Thursday, August 31, 2006

Thank God for Gibby

Gibby Haynes says he has an organic brain malfunction that makes it impossible for him to stop talking at times. i'd say it's obvious he is supremely gifted. on the last butthole surfers album they released (Weird Revolution), in like 2001 (??), he finally wrote a sermon i guess he felt like making into a song.

here's my personal twisted preacher and his best sermon:

On behalf of Doctor Timothy Leary, in association with the legions of illuminated social rejects, and as an influential administrator and creator of musical chaos in these so called United States, I stand as a messenger of strangeness this evening, in order to impress upon or at least to instruct the honorable musicians as to the methods and the motives of a truly bizarre reality...the Weird Revolution.

Thomas Jefferson, co-founder and president of this morally corrupt nation, said "If God is truly just, I tremble for the fate of my country." Secondly there are some dynamics at play which I must familiarize you with.

The so called weirdos in this country stand as completely freaked out by the normal man as the normal man is completely freaked out by the weird masses reaction to him.

Which came first you may ask, chicken or egg you may ask, well, the chicken of course and it's time to break this weird-ass chain.

The weird masses don't want to be normalized. Weirdos want be abnormal. The Freaks can't be formally normalized nor can we be normally formalized. What we want is complete weirdification.

Basically we don't want weirdness from the normal man. We don't want to be freaked out by the normal man. We want to out freak the normal man.

The normal man entices and prostitutes and performs surgery on our weird women. Yes, even your brother could be a victim of his plastic fantasies. And if you weird out his daughter he'll blast your ass.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Are you freaking with me? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. So you can pluck out his feathers and smile because you are defending our weird women from the freaky-ass thoughts of the bug-eyed, bowlegged normal man.

Double-ow



i had braces for 4 years. that wasn't what sucked the most. what sucked the most was having huge, pus and blood-filled cysts on my face, and having an orthodontist who did not take notice of this while smashing his hands into my face to string rubber bands up, or do other adjustments. the pain brought instant tears to my eyes and white-hot lightning shots of excruciation across my face and deep into my epidermis.

kind of like having a job you don't like. it's bad enough having to waste your life doing something distasteful, then your coworkers come along and smash their hands into your pus-filled cysts.

Mom flowers



today is my mom's birthday. happy birthday to my mom.

a cool thing to do: send your mom flowers on YOUR birthday.

the picture says it all

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Ever Guzzled Come Horse What



i just discovered what Greeking is and found the website, Duck Island. On duck island you can pick up some hillbilly or some matrix greeking, if you're more of a modernist.

i'd like to use this hillbilly greeking for the (big huge corporate computer company) tradeshow panel i'm making, but i might make an executive smile and, well, that certainly isn't allowed. graphic designer smiling is allowed, however.

>>>>>

Farm greasy mud highway farm yeehaw hospitality liar wrestlin'. Spell, shed fit shack pickled, caboose, jehosephat drunk quarrel a if. Everlastin' fer throwed catfight fetched, afford outhouse go range. Woman caught ever woman, hoosegow, jail. Fire co-op eatin' last huntin' cain't.

Fiddle grandpa kickin', rat no no dogs wagon it uncle buckshot snakeoil. Quarrel feathered rattler java bull, simple, had hardware them tools.

Rockinchair rightly inbred saw mush driveway, buckshot wirey shotgun, soap. Jehosephat sittin' spittin' road afford ever guzzled come horse what.

Excited

WOW! i'm so, um...excited about a sex column starting at the Chronicle. Violet Blue sounds super COOL and her blog is loaded, i mean loaded with good info.

finally something not depressing to read in the paper!

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Sudden Fear

i just got a new fear. it just swooped in.

what if, suddenly, one day, i found i had forgotten how to type? what if i started to type and could remember nothing?!

Doobie Doobie Dubai, Dude!



the Emirate of Dubai becomes more and more intriguing to me the more i see of it. images of the unique city-state, so rich and imaginative by the looks of the architecture, not to mention, THE WORLD, or THE HYDROPOLIS, cross my path regularly. this is what happens when other countries besides us, get really really rich.








The Bio-dad Experience



(Conversation today with my friend who lives in Rhode Island.)

me: guy and i are thinking of going to new orleans and surrounding areas to party and see my bio-dad at christmas and new year's.

RI friend: is guy ready for the (Bio-dad) Experience?

me: he's seen the video. BIO-DAD, THE MOVIE.

