This is not a very bloggy blog, so just deal with it.

March 31, 2001

I am in an art room. Others sit behind me working on their paintings. I have a large flat canvas board in front of me. I am doing wizardly things with the power of my mind. There is a stunning picture of a house in a field at sunset--the tiny brushstrokes of grass are luminescent with gold and orange and a tawny brown, a wave of light pouring over the field from the west, which in this case is from the right edge of the painting. It's not my painting, but it is applied to my canvas board and I begin to work with it. Then Mj.B. from work comes up--she had been about to get on the elevator with the rest of our group but came back to be chatty. I look away from the painting at her and when I look back it's the same field but it's winter and it's night and it's snowing--and there are trees. (Okay, it's not the same scene, but it is.) Mj. is talking to me and I am nodding and focused on the painting again. Uh huh, uh huh. She talks a lot.

I apply some cool device to the painting that crops it and blows it up. I'm going to work with a section of it, and I'm intense and focused. Mj. lingers. Then this girl comes down the row. (We are an art class, sitting at long, long rows of rectangular sectional tables; the tables around me are mostly empty. Behind me, other class girls sit and work.) She comes down and picks up my canvas rudely and holds it up to see what I'm doing. It is now mostly a blank white canvas board as she holds it, with a few tiny streaks of paint--not impressive. She makes some snide, blithe remark--she's rather unaware of herself as a social moron, but still deliberately provoking me. I take the painting back and (odd) have to reattach sections of the board and resize it to its full dimensions; then I relay the painting and make a few interesting swipes to its surface with exacto knives or putty knives or something. The girl makes another comment about my painting, I offer a vague rejoinder, and she begins to walk away. I am focused on my work again, but say, as she's leaving: "By the way, if you touch my painting again, I'll kill you." Pause. "Literally." Which sounds lame, but in the dream wasn't. I probably can't convey just how cool and deadly I was in the dream. As I spoke, I was totally not interested in impressing her or anyone else; I was absorbed in my work, and not even really annoyed. I meant what I said, and I said it the way you might absently, flatly remark to an interloper: "Shut the door as you leave, please." I was ruthlessly lethal and could do sophisticated things with my mind and everyone else bored me.

I never feel like that in real life, sadly, except perhaps--in pale imitation--with a few very stupid and remorselessly aggravating people I've known at work, or those public strangers who will try to glom onto you when you're doing something else (drinking coffee and reading a book, for example). And even then I never feel lethal. Mostly just anxious. I would never really tell someone I'd kill them--and mean it.

I'd like to. I occasionally have a yen to be a sociopath--though the kind who can have good friends over for dinner, and not kill them.
 

posted 3.31.2001 @ 9:58 pm

March 30, 2001

At work today this guy--the inimitable and gothy K.W.--decided that I must be a superhero. He christened me with the secret identity of "The Writer." I have the power to change people's realities when I type on my laptop, like an agent of the Matrix. I am a dark hero, an antihero. Fiendish and a bit mad at times. K. said he likes the streak of silvery-white hair that runs strikingly through my dark mop--very Roguelike, he says. S. and B. said this too, as did people at Escapade. I suppose I must take people's word on this, though to me it just looks like a big messy clump of grey.

What shall I do with my new superhero identity, I wonder. Who to rewrite first....
 

posted 3.30.2001 @ 6:32 pm

March 30, 2001

I am hiding in a house with two friends. There are guys outside trying to get in and hurt us. One man tries to climb up a ladder to the roof. I kick out the window, then push the ladder down. I run downstairs and say to the women: "Tell him you don't want any homosexuals in the house." I have some plot that hinges on this lie. I watch the man outside. He eventually falls asleep on the grass with a friend of his. I go to the women who are curled up on a mattress cuddling one another--large women, naked under the blanket. "They're sleeping," I tell them, "we can go out the window on the east side of the house." I open the window, kick out screen; the women dressa and join me. We hop out and run. We climb a small wire fence to reach the neighboring yard, then another. When we are in the second yard, I climb over the third fence to reach safety, and see behind me the men following us. They each carry large orange chainsaws. (This seems so Freudian, now.) I am torn, but it's clear that as the only one far enough away to get free, I have to run. The women stay behind and as I get further away, I see the men catch up. They kill a few people and then stand menacingly with the women. I get down the road aways and then determine to do something. I take a little run to get up to speed and launch myself flying into the air--I hit the ceiling of the sky though, which is very low--a pale blue flat matte ceiling which I bump with my back. I fall and try again. I hit the ceiling but manage to hang there, about a foot underneath. I fly over to the women and men and...well, I think I started shooting at the men with my laser finger.

Other fragments of dream to which I've lost the narrative: me with others in a building, cops trying to get in. I ask for a gun. Lots of angling to make sure I'm not in the line of fire as they come through the door. Cops come in carefully, guns raised. I step out and shoot a cop, then fly upstairs. Cops shoot through the floor to try and hit me. I escape out a window, etc. I remember a coke-headed man pissing as I run past him along a railroad track, and the idea flashes through my mind: he's in the mob but he'll never amount to much, what with his constant need to piss. I recall that Methos was in my dream at one point, coming on to me in a kitchen, and then he left and I think I discussed him with Duncan. "Did he seem okay?" Duncan asked. (Or something.) "I'm not sure," I say. (Or something.) A visit from Methos was kind of nice, but of course the details have been erased from the section of the tape. I remember a long bit where I kept trying to get myself off, but people would come into the room and frustrate my intentions. I'd be holding this blanket around me and wondering if they could hear the buzz-buzz-buzz of my joy-toy.

People say they're amazed that I remember my dreams in such detail, but the thing is, I don't--I don't even recall half of what happens, most times, and it kind of frustrates me. Especially not knowing whether Methos and I did the wild thing. That's so annoying.
 

posted 3.30.2001 @ 8:14 pm

Brief FTP snafu kept me from uploading any other comments yesterday. I did have more to say. I was going to describe the guy downtown who begs by proxy. He haunts the streetcorner in front of Pacific Place with his dog, whom he's trained to sit pathetically motionless next to him with a cup in its mouth. Occasionally you will hear someone coo as they go by, charmed by the dog. What they don't get is how awful it is, this unnaturally motionless dog, unable to bark or yawn or pant, trained--god knows by what means--to sit there holding this cup out for change, hour after hour after hour....

On the bus home, I sat across from the blind woman who has her own well-trained dog. The blind woman always keeps a big chunk of hair in her face, obscuring her eyes. I know I've seen her eyes once or twice, but I couldn't remember them well and found myself wondering if she imagined her visionlessness as visible to the rest of us--what was she hiding? As I tried to stare through her hair, her face looked very odd to me, sort of lopsided by the right temple. I think it was just a trick of light though.

The guy next to me started talking in a low voice about the blind woman's dog, how smart it was, how beautiful and behaved. I agreed. It was a wise-eyed dog, who kept giving me looks that night as if to communicate something. I felt a little odd talking about the woman's dog and not to the woman, what with her just sitting there quietly across from us. But the man's voice was low and he was not unpleasant--not one of the usual strike-up-a-chat freaks who ride the bus. So we kept talking and I told him about the motionless beggar-dog downtown, which he recognized.

Today I was brooding on sounds I hate: the repulsive sound of an apple being crunched, whistling, the vibratory boom of bass. Which has nothing to do with dogs, really. Though a barking dog can drive you mad.
 

posted 3.29.2001 @ 8:40 pm

Dreamed about Buffy. Grotesque dream for which I can't recall context: Buffy's body had been surgically dismantled and then her head was reconnected to this life-support system so that we could talk to her or study her. She was not aware that she was just a head--well, a head and a big wet chunk of attached flesh, with, like, this huge floating liver lying a bit further down on the slab. We of course tried to make sure she would not look down.
 

posted 3.28.2001 @ 8:26 am

Alex Krycek stopped by last night. It was pretty late, but it was still good to see him. And I would have felt bad asking him to leave just because I was tired. Plus he had laid his gun on my coffee table, in a meaningful kind of way. We hadn't talked in--well, in a long time--and to be honest I'd been kind of worried about him. I asked him how he felt about the last few seasons. He launched into the usual brooding conspiracy-theorist babble and I nodded politely and poured him a Stoli. Eventually he got around to mentioning Mulder. I'd assumed they'd fallen out of touch, what with recent events and all, but it turns out they're still calling each other every Sunday at 8:52 p.m. (no, I didn't ask), and have reestablished their previous, long-distance, phone-sex relationship.

Guys'll do this sort of thing, and when they tell you about it you just have to smile and not look too appalled. Like, they don't even ask themselves whether it's healthy. They just think: what the hell, I'm not using the phone for anything else anyway. Of course, then there's Mulder. He's just a fucking wingnut. He's always been obssessed with this whole technoporn "Electronic Penetration" thing--I mean, any way that the man can augment his tickle with an electronic or electrical device, he'll find it--telephone, television, egg-beater, camcorder, weed-whacker, electric toothbrush, Taser, power amp, high-gain antenna, infrared probe. Whatever. I'm obviously just repeating some of what I've heard, but I believe it. Alex spent three or four solid years lurking around Mulder's doorstep, or in a nearby apartment building, watching him through binoculars, taking notes, getting it on video. Which he won't show me, fuck him.

