Post Script Thoughts

I am chewing gum with great ferocity.
I am listening to music louder than necessary.
The lights are buzzing.
I hope to use nauseous hunger to create a new universe.

My Friendship is Like Oral Sex

It all started when I stole someone's cat. Only I hadn't stolen anyone's cat. This misunderstanding, however, would be the reason behind much frantic adventuring and detectiving. The phone call was urgent, accusatory, and bad-mannered in a way that could only be achieved by someone who was very good-mannered. Her name was Beatrice and I knew at once from the sound of her voice that she wore watercolor sweater sets. I had stolen her cat, she explained, and I would get it back for them or she was going to the police. I tried to calmly explain that I had done no such thing but her response was a forceful suggestion that I prove it unless I wanted a lawsuit. Beatrice hung up and I began my road trip across a mirror image of the United States of America.

Amanda was my driver and sidekick (in reality it was sometimes Amanda, sometimes Kate, occasionally a woman that I used to work with at Fire (in Cleveland) but to keep things simple we'll say it was Amanda all the way). Without any good idea of where we were going or what we were looking for (how exactly does one find a missing cat the existence of whom one had, until recently, no inkling?) we headed south and then to the other side of the country. The roads were braids of silver and the sky often went into yellow and soft orange hues. More frequently than not Amanda and I completely forgot what it was we were looking for, preferring to enjoy the classic American open road and sing loudly to Bruce Springsteen.

We arrived in Virginia without any more idea of what, where, or why this cat was than when the trip began. Amanda and I found Beatrice's house (address 420) amid rows of identical lawns with significant difficulty seeing as the numbers were displayed more hypothetically than actually. The entire process consisted of a lot of swearing on my part and a lot of talking me down by Amanda. We finally got to the disgustingly soft pink door and knocked.

The interior was just as I had pictured it when Beatrice first placed that hurtful and accusatory phone call. Lilac carpeting seemed to crawl up the wall where it then disguised itself among disturbingly pleasant landscaped paintings wrapped in gaudy gold frames. The couches and love seats placed with meticulous care around the living room promised drowsy comfort to anyone brave enough to take a seat and I was sure that Beatrice kept a pitcher filled with sunshine for any neighbors who happened to stray from their own plot of suburban perfection. I was expecting cold cruelty from this puppies-and-bluebirds woman but encountered quite the opposite. Her small son opened the door for us and when he told his mother we had arrived, the woman practically dissolved into tears amid a collection of my and Amanda's arms. Her Mr. Rogers husband hovered behind her with cups of hot chocolate for when the hug had finally been achieved.

Beatrice explained that she was so sorry that she had ever accused someone so clearly responsible and innocent. Her husband had told her all along that it had been Alex but she refused to accept it. He was always a trouble maker but, being her only brother, she always tried to see the good in him. Now, her husband added, there is simply no question as to who took that cat and we're simply beside ourselves with worry. Their son nodded with sad, boyish eyes.

Somehow in the fifteen minutes it took to be told this news, Amanda and I went from being completely annoyed and creeped out to being simply overwhelmed with sympathy for the white-washed family. We backed out of the doorway with a thermos of hot chocolate and blueberry muffins promising that we would do what it took to find the cat. Now, at least we had some information to go on. Alex Smith was a disturbed 20-something-year-old who had a habit of dying his hair black. He called himself an artist, a title which the rest of the world had latched onto as well: he was moving to New York to do commissioned work for some rich person or another. He was leaving that very day. We had to stop him.

Like a movie pair of outlaw detectives, Amanda and I peeled out of Nowheresville, VA to head to the gallery in Washington D.C., where Alex worked and from where he was leaving. I was motivated with the driving need to clear my name and Amanda was motivated by the delicious hot chocolate we had been given. We were unstoppable. Except that when we got there, Alex Smith had already left. The old man who worked behind the desk suggested that we take a look at his work that was apart of the current Employee Art Show. Amanda and I wandered from piece to piece with a deflated sense of purpose but trying, desperately to put something together from the paintings of this kitty-stealing madman. Already I could sense that the plot was thicker than Beatrice suggested. Smith's dark, curvy lines implied a trapped loneliness, an egoistical inability to communicate with those around, a self-fulfilling desire to be misunderstood but simultaneously a hidden hope of being discovered.

Two of the paintings had been removed and I knew, the way one knows, that these were the two paintings that could solve the puzzle. Just as I was about to tell Amanda that we were heading to New York, I saw it. A hallway lined with wiry lines and cold whites. At the entrance stood a larger-than-life full-body portrait. The man had dark tousled hair and a shadowed expression. His thin scarf blew in some imagined wind and though he stood apart from the rest of the piece, his body dared you to enter. On the right was a mountain scape; mathematical and precise. On the left, cartooney clouds blew hither and thither in an impossible blue gradation. The end of the hallway, the focal point of the entire painting, was an empty blue and just before it, on the right, a collaged-in canvas stood out, in line with the mountaintop on top of which it sat, but warm in a puddle of sun the source of which could not be seen. The title of the piece was "Alex's First Self-Loathing."

A felt the warm satisfaction of a conclusion begin to waft over me and just as I felt I understood what was going on, my phone sliced through the dream and woke me up.

By Shane Jones and Liza: A GChat Story

Please be aware: all "haha's" and "ok's" and "hmmm's" have been removed from this conversation for your convenience.


Shane:
so there's Little Mustache
everyone hates Little Mustache
he has little legs and little arms
and a little penis

Liza: (don't you always want it to be spelled moustache?)

Shane: yeah
Little Moustache walks around by himself all day
he punches trees to feel strong

Liza: (and he wears a big coat)

Shane: yeah, his coat is too big
so one day Little Moustache
i'm watching television now
this is hard
one day Little Moustache meets Big Beard

Liza: oh shit

Shane: yeah, Big Beard is terrible
he kicks Little Moustache right in the center of his moustache

Liza: bully

Shane: okay, now i need your help
Little Moustache could start lifting weights

Liza: I think the kick makes Little Moustache's moustache get really big

Shane: yeah, it just starts growing
into this massive beard
it's gigantic

Liza: huge!

Shane: "Fuck you Big Beard!"

Liza: "My Little Moustache is Bigger than your Big Beard!"

Shane: i'm going to send this story to Paris Review

Liza: as you should
so Big Beard gets so embarrassed that he's clearly lost the pissing contest

Shane: he starts jerking off

Liza: wow- that's one way to deal with humiliation

Shane: let's just throw a bunch of flith at
the end
Little Moustache shits on everyone he's ever known, fucks every woman

Liza: and this one guy he always had a thing for
He pisses on trees
and the dogs pissing on trees
wait

Shane: then there's a giant fuckfest...the end?

Liza: I'm confused

Shane: this is out of control

Liza: does Big Beard start the filth?
or does Little Moustache?
which one starts jerking off?

Shane: ummm
maybe they both can

Liza: great

Shane: they have a jerk-off contest
that makes sense

Liza: maybe B.B. starts out of humiliation and L.M. thinks it's a terrific idea

Shane: hairballs are flying through the air

Liza: hairballs?
wow
from the fuckfest?

Shane: yeah, that's awesome

Liza: the end

here's one my granny used to tell me.

