whoah.
i don't think i've even looked at this thing in a year.
and somehow it automatically changed my language to hindi, which i don't understand.
still, i'll be leaving soon, and i need a way to spread news to people that are so far across oceans and continents, so pay attention, blog! your services are once again needed.
now is not the time or place to rebuild acquaintance, though, but i have this superstition about starting things when the idea hits. restarting things. makes it easier to keep going. or so i think.
very often not even close to true.
still, we'll see how focused i am when i am surrounded by a language that i purport to understand, in a country that i think i know so much about, when really neither is entirely true.
still, fucking excited.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Saturday, August 30, 2008
ha ha
i've been putting my old myspace blogs on here, so i can take them off of myspace. something about the fact of rupert murdoch owning the space that i feel like i can babble in does not sit right with me. not like blogger is so ideologically pure, either. still, feels slightly better.
they are all labeled as "past myspace." some are not up yet. i'm trying to make sure they are listed under the original time and date. pain in the ass. sigh.
still, feels good.
they are all labeled as "past myspace." some are not up yet. i'm trying to make sure they are listed under the original time and date. pain in the ass. sigh.
still, feels good.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
is there anybody alive out there?
i don't know how to write on computers. i have a problem with the concept. i was a fan, at a young age, of anne tyler, because the preliminary love scene in accidental tourist was the most awkwardly gorgeous thing i had ever encountered in my young young life. in college, while i was supposed to be reading something else, i clutched one of her mass market paperbacks in my hands as the admissions administrator leaned over the table in front of me, her big eyes startling me out of my own reverie.
"i love her, too. do you know," she said,"that she writes everything she publishes on legal pads in long hand?"
i did not know that. but my eyes widened in admiration, as i remembered all the papers that were demanded of me later that night, later that week. the admissions officer, after dropping that idea upon my head, looked into my eyes before turning, with great portent, to the stairs that led to the dining hall. i wanted to be able to have that confidence and, more importantly, to have someone else translate my handwriting to the printed word. those were the only words the admissions officer spoke to me, or the only words that i remember, despite dealings i had in her office later that year. the only thing i remember of her is curly, framing hair, and this short, one-sided conversation.
this was in a time that teetered on the border of then and now. i could have easily written my papers on typewriters, but even those were only peripherally available to the studious impoverished. i know that i did actually write a few papers on friends' typewriters. miserable, the process. i tend to change my mind a lot, and typewriters only lend themselves to that idea when the author has the time, or the presence of mind, to gently insist upon the finality of their end result. instead it was a far superior idea to borrow time on friends' computers, with word-processing programs barely adequate, even then, for the job. i found that with the luxury of constant editing, it took some time before i taught myself to refrain from editing to the point of nonsense. i have gradually learned, through practice, how to write on typewriters. but still, to this day, i have problems with writing directly to computers. sigh.
what this remnant of the past has to do with the very drunken and blurry now is almost a mystery. why this fragment occurred to me, though, is much clearer. my oldest friend in the world, a person that i apparently would drop everything for, a person who i would maybe perhaps die for, got in touch with me tonight. we haven't talked in 6 months, and i demand an infusion of his words into my brain periodically, to keep me traveling upon this path of life with a modicum of humility, or inspiration, or salvation. lately i have been starving for these things. i started to talk about my new weblog. i think he may have been confused, as i did not have the time to explain this site to him before he professed knowledge of what i was talking about. perhaps he is psychic. perhaps he was talking about something else, some lesser site where my ramblings are slight and diminished. it does not matter. what does matter is that he asked me, with worry of offense, if i planned for something ... well ... more. he wanted to know if i was planning to publish, if i was planning to make something of my brilliant talent.
he stammered over what he was sure was an uncomfortable question. actually, it is not. the answer is that i do not know. i don't know what the hell i am doing these days. i am happy to self-publish my grandiose words for the rest of my life. still, i often feel like i am forcing myself into missing something. perhaps i could get it together. perhaps there could be more.
i don't know. perhaps this blog is the first step in that idea of something else, something beyond.
"i love her, too. do you know," she said,"that she writes everything she publishes on legal pads in long hand?"
i did not know that. but my eyes widened in admiration, as i remembered all the papers that were demanded of me later that night, later that week. the admissions officer, after dropping that idea upon my head, looked into my eyes before turning, with great portent, to the stairs that led to the dining hall. i wanted to be able to have that confidence and, more importantly, to have someone else translate my handwriting to the printed word. those were the only words the admissions officer spoke to me, or the only words that i remember, despite dealings i had in her office later that year. the only thing i remember of her is curly, framing hair, and this short, one-sided conversation.
this was in a time that teetered on the border of then and now. i could have easily written my papers on typewriters, but even those were only peripherally available to the studious impoverished. i know that i did actually write a few papers on friends' typewriters. miserable, the process. i tend to change my mind a lot, and typewriters only lend themselves to that idea when the author has the time, or the presence of mind, to gently insist upon the finality of their end result. instead it was a far superior idea to borrow time on friends' computers, with word-processing programs barely adequate, even then, for the job. i found that with the luxury of constant editing, it took some time before i taught myself to refrain from editing to the point of nonsense. i have gradually learned, through practice, how to write on typewriters. but still, to this day, i have problems with writing directly to computers. sigh.
what this remnant of the past has to do with the very drunken and blurry now is almost a mystery. why this fragment occurred to me, though, is much clearer. my oldest friend in the world, a person that i apparently would drop everything for, a person who i would maybe perhaps die for, got in touch with me tonight. we haven't talked in 6 months, and i demand an infusion of his words into my brain periodically, to keep me traveling upon this path of life with a modicum of humility, or inspiration, or salvation. lately i have been starving for these things. i started to talk about my new weblog. i think he may have been confused, as i did not have the time to explain this site to him before he professed knowledge of what i was talking about. perhaps he is psychic. perhaps he was talking about something else, some lesser site where my ramblings are slight and diminished. it does not matter. what does matter is that he asked me, with worry of offense, if i planned for something ... well ... more. he wanted to know if i was planning to publish, if i was planning to make something of my brilliant talent.
he stammered over what he was sure was an uncomfortable question. actually, it is not. the answer is that i do not know. i don't know what the hell i am doing these days. i am happy to self-publish my grandiose words for the rest of my life. still, i often feel like i am forcing myself into missing something. perhaps i could get it together. perhaps there could be more.
i don't know. perhaps this blog is the first step in that idea of something else, something beyond.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
completely freaking me out
Current mood:confused
it's not a new thing, this finding old friends online. or old friends finding me. ever since the advent of these social networking sites, or rather ever since i succumbed to their evil allure, i have been approached, or have been approaching, people that i was possibly pretty sure were dead a long time ago. or i thought they were surely not on any site like this one, so lost to my sight. or i thought they were perhaps really unhappy with the idea of ever knowing my whereabouts again. so many possibilities.
what really freaks me out, though, is not that people keep popping back into my life, but the lack of any sort of effort to go beyond what myspace deems appropriate verbal intercourse. there is very little "i'm glad you're alive," a dearth of "good to see your face," absolutely no "do you still think that maybe you still hate me?" as i get older i want more resolution, and so many many more words, than most people on here are willing to strive towards.