He stayed only a few hours, and toward the end was starting to get that bored, glittery-eyed look, which always makes me nervous. He picked up the gun and started twirling it and it made me glad I didn't have a cat, and then he asked if he could use my phone. What do you say to that? Well, you usually say yes, but I really wasn't up for the whole FBI-how-do-you-know-this-man post-visit visit, so I kind of skirted the issue and said I was expecting a call from my sister. The look he gave me made me kind of glad I didn't have a sister.

So he left, Stoli tucked under his left arm--neat trick, I thought--and gun tucked in the small of his back. I hoped he would not shoot my neighbors, and then I thought: except for the guy upstairs. Shit, I thought, listening to the lobby door shut above me. I should have said something about that. He'd probably do me the favor. But what the hell, Weedy Prick is moving out in a few months anyway. Killing him would be kind of pointless.

And still, I kind of regretted not mentioning it.
 

posted 3.28.2001 @ 10:42 am

Worked, bought those books on Egyptology and slang I mentioned, did laundry in a virtuous way, worked on my Stargate rec page, and learned my upstairs neighbor is moving out in June, thank god. Can only hope his replacement is less noisy and noisome.

Started going through the Heliopolis archive, looking for good gen. Got through pages A, B, and C and found no sign of authors I recognized and trusted. (Except one or two whose stories I'd already read.) Titles: scary. Author's pseuds: scary. Synopses: scary. Would still like to go back through at a slower pace and pick like Cinderella through the ashes for what seeds of goodness may be there.

Downtown, the angry guy on the streetcorner is still yelling from dawn to dusk. I managed to see part of his sign the other day. It appeared to say: "Frye Ape and Seattle Police is Communist You Are." Overheard nascent conspiracy theorists on the bus the other day pondering the significance of his protest against the Seattle police, but tuned out anything noteworthy.

I also got hit up for a buck today by the angry, drunken, cane-wielding guy who habits my regular street corner. We used to skirmish a lot. I once cursed at him savagely, and after that he took every opportunity to goad me as I went by. It got to the point where I rounded the block to avoid him and felt intense homicidal rage when I passed--he'd stick that damn soda box in my face, and I'd seethe with...well, seethiness. And then, after a time and despite all vows to the contrary, I caved and softened and made nice. Now we're more or less pals. He's friendly enough now when he's sober, and a glaze-eyed, lurching leech when he's drunk.

M. wants to move to Seattle. I told her it was expensive and lacked one of those big, fabulous used bookstores that stocks everything under the sun. Maybe they're just hiding it from me though. There is one bookstore nearby with a lot of resident kitty-cats, though they're mostly the kind who run away and hide like panicked librarians when you approach. I don't get out much--there's still a lot I haven't done when it comes to seeing the sights, finding the bookstores, learning the lay of the land. I found Toys in Babeland, at least, and the Crumpet Shop and Comfort by Akiko. I never did get past my naif newbie fascination with Starbucks, though. I know I should have moved on, abandoned their corporate domination for small, indie java dives. But what can I say. I love the way they make foam, and the baristas almost never give you the cold shoulder.

Seattle is the coolest, rightest place I've ever lived. I was right to come and I want to stay.
 

posted 3.28.2001 @ 12:10 am

March 26, 2001

Started leap-frogging from Kat's blog today, to other blogs, (re)discovering this web of clever people who actually use this device to establish community through reciprocal links. People who actually strive for an aesthetic, who have back-and-forth chats via their comments, and so on. All of which is kind of the point, I suppose. I feel like a feral blogger. A street-corner mumbler with a crooked cardboard sign and a nibbled styrofoam cup by her tatty-sneakered feet.

And then at some point you always trip across these amazingly intelligent folks out there, those wits whose pithy, articulate scribblings confirm your fear that you are mush. Brain, mush. Language center of the brain--mush. All mush, really.

I am staring at this rock on my desk. Big pumice, round. A rough, good, useful thing.

Damn it, I'm just going to start playing what-the-fuck with this blog. Now you'll see some real babble, people. Maybe...maybe. Well, I'm certainly not going to try and focus my brain to write about microcontent and the Zapatista rebels and the pilgrimage of medieval Christendom. I used to believe I had eclectic interests, that the world interested me. Now, when I compare myself to others, I am doubtful. When I compare myself to myself, I am doubtful.

This is a good rock. And I have a headache.
 

posted 3.26.2001 @ 11:04 am

March 26, 2001

Dream Diary, installment 345,098,211. Dreamed I was staying at this man's apartment with my mother and sister. The man was away for the day, but his brother remained home. My mother and sister lounged in one room with nothing much to do. I went to another room and found the brother, a shy nervous man who tried to retreat, not wanting to talk to me. I pushed myself on him, gently, and went in, sat down, got him talking. Can't recall the conversation, but it was mostly me just drawing him out. He gradually relaxed, drawn in by the novelty of having someone to talk to. At one point I said, "Do you mind if I ask--your brother, he seems really overbearing. I only mention this, because you seemed so nervous when I came in." And so on, softening him up, easing his nerves. There was a little dog, and perhaps some other less savory animal. The brother fed me...food. It was as if I were solving a mystery: I had come to the apartment from a hotel, but I could not remember the cab ride or the hotel's origin, and in time I realized that this gentle, nervous man had been trapped here by his brother. He needed to find the hotel as well.

I went to my mother and sister and asked if they remembered how they'd gotten here--did they recall where the hotel was? My mother actually did, and she played her memories back as if on a video screen, with all of us watching. She began tracking her progress--her pushing out of the hotel, through a crowd, from its dark lobby into the street. Then walking along. An Apex bus was picking up passengers, there was a crowd, a corner--all of it grainy. It wasn't clear where the stop was, but there was a large building behind it, with a long complicated business sign. We made out the name and wrote it down but for some reason my mother had to then 'lift' the name from a writing pad by rubbing a pen across the indentations. It was nerve-wracking because the overbearing brother had come home, and I didn't want him to find out our plot to break his psychological captive free and get him back to the hotel. Vignette with me next to my mom, mom rubbing the writing pad, bad brother sitting in a chair watching us, waiting for us so that we could all go to dinner, mom telling me I needed to change my shirt, etc. Then, last flash: a very weird, sexual video of natives dancing at night starts playing in the background: a woman flailing around, breasts bared, streaked with red. The good brother comes in, frowns at what we are watching, says prudishly that, "I have a better movie we can watch than that, with no nakedness."

Oddly, much earlier in the night I dreamed that my friend Bob was sick and staying in a hotel, and Arnaud and his brother (Invisible Man) were trying to kill him. Lots of running around the hotel, trying to find Bob before they did, dueling elevators, trying to dig room numbers out of the maids.

The two sets of brothers were very different though.
 

posted 3.26.2001 @ 9:06 am

March 25, 2001

Another one of many airport dreams I've had in my life. I was at a desk signing a credit card slip, and I thought it had a tip line and I tipped seventy-five cents but then had to rewrite the thing, because they couldn't accept anything over the basic fee and the alternative would have been initiating this long search for the owner of the business. Or something like that. Once I'd paid--for what service I can't exactly recall--the guy behind the counter took me to a shabby wall phone and I dialed and spoke to this woman who asked if I had an unknown charge. I said no, and then realized I had no idea why I was calling her. I'd paid for the privilege of making this call, scheduled for exactly twelve o'clock, but now it seemed pointless. I eventually remembered but I don't remember how the call went.

After the call, I went hunting down some fugitive and more or less attacked them. I also dreamed a full cast of Buffy characters. Someone was trying to hurt Willow--me?--and they all rallied round.

Dreamed of being caught outside in the rain on the lawn by a big house or agglomeration of houses, trying to get back in. Me with a book and notebook getting soggy in the rain; a giant bush that I first tried to walk around, then walked through; taking a short cut through a stranger's living room. Other stuff I can't recall. I also vaguely recollect being by the ocean and wish I could remember more.

Common elements to my dreams at one time or another in my life: aforementioned airport dreams; navigating through school or college hallways at great length between classes; variations on flying; driving endlessly in a car but not knowing precisely how to drive; navigating at night through the streets of an imaginary version of Bath, Maine; visits and revisits to a dozen different landscapes that seemed to be real places but were surely collages of reality; realizing that I have been taking math all semester and never attended class; being forced to return to high school late in life because I never got enough credit to graduate; variations on a theme of being by the ocean, or traveling on water; trekking through the woody swampland of dreams which sort of blended the territory of suburban Carolanne Farms and the back of my elementary school.

