what's your game? can anybody play?

i forgot my usb cord, so no blurry photos tonight... including the ones i took this evening of paul fucking verhoeven.
*caveat: 'showgirls' is one of my favorite movies. i LOVE the fucked up train-wreckiness of it. the neck-snapping pool sex! the "bring me a beer, bitch!" the "i ate dog food too!" the stomping! the NAILS! 'showgirls' is the rare movie that visually shrivels my labia. i saw the stranger's "showgirls: deconstructed" thing at the showbox about two years ago. there is live commentary, appropriate pauses and rewinds of crucial scenes, big-screen excitement, and a full bar. i heartily recommend it.
the reading was bittersweet- it's the last one before elliott bay moves to its new digs on capitol hill. elliott bay, as i confessed to the stranger beside me tonight, is my "little seattle nook." i don't even know how many books i've read in their entirety whilst sitting at the upstairs wooden table. i've gone there since i was eighteen years old. they're keeping the cafe in the basement, thank fuck. "what's going upstairs?" i asked the guy as he handed me my tea. he didn't know. he smiled and shrugged.
apparently mr verhoeven (am i spelling his name incorrectly every time?) was briefly involved with the pentacostal church; consulted with numerous theologists who used a "color system" to rate the accuracy of various bible theories; is writing a screenplay about jesus; thought "the passion of the christ" was terrible; has mary getting raped at age 16 even though there is no concrete evidence of such a thing ever happening; talked for a long time about how henry houdini had an emotionally incestuous relationship with his mother and consulted various mediums after she died.
oh, and when asked by a member of the audience if his decades of religious study influenced any of his screenplays, compared jesus to robocop.
*
i did another massage today. it went very fucking well.
i also applied for my first massage job.
like, ten minutes ago.
*
ipod shuffle!
robert plant "in the mood"
wolfmother "mind's eye"
the crew cuts "sh-boom"
brian eno "sky saw"
king missile "i'm open"
tomorrow the nurse will tell me i don't have TB. the weather will be unseasonably cool and i will cluck over the wilted state of my pansies. i will reread "running with scissors" and drink a lot of tea and lay on the sofa with the cats. i will go to lindy hop and then to the rickshaw to bid my friend c goodbye and sing bad karaoke. i will eat edamame and lime jello, but not together. i will listen to electric light orchestra.
i love my fucking life.

yesterday i did my first massage in 2 months.
it went FABULOUSLY.
i had muscle memory! my hands knew what to do! it felt fucking amazing!
and it was on the neck... one of the areas i am most intimidated by.
she told me tonight "i passed out on the table for an hour after you left."
that is a grandiose compliment.
behold entropy, mid blur-lick.

i worked the last 5 days. as a three-day-turned-four-day chiquita, 5 (10-12 hour) days in a row is a pain in the ass. it was made triply grueling by "lucky" the pug, on the ventilator since tuesday night and requiring a technician to sit with him 24/7. DO NOT EVER NAME AN ANIMAL 'LUCKY'. it is a cliche in veterinary medicine; if they're named 'lucky', they're fucking doomed. this case has sapped everyone's stamina. i personally logged approximately 20 hours over three shifts doing nothing but sitting by his side and manipulating the ventilator and suctioning his trach tube and hoping he wouldn't fucking die on my watch (while quietly hoping he would, just to put himself out of his misery).
i am so, so glad to have a day off. i stayed nearly 2 hrs late this morning; when i got home circa 330am i finished 'bonk', rolled onto my back, and grunted a feeble "shut UP" at the cats from my paralyzed state in my glorious, accomodating bed.
i do enjoy feeling like i've earned my pay. we have all worked our asses off over the last week. it's been slammed, we've been understaffed, and the cases have fucking sucked. we're all in it together.
today i retrieved the back seat of sweet green from p's garage! i can carry passengers now! just don't expect a seat belt.

