oh sweet NOTHING

i received a comment from a fucking spammer? gah!
mellow washes of pleasure... having nowhere to be. it was actually sunny today, after dense morning fog obliterated the world past my deck. fog-free, i can see clear to lake washington from my lair: i am actually directly across from zymogenetics and their 4 smokestacks (the bldg was once a seattle city power facility, i believe). i have spent the last few days, apart from working, being holed up in said lair (including xmas eve and xmas itself), alone, doing a fucking jigsaw puzzle and listening to the top 1000 classic rock songs ever!! on kzok (www.kzok.com). it has actually been rather enjoyable.
xmas at the ER involved the usual litany of euthanasias- 16 total, not including several that expired of their own accord. one cat was 21, another 19. i euthanised a seagull with a broken wing. there was "chewy" the pygmy goat who had lost her ear whilst attacked by dogs- "van Goat!" i said, but no one laughed. the table in the break room was laden with sugary detritus. everyone was irritable and sluggish by yesterday. i almost brought helix in to add to the pile of corpses. his prolonged decline has been causing me more stress than i care to admit. much of my hibernation was, in part, to spend time with him. but damned if the fucking wraith doesn't keep surprising me. he ate dry food zealously today. so he gets to live. he still purrs, he's still happy... just much, much more lackadaisical and reclusive. i lose all ability to apply my knowledge when my own guys are affected.
enough weird-lady-cat-talk, thanks.
at least half the people here, myself included, still have their scarves on. it is fucking freezing here. this is the first time i have been warm and not uncontrollably mucoid in several hours. that would be an even cooler statement when affixed to other random things, like riding in an elevator, or riding an elephant, or

wheee!

ah, sweet benevolence, you are a fickle lover, but such an incredible one that i am constantly seduced anew into imagining this is my reality.
(i shall not speak of the provocation.)
i walked around through the frantic throngs of last-minute consumers, feeling quite at ease. i love aimless days of selfish strolling. sampled truffle sauce and fudge at the market. truffles... they get in your soul, much like saffron or fenugreek- initially pleasant, then a bit overbearing. played with toys in pioneer square. read a twinkie cookbook at elliott bay. smelled fancy candles at the pseudo-provence shop run by the art garfunkel doppelganger. (best candle smells of late: tomato, mahogany and lettuce- not all together. and for the record, since i'm already babbling, i am not a candle person per se. cheap votive candles are sufficient, if anything. but i need to smell and touch everything. security guards must hate me.)
lovely and wonderful things of the past week:
-the message on my phone: "it's the weekend before christmas. are you feeling it?" spoken very sarcastically.
-toasted crumpets in my new toaster
-"things put on cats" calendar
-sexual innuendo magnetic poetry
-being able to talk to someone about nilla wafers, buck owens, shooting stars and sony boom boxes, in practically the same sentence
-realizing that the theme song of the week is actually "whenever you find it" by trey anastasio (wherever?), who was arrested for DUI near the vermont border a few days ago, possibly at the exact same moment i was listening to his cd
-hearing 'what condition my condition is in' and turning it up VERY LOUDLY
-purring cats and the sound of rain as i lay in bed
-coconut tea
-chocolate tea
these are the flaky, silly things, but mush them up and a glob of goodness may well emerge, or at least provide mortar for the shittier chunks.
this is a good place to be.