or maybe that is not it. i have always been inappropriately verbose, except for when the situation demands it, so maybe i ask too much from such a site as this one. the few times i have met up with the long lost in person it has been enjoyable and exciting. so maybe this is just the first step.
there are so many people that left me with gaping holes, with aches of various kinds, with yearning and wounds and so much reaching. perhaps when i find them, or when they find me, i expect the world as i know it to implode with great force. i expect flying limbs and flaming walls and general destruction.
maybe, when that doesn't happen, i feel, maybe, a little let down. or i feel, maybe, like they weren't as curious, or aching, or yearning for news of me.
i wish everyone would go back to pens and paper. that way i could just sit and wonder "what ever happened to them?"
what really freaks me out, though, is not that people keep popping back into my life, but the lack of any sort of effort to go beyond what myspace deems appropriate verbal intercourse. there is very little "i'm glad you're alive," a dearth of "good to see your face," absolutely no "do you still think that maybe you still hate me?" as i get older i want more resolution, and so many many more words, than most people on here are willing to strive towards.
or maybe that is not it. i have always been inappropriately verbose, except for when the situation demands it, so maybe i ask too much from such a site as this one. the few times i have met up with the long lost in person it has been enjoyable and exciting. so maybe this is just the first step.
there are so many people that left me with gaping holes, with aches of various kinds, with yearning and wounds and so much reaching. perhaps when i find them, or when they find me, i expect the world as i know it to implode with great force. i expect flying limbs and flaming walls and general destruction.
maybe, when that doesn't happen, i feel, maybe, a little let down. or i feel, maybe, like they weren't as curious, or aching, or yearning for news of me.
i wish everyone would go back to pens and paper. that way i could just sit and wonder "what ever happened to them?"
 | Currently listening: Blank Generation By Richard Hell & the Voidoids Release date: 1990-05-18 |
Sunday, July 20, 2008
erin go bragh
i'm in the midst of crazy times, finding out that my workplace is not as safe as i hoped when a couple electronic devices of mine were stolen last week. i'm not really used to having multiple electronic devices, but the last 6 months or so have seen such things introduced into my life with startling suddenness. i was thinking, mere days before the theft, that there were too many fancy things in my life. well, someone engineered to take them away and bring me back down to my accustomed level.
the next day, the day after, i spent an hour yelling at at&t because they broke my heart. i felt like thin glass, and was entirely sick of crying. i decided to go for a drive, as i am currently car-sitting and the idea of driving with very little idea of destination is a ridiculous luxury that makes me feel happy and a little bit icky at the same time. it was an escape hatch for my teenage self, when the massachusetts roads were long and dark, and gasoline was cheap and plentiful and not really thought about all that much. when i got to the foyer of my building, on my way to the car, there was suddenly a fedex door tag with my name on it where there hadn't been one a mere two hours before. that wouldn't be so mysterious if the time on the tag hadn't been two hours before that, even, which was before i came home. so, yeah, package from heaven. i found out later that my housemate had found it on the floor where it had fallen, and re-attached it so i would be sure not to miss it. at the time, though, it felt like a gift from out of thin air.
i grabbed it with wild imaginary scenarios whirling through my head. what if someone found my camera or phone and somehow knew exactly where to send them? no, no, that doesn't make any sense. well, what if it had all been a prank? some supposed friend had taken my things, only to send them to me later, to teach me a lesson. no, no. absolutely ridiculous. i studied the information on the door tag. signature needed. ok. last name misspelled. vaguely amusing. pick up after 6, before 8, at an address i wasn't sure i could pinpoint on a map. slightly annoying.
i had a very foggy idea of the exact location of fedex headquarters in san francisco. as i jumped in the car at ten after 7 in the gray dusk, i pointed the car towards that foggy idea. my idea matched the air around me as the night grew its usual murky. i stopped at a pay phone and rang the fedex number, hoping for a human voice to direct me. it seemed so important, somehow, that i get that package as soon as humanly possible. if i missed the 8 pm cut-off, the melancholy would get me, and i would spend the evening in my room, sad, staring at the wall and wondering where my cell phone could possibly be right NOW. there was only a mechanical voice to tell me what i already knew, that there was a package with my name on it, out there, somewhere.
so, i vehicularly wandered through the bayview for about 2 minutes before i found the street i needed. unfortunately, i found the end of the street, blocks and blocks from the address i was seeking. it's the sort of street that is cut up mercilessly by bridges and train tracks and dead ends. how to find the correct segment? there were wrong turns, and cul de sacs populated only by skateboarders showing off their cool for no one to see. i finally lucked out when i ended up turning down a street i knew well, and allowed my eyes to follow a bicyclist in front of me, who seemed intent on entering a street to the left that i had always thought was just another dead end. it was, but at the dead center of the end i spied the corner of a familiar purple and orange logo.
i rushed in with fifteen minutes to spare. by this time, i had no idea what the package could possibly be. all of my fanciful ideas evaporating with each moment of searching. i stood and listened to this exchange between the two men in the office with me, who were also waiting for packages. the first was the bicyclist who had led the way for my eyes:
"hey, do you have verizon?"
"yeah"
"is your phone working? i haven't had service for, like, two weeks."
"whoah. yeah, my service is fine. you should probably call them."
"yeah, i'll give them a call. it's kind of hard to do, though, when you have no phone!"
buddum-bum-tsh.
thankfully the woman came back with my package, checked my ID, and handed it to me. when i saw how thin it was, i abandoned the last shred of ridiculous hope that it had anything to do with what had recently been stolen from me. once i had it in my hand, i glanced at the address and suddenly none of that mattered. irish consulate. fuck.
go back 4 years. go back to a time when i had just recently moved back to san francisco. it was election day, i remember. and i picked up a package from a very different place, a package that said "open upon warning of early snowfall." inside i found a note from my sister, proclaiming that, because we were the grandchildren of a taciturn and angry lady who we barely knew, but who happened to have been born in ireland, we could claim irish citizenship, and therefore EU citizenship. we could live most anywhere in europe, and work, and be happy. also in the package were all the papers that proved that i was a direct descendent of Ms. Bridget Doyle, born in county Kerry in 1901. there was also a check for the amount required to get a US passport, the first step in the process. my sister had gotten all of these papers together as an early christmas present. it was a lot. it was overwhelming.
i sat on those papers for three years before i finally had the ability to gather the rest of what i needed -- before i finally had the US passport, and the fee, and the notarized copies of my identification, etc. -- to put in my application. i had a lawyer friend of mine attest to my identity in the middle of a dark bar, his signature the very last thing i needed before sending it all in to the irish consulate. i was told it could take a year and a half. that was what i was expecting.
a little over seven months later, i was handed a package in the fedex building in san francisco and i lost my mind, just a little bit. i was sure it was a rejection notice. i'm not sure they send out rejection notices, but there you go. i had just had so many other things taken from me, that i was certain this was going to be added to the list. when i opened the package and read"i am pleased to inform you that your name has now been entered as an irish citizen in the foreign births registry held here at the consulate" i started to sob. again. such good news in the midst of so much else bad.
