ain't no sunshine

according to the lost poster, this cat "bites and swipes!" but his "momma loves him."

today, in the butcher's hill section of baltimore, an ~10year old boy yelled "fuck you, white girl!" at me. he was hanging from his knees on a jungle gym at the time, as kids do. my first reaction was to laugh, to admire his precocious opinions. but the fact that it was the second time in as many hours that i'd had that phrase, virtually verbatim, hollered in my general direction, made it a bit weirder.

i go through life with the naive idea that people are good. people are kind. when rudeness occurs, i blame myself for misinterpreting inocuous moments. when i feel annoyed, i consider it a personal flaw.

people are not always good or kind. people are fucking human. we are flawed, tactless, easily hurt, unwittingly caustic, deliberately cruel. and i shouldn't let it get to me. i should know better.

the sunset tonight was beautiful.

travelling=getting to watch 'goodfellas' on TV at 3am whilst laying atop copious hotel pillows

i woke in my small, less-luxe-than-anticipated room at the fucking sheraton, bleary and jet-lagged, thinking that the cats were screwing around with something. but the source of the noise, at 9am EDT on a saturday morning, 16 floors above the ground, was this:

a fucking window washer! and i hadn't closed my curtains! i hadn't felt it was neccessary... i'm on the 16th floor, god damn it! that, coupled with the noisy shenanigans outside my door at 3am and the placard in the lobby welcoming some fucking fraternity-sorority shindig (whose members were lounging around in hordes, falsely tanned and ballcapped), has made me rather disillusioned. bitch, bitch. i will complain about anything with enough sleeplessness.
i went to the conference today. several of the classes were awesome; one was awesomely dull. it was about 85 and sunny. i decided to leave before the last session and take a stroll. edgar allan poe's grave, at westminster chapel, is about 6 blocks from my hotel. people have put pennies along every ledge of his tombstone. i had no pennies, so i put a nickel in the R.

there is something odd about seeing your shadow cast over a gravesite.

parts of baltimore are gorgeous... like, "i could live here if x, y, and z were different." in other words, i don't know if i ever would live here, but it's lovely. the architecture is ancient and the trees are blooming. front steps abut the sidewalks. it feels like an actual fucking city, unlike the prissy placidity of seattle. and men are pleasantly lascivious here. i have been hit on more times in the past 12 hours than in the 7 years i have lived in the northwest. as a demographic sidenote: they were all non-caucasian, cheerily polite, and smiled widely. and i, dumb girl, smiled back. it is nice to be told i am beautiful and that "i should let my husband know someone thinks his girl is FINE."
little italy is especially picturesque. the streets were deserted, though. the only things open were restaurants with bored workers staring out the windows. and a lot of property is vacant here. a LOT.

it reminds me, almost, of new orleans.

empathetic soothsayer or gullible shit-magnet?

people have inherent radar. addicts find one another; the weak are drawn to the strong. i beckon jobless, unmotivated, overly intelligent flakes with mental issues. i always have. ever since high school, my mother used to call the men i was interested in "my little strays."
*
it's funny but painful. the more coherent and altogether i feel, the more fucked-up the situations i get myself into. i cannot settle for a mundane balance. if there is not preexisting drama i find ways to invent it. i like to take care of people, distract myself from my own bullshit, and not be bored. this is fucked up. i think i deserve better, but not always.
pipes along denny way, shining in the rare 70 degree sun:

the female loo at the five point. i finally got to see the men's toilet, with its space needle periscope- i almost stood in the trough-urinal. the women's facilities are, unfortunately, subpar. the quaint b&w tint belies the lurid green wall tile.

acid mothers temple are fucking good. they are 21st century can.

my parents found this photograph. my mother had these boots since the '70s. i always hoped i'd eventually be able to fit them; she wears a 9 or 10. i wear size 7. i have no recollection of ths picture being taken, but i used to dress up a lot.

true happiness comes from not giving a shit. but giving a shit proves you're alive...

