actually, this constituted last night's tail-feather-shakery: a big-ass cup of "cinnamon sunset" tea and reading over half a book about the american housing market ("house lust" is the title) in one sitting at the fucking odious chain bookstore, accidentally dribbling tea on the pristine pages, carefully filing it back on the shelf when i was sated. it made me happy as shit, so much so that i went back tonight (ignoring that brief "fuck, i must seem like the biggest nerd" sensation when i realized the same three people were working) and read another hundred pages.
my fantasies of being a ribald wacky chick are... fantasies. but i am coming to terms with that. i amuse the bejesus out of myself, at least.
aside: if i saw a (tall, un-goateed, loner, of similar age and demeanor) gent engaging in a similar activity on sequential evenings, i would have a rabid infatuation with him. but that person, whoever it may be, is probably not reading about greedy americans on a weeknight in the basement of a goddamn bookstore.
*
tis a pity i believe in no entities. i would be a fucking awesome nun.
*
i drove to olympia today. the sun was in my eyes as i went over the nisqually river. it was the first time since i moved away that i didn't feel that sick nervousness- with distance comes peace. today i actually felt like i was over it. perhaps i was just caffeinated. i stopped at a gas station and used the loo. i had the idea of visiting my parents, surprise!, and of stopping by some of the places i used to go... but i didn't. i turned right the fuck around and drove back to seattle, taking pictures of the sun and my dusty dashboard whilst doing 70 on the interstate. again: for a brief spell i felt like a fucking idiot: why drive 60+ miles, turn around, and drive back, especially when there are things to do and people -family- to see? what the fuck is wrong with me? but at that decision-making instant, my justification was: i like driving away from the sunset, admiring the orange glow of bare branches against a slate-grey sky, singing along, able to come and go on whatever mecurial whim i fucking please.
thankfully the car gets excellent mileage.
*
one of the commandments of a 'feng shui life', as just forwarded to me in an annoying chain email that i, as with all chain emails, refuse to send on, is: believe in love at first sight. there is only person whom i have experienced this with. everyone else: if i have to wait for someone to 'grow on me', it is fucking WRONG. had i not been in prior denial about this handy factlet i wouldn't be twice-divorced... it's an interesting concept, though, when i realize that he is one person who i will always forgive and always care about, even though he doesn't deserve it. and perhaps that, rather than my former adage of "it's when you'll hold their hair back while they vomit", is really what love is about.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
coleslaw, when done properly
i was reading SLOG at the library, viewing a series of tit-baring pornstar photographs, when i noticed a slightly younger, earnestly adorable boy standing behind me. i smiled without thinking about it. he did not smile back. he looked more startled than anything.
it snowed last night and it still sticks. this morning: i am parked on a 40 degree incline in the drive in front of my building. my car is encapsulated in a sheet of ice. all of the locks are frozen. i am hanging onto the icy car to avoid falling on my ass, sliding from one side of the vehicle to the other, trying to gain entry. a woman is starting her car about twenty feet away. "do you have an ice scraper?" she asks. "no, i'm in the same boat as you" i say (and i actually do use that folksy term, to my consternation). "a credit card works well." i used my key-card from tacoma ER. the hill is a fucking skating rink. i feel like a pansy, my lifetime in alaska officially negated.
it is the end of my workweek. by this, the fourth day, i am fucking exhausted and only want to sleep. but i feel obligated to shake my tail feathers instead, because i can. perhaps i will do a crossword puzzle and have a drink. this unfortunately constitutes tail-feather-shakery.
it snowed last night and it still sticks. this morning: i am parked on a 40 degree incline in the drive in front of my building. my car is encapsulated in a sheet of ice. all of the locks are frozen. i am hanging onto the icy car to avoid falling on my ass, sliding from one side of the vehicle to the other, trying to gain entry. a woman is starting her car about twenty feet away. "do you have an ice scraper?" she asks. "no, i'm in the same boat as you" i say (and i actually do use that folksy term, to my consternation). "a credit card works well." i used my key-card from tacoma ER. the hill is a fucking skating rink. i feel like a pansy, my lifetime in alaska officially negated.
it is the end of my workweek. by this, the fourth day, i am fucking exhausted and only want to sleep. but i feel obligated to shake my tail feathers instead, because i can. perhaps i will do a crossword puzzle and have a drink. this unfortunately constitutes tail-feather-shakery.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
last night i dreamt of laundry- of needing to do it, though it had already been done. i awoke sweating.
on friday j and i saw 'it is fine! everything is fine', and you should too. it was written by a man with severe cerebral palsy- his fantasy life come real, wherein he is articulate and understandable and sexually bombastic (and judging from the full-frontal nudity, colossally endowed). he died a month after it finished filming. produced by crispin glover, who introduced the film and answered questions afterward. "he asked us from his hospital bed if we had enough footage to complete the movie" he said.
crispin glover came off as a bit of a douche. before the film he read from his books, the illustrated scratched-out-pasted-over nightmare-victorian images illuminated on the screen. that was cool (though after an hour i was getting restless). but the q&a session was simply an opportunity for him to ignore the question being asked and go off on a self-absorbed tangent about his career. he revealed that he is pissed off at his agent right now, and that some financial deals fell through, and that he funded this project with his earnings from 'charlie's angels.' he was cuter than i expected: instead of the waxen willard look i was anticipating, he had shoulder-length hair and a nice suit and looked like he should be wearing tevas and trying to shtup underage hippie girls. but his demeanor: i remembered a story s told me about this one guy she dated, who would be found oiled up in some grotesque yoga position, surrounded by candles, to most likely look up with an "oh, you surprised me" fake-casual expression, as if he always just lounges around like a pretentious greasy pretzel. i laughed very hard when she told me that. "that is so fucking disgusting" i probably said.
i like my men hedonistic and unshaven- self-aware and indifferent at once. that is: i want them to bathe in the morning but, say, not realize they have toothpaste on their face because they haven't bothered to examine their appearance since. and when it's pointed out, they say something smartass like "at least i fucking brushed them" and still don't bother to wipe it off.
i do not think this would be the case with crispin hellion glover.
we had an egg-bound tortoise at work today. her cloaca was tearing from the distention. the doctor lanced the egg with a 14g needle and sucked the contents out through a syringe. i have seen this done with birds as well. it is fascinating as fuck. i was the one holding the tortoise. everyone else was gathered behind the doctor, watching. "you all have the exact same facial expression" i said, which was: horror, lips parted. after i rinsed the tiny egg bits off and saved them in a pill vial for the owner. i would want them if it was my tortoise, anyhow.
it is valentine conversation heart season! i love them so! my favorite this year: "I'M ME", seconded by "GO AWAY."
crispin glover came off as a bit of a douche. before the film he read from his books, the illustrated scratched-out-pasted-over nightmare-victorian images illuminated on the screen. that was cool (though after an hour i was getting restless). but the q&a session was simply an opportunity for him to ignore the question being asked and go off on a self-absorbed tangent about his career. he revealed that he is pissed off at his agent right now, and that some financial deals fell through, and that he funded this project with his earnings from 'charlie's angels.' he was cuter than i expected: instead of the waxen willard look i was anticipating, he had shoulder-length hair and a nice suit and looked like he should be wearing tevas and trying to shtup underage hippie girls. but his demeanor: i remembered a story s told me about this one guy she dated, who would be found oiled up in some grotesque yoga position, surrounded by candles, to most likely look up with an "oh, you surprised me" fake-casual expression, as if he always just lounges around like a pretentious greasy pretzel. i laughed very hard when she told me that. "that is so fucking disgusting" i probably said.
i like my men hedonistic and unshaven- self-aware and indifferent at once. that is: i want them to bathe in the morning but, say, not realize they have toothpaste on their face because they haven't bothered to examine their appearance since. and when it's pointed out, they say something smartass like "at least i fucking brushed them" and still don't bother to wipe it off.
i do not think this would be the case with crispin hellion glover.
we had an egg-bound tortoise at work today. her cloaca was tearing from the distention. the doctor lanced the egg with a 14g needle and sucked the contents out through a syringe. i have seen this done with birds as well. it is fascinating as fuck. i was the one holding the tortoise. everyone else was gathered behind the doctor, watching. "you all have the exact same facial expression" i said, which was: horror, lips parted. after i rinsed the tiny egg bits off and saved them in a pill vial for the owner. i would want them if it was my tortoise, anyhow.
it is valentine conversation heart season! i love them so! my favorite this year: "I'M ME", seconded by "GO AWAY."
Thursday, January 10, 2008
i am sitting beside someone's empty plate of scraped brownness
...i am still employed.
nothing like a vengeful ass-kicking of reality to put things into perspective: namely, that my snively pity party on posts prior is and was NEVER THAT IMPORTANT. why can't i remember that when i'm in the throes of it?
an 'urgent meeting' was called on tuesday for this morning at 9. revenue is down, costs are up. "we have to let some people go" we were told. everyone, the doctors and owners included, had tears in their eyes. they passed out envelopes with the times we were each to meet with management. mine was at 12:20pm. i drove around aimlessly for two hours, trying not to cry, chain-smoking, listening to otis redding. i also went to the library and scoped out new orleans and portland for possible jobs and hovels. it is a different feeling entirely when looking with a sense of desperation, as if it is something time-sensitive and necessary. there was nothing palatable in either berg. apart from the hawthorne district, which i adore, portland has always seemed too strip-mally and grim for my liking; and the job situation in new orleans sucks. i went back to the clinic early. the parking lot was still full; everyone was lingering around, hugging, crying. some people had gone to the bar down the street after the meeting. a group of people i never knew to be smokers were gathered outside. everyone there is fucking great. genuinely nice. hilarious. i didn't want to leave, and i didn;t want any of them to go either. when i was told that yes, i was still on, that i was a needed LVT on the shifts and that they were very glad to have me, i started crying and groveled "thank you. thank you so much" in the middle of the hallway.
in the end, the four kennel workers, two assistants, and one doctor were laid off. i am fucking sad, and guilty, which mars my crushing relief somewhat. having the rug of your LIFE very nearly pulled out from under you is a shuddering feeling. i have spent the rest of this day rather dazed and jittery. grateful. very fucking appreciative.
one night i was coming back from downtown on the bus and saw two fire trucks and several cop cars speed past, going up the very hill where i live. "what if my fucking building's on fire?" i immediately thought, and then: oh my god, the cats. oh my god, what will i do? my little slice of the world, gone: suddenly i realize what a materialistic fuck i really am. i had a little panic attack right on the bus, getting off several blocks early and running up the hill to... a building a block away with a small fire on their deck from their barbecue. and i went inside my lair, which was quiet and dark and exactly as i remembered, and i laughed that gaspy "oh thank FUCK" laugh like a fucking idiot.
perspective.
i try not to take too much for granted- or rather, i try to acknowledge when things are going well AT THE TIME that they are going well- but it is impossible to not be lulled into at least some sense of expectation. i daresay it is a survival mechanism. otherwise we would all still be jumpy prey.
nothing like a vengeful ass-kicking of reality to put things into perspective: namely, that my snively pity party on posts prior is and was NEVER THAT IMPORTANT. why can't i remember that when i'm in the throes of it?
an 'urgent meeting' was called on tuesday for this morning at 9. revenue is down, costs are up. "we have to let some people go" we were told. everyone, the doctors and owners included, had tears in their eyes. they passed out envelopes with the times we were each to meet with management. mine was at 12:20pm. i drove around aimlessly for two hours, trying not to cry, chain-smoking, listening to otis redding. i also went to the library and scoped out new orleans and portland for possible jobs and hovels. it is a different feeling entirely when looking with a sense of desperation, as if it is something time-sensitive and necessary. there was nothing palatable in either berg. apart from the hawthorne district, which i adore, portland has always seemed too strip-mally and grim for my liking; and the job situation in new orleans sucks. i went back to the clinic early. the parking lot was still full; everyone was lingering around, hugging, crying. some people had gone to the bar down the street after the meeting. a group of people i never knew to be smokers were gathered outside. everyone there is fucking great. genuinely nice. hilarious. i didn't want to leave, and i didn;t want any of them to go either. when i was told that yes, i was still on, that i was a needed LVT on the shifts and that they were very glad to have me, i started crying and groveled "thank you. thank you so much" in the middle of the hallway.
in the end, the four kennel workers, two assistants, and one doctor were laid off. i am fucking sad, and guilty, which mars my crushing relief somewhat. having the rug of your LIFE very nearly pulled out from under you is a shuddering feeling. i have spent the rest of this day rather dazed and jittery. grateful. very fucking appreciative.
one night i was coming back from downtown on the bus and saw two fire trucks and several cop cars speed past, going up the very hill where i live. "what if my fucking building's on fire?" i immediately thought, and then: oh my god, the cats. oh my god, what will i do? my little slice of the world, gone: suddenly i realize what a materialistic fuck i really am. i had a little panic attack right on the bus, getting off several blocks early and running up the hill to... a building a block away with a small fire on their deck from their barbecue. and i went inside my lair, which was quiet and dark and exactly as i remembered, and i laughed that gaspy "oh thank FUCK" laugh like a fucking idiot.
perspective.
i try not to take too much for granted- or rather, i try to acknowledge when things are going well AT THE TIME that they are going well- but it is impossible to not be lulled into at least some sense of expectation. i daresay it is a survival mechanism. otherwise we would all still be jumpy prey.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
the naked juice cooler
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/mis/533512562.html
everywhere i have walked today (and it has been a fair distance, as i am in a snotty mood) has been echoing with the dry hacks of the surrounding pedestrians. at first i had the narcissistic fear that they were reacting to either my cigarette or clumsy application of patchouli. but no. i may be the only human in seattle who is not rasping through an uncovered maw. one of my coworkers claimed to have whooping cough. it freaked out some of the (younger and shriller) coworkers, who kept saying "GOD! and she was in here like all day yesterday, getting us all like INFECTED" and looking it up on the internet and babbling about their flu shots. i made a joke about consumption and put my hand across my forehead. the mellower coworkers laughed.
the weather reminds me of springtime in alaska, which was always my favorite season: when 40 degrees was t-shirt weather, when the sidewalk was finally exposed. the difference between there and here? it is pitch black outside from 5pm until nearly 8 the following morning. i was so enamored to be in my lair in daylight (even if it was still so dank outside that i had the lights on) that i slothed around until nearly 3, picking dead leaves off plants; reading about the 48-year bamboo bloom in india that leads to cyclical rat influx, ecological fuckery, and famine; taking unflattering pictures of myself; and listening to devendra barnhart on repeat.
i do love the novelty of a day off.
i left the lair with a bit of day remaining. walked downtown and read at elliot bay until it was dark. went to ballard and bought cheerily-hued tic-tacs because i liked the colors so much. (i am not a tic-tac fan: they are too small to be worth anything unless you swallow half the box at once, and they make your mouth taste like ass, but i needed cash and i didn't want to use the atm. the flavor: CHERRY PASSION! i have not tried them yet.) returned downtown and walked uphill to broadway in the spitting rain. browsed the travel section of the used bookstore. i am now here, at the cafe where they always play somber classical music and have fantastic yerba mate tea, and i am in a much better mood.
i am pretty easy to please.
the kindness of strangers helps. i have to keep reminding myself that i am truly, finally local again. not having any huge part of my life in one spot has made me gloss over 'connections'- too ephemeral- i'm always just a visitor. and now, for what it's worth, i am not. and everything is much more comfortable because of it.
but like a compulsive fool, i checked housing and jobs in new orleans today. the housing situation: good. jobs: nuh-uh. it was that tenaciously repeating fantasy of a steamy brick-walled attic hovel with rain hitting the leaves of the banana plants outside: which would, of course, include never feeling impatient or unfuckably sweaty or overly honkified or sad that other people's lives are still lying in heaps.
*
anu garg lives in seattle. he will be doing a reading on monday! i am so excited! i have subscribed to his site for about 8 years, and you should too.
update: i had the link for what i thought was his site, but it's some fucking dating service. which is rather funny. so go to "a word a day" on google, or don't.
everywhere i have walked today (and it has been a fair distance, as i am in a snotty mood) has been echoing with the dry hacks of the surrounding pedestrians. at first i had the narcissistic fear that they were reacting to either my cigarette or clumsy application of patchouli. but no. i may be the only human in seattle who is not rasping through an uncovered maw. one of my coworkers claimed to have whooping cough. it freaked out some of the (younger and shriller) coworkers, who kept saying "GOD! and she was in here like all day yesterday, getting us all like INFECTED" and looking it up on the internet and babbling about their flu shots. i made a joke about consumption and put my hand across my forehead. the mellower coworkers laughed.
the weather reminds me of springtime in alaska, which was always my favorite season: when 40 degrees was t-shirt weather, when the sidewalk was finally exposed. the difference between there and here? it is pitch black outside from 5pm until nearly 8 the following morning. i was so enamored to be in my lair in daylight (even if it was still so dank outside that i had the lights on) that i slothed around until nearly 3, picking dead leaves off plants; reading about the 48-year bamboo bloom in india that leads to cyclical rat influx, ecological fuckery, and famine; taking unflattering pictures of myself; and listening to devendra barnhart on repeat.
i do love the novelty of a day off.
i left the lair with a bit of day remaining. walked downtown and read at elliot bay until it was dark. went to ballard and bought cheerily-hued tic-tacs because i liked the colors so much. (i am not a tic-tac fan: they are too small to be worth anything unless you swallow half the box at once, and they make your mouth taste like ass, but i needed cash and i didn't want to use the atm. the flavor: CHERRY PASSION! i have not tried them yet.) returned downtown and walked uphill to broadway in the spitting rain. browsed the travel section of the used bookstore. i am now here, at the cafe where they always play somber classical music and have fantastic yerba mate tea, and i am in a much better mood.
i am pretty easy to please.
the kindness of strangers helps. i have to keep reminding myself that i am truly, finally local again. not having any huge part of my life in one spot has made me gloss over 'connections'- too ephemeral- i'm always just a visitor. and now, for what it's worth, i am not. and everything is much more comfortable because of it.
but like a compulsive fool, i checked housing and jobs in new orleans today. the housing situation: good. jobs: nuh-uh. it was that tenaciously repeating fantasy of a steamy brick-walled attic hovel with rain hitting the leaves of the banana plants outside: which would, of course, include never feeling impatient or unfuckably sweaty or overly honkified or sad that other people's lives are still lying in heaps.
