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.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
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.)
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.)
Saturday, August 18, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, August 17, 2007
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).
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).
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, August 03, 2007
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.
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.
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