awesome straws!

(from the bastille day pre-party, with k & hl)

since i clearly no longer believe in decorum: i need (ok, "would prefer instead of just going with my mother") a date to my cousins wedding on sept 16. takers? ill get you liquored up enough to dance.

in a very good mood. a girl couldnt have better friends, and i get to play poker on friday.

well, at least i didnt scream when i saw the mouse.


(this gets a little gross, so skip it if youre not bodily-function friendly. apparently freak-out overrules modesty or even decency.) one of these days ill need to delineate all this issues i have with this apartment. in the meantime, i am wearing combat boots (maybe to bed) and leaving the tennis racquet at my side - as if it could ever actually qualify as anything else while still in this room - AND REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO HAVING A HISSY FIT AT SOMEONE, only its 4am and theres no one to hissy fit at, and its just me kind of subtly not weeping trying to figure out what im going to do next time i have to, god forbid, pee. you see, the mouse was (is) in the bathroom. i am hoping i have the incredible moral fortitude that said action apparently requires, even with combat boots and tennis racquet, because having been through the attempt once already: im FINE at getting into the other half of the apartment, turning all the lights on, slooooowly creaking the bathroom door open, yeah, all ok, fine, even closing the door! to the bathroom! this is a small, small space, people, for one person, for half a person, were talking airplane-bathroom, let alone a paranoid person, a dozen roaches, and a damn fucking furry rodent NONE of whom want the others to exist in their daily lives. and at that point, really, the hard stuff is over - im irrationally afraid of mice, certainly, considering their size and powers (at least until i start thinking about their tiny, sharp little teeth...not the teeth!), but at least not abhorrently, embarassingly so; no chair-standing, no flailing, though i admit i wish i hadnt been wearing flip-flops on first encounter - but no. its like some sort of horrid, twisted, performance anxiety, and i just cant pee in presence of mouse-possibility. hypothetical mouse. here i am, having boldly thought that the very phrase "having to go" kind of explained the situation, and its necessity, that do-or-you-dont-actually-have-to catgory, but no. jesus christ. i can sit and stare at the place where mouse (mao, by the way) probably came from, and now most certainly isnt, and kind of wonder how im possibly, ever going to shower ever again, and consider moving out right.this.second and sleeping on various couches until i decide that yes, in fact, an extra $200 a month is totally worth not having mice, a serious roach problem, a building whose wiring blows every other time i turn on the a/c, a room six feet wide, a questionable neighborhood thats near positively nothing (there is one, ONE chinese place that delivers), frozen flies scattered throughout the freezer (how? i ask you HOW??), maggots in the garbage, and food that magically disappears. is there anything else.

but thats all i can do, is sit and whinge, first to myself and now very much out loud, until i have a game plan for getting rid of mao. other than boots-and-racquet. which the racquet, not practical at all here, really, i think its actually as wide as the bathroom and so loses a lot of its otherwise highly pleasurable right-angled perfect-cubes versatility. although honestly id have a lot more problems disposing of dead mao than scurrying away from live mao - boot-scurry unpretty as it is - and should maybe invest in some more rubber gloves since i already used all of mine (not discussing exactly how). lets hope kitty downstairs stops nibbling on the boric acid and takes up hunting.

moral of the story being that mouse is incredibly, unbelievably annoying, in this seriously unexpected totally nonsensical way, and that for a well-educated presumably in-touch-with-reason-if-not-totally-reasonable woman i am really embarassing not to mention inconveniencing myself here, what in fuck is going on, this is going to be some serious test of adaptability oh-sure i can live in a tent that drips constantly on my forehead and go to job interviews smelling like campfire, or live in a trailer with no heat and a roommate who cant flush and a dog who rolls in dead salmon and then hides it somewhere, or sleep in the car because this is flat tire #3 and honestly who needs to "go" "anywhere", or be abandoned by a one-nighter and spend the rest of the eve with italians who dont speak english and propose a series of vodka-and-tang toasts to them, or even - waffles? is that a tattoo of waffles, that says "delicious"?, or did you just light those skis on fire, i think you may have, i think you oh thats my lighter, thanks - yes, to all these glories, i may now add that i am cowering in the face of a not even very big mouse, and i have to pee. thank you, and goodnight.

