in the mood for a melody?

today i 'orientated', which is completely not a word, at the bailey-boushay house. after a 3 hour long, ass-cramping lecture by the director (a man who looks like he should be british), we lined up like cattle to get our flu vaccines and, in my case, my 2nd tb titer. i had never had a flu vaccine before today; i am generally opposed to such things. eight hours later, i am asymptomatic and not discovering a latent intolerance to eggs, so i can officially recommend it to everyone.
i really am jazzed about this. this is the sort of work i want to get into. time shall tell.
staff meeting (learning more about transfusion protocols and the wonders of plasma supernate), then driving home in blinding sun-after-rain whilst listening to kzok's "classic rawk a to z." they are in the i's... an excellent letter for music. i heard 'in the air tonight' before having my tire freed of an errant nail. returnal to the vehicle yielded 'in the evening', 'in the mood' (i LOVE this song, the surfy guitar/synthiness, the vargas print-coke-fueled-fucking vibe), and 'in the summertime.' i hate mungo jerry. thankfully, i bypassed the inevitable 'inna gadda da vida.'
the torrential downpour of this morning evolved quite lyrically into this, as seen from my street.

seattle is fucking picturesque. this is the prettiest place i have ever seen, except for perhaps paris, but that is cliche enough to vomit over.
i am an ardent fan of the cities that reveal their allure coquettishly, under petticoats of grit and impermeability, but often it's quite nice to have beauty handed to you... and watch its citizens look happy and bewildered in its glow.
the space needle, today, reflected.

this is a day when people smile back. sometimes they smile first. i love my world. you get what you give...

and even lana turner smiled

ballard, especially leary way, has been transformed into a glut of generica. this is a mammoth retirement community (for what, "60 years young!"?) that takes up an entire block. the architecture is fucking hideous (fake decks, shades of brown, no exterior variation- lazy, bullshit aesthetics) but the name of the building, or rather the signage, almost makes it okay:

am i the only one who sees that?
fall is glorious here. this is one block from the lower campus (the amazing brick annex) of my school.

yesterday i had crippling cramps and left class early. i took a bus to ballard (where i finally stopped to take the above picture), bought some ibuprofen and tea, and met some friends in north seattle. they had already been drinking for a few hours. we ended up at the mandarin gate, a scary-ass chinese restaurant in a strip mall off aurora, in their glaringly lit lounge, singing karaoke. i had not done that in years. i was comfortably buzzed but m, in particular, was trashed. why do gay men become heterosexually swarthy when they're drunk? he was rubbing his groin against my ass. "what are you doing?" i asked, laughing. ten minutes later he was vomiting inside someone else's car.
we sang "summer nights", then four of us sang "build me up buttercup", and when it was just her and i, i sang "fever." it had been a long time since i'd done karaoke... since alaska. apparently a man at the bar was snapping along. i had forgotten how much i enjoy it... especially in complete dives where the drinks are ridiculously strong and made with utter rotgut and i will never encounter any of the other patrons again... unless i go back.
*
today i finished my last swing 1 class; i start level 2 in two weeks. we learned the spin/jump move. "my baby just cares for me" plays. that is a hard song to dance to- the tempo is disarmingly slow- but it filled me with good memories. today has just been a great day. there is no reason for this, nothing spectacular that has occured; i'm just... good. i feel zesty and happy and engaged and alive. i feel like a competent human being, comfortable with my own company. I DON'T FEEL WISTFUL OR LIKE I'M MISSING OUT ON ANYTHING. that is surely a more adequate definition.
i shall appreciate its finiteness.

count me out

today evolved into a stellar fall day... the sharp edges and bright colors that make this my favorite season after spring. (winter loses the banal 'favorite season' battle, always.)

i took d to hump 5, the stranger's annual amateur pornfest, as his graduation present. there was nothing that really titillated me this year (see: orgasm denial, 2008), but several were quite good. i voted for the lesbian and gay man, slothing around and complaining how horny they were, and reluctantly deciding to try each other out. it was fucking awesome. what else... a woman in a filthy cell peeing through her underwear into her hand, then having her clothes torn off my gravel-covered hands. that was slightly disturbing. watching an old (65+) man get whipped, shocked, and burned with a cigar... also slightly disturbing (although i didn't actually cringe until the cigar ember went on the inside of his lower lip and she ashed into his mouth). the FUCKING TRAFFIC CONE going up the woman's ass disturbed me. the long metal hook going up her ass, twisting, and then being accompanied by a huge penis REALLY disturbed me. the wire whisk being inserted into her hairless vagina, then twirled, was also unsettling, but i blame that more on her hairlessness (seeing the sagging lips of an adult twat is never right- it's akin to bringing a bat into a brightly lit aerie) than the implement. the more 'lighthearted' stuff- the two girls making out, innocently, was very hot. the rap about "MUH BIG DICK", accompanied by crude cartoons of mayor nickels, ballgagged and getting whipped. one adorable stoner boy from portland ejaculating in very public portlandian venues 10 times in 24 hours... interspersed of him making, then fucking, a sand-wench on the beach "'cause this is what happens when your girlfriend's in rehab.'"
d and i parted ways soon after. a man on the street told me i had nice eyes. and then i passed robyn fucking hitchcock on the corner of 1st and bell. i am going to his show tonight- so i will see if it was, in fact, him. we made eye contact, that smirky tension before the smiling calm. "holy shit, that was robyn fucking hitchcock!" i thought as i walked past. i wonder if he will recognize me obnoxiously taking pictures... i am still wearing my colorful, memorable scarf.
*
4 days ago, lair, seattle washington. i am frizzy and sleepy and unwashed and forgot to unzoom after taking pictures of fucking plants or whatnot.

last night the internist was called in to remove a rock from a cat's trachea. we had taken radiographs to rule out asthma and- "patrick [the doctor], this cat's got a foreign body!" how the fuck does a cat suck a rock into its trachea? dogs, i can understand- dogs are incredibly stupid. but cats? his name was hugo. i monitored the anesthesia, which involved holding the cat's head upright and feeling him breathe against my arm and ignoring his cyanosis as the internist cursed and prodded with the bronchioscope. when it came out we all cheered. the cat's tongue and gums became pink immediately. "that's a $600 rock" the doctor said, dropping it onto the tray. he freaked out whilst waking up from the anesthesia. we had to give him midazolam so he would stop thrashing around in the cage.
*
i have still never had general anesthesia. i plan to keep it that way as long as possible.
*
when you're organizing a drawer, you're a 'drawerganizer.' i learned that last night at work. i laughed raucously. "brynn's the only one who'd appreciate that" someone said.