she's been reparked near my lair in this shot, deflecting the torrent with a savvy spritz of rain-x. and she's on a flat surface because, you know, her li'l brakes are slidin.' she doesn't enjoy inclines. she's an old lady. give her some slack!
*
today i went to virginia mason (one of the hospitals on pill hill) to re-instate myself as a volunteer at BBH. i got my H1N1 and another TB skin titer. the nurse was a brusque wench. i am hypercritical of nurses- i am a nurse, so i compare myself to them automatically. do i slam the door when i leave a room? tell them to show themselves out? give them no eye contact? tell them they have skinny arms? (not applicable to animals, i suppose.) she did her thing and swung the door behind her and before i could stop myself i said "what a fucking bitch" as i pulled my sweater back on. i am sure she was having a bad day, but she could have sidelined it for the five minutes she was forced to spend with me.
*
nurses and waitresses should always be nice to whomever they're dealing with. that's part of their fucking JOB.
*
i admired a lovely bike rack today:

i walked through freeway park to get back downtown. this was my former stomping ground; i used to live right across the fucking street. i would cut through in the lazy summer afternoons to make the 5:20 bus to my 6pm job in wallingford. i drank mike's hard lemonade there with j. i read a book there a few times.
i never walked there at night.

first hill always makes me wistful; it is the neighborhood in which i was most naive.
*
the parking in first hill sucks.
*
nature finds a way to intrude.

*
i must revisit this when the sky isn't a damning alabaster. i have always had an uneasy crush on this building; it is one of those "powerful, avant garde" structures that has been doubtlessly chronicled in architectural tomes galore, and its visual 'instability' makes me nauseous. do i LIKE this building? i like the idea of it. i love the fact that it was MADE. i like knowing it's THERE. aesthetically, i can call it "quirky" and "boundary-pushing." but then i feel pretentious, so i stop. perhaps that explains my 'uneasiness'; i dislike buildings that demand reactions. fuck you, pompous structure. people still conduct nefarious deeds and defecate and steal office supplies within your artfully sloping beams.

*
i had the bright idea of walking from capitol hill to meet some friends downtown; i enjoy that route immensely. it began to FUCKING POUR. and blow said pour sideways.

by the time i arrived i was drenched: hair dripping, jeans soaked. people smiled at me sympathetically on the street. the weather, actually, was quite invigorating. dissonant climes cheer me. i was blaring the white stripes and graham nash and grinning ludicrously. it wasn't until i got indoors that i became very fucking cold and realized how disgustingly damp i was.
there is nothing quite like paper-towelling off in a bar loo... especially when sober. it is a combination of smug clarity and "well, i suppose i am NOT getting laid tonight."
*
it was trivia night. i knew that captain and tenille did "love will keep us together", that the mcnugget was introduced in 1983, that tequila is made from the agave plant, and that "hal" was the computer of 2001.
*
the blue study, revisited:

*
happiness is listening to carla bruni, staring out rain-splattered bus windows, and drinking yerba mate.

shitting rainbows!

first, witness the tiny little leaf i plucked off a prolific pothos, now trailing roots within its glass baby bottle! (height of bottle: approx 2 inches)

I AM GOING BACK TO ALASKA!
my mood of late has been grim. my job is disillusioning and i am exhausted with the resultant, constant paranoia of its stability. i've been a bitchy self-pitying shrew lately. and then the tax return came through. i thought about iceland (too cold), new orleans (vowed i'd never go there by myself again; it needs to be savored a deux), austin (never been, and cracker's playing there june 10th), even detroit (with the fantasy that i'd wander around and take pictures of hideously decomposed neighborhoods without getting killed)... and then i remembered anchorage. i go on expedia.com at least once a week to check anchorage's airfares; they've been over $500 for the past two years. today they weren't. it was, literally, a two-minute decision: go online, get happily surprised, email s and make sure i have a place to stay (thank you!), and buy the ticket. i have been inappropriately giddy since. i miss my home. i hate to say it... and the memories are always far superior to the reality... but. it'll be good to go back for a few days.
alaska is home. i cannot avoid it, though i often decry it.
that is, it shaped me. that means something. i spent eighteen culminative years in its ass-cold buggy ted nugent-y blandness... and i had some of the best experiences of my life with some of the best people i will ever fucking meet.
*
before i made this spontaneous decision, i wandered through downtown taking photographs.

it was sunny but not really casting shadows. the sky was mostly a very high, bright white... like stubborn faraway fog. my sleeves were pushed up and i was sweating.

this was a completely un-thought-out shot at, obviously, pike place. i believe they were handing out grapefruit samples.



the cats with eyes have discovered reflections. it's been so sodden for so long, they're discombobulated when the morning sun floods the lair. any time i move a cd or my phone, they're meowing at the prisms on the wall. entropy is particularly manic. she'll stare at the wall long after the motion has ceased, pupil dilated, chirping as though she's watching birds. it makes for a rather sadistic game between her and i.
i opened the refrigerator today and said aloud "god damn, i'm a bachelorette."