By A Crippie

"it wis a caaaaaaulllld, daaaaaark nicht in the scottish highlands when a bonnie wee american arrived wi' nothing but a smile and a suitcase full o' arborio rice. it wis sae caaaaaauuulld and daaaaaaark. the bonnie wee american didnae ken wheresae ever to heid so she asked a kindly lookin' auld lassie, sitting drinkin' whisky oot o' a boot and mumblin' tae hersel' aboot knickers or kippers or crippies. "buggery!!" she gret, the bevvie reekin' on her rancid breath screechin' through the caaaaaullld daaaaaaark air. the bonnie wee american recoiled in horror, turned aboot hersel' and, seein' only vomit and wilderness, she shrugged acceptin'-like and wi' nothin' but the auld adage "when in glasgow, dae as the weegies dae" ringin' in her ears she sat doon wi' the witch on the caaaaaauulld daaaaaaark nicht and took a lang glug of whisky. well, nothin' but that and a suitcase full of staple foods."

Lend Me Yours

Hey! I've been thinking a lot about collaboration and I want some of it. So. Why don't you write me a story (in the "comment" section of this entry). I'll read it and post it on my blog under whatever name you want it to be under...and we can creatively exist in the ether of the internet. Stories can be whatever you want them to be: visual, fiction, history, whatever. Just make it cool. And do it. I'll look stupid with a lot of blank entries.

perhaps the solution

I'm in a bit of a pickle (that I've complained about to most of my friends) with regards to underwear. This is just one of the reasons why I'm almost terrified to purchase new lingerie. It's relatively easy to find sweat-free/organic clothes. At the very least you can buy second hand and not feel like you're contributing TOO much to the decline of our world. Underwear, however, is not quite as easy. Panties are a little easier to track down but bras are almost impossible. Especially underwire bras. If it's not made my children in Cambodia, it's made by prisoners. If they're made fairly, then they're made by a company that has it's own questionable morals (that article, by the way, is over three years old). In an attempt to branch out and buy something I felt comfortable putting my money behind, I went here. I do really like what I got, but was dismayed when I realized that it had been made in China. I've come to the conclusion that you simply cannot buy "intimates" and keep a clean conscious. Instead I'm trying some other options:


undies

bras

If you get any other good ideas, please let me know.

mozzarella

When I was ten or something we lived in a house across the lane from the house that we had just moved out of and around the corner from the house in front of the cemetery where we moved when my parents split up. That house had mice. This new house (and it's direct predecessor) sat on the corner of Hampshire Rd and Hampshire Ln. Across from Musicians Towers which I always thought was an old folks home for Russian women but someone recently told me is actually a housing project. Who knows.

The different between HampshireHampshire I and HampshireHampshire II was that HH I was the bottom apartment of a three story house. HH II was the right side of a two-way split house. One was short and wide, the other tall and skinny and not particularly conducive to the four-woman, four cat (not including kittens), two dog household that my mother ran. We had hay stacked up against the back of our kitchen window. "For insulation," my mom always told me. I never got why we didn't have hay stacked around other parts of our house if that was the case.

We had only just moved there at the time of this relatively unimportant story. As I already mentioned, I was about 10, but already knowledgeable about the joys and wonders of a mozzarella, basil, tomato, balsamic vinegar salad. And at the time of this unimportant story I was just being served a plateful of the deliciousness. Ready to enjoy it on the porch of our new skinny home with my mother and her friend. I piled my fork full of fresh cheesiness and crisp greenness and full redness and watched as the oily vinegar dripped onto the colorful plate below. I put the mess into my mouth and closed my eyes ready to be bombarded by the wonderful taste sensation that would inevitably follow. Much to my dismay, however, instead of being greeted by the friendly saltiness and pillowey sweetness I anticipated, i encountered a cruel sour taste that made my eyes squint and my mouth turn into something that should be in a comic book.

Naturally I screamed and made some sort of show about the whole thing, causing my mom to come careening in from the kitchen to see what was wrong with a swiftness that only a mother can conjure. Of course she was wearing her Basic Threads cotton socks and mid-careen slipped on the hardwood floors and plummeted towards a broken leg. Just in time for our annual road trip across the country to the Southwest where she would have to enjoy Arches National Park on crutches.

The End.

thinkin'

Mission Violence

As of September 6th, there have been 11 killings in the Mission District this year. In the past month, two of them have been on Treat Ave- the nice little residential street where I spend most of my time working, procrastinating, and socializing.

For lack of a better way to describe my frustration, anger, pain, sadness, fear, etc: this fucking sucks.

I've never really understood violence. It's just not something that was put into my vocabulary. And I've certainly been around it enough. All of us have. Growing up in Cleveland Heights (suburban though it is), you knew that there were certain streets you didn't walk down because a friend at school got jumped there the day before. Girls brought brass knuckles and razors to Roxboro Middle School. Fights broke out all of the time. At Heights High we had at least one riot a year (usually in the Wendy's across the street). There were plenty of hallway fights. Not to mention Cleveland itself that likes to hang out (statistically) with other cities that suffer from crime, poverty, and racism.

So it's not like it's foreign. It just still really surprises me that it still happens. I mean, haven't we all seen where this is going? Don't we all recognize that it's a horrible thing to have a family member or friend killed? Is there anyone for whom this doesn't suck?

And the Mission in particular. With it's vibrant murals, amazing food, smiling neighbors, great art. Of course there's poverty and all of that but there are also paintings of Cesar Chavez and Zapata everywhere reminding us that we're all in this together. And instead we're (I mean this in the broader human sense. I'm not naming myself as a Mission native) killing each other. Imagine how incredible it would be if this community realized "we're stuck in the same system. Let's start working together, overthrow the system that's keeping us murdering each other. We all have the same goals!" You know, revolution and stuff.

Yesterday I was walking down Treat wearing a red sweatshirt and a group of young guys commented on how they liked it. For the first time since high school I was suddenly aware of colors. Like, how maybe I shouldn't wear red. If red is even a gang color out here, I don't even know. But I guess that's the point, I don't know shit about what's going on. It's so great to go out in the Mission and work here and enjoy it, but I don't know shit about what the Mission really is. And sure, my goal is to work with a community, not just from it, but is that what I'm doing? Is that what I want to do when people are being killed around me?

It's absurd to limit it to the Mission, or to the Fillmore, or Oakland, or Detroit, or Cleveland when it's so clearly the trend of the day all over the world. These are little microcosms responding to a global epidemic that has been going on since...well...since forever I guess. How can we expect communities to support each other and get along, when our governments are allowing and committing atrocities every day? Violence is still violence and I have no words to express how I feel towards the people that perpetuate it, but it is interesting to see how a society seems to respond to the aggression of it's government.

How frustrating. To be here among all of this and know that it's not going to stop. There's certainly nothing that I can do about it. We can be outraged and horrified and scream and yell and cry and be really inspired and empathetic and it will all keep going.

Art Sucks

Yesterday on the phone my dad asked (as he usually asks) "Well, what do you see happening in your life now?" I answered with my usual "oh...I don't know...I like it here...I could see myself being here...I could see myself leaving" non-committal bullshit that I usually disseminate. It's actually not entirely bullshit. The fact of the matter is that I am in a good place with things and while, yes, I see that change is on the horizon, I also see that the horizon could be anywhere from one to ten (to twenty?) years off.

We live in a lie of a society that tells us one of the stages in life is "settling down." Thing is, not one person I know is "settled." We are always changing all of the time. The second you stop changing, life starts getting real boring. So part of me doesn't really see the point in rushing into making a decision about the "next stage of my life" when this one is suiting me just fine.

OK OK...there's more to it then that. It's that Art Sucks. I feel like it's this illusion that taunts me something terrible. A sexy dress revealing a fleshy thigh on some western road asking for a ride but when you pull over there's no person there. Just some heat rising from the asphalt. Every time I try to pin=point it, figure out what it is, where I fit into it, I feel like it dissolves in my fingers.