*
anu garg lives in seattle. he will be doing a reading on monday! i am so excited! i have subscribed to his site for about 8 years, and you should too.
update: i had the link for what i thought was his site, but it's some fucking dating service. which is rather funny. so go to "a word a day" on google, or don't.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
sweetness & light
it is always difficult to locate the ampersand on the keyboard when i need it.
"needing" an ampersand is pretty ridiculous in itself.
*
life is going well. i just returned from a visit to the tacoma er, where i picked up my stethascope and a few other things that had been lingering in my locker- the locker that is still there, as they promised, still covered with my trinkets and shite. everyone said "brynn!" in happy voices. "when are you coming back?" they asked. it was so fucking nice to see everyone again. i miss that place- i miss the people, anyhow. people make the place. and in the same vein, i fucking love my new job too. "you're a catheter maestro" a told me today. "it was really fun to work with you." "you too" i replied, trying to remain professional and not picture him naked.
hyper. the pendulum is swinging manically upward. i feel egotistical and competent and oh so fucking hilarious. the drop will come soon. right now i feel like a silly puppy, smiling at everyone, earning their smiles in return. that's what it's all about, right? ...right?
after i broke up with t for the first time, only two months into our relationship, i walked down seneca towards downtown- a 30 degree angle towards the water. it was fall, daylight, and i was wearing black converse- i remember this, for some reason. and i was sad but so fucking relieved- it was a sensation of "yay, i have my life back! what do i want to do? i can do anything!" and my first thought was: something too slutty and embarrassing to write down, but i recall it clearly, and it still makes me smirk.
it takes shunning of bullshit to make me go: oh yeah, this is a big fucking world, with opportunities and chance encounters up the wazoo, be they fauna or literary or human, all sorts of new smells and lyrics and tastes and faces, and i have been wasting my time being stifled by this one stupid rut.
silly wench.
of course, i did take him back. but that was a long time ago.
the awareness is always there. acting on it is something i'm finally getting better at.
"needing" an ampersand is pretty ridiculous in itself.
*
life is going well. i just returned from a visit to the tacoma er, where i picked up my stethascope and a few other things that had been lingering in my locker- the locker that is still there, as they promised, still covered with my trinkets and shite. everyone said "brynn!" in happy voices. "when are you coming back?" they asked. it was so fucking nice to see everyone again. i miss that place- i miss the people, anyhow. people make the place. and in the same vein, i fucking love my new job too. "you're a catheter maestro" a told me today. "it was really fun to work with you." "you too" i replied, trying to remain professional and not picture him naked.
hyper. the pendulum is swinging manically upward. i feel egotistical and competent and oh so fucking hilarious. the drop will come soon. right now i feel like a silly puppy, smiling at everyone, earning their smiles in return. that's what it's all about, right? ...right?
after i broke up with t for the first time, only two months into our relationship, i walked down seneca towards downtown- a 30 degree angle towards the water. it was fall, daylight, and i was wearing black converse- i remember this, for some reason. and i was sad but so fucking relieved- it was a sensation of "yay, i have my life back! what do i want to do? i can do anything!" and my first thought was: something too slutty and embarrassing to write down, but i recall it clearly, and it still makes me smirk.
it takes shunning of bullshit to make me go: oh yeah, this is a big fucking world, with opportunities and chance encounters up the wazoo, be they fauna or literary or human, all sorts of new smells and lyrics and tastes and faces, and i have been wasting my time being stifled by this one stupid rut.
silly wench.
of course, i did take him back. but that was a long time ago.
the awareness is always there. acting on it is something i'm finally getting better at.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
how low
i went to sleep at 1030pm and awoke at 115am to torrential wind blowing trees menacingly close, watching frenetic shadows caused by buckling vegetation sporadically illuminate distant streetlamps. and i felt like something really horrible was happening, or was going to happen- that inconvenient middle-of-the-night dread that i cannot do anything proactive about. there is nowhere to go, no one to call, no option but my own pathetic survival mechanisms. so i got up and wrote some turbid nonsense, and i reread yesterday's paper, and i found myself pacing... and i haven't been back to sleep yet. work was surprisingly competent- it wasn't until the (very busy) day was ending that i began to feel jet-lagged and incoherent. i left almost an hour late. i am still not very tired; i am actually very mellow. perhaps i am just looking forward to getting some semblence of circadian normalcy back tonight.
there is an eerie clarity when wide awake in the middle of the night (only applicable when working early-day shifts as i do now). i thought: i must take better care of myself. i have been bottoming out again lately, and i blame s as a facade for blaming myself. i have been putting up with shit that i do not want to put up with. it has made me very fucking disgusted with myself. i have this repulsive lifelong habit of gravitating towards that which is bad for me, especially with relationships. i don't want to be someone's 'special friend' who they can get drunk with; i don't want to be only smiled at or touched by them when they're inebriated; i don't want to have that 'what the fuck am i DOING?' feeling when, say, after a (drunken, stoned) new year's makeout session i lay in his uncomfortable bed, scooted as far away from him as possible, staring sleeplessly at the clock radio and listening to him fucking snore. yeah, that was why i slept like shit that night. in part. i was grateful to be considered for however blurred a moment 'attractive' by someone, so i put up with the other parts. this would be a non-issue if i was getting emotional and lusty satisfaction on a regular basis from him, if the sight of him made me fucking salivate, if he was the sort of person who would leave florid and hilarious messages on my phone and make me feel like i was fucking special. i find myself romanticizing my fucking EX, for christ's sake, because when he wasn't acting like a suspicious manipulative abusive PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT (which i lucidly remember as being most to all of the time) he had a twisted way of making me feel like he adored me, and our bodies fit really fucking well together, and when things were actually good, i felt safe and smug and giddy about my future.
and thinking these completely retarded thoughts IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING NIGHT, all by my stupid self, is horrible and sabotaging and only serves to further the catch-22: why do i continually, on however nominal a level, allow shit to justify my life? how have i stumbled through 29 years of existence without truly, on a well-duh level, learning how to fucking respect myself?
i do not recommend these self-absorbed circle jerks to anyone.
luckily i am prone not only to introverted mindfucking, but the glee of distraction! daylight really fucking helps. i cannot wait for summer. i fucking need some sunshine and warmth and blossomy trees and freckles. mentally. was alaska this difficult?
there are no excuses. there never are. if i fuck with my instincts and stay in situations i know to be Bad, i only hurt myself. there is never anyone else to blame.
*
coming home from work tonight: 'i'm gonna be (500 miles)' was on the radio. i think i yelled 'YAY!' in the solitude of my vehicle, cranked it up, and sang along as loudly as i could, complete with attempts at the horrid accent. "everything is fucked" has a mecurial way of becoming "fuck it" in the most cheerily absurd way.
there is an eerie clarity when wide awake in the middle of the night (only applicable when working early-day shifts as i do now). i thought: i must take better care of myself. i have been bottoming out again lately, and i blame s as a facade for blaming myself. i have been putting up with shit that i do not want to put up with. it has made me very fucking disgusted with myself. i have this repulsive lifelong habit of gravitating towards that which is bad for me, especially with relationships. i don't want to be someone's 'special friend' who they can get drunk with; i don't want to be only smiled at or touched by them when they're inebriated; i don't want to have that 'what the fuck am i DOING?' feeling when, say, after a (drunken, stoned) new year's makeout session i lay in his uncomfortable bed, scooted as far away from him as possible, staring sleeplessly at the clock radio and listening to him fucking snore. yeah, that was why i slept like shit that night. in part. i was grateful to be considered for however blurred a moment 'attractive' by someone, so i put up with the other parts. this would be a non-issue if i was getting emotional and lusty satisfaction on a regular basis from him, if the sight of him made me fucking salivate, if he was the sort of person who would leave florid and hilarious messages on my phone and make me feel like i was fucking special. i find myself romanticizing my fucking EX, for christ's sake, because when he wasn't acting like a suspicious manipulative abusive PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT (which i lucidly remember as being most to all of the time) he had a twisted way of making me feel like he adored me, and our bodies fit really fucking well together, and when things were actually good, i felt safe and smug and giddy about my future.
and thinking these completely retarded thoughts IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING NIGHT, all by my stupid self, is horrible and sabotaging and only serves to further the catch-22: why do i continually, on however nominal a level, allow shit to justify my life? how have i stumbled through 29 years of existence without truly, on a well-duh level, learning how to fucking respect myself?
i do not recommend these self-absorbed circle jerks to anyone.
luckily i am prone not only to introverted mindfucking, but the glee of distraction! daylight really fucking helps. i cannot wait for summer. i fucking need some sunshine and warmth and blossomy trees and freckles. mentally. was alaska this difficult?
there are no excuses. there never are. if i fuck with my instincts and stay in situations i know to be Bad, i only hurt myself. there is never anyone else to blame.
*
coming home from work tonight: 'i'm gonna be (500 miles)' was on the radio. i think i yelled 'YAY!' in the solitude of my vehicle, cranked it up, and sang along as loudly as i could, complete with attempts at the horrid accent. "everything is fucked" has a mecurial way of becoming "fuck it" in the most cheerily absurd way.
Friday, January 04, 2008
FUCKING INCOMPETENCE!
i am so FUCKING tired of bearing the brunt of somebody else's fuckups. my car insurance: farmer's SUCKS. the guy i bought the blue meanie from: still has not sent my, oh, TITLE. where is pride and professionalism any more? -like going to a diner and watching the workers amble around vapidly with empty hands while all around them is shit that needs to be done. i am a high-strung bitch, i admit it, but FUCK.
i also, in review, write quite inarticulately when peeved.
this is a reason why i could probably not be able to live in new orleans without going fucking mad: i want things done yesterday. the pace of life is very fucking slow there- a more positive soul would consider it 'relaxed' and 'unhurried'- and my first day there i found it refreshing and pleasant, a fitting accompaniment to the unctuous clime. by my last day? i was in a sour mood already, not wanting to leave, and therefore allowing stupid crap to annoy me, but the drawly chitchatty cashiers and meandering pedestrians and painstaking counting out of my change was becoming NOT acceptable. i found myself fidgeting obnoxiously with a surly look on my face, which immediately made me feel like a total asshole, which led to embarrassment, which made it very nice to come back to silly old seattle, where people walk quickly and stare determinedly into space and would just as soon enucleate you with their fucking umbrella as ask you how your day's going, HON.
*
i should probably not be typing right now. i am dripping pissiness onto the library keyboard. this is better than dripping piss onto the library keyboard.
one good thing: the radio was just playing 'november rain.' break out the bic. that is a fucking great song.
i also, in review, write quite inarticulately when peeved.
this is a reason why i could probably not be able to live in new orleans without going fucking mad: i want things done yesterday. the pace of life is very fucking slow there- a more positive soul would consider it 'relaxed' and 'unhurried'- and my first day there i found it refreshing and pleasant, a fitting accompaniment to the unctuous clime. by my last day? i was in a sour mood already, not wanting to leave, and therefore allowing stupid crap to annoy me, but the drawly chitchatty cashiers and meandering pedestrians and painstaking counting out of my change was becoming NOT acceptable. i found myself fidgeting obnoxiously with a surly look on my face, which immediately made me feel like a total asshole, which led to embarrassment, which made it very nice to come back to silly old seattle, where people walk quickly and stare determinedly into space and would just as soon enucleate you with their fucking umbrella as ask you how your day's going, HON.
*
i should probably not be typing right now. i am dripping pissiness onto the library keyboard. this is better than dripping piss onto the library keyboard.
one good thing: the radio was just playing 'november rain.' break out the bic. that is a fucking great song.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
going up down down up any way you want me
2008 started off very, very nicely. i heard a solitary firework outside as i kissed him under the feather blanket, listening to the band, existing in the moment. why can't every second be like that? because i wouldn't appreciate it, that's why.
i slept like shit. i am currently existing on 3 hours. we woke up at 530 so he could drive me home. we were counting the other vehicles on the road. we saw 3 between capitol hill and queen anne. one of them was a cab. "does that count?" he asked. "he's getting paid to be out here."
i stopped at the convenience store on my way to work, desperately needing caffeine. in front of me in line were two guys in their swanky rumpled attire from the night before, dropping their change and weaving about as they purchased 4 six-packs of natural ice. it was seven am at this point. the streets were still desolate as i drove to work, listening to rap on KEXP, swallowing ibuprofen with my tea.
i was asked by a coworker if i made any resolutions. "to not be such an asshole" i said. "yeah, because you're the biggest asshole i know" she replied, laughing. i really fucking love that place. changing jobs was a damn wise decision. today a waggy dog named pixel was found to have cancer- his blood smear was saturated with lymphoblasts, 94 out of 100 on the differential, most bi- and trinucleated with angry little spindles of cytoplasm reaching out towards the surrounding cells, as if to spread further malaise. his presenting complaint: erthyema around his prepuce, and lethargy. seeing microscopic evidence of biological dischord is fascinating as hell- probably my favorite part of veterinary medicine. everything is explainable, everything makes sense: there is a progression of evidence that manifests symptomatically. it makes it impossible for me to be anything but an atheist.
*
yesterday s and i took the blue meanie (the new vehicle) to fairhaven, which is to bellingham what, say, spenard is to anchorage or ballard is to seattle: part of the town, but yet still independently notated on the occasional local map. downtown fairhaven is 3 blocks of really fucking cool old brick buildings, the bottom floors of which are filled with twee boutiques and tapas bars and gardening stores and wine cellars. very cute and very painfully yuppie (and need i add, very middle-aged-caucasian) at once. we sampled champagne at one of the wine shops. i had never before had true french champagne (which is the only actual champagne there is, blah blah blah- i know); my 'sparkling wine' oeuvre had generally focused on the fuck-the-cheerleader deliciousness of asti spumanti. (i still have that bottle of dom perignon in my frigidaire. i am waiting for the Right Time.) french champagne is GOOD. it is very dry, smells like yeast, and tastes like the head off a guinness.
my archaic laptop is NOT TURNING ON. i spent thirty embarrassed and increasingly vexed minutes rassling with the fucking thing in a cafe last week, stupidly pressing the start button over and over, manipulating the screen open and closed, and at one point even banging it on the table. therefore, further pictures may be a bit delayed in coming.
i have the next 3 days off. this is fanciful. and neccessary. i look and feel like a frizzy-haired wastrel who's coming down from a weeklong meth binge.
i slept like shit. i am currently existing on 3 hours. we woke up at 530 so he could drive me home. we were counting the other vehicles on the road. we saw 3 between capitol hill and queen anne. one of them was a cab. "does that count?" he asked. "he's getting paid to be out here."
i stopped at the convenience store on my way to work, desperately needing caffeine. in front of me in line were two guys in their swanky rumpled attire from the night before, dropping their change and weaving about as they purchased 4 six-packs of natural ice. it was seven am at this point. the streets were still desolate as i drove to work, listening to rap on KEXP, swallowing ibuprofen with my tea.
i was asked by a coworker if i made any resolutions. "to not be such an asshole" i said. "yeah, because you're the biggest asshole i know" she replied, laughing. i really fucking love that place. changing jobs was a damn wise decision. today a waggy dog named pixel was found to have cancer- his blood smear was saturated with lymphoblasts, 94 out of 100 on the differential, most bi- and trinucleated with angry little spindles of cytoplasm reaching out towards the surrounding cells, as if to spread further malaise. his presenting complaint: erthyema around his prepuce, and lethargy. seeing microscopic evidence of biological dischord is fascinating as hell- probably my favorite part of veterinary medicine. everything is explainable, everything makes sense: there is a progression of evidence that manifests symptomatically. it makes it impossible for me to be anything but an atheist.
*
yesterday s and i took the blue meanie (the new vehicle) to fairhaven, which is to bellingham what, say, spenard is to anchorage or ballard is to seattle: part of the town, but yet still independently notated on the occasional local map. downtown fairhaven is 3 blocks of really fucking cool old brick buildings, the bottom floors of which are filled with twee boutiques and tapas bars and gardening stores and wine cellars. very cute and very painfully yuppie (and need i add, very middle-aged-caucasian) at once. we sampled champagne at one of the wine shops. i had never before had true french champagne (which is the only actual champagne there is, blah blah blah- i know); my 'sparkling wine' oeuvre had generally focused on the fuck-the-cheerleader deliciousness of asti spumanti. (i still have that bottle of dom perignon in my frigidaire. i am waiting for the Right Time.) french champagne is GOOD. it is very dry, smells like yeast, and tastes like the head off a guinness.
my archaic laptop is NOT TURNING ON. i spent thirty embarrassed and increasingly vexed minutes rassling with the fucking thing in a cafe last week, stupidly pressing the start button over and over, manipulating the screen open and closed, and at one point even banging it on the table. therefore, further pictures may be a bit delayed in coming.
i have the next 3 days off. this is fanciful. and neccessary. i look and feel like a frizzy-haired wastrel who's coming down from a weeklong meth binge.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Saturday, December 29, 2007
the soundtrack of 2007
i am not neccessarily proud of some of these, but they have given me great pleasure (mostly whilst driving) over the last year. ah, the memories.
i am only counting entire albums. in no particular order, as usual.
