Finders, Keepers.

I sometimes liken myself to that character Christopher Walken played in The Dead Zone, except that I get jarred by the clutches of sudden flashes of nostalgia -- which are not nearly as useful for gambling purposes. I was looking for something, and I found an old cassette tape of pre-show and intermission music from an improv and sketch comedy show I was in back around this time of year in 1998. It's the real reason I own a First Contact-era Star Trek engineering tunic. Honest.

They weren't the most glorious days, but they weren't the most awful. I was on my way to many things. And happy to applaud the exploits of the ones I loved. That was the year my family's house burned down. The year I spent the 4th of July in Lake Tahoe. The year I determined to finish my degree. The year I got audited by the IRS. The year I sprained my ankle stepping off a curb. The year I saw all three Indiana Jones movies in one day on the big screen (with a freshly sprained ankle). The year I moved into the apartment I never really liked. The year I got the smallest raise in the history of my career. I lost a friendship that year. And gained one. I struggled with a lot, but came out on top. That improv and sketch comedy show wasn't the best thing I ever did, but it wasn't the worst. And I worked hard at it. And did a lot of laser-printing for it. And painting. And folding. And got to wear a First Contact-era Star Trek engineering tunic. On stage.

That's what flashed into my consciousness when I found that cassette tape. If I had actually played it, I'm sure there would be more nostalgic carnage to wade through. After all, who doesn't have a huge nostalgic connection to The Popcorn Song?

When I remember 1998, the whole year is like October. I wonder why that is.

P.S. When my eyes are extra tired, I look like a Kennedy-era Asian starlet. I wonder if that's a bad thing.

"Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown? Jolly old town!"

I always marvel at how little actually happens in retrospect. When I've just come home from what seems like the capper to a full day, I take stock and scowl over the fact that I got so little done. Today, I actually placed tick marks next to quite a few list items. Including get a haircut, edit a holiday catalog, tidy up, have a few slingchis, and cruise around in an almost embarrassingly decadent SUV. I can even claim the icing of having made a minor fool of myself at the salon when I came out of the changing room wearing someone else's blouse instead of the provided smock. And all on three hours of sleep. An accomplishment extravaganza for some, to be sure. And yet, there's something still churning in me. A desire to do more. A near refusal to give in to sleep until I am spent from mastery and bleary-eyed from genius.

But who am I kidding.

Life could not better be. No sirrah sirrah sirree.

Penguins cry ice cube tears.

Too hot. Too cold. I'm mired in the extremes. So tired I know I won't sleep. Hungry but unmotivated by it. The weeks speed by and plod on endlessly. I can't seem to set my watch properly. I don't wear a watch, but that was a metaphor.

And there's never a shortage of ill-mannered neighbors who have no sense of what time it is.

Agendafication

Today, I will deliver sound editorial advice, fine corporate entertainment, and courteous motorist behavior. I'm getting an early start. For a moment, I thought I heard a schoolbus laboring up the hill, and I was charmed. But it turned out to be a big flatbed trailer towing a backhoe. I think the kids are already in class. Which goes to show how late my version of early has become. Allergic, I'm off to complete the task of getting dressed.

Lady Lazarus

My friends make lovely promises and reassurances to me. The sort of thing a hopeful girl can cling to. I have been a stalwart encourager for most of my years. It's a gift to be on the receiving end of it every now and then.

Everything will return to glorious technicolor, breath-taking cinemascope, and stereophonic sound.

Cartoon Rewards

It's already been a 17 hour day for me. A big, fat, full, productive day. I get in this habit of wanting to break records, though. I'm quite tired, but I catch myself wondering if I should just try and stay up and do more. It's not like it will kill me.

Bugs Bunny at the bull fights reminds me that I love Bugs Bunny all over the place. And I love how the Looney Tunes make use of great works of classical music in their scores. Ravel's Bolero and Rossini's Il Barbieri di Seviglia create pictures in my head that I'm sure the composers never intended. Carl Stalling is my hero.

I am comforted by the consistency of Bugs Bunny always winning. You never see Bugs changing jobs or considering going on anti-depressants or worrying about paying his rent. That dude never breaks a sweat. I like that. Oh, sure, occasionally you catch him in drag, but it's only for the sake of putting one over on Elmer or Daffy or Yosemite Sam. He's not REALLY confused in that way.

I just had this thought: "Who cares what I think?"

Transference

It's entirely possible that I have been watching too much of programs like Six Feet Under -- programs that give the imagination license to believe that the negotiations that execute themselves in one's mind might actually take on some theatrically obvious form. Metaphor turns into masquerade. The tangible is no longer significant. My mind is anxious to be given license to pretend that such things can be.

I was haunted by a ghost, today. A specter. A person I could see standing there just as clearly as I could see that no one was standing there. And I carried on conversations with my vision. Just like your average crazy person or abuser of hallucinogens.

It got me nowhere. Or only as far as those one-sided discussions I have when I'm driving or standing in front of a mirror ever get me. Which is to say that it got me to a place where I had to ask myself if normal people do this. I do give the appearance of talking to myself a lot -- if anyone's watching. But I'm usually actually talking to someone. It's just someone who isn't there to hear what I have to say. And sometimes I get enough catharsis from just saying what I would without ever having to have my words heard. It's the utterance that works for me. While it also protects me from confrontation and the unavoidable disappointment of interruption that is the cornerstone of actual discourse.

If only I could ever get my thoughts to run as clear as they seem when I'm about to say what I'm about to say. Instead, I plan and purge and hope for profound ideas to show themselves, only to find that I'm addressing everyone from the center of a giant muffling cottonball. And whether they can understand me clearly or not, the truth is there are people I talk to who don't really want to hear what I'm saying in the first place.

I grow weary of postcard people and lunch menu friendships and storybook princes and comic book lovers. Particularly when the nametags get shuffled around and I can't tell who's who.

Drawing Out

Six Feet Under works on my emotions in much the same way that those Bioré pore strips are supposed to work on blackheads.

Advance the Shears!

Everyone is getting haircuts. It's making me want to be a copycat. I haven't had a proper haircut for so long. And I'm tired of sitting on my hairstyle. That seems like overkill. And I mean that quite literally. My hair is long enough to be sat upon.

I remember when I cut my hair from extra long to extra short one summer before starting at a new school (one where I had to wear a snappy little Catholic schoolgirl uniform, no less), and I had collected this heap of fashion mag clippings. Mostly of Isabella Rossellini. And this blonde model named Deirdre something who used to do the ads for Free Hold mousse before they made it smell bad. I wanted my hair short short short. And I got it. And everything in-between.

I think I'm done with being attached to record-setting and superlative-gathering. Welcome to the age of self-reinvention...

Road Rage Reprise

Today, driving south on the 405, I was forced to plod through another bout of ultra-slow traffic. At some point, I realized that the slowing was being caused by a mass of people heading to the Verizon Amphitheater to see Jimmy Buffett. Jimmy Buffett. Jimmy Buffett? Who's going to see Jimmy Buffett? I mean really.

Unlike my experience earlier this week, I wasn't feeling so benevolent about the well-being of the people involved. I distinctly heard myself think, "Jimmy Buffett had better be dead at the front of all of this."

Once the speed picked up again, I passed a man driving an old, brown sedan with no driver's side door on it at all. The driver was jolly, wearing fireman-like yellow coveralls and a red cable-knit sweater. He was smiling the way you would on a parade float. As if he knew that many eyes were on him. And I imagine he was right.

Wonders will never cease. Officially.

Someone wrote a song for me. I'm tickled pink.

The lyrics even have my name in them. Surname and all. I'm laughing inside and out.

"Take it from me; I love you."

I feel as if today was a series of days. Starting with the expectation of early morning things that were rattling in my brain before I even drifted off to sleep last night, with some vintage George Carlin playing on the Home Box Office. And then each two-hour increment seemed like a day of its own. Like the prime time television version of an actual day. I am never as prone to lose track of time as when I have complete freedom to piss it away. That's when the hours start to blur together. And suddenly it's the next day. Or the weekend. And suddenly it's hard to remember how long it's been since the last time you asked yourself how long it's been.

It's a good thing the earth isn't flat. Otherwise I might find myself driving right off the end of it while waiting for the idiots at Cingular to come through with my driving directions. It would take less time for me to whittle a sextant and homemade satellite locator out of the petrified french fries under the seats in my car and divine my course with those crude instruments than it takes for the man-chimp on the other end of the phone to type in my destination and figure out how to get me there. And by the time he tells me where to make my next turn, I've long since passed that turn and the cycle begins again. At times, I hear so much rustling paper and whimpering frustration through the hands-free earpiece that I picture the guy unfolding a paper map of California and hoping that Wilshire Boulevard is big enough to show up on the state scale. And then in the next go round, I can almost hear him shaving the head of a nearby co-worker, hoping to find the answers to my navigation queries tattooed on his scalp. By the third attempt, I think he was actually praying. But the god of turn-by-turn driving directions must have been busy being roasted at the Friars Club. And you can't really blame him. I'd turn my back on the lost, too, if I had a chance to hear Alan King make vulgar remarks about my mother. And what about Jeffrey Ross? That guy rocks the roast. I hope I can book him to do a few minutes at my funeral. No one in attendance will appreciate it, but that's the beauty of it, really.

"I long for the days they used to say, 'Ma'am,' and , 'Yes, sir.'"

I have been feeling this incredible burst of musical creativity. Creativity. It's weird to think of that. I always used to see my violin as an implement for interpreting. But never creating. All of a sudden, I am making things entirely new and feeling a kind of confidence and enthusiasm and curiosity that is sort of heavenish. I am playing with more confidence and a sense of belonging. And I like it. I also have marvelous acoustics in my apartment. That makes it all the more difficult to resist the urge to play all the time. Even if it's just a way of getting back at my upstairs neighbors for putting golfballs around on the wood floors in the wee hours.