I wrote a little yesterday. I did not leave my apartment at all, not even to do laundry. Must pull it together today and get out. Am down to tiny nubs of soap, and am a can short of being able to make spaghetti sauce. Have restless desire to get books on Egyptology and military slang that I know I will not read. Yet.

Am unsure where to start with my day. Which probably means I am about to play FreeCell.
 

posted 3.25.2001 @ 11:32 am

March 21, 2001

I recently debated taking this blog offline, wondering if it was TMI, too much public TMI. And I had brief reason to wonder if perhaps I was freaking people out. So I teetered, and then someone sigged me, and I beamed happily and returned here to blurt disturbing stuff about myself. Today, because I am lazy, I offer excerpts from my irc with Francesca.

Francesca wrote: "I think of you as--well, brutal and funny and rapier witted." I will be sitting here preening on that for a while.

When I envision myself in the mirror, I am a dark person. But then Sandy dashes my self-image by telling me I giggle a lot.

I am the opposite of anorexic. I look in the mirror and see the skinny girl I was even as my jean sizes upgrade each year. Though I am now to the point where I look and see myself ten or twenty years from now, and I shudder.

I am past zaftig. I look wistfully back to zaftig.

I told one of baristas this morning that I go into work each day with a song in my heart. She laughed at me and we giggled about it. My baristas at Starbucks make mix tapes for me, give me coffee coupons at the drop of a hat, make my favorite flavor of ice tea as pitcher of the day, wave me off a free cup if I have forgotten my wallet. Not that I make a habit of it, it was just the once. But still. I have been on decaf a year, and when I once tried to order a half-caf (half caffeinated) they wouldn't let me.

posted 3.21.2001 @ 9:48 am

March 15, 2001

Had the most terrifying dream I'd had in a long while. Nothing to do with content, really, which was not inherently more disturbing to me than anything else. Don't remember much except the end, when I was a young girl who had climbed up on a roof to escape her father, who was down below. Father had just killed her brother, and was pretending it was an accident, but he had a bloody knife in his pocket and was going to kill and molest her. He ostensibly wanted to pick her up and then drive off with her alone in the family car, because of the "accident." Voices were telling her this in a dream, in her head--telling her to run. She ran away and climbed up on the roof and threatened to jump if he came up. It was a woman's house, a neighbor's. She was a nice woman, with long hair--sympathetic. She did not know that the father was a killer, and did not know how best to help; would clearly have done the sensible thing and given the girl to her father, if she came down off the roof. The girl could not verbalize the threat that existed. She looked down at them, where they stood on the ground. Her father kept trying to come up. She screamed and kicked things down--a ladder, maybe--then kicked the house itself entirely over while still remaining up there, huddled on the shingles, on the edge. He kept coming--coming without really nearing, approaching without climbing, looming psychologically, threateningly. There were other people around; people frozen as voyeurs and participants in the moment. There was a wail. The girl began to scream and sob at the top of her lungs, an ululation of pure terror. As she did, a man stumbled off to piss and vomit--"Not now!" someone cried, but it wasn't amusing; it was paralytically horrifying, visceral. And she continued to cry and her cry became louder and more awful, so that everyone understood it was the most terrible moment of all existence, a primeval rip in the universe of pain, a sound carrying a note that eviscerated the world.

When I woke up, a scream from outside was just trailing off--except that it may not have been real. The white ceiling was, in the darkness, moving with shapes like burning bubbles on a painted wall. I turned on the light, put on my glasses and looked, but the ceiling had returned to normal. I wondered if I were having an acid flashback. It should be entirely out of my system just about now, if not a few years past. I went into the bathroom and had a moment when I believed I would look into the mirror and see someone else entirely, or something wrong with me. But I did not. Discovered my period was just starting. Turned lights on, started computer, am writing this. Find myself feeling this dream on a deep level, wondering if all those years ago my brother killed my father and is in fact homicidal, a serial killer, if he is perhaps on his way across the country now to find me and kill me. Nothing in my history suggests reason to believe this, but the dream is a skew in the fabric of my reality.
 

A good thing has happened in my life recently: A.T. came back from her month-long trip to Indonesia and decided to quit. She is a nice person, with many fine qualities (much easier to say now, but it has always been true) but I don't care to work with her. I look forward to working essentially alone and hope there will be no more lay-offs this year.
 

My head spins, my mouth is dry--my mild cold still plagues me. I have not gotten much sleep the last three nights, and it's wearing on me. Two nights in a row I ate Sandy's espresso chocolates, three before bed, not really realizing their impact. I have been off caffeinated coffee a year. These were pretty much like actual shots of espresso, in gold foil and a chocolate coating. Hence the name. I tossed and turned one night in bewilderment, then the second night--last night--realized too late what had happened and took something to help me sleep. Tonight I have no explanation. I ate no more of the chocolates, but I still seem to have residual caffeine screwing up my system. It was sort of okay tossing and turning when I was having SG1 fantasies, but now I'm tired and I have to be at work in five hours and I'd stay home but I've already done my sick routine for February. I need to go in.

I think it would be helpful if tomorrow we had another earthquake, just strong enough to let me go home early. I probably should not wish for that though. Fate is likely to send me something far more terrible, like a gunman in the office shooting us.

Do I feel better now? I am wary of returning to bed.
 

posted 3.15.2001 @ 5:24 am

March 5, 2001

Intensely detailed dream, not all of which I remember. First thing recalled, I was on a campus; I was standing outside, near a big archway carved with something like "Yale School of Engineering," but something utterly different. Near the archway was a restaurant, and behind it a one-story spreading seventies-style ranch house. A man in a suit was going inside the house; I affiliated myself with him, and we were both let inside. Inside were two people: a man and his wife. The man was a gospel singer and inspirational-type figure. The suited man sat down on a chair; I sat in another, off to myself, spectating. The suited man had something to sell, or talk the gospel singer into. I wasn't clear on his motives. They offered the man a drink--a soda, and he accepted. They offered me one, but I felt I had to refuse even though I was thirsty. I watched him drink his ice-cold soda and longed for one. The men talked, the woman wandered, at one point going to get a drink. She poured out a small airplane-sized vodka bottle onto an end table--it was actually near empty, but she dabbed her finger through the few drops spilled and licked them off before disappearing to make a drink.

Some segue I've forgotten, but the gospel singer sat down at the piano and began to play and sing and I realized his French doors opened up into the restaurant where people were sitting and eating. They began to quiet down and pay attention. Eventually the house itself--the gospel singer's--emptied out, and I was left alone. I started going through things--his books, and so on. I was a waifish girl, and fascinated by the guy's possessions. At some point I decided to leave, and returned outside.

I was on the college campus, walking along in the dusk, cutting through snow, I believe, or at least across the quad, to parallel a path. I took what I believed was a shortcut to reach the path, working my way step by step up an outcropping of rock. Before I realized it I was scaling a cliff, maybe thirty feet high--it had carvings in it as well, some sort of patriotic school theme. I looked down and realized I had diverged from the path rather than heading toward it. The path lay below, and another path lay above, on which a couple of frat-boy types were walking. I clung there, and tried to work my way up the last few feet, but it was a smooth face and difficult to find purchase. And then I saw that even if I did reach the top there was a gap of several feet between the rock wall and the path.

So I returned down, and made my way to the original path I'd seen. It was like walking in a cement trough or channel, that ran through overhanging trees. On my way through I found a purse and a gym bag, abandoned next to a scattering of bones--a murdered woman's bones, to which I paid only passing attention. I began riffling through the purse, and pulled out a few pieces of jewelry. Both bags were all a jumble of the type of miscellaneous crap that accumulates in purses--but was also mostly cheap costume jewelry. I looked for pieces that seemed more valuable. A few girls came up and noticed the bones and told me I should not be messing with the evidence. I took the bags and left, determining to finish going through them somewhere else.

I reached the open grounds or quad of the campus. There were big houses, lots of people, etc. And there was a bull elephant on the loose. I passed a clown cop--a clown from the circus pretending to be a cop that would apprehend the elephant. I walked on. People of various stripe were panicking and hiding--a college official was shouting at people not to move, or to get inside, etc. The bull elephant came rampaging by; I was pretty close at one point, but avoided getting trampled. Others were not so lucky. I went inside a big frat house and avoided the downstairs hall where most people were congregating, hiding from the elephant. I went upstairs by means of narrow, boxed-in stairways. On the second floor (or maybe the third), I began looking for an empty room I could use to search my loot. I found one room, not yet inhabited, and went in. Put the purse down on a desk, began searching through it. Realized at some point that there was a couple, boy and girl, sitting up outside the window and that the girl could see me. Left that room, and hunted for another. In every room, there was at least one late sleeper--a guy, it was a guy's house--in bed, wrapped in his sheets. Each time, they'd sense my entrance and toss and turn as if about to wake up and see me.

