I think I can honestly say that 2001 was the worst year of my life. Frankly, it lacked the glamour of 1994 -- no late-night boozeless car wrecks, no rogue fathers showing up on dormsteps, no psychotic genius drug-girls bent on destruction. No, this was the kind of year that will never make a good story. It was a lot of personal pain, in my brain and in my belly. I fell in love with a liar; I have a rotten malady that turns up its nose at medication and never goes away. It was a year of global loss, reminding me how jaded I'm not, how no matter how many layers of rose-tint I think I've peeled away, there are always more to take off, and it's never a welcome lesson.

That's not to say that nothing good happened this year. I made a few wonderful friends, I ate a lot of good food, I had a few amazing conversations, I heard some great music and read a mess of good books. Oh, and this morning, I pulled a hairpin straight out of my hair and picked a lock with it, which is possibly the coolest thing I've ever done.

But all in all, if 2002 is not more polite than 2001, I am going to stick my tongue out at it in a BIG WAY. And though I suppose I have no reason to, I have faith in it. Happy New Year, everybody. I think it's going to be okay. I mean, it can hardly get worse, right? Right?

I hate people who talk during previews. Maybe if movie tickets weren't 50 billion dollars a piece, I could be more cavalier about getting my money's worth. But they are, and I'm not. Damn it, the lights are dim, the peripatetic popcorn box has already warned us not to violate theater decorum, and everything playing on the screen costs me roughly $416,666,666/minute to watch. So, yes, people who prattle vacantly while I'm watching previews, even if the previews are admittedly a bit subpar (see: Snow Dogs), really set my teeth on edge.

This was the case on Wednesday, at my viewing of Lord of the Rings. I was seated next to two chatty and particularly inane amateur film critics and general observationists. I couldn't move, as the theater was completely full, and I couldn't really shush them, as I kind of consider my devout reverence of previews my own cross to bear.

However, my quiet seething was well rewarded at the end of the movie when, without a trace of irony, Moron One stood up, stretched, and announced scathingly to Moron Two, "Well, they certainly left that one wide open for a sequel." Moron Two made murmurs of concordance, and they went, blissfully unaware of the fact that they'd made my night after all.

nouveau geek (nü-vo gEk)
noun

The only possible description for my current state. I've never played a video game (excepting a brief stint with Metroid and Super Mario Brothers when I was twelve, and a torrid half-hour affair with Grand Theft Auto over Thanksgiving), I've never seen a single entire episode of the original Star Trek series. I've never discussed, or even wondered, if Superman could kick Spiderman's ass. I don't give a hoot about Star Wars.

I wear lipstick. Well, I *have* worn lipstick. And I match. Almost always.

Yet, here I am. Internet as all get-out. Toys in my cubicle. An unhealthy knowledge of Simpson's episodes. A damn online journal. And just look at the company I keep.

But I still don't give a rat's ass about Star Wars. Lord of the Rings might be a different story. I mean, come on. There are princesses.

 

And might I finally add, you have the head of a chicken.

Let this be a righteous paean to Kirk Israel, a tragically misnomered gentile whose dedication to his web audience is steadfast in both rain and shine. He's more reliable than the goddamned postal service.

Consider July 19, 1969 -- Ted Kennedy drove Mary Jo Kopechne off the bridge in Chappaquiddick, landing squarely on Kirk Israel's head. Despite being both badly injured and not yet born, on that day Kirk turned out one of his most relevant and historically significant editorials to date.

And let's not forget the The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 -- not only did Kirk himself start the fire, but his coverage of the ensuing terror and destruction was the most compelling and memorable material published by the media at the time.

I urge you all to remember the enduring greatness of Kirk Israel and his inspiring work, and let him be a beacon to you in your times of need. He's as solid as a rock, as driving as the rain, and possibly the most inspirational figure in the history of American media. God bless America, and God bless Kirk.

 

Also, please don't let him hurt me when he reads this.

Last night was Halloween shindiggery,and it was much more festivious than expected. I'd anticipated a somewhat sedate gathering on the smallish side, and ended up with a house packed full of love and noise. I don't know how these things happen, but god bless us, every one. While missing some regulars, there was a smattering of the usual no-shows -- I had a great time.

This is me, having a shadowy, but great, time.

I am truly an avant garde artiste:

There once was a man from Toronto
who loved the Lone Ranger and Tonto.
He watched the TV
with unparalleled glee
and ate tacos while reading the news.