I get uncomfortable around words like "art," "artist," etc. Who the fuck am I to claim something I can't define? And the prospect of pursuing such an invisible rainbow does not sit well with my hard-lined capricornian ideas of how things are supposed to exist.

Then again. There is nothing that makes me happier than that terrifying flirtation with a blank piece of paper. Is there anything sexier than running your fingers down the spine of some invisible thought that shivers out of the ether to spread itself out before you? I can't fathom an existence without that feeling. But I'm scared to commit to something so inconclusive.

And that's not even getting into the bullshit that comes along with being in the art world. The SCENE, the PEOPLE, the lack of community and that depressing realization that it's every man for himself and that each one thinks more highly of themselves than you could ever imagine. That conviction you MUST have in the face of adversity. What a tricky temptress this thing is.

Moments of Beauty

Inspiration
Positivity
Hell Yeah

music!

gogogogoggo

My New Favorite

Her name is Lucy Mclauchlan and I think her stuff is beautiful.

indeed

Strange that it is the stillness of this moment that makes me want to play something loud, say something loud, smash something loud, make the moment heard- remove the pillow, lift my head above the water, open my mouth wide and...what am I supposed to say? An empty need for noise that gets buried under logic. I know we all yearn to scream.

variation on a theme

I have been thinking since yesterday about my last post. This isn't a negation of the previous post, but an addition to.

The conclusion that I have come to is this: the "hipster" doesn't really exist the way in which we talk about it. The reason why no one wants to claim that identity for themselves is because hipster means mindless following of trends, blind consumerism, apathy, inaction, etc...no one really wants to accept that as something that defines them. While there may be entire groups of people that follow this life-style, something tells me it more describes the aspects of our own lives that we are uncomfortable with.

I had a conversation with a puppeteer about something kind of similar. He was grungy, punked-out, and completely involved with and aware of today's issues. I was frustrated at the general state of things and talked about how our society attaches to aesthetics first, before ideals. And today, businesses and advertising agencies are so good at what they do, they spot an aesthetic trend (that may or may not be a reflection of an ideology), and they sell it. So the movement kind of stops there. All of the sudden you have an entire fleet of people wearing shirts that say "punk's not dead" and having no clue why they're wearing it. So when you stand up to talk about DIY culture, all anyone sees is an H&M ad. So that annoyed me. Dave responded by saying "It's not about trends or aesthetics. It never has been. When a group of people start relying on fashion as opposed to ideas, there was nothing there in the first place."

What I got out of that is this: we are an image-based society. No question. But perhaps the goal has always been and should always be that it doesn't matter whether you're drinking a PBR and look like you're wearing an American Apparel shirt, what matters is what you're doing with your life. What choices are you making? What things do you hold dear?

Which brings me back to my original point. There are no hipsters because "hipster" is an image-based term. You could point to me on one day and say I'm a hipster because I'm wearing black jeans, but my lifestyle does not match up with the ideological wasteland that we associate with that term. What hipster is, is that little "cool" microbe living inside of us that makes us nervous. That makes us wish we could just say "fuck it, I'm going to be ironic for the rest of my life, instead of doing something interesting with my time." No one person does this completely because if anyone did, there'd be a growing void of anything interesting in the world and they'd surely die of boredom. Even the most classic "hipster" must actually DO something. This, in my mind, means they are not a hipster, because to me, that term necessarily requires inaction.

We all are a part of this thing and want to outsource our apathetic guilt and so label as many other people with it as possible. Maybe that guy with the plastic rimmed glasses and trendy haircut is actually doing more to better the world than you. But you can at least point him out in a crowd, label him, and feel better about yourself.

The solution? Be who you be. And never stop being involved with the world. We'll always want to be cool. But the sooner we realize that's a meaningless construct, the better (I know, I know, I'll keep dreaming). What matters is what you're doing with your life- not how you chose to dress in the morning (unless of course what you're wearing is undermining global economies and generally harming the world. Sorry- had to put it in there).

perhaps every generation feels this way....

"We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new."

From Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

Ah the hipster- that strange cultural anomaly that every knows exists but that no one will claim for themselves. I wonder if it can even be fully explained. Anyway- this article sort of sums up that feeling of impending cultural doom I sometimes get when I go to Dolores Park on a Sunday. That "do any of us actually care about anything" sort of feeling. And I think we do, but each generation turns against the generation before it. And perhaps we're still in the backlash against the DIY years. And probably when other counterculture movements came around, there was some other group of people that everyone pointed to, criticizing their apathy and mass consumption. So it's probably a little harsh to say that this group in particular is going to destroy culture. Maybe that's giving them more power than "they" have or even want. Moreover, since it is an embarrassing label that no one choses for themselves, maybe we should all look to that inner hipster within ourselves and find out where our values actually are.

Rediscovering Music

In my Cleveland excursion I got to go into the infamous tool shed into which I had stuffed all of my hopes and dreams (read: art supplies and CDs). While it was upsetting to have my beautiful charcoal set covered in mouse shit and to watch as huge centipedes (my kryptonite) crawled all over my stereo, it was also so much fun to revisit with my old things. For the first time in my life I was a little bit embarrassed about the sketchbooks and journals that I came across. All I could think was "there are people who knew me when I did this stuff and are still friends with me?"

Now that I have half of that stuff back in SF with me I'm able to start re-digesting my old tasty morsels of culture. Namely- my music! How sweet it is to have it again. As we speak I'm listing to Blazing Arrow for the first time in a year. It is such a good fucking album. I know that this is old news- but sometimes it's important to recognize the oldies. The songs fit so perfectly together and his lyrics are so damn good and the guest artists are exactly right for each song.

What's also funny is how I can track my musical taste by format. When I first started listening to music I bought a lot of CDs (I think Jagged Little Pill was my first purchase). Soon the Napster started getting big and I did a little bit of downloading but I don't think I ever really got comfortable with it. So I just turned a lot of CDs into MP3s and then burned a lot of CDs. So now more than half of my musical collection selection is composed of burned CDs. Now, however, I'm a big fan of buying music again.

Furthermore, I've noticed that while I love music that I genuinely like, the majority of the music I like I like for nostalgia. I feel like every time I listen to a new band it's been introduced to me by someone. Therefore when I listen to their music, I think about that person. So I might like really shit music but I associate it with people who I care about and so I will listen to it with pleasure Example

Back to work.

Cleveland

Look to the right- that's me in the big jacket and chelsea cut. ahhhhh high school.

Anyway. I know I'm always waxing poetic when it comes to Cleveland but it really must be said that I love this city. (and don't want to live here) Despite the fact that just about everyone in my immediate family has shown up here (often a source of unending griping and general unhappiness), I think we're all having a really nice time.

It's not that my family doesn't like each other. We love each other. And think that every person related to us is the most wonderful, intelligent, beautiful individual on the face of the planet. I just don't think we've quite learned how to understand one another. Which is a little frightening because if you can't understand the people that are essentially responsible for your personality, who can you understand? (or perhaps a better way of phrasing it: If the people responsible for forging your personality can't understand you, who will?) What it all boils down to is: Family is stressful. Or at least mine is. And I'm very relieved that so far, my family has not been causing me much stress.

And though it is very hot in Cleveland, I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. I'm dripping with sweat but also relishing that I only need a sheet at night, and can wear a tank top without needing to bring along a sweater. Or a scarf. Or gloves. Or my jacket.