I went to the third (or fourth) floor instead, which was much nicer. It was paneled in rich wood, like a cunning ship's interior, and it was full of guys. They were thick on the ground, so to speak, sitting at study tables, watching TV, congregating and chatting. No one really noticed me; they were all pretty absorbed; but I feared someone would question why I was there. I went up to one guy and asked something like: "I'm looking for Thomas Jones," (but not Thomas Jones, some other name), and he shook his head and couldn't help me. I wandered around, trying to decide how best to find a niche. There were parents there, well-dressed matrons, readying for a party; carrying ice trays, absorbed in their work.

Don't recall the rest.
 

posted 3.05.2001 @ 8:25 am

March 2, 2001

Remind me why I go out with people from work. No, not dating, you fool; it's not as if I have a life. I mean those stupid afterwork get-togethers where everyone goes out to some kicky restaurant and you spend at least thirty dollars a piece ordering food you eat two bites of, and you drink too much and halfway through the meal you realize you don't have the same laughter-inducing memories as everyone else does, because you never fucking bonded with anyone, so you sit there calculating the ratio of mouthful to dollar (I just paid ten dollars for a single ravioli) and hating that you caved. Wanting to go the fuck home. And the taxi ride up the hill was fifty cents a minute. What the fuck is up with that?

How the fuck is it March already? How the fuck am I going to pay my taxes and renew my car license when my stock is underwater and my rent is as much as my last paycheck? Why did I buy those fucking CDs when I have no money?

A.T. is coming back next week and I'm so not looking forward to it. I've been relatively stress-free on the work front (layoffs? earthquake? fuck it) but now she'll be returning with her mincing ways and helium-squeaky voice and dramatic facial expressions and moral certitude and exactitude and cuteness and fuck it. I wish she'd give it up and go garden.

I don't feel as if I drank that much tonight but I guess I did.

J.T., she of the perfect oatmeal cookies, is moving back across the country to Rhode Island. A.B. is moving away. People moving on. Usually I don't care deeply about such things; the shifts in one's acquaintances and even friends are just background rhythms to one's life. But I feel I should care more. I always feel I should care more.

I slacked all day at work today. Did some work, slacked, did some work, slacked. Last few days I've been riding my Emu-Mail, pressing the "Check Mail" button like a demented rat--sometimes once a minute or more. Sick. Not a good sign. At home, too, I'm in mail-addiction mode, unwilling to focus on anything else--reading, writing, television.

Life is one big ball of suck. I'm old and I'm getting older and I'm going to die. Maybe of an aneurysm in an airplane next year. Maybe when I'm eighty and batty. My writing sucks and my brain is like a big head of broccoli that was shoved to the back of the fridge, where it has both wilted and become semi-frozen, simultaneously. It begins to give off a whiff of funk--turning, turning, turning.

I'm pissed at everything and everyone. I must be premenstrual.

Well, only twenty more years of that.
 

posted 3.02.2001 @ 10:50 pm

February 28, 2001

Today was major earthquake day. At 10:55 or so we got hit with a 6.8, epicenter about 30 miles south of Seattle (near Olympia) and 30 miles deep. I was downtown at work, talking to J.V. and B.E. when it hit, and we went wide-eyed with bemusement. They dove under J's desk immediately and I crawled under mine a few seconds later as the stunned incredulity wore off. It rocked and rolled the building with tenacity--almost a minute. Then the fire alarm blared, and the security guards herded us outside. Not a bright idea, perhaps, as it turns out, given the risk of falling masonry; on the other hand, they closed the building and sent us home so that they could inspect it. Fourth floor reportedly had cracks in ceiling and walls, fallen monitors, etc. Third floor, nothing so dramatic that I saw.

I went home. You don't have to tell me twice. I thought I might write (cue violent laughter), but I ended up in irc instead, bonding with people until I calmed. The residual dizziness took several hours to wear off, though it was never very strong. I wasted the day, as usual. Ate a steak for lunch, filling my red-meat need, an inexplicable late-winter craving I've sustained for many weeks now. Made oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies, too. Not bad. Nothing like J.T.'s wondrous cookies, but okay. And I still had enough spare time to be annoyed by Weedy Prick, who apparently needed to relieve his tension by drumming rhythmically on my ceiling. This guy is always at home. I hate him for that as much as for anything else. He doesn't have a day job, doesn't have a night job. He lives off something--girlfriend, savings, trust fund, parents--or makes enough money off his vapid guitar playing to support himself.  Whatever the case, I would like him to go away. I wish he'd been under some falling masonry.

Oddly, the earthquake has eased my fears considerably. I used to visualize what would happen to my building if a big one hit--trapped in the basement, under rubble, downtown wiped out. Now I'm a bit less worried. Oh, sure, it could be much worse--but this was nearly a 7.0 and everything more or less remained standing. It is disturbing to realize that something of this magnitude, or less, could in another country cause thousands of deaths and level whole blocks if not cities. Here, a few dozen injuries, some scattered collapses. In Armenia in 1988, a 7.0 killed 50,000 people. Unreal.

I went shopping midday, learned that "marbled" meat is softer and choicer than what appears, at a glance, lean. Don't know why that sticks with me. Asparagus has leapt from $1.49 a pound to $3.99 a pound. They suckered me in with their sale prices--hooked me on asparagus as if it were heroin-- and then I get home and find I've spent $5.00 on the stuff.

What did we learn today? Any day home from work is a good day.
 

posted 2.28.2001 @ 10:24 pm

February 19, 2001

Just got back from Escapade. Several people there mentioned reading this blog, which freaked me out a bit, in a good way. I'd had no idea anyone was reading. I wonder if I'll be motivated to continue writing these entries more or less regularly.

Had an amazing time. It was the perfect weekend. I enjoy travel as an event, a ritual, if not the motion itself: I love packing my luggage, going to the airport, boarding the plane, ordering a drink from the stewardess; even, usually, the waiting; and I love hotels and room service. The Santa Barbara airport is small and beautiful, the weather was perfect all weekend, and everything went smoothly. The con itself--well, it was the first con where I did everything I'd meant to do. I attended panels, bought Buffy tapes, hooked up with all the cuddliest people, and managed to keep everything in balance, including sleep and meals. I was euphoric throughout the weekend, and I sustained the charge all the way home. Took today off, and decompressed while watching Buffy eps I'd never seen before. Now at the end of the day, I've reacclimated to my mundane life. Which is unfortunate. I'm flattened with a depression that is all the more marked as a contrast to the weekend's immersed happiness.

This blog often seems a diary of depression. I wish I knew where that was coming from. All my non-fictional writings seem to tend toward the therapeutic.

Thought about sex a lot this weekend. Duh. But was thinking about sex in a personal way, which is unusual. Had feminine fantasies, instead of slashy ones, and wondered whether, if I were having sex on a regular basis, I'd lose my creative impetus. I suppose sex could strengthen it.

There were amazing Buffy vids at the con; two Tara/Willow vids and a Faith/Buffy vid, all of which blew me away. The vid show was incredible, actually; the best I've seen. A lot of Highlander vids, and the crowd was a big Highlander crowd; it was kind of a bummer there weren't more Sentinel vids, or more fans at the Sentinel panel. I hope it's just a phase and not a sign of a terminal fandom. Stargate seemed to be the fandom of the moment; Invisible Man has not yet reached critical mass. Maybe next year.

Had a wonderful time watching Stargate eps with a big crowd that included Merry, Margie, Sanj, Seah, Rachael, Sandy H., and others. During a pause between eps everyone starting talking to each other, clumping in little groups--people on chairs, on the floor--and I felt as if I were sitting in a den of Ewoks. (Or a den of small, fuzzy creatures that lack the annoying connotations Ewoks might carry for some people.) They were all cuddly and they all burbled and chattered at the same friendly pitch. Which isn't always the case in a group of fans; sometimes a similarly-sized crowd will achieve a painful discord of  raised voices and shrieking laughter. But this was lovely.

The only thing I felt the weekend lacked were the pair-bondings: those occasions, twenty minutes to two hours, where you pair off with someone and get to know them and strike through the surface to some new depths of familiarity. Sandy Justine was the person I felt I got to know best this time; she kindly noshed with me and tolerantly listened as I yapped with irrepressible determination through mouthfuls of fries and beef. I had a chance to glom Te and Shoshanna, too. With almost everyone else it was more or less just touching base in about the same way I do in irc, but in person. Not that that's a bad thing. I just wish there had been more time, or that I'd taken more opportunities.

Best zine purchase: M. Fae Glasgow's latest collection of stories, Circumference. Stunning Due South stories (Ray K.) and quite compelling Phantom Menace stories as well. It was my only zine purchase, actually. And there was something uniquely depressing in seeing four tables of Sentinel zines, none of which I wanted to buy.

Best vid...I'd say it was impossible to choose, except that the Stargate vid to "In Your Eyes" stands out in memory--a pinwheel of clips set to rollicking music. Just one teensy step down from that apex come about a dozen or more vids that were absolutely amazing, instant favorites. Can't wait to get the tapes. Won't say anything about the few truly horrifying vids of the show--I grow paralyzed with awe just thinking of their unparalleled badness.

