never a frown

i was raised in a very demonstrative household, probably to a fault. there was hysterical laughter and holes punched in walls and tires squealing out of the driveway and parents always holding hands and leaving love notes everywhere. I've seen my parents cry and kiss and get drunk and get high and fight and make up. that is my normal. we didn't always know why, but we certainly all knew HOW everyone felt. I could hear my mother from another part of the house, by herself, and she would spontaneously singsong "I love you!" she still calls my dad "ditto." he calls her "scooter." I don't think I've ever asked them why. I will.
*
until very recently, I assumed everyone was raised that way. stoicism and reticence can't possibly be defaults... but maybe they can. apparently they are.
*
I got home from work and the house smelled like piss again. I sat down and Tiresias crawled into my lap. stretched out contentedly. started to purr. ever since he was a kitten I've picked him up and pressed my cheek to the side of his head, to listen to him purr. he goes totally limp. I have no fucking idea what I should do. I asked both doctors today about amitryptalline and other drug therapy; neither of them reccommend it. I priced more laminate flooring- the cheapest I found was $.69/foot and looked it. I looked on craigslist for noncarpeted lairs. "why don't you just make him an outdoor cat?" someone suggested. "because he has NO EYES" I said. "oh." she paused. "that's a problem."
I feel like a festering spinster hag to be obsessing over this- as if I should clear the cobwebs from my vagina with a fucking machete- but fuck. FUCK. this is the cat who once fit in my hand. he's always been golden. brilliant. enough of an asshole to remain entertaining. I don't want to debate his life because of an issue that obviously bothers ME a lot more than it bothers HIM. fucking boy cats. never again.
*
I realize I am writing about my cat, and that's tedious. enough. some people have kids and shit. I dunno. maybe it's vaguely similar.
*
apparently they are serving deep-fried kool-aid at the San Diego fair. there are recipes on teh internets. didn't appear to suck.
you know what would be fucking delicious? deep-fried caramello bars. do they even make those any more? in lieu of that, deep-fried rollos would be good- finger food for a succubus.
*
I had another manic fit last week, which is always an effective self-starter, so I'm going to Montreal next month. I always need something on the fucking horizon. besides, I've noticed that the everyday world gets a lot more fucking compelling when you have the option to be elsewhere.

no edit

elephant

eleven years ago I fell very hard and very quickly for a guy. we slept together the night we met but didn't have sex until the second. I remember telling him after a week, "I'm going to know you for a long time." and we did, but we didn't. I moved to Washington and got married and divorced to someone else and went back to school and lived my silly life. and things went horribly awry with him. I will never know what the reasons are. I will never again be able to know the person who bought me bags of grapes and kept me company in the grim sober hours before my graveyard shift and with whom I ate fucking onion petals from the arby's drive-in and sang along with me to "starless" and bemusedly watched me butcher "fever" at karaoke and turned me on to some of the best music I know and with whom I linked jewelry and who loved my cats almost as much as I did and I can go on for an obnoxiously long time, because there were a fucking hell of a lot of things to love about him. but that person is gone now. and it fucking destroys me like a death. and he is too caught up in his own self-destruction to realize his impact on other people who care about him, and it's the saddest, most infuriating thing. there is nothing I can do but close my eyes and hope to fuck I don't get a call from someone telling me he's dead. I miss what was.
*
sometimes things just fucking suck. I just can't deal with it anymore. I feel like a weak asshole piece of shit to eviscerate him from my life, but I don't want to know what he's become. i don't want that shit in my life.
*
I have (tried to, finally) let go of a lot of "past" lately, things and people that I clung to for way too long- things and people that I used to validate and define me, like a photograph I take to prove I've been somewhere.
*
last night, different unrelated topic entirely: I was asked what i was looking for. my skin was still warm from dancing. the candlelight was supremely flattering. and I thought: I want to always have the freedom to think about possibilities. I want to a live a life of adolescent intrigue, where every situation is potentially loaded and dramatic. I want to appreciate the way the air feels on bare skin, how people's eyes are sometimes golden, how we're all just trying to be fucking understood.
I didn't articulate that properly, I'm afraid.
it was nice to be asked. "passion" and "giving a shit" is what I think I said. those virtues can and should be applied to everything. right? right.
*
I have no idea how incoherent this is. I'm writing on my phone whilst sitting in front of an open window, heat on and cold air blowing in, Xmas lights and AC Newman "submarines of Stockholm", 115 pst, no edit. this is my current slice of the world.

girthsome!

i maximized my camera's capacity, because i am very bad about deleting things once they're uploaded. here is a power squash from 2009. enjoy.

i almost used it as my facebook picture, but i chickened out.
*
it's been a good month. a busy month. i have over 200 photos i need to eventually document. i will later. here's a taste.

fuck quelling

it's been hours and I'm still pissed; actually, I've gotten more irate as I've listened to the conversation riccochet in my brain. suffice it to say that I shan't be crushed to leave the sanctuary. I will miss the work, I will miss the clientele, I will miss the rhythm... but I will not miss the condescending passive-aggressive faux-airy-fairy massage-industry BULLSHIT. I will not miss being compared to an excitedly pissing puppy. I will not miss cringing at the myriad hypocrisies and overall, just, CRAP. yes, I went to (an expensive) school, I studied my ass off, I commited 18 months of my life to just BECOME a massage therapist. and I knew that the world of massage is, overwhelmingly, a flaky, vapid, dubious one, full of bullshit and rhetoric and pretense that made me want to puke then and makes me want to puke now... so I don't know why, now, I have the ignorant audacity to feel indignant. I knew it was bullshit, but I thought it would not be. I wanted to be pleasantly shocked. I still believe that there is a place that is technically-minded and not saturated with flax-coated horseshit, but I have apparently not found it just yet.
the massage industry has taught me how to perfect the glassy-eyed smile of overt indifference. you don't want to know what I'm actually thinking. trust me.
whatever! thank you for listening to my iPhone tantrum.
*
I had an awesome meal tonight that involved butter lettuce, fava beans, English peas and deep-fried artichokes. and prosciutto. and girl talk. afterwards I went to a bookstore and reread as much of "Lolita" as I could in the 10 minutes before they closed. it's still one of my favorite novels ever. "light of my life, fire of my loins..." the hotel room bit is my favorite- his oldness and dyspepsia and patheticness, smelling her on his pillow... it's a fucking hot read, and I don't give a fig what sort of psychological errors that suggests about me.
*
at the west Seattle garage sale cornucopia yesterday, I procured a copy of "charlie and the chocolate factory." fucking Roald Dahl, tis you to whom I owe my love of adjectives! random page opening: "and they're certainly not showing any signs that they are slowing..."
*
no edit; so sorry.

