So yes, I’ve moved to another look and feel. I rather like this one. I was able to implement this really cool album art “recently listened to” thing. It’s a beta version, so it doesn’t have the option to grab the most listened to for the current week, but I’m pretty sure he will update it. For the geeks in the crowd, it built entirely with jQuery, an extensible javascript library. (mouse over it for a cool effect)
I got a ton done today. I went to sleep early at about midnight, then got up and packed a bunch of boxes of books. I ran out of tape, so I headed down to the store. I also hit the grocery store and on a lark got some goat milk. I had some cereal with it this afternoon and don’t feel ill, so that’s pretty cool. I can finally make recipes that call for milk without the odd things that sometimes happen when I substitute soymilk.
I talked a lot with Amanda today about what it means to be honest on our blogs. Unfortunately, the consensus seems to be that people can’t handle unadulterated truth.
Of course, that got me started on how my favorite blogger stopped writing. I mean, I’m happy for him… but the reasons that he gave for stopping were stupid. Even if you just post a few pictures and say what you did during the week, it’s better than completely shuttering your blog and hiding your archives.
I haven’t heard from Andrew since Tuesday… the bulletproof excuse of dropping his phone in a glass of water in my presence is wearing thin. It’s just the same old pattern.
My Friday was a really good day for some odd reason… probably because I volunteered to redesign the web site for my company’s other magazine. Had dinner at Crepeville, got some coffee at Peet’s and dug into The Myth of Sisyphus. It’s didactic and difficult to read. I wished I had one of my other novels to alternate between.
It’s kind of depressing to look at my new archives page. The month I had the most posts was December 2003 (gee, I wonder why) and I averaged about 30, now I’m lucky if I get in 10-15 posts per month. I guess I just don’t have as strong feelings as I once did…or perhaps it has more to do with my flaky-as-hell voice-recognition that barely ever works now (I’m typing 50% or more of this post).
When I get paid on Thursday, I’m buying a state-of-the-art super-noise-canceling headset. The shitty thing about most headsets are that they aren’t stereo. I don’t care if I have to duct tape normal headphones onto it, I’m getting a headset that works.
I refuse to dwindle away to a few posts a month. Not writing is death.
That’s what this redesign is about.
On Friday, Christen and I took our trip to San Francisco. I was sick of the people I knew and wanted a beautiful, surreal journey. I wasn’t disappointed.
Ocean Beach.
Adelaide Hostel.
Off to the Haight.
Who builds seagull ponds?
It was a beautiful trip. I can’t find my voice recognition headset, so this is going to be short and sweet.
Christen and I shopped for vintage clothes at the Haight, got some pizza, went to the Botanical Gardens, then she went home. I met Mario and we went to the Museum of Modern Art, which had some really inspiring exhibits. We went to a few bookstores; I picked up The Myth of Sisyphus, and a copy of some of Sartre’s plays in French.
We ended up meeting this really cool friend of Mario’s who took us to this cliche bar in the Castro, where I got drunk and watched naked guys dance lasciviously on stage. I don’t remember much from that night, other than this guy’s well-toned ass illuminated in ruddy spotlights.
An overcooked waffle at 2 a.m. at the Bagdad Cafe, then back to Mario’s friend’s apartment. I slept on the friend’s couch, then Mario and I went back to Sacramento (this was Sunday).
I saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona at the Crest with Taggart, then we went to this fashion show Megan and Steve were involved with (which was actually pretty cool). All of the no-name Sacramento “artists” were there: Amy Hemmons, Joey Vasquez, Shaun Slaughter, et al.
Went to Lipstick on Tuesday with Taggart and Mario, got fucked up and rocked out.
Spent new year’s with my aunt Kathy and her boyfriend, we had a Law & Order marathon watching it on Netflix Instant View.
My credit card is paid down to $170. I’ll have money to move by the end of this month, if everything goes well. I probably won’t move out, I’ll probably just spend every weekend in San Francisco.