balletic eyes are crossing

spent the day with my parents. this has lead to weariness. i helped my mom make fruitcake (apparently this is not just an urban myth) and it was actually very tasty. i asked if they had any wine and she got a huge smile on her face and said "really?" very excitedly; i had 1.5 glasses and she drank the rest of the bottle, as is usually the case at family gatherings... she proceeded to get more and more animated, much to my father's obvious consternation. i gave them a box o' swag from trader joes, the coolest grocery store in these parts if one is seeking out, say, corn relish or dried banana strips or chili mangoes or prepackaged naan. they surprised the crap out of me with 3 framed pictures that i'd drawn when i was a teenager. i hadn't seen these drawings in years. it made me actually cry. those are very nearly the coolest gifts i've ever received (right up there with the glass starfish that hangs in my window, the 'golden ticket of wuv' that lives in a box above my stove, and the original 1969 life magazine of the beatles.... but i digress...)
xmas is bullshit, really, but there was something comforting as fuck about seeing their tree in the corner, with ornaments i remember as a kid- it made me feel nostalgic and oddly melancholy, a reminder that we've all gotten older and distance has changed the dynamics. they also gave me a photograph of us posing beside an iceberg in portage lake- back when the glacier actually produced icebergs. i was about 9. my parents are smiling and youthful; i am wearing a bright pink parka and glasses, scowling.
the situation with my oma and opa (my mother's parents- uber deutsche) is severely fucked up. they had an appointment to tour and put a down payment on a unit in an assisted living community (and to further my hatred of such treacly euphemisms, the place is called "the willows", as if there are willow trees around here) and completely blew it off. my grandfather is still driving, despite the harsh reccommendations otherwise of his doctors and family. "they are two incredibly selfish people" wrote my uncle's wife in an email to my mother. replied my mother: "it is difficult to believe that we four kids were raised by such ghouls and turned out fairly functionally." (i am delighted by her usage of "ghouls" to describe her parents- not only is it mostly accurate, it is an allover fantastic and far too underutilized word.) realizing how much crap she's put up with from them for her entire life is very sobering. "any story we tell about our childhood involves one of us getting punished for something," she wrote back. "there are no real happy memories."
i asked my parents tonight if they considered their childhoods happy. "yes" my father said immediately. "i thought it was normal to have a dad in a wheelchair." my mother laughed bitterly into her empty wine glass and proceeded to tell a story about when she was about 10 and it snowed. her parents went to the store and she was put in charge of her 3 younger siblings. "don't go outside" they were told. "if you walk on the snow you'll kill the grass." it rarely fucking snows in tacoma, so once the parents were gone they went outside to play and made a huge snowman ("the biggest on the street!" said my mother), all being very careful to walk in the bare grass of the snowman's wake. when oma and opa returned home there was no marvelling about the snowman or how cool the weather was; they were instructed to line up and pull their pants down ("because the belt hurts more on bare skin") and opa spanked them all. yes, with his belt. i hear stories like that and wonder anew how my mom must have felt to watch my father punish me. i never had The Belt, thank fucking god, but i did get smacked around, and once i received a black eye. "do you think you had a happy childhood?" my mother asked me. "sometimes" i replied, smiling to keep it light, feeling guilty for knowing that my crap is nothing comparable, feeling grateful as fuck that no matter how horrible shit once was between the three of us, we are now adults and friends who are able to talk about such things. my mother immediately flitted into a story about when she and my father took mushrooms and were too freaked out to go to the laserium at seattle center. apparently elton john was playing the colesium (since reinvented as key arena) that same night, circa captain fantastic, and the crowds attending were dressed up in full elton regalia: huge glasses, feathered hats, haberdashery. it rubbed them the wrong way. i was seconds away from relating my similar tale of mushrooms on hallow's eve, tweakishly being served food by a corpse with a dagger protruding from her bosom, but decided against it.
i am ignoring the paranoia of earlier in the week about the new guy. i think we're on sort of the same page, maybe. i am not going to jinx this any further with my circuitous trollop, so enough of that. sountrack of the past several days: trey anastasio "sleep again." (the first part of the album is very mediocre; the last part improves... just like phish...)
12% of americans name their boats 'serenity.' thank you, uncle john's bathroom reader, and thank you parents for having it laying around to school me.

i am a fucking asshole.

