what happens when you accidentally hit "paste" on a shared computer

She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.

day on/day off

There are the days when one is constantly on the verge of tears, tears that can quickly turn to anger when one is around less sensitive beings than one's self.
So, I left work again. No one seemed to notice. I don't care if they do. It felt too nice, walking up Pine, away from the stupid ass law offices of McKinley and Schmirkel, away from the mindless hours that comprise the workday.
I sit in a cafe at a strip mall, in the far corner of the place-the ultimate left hander's table. I watch the various people lining up to attend the movies next door: the two old women who pull their large, soft wallets out 20 paces ahead of the theatre, just like my mother, who uses her turn signal half a mile before her actual turn. One woman is very tall, has a bandage on her wrist and dresses smartly, in a pair of low heeled beige shoes with bows on the toes. They are widowed, I imagine. They manage their money well, keep careful records of bills paid and bills to be paid.
There is a table to my right, talking incessantly about cake. One guy, with a bald patch surrounded by growing out dyed red hair, keeps complaining that the waiter gave him a different kind of cake from the one he ordered, yet when the waiter comes around and asks if everything is alright, the guy poutily says ..."mmmhmm". Now he is talking about how much better the cake is at the Cheesecake Factory. I might freak out on him. If I wanted to hear this inane kind of stuff, I would've stayed at work all day.

A girl like me would be a kept woman who is kept easily by anyone who has a place to crash and seems to offer anything-cable tv-a new carton of cigarettes-anything to stave off the gnawing loud loneliness of regular existance. Me as a kept woman has some sort of chemical dependence. She is never truly happy because she has no discernable self-she enjoys drugs, tabloids, and lots of tv and masturbation because those are the things that make her feel like one with the material, the deed. For all her lovers, she has never felt something other than her otherness. She has an amazing ability to morph into the form of a fairly benign hood ornament, pleasing and unobtrusive. Kept woman is always on the make, in a very unassuming way-not even she knows what's she's up to. Most other people can smell her need before she can.

Who else is here? Loud powerful lesbian with a shaved head and thick black glasses.
Lone black woman, wearing an XXL sweatsuit and mumbling to herself. Is she on a phone? Is there a phone somewhere on her? Workout sweats, aerobic sneaks, and cake. Salve for my burns. OK, she has a phone in her right ear. Shew, I thought she looked together.

Sometimes it's the people with killer instincts I can't stand. But boy, do I admire them. The ability to get things done, to cross errands off their lists in rapid succession, to enroll in programs and get up at 6am to go on jogs, to piss off the waiters and cashiers by being demanding and difficult. I admire people who don't mind being hated, who can stay up all night and sleep all day. I am too obedient-even to the sun and moon, who don't care what I do or when I do it. My roommate, an extremely hard worker, has the ability to focus all of her efforts on one thing at a time: to work hard, play hard, and sleep all day on the weekend. I exist in a more neurotic, semi-agitated state all the time.

Everyone is a fake, to some degree. And I think that when people are not fake, we call them crazy. Crazy people are annoying too, but I would probably rather be in the company of someone crazy than someone completely fake. Unless said crazy person was a poo flinger. I don't like superficiality, but then again, I don't like it so real that someone is throwing their poo around either. There's gotta be some middle ground.

ancient wisdom

There is a probably North African guy sitting down at a table across the front window of Starbuck's. I think he's a taxi driver. Baseball cap, moustache, cigs. I hear him speak his native tongue a few times to different guys who happen by. He speaks in a mixture of Arabic and English. As a friend leaves, the man calls after him and offers him some advice, which I imagine to be some blessing or prayer or 3,000 year old saying. The man does not hear his words the first time and asks him to repeat.
"Pick five. Pick five is very good. Only $1 a day. You can win very big".

Regina and Bill (1)

Bonnie had never met her real mother. For most of her life, she'd never even thought about it. She'd been adopted at birth by a couple of real sweethearts who were nearly 50 and had never had children of their own. Regina and Bill. Mom and Dad. They both had short gray hair. Bill was in the insurance business, Regina was a librarian. They kept a severely organized home. They had a cocker spaniel named Peanut Butter who could only hang out in the laundry room. Bonnie was not allowed to really play with Peanut Butter because of a 'genetic flaw' in the dog that caused him to urinate uncontrollably whenever he became excited or agitated, which are the only two states a dog can be put in while in the company of a child.

myspace=my nightmare

What the hell is up with people on the internet pretending to be other people?
I just found out that some loser is actually pretending to be Molly Harvey on myspace.com in order to "brighten people's days". That's like pretending to be actress Lauren Tewes of "Love Boat" fame in order to get a good table. Who cares?

