and let's not forget
-luscious jackson 'naked eyes'
-nick drake 'one of these things first'
-thrill kill kult 'daisy chain for satan'
-arcade fire 'black mirror'
-can 'laugh til you cry, live til you die'
-nektar 'desolation valley/roads'
-steve miller 'wild mountain honey'
or perhaps, let's.

the soundtrack of 2007

i am not neccessarily proud of some of these, but they have given me great pleasure (mostly whilst driving) over the last year. ah, the memories.
i am only counting entire albums. in no particular order, as usual.
-traffic 'mr fantasy'
-love 'da capo'
-the white stripes 'icky thump'
-nuggets box set volume one (especially cds 1-3)
-the rolling stones 'black and blue'
-dr dog 'we all belong'
-phish 'story of the ghost'
-yo la tengo 'i can hear the heart beating as one'
-the beatles 'please please me'
-instrumental rock collection: soul
-os mutantes 'anything is possible!'
-secret machines '12 silver drops'
and some of the songs:
-ween 'captain fantasy'
-robyn hitchcock 'this could be the day'
-amy winehouse 'you know i'm no good' (and i'll fucking admit it. this is a great song and anyone who says otherwise is a fucking LIAR)
-neil young: 'don't let it bring you down'
-tom petty 'asshole'
-trey anastasio 'black'
-destroyer 'rubies'
-ram jam 'black betty'
-the beach boys 'tears in the morning'
...there will be others, i'm sure.
*
in my head right now: "you look so good... in my bed"

please: a plea for ease

xmas went really, really well. i feel like a collossal fuck after my post of vitriole, so much so that i will not reread it at all. i never think first. this has gotten me into pretty much every stupid situation i can recall. and i fucking deserve it.
the train ride from seattle was gorgeous. the tracks hug the shores of puget sound, it was the first sunny day in a good while, and everything was tinted golden. my parents had the xmas tree up, adorned with ornaments from my youth; we bullshat and drank a lot and had a very good meal involving stir-fried scallops. the scallops were the size of hockey pucks, but thicker. they were like eating a stick of butter. i mean that in the best possible way.
it snowed on xmas, fat white flakes that melted upon contact. my parents offered to drive me home instead. the interstate was blocked off for 'police activity' in federal way. we eventually passed the scene: about 15 squad cars, lights flashing, and no evidence of an accident. my father called me when they returned to olympia; they'd gotten online to find the source of the ballyhoo. a guy had jumped out of a moving vehicle containing his girlfriend and her young son; he had taken off all his clothing on the freeway; he was swinging his belt at cars. the cops were called, they couldn't talk with him, they were unable to subdue him with a taser, and he was eventually shot to death on the middle of I-5 in front of a bus full of people. "that was not the story i expected to hear" i said inanely when he told me.
in today's paper they interviewed acquaintances of this mecurial young man. "that's not like him at all" was the prevailing opinion, seconded with "he's no drug user." toxicology shall see. anyhow, merry fucking xmas.
also on xmas in a small town about 20 miles east of seattle, a family of six was murdered in their own home. by their daughter and her boyfriend, presumably. again, real nice folk. couldn't imagine. they were a quiet bunch.
washington is the serial killer hub of north america, you know. the washington-BC region in general, tacoma in particular. i am inclined to blame the weather.
a term i learned today: episioplasty. it was bandied around as a surgical option for a female dog with chronic UTIs. it involves cutting back the vulvar folds to prohibit excessive gunge incubation. i love the english language: there really is a word for everything.

fra ra ra

sigur ros is playing. the best music has a seamlessness of applicability: it can be appreciated whether driving, fucking, being giddy, being morose... and this does not fulfill every criteria. it is good, but it is not an across-the-board stalwart, unlike (at least for me, at this precise moment) traffic, or the raconteurs, or the goddamn beatles.
entropy was deuterized on friday. she came home three hours post-op, pupil dilated from opiates, and sucked down a bowl of food. she and i took a nap on the sofa in the twilight, her chin resting on my arm, purring when i touched her. by that evening she was trying to jump on tables and tearing at her e-collar and being even more of a shit than usual. i was at a seminar once where the speaker repeatedly intoned "cats are made of steel." it is true. it is very fucking difficult to make a dent in a cat. they are willful, tenacious motherfuckers. like philodendron. i appreciate that.
*
a preface to my newest Action:
-i have made it a paramount goal to keep my life as stress-free as possible, since i add enough turmoil and drama to things already, simply by being me
-my savings are my reward for the purgatory of yelm, and money is to be spent, and if i die, i would rather not have any monetary value
-i prefer comfort to coming across like a moist fogged-over illegal prick
-which sounds revolting!
-therefore:
i am buying a car on wednesday. a practical car. a car with 4 doors that open. a car with a heater, cup holders, fabulous gas mileage, functional windsheild wipers, a cd player, a sunroof, a new clutch, 4 newish tires, and seats that are unfortunately upholstered with a fabric reminiscent of a mid-80s trapper keeper.
i am buying a volkswagen golf.
for a pittance!
it is used. i am not contributing to further rape of the world, the unpaid toilers, the finite resources, the evil executives. this is a (14 yr old) car that came up from california with a fucked clutch, an unwanted orphan. i am retardedly excited about having a heated vehicle, i admit. this is a big fucking deal for me.
i am keeping sweet green. she's mine, after all, and i adore her; my neighborhood is not zoned, thank fuck, so i can continue to keep her tripod-like self parked in front of my building like the darling wastrel she is. i will fuck with her come spring, when it is light for more than four hours a day, when everything is not continuously cauled in wetness and rot.
in the meantime, i will be cavorting in a brilliant turquoise marvel of latter-day german engineering. the thing hauls ass. it will be fun.
*
tomorrow i make the amtrak-trek to my parent's lair for forced gaiety. i am dreading this. a stultified unpleasant chat with my father a few nights ago made me uneasy for hours afterwards. i will be trapped there, reliant on their transport from bumfuck to the only slightly-less-bumfuck train station, for nearly 24 hours. i am anticipating the following (and if i state it, perhaps it shall not happen?):
-father being a dickhead
-mother getting drunk
-unsolicited opinions on my life, my personality, my hair, my vocation, my diet, my sociability, my health- no opinions of which will be "atta girl"
-cream- and meat-based everything
-enduring mannheim steamroller's xmas swill on the hi-fi, in a house where the thermostat is perpetually set at 68 degrees
-mother falling asleep on the sofa at 9pm
-father hauling me into the office to stand there dumbly while he shows off his thousands of mp3s, and plays them
what will i be doing to contribute to the festivities?
-sulking inwardly
-getting defensive
-helping my mother get through the bottle of wine
-smoking in their driveway and wishing i was home
-feeling unbearably self-conscious and self-critical by proxy
-turning into a shrill teenager, minus the 78 volvo to get away in
*
i fucking hate xmas.
i hate holidays.
holidays are for the families you choose, not for the families you have.
there, i said it.

found items

a stairwell on an abandoned section of the olympia brewery:

dancin' with the nazis: ("scarily cheerful marching-band music" according to the man selling this. he wanted $45. i did not, though i was rather interested on a purely sociological level.)

in the trash at the bus stop one block from my lair:

a lucky pile of pennies, abandoned in the loo at the library:

and the bottom of a 2-ton hanging lamp at the state capitol building, able to vibrate in place:

i found a wallet on the bus the other day. it belonged to a bedraggled-looking 44yr old woman. she had a downtown address, a reduced-fare bus pass, and a student ID to shoreline community college. i called information and got another woman with the same name, connected to her cell phone via a chirpy "dave and rebecca aren't home right now" message. i looked the woman up online. i found the other rebecca, the one whom i'd already called, and her address in a nice part of town. i finally made it to the other woman's address tonight... the YWCA. an unpleasant woman unsmilingly assisted me at the surveillance-monitored counter while rap played loudly. "she doesn't live here anymore" i was told. she wrote the wallet's finding in the spiral notebook behind the counter and gruffly told me goodbye. i passed through a group of smoking strangers as i left the building. and i thought about how polarized the fucking world really is. i had proof in my hands of a woman who was seemingly making every attempt to improve her life, and the residual sound of the other woman with the same name and the completely alternate reality, and i am still sadly wondering how the fuck that happens. i don't believe in luck; things either happen or they don't. but sometimes i think my beliefs are bullshit.
i left all those pennies for someone else.

coliform conniption

i am wired with sexual energy. i want to slam my body against a tall stranger. it must be the season.
the new job is going rather well. on my 3rd day there (yesterday) they were passing out envelopes. i got mine and immediately thought negative things; instead i found a "glad you're on board" xmas note and a crisp $50 bill. on my 3rd day. $50. did such things ever happen at tacoma? no, indeed, they did not.
no, tacoma is now denying me the "extended leave" clause that i am legally entitled to (as is every taxpaying employee of the united states), which i was relying on to retain my health insurance benefits until my new ones kicked in (april). i was planning on continuing to pay the exorbinant monthly fees, appreciating that they are still far less than the $500/month+ clusterfuckery of COBRA. yesterday i received an email from my former manager saying that "it was in the memo" and "we know that it's complicated to understand" blah blah BLAH, whereupon i responded that they can just let my coverage die at the end of the month. i stated it kindly. and when i left my new job, i had $50 in my wallet and my fingers crossed mightily that i will not have any serious shit befall me in the next 4 months.
or i will be fucked.
i hate american health care.
i am now commuting via public transport, which i dearly love, which is such a new and novel and joyous thing that i can excuse the presumed 'imconvenience' of it all. i am now able to TAKE A BUS TO WORK FROM MY HOME, like normal folk do! this is thrilling as fuck. the thrill was induced, in part, by my tire shredding on my car whilst on the interstate last weekend. i ruined the rim too. and then i continued to drive it home, because it was already fucked up. my car is now parked off-kilter in front of my lair with a rear tire that looks like it was decimated by a machete. i accomplished tire death. i shall post a picture soon.
i also hate the annoying burden of vehicles.
*
whilst walking here (at the w seattle library, post-dentist, ever the wily hedonist) i had that thought i hadn't had in at least a few days. changing jobs and consequently changing my life, worrying about whether this is a wise decision, worrying about potential health issues and the stupid drama with s, wishing it wasn't so fucking cold and grey and solitary here, has essentially defined the last week. i have been even more stressed than what i consider natural. and the thought was: i can handle this.
it can be considered the height of patheticism to have to perform my own cheerleading... as my current optimism inevitably abates, surely i will analyze this to my detriment.
*
on the mcdonald's electronic reader board near my lair:
nog nog!
who's there?
egg nog shakes!
that's who!
it makes me laugh every time.