dear j.,
dont write things in public spaces when youre drunk and dont remember them the next day. youre intolerably whiny, and your grammar isnt what it should be.
love,
sobriety

(not to say that its not true, of course. i am so done with the other-woman thing, and am, in fact, intolerably whingey about it. except maybe academically, because thats a pretty fascinating phenomenon, whinginess-cum-disappointment in stealth "we arent talking about sex" mode).

back from vt.

I AM SITTING AROUND AND DRINKING TEQUILA AND BEING SICK OF MEN WHO CAN BE CONVINCED THAT IM SMARTER THAN I AM. and IM ALSO MAKING ZERO APOLOGIES FOR ANYTHING FOR THE NEXT WEEK (GOAL)/NEXT TWO DAYS (MORE PROBABLE) SO YOU CAN TAKE YOUR SOFT, INDULGENT, COTTON-CANDY-TOUGH UNDERBELLIES AND COWER THEM AWAY INTO THE CORNER LIKE YOU USUALLY DO.

for anyone needing a literalists translation, that means that i feel that ive been imposed upon in the past few days, and feel also that i am very bad at being imposed upon, totally inadequate at it, and am as a result simultaneously guilty and grossly indulgent. theres no telling where this leads! other than to tequila and sarcasm, of course, we already know that, now dont we princess.

at your peril.

havent

i feel like a jane austen character, weighing her better judgment against her sense of self-preservation. am i that insensible, supposed to be that impervious? oh ouf. suppositions be damned, im not, but ill get there if i must.

living through themes. i give up on any sort of adventure-lens, sponge-eyed and bleary, and am now generally working with one of the following:

-religion (icons, idols, false idols, faith, objectivity/omniscience);
-justice (martyrdom, penance, punishment/reward, law, chaos/order, futility);
-cycles (addiction/withdrawal, laundry, routine, habit, and spontaneity)
-creation/consumption (mostly Art but also valuation, self-sufficiency, inspiration)

as in: randomly running theories of postmodernism as the idea-child of capitalism; rule of law as a miniature, imperfect version of the justice (karmic, caste-d, or judgment-day'd, eg) that underlies contemporary religion - or lack of; fairytales and folklore as precursors to a wikipedia-like institution (widespread popular consensus, or shared paradigms, usurping the place of an ivory-towered encyclopediac knowledge - see also the martyr question, where justice lies in the vox populi, as an earthbound substitute for omniscience - isnt it funny how popular opinion is so dirty, how no one wants it stuck to them, like a dog humping your leg?).

tomorrows plan being to go see the corpse flower at the brooklyn botanic gardens (free on tuesdays!) - latin name being amorphophallus titanum: gigantic deformed penis (the victorians werent nearly as stodgy as we think...?), and that smells like rotting dead stuff. no, really.

meanwhile, finding that the first-beat emotional response is not to be messed with, that the harder i push for emotional generosity the less capable i am of actually relating; knowing that what i want for other people often isnt what i want from them; if and how im going to bridge that gap between how they want me and how i am. that no ones going to revere my dirty little secrets the way i do - theyre not secrets any more, after all - and that, when push comes to shove, im going to take whatever is given me, for the least altruistic, most hard-suffering reasons, on both sides. again: when are we going to stop using each other? but theres a lot of beauty that springs from that rotten source, so maybe i just keep working with it in the hopes that it will purify itself, that our motives fall more in line with each other. my mother's breast was thorny, the constant war that underlies even (especially) the most intrinsic of our loves, and defines it (but im not arguing that now; im going to bed).