my god! what have i done?

we started 'structural bodywork' today. the school cannot call it 'structural integration' because we are not taught the 10 points of rolf integration. it looks pretty cool thus far. the teacher is actually focused and demanding of our efforts. we have, i believe, all lapsed into the 'whatever' mindset so integral to promoting the flaky-massage stereotype... it's laughably jarring to have an instructor who starts class on time, cuts off aimless questions, and expects us to have our shit together. i like it.
i am really, really going to miss being in school.
*
my neighbor let me know that someone had left a note on the windsheild of the VW (along with my front license plate, which was creepy, since they would have had to take tools and remove it). the fucking car has been parked at a 30 degree angle from the curb, unstartable, since i had to move it out of the driveway last week. my hood embodies the classic seattle cliche of earnest white people being fucking passive aggressive. i deserved the letter- i'd been waiting for it- but it was still fucking irritating to read a page-long missive, tidily scripted, about how "cars should be moved after 48 hours and i'd hate to have you towed" and "this space is meant for 4 cars" and "signed, a neighbor." i actually looked in the car for a pen so i could write something snotty on the back of it, or at least draw a sarcastic smiley face to reattach to my windsheild. instead i flagged two men in a volvo (of course, a volvo) to help me push sweet green into a more suitable curbside position.
i have had two calls about selling her. the second was from a friend of the aforementioned neighbor. i don't really want to sell her to someone i am in any way related to... 1. i don't want to see her being treated properly, because it will make me feel like shit, and 2. overall, she's kind of a death trap. better to inflict potential fuckery anonymously... and i'm a fucking asshole.
*
the other night, still feeling like ass, i surveyed my meager collection of dvds. i NEVER watch movies at my house... it's a two-three times a year kind of thing, and only if i'm ailing or completely fucking sulky. but i buy a lot of crap, and i have all these bizarre dvds from the dollar store, most of which i have yet to unwrap. one of them stars a young jodie foster and a hirsute john lithgow... i would date it early/mid 80s? it is called "mesmerized."
HOLY SHIT. IT IS AWFUL.
it wasn't even good-bad. it was surreal. i had never heard of it, and know i know why.
*
the cafe i am at is playing the talking heads. "people in seattle sure love the talking heads" one of the papers said recently (david byrne was in town for a reading; i was at work, fucking damn it) and it's true. one cannot go anyplace or turn on any commercial radio station without hearing "once in a lifetime." this is fine. the talking heads are to seattle what, say, bad company are to the anchorage of my memory.

it's candle season.

with a picture of a featherific james spader, how can one be glum?

the dullard

maybe i'm still ailing... but i am more inclined to blame my surly, apathetic fog on bullshit.
the sixth and final term of school started today. it was a random, haphazard class... to be composed into nine weeks of seminars focusing on our various interests. this could be amazing, it could be a flaky fuck-all. next week we revisit body mechanics, something i definitely need more help in. i was supposed to start my first evening at the bailey-boushay house tonight, working with people with AIDS, dementia, and other hospice-warranting ailments, but there was a scheduling conflict between them and the school. i don't start there, then, until the asscrack of dawn (well, 9am) on wednesday the 14th. i was really looking forward to this, but due to my mood, this delay is probably not a bad thing.
i briefly saw d after school. i felt disgust. perhaps my standards are too high for friends, and that is why i have very few. but really: be nice. acknowledge me to your friends. communicate. don't be fucking passive-aggressive and make me feel like everything is my fucking fault. last week really disturbed me- not only how he treated me, but seeing the sources of his behavior (his parents) and feeling almost crawly about their dysfunction. d is the sort of person who, if he doesn;t like the way a conversation is going, pretends he doesn't hear it. and i'm fucking tired of the mindfuck 'multiple personality' bullshit. i have neglected to get into this on this forum thus far, out of 'respect' for him and out of mortification for myself, but: FUCK THAT. fuck his namby-pamby inability to deal with reality, fuck his dragging other people (like gullible, or at least benefit-of-the-doubt-giving ME) into his fucked up vortex, fuck his manipulation, fuck his taking advantage of people's kindness, fuck his FUCKING BULLSHIT.
i feel like a fucking idiot to even type that, to publicly acknowledge how fucking pathetic i am to allow such bullshit into my life at all.
*
seattle: lots of winners here.
*
"we need to talk about hawaii" i said tonight, and then i left. my chronic peurility makes any gripe i have towards the other person fade in the glow of my own assholery. he had asked if i'd wanted to help him move boxes- like, right then. "no" i had said. "i have to go." i was still feeling cruddy, and pissed off, and- no.
*
today, my class... proof i'm not completely dysfunctional.

with pangs of sadness and "what a fucking loser i am", i put sweet green on craigslist today. i haven't gotten a single response yet. i must admit, i am pleased by this.
i will continue this later, perhaps.

wrung

i went to bed asymptomatic at 3am. i woke at 5 with hellacious food poisoning. i can only assume it's food poisoning because i don't have a fever. i was up for over an hour being horrified by how disgusting my body can be. i called in sick to work. went back to sleep. woke at 1130, still ill. and STARVING. i ate gingerly whilst reading the sunday paper. the day outside was brilliant and sunny, a perfect fall sunday. so i fell asleep on the couch until it was dark again.
i hate sleeping the day away. i am still bleary and residually nasty-feeling, but i blame that more on being completely detached from the rest of the world's day. the moon is full. it's very pretty.
i had a very vivid dream that i was spontaneously driving to reno. i stopped at a garage-sale thing en route; a preacher-sort was lecturing a group of people about the merits of phish. i purchased a phish windchime. (this is actually the sort of fucking crap i dream about.) as i was leaving a dog approached me. "he needs a home" the man said. a bedraggled female nearby said "oh! he loves you! you have to name him 'church!'" i agreed to take the dog. the man started packing him into a metal barrel, surrounding him with something akin to aquarium gravel. "will he be able to breathe?" i ask, horrified. "oh yeah" the man says offhandedly. "we pack all our dogs this way." the dog is staring at me, confused, as the man lowers the lid.
i am driving a red sports car. i start out across the desert. it is dark when i get to reno- in the dream, it is a blip of obnoxious lights surrounded by black ether. (i cannot recall how it looked when i was there to be married, other than many shades of brown.) i pull into a fancy hotel parking garage like i belong there; i deeply want to find a pool or sauna. the hotel, in the dream, is the one t and i stayed in when we were married. the halls are decked out in the most garish of 80s cliches: fake grey marble, light sconces in shades of magenta and teal- like a very tacky mall. i enter the 'health spa' room on a random floor with no trouble- the amenities consist of a 7' square sunken whirlpool and a potted fern. and then i remember the dog, encased in a barrel in the back of the car. i return to the car; he is unaffected. we walk down the dark alley behind the hotel, under the buzzing floodlight affixed to an adjacent warehouse. the stars are still visible; the air is soft and warm. and i'm feeling panicked- why the fuck did i adopt this dog? i want to go home. why the fuck am i in reno? how could i have ever come up with this idea, much less imagined it to be a good one?
*
when i woke i felt slightly frantic. the room was dim. i looked out the window, at the sunset reflecting off the windows of capitol hill. "fuck" i said aloud. i felt incredibly, scarily lonely at that moment.
*
on a happier note: my passport arrived yesterday. it is safely contained in a drawer in my kitchen... until my lair burns down, that is.
i have really bad feelings about going to hawaii. i don't want to. i don't want to go with him. i tell myself to relax- i can fly over there and do my own thing, stay by myself, we never have to see each other- this is an awesome opportunity regardless, right?
depression, if you will, has hit me hard in the last week. everything is suddenly dark and cold and routine. the things that i feel would 'fix' everything are beyond my control... and 'fixing' is its own fucking fallacy.

