chuckanut!

oftentimes i get words as well as songs stuck in my head. the word today: frijole. what the fuck? frijole. holly holy. holy moly. i am driving myself crazy.
took a giddy jaunt to bellingham today. that drive, once i get past the clusterfuck of everett, always puts me in a good mood. i played with a flirtatious cockatiel at the pet store in stanwood, in a godawful complex of suburban malaise; obviously this entire compound was once a thriving glade, and now it is a concrete wasteland: costco, target, michael's, red robin. wal-mart sprawls on the other side of the freeway. it is yet another example of anywhere, nowhere, generica. there were lots of pickup trucks and minivans and overweight children and surly teens. and me, contributing to the infestation by stopping there in the first place.
i left the pet store empty-handed. i do not need another fucking pet. besides, they were out of iguanas, which is what i was casually looking for.
my vague plan once hitting bellingham: yard sales. i ended up in a leafy victorian neighborhood (apparently very close to the crackhouse/chicken coop where i spent my infancy, which i have never been able to find) by complete happenstance, stopped at the first place i saw, and realized that the area was holding their annual neighborhood garage sale, complete with printed maps secured under a fake hummel figurine. the odds of this: 50:50- it would either be happening or it would not be- but i was rather thrilled regardless.
six dollars and about six yards later:
-a leering, lecherous record, solely for the cover, now hanging in my lair
-a hippie shirt with a hole in the sleeve
-a luscious jackson cd that actually kicks much ass. it fit my mood on the drive home. this would be the perfect make-out music to an earnest teenage girl who doesn't want to get too riled by say, liz phair, and doesn't want to make her lover vomit with the indigo girls.
-a "guide to parties" by the editors of seventeen magazine, published circa 1955. "isn't this fun? it has some great recipes for dips!" said the woman who sold it to me.
-a book of pulp fiction cover art
-a homemade ceramic pot
-a potentially lethal glass hangy-thing
-a tapestry that is now also hanging in my lair
-and the piece de resistance: an unsettling object of unknown use or reason. i call it the "triad of testicles." what it is: three ~3" diameter heavy balls covered with some sort of skin, attached to a piece of twine and looped for easy dangling. it looks like some sort of hideous artifact from the holocaust, actually. it was in a 'free' box. "what's the story with these?" i asked. nobody knew. "please, take them away" one of the women said. i could not help but swing them jauntily as i walked back to my car. perhaps they are weapons? they are also hanging in my lair, next to my bed, as a totem to ensure i will never get laid again.
my lair is rife with hangy things!
the cafe i am typing at has thankfully turned off the fucking classic rawk in lieu of '80s new wave. 'don't you forget about me' is on right now. i still have this 45. it is actually a rather terrible song. do i know every word? do i have fondness for its inherent nostagia? do i think of judd nelson and squirm? you bet your sweet ass. to my consternation.
it is pride weekend in seattle. near my house i passed a gay couple holding hands. they were older and one was visibly dragging the other one along. their arms and bodies were a good distance apart, the way one would hold onto a shrieking toddler. and they were both scowling. it was rather unsettling. on broadway two men were wearing S&M halters and black fedoras. people are damn pale in seattle.
why are sex props so fucking cheaply made? am i the only person who has ever noticed this? flimsy plasticene pieces of shit, the lot of it! perhaps i should go into business selling organic, hardy, earnestly constructed bondage gear. (TM 2007) made in america, by americans, for americans the ads would say, smokily, playfully.
i think of p, who worked at the adult bookstore after quitting the crystal/cheesy tie-dye/glittery lava lamp kiosk at the mall. i have always wondered what it would be like, working at such a place. the sociological implications! my list of professions i would love to try, if only for the smarmy "i'm not really meaning to work here, i'm just collecting information for the book i'm writing about the experience" elitism:*
*which is admittedly fucking obnoxious as shit, which is why i won't do it. i would kick my own ass.
-a porn shop (preferably the graveyard shift)
-mcdonalds
-wal-mart
-the coroner's office
...i have known people who have worked at all such places. one of the dvms in olympia did shifts at the thurston county coroner's office. he was an incredibly jovial man, always in a lovely mood. and he had beautiful handwriting. he and his large (religious) family moved to the montanan hinterlands about a year ago.
and he was always annoyingly professional when i would ask him questions about the sorts of things he'd see. that is, he would not answer much at all.
on an eerily apropos segue: i was on a bus through downtown a little after midnight last night. the street between 2nd and 3rd was taped off and a passle of cop cars had formed a starburst of flashing lights. i found out in today's paper that someone had been murdered there about an hour prior. some guy had said something to another man's woman, something disparaging, and arguing turned into gunfire. apparently the murdered man was shot in the face. they found the shooter hiding in a dumpster. one of the witnesses was shot in his leg.
...and in another reality, 19 hours later, i am walking through volunteer park and lining up the view of the space needle to fit perfectly within the circular sculpture, and the sun is shining.
*
frijole!