deerhoof (...packed. and they took my camera batteries, fuckers. bunny bunny bunny) and ice cream yesterday, positively nothing today except for the letters of flannery o'connor (i cant even speak of how much love...), and im curious about tomorrow, wondering what these relationships-in-transit are going to do in a different light, whether that gut reaction can be overcome, for being unearned and involuntary, by something that may take a little more time but is, at its core, more genuine, and certainly more kind (here im torn between the importance of kindness - lets not jest! - and the almost certain unimportance of a few sentences to a longstanding friendship, right? oh whatever, ive never really been good at seeing the forest anyway, i ought to know that much by now).

thats quite enough. bonne nuit.

i have only shitty pictures i took while trying to distract myself from friends doing the makeout right behind me. sorry. im craigslisting scanners right now. also, kitty con carne (i am convinced the name comes from e's roommates deep underlying hatred of his own cat, lu, who resembles him in possibly discomfiting ways - manic tail, incessant mewling) played their (whoo!) live debut tonight, and though i think they could use a few choir boys (whoo! again), and a few power chords, and maybe please dont dance like you have to pee (more on that later), ok, no, i totally enjoyed the show, especial favorites being (the songs as far as i know lacking names) That One Where the Beginning Is Slow And It Puts E. to Sleep But Then It Picks Up, But I Think Shes Just Being Impatient And Like It The Way It Is, and of course The Last One, Where I Again Dissent And Dont Think That Theres Too Much Going On At All, but then again this is e im dissenting from and she fancies (among other things) power-pop-pop ditties from the 50s. the singers voice is a little low for a lead singer, and hes got no ...gusto?... but other than that, if theyd move a little more toward hardcore or experimental rock...oh whatever, stop bitching. as for galapagos, the venue: their mission statement is indulgently capitalistic, which leads me to suggest that, then, as a business venture, they should consider replacing the curtains-as-doors in the bathroom with (suspense here) doors-as-doors. or at least curtains that extend below ones knees - get a bit of a draft and all of a sudden youre staring straight at a dripping batcave (sooooorry that was bad - and will "wiktionary" ever make it into the OED? oooh.).

bitched at the wrong roommate for ruining my cheese this morning. whoops.

dont need to drink/drug/pray - cant feel a damn thing anyway. uh, whos this?

haute

all of which must be followed by: this is largely a backward byproduct of pseudo-nostalgia, the love i have for whats been, and the love i still have for people i used to love, or for people i never thought i did love, which latter two are creating a bit of uncomfortable all-too-connected segmentation (cant tell the difference between where ive been and where im going any more; i just know theres space between here, there, and the greenest grass) as ive started affectionately calling this little out-of-body crisis thats, im sure, to be resolved as soon as i can hear out of my right ear again. thanks for your patience.

couture

im not really going to explain why im sitting in total (albeit nicely cool) darkness to write this. ive made friends, enemies, and then friends again (kept me from one potentially awful case of vertigo, that dear) with the fusebox in the basement, but for all that our relationship is now deep and meaningful, id rather not see it for a while.

this totally insufficient self ive found myself burdened with is starting to fight back. she seems to know better than i do at present, know that im just as likely to get roped into something awful as stumble onto my long-lost hidden talent, and that im kidding myself about something, though she might not be sure what. the biggest issue right now being the creative/consumptive paradigm, do i really suffer enough when i dont create, like hell whatve i actually done in the past year, and (not even considering relative importance here) what am i going to do in the next, and the one after that, and maybe once i have a career plan like EVERYONE ELSE i can join a gym and get a dog and grow plants and live somewhere that doenst require slating ten extra minutes into my morning for roach extermination/disposal, and remember how to relate to people. yeah i guess that last addendum there didnt really fit, right, i know, its staying anyway.