this has been heard before

perhaps i don't show my appreciation enough when it matters; i tweak my karma by taking things for granted and being lulled by the fancy of the mundane. my jubilance of earlier today has devolved to pissy moroseness. i just want to feel fucking special. maybe i missed the finite window of mattering in anyone else's world. i am continually reminded that kindness does not beget kindness, it just makes one feel like a fucking sap. people either value you or they don't; you either stand out or you don't; you take what you can get, no matter how shitty the scraps make you feel.
'you', of course, is 'me.' i feel fucking pathetic and used right now. i want to do self-loathing unwise things. i am tired of being my own fucking cheerleader and giving myself tinny-voiced pep talks: today might suck, self, but tomorrow may be the best fucking day of your life!
*
i went to olympia on wednesday. i am so fucking relieved to no longer live there. it was nice to visit it objectively, not feeling haunted by the past. the vagrants still stumble down state street; the older women still wear mall-bought caftans; the men of all ages still have scrubby beards and tangled locks. the "coexist" bumper sticker is very popular there. i walked by the places we used to go, none of which are still in business. 'the reef' was an excellent diner downtown... it's now boarded up. 'the ribeye' (a 24hr dive with tater tots and pulltabs- i never played, but liked knowing i had the option) has been renamed something generic, even though 'the ribeye' had been there for 40-something years. i never went 'out' in olympia. i drove around a LOT. i know all the ax-murderer-sheltering back roads of thurston county, whipping down the narrow lanes at 2am, alone with the high beams on, smoking, blaring music. i cannot even relate to that era- the facts, when recalled, frighten me with the extent of how fucking unhappy i was.
5th avenue, midday. the only thing that crossed my path, honest to christ, was an obese brown rat.

surely i can wrangle some positive memories of that era/area:
-walking from the grocer to my own place, the funky studio in downtown across from the library, where i lived for 2 months while there was a restraining order against t. irises, i think, were on sale. i am never one to buy cut flowers, but that day i did. i bought them totally for myself. the trees were beginning to blossom. i distinctly remember smiling as i walked.
-t and i driving around aimlessly one afternoon. we passed a mexican restaurant and he said "ohhh, OKAY" and abruptly pulled into the parking lot. we hadn't even talked about getting food. moments like that were, and will always be, the things that completely charmed me.
-the smell of the co-op. i would stop there before my overnight shift. they had the curry cashews before anyone else carried them (they are now available in the bulk section of fred meyer and somehow not nearly as delicious).
-wandering the flats of mud bay, alone, watching seagulls watch me. something about a beach makes me feel like a little kid. i tap my foot against the wet sand and admire its tensegrity. i always pick up and examine the crabs under rocks. i stomp on the kelp that we used to call "chicken feet." sometimes it squeaks. sometimes it just flattens with a sigh.
-the night the remastered, un-phil-spectered version of 'let it be' came out, KZOK played it uninterrupted in its entirety. i made t drive around for the 42 minutes of the album. "i think i actually might not hate this 'long and winding road'" i said.
-buying used (old, kitschy, culinarily unpalatable) cookbooks at the cooper's point goodwill. there are a lot of old compound-dwelling folks in those parts; hence, that goodwill is a pretty good one for books and ephemera.
-b picking grapes off the vine behind OPE. he actually did make wine from them but i never got to sample it.
-hearing 'the lamb lies down on broadway' on the college radio station.
-the creepy death-house i looked at when i needed to move. it was a saggy-roofed hovel in the middle of an overgrown field on a dead end street; it even had tarpaper over the windows. the interior ceiling was maybe 7' high. i was polite to the guy who showed me the space. i thought "well, i want to be alone, right? i could plant sunflowers or something." but the place made my skin crawl. bad, horrible things had happened there- i could feel it. i left and clearly remember reminding myself to trust my fucking instincts.
-the bulk aisle at the downtown metropolitan market.
-a's bombastic dahlias.
-the black houses of olympia.
-the railroad tracks underneath hwy 510.
*
there really isn't much else. every other memory has a patina of ugliness, loneliness, and hopelessness. and a triplicate of '-ness' words sounds extremely contrived and immaturely dramatic.
*
to the present: 'last dance with mary jane' plays, usurping 'check your head.'
when i was in oly on wednesday, i did see this, which thrilled me- that is, after the initial "oh NO... that's AWFUL" reaction.

