Personal Perestróĭka

Gah, if I never see another Ford or Corker ad it’ll be too soon. The stepped up campaigning is so horrific. Man, though Corker’s really taking it down. He might as well make an ad that says “The back man is coming to steal all our pretty white women.” I mean seriously. He has a real ad that says “Harold Ford wants to give the abortion drug to our school children.” I mean Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? How can people even take some one seriously who says things as ridiculous as that?

We also have this ad with Iraq war vets saying that the Iraq war is creating more terrorists and urging people not to be quiet with these views because that makes it worse. I think this is a national ad? Wow, it’s, just wow. Yeah, that’s some good politics right there.

I sadly didn’t get pictures of the sky last night. It was like a classic cartoon Halloween sky. With the sky glow of the city illuminating the horizon and making a pale backdrop for the skeletal trees and bright crescent moon in black black sky. It was quite stunning. In the Pacific northwest you can never see the moon this time of year.

The neighbors (the Mole people) seem to have been replaced. Presumably subletting or something as we never saw anyone actually move out. Sadly the new neighbors are incredibly loud and annoying. I mean hammering at 8 am on Sunday? And why are there 15 cars parked in my yard right now? Nevermind the hideous music coming through the wall. And the giggling. Especially the screaming. Even we aren’t this obnoxious. I haven’t even met them and I want to kill them.

I read all of Richard K Morgan’s Broken Angels cover to cover today. Takeshi Kovacs is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. I can’t decide if I want to be him or do him. Now I want to stay up all night and re-read the first one.

The word of the day is hinky. I’ve used it three times today, in different contexts, with different meanings. I’m sure it has and actual meaning, but it’s just too much fun to say to bother with all that.

Tonight I made dinner! Notice I didn’t say “cooked.” Mostly I just wrapped potatoes in foil and made a buttery mess of myself and the kitchen. Mmmm, butter. Yes, perhaps I should continue to live off K’s cooking and not try and poison her with mine.

My back hurts. I need a house boy to take care of such things. Or a masseur boyfriend. Or better yet a hot, independently wealthy, tattoo artist, masseur boyfriend. Perfect. No maybe that’s asking too much. How about someone who is nice to me, actually likes me and is hot and interesting. God, how sad the years have beaten down my hopes. Maybe I’ll just stick with the heterosexual life partner thing with K for a while. God what is wrong with me? The whole boy thing apparently makes me emotionally unstable. You’d think I was all romantic and pathetic and such and not just looking to get lucky.

Um.

Yes.

How about we just go with my insanity and I’ll tell you dream from the other night? Deal? Okay.

So in the dream I was walking along past this gay club, that was like floating on the water and I was on a pier above looking down and I was thinking, it’s good they don’t just fuck there like they did in the 70s, ’cause then everyone could see, but then when I passed they were all fucking like right out in the open, crazy roman orgy style. I tried not to stare, then I got closer to home and there was this other club with a patio full of flaming queens talking about who was going to be their dates for some elaborate Boston St. Patrick’s day parade but completely Fire Island gay kind of thing. Then I was almost home and this kid came running up and I knew him but I hadn’t seen him in a while. He was like some kid who used to do yard work for me and K or something weird, but in the dream, it’d been maybe a couple years since I’d seen him and he was older now. He sort of snuck up behind me and put his arm around my waist and scared the shit out of me until I realized who he was. Then he offered to walk me home. I remember thinking how fucked up it was going to be to tell K that now that he was of age I totally wanted to fuck him. For some reason we stopped by his place and his dad came home and it was awkward so I was just going to sneak off but his dad came out and was like, “Here, you can each smoke 2 cigarettes, then your friend needs to leave.” And he handed the kid 4 smokes. But we didn’t stay in the yard, instead wandered off and we were going through the city and there were all these revolutionary protests and weirdness all over the city. Then I was alone and it was dark and I was on a high building and I saw some people commit a crime, though I’m not sure what exactly, and dive into the water. Later I saw them come out on the other side of the water with the kid and I went down to try and help him, but we got caught in a dead end and the lead bad guy turned out to be the kid’s older brother and I was trying to reason with him (he was like an IRA leader type and maybe I wasn’t trying to reason with him so much as trying to figure out how to sex him up, since of course in my memory he looked like Justin Hartley) and I asked the kid for one of the cigarettes from his dad and I lit it and the bad guy brother was like, “what the fuck’s wrong with your cigarette?” And I looked at it and it was sparking green and I threw it and it landed on the brother’s jacket and exploded. I was freaking out, “Your dad gave me that! I didn’t know.” And the terrorist guy seemed to believe me, but he grabbed me and the his brother and dragged us away so we wouldn’t be found there when people came to investigate the explosion. Then I woke up. There was of course more to it than that but the details always seem to evaporate so fast when I wake up.