this entry began as the first hello on this blog-type thing. it veered from there because mere minutes before registering here, i had been looking online for anything i might want to know about the irish passport application, my next step on this long, long journey. what i found was a whole lot of entrepreneurs attempting to sell their books, or guides, or advice to a populace desperate for options. become an irish citizen! send me money! i lucked out, in that my sister had advice from someone who had gone through the process, and she then shared everything with my brother and i. i can't imagine how desperate i might feel if i didn't know what to do, and there were all these vultures offering their help, for only $29.95 and up.
it is a confusing process, and i could understand going to someone for expensive help, out of desperation or frustration. but the process itself is pricey, so why add to that cost? i want to give free advice, if i can, since capitalizing on that frustration is a bit abhorrent to me. the very first advice that i have is to contact the irish consulate near you. it has to go through the consulate in your region, so make sure you are contacting the correct one. there is a list here: http://irelandnow.com/consulates.html.
my sister said the one in boston is kind of unsettling, and she had to hand her papers and application through bulletproof glass. here in san francisco, they really discourage bringing the application in in person, they prefer you to mail it. there is still that bulletproof glass, but with smiling, trusting faces behind it. so, things are different all over.
the next piece of advice i have is that i believe you really can't claim citizenship if your great-grandparents were born in ireland, UNLESS your parent claimed their citizenship from what would be their grandparent before you were born. it doesn't matter that your grandparent would then be a citizen because they were born to irish citizens, which was the case at the time, because they have to actually have been born on irish soil. if one of your grandparents was born on irish soil, you can start the process.
the third important thing is to ask a lot of questions. it turns out that my irish citizenship is through my father, who i have had absolutely no contact with for 21 years. (whoah, our estrangement is old enough to drink) i have no desire to make contact. one of the requirements is a copy of the current ID for the parent you are claiming citizenship through. i asked the kind lady at the consulate here if there was anything i could do to waive that requirement, as my father was a violent man who i was glad to be rid of. i explained as much of the situation as felt comfortable. she was very nice and told me to write a letter explaining the situation in lieu of the ID. i did, and it was accepted. so, yeah, ask questions.
as this country gets more and more repressive, and less and less of us have any idea where to start doing something about that, it's nice to know i have the option to get out and easily live and work anywhere in the EU. i highly recommend the long, hard process. it is worth it for that piece of mind.
the next day, the day after, i spent an hour yelling at at&t because they broke my heart. i felt like thin glass, and was entirely sick of crying. i decided to go for a drive, as i am currently car-sitting and the idea of driving with very little idea of destination is a ridiculous luxury that makes me feel happy and a little bit icky at the same time. it was an escape hatch for my teenage self, when the massachusetts roads were long and dark, and gasoline was cheap and plentiful and not really thought about all that much. when i got to the foyer of my building, on my way to the car, there was suddenly a fedex door tag with my name on it where there hadn't been one a mere two hours before. that wouldn't be so mysterious if the time on the tag hadn't been two hours before that, even, which was before i came home. so, yeah, package from heaven. i found out later that my housemate had found it on the floor where it had fallen, and re-attached it so i would be sure not to miss it. at the time, though, it felt like a gift from out of thin air.
i grabbed it with wild imaginary scenarios whirling through my head. what if someone found my camera or phone and somehow knew exactly where to send them? no, no, that doesn't make any sense. well, what if it had all been a prank? some supposed friend had taken my things, only to send them to me later, to teach me a lesson. no, no. absolutely ridiculous. i studied the information on the door tag. signature needed. ok. last name misspelled. vaguely amusing. pick up after 6, before 8, at an address i wasn't sure i could pinpoint on a map. slightly annoying.
i had a very foggy idea of the exact location of fedex headquarters in san francisco. as i jumped in the car at ten after 7 in the gray dusk, i pointed the car towards that foggy idea. my idea matched the air around me as the night grew its usual murky. i stopped at a pay phone and rang the fedex number, hoping for a human voice to direct me. it seemed so important, somehow, that i get that package as soon as humanly possible. if i missed the 8 pm cut-off, the melancholy would get me, and i would spend the evening in my room, sad, staring at the wall and wondering where my cell phone could possibly be right NOW. there was only a mechanical voice to tell me what i already knew, that there was a package with my name on it, out there, somewhere.
so, i vehicularly wandered through the bayview for about 2 minutes before i found the street i needed. unfortunately, i found the end of the street, blocks and blocks from the address i was seeking. it's the sort of street that is cut up mercilessly by bridges and train tracks and dead ends. how to find the correct segment? there were wrong turns, and cul de sacs populated only by skateboarders showing off their cool for no one to see. i finally lucked out when i ended up turning down a street i knew well, and allowed my eyes to follow a bicyclist in front of me, who seemed intent on entering a street to the left that i had always thought was just another dead end. it was, but at the dead center of the end i spied the corner of a familiar purple and orange logo.
i rushed in with fifteen minutes to spare. by this time, i had no idea what the package could possibly be. all of my fanciful ideas evaporating with each moment of searching. i stood and listened to this exchange between the two men in the office with me, who were also waiting for packages. the first was the bicyclist who had led the way for my eyes:
"hey, do you have verizon?"
"yeah"
"is your phone working? i haven't had service for, like, two weeks."
"whoah. yeah, my service is fine. you should probably call them."
"yeah, i'll give them a call. it's kind of hard to do, though, when you have no phone!"
buddum-bum-tsh.
thankfully the woman came back with my package, checked my ID, and handed it to me. when i saw how thin it was, i abandoned the last shred of ridiculous hope that it had anything to do with what had recently been stolen from me. once i had it in my hand, i glanced at the address and suddenly none of that mattered. irish consulate. fuck.
go back 4 years. go back to a time when i had just recently moved back to san francisco. it was election day, i remember. and i picked up a package from a very different place, a package that said "open upon warning of early snowfall." inside i found a note from my sister, proclaiming that, because we were the grandchildren of a taciturn and angry lady who we barely knew, but who happened to have been born in ireland, we could claim irish citizenship, and therefore EU citizenship. we could live most anywhere in europe, and work, and be happy. also in the package were all the papers that proved that i was a direct descendent of Ms. Bridget Doyle, born in county Kerry in 1901. there was also a check for the amount required to get a US passport, the first step in the process. my sister had gotten all of these papers together as an early christmas present. it was a lot. it was overwhelming.
i sat on those papers for three years before i finally had the ability to gather the rest of what i needed -- before i finally had the US passport, and the fee, and the notarized copies of my identification, etc. -- to put in my application. i had a lawyer friend of mine attest to my identity in the middle of a dark bar, his signature the very last thing i needed before sending it all in to the irish consulate. i was told it could take a year and a half. that was what i was expecting.
a little over seven months later, i was handed a package in the fedex building in san francisco and i lost my mind, just a little bit. i was sure it was a rejection notice. i'm not sure they send out rejection notices, but there you go. i had just had so many other things taken from me, that i was certain this was going to be added to the list. when i opened the package and read"i am pleased to inform you that your name has now been entered as an irish citizen in the foreign births registry held here at the consulate" i started to sob. again. such good news in the midst of so much else bad.