flux

it snowed like hell on saturday. one inch of sloppy slush paralyzes this place. i, for example, live atop a 40 degree incline in a town that does not utilize sanders, plows, or de-icers. understanding this makes me feel a bit less pussified.
from the front of my lair, looking down (sweet green is in the foreground. i learned this weekend that she leaks. formidably. there is an inch of standing water on the floor. i eagerly await mold.):

it was melted by that evening, turning into a nightmarish torrent that dumped nearly 7 inches of rain over 2 days. chehalis, an admittedly nondescript berg about 30 miles south of olympia, is completely submerged. I-5 is underwater. in seattle, storm drains were clogging and people were rowing out of their yards. there was a landslide a few blocks away from my place. i am tired of sogginess. everything is perpetually sodden and bleak here. usually it doesn't bother me too much... i love rain, hence my decision to live here... but FUCK. i am reminded of the horrible month of january 06 and the CEASELESS rain and my leaking ceiling... go back to the archives and read all about it for some bona fide knee-slappery.
later saturday night, downtown. the snow is still falling but not adhering.

i met s at our usual haunt. the furnace was broken. it was cold as fuck. we played with the candle. he sarcastically selected 'radio ga ga' on the jukebox after i, in some degree of earnestness, chose 'fat bottom girls.'

...blurry though this may be, i find this image rather sexy.
*
my last official day at the tacoma ER was monday. it was very fucking sad to leave. they bought me cake and a card. i got a lot of hugs. i cried. some of my coworkers cried too. i drove home that night feeling incredibly morose: what the fuck did i go and quit for? is that yet another decision i will learn to rue? no more commute. that's all it comes down to. better benefits. better pay. a new experience. life goes on.
i tend to not get too comfortable on purpose. anywhere.
i orientate (?) at the new place tomorrow and start my first shifts on friday. i am deeply dreading my new schedule. i have a week of swing-shift training, then the terrible day shifts begin. early day shifts. i am already getting despondent about this fucking weather. not seeing daylight for days at a time is a worrisome concept, to the point of preoccupying me.
*
went to the ranch 99 asian market today. i am always at least a head taller than everyone else there, including the men. so i didn't bust out the camera and add to my conspicuousness, though oh, how i wanted to. an entire roasted piglet, dangling. frosty bags of duck feet. artichoke tea. fascinating, terrible things. i bought a bag of soup mix for s's birthday, a freeze-dried amalgam including dainty starfish. he collects bizarre food products too- i didn't know anyone else did that (which is why i have in my cupboards tinned treacle and grass jelly, and why he will soon have, along with the starfish-stuff, broiled octopus and amyl nitrate flavoring).
i have always been drawn to images of the mundane, the unclean room, the packaging at the grocery store. so herein is a picture of my cool two-tiered stove.

go take a shower

or:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/12/03/wface103.xml

frolic

i am going to be a fucking photo addict. after the initial clusterfuckery involving the demon in my 20# laptop, i am finally getting this to work, two photographs at a time.
herein lies entropy, the newest kitten. you cannot see the cyclopian absense of her right eye. she is a little shit.

and this is tiresias, yawning ferociously.

i cannot capture a flattering picture of the tombs. she is obese, flecked with dandruff, and absolutely surly when i approach her.
two cats, one eye! woo-hoo! they are like twitterpated teenagers, rolling around, licking one another. it is nauseating.

i am not that crazy cat lady. i am not.

in alaska

for every



there's a

"america's villians of the 20th century were frank lloyd wright for romanticizing the suburbs & henry ford for making the suburban dream accessible."

so sayeth one paco underhill, whose book 'call of the mall' must be read by anyone appalled/fascinated/bewildered by american culture. for example: makeup counters are always adjacent to the shoe department, so the ladies have something to occupy themselves whilst waiting for the minion to return with the size they requested. or: the layout of supermarkets invariably house the dairy products in the back, since most people always buy milk and they have to slog through everything else to get there, but consumers have grown annoyed by the inefficiency of that, and convenience stores have capitalized on milk-selling, so some supermarkets now have 'common buy' sections right near the entrance, as well as the full-throttle bowels-o-the-beast dairy area, or as i have just coined, the dairea.
fucking interesting to me, anyhow. i like knowing how i am unconsciously manipulated on a constant basis. i read 110 pages in one sitting, drinking 48oz of progressively watered-down tea from one wilting bag. i can be miserly even as i peruse tales of excess.
it is good to be back in warshington, even though i miss s and her clan like fuck. i worked 13 hrs apiece on sunday and monday, 12 on tuesday, 9.5 yesterday. today is freezing cold and very mellow. i made some delicious stuffing and burned the shit out of my mouth. this is, to my shame, the first time i have actually cooked something for myself in months. i typically feel culinarily witty if i add spices to a can of soup (that i then proceed to eat cold, from the can, with a fork since i don't like spoons. cold canned soup is actually very tasty- as long as it is not the condensed variety, obviously.)
alaska, though. i procured a digital camera whilst there and tomorrow i will try to post some photographs. the anecdotes will have to wait until then.
since being back:
-listened to ween's 'captain fantasy' over and over. this was my soundtrack when i was about 13, sitting in the nb hall at service high, sulking with my headphones. it is juvenile as fuck but still pretty great. i have not heard anything of ween's after 'the mollusk.' it is odd, how one can love the shit out of a band but never pursue them further.
-learned that heating up one of the 1L fluid bags/hot water bottles from work and keeping it in my lap on the drive home from work helps me freeze a tiny bit less. "don't you have a heater?" one of the other techs, a guy who once owned a bug, asked. "yeah, but it's not hooked up" i said. "why?" "because it's been too cold to mess with it" i said. yeah, funny. i am a shitty bug owner. but damned if they don't teach you how to improvise.
-had my employee review. "excellent across the board" they said. this is at my tacoma job (i don't start in seattle until next week). twice a year everyone reviews everyone. it is a stressful experience, made especially bullshittish by the fact that we must put our names at the top. i was reminded of the evil slam books of my youth. i will fucking miss that place. i will still be on call for relief shifts. "do i get to keep my locker?" i asked, half-joking. "of course" they replied. good, since i have a stupid rosie the riveter sticker permanently adhered to it, and i feel rather guilty.
-cases at work: angus, the GDV with thrombocytopenia (discovered after already in surgery) that bled out post-op, from every orifice, mainly his ass. another GDV surgery (jessie) last night that i was monitoring, neccessitating a gastrotomy because the stomach tube wouldn't pass, proceeding to spill a huge mass of stomach contents, including spaghetti, into the abdominal cavity; the stray cat with hideous flea dermatitis who i fell in love with, despite his pendulous gonads; everything else is a fucking blur, by choice. lots of DKA, lots of wounds (including a yorkie who was shot through her kidney), lots of strays. i am rather exhausted still.
*
suburbia be damned; i do love frank lloyd wright. my pulse slows just looking at his buildings.

and what shall

i am happy and i feel good about everything.
or: it is all handle-able. there is nothing that cannot be dealt with.
i needed this.
more later.

what was

nothing changes here. this is cockle-warming and depressing at once. the only real difference: my world is somewhere else now.
i arrived in anchorage as the sun was setting. tis a damned homely place. i was grinning uncontrollably as i got off the plane. everything was tinted golden: the scant snow, the puny trees, the filthy pickup trucks on the road. being back prompts an eerie "well, of course" feeling- it's home in a very seamless and clausterphobic way, like the smell of a former lover's neck- you know it far too well and it's both wonderful and "get the fuck away from me"... anchorage is a former lover's neck. i should make bumper stickers.
my insomnia has followed me here. i do not recall the last time i slept more than 5 hours in a night. but here it is six-thirty a.m. and will be pitch black outside for hours, and i only just remembered whilst sitting here (in a dark room) that oh yeah, it's my birthday too. and thanksgiving. and the 44th anniversary of JFK's assassination. and one of the babies in an adjacent room just woke up crying.
*
we went to darwin's last night. of course. i saw so many people i knew, people i knew FROM THERE... people who were STILL THERE, nearly six years later, looking a bit aged... it was really fucking good to see some people, very stultifying to see others- most of the latter were s's friends anyhow, people i smiled politely at in passing, people who called me "bree". ike and tina on the hi-fi. the smell of popcorn. the remodeled bathroom where the position of the toilet forces my knees against the wall. a crushed can somersaulting down the alley in the wind. IT IS WARMER HERE THAN IN SEATTLE. i was complimented on my firm handshake. the very good thing about s having kids and therefore a curfew: we leave early and lucidly. responsibility? self-pride? the people i remembered who were there when we arrived were possibly still there when we left.
anchorage is a dirty, pathetic little town. i fucking left for many, many reasons. but i do love this place. i love the blue lights in the town square, the neighborhood by elderberry park, the murals behind the panhandler bar, the alaska zoo charity-things hanging all over the gas station i will always know as a mapco, the fucking amazing fries at peggy's with the stacks of pie boxes on the u-shaped bar, the sloppy back roads and the cars parked in yards and people's inherent effusiveness, that giddy feeling that i could possibly run into someone i know at any time, the proof of a past.