honestly: i like him a hell of a lot. i don't even fucking care what happens, if it's reciprocal, if it's sensible... i am simply loving the feeling of wanting to know more. i love feeling 120% alive.

only women bleed

the last 24 hrs have been stressful.
layoffs at work. starting my period with a teeth-gritting vengeance. fretting over how i'm handling things with d, who i'm not sure i want to be more than friends with. he keeps dropping these facts about himself that are incredibly intriguing and yet definite deal-breakers. i still want the gentle tra-la hippie boy with good hygeine and excellent taste in music, who goes so slowly that i'm frantic, who wants to lay in a fucking field and talk about the goddamn clouds... not pontificate about some incoherent sci-fi storyline until i can feel my pupils glaze over and i am forced to smilingly say "you lost me a while ago."
i really don't need to be in a relationship. i have too much other shit to focus on- like school, like staying employed, like walking around and doing whatever pretentious introverted crap i please.
by writing this, i am trying to convince myself that i am not full of shit.
after the vocational shit-fannery, i drove north. north has always been my route of purgatory, but i find it more boring now that i don't smoke. i got off on hwy 312 (?), thinking "i've never been to lake stevens", and ended up in suburban hell, on anonymous roads lined with huge fences hiding enormous foreclosed subdivisions, past subways and mcdonald's and petSmarts and generic churches. i was listening to "un histoire de melody nelson" in its entirety. the hotel scene, where he's fucking her and she's emitting rather ugly, jarring squeals, is both hilarious and disturbing- she's a doe-eyed redheaded teenager and he's serge gainsbourg, the homeliest man that france ever spawned. i have been obsessed with him for awhile; i've had a picture of him and jane birkin on my fridge for years- and always imagine how foul his breath must be.
back in seattle, i went to the waterfront and pioneer square to take pictures. it was fucking cold. this winter has been a fucking misery. at this moment, for example, it is raining slush sideways against my window. were it not for the inoperational, brightly-hued construction cranes hovering over various bankrupt projects, i would feel that i'm living in an entirely black-and-white movie.
on one of the more colorful corners of downtown i took this picture. the woman walking with the cane-holding man- she was twirling, actually- saw me take this. "you just take my picture?" she asked. she was cheerful about it. "did i break your camera?" i laughed. "oh no, now she's laughing" she said, stumbling away. people were unusually nice yesterday- perhaps i was an emitting a "please be kind to me" vibe. it was noticed and appreciated, in any event.

...yerba mate and tony curtis' autobiography. started another book about the golden age of the american family road trip circa 1946-1974- the sociological and economic shifts that this trend created. the route 5 to greenwood, where i got stranded in the freezing cold darkness for about half an hour. he and i talked on the phone as i climbed home. i turned on the xmas lights in my lair and felt warm for the first time in hours. trip-hop played in the background. i had a nip of absinthe and watched the cars along the freeway.
lucidly, i always KNOW to just let things go. nothing is worth being panicked about. overanalysis shall be the death of me, should i let it be so. sometimes it is much easier to just step away and let the world flow around me. it might even lead to a rather satisfying outcome.
at four pm today there is an informal meeting at work for everyone to discuss the state of the business. at the very least, i have some clarity to look forward to.

crying over you

it occured to me during the walk: i have no pictures of my lair from afar. queen anne high school, the hulking building atop the hill- look immediately below it for the large light blue apartment complex. two doors down to the left, i am the red roof.

we watched eileen court get devoured by bulldozers last week. the walls crumpled and dust filled the intersection. it was the one time in the last year that i did not have my fucking camera with me. the detritus is still piled; a block away i could already smell the mildewy wood.

we have been hanging out a lot. the more we do, the more i want. certain people make me feel very fucking greedy. i finally saw 'mulholland drive' last night. the theater scene was fucking brilliant. by the end of the movie only two of the sundry votive candles were still burning.
when i first saw this i exclaimed "wow, i have a styrofoam head too! but i put glasses on my cactus instead." he smiled politely.