-traffic 'mr fantasy'
-love 'da capo'
-the white stripes 'icky thump'
-nuggets box set volume one (especially cds 1-3)
-the rolling stones 'black and blue'
-dr dog 'we all belong'
-phish 'story of the ghost'
-yo la tengo 'i can hear the heart beating as one'
-the beatles 'please please me'
-instrumental rock collection: soul
-os mutantes 'anything is possible!'
-secret machines '12 silver drops'
and some of the songs:
-ween 'captain fantasy'
-robyn hitchcock 'this could be the day'
-amy winehouse 'you know i'm no good' (and i'll fucking admit it. this is a great song and anyone who says otherwise is a fucking LIAR)
-neil young: 'don't let it bring you down'
-tom petty 'asshole'
-trey anastasio 'black'
-destroyer 'rubies'
-ram jam 'black betty'
-the beach boys 'tears in the morning'
...there will be others, i'm sure.
*
in my head right now: "you look so good... in my bed"
i am only counting entire albums. in no particular order, as usual.
-traffic 'mr fantasy'
-love 'da capo'
-the white stripes 'icky thump'
-nuggets box set volume one (especially cds 1-3)
-the rolling stones 'black and blue'
-dr dog 'we all belong'
-phish 'story of the ghost'
-yo la tengo 'i can hear the heart beating as one'
-the beatles 'please please me'
-instrumental rock collection: soul
-os mutantes 'anything is possible!'
-secret machines '12 silver drops'
and some of the songs:
-ween 'captain fantasy'
-robyn hitchcock 'this could be the day'
-amy winehouse 'you know i'm no good' (and i'll fucking admit it. this is a great song and anyone who says otherwise is a fucking LIAR)
-neil young: 'don't let it bring you down'
-tom petty 'asshole'
-trey anastasio 'black'
-destroyer 'rubies'
-ram jam 'black betty'
-the beach boys 'tears in the morning'
...there will be others, i'm sure.
*
in my head right now: "you look so good... in my bed"
Thursday, December 27, 2007
please: a plea for ease
xmas went really, really well. i feel like a collossal fuck after my post of vitriole, so much so that i will not reread it at all. i never think first. this has gotten me into pretty much every stupid situation i can recall. and i fucking deserve it.
the train ride from seattle was gorgeous. the tracks hug the shores of puget sound, it was the first sunny day in a good while, and everything was tinted golden. my parents had the xmas tree up, adorned with ornaments from my youth; we bullshat and drank a lot and had a very good meal involving stir-fried scallops. the scallops were the size of hockey pucks, but thicker. they were like eating a stick of butter. i mean that in the best possible way.
it snowed on xmas, fat white flakes that melted upon contact. my parents offered to drive me home instead. the interstate was blocked off for 'police activity' in federal way. we eventually passed the scene: about 15 squad cars, lights flashing, and no evidence of an accident. my father called me when they returned to olympia; they'd gotten online to find the source of the ballyhoo. a guy had jumped out of a moving vehicle containing his girlfriend and her young son; he had taken off all his clothing on the freeway; he was swinging his belt at cars. the cops were called, they couldn't talk with him, they were unable to subdue him with a taser, and he was eventually shot to death on the middle of I-5 in front of a bus full of people. "that was not the story i expected to hear" i said inanely when he told me.
in today's paper they interviewed acquaintances of this mecurial young man. "that's not like him at all" was the prevailing opinion, seconded with "he's no drug user." toxicology shall see. anyhow, merry fucking xmas.
also on xmas in a small town about 20 miles east of seattle, a family of six was murdered in their own home. by their daughter and her boyfriend, presumably. again, real nice folk. couldn't imagine. they were a quiet bunch.
washington is the serial killer hub of north america, you know. the washington-BC region in general, tacoma in particular. i am inclined to blame the weather.
a term i learned today: episioplasty. it was bandied around as a surgical option for a female dog with chronic UTIs. it involves cutting back the vulvar folds to prohibit excessive gunge incubation. i love the english language: there really is a word for everything.
the train ride from seattle was gorgeous. the tracks hug the shores of puget sound, it was the first sunny day in a good while, and everything was tinted golden. my parents had the xmas tree up, adorned with ornaments from my youth; we bullshat and drank a lot and had a very good meal involving stir-fried scallops. the scallops were the size of hockey pucks, but thicker. they were like eating a stick of butter. i mean that in the best possible way.
it snowed on xmas, fat white flakes that melted upon contact. my parents offered to drive me home instead. the interstate was blocked off for 'police activity' in federal way. we eventually passed the scene: about 15 squad cars, lights flashing, and no evidence of an accident. my father called me when they returned to olympia; they'd gotten online to find the source of the ballyhoo. a guy had jumped out of a moving vehicle containing his girlfriend and her young son; he had taken off all his clothing on the freeway; he was swinging his belt at cars. the cops were called, they couldn't talk with him, they were unable to subdue him with a taser, and he was eventually shot to death on the middle of I-5 in front of a bus full of people. "that was not the story i expected to hear" i said inanely when he told me.
in today's paper they interviewed acquaintances of this mecurial young man. "that's not like him at all" was the prevailing opinion, seconded with "he's no drug user." toxicology shall see. anyhow, merry fucking xmas.
also on xmas in a small town about 20 miles east of seattle, a family of six was murdered in their own home. by their daughter and her boyfriend, presumably. again, real nice folk. couldn't imagine. they were a quiet bunch.
washington is the serial killer hub of north america, you know. the washington-BC region in general, tacoma in particular. i am inclined to blame the weather.
a term i learned today: episioplasty. it was bandied around as a surgical option for a female dog with chronic UTIs. it involves cutting back the vulvar folds to prohibit excessive gunge incubation. i love the english language: there really is a word for everything.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
fra ra ra
sigur ros is playing. the best music has a seamlessness of applicability: it can be appreciated whether driving, fucking, being giddy, being morose... and this does not fulfill every criteria. it is good, but it is not an across-the-board stalwart, unlike (at least for me, at this precise moment) traffic, or the raconteurs, or the goddamn beatles.
entropy was deuterized on friday. she came home three hours post-op, pupil dilated from opiates, and sucked down a bowl of food. she and i took a nap on the sofa in the twilight, her chin resting on my arm, purring when i touched her. by that evening she was trying to jump on tables and tearing at her e-collar and being even more of a shit than usual. i was at a seminar once where the speaker repeatedly intoned "cats are made of steel." it is true. it is very fucking difficult to make a dent in a cat. they are willful, tenacious motherfuckers. like philodendron. i appreciate that.
*
a preface to my newest Action:
-i have made it a paramount goal to keep my life as stress-free as possible, since i add enough turmoil and drama to things already, simply by being me
-my savings are my reward for the purgatory of yelm, and money is to be spent, and if i die, i would rather not have any monetary value
-i prefer comfort to coming across like a moist fogged-over illegal prick
-which sounds revolting!
-therefore:
i am buying a car on wednesday. a practical car. a car with 4 doors that open. a car with a heater, cup holders, fabulous gas mileage, functional windsheild wipers, a cd player, a sunroof, a new clutch, 4 newish tires, and seats that are unfortunately upholstered with a fabric reminiscent of a mid-80s trapper keeper.
i am buying a volkswagen golf.
for a pittance!
it is used. i am not contributing to further rape of the world, the unpaid toilers, the finite resources, the evil executives. this is a (14 yr old) car that came up from california with a fucked clutch, an unwanted orphan. i am retardedly excited about having a heated vehicle, i admit. this is a big fucking deal for me.
i am keeping sweet green. she's mine, after all, and i adore her; my neighborhood is not zoned, thank fuck, so i can continue to keep her tripod-like self parked in front of my building like the darling wastrel she is. i will fuck with her come spring, when it is light for more than four hours a day, when everything is not continuously cauled in wetness and rot.
in the meantime, i will be cavorting in a brilliant turquoise marvel of latter-day german engineering. the thing hauls ass. it will be fun.
*
tomorrow i make the amtrak-trek to my parent's lair for forced gaiety. i am dreading this. a stultified unpleasant chat with my father a few nights ago made me uneasy for hours afterwards. i will be trapped there, reliant on their transport from bumfuck to the only slightly-less-bumfuck train station, for nearly 24 hours. i am anticipating the following (and if i state it, perhaps it shall not happen?):
-father being a dickhead
-mother getting drunk
-unsolicited opinions on my life, my personality, my hair, my vocation, my diet, my sociability, my health- no opinions of which will be "atta girl"
-cream- and meat-based everything
-enduring mannheim steamroller's xmas swill on the hi-fi, in a house where the thermostat is perpetually set at 68 degrees
-mother falling asleep on the sofa at 9pm
-father hauling me into the office to stand there dumbly while he shows off his thousands of mp3s, and plays them
what will i be doing to contribute to the festivities?
-sulking inwardly
-getting defensive
-helping my mother get through the bottle of wine
-smoking in their driveway and wishing i was home
-feeling unbearably self-conscious and self-critical by proxy
-turning into a shrill teenager, minus the 78 volvo to get away in
*
i fucking hate xmas.
i hate holidays.
holidays are for the families you choose, not for the families you have.
there, i said it.
entropy was deuterized on friday. she came home three hours post-op, pupil dilated from opiates, and sucked down a bowl of food. she and i took a nap on the sofa in the twilight, her chin resting on my arm, purring when i touched her. by that evening she was trying to jump on tables and tearing at her e-collar and being even more of a shit than usual. i was at a seminar once where the speaker repeatedly intoned "cats are made of steel." it is true. it is very fucking difficult to make a dent in a cat. they are willful, tenacious motherfuckers. like philodendron. i appreciate that.
*
a preface to my newest Action:
-i have made it a paramount goal to keep my life as stress-free as possible, since i add enough turmoil and drama to things already, simply by being me
-my savings are my reward for the purgatory of yelm, and money is to be spent, and if i die, i would rather not have any monetary value
-i prefer comfort to coming across like a moist fogged-over illegal prick
-which sounds revolting!
-therefore:
i am buying a car on wednesday. a practical car. a car with 4 doors that open. a car with a heater, cup holders, fabulous gas mileage, functional windsheild wipers, a cd player, a sunroof, a new clutch, 4 newish tires, and seats that are unfortunately upholstered with a fabric reminiscent of a mid-80s trapper keeper.
i am buying a volkswagen golf.
for a pittance!
it is used. i am not contributing to further rape of the world, the unpaid toilers, the finite resources, the evil executives. this is a (14 yr old) car that came up from california with a fucked clutch, an unwanted orphan. i am retardedly excited about having a heated vehicle, i admit. this is a big fucking deal for me.
i am keeping sweet green. she's mine, after all, and i adore her; my neighborhood is not zoned, thank fuck, so i can continue to keep her tripod-like self parked in front of my building like the darling wastrel she is. i will fuck with her come spring, when it is light for more than four hours a day, when everything is not continuously cauled in wetness and rot.
in the meantime, i will be cavorting in a brilliant turquoise marvel of latter-day german engineering. the thing hauls ass. it will be fun.
*
tomorrow i make the amtrak-trek to my parent's lair for forced gaiety. i am dreading this. a stultified unpleasant chat with my father a few nights ago made me uneasy for hours afterwards. i will be trapped there, reliant on their transport from bumfuck to the only slightly-less-bumfuck train station, for nearly 24 hours. i am anticipating the following (and if i state it, perhaps it shall not happen?):
-father being a dickhead
-mother getting drunk
-unsolicited opinions on my life, my personality, my hair, my vocation, my diet, my sociability, my health- no opinions of which will be "atta girl"
-cream- and meat-based everything
-enduring mannheim steamroller's xmas swill on the hi-fi, in a house where the thermostat is perpetually set at 68 degrees
-mother falling asleep on the sofa at 9pm
-father hauling me into the office to stand there dumbly while he shows off his thousands of mp3s, and plays them
what will i be doing to contribute to the festivities?
-sulking inwardly
-getting defensive
-helping my mother get through the bottle of wine
-smoking in their driveway and wishing i was home
-feeling unbearably self-conscious and self-critical by proxy
-turning into a shrill teenager, minus the 78 volvo to get away in
*
i fucking hate xmas.
i hate holidays.
holidays are for the families you choose, not for the families you have.
there, i said it.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
found items
a stairwell on an abandoned section of the olympia brewery:
dancin' with the nazis: ("scarily cheerful marching-band music" according to the man selling this. he wanted $45. i did not, though i was rather interested on a purely sociological level.)
in the trash at the bus stop one block from my lair:
a lucky pile of pennies, abandoned in the loo at the library:
and the bottom of a 2-ton hanging lamp at the state capitol building, able to vibrate in place:
i found a wallet on the bus the other day. it belonged to a bedraggled-looking 44yr old woman. she had a downtown address, a reduced-fare bus pass, and a student ID to shoreline community college. i called information and got another woman with the same name, connected to her cell phone via a chirpy "dave and rebecca aren't home right now" message. i looked the woman up online. i found the other rebecca, the one whom i'd already called, and her address in a nice part of town. i finally made it to the other woman's address tonight... the YWCA. an unpleasant woman unsmilingly assisted me at the surveillance-monitored counter while rap played loudly. "she doesn't live here anymore" i was told. she wrote the wallet's finding in the spiral notebook behind the counter and gruffly told me goodbye. i passed through a group of smoking strangers as i left the building. and i thought about how polarized the fucking world really is. i had proof in my hands of a woman who was seemingly making every attempt to improve her life, and the residual sound of the other woman with the same name and the completely alternate reality, and i am still sadly wondering how the fuck that happens. i don't believe in luck; things either happen or they don't. but sometimes i think my beliefs are bullshit.
i left all those pennies for someone else.
dancin' with the nazis: ("scarily cheerful marching-band music" according to the man selling this. he wanted $45. i did not, though i was rather interested on a purely sociological level.)
in the trash at the bus stop one block from my lair:
a lucky pile of pennies, abandoned in the loo at the library:
and the bottom of a 2-ton hanging lamp at the state capitol building, able to vibrate in place:
i found a wallet on the bus the other day. it belonged to a bedraggled-looking 44yr old woman. she had a downtown address, a reduced-fare bus pass, and a student ID to shoreline community college. i called information and got another woman with the same name, connected to her cell phone via a chirpy "dave and rebecca aren't home right now" message. i looked the woman up online. i found the other rebecca, the one whom i'd already called, and her address in a nice part of town. i finally made it to the other woman's address tonight... the YWCA. an unpleasant woman unsmilingly assisted me at the surveillance-monitored counter while rap played loudly. "she doesn't live here anymore" i was told. she wrote the wallet's finding in the spiral notebook behind the counter and gruffly told me goodbye. i passed through a group of smoking strangers as i left the building. and i thought about how polarized the fucking world really is. i had proof in my hands of a woman who was seemingly making every attempt to improve her life, and the residual sound of the other woman with the same name and the completely alternate reality, and i am still sadly wondering how the fuck that happens. i don't believe in luck; things either happen or they don't. but sometimes i think my beliefs are bullshit.
i left all those pennies for someone else.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
coliform conniption
i am wired with sexual energy. i want to slam my body against a tall stranger. it must be the season.
the new job is going rather well. on my 3rd day there (yesterday) they were passing out envelopes. i got mine and immediately thought negative things; instead i found a "glad you're on board" xmas note and a crisp $50 bill. on my 3rd day. $50. did such things ever happen at tacoma? no, indeed, they did not.
no, tacoma is now denying me the "extended leave" clause that i am legally entitled to (as is every taxpaying employee of the united states), which i was relying on to retain my health insurance benefits until my new ones kicked in (april). i was planning on continuing to pay the exorbinant monthly fees, appreciating that they are still far less than the $500/month+ clusterfuckery of COBRA. yesterday i received an email from my former manager saying that "it was in the memo" and "we know that it's complicated to understand" blah blah BLAH, whereupon i responded that they can just let my coverage die at the end of the month. i stated it kindly. and when i left my new job, i had $50 in my wallet and my fingers crossed mightily that i will not have any serious shit befall me in the next 4 months.
or i will be fucked.
i hate american health care.
i am now commuting via public transport, which i dearly love, which is such a new and novel and joyous thing that i can excuse the presumed 'imconvenience' of it all. i am now able to TAKE A BUS TO WORK FROM MY HOME, like normal folk do! this is thrilling as fuck. the thrill was induced, in part, by my tire shredding on my car whilst on the interstate last weekend. i ruined the rim too. and then i continued to drive it home, because it was already fucked up. my car is now parked off-kilter in front of my lair with a rear tire that looks like it was decimated by a machete. i accomplished tire death. i shall post a picture soon.
i also hate the annoying burden of vehicles.
*
whilst walking here (at the w seattle library, post-dentist, ever the wily hedonist) i had that thought i hadn't had in at least a few days. changing jobs and consequently changing my life, worrying about whether this is a wise decision, worrying about potential health issues and the stupid drama with s, wishing it wasn't so fucking cold and grey and solitary here, has essentially defined the last week. i have been even more stressed than what i consider natural. and the thought was: i can handle this.
it can be considered the height of patheticism to have to perform my own cheerleading... as my current optimism inevitably abates, surely i will analyze this to my detriment.