I'm somehow totally zen about work as well. Despite the fact that I just discovered our fall tour is dangerously dangling from the edge of "underfunded" and also recently learned that all the late-night work I did before I left has to be re-done because of several last minute changes, I'm cool as a cucumber and looking forward to forgetting everything I learned today and going to sleep. With only a sheet.

And of course I got a milkshake here! Going to Tommy's is always such a trip. There's usually someone there that I know but for the most part it's new blood. The same slightly artsy high school girls behind the counter making shakes, the young skater (or preppy) boys clearing the tables, Tommy's daughter's serving, and the cooks who are either Tommy's daughters' husbands, or the same great guys who have been cooking there forever and always give me the best hugs when I walk in. What a strange thing to walk into a space that used to be part of your world. It's still there, and things are still happening, but you're not a part of it anymore. In a sense I guess Cleveland in general is like that- or any community from which you leave and to which you return.

Well- my eyes are getting heavy and so is the heat. To market to market to buy a fat pig- home again home again jiggity jig!

OPENING WEEKEND!

COME SEE THE MIME TROUPE IN DOLORES PARK THIS WEEKEND! IT'S FREE!


Click here for a full schedule

Henry

Check it Out

maybe if we just called it something other than....

...a "rape fantasy."

Ever since reading this, i've been thinking something fierce about the whole rape fantasy thing and it's not sitting well with me. that "story" in particular strikes me funny for a number of reasons. The first being that i can't really stand anyone talking about sex the way that she does, but there's this strange thing that some people associate with feminism that seems to allow for that way of talking. I think it stems from the whole "men can talk that way, so can we" thing, but that just pisses me off. It's gross when men do it, it's gross when women do it...to me anyway. Secondly, she's awful to the prostitute she hires. If a man wrote as dismissively about a female prostitute as she does about her male one, he would be called a chauvinist. What you can get from her attitude is: "It doesn't matter how I treat him, I'm paying him." And that fucking sucks for any human being. Do your thing, but come on.

Finally, and mainly, the reason why this story pisses me off is the whole rape thing. She hires a man to rape her. SHE HIRES A MAN TO RAPE HER. THAT'S NOT RAPE. That's called domination, maybe violence, maybe power play- whatever- but it's not rape. She was and had to be in control of the entire thing- they even had a safe word.

That got me thinking about this allusive "rape fantasy" and I've concluded that it doesn't exist. OK, maybe there are some people for whom that exists in the way I'm thinking about it, but on the whole the terms are mutually exclusive. If you're fantasizing about something, you're probably enjoying it to some extent or at least wanting it, and that is exactly what rape is not. Rape is not wet or exciting, it's terrifying and awful and dry and painful and all of those other things that we all know rape is. What a "rape fantasy" really is, is folks fantasizing about domination. In the case of women, it's us getting excited about someone taking control, sure maybe being violent or aggressive, maybe there are bruises or maybe it's simply a "I want you" "OK!" kind of thing. The point is, in some estimation, it's wanted. Rape is not.

And rape is not something that feminists can "reclaim" like the word "bitch" (something I still have a problem with honestly...). Rape is rape and trying to take it back and own it makes it so we get to be desensitized when shit actually goes down. It's not like you can say "you can't rape me, I've reclaimed the word." I sympathize with the sentiment, we want to control the things we can't. But how about talking about it and trying to spread awareness instead of acting like rape is a thing that is awesome and that we want to pay people to do....that just gets confusing.

So. I suggest that we change our language when referring to these things so as not to confuse the two ever again. That way when someone says "rape fantasy" we can know that they actually mean it and we can then take psychologically responsible action. Let's call it "domination fantasy" or maybe come up with a euphemism...I'm not that clever at the moment, but I'm sure there is one.

"When we refuse to suffer"

I don't think I was supposed to have left the house today. But I kept trying and trying. It all started at 7:47am this morning when my body sensed it was the time that I normally wake up and I said "oh heeelllll no" and went back to sleep.

9:30am rolls around and I hear my roommates wander out of their holes and congregate in the living room. They're laughing, telling stories, and generally making me feel like I'd be missing out on something unless I joined their morning ramblings. So I got out of bed for a full half hour but soon felt a pending hangover and came to the realization that I hadn't actually been awake for any of that half hour- so I went back to sleep. I had some of the strangest dreams I've ever had in my life. I was convinced, in my sleep, that I was awake and all of this stuff was actually happening to me. Flower, the dog, jumped in bed with me, at one point there was a piglet in my bed too. I watched a car crash and saved a pet rat who I could talk to and who lead me on some strange journey to Grass Valley (that part I think I knew was a dream). Then my ex-boyfriend walked into my room without a shirt on and when I asked him why he was there he only said "I have to go" and then left.

These very strange things went on with a scary feeling of reality until 1:20pm when my sister called me. "This is just silliness," said I to myself. "You're a grown-ass individual and it's time to wake on up." And it was so. I took a shower, felt like shit, decided I should grab a bagel at a cafe and enjoy the beautiful weather. It sounded so good. Until I actually tried to eat the bagel and thought I might throw-up.

So I went back home and fell back asleep until 3:40pm. I was pretty sure that the day was really supposed to start at that point so I made myself some food (and finished the bagel I had gotten earlier) and decided a good way to make use of the day I had all but squandered was to see the ocean. So I threw some stuff together and barely caught the N Judah as it squealed past Duboce Park. I even made my way to the front of the train to pay because I felt so lucky to have caught the train. We were moments away from 2nd Ave when the driver (conductor?) announced that because of an accident ahead he was going to have to turn around.

OK- that's fine- I only know, like 4 MUNI routes in the city, so I'll catch the 71 to Haight and Fillmore and take the 22 to the Marina. It's no ocean, but the bay certainly is good for what ails you. The 22 turned out to be about 20 minutes behind schedule so I decided to just make lemonade with the lemons of the day, get some orange juice and start a new book in Duboce Park. It was getting a little chilly, but I was determined to enjoy the rest of the sun.

Life was going well for a good 15 minutes until I decided to roll onto my stomach. Just as the rotation was complete I felt a sharp pain on my forearm just beneath my elbow. I looked and lo-and-behold struggled a bee who, with suicidal instincts, had stuck himself to me. I brushed him off, threw away the stinger, watched the poor thing struggle in the grass and had one of those rare, but so important moments of existential nihilism. On top of reflecting on the uselessness of existence and bitterly laughing at the cruel joke of life, I decided that from the beginning, it was clear that it was one of those days that I was simply not meant to experience, and so I accepted defeat. What I wouldn't give for something to watch a movie on....

Thanks Cyd

funny

Vote Repo

...a bit late...

My Grandma always knows best- thanks Marshall for keeping me on track and updated!

quelque fois...

...I sit with my thumbs a-twittle, wondering at the world. At friends who have fallen in love with Japanese men, been absorbed in strange worlds I'll never see, write to me occasionally about what song it is that reminds them of that one time when. Guitar strings play on without me but I find myself pleasantly silent in the hubub of whatever it is this city has to offer. Be it overpriced ice cream or underpriced all-you-can-eat pizza with more wine than your liver knows how to process on a monday night. screen porches slam, you're caught red-handed with someone else's computer in your lap. writing nonsense.

Try it:

I know that I've mentioned it before with regards to my own url, but give it a whirl yourself:

type in ANY blog address and instead of writing .blogSpot.com, write .blogPot.com....I'm pretty sure it works for anything.

Man...they're good.

