gotta do the things i want to do

Current mood: crank-tac-ulous

today my mother and i both grew faint and sad and light-headed from the inevitable paint fumes. we painted and sanded and threw things away. my mom hurt herself even more by insisting on doing her part. she says it is necessary. perhaps it is, as tomorrow (today) is my week anniversary. tomorrow night i will have been here a week. but at least it feels like we are finally starting to work on things here. we are finally starting to figure out what we really need to do. we talked to a lovely lady way too early this morning, who is helping us out, in a way. things are moving.

so why the hell do i feel so heavy? so weighed down and sad? why do i continue to be the engineer behind most of what ails me? what the fuck do i think i'm doing, anyway?

valid questions, all of them. i hope i can figure out the answers before my head implodes.

my new profile picture was taken this morning, as i was waiting in the car outside of cooley dickinson hospital, while my mother ran into the x-ray division and retrieved her film, so we can run it to her hip specialist in boston next week. cooley dick, as we locals seem to inevitably call it, is expanding, ridiculously. still, the emergency room appears to be the same place that i was rushed to 15 years ago, when i accidentally sliced off part of my finger in the lettuce slicer in the course of my duties at la cazuela "tex-mex" restaurant. it also appears to be the same place that i was brought, by expensive ambulance, 17 or 18 years ago, when i hit a car on my bike, flipped over the hood, and landed on my face. i remember, then, being so completely terrified by the blood pouring into my eyes that i convinced myself my face must be broken, and readily agreed to the ambulance. my mother was away from our house, a mere block from the site of the accident. so, yeah, i panicked. later i was glad just to learn that i hadn't gotten that much blood on my bauhaus t-shirt after all. a small scar amid my right eyebrow, and random nerve damage in my middle finger, right hand, are all i have to show from either adventure.

both of those times were miserable, i remember. the doctors were rude, insisted it was all my fault, hurt me more than they possibly needed to. in the case of my workplace accident, they cauterized the wound in a fashion akin to dousing it with gasoline and setting it on fire. well, that's what it felt like, anyway. i hadn't felt any pain until they had gotten their fingers on it.

i'm not sure what the point is. i'm drunk and awake. it's three hours later than all my posts seem to tell me it is, the computer unaware that i am here instead of there. my heart hurts. and i guess there are just a lot of ghosts here that i haven't dealt with, yet.

i just feel so disconnected, so far away, from all that feels normal to me. i have history here, spanning most of a lifetime, but i feel so distant from it. part of why i am here is that i need to deal with that history. but it hurts, still. the distance.

the closeness hurts, too.

the city is a million miles away...

it really hit me last night, that i was here. it took a little while, whole days in which i looked around with a vacant look on my face, and glassy, staring eyes. i kept telling people that my brain hadn't caught up to reality yet, that i had left it in san francisco, right next to my heart. but maybe some of my heart is here, too. maybe its in pieces, strewn across the countryside. and maybe that's what's helping me awake to the reality of here and now.

last night i sat with my mom in front of the t.v. and let the realization sink into me that i was not leaving in a couple of days, like usual. it fell like a stone, through me. and as it sank i felt panic, then fear, then a sort of timeless sadness, then resignation, then a feeling close to joy. i don't know why this town scares the hell out of me, but i realize now that i have a chance to figure it out, and deal with it.

so, it's ok

overturned pisspot

Current mood:ridiculous

everybody's rubbing my nerves raw, as if people have simply been converted into blaring sirens, or endless clicking, or bulldozers. they have become noise and mass and push, all crowding into my senses. i can't tell if it's just time for me to leave here for a while, or if the process of the going is getting to me, or if it really is the mix of fear and annoyance i have at the thought of my destination.

yeah, waah waah waah, why don't you shut up already about winter in your hometown. i wish i could. i've hit a fugue state. sorry, nothing i can do for you.

it's all going to be ok. i think. all i know right now is that i'm stuck in the middle of two or three places, states, mentalities. and that everyone is rubbing my nerves raw.

