everything is beautiful

i walked around a single block:




it is possibly my new favorite block in seattle.
*
i love nighttime because it frees me from responsibility. the only venues open cater to my more hedonistic tendencies. bill collectors, banks, shops- closed! out of reach! it is just me and the darkness. and i enjoy the anonymity.
i walked across the fremont bridge to get here- the establishment at which i am typing this. the water was glassy. it seems like a long time ago that i lived in this neighborhood. i remember when i first moved back to seattle in 2002- riding my bike back to first hill at 2 in the morning, admiring the reflections on the water as i crossed the same bridge- the only person in the world, it seemed. seattle was my personal fucking playground. and tonight i feel the same way. i love that.

the reds stand out

today:
i was wearing a pair of jeans i'd bought NEW 6 years ago. they are now tattered and full of ass-holes but i thought "i can pull this off" and jauntily strolled downtown. it wasn't until about an hour later, waiting at a particularly sketchy bus stop, that a man approached me after i'd properly disposed of my cigarette.
"excuse me" he said "but you have some holes in your pants."
"yeah, i know" i said, and then, automatically (why?), "i'm sorry."
"because when you move you can see... your body" he continued.
"only if you look" i said. and i said it fast. fucking impressed myself. he was not a puritan older man. he looked like snoop dogg's shorter twin. but it wasn't until i was on the (random, let's-have-a-field-trip-inanity) bus, sitting down, that i realised how MUCH of my ass was actually hanging out. i mean, wow. and i was wearing a g-string. obviously to everyone i passed, in retrospect. i offset it, i think, with the fucking orange sweater and argyle socks.
felt like a fucking whore. and not in a gleeful way.
went to the thrift store for impromptu replacement pants. i tried on several. jeans are a difficult thing for me to buy. they are always too short and too baggy. i had to find something- my ass was hanging out- so i bought a completely unsexy pair of FUCKING BELLBOTTOMS. levi's calls them 'bootcut' but no- and paired with my fucking hair and the aforementioned orange sweater, i look like a fucking asexual stoner. and if i pull them up where they're supposed to be, they're still too fucking short. but they are very comfortable, cost only $7, and someone else already took the time to splatter paint on them. i handed my virtually assless jeans to the disgusted saleslady at the thrift store, after baring the tag near my navel (on the new pair, that i was wearing) for her scanner. "they're clean" i assured her of the rejected pants. it wasn't until i was walking away that i realized how fucking foul that must have seemed to her.
on the bus ride back i stared out the window at professional women getting off work, walking purposefully down the sidewalk in dresses and heels, hair styled, perhaps en route to meet preppy lovers in buttoned shirts for sushi and drinks- women, undoubtedly, with clean sheets and name-brand shampoo, actual credit cards, vehicles that smell new, a regime of both toothpaste and mouthwash- women who have cable and hairstylists and actually pay money for birth control because their income dictates it.
*
this was my environment as i wrote this:

*
memorial day weekend at work was insanely busy. it was satisfying. i work with some pretty fucking great people. it helps.
tomorrow i turn in my enrollment forms for massage school. i have had my schedule revisions cleared by my job; barring any fucked-up complications, i start in july. the enrollment wench was palpably giddy over the phone. "awesome!" she squealed. "i am so excited for you!" and i was on the other end, grinning like a fool, saying "yeah, i'm excited too."
*
the establishment i am typing at is playing "the jack"- second only to 'ride on' as my favorite ac/dc song.
*
'...and who knows what else?'
*
in one week i will be in new orleans. i have oversaturated my brain with all things big easy and am currently reading about, in turns, southeast asia and kenya. lamu, kenya sounds fucking amazing.
*
caring about another person makes all the edges sharper. i noticed that this afternoon. everything looked incredibly beautiful and bright and poignant, and i wanted so badly for him to be here to see it, at least to tell me i'm overdoing the treacly bullshit...