Sometimes I worry that I am just going through the motions. I didn't indulge myself too shamelessly today. I made sacrifices. I fulfilled the wants of others. I juggled. Like I do. But I have also not yet found that balance between getting everything you want and giving everything you can. It's always a bit confusing for me because what I want most of the time is to be giving more. And that spoils the whole equation.

I still wish I was a ballroom dancer. I'm sure I'll always wish that.

The highway is a place of mystery.

I was stuck in gut-wrenching, toe-curling, groan-invoking traffic today. It took me forty minutes to go less than a mile. While I was mostly sitting still in my lane, there was a big trailer truck to the right of me, and I was taking note of how low the trailer was. Those trucks are nowhere near high enough off the ground to permit things like that scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, where the Griswolds' station wagon ends up lodged beneath one on the way to the Christmas tree farm, to ever happen in real life. When I got to the site of the delaying incident, I saw a dark red passenger car wedged under the trailer of a very similar truck, all scrunched and facing diagonally and mostly in the wrong direction. It looked as if it had been kicked in there by the foot of god. The scene was a mess, but I distinctly found myself hoping that no one had died. Under normal circumstances, when subjected to such a monstrous delay, I have been known to think that someone had better be dead up at the front of all of this. This had better not be the result of a boxful of kittens getting loose in the slow lanes and paralyzing drivers with their cuteness. There had better be bloodshed when I get up there. But today, I didn't feel that way at all. I hoped no one died on the 405 today. It was a pretty day. The sun was warm on my jeans. I had the company of good music and no great rush to be anywhere immediately. I invited other motorists to merge in in front of me. I was grateful when other motorists allowed the same with me. It was a good-natured hullaballoo, and I was fine with it.

And once I was through it, the road was clear nearly all the way home. I went flying along the mostly empty lanes, sort of wishing I was in a convertible with a long scarf tied in my hair and big 1960s sunglasses on my face. But then I remembered the story of Isadora Duncan and how much I hate how grimy my skin feels when I've been driving in a convertible and I was content to blast the air conditioning and the music and speed for home.

He's still my president.

I was mesmerized by Bill Clinton on C-SPAN this morning, addressing the British Labour Party Conference in Blackpool. He is a sight for sore eyes. Eyes sore from looking at George W. Bush behind a podium that sports the Presidental Seal, to be candid. Bill Clinton is such an easy and engaging speaker. Just a big chunk of charisma and clever, articulate wisdom. He is casual and charming. Astute and affable. Both serious and humorous. He is tough on the current administration. And quick to point out their attempts to dismantle the accomplishments of his administration. He is ironic without being snide. Self-congratulatory without being snarky. I don't care what anyone says: Bill Clinton is leadership material. And he speaks my mind. And he speaks it without stumbling or bumbling or having other people say it for him. He is, off the cuff, a more dynamic figure than his successor could be with the help of CGI mastering. I liked my life better when he was president.

I look at him now -- his hair gone completely white and a little extra puffiness showing up beneath his eyes -- and I feel as if we have been through a great deal together. It's comforting.

Tony Blair, on the other hand, is beginning to look like Nosferatu. I cast no aspersions on his policy-making, but he's going positively elven as the years track on. All the same, I'm on the side of the ones who are right. Just like we all say we are.

Dark and Dastardly

I love the rain. Even when I've just washed my car. Even when I have to go out in it. Even when I have to go out in it and am wearing suede. Even when it's hot rain. Even when it's icy rain. I love it when the air is filled with it. It's akin to being a fish. Being in the water and still able to breathe. It causes you to squint and tuck in and fold your arms and hurry. I especially like the hurrying part. It causes you to notice the windowpanes. It makes the wind sound melodic. It makes soup taste better. It gives you an excuse to curl up under a blanket. It smells like cherries when it's cold. Like the inside of a closet when it's hot. It tastes like nothing. It spoils mascara and ruins hairdos. It causes tires to kick up a fizzy-sounding wake.

And it washes it all away.

And then it's gone. Like a good Samaritan.

I am cold and tingly. I can hear crickets. I imagine they are longing for the rain, too.

Girls with guitars. Well, stringed instruments, anyway.

I was in the middle of a phone interview when my tire blew out on the freeway today. Harrowing. Remembering some advice from a friend who is a fireman and paramedic, I decided to improve my chances of survival, sacrifice my rim, and ride the shredded rubber off the freeway, where I changed my tire mostly by myself and got my hands very dirty. When I got back into the car, I saw my reflection in the rearview mirror. I had a big smudge of black on my nose. It was sort of endearing. The obvious touch -- like putting cake flour on your face to make it look like you've been cooking. The costume version of enduring trauma. The cartoon post-brawl blemish that is interpreted as crosshatching on the cheek. (Since when does a landed punch result in a pound sign?) If I wasn't so averse to having roadfilth on my face, I might have left it there for fun. A two-hour drive turned into a five-hour event. But it didn't seem to affect my playing. I waited until I'd left the diminutive stage to reward myself with a Boddington's. Shakespeare's has a giant yellow barrel with the Boddington's logo painted on it. I want that barrel. In my apartment. Now.

Lots of friends came to see me play tonight, but most of them missed the actual set. Still, it was nice to receive squeezy hugs through warm sweaters and laugh and drink gift cocktails. As much as I question everything, I'm beginning to see the distinction between aimlessness and aiming for many, many targets.

It's a good thing I wore black today.

Hide and Seek. Lost and Found.

I had to go back the next day, because I left my credit card at the bar. The two best mojitos ever made me forget. Simple syrup is the secret, and it always has been.

Some people don't realize that La Marseillaise has words. Those people should be fired out of a cannon.

Return of the Back

Back pain, that is. I'm beginning to wonder if I have an Indian growing in my spine. Well, it's actually a little to the left of the spine. But it could still be an Indian. Are you even allowed to say that anymore? Would it be any less inflammatory to say I think I have a Native American growing in my spine? Political correctness is a topic I can't quite grasp. Well, won't, really. But you have to admit that those two words are almost exactly alike.

Ooh, coming in from outside I just got a nice big noseful of that scent I have waited for. People are using their fireplaces. And it's chilly out. And it rained today. It's perfect and delicious. The sort of weather that seduces you -- gets you to shimmy into a sweater and put on cashmere socks. When it's cool out and the wind is blowing, my nose tingles and my cheeks turn pink and I get those windy tears in my eyes. It's like standing at that viewing station beside the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm ready to surrender my dime.

October is the perfect month, if you ask me. It's badass. That's why you never see anyone dressed up as September or November for Halloween. Or even March for that matter. You wouldn't want to pick a fight with October. October will eat you for lunch and forget you while it watches the dixieland funeral parade scene from Live and Let Die. Don't ask me where I'm going with this. I have no idea. I'm actually a May girl, myself. So October can kiss it for all I care. And yet, I love this time of year. It reminds me of all the previous Octobers. So many of them were filled with smiles and promise and comfortable familiarity. It's excellent to make something new when everything around you is dying.

Speaking of dying, I was up nearly extra late last night and decided to watch Life as a House. Movies about dying make me wonder what it will be like when I die. If I will know in advance so I can go around telling everyone and seeing how they react. If I will be missed or mourned. If old friends will drop by and try and patch up ancient rifts. If the medical community will race to find a way to preserve me. Or if everyone will just start clambering for my cool belongings. Or if everyone will make fun of everything I own. Or if people will read my diaries or look at my pictures or wonder what might have happened if I had managed to keep the flame alive for just a wee bit longer. Or if people will just say I never managed to be quite thin enough.

In addition, movies with Kristin Scott-Thomas in them make me wonder if I am ugly and unrefined. Except Mission Impossible. That's not her best work.

And since I'm on a small roll, I will add that sleep comes more easily for me when I'm racing for it. I don't know if I know what that means. But I know that I sleep less when I have the freedom to sleep more. And I don't know what to do with myself as a result. But sometimes there is product for my ravings, and that makes up for some of the clumsiness. I wonder what the earthworms are up to.

Déjà

I don't feel good. It's not unfamiliar.

Improper Gifts

Fortunately, I will never be forced to secede from a senate race because of the gifts I have accepted. I can feel free to receive painstakingly made CDs and songs written just for me and the occasional piece of digital art and poems and compliments and free drinks at bars one would never expect to allow such things and gourmet comestibles for sharing with my father. And no one in the Pork Lobby need bat an eyelash. I am still quite supportive of pork. Even if those guys never buy me anything.

I give out plenty of gifts of my own. And they have little to no effect on the laws of the land. Me and my impotent, ineffectual gift ideas.

The Mystery of a Child's Desires

I'm curious what child begged his mother for just one more spin on the mechanical turkey...

Saturday night is placenta night. Ladies get in free.

Occasionally, I am someone I can admire. From time to time, I come through. The satisfaction in that is worth a thousand nights of wishing I had just not bothered.

It tastes like Halloween.

"Do I Not Bleed?"

It seems at times that I am a magnet for cruel little sharp objects that tear at me and draw blood. I attract them. So much so that it seems unfair that my indignance should eventually turn warlike. There is much that can be endured. But there is no reason for it. I tire of enduring. For the love of a balanced diet, give me a break.

When they come from anything but laughter or movie magic, tears are wasted.

Cranberry World

New music. A new soundtrack for my little life. Nightmares. Lots of them. Dizzy with the heat. Startled by the cold. Facing great changes. And decisions. Who is this responsible girl who never had time not to be? To come home. To come down. To come off it all. I could make a religion of all this business.