*
on the mcdonald's electronic reader board near my lair:
nog nog!
who's there?
egg nog shakes!
that's who!
it makes me laugh every time.
the new job is going rather well. on my 3rd day there (yesterday) they were passing out envelopes. i got mine and immediately thought negative things; instead i found a "glad you're on board" xmas note and a crisp $50 bill. on my 3rd day. $50. did such things ever happen at tacoma? no, indeed, they did not.
no, tacoma is now denying me the "extended leave" clause that i am legally entitled to (as is every taxpaying employee of the united states), which i was relying on to retain my health insurance benefits until my new ones kicked in (april). i was planning on continuing to pay the exorbinant monthly fees, appreciating that they are still far less than the $500/month+ clusterfuckery of COBRA. yesterday i received an email from my former manager saying that "it was in the memo" and "we know that it's complicated to understand" blah blah BLAH, whereupon i responded that they can just let my coverage die at the end of the month. i stated it kindly. and when i left my new job, i had $50 in my wallet and my fingers crossed mightily that i will not have any serious shit befall me in the next 4 months.
or i will be fucked.
i hate american health care.
i am now commuting via public transport, which i dearly love, which is such a new and novel and joyous thing that i can excuse the presumed 'imconvenience' of it all. i am now able to TAKE A BUS TO WORK FROM MY HOME, like normal folk do! this is thrilling as fuck. the thrill was induced, in part, by my tire shredding on my car whilst on the interstate last weekend. i ruined the rim too. and then i continued to drive it home, because it was already fucked up. my car is now parked off-kilter in front of my lair with a rear tire that looks like it was decimated by a machete. i accomplished tire death. i shall post a picture soon.
i also hate the annoying burden of vehicles.
*
whilst walking here (at the w seattle library, post-dentist, ever the wily hedonist) i had that thought i hadn't had in at least a few days. changing jobs and consequently changing my life, worrying about whether this is a wise decision, worrying about potential health issues and the stupid drama with s, wishing it wasn't so fucking cold and grey and solitary here, has essentially defined the last week. i have been even more stressed than what i consider natural. and the thought was: i can handle this.
it can be considered the height of patheticism to have to perform my own cheerleading... as my current optimism inevitably abates, surely i will analyze this to my detriment.
*
on the mcdonald's electronic reader board near my lair:
nog nog!
who's there?
egg nog shakes!
that's who!
it makes me laugh every time.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
flux
it snowed like hell on saturday. one inch of sloppy slush paralyzes this place. i, for example, live atop a 40 degree incline in a town that does not utilize sanders, plows, or de-icers. understanding this makes me feel a bit less pussified.
from the front of my lair, looking down (sweet green is in the foreground. i learned this weekend that she leaks. formidably. there is an inch of standing water on the floor. i eagerly await mold.):
it was melted by that evening, turning into a nightmarish torrent that dumped nearly 7 inches of rain over 2 days. chehalis, an admittedly nondescript berg about 30 miles south of olympia, is completely submerged. I-5 is underwater. in seattle, storm drains were clogging and people were rowing out of their yards. there was a landslide a few blocks away from my place. i am tired of sogginess. everything is perpetually sodden and bleak here. usually it doesn't bother me too much... i love rain, hence my decision to live here... but FUCK. i am reminded of the horrible month of january 06 and the CEASELESS rain and my leaking ceiling... go back to the archives and read all about it for some bona fide knee-slappery.
later saturday night, downtown. the snow is still falling but not adhering.
i met s at our usual haunt. the furnace was broken. it was cold as fuck. we played with the candle. he sarcastically selected 'radio ga ga' on the jukebox after i, in some degree of earnestness, chose 'fat bottom girls.'
...blurry though this may be, i find this image rather sexy.
*
my last official day at the tacoma ER was monday. it was very fucking sad to leave. they bought me cake and a card. i got a lot of hugs. i cried. some of my coworkers cried too. i drove home that night feeling incredibly morose: what the fuck did i go and quit for? is that yet another decision i will learn to rue? no more commute. that's all it comes down to. better benefits. better pay. a new experience. life goes on.
i tend to not get too comfortable on purpose. anywhere.
i orientate (?) at the new place tomorrow and start my first shifts on friday. i am deeply dreading my new schedule. i have a week of swing-shift training, then the terrible day shifts begin. early day shifts. i am already getting despondent about this fucking weather. not seeing daylight for days at a time is a worrisome concept, to the point of preoccupying me.
*
went to the ranch 99 asian market today. i am always at least a head taller than everyone else there, including the men. so i didn't bust out the camera and add to my conspicuousness, though oh, how i wanted to. an entire roasted piglet, dangling. frosty bags of duck feet. artichoke tea. fascinating, terrible things. i bought a bag of soup mix for s's birthday, a freeze-dried amalgam including dainty starfish. he collects bizarre food products too- i didn't know anyone else did that (which is why i have in my cupboards tinned treacle and grass jelly, and why he will soon have, along with the starfish-stuff, broiled octopus and amyl nitrate flavoring).
i have always been drawn to images of the mundane, the unclean room, the packaging at the grocery store. so herein is a picture of my cool two-tiered stove.
from the front of my lair, looking down (sweet green is in the foreground. i learned this weekend that she leaks. formidably. there is an inch of standing water on the floor. i eagerly await mold.):
it was melted by that evening, turning into a nightmarish torrent that dumped nearly 7 inches of rain over 2 days. chehalis, an admittedly nondescript berg about 30 miles south of olympia, is completely submerged. I-5 is underwater. in seattle, storm drains were clogging and people were rowing out of their yards. there was a landslide a few blocks away from my place. i am tired of sogginess. everything is perpetually sodden and bleak here. usually it doesn't bother me too much... i love rain, hence my decision to live here... but FUCK. i am reminded of the horrible month of january 06 and the CEASELESS rain and my leaking ceiling... go back to the archives and read all about it for some bona fide knee-slappery.
later saturday night, downtown. the snow is still falling but not adhering.
i met s at our usual haunt. the furnace was broken. it was cold as fuck. we played with the candle. he sarcastically selected 'radio ga ga' on the jukebox after i, in some degree of earnestness, chose 'fat bottom girls.'
...blurry though this may be, i find this image rather sexy.
*
my last official day at the tacoma ER was monday. it was very fucking sad to leave. they bought me cake and a card. i got a lot of hugs. i cried. some of my coworkers cried too. i drove home that night feeling incredibly morose: what the fuck did i go and quit for? is that yet another decision i will learn to rue? no more commute. that's all it comes down to. better benefits. better pay. a new experience. life goes on.
i tend to not get too comfortable on purpose. anywhere.
i orientate (?) at the new place tomorrow and start my first shifts on friday. i am deeply dreading my new schedule. i have a week of swing-shift training, then the terrible day shifts begin. early day shifts. i am already getting despondent about this fucking weather. not seeing daylight for days at a time is a worrisome concept, to the point of preoccupying me.
*
went to the ranch 99 asian market today. i am always at least a head taller than everyone else there, including the men. so i didn't bust out the camera and add to my conspicuousness, though oh, how i wanted to. an entire roasted piglet, dangling. frosty bags of duck feet. artichoke tea. fascinating, terrible things. i bought a bag of soup mix for s's birthday, a freeze-dried amalgam including dainty starfish. he collects bizarre food products too- i didn't know anyone else did that (which is why i have in my cupboards tinned treacle and grass jelly, and why he will soon have, along with the starfish-stuff, broiled octopus and amyl nitrate flavoring).
i have always been drawn to images of the mundane, the unclean room, the packaging at the grocery store. so herein is a picture of my cool two-tiered stove.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
go take a shower
or:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/12/03/wface103.xml
Friday, November 30, 2007
frolic
i am going to be a fucking photo addict. after the initial clusterfuckery involving the demon in my 20# laptop, i am finally getting this to work, two photographs at a time.
herein lies entropy, the newest kitten. you cannot see the cyclopian absense of her right eye. she is a little shit.
and this is tiresias, yawning ferociously.
.JPG)
i cannot capture a flattering picture of the tombs. she is obese, flecked with dandruff, and absolutely surly when i approach her.
two cats, one eye! woo-hoo! they are like twitterpated teenagers, rolling around, licking one another. it is nauseating.
.JPG)
i am not that crazy cat lady. i am not.
herein lies entropy, the newest kitten. you cannot see the cyclopian absense of her right eye. she is a little shit.
and this is tiresias, yawning ferociously.
.JPG)
i cannot capture a flattering picture of the tombs. she is obese, flecked with dandruff, and absolutely surly when i approach her.
two cats, one eye! woo-hoo! they are like twitterpated teenagers, rolling around, licking one another. it is nauseating.
.JPG)
i am not that crazy cat lady. i am not.
.JPG)
.JPG)
Thursday, November 29, 2007
"america's villians of the 20th century were frank lloyd wright for romanticizing the suburbs & henry ford for making the suburban dream accessible."
so sayeth one paco underhill, whose book 'call of the mall' must be read by anyone appalled/fascinated/bewildered by american culture. for example: makeup counters are always adjacent to the shoe department, so the ladies have something to occupy themselves whilst waiting for the minion to return with the size they requested. or: the layout of supermarkets invariably house the dairy products in the back, since most people always buy milk and they have to slog through everything else to get there, but consumers have grown annoyed by the inefficiency of that, and convenience stores have capitalized on milk-selling, so some supermarkets now have 'common buy' sections right near the entrance, as well as the full-throttle bowels-o-the-beast dairy area, or as i have just coined, the dairea.
fucking interesting to me, anyhow. i like knowing how i am unconsciously manipulated on a constant basis. i read 110 pages in one sitting, drinking 48oz of progressively watered-down tea from one wilting bag. i can be miserly even as i peruse tales of excess.
it is good to be back in warshington, even though i miss s and her clan like fuck. i worked 13 hrs apiece on sunday and monday, 12 on tuesday, 9.5 yesterday. today is freezing cold and very mellow. i made some delicious stuffing and burned the shit out of my mouth. this is, to my shame, the first time i have actually cooked something for myself in months. i typically feel culinarily witty if i add spices to a can of soup (that i then proceed to eat cold, from the can, with a fork since i don't like spoons. cold canned soup is actually very tasty- as long as it is not the condensed variety, obviously.)
alaska, though. i procured a digital camera whilst there and tomorrow i will try to post some photographs. the anecdotes will have to wait until then.
since being back:
-listened to ween's 'captain fantasy' over and over. this was my soundtrack when i was about 13, sitting in the nb hall at service high, sulking with my headphones. it is juvenile as fuck but still pretty great. i have not heard anything of ween's after 'the mollusk.' it is odd, how one can love the shit out of a band but never pursue them further.
-learned that heating up one of the 1L fluid bags/hot water bottles from work and keeping it in my lap on the drive home from work helps me freeze a tiny bit less. "don't you have a heater?" one of the other techs, a guy who once owned a bug, asked. "yeah, but it's not hooked up" i said. "why?" "because it's been too cold to mess with it" i said. yeah, funny. i am a shitty bug owner. but damned if they don't teach you how to improvise.
-had my employee review. "excellent across the board" they said. this is at my tacoma job (i don't start in seattle until next week). twice a year everyone reviews everyone. it is a stressful experience, made especially bullshittish by the fact that we must put our names at the top. i was reminded of the evil slam books of my youth. i will fucking miss that place. i will still be on call for relief shifts. "do i get to keep my locker?" i asked, half-joking. "of course" they replied. good, since i have a stupid rosie the riveter sticker permanently adhered to it, and i feel rather guilty.
-cases at work: angus, the GDV with thrombocytopenia (discovered after already in surgery) that bled out post-op, from every orifice, mainly his ass. another GDV surgery (jessie) last night that i was monitoring, neccessitating a gastrotomy because the stomach tube wouldn't pass, proceeding to spill a huge mass of stomach contents, including spaghetti, into the abdominal cavity; the stray cat with hideous flea dermatitis who i fell in love with, despite his pendulous gonads; everything else is a fucking blur, by choice. lots of DKA, lots of wounds (including a yorkie who was shot through her kidney), lots of strays. i am rather exhausted still.
*
suburbia be damned; i do love frank lloyd wright. my pulse slows just looking at his buildings.
fucking interesting to me, anyhow. i like knowing how i am unconsciously manipulated on a constant basis. i read 110 pages in one sitting, drinking 48oz of progressively watered-down tea from one wilting bag. i can be miserly even as i peruse tales of excess.
it is good to be back in warshington, even though i miss s and her clan like fuck. i worked 13 hrs apiece on sunday and monday, 12 on tuesday, 9.5 yesterday. today is freezing cold and very mellow. i made some delicious stuffing and burned the shit out of my mouth. this is, to my shame, the first time i have actually cooked something for myself in months. i typically feel culinarily witty if i add spices to a can of soup (that i then proceed to eat cold, from the can, with a fork since i don't like spoons. cold canned soup is actually very tasty- as long as it is not the condensed variety, obviously.)
alaska, though. i procured a digital camera whilst there and tomorrow i will try to post some photographs. the anecdotes will have to wait until then.
since being back:
-listened to ween's 'captain fantasy' over and over. this was my soundtrack when i was about 13, sitting in the nb hall at service high, sulking with my headphones. it is juvenile as fuck but still pretty great. i have not heard anything of ween's after 'the mollusk.' it is odd, how one can love the shit out of a band but never pursue them further.
-learned that heating up one of the 1L fluid bags/hot water bottles from work and keeping it in my lap on the drive home from work helps me freeze a tiny bit less. "don't you have a heater?" one of the other techs, a guy who once owned a bug, asked. "yeah, but it's not hooked up" i said. "why?" "because it's been too cold to mess with it" i said. yeah, funny. i am a shitty bug owner. but damned if they don't teach you how to improvise.
-had my employee review. "excellent across the board" they said. this is at my tacoma job (i don't start in seattle until next week). twice a year everyone reviews everyone. it is a stressful experience, made especially bullshittish by the fact that we must put our names at the top. i was reminded of the evil slam books of my youth. i will fucking miss that place. i will still be on call for relief shifts. "do i get to keep my locker?" i asked, half-joking. "of course" they replied. good, since i have a stupid rosie the riveter sticker permanently adhered to it, and i feel rather guilty.
-cases at work: angus, the GDV with thrombocytopenia (discovered after already in surgery) that bled out post-op, from every orifice, mainly his ass. another GDV surgery (jessie) last night that i was monitoring, neccessitating a gastrotomy because the stomach tube wouldn't pass, proceeding to spill a huge mass of stomach contents, including spaghetti, into the abdominal cavity; the stray cat with hideous flea dermatitis who i fell in love with, despite his pendulous gonads; everything else is a fucking blur, by choice. lots of DKA, lots of wounds (including a yorkie who was shot through her kidney), lots of strays. i am rather exhausted still.
*
suburbia be damned; i do love frank lloyd wright. my pulse slows just looking at his buildings.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
and what shall
i am happy and i feel good about everything.
or: it is all handle-able. there is nothing that cannot be dealt with.
i needed this.
more later.
or: it is all handle-able. there is nothing that cannot be dealt with.
i needed this.
more later.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
what was
nothing changes here. this is cockle-warming and depressing at once. the only real difference: my world is somewhere else now.
i arrived in anchorage as the sun was setting. tis a damned homely place. i was grinning uncontrollably as i got off the plane. everything was tinted golden: the scant snow, the puny trees, the filthy pickup trucks on the road. being back prompts an eerie "well, of course" feeling- it's home in a very seamless and clausterphobic way, like the smell of a former lover's neck- you know it far too well and it's both wonderful and "get the fuck away from me"... anchorage is a former lover's neck. i should make bumper stickers.
my insomnia has followed me here. i do not recall the last time i slept more than 5 hours in a night. but here it is six-thirty a.m. and will be pitch black outside for hours, and i only just remembered whilst sitting here (in a dark room) that oh yeah, it's my birthday too. and thanksgiving. and the 44th anniversary of JFK's assassination. and one of the babies in an adjacent room just woke up crying.
*
we went to darwin's last night. of course. i saw so many people i knew, people i knew FROM THERE... people who were STILL THERE, nearly six years later, looking a bit aged... it was really fucking good to see some people, very stultifying to see others- most of the latter were s's friends anyhow, people i smiled politely at in passing, people who called me "bree". ike and tina on the hi-fi. the smell of popcorn. the remodeled bathroom where the position of the toilet forces my knees against the wall. a crushed can somersaulting down the alley in the wind. IT IS WARMER HERE THAN IN SEATTLE. i was complimented on my firm handshake. the very good thing about s having kids and therefore a curfew: we leave early and lucidly. responsibility? self-pride? the people i remembered who were there when we arrived were possibly still there when we left.
anchorage is a dirty, pathetic little town. i fucking left for many, many reasons. but i do love this place. i love the blue lights in the town square, the neighborhood by elderberry park, the murals behind the panhandler bar, the alaska zoo charity-things hanging all over the gas station i will always know as a mapco, the fucking amazing fries at peggy's with the stacks of pie boxes on the u-shaped bar, the sloppy back roads and the cars parked in yards and people's inherent effusiveness, that giddy feeling that i could possibly run into someone i know at any time, the proof of a past.
i arrived in anchorage as the sun was setting. tis a damned homely place. i was grinning uncontrollably as i got off the plane. everything was tinted golden: the scant snow, the puny trees, the filthy pickup trucks on the road. being back prompts an eerie "well, of course" feeling- it's home in a very seamless and clausterphobic way, like the smell of a former lover's neck- you know it far too well and it's both wonderful and "get the fuck away from me"... anchorage is a former lover's neck. i should make bumper stickers.
my insomnia has followed me here. i do not recall the last time i slept more than 5 hours in a night. but here it is six-thirty a.m. and will be pitch black outside for hours, and i only just remembered whilst sitting here (in a dark room) that oh yeah, it's my birthday too. and thanksgiving. and the 44th anniversary of JFK's assassination. and one of the babies in an adjacent room just woke up crying.