shitterpated

i got the job at the local ER. for the first time in almost five years, i will be working in the city where i live. i am very pleased about this.
raining like hell. no place sells rain-x. my car is a death trap. the classic rock station is doing their entire catalog a-z as a holiday precursor. the disc jockey said "isn't this just one of those beautiful pacific northwest days that you dream about?" as i hydroplaned blindly. "it's a good day" said he, "to slog through the ARRRs." 'roundabout' was the last one i heard before i exited my vehicle, still repeating 'arrrr' to myself, swaggering around puddles.
a child is wailing in the library. it is echoing off the high ceiling. the other people at the computers were all looking disgustedly towards the source. "i was doing that earlier this week" one of the guys said. i laughed out loud, an obvious eavesdropper.
s will be in texas while i am in alaska. he grew up in college station. he has a barely perceptable accent. it is charming as fuck, actually. last night i hung out in his lair, alternately drawing and looking at his banksy book while he went through a huge bag of junk mail. he found a box of cellulose packing peanuts. "i don't want to just throw them away" he said. i suggested he flush them. twenty minutes later they were still there, even after being mushed up by the toilet brush. "you should leave it for your roommates" i said. and he did. we were standing in the bathroom, cackling in front of a toilet that looked as if someone had just had a hellacious caseous shit, and i thought "i really adore this guy." he has been a very fucking good friend.
'dandelion', the rolling stones, 1967: backing vocals by john lennon and paul mccartney. recommended.

gary and melissa loved to make love

i met with the neurologist today. i am so tired of fucking students trailing the doctors- some privacy, please? or at least some modicum of a pleasant bedside manner? she was an unsmiling cunt. i hope she fails medical school.
the doctor showed me my latest MRI in comparison with the one taken 17 months ago. the initial splotches of inflammation are still there, joined by some other pea-sized random blips across my brain. it is like looking at cells at work, seeing what is normal and what is not, how even the abnormal is strikingly beautiful because it indicates proof. he didn't seem too concerned with any of it. he did, as i anticipated, urge me to start medication. "it's your brain, after all" he said. he described the weekly injection i would give myself, an "immuno-modifier", and how it could cause "flu-like" symptoms that "normally go away in a few months", and i said "i don't want to resign myself to that and admit that i have an issue that needs continuous treatment," all the while thinking that, miserable as the relapses are, 2 in a year and a half is not that horrid a frequency, and at least i know that what i experience now is ME, not some fucking pharmaceutical side-effect. i wish he'd offer me medical marijuana instead.
my third and final steroid infusion was today. i had my own room, a television with a remote, and two hours flipping between 'roseanne' and the food network. i had forgotten how fucking vapid the food network is. i was thinking especially rude things about sandra lee.
afterwards: i found out i got the fucking job at the local ER. i had my working interview there on friday, the day my symptoms began in earnest, and i was not on the proverbial ball whatsoever. i hit the veins, did everything well, but mentally i was not as... lively as i could have been. but apparently i made a good enough impression. "everyone really liked you and think you'd be a great addition to our team" the HR woman wrote me in an email. that fucking made my day. the caveatL the schedule sucks. but it is open to fluctuation- this is an incredibly mecurial field. she is allowing me a few days to mull it over.
it is nice to know i don't suck too badly.
it is even nicer to know that i can muster competence even with my brain covered with plaque.
and i can move a bit more of my face today.
the little things matter the most. i actually feel really fucking optimistic right now- and it may be the 'roids talking, but i also feel a hell of a lot less vulnerable than i did a few days ago.
i have always hated the soft-porn tittiness of that giada chick from the aforementioned food network, but she made something today that sounded pretty damn good, and those who can eat dairy should try this to, i don't know, impress the ladies.
i leave you with:
saute some diced onions and carrots and, i don't know, celery, in olive oil. add a package of frozen-defrosted-drained spinach and some sliced roma tomatoes. (i'm thinking mushrooms too. everything is better with mushrooms.) mix. it is pretty. in another bowl mix a container (whatever size- 8 oz?) of marscapone cheese, 1/4c grated parmiagno-reggiano, salt, pepper, and i can't remember if there was anything else, but methinks some toasted pine nuts would kick fucking ass. mix the cheese-gloop and add half the sauteed vegetable olio to it. then! you have this cute stack of pancakes- i think that would sort of suck, why not tortillas? like, ooh, those spinach or sundried tomato or rosemary ones? oh my god that would be fucking delicious! so screw the pancakes, do the tortillas. put a bit of the filling in each tortilla, or tortilla-scrap, top with mozarella, and roll them up. place them in a buttered baking dish. puree the rest of the vegetable medley and pour over the top. smother with more parmesan. add more mozzarella too. would smoked gouda be too much here? perhaps in lieu of the mozarella? fuck, i miss cheese. apparently.
bake at 350 or so for 35 minutes? or 25 minutes? i was probably flipping back to roseanne at that point. anyway, keep an eye on it.
vicarious cheese. i am sick.

what matters?

more MS.
just in time for alaska.
i have an IV catheter taped in place, hidden under my sweater on my right forearm. my elbow veins are shot from the multiple prods i recieved yesterday. "don't go shootin' up!" the male nurse said jovially as he, against hospital orders, sent me home with the IV in. "i'll do my best" i replied drily.
yesterday: i called my neurologist to describe the paralysis besetting the right side of my face. it is funny now, but it most fucking certainly wasn't when i first noticed it friday night. i had actually noticed something weird as far back as wednesday, i realize now: i was putting on chapstick and found it very difficult to rub my lips together. the cool (and i mean this unironically) thing about MS: i sm hyper-aware of every tiny vacillation in my body, anything that is at all unusual. scary thing is, i'm always fucking right.
he recommended i go to the ER. mentioned stroke, bell's palsy. shit, thought i, i have something ELSE? something NEW? i wasn't concerned about stroke, but the bell's palsy thing was new... i remembered reading about it in a fully illustrated medical book years ago- along with grave;s disease, and all those other unnattractive neuro syndromes that make for unsightly photographs.
took the bus to the ER. got a private room with a television. watched the last half of 'psycho' on the in-room television. ("i helped pick out the dress she was buried in. periwinkle blue.") had ~20mls (i asked; "you'll remake it by dinnertime") of blood drawn. went up to the MRI. they gave me headphones, set too blaringly to, per my request, the classic rock station, which was playing 3-song sets for the weekend, so i was immobile and helpless in the MRI for about 50 minutes, stuck with fucking ZZ top and van halen and several of my other least fucking favorite bands, in triplicate, thinking halfway through "what if i have a fucking brain tumor?" feeling tears go down my cheeks, itching, unable to wipe them away.
back to the room with the telly, now turned to fucking entertainment tonight, the doctor confirming MS resurgence, tethering me to the bed with an IV pump for an elephant-felling infusion of solu-medrol, stuck with the terrible television because the hospital had its remotes habitually stolen.
('such great heights' is playing at the cafe right now. this is a fucking great song. i wonder how many dewy-eyed couples lost their virginity to this.)
after i left the ER, six hours later, i burst into near-hysterical tears, yelled "FUCK" into the darkness, and kicked the shit out of the side of some building. i felt better after that.
met with s. i need more that what he can give, at least this week. but he was good for a few hours, anyway. he listened to me rand and didn't flee in revulsion while i repeatedly cried and blew my nose in public. we had tea and coffee. i am glad i did not have any alcohol last night. it would not have been wise.
today: calmer. know your enemy, then get on with it. the terror and helplessness that plagued me for the last few (incredibly draining) days has given way to... mellow. i can even find humor in it. how is it possible, for example, that i can flare my fucking nostrils but not raise my right eyebrow? i know. i've practiced. went back to the ER for a second hour-long steroid bolus. the room today was far crappier, seperated by a curtain from a 52-year-old man with rectal bleeding. i heard it all: his boyfriend bringing him food, the heart monitor beeping nonstop for about 5 minutes due to his tachycardia, the doctor giving him a rectal exam and vocalizing what he found. i stayed on my side, reading a book about how fat was always considered the aesthetic ideal until recently, and how the pendulum should swing back soon, and at one point i fell asleep, in the fetal position, knee-length hospital gown over my jeans and t-shirt.
they're playing fucking billy bragg! "a new england" is one of the best songs ever! fuck. life is sometimes poignant enough to make me cry. i think i cried everything i could yesterday. now i am left quietly, wholeheartedly appreciating.
no edit.

