Meetings With Remarkable Minds

Once Upon a Time...

2006-07-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, in a land not far from here, there was a noble and brave Prince.

Who traveled to a land a little up the hill, because he had heard tales of a beautiful princess trapped in a world of heteronormativity.

So he and his brave knights,

and histrusty servant-boy

Traveled to a land a little up the hill...

And met a wise and powerful Wizard.

The Wizard told them to seek out the princess in the land in front of a liquor store, deep in the dangerous jungle of Noe Valley, and the Prince was very grateful.

"We shall find the Princess! Page boy, bring me a fourty, for sustinence!" The dashing Prince said, and it was so.

The Prince voyaged over the steep hills and puke-encrusted terrain of Noe Valley, and was met by an angry and somewhat nerdy gate-keeper.

"Page boy!" The Prince cried, "distract him!"

So the Prince escaped the gate-keeper, and freed the Princess. And she was grateful.

Very grateful.

It was kind of excessive.

I mean, he's a Prince, right? It's kind of his job to rescue Princesses. I mean, what else has he got to do all day, you know? But still, she was really grateful.

To tell you the truth, the Princess was kinda just giving it away.

I mean, really.

So the Prince, and the Princess, and the loveable but slightly queer page boy lived happily ever after.

The End.

All it Does is Rain

2006-05-19T18:01:00.000-07:00

These days, I'm feeling both underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the same time. It's quite the sensation. It's a very short calm before the shitstorm that my life is soon to become, which is nice. I get to catch up on the first season of Huff and organize bowling tournaments with everyone I've ever met, but still. Having nothing else to do but my Original Recipe Job-Job makes me feel listless and prone to drink. Both of which I am known to do well; lord knows I don't need to practice. Yet I seem to always be in an Elliot Smith "Between the Bars" kind of mood.

Which is not to say it's all bad news; actually, it's good. I'm soon to be empolyed for far more money than I'm actually worth teaching drama to children. Nothing wrong with that. It's good for my resume, it's good for my credit card debt (grumble), I already bought a cute new pair of Danskos to congradulate myself (and a dinner out, and a few trips to the Old Slavey [hee], and... some more shoes.... everything Sarah Vowell has written in the last five years... grumble). And it's a good opportunity to jump into something that I have no idea how to do, which I don't get very often, since I have an apartment and credit card debt... did I mention the debt yet? Good.

But it's also... teaching... children.... drama. How the fuck does a techie with zero acting skills and a penchant for whiskey get a job not only supervising children, who are our FUTURE (or so I have been told), but teaching them a skill? A useless skill, sure, but it's something. I don't even know if I like kids. I hardly remember being one myself, and from what I do remember they don't like me very much. Now that I'm six feet tall and presumably the adult, they might take more of a shine to me, but I was an only child. I was never socialized to deal with other children. Now that I'm my cynical and sarcastic young woman self, what the fuck am I going to do with a gaggle of five year olds?

Not to mention every other word out of my mouth is "fuck", and has been since 1995.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity, again, and I have a feeling I'll be fine, it's only 10 weeks, and, dude. I'm totally getting rich off those little fuckers. But did I mention it's at 8am? I don't even know what 8am looks like. Is the sun out yet?

Add to that moving at the end of the summer, which just breaks my heart on so many levels. I hate house hunting, and so far my luck has been on-off: one house bad, one good, one bad, so on so on. I'm living in a good house now. If Scrunchyface and I move into a shithole in the Sunset, will our relationship just... implode? I have heard tell. And I have so much fucking shit in my life, it's funny, how, in 23 years you can accumulate a museam of crap that you just can't get rid of, because as soon as I throw my old futon away, my bed will spontainously combust and I will have to sleep on THE FLOOR, in THE DIRT, like AN ANIMAL. And don't even get me started on the serious waterworks that are going to transpire when I move out on my lovely roommate. No, don't ask. It's just something in my eye. Anybody else want a shot of whiskey?

Just today I got offered yet another stage managing job for September, which I hopefully won't have to turn down, and one of my favorite directors is asking about using me next semester for her show. Sigh. It's all great. Why do I feel so bad about it?

My Human Interactions

2006-03-20T15:38:00.000-08:00

...is the tittle of this b-side Harvey Danger song that I downloaded and listened to obesessively when I first started working on Angels, and I really had no idea how applicable it would be.

...Pray to the God that you don't quite believe in to bless this fleeting moment...

Angels was... a mess, and thrilling, like any good relationship. I could go on ad nauseam about how it was a learning experience, etc, and how it was like a real-time professional show and how long has it been since I did something like that? And explain my faults, and my triumphs, and how the TD and the director couldn't agree on the last few cues and that caught me in the crossfires but I held my own, and amaze you with stories about how my lighting guy showed up a half hour before showtime and I nearly killed him... but if you spent any time hanging out with me for any length of time you've heard it. Over, done.

What's not done are my anxiety dreams about the whole thing. Throughout tech I had dreams every night--- doing the show and the lights fail (actually happened), I show up and the show is cancelled (actually happened), endless faceless people screaming at me (actually happened), being unable to read and therefore unable to read my cues (not this one, thank God)--- and to be fair, 95% of my dreams are anxiety dreams anyway, but... the show ended two weeks ago. You would think my brain would get a hold of this. No, my brain still is carrying that torch, trotting my subconcious out onstage to deal with some calamity or other.

But really I loved it. It was so brief, and such a compacted experience-- boom, it's over. I miss it, in a way, even though I'm happy to have a life back. At the same time it was hard, it was anxiety inducing, and more than once I thought, "I can't do this." I felt like a fraud, like a failure, like a scared little girl. I felt like the only one with her shit not together, and I am not used to that.

And then I think: this is a job. It is work. Just because I love it, just because I'm good at it, doesn't mean it won't kick my ass. Doesn't mean it won't kill me. This has been so easy up until now, and now... it's real. It's not high school anymore, it's not 'lets just do the show and go to Denny's'. This is hard, and sometimes not fun, just like any good relationship. I just have to... you know, Knuckledown. I have to keep going back, keep getting it to kick my ass, and find new and exciting ways to kick back. That will keep me alive, keep me sane.

If I thought that you could see me, I'd be too anxious to perform. But tonight I am not working on my human interact6ions anymore.

Greetings from Inside One Girl's Insanity!

2006-02-23T16:48:00.000-08:00

Oh, jay-sus I am tired. And I don't really know why, except that this is tech... 'cept it's basically the only thing I'm doing right now, besides freaking the fuck out and drinking waaaaaay too much Box Wine. I get the eight hours, surprisingly enough I've been going to bed when I should instead of watching infomercials and Olympic coverage until dark-thirty.

So there will be a lenghty post about Angels at some point, I promise, but. Not now. However, in case y'all are interested, here's the show info...

Angels in America @ the Diego Rivera Theatre
City College of San Francisco
50 Phelan, SF

Feb. 24 and 25, March 3 and 4 @ 8pm (the theater is always at eight)
Feb. 26 and March 5 @ 2pm

$10

Come see me... not do anything, really. But when a light goes on imagine me freaking out about the timing. And then you can buy me a beer and I will tell you boring stories!

I Loved You, So What?

2006-02-14T17:12:00.000-08:00

This is going to be scattered, and aimless, and I'm going to get some business out of the way first before I get to any point... if I ever get to a point, which is unlikely... for I am a very exhausted girl, and I have about 45 minutes to kill. Disclaimer over.

Angels is going really well, and there will be posts on that, mostly because I think it's the most interesting thing I do (that is rated PG-13, mind you), but I kind of like the frenzied tech week additions rather than posting little things, "Today I taped the stage, today I was on-book," etc. etc. But I will say that I'm learning a lot, which is new for me, I think the shows I've worked on since I started at NVSF 7,000 years ago have been so Laisez-Faire that I haven't really had a chance to get through the real, semi-professional process of stage management yet. The cast is super good, very nice, and very very attractive--- and ladies, there is a significant amount of man-on-man action in a two and a half hour period, which I encourage you to experience for yourself. Actaully, alla y'all are invited, if you'd like, it's going to be a great show, if I don't fuck it up.

In other news, and really coming out of nowhere, Bosslady was kind enough to will me her bed, which is now dominating 75% of my room--- I had been sleeping for the last 3 years on a prayer mat, actually, and before that the boyfriend had a futon, so I had forgotten what it was like to actually sleep on a matress. I highly reccommend it.

So that's out of the way, I thought I would do the obligitory V-Day post, because it's topical, and I've been feeling guilty about neglecting y'all, not to mention jealous of those of you *cough cough Jeff* who have the time and capacity to write so frequently on a number of interesting things.

The first thing that strikes me about this quote unquote holiday is the backlash for people with partners. Of course, of course, there's the rampant consumerism, the decorations that go up on January 2nd, the constant chocolate price spikes--- this is all relavent and yet, I choose to ignore it. I think there is a definate culture of cynicism among us, what, Gen Y or Gen Q or Gen Purple folk, to be edgy and snarky about love and hearts and flowers etc... and that's fine, that's totally where I'm at, by the way, but when Feb. 14th rolls around, there's this obligation to get together and have a bottle of wine and be all dovey. I have found, in the past, that my single friends are absolutely livid about this, even angry about the fact that those of us in relationships get to, I guess, have a holiday all our own, while they feel excluded. I have gotten to the point where I won't even mention any plans to people because of the angry backlash. I realize, of course, that this is a defense mechanism against feeling lonely and alone, culminating on a day when our society declares, loudly, that TO BE WITH SOMEONE IS TO BE WHOLE, YOU ARE HALF A PERSON... especially to women.

But the thing is, especially after being with someone for a while, these coupley obligations make me... tired. They're not based in actual love or affection--- Scrunchyface and I didn't say, Okay, Mark Your Calander, Because Today We Agree That We're In Love. We do that... daily. Whenever he gets up to fix the antenne on my teevee, or brings me a glass of water in the morning, or goes out to get me smokes, that is an expression of love. When I encourage him to go back to college or take him to dinner, that is an expression of love, and all of these little things mean more to me, and to him, than doing something special reflexively because we are a couple and this is what couples do.

My point being that the entire thing is overrated, especially when you are with someone, to the point that I cannot remember a single Valentines Day that I have ever spent with anyone, ever.

But I remember the time that James the First made me my first mix ceedee, and I remember kissing Drummer-Boy in the theatre parking lot. I remember when King James II took me on a date to a poetry reading in a cafe that had been boarded shut for the last five years, so we had cake and tea in the Castro instead, and I remember when Scrunchyface first told me he loved me, and I refused to believe it.

We all have love, have been loved, will love, can love, are loved and will forever be loved by everyone we've ever met. We don't need no stinkin' holiday.

End of lecture.

Between the First and Fourtieth Drink

2006-01-25T19:09:00.000-08:00

Too busy to eat, people! What with the holidays (or as I like to call them: Holidaze), and my birthday (thank you very much) and all of the sudden I'm in classes and rehearsal and various assorted extra-curricluars, I'm beat.

I have, however, made time for Beer Club. I really want to make a joke about the first rule of Beer Club, but I won't. Because I care.

The actual first rule of Beer Club is it is not Beer Club without Car Bombs, or whiskey. That's more of a personal rule. Just to keep my fighting weight up.

We always go to Pilsner, because it's friendly, and gay, so there's not a lot of trouble with univited males pawing around my women-folk. Within the last few weeks, every time I'm in there, the bartends give me this kinda squinty look and say, "Ieeeeeyye remember you." It's not exactly warming, but I think it's okay. I'm a good tipper. So we get our 'bombs, or our Heffewisen-n-a-shot-a-Jack, and head to the back, for dimly lit smoking under the ivy outside. Our table, mysteriously, is always free, although I think they've begun roping it off for me before I get there. At least, I asked them to do that. Bosslady sits as far away from me as possible, to aviod the sweet sweet smell of all the chain-smoking, Soph sits next to me, to easily access my cigarettes and Dee sits next to Bosslady, because they are married. Pints are drained and reflooded, the ashtray is filled, everyone talks over each other about work, for Christ's Sake, why do we always gotta talk about work, you guys, etcetera.

Eventually someone mentions Sparky's. That's usually the end of Beer Club, and the beginning of Onion Ring Club.

Or it's two am, and we're veinly trying to choke down three quarters of a beer, because I have an internal clock that bings at last call, and also, I'm an enabler, so I usually convince someone else to get a pint. Only by the time we get back and get seated and distribute and light up a smoke, some unfriendly bar maid is shooing us out.

I love Beer Club. And Beer Club loves me.

Auld-lang-something... Where's My Beer?

2005-12-31T14:09:00.000-08:00

Hey there. Missed me? I missed you. I swear, I swear, I swear I am NOT falling into that old pattern of not-Blogging for months and months and then posting about shopping, ah-gain. I've been busy, as you have, and I blame... finals? Uhh... yeah. Sure. Fi-nals. Not my fault!

Anyway, how you been? That's excellent! I'm so glad to hear that you finally got that fish/hooked up with a new beau/bought a car/got your Rhodes scholarship. Might I suggest naming him Mr. Gil? No? Because that's kind of a funny fish name... Still no? Okay, your loss dude. I was only trying to help.

Me? Oh, I'm cool. Yeah, buried Dr. Gill last week. He was a good fish. He just couldn't handle that cleaning solvent. I know, I know. Rinse. Yeah, Dee tells me that all the time. It's not my fault. Doing dishes is hard, yo.

Yeah, finals were fine. Not too hard. Really looking forward to not being stressed or hating myself for the next two weeks. The director for Angels already tried to get me to come in and work, or something. Luckily, I didn't get his e-mail in time and could avoid it. Unfortunately, now he hates me and is going to make my life crap for a semester. Yeah. Well, I know I signed up for it, but I was hoping you would be supportive. Why do you always get like this? Okay, okay. I don't want to fight either. Sorry, dude.

Hey, I got an iPod! Yeah, I am really excited. No. No, I am not downloading while I am talking to you. What do you accuse me of, sir? For your information, I am just tinkering around a bit, trying to figure out the Julinne feature. Apparently, I have 10 MB of Potato storage available. Also, it has a car-wash attachment, which would be great, if I in fact, had a car.

What are you doing for New Years? Uh-huh. Yeah. No, staying in with a bottle of Cooks does seem like a good plan. What? What tone? No, it's just... well. You say that every year. I say that every year. And we just wind up doing something anyway. No, I believe you, it's just that the conflict is so great. I've been there, girl. You're not going to make it. By 11:53 you're going to end up in something shiny and threadbare, in uncomfortable shoes, shivering and wondering how you got yourself into this mess, AGAIN. Okay, okay, we'll see. Hey. I'll bet you a dollar. No? Don't care to put a little moolah into this wager? Chicken, eh? Bahk-bahk-bahk-ba--- okay. I'll stop. Sorry.

Anyway. No, I've got to go too. Need potatoes. Yeah, I'll talk to you again next week. Have a good holiday!

Portland

2005-12-11T17:15:00.000-08:00

Portland Roof
Originally uploaded by noelleaharrison.

Finally got some pictures back from the trip to Portland with Scruncyface--- this one pretty much exemplifies our time there together... this being on the roof of our hotel, where we spent 90% of our time. Not pictured: bottles and bottles of cheap red wine, epic poker games, and... other fun things you do in a hotel room.

Talk to Me Now

2005-11-28T16:11:00.000-08:00

I went out to Ameoba this Thanksgiving break, because I discovered this great band once removed from my beloved Sean and his Harvey Dangering--- the Long Winters, from Seattle--- also picked up Tori's new album, which I like, surprisingly, and Aimmee Mann's Bachelor No.2, which, as always, is awesome. Altogether a nice excursion, and I've got lots of new tunes to rock my socks for a while.

Consequently, I've had "Ghost World" stuck in my head for the past eight days. I kind of lament it, because that song would have been so perfect for me when I was seventeen. "Finals blew I barely knew my graduation speech/with college out of reach/if I can't find a job its back to dad and Myrtle Beach". I don't know this for a fact, neither, but the title seems to take itself from Daniel Clowes' graphic novel (of same name), and the song is kind of a anthem for the geeky and disillusioned protagonist, who was based largely on myself in high school. (They also made a movie out of it, but it wasn't any good.) But being a grown-up means you don't have a lot of time to be cynical and bitter, so listening to the song is like listening to a memory of myself.

I'm the kind of girl that takes herself waaaaaay too seriously, but with that kind of music--- the real earthy, accessable, could-have-been-produced-in-my-basement musci that folks like Aimee and the Long Winters make--- I always feel more meloncholic than I should, just this abstract longing to connect with these people who seemingly have such a profound understanding of experiences that I, too, have had. To think that they were able to articulate it and put it to music, which is something that I could never do. Sometimes I want to just shout lyrics at people instead of trying to think of something clever to say; I could never express myself as eloquently as these musicians seem to do.

It's the kind of sadness that you get listening to Jeff Buckley, I think, or Glan Phillips, where if I could just sit down and talk to these folks, I would understand myself so much better. Maybe. Or maybe they're just as fumbling and nonsensical as I am. They sure seem to know what they're talkin' about.

But I'm a big ol' Starfucker, anyway.

the Beekeeper

2005-11-24T00:14:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving approaches, and, as it is wont to do, it comes with the promise slash threat of family. I've exhausted my opinoins of my family here--- and yet not really indulged, how mysterious!-- and in honor of my guilt, I would like to dedicate my post to my psudeo-sister, Dee.

