full of moxie and viscosity

i wrote to tye two days ago:
the life of a writer is full of the absence of words.

a bag of hair

what is that?

Here is me, tonight:
mayonnaise sandwich
goodwill t cut to fit
sweat band in preparation for tomorrow's workout
sitting in front of the computer
ready to write.
downstairs, nell and yogurt await. the perfect pairing for procrastination.
should i procrastinate?
no! i should not!
i will write for twenty minutes, play tetris, check my email, then write more. then, maybe, nell and yogurt. maybe.

author's note: i am LOVING these: ":" these days. the way i feel about them: extremely happy.

On wearing polyester to work:
some people think it's silk
sweat shows
i love the way it feels on my skin

On having a gumball machine on my desk:
i fill it with pearls and ball bearings and hershey's kisses
i can't open the dispenser portion without everything coming out

On my weekend:
thank god for programmed numbers
thank god for my sense of direction
thank god for the quattro razor
thank god for tequila shakers
thank god for losing my socks
thank god for my 715 starbucks shift
and lastly, thank god for release.

On the novel:
i printed out what i have so far. not bad. needs some work. needs an ending. maybe i should get married so i can end it. ha.

My boss Dave gave us a little mini lecture about presentations. He said that if you want to have a successful presentation you have to have one main point to make. You make the point succinctly and quickly and then have a huge stack of back up in case people have questions.

I like that idea- that we are constantly prepared to validate what we are setting out to do, but that we don't always give up all of that information right off the bat. It's not necessary to over-explain our reasons for doing things or our goals. We do the things we want to do. Maybe people don't always question their routines as much as they should, but I certainly know the reasons why I do the things that I do. I know my reasons.

For once in my life, I know the reasons. I have my back up. Now I have to learn to not give it all up all at once. I should be a woman of mystery.

I think I'm goin crazy
Things don't even phase me
-Beck

On my way back to a place I've missed.
I'll be back tomorrow.
If you're luuuucky.

The Fresno Summer Night
"Smells a little chlorinated," I think as I walk out my front door. It's not chlorine. It's grass and heat. I can't even describe this smell. It's every summer I've ever lived.
LA smells dirtier, nastier, sexier.
Boston is pasty, sludgy, wet.
Fresno is oven warm and breezy and-
How the hell do you describe something you grew up with? It's like trying to describe a laugh or a smile or- the way you feel inside your dad's arms. It's here, now, away, then.
Impossible.


-Summer 2003

If I was trying to iron my pants with hot air, from my heater vent, and I adjusted it to 90 degrees, do you think it would work? I don’t think it would. The devil would come to me with a real iron and say, look, this is almost 200 degrees. Did you really think 90 would work on your cloth? And then he would make me touch it, but just barely, just enough to realize how hot it really was, and then he would pull my hand away, and then for the rest of my life I would think about that moment, when I felt the heat of the devil in that iron.

What if our finger wrinkles were timers? That way, when I was in the shower, I would be able to tell how much time I had left to get ready for the day just by looking at my fingers.

The street lamps keep flickering on and off. Are they on timers? Or do they turn on and off depending on how much light there is outside? Are there little men inside who wake up angrily with the sun and turn off their lights? Do they have extra sensitive eyes that can only take a certain amount of wattage? Albino red eyes? Or is it that each lamp is reprogrammed every day depending on when the sun is going to rise? What if we made it so each lamp had to be programmed individually? That way we might not have such a bad economy in Portland.

Remember when garage door openers opened other garages besides your own if they were from the same manufacturer? That was crazy.

Rachel: Okay, so it's 9:30 on a Saturday night and I'm contemplating going shoe shopping at Fred Meyer alone. What's wrong with this picture? I don't have any friends, that's what the problem is.
Mama: You could call Huva (*real names changed to protect the annoying). Huva would go out with you.
Rachel: I don't want to call Huva. Huva's annoying.
Mama: What about Greetab?
Rachel: Greetab is boring.
Mama: The real problem here is not that you don't have any friends. It's that you don't like the friends you DO have.
Rachel: Oh.

Ashamedly watching Sex and the City alone (key word here: alone), tears come... and I am so surprised. What in the world could I possibly be mourning now?

I really do think that we are born the way we are going to die. The whole point is that we live chronologically. Time is just the way we experience things on a conscious level. I am the girl I was when I was seven and the girl I will be when I am seventy. The conscious moments are the only things that technically define how we live. Matrix anyone? Sensory perceptions, feeling of existence, blah blah blah. That's the only way we know, right? Know what one moment is to the next?

And when I think of it that way, it sort of means I have to let certain temporal memories die if I want to stop living them-
the memories aren't really who I am. They of course contribute, but I am who I am because of everything, and I won't be changed if I let some of those memories die. I'll still be where I am temporally, right? Chronologically, sensibly, realistically.

God, that's sad. I don't want to let some of those memories go. I mean, I know I have to. So I'm in mourning for some of those memories. I miss him sometimes. Some of that beauty. And even so, which "him"? All of them. Sometimes that beauty is more painful than the past, which is why I have to let it go. The burn of what could have been versus the ugly reality of what really was. The beauty was there, but it only showed me what could be. The pain was the more real of the emotions at the time.

And that pain was very me- it was nice to really want something- even if I knew I couldn't have it. And for the most part, especially if I knew I couldn't have it.

I am crazy. I miss the pain.

The imperfections are forever. The conscious moments can be forgotten.

But how can I forget all of those beautiful moments of crazy love and still somehow recall the ugly moments of horrid masochistic pain?

That's unfair.

I miss the good ones.
And I'm sick of thinking about the bad ones.