it is hot and sunny; i find myself 36 hours into an unseasonable cold, coughing up snot and acting narcoleptic. i have fallen asleep four times since actually waking this morning: twice at home (once on the sofa, once on the floor); twice on buses, all times deep enough to dream.
the eclipse was fucking incredible, wasn't it? it started on my drive home from work; i stopped for groceries and babbled excitedly to the cashier. ("my mom called to remind me" he said. "she knew i'd be awake.") i passed people standing in the middle of the street, watching. i did the same thing, in front of my silent and dark apartment building at 3 am, smiling at the absurd beauty of it all.
saturday s and i went to portland. we spent the day wandering hawthorne street, playing with toys, looking at antique crap. he bought a metal lunchbox with thermos ("i need this" he said reverently). i bought music. we drank margaritas as the sun blazed overhead. afterwards we got lost under one of the bridges and stumbled upon a severely snitzy restaurant, where we had raw oysters (him in a chewbacca t-shirt, me in some stupid thrift-store thing, both of us in jeans, looking frizzy and blissfully out of place). went downtown after it got dark, laughed at the prime real estate of the store selling wall-to-wall shit (ceramic frogs holding bouquets, chinsy windchimes, commemerative dolls and the like), drank from the relentless water fountains, took a photograph of the salmon going through the building. "i have a crush on portland" i said as we left. "yeah" he agreed. "i could definitely live here."
i daresay it has usurped my new orleans fixation... especially since i find myself fidgeting uncomfortably here as it hits 75 degrees... i am meant for a temperate clime.
but i do like seattle. i like it a hell of a lot, actually. i like meandering by myself at ungodly hours and always feeling safe. i like hearing the bells when the bridges are raised. i like the fog obliterating my view. i like knowing that this weekend, bumbershoot is a mere ten-minute walk from my lair, and i could see crowded house, the shins, and menomena in the space of six hours. and i very well may.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
the benefits of proofreading
...so i don't usually read my entries over before posting them, either out of laziness or a heretofore unacknowledged desire to appear arrogantly 'raw.' thus i am left with a loverboy lyric heralding my grandfather's demise, and a really treacly fuck-the-high-school-girl lyric at that, and it sounds rather dischordantly lascivious and incestuous. i apologize.
fucking loverboy.
the local brouhaha du jour: the pit bulls that entered the neighbor's house through the pet door, mauled her in her bed, and mauled her dog. the woman is in the hospital in serious condition. the two pits had to be subdued with pepper spray by animal control officers. the clueless owner of the marauding dogs apologized, ignoring the fact that the dogs have, according to the media, a long legacy of terrorizing the neighborhood, and PETS SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO ROAM, EVER. the mauled dog ended up, of course, at my work, where it arrested three times before finally dying for good several hours later. the news channels were repeatedly calling yesterday.
i fucking hate people sometimes. no, i recant: i love my species. i hate fucking ignorance. but without ignorance, i would not have a job. it is neccessary to be cold and inured to much of the awfulness i see, to quell any real emotion. about the only good thing to come of the dog (romeo, the jack russell terrier): he had such severe trauma that he was unconscious from the time he arrived, and his last memory could very well be laying happily on his owner's bed.
perhaps i hate people after all. the man next to me (at the library) is making the most horrible huffing, exhaling, snot-racked noises, thrashing his arms around, rubbing his legs together as if they itch. i am repulsed, not sympathetic. this is, after all, one of my least favorite things. i feel my hackles rising.
maybe he's looking at porn? oh GOD! the screens have privacy filters. perhaps he doesn't itch... he's about to ejaculate. he is old and withered with a carpal tunnel brace around his wrist. am i an awful person to even think this way? he is somebody's son, after all.
i need to stop this, now. (again, not proofread.)
fucking loverboy.
the local brouhaha du jour: the pit bulls that entered the neighbor's house through the pet door, mauled her in her bed, and mauled her dog. the woman is in the hospital in serious condition. the two pits had to be subdued with pepper spray by animal control officers. the clueless owner of the marauding dogs apologized, ignoring the fact that the dogs have, according to the media, a long legacy of terrorizing the neighborhood, and PETS SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO ROAM, EVER. the mauled dog ended up, of course, at my work, where it arrested three times before finally dying for good several hours later. the news channels were repeatedly calling yesterday.
i fucking hate people sometimes. no, i recant: i love my species. i hate fucking ignorance. but without ignorance, i would not have a job. it is neccessary to be cold and inured to much of the awfulness i see, to quell any real emotion. about the only good thing to come of the dog (romeo, the jack russell terrier): he had such severe trauma that he was unconscious from the time he arrived, and his last memory could very well be laying happily on his owner's bed.
perhaps i hate people after all. the man next to me (at the library) is making the most horrible huffing, exhaling, snot-racked noises, thrashing his arms around, rubbing his legs together as if they itch. i am repulsed, not sympathetic. this is, after all, one of my least favorite things. i feel my hackles rising.
maybe he's looking at porn? oh GOD! the screens have privacy filters. perhaps he doesn't itch... he's about to ejaculate. he is old and withered with a carpal tunnel brace around his wrist. am i an awful person to even think this way? he is somebody's son, after all.
i need to stop this, now. (again, not proofread.)
Saturday, August 18, 2007
touch you with his sweet caress/now he's leaving you
i have now been to the open-casket funerals of both grandfathers.
http://www.legacy.com/tribnet/DeathNotices.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=92833610
i saw my cousin jenny for the first time in 15 years. the rest of the family is a motley lot. my aunt liz was, as usual, impeccably dressed and charmingly effusive. bill and ginger were surly and unpleasant. carl and barb were bickering, the way they were when i last saw them 3 years ago; it is difficult to determine how much is hostility and how much is affectionate. i talked about transvestites and whores with my cousin erron, who had recently returned from thailand ("there are no gay men there, only trannies"); compared tattoos with my cousin jon and his fiancee marion (and silently, jealously marvelled at the functionality of their relationship); met the woman who lived across the street from the family when my mother was a little girl ("you had the BEST COOKIES!" my mother exclaimed). heard stories of my grandfather loudly whistling in the grocery store and the kids embarrassededly avoiding him in other aisles; how when he worked at the bakery they had so many extra doughnuts around that they would give them out at halloween; how today he would have been 78 years old. last week my mother predicted that he would not make it to his birthday. she was right. no matter how lingering and tedious the illness, death happens far too quickly. the last time i saw him was 14 july, my grandmother's 91st birthday. the two of them, my mother and myself went to shari's in puyallup, median age 70. he was already doing poorly but ate a grotesque pile of tapioca pudding with zeal. he was, as usual, wearing his rainbow suspenders. i am grateful to have that image of him, not how he became within his last few days.
it did not look like him at all in the coffin. bill loudly, inappropriately, described how the coffin is "totally flammable" (he will be cremated) and "cost $700. $700 for a thing that's gonna just get burned. or i could have rented one for $600. rented! can you believe that?" he was saying all this in front of the coffin, in front of the shell of my grandfather, in front of oma, who looked glassy-eyed and frail but was wearing a kick-ass turquoise necklace that i repeatedly admired.
but inappropriate doesn't quite begin to explain the prolonged giggling fit that my mother and i endured throughout the ceremony. "we will now play some music that charlie particularly enjoyed" the minister said solemnly, and started... 'flight of the bumblebee,' which is collossally dischordant on its own, and neither of us could help it. both of us were laughing until we were crying, burying our faces in the program, mortified and relieved by the emotion. i have never had a giggling fit at a fucking funeral before. hopefully i will never be so fucking obnoxious again. "you can't take me anywhere" i whispered at one point to my mother, which made her laugh harder.
we both apologized to the minister afterward. he smiled thinly. i do not think he forgave. i will probably be going to hell.
after the service my parents and i went to the spar, in tacoma's 'old town'- ironically, the same place i went after my other grandfather's funeral in 2005. then we drove around tacoma in the cold rain, looking at places they used to live, as my mother and i had done a few months ago. it was a fucking blast. when my parents and i are on the same page, they are the best friends i will ever have.
i started the drive home in yes, my new car. the clutch in pink went out last week and i thought, fuck it. i have always wanted a bug (thanks, henry) and i found one online. she was running well- i had her tuned up just yesterday. i stopped to get petrol, started out of the parking lot, and: the red generator light came on and the windshield wipers stopped. in the middle of the windshield. as did the blinkers and the fuel guage. i pulled over and consulted my "how to keep your vw alive" book, determined that it was probably a fuse, and continued home, through the unseasonable downpour, through hideous construction and blurry brake lights, peering around a wiper that remained directly in my field of vision. i have to pretend to fix a fucking fuse tomorrow, i guess. part of me bought a bug because i fancied the vision of me being a self-reliant, car-fixin', badass kind of lass. moments like these make me remember that i am actually a bit of a technophobic, motorphobic, smack-it-if-it's-broken-and-then-call-someone-else sort of person. it is not with enthusiam that i am facing this. perhaps i can attribute at least some of this to the fact that today has been, shall we say, a bit more loaded than most.
again, i am reminded anew of how much i would love to not be car-dependant.
to clarify: the sweetbreads were kind of a dare. do i still, whilst cringing at the prissy connotations, consider myself a vegetarian? yes. but one does not get the opportunity to eat thymus glands with succulent morel reduction every day. life is short. eat organs. fuck they were tasty.
of course i still have my floofy, ridiculous locks. i am too self-conscious of the weird dent that composes the back of my skull.
this has been a month of exceptional change. a few weeks ago i was walking at night, looked up at the sky, and clearly thought "i am on the brink of something big." big obviously does not always mean 'good', just different. the cycle of life, the stories people tell, the rainwater pooling on leaves, knowing that complacency is always a fucking lie.
and loverboy just started playing. i am most likely the only person in this cafe who is smiling widely about this. 'when it's over'- this is a fucking fantastic song, and that is all.
http://www.legacy.com/tribnet/DeathNotices.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=92833610
i saw my cousin jenny for the first time in 15 years. the rest of the family is a motley lot. my aunt liz was, as usual, impeccably dressed and charmingly effusive. bill and ginger were surly and unpleasant. carl and barb were bickering, the way they were when i last saw them 3 years ago; it is difficult to determine how much is hostility and how much is affectionate. i talked about transvestites and whores with my cousin erron, who had recently returned from thailand ("there are no gay men there, only trannies"); compared tattoos with my cousin jon and his fiancee marion (and silently, jealously marvelled at the functionality of their relationship); met the woman who lived across the street from the family when my mother was a little girl ("you had the BEST COOKIES!" my mother exclaimed). heard stories of my grandfather loudly whistling in the grocery store and the kids embarrassededly avoiding him in other aisles; how when he worked at the bakery they had so many extra doughnuts around that they would give them out at halloween; how today he would have been 78 years old. last week my mother predicted that he would not make it to his birthday. she was right. no matter how lingering and tedious the illness, death happens far too quickly. the last time i saw him was 14 july, my grandmother's 91st birthday. the two of them, my mother and myself went to shari's in puyallup, median age 70. he was already doing poorly but ate a grotesque pile of tapioca pudding with zeal. he was, as usual, wearing his rainbow suspenders. i am grateful to have that image of him, not how he became within his last few days.