open flame

it has been an idea i've been mulling over for some time, much to my vain girly shame; after seeing my coworker bounce into work saying "i feel so good!" i took a break midday and... tanned. i needed some fucking warmth and brightness. it's late fucking april and still at least 10 degrees below average. it is nearly the same temperature as fucking anchorage.
"you don't look pale!" my coworker chirped. "my brain is pale" i replied.
the surly, hipper-than-thou wench at the tanning place (which has such a grotesque name i shall not repeat it here) had to show me everything, because i did not know. how to open the damn bed, for example. those "wink-ease" things i mocked in a post prior? yeah, i have my used ones in my back pocket right now. fucking hypocrite. and no one mentioned that a tanning bed is fucking terrifying: like a hot sweaty blinding MRI. U2's "beautiful day" played over the sound of the fan. my ass stuck to the glass. i had an image of my nipples blistering and falling off. and then i started to get relaxed and revel in it, and then it was over. i only got 6 minutes despite my pasty self lying about how i don't really burn.
*
DON'T JUDGE ME!
*
you would think, by this picture, that it's a hot lazy day in the lair. it is not. i have the window open because it's fucking april, but the heat is still cranked. the cats have not had the sunshine to lay about in for more than, oh, 10 days total in the past 9 months.

when i look at this picture i think "abortion storm."
*

the other night s and i watched a suspicious individual shittily try to park his van on a completely empty stretch of sidewalk; he inched back and forth for at least 5 minutes. it started as a "what the fuck is that guy doing?" voyeurism. then he sat in the driver's seat. smoked a cigarette with the window up. changed his shirt. crawled into the back of his creepy molester van. was he checking the gags on his victims? shitting into a bucket? masturbating? smoking crack? after a few minutes he reemerged. got out through the passenger's side. put on a hoodie that completely hid his face. put on a reflective, huge parka. stood next to the van for a few minutes. walked down to the end of the block, looking around nervously. turned and walked until we couldn't see him any longer in the opposite direction. we were rapt and fogged up the glass during this 15 minute-plus drama.
bad shit was afoot! i am sure of it. so i took a picture of his plates. if you see this on an amber alert, you'll know why.

one of the guys at the place i'm typing this at is sarcastically singing "time passages." come on, that's a good song!
*
it is one of those rare times when all the weird-ass drama in my life is not involving me! i cannot help but feel incredibly grateful by this. perhaps i prefer to be more of a spectator in my advancing age.
*
it's been a good few weeks. i received some money from my oma's 'estate'. i suddenly have the freedom to do a few things. as someone who lives every day like it's my fucking birthday, doing pretty much whatever the hell i want, i can be "responsible" with this... my "ooh, i can afford this!" antics thus far have involved paying $9 at the whole foods salad bar and buying a pair of shoes on sale- both of which i would have fucking done anyway.
that's the problem with how i live, though it isn't a problem... but i tend to not really, you know, restrain myself too terribly much. luckily i have fairly low standards.
a couple weeks back it was pretty enough. i am almost able to resume the blue study. never mind that it was cold enough to elicit a nonstop flood of mucus.

today, as i was leaving work, a hobo pushing a shopping cart said "hey, nice hair" to me. "thank you" i said, smiling back. he didn't even ask for money. he was just being complimentary. he kept pushing his cart because he had shit to do.

there's a book on bathroom graffiti on the sale table at the university bookstore. it only included one from seattle- from the comet- the rest was overwhelmingly from texas, nyc, and los angeles. two loo tags from my classy seattle nights come immediately to mind: "jeff goldblum is watching you pee", under which someone scrawled "best graffiti ever!", at the dubliner in fremont (i've probably mentioned that one before), and "i can see you", years ago and since painted over, in the lower arcade at pike place market.
*
my arms are still redolent with massage oil. i'm sticking to the table as i type. i kind of love my life.
*
i went to fucking thurston county yesterday to meet my clan for my grandmother's 80th birthday. i was already vexed because the 'green wellness' thing turned out to be bullshit. as in, nonexistent. as in, a health club with some dude saying "yeah, they left on bad terms" and me saying "in the past two days?" their "location" was kind of lovely, though: right on lake union, with houseboats abutting and birds wandering about. it was below the china harbor behemoth on westlake. there's a full-on fucking swimming pool down there! now you know.
so i was feeling rather surly already. the car did wonderfully. i drove to olympia in hideous rain, listening to can and pink floyd. i was enjoying myself until i passed my former exit, and then the depressing memories kicked back in. i don't think of specific things, really, just a generalized malaise. i was so fucking unhappy when i lived down there. i have mentioned this before, but i don't think even i truly know (or want to know) exactly how that era of my life permanently fucked me up.
or maybe it improved things. you can't appreciate until you know how shitty things can be as an alternative.
*
i am thankful of my current contentment.
*
the demographic is just different there. i was behind a minivan with a chain-link license plate frame, a 'support our troops' sticker, and a christfish. i went to tar-jay to buy cheap nicotine lozenges (needing to burn through the wad of cash in my pocket that i did not use at the bullshit-pot-place) and saw guys wearing huge medallions and backwards ballcaps, teenagers holding their own spawn, moussed hair. this, to clarify, is in lacey. in olympia, on the other side of i-5, the populace becomes old and white and beaurocratic- lots of gold jewelry and obama stickers and snotty earnestness- not the hippie dreams of olympia 25 years ago, but the nimby, pleated, constipated version of "liberal." there are probably still the vile urchins along state street and 4th ave- downtown olympia is filled with evergreen rejects with their stank and their fucking dogs and their american spirit cigarettes- but that's not open-minded awesomeness, that's just being a fucking smelly putz.
*
i will discuss, or not, the familial pathos later. it was often taxing. i wince a lot with my family. but it improved by the time i made my grateful voyage back to seattle.
the skyline is always such a glorious view. that curve on i-5, when the city appears, feels like a triumph every time. it reminds me that i have my own lovely life now.
a few days ago s and i had tapas. this is the stuffed squid with awesome red sauce.

