i have been in a fucking fog since early saturday morning, when i got off the phone and bawled like a little kid in the soft darkness of my bed. sometimes it is impossible to remember anything but the good times. and it compounded, to a scary fault, how fucking lonely i am.
i keep hoping things will get better, that something magical and fantastic will spontaneously occur, that i will be lifted along on an utterly unforeseen journey. i want to be able to trust someone again.
i have spent the last 48 hrs listening to the soft boys "insanely jealous" over and over. and over. very loudly. whilst sweating in the 90 degree sunshine. it is a very cathartic song. and i have effectively saturated all further listening of it to forever remind me of this weekend.
*
unintentionally.
but i suppose it will provide amusement and nostalgia someday.
*
i took the full dose for the first time today. it is all easier from here, i suppose. i am bitchy and my body hurts and i cannot focus properly, but i am not taking sufficient analgesics to make myself feel better- i like to FEEL what i am doing to my body, how it's reacting to the invasion- it is comforting somehow, to follow a textbook expectation of symptoms. the ironic fuckery of the medication being so much more predictable than the disease is not lost on me- as a matter of fact, it pisses me the fuck off, but there's really nothing i can do about that.
*
a large part of me wishes i hadn't committed to school. the tether is agitating. but the last two days at work were so engorged with actual and mental bullshit that it was nice to remind myself "soon i will have another skill that will allow me to do something better." i stuffed two dead chickens in a cremation bag. was misted with urine from an especially horrid and obstreporous dog. hauled a 42kg dog, also dead, into a room to visit with its owners post-mortem, and had to smile with professional sympathy in the faces of two grown men sobbing- and turn away abruptly so they don't see me starting to cry too.
and now i am typing this into the anonymous ether, as if to prove that anything happens at all.
i would love to actually talk to someone, face to face, instead.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
on the other side of the world
i checked two books out of the library yesterday and had read them both by the time i got home later that evening. the first i read whilst sprawled in the grass at UW (my new favorite haunt, and just about the only lawn in seattle i trust to lay upon). it described ways people have dealt with modern cultural annoyances- the honku, spray-painting un-picked-up dog shit gold, stuffing meters (the anchorage parking fairies were mentioned).
the second, a book of contrasting linguistic quirks, i read over a very strong gin & tonic at the mecca. several languages have no terms for specific colors (the shona of zimbabwe have no terms for 'blue' or 'green'); others define all colors as either black or white (for example, 'green' is considered 'black' and red is 'white' for the dani of indonesia). the author surmised lithuanian as the most difficult language to comprehend; after seeing other examples, i would be tempted to nominate navajo.
the lights at the mecca pool upon the tables, interrogation-style. i have a lot of past with that place. it still smelled horrible, the waitress called me 'darlin', and the jukebox blared judas priest and tool.
and then the raucous crowds diminished a bit and i was the only one on the diner-side of the bar, me and my book on a sultry friday night, stabbing the lime absently, and this was the soundtrack:
"remember when i moved in you and every breath we drew was 'hallelujah'?"
the second, a book of contrasting linguistic quirks, i read over a very strong gin & tonic at the mecca. several languages have no terms for specific colors (the shona of zimbabwe have no terms for 'blue' or 'green'); others define all colors as either black or white (for example, 'green' is considered 'black' and red is 'white' for the dani of indonesia). the author surmised lithuanian as the most difficult language to comprehend; after seeing other examples, i would be tempted to nominate navajo.
the lights at the mecca pool upon the tables, interrogation-style. i have a lot of past with that place. it still smelled horrible, the waitress called me 'darlin', and the jukebox blared judas priest and tool.
and then the raucous crowds diminished a bit and i was the only one on the diner-side of the bar, me and my book on a sultry friday night, stabbing the lime absently, and this was the soundtrack:
"remember when i moved in you and every breath we drew was 'hallelujah'?"
Monday, June 23, 2008
RIP george carlin
...i will always remember his hygiene adage from the show i saw in anchorage circa 2000: "armpits assholes crotch and teeth." keep those clean and you won't have any problems. it is sound advice.