RIP Sydney Pollack

go watch 'husbands and wives' again. that is a fucking great movie.
'tootsie' is marvelous too.

any day like today or: overusage of 'whilst'

i finally did my happy drive down hwy 202- the route on which i ran out of petrol whilst attempting last week. luckily it is much leafier now. i tried my hand at warholian capturing-of-the-moment with the camera/video-thing resting on the steering wheel whilst i careened down said highway, past barns and fields, singing along with the fucking white stripes' 'do'... but i have the presence of mind to not post that. take note that i have a horribly embarrassing cache of self-indulgent documentation that shall only be found when i die.
so, in lieu of that, welcome to (an unintentionally nausea-inducing portrayal of) beautiful downtown snohomish!
*ADDENDUM 05/24/08*
i waited for 3 HOURS last night for the fucking video to upload. i had to leave when the wifi place closed. in doing so i lost the entire thing. incredibly fucking frustrating- though, in retrospect, it was kind of a dumb video with little value beyond the cool song playing in the background. i am leaving the rest of the mindless commentary to... capture a moment that wasn't. whatever.
it also explains the lack of proper paragraphs, which bothered me tremendously.
*
snohomish is about 35 miles NE of seattle- it's about 10 miles outside of everett on hwy 2. it was farmland until about 20 years ago; since then it has become a thriving suburb, whilst retaining its charming smalltown vibe(TM)! one good thing about this town: they don't have, to my knowledge, any hideous 'big box' stores- no wal-marts or crap like that. that honor has been bestowed, in spades, on monroe, about 5 miles further east.
monroe is a shithole.
it is only negligably captured on the video, but around the 2:10 mark (look for the church on the left) you can barely see the guy standing at the crosswalk who waved his arms at me indignantly when i didn't stop for him. in real time it was much more blatant and subsequently mortifying. sorry, sir, i was trying to shoot video whilst driving 40mph through traffic.
there are many antique stores in 'olde towne' snohomish. i have only walked these streets once before, with s (the asshole s)- that, i am sad to say, was a really fun day. today the place seemed ghostly. the only people around were ancient and miserable-looking. i kept thinking "well, it is a holiday weekend; most people are off to brighter pastures." nevertheless, i couldn't help deciding that growing up in a place like snohomish would be rather brutal.
but then! among the many purveyors of boring dishes and trundle beds and psuedo-victorian claptrap, i found THIS.

i about shat. if i had a spare $3,000 i would be quite tempted to buy it. it was for sale in a peculiar grotto, next to other pinball machines that were nowhere near as spectacular. the guy who ran the place was loudly debating the army with another old guy. "looking for anything special, young lady?" he greeted me.
at another place (the establishment from which i purchased a 50 cent pin of yoko ono) i saw this:

this is such a brilliant idea. why don't such things exist any more?
the guy at this store was a bit mellower. and he was wearing a led zeppelin t-shirt.

*
yesterday i had to go into work for a DiSC training meeting. DiSC is a 'personality profile' used to enhance productivity and coworker communication. we took a questionnaire that determined our particular strengths and weaknesses. and i am rather chagrined to admit: it fucking nailed me. i am a 'specialist'- sensitive, conceding, content with the group-think, wanting to just do my job, have someone say 'thank you', and get the hell out. the answers i gave on the questionnaire were mainly in regards to how i 'work'- i really don't give a shit, i try not to make waves, i prefer friendly coworkers over a palatable profession- but it rather astutely reflects how i exist overall. i don't fucking argue the way i think i used to. i assume that if someone else really wants something, they probably have better reasons for getting it than i do... this is passive, and self-deprecating, and certainly contributes to my current (and prolonged) habit of living in a prosaic ether. i am an inward seether, if anything.
ether seether! ha! that was completely unintentional.
i suppose that my criteria for caring enough to make the effort is: am i passionate about it? REALLY? what have i been so fucking engaged in that i made it actually happen?
-my personal freedom
-keeping s in my life
-travelling
-my fucking cats
-taking the time to write, to the point of scheduling my day around it (which i do daily)
-photography
notably NOT on this list: my marriages and other sundry relationships; my family; furthering my veterinary knowledge; keeping my carpet free of cat vomit and my bathroom free of silverfish...
believe me, i know. i know. i regret a lot of things.
*
silverfish are a humid phenomenon. i first encountered them in my vile fremont apartment. they look like tiny plecostomi- about 1/4-1/2" long, skittering across (usually) the bathroom floor. they were everywhere in my downtown olympia lair. and now they are in my queen anne abode- one here, one there- i see perhaps two a week. i went online to find out what the fuck they were. one site likened them to cockroaches. apparently they thrive in pipes and other damp areas.
there are urban fables of seattle denizens being greeted with rats in their loos. the paper did a big story about this about a year ago. apparently in the neighborhoods with older plumbing the rodents have access and just... crawl up... hi... "keep your toilet lids down" the paper instructed. "don't attempt to flush them" as that can cause, i guess, further pipe havoc.
when i was married to b i found our white mouse floating in the toilet. b had already left for work. the other mouse was securely locked in his cage. i freaked out. called him shrieking. "i don;t understand how he could have gotten out, ran across the room, and jumped into the toilet!" i yelled, or something similar. i demanded he come home right away to deal with it. at the time i knew, but didn't want to know- didn't want to acknowledge that the person i slept naked beside every night could do such a thing- but he did. there was no other explanation. he killed a kitten once just to see what it was like- very 'sailor who fell from grace with the sea'- that was before i ever knew him, but he described it so nonchalantly that i was horrified. so at the time i took this mouse-incident as one of those weird, wacky things that happen with no proper explanation. it was a survival mechanism. and i was a fucking moron.
*
...the (bar) i am at played 'children of the revolution'- the violent femmes' version. i will always think of driving around anchorage, circa 1995, in the winter... juxtaposed with waiting for the light at 38th in tacoma, muggy summer of 2007, en route to work. it is nice to have a time capsule in a song: when you can specifically think about "wonder what i'll be doing in 10-15-20-50 years" whilst listening to it for the first time.
*
i cannot help but think, in that respect, that i have let myself down in multiple ways.
*
it's time for another chipper find, this one also from today, on a corner in downtown seattle:

the hugger was nowhere to be found.

another slice of life-pie

last weekend was hot as the hottest fuck. friday was in the mid-eighties; saturday hit 90. records were broken. it was obscene and glorious and all too short-lived. i walked to the seattle center on friday, since it is right down the hill from my lair, and walked around its muggy desolation. there are plans to completely raze the place and start anew- taking out the archaic 'fun forest' and amphitheatre (the place i met my second ex-husband, under the stars whilst listening to lou reed) and making it more 'user-friendly' and 'environmental.' this being seattle, it will be prattled about for years, perhaps decades, with nothing actually happening. but on this gorgeous day, the first summery day of the year, the place was closed. the rides were still. the midway section was shuttered. there were maybe fifteen people milling around, all sunburnt and touristy, looking bored. it was actually kind of sad.
this is one of the cooler ride-signs, with the obligatory space needle, obviously.

this sign, en route to burien, was awesome enough that i did a u-turn. we could all use such an establishment.

i started avonex on monday. the nurse came to my filthy house and played with hecatomb, who was whorishly performing frottage on her medical bag. we practiced a few injections on an orange ("it has the same surface tension as human skin" she said) and then i shoved a needle into my thigh. needles have never bothered me, though muscle injections do hurt; but as soon as i did it i started to cry. it was my moment of truth, of "this is quite possibly the rest of my life." for 'preventative' treatment that may or may not work, for something that is not curable; for something that i do not currently have any overt symptoms of; that i am not to get pregnant whilst taking, that may cause/exacerbate depression, that i have to preload with advil before administering. i am injecting crap into my body with no proof that it will do a fucking thing to my benefit. and i have proof that yes, there really is something wrong with me, even if i don't show it.
the moment of 'FUCK' passed quickly. the nurse was incredibly nice. and i started to feel pretty good, actually. i feel in control of something uncontrollable. finally. whether it's a placebo or not, i needed this.
i then went to work my 10hr shift.
i am titrating the dose over the next 4 weeks. i started to get a headache about three hours post, popped more advil, and felt fine. it was nowhere near what i'd feared, but i have a lot more to eventually give myself.
i haven't told my parents yet.
i don't know how i will feel the next time i dose myself: i will be alone with a syringe in my hand, without a supportive expert beside me. i anticipate it being a rather melancholy moment. but perhaps not.
the weather is crappy again: low 50s, rainy, the way it always is. i was wearing a scarf and drinking hot tea to stay warm. my only evidence of the heat is the horrific sunburn on my left shoulder. on saturday i lounged on my deck in a tank top, reading a crappy book whilst wearing no sunscreen. the burn started to peel yesterday and, being an ocd pick-happy MORON, thought "oh boy, something to play with" and fucked with it. it is painful and horrible and i am an idiot, and today it has been constantly chafed by my fucking wool sweater.
five days after basking (taken this morning):

it hurts.
i go to new orleans in 2 weeks. the good thing about their summers: you sweat too much for any sun to sink in (my theory), and it's too goddamn fucking hot to saunter much through the midday rays anyhow.
last night i had a too-rare PLEASANT sex dream. i recognized both my partners. i woke up breathless.