*
we went to darwin's last night. of course. i saw so many people i knew, people i knew FROM THERE... people who were STILL THERE, nearly six years later, looking a bit aged... it was really fucking good to see some people, very stultifying to see others- most of the latter were s's friends anyhow, people i smiled politely at in passing, people who called me "bree". ike and tina on the hi-fi. the smell of popcorn. the remodeled bathroom where the position of the toilet forces my knees against the wall. a crushed can somersaulting down the alley in the wind. IT IS WARMER HERE THAN IN SEATTLE. i was complimented on my firm handshake. the very good thing about s having kids and therefore a curfew: we leave early and lucidly. responsibility? self-pride? the people i remembered who were there when we arrived were possibly still there when we left.
anchorage is a dirty, pathetic little town. i fucking left for many, many reasons. but i do love this place. i love the blue lights in the town square, the neighborhood by elderberry park, the murals behind the panhandler bar, the alaska zoo charity-things hanging all over the gas station i will always know as a mapco, the fucking amazing fries at peggy's with the stacks of pie boxes on the u-shaped bar, the sloppy back roads and the cars parked in yards and people's inherent effusiveness, that giddy feeling that i could possibly run into someone i know at any time, the proof of a past.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
shitterpated
i got the job at the local ER. for the first time in almost five years, i will be working in the city where i live. i am very pleased about this.
raining like hell. no place sells rain-x. my car is a death trap. the classic rock station is doing their entire catalog a-z as a holiday precursor. the disc jockey said "isn't this just one of those beautiful pacific northwest days that you dream about?" as i hydroplaned blindly. "it's a good day" said he, "to slog through the ARRRs." 'roundabout' was the last one i heard before i exited my vehicle, still repeating 'arrrr' to myself, swaggering around puddles.
a child is wailing in the library. it is echoing off the high ceiling. the other people at the computers were all looking disgustedly towards the source. "i was doing that earlier this week" one of the guys said. i laughed out loud, an obvious eavesdropper.
s will be in texas while i am in alaska. he grew up in college station. he has a barely perceptable accent. it is charming as fuck, actually. last night i hung out in his lair, alternately drawing and looking at his banksy book while he went through a huge bag of junk mail. he found a box of cellulose packing peanuts. "i don't want to just throw them away" he said. i suggested he flush them. twenty minutes later they were still there, even after being mushed up by the toilet brush. "you should leave it for your roommates" i said. and he did. we were standing in the bathroom, cackling in front of a toilet that looked as if someone had just had a hellacious caseous shit, and i thought "i really adore this guy." he has been a very fucking good friend.
'dandelion', the rolling stones, 1967: backing vocals by john lennon and paul mccartney. recommended.
raining like hell. no place sells rain-x. my car is a death trap. the classic rock station is doing their entire catalog a-z as a holiday precursor. the disc jockey said "isn't this just one of those beautiful pacific northwest days that you dream about?" as i hydroplaned blindly. "it's a good day" said he, "to slog through the ARRRs." 'roundabout' was the last one i heard before i exited my vehicle, still repeating 'arrrr' to myself, swaggering around puddles.
a child is wailing in the library. it is echoing off the high ceiling. the other people at the computers were all looking disgustedly towards the source. "i was doing that earlier this week" one of the guys said. i laughed out loud, an obvious eavesdropper.
s will be in texas while i am in alaska. he grew up in college station. he has a barely perceptable accent. it is charming as fuck, actually. last night i hung out in his lair, alternately drawing and looking at his banksy book while he went through a huge bag of junk mail. he found a box of cellulose packing peanuts. "i don't want to just throw them away" he said. i suggested he flush them. twenty minutes later they were still there, even after being mushed up by the toilet brush. "you should leave it for your roommates" i said. and he did. we were standing in the bathroom, cackling in front of a toilet that looked as if someone had just had a hellacious caseous shit, and i thought "i really adore this guy." he has been a very fucking good friend.
'dandelion', the rolling stones, 1967: backing vocals by john lennon and paul mccartney. recommended.
Monday, November 12, 2007
gary and melissa loved to make love
i met with the neurologist today. i am so tired of fucking students trailing the doctors- some privacy, please? or at least some modicum of a pleasant bedside manner? she was an unsmiling cunt. i hope she fails medical school.
the doctor showed me my latest MRI in comparison with the one taken 17 months ago. the initial splotches of inflammation are still there, joined by some other pea-sized random blips across my brain. it is like looking at cells at work, seeing what is normal and what is not, how even the abnormal is strikingly beautiful because it indicates proof. he didn't seem too concerned with any of it. he did, as i anticipated, urge me to start medication. "it's your brain, after all" he said. he described the weekly injection i would give myself, an "immuno-modifier", and how it could cause "flu-like" symptoms that "normally go away in a few months", and i said "i don't want to resign myself to that and admit that i have an issue that needs continuous treatment," all the while thinking that, miserable as the relapses are, 2 in a year and a half is not that horrid a frequency, and at least i know that what i experience now is ME, not some fucking pharmaceutical side-effect. i wish he'd offer me medical marijuana instead.
my third and final steroid infusion was today. i had my own room, a television with a remote, and two hours flipping between 'roseanne' and the food network. i had forgotten how fucking vapid the food network is. i was thinking especially rude things about sandra lee.
afterwards: i found out i got the fucking job at the local ER. i had my working interview there on friday, the day my symptoms began in earnest, and i was not on the proverbial ball whatsoever. i hit the veins, did everything well, but mentally i was not as... lively as i could have been. but apparently i made a good enough impression. "everyone really liked you and think you'd be a great addition to our team" the HR woman wrote me in an email. that fucking made my day. the caveatL the schedule sucks. but it is open to fluctuation- this is an incredibly mecurial field. she is allowing me a few days to mull it over.
it is nice to know i don't suck too badly.
it is even nicer to know that i can muster competence even with my brain covered with plaque.
and i can move a bit more of my face today.
the little things matter the most. i actually feel really fucking optimistic right now- and it may be the 'roids talking, but i also feel a hell of a lot less vulnerable than i did a few days ago.
i have always hated the soft-porn tittiness of that giada chick from the aforementioned food network, but she made something today that sounded pretty damn good, and those who can eat dairy should try this to, i don't know, impress the ladies.
i leave you with:
saute some diced onions and carrots and, i don't know, celery, in olive oil. add a package of frozen-defrosted-drained spinach and some sliced roma tomatoes. (i'm thinking mushrooms too. everything is better with mushrooms.) mix. it is pretty. in another bowl mix a container (whatever size- 8 oz?) of marscapone cheese, 1/4c grated parmiagno-reggiano, salt, pepper, and i can't remember if there was anything else, but methinks some toasted pine nuts would kick fucking ass. mix the cheese-gloop and add half the sauteed vegetable olio to it. then! you have this cute stack of pancakes- i think that would sort of suck, why not tortillas? like, ooh, those spinach or sundried tomato or rosemary ones? oh my god that would be fucking delicious! so screw the pancakes, do the tortillas. put a bit of the filling in each tortilla, or tortilla-scrap, top with mozarella, and roll them up. place them in a buttered baking dish. puree the rest of the vegetable medley and pour over the top. smother with more parmesan. add more mozzarella too. would smoked gouda be too much here? perhaps in lieu of the mozarella? fuck, i miss cheese. apparently.
bake at 350 or so for 35 minutes? or 25 minutes? i was probably flipping back to roseanne at that point. anyway, keep an eye on it.
vicarious cheese. i am sick.
the doctor showed me my latest MRI in comparison with the one taken 17 months ago. the initial splotches of inflammation are still there, joined by some other pea-sized random blips across my brain. it is like looking at cells at work, seeing what is normal and what is not, how even the abnormal is strikingly beautiful because it indicates proof. he didn't seem too concerned with any of it. he did, as i anticipated, urge me to start medication. "it's your brain, after all" he said. he described the weekly injection i would give myself, an "immuno-modifier", and how it could cause "flu-like" symptoms that "normally go away in a few months", and i said "i don't want to resign myself to that and admit that i have an issue that needs continuous treatment," all the while thinking that, miserable as the relapses are, 2 in a year and a half is not that horrid a frequency, and at least i know that what i experience now is ME, not some fucking pharmaceutical side-effect. i wish he'd offer me medical marijuana instead.
my third and final steroid infusion was today. i had my own room, a television with a remote, and two hours flipping between 'roseanne' and the food network. i had forgotten how fucking vapid the food network is. i was thinking especially rude things about sandra lee.
afterwards: i found out i got the fucking job at the local ER. i had my working interview there on friday, the day my symptoms began in earnest, and i was not on the proverbial ball whatsoever. i hit the veins, did everything well, but mentally i was not as... lively as i could have been. but apparently i made a good enough impression. "everyone really liked you and think you'd be a great addition to our team" the HR woman wrote me in an email. that fucking made my day. the caveatL the schedule sucks. but it is open to fluctuation- this is an incredibly mecurial field. she is allowing me a few days to mull it over.
it is nice to know i don't suck too badly.
it is even nicer to know that i can muster competence even with my brain covered with plaque.
and i can move a bit more of my face today.
the little things matter the most. i actually feel really fucking optimistic right now- and it may be the 'roids talking, but i also feel a hell of a lot less vulnerable than i did a few days ago.
i have always hated the soft-porn tittiness of that giada chick from the aforementioned food network, but she made something today that sounded pretty damn good, and those who can eat dairy should try this to, i don't know, impress the ladies.
i leave you with:
saute some diced onions and carrots and, i don't know, celery, in olive oil. add a package of frozen-defrosted-drained spinach and some sliced roma tomatoes. (i'm thinking mushrooms too. everything is better with mushrooms.) mix. it is pretty. in another bowl mix a container (whatever size- 8 oz?) of marscapone cheese, 1/4c grated parmiagno-reggiano, salt, pepper, and i can't remember if there was anything else, but methinks some toasted pine nuts would kick fucking ass. mix the cheese-gloop and add half the sauteed vegetable olio to it. then! you have this cute stack of pancakes- i think that would sort of suck, why not tortillas? like, ooh, those spinach or sundried tomato or rosemary ones? oh my god that would be fucking delicious! so screw the pancakes, do the tortillas. put a bit of the filling in each tortilla, or tortilla-scrap, top with mozarella, and roll them up. place them in a buttered baking dish. puree the rest of the vegetable medley and pour over the top. smother with more parmesan. add more mozzarella too. would smoked gouda be too much here? perhaps in lieu of the mozarella? fuck, i miss cheese. apparently.
bake at 350 or so for 35 minutes? or 25 minutes? i was probably flipping back to roseanne at that point. anyway, keep an eye on it.
vicarious cheese. i am sick.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
what matters?
more MS.
just in time for alaska.
i have an IV catheter taped in place, hidden under my sweater on my right forearm. my elbow veins are shot from the multiple prods i recieved yesterday. "don't go shootin' up!" the male nurse said jovially as he, against hospital orders, sent me home with the IV in. "i'll do my best" i replied drily.
yesterday: i called my neurologist to describe the paralysis besetting the right side of my face. it is funny now, but it most fucking certainly wasn't when i first noticed it friday night. i had actually noticed something weird as far back as wednesday, i realize now: i was putting on chapstick and found it very difficult to rub my lips together. the cool (and i mean this unironically) thing about MS: i sm hyper-aware of every tiny vacillation in my body, anything that is at all unusual. scary thing is, i'm always fucking right.
he recommended i go to the ER. mentioned stroke, bell's palsy. shit, thought i, i have something ELSE? something NEW? i wasn't concerned about stroke, but the bell's palsy thing was new... i remembered reading about it in a fully illustrated medical book years ago- along with grave;s disease, and all those other unnattractive neuro syndromes that make for unsightly photographs.
took the bus to the ER. got a private room with a television. watched the last half of 'psycho' on the in-room television. ("i helped pick out the dress she was buried in. periwinkle blue.") had ~20mls (i asked; "you'll remake it by dinnertime") of blood drawn. went up to the MRI. they gave me headphones, set too blaringly to, per my request, the classic rock station, which was playing 3-song sets for the weekend, so i was immobile and helpless in the MRI for about 50 minutes, stuck with fucking ZZ top and van halen and several of my other least fucking favorite bands, in triplicate, thinking halfway through "what if i have a fucking brain tumor?" feeling tears go down my cheeks, itching, unable to wipe them away.
back to the room with the telly, now turned to fucking entertainment tonight, the doctor confirming MS resurgence, tethering me to the bed with an IV pump for an elephant-felling infusion of solu-medrol, stuck with the terrible television because the hospital had its remotes habitually stolen.
('such great heights' is playing at the cafe right now. this is a fucking great song. i wonder how many dewy-eyed couples lost their virginity to this.)
after i left the ER, six hours later, i burst into near-hysterical tears, yelled "FUCK" into the darkness, and kicked the shit out of the side of some building. i felt better after that.
met with s. i need more that what he can give, at least this week. but he was good for a few hours, anyway. he listened to me rand and didn't flee in revulsion while i repeatedly cried and blew my nose in public. we had tea and coffee. i am glad i did not have any alcohol last night. it would not have been wise.
today: calmer. know your enemy, then get on with it. the terror and helplessness that plagued me for the last few (incredibly draining) days has given way to... mellow. i can even find humor in it. how is it possible, for example, that i can flare my fucking nostrils but not raise my right eyebrow? i know. i've practiced. went back to the ER for a second hour-long steroid bolus. the room today was far crappier, seperated by a curtain from a 52-year-old man with rectal bleeding. i heard it all: his boyfriend bringing him food, the heart monitor beeping nonstop for about 5 minutes due to his tachycardia, the doctor giving him a rectal exam and vocalizing what he found. i stayed on my side, reading a book about how fat was always considered the aesthetic ideal until recently, and how the pendulum should swing back soon, and at one point i fell asleep, in the fetal position, knee-length hospital gown over my jeans and t-shirt.
they're playing fucking billy bragg! "a new england" is one of the best songs ever! fuck. life is sometimes poignant enough to make me cry. i think i cried everything i could yesterday. now i am left quietly, wholeheartedly appreciating.
no edit.
just in time for alaska.
i have an IV catheter taped in place, hidden under my sweater on my right forearm. my elbow veins are shot from the multiple prods i recieved yesterday. "don't go shootin' up!" the male nurse said jovially as he, against hospital orders, sent me home with the IV in. "i'll do my best" i replied drily.
yesterday: i called my neurologist to describe the paralysis besetting the right side of my face. it is funny now, but it most fucking certainly wasn't when i first noticed it friday night. i had actually noticed something weird as far back as wednesday, i realize now: i was putting on chapstick and found it very difficult to rub my lips together. the cool (and i mean this unironically) thing about MS: i sm hyper-aware of every tiny vacillation in my body, anything that is at all unusual. scary thing is, i'm always fucking right.
he recommended i go to the ER. mentioned stroke, bell's palsy. shit, thought i, i have something ELSE? something NEW? i wasn't concerned about stroke, but the bell's palsy thing was new... i remembered reading about it in a fully illustrated medical book years ago- along with grave;s disease, and all those other unnattractive neuro syndromes that make for unsightly photographs.
took the bus to the ER. got a private room with a television. watched the last half of 'psycho' on the in-room television. ("i helped pick out the dress she was buried in. periwinkle blue.") had ~20mls (i asked; "you'll remake it by dinnertime") of blood drawn. went up to the MRI. they gave me headphones, set too blaringly to, per my request, the classic rock station, which was playing 3-song sets for the weekend, so i was immobile and helpless in the MRI for about 50 minutes, stuck with fucking ZZ top and van halen and several of my other least fucking favorite bands, in triplicate, thinking halfway through "what if i have a fucking brain tumor?" feeling tears go down my cheeks, itching, unable to wipe them away.
back to the room with the telly, now turned to fucking entertainment tonight, the doctor confirming MS resurgence, tethering me to the bed with an IV pump for an elephant-felling infusion of solu-medrol, stuck with the terrible television because the hospital had its remotes habitually stolen.
('such great heights' is playing at the cafe right now. this is a fucking great song. i wonder how many dewy-eyed couples lost their virginity to this.)
after i left the ER, six hours later, i burst into near-hysterical tears, yelled "FUCK" into the darkness, and kicked the shit out of the side of some building. i felt better after that.
met with s. i need more that what he can give, at least this week. but he was good for a few hours, anyway. he listened to me rand and didn't flee in revulsion while i repeatedly cried and blew my nose in public. we had tea and coffee. i am glad i did not have any alcohol last night. it would not have been wise.
today: calmer. know your enemy, then get on with it. the terror and helplessness that plagued me for the last few (incredibly draining) days has given way to... mellow. i can even find humor in it. how is it possible, for example, that i can flare my fucking nostrils but not raise my right eyebrow? i know. i've practiced. went back to the ER for a second hour-long steroid bolus. the room today was far crappier, seperated by a curtain from a 52-year-old man with rectal bleeding. i heard it all: his boyfriend bringing him food, the heart monitor beeping nonstop for about 5 minutes due to his tachycardia, the doctor giving him a rectal exam and vocalizing what he found. i stayed on my side, reading a book about how fat was always considered the aesthetic ideal until recently, and how the pendulum should swing back soon, and at one point i fell asleep, in the fetal position, knee-length hospital gown over my jeans and t-shirt.
they're playing fucking billy bragg! "a new england" is one of the best songs ever! fuck. life is sometimes poignant enough to make me cry. i think i cried everything i could yesterday. now i am left quietly, wholeheartedly appreciating.
no edit.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
the deeper the cushion
this has been a fucking frustrating week. and there is really nothing i can push all the blame onto, which handily exacerbates my surliness.
some of the worst moments of my life are directly related to sex.