blood sausage with cocoa powder and superfluous popcorn!

and sunday night, the view from o's 'front yard'.

it's good to have a delightful world to come home to.

insufferability

i've been a fucking basket case lately. i've been waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks. there is nothing so massively wrong or unusually altered in my life that truly justifies this... i've thought of writing a list of everything i've been worried about, to have tangible proof of my laughable neuroses, but that seems a rather daunting, nauseating task. waking up unable to breathe, mind racing, thinking of every awful thing that has or could happen, is gruesome enough. i hate feeling trapped in my own brain. i haven't felt this way in a while... this undercurrent of dread... not for years. it is a sensation i figured i'd grown out of, matured from, stopped being in such instigating situations with.
*
i do much better with concrete problems. concrete problems are understandable and thereby manageable.

i got a copy of my medical records today. i will be taking them to my appointment next week to obtain a medical marijuana card. i am "lucky" enough to have one of the few specific conditions approved by the state of washington. i feel alternately smug and damaged. i'm not, and have never been, a big pothead... but fuck it, why not? if i can get the good stuff, if it will possibly mellow me the fuck out, if i can share it socially, why the fuck not? i'm rather excited about it- like being a gay man for a day and being able to finally see the inside of a bathhouse.
i've never been functional when stoned. my life requires clarity. i tend to get paranoid and weird if i smoke it alone. but it's fun with people. it makes boring things more interesting. my problem with pot: there really are no "boring" things, and if you're bored, shouldn't you just find something else to do? i say i don't believe in 'needing' enhancement, but i'm drinking a daytime g & t as i write this, so whatever.
*
because i can.
see above paragraph.
*
but yeah... i feel weird lately. jangly. clausterphobic. i took the legs off the trampoline and leaned it against the wall. i needed the space. took my bed apart. i've been sleeping on my couch. there's a pot of soup in my fridge that's nearly 2 weeks old- i forgot about it. i was startled to realize how fucking dead most of my plants are. at least the floor's vacuumed. yesterday i cleaned my bathroom. and i have clean underwear... the animals are taken care of...
and i got a new car.
sweet green's clutch, i guess, went out. she was towed off yesterday, donated to "make a wish." i came home and she was already gone. end of an era. more proof that i kind of suck sometimes. the industrious bug owner: another persona i was never willing or able to take on.
the new car is a 98 jetta. she is responsible and functional and much, much more fun to drive. she hauls ass. and the heater works. among other things.
*
the bug was towed off containing an unopened parking ticket, moldy sandals, about 5 1L fluid bags i'd used as hot water bottles for the drive home from work, the garish xmas decoration a massage client gave me, about 3 empty bottles of rain-x, and a fucking "pushin' the good vibe" bumper sticker...
i'm sure "make a wish" will be thrilled.
*
i can see the building i used to live in from here. my windows were on the opposite side. wood floors, silverfish, no heat, ants, someone else's dried condom in the defunct radiator. it had built-ins and a crumb-catching tile kitchen counter and i could see the fremont rocket from my bed. cork walls. my shower curtain was a map of the world. i remember doing a jigsaw puzzle of the album cover of "some girls", listening to cat stevens obsessively, right around new years 2003. i had just broken up (for the first time, pre-engagement) with t. i vowed i would LIVE MY LIFE EVEN BETTER. i would be THAT GIRL. i would somehow transcend the fucking nerdy persona that does shit like jigsaws whilst listening to (quality) shlock. and i would find a way to fuck everyone in seattle.
*
as it turns out, i didn't.
*
my standards evolved, i guess.
*
i still feel fucking vulnerable and childish and STUPID, though. i still inadvertantly rely on outside forces to make or maintain or enhance my happiness. that's certainly why i feel like shit right now.
it hasn't all been bullshit. there was a cool starfish on the beach yesterday.

and it's finally fucking spring. well, yesterday was. i'm out without a coat today and i feel rather dumb. and cold.

but whenever i feel sulky and annoying, something like this magically comes along to make me laugh aloud. always.

even in retrospect.

revelations

i will preface this with a sober acknowledgment of my idealism, my naivete, my impulsiveness, my stubbornness. these are traits that inconvenience the fuck out of me on an hourly basis but they define who i am. everything i say, think, and do is filtered through these adjectives. it doesn't justify any of the stupid (STUPID!) decisions i make, but perhaps it can offer perspective to the more lucid among you.
*
first, a picture of k's absurd tanning stickers. they go over the eyes. there truly is a product for everything.

this is one of those items of modern life that i hope to never utilize firsthand, but it is good to be informed of one's options. (actually, she said they are mandatory- unless you're a truly seasoned tanning-bed tanner, in which case you have your own anti-cancer goggles. like bowling shoes, i guess.)
and here's the completely fucking useless ladies, rubbing their bits all over my eatin' table.