It's good to clean things out every once in a while. You'd be amazed the things you find.

"But your lips when we speak are the valleys and peaks of a mountain range on fire."

With a bit of fog in the sky, all the lights above the highway looked as if they were floating -- suspended and disconnected in a way that made me wish my car could fly. Or at least hover. It would have been nice to put some distance between me and the ground. I would have skipped along beside those lights and taken notice of the fact that I preferred the yellows to the greens.

"You must be using potions. How else could you tie my head to the sky?"

Coming over the top of a hill, trees and lampposts and other structures interrupted the light from the headlights of a car in the drive-through. It might as well have been a scene from X-Files as a scene from suburbia, replete with late-night fast food options. I preferred pretending it was what it wasn't.

"Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth."

Am I coming home or leaving it? I never can tell.

"I'm looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find."

I have always been something of an outsider. Welcome but in polite fashion. And I often wondered if it was something in me that fabricated the distance. Or if it was just that I was looking for closeness that could not be cultivated in the fields at my feet. I have looked for closeness and found something like it. Is it possible for one person to be close and the other to be far away? It seems as if it couldn't be managed, and yet it makes perfect sense to me. The tingly touch of a genuine kindness is likely to seem like less in the aftermath. I wonder if anything I am looking for is real. If anything I believe in deserves it. If I am anything I think I am. And I chastise myself for the waste of time of it all. The wondering doesn't put food on the table. If only I could sell my fears.

"I recall the sunshine as you were melting."

I immerse myself in the genius of others. And something vicarious takes place. The words are precious to me. But I can't tell if I am pretending to say them or pretending to hear them. It's pivotal to know the difference.

"I'm through with riddles. I know we're little. Just help me feel warm inside."

I have grown dizzy with turning points. Changing my direction so many times over that I can't tell how many times I've been facing in the same direction. I trek forward with the guidance of stars that never keep their place. And sometimes it's misty out. In the dark, I feel myself swelling. In the absence of the scrutiny of truth, I can surpass myself and never know that illusions are nocturnal creatures.

"And though the comedy softens the fall, we still fall short."

I don't know how to sit still. I don't know how I've managed to do it for so long. It was involuntary. I am a bullet with blurred edges. But I would compromise my trajectory for a warm, cushioned spot where sitting still makes perfect sense. Instead, I am antsy. Itchy with goosebumps. Aware of the cold of autumn and all that comes with the dying of the leaves. The only way to thrive when winter is on the landing is to know where you keep that bit of summer you always carry with you. That's why it's smart not to change handbags too often.

"Oh, what on earth would make a man decide to do that kind of thing?"

I always liked the idea of going somewhere. It gives you a reason to sharpen your senses. You have to make lists and remember not to forget things. You have to think ahead and plan for the unexpected. You have to consider the impossible. And sometimes, you get to carry your important documents around in a phony leather billfold with disclaimers printed on the inside. That's a nice touch.

"Did it just seem like a good idea at the time?"

You get lots of free things when you travel. That's nice, too. I used to keep all those free, miniaturized, logo-branded things. For a rainy day, you know. And I used to expect that getting there would be all of the fun. No contest. Simultaneously, I always struggled with motion sickness, and travel was often a misery. My mom would have to try and sneak Dramamine into my food because the pills were so bitter, I couldn't swallow them. (Note: They're just as bitter when you hide them in the middle of a hot dog.)

"Won't the folks back home be jealous?"

But that's the peculiar part of it. Travel often caused me suffering, but I had a very short memory for it. And no amount of sickness or misery ever prevented me from wanting to go again. Children are like that. Some grown-ups, too. They can find a reason to laugh when the tears are still wet on their cheeks. Pain passes into history like ice cubes dissolving in milk. Doctors count on it. When they give a child a shot, they assure them it will only hurt for a moment. And it's not as if those children come back and hunt the doctor down in their adulthood so they can whack him on the arm with a piece of wood just to show him how it feels. They forget. He is right when he tells them it'll be over before they know it. That's how we're made.

Time to hit the trail.

Sapporo Delights

The Japanese continue to thrill me with their confections and libations and packaging genius. Tonight, I drank something called Gabunomi Fruits Milk whose label reads "Apple+Orange+Pineapple&Milk" with an accompanying visual equation. It's a cute image, although the pineapple shouldn't be the same size as the apple and the orange. That's what you get when you live in a country where fresh fruit costs so much that you can only see it in books and museums and educational filmstrips. Similarly, I have no idea how to draw diamonds, gold nuggets, or crude oil.

Such is the life I lead now. Thrilled by bizarre ingestibles. Laboring long into the night. Wondering what's on television at this hour. Noticing that it's getting colder by the day. Fearing my eventual descent into the abyss. Soon, I'll be a vampire for sure. A vampire who quenches her bloodlust with fruity milk drinks and has freckles on her nose, but a vampire nonetheless.

When I was driving back from Burbank, I realized I was not in a hurry. It was a nice feeling. No number of iterations of the green light on which I could never turn left could dissuade me from my complacency. Today, I was patience incarnate.

"It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing."

Wishes are for silly girls and hapless romantics. I will never have anything by merely wishing for it. I know that.

I remember how I used to write song lyrics in my journal in high school. I wanted so much to be writing, but it was just moving of the pen. I couldn't find words of my own. Instead, I found the right words in other people's mouths and usurped them. I remember that one year as a time when I lost the ability to say anything original.

Murder and Mayhem in a Traveling Circus

Murder and mayhem in a traveling circus. Spiny carnival lettering. Even the bearded lady is so beautiful she sparkles. It's all green and glittery, like a lovely lizard lady. It's not such a great distance between a pretty girl and a freak.

Gingerbread Houses

I see the world all icing-colored and candy-coated. It's a pretty, storybook place where dresses never get dirty and endings are always happy.

Facts About Me

I don't like shorthand.
I don't abbreviate.
I try to take the long way home.

It's in the genes.

Yesterday, in the news, there was a story about a Chinese restaurant owner who was arrested after poisoning the water supply of a rival restaurant with arsenic in a fit of jealous rage.

"That's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise."

A few weeks ago, I was experiencing premature anxiety about how everything would fit into this weekend. But then the landscape changed. Everything flattened out a bit, and voilà! -- there was room for it all. I can still lay fair claim to a somewhat threadbare feeling in the aftermath. But there was so much in each day that I was challenged to keep track. And, for me, that's really saying something.

There is so much in each day. In many ways, it's just like old times. I can't mark the exact moment, but I have a memory of slowing down to enable speeding up. It's like handling a sharp turn. I prefer to keep the wheels from squealing. I prefer to harness momentum and keep inertia in check. I was a physics major once upon a time.

There is so much in these days. There's no time for second-guessing or hesitation or fear. No. Fear is a luxury. I'm trying to reign in my spending.

I've got a lot on my plate. And I've got a plate as big as China. You do the math.

P.S. I love it when new pants fit!

P.P.S. I don't love it when new t-shirts smell as if they have been stored in an airtight room with an open bottle of Elmer's Glue.

Remembrance is mine.

I don't know what today will mean or what it will hold. I know it causes some hearkening back. I know the memories flood in even more acutely than when I'm just having my normal flood of acute memories. I know that -- more than anything -- I am examining the significance of the year that has gone by. Not just the day that was.

I remember what I wore. I remember where I went. I remember what I ate. I remember each hour passing.

But that's no different than nearly any other day. I have a memory rivaled only by trained professionals and crazy people. I have the sort of memory that makes one wish it was easier to forget.

When we are strange.

Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of myself, and I am struck: Is this what I really look like? Is that really me? Sometimes it's a face I can't quite remember. The edges are different. The bones protrude a bit more. The expression is a bit more arch. The jaw is set more sternly. Or more softly. Sometimes I'm not sure I know what I used to look like. Or what I look like today. Sometimes everything seems altogether unfamiliar.

Hello, Retrospection.

So ends my first summer in Los Angeles. One arm slightly tanner than the other. My hair lighter than it's ever been. A heap of pictures and mementos and credit card receipts and the sort of garbage I am reluctant to throw away. Memories were made.

From here on out, I predict a cooling trend. Soon, I'll be using my fireplace again. I welcome that. And I'll be throwing an extra blanket on the bed and wearing my cozy, leopard-print slippers around the house. Soon I'll be keeping candles burning and wishing I had soup. And then it will be summer again.

Days go passing into years. Years go passing day by day.

Full Lips. Wide Hips. Tall Ships.

There was a picture in my head. A great port with a drift of haze looming over dark blue waters, tipped in chalky foam. Billowing sails on staggered masts. A web of rope and iron. They sailed for the docks in fleet formation. The men on deck shouted to one another, but no voices could be heard. A girl standing on the harbor, feet wide apart, hands thrust in pockets, shoulders turned just so, into the chilling wind, with hair blowing and eyes slitted -- was it me? It was.

There are places I go in cold medicine-induced slumber that I may never see.

Watching the Wheels

I drove a lot today. It was beautiful out. Balmy and beautiful and inviting. I sometimes forget how cool it gets when you're right on the ocean. I was driving southward, and I thought for a moment that I might have gone further than I intended and that I might suddenly find myself a great distance out of my way. But I also realized that I didn't mind. There was no urgency. I might actually have just been driving for the sake of it. Which is something I seldom do anymore. Years ago, I used to volunteer to take the movies back or run to the store for eggs or do any number of unrewarding errands just so I could have an excuse to be driving. My stupid little white car made me feel mighty back then. Like I was going somewhere.