*
i took entropy to work with me yesterday with hopes of having her jaw-wire, and ideally her uterus, removed. i was feeling like shit already. the doctors flaked around until about 10pm, when the doctor i'd asked hours before to help me- the owner of the clinic- tried to pry the fucking wire out without any anesthesia. i was holding her, she was crying, and a group of technicians was standing around, all watching with the same horrified "why the fuck isn't the doctor using sedation" expressions. i had to ask several times before entropy was fully sedated. and this fucking pissed me off. why do i pretend to have loyalty to a job that treats its employees and their animals so disrespectfully? i would be furious if i was a client and my pet was handled that way. i have not had much loyalty to the place since my decision to stay in seattle, i admit; i am going through the motions, fairly blatantly. the fact that this week has been otherwise fucked up has not helped my attitude much. i left last night with an unspayed cat and a desperate need for a cigarette.
things will change soon.
the teapot that i've had for years -admittedly hideous with tulips on the side- burned through its base today. i did not know that could actually happen. i was heating water for tea and absently listening to the perpetual hiss of water hitting the electric burner; it wasn't until dribbling scalding water all over the counter that i properly investigated. i must make more tea than i realize. this is one of those crappy items that has travelled with me since 1997, to every place i have ever lived; i bought it at some thrift store for a pittance. it is a small accomplishment to wear an object completely the fuck out.
it has occurred to me as i have packed, then unpacked, my world o' shit over the last month, how i tend to hold onto things. i have books from when i was a kid, plants from 6 years ago, things on my refrigerator that i remember from the refrigerators in anchorage. it is comforting to maintain a sense of 'place', no matter where- like when i was backpacking by myself, and i would empty out my bag and look at everything, how seeing my clothes and the shit stuffed into my wallet was somehow validating, gave me proof that i existed outside of this precise instant.
how very first-world, i think disgustedly upon rereading that last paragraph.
*
i am about halfway through 'no shame in our game', yet another what's-wrong-with-america tome; i also recommend 'the working poor' for a similar theme.
...left to my own at-home devices, i guiltily find myself rereading the chapters of 'valley of the dolls' involving the clusterfuckery of neely o'hara. i try to justify my vices with a semblance of balance, however skewed.
some of the worst moments of my life are directly related to sex.
*
i took entropy to work with me yesterday with hopes of having her jaw-wire, and ideally her uterus, removed. i was feeling like shit already. the doctors flaked around until about 10pm, when the doctor i'd asked hours before to help me- the owner of the clinic- tried to pry the fucking wire out without any anesthesia. i was holding her, she was crying, and a group of technicians was standing around, all watching with the same horrified "why the fuck isn't the doctor using sedation" expressions. i had to ask several times before entropy was fully sedated. and this fucking pissed me off. why do i pretend to have loyalty to a job that treats its employees and their animals so disrespectfully? i would be furious if i was a client and my pet was handled that way. i have not had much loyalty to the place since my decision to stay in seattle, i admit; i am going through the motions, fairly blatantly. the fact that this week has been otherwise fucked up has not helped my attitude much. i left last night with an unspayed cat and a desperate need for a cigarette.
things will change soon.
the teapot that i've had for years -admittedly hideous with tulips on the side- burned through its base today. i did not know that could actually happen. i was heating water for tea and absently listening to the perpetual hiss of water hitting the electric burner; it wasn't until dribbling scalding water all over the counter that i properly investigated. i must make more tea than i realize. this is one of those crappy items that has travelled with me since 1997, to every place i have ever lived; i bought it at some thrift store for a pittance. it is a small accomplishment to wear an object completely the fuck out.
it has occurred to me as i have packed, then unpacked, my world o' shit over the last month, how i tend to hold onto things. i have books from when i was a kid, plants from 6 years ago, things on my refrigerator that i remember from the refrigerators in anchorage. it is comforting to maintain a sense of 'place', no matter where- like when i was backpacking by myself, and i would empty out my bag and look at everything, how seeing my clothes and the shit stuffed into my wallet was somehow validating, gave me proof that i existed outside of this precise instant.
how very first-world, i think disgustedly upon rereading that last paragraph.
*
i am about halfway through 'no shame in our game', yet another what's-wrong-with-america tome; i also recommend 'the working poor' for a similar theme.
...left to my own at-home devices, i guiltily find myself rereading the chapters of 'valley of the dolls' involving the clusterfuckery of neely o'hara. i try to justify my vices with a semblance of balance, however skewed.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
yeah, uh-huh, sweet
today!:
-i finally changed the sheets on my bed and slept in naked bliss
-i interviewed with a local ER and it went insanely well and everyone was incredibly nice and i have a paid working interview there next week
-i heard back from the other job i wanted, the one where my resume was forwarded to the director of the department with the notation that they were "very impressed" by a prior interview i'd had (for a job i did not get... i must have been too impressive)
-i passed many ghouls and enormous men in flamboyant drag
-i also passed a small boy dressed as a wedge of cheese, a hairless young man wearing only a dress shirt and shoes, and a man wearing a sandwich board that said "NEW CONDOS"
-i was flaked on by s, who cancelled our plans 1 hr prior because he'd "just lost his lunch in the john"
-i booked my flight to anchorage
yes! i will spend my, good god, 29th birthday in cold, cozy anchorage, as a gift to myself- proof of where i've been. life is fucking cool.
life is what is made of it.
the last two weeks have been exceptionally rife with life.
happy halloween.
-i finally changed the sheets on my bed and slept in naked bliss
-i interviewed with a local ER and it went insanely well and everyone was incredibly nice and i have a paid working interview there next week
-i heard back from the other job i wanted, the one where my resume was forwarded to the director of the department with the notation that they were "very impressed" by a prior interview i'd had (for a job i did not get... i must have been too impressive)
-i passed many ghouls and enormous men in flamboyant drag
-i also passed a small boy dressed as a wedge of cheese, a hairless young man wearing only a dress shirt and shoes, and a man wearing a sandwich board that said "NEW CONDOS"
-i was flaked on by s, who cancelled our plans 1 hr prior because he'd "just lost his lunch in the john"
-i booked my flight to anchorage
yes! i will spend my, good god, 29th birthday in cold, cozy anchorage, as a gift to myself- proof of where i've been. life is fucking cool.
life is what is made of it.
the last two weeks have been exceptionally rife with life.
happy halloween.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
26 october 07
the sun was shining when i called the movers two hours prior to their scheduled arrival and cancelled the move. my lair was flooded with light and packed boxes when i called my almost-landlord in tacoma and told him i wasn't going to take the place after all. and i went outside, had a cigarette, and felt giddier, flakier, and calmer than i had in quite a while.
it feels so fucking right to stay. unquestionably. what was i thinking? i am a fucking pleasure-seeking doof and it is incredibly erroneous to pretend otherwise. be happy. do whatever it takes. la la la.
...and for the second time this week, i woke up in the alcove of s's room, under a feather blanket, the dawn through the skylight grey and quiet, his arms reaching for me while he slept. i had forgotten how much i needed that, how much i'd missed having someone around.
everything in my life, no matter how fucked up, somehow coalesced into this last 24 hr period, so i must have done something right after all.
it feels so fucking right to stay. unquestionably. what was i thinking? i am a fucking pleasure-seeking doof and it is incredibly erroneous to pretend otherwise. be happy. do whatever it takes. la la la.
...and for the second time this week, i woke up in the alcove of s's room, under a feather blanket, the dawn through the skylight grey and quiet, his arms reaching for me while he slept. i had forgotten how much i needed that, how much i'd missed having someone around.
everything in my life, no matter how fucked up, somehow coalesced into this last 24 hr period, so i must have done something right after all.
Friday, October 12, 2007
the traits you most hate in others are the traits you hate about yourself
...and i know this.
any place fucking sucks without someone to share it with. i am grieving how much i fucked up this go-around in seattle- home to so many amazing things, but rendered so depressing by how little i connected with people here. as always, there is much, very much, i could have done differently.
'mad world' is an absolutely fantastic song. the crowded house version is playing. when gary jules' was ubiquitous, i was living very briefly in olympia, springtime, rainy, fluctuating frenetically between the elation of my brief restraining-order-against-the-ex-prompted freedom and a crushing loneliness. this song makes me want to hold someone.
my intolerance for asshat behavior has soured yet another s memory. how can i dig someone who treats me like crap? how, indeed. (i have been repeating myself for the last 15 years.) horrid rebuttals are riccocheting through my head as i walk by myself, because i am hurt. i am fucking hurt again, feeling fucking stupid, feeling shameful for trusting the good moments without remembering the annoying whole. the older people get the more self-absorbed and obliviously caustic they become. and obviously, this bothers me because i am the same fucking way.
moving will not change much. i am seeing it as an excercise in masochism. but i do have friends there. and the hood is pretty cool. and the street is lined with enormous maple trees. and the novelty, however finite, is fucking neccessary.
*
i have been infatuated with fergus henderson since i read him wax florid on a meal that he prepares in his london restaurant St John, a meal that i and my non-meated mouth salivated over: roasted marrow smeared on toast with parsley and capers, purportedly quite the orgasm. the way he speaks and writes makes me want to tear a baby lamb apart with my fucking teeth. said he in something i read today: "your spleen swells when you're in love! how can you resist an organ that does that?"
*
food is love. thus i found myself at the uppity grocer's at 11 on a friday night, buying baba ganouj and goldfish crackers for a most anticipated breakfast, feeling like less of a FUCKING LOSER when i noticed the man behind me ("ladies first!" he'd said gallantly when we were in queue) buying something crackery and something dippy also. i noticed too late. i smiled as i walked to the parking lot, not only at the happy synchronicity with a stranger, but at how i was embodying a classic, perfect example of how effortlessly i piss away every conceivable random opportunity that comes my way.
any place fucking sucks without someone to share it with. i am grieving how much i fucked up this go-around in seattle- home to so many amazing things, but rendered so depressing by how little i connected with people here. as always, there is much, very much, i could have done differently.
'mad world' is an absolutely fantastic song. the crowded house version is playing. when gary jules' was ubiquitous, i was living very briefly in olympia, springtime, rainy, fluctuating frenetically between the elation of my brief restraining-order-against-the-ex-prompted freedom and a crushing loneliness. this song makes me want to hold someone.
my intolerance for asshat behavior has soured yet another s memory. how can i dig someone who treats me like crap? how, indeed. (i have been repeating myself for the last 15 years.) horrid rebuttals are riccocheting through my head as i walk by myself, because i am hurt. i am fucking hurt again, feeling fucking stupid, feeling shameful for trusting the good moments without remembering the annoying whole. the older people get the more self-absorbed and obliviously caustic they become. and obviously, this bothers me because i am the same fucking way.
moving will not change much. i am seeing it as an excercise in masochism. but i do have friends there. and the hood is pretty cool. and the street is lined with enormous maple trees. and the novelty, however finite, is fucking neccessary.
*
i have been infatuated with fergus henderson since i read him wax florid on a meal that he prepares in his london restaurant St John, a meal that i and my non-meated mouth salivated over: roasted marrow smeared on toast with parsley and capers, purportedly quite the orgasm. the way he speaks and writes makes me want to tear a baby lamb apart with my fucking teeth. said he in something i read today: "your spleen swells when you're in love! how can you resist an organ that does that?"
*
food is love. thus i found myself at the uppity grocer's at 11 on a friday night, buying baba ganouj and goldfish crackers for a most anticipated breakfast, feeling like less of a FUCKING LOSER when i noticed the man behind me ("ladies first!" he'd said gallantly when we were in queue) buying something crackery and something dippy also. i noticed too late. i smiled as i walked to the parking lot, not only at the happy synchronicity with a stranger, but at how i was embodying a classic, perfect example of how effortlessly i piss away every conceivable random opportunity that comes my way.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
makin' lemonade!
last thursday, 24 hrs after posting self-pitying drivel, i found the place that i will be moving into by the end of the month. life is suddenly much easier. i am suddenly much happier.
and last night with s has left me spacy and smiley.
and the north mississippi all-stars are fucking amazing live.
and entropy and tiresias are in love.
and the trees are incredibly happy colors.
this optimism, too, shall pass.
and last night with s has left me spacy and smiley.
and the north mississippi all-stars are fucking amazing live.
and entropy and tiresias are in love.
and the trees are incredibly happy colors.
this optimism, too, shall pass.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
fried and frayed
seattle is a gorgeous woman who will not look at you, much less have sex with you.
*
i came to that conclusion this evening, walking in a north wind with spitlike rain, making eye contact with people who merely glared. the weather fucking sucks and is certainly contributing to my mindset. there was a thunderstorm earlier today that i listened to under the safety of my deck awning, watching the inertia of vehicles on the freeway, the lake inky and flat. i felt wistful of the moment as it was happening, like kissing someone goodbye when you know it's the last time- too painful to get much else out of the experience.
i have been a fucking mess this past week, for i am irreversibly within the quagmire of my own doing, and something must change. i cannot have my life in multiple places. it took me three hours to commute to and from work on sunday, in a deluge, with wipers that don't work. i have a wonderful job that i feel even more obligated to since i adopted the fucking kitten (who is being... a kitten. that is to say, i love her, but she's incredibly annoying and into everything, and decrying her natural lovable kittenness makes me sound like an evil asshole), and one of the neuro doctors fixed my wipers on monday, and everyone there, for the most part, gets along very well.
i never am at the lair that i love, i have never found a semblence of community in the city i'm supposed to glean all the answers from, and i can no longer justify paying out my ass to live among fucking condos and unsmiling strangers and Wine Bars and bmws and i feel especially horrible when i think of times when things in this town were good, when i was able to share them with someone, anyone, and how infrequent those times were, how i have always, on some level, felt like a visitor here.
i feel like a visitor everywhere.
i had a panic attack the other night. it had been awhile. i was laying in bed, 3am, stuck with my mind, remembering every negative thing i've ever done, unable to breathe. and there was nothing i could do but ride it out and talk myself down. and the concept of that made me feel even worse. how fucking lonely is that?
*
i came to that conclusion this evening, walking in a north wind with spitlike rain, making eye contact with people who merely glared. the weather fucking sucks and is certainly contributing to my mindset. there was a thunderstorm earlier today that i listened to under the safety of my deck awning, watching the inertia of vehicles on the freeway, the lake inky and flat. i felt wistful of the moment as it was happening, like kissing someone goodbye when you know it's the last time- too painful to get much else out of the experience.
i have been a fucking mess this past week, for i am irreversibly within the quagmire of my own doing, and something must change. i cannot have my life in multiple places. it took me three hours to commute to and from work on sunday, in a deluge, with wipers that don't work. i have a wonderful job that i feel even more obligated to since i adopted the fucking kitten (who is being... a kitten. that is to say, i love her, but she's incredibly annoying and into everything, and decrying her natural lovable kittenness makes me sound like an evil asshole), and one of the neuro doctors fixed my wipers on monday, and everyone there, for the most part, gets along very well.
i never am at the lair that i love, i have never found a semblence of community in the city i'm supposed to glean all the answers from, and i can no longer justify paying out my ass to live among fucking condos and unsmiling strangers and Wine Bars and bmws and i feel especially horrible when i think of times when things in this town were good, when i was able to share them with someone, anyone, and how infrequent those times were, how i have always, on some level, felt like a visitor here.
i feel like a visitor everywhere.
i had a panic attack the other night. it had been awhile. i was laying in bed, 3am, stuck with my mind, remembering every negative thing i've ever done, unable to breathe. and there was nothing i could do but ride it out and talk myself down. and the concept of that made me feel even worse. how fucking lonely is that?