RI friend: Bio-dad in real life is way more exciting than he could ever be on TV! He is a hoot. You are oddly lucky to have him.

me: i hope bio-dad doesn't scare him. i hope he doesn't think to himself, 'so that's where she's headed.'

RI friend: you are safe when it comes to guy seeing bio-dad and thinking that is where you are headed. He's met your mother and you aren't headed to being her either!

(me: phew. and that's what you call dodging two bullets with one stone.)

Monday, August 28, 2006

You Won't Remember This in Five Years

...is almost always true, in respect to stressful work situations.

on the other hand, where were you five years ago?

i was unemployed. so i was stressed, but not as stressed as i was when i was working. i was living off of credit cards and unemployment. i was developing my art in a way i never had before, i was finessing a totally new style that, ultimately, helped me get work in the future and helped me with my flagging self-esteem. i was thinner than i'd ever been due to healthy eating. i learned how to cook and how to garden. i built a beautiful garden. i slept 8 hours a night. i was very healthy.

it was also the year 9/11 happened. i saw PJ Harvey at the warfield a week after that and cried the entire performance, which just happened to be about new york.

i remember all this because it wasn't silly work stress. it was real life.

Sacred, Scared and Scattered: Thoughts about Courtney Love



Scared
Courtney Love...why do i bother? it's a trainwreck fascination. simple, but when i first heard Live Through This, i was completely blown away by the energy behind the vocals and fell in love with it immediately. i saw HOLE at the Fillmore in November of 1994. she was "still" f-ed up completely by her husband's suicide and the performance was beyond dramatic. she yelled, screamed, cried, fell down, talked about rock stars' penises and told the audience that no one could fuck her "like he did." but she rocked. she rocked really really hard. and that is what mattered, that is what always matters.

(i snuck in to that show and subsequently gained a music editor job, but that's another story.)

Scattered
after two really sucky albums, except for the song, Malibu, i am still interested in her. she is aggressive and rambunctious and not afraid of being whatever or however she wants. i like her inability AND lack of desire to self-edit. i am certain that i would not like her if i knew her, but that's not really the point is it? the number one way to make me not like someone is for them to talk about how smart they are, which is something she does continually and yet i forgive her for some reason.

courtney is fun to read, and while this is pretty much evidenced ONLY in her personally written chapter of the book, GRRRLS: Viva Rock Divas, she gave me actual new thoughts on being a muse and having a muse and energies exchanged in these ways. i was kind of shocked that i got so much from reading her.

(ps. the kristin hersh chapter? WHOA. check THAT out. that's real madness.)
Sacred
i mention all this because Courtney has condensed some poetry, some drawings and some diary entries into a book, coming out this fall. sound familiar? i cannot forgive her for publishing kurt's diaries for $4 million dollars. "The man whose world has been sold" was the best headline i read about the debacle...but i will read her book. oh yes, i will.

Friday, August 25, 2006

AHHH!! They BURN!!! They BURN!!! I can't get them OFF!! HELP! IT HURTS!!!

Flickr: The new newsletter?



is flickr the new newsletter? the generic update that is not specifically for anyone, just everyone you know? is it annoying that way? newsletters have their place, i'm always happy to hear what people are up to, but there is that moment at the end, when i'm left with the feeling that i'm just one of many, that i don't have that "special" relationship with my friend anymore, that their scope has just grown so big that i have shrunken in importance.

does flickr do this too?

guy and i are flickr maniacs. we love photography and we do a lot of stuff, but is it annoying to friends of mine who i used to be closer to, to people who are still dear to me and who i want to share with, but maybe i don't have as many personal conversations with anymore. they don't hear from me for a while, and then they get this massive email sent to a hundred people with a link pointing to photographs showing what a great time i'm having?

should i pull in the reins on flickr? or keep flicking away? does everyone really wanna know everything?

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Can someone tell me where this is?



i wanna go there.



(fantastic photo by daryl benson. found on getty.)