I saw a lot of people who looked happy today. I couldn't see any reason for them to be. But they were, just the same. And it occurred to me that my ideas about what should make a person happy might be completely implausible. They could be false, lifted from the pages of an adolescent novel, yellowed by years of disuse. I might have confused them with something entirely different. Maybe that's why I often return to the metaphor of the bony fingers of happiness closing around my throat.

You can't always get what you want. You aren't always smart enough to want what you've got. You seldom know you're on to something until it's passed you by. You're never as good as you wanted to be.

The Longest Day

I am taxed to the point of breaking. It has been a long, industrious day with many good things in it and many things else. I wish I was made of butter and jam. That way I could lick my arm and have a pleasant taste in my mouth.

It's raining again.

There's just the hint of a sprinkle outside. It's warm and damp. The ground smells sweet. It still gives off faint traces of the heat of the day. That hot, dirty smell of moisture on asphalt and sidewalk and soil. It's only when I feel the tiny droplets on my upturned face that I realize how much I have longed for it.

In the mirror on my desk, I can see my face, dewy with humidity, flush with late summer heat. Hair tucked behind my ears, I look like I did when I was a child. Shiny, pink cheeks often sore from laughing. Freckles across the nose. That outdoor smell in my hair. The recent memory of climbing trees. The taste of rain on my tongue.

Last night, I saw stars in the night sky above West Hollywood. Stars in L.A., you ask? You bet.

Things that go " " in the night

Awakened by silence. That's a raw deal. Silence and the knowledge that it's okay for me to be up because I'm in charge of it all. I have to be careful. I'm still trying to carry off the illusion of ordrinariness. I'm just like you. I'm just like you. I'm just like you...

Report Card

It has officially been a year since I started writing here. If you count the initial test message. It took me a couple of days to actually come up with something to say. But since that time, I have come to these pages and found a friend, in a way. The sort that would listen no matter how many times I seemed to be saying the same thing. A constant, transient friend who would be with me wherever the red lights were flashing. I have appreciated it. Being one who treasures archival, I am glad to have been able to keep track of the passage of things.

When I was a young girl in ponytails, my teachers would write home to my parents and tell them I was too eager and too talkative -- that I needed to give the other kids a chance to answer. It was a strange thing to teach. To tell someone to hide herself. To keep silent and mediocre in favor of socialization. I don't know that it was such a smart bargain. It didn't net me such a grand or vast catch of pals. There were still those whom I managed to intimidate or alienate. The ones who would roll their eyes at each other when I would use a big word. I always preferred the ones who cottoned to me in spite of myself. Those who were secure enough -- or perhaps insecure enough -- to be able to befriend in the absence of competition.

You grow into yourself. You get comfortable in your own skin. And then you quickly grow out of it. The trick is to be paying attention during that brief, brief stretch when it all feels right and you haven't a fear in the world. Sometimes, it comes more than once. But it's a good idea to try and catch it on the first go round.

Happy birthday, blog. I'm glad we made it.

These are days that hurt

Scratchy fingernails and headaches and sunburns and creaky bones. All of it seems amplified when it's warm out and there are people outside doing work in their yards. I wish I had been made better.

Wishes granted and lines rehearsed

Hello. I survived. The week begins. A new school year for some people. A new season. A new page on the calendar. Everything new. Or everything the same. Whatever I choose. However I see it. I didn't know it was going to be like this. I didn't know anything at all. I didn't know what sort of homecoming I would have. Or that there would be a home to come home to. It all changed when I wasn't looking, and I was thrown.

Now, instead of looking in any direction, I'm standing stock still with eyes screwed tightly shut. And I'm finding that I was wrong about as many things as I was right about. And that neither case was better than the other. I felt myself falling backwards into the arms of someone who wasn't there. I landed badly.

You never seem to forget song lyrics. Even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones.

I've missed the starry skies at night.

There's something reassuring about being able to see that there is a whole universe still out there, unobscured by city lights and urban haze. It's nice to know there are still quiet places. Many of these places are dismayingly close to a strip mall that has a T.G.I.Friday's in it, but it's on the other side of a hill, so you can pretend it isn't true.

I don't think I like discovering things about myself. So much of the time, it's something I wish wouldn't be true. Something that makes me self-conscious or ashamed. So much of the time, it's something I can't change. Or wouldn't know how to. I don't think I like being able to sum myself up in a few stark phrases. I take things too personally. I get hung up on what's fair and unfair. My hair is much lighter than I ever thought. I would hate to think that's all anyone would ever need know about me. I would hate to think it's all I am or all that has ever been true about me.

I look up at cloud-streaked night skies, filled with stars and cool and possibility, and I know that I can't have seen it all. I know there are dimensions beyond it, pieces I'm missing. I know there's more to learn. More to know. I just hope that that includes me. I hope that my story hasn't been written yet. That it's just in the planning phases. And that it won't close on opening night.

I received praise for my rapping skills tonight. In my book, that's a hoot.

Last Day at the O.K. Corral

It's time to start over again. Maybe I can just tell myself that fear and nervous energy are excitement and anticipation. It beats the heck out of measuring the pros and cons.

P.S. It was never O.K.

Whistle while you work.

For the first time in a while, I stayed at work late enough to leave in the dark and cool of the night. Crossing the less busy street alone and entering the parking garage to find my car sitting solitary on the level was strange. As if I'd overslept and the world had ended.

Soon enough, with the help of daylight savings, it will be dark much more of the time. I remember it from year after year that has gone before. Years that have left their hash marks on me. I remember it for it's ability to cause me to remember. I love the smell of October as it becomes November. The smell of cold fireplace ashes in the dewy cool of morning is more meaningful to me than almost any other scent. It has meant so many things. Sometimes hope and new beginnings. Sometimes nostalgic loss. The first day I catch a great draught of that scent is a milestone. I'm glad I moved in the fall. It felt like homecoming.

Lately, it seems that I am changing. Growing maybe? And I am less afraid. I remember when things seemed to be happening in a scene on a postage stamp. Time passed. Life rushed past me like heavy rains in the gutter. And I stood there and watched. And noticed debris. It all went by. It all washed away. And the streets smelled sweet as they were drying. I was squinting. Unable to look directly at bright truths. But I feel my eyes adjusting.

Things change. Something happens. Perspectives stretch and distort. The cat is big, but the dog looks somehow smaller, even though he's standing right there. What was meaningful becomes dull and smooth-edged, like pieces of glass in ocean sand. No longer able to cut through anything or to draw blood. But suddenly more beautiful, especially when held up to the light. What was paramount fades into the background, and the pages turn, and the players change. There are so few things that will manage to matter forever.

I wish today felt more like a different day when I felt less like this.

Pick Me Up, and Take Me Away

I've postage enough for both of us, and I'm marked "First Class."

Vrooooom!

  

Ha Ha Ha

Finally. A really gangbusters performance to crow about. I needed that. Now, if only my little sister's dog would stop giving me the cold shoulder.

Try it. You'll like it.

This feels a bit more like the L.A. I was getting to know way back when. Leaving the house at half past midnight to go meet friends for drinks and who knows what. As tired as I ever am, I am never sorry for having lingered for a spell with people who are precious to me. Break out the Lowenbrau. Tonight is kind of special.

"An interrogation should be worded with great care."

It's never nice to take stock of all that has fallen away. But it makes more room for all that remains and all that has emerged. There seems to be a cosmic balance. Something that keeps an unkind word from resounding in the absence of an extraordinarily kind one. There is harmony in the mingling. The tiny boost that makes me believe anew that I can make it to the finish line without falling down. Or barfing on myself.

I got a bunch of new sheet music this week, including the fiddle solo from The Devil Went Down to Georgia, which is surprisingly simple looking. Mostly eighth notes. I gave it a whirl tonight. But I sensed my squareness all the while. My classical stance. My orchestral attitude -- all straight and rhomboid. Once you learn a posture, it's difficult to veer from it. That's a universal truth.

All this time, I could have walked to work and never did.

"The movie's supposedly sophisticated vulgarity is firmly rooted in the smug ring-a-ding-ding of the Kennedy era."

I experienced a strange case of something that you could associate with vertigo last night. All of a sudden, I just felt dizzy and off-balance. Like I was always about to tip over. It has lingered until now. All day, I have felt as if I've been falling. I haven't had many ideas about a remedy. Just time and torpor. I'm sure soon enough I'll be right as rain. That will leave me with no excuses.

The scolding angel in my head keeps saying the same thing over and over again. "Do something." Occasionally, the variant, "Do something, dammit," makes a showing. But mostly, it's the former.

Mid-century movie magic makes alcoholism look like such a hoot.

"Poor people need it, too."

Today, I was blue. Through and through. I even wore a blue sweater. I didn't know any better.

I'm looking forward to taking a great deep breath, preceding a big sigh of relief. In the absence of it, I am left to shallow exhalations that never quite get the job done. It feels good to fill your lungs. It feels good to be filled with something. Even if it's just air.

I always wanted to be the girl that was not like anyone else you had ever known. I don't know what causes someone to want that. I didn't grow up in an orphanage or anything. But I always wanted to be the image with the extra glowing halo in everyone's memory. The sore thumb. That Mary. She was something. There was never anyone else like her. She was different. Special. She was the pearl of great price. The last mint in the can. The unbruised banana. She was someone you would write songs about. You would recall her in slow motion. With sparkles. She would make your heart race. Or melt. She was a charmer, that one. She had small hands. They were good for holding.

And then it starts to sound like I'm writing my eulogy. No wonder I'm blue.

