December 2003 Archives

new years resolution: enjoy the hell out of my favorite vices.

in my green metal suit i'm preparing to shoot up the city
and the ring at the end of my nose makes me look rather pretty
it's a pity there's nobody here to witness the end
save for my dear old friend and confidante madmoiselle kitty
~you know, what's his name

... sometimes it's just been too long since you've heard a song.

'You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It's unpleasently like being drunk.'
'What's so unpleasent about being drunk?'
'You ask a glass of water.'

"I really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much, of course - the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end."
~douglas noel adams

... my quotation collection amuses me.

ephedra ban q&a

"the FDA has concluded that continued sale and use of products containing ephedra pose an unreasonable health risk. There have been about 1,000 reports of serious health complications from the use of ephedra and at least 100 deaths."

*ahem*

excuse me, i'm with the institute for the painfully bloody obvious and i have a few questions. first of all how many fingers am i holding up? one, yes, that's correct. now, exactly how much have the tobacco & alcohol lobbyists paid you** crooked bastards to ignore the hundreds of thousands of deaths & illnesses their products cause? what's that worth to ya? a hummer? a summer house? what?

let's review.

�For example, if current cigarette taxes and tobacco control policies remain unchanged during the next 40 years, we estimate that 498,000 smokers will die from smoking-related diseases in 2038. A tax of $1.00, indexed to inflation during those 40 years, will drop the annual death rate to 412,000 in 2038�

sounds perfectly reasonable to me. raising taxes saves lives! sure some people will die but only after they've paid their extra tax.

in 1996 there were 110,640 alcohol related deaths in the US. 19,709 w/explicit mention of alcohol, 45,157 other a/r diseases, 45,774 other a/r adverse effects

oh yeah i can see how unreasonably risky ephedrine is by comparison.

i smoke. i drink. my right to fuck up my health with nicotine & alcohol is safe, protected by the vast wealth of the companies that sell these deadly but admittedly happyfun mind-altering substances.

i'm sitting here just shaking from the enormity of the stupidity of this, & it isn't just the three mini-thins i just took.

**the all-inclusive "you" includes the ATF & whoever decided alcohol & tobacco are fun like guns not bad like drugs or whatthefuckever.

some great minds have taught me to think. as to the lesson of the flesh, we're all on our own.

the smell of the sugar cookie candle spreads through my psyche sweet & pure, warm & real. impulses trigger a flurry of atavistic activity in the brainstem far before any higher process begins; i am comforted far beyond my ability to explain my appreciation of scents & sensuality. no matter what manner of intellectual sophistry i throw at this, the overriding underlying truth behind my response is as primitive as can be.

i am above all under the influence of the the things i know by the way they come in contact with &/or enter my body: smell, taste, touch. sight & hearing transmit to me things happening outside and unconnected to me and subject to interference as they travel the distance to me, the static of my own learned interpretations, the distortion caused by my issues and baggage and damage. i suppose you could call my eyes & ears jaded, even cynical. i do not believe everything i hear or see, but i do tend to believe what i touch taste and smell.

that i allow this is perhaps the last expression of my innocence.

the bottle of merlot was open. i was afraid it would go bad.

chris discovered they had five hundred channels & a very fancy remote. i had the laptop & the wine & these headphones & my beloved C2000Z.

The dust had just settled
She's wonderin', what happens now?
I don't know where I am
I've never seen this place before
Am I dreamin'?
Or is this the real world?

so remember in jurassic park when jeff goldblum says "life finds a way" (& then it turned out somebody used frog dna & sure enough, a butterfly farted in tiannanman square & so forth, right?) riiiight. anyway.

i find a way.

notice the modem perched from the three inch long phonecord. notice the hairbrush holding up the upside down plug because that's the only way i can have the modem & the puter both plugged in (it was complicated, okay?)

reptiles don't need frog dna. we just find a way.

fuck i love earthquakes.

i have to clean my car. this is no ordinary carcleaning there is & has been enough shit in the car that it sits a couple inches lower on its wheels, for months. i've had to dig through it on many occasions. beverages have been spilled. the trunk has leaked. there are ... smells. lifeforms, the kind that smell, are in there somewhere. waiting with something like sinister patience or maybe mindless malevolence it doesn't really make a difference i am ready to confront my unreadiness.