Cauterize Me



when i was a kid i got a lot of bloody noses. i would get them sometimes from walking out of an air-conditioned building into summer heat. if i happened to blow too hard, or pick a little too high, blood would flow freely, thick and stinky. at about the age of 10, i started feeling self-mutilatory and blood was a handy little tool i used to terrify my mother. i would go into the bathroom when i was mad and give myself a bloody with the simple flick of a fingernail and then scatter the results about the yellow speckled bathroom tile.

anyway, that backfired. mommy took me in for a cauterizing.

we went to the family doctor for the procedure in my small northern california farming town. he strapped me into what looked like an electric chair without arms, and with an exceedingly tall back. there were straps. and i was strapped in.

the cauterizing iron burned hot on it's tiny tip. the tiny tip was shoved into my nose, which led to a quick understanding as to why the chair back was so high: at the first touch of the fire tip, my body involuntarily moved the only way it could, UP. i have no idea how this was physically possible, and at the time i remember feeling confused as to how i did it. when the procedure was over, i had moved at least three feet up to meet the top of the back of the chair, my butt no longer seated, my body still strapped in.

after that my bloody noses stopped and i found other ways to passive agressively retaliate against my mom.

this was 1980. seems pretty barbaric, does it not?

sounds pretty mental, i can admit.

"It was bright enough in there to choke a farm animal."

phrase overheard at the office this thursday morning to describe a tradeshow.

worshipping at the altar of HCL



i've been wanting to talk about HCL for quite some time. i want to spread this little philosophy i first heard kd lang coin. this philosophy is called HCL - High Constrast Living. it can open your eyes to acceptance on a higher plane, to an overall vision of interstellar tolerance. HCL is about experiencing the full spectrum of life and all that it offers. HCL is about reading Bizarre magazine AND InStyle. it's about eating vitamins AND drugs. it's about being a dancing fool AND a manic list-maker.

i'm pretty sure kd lang is the first person to give this philosophy a proper name and i want to direct you to her. she is a wise woman. she will open your eyes to the importance of HCL living.

check it out, yo.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

"Taking the Cat for a Walk"



"Taking the Cat for a Walk" means kicking the caterpillar motors of a speed boat/yacht (?) into high gear and raging exponentially through the water. Monday night i happened to be on a boat which had some cats taken for a walk.

it was a magnificant boat measuring 41.2' or "39' if you're dockin, 42' if you're braggin'!" after cleaning the already gorgeous vessel, loading up the stereo with some Brooks and Dunn (guy's cousin: do you like 'em? Me: i'd like anything right now!) and feeding coronas and michelob light to the cooler, we puttied right out of a lovely, little quaint inlet and jetted into Chesapeake Bay. That's right. Chesapeake Bay, not a place i ever thought i'd be spending time.

and there i was.



the sun was going down and i shot pictures, 121 total. the cousins situated the boat in many different positions just for me to get the sunset, buoys, lighthouses and my portrait all lined up in the just the right places.


("I'm flying Jack!")

then we took off for the harbor. cruising underneath the Francis Scott Key Bridge aka "The Key", we shortly came to guy's cousin's favorite place in the world, the very spot in the Chesapeake where Francis Scott Key wrote "Star Spangled Banner." there's a buoy there painted like a flag, just bob bob bobbing.



i got shivers standing there, on the back little deck, off the side of the boat, water licking my feet, smoking and watching the buoy, thinking about history, feeling that feeling that you get sometimes when you hear that song. no matter how much you hate politics, it is undeniably inspiring. i was simply out of my head at that moment. time travel is possible way deep in one's head if you let it be. there are traces of the past that are accessible if you let the air in, if you let your mind open, if you absorb that layer of reality just beyond ours. and i was feeling it.

after a few pictures there, we climbed back onboard and wailed into the last of the sunset towards the inner innards of Baltimore Harbor.



and got burgers at hooters, where the girls were so scary looking, i thought i might embarrass them by taking their pictures. so i shot the souvenir shelf.



we ate our burgers on the boat, docked right in the harbor, right next to an excitable mall filled with shoppers and diners and cruisers and losers. they walked past us and gave us a sign. sometimes a nod, sometimes a stop-n-stare. i felt like one of those lucky lucky lucky people you see sitting in fabulous boats, eating burgers, drinking beers, people who you can't imagine where they came from or how they could be so lucky.



this time it was me. and it was thrilling.

tie up, tie off, pull it in, jack it up and off we went.

the burgers were gone and it was getting late. we had been cruising for 4.5 hours and there were cigarettes we needed to get to an angry wife at home, who'd had a treacherous day.

it is difficult to describe an experience of such wormhole, upper level, super-conscious, scorchingly alive fun...these men-cousins that i've only met a couple times, i found myself hugging and kissing spontaneously out of over-the-top gratitude and pure hysterical joy.

i can still feel the water.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Experimental Jet Set

today i was in three states, all before 11am.