Currently listening: Orphans [Fold-out Digipak with 24-page booklet] By Tom Waits Release date: 12 December, 2006

delighted, like poetry

Current mood:floaty

i'm leaving in three or so weeks. leaving here. going back to where i came from, in some sense. that feels weird to me. the thought that i actually came from somewhere else. and that there it is much much colder.

for instance, the computer tells me that it's 57 degrees outside right now, but that can't be true. because i am freezing. absolutely cold. what's the california equivalent of wind chill? there must be one.

maybe i'm getting sick.

but i feel this heaviness, this drag, on the thought of returning to massachusetts, to spend what amounts to the whole goddamn winter in a place that fills me with such sadness. it's terrifying and exhilarating and ... terrifying. i have visions of productivity, of a vacation from my life here, of writing and making music and basically figuring it all out. and then i have nightmares that i will be unable to do anything, to even move. that the heaviness will get heavier, until it crushes me.

christ, how melodramatic.

but i'm discovering how much i need my friends here in california, how i need to take pieces of them with me, that i hope they will send me words and hugs and trinkets and kisses, wrapped in clumsily-fashioned homemade envelopes and sealed with wax and glittery stickers. perhaps i am needy right now, perhaps i ask too much. or maybe i just need to know who my friends really are.

i'm kinda scared. and i need someone to hold my hand.

Currently reading: Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction By J. D. Salinger Release date: 01 May, 1991

random for you

Current mood:achey

all i want to do is sit down with a ukelele that's out of tune, an accordian that's too big for me, a keyboard with ridiculous samples, and sing out all the aches and confusions and oh-so-sorrys. i will bang on tin cans and beer bottles. it will not be emo, or girly, or full of whines. it will be great.

i know there is an extra layer beneath my skin, a layer of tears and vinegar that linger and slosh. these things try to get out at inappropriate moments. like knives.

i don't mean it. i can't help it. i'll figure out how to stop. someday.

sheesh, guy

Current mood:cranky-pants

i gave notice at the photo lab. or, rather, i left notice. i left a letter of resignation after my ten hour shift yesterday, with "dave. important." writ large on the front. i feel light, airy, full of possibility. i didn't realize how very much that place gave me a pounding headache until i engineered its passing from my life. and the pain in my head lessened a little.

and i may be going away. probably soon. but though that was the most obvious reason given for my leaving, there is so much more behind it. so many things built up upon my brain.

and it's not so much the place, or the fucked up way that our employer has of dealing with people. or, rather, not dealing with people. or the lack of adequate monetary compensation. or even the fact that i have moved from being a skilled professional, a "printer," who actually took pride in my work, to being a machine, an "operator," who pushes a button on a computer and waits for another computer to render an image that looks like crap.

it was, in the end, the lack of respect. the fact that i was rendered imbecilic by the new machine that i could not understand, and that nobody thought it worthwhile to teach me to understand. that when things went wrong it was my fault, and when things went right it obviously had nothing to do with me. that only twice that i can remember i was told i was doing a good job, that i was a person they thought it worthwhile to keep around.

and i know that that's business, that so many people i know have it so much worse than i do at the photo lab. but when a place makes pretensions of being a different sort of business, it's so much more offensive when you are able to discern the lie. everything after that just piles insult upon insult.

friday, november 3rd is my last day. the next day smirk and shotwell are playing a daytime barbecue at thee parkside. then sunday and monday are my two day birthday celebration. details are murky, but on the way. come celebrate with me, and dance and sing and feel crazy free. you can hold my hair while i puke. c'mon, its a birthday tradition.

i love all you all.

Currently reading: Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel By Jonathan Safran Foer Release date: 01 April, 2003

sheesh, guy

Current mood: cranky-pants

i gave notice at the photo lab. or, rather, i left notice. i left a letter of resignation after my ten hour shift yesterday, with "dave. important." writ large on the front. i feel light, airy, full of possibility. i didn't realize how very much that place gave me a pounding headache until i engineered its passing from my life. and the pain in my head lessened a little.

and i may be going away. probably soon. but though that was the most obvious reason given for my leaving, there is so much more behind it. so many things built up upon my brain.

and it's not so much the place, or the fucked up way that our employer has of dealing with people. or, rather, not dealing with people. or the lack of adequate monetary compensation. or even the fact that i have moved from being a skilled professional, a "printer," who actually took pride in my work, to being a machine, an "operator," who pushes a button on a computer and waits for another computer to render an image that looks like crap.