it did not look like him at all in the coffin. bill loudly, inappropriately, described how the coffin is "totally flammable" (he will be cremated) and "cost $700. $700 for a thing that's gonna just get burned. or i could have rented one for $600. rented! can you believe that?" he was saying all this in front of the coffin, in front of the shell of my grandfather, in front of oma, who looked glassy-eyed and frail but was wearing a kick-ass turquoise necklace that i repeatedly admired.
but inappropriate doesn't quite begin to explain the prolonged giggling fit that my mother and i endured throughout the ceremony. "we will now play some music that charlie particularly enjoyed" the minister said solemnly, and started... 'flight of the bumblebee,' which is collossally dischordant on its own, and neither of us could help it. both of us were laughing until we were crying, burying our faces in the program, mortified and relieved by the emotion. i have never had a giggling fit at a fucking funeral before. hopefully i will never be so fucking obnoxious again. "you can't take me anywhere" i whispered at one point to my mother, which made her laugh harder.
we both apologized to the minister afterward. he smiled thinly. i do not think he forgave. i will probably be going to hell.
after the service my parents and i went to the spar, in tacoma's 'old town'- ironically, the same place i went after my other grandfather's funeral in 2005. then we drove around tacoma in the cold rain, looking at places they used to live, as my mother and i had done a few months ago. it was a fucking blast. when my parents and i are on the same page, they are the best friends i will ever have.
i started the drive home in yes, my new car. the clutch in pink went out last week and i thought, fuck it. i have always wanted a bug (thanks, henry) and i found one online. she was running well- i had her tuned up just yesterday. i stopped to get petrol, started out of the parking lot, and: the red generator light came on and the windshield wipers stopped. in the middle of the windshield. as did the blinkers and the fuel guage. i pulled over and consulted my "how to keep your vw alive" book, determined that it was probably a fuse, and continued home, through the unseasonable downpour, through hideous construction and blurry brake lights, peering around a wiper that remained directly in my field of vision. i have to pretend to fix a fucking fuse tomorrow, i guess. part of me bought a bug because i fancied the vision of me being a self-reliant, car-fixin', badass kind of lass. moments like these make me remember that i am actually a bit of a technophobic, motorphobic, smack-it-if-it's-broken-and-then-call-someone-else sort of person. it is not with enthusiam that i am facing this. perhaps i can attribute at least some of this to the fact that today has been, shall we say, a bit more loaded than most.
again, i am reminded anew of how much i would love to not be car-dependant.
to clarify: the sweetbreads were kind of a dare. do i still, whilst cringing at the prissy connotations, consider myself a vegetarian? yes. but one does not get the opportunity to eat thymus glands with succulent morel reduction every day. life is short. eat organs. fuck they were tasty.
of course i still have my floofy, ridiculous locks. i am too self-conscious of the weird dent that composes the back of my skull.
this has been a month of exceptional change. a few weeks ago i was walking at night, looked up at the sky, and clearly thought "i am on the brink of something big." big obviously does not always mean 'good', just different. the cycle of life, the stories people tell, the rainwater pooling on leaves, knowing that complacency is always a fucking lie.
and loverboy just started playing. i am most likely the only person in this cafe who is smiling widely about this. 'when it's over'- this is a fucking fantastic song, and that is all.
Friday, August 17, 2007
girls don't poop
in the last week, which of the following things did NOT happen?
a) my grandfather died.
b) i ate, and completely fucking loved, veal sweetbreads.
c) i bought a '71 VW bug.
d) i shaved my head.
soundtrack for today's dazed afternoon stroll: "never tell" by the violent femmes (the 'sink down sink down' part in particular).
a) my grandfather died.
b) i ate, and completely fucking loved, veal sweetbreads.
c) i bought a '71 VW bug.
d) i shaved my head.
soundtrack for today's dazed afternoon stroll: "never tell" by the violent femmes (the 'sink down sink down' part in particular).
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
knickers in a twist!
i breathed for a dog during his lung lobectomy yesterday. there was his heart, gyrating under a pile of wet gauze. there were his lungs, pale and limpid and inflating under my duress. the chest wall was closed via sutures woven through ribs. medicine is primitive as fuck, really. the doctor literally tossed the lung tissue onto the sterile table- devoid of air, it resembled a piece of bologna. it is now bottled in formalin, in a box (along with the same dog's amuptated leg and a neoplastic lymph node) en route to CSU; the dog, three hours post-op, was moving around on his newfound stump, letting me pet him, temperature and pulses normal, membranes pink. primitive worked for him.
i work with several snivelly hags who call in sick if they have a headache- or, barring that, whine relentlessly about how impaired they are. 3 techs were gone yesterday, being ill- and then this dog, stoic as fuck... drama and histrionics simply do not exist in the wild. i thought about that as i drove home last night, on the dark and empty 2am interstate, smoking a cigarette as mist cauled the windshield. asphalt and buildings, empty yet brightly lit rooms, cars at stoplights filled with solitary unsmiling strangers, decorative shrubbery, rotating billboards advertising the lottery, liquor, flexible interest rates, dsl. if i have not already mentioned it, i urge everyone to read 'affluenza.' just don't actually, you know, pay money for it or anything.
and i am in a mood today, as usual, to contentedly Do My Own Thing, to ignore the lascivious text i received this morning, to ignore the reality that he truly doesn;t have a fucking clue. they can't ALL not have a fucking clue, right? surely i fit in there someplace? a lyric i once heard in AK (and most likely cited before): 'my emotions turn from blue to red.' i think of that line a lot. it says everything, really. i am objectively puzzled at how my impulsive ardor can d/evolve into near-complete indifference, even as i know what thoughts and events (of which there were several) led me there. i care a fuck of a lot and then... i don't. or i still do, i'm just tired of being fucked with. or i get bored. i get bored most easily of all.
as is also my tedious pattern, i will probably carry this 'me v. world' arrogance through the day, and when night falls loneliness and a sense of acquiescence will pervade, and i'll feel like a colossal asshole.
YES, I AM COGNIZANT OF THE CHILDISH TEDIUM OF MY MECURIAL TEMPERMENT.
*
there should be, if there isn;t already, a porn movie set in a rural blue-hill-country county lockdown. a female jail. and it could be called 'petticoat prison.'
i just thought of that.
why, i cannot fucking imagine.
i work with several snivelly hags who call in sick if they have a headache- or, barring that, whine relentlessly about how impaired they are. 3 techs were gone yesterday, being ill- and then this dog, stoic as fuck... drama and histrionics simply do not exist in the wild. i thought about that as i drove home last night, on the dark and empty 2am interstate, smoking a cigarette as mist cauled the windshield. asphalt and buildings, empty yet brightly lit rooms, cars at stoplights filled with solitary unsmiling strangers, decorative shrubbery, rotating billboards advertising the lottery, liquor, flexible interest rates, dsl. if i have not already mentioned it, i urge everyone to read 'affluenza.' just don't actually, you know, pay money for it or anything.
and i am in a mood today, as usual, to contentedly Do My Own Thing, to ignore the lascivious text i received this morning, to ignore the reality that he truly doesn;t have a fucking clue. they can't ALL not have a fucking clue, right? surely i fit in there someplace? a lyric i once heard in AK (and most likely cited before): 'my emotions turn from blue to red.' i think of that line a lot. it says everything, really. i am objectively puzzled at how my impulsive ardor can d/evolve into near-complete indifference, even as i know what thoughts and events (of which there were several) led me there. i care a fuck of a lot and then... i don't. or i still do, i'm just tired of being fucked with. or i get bored. i get bored most easily of all.
as is also my tedious pattern, i will probably carry this 'me v. world' arrogance through the day, and when night falls loneliness and a sense of acquiescence will pervade, and i'll feel like a colossal asshole.
YES, I AM COGNIZANT OF THE CHILDISH TEDIUM OF MY MECURIAL TEMPERMENT.
*
there should be, if there isn;t already, a porn movie set in a rural blue-hill-country county lockdown. a female jail. and it could be called 'petticoat prison.'
i just thought of that.
why, i cannot fucking imagine.
Friday, August 03, 2007
the metaphorical rolls-royce for the good of my voice
the boy: fucked up royally, but apologized with a contrition i am, as usual, inclined to believe.
the job: is a bit better. indifference helps. when i lighten the fuck up, things tend to be much more tolerable. imagine that.
the interview: went well, i think, but the pay is less and the hours suck.
the clime: is muggy. my left hand is freckled from hanging it out my car window as i commute relentlessly.
the trunk now holds: a $5 1940's radio cabinet that will soon support a gangly bamboo.
the taste in my mouth: is of wine, red wine, and it is good.
the music on the sirius overhead-thing: is of the schmaltzy 80s variety, though they did just play talk talk, which i have no complaints about, sadly.
*
on the stranger's blog they were discussing the vile clan in some vile midwestern bible-thumping cousin-fucking enclave, the one with the pasty matriarch popping out her 17th "the lord giveth" child. i find the entire thing fucking obscene, and not only because it involves scary fundamentalists procreating. one of the commentators likened the coitus to "throwing a hot dog down a high school hallway." and i laughed loudly in the otherwise subdued cafe upon reading it. the computer will not let me copy the address onto my post, so i recommend www.thestranger.com/slog and scrolling down to the fucking awesome 'VAGINA' poster.
i have never been able to reconcile the extremes of my moods. i was in a very bad way yesterday, overwhelmed, pessimistic, to the point of sitting in my car at golden gardens in the dark like some perv, listening to nektar and CRYING as trains roared past and people fire-danced on the horizon. boo fucking hoo. today: the jauntiness has returned. i attribute part of the upswing to, among other things: a staff meeting that didn't entirely suck, 'nuggets volume 1' played piercingly loudly, sunshiney weather that wasn't debilitatingly hot, a green shirt that i quite like, text messages as he drove to eugene, clean hair, miniature roses. i am, for the moment, very happily adopting a 'don't fight it, feel it' attitude about everything. the job situation? i am happy where i am, might be happy where i might go, fear not. the boy? nearly every nasty thing i have been through, he has also- and empathy is paramount. i am only just beginning to realize that... if you're not on the same shitty-life-experiences page, there is always an element of condescension, or at least befuddlement, and i am unwilling to fucking explain/justify much of anything any more. the lair? filled with sunshine, compulsory thrift-store crap, cats, salty food, and plants that are not yet dead.
i get especially excited when i think that autumn, my favorite season, is another thing to look forward to!
honestly, i have had exactly half a glass of wine.
the job: is a bit better. indifference helps. when i lighten the fuck up, things tend to be much more tolerable. imagine that.
the interview: went well, i think, but the pay is less and the hours suck.
the clime: is muggy. my left hand is freckled from hanging it out my car window as i commute relentlessly.
the trunk now holds: a $5 1940's radio cabinet that will soon support a gangly bamboo.
the taste in my mouth: is of wine, red wine, and it is good.
the music on the sirius overhead-thing: is of the schmaltzy 80s variety, though they did just play talk talk, which i have no complaints about, sadly.