the 300th post or: shokushu goukan

perhaps i am not so rare a pervert after all. this shit spans the centuries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman's_Wife

happy birthday, mike oldfield AND brian eno!

my dream from last night: i am in the lair i have lived in for the last two years, but i am living with s. her occupancy is contingent on my keeping the place. she blithely informs me that she is returning to AK, but "i'll be fine." half the dream is spent trying to sell and organize my shit, and the other half is infused with dread over returning to anchorage- since it logically follows, in the dream, that this is my only choice- i am scanning classifieds, ruminating over non-options, realizing that i never want to fucking reside there ever again, more than i consciously comprehended. i awoke in a tense, agitated state. when i understood that it was merely a dream (the recollection of the dream didn't happen until several hours later) i was relieved, then weirdly sad: eschewing anchorage is equivalent to eshewing a huge chunk of my past, and what does that mean?
*
how does a chick get randomly laid, without being percieved as a desperate slut? without disengaging her futile intellect and moderate standards? and disengaging her propensity to not wish to just, you know, FUCK, and like, MAKE LOVE, and have them give a shit and stuff- how can that be turned off?
hypothetically speaking.
*
i am finally revisting 'babbitt' and it is getting better. the book mercilessly skewers capitalist pretense-laden culture. it is a difficult read simply because everyone in the book is so fucking unlikable- the women are one-dimensional harpies, the men are boorish noncommunicative louts. this is why i tend to stay away from fiction- i dislike broad characatures (that is not spelled properly). but 'babbitt' does provide the occasional worthy soundbite: "waving the aurora borealis around", for instance, or "listen to what the Hep Bird twitters"- both of which i am delighted with and wish i had phrased first.
i drove to north bend (30miles E of seattle proper) earlier today with a vision of doing my happy route down hwy 2 (i do enjoy the twee bucolia). went for petrol in north bend and realized i did not have my wallet. i had no debit card, no cash, no identification. i immediately could see where i'd left it: at my house, peaceful, useless. i put 45 cents, the only money i had, in the tank and started the drive back to seattle, coasting when i could, doing 50 in a 70mph zone. i ran out of gas on the I-90 bridge, the absolute worst place to do so. as i started across i thought "i am not going to make it to the other side." and it was eerie because i was right. i sat stupidly in my car for all of four minutes before a WSDOT truck pulled up behind me. the guy was incredibly nice and gave me a free gallon of gas. "this is what your taxes pay for" he said. i thanked him profusely. he even pushed me until my compression engaged. i waved goodbye, giddily.
...during this incident: picture a 14yr old vw golf with a 'read a fucking book' bumper sticker, a rubber octopus on the dash, and a grimy girl driver wearing a 'spank me i'm irish' t-shirt, stupidly running out of gas and with no fucking identification. he should have been much, much ruder. but he was nice as hell, and i will happily sing the virtues of the washington government forevermore.
*
everyone is lonely and yearning for something else. these are the byproducts of a priveleged culture.