*
i am on a crowded bus that is showing movies. i am with someone i know very well. he is sitting in front of me. i am tired and leaning against the window. he turns around and smiles at me- the back of the seat disappears and his arm is around me. i lean my head on his shoulder and hold his hand without thinking about it. he does not pull away. kisses me on the cheek. and then kisses me full-on. and it is good. it is hungry and breathy and bitey and i am straddling him and he is ordering me to "keep moving" and i can feel his erection through our clothing. and i realize that we are blocking the view of everyone behind us. we get off the bus, both smiling too much, that "why the fuck did we wait so long?" elation of a same world made new. we are in a residential neighborhood near madrona and the sun is slanting low. i am walking ahead. i lose my sunglasses in a dumpster. i reach in to grab them and accidentally crush them in my hand, but i do not bleed. a little kid is walking with him. the kid leads us to a park where much merriment and shrieking cuts through the soft air. we go into a house where the kid lives- it is understood that he and this kid are related somehow, and that this is some sort of impromptu family gathering. my mother is there, sitting in a chair in the living room. i introduce him. she gives me a "well done" commisserative smile. his hand is on my back, indicating ownership- an unspeakably pleasant outward gesture of newfound unity. twenty minutes ago we were friends and now we are more. and it feels so goddamn natural, as if when we leave here we'll be going to a home we've shared for years, make love innately, already share the same inside jokes.
my grandmother is there too. she is coherent and cheerful and tells me about her new home in the main building of the senior facility. she is tanned and standing taller than i remember. she is praising me to him. "she's been through such a rough time but she's finally coming back" i hear her say.
it is then that i remember i have to be at work. i have been wearing scrubs this entire time. he says that he has plans to meet some friends that evening. we prepare to leave. i check my reflection in the hall mirror, beam giddily at the glorious turn of events, and notice that half my face is paralyzed again. i cannot smile, i cannot blink. and the fear shuts out all the surrounding noise, turns the sunshine black, reminds me of everything i'd finally been able to forget.
*
and i woke up breathless.
that was about three hours ago.
i went on the deck and had a cigarette. my hands were shaking. the sky was grey. and i was still residually aroused. and my mouth, my face, everything still works perfectly.
but some dreams are a lot more clinging than others. i suspect this one will stay with me for a long while. it tidily touched on everything.
someday when i'm drunk enough i may even tell him about it, and we'll laugh casually, as friends do.
*
i am on a crowded bus that is showing movies. i am with someone i know very well. he is sitting in front of me. i am tired and leaning against the window. he turns around and smiles at me- the back of the seat disappears and his arm is around me. i lean my head on his shoulder and hold his hand without thinking about it. he does not pull away. kisses me on the cheek. and then kisses me full-on. and it is good. it is hungry and breathy and bitey and i am straddling him and he is ordering me to "keep moving" and i can feel his erection through our clothing. and i realize that we are blocking the view of everyone behind us. we get off the bus, both smiling too much, that "why the fuck did we wait so long?" elation of a same world made new. we are in a residential neighborhood near madrona and the sun is slanting low. i am walking ahead. i lose my sunglasses in a dumpster. i reach in to grab them and accidentally crush them in my hand, but i do not bleed. a little kid is walking with him. the kid leads us to a park where much merriment and shrieking cuts through the soft air. we go into a house where the kid lives- it is understood that he and this kid are related somehow, and that this is some sort of impromptu family gathering. my mother is there, sitting in a chair in the living room. i introduce him. she gives me a "well done" commisserative smile. his hand is on my back, indicating ownership- an unspeakably pleasant outward gesture of newfound unity. twenty minutes ago we were friends and now we are more. and it feels so goddamn natural, as if when we leave here we'll be going to a home we've shared for years, make love innately, already share the same inside jokes.
my grandmother is there too. she is coherent and cheerful and tells me about her new home in the main building of the senior facility. she is tanned and standing taller than i remember. she is praising me to him. "she's been through such a rough time but she's finally coming back" i hear her say.
it is then that i remember i have to be at work. i have been wearing scrubs this entire time. he says that he has plans to meet some friends that evening. we prepare to leave. i check my reflection in the hall mirror, beam giddily at the glorious turn of events, and notice that half my face is paralyzed again. i cannot smile, i cannot blink. and the fear shuts out all the surrounding noise, turns the sunshine black, reminds me of everything i'd finally been able to forget.
*
and i woke up breathless.
that was about three hours ago.
i went on the deck and had a cigarette. my hands were shaking. the sky was grey. and i was still residually aroused. and my mouth, my face, everything still works perfectly.
but some dreams are a lot more clinging than others. i suspect this one will stay with me for a long while. it tidily touched on everything.
someday when i'm drunk enough i may even tell him about it, and we'll laugh casually, as friends do.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
life should not be warholian
i came here, to this cafe with its placid classical music, to upload more photographs of new orleans. blogger, however, is not complying.
the only one i could get: two boys busking in the french quarter. the boy on the right was tap dancing. and he was really fucking good. i gave him money.
but further images shall have to wait, and in the interim i will forget, and it will become a mere memory, and who cares?
how poignant and prescient things seem as they happen... and how depressingly ephemeral they prove themselves to be in retrospect. that can be applied to pretty much everything.