maryland
georgia
california

guess which one was last? california. that's right. i'm back.
dang.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Dolphin on the inside



guy and i just saw dolphins in the ocean.
they are such special, wonderful, pure, good creatures.

i feel privileged. i almost want to cry.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Eastern Standard Time

tomorrow i put my feet into the atlantic ocean for the first time. i'll be wearing a bathing suit and i'll be swimming in the ocean, also a first. nah, that's not true. i did wear a bathing suit into the pacific when i was young, but because i was young, i had not yet fried my body's natural ability to dispel pain on it's own.

guy and i are in ocean city, maryland. we are drinking vodkas and laughing uproariously with his sister and his sister's boyfriend. guy has childhood memories here. strong smell memories, strong visual memories, all of them very good. i have gulf coast memories. strong smell gulf coast memories (me, bi-coastal as child, yes) that are almost identical to atlantic ocean memories. salt, humidity and many many good times. guy and i close our eyes and we look the same as these memories flood our heads. we open our eyes and we smile.

except that one time when guy was about to sneeze, but i thought he was having a memory.

we must dress now for more seafood, of which neither of us can have enough.

then more vodkas. because that rules.

xo from the east.


ps. i didn't die!! yay! i still might on monday morning when i return. stay posted.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

if i die tonight



everytime before i fly, i seriously consider that i might die. i don't think this when i walk out the door in the morning, or when i cross the street (that's when i think about how i might become paralyzed), or when i'm in a car flying down a freeway at 80 mph. BUT i think about it everytime before i fly. i said goodbye permanently to my cat this morning. i have made arrangements for my friend (J) to take him if i die. (J) loves the little bastard that is Syd and can communicate well with him. my sweetheart said he would take him, but guy really really doesn't like him because Syd is a bastard and guy is not even a cat person. guy runs around yelling "hi cat!" and making a horrible cat-dying meow sound in an excruciatingly loud voice that neither Syd nor i like very much.

as i left the house, i looked at my plants and wondered if guy would move out of the house if i died because, well, with this beautiful garden everywhere, and things that i have touched at every turn, it just might be too much for him. and he would have to leave. in fact, maybe he would have to move back to the east coast so his mom could help him get over the certain insanity that would befall him due to overwhelming grief. the house would go to someone else, they wouldn't care about gardens and it would die, Syd would move downtown into a studio with an artist possessing a cat temperament much like my own, guy would grieve with big red eyes and feelings of deadness and then move on, slowly. he might have girls over to his square apartment in the maryland sticks, and he might sleep with them, but it would hurt, because they wouldn't be me.

if i die tonight.

i have given guy my passwords to everything. if i die tonight he can log on to the jones and tell everyone that i'm dead. he will write a note that explains in very few words how powerfully he loved me.

and that would be it.

as the plane is going down over the midwest, i will awake from my drug and alcohol-induced sleep just long enough to tell guy over and over in my head how much i love him, tell my mom how much i love her and apologize to Syd for abandoning him.

otherwise, C.U.N.T!!!

"monstrous cries in the night"



this story, which i found on BoingBoing, makes me incredibly sad. profoundly sad.

"horrible, monstrous cries heard in the night"
"hybrid mutant"
"mystery beast killed by car"

i guess it's one of the loneliest things i've ever heard of.

C.U.N.T.

for real! i'm returning next tuesday. i couldn't let the opportunity to use C.U.N.T. slip by.

cheers, my honeys.

I'm off to Baltimore, baby! Or should I say "Hon"?!



this is what i expect tonight when i arrive at the oakland airport for my trip to baltimore, taneytown and ocean city, maryland.

i expect there to be long lines at the airport for security, but i expect they will go very quickly and there won't be a lot of children running around, screaming. i expect to be comfortable in my lightweight sweater over a tshirt and lightweight cargo pants. when i get to the security gate, i expect to take of my shoes and walk through without incident. that means no asshole security people making fun of the instinct i have to hold my hands up like i'm being arrested, as i walk through. i expect to find a bar right across from my gate where i will buy a bloody mary for no more than $6.50. i will drink three bloody marys, and eat a tranquilizer pill my doctor gave me because i go insane with anger and rage at airports without them. i expect to get on the plane and see only tall people in the emergency aisle, the way it should be. i won't see any short people sitting there like fat pig gluttons who think they deserve the space that those who are six feet tall and over deserve. i expect when i get to my seat that, although the plane is full, two people in my row who are travelling together won't show up, and i will be able to sleep lying down the way the human body was meant to sleep. this means that when i arrive in baltimore i will not have a stiff neck. i WILL have stinky breath, but i will have easily found some altoids to deposit onto my tongue, so that i may kiss guy with fearless gusto upon arrival.

this is what will happen. i can feel it.

hurray!