i immediately got the fucking south park line about 'going to the plane'arium' in my head- so my trek through downtown olympia was backgrounded with that particular nugget.
*
i went to see my parents. i hadn't been to their lair since june. i returned home with a sackful of vegetables from their garden. i had never picked beans- fuck, i didn't even know one picked beans- until wednesday. my parents got drunk. they both held it well, but i watched how many times they refilled their glasses. my father was very pleased about the long-awaited installation of his tap (now he doesn't have to go to the garage to get more beer). my mother had 1.5 bottles of wine, then at least 2 pints of beer; i lost count with my father. they showed me their stunning pictures of yellowstone- the pools look amazing. "it's like polenta!" i said dumbly. we complained about the government and our kin for a while, during which time i asked them for some food to absorb the 2 glasses of wine i'd had ("oh! of course!" my mother replied, sounding startled), and then my father started bleating about their new television. they certainly do buy a lot of expensive shit now. "it's digital!" my father hissed rapturously. "have you ever seen how much makeup news anchors wear?" he flipped impatiently through their hundreds of stations and we passed 'raising arizona.' "ooh!" my mother and i said at the same time. thus: the first thing i have (knowingly) seen on a digital television is the last 30 minutes of 'raising arizona.' "you wantin' we should freeze, we can't rightly drop!" i recited along without realizing it.
i fucking love that movie. i love how 'dreams' are an idea that we can never honestly apply to ourselves.
*
writing makes me feel so much better.
*
today i went to d's graduation from cortiva. i met his parents for the first time. they made me very fucking sad- what uncommunicative, depressing dickheads. i said to another friend who was there for him: "i can't believe he grew up in that environment." "well, he is adopted" she replied. "but-" they reminded me of b's parents, but infinitely worse. i glanced back at them (they were across the room) right after he received his diploma. neither were looking at the stage. that made me fucking sad.
so i can understand him blowing me off afterwards- i can understand a lot of his prickish behavior more clearly now- but fucking goddamn it, what if i'm having a bad day too? i petulantly think that way. and that's stupid, and i need to soldier up and get over it, and nothing is that important.
*
you know what i want? i want to make love. i want to be with someone with whom i can lie beside all night, us holding each other, and i want to go out for a fucking diner breakfast in the morning. that is what i want to be able to take for granted- i don't want to settle, so why do i keep disrespecting myself into thinking that's my only option?
*
the graduation was cool. white people cannot clap a rhythm if their lives depended on it. i got teary a few times. i sensed great pride in some people in the audience and resigned obligation in others (as with d's folks). i sucked on 2 lozenges in 2hours. my favorite teachers are still my favorites, based on what they said today.
*
my grades for 5th term came yesterday: i have a 3.6 GPA. it took 15 years of fucking around to actually be competent in school... and, slackly so, 'competent' is still plenty good enough for me.
it's just fucking massage school. who gives a fuck? does anyone even notice when i leave the room? do i remember them?
the lights here just dimmed. miles davis hisses on the hi-fi.
the pendulum is very low. i feel like an annoying goddamn litle girl.
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and i was getting wet

by the end of tonight's class we'd been shown all the basic moves of east coast swing. i walked through a complete fucking downpour to get there. something is amiss with the sidewalk on pine street, causing 3" of rain to gush across its surface; my jeans were sodden to the knees and my hair was dripping wet when i arrived. the abruptly vile weather brings out the good in people. "guess it's not summer any more!" a man shouted after me jovially as he dodged the deluge from an awning. "apparently!" i replied cheerily.
today i reminded myself to notice the minutae. it's why i live in a city, after all- i mustn't take it for granted. seattle, 29 september 09, consisted of:
-a maid standing on the window-side of the heavy curtains at the holiday inn on westlake, staring out.
-the goth couple on the bus playfully stacking their fists up the pole. "i win!" crowed the female when her hand reached the top.
-the man with the lazy eye and cameoflage pants.
-"you can totally have it" said the man at fremont coffee, smiling, when i asked if i could take their table as they were leaving. they left behind a soiled fork resting delicately on a clean napkin.
-the aroma of macaroni and cheese at the place where i am currently typing this.
-a man who admired my computer the last time i was here just came back. "they're totally out of those at northgate!" he said. i love this thing- the asus eee- and recommend them to anyone.
-the emergency exit on the bus pouring rainwater over a guy standing underneath, him laughing about it, and the female he was with standing on the seat to close it.
-the (transient?) man at the drugstore lecturing the cashier for not placing his items in the plastic lidded bucket he'd brought along for that purpose.
-the man in the car beside me prolongedly flipping off the bus driver with a meaty finger.
-rifling through a vintage copy of 'nostradamus' prophesies'- somehow they devised that a vague remark about sunshine fading was indicative of irish conflict.
-myself, cackling at the newest edition of 'heeb' at the university bookstore.
*
once the sky is dark, i feel rather lost. i have never 'gone home at night' to 'relax' and 'take a load off.' i stay out until i am tired, which is usually quite late. i hate being in my home at night, especially by myself- i just don't do it. i feel horribly antsy and clausterphobic. but i am reminded, once the weather is foul and the nights are longer, how inconvenient (and expensive) it is to be out. this habit tends to grate on people. i like being at their places- d and i watched 'donnie darko' last night and i was quite content- but not at mine- my lair feels cold and unfamiliar when it's dark outside. every place i've lived has been that way.
when i'm OUT, AT NIGHT, i tend to be rather voyeuristic. i look in lit windows and admire people's lives from afar. i watch people converse, prepare meals, watch television, wash dishes. i notice the matching kitchen accoutrements and framed pictures and their expressions- like the man i once saw sitting in a recliner in front of the tv, looking utterly miserable. perhaps that is it: people, when they don't know they're being noticed, rarely look happy- or even content. i do this at intersections also. everyone looks resigned and annoyed. then i catch myself and realize that i probably do also- if i'm not singing along to something.
that's fucking sad!
it justifies my outings, at least in my own mind. i don't want to miss anything, so i'll be in public spaces with my focus centered on a 5"x8" screen.
and it reminds me that i am an anomaly- most people go home in the evening, coccoon, decompress. it makes me feel rather weird and rudderless... and thankful of my freedom... and curious that i'm living in a rather pathetic state of denial. at night, when i work, animals will come in with an acute emergency and their fur will sometimes smell like whatever the owners were preparing for dinner. the thought of, say, a dog laying around the kitchen while the sauce simmers is such a foreign, folksy concept- i envy it terribly, even if i don't understand why.
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oh you pretty things!