it was, in the end, the lack of respect. the fact that i was rendered imbecilic by the new machine that i could not understand, and that nobody thought it worthwhile to teach me to understand. that when things went wrong it was my fault, and when things went right it obviously had nothing to do with me. that only twice that i can remember i was told i was doing a good job, that i was a person they thought it worthwhile to keep around.

and i know that that's business, that so many people i know have it so much worse than i do at the photo lab. but when a place makes pretensions of being a different sort of business, it's so much more offensive when you are able to discern the lie. everything after that just piles insult upon insult.

friday, november 3rd is my last day. the next day smirk and shotwell are playing a daytime barbecue at thee parkside. then sunday and monday are my two day birthday celebration. details are murky, but on the way. come celebrate with me, and dance and sing and feel crazy free. you can hold my hair while i puke. c'mon, its a birthday tradition.

i love all you all.

nerd

Current mood:elate-o-riffic

things rotate and twirl around and flip over. things happen again and again. and then they don't. i feel like i'm in this transition period, that everything is changing and my head just can't quite keep up. but it's ok. it's all going to be ok.

i started working at modern times bookstore, as a part-time sub. the other day i was asked to move the u.s. history section to the back of the store, and it took me hours and hours because i couldn't stop reading. every other book i shelve calls out to me. it fills me with a constant, electrical buzz, being around this store. i really am going to get "book worm" tattooed on my knuckles. even if there is already some skinny, most-likely-adorable boy supposedly somewhere in the northwest with that tattoo. or so i hear. he may actually not be skinny after all. or adorable. but he sure is someone after my own heart. whoever he is.

so, come by the bookstore sometime and we can talk about my favorite cover designs, or how certain people need to never ever write another word, or how certain people need to write more words right away. i don't have a set schedule yet. but even if i'm not here, you should come by the store, because we are so cool it hurts.

yes.

Currently listening: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea By Neutral Milk Hotel Release date: 10 February, 1998

transference of subject and object

Current mood:apocalypse-y ache-y

i'm not sure why, but my head constantly pounds with a dull pain behind my eyes these days, the only relief pushing fingers into various parts of my skull until my sinuses say "give" and begin acting more responsibly. everything seems to make my head hurt.

and i know that there are reasons for this pain. i know that my head is actually sickly. but most of the pain seems to come from my mind.

if i could take things back i would, suck the words backwards through teeth clenched in fear and anger. un-nod my head, release your fingers. if i knew how to do these things, we could return to something that perhaps i don't want, but that allows us to function like human beings who care about each other.

dreams dictate my reality. every night i lay down my head to personal movies of betrayal and loss. everyone i've ever met shows up to play a part, turning their heads away in turn. after a while, it begins to feel true. and i pull away some more, feeling like i did, so many years ago, when i started to shut the door on so many things. on you. because it was easier than feelings. because it was easier than truth.

words should fly out between us. they should be as easy as running. but they get caught in my throat and eaten alive. i'm through repeating words, repeating actions, repeating thoughts. parroting who i used to be. i don't know how to go forward from here.

please help me.

"all you really wanted ..."

Current mood:headache-y

i find myself dreaming of rambling ranch houses in small midwestern towns, wide, sagging porches, never enough screens in the lopsided windows to keep the mosquitoes out. of rocking chairs that tangle themselves in warped floorboards, while i sit and look at the giant night sky, bigger than the world. of thunderstorms. of room to stretch out.

i want to take you by your indecisiveness and drag you far away from here, somewhere where we can be a community of two, you and me against the world.

but i know i'm a city girl. that the quiet would chase me back here. that maybe we would not survive.

but it's a really nice dream.

a guest in the house ...

Current mood:drunkedly drunk

i am sitting around after work, drinking beer and playing on the internet. and all i can think about is that i got to see the last of the poland pictures last night. it felt sad, seeing that those were the last. that no more are coming until i go back, again. to take more. and that leads me back to the very confusing and neverending feeling that i am in love with, and miss terribly, a country that i had never been to before. until those three weeks, a few months ago. it reminds me of how i feel about certain members of my extended family, love and dislike and impatience and devotion. continual fascination with the way they do the tiniest things. my polish relatives really are/were products of their environment. it's astounding.