Another Beautiful Morning

Problem is...

there was a blue jay on the porch when I took lunch.

and a few weeks ago i accidentally stepped on a snail. heard the crunch and looked over my shoulder to see a cracked house bleeding clear. i wanted to take the shell-halves and scoop up the goo inside, hold it close and whisper incantations that would heal it but also stop it from eating the leaves in our garden.

i've dreamed of it since then but i always use the wrong words to describe dreaming.

anymore
i wonder if the planes fly the way we told them to.
running amok amid some arid zona of forgotten.
flying into godknowswhat
and being swept up in a whirlpool of where we go
when
if
maybe.

people will ask you directions to everywhichway but all they really need is to know you'll never stop loving them and you'll kiss them even when they've lost their lips.

or am i treading through fire?

the moon looks at me like that sometimes:
like i'll never grow up as tall as i want to
because __________
(fill in the blanks at your own discretion)

it's not that the sun has risen and set on me
it's just:
i've only ever seen the sunrise from my window
and the sunset?
well that's a story for when the lights go out

How could I have forgotten...

...Fred Thomas?!! Thanks to Mobile's mixed CD I was reminded. And here he is:
Especially listen to "Come Back"

In other news: I saw Juno last night. I don't really have time to formulate a proper "review" or "opinion piece" about the movie but it did get me to thinking. On the one hand, I liked it. I thought it was funny, clever, entertaining, etc. Despite the fact that everyone kept bringing up about her 'being so mature' I was still not really able to get over her being 16...Obviously the music was fantastic. In the end, though, I was just annoyed. There's such a trend now of movies with these oh-so-quirky-yet-adorable-and-attractive-and-conveniently-ageless female characters who are so hip because they know certain bands or whatever. It started with Ghost World and I feel like has only gone downhill (because it's kind of hard to beat Ghost World...and because the characters in that movie/story are actually fully realized with more than just opinions and interesting clothes and Daniel Clowes is brilliant). I dunno. I prefer this trend to other more blatantly annoying female characters and I don't really know what I'd prefer...it's just these characters seem like such a sad attempt at making the "real" girl and they end up just being another ideal for people to try to live up to. Plus I don't think that Juno would actually think Sonic Youth is "just noise"...that's just silly. Also, something that seems to be a trend in these aesthetically indie flicks is the "mundane-ing" of real life situations. A lot of times this can be a really effective way to get across a general tone that I do believe is in American society. On the other hand...the girl was pregnant. And 16. And that's never really mundane or, rather, that shouldn't ever be mundane. I guess I saw too many high school classmates drop out or watch their lives change so irrevocably to be OK with being OK with the whole teen pregnancy thing. So I'm not sure I'm such a fan of that issue being dealt with in that casual-indie-movie way. On the other hand, as my roommate pointed out, it was nice to see a comedy about the issue instead of some KIDS-esque tragedy where everyone's always drunk and exchanging sTDs. And it's nice to think that there are exceptions to the teen pregnancy stereotype. Well...there that is.

My zine is finished. Now I just have to figure out how to make copies...I made it into a kind of awkward shape.

Stay tuned for my blog on comics...I feel it welling inside of me but I don't have the energy for it today.

short and sweet

What to listen to while drawing
What to listen to while drinking yourself to tears...or just to listen to a good song

50% off meals

I feel a little like my stomach is floundering. Or something just beyond my stomach. In between the organ and the flesh. Some fluttering muscle that makes my whole body confused. Don't want to do much. Just draw and drink coffee despite the fact that I'm still a little on the sick side. Almost 11:00am.

Dear Dr. X,
I knew you like the ocean but, honestly, how many times must you cross it? The office, the street, the city, is lonely without your juggling amongst us. It's hard to get any work done without your little head peeking out above the files on Allison's desk hurling insults at me. Etc. etc. etc.

My horoscope today:
You have plenty of serious things to think about now, but this probably will not stop you from wanting to join in the fun. Even if you are tempted to play the role of the heavy, it really won't be to your benefit. Instead do whatever strategizing you must before letting go of your responsibilities to partake in the pleasures of the day.

hmm...bummer...I was kind of hoping to shirk off the rest of the day. But I guess the stars know what's what...right? The problem with being a capricorn is that all we do is work and all of our horoscopes are about working. Where's my drug binge? My sexual escapades? My stint as a traveling gypsy? Nope, not for me. It's all work work work. Money money money. Rise to the top of this. Lay low tonight you've got work tomorrow. Whatever stars- stick to your own solar systems. Although...rereading that, perhaps it's giving me the day off. As long as I get everything in order first. Do you think that means working instead of writing in my blog?

I'm working on a new zine. I'll put photos up as soon as it's done. This time around I'm doing things a little differently. I'm still taking old things that I've done but I'm taking more time with it- allowing myself to draw straight on the page instead of cutting and pasting old projects. I think I like it. A good combination of working with the old and the new.

What's in my ears (even if it's not actually playing)

no matinee

I found it!

This song is on a mix tape that a friend of mine gave me like 5 years ago and now that the tape is starting to wear I feel the obligation to find it on some kind of digital medium and share it with the world.

Where it all started...

lopsided

good to listen

Words that are good:

1. Windowsill
2. Propinquity
3. Pants
4. Schlep
5. Callipygian

Words from others:

1. Marmalade
2. Biscuit
3. Acquiesce
4. Pickle
5. Swashbuckler
6. Stripes
7. Champ
8. Zenith
9. Cassette
10. Loafers
11. Garments
12. Coagulate
13. Tepid
14. Shrimp
15. Plutocracy
16. Bramble
17. Tumult
18. Parsnip
19. Napkin
20. Skelf

It's over.

So, during twelve balmy sun-soaked cocktails, I told the truth. NO! One truth untold lies and vanquishes rodents...really. All of the men swooned over all of the men. Gay! Also while I was quite serene, I tricked many of my former liaisons into covering these streets with rodents. Scrappy beasts, they were scampering about and people ran fast - terrified that one might introduce itself awkwardly and uninvited impose unnecessary amounts of napkins upon the filth-loving hermaphrodites.

strange

I had the craziest bout of illness yesterday. I think I slept for 24 hours over the course of something like 30. And even though i was feeling pretty awful, there's something kind of nice about literally not being able to do anything- having to rest. Being forced to watch a movie. There aren't too many times when you can guiltlessly do things like that. Plus, this morning, I feel about 85% better! And that's pretty cool. I wandered around Haight Street which is something I generally try to avoid but today seemed to be in the cards. I searched for bowler hats but none were the one I wanted. i went into the Anarchist bookstore and saw some interesting books (mostly by dead Russian and French men). I sneaked into Amoeba and bought FOUR CDS!!!! Wow. Very exciting. When i came back home I tried to finish a painting but I'm not entirely motivated by it. I ended up just covering up a whole bunch of stuff with blue-black. I don't really like acrylics that much I don't think. The only thing I really did was accidentally put my comforter in my painting palette...which is either OK or really sucks. I don't know which one yet. On a point of absolute positivity: I have a pirate pillow case! It was hiding amid the packaging that my sheets came in. It was a total surprise but it looks real nice. It has a pirate flag on one side and a treasure map on the other. Yes! I am sometimes torn with regards to this blog of mine. Sometimes I want to delete it. Sometimes I want to be as superficial as I can possibly be. Sometimes I want to write something pretty or somewhat poetic. Can't ever really decide. I think what comes out is a strange kind of schizophrenic diary. I think I'll leave now. Eat DanDan's cookies and maybe grab some lunch.

Should be working...as always

I got an entire sheet of white stickers in the shape of underpants. I'm ready to pants the entire world. I don't know how it took me so long, but I only just realized how to put a link in my blog. Woot!


