- Your class is completely ruining our lives. I’m so glad it’s OVER ALREADY!
[also]
- You better have written a friggin novel by now. This has been the LONGEST EIGHT WEEKS EVER.
[me: really?]
July 26, 2006

- By the way, we are NEVER HAVING CHILDREN [via text, referring to, i suppose, the Kelly, Lauren, Jay trifecta]
July 22, 2006

- What? Is he trying to out-pot me?
July 11, 2006

Kelly Oliver surprised me with this, tomorrow night in Austin. I love this man. Even though he has me absolutely PEGGED, and I have no idea what to do with that.

Jay Edwards constantly explains to me all the terrible things that could make a boy very, very sick unless they get to _____ (blank, because any number of things fill in that line, such as: Prudie). He also explained to me the entire world of lesbianism. He is The Pilgrim’s Progress to the last shred of my Pollyanna.

Have long conversations with me. On the phone, on your white couch, laying on the carpet, sitting across from me in a booth with a bottle and red cheeks and glassy eyes. Then let’s go swimming.

CREATE. write me. or write things somewhere that i can read them. Then, don’t ever stop.

Join me. Anywhere.

Show me all kinds of new things.

Be human. Find joy in unique things and reveal it for chrissake. Reveal yourself for that matter. Because I want to know you.

The frequency and creativity available in online video is really pretty awesome.

Be Sigur Ros. Sorry…I can’t help it.

Surprise me, which so many people do. I don’t know, I’m just grateful for this. for life. for all the times even that I’ve been uncomfortable and thought about why and couldn’t put my finger on it then sometimes when it reveals itself to me later, meaning i’d been judgemental or wrong even, but now i’ve grown up.

8 a.m. Double espresso with a dollup of skim.

he did it. Kyle traded one red paperclip for a house.

Y, can you believe this psilocybin study??
Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five.

Or very little of the sort.

On Thursday, we saw an Infernal Bridegroom Theater production of an intriguing show that we viewed, having not purchased tickets in time to get seats, from three barstools at the bar, backs to it in fact, towering above the others in their real seats, ordering St. Arnold’s microbrews any damn time we wanted throughout the show. It was outrageously creative and fantastic. I was absolutely hands-down shocked. The production was formidable on so many levels – excellent writing, ridiculous wordplay, outstanding acting, hilarious design, constant motion, neverending movement, hilarious situational comedic interplay, freakishly enjoyable ensemble, random fits of surprise occurance. Fits of all kinds of things actually. Not a single moment of it snobby or self-promoting. It was compact and short and when it ended, I jumped from barstool to feet and whooped and whistled and banged my hands together in a violent attempt at clapping. I couldn’t help myself. And they didn’t even charge us…but we left a $20 with the ticket dude upon exit.

I volunteer at Diverseworks this Thurs., at another art auction. Last year it was a blast; loud, fast, silly free entertainment. Nonstop people action to observe. Ending up with a piece or two that didn’t sell. Next week, it’s Lawndale’s Big Show, where I surprisingly won’t see the same crowd, but I will see the same artists and many of them, probably, will end up back at the same bar with the people and their stories and their fun. Hopefully, I’ll come out of both with some new art or at least a new cool t-shirt, which these days, is much the same thing. both viewable, one wearable. sometimes free if you volunteer.

We didn’t miss the Cup yesterday and I can’t stop watching Zidane headbutting Materrazzi: (can you?) Watch: video.

During a break in the rain yesterday, J and I wandered around Half-Price Books – he perusing store patrons and me the millions of titles i want. I returned home with a pirate’s booty of leisure, but still, after many years, failing to secure Pirsig. I want to find it used, worn, with other people’s trackmarks in it but still good and readable and not falling apart and not ruined, but humanized. Perhaps from having trotted around in someone’s backpack for a few years. I now have, on top of the 5 books next to my bed that i’ve started and left, The Stranger and Tropic of CANCER. I am looking forward to the things that Camus and Miller will do to me. I also picked up Tropic of Capricorn and two others that I’ve already read but lost in lending some years ago and I just enjoyed the stories for one reason or another and wanted to look in on them again: The Palace Thief and the silly [but fun! Peruvian forests, come on!!!] Celestine Proph.

So it’s done. The weekend is done, the many parties with their stories, the mental mardi gras, the cracked-out comedown, the largess in strangeness. It’s an extremely busy week this week, but I’m ready for it. Or so I’m telling myself.

English woman wakes up with a Jamaican accent after suffering stroke

“But you know, junkies find veins in their toes. It seems reasonable, to them, because they’ve lost sight of the rest of their lives.”

