There and Back: A Chinese Girl's Tale

A flat tire is no way to start a weekend. But luckily, it wasn't an omen per se. And it didn't end up keeping me from hitting the road. Twice. It was a fine night, with laughter and sangria and tapas and running into unexpected friends and getting embraces and kind words from boys on the sauce. My friend Andrew turned 21 today, and he apparently also recently realized that I'm a genuinely nice person and he's happy to know me. In addition, his Red Fox-elevated blood alcohol level seemed to have affected his coordination, as he nearly stuck his finger up my nose when he went to high-five me and he nearly punctured my sternum when he went to give me a hug. Ah, the impaired depth perception of youth.

I was taking pictures at Livewire, and a guy came up and asked me what speed of film I was using and asked if I wanted him to take a picture for me. I was just trying to snap a shot of a cool dog this girl had brought in with her. He assured me the pictures wouldn't come out and told me that he "takes pictures for a living." I thought, "You mean you're a photographer?" In my head, I said the word "photographer" in mockingly halted syllables. He didn't deter me. He introduced himself and I wondered why.

A few friends wandered in after last call. My parting hugs provoked comments of how nice I smelled. That's never a bad thing to hear.

The fellows across the street from my home kindly fixed my flat tire in just a handful of minutes and charged me a mere tenner. When I was getting ready to leave, the boss announced that it was lunch time, and I smiled at the mechanics as they made for their victuals. I pictured them breaking open sturdy metal lunchboxes and unwrapping lovingly-made sandwiches with a pickle on the side. I wondered if their thermoses might contain orange drink. But, in all likelihood, they probably went across the street for something fast and hot. It's invitingly gettable in my neighborhood. The next time I go running past the tire place (which will probably be in a matter of hours), I'll wave at the guys with thanks in my bosom, but they probably won't recognize me in my running attire, and I will feel offput by their quizzical stares. "You can't win them all," is, I believe, how the saying goes.

Negative outlook? Well, that's how I'm living.

Every minute, I'm running out of time. Doing less than I wish I had. Letting the obligations mount.

I can't help thinking, when I'm shopping at swap meets and garage sales and rooting through old photos and birthday cards and brochures, that these all belonged to someone who is now dead. "Oh, look, what a neat birthday card that never got sent by someone who is now dead." Or, "Hey, why didn't this now-dead person's family want to keep these pictures from her wedding?" Or, "I'll bet this person was planning a trip to Europe. Oh, well. He's dead now." I can't stop thinking about it. And when I buy this stuff and take it home, I touch it all gingerly, knowing it isn't really mine. The water damage, the dust, the decay -- they all belong to someone else and their trove of memories. I'm just passing through, sweeping it into a box, and then using it for something unimportant.

Someday, someone will pay too much or too little for something that was once mine but has not joined the great continuum of things that don't belong to anyone anymore. Someone may buy a box of old discarded pictures and wonder why I would ever have bothered snapping a picture of my shoe on that escalator. Someone may not think the blurry effects in my Lomo shots are especially charming. They may instead jeer at the palsied hand that held the camera. They might say, "Any fool knows you can't get natural light shots in the Haunted Mansion!" I won't be nearby to object.

I wonder where I'll be. And I wonder how I'll feel about it. I don't like being so keenly aware that I am always, always expiring. But you never know.

It's a wicked world we live in.

Are you kidding? I LOVE a wild goose chase!
I got a lot out of today, but I paid for it. Too much driving. Too much coffee. Too much vodka. Too much "vitamin water." Too much blabbermouthing. Too much everything. Not so much in the eating department, but that's for the best. I'm spent like a roll of quarters at a laundromat where the machines are all really large magnets that suck the change out of your pockets.
I saw Dennis Woodruff at Starbuck's on Melrose today. He had this air of vague celebrity. As if people were looking at him because they know who he is rather than because of the spectacle of seeing him emerge from that duct-tape-and-shag-carpet-covered car he drives around in. His woolly dog came out and absorbed some of the heat from the pavement for a while. Then he peed all over his leash and sauntered back to the shade. He was a sweet dog, but in a pitiable way. I had no desire to pet him.
However, I did see an unusual number of small, pettable dogs all over town today. Spry little miniatures in cute harnesses with surprised expressions on their moist-nosed mugs. Fidgety puppies with thick paws that foretold their gargantuan futures. Pairs of pugs on matching red leashes. They were everywhere. And I wanted to steal them all. But not in a wicked way. Just out of a wanton desire to heap affection on them. Maybe that's creepy.
I got a series of very determined and urgent catcalls from a workman on a scaffolding across the street from where I was walking. It was almost comically scripted. Like that scene in The Muppets Take Manhattan when Miss Piggy gets all the streetwise attention of those behardhatted fellows while she's spying on Kermit and Jenny. "Hey, pretty mama. Where you goin', mama? You lookin' hot today. Where you goin'?" I wanted to say, "To Whole Foods," but I thought it might exacerbate things. Perhaps even be seen as an invitation to join me. Which it wouldn't have been. Especially as I was only dropping off a box of crackers for my mother. I'm not the sort that gets her hackles up over this form of urban courtship, but I think I'm not terriby fond of being called "mama" by anyone. It has a certain '70s cachet that isn't entirely uncool, but it still implies a rudimentary age difference that I'm inclined to find insulting. On the up side of that, I got carded at Albertson's when I was buying two bottles of vanilla vodka. I'm sure the cashier didn't think I was that construction guy's mama. I like her very much.
As an unnecessary aside, I have been becoming obsessed with Whole Foods Market. It's like my new Nordstrom. I go there just to browse and find new things to try. And when the cashiers are nice to me and ask me if I like the weirdo foods I'm buying, I feel like I'm in a special little club -- albeit a club of healthful people with social consciences that govern their food preparation habits, something I would ordinarily scoff at and possibly ball up a flyer for, carelessly tossing it in to the non-recyclables bin, even when I know better. I love buying food there. Even though it's much more expensive and the selection is poorer in many categories and the packaging and marketing of their non-mainstream brands of breakfast cereals make me laugh like a fool in the aisle. I made my mom try this tofu I like to buy there, and she said, unimpressed, "I wouldn't kill anyone for it." I replied, "Well, I wouldn't either." I don't think that was the point. There are really very few meals I can list as appropriate catalysts for murder. Even the ones that border on it are nearly sure to be free of one thing, and that's tofu. It was a funny, idiomatically American thing for my mom to say, I noted. Sometimes I lose track of how thoroughly assimilated she has become. She even claims to enjoy watching Change of Heart and American Idol. What do you want to bet she was in an outrage tonight. The future of American entertainment being left in the clumsy hands of a call-in vote. Where's good old-fashioned tyranny when you need it?
Early in the morning, before I headed out to meet my friend for coffee, I was watching Follow That Bird on the television set, and I laughed and laughed. Even Chevy Chase was funny. Although, I think his performance only further proves that he can only be funny as a bumbling newscaster character. I know some of you will refer me to his Fletch years, but I actually think they've been canceled out by his more recent efforts. All the same, I laughed out loud when he mispronounced Sesame Street.
Oh, and further on the puppet tip, I also watched some of The Witches yesterday -- another credit to the Henson legacy. The only part that makes me cock a brow is the moment when the grandson turns back into a naked boy, bursting from a mouse-sized house in his grandmother's bedroom, and runs -- nude -- to the window to thank the witch who fixed him, completely oblivious to his shame. Am I the only person who thinks this is both wrong and implausible? That aside, my little sister used to love this movie. I think she's on the right track.
I don't know much about this organic dairy business, but Horizon chocolate milk is as yummy as love in my tummy. What a delicious way to close up shop for the night.
I got some additional birthday merriment tonight. I love it when celebrations stretch on and on and on.