sooo....
because i made the 'right' decision, i can now explain the last 2 weeks to the people whose opinions i care about and who know me exceptionally well...
i have a flight to austin at 230pm tomorrow, to see ex #1 after 13 years, united flight 356 connecting in denver on united flight 416, arriving at 1030pm CST... $282.76 on my debit mastercard, non-refundable. and i'm not going.
*
have i ever really explained the horrid circumstances that led to the demise of my first marriage? i mean, really?
i remember once my parents came to visit us when we lived in seattle. there were at least 5 empty liquor bottles lined up on the kitchen floor. after commenting that the place smelled like cat piss, my father said "what's this? left over from christmas?" it was may. it was the accumulation of a week, and if i hadn't been too hungover to exhibit forethought, i would have taken it all down to the recycling before they arrived.
i truly believe that, once, he and i did love each other. my feelings for him were a version of love that i no longer consider 'love', but it's the version my 18-year-old self adamantly believed in. my standards, shall we say, have improved over the years.
we had plans. he had the vague drunken impetus to move to prague "cause america fucking sucks" and i was trying to be a writer, driving myself insane with the isolation. i was 100 pages into a story he ended up stealing the only copy of, a story i poured my life into for 6 months... i haven't seen it since i was 19. it's about a girl living in a small town and the guy she fancies breaks his infant child's arm. how does she care about someone who does something so possibly accidental but still completely monstrous? the guy's name is paul. i forget her name. i am sure there are correllaries to my subject matter with that era. i wrote at the end of the sofa my grandparents gave me when we got married, cross-legged, on a computer he stole while he worked at microsoft, and i would feel so fucking frantic and ALONE in my own brain that when i'd go to the store with the excuse of buying something, just so i could interact with other people, i'd stutter.
i was the one who found the place in prague (which he has since smugly assured me "sucked", though probably not as forcefully as the dank hovel i moved into once i returned to anchorage) and i enrolled at univerzity karlovy to learn czech. i even researched, much to my mortification, where the nearest ikea was (there is an ikea in prague! now you know.) we were going to drive from seattle to fucking fort stockton, in the ass-end of the ass-end of west texas, visit his folks, and i was going to fly overseas with my already-purchased ticket out of houston. he was going to drive the subaru to NYC and fly out from there two weeks later.
we fought in albuquerque, accompanied by a bottle of jagermeister (a fucking odious liquid i will hopefully never drink again) and i woke up from my drunken stupor to find everything gone. him, the car, the fucking snake, the stereo, my debit card. he left my cats, my bicycle, and my clothes. that was the day i started smoking again.
we were staying at the starlite motel, on route 66, near an overpass. it was a skunky part of albuquerque. it was in walking distance to both UNM and the forbiddingly boarded-up 'downtown'. everything was orange. everything was dusty. it was hot and the world was fucking completely different. i didn't know what to think. i remember a bum telling me i had skinny legs. i went to the library and shivered in the air-conditioning. i bought a cannister of sun-maid raisins from a convenience store. the hotel manager banged on my door and let me know that we couldn't fight like that again. i let him know 'he' was gone and the manager walked off and i listened to his footsteps retreat and then i bawled and i remembered how horrible camel filters taste.
i flew back to anchorage the next day. i had changed my flight from prague to berlin, because this was in the days when one could do that, over the phone... my father told me to come home. "you need to be around people who love you" he said. i was too dazed at the time to truly appreciate that...
and i returned to alaska with my tail between my fucking legs. i filed for "divorce with an absentee spouse", my name and his for all to see in the anchorage daily news for 4 consecutive weeks; i heard from the grapevine that he actually went overseas, but he didn't contact me at all until 4 years later... i stood in front of the judge with my fucking wonderful dad on the benches behind me and i calmly agreed to a divorce. my dad took me to lunch afterwards. we went to that awesome place on 74th and sand lake (?) -near kincaid- that i can't remember the name of... the food was sublime. "are you okay?" asked my father. "yes" i said emphatically, my mouth full.
*
i've moved on with my life. i've been remarried and redivorced. there's 13 years of ridiculously turgid shit crammed into that span, to the point where i, with my propensity for drama and pathos and what-the-fuck, am almost craving a placid existence. i have lived. that statement is not meant as resignation, but as utter fucking gratitude.
*
but in the back of my mind, i never had resolution from Bullshit '98. i never had closure. the last thing i remember is not pleasant. the next-last thing i remember is even worse. this gaping-thing from 1998 has occluded way too fucking much in my life over the last many years, probably even things i haven't acknowledged. i know, lucidly, as an adult regarding the child-me, that there is a lot i'm not nearly as accountable for as my heart still claims. the 'adult' me wants to shake the fucking SHIT out of my 19-year-old stunted self and brutally chastise me to GET THE FUCK OVER IT, HE'S A PIECE OF SHIT, MOVE ON. but... i needed closure. i cannot state it any plainer. and when, after 13 years, he shitfaced to the point of entire-sentences-slurring, me on the other end saying "i can't understand you" whilst doing something *adults* do, like watering my plants... he offhandedly invited me to austin for a concert.
"when?"
"the 16th."
"what day is that?"
"uhhh... a wednesday."
"i can do that. you want me to come down?"
"sure."
"okay."
and i bought the ticket the next day. i finagled coverage for both jobs. i got k to watch my beasts. and i thought, finally. he's a dithering sociopathic drunk, still, made more obvious and pathetic by time, but i'm not. i'm not, when it's all said and done, a fuck-up. i do moronic things, opine inane shit, and can be a complete fucking bitch when i take people for granted enough that they'll tolerate my non-salubriousness... but, i think, i don't instigate the need in people to wince. i fucking sincerely hope i don't.
i had this vision of us talking politely in a pub. discussing the past 13 years. he's older and i;m actually of age, so we'd have the adult thing to bond over. it wouldn't be a rehash of blame, it would be a "this is who i am now." that's what i was looking for.
*
two nightmares in the last week about him later, i changed my mind. and i realized that i couldn;t respectably tell this situation to anyone who truly knew me without prefacing it with "but you know, i know what i'm doing..." disclaimers. and i realized that i, since 2002, hadn't really talked to b when he wasn't shitfaced, and the one time i did i was unreasonably happy, because, you know, he wasn't shitfaced, and that must mean he values our conversations, because, yeah. and i remembered that i have a fucking awesome life in seattle already, full of people who are kind and loving and patient enough with me to allow my illogical retreads and circular solliloquys.
i called expedia about my non-refundable ticket on friday; i realized it was sxsw and i was fucked for possible hotel rooms should i choose to just go and finally experience texas, ex be damned; and by friday night i decided that come the morrow i would just tell him i wasn't coming.
saturday am: on my facebook page for all my truly good friends to see: "you are the queen of fucking things up. why stop now?"
i don't need that. i fucking despise people who do things like that. what the fuck is wrong with someone who does something like that? alls i can say is: i am personally responsible for him having a vasectomy in 1997, so YOU'RE WELCOME.
*
delete!
*
and i'm not going to austin.
and i must offer a repetitive, but this time fucking truly SINCERE, thank you for all the people in my life who have cared about me over the years and dealt with me dealing with that. may i never learn firsthand the depths of your frustration. but i am so fucking grateful for you.
*
it takes a long fucking time for things to sink in. see the first paragraph of this post and please do not condemn me too much.
last week the sun was out. this is me now, living my awesome life, fuck yeah.