i am ready for christmas (it helps when you're not doing anything for christmas except muttering under your breath & committing random acts of justifiable rudeness i mean fuck christmas) what i am not ready for is friday. i have been waiting for friday for my whole entire life and never been anywhere near ready until very recently, so i'll consider just having a reeking pile of refuse in my car that requires removal prior to friday to be incredible progress. and so will you. there you go.

and friday may or not be a metaphor. it certainly isn't etched in granite at this point or even printed on a plane ticket yet it might even be more of an indeterminate moment chosen randomly by open road things change you know they do they change i love that about things.

cleaning my car may or may not also be a metaphor, although if it is it is a very very fucking literal metaphor.

which eventually will help serve to illustrate something in an entirely different light, when the time's right & the words occur.
� � � � � � � � � � � �
something touched me spoke to me passed through me ghostly, something, maybe in music i've been living in lately maybe something less substantive, something blended in my blood a byproduct of breathing in this chilled air (why is it cold everywhere i go?) something like a future regret anticipated perhaps a fleeting feeling foreshadowed maybe, an eventual sadness that will of course happen in passing, something suggesting that i will miss this when i let it go.

if this sounds vague mild bland well then i've missed my mark. it's an overwhelming thing, maybe the most intense thing of all things in the past, it will be something, this feeling i think i'll feel. it will be the thing that completes my past, come to think of it. and i'm not sure if it should or could be different but it has me all wishful wistful wondering if there's any way to change it if it's too late or if it has always been an impossible thing.

i think it could be different / i don't think it will be / i can't tell you why.

� � � � � � � � � � � �
i was right / i was wrong / i will soon

turning the thermostat up higher does not make it get warmer faster. it just makes the heater stay on longer. is this such a difficult concept? i mean fuck.

one from the vaults:
� � � � � � � � � � � � � � �

strange freedom. it burns.

everything does choking on the ashes of our apathy burning is what bodies do to live a calorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise one litre of water by one degree celsius the energy is released during the burning.

perfectly normal then.
� � �
consumed in this conflagration realization release it let it go let it burn i shook so fucking hard inside remaining motionless controlled on the surface it felt like liquefaction until it passed leaving me in this peaceful unrest

& i grieved & yes i cried, against all my will my eyes filled secret silent undetected except one little spill, flicked it away casually kept it perfectly to my self mine and mine alone

� � � � � � � � � � � � � � �
i'm much better now

it helps if you have the latest windows media i think. click more, you'll see what i mean.

Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and leather gloves puttering maybe 25mph down a quiet residential street�and in the fight of his life with a squirrel. And losing.

i played with balloons in order to distract myself from the fact that cookie dough bites were bought & eaten, completely, without me. not one cookie dough bite saved for me. not one. i mean fuck.

wind stirring outside warm insistent it glides through the window open slides across my skin cool in contrast with the radiant heat of me, open

yes open. yes.

things change sometimes in ways you look back realize they have been for how long now? yes all this time & now wondering how this began & happened all the while knowing how necessary it was, this unawareness, because it left you open.

yes.

there is geometry in the humming of the strings ... there is music in the spacing of the spheres ~~ Pythagoras

i was hiding in a six by eight foot hole in a mud hut doing the hokey pokey with three quarters of a million in hundred dollar bills stuffed in my sequined thong panties when i realized i was actually sitting in a buggy room drunk on strawberry wine salivating over sushi as i remembered it listening to the tickle of chilled rain outside the barred window overlooking the bushy alley & also live birds of pray like a tongue in my ear hard a gentle seduction perfect a secret between me & before strawberry there was some news (drowned out now of course) & before that there was peach. of course. millions of peaches, peaches for free. blend this reckless into this life (mine) lived incongruous garnished with grilled onions like a philly cheesesteak (great with hairy dog hangovers) i hesitate clicking post worried you might miss the pictures (note: before this there are pictures please look thank you) there. when you hit my age you have birthweekends not days baby you party like i ain't dead yet motherhugger. not by a longshot or a flask fulla tequila not empty yet no. may god bless the separation of church & state (hallelujah) glory be to rock the fuck on &/or me on high & that's what it's all about. even if you drink from the chalice of cheap escape & fade away. especially if.