 

As you can see: very much ahead of my time.

As Lauren succinctly put it yesterday, love sucks. It kills me to hear her recite the monologue of heartbreak, when I read from the exact same script a few months ago. It gives me a perspective that might be funny if it weren't so profoundly sad. Her girlfriend is moving out, and while her breakup is a terminal disease, not Chris' gunshot to my heart, the language is identical. I wish there was a way to circumvent the grief -- as though I could say,"Don't bother crying, I did enough for the both of us last winter, and I've seen the ending, it's not nearly as bad as you think." I think I know how my mom must have felt when I sobbed my heart out, at fourteen, when dumb Pete Nye and his creepy mullet dumped me. The trick will be remembering this feeling the next time I need it.

It all leaves me thinking god's creations are highly lacking. I wish we had monitors, to display on our chests, that read the signals of our hearts faster even than our own brains could interpret them. Gay, straight, bi, single, seeking -- whatever our hearts believe of us -- for each other, and to ease our own confusion. How many times have I not known whether to settle or run? If only my neon heart could flash out the answer where I could see it.

I cut off all my hair on Wednesday. Well, not all of it. But a lot of it.

 

And in five minutes, I'm driving to Baltimore. Whee.

I am überconscious of recent events as the white elephant that I refuse to acknowledge. So, instead of writing over and around the things I'm thinking, I will once again abandon prose in favor of listing nice things:

Advil

Overdressed children in restaurants who hold hands

Heads

black beans, red tomatoes, and brown rice

great new albums by Jude, Sam Phillips, and Cake

"banal"

the movie Spy Kids

Greg's mom and step-dad

amazing new album by Ben Folds

EDDIE IZZARD AND EVERY WORD HE'S EVER SPOKEN

big huge dinners with lots of friends

an extra 64 MB for a previously painfully slow home computer

FruitWater, by Glaceau

people who call me just to tell me they think I'm "grand"

marsupials

6,333 missing and presumed dead at the World Trade Center alone. Inconceivable expenses. Layoffs in the thousands at airline companies. And yet, those of us not directly affected start to return to normal, because we have to.

It doesn't change the fact that I'm a little afraid to turn away from the TV or the Internet, for fear that smallpox has broken out or my office park has been bombed and I'm caught uninformed. It doesn't change the fact that sometimes I see movement out of the corner of my eye and get caught momentarily in a daymare wherein that peripheral blur turns out to be a man with a gun who shoots up my entire office.

But I can't be afriad of my shadow forever, and it's getting easier to ignore the feeling of the Grim Reaper's arm slung casually across my shoulders. We all know it's always there. But to pay attention to it is to miss everything else.

Rosh Hashanah was this week, and it felt good to put the weight of the world on hold for a while and celebrate the new year. Everything was a little louder, a little warmer, a little funnier than it should be, and I've never been so glad to see my friends.

And Danny called me at work yesterday just to tell me that he was finally pissed at the bad drivers again. It was the best news I'd heard all day -- god bless that banal and meaningless agression. How holy to have the energy to flip off the asshole Chevy. Maybe we are no longer consumed by the kind of anger that is so pure and so potent that it would poison our own hearts. Of course, it's still there, but we push it off the way we dance around the embrace of Death itself; to accept it completely is to reject life. So I will continue to feel the pain in small doses, and I will laugh with my friends, and I will blare my ever-loving horn to anyone who cuts me off in traffic.

I look for someone to pray to, some way to believe there will never be blackness so dark again in my lifetime. I walk around through a preternatural quiet, with a feeling like being out of the house at 4 AM -- existing outside of time, the earth on pause and me still moving. I can't think of anything but the last moments and the last phone calls, and how no one feels safe, and how we avenge this pain to the innocent people with the wrong skin color at the wrong time.

I am stretched full with love and sadness. I am so sorry. And I am so grateful for everything I have.

I couldn't *wait* for work to come and rescue me from the weekend. It was actually that bad.

First of all, due to circumstances out of her control, Raph disappeared between the hours of 1 AM and 10:30 AM (three hours after we were planning to leave for NY). As an aside, in addition to my nose, my voice, my body, and basically everything I think and say, I inherited from my mom an unreasonable feeling that all situations end in tragedy. (On the way home from seeing Happy Gilmore, Andy and I passed a burning abandoned building in an area of Baltimore we'd not be caught dead in, lest we be caught... dead... errr... Anyway, as we passed, I said to my brother, "Bet you a million dollars mom thinks we are presently in that random abandoned building." Sure enough, we walk in to the house to find a ringing phone with a frantic mother attached to the other end. As though we hang out in abandoned buildings in bad neighborhoods nowhere near our house often. Of course. But anyway.)