I was feeling a lot of anxiety about my new post-community-college life, but I realize it now. I need to die and be reborn into my new life of the city.
I know I’m going to repeat this same script in a new city, but that’s okay. Future Shock is giving me a very interesting perspective on the universe of the future. I think I’m going to go over to Christen’s and read it some more (I loaned it to her).
I’ve been listening to a lot of Catherine Wheel…their first album came out in 1991. I can’t believe that’s 18 years ago.
I wish Ghostland Observatory or New Young Pony Club would tour. Turns out I missed the Ulrich Schauss tour by about three months, and he probably won’t come back for a long time. And of course, when I have money, there are never any good shows. But that’s okay, most of that credit card I’m paying off are great shows that happened when I was poor.
http://www.vimeo.com/2634754
Woke up to the sound of Grammie screaming about who-knows-what for hours upon hours. At about four, the real part of my family finally showed up.
Kathleen, Kelly, and I had to make an alcohol run to get through the holiday. Kelly got wine, I got champagne. We sat at the dinner table, both of our bottles of wine conspicuously in front of us. We drank our way through the holiday…it’s really the only way to get out of there with a shred of your dignity intact.
We had an in joke about wanting there to be a bell that would ding to tell us when we’d ruined Christmas (like my grandma always says weeks later, no matter how well it goes). In the video you can hear Kelly make the ding and then we all laugh.
While Kelly and I were driving to Kathleen’s we talked about what a coup it was. To just be able to turn off our feelings like my grandma and my dad have done all their lives. We realized we’d been wanting something like this the whole time…eating until we felt sick had been but a primitive attempt to have the kind of Christmas we had.
I haven’t bought anyone presents. I didn’t even get my mom anything. I did get something for Christen, but that’s it.
I brought my computer over to Kathy’s house and we watched my converted VHS home movies for hours, the child versions of Kelly and I playing in the pool, roller skating, playing our adorably stupid little games. Watching Christmas after Christmas go by on the screen. House after house, a few of the people in the videos dead already, was a little too prophetic.
Needless to say, I’ve been listening to a lot of Slowdive and Nails. I want to crawl inside Souvlaki and disappear.
If there ever was a song to play at my funeral, it would be Blue Skied N Clear
Tonight, an unexpectedly candid text from someone I have a lot of buried feelings for turns everything upside-down and breaks down my defense mechanisms.
I’ve wasted so much time.
the world is gone
but we can hold on.
Jean Seberg is only famous because of Godard.
A Strangely Isolated Place is an okay work of shoegaze.
Couldn’t motivate myself to download porn, I ended up searching the forums for people who live in Sacramento, this one guy wrote a pretty depressing summation of the “scene” here.
Watched the first few episodes of Enterprise…I’d put off watching it for ages but the new Star Trek movie will probably reference it in some way, and I need some escapism in my life now more than ever.
When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed.
I feel like I don’t know what I want out of life, but that feeling springs from my chaotic living situation. Perhaps I should move in with Megan and Steve. I can’t scrounge a deposit right now.
Called Taylor on my lunch break, but in the hubbub at the clinic forgot to call him back. I probably do have scabies, they’re probably burrowing under my skin and laying eggs right now. This must be kind of what it feels like to have HIV. To know that there’s something running through your veins that isn’t you.
Our washing machine is broken (due to my grandma), so I haven’t been able to wash clothes. Good thing I have drawer after drawer of clothes I never wear any more.
One thing that really surprised me (I learned this a few months ago) is that Mario never got into Nine Inch Nails. From the onset I suspected the reason: he’s never had anything but rich white girl problems. He gets mad after breakups because they thwart his social climbing. He likes Hector better than me because Hector is a mindless, pretty shell that he can project his insecurities on.
I’m reevaluating my decision to talk to Michael (Zero) at this time. I’ve never known someone (other than Adrian) so completely unable to grow up.
As my great-grandmother always said, Meglio sola che male accompagnata: it’s better to be alone than in bad company.
Ah, 2:00 a.m. again. I had missed you.