the bottom shelf is mostly ziplocs containing useless gauze squares from my meds. i should make something artistic out of them. not visible: the mouse thawing in the crisper. it's for jethro, not me.
just as with the dried-out markers, you can learn a lot about someone from their kitchen contents. i, for example, dislike the 'pressure' that perishable foods place upon me... their need to be eaten immediately. i like the casualness of pantry goods.
i had to shove my camera through the space in a chain-link fence, then lean upon said fence, to get this.

the drop on the other side of the fence was about 20 feet, onto a parking lot.
*
i am so fucking excited.

the rain in shambala

it's springtime.

i almost adopted another fucking cat the other night. he was found in a pothole at 6th and michigan, approx 3 months old, presumed dead. he sustained some severe head trauma. animal control brought him into the clinic. he was blind. "OHHH! HE'S BLIND!" i gasped, helpless. do NOT put a pathetic blind orphan cat around me, because i will take it.

my other 'special' cats are completely neurologically sound; not so this one. he would be minimally responsive and meowing and purring, and then... nothing. he would become a statue. i'd never seen anything like it before this guy... a living creature can become utterly catatonic whilst sitting upright. we all took turns laughing, snapping our fingers next to his ears... and nothing. it was eerie and amusing at the same time- amusing because he never seemed to be in pain.
he would revive long enough to head-press the walls of his cage.

the diagnostic abilities with SAC (seattle animal control) patients are very limited... so we couldn't do xrays, for example, to see if he had a fractured skull. without knowing when the injuries were sustained it was not prudent to give something like mannitol... and what if he had something viral and not anything related to an injury? the litmus test for me to take him home was if he knew to use a litter box.
and he did.
"oh, SHIT" i said.
"brynn has a new cat!" someone crowed.
i was holding him in my lap after that, having decided that he was coming home (eventually) with me... and he started to seizure. that was the other litmus test.
i held him while he was euthanized.
even though it was the only decision to make, i cried.
*
i cannot even articulate how fucking burned out i am right now. i don't need to be applying emotional attachments to my job, to doomed animals, to fucked cases. that's amateur shit... i should be over that. and i HAVE been. i've been professionally numb for years. this last month has thwarted that sensibility somewhat and i have no idea why, but it's extremely inconvenient and is making me rethink my ethics about what i do.
*

i read the first part of "working in the shadows" by gabriel thompson this evening. you should also.
i also read most of "south of no north", my latest bukowski.... a hell of a lot more self-referential and therefore poignant. personal awareness breaks my heart- both as a participant and an observer. it indicates the most vulnerable sort of humanity. we're trapped within ourselves... you best like and do right by yourself. if you don't, you're fucked. take that, sartre.
i spent a fair bit of today walking through the brilliant glinty sunshine repeatedly listening to "99 problems" and "alphabet aerobics" at top volume. fuck you. they're good songs.

the stereotypical picture from st patrick's day... this is j's, not mine. i am a bad celt, though i did have a (free) shot of tullamore dew as my inebriation progressed.

the "erin go bragh-less" sign has been replaced, as of this afternoon.

i napped again today. it was quite nice; the deck door was open and i was surrounded by cats. i woke to the phone. it was my mother, whom i haven't spoken to since a foul interaction with my father in december. we talked for two hours. about everything. we both cried a bit. it was fucking wonderful. i have been carrying so much tension about my relationship with my parents- fuck, i have two parents, both alive and nearby and relatively healthy, and i am SQUANDERING MY CHANCES TO GET TO KNOW THEM BEFORE THEY DIE- there are decades of ugliness and bullshit, mainly with my father, and none of it fucking matters. it does not fucking matter one whit. i love my parents. they are good people, good humans, and i am so grateful to have the ability to communicate with them.
i had really, really missed my mom. she is a fucking nut. i am reminded of her in so many of my own unwitting mannerisms... we turn into our parents, whether we wish to or not. every time i hear "holiday" by the bee gees i think of my mother... the 'dee dee dee dee dee' part. i think of her laugh, her scurrilous faces, the way she always placed one foot on the vanity while she did her makeup. i got my habit of walking, eating, LIVING very quickly from her. the fact that everyone who's ever met my mother likes her -to some degree- says a lot about her. (the same cannot be said, i am sorry to admit, of my father.)
talking with her today made my fucking year.
i am lucky.
*
my grandmother has been moved into yet another home- this one, thank god, has 24-hour care. my grandmother is completely senile now- she has a right to be; she's 93 years old. my parents now have her cat. her "very nice filipino nurses", as my mother referred to them, are taking her to church. my grandmother was always a hellbent agnostic- raised indifferently jewish, otherwise nondenominational. i prefer to think of it as "the profile and guilt with none of the bullshit." but according to my mother, she enjoys the church services. "it gets her out" my mother said. and i can see that. perhaps that is the true (only) value of organized religion... having a semblence of community? ...although, as my mother added, "she probably sleeps through it all anyway."
*
DEVENDRA BANHART! scoff not! he played "lover", "shabop shalom", "carmensita", AND a fucking bombastic version of "seahorse", so i can die even happier.