The Luxury of a Time Machine

Sometimes I wonder how it all would have turned out. And then I realize that I spend more time wondering what things I could change in the past to rewrite my present than I spend thinking about what things I can change in my present to make good in my future. I'm not sure where I picked that up. The nonsense notion of "if only." I know with absolute certainty that if I were to be given everything I say I want more than anything in the world, I would find other things to want. That's why I keep shopping. Dreams get threadbare just like trousers do. Wishes grow weary. Nothing remains your favorite for all of time.

When I look back on the years that lie in my wake, I see the things I once wanted and I know them for the frauds they were. What ever made me want them in the first place? Maybe it's that I don't live in the presence of what I have but rather in the considered absence of what I don't. I look at my collections and I take note of what's missing. I look at everything as an act that will contribute to my completion if I can only manage to do it right. But, like puzzles and playthings and turns at the game, once completion is reached, there's nothing left to do but tear it all down and start over. Perhaps I should have spent all this time fearing completion rather than pining for it. I don't want anyone to put the finishing touches on me just yet. I'm not ready.

I still indulge myself in thoughts of going back. It's just a way to pass the time. My memory is accurate but forgiving. And it never fails to include what I was wearing.

Scream bloody murder. No one will hear you.

I enjoyed today and hated it. I am overwhelmed by things I can't completely govern. I'm frustrated with destructive habits. I'm fed up with disappointment and unengaged by the promise of being attended to. Simultaneously, I was out in the sun for hours and hours. I bought a painting of a ship. I remembered how things used to be many years ago, and I laughed at those old, old days and knew that I didn't miss them. I wore my Converse high-tops and fretted a little bit about the clown face my feet took on. I passed on lunch but agreed to dinner. My neck needed rubbing. It got some.

I feel like a pinball caught between warring flippers. Every smile is seconds from a frown. Every laugh is inches from a sigh is inches from a groan. If I could just sustain. Anything. Okay. Let me be hopelessly forlorn. I will write songs about suicide and dark remembrances that want for giving up. It made a fortune for Morrissey. Or let me be bubblegum and doughnuts with sprinkles. Colorful and candy-coated with flavor that lasts and lasts. Just let me be something. I can't bear the neverending back and forth. Love. Hate. Anger. Apathy. Bemusement. Boredom. Fear. Folly. It's like a daily multi-vitamin of neuroses that I swallow. I never take it with food, so it upsets my tummy. And I curse my various brain lobes and regions for having the ability to feel so much. I always loved Comfortably Numb.

It's a metaphor again, maybe. I'm always going back and forth. Always being shuttled to and fro. Always bowing to indecision rather than to commitment. I free myself up for the possibility of being tied down, and somehow I manage to exist in both states. How? Why? For how much longer?

This picture will give you no idea what an ordeal I experienced while driving home tonight. But that's because this picture wasn't taken today. We can still pretend I ever want to get back in my car again. I've been fooling myself for years. Truth be told, my drive home tonight nearly did me in. And not just because it took me nearly two hours to travel a handful of miles in a sea of cars that all seemed to be moving faster than me. I listened to music in the car that made me want to die. And I sang along.

Still, this picture leaves no room for argument that I had a cherry of a mouth when the shutter opened and closed. I can concede that, despite my desire to drown in something. I even managed to meet my deadlines. I waited to check the time until I was finished. The tears would certainly have queued up for a gush if it weren't for the relief of being done. I'm done. With many things.

Cruel Irony

Though I had every reason to sleep the sleep of angels, I couldn't manage to slumber longer than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. And my dreaming mind seems to like to conjure up the down and dirty for me and then make me feel rotten about it. It's unfair in a disapprovingly parochial way, and it makes no sense that it's all happening in my ordinarily-not-nonplussed-by-such-things mind. Staying in bed at this point is just an act of rebellion. It accomplishes nothing.

Is irony ever not cruel?

Pinstripe Pants

What started with a sense of grim foreboding ended in a swell of satisfaction. I have an excellent feeling about the shows I had tonight. I am proud and relieved and curiously reinvested. Maybe it's due in part to the fact that I know where Shangri-la is.

Whatever the case, it inspired celebration, and I was inclined to go with the flow. I was hot stuff tonight. It's a feeling I do not abhor.

I wrote this rhyme with a Sharpie.

Red Light Special or Birthday Faces by Barlight

Is this mirror unflattering, or is reality too unbearable to be believed?