Wanting What You've Got

I've been steeped in a flood of memories for a spell. I've been trying to dig in and find the root of it -- perhaps to snuff it out. I'm not sure. I feel my fingers searching, grasping. Life is strange. The way it just spills out. The way it just happens. It makes a girl wonder if she should get a manicure.

I take meaning from things and feel cheated when others miss it or when the meaning they take is different. As personal a thing as insight may be, I wish it could be shared effortlessly. I wish it could just be painted across someone's consciousness like a great swath of understanding. Something mutual. Something reachable.

As much as I wince when the sentiment hits, I wonder if I could like a version of me that was free of it. Sometimes I remember things that don't matter. But mostly I remember the things that matter more than anything. And the very thought of them is nearly too much to bear.

Today began grey and gloomy. Something I haven't seen in a while. I am anxious. Filled with anticipation and maybe fear about what is to come. Sometimes it feels as if my future is coming for me like a piano from the sky.

I just drank a grape soda, and, boy, are my arms tired.

I managed to make every wrong driving decision I possibly could tonight. I'm beginning to worry that martinis are making me stupid and clumsy. Although history -- followed by the vodka lobby -- may say that I was clumsy to begin with.

I also just realized that I'm old enough to remember when soda cans had those sharp, tear-drop-shaped tops that you had to actually pull off. Either that, or the stock they sold on the military base was very, very old. That's entirely possible. I think I was in junior high school before I realized that sodas were supposed to be fizzy.*

Dogs can smell crazy.

*This is an exaggeration.

Warning: This movie will try to restore your faith in god.

Okay. So, I went to see the new M. Night Shyamalan flick. And more than anything, I was impressed by the number of people seated around me -- in V.I.P., pay-more-for-your-seat, you'd-think-people-would-be-quiet territory, no less -- who couldn't stop talking. Truly. And these weren't just talkers. These were belligerent chatterboxes who made mimicking huffing noises and elevated their volume and word count when they realized they were disturbing the people around them.

The movie would have you believe that there are two types of people, classified by their faith or lack thereof. I would submit to you that there ARE two types of people, but they are separated by their convictions on the topic of keeping quiet while the reel is spinning. I think in the near future, the ritzy cinemas will actually begin creating seating with individual sound systems, much like the little eggs you sit in at the Haunted Mansion or the newly renovated Space Mountain, able to pipe in your own personal portion of electric guitars and ominous announcements. If that system had been in place tonight, then I wouldn't have learned that the woman seated behind me and to the right has an ex-husband who doesn't believe in coincidences. You see, when that topic came up in the film, she really felt it was necessary to tell her date that this was the case. And I guess I can see how that would be. How could she resist? Her date was the reliable voice of the line, "Uh oh," every time a suspense-filled moment occurred. And they were both burdened with the task of voicing all of the facts that the film was revealing as they occurred. Like my own personal Greek chorus, telling me the thoughts that were already in my head.

At one point during the film's climax, two couples to my right had a near-scuffle as one guy wanted the other guy and his girlfriend to put a lid on it. And the talking guy yelled loudly, "Don't you tell me to shut the fuck up." During the credits, these two men exchanged menacing words. And the chatty girlfriend rolled her eyes and laughed, the way the girlfriends of these guys are required to do, it would seem. They always do it. I've been keeping track. But the vehement talkers were really just all talk. The guy said menacing things and flung back depressingly unwitty retorts like, "Get a life," as he and his gal made their way to the aisle to leave. No punches were exchanged. Nor apologies, to be sure.

And I realized, from the comments of those around me, that the two classes of people are also separated by which side their favor falls on in situations such as these. As loud and confrontational as the objecting non-talking guy was, I supported him fully and would have expressed my spirit of camaraderie, if I thought it would have mattered. I'm always on that person's side. Maybe because I often am that person. Apologetically and quietly requesting that people keep their voices down, only to be met with rolling of the eyes or sneers or laughter and the word, "Whatever." Some people will undoubtedly find someone like me to be a curious brand of zealot, but I'm okay with that. I try not to get frustrated with people. I'm patently non-confrontational. I really like to have a good time. But there are times when I feel the need to just dump my popcorn on someone. I don't know if it's a crime, so I don't do it. But I sure am tempted.

Last night, after the Weezer concert and in the melee of exodus that occurred in the parking lot, a girl rear-ended me. And when I got out of my car to exchange information, she looked irritated and said, "Well, is there a scratch?" And I said, "I can't tell. Your bumper is still touching mine." I asked her to get out of the car, and she said, "Well, I'm not going anywhere." As if I should just wait and trust that she would look for me when we all made it out to the open road. Maybe it was because she had her homegirls in the car with her and wanted to appear lioness-like. Maybe they all really thought I was being a jerk and were quietly rooting her on in her obstinance. But I thought to myself that a simple, "Oops. I'm really sorry," would have made the world a better place right at that moment. Instead, the world lived out the night unimproved. And when I got home, adding insult to injury, there were two gross, unknown band bumper stickers on the bumper of my car. I peeled them off carefully and lamented the fact that there is no justice in the world and nearly as much decency. And Weezer only did one two-song encore, ending with an extended barrage of intensely painful noise. And I'm not just talking like an old person. I promise.

People don't smile much in this picture. But that's no reason why you shouldn't. Have a great day, American moviegoing audience! -- you've earned it.

Epilogue

I don't think it came across in my original writing of this entry, but I did actually have a pretty definitive opinion about the movie. I would later come to a place where, when told that a movie was terrible, I would respond, "Worse than Signs?" If that gives you any idea.

Yeesh

I hadn't intended to still be up. And there was no reward to be found in it.

Produce

Fresh fruit is a gamble. I bought a plum today. It looked perfect, but it offended me with it's sourness. That is why artificial plum flavoring is so much better. A reliable interpretation of what the food industry thinks I believe a plum should taste like. It's almost flattering that they care to fool me. And who doesn't prefer artificial grape or artificial orange to the real thing? The only exception is artificial lemon flavoring, which tastes like air freshener and -- by association -- the bathroom.

I'm no purist. I'm ready to be fooled. I want to be. I want to believe that everything tastes good. And that's what makes me try the sundry new-and-for-a-limited-time-only gross sandwiches at fast food restaurants. I'm rooting for it to be good. Even though history tells me that it won't be.

P.S. I still ate the plum. It wasn't free. My mom would be proud.

The Girl

Revelation

The comic book is the only remaining medium that can be truly honest. But not those stupid superhero ones. They're not honest at all.

Burning

A walk to the kitchen for a glass of water can be an assault. You catch an unexpected draught of the scent of a melon candle and all of a sudden it's December when the candles were all burning and you were having people over to your new apartment for the first time and it was raining out and there really wasn't time for dinner before the show. Even back then, it was a fool thing to do to get your hopes up. Your hopes had no business being in the upward position.

Early in the morning is tourism to me.

I stayed up too late monkeying with pictures and doing the things one does when responsibilities are in the process of being shirked. But a sense of convicted urgency got me up and running while it was cool out, and the day had a few extra hours on its front end. That didn't spare me its traditionally unbearable length. What would have been the fun in that?

My mother came to stay while I was away this weekend. I have many reasons for saying that she is Ferengi. But today, I discovered that she washed my Ziploc bags. In my mother's world, nothing is disposable. Foil. Plastic wrap. Paper plates. All reusable. They'll let you know when they're ready to go. They'll disintegrate or warp or begin to leave corrosive residue on your scaloppine. They'll fall apart when they're good and fed up with protecting your lunch from that refrigerator smell. But until they do, in my mother's world, they're new. There's no longer a need to wonder why those pricey rainier cherries I just bought now taste of salami.

I'm plum tuckered. And I'm glad. But the chances of my investigating the restorative powers of sleep are slim. I've got TiVo to catch up on.

Technical Secret: The Moon Sextile The Sun

Social relationships, friendships and supportive alliances are strengthened. Your energy and confidence are high and you can accomplish much in a harmonious, flowing manner right now.

Technical Secret: Venus Sextile Neptune

You are receptive to beauty at this time and want to be surrounded with harmony, beauty, and kindness. Also, you feel tender and gentle toward others, and you want to please or to be of service to them in some way. Some selfless generosity or an effort on behalf of someone in need will make you feel very happy now.

Technical Secret: Venus Conjuct Pluto

Deep emotions, both positive and negative, are stirred up within you, and you become more intense and demanding of the people you are closest to. Fears, insecurities, jealousies, and hidden resentments may surface, as well as a very strong need to be loved and to love. There is a compelling, urgent quality to the feelings you experience now, and you may develop a powerful attraction to someone who fascinates and mystifies you. This is a good time to reveal your deepest feelings, fears, needs, and yearnings to the ones you love.

Do I believe in any of this? I like the parts that say I'm extra cool. I roll my eyes at the parts that sound all naturey and organic. I discard the parts that portend my failure. If I play my cards right, the stars will tell me exactly what I want to hear.

Fish for Dinner

"Shiny shiny. Bad times behind me."

Japanese vendors often give away complimentary Kleenex packets. I wonder about this. Is this really a bonus for me? Sure, they come in handy in a pinch, but isn't this sort of like getting Q-Tips for Christmas? Incidentally, I once had a girlfriend whose parents gave her Q-Tips for Christmas. I was extra nice to her that day.

I tried to take a short nap tonight. It was a fruitless effort.

And I still have the tiniest bit of a crush on Jordan Crane. He signed my copy of The Last Lonely Saturday last July with a little drawing of the main character thinking a flower for me. I was touched. I've been slightly swooning ever since.