*
on the stranger's blog they were discussing the vile clan in some vile midwestern bible-thumping cousin-fucking enclave, the one with the pasty matriarch popping out her 17th "the lord giveth" child. i find the entire thing fucking obscene, and not only because it involves scary fundamentalists procreating. one of the commentators likened the coitus to "throwing a hot dog down a high school hallway." and i laughed loudly in the otherwise subdued cafe upon reading it. the computer will not let me copy the address onto my post, so i recommend www.thestranger.com/slog and scrolling down to the fucking awesome 'VAGINA' poster.
i have never been able to reconcile the extremes of my moods. i was in a very bad way yesterday, overwhelmed, pessimistic, to the point of sitting in my car at golden gardens in the dark like some perv, listening to nektar and CRYING as trains roared past and people fire-danced on the horizon. boo fucking hoo. today: the jauntiness has returned. i attribute part of the upswing to, among other things: a staff meeting that didn't entirely suck, 'nuggets volume 1' played piercingly loudly, sunshiney weather that wasn't debilitatingly hot, a green shirt that i quite like, text messages as he drove to eugene, clean hair, miniature roses. i am, for the moment, very happily adopting a 'don't fight it, feel it' attitude about everything. the job situation? i am happy where i am, might be happy where i might go, fear not. the boy? nearly every nasty thing i have been through, he has also- and empathy is paramount. i am only just beginning to realize that... if you're not on the same shitty-life-experiences page, there is always an element of condescension, or at least befuddlement, and i am unwilling to fucking explain/justify much of anything any more. the lair? filled with sunshine, compulsory thrift-store crap, cats, salty food, and plants that are not yet dead.
i get especially excited when i think that autumn, my favorite season, is another thing to look forward to!
honestly, i have had exactly half a glass of wine.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
it feels so good, i can feel it
ah, typical freneticness. freneticism?
work was fucking terrible this week. i am so tired of bouncing in with a smile only to be met by a gaggle of curmudgeony wenches. everyone there seems so unhappy with their lives, or at least their vocation- and i have stopped taking it personally, since they are like that with everyone. over half the people there are new, brand-new, "hey you" new, which adds to the frustration and discombobulated vibe. and then i saw that the schedule i had requested two months ago was assigned to someone whose FIRST DAY was sunday. and i decided, fuck it. i had applied yet again to UW two weeks ago (i have been courting their various facilities since february) and suddenly did not feel so guilty in doing so. and on monday i heard back from one of the positions... i emailed her back whilst at work, on the clock, "on a break", not really caring.
a nihilistic attitude is bad. i know better. yesterday i vowed to try better. i was suckered into transporting two fucking kittens to some rescue place in kirkland, which my coworkers seem to think is mere steps from seattle... and that was expanded to include a wild bird that someone had dropped off at the AEC- could i transport that to the wildlife transfer clinic in bellevue? "they're sister cities!" the receptionist/bleeding heart chirped. no, they actually are not, but whatever. so after my 12hr shift i loaded my car with the 2-wk-old, flea-anemic, please-don't-die-on-the-way-there kittens and a cardboard box containing a creature of indeterminate class. i referred to it as "the grackle." driving to the godforsaken east side at 11pm... i got lost, of course, ending up on a dark road buffered with horse-xing signs, getting increasingly pissed off. when i eventually dropped the cats off it was at a very nice split-level home of expected kirklandian means. the woman was perhaps 80 pounds with eye shadow up to her brows- bleached blonde, tight jeans, a musical voice. the place was immaculate, about 10 gorgeous cats circling me, no sign of hair or odor anyplace. the carpet was white, the pillows floral and carefully arranged, a polished chair artfully stacked with decorative stuffed animals in the corner. it was very surreal. her husband came wandering out, large and jovial, the sort of man i could picture fishing with my dad. they were both incredibly nice. i had a strange detached feeling whilst there: looking in on a completely different universe that i had never before known. these people, with their cats and generosity and awake-at-midnight-edness, have always existed. i just never knew.
afterwards i drove the restless grackle to the 24-hr clinic in bellevue, a rinky-dink operation with paneled walls and bright green carpet and a girl answering the door who looked no older than 20. she took the box to the treatment area while i pocketed boxes of nerds from the candy jar on the counter. they thought the bird was a baby swan. i rather doubt it, but perhaps there are orphaned cygnets wandering the bowels of tacoma that i am, again, simply oblivious to.
*
i am often oblivious to a hell of a lot.
*
oh! there was a penile amputation at work on monday. lab, "felix", chronic urolithiasis and cystitis, penis necrotic. the (male) doctor chopped off the whole fucking thing and redirected his urethra to an opening near his scrotum. this is a common surgery for cats but i'd never been privy to a dog one, especially a large breed. the penis was wrapped in a towel awaiting formalin when one of the other techs accidentally grabbed it. the penis fell out and smacked her arm. "holy shit!" she yelled,loud enough for everyone in the treatment room to hear. i was the one who
eventually got to package it.
again: once i stop and think about the details, life becomes almost too peculiar to really fathom. i shall consider my obliviousness not a character flaw but a survival mechanism.
work was fucking terrible this week. i am so tired of bouncing in with a smile only to be met by a gaggle of curmudgeony wenches. everyone there seems so unhappy with their lives, or at least their vocation- and i have stopped taking it personally, since they are like that with everyone. over half the people there are new, brand-new, "hey you" new, which adds to the frustration and discombobulated vibe. and then i saw that the schedule i had requested two months ago was assigned to someone whose FIRST DAY was sunday. and i decided, fuck it. i had applied yet again to UW two weeks ago (i have been courting their various facilities since february) and suddenly did not feel so guilty in doing so. and on monday i heard back from one of the positions... i emailed her back whilst at work, on the clock, "on a break", not really caring.
a nihilistic attitude is bad. i know better. yesterday i vowed to try better. i was suckered into transporting two fucking kittens to some rescue place in kirkland, which my coworkers seem to think is mere steps from seattle... and that was expanded to include a wild bird that someone had dropped off at the AEC- could i transport that to the wildlife transfer clinic in bellevue? "they're sister cities!" the receptionist/bleeding heart chirped. no, they actually are not, but whatever. so after my 12hr shift i loaded my car with the 2-wk-old, flea-anemic, please-don't-die-on-the-way-there kittens and a cardboard box containing a creature of indeterminate class. i referred to it as "the grackle." driving to the godforsaken east side at 11pm... i got lost, of course, ending up on a dark road buffered with horse-xing signs, getting increasingly pissed off. when i eventually dropped the cats off it was at a very nice split-level home of expected kirklandian means. the woman was perhaps 80 pounds with eye shadow up to her brows- bleached blonde, tight jeans, a musical voice. the place was immaculate, about 10 gorgeous cats circling me, no sign of hair or odor anyplace. the carpet was white, the pillows floral and carefully arranged, a polished chair artfully stacked with decorative stuffed animals in the corner. it was very surreal. her husband came wandering out, large and jovial, the sort of man i could picture fishing with my dad. they were both incredibly nice. i had a strange detached feeling whilst there: looking in on a completely different universe that i had never before known. these people, with their cats and generosity and awake-at-midnight-edness, have always existed. i just never knew.
afterwards i drove the restless grackle to the 24-hr clinic in bellevue, a rinky-dink operation with paneled walls and bright green carpet and a girl answering the door who looked no older than 20. she took the box to the treatment area while i pocketed boxes of nerds from the candy jar on the counter. they thought the bird was a baby swan. i rather doubt it, but perhaps there are orphaned cygnets wandering the bowels of tacoma that i am, again, simply oblivious to.
*
i am often oblivious to a hell of a lot.
*
oh! there was a penile amputation at work on monday. lab, "felix", chronic urolithiasis and cystitis, penis necrotic. the (male) doctor chopped off the whole fucking thing and redirected his urethra to an opening near his scrotum. this is a common surgery for cats but i'd never been privy to a dog one, especially a large breed. the penis was wrapped in a towel awaiting formalin when one of the other techs accidentally grabbed it. the penis fell out and smacked her arm. "holy shit!" she yelled,loud enough for everyone in the treatment room to hear. i was the one who
eventually got to package it.
again: once i stop and think about the details, life becomes almost too peculiar to really fathom. i shall consider my obliviousness not a character flaw but a survival mechanism.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
"you know who you look like? carol kane."
i want to be overseas by my 30th birthday. it can happen. i will try.
i have been in a great deal of physical pain lately- it feels as if someone has smacked me around with a bat. i am getting used to it. i am moving rather animatronically (is that the word?). it gets better as the day progresses, or perhaps it was the nice alcohol buzz, but i had little problem sprawling on s's sofa in the dark and making out with him like we were in high school. i am skittish as fuck about anything serious. as usual. but he's intelligent as fuck, makes me laugh, makes me happy. and that is all i need, really.
this weekend my uncle is apparently moving my grandmother into a nursing home. she does not know this yet. my grandfather has been in the hospital this week. i went to their house last saturday for my oma's 91st birthday. he looked like he was going to keel over at any moment; she was sporadically sentient but often not. i have so much more appreciation for my mother. watching the three of them interact, their facial expressions, how she handles them both with a bemused complacency that is mostly absent from the rest of her life, makes me feel really fucking lucky to know her. i would love my mother even if she wasn't my mother.
my father, on the other hand, has been aloof and nippy with me lately- as if he's begrudgingly accomodating a stranger. and it hurts my feelings and pisses me off, but not so much that i'll actually ask him why. i suspect my mother may have relayed some of my comments from a few weeks ago, when she and i went out to dinner (fucking applebee's, in tacoma- her suggestion. i had never been in one before, on purpose. it was hideous. i had fries.). "he constantly is on your case" i said. "it's been pretty alienating. i don't really like being around the two of you together because of how he treats you." my mother smiled and shrugged. "funny, everyone says how mean doug is" she said, "but i never see it." i didn't push the conversation further.
i am typing this in the airy library in quaint north bend, in a residential area with clean yards and american flags a-flyin'.
i passed the diner where twin peaks was filmed, where c and i once sat among hundreds of stuffed tweety birds, where the women's loo had a plumbing bill adhered to the wall with "DON'T FLUSH ANYTHING BUT TOILET PAPER!" scrawled above it. now, a brighter time, sleeveless, with cherries and blueberries being sold alongside the road. and 'see emily play' was on the radio.
i just wish my body would comply with my mind.
i have been in a great deal of physical pain lately- it feels as if someone has smacked me around with a bat. i am getting used to it. i am moving rather animatronically (is that the word?). it gets better as the day progresses, or perhaps it was the nice alcohol buzz, but i had little problem sprawling on s's sofa in the dark and making out with him like we were in high school. i am skittish as fuck about anything serious. as usual. but he's intelligent as fuck, makes me laugh, makes me happy. and that is all i need, really.
this weekend my uncle is apparently moving my grandmother into a nursing home. she does not know this yet. my grandfather has been in the hospital this week. i went to their house last saturday for my oma's 91st birthday. he looked like he was going to keel over at any moment; she was sporadically sentient but often not. i have so much more appreciation for my mother. watching the three of them interact, their facial expressions, how she handles them both with a bemused complacency that is mostly absent from the rest of her life, makes me feel really fucking lucky to know her. i would love my mother even if she wasn't my mother.
my father, on the other hand, has been aloof and nippy with me lately- as if he's begrudgingly accomodating a stranger. and it hurts my feelings and pisses me off, but not so much that i'll actually ask him why. i suspect my mother may have relayed some of my comments from a few weeks ago, when she and i went out to dinner (fucking applebee's, in tacoma- her suggestion. i had never been in one before, on purpose. it was hideous. i had fries.). "he constantly is on your case" i said. "it's been pretty alienating. i don't really like being around the two of you together because of how he treats you." my mother smiled and shrugged. "funny, everyone says how mean doug is" she said, "but i never see it." i didn't push the conversation further.
i am typing this in the airy library in quaint north bend, in a residential area with clean yards and american flags a-flyin'.
i passed the diner where twin peaks was filmed, where c and i once sat among hundreds of stuffed tweety birds, where the women's loo had a plumbing bill adhered to the wall with "DON'T FLUSH ANYTHING BUT TOILET PAPER!" scrawled above it. now, a brighter time, sleeveless, with cherries and blueberries being sold alongside the road. and 'see emily play' was on the radio.
i just wish my body would comply with my mind.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
with fingertips stained green from decoupage
it is still 80 degrees at 10pm. a very good live version of 'jane says' is playing- how can one go astray with marimbas? (marimbae?) and i feel a lazy giddiness about the whole fucking world, even as i feel residually pathetic for leaving work early due to some of the most horrifying body cramps i have ever experienced- i returned home and took a fitful nap, under the covers despite the 90 degree afternoon. is it ms, which can apparently be painful? the ibd? i would be more inclined to blame the latter. motherfucking autoimmunity. i feel fine now, just guilty.
the glow stems from meeting someone who i really fucking dig. i admit it. and the best part is, i'm not even worried about it. it felt comfortable from the absolute get-go. that has only happened once before... to someone i was never married to. i am perhaps most pleased by the realization that there aren't only schmucks in the world, that i am still somewhat desireable, and that, most importantly, i am able to desire back. i am still alive after all.
the glow stems from meeting someone who i really fucking dig. i admit it. and the best part is, i'm not even worried about it. it felt comfortable from the absolute get-go. that has only happened once before... to someone i was never married to. i am perhaps most pleased by the realization that there aren't only schmucks in the world, that i am still somewhat desireable, and that, most importantly, i am able to desire back. i am still alive after all.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
i am remembering my dreams again- this happens cyclically, and with a vengeance. last night: i was in a bedroom much like the berth of a ship, softly lit, lamps draped with gauzy cloth like a nautical bordello/preteen slumber party. i had just returned from a long drive, having realized whilst on my way home that i had forgotten about watching j's dog, who had been ignored in my apartment for days. and when i arrived, the dog had completely saturated my bed and mattress with urine. i was starting to clean it when i discovered i'd covered the blankets with absorbable pads- the kind we use in the cages at work- but the urine had soaked through and around, and i was going to have to clean and replace everything anyway... and i woke up panicked, worrying about getting to work in mere hours, and it took me a good two minutes before i was fully aware that it really was all a dream. i don't like feeling late or neglectful. or like i need to clean.
then: i was going to a hunting lodge with s, dark dead of winter, on a road in alaska that does not exist but that has been represented in several of my dreams (i have an alternate universe of familiar loci- my own sim city of irrelevance).
we were both in wonderful moods, laughing about how we don't even ski or hunt and we should probably just hang out at the bar under the antlers. we stopped on the way at a brightly lit service station. yes: it was a toilet dream. I ALWAYS HAVE DREAMS ABOUT TOILETS! (the micturating dog in the former was merely a precursor.) this has been my theme since i can remember: not a need to use the loo, or really anything to do with urine or feces or whatnot; no, it has always been a quest, a seeking, and always to public facilities, and always with something terribly wrong. i have to walk through a labryinth or along crumbling brick barrier walls, for example. or the bowls have been smashed. or the floor is covered in six inches of water and there are spraying pipes jutting out from the ceiling. on a curious note, i just realized that: in all my toilet dreams, i have yet to encounter a toilet that is actually clogged; rarely is the water anything but water (thus making the environment only unclean in a faulty-plumbing sort of way, not in a human waste free-for-all); and when i wake up from these dreams, i never have even the slightest urge to run to the loo (and nor have i already gone, if it need be said.)
this has gone on long enough, been weirdly consistent (in its bizarre inconsistency) long enough, and been a gross topic to dream about for long enough that i have consulted several dream guides to tell me i'm not a freak. and lo, i am not. perhaps i have already written about this sometime prior... dreaming of toilets (in their natural, unclogged, no-personal-physical-hardship-attached state): "symbolizes a release of emotions or getting rid of something in your life that is useless." (thank you, dreammoods.com)
i know that dream analysis is complete and utter bullshit, but i like this assessment quite a lot. like a fortune cookie, i shall bend its meaning to make my reality seem a bit more sane.
anyhow: the dream ended with me eating "just veggies", that fucking delightful freeze-dried vegetable crack that comes in the little plastic bucket with the pictures of smiling tomatoes and carrots. s came over and asked what it was. "ooh, i've just had the fruit kinds before," she said. we got into an animated discussion about the various flavors of their products when i woke up.
this really is the kind of mundane crap i dream about. i probably shouldn't even admit it.
and i can see us having exactly that conversation. it makes me smile now.
then: i was going to a hunting lodge with s, dark dead of winter, on a road in alaska that does not exist but that has been represented in several of my dreams (i have an alternate universe of familiar loci- my own sim city of irrelevance).
we were both in wonderful moods, laughing about how we don't even ski or hunt and we should probably just hang out at the bar under the antlers. we stopped on the way at a brightly lit service station. yes: it was a toilet dream. I ALWAYS HAVE DREAMS ABOUT TOILETS! (the micturating dog in the former was merely a precursor.) this has been my theme since i can remember: not a need to use the loo, or really anything to do with urine or feces or whatnot; no, it has always been a quest, a seeking, and always to public facilities, and always with something terribly wrong. i have to walk through a labryinth or along crumbling brick barrier walls, for example. or the bowls have been smashed. or the floor is covered in six inches of water and there are spraying pipes jutting out from the ceiling. on a curious note, i just realized that: in all my toilet dreams, i have yet to encounter a toilet that is actually clogged; rarely is the water anything but water (thus making the environment only unclean in a faulty-plumbing sort of way, not in a human waste free-for-all); and when i wake up from these dreams, i never have even the slightest urge to run to the loo (and nor have i already gone, if it need be said.)
this has gone on long enough, been weirdly consistent (in its bizarre inconsistency) long enough, and been a gross topic to dream about for long enough that i have consulted several dream guides to tell me i'm not a freak. and lo, i am not. perhaps i have already written about this sometime prior... dreaming of toilets (in their natural, unclogged, no-personal-physical-hardship-attached state): "symbolizes a release of emotions or getting rid of something in your life that is useless." (thank you, dreammoods.com)
i know that dream analysis is complete and utter bullshit, but i like this assessment quite a lot. like a fortune cookie, i shall bend its meaning to make my reality seem a bit more sane.
anyhow: the dream ended with me eating "just veggies", that fucking delightful freeze-dried vegetable crack that comes in the little plastic bucket with the pictures of smiling tomatoes and carrots. s came over and asked what it was. "ooh, i've just had the fruit kinds before," she said. we got into an animated discussion about the various flavors of their products when i woke up.
this really is the kind of mundane crap i dream about. i probably shouldn't even admit it.
and i can see us having exactly that conversation. it makes me smile now.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
"in short, we look back nostalgically on everything, which proves without question that it was beautiful."
yesterday, the 4th of july, was disarmingly hot and sunny. i rearranged furniture and wandered about. every time i see nsb i feel like an idiot. have i ever been so attracted to a person? i feel like i am thirteen and obsessively writing our names together in a notebook, not that i would have ever done such a thing. i still know nothing about him, 1. because i am a chickenshit, and 2. because to know anything would tidily fuck up the little fantasyland i guiltily enjoy. it is nice, i guess, to have a face to attach to my heretofore abstract lust.
i found one of my favorite, and out of print, books at the used store: 'the hermit' by ionesco. i bought my first copy at twice sold tales roughly ten years ago; i read it on the bus through a dark miserable january towards my dark miserable job at the construction-insurance place in bellevue- the job with the foul-smelling, visibly nippled, leering boss; the secretary whom i'd assisted when i was an abortion counselor; the guy who embezzled several thousand dollars from some of the clients; and the carpenter who wandered to my desk one day and said "wow, i haven't heard this in a while" upon hearing my cassette of 'magic and loss.' god, that job sucked. anyhow, ionesco: i had given away my copy once back in AK, and had thought of it many times since. it is one of the most clausterphobic and depressing novels i've ever read: the character is a neurotic unlikeable pathetic drunk who pisses his life away amid a blurry litany of justification, procrastination, and cowardice. and it is disturbingly easy to relate to, on however minute a level. so i esconsed myself in a corner of an upstairs bar, in dimness as the sun blazed outside, and read the first half of it whilst drinking vodka. i was the only one there. and it was quite enjoyable, albeit eerily akin to reading about salmonella whilst eating steak tartare.
afterwards j came by my lair to watch the fireworks. he text-messaged his girlfriend the entire time, often checking his phone while i was actually talking. the rudeness of that didn't fully hit me until after he left and i went on a midnight stroll around my neighborhood. another analogy: it was like a new mother babbling relentlessly to her childless friends about her new baby. that's great, happy for you, but fuck. he brought his panicked dog with him. the dog and my cats did surprisingly well together. thus, intermingled with my mild text-irritation, i found myself happily considering getting a dog. "it would go everywhere with me" i thought. "we would have adventures." it is still a nice idea, but i'm sober now.
*
today: drove to fucking marysville and bought a jello cookbook (yet another one- there are as many jello recipes as there are stars in the heavens, m'lord) at the thrift store. icq'd with b for most of the day. he always prompts a sense of yearning wanderlust, whether he intends to or not. this surely had a detrimental effect on our marriage- i never was able to just BE with him, to just live in the moment, and worse yet, i didn't really want to. no, i take that back. there were plenty of times when the world began and ended with him, with the space we shared, when i was oblivious and indifferent to everything outside of our little bubble. in a sick way, that's what made the good times really fucking gorgeous... and the bad times so incredibly awful. it was a very manic relationship. that was a long fucking time ago. i feel an automatic sense of detachment from that entire era now: another scene from a movie i've only watched dozens of times.
sometimes i still miss it.
life is an odd duck.
whatever the fuck that means. i am mad-libbing my brain.
i went to the seattle art museum for the first time since its reopening. the place is amazing. i only made it through the first floor. highlights: rothko, my favorite (red on ochre is my favorite of the favorites, which is not the one they have). "gold and blue and a short skirt", one of the most jaw-droppingly erotic things i have ever seen. my reflection inside the dog-tag gown- this piece is huge, scary, and horribly persuasive. the photo of the scrawny woman and her baby pet monkey- like something out of david lynch. the shadows of the asian woman's false eyelashes against her cheek, her areola barely exposed. the curved white on black possibly being the full moon contrasting against the dark universe. warhol's rorschach- two stereotypical chinamen, backs to each other, facing rearing ponies? i could go on. i will go back instead.
it is glorious to be in PROXIMITY to such cool things. wanderlust will always be there; i have resigned myself to it being one of my most annoying qualities- but don't think i don't appreciate what i've got. even if i had to leave the museum not because i was bored with the art but because my eyes were starting to cross and my face felt numb (i think i am an advil addict. placebo or not, it seems to 'help' my ms-related weirdnesses. thus i will be inconvenienced with inevitable liver failure instead.) i still had the privelege of stepping outside into 80 degree cloudlessness, conversations in all languages transpiring around me, and really cool buildings overhead. and further uptown i walked along a sidewalk lined with '40's bungalows and cars with liberal bumper stickers, sidestepping zealous blooms of lavender.
i found one of my favorite, and out of print, books at the used store: 'the hermit' by ionesco. i bought my first copy at twice sold tales roughly ten years ago; i read it on the bus through a dark miserable january towards my dark miserable job at the construction-insurance place in bellevue- the job with the foul-smelling, visibly nippled, leering boss; the secretary whom i'd assisted when i was an abortion counselor; the guy who embezzled several thousand dollars from some of the clients; and the carpenter who wandered to my desk one day and said "wow, i haven't heard this in a while" upon hearing my cassette of 'magic and loss.' god, that job sucked. anyhow, ionesco: i had given away my copy once back in AK, and had thought of it many times since. it is one of the most clausterphobic and depressing novels i've ever read: the character is a neurotic unlikeable pathetic drunk who pisses his life away amid a blurry litany of justification, procrastination, and cowardice. and it is disturbingly easy to relate to, on however minute a level. so i esconsed myself in a corner of an upstairs bar, in dimness as the sun blazed outside, and read the first half of it whilst drinking vodka. i was the only one there. and it was quite enjoyable, albeit eerily akin to reading about salmonella whilst eating steak tartare.
afterwards j came by my lair to watch the fireworks. he text-messaged his girlfriend the entire time, often checking his phone while i was actually talking. the rudeness of that didn't fully hit me until after he left and i went on a midnight stroll around my neighborhood. another analogy: it was like a new mother babbling relentlessly to her childless friends about her new baby. that's great, happy for you, but fuck. he brought his panicked dog with him. the dog and my cats did surprisingly well together. thus, intermingled with my mild text-irritation, i found myself happily considering getting a dog. "it would go everywhere with me" i thought. "we would have adventures." it is still a nice idea, but i'm sober now.
*
today: drove to fucking marysville and bought a jello cookbook (yet another one- there are as many jello recipes as there are stars in the heavens, m'lord) at the thrift store. icq'd with b for most of the day. he always prompts a sense of yearning wanderlust, whether he intends to or not. this surely had a detrimental effect on our marriage- i never was able to just BE with him, to just live in the moment, and worse yet, i didn't really want to. no, i take that back. there were plenty of times when the world began and ended with him, with the space we shared, when i was oblivious and indifferent to everything outside of our little bubble. in a sick way, that's what made the good times really fucking gorgeous... and the bad times so incredibly awful. it was a very manic relationship. that was a long fucking time ago. i feel an automatic sense of detachment from that entire era now: another scene from a movie i've only watched dozens of times.
sometimes i still miss it.
life is an odd duck.
whatever the fuck that means. i am mad-libbing my brain.
i went to the seattle art museum for the first time since its reopening. the place is amazing. i only made it through the first floor. highlights: rothko, my favorite (red on ochre is my favorite of the favorites, which is not the one they have). "gold and blue and a short skirt", one of the most jaw-droppingly erotic things i have ever seen. my reflection inside the dog-tag gown- this piece is huge, scary, and horribly persuasive. the photo of the scrawny woman and her baby pet monkey- like something out of david lynch. the shadows of the asian woman's false eyelashes against her cheek, her areola barely exposed. the curved white on black possibly being the full moon contrasting against the dark universe. warhol's rorschach- two stereotypical chinamen, backs to each other, facing rearing ponies? i could go on. i will go back instead.
it is glorious to be in PROXIMITY to such cool things. wanderlust will always be there; i have resigned myself to it being one of my most annoying qualities- but don't think i don't appreciate what i've got. even if i had to leave the museum not because i was bored with the art but because my eyes were starting to cross and my face felt numb (i think i am an advil addict. placebo or not, it seems to 'help' my ms-related weirdnesses. thus i will be inconvenienced with inevitable liver failure instead.) i still had the privelege of stepping outside into 80 degree cloudlessness, conversations in all languages transpiring around me, and really cool buildings overhead. and further uptown i walked along a sidewalk lined with '40's bungalows and cars with liberal bumper stickers, sidestepping zealous blooms of lavender.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
permanent periphery
apparently i am an nc-17 blog, according to some blog-rating system that i cannot recall the address of. i cannot fucking imagine why.
immaturely, this pleases me.
my neighbors with the horrid child are officially gone. gone! i was actually on the deck with music playing this afternoon- two things that i have honestly been unable to properly do for the last 11 months. "he's napping" she would say. or the kid would be fucking around in my plants, throwing dirt everywhere, or banging on the glass. and what was i to say? they were my landlords. and now... it is so indescribably pleasant, i cannot express. there was a sale on sunflowers, so i now have some on my deck, falling over constantly and looking decrepit a mere 24 hrs later. i was repotting some cacti when my neighbor at the other end of the bldg came over. we were chatting for a while before i realized my g-string was completely exposed above my jeans. i felt like a whore. kept talking anyway. he is going to lopez island for the month of july and i will be watering his plants. this means that I WILL HAVE THE ENTIRE FUCKING DECK TO MYSELF FOR THE INDEFINITE FUTURE. i am giddy as shit about this. i shall have to find things to spray-paint.
two blocks of 7th avenue were cordoned off by police this afternoon. apparently the prime minister of south korea is in town. he is staying at the sheraton. the korean government can do no better than the sheraton? a crowd of people, myself included, lingered around on the sidewalk for a good while before the cops started letting traffic resume. it was very anticlimactic. i talked with an officer who had a reno-911 moustache and aviator sunglasses. "did he just come through here or will he be?" i asked. "oh no" he said, obviously disgusted. "he's milking us for all he can." -direct quote. and i laughed. the cops had been at that intersection since 9 am; it was around 4 or 5pm at this point. i said something daft about the nice weather.
i stepped away to the bus stop and started talking to a tourist who was actually from korea. he was oblivious to the prime minister being in town. he offered me a korean cigarette. "look at the pretty box" he said. "it has a cat on it."
everyone on the bus was craning their heads to find the accident. "it's the prime minister of south korea" i said. "accident, prime minister, what's the difference?" a man in a pink shirt replied. nobody knew why he was here, either. there were about six of us casually participating in this exchange; we all, in one liquid movement, laughed embarrassedly at our collective american ignorance.
the sunset tonight, i might add, was fucking gorgeous.
i always end on the weather. let me try something else...
flowering dogwood trees smell like a guy masturbating with shampoo.
immaturely, this pleases me.
my neighbors with the horrid child are officially gone. gone! i was actually on the deck with music playing this afternoon- two things that i have honestly been unable to properly do for the last 11 months. "he's napping" she would say. or the kid would be fucking around in my plants, throwing dirt everywhere, or banging on the glass. and what was i to say? they were my landlords. and now... it is so indescribably pleasant, i cannot express. there was a sale on sunflowers, so i now have some on my deck, falling over constantly and looking decrepit a mere 24 hrs later. i was repotting some cacti when my neighbor at the other end of the bldg came over. we were chatting for a while before i realized my g-string was completely exposed above my jeans. i felt like a whore. kept talking anyway. he is going to lopez island for the month of july and i will be watering his plants. this means that I WILL HAVE THE ENTIRE FUCKING DECK TO MYSELF FOR THE INDEFINITE FUTURE. i am giddy as shit about this. i shall have to find things to spray-paint.
two blocks of 7th avenue were cordoned off by police this afternoon. apparently the prime minister of south korea is in town. he is staying at the sheraton. the korean government can do no better than the sheraton? a crowd of people, myself included, lingered around on the sidewalk for a good while before the cops started letting traffic resume. it was very anticlimactic. i talked with an officer who had a reno-911 moustache and aviator sunglasses. "did he just come through here or will he be?" i asked. "oh no" he said, obviously disgusted. "he's milking us for all he can." -direct quote. and i laughed. the cops had been at that intersection since 9 am; it was around 4 or 5pm at this point. i said something daft about the nice weather.
i stepped away to the bus stop and started talking to a tourist who was actually from korea. he was oblivious to the prime minister being in town. he offered me a korean cigarette. "look at the pretty box" he said. "it has a cat on it."
everyone on the bus was craning their heads to find the accident. "it's the prime minister of south korea" i said. "accident, prime minister, what's the difference?" a man in a pink shirt replied. nobody knew why he was here, either. there were about six of us casually participating in this exchange; we all, in one liquid movement, laughed embarrassedly at our collective american ignorance.
the sunset tonight, i might add, was fucking gorgeous.
i always end on the weather. let me try something else...
flowering dogwood trees smell like a guy masturbating with shampoo.
Friday, June 29, 2007
learn yerself good
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_295a.html
and there you go. it is not as illustrious a history as i would have liked.
and there you go. it is not as illustrious a history as i would have liked.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
that feels really, really good
yesterday: the voyage east
i got another wild hair and drove to wenatchee. i had never been. off the interstate, somewhere outside of cle elum, is a 20' sculpture of a human constructed from painted hubcaps. it is smiling. hwy 97 is twisty and leafy and dreamlike- i was blaring "your blue veins" and grinning at nothing. visited the tiny town of liberty, population 129, which consisted of one road bordered by ancient shanties, rusted tractors, and a yard full of partially constructed wooden outhouses. i got out of the car to watch a slew of goldfinches devour something in the gravel.
the topography of washington is very abruptly diverse. in a 5 mile span one can go from alpine splendor to mossy fernadelica to ponderosa-rife desert. i found the latter in cashmere, home of aplets & cotlets. i have always wanted to visit the fabled factory of these novelty treats (ever-present in my xmas stocking when i was growing up). and it was underwhelming, of course. the place is tiny. half of it is a gift shop of the namesake, mustards, honey, rinky-dink potholders, a shot glass with an apple on it. i took the tour. i felt like a collossal dork as soon as i did so. it was myself (unwashed, looking like i'd been sweating in a tent for days) and five tourists in their 50's, all of us reluctantly donning the mandatory hairnets at the request of our chirpy, high-school-aged guide. the workers had gone home already so everything was quiet and clean and fake-seeming. apparently every aplet and cotlet and fruit delight and whatnot is made in this room. urns at one end cook down the fruit, which is then mixed with pectin, sugar, nuts, and something else that i cannot recall. then the goo is chilled in trays, dusted with cornstarch, cut apart, shaken in a vat with more cornstarch, and coated with a shitload of powdered sugar. everything is wrapped and boxed by hand. at the end of the tour (which lasted all of 10 minutes) our guide said "omigod! i just realized i didn't put on my hairnet!" she giggled. "i never forget this far into the tour!" so the next time one is compelled to eat an aplet or a cotlet or whatever, think of an unfortunately-complected girl from podunk, washington, shedding into the cooking area.
the bathroom there was very nice. it smelled of apples.
and there is an "eels road" in cashmere. eels!
wenatchee is about 10 miles east, appearing to squat in a deeply beige valley. even the leafy trees look brown. there are a lot of pickup trucks, strip malls, car dealerships, and fast-food joints. apart from the gargantuan wal-mart and home depot et al, everything appears lodged in the '70's- as if the region shrugged and gave up. i stopped at the salvation army. same crap, different town. there was a very large assortment of novelty avon bottles. i read the test paper someone had left in an electric typewriter: 'now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party' was across the top, of course. where the fuck does that phrase come from?
highway 2 going west: i drove through leavenworth, which always makes me smirk. the hotel where b was arrested is still there. even the 7-11 has been dirndled up. it is all very twee and 'ja!' and annoyingly picturesque. i seem to end up in leavenworth about once a year for no particular reason and never even slow down. (obviously i was never aware how close it was to the wonders of wenatchee.)
the scenery changes from simply lovely to fucking goddamn stunning as fuck. i coasted the entire way down the mountains, doing at least 70, arm hanging out the window, music too loud. it was cloudless and waterfally and i had one of those rare moments of flying and being invincible. i was still high when i reached gold bar. i pulled into a petrol station still smiling. "are you always this happy, or is it the sunshine?" said the old man in overalls at the next pump. "a little bit of both" i said.
today: the voyage south
my grandparents are doing poorly enough that my aunt liz has flown in from illinois to "save the day," as my mother sarcastically put it. i went to puyallup to see them. my grandfather kept nodding off, my grandmother exhibited blatant dementia, and liz and my mother and i shot the shit. among the gems: liz saying quite casually that my cousin no longer wants to live in atlanta because "it's too black", but "at least she isn't bulimic any more"; my mother giggling uncontrollably after my grandmother asks the same question (and is answered) three times in a row; opa's obsession with their cat, who just does the cutest, cleverest things; the rainstorm outside, the blown glass, the shell leis from kauai, my grandfather's rainbow suspenders, my grandmother's sea-green eyes rheumy yet kind.
every time i leave them i wonder if i will ever see them again. my grandmother will be 91 in three weeks. my grandfather, my mom suspects, won't live to his birthday in august. "he's ready to go" she said. "he has no will." and i am inclined to agree. this is horribly sad but weirdly calming as well- to know even before it happens that his death will not be a tragedy, but a relief to him.
after, at my request, my mother showed me all the places she lived in tacoma. my father proposed to her at a gas station on 6th avenue- a different one than where they first met, when she was a window-washer and he was a skinny-chested letch who liked her legs. everything in my family seems to begin and end in tacoma, washington. the UPS fieldhouse where my folks smoked grass with the members of sugarloaf. the parking lot at point defiance where i was conceived in the backseat of a dodge dart. the intersection where my other grandfather had his accident.
and around the corner from where my mother lived after high school: ted bundy's house.
"no fucking way!" i shouted. "did you know him?"
"no, he graduated before i did. but his parents still lived here."
the house is small and cute, 40's style, with a nice yard and a red door. i took a picture.
*
the sun had reemerged. there was, in fact, a double rainbow.
i got another wild hair and drove to wenatchee. i had never been. off the interstate, somewhere outside of cle elum, is a 20' sculpture of a human constructed from painted hubcaps. it is smiling. hwy 97 is twisty and leafy and dreamlike- i was blaring "your blue veins" and grinning at nothing. visited the tiny town of liberty, population 129, which consisted of one road bordered by ancient shanties, rusted tractors, and a yard full of partially constructed wooden outhouses. i got out of the car to watch a slew of goldfinches devour something in the gravel.
the topography of washington is very abruptly diverse. in a 5 mile span one can go from alpine splendor to mossy fernadelica to ponderosa-rife desert. i found the latter in cashmere, home of aplets & cotlets. i have always wanted to visit the fabled factory of these novelty treats (ever-present in my xmas stocking when i was growing up). and it was underwhelming, of course. the place is tiny. half of it is a gift shop of the namesake, mustards, honey, rinky-dink potholders, a shot glass with an apple on it. i took the tour. i felt like a collossal dork as soon as i did so. it was myself (unwashed, looking like i'd been sweating in a tent for days) and five tourists in their 50's, all of us reluctantly donning the mandatory hairnets at the request of our chirpy, high-school-aged guide. the workers had gone home already so everything was quiet and clean and fake-seeming. apparently every aplet and cotlet and fruit delight and whatnot is made in this room. urns at one end cook down the fruit, which is then mixed with pectin, sugar, nuts, and something else that i cannot recall. then the goo is chilled in trays, dusted with cornstarch, cut apart, shaken in a vat with more cornstarch, and coated with a shitload of powdered sugar. everything is wrapped and boxed by hand. at the end of the tour (which lasted all of 10 minutes) our guide said "omigod! i just realized i didn't put on my hairnet!" she giggled. "i never forget this far into the tour!" so the next time one is compelled to eat an aplet or a cotlet or whatever, think of an unfortunately-complected girl from podunk, washington, shedding into the cooking area.
the bathroom there was very nice. it smelled of apples.
and there is an "eels road" in cashmere. eels!
wenatchee is about 10 miles east, appearing to squat in a deeply beige valley. even the leafy trees look brown. there are a lot of pickup trucks, strip malls, car dealerships, and fast-food joints. apart from the gargantuan wal-mart and home depot et al, everything appears lodged in the '70's- as if the region shrugged and gave up. i stopped at the salvation army. same crap, different town. there was a very large assortment of novelty avon bottles. i read the test paper someone had left in an electric typewriter: 'now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party' was across the top, of course. where the fuck does that phrase come from?
highway 2 going west: i drove through leavenworth, which always makes me smirk. the hotel where b was arrested is still there. even the 7-11 has been dirndled up. it is all very twee and 'ja!' and annoyingly picturesque. i seem to end up in leavenworth about once a year for no particular reason and never even slow down. (obviously i was never aware how close it was to the wonders of wenatchee.)
the scenery changes from simply lovely to fucking goddamn stunning as fuck. i coasted the entire way down the mountains, doing at least 70, arm hanging out the window, music too loud. it was cloudless and waterfally and i had one of those rare moments of flying and being invincible. i was still high when i reached gold bar. i pulled into a petrol station still smiling. "are you always this happy, or is it the sunshine?" said the old man in overalls at the next pump. "a little bit of both" i said.
today: the voyage south
my grandparents are doing poorly enough that my aunt liz has flown in from illinois to "save the day," as my mother sarcastically put it. i went to puyallup to see them. my grandfather kept nodding off, my grandmother exhibited blatant dementia, and liz and my mother and i shot the shit. among the gems: liz saying quite casually that my cousin no longer wants to live in atlanta because "it's too black", but "at least she isn't bulimic any more"; my mother giggling uncontrollably after my grandmother asks the same question (and is answered) three times in a row; opa's obsession with their cat, who just does the cutest, cleverest things; the rainstorm outside, the blown glass, the shell leis from kauai, my grandfather's rainbow suspenders, my grandmother's sea-green eyes rheumy yet kind.
every time i leave them i wonder if i will ever see them again. my grandmother will be 91 in three weeks. my grandfather, my mom suspects, won't live to his birthday in august. "he's ready to go" she said. "he has no will." and i am inclined to agree. this is horribly sad but weirdly calming as well- to know even before it happens that his death will not be a tragedy, but a relief to him.
after, at my request, my mother showed me all the places she lived in tacoma. my father proposed to her at a gas station on 6th avenue- a different one than where they first met, when she was a window-washer and he was a skinny-chested letch who liked her legs. everything in my family seems to begin and end in tacoma, washington. the UPS fieldhouse where my folks smoked grass with the members of sugarloaf. the parking lot at point defiance where i was conceived in the backseat of a dodge dart. the intersection where my other grandfather had his accident.
and around the corner from where my mother lived after high school: ted bundy's house.
"no fucking way!" i shouted. "did you know him?"
"no, he graduated before i did. but his parents still lived here."
the house is small and cute, 40's style, with a nice yard and a red door. i took a picture.
*
the sun had reemerged. there was, in fact, a double rainbow.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
"they're annoying as hell, in fact"
this is my 200th post.
ring a ding ding.
i spent my 3-day workweek in surgery. it got a bit tiresome. soft-tissue/exploratory surgeries are a blast; orthopedic/moribund procedures, on the other hand, not so much. i do not want to be monitoring a dying animal, or stultifyingly bored and sweating and unable to get a drink of liquid or pee, stuck with the doctor who doesn't talk and listening to his ipod of schlock (though he has stepped it up somewhat, and i realize how much i like spoon. he also plays a lot of depeche mode and radiohead, which i appreciate... but then there's utter shit like blue october... "lesbian coffeehouse music" one of my coworkers opined.)
sunday: the dog that ate pantyhose. the cat with the botched exploratory from vets-for-less (note to all animal owners: never have surgery done at a discount vet clinic unless it's a spay or neuter.). its incision site was dehisced and necrotic and the cat ("scooter") was going septic. it was euthanized the next day, the infection leading to respiratory failure. i have to turn my mind off to the horrors of such situations lest i run from this profession shrieking. this can be a very depressing line of work. and both of these surgeries, i might add, reeked. have you ever smelled something that has been lodged in an animal's intestines for weeks, saturated with gastric juice and decomposition? it smells like an acidic, shit-covered corpse. and the stench is thick enough to taste. a paper surgical mask does not augment the aroma whatsoever. usually someone comes into surgery and whisks the offending object away as soon as it is removed from the animal.
monday: ventral slot T2-T3 with the neurosurgeon. i love working with him. he is fast, clean, gay and gossipy. he bitched about the staff as he blithely hacked out diseased disk material from a six-pound shih tzu. the spinal cord appears blue beneath the vertebrae. back surgery is almost appalingly primitive. he uses a power drill to go through the bone and then chisels the tissue out, scraping it on the surgical drape like a dentist would with plaque. the dog began to screech as it was recovering from anesthesia, which is typical; but it proceeded to bark, nay, yell for the next 28 hrs until it went home. it ended up on too many drugs to count, heavy-lidded, a blanket over its cage door, in the cat ward with the door closed. it was all seperation-anxiety... they usually bounce around quite unsettlingly after cervical disc surgery, now that the pain-causing disc is gone and they suddenly feel better. are humans as resilient?
yesterday: i got shystered into both surgeries, first by s, who didn't feel like doing it (removal of 30 cents, two dimes and two nickels, from the stomach of a pekinese named pansy) (who also had acute anemia, and everyone was sure it was secondary to zinc toxicity from pennies. "no pennies" i called from surgery after they were removed, the coins a sickly sepia from the acid. anemia without an obvious cause is one of the most frustrating things in veterinary medicine. according to ask.com and wikipedia, nickels and dimes are relatively nontoxic, just annoying to digest. and before surgery they induced emesis in vain, and endoscoped in vain, and the bill was approaching $3000 by last night. "they should put the 30 cents towards their bill" someone said helpfully.) second surgery: radius-ulna fracture on a 4# pomeranian (maggie), complete with a tiny plate and tiny screws. i was asked to wipe the brows of the assistant and doctor. "is that weird?" r asked, apparently unaware that the doctor requests that regularly. "no, not at all" i said (hot myself but nonsterile, leaning against the anesthesia machine). "you would do the same for me."
i was mostly kidding, but he agreed anyway.
*
i left work early, for it was slower than shit and i no longer had a purpose as the specialist tech. it was still over 70 on the drive home. i walked downtown around 11pm. my hands were tingling and i was trying to calm my paranoia- no, this isn't the start of something, it's all in your head- and the eerie thing is, i can almost always talk myself out of the physical symptoms just by forcing myself to relax. "aren't you going to say hi?" a man called after me as i passed, oblivious. "hi!" i called back, turning around and waving. "why are you walking away? walking out of my life..." i was still smiling half a block later. is that the reality check i wasn't even aware i needed?
i missed both buses towards home and ended up walking around capitol hill at 1 am. the campus of seattle university is very nice, quiet, dark, the sidewalk lined with blue-lit emergency call boxes. it is a fucking jesuit school, for chrissake. i am reminded of the outcry over the call boxes in "who stole feminism?", one of the best books ever, that berates the earnest stranger-danger brouhaha for ignoring/overshadowing the fact that ~85% of rapes are performed by someone the victim knows, and usually knows well. and what would happen if i needed to use a call box at 1 am on a weeknight, anyhow? would the police park three blocks away and scamper down the pedestrian lane in the dark? or would i just drag my sorry ass those same three blocks to the massive swedish hospital?
there is a luxury to think such things with such belligerent detachment. there is ignorant privilege in having not been a victim.
in that respect.
yet.
in a cartoon of what single women think about: "is it possible to worry too much?" this is one of the funniest things i have seen lately. i will be driving along, remember it, and snicker.
ring a ding ding.
i spent my 3-day workweek in surgery. it got a bit tiresome. soft-tissue/exploratory surgeries are a blast; orthopedic/moribund procedures, on the other hand, not so much. i do not want to be monitoring a dying animal, or stultifyingly bored and sweating and unable to get a drink of liquid or pee, stuck with the doctor who doesn't talk and listening to his ipod of schlock (though he has stepped it up somewhat, and i realize how much i like spoon. he also plays a lot of depeche mode and radiohead, which i appreciate... but then there's utter shit like blue october... "lesbian coffeehouse music" one of my coworkers opined.)
sunday: the dog that ate pantyhose. the cat with the botched exploratory from vets-for-less (note to all animal owners: never have surgery done at a discount vet clinic unless it's a spay or neuter.). its incision site was dehisced and necrotic and the cat ("scooter") was going septic. it was euthanized the next day, the infection leading to respiratory failure. i have to turn my mind off to the horrors of such situations lest i run from this profession shrieking. this can be a very depressing line of work. and both of these surgeries, i might add, reeked. have you ever smelled something that has been lodged in an animal's intestines for weeks, saturated with gastric juice and decomposition? it smells like an acidic, shit-covered corpse. and the stench is thick enough to taste. a paper surgical mask does not augment the aroma whatsoever. usually someone comes into surgery and whisks the offending object away as soon as it is removed from the animal.
monday: ventral slot T2-T3 with the neurosurgeon. i love working with him. he is fast, clean, gay and gossipy. he bitched about the staff as he blithely hacked out diseased disk material from a six-pound shih tzu. the spinal cord appears blue beneath the vertebrae. back surgery is almost appalingly primitive. he uses a power drill to go through the bone and then chisels the tissue out, scraping it on the surgical drape like a dentist would with plaque. the dog began to screech as it was recovering from anesthesia, which is typical; but it proceeded to bark, nay, yell for the next 28 hrs until it went home. it ended up on too many drugs to count, heavy-lidded, a blanket over its cage door, in the cat ward with the door closed. it was all seperation-anxiety... they usually bounce around quite unsettlingly after cervical disc surgery, now that the pain-causing disc is gone and they suddenly feel better. are humans as resilient?
yesterday: i got shystered into both surgeries, first by s, who didn't feel like doing it (removal of 30 cents, two dimes and two nickels, from the stomach of a pekinese named pansy) (who also had acute anemia, and everyone was sure it was secondary to zinc toxicity from pennies. "no pennies" i called from surgery after they were removed, the coins a sickly sepia from the acid. anemia without an obvious cause is one of the most frustrating things in veterinary medicine. according to ask.com and wikipedia, nickels and dimes are relatively nontoxic, just annoying to digest. and before surgery they induced emesis in vain, and endoscoped in vain, and the bill was approaching $3000 by last night. "they should put the 30 cents towards their bill" someone said helpfully.) second surgery: radius-ulna fracture on a 4# pomeranian (maggie), complete with a tiny plate and tiny screws. i was asked to wipe the brows of the assistant and doctor. "is that weird?" r asked, apparently unaware that the doctor requests that regularly. "no, not at all" i said (hot myself but nonsterile, leaning against the anesthesia machine). "you would do the same for me."
i was mostly kidding, but he agreed anyway.
*
i left work early, for it was slower than shit and i no longer had a purpose as the specialist tech. it was still over 70 on the drive home. i walked downtown around 11pm. my hands were tingling and i was trying to calm my paranoia- no, this isn't the start of something, it's all in your head- and the eerie thing is, i can almost always talk myself out of the physical symptoms just by forcing myself to relax. "aren't you going to say hi?" a man called after me as i passed, oblivious. "hi!" i called back, turning around and waving. "why are you walking away? walking out of my life..." i was still smiling half a block later. is that the reality check i wasn't even aware i needed?
i missed both buses towards home and ended up walking around capitol hill at 1 am. the campus of seattle university is very nice, quiet, dark, the sidewalk lined with blue-lit emergency call boxes. it is a fucking jesuit school, for chrissake. i am reminded of the outcry over the call boxes in "who stole feminism?", one of the best books ever, that berates the earnest stranger-danger brouhaha for ignoring/overshadowing the fact that ~85% of rapes are performed by someone the victim knows, and usually knows well. and what would happen if i needed to use a call box at 1 am on a weeknight, anyhow? would the police park three blocks away and scamper down the pedestrian lane in the dark? or would i just drag my sorry ass those same three blocks to the massive swedish hospital?
there is a luxury to think such things with such belligerent detachment. there is ignorant privilege in having not been a victim.
in that respect.
yet.
in a cartoon of what single women think about: "is it possible to worry too much?" this is one of the funniest things i have seen lately. i will be driving along, remember it, and snicker.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
chuckanut!
oftentimes i get words as well as songs stuck in my head. the word today: frijole. what the fuck? frijole. holly holy. holy moly. i am driving myself crazy.
took a giddy jaunt to bellingham today. that drive, once i get past the clusterfuck of everett, always puts me in a good mood. i played with a flirtatious cockatiel at the pet store in stanwood, in a godawful complex of suburban malaise; obviously this entire compound was once a thriving glade, and now it is a concrete wasteland: costco, target, michael's, red robin. wal-mart sprawls on the other side of the freeway. it is yet another example of anywhere, nowhere, generica. there were lots of pickup trucks and minivans and overweight children and surly teens. and me, contributing to the infestation by stopping there in the first place.
i left the pet store empty-handed. i do not need another fucking pet. besides, they were out of iguanas, which is what i was casually looking for.
my vague plan once hitting bellingham: yard sales. i ended up in a leafy victorian neighborhood (apparently very close to the crackhouse/chicken coop where i spent my infancy, which i have never been able to find) by complete happenstance, stopped at the first place i saw, and realized that the area was holding their annual neighborhood garage sale, complete with printed maps secured under a fake hummel figurine. the odds of this: 50:50- it would either be happening or it would not be- but i was rather thrilled regardless.
six dollars and about six yards later:
-a leering, lecherous record, solely for the cover, now hanging in my lair
-a hippie shirt with a hole in the sleeve
-a luscious jackson cd that actually kicks much ass. it fit my mood on the drive home. this would be the perfect make-out music to an earnest teenage girl who doesn't want to get too riled by say, liz phair, and doesn't want to make her lover vomit with the indigo girls.
-a "guide to parties" by the editors of seventeen magazine, published circa 1955. "isn't this fun? it has some great recipes for dips!" said the woman who sold it to me.
-a book of pulp fiction cover art
-a homemade ceramic pot
-a potentially lethal glass hangy-thing
-a tapestry that is now also hanging in my lair
-and the piece de resistance: an unsettling object of unknown use or reason. i call it the "triad of testicles." what it is: three ~3" diameter heavy balls covered with some sort of skin, attached to a piece of twine and looped for easy dangling. it looks like some sort of hideous artifact from the holocaust, actually. it was in a 'free' box. "what's the story with these?" i asked. nobody knew. "please, take them away" one of the women said. i could not help but swing them jauntily as i walked back to my car. perhaps they are weapons? they are also hanging in my lair, next to my bed, as a totem to ensure i will never get laid again.
my lair is rife with hangy things!
the cafe i am typing at has thankfully turned off the fucking classic rawk in lieu of '80s new wave. 'don't you forget about me' is on right now. i still have this 45. it is actually a rather terrible song. do i know every word? do i have fondness for its inherent nostagia? do i think of judd nelson and squirm? you bet your sweet ass. to my consternation.
it is pride weekend in seattle. near my house i passed a gay couple holding hands. they were older and one was visibly dragging the other one along. their arms and bodies were a good distance apart, the way one would hold onto a shrieking toddler. and they were both scowling. it was rather unsettling. on broadway two men were wearing S&M halters and black fedoras. people are damn pale in seattle.
why are sex props so fucking cheaply made? am i the only person who has ever noticed this? flimsy plasticene pieces of shit, the lot of it! perhaps i should go into business selling organic, hardy, earnestly constructed bondage gear. (TM 2007) made in america, by americans, for americans the ads would say, smokily, playfully.
i think of p, who worked at the adult bookstore after quitting the crystal/cheesy tie-dye/glittery lava lamp kiosk at the mall. i have always wondered what it would be like, working at such a place. the sociological implications! my list of professions i would love to try, if only for the smarmy "i'm not really meaning to work here, i'm just collecting information for the book i'm writing about the experience" elitism:*
*which is admittedly fucking obnoxious as shit, which is why i won't do it. i would kick my own ass.
-a porn shop (preferably the graveyard shift)
-mcdonalds
-wal-mart
-the coroner's office
...i have known people who have worked at all such places. one of the dvms in olympia did shifts at the thurston county coroner's office. he was an incredibly jovial man, always in a lovely mood. and he had beautiful handwriting. he and his large (religious) family moved to the montanan hinterlands about a year ago.
and he was always annoyingly professional when i would ask him questions about the sorts of things he'd see. that is, he would not answer much at all.
on an eerily apropos segue: i was on a bus through downtown a little after midnight last night. the street between 2nd and 3rd was taped off and a passle of cop cars had formed a starburst of flashing lights. i found out in today's paper that someone had been murdered there about an hour prior. some guy had said something to another man's woman, something disparaging, and arguing turned into gunfire. apparently the murdered man was shot in the face. they found the shooter hiding in a dumpster. one of the witnesses was shot in his leg.
...and in another reality, 19 hours later, i am walking through volunteer park and lining up the view of the space needle to fit perfectly within the circular sculpture, and the sun is shining.