It's just beginning, but a birthday is afoot. And, if you must know, it's mine. I was delighted to celebrate early with more friends than I expected. I even got giftage! And several particularly canny folk noted the turning of the calendar at midnight and bid me my propers right then. I had no idea it was so late, but it wasn't dismaying when I realized it. The day was so full that it had every right to be over.

I am always a little taken aback when people remember me and are thoughtful. There's a child in me who doesn't know if she deserves it. But I once played Pin the Tail on the Donkey at a birthday party when I was still in kindergarten, and I was the birthday girl that day, and my mom made sure I won. If only we had been in Vegas and the paper cutout of a donkey had been a roulette wheel.

The night is bitter
The stars have lost their glitter
The winds grow colder
Suddenly you're older

How I love the melancholy strains of the wayward chanteuse.

I am an idealist. A romantic. And not in that charming naive way. But rather in that naive naive way. I am a fool.

But I made myself a mix CD last night, and I played it in the car early this morning while I was driving, and I was pleased. And I went shopping and bought outfits that will dress me in future fantasy days. I like aspiring to tomorrow or the day after. It reminds me that I am moving forward. Even if I occasionally get caught facing the wrong direction.

I don't fear getting older. But getting wiser could be disastrous.

Explication Zone

There's nothing so very musical about the birds that roost near my home. They really just sound like a vast sea of bathtub squeaky toys being trampled by a herd of oxen, careful to step on every one. But it's sort of nice to be up to hear them. You know what they say about a change of pace.

I had so much trouble getting to sleep. It's always when I know I have to be up. A cruel form of rebellion that only ruins my chances of being able to look rested and serene. The exhaustion almost becomes exhilarating. As if one need only feel something with particular gravity for it to suddenly become extreme. Whatever that means.

I must not notice much, if this is what stands out.

The Positive Power of Running to Gangsta Rap

I go running because I'm determined to chase out the demons. But being neighborly and guilt-ridden, once they're out, I feel compelled to invite them to stay for a drink and maybe a bite to eat. But nothing for me. I'm trying to convince myself that hunger pains are as enjoyable as a vodka buzz. It's part of my new approach to fooling myself.

I woke with no desire to wake. I would have been content and unsurprised to slog through my responsibilities and feel as if I had gotten nowhere. But the pavement beckoned. And I was a little flattered by it. So I blushed, got dressed, and got to it.

It was hot and sunny and clear out, and I had poems in my head. So I ran fast and gloried in it. Sometimes, the strides last so long it feels like flying. Thousands and thousands of things happen, and I'm always counting.

Many-Layered Cake

I barely had a bit of up before getting back to down. Something squeezed the life out of me. And no amount of creativity or sleep or spirits or play-acting could put it back. Celebration melts of a sudden into guilty feelings and rational explanations and attempts at logic that never fully take. I indicted myself for feeling envious. When someone else seems to have what I am missing, I press myself and realize that I don't know what I'm missing. I only know what I think I've lost. I only know what I think might help. And I have no courtroom-quality memory of what anything was like when it was all there. I suspect I just didn't know that I was wanting. Or I don't remember that I was. I was never satisfied or confident or sure. But it's easier to remember the scenes that didn't let on. That's why you keep the smiling pictures and put the less-smiling ones in a box somewhere that doesn't get looked at much. No one wants to remember the day they cried the most they ever cried. Even if pictures were taken.

I sit for long periods of time with the taste of madness in my mouth. I get caught trying to talk myself out of things, and then I realize that I'm talking to myself. Having it out like a crazy person. It happens during long drives. It happens during long silences. It happens at the movies. It keeps me from settling in to anything. It stokes the fires of criticism and frustration that keep me looking in the mirror and finding all that's wrong there. To the brain behind my eyes, it often looks as if everyone else has it better.

I didn't fail this weekend. But I didn't win. And I'm fearful that I might not know the difference.

I know I had it coming
I know I can't be free
But those people keep a-moving
And that's what tortures me

The Sexism of Punk Rock Concerts

The night runs long for me. I just got home from a long drive, following the NOFX concert, where I was moshed to the point of rib-cracking and where I discovered that it doesn't pay to be a girl in more venues than one might imagine. At a punk rock concert, guys will totally bruise and jostle you if you're of the fairer sex. They would never dream of leaning on some strange dude, but wear a barrette in your hair, and all of a sudden you're an ottoman. One sweaty, shirtless cretin who threw his entire weight on my shoulder and head as he got down from a ledge, responded smugly to my objections by shrugging and saying, "Sorry, but we're at a punk rock concert," as he pushed forward into the sea of fools. Stay tuned. There's a cat fight in the next scene.

Fête Sauvage

Though the details are tedious, you should know that this next episode began with me. Then, a drunk chick started something ugly with my sister, and she and I ended up practically dismantling the girl. The pushing turned into hair pulling, name-calling, and even a little inadvertent boob-grabbing. Gods! -- if I could only have gotten a punch in! I have fists to brandish and a surprising amount of ready-for-action rage. But the logistics of that kind of brawling leave little room for a well-placed wallop. Much as I wanted to sock that girl in the teeth. But I know my sister landed a few good ones. One in the eye, for certain.

My sister yanked off the girl's hairpiece (a retro, blonde fall that was set atop a sadly sparse little ponytail and a mass of bobby pins), and I literally tore her shirt to pieces. I realized as her boyfriend was pulling her away that I had my finger looped through her earring and that I was about to tear it out. I let go. I'm no barbarian.

All told, I took a stray fist in the eye, and my little sister got hit in the nose, but I'm sure we were not the worse for wear. We were the vanquishers. The scoundrelly she-devil later came up and apologized to my sister. Her boyfriend apologized, too. Perhaps out of fear that we would taunt them again with our vicious flailing, but mostly because she wanted her hairpiece back. It had long since been thrown to the moshing wolves. I picked it up off the floor in the immediate aftermath of our scuffle, and I thrust it into the air like a trophy -- like the head of the enemy or a severed ear. Then, my sister took it from me and tossed it. By the time we left -- hot, sweaty, and pumped full of the indignance of the righteous -- the blonde girl and her boyfriend were still scouring the floor for it. But I guess we're all friends now.