i love georgetown, though i always feel slightly nerdy whenever i'm there. the general uniform seems to be american cigarettes, sleeve tattoos, fixies, black denim. d and i went to see f's show. on the way i passed this tower of crappy beer cans affixed to a light pole:

d doesn't really give a shit about how he comes across, which i envy and admire. we went to jules maes and he ordered his usual long island. he drinks the froofiest, most unpalatable beverages- mai tais and black opals and other unctuous swill. i may be a boring imbiber (gin and tonic, nearly always), but at least my teeth don't feel excessively coated after a night out.
jules maes has board games, big booths, and excellent fries.
*
it is very fucking nice to be on break from school. i took a four-hour nap on the trampoline today, surprising even myself. my dreams were erratic snippets of dischord. i hate waking up and feeling mentally soiled. like: i am in an archtypical 'rec room' of faux-panelled walls and hideous sofa. my father is trying to show me how to dance. we are both clothed and he is grinding his groin against my ass. i have never been molested in reality, so WHAT THE FUCK? i mean, GAH! i kept trying to move out of the way in the dream and he kept cheerfully correcting me: "you're doing it wrong" he said. my mother was also there, watching us and applauding our efforts.
i am aware of a very disturbing, freudian, parent-heavy dreamtheme of late. i have no fucking idea what this is about. i would really, really like it to stop, because it's extremely creepy and disgusting.
the dream segways to a tree-lined street with victorian houses. it reminds me of upper queen anne. my parents are showing off the '29 dodge- the dodge they sold (in reality) when i was 10 to fund my mother's 'enhancement.' in the dream it is back, now painted dark eggplant and covered with fake roses. it is a gothic, fabulous masterpiece. the inside is filled with the same tassels i used to put in all my cars; the back windows are covered with sheer black lace. i get into the rumble seat for a ride. "wait, you need your present!" my dad says. "this was on your list, but i bet you can't guess what it is." he hands me a wrapped frame in the middle of the street. it's a red velvet painting of elvis. "oh my god, it's a full-body one too" i gasp. "these are really rare. most velvet elvises are only of his head."
then: i am walking towards the clifflike edge of the neighborhood with a girl from class. we are holding hands, kissing surreptitiously, giddy with the newness of our attraction. we are to meet my parents again in an hour. the sun is setting and our faces are goldenrod. streetlights are starting to come on. "this all makes sense" i say. we smile at each other.
*
i woke up to my phone, on vibrate, skidding across the kitchen counter. it was a fucking timeshare charade that's been trying to contact me for the past two weeks; i must have signed up for something idiotic at a festival. i hate being interrupted from good dreams (which i classify the last one as). it makes reality slightly less lustrous.
seattle center today:

it's already dark outside. the passage of time startles me.

the salad days

this is my environment as i type this:

three weeks ago this space was occupied by a garage. they have done a good job with the renovation; it seems like it's been here for years. i am in a rare coffee-swilling mood and it tastes pretty raunchy, but i am here more to siphon wifi anyhow. this place is at the bottom of my hill (next to the infamous plaid pantry) and serves cheap bottles of wine. i sense much loitering here once it's wintery.
*
i just got a call that my attendance appeal for school has been granted. the last 48 hours had caused me to forget all about that. life is going well... for everybody, it seems. even my job last night, which involved 14 hours of me being the only inpatient nurse and dealing with relentless micturation, beeping fluid pumps, and a transfusion monitoring (and i nearly got bit in the face by a greyhound named fucking "Fergus"; i was saved by his e-collar and got jabbed in the eye with its hard plastic rim instead), was somehow slightly more tolerable... because in the back of my mind i kept chanting "i really do have other options now." i love my job, overall... i guess... but it's nice to remember that i will definitely not be there forever.
*
i jumped on the trampoline today whilst blaring garbage's first album. i'd forgotten how good it was. it transported me back to 1996- working at the cafe on minnesota, smoking pot in k's car, singing along loudly by myself to "milk" when i was feeling indulgently dramatic. some albums evoke certain eras so fucking strongly that they are impossible to listen to objectively ever again; it is very difficult to apply new memories to what's already there. that said, it was awesome to look at the sunny scenery outside my window and jump on a trampoline and think "i still feel like i'm seventeen but i have the experience of a thirty-year-old." it made me really fucking happy.
*
"inner city blues" plays. that's another evocative song. i think of 2001, driving to alpenglow in the snow, living in the i am house, perpetual darkness.
i don't remember any of my dreams from the last two nights. i have slept very peacefully.

a fine day, i say!

i passed the boards.
i calmly walked down the stairs, waited until the door of the respectable office building where the test was conducted was almost closed, and shrieked in the middle of the parking lot. i shrieked a lot.
*
i had one of the nuggets discs back in the cd player. i blared 'psychotic reaction' on the way home, windows down, grinning wildly.
god, i feel so good right now.
*
i walked downtown. it is still fucking hot, the sort of hot where when you stop moving, the sweat catches up and envelopes you. i wandered around the ID, smiling vapidly. 'twas at uwajimaya where i found this peculiar and delightfully named product:

i walked from the ID to capitol hill. (i have sweated a lot today.) i got the tattoo i have fantasized about for years- the one i draw sloppily on my arm with markers every few months. the session ended up taking 2 hours. the history channel was on the television behind me; i learned a bit about atilla the hun, then erik the red. i am now wearing a bandage that makes me look suicidal.
outside the cafe where i am now at is this fascinating still life... there's a story there, god damn it.

i am more mellow right now than i have felt in weeks. today was the flush-inducing climax of the past 15 months... now i get to lean back and grin lazily through the afterglow.

i am remembering my dreams again

in no particular order, but over the last several nights:

dream 1 (2 nights ago): i am walking down a bike path in northgate, midday and overcast. i know it is northgate, though i have never been on such a trail in reality. i am checking my phone and going through a pedestrian underpass. i suddenly realize i should be paying more attention to my surroundings. i look up and see a wild-eyed man stumbling out of the woods towards me. he is wearing a white-and-red patterned shirt much like the motherfucker who attacked me in july. i look at him, startled, and walk faster. there is about a 5' cement wall that i must surmount to get to street level- to 'safety' and i climb it clumsily. he is moving slowly, then starts to dart as i get all the way up. it is one of those horrible dreams where my moves are ineffectual and gelatinous. my legs are still hanging over the edge. he reaches out to grab them. i wake myself up by kicking violently and thrashing into a seated position at the head of my bed.
*
i have been having nightmares about that night. this would be the third in two weeks. shouldn't this reaction have happened two months ago? i was applauding my stoicness and resilience, but apparently i was completely delusional.
*
dream 2 (3 nights ago): i am with someone very familiar in a high-ceilinged room in an old building- something like a gymnasium. my mother is wearing no underpants and climbing on the windowsills. she is laughing. "i've always wanted to do this!" she exclaims, oblivious to my horror.
*
dream 3 (3 or 4 nights ago): it is not quite dawn and in the dream, for reasons forgotten, i have been up all night. i am standing on the corner of pike & boren and b is lifting me up by the waist and throwing me over his shoulder. i am laughing and begging him to stop- the same sort of frantic hilarity that happens when you're being tickled. he finds it hilarious that i am so helpless. i am flattered by his attention but honestly concerned that he's going to let me hang there until i pass out. i sense palpable venom in his merriment.
*
when i got home last night i didn't want to sleep in my bed. i needed a change of scenery. so i froze my ass off on my sofa, under the open window, waking up to sunlight slanting against the wall. i was momentarily befuddled- that eerie "where the fuck am i?" sensation- and when i realized it was my own space, revisited, i felt very relieved and giddy.
i love the security of my own world. i keep the walls of my enclave too fortified, perhaps, but every time i weaken them i tend to get jarringly fucked with.
to wit: d was a fucking asshole last week. i haven't talked to him since friday. i am disgusted with myself because, as always, i 'deserve' it; i trust people to be pleasant and kind and communicative and respectful- and people, at least the people i tend to associate with, aren't. but i am much more disgusted with him. i want to wash my mouth and brain out with bleach. i wonder what it is about me that renders my social options so minimal- why must i be privy to a relentless parade of mindfuckers? am i, myself, a mindfucker, attracting like? how much of this is (repetetively) bad luck and how much do i attract by mere virtue of my personality?
*
yeah, and didn't i voice these concerns to s back in, what, april? what did she say: "be careful." she said it with "i will be diplomatic because you will do whatever the fuck you want, but for god's sake, don't be nearly as stupid as you're prone to be" in her voice, which i pretended not to notice at the time. her wiseness annoys me. i envy her ability to not take shit from people. me: i let people do pretty much anything and am meekly flattered by the attention. how fucked up is that? am i damaged, for fuck's sake, and completely oblivious to it except when the same ugly patterns emerge?
damage implies weakness. i hate weakness.
let's change the subject!
*
i take the massage boards tomorrow at noon-thirty. i did well on the online practice exam, apart from several airy-fairy chinese medicine questions i was utterly clueless to. we never learned the joys of YANG in school. i test at noon and i get a new tat at 5pm. i have two weeks to heal. and it will be nice to feel a needle in my skin again.
there is a bespectacled boy reading a paperback under the windows. i looked up, caught his eye, smiled toothlessly, and returned to typing. i've stated this before, objectively, dispassionately, but: i suspect this is my problem.
second east coast swing class tonight, on an 85 degree day in a 90 degree room... my back was damp when my partners touched me. it's fucking FUN. i love feeling like i've been let in on a secret... people have done these steps for years, and now i can too! my skin still tastes salty.
and this afternoon i hung out with two people i went to elementary school with, neither of whom i'd seen in 20 years. the wonders of facebook! we recognized each other immediately. i felt weirdly tall. she lives in seattle, he's visiting from anchorage. it was incredibly cool to relate to people on that level... how weird and precocious we all were. names i hadn't heard in decades were bandied around. our mutual acquaintances are now doctors, lawyers, professors. "i'm in massage school!" i said feebly. they were actually really enthusiastic about that. i gave them my new business cards. they both promised to tell their friends.
it was a really fucking cool afternoon, actually. it's amazing how much one can remember without realizing it. i tapped into memories today that i never knew i created in the first place.
*
the past proves you're alive.

indian summer, indeed.

yesterday at work, one of the receptionists returned from the parking lot shrieking "what the hell is this?" the closest thing identifying beast i can find: a potato or woodworm larvae.

it is absolutely vibrant.
one of the doctors took it home to his kids. "patrick gets so excited when we find bugs here" one of the other doctors noted appreciatively.
*
i bought these today to add to my growing collection of moderately offensive salt-and-pepper shakers.

the copyright date is 1966. the guy i bought them from was fairly apologetic. "i have these as proof of how far we've come" he said. "no, these are very socially important" i said. "and they're kind of funny." they will accompany my "mammy" set (thanks, new orleans- what's really appalling is that i purchased those new), my wooden outhouse set, my ceramic kissing indians (made, i believe, in korea), and who knows what else. most are in boxes at the moment.
*
today i passed two men sitting outside the cyclops bar. it is fucking lovely today, eighty degrees and sunny. "no, no, you're walking way too fast" one called after me. "and you know it too, don't you, baby?"

optimism prime

during my time at B&O last night (which involved working on my research paper whilst quaffing gin, fruitlessly trying to connect to the internet, and waiting for d) i went to the ladies loo.
the grafitti ranges from the politely girly and earnest...


to the crudely peurile...

to my personal favorite.

ah, women.
*
i met my parents in tacoma tonight. i had not seen them in months- i believe i visited my mother in june, and it had been months before that i'd seen my father. we met at the spar. oddly, it was at the spar that i went after the funerals of both grandfathers- a random, unplanned coincidence.
when i walked into the bar tonight i did not recognize my parents until my mother waved. they look older every time i see them. they still look great- i come from good stock- but... older. they described their road trip to yellowstone and utah. "what a bunch of rednecks" my father said. they happened upon a town-hall barbecue in podunk, idaho; the labor day parade in walla walla; a road-crew worker from coos bay, oregon who played guitar; a flea market in randle, washington. i had requested a shot glass from their voyages. they exceeded my expectations with one metal-embossed with the LDS temple in salt lake city.
my mri came back with no changes. I HAVE HAD NO BRAIN DEGRESSION IN 2 YEARS. and one particular, prominent lesion that was present 2 years ago is no longer there. i don't know why my face sporadically feels numb, but... FUCK YES. i am doing well. this makes me happier than i can really say. i feel incredibly fucking lucky. and optimistic. and, dare i say it, blessed.
it felt fantastic to tell my parents this. i hate discussing ms with them... hi, i'm your flawed daughter... it was very fucking nice to tell them some genuinely good news. i felt like i made them proud just by existing properly.
*
there are two big things my parents still don't know, and will never have any reason to:
1. they will never know i got back together with tony last winter. they will never know that we were even in contact.
2. they will never know that i was mugged.
*
they were in good spirits tonight. my mother remained coherent and my father remained patient. the trip did them oodles of good. "we got along great" he said several times. "no bickering-" "well, there were a couple times" my mother interrupted. "but nothing big" he added. it made me able to overlook their occasional snipery tonight. the less my mother drinks, the better they interact. how about that! what a downright revolutionary insight.
i will always be their little girl, wanting them to be happy. tonight was the first time in years that i left them thinking "all is good."
*
last night d introduced me to damiano, a mexican liqueur. it reminds me of a smoother, less sweet galliano. it is fucking delicious. the plumbing in his unit is fucked up (every time he runs water, it leaks into the american apparel store downstairs, which is hilarious) so he's using a vacant unit on the 4th floor for his sink needs. i requested a tour of his building and so, with snifters in hand, we wandered the halls at midnight. i looked at an apartment in his building back in 1997; they didn't allow cats, and it was a tiny studio for two people. i would have never suspected that 12 years (!) later i would be discovering the 'locked' storage room under the stairs where hundreds of gallons of paint cans are stored. we stood in the alley between his building and the ethiopian restaurant next door. he instructed me to look up. a mannequin head peered over a windowsill. it took a moment to realize that it was not an actual human. "that fucking freaked me out one night" he said.
"norwegian wood" plays.
i just read an article discussing this song. "does anyone really think john ever had to sleep in a bathtub?" it asked.
i love the simplistic tambourine. this is a surprisingly subtle song. the lyrics are the forefront; the other details come later.