one person's aspic is another's gunky crap

en route to the eels, 04/11/08 (this is the trashbin directly outside the showbox, conveniently) proof that i was there: the mayday march in seattle.
the only thing stopping me from enrolling in the massage school i interviewed at today: seeing the hippie-filled, sweat-scented classroom during the tour and thinking "oh fucking christ, perhaps NOT." but that is a snotty, uptight, judgemental way of thinking, and i am far cooler than that, MAN, and my income qualifies me for financial aid (no bills whatsoever until 6months post, or 2 years from now) so... i probably will.
i get a massage table as part of tuition. "you get to choose the color!" the breasty dame doing admissions squealed. she was very nice, but with that patina of artificiality that only public-relations folk can truly cultivate. she produced a variety of swatches. i think i said something stupid like "oh, cool."
i have wanted to do this for years. i am told i am good at it. have i ever had a professional massage? no. but it would be nice.
yeah. i think i probably will.
it keeps the flake wheel rolling.
and i already swaddle my unbrushed-hair self in patchouli (except for today: amber), and i drove to the interview in sweet green, and i would rather be poor and touch skin and make someone's day a bit better, so... yeah. i think i probably will.
*
i received my first shipment of avonex today. it comes in a styrofoam cooler with ice packs. the package itself is very small and inocuous. i am still waiting to be called back about a baseline blood draw (avonex can cause inconvenient things like liver failure) and to contact the Nurse who will Visit Me At Home to Demonstrate Injection Technique. "can't i meet her somewhere else?" i asked the rep on the phone. way to make me feel like a fucking invalid, avonex! i tossed the package in the fridge. dismissively. next to the fake mayonnaise and a few bottles of nail polish. i was feeling fucking fine. i thought "fuck this shit." but then my mouth- the left corner of my mouth- started feeling novocained- it lasted about an hour. now it and i am fine. it is one of the transient "am i crazy? or simply doomed?" perks of the disease. but in that time frame i thought "well, okay- so fucking be it."
now, of course, i feel fine again. i wonder how much is "it" and how much is me... MS gave me a portal that i feed all my most fucked-up weirdness into... and it is all invisible. i probably just look like a floofy-haired girl in an obnoxious orange sweater with a preoccupied mindset.
*
good things of the past week:
generic rice chex dipped in baba ganouj
insane busy-ness at work (the proper term should be 'business', but it isn't, and these are the sort of things that cause my thoughts to drift)
-the slug-bait dog who was in a drug-induced coma for 36 hrs to alleviate her tremors; she walked out of the hospital wagging her tail 3 days later
-the dog who went into arrest; 20 minutes of fruitless cpr whilst waiting for the owners to call back; the necropsy that revealed a tumor on the heart and a chest filled with blood (this is by no means a 'good thing', but it was certainly interesting
-my own guy, tiresias, who has been puking like a banshee since saturday. i have brought him in twice. they can't find anything wrong. he seems fine now. there is dried vomit throughout my house, and he micturated in his carrier in the car on the way home. the blue meanie now reeks of warm-weather piss. hence the sweet greenage, despite the lack of insurance. and oh what a pleasure she is! i fucking love that car.
hearing 'china girl' on various stations every time i turn on the radio
the fact that it is supposed to be almost 90 degrees over the next few days
-thinking as i walked through today's humid 65-degree afternoon: 'if i had balls, they'd be sweaty'
this gloriously FUNCTIONAL computer that i am currently utilizing
my father taking my mom to see cake at the paramount for mother's day. they called me from the show; i was at work. i think i started that annoying tradition: calling people during concerts so that they can be assaulted with a blare of anonymous distortion- and it pleased me to hear, at 2am, hunched over my kitchen counter in my scrubs covered in other animals' hair
really liking death cab for cutie's 'i will possess your heart'. i enjoy this song A LOT. (it makes me feel 15 and wistful, which is never, in retrospect, a bad state)
*
i shall finish with a completely pointless video of the tombs, indulging in a rare romp.

herewith, only 3 weeks too late, les raconteurs! note that i was jostled and unable to use a flash, so the blurriness is... artsy and immediate, i suppose.
brandon flowers and his nice hair
mmmm, jack white

the bow at the end, including arms (capacity 750- this is without a zoom)

and my first attempt at recording and publishing video. they truly sounded much better in person than they do on this.

she said her name was sheena

things are happening again. the rut has temporarily levelled.
i am going back to new orleans! after i booked my ticket it occured to me: i was there exactly one year ago. possibly i will be there on the exact same days (june 4-7). it will be humid and slimy and decadent and luscious, like revisiting a faraway lover for some incredibly good sex... that is how i feel about new orleans. i got a bonus at work so... fuck it, right?
on the other end of the financial spectrum, my insurance does not cover "pre-existing conditions" for the first year of enrollment, but my PITTANCE OF AN INCOME (relative to american standards; i get along quite well, thanks) qualifies me for two years of FREE avonex. normally it runs around $1500/month (weekly injections). i have not started it yet; twas only yesterday that i finished slogging through the monetary rigamarole. it is one of those times when i am actually quite proud to be poor.
i visit a massage school next week to see if it's "something i would be into." i have toyed with the idea of becoming an LMP/T for years. they offer 9 month programs, at the end of which you are licensed... it's been time for a change, SOMETHING, for far too long.
the weather is finally sort of somewhat mildly springlike. my sunflowers are sprouting.
that was an unintentionally awesome illiteration.
bought my mom a pack of "jewish mother" novelty gum for mother's day. On the box: "Fruit-Schmoot", "8 pieces no less", "go. rot your teeth", and my personal favorite: "again with the gum?"
that phrase has been riccocheting through my head for the past several hours. oh! the bus is coming! "again with the gum?" a text from that new lad! "again with the gum?" i'm ordering a glass of wine, typing, using the loo: "again with the gum?"
*
a swarthy man who i can only describe as "pimp-like" accosted me at the wallingford bus stop. "you're in high school" he said to me, the way frank zappa says "you must be a libra." after telling me i looked "sixteen or seventeen" and asking if i had any kids, he invited me to pose for photographs, then to accompany him to a steakhouse. it is one of the only times in my life when i have purposely blown cigarette smoke in another person's face. and then i shook his hand goodbye. he was polite, after all.