i just found out that more people got laid off at work. i am panicky and excited and hyperactive and sad and really fucking agitated... my thoughts flipping between the cruel rigors of reality and the novelty of my lovely little fantasyland.
i honestly don't fucking know what's going to happen next. with anything. sometimes this doubt feels fantastic, but right now i'm scared as hell.

radio dreams and forgetting how to breathe

the first discarded television of the season! (2nd in an annual series)

i have been awake for five hours and it is 930am. it has been raining all morning; i simply watched the sky get lighter.

work and school are both screwy. the lead tech director got laid off yesterday. i am selfishly concerned about my own job stability; we were assured last week that no layoffs were happening, and she did have reasons to be 'let go', but it still makes me incredibly fucking nervous. and my last final of the term is today. it counts for 50% of my grade. they are reformatting the curriculum; if i fail i have to retake 2 terms of kinesiology. i would rather burn my eyes than relive the fucking anguish of these classes again. i am truly hoping i get the masseter for my comp check and not something complicated like the goddamn gluteus medius.
this evening will either find me in the throes of giddy relief or wrenching self-loathing. i suppose i should be studying more, rather than mindlessly prattling into the ether.
why the fuck would they even make a sign like this?

this is termed in veterinary medicine as a "peek 'n shriek"

case study: 9yr old great dane (61kg) with vomiting of 5 days duration, inappetance, slight jaundice. she transferred from her regular dvm for an ultrasound. the ultrasound showed pronounced gas dilation in the bowels (liver appeared normal). bloodwork: elevated ALT, ALKP, TBili. coags were normal. WBC count was also normal.
we took her to surgery. i was the anesthesiologist.
out came the guts...

and the big-ass lower intestine...

...that was torsed but not necrotic. it untwisted and immediately began pouring yoo-hoo diarrhea all over the floor- with force that misted everything in a five-foot radius. the doppler was saturated; rivulets seeped underneath the surgery table. "more towels, please!" i yelled into the treatment room.

we all ran to get our cameras. with the colon out of the abdominal cavity, we were better able to view the completely fucked liver. the dark purply orb is the gallbladder- also abnormal. gallbladders are typically a lurid green, as if they've been filled with antifreeze. sludgy and black, not good. the right and left lobes of the liver were completely adhesed. "this is one solid mass" the doctor said. "there is no normal tissue here."

i got the owners on the speaker phone. they processed the findings for about ten minutes. "oh god" the man said, his voice cracking. "this is so hard." they finally decided to euthanize on the table. i gave the injection. i am always struck by the poignancy of euthanizing while an animal is still attached to monitors; the doppler slows and muffles. the ECG turns into a silent, solid line. there is always that moment of peace before the alarms start beeping. that moment, i think, is what death really is... silent, complete, a serene exhalation.
"the liver should never look like a cluster of grapes" the doctor said as he sewed the body up.
throughout, 'saturday night fever', four hours of horribly entertaining disco music (every week 8p-midnight) played on the radio. we turned it off whilst talking to the owners.

her name was loki.

r.i.p. seattle pi 1863-2009

with a stylus, one may customize their world, from a bus stop at 16th and madison...

to the back of a seat on a 15 local.

i love this town.
and i love walking through it at night.


i feel like i'm living my present as if it's already the past- romanticized appreciation. does that even make sense?

the ides of march

i got home from work at 330am, was asleep by about 430, and woke at 730 to entropy pushing a ring around on the counter- a subtle yet supremely grating noise. i cannot wait until she is geriatric and lackadaisical.
but had this not happened, had i slept as a normal person might, i would have missed the motherfucking snow that was falling sloppily on the 15th day of march:

this winter has sapped my soul. i know it is finite; i see neighbors bleakly planting daffodils in the icy dirt. the stores are filled with unflattering clothes in pastel shades. one of my coworkers was even planning to run a marathon along hwy 99 today.
it has since turned to rain. rain, i can embrace.
i keep thinking of new orleans.
*
journalistic pap... my head is still in an unrealistic place.