So, I spent the time between 1 and 10:30 biting my fingers off at the first knuckle (utilizing poetic license), and was exhausted and frazzled by the time I heard from Raph and found her to be thoroughly one-piecèd and offering a good excuse.

Add to that the subsequent hideous fight with Greg (all better now) and resulting insomnia on Saturday night, and you have yourself certifiable pestilence, as weekends go. Sunday was uneventful, in a hanging-up-wet-clothes-after-a-rainstorm sort of way, but the damage had been done.

Ah. Office-sweet-office.

Today is the twelve year anniversary of my Bat Mitzvah. Praise Jesus.

Also, I've written a haiku!

Plans for Saturday

weekend in New York
Raph and I wear tall black boots
owning East Village

It seems I've been a little demon since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.

"I think in your next journal entry it would be appropriate to include some discussion of the fact that it is hotter than Hades in Boston and that we obviously live in the gateway to hell," suggests my friend Lauren.

I think she's got something. It has been a rather apocalyptic summer week, heatwise. Now might be a good time to ponder if the judgement day is perhaps upon us. At this point, I daresay I might welcome Armageddon if it were to come with a cool, soothing tidal wave or tsunami.

Last night, Ryan and Jess came to pay their last respects to the Dojo of Cool (or The Dojo of Swelteringly Hot, if we must be literal) before moving to the unlicked wasteland of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Raph joined us for dinner and came over for a sleepover after. There was much merriment and madcap adventure, and I awoke to a sleepy Raph on my couch who informed me that our dear friends had slunk out the door at three AM in a sweaty stupor, desperately seeking air-circulation and enlightenment in Western Mass. So it goes. It is admittedly brutal.

Kids, don't try this heat at home.

Here is a picture of me, in all my wolfliness, that my friend Dave drew. Aren't I terribly lupine?!

Never leave your computer unattended, or you might return to it and find line after line of nonsense waiting for you on IM, like my friend Rob did a few minutes ago.

Lupschada: rob rob rob, rob rob rob
Lupschada: has gone away and left me blue
Lupschada: as blue as a coconut that is blue
Lupschada: how true
Lupschada: and how sad
Lupschada: a sad as deep as the color bad
Lupschada: in the moonlight
Lupschada: rob rob rob, rob rob rob
Lupschada: has gone away and left me crying
Lupschada: crying like a million elves a'dying
Lupschada: how true
Lupschada: and how sad
Lupschada: a sad as thick as the molten sand
Lupschada: in the moonlight

"The 2001 PT Cruiser has that kind of alluring charm. Rounded fenders, a purposeful grille and an elegantly sloping liftgate are heritage design cues from an era that produced cars you loved."

Well, so says www.chrysler.com. But I say differently. If you're smart like me, you'll shun its purposeful grille and run away when you see it coming, shrieking,"Suburban hearse! Suburban hearse!" and making the sign of the cross. Amen.

I have been reading my old journals again, and let me tell you, if I ever start whining about the good old days, you have my permission to put a new hole in my head. Seriously, have at it. Because I can see that I mourned my life as a spastic socialite as much, if not more, than I regret the social coma at hand.

For example:

22 September 1996

"...Anyway, if it were just *****, okay. Eventually that will die, or he will. Or will move away. Or will get fat. But this kind of angsty trauma will never get old and fat and relocate. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I am drawn to suffering."

or

Friday, February 28, 1997

"It's hard to find new things to write when nothing changes. And honestly, nothing changes. I wish it weren't true. But it is, and it's so dismal. I heard the phrase 'look on the bright side' yesterday, and I was shocked, because I'd forgotten there was a bright side."