A little backstory. Two days ago, I come home from work, and Dee-light is complaining of pain. Now, this is not the usual pain associated with living with me (heh), but a tooth-pain, in particular. Seems Ms. D's wisdom teeth are growing in as nature intended them: sideways. Same thing happened to me, quote wisdom teeth unquote grow in all funky and jut into one's jaw=major oral sugury is reqired. So Dee had to have some teeth removed, no big, right? Few days offa work, on the couch, whatevs. 'Cept, and as you all know, this week.... is Thanksgiving. And her family... includes me. So, not only does Dee miss out on turkey and pie and my crazy drunk uncle calling me a bitch, but I MISS OUT ON DEE. Protecting me. FROM THE CRAZY.

And because she is lovely, and in pain, I got to thinkin' about my favorite memories of her...

Like when I first moved to the city, and I had no one for company--- literally no one, I had either cut ties with all my friends or my friends had cut ties with me; Mrs. L was the only hold-out, coming to San Fran and visiting my shitty abode and pretending that I had it made. Anyway, once a week, you could set your clock by it, Dee called me up and we would do something. Random movies I would have never seen in my hometown, a few parties, hanging out with her friends who just thought I was weird I'm sure, Dee would make a point of reaching out to lonely little me no matter what. She always had my back, without having to have those lengthy conversations about having my back, it just... was so. She's very much that; she's a person with very little bullshit who doesn't have to wear her lack of bullshit on her sleave. She's comfortable with it and if you're not: Fuck you.

I remember when I broke up with King James II but we were still living together: every day was a fight or icy cold silence. I was packing my things, loudly; it was one of my favorite things to do. Dee calls me, on the phone, and invites me to a movie. And it was such a simple thing, just a movie on a Sunday evening, but it meant so much. Just being able to escape that house: the house that contained my own head, and my doubts, and all the masculine anger and longing. It really saved me in a small and significant way, and made me see that--- yes. There is life after this. This heartache and anger, this longing. There is more after this.

I remember when we were talking about moving in together, and it was just talking, really. Like you do with your girlfriends: Wouldn't it be great if we moved to the south and started a barbeque shack? Wouldn't it be great if we opened our own bar? So we were talking about moving in together, we were at Roxie's, and she said, We Should Really Do This. She gave me this look, this look of earnesty, and I totally believed her. I bought what she was selling. I bought two. And we went out together, and we found an apartment. We went out and furnished it. We went out, and we agreed, silently, to trust each other, to jump off the concept of being that close to someone else and to not actively hate them, we agreed that we would breathe and live and cry and play epic Candy Land games together, smoke endless cigarettes together, and know each other better than anyone else knows us. Together.

I'm sorry you're sick, Dee. I'm sorry you're missing Thanksgiving. But... you know. More pie for me. Sucker!

Heatherly Reminds Me...

2005-11-21T02:46:00.000-08:00

Just before our love got lost you said,
I am as constant as a northern star...

And I said, constantly in the darkness
Where’s that at?

If you want me I’ll be in the bar.

License to Ill

2005-11-17T16:33:00.000-08:00

Aw, man. I am sick. I am death wish sick. I am so sick I can't smoke. CAN'T SMOKE, PEOPLE. Smoking is all I have to live for!

And I know the exact fucker that did it, too. I was a t a party this weekend, and the boyfriend of the host had admired my alco-riffic drink, and, wanting to show off how hardcore and boozy I am, I offered him a sip. Only to find out later that he is now writhing in agony, as I am. Damn him and his love for my fruity beverage!

As I have stated before, I never get sick. Ricci, my roommate, has been sick four times this year, and each and every time I'm all, "oh, you poor thing", and all the while in my head I'm doing a little dance of joy, me and my efficient immune system, we shall never be stopped! But because I never get sick, when I do finally succumb to those little germ fuckwits, I get Reeeeeeeeeally Sick. Day one was just me wandering around aimlessly, dizzy and incoherent, vaguely aware of where I was and what I was doing. Day two I couldn't read or walk very well or do much of anything except watch "Lost" and babble randomly to Scrunchyface about what a bad boyfriend he is for not protecting me from viruses and... I think I said something about the history of the world? Like a brief overview? Something like, "...la la la, and then the rivers split into oceans and man walked upright I'm dizzzzzzzy..." Man. I am just useless when I'm like this. Thank God I'm not feverish, I would be outside wrapped up in a bedsheet trying to eat gravel.

One of the delightful side effects to being sicker then God is that you don't have to worry about tasting anything anymore. Because your senses, like the savvy creatures that they are, have fled your body, and are now hitchhiking their was to Tuscaloosa. My coffee? Tastes like warm water. My oj? Tastes like... cold water.

And yet my sense of pain is heightened! Isn't that nice? I can't smell that I've been lighting my own hand on fire instead of the cigarette, that I can't taste anyway, but hoo boy! I can sure feel it. Just like I can feel the small army of gnats that has stormed the beaches of my brain-meats and are setting up their miniature camp, so that they may intern my sinuses. Tiny hammers working day and night are the only things that drown out the incessant buzzing of their victory songs!

I WILL PAY YOU FIVE DOLLARS TO COME OVER TO MY HOUSE AND KILL ME. I'd do it myself, but I think I'm too weak to lift the gun.

Or we could just watch "Lost", and I'll let you pet my head and feed me tea. Wouldn't that be nice?

Cowboy alter-Ego

2005-11-09T01:38:00.000-08:00

Dark. Dark-fifteen. Dark-thirty.

Half full of wine, wanting a cigarette... but outdoors is too too far since my roomate imposed her draconian anti-smoking provision, and the mid-autumn San Francisco winter is too too cold to smoke in, I sit.

Wishing I had more. More to give, more to say.

I've often heard that life can't be all party, all the time. Can't be all good. That way, you can distinguish what's good from what's bad. Makes sweets sweeter.

If life were only moments you'd never know you'd had one...

And honestly, I'm joivial about this; this isn't an angsty rant. But why can't, for just a little while, why can't life all be sex and liquor and shared moments and creativity?

When the majority of the time it's all post office and paperwork and propositions.

I feel like this is thematic, but it isn't.

It's wishful thinking.

Spoke Right Up When I Had Nothing Good To Say

2005-11-03T20:54:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post again for a while, and I even have actual ideas and stuff... but, you know. Life gets in the way. Lately I've been focusing on decompressing--- I think that the show, followed by mid-terms (actually in the middle of mid-terms), followed by this... other emotionally stressful thing that I won't really go into (mysterious!)--- I've been trying my best to not do things in my free time, just sit and not stress. Which I don't do very well.

[Very very side note: Mrs. L once told me that I have this habit of saying 'I'm fine, everything is good,' when asked, and then six months later I'll be all, 'Remember six months ago? I was really miserable/I had this big tragedy/I was upset'. Like, it takes me six months to get up the nerve to talk about things that bother me. And this is why I love her, because she knows me so good, and she totally calls me on it. Anyway.]

So I want to write, to letchall know I'm still here, and I am of the opinion that I have meticulous taste, so with those powers combined, I will rant on a few things that I have recently discovered, and a few things that I have known for a long time, that are awesome.

-Scrunchyface and I recently rented the HBO miniseries of "Angels in America", and... man. The two parts are three hours a peice: "Millenium Approaches" and "Petstroika", respectively, and Scrunchy and I watched them over the course of two weekends, which I would recommend, because if we had rented them together? We would have watched the WHOLE THING, all SIX HOURS of it, and I would have died of lung cancer, because that movie is so good and sad and awesome that I didn't even know what I was doing anymore, and I smoked a whole pack in three hours of watching it. It is awesome, and I am totally going to marry Justin Kirk, even if he's gay and dying of AIDS. I am also going to marry Emma Thompson, and we're going to have a big house and lots of little babies, and Kenneth Branaugh can't come visit.

-I like Tegan and Sara's new album, even though it's a little lite on the substance. I've been told their first few albums are better (or more suited to me, at least), but I'm a poor, poor sap. WinMX some of it, at least. "I Know" is my favorite, and one of the best things about it is I can't figure out if she loves the guy or hates the guy. Very Teen Pop 2.0; I would have worshiped them in high school. And? Canadian!

-Also, the last few months I've really been getting into Aimee Mann. If she had been born 20 years ago, she would have been big, Carole King big. Unfortunately, having been dicked around by her label (boo) has rendered her low on the visability, but she's great. Kind of temperate Ani. I like "Lost in Space", but most of her albums are really good.

-And yes, I watch a lot of teevee. Like I said, decompressing. I've found that the American version of "the Office" is hi-larious. It's actually... and I hate to say it... funnier than Arrested Development. Which makes me kind of sad. Netflix it, you'll see. (Caveat: Very different than the BBC version. I actually don't like the English "Office", it's... too dry, somehow. And mumbly. So, there's that.)

-SPEAKing of Mrs. L, the little L rolled over for the first time, apparently, and I've never seen a baby do... baby things, but I imagine it's pretty cool. Good for her.

-Finally, Jeff added me to his blog-link-dealy! Awww. I'm loved.

That is all. You may now continue with your day.

Happiness Writes White

2005-10-30T18:05:00.000-08:00

There's the rare moment when this blog, in all its semi-public and ranteriffic glory, and my own personal writings share something, but I think I've found it. I think it's the same problem that Jeff (who is much better than I am at this, you should check him out) is having, I think, and that is: sad and snarky is much more entertaining than happy and fulfilled. The diary of my youth, and the irratic personal writing I do now, rarely contain the following entry:

Dear Diary,
Everything is good.
Your pal,
N

No! It is a gnashing of the teeth, that is. Sure, there's the random love-soaked tome, but it's not without the requisite "Whhhhhhhhy? Whhhhhhy doesn't he love meeeeeeeeeeeee?", or there's the entries about moving into my new house when I dumped my Asshat ex, but that was peppered with the absolute insecurity about moving to the lower Haight with strangers and hippies. Which was well founded by the way, because they turned out to be crackheads and pornographers.

But the good stuff is... boring. It's good, and happy and personal and alla that, but unless you're sharing news, or generally flaunting praise on someone else... it... serves no purpose to me. I'm good. I'm always good. I'm a generally happy and well-disposed person, and I guess I take for granted that one could possibly percieve, from what I've written here, that I am an angsty and cynical harpee. Which is how I try to think of myself, really, but people have told me that I'm just a sweet sucker. Dammit. I think that because I know me, reasonably well, I know that I have a baseline of content, the lengthy middle of the Bell Curve that is my personality, and the saddest moments, or the happiest for that matter, are the smaller sloping edges. This is what I share with you, dear reader (hi!), because it interests me. And the things that make me truely happy in my everyday blah life--- finding a great recipe, a cup of coffee and a smoke, redisovering that I have beer in my fridge, a good movie--- are just plain dull.

So don't worry about me. I'm doin' juuuust fine.

Except for my never-ending pusuit of Sean. Oh, Sean. Whhhhhhhhy? Whhhhhhy doesn't he love meeeeeeeeeeeee?

The Girl is Not Alright

2005-10-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

You are a big jar of panic labeled, "HOME GROWN TENNESSEE VALLEY PANIC" and you retail about $3.99, with a dollar off coupon in this week's paper.

You are a bix box of panic in the back of your closet, under three backpacks, a hundred jewel cases, your old tv from college and the extra blankets. Spiders live in you.

You are a panic migrane that sets in around four, and you have to get off work early so you can go home and lie down until the panic headache goes away. You feel a little better then, and after you've had some juice.

You are a panic beer festival. There are plenty of micro-brewed panic brands, but Heffewisen Panicmir is your favorite. It's nice outdoors, but all the cops give you the creeps.

You are a band named Panikt from Germany. Your first single, "I Wanna Panic Now (Everybody)" is #1 in Belgum. You're new wave, and new wave music will never die.

You are panic's little brother and when you and panic were kids, say, five or six years old, you used to sneak into panic's room in the middle of the night, while she was sleeping, and stick her hand in some warm water. Your parents sent her to like four different doctors before they realized it was you. Your parents grounded you for a month, and panic was reeeeeally mad. But it's cool now; you guys still laugh about it when you get together for Christmas.

You are a panic picnic. The ants make you itchy.

Almost Brave, Almost Pregnant

2005-10-18T01:53:00.000-07:00

I've been having a hard time explaining myself in the comments, I guess, and this back and forth banter with strangers has got me thinkin...

I was just reading Fraggle_ra's blog, and she's this girl I don't even know, from a long time ago, and I remember going to see Ani D together and thinking she was this whirlwind of a girl, so much energy at once and I wanted to know her, but was maybe a little scared too, and then a week later she invited me to Thanksgiving-- women and wine and something about crafts, craftiness-- and then it never happened, but I was totally thrilled to be invited. To be the friend of a friend.

And really, I am a friend of a frined, a happenstance person, somebody you once knew, somebody you've never known...

These hits and near-misses with rare and complicated individuals keep me whole, make me better, and I often wonder if I'm always open to them, or because I've cultivated a steady glare and I wear my headphones too loud that I avoid them, avoid people with all their intracacies in case they go sour. not-Petunia was kind enough to invite me to drinks and dancing, and I had fun, but I also kind of wondered what I was doing there, with this match-stick of a woman, who I missed always, so together and beautiful smoking my cigarettes; why was I there? Where did I fit into her equation of a life?

In friendships I always feel like the side-show, the freak--- the loudest one, the weird one, the not-thin one, the small-town girl in big-city boots, the straight girl pretending to be gay, the serial monogamist, the kinky girl, the girl who drinks too much and smokes too much and generally makes a fool out of herself... but really I cultivate this difference, I make it larger than it is, I'm really most comfortable being a cartoon of a person.

I get the point exactly

2005-10-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

straight outta nowhere

and I do mean straight,

(gold teeth and a curse for this town)

keeping Him awake in notsoearly light
you don't even register on his radar

keep your head down
do as you've always been told
yourself you'd do

be all end all be all end all
you looked so good on paper

it's a song you've been singing since god knows when
so
keep up the chorus and don't look confused

(cigarette,
love,
you've always found the answer here)

(never thought you'd be this me again)

(keep your eyes closed,
love,
you'll miss the point completely)

(pass me another cigarette
pour me another drink

i'll tell you another story.)

How's THAT for the Illusion of Intimacy?

2005-10-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

I had a dream last night that I was giving a blow-job that was knocking out all of my teeth.

Like: cock, spit out teeth, cock, spit out teeth...

I... don't know what that means.

He seemed to be enjoying himself, though.

In Which Our Hero Responds, and then Shuts the Hell Up Already

2005-10-11T18:33:00.000-07:00

...because I can't post a comment on my own freakin' blog...

Good point, Mrs. L, and I guess I should clarify. When I talk about wanting to impress (and impress an opinion on) "all of the men," I'm talking mostly about the kind of head technicians, the guys running the show, as opposed to my other fellow techies, who were mostly women in some shows, but I found that when it came to carpentry, or set contstruction, or hanging lights, that it was mostly male-dominated. The "I'm just another dude like you dudes" philosophy comes from trying to impress the teachers that I was working under (heh), not necessarily anyone else that was working with me. In other words, I was trying to be one of the guys, but if I had to be a girl, I wanted to be head girl. The girl that was really kind of a guy.

I still do, and in non-theater areas... as a tangent, my cousin Dr. Thong, MD, met Scrunchyface this weekend, and I made him go get me smokes for some reason (probably because I was out of smokes), and Dr. T said, "You're totally in charge in this relationship!" and I was trying to convince her that no, it was just fun, I was just goofing around, and she was all, no. "You're not. You're always like that." It was one of those things that you hear about yourself and you're like, ohhhh. Right. Duh.

Jeff-- I don't quite understand your comment, but I still think you're wrong. And if I ever meet you in real-time, I'll carry something heavy, just for you.

Jenn-- Yeah, but my guac takes 17 hours to make, and people get hungry, and cranky.

In other news, I'm doing "Angels in America" next semester! Huzzah!

Power

2005-10-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

Eventually, I will stop writing all about theater, and get back to my usual rants--- about Target. Hmmm. I should totally skip the performance and go to Target! Wait...

This week, in my totally amazing and relevant tech class, we dabbled in power tools. I love me some power tools. We got out the goggles and went to town, slicing into two-by-fours with equipment that could take my arm off, the shrill whine of the blade making my spine tingle. Love. Me. Some.

Back in my angry and disillusioned high school days, that was my favorite part of non-creative work in the theater. Now, working for theater companies with no budget to insure little 17-year-old me, I didn't get to play with the really fun stuff, just the usual--- vibrating sanding belts that made your arms tingle long after you were done with them, various bulky hand-tools that felt otherworldly and archaic, and my personal favorite--- the power drill. Heavy and dense, battery-operated, screw-stripping, tork-having power fucking drills, man! I loved working with them; confidently striding into the shop, surveying the lumber and sawdust and dozens of half-finished projects, striding blithely toward the tool cabinet and taking out my trusty drill, green with hodgepodge flecks of paint and obvious wear, like a sword from a sheath. I knew what needed to be done and I had the operandi to do it.

It's telling that I'm using such phallic language to describe my experience, sword this and sheath that, because working with tools was always my compensation for being a person born without a phallus. Everyone has to prove something--- among my many failings were that I was born poor, and that I was born a woman. I was angry, I was arrogant, and part of my strategy to prove myself as a person was embodying, at times, everything a woman was not.