Saturday, September 29, 2007
private in public
i spent the day cleaning out my grandparents' house in puyallup. since my grandfather died, my oma was moved to a nursing home against her vehement protests; apparently she didn't unpack anything for the first week she was there, so convinced that she was not going to stay. i can only imagine the horrible wilting when she realized that this was now her life, no turning back. i am terrified of growing old- actually, growing old (and hopefully belatedly developing some shard of credibility) is a tantalizing prospect. it is helplessness that scares the fuck out of me. i have tasted it. and it is, in my opinion, death while still being alive.
my parents, my uncle and i scoured the home, everything, and i got the first real glimpse of what my grandparents' lives were like. in doing so i saw firsthand, appalling evidence of how Not Right things had been for awhile. there were boxes of food that expired in 1999, three open packages of the exact same products, science experiments in the refrigerator (including a completely green slab of bacon). there was the birch marinade my mother excitedly sent them for xmas years ago (at least 11, for i still lived at home), never opened. "bitch" my mother said, tossing the bottle in the garbage. piles of packets of honey, rock-hard, leaching into the cabinets. what i had been specifically looking for, thankfully, was still there, and i took them all: the ancient spices that used to live on the plastic lazy susan on their counter in wauna. when i was as young as four, i would sit at the counter while my grandmother washed dishes (always by hand- they never, ever used their dishwasher) and smell each spice, spinning the thing for hours. it was always there, every year, the same dusty selection. the containers i have now are ancient and flavorless, old enough to not have bar codes, metal perforated slide-tops instead of the stupid thick plastic ones of today.
they hoarded toothpaste. i counted ten empty tubes in the hall bathroom, in the drawer with the piles of heavily used q-tips and about ten generic, straight-bristled toothbrushes. i found my grandfather's shaving brush, the folded paper menu of the chinese zodiac with my grandmother's handwriting indicating the years of her family members (i am a horse, passionate and inquisitive). stacks upon stacks of fine china next to opened packages of hideous thanksgiving paper napkins. a sadistic potato ricer. a set of encyclopedias from 1925 (i put my name on those), hiding inside the chinese cabinet of a magnavox record player. they had a paperback copy of 'm*a*s*h' next to 'racism: the world's problem', next to several years of 'architectural digest'. the pumice soap in the shower was covered with curly black hairs. there was a wrist-strap blood pressure monitor; we all took a break to check our vitals. (myself, apparently rather mellow: HR 50, BP 98/63, energy drink in hand.)
my mother was tense and flitting manically. my father was getting impatient to leave. at his request, i brought them a 12-pack of beer ("not crap" said my father.) afterwards my parents and i ended up at a very loud and generic brewpub in the sphincter of puyallup- a slice of the world where, everywhere you look, every store is a chain, pavement usurps flora, people drive minivans with magnetic ribbons, asses are large and baseball caps are not removed indoors. "you and your brother were acting like they were both already dead" my father pointed out. "it kind of feels that way" my mother replied.
i ranted to them about how frustrated i am with my current scattershot lot in life. "every component of my world is in a different place" i said. they gave good advice, essentially the same advice that s gave me last night: calm down, things will happen when they should. and i know this. i'm just fucking miserable in the interim.
(side note: i have derided s quite a lot, but he's a damn good friend.)
my father just returned from working in spokane, where he was inspecting public housing. he came upon the first residence that he flatly refused to go into, and ordered his first eviction. apparently there was cat shit everywhere, smeared on the walls, the litter box -"you couldn't even see litter. it was mounded with shit. it was a big fucking box of shit"- "i've been in homes where you can't see the dishes in the sink for all the mold on them" he said, "but this person was literally living in a cat box." i feel a bit better about my grimy lair now.
and now: classical music, yerba mate, a cafe that i haven't been to in a while but really fucking love, the street slick and shiny, always on some sort of precipice.
my parents, my uncle and i scoured the home, everything, and i got the first real glimpse of what my grandparents' lives were like. in doing so i saw firsthand, appalling evidence of how Not Right things had been for awhile. there were boxes of food that expired in 1999, three open packages of the exact same products, science experiments in the refrigerator (including a completely green slab of bacon). there was the birch marinade my mother excitedly sent them for xmas years ago (at least 11, for i still lived at home), never opened. "bitch" my mother said, tossing the bottle in the garbage. piles of packets of honey, rock-hard, leaching into the cabinets. what i had been specifically looking for, thankfully, was still there, and i took them all: the ancient spices that used to live on the plastic lazy susan on their counter in wauna. when i was as young as four, i would sit at the counter while my grandmother washed dishes (always by hand- they never, ever used their dishwasher) and smell each spice, spinning the thing for hours. it was always there, every year, the same dusty selection. the containers i have now are ancient and flavorless, old enough to not have bar codes, metal perforated slide-tops instead of the stupid thick plastic ones of today.
they hoarded toothpaste. i counted ten empty tubes in the hall bathroom, in the drawer with the piles of heavily used q-tips and about ten generic, straight-bristled toothbrushes. i found my grandfather's shaving brush, the folded paper menu of the chinese zodiac with my grandmother's handwriting indicating the years of her family members (i am a horse, passionate and inquisitive). stacks upon stacks of fine china next to opened packages of hideous thanksgiving paper napkins. a sadistic potato ricer. a set of encyclopedias from 1925 (i put my name on those), hiding inside the chinese cabinet of a magnavox record player. they had a paperback copy of 'm*a*s*h' next to 'racism: the world's problem', next to several years of 'architectural digest'. the pumice soap in the shower was covered with curly black hairs. there was a wrist-strap blood pressure monitor; we all took a break to check our vitals. (myself, apparently rather mellow: HR 50, BP 98/63, energy drink in hand.)
my mother was tense and flitting manically. my father was getting impatient to leave. at his request, i brought them a 12-pack of beer ("not crap" said my father.) afterwards my parents and i ended up at a very loud and generic brewpub in the sphincter of puyallup- a slice of the world where, everywhere you look, every store is a chain, pavement usurps flora, people drive minivans with magnetic ribbons, asses are large and baseball caps are not removed indoors. "you and your brother were acting like they were both already dead" my father pointed out. "it kind of feels that way" my mother replied.
i ranted to them about how frustrated i am with my current scattershot lot in life. "every component of my world is in a different place" i said. they gave good advice, essentially the same advice that s gave me last night: calm down, things will happen when they should. and i know this. i'm just fucking miserable in the interim.
(side note: i have derided s quite a lot, but he's a damn good friend.)
my father just returned from working in spokane, where he was inspecting public housing. he came upon the first residence that he flatly refused to go into, and ordered his first eviction. apparently there was cat shit everywhere, smeared on the walls, the litter box -"you couldn't even see litter. it was mounded with shit. it was a big fucking box of shit"- "i've been in homes where you can't see the dishes in the sink for all the mold on them" he said, "but this person was literally living in a cat box." i feel a bit better about my grimy lair now.
and now: classical music, yerba mate, a cafe that i haven't been to in a while but really fucking love, the street slick and shiny, always on some sort of precipice.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
crayons in an audience, not crayons in a row
saw steven pinker discuss his newest book tonight. the man is pure pleasure to listen to. linguistics and cultural commonalities make me warm. and it is always fulfilling to hear your everyday abstract thoughts condensed and vocalized, and vocalized succinctly.
...and it reminded me how much i fucking hate euphemisms. hate them! they are condescending, chickenshitted namby-pamby. he likens their usage to an unwillingness to disrupt the 'relationships' of interactions. thus, you say (as was his example) "come up and look at my etchings" to your date at the end of the evening, not "come up to my lair so that we can fuck." if she (assuming that this is a heterosexual pair, and the man is taking on the role of... etcher) demurs, it doesn't neccessarily jeapordize the current or future relationship, but if she says "no, i will not be fucking you tonight", it lends an air of unshakable awkwardness.
and i was reminded of 2 immediate personal correlations:
1. s has an unctuous habit of sleazing his way inside when he drops me off. he tries, anyhow. one night it was "would you mind if i came inside for some water?" WATER? what the fuck are you thinking? another night it was a request to use the loo. both times i said a cheery "no, sorry!" and jumped out of his car with a smile. once i did remind him that he lived all of five minutes away. he backpedalled rather amateurly. but i suppose, in retrospect, his lame attempts do save us both a little face. he gets to drive off looking like a parched man with a need to micturate, and i get to look like an unhospitable naif. sometimes, i admit, it is amusing to play dumb just to see what the other person will do.
2. once, years ago, a client at work was asked by the doctor if she wanted to put her cat to sleep. the woman said yes and became hysterical when her animal was euthanized. that was utterly fucking horrible, and i never, ever use that term because of it.
*
oh, and i HAVE A NEW KITTEN! right when i type this, 'karn evil 9' starts playing. thus i am automatically typing faster!
i wasn't planning on a new beast. i was very content with the 2 useless cats i have. but she was a stray that was brought into work on sunday, her jaw broken, her right eye proptosed, smelling like pus, covered in fleas, purring and kneading... and when i came into the room where she'd just arrived, one of the other techs was literally holding the euthanasia solution to her vein. "is that for her?" i said, running over. "unless you save her" h said. "look, she needs you." i touched her gross head and it was done. i am a fucking sucker. she is about 8 wks old, tortie, and after having her eye removed and her jaw wired, is living in my bathroom and eating like a fucking maniac, impaling the canned food on her exposed wire. i have briefly introduced her to the other guys. she is a complete asshole, hissing and spitting and fearless. hecatomb hissed back at her, then retreated to the corner of the room and eyed her with revulsion. tiresias freaked out and peed on the rug. i am sure that once he realizes that he is four times her size and can knock her ass down, he will be better.
her name is entropy.
i now have 3 eyes between 3 cats.
i really, truly will not be adopting any more pathetic cyclopsian train wrecks any time soon, if only because i don't want to be one of Those Women.
...and it reminded me how much i fucking hate euphemisms. hate them! they are condescending, chickenshitted namby-pamby. he likens their usage to an unwillingness to disrupt the 'relationships' of interactions. thus, you say (as was his example) "come up and look at my etchings" to your date at the end of the evening, not "come up to my lair so that we can fuck." if she (assuming that this is a heterosexual pair, and the man is taking on the role of... etcher) demurs, it doesn't neccessarily jeapordize the current or future relationship, but if she says "no, i will not be fucking you tonight", it lends an air of unshakable awkwardness.
and i was reminded of 2 immediate personal correlations:
1. s has an unctuous habit of sleazing his way inside when he drops me off. he tries, anyhow. one night it was "would you mind if i came inside for some water?" WATER? what the fuck are you thinking? another night it was a request to use the loo. both times i said a cheery "no, sorry!" and jumped out of his car with a smile. once i did remind him that he lived all of five minutes away. he backpedalled rather amateurly. but i suppose, in retrospect, his lame attempts do save us both a little face. he gets to drive off looking like a parched man with a need to micturate, and i get to look like an unhospitable naif. sometimes, i admit, it is amusing to play dumb just to see what the other person will do.
2. once, years ago, a client at work was asked by the doctor if she wanted to put her cat to sleep. the woman said yes and became hysterical when her animal was euthanized. that was utterly fucking horrible, and i never, ever use that term because of it.
*
oh, and i HAVE A NEW KITTEN! right when i type this, 'karn evil 9' starts playing. thus i am automatically typing faster!
i wasn't planning on a new beast. i was very content with the 2 useless cats i have. but she was a stray that was brought into work on sunday, her jaw broken, her right eye proptosed, smelling like pus, covered in fleas, purring and kneading... and when i came into the room where she'd just arrived, one of the other techs was literally holding the euthanasia solution to her vein. "is that for her?" i said, running over. "unless you save her" h said. "look, she needs you." i touched her gross head and it was done. i am a fucking sucker. she is about 8 wks old, tortie, and after having her eye removed and her jaw wired, is living in my bathroom and eating like a fucking maniac, impaling the canned food on her exposed wire. i have briefly introduced her to the other guys. she is a complete asshole, hissing and spitting and fearless. hecatomb hissed back at her, then retreated to the corner of the room and eyed her with revulsion. tiresias freaked out and peed on the rug. i am sure that once he realizes that he is four times her size and can knock her ass down, he will be better.
her name is entropy.
i now have 3 eyes between 3 cats.
i really, truly will not be adopting any more pathetic cyclopsian train wrecks any time soon, if only because i don't want to be one of Those Women.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
soulless
thursday night: i was sitting in a 1/3 full bus at night, feeling oddly content to watch the goings-on of the fellow commuters. people were bantering with the bus driver, lugging packages, smiling. a scrawny, strung-out guy sat next to me. he started talking. asked me out for a drink. i smiled and said no. he asked about dinner. i declined. "you're stunning" he said. "you're like a goddess to me." i started to laugh. "do i know you from somewhere?" i asked. he suggested the rainbow gatherings. "that changed my life" he told me. he was creepy and i could smell alcohol, so i got off the bus, but not before telling him my name after he asked. i heard "brynn" behind me once i was on the sidewalk. he had gotten off too. we started talking, him about a foot away from my face, me unconsciously backing up until i was almost in the street. he was ranting- about loneliness, about his 'really good job' and his 'really nice place' and 'if we can't be lovers, we should at least be friends.' never did i feel threatened, just like i was being put on. people don't just seek me out of a crowd and tell me i'm beautiful- most people just want to bum a cigarette, or ask for change. i mentioned that to him when he said "well, you're still talking to me." "this is very bizarre" i replied. "this is one of those experiences that never has and will never happen again." something about the entire weird exchange, sadly, drew me in. i was almost hypnotized as to what socially untoward, sleazy, psuedo-hippie-bullshit thing he'd say next. and always, while all of this was transpiring, i couldn't help thinking "fuck, i must really be lonely."
after about 5 minutes of this sidewalk backing-up dance, i said i really did have to go. he asked for a hug. i gave him one. and we held onto each other for about 30 seconds. this overtly fucked up guy (how old was he? 20? 30?), i noticed, was tall, and his watery bloodshot eyes never left mine, and... apparently that was all i fucking needed. and i had nowhere to go, nowhere to be... but i'm glad i left when i did. and as i walked away, the peculiarity of what had just transpired not quite hitting me, i realized that it had really turned me on.
WHAT THE FUCK?
yesterday i got my tattoo redone, again. the falling leaves encircling the star on my right shoulder are darker now. when i left the studio it was dusk and rain was falling. summer is officially over here. i walked up the hill to s's house, where he was slothfully commandeering the porch, pipe in hand. we smoked, he grew even more apathetic, and we drove around aimlessly, not talking, until i said "this just isn't working tonight" and we parted ways in ballard. i walked for a long while, passing couples with arms entwined, relieved at being by myself.
marijuana tends to make me chatty and hyperactive- i want to go out and see new things, discuss inventions, listen to music, make out. it can also make me very irritated, because most people i smoke with just become slovenly and dull. when i was 19 i briefly saw a psychologist who asked me about my smoking habits. he specifically questioned if marijuana "made me horny." (I FUCKING HATE THAT TERM. 'HORNY' DESCRIBES AN ELK, OR A TOAD, OR A HONKING CAR.) i said yes, and he nodded smugly. "a small percentage of people with certain mood disorders have that reaction" he said. he never did explain, but i have always wondered.
after about 5 minutes of this sidewalk backing-up dance, i said i really did have to go. he asked for a hug. i gave him one. and we held onto each other for about 30 seconds. this overtly fucked up guy (how old was he? 20? 30?), i noticed, was tall, and his watery bloodshot eyes never left mine, and... apparently that was all i fucking needed. and i had nowhere to go, nowhere to be... but i'm glad i left when i did. and as i walked away, the peculiarity of what had just transpired not quite hitting me, i realized that it had really turned me on.
WHAT THE FUCK?
yesterday i got my tattoo redone, again. the falling leaves encircling the star on my right shoulder are darker now. when i left the studio it was dusk and rain was falling. summer is officially over here. i walked up the hill to s's house, where he was slothfully commandeering the porch, pipe in hand. we smoked, he grew even more apathetic, and we drove around aimlessly, not talking, until i said "this just isn't working tonight" and we parted ways in ballard. i walked for a long while, passing couples with arms entwined, relieved at being by myself.
marijuana tends to make me chatty and hyperactive- i want to go out and see new things, discuss inventions, listen to music, make out. it can also make me very irritated, because most people i smoke with just become slovenly and dull. when i was 19 i briefly saw a psychologist who asked me about my smoking habits. he specifically questioned if marijuana "made me horny." (I FUCKING HATE THAT TERM. 'HORNY' DESCRIBES AN ELK, OR A TOAD, OR A HONKING CAR.) i said yes, and he nodded smugly. "a small percentage of people with certain mood disorders have that reaction" he said. he never did explain, but i have always wondered.
Friday, September 14, 2007
it's not luminous, it's LAMEinous!
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/bloxorz
this is fucking crack, y'all.
this is fucking crack, y'all.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
yes! it's yet another self-absorbed pity party!
the cafe is playing billy joel's 'angry young man' song, which i had not heard in a while (despite owning and loving the lp)- billy joel used to be fucking great (until the blasphemy of 'we didn't start the fire'), and i am not ashamed to admit it.
i have been in a melancholy state today. last night i talked with s about the foul ending of saturday. on one hour of sleep, we spent the day together, both bleary and useless, and i got unexpectedly, quickly, nastily drunk on wine. black-outy and belligerent, as i have a tendency to do, but which i hadn;t allowed myself to become in a very long while. i vaguely remember arguing with, or rather at, him, and walking home alone from capitol hill, and finding freshly purchased groceries in my cupboards the next morning- a morning in which i was not hung over, but eerily suspicious that i had behaved hideously.
what i said, according to him, was: i was offended that he repeatedly referred to his ex-wife as 'psychotic', that he was negating his own half of the responsibility, that it was disrespectful and rude to talk about someone he once loved that way, especially without her around to defend herself, that it was arrogant and demeaning to make her get on meds. i smiled as he related this. "i am regretful of my delivery, but i agree with everything i said" i told him. "you were very aggressive and combative" he said. "i have been told that before" i replied. "i gravitate towards conflict. it makes me feel that my own actions are justified." he was looking at me with a bewildered, pitying, disgusted expression, which i don't fault him for: obviously this all speaks volumes about my sadistic, masochistic inability to be in a relationship, to be properly respectful, to act like a fucking adult instead of continually reliving the fucked-up patterns that have heretofore defined my interactions with every guy i've been at all close to.
...but, and i am fucking ashamed to admit this: i am attracted to the emotion. i like the passion, even when, possibly even especially when, it is contemptuous and cruel and unstable. this is seriously fucking sick. i don't know how to maintain a level of respect towards them, or have them maintain a level of respect towards me, and thus i have a slag-heap of fucked opportunities and scorn in my wake.
i can remind myself that i was not very attracted to him, which i wasn't, or that i wasn't ready to share any extra scrap of my life with anyone, which i'm not, or that there were all sorts of insignificant pseudo-'flaws' that i could amplify and make into deal-breakers, but it all comes down to: i am too fucked up to be with anyone but my own stupid arse.