That being said, I would give a decade of vacation funds to go back and spend one week in college. Maybe back to junior year when Matt called me five times a day (12.24.96 -- "... I don't consider the excellence of our friendship often enough. Not at all. It's spectacular, even.") and Gail was the closest thing to a life partner two straight girls could muster. When my heart jumped and my stomach fell every time I heard a knock on the window, knowing it was Bill, coming to wreak some more havoc on my life ( 11.16.96 -- "I'm stupid and he's evil."). When Danny could flip my world upside down in a matter of seconds. When Chris was only my favorite R.A. at school and nothing more. When I lived in that wonderful suite that was the closest thing to home I'd ever had away from home, with people who didn't match me, who might never have been my friends, but somehow were among my best. When I skipped all my classes and never skipped rehearsals. When I never, never, never had nothing to do, and I always, always had someone or other to kiss me.

hidoro: do you think people are genetically predisposed to hate one another for reasons that are entirely invented? mental fabrications?
hidoro: i don't believe in genetic predisposition much, but sometimes i wonder...
Lupschada: I don't know
hidoro: because SO many people are so very AWFUL to other people, and prideful about it
Lupschada: in a certain sense... people have always existed in a realm of competition and outlasting the Joneses
Lupschada: survival of the fittest has become having a nicer Lexus, but still
hidoro: I guess I never really made that connection, although it should be obvious
hidoro: everyone is born ready to be the alpha dog. And so they're mean to everyone to get ahead
Lupschada: and people who can clearly see they're not alpha dog are hardly complacent about it
hidoro: diminish everyone else in their mental picture of them so they no longer count... knowing it doesn't solve the question though
hidoro: I'm gonna get kindergarten for a minute here.. but how come I can be nice to people, and WANT to be nice to people, and the rest of them can't and don't want to?
hidoro: that's what keeps me up at night
Lupschada: I wonder that a lot
hidoro: that I bother. that you bother. And yet legions and legions of others do not.
Lupschada: I was talking about that same basic concept yesterday, thinking about human decency, and how the hell road rage became so prevalent.
Lupschada: I think *most* people are baaasically decent
hidoro: hmm, that's probably a good microcosm
Lupschada: and yet... if you consider that a car is a weapon
Lupschada: how many people would say, "I don't like where you are in that lane, you tried to merge in front of me, so I'm going to wave a loaded gun in your face."
Lupschada: not many. I think. I hope. And yet, people will speed up to tailgate you. Or cut you off with a foot to spare
Lupschada: or do something equally ludicrous to show they're pissed. With, essentially, a deadly weapon
Lupschada: normal people do. Everyday people do. People I know personally do this
Lupschada: what is HAPPENING to the world of kindness?
Lupschada: it amounts to threatening someone's life because you don't like how they drive...
hidoro: I think it may be true of most people -- technically, they understand
hidoro: but... something.
Lupschada: so over the top
hidoro: something stops people from acting on what they know is the best thing
hidoro: even if it's best for *them* as well as others
Lupschada: I'd like to think that the people who act that way would be DEMOLISHED if they ever really hurt someone doing that
Lupschada: but they can't go from point A (cocky driving) to point B (killing someone/yourself)
Lupschada: little kids learn action --> consequence.. so when did we all forget it?
hidoro: i don't know.
hidoro: and i think that is probably what gets me out of bed in the morning
hidoro: wanting to figure it out, so i can fix it
hidoro: i'm a hopeless idealist
Lupschada: hopefully not hopeless, right?
hidoro: hey, i just drew a connection between my overwhelming urge to understand all cultures and that
hidoro: well, in reality...
Lupschada: or at least, that's what we have to believe to continue being idealists
hidoro: right
Lupschada: lol
hidoro: that conversation was classic
hidoro: can that go in your journal entry?
Lupschada: I was just thinking that

there is a pale metal rain today,
there is a dim recognition of something better, somewhere
there is a loneliness that is terrifying in its baselessness;
a feeling fleeting but real, as wet as the rain, and just as cold

I am preoccupied by thoughts of desolation:

the dark monolith of a broken heart

the burden of kindness

the horrible warmth of change from hands of
toll booth operators;
small envelopes of soul
passing though coins
every time we meet on the Massachusetts Turnpike

Well, I had my party and turned into a demon.

I should have known that would happen.

Tonight is my birthday party. Very exciting.

I have a sore throat. And the cutest cats in the world.

It's my birthday. 25. How about that?