this entry began as the first hello on this blog-type thing. it veered from there because mere minutes before registering here, i had been looking online for anything i might want to know about the irish passport application, my next step on this long, long journey. what i found was a whole lot of entrepreneurs attempting to sell their books, or guides, or advice to a populace desperate for options. become an irish citizen! send me money! i lucked out, in that my sister had advice from someone who had gone through the process, and she then shared everything with my brother and i. i can't imagine how desperate i might feel if i didn't know what to do, and there were all these vultures offering their help, for only $29.95 and up.
it is a confusing process, and i could understand going to someone for expensive help, out of desperation or frustration. but the process itself is pricey, so why add to that cost? i want to give free advice, if i can, since capitalizing on that frustration is a bit abhorrent to me. the very first advice that i have is to contact the irish consulate near you. it has to go through the consulate in your region, so make sure you are contacting the correct one. there is a list here: http://irelandnow.com/consulates.html.
my sister said the one in boston is kind of unsettling, and she had to hand her papers and application through bulletproof glass. here in san francisco, they really discourage bringing the application in in person, they prefer you to mail it. there is still that bulletproof glass, but with smiling, trusting faces behind it. so, things are different all over.
the next piece of advice i have is that i believe you really can't claim citizenship if your great-grandparents were born in ireland, UNLESS your parent claimed their citizenship from what would be their grandparent before you were born. it doesn't matter that your grandparent would then be a citizen because they were born to irish citizens, which was the case at the time, because they have to actually have been born on irish soil. if one of your grandparents was born on irish soil, you can start the process.
the third important thing is to ask a lot of questions. it turns out that my irish citizenship is through my father, who i have had absolutely no contact with for 21 years. (whoah, our estrangement is old enough to drink) i have no desire to make contact. one of the requirements is a copy of the current ID for the parent you are claiming citizenship through. i asked the kind lady at the consulate here if there was anything i could do to waive that requirement, as my father was a violent man who i was glad to be rid of. i explained as much of the situation as felt comfortable. she was very nice and told me to write a letter explaining the situation in lieu of the ID. i did, and it was accepted. so, yeah, ask questions.
as this country gets more and more repressive, and less and less of us have any idea where to start doing something about that, it's nice to know i have the option to get out and easily live and work anywhere in the EU. i highly recommend the long, hard process. it is worth it for that piece of mind.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
unsure ...
not sure if this is the thing for me, but i was talking to my housemate lee recently, and our conversation stumbled across the idea of blogs. it never occured to me, really, to take this sort of thing up, but somehow it suddenly seemed so appealing -- sending my words out into the aether to be gobbled up by whatever minds happen upon them. or rejected by whatever minds happen upon them. i've always kept journals, and this feels like a rather public extension of that necessity.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
the future is amazing
and somehow, there i was, actually staring at the new york times web page when the news came over the AP wire.
sigh.
it is sweet.
see you in hell, you right-wing bigot.
charlton heston (1924-2008)
Friday, March 28, 2008
home, where?
actually, i made plans to go to seattle before i realized that it was the weekend of the anarchist bookfair, and that we were leaving sf the day of the big 5-year-anniversary-of-the-war protest. 5 years ago i sat on a couch in santa cruz, where i was trying to build a different, rather cursed life, and watched my friends shut down this city. my once and future city. and its easy to feel useless, when you can’t even remember to be in town when your friends are taking to the streets, and that you should be with them.
and it was the first bookfair i have missed since i moved here 10 years ago. it was the first i actually refused to table at, even if the refusal came in the form of new addresses and disorganization and absolutely no idea what time it is. it’s ok, if once you realize that you’ve missed the deadline, the relief you feel is tremendous and the most relaxing ever.
still, i have trouble, now, realizing that march is ending.
how can i keep track of time through a relatively arbitrary outside force like the anarchist bookfair?
how ridiculous is that?
still, it was amazing, when i realized that my phone was ringing, and that it was wheels, and that she was calling to say that she couldn’t find my table and where the hell was it?
its important to be constant, sometimes. its important to remember what time it is.
but sometimes its important to say i am in seattle with my brother and my mother and that is more important.
yes.
so, i will probably be tabling at the anarchist bookfair next year, despite the capitalism and the gross and that one guy who keeps telling us that we can’t cut peoples’ hair, its against some sort of health code violation.
i’ll be back, if only to break that health code violation.
Friday, February 22, 2008
actually insane
Current mood:tweaky
i am really excited about this brand new thing coming out in something like 6 days's time, but i am reminded, again, that i really do not do well with deadlines. i set a deadline for myself, set a party to celebrate this thing that should be done, and then i had to move it a week later, and still it is not done.
it will be ok, though, it will be alright.
just when i thought i would be getting up to leave, to go home and work, annie made a fresh pot of coffee, so i guess i can blame her a little, right?
no, not when she is supposed to be illustrating my words and i've given them to her in fits and starts, small, sweaty bundles of smudged type, little by little.
so, i can't blame her. and i really wanted coffee.
but, yeah, come by modern times thursday the 28th. there will be a zine done. there will be wine and food. and, most importantly, there will be phil playing music and making us all happy.
7 pm. come early for hugs.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
i’m a real boy now!
Current mood:foggy-ecstatic monkey
whoah ...
there's that certain brand of waiting for something that makes it seem absolutely unreal when it happens; unstable and not quite all there. and then there is the brand of waiting for something that seeps so fluidly and effortlessly into being a reality that, even if there is an event demarcating the change, its hardly noticeable. then there is the kind of waiting that somehow encompasses both of those elements. that is how i finally, after a year and three months of dedicated service, became a collective member of modern times bookstore. with absolutely banal and everyday wonder. or with a head full of uncomprehending fog and a shrug of my unsurprised and barely affected shoulders.
i was offered the job yesterday, and it is true that things felt different around the store today. for one thing, everyone was relieved that i had finally been offered the job. i had not only been waiting for a year for the opportunity to be a fully "actualized" employee, but i had been waiting for over a week, since the last staff meeting, to get the offer. if it had not been for the inopportune words of the departing staff member, i would not have been so antsy. but, eschewing collective secrecy and even good security practices, he barely got out of the meeting before announcing, "i think they're going to offer you a job!"
sigh.
anyway, i am now the new (and first) stock management member of the modern times team. huzzah. give me a hug.
whoah ...
there's that certain brand of waiting for something that makes it seem absolutely unreal when it happens; unstable and not quite all there. and then there is the brand of waiting for something that seeps so fluidly and effortlessly into being a reality that, even if there is an event demarcating the change, its hardly noticeable. then there is the kind of waiting that somehow encompasses both of those elements. that is how i finally, after a year and three months of dedicated service, became a collective member of modern times bookstore. with absolutely banal and everyday wonder. or with a head full of uncomprehending fog and a shrug of my unsurprised and barely affected shoulders.
i was offered the job yesterday, and it is true that things felt different around the store today. for one thing, everyone was relieved that i had finally been offered the job. i had not only been waiting for a year for the opportunity to be a fully "actualized" employee, but i had been waiting for over a week, since the last staff meeting, to get the offer. if it had not been for the inopportune words of the departing staff member, i would not have been so antsy. but, eschewing collective secrecy and even good security practices, he barely got out of the meeting before announcing, "i think they're going to offer you a job!"
sigh.