I was tidying up my little office/breakfast nook yesterday, and I had to stack my various desk calendars on a bookshelf to make space. I had grouped them earlier this year when I began creating a miniature history of my miniature life in an Excel spreadsheet. I didn't open them and look nostalgically at the pages. But I nostalgically remembered having done so back in January. It was essentially savoring the memory of having had a memory. Which is an odd thing to note. And places me in seeming peril of having such experiences on into infinity. Fortunately and unfortunately, I have a terrifically good memory.

Shiny shiny sha na na na.

Forlorn

Skinny
Hands in pockets
Posture poor
Teeth a bit crooked
Hair a bit tousled
Ears jutting
Nose upturned
Word bubble says, "Dang!"

It might sometimes be appropriate for me to identify with comic books. Sometimes might occur more often than one would suspect.

"This isn't quite how I remember it..."

Ouchie

I am in so much pain today that I've been considering how I might subtly add a cane to my "look." How can that be?

"What time is it, Miho?" "It's the Time of Love."

Smokey and Miho at Spaceland -- a nice surprise. Japanese girl sings Portuguese lyrics. Beck and Johnny Marr stand and watch. Close enough for me to have said hello. Also close enough for me be left aghast at how impossibly short they both are. Musical brilliance stunts one's growth. Clearly. Guys in Brazilian soccer jerseys talk too loud. Rude guy and his date cause me to forfeit my seat at the Ms. Pac-Man cocktail table. I'm tired from getting lost and suffering piercing back pain and not wanting to get back to reality and not thinking I should have had that last beer. I bought the CD. If I'd had more cash, I would have bought the shirt and the Slowrider CD, too. Live music is good for me. It also makes me want to be a rock star. All the bottled water you can drink!

I had to laugh when Miho noted that a songwriter's work was "fucking kick ass." Her accent reminds me of ice cream cones at Dipper Dan's on the way to and from the train station in Yokosuka. I'm going to buy me a little Japanese schoolgirl outfit and prove to the world that I can't pull that look off.

Oh, and the guy who checked my I.D. complimented my hair. He described it as "ferocious." That's a new one.

Come what may.

It seems that even in my secretest and safest hideouts, sentiment manages to find me -- disarm me. At this moment, it's balanced, happily, with an appreciation of what is beautiful and meaningful. I wish to admire what has been created it. Honor it. Not revile it in jealousy and hope for it to be dismantled. Maybe I'm a grown-up at this second. Moments from now, I will be a child again.

I had things to say tonight. But my connection became testy and wouldn't let me. I think that's best.

Till my dying day, if you know what I mean.

Sit tight. I'm making something.

I loved tonight. It was beautiful and perfect and temperate. I am happy for hot tubs and the company of people I adore and the winding down period at the end of it all. I can even tolerate the inadvertent splashing. I had a nice big towel with me for after.

There was a moment today when I realized I was rapt with enthusiasm about the days ahead -- burdensome as my expectations of myself may be. I realized I was looking forward to striking out into the yonder of unnamed color. It's true, I always wear my seatbelt. And it's true, I am not happy when I have to stick my hand into the garbage disposer. But I feel the future and all its risky provocation bearing down on me. I want to give in to it. I want to give it a name. I want to give it hell.

Intractable fear. I defy it.

I'm working on something new. It's just an iteration of an idea I keep having. Maybe it will be something. If not, it will at least keep me busy for a while. I'm going to be good at something this year. I insist upon it. I keep trying things that make me chuckle. The sad, sorry chuckle of the inept. But I'll figure it out. I'll get it. I'll make mountains out of molehills and cookies out of cake. And no one will thank me for it, because that's not a recipe anyone wants.

Remember when McDonald's Happy Meals would come in little cartons that you could assemble into buildings that were part of a "collect them all" town? I don't remember ever having a whole town. I just remember having a train depot and a sheriff's station, both smelling strongly of french fries and cheeseburgers.

We also had those Dixie riddle cups when I was a child. I am adamant in telling you that I never learned a thing from those stupid cups.

"You're nobody 'til everybody in this town thinks you're a bastard."

The Japanese have mastered the weird and the wonderful when it comes to candy. I love this new Lotte Yukiringo Fuwawa candy. It's apple-flavored and described on its package as "Fluffy-light-delicious." Do I love the candy more? Or the adorable misuse of hyphens? I can't say.

I love it when folks are down with the Japanese. It's not there to make fun of it or to make a weird face. It's there to be admired and worshipped and treasured. And it's better than anything that comes from Hershey's or M&M/Mars. It's delicious and innovative and rife with grammatical errors. The Japanese confectionery is a thing of mystical wonder. I worship at its shrine. And I will pay any price -- ANY PRICE -- for a Zaggy bar.

Everything I just said goes for Japanese stationery, too. Except for the part about the Zaggy bar. That wouldn't make sense.

"Fallen leaves in the night. Who can say where they´re blowing?"

I worried that I hadn't done enough, but it turned out I had.

It's possible that the warming trend is a product of the blasted electronics ghetto I've got running in my cluttered little office. Or maybe some global villain has deployed a sinister weather machine. Either way. I don't like feeling sticky.

I've got a lot to do before I die.

More and more often, I see less and less that I like. In me. In others. In the world. I want to write a poem, but I can't find a way to rhyme my disappointment.

My dad was right about the way a cold beer tastes on a hot day.

I went to an Asian market to get the canned clams I like. They only had canned squid. I knew it wouldn't be what I wanted, but I bought it anyway. I couldn't leave emptyhanded. That is the story of my life.

For me, a trip to the ice cream shoppe is like a harbinger of peace. Raise the white flags. But replace the flags with vanilla ice cream. And all will be well again.

I went to Cost Plus and received very poor service. So I dragged my new furniture purchases out to my car on my own, despite their offers to assist me -- scowling all the way. "Too little too late," I thought to myself. I sure showed them.

It's necessary to always carry paper and a pen.

I created a new cocktail. Pear nectar and vanilla vodka. And that was just the beginning.

It's hot and sticky here tonight. I can't say I'm fond of it. "Sultry" is a nice word and all. But I think I'd be happier living in a nice big refrigeration unit.

Today was strange and empty. I was anxious to be out of it altogether. In contrast, tonight was a sprawling mess of new acquaintances, storytelling, laughing, and climbing in and out of the backseat of a two-door vehicle. I challenged myself to keep doing it without moving the seat forward. Like a game of limbo. I was the only one playing.

I met a dog named Lucky, and I found that she insisted on having her tummy rubbed. I relented.

And there was a woman who, when asked, declared that things were really great in her life right now. And I was glad to hear someone say that.

Quoi?

A doubledecker bus loaded up with Austin Powers lookalikes just drove past, honking and waving at the crowd. I guess, in Los Angeles, that constitutes a parade.

July she will fly and give no warning to her flight.

Tonight, I took stock of how things once foreign are now familiar. And how close I am to crossing my one year mark here. How odd that is. I can't see ahead a year. I can't fathom how a year will get by me. Or how I will get through it. And yet here it is. A year. Passed. Lived. Endured. Survived. Overcome. Catalogued. And a year before that. And one before that.

My life sits within a slightly different housing today. The lines and curves are altered. The sun comes in from a different compass direction. I have a breakfast nook. And of course, it's not just the place I live. It's the sort of cloud I live it under. Or the umbrella. Or ray of sunshine. It's the shell of me. Ever guarded. Ever eager. Ever earnest.

There are people in my life today who were not in it a year ago. And I marvel that I could have gotten on without them. I wonder who will be on that list a year from now. And I have no way to anticipate it. To think about life in a year's time boggles my mind. I have grown accustomed to change. Prepared for it if only for the sake of wanting to steel myself against its assault. I can't imagine it will be anything like it is today. With the exception of the fact that 7-11 will probably again be offering free commemorative Slurpees. Or so I'm told. A year from now, who knows. Who knows.

A fortune cookie told my mom she was an altruist who would soon be engaged in humanitarian efforts. She was the first to point out how untrue a thing that was. Don't trust fortune cookies. They're just trying to get back at you for breaking them in half and often not even for the sake of eating.

I had toyed with the idea of going to Disneyland recently. I wish I had gone. It has been slightly more than a year since the last time I went. It was so humid that day. A thick, heavy heat that leaves your face slick and your hair lank. But it was fun and well-planned and never tedious or trying. And it started to rain at the very end. I had to run through the weighty droplets to get to the car. It was something to laugh about. And to feel exhilarated by. I want to feel exhilarated again. Not only for the sake of specifically recreating what I once felt. But just to feel it again. Just to call up that sensation and remember it all over again. I'm wondering if I will be able to find that sense of fun and thrill and laughter in anything absent of a jewel heist that takes place in a gumball factory.

I don't know what to write. That's why I ramble. I sit here and wait for the words to come. I place my fingers on the keyboard, in much the same way I once placed my fingers on the keys of our piano and hoped that Mozartian magic would spring from my fingertips. That I would compose a brilliant tune just by moving my fingers around for a while. But we all know what tune that makes. How to create. A challenge. How does it take place. In my case, I think sometimes I really do just put on a blindfold and hold my arms out and flail around for a while and then see if anything came of it. This strategy was not devised by my inner scientist.

So, I seek to create. But I shy away from structure. I want to make something real and meaningful but I worry that I waste my time. I fear the truth of inadequacy. And I fight it at the same time. I put some furniture together yesterday, for instance.

Sometimes, I end my sincere thoughts with absurd little ironies. I think it is either a sign of great empathy for the reader or a sign of tremendous cowardice.

Do not eat the Freshness Sachet Oxygen Absorber. It's just there to keep the beef jerky dry.