I have a big, raised welt of a bruise on my forehead that I don't remember getting. It's funny how certain injuries never manage to take hold in memory, while others hang on relentlessly, unwilling to ever be forgotten.

Rally Point

I can offer high marks to the bonding properties of battle. You've got my back. I've got yours. Our hearts are pounding. We're sweating and screaming. We're high-fiving our way through a wash of venom and vitriol. And after it's over, we can recount the whole experience to each other in high-pitched, triumphant exclamations.

But the high is brief. The adrenaline carries a crash component that makes it hardly worth the effort. That's why the drive home is strangely silent. The cold night air is refreshing good fortune, and the danger sign has been dimmed to darkening.

I'm very thirsty.

5. 7. 9.

Today got me all deep and dark and introspective, for some reason. It showed in my work and on my face and in my lack of desire to push myself too much. I had some very taxing, stress-filled moments today. And I was disappointed in myself for being as unfamiliar as I am with the ganglionic Los Angeles freeway system. I should know how to get where I'm going. I should. By now. I should have gone on more Ponce-de-Leon-like weekend excursions. I should have studied a map.

I'm due for a road trip. A real one. I even started buying magazines with suggestions for them. I'm in need of busting out. I want to see something I've never seen before. Or something I've seen many, many times. I just want to be out there. Stirring things up. And I want to get the most of my Moto Photo club membership.

My father is back home. I'm so glad. I'm sure he will be screening his videos and photos for us. I look forward to sitting beside him and hearing his tall tales. He smells nice.

Now, thanks to the liberation of Mexico, I know what a real punch sounds like from close-up.

It's all rather easy, once you give it a go.

I really need to learn to stop being afraid of things. There's this switch in me that gets toggled when something very important is pressing on me. This little saboteur inside me goes to work, and I start hiding from things. Deadlines. Promises. Responsibilities. Phone calls. I just duck and cover and wait for the deluge to subside. Knowing full well that it won't. Knowing that things require doing and that I will not escape this. Knowing that consequences are no illusion. And they are unavoidable. Putting it off doesn't rub it out.

And the curious thing is that, once I actually buckle down and get the thing done, it's nothing at all. Or at least it's nowhere near as gruesome as I had been planning for it to be. This has nearly always proved to be true.

I just need to figure out how not to be overwhelmed by things. I so often am. And as good for me as the humbling quotient of that is, it's also immensely disruptive to everything else going on in my life. It's responsible for this underpinning of panic and anxiety that never gets voiced. I can only dream about what manner of pleasant and productive person I would seem to my friends and family if I just got this one major character flaw licked.

I'm not making any resolutions here or anything, but I think the need for change has shown itself.

Also, I was driving the other day behind a new Volkswagen Passat with a home-fashioned bumper sticker taped to the inside of the rear windhsield that read, "George Bush does NOT speak for me." And I felt a sense of solidarity with the folks in the car. I was glad that they share my displeasure in his leadership and that they are not cowed by the bullying of artificial patriotism and McCarthy-esque implications of treason. But then they drove SO VERY SLOWLY, hindering the getting on with my life I had planned for that afternoon. So I had to resign myself to pulling around them and noting to myself that solidarity is not sameness. As much as we may share an ideology or an opinion, we are not destiny-bound to share this road.

I also noticed that cars with those miniature American flags flapping madly out of their windows tend to proceed with the utmost lack of urgency. It caused me to theorize that the flags have a palpable aerodynamic impact on the motion of the vehicle. But then I realized that this was silly. The flags alone couldn't slow the cars down to that degree. Maybe it's a combination of flag-flying and fatheadedness...

Don't despise me for saying that. I'm not against love of country. Maybe I'm just bitter because cars with those flags on them make me envy the child-of-a-diplomat's life I always wish I'd had. Let's all love our country today! And here's an idea: let's do it without pillaging our natural resources, pulverizing our civil liberties, or bankrupting ourselves in the process. You say it can't be done? Well, that's what a lot of people said just before progress happened. You don't want to get caught being a naysayer when everything we wish for comes true, do you? That would be embarrassing!

Fortune Cookie Promises

Playing It Cool

Cool Hand Luke is a splendid film. But it's telling that the eggs scene makes me envious and hungry for a plate of eggs of my own. And I don't mean eggs from my own ovaries. I just mean eggs that I can eat. I am a weirdo.

"I fights to the finich, 'cause I eats me spinach."

My eyes are bulging with the effort of today. It's good for me. I take a very temporary but very potent sort of satisfaction from accomplishing even seemingly dreary tasks, especially when they require me to solve problems and test my mettle. I am strong. I lift things without assistance. I shove them into the trunk of my car when onlookers can scarce believe that I will be able to fit everything in with me at the wheel. Hurray for me.

You should have seen me. I lifted huge things and raised them high and plunked them down in a shopping cart. I carried giant ballast-wanting boxes from my car to my apartment. I was a marvel. The superhero version of me had sinewy muscles, rippling beneath peachy, feminine flesh and a smart outfit.

I was also just slightly taken aback by the apparent resurrection of chivalry in the Target parking lot. No fewer than five fellows offered to assist me with my unwieldy purchases. I thanked them and turned them all away politely, instinctively convinced that I am stronger than they are and have no need of their help. This might be the beginning of an explanation for why I never meet anyone. I just kept hearing myself saying, "I'm fine...oh, thanks, I'm fine...I'll be fine...thanks a lot." It is perhaps the commonest phrase you can expect to hear from me. "I'm fine." Although I nearly never find this to be a proper assessment of how I ever am. Am I fine? Does it matter? Doesn't it just mean that I'm getting by? I won't die yet. Not just now. I'll make it at least to the curb whereupon I will fall out of range of your vision and you needn't trouble yourself with what becomes of me. It would only really make a difference if I dropped dead right in front of you. That might shake things up for you at least until the next time you had a coffee.

Maybe it's more hostile than that. I'm fine. I don't need you. You can't help me. Don't pretend you care about me. I know you don't. I know that "I'm fine" is what you want and expect to hear. So have at.

Or maybe it's that half of a sentence whose second half exists only in subtext. Like in Japanese. I'm fine, but...