This manifests itself in a lot of ways-- and I'll diverge from the topic here-- but I've always been vocal and crude, very loud and gregarious, and generally more gender-neutral than feminine, and having the opportunity to work with this heavy machinery with mostly male mentors fostered this kind of behavior. I wanted to prove, for the longest time, that I could work with the boys, the obvious conclusion being, that even though I am a woman, I can be as good as the men. Even now, while the sentiment--- that women need to go the extra mile to catch up with the guys--- feels naive and kind of ridiculous, I still kind of roll with it in some way. But now that I'm older, and a little less angry all the time, it's not so much about being as good as the big strong men I admire, but about being as good as I can be. I want to be a maven craftswoman, not because it's unfeminine or embodies some kind of phallic strength, but because I want to be a master (or mistress) of whatever I do, as long as I love doing it. As I got older, I started to love to cook, which is, arguably, a typical feminine trait, but I relish a well-made batch of guacamole as much as I love hanging a lighting plot, and I want to do both well.

On the other hand, I think you have to maintain a masculine kind of presence in the technical theater world, if only to lend yourself some credibility. I can't even count how many times someone (all men) have seen me lugging around equipment or partitions or set pieces, who have approached me with a wary, "you sure you got that?" Yeah, I got it. AND I have a clitoris! It's the freakin' eighth wonder ovah here. Maybe they don't mean anything by it, but I never hear anybody asking Jeff or Patrick if they could use a hand. And I'm no lightweight--- I'm six feet tall. I've carried things. Now, if any of those guys want to help me get my groceries home, that, I can handle. I usually just puff up my chest and condescendingly say, "No. I got it." You do your job, and I'll do mine. And I can do mine, and do it well. I'm just the woman for it.

Opening Weekend: In Which Our Hero is Throughly Pleased with Herself

2005-10-04T00:44:00.000-07:00

Opening weekend Rocked, people, absolutely rocked. Being absent from the theater for so long made me forget a lot of things, including how very quickly tech week can whip even the shoddiest of casts into shape. At the begining of the week, the first rehearal, I thought to myself, "oh. Fuck." I was so mortified that this show was going to open in front of actual people, that I would be associated with a play in which the actors did not know their lines or had any motivation whatsoever, in which the breakers burst during the performance, shrouding the theater in effortless darkness, and the sound board operator--- yours truely--- was seemingly tone-deaf. Or just plain deaf; for some reason I have this tendency to either crank up the volume and pop the audiences' ear drums, or set the volume so low that it actually inverts sound itself, much as a black hole would, and sucks the chatter of the room into some meaningless void deep into space.

I was a little nervous.

But four days later and everyone was a taught wire. I set up the show in a couple of hours, trained the actors to, you know, check their props, and basically effectively managed the shennanigans. We had a full house, both nights, and the audience actually seemed to enjoy themselves. We even got some laughs. Everyone in the cast seemed so happy, so grateful for this opportunity to express themselves, get a little attention, and I was pleased as punch to be silently humming in the background. People missed chunks of the dialouge here and there, causing me to frantically tear through my script, trying to get on cue, missing some in the panic--- but that was yet another aspect I forgot: the fun of fucking it up. The thrill of knowing you're veering off course, but being able to make your way back without crashing the whole thing and killing your passengers. I'd forgotten the seemingly effortless flow of creators having fun with the creation. I'd forgotten how very heartening it is to watch the director from above in the booth, finally relaxed, enjoying the show with his audience. To get all lofty about it, if there is a God, that's what she's doing: watching the play along with everybody else, laughing and weeping with the rest of us.

I remember, now, what it's like to watch people, just for a few hours, be exactly where they were meant to be, doing exactly what they were meant to do at that very moment.

I never want to be anywhere else.

Tech Day... is it four now? In Which Our Hero is Asked a Perfectly Reasonable Question

2005-09-30T14:58:00.000-07:00

Ah yes. Where, pray tell, is the infamous director of this comedy of errors? Same place eeeeeveryone else in the cast is: up his own ass.

No, he is, actually, an extremely nice guy. I really like him personally. But the first time I met him, our first rehearsal, I asked him-- hey. This production is certainly low budget. I assume you'll need me to run some of the technical aspects as well (as I have done the blackbox and I know the drill). He blinked at me furiously, and said, "Yeah, um, am I supposed to be taking care of the technical stuff?"

Well. No--- but it would be nice to know that you had a guy... or a couple of guys... that could, you know. Light the theater. So we can see the actors. Performing the play. Just sayin'.

Which is fine, I'd rather work with slightly inept directors than directors that are anal-retentive and crazy... but this shit never ends. It's like working for Lenny over here.

"Where do you want me to put these programs?"

"Programs... pretty..."

"Sir?"

"Stage Manager Pretty! Lenny loves!"

"BACK OFF, Lenny!"

The blocking is uninspired, he basically allows the "actors" to play whatever the hell emotion they feel like coming up with, dispite the given context, he lets the producer boss him around (and she's even less inspired than he is), and this play is being held together by strings and my nicotine-fuelled dedication.

But I stopped fucking up the sound cues, so that's nice.

Opening night tonight! Wish me luck. Oh! And then, kill me.

Tech Day III: In Which Our Hero's Head Essssplodes!

2005-09-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

So On Tech Day II, the day of the highly anticipated fucking up, one of the actresses seemed... confused... about the nature and quality of the blackout. She kept... asking for lights. As they were setting themselves into place. In the blackout. Like, the scene would end, we would go black, the actors would move into place, and she would yell, "Where are the lights?!"

Yeah, you see what I'm dealing with?!

So yesterday, Day III, I take her aside and tell her, in small words using BIIIG hand gestures, that--- ya know, we really can't have shift lights unless you're removing set pieces, cause it disrupts the flow of the scenes.

And she says to me, she says,

"Well, can I use my little flashlight?"

Tech day II: In Which Our Hero Fucks Up. A Lot.

2005-09-27T13:41:00.000-07:00

Despite earlier posts...

The second best thing about stage managing is that when you do something wrong, five people are there to let you know, right away.

"Fuck. I missed that cue. Sorry."

Angry Sound Guy: "Hey, Noelle? You missed a cue there."

"Yeah. I... know."

Anal-retentive Producer: "Where was that cue at? Did we miss something?"

"...I kno..."

Inept Director in the Back: "WHO MISSED A CUE?!"

"GAH! I did! SORRY!"

Increasingly Irritating Sound Guy: "Hey, Noelle, you got a cue coming up, right?"

"I GOT IT!"

We're missing props too. My fault. For... some reason. Generally, we would have some kind of prop mistress. She would be, you know, handling that, and I would be... making sure it got handled. Since this is some kind of fly-by-night kamikaze production, apparently I am in charge of that now. Remember before, I said the first rule of Theatre Fight Club is never tell the stage manager what to do? Yeah. That. So. I gather alllllll the props we have, put them in place, make a list of what's missing. I inform the cast that the props are Set Already, and they should check them. I remind them again. I give a fifteen call; I tell them AH-gain, check yer damn props.

Guess what happened? C'mon, guess. It'll be fun. I'll give you a cookie, even if you get it wrong.

Ten minutes into the show actors are using OTHER PROPS to substitute for THEIR MISSING PROPS. Why would... why would you even do that?! What is the logic behind that? "Hey. This here coffee thermos is sittin' around doin' nobody good. I think I'll use it!" Grrrrr. I gape in unbridled horror of the train wreck that once was my painstaking organizational skills and... I miss a cue.

Soon to Be Dead Angry Sound Guy: "Cue B Now. NOW!"

"Fahhhhhhhhhhhck! I knnnnoooooooooooooow!"

I create a scene change list. I post three copies: two stage right and one stage left, which is little more than an entryway anyhow. I tell the cast: I, ineffectual stage manager, have written a list of Where you're supposed to be and What you are supposed to do. Please read it."

Why did I forget that actors can't read? I don't mean them any disrespect, because illiteracy is a social problem that effects us all, and many actors are ashamed that the narcissistic lobe in their brains basically block out any higher learning functions. Really it's my fault. I should work on posting the scene changes in easy to understand and delightful cartoon drawings.

After I pick up the props. And reorganize backstage placement. And figure out where the damn cues are. And kill myself.

Tech Day I: In Which Our Hero is Undercaffenated

2005-09-26T16:15:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't heard this eight gagillion times, or, heaven forefend, lived through it, I am a bit of a theater nerd. In high school, when everyone else was having sex or huffing paint fumes (or both at the same time), I was spending 97% of my day working on one of three plays that I had signed up for that month. It started when I auditioned for my first role-- when I was thirteen-- for you see, I had aspirations. I wanted to be... a Star! Unfortunately, I have no talent as an actress, and I suppose that I had even less talent in my preteen years. I didn't get a role. What I did get, however, was an offer for a tech position; stage management to be specific. Now, stage managing is exactly what it sounds like it would be-- and a bunch of other stuff you would never really associate with that kind of moniker. Making sure the actors are on time and prepared for rehearsal? Check. Going to get sodas for everybody? Check. Writing down what everybody does during the entirety of the show? Che.... wait. I was supposed to do that?

That first job was kind of a disaster, because the first rule in managing stage managers? Never teach your stage manager what she needs to do. Also, don't tell her to do things that you want her to do that aren't necessarily her job. Just wait until she doesn't do something, and then yell at her. A lot. So, being thirteen and having absolutely no fucking idea what I was doing, I got yelled at. A lot. And boy howdee, I learned BUT QUICK what I was supposed to do. So the second show went better. The third was better after that. Suddenly I'm sixteen and I've done something like 96 shows; the few times I show up to high school is to do shows, I'm constantly running shows or starting on shows or coordinating shows or... well, hanging out at Denny's, because that's what you do after shows. This is how to keep your children off drugs, people: breed obsessive compulsive artists and give them a medium.

When I got out of high school I took a hiatus, and ironically, spent the most of it doing what you would normally do in high school: getting laid, doing drugs, dicking around some half-assed job and nominally attending classes. As my twenties slooooooowly set in, I'm getting panic-y and not just a little bit guilty about finding some kind of permanent direction to go in--- like, can't drink straight whiskey and dance with pretty girls the rest of your life. Unless they would pay me to do that, in which case I would totally get my BA in Drunkchickdanceology. And then my masters. And a doctorate. It would make my mom so proud!

What was I saying again? Oh, right. Reality.

The entire point being: I am in a play. I am the stage manager of said play, and I kick ass. Really, I fit so perfectly well bossing people around and doing all the real work and having a big ol' head about it. I love going to work on it, really digging in, and knowing everything about keeping the show running smoothly. Tech week starts today, so check back later to hear me sing a little ditty I like to call: "I'm tired (but satisfied)."

Other hits on the album include "Where the Fuck Did I Get the Idea I Had Time For This Bullshit", "Failing Math (Again)", and the time honored classic, "Not Tonight, Scrunchyface, I Gots Rehearsal Tomorrow."

Pink!

2005-09-09T02:22:00.000-07:00

Ha ha, fuck you! (I was so sick of looking at the old layout.)

Check out the links, yo. Over there. Tell your friends to be nice to me and I'll link them too. Ah, the power of the internets.

Wine, Women and Song

2005-09-07T01:02:00.000-07:00

There's something very special about when your favorite band releases a new album. Even better than touring, I think. It's something to wrap your hands around: the pop of the aluminum mail slot as it drops into your lap, the crinkle of the bag at Tower or Virgin or some other appropriately-power-dick named music conglomerate. (Although, secretly, I love Virgin. The coolier-than-thou clerks are trained by middle management to praise your purchase, as if you, too, are cool. And I am.) Maybe it's pride of ownership, maybe it's that fresh-from-the-studio-smell, but on the rare occasion that a band that I like--- I really, really, like--- finally coughs up a new album... I? Am giddy. Like a schoolgirl, my friends. Like a schoolgirl.

You see, I am... politely... a bit obsessive. Now, I don't fall for every drummer with long locks and a single. Well. Not anymore. I have a rare and select few artists that tickle my fancy inner-ear. Obviously, Ani DiFranco is one of them. I had the endless pleasure of discovering her late in her career, the same way, I imagine, every girl finds out about Ani--- I had a dykey friend who would drive little ol' 15-year-old me home from work, and in the car she would "Omigod!" me, although, this being the mid-nineties, we didn't have 'omigod'... or CELLULAR TELEPHONES! Anyway, she would say... "Hey. This lady is bitchin'!" and play me the length of Like I Said, singing along to lyrics I wished I knew. How could I not fall in love? I had the good fortune of having an endless series of new albums to buy, since girl has about 1,200, and once a month me and my white-trash friends would trip to Fairfield, to the mall, and I would get me a shiny new album.

This continued for several months, unabated, until I ran out. Bummer. Luckily, girl has about 1,300 albums, and once a year I would line up outside of the local record shoppe, early, to be the first to hear the new Ani album. I don't know if I would define the times in my life by the lyrics and music of her albums, or if her records over these years have eerily reflected what I was going through, but it seems the words and the music always suit my disposition perfectly--- a sad girl soundtrack to make me feel noble and grand. Like your favorite book, singing to you.

Once again--- the point being--- the New Harvey Danger album is coming out. I know, I know, "Harvey Whaaaa?", "Dangah Whoooo?", "Noelle, You Crazy! El Cerrito?!" No. HARVEY. Danger. Like, the band. Okay. You will know them best from... the 1998 single... Flagpole Sitta. Remember? "paranoia, paranoia, everybody's coming to get me..." Sigh. No one knows this band but me, my friends, and an internet fan-base that can't really spell. They're really good, I swear.

Thing is? I remember listening to that single in 1998, when my dykey friend used to pick me up and play me Ani tunes on the way to work. It's something about the linear landscape of history, of the mind... something about the feminine self meeting the masculine self in the middle somewhere... except not really. It's about it's been five damn years since this band has released an album, and I? Am STOKED.

You heard me.

I Got Rid of that Ghost

2005-09-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

I have periods of self-indulgence and then periods of reservation. Okay, not really; I'm really always self-indulgent. Sometimes it's quieter. I have years where I'll go through notebooks like downing glasses of wine, a steady stream of conciousness detailing all the little mundane and grand ideas I come up with. Sometimes, though, I get so sick of the sound of my own voice in my head, writing and thinking become a chore, so I just shuffle around my day-to-day, headphones screaming, moving fitfully from one experience to another. My life becomes one big heavy sign, and I can't begrudge myself to ramble on and on, it's just so boring. It's like when you see someone you haven't seen for a while, they ask you the dreaded question, "What's new?", and you realize you have nothing of any interest to talk about, and you feel miserable and ashamed for a minute about the meaningless specticle that your functional life has become. What's so exciting about going to work, again?

Still, I have all of these books full of the days of my life, so special and important, filled with the grand tragedy that I thought might peeter out after adolecence, but, here I am. As Grand and Tragic as I always wanted to be, and could be, moreso, if I put a little effort into it. I have my life catalouged in explicit detail, save 6 month gaps, gaps that I'll never make up for. Same kinds of events--- magnificent crushes on clever girls and nerdy boys, the drudgery and matyrdom of earning a legal wage, Ani DiFranco quotes and truely horrible poems that wander around in my head--- and at any point in the year, I'll either be buried in a notebook or it will be collecting dust on my bedroom floor with all the other things I've given up: old tank-tops, ill-advised skirts, spent birth control packages, bills. I don't know why. I'm not necessarily a cyclical person, too lazy to pay attention to the cycles of the moon and too stuffed full of toxins to pay attention to the cycles of my body. Really I have not a clue about my motivations, creative or otherwise, I just know that the first year of my relationship with Scrunchyface is documented in frightening detail, but year two? Not a word. The first year I moved to the city I went through about three books, and yet the next few years are completely unwritten. Such a shame, because I'm sure I'm forgetting something, remembering things that never happened, or happened different.

Mrs. L keeps a great journal. I've seen it a few times, although not recently. Scrunchyface has nothing but empty pages. I have all these lofty plans to categorize everything before it all passes me by and I don't get to fuck around all the time like I do now, writing more, photo albums, scrapbooking. I don't know what keeps me from that. Probably just living, living seems to take up a lot of my time.

the Moth Don't Care

2005-08-17T17:49:00.000-07:00

So after a blissful week of gallivanting my pretty little butt around parts North, eating seafood and drinking wine and smoking on the roof with a mean poker game, I am home again. Home's not as fun as that; at home you have to do your own dishes, and you can't smoke indoors anymore because your roommate up and quit on you, and you have to have a job and commute and get up early and no one delivers the New York Times to your door, unless you pay them.

Not to be all woe about it, I have a fine life, and the luxury to go on vacation every once in a while--- and hell, I've made my bed, and I'm pleased as punch to lie on down in it--- but today is dreary and damp, and my shoulders are sinking more than usual, and I'm trying to figure out why.

I am currently half-way through a 12-hour day at school, my first ever, since I decided to take a day off of work in exchange for being in class from 10am to 10pm. It's exhausting, and draining, and frustrating, and I really love it. If only today weren't so chilly... If only I could pinpoint this niggling feeling of sadness... If only someone would deliver the New York Times to my door, every once in a while.

