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.