"i will always love the false image i had of you"

i love summers that actually last for the entire "summer" season.

today i presented my research on reflexology and craniosacral therapy as modalities to reduce stress. afterwards i had my first east coast swing class. these two events help assuage all the dumb things i've done lately, like posting non-identifying but potentially offensive gore pictures on facebook. the worst feeling is realizing that i fuck up when i completely, entirely do not mean to. i am far more naive and oblivious than i should be. this is a stupid fact but it sounds like a fucking excuse, which makes me feel even worse.
and i spilled vanilla oil all over my sweater...
east coast swing is fun. i already (clumsily) know the jitterbug, aka west coast; east coast is six steps instead of eight. the room was about 90 degrees. my bare arms were slippery. i have always wanted to learn how to dance... and now i am. also on the list: glassblowing, french, the cadaver lab at bastyr... it's a big world. i have to remind myself.

mortality

on wednesday d and i went to our second evening at the century ballroom. i will be enrolling in classes there soon. we ended up improvising. he is much more self-conscious than i am; he's interested in the technical aspects, whereas i am content to simply flail. we were both quite sweaty afterwards.

dancing is fucking sexy. and the charleston is amazing- there is so much to learn. i know the absolute basics thus far. an older man asked me to dance and i had to apologize for my foot-stomping ineptitude. i would much prefer to be the girl who glides across the room.
afterwards we went back to his lair and watched 'how to charleston' videos on youtube. there truly is someone, somewhere, who has done anything you could ever imagine- dance steps being one of the absolutely most benign- which is a both comforting and bewildering thought.
*
i had my mri today. my face was acting up en route and when there. it feels a bit better now. what exactly does it feel like? it feels like my left sinus is completely clogged and something is squeezing the left side of my neck and jaw. it feels like i am wearing a latex turtleneck and need to wipe crap out of my eye. i don't know how to explain it without sounding completely fucking neurotic. it just feels- weird. it feels clausterphobic. it is extremely uncomfortable but doesn't hurt at all. clausterphobic is probably the most accurate term. it feels like i am being compressed, insiduously, by my own fucking body, in ways that are invisible to others but make me feel panicky and uneasy.
today is hot. it's in the eighties, sunny, quite lovely. i walked to the appointment in first hill, taking a picture of my funky-face-feeling self en route, mainly to see if it's distinguishable to others.

the fact that my hormones are utterly fucked up, i have the complexion of a filthy adolescent, and my uterus is trying to chew its way out of my loins has not helped my mindset today.
but oddly, happily: i am much more cheerful now. all i can do is what i'm doing. all i can do is roll with it. i know this. fuck, i try to remind myself. but as a fairly high-strung lass with impatience to accomplish everything NOW and not be inconvenienced by NOTHIN', this can be really fucking difficult to live by.
*
i like being physically reminded to calm the fuck down. MS is quite handy for this.
*
i tell you, though: it's a cruel bitch of a disease for anyone who already spends far too much time in their own head.
*
tiresias, when he chases sounds, rolls his head in the most appealing way.

i spent the morning doing laundry, listening to 'anthology of bread', and finishing 'stiff.' 'stiff' is a fucking awesome book. i reread the chapter on the U Tennessee 'decomposition fields'- where they study how human bodies degenerate post-mortem as a means to solve crimes. which larvae arrive first? which gases are emitted? how does the gunge seep into the earth? when does the bloat of bacteria occur? i would actually love to study that. i was disheartened to learn that the mortuary science college in san fransisco shuttered its doors in 2002.
i actually met a woman who works in a funeral home a few weeks ago. "i love my job" she said, saucily, sincerely. i would not want to work in a funeral home; that goes against a lot of my personal philosophies about death and funerals tend to devolve into a "pity the living" slush. i liked the ideas about liquid nitrogen cadaver 'recycling', though- rather than cremation, which is not particularly eco-friendly and has been responsible for spewing mercury gases from incinerated dental fillings into the air, you're dried, frozen, and shattered. you can nutrify a treasured plant.
my great-aunt had the ashes of her husband scattered over her roses. when i was a kid, i refused to play in her backyard because the idea creeped me out so much. now it seems quite romantic. were that my situation, i would have thought "hey, you" every time i saw i new flower bloom.
no edit.

this week has been a stimulating, unnerving clusterfuckery. the details of such are comical even to myself.
i keep thinking about things that are not optional. i miss s more than he misses me. i know this. maddeningly, he probably knows this also.
but i digress.
every time i wait for the traffic at the N end of queen anne to turn onto aurora, i admire this sign. i finally had enough time to snap a picture- a crappy, terrible picture, which i need to redeem at some point.

yesterday i remembered how lovely it is to be home in the morning. i never am anymore. i have somewhere to be by 1pm everyday- which sounds leisurely until one considers i work until 3. it sounds simplistic, but it was really lovely to hang out with my guys again. i colored eyeballs in my anatomy coloring book and played al green. and i had the heater cranked in september.

labor day 09, my first proper holiday off in 2 years. d and i went wine-tasting. he had never been. i convinced him not to buy bottles from the first place we visited. we ended up walking the grounds of ste. michelle- i'd left the camera in my car. drove to snoqualmie falls and got utterly misted. returned to his lair to watch 'huli kuli', dissonant anime, and 'chasing amy', which i'd never seen before. it was really good. it warmed my cockles. it reminded me of him and i.

i live in perpetual momentum of the future, the 'what if', the imminently disappointing. perhaps i should focus more on what is, and how goddamn wonderful things can really be.