I’m listening to The Fragile to get a handle on things. You can tell you’re in a bad stretch when it makes more sense to you the more you listen. This used to be my mantra.
so impressed with all you do
tried so hard to be like you
flew too high and burnt the wing
lost my faith in everything
I guess, back in the day, that line was about Taggart. I’ve been talking to him off and on, still. I guess it boils down to:
I don’t know why he wants to sleep with me.
I don’t know if I want to sleep with him.
I wanted to get to this nonchalant state where we could just fuck, but I just can’t…there’s too much baggage. I’m not hung up on him, but I can’t look at that face and not remember pining away for him for years. I literally had to give everything that reminded me of him to Josh when he was living in Crescent City.
Still, right now, I just can’t suborn his life. In my mind, I write him off as a wannabe hipster. Which, despite his protests (this is the first sign of wanting to be a hipster, denying one is one), he is consciously or unconsciously desperately trying to be. The moped gang, the “bike polo,” the lack of bathing, the tight pants, the skating…need I go on? He protests that he’s “only been to four clubs.” What does that have to do with anything? So I’m left with:
a) he’s too permastoned to understand what a hipster actually is
b) he’s playing games
They aren’t mutually exclusive, however. I feel simultaneously like I’ve been fucking him over (wanting to hang out and then realizing I have homework), and that he’s been fucking me over by playing games. I just can’t sustain a conversation with him…just like I can’t talk to Drew for more than five minutes unless it’s about films. Terry and I would just argue incessantly, but at least we’d be talking. I can’t talk to Taggart, so I brand him a douche in my mind. I can’t decide whether to let down my guard and let old feelings take over, or what. I really don’t want to have sex with him, I want to cuddle and watch movies and relive everything I felt when I was 17.
But I’m not seventeen any more. I flew too high, I guess.
Okay, this may sound kind of insane, but I’ve long considered becoming a eunuch, to attempt to discover the essential nature of existence without the complicated distractions sex brings to the table. The conclusion I’ve always come to, however, is that life wouldn’t be worth living without sex. Which is kind of depressing. I mean, I do want to have kids someday, but beside that, it seems like there should be more to life than just working some job for the rest of your life.
Sometimes I want to be a monk, but I couldn’t give up my luxuries. I have this fantasy of becoming an organic farmer in New York State with my mom and telecommuting to a web design job.
I was having such a shitty day today (with the exception of my time spent at work), I tried to brainstorm on my way home what brings me joy. I used to know. I had this specific set of things I used to have fun doing that I can’t do any more since True Love has closed. It was my favorite time to pop over there, have a hot chocolate, surf the web a bit, and unwind from work. I liked driving around with Christen singing the Dresden Dolls, I miss a lot of things. Having all my friends be 21 was supposed to be this endless land of excitement, but what it ends up being is me feeling like a lonely drunk.
Which is what keeps bars open, I guess. I’m sick of embarrassing myself when I get fucked up. But the alternative is worse. Last week, when I went out drinking with Mario, I didn’t get buzzed for a moment. It made the night where I puked out of his car window seem fun. I can see why people develop drug addictions and fall out of society.
I survive by turning off my emotions. And I don’t think Andrew cares enough about me as a person to endure my baggage. I don’t think he should be required to, since I’m not a straight girl, but I don’t get why he talks to me at all. I felt so giddy when we went on dates…ecstatic as a 12-year-old when we snuggled when we saw Iron Man. But the magic is gone, and I killed it. We kissed, I freaked out, and didn’t talk to him for a few months.
I don’t know why I’m on this old record, but I thought I’d set it straight. I used to be so obsessed with guys when I was a teenager. I meet guys now that I would have obsessed over endlessly as a 17-year-old, but I don’t understand how to date people without that kind of quixotic attraction that nobody my age feels any more.
I used to feel like I was missing this chunk of myself and I was lonely and needed someone, now I feel like I need a running mate for a political campaign.
The world is gone, but we can hold on.