I want to be an objective person.  And I wholeheartedly appreciate objectivity…and I wholeheartedly believe that it’s nearly impossible to achieve.  At the same time, I’ve made a career in the “messaging” and ”branding” behavior-sculpting type of communication.  That’s what I’ve been doing for a living.  I understand propaganda, presenting facts in ways that support chosen claims, and the relative nature of statistical evidence.  I took those classes, I deal in it at work.  That’s why, certain things aside, I really did enjoy seeing An Inconvenient Truth.  Because honestly, I just appreciated someone pulling together and articulating a data set over rhetoric.  In this case, there may be other data sets that disprove those presented in the film.  I’ve looked, and I have yet to see one as strong.  So, in my opinion, the generalities presented in the Gore film hold water.  I wish we didn’t have 2 1/2 more years of sticking our heads in the sand and wishing it all away…

thanks Kelly: how to concentrate on… 

i’ve been thinking about writing and about having stories to tell.  Even tidbits and observations – to some that’s the best kind.  its important that people tell them, express them, make them real in some manner.  this morning on the way to work, I daydreamed the entire time.  From opening my car door to opening my office door.  Then I realized that I do that everyday. 

I bet you do too.  I bet you get lost in your head at the times when you’re alone during the day.  I wish I could have a back-row seat and see it and be party to it and sip it slowly like a milkshake.

i also really like my car.  its small and clean and tight and good.  i love german design.

my drive is physically short but mentally taxing.  Taxing as in frustrating, ankle-biting and painful.  I’ve tried to break it down into moments like breaths and handle it better, pass it through an easy filter, but it’s difficult.  I wait in a lot of lines with my motor running.  Some of them under ground without actual air circulation, in a piled up Babylonian Tower of concrete and rebar and shiny metal and plastic-covered lights.  The stairwell to the first floor is more of the same, only smaller and with less exhaust but more the odor of old pee and germ and general grossening shitness.  Winding down the concrete well only wide enough for one person and their backpack, i try to race and not touch a single thing like the PVC pipe handrail until i  push through with my elbows into the light of day.  Waiting to cross the street, I thought that maybe I didn’t want to write a novel after all.  Like running marathons; I used to dream about it for years, dream, dream, dream, lap, lap, lick.  Now, really, the thought sounds overbearing and burdensome to me.  I’ve just lost the taste.

Underneath the hotel, up more stairs and into the lobby, I think of people as cars for seamless passing and silent overtaking; efficiency.  keep it moving. I am at an age where men’s eyes follow me every single day of my life and I don’t understand exactly why.  almost regardless of what I’m wearing, which I everyday wish I had pulled off a little better, possessing a better art for it, but not for those assholes.  i used to smile, feel obligated to smile like they were being nice.  the offensives are employed by the hundreds in valet services, hospital cleaning crews, buildings operations guys, the kind of men who eye females in the morning.  I walk up the escalator, pass the restaurant, the pharmacy, the coffee stand, the fidelity storefront with a middle finger projected on the internal screen in my eyes, inside my head, remembering that certainly, some of these are probably nice people.  some days i’m not aware of them at all; it just depends.  I walk through a sky bridge over a 4-lane road and light rail beeping below me.  people walking beneath me.  I pass through a hospital, then another sky bridge, then a few hallways, then more stairs which i traverse on my tiptoes so i can feel the muscle-working burn in my calf, then the front door of the office on the 4th floor in a forgotten research wing down a hallway where no one stops.  sometimes a little breathless, sometimes not.  unlocking the door with the 4-inch bloated key they gave me 2 and a half years ago.  I toss a smile and some eye contact over to today’s temp posing as receptionist.  “good morning hot sauce, how are you this morning?”  “oh good,” she laughs back at me.

I thought about making writing a practice, enjoying it, playing more.  being a person.  doing it every morning first, giving myself time to enjoy the day in the morning.  I thought about the person I love knowing who has written volumes and volumes, spanning decades.  with pictures, almost daily.  so yummy.  i wondered if i actually am ever comfortably alone with my thoughts, ever. 

or if i fill it with stimulation after stimulation and avoid it by so many varied kinds of stim stimulations. 

then i thought about painting, playing with color.  going big.  i thought about making that a practice, personal play, much much more of it.  i realize i’m grateful for this modern age where there is so much and so many different interesting kinds of media with which to make your cartwheeling mudpie-slinging crispy crunching playground.

i brought yogurt, an apple, a tomato from my dad’s garden even though that’s sort of weird, but they’re good for you right and i should put that kind of thing in my body.  I started the day with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on really heavy, coarse, nut-studded wheat which i consider an indulgence like cup cakes or sauterne or a coffee drink with cream.  i love bread, heavy jewish rye.  i don’t eat it often, but i fkking love it.

I pulled into my office/room/cube and turned on the light.  I chucked the backpack into the chair and unpacked everything, changed from flip-flops to heels.  bent forward and looked into the mirror.  adjusted the skirt a little, pulled it down slightly on my hips.  I sit down, think of coffee with cream, encantada, and unlock my computer.