every time i tried to use the security barrier-things as a tripod i got shooed away by security. hence, blurriness.

the entire band was fucking great. totally worth taking a night off of work for. i had that moment mid-show, leaning against the wall of the showbox, grinning... this is what i fucking live here for. i still feel the novelty. i love seeing the band that supplied the soundtrack to the last 4 years of my life. for example: my home-to-work commute is approximately two 'seahorse's long.
*
i bought flower (and carrot!) seeds today. when it stops being ass-cold at night i'm gonna plant me some pretty.

buffoonery!

someone in ballard lives in this fabulous silver truck. there are spider plants hanging within and everything.

i worked approximately 57 hours over the last 6 days. at least. by yesterday (an eleven-hour shift that stretched into twelve because the overnight tech called in late) i was giddily loopy, making stupid puns and laughing in a maniacal "hee-hee-hee" way. "you've completely lost it" t told me, laughing also.
i got home, collapsed in bed, and read "bonk" until i fell asleep. "bonk" is entrancing but not nearly as much as "stiff"- her coquettish asides are rather annoying. nevertheless, i reccommend it for anyone who wishes to learn more about erectile dysfunction and the sorcery of impotence. what would you use as a cock ring?
and though i thought the title was peuriley amusing the first time i heard it, i am now rather embarrassed to be reading a book called "bonk." no one says "bonk." do they? how about this: iffin you want in muh pants, don't ever refer to it as "bonking." jesus fucking christ. it makes me think of a plastic toy that you hit with a hammer.
*
i had lofty plans for the morrow by the time "bonk" lulled me to slumber. instead i woke up, ate jello, fucked around on facebook and took another nap. i didn't piss the entire day away, thank christ- a BRIEF midday nap can be quite restorative, even if it did involve creepy dreams about something i can no longer remember- and when i emerged into the world the sun was shining and i promptly shed my jacket.
i am going to be volunteering at the bailey-boushay house as a licensed massage therapist! that was the aspect of massage that really yanked my crank, if you will- because the rest of it makes me want to fucking vomit. i returned to cortiva for the first time since i graduated to get copies of the tb titers and vaccine histories that i had to submit to bailey-boushay (hereafter known as BBH- watch me) in september. they shredded all of that when i graduated. so i have to go to virginia mason (the hospital they work with) and get repricked and reprodded... not a big deal, just slightly inconvenient. cortiva has been completely remodeled. i saw a lot of the admin folk i dealt with during my time there, reminding me anew how obvious and enraging a fake smile can be.
i have been wrestling with the following since i enrolled in school in june of 2008. it was a total whim. a caprice! and only one person who knows me on any level said "yeah, i can see that" when they heard i'd enrolled. i had never had a fucking massage, i hate new-age bullshit, and it doesn't cross my mind to hug people unless i know them very well. why the fuck did i do it, then? why did i commit 18 months of my time and over $15,000 (yes, really) to this?
what i love about massage:
-being touched is powerful. it reminds you that you are a human also.
-when you are receiving a massage, you are the practitioner's sole focus. it is all about the client.
-it feels good to do. it feels physically right. if i truly pay attention, it is impossible to give a shitty massage.
-the human body is fucking fascinating. everything hinges together in such tenuousity. it's a miracle anything consistently works at all. the fact that it does impresses the shit out of me. it's very humbling and beautiful, i must say.
-the emotional response to massage far outweighs the physical benefits.
what i fucking hate about massage:
-the TRUE stereotypes: flaky, frivolous, chakratastic, bullshit, so help me goddess, flowy-caftan-from-a-catalog-wearing, soft-spoken, beeswax, moon signs, loose-leaf tea, "yeah, we should really get together sometime...", yoga mats, blank stares, muted tones, CHIMES.
-the entire concept of 'spa work.'
-overcharging. charging. why should anyone pay for a massage? seriously! yes, i said it.
*
my view of massage is the same as my view of (any) religion: the basic tenets are beautiful and inarguable... but the commercialization is fucking repugnant. 'commercial' massage is bullshit. BULLSHIT! signed, brynn LMP WA LIC# MA60127466
*
with BBH, i won't be working with the same people i saw when i was in school- i don't think. i'll be working with outpatients, people who are still healthy enough to not require 24/7 care. (it's a liability thing- before, i was buffered by the umbrella of school- by the way, we were the last class to do BBH. the program has been discontinued due to "lack of interest.") i've never seen their 'day' facilities. i am so fucking excited. this is what makes sense to me.
*
unlike nearly everyone else in my class, i always had a job. and despite my moaning and carrying on, i really do enjoy it. it comes automatically now, to the point of being slightly disturbing. i keep vowing i won't do it forever... who knows. perhaps it is this 'security', coupled with an admitted indifference to most things "masSAGE", that leads me to believe that free is the only fair option. possibly i am surmising this through eyes occluded by non-desperation. (the new clinic is a huge gamble. we'll either hit the ground running or we'll all be out of a job in six months. i very well may have to revisit my derision of all things spa, god fucking forbid.)
*
disused train cars behind cyclone fencing...