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Space is the place



fuckin' SPACE is so cool. i'm upset i sold my copy of Contact on DVD. just watching the beginning of it, before the credits, when the camera pans out from actress jenna malone's eye showing in incremental amounts the size of space all around us, eventually ending up so far out, out out out out out there is no name for it...

...just watching the beginning of that movie gives one a major perspective adjustment.

Not a Housewife



this is a note to guy, my love who is a FREAK about cleanliness in the same way that i am a slob:

guy, the house is a wreck. i haven't done the dishes since you left. i sort of made the bed though. syd threw up on the blanket on the sofa. i didn't take it off the sofa, i just folded it over. my clothes are even more everywhere than usual. i smoked in the living room, but i left the front door open.

syd and i are having a ball being really gross.

there has been no toilet paper in the house since you left. i've been using the unbleached cone-shaped coffee filters for asswipe much to my own detriment and detriment to the toilet which got clogged this morning. don't worry, i plunged it before any nasty toilet water got on the floor. no germs there!

don't worry though, i'll fix it all before you get back.
xoxo

Bullshit Artist



last night i interviewed with the rich lady who wants to pay me to put her photo albums together. she lives in a gigantic, richly appointed apartment right on the bay in the marina. she can't be older than mid-30s, married and is just barely pregnant. mine and guy's living room/dining room combo could have fit in the entry way of her place while the whole apartment was easily bigger than the house my family of five grew up in. i recognized her diamond wedding ring to be a tiffany ring and easily worth $20,000.

when we discussed price, she got a little upset, "it would cost thousands to put all my albums together at that price!" which is fine with me, i don't want the job for less than i said, it just wouldn't be worth it to me. while we were discussing this, and how photography has gone so digital and no one looks at albums anymore, i suddenly found myself expressing a view i've never even thought of before that couldn't have been more perfectly suited as a selling point. i told her that in the future, it will only be the upper class, those with the wherewithal, the physical space, the money and the impetus, that will have photo albums. that, in effect, photo albums will be seen as a luxury, something almost decadent. she was very impressed with this idea and while she acknowledged the thought with a stunned, "wow. i never thought of that." i was secretly laughing inside thinking, where the HELL did that come from?!

it's such good bullshit, i almost believe it myself.

it makes sense that i could come up with a selling point like that on the spot, i mean, my bio-dad was a power-seller on the used car lot for years.

Bibliotheca

is one of my favorite spanish words along with SIMPATICO and CHOCOLATE. but anyway, here are some pictures of cool-looking libraries. why not?

this is at yale, built in 1963:



uc san diego library (later named the Geisel library after Theodor Geisel, built in "the late 60s" (of course):

Monday, August 14, 2006

It's...!!


Woody Allen, folks! that's right. for those of you who thought it might be elvis costello (guy)...You Were Wrong!

Merlin's 5ives

love this guy. he puts up new 5ives every now and then, far less often than i check.
today's check: very satisfying.

Five markings I think I’d enjoy having on my grave

1. Often Punctual
2. Half-Assing’s King
3. So Hated Meetings
4. Largely Tolerated by Friends
5. Eventually Less Annoying Than in High School

Facial



i'm making this as a Thank You gift for guy's cousin, who i will be partying with in a week. his cousin and his cousin's wife are graciously putting me up for a few days and most likely pouring me a steady stream of ketel one.

they're good people.

and they love...(who is this? huh? not so hard. come on.)

Friday Nite Brite Lite



friday night i ran off the property where i work, grabbed an oly with a coworker, drank it in ten minutes, jumped on a bus, ran into the house and laid down for a second. i was very very tired. the seminar the day before had lowered my human reserves. i was almost an insect.

at 6:35 guy arrived home loud and hard and screamed (yes, screamed. we do this a lot now that we have no upstairs neighbors to bother) "what the FUCK!" i was almost asleep and unable to tell if he was really upset or not. i lifted my head immediately, WHAT? WHAT? What are doing in bed?! he asked/yelled at me, laughing, using his new forceful voice, GET OUT OF THAT BED. what are you doing in that bed!? he tries to sound mean and abusive as a joke. we picked this up from friends of ours. it's hilarious. but there is much to do. we have to pack the car and head to (small northern california farming town) where my sister is getting married. after that, guy flies to baltimore for a week.