You say, I cannot get there from here, baby
Then I don't care where I'm goin'
Here's to your thin red line
Mmm, I'm stepping over

Change, nothin' stays the same
Unchained, and ya hit the ground runnin'

I know, I don't ask for permission
This is my chance to fly
Maybe enough ain't enough for you
But it's my turn to try

Change, nothin' stays the same
Unchained, and ya hit the ground running

person c, a child, must be at school at eight am with a ten minute grace period. person a, an asshole, wakes up fifteen minutes before eight & announces that person c is going to be late & launches into the routine. the routine is sacred & must remain unbroken, person c is delivered to the office with an apology some thirty minutes late.

on a different morning person a is absent. person b, a bitch (just ask person a), wakes up at seven minutes before eight am & bounces into action & routine is sent scattering out of the way & shortcuts are taken & person c is delivered to the back gate amidst the other last minute parents, (who drive entirely differently than the normal timers, person b notes) at ten minutes past eight seconds from late enough to face the office twice in one week.
Unchained, and ya hit the ground running
person b wishes to state for the record that the obvious change of plans written between these lines represents necessary flexibility & nothing else; circumstances are what they are & also reminds you that life is for living & hair is for dyeing. daffodil.

never underestimate the power of an audience.

showed up at my kid's school with my new neon coiffure & came away glowing at the sensation, from the double takes to the kid who actually came up & had to touch the hair, to the kid in the maybe third grade sporting full leather who admired both the hair & the shoes, showing me his own docs & asking if i had any that high (10i from the looks of it) & i had to say no, but i have some 8i's at home. & the kids from the bus yelled from the windows & i waved & by then the day had turned all the way around & reminded me ...

[sometimes exhibitionism means a different sort of shameless]

flasback: when i was fifteen i was an exhibition square dancer. this may be a little different than the downhome hoedown the words square dancing might conjure in your mind. think satin & sequined halter dresses with the shortest possible poufy skirts & (yes we put our asses out there when we danced) elaborately choreographed routines involving much-practiced lifts & spins & gravity definitely got a workout when we danced.

now i was then as i am now, not a tiny girl. at one hundred thirty whatever, i was a bit of a challenge at times to my partner. we had a performance scheduled at the oakland auditorium, in front of a convention sized crowd, & were performing a brand new routine in brand new satin outfits in front of six thousand people. the routine went off flawlessly, nervously but flawlessly, we were breathtaking i assure you, although you had to be there & you were not so you will have to take my words. & at the finale, we were lined up in a row, twelve couples one by one doing the "bottoms up" lift which involved the girl kicking up under her partner's arm, coming to rest with her hip on his hip & one leg pointed perfect at the ceiling, the other bent. my parner & my fat ass were first, meaning he had to hold me there for a full sixty four counts. & as we did our lifts we revealed, yes our asses, & written across them on our not-at-all substantial matching knickers, the name of our group (the stardettes, with a star on each end).

the standing ovation lasted all sixty four counts as the applause & the voices saying 'woo' & things of that nature swelled in volume & according to my partner i did not weigh anything at all at that point in time. gravity didn't stand a chance.

& it feels awkward unwieldy it stumbles in places & considered excusing this claiming it is uneven by design but i couldn't, isn't. so it's rough, a draft, oddly i did try to keep it quiet tucked away let it settle & breathe in peace. however that just wasn't feasible.

oh yeah one more thing: twenty three years ago? driving down McKee Road in San Jose, on my way home from my night job. you?

well it is now. heh.
there was totally like, snow at the mall:
i think it's a snow rubber ducky:
random kid with a chunk of ice on her head:
am i the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?
doc martens in the snow:
another picture of my shoes:
do you remember your first snow?:
you can say there's no such thing as santa, but as for me & grandma, we believe.

spinning. we are all of us living in spin you know perched on this place rotating @ 17,000 mph / revolving @ 1,000 mph & we measure the times of our lives in revolutions & we express stability in terms relative to the surface of an object hurtling through the vast cold void along this crazyfast corkcsrew path & life is not linear ever.