the deeper the cushion

this has been a fucking frustrating week. and there is really nothing i can push all the blame onto, which handily exacerbates my surliness.
some of the worst moments of my life are directly related to sex.
*
i took entropy to work with me yesterday with hopes of having her jaw-wire, and ideally her uterus, removed. i was feeling like shit already. the doctors flaked around until about 10pm, when the doctor i'd asked hours before to help me- the owner of the clinic- tried to pry the fucking wire out without any anesthesia. i was holding her, she was crying, and a group of technicians was standing around, all watching with the same horrified "why the fuck isn't the doctor using sedation" expressions. i had to ask several times before entropy was fully sedated. and this fucking pissed me off. why do i pretend to have loyalty to a job that treats its employees and their animals so disrespectfully? i would be furious if i was a client and my pet was handled that way. i have not had much loyalty to the place since my decision to stay in seattle, i admit; i am going through the motions, fairly blatantly. the fact that this week has been otherwise fucked up has not helped my attitude much. i left last night with an unspayed cat and a desperate need for a cigarette.
things will change soon.
the teapot that i've had for years -admittedly hideous with tulips on the side- burned through its base today. i did not know that could actually happen. i was heating water for tea and absently listening to the perpetual hiss of water hitting the electric burner; it wasn't until dribbling scalding water all over the counter that i properly investigated. i must make more tea than i realize. this is one of those crappy items that has travelled with me since 1997, to every place i have ever lived; i bought it at some thrift store for a pittance. it is a small accomplishment to wear an object completely the fuck out.
it has occurred to me as i have packed, then unpacked, my world o' shit over the last month, how i tend to hold onto things. i have books from when i was a kid, plants from 6 years ago, things on my refrigerator that i remember from the refrigerators in anchorage. it is comforting to maintain a sense of 'place', no matter where- like when i was backpacking by myself, and i would empty out my bag and look at everything, how seeing my clothes and the shit stuffed into my wallet was somehow validating, gave me proof that i existed outside of this precise instant.
how very first-world, i think disgustedly upon rereading that last paragraph.
*
i am about halfway through 'no shame in our game', yet another what's-wrong-with-america tome; i also recommend 'the working poor' for a similar theme.
...left to my own at-home devices, i guiltily find myself rereading the chapters of 'valley of the dolls' involving the clusterfuckery of neely o'hara. i try to justify my vices with a semblance of balance, however skewed.

yeah, uh-huh, sweet

today!:
-i finally changed the sheets on my bed and slept in naked bliss
-i interviewed with a local ER and it went insanely well and everyone was incredibly nice and i have a paid working interview there next week
-i heard back from the other job i wanted, the one where my resume was forwarded to the director of the department with the notation that they were "very impressed" by a prior interview i'd had (for a job i did not get... i must have been too impressive)
-i passed many ghouls and enormous men in flamboyant drag
-i also passed a small boy dressed as a wedge of cheese, a hairless young man wearing only a dress shirt and shoes, and a man wearing a sandwich board that said "NEW CONDOS"
-i was flaked on by s, who cancelled our plans 1 hr prior because he'd "just lost his lunch in the john"
-i booked my flight to anchorage

yes! i will spend my, good god, 29th birthday in cold, cozy anchorage, as a gift to myself- proof of where i've been. life is fucking cool.
life is what is made of it.
the last two weeks have been exceptionally rife with life.
happy halloween.

26 october 07

the sun was shining when i called the movers two hours prior to their scheduled arrival and cancelled the move. my lair was flooded with light and packed boxes when i called my almost-landlord in tacoma and told him i wasn't going to take the place after all. and i went outside, had a cigarette, and felt giddier, flakier, and calmer than i had in quite a while.
it feels so fucking right to stay. unquestionably. what was i thinking? i am a fucking pleasure-seeking doof and it is incredibly erroneous to pretend otherwise. be happy. do whatever it takes. la la la.
...and for the second time this week, i woke up in the alcove of s's room, under a feather blanket, the dawn through the skylight grey and quiet, his arms reaching for me while he slept. i had forgotten how much i needed that, how much i'd missed having someone around.
everything in my life, no matter how fucked up, somehow coalesced into this last 24 hr period, so i must have done something right after all.

the traits you most hate in others are the traits you hate about yourself

...and i know this.
any place fucking sucks without someone to share it with. i am grieving how much i fucked up this go-around in seattle- home to so many amazing things, but rendered so depressing by how little i connected with people here. as always, there is much, very much, i could have done differently.
'mad world' is an absolutely fantastic song. the crowded house version is playing. when gary jules' was ubiquitous, i was living very briefly in olympia, springtime, rainy, fluctuating frenetically between the elation of my brief restraining-order-against-the-ex-prompted freedom and a crushing loneliness. this song makes me want to hold someone.
my intolerance for asshat behavior has soured yet another s memory. how can i dig someone who treats me like crap? how, indeed. (i have been repeating myself for the last 15 years.) horrid rebuttals are riccocheting through my head as i walk by myself, because i am hurt. i am fucking hurt again, feeling fucking stupid, feeling shameful for trusting the good moments without remembering the annoying whole. the older people get the more self-absorbed and obliviously caustic they become. and obviously, this bothers me because i am the same fucking way.
moving will not change much. i am seeing it as an excercise in masochism. but i do have friends there. and the hood is pretty cool. and the street is lined with enormous maple trees. and the novelty, however finite, is fucking neccessary.
*
i have been infatuated with fergus henderson since i read him wax florid on a meal that he prepares in his london restaurant St John, a meal that i and my non-meated mouth salivated over: roasted marrow smeared on toast with parsley and capers, purportedly quite the orgasm. the way he speaks and writes makes me want to tear a baby lamb apart with my fucking teeth. said he in something i read today: "your spleen swells when you're in love! how can you resist an organ that does that?"
*
food is love. thus i found myself at the uppity grocer's at 11 on a friday night, buying baba ganouj and goldfish crackers for a most anticipated breakfast, feeling like less of a FUCKING LOSER when i noticed the man behind me ("ladies first!" he'd said gallantly when we were in queue) buying something crackery and something dippy also. i noticed too late. i smiled as i walked to the parking lot, not only at the happy synchronicity with a stranger, but at how i was embodying a classic, perfect example of how effortlessly i piss away every conceivable random opportunity that comes my way.

makin' lemonade!

last thursday, 24 hrs after posting self-pitying drivel, i found the place that i will be moving into by the end of the month. life is suddenly much easier. i am suddenly much happier.
and last night with s has left me spacy and smiley.
and the north mississippi all-stars are fucking amazing live.
and entropy and tiresias are in love.
and the trees are incredibly happy colors.
this optimism, too, shall pass.

fried and frayed

seattle is a gorgeous woman who will not look at you, much less have sex with you.
*
i came to that conclusion this evening, walking in a north wind with spitlike rain, making eye contact with people who merely glared. the weather fucking sucks and is certainly contributing to my mindset. there was a thunderstorm earlier today that i listened to under the safety of my deck awning, watching the inertia of vehicles on the freeway, the lake inky and flat. i felt wistful of the moment as it was happening, like kissing someone goodbye when you know it's the last time- too painful to get much else out of the experience.
i have been a fucking mess this past week, for i am irreversibly within the quagmire of my own doing, and something must change. i cannot have my life in multiple places. it took me three hours to commute to and from work on sunday, in a deluge, with wipers that don't work. i have a wonderful job that i feel even more obligated to since i adopted the fucking kitten (who is being... a kitten. that is to say, i love her, but she's incredibly annoying and into everything, and decrying her natural lovable kittenness makes me sound like an evil asshole), and one of the neuro doctors fixed my wipers on monday, and everyone there, for the most part, gets along very well.
i never am at the lair that i love, i have never found a semblence of community in the city i'm supposed to glean all the answers from, and i can no longer justify paying out my ass to live among fucking condos and unsmiling strangers and Wine Bars and bmws and i feel especially horrible when i think of times when things in this town were good, when i was able to share them with someone, anyone, and how infrequent those times were, how i have always, on some level, felt like a visitor here.
i feel like a visitor everywhere.
i had a panic attack the other night. it had been awhile. i was laying in bed, 3am, stuck with my mind, remembering every negative thing i've ever done, unable to breathe. and there was nothing i could do but ride it out and talk myself down. and the concept of that made me feel even worse. how fucking lonely is that?