The use of feminine wiles on vulnerable door staff

Jo and Megan and I got in to see Neil Finn without too much struggle. The show was sold out, which is why I had bought tickets to see him in San Diego earlier in the week. Just in case. But a little eyelash-batting and pretty-pleasing got us our red wristbands. It was a good thing, too, because they weren't playing the audio feed in the Foundation Room, and I was not charmed by the stylings of the DJ. So, we got in, we sang along, we danced. And it was a noticeably different show than the one Jo and I had just seen in San Diego on Tuesday night. We were still treated to Johnny Marr and Lisa Germano. The other guitarist was still a guy from Diamond Bar named Sean something-or-other. But the playlist was different in many places, and that made it even more worthwhile. I did not say anything to Margaret Cho when I was inches away from her in the Foundation Room. Jo was disappointed in me. But I'm okay with it. I'm often too fearful of looking like a boob.

The guy who let us in got a kiss on the cheek for his pains. Ask my lips, and they will tell you he was sporting a clean, close shave.

Pretty little poem

The grass is never greener than when it is actually brown -- when it is only a memory of a green that once was and that memory sings of a color that never could have existed, being somehow too true, too deep. Is that something a cynic would say? Yes. Perhaps. A cynic with corrected gamma and the ability to remove the rosy tint from the grandeur of recollection.

Was it ever as good as it seemed to have been when regarded in my forgiving memory? Was it ever so good?

I can wave it all away -- a puff of smoke, a powdery intrusion, a layer of dust. I can cause it to drift off and reassemble elsewhere. I can make more of anything than can possibly actually be. Breaking all laws of physics. I can make more of less. I can make more than there will be. I can make a fool of myself with great speed and skill. I can make myself a champ with nearly the same efficiency. I can skip lunch and go to the cosmetics counter and fetch a new outlook. And I'm clever enough to realize that it's just a little paint and glitter, not an actual renovation.

I laughed so much, it went directly into yawning. I stretched it to the thinning ends. I jumped, and the room didn't quake when I came back down. I always dreamed I could be light as a feather. I always dreamed.

I would have settled for fireworks in my brain.

"Don't be afraid, you have just got your eyes closed."

Is it true? Can peace and serenity be found while drinking Dr. Pepper from a paper cup? No. I was wrong. But for a moment there...

I am listening to music that is making me tingle from head to toe. I don't want to move a muscle. I feel as if inspiration is on the tip of my tongue and and and -- I can't quite grasp it, but it's there. Everything is churning inside of me, building.

And then the song ends.

"You just haven't earned it yet, baby."

I wasn't raised to see things for what they are. The glasses are always rose-colored. Sweet accordion music is always playing off in the distance, and the smell of fresh-baked bread abounds. But to accept that romantic notions are only for the foolish would deny me the heart swells that come with a glimpse of a particularly beautiful moon or the sighing that follows a whispered sentiment, as long as it's a sweet one. To forsake all belief in the possibility of something perfect and wonderful would feel like signing up for an eternity in an iron lung. No. Not me. Not while there is a lyric left in me. Not while there is a new shade of lipstick to be bought. Not while there are smiles and surprises and supper clubs.

But then I once wanted to go to clown college, so what do I know.

"I'll wear the red dress tonight..."

My office -- like a microcosm of my existence -- is by turns too hot and too cold. When I catch a glimpse of my reflection, I am by turns pleased and disappointed. I'm backing up, in preparation for a great leap forward. Or slinking away in shame.

I'm in a warm eddy, but the cold is on my shoulder. This is not a metaphor.

Poems stolen from other pages

Ask anyone who knew me in high school: I wrote the best notes. They were long and fleshy and full -- folded pages, covered corner to corner in tiny penned print that my tiny hands had taken great care to transfer. If you got one of those notes, you felt lucky about it.

A boy who was not yet my boyfriend, but one day would be, received notes from me with the margins littered with scattered lyrics and pieces of poetry and sometimes great, long poems inspired by other great, long poems -- often not written by me.

It seems that I remember
I dreamed a thousand dreams
We'd face the days together
No matter what they'd bring
A strength inside like I'd never known
Opened the door to life and let it go

This sun may shine forever
Upon the back of love
A kingdom raised from ashes
And held within your arms
And should the rain break through the trees
We'll find a shelter there and never leave

I'll run to you, nothing stands between us now
Nothing I can lose
This light inside can never die
Another world just made for two
I'll swim the seas inside with you
And like the waves, without a sound
I'll never let you down

Upon a wave of summer
A hilltop paved with gold
We shut our eyes and made
The promises we hold
A will to guide and see us through
I'd do it all again because of you

I'd tear my very soul to make you mine

"Who is this David Sylvian guy, anyway?" he asked.

I remember when I used to take such pleasure in discovering beautiful words that conveyed sentiments too big for my heart and too dangerous for my tongue. My cowardice found relief in the shared experience of songwriteres and poets who seemed to know what it was like to go to sleep at night, wondering if you would ever find the courage to let a word sing with welcome or to let a smile turn into a kiss. Sometimes I find myself missing the uninformed innocence of adolescent longing. I wondered for a long time if I would ever be loved. And back then, that made me a moony-eyed teenager with an overdeveloped sense of Hollywood endings and dimestore novel romance. To wonder such things today is far less charming.

Out upon the open fields
The rain is pouring down
We're pulling up the sheets again
Against the passing tides of love
Every doubt that holds you here
Will find their own way out

I will build a shelter if you call
Just take my hand and walk
Over mountains high and wide
Bridging rivers deep inside
With a will to guide you on
Your heart will need no one
Those days are gone

Baby, I can tell you there's no easy way out
Lost inside of dreams that guide you on
Baby, I can tell you there's no easy way out
Soon the guiding moonlight will be gone

Out upon the ocean waves subside

People sometimes take such things the wrong way, but I'm inclined to say that if you do not own and love Gone to Earth , you're a big fat idiot.

I'm gay, but you're beautiful.

In the midst of a heated but pleasant discussion about Christianity with a gay, non-denominational protestant college professor from Oklahoma, there was a pause when he leaned across the bistro table and said, "You're a beautiful woman." I thanked him. He followed that with, "I'm totally gay, but you're really beautiful." I considered it a fine compliment. Although I wondered if it was part of a plot to disarm me in my discussion points so that he could stealthily convert me to his faith. Later, he spilled a white chocolate martini on me.

"I'd be safe and warm, if I was in L.A."

With the exception of my continuing desire for fried chicken, things are looking all right. Although I had some very upsetting dreams. Very upsetting. The kind where you wake and have tears in your eyes. I could pull quotes from plenty of songs about summer. But I'm not feeling it, for some reason. It's warm, and I'm listless. The old childhood wanderlust rears its head again. Each year, at this time, it's almost as if I'm molting. I need to get out of my skin and start over. This time with more laughter and a good deal more of the extraordinary.

First Day of Summer, Ahoy!

I don't really care that it's officially summer. I no longer live on the academic calendar. Summer doesn't mean lazy days of watching morning news programs and 3-2-1 Contact. Summer doesn't mean fixing myself a lunch of Spaghetti-O's and wondering if I can get someone's mom to drive me to the pool. Summer doesn't mean much of anything to me now. It means my office will be hotter. And I will get a few more freckles. And I will have to start running earlier in the day if I don't want to develop some form of Hollywood asthma. If anything, the advent of summer just makes me bitter and envious that other people are planning trips and buying vacation packages and packing things in a cooler and hitting the road. I want to be going somewhere. I want to be having an adventure. I'm due.

Ironically, the first day of summer in Los Angeles was -- at least for me -- a gloomy, hazy, chilly day with little in the way of motivation and much in the way of annoyance. But, I have a party to go to. Maybe that will shore things up. (Between you and me, I doubt it will, but I like to give the impression of hopeful optimism to people who don't know me that well.)

I bought some nice things at Banana Republic today. And I wore pants that look nice on my fanny. And I had a hot dog at a hot dog cart for lunch. That sounds nice, doesn't it? Leave out the part where the hot dog was rolled by the wind and lost all it's sauerkraut and other colorful dressings. And the part where the seemingly endless twists and turns of the two parking garages that had to be navigated made me full-tilt nauseous. With those exceptions, it was as nice as it sounds. I should go shopping at lunch more often. It makes me happy.

So, it's the first day of summer. Mark it. When it's the first day of autumn, you can look back with me and we can marvel together at how little we've managed to do in the interim. Or we could rail against that fate and spend the coming few months building elaborate cities out of popsicle sticks, submitting sweepstakes entries, and avoiding the law. Then, come autumn, we can write our memoirs and sell them for a MINT! That way, next summer, we'll be able to afford to take a nice trip somewhere and have done with all this bellyaching.

Even-Numbered Star Treks. Odd-Numbered Beethovens.

It's a happy moment when one returns home in time to find the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch playing on the television. I used to have a great great great big poster of John Cleese in all his lanky, crooked-legged glory hanging above my bed. It was an enormous poster that I bought from a tabletop vendor at the local college when I was killing time before a class. Some nonsense class, to be sure. I recall allowing my father to talk me into throwing it away when I was moving. Remind me never to take advice from my father.

Those between-class minutes spawned a great many good purchase decisions. Crime and Punishment. A few of the old Matt Groening ...Is Hell books. Love Is Hell. Work Is Hell. Life Is Hell. I was an odd one back then. I treated a college bookstore in much the same manner I would today treat a Borders. I would go browsing and buy textbooks for classes I was never going to take. Just because they looked interesting. I was also a bit of a sucker when it came to buying the new books instead of the used. I'm a girl who sometimes believes it's better to pay more. (Note: It isn't.)