Something Random

2005-07-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

hard hot hearts and whiskey breath
And a dollar and a smile will get you a dance or two,
non-smoker chain-smoking in a psudeo-cafe,
another world away from every place you've ever never been
still remains the same just
quieter
inside you struggle like you always still do

and he says you never didn't have to and yet
you've always felt you needed to

without saying a word this
long stretch of a man
every place you've never been and
you bend to move with him sitting still as stones in your chair
hitching a ride on your own shakey legs to the bathroom
where your volume speaks for you and you meet the first
pretty girl you've never seen in a very long time
she's bending you too;

your eyes are dancing but not leaving your sockets
(and it's a comfortable quiet this inner monolouge something
you knew you'd say again on the stage in your mind
you are relieved when the scene ends but disturbed profoundly by
forever what you are not)

he hands you pieces of his life like the ones you collected once when you
had a thousand photos and an entire head full of knowledge to
keep your company and you thought
i am not as tall as I Once Was
i am not as tall.

Because I Can!

2005-06-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

In the course of numerous random conversations, I have had the opportunity to go on, ad-nauseum, about my opinion in various areas; for one reason or another... perhaps the conversation spiraled dangerously off course, the movie started, the coffee was ready, my counterparts fell asleep... but for some reason I never got to explain myself thoroughly.

In other cases, I have not been asked my opinion, because of said liberal conversational style (read: domination of the conversation). Well, here's a handy forum right here, and I would like to, in no particular order, vent.

I don't like it when you hold the door open for me.
Okay, this one is not always steadfast. If Scrunchyface and I are walking into or out of, let's just say, a liquor store, and he holds the door for me to exit first, I will kindly take that chivalry for what it is, and appreciate it. I would appreciate it more if he jauntily tipped his hat to me, but that's just because I'm weird. If a few friends from work and I are leaving, or going outside for numerous cigarettes, and one of them holds the entrance for the lot of us to slide through easily, I will take that opportunity with glee. Especially if it involves leaving work. Or smoking. Or both! No, I very specifically have a problem with random men holding the door and subsequently holding up the invariable gaggle of people that need to exit or enter, because I am a card carrying member of Vagina's Anonymous. What is that? Because it's not being polite. Particularly, there's this older man I work with, who will treat me like shit all damn day at work... sarcastic, contrary, uppity... but WITHOUT FUCKING FAIL, every DAY, he will be the last to leave, and try to hold the door for me to leave, hold the elevator doors while I try to get past him, and fin-ally hold the freaking lobby doors, no matter how logistically impossible it is for everyone else that is trying to leave with his dumb ass. Firstly, I am the person that has to lock the stupid door when everybody leaves, so his pseudo-chivalry gets in the way of, say, turning off the lights! AND LOCKING THE DOOR! Which forces me to sigh loudly and tell him to get the fuck out already. Every day. Then, the elevator. I can't get on when you try to let me in first! You're blocking my way! Gaaaaaah. Sometimes, if we're both waiting for it when it gets to my floor, I wait purposefully for him to get on first. And of course, he's waiting for me. So we're standing there together like a couple of idiots until, finally, I lose the War of the Crazy and just get on the damn lift. Holding down my arms so I can't HIT HIM. I don't know why this bothers me so much. It just strikes me as condescending and belittling, and antiquated, like they're vying for the return of the corset and hysteria as diagnosed by the happenings of the vagina. Just let me go inside, please. I don't want to have to hate you all day.

I find Charlie Sheen's existence incredibly funny, and sad.
If you haven't, watch Wall Street. Even next to Michael Douglas he's eating too much scenery. He's just such a bad actor, and that's such a cool movie, not to mention the fact that Martin Sheen acts freaking circles around Li'l Charles, and does it without breaking a sweat, and is hotter to boot. Yes. I find Martin Sheen hot. Even present-day Sheen. I am sad.

People who don't want other people pirating their art are right, for the wrong reasons.
First, to clarify: music piracy is okay with me for a few very valid reasons. I like that one Cake song, but the rest of the album blows, and I'm not buying it. OR, the one song is awesome, but I want to see if the rest of the album is good, before I buy it: advertising at its best. OR, I really really liked "Novicaine for the Soul" in high school, but that's because it was high school, and I used to listen to it on the radio and think of insert-ex-boyfriend-here, and I want to add it to a playlist and listen to it twice before I remember it really wasn't that good in the third place, and I don't really like random-ex anymore in the second place, so I don't want a whole new ceedee-as-coaster in the first place. Following? Really, the best reason to use WinMX is because the artists themselves get $2.75 per album sale anyway, and that's just industry piracy, so you're not really stealing from the artists themselves, you're stealing from this giant homogeneous corporation, which really makes money off of the constant radio play they get from censoriffic Clearchannel, so... not quite a victimless crime, but the victims are evil anyway, and I'm broke, so fuck you. BUT, the real reason that piracy is bad was brought to my attention recently by Don Hertzfelt, who created AWESOME cartoons for the Spike and Mike film festival, particularly "Rejected", which has been copied and posted all over the internet. His problem with piracy is that he spends several years creating his cartoons, on 35mm and such, and when they're posted on the internet with the tiny pixels and the low bandwidth and whatnot, you're not seeing how beautiful the piece can be. You're seeing a shoddy-quality version of a work of art that was painstakingly created to be seen in a venue that doesn't compromise the quality, and that's just blasphemy. I like that. It's not about the $2.75 that the artist is losing, it's about compromising the art. Don't hear Metallica using that argument, do you?

WinMX sucks.
I've been trying to download "Novicaine for the Soul" for an hour now!

The three things that will truly educate you: formal education, travel, and hallucinogenics.
I was friends with this nutty Buddhist guy for a while, and this was the advice that he gave me, and it always rang true. He was crazy, mind you, and was convinced that LSD cured his epilepsy, but I've done some hallucinogenics in my day (hi, Mom!), and I learned some stuff that my eyes wouldn't have been open to in normal circumstances. Ditto travel. Education, I'm working on, but travel and drugs sound much more fun to me.

I will never change my name.
And I don't begrudge people who change their names when they get married, mostly because it's a fight nobody can win. It's kind of irrelevant now, even though it still kind of bothers me. Mrs. L changed her name when she got married, which is fine-- Mr. L's name is awesome, and no one is going to convince me that Mrs. L is oppressed by his patriarchy-- but I think that the "good feminist" argument is valid. It bothers me because the tradition is still so knee-jerk, while our society does not discuss what it means to do so in our culture. To me, adopting your husband's name is forsaking your history in favor of his history, and really-- it is about property. When you get a new dog you name it, and in our society, women are adopted and renamed by her husband and her husband's family, and that is just not okay with me. It's not a union that way, it's an annexation. I think everyone should have the choice-- and really that is the good feminist argument, that women should always have a lot of choices--- but that choice doesn't feel valid or weighted since our culture refuses to discuss what that choice means-- the metaphor, or the reality of changing who you are, fundamentally, because that's what your mother did, and her mother before her, and here, we'll get you something monogramed and everything will work out, 'I do'.

And I get that every woman has a man's name, hell, mine can be traced back to my Grandfather's family. But I would never ever give up my ties to my family--- more specifically, the women of my family. I am proud as hell to be a woman of the Harrison-women legacy, because you don't fuck with Harrison women. We live for fucking ever and we will bring it ON, yo. The women in my family make up the name for me, and I have their history at my back, and I would never trade that for anything. I'm so glad they never traded their name, so I could have this shared legacy with them, and I'm sorry, but whomever I have kids with is going to have to buck up, because my children will be Harrison children, and they will have mean women behind them. This legacy does not stop with me, period.

My Mom is cool.
Thanks, Mrs. L. I know.

Tu-mah

2005-05-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

I was never so much of a sickly kid as I was a kid with weird medical problems. Harrison's seem to be able to over-imbibe and not exercise and eat like a house on fire... if the house was made of rich Italian cuisine and fast food... and live for-godforaken-ever. We get colds, we get the flu, but we pretty much elude Death's clammy grasp. But when I was a kid, I got weird illnesses. Mom's a nurse, and a damn good one, so it was never really a problem, but while I never got the measles, I did have my tonsils and adnoids removed due to chronic and highly annoying ear infections and angry, angry migranes. I remember swimming was the worst, since I loved to swim, and as a child was shuffled off to various summer activities, most of which included water in some form or another. I must have been sick most of the time then. I underwent various tests for hearing, including the one where they put you in that little booth with the big headphones, designed in a way that it makes you feel like a rock star (if, at the time, I had known what a rock star was, which I didn't, because I was seven). This proved, unequivocally, that I was a sick puppy, and off to surgery I was escorted. I remember the anesthesia; they gave me the choice between cherry and bubblegum-flavored. I chose bubblegum, which didn't taste so much like gum, but rather like sticky sweet liquid death. I don't know who they thought they were foolin'. I got lots of ice cream, I recovered nicely, and I've never missed my tonsils.

Then, when I was in junior high, I developed asthma. I had an attack running the track during another state-mandated nightmare gym session. I had just finished "running" (read: jogging until I was ordered to run, slowing back down to a jog, repeat) a mile, and I sat myself down on the grass and just about died. My lungs were on FIRE. Took about twenty minutes to recover, went to the doc, got myself a nerd-requisite inhaler, and used it maybe twice again in my entire life. It's unclear to me if I actually have asthma or if I was just an under-exercised kid, but to this day Scruchyface claims that he can hear me wheezing. The pack a day probably doesn't help, though. Flick.

THEN, after a particularly nasty bout of strep throat, I woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe. (This was when I was thirteen, so no, I didn't smoke. Yet. Heh.) High-tailed my ass to ER, at which point we discovered that the little dangly skin at the back of my throat? Yeah, that swells up, and I can't breathe. Adult Epiglotitis, apparently. Fun times. Once or twice, in high school, it recurred itself, but since then I have been fit as a fiddle.

And now? I have a brain tumor. Okay, not really, but I have an inflamed lymph node, apparently? That might need to be biopsied. Which, yeah, I'm down for a few days off of work and a lot of ice cream, but head surgery doesn't sound that fun to me. Being the freak harbinger of every random illness known to man isn't really all it's cracked up to be, see.

Probably karmic, since I've been trying to convince a friend of mine that her headaches of late are the result of a burst aneurysm that is leaking into her brain. Eh, I had my fun.

Things I Would Very Much Like to Say at Work, Over the Phone, When it is Extremely Inappropriate

2005-05-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

"Hey there, this is Noelle. LICK MY BALLS!"

"I am wearing a toupee, yessiree!"

"Fuck, no, I don't need no stinkin' pants!"

"Aiiiiieeeeeeeee!"

"Nazi Nazi Nazi Pie!"

"Whiiiiiieeee don't you Loooooooove Meeeeeeeeee?!"

"I will shove that goddamned lozenge up your goddamn throat! Looooooooove Meeeeeee!"

(I am having a bad day.)

Two Lips

2005-05-08T18:55:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to think of some grand, over-arching metaphor for flowers. I went to the grocery story today, theortetically to buy a weeks' worth of food. I was, of course, unsuccessful. Post-Petunia wrote a lovely piece on the intracies of over-shopping, so I won't go into it; needless to say, I have way too much stuff I am too lazy to cook, and I am broke...er.

As today is Mother's Day (hi, Mom!), flowers are on the cheap. Since I have no willpower, I bought a bunch. Pink Tulips. I'm not necessarily a Tulips kind of girl, nor am I the kind of girl who can keep anything besides herself alive for more than a week. However, I had a moment of home-is-where-the-heart-is-or-something, and trotted on home with bagels, cigarettes and a pink bouquet.

It makes me think of all the flowers I've recieved over the course of my life... yellow and white daisies on Grad day, bushels of wildflowers when I directed my first play, gifts from wayward cast members thanking me for sacrificing my sanity in service to stage management, the single white orchaid from my ex on our year anniversary, birthdays. I think of the flowers I've given: to my boss after a particularly bad blowup she had to weather from a boisterous co-worker, to my mom when she was promoted at her job, to various stage managers and producers for letting me kidnap a black-box space for my random attempt at art. I think about the ceremony of flowers, in my hair at my best friend's wedding, in my hands as she married the man she loves. I think about wide eyes and graditude so great that the English language escapes me.

I look over at a bunch of cheap tulips in a beer stein on my kitchen table and I think, "Yeah, they really brighten up the place."

I Haven't Died

2005-04-26T02:04:00.000-07:00

...I'm just... listless. Thus, I will post a post of lists.

Some Good Things:
Petunia (although I have to think of a different moniker, now. She of the Kicky Hair? The Girl on the Fading M Train? Sexy Plexi, PhD?) is, once again, a lonely blogger. This girl, I tells you, is not only one of the rockingist chicks I've never known, but her own valiant attempts to Have an Audience (even few) compelled me to spout my "words of wisdom and insanity", quote Scruncyface, for the few of you. If you like me, you'll like her better.

Mrs. L is still writing poetry for people who don't read, and has singularly convinced me to never have children.

Scrunchyface has finally stopped writing love poems and sonnets about how wonderful I am. God, I hated that.

Long post tomorrow, I promise.

Some Bad Things:
I am RUNNING OUT OF CIGARETTES! SERIOUSLY! I promise to... insert sexual favor/indentured servitude of your choice... for a packa smokes!

Some Things:
Yes, Mom, I have a vibrator. Now let us never speak of this again.

No, seriously. Never.

I mean it.

My Department

2005-03-29T00:56:00.000-08:00

The bathrooms are closed. This does not bode well. The BART ride to Bayfair (of all Godforsaken places) was long and harrowing, especially considering that one of my crew was late, again, and I knew she would be late so I wasn't mad. I am mad, now, though. Not about the bathrooms, persay, because holding your water is one of the things driving 'cross country will teach you, especially in Colorado. But a housewife down the line to the women's restroom is complaining, loudly, about the bathrooms... being cleaned. Apparently, she left her bidet at home too. The obviously pregnant woman behind her? Fine. Three city chicks who have been on BART for an hour? Cool. This lady? Not so much. She has to PEE, for the love of God! Somebody think of the children.

Oh, yes. I am in the middle of the burbs. At Target. And I am the happiest person alive.

'Cept for the cranky bitch. She's putting a damper on my high.

Hee! I love me some Target. Now, I'm not sponsored by them (yet), so I'll keep my giddiness to a minimum. That being said, if I was stuck on a desert island I would want to be with Target. I want to marry Target! And register... at Target! It has everything: the opportunity to ironically snark at the white-trash'd-ness of the obese bargain hunters who HAVE to buy trash bags and a bicycle at the same time... and then I can bargain hunt! For toiletries! And tank-tops! AND DRAWSTRING CAPRI PANTS! PANTS! I love me some high-waters and I love me some Target. "Do you take this Target to be your lovely wedded wife?" Oh my, hell yes.

The trip starts out right: Fresh Choice. It's a buffet! But it's not in Vegas! But it's kinda similar! My erstwhile companions and I fill up on Caesar salad and Asian Chicken pizza, for some reason, and since we can't really walk anymore, we amble desperately toward the beckoning red orbs of the promised land. We hit the bathrooms, which open despite the pathetic cries of Princess Tinkle. First up: greeting cards. Greeting cards? But it's brilliant, really, because you walk by row upon gleaming row of "Happy Birthday, Child!" paraphenilia and you think, "Heh. Stupid store. Don't need me none of those. This'll be a cakewalk." Suddenly, it's novelty item time. Iiieee! Hee hee hee! I'm eight again, pulling items from the shelf at random, tossing them into the cart, remarking on how we're gonna need a bigger boat (hee), replacing items from the cart back to their respective places on the aisles ("Seriously, guys, I don't think I can carry an entire flatware set back to Frisco.") and pulling more useless items from the shelves. "Hey, guys, a garlic-press! I totally need one a these!" (My roommate, later: "Um. Noelle? We already have a garlic-press." Me: "Yeah. I know." Puff, flick.)

I need a new wallet. I need a purse. I need Febreeze. I need lipgloss. I haven't worn lipgloss since 1997. I haven't even thought about lipgloss since the Clinton administration! That's too long! I put back the lipgloss.

"Oh! Hair stuff! You guys, you guys, help me. I don't know what half of these bottles are for, but something tells me I need them. So you apply it to the... roots? In the back? But, what about the... and my... um. Okay. You girls have nice hair, so. Hey! DVD's! I have a DVD player, I should get some DVD's! ...oh. Yeah. Amazon. I forgot. But-- Yeah. Amazon. Moving on."

"Sonia, Sophia. Listen to me. Yes, I know you're tired, and I am too, but I need to speak to you-- to you both-- seriously. Sonia, I've known you a long time, and I respect your opinion. Sophia, you are a smart woman, and I will defer to your advice. But, and I think this has been a long time coming, as you both should know, I think... no, I know, in my heart of hearts, that if I don't make this decision now, I will regret it for the rest of my life. I... I need... a digital camera."

"Guys? ...Guys?"

"Hey you guys, seriously, you shouldn't just run off like tha-- PANTS! CAPRI PANTS!"

We hauled our sorry and suddenly broke asses out of that damn megastore three and a half hours later. Thankfully, across the street? Chevy's!

Viva margaritias! And viva to you, Target. Viva to you.

One Two Three Four Five Six Seven

2005-03-22T02:13:00.000-08:00

Why do I feel that because I can stay up until dark thirty in the morning that I should stay up until dark thirty in the morning?

It's not a residual backlash against "bedtime", since I think my mom just gave up on most of the requisite parent things after a while. (I? Can wail.) Nor am I a reckless sort of person. While some of my friends are perfectly happy hanging out at the beach until five in the morning, I tend to gravitate toward some form of public transportation around 2 am. Dude, my house has a heater. And that's where my pajamas live. So, tell the bonfires I said bye. Me and my forty are going home.

And yet here I am. I've seen Saved! eight hundred thousand times, and still. Saved! Again.