it is saint patrick's day. there are already occasional groups wandering about with plastic green hats and multiple beads. i left my "everyone loves an irish girl" and "spank me i'm irish" shirts AT HOME, thank you. (note: they are only ever worn in public when under scrubs.) to my curmudgeony credit, i am wearing nary a stitch of green on this day of drunks behaving badly.
to reward myself for working the last six days and, as a result, spending very little money, i bought another bukowski book, downloaded the new white stripes album, and drank two gin and tonics while the sun shone far above the horizon.
soon i shall sashay to the lindy class.
life is good.
i'm in the mood for a melody/i'm in the mood.
it's a beautiful warm spring day in fair seattle.

burnt

today will be the 5th of 6 consecutive 9+ hour shifts. the clinic has been busy and the doctors impatient and inconsiderate. I euthanized a seizuring dog- his tremors subsided as his heart stopped. how much lasting damage have I caused myself, by forcing my brain to think purely clinically in moments like those? if I think about any aspect of my job for too long i am reminded of how disturbing much of it is: cardiac arrest and trach tubes filled with blood. 62kg dogs unable to walk, gasping with pneumonia, and owners who won't just put them out of their fucking misery. neurologic cats made blind and incontinent by an at-home overdose of insulin. anything having to do with fucking ferrets.
of course there are the good things. I love my coworkers, I love hiding in the lab, I love treat-&-street cases like the exuberant puppy who had benign diarrhea. I love cases like "mithrandir", the cat who had his ass eaten by a raccoon and endured a full month of tail amputations, pelvic surgery, anal fistula repair, resistant enterococcus, and isolation treatment- and went home still purring (at least $13,000 later).
*
I just got a mass email from one of my former classmates, inviting everyone to a 'yoga for bodyworkers' seminar. I never did like her- superficially chirpy and vapid. she signed the email "love and light!" god, I fucking hate massage therapists...
*
I am sitting on my deck in a tshirt. I have goosebumps and my nipples are fully erect but by god, it's almost summer.

pentel markers... i bought these in bellingham about 3 years ago. most of the colors are completely dried up. the bright green went first, followed by the orange and red.

which colors dry out first is, i suppose, very revealing about a person. i never used the lemon yellow or black at all.
i should do a study about this...
meanwhile... i didn't tour the atelier.
i left a message on the very nice woman's answering machine at 1230am. i was sitting on my sofa, in the dark, watching fire ants along i-5. i got off the phone and said "fuck" aloud, in my quiet apartment, to the disinterest of my fucking cats and whatever else is keeping me here.
i am relieved to not have that extra onus... there is no way in fuck i could have done it. i know that. but i really, really liked the idea of "something to do." i like to go all-out... to convince myself, perhaps, that i am possibly somehow serious about something.
*
i suppose am serious about dance. dancing makes me happy. we learned more of the swing-out and lindy circle tonight. i fucking get it. i am only as good, unfortunately, as my partner... but most of the guys in the class are all right. i signed up for the next 5-week sequence; it involves more focus on the charleston and the six-step (aka east coast, which i already know). i rearranged my work schedule to be able to take this class. now i just need someone to go dancing socially with... it is nice to have something that i uncontrollably grin about. and it was the first time all day that i was actually, honestly, warm.
*
the girl has been fucking repulsive for 13 years. she's never figured out the classic feline hallmarks of, say, grooming herself or actually covering her shit in the litter box. so i shaved her. she seems to like it, mainly because i actually want to touch her now.