I also bought stacks of greeting cards I never got around to sending. They populate a number of shoeboxes I occasionally run across or accidentally dump out. I bought them with the best of intentions. But -- much like the wieners-to-buns ratio dilemma -- I never thought to buy a congruent number of stamps.

Interestingly enough, I shop at the post office in much the same fashion I once shopped at college bookstores. I feel tempted to browse for extra things I should buy in case I ever need them. This is how I ended up with a special collector's edition matted display of Alfred Hitchcock commemorative stamps. Don't impulse-shop at the post office. You're much better off limiting your unplanned purchases to chewing gum and the king size versions of popular candy bars. Of course, those same grocery store displays have nearly prompted me to buy boxes of cigars. Because they were there. And they had inviting names. And I didn't have any at home. And you never know when you might need one. Sure, there's no longer cause to fear that Burgess Meredith is going to unexpectedly show up for dinner and require a fresh stogie, but I'm sure there are other people who smoke those things.

I hope I never find myself checking out of a store with an impulse display featuring macaque monkeys and catalytic converters. I've got no place to keep such things.

Can do. But won't.

Red Light District

"Change the world one mitzvah at a time."

I took a different route running today. Halfway through the swoony miasma of old lady perfume that surrounds the faithful synagogue-leavers, I turned south and ended up seeing much that I drive past but never have a chance to examine. Including a paper sign informing me that Woop Doody closed early today and that apologies were expressed for any inconvenience. I wasn't inconvenienced in the slightest. There's a big fat bear in a bellhop suit outside a flower shop and a field of delicious long grass that I would love to lay down and take pictures in. And billboards look entirely different from the sidewalk.

The BBQ place says it's been "Smoking since 1938." The bakeries all smell sweet and sinful. Even the one that claims -- by way of it's neon signage -- to be "Famous for Quality," though it is clearly not famous for its working neon signage, as that sign has not been properly lit in all the months I've lived here.

Fish must be on the menu at the Cuban place. The whole block is being clued in. Not just me.

I kept feeling myself starting to cry while I was running. Making me a certifiable crazy person. Why would one cry when one's MP3 player dishes out "Sexual Healing" and the world is sunny and sweet-smelling. I cry far too often. I'm thinking about looking into Botox.

Yesterday, at the office, a woman called my desk to ask about where to deliver floral arrangements for a funeral service for a woman whose name I did not catch. And I thought, "Is that how it's going to happen? Is the grim reaper going to ring me up, while I'm waiting for Acrobat to distill a postscript file, and say, 'Where shall we have the flowers sent, Mary?'" I wonder whether I'd bother going out for lunch after that.

I wish there was some way to catalog my inspiration while I'm running. I fear I've already forgotten a dozen other things I was going to write. And sitting here now, I'm just sweating all over my keyboard and feeling as if I'm going to be late for something. There was lettering that made me want to come back and take pictures for fonts I will plan to make but never get around to. There were garage sales that I was tempted to peruse, except for the fact that I carry no money and have no means of carrying a four-panel shoji screen home the mile and a half it would have been. And a beauty salon that proudly announced, "Walk-Ins Welcome," was inviting to me. I want a haircut. But the absence of money on my person once again poses a problem.

Next time, perhaps I will just take a walk and go to the park and bring a wallet.

My lungs hurt while I was running. Maybe Los Angeles is trying to tell me something.

Gurn

There was no shortage of things today. From waking to now -- moments before the great sleep ritual begins -- I've been swirling around in a torrent. I had reason to walk in the sunlight today. I had reason to sigh and shake my head. I had reason to write a great deal. I visited places I love and places I'd not yet been. I bought things I wanted, never mind whether I needed them. I made friends with a bartender, although I suspect he'll forget me -- despite the largesse of my tip. I helped friends and muddled through. I scanned pictures in the wee hours. I approved of myself at various points along the way. I leaned into the wind. I strode with confidence. I told stories that I love to tell and laughed before I got to the end of them. And I think I may have impressed a few people. Which is always a bonus.

When I tuck in tonight, I will be thinking about the stars I can't see because of the bright fact of the Los Angeles night sky. I will be remembering stars on hilltops when it was night and it smelled sweet and no one was looking and playful romance was on the menu. I will be remembering that sleep comes in many places and that dreams carry more in them than the passage of time. I will think about Battleship Brand clams in a can and nights when I did not know to worry. Nothing has changed. Nothing ever seems to. I am where I was. I am where I am. I am on the verge of something. And getting to it hurts. As if I must pass through my own flesh to get there. What treasure could there possibly be hiding so deep inside of me.

I try never to hurt anyone. Am I the only one?

Do your worst

I am wondering, wondering. I can't sit still for wondering.

Why am I always in so much pain? If I were a pack animal, they'd have shot me by now and put me out of my misery.

There's a clog in my poetry all of a sudden. I don't quite know how to dislodge it. But I feel it all backing up. Bottlenecking. Intensifying. Furious words waiting to get out. Fiery phrases that don't care that the Lakers won again. Verse that pulsates, irrespective of time or state or twinges. It's all waiting. And I have no means to free it. I am powerless today.

Arguments, Angst, and Plenty of Fish Maws.
Antidote for Ennui or Sinister Harbingers of a Week of Sleepyheadedness?

This weekend was one that seemed to spiral out of control. The beginning seems so far, far away from the end of it. I lived a few lifetimes in the interim. There were fallings out and fallings in. Dashed plans and resurrected disappointments. I'd like to think I make each day count. Today, I spent too much time in the car and too much time frowning. But there was also a great deal of laughing and clapping and good-naturedness.

And I ate fish maws. I would type "ha ha," but the laughter I am issuing is more the closed mouth variety. More of a "hm hm." A Chinese restaurant is as good a place as any to test the limits of your gross-out threshold. Mine, as it happens, is very high.

And I just drove 130 miles. What in the world was I thinking?

"We are clever, too."

Movies are a treat. Nice guys who give you free soda refills at the concession are, too. And Christopher Lee playing the bad guy tops it all. What's a nice girl like me doing out on Hollywood Boulevard so late at night?

That's what. Bravo, Mario Bava! I'm a sucker for Technicolor.

Fame amongst the porcelain

See? I was on Bathtub Girl's live show. Here's proof.

And she wrote about the evening in her blog, where I am pictured from the back as just a fall of reddish hair and referred to as "an attractive asian girlfriend of Jo's whose name escapes me." I can deal with being marginally forgettable. But I wish I was being immortalized with more than just the backs of my knees showing.

"Four long years, one leaner than the rest."

Secrets keep me from safety. Lies deliver me into the eager hands of foolishness and danger. I make bad decisions. Sometimes I am given a hand in that.

Heart-shaped hedges, Japanese gardens. Heart-shaped hedges, Japanese gardens.

The marble in the stairs is worn down one side.

Somehow, I ended up at the apartment of Bathtub Girl tonight, and I appeared on her live webcam show in a see-through shirt and plugged my web site and took pictures on the rooftop and had a cool, cool time. Afterwards, I made it to the Downtown loft party I had originally intended to get to. I'm too tired to post pics at this very second, but I do have pics to post. Wait and see.

P.S. It's all who you know.

"What are we coming to? No room for me. No fun for you."

Sound + Vision. The first part. Star Shoes. I could have been seeing Eric Idle last week, but I was shooting pool and had no idea. I could have been doing a lot of things.

I am devilish sleepy. Or maybe not so much sleepy as bereft of the ability to press on. I want to be nestled somewhere. Anywhere. I want to be slumbering with an angelic smile on my lips and the sound of sweet, sleepy breathing in the air. But I can't do any of that from here, can I?

Sheep on the Horizon

Blue. Black. What aspires to the extraordinary. White space. Meetings. God beams. Interplay. Smiles. Whispers. Secret photographs. Sudden shyness. Sudden brashness. Blue. Black. Arms outstretched. Arms folded. Hands in pockets. Sunglasses that slide down on the nose. Hot dog cart wishes. Lilacs. Wizard of Oz. Crosswalks. Calm concern. Kind commentary. Plans. Plays. Uncomfortable silence. Unexpected everything. Cool drinks. Mirrors. Blue. Black. These are things that happened today.

I sometimes catch myself sitting doubled over. As if to shield my heart from everything else in the room.

More Mileage

I looked up and it was exactly midnight. 00:00. Like catching the zeroes turning over on your odometer as you head out on the open highway. It's not significant. But I was there to see it.

Innocent bystander signing off.

DO NOT DESTROY

Someone's got death on the brain.

The world seems particularly lonely to me today. Connections seem fleeting. The little bonds seem oh so tenuous. I've been living it all on the interior for a while. Maybe that's where it comes from. The inability -- the reluctance to let the questions surface.

After Saturday's shows, an air conditioning problem in the theater drove us all out on to the rooftop, beers in hand. I put my tennies back on and climbed up the ladder through the hatch. The roof felt soft underfoot. And the line outside Bar Dynamite was distractingly long. I appreciated the lights and my distance from them. I felt myself wanting to be carried off onto the freeway. Northward. We did notes. We drank. We laughed. We told titillating stories. Well, I did, anyway. And the night felt young, even though we were well into the wee hours before I ventured back home.

But even when I'm in the reassuring clutches of a kind embrace, I am keeping secrets. And there is a sort of tired urgency tugging away at me. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Did that bit in the movie strike you the same way? Did that song send a fizzy feeling into your belly like it did mine? Does the smell of the next day mean anything? I ask no one. I am answered accordingly.

I laughed a great deal this weekend. And toyed with tears. I made more of my time than I might have. Less of it than I could have. I never quite went to sleep.

Sepulchral masks in the museum. Six Feet Under. The daily news. No wonder I'm thinking of dying.