sometimes we fuss and fight

so the amazing man of prior entry went rather crazy on me... after a second very nice evening i recieved repeated voice and text messages calling me a "princess" and signed with x's and o's (symbols that repulse me almost as much as, how you say, emoticons... i dislike cutesy shortcuts and acronyms in general). what the fuck? it was our second time hanging out. i didn't even fuck him! i was a bit captivated by him until this. i don't know what to do. he is out of town right now. my instincts instruct me to hide, but masochistic curiosity wonders if perhaps it's just a phase, and perhaps he is calmer and more sane than he's currently letting on.
there are appealing and horrifying eschelons of nuttiness. my lure towards the former tends to get me in just as many sticky fixes, i suppose.
after the storm, a man (27 years old) was walking his dog in gig harbor and stepped on a fallen live wire. they were both electrocuted, both killed. the dog was brought in to my work to be scanned for a microchip, to determine if the man was his owner. people are still without power around here. 12 have died. there was a huge multilingual warning on the front page of the seattle times today about carbon monoxide poisoning from gas stoves, indoor barbecues, etc. apparently another, more demure windstorm accosts this area by friday. is this receiving national attention?
that first guitar chord from the pointer sister's "fire" is a truly lovely sound.

tenuous euphoria

the cafe is playing mu`m. they are very, very ambient... apparently their music was composed to be heard underwater- they got the idea whilst cavorting in a drained swimming pool. i saw them a few years ago. they were marvelous but what i remember most about the evening is how unbearably hot the club was.
last night i went to a figure drawing group- listened to the entire catalogue of modest mouse (and the more i hear, the more i fucking love them) whilst remembering how fucking much i love to draw. it has been a while- apart from the near-constant compulsive doodling. the walls of the space were lined with mexican saint thank-yous, painted in lurid nightmarish hues. "thank you lady of guadalupe for the gardener who fended off the wild pigs as they attacked me" was one, with a boy being ravaged, blood spurting. "thank you lady of guadalupe for my husband not finding out about my affair and for blaming himself for the gonorrhea", etc.
after the drawing i went to the croc to see the spoils, pink mountaintops, and kinski. kinski i have seen before and they are always fucking amazing- very intense, atmospheric, fuckable music. the spoils were great and the pink mountaintops were incredible. i found their cd for 70% off at tower today (6 more days before they close... very unfortunate). i was in a very jubilant mood after the drawing, akin to a mild upper, thus making it much easier to meet someone who fucking blew my mind. i saw him and thought "whoa. oh god. this is how it's supposed to be." carnal and intellectual fucking lust. jesus christ. i have been grinning like a dumbfuck all day. even if nothing ever manifests it is reassuring to know that the girly froofy hornball facets of me are not utterly numbed by cynicism and despair.
and there was a storm. thursday i was languidly decorating my lair in copious xmas lights- the place rather resembles a whorehouse now- when the rain started to fall. i decided to go on a stroll. in the hour that i was wandering under ominously creaking trees, watching people bail buckets of water from their flooding garages, seeing lightning flash, smirking at the parking lot of aurora avenue, it rained over an inch. the wind got worse later that night. i was over at a friend's house, watching 'the office' (which i'd never seen) and 'the daily show', when it got really bad. garbage cans were rolling all over the street. his dog was panicked- "he hasn't gone out in 7 hours" he said. when i drove home my car was being blown around- entire blocks were underwater- and the illuminated xmas tree atop the space needle was buckling into the shape of a cat's claw. friday dawned calm and sunny. driving around today, entire parts of town are still without power- businesses are closed, intersections are 4-way stops. i saw several huge trees on top of houses, leaning against power lines, splintered into the road. it was rather eerie. my parents, south of olympia, are still without power. "but we're sitting here watching 'sex and the city' with the xmas lights on" my father said smugly. they are running their home off their motorhome's generator. ah, the excess of america. (and yes, they really were watching 'sex and the city', though he would be quick to blame my mother.)
it is now cold as fuck outside, relatively, and they are now playing the dead, and sitting here with my tea, i feel a humble apex of contentment.