private in public

i spent the day cleaning out my grandparents' house in puyallup. since my grandfather died, my oma was moved to a nursing home against her vehement protests; apparently she didn't unpack anything for the first week she was there, so convinced that she was not going to stay. i can only imagine the horrible wilting when she realized that this was now her life, no turning back. i am terrified of growing old- actually, growing old (and hopefully belatedly developing some shard of credibility) is a tantalizing prospect. it is helplessness that scares the fuck out of me. i have tasted it. and it is, in my opinion, death while still being alive.
my parents, my uncle and i scoured the home, everything, and i got the first real glimpse of what my grandparents' lives were like. in doing so i saw firsthand, appalling evidence of how Not Right things had been for awhile. there were boxes of food that expired in 1999, three open packages of the exact same products, science experiments in the refrigerator (including a completely green slab of bacon). there was the birch marinade my mother excitedly sent them for xmas years ago (at least 11, for i still lived at home), never opened. "bitch" my mother said, tossing the bottle in the garbage. piles of packets of honey, rock-hard, leaching into the cabinets. what i had been specifically looking for, thankfully, was still there, and i took them all: the ancient spices that used to live on the plastic lazy susan on their counter in wauna. when i was as young as four, i would sit at the counter while my grandmother washed dishes (always by hand- they never, ever used their dishwasher) and smell each spice, spinning the thing for hours. it was always there, every year, the same dusty selection. the containers i have now are ancient and flavorless, old enough to not have bar codes, metal perforated slide-tops instead of the stupid thick plastic ones of today.
they hoarded toothpaste. i counted ten empty tubes in the hall bathroom, in the drawer with the piles of heavily used q-tips and about ten generic, straight-bristled toothbrushes. i found my grandfather's shaving brush, the folded paper menu of the chinese zodiac with my grandmother's handwriting indicating the years of her family members (i am a horse, passionate and inquisitive). stacks upon stacks of fine china next to opened packages of hideous thanksgiving paper napkins. a sadistic potato ricer. a set of encyclopedias from 1925 (i put my name on those), hiding inside the chinese cabinet of a magnavox record player. they had a paperback copy of 'm*a*s*h' next to 'racism: the world's problem', next to several years of 'architectural digest'. the pumice soap in the shower was covered with curly black hairs. there was a wrist-strap blood pressure monitor; we all took a break to check our vitals. (myself, apparently rather mellow: HR 50, BP 98/63, energy drink in hand.)
my mother was tense and flitting manically. my father was getting impatient to leave. at his request, i brought them a 12-pack of beer ("not crap" said my father.) afterwards my parents and i ended up at a very loud and generic brewpub in the sphincter of puyallup- a slice of the world where, everywhere you look, every store is a chain, pavement usurps flora, people drive minivans with magnetic ribbons, asses are large and baseball caps are not removed indoors. "you and your brother were acting like they were both already dead" my father pointed out. "it kind of feels that way" my mother replied.
i ranted to them about how frustrated i am with my current scattershot lot in life. "every component of my world is in a different place" i said. they gave good advice, essentially the same advice that s gave me last night: calm down, things will happen when they should. and i know this. i'm just fucking miserable in the interim.
(side note: i have derided s quite a lot, but he's a damn good friend.)
my father just returned from working in spokane, where he was inspecting public housing. he came upon the first residence that he flatly refused to go into, and ordered his first eviction. apparently there was cat shit everywhere, smeared on the walls, the litter box -"you couldn't even see litter. it was mounded with shit. it was a big fucking box of shit"- "i've been in homes where you can't see the dishes in the sink for all the mold on them" he said, "but this person was literally living in a cat box." i feel a bit better about my grimy lair now.
and now: classical music, yerba mate, a cafe that i haven't been to in a while but really fucking love, the street slick and shiny, always on some sort of precipice.

crayons in an audience, not crayons in a row

saw steven pinker discuss his newest book tonight. the man is pure pleasure to listen to. linguistics and cultural commonalities make me warm. and it is always fulfilling to hear your everyday abstract thoughts condensed and vocalized, and vocalized succinctly.
...and it reminded me how much i fucking hate euphemisms. hate them! they are condescending, chickenshitted namby-pamby. he likens their usage to an unwillingness to disrupt the 'relationships' of interactions. thus, you say (as was his example) "come up and look at my etchings" to your date at the end of the evening, not "come up to my lair so that we can fuck." if she (assuming that this is a heterosexual pair, and the man is taking on the role of... etcher) demurs, it doesn't neccessarily jeapordize the current or future relationship, but if she says "no, i will not be fucking you tonight", it lends an air of unshakable awkwardness.
and i was reminded of 2 immediate personal correlations:
1. s has an unctuous habit of sleazing his way inside when he drops me off. he tries, anyhow. one night it was "would you mind if i came inside for some water?" WATER? what the fuck are you thinking? another night it was a request to use the loo. both times i said a cheery "no, sorry!" and jumped out of his car with a smile. once i did remind him that he lived all of five minutes away. he backpedalled rather amateurly. but i suppose, in retrospect, his lame attempts do save us both a little face. he gets to drive off looking like a parched man with a need to micturate, and i get to look like an unhospitable naif. sometimes, i admit, it is amusing to play dumb just to see what the other person will do.
2. once, years ago, a client at work was asked by the doctor if she wanted to put her cat to sleep. the woman said yes and became hysterical when her animal was euthanized. that was utterly fucking horrible, and i never, ever use that term because of it.
*
oh, and i HAVE A NEW KITTEN! right when i type this, 'karn evil 9' starts playing. thus i am automatically typing faster!
i wasn't planning on a new beast. i was very content with the 2 useless cats i have. but she was a stray that was brought into work on sunday, her jaw broken, her right eye proptosed, smelling like pus, covered in fleas, purring and kneading... and when i came into the room where she'd just arrived, one of the other techs was literally holding the euthanasia solution to her vein. "is that for her?" i said, running over. "unless you save her" h said. "look, she needs you." i touched her gross head and it was done. i am a fucking sucker. she is about 8 wks old, tortie, and after having her eye removed and her jaw wired, is living in my bathroom and eating like a fucking maniac, impaling the canned food on her exposed wire. i have briefly introduced her to the other guys. she is a complete asshole, hissing and spitting and fearless. hecatomb hissed back at her, then retreated to the corner of the room and eyed her with revulsion. tiresias freaked out and peed on the rug. i am sure that once he realizes that he is four times her size and can knock her ass down, he will be better.
her name is entropy.
i now have 3 eyes between 3 cats.
i really, truly will not be adopting any more pathetic cyclopsian train wrecks any time soon, if only because i don't want to be one of Those Women.

soulless

thursday night: i was sitting in a 1/3 full bus at night, feeling oddly content to watch the goings-on of the fellow commuters. people were bantering with the bus driver, lugging packages, smiling. a scrawny, strung-out guy sat next to me. he started talking. asked me out for a drink. i smiled and said no. he asked about dinner. i declined. "you're stunning" he said. "you're like a goddess to me." i started to laugh. "do i know you from somewhere?" i asked. he suggested the rainbow gatherings. "that changed my life" he told me. he was creepy and i could smell alcohol, so i got off the bus, but not before telling him my name after he asked. i heard "brynn" behind me once i was on the sidewalk. he had gotten off too. we started talking, him about a foot away from my face, me unconsciously backing up until i was almost in the street. he was ranting- about loneliness, about his 'really good job' and his 'really nice place' and 'if we can't be lovers, we should at least be friends.' never did i feel threatened, just like i was being put on. people don't just seek me out of a crowd and tell me i'm beautiful- most people just want to bum a cigarette, or ask for change. i mentioned that to him when he said "well, you're still talking to me." "this is very bizarre" i replied. "this is one of those experiences that never has and will never happen again." something about the entire weird exchange, sadly, drew me in. i was almost hypnotized as to what socially untoward, sleazy, psuedo-hippie-bullshit thing he'd say next. and always, while all of this was transpiring, i couldn't help thinking "fuck, i must really be lonely."
after about 5 minutes of this sidewalk backing-up dance, i said i really did have to go. he asked for a hug. i gave him one. and we held onto each other for about 30 seconds. this overtly fucked up guy (how old was he? 20? 30?), i noticed, was tall, and his watery bloodshot eyes never left mine, and... apparently that was all i fucking needed. and i had nowhere to go, nowhere to be... but i'm glad i left when i did. and as i walked away, the peculiarity of what had just transpired not quite hitting me, i realized that it had really turned me on.

WHAT THE FUCK?

yesterday i got my tattoo redone, again. the falling leaves encircling the star on my right shoulder are darker now. when i left the studio it was dusk and rain was falling. summer is officially over here. i walked up the hill to s's house, where he was slothfully commandeering the porch, pipe in hand. we smoked, he grew even more apathetic, and we drove around aimlessly, not talking, until i said "this just isn't working tonight" and we parted ways in ballard. i walked for a long while, passing couples with arms entwined, relieved at being by myself.
marijuana tends to make me chatty and hyperactive- i want to go out and see new things, discuss inventions, listen to music, make out. it can also make me very irritated, because most people i smoke with just become slovenly and dull. when i was 19 i briefly saw a psychologist who asked me about my smoking habits. he specifically questioned if marijuana "made me horny." (I FUCKING HATE THAT TERM. 'HORNY' DESCRIBES AN ELK, OR A TOAD, OR A HONKING CAR.) i said yes, and he nodded smugly. "a small percentage of people with certain mood disorders have that reaction" he said. he never did explain, but i have always wondered.

it's not luminous, it's LAMEinous!

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/bloxorz
this is fucking crack, y'all.

yes! it's yet another self-absorbed pity party!