I try not to wax too much on biorhythms and such, because I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about. And I am generally a very very lazy woman. But if I could sleep every day until 2 pm? I would be the happiest, laziest woman ever. If I could wake up naturally, instead of beating the everliving consciousness out of my sadistic alarm every morning for an hour, oh yes indeedy, I would be a much more productive public servant. Mornings? Suck hard. Hard. I need me my bedrest.

Anyway. I must be brief. Saved! is on again.

the Kind of Beauty that Moves

2005-03-14T22:12:00.000-08:00

These are lazy sun days. The two-week period in which San Francisco reaches temperatures above sixty-five degrees is upon us; a time when I, for once, don't need to go inside to escape nature and Her Vengeance. When the San Fran sun comes out, he is followed by lots of cute girls riding the K in sandals and ennie teenie tiny tops. Generally, I rock the hoodie and jeans set with a particular "fuck you" flare, oh so happy to avoid the prying eyes of the cracked out and juvenile, thank you very much. Maybe my forgiveness of Old Navy has something to do with it, but I'm having some kind of strappy-shoes reaction... I walk down Market and see chicks strutting their summery stuff and... I feel like Shrek. Lovable, oafish, portly Shrek.

Now, generally, my desire to fit into the Gendered Body Image Machine is trumped by my desire to drink mass quantities of beer and order pizza at one in the morning, and maybe it's just that I've gained that five pounds that separates me from comfortably crusing in my voluptuous self and closing my eyes reeeeeeeally tight and hoping that my rotund ass will implode, but Damn It! I'm eight hundred feet tall, I fit into exactly none of my pants, and I WANT CUTE SHOES! I'm the Hulk of cute shoes right now, I think of svelte heels and clunky thongs and I turn Green and start foaming. I am so angry at my ginormous feet right now. I'm lucky if I can rock a pair of fauxkenstocks. In a vain and desperate attempt I paint my toenails compulsively, only to hide them away in a seriously threadbare pair of Converse, like they're a couple of unwed mothers with Catholic parents. And not regular Catholism neither, old school self-flagellating Catholism.

Not to mention the fact that I was grafted by God with tree trunks for legs. Or that I have more boobs than Booberella, Patron Saint of Tenth-Grade Girls Everywhere. Actually, the boobs? Don't mind so much. It's when you buy a bra without trying it on, and realize at dinner that the waiter could just set the appetizer down on the horizontal surface that used to be the tops of your boobs, and you think, "Hey, cool. Lookie them," cause you're having dinner with your sweetie, and you love making him think about dessert pre-emptively, but then you go to work DOWNTOWN, next to the GREYHOUND STATION, and the crackheads are EXTRA SPECIAL attentive, plus you bought a bust size below your actual bust size because you made three hundred million trips to the dressing room already, so you popped the bra on over your clothes to make sure your tits didn't look like missile silos, and thought, "ha ha, how clever I am," before making a beeline for cosmetics to get more (sigh) nailpolish. And then they still look like Moscow, circa 1971.

And when I bought the Fear of the Western World bra, I also spent a kagillion dollars on tops, and pants, and more tops, and lingerie that I need a team of Victorian chambermaids to stuff myself into, and a cute a-line skirt that I will never ever wear in public because I am desperate and sad. So the two bills I put onto my increasingly maxed out credit card is now residing on top of all my other dirty clothes, mocking me. And I still need shoes.

Somebody hand me that hoodie. And a beer.

Several One-Sided Conversations I Had in my Head on My 15-Minute Commute Home

2005-02-17T22:21:00.000-08:00

"Yep. Your job sure is hard. Please excuse me while I play this violin. Oh? I can go? Peaches."

"Dude, while your desire to strrrrrroll through the MUNI station is admirable, I would kindly appreciate it if you would stop weaving. So, you know, the locals can get on their train. Thanks."

"Oh! Is today the day that the first person on the train gets the free set of steak knives? I forgot about that! That explains all the pushing."

"Miss, please don't underestimate the power of me not caring about how hip you are. If you roll your eyes at me again, I will pull your neon tights over your head. From behind."

"No, no, it doesn't bother me at all. Please, let me skooch over so you can have a seat. See, I can understand why the thirty-seven available seats on this train are unacceptable. Also, don't think your ample girth or three bags of luggage bother me. Really, I wasn't using that seat I was sitting in... or half of the seat I'm currently sitting in..."

"I can sense that you think my headphones are too loud. I can sense that it is annoying you. Please allow me to explain. Ahem. Muah ha ha ha!"

"Get up. I'm getting off of the train now. Get up. No, don't pivot. I cannot get me and my bag full of books by your FAT ASS and the FIVE BAGS OF LUGGAGE you're carrying around, so GET UP! DON'T FUCKING PIVOT THAT IS SO GODDAMNED RUDE YOU FAT PIECE OF SHI... oh. Thanks. For getting up. 'Scuse me."

"No, no. Please. After you. You obviously understand that the doors will only stay open for a nanosecond before they snap shut like the jaws of life and you are whisked off to parts unknown and left for dead. I'll just wait."

"Also? Ow. Yes. Yes, you sure did shove me."

"How on earth did you figure out exactly where the train would stop? And why would you then position yourself to stand right in front of the doors? Oh. You need to get on. Jaws of life. Gotcha."

"I wonder if this escalator could catch hipster-girl's retro skirt in it? Since she weighs eighteen pounds, would it then pull her down into it's escalator-y depths?"

"The Phaaaaaaaaantom of the Escalator's there... innnnnside your mind! Heh."

"Seriously, fuck that girl."

"Well played, speedy. Nevermind that your light is RED, and I'm CROSSING here, and it's RAINING. Go back to Marin."

"Hey! The Weaver! He's going my way! Awesome."

"...um, Weaver? Could you, um, move?"

"Move move move move move move move GAH FUCK FUCK FUCK!"

"Bite me, rain."

Losing What Little Integrity I Have

2005-02-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

Friday afternoon. Five hours of sleep. Suddenly watching old episodes of "Who's the Boss" is incredibly appealing. I contemplate my vibrator as a means to stave off boredom. Got the whole damn day off work, what a waste. I could be on my way to Mexico right now. I drink more coffee; consider moving to beer. Pack of cigarettes dwindle... dwindle... gone. Open the freezer, pack another smartly against my palm. Wish for soap operas. Wish for sleep. Wish for death.

I have the first of many papers due in 72 hours. I have not written a sad solitary word. Not even a note. The reader rests impotently on a criminally comfortable chair in the corner of my living room. Contents of living room include: seductive television, manipulative stereo, haunting high speed internet, billowy couch, floor that needs vacuuming, smokes that need smoking, and a sorry young woman who needs to get going on some form of outline.

Also in said living room OF THE DAMNED, file cabinet with currently absent roommate's former papers. Currently absent roommate took English 40; the same godforsaken course I am now staring down. Currently absent roommate is clever, such as myself, can compose a 2,000 word essay with the best of them. Change a few adjectives here, move a few paragraphs there... it would be soooo easy. An hour, two. Maybe a nap, have a sandwitch, perhaps a date with that vibrator... so very, very easy.

Of course, I won't do that. But I have no moral qualms about doing it. I know I can write an essay, I can thesis and topic sentence your heart out. Is it some compulsion to follow the social contract that makes me queasy thinking of taking the easy way out? Or maybe it would just be too easy, suspect somehow. It's a victimless crime, one I would not be prosecuted for. No court of overworked twenty-somethings would convict me. So why all the fuss?

Damn you, conscience!

In A Battle Where There Can Be No Winners...

2005-02-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

Evil Conglomorate Faceless Corporation vs. Cuddly Union Organizers/Human Rights Groups/All-Around Good Guys:

United Auto Workers vs. UPS
American Federation of Teachers vs. National Beer Wholesalers Association
Mechanics and Aerospace Workers and Airline Pilos Association vs. SBC and Verizon
International Firefighters Union vs. Chevron/Texico
Walt Disney vs. Pfizer
Human Rights Corporation vs. RJ Reynolds Tobacco

Who Won? Evil. Duh.

Find more campaign contributers for the 2004 Presidential Election at www.thisisnotover.com

I'll just be over here, crying. Again.

Things I Would Enjoy Doing More If I Could Do Them in my pajamas

2005-01-30T16:28:00.000-08:00

Working
Going to School
Receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor
Grocery Shopping
My Taxes
Taking Public Transportation
Knee surgery
Homework
Crying
Fighting Crime
Family Holidays
Participating in Government
Jury Duty
Direct Action Organizing
Funerals
Testifying Before a Senate Subcommittee
Kicking Ass and Taking Names
Sex

Deserving

2005-01-25T01:37:00.000-08:00

My mother and I don't disagree about a lot of things. This runs parallel with just about every experience that my friends share with me, over drinks, busting out with old tales of maternal woe. I usually get admiring looks when I mention that my mom is just about the coolest mom, and friend, that anyone has heard of; often friends of mine in childhood would visit and hang with her like some sorry sitcom mom while I was away.

Which is why, when I am reminded that we are two women who have dissimilar views, I am struck, slightly dumbfounded. Not that she is expressly for the death penalty, but I am staunchly against it, and it surprises me when anyone holds a contrary view. To me, it is a simple, if not overtly logistical, concept; that the state, in all its fallibility, does not have the right or the clarity to end the life of a human being, in any circumstance. Now, I have never been the victim of a tragedy of the magnitude that the families of violent murder have been, I am obviously out of my element. Conversely, I don't believe my mother-- or the families of those victims-- are short-sighted or unfazed by the mountain of evidence that the death penalty is not a deterrent, is costly, and is often unjustly applied to the poor or minorities. Specifically, and here my point comes, I think people, especially women, cannot stand to live in a society where violence against women is perpetrated limitlessly. It inspires a rage, a blood-lust even, that is understandable.

Get together with a group of women and take a poll. A show of hands, which ones have been abused, sexually. Or rather, don't, because it's heartbreaking. You own hand may go up too, and you are suddenly in a room full of sorrow where there used to be friends. It's so easy to "compassion of the state" this and "right to life" that until you're looking at those hands in the air-- hands that distributed drinks earlier, hands that you've held, hands that smoke cigarettes or sew curtains or paint pictures, hands that talk, hands that brush away stray hairs, hands that make music, hands that cook delicious dinners and hold themselves when they are sad. Think about the power of hands, for good or for evil, 'til death do us part.

It's hard having a political conviction and look into the eyes of your mother, who knows so much. It's hard not to be able to hug the eight-year-old version of your best friend. It's hard to live in this space, sometimes. But I function under that duality, knowing that hands have all of the power in this world, and they must, must be used for good, whenever we can. The power of those dark places in the eyes of your best friends is no match for what we women can do with the power at the edge of our arms; strong arms, strong hands.

An Update

2005-01-21T01:10:00.000-08:00

Gah! Where'd I go?

Okay, I'm halfway done with my homework (didn't I just fucking finish a semester?) so this'll be quick. Ahem.

My birthday was spectacular. I did everything I wanted to do with everyone I loved. I wore a skirt that didn't make me hate my life all night. And comfortable shoes. My New Year's resolution is to always wear comfortable shoe. Fuck style. Fuck it! My two regrets: Ms. Mo and I didn't have our annual coffee-and-pastries get-together and I didn't see the Artist Formerly Known as Petunia. Here is how I compartmentalize this: I didn't get Mo a gift for Christmas, and this is my penance. And I seem to remember going to Petunia's birthday when I was nineteen, and she was with me when I turned both twenty and twenty-one (body shots! whee!), so we're just alternating. June, we'll kick it. Even if she is a Gemini.

I do lots of sleeping until 2pm. That is, I used to. Fucking Spring term.

Mrs. L has gotten back into the net-posting of her poetree. She rawks. Please enjoy.

Some sad things: Donald Beardslee was executed by the state last Wednesday. With so much death in the world, why do we need to crank up the body count? Don't get me started. Just take a little peek over here.

Bush was inaugurated.

I have homework.

My computer at work broke.

So that's why you haven't heard from me in a while. I'm still out there.

Things I Want Part II: Electric, and Whiny, Bugaloo

2005-01-07T20:46:00.000-08:00

I want everybody to slow the fuck down now.

A recap of 2004:
Best friends marry. Aww.
Ricci lives six-month life of debauchery and bohemia in Europe, like some Anais Nin character. Comes home with lots of photos.
Mo gets into Fancy Shamncy University.
Scrunchyface procures cute apartment, approximately 4 square feet, all to his damn bachelor self.
The Laydee Formerly Known as Petunia graduates from perplexing and frightening Geography program at Local State University.
Bosslady gets Esteemed Promotion at Work, ensuring that she will always be supervising my lazy ass.
Best friends procreate, make eenie-teenie-tiny-baby all by themselves.

Me? I, well, aah... I did move. I moved almost three blocks from my last apartment. Oh! I got a raise early this year! And... I now have a kicky new haircut. That's... accomplished... right?

Ah, yes, I almost forgot. Aforementioned ex-boyfriend (who responded promptly, thank you very much) is going to Equally Esteemed Holier-than-thou-versity.

And is. Getting. Married.

I'm quickly becoming one of those people you can't have a conversation with. I call my mom, and she's all, "How's work?" Fine. "And school?" 'Skay. "How's Scrunchyface doing?" Well. Well. "...That's. Nice." But what else can I say? Work is work, nothing new there. I've gone about as far up in the hierarchy as I can without usurping the exec director, and my job is mostly meaningless paperwork. School is an unending nightmare of ineptitude and madness. Schrunchyface is the same as he ever was, with his face... all... Scrunched. Sometimes I look at him and I think, "This is not my beautiful wife!" Okay, not really.

So I need everyone (and that includes you) to stop it. No more getting married, no more babies, no more accomplishment or personal growth and absolutely no Passing Go and Collecting $200, until I can catch up. I'm dying over here.

Things I Want For My Birthday: Part 1

2005-01-05T04:26:00.000-08:00

I want 45 minutes with every ex-lover I've ever had. Questions will range from: "Did I do you wrong? Are you okay? Will you forgive me?" to "...Hey. Wanna do that again?" to "Why, in God's Sweet Name, are you SUCH A FUCKER?" (Sometimes all three will be asked.) Paintball guns provided by Revenge Inc., makers of high-quality non-lethal products. Cigarettes supplied by Dunhill Inc.

I did the ungodly tonight. I wrote an e-mail to an ex. Dear god, why do we do this? (And by "we" I mean "people who feel and don't know what's for their own good", so spare me.) This activity is not good for anybody. The sender feels like a twit, and the sendee feels pressured, or cornered, or whatever it is PEOPLE THAT I AM ATTRACTED TO feel compulsively. It's awkward and sad and regressive and everything I want to get away from. And yet, here I am. Me and my sad, sad hotmail account.

The ex in question is actually my first. If you know me, you know him. He is the Mecca of disillusioned teen girl lust: angsty, awkward, musically inclined and way too fucking old. The sad thing is that we were great friends, and the intellectual in me wants to reconnect because he's the only person from my past that I want to reconnect with (aside from those I have connections with already: Hi, Ms. L!).

But you and I know it's just self-mutilation. These letters serve no function except to revisit the past, say, "hey, there, My Past, I'm SO MUCH BETTER WITHOUT YOU" and go home feeling... empty, and not young anymore, and covetous of that history in your hindsight that looks so promising.

But... fuck! Because I am so happy now, and so stupid in love, and why do we do these things that make us crazy? Why stay up all night thinking of the things we've done wrong? What is the useful, evolutionary purpose of having fantasy conversations with people that you will likely never see again? (Or you do see them, but you pretend you don't, and you sit silently on the MUNI, sticking your tits out and hoping they'll RUE the day they watched your sweet ass leave... or something. Whatever. Shut up.)

I'm coming to the conclusion that it's kind of Catholic (and I'm not religious so hang in with me here). It's confessional, it's penance, it's absolution. Or if nothing else it's purgatory. But you've gotta pray your own way out of this one.

I Take It All Back!

2004-12-31T17:06:00.000-08:00

I do, I'm really very sorry. One too many Pyramid SnowCap's last night... they're just so tasty, you know? Really, Holidays, I love you baby. You know how I get when I'm mad. Just one more chance, please, baby? You know I love you. I'll change, really I will, just... here, look, see? Putting on that skirt! Saran-wrapping my boobs into this teeny tiny shiny top! I know, I know, but look, baby! Lipstick! See, I can treat you right! I'll change! Just give me something to do! It's New Year's Eve... I'm Twenty-one! I'm too young to be watching Oprah in my jammies.

What do you mean you're leaving? Don't you remember the fun we had last year? The hot tub? The tequila? You and me, babe... we drank cheap Champaign until six in the morning! Wasn't that fun? Hey, where are you going with that bag? Oh, I see, you're gonna hole up in some hotel room tonight while I sit all alone on New Years? Yeah, see how you like it. You'll come crying back to me at one in the morning, but it will be too late. Too late! No, baby, if you leave now don't you ever come back. I treated you right! I never got hungover on you, not once, and I always wore comfortable shoes so we could party all night long. You don't know how good you've got it with me! Who else is going to take you out, what about next year? I'll make big plans next year, I promise... just... don't leave me, New Year's. I'll change. I'm sorry.