ok, ok, i tell him. i'm just really really tired.** i'm really really tired. i say this almost everyday now, i'm really really tired...but his energy is filling the house. there is excitement in every room, we are about to tear out of town and many things, many daily lists and check-offs and double-checks, have built up to this moment that is about to happen.

i get up, get some shit together, we laugh and yell at each other because we can and finally jump in the car and head downtown. we have to go buy a brand new 17" Apple MacBook pro for him to take to the east coast next week while he visits family. WE HAVE TO. ha. well, we do have to, or rather he has to, but it's also fun. what a beautiful and amazing machine the macbook pro is. the fact that he has to work on his vacation is practically invisible next to the glare of this intelligent and gorgeous tool.

after takeoff, there is still much going on, we are procuring cigarettes and coffee and i'm packing a bowl as guy speeds through the tenderloin and into a space underneath union square.

while waiting for the purchased macbook to make it's appearance, guy and i stand outside the store. we are right on market street at the virgin megastore. we are smack dab in the middle of SF nightlife. lights, action, people, horns, it's pretty exciting actually. i still totally love this part of living in a city. i love things moving fast, i love moving fast, i love that guy moves fast. we get a lot done and in unison. he says to me, WE are a well-oiled machine. it's true. we function well together, we are instinctive in the same ways.

so it's the city, and us and the lights. and it's late. and we're leaving town and it's one of those moments when i'm totally and completely happy. i don't hate work at this moment, or miss my grandparents, or feel confused about my family.


it's just us and we're very very alive.



** (when i say "really really" like this, i'm hearing Derek Zoolander in my head, "life is hard when you're really really good looking").

I'm getting paid to assemble a photo album

it's amazing what rich people will pay others to do.
i will make her look good and she won't have to do the work.
a photo album.

insane.

the HP Laserjet 9500 in 43 pieces

i drew this...



for reasons not worth going in to.

I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth...

i had a cut and polished ham bone instead.



my grandfather, a lapidarist among many things, made this for me as an infant. apparently i knawed on it quite a bit until my teeth were fully in. my mom presented it to me this weekend after my little sister got married. i held it tightly in my hand...feeling for the invisible...for time passed, for love infused, and i put my cheek to my mom's cheek and held it there, speechless.

she said, "i know, baby. i know."

i miss my grandfather very much. i haven't seen him since 2000, when he...went...elsewhere.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Sex Offenders in Gaytown

i was walking to get my usual coffee this morning from the Honey/Sweetie Crew at Starbucks when a drunk guy and his friend, sitting on a stoop said to me, "hey can i ask you a question?" i usually ignore these situations/requests automatically. no thinking about it, just ignore, but something in his voice made me stop and look at his red, worn-out, used-up alcoholic face. his friend kept his head down and didn't look at me.

i stared at him and waited.

"hey, this question...is a little absurd..."

i stare and realize i have stopped and am now engaging in some kind of exchange with someone who is most likely insane and may not make sense.

"can you tell me what's under that skirt?"

my response was immediate, with no change of expression whatsoever. i just answered the question swiftly and suredly, "uh, two gorgeous legs." i said, and flashed him two fingers. i saw surprise on his face, then turned away and continued towards my iced venti mocha. the lilt in my voice indicated no offense, which was certianly his goal. the lilt in my voice just said, "duh, don't all people?" i was proud of myself for this. don't let the fuckers get you down, ya know?

there are sexual predators everywhere. even in the castro.

A proper Thank You



one of my coworkers in the printing department is blasting the Butthole Surfers. it's making me so goddamn happy, i just took him a donut.

Who's playing you in the movies?


when i saw brokeback mountain, it hit me like a hard pair of levis. guy looks like heath ledger. in fact, if guy was famous, heath ledger would play him.

i've always been confounded by people telling me that i remind them of uma thurman. i think it's mostly our height, very tall, our long faces and something about the eyes. i've gotten this mostly after people see Pulp Fiction...



or Kill Bill...


although the first time i heard it was after Henry and June came out (fyi, the first ever NC-17 movie - HOT).