i told him on tuesday to not contact me again. my habits are shameful and predictable. and as usual, i feel incredibly better now. my astonishment with how fucking easy things can be without just one nasty element is growing repetitive, i realize. life shouldn't ever be as fucking hard as i can make it for myself. and there is no reason why anyone should have to put up with crap. when i'm dying, am i going to wish i'd expended more energy in dealing with bullshit? no... but i will wish i was fucking nicer.
ultimately, there is only so much one person can do. if the other person in the situation isn't trying to make things pleasant, i feel quite justified in stepping away and living my own fucking life regardless.
i don't kick myself for embracing idealism. it's naive as fuck, but it's a nice way to live.
i am slowly restoring the lair to its former lustre.

immediately after valentine's day i forgot to stock up on discounted candy. the hearts, in particular, gave me panic- the thought of having to wait until what, boxing day to procure more seemed intolerable. so i have been scouring seattle for dregs. i found a shitload for 9 cents a box at a drugstore and stocked up. my inadvertant plan, which is working out very effectively, is to get so fucking sick of these horrible things that i never want to see or taste them again, holiday novelty be damned.
so now i have a cache. i expect it will grow stale and rather soft and the evolved, fouler texture will appeal to me anew.

i was reading about apomorphine, the veterinary emetic, at work the other day. apparently apomorphine is used widely in europe and parts of asia as an erectile-enhancement drug, akin to viagra. it is in the works to be approved for the same purpose in the us. "it causes significant nausea and vomiting in ~10% of its users, to the point where they discontinue use" the pdr said. i was looking up the drug to get a proper dosage for a dog that had eaten about 3# of unbaked pizza dough... watching him vomit yeasty slime with a miserable expression on his face... wondering if he's thinking about a stirring in his loins whilst doing so.
*
i should have perhaps phrased that last sentence a bit differently. that sounded really fucking gross.

silent but the purring

i am in a fucking good mood.
it is finally not unseasonably, sphincter-tighteningly cold. last week it snowed; today it is raining and my screen door is open. the apartment is quiet. incense is burning. i just made a cd. peacefulness is supremely underutilized.
yesterday i hung out with someone i've wanted to get to know for over three years. very few people have ever intrigued me for such a duration and for no concrete reason. actually hanging out felt positively liquid and very nice. opportunity strikes when i least expect it.
cliches exist for their truth. nevertheless i hate them.
a mural

walking at night

i love having my life back.
(when i'm not in such a blissy mindset, i will undoubtedly overscrutinize the fallacies of my character that lead me to 'give up' my life for other people in the first place.)

how other people live

my friend m moved into a new unit in his building in downtown seattle. the entire place is a habitrail of amazing art, both in the common areas and inside his apartment. he now has a loft with a glass ceiling ala 'barefoot in the park' that opens onto a private roof across the street from the seattle art museum.
i took many more pictures than this.





i could never be in this environment with t.
he moved everything out this saturday while i was at work. i came home to find the walls bare, the closets empty, geddy lee gone. it was sobering... and really fucking relaxing. i turned on the lights and took a long 3am shower with the door open, then read in bed for as long as i wanted. little things make me happy. it had been a long time since i'd done such things. sunday i cleaned and rearranged, incredibly content, pushing aside the worry that i'm probably going to be one of those old spinsters who always lives alone. but is it prefering solitude... or just choosing the wrong people to do it with?
he still does not know how to be honest, communicate, be accountable. he snivels and sulks and flakes around and tells the same fucking stories and says "i didn't mean to" and "i don't know why i do that" far too much. and i am still driven insane by these mannerisms, shrill to the point of violence, learning that i can actually bruise the palms of my hands by smacking the wall hard enough. "you're a fucking adult!" i would yell, the apex of maturity myself. "how can you not know how you're coming across or why you're doing something?"
he reacted horribly to some things i told him about our time apart- something that happened to me about a year and a half ago that only s knew about. t freaked out and... acted like a fucking bully, basically. and i told him then that this was not working and to get out of my home. i said "i refuse to live like this again."
he agreed to see a counselor. i am not holding my breath. we are still 'together', but that almost feels like default at this point. he does not know, for example, the extent to which i'm planning moving from seattle this winter. that's a conversation i have no fucking desire to get into. there are reasons, after all, why we're divorced.
but i still, naively, believe in eternal love. and i fucking forgive everybody. these traits tend to backfire.