and you give

i just sat on my ass in the odious chain bookstore and read 'a wolf at the table' in one sitting. no, this is an exaggeration. i read the first five chapters yesterday, at elliot bay, before enjoying the first thursday artwalk (drinking two-buck-chuck from dixie cups and indulging my monthly envy of other people's motivation and architectural space). interjection to parlay the magic of these environments: the sun was gold and low in the sky. i was in a fourth-floor space in a building adjacent to the viaduct, wandering through white-washed rooms as people cooler than i sprawled smugly on sofas under the huge windows. and through those dirty windows, open to let in the incessant roar of traffic, cars sped past and obliterated the sunshine, an unpredictable strobelight, an effect that i consciously thought: if this was my space, i would stretch out on the floor and stare at the patterns those shadows make, and that would be all i needed- i would never be bored and i would never feel alone.
but i digress.
'a wolf at the table' is a fucking great book. i place it a notch above 'dry'. i enjoy reading things that make me unconsciously pull at my lips in nervousness and think "oh shit oh shit oh shit." to stroll onto the relatively inocuous sidewalk after 2 hours of tea-and-book bingeing felt trepidatious; my lips were still red and swollen. it is nice to remember how easy reality actually is- relatively, at least.
*
3 days off in seattle:
wed: after leaving the shelton library, drove north on hwy 3. the water was flat and glittery, snake-eyed. took the ferry from bremerton back to seattle. i sat inside my car on the deck and took pictures through the window. the man in the car behind me read 'modern home', then slept. the water grew greyer and choppier as we approached the city. that dreamlike feeling again... not quite pleasant. wednesday was a day of drifting.
thurs: walked downtown in sunshine. took pictures of the mayday immigration march. a calvacade of motorcycled cops led the way. they all had annoyed expressions. it was a much smaller crowd than the one i attended 2 years ago. the masses rounded the corner and myself and all the other onlookers dispassionately filed away. i wondered: what in this world would truly make people engaged anymore? walked into the sun, finding my way by the shadows made by others. see above paragraphs. left artwalk, drank some tea, walked through the night. jangly. insulated.
fri: visited my grandmother in her "independent living" facility. she has her own "cottage" but takes meals in the main building. it was much nicer than i'd expected. my mother and i laughed rudely at the activity list: "down-home with dale", "scrapbooking!", "square-dance-a-thon". my grandmother is incredibly cynical about the entire place. she has lived there for 6 months, since my grandfather died and the rest of the clan rallied for her move. i find her contempt endearing, but i am not around it all too often. she reminds me of me. i saw her high school graduation yearbook, class of 1933; she was on the basketball team, one of the tallest girls in school. she was 5'9" then. now i tower a good four inches over her; i look down on her scalp. her nursing yearbook, army cadets, 1948- she was 31. four years later she would be a nurse in germany and meet my grandfather, 13 years her junior; he would knock her up with my mother, they would get hastily married. they would have 3 more kids and be married for 54 years, and then he would die. and she would say to me last fall, "it wasn't supposed to be this way. i was supposed to go first."
i look at the things she retained, the items she moved into this new world, and i feel really fucking sad: these are the few tangible things she has chosen to keep with her to prove that she existed.
i absconded with a few photographs: her and my auntie ann in bathing suits, both incredibly hot, circa 1930. a promo picture of my great-grandfather eugene kaplan, the vaudvillian. my mother and i found a collection of press clippings and programs today. he was a fucking stud in his day, as any sly-mouthed jewish man is. i asked my mother if she remembered him. he was alive until she was 10. "he used to always say "is everybody HAPPY?" she said. and she said it with a flamboyant east-coast accent, and it was immediately familiar because my mom used to say it also, when i was a kid, without even thinking about it.
*
"i kept to myself that when i ate vanilla frosting straight from the can, i could feel god standing right beside me like a real best friend, watching and smiling and wishing he had a mouth."
or
"maybe god was simply that part of yourself that was always there and always strong, even when you were not."
*
the cafe just started playing 'with or without you.'