thanks for reading.

life happens!

i am happy, verging on disbelieving. i shrieked giddily on the sidewalk last night in an otherwise quiet residential neighborhood. "this hasn't happened to me in so long!" i laughed. k was laughing too. "you deserve it, dude" she said.
who knows? i just like being reminded of how easy it is to feel jubilant. maybe that's all i need: that first rush has the potential to sustain me.
*
it made my convoluted dream last night make sense...
we're at a family get-together/open house affair. a bunch of older people who i am only vaguely familiar with are milling about with plastic cups and khaki pants. he starts to grope me in a back room. it's not because he's feeling lusty and impatient; it's because he's a callous moron with no respect for the situation. he is showing off. "this is my family" i hiss. "we can't do it here." he starts whining. "just for a second" he says and pushes my head down. in reality as well as in my dreams, his tunnel vision degrades me. his penis is green and slimy and ice-cold. my head barely touches it and i violently gag. "NO" i say and jump up. a female relative comes into the room. he's on the floor with his pants down. "oh!" she gasps. "i am so sorry" i tell her, and i leave the room.
there is a small parking lot surrounded by a picket fence. i go outside and get into my car. i sit there for a second, looking through my windsheild at a quiet field. it starts to snow. it's serene and beautiful and i feel very fucking calm. i think: i don't have to put up with shit. life's too short and there are too many quality humans in the world. i'm going to be fine.
*
i wake up in a really good mood.
*
i came to where i am currently typing this with the express intent of syncing my phone, but i forgot the cord! silly wench! it is nearly summery today. i am in a t-shirt. a guy and his grandfather shared my table. "i have the better view" said the grandfather in a gravelly voice as he sat across from me. "get to look at a pretty girl." the grandson, who was about my age, smiled at me rather abashedly. "everyone loves a compliment" the grandfather said. there is something strangely endearing about a harmlessly randy old man.
*
as well as being fat tuesday, today is international women's day. what kind of a fucking stupid condescending non-holiday is that?

la nuit du jour

cab drivers in seattle are so randy! they all compliment my hair and ask me if i have a boyfriend. "where is your man?" they inquire. is there a good answer to that? in the past I have made an obstreperous remark; giggled inanely; blinked back tears whilst staring unlovably out the taxi window... tonight I laughed and said "oh, he's around somewhere." i feel jaunty and good. life is fun. life is as interesting as i want it to be. bravery, indifference, who cares? things work out.
the pendulum swings upward.
*
for those who have made me really, really happy in the past week, and who have reminded me that I have a very pleasurable life here in Seattle: thank you and I value you and I feel so lucky to be part of your world.
*
enough with the treacle.
in my head: hot chocolate "every 1's a winner." dreadful, I know. but so sprightly!

on my way to where i am currently typing this part, i passed this.

i've been pontificating in my head for the past week- i've looked forward to tonight, for a chance to write.
a new venue, a booth to myself- this place is packed. i am surrounded by people living their lives. i could never live rurally. i am placated by being alone in populated places.
i was reading earlier about a father-son forclosure business in tampa, florida (the book's name eludes me). he talks about how he walks into these places that have been hastily vacated- humid clime, funky smell, splotches of mold on the walls, remnants left behind: sofas, baby clothes, a copy of 'the white album', crappy paperbacks, mail from collection agencies... how can you not look at the evidence, however deemed 'leave-behind-able', of another person's life and not empathize?
*
they're playing architecture in helsinki- 'heart it races.' i saw them do this live. we were drinking rum-and-something from a plastic bottle in his pocket. we kissed, our first kiss, against the stage. he went outside to smoke. i followed him and was not allowed back inside the showbox because i was shitfaced. that was a few years ago. i remember apologizing to the bouncer for my condition. i think of that whenever i hear this band....
another proud moment.
*
what would my life look like? after i was physically gone? from my lair in which i've lived for the past 5 years? thumbtack holes. pine cat litter shrapnel against the walls. grubby refrigerator handle. a lingering smell of nag champa. a shoddily painted railing. a picture of harold and maude taped to the oven hood.
the people investigating the space would surmise: i was somewhat careless and sloppy. i had beasts. i was probably a female with an annoying need to model my existence after ruth gordon, and i had dirty hands.
i really, really like my place. it has a good feel to it, always has. i know no one has died there. including, so far, me.
*
yeah.
*
now they're playing portishead.
*
i feel so awkwardly vague right now... i want to yell about what is actually going on, what is actually a really big deal, but i can't yet.
what other non-issue can i drone on about instead?
*
vegas!
this is the *suite* i had at the luxor. it surely was a fuckup! it was larger than my lair! it had two televisions (with tasteful channels like e! that i watched a shameful amount of), a jacuzzi, a bar, a sitting area, a bed that was so large and decadent that i slept across it sideways... whatever glitch caused this, i am grateful, despite the surly expression on my face. i think this was right after i saw the old woman in the casino downstairs with the oxygen tank beside her at the slot machine.

in the lobby of the bellagio is a swavorski (?) crystal-covered horse, below a chihuly-miasma of lurid jellyfish. it's very pretty.
this is the horse's anus.

there is an outside world to las vegas... actual air and sunlight. it is easy to forget.

this was taken last month, but it serves as a pleasant reminder of what i come back for.

what the fuck?

i'm losing my fucking mind.
*
after i got off the phone the other night i wrote this down, realizing after that it's an inadvertant haiku:
etched on my tombstone:
for undeserving people,
i do insane things.
*

firstly: i obviously haven't written much lately. this is the first time in a long while that i've let an entire month slide by- granted, it's a short month. i've been busy, i've been distracted, i've been discombobulated, the thoughts i have are too tedious/nefarious to publicize... i've been writing a lot of it in a notebook, i'll put it that way.
i went to vegas for the veterinary conference. after my first 24 hrs of scurrility and abhorrence of my species, i yanked the burr from my ass and had a fucking great time. vegas is a blast if you don't take it seriously. if you resign yourself to hedonism and smelling like other people's cigarettes and seeing underpaid wenches gyrating and adults in sweatpants in public (hereafter known as AISIP) and paying $10 for a crappy gin and tonic... it's fun. i stayed just long enough. 72hrs in vegas is my limit before i start to markedly devolve.
among (many) other things, we went to a drag show. we sweet-talked the usher and got a table right next to the stage.
it's cher! really!

at the end one of the performers came out in full regalia:

and proceeded to sit down at a vanity and remove all her makeup while singing a very somber rendition of "what makes a man." it was AWESOME.

*
being back in seattle has been a blur. clarity is a bitch. some things are so lucid- i've been dealing with the "what the FUCK? what was i thinking?" mindset about a lot of things lately... and i'm doing a lot of things that i consider, were i to be regarding myself detachedly, a bit deranged. i know why i'm doing them, but i cannot help but feel personally critical. as k said today: "i know you are, but please be careful."

the sky was lurid today- windy, then sideways rain, then bright sunshine, then hail.

when it hailed, everyone in the ballard smoke shop and cafe paused their midday drinking to comment and stare out the window. it was comforting to witness.

i took this today whilst unwittingly blocking the sidewalk for the guy behind me. i smiled and apologized. he smiled in a way that made me know i was forgiven. i love seattle.

entropy loving the audio link of allogach.

that story is for later, when i possibly switch from tea to something harsher.
*
from my journal, 2/28/11: "love makes me fearless and invincible and safe. those are lofty attributes to attach to something that i have absolutely no say of or control over."

drainage

insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result... i know this. i know this. so my continued stagnation is an affront.
she told me to leave. i'd tell me to leave.
*
i was just skyping with b. he is drunk and telling me he loves me. it goes through me. my reaction is shuddery and immediate. he is someone i want to help. i suppose i am a 'fixer'- my mother used to call them my 'pound puppies.' "you can do better" she'd say, rolling her eyes.
once loved, always loved. that's probably another hallmark of insanity.
*
i woke up from this today. but i didn't want to.
i'm in a classroom. there's an elevated red couch in the back of the room, behind a phalanx of desks. sun shines against the wall. it is flattering light. a dark-haired boy is beside me. we start talking. the lesson is continuing but we are not paying attention. we are hyper-aware of each other. i can feel the heat of his arm, the feel of his exhalation, i can fucking smell him. we lean in closer. it's one of those moments where we both know. we're going to kiss, we're going to fuck, it's going to be fucking phenomenal, and we're both holding back. when you know, you can wait. you can drag it out and savor it. i'm thinking to myself "take your fucking time. but not too long."
we're leaning into each other and making smart-ass remarks. his breath burns my neck. i am smiling and whispering in his ear.
the teacher calls me out. i sit in an office. she lectures me about being disruptive.
i am in my apartment, which is a city-pretty flat with red walls and shiny appliances. he knocks on the door and runs in eagerly. "hey!" we greet each other with hugs and smiles. we're both smiling an obnoxious amount,actually. he's carrying a bouquet of flowers- birds of paradise with a pollen-y yellow filler. i start rummaging for a vase. "you could hang them, too, so they'll dry" he suggests.
and i wake up. the iphone "alarm" selection, actually. 815 PST.
*
i am sure there are sundry cliches to apply to this... but the basics, the emotions are there. that's what everyone wants. they want to feel fucking special.
*
i recognized the person in the dream.
*
life is fucked up and life is poignant and life goes on.
*
lately i feel like i'm just surviving. i'm disengaged and watching the world pass by. gotta change that.
*
5 clients today. it rocked. i gave good fucking massages. some days i know my massages suck- lack of connection, weird body, weird human, whatever... but today i was on. everything just made sense. i was letting my mind drift. i thought "i'm not going to take this too seriously. it'll be fine" and basically jammed out to popol vuh and sigur ros and listened to three out of five clients fall asleep. i went deep on everybody. i made really good tips.
i needed that. my ego needed that.
*
when i left work i was left devoid of distraction and listening to fucking "mystical shit" in my headphones, and reality collapsed back upon me. so it goes. i'm here now to write about it. i guess.
i can't write about the serious shit, yet.
it's somebody else's story to tell. i was just a grateful witness.
*
i am so disgusted, and so unsurprised, with b. fucking really? was he this much of a dipshit when i was married to him? s, honey, don't answer that.
my personality. on my tombstone, if i have one (i don't want one), let it me engraved: "yeah. low self-esteem, maybe. or she just trusted too much."
*
i would fall right back into it.
i still believe in idealism.
*
the world has taught me nothing.