Or maybe it means just that. I'm fine. I'm okay. There really isn't anything to worry about. I am taking in the day, and it is agreeable to me. I am looking forward to being asked how I am very soon. I am excited about being able to announce that I am, in fact, fine. How fine a thing it is to be me. If only you could know it for yourself.



I'm fine. That's all.

Timidly Timidly

My brain is on about betrayal tonight. I dread slinking off to bed and sleep. It feels like facing the music.

Certain months belong to me.

Ain't it a glorious day
Ripe as a morning in May
I feel like I could fly
Have you ever seen
The grass so green
Or a bluer sky

Crash. Bang. Boom.

I walked in the door with shoes wet from the rain outside and I stepped gingerly into the dining room, where I had left things half-cocked. Against my better judgement, I decided to press forward and set my things down in a convenient place. That's when I tripped on the lamp cord laying across my path, managing to knock the lamp over and shatter its frosted glass shade on my floor. So much for well-lit thing-making. I really liked that lamp, too.

I'm glad I can be encouraging and helpful to others. But it doesn't always give me the sense of fulfillment it once did. I'm scroogily beginning to measure my returns and noticing the low levels in several of my encouragement tanks. Crisis-level lows in some cases. Enough for alarms to be set off and alternative sources to be researched.

If someone cared enough to light a real fire under me, I'd be ever so grateful. But then sometimes I feel as if I am burning at the stake, and nothing comes of it but a lot of smoke and ash.

I miss diving into something whose completion made sense. I miss looking forward to being done. Wanting to show myself. Wanting to share it. Wanting to celebrate. I miss the days when I wasn't afraid to finish things because of the rank emptiness their completion would leave. I used to feel like I was part of something. These days, I always feel as if I am somehow just visiting. Standing in. Understudying. Holding the page for someone else. Someone who will eventually step in and resume things in their normal, intended course. I'm no missionary. I have no desire to bounce from place to place. Never encouraging roots. Never getting to know anyone. Never letting anyone know my full name. I have no desire to secret myself away once the do-gooding is done. I want to have it out in the open, and I want it to matter. And I want to not care what anyone else deems it to be. I wish I could stop measuring myself against all these alien elements. All that is beyond my control. All that taunts me from just beyond my reach. Isn't it silly to envy those who will one day have what was never yours to begin with? Isn't it ridiculous to pine for an illusion? Isn't it an enormous, gigantic, inexcusable waste of time to lay in bed with your eyes closed trying to keep in the dream when you are fully awake and already quite sure of it? When you're not even fooling yourself, what value is there in the charade?

Reflection. Refraction.

If you snuck up on me, you'd catch me writing song lyrics. Words to tunes that haven't been written. Choruses that will never be sung. I'm pretending to be strong today. I'm flexing these faint muscles and frightening away predators with my throaty growl. Certain beasts would trample me underfoot, and I won't have it. It is of the utmost importance to me to maintain my most ladylike posture. Especially in the face of adversity.

I can smell fear. It's a human, bedroomy smell.

The Balance of Power

I finally started taking care of some things I had been allowing to sit in that festering way. I felt this wave of relief come over me -- despite the fact that the problems will not be resolved for months and months to come. It's just the trick that happens when you face your fears and they don't actually destroy you.

So, for a moment, I felt mighty. And a flush came to my cheeks and an eagerness to my fingers. And I wanted to start fixing everything that's wrong. Destiny has a cotton candy quality here on the first of May. And it's almost a sort of letdown when you realize that it's not the end of the world.

The more I worry about how you perceive me, the less you perceive me as I would want you to.

For the record, I am holding up the sky with one uplifted hand. I am soft -- marshmallowy soft -- but with sharp edges, well-placed. So many things fascinate and distract me that I am dizzy and fatigued by it. I can't possibly cram it all in. My brain -- my heart -- can only hold so much. But as I feel them swelling, I approach contentment. I was always taught the pleasure and the prize of fullness. There are few things I do in the absence of regret. The self-assessment is on me like a fever. I shouldn't have. I could have done it better. I wouldn't if it had been Wednesday. But I see you being better than me, and I admire you for it. All of you. I aim for you. Aspire to you. Sit close so I can absorb you a little bit. And I wonder if I ever lay that sensation on anyone else. It seems so very me. And so very like a failing.

I am goosebumpy with excitement and the cold. But denouement and sweaters linger round the corner. It pays to savor the chill.

Trappings

I have all the tools I need to be doing more than I am. But I still find myself drinking dusty water and eating too late and watching old movies when they come on. There is no need for killing time. It dies handily on its own.

The Loneliness of Cyborgs

There are frustrations inherent in the creation of a perfect thing. Once made imperfect, it can never be restored. It requires cautious steps and surefootery. And the ability to squint a little and call an imperfect thing perfect in the interest of saving time.

Drawn to the colors. Drawn to the blacks. Drawn to the textures of things that imply otherworldness. To the very idea of something unreal. And not in a unicorn-y sort of way.

Unable to create or recreate or reduce or relax. The seeing thing. The watching eye. It smells like breakfast in here.

You better run for your life if you can, little girl.

The Loneliness of the Late-Nite Donut Shop

How does one reach out to the absence of a thing. In the dark. In puddles whose wetness only barely masks the gritty pavement. The wet, glinting black of dewy streets in the late hours. The tiny things that the tires of cars kick up as they careen past. Everyone is in a rush to get somewhere. Or to appear to believe there is somewhere worth getting to.

The Loneliness of High-Powered Women

It's discernment that wants for admiration, isn't it? Seeing it. Understanding it. Taking it apart in your head. Getting the very essence of the thing. And not gloating upon the getting of it. Some girls cross their legs slowly and deliberately. To let you know they know you're watching. Some girls move as if submerged in water. Every gesture, drawn and precise, ethereal and balletic. Some girls make it look easy.

The Loneliness of Long-Distance Runners

Your body gives you warnings when you've gone too far.

The Loneliness of God

I take no ownership of these things. They cannot belong to me. They cannot come from me. I'm striving and straining. Getting up early like someone who works in a bakery. Writing it all down as a means of excision. Spirit and froth flowing from my fingertips -- from the tip of my pen -- like inky blood that bears out the poisons with it onto the page.