All day I have had a hateful and dull headache the color of dirty metal. No amount of Tylenol or Tiger Balm seems sympathetic to, or even aware of, its nagging resonance. Bother. I am trying to ignore it, and am actually grateful to the amount of work I have to do today. And that's to say nothing of tonight! The downside of living in squalor (as though there were but one) is that every time I have a party, I kick my own ass cleaning the house. It's so hard that I swear to five gods and their mothers that I will never leave a dirty dish on the living room floor, or drop mail under the table, or ball my clothes up in corners (or the middle of the room; let's be honest here) ever again. Is that true? Does that really happen? Invariably, I am a slob again in a week or two. I think I may have gone as much as a month once. But mid-slovenry, I just dare you to tell me I don't like it that way. I will deny you with the power of a thousand bulls, no matter how right you are.

But I've been well. I spent the weekend in Baltimore, celebrating my birthday early with my family. They are awfully cute and awfully generous, and I came home with a bunch of birthday loot, and a full tummy.

And before that, Danny took me out for a long ride on his motorcycle. Truly, I tried to hate it. But I just can't. Slow is fast and fast is like lightning. Every road is rollercoasterrific, like flying, but much less comic-book-creepy. And how *cute* do I look on the back of a bike?! Actually, I don't know. Danny said pretty cute, but maybe he was just being nice.

I am bored. Bored. I am going to get a haircut. And lose a few pounds. And get some new clothes. And write a short novel. And read lots and lots of photography books. And start scoping out places to move when I've simply had my fill of Boston. And decide once and for all whether I'd rather make lots of money in a pointless job and live my life, comfortably, after hours, or make much less money doing something meaningful all day. And finally sort out my views on the role of the publicly sexual woman as exploiter/exploited. And clean my house, and do some damn laundry. And practice my guitar.

So, that's good for today. Tomorrow?

These are the books I bought over the weekend. I should probably join a library...

The Fourth Hand by John Irving (hardcover)

The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll (hardcover)

The Princess Diaries, volume 2 by Meg Cabot (hardcover)

The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll

No Logo by Naomi Klein

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging : Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
by Louise Rennison

Transformations by Anne Sexton

X 20 : A Novel of (Not) Smoking by Richard Beard (used paperback)

The Wishbones by Tom Perrota (used paperback)

I've been a happy one this past week, notwithstanding annoyance and overstress at work. Last Saturday, I drove to Amherst for a good, old-fashioned APOV party. Pretty much everyone was there -- Jenn was back from LA for a few days; John and Dan are in town for the summer before embarking on their first post-collegiate adventures, Ryan and Jess are at Mount Holyoke for another month before they move to Nowheresville, PA; Nick is leaving for Texas in a week, and Raph was there, obviously, because we stayed at her parents' house (sans parents). Put like so, it sounds pretty end of the world, and I guess it was.

Anyway, last Saturday.

The merriment ensues:
In Super Stop and Shop (note the vital inclusion of "Super"), I was reminded by Dan of the game "knifey-spoony" (as described in the Simpsons episode "Bart vs. Australia," original airdate 19-Feb-95) and literally drooled in the aisles (which is like rolling in the aisles, but wetter) over the many-levelled hilarity.

We bought more food than 8 people could ever eat in one night, and returned to the house with a raucous thunderstorm in quick pursuit. We missed the rain by about 3 seconds, and watched the most clean and jagged lightning I've ever seen from behind a huge window, with the lights out, eating carrot sticks.

After any number of intellectual and thoroughly uncultured discussions, and two actual interventions, we settled in to watch the classic (and deservedly so) film "Rat Pfink A Boo Boo." If you've not seen it, I suggest you pick up a copy of this long discontinued masterpiece at your earliest inconvenience. It's brilliant. Brilliant A Boo Boo, in fact.

It was 5:30 AM before I fell asleep, having spent the last hour laying in the oppressive heat, giggling with Jenn as we made "a boo-boo" the suffix to every word uttered by our friends. Poor bastards.

The next day, we foolishly ignored the menacing sky and went to Riverside (Six Flags, whatever the hell it's called), and arrived just in time to pay the exorbitant fee for cancelled rides and no refund! I skulked home a frustrated hour later so I could watch AI with Greg, which turned out to be the most horrible flopping disappointment I've ever heard. And I mean heard. The movie is gorgeous... I maintain that AI on mute would be my favorite movie ever. Or, if all of it were mute except Teddy. That would be okay.

But anyway, my friends stayed at the park to wait out the rain, and as I sat in a snarly traffic jam on the Pike, they road the Superman coaster three times in a row. Did I say poor bastards? Lies.

