeping an eye on me today. Our charter has limits, but in those moments over brunch I see how to stretch within them, and appreciate everything for what it is. Plan for the long-term when it is no longer brunch. I never forget help, whether I ask for it or not, whether they realize how much they help or not.

prickly.

I have a 'divorce cactus'.

This cactus was bought a few months (I think) before all the unraveling, against my husband's aesthetic of plant design. I have always adored the protective measures plants take... and find similarities or desires to be similar. So the cactus came home, somewhat tiny, all spines and a desire to be larger... a 'monster cactus', according to the Home Depot tag luring unsuspecting MA housewives to buy something other than hot pink Impatiens.

The cactus came home with a number of questionably designed plants. Hens and Chicks, a few assorted succulents with rounder edges to keep it company.

It thrived while everything else started disintegrating in that house. I spent months looking for a job, months alone after he moved out, months packing boxes lined up on either side of the living room labeled A and J waiting to do battle or simply sulk off into a UHaul in December. I ate shitty frozen dinners and drank enough beer to take the edge off my control-less life. And my companion? The monster cactus, who by now was an undulating wave of spines and a bad attitude. That cactus had no loyalty at the time... I grazed my foot against the fat side of it one night and thought I would kill myself from how badly those invisible little shards hurt. I think it laughed at me that night...

The cactus drove down in the UHaul cup holder when A drove my sullen troops of boxes to the storage place on Varick. The cactus went on to NJ with my father and I took a bus back to Boston with A... I didn't cry once.

A few weeks later I was home in NJ, spinning in my own world. One night late I stepped out of the shower and saw the cactus on the top shelf of my parent's bathroom. All of the cactus in the house are there, and they tend to thrive. Mine was rotten. That huge wave of spite and spines was brown, and nasty. and there was a tiny bit of green left. It was too high to be noticed before it was too late.

I didn't sleep, and was confused by how absolutely attached I was to it. My sister, who works in a plant nursery, came over for breakfast and I nearly cried when I tried to get her to understand how important it was that it lived. She brought it to work and they cut away everything but that little bit of green. She tended to the little stub in the ground, a shadow of its former self, for weeks and weeks. And now here it sits with me, rooted one more time, about to start curling onto itself, and in some charming attempt to make me feel better and to assert itself...

It has more spines than it knows what to do with on its little body.

ummm, no more wagon

Landry lasted longer than I did. We have however installed a two-drink-maximum rule (unless we're in her house or my house, of course).

looking under things...

I've been feeling disatisfied lately... which in and of itself is not out of character. But it is important to note that I haven't felt that way in a long time. And now I feel the ragged edges of it creeping back... and am consoled by it.

This last year has been 'head down plow through it'... muffle the ambition, the fear, the anger and fall through things.... see where you get to when it's safe to breathe. And so here I am. Breathing. Shallow breaths. I find myself with a challenging perfect job that I can dive into and be excited to go to work every day for. One that inspires me to excel. And everything else you ask after the year of plowing through? Disarray. Shambles. Cardboard boxes.

So now that old familiar feeling of disatisfaction - which I have always used as a powerful tool to propel forward and enjoy successes is creeping back in. Brain had enough time to untangle a bit, I suppose. And so know I'm left trying to figure out what to do with the ambition, and drive to move forward with my head up. Pick the direction. Grab the machete, clear the path myself.

And I am left looking for comfort in friends and family and finding it. And left looking for comfort in old loves and a current playmate and knowing that it isn't enough for good. But it's enough for now and reinforces those friendships. But anything more than what they are is impossible and terrifying still. So I'm in limbo a bit I suppose. Antsy to move forward for the first time in a year. But not ready to take a definitive step... or maybe a more clear explanation is that I don't remember how to do it like I fucking mean it.

More time I suppose.