anyway, i am now the new (and first) stock management member of the modern times team. huzzah. give me a hug.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
spiritual awakening
Current mood:pensive-ility
so, i've been going to these AA meetings ...
sounds like the setup of some crazy joke, right? except its not funny. i've been to three in the past week, which is way more than i ever thought i would go to in my life. i mean, if i could figure out how to manifest negatives in my experiences, i would say that that is about 50 more than i ever expected to go to in my life. but there's this reason, right? a very very good reason. which is also the same reason that i will probably find myself at many more meetings. but that's not the point here. because that's none of your business.
the point is that i was surprised, shocked even, to realize that i was having a visceral reaction to the idea of AA based on the way a fucked up drunk man treated me thirty years ago. i mean, sure, that man was my father, and he got plenty of mileage in my life, even though he bailed from the moving car 24 years ago, only to be heard from when he disputed everyone's general idea that he should pay this thing called "child support." so, walking into the first meeting was like asking to be punched in the gut. which it was, in a way. and walking into the second and third meetings were like getting this special insight into why you were punched in the gut in the first place.
because suddenly i have this idea of what my father was going through, and i suddenly understand why he became what he became. i still cannot forgive him, though, for the abuse he perpetrated after he found jesus mixed up in his sobriety cocktail. mental manipulation became his favorite toy. but i can understand a little, now, how he got that way. why he got that way. it makes sense.
he chose one doctrine over another, one way of life over another one that was most certainly killing him, grinding him up whole. but the transformation couldn't erase the fact that he was, generally, not a very nice man.
sheesh.
i feel bitter tonight, and tired. so perhaps i'd best leave these thoughts for another day. except that i found his pictures on flickr, pictures my sister told me were up there so long ago. he's still working to help his fellow alcoholics give all of their responsibility over to a higher power. but i was surprised how little i felt, looking at current pictures of this man who had, really, done so much to make me the survivor i am today. and then i looked closer at one image, one where he is wearing short sleeves, lounging behind a bleached blonde with a plastered smile. on his arm he has a tattoo. a triangle in a circle, the emblem of alcoholic's anonymous.
branded indeed.
so this institution, this group of meetings that declares itself free from association with scandal, movements or political affiliation, is forever tied up in my head with my own particular brand of trauma, even when i feel most distanced from that trauma. i don't doubt that it does good things for some people who need it. it's doing good right now. but i'll have to pass on being anything more than chaperon, ally, tourist.
it's the very most i can do.
sounds like the setup of some crazy joke, right? except its not funny. i've been to three in the past week, which is way more than i ever thought i would go to in my life. i mean, if i could figure out how to manifest negatives in my experiences, i would say that that is about 50 more than i ever expected to go to in my life. but there's this reason, right? a very very good reason. which is also the same reason that i will probably find myself at many more meetings. but that's not the point here. because that's none of your business.
the point is that i was surprised, shocked even, to realize that i was having a visceral reaction to the idea of AA based on the way a fucked up drunk man treated me thirty years ago. i mean, sure, that man was my father, and he got plenty of mileage in my life, even though he bailed from the moving car 24 years ago, only to be heard from when he disputed everyone's general idea that he should pay this thing called "child support." so, walking into the first meeting was like asking to be punched in the gut. which it was, in a way. and walking into the second and third meetings were like getting this special insight into why you were punched in the gut in the first place.
because suddenly i have this idea of what my father was going through, and i suddenly understand why he became what he became. i still cannot forgive him, though, for the abuse he perpetrated after he found jesus mixed up in his sobriety cocktail. mental manipulation became his favorite toy. but i can understand a little, now, how he got that way. why he got that way. it makes sense.
he chose one doctrine over another, one way of life over another one that was most certainly killing him, grinding him up whole. but the transformation couldn't erase the fact that he was, generally, not a very nice man.
sheesh.
i feel bitter tonight, and tired. so perhaps i'd best leave these thoughts for another day. except that i found his pictures on flickr, pictures my sister told me were up there so long ago. he's still working to help his fellow alcoholics give all of their responsibility over to a higher power. but i was surprised how little i felt, looking at current pictures of this man who had, really, done so much to make me the survivor i am today. and then i looked closer at one image, one where he is wearing short sleeves, lounging behind a bleached blonde with a plastered smile. on his arm he has a tattoo. a triangle in a circle, the emblem of alcoholic's anonymous.
branded indeed.
so this institution, this group of meetings that declares itself free from association with scandal, movements or political affiliation, is forever tied up in my head with my own particular brand of trauma, even when i feel most distanced from that trauma. i don't doubt that it does good things for some people who need it. it's doing good right now. but i'll have to pass on being anything more than chaperon, ally, tourist.
it's the very most i can do.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
passing zone ends
Current mood:
contemplativeugh.
i am sitting in the bookstore, after hours, and i am experiencing crazy culture shock from the fact that last week i was in poland. in fact, last week at this exact time i was on a plane. coming back. and when the plane landed at SFO, the one polish family that had come all the way from warsaw with me began to applaud. and it saddened me, the quiet that met their applause. because in poland, when the plane lands, and the voice comes on to say that you made it safely, the people on the plane clap for those who have worked so hard to get us there alive. but in this country, no.
so, the applause started, enthusiastic and unintimidated, and quickly died. and we trundled the rest of the way to the gate in silence, waiting for the seatbelt light to go out, so we could jump up and run away as fast as we possibly could.
and i was there for only two weeks this time, but got to experience the polish version of car culture, which is ridiculous and insane. how can you be sure that you won't crash and die when you pass that truck at 150 km/hour in a blind turn? you can't, and that tells me something, too.
and basia brought us to the jewish cemetery in her village of okuniew, 10 minutes outside of central warsaw. well, it HAD been a cemetery, but vandalized over the years, so our quiet visit entailed sighs and gasps as we tripped over the remnants of headstones, piled cut rocks with the suggestion of hebrew tapped into their surfaces. fucked up and haunted. scary with heaviness, with all that had happened there. and the mosquitoes took out their revenge on my legs, bites that became mutant lumps that have yet to fade.
and marysha told us about our great uncle, and the circumstances that kept him from dachau. the chances and seconds and bits of luck that saved his life, and how the lives of others were not so lucky.
and then there was the drunken priest, and the showers that disappeared in a storm of jackhammers, and the chapel of skulls, and the woman who saved us with blankets on her floors, and the black market, not so black anymore, and the spiders as big as your head. and the vodka. and being in a car, really, feeling so removed from it all. sigh.
it was laden, this trip, dripping with discoveries, weighed down by the past of so many wars. and now i am home, and still adjusting. it took me days to realize that i could stop concentrating on the words i heard around me, that i automatically understood them. but i am ready to go back, so soon. really.
there is a time limit on all that we do. we are not moving fast enough.
i am sitting in the bookstore, after hours, and i am experiencing crazy culture shock from the fact that last week i was in poland. in fact, last week at this exact time i was on a plane. coming back. and when the plane landed at SFO, the one polish family that had come all the way from warsaw with me began to applaud. and it saddened me, the quiet that met their applause. because in poland, when the plane lands, and the voice comes on to say that you made it safely, the people on the plane clap for those who have worked so hard to get us there alive. but in this country, no.