*
frijole!
took a giddy jaunt to bellingham today. that drive, once i get past the clusterfuck of everett, always puts me in a good mood. i played with a flirtatious cockatiel at the pet store in stanwood, in a godawful complex of suburban malaise; obviously this entire compound was once a thriving glade, and now it is a concrete wasteland: costco, target, michael's, red robin. wal-mart sprawls on the other side of the freeway. it is yet another example of anywhere, nowhere, generica. there were lots of pickup trucks and minivans and overweight children and surly teens. and me, contributing to the infestation by stopping there in the first place.
i left the pet store empty-handed. i do not need another fucking pet. besides, they were out of iguanas, which is what i was casually looking for.
my vague plan once hitting bellingham: yard sales. i ended up in a leafy victorian neighborhood (apparently very close to the crackhouse/chicken coop where i spent my infancy, which i have never been able to find) by complete happenstance, stopped at the first place i saw, and realized that the area was holding their annual neighborhood garage sale, complete with printed maps secured under a fake hummel figurine. the odds of this: 50:50- it would either be happening or it would not be- but i was rather thrilled regardless.
six dollars and about six yards later:
-a leering, lecherous record, solely for the cover, now hanging in my lair
-a hippie shirt with a hole in the sleeve
-a luscious jackson cd that actually kicks much ass. it fit my mood on the drive home. this would be the perfect make-out music to an earnest teenage girl who doesn't want to get too riled by say, liz phair, and doesn't want to make her lover vomit with the indigo girls.
-a "guide to parties" by the editors of seventeen magazine, published circa 1955. "isn't this fun? it has some great recipes for dips!" said the woman who sold it to me.
-a book of pulp fiction cover art
-a homemade ceramic pot
-a potentially lethal glass hangy-thing
-a tapestry that is now also hanging in my lair
-and the piece de resistance: an unsettling object of unknown use or reason. i call it the "triad of testicles." what it is: three ~3" diameter heavy balls covered with some sort of skin, attached to a piece of twine and looped for easy dangling. it looks like some sort of hideous artifact from the holocaust, actually. it was in a 'free' box. "what's the story with these?" i asked. nobody knew. "please, take them away" one of the women said. i could not help but swing them jauntily as i walked back to my car. perhaps they are weapons? they are also hanging in my lair, next to my bed, as a totem to ensure i will never get laid again.
my lair is rife with hangy things!
the cafe i am typing at has thankfully turned off the fucking classic rawk in lieu of '80s new wave. 'don't you forget about me' is on right now. i still have this 45. it is actually a rather terrible song. do i know every word? do i have fondness for its inherent nostagia? do i think of judd nelson and squirm? you bet your sweet ass. to my consternation.
it is pride weekend in seattle. near my house i passed a gay couple holding hands. they were older and one was visibly dragging the other one along. their arms and bodies were a good distance apart, the way one would hold onto a shrieking toddler. and they were both scowling. it was rather unsettling. on broadway two men were wearing S&M halters and black fedoras. people are damn pale in seattle.
why are sex props so fucking cheaply made? am i the only person who has ever noticed this? flimsy plasticene pieces of shit, the lot of it! perhaps i should go into business selling organic, hardy, earnestly constructed bondage gear. (TM 2007) made in america, by americans, for americans the ads would say, smokily, playfully.
i think of p, who worked at the adult bookstore after quitting the crystal/cheesy tie-dye/glittery lava lamp kiosk at the mall. i have always wondered what it would be like, working at such a place. the sociological implications! my list of professions i would love to try, if only for the smarmy "i'm not really meaning to work here, i'm just collecting information for the book i'm writing about the experience" elitism:*
*which is admittedly fucking obnoxious as shit, which is why i won't do it. i would kick my own ass.
-a porn shop (preferably the graveyard shift)
-mcdonalds
-wal-mart
-the coroner's office
...i have known people who have worked at all such places. one of the dvms in olympia did shifts at the thurston county coroner's office. he was an incredibly jovial man, always in a lovely mood. and he had beautiful handwriting. he and his large (religious) family moved to the montanan hinterlands about a year ago.
and he was always annoyingly professional when i would ask him questions about the sorts of things he'd see. that is, he would not answer much at all.
on an eerily apropos segue: i was on a bus through downtown a little after midnight last night. the street between 2nd and 3rd was taped off and a passle of cop cars had formed a starburst of flashing lights. i found out in today's paper that someone had been murdered there about an hour prior. some guy had said something to another man's woman, something disparaging, and arguing turned into gunfire. apparently the murdered man was shot in the face. they found the shooter hiding in a dumpster. one of the witnesses was shot in his leg.
...and in another reality, 19 hours later, i am walking through volunteer park and lining up the view of the space needle to fit perfectly within the circular sculpture, and the sun is shining.
*
frijole!
Friday, June 22, 2007
out of the blue, into the black
whilst waiting for a bus at 6th and pike today, i was approached by an androgynous person (female? i honestly do not know) in a wheelchair. she steered the chair with one foot scraping along on the pavement; the other leg was artificial. "i got bitten by some insect-" she said, and lifted her sleeve to reveal a softball-sized welt, the skin shiny and red, visibly hot to the touch. "oh god" i said without thinking. she was trying to get enough money for a $10 oral antibiotic before going on IV meds at harborview. she had a huge cold sore on her lip and swollen hands covered with open wounds. and she was extremely articulate, looked into my eyes, and we talked about the mecurial weather. i gave her two cigarettes and a pack of matches from 13 coins. and as she migrated further down the sidewalk to repeat her spiel, i felt a hell of a lot less self-pitying.
the rest of the day, filtered through a blur of physical and emotional angst, as aforementioned:
-spiritualized/sigur ros hybrid playing at the record store. the next song came on and one of the clerks made a smartass comment about the polyphonic spree.
-staggering man enthusiastically sparring with a pillar
-'buy buy baby', about the aggressive merchandising directed towards infants and toddlers, which i read despite the fucking terrible title
-very disgusting carrot cake
-midday nap involving near-dreams about leaves (i am laying under a tree on a sunny day and green leaves are falling on me- not to the point of burial, but akin to an autumnal windstorm. the vibe of the dream is calm/indifferent.)
-learning that a part of the small intestine is used in male-to-female surgery to create vaginal lubrication. relentless, unending vaginal lubrication, due to the digestive secretions. that would be a bit overwhelming.
in retrospect, this is one of those days that really had no reason to exist at all.
the rest of the day, filtered through a blur of physical and emotional angst, as aforementioned:
-spiritualized/sigur ros hybrid playing at the record store. the next song came on and one of the clerks made a smartass comment about the polyphonic spree.
-staggering man enthusiastically sparring with a pillar
-'buy buy baby', about the aggressive merchandising directed towards infants and toddlers, which i read despite the fucking terrible title
-very disgusting carrot cake
-midday nap involving near-dreams about leaves (i am laying under a tree on a sunny day and green leaves are falling on me- not to the point of burial, but akin to an autumnal windstorm. the vibe of the dream is calm/indifferent.)
-learning that a part of the small intestine is used in male-to-female surgery to create vaginal lubrication. relentless, unending vaginal lubrication, due to the digestive secretions. that would be a bit overwhelming.
in retrospect, this is one of those days that really had no reason to exist at all.
shame
i drove drunk last night. and i fucking knew better. i happily smiled, laughed, said goodbye, said "yes, i'm fine", started off down the alley, and began to cry.
i halfheartedly applaud my ability to keep my mortifying moroseness somewhat private.
is it possible to embody both moronic optimism and crushing regret? about very nearly everything?
*
i cannot stop my thoughts long enough to concentrate on anything. i cannot listen, i cannot pause, i cannot remember the moment as it happens. sometimes i can. sometimes a sliver of calmness sneaks through. but mostly, my days are spent rushing towards their conclusion with very little absorption. i have gleaned little. and i feel like the spasticity is something apart from me, like a bad drug.
the only thing that truly seems to make sense to me is writing. when i reread myself i do so with the detached bemusement of "that is somebody who i could not spend more than 10 minutes around." and that impression acts as a catalyst to get up and walk away a bit more serenely.
obviously it is temporary.
i really do feel a bit insane right now.
and i am incredibly fucking lucky that i did not hurt anyone or anything whilst careening home last night. my own self-image is toast, but i deserve that.
i halfheartedly applaud my ability to keep my mortifying moroseness somewhat private.
is it possible to embody both moronic optimism and crushing regret? about very nearly everything?
*
i cannot stop my thoughts long enough to concentrate on anything. i cannot listen, i cannot pause, i cannot remember the moment as it happens. sometimes i can. sometimes a sliver of calmness sneaks through. but mostly, my days are spent rushing towards their conclusion with very little absorption. i have gleaned little. and i feel like the spasticity is something apart from me, like a bad drug.
the only thing that truly seems to make sense to me is writing. when i reread myself i do so with the detached bemusement of "that is somebody who i could not spend more than 10 minutes around." and that impression acts as a catalyst to get up and walk away a bit more serenely.
obviously it is temporary.
i really do feel a bit insane right now.
and i am incredibly fucking lucky that i did not hurt anyone or anything whilst careening home last night. my own self-image is toast, but i deserve that.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
"you have no tolerance for humanity" she once told me
one of my absolutely LARGEST pet peeves: people relentlessly inhaling snot. the man at the computer next to me simply will not stop. it is fucking repulsive and making me physically nauseous. at first i almost considered him attractive, despite his disarmingly tiny hands. now i want to fucking kill him.
time to leave.
time to leave.
turn me over, turn me on
the more comfortable i get in any given situation, the more i allow my fucking mouth to run. i do not think before i speak. fearlessness dissolves into introverted paranoia once i am left alone with my thoughts.
oh well.
work was fun, as usual, but the minor bullshit is prompting the aforementioned commentary. luckily i have the next 4 days off to relearn how to conduct myself like a lady.
last weekend i stumbled upon a 'gentleman's magazine' from the '60's, filled with incredibly crude cartoons- my two favorites being:
-new husband is waiting in the honeymoon bed (the iconic "just married" suitcase on the floor) calling out "come on, darling, i can't wait any longer!" his new bride, in the foreground, is smiling coyly with his masculine physique stuffed into dainty panties.
-man is sitting on sofa in front of television, irate expression; she is 69-ing him, ass in his face; the caption reads "dammit, charlene, i'm trying to watch 'bonanza!'"
if it wasn't rather costly i would have bought it.
theme song for the day: "conquest" by the white stripes. rowr. perhaps i just like the usage of the word "huntress."
oh well.
work was fun, as usual, but the minor bullshit is prompting the aforementioned commentary. luckily i have the next 4 days off to relearn how to conduct myself like a lady.
last weekend i stumbled upon a 'gentleman's magazine' from the '60's, filled with incredibly crude cartoons- my two favorites being:
-new husband is waiting in the honeymoon bed (the iconic "just married" suitcase on the floor) calling out "come on, darling, i can't wait any longer!" his new bride, in the foreground, is smiling coyly with his masculine physique stuffed into dainty panties.
-man is sitting on sofa in front of television, irate expression; she is 69-ing him, ass in his face; the caption reads "dammit, charlene, i'm trying to watch 'bonanza!'"
if it wasn't rather costly i would have bought it.
theme song for the day: "conquest" by the white stripes. rowr. perhaps i just like the usage of the word "huntress."
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