regrets

I regret giving you this website, because I censor myself on it constantly. I still have to write all my lascivious mortifying fucked-up bullshit LONGHAND, in a spiral notepad. I am sure that I come across as boring, predictable, and/or naive as a result. while I am extremely honest on this site, because I know of no other way to be, I am also very careful. please read accordingly.
I regret being complacent. I sometimes worry that I've forgotten how to be out of control: screaming, throwing shit, being destructive. either I don't have a catalyst or I've finally grown out of it, or both. and that's, you know, excellent. but I still get annoyed and hurt and frantic and weird, on some level, and I worry that I'm not letting people know it, and I'm acquiring a completely odious martyr complex because I think I'm the only person thinking this neurotic crap.
I regret giving you one-way access into my world. I still don't have access to your world. yeah, I noticed.
i don't regret all the things I've thought and written and fantasized about and almost tried to manifest, and I regret that I don't regret that, but does it really matter?
I regret my introversion. sometimes it amuses me, but mostly my self-induced isolation is a fucking pain in the ass.
I regret my lack of free time, and I regret the guilt and auto-gratitude I feel like I must follow such a statement with.
I regret all the times I was a complete or partial cunt.
I regret that my iPhone wants to change "cunt" to "cube."
I regret only being able to in that position.
I regret my lucidity in abhorrent situations, but I am proud of my shame.
I regret not being consistently able to take the moment as it happens... even still.
*
I do not regret looking at my reflection and thinking "I am tired and I smile a lot."
*
no edit

unedited

it's late summer, warm and humid and unctuous, colors saturated and shadows long. we're walking through an open-air market. the stalls are being dismantled but there are still many people strolling around. everyone seems docile. we are awkwardly holding hands. I'm staring ahead as you talk too much- chattering about our plans, our future, how everything will be different this time. I am purposely not looking at you- I am trying to remain detached, ready to dart off at a moment's notice, ready to save myself.
our dynamic was always like that: you would get so fucking obsessive about the most impractical things, you would intimidate me with controlling devotion, you would wield your version of 'love' like a threat. I am back here now, walking with you, blurrily hearing you babble about the future, and I feel sick and uneasy all over again. I don't want to be yelled at for calling it 'having sex' instead of 'making love.' I don't want to hear you order me to look into your eyes so you can insist you saw my pupils dilate. I don't want your insecurities, bullshit, tunnel vision, mindfucks, narrow-mindedness or snivelling. but I am here now, staring straight ahead, because I will always worry that you are the only man who's ever loved me.
we are renovating a round trailer. I remember all the times we tried to do things together and failed miserably: everything dissolved into a screaming fight. we could not cook together, work on a fucking jigsaw puzzle, install pergo flooring, travel, even be in the same room together. you insist it'll be different. I can hear you smiling. as always, you are caught up in the romantic idea of it all: no work in the trailer has been done yet, apart from a mattress on the floor where we will sleep together later for the first time in years. I am excited by that- part of me will always find few things more satisfying and primal than a hastily made bed. it makes me feel like all my stupid bohemian dreams, all my vagabond fantasies, may finally be actualized with you. I still don't look over but I'm starting to feel less cynical. the world is tinted marigold.
it's morning. the same gold light is filtering through the fabric over the trailer windows. you are already up. I am naked under the sheets. giddiness turns to panic. I'm here again. I have allowed myself to be caught and I am now a trapped animal. I try to calm down. there is something reassuring about seeing your side of the bed, where you slept, where you slept beside me- it's a thought that makes me feel weirdly nurturing and gentled- this person trusts me enough, even still, to sleep beside me- and I apparently trust them enough too. I tell myself that this is what love is, this is what matters. I try to tell myself I'm lucky. when he returns, I decide, I will finally look at him. I will stare my future down.
and I lay there, and I'm restless, and I can't shake the dread and panic, and I can't do it. I can't fucking do it. "I'm still dreaming" I say aloud, and I force myself to wake up.
*
sofa, 608am PST. Tiresias is behind my knee. the freeway is already covered with commuters. relief, then loneliness. the mind is a strange place.

come on darkness. lay your body down next to mine.

i went to hallgrimskirkja this morning because the chimes were ringing incessantly. (the clock tower itself rings every 15 minutes from 9a-9p. it's been a very cool accompaniment.) alas, the chimes were prerecorded... the pipe organ was not in use. the sunday service didn't start for another 30 minutes and i didn't feel like waiting... a cat was wandering around inside the church. cats are fucking everywhere, as i've mentioned... it's almost unsettling. this cat did its thing and strolled outside. i followed it to one of the stones by the leifur ericsson statue, where it casually lapped water from a puddle.

i went back to the flea market. i shamelessly took photographs this time. i asked first if it was all right- smiling widely, mimicking the camera sign... people nodded resignedly.
"what is this?" i asked one merchant. answer: it is the head of some type of fish.

this looks fucking luscious, especially in comparison.

and the hakarl. apparently if you're a connoisseur (which i probably misspelled) of pungent cheese, you will not find hakarl too distasteful- the smell is worse than the flavor, by far. i wouldn't know. i'm a fucking wimp.

a group of women were passing around one of the cube-cups nearby, grimacing.
*
the rest of the place is made up of stalls much like this. this was one of the better ones.

the reykjavik art museum was a block away. they had an awesome exhibit of collages and not much else, but the building itself was gorgeous.

