and i was getting wet

by the end of tonight's class we'd been shown all the basic moves of east coast swing. i walked through a complete fucking downpour to get there. something is amiss with the sidewalk on pine street, causing 3" of rain to gush across its surface; my jeans were sodden to the knees and my hair was dripping wet when i arrived. the abruptly vile weather brings out the good in people. "guess it's not summer any more!" a man shouted after me jovially as he dodged the deluge from an awning. "apparently!" i replied cheerily.
today i reminded myself to notice the minutae. it's why i live in a city, after all- i mustn't take it for granted. seattle, 29 september 09, consisted of:
-a maid standing on the window-side of the heavy curtains at the holiday inn on westlake, staring out.
-the goth couple on the bus playfully stacking their fists up the pole. "i win!" crowed the female when her hand reached the top.
-the man with the lazy eye and cameoflage pants.
-"you can totally have it" said the man at fremont coffee, smiling, when i asked if i could take their table as they were leaving. they left behind a soiled fork resting delicately on a clean napkin.
-the aroma of macaroni and cheese at the place where i am currently typing this.
-a man who admired my computer the last time i was here just came back. "they're totally out of those at northgate!" he said. i love this thing- the asus eee- and recommend them to anyone.
-the emergency exit on the bus pouring rainwater over a guy standing underneath, him laughing about it, and the female he was with standing on the seat to close it.
-the (transient?) man at the drugstore lecturing the cashier for not placing his items in the plastic lidded bucket he'd brought along for that purpose.
-the man in the car beside me prolongedly flipping off the bus driver with a meaty finger.
-rifling through a vintage copy of 'nostradamus' prophesies'- somehow they devised that a vague remark about sunshine fading was indicative of irish conflict.
-myself, cackling at the newest edition of 'heeb' at the university bookstore.
*
once the sky is dark, i feel rather lost. i have never 'gone home at night' to 'relax' and 'take a load off.' i stay out until i am tired, which is usually quite late. i hate being in my home at night, especially by myself- i just don't do it. i feel horribly antsy and clausterphobic. but i am reminded, once the weather is foul and the nights are longer, how inconvenient (and expensive) it is to be out. this habit tends to grate on people. i like being at their places- d and i watched 'donnie darko' last night and i was quite content- but not at mine- my lair feels cold and unfamiliar when it's dark outside. every place i've lived has been that way.
when i'm OUT, AT NIGHT, i tend to be rather voyeuristic. i look in lit windows and admire people's lives from afar. i watch people converse, prepare meals, watch television, wash dishes. i notice the matching kitchen accoutrements and framed pictures and their expressions- like the man i once saw sitting in a recliner in front of the tv, looking utterly miserable. perhaps that is it: people, when they don't know they're being noticed, rarely look happy- or even content. i do this at intersections also. everyone looks resigned and annoyed. then i catch myself and realize that i probably do also- if i'm not singing along to something.
that's fucking sad!
it justifies my outings, at least in my own mind. i don't want to miss anything, so i'll be in public spaces with my focus centered on a 5"x8" screen.
and it reminds me that i am an anomaly- most people go home in the evening, coccoon, decompress. it makes me feel rather weird and rudderless... and thankful of my freedom... and curious that i'm living in a rather pathetic state of denial. at night, when i work, animals will come in with an acute emergency and their fur will sometimes smell like whatever the owners were preparing for dinner. the thought of, say, a dog laying around the kitchen while the sauce simmers is such a foreign, folksy concept- i envy it terribly, even if i don't understand why.
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oh you pretty things!

i love georgetown, though i always feel slightly nerdy whenever i'm there. the general uniform seems to be american cigarettes, sleeve tattoos, fixies, black denim. d and i went to see f's show. on the way i passed this tower of crappy beer cans affixed to a light pole:

d doesn't really give a shit about how he comes across, which i envy and admire. we went to jules maes and he ordered his usual long island. he drinks the froofiest, most unpalatable beverages- mai tais and black opals and other unctuous swill. i may be a boring imbiber (gin and tonic, nearly always), but at least my teeth don't feel excessively coated after a night out.
jules maes has board games, big booths, and excellent fries.
*
it is very fucking nice to be on break from school. i took a four-hour nap on the trampoline today, surprising even myself. my dreams were erratic snippets of dischord. i hate waking up and feeling mentally soiled. like: i am in an archtypical 'rec room' of faux-panelled walls and hideous sofa. my father is trying to show me how to dance. we are both clothed and he is grinding his groin against my ass. i have never been molested in reality, so WHAT THE FUCK? i mean, GAH! i kept trying to move out of the way in the dream and he kept cheerfully correcting me: "you're doing it wrong" he said. my mother was also there, watching us and applauding our efforts.
i am aware of a very disturbing, freudian, parent-heavy dreamtheme of late. i have no fucking idea what this is about. i would really, really like it to stop, because it's extremely creepy and disgusting.
the dream segways to a tree-lined street with victorian houses. it reminds me of upper queen anne. my parents are showing off the '29 dodge- the dodge they sold (in reality) when i was 10 to fund my mother's 'enhancement.' in the dream it is back, now painted dark eggplant and covered with fake roses. it is a gothic, fabulous masterpiece. the inside is filled with the same tassels i used to put in all my cars; the back windows are covered with sheer black lace. i get into the rumble seat for a ride. "wait, you need your present!" my dad says. "this was on your list, but i bet you can't guess what it is." he hands me a wrapped frame in the middle of the street. it's a red velvet painting of elvis. "oh my god, it's a full-body one too" i gasp. "these are really rare. most velvet elvises are only of his head."
then: i am walking towards the clifflike edge of the neighborhood with a girl from class. we are holding hands, kissing surreptitiously, giddy with the newness of our attraction. we are to meet my parents again in an hour. the sun is setting and our faces are goldenrod. streetlights are starting to come on. "this all makes sense" i say. we smile at each other.
*
i woke up to my phone, on vibrate, skidding across the kitchen counter. it was a fucking timeshare charade that's been trying to contact me for the past two weeks; i must have signed up for something idiotic at a festival. i hate being interrupted from good dreams (which i classify the last one as). it makes reality slightly less lustrous.
seattle center today:

it's already dark outside. the passage of time startles me.

the salad days

this is my environment as i type this:

three weeks ago this space was occupied by a garage. they have done a good job with the renovation; it seems like it's been here for years. i am in a rare coffee-swilling mood and it tastes pretty raunchy, but i am here more to siphon wifi anyhow. this place is at the bottom of my hill (next to the infamous plaid pantry) and serves cheap bottles of wine. i sense much loitering here once it's wintery.
*
i just got a call that my attendance appeal for school has been granted. the last 48 hours had caused me to forget all about that. life is going well... for everybody, it seems. even my job last night, which involved 14 hours of me being the only inpatient nurse and dealing with relentless micturation, beeping fluid pumps, and a transfusion monitoring (and i nearly got bit in the face by a greyhound named fucking "Fergus"; i was saved by his e-collar and got jabbed in the eye with its hard plastic rim instead), was somehow slightly more tolerable... because in the back of my mind i kept chanting "i really do have other options now." i love my job, overall... i guess... but it's nice to remember that i will definitely not be there forever.
*
i jumped on the trampoline today whilst blaring garbage's first album. i'd forgotten how good it was. it transported me back to 1996- working at the cafe on minnesota, smoking pot in k's car, singing along loudly by myself to "milk" when i was feeling indulgently dramatic. some albums evoke certain eras so fucking strongly that they are impossible to listen to objectively ever again; it is very difficult to apply new memories to what's already there. that said, it was awesome to look at the sunny scenery outside my window and jump on a trampoline and think "i still feel like i'm seventeen but i have the experience of a thirty-year-old." it made me really fucking happy.
*
"inner city blues" plays. that's another evocative song. i think of 2001, driving to alpenglow in the snow, living in the i am house, perpetual darkness.
i don't remember any of my dreams from the last two nights. i have slept very peacefully.

a fine day, i say!

i passed the boards.
i calmly walked down the stairs, waited until the door of the respectable office building where the test was conducted was almost closed, and shrieked in the middle of the parking lot. i shrieked a lot.
*
i had one of the nuggets discs back in the cd player. i blared 'psychotic reaction' on the way home, windows down, grinning wildly.
god, i feel so good right now.
*
i walked downtown. it is still fucking hot, the sort of hot where when you stop moving, the sweat catches up and envelopes you. i wandered around the ID, smiling vapidly. 'twas at uwajimaya where i found this peculiar and delightfully named product:

i walked from the ID to capitol hill. (i have sweated a lot today.) i got the tattoo i have fantasized about for years- the one i draw sloppily on my arm with markers every few months. the session ended up taking 2 hours. the history channel was on the television behind me; i learned a bit about atilla the hun, then erik the red. i am now wearing a bandage that makes me look suicidal.
outside the cafe where i am now at is this fascinating still life... there's a story there, god damn it.

i am more mellow right now than i have felt in weeks. today was the flush-inducing climax of the past 15 months... now i get to lean back and grin lazily through the afterglow.

i am remembering my dreams again

in no particular order, but over the last several nights:

dream 1 (2 nights ago): i am walking down a bike path in northgate, midday and overcast. i know it is northgate, though i have never been on such a trail in reality. i am checking my phone and going through a pedestrian underpass. i suddenly realize i should be paying more attention to my surroundings. i look up and see a wild-eyed man stumbling out of the woods towards me. he is wearing a white-and-red patterned shirt much like the motherfucker who attacked me in july. i look at him, startled, and walk faster. there is about a 5' cement wall that i must surmount to get to street level- to 'safety' and i climb it clumsily. he is moving slowly, then starts to dart as i get all the way up. it is one of those horrible dreams where my moves are ineffectual and gelatinous. my legs are still hanging over the edge. he reaches out to grab them. i wake myself up by kicking violently and thrashing into a seated position at the head of my bed.
*
i have been having nightmares about that night. this would be the third in two weeks. shouldn't this reaction have happened two months ago? i was applauding my stoicness and resilience, but apparently i was completely delusional.
*
dream 2 (3 nights ago): i am with someone very familiar in a high-ceilinged room in an old building- something like a gymnasium. my mother is wearing no underpants and climbing on the windowsills. she is laughing. "i've always wanted to do this!" she exclaims, oblivious to my horror.
*
dream 3 (3 or 4 nights ago): it is not quite dawn and in the dream, for reasons forgotten, i have been up all night. i am standing on the corner of pike & boren and b is lifting me up by the waist and throwing me over his shoulder. i am laughing and begging him to stop- the same sort of frantic hilarity that happens when you're being tickled. he finds it hilarious that i am so helpless. i am flattered by his attention but honestly concerned that he's going to let me hang there until i pass out. i sense palpable venom in his merriment.
*
when i got home last night i didn't want to sleep in my bed. i needed a change of scenery. so i froze my ass off on my sofa, under the open window, waking up to sunlight slanting against the wall. i was momentarily befuddled- that eerie "where the fuck am i?" sensation- and when i realized it was my own space, revisited, i felt very relieved and giddy.
i love the security of my own world. i keep the walls of my enclave too fortified, perhaps, but every time i weaken them i tend to get jarringly fucked with.
to wit: d was a fucking asshole last week. i haven't talked to him since friday. i am disgusted with myself because, as always, i 'deserve' it; i trust people to be pleasant and kind and communicative and respectful- and people, at least the people i tend to associate with, aren't. but i am much more disgusted with him. i want to wash my mouth and brain out with bleach. i wonder what it is about me that renders my social options so minimal- why must i be privy to a relentless parade of mindfuckers? am i, myself, a mindfucker, attracting like? how much of this is (repetetively) bad luck and how much do i attract by mere virtue of my personality?
*
yeah, and didn't i voice these concerns to s back in, what, april? what did she say: "be careful." she said it with "i will be diplomatic because you will do whatever the fuck you want, but for god's sake, don't be nearly as stupid as you're prone to be" in her voice, which i pretended not to notice at the time. her wiseness annoys me. i envy her ability to not take shit from people. me: i let people do pretty much anything and am meekly flattered by the attention. how fucked up is that? am i damaged, for fuck's sake, and completely oblivious to it except when the same ugly patterns emerge?
damage implies weakness. i hate weakness.
let's change the subject!
*
i take the massage boards tomorrow at noon-thirty. i did well on the online practice exam, apart from several airy-fairy chinese medicine questions i was utterly clueless to. we never learned the joys of YANG in school. i test at noon and i get a new tat at 5pm. i have two weeks to heal. and it will be nice to feel a needle in my skin again.
there is a bespectacled boy reading a paperback under the windows. i looked up, caught his eye, smiled toothlessly, and returned to typing. i've stated this before, objectively, dispassionately, but: i suspect this is my problem.
second east coast swing class tonight, on an 85 degree day in a 90 degree room... my back was damp when my partners touched me. it's fucking FUN. i love feeling like i've been let in on a secret... people have done these steps for years, and now i can too! my skin still tastes salty.
and this afternoon i hung out with two people i went to elementary school with, neither of whom i'd seen in 20 years. the wonders of facebook! we recognized each other immediately. i felt weirdly tall. she lives in seattle, he's visiting from anchorage. it was incredibly cool to relate to people on that level... how weird and precocious we all were. names i hadn't heard in decades were bandied around. our mutual acquaintances are now doctors, lawyers, professors. "i'm in massage school!" i said feebly. they were actually really enthusiastic about that. i gave them my new business cards. they both promised to tell their friends.
it was a really fucking cool afternoon, actually. it's amazing how much one can remember without realizing it. i tapped into memories today that i never knew i created in the first place.
*
the past proves you're alive.

indian summer, indeed.

yesterday at work, one of the receptionists returned from the parking lot shrieking "what the hell is this?" the closest thing identifying beast i can find: a potato or woodworm larvae.

it is absolutely vibrant.
one of the doctors took it home to his kids. "patrick gets so excited when we find bugs here" one of the other doctors noted appreciatively.
*
i bought these today to add to my growing collection of moderately offensive salt-and-pepper shakers.

the copyright date is 1966. the guy i bought them from was fairly apologetic. "i have these as proof of how far we've come" he said. "no, these are very socially important" i said. "and they're kind of funny." they will accompany my "mammy" set (thanks, new orleans- what's really appalling is that i purchased those new), my wooden outhouse set, my ceramic kissing indians (made, i believe, in korea), and who knows what else. most are in boxes at the moment.
*
today i passed two men sitting outside the cyclops bar. it is fucking lovely today, eighty degrees and sunny. "no, no, you're walking way too fast" one called after me. "and you know it too, don't you, baby?"

optimism prime

during my time at B&O last night (which involved working on my research paper whilst quaffing gin, fruitlessly trying to connect to the internet, and waiting for d) i went to the ladies loo.
the grafitti ranges from the politely girly and earnest...


to the crudely peurile...

to my personal favorite.

ah, women.
*
i met my parents in tacoma tonight. i had not seen them in months- i believe i visited my mother in june, and it had been months before that i'd seen my father. we met at the spar. oddly, it was at the spar that i went after the funerals of both grandfathers- a random, unplanned coincidence.
when i walked into the bar tonight i did not recognize my parents until my mother waved. they look older every time i see them. they still look great- i come from good stock- but... older. they described their road trip to yellowstone and utah. "what a bunch of rednecks" my father said. they happened upon a town-hall barbecue in podunk, idaho; the labor day parade in walla walla; a road-crew worker from coos bay, oregon who played guitar; a flea market in randle, washington. i had requested a shot glass from their voyages. they exceeded my expectations with one metal-embossed with the LDS temple in salt lake city.
my mri came back with no changes. I HAVE HAD NO BRAIN DEGRESSION IN 2 YEARS. and one particular, prominent lesion that was present 2 years ago is no longer there. i don't know why my face sporadically feels numb, but... FUCK YES. i am doing well. this makes me happier than i can really say. i feel incredibly fucking lucky. and optimistic. and, dare i say it, blessed.
it felt fantastic to tell my parents this. i hate discussing ms with them... hi, i'm your flawed daughter... it was very fucking nice to tell them some genuinely good news. i felt like i made them proud just by existing properly.
*
there are two big things my parents still don't know, and will never have any reason to:
1. they will never know i got back together with tony last winter. they will never know that we were even in contact.
2. they will never know that i was mugged.
*
they were in good spirits tonight. my mother remained coherent and my father remained patient. the trip did them oodles of good. "we got along great" he said several times. "no bickering-" "well, there were a couple times" my mother interrupted. "but nothing big" he added. it made me able to overlook their occasional snipery tonight. the less my mother drinks, the better they interact. how about that! what a downright revolutionary insight.
i will always be their little girl, wanting them to be happy. tonight was the first time in years that i left them thinking "all is good."
*
last night d introduced me to damiano, a mexican liqueur. it reminds me of a smoother, less sweet galliano. it is fucking delicious. the plumbing in his unit is fucked up (every time he runs water, it leaks into the american apparel store downstairs, which is hilarious) so he's using a vacant unit on the 4th floor for his sink needs. i requested a tour of his building and so, with snifters in hand, we wandered the halls at midnight. i looked at an apartment in his building back in 1997; they didn't allow cats, and it was a tiny studio for two people. i would have never suspected that 12 years (!) later i would be discovering the 'locked' storage room under the stairs where hundreds of gallons of paint cans are stored. we stood in the alley between his building and the ethiopian restaurant next door. he instructed me to look up. a mannequin head peered over a windowsill. it took a moment to realize that it was not an actual human. "that fucking freaked me out one night" he said.
"norwegian wood" plays.
i just read an article discussing this song. "does anyone really think john ever had to sleep in a bathtub?" it asked.
i love the simplistic tambourine. this is a surprisingly subtle song. the lyrics are the forefront; the other details come later.

"i will always love the false image i had of you"

i love summers that actually last for the entire "summer" season.

today i presented my research on reflexology and craniosacral therapy as modalities to reduce stress. afterwards i had my first east coast swing class. these two events help assuage all the dumb things i've done lately, like posting non-identifying but potentially offensive gore pictures on facebook. the worst feeling is realizing that i fuck up when i completely, entirely do not mean to. i am far more naive and oblivious than i should be. this is a stupid fact but it sounds like a fucking excuse, which makes me feel even worse.
and i spilled vanilla oil all over my sweater...
east coast swing is fun. i already (clumsily) know the jitterbug, aka west coast; east coast is six steps instead of eight. the room was about 90 degrees. my bare arms were slippery. i have always wanted to learn how to dance... and now i am. also on the list: glassblowing, french, the cadaver lab at bastyr... it's a big world. i have to remind myself.

mortality

on wednesday d and i went to our second evening at the century ballroom. i will be enrolling in classes there soon. we ended up improvising. he is much more self-conscious than i am; he's interested in the technical aspects, whereas i am content to simply flail. we were both quite sweaty afterwards.

dancing is fucking sexy. and the charleston is amazing- there is so much to learn. i know the absolute basics thus far. an older man asked me to dance and i had to apologize for my foot-stomping ineptitude. i would much prefer to be the girl who glides across the room.
afterwards we went back to his lair and watched 'how to charleston' videos on youtube. there truly is someone, somewhere, who has done anything you could ever imagine- dance steps being one of the absolutely most benign- which is a both comforting and bewildering thought.
*
i had my mri today. my face was acting up en route and when there. it feels a bit better now. what exactly does it feel like? it feels like my left sinus is completely clogged and something is squeezing the left side of my neck and jaw. it feels like i am wearing a latex turtleneck and need to wipe crap out of my eye. i don't know how to explain it without sounding completely fucking neurotic. it just feels- weird. it feels clausterphobic. it is extremely uncomfortable but doesn't hurt at all. clausterphobic is probably the most accurate term. it feels like i am being compressed, insiduously, by my own fucking body, in ways that are invisible to others but make me feel panicky and uneasy.
today is hot. it's in the eighties, sunny, quite lovely. i walked to the appointment in first hill, taking a picture of my funky-face-feeling self en route, mainly to see if it's distinguishable to others.

the fact that my hormones are utterly fucked up, i have the complexion of a filthy adolescent, and my uterus is trying to chew its way out of my loins has not helped my mindset today.
but oddly, happily: i am much more cheerful now. all i can do is what i'm doing. all i can do is roll with it. i know this. fuck, i try to remind myself. but as a fairly high-strung lass with impatience to accomplish everything NOW and not be inconvenienced by NOTHIN', this can be really fucking difficult to live by.
*
i like being physically reminded to calm the fuck down. MS is quite handy for this.
*
i tell you, though: it's a cruel bitch of a disease for anyone who already spends far too much time in their own head.
*
tiresias, when he chases sounds, rolls his head in the most appealing way.

i spent the morning doing laundry, listening to 'anthology of bread', and finishing 'stiff.' 'stiff' is a fucking awesome book. i reread the chapter on the U Tennessee 'decomposition fields'- where they study how human bodies degenerate post-mortem as a means to solve crimes. which larvae arrive first? which gases are emitted? how does the gunge seep into the earth? when does the bloat of bacteria occur? i would actually love to study that. i was disheartened to learn that the mortuary science college in san fransisco shuttered its doors in 2002.
i actually met a woman who works in a funeral home a few weeks ago. "i love my job" she said, saucily, sincerely. i would not want to work in a funeral home; that goes against a lot of my personal philosophies about death and funerals tend to devolve into a "pity the living" slush. i liked the ideas about liquid nitrogen cadaver 'recycling', though- rather than cremation, which is not particularly eco-friendly and has been responsible for spewing mercury gases from incinerated dental fillings into the air, you're dried, frozen, and shattered. you can nutrify a treasured plant.
my great-aunt had the ashes of her husband scattered over her roses. when i was a kid, i refused to play in her backyard because the idea creeped me out so much. now it seems quite romantic. were that my situation, i would have thought "hey, you" every time i saw i new flower bloom.
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this week has been a stimulating, unnerving clusterfuckery. the details of such are comical even to myself.
i keep thinking about things that are not optional. i miss s more than he misses me. i know this. maddeningly, he probably knows this also.
but i digress.
every time i wait for the traffic at the N end of queen anne to turn onto aurora, i admire this sign. i finally had enough time to snap a picture- a crappy, terrible picture, which i need to redeem at some point.

yesterday i remembered how lovely it is to be home in the morning. i never am anymore. i have somewhere to be by 1pm everyday- which sounds leisurely until one considers i work until 3. it sounds simplistic, but it was really lovely to hang out with my guys again. i colored eyeballs in my anatomy coloring book and played al green. and i had the heater cranked in september.

labor day 09, my first proper holiday off in 2 years. d and i went wine-tasting. he had never been. i convinced him not to buy bottles from the first place we visited. we ended up walking the grounds of ste. michelle- i'd left the camera in my car. drove to snoqualmie falls and got utterly misted. returned to his lair to watch 'huli kuli', dissonant anime, and 'chasing amy', which i'd never seen before. it was really good. it warmed my cockles. it reminded me of him and i.

i live in perpetual momentum of the future, the 'what if', the imminently disappointing. perhaps i should focus more on what is, and how goddamn wonderful things can really be.

fuck, i should focus on how wonderful things already are.

straight trippin'

today i left class early to see the neurologist. i have another mri scheduled for next week. it has been 3 years since my last, which i hadn't realized... how time flies when your health is fairly inconspicuous. my doctor reviewed the notes from my last mri when i described the intermittent facial weirdness i've been experiencing. "it's not quite numb..." i said, feeling daft as i tried to describe it. "it's like the last bit of lidocaine, minus the tingle." "it just feels funky" i added unhelpfully. according to my 2006 mri, there were lesions on my brain that correspond with the areas i'm sporadically noticing said funk. "those were there 3 years ago?" i said. this actually makes me happy. i like being shown that i am not, in fact, fucking crazy. in its own fucked-up way, my body continues to make perfect sense. there is trackable logic amid its frustrating mindfucks. human beings are goddamn magical, really, and i shall cease being florid now. about that, at least.
*
(part of me- though definitely a smaller part than, say, three years ago- is still quietly fucking terrified.)
*
(but then i remember that i walked to the appointment in the sunshine, and had no symptoms there, and i could feel when the doctor literally stuck a cotton swab in my eye (no high-tech neuro testing here), and i walked out afterwards with my typical swagger, a lozenge in my mouth and the humid heat leaving my bare skin slippery, and i think: i am doing absolutely fucking fine... i just might have a bit more perspective than most, that's all.)
*
as i was crossing the street away from the doctor's office, my mother rang. i hadn't talked to either of my parents in at least a month. they are going on a road trip to yellowstone and utah, 10 days with their prius "in the 4 reddest states in the nation!" as my dad said, "except for, you know, texas." my mother asked "have you heard the latest scandal?" i anticipated more gossip about my crotchety oma. instead my mother salaciously divulged that my cousin had come out to my grammie. "i've known that for years" i said, forgetting that my mother hates few things more than being deprived of a solliloquy.
"you KNEW?"
"well, yeah."
"carol wants her to leave that (all-women's, liberal) school. she thinks that's what caused her to... you know."
"she's fine. she's a completely poised and brilliant human being. she's having the time of her life. i wish i had my shit together when i was 19 like she does."
my mother was stammeringly trying to be more liberal than she really is. i love her for that. "i mean, i don't care if she loves women... or frogs!" (she actually said 'frogs.') "it doesn't matter to me."
"she's happy, mom. she's doing really well." i tried to change the subject then... "so when do you guys leave on your trip?"
later i thought to myself "i wonder if my parents lament the fact that they will never be grandparents." i wonder if they're proud of me. they told me tonight (via their prius speaker phone that i hate conversing with them over) that they are. actually, my father said that. but i still get the feeling that they wish i had evolved into someone else... someone with a spouse and a home with matching towels who hosted dinner parties and had white, heterosexual, precocious-but-not-obnoxious offspring. someone who wasn't dinking around in massage school (i had to correct my father tonight- 'masseuse' is not really an acceptable word' i said. 'i give no undercarriage action.' there was a pause. then my father laughed. 'a masseuse gives a massage with a happy ending!' my mother brayed in the background.) and cleaning beast-ass, who was in love with a clean-cut lad and owned a hairbrush and wore skirts and was earnestly sociological without being, you know, too out there.
i am drinking a gin and tonic in a bar of which i am the sole patron, listening to 'honky cat' and siphoning wifi. i wonder if they would be proud of me now.
*
i have a horrible habit of taking photographs of myself whilst operating a moving vehicle. but i wanted to capture this moment, as blurry as it is.

i see d again tonight. monday was... a night that is still riccocheting in my brain. i find myself smiling glassily into space. it is so easy to make me happy. this is my secret weakness that too few people have utilized. does anyone realize how fucking easy it really is?
today i also had my tb skin test for the bailey-boushay house. i start my advanced clinic there in october. it's hospice for AIDS and other chronically ill patients. i have been looking forward to this from the get-go. i had blood drawn to test titers for my measles-mumps-rubella; at some point i must get my first-ever flu vaccine. d is working bailey-boushay this term. most of his clients shoo him away: "i'm in the middle of my show" they'll say, or something. he's ended up wandering the halls of the building for hours.
four hours later, my arm has not yet tripled in size, so i must be fine for tb. i have to go back in 48 hrs, expose my forearm, and have an affadavit signed.
i am not used to it being 8:20pm and already dark. the sun was low and orange when i arrived. i love watching people in flattering light.
last night i lay on my trampoline and talked to b for nearly 4 hours. it feels so easy now. it only took 12 years. someday i hope to alter the nightmarishness of our last impressions of one another. at some point in the night i was playing 'marquee moon.' he said something about 'wonder what it would have been like if-' and i realized that if things had gone any other way than how they'd gone, i'd never have fallen in love again, i never would have sang along to 'don't fear the reaper' in the midnight sun, i never would have been educated about the wave sculpture while the heat from the metal radiated into my back, i never would have laughed until i cried about a tastee-freez in ashland, oregon. i would have never had the rich and ridiculous moments that put me here, right now, writing about it. i thought "how fucking dare you- how narcissistically arrogant. and ignorant." and then i thought "how fucking amazing that we can be having this conversation"- and it made me very happy.

"you're an idealist" b told me last night. he didn't sound terribly derisive about it. i think i smiled and said "yeah, i suppose i am."

how does that mess your mind?

the things one finds one block off the main drag! i love being a pedestrian.

...although, were i not in my vehicle one evening, i would not have seen the man diligently towing a fucking kayak along the sidewalk of mercer avenue.

this is my first night off in nearly a week. i went to an HIV/AIDS seminar last friday and had to endure a puffy middle-aged hag asking the speaker, a man diagnosed in 1986 (!) "so, basically all people who were gay in the '70s have AIDS?" i worked 45 hours in a 70 hour period. when the time came yesterday to trundle to my thai massage class, i decided to sprawl on the trampoline with the pussycats and read 'stiff' instead.
'stiff', by the way, is awesome. there is a place in the toolies of tennessee that studies human body decomposition! in shade and sunlight! clad and un! today and one month out! fascinating stuff. magpies cawed outside the window.
last night d and i met up... the first time in over a week. i had been feeling paranoid. apparently he had been also. we ended up under a bridge in u-village, circa 3am, watching a raccoon climb a tree. the earth breathes audibly at that hour... or perhaps it was me.

things are, for the moment, really fucking lovely again. aren't they always lovely, though, and i'm just too oblivious to appreciate the obvious?