Hmm. I seem to have cheered myself up slightly, recounting events. Will break off now and try to sustain this mild high.
 

posted 2.19.2001 @ 11:50 pm

February 11, 2001
 
Am not even going to try and pretend to myself anymore that I will write bloggish stuff every day. I suspect I'll be lucky if I manage one new post a month. I am slogging through a period of anhedonia and wine-drinking and lay-offs.

Went to an arty wine-and-cheese viewing Friday. An acquaintance from work had some pictures hanging on the wall of the wine-and-cheese shop. She has her own website, business cards, and now this little opening. Why is it some people are so motivated and others so indifferent to making their efforts a success? It has nothing to do with quality of one's work. It's all driven by will.

Realized afresh at the gathering that I have never bonded with anyone I've worked with, never been social and never tried to network. Described, to A.B., the fascinating discovery that there can be this geometrical grid--org chart--of hierarchy and relationships at work, but when you remove everyone from cubicleland, the pattern of who knows who and who hangs with who and who sleeps with who is utterly different. Commonalities that you didn't recognize before are suddenly highlighted. I was intrigued, in a detached way, by the presence of kids and spouses, by how the corporate lesbians all knew each other, by the wondrous presence of M.B., with her funnily attractive face and high boots, who seems to have a knack for being friendly with everyone. Then there were the people I disliked seeing outside of work--L.V.D. with her pinched face that always reflects the possibilty she's just smelled something bad, and D.G., who always reminds me of Blair, but in the most obnoxious possible way.

Felt lonely and out-of-place, as expected. And the rest of the weekend has been self-indulgence and boredom.

In the past weeks, there have been major changes at work, one day of fleeting snow, anxiety, and a new absence of guitar-playing upstairs. (Knock on wood.) We had a bash at Sandy's house that was long and satisfying, and Escapade is coming up this weekend. There was a day trip in which I learned more than I wanted to know about boy bands. Invisible Man and Buffy have been very good. And I have still felt dull and heavy.

I like winter, but I don't like this.
 

posted 2.11.2001 @ 5:41pm

January 18, 2001

I hate the taxi drivers in Seattle. In New York, stereotypically, you're supposed to have manic taxi drivers who weave and zoom rapidly through traffic, running lights, cutting off other drivers. Here, all the drivers--all of them--are narcoleptic, passive, sneaky bastards who erratically ease up on the gas pedal and drift into irrelevant lanes, making you wonder if they realize they're supposed to be, at some point, gradually heading north rather than south. They slow to a crawl as they approach stop lights, hoping not to make them; they drop back behind lines of cars; they avoid switching lanes to make a necessary turn until you point it out to them.

It's the erratic nature of the driving that drives me nuts. By the time I reach home--a mere mile or so away--I'm usually seasick. The irregular velocity changes are like riding the swells of waves.

Had a thirteen and a half hour day today; meetings in the morning, another in the late evening. Will have only about five and a half tomorrow to finish off my week, which will be nice.
 

posted 1.18.2001 @ 11:59am

January 17, 2001

Another day in which I had nothing to say. I figured I'd be better at adhering to a relatively easy requirement of writing a few inane paragraphs a day, every day. Should have known better.
 

posted 1.18.2001 @ 11:59am

January 16, 2001

Tonight while waiting downtown in a scattered crowd for the bus, by the giant teddy bear, a man stood and shared his experiences with the public. I caught snatches. "Two months of my summer I had to endure ... writing my account on toilet paper ... was not obnoxious, but they treated me as such ... was not fraudulent ... two men, posing as cops ... this was June of last year ... did not identify me as a person ... don't pay taxes ... with a fist ... get them out of your face." Midway through his story, another man came strolling by, and voiced his desire that the Lord may shine his face upon us.

Stomach upset today, hands and fingers hurt, very tired. Didn't eat much substantial until four o'clock or so. Had a burger and fries at McDonalds, just because it was near and fast and I had no energy to forage for anything else. Not too bad, as it turned out.
 

posted 1.16.2001 @ 10:46am

January 14-15, 2001

Apparently nothing of interest in the world happened Sunday or Monday. Though, when I check back to see the headlines for Monday's USA Today, I see news that "McDonald's today announces plans to open its first full-menu restaurant in a Disney theme park."

Christ.
 

posted 1.16.2001 @ 10:46am

January 13, 2001

Dreamed this morning that I was back in Bath, Maine with my family, except it wasn't really Bath, Maine. I constructed an entire landscape in my dreamworld that probably had few elements of any real landscape I've ever seen or traveled through. We drove around in a car; for a while, we sat in traffic near a tall escarpment of large, pebbled stones that disappeared into a wall of fog. We drove down a lot of roads that in the dream were familiar to me from my childhood. At one point, I said I was hungry and wanted lunch at Denny's. My mother said she had given me a meal ticket for some restaurant, that she'd received in exchange for gassing her car; it was a glum, shadowy restaurant that looked like it would have suspect food. I was angry, and she said something about how she wasn't here to provide me with tickets, and I understood her to mean she wasn't going to feed me. "Am I supposed to scrounge for food like a rabid animal?" I asked. I'm pretty sure I said rabid instead of feral. There was a whole argument in my mind, unspoken, about why we couldn't just be happy. And I thought of L., and wanted to tell my mom how when L.'s daughters asked her for something she would say a strong no or else find a way to accomodate them, coming to a happy family consensus. She didn't beat around the bush in a grudging way, et cetera.

Then my brother came up to the car and wanted a few dollars to give this girl whose thingy had been lost or stolen. Can't recall what the thingy was. My mother immediately got out her purse and started getting out the money. I made an obvious comment about the injustice of this and got out of the car. My dad was off somewhere. Only my mom was in the car, my brother and the girl standing around it as I was. I pushed the car as I left, and it rolled slowly and heavily into a purple jeep and dented the side. I walked off down the road, stiff and guilty but angry, not even sure I would ever return to them again. Maybe I was running away, I thought as I walked.

I ended up back in the apartment we were renting in Bath for our visit, which was the bottom floor of a house. I can remember it pretty well--the entrance hallway, the messy living room, an impression of brown carpeting and plaid, shabby furniture and dim light, and a bookshelf.  A comfortable place. I found a copy of The Stranger on the bookshelf, except it was really The Advocate, and just called The Stranger. The mailing label said 'Detective Bill Collier.' There were  several copies, and I read the other mailing labels--his full name was something like, 'Detective Mulwilliam Ernest Collier.' I can't really remember it that well, but in the dream it was precisely detailed. I wanted to contact this detective, whom I hadn't even met yet, and find a way to stay with him. I was envious. I wanted to be a gay detective in a small Maine town, or to live with him and hear his detective stories. I still remember my feeling from the dream of how lucky this man was, what a cool life he must have, to be himself, to be a detective, and yet still to live here. I had never wanted to leave, so it seemed idyllic. My family had returned. There was someone at the door. A woman. I went to let her in, and she went upstairs, silent, looking at us with pursed lips. She lived upstairs, and we had locked her out.

The landscapes of my dreams are more interesting than those of my life.
 

posted 1.13.2001 @ 11:46am

My upstairs neighbor, whom I shall hereafter call Weedy Prick, was playing his guitar above my bedroom today. I never thought I could come to loathe the sound of an acoustic guitar, but Weedy Prick is such an obnoxious neighbor that I've come to associate the sounds of that melodious and innocuous instrument with spikes of intense hatred. You'd think he was a ten-year-old the way he stomps and squeals around on the floor above me. I have a heartfelt desire for the return of the deaf, ancient crone who once lived upstairs with her cats, which had been allowed to remain on a kind of grandmother clause after the remainder of the building went cat-free. I used to hear their little pony feet galloping above me. The old lady never slept; her TV was on twenty-four hours a day, but that was a reassuring background noise that I could shut out. Weedy Prick has too much verve, and it galls me that when I stay home, he's home too, plucking his guitar with erratic attention, stomping all over his apartment for no reason, occasionally leaping and tumbling--thud, thud, clunk--like a giant frog on the floorboards.

I envision a frog in a blender.
 

posted 1.13.2001 @ 3:49am

January 12, 2001

Today I had coffee with J. (who, a year or so ago, married A., my secret crushboy). J. has long brown hair like waterfalls and wings, and an elegantly sculptured face whose skin adheres a bit too closely to the skull around the eyes, so that now and then as I look at her, I flash back to that acid trip I once had in which I discerned that this guy, a friend of Bob's, was wearing his face over a sheep skull underneath.

I really don't have anything else to write about today.
 

posted 1.12.2001 @ 11:59pm

The problem about writing something every day, is that there's not always something to write. Today, I worked. I went in late--eleven fifteen or so--because I had been up till two finishing The Church of Dead Girls, and stayed late, until I was tired and very hungry. I thought about little except work, and now that I'm home, I'm writing about fucking work. I suppose I will dream about work too. Wage slavery is an ugly institution.