i need to pretty this up a bit. perhaps she'll come with me to work tomorrow.
*
i like photographs of random normalcy. doesn't everyone? no?

that's not my asscrack, that's my tramp stamp. thanks, former neighbor, for enlightening me to that term.

my schedule goes back to 'official' full-time in april. i'll be working at the brand-new renton clinic on sundays- across the street from fucking ikea! it'll be exciting to be in a shiny new environment. i desperately need a change of scenery. i need a lot of other things, also, but this is one of the more tangible examples. i really do enjoy what i do. and honestly, having multiple days off in a row bores me- i get fucking stir-crazy. the new schedule gives me monday, wednesdays, and fridays off. have i dialogued this prior? it'll be fine for the short-term- and at least i have a job.
i was feeling ambitious last night so i stopped at the grocer (one of my favorite pasttimes when slightly lit and by myself) and bought practical things like jello and eggs. i love 24-hour places in the middle of the night. why are these people there? i've been in line behind a single man buying 30 hungry man frozen dinners... giggly underage couples buying lunchmeat and oranges... women in sweatpants buying tampons and cheese. people are fascinating. lately i've been buying the same basic crap: lettuce, tortilla chips, and soup. i hate using my "preferred customer" card; i know they have a huge dossier of my pathetic rut-riddled life. they know i'm off the peanuts-chex and onto the coleslaw... and that i still feed my cats crappy friskies and use 1-ply toilet paper.
i shall close with the entropy-pants. it took her almost 3 years, but she's become the coolest fucking cat.

signed, the perma-spinster.

never! say! never!

amid the general clusterfuckery of last sunday, one of the receptionists came to the icu cackling. she was in the process of faxing this client's record to their regular dvm...

yesterday was fucking cold. i walked around for a while. the sun was sporadic and glaring- white light, no heat.

but the sunset was attractive.

downtown seattle, molesting. this was an awkward photo to take. people were striding by in business attire; i was That Person sticking my fucking fingers in orifi. i smiled blankly. maybe they assumed i was doing a pretentious art project and not just being fucking creepy...

i am still in a grey mood. it's very annoying. i took a nap today, dreamlessly. went to sushi with s. stared out windows. shivered. but i did notice this at a bus stop near seattle center:

this made me feel quite nice.
i left c's after midnight last night. he was too tired to give me a ride so i was unexpectedly on fucking aurora and 90th, waiting for a bus that took its sweet fucking time coming. a posse of urban wildlife -raccoons?- ran back and forth across the empty highway. if there wasn't another woman at the bus stop, elderly and glaring at me through her clouds of cigarette smoke, i would have been a lot more paranoid. this way, i was mostly just cold. i kept my headphones on. seattle is a different world at night- every place is, i suppose. all the 'good' people hide and those who are up to nefarious deeds skulk out of the shadows. i know why i'm in a sketchy neighborhood at an impractical hour... but why are you?
*
it breaks my heart a wee bit, but i cannot do the atelier. i am supposed to tour the studios tomorrow morning, but i'm going to cancel. i cannot pretend that something awesome is going to happen between now and september that would facilitate me spending 35 hours a week on art and still be able to support myself. this pisses me off. i feel fucking trapped in my current life, again, still.
c is most likely getting laid off in september. "i'm really scared" he said. he said that he's gotten used to his current lifestyle- of not having to worry- and to not have the security of income is equivalent to regression.
there aren't other options. i whored around the fucking new orleans craigslist before i started writing this- my at-least-weekly visitation- looking at apartments. i don't even bother with their employment options- new orleans is a fucking wasteland, and if you do get a job the wages are about half of what one would expect in the northwest. and i really don't want to move. i love seattle, i love the people i know here, i love having my own place in the world. seattle is a hydrant that i have pissed all over. it's MINE. i guess. but there are, to overuse an already disgusting metaphor, other hydrants.

the group on the other side of the high wooden booth, not visible, is eating meat with 'cajun' sauce. it smells amazing. the ambiance: paper wrappers rustling, muted chatter, and "i might like you better if we slept together."

