there's a book on bathroom graffiti on the sale table at the university bookstore. it only included one from seattle- from the comet- the rest was overwhelmingly from texas, nyc, and los angeles. two loo tags from my classy seattle nights come immediately to mind: "jeff goldblum is watching you pee", under which someone scrawled "best graffiti ever!", at the dubliner in fremont (i've probably mentioned that one before), and "i can see you", years ago and since painted over, in the lower arcade at pike place market.
*
my arms are still redolent with massage oil. i'm sticking to the table as i type. i kind of love my life.
*
i went to fucking thurston county yesterday to meet my clan for my grandmother's 80th birthday. i was already vexed because the 'green wellness' thing turned out to be bullshit. as in, nonexistent. as in, a health club with some dude saying "yeah, they left on bad terms" and me saying "in the past two days?" their "location" was kind of lovely, though: right on lake union, with houseboats abutting and birds wandering about. it was below the china harbor behemoth on westlake. there's a full-on fucking swimming pool down there! now you know.
so i was feeling rather surly already. the car did wonderfully. i drove to olympia in hideous rain, listening to can and pink floyd. i was enjoying myself until i passed my former exit, and then the depressing memories kicked back in. i don't think of specific things, really, just a generalized malaise. i was so fucking unhappy when i lived down there. i have mentioned this before, but i don't think even i truly know (or want to know) exactly how that era of my life permanently fucked me up.
or maybe it improved things. you can't appreciate until you know how shitty things can be as an alternative.
*
i am thankful of my current contentment.
*
the demographic is just different there. i was behind a minivan with a chain-link license plate frame, a 'support our troops' sticker, and a christfish. i went to tar-jay to buy cheap nicotine lozenges (needing to burn through the wad of cash in my pocket that i did not use at the bullshit-pot-place) and saw guys wearing huge medallions and backwards ballcaps, teenagers holding their own spawn, moussed hair. this, to clarify, is in lacey. in olympia, on the other side of i-5, the populace becomes old and white and beaurocratic- lots of gold jewelry and obama stickers and snotty earnestness- not the hippie dreams of olympia 25 years ago, but the nimby, pleated, constipated version of "liberal." there are probably still the vile urchins along state street and 4th ave- downtown olympia is filled with evergreen rejects with their stank and their fucking dogs and their american spirit cigarettes- but that's not open-minded awesomeness, that's just being a fucking smelly putz.
*
i will discuss, or not, the familial pathos later. it was often taxing. i wince a lot with my family. but it improved by the time i made my grateful voyage back to seattle.
the skyline is always such a glorious view. that curve on i-5, when the city appears, feels like a triumph every time. it reminds me that i have my own lovely life now.
a few days ago s and i had tapas. this is the stuffed squid with awesome red sauce.

blood sausage with cocoa powder and superfluous popcorn!

and sunday night, the view from o's 'front yard'.

it's good to have a delightful world to come home to.

insufferability

i've been a fucking basket case lately. i've been waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks. there is nothing so massively wrong or unusually altered in my life that truly justifies this... i've thought of writing a list of everything i've been worried about, to have tangible proof of my laughable neuroses, but that seems a rather daunting, nauseating task. waking up unable to breathe, mind racing, thinking of every awful thing that has or could happen, is gruesome enough. i hate feeling trapped in my own brain. i haven't felt this way in a while... this undercurrent of dread... not for years. it is a sensation i figured i'd grown out of, matured from, stopped being in such instigating situations with.
*
i do much better with concrete problems. concrete problems are understandable and thereby manageable.

i got a copy of my medical records today. i will be taking them to my appointment next week to obtain a medical marijuana card. i am "lucky" enough to have one of the few specific conditions approved by the state of washington. i feel alternately smug and damaged. i'm not, and have never been, a big pothead... but fuck it, why not? if i can get the good stuff, if it will possibly mellow me the fuck out, if i can share it socially, why the fuck not? i'm rather excited about it- like being a gay man for a day and being able to finally see the inside of a bathhouse.
i've never been functional when stoned. my life requires clarity. i tend to get paranoid and weird if i smoke it alone. but it's fun with people. it makes boring things more interesting. my problem with pot: there really are no "boring" things, and if you're bored, shouldn't you just find something else to do? i say i don't believe in 'needing' enhancement, but i'm drinking a daytime g & t as i write this, so whatever.
*
because i can.
see above paragraph.
*
but yeah... i feel weird lately. jangly. clausterphobic. i took the legs off the trampoline and leaned it against the wall. i needed the space. took my bed apart. i've been sleeping on my couch. there's a pot of soup in my fridge that's nearly 2 weeks old- i forgot about it. i was startled to realize how fucking dead most of my plants are. at least the floor's vacuumed. yesterday i cleaned my bathroom. and i have clean underwear... the animals are taken care of...
and i got a new car.
sweet green's clutch, i guess, went out. she was towed off yesterday, donated to "make a wish." i came home and she was already gone. end of an era. more proof that i kind of suck sometimes. the industrious bug owner: another persona i was never willing or able to take on.
the new car is a 98 jetta. she is responsible and functional and much, much more fun to drive. she hauls ass. and the heater works. among other things.
*
the bug was towed off containing an unopened parking ticket, moldy sandals, about 5 1L fluid bags i'd used as hot water bottles for the drive home from work, the garish xmas decoration a massage client gave me, about 3 empty bottles of rain-x, and a fucking "pushin' the good vibe" bumper sticker...
i'm sure "make a wish" will be thrilled.
*
i can see the building i used to live in from here. my windows were on the opposite side. wood floors, silverfish, no heat, ants, someone else's dried condom in the defunct radiator. it had built-ins and a crumb-catching tile kitchen counter and i could see the fremont rocket from my bed. cork walls. my shower curtain was a map of the world. i remember doing a jigsaw puzzle of the album cover of "some girls", listening to cat stevens obsessively, right around new years 2003. i had just broken up (for the first time, pre-engagement) with t. i vowed i would LIVE MY LIFE EVEN BETTER. i would be THAT GIRL. i would somehow transcend the fucking nerdy persona that does shit like jigsaws whilst listening to (quality) shlock. and i would find a way to fuck everyone in seattle.
*
as it turns out, i didn't.
*
my standards evolved, i guess.
*
i still feel fucking vulnerable and childish and STUPID, though. i still inadvertantly rely on outside forces to make or maintain or enhance my happiness. that's certainly why i feel like shit right now.
it hasn't all been bullshit. there was a cool starfish on the beach yesterday.

and it's finally fucking spring. well, yesterday was. i'm out without a coat today and i feel rather dumb. and cold.

but whenever i feel sulky and annoying, something like this magically comes along to make me laugh aloud. always.

even in retrospect.

revelations

i will preface this with a sober acknowledgment of my idealism, my naivete, my impulsiveness, my stubbornness. these are traits that inconvenience the fuck out of me on an hourly basis but they define who i am. everything i say, think, and do is filtered through these adjectives. it doesn't justify any of the stupid (STUPID!) decisions i make, but perhaps it can offer perspective to the more lucid among you.
*
first, a picture of k's absurd tanning stickers. they go over the eyes. there truly is a product for everything.

this is one of those items of modern life that i hope to never utilize firsthand, but it is good to be informed of one's options. (actually, she said they are mandatory- unless you're a truly seasoned tanning-bed tanner, in which case you have your own anti-cancer goggles. like bowling shoes, i guess.)
and here's the completely fucking useless ladies, rubbing their bits all over my eatin' table.

sooo....
because i made the 'right' decision, i can now explain the last 2 weeks to the people whose opinions i care about and who know me exceptionally well...
i have a flight to austin at 230pm tomorrow, to see ex #1 after 13 years, united flight 356 connecting in denver on united flight 416, arriving at 1030pm CST... $282.76 on my debit mastercard, non-refundable. and i'm not going.
*
have i ever really explained the horrid circumstances that led to the demise of my first marriage? i mean, really?
i remember once my parents came to visit us when we lived in seattle. there were at least 5 empty liquor bottles lined up on the kitchen floor. after commenting that the place smelled like cat piss, my father said "what's this? left over from christmas?" it was may. it was the accumulation of a week, and if i hadn't been too hungover to exhibit forethought, i would have taken it all down to the recycling before they arrived.
i truly believe that, once, he and i did love each other. my feelings for him were a version of love that i no longer consider 'love', but it's the version my 18-year-old self adamantly believed in. my standards, shall we say, have improved over the years.
we had plans. he had the vague drunken impetus to move to prague "cause america fucking sucks" and i was trying to be a writer, driving myself insane with the isolation. i was 100 pages into a story he ended up stealing the only copy of, a story i poured my life into for 6 months... i haven't seen it since i was 19. it's about a girl living in a small town and the guy she fancies breaks his infant child's arm. how does she care about someone who does something so possibly accidental but still completely monstrous? the guy's name is paul. i forget her name. i am sure there are correllaries to my subject matter with that era. i wrote at the end of the sofa my grandparents gave me when we got married, cross-legged, on a computer he stole while he worked at microsoft, and i would feel so fucking frantic and ALONE in my own brain that when i'd go to the store with the excuse of buying something, just so i could interact with other people, i'd stutter.
i was the one who found the place in prague (which he has since smugly assured me "sucked", though probably not as forcefully as the dank hovel i moved into once i returned to anchorage) and i enrolled at univerzity karlovy to learn czech. i even researched, much to my mortification, where the nearest ikea was (there is an ikea in prague! now you know.) we were going to drive from seattle to fucking fort stockton, in the ass-end of the ass-end of west texas, visit his folks, and i was going to fly overseas with my already-purchased ticket out of houston. he was going to drive the subaru to NYC and fly out from there two weeks later.
we fought in albuquerque, accompanied by a bottle of jagermeister (a fucking odious liquid i will hopefully never drink again) and i woke up from my drunken stupor to find everything gone. him, the car, the fucking snake, the stereo, my debit card. he left my cats, my bicycle, and my clothes. that was the day i started smoking again.
we were staying at the starlite motel, on route 66, near an overpass. it was a skunky part of albuquerque. it was in walking distance to both UNM and the forbiddingly boarded-up 'downtown'. everything was orange. everything was dusty. it was hot and the world was fucking completely different. i didn't know what to think. i remember a bum telling me i had skinny legs. i went to the library and shivered in the air-conditioning. i bought a cannister of sun-maid raisins from a convenience store. the hotel manager banged on my door and let me know that we couldn't fight like that again. i let him know 'he' was gone and the manager walked off and i listened to his footsteps retreat and then i bawled and i remembered how horrible camel filters taste.
i flew back to anchorage the next day. i had changed my flight from prague to berlin, because this was in the days when one could do that, over the phone... my father told me to come home. "you need to be around people who love you" he said. i was too dazed at the time to truly appreciate that...
and i returned to alaska with my tail between my fucking legs. i filed for "divorce with an absentee spouse", my name and his for all to see in the anchorage daily news for 4 consecutive weeks; i heard from the grapevine that he actually went overseas, but he didn't contact me at all until 4 years later... i stood in front of the judge with my fucking wonderful dad on the benches behind me and i calmly agreed to a divorce. my dad took me to lunch afterwards. we went to that awesome place on 74th and sand lake (?) -near kincaid- that i can't remember the name of... the food was sublime. "are you okay?" asked my father. "yes" i said emphatically, my mouth full.
*
i've moved on with my life. i've been remarried and redivorced. there's 13 years of ridiculously turgid shit crammed into that span, to the point where i, with my propensity for drama and pathos and what-the-fuck, am almost craving a placid existence. i have lived. that statement is not meant as resignation, but as utter fucking gratitude.
*
but in the back of my mind, i never had resolution from Bullshit '98. i never had closure. the last thing i remember is not pleasant. the next-last thing i remember is even worse. this gaping-thing from 1998 has occluded way too fucking much in my life over the last many years, probably even things i haven't acknowledged. i know, lucidly, as an adult regarding the child-me, that there is a lot i'm not nearly as accountable for as my heart still claims. the 'adult' me wants to shake the fucking SHIT out of my 19-year-old stunted self and brutally chastise me to GET THE FUCK OVER IT, HE'S A PIECE OF SHIT, MOVE ON. but... i needed closure. i cannot state it any plainer. and when, after 13 years, he shitfaced to the point of entire-sentences-slurring, me on the other end saying "i can't understand you" whilst doing something *adults* do, like watering my plants... he offhandedly invited me to austin for a concert.
"when?"
"the 16th."
"what day is that?"
"uhhh... a wednesday."
"i can do that. you want me to come down?"
"sure."
"okay."
and i bought the ticket the next day. i finagled coverage for both jobs. i got k to watch my beasts. and i thought, finally. he's a dithering sociopathic drunk, still, made more obvious and pathetic by time, but i'm not. i'm not, when it's all said and done, a fuck-up. i do moronic things, opine inane shit, and can be a complete fucking bitch when i take people for granted enough that they'll tolerate my non-salubriousness... but, i think, i don't instigate the need in people to wince. i fucking sincerely hope i don't.
i had this vision of us talking politely in a pub. discussing the past 13 years. he's older and i;m actually of age, so we'd have the adult thing to bond over. it wouldn't be a rehash of blame, it would be a "this is who i am now." that's what i was looking for.
*
two nightmares in the last week about him later, i changed my mind. and i realized that i couldn;t respectably tell this situation to anyone who truly knew me without prefacing it with "but you know, i know what i'm doing..." disclaimers. and i realized that i, since 2002, hadn't really talked to b when he wasn't shitfaced, and the one time i did i was unreasonably happy, because, you know, he wasn't shitfaced, and that must mean he values our conversations, because, yeah. and i remembered that i have a fucking awesome life in seattle already, full of people who are kind and loving and patient enough with me to allow my illogical retreads and circular solliloquys.
i called expedia about my non-refundable ticket on friday; i realized it was sxsw and i was fucked for possible hotel rooms should i choose to just go and finally experience texas, ex be damned; and by friday night i decided that come the morrow i would just tell him i wasn't coming.
saturday am: on my facebook page for all my truly good friends to see: "you are the queen of fucking things up. why stop now?"
i don't need that. i fucking despise people who do things like that. what the fuck is wrong with someone who does something like that? alls i can say is: i am personally responsible for him having a vasectomy in 1997, so YOU'RE WELCOME.
*
delete!
*
and i'm not going to austin.
and i must offer a repetitive, but this time fucking truly SINCERE, thank you for all the people in my life who have cared about me over the years and dealt with me dealing with that. may i never learn firsthand the depths of your frustration. but i am so fucking grateful for you.
*
it takes a long fucking time for things to sink in. see the first paragraph of this post and please do not condemn me too much.
last week the sun was out. this is me now, living my awesome life, fuck yeah.

thanks for reading.

life happens!

i am happy, verging on disbelieving. i shrieked giddily on the sidewalk last night in an otherwise quiet residential neighborhood. "this hasn't happened to me in so long!" i laughed. k was laughing too. "you deserve it, dude" she said.
who knows? i just like being reminded of how easy it is to feel jubilant. maybe that's all i need: that first rush has the potential to sustain me.
*
it made my convoluted dream last night make sense...
we're at a family get-together/open house affair. a bunch of older people who i am only vaguely familiar with are milling about with plastic cups and khaki pants. he starts to grope me in a back room. it's not because he's feeling lusty and impatient; it's because he's a callous moron with no respect for the situation. he is showing off. "this is my family" i hiss. "we can't do it here." he starts whining. "just for a second" he says and pushes my head down. in reality as well as in my dreams, his tunnel vision degrades me. his penis is green and slimy and ice-cold. my head barely touches it and i violently gag. "NO" i say and jump up. a female relative comes into the room. he's on the floor with his pants down. "oh!" she gasps. "i am so sorry" i tell her, and i leave the room.
there is a small parking lot surrounded by a picket fence. i go outside and get into my car. i sit there for a second, looking through my windsheild at a quiet field. it starts to snow. it's serene and beautiful and i feel very fucking calm. i think: i don't have to put up with shit. life's too short and there are too many quality humans in the world. i'm going to be fine.
*
i wake up in a really good mood.
*
i came to where i am currently typing this with the express intent of syncing my phone, but i forgot the cord! silly wench! it is nearly summery today. i am in a t-shirt. a guy and his grandfather shared my table. "i have the better view" said the grandfather in a gravelly voice as he sat across from me. "get to look at a pretty girl." the grandson, who was about my age, smiled at me rather abashedly. "everyone loves a compliment" the grandfather said. there is something strangely endearing about a harmlessly randy old man.
*
as well as being fat tuesday, today is international women's day. what kind of a fucking stupid condescending non-holiday is that?

la nuit du jour

cab drivers in seattle are so randy! they all compliment my hair and ask me if i have a boyfriend. "where is your man?" they inquire. is there a good answer to that? in the past I have made an obstreperous remark; giggled inanely; blinked back tears whilst staring unlovably out the taxi window... tonight I laughed and said "oh, he's around somewhere." i feel jaunty and good. life is fun. life is as interesting as i want it to be. bravery, indifference, who cares? things work out.
the pendulum swings upward.
*
for those who have made me really, really happy in the past week, and who have reminded me that I have a very pleasurable life here in Seattle: thank you and I value you and I feel so lucky to be part of your world.
*
enough with the treacle.
in my head: hot chocolate "every 1's a winner." dreadful, I know. but so sprightly!

on my way to where i am currently typing this part, i passed this.

i've been pontificating in my head for the past week- i've looked forward to tonight, for a chance to write.
a new venue, a booth to myself- this place is packed. i am surrounded by people living their lives. i could never live rurally. i am placated by being alone in populated places.
i was reading earlier about a father-son forclosure business in tampa, florida (the book's name eludes me). he talks about how he walks into these places that have been hastily vacated- humid clime, funky smell, splotches of mold on the walls, remnants left behind: sofas, baby clothes, a copy of 'the white album', crappy paperbacks, mail from collection agencies... how can you not look at the evidence, however deemed 'leave-behind-able', of another person's life and not empathize?
*
they're playing architecture in helsinki- 'heart it races.' i saw them do this live. we were drinking rum-and-something from a plastic bottle in his pocket. we kissed, our first kiss, against the stage. he went outside to smoke. i followed him and was not allowed back inside the showbox because i was shitfaced. that was a few years ago. i remember apologizing to the bouncer for my condition. i think of that whenever i hear this band....
another proud moment.
*
what would my life look like? after i was physically gone? from my lair in which i've lived for the past 5 years? thumbtack holes. pine cat litter shrapnel against the walls. grubby refrigerator handle. a lingering smell of nag champa. a shoddily painted railing. a picture of harold and maude taped to the oven hood.
the people investigating the space would surmise: i was somewhat careless and sloppy. i had beasts. i was probably a female with an annoying need to model my existence after ruth gordon, and i had dirty hands.
i really, really like my place. it has a good feel to it, always has. i know no one has died there. including, so far, me.
*
yeah.
*
now they're playing portishead.
*
i feel so awkwardly vague right now... i want to yell about what is actually going on, what is actually a really big deal, but i can't yet.
what other non-issue can i drone on about instead?
*
vegas!
this is the *suite* i had at the luxor. it surely was a fuckup! it was larger than my lair! it had two televisions (with tasteful channels like e! that i watched a shameful amount of), a jacuzzi, a bar, a sitting area, a bed that was so large and decadent that i slept across it sideways... whatever glitch caused this, i am grateful, despite the surly expression on my face. i think this was right after i saw the old woman in the casino downstairs with the oxygen tank beside her at the slot machine.

in the lobby of the bellagio is a swavorski (?) crystal-covered horse, below a chihuly-miasma of lurid jellyfish. it's very pretty.
this is the horse's anus.

there is an outside world to las vegas... actual air and sunlight. it is easy to forget.

this was taken last month, but it serves as a pleasant reminder of what i come back for.

what the fuck?

i'm losing my fucking mind.
*
after i got off the phone the other night i wrote this down, realizing after that it's an inadvertant haiku:
etched on my tombstone:
for undeserving people,
i do insane things.
*

firstly: i obviously haven't written much lately. this is the first time in a long while that i've let an entire month slide by- granted, it's a short month. i've been busy, i've been distracted, i've been discombobulated, the thoughts i have are too tedious/nefarious to publicize... i've been writing a lot of it in a notebook, i'll put it that way.
i went to vegas for the veterinary conference. after my first 24 hrs of scurrility and abhorrence of my species, i yanked the burr from my ass and had a fucking great time. vegas is a blast if you don't take it seriously. if you resign yourself to hedonism and smelling like other people's cigarettes and seeing underpaid wenches gyrating and adults in sweatpants in public (hereafter known as AISIP) and paying $10 for a crappy gin and tonic... it's fun. i stayed just long enough. 72hrs in vegas is my limit before i start to markedly devolve.
among (many) other things, we went to a drag show. we sweet-talked the usher and got a table right next to the stage.
it's cher! really!

at the end one of the performers came out in full regalia:

and proceeded to sit down at a vanity and remove all her makeup while singing a very somber rendition of "what makes a man." it was AWESOME.

*
being back in seattle has been a blur. clarity is a bitch. some things are so lucid- i've been dealing with the "what the FUCK? what was i thinking?" mindset about a lot of things lately... and i'm doing a lot of things that i consider, were i to be regarding myself detachedly, a bit deranged. i know why i'm doing them, but i cannot help but feel personally critical. as k said today: "i know you are, but please be careful."

the sky was lurid today- windy, then sideways rain, then bright sunshine, then hail.

when it hailed, everyone in the ballard smoke shop and cafe paused their midday drinking to comment and stare out the window. it was comforting to witness.

i took this today whilst unwittingly blocking the sidewalk for the guy behind me. i smiled and apologized. he smiled in a way that made me know i was forgiven. i love seattle.

entropy loving the audio link of allogach.

that story is for later, when i possibly switch from tea to something harsher.
*
from my journal, 2/28/11: "love makes me fearless and invincible and safe. those are lofty attributes to attach to something that i have absolutely no say of or control over."