So AI sucked, but whatever. I had fun with Greg, and the next few days were a barrage of popping noises and sparkly things. Last night, of course, was the fourth, and I was terribly depressed to be away from my family. Dan Gatti was supposed to come hang out before flying to Japan, but the moron lost his PASSPORT (in classic Dan fashion) and didn't bother to call (in classic Dan fashion), but the rest of us had a pretty good time. Raph and Dan (her Dan) and his sister and Greg came out to Waltham, where we picnicked on my front lawn. We walked over to the fireworks at Leary Field, which were very Walthamy, and ended up sitting in front of my acupuncturist. How random. Afterward, we got drunk and smoked cloves on my front porch. A perfect dot-com holiday.

So, that catches us up, yes? The moral of the story is: I will be happier when I find more friends who are as much my speed. Amicitia semper prodest.

Somehow, there's incredible restorative power in dyeing hair.

Here's a picture of Shane assaulting my vibrant little head.

I rode a bike! I rode a bike! I rode a bike!

And didn't fall off.

Every good idea I've had over the past week seems to have drained away with the congestion in my poor head. I've been trying to collect them, but I am too stupid when infirm to retain anything witty.

I woke up on Thursday with an unpleasant and foreboding feeling in my throat. By Thursday afternoon, I was firmly in the clutches of my illness, and by Friday, I was fully delusional and hallucinating with fever. If you think that sounds like fun, you haven't had a temperature of 102.7 in a long time. Went to see Dr. Jon, who told me I had either gonnorhea or strep throat. We used some clever deductive reasoning* to decide the strep thing was a better bet. So I went home with an armload of drugs, confident in my body's ability to make itself all better.

Fast forward to lunchtime, when Greg swung by the house to check on me, and found me crying in a cold bath with my clothes on. My throat was swelled nearly shut, and I was all pukey besides. I called the good doctor back and cried at him some, and he promised to come to my house, which he did, and he whisked me away to a land of air conditioning, cable tv, and chicken soup. God bless that Dr. Jon. And let me tell you, narcotics do wonders for improving one's mood. I'd have to say that the 24 hours I spent on the couch of the Flamboyantly Gay Doctors® were entirely pleasant, notwithstanding streptococcus.

So anyway, my recovery has gone smoothly since, and I think I'm just about 100%. I stayed in bed until Sunday afternoon, when Danny took me to see Evolution, and I had a lovely time, though my out-of-bedness was perhaps a day or so premature. But it was worth it. I rather expected that movie to be idiotic, and it was, but a really funny sort of idiotic.

And now, I'm in a perfectly wonderful mood. Day before yesterday, we went for a ride to nowhere in Shane's Jeep after work. Nothing makes me feel more thankfully alive than being jostled over rough terrain with the wind giving my head tough love. We drove through a particularly bumpy stretch of road in Lincoln, which was much farmier than I realized existed near my house. I was euphorically bouncing in my seat and mooing my head off to the farm animals we passed. We went off-roading lite on a trail in the woods somewhere -- Shane says it was a fire road. I don't know, but the bugs bit the hell out of me and I loved it anyway.

I'm beginning to live my life shamefully like a car commercial, but whatever. I'll take my joy where I can get it, even if my joy is remarkably similar to the big-bucks-vision of some hotshot ad-wizard.

* Not really. We were pretty damn sure straight off.

I'm in a much better mood today, and greatly wish to wipe my palate clean of the onerously maudlin taste of yesterday's entry. Unfortunately, Calliope and Thaleia, my muses of choice, appear to be taking a long lunch break, and I can't think of a damn thing to write.

So, in lieu of an actual prosal entry, I'll just list things that are nice:

thunderstorms

snoutmeal

"burnt sienna"

the smell of fresh tar

the word "execrable"

"The Family Guy" episode with the Kool-Aid pitcher

the phrase "onerously maudlin"

sparklies to wear on your face and head

"enough to make a parson swear"

Shane's Jeep with the top down

"cornflower blue"

body paints

Cletus the Sad Bunny

"strategery"

Mrs. Krabappel

C. Everett Koop, or at least the concept of him

char

I had a tape recorder with me last night. The following is a transcript. It's pretty bleak. Sorry.

I'm driving home in a pouring thunderstorm with blue-yellow lightning.