i'd been meaning to take pictures of the burned out building for months.

i took them sunday finally

yesterday it was gone

what remained smelled strong like fresh lumber, newess released from ruin in demolition like any metaphor meant to ease the violence of loss. also it would be a fine foundation for a potentially very trendy self-help movement, i can see it now: we'll start out by uncovering your blatantly obvious self-deconstructive tendencies by empowering your inner whiner to break out break free & most importantly break stuff yeah yeah fuck stuff up i mean it now. fuckupping: it's the new renewal it's the key to your path toward eventual self-platitudinization. ultimately, you will find yourself out a few grand for seminars books & clever t-shirts. my qualifications as your new guru include a lifetime of experience applying this technique, seriously: you see, i tend to condemn my self whenever i seem to think the damages are irreparable (again). & this exposes of course all the the basic structural weaknesses (again) in the admittedly haphazard archtechture (flawed by my own design, again) but what doesn't kill me (or make me wish it had) generally ignites me inspires me & i try try (again)(!!) (snide note:the implications involved in building the inference that led to the aformentioned condemnation(s) shall go unsaid but not without saying some thing like this sentence, for example. (see:: deliberate semantic nullness, as covered in lesson three, diversionary tactics. additionally, i offer extraneous exclamation points: !!!!!)

of course i digress. of course.

as a direct result of this nonsense & very little else, a number of my selves have been razed in ways you don't even wanna know how the obliterated smithereens of the fragments of the pieces were reduced to their essential elements like this: writing blocking out every thing leaving you &/or me bleak eyed vapor locking over medicating self serving (your choice: immolation or evisceration) & losing everything again & hopefully like this: critical found mass religion revelation given in some febrile hallucinogen taken exactly like this: envision if you will the specifications for the anticipated breathlessly overhyped promised enhanced advanced latest best version of yours truly, & yourself too i mean yeah i said oh fuck yeah. (interjection: a chorus of reverent voices saying oooooh!)

sadly, there was no trace of irony in me anywhere during the lapse i spent imagining how i'd find this improved self/life, risen whole out of particles like the phoenix, shiny with that new car smell. pontiac, right? roger that. yes we had to destroy the vehicle in order to prove we needed a new, something i've been known to do (excuse: i am required to live like a metaphor whenever i can get away with it. additional excuses available, may be highly illegal in most states. if you have to ask you can't afford it. content may settle while you are waiting your turn for the compulsory cavity search.) i am hereby invoking my second & fifth amendment rights, pointedly. speaking of which, i did have one at some point i just misplaced it temporally & when i went after it there was a moment when it was different & a perfect union & then & then it was now again.

anyway i have a point: these types of things (drastic absolute no refunds no exchanges no fucking around & this means you, buckaroo) are bad things about which to discover oneself mistaken. unless of course the unchosen alternative would have been worse.
(snitty little side note:: it annoys me endlessly knowing i will never know whether i was really wrong or merely indulging in a litle good old self-flagellation which i have been known to do, due to the dubious nature of whatever.)

(tangential additional side note: i have been known to move to a strange city in another state based solely on the mythology of the place's name.)

(additional tangential notation of the utmost irrelevance: the story's been told of an unfortunate soul fell asleep one summer day in plain sight in broad daylight blistering all the way to the third degree before he died of his burns <gratuitous digression> i myself took up sunworship during my year there & tanned so brown i could tube the snake river sans sunscreen, drunk, without burning</gratuitous digression> i rose from the ashes of phoenix december seventh nineteen eighty five thanks to a drunken phonecall to my longsuffering parental units, who drove to the burbank airport & prepaid our tickets & waited ten or seven hours & in that time i of course changed my mind but the tickets were paid for anyway they waited while we missed the first flight & caught the second & life began again the moment the wheels left the earth. defy gravity, is my advice. to my self, mostly.

decisions, delusions, revisions, allusions, forgiveness & more than you will ever imagine, my friend. yes.

it was called cartwright's, though i for some reason always thought of it as the falafel hut. they sold hot dogs. & maybe falafel i don't recall but lately i have found my own eager mind sprawled about all seduced & ravaged & in fact frustrated in a most satisfactory manner, far more frequently than i am yet willing to admit.