Then I devour the pages, and it all gets back in.

The Loneliness of Madmen

The ones who hate you teach you to want things.

In the cold quiet of pretend outer space, listen for the blood coursing through the many little vessels in and around your ears. It grows louder once you notice it. The ceaseless throbbing. The signature of life and need and ratty imperfection. Something inside you yearns to burst forth. The weight of an empty universe presses down on the outside of you. Keeping it all in. Blood and guts and hopes and dreams. You have become a sack that prevents the spillage of these things.

Why is the shape of it so bloody important?

"If this is empty, this doesn't matter."

Stark summing up is something. I never know whether to buy in or to forsake. Maybe I believe I am more complex than a sentence can tell. I could barely manage it with my own pen. Even with the assistance of semi-colons. Who I am. What I am. What I want. What I mean. What I'm worth. What my echo sounds like. What my silence sounds like. What my absence smells like. Where it goes.

When I believe things are simple, I can find peace in a fortune cookie. When I allow for subtext, I curse the name of whoever invented language. All these words. They only allow me to find myself further from the answer. Further from the door.

The direction the door swings tells you whether you are going in or going out.

Sad Songs and Waltzes

Am I gritting my teeth even now? The promise of the barren aftermath of stormy emotion makes it difficult to relax into whatever awaits. Whether it's sadness or relief or some other sort of funk. Maybe that's why I stretch out even the saddest of sessions. Reluctant to let the silence settle in. Apprehensive in the face of all-too-familiar mornings after when the memory of tears is vacant and lost. Maybe that's why I sometimes seek out the suffering. Yearning to feel. Obstinate in my refusal to let it all pass away into numb history. Even happy memories can trigger that bittersweet sort of nostalgia that feels more like pain than pleasure. Maybe that's why I prefer to remember.

So, baby, kiss me like a drug like a respirator
And let me fall into the dream of the astronaut
Where I get lost in space that goes on forever
And you make all the rest just an afterthought
And I believe it's you who could make it better
But it's not

Product

I made some things this weekend. Is it fair that you assume one of them may have been a mountain of a molehill? It would be nice if more of the things I made had a tangible, archivable quality to them. There is something ungraspable about making these other esoteric, conceptual things. Mistakes, for instance.

Elusive Neutrality

Sometimes my placid, unsmiling expression takes on the character of a sneer.

Amuse Yourself

I've realized something. I'm fine with standing in line and just standing there and saying nothing. You know how when you're in a long line -- say in the ladies' room or the bank or the crowded entrance of your local Costco? How certain people just can't seem to stand there and be quiet? They have to strike up a conversation with anyone -- nay, everyone -- nearby. They are discomforted by the simple fact of silence. They have to take note of how hot it is in here. Or how nice the new paint job is. They have to tell you they like your hair or mention that they have a pair of shoes JUST like the ones you're wearing.

I'm not like that. I can just stand there. For hours if necessary. I have no desire to meet anyone in line. I don't feel awkward when I avert my eyes as a new person steps up. I don't mind fixing my gaze on some innocuous subject in the mirror or on a wall somewhere. I have been known to smile politely -- perhaps even to add a polite affirmation or nod of agreement -- and then turn away. I am not a loner. But I find no solace in the buzzing chatter of queue banter. I do not consider "It's really hot in here" to be a promising preamble to worthy repartee.

I am not wholly opposed to the prospect of meeting someone interesting while waiting in line. But it has a sort of non-elective quality to it. You're not talking to me because I seem interesting. You're just talking to me because I'm here and I can hear you. You might even be thinking, "Hey, we're going to be stuck here for a while. Might as well make the best of it, right?" But that's not what I'm thinking. I'm thinking that this empty space of passive imprisonment is an opportunity for me to have a few thoughts of my own without the easy excuse of the distractions that consume my time when I'm given the freedom to indulge them. That I might catch up on the continuing debate I periodically resume in my head between me and assorted other people with whom I do not concur. That I might come up with a spot of poetry or think about what I want for lunch. I wonder if this makes me a sociopath.

But how can it, after all? Aren't I doing you a favor? I'm not ignoring you because I dislike you or think I'm better than you. I'm sparing you the awkward necessity of filling a silence which might otherwise be perceived to be the soundtrack of a rude moment. I'm on your side. You don't really want to talk to me. If you did, you'd probably already know my name.

"The only thing I ever got from you"

What a task it is to keep hidden the secret of what really goes on inside one's head. The naked eye sees many things in the surgical light of day. But some discoveries are for the lab-drippings-covered pages of the surgeon's notebook. Some revelations manage to say their peace in one attempt, requiring no further restatement or reiteration. Documentation works like expulsion for some substances. Whereas discussion gets its teeth in you. Intravenous tubing and fine-gauge puncturing implements. You won't feel a thing. But it gets in. And you will never be the same.

I have a habit of turning metaphor into sloppy, tangential nonsense. No one knows what I'm talking about. Which proves it's safe to say it.

They were playing Tenacious D the last time I was at Liquid Kitty. I noted it to myself but never made it a topic of conversation.

Why do I even have a television? Honestly.

With your long blonde hair and your eyes of blue...

I don't always wear ponytails.

Quality of Life

Maybe part of the reason life seems less worth living these days is that I have been awakened -- and kept awake for all the daylight hours -- by the sound of hammering and belt-sanding and circular-sawing ten feet from my bedroom window for more than two months now. It's bad enough that my upstairs neighbor practices his bass for hours and hours on end. But now this. I hate to be a pest, but I think I'm miserable about it.

The other thing that is disturbing about this is the fact that I seem to be unable to conjure up any creativity beyond the simple act of complaining. That brings me down.

Better beware. Be canny and careful.

You're standing in a mine field.
You can avoid being blown to bits by standing stock still.
You can reduce your risk of the same by proceeding with extreme caution.
But you can't get out of the mine field without moving.

What do you do?