i remember the feeling of the last days there, in krakow. i really really really wanted to come home. and part of that was due to skinheads and preachers' wives, auschwitz and transit inspectors (who threatened us with arrest), ridiculously dubbed american movies on the t.v. that made me inexplicably burst into tears, and the feeling that krakow is too much of an international tourist destination for the residents to look at us americans as anything but americans. touristy, annoying americans. suddenly everyone was addressing us in english before we even opened our mouths. despite that, the language barrier was getting to me. the last few days of our trip apparently had to balance out the awe-inducing hospitality and welcomeness we had mostly encountered up to that point.

and then i was on a plane, terrifying a tall and stoic british man next to me by bursting into tears when we approached san francisco from the north and, as soon as we hit the marin headlands, a wall of fog sprung up to obscure the city. it was a fitting welcome back. and the british man asked me if this was home, and i said yes, that i had been gone for three weeks. he misheard me, exclaiming, "three years!" and i laughed and said no, that although it felt like three years, it hadn't even been a month.

and for weeks after i was back it felt like i hadn't even gone. it was sort of a dream. but now, with the last of the pictures, and hearing the tapes i recorded there, i find myself pining away for a land that i should probably feel less connected to. i guess. maybe that's not true. it was astounding to look around and understand where my family had come from, to see the birch trees that made my grandfather ache for his homeland. "he would get so poetic, when he talked about poland, about the birch trees," my mother told me on the train, as we were heading into the part of the country where both he and my grandmother were from. and there were the skinny, glowing birches, aflame with the sun that had suddenly grown so bright, so warm. it made my heart hurt.

i want to go back, to stay for a while. i want to drink with priests and stuff myself with pierogi and know that, like father leszek said, even though everyone in his tiny village stared at us as we walked through, not a one of them would refrain from pulling us into their homes, feeding us meat that i would try to avoid eating, offer up anything they had. all we had to do was knock. because "a guest in the house is god in the house." hospitality is religion. hot damn.

i miss it so.

pants pants pants

Current mood:ridiculous

ok, marcus read my previous blog AND was forced to listen to me going on and on about how much i love san francisco, to which he replied "wow, you really don't like LA, do you?" or maybe it was more like, "wow, you really love san francisco, don't you?" so i figured some clarification was in order, and that maybe i owe the whole of southern california an apology.

before i went down to LA last week, i was itching to get out of town. everything was rubbing me all sorts of bad ways. too many people were dying. or heartbroken. or just incredibly sad. it seems to be seasonal. every summer the fog rolls in and the hurt just starts. so i was yearning for a change of scenery.

last year at this time, i ended up back in my hometown. that was a bad idea. i was gone for three weeks, way too long. i felt disconnected and crazy, and came back to the feeling that i missed just about everything. the collective i was part of never met again. people seemed to just disappear. and i broke my toe on a chair in my mom's house. at least i think i broke my toe. i never went to the hospital. but the pain was worse than i could imagine breaking a toe would feel like. and my whole foot swelled. so, there you go.

i probably should have gone to the hospital.

but, anyway, the feeling was similar, last week. the feeling that drove me to spend too much time in northampton last summer. so, i was glad to get out of here for just a few days, to have a set time, to not go too far away. i figured it would be enough to make me look at the things around me from a different angle. or at least slightly askew. at least i hoped it would.

and it did. i came back to town and felt delighted. it was like a big shiny christmas present. it wasn't so much about how hot LA was, or how much time i spent in a car, or anything else. it was almost like i discovered my life again.

but, not really anything that dramatic.

and i didn't really know how to tell all this to marcus, as we sat in dolores park, eating falafel and staring out over the financial district. so instead i watched the people having a picnic down the hill drink beer and play badminton with incredibly small children. and i turned to see a man, bare-chested and large-bellied, pantsless and with flip-flops a-flyin', flounce down the slope to our right, singing "don't you want me, baby. don't you want me, oh-oh-oh" over and over again. and i wondered where he got such fancy red and blue underwear. and then i realized that he had perhaps just said all i needed to say for me.

so, that's that. i'm off to see my friends play music. and to ride my bike crazy through these streets. and to probably sit in the park some more.

so, hooray for me.