Fine, go! I'll find a better holiday! Valentines Day has been eyeing me for years, but I ignored her, all for you! But nooooo, I think I'll go right on over to Valentines Day's house and... bang her! You heard me! Everyone knows she's desperate. And how about St. Patrick's Day, he's always hitting the sauce early and at the end of the night he'll go home with anyone wearing green! I'd loooooove a little Irish in me! Flag Day barely even leaves her house anymore, she'd be easy! See, I don't need you. I'll do fine on my own. You think you're so big, with your fancy New York parties and that holier-than-thou Resolution bullshit you do every year... Yeah, yeah, you're gonna quit smoking, right. I've heard that one before. You're nothing but a fake, New Years. Half of the freaking world doesn't acknowledge you, and you think you're sooooo great. I'll show you. Come back in July and you'll see where the ball really drops, if you know what I mean.

Bitch.

...sniffle... Whhhhhhhhiiiieeeeeeeeeee?

Holidays (A How-To Guide)

2004-12-31T02:45:00.000-08:00

In the post-Christmas haze, you may realize that 2005 has popped up out of the holly bushes (bundles? brussels?), startling you good-naturedly, and now it is demanding your change.

Or, rather, if you are like me, on December 15th you realized that you are no longer 18 and will have to attempt to do the holiday-thing like an adult. So you spent the last two weeks hauling your broke-ass up and downtown looking for gifts; suddenly your list grows exponentially and you go to every store in the tri-county area, inevitably ending up at Old Fucking Navy again, buying $10 socks and a cute pair of jeans that were on sale, for christsakes, and they fit, so shut it. You're splitting Christmas like a good girlfriend so the festivities start in town, with your family, including musical highlights like "Arguing with Your Uncle That the First Born Son Shouldn't Necessarily Get the One Family Property in Georgia (Even if None of Us Kids Really Want it and They're Gonna Foreclose on the piece of Shit Anyway)". Because the coveted first born son is actually the youngest, in lineage of us kids. And it is not, so far as I know, 1832. Also featuring you spilling your first glass of wine all over the table and getting broken glass in the salad, which everybody thinks is soooooo funny, everyone excluding your grandmother, of course. She is pissed. Your butterfingers ruined the damn salad. Then you bite down on glass. There is glass in your mouth and it's Christmas. Fuck.

The next day, Christmas Day to be exact, you get to haul said gifts across town to the car-rental agency and down to Sacramento, for some God-forsaken reason. It is a four hour drive. Each way. You have never been so happy to see suburbs. Then, you sit with people who have no fucking clue who you are and wait for dinner... and wait... and wait.... You die of starvation. They bury you in Sacramento and never speak of it again. And the presents? Oh, no, in your family it's like dogs on beef steaks, everybody gets all of their presents at once and the only sound for fifteen minutes is torn wrapping paper and the occasional snarling. Fifteen minutes, you're outside having a smoke. Not at the Scruchyface household. First, they open a thousand presents for the baby. Then they have to put said presents together, which involves a frantic search for batteries and lots of yelling. Then everyone gets a single present, opened gingerly and discussed at length. Notes are taken. They whole thing took three fucking days.

Then the next day, when you have to return the car, your boyfriend suddenly gains some degree of work ethic and has to be on time, so you have to drive from stupid, lazy Oakland (where you get lost) to SFO (where you get lost). After the hour and a half it takes you to get home from the airport, alone might I add, you eat a burrito and sleep, secure in the knowledge that as soon as you break up with your boyfriend and estrange yourself from your friends and family, you will never have to do such dreadful things again.

So you are broke, you are tired, you hate your family a little and your boyfriend a lot, so you're supposed to put on a skirt now? And celebrate? Just beer me and shut up. I'll be on the couch.

I honestly feel some nagging guilt about not ringing in the New Year in the drunken and irresponsible manner that I am accustomed to doing. But, gah. I can't even begin to imagine coordinating an event, or finding some random party to feel alienated at, and at this point? I don't even want to put on pants.

So if anyone has a bottle of whiskey they would like to share with me, feel free to stop on by. We'll spend January 1, 2005 together. Drunk, tired, in pajamas.

Coming soon: My Birthday! Someone, kill me.

Yet More Indulgence

2004-12-29T05:03:00.000-08:00

Studying Stones

the last time you wrote poetry
you were living in the police state of your mind
and the men and the guns were just below your balcony
as you stood there in your bra and panties
and thought earnestly about it
you composed a song

now in the rarest of circumstance
again you've got some old song on repeat

too much wine and a spat or two and you explode
you run to the nearest have you can find
and in your search for some kind of meaningless connection
you remember the words you never heard
you remember the brother who never existed
when your heart starts beating again and for the first time
and nothing you have never known reveals itself to be
dead
and that nothing was something you,
in your infinite and finite wisdom, have been holding on to:
a b-plan, a fire escape, impossible.

you miss him more than you realized you could,
because he is so far gone,
he was never even there.

What You Think

2004-12-28T01:03:00.000-08:00

She wakes you up at a late hour, still too early for you, dear, and she's joyous. She's explaining the commodities that you two will share later: appetizer, entree, dessert, wine. You sleep.

When you wake again you sleepily enact a roll-reversal--- she makes you breakfast. You're much more comfortable being on the other side of the frying pan but you let her, you ignore the resonating guilt in your head and you sullenly and sweetly eat the toast she has offered, drink the coffee, smoke.

Your morning progresses as such; you clean the living room while she showers, she moves furniture so you can vacuum, after your shower you come out of your room in a bra and panties and she doesn't cringe, because your body is natural and organic to her--- it is not the object you always will it to be.

You go to the movies. She buys the ticket while you use the restroom, you buy the popcorn while she gets your seats. You go to dinner. You're uncomfortable and she soothes you. Reminds you that it's not so important--- the atmosphere reaks of money and power that you are not privy to. It reminds you of that life you lived when you were bought by that man that you convinced yourself to love out of loneliness and awe. He would buy you an expensive weekend at a resort at the other end of the world and you would lay under him and feel more alone than you could imagine; you thought, "I owe this". He bought you dinner. He bought you wine. He gave you that romantic weekend that you only ever saw in the movies. You felt in debt, and that debt was your cunt, and the worst part of it was he never expected to be repaid, he did those things because he loved you, or he loved the idea of you, or he missed his youth and felt it had been wasted, or he liked your body and wanted to entice it with fancy wine and luxury suites. The worst part was never knowing what he wanted from you.

But your roommate reminds you that this isn't some otherworldy caste system, that your value is outside of how much money you can spend at a dumptruck restaurant.

So you order wine and pretend that you know what you're doing, you eat food that you can't afford, you realize that the check will never come and that scares you somehow. You want to pay your dues. You want to be the one making breakfast, you want to be the one with open arms, you want to be the one with the buy-one-get-one-free card. You want to have something to offer, something to take, you want the debt because it will buy your way in. This company, this day, this comfort all relies on the fact that you have something extraneous to offer. Otherwise, it's just you. You are all you have to offer.

And that is not enough.

Why Sad Songs Make Me Happy, I'll Never Know

2004-12-21T13:24:00.000-08:00

A happy happy Birthday to Scruchyface McGee, kicking ass and taking names for twenty-seven years. We spent the last birthday together, and with any luck we'll spend the next. This time the movie will be better. You gotta know I love a man when I voluntarily see Lord of the Rings. Shudder.

And now, a dedication.

"You Each Time"
There you were day after day
Six feet, Twenty feet
Two feet away
Right in my pocket singing me a song
Making my heart race all day long
And we talked it out and we talked it down
But your eyes were not listening
And my ears were looking around
For another song to sing
But it was you each time
It was you
And the answer to each moment must be yes
And the question 'can you live with that?'
Becomes the test
So you weigh it against that aching in your chest
And that secretly relentless emptiness
And you talk it out and you talk it down
But your eyes are not listening
And my ears are running around
Looking for another song to sing
But it is you each time
It is you
So my heart finally broke
It was so long bent
And it broke in three places
When it finally went
It wanted only to say what it meant
And so it suffered every punishment
Now it lives in a shack outside of town
And only the wolves are out there listening
And in her dreams they chase her down
Their moonlit eyes are glistening
And it is you each time.

I'm Sure They'd Be Tasteful

2004-12-20T13:05:00.000-08:00

From my myspace inbox, ahem,

"i like your look. i'd like to hire you to model for me. i'd pay $100 per hour. the pictures would be for my own use, not publication... i'd like to hire some (sic) to model for me:) do you have any interest?...my sub - she's bi - would be there to chaperon... i'd like you to wear what ever you feel sexy in...the pics are for my own use...not publication. let me know:)" Love, Vauge Creepy Guy.

Now, a couple of questions, Vauge Creepy Guy. One, you "like my looks" based on a blurry jpeg taken with a camera phone. In which my hair is bizarre and unwashed. You're contacting me because you think I look like a sex victim, aren't you? Someone sqishy enough to be easily chopped up in the bathtub and stuffed into various trash bags? Two, sub? As in submissive? How effective of a chaperone would a submissive really be?

Bi-sub Chick: "Hey, um, Creepy, sir? The gag might be a little tight. Bitch turning blue."

Vauge Creepy Guy: "Lashes for you!"

Bi-sub Chick: "Yay!"

This sounds like a lot of work, dude. As an independent contractor, would I get union benifits?

Hee! I got solicited! I'm so proud.

Your Day

2004-12-16T23:21:00.000-08:00

It is too early on a morning which is like every other morning. You are steadily asleep next to a warm and fuzzy man. In the mind's eye of your dreams nothing much is going on; groggily you wake up and remember the lovely day and the lovely man and the lovely plans you have on this day like any other day. You sigh like a kitten, you're purring, it is warm and there is still an hour to go before you make your coffee, before this lovely man passes you a cigarette and insists you take a hot shower; you are slow, so content to sit at your breakfast table with sand in your eyes and stare at the rest of your life as it rolls out before you, you are so content to look into the sleepy eyes of the sleepy man sitting before you. Lovely. You lie there half-dreaming and you hear the ring of the phone, the phone a room away and down the hall. The ring does not bother you, it does not beckon you, the phone is paid for and used exclusively by your lovely roommate, who is safely at work. The phone resonates in your ear, comforting only because you know it's incessant buzzing will end and it is not for you.

The phone on the other end of the line is downtown, the voice on the other end of the phone is hers, your lovely roommate, she is sending a message to herself while she is at work. The awake part of your still-floating mind somehow hears the voice of your lovely roommate, at the other end of the line downtown, and she is speaking to you. She is saying, "Are you there?" This is never a good thing to hear. And, "Call me when you get this." Her voice is taught, unrecognizable. This is not a call reminding you to pick up some Half and Half, this is not a call asking you to pick up your damn socks off the living room floor. This is taught, unrecognizable. You pull your still-sleeping body away from the warmth of your seldom-seen bed and the lovely man, you stumble down the hall and into the other room. You call. On hold, you think, 'what have I done this time?' You count backwards in your head, searching for some fault, some lingering doubt that could explain that voice on the other end of the line, demystify it.

Conscience clear, she picks back up. She is busy. She will call you back. Knowing the answer, you ask her if everything is okay, all clear, you ask her permission to go home to bed. She says, "Not... really." You hear the pause more clearly then you hear the words, and you hate her for it. You hate that kind of answer and you hate her for giving it. You remember the evening you ran from work crying, ran to her arms because you secretly know that between the two of you she is the stronger and you needed her, on that evening when your baby cousin lost his mind on psychedellics, raving about his holiness. You remember the weeks that she held the secret of your mutual friend, you had to talk to her, she said, and when you later did you were relieved that she held that hard secret in your house. Your purse at your feet, you reach for the cellular phone that nobody calls and see that you have missed six nobodies since four in the morning, when you slept. It is a record.

As you wait for her, you listen to several in a series of desperate messages on the phone that nobody calls. The first is to the point. It is exactly what it needs to be, messages of this kind should be delivered by your godmother, in a voice that is mother, mother of all mothers. She wants you to call her. The first note is familiar, the second harsh. The second is a sound you've never heard before and a sound that you have been waiting your whole life to hear. It is always with you, you have known it forever and today, this lovely day, it has come true. Your chest inflates, it deflates, you are sure of it. A phone rings. Your arms move. You are sure of it. You mouth works, you have used it so much by now and for so many different things that you are sure that your mouth can move while you climb under the covers in your head. It is your rommate, she will save you. She does not know anything more than you know, and you love her then. You love her so much for making this call, for waking you up, for keeping secrets. You love her and you need her now, she will hold your hand while the world spins. You think this now, but she won't. You hang up, your arms work, you call your godmother. Plans are made. They are different from the ones you held so close only minutes ago, but you do as you always do when these things happen: you shut off the you in your head and you move, you're sure of it.

You climb back into the sleeping bed; perverted now by all you have to say, all you have to do. The lovely man that you will never let go of rolls over and holds you. He holds you like no other man has held you before; he holds you up. He asks you what is wrong.

Your mother had a heart attack. You are dying.

Everything after that comes very quickly, independent of your mind. The shower works, it is still hot. The coffee-maker pops and spurts as the water washes over your shivering body. The clothes are on your floor, then they are on your body. The lovely man puts a single ice cube in your cup to appease your sensitivities, he hands you a cigarette as you sit at the breakfast table. You jump up every few minutes, tossing items into your bag, ancipatory of a long stay. There is no return from where you're going. You look through him instead of at him; you look at your mother. The buzzer buzzes, you jump, you grab the bag and the still-steaming coffee, you go with your godmother. You cringe when you see her cracking too. You see her break and recover, brake and drive, break open and remind you that adulthood is not being everything all at once, like you used to think. You wonder if you are an adult. You are not everything. You are sure of it. You sip coffee, you smoke with her, you finally find the hospital, the elevators, room two-oh-eight and your mother, looking small.

She sees you arrive and she's laughing. She's laughing from joy and relief, and you hate her for it. You recognize that, it is her drunk laugh, you see nights of your childhood passing you by: all the nights she drove you home drunk, all the screaming matches you got into because she couldn't stop, all the times she kicked you out of the house for hours at a time so she could drink alone. You had nowhere to go then. You drove and cried. You have been alone since. You saw the nights you took her to the hospital because she hurt herself while you were away. You were so scared then, and she promised she would stop. You remembered that you had no control over that, she wouldn't listen to you, no one will ever listen to you, what you have to say is not important. You had a hard time going into the room and facing that laugh, going back to everything you've come so far from. You felt the need to fly. But you didn't; you stayed. You put on your big-girl shoes and trotted on into that dark room, to find her so small. She can't hold you anymore, she can't save you anymore, she is not bigger than anything. She is small and lovely and sick. Your hard heart melts. You melt into her.

As soon as you arrive she is off again, more tests, you go to the cafeteria and choke down a muffin and watch hospital people. You go outside and smoke. Your godmother is quitting, you are not. You cannot die yet. You're shaking, you've been shaking since you can remember, you lift a trembling cigarette to your mouth and breathe. It is easy.

It was not a heart attack. It was something more simple. You understand, you are relieved, and yet you wonder if the false alarm will go unheeded. Lately, you have little faith in people being able to change themselves, you want earthquakes and tidal waves. You want the world to end and for everything to be clear. You want chaos. You want these people saved; you don't want to do the saving anymore. You want to let go.

You wait for a discharge order. You talk about your boring little life. Your mother looks at you and sees everything in the world, everything she has ever done. You love her. You wait for a discharge.

Home you discover that you are exhausted. The passing lights of the city hold no majesty. You want to be home, but when you get there, you realize you don't know what to do with your hands. You idly wrap presents in preparation for the holiday. You watch TV. You write.

You are alone. Nothing will ever be the same. You take no comfort in that.

Remarkable.

2004-12-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

Sometimes quiet and delicate offerings of acceptance and love make me anxious; my chest tightens and I somehow don't know what to do with my hands, I get shy.

Sometimes I do not speak because I am afraid I will not be heard, I will be yelled at, I will fail, I will be left.

Sometimes people and things touch me so profoundly that I feel a musical number coming on.

Sometimes I am harsh and unrighteous.

Often I am humbled.

Every single day I am One of many, and I am grateful.

Flashback

2004-12-06T23:45:00.000-08:00

Seriously, people. I am bored. Not that I don't have anything to do... finals week is coming up... laundry is forming a little dirt co-op in my room, they've written a charter and have a dishes schedule and everything... Letterman's on... but man. I have the less ambition than my roommate, currently making her second sandwitch of the evening, and she woke up at five in the morning. That's sad. It's like the bra comes off and any productive plans I had for the evening go with it. In a pile, on my floor, doing a keg-stand with my undies. Least sexy imagery ever.

I actually didn't have any plans this evening; or rather, I had a definite plan to do nothing... maybe watch a movie, tool around the internets, hang with Ricci. That I am doing. It's the beginning of a mini-vacation before I have to haul my lazy ass over to my dusty textbook and learn half a semester worth of material. I have work off tomorrow (yay for me!) and Scruchyface and I are going to a Brewery (yay some more!) to hang with his working-stiff buddies. I am actually pretty jazzed, I get to put on lipstick for a reason and drink beers in the East Bay. Not to mention the fact that Scrunchyface and I have been on, like, two dates in our year-plus relationship. Last year's Christmas party was the first date. To be honest, it was kind of a disaster.

Firstly, I was twenty, so no beers for me. And the brewery is nice 'n all, but (and this may be a surprise) I like the drinky. So taking me to a bar, where the beer flows like... well, beer... is like taking Oliver Stone to the re-release of JFK and promptly poking his eyes out. Which is a neat idea, in retrospect. Hee. Anyway, the sobriety was kind of a downer, as it always is. The food was good, but I felt like a little girl playing grown-up.