so, the applause started, enthusiastic and unintimidated, and quickly died. and we trundled the rest of the way to the gate in silence, waiting for the seatbelt light to go out, so we could jump up and run away as fast as we possibly could.
and i was there for only two weeks this time, but got to experience the polish version of car culture, which is ridiculous and insane. how can you be sure that you won't crash and die when you pass that truck at 150 km/hour in a blind turn? you can't, and that tells me something, too.
and basia brought us to the jewish cemetery in her village of okuniew, 10 minutes outside of central warsaw. well, it HAD been a cemetery, but vandalized over the years, so our quiet visit entailed sighs and gasps as we tripped over the remnants of headstones, piled cut rocks with the suggestion of hebrew tapped into their surfaces. fucked up and haunted. scary with heaviness, with all that had happened there. and the mosquitoes took out their revenge on my legs, bites that became mutant lumps that have yet to fade.
and marysha told us about our great uncle, and the circumstances that kept him from dachau. the chances and seconds and bits of luck that saved his life, and how the lives of others were not so lucky.
and then there was the drunken priest, and the showers that disappeared in a storm of jackhammers, and the chapel of skulls, and the woman who saved us with blankets on her floors, and the black market, not so black anymore, and the spiders as big as your head. and the vodka. and being in a car, really, feeling so removed from it all. sigh.
it was laden, this trip, dripping with discoveries, weighed down by the past of so many wars. and now i am home, and still adjusting. it took me days to realize that i could stop concentrating on the words i heard around me, that i automatically understood them. but i am ready to go back, so soon. really.
there is a time limit on all that we do. we are not moving fast enough.
 | Currently reading: The Scar By China Mieville Release date: 29 June, 2004 |
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
goodbye, blue monday
i am sitting in the back room of modern times, the front door locked, occasionally disturbed by the rattling of confused shoppers who don't realize we close early on sundays and are trying as hard as they can to get in. i don't usually work on sundays, so i am confused as well. and it is still sunny out, which puts my head into a tailspin, just prior to crashing.
i am trying to remember how to not be so insular, how to spread myself out like tentacles and actually pay attention to other peoples' lives. i am tired. and i forget how to be a good friend.
i forget how to be a friend at all.
i feel like there are only so many times you can tell people to be patient, to hang in there, that i still love the hell out of them, that i'm just a little disconnected, just a little ... um ... anti-social.
completely anti-sociality.
social-ness?
whatever it is, i appear to be against it.
so when i make a phone call now, my heart leaps into my chest, and i am almost afraid. of what? huh?
that someone will pick up and still care about me?
or that they won't.
and my jaw buzzes with healing, as i finally got some damn health insurance to deal with all the things that are very wrong with my mouth. dental-wise, that is. just the other day, a very small lady told me about growing up in san jose as she shoved a squealing sonic something-or-other under my gums until my very short nails almost tore up the insides of my palms with the grasping reaction to the pain. it was the kind of pain that got worse as it went on, strangely so. at the end she had to periodically distract me with the regular ol' pointy scraper thing before delving back in with the squealy gum-shredder.
i know anyone bored enough to read this far is absolutely cringing by now.
but you're hearing this from the girl that has had so much dental work that i almost fell asleep during my first root canal.
for reals.
and this is why, despite my dedication to the idea of abstaining, i have been drinking a lot the past few days. fucked up, yeah. but when aspirin/ibuprofen produces the kind of allergic reaction that sends me to general in the middle of the night, gasping for air, i take my painkillers where i can. anandi gave me Tylenol with codeine, but i am wary of it, and of the seeming flexibility of my allergic reactions.
what's the point of all this?
guess i'm just tired of drinking alone.
so maybe i'm ready to stop with the moping, and the hiding. maybe i will pick up if you call, and will actually take you up on the invitation to go drinking in the park because it is one of those rare times when san francisco nights actually mimic the warm summer nights of where i am from. originally.
maybe i really do love you. even if i don't show it. not nearly at all.
yes.
i am trying to remember how to not be so insular, how to spread myself out like tentacles and actually pay attention to other peoples' lives. i am tired. and i forget how to be a good friend.
i forget how to be a friend at all.
i feel like there are only so many times you can tell people to be patient, to hang in there, that i still love the hell out of them, that i'm just a little disconnected, just a little ... um ... anti-social.
completely anti-sociality.
social-ness?
whatever it is, i appear to be against it.
so when i make a phone call now, my heart leaps into my chest, and i am almost afraid. of what? huh?
that someone will pick up and still care about me?
or that they won't.
and my jaw buzzes with healing, as i finally got some damn health insurance to deal with all the things that are very wrong with my mouth. dental-wise, that is. just the other day, a very small lady told me about growing up in san jose as she shoved a squealing sonic something-or-other under my gums until my very short nails almost tore up the insides of my palms with the grasping reaction to the pain. it was the kind of pain that got worse as it went on, strangely so. at the end she had to periodically distract me with the regular ol' pointy scraper thing before delving back in with the squealy gum-shredder.
i know anyone bored enough to read this far is absolutely cringing by now.
but you're hearing this from the girl that has had so much dental work that i almost fell asleep during my first root canal.
for reals.
and this is why, despite my dedication to the idea of abstaining, i have been drinking a lot the past few days. fucked up, yeah. but when aspirin/ibuprofen produces the kind of allergic reaction that sends me to general in the middle of the night, gasping for air, i take my painkillers where i can. anandi gave me Tylenol with codeine, but i am wary of it, and of the seeming flexibility of my allergic reactions.
what's the point of all this?
guess i'm just tired of drinking alone.
so maybe i'm ready to stop with the moping, and the hiding. maybe i will pick up if you call, and will actually take you up on the invitation to go drinking in the park because it is one of those rare times when san francisco nights actually mimic the warm summer nights of where i am from. originally.
maybe i really do love you. even if i don't show it. not nearly at all.
yes.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
full tilt nerd ... alert! alert!
Current mood:friendly
my sweet jesus, why did no one tell me that the san franciso public library has thousands of local historical photographs ACTUALLY ONLINE. shit, i just did a search for "women sewing" and got the most amazing avalanche of images. i can't stop looking through them. this is dangerous; pandering, as it does, to all my nerdiest desires. photography and history and san francisco. sigh.
like the time that annie and i went to the SFMOMA to see the exhibit of photography from just after the 1906 earthquake. it seems that that was a banner time for fledgling photographers, as the science was not completely ... um ... scientific yet, and suddenly there was a ridiculous need for documentation. for us, total crazy head-exploding nerdiness. a very short woman had to keep following us around to warn us, again and again, not to touch the glass, yes, even if it is glass over the photograph and not the actual photograph. and a second later we would scream, "look! they totally dodged the sun's rays into the shot! it's unreal! and the sun looks ridiculously big!" then, touch touch, yell yell, waah. and a second later ...
but that's how i found out about the captive airship, which i still cannot believe actually existed. it makes me drool, just a little bit. George Lawrence, a photographer from Chicago, figured out a way to send his camera into the sky, using balloons and kites and piano wire and some sort of remote shutter trigger. he had perfected this method before the 1906 quake hit san francisco, and leapt into action to document the wreckage. It was a big contraption, and one wonders how it was able to stay in the air. but the most fascinating thing about it is that the prints are contact prints, the negatives put to paper to make an image, no enlargements required. the detail is amazing. drool.