LA stands for "lackadaisically annoyed"

Current mood:ridiculously elated

my favorite part of the trip to LA that i took this past week was walking back into disneyland after screaming our throats out at the tower of terror across the way, in time to see five employees standing around one of the light-up signs that are placed around the park so that people can find their way when the fireworks are exploding in darkness all around. they were all dressed differently, from different "lands" around the park, and staring up at what must have been a new sign with expectant looks. then one of them flicked the switch and the light in the sign went on, shining bright and clear the way to "all others lands." they all moaned, and one said, loudly, "way to go, spellcheck." my sister and i just happened to be passing by in time to fully enjoy the display of employee disgust from the mouths of pirates and frontiersmen and swiss maids and whatever the folks in critter country are supposed to be. it was probably the most magical moment i've ever had there.

but i realized how much i love san francisco when, getting out of the bart station, it was still unseasonably hot, but the breeze was cooling and i could see the fog moving in. a man hit on me in spanish, and 24th st. seemed even dirtier than usual. it was like a big sloppy kiss from home.
by the time i got to the apartment, and crawled out on our roof to get some air, bernal hill was completely enswathed in menacing grey. it was still warm out, to a degree, but i could breathe and i wasn't constantly wondering when my skin was going to burst into flame.

and the boy who had stayed in my bed while i was gone had made lots of food, and anandi gave me a tarot reading and comix to read, and annie came over to drink chocolate soy milk and talk like she must be the most loyal person to be placed on this green earth. and we watched the x-files until my babbling drowned all out. and it was all going to be ok.

southern california seems, for many different reasons, to make me feel all itchy. maybe it's the cars, or the heat, or the people. so many people. or maybe its memories of being stuck there, dead motorcycles and that feeling of trapped, when i was trying to move here. maybe we just can't be friends right now, southern california and i. but i'm glad that i went. i'm glad i got to see my old friend and wish my sister a happy birthday. and i'm glad i got to get out of here for a few days.

it made me realize how much i love my home.

Currently listening: Doolittle By Pixies Release date: 20 May, 2003

where i get it from (some history)

Current mood:mostly foggy

i've been having trouble getting the recorder to work. or rather, i have been having trouble with the rube goldberg-ian system of pulleys and cables necessary to hook my microcassette recorder into my four track. otherwise, i would be able to send the interviews we recorded in poland off to my mom for proper translation. instead, i am relying on memory of my mom's on-the-fly translations during our trip. but i've been telling this story a lot lately, which prompts me to get some version of it into words, where others can see.

my grandfather was 17 or 18 when he was wounded in world war I. he was living in the russian-occupied area of what used to be poland (at the time, and until the first world war ended, poland had been divided and occupied by russia, prussia and austria. it ceased to exist.) and appears to have been drafted into the russian army. the bullet went into his head and should have killed him. here he is recovering in the hospital.



his miraculous survival prompted his mother, my great grandmother, to come to the conclusion that god spared him for a reason, that he had a higher calling. she told him that he was going to become a priest. it appears that he did not argue.

things get a little fuzzy here. my grandmother used to tell my mother that jakub was left with a tremor from the bullet in his head, a tremor that interfered with his ability to hold the chalice with the blood of jesus in it. so, no roman catholic priesthood for him. but what we were able to piece together told a slightly different story.

according to a couple of different sources, it appears to have taken him longer than the rest of his class to get through seminary, which probably had something to do with his injury. my grandfather was days away from being ordained as a roman catholic priest when a friend made a comment to him about how exciting it was, something along the lines of "hey! you're going to be a priest!"

apparently my grandfather said the equivalent of "it's about fucking time." his friend reported him, which prompted the church to investigate him for pride, to determine whether or not he was fit to be a man of the cloth.

well, that pissed him off, which is not surprising, since we are still unsure whether or not he wanted to be a priest, or if it was all his mother's doing. so, he stormed off and joined the polish national catholic church, a then-illegal spinoff of the roman catholic church that refused to recognize the authority of the pope, thought that priests should be allowed to marry, and thought that the church should be about the people, going so far as to insist that sermons be given in the language of the residents of any given area, instead of latin. he was fined for giving funeral services and fined for visiting the sick and lived in a decaying house with a crooked roof.

this story prompted my mother to look at me and say, "see, you get your stubbornness from your grandfather ... and your grandmother ... and your great uncles ... and your great aunts and your uncles and your mother."

i guess it explains a lot.