stir-crazy

domesticity is a new thing for me. it holds my attention for about two hours, then i get very antsy. "i'll probably always have this tendency" i said to t the other night... it's been this way for the last 7 years. he looked at me wearily.
i get bored too easily. i am trying to settle down a bit, but it's more arduous than i'd imagined.
geddy lee:

the old oven, RIP:

i have been cooking copious amounts of food over the last 36 hrs. carmelized onions and sauteed gnocchi; havarti melted over garlic bread; white-chocolate-coated mixed nuts. at this exact moment i am dehydrating apple slices. this manic phase shall too pass, but i do like pretending i am capable of nurturing.

pallid domesticity

all the different teachers at school, presumably unbeknownst to each other, call their classroom skeletons "Slim." "let's demonstrate on Slim here" they'll say jovially. things are less amusing when they become cliched.

geddy lee has been back in my life for nearly a week. i love the little shit, but i'd forgotten over the last three (!) years how fucking obnoxious he really is. he weighs about 20 pounds, howls throughout the night, hisses at the other cats, swats at us with claws extended. he also opens cabinets despite their safety locks. i am objectively impressed by his resourcefulness- his catness- but he makes for a rather vexing roommate.
he is, however, terribly photogenic. and i can justify his malcontent by remembering that i personally, with my own two hands, removed his right testicle when he was five months old.

entropy fucking hates him.

the lair is in a half-assed state of unpacked disarray. we have temporarily given up with the nesting and are stacking boxes neatly against the walls. our schedules are still fairly dissonant, though i am officially down to 3 days a week at work (to better focus on school). when we have free time together, the last thing either of us wants to do is unload crap.
t hung the lps above the window.

happy 71st birthday, judy blume... and charles darwin...

every time i see this, hear this, imitate this: i laugh. no matter what.

life can be so unnervingly simple.

i get 'red skies at night' in my head at least once a day

clickin' = enlargin'. this is in front of my school.

i am gaspingly unmotivated. all i want to do is be with him. everything else is a time-consuming, thuddingly dull distraction.
*
i have spent this rare sunny friday doing laundry. three loads on one washer/dryer. the downstairs neighbor is playing his music loudly. i skipped class yesterday (to my credit, i was feeling like shit; it wasn't completely due to lackadasia) and finished "you'll never nanny in this town again" whilst sprawled on the floor of the odious chain bookstore. i needed to give my brain a rest (even though i've already read "sTORItelling" and "tatum o'neal: a paper life" in the shamefully recent past). it is lurid and name-droppy- quite fascinating, really. i have newfound respect for danny devito and rhea perlman.
*
my coworker's daughter showed off her preemie daughter at work last night- 9 days old, 7 weeks early, out of the hospital after a week of being tube fed and attached to a ventilator. we could only look, not touch. i had never seen such a small human before. as of yesterday she weighed 4lbs 6oz. her head was the size of a navel orange. we all cooed politely, as wenches do, until her daughter and the baby left and my coworker said "i call her 'the grub'."
the tv was on in the break room at work last night, showing the late-night news. i was tuning it out, reading the springsteen article in rolling stone. but when i heard "president obama" i looked up at the screen and immediately grinned.

saturated. saturated, baby.

these pictures were taken over the weekend in a roughly 30 mile diameter from seattle.







amid the moistness, on a nondescript rural road north of snohomish, i happened upon a tree of shoes.