"who would play you?" is a fun game. try to match your friends to actors. unless you have something to actually think about or do.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

The Winner for Biggest Waste of Time Ever



tomorrow i have to attend a SEMINAR on (computer company) BRAND STANDARDS. this is ridiculous for many reasons, one being that i KNOW the brand standards or i wouldn't be able to do my job at all. ALSO, why ALL DAY? why is it all day? these people are so full of themselves, it's simply STAGGERING.

alright, so i've dealt with this idea over time. the idea that i have to do this, ALL DAY BULLSHIT seminar. but now it's been made worse. the travel stats are in and they are disagreeable.

7 people 3 cars 2 hours. 7 people 3 cars 2 hours.

car #1 has my friends in it. the people i laugh with, the people i drink with after work, but they both live in the north bay and are not coming through the city so i can't get a ride with them so i'm fucked.

car #2: has the assholes in it. one is less of an asshole and is at least a stoner, so we have similar values and can talk and laugh. asshole number two is just an asshole, but still more entertaining than...

Car #3: contains the nerds. the boss. the people no one wants to get stuck with in a teeny little KIA for two hours. or ANYWHERE for that matter.

guess which car i have been put in for "convenience" sake?
that's right, car #3.

this has provided in me a toxic fume. i have no idea how i'm going to get through a day of SEMINAR stupidity in the first place. an entire day of my life will be wasted on something incredibly, completely meaningless. i can't THINK of a bigger waste of time. this is the real quality that defines americans as total idiots.

how will i do it? this is my defensive stance: fake sleeping, to get through the car part and drawing pictures, with a really good pen, for the seminar. maybe i can write my sister's speech then. maybe if i start crying they'll send me home.

no doubt, my brain will be considerably flattened by the end of the day. i will most certainly have lost feeling in my face.

Wedding



my little sister (age 32 - but only five feet tall, therefore "little") is getting married on saturday. i'm not her maid of honor but i am the only candidate for making a speech. her maid of honor is developmentally challenged and our other sister is anti-social and cannot talk in front of people. so it's me.

this morning on the bus i started crying thinking about what i would say. i'm not even sure i'll be able to get any of it out without crying. the tears come so easily. i was picturing maybe i could stand up there with guy and he could read my speech for me. i could hold his arm and cry right next to him. OR i could do it in sign language. then i could cry and communicate at the same time.

my sister has been through some really shitty stuff in life and she has a good man now and he is so sweet and kind to her...this is what kills me.

if i was an actress, this is the stuff i would think about to make myself cry on cue.

after i got off the bus this morning, i cried some more while walking down the street. it started with a thought of how much my grandparents would appreciate my sister's fiance, if they were still here. this makes my heart grow bigger and bigger in my chest and then expand into my blood vessels, which spread the ever growing emotional snowball to all parts of my body until i feel like someone has stuck an airhose down my throat and is filling me up like an aerobed.

i guess this is love. it can be too big for our bodies.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

all apologies to gentle (not vicious) arachnids everywhere



yesterday i killed a spider with my blowdryer.
today i'm feeling really guilty.

i'm an arachnophobe.
i don't usually feel guilty for killing spiders. they get in my space. they crawl on me. they scare the crap out of me. they should stay in their spaces, but they don't always know where those spaces end and my begin, i suppose.

yesterday i inflicted torture and there is no excuse for that.

when i came into the bathroom this morning to get ready, the spider was still hanging there.
i think the heat melted his daddy longlegs. some were broken off. he was hanging all cockeyed.
i immediately started feeling his pain. what the fuck have i done? how i could be so mean? who am i to do this to another living creature?!

i saw the yeti in his posture. broken and struggling.

so i grabbed him with a tissue to clean him up and throw him in the toilet and put him out of his misery, when he started to move. very slowly. he was still trying to live. his legs were all over the place, broken and bent and he was still trying to live.

i don't know how i can forgive myself.

i will never do it again.

devil weed: marijuana can be bad

i smoked pot daily, several times a day, sometimes for hours straight for 15 years. when i finally stopped, i was shocked at how many problems came from it, problems i thought were just a part of me...but weren't.

when i stopped, so did these problems:

1. frustration levels reaching a critical point (i.e. red face, high blood pressure, tears) very quickly.
2. UNBELIEVABLE menstrual pain. rolling around, fetal position pain. pain so bad, i couldn't get out of bed to get pain medication that wasn't strong enough anyway.
3. waking up in the middle of the night. every night, for hours.
4. watching movies three times in order to remember what i've seen (ok, i knew this was because of the pot)
5. inability to write. words not flowing. like constipation.
6. social abilities down, anxiety up
7. easily bored. easily boring.
8. violent PMS. i would regularly bash stuff with any given object, sometimes an umbrella, sometimes my walkman.

this is just a sampling of the many problems that i got from so much pot.
recently i've been smoking again. not sure why...but i'm stopping it. i'm starting to have these problems again. chiefly, the inability to write, which is my most favorite thing. i haven't been excited about anything i've written since smoking again.

this isn't some grand profound lesson. this is something simple: anything good in excess can become something bad.