Lullaby for Liquid Pig

I went to Lisa Germano's CD release show tonight. And then home for the watching of movies and whatever was on. I feel the cold and the late in my throat. I like to pretend I am impervious to the elements. But I am noticeably more frail and subject to the periodic failure of constitution. I'm walking with a little bit of a limp. And I'm speaking with a little bit of a rasp. And I noticed that I no longer enjoy eating ice cream at home. Out is where to be when the good sweet dairy goes down.

This far and no further!

This is not the first time this exclamation has appeared on my web site. Nor in my weblog, if I'm remembering correctly. But this is the first time my ire has been directed at The Onion, a one-time source of amusing diversion for me. But today, after going to the site, only to be first directed to a splash page for a dating service, I have decided it is over.

An open Dear John letter to The Onion:

Dear Onion,
     I break with thee.
     I have tolerated your pop-up ads, your seemingly incessant rearrangements of recurring features in your homepage layout , your periodic dips in the kneeslappingness of your comedy jokes. But a girl's got to have standards. I will not stand by while you "reinvent" yourself so frequently that I can't find anything on the site. I will not allow you to resize my browser windows or advertise the Hello Kitty Vibrator to me or bombard me with moviegoing suggestions. Don't you realize that I left your site, when I clicked on the Flash ad for Absolut Vanilla, and I NEVER WENT BACK?????
     I don't expect you to change. I don't even expect you to understand. You have been consumed by bunk advertising theory and an obsession with "driving pageviews." You have become a page of advertisements that is irritatingly interrupted by infrequent text-based humor and the occasional original graphic. You're not the fake hard-hitting news source you once were. And I am forced to seek out my funny elsewhere. I don't mind telling you, I've already begun seeing McSweeney's, and things are going very well for us.
     Don't be bitter. You'll find someone else. Lord knows I haven't been keeping your advertisers in the black. Except maybe the people who sell the Hello Kitty Vibrator. But they don't know I was referred by you. Whenever I shop there, I pretend that you and I never met. It's just easier that way.
     No, this is not an April Fool's Day joke. Can't you see it's the middle of April already? Just let me go. I will remember you fondly as a once-favorite venue for workday shirking, brazenly forwarding your best pieces to my boss, who never understood your humor to begin with. I even had a favorite article. U.S. Populace Lurches Methodically Through The Motions For Yet Another Day, followed so closely it was nearly neck-and-neck by Walken In L.A. Oh, you were golden once, dear Onion. And I prefer to remember you that way.

Regretfully,

Mary Forrest

The Argument

I keep waking up every couple of hours and trying to convince myself to not be awake. Even when I put on my sternest demeanor, I don't seem to want to listen to me. It's been many mornings in a row that I've seen that first dawn-colored basting of the darker sky with a look of "it figures" on my face. It's hard to appreciate nature when it keeps wreaking havoc with my plans for rest. It only gets brighter, the more I type. Someone should tell those birds to cram it.

The only people who ask are the ones you can't tell.

Why is today different from other days?

Shh. I saw X-MEN 2 tonight. No one must know.

How is it that Wolverine wears that furrowed brow and it gets me all ajangle, but I notice that I've been wearing a similarly scrunched look, and it does nothing whatever for my sex appeal. Maybe it's just the difference between the angst of the angry and the angst of the angst-ridden.

I am keen to see the movie in a big, overchilled theater with hundreds of other tragic comic book-loving filmgoers. The camaraderie. The soaring spirits. The shame. It's a lot like being with my family. They're my family, and I love them. But they're my FAMILY. They inspired me to procure the domain shametycoons.com, which I own. I am also the proud owner of iamnoone.com, impotentrage.com, and goodeatingfish.com. Watch for future developments on one or more of those titles. But don't start pressuring me about it. I can't handle it right now.

These days, I can only keep up the smiling face for so long. Sadness drags at the corners of my smile like hooks with lead shot on the ends. There was something false about the smile to begin with. It was always more of a simper. Not everyone sees through it. And, while it's true that you can't fool all of the people all of the time*, it's also true that most of the ones who can't be fooled have better things to do than to pay attention to you. Or me, as it happens.

I'm tired of looking so tired.

* P.T. Barnum said this, didn't he? Well, he can suck it. What a self-important, postulating windbag.

"In the middle of the night, I call your name."

When "Oh Yoko" came on, we all sang along.

How to Draw a Bunny

I can never quite tear myself from something that moves me. I can never have it all to myself. That old adage about a tree falling in the forest? Well, if a tree falls nearby and I am the only one to hear it, it might as well not have bothered falling in the first place. I, alone, don't count. At least not for me.

Tonight at LACMA, I saw How to Draw a Bunny, the documentary about Ray Johnson, whose work and quirkiness I have long admired but whose legacy I now worship and envy. And I can't help but feel this fantastic sense of regret and frustration that I wasn't able to take everyone I know to see the film with me. Which proves to me that I am nothing like Ray Johnson, who did everything for the sake of an impetus as mysterious and enigmatic as he was. I grind my teeth at how pitifully obvious I am. I clearly need to feel my experiences resounding off the fleshy walls of other people in order to have them to their fullest. Everything is intensified for me by the simple act of sharing. Never moreso than when I am given that semi-secret gift of knowledge and access that emerges when many interesting people sit for a while and talk about one person they all found interesting. It was funny and inspiring and sad and whimsical. It made me want to make something. It made me want to be something. If it had asked me for money, it would have gotten it.

Maybe it's just that I want the people I know and like to have some intersection with my reference base. I want them to know what I know. Or at least know what I mean. And the more I have to convey it to them in anecdotal form, the more I fear that they think of me as "chatty."

Before the screening, the person in charge of the thing informed us that the film had originally only been planned to show in L.A. once at the Getty (which has already occurred) and once at LACMA (which has now also already occurred). But apparently, its favorable reception has caused it to be picked up for distribution, which leads me to believe that others can see it, too, and soon. These others I speak of should.

Never judge a book by its endpapers.

I've been pitched into a season of waiting. And missing out on little chances for things. Maybe it's all just the course of nature. A way of reminding you who your friends are and who they aren't. What you can and can't expect them to be. And how nice -- how awfully, awfully nice it is to be to able say what you mean without always, always worrying about what lurks between the lines.