I just saw Chris. We're not going to see each other for awhile. I got to be pretty and dramatic and say, "Goodbye, Chris. Maybe someday I'll run into you in an IHOP." And I made him cry. And I guess I'm a little proud that I can still touch him that much, because he's such... a closed-off person. It didn't really feel good to see him cry. It made me want to gather him up in my arms... and be the one to fix it again. But I guess in another way, it did feel kind of good to not give him what he needed, even knowing that he didn't want it from me. So I'm driving home, and "Writing to Reach You" is on, which makes me feel righteous (earnest, melodic, pure)... and I miss him.

And I don't feel particularly clean, or like this is the end of an era. I don't feel at all like this is the end of an era, and that's good in that it indicates a stronger sense of self than in any other breakup... that I don't feel like I've ended and am beginning again. On the other hand, it leaves me with a lack of closure... um... a total lack of self-satisfaction.

I don't feel totally without beauty. I just pumped gas in the rain with bare feet... and a long skirt... it appealed to my inner aestheticism (*laughs*)... um... but really I'm just a girl who's failed again (*sobs*)... who's too fucked up to do it right. And given, I picked the worst person in the world to try to succeed with -- he's more fucked up than I am. This is a lesson... I didn't want to have to learn. That no matter how much we wanted it, it doesn't matter, we just couldn't make it work.

And ahh, a traffic jam. This is exactly what I need right now. A longer car ride...

I am sick and cranky. These blasted pills make me wretched, and I have mosquito bites on my hands. And I have a headache. And the print that I did of my Cletus the Sad Bunny picture came out all washed out and over-contrasty.

And my legs are all sore. Yesterday, I had my long-delayed picnic with green-guitar-bill, the most pawsy of my former paramours. We took a basket to the woods behind Sachar and went for a "little" walk. Over an hour later, thinking ourselves horribly lost, we emerged at the edge of the quarry with scratches, bites, and a nearly unquenchable thirst for the carton of Five Alive we'd been lugging around. I got all dirty, which I love, and I had fun, but now I am a little sad-legs. I do have to say this, though. If you are anything like me, you've not had the refreshing, citrus deliciousness of Five Alive since you were in short-pants. But it's every bit as exhilerating as the box claims. I love all five fruits in Five Alive, and so would you.

About a year ago, I was talking on the phone with Joe, discussing Muppet Babies. What a great and weird show, filled with random impossibilites.

In the real Muppets, the characters were evidently a range of ages -- some of that dictated by relationship; Obviously Robin was much younger than Kermit -- he was Kermit's nephew! But in the cartoon, Robin was an infant and Kermit was some kind of toddler. There was around a three year age difference.

Maybe Kermit just aged at an unnatural rate. I don't know. But how does one explain Skeeter? Who the hell was she, and what the hell happened to her? How much sense does it make, in a children's show, to add a character in a prequel series that you know, for a FACT, doesn't exist later? 'Oh, Skeeter? Yeah, she's dead. What? Oh, muscular dystrophy. Yeah, it was pretty ugly. She was a gymnast, you know.' That's just not right.

Maybe giving Kermit a sister would have made sense, seeing as how we know he has a sibling. But of course, one could assume he or she'd be roughly the same age as Kermit, toting the son Robin. This idea led me, in a tangential conversation about applying the "Baby-sized" (think super-sized) device to other media, to create first the cartoon "Beo-babies" and then the character "Baby Grendel's Baby Mother." I still haven't stopped laughing. Joe has. I don't blame him.

So, the other day, I started randomly laughing over Baby Grendel's Baby Mother, and Joe made the apt comment that while Beo-babies is funny in name, Star Wars Babies was muuuuch funnier in concept. And he's right.

Think about it. Animal was a little younger than the other babies on the Muppets -- you could tell because he wore diapers (but not because of his fragmented caveman speech, as that never actually changed) -- but why? Joe theorizes that it's because he would be too dangerous as a toddler. A whirling dervish such as Animal can raise only so much hell in diapers.

It would stand to reason that "Star Wars Babies" would also have the most dangerous character play the infant. Thus, you have a little lispy baby Emporor, who says things like, "I can sense your hate. Gooooooooo bye bye!"

But more to the point, the number one reason "Star Wars Babies" is a good idea:

"Baby Luke. I am your Baby Father."

An elderly lady confronted Bertrand Russell at the end of his lecture on orbiting planets, saying, "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise".

Russell gave a superior smile before asking what the turtle was standing on.