the cafe is playing billy joel's 'angry young man' song, which i had not heard in a while (despite owning and loving the lp)- billy joel used to be fucking great (until the blasphemy of 'we didn't start the fire'), and i am not ashamed to admit it.
i have been in a melancholy state today. last night i talked with s about the foul ending of saturday. on one hour of sleep, we spent the day together, both bleary and useless, and i got unexpectedly, quickly, nastily drunk on wine. black-outy and belligerent, as i have a tendency to do, but which i hadn;t allowed myself to become in a very long while. i vaguely remember arguing with, or rather at, him, and walking home alone from capitol hill, and finding freshly purchased groceries in my cupboards the next morning- a morning in which i was not hung over, but eerily suspicious that i had behaved hideously.
what i said, according to him, was: i was offended that he repeatedly referred to his ex-wife as 'psychotic', that he was negating his own half of the responsibility, that it was disrespectful and rude to talk about someone he once loved that way, especially without her around to defend herself, that it was arrogant and demeaning to make her get on meds. i smiled as he related this. "i am regretful of my delivery, but i agree with everything i said" i told him. "you were very aggressive and combative" he said. "i have been told that before" i replied. "i gravitate towards conflict. it makes me feel that my own actions are justified." he was looking at me with a bewildered, pitying, disgusted expression, which i don't fault him for: obviously this all speaks volumes about my sadistic, masochistic inability to be in a relationship, to be properly respectful, to act like a fucking adult instead of continually reliving the fucked-up patterns that have heretofore defined my interactions with every guy i've been at all close to.
...but, and i am fucking ashamed to admit this: i am attracted to the emotion. i like the passion, even when, possibly even especially when, it is contemptuous and cruel and unstable. this is seriously fucking sick. i don't know how to maintain a level of respect towards them, or have them maintain a level of respect towards me, and thus i have a slag-heap of fucked opportunities and scorn in my wake.
i can remind myself that i was not very attracted to him, which i wasn't, or that i wasn't ready to share any extra scrap of my life with anyone, which i'm not, or that there were all sorts of insignificant pseudo-'flaws' that i could amplify and make into deal-breakers, but it all comes down to: i am too fucked up to be with anyone but my own stupid arse.
*
why the fuck do i write this shit on a public forum? penance for my acidity?
*
so, today- melancholy, lonely, regretful, but not wanting to be around anybody, i drove to bellingham in an odd amalgam of bright sunlight and persistant haze- as if fog had never quite burned off, leaving everything coldly blanched. sweet green made it flawlessly. downtown bellingham was deserted, apart from the swarthy crowd of pierced teens smoking outside the horseshoe cafe- it was only six pm, but most of the shops were closed. the drugstore where i bought a soda filled with empty shelves. the unsmiling checker berated a child for grabbing things off a display; the mother mumbled something ineffectual. i bought incense from a head shop and an octopus sticker from an 'import' store; i took a photograph of the antique bank clock with the completely dischordant time displays; i wandered numbly through the music store; i felt like a fucking ghost. the architecture in bellingham is very frilly and victorian, the streets of the nicer areas lined with weeping willows and children on bikes; i was, as usual, an observer, even though i was singing along to elton john's 'grey seal' and trying to force self-merriment.
what am i expecting to 'find' in seattle? what have i been, for all intents and purposes, WAITING FOR? i have a cool lair that i pay out the ass for, a good job that is 35 miles away, a family that i never see, and no friends apart from the trolls i meet on fucking craigslist. tonight, as i wandered through the dark, i thought about how the longer i remain in this bizarre self-imposed isolation morass, the harder it is to be 'that person'- the one i hoped my divorce and move back would automatically manifest: with a gaggle of witty, ascerbic friends, skillful yet not overly clingy lovers, a stack of brilliant drawings, a philanthropic flair. at least my plants are doing well. and the cats are great, thanks.
...also on the walk here: i passed two guys talking on the sidewalk. the only part of their conversation i heard was "and then he goes, 'fuck you, fag!'" immediately i recalled the punchline to a forgotten joke: "fuck you, clown!" it was something i heard a very long time ago- i remember it making me laugh, but i cannot remember the setup. so for several blocks i had that phrase stuck in my head: fuck you, clown! fuck YOU, clown!
and that made me feel better.
i'm not going to proofread this.

la vie allet

the other night at work, during a rare lull, i found myself in the 'staff lounge' with two coworkers. we were all slightly glassy-eyed and drained from the day; it was about midnight and the television blared inanely in the corner. we had just recieved the news that one of the other technician's sister had just been killed in a car accident. this tech, who is salty and wonderful but whom i never get to work with (she only works wednesdays) is also about seven months pregnant. we sat there soberly, none of us really saying much, until i blurted "and did you hear about t's brother?" one of the assistant's brother had been randomly jumped whilst riding his bike in seattle- some drunk fucks had thrown a bottle at him, knocking him to the ground, and proceeded to beat the shit out of him- breaking both cheekbones, six ribs, probably more- he had surgery yesterday. has this been anywhere in any newspaper? of fucking course not.
"what is in the water here?" one of the techs i was sitting with asked. and we started listing the litany of horrid instances that has beset the clinic of late. one of the doctors was in the hospital for several days. two techs were taken to the ER for seperate, non-work-related ailments. someone's grandfather died. hell, my grandfather died (and my great-aunt died on saturday, i learned- i was never close to her at all, but it's still another name on the list- fucking mortality). there were other tragedies brought up, i'm sure. we ended up quietly filing out of the room, back to the treatment floor, where animals with intractable diarrhea and opiate stupors and weak wags awaited.
and on the way home that night (i think it was sunday) i turned up the music very loudly, and i sang along on the empty 2am interstate.
and yesterday, one of my other pregnant coworkers had her baby. his middle name is 'navin', hindu for new beginnings. there are 'yahoo!' signs all over work. that made me happy.
in more annoying news: the white stripes cancelled their ENTIRE FUCKING TOUR. i am really, really saddened by this. i found out last night (like a proper nerd, i am on their mailing list) and grimly removed their cd from my car for the drive home, replacing it with "alterna-daze: the best of the '80's." this cd contains the 12" version of 'tainted love', which is quite apropos in the blear of night.
*
today seattle smells of blackberries, lavender, and garlic, though not all at once.

twirl your own marshmallow

i went to MOHAI today (free museums on first thursdays), which was fun and somewhat calming. pictures of the old seattle. depictions of shop interiors. a display of the world's fair, with a sponsor-made film starring two impossibly grinny teens romping eagerly through the masses (the midway, now unfortunately called the 'fun forest', was then 'the gayway.' which is fucking wonderful.) i was one of the only people there. they have the original neon R from the rainier brewery, in its 15' metal glory. i caressed and photographed it. after, waiting in the dusk for the bus, i tried to recall the iconic things i have personally fondled. a chunk of the berlin wall. the rosetta stone. jim morrison's grave. the statue of liberty. the twin towers. the eiffel tower. a crowbar from the implosion of the kingdome. lux interior's sweaty bespandexed ass.
surely there is more.
the world was made for reverent touch.
my self-imposed introversion continues. i am wanting the instant succor; otherwise, fuck it. and i am finding myself unreasonably nit-picky about the benign tendencies s has- things that, in his absence, are amplified to the point of intolerablity. like: "i only eat organic" he says. "i want to go to the galleries for artwalk." don't feign pretension, ever. it makes me wince. or his habit of humming when he is unsure of what to say. not quite a hum, it's more of a "hm." "hm." over and over. i do not think he is aware of it. and it fucking drives me crazy. or his know-it-all attitude. the boy is smart as fuck, on a startlingly wide array of topics, but his smarm was obnoxious enough that a few weeks ago i said to him "do you ever feel that any experience someone else has had, you've done better?" it took him half a beat to blink in understanding, or at least blink at my appalling snottiness. "am i being condescending?" he asked. "yeah, a little bit" i said. "i've been told that before" he said. about that time, annoyed, i left the table to play galaga.
*
i am a fucking bitch, really.
*
on a related note:
http://bored.com/drawthings/save.php?id=1550340
it is extremely difficult to wield control with a mouse. plus, it was done in about 10 seconds.
there was a LARGE pile of short, wiry black hair in the sink in the women's loo at the odious chain bookstore. it was exactly as if someone had shaved off all of their pubic hair. "oh god!" i exclaimed aloud, leaving without washing my hands. i started laughing when i got outside, wondering of the girl still oblivious in the adjacent stall- what her reaction would be, if she was unnerved of what she may be encountering.
i also came across the most vile joke i have heard in a long, long while. it is too disgusting to even reprint here. congratulations, nasty world, for making me snicker every time i think of it.

that masochistic patina

i hate being reminded that i still care. there is a ridiculous helplessness that comes with having ever loved someone. of the three impromptu infiltrations over the last few days, the one i didn't really think about at all (other than clinically writing about it here) was from my, how do you say without sounding like a trashy whore, 2nd ex-husband. i wonder if that is because i am the one who left him, and i turned off my compassion long ago.
i also hate being reminded that there were people in my life who knew, and apparently still know, me pretty fucking well.
and i hate how the person who is most in my life right now, on however blase a level, is the one who i am currently not wanting to be around. i would not want to be around me right now either. i must be doing him a favor.
on friday we went to leavenworth. he had never been. it was muggy and beautiful. we walked around the twee townscape, dodging flushed and clumsy tourists, and tasted a lot of wine. that was a really fucking fun day. i completely do not give a shit when i am with him. and at some point during that day i thought about possibly falling in love, but thankfully i had four subsequent days of self-induced irritation and distraction to quell that fucking stupid idea.
i want to be in love without the getting-to-know-you bullshit. i just want to be there. i want to take somebody for granted, know their habits, have the feel of their body already memorized. this is the curse of serial monogamy- i don't think i could ever just go out and fuck somebody, no matter how much i may want to. at least not anymore. but i digress.
i finally purchased a copy of 'harold and maude' for my own personal anytime delight (mainly because i owe the video store too much money to rent anything, and i watch this way too often anyhow), and lolled around this afternoon resavoring my favorite scene: where they are at the carnival, admiring the night, the fireworks and 'i think i see the light' starts, and he lies glassy-eyed and splayed on the rumpled bed, blowing bubbles in the sunlight. i always catch myself grinning uncontrollably, knees clasped to my chest, making whimpery girl noises at the brilliance of it all. he realizes how fucking fun and full life can be, still startled by how these facets of vivaciousness were there all along. as i turned off the movie, still smiling vacantly, i thought "and here i am, still learning." it made the moment rather introverted, but not neccessarily depressing.
*
two men are stranded in a boat in the middle of the ocean. a bottle floats by (in the middle of the ocean). one of them pulls it out of the water and a genie emerges. "you get one wish" the genie says. the man, without thinking, says excitedly "i wish the whole ocean was made of beer!" it is done and the genie vanishes. the second man looks at the first with disbelief and disgust. "you idiot" he says. "now we'll have to pee in the boat."