*
i never have sundays off. i wandered today with the naivete of a foreigner. everything was shockingly mellow. people were peacefully walking their dogs, mowing lawns, sauntering hand-in-hand towards a sun-drenched dinner al fresco. it was delightful and eerie to witness- i couldn't help but think "what the fuck? seriously, this is how it normally is?"
i went to the fremont sunday market. because i could. i bought fossilized bamboo for a dollar. a surly young girl was blocking my ability to get free samples at theo chocolate, so i left without trying anything. i walked up the street i used to live on. i remember the '72 monte carlo parked out front, how obnoxious that must have seemed- how fucking miserable i was when i lived there. the sidewalk in front of my old building was wet with hose-water from the downstairs bar. the dumpsters reeked. and i couldn't help but wish i had a brief chance to do it all again, differently.
but fremont is different now. the red apple is gone. the record store is gone. fremont is a sea of white faces behind the wheels of priuses with obama stickers. when one thinks of the liberal seattle cliches, fremont is the stock image. perhaps it was always like that and i am simply a bigger asshole now.
i met j and watched 'the shining' on mute whilst listening to elliot smith's 'from a basement on a hill.' that is a disconcerting pairing. i made a dumb comment about 'the dark side of the shining' but since pink floyd wasn't involved it wasn't amusing whatsoever.
the only one i could get: two boys busking in the french quarter. the boy on the right was tap dancing. and he was really fucking good. i gave him money.
but further images shall have to wait, and in the interim i will forget, and it will become a mere memory, and who cares?
how poignant and prescient things seem as they happen... and how depressingly ephemeral they prove themselves to be in retrospect. that can be applied to pretty much everything.
*
i never have sundays off. i wandered today with the naivete of a foreigner. everything was shockingly mellow. people were peacefully walking their dogs, mowing lawns, sauntering hand-in-hand towards a sun-drenched dinner al fresco. it was delightful and eerie to witness- i couldn't help but think "what the fuck? seriously, this is how it normally is?"
i went to the fremont sunday market. because i could. i bought fossilized bamboo for a dollar. a surly young girl was blocking my ability to get free samples at theo chocolate, so i left without trying anything. i walked up the street i used to live on. i remember the '72 monte carlo parked out front, how obnoxious that must have seemed- how fucking miserable i was when i lived there. the sidewalk in front of my old building was wet with hose-water from the downstairs bar. the dumpsters reeked. and i couldn't help but wish i had a brief chance to do it all again, differently.
but fremont is different now. the red apple is gone. the record store is gone. fremont is a sea of white faces behind the wheels of priuses with obama stickers. when one thinks of the liberal seattle cliches, fremont is the stock image. perhaps it was always like that and i am simply a bigger asshole now.
i met j and watched 'the shining' on mute whilst listening to elliot smith's 'from a basement on a hill.' that is a disconcerting pairing. i made a dumb comment about 'the dark side of the shining' but since pink floyd wasn't involved it wasn't amusing whatsoever.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
let us applaud the german uni-deer
'venus in furs' just played, dampening my memory with high-school intrigue; now it is 'million dollar baby' and i am reminded of missing alice cooper at the emerald queen casino because of a fight with the ex. i do regret that. alice cooper would have been great in concert- even, no especially, at a crappy casino in fife, washington.
i spent the day getting shown seattle by the marvelous bus system. i have a crush on public transit in general- it is the first, and often only, thing i do in most places. the sun was filtering through the leaves alongside the road. i tend to stare out the window rather than regard the societal microcosm i am surrounded by- thereby missing out on far too much- but i do eavesdrop. the first bus had conversations spoken in other tongues. i was the only fucking cracker aboard, other than the scowling transvestite in the accordiony section. fell asleep en route- i am either an insomniac or narcoleptic, or both. i browsed through a huge asian grocery in white center. everything on the shelves was dented and dusty; the place itself was dead quiet.
it is gratifying to discover new places in the realm i have grown accustomed to. i know seattle very, very well. but not well enough! it still has secrets, ways to flummox and intimidate and delight me. a tantalizing maiden, to be sure.
*
random snapshot from the world, even earlier today: i am driving to a DiSC training for my job, on my day off, in the uninsured, mold-encrusted, blissfully shockless sweet green. i am doing 70 down I-5 and singing along AS LOUDLY AS I CAN to 'living without you'. and that, as we all know, is a song that no one should sing, much less loudly- it is a karaoke nightmare, karaoke or not.
*
i spent the last 24 hours rereading things. 'the black prince', 'bridge to terabithia', 'the mole people.' all are excellent. all are very different. and now i have an amalgam of julian's purple boots and clabber and braiding your hair so it stays clean and rudderless invalidation of your life and a weirdly shameful giddiness of inspiration and amazement at the possibilities that lurk everywhere, exploited by at least one person somewhere.
it is a muddle.
'the black prince' is full of utterly abhorrent characters, but damned if it doesn't still turn me on. it's the repression of it, the intellect blustering over the carnality, muting out THE SHAME of it. it reminds me of 'lolita.' and, to my sincere displeasure, that book also turned me on like mad.
*
the turn-on is: REPRESSION. knowing that what you are desiring is bad, illogical, entirely without reasonable merit. it does not matter what that actual desire is. the eroticism comes from the internal conflict- the actuality is, at that point, irrelevent.
shame is second only to curiosity in its ability to arouse.
i spent the day getting shown seattle by the marvelous bus system. i have a crush on public transit in general- it is the first, and often only, thing i do in most places. the sun was filtering through the leaves alongside the road. i tend to stare out the window rather than regard the societal microcosm i am surrounded by- thereby missing out on far too much- but i do eavesdrop. the first bus had conversations spoken in other tongues. i was the only fucking cracker aboard, other than the scowling transvestite in the accordiony section. fell asleep en route- i am either an insomniac or narcoleptic, or both. i browsed through a huge asian grocery in white center. everything on the shelves was dented and dusty; the place itself was dead quiet.
it is gratifying to discover new places in the realm i have grown accustomed to. i know seattle very, very well. but not well enough! it still has secrets, ways to flummox and intimidate and delight me. a tantalizing maiden, to be sure.
*
random snapshot from the world, even earlier today: i am driving to a DiSC training for my job, on my day off, in the uninsured, mold-encrusted, blissfully shockless sweet green. i am doing 70 down I-5 and singing along AS LOUDLY AS I CAN to 'living without you'. and that, as we all know, is a song that no one should sing, much less loudly- it is a karaoke nightmare, karaoke or not.
*
i spent the last 24 hours rereading things. 'the black prince', 'bridge to terabithia', 'the mole people.' all are excellent. all are very different. and now i have an amalgam of julian's purple boots and clabber and braiding your hair so it stays clean and rudderless invalidation of your life and a weirdly shameful giddiness of inspiration and amazement at the possibilities that lurk everywhere, exploited by at least one person somewhere.
it is a muddle.
'the black prince' is full of utterly abhorrent characters, but damned if it doesn't still turn me on. it's the repression of it, the intellect blustering over the carnality, muting out THE SHAME of it. it reminds me of 'lolita.' and, to my sincere displeasure, that book also turned me on like mad.
*
the turn-on is: REPRESSION. knowing that what you are desiring is bad, illogical, entirely without reasonable merit. it does not matter what that actual desire is. the eroticism comes from the internal conflict- the actuality is, at that point, irrelevent.
shame is second only to curiosity in its ability to arouse.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
island
other people's rudeness gets to me far more than i know it should. i'm too fucking susceptible to outside opinions. one nasty comment can negate all the tenuous psuedo-confidence i am attempting (with an embarrassing amount of effort) to hold onto.
laughing things off and letting things go have never been things i am good at. instead i turn inward, punish myself, feel stupid and unhinged and neurotic, the last person to understand the fucking joke, taking up space with my bullshit. sometimes i cannot help but think of my surroundings in terms of how one could be injured or killed by them. and then i get even more uneasy. i wonder why those are the sorts of thoughts i have.
when i was a kid, forty years old seemed ancient. i remember telling my parents that i was going to die on my 40th birthday. i would also have long straight blonde hair and a horse named silver, and drive a purple MG, and live in a house with six-paned windows on a beach with a guy named kevin.
laughing things off and letting things go have never been things i am good at. instead i turn inward, punish myself, feel stupid and unhinged and neurotic, the last person to understand the fucking joke, taking up space with my bullshit. sometimes i cannot help but think of my surroundings in terms of how one could be injured or killed by them. and then i get even more uneasy. i wonder why those are the sorts of thoughts i have.
when i was a kid, forty years old seemed ancient. i remember telling my parents that i was going to die on my 40th birthday. i would also have long straight blonde hair and a horse named silver, and drive a purple MG, and live in a house with six-paned windows on a beach with a guy named kevin.
Monday, June 09, 2008
i fell in love anew
i had a fucking ball in new orleans. it was hot, unctuous, floaty. my first day of jetlagged bitchiness gave way to, i guess: doing what i WANT to do, not what i THINK i should do. i did not see any live music; i did not buy a frozen fucking dacquiri; i did not stumble down bourbon street. i got the fuck out of the french quarter and away from the tourists. the streetcars on st charles and canal street are both operating again; they were still shut down when i was there last year. i roamed many neighborhoods on foot, random residential areas, ducking under banana leaves and flowery vines, perspiring relentlessly. i took hundreds of pictures. i fondled spanish moss that dangled to the ground. i watched two rats eat from a dumpster. i talked with a cockatoo. climbed a live oak tree in audubon park and bounced on the branch like a little kid. had apricot iced tea on the sidewalk at rue de la course on magazine st. i even went to a cooler-than-thou bar filled with sulky locals and did fucking sudoku. because, dammit, this is MY vacation and the dorky unhip shit that makes ME happy. and... it did.
i am resigned to seattle for at least another 18 months- the length of time i will be in school. and i don't know if i could ever truly live in the deep south- the pockets of self-absorbed liberalism are a bit too far-flung- but if i did, i know where i would want to go. it remains a happy fantasy.
local fauna (already squashed by someone prior) and the wandering gnome, fresh off a trip to germany with my mama:
a street sign in faubourg marigny:
the entrance gate to the metairie cemetery:
ADDENDUM 06/12:
1. the video kept fucking up
2. the still was rather unflattering
3. tis a pity. i was really happy and it was captured on film. that doesn't often happen.
a lot of the places i took pictures of last year are unchanged. nearly all of the buildings along canal street are still empty, with broken windows and destroyed awnings. the bywater area looks better- i didn't see any fema trailers parked in driveways this time- and the spray-painted x's that indicated house searches/body counts have been mostly covered over. the flora is denser too. while i was there the government announced that by july 1st they were going to be evicting people from their fema trailers. i saved the op-ed page from the times-picayune. one of the comments said something like "giving people a choice of a disease-causing toxic box or homelessness". there were a few 'trailer parks'- huge empty lots filled with campers- on the outskirts of town.
but new orleans is definitely coming back. more businesses are open. and the streetcar thing is fucking huge. what a fantastic thing- $1.25, an open window, amazing views, locals. and the audubon insectarium opens this weekend- i was very sad to have missed it, but it gives me something to look forward to next time.
*
...it is 55 degrees and drizzling in seattle right now. it makes the vacation-hangover hurt a little more.
i am resigned to seattle for at least another 18 months- the length of time i will be in school. and i don't know if i could ever truly live in the deep south- the pockets of self-absorbed liberalism are a bit too far-flung- but if i did, i know where i would want to go. it remains a happy fantasy.
local fauna (already squashed by someone prior) and the wandering gnome, fresh off a trip to germany with my mama:
a street sign in faubourg marigny:
the entrance gate to the metairie cemetery:
ADDENDUM 06/12:
1. the video kept fucking up
2. the still was rather unflattering
3. tis a pity. i was really happy and it was captured on film. that doesn't often happen.
a lot of the places i took pictures of last year are unchanged. nearly all of the buildings along canal street are still empty, with broken windows and destroyed awnings. the bywater area looks better- i didn't see any fema trailers parked in driveways this time- and the spray-painted x's that indicated house searches/body counts have been mostly covered over. the flora is denser too. while i was there the government announced that by july 1st they were going to be evicting people from their fema trailers. i saved the op-ed page from the times-picayune. one of the comments said something like "giving people a choice of a disease-causing toxic box or homelessness". there were a few 'trailer parks'- huge empty lots filled with campers- on the outskirts of town.
but new orleans is definitely coming back. more businesses are open. and the streetcar thing is fucking huge. what a fantastic thing- $1.25, an open window, amazing views, locals. and the audubon insectarium opens this weekend- i was very sad to have missed it, but it gives me something to look forward to next time.
*
...it is 55 degrees and drizzling in seattle right now. it makes the vacation-hangover hurt a little more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