Monday, August 07, 2006

sometimes i like to give myself that sick, sinking feeling

Suffering from exhaustion



like a rock star.

at least that's what my friend said.

thursday and friday i had a very strange sensation. my body felt deeply deeply tired, like all my muscles were straining to pump blood and i was actually nodding out at my desk. i was not yawning, i did not feel compelled to get coffee. i could barely focus my eyes. my eyes were rolling, my neck was lolling. this happened only once before, in college, when i fell asleep while taking notes in class.

here it was again. my friend said, "that's exhaustion."

i love that i had exhaustion. exhaustion takes famous people down. like lindsay lohan, mariah carey and avril lavigne. it means i'm really talented.

"The rest of the tour has been cancelled. Ms. Jones is suffering from exhaustion."

xo

"He looked like a letter opener"

everyone: "that guy was kind of weird. he was really awkward with his lines."

friend (G): "yeah, he looked like a letter opener."

it had been six days of socializing, but it was on the fourth day, when (G) said this, that i had my biggest laugh. guy and his band were playing a few songs during music hour on a public access channel for fun and amusement. the music was fun, the host was amusing. he was very skinny with big hair, like he'd just had a blowout. he had some trouble with his announcer duties, stuttering and calling the band by the wrong name. we were told there would be a drag queen hosting for which we had been excited, but we were instead faced with this strange creature dressed all in white.

that was friday.

tuesday is when it all started with the bbq/minutemen night out in the richmond. wednesday followed with the pick up of our friend (P), deep in a nasty part of the mission. apparently this block where we find (P) is where that asshole, crack and his homies hang out. it's the heart of the crack hiss. the eye of the crack storm. one minute guy and i are picking out good ahi tuna and sesame seeds for dinner and the next we're fighting off wall-eyed human beasts in the back alley of the underbelly. we are attacked there by red-faced, swollen-bellied monsters while quickly swooshing our buddy off the sidewalk and into guy's lesbian soccer mom car, all lickity split.

thursday brought a suprise visit by my friend's 20-yr-old daughter and her cousin. i grilled 'em up some chicken and put on a locally filmed exploitation flick. (P) stayed and helped me pull words out of their shy souls. guy took a nap.

friday was more visiting with friend (A), age 20 and the aforementioned public access gig. saturday was magazine-reading, pot-smoking, park-sitting, sunshining and garden-rock searching until evening. that night guy took (A) and me out to dinner like a real gentle-man. he told me he liked taking my family out to dinner. reference to (A) as my family made me cry. she and her mom are family to me. guy's recognition was sweet and important.

sunday: brunch with (G) and wife (A/E) at the eternally happy RAMP in sf's dogpatch. the bloodies were hardy, the laughs, smartie and the walk to the ballpark for some baseball voyeurism, relaxing and fun. later guy and i got (A) on an inland train, drove home and pulled the tv into the bedroom. at 3:15 pm, we sighed at the same time and said, "well that was a long haul."

click. tv on. weekend over.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Live! Not Nude! Amazon Girls! Tonight!



tonight i will be cooking for my friend (M)'s daughter. there are several special things going on here. 1) (M) was my first boss. she hired me when i had no experience in anything and she quickly promoted me to supervisor. this was kitchen work, making egg salad and sandwiches and stocking fresh fruit in a health food store on my college campus. she saved my ass giving me that job. i had emancipated myself from my controlling and prick-like dad with no savings, no bank account, no nothing. i went to school with one semester of tuition in my pocket and $300 in leftover deposit money from my last apartment.

(M) is a very important friend.

special thing 2) when i met (M)'s daughter (A), she was "still on the tit" as her mother put it. she's 20 now. she's TWENTY YEARS OLD NOW. when i first met her she was STILL ON THE TIT.

special thing 3) (A) is 6'2". i'm 5'11", her mother is 6'2". when we walk around together, we really do get a lot of eyes. it's funny. we feel absolutely AMAZON HOT when we're together. we're like an army of flesh.