the ass-end of april 2010

i have already dialogued the more irritating aspects of the past 48 hours elsewhere... this shall just be the more whimsical aspects of today.
i went to an intra-oral CE at cortiva today. the school's been completely remodeled since i graduated; i'm glad i left when i did. the students are all forced to wear these hideous brown polo shirts. they gave our class shirts when we attended but i refused to wear mine. i don't think i ever did. i still have them. they're ugly and they shrank.
i walked that route so many times over the past 2 years... there's still a shit-ton of construction and mayhem in south lake union but, to my relief, this row of some of my favorite structures in seattle still remains. i fantasize about their tenement days of yore- stained laundry aflap in the breeze! mothers with tired faces and naked children clinging to their aprons! men drinking moonshine on the steps, fedoras askance!

across the street...

the CE was interesting. we all gloved up and fondled (our own) mandibular muscles. you can palpate the masseter from the inside AND the outside of the cheek! it's a rather pleasant sensation.
after i left the CE a teenage girl at the bus stop started screeching at me. "you only care about yourself! nobody cares about me!" i had no idea who she was. i smiled and put my headphones on. i suppose she was right. i don't feel too interested or sympathetic today... in general.
*
in a pioneer square alley- this lampshade has been mauled. how does one dent a metal lampshade 15' above street level?

forgotten mussels at after-hours pike place.

tiresias guarding the supertramp.

and a kris kristofferson window display...

butter pie?

...the butter wouldn't melt so i put it in the pie!
i growed this on muh own deck.

flowers are so disturbing- like carnivorous vaginas. my other plantings o' the season have not bloomed yet, but the sunflowers are sprouting... spending money on (outdoor) plants is my current vice. before it was house plants... before that, ugly original acrylic paintings... before that... well, i still buy those other things also.
today went from blue skies to torrential downpour to thunder to unseasonably ass-cold. it's the same temperature in fucking anchorage right now. i want a sweaty summer. i had the windows open today and the heater down because it's almost fucking may and i should be able to do that... and the house was an unpleasant 58 degrees. i remembered those hideously hot few days last summer whilst walking downtown this afternoon- when it was 95 and i was sprawled in the park near my house in boxer shorts and a tank top, because it was perhaps two degrees cooler there than inside my fanless abode. i bitched about that at the time. now i regret complaining... wearing a sweater, fingerless gloves, and a wool coat, the only indication of impending summer being the gnat that got stuck to my face as i walked through a bug-plume.
last night j taught me how to actually knit! i've been trying to use the "knifty knitter" and "pocket knitter" bullshit contraptions and failing miserably. she brought me needles and demonstrated during a slow moment at work. today, after hours of trying to remember her instructions and growing incredibly fucking frustrated at my ineptitude, i figured it out! my current work in progress... it's ugly but it's mine, damn it!

once i stopped fucking up, knitting really was rather hypnotic. i discovered a new radio station yesterday- 104.5- "hits of the '60s and '70s", commercial-free shlock-rock. so i listened to james taylor and barry white and wings and sang along as it rained outside, feeling quite content. give me twenty years and about eight more cats and i'll be all set for a legacy of scorching sexiness and titillation.
it is something i've always wanted to learn. and now i have. this feels really nice.
*
finished 'columbine' and am now reading 'grand central winter' by lee stringer... a random find at the uw bookstore. it's about his homelessness in nyc during the '80s and '90s. it's fucking excellent thus far. the bookstore closed so i'll finish it later. there are a few similarly themed and equally great books i recommend: 'sidewalk', 'the mole people', and 'nightshift nyc' (i think that's the name of the last one)... iffin yer interested in such things. perhaps most people aren't...
he was talking about his brother in the book. when they were kids wayne was a piano prodigy- the author could sense his moods based on how his brother would play- minor quick notes indicated irritation, sombrous chords equalled depression... it was a handy monitor because they never really talked to each other. his parents encouraged him to pursue music scholastically. "what went on between wayne and his piano was too personal for him to offer up for public consumption" he wrote. and i thought, fuck, that's the most succinct way to put it that i've ever heard.
*
emotional things become tainted when made 'for' people.
maybe not all things.
*
my route today, once i tore myself away from the knitting at, shit, 4pm... walked downtown. read trashy magazine at border's. bus to fremont. library, then antique market. fell in love with a song by harper's bizarre- a guy working there used his soundhound app to identify it (i've already maxed out my free version of shazam). went into alley, in the rain, and downloaded the $4.99 soundhound app AND the song. the guy went by. "you downloading it?" he asked. "instant gratification!" i replied. iphones are insiduous! bus to the u district. yerba mate. the aforementioned book. bus to capitol hill to buy tickets at neumo's. walked downtown. bus to ballard, where i am now. not bad for a 5-hour time frame. i don't have dance class until the 12th...
here's seattle for ya.