What’s new, pussycats? Tell me something good.

K, just gave me the beer she opened for herself. Man, that’s better than a shirt off the back.

Things I learned last night:

1. Tequila is not my friend, despite it’s pretending to be
2. Apparently tequila and TMI go hand in hand
3. K and I are so funny we really should have someone recording us all the time
4. Though that recording should probably not go on past the 10th or 11th shots of tequila, nobody needs to see that
5. I really should stick to beer and whiskey

Three times in the last two weeks I have referenced Eddie Haskell to people three different people, none of whom knew who I was talking about. Has the world become so oversaturated with pop-culture references that we’re forgetting all the important things?

Conversations in my house never go quite like they do on TV:

K: Well, your eyes look really pretty when you cry.
Me: Oh good, I’ll be sure to use that to my advantage some day.
K: We have limes for the tequila.
Me: *stops crying*

ETA: Though I probably should clarify that I wasn’t crying over the lack of limes. Just change and moving on and stuff.

We just took Anna to the airport. It’s back down to just me and K here for literally the first time in weeks. I already miss A a little but wow. I feel like I just need to breathe and center myself in my space again. (I except hell from K for this sounding like another hippie-ish post.) I need to settle into the season too. It really fall here now, not just ticklings and teasings of impending season change. I feel like maybe I need to change with it a little, as I only know Tennessee in the summer. Season change in a new place is finding out more about your lover’s past or something. I’m sure exactly how to explain it. My head is starting to fill up with words again too so now that the visiting season is over maybe I can get some of the things I ned to do written down and pull out some new stories too. Mostly tonight though, I just want to cuddle up with K and have it be only us in the world for a while. Maybe sort out the insanity of our lives a little. Who knows, we could be actually sort of settled when Joyful comes back to stay for good. (HA!)

I just talked to my mom for the first time in two weeks. She was on vacation which sounds like it was really great and hopefully she’s looking at a new job that the one she wants and not her current one that she hates. Keeps your fingers crossed that the swirling seasons bring her the right change.

It’s my Ma’s birthday today. She’s the smartest person I know. I love her. And not just because without her there would be no me. And yet I’m still a pretty bad daughter. So here’s my song for her.

Rilo Kiley – A Better Son/Daughter (click to download)

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My current Brezny-scope confuses me:

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In Buddhist tradition, bodhisattvas are seekers who put their service to others above their personal goals–even above their quest for the supreme peace that comes from enlightenment. In the eight-century prayer “The Bodhisattva Path,” poet Shantideva wrote, “May I be the doctor and the medicine/ for all sick beings in the world/ until everyone is healed.” That’s a high standard to live by. In asking you to try it out for a limited time, I’m not expecting perfection. But my analysis of the astrological omens suggests that the people in your life fervently need you to be a source of strong medicine. More than that, you need to initiate the changes in your life that will ensue if you make yourself into a soothing balm, a potent remedy, a love tonic.

I mean, what? It’s not supposed to be all about me all the time? Weird.

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Today it’s Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. Yeah, you probably aren’t Hindu, I’m not either but let’s celebrate the triumph of light over dark anyway, okay? At least light a candle tonight and be joyous about the Lord of Chaos being defeated for a second, no matter what else is going on in your life, okay? Um, yes I don’t actually really know anything about this holiday at all.

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So I’m mostly recovered from the death plague ebola ear infection I had. Just in time to start my period. I can only assume there really is balance in the universe and this is payment for all the fun I’ve been having? Or maybe like being a girl is so much better than being a boy that we’re forced to pay for our awesomeness by bleeding out every month? Kassie and Anna have brought me red wine and tiramisu, so perhaps my outlook on the world will change soon?