I don't suppose I can call it wage slavery when I have such a flexible schedule, though. Slavery with benefits...? No one snipes at me when I come in an hour later than usual--anywhere between eight and eleven is fine. I know this is rare, and I prize it. It's one of the chief perks about the job, actually, because my sleeping habits and energy levels are so erratic. Despite everything, I'm in no hurry to move on.

Nothing interesting to note, except the couple coming out of P.P. A wizened lady with big ears and a well-coifed cap of black hair, wearing a fairly chic outfit; next to her, a big whalebear of a man, grey and grizzled, in a shirt with thin, horizontal stripes. They seemed very French, but were probably not. Behind them, a second couple, much younger: an ordinary man, and on his arm, a tall, willowy bimbo with a china doll face and busy mouth. Something about these disparate couples, one after the other, struck me as comic.

More. I thought there would be more from life. 
 

posted 1.11.2001 @ 11:08pm

January 10, 2001

As I passed by the Shoe Pavilion, I looked for the mysterious pair of shoes, but there were none today. Often, a pair is sitting on the sidewalk in front of the shop. Very different pairs, used and old. I like to imagine that once a day or so, the shopkeeper leaves a free pair of new shoes out in that spot, and a street person comes along and trades them for his own worn pair. Or maybe--I hadn't thought of this before--people buy shoes, and leave their old pairs behind, and instead of throwing them away, the shopkeeper places them outside. More likely, I suppose.

A sharp smell of curry was in the air as I walked down to the market. I didn't seek out the source; it wasn't quite strong enough to create an irresistible craving, and it seemed too much time and trouble, to hunt for the elusive curry shop, and then possibly discover it to be dirty, or find that the food was not as delicious as the aroma. Starlings were busy up on the electrical lines as I walked through this block-long scent of curry, and wheeling through the air as I passed the disturbing new Canadian Mist billboard ("Grip it. Tip it. Sip it."), which shows a two-liter jug with a convenient handle, apparently designed for those serious lushes who don't want to use a glass or cut their toxins with soda.

On the corner of First Avenue, an angry man was yelling: "Repent, the termites are coming!"
 
The young man--I can't quite say that without feeling self-conscious, but I'm moving toward an age at which I probably can--the young man at the Crumpet Shop earnestly cut a tomato today. He carved the end off, cut one slice and then frowned at it, studying the results. He cut another slice, examined it, then cut one more and was finally satisfied: the perfect section of ripe tomato. The beauty of it was, I hadn't even asked him to be so fastidious. "I'm very picky about my tomatos," he explained, without prompting. "Me too!" I cried, with rather more ethusiasm than the matter warranted. But I had found my tomato soulmate at last. This same guy, virtuous about his tomatos, also learned my name within just three visits; his mother did too. Their shop is the exemplum of a perfectly managed small family business. And they are always so kind; I sometimes itch to ask if they are from Minnesota, or deeply religious. Lunch there is always just right. The soup is amazing: thick with vegetables, a good mix of mashed and pulpy bits of stuff, and eclectic chunks of whatever they feel like tossing in; and they don't seem to salt it. I always feel very healthy after eating it.

Now, of course, it's later in the evening, and I have to fight the urge for unhealthy things. I will be virtuous, even without tomatos, and I will watch West Wing and drink tea.
 

posted 1.10.2001 @ 8:55pm

January 9, 2001

Was thinking today of Seattle culture, and how it has come about that twenty-three year olds with blue spiky hair can be such persuasive and reliable resources for thirty- and fortysomethings. Where was I the other day...passing by some kind of storefront business that I vaguely remember as being techo (cameras? computers?) or financial, and seeing one of these Stuarts giving advice with many hand gestures, at which the matronly fortysomething was nodding. We're getting better, maybe, at looking past style to substance.

Went to the Crumpet Shop but they were on vacation, damn them. So I got an Italian sub instead and ate it at Starbucks with a Passion iced tea, while reading The Church of Dead Girls. While going to find the link just now on Amazon.com, the search results for "church dead girls" also gave me two items precisely aligned with my interests: a very expensive red retro stand mixer, something I have always wanted, and, under ListMania, a list of selections called Most Frightening Serial Killers. Uncanny how well they can pinpoint my consumer desires now. The mixer, in particular, is a rather disturbing match.

Work was work. By four-fifty in the afternoon it was dark, as if it were nine o'clock at night.

I remember the woman walking with a tiny phone in her hand, but she spoke and laughed into the wiry, inserted earpiece, with her hand raised, as if she were talking to herself and self-conscious. I remember that there were four policeman--two pairs on opposite sides of the street--on the block of First Avenue, standing and talking to one another, most likely pretending to be unattentive, while all the time aware of their surroundings. T-shirts could be had two for five dollars, at one of the market shops. A new nail salon had just opened. I thought: there should be small Asian women handing out balloons on the sidewalk, but they had done nothing special to announce their arrival. Kind of sad. I passed by once, heading West, and the shop was empty; but heading back to Sixth Avenue, I saw a few young black guys inside, drug dealers, getting their nails buffed. I probably shouldn't assume they were drug dealers, but that's what I was thinking.

The smell of doughnuts was strong in Pike Place Market, but I didn't buy any. I saw a man who reminded me of Tim Robbins. In Seattle, I am always seeing someone who reminds me strongly of a celebrity. It's strange, that way.

There was a pile of horse droppings, large brown pellets, steaming in the street, from a mounted policeman's horse. (The carriage-ride horses have bags beneath their tails to catch the dung, and I also saw mounted cops later, which supported my deduction.)

Another day I will forget. A series of disassociated moments, strung together by my loose, attenuated consciousness. I can't believe it is only Tuesday.
 

posted 1.09.2001 @ 10:03pm

January 8, 2001

Wait--it isn't the new millenium, is it?

A tedious, forgettable day. I think there should be forty-two words for a workday, just as there are Inuit words for snow, unless that's apocryphal. Today was a dunhda: (n.) "A day in which you are never fully present at work, yet can't work up the energy to imagine yourself elsewhere." It can also be interpreted to mean "a day in which the commonplace tiredness of mundane life permeates the workplace experience." There needs to be a separate word to describe "an awareness of recurring arguments, personality clashes, or interpersonal dynamics."

I wish it had snowed today. I wish there had been big wet flakes, and a dark sky at two in the afternoon, bright lights on in the towers of the city, and a pretzel vendor on the corner--edging out the man who usually stands there and yells unintelligibly about the Seattle police.

Even the chocolate of today was not good chocolate.
 

posted 1.08.2001 @ 11:20pm

January 7, 2001

Not much happened today.

I lay in bed and finished Boy in the Water, narcoleptically. It took most of the day. I'd read a paragraph, my eyelids would flutter shut, I'd fall asleep for ten seconds or ten minutes, and have brief dreams, like disarticulated snatches of poetry, which I'd fail to remember on waking. The book was great; I was just sluggish and unwilling to draw myself from the dreamy ooze in which I bedded.

Tried to watch the new X-Files then gave up and taped it. Realized that the Nikita ep was a new one, and watched that. She got a hair cut, was ineffectually intimidating to an underling, allowed a sympathetic character to be killed, and had her hopes were dashed yet again. Then the status quo was more or less restored.

And that's about it for my day.
 

posted 1.07.2001 @ 10:49pm

January 6, 2001

Read through past issues of the Ansible e-zine today, and realized that some writers have the light, eccentric touch that can make whittling into high drama, whereas I have the uncanny ability to suck  high drama inside out until it becomes as exciting as whittling. Not that I have a lot of high drama in my life, but if I did.

In line today at the supermarket, the fortyish woman ahead of me had a cart full of Lean Cuisine, Rolling Rock, and cleaning products. There was something sad about this at first, but then I noticed that she was also buying a houseplant and toilet paper. I wondered if she'd just gotten divorced and moved into her own apartment. She would be going home to clean the tub and drink Rolling Rock. Later, as the TV murmured to itself in the background, she would eat a Lean Cuisine and read a paperback and feel very satisfied that she'd left Bill.

Sitting on my desk is a copy of Vice, which I first took for a free sex rag, having opened it up to a picture of a woman lifting her skirt in a changing room to show off her ass. As my friend later pointed out, this was just one in a series of shots showing people with drugs taped to their bodies--a combo of smuggling technique and low fashion. The context--lifted skirt, naked ass, no visible drugs--now raised certain questions that I've tried not to spend a lot of time thinking about. I picked up Vice from the shelf at Bimbo's ("Bimbo's Bitchen Burrito Kitchen!") when I stopped in the other night. Now that I visit the website, I see that they're self-described as a magazine about "everything from hip hop and punk to skateboarding and fashion as well as scatology and sexual perversities." Make note that, "By 2010, Vice Industries is expected to take over the world." In this issue--the printed one, anyway--is a picture of "one of the most severely infected vaginas of all time," an image that in no way says to me "vagina." All the more scary for that reason. There are also some shots of Aki and Luanda, a rapper and his girlfriend, taken by Olivia Froudlkine, a very white street urchin whose self-portrait fronts the spread. There's one shot where it seems Aki is staring at her through the camera lens with cynical and stoned distance, maybe even distaste--and, in turn, staring out at me as I stare at him. It's an amazing picture, and the more I look at it the more my impressions change, until Aki appears amused, rather than jaded or frightening.