things are not going as smoothly this week. my attitude from the get-go is much sourer. also, I am fucking sober, which seemed like a smarter idea until I am actually on the rink. '7 nation army' plays, most likely the only quality song of the evening. c is zipping around with his iPod. I am the pissy nerd on the bench.
this feels like my epitaph today. I've been in a truly foul mood all day. I feel like physical shit. I left my bag at c's place and he drove; otherwise I'd just go. this is probably a good thing for me, though; it's good to trap myself in uncomfortable situations that I cannot easily escape from, if only to give myself the opportunity to suck it up and potentially see the bright side.
j reminded me that we met ten years ago. I had forgotten the date, though I have it written on the inside cover of an old journal... I knew immediately that it was one of those "your life is going to be different now" moments. I miss that feeling: when the world slows down and the edges seem sharper. it's weird that I had to be reminded... I was walking out of pike place. buckets of daffodils were for sale, a dollar a stem. Michael Douglas is on the cover of the new vanity fair. I walked with my hands in my pockets, thinking sbout how horrible most of my twenties were.
more later... no edit.

december boys got it bad

a "certificate program" at UW for art (i am eyeing the figure and portrait course) stretches over 3 semesters and costs about $2,000. when i think about it i feel fluttery. i have savings.
i am amassing "usable" tools yet constantly seeking "frivolous" ones.
happiness is paramount. i still have this fantasy of being smudgy and intense in a canvas-filled loft... and i'm not getting any younger. i'm not going to be a fucking veterinary nurse forever- god help me- and p offered his space if i want to do massages there. WHERE THE FUCK DO I WANT TO BE?
honestly:
i want to be making shit. i want to be physically active. i want to get my hands dirty. i want people around to banter with. that is what i want my life to involve. i want the atmosphere of the building at western and yesler. i want the viaduct casting setting sun shadows over half-finished pieces... and i want to be ravaged on a dropcloth.
i was encouraging s yesterday to pursue this yoga retreat in california. it involves a 6 month intensive... the yoga thing made me cringe... i am just not into the noodly new-agey claptrap. but she is, and her face got animated while she was describing it, and when she started listing the reasons why it was a stupid idea i cut her off. "you are passionate about this" i said. "you need to do this." she smiled and nodded. "i am saying this advice for both of us" i added. she laughed. "i do that too" she said.
*
today:
woke early, read the paper, took a nap. had a horrible dream that i was stranded in alaska. i was flying there with my parents and the plane had to detour en route to anchorage. we ended up in a town that does not exist in reality but that i've dreamt about before- do other people have completely seperate 'dream landscapes', where certain entirely invented settings have reoccuring themes? it's creepy if i think too much about it... what the fuck is my mind up to, manifesting an alternate reality? i made it to anchorage... found s at the place she was working (which was in lake city, seattle, but still in anchorage... completely logical in the dream) and she ignored me. i got a curt "oh, hi" and that was it. i sat outside under amber streetlights. teenage boys were trying to bum cigarettes from me. "i don't have any" i said wearily. the dream had that icky overcurrent of "i don't belong here, i don't belong anywhere." i awoke sweating. i thrashed. i kicked one of the cats off the sofa. the time was 12:23pm and outside, the sun was shining.
midday nap-nightmares freak me the fuck out. i have always had horrible dreams- if i can remember my dreams, they are generally disturbing- and the combination of daytime sleep + nightmare tends to fuck with my head. it makes me feel jittery and lonely.
*
i jumped my ass off on the trampoline. the strangelove's version of "i want candy" was perfect.
*
apparently the 'swing out' in lindy hop is the hardest move to learn. i learned it tonight. one of my partners told me i "bounce very well." i smiled back and didn't remember until a few minutes later that, as usual, i was not wearing a bra.
*
today's route:
lair to downtown. pioneer square. subterranean ephemera shop. gen maicha at elliott bay. express bus to ballard. i got off at the bridge and walked to fremont. the sun was shining. i didn't bring a coat. bus to the u district. fondling evergreens with soft needles outside the architecture building. bus to capitol hill. liberty. dance class. walked downtown. bus to fremont. i am here now. lap one. pass the baton.
i cover a lot of ground. i don't realize that until afterwards.
*
i keep thinking i should feel less content than i do, but today, despite its bland description, was rather fucking awesome. i was comfortably esconced in my own head and walking under voluptuously blossomy trees. strangers smiled back. i thought "i want to do everything, but i have all the time in the world to do so."
currently, my world is 6"x10" and glowing.
*
inexplicably, big star plays.