I’m sick. Again. And not like walking around with cold feeling whiny and pathetic sick, but dizzy, woozy, I should probably be in bed sick. My body feels like it was beaten with a baseball bat. The kind fo sick where I’d usually just cry ans wish someone would take care of me. But Kassie’s here and Anna. Kassie’s making me soup and pie crust cookies for Anna so that it smells like my grandmother’s house in here. Anna’s just generally being solicitous. So rather than wishing I had care, I feel vaguely guilty that people are doing things for me and I can’t be helpful or take care of them in return. God, typing this is making me cry. I wonder if I have a fever. Or perhaps brain damage. Also now I suddenly miss my Gramma.

Wow, hi, how are ya? I’ve been busy. Yes, very busy. Joyful left today. I cried. She’s seriously the only person in the world who I cry when she leaves. Well maybe Ariana too, since I cried when I left her, so I assume that works in reverse.

It cold and wet here, though not cold like it was the other night. Seriously the 1 am temp difference between like Thursday night and Sunday night was about 33 degrees!! It was like a single day of January or something and then gone. Of course it means that my toes won’t be warm again until like March. Gah.

My TYOG sister just told me that my new tattoo was “the bomb.com.” Crazy kids and their wacky slang. I’m sure I never said anything so incomprehensible and ridiculous when I was a teenager. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! Man, I couldn’t even type that with a straight face.

Coming soon: emails to everyone I owe, posts elsewhere, posts of some substance here. No, really.

It’s cold here. Like put on a coat to go out and smoke cold. Yuck. Of course we have no heat, as we weren’t prepared for cold. Sigh. Thank god for blankets and Joy’s body heat.

Also there should be some sort of helpful tips that come on the back of grocery receipts. Like if you go to the store to buy bread and eggs and you come out with bread, eggs, brownies, cookies, potato chips and carmel pecans, then your receipt would read, “shouldn’t you have bought tampons, too?” Right?

It’s like some amusing scene from a movie about nerds up in this place. K, Joy and I were joined by Katie last night. Now we’re all sitting here, laptopped up and listening to the new Hold Steady (Katie said, “What is this? I REALLY like it.” And of course she did. Man, my sister says my dad likes this album. EVERYONE likes this album). My pretty Anna gets here this afternoon.

There was a point to this, I’m sure, but I’ve forgotten so have a song instead: Chips Ahoy! – The Hold Steady (click to download)

What cures all my ailments even better than whiskey? Yes, tattoos. Mmmmmmm, tattoos. picture picture picture

Seriously, is there any song more emotionally wrenching than Lucinda Williams’ “Those Three Days”? It’s like the worst break-up song tied to the saddest song of romantic memories and stained with raw sex. This song makes you suffer deliciously for five minutes but it carries the memory of what was good, like reminding you that it’s worth it for the beauty of it. For the idea you might be able to grasp the good part again. And so you listen to it over and over again. At least I do. The last time I wrote about this, six or eight months ago, I said, “Your whole body aches with loss of something you barely had and yet it’s so intense it might burn you to a cinder. All you want is more, to snatch back those seconds in which you felt whole, but there’s nothing left to grab at.” I don’t think I can articulate it over again better than that, so just go listen if you haven’t before.

Those Three Days – Lucinda Williams (click to download)

Joyfulgirl got here last night. How did I go so long without seeing her? 4 months is too too too too long. She is my sweetest babygirl and I may never let her leave.

Today we went out with K and the Crack Twins and their fabulous friends and then went shopping for HOURS and shockingly K outshopped me and Joy. I know, right? The world is clearly ending. Now we are too tired to do anything but watch Adult Swim and laugh at our own stupid jokes. You know it’s love when you enjoy even that though. bassgrrl if you were here life would be nearly perfect.

I had a great night last night. Saw Frank Black (yes, bassgrrl I will write it up for you) and I’m having a great day will write it all up when it’s over.

My cousin Missy Sue just sent me a ton of pictures from this summer when two of my other cousins got married (uh, not to each other, two different weddings). And, man, do I miss my family. This isn’t a moving away thing, I didn’t see them that much before. But my uncles are all the handsomest men in the world. My cousins the best people ever. For real, if Missy Sue’s brothers weren’t my cousins I would totally marry one of them. Because I can’t stand not to share, my cousin Jon-boy dancing with his neice: what’s not to love?

Not worksafe at all and potentially offensive, so yeah, the best of all worlds–

Heh.

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As a reward for doing the writing I needed to do today K’s making me BBQ chicken and she bought me Cheetos. Yeah, even I wish I had my life.