the fibroids of fear

last night the wind was blowing the torrential rain sideways. i cracked the window and listened from my bed, cats askance, feeling content with life. i have been out a few times with a new guy. he is very quiet. i feel rather somnambulous around him. but he has potential. perhaps. oddly, i have not really thought about it much- almost indifferent, really- and it is only when i speculate on that indifference that i consider it at all.
i want to be swept off my motherfucking feet. eventually. i have been having SO MANY SEX DREAMS! (the capital letters emphasize the rarity of such reveries.) i also had a dream last night in which i was sliding sideways down an icy hill in my vehicle. prescient? indicative of my perpetual flux? i was not harmed. i landed off the road in a snowbank. "hmm" i said aloud. the sky was clear and the surroundings glittered whitely. i once read (in a fruity 'dream interpretation' book) that 'dangerous' activities/situations in which one is nonchalant/unafraid/unscathed signify optimism, or at least acceptance, of dramatic life changes. i appreciate this assessment, despite the bullshittiness of dream analysis in general; this is the same happily rueful mood i derive from a really good horoscope.
'never my love' plays. this is one of the most gorgeous songs ever. how many fucking mix tapes have i put this on?
saw 'candy' over the weekend. that is a fucking excellent film. i exited the theatre pleased that i have not ever experienced heroin addiction. my hedonistic lines must be drawn somewhere. if it comes to some small pretentious screen near you, i heartily recommend. i also recommend: mango habernero salsa; singing along to nick drake whilst driving through pouring rain; not pressing too hard on the open fontanelles of 3# chihuahuas; the view from my lair on a misty morning as last night's nag champa clings to the walls; the man at the computer next to me (with a skull & crossbones do-rag) dancing in place to "lonely too long."
reading about sensory deprivation whilst sprawled on my floofy rug- sensory overload, tactily speaking? in the '70s studies were done with university volunteers: hands encased in padded tubing, placed in 98.6 degree water in black, soundless chambers, ears plugged so they couldn't even hear themselves breathe. after an average of 2 hours most of the participants begged to be let out (their only tie to the outside world being an emergency alarm) and none of them could be coerced to reenter. the longest duration of anyone was about 20 hours, and he had to have in-patient counseling for a few days afterwards. deprived of sensation, everyone in the study reported intense and horrible hallucinations. theories why: the brain believes the body is asleep and starts to dream; unused/underutilized portions of our conscience, the nasty parts, are able to flex their will in the absense of other distractions... the horror, for me, would be the isolation. i crave being alone but only with the option, at any given moment, of remingling with society. i would start to panic that the monitors of the study would yawn, check their watches, and decide to go home, leaving me bereft and hand-entubed with only my fucking psychoses for companionship... never to return. sensory deprivation would give my neuroses legs, hair, and teeth.
i am reticent to proofread this, having a hunch that it is nothing more than a laughable run-on, so shall post as is. proofreading is for the weak? (and writing in a blog is for the socially stunted...)

"happiness is a sad song"

i have done absolutely nothing of import today, and that's okay, i guess... i tell myself. i paid a stack of bills (including $300 for 2 months of electricity... i am never home, but i do leave the thermostat around 80... i always promised myself that unto my own devices, in my own lairs, i would never be fucking cold. so i am not. i am poor and stupid and wasting precious resources, but whilst sweating.). ate vegan bacon bits out of a plastic bag- very fucking tasty, i must say- like chunks of brown salt. wandered around the goodwill, where i was one of the only people not wearing some sort of hijab. it has become apparent to me that i am no longer a tourist here. i have left the rumpled sheets of honeymoon bliss and am dealing with the annoying tedium of reality. and i miss him. i am dealing with the pain of saying goodbye all over again- how many times now? it has been over 2 weeks since we've spoken. "don't contact me, don't come to seattle, don't be around" i told him. mindfuckery, like a plant, will die without nourishment.
i found a journal from '98... when i was planning to move to prague. i was, unsurprisingly, miserable then too. i was writing about getting there and having those several weeks alone, being completely unreachable, pretending i was single, wondering if he'd arrive and i'd be gone. a few days after i'd written that he was the one who left, to live the czech dream while i was relearning how to smoke camel wides in a foul motel room in albequerque. i read it with a smirk. "serves me right" i thought. i was incredibly fucking arrogant to believe that i was the only one dissatisfied in that relationship. that same knowledge applies here. perhaps if i pull my head out of my ass well enough, i will eventually cease to make the same fucking mistakes over and over again. it must start somewhere.
every truly sad song is one with a memory, especially a lovely one, that is no longer applicable. the one that first comes to mind is "god rest his soul" by 31st of february (later the allman brothers), but i heard ac/dc "touch too much" on the radio the other day and very nearly started bawling. emotional evocation is proof that one has lived, i suppose.