Fantastic

Hopefully I'll be going to the Saint Stupid's Day Parade soon!

Post Number 100

I am sitting on the deck. The sun brazenly kissing my shoulders: a lover's tongue not felt in months. Jill Scott she sings. I am eating someone else's soup. It is a Sunday that I have come to love. The waking up and reading plays. Talking of potential. Certainly to migrate to these wooden slats. Hot sun. The sky remains clear even when I take off my glasses: something perpetual. No confusion. I am perplexed by the nature of my stomach the passed few days. Perhaps the memory, residual like soap scum in the bottom of the bath, of many Easter's ago. The disbelief as "no" soaked in fibers. The emptiness of those doorways open for someone who wasn't me. But each house had that extra place set. And the David's in my life dying without asking me first. Learning to comfort myself. No one else there to lend me their sleeves on which to blow my nose. Maybe it is that. But I don't think so. There is something restless in me. Looking around corners. Looking around blank stares, and empty hallways of this country's mind. Not even sure what to think about something that sounds like a gunshot. Squealing wheels. Want instead to turn away and try to feel a different reality. Jill Scott speaks of backs and shoulders that once used to turn her on. Earlier there was a torture circus show. And a script that to this day creeps into our minds. "This is this," it says clearly and blatantly, "this is exactly this." Do we recognize it? Do we turn around? Do we change? And this butterfly movement beneath my belly button. Is it asking for a phone call that isn't there? Is it missing those shoulders, that back- those men for whom Jill Scott composes ridiculously satisfying songs- for they are all of ours as well as hers- that's why we listen so intently.

i want jib kidder

I miss the music scene in Ann Arbor. I miss it a lot. The WCBN shows, the Halfass shows, the Totally Awesome House, Kelly Jean Caldwell, Jib Kidder, Patrick Elkins, The Ameoba Kids, Pussy Pirates, Chris Bathgate, etc, etc.

In the midst of my musical desert island where I have only a hand full of old CDs salvaged from the tool shed in Cleveland, I want to mostly to listen to music made by people I know and whose projects I can get excited about. Remember back in the day when that friend would give you that CD of that band that you hadn't heard about yet and it totally opened up all of these possibilities and it just felt so exciting? I guess it doesn't actually have to be local artists. I felt that way the first time I heard Elliott Smith or The Shins or The Notwist. It's just that the last time I felt that excited it was about these Ann Arbor projects. There seemed to be a soul in that music that echoed the feeling of finding something in common with another person. You know? Hearing a song and being like "wow, that's exactly the way I was thinking about it!" I'm not necessarily saying that "mainstream" music is shit...I don't think that at all. But, take for example the new Modest Mouse CD. It's good and all, but does it hit you the same way their music did when you first heard The Moon and Antarctica on that road trip to Chicago? Ok...well maybe it does, but it doesn't hit me that way....I just find it kind of boring. I want to listen to something that gets me excited again.

I know it's out there it's just harder to find in San Francisco when there's so much more to choose from. In the Midwest there's really only so much to do, you know? You either stay in and drink or put on your leg warmers, face the snowstorm, and go to the Blind Pig to hear Bear Mountain Picnic. And maybe, on the other side of town there was also a Slam going on, but probably not. Here there are at least a dozen of events that you could go to in a night and unless you happen to know someone who knows Kemo Sabe or Lord Loves a Working Man, you'll probably just go to see Arcade Fire again because you missed them last month when they were here but two months ago their show totally rocked. Not that having options is a bad thing. I like options. I like them a lot. Yay options! But things seem more glam here..not as gritty and personal and exciting and I'm rambling now and not making much sense. I now take my leave.

"Loth to irk in Horne's hall hat holding the seeker stood"

I am officially half way through my trek through Ulysses. Perhaps trek is the wrong word for it has such negative implications. Rather, my time with Mr. Bloom and Dedalus is spent rather pleasantly. I coast through the vines of confused thought and language, bounce off of round metaphors and try not to get too tangled when the web of Joyce's trap closes around my ankles. Which is to say that I may not get most of what I'm reading but have been determined from the beginning to keep reading at any cost. Not to re-read or return to confusing passages only because that means I'll never finish! I have visions of me waste deep in beautiful cluttered sentences and every time I reach my hand out to grab one, it disintegrates in my hand and I spend the rest of my life never knowing what is being said around me. So...yeah. It's beautiful and great and all that stuff that everyone says and I'd like very much to talk with someone who's read it (after I've finished reading it) so they can tell me what I was missing.

I had a completely Troupe-less day yesterday which was BEAUTIFUL. How nice it is to not think about work for an entire day. On top of that I got to read The Fixer, by Joe Sacco (thank you Mollo), by the bay after my painting class. I napped. And then DanDan and I drank milkshakes (insert Daniel Plainview impersonation here) and went to see Iron and the Albatross and Two Foot Yard at Yerba Buena. Both are for sure must-sees. Iron and the Albatross made me want to make a movie just so their music could be in it. Two Foot Yard literally knocked my socks off with their haunting and yet somehow uplifting harmonies.

It's really awesome seeing women musicians kicking ass. I don't mean this in a ball-breaking feminist way. Only that almost all musicians are men. And I love music and I love men so that's great. But I also love women and feel that we must be missing out on something by not having them around us and our ears more often. Two Foot Yard was basically the case in point for me with regards to that idea. The two main women were an amazing force to be reckoned with. Gorgeous and deep, emotional, kind, insistent, and really fucking good musicians.

Now to enjoy more of the sunshine that we have in our day today.

don't let me down

Oh San Francisco, you done it again. Sly fox of a city that you are. Just when things start to slide downward, you pick us all back up, strap us to your back and start doing some crazy shit like we're riding Falkor and the wind is pushing back our hair. (which reminds me- I wonder how those dogs are doing....still wandering the river banks in Grass Valley no doubt.)

Today was, as last Sunday was, pretty fucking good. Began with reading Commedia Dell'Arte plays (always a good way to ring in the Lord's day of rest) and ending with homemade macaroni and cheese and (hopefully) an early to bed time. In between there was:

1) moving that last of it out of the troupe (woohoo...so why is there still so much crap under those cubbies?)

2) eating salad and olives and talking with Dr. X about the magic of The Sunny Sunday and all the places where we liked spending them (like most of our conversations Dr. X's locations were all in Spain and Scotland whereas mine were talking about that one bar, Dominick's, by the law quad...not nearly as magical but, hey, that's what happens when you don't live in Europe, right?)

3) running into Shikki and Char and finally meeting up in Dolores Park where....

4) ...we met up with Dan Dan and Meg and we sat around, drinking beer and whiskey, fiddling around here and there with Dan Dan's guitar (I meant it by the way when I said I want a copy of you singing that Feist song. I think Dr. X would agree.)

5) there was a competing group of guitar-wielding individuals of whom we a little bit envious because they had two or three guitars and they were singing louder than us. Then, miracle of miracles, a delegate found their way to us suggesting that we combine our musical powers and be as one. So we did. And we were. And by the time the sun had long slipped away past Hipster Hill there were tons of us sitting around the circle singing The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac and Joni Mitchel and Janis Joplin. It felt really fucking good. Not nearly as good in the re-telling but I know that the whole world understands that feeling of smiling at a stranger and knowing you're singing the same song.