i love the people's pub. they have free wi-fi, those fake candles that flicker, and the people who work here are lovely. and their deep-fried pickles are fucking delicious. what unnerves me: the place smells like a gas leak and the toilets smell of kraut. the first time i noticed this i thought "fuck, it's a german place, ha ha, they're probably preparing kraut" but it smells this way every time. it makes me think of tacoma- they destroyed the pulp mill years ago but the town, especially near the tacoma dome, still reeks of ass. i used to think, do people who live near there smell it? do they smell like it? but i work with someone who lives in the odor-zone and she doesn't smell of sulfuric pulp... and my clothes don't smell of ass and kraut when i leave this place... i don't think. i hope not.
*
apparently i am typing every mundane thing that crosses my mind.
*
this was today's brief reprieve from the wetness!

today i saw my mother for the first time since november. we met at oma's new assisted living facility. oma shrinks every time i see her- i'm at least four inches taller than her now. she was slightly sprightlier than usual, but shooed us off after about ten minutes (ours was a surprise visit) so she could go to the on-site salon and get her 'do did. that was an interesting slice of the world... this woman in the corner of the room with something brown plastered to her hair, tiny edematous legs propped up in her wheelchair, braying in an overly loud voice about utterly mundane things; a ninety-five-year-old woman getting curlers placed in her wispy, childlike hair; my mother trying to engage my disinterested grandmother; and oma, small in her pink sweatshirt, smiling vacantly. i was leaning in the doorway, trying not to laugh at the discomfort of it all. i remember oma as spry, opinionated, independent, practically snotty. she was an unnervingly intelligent woman who had seen the world. it pains me to use the past tense. i wonder how much she's still aware of. i feel horrible for 'infantilizing' her, but then does something like answer "she doesn't have a brother" to my question "is this picture from florida?" and i feel sadly justified.
after that brief visit, i followed my mother in my car through the odious bowels of rush-hour tacoma. i am so glad i did not move there. what a fucking shithole. we ended up at arby's. "really, arby's?" i said, laughing. "i'm sorry" my mother said. "there's nowhere else in this traffic." we got liquids and sat in a corner and talked for nearly 3 hours. i learned that my great-aunt harryette's father invented almond roca! fucking hell! why is this not a bigger deal in my clan? 'tis a pity i dislike almond roca- the nut-bits annoy me, and i've been known to scrape them off with my fingernail. the tinfoil each piece is wrapped in provides more pleasure for me. i also learned that my grandfather patented a hand-held wheelchair control after his accident. AND my second cousin r and his wifr n? n's brother m is married to r's sister! "kin" i said. "wow."
my mother cracks me up.
*
it's been very fucking wet.

but few things smell better than washington rain. pardon the genericity.

and when the sun breaks through it's fucking gorgeous... soft edged and dreamy.

from my kitchen window... i love having a sink under a window.

sweating off some random debauchery.

did you know that women adjust their menstrual cycles when exposed to the scent of a male underarm? how heterosexist? lesbians have underarms too! i wonder if that is being concurrently researched.
also, peas have 14 chromosomes.
*
petal snow!

no edit

i'm only pretty when he's drunk

and everything i just wrote was deleted.

spiralling

apparently you can make a pipe out of a tampon applicator.

the south park bridge has been deemed unfit for further use... seattle's engineers have had quite a burr up their asses lately. quick diversion: they're 'demolishing' a 9 year old, 23? story condo in belltown for "infixable structural issues." this has been in the paper for the past week. my first reaction: derisive eye roll, perhaps some comment about "well of course, those wasteful motherfuckers." b's old place was a block away; when i would go over i'd always speculate about the building. it was never, over at least the past two years, not swaddled in scaffolding. second reaction: IMPLOSION. implosion of a 20+ story building? FUCK YES! i will take a night off of work for that! i'm still peeved about missing the kingdome implosion; my hand-me-down crowbar from its aftermath is a pale victory. but in today's paper implosion was denounced as an option. they'll take the building apart floor by floor instead, due to steel beams that would otherwise snap like rubber bands, neighborhood density, blah blah blah. seattle is BORING. and, also true to seattle, this is vehemently being contested by the original building firm... so it will probably just be in its fucking scaffold, uninhabited, for the next decade instead.
but i was talking about the south park bridge.
the day the news came out about THAT i specifically drove across it. south park is predominantly hispanic; it's a cool area that i always intend to explore more thoroughly. but it's a pain in the ass to get to, even with the bridge. residents don't want to lose it for that reason, obviously.

meanwhile, on capitol hill:

last friday exene cervenka played a free show at easy street! i take back my previous surliness about this town. i love being in a place where shit like this happens within a 15 minute stroll from my lair.

her solo stuff is beautiful, melodic, almost folky. i would massage to it. it's very different from x...
earlier that day i had my first massage job interview. it went as well as it could. i was myself. i felt like a fucking puppy, wagging my tail too eagerly and trying not to pee on everything. i want to work there very, very badly. i want to get out of veterinary medicine. i'm just... done. i am jaded and disgruntled and don't care like i should- like i used to. i go to work and spend the next 10 hours feeling like i'm sleepwalking. i like my job, but i need something new. i haven't had anything new in a long time. the interview reminded me that i could... if not there, then somewhere. there's a huge fucking world of possibilities, if i stop being burned out long enough to capitalize on that fact.
*
i found a stack of "fran"s high school yearbooks the other day. she attended some school from 1952-1956. i didn't have the money or bag-space to buy any, but i asked the seller if i could take pictures. this is my favorite entry:

her picture was earnest, round-faced, blonde. i wonder where she is now. i wonder if she's still alive.
utensil gangstas on upper queen anne...

and the exorcist stairs near my lair...

i must now embellish on the susan lucci dream.
i'm at her house. it's a very nice place, high-end-montana-subdivision style- not what one would call a "mansion", just "really big." wood panelling cathedral ceiling, a prow front and wraparound deck, white carpet. the place actually- fuck, i'm just realizing this as i write this- reminds me of the house i grew up in. she grabs me in the kitchen. i briefly demur... i say "i can't do this!" while thinking about being 9 years old and watching the video of that day's 'all my children' with my mother when she got home from work. but susan lucci, in the dream, is a marvelous kisser. she's as all-over-me as one can be in one's kitchen with the possibility of her kids walking in at any moment. in the dream i am thinking "aren't you married?" i feel as a poolboy must feel- young, cute, and used. but i'm a female. and i've got my own history and experience. okay, this is fun... but then a door slams downstairs. one of her kids, a teenage boy, is home. "hey, mom!" he calls up the stairs. she pulls away, leans against the pristine white fridge, wipes her mouth. i stand there stupidly. he comes up the stairs in mud-streaked soccer regalia, an obviously mentally handicapped younger girl with him. "that's my daughter" she whispers. "hi!" i say brightly, trying to not come across as a whore. "don't talk to her!" susan lucci hisses, pulling me aside. "i should probably go" i say.
i exit through a door i didn't enter the house through. from here i can't get to the driveway where my car is; i start walking through the wooded yard and end up utterly lost in the snowy peninsula she calls home. the sky is orange and there's a storm coming. lightning starts to strike. i am walking along the road, being passed by nubile teenage boys jogging, watching the nearby bay crescendo to whitecaps. i ask one of them how to get back to the lucci house. he politely directs me. his cheeks are flushed and he looks young and adorable. i feel totally ashamed of my actions earlier- i was fucking around with a woman old enough to be my mother! i'm a homewrecker! where the FUCK is my car? i eventually find her driveway. it's filled with cars on blocks. apparently i am driving my volkswagen golf. the tires have been removed. a man who speaks no english, apparently hired help, quickly replaces them for me.
and i wake up.
*
WHY.
just... why?
where does this fucking shit COME from?
*
runner ducklings! what's cuter than a fucking duckling? they should just be called "fucklings", they're so fucking cute!

...not quite as cute, but still alluring...

c is dealing with a slug infestation. i did not know that was even possible! the cement steps of his old house are covered with them- i counted at least fifteen. "there's nothing for them to even eat!" i said, immediately reminding myself of that sam kinison joke-"YOU'RE IN THE FUCKING DESERT! OF COURSE YOU'RE FUCKING STARVING! YOU'RE SURROUNDED BY FUCKING SAND!" c later gleefully informed me that he'd "a-salt-ed them." today, in s's former basement, i was reminded of this after being overly impressed by spools of copper "slug repellent"- the copper zaps them, or something, and they die. i did not fucking know this! it's been a very educational week, actually.
*
i went to the new elliott bay for the first time this afternoon. i wanted to find more luis alberto urrea books, since i finished 'the devil's highway' and was completely blown away. that is an EXCELLENT book. he has written other nonfiction about border issues... but i was sidetracked by 'columbine.' i've intended to read this since it was first published several months ago, and today i sat my ass down on the (non-creaky, despite what ardent seattleites pontificate) floor and read the first 130 pages until i had to micturate so badly, and i was so emotionally drained, that i stopped.
read 'columbine.' it is also, dare i say, fucking excellent. parts of it made me almost cry. victims' bodies left in the schoolyard, in the snow, for 48 hours before being COVERED, much less removed. a woman finding out her husband had been killed from a reporter at the denver post. the shooters seeming like highly intelligent, engaging, fascinating kids- kids i would have known. the hours of fire alarms, sprinkler systems filling the cafeteria with 4 inches of water, no one still trapped inside the school knowing if it was safe to move. parents wanting to hold their kids and never let go, the kids wanting only to pull away and be alone to deal with the nightmare they'd witnessed.
*
i do the introverted-in-public reading-thing very, very frequently. i get completely caught up in it; reality is a comparably docile, facile entity. edges are sharper and colors are vibrant and the world is so fucking poignant and beautiful that i feel priveleged to be alive.

my selections of reading material may have something to do with that.
after leaving the bookstore i also saw this... and was reminded of an augusten burroughs quote. it was something about him being so narcissistic that he needed at least 5 hours a day to write about... himself. when i first read this i laughed self-consciously. but, you know, fuck it.

it's good

the church had their 30th anniversary show at the showbox last night!

i was in the 3rd row. even spilling ~$5 worth of my $6 gin and tonic did not sully the evening. they played for 2.5 hours, one song off each album- "comedown" was the one they did of my favorite of theirs, 'magician among the spirits'.
marty the guitarist.

peter the keyboardist, guitarist, mandolinist, harmonicanist.

steve the bassist and one of my most beloved male singers. i love his dry delivery- like a male suzanne vega.

i had another one of those "i love seattle" moments. seeing the artists that provide the soundtrack to my life is a delightful feeling.
*
more hair-shrapnel from the missus. she almost let me shave her entire abdomen before getting thoroughly pissed off, so now she has uneven knickers and an undercarriage mohawk.

in an alley in pioneer square...

cliched angle, but it thankfully doesn't include the fucking red "westin" sign.

the blue study... a vacant used car lot on lake city way.

i had my headphones on at the time and sang "bend me, shake me" as loudly as possible whilst cars sped by, oblivious.
*
i awoke this morning in time to see the dawnzer lee light.


a few hours later i took a nap. and i dreamed.
i'm on a ferry across a pre-dawn bay. it's cold. the boat passes a pile of wreckage and smoke- a commercial jet has crashed in the water right beside the boat. the un-submerged part is on fire, the red-and-white tail of the plane obscured by thick smoke. the smoke is the same color as the water. there is a 'rescue plane' hovering beside it and firefighters spraying the flames with hoses. none of this is as loud as i'd expect- it's almost tranquil. little kids are running around on the deck of the ship, oblivious. their parents glance over casually.
it's daylight when we reach the dock- a quaint wooden boardwalk across sand and grass. the sun is warm. i am almost to the end of the dock when i realize i've left my bag on the boat. my bag contains everything i need- money, keys, identification, several hundred dollars of electronics. i start running back. the boat is already gone. i am utterly fucked and anonymous on an unfamiliar island. wreckage from the plane has already washed up on shore and more kids are playing with it- crawling into the remainders of the cabin, sliding down the smooth outside surface. the red and white paint shines in the morning.
then i am home. my home is exactly as it normally is. and he's back. his hair is completely white and straight; he looks frail and distant. i am sitting on the floor with my knees to my chest. he comes up behind me and rests his chin on the top of my head while running his hands down my bare arms. i tell him i wish he'd called more. "where are you staying now?" i ask. "with tim" he says. i turn around to look at him. "in india" he says. his face shows that he knows this devestates me. "when were you planning on telling me?" i ask quietly. "i'm telling you now" he says.
he goes on the deck, my deck, to smoke a cigarette. a friend of his is there, a tall stocky woman with a ponytail. i offer to make her some tea. "darjeeling" she requests. i am impressed at my poise and graciousness in a situation in which i want to burst into fucking tears. i am not giving in to the rushing patheticness. we talk about her nursing school. she is a stranger in both the dream and in reality.
and i wake up.
*
i was on my sofa, staring at the ceiling. and i felt this sudden giddy peace. it was a hideous dream that identified several deep, nagging fears in a very tidy, economical way. and in the dream i handled myself pretty fucking well. it's not that difficult. nothing really is.
del shannon's "runaway" is perfect trampoline music.
*
no edit

texturally

i've been on a rereading-of-augusten-burroughs binge over the last week. every time i've gone to a used bookstore (which i realize i do EVERY DAY I HAVE OFF, which i cannot decide is pathetic or merely economically imprudent) i've found one of his books, so i've bought them. i first read all his shit (with the exception of 'sellevision', his fiction novel, which looks stupid) about two years ago. i knew it would fuck with my head, but i reread most of 'dry' today.
the weather's been foul. the novelty has worn off and now it's just fucking depressing. wind and rain and GREY. everywhere, GREY. i purposely looked at everyone i passed on the sidewalk and no one looked back. i came to the conclusion that people in seattle are self-absorbed miserable fucking assholes. but then i realized it was just along a particularly unfortunate stretch of 5th avenue. after the lovely woman at the bank, people were friendly again. it's weird how that happens...
today:
-chex, peanuts, salted edamame. double bergemont earl grey with a shitload of sweet and cream.
-download of 'the seeds' self-titled album. mercy, it's not that good.
-an agate necklace for me, a stone bracelet for my mother. the vintage shop in pike place market was finally open while i was there. the place reeks of old people. it smelled like my grandfather before he died- as if his pores could emanate decay. the woman who runs the place was lovely and explained the various jewelry to me. total impulse buy- it's rare that i can justify buying fucking baubles. she had the radio on kexp. "the emperor's new clothes" played. you said it was me/but i really don't think so.
-fruitless job searching over yerba mate tea.
-happy hour with people i adore.
-the best dance class i've had yet. i didn't fuck up once. my partners smiled back.
-walking through the desolate streets of the financial district blaring 'fuck tha police'. what have i become? i love ipod shuffle. it shifted seamlessly into 'lay lady lay' and 'sowing the seeds of love'.
-watching a bright red umbrella blow inside out.
-blaring 'carrie-ann' whilst walking down 12th avenue.
-the horde gathered around the discounted easter candy at the drugstore. fuck jesus, eat sugar. i should trademark that.
-the comfort of people who know me very, very well and seem to appreciate me anyway.
*
i like being reminded of what really matters.

35 in the shade

i objectively surveyed my filing system.

(the place i'm at is playing 'kiko and the lavender moon'! i listened to this three times in a row whilst walking through the rain of capitol hill not three hours ago! once, at the h street house, i played this for an entire morning at top volume. i was the only one, obviously, at home. the subtle percussion is fucking brilliant. t gave me a signed los lobos poster from a show he went to; it remains rolled up in my hall closet. that's a bittersweet detail. but i digress.)
i did my first shift at the new clinic last night. it was its second day of operation. the place is fucking nice. like, intimidatingly, immediately-wipe-up-your-schmutz nice. the cabinets are a uniform diarrhea color, which is slightly clausterphobic/depressing, but otherwise... it's absolutely lovely. we saw two patients last night. the majority of the evening was spent discussing religion and meth. there is an ipod player but no radio and the silence was stultifying, so i plugged in my phone. i realized that my music does not hold up well for audience enjoyment. the things i've deigned to download are 'really good songs that i don't want to buy an album of' and 'guilty, shameful secrets' and 'i already have all their other songs on cd'. t approached me while i was washing the lone dish. "your music is so beautifully weird" he told me. he disliked the saturday knights and jude but seemed to like link wray and the challengers.
it was awkward, working at the new place. all the faces were familiar but the setting was so fucking foreign; i felt like a clumsy, inept new kid. the receptionist left at 5 and i was forced to check people in and out, which i'd never really done before. i'd never had to! i called the other facility (which was getting slammed, which i felt unneccessarily guilty about) and was kindly talked through the process. there wasn't even anything to clean; the only dust is the residual new-equipment dander that still resides in the shiny sinks and cages.
sweet green likes commuting. i remembered this from my heinous days in tacoma. she does 70 easily, shockless and jouncy. i listened to a.c. newman on the way home and pretended to know the lyrics.
*
a stray dog came into the clinic on saturday. the best part of this xray is seeing people's reactions when they first look at it.

it's a FUCKING BLADDER STONE.
this is a ~10# dog. the stone, on radiographs, measured 3.5cm x 5cm. her dribbly urine looked like watered-down thai iced tea.
she's supposed to have had surgery today.
*
more glimpses of blithe normalcy...

this is the closest these two get to each other.

dirty glass... and, incidentally, jethro.

the blue study... devolving to twilit car-lot flappy things.

my mother called today. she was laid off from the state in december and has been looking for a job ever since. she asked me about an ad for a veterinary receptionist... for the clinic adjacent to the ER i used to work at in olympia. it was a humbling moment... for both of us. i encouraged her to apply and told her to use me as a reference- b and s, who still work there, are some of the best people i've ever met in my life. but it was rather sad- my mother has worked for arco, bp, the government, nursing homes. she's been an executive secretary for over 30 fucking years. i never thought that i'd possibly be her reference. i felt a completely disgusting wave of pity- pity for her situation, disgust for myself. i am so fucking thankful to be employed.
pity is a horrible fucking feeling, no matter what. pity is condescension masquerading as empathy. i am revulsed that i feel that, totally uncontrollably, towards my own mother. towards her situation. towards the fact that apparently, surprise, my father's been nagging at her: "how'd it go today? find a job yet? why's it taking you so long?" towards the sorry state of my grandmothers and their parallel eschelons of daffiness, and my mother's joblessness-induced free time being taken up with them.
"i will never eat with your grandmother again" she said decisively today. the last time she took oma out, oma obsessed about a 'dome sandwich', which turned out to be a hamburger that she couldn't remember the term for, but when the waitress came by she couldn't recall. at all. "i'll have what she's having" she told the waitress, and ended up with eggs like my mother. "she was trying to save face" my mother said. she sounded stoic and slightly annoyed, but i know my mother- it fucking stings. oma had a physical a few weeks ago and my aunt took her to the appointment. "have you ever had surgery?" the doctor asked. "ohh, no" my grandmother replied. my aunt (by marriage) didn't know any better. yes, she's had a fucking choleocystectomy and several broken bones. "that explains the scar" my aunt said.
*
you just don't know. i didn't fucking know. "so what about you guys?" i asked. my mother listed off her medical history: broken toe, foot surgery, breast augmentation, hysterectomy. my father had surgery a week after he was born to correct a strangulated intestine. throat cancer and heart disease runs in her side of the family; breast cancer, depression, and MS on my dad's side. diabetes runs in both. i dutifully wrote this all down on a blank page in my sketchbook.
this was one of those mellow, magical days wherein the sun didn't set, the sky merely became a darker shade of grey.

i finally finished 'working in the shadows.' as an american citizen/consumer (a synonymous concept), you must read it. gabriel thompson. filed under current events at your local odious chain bookstore.
i also reread 'fast food nation.' that is such a boring fucking book. i read it when it first came out, or tried- it's so fucking pedantic. one can communicate without sounding like an uptight prosthelitizer. the slaughterhouse is my 'favorite' part, perhaps because it's the only part of the book where he personalizes the research and actually uses adjectives. for most of the rest, eric schlosser comes off as a self-righteous twat. i like how he included the negative reviews in the epilogue, though.
*
the slow night at work also included discussion about michael moore. p thinks he's a moron. i agreed. "i agree with his basic politics, and roger & me was great because he was still naive enough to not be a douche" i said tastefully. i saw michael moore at the key arena in 2005. it was obnoxious. liberal blowhard comes to fucking seattle? mike mccready and eddie vedder open with a cat stevens song? don't preach to the fucking choir, asshole. challenge our opinions. not everyone attends with obliviousness to the other side of the issues.
i left that evening, that fateful evening in 2005, annoyed and repulsed and feeling talked down to. and i'm so liberal it BURNS.
*
"harvest moon" plays. this place knows my deepest, most wistful secrets.
whilst strolling around this fair berg today, my impulse buy of donna summer's "i feel love" came on the ipod. i was reminded of my love for this song whilst malingering at the capitol hill value village last week. first reaction: big grin and "fuck, i love this song." second reaction: "this is so fucking uncool. i must never confess this to anyone." third reaction: "fuck, did they hear this at work last night?"
there should be an app to 'download' intellectually esoteric contents onto your iphone. it would replace my live version of 'the air that i breathe' and that fucking black-eyed peas song THAT LACKS ANY INTELLECTUAL VIABILITY BUT SAMPLES MISERILOU PRETTY CATCHILY, THERE I SAID IT and fucking '98.6' and whatever treacly nonsense i spent $.99 on whilst sprawled out slothfully in my lair.
*
oh, the modern age! when our flaws become global!
actually, people just need to be honest in their vices.
*
i'm unclear. this means i can walk through here, right?

stroke!

i really, really want to make this my facebook profile picture, but i'm too chickenshit.

i did a trade at m's. i have such a ridiculous crush on his lair. the art on the walls is done by his roommate, constantly changing. he makes huge wall sculptures with plastic drinking straws and hangers.

the weather has been bombastic. i still have fantasies of being a storm chaser, careening over a potholed great plains lane with a hand steadying myself on the dashboard of a rickety pickup, trying to outrun a tornado with camera at the ready.

somewhere on 18th...

you ever have thoughts flit through your head that act in complete disregard to logic or maturity? i saw this house and i immediately wished to live in its attic. sloping roof, dormer windows, the downpour tangibly close. i don't give a fuck about the rest of the building.

i stared at it, mentally decorating my bedroom, picturing xmas lights strung over the leaded glass... and then i remembered that i'm an adult. i suppose i've created a similar environment for myself already, anyhow. it doesn't sound terribly climactic or unusual now, but the thoroughness of that fantasy, and how i automatically pictured myself as about ten years old in it, caught me off guard.
the crappy car with the cattywampus seat belt parked out front helped dissuade the reverie, also.
in an alleway of the ID is this fish store. when you enter a mechanical voice says "welcome!" it also thanks you when you leave. the entire place is about 150 square feet with very low ceilings and scary clumps of wires dangling near water.

the clime enhances my slothfulness. no, not slothfulness... i've just been very content to be at home. rain hit the windows sideways; lake union was covered with whitecaps. the cats were sleeping. the flowers i planted are starting to sprout. peaceful.
now, at a cafe on eastlake: it was pouring, then the sun came out, now it's pouring again. litter was blowing circularly. the streetlights are dancing. constipated-looking people are weilding umbrellas like sheilds. and i am on the dry side of the glass on a long brown velour sofa drinking obscenely sweet lemon-lavender-mint tea. there's a billy squier song in my head. see, peaceful.
lest i forget, paul fucking verhoeven!

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