When I watched Creepshow many years ago while babysitting, it was the last vignette with the thing in the box in the basement that scared the Christmas out of me. And when I went away to some weird nature day camp in the fourth grade, I was unable to play the guessing box game, because you had to stick your hand blindly into a big box and guess what was inside it. A dried out old tortoise shell. Shark teeth. Molted snakeskin. A monster. I couldn't bring myself to do it. There is nothing more frightening to me than the possibility that what I fear the most is exactly what I am about to discover.

I prefer to know the truth of things and face them head on. But even that isn't really true.

Here's pepper in your eye.

It's a good thing I have so many things pressing on me. Or I might not do anything at all. Particularly when I am cast into this shade of funk. When everything you hold up to the mirror flashes back its bleak reflection. And physical frailties allow that dangerous excuse for self-pity.

When I was a teenage girl, there was one night when everyone in my family was away. I had the house to myself for the first time...ever, I think. And I felt this great temptation to scream at the top of my lungs for as long as I could sustain the sound. But instead, I sat in the silence, measuring my failure.

I live alone now. And I can scream anytime I want to. But I never do.

Hot Drinks

I wonder if it would be any fun to bathe in hot chocolate. I never seem to be able to make a big enough cup of it.

A coin-sized glimpse of sky

I feel as if I am trapped in a well. Far down in the belly of it, where it is cold and wet in only the wrong places. The certainty that no one is walking nearby keeps me from crying out. But I have no way of knowing. My silence approximates resignation. I am complicit in my own despair. And there is something ill-favored about this particular connotation of "surrender."

Super Foxy

We celebrated my younger sister's birthday last night at Lips, the drag queen extravaganza on 5th. Everyone seemed to have a great time. I was relieved. I picked up the cake I ordered from Extraordinary Desserts (the Bête Noire) and hurried over to the restaurant. I recognized all the stress tags showing themselves. I take a lot of responsibility for other people's enjoyment. My genetic predisposition towards being everyone's homeroom mother. I wish I could rid myself of that. But I also managed to catch my reflection a few times throughout the night and realized that I was enjoying myself, too. I met up with friends after the festivities and looked for reasons to laugh. There were plenty.

Song for You Far Away

There is something about saying that you miss someone. To miss something. That something is MISSING. To feel the void that is left. The absence that replaces the presence. The nothing that was once more than that. The nothing that stands for what you have lost. When things go missing from me, it requires adjustment. I stand differently. I must correct to keep my balance. Because I require these things. And without them, I am less than whole. I am bereft. Robbed. And the taking away is like a slap to the face of a confused child. A punishment. Inexplicable.

No one fills the space where you once were. The outline of you is still there. Keeping the amorphous goo of time and healing from seeping in and filling the crevices and turning the absence into substance. Your seat is saved.

You are precious to me.

Transliteration of a Sigh

I have little more to offer today than the simple assessment of how low I feel. The week has been a sort of downward spiral aimed at a sucking chest wound. I kept waiting for inspiration and impetus, but neither of them left their beds. And I don't know them well enough to barge in uninvited.

Blast the permanence of ideas.

I can only draw round things.

This is somewhat true of me. At various times of my life and for various reasons, I have cribbed from comic strip lords in poster, comic, and note form. But I have only ever really attempted to draw round characters. The Peanuts. Ziggy. That sort of lot. I'm not having you on when I say that I am only able to draw round things. It's nearly accurate, if a slight exaggeration. I might be able to manage the occasional triangle, as well.

It's all very discouraging to me. Studio art I never studied. A blank primed canvas was never touched by me. But I do so yearn to have that gift. To paint or to draw or to scribble with adeptness. I have bought many of the implements. And I immerse myself in the brilliance of the masters whenever I can. No one in my income bracket supports more museums than I do. And no one buys more weighty monographs filled with thick, glossy color plates. All part of my ingenious strategy to somehow become talented without ever actually trying. Books will be written about me. I'm sure of it.

I used to draw. Quite often actually. In a little journal with small loose leaves of lined paper and six metal rings. I'm almost afraid to go back and look to see whether I was ever any good. The truth might actually gouge my eyes out. And I need them right now.

I ran today. And it was bloody hot out there. I ran until my lungs ached. It made me proud to suffer. I think there is something wrong with me.

Sweet Relief

It was just some books. One was a Star Trek novel.

The rain rain rain came down down down.

I went to the post office today to pick up a package. I walked there. It was sunny and lovely out. I waited in a long line and felt grateful for the fact that I was not on my lunch break and anxious and looking at my watch constantly. I was perfectly content to wait. That's something I love: having the time to be patient.

There was a couple in line behind me who were renewing their passports. I heard them talking about their date of departure, and I let my imagine fill in the blanks about where they would be going. I was envious of them. The woman had fair skin and dark curly hair and a pretty smile. She was polite to the man at the window. He was not very nice to her. I disliked him on her behalf. But that's not how you make friends. On line at the post office. Commiserating over the way customer service has declined over the years. I didn't even make eye contact with them. I bought my toy car stamps and left with my package. It was a big box. I had to carry it for a few blocks. This is precisely why I usually opt to drive to the post office. Carrying a big box home for a few blocks is somewhat lacking in dignity. People wonder why you have to walk. Are you in trouble with the law? Is your car broken down? Are you still drunk at this hour of the day? I got home to find I have another package to pick up. I will probably walk there again, only to discover that someone mailed me a build-your-own-house kit, building materials included. I hope the post office has a community handtruck they loan out on the honor system for situations such as these. I don't want to have to resort to pushing my package home in a Sav-On shopping cart.

It isn't raining. But I would be happy if it was.

Don't let it bring you down; it's only Daylight Savings.

My body's clock is a rebel. And I will never understand this need to poke at the fabric of nature twice a year. There are people in Arizona who never have to reset their clocks. Imagine how much longer a life the buttons on their microwaves have.

Time change. Time for a change. A change this time. There are numerous ways to win at Scrabble.

Cradle and All

Nights of fitful, restless sleep get me down. Waking every hour to take stock of the time and do a quick bit of math to determine how much sleep I've managