mere fucking = mental infibulation

i can count on one hand the people i know, or have known, that pass the 'daylight test': with whom i get along equally well, if not more so, whilst sober and sunlit. with whom i greatly prefer to be sober and sunlit with, actually. one person is s. the other is my ex. and that should be enough, if i weren't so hellbent on sabotaging my sense of self-respect on slurry slutty shenanigans that leave me ashamed and disgusted the next day, if i didn't find myself feeling guilty and apologetic for my stupid behavior, if i didn't feel so fucking shitty for, however inadvertantly, leading somebody on. my being staggery-drunk is no fucking excuse; when a mouth comes at me, i don't need to fucking kiss it, especially if i don't want to. i am under no fucking obligation. and if i walk away feeling like a three-dollar whore, well, i deserve to.
i turn into the most loathsome prick-tease when i drink; that is, when i'm not loudly amused by my own wit, or sniveling into my vodka, or confessing things i don't recall later. i fucking know better. and my embarrassment now is compounded by resentment that somehow, in a better world, those around me would know better also: they would have the self-worth to say "yuck, this is definitely not worth it. i know she's not interested. she's just a flaky twat who can't hold her liquor and who thrives on hypocricy. why would i take advantage of a gap in our judgements?"
thank fucking god i at least have the sentience to keep my legs together. thank god i am inherently prudish. or protective. or as t is fond of saying, "once you listen to led zeppelin you can never go back to poison."
in less titillating news: 'colour me kubrick' is, on the whole, a rather annoying movie. canned saag mateer is actually quite tasty. sixteen horsepower is good driving music. the darkened streets of newcastle would be prime spots to dispose of a body. and when t said "ooh, the band you got me into" and put savoy brown into the hi-fi and i said "yeah, this is my fucking cd" and 'tell mama' came on, i had to turn quickly towards the window so i wouldn't start crying at how sad it is when the most familiar things change so utterly. those moments i might, in a better mood, consider *poignant* and *life-affirming* are currently just depressing as shit.

focus, wench, focus!

god, it is good to be back.
*
the trees are, as they say, a riot of color- apart from the ones with the floofy white flowers, glowing in the sun. work was fun, slow, too much caffeine, large dogs vomiting intractably, cats in heart failure, the tiny pug named peanut with pneumonia, the next 4 days off. my neighbors planted crocuses (croci?) on the hill behind the building, magenta obelisks surrounded by wintry dead things. and i am unshowered, wearing a cat-hair-covered sweater and too much frankincense oil, at the subdued and light-filled library, feeling very fucking content. i had brought 3 cds with me to alaska, not realizing that the rental was radio only (as previously stated; and, apart from the alice cooper show playing MOTHERFUCKING KING CRIMSON!!! the playlists in anchorage suck. badly. i heard 'run to the hills' multiple times- iron maiden is great, but not every time i turn on the hi-fi, and not when sandwiched 'twixt the likes of 'takin care of business' and 'crocodile rock.') and after being declined permission to play nektar in s's car (which i'd expected; she always hated nektar) i blared it last night on the way home from tacoma. 'desolation valley' warms my cockles. i drove around the curve of 1-5 and the seattle skyline came into view and i thought 'yes, this is where i am supposed to be.'
i miss the w clan like mad. i had forgotten how goddamn nice it is to have an actual friend, someone who knows my crap and tolerates me anyhow. i don't miss anything else about anchorage whatsoever. after 24 hrs i had seen enough. it would probably be different if i'd returned in, say, june. or if i hadn't been reacquainted with the bullshit/gossip/incest/aimlessness/same stories 6 years later-ness. or if i didn't have a pretty good thing going here. but i digress. it was really fucking wonderful to be there. overall.
and peggy's has the greatest fries i've had in i don't even know how long! bloody hell! they were fucking fantastic!

there are no questions about your own life that you don't already know the answers to

i feel melancholy and a bit homesick now. today was beautiful: clear, sunny, warm enough to create huge puddles out of the snow. we drove to girdwood. en route i stood along the arm and smoked in the wind. the ice floes were moving quickly, soundlessly; the mountaintops were encased in mist. i will never get over how fucking gorgeous this place is. the kids slept the entire way, their fingers glued together with condiments, deceptively calm. they are all getting colds, leaking grotesque amounts of chartreuse snot, snoring endearingly.
the mormon church along the highway was engulfed with flames. firefighters were stationed on huge cranes, directing multiple hoses, the dark smoke contrasting rudely with the blue sky. the cause is still under investigation. the roof was completely gone.
i used the loo (and had stellar vanilla tea) at the brayton kaladi's. larger, yuppier, still smells of burnt coffee. the parking lot is still filled with potholes. i spent so much fucking time there when i was a teenager. coffee was $1; we would make a horrid mess at the upstairs counter, turning our drinks into sludgy powdery pastes, then take up space at the tables for hours, loudly playing cards. when i was seventeen i showed off my freshly pierced nipples in the upstairs bathroom. it is at times validating and mortal to be in a town composed nearly exclusively of memories, though the same can be said of pretty much anywhere, really. everything apart from RIGHTNOWTHISSECOND is a memory. and then we die.
s' s husband likes his meet raw. he gave the girls small hunks of his steak. the youngest gummed her piece, blood dripping from her chin, grinning angelically; when i pried the remains out of her hand she smeared spitty steak on my jeans. ("you're a vegetarian?" her husband asked last night, not trying to disguise his horror. "yeah" i replied abashedly. "i figured that wouldn't fly very well in alaska."). afterwards the w clan and i went to noble's. the three girls en masse have only ever been to denny's, and once. they threw an absolute fit once we were inside the restaurant. it was surreal, horrible, and more empathy-inducing than anything else i will possibly experience whilst in anchorage. s is an amazing fucking mother. i have so much respect for her, and for anyone who has ever raised a child. and despite these instances of absolute and utter demonic chaos, i love these kids. we walked back to their house in bright evening sun. it was fucking cold. the oldest held my hand. we walked around piles of dirty littered diapers in an alley, past crappy cars commandeered by glowering shifty men detroit leanin', past a young boy in only a t-shirt riding his bike alone down the middle of the icy street. i could not help but compare this life to mine. parenthood is a choice. i no longer feel quite as flaky to opt for weird cats and too many plants and "it's one in the morning i think i'll go drive around aimlessly whilst high la la la". or rather, i still feel terribly flaky, but very fucking lucky too.
my parent's old house looks exactly the same, apart from somebody else's vehicles parked in front. the snow along the sides of the roads is brown and filthy. i clean my windsheild every few blocks. the rental car has only radio; the last song i heard before i turned off the engine was motley crue's 'kickstart my heart.' produce is expensive. petrol is cheap. i remember why i drank a lot whilst living here. i love being around s and i love the mountains and i love how the air here doesn't feel like it's already been exhaled by a million other people, but i miss seattle. so this trip has been a good thing after all. it is nice to look for something (in this case, clarity?) and actually find it.

home, day 1

i am in anchorage. nothing has changed. it feels right. people are so much friendlier, more open. i got hugs from people i haven't seen in 5 years. they remembered me. i almost cried when descending into the grey. the trees are so much shorter, the colors so much more subdued. and darwin's smelled the same. i bought photographs from a smiling older man who complimented my chipped nail polish. the train took forever to cross spenard. the mckay building is now minty green and respectable. nothing changes. and i fucking love that.
her kids are calling me 'auntie brynn.' they are cool as hell, articulate and saucy, charming, making me feel honored with their attention. i think about having a 2 year old of my own. stop that tangent before it becomes too painful. think about the sunlight flooding my farcical seattle lair this morning, my breath visible through damp downtown streets scented of bacon and ambition. think about that. think about too many cups of tea, foreign languages babbling into cell phones, the stylized graffitti along the bus route, the glossy appearance of anything from afar. trading the woman beside me on the plane my hot nasty sausage-thing for her skittles. multiple sudoku puzzles. snow falling like an afterthought. the upstairs window of the i am house. 7-month-old drooly fists pulling my hair. and through all of it, feeling that strange tenuous flux between crying and hopping around elatedly. this is exactly what i wanted. and yes, anchorage is very fucking small, smaller than i expected.

the storm before the calm

just had the holy shit scared out of me. upon procuring cigarettes at the friendly plaid pantry i realized that my fucking driver's license was missing. i am supposed to be on a plane in 14 hours and driving a rental car in 17, not to mention my vehicle idling in the parking lot. the last place i recall using my id was the online coffee joint on saturday. i drove there in a fucking panic, through almost-snow (yes, it is currently trying to snow in seattle, on the first day of spring), trying to imagine how i would manage any of this without an id. i walked in and the girl at the counter greeted me with "hey, you left your id here." i very nearly kissed her. instead i started laughing and babbling about how she "saved my ass" and all sorts of other inarticulate things. "i have to be on a plane tomorrow and i got off work early and there's no way i would have made it up here in time otherwise and i just realized it was missing" i gushed idiotically. she smiled politely and made me some tea.
"here today, gone tomorrow, so don't get attached to things," as maude said.
my pulse is still racing. oh yes, and i started my period. again. i am probably anemic from the fucking iud. and i rudely boxed an suv in whilst parking here. but i have my id, and currently that is all that matters.
work was gruesomely slow, hence the early departure. we were overstaffed; i was a specialist tech with no specialist procedures. there was a splint change and a csf tap; after that it was myself and a bunch of similarly frenetic techs, all hopped up on sugar and singing along to ac/dc. my neighbors will be checking on the beasts in my absence. it will be hard to leave them. it is rather hard to leave in general. perhaps i am slightly agoraphobic, or overly appreciative of my own space, or both. coming home tonight through dusky crappy weather, the city glowing ethereally, the lair warm and quiet with that familiar my-house smell, the plants sillouheted against the lights outside, i felt similar to holding someone close and knowing i never would again. so i left. romanticism, be it of objects or people, makes me depressed and uncomfortable.
*
that said, i miss him. the champagne is not yet drunk. time and schedules have not yet allowed. i fretted for the last few days over taking him up on his offer to watch the cats. in the end, obviously, i declined. i don't want that hanging over me while i'm back in my old turf, pretending to be frivolous and free. this is admittedly immature. i remind myself that i am under no obligations. instincts are always correct. i hope.
i am terrified that anchorage will be a gloomy clusterfuck, that i will not be able to relate to her at all, that i will be freezing cold and wanting to leave, that nothing will have changed. and i am equally terrified that everything will be so fucking amazing that i will never want to go, and yet i'll have to, and the entire experience will illustrate how vapid my seattle existence really is. hopefully i am incorrect on both accounts and i can expect 4 days of nothin' special.
what i really need to do is get out of my fucking head. i have the ability to fuck this all up monumentally if i so desire, purely by neurosis.

hiding the welfare check under the work boots

the shit weather usurped my good will for several consecutive hours. i drove through the sloppy grey indifferent to the hi-fi. stopped at the obscenely bourgeois whole foods in bellevue, which is always fun because i feel like a skanky ruffian among the earnest white patrons. it sort of snapped me out of my snit. the rain was soft and summery and the sun broke through the clouds, and immediately everything was gelatinous and dreamy, and i actually blew a kiss at the sky.
yesterday i was waiting to cross the street at 1st and pike when i noticed two freshly dead pigeons in the middle of the road. a car ran directly over one of them. blood and feathers went everywhere. the other people standing with me made a communal "ohhh" sound. the other cars took pains to swerve around the carrion. there was something both depressing and uplifting about the entire scene. in anchorage, every spring, a few reckless ducks would take their brood across minnesota parkway by the lagoon. cars would routinely back up for blocks to allow them to cross. i always appreciated that.
i will be there in five days. four and a half, actually. it is an odd thought, like revisiting your elementary school and being horrified at how small the toilets are.
and here, everything is exactly the same and yet completely fucking different, and the shape of the universe snaps from infinite to the outline of our bodies, and i only doubt myself when i think about how fucking stupid and absurd and hypocritical and REDUNDANT this is, so enough already. which end is up? i am certainly not the one to know. ever.
i only feel truly sane when i am utterly alone.

not realizing how numb i was until i... wasn't

things are good. weirdly so. i must shake the unease that always accompanies beatitude.
*
there is a bottle of dom perignon in my refrigerator, next to the grapes and the generic salsa and generic thousand island dressing and vegan cheese. it will be opened tomorrow. it is chilling now, waiting. i have never had dom perignon. he bought it the other night; the guy in front of him in line was "gay as a three dollar bill" and said something like "oh, special evening planned?" and then, saucily, "have fun." this delighted me when he related it. it was all he bought. "you bought dom perignon and missed the opportunity to throw in a bag of cheese curls or pork rinds?" i asked, aghast. seriously: isn't this a once-in-a-lifetime thing? it came in a very nice lined box with a pornographically written multilingual booklet.
today is stultifyingly grey. i am content and lazy. awesome discovery: dr. dog. listen to them. they are reminiscent of the pretty things + early bowie. "die die die" is an especially hot and fucked-up song. 'i don't want to die in your arms/i just want to die...' where were these guys when i was fourteen and ambiguously anguished?
went to the twilight exit last night. i had been there once before with j, at the bar. this time i sat at a table in the cold corner. the place has such a sleazy and foreboding air. the walls are blood-red, the lights lurid '70's multicolored globes. the bar area was filled: the stool-fellingly-drunk guy in the misfits jacket, the old man falling asleep, the obese woman with the distractingly small spandex shorts, the ancient gentleman in the tuxedo stumbling from patron to patron offering to perform magic tricks. eminem was blaring. the bathroom is bright pink with a polynesian mural. someone had written a lecture about proper grammar ('don't write Y for WHY. what the fuck is Y?') in black marker all over the door. i only had half of my drink. he had a rusty nail ("you got me into these" he said). it was someone's birthday; everyone at the bar did a shot. a shitfaced woman sitting alone defiantly lit a cigarette and smoked the entire thing before the bartender kicked her out.
every time i go anyplace i should write a description, no matter how mundane. thus: i am currently at the library... wet and dreary outside. a man with a red windbreaker and a miserable expression is huddled against the building, waiting for a bus, hugging himself. i am the only caucasian using a computer. a group of girls sits at the bus shelter across the street, all in hooded sweatshirts and baggy jeans, presumably fresh from the mall. the guy with the shaved head and goatee, paint splatters on his clothes, nice arms, staring at me when i look up. how creepy that i am looking up to acquire more fodder for his description. now i feel self-conscious. thus i shall stop writing now.

the saccharine narcissist's pep rally

i have just worked 45 hours within the last 92. tonight was particularly insane. there is still dried dog blood on my arm and under my nails. nearly everything that required the most care died. 'lay lady lay' played on the way home. i am hyperactive and exhausted simultaneously. i will eventually stumble home, take a blazing hot shower, sprawl naked on clean sheets and read a trashy magazine. the prospect of this is practically orgasmic right now.
i am now left alone with my thoughts for 4 days. and i am beginning to stress about having t in my life at all. it feels as if no time has passed, no ugliness, but this is a rhythm i recognize. the past has repeatedly proved that everything with us in any capacity eventually curdles. why: there is a husband-wife familiarity and expectation no matter what. and i still feel that icky pang of defensiveness regarding pretty much everything. i have other friends now. i smoke pot from time to time. i don't want him or anyone around all the time. i want to keep my options open. i don't want to ever feel like i have to fucking explain my benign silly little life to anyone EVER AGAIN. how much of this neurotic claptrap is entirely of my own doing? that is the question that continually leads me back to him- the part of me that goes 'it must just be me, and i should do better.'...except that the last year + immediately counters that notion with 'fuck it. you are who you are and needn't justify a fucking goddamn thing.'
i am free now. i must not forget that.
there has been an eerie lightness over the last few days, both pleasantly surreal and guilt-inducing. i miss helix like mad but am now aware of how sick he really was, and for how long. the other cats meet me at the door clamoring for food, which they then eat with gnashing fervor; afterwards they don't puke or piss on the carpet, and in the morning they are hyperactive and playing. when helix was alive i forgot what normal was supposed to be. i am ashamed to admit this, but i am relieved that he is no longer suffering. i am relieved that he is gone.
and the divorce thing: i think about it and feel so fucking happy. i have no fucking ties to anyone. should i feel badly about this? will i?
driving home tonight i felt pretty fucking competent. i have mushed together a rather okay life for myself.
and that saturday nights song is absolutely brilliant.

higher ground

we made a glorious mockery of divorce. talked in the hallway, him in a suit, me in 4" heels ("you got new whore boots?" he asked admiringly; i forget who started calling such shoes this first), thereby missing our names being called. returned to the back row of the courtroom, making rude jokes about the decidedly more white-trash company, feeling sad for the woman who'd been seperated since 1989 and whose husband was somewhere in mexico, or the woman with crunchy bleached hair whose husband was in jail ("make sure you let him know he's divorced" the judge said gently), both of us alternately snickering and crying and his hand on my knee, talking about how nervous we both were, and how sorry, and him saying "it's just a piece of paper." "well, marriage didn't work" i said. "maybe everything else will." "while you're still my wife-" he said, and kissed me. i wonder if we are the first couple who were kissing prior to getting divorced. i am rather proud of that. we ended up being last. the judge was a kindly older woman with white hair. the whole thing took about five minutes. "this is how it should be done" she said several times. "thank you for both being here."
we left with our arms around each other. "that was kind of anticlimactic" i said. then we got into his car and went to the spar. i hadn;t been in downtown olympia in about a year. i had cringingly sweet tea, he had grilled cheese and a coke. and we bullshat, as friends do, as friends who have been through every conceivable life-fuckery together do. on the way back to pick up my car he said "we need a new song. the first song that comes on:" it was 'suite judy blue eyes' by csn. and it fit very nicely. the trees lining the road were covered with blossoms. the sky was dim. and it felt like we were as we always were, but better, easier, sexier, freer, in our old turf- and with the world wide open and fresh for the first fucking time.
i am no longer married.
and i feel really, really fucking good about him, and us, and everything. i feel calmer than i have in a very long while.

on the eve of the wide open new

i just read 'running with scissors' in one sitting. it took 2.5 hrs. the sky was light and the wind was blowing rain sideways when i entered the bookstore. i sat in a horribly uncomfortable chair in the upstairs area, one of my secret little nooks in this fair city, and when i left the sky was pitch black. the lavatory at elliott bay is rather sinister: exposed brick, tanks suspended several feet above the toilets, the pipes making a panting sound. the light by the blurry mirror has the dim quality of an old trailer. my eyes looked like i'd been crying.
tonight is a somber one. i feel completely fucking alone here, simultaneously recoiling from the options i have for possible company. i get giddy about revisiting anchorage but also know that it will only depress me further: the sobering sameness on one hand, the things i wish were the same utterly altered on the other. one can never go home again. but this doesn't fucking feel like home either. i don't know what would, or what ever has.
i feel like a fucking island.
the divorce is finalized tomorrow. this is just another fucking death in a week of fucking death. to admit how much more fucking cynical and devastated i am, especially in legal, public terms, is so GODDAMN TRAGIC. i want to trust simply and wholly again. i don't want to slog through friends who just want me around when they need something, be it my sympathy or covering a shift at work or a pity fuck. but the years pass, everyone gets older, and everyone else gets progressively more disillusioned too. jesus christ, this is so fucking depressing.
one thing that will always stick with me about t: he hated it when i called it 'fucking.' 'it should only ever be making love' he would say. early in the relationship i would roll my eyes at what i percieved to be his prudishness. and maybe it is. but it sets a damn good precedent. if only it was a likely standard to obtain. in a completely fucked up way, perhaps he was my last chance. and these are the thoughts that sadden me now. i know better, i really do. but i didn't marry him at one point in my life because i thought he was a dickhead. i honestly believed that it was the best decision i could have made. and it wasn't. and i am fucking pissed off and disgusted and hurt and every other nasty black emotion about it, and i particularly hate being reminded of all these fucked feelings afresh after months of not contemplating much about it at all.
...the freshness is the worst part. i thought this was a done deal.
once loved, always loved... even if i can't stand them.
the book was good overall. parts of it were a bit trite. i had already read the 'expose' in vanity fair about the falsehoods and discrepancies, blah blah blah, but if regarded liberally, yeah. and my favorite line in the book, one of those things you read at precisely the right time: "before was only there so after could happen."
and thinking about that, everything else i just wrote seems a lot simpler, a lot more optimistic, and almost hovers on a sliver of sense.
and while i was inside for those many hours, it stopped raining.

the morning after

i'm going to anchorage!
YAY!
it is so fucking nice to have something to look forward to, or distract from, or what have you.
occasionally one must make their own silver linings, or something.
lengthier entry to follow.
that almost sounded subversive. god, i wish.

helix 1998-2007

he was there, and then he wasn't. it happened so fast. and when i returned to seattle the moon was just rising, huge and orange and shrouded with cirrus clouds.

and 'pure' rhymes with 'sure', as either "assurance" or "sure full of shit"?

this last week is one i am already regarding with "ooh, some crazy shit" sentiment. working frantically and constantly. soul-crushing cramps that allowed me to go home early today (with the caveat that i pick up yet another fucking shift); i drove in lazy evening sunshine, the window down, supertramp's 'dreamer' blaring (and remembering dancing naked in my various lairs many times to that song). helix doing horribly. knowing that i must conjure the kindness and mercy to let him go tomorrow. i have been coming to terms with this for the last ten months. he has been with me through every crappy post-bob apartment, through every weird relationship, through interstate moves. he endured sarah and charlie, b-mac and his bong hits, the stray cats i would bring home, the three months with my parents while i dilly-dallied around europe. he was my radar for potentially unsavory menfolk- the ones he liked got to stay in my life a little longer. he tolerated tiresias beating the crap out of him, hecatomb hating him, the various reptiles and rodents, incense oversaturation. he tolerated me. i have had him since i was fucking nineteen years old. i wince at the cliche, but this is breaking my fucking heart.
it is incredibly nice to have an unexpected evening free. it is a warm and gentle night. flowers are blooming. the air smells of growth. a man hanging out of his upstairs window called "hey, how you doing?" as i walked underneath, and i happily answered, feeling that sultry summer vibe for the first time in a long while. knowing that things are going to be Just Fine. i may have even said that aloud, shoes clattering on the darkened residential street: "it's going to be okay." i immediately corrected myself: "things already are." the word 'pure' resonated for another block. i made a promise after leaving t last january: it is better to be alone than lonely. expectations are sodomy for the soul. i would no longer put up with bullshit. i would listen to and act on my instincts. me against the world, but in a cool, comfortable way.
i sound like a fucking stoner. fact: i never write in this when i am altered. i mortify myself handily whilst sober.

the catbird seat!

it was very therapeutic to hang out with j again. it had been a while, work schedules and whatnot. we watched 'stranger than fiction', which i liked a lot more than i thought i would. (his other netflix was a terry gilliam movie, "the most fucked up thing" he'd ever seen... highlands? tideflats? something from 2005...) his beagle hogged the sofa. the frank zappa poster glowed in the reflection from the television. it was mellow, wonderfully mellow.
i found asunder dead in his cage this morning. "good morning!" i singsonged, picking him up... and he was stiff and contorted. i spoke the lord's name and dropped him. it was inevitable. he didn't eat when i fed him two days ago. now that i am over $300 into the hospitalization/medication/setup debacle, it is only reasonable that i procure another snake quite soon. or create a kick-ass terrarium of hothouse flowers. that would be more emotionally soothing.
good things: (possibly repetitious, which only heightens their greatness)
-coconut pouchong tea from monorail espresso, which has one of the best logos ever! when i am downtown i always stop there. the people are disarmingly friendly and they have a surcharge if you are using your cell phone whilst placing your order.
-hot-sweet-salty mix from traveller's. it is crunchy greasy crack. it comes in a little plastic cup and can be eaten by placing your tongue inside and gathering crumbs (...so i've heard). it is a hedonistic, private, glorious delight.
-'a tab in the ocean' at 1 am, driving the viaduct through downtown seattle and smiling uncontrollably.
-finding a $20 bill in a parking lot, which i did.
-the very nice guy with multiple missing teeth who works graves at my favorite grocer. it is nice to be recognized and remembered in a big city.
-sleety raindrop patterns on the windsheild.
-the sound of wipers on the windsheild.
-the toilet/1st date scene in 'extras' riccocheting through my mind whilst attempting to pee at j's. the more you think about micturating, the more difficult it can be. perhaps this is just me? dead quiet house (telly on mute), me trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it all, then somehow compelled to announce the entire thought process once returning to the sofa. thankfully he laughed.
-the quiz section in the comics. every day i am reminded of how stupid i really am. today: what is the largest island in the pacific ocean? i guessed australia. sorry, dumbass, australia is a continent. the correct answer is new guinea.
-broadway news. still. i am a fucking fool.
-tertiary colors.
-clove oil.
-the print ad for a new movie which, unfortunately, stars sandra fucking bullock. the art is fucking cool.
-rediscovering the unparalleled joy of original flavor trident gum. the pieces are bigger than i remember. the mouthfeel is superb. i am aware that gum is for the uneducated tweaking miscreant.
-"i was just getting my 'swingin' doors' on."
-the tombs is 10 years old today. i just realized that the other thing is also 10 years ago today. unrecognizable. funny. weird. and my second frittering ends in 7 days. life is pretty cool. and that handily sums up my little list. i am smiling as i type this.

wha'ever

...another day when i am so fiercely self-protective, so fucking fed up with bullshit... and the songs on the hi-fi were wonderful, and i sang along, and north of 85th the snow was still present, and i stomped on slush with a girlish laugh under obscenely blue sky, and the world smells clean and full of promise, and everything is still going to be fucking beautiful, and i am still in a damn good mood.

making it happen

work was slow as hell. everyone was jacked up on sugar. it evolved into a fun day. even still, maniacally overcaffeinated, i am riding a rather indestructable wave of optimism. my horoscope, which i read despite myself, said only "buy now, regret later," so i am foolishly waiting until later in the week to spend money on frivolous things, albeit things that have been gestating in my fancies for many months.
foremost: alaska, $377 RT. the fare has not fluctuated in months. it will probably never be cheaper again, the bastards. i want a foray after the divorce is finalized. i was looking at the last weekends of march, my ideals dimmed by the fact that it will still be ovary-shatteringly cold at that point, but i need to go somewhere. i need to git. i want to tread those distressingly familiar streets and relish the fact that i no longer live there. one of the AEC doctors (the flirty one) is going up this weekend to help with the iditarod. "you want me to say hello to anyone?" he asked. we know a lot of the same doctors. it is a small fucking world, and within that microcosm is alaska. and i love that, though i may have despised it when i actually dwelt there. knowing that everyone had slept with everyone else (i thankfully dodged the herpes breakout of '01). buying cigarettes at the store with my 6th grade teacher in line behind me. sleeping on a sofa with a guy whom i had 8th grade english with after a drunken new year's 2000 party and seeing him later that same night at the fucking office lounge (and proceeding to actually cry into my drink because he acted like he didn't know me... this is funny now). running into my parent's friends whilst in compromising situations. i am reminded that the majority of my alaska memories and subsequent shames involve drugs, alcohol, and sex. perhaps that is why i moved, and why i shall visit with a pearlescent sheen of virgin godliness.
or a pearlescent sheen, anyhow.
there is a book at the odious chain bookstore that describes the greatest examples of roadside americana. i have already been to many of the ones in washington, such as the 'stonehenge' near the columbia river and 'the world's largest egg' in winlock. others weren't mentioned, like the teeny church on hwy 2 (where my former uncle once got married, apparently- the uncle who has lived out of his car with his wench and their baby for the last 2 years, both of them unemployed, the daughter having difficulty walking because of said lair). or the teapot petrol station-turned-boarded up-artifact near the tri-cities. or the right-wing crazy fuck with the propoganda-spewing billboard erected on his farmland near centralia. then the smaller, less-iconic but still beloved gems: the smiling radio-station sun near ocean shores. the neon plunger on aurora avenue. the hammering man statue drinking a beer in front of the blue moon tavern. the bardahl oil sign. the wonder bread sign. the pepsi symbol. murals painted on the sides of barns advertising fruit. not looking too closely at spokane and simply admiring the brickiness, then stopping at the diner with the stupid name i cannot currently recall, the one with the huge lurid revolving sign that pokes out above the cement corridors of i-90, and sitting in a semicircular green pleather booth with sunlight shining through venetian blinds in frigid air-conditioning and opting for an iced tea that leaves streaks of condensation on the formica as the pie case twirls and old people dig into discounted meals, central washington sunburn adhering to the cold seat, reading the local NickelSaver as i wait for my order to arrive...
'how soon is now' is playing (here, in seattle): the only smiths song that is not only non-repugnant, but downright awesome. i may even include this in the yet-unwritten account of the 20 sexiest songs ever.
i will not edit or reread this, likely to my detriment.

witany = a litany of wit

a serious flaw in my character: i am far too easily disillusioned. by everything. i am bored too quickly. hindsight leads to regret. thus i romanticize the past, rationalize the crappy bits, and blur the lucidity of the present.
this applies to many things. well, it currently applies to only a few things. i am absurdly content in much of my life, weirdly enough. reading about date rape under xmas lights. playing pool at a dive tavern in tacoma, interspersed with my drunken boss flirting with me and every other woman there ("he'd hit on a fucking corpse" another coworker commented today). calling the grassy yard in front of work "the pudding of the damned", off the cuff, due to the fecal mire resultant of the constant rain, and illiciting laughter. (elicit?) elo's 'can't get it out of my head' on the drive home, very loud, a truly great song that i hadn't heard in a long time.
the undercurrent of grey is still of the lyrical variety. i was thinking last night about sleeping with someone, waking up in the middle of the night, our faces monochrome, mumbling about our dreams or our paranoias or our love for one another, or possibly all of the above. having somebody there. and i thought of the two people i have ever been able to really achieve that with, and how it doesn;t seem possible to ever feel that way again. and i thought these things without a hint of wistfulness or yearning- more as a 'wow, that was really cool that i could experience those connections, isn't life varied' kind of way. and that is weird. isn't it?
everything is so much fucking simpler now. i am only just becoming accustomed to the concept of having myself alone to be responsible for.
a hag at the computer next to me is loudly braying into her cell phone to blind dates. "i like, i don't know, snowboarding... that's awesome..."
i am the anonymous wench with the hippie-scented sweater and floofy hair and crossed legs and quietly oblique expression. i am fidgeting with my hands and realizing that they smell like the air fresheners in the stairwell lavatory of the peace & love hostel in paris- like fake strawberries and old wood. i wish there was another person in the world who would know exactly what i mean. if only i could open my mouth and have a marvelous accent tumble out.

if you don't like it, don't read it

things are gelatinizing very very nicely. i feel calmly optimistic about the world.
in the midst of my serenity i received a drunken phone call that annoyed me. apparently he cannot communicate with me unless he is inebriated. the other day his voice expressed palpable surprise when he said "we had a really good time last night and we were sober." that pissed me off. i was immediately reminded of that same conversation in alaska, how every time we'd get together it was whilst carousing, how we'd discuss the anomaly of that over hungover breakfasts and agree to do better. but i could still talk with that guy. i am left with a brief paranoia that either 1. i am the sort of lass that one must be fucked up (chemically or emotionally or otherwise) to be around, or 2. i have a masochist-magnet, being a bit of one myself. aa talks about this. alcoholics have a fucking radar, the ability to sense similar tendencies in a crowd full of people. this must be why i always fall for such people, and why they always let me down. i wish we could be actual friends.
...but everything else is falling into place, temporarily, for once, so i am not too bothered by much of this at the moment.
the final divorce hearing is on the 9th of march. yesterday was another fucking reminder that it could always be so easy when we actually acted like adults. after the meeting with the court facilitator we lingered in the parking lot. we both cried a little, laughing as we did, the sun brilliant and cold. "i'm okay until i see you" he said. "and then... this whole thing..." "it just fucking sucks" i said. "yeah" he agreed, "that's the only way to put it. it fucking sucks." i felt yesterday that we could possibly be friends. someday. someday when it doesn;t hurt so fucking much, when the rare but incredibly good times aren't so fresh a memory, when i don't expect what i could never have.
i drove away with everything visually sharper. it was probably the sun. i use this word too frequently of late but it seems to suit the mood most efficiently: poignancy. i daresay this is my favorite emotion. it proves that one has given a shit.

flowers planted while the dirt's still hard

i was standing on a corner downtown, across from the library, next to a huge and austere building containing godawful chandeliers, when i texted him. as i sent it i recieved a message from him. i laughed out loud at the "okay, everything's gonna be just fine, life is magic around every turn"-edness of it all. a bedraggled man passed me and said hello with a smile. i grinned back widely, automatically.
i have a similarly symbiotic, if one can call it that, relationship with a woman at work. when she's having a bad day i am goofy and competent, and vice versa. we help each other. we even started having the same Cycle, which is eerie, since we never see one another extracurricularly. jokes have been made: "keep it together" i'll tell her. "i'm having a crappy day", or similar. it is therapeutic as fuck to have people like that around.
stumbled upon a book today, not literally (though i suppose it is literally, being a book... shut up): a compilation of secrets sent on postcards. i'd heard about it before, immediately going down my narcissistic litany of 'secrets', realizing that i cannot think of anything about me that at least one other person doesn't know. it is fucking amazing, in any event. i recommend a special sojourn to the 'cultural studies' section of your nearest odious chain bookseller. the cover looks like a binder with rubber bands around it.
while not 'secrets', there are shameful (and vengeful, and perverted, and pathetic, and self-loathing, and inflatedly self-congratulatory) thoughts.... shame is relative, though. notions i should probably be abased by, i am not. i have a lot of familial shit, i guess. i often wish i wasn't an only child so i would be able to regard my upbringing with greater clarity, have someone else to commisserate with, know that certain things existed because another person was there to witness.
it is quite rare that i can say, with assurance, that things are going to be okay. even now, as i believe it, i wonder what i am missing.

anointed, impure

are these too lofty, such expectations: a parallel between the words written and the words said? being told how much i'm adored whilst being treated like a fucking stranger? i was lounging lackadaisically in my xmas-lit lair, warm skin, listening to goddamn nina simone, feeling rather fucking groovy, and hung up the phone feeling very annoyed by the disparities. felt like a simpering moron, actually, brought back to earth after my little fandango among the stars. there is hell to pay for believing in false familiarity.
i still have the thought processes of an adolescent. currently typing in a cafe is the equivalent of sprawling on my bed and writing torturedly in my *diary*, horses on the cover optional, possibly in purple ink, tongue absentmindedly running over braces.
speaking of the worst years of my life!: found a used copy of the pixies 'bossanova', an album i'd not heard in many years, the cassette shredding from oversaturation and long lost. and i still remembered every fucking lyric, every percussion, every scathing-yet-ethereal backing vocal. this made me very happy. it is excellent driving music.
despite being cold as holy fuck outside, i am in a marvelous mood overall, actually.
holy. fuck. this is such a concise and offensive idiom, which i have never really considered until just now.