"You're very clever young man, very clever," replied the old woman, "but it's turtles all the way down."

as told by Stephen Hawking, page one of A Brief History of Time, the only page I read

I am that old lady. Sometimes I can't believe I live in a world of science. But I'm fairly certain that it is turtles all the way down. Or something is, anyway.

I'm inelegantly superstitious -- I've never been to see a clairvoyant, as they are all charlatans and frauds, but I think my 8-ball might be the genuine article. I suspect one or the other of my cats is a shaman in disguise. I know: for shame.

My building has three elevators on the first floor, and I've constructed an inversely proportional relationship between the length of time I wait for them and the amount of good luck I can expect to apply to my day. There are three elevators with two separate buttons (two passenger elevators and one freight -- one button calls both passenger cars.) If the elevator is waiting on the first floor when I walk in, I am convinced that my day will progress swimmingly, as I am clearly blessed. Even better is when I walk in and the door opens automatically, without my pressing the up button. Of course someone has hit both buttons and taken a faster car, but no matter. It's still an unequivocal sign of prophetic significance.

A couple weeks ago, I walked in and both passenger elevators -- BOTH -- were waiting for me. And I stared at them for a moment, daring them to rise to the second floor while I stood in front of them. And they cowered and refused to budge. Yes, they did. And I turned on my heel and took the stairs instead, right up seven flights. I felt empowered. There I was, gazing upon the gifts destiny had offered, and I chose to make my own instead, and burn off the calories in my Apples -n- Cinammon Oatmeal while I did. I dissed the portent of glory! That's power.

And this morning, I walked through the front doors to see that there was an elevator opening up, and a man from some company other than mine was getting in. Wonderful. But as I watched (and he did too -- you can bet your boots he saw me), the doors closed a foot away from my face. Well. I had to wait a good long time for another elevator, and i desperately searched for the correct interpretation of this development. What did the fates have in store for me?

So I thought, 'Perhaps it's a metaphor for how humans will always get in the way of my good luck, how the forces align in my favor and then some guy always comes along and fucks it up.' and perhaps it is. But more likely, it's the final straw of ludicrousness. My guess is that it has no significance whatsoever, prophetic or otherwise, seeing as how i've had a perfectly good day. Better than good, actually. Damn fine.

Do you like how I drop the karmic bullcrappy the second I start losing the game? Nice.

I find that I more overwhelmed and manipulated by sensory response than I've been at any other time in my life. I've taken nearly half a roll of film of the steepley roof across the street from my house. There's a tree half a block away from Greg's apartment that nearly kills me, it's so intoxicating.

And I think I've fallen in love with Radiohead. Or at least OK Computer. And I mean in love. It's stupefying. "Paranoid Android" makes me stammer idiotically, and I'm thinking of taking tracks three and four home to meet my parents. I want to roll around on grassy hills with the whole album and feed it strawberries. i think it's the real thing this time. We're really so happy together.

I can't remember if I get this sentimental every time the weather turns warm, or if I'm actually going mad. I'm rather hoping for the latter, if it's going down like this. I'm pretty dopey but awfully sweet, and I dispense, like Pez, excessively loving and optimistic advice to my friends and enemies alike. Yeah, from my neck. Shut up, smart guy.

My hormones and environment are having a battle over my soul today. I crave chocolate and unreasonable arguments with loved ones. And yet, it's a sunny Friday and I'm expecting a roll of B+W film back from CVS any day now, and I ordered beautiful new sunglasses which should arrive tomorrow or the next day. they are prescription glasses, and I expect to be very fetching in them, and a good, safe driver besides. I think I'm in a good mood in spite of myself.

Shane just won fiddy bucks and I think that's pretty cool. I've never won anything, but it doesn't mean that God doesn't love me.

Trying to define the difference between Britney Spears and Christina Aquilera. Both clearly fetid -- Britney gives me bulemia-lite ... but Christina gives the whole world a venereal-disease-by-proxy, which, I think, in the grand scheme of things, is pretty much worse. What a skanky girl! She is a dirty stall in a mall bathroom! I think of it this way: Britney is the baby sitter who talks to her boyfriend on the phone the whole time, and tries on your mom's clothes, and hogs the remote, and exposes you to god awful pop music that will haunt you well into your teens.

But Christina invites her boyfriend over and hangs out with him in your parents' room with the door closed and kicks your dog and when your dad goes to take her home it takes a really long time. And by your dad, I mean your dad and not mine.