you can google "captive airship" and see some of the images, but nothing compares to seeing the prints up close and, yes, touching the glass, as if the wonder requires touch to be complete.
and if you wanna join in the local photographic orgy, check it out
like the time that annie and i went to the SFMOMA to see the exhibit of photography from just after the 1906 earthquake. it seems that that was a banner time for fledgling photographers, as the science was not completely ... um ... scientific yet, and suddenly there was a ridiculous need for documentation. for us, total crazy head-exploding nerdiness. a very short woman had to keep following us around to warn us, again and again, not to touch the glass, yes, even if it is glass over the photograph and not the actual photograph. and a second later we would scream, "look! they totally dodged the sun's rays into the shot! it's unreal! and the sun looks ridiculously big!" then, touch touch, yell yell, waah. and a second later ...
but that's how i found out about the captive airship, which i still cannot believe actually existed. it makes me drool, just a little bit. George Lawrence, a photographer from Chicago, figured out a way to send his camera into the sky, using balloons and kites and piano wire and some sort of remote shutter trigger. he had perfected this method before the 1906 quake hit san francisco, and leapt into action to document the wreckage. It was a big contraption, and one wonders how it was able to stay in the air. but the most fascinating thing about it is that the prints are contact prints, the negatives put to paper to make an image, no enlargements required. the detail is amazing. drool.
you can google "captive airship" and see some of the images, but nothing compares to seeing the prints up close and, yes, touching the glass, as if the wonder requires touch to be complete.
and if you wanna join in the local photographic orgy, check it out
 | Currently listening: Rock and Roll Music By Elvis Costello Release date: 01 May, 2007 |
Saturday, May 19, 2007
if you think you're it ...
jesus.
maybe i was just afraid that no one would show up.
it's really hard for me to come to terms with some aspects of my life here in san francisco. such as the friends that i've lost. even if they are still in some semblance of my life, they are far away. even if they live down the street, i can't touch them. it feels wrong, bad, unfixable. and then there are the ways that i cut myself off from people, from everyone. i've been cranky and isolated and unreachable, by choice. i've been sick with the flu and sick with hermit-y fetal-positions.
right now i am sitting in a closed and locked bookstore, listening to the luxurious 5-disc CD changer (and it DOES feel luxurious. what is an ipod, anyway?) and refusing to budge. there is something romantic and calming about having this much access to books, but in some ways it makes me kind of crazy with wanting. sigh.
but i can hear every word of what people say as they pass by the locked door. that glass wall seems to amplify. laughing upwardly-mobile-types drink their way past to the next bar, walking out of the corner store when they don't have the organic type of american spirits, as the badass woman who works there barely looks at their exit, but yells "have a nice night! goodbye!" after me as i leave, as if she could not possibly send me enough happy welcome-ness. i could still hear her a few doors down.
so, whatever. "i'm lonely as can be..." the beatles sing. kimya dawson says she needs more time to think. "if i wanna leave you better let me go ... "liz phair demands. and i nod and keep typing
Thursday, February 8, 2007
just a short, sweet primal scream.
ugh.
for some reason my head feels like a brick this morning. maybe its the drambouie. i was left alone in the house last night with a bottle of the thick sweet stuff, feeling a little more sad than there was reason for. bad combination.
but i have been sad a lot lately. i'm leaving here in three weeks. got my ticket two days ago, just before we were told that my mom's surgery couldn't happen until mere days before my flight and that she wouldn't be getting out of the hospital until the very day i was going. fuck.
so, part of the reason that i came here is up in smoke, and now we have to try to get someone else to commit to taking care of her when she goes into the hospital in march.
any takers?
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
rock on, maiden lane
a week ago my mom and i went down to bridgeport, CT, about a two hour drive away, to pay our respects to her father's grave, and to see if we could figure out where he used to live. as a young priest who had recently emigrated to the US, he had parishes in new york, new jersey, chicago, and, finally, bridgeport, an industry town that used to prompt me and my siblings, on the occasions that we passed through on our way to new york city, to plug our noises and yell about the oh how stinky. it doesn't smell like that anymore, or at least not that i notice. maybe almost ten years of exposure to that special san francisco sewage smell has inured me to such things.
or maybe it's the development. we learned about that when we decided to check out maiden lane first, the address in my grandfather's early bridgeport diaries. after a near-comical turn of events, in which our car was caught on the wrong side of a police barricade, a grumpy cop told us we were going the wrong way. he turned us back in the other direction, towards downtown, and we turned our map upside down. a few blocks later we found ourselves on a straight shot to sky scrapers, the immediate area around us consisting of fenced off weeds and trash, one remaining house crumbling amidst the wild growth on each side of the road. our directions had us befuddled (damn you, google maps!) so we turned right. the wrong way. after thirty blocks or so we realized it was the wrong way. so we turned around, again. crossing back over the main street, we landed on a spit of land, ending in a large, industrial wasteland of some sort or another. the waste of weeds and fence grew up all around. the only street around ironically named california. maiden lane seemed to have disappeared.
on returning home, after an amazing tour of my mother's old neighborhoods, i wrote the city of bridgeport to find out what the hell. i was told: "This section of the Steel Point Peninsula is the site of a Major Development project called Steel Point. Any homes in the area were leveled to make way for the development project ... you will see Maiden Lane has been cleared." apparently completely. there is no evidence that there was ever a street there.
we have since found out that while grandpa jacob lived on maiden lane, his church was on that very same california street, around the corner. it seems everything there has been torn down, as well, since all we found was ramshackle boat clubs and shacks. added to the surprise we got in nearby stepney, where we found one of my mother's childhood homes is now a vacant, overgrown field with a no trespassing sign hanging from an ineffectual gate, it kind of made us more than sad.
yeah, i know, been a long time. things get torn down. but i guess we're feeling the weight of having put off this research until now. if we had gone to poland just a little bit earlier, we could have met some of my mother's cousins before they died. if we had started looking into my grandfather earlier, we may have been able to see where he once lived. hell, if we had looked into family history back when we lived on the same coast as each other, we may have been able to talk to my great aunts and uncles before they passed away. not that they would have said much. they were known for being taciturn.
this is all in my brain because today we went back to bridgeport and spent four hours in the history room of the bridgeport library, trying to find the exact timeline of jacob's residences, and to fill in some holes in my mother's memory. those history rooms are amazing, awe-inspiring things. aside from finding the addresses and neighbors and best friends of my grandfather, i was able to get copies of ship's manifests, listing the departure and arrival of so many of my relatives. my great-grandfather was only 16 when he made the long sea voyage to new york city. we haven't figured out, yet, how he met my great-grandmother. or even how my grandfather met my grandmother. he, like my own father, was married once before, to a volatile woman who threw his clothes out the window. my grandmother was born in america, brought back to poland before she could talk, and moved back to the US again at the age of 22. somehow their paths crossed.
we have shreds of evidence. ideas of how they felt about each other, how long they knew each other. like the picture of my grandparents, standing in the side yard of the house in stepney that has now been returned to nature. there is a note on the back, in his hand, that loosely translates to "me and my old lady." we're beginning to realize the depths of his sense of humor. that picture has been to poland and back. he sent it to his brother, in torun, poland, who's daughter gave it back to us. crazy.