Yet another weekend, and yet again I am avoiding writing. I'm in some kind of midwinter hiatus. At first I pretended at the start of each weekend that I would sit down and write. Now I'm to the point where I buy booze and rent videos as a matter of course. I haven't reached the point where I can relish my downtime without thinking about writing at all, though--at minimum I always entertain a vague, distracting sense that I should be doing something more productive with my time. That feeling is chronic, actually. I rarely live in the moment. Lately, I also tend to fall asleep and wake up thinking about work, entertaining febrile worries about my new project, my coworkers, the quarter ahead, all of which play through my half-conscious mind as if on broken reels of film. This repulses me deeply, and explains a lot about my current drinking habits. Blot it out--that's my goal. Oblivion and George Clooney and Cadbury bars.

I found a piece of Bubble Yum under my couch today, neatly wrapped. It had to have been there months. I examined it, then chewed it. It turned out to be okay.
 

posted 1.06.2001 @ 10:49pm

January 5, 2001

A comment made in earshot today at work: "I was talking to Bob, who has the power to flip, because he was a fying squirrel." True meaning--to do with warehouses and inventory--entirely dependent on context.

I began the day at G's diner, where I haven't been in a while since that day I returned the blueberry pancakes and the cook commented on this touchily within my hearing. (I think I hurt his feelings, if truth be known. And, okay: blueberry juice is dark and runs, so maybe they weren't burnt. It was still rude of him, the prick. Cooks are always like that, maybe by nature. To be a short-order cook, you must be outspoken and psychotic.) This morning's breakfast was greasy and contributed to my upset stomach, but was nonetheless just what I needed; it carried me through the day, as it turned out. Oddly, at the end of the day, this same pewter-haired cook was in the QFC, and when I ducked out of the express line for an Architectural Digest, he let me back in afterwards. At least I think it was the same fellow. One blandly handsome, pewter-haired dude is much like the next. Kind, whoever he was, and I still awarded him good karma points. Later, I bought a homeless fellow a pack of Tops cigarettes, tossing my own contribution into the well of karma.

Friday, Friday! I went to the movies with B. & S. A lovely, lovely night, and they even visited my apartment afterwards, validating me briefly as a successful hostess. Pure chance that the place was clean (my landlords had been doing maintenance earlier, prompting me to tidy). An evening in which dust bunnies and deities smiled on me. (Why am I so damn perky?)

I sit now in my clean digs, still aware that I have not achieved Apartment Zen. Apartment Zen is an ideal state, perhaps attainable only by transients and the radically impoverished--and prisoners--in which you have no extraneous belongings, no dust whatsoever, no unclean laundry, no paperback that does not contribute to wisdom, and a single pair of earrings that you wear every day. You have no unmatched socks, no old magazines, no receipts, no paper bags that you might use some day and so of course can't quite throw away. Rather, you have a few rooms, with white walls, and a rock on the windowsill, and a shelf of significant texts, and one plate, one fork. A difficult state of affairs to achieve and sustain, because one day you'll be out shopping and you'll buy the pretty blue bowl and the plastic dinosaur and the Ansel Adams poster and the wicker basket. And the downhill slide into acquisition begins.

I am sleepy and restless and drunkish. And the glorious possibilities of the weekend lie ahead.
 

posted 1.05.2001 @ 11:59pm

January 4, 2001
 
A wet day, a good day. I like the rain.

Relatively boring stuff on my mailing lists. A discussion of page count versus word count in calculating story length. Not too sexy.

A dull day. Another fellow talking to himself, viewed from the bus as we passed by. A short day: there is something to be said for getting in a few extra hours at the beginning of the week. Gives you a margin to go home earlier now and then. These were the few extra hours I worked on New Year's. I suppose I should really be working five eight-hour shifts, instead of simply coming in thirty-two hours to flesh out the holiday eight. But my supervisor doesn't seem to mind, and quality of life has more sway with me than money these days, even though I can't pay off my student loans.

A good day. New projects to work on, A.T. being low-key and friendly. She had an acting audition in pajamas. People lead far more diversified lives than I do. Overall, though, I felt productive.

Came home, started in to some steady drinking. Even went out and bought more booze. Cleaned my apartment, because the landlords are coming in tomorrow to do a routine maintenance inspection.

Commercials on TV: an anti-smoking commercial where they squeezed cottage-cheeselike fat out of an aorta, or some such thing. Horrifying. The inane Dairy Queen ("DQ") commercial afterwards, with its inane memic jingle, was a perfect bookend.

Finished David Sedaris' new book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, last night, while in a drunken stupor. Seemed appropriate. Forced myself to finish it, though it was two a.m. when I did. He reaffirms my sense of...inadequacy? Not really sure what I mean. In a way, he reminds me of Bob, a dry, morose gay guy I knew in college. Bob didn't manage to stay afloat in his classes and eventually moved to Seattle for several months--representative of a larger Penn State to Seattle migratory trend occuring around that time--before returning to Pennsylvania. Even in the early nineties, he couldn't afford Seattle rents. In retrospect, I think his fascination with the city probably influenced my own choice to come here. I once thought I saw Bob at Bauhaus; I wouldn't have been surprised to learn he'd moved back. I was afraid to confirm his identity, though. I'm usually ready to let auld acquaintance be forgot.

I'm not sure I'd want to know David Sedaris socially, but his writing carves out more territory for eccentrics. I'm glad he's successful; even though his personality and background aren't really mine, I feel a kinship. Kinship is a good feeling for an aspiring writer to have.
 

posted 1.04.2001 @ 11:07pm

January 3, 2001

When I left the house this morning, there was a woman passing by from the Ministry of Silly Walks. She would strut and gobble something unintelligible for a bit, then cry out to the nothingness, "You got killed? For that?" after which she would break into a wild flapping lope for several yards. Then back to her strut. She wore no shoes, only white socks and capri pants (er, and a shirt, yes), and reminded me of the poorer of the poor black girls from Job Corps, the ones who had just a handful of clothes and the bitter demeanor of tired, thirty-five year old mothers, even though most of them were no older than seventeen.
 
Soon after, a man said to me at the bus stop: "You're standing on your strap." I looked down and saw that one strap of my bookbag was under my shoe. I made a neutral face of acknowledgment and looked away. "It spreads germs," he confided. I didn't reply. "Well, if you want to be sloppy," he said dismissively, "go ahead and be sloppy, is all I have to say." Then, after a long, silent minute of introspection: "Peeing on the street spreads germs too. So I guess I can't be self-righteous."

I had the scariest chickenlike substance today for lunch, in one of those tiny urban Chinese fast-food restaurants. It was as if myriad clumps of phlegm had been coated with rubber cement and stitched together here and there with dental floss. As usual when such a thing happens, I ended up picking out the onions and eating them with rice. Ate with M., from work. I wanted to bond, and am not sure I impressed her with any show of intelligence and wit. Of the employees in the company, and in my department, she is among a small, residual group who've been with us the longest; she missed being an IPO millionaire by perhaps a month or so. Stock is down, down, down right now. I am probably under water. Will I ever retire on a cushion of wealth? Ha.

Only a half-shift on Monday, and yet it feels as if tomorrow should be Friday. The week is falling off a cliff in slo-mo. The Onion will not be updated until the 17th. How will I stay amused?

After work, as a desire for distraction crystallized, I went up to Broadway to buy liquor and books and food. The food was almost an afterthought. Now that I have it, I find I have no desire to cook or even to make a sandwich. That's really sad. I must force myself to eat though, or I will be repulsively drunk in short order.

Have been craving Tom's barbeque potato chips. Shockingly, I don't see them on their product list. Oh, Tom! Have you stopped making those thick, perfect chips? (Apostrophe to potato chips. I have reached a new low.) I should call and find out. They sold these in Virginia, but the franchise does not seem to have reached Seattle. Lay's barbeque chips are no substitute. They suck now, actually, because of that bitterish, black-speckled sauce they switched to, which makes me crave Tom's even more.

A craving for barbeque chips that you can only get three thousand miles away can really throw your life out of whack.
 

posted 1.03.2001 @ 8:47pm

January 2, 2001

Today was a work day. Back to work, planning out the next week, the next month, the next quarter.  I will be given five paid personal days this year. Two weeks of paid vacation will accrue as the year passes. By the end of the year, I will be lucky to make another dollar per hour, assuming I keep my current position. As of last October 31, I am entering my third year at the company. Three more years to vest if I stay that long, and who knows what the stock will be worth then, whether it will be something I've always dreamed of, or a mere sneeze.