The delegate kept saying how this was "the New San Francisco" which made me think about how, in general, our generation seems to feel a bit lost. A little too isolated with our i-Pods and laptops and while I'm not saying get rid of them, I'm also saying that we're too reliant on that thing that our parents were able to come up with. Constantly settling back and living off of the laurels of our countries now old and now subverted cultural revolution and feeling good closing ourselves off from the possibility of a new one. So I agree. This is the start of the New San Francisco. And hopefully the new everything. Hopefully our generation is starting to get sick of it. And let themselves be sucked into some silly music circle and see what it feels like to do something different.

ps: here's the myspace page of one of the guitar-wielding bunch. I'm all for supporting local bands...even if none of them do house shows. (but really...someone...do a house show please)
http://www.myspace.com/kiddcook

piaf, candy cane, boosh, ocean

This was a good weekend.

Though Lost Weekend tricked us into desperately yearning for the Mighty Boosh and then cruelly claimed they had no such video. The over-sized candy cane that we found on the walk home afterwards provided some consolation.

Dancing was, as always, a good idea and Leia got a finger-puppet mustache (though I really want that word to be spelled moustache). My new boots are green- huzzah.

The best part of those short few days was, by far, our excursion to the beach. On a day that was half rainy half beautiful and clear, we decided the ocean was calling to us and we had to obey. Dr. X, DanDan, and I got into that tiny car (without even a frisbee!) and hurled ourselves water-ward. When we got there the air was full. The waves crashed in huge, bass-bellowing explosions and the little sand-pipers skedaddled around here and there playing tag with the full foam that pushed itself onto the shore. We drew in the sand, took photos, beheld the sea and, eventually, I took off my new green platypus bills and ran in to touch the water with my toes, only to be drenched (knees down) in the salty brine. I don't remember the last time I felt that good.

I've recently been asked if I am in love. The answer is: yes yes yes. Life is too full and too beautiful for me to not be head-over-heels with it, with the bridge, with the people that ebb and flow around me, with the cracks in the streets, with my cold fingertips, with stuffed peppers, with the knowledge that everything is within grasp as soon as we realize that our arms are made out of expandable rubber, not flesh and bone. All we have to do is learn how to reach.

anticipation

It is a good life that I have. In between the cracks courses blood that looks so much like gold and often we never want to stop. It were like magic how words found spaces to fill and how we tumbled in after them so willingly until we were swimming in something that must be divine- the ultimate creation. And the air in my head is all static cling- endless activity of something possible. Something utterly inevitable. Men walk down the street singing (la la la lalala ladidilala) to no one in particular which I think is great. Reflections of everything that is. Happening. The Books sing to me and make me feel balloons of energy climbing through my windpipes and through my nose. I hope to sing to you like this for always.

2:02:03

Instead of working right now I would very much like to be painting. But it's cold outside. And rainy. And I don't think there's anywhere else where I can have turpentine.

home and such

So today Gilly and I began looking at lots of photos from wherever we call home and I tried desperately to convince her that Cleveland and Ann Arbor were infinitely better than anywhere in Scotland (which is hard enough to lie to myself about let alone convincing another person) and I tried looking up photos of these glorious spots in the midwest and ended up with a lot of photos of fires. Which, when I think of it, makes sense. I feel like there were a lot of fires in Cleveland. And I never really thought about it before. I don't know that I would say it's like a defining trait or anything...but I guess things do burn down with some level of consistency.

Anyway-looking at these photos made me think about these places. And the way the air feels that first warm day when spring is about to come and there's still patches of snow on the ground but you still bike around in your t-shirt and you're pretty cold but feeling pretty great at the same time and there's a chill in your lungs that is simply delicious.

Cleveland: finding those strange moments of the city where it looks utterly beautiful in its sad post-steel days. The moss over the bridges. The ever-elusive "art bridge" where it was written that "gray is an ugly color" after everything got painted over. The top of the parking lot where kate and i read rude 14th century poetry. The west side where I feel like I'm not in the same city anymore and where you can find that random art gallery and see Birth for the first time. Lake View Cemetery and every minute I used to spend with my mother when she would take me from school because it was "too beautiful to sit in class" and we'd have lunch sitting next to beautiful monuments to those who have passed.

Ann Arbor: Walking down Liberty and that one block that makes you think that you might actually be in a city. The old West Side and the houses that look nothing if not comfortable. house shows and local musicians. Being the "normie" in a group of an ex-boyfriend's friends...awkward but priceless nonetheless. Brick streets. discounts and free coffee. October streets with Matt. Springtime with Fattie. Snow. Being Hermia in the Arboretum and Luke's twin sister in the Mendelssohn. The Bang and randomly running into Lucas and dancing all night and being utterly disgusting. Nathan and other randoms from the WCBN library. The Alleyway of Delight and (though I never thought I'd say this) 115 E. Kingsley St. Walking around town with Shawn drinking gin and tonic.

I love you both and miss you.

your fixie makes you looks fat

Fixed gears are damn sexy bikes. I feel guilty about this. I feel like the nerdy girl who agrees with all her friends that Mike Dexter is a total asshole and, god, who even CARES about football. But deep down, she has a huge crush on him and in her diary, she's written dozens of different combinations of their names with a liberal use of little cartoon hearts. I know that fixed gear bicycles are, "like totally it" right now and all that...but they're such attractive pieces of equipment. They're so thin, yet sturdy, sleek and minimal, shiny and effective. And here in the Mission people do amazing things with their fixed gears. They spend money to get little frame warmers- different color rims and handle bars. I find myself secretly coveting dozens of bikes on almost every walk I take and each one, I feel a little more for than just aesthetic satisfaction...I feel a little turned on. Usually having nothing to do with the skinny hipsters atop said bicycles. Though I do fantasize, from time to time, about having that fixed-gear-sweetie, who takes you to Tartine in the morning and Pops at night. Of course I am simultaneously disgusted with myself for such utterly cool aspirations...but sometimes, hipsterdom is a little like Starbucks coffee...you know it's goes against your morality, but damn don't those posters of machiatos look so tasty?

It's just a bad movie...

Recently I've been feeling catastrophe hanging around every corner I turn. I look up and expect to see wheelchaired sparrows hurling themselves to the hard concrete embrace below. Buddhist monks drawing red lines through the tender flesh of their beautiful throats. (I wonder- did they regret it at the end? Yearn to cry out "WAIT- I made a mistake!" What would have happened if that pool of life hadn't peeked from beneath the door- revealing the terrifying secret within- would that be one more friend to have disappeared or did he not cut through enough in the first place.) I expect bikers to be taken under grills, purses to be snatched, young men to be shot on the street, the golden gate bridge to let loose it's fine cables and snatch the entire city up in its claws and hold our heads under the water. I've been expecting disaster.

But today- a few days into the dry weather, I felt the beauty of people's smiles and the heat of the sun and the dry clay under my fingernails. Things didn't seem quite so menacing.

And- just so I publicly admit it: I can hardly stop listening to In Rainbows. I maintain that I still have reservations in terms of the larger scale of Radiohead albums. But, damn, it's hard to tear away from it.