beamed up

it is hot and sunny; i find myself 36 hours into an unseasonable cold, coughing up snot and acting narcoleptic. i have fallen asleep four times since actually waking this morning: twice at home (once on the sofa, once on the floor); twice on buses, all times deep enough to dream.
the eclipse was fucking incredible, wasn't it? it started on my drive home from work; i stopped for groceries and babbled excitedly to the cashier. ("my mom called to remind me" he said. "she knew i'd be awake.") i passed people standing in the middle of the street, watching. i did the same thing, in front of my silent and dark apartment building at 3 am, smiling at the absurd beauty of it all.
saturday s and i went to portland. we spent the day wandering hawthorne street, playing with toys, looking at antique crap. he bought a metal lunchbox with thermos ("i need this" he said reverently). i bought music. we drank margaritas as the sun blazed overhead. afterwards we got lost under one of the bridges and stumbled upon a severely snitzy restaurant, where we had raw oysters (him in a chewbacca t-shirt, me in some stupid thrift-store thing, both of us in jeans, looking frizzy and blissfully out of place). went downtown after it got dark, laughed at the prime real estate of the store selling wall-to-wall shit (ceramic frogs holding bouquets, chinsy windchimes, commemerative dolls and the like), drank from the relentless water fountains, took a photograph of the salmon going through the building. "i have a crush on portland" i said as we left. "yeah" he agreed. "i could definitely live here."
i daresay it has usurped my new orleans fixation... especially since i find myself fidgeting uncomfortably here as it hits 75 degrees... i am meant for a temperate clime.
but i do like seattle. i like it a hell of a lot, actually. i like meandering by myself at ungodly hours and always feeling safe. i like hearing the bells when the bridges are raised. i like the fog obliterating my view. i like knowing that this weekend, bumbershoot is a mere ten-minute walk from my lair, and i could see crowded house, the shins, and menomena in the space of six hours. and i very well may.

the benefits of proofreading

...so i don't usually read my entries over before posting them, either out of laziness or a heretofore unacknowledged desire to appear arrogantly 'raw.' thus i am left with a loverboy lyric heralding my grandfather's demise, and a really treacly fuck-the-high-school-girl lyric at that, and it sounds rather dischordantly lascivious and incestuous. i apologize.
fucking loverboy.
the local brouhaha du jour: the pit bulls that entered the neighbor's house through the pet door, mauled her in her bed, and mauled her dog. the woman is in the hospital in serious condition. the two pits had to be subdued with pepper spray by animal control officers. the clueless owner of the marauding dogs apologized, ignoring the fact that the dogs have, according to the media, a long legacy of terrorizing the neighborhood, and PETS SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO ROAM, EVER. the mauled dog ended up, of course, at my work, where it arrested three times before finally dying for good several hours later. the news channels were repeatedly calling yesterday.
i fucking hate people sometimes. no, i recant: i love my species. i hate fucking ignorance. but without ignorance, i would not have a job. it is neccessary to be cold and inured to much of the awfulness i see, to quell any real emotion. about the only good thing to come of the dog (romeo, the jack russell terrier): he had such severe trauma that he was unconscious from the time he arrived, and his last memory could very well be laying happily on his owner's bed.
perhaps i hate people after all. the man next to me (at the library) is making the most horrible huffing, exhaling, snot-racked noises, thrashing his arms around, rubbing his legs together as if they itch. i am repulsed, not sympathetic. this is, after all, one of my least favorite things. i feel my hackles rising.
maybe he's looking at porn? oh GOD! the screens have privacy filters. perhaps he doesn't itch... he's about to ejaculate. he is old and withered with a carpal tunnel brace around his wrist. am i an awful person to even think this way? he is somebody's son, after all.
i need to stop this, now. (again, not proofread.)

touch you with his sweet caress/now he's leaving you

i have now been to the open-casket funerals of both grandfathers.

http://www.legacy.com/tribnet/DeathNotices.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=92833610

i saw my cousin jenny for the first time in 15 years. the rest of the family is a motley lot. my aunt liz was, as usual, impeccably dressed and charmingly effusive. bill and ginger were surly and unpleasant. carl and barb were bickering, the way they were when i last saw them 3 years ago; it is difficult to determine how much is hostility and how much is affectionate. i talked about transvestites and whores with my cousin erron, who had recently returned from thailand ("there are no gay men there, only trannies"); compared tattoos with my cousin jon and his fiancee marion (and silently, jealously marvelled at the functionality of their relationship); met the woman who lived across the street from the family when my mother was a little girl ("you had the BEST COOKIES!" my mother exclaimed). heard stories of my grandfather loudly whistling in the grocery store and the kids embarrassededly avoiding him in other aisles; how when he worked at the bakery they had so many extra doughnuts around that they would give them out at halloween; how today he would have been 78 years old. last week my mother predicted that he would not make it to his birthday. she was right. no matter how lingering and tedious the illness, death happens far too quickly. the last time i saw him was 14 july, my grandmother's 91st birthday. the two of them, my mother and myself went to shari's in puyallup, median age 70. he was already doing poorly but ate a grotesque pile of tapioca pudding with zeal. he was, as usual, wearing his rainbow suspenders. i am grateful to have that image of him, not how he became within his last few days.
it did not look like him at all in the coffin. bill loudly, inappropriately, described how the coffin is "totally flammable" (he will be cremated) and "cost $700. $700 for a thing that's gonna just get burned. or i could have rented one for $600. rented! can you believe that?" he was saying all this in front of the coffin, in front of the shell of my grandfather, in front of oma, who looked glassy-eyed and frail but was wearing a kick-ass turquoise necklace that i repeatedly admired.
but inappropriate doesn't quite begin to explain the prolonged giggling fit that my mother and i endured throughout the ceremony. "we will now play some music that charlie particularly enjoyed" the minister said solemnly, and started... 'flight of the bumblebee,' which is collossally dischordant on its own, and neither of us could help it. both of us were laughing until we were crying, burying our faces in the program, mortified and relieved by the emotion. i have never had a giggling fit at a fucking funeral before. hopefully i will never be so fucking obnoxious again. "you can't take me anywhere" i whispered at one point to my mother, which made her laugh harder.
we both apologized to the minister afterward. he smiled thinly. i do not think he forgave. i will probably be going to hell.
after the service my parents and i went to the spar, in tacoma's 'old town'- ironically, the same place i went after my other grandfather's funeral in 2005. then we drove around tacoma in the cold rain, looking at places they used to live, as my mother and i had done a few months ago. it was a fucking blast. when my parents and i are on the same page, they are the best friends i will ever have.
i started the drive home in yes, my new car. the clutch in pink went out last week and i thought, fuck it. i have always wanted a bug (thanks, henry) and i found one online. she was running well- i had her tuned up just yesterday. i stopped to get petrol, started out of the parking lot, and: the red generator light came on and the windshield wipers stopped. in the middle of the windshield. as did the blinkers and the fuel guage. i pulled over and consulted my "how to keep your vw alive" book, determined that it was probably a fuse, and continued home, through the unseasonable downpour, through hideous construction and blurry brake lights, peering around a wiper that remained directly in my field of vision. i have to pretend to fix a fucking fuse tomorrow, i guess. part of me bought a bug because i fancied the vision of me being a self-reliant, car-fixin', badass kind of lass. moments like these make me remember that i am actually a bit of a technophobic, motorphobic, smack-it-if-it's-broken-and-then-call-someone-else sort of person. it is not with enthusiam that i am facing this. perhaps i can attribute at least some of this to the fact that today has been, shall we say, a bit more loaded than most.
again, i am reminded anew of how much i would love to not be car-dependant.
to clarify: the sweetbreads were kind of a dare. do i still, whilst cringing at the prissy connotations, consider myself a vegetarian? yes. but one does not get the opportunity to eat thymus glands with succulent morel reduction every day. life is short. eat organs. fuck they were tasty.
of course i still have my floofy, ridiculous locks. i am too self-conscious of the weird dent that composes the back of my skull.
this has been a month of exceptional change. a few weeks ago i was walking at night, looked up at the sky, and clearly thought "i am on the brink of something big." big obviously does not always mean 'good', just different. the cycle of life, the stories people tell, the rainwater pooling on leaves, knowing that complacency is always a fucking lie.
and loverboy just started playing. i am most likely the only person in this cafe who is smiling widely about this. 'when it's over'- this is a fucking fantastic song, and that is all.

girls don't poop

in the last week, which of the following things did NOT happen?
a) my grandfather died.
b) i ate, and completely fucking loved, veal sweetbreads.
c) i bought a '71 VW bug.
d) i shaved my head.
soundtrack for today's dazed afternoon stroll: "never tell" by the violent femmes (the 'sink down sink down' part in particular).

knickers in a twist!