there are haunting, morose statues like this everywhere.

and absurdly excellent graffiti.

it's been misty and mild all day- my first day without a hat, coat unbuttoned, no wind. this is Laugavegur, reykjavik's main shopping street, several blocks from my hotel... i don't know how many times i've walked this road over the past few days.

a wet world assumes a delightful calibre of poetry.
sorry, that was fucking cheesy.
*
nothing opens before 11 on sunday. i suppose most folks are still cringing from their night's debauchery. i passed several people on the streets obviously decked out from the evening before. next time i am here i will actually participate, i promise.
near my nest, remnants of runtur.

it's bittersweet. i don't want to leave, but i do. i am already planning my return.
*
being a nerd in the hallway of my hotel- i'm in the 'outbuilding' (see post prior), which has two rooms on each floor. "extra-special room" the guy on the first day told me.

the street where i've lived.

i'm returning to the blue lagoon, ha ha, on my way out of town tomorrow. it's completely worth another ~$100 (including ~$16 suit/towel rental). it'll be a very fucking nice final memory.
tonight, hallgrimskirkja is cauled in rain.

coming to iceland is one of the best decisions i've ever made.

acclimating

i went to Kolaportid Flea Market today- housed in a huge warehouse adjacent to the harbor. the space smelled like turned fish. i heard that this place sells hakarl... i've been looking for the stuff since i arrived. i didn't know what to expect: is it sold in the grocery stores? at street kiosks, alongside the delicious hot dogs? in tins? cubed or in filets? i've only seen it on two menus, as part of a ~$30 tasting menu, and i didn't really want it that badly... but everyone who knows me has been bored by my fascination with and insistence on trying the fucking stuff...
*
the market was an olio of less-compelling antiques (fusty candlesticks, war memorabilia), bad-in-a-bad way fashion, pulp romances written in icelandic, tables of cheap plastic chinese jewelry... and in the back, the nexus of the funky aroma, the food section. dried haddock (which i ate for dinner with butter- FUCKING DELICIOUS. i'm going to try to bring some back, odor be damned- it is absolutely magical), bags of frozen 'seafood mix' (baby octopi, scallops, shrimp, lobster), svio (sheep's head), lungs and hearts and viscera of various mammals (all indecipherably labelled), and hakarl.
little plastic lidded cups, the sort one gets a side of tartar in, were filled with about 8 cubes and sold for 150 Ikr. whole sharks, about a foot long, were vacuum-sealed: yellow puddingy eyes and what looked like a coating of orange icing. i held up a cup of the dice to inspect: the cubes were yellow and almost translucent, like gelatin. there was some liquid (leakage?) at the bottom. the older woman commandeering the stall was watching me. i believe she was smirking.
i couldn't.
just looking at it made me nauseous. nervous. evolution dictates that we do not eat that which is fucking rotten. they bury the shark in the first place because it's fucking poisonous, for christ's sake! i'm all about The New Experience, except when i'm not... so after years, honestly, of fantasizing about this moment, i pussed out and walked away.
but i did find a pair of cool gloves- my first tangible souvenir.
silly chickenshit american.
*
christ the king cathedral was first built in the late 1800s. it sits above the 'downtown' area...
the sun was just rising (at 1130am).

i was the only one there. i didn;t shut the door properly and the entire time i was inside it banged in the wind, echoing. i always cross myself when i enter churches- not out of any religious tendency, obviously, but out of respect. i think i did it backwards, though: right shoulder, then left? fucking it up cancels out any respectfulness...
i've had several conversations lately about 'wanting something to believe in'... some foundation seperate from yourself that you can rely upon. i cannot comprehend that, still...
i debated getting a tattoo whilst in iceland. i've thought for years about having the word "island", small, in a subtle location. island is also the icelandic spelling for, um, iceland, so it seemed relevant, but then it occured to me that i don't really think of myself as isolated any more. i operate that way, often to my detriment, but i don't get much pleasure from it. lately i feel like more of an isthmus...
i have never before seen a car like this in europe.

the sun actually shined (shone?) for the first time since i've been here. it was extraordinarily cheering. it got no higher than eye level and set again- no migration across the sky. the shadows were long and gold.

the woman i bought the gloves from said "we haven't had any winter at all." she sounded almost sad about it. i smiled and nodded, my hands jammed in my pockets amongst the wadded kleenexes from my perpetual wind-snot, hair permanently flattened under my hat. today was fucking beautiful, though, and the lack of humidity made it seem less cold than usual. lots of people about... i saw a lot of prams, even parked outside shops while the parents (i almost said 'owners') were inside.
reykjavik reminds me so much of seattle. the cafes are full, there are bookstores everywhere - for a city of 110,000 people, i know of (and have been in) at least 5 LARGE bookstores in a 20-minute walking radius. all the bookstores are multileveled, with cafes and entire floors devoted to art supplies. books are, like everything else, expensive as fuck. i saw a hardbound copy of keith richards' 'life' for 3.600 Ikr... even paperbacks (the majority of which are in icelandic) are at least 1.800 Ikr. a fancy deli near my hotel was crammed with people buying cheese and pate and sausage and honey. groups of young women in tight jeans and ankle boots, older women with copious eye makeup... young men with either beards (tourists?) or fucking emo haircuts, older men with fur-lined caps and, almost always, glasses. the men here are mostly thin, the women less so, though most people are wearing too many layers to tell. that said, there are a lot of very nice female asses in iceland.
tonight- this afternoon- i returned to my happy room for a lovely repast of the aforementioned haddock, flatbread, butter, and a can of danish pear cider...and a comically large bottle of 'toppur sitronu', the cheap local mineral water.

whenever i find the rare cognate, i get so triumphant- "icelandic can't be too difficult to learn! for example, this water has citron involved!"
*
now: 136am GMT, just enough rain to make the occasional passing car sigh. some things sound the same no matter where you are.