5.30.2009

Is Anybody Out There and Are You Paying Attention To Me?


I've been reading a book of collected letters from D.H. Lawrence to publisher and friend Thomas Seltzer. When I purchased the book, I was under the impression (probably from not reading carefully) that it contained the responses to said letters. No. Subjects include the weather, books he is working on in general with no specific insights into the mysterious content, and most prominently, Dammit Seltzer You Never Send My Manuscripts Out When I Ask You To or Respond To My Letters. I must, then, assume the that responses received were the postmarked equivalent to the conversational "Oh, really? That's nice," assuming, again, that there were responses at all. I feel like my blog is like this. An audience is intended, from whom I get no response; yet the content is not really compelling enough to elicit a response and so expecting one is an act of supreme egotism on my part. Basically, I can retitle this project Does This Ever Happen To You, because I'm looking for some kind of validation, either that I am not a total weirdo and that you, the reader, can relate to my mildly amusing misadventures and interests, or that yes I am a total weirdo and my misadventures and interests imbue me with a uniqueness that charms you, the reader, endlessly. Unlike D.H., I have no fame or provocative appeal to bolster readership-- you have to be fascinated by the tawdry triumphs and failures that decorate small lives-- my small life--and even I'm losing interest.

I'm always tempted to write about my dental office job in the style of Charles Bukowski's Post Office, with no luck. The job is too cushy to cast myself as the world-weary man with menial employment, confronting an endless barrage of characters who were ridden hard and put away wet, just looking for my next piece of ass and a place to get out of the rain. Pieces of ass? I'm struggling to find a way to make a boring, regular job and a boring regular life seem grandiose and fascinating, because I'm a product of our times and can't conceive of a life lived without famousness. I try to villainize my coworkers so as to have something to talk about. Their names make them sound like they should be members of Prince and the New Power Generation, though I'm sure it would never occur to them to daydream about such a membership. I got a weird haircut recently which threatens to become more interesting than I am. There is nothing of aesthetic substance (is that an oxymoron?) at my office and so I turn to my own head. I wanted to look like a Patrick Nagel painting. I guess if I want to be surrounded by Nagels in the workplace I need look no further than a job at a hair salon. What else? The house is so hot that upon waking one recent morning I was so thoroughly wet from sweat I convinced myself that I had peed. HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU? Here is a video I've been watching recently on youtube:
DO YOU LIKE IT?

The response is: That's nice, Rach. You don't say.

6 comments:

vanessa said...

rachel scott is famous.

(i am serious).

Alisha! said...

new haircuts without new default pics MEAN NOTHING TO ME!

Rachel S said...

Alisha, how's this?

vanessa said...

wow!

Anonymous said...

It looks like tooth 31 just made a filthy proposition to tooth 30.

Your blog has made every point I needed to make about Sacramento, the oddity of having to, at age 23, ween yourself back into independence and human interaction that actually makes you feel better than the hermit baseline. You've navigated all these points months before I could hope to.

Tooth 30 is in total shock.

"What horrid gum did you erupt from?"

-ANdy

Ringo, have a banana! said...

Re: the sweat/pee scenario, yes indeed this has happened to me more times than I would like to admit. Nevertheless I am here admitting that the number of times it has happened is several. My attitude is that there's a certain level of joyous re-affirmation to be found in waking up, thinking you've peed yourself, falling back asleep in despair, and waking once more to discover that your life is ever so slightly less of a piece of shit than you thought.