The day started off well, and wound itself precariously downhill. I spent the morning in my Poly-Sci class, writing "Noelle + Dr. Foppyhair = Love Forever and Ever" over and over again in my notebook. Took the bus home, probably smoked a lot of cigarettes, thought about hauling my ass down to the voting precinct for the mayoral election and instead wrote "Noelle + Matt Gonzalez = Love Forever and Ever". Took a bath, cause that's what big girls do when they're going on a date (seriously, I had the green mask on and everything, because my twenty-year-old skin gets so... whatever your skin does that the green stuff fixes). Halfway through I get interrupted by the phone, and I squeal all excited cause a cute boy who I will soon be on a date with is calling me... except I'm not going on a date with some canvasser-guy from the Green party reminding me to vote. "Hi, I'm calling from Matt for Mayor. Have you voted today?!"... meanwhile, I'm naked and wet and it's freaking December. "Um, yeah, dude. I'ma gonna." Drip, drip. "Because he really needs our support tonight, you know the green vote is very important and..." Shiver. "Dude? Me. Naked. Cold. Bath." Drip, shiver, drip. "Oh. Well, thanks!"

Gah.

So I go to vote, with about twenty minutes to spare before I Absolutely Have To get on the BART to get to the East Bay. Should be easy, right? Go, booth, Matt for Mayor!, done. Like Captain Interrupt-My-Bath says. Except my polling place does not exist. The street on which it is theoretically located does not exist. Voting no longer exists, democracy is gone, I am stuck in an alley in nowhere in a skirt and somehow I also no longer exist. I go up a block, I go down the same block, I ask homeless folk, I think I even tried to vote in a Laundromat. Nothing. So I run my smokers-ass down to the Civ in two minutes flat, run up to City Hall, take a moment to indulge in the majesty and awesomeness of our society and our right to choice and blah blah blah I'm Late! Then I run back to the BART. My makeup is somewhere in a puddle at the corner of VanNess and Market, my hair has decided that rain is it's mortal enemy and it must secure the nation of my scalp by launching a pre-emptive strike on any kind of attempt I had made at a hairstyle and I'm all blochy and red from running. And sweaty. And aggravated. Yeah, I was hot.

And Scrunchyface and I were in this awkward transitional phase (which mostly involved me acting like a doofus and him acting like he needed some doofus repellent), which probably made me ridiculously inept and not fun. Except I was lot of fun for the strikingly obese guy at the party who felt that the winning combination of challenging my political views and staring at my boobs would be the best way to pick me up. While on a date. With a guy he works with. And yeah, usually the upside to gross men hitting on you is the fun possessive-jealousy boyfriend thing you get from whomever you're with. Yeah. Ten space-points if you can guess who didn't notice that little exchange. You get an extra five points if you call him an "asshat".

To top it all off, Matt Gonzalez fucking lost the fucking mayoral election, pitching me into a fit of despair and self-pity.

But this year I've got my ID, I'm a normal kind of girlfriend (yeah, that only took 11 months), I'm gonna put on my (one) clean sexy top and possibly dance on the bar, which will either alienate Scruchyface from his boring co-workers, or make him really, really popular.

Whee!

What I Do Instead of What I Should

2004-12-03T01:15:00.000-08:00

After a delicious home cooked pasta dinner and a couple of (tall) glasses of wine, I find that I have little-to-no desire to write my damned essay about Shakespeare. I will never be the scholar, I will never be the world traveler, and I will never be the girl I planned to be twenty minutes ago. So I will just be me. That is: a slightly inebriated girl, one who prefers to be called a woman in professional relationships (not to mention the fact that she likes it when you say "please"), a girl who is skirting her multitude of responsibilities to watch Conan at dark-thirty in the morning, drink more wine, have a couple of cigarettes, and muse into the vast emptiness of the vast internet, with the promise of connection and the release of disappointment.

Flick, ahhh.

I wonder about the Pony Express, when people would wait days for a few words from anyone they imagined themselves close to. Me, I click my hotmail account, blah blah blah, I post on my blog and wait for a comment, I pick up my cell phone and call my mother... connection is so important and yet I've hardly found it; this could be generational, a rebellion against each other, preservation, evolution, whatever. We are connected and then we are gone and the names and dates and times regress into the background, head to the ground, I wake up one day and everything is the same but the faces have changed. Something to hold on to is so rare I've stopped looking for it, I stopped remembering that it never existed anyway. This is that forum, the inanimate can only be left, and as long as you've got a refresh button everything can be new again.

So I check my hotmail account, Glen Phillips sings to me from far far away, I abandon my initial ambition and slowly smoke cigarettes at one in the morning on a Thursday, I send this tea-girl tragedy into the void and I do it all over again and again until I get some kind of answer.

At the End of the Tour

2004-12-01T19:00:00.000-08:00

Things That Make My Life Worth Living Today, and Possibly Make Me Do A Little Dance:

1. Glen Phillips is playing at Cafe DuNord on December 17th. He is from Toad the Wet Sprocket, and not only is his solo stuff way better, but he r-a-w-k-s rocks. Rocks it nineties style. Also, nobody knows about him but me and his wife, probably, so a.) he gets to play at cool little venues like DuNord and the like, steadily increasing his coolability, and 2.) he never tours, so when I get to see him (last time was two years ago, at the Great American Music Hall) it's a treat. And he covers Randy Newman, which is unassailably hardcore, plus he's dreamy. I want to marry him and have little musically inclined babies.

2. Again with the concerts. I open up my new addition of the Guardian over coffee this morning and what do I see but the Li'l Folksinger herself, Mr. Ani DiFranco. I squealed like an old-fashioned lady on her honeymoon. I then proceeded to clip the ad out of the paper and post it to my fridge, with an RBR magnet no less, and watch it from afar with glee. I bought my tickets already, for I am obsessive and have no qualms about my mounting personal debts. Ah-ni. Lather, rinse, repeat. This will be my fifth time seeing her rock it in the last two years: in Berkeley, Oakland, Santa Rosa and Berkeley again, but my first time seeing her in SF. Maybe after the show she'll wander over to the local bar (where I've been nervously sipping Long Islands) and become so enamored by my wit and charm that she'll hire me for the tour and we will get married and I'll have her folksinger babies. Or something.

3. I had a really good turkey sandwitch today.

That's pretty much the lot of it.

Playing Along

2004-11-26T02:23:00.000-08:00

I sit here, still sick of turkey ('cept not really), to reminisce on the Thanksgiving I just spent with... shudder... my family. Gah.

You can only truly love my family if you're in it. Most of my readers are not. On the way to the feast my aunt regaled me and my ambivalent cousin, Li'l Ricci, with a tale about her attempted arson aimed at the housing project next door to her childhood home. She and her partner in crime, my mother, were about six. This became an Actual arson that burned down her own home. She's the normal one. This is typical.

Post-script: She blamed it on the black sheep, my Bastard-Uncle. Hee. I love that.

Scruchyface spent his thanksgiving with his normal, wealthy, non-criminal family. I was kind of sad to spend the holiday apart, cause I'm strange, but periodically throughout the evening, especially when my mother was telling the story (again) about how she once tied my estranged dyke-aunt to a tree in the hope that she would be eaten by wolves, I was relieved. Who else would think that's funny but me and my kin?

Which is narcissistic as fuck, I know, because who doesn't have that love/loathe complex about their family? I secretly believe that every family has the same basic prototype: the crafty gramma, the loving and criminally insane mother, the stereotypically Italian uncle, the siblings and cousins who know too much about your childhood indiscretion and bad bad hair, etcetera. Mine's no different.

But they are. I complain ad nauseum about the fact that they're all addict-malcontents, they all talk over one another and there's never enough happy memories to go around so we have to laugh at our misfortunes, and...

"Please, for the love of God mom, I know how much salt I'm using, I have a credit card and I am a voting adult so leave me the damn hell alone... oh fuck it, I'm gonna have a smoke outside... yes, gramma, I know I should quit... I will, God! Yes, I'm having another glass of the wine. I bought it. With my legal twenty-one years backin' me up. Oh great, yeah, uncle Doug, join me. We can talk about... welding... or whatever blue-collar cliche you're doing right now. God."

Yeah, there's tons of that. The only theory I can come up with is that they're the only one I've got. We are a bunch of children of misfortune but we've done that and come out the other side mostly intact, and as the generations get born and grow up they'll be progressively more normal and happy. And they'll be Harrisons.

Where the men are always good to fix things and the women live for-fucking-ever.

And a Happy Something or Other to You Too... Whatever.

2004-11-25T02:16:00.000-08:00

Happy Colonialism! Go here.

NOW.

Thanks a Lot, Feminism.

2004-11-22T20:28:00.000-08:00

In 1975, the Supreme Court ruled in Taylor v. Louisiana that women could not be excluded from, nor encouraged against participation in, a criminal or civil jury. This is arguably the last great victory of the women's movement so far, as finally a woman could be judged by a jury of her peers.

In 1983, a woman was born. This woman would spend her life, twenty-one years to date, in the service of the women's movement. She gained strength and faith through the goal of making women equal in her society.

On November 23, 2004 she will be called, for the first time, to serve on a jury, continuing the noble and righteous tradition of the American justice system.

Fuck you, feminism. Lot of help you've been.

My Desire to Fuck Around TRUMPS ALL or Tis the Season

2004-11-21T17:36:00.000-08:00

Firstly, I am officially obsessed with They Might Be Giants. My God. I was drinking red wine on Saturday night and watching the documentary on those guys and... it was nerdriffic. Please, please love them too. Everytime you sing along Linell gets his wings.

Secondly, I'ma getting excited about the holidays. I do this every damn year, I completely ignore the idea of Christmas or Thanksgiving until they're RIGHT ON TOP of me, and then I freak out and spend all of my cash and get all giddy about... cranberry sauce?... I don't know, something. I love the idea of showering all the important folks in my life with great gifts, as if I can manifest the closeness of our relationship and wrap it up in a bow. I am obsessed with getting the best thing for an individual and as a result, I fail miserably.

This used to be because I would get people the things that I really enjoyed, to bless my friends with the books or music that inspired me, as if everyone could see the brilliance that I found in it. This is not the case. I can't tell you how many books I've bought for Mrs. L that now reside in a pile of dust under her bed. She's good, she'll read them, but then they're recycled into cage linings. I made a mix CD for my friend RubyGirl that she managed to return to my house. So bad she didn't even want it taking up space. It's my fault for putting the Ani on.

This past year I'd managed to put those demons to bed and was able to score some really cool stuff for birthdays and whatnot. Unfortunately, my other affliction is my compulsion toward cleverness. This has effected my life in various other ways, re: term papers that are not only unresearchable but take several outlines to compose into something coherent, like, no one gives a damn about the environmental effects of the California prison system in rural communities, but I wrote twenty pages anyway (my prof thought I was insane, which I am). So I'll give myself a headache trying to come up with something creative that no one else would get them, and then it's a big letdown because they don't know what to do with a damn TiVO hacker handbook... but I thought you were techie... yeah, yeah, GTA next year dude, sorry. Just put it in the turtle cage and be done with it. Those pages have fiber.

Not to mention that I, per usual, am broke broke broke. I'm going to have to go back to stripping just to cover my A-list gifts.

But as cliche and written-about as it is already, it kills me to give out presents. There is nothing not fun about the experience. I love buying shit, wrapping (which invariably leaves a mess that will remain until February), lugging it around town on the bus or the BART, and the unrestrained glee of seeing my hours of laborious spending winding up... on the floor of my friend's bedroom. Sigh.

I don't know when (or if) I shifted from being childish about the holidays to being all adultish, but I don't give a damn if I don't get a damn thing this year. I want to amazon.com the hell out of this year. I get a tax return soon, right? That's what credit cards are for.

How I Feel: Shut Up, Shitty Week.

2004-11-19T20:45:00.000-08:00

it's just my cowgirl alter-ego riding on her barroom bull
dripping with a sweat of irony as the cowboys woop and drool
shooting glances at the mirror to see if her scar is showing
she is truly going nowhere tonight

lecherous old-lady wanna-be, much too young and shy
flailing her whole life just thinking she can teach herself to fly
vehement, romantic, frantic, for forever, right-now
and forever's goin' nowhere tonight

-from "Knuckledown"
Ani DiFranco

In Which I Start a National Holiday

2004-11-18T20:56:00.000-08:00

National Shut the Fuck Up Day
Seriously, Leave Me the Fuck Alone Day
Sleepmas
New Year's Eve and Day (Jan. 6-14)
Take Your Girlfriend Out for a Meal Once in a While, Fuckwit Solsice
Go to Hell and Die Already-ster
Next Week (Federal Holiday)
Noelle's Birthday (Month of January)
Shhta Eve

In Which I Get All New-Agey

2004-11-16T20:06:00.000-08:00

There's something eternally frustrating about seeing people you love have problems. Most people have general money-issues or worky-issues or issue-issues, and, sorry, but that's life. But when it's my friends, I usually feel... inept and mostly useless. I suppose there's the sounding-board role--- and most of the time I just want somebody to talk to, not advice or a magic spell or anything--- but at the same time I wonder if I have no advice because I have nothing to say. What can you say? "Yep, been there. Sucks, don't it." Or how about this one: "Wow... I... wow. Yeah. That's new. Um... can I get you a drink? Perhaps two." Most of the time there is just nothing to be said, or done, you just light up another cigarette and puff away in shared silence.

I think there is a drive in most folks that want to protect people they care for from their unhappiness, but there's little to no way to conceivably do that, unless you are personally making them unhappy... in which case you should, you know, address that... but most of the people have the same damn problems that I do and... I'm not that great with mine, so. I think right now I want to buy the world a coke.

And I've been spinning over and over again in my mind what we, people at the bottom collectively, can do to alleviate some of the stresses that come with... basically living on the bottom. The problem is that we have no support system. People at work demand that we devote all of our energies to it--- and because we're mostly in the process of getting our degrees or education in another form, our jobs are the shit jobs. Our jobs are the best we can do based on ingenuity and good interviewing skills and still... they're shitty. Getting the degree itself sucks, because that's a whole 'nother segment of your life that demands all of your attention and it's easy to fall behind a.) because you're not getting paid and 2.) because you're exhausted. And everything else... bills, the car (if you have one), the lack of car (if you don't... or if you do, cause those things break, I've heard), everyone who needs and wants your support and everything that you Have To Do that you Really Don't Wanna... everything else is so immediate and necessary and problematic that it makes me want to just curl up and have me a nice little panic attack.

But I don't, because that would get in the way of all of the shit I've gotta do.

Mrs. L and I once decided to start making tee-shirts with clever things on 'em because we're clever girls and sometimes we just have to share the... clever. I've been thinking about that lost enterprise a lot lately, and I think that functions more as a metaphor than anything else. The enterprise. Not the shirts. I feel like I lost a lot of creativity just living and surviving, and I'd like to regain that. But I just can't do it alone. It's whirling in my mind, in keeping with my desire to form a support system, that people like me should have some kind of creative network to share ideas, share visions, fuck it! Share fantasies of winning the lottery and flipping the proverbial finger at the Horatio-Alger-Protestant-Work-Ethic. There are a lot of us and I'm starting to think that we all imagine that we're alone in this. I cannot and will not believe that is true.

Even if the whole world is against us, we have resources in each other, and we must not deny that. It's time to start using what we've got, and doing more than just getting by.

like they don't speak your language

2004-11-14T19:08:00.000-08:00

So happy birthday Sophya, and my Bosslady Sonj, and my little cousin Nicletta (who's anonymity I have no reason to protect). Happy birthday to all the lovely Scorpios and their sharp, sharp tongues.

Also, happy birthday to a man halfway around the world that I never even knew. This is just to say my thoughts are with him.

I am willing to believe that he is god.
That I can accept.

(i would be the tertiary to god,
a verse,
a chorus,
a psalm)

This silent uneventful child turned
tall and graceful man,
this person who is pushing ten
years old
with dinosaur
visions, voices
his understood genus finally coming
home to the world in his head
an ear short and a million miles
from Massachusetts and
patriarchy.

I will lay down on top of my
understanding of reality and
let you be that messiah,
if only to have that sweet unafraid boy
back, the boy who would always be a boy
becoming a man.

For years we fought
like brother, like sister.
For the life of me
I don't remember why.
- 12 August, 2004

"keep the boy spinning in their own little world,
tie him up so he won't say a word
--so afraid he'll be what they never were."
-tori amos, "flying dutchman"

That's 'Ms. Harrison, Ma'am' to you, Underling.

2004-11-12T18:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, I feel better. Only one thing is annoying me so far today. Okay, two things. The second thing is that the Sushi place directly below my office is closed. I have specifically avioded going there until today, in order to save money. But today I have been paid for my fine work, and I wanted Sushi. Alas, the financial district has once again foiled me. Noelle Harrison will have her revenge on San Francsico.

Not really. I still love you, Frisco.

The first annoying thing is this guy... in my office... who is a generally nice person, no complaints really, he does his job and is a sweet, if boring, person to talk to. But he... insists... on giving me a nickname. Which, buh? Cause I've known you, like, twenty minutes. It's not like we're in a sorority, dude. Shut it.

But the nickname happens to be a shortening of my name, which he is, actually, doing to everyone else. "Sophie" for instance. (I fear for the situation, in my head, of Mrs. L coming to my work and him shortening her name to end in a "-ie"... for then he would be a man with his eyes gouged out, and a slowly smoldering cigarette burn in the middle of his forhead. Seriously, bitch would go apeshit.)