*
why the fuck do i write this shit on a public forum? penance for my acidity?
*
so, today- melancholy, lonely, regretful, but not wanting to be around anybody, i drove to bellingham in an odd amalgam of bright sunlight and persistant haze- as if fog had never quite burned off, leaving everything coldly blanched. sweet green made it flawlessly. downtown bellingham was deserted, apart from the swarthy crowd of pierced teens smoking outside the horseshoe cafe- it was only six pm, but most of the shops were closed. the drugstore where i bought a soda filled with empty shelves. the unsmiling checker berated a child for grabbing things off a display; the mother mumbled something ineffectual. i bought incense from a head shop and an octopus sticker from an 'import' store; i took a photograph of the antique bank clock with the completely dischordant time displays; i wandered numbly through the music store; i felt like a fucking ghost. the architecture in bellingham is very frilly and victorian, the streets of the nicer areas lined with weeping willows and children on bikes; i was, as usual, an observer, even though i was singing along to elton john's 'grey seal' and trying to force self-merriment.
what am i expecting to 'find' in seattle? what have i been, for all intents and purposes, WAITING FOR? i have a cool lair that i pay out the ass for, a good job that is 35 miles away, a family that i never see, and no friends apart from the trolls i meet on fucking craigslist. tonight, as i wandered through the dark, i thought about how the longer i remain in this bizarre self-imposed isolation morass, the harder it is to be 'that person'- the one i hoped my divorce and move back would automatically manifest: with a gaggle of witty, ascerbic friends, skillful yet not overly clingy lovers, a stack of brilliant drawings, a philanthropic flair. at least my plants are doing well. and the cats are great, thanks.
...also on the walk here: i passed two guys talking on the sidewalk. the only part of their conversation i heard was "and then he goes, 'fuck you, fag!'" immediately i recalled the punchline to a forgotten joke: "fuck you, clown!" it was something i heard a very long time ago- i remember it making me laugh, but i cannot remember the setup. so for several blocks i had that phrase stuck in my head: fuck you, clown! fuck YOU, clown!
and that made me feel better.
i'm not going to proofread this.
i have been in a melancholy state today. last night i talked with s about the foul ending of saturday. on one hour of sleep, we spent the day together, both bleary and useless, and i got unexpectedly, quickly, nastily drunk on wine. black-outy and belligerent, as i have a tendency to do, but which i hadn;t allowed myself to become in a very long while. i vaguely remember arguing with, or rather at, him, and walking home alone from capitol hill, and finding freshly purchased groceries in my cupboards the next morning- a morning in which i was not hung over, but eerily suspicious that i had behaved hideously.
what i said, according to him, was: i was offended that he repeatedly referred to his ex-wife as 'psychotic', that he was negating his own half of the responsibility, that it was disrespectful and rude to talk about someone he once loved that way, especially without her around to defend herself, that it was arrogant and demeaning to make her get on meds. i smiled as he related this. "i am regretful of my delivery, but i agree with everything i said" i told him. "you were very aggressive and combative" he said. "i have been told that before" i replied. "i gravitate towards conflict. it makes me feel that my own actions are justified." he was looking at me with a bewildered, pitying, disgusted expression, which i don't fault him for: obviously this all speaks volumes about my sadistic, masochistic inability to be in a relationship, to be properly respectful, to act like a fucking adult instead of continually reliving the fucked-up patterns that have heretofore defined my interactions with every guy i've been at all close to.
...but, and i am fucking ashamed to admit this: i am attracted to the emotion. i like the passion, even when, possibly even especially when, it is contemptuous and cruel and unstable. this is seriously fucking sick. i don't know how to maintain a level of respect towards them, or have them maintain a level of respect towards me, and thus i have a slag-heap of fucked opportunities and scorn in my wake.
i can remind myself that i was not very attracted to him, which i wasn't, or that i wasn't ready to share any extra scrap of my life with anyone, which i'm not, or that there were all sorts of insignificant pseudo-'flaws' that i could amplify and make into deal-breakers, but it all comes down to: i am too fucked up to be with anyone but my own stupid arse.
*
why the fuck do i write this shit on a public forum? penance for my acidity?
*
so, today- melancholy, lonely, regretful, but not wanting to be around anybody, i drove to bellingham in an odd amalgam of bright sunlight and persistant haze- as if fog had never quite burned off, leaving everything coldly blanched. sweet green made it flawlessly. downtown bellingham was deserted, apart from the swarthy crowd of pierced teens smoking outside the horseshoe cafe- it was only six pm, but most of the shops were closed. the drugstore where i bought a soda filled with empty shelves. the unsmiling checker berated a child for grabbing things off a display; the mother mumbled something ineffectual. i bought incense from a head shop and an octopus sticker from an 'import' store; i took a photograph of the antique bank clock with the completely dischordant time displays; i wandered numbly through the music store; i felt like a fucking ghost. the architecture in bellingham is very frilly and victorian, the streets of the nicer areas lined with weeping willows and children on bikes; i was, as usual, an observer, even though i was singing along to elton john's 'grey seal' and trying to force self-merriment.
what am i expecting to 'find' in seattle? what have i been, for all intents and purposes, WAITING FOR? i have a cool lair that i pay out the ass for, a good job that is 35 miles away, a family that i never see, and no friends apart from the trolls i meet on fucking craigslist. tonight, as i wandered through the dark, i thought about how the longer i remain in this bizarre self-imposed isolation morass, the harder it is to be 'that person'- the one i hoped my divorce and move back would automatically manifest: with a gaggle of witty, ascerbic friends, skillful yet not overly clingy lovers, a stack of brilliant drawings, a philanthropic flair. at least my plants are doing well. and the cats are great, thanks.
...also on the walk here: i passed two guys talking on the sidewalk. the only part of their conversation i heard was "and then he goes, 'fuck you, fag!'" immediately i recalled the punchline to a forgotten joke: "fuck you, clown!" it was something i heard a very long time ago- i remember it making me laugh, but i cannot remember the setup. so for several blocks i had that phrase stuck in my head: fuck you, clown! fuck YOU, clown!
and that made me feel better.
i'm not going to proofread this.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
la vie allet
the other night at work, during a rare lull, i found myself in the 'staff lounge' with two coworkers. we were all slightly glassy-eyed and drained from the day; it was about midnight and the television blared inanely in the corner. we had just recieved the news that one of the other technician's sister had just been killed in a car accident. this tech, who is salty and wonderful but whom i never get to work with (she only works wednesdays) is also about seven months pregnant. we sat there soberly, none of us really saying much, until i blurted "and did you hear about t's brother?" one of the assistant's brother had been randomly jumped whilst riding his bike in seattle- some drunk fucks had thrown a bottle at him, knocking him to the ground, and proceeded to beat the shit out of him- breaking both cheekbones, six ribs, probably more- he had surgery yesterday. has this been anywhere in any newspaper? of fucking course not.
"what is in the water here?" one of the techs i was sitting with asked. and we started listing the litany of horrid instances that has beset the clinic of late. one of the doctors was in the hospital for several days. two techs were taken to the ER for seperate, non-work-related ailments. someone's grandfather died. hell, my grandfather died (and my great-aunt died on saturday, i learned- i was never close to her at all, but it's still another name on the list- fucking mortality). there were other tragedies brought up, i'm sure. we ended up quietly filing out of the room, back to the treatment floor, where animals with intractable diarrhea and opiate stupors and weak wags awaited.
and on the way home that night (i think it was sunday) i turned up the music very loudly, and i sang along on the empty 2am interstate.
and yesterday, one of my other pregnant coworkers had her baby. his middle name is 'navin', hindu for new beginnings. there are 'yahoo!' signs all over work. that made me happy.
in more annoying news: the white stripes cancelled their ENTIRE FUCKING TOUR. i am really, really saddened by this. i found out last night (like a proper nerd, i am on their mailing list) and grimly removed their cd from my car for the drive home, replacing it with "alterna-daze: the best of the '80's." this cd contains the 12" version of 'tainted love', which is quite apropos in the blear of night.
*
today seattle smells of blackberries, lavender, and garlic, though not all at once.
"what is in the water here?" one of the techs i was sitting with asked. and we started listing the litany of horrid instances that has beset the clinic of late. one of the doctors was in the hospital for several days. two techs were taken to the ER for seperate, non-work-related ailments. someone's grandfather died. hell, my grandfather died (and my great-aunt died on saturday, i learned- i was never close to her at all, but it's still another name on the list- fucking mortality). there were other tragedies brought up, i'm sure. we ended up quietly filing out of the room, back to the treatment floor, where animals with intractable diarrhea and opiate stupors and weak wags awaited.
and on the way home that night (i think it was sunday) i turned up the music very loudly, and i sang along on the empty 2am interstate.
and yesterday, one of my other pregnant coworkers had her baby. his middle name is 'navin', hindu for new beginnings. there are 'yahoo!' signs all over work. that made me happy.
in more annoying news: the white stripes cancelled their ENTIRE FUCKING TOUR. i am really, really saddened by this. i found out last night (like a proper nerd, i am on their mailing list) and grimly removed their cd from my car for the drive home, replacing it with "alterna-daze: the best of the '80's." this cd contains the 12" version of 'tainted love', which is quite apropos in the blear of night.
*
today seattle smells of blackberries, lavender, and garlic, though not all at once.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
twirl your own marshmallow
i went to MOHAI today (free museums on first thursdays), which was fun and somewhat calming. pictures of the old seattle. depictions of shop interiors. a display of the world's fair, with a sponsor-made film starring two impossibly grinny teens romping eagerly through the masses (the midway, now unfortunately called the 'fun forest', was then 'the gayway.' which is fucking wonderful.) i was one of the only people there. they have the original neon R from the rainier brewery, in its 15' metal glory. i caressed and photographed it. after, waiting in the dusk for the bus, i tried to recall the iconic things i have personally fondled. a chunk of the berlin wall. the rosetta stone. jim morrison's grave. the statue of liberty. the twin towers. the eiffel tower. a crowbar from the implosion of the kingdome. lux interior's sweaty bespandexed ass.
surely there is more.
the world was made for reverent touch.
my self-imposed introversion continues. i am wanting the instant succor; otherwise, fuck it. and i am finding myself unreasonably nit-picky about the benign tendencies s has- things that, in his absence, are amplified to the point of intolerablity. like: "i only eat organic" he says. "i want to go to the galleries for artwalk." don't feign pretension, ever. it makes me wince. or his habit of humming when he is unsure of what to say. not quite a hum, it's more of a "hm." "hm." over and over. i do not think he is aware of it. and it fucking drives me crazy. or his know-it-all attitude. the boy is smart as fuck, on a startlingly wide array of topics, but his smarm was obnoxious enough that a few weeks ago i said to him "do you ever feel that any experience someone else has had, you've done better?" it took him half a beat to blink in understanding, or at least blink at my appalling snottiness. "am i being condescending?" he asked. "yeah, a little bit" i said. "i've been told that before" he said. about that time, annoyed, i left the table to play galaga.
*
i am a fucking bitch, really.
*
on a related note:
http://bored.com/drawthings/save.php?id=1550340
it is extremely difficult to wield control with a mouse. plus, it was done in about 10 seconds.
there was a LARGE pile of short, wiry black hair in the sink in the women's loo at the odious chain bookstore. it was exactly as if someone had shaved off all of their pubic hair. "oh god!" i exclaimed aloud, leaving without washing my hands. i started laughing when i got outside, wondering of the girl still oblivious in the adjacent stall- what her reaction would be, if she was unnerved of what she may be encountering.
i also came across the most vile joke i have heard in a long, long while. it is too disgusting to even reprint here. congratulations, nasty world, for making me snicker every time i think of it.
surely there is more.
the world was made for reverent touch.
my self-imposed introversion continues. i am wanting the instant succor; otherwise, fuck it. and i am finding myself unreasonably nit-picky about the benign tendencies s has- things that, in his absence, are amplified to the point of intolerablity. like: "i only eat organic" he says. "i want to go to the galleries for artwalk." don't feign pretension, ever. it makes me wince. or his habit of humming when he is unsure of what to say. not quite a hum, it's more of a "hm." "hm." over and over. i do not think he is aware of it. and it fucking drives me crazy. or his know-it-all attitude. the boy is smart as fuck, on a startlingly wide array of topics, but his smarm was obnoxious enough that a few weeks ago i said to him "do you ever feel that any experience someone else has had, you've done better?" it took him half a beat to blink in understanding, or at least blink at my appalling snottiness. "am i being condescending?" he asked. "yeah, a little bit" i said. "i've been told that before" he said. about that time, annoyed, i left the table to play galaga.
*
i am a fucking bitch, really.
*
on a related note:
http://bored.com/drawthings/save.php?id=1550340
it is extremely difficult to wield control with a mouse. plus, it was done in about 10 seconds.
there was a LARGE pile of short, wiry black hair in the sink in the women's loo at the odious chain bookstore. it was exactly as if someone had shaved off all of their pubic hair. "oh god!" i exclaimed aloud, leaving without washing my hands. i started laughing when i got outside, wondering of the girl still oblivious in the adjacent stall- what her reaction would be, if she was unnerved of what she may be encountering.
i also came across the most vile joke i have heard in a long, long while. it is too disgusting to even reprint here. congratulations, nasty world, for making me snicker every time i think of it.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
that masochistic patina
i hate being reminded that i still care. there is a ridiculous helplessness that comes with having ever loved someone. of the three impromptu infiltrations over the last few days, the one i didn't really think about at all (other than clinically writing about it here) was from my, how do you say without sounding like a trashy whore, 2nd ex-husband. i wonder if that is because i am the one who left him, and i turned off my compassion long ago.
i also hate being reminded that there were people in my life who knew, and apparently still know, me pretty fucking well.
and i hate how the person who is most in my life right now, on however blase a level, is the one who i am currently not wanting to be around. i would not want to be around me right now either. i must be doing him a favor.
on friday we went to leavenworth. he had never been. it was muggy and beautiful. we walked around the twee townscape, dodging flushed and clumsy tourists, and tasted a lot of wine. that was a really fucking fun day. i completely do not give a shit when i am with him. and at some point during that day i thought about possibly falling in love, but thankfully i had four subsequent days of self-induced irritation and distraction to quell that fucking stupid idea.
i want to be in love without the getting-to-know-you bullshit. i just want to be there. i want to take somebody for granted, know their habits, have the feel of their body already memorized. this is the curse of serial monogamy- i don't think i could ever just go out and fuck somebody, no matter how much i may want to. at least not anymore. but i digress.
i finally purchased a copy of 'harold and maude' for my own personal anytime delight (mainly because i owe the video store too much money to rent anything, and i watch this way too often anyhow), and lolled around this afternoon resavoring my favorite scene: where they are at the carnival, admiring the night, the fireworks and 'i think i see the light' starts, and he lies glassy-eyed and splayed on the rumpled bed, blowing bubbles in the sunlight. i always catch myself grinning uncontrollably, knees clasped to my chest, making whimpery girl noises at the brilliance of it all. he realizes how fucking fun and full life can be, still startled by how these facets of vivaciousness were there all along. as i turned off the movie, still smiling vacantly, i thought "and here i am, still learning." it made the moment rather introverted, but not neccessarily depressing.
*
two men are stranded in a boat in the middle of the ocean. a bottle floats by (in the middle of the ocean). one of them pulls it out of the water and a genie emerges. "you get one wish" the genie says. the man, without thinking, says excitedly "i wish the whole ocean was made of beer!" it is done and the genie vanishes. the second man looks at the first with disbelief and disgust. "you idiot" he says. "now we'll have to pee in the boat."
i also hate being reminded that there were people in my life who knew, and apparently still know, me pretty fucking well.
and i hate how the person who is most in my life right now, on however blase a level, is the one who i am currently not wanting to be around. i would not want to be around me right now either. i must be doing him a favor.
on friday we went to leavenworth. he had never been. it was muggy and beautiful. we walked around the twee townscape, dodging flushed and clumsy tourists, and tasted a lot of wine. that was a really fucking fun day. i completely do not give a shit when i am with him. and at some point during that day i thought about possibly falling in love, but thankfully i had four subsequent days of self-induced irritation and distraction to quell that fucking stupid idea.
i want to be in love without the getting-to-know-you bullshit. i just want to be there. i want to take somebody for granted, know their habits, have the feel of their body already memorized. this is the curse of serial monogamy- i don't think i could ever just go out and fuck somebody, no matter how much i may want to. at least not anymore. but i digress.
i finally purchased a copy of 'harold and maude' for my own personal anytime delight (mainly because i owe the video store too much money to rent anything, and i watch this way too often anyhow), and lolled around this afternoon resavoring my favorite scene: where they are at the carnival, admiring the night, the fireworks and 'i think i see the light' starts, and he lies glassy-eyed and splayed on the rumpled bed, blowing bubbles in the sunlight. i always catch myself grinning uncontrollably, knees clasped to my chest, making whimpery girl noises at the brilliance of it all. he realizes how fucking fun and full life can be, still startled by how these facets of vivaciousness were there all along. as i turned off the movie, still smiling vacantly, i thought "and here i am, still learning." it made the moment rather introverted, but not neccessarily depressing.
*
two men are stranded in a boat in the middle of the ocean. a bottle floats by (in the middle of the ocean). one of them pulls it out of the water and a genie emerges. "you get one wish" the genie says. the man, without thinking, says excitedly "i wish the whole ocean was made of beer!" it is done and the genie vanishes. the second man looks at the first with disbelief and disgust. "you idiot" he says. "now we'll have to pee in the boat."
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