My colleague A.T. was a royal bitch today, working my last nerve. I make every effort to be an accomodating, easy-going person, and to stay calm, while she makes every effort to escalate our differences, along with taking out her crankiness and stress on me. Working with her is the only downside to my current position, aside from a general disappointment with departmental trends--the cubicle cynicism that breeds like fungus, gets into your lungs like spores until you breathe a thick, heavy disappointment. After every confrontation with A.--most of which are pretty one-sided--I feel my blood pressure rising, an impacted rage to lash out, that I thwart. I'm a good little thwarter, but some nights I end up brooding and replaying these scenes, thinking of everything I would say to her if I allowed myself. I've gotten better at letting things go, but I'm not one of those people who can will themselves sunny weather. Meaning to say, I don't have a naturally blithe disposition when it comes to taking shit.

Finished The Deep End of the Ocean just now. Compelling. Much better than I expected. I bought it on whim recently, years after its Orpah-driven heyday. I just found an Anne Tyler in my stacks too, unread, another literary acquisition I shelved immediately after purchase because it seemed too much of an effort to read artfully arranged words. I'm mostly a genre reader these days, mysteries and erotica. Blood and sex.

I'd like to take this moment to ponder: why can't I organize and pay my bills as they arrive? Why can't I answer my e-mail as it arrives in my inbox? Why am I so dilatory about those two things, paperwork and human communication? I leave letters unopened, unanswered, and wonder if this avoidance is because of a fear so deep and vast I can't make it bring it into scale, or if it's just a growing aloofness of spirit. A cramped withdrawal. In other ways I'm perfectly normal--I like getting together with friends. I could imagine myself in a house with many doors and windows, but I board them all up, except a few--the windows in my one chosen room, and one door to the outside world. I like safe, well-trodden paths.

Or maybe I'm just lazy, and abhor paperwork, and can manage only a small, finite number of acquaintances before they begin to spill off the sides. My social life is an egg container, maybe. Only so many slots, only so many eggs.

I sometimes think I can come up with any number of metaphors for an idea, whatever serves, whatever's at hand, no matter how ordinary or small the device.

I should dig out my poetry. I've been thinking this from time to time in the last few weeks, and even further back, in sporadic impulses. Erotica--slash--seems like junk food at times, no matter how fine it tastes. Sugar. Butter. I still want to write something more, something more difficult, with a sharper taste. I want to acquire a new taste in writing, as I write.

I'd like to have a life, too. I think about it the way I think about winning a million dollars in the lottery: someday I may come into a life. An actual life, a real life, a life of heft and value. I realize it's really found by making efforts, risks, choices. I haven't figured out why the efforts, risks, and choices I have made don't add up to a life, though. Not the right ones? Not enough? What would I choose to do if I were a slim, restless eighteen again?

I probably wouldn't have driven into that guy's car, among other things.
 

posted 1.02.2001 @ 11:17pm

January 1, 2001

What was I doing as the new millenium started? I was about halfway through watching Cider House Rules, one of three rentals that filled the hours when I could have been celebrating or writing. I did have a bit to drink, but restrained myself from a desire not to be ill. Tomorrow I must go in and work at least half a shift, a nod to company convention that requires we work one of three holidays--either Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year's. I'll work about four hours, hopefully in a colleague-free environment, then come home and waste some more time.

Was reading the diary entries of interesting people earlier today--yesterday--which thematically follows up my earlier thoughts about the barren nature of my existence. And something about putting my thoughts down like this makes me feel a perverse need to assert a claim of dullness, so that whoever reads this doesn't think I'm trying to be too clever. A chorus of Lake Wobegon walk-ons are braying in the background: no need to worry about that, sweetheart.

I remember a time when I was less dull. It's encapsulated for me by a car ride I took. I was a passenger, my mother was driving, U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was playing on the radio. I recall even the intersection, just near the border of Norfolk and Virigina Beach, Virginia, that we'd passed through moments before. I was maybe thirteen and I was staring out the window and thinking how jaded I'd become, how useless my thoughts were, how dead I was, bereft of all feeling. I was right, but at least I was still thinking that, and bitter about it. I had bitterness. Now I just have a mild, pleasant feeling of fruitlessness and ennui.

Dated by the actual release of U2's album, I was eighteen. I don't see how that can be, though. But maybe I'm misremembering. Maybe at one point I passed through that intersection and had a bicarbonated effervesence of thought, and years later recollected that moment of the past.

I've been having thoughts lately about Norfolk. When I was there, I had no job prospects. The city was a dull place, and the upscale, artsy neighborhood I lived in was stuffed to the gills. Too many people trying to squeeze pleasure out of a single strip of yuppified bars and boutiques, all buying their groceries in the same supermarket; salmon, wine, baguettes. A lot of young medical folk lived in that area, interns at the hospital down the street, psychologists in training. And yet there's something about the neighborhood bordering on the Hague and the Chrysler museum, an address I never attained: it's like a downsized version of New York's East Side, with brownstones of a sort, and whispering trees and a sense of quiet, moderate wealth. Such a tiny area, surrounded by drabness, and yet I still think about living there.

If I moved back, I'd have no friends, I'd make no friends. I'd work somewhere unsatisfying, and the city would be worse than I remembered, the traffic more banal. I'd live near my relatives and the old dispiriting ties would reknit themselves. That wouldn't do.

I still dream that I will be slim and interesting someday in Seattle. Slim and wealthy and loved. I will have a co-op apartment with hardwood floors, overlooking the bay, and a ficus. And a cat that eats the ficus. I'll drive a Saturn, a Volvo, or a Volkswagen. I'll be a yuppie on the surface, but will start living my wild life, taking inventive lovers, learning to cook. I've deferred the idea of suicide to a later date. I used to feel sure I'd shoot myself at forty, an age I deliberately chose because it seemed so distant and bleak, like the surface of the moon--the dark side--and it relieved me, having a plan to determine when my life ended, a specific time, so that I didn't slide accidentally downhill into the mess of illness and dementia. Now forty is closer. I could tentatively pencil in sixty instead. Maybe by then I'll have regained my bitterness. But if I have, will it be a new incentive to stick around longer?
 

posted 1.01.2001 @ 1:29am

December 31, 2000

Finished Thomas Cook's Places in the Dark last night. Am still stricken by the paragraph that sums me up:

As for Dora herself, she spoke almost exclusively about books, presenting fictional characters, even the most minor ones, as if they were real, the shopkeepers and seamstresses in Balzac, the milling throng in Dickens. But of the caravan of actual individuals anyone of her age should have encountered in real life by then, she had almost nothing to say.

posted 12.31.2000 @ 12:34pm

December 30, 2000

Have been thinking about putting some of my thoughts down. Mental scribbles. Decided that starting with the new year would be nicely synchronized, but then felt motivated to start two days earlier. I can't ignore motivation. It so rarely tells me to do anything. When it commands, it does so in a tired, lazy murmur from the depths of its bed and doesn't really expect me to obey. Then it rolls over and goes back to sleep.

Had one of just two or three perfect movie experiences last night. Saw O Brother, Where Art Thou? in Seattle's Egyptian theater, a beautiful retro palace with fantastic service, low concession prices, popcorn with real butter. When I reached the line, the manager was walking up and down outside in the cold with us, telling us, "Tickets are seven seventy-five, plenty of seats left, let me know if you have any questions." The concession line moved lickety-split. Four or five people were up at the counter, each with a different job--coffee, cash, popcorn, cold drinks--moving together as a well-oiled machine. They had the look of volunteers, or slightly neurotic party hosts determined to get everything right. I managed to get both popcorn and a drink for less than the price of the ticket, the first time that's happened since I don't know when.

On the way inside, I stopped in the bathroom. A girl was lying on the floor with a concerned group around; she had bad stomach cramps and low blood sugar, which she explained in a reassuring tone to the strangers gathered over her. As I left, the medics had come and were kneeling in a civilized way to help her. What kind of people choose medicine as a career? I'm still dubious about them. I reached the theater proper and found that a bluegrass band, Rainy Pass, was up on the stage playing. I managed to hear only their last song, but they kicked ass. After they dismantled their equipment, we saw previews, including one for Pearl Harbor. One guy across the theater woo-hooed afterwards, the ubiquitous woo-hoo guy; another guy near me yelled back, "Propaganda!" Woo-hoo, too true.

Joel and Ethan Coen are strange and fantastic gods, and by the time their stunning movie was over, I'd already sworn to buy the soundtrack immediately. Am listening to it now. Hearing the Soggy Bottom Boys perform "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" is now one of my peak musical experiences. Many of the other tracks are nearly as sublime.

At the end of the movie, everyone in the theater applauded. Bring back that old-time moviegoing experience. Commercial free.

posted 12.30.2000 @ 6:38pm
 

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