Currently listening: The Best of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds By Nick Cave Release date: 23 October, 2001

murder of crows

Current mood:strange

wikipedia says that, aside from "literary and fanciful usage," it is universally accepted that a group of crows is called a flock. meaning, i suppose, that only high-falutin' jerks use the word "murder." which is a shame, because it has to be the best phrase ever. a murder of crows.

i have crows heavy on the brain these days. of course, they were everywhere in poland. they watched my trains go by, circled over the fields i wandered through, made raucous noise from the trees of the cities. i am romantically misguided enough to take the constant presence of such a common bird as a good omen of sorts. especially when i started reading legends of poland and found that before converting to christianity in 900-something AD, the people followed a pagan religion that worshipped the rivers and the birds, particularly ravens and crows. hot damn.

and there are more words. i have to get some things down about my trip, have to relate how it turned my head around in the best possible way. but i am still waiting for the words to form. they have a long incubation process, these words.

in the meantime i ponder crows ... and how carrion birds can be gods.

Currently listening: C is for Cookie By Sesame Street Release date: 19 September, 1995

do widzenia, moja milosc

Current mood:hopeful and expectant

i'm working my last day of work before i leave on wednesday. i'm excited and terrified and tired. i'm also remembering how planes make me feel claustrophobic. stuck in a metal box, unable to open a window. uck.

this is the man i am going to find out about. that is my mom at three years old. she looks as tough as she is. my uncle jacob, next to her, is dead now. so are my grandparents. i never knew my grandfather. in all the pictures i've seen of him he looks mean.

wish me luck. blow me kisses. buy me a drink when i get back in may.

Currently reading: Foucault's Pendulum By Umberto Eco Release date: 13 November, 1990

Moja glowa zadaje ból. Zadna krowa, sprawiac przyjemnosc

Current mood:strangely confusedd

two weeks from tomorrow i will be in warsaw, watching polish children do whatever polish children do on easter sunday. i really have very little clue what easter in poland consists of. i know it has something to do with eggs, gaily painted eggs. and church, lots and lots of church. i know what my endless parade of expatriate great aunts used to do on easter, and that mainly consisted of eating kielbasa with sharp knives. and all sorts of beef concoctions. and drinking wine. lots of wine.

which brings me to the reason for the whole trip: finding out where the fuck my family's been and what they're all about. primarily, my mom wants to find out more about her father, who was an interesting guy, to say the least. it also brings me to the greatest fear i have, as well, that lonely planet's assertion that vegetarians will not starve in poland is horribly, terribly wrong, and that i will find nothing to eat but the meals that plagued my childhood. shredded beef and sausage. yikes. at least i hear polish beer is strong. whether or not it's yummy is another matter. i am determined to not spend the ENTIRE time i'm there figuring that out. maybe most of it, though. mmm, foreign beer.

i guess i will know all about the food and beer and easter thing soon enough.

my mom and i have been planning this trip for about 5 years. maybe more, if you count the fact that my aunt sophie was supposed to bring me the summer after my junior year in high school. as usual, sophie didn't carry through on her promises. sigh. which is probably a good thing, since all she talked about was how i should be looking for a nice boy. i think she wanted to take me to hook me up with a future husband of her choosing. so, no loss.

now i get to go and have fun with my mom and offend people all over the country with my lack of a grasp of the language. every few years i start to try to learn some polish, only to ... well, stop trying. pretty quick. i'm doing better this time. over three weeks rushing around the country, and i'll probably be confused to hear english when i get back. wahoo.

(oh, yeah, and the first sentence in the subject, according to www.poltran.com, translates word for word to "My head assigns pain." oddly fitting.)

Currently reading: Teach Yourself Polish Complete Course (book + CD pack) (Teach Yourself . . . Complete Courses) By Nigel Gotteri Release date: 21 April, 2004

"there's a lack of sweetness in my life ..."

Current mood:fanky

it's one of those days where the air seems thick with hurt, upset runs like rivers through the lives of everyone i come in contact with. disconnected beings seem to be experiencing the same sort of heartbreak, and i am wearing the most annoying pants. not only this, but i can't seem to be able to type. the fingers are rebelling against the brain, heading off in their own directions, creating words that don't exist. what is going on here? what can i do to make everything better? can i?

shit.

but listening to "government center" at a very very loud volume in a closed and quiet photo lab helps. if only a little.