And- to the world- I love you, please refrain from doing more stupid things. You've set me quite on edge.

football

The half-time shows at the super bowl always depress me. Granted, I'm usually never watching the super bowl. But there are those key moments, from year to year when I glimpse the height of American stupidity. I guess it's not even that i think football is stupid, or that people are stupid for wanting to watch sports...it's just such an amazing thing that SO MANY Americans, who can't get their act to do anything together. Who don't vote, who won't speak up against things they find deplorable- they WILL sit at home (or at a bar) and yell at rapidly moving images. Make commentary as if they, themselves, were the coaches. And then comes half-time. When Bono can open up his jacket to reveal the American Flag sewn inside while the names of 9/11 victims scroll behind him. Where Tom Petty can live off of the laurels of a hit he wrote however many years ago and dance about on a stage shaped like a guitar which he doesn't even play. It depresses me. That this is considered music. The people screaming in the audience don't care so much that it's Tom Petty just that they got to come down onto the field and maybe, if they're lucky, the camera will catch them singing along and, wouldn't that be magical. Maybe I'm being too critical, too elitist. After all, what's wrong with fame, Liza? What's wrong with "making it"? I guess nothing. But there's nothing particularly exciting about it either. Especially when it means catering to the exact companies and ideologies that seem so....disgusting to me. And putting on a half-hearted show and having it not matter because anything you do will be larger than life and people will cheer no matter what. It all feels like such a joke- such a strange compilation of facades that is supposed to convey a sense of "success" that really is just a bunch of bullshit.

Ooops- I think my coffee is done.

So the wind...

Did I mention the wind. A surge of temporal butter that swept over the all of us and there goes another umbrella and again someone stumbles over a fallen branch.

The wind that day.

She brought in secrets and rough blankets to cover over yesterday. Things that once were became rearranged to be here again. She though of clever tricks too. Shoelaces of razors and candy that dissolves to powder before the sugar can hit your tongue.

The wind poured heartbeats into people's mouths so we all spoke in pounding and one man couldn't help but go around town singing songs that he'd never heard.

I sat, tucked behind the ears of a beautiful moment, and I watched with eyes on my elbows the majesty of the today wind and tomorrow maybe someday.

hottt chocolate

with whiskey. Is soooo fiiiiine. Especially this hott chocolate and this whiskey. Delicious. Fanks Gilly.
Cock.

first batch

So. For some reason I was reminded this morning of my friend Becca. Becca worked at Espresso Royal in Ann Arbor on Main Street. One night, just as she was getting ready to close up, a bandit came in and held her up for the money in her drawer. Gun in the pocket and everything. Now, most people would very willingly give up the contents of their cash register. Becca, however, because she's a super hero, said she couldn't give him the money in the till, but she'd happily give to him the contents of the tip jar.

What a bad-ass...or a complete idiot. I go back and forth depending on the day.

Last night was fantastic. Everyone should listen to and love The Blow and Mirah. Granted Mirah didn't put on the bestest show in the world, but I still have a large place in my heart reserved for just her. The Blow kicked it up to 11 for sure though.

I slept in too late today. But it was very delicious. On my walk to work I saw a very tall, thin woman walking with her son. And it was crazy because she looked just like my friend Jan (aka Fattie) and the thought of Jen walking her son to school made me realize that shit goes down and soon enough she could have kids. And hey, maybe I will too. Apanda might as well. The future is crazy that way.

Puff Pastry Petites

Are the devil. I would like to here and now apologize to my wonderful friends who brought me to Dosa to eat delicious food and on whom I totally bailed because of those damn frozen treats. I was just so hungry! And I couldn't stop eating them. And then all that Indian food. Oh god...I had a stomach ache all frikken night. Goddamn puff pastry petites. I think they gave me nightmares. Anyway- this morning I feel fine. But the thought of how many of those things I ate still makes me feel a bit queasy.

Anyway. That's all from me.

It is 10:35

and I am excited about having a little bit of time to set my life straight. Yay for the openings of plays that thereby free up your Saturday afternoons.

On the bus today I sat across from two guys with the suits and the backpacks and the name tags and the bibles. It made me wonder, as a loud high school girl talked loudly about sex and drugs a few seats away from us, what do those people think about in large groups? Do they pray for us? Do they feel pity? Hatred? Or are they simply wondering whether or not they remembered to put their wash in the dryer? Another thing I always wondered about is the whole sex thing. Like, if they saw someone they found attractive, do you think they would purposely avoid them or would they use the whole Jesus thing to try to get some digits? The whole thing confuses me- there are just so many layers.

Plus, in addition to, furthermore and consecutively; It was my birthday yesterday and I have found that as I get older, the ages I reach seem to be younger than I had always thought them to be. For example. At 16, 18 seemed so much older, more mature, together, sexier, adult, etc. At 18 I still felt like I was 15 except the government could pretend to count my vote. Now that I am the ripe young age of 23 I still feel like...well, like I'm 15 except with additional things that I should have accomplished and life goals I should have already figured out. Sometimes I don't even really feel like I've left home. I still have this expectation of "growing up" even though all the evidence I have gathered seems to indicate that it's one of the bigger lies we've ever been told. Which is actually kind of a nice thing (that growing up is a lie, I mean) because still feeling like a 15 year old is pretty fun. And if I actually lived the way I expected a 23-year-old to live, I don't think I'd be nearly as happy as I am right now. And I'm pretty fucking happy.

Well, that's enough from me. Goodnight moon.

The thing about myspace...

...is that once you delete your account, all record of you vanishes. So, before my account was successfully deleted, I got three messages from a old friend and only one of them was I able to read because soon after the messages were sent, the profile was deleted and the other two messages were lost forever. Now I have no account either (happy day!). Is it true that you have to have one in order to comment on my page? Please respond.

To the past, with love...

...I saw you once in Cleveland. You were getting out of your car and I was getting on my bike. We looked at each other and I rode away. Trying to pretend that I didn't recognize you and failing. I felt rude afterwards and remembered evenings of discovering Nick Drake and Iron and Wine and that painting that you had by your bed and every so often I look at my arms and remember that "legs are too utilitarian" but arms - arms are beautiful. You once told me that you wanted me to end like "Lost in Translation" and so, I suppose that means all that we'll ever get of memory is that little pinprick that won't let us forget. A stumbled-upon blog here, a false myspace account there. Poetic, to the extent the cyber-world can be...poetic and intimidatingly frustrating. Then again, maybe the frustrating part would be running out of things to say. I still remember you with wings. And a mother whom you loved.

Thank you for wishing me well. I hope that you are too.

things i want

eric satie music, yoga mat, yoga class, mattress, excellent travel coffee mug that i can put in my bag and that won't spill, more sea shanties and union songs, a theater company, a big art studio and lots and lots of canvas, to sleep in.

And so it was...

...that I left behind the world of Myspace. Boldly shouting out behind me that "I believe online social networks make us lazy in our friendships and I believe they only function as a method of procrastination and I'd like to waste my time more constructively." Or something to that effect. I took a cab home tonight (after being simply horrified by the neon "57 min" that flashed at me from the MUNI stop) and the cabby started singing along to Stairway to Heaven. And I should have started singing along too because then it could've been a glorious symphony of awkward social moment.

I have been finding recently that I desperately want to watch such movies as "French Kiss," "Circle of Friends," and the like. I am tired for sleep.

It is now 2008

There is a mattress on the couch in my living room. Flower is passed out. The Christmas Tree lights are a-twinkling. And I'm not sure whether or not I want to watch a movie. Back in Cleveland the bad ideas of 2007 were sent to their final resting place with Rabbis and Puppets and snow storms and here I'm not sure if the bad ideas are to end, or if maybe they're just beginning. Hopefully a little of both and the bad ideas that are to come will bring me entertaining stories. I'd very much appreciate a positive change in president. I'd very much appreciate if all religious fanatics decided to return back to their holes in the ground and leave the rest of us to enjoy the lives that we have been able to put together for ourselves. I'd appreciate travel. And love. And friends. And creativity. Art. Music. Picnics. Bike rides. Adventures. Etc. Etc. Etc. "And let me tell you that motherfucker's dangerous."

I have tricks up my sleeve. and I am smiling mischievously.