so, maiden lane is gone. and the house on garder road is gone. and so many relatives are no longer around. and the history room can only tell us so much. not to mention that i only have about 6 weeks to help my mom with this and all the other things i'm here to help her with. she goes in for surgery soon. and there are still so many things to get in boxes.
but it helps, this research. we're learning so much. because while we're researching the history of others, we're writing her story. and maybe mine.
in the meantime, tomorrow is my day off, to hang out by myself and write letters and get my head together. i've only had one of these since i've been here, and i ended up squandering that on episodes of laying about, squooshed between bouts of doing things for my mother. and i'm not counting the three days i was wicked sick, and just lay, immobile, watching the first season of 24. awfully entrancing piece of propaganda, that 24. so now i'm going to get the fuck off this computer and go do something completely unproductive, to celebrate. hello, playstation.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
jeeeezus christ ... whatever
Current mood: drunky-face
i'm currently sitting in the dining room of my mom's house, a wee bit drunk, thinking about time and space. like how this town feels almost like sandpaper on my skin, but also not. i was talking to my oldest friend in the world a few days ago, trying to explain our difference of opinion about this place. and i realized the heart of the difference. he lived here as an adult, as a person with a job and a car and a girlfriend that wasn't me, able to drink in all of the bars that card too strictly to let the likes of us in a few years before. i left this place an 18 year old bag of emotion and fear, very rarely to return. and i realized the problem i have with this here and now stems from that. i almost don't know who the hell i am here, as if the person i was erases the person i am, as if the emotion and angst and unbridled joy and deepest of sadnesses of the past negate the experiences i've had afterwards the minute i cross the town lines. does that make sense? i hope so. at the very least, it does to me.
so it's important, to me, that he is here, this oldest friend in the world, a person who knows me inside and out, who can see through all the bullshit i spin, but also knows when the hell i am dead dead serious. it's important to have someone that is so close so nearby. he didn't understand, at first, when i was trying to explain this phenomenon. he said, "but everyone you knew is pretty much gone. close by, yes, but not where they were. the people are not the same, so what is the problem?" but it's not the people. it's the physical space that sets me back. granted, the people make a slight difference. but i know now that even if the buildings were switched all around, even with graves street gentrified instead of full of house parties, even with joe's pizza so overrun with customers, and even with downtown even more crowded with boutiques, this place does something to me. it takes me back, to a place i'm not sure i want to be.
but, really everything is ok. i'm just glad to put a diagnosis, of sorts, to the uneasiness i have about this place. and i'm overjoyed that there is someone here to hold my hand, to take me for drinks, and to tell me to stop being so damn emotional. that it's all going to be ok, after all.
old friends are very often the best.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
new occupation = feeling sorry for myself
Current mood: foggy and tumbled
now if only someone would really pay me for it.
it's almost one am, and i'm feeling that sort of frustrated that seems like invisible arms firmly squeezing your appendages, so even flailing about to get rid of that excess energy is difficult work. somehow i can't get warm, either. the heat's on, i'm wearing so many layers that it may explain my inability to flail about, and i even found my hat.
guess i shouldn't have opened that last beer.
i spent the evening cleaning slides of my parents' honeymoon. my photographic obsessions have collided with my need to save every last bit of history having to do with me or anyone i've ever been affiliated with. so, cleaning dirty, thirty-year-old slides, and putting them in archival sleeves. i have a bit of a fixation on these slides. as a young'un, my mom asked us please not to mess with them. i remember that clearly, mostly because forbidden things are the most interesting. i assumed, when i got to the age that i needed to formulate an explanation, that it was because they are fragile, and young fingers like to touch everything they can. now i think she said such things to spare us the spectacle of seeing my most-probably-naked father, reclining, wrapped in a sheet, holding a can of budweiser on his bare belly. such is the stuff of nightmares.
my father holds an almost mythic position in my mind at this point. the mythic position of a hydra, that is. or a murderous, gigantic cyclops. i haven't set eyes on the man for something like 23 years, a fact that i never cry over. i almost wish i had never known him. but when i come across him in images, like i have so often tonight, i experience a shock of recognition and disappointment that throws me. it's almost like seeing someone in person that you have grown used to through the mediated images of television or film. up close, they are just people. and usually surprisingly short.
pictures of my father as a young man are even more shocking. clean cut, in suit and tie, overcoat thrown over his arm, pipe clenched in his teeth, he seems so unlike the small bit of actual person that i remember. and most definitely not the person my mind and so many years of absence have redefined him to be. how can that be the same person? what the fuck's going on here?
i get the added shock, now, of knowing that one of the boxes of slides i cleaned are actually shots of him with his first wife, in somewhere like morocco. i don't know if i knew before that my mother was his second wife. perhaps. but when she told me a few weeks ago, maybe for the second or third time, it totally surprised me. my memory is not what it once was, but i'm pretty sure i didn't know that.
i guess the marriage didn't last long, and the divorce was quick. but it adds fuel to the fire of that surprise perception, that my father was (is) just a guy. a really, really fucked up guy.
these are the thoughts running crazy circles around my head tonight, as i wander back and forth, frustrated by, well, everything. i'm afraid the winter has gotten to me, despite its persistence in being a surprisingly "warm" winter. snow has fallen exactly twice in the month and a half that i've been here, the first time dusting the air for about a half hour, the second time calmly falling for hours, with only a thin layer of white on the highest points of things to show for it.
nothing is really as it is supposed to be.
Friday, January 5, 2007
ass-backwards
Current mood: phlegm-y
jesus christ. i spent an hour last night constructing an intelligent update to this space, filled with literary genius and subtlety of tone and, yes, enough drunken angst to choke a good-sized horse. not that i would want to choke any sized horse. i'm a pacifist, and a vegetarian to boot.
jesus christ. i spent an hour last night constructing an intelligent update to this space, filled with literary genius and subtlety of tone and, yes, enough drunken angst to choke a good-sized horse. not that i would want to choke any sized horse. i'm a pacifist, and a vegetarian to boot.
but, anyway, i hit post, the button that would send my words into the aether of this interweb, and it did, alright; so far into the aether that they will never to be seen again.
dammit.
but it was all about how all the letters i've been meaning to write have been writing themselves in my head, while my body runs around doing everything else and i can't seem to get enough time to myself. it's a little frustrating. and it was all about tough new england women, and perceptions of regional loyalty, and how i miss san francisco. particularly, how i miss the queers and the perverts and the nellies. but, at the same time, it is good and important to be here. if only i can find some time to sit down and write letters.
cosmo found an old typewriter up in the house in blandford, the house where i spent the first five or so years of my life, on and off. we can't tell who it used to belong to, my uncle charlie, or my great uncle tony, or any number of other relatives who have recently passed on or moved away. cosmo fixed it and oiled it and bought me a ribbon. he's a good egg. so, i have this beautiful old typewriter at my disposal while i am here. typewriters don't erase your words while you're still composing them. they don't hurt your eyes, or annoy you with their incessant hum. so, what the hell am i still doing here, online?
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