i breathed for a dog during his lung lobectomy yesterday. there was his heart, gyrating under a pile of wet gauze. there were his lungs, pale and limpid and inflating under my duress. the chest wall was closed via sutures woven through ribs. medicine is primitive as fuck, really. the doctor literally tossed the lung tissue onto the sterile table- devoid of air, it resembled a piece of bologna. it is now bottled in formalin, in a box (along with the same dog's amuptated leg and a neoplastic lymph node) en route to CSU; the dog, three hours post-op, was moving around on his newfound stump, letting me pet him, temperature and pulses normal, membranes pink. primitive worked for him.
i work with several snivelly hags who call in sick if they have a headache- or, barring that, whine relentlessly about how impaired they are. 3 techs were gone yesterday, being ill- and then this dog, stoic as fuck... drama and histrionics simply do not exist in the wild. i thought about that as i drove home last night, on the dark and empty 2am interstate, smoking a cigarette as mist cauled the windshield. asphalt and buildings, empty yet brightly lit rooms, cars at stoplights filled with solitary unsmiling strangers, decorative shrubbery, rotating billboards advertising the lottery, liquor, flexible interest rates, dsl. if i have not already mentioned it, i urge everyone to read 'affluenza.' just don't actually, you know, pay money for it or anything.
and i am in a mood today, as usual, to contentedly Do My Own Thing, to ignore the lascivious text i received this morning, to ignore the reality that he truly doesn;t have a fucking clue. they can't ALL not have a fucking clue, right? surely i fit in there someplace? a lyric i once heard in AK (and most likely cited before): 'my emotions turn from blue to red.' i think of that line a lot. it says everything, really. i am objectively puzzled at how my impulsive ardor can d/evolve into near-complete indifference, even as i know what thoughts and events (of which there were several) led me there. i care a fuck of a lot and then... i don't. or i still do, i'm just tired of being fucked with. or i get bored. i get bored most easily of all.
as is also my tedious pattern, i will probably carry this 'me v. world' arrogance through the day, and when night falls loneliness and a sense of acquiescence will pervade, and i'll feel like a colossal asshole.
YES, I AM COGNIZANT OF THE CHILDISH TEDIUM OF MY MECURIAL TEMPERMENT.
*
there should be, if there isn;t already, a porn movie set in a rural blue-hill-country county lockdown. a female jail. and it could be called 'petticoat prison.'
i just thought of that.
why, i cannot fucking imagine.

the metaphorical rolls-royce for the good of my voice

the boy: fucked up royally, but apologized with a contrition i am, as usual, inclined to believe.
the job: is a bit better. indifference helps. when i lighten the fuck up, things tend to be much more tolerable. imagine that.
the interview: went well, i think, but the pay is less and the hours suck.
the clime: is muggy. my left hand is freckled from hanging it out my car window as i commute relentlessly.
the trunk now holds: a $5 1940's radio cabinet that will soon support a gangly bamboo.
the taste in my mouth: is of wine, red wine, and it is good.
the music on the sirius overhead-thing: is of the schmaltzy 80s variety, though they did just play talk talk, which i have no complaints about, sadly.
*
on the stranger's blog they were discussing the vile clan in some vile midwestern bible-thumping cousin-fucking enclave, the one with the pasty matriarch popping out her 17th "the lord giveth" child. i find the entire thing fucking obscene, and not only because it involves scary fundamentalists procreating. one of the commentators likened the coitus to "throwing a hot dog down a high school hallway." and i laughed loudly in the otherwise subdued cafe upon reading it. the computer will not let me copy the address onto my post, so i recommend www.thestranger.com/slog and scrolling down to the fucking awesome 'VAGINA' poster.
i have never been able to reconcile the extremes of my moods. i was in a very bad way yesterday, overwhelmed, pessimistic, to the point of sitting in my car at golden gardens in the dark like some perv, listening to nektar and CRYING as trains roared past and people fire-danced on the horizon. boo fucking hoo. today: the jauntiness has returned. i attribute part of the upswing to, among other things: a staff meeting that didn't entirely suck, 'nuggets volume 1' played piercingly loudly, sunshiney weather that wasn't debilitatingly hot, a green shirt that i quite like, text messages as he drove to eugene, clean hair, miniature roses. i am, for the moment, very happily adopting a 'don't fight it, feel it' attitude about everything. the job situation? i am happy where i am, might be happy where i might go, fear not. the boy? nearly every nasty thing i have been through, he has also- and empathy is paramount. i am only just beginning to realize that... if you're not on the same shitty-life-experiences page, there is always an element of condescension, or at least befuddlement, and i am unwilling to fucking explain/justify much of anything any more. the lair? filled with sunshine, compulsory thrift-store crap, cats, salty food, and plants that are not yet dead.
i get especially excited when i think that autumn, my favorite season, is another thing to look forward to!
honestly, i have had exactly half a glass of wine.

it feels so good, i can feel it

ah, typical freneticness. freneticism?
work was fucking terrible this week. i am so tired of bouncing in with a smile only to be met by a gaggle of curmudgeony wenches. everyone there seems so unhappy with their lives, or at least their vocation- and i have stopped taking it personally, since they are like that with everyone. over half the people there are new, brand-new, "hey you" new, which adds to the frustration and discombobulated vibe. and then i saw that the schedule i had requested two months ago was assigned to someone whose FIRST DAY was sunday. and i decided, fuck it. i had applied yet again to UW two weeks ago (i have been courting their various facilities since february) and suddenly did not feel so guilty in doing so. and on monday i heard back from one of the positions... i emailed her back whilst at work, on the clock, "on a break", not really caring.
a nihilistic attitude is bad. i know better. yesterday i vowed to try better. i was suckered into transporting two fucking kittens to some rescue place in kirkland, which my coworkers seem to think is mere steps from seattle... and that was expanded to include a wild bird that someone had dropped off at the AEC- could i transport that to the wildlife transfer clinic in bellevue? "they're sister cities!" the receptionist/bleeding heart chirped. no, they actually are not, but whatever. so after my 12hr shift i loaded my car with the 2-wk-old, flea-anemic, please-don't-die-on-the-way-there kittens and a cardboard box containing a creature of indeterminate class. i referred to it as "the grackle." driving to the godforsaken east side at 11pm... i got lost, of course, ending up on a dark road buffered with horse-xing signs, getting increasingly pissed off. when i eventually dropped the cats off it was at a very nice split-level home of expected kirklandian means. the woman was perhaps 80 pounds with eye shadow up to her brows- bleached blonde, tight jeans, a musical voice. the place was immaculate, about 10 gorgeous cats circling me, no sign of hair or odor anyplace. the carpet was white, the pillows floral and carefully arranged, a polished chair artfully stacked with decorative stuffed animals in the corner. it was very surreal. her husband came wandering out, large and jovial, the sort of man i could picture fishing with my dad. they were both incredibly nice. i had a strange detached feeling whilst there: looking in on a completely different universe that i had never before known. these people, with their cats and generosity and awake-at-midnight-edness, have always existed. i just never knew.
afterwards i drove the restless grackle to the 24-hr clinic in bellevue, a rinky-dink operation with paneled walls and bright green carpet and a girl answering the door who looked no older than 20. she took the box to the treatment area while i pocketed boxes of nerds from the candy jar on the counter. they thought the bird was a baby swan. i rather doubt it, but perhaps there are orphaned cygnets wandering the bowels of tacoma that i am, again, simply oblivious to.
*
i am often oblivious to a hell of a lot.
*
oh! there was a penile amputation at work on monday. lab, "felix", chronic urolithiasis and cystitis, penis necrotic. the (male) doctor chopped off the whole fucking thing and redirected his urethra to an opening near his scrotum. this is a common surgery for cats but i'd never been privy to a dog one, especially a large breed. the penis was wrapped in a towel awaiting formalin when one of the other techs accidentally grabbed it. the penis fell out and smacked her arm. "holy shit!" she yelled,loud enough for everyone in the treatment room to hear. i was the one who
eventually got to package it.
again: once i stop and think about the details, life becomes almost too peculiar to really fathom. i shall consider my obliviousness not a character flaw but a survival mechanism.

"you know who you look like? carol kane."

i want to be overseas by my 30th birthday. it can happen. i will try.
i have been in a great deal of physical pain lately- it feels as if someone has smacked me around with a bat. i am getting used to it. i am moving rather animatronically (is that the word?). it gets better as the day progresses, or perhaps it was the nice alcohol buzz, but i had little problem sprawling on s's sofa in the dark and making out with him like we were in high school. i am skittish as fuck about anything serious. as usual. but he's intelligent as fuck, makes me laugh, makes me happy. and that is all i need, really.
this weekend my uncle is apparently moving my grandmother into a nursing home. she does not know this yet. my grandfather has been in the hospital this week. i went to their house last saturday for my oma's 91st birthday. he looked like he was going to keel over at any moment; she was sporadically sentient but often not. i have so much more appreciation for my mother. watching the three of them interact, their facial expressions, how she handles them both with a bemused complacency that is mostly absent from the rest of her life, makes me feel really fucking lucky to know her. i would love my mother even if she wasn't my mother.
my father, on the other hand, has been aloof and nippy with me lately- as if he's begrudgingly accomodating a stranger. and it hurts my feelings and pisses me off, but not so much that i'll actually ask him why. i suspect my mother may have relayed some of my comments from a few weeks ago, when she and i went out to dinner (fucking applebee's, in tacoma- her suggestion. i had never been in one before, on purpose. it was hideous. i had fries.). "he constantly is on your case" i said. "it's been pretty alienating. i don't really like being around the two of you together because of how he treats you." my mother smiled and shrugged. "funny, everyone says how mean doug is" she said, "but i never see it." i didn't push the conversation further.
i am typing this in the airy library in quaint north bend, in a residential area with clean yards and american flags a-flyin'.
i passed the diner where twin peaks was filmed, where c and i once sat among hundreds of stuffed tweety birds, where the women's loo had a plumbing bill adhered to the wall with "DON'T FLUSH ANYTHING BUT TOILET PAPER!" scrawled above it. now, a brighter time, sleeveless, with cherries and blueberries being sold alongside the road. and 'see emily play' was on the radio.
i just wish my body would comply with my mind.