So my name, obviously, is therefore abbriviated to "Noe". I have an intimate history with that particular nickname, and I used to have a very selective criteria for whom, exactly, was allowed to call me Noe. The rule was: either you know me ten years or you have slept with me. Christina Ricci, my cousin, could call me Noe. My old girlfriend Doctahchick could call me Noe (cause she knew me a damn-long time, not cause... you people are dirty). Obviously Mr. Scruchyface will be able to call me Noe someday, once we are bound in the holy rite of marriage. And only then if he's good. Heh.

Now, that criteria is not necessarily that narrow anymore; more and more people keep being added to the list. Double Heh.

Mr. L, for example, can call me Noe. Even though I haven't slept with him. I swear. Most of my good friends call me by that name, and I'm very much comfortable with that. But something about this guy, who, I'm sorry, is my subordinant, is... creepy. It's grating. I no likey. It makes us strange intimates and... uh, no. In my mind I'm responding to the name as if it is coming from someone I am extremely close with and for him to presume that we're on a level where he can use a name that's usually a term of endearment is kind of violating. Not that he knows this, and he's probably just quirky like that, but still. Shut up, guy.

Noelle SMASH!

2004-11-11T19:18:00.000-08:00

Bills keep piling up and people keep pushing my boundaries and the Bush administration is FUCKING my generation and my theoretical children's generation and I'm functioning on My Last Nerve... Bah!

Yesterday I was thinking that my postings have been all up in the hunky-doorie, I heart everyone variety, and I was making a consentrated effort to be more cynical, at least for the sake of avoiding getting another cavity. I was also trying to up my karma... giving out cigarettes to the non-threatening homeless variety, being nice to people who typically annoy me, extending the proverbial olive branch to folks I know are being unreasonable. Today... fuck that. I want to be Alone, I want to Smoke, and I want a day off from everyone else's problems.

Gah. Even my pajamas can't save me now.

So here's the plan(s): Go home, smoke some ganj, watch "Arrested Development", sleep. No, scratch that, can't watch AD without Mr. Scrunchyface. He will be sad. Asshat.

Sit in bar, alone, pout. Nope. Broke. Damn.

uh... Grab Mrs. L, put her in the trunk of the car I stole, go to New Orleans, establish Bordello, make lots of money and drink self to death. No, Mr. L would hunt me down and kill me. Also Asshat.

Rob bank, killed in hail of bullets. Um. No.

Keep bitching. That'll do.

Billy Joel Snorts Coke in my Head. Hee.

2004-11-10T15:45:00.001-08:00

First and foremost... nooooooooooooo! Whhhhhhy Alan? Why? Didn't I just give you a shout out? And this is how you repay me?! You bitter, spiteful old man! "Plastic bag is beautiful" my ass!

Oh, what shall become of my future husband? No man that hairy can be employed! And poor little Rico? Teeny tiny Rico! Please, Alan, Michael C. Hall is too good for this!

Sigh.

Okay, now that's done. In the CeeDee player today: Live bootleg of Billy Joel, circa 1970...something. We're talking, "This next one's called Piano Man!" "Also, I'm not too coked up yet to crash my car into anything! Neat!" "Okay kids, this is a new one... I like to call it 'Scenes from an Italian Restaraunt'!" In the live version, at the end of the verse where Brender-and-Eddie get married, and they "just didn't count on the tears...", Billy doesn't do that wierd "...and rock and roll!" thing he does on the studio version. This makes for a better song (cause, rock in the who now?), but I'm a little disappointed because I always imagine Brender and Eddie in their olive green Sears-furnished living room, sobbing, when suddenly a band decends upon them and they make those crouching-arms-over-their-heads fear gesture. And Billy Joel rides his "Movin' Out" motorcycle through their living room. And crashes it into something. Because he's so coked up. Hee.

So I'm on the MUNI, and Billy's rocking out to "New York State of Mind", which, yay, and I am of course reminded of when I went to New York... I was only in town for a day, on this runaway roadtrip from Reno to Niagra. I am struck by how unlikely and rare and lucky I am, this broke-ass chick from West Coast, California, to suddenly find herself half-way across the world in her mind, at a cafe in New York City, watching the sun set. To have been present and in my body as darkness fell over the Hudson, as I sipped wine and ate... whatever it was I ate, I remember it was good... and watched Jersey get more twinkly is extraordinary. I never knew I could have what I've got.

Of course Billy brings up a lot of those kinds of memories for me, probably because I mostly listened to him on roadtrips. When Mrs. L and I drove to Tahoe, just the two of us wimmin together alone, we played Tori Amos and Fiona Apple and sang at the top of our lungs. We smoked and got lost in Sacra-goddamned-mento and wached the Redwoods grow misty as the road inclined. The music was a manifestation of a shared conciousness that day, just as much as our gossip and silence, and I remember the music even if I don't remember what we talked about or how many times we stopped for coffee or whatever. That day, my memories of her and the road and the feeling of being free to just enjoy my life and company are with me on the K, or on the way to work, and available at independently owned music stores worldwide.

So do we create the association, or does some artistic force in certain ditties inspire a connection to the important pieces of your life? Does it matter? We all have those stories and those songs that feel like home all over again. I think it's important to recognize that and keep those moments of remembering kind of sacred. Knowing that, as longing as I am to get back on the road (c'mon... anybody wanna go to Mexico?) it's real nice to have a bus ride that becomes the echo of some of the most important moments in your life, and remember that it's all-- all of it--- special.

Lots of Lovely Ladies Writin' About Love

2004-11-10T14:30:00.000-08:00

Oh, if only I could share this with the world. Must develop my readership.

My Girl Walking the Land and the Seas

The Baddest Bitch meets the Biggest Heart

I am inspired phenomenally by these women.

Fun With HTML!

2004-11-09T01:37:00.000-08:00

So You'd Better Treat Her Right.

2004-11-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

Mrs. and Mr. L have real jobs. I do not. That is to say, the L's provide their respective employers with skilled labor, and in return get paid unbelievably large amounts of money and can count on regular, normal schedules. I have no skills (and how), and therefore must slave away for meager earnings. I have a bizarre and erratic schedule and must often eat dinner at midnight.

This professional divide makes for interesting conversations over coffee:

Me: "So, how's work?"
Mrs. Linell: "Oh! I was doing chemo all day. And right before I left, this dog just crashed, and it took the tech assistant ten minutes to place a catheter."
Me: "..."
Mrs. L: "Yeah, I could have done it with a ten-gauge needle, but she just kept missing the vein."
Me: "...I...solicit money."

Mr. and Mrs. L are about as happy in their jobs as I am in mine, because we're not doing what we want to be doing, we're doing something in the meantime, so it's hard to be jealous of their success. Not to mention the fact that Mrs. L had to claw her way up to her esteemed position and that Mr. L has a prestigious degree. Still, it's hard to look at their situations and not want a drink. They're doing something that actually means something, I'm... soliciting money.

This is exacerbated by the fact that I'm working at the bottom of a field I would love to work in permanently, with no room for advancement. For those out of the know, I work for a enviro-non-profit. As a canvasser. Canvassing is to political organizing as bussing tables is to owning a restaurant. So I spend about half of my day going to school so one day I may be able to... essentially do what I'm doing the other half of the day. My greatest fear is that I may spend most of my youth and money getting mah educashun and become... a canvass manager. In environmental organizing. Where I am currently employed.

And all of those sociology credits will be for nothing.

"You Wanna Have, Like, Ten-Thousand of his babies."

2004-11-07T16:50:00.000-08:00

Hee. Alan Ball.

So I was talking with Mrs. L last night, drinking boxed wine out of plastic cups on her porch in Nowhere, California. One of my favorite activities. And we were talking about relationships and blah blahddy love-cakes. She's married, loves her husband, I'm chronically coupled, love Mr. Scrunchyface, etc. And for some reason I kept thinking of something one of my favorite writers and all around groovy chick, Sars wrote... "Sometimes, love is not enough."

Not that I'm unhappy, we have our problems just like everybody else, but it's interesting to be in a place in my life where I have the love stuff down. That there are levels and problems and nuances beneath the surface and once you get past the intro, and you establish yourself in a committed and loving relationship, you have to work through more... stuff. It has been my experience that love was enough, once you got in that space, and that's it. That's the end. You're in love and you can just live your life out that way and not have to think too much about it. I vacillate sometimes about my previous relationships: was I ever in love with them, was it just easy and fun and insubstantial, and was that why it always has been so easy to break away and never look back? I lived with my last boyfriend, King James II, and when it ended it was amicable. I spent a day doubled over with stomach cramps, cried and cried and cried and cried, and... that's about it. Same with the boyfriend before him, James I. With Mr. Scrunchyface, the thought of us not being together isn't scary, just like the thought of losing one of my legs isn't really scary, because the circumstances under which I would lose a leg are so far-fetched that the concept isn't real. Sure, I could lose a body part and have to get therapy and hobble around all the time, it could happen. But it's not something I worry about.

In the end, which, more likely than not there will be some ending of some sort, I think that love might wind up not being enough for Mr. Scrunchyface and me. Eventually life will give us more to work on. I'm looking forward to it, to see how it all turns out in the end.

It reminds me of driving into Vegas... once you get really on the road, in the desert, there's nothing but you and emptiness forever. When you get closer to the city, you start to see lights. Everyone gets excited and you drive a little faster, everybody lights up a cigarette and starts making plans for dinner. It's an illusion of the desert, though, and those lights are a long way off. You settle down, confident that we'll all make it, eventually. Soon the lights are all around you, you're there, the desert disappears and the silence is broken by the hum of fluorescent. Then you realize you're still in the desert and the brilliance is nothing more than a pit stop, Vegas-style, there's a family-style restaurant and a single casino and More Desert. But far, far off, are more lights, bigger and brighter than before. And you remember, after hours of desert has numbed your mind and your legs. You remember that part of the fun of this vacation was the car, and the excitement, the getting there-- just as much as the casinos and the hotel and drinking until dawn. It's even better when you're traveling with someone who is having just as much fun as you are.

All I Have to Say About The Next... Bush... Administration (shudder)

2004-11-04T03:46:00.000-08:00

Things I am thankful for on the Eve of the End of the World:

Petunia posted my humble blog-abode on her kickin' site, therefore flattering me out of nowhere at two in the morning on a Friday. Isn't that great? She also inspired me to send mumblings out into the world because she DOES, and is so compelling, and in my mind often even if I don't see her, ever.

SPEAKING of inspiring... this could take a while...

initially, and stupidly, vodka and orange juice. Cigarettes. Duh.

Secondly.

A man I will call Scrunchyface McGee, arbitrarily, also known as Mr. Boyfriend, because he is brilliant, and has reinvented the wheel in my head: about humility, forgiveness, kindness, depth, hope and this ridiculous prickly little thing in my gut which always felt like some kind of bad gas but is definitely that 'l' thing I'm too cynical to write about in public forum.

Ms. Linell, who... words... who has traveled the course of my life with me, through dramaturgy and marriage, through breaking windows with pillows and hearts with minds, who has my back, fundamentally, and taught me more about myself than I should know...

And her husband, who came out of nowhere singing. Who I love, in spite of circumstance.

For Christina Ricci, also known as my roommate, who fits me like something old, because she and I are older than dirt. We carry the teachings of our mothers, and we will keep those lessons until you pry them from our cold, dead... you get the picture. We crazy bitches. No woman is stronger (although I'd love to see her and Ms. F in a fight).

For my mother, who is everything.

For J-Nell, who is beautiful.

For Soph, who is rare.

For Ms. Mo, who can do Any. Thing.

For Dr. Foppyhair. Sexiest of the Sexy Poly Sci Professors. To Sex his way out of Sextown. Virginia. I am yours. (Still love ya, Scrunchyface!)

For my Bosslady, Sonj, who I learn from constantly. May we always be driving in the backseat of somebody else's car.

For coffee, and expected late nights and too much money spent, for dangerous poker and playing for tops, for being able to sleep when I'm gone, for fingertips and inappropriate posters in my cubicle, for slow-high-speed dialing, for tomatonation.com and hissyfit.com and pornography and bachellorette parties and bowling and drag-queen bars that let you drink when you're twenty and 501c3's and 2008 and everything we have before us and the Art of the Possible.

Look around. We have This.

Scary Boo!

2004-10-31T14:41:00.000-08:00

Inappropriate Halloween Treats
(thanks to Captain Huffinsuff and McSweeny's)

Cancer Scones
Mini-Bibles
Uncle Andy's Bag o'Pubic Lice
Fun Time Halloweeny THC Crisps
Elephanty Testicles
Vicodin
A Punch in the Face
Chocolate Dipped Human Appendages
Penis Flavored Candy Cabobs
Happy Happy Black Tar Heroin
Lemony Herpes Virus
Whatever Pills Mom's Got
Something Tastes Like the Sock Drawer with Nuts
Vagina Chewables
Junk On the Kitchen Floor in a Bag!
Ground Up Glass in Nougat
Painables!
A Dildo
Salmonilla Sweeties
Apple-Free Razors
Choco-Stabbings
Pictures of Your Parents Doing It
Fruit

I Heart Nader

2004-10-29T23:43:00.000-07:00

...Or I used to, until he became a big old wank. I've only been vaugely keeping up with his assorted scandals (Republican contributers, which, ew; ballot petitions signed by "John Kerry" and "Mickey Mouse", which... hee), but they're not exactly the kind of thing I would expect from Uncle Ralph. It seems like he's become this ego-driven figure, trying to show everyone he has the politico-cajones to stay in the race (and I have the vauge idea he's trying to piss people off too), but he's not really running to advance an Agenda, persay, but to Run.

Take his split from the Greens, for example. Now, I'm not really upset that the Greens ditched the Man in Grey; I tend to think of them as a policy party more than anything else, and I vote for them based on the platform they've created in the vain hope it will be at least noticed by the mainstream. In my head, Greens owe Nader no loyalty, they owe loyalty to the platform. Ironically, I am bothered by Dr. PIRG leaving the Greens, precisely because of his splitting from the Green agenda.

Now, I Do understand that Na-Dar's agenda is probably identical to the Green agenda (cut and paste, people, cut and paste), but the idea that he would run again, splitting the progressive vote between the party and the man, is counter-intuitive to progressing the movement. In order to create a viable political body out of the politically left we need to focus on Organizing. Organizing blocks of voters, organizing a media outlet, organizing for education and organizing a Single Political Entity to represent that agenda. I personally choose the Greens because they are the most visable, they have a radical platform without being on the fringe (cause no way are we going to elect a Socialist-Anarchist-Hyphen-Hyphen to Anything in my lifetime). I chose the Green Party, pre-2000, because Nader was a reliable, recognizable and credible figure. That is no more.

But I do salute him for running, because there is no reason to heed the Democrat's cry of vote-theivery. It was up to Al Gore and Al Gore alone to defeat G.W., and a man that can't win his OWN state, dispite coming from the incumbancy of a thriving economy, peace and one of the most beloved philanderers of All Time, has more to worry about than a man in rumpled grey suits.

That's not exactly the point (although it's fun to mock Gore...loser), the point is this: IF Gore lost votes to Nader it is not because Nader is super-charismatic, or gave out free candy or condoms or... candy condoms... it's because he and the Green Party are advancing an agenda that appeals to a large number of people. It's because the Democratic Party has left a large segment of its followers behind. The Greens should keep capitalizing on this in election after election, and force the Dems to pay some attention. But above all else, the point is this: Gore should have crushed Bush. Kerry should be taking resumes from Karl Rove. The race should not be close. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark, and Nader will keep on haunting the Dems until it ain't.

So stop bashing the N-man. His heart is in the right place.

Less Crunchy, But Still Good.

2004-10-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

"Well, that was silly", she thought. "Invite all your friends to read about your adventures with breakfast cereal. Nice."

So I thought I'd post statement (or two) of intent:

Ahem.

I would like to have a forum that (hopefully) people will read and feel inspired by, or for, or angered by, or think is clever or lazy or whatever.

Moreover, I would like to Just Have A Voice, just like everyone else would Like A Voice, and this is a good way to start.

So. Read, if you wanna, and if you like it, I'll keep snarking.

Crunchy, Crunchy Granola

2004-10-28T22:59:00.000-07:00

Current mood: cynical

I woke up sad today. I don't often do that. I wake up (obviously) sleepy, and there are various sub-moods associated with sleepy: sleepy-happy, sleepy-angsty, sleepy-I need me some coffee in the shower...shower-y... But I tend to be sad at Events, or just bummed about the random shambles I have pieced together like some third grade art project and called "Life" (and then gave it to my mom and she posted it up on the fridge all proud and then covered it up with a grocery list days later... but that's a metaphor for another time). I don't remember just waking up all "ho-hum" since high school.

And that's the bizarre nature of depression, because I probably have it better NOW then I've had it (or made it) for a long time. It's just arbitrary.
So I made myself Lots Of Coffee, and had some granola-yogurt deal (damn lack of bagels), watched some cartoons and just generally felt sorry for myself. And now, at work, I'm fantasizing about running off to Alaska and going on juice fasts and other unattainable and vaugely rediculous things I think of when I am restless.

I will be less of a downer later. Must need more nicotine.

Post Nicotine: Much better now, after some sweet, sweet carcinogens. Also comfort fries coutesy of Ms. Mo. She knows exactly how to get a girl in high spirits.

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