what we repeat

Sissies:

We are what we repeatedly do.

I read this quote in an online article several weeks ago. Aristotle said it. Now, I can’t stop repeatedly saying it. (Which I think might mean that I’ve one-upped Aristotle?).

There are a lot of things I do repeatedly. In fact, most things I do I do repeatedly. So what does this quote mean for someone with an obsessive personality?

Well, as of now it means, in this order:

1. Checking my e-mail. Many, many times. Probably can’t stress that enough.
2. Trolling the internet for a career.
3. Trolling the net for art opportunities and crochet patterns (whatever don’t judge).
4. Trolling the net for sites that offer free episodes of my fave hard-to-find tv shows (Cupcake Wars and Thintervention - so effing hard to find).

So, basically I’m spending a lot of time online, and there’s a lot of trolling going on. And I do feel a little bit like a troll. A greedy little troll, grubbing to get some money before my bank account runs dry.

I have black rings under my bulgy eyes from staring at my laptop screen for extended periods. We only get 7 hours of daylight in Oregon this time of year. Half of those hours I’m asleep for, and the other half - ok, ALL – of those are cloudy hours. There’s a lot of eye straining and hiding from the elements right now. And I already have the bulbous nose.

Remember that list I made? Add to that staying home on a Friday night, taking repeated photos of myself in an attempt to draw comparisons with a plastic Mattel troll.

These long stretches of online time take me back to my pre-pubescent years and my enamor for Joel Madden (Nicole Richie’s babys' daddy - wow, his father-in-law is Lionel Richie) -- the 5 ft 2 in. lead twin of the pop-punk band Good Charlotte.

At 13 I ascertained we would marry, so, like any self-respecting suitor, I Googled him. I Googled him a LOT. I Googled to see a variety of photos of him, to see his different angles, different locations, different pets, and also to assure myself, with the lack of verifiable photos of him with a girlfriend, that he was single. The worst was when I found a picture of him at a strip club. Btw this was before Google Image search, so I had to click on each hit and individually scroll through each site.

This was also at the time when Joel and his Sid-Vicious-inspired bro Benji went by first names only, a la Cher, because they didn’t want to use their bastard dad’s last name. So, I devoted a lot of time to genealogical searches, trying to unearth their mother's maiden name (which of course we all know now is "Madden").

I stayed up until 2 am every weekend to watch their afterhours mtv program, All Things Rock. Then I’d go on their message board and post about it. Verybored_17. That was me. I was this girl, without the energy or knowhow to make a fansite.  She too has clearly pulled from diverse sources and undoubtedly exhausted Joel's available online archives. Look at her range:

Reading all of this, it sounds a little psychotic. I’m thinking about Fatal Attraction and contemplating what  Glenn Close's change in tactics would have been if she'd been given Internet access.

On the upside, I honestly think these Joel and Joel-like searches are how I became so good with search engines. Because, after all, there are many, many ways to type in "photos of Joel Madden;" each way yields different results, and you don't know which results you'll get until you've tried every possible combination. Believe it or not, this has been extremely helpful in my academic career -- in my research, art and otherwise.  (See you in academia, Joel Lover 16 of Melbourne.)

It’s probably also very indicative of how/ why I didn’t have a real boyfriend until I was 20...Well, fantasy is funner than fact, isn’t that it?

There’s a morsel of me -- that is responsible for my lack of a job (as it was responsible for my lack of any boyfriends in HS) --  that’s enjoying this trolling right now; it is fantasy.

On a quest, I surf these postings, I don’t know the companies, I don’t know the poster, and I have no idea what that position would be like really. Once I get out from under my dingy troll bridge and cross that bridge, the view may pale in comparison to the view I had under the bridge.

So you see, trying to find a job is kind of like trying to find love: it's all about projecting.

Maybe in the end all I need is a little less obsession/self-reflection and a little more...



Joel always gets the last word.

-J