to return, it feels like theres so much doing that nothings getting done, for or by me, that for all intents im neither creating nor consuming, im just halfway not even there for all the do. as in: have you ever felt really stupid all day long for wearing something you actually kind of hate, because you tried to make a decision in the morning, but the weather/lack of time/need to do laundry got in the way, so youre presenting yourself as this thing that actually kind of annoys you? sure, its presentation ( - representation - or, as in the discussion i had with a very nice fellow at the hotpants party, who the hell cares how you present, or represent, when you can misrepresent yourself in a smart way? these are the moneymakers, the virtual misrepresenters), and it may or may not mean anything, but youre clothing yourself in fabric you literally dont like, and who the hell does that, and what justification is there - or is it a total fallacy that it needs to be justified anyway? heres the problem. youre going to present yourself, one way or another, and you can actively like it or dislike it or not care, or whatever, but you do what you do by intention, is the general plan, but then you get so sucked into other things (brush teeth or look for that shirt for another five minutes?), and things compress, and i end up, inevitably, either smelling funny or looking funny, and yes this is because i cannot get up before 8.30 to get to a job that i never have to be on time to. but of course i wont be late, either; theres that conscience again little fucker.

all of which is me trying to explain why i look like shit all of the time and feel vaguely inadequate about it. not just because i cant dress myself but because i feel like im not good at the process of dressing (allegory, people, if i hear another catty bitch talk about how ohmygod im such a tramp because i like shoes, seriously, ok it was funny the first time and will be again, but id rather we didnt): a heavier leaning on the symbolism - creation! distinction! individual-snowflakiness! - and an increasing ineptness with the underlying signified. i am all vague wishes and cravings, starting with "work out all these little superficial inadequacies (which are of course vague and undefined) so you can please, honey, move on to something that matters (even more amorphous, of course)." i suppose i could discuss interesting things,the unmarked irish speakeasy, seeing liz last weekend, why i am never going back to puck fair. but honestly i dont care, and im not thinking about it; im thinking about my unplucked eyebrows and why they were fine being unplucked two years ago but now i feel compelled to kind of small-scale freak at them in the morning (and not have time to do anything about it, which cycle, for about ten days now, has really started to amuse me). i can only assume that yes, its complicated, but it starts with Whats A Given, whats your infrastructure and your underlying assumptions, whats your context and expectation. and im back to what i was saying before, but more: not only am i just barely figuring out what this city is trying to do to me, its making me figure out whats been going on for the past god-knows-how-long, too, because everything is such a fucking process. the givens that worked their way in somehow without your noticing...what a stupid, awful feeling, that they did that to you...what else has changed you? when did you start swallowing your words, waiting for consensus, fear too much black, need sleep? and - god, worse - did you make all these decisions yourself, did you do this to yourself, and of course youre responsible but is this the best you could come up with? thats the catch; what if you come out disappointed? what if because of this stubborn unwillingness to compromise matched with random, occasional, overpowering fears (which, of course, cant be compromised) you end up kind of not who you are? god, why are you wearing this fucking skirt? you hate this skirt.

i kind of assumed citi-fying would make me cool, in that id really have to know who i was to even sort of survive all the choices, every day, about everything, where nothings just a given, the default pattern is minimized, even laziness must be justified as A Thing, all avenues open, all ambition fair game, all solicitude voluntary, all bitchiness both incredibly justified and totally uncalled-for, all tastes and preferences accounted for and support-grouped, where all liking and disliking is fabulous as long as the object is in common, and all objects are accessible. pouf.

instead im just tired. i have hangers, and a new plant. my computer doesnt have enough memory, and i havent written down important numbers anywhere so im fucked when i lose my phone, by hook or by crook to misuse (an appropriate misuse though, i feel) an idiom, the bagel for tomorrows lunch is still frozen, i yelled at my roommate the other day (justifiably or not, who knows; i dont like it when i feel that people make me yell, mostly), and - i cant even believe it - theres another carton of eggs in the fridge thats older than the one from june i just tossed. cool? this is cool, this is awesome? man, seriously.

and, though not full of regrets, full of question marks about the idea of "deserving," the realism of loyalty, the variance in the degree of cause-and-effect connections were able to make. im despondent about connecting with new people, whimsical about reconnecting with old ones, and too selfish, in the meantime, to be worthwhile for the ones i have around. this isnt the beautiful sufficiency i envisioned. its just expensive in too many ways to count.