"you can run your car on this mother"

this week at work has been frenetic and draining. today was deathly slow in contrast. for a while i was the only tech on the floor. i reformatted the controlled drug logs. somehow busywork is much more exhausting.
'the lady is a tramp' is playing. the guy who works here must adore sinatra... it's usually playing. i must say that i enjoy it more than the klassic rawk calvacade of boston and ccr that used to always blare. he is always struggling through a crossword puzzle when i arrive. he is very nice and very, very gay.
my brain has stultified. here it is, in print.

"bummer" used without considering the dumbass-insinuating reprocussions

mania undulates in ~2 week spurts. i am so hyperactive and edgy that i can scarcely stand myself. i want to get into a screaming, passionate argument, be thrown down and fucked, get obliteratingly altered. instead i am chastely sipping asian jasmine tea and listening to dirty blues. externally i may even appear fairly combobulated (is that a word?).
saw dick dale for free at easy street. i fucking love that store. robyn hitchcock and dick dale, free, within a week and a fifteen-minute walk from my lair? this is why i moved. he is talented as fuck but a bit of a blowhard- kept babbling "check this out! wasn't that cool!" his 14-year-old son was on stage with him. he (the son) appeared mightily disgusted by the whole thing. talented little bastard. everyone clapped the loudest for him. of course he ended with 'miserilou'. afterwards i took a bus into the cold, crowded heart of downtown, the streets filled with vagrants and groups of yelling teenagers.
there is a book of americana via kodachrome that i highly recommend to anyone with a passing interest in lurid post-war kulture. oh, the days when women wore white gloves to go to "the City", when junior sprawled askance in front of the telly, when meat was red and marbled and the potatoes twice-baked into regal whorls of gold.
i read a thing about the nostalgia of those days, the era when kids played outside all day, when everyone knew and liked their neighbors, when everyone sat down for a well-balanced family meal... and how the kids who grew up in that era are now the adults who build fences in their fuck-you suburban enclaves, whose children are obese and lackadasical with strong controller-thumbs and paltry educations... and how perhaps that Wholesome Yay-Kin rearing wasn't all so positive after all. it gave me pause. apparently.
nostalgia is ignorance, romanticized- ignorance in forgetting what actually was. i sound stoned, but sadly, i am not.
the city is cauled in dense fog. it fits my mood.
may i add that my workplace ladles on the bullshit? i had a fucking staff meeting today, my day off- 60 miles roundtrip for an hour of chest-thumping crap-bleating drivel. the management there is so "good job, great idea" while discussing nothing of import- 15 minutes of today's meeting were devoted to the holiday party and should they hire a santa for the kids and if you work that night you probably shouldn't sign up for secret santa (and thank fuck, i do work that night- the better to not flaunt my barren-uterused atheism) and bring in canned goods for the food drive! the only part of any of it that made all of us laugh was the note about "if you feel a breeze, pull them up please"- a reference to the new assistant's affinity for lo-rise pants and the resultant ass-crack, rhyme courtesy of one of the doctors. "our resident poet" the manager said, not sarcastically.
i have been able to recall enough of my dreams lately to know they are pleasant and sexual and populated with people i know. there is no undercurrent of malice in any of them. being awake is a comparative bummer.