The Chronicles Of Jessica

A bunch of my friends and I have decided to embark on a little experiment, wherein we actively try not to complain for 21 days. Starting tomorrow. The idea is, if we just don't give voice to a lot of needless negativity, we can become more positive and generate better mojo and our skin will clear up, that kind of thing. Several of the ladies have already started getting the complaining out of their systems, a kind of bitch-cleanse, if you will. I'm not sure how the experiment will affect my writings here, which is a matter of no small concern. Without anything to complain about it may just devolve into one of those weird blogs where people just write about errands they're running and what they're making for dinner, the antics of their pets. I could write about the antics of Paul, but lately they just involve him sitting alone in the office at the computer, emerging every couple of hours for a panic attack and a light snack.

Seeing as I'm leading the experiment and I want to set a good example for the participants, I'm going to go ahead and get some stuff off my chest.

I have nothing to wear. I know women always say this, but it's reached a critical mass. I haven't had any new clothes in what seems like a very, very long time. I hate everything I own, and every day I stand around in my underwear cursing the contents of my closet and my bureau and wondering if renters insurance would cover us if I set fire to all of it. I have a lot of clothes that once were really cute and flattering, but somewhere along the line, they gave up. They became shapeless, threadbare, pit-stained versions of their former selves. Kind of like what's happened to Britney.

I'm tired of trying to think about what to cook. I want to take a space pill that will give me all the nutrients I need and make me full and have that be the end of it. Every day, three times a day, I have to decide what to eat and how to make it and if it costs too much and whether I can afford the calories and if I should feel guilty over it not being organic and will it make me have a sugar crash and is it dolphin-safe and is the container recyclable and can I bring the leftovers to work the next day and I have just had it. Sustinence is too much damn trouble. And yes, I know perfectly well how horrific this rant would sound to the ears of people in parts of the world where they are starving and don't have enough food. Something else to feel guilty about.

I hate feeling guilty.

I hate Spam. Who is the one person who actually got the Viagra email, read it, and said - "Well if it's from the internet it must be pharmaceutically sound!" That one sale is forcing the rest of humanity to suffer these advertisements filling up our inboxes day after day after day? The other day I finally got into my website email and I had over FIVE THOUSAND messages - all of it spam.

I hate my career. What kind of a profession is this supposed to be? You go into a little room and you show them your acting talent for about 60 seconds, and then maybe they say something or maybe they don't, and you hand them an expensively-produced photo of yourself and then you leave. How is this productive? And it's not like you do that once or twice a week and you're done, you do it over and over and over and over again, and you have to pretend to like it. Then you spend all this energy trying to figure out if anything is going to come out of anything. Maybe they say, "Nice job." Then you get outside and you're thinking, "Nice job? Was that a politeness or did they really mean I did a nice job? Is nice better than good? It would've been better if they'd said 'good job' or 'great job'. But they were smiling when they said it. They definitely smiled. But they emphasized 'job' instead of 'nice'. Nice job. Surely an emphasis on 'nice' would have been better than an emphasis on 'job'. Great. Perfect. Just wonderful. I see now that I will never work again." Then, you're not even allowed to do what normal people would do when they apply for a job. You can't, for example, ask when you might hear something. No, no, no, that would never do. That would make you appear desperate, which you are, but God forbid they should know that you're desperate. You're supposed to seem like you just happened to waltz into their audition in between lunching at the Fairmont and your daily stopoff at the spa at Red Door.

Why are there only about 6 days of the year now where it is actually pleasant and a good thing to be outside? Either it's an absolute sweatbox outside or it's freezing, or raining, or both. Yesterday was Easter and there was snow on the ground. And the other day Al Gore was in town doing his thing on Capitol Hill, and there were all these screwballs around town passing out flyers about how the Nazis invented the concept of global warming. Really? That's fascinating. What a waste of skin these guys are. I'm sorry, but if you don't understand by now that global warming and climate change is real, and scary, and almost entirely our fault, then you are out of touch with reality. Don a tin foil helmet and just claim your spot out in front of the Port Authority with the rest of the lunatics.

All righty. I got all of that out of my system, I'm ready to start fresh. No complaining. Starting now.

Oh, but also - how is VC Andrews still writing books when she's been dead since the mid-eighties? I'm supposed to just swallow that? Pfffft.

Okay - starting now.