The lamest part about it is that the person pretending to be me can't spell or punctuate worth a damn. It's embarrassing, frankly. Also, the text on my profile is yanked straight from my actual website (mollyharvey.com) so not only are they unoriginal and lazy, (and breaking the law, as they're using explicitly copyrighted material without permission)... they're totally boring! If you're going to pretend to be someone else, why not make them as trippy and over the top as you possibly can?
Apparently, I'm just into meeting Residents fans, and writing Residents song lyrics on people's message boards, and asking people to write me and tell me their favorite Residents songs. I mean....HELLO? Is this person legally retarded? As much as I love love love love love love love the Residents, my relationship to them occupies about 1% of my consciousness and I would NEVER use my connection to them as something that defines me as a person. As an artist, definitely, but I would never use that as my profile on some website! And though I completely appreciate anyone who is a fan of the Residents, or of myself, I would never crassly seek out connections with/ attention from, people who are fans.
I don't normally write things that are personal and true here. But this is true. So please, if you are on myspace.com and you see a profile that says "molly" and it's a photo of a girl with long pink hair wearing an evening dress and a pair of huge rubber boots, please know that (though that is me in the photo), the person who has written that profile is NOT me. Ironically, I have now made a real profile on myspace which difinitively proves how maudlin, unglamorous and homey I am. It can be found at www.myspace.com/mollyharvey
If you would like to view the fake profile you can go to:http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=47897512

That is all. Thank you.

my life is great

People keep calling the office, bothering me for money. It's not my money they're after, it's the money they're owed by the company I am working for temporarily.
Well, I tell them, everyone is out of the office all week. No, I can't help you. You'll just have to leave a voice mail. I cut them off and switch them over to voice mail before they can say goodbye, or thank you, or I have another question. And then I am back to my reading People Magazine online. What?? Lindsay Lohan wore that dress AGAIN??

It's incredibly liberating to work as a temp. No sense of ownership. No need to be too nice, because I'm out of here next week anyway. Hey, I'm not invested in this company. Call me passive-aggressive, but I'm happy to give these pushy showbiz types a little bristle. Not everyone's going to be subservient to you, and certainly not me. I used to care too much about every job I had, but as I've matured, I realize it doesn't pay to care.

It's starting not to bother me so much anymore, this not following my dreams business. I mean, the life of a successful entertainer would be a nightmare, right? You can't go anywhere without being recognized; you have to do all that PR stuff, and what a drag THAT would be! Sure, I'd love to have the means to travel all over the world and stuff like that, and I did enjoy performing...but I'm already too old to try my hand at Hollywood anyway. And even if I got some kind of work, would that really make me happy? At least not following my dreams, I am in total control of my feelings of not being fulfilled.
It's kind of nice, knowing what the next couple of years are going to be like: I will work temp jobs where I can surf the internet, read about the celebrities, and thank my lucky stars that I never ended up like any of those messed up broads. Then I will go home, heat up my leftovers, watch my shows, walk my dog, and go to bed. It's nice. I got too constipated on the road. My system doesn't agree with all the flying around and the travelling hither and yon. No, I'll stay right here. I didn't like this town when we moved here, but after six years here, it's really starting to grow on me.
My artist friends look dissapointed when I tell them that no, I haven't been acting or drawing or writing or singing...but what do they know? They're all stressed out, sleep deprived, money and fame hungry, neurotic basket cases. That's not for me. No, it's a blessing to be ordinary. It's the human condition to be a little bit unhappy.
Just because I may have had a little bit of talent doesn't mean I'm sinning against anyone not to be pursuing it, right? In a way, I'm one of the fortunate ones! Most of those stars, they work so hard to get their careers going, only to wake up one day addicted to painkillers, three husbands and a suicidal child later, and realize that they were looking for something in their lives that they thought they could get from the adoration of a crowd! I have had that epiphany, without any of the success tied to it! And without any of the marriages or children. I got to that place all by myself, and still nobody knows my name. See, it's all worked out quite well for me, really.
Damn, another phone call. Eh, I'll just put them on hold.

secret garden

Should you do something just because you can? Should all beautiful people take a shot at modelling? Should all funny people become comedians? Should you try to go to M.I.T. if you are very smart?

I have a strawberry garden. When I look at the young strawberries, still white at their tips and already bug-ravaged (and therefore dead to me), I feel a pang of sadness for it's young life, never given a chance to mature and become it's full self. But the bug is living, and it's doing it's thing in the great scheme of things.

Old enough to not die young, if I died tomorrow, and yet young enough to see the darkened perfection of life in front of me, I see the old berry, the one that lies limply rotting into itself, and a chill runs through me. The wasted life! The future I dread, yet cannot imagine otherwise.

the deal with commitment

It's easier to miss somebody forever than it is to spend the day with them, every day for 20 years

world without end (Americana)

There are cops wearing white gloves directing traffic at McDonald's at lunchtime. Are they paid in hamburgers?
It's so easy to do nothing all the time.
There is so much going on at once.
a mechanic changes the oil in someone's Honda
a thirteen year old has a birthday party at their favorite pizza place
a man gets found guilty of murder
people wait in an opthamologist's office with seashore theme
someone auditions for a breakfast cereal commercial
biology lecture runs late
dog gets flea dip-has allergic reaction
people sit in traffic because of road construction
a 100 year old woman dies in nursing home. No family to notify
a 49 year old lady buys silver thread at JoAnn's fabrics for her daughter's prom dress
Oprah gets her make up done
two guys and a girl take a run around a city park
the waiter is late to work again, and will be fired after his shift is over
a police officer gets yelled at by his girlfriend
someone is working on their novel which will, in time, be a huge success
a young woman breaks a promise to herself and calls her ex
three friends share a joint after work in grocery store
a redheaded baby boy is born two weeks early
7th grader practices clarinet in living room after snack
laundry sits wet in broken machine while owner of clothes talks on cell phone outside
the girl at the mall kiosk who sells fake hair just found out she has chlamydia
choreography rehearsal of music video starts in five minutes
man drinks malt liquor and goes through garbage for scraps of food with poop in his pants
a bride-to-be leafs through a glossy magazine while she gets her toenails painted light pink

teenager mirror

you have a bad face
and acne prone oily skin
maybe you should die