Currently listening: Modern Lovers By The Modern Lovers Release date: 05 August, 2003

hurty brain, glue-covered pants

ow ow ow. i want nothing more than to sleep all night and the next day and the next, to get rid of this headache and the slight pain in my lungs that is a harbinger of nothing good. i feel like i have been fighting off a cold for the past two years.

what's all the whining, you say? i'm currently in the thick of attempting to get things done that should have been done years ago, and to make a bunch of shirts and zines and everything else for the SF anarchist bookfair, occuring 6 days from now in the Sf county fair bldg, in golden gate park. every year i inflict this stupid event upon myself, using it as the only deadline i seem capable of respecting, ensuring that everything i've planned to do all year needs to be completed NOW. i don't know why. it's not like i am a big supporter of the reality behind a bookfair that is essentially a capitalist fun-fest. ok, maybe that sounds harsh, but i have watched the price of a table go up, seen the emphasis shift from educating to selling, sold less writing and more patches and other fashion accessories, each year swearing that it will be my last. sigh

and this year i will be without my annie danger, my tabling partner of so many years. she needed to get out of town, and i support that need. but, christ, things will be sad without her. who will yell and make me stressed and make me snap, only to make me appreciate every minute of it, once the initial shock wears off and the beer kicks in. oh, i don't even need beer to appreciate her. we dedicate ourselves, every year, to putting the "fun" in "funarchy," startling the stodgy old men that abound, giving illicit haircuts behind makeshift curtains, considering our table an oasis in the crazy crazy sea. i don't know what i will do without her.

so, if you're reading this, and you're in the area, and it's before march 18th, 2006, 10-6 pm, i would love it if you would stop by and console me. tell me a joke and pat me on the back. if you're reading this after, i bet you there will always be next year ...
sigh.

Currently listening: Solex Vs. The Hitmeister By Solex Release date: 10 March, 1998

christ, lookit all the books

Current mood:freakin' drunk

ok, what kind of dreamland is this?i am currently locked inside of a bookstore at almost 1 am, drinking politically correct beer, listening to ike & tina, while my best friend works her artistic thing on the window display, and i try to control my overwhelming urge to steal everything, or at least to take hostages and lock myself in the back room with a fucking ton of books. i was sort of enlisted to help with the window display, which consists, sadly, of books that have been made into movies (since it's oscar season or what-the-fuck). even more sadly, i appear to be the pop-culture queen of anarchist-town, meaning that i am the one to go to when making a window display of books made into movies. but i will insist that richard matheson's i am legend was, in fact, the inspiration for "the omega man." and i will be pissed when your bookstore has no copy of the name of the rose. or the world according to garp. i guess the point is that, if you're ever lookin to lock someone in your bookstore, don't come looking for me. my politics will go out the window and i will try to take hostages.the other point is that everyone should go by modern times, on valencia at 20th, to admire annie's window display. i helped. and, in some ways, i made things harder. isn't that always the way.

Currently listening: Proud Mary: The Best of Ike & Tina Turner By Tina Turner Release date: 26 March, 1991

fuck you and your ipod

Current mood:deeply deeply cranky

this is why i hate the way the photo industry is headed:

11 hours at work today, tussling with the "new"digital machine. aren't computers supposed to make our lives easier? ha. 1/3rd the amount of work done in twice the time, while computer geeks breathe in my ear about their favorite photoshop tools and my arms develop repetitive stresses. the prints i make come back for remakes almost as soon as i am done with them, and this machine is so quiet that it scares me. i need whirring and grinding and clunking to denote that there is some sort of progress, noise as a marker of production, of reality. i manipulate images that don't exist in any way i can understand, send them through devices that don't make any noise to prove where they have been, and get, for my efforts, pixelated brides and blotchy porno and children with skin like crocodiles. at least the prints still go through chemistry, so i can still develop cancer at a young age.

the offending creature:

they condensed the custom darkrooms into one tiny, dangerous room to fit this in here, so it could be hooked up to all the other computers that everyone else is injuring themselves on.

ah, the future is a sucky place indeed.

Currently listening: The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History By The Vaselines Release date: 01 January, 1994