fuck, i should focus on how wonderful things already are.

straight trippin'

today i left class early to see the neurologist. i have another mri scheduled for next week. it has been 3 years since my last, which i hadn't realized... how time flies when your health is fairly inconspicuous. my doctor reviewed the notes from my last mri when i described the intermittent facial weirdness i've been experiencing. "it's not quite numb..." i said, feeling daft as i tried to describe it. "it's like the last bit of lidocaine, minus the tingle." "it just feels funky" i added unhelpfully. according to my 2006 mri, there were lesions on my brain that correspond with the areas i'm sporadically noticing said funk. "those were there 3 years ago?" i said. this actually makes me happy. i like being shown that i am not, in fact, fucking crazy. in its own fucked-up way, my body continues to make perfect sense. there is trackable logic amid its frustrating mindfucks. human beings are goddamn magical, really, and i shall cease being florid now. about that, at least.
*
(part of me- though definitely a smaller part than, say, three years ago- is still quietly fucking terrified.)
*
(but then i remember that i walked to the appointment in the sunshine, and had no symptoms there, and i could feel when the doctor literally stuck a cotton swab in my eye (no high-tech neuro testing here), and i walked out afterwards with my typical swagger, a lozenge in my mouth and the humid heat leaving my bare skin slippery, and i think: i am doing absolutely fucking fine... i just might have a bit more perspective than most, that's all.)
*
as i was crossing the street away from the doctor's office, my mother rang. i hadn't talked to either of my parents in at least a month. they are going on a road trip to yellowstone and utah, 10 days with their prius "in the 4 reddest states in the nation!" as my dad said, "except for, you know, texas." my mother asked "have you heard the latest scandal?" i anticipated more gossip about my crotchety oma. instead my mother salaciously divulged that my cousin had come out to my grammie. "i've known that for years" i said, forgetting that my mother hates few things more than being deprived of a solliloquy.
"you KNEW?"
"well, yeah."
"carol wants her to leave that (all-women's, liberal) school. she thinks that's what caused her to... you know."
"she's fine. she's a completely poised and brilliant human being. she's having the time of her life. i wish i had my shit together when i was 19 like she does."
my mother was stammeringly trying to be more liberal than she really is. i love her for that. "i mean, i don't care if she loves women... or frogs!" (she actually said 'frogs.') "it doesn't matter to me."
"she's happy, mom. she's doing really well." i tried to change the subject then... "so when do you guys leave on your trip?"
later i thought to myself "i wonder if my parents lament the fact that they will never be grandparents." i wonder if they're proud of me. they told me tonight (via their prius speaker phone that i hate conversing with them over) that they are. actually, my father said that. but i still get the feeling that they wish i had evolved into someone else... someone with a spouse and a home with matching towels who hosted dinner parties and had white, heterosexual, precocious-but-not-obnoxious offspring. someone who wasn't dinking around in massage school (i had to correct my father tonight- 'masseuse' is not really an acceptable word' i said. 'i give no undercarriage action.' there was a pause. then my father laughed. 'a masseuse gives a massage with a happy ending!' my mother brayed in the background.) and cleaning beast-ass, who was in love with a clean-cut lad and owned a hairbrush and wore skirts and was earnestly sociological without being, you know, too out there.
i am drinking a gin and tonic in a bar of which i am the sole patron, listening to 'honky cat' and siphoning wifi. i wonder if they would be proud of me now.
*
i have a horrible habit of taking photographs of myself whilst operating a moving vehicle. but i wanted to capture this moment, as blurry as it is.

i see d again tonight. monday was... a night that is still riccocheting in my brain. i find myself smiling glassily into space. it is so easy to make me happy. this is my secret weakness that too few people have utilized. does anyone realize how fucking easy it really is?
today i also had my tb skin test for the bailey-boushay house. i start my advanced clinic there in october. it's hospice for AIDS and other chronically ill patients. i have been looking forward to this from the get-go. i had blood drawn to test titers for my measles-mumps-rubella; at some point i must get my first-ever flu vaccine. d is working bailey-boushay this term. most of his clients shoo him away: "i'm in the middle of my show" they'll say, or something. he's ended up wandering the halls of the building for hours.
four hours later, my arm has not yet tripled in size, so i must be fine for tb. i have to go back in 48 hrs, expose my forearm, and have an affadavit signed.
i am not used to it being 8:20pm and already dark. the sun was low and orange when i arrived. i love watching people in flattering light.
last night i lay on my trampoline and talked to b for nearly 4 hours. it feels so easy now. it only took 12 years. someday i hope to alter the nightmarishness of our last impressions of one another. at some point in the night i was playing 'marquee moon.' he said something about 'wonder what it would have been like if-' and i realized that if things had gone any other way than how they'd gone, i'd never have fallen in love again, i never would have sang along to 'don't fear the reaper' in the midnight sun, i never would have been educated about the wave sculpture while the heat from the metal radiated into my back, i never would have laughed until i cried about a tastee-freez in ashland, oregon. i would have never had the rich and ridiculous moments that put me here, right now, writing about it. i thought "how fucking dare you- how narcissistically arrogant. and ignorant." and then i thought "how fucking amazing that we can be having this conversation"- and it made me very happy.

"you're an idealist" b told me last night. he didn't sound terribly derisive about it. i think i smiled and said "yeah, i suppose i am."

how does that mess your mind?

the things one finds one block off the main drag! i love being a pedestrian.

...although, were i not in my vehicle one evening, i would not have seen the man diligently towing a fucking kayak along the sidewalk of mercer avenue.

this is my first night off in nearly a week. i went to an HIV/AIDS seminar last friday and had to endure a puffy middle-aged hag asking the speaker, a man diagnosed in 1986 (!) "so, basically all people who were gay in the '70s have AIDS?" i worked 45 hours in a 70 hour period. when the time came yesterday to trundle to my thai massage class, i decided to sprawl on the trampoline with the pussycats and read 'stiff' instead.
'stiff', by the way, is awesome. there is a place in the toolies of tennessee that studies human body decomposition! in shade and sunlight! clad and un! today and one month out! fascinating stuff. magpies cawed outside the window.
last night d and i met up... the first time in over a week. i had been feeling paranoid. apparently he had been also. we ended up under a bridge in u-village, circa 3am, watching a raccoon climb a tree. the earth breathes audibly at that hour... or perhaps it was me.

things are, for the moment, really fucking lovely again. aren't they always lovely, though, and i'm just too oblivious to appreciate the obvious?