twenty minutes later...I rode the 18 from Ballard. Brendan Benson covers "let me roll it." I calibrate the song, and my reaction to the song, against the vibration of the bus... it's a fucking hot song. he goes from strident to pleading, a sinuous falsetto against grinding chords. my reflection is superimposed against the benign lights of Magnolia. I want. I want abstractly, in a "look at myself, wanting" kind of way. the night is poignant for no real reason. I am happy. I am leaning against a wine rack at the grocer's to write this. the store is playing "careless whisper."

"nothing's quite what it seems/in the city of dreams"

today is hecatomb's 13th birthday.

i brushed the shit out of her greasy hide in celebration. she flopped about whorishly and seemed to enjoy it.
i think i was also married on this day in 1997. that is odd to contemplate.
*
life goes on.
*
i am much better off for it... the whole experience. how cynical, that i can call a marriage 'an experience.' i meant it (my vows, my commitment to another) at the time, at least. we ad-libbed our vows and bawled in front of each other. b fixed the judge's computer and she took $25 off the $75 fee.
that is so weird to think about now... i cannot properly apply it to who i am today. it's someone else's story that i've familiarized myself with.
*
hey, look at this! (it's blurry)

i finally got the hard copy of my massage license from the state of washington... and my business license.
want a massage?
p showed me his logo today. i drew hands... a fucking pain in the ass, chronicled previously... and he didn't change them at all. he liked them exactly as i drew them. hands! i created his business icon! this is incredibly exciting!
as our deal: he housed the bug for 2 months in his garage and owed me a massage. that was my 'reimbursement' for the design. i came up with that. it seemed fair. when it's all said and done, the actual hand-drawing took all of 15 minutes (plus hours of stress...). he is practicing out of his home and has fixed the place up beautifully. i hadn't had a massage since november... and i needed one.
last weeks' med was a bad one. i spent thursday night in a fetal position, my entire body feeling like a knuckle that needed cracking. i went to p's place on friday and said "my fascia is fucked. work on my back. i just want to pass out." he had the requisite water-burbling waterfall-crap-thing and some airy-fairy music playing, and i got on the table... and the massage was not that good. i spent the hour facedown, assessing his every move- go UP! why are you stopping there? god damn it, are you going to do anything to my shoulders? (he didn't.) oh, i like that- i'm stealing that move. fuck, i could do this much better than he is...
it was good for me in that respect- it refreshed my interest, and my ability. i give a good fucking massage. i am annoyed that i didn't have the transcendent experience that i'd hoped for, but i'm also pleased that p, whom i've always viewed as mr. massage expert, is no better at his craft than i am.
it reminded me of what i spent the last almost-2-years learning. it renewed my brain.
*
p's a good guy. after tonight's weekly sushi date, he gave s and i free almond mist tea at the place he works.
massage is very, very individualistic. that is one of my favorite, and one of the most intimidating, aspects of it...
*
years ago, variations of this theme were all over seattle. all the signs were replaced but new ones are cropping up. this pleases me.

i really must invest in a fucking tripod. this lack of focus is very irritating.
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i stranded myself in roosevelt last week. i strand myself in verious neighborhoods quite often... i ended up walking from roosevelt to lake city for a staff meeting. i passed this hardware store on 65th- it's been there for decades. it's one of those places where you think "how the fuck do they stay in business? does it double as a brothel?" knowing that there are still places like this, somehow, makes me happy...

last night a group of us went rollerskating. i have rollerskated once, when i was twelve, and i smashed the bejesus out of my ass within the first two minutes and couldn't sit comfortably for several days afterward. this time was much better. c was there and kindly held my hand for the first while. "i'm cramping your style" i said apologetically. "that's okay" he replied. by the end of the night i was skating on my own, passing people, listening to "gangstas paradise" under the glitter of the disco ball. what the fuck has happened to me? i'm going again next week. try something new, always...
before the trek to lynnwood (where the rink is) we gathered at d's house and watched her cat drink milk from a glass.

to make a 'baker's oven', soak a brick in boiling water for 10-20 minutes, then place it in a hot (450+) oven, whereupon it will steam copiously and delightfully harden the crust of your baking baguette. thank you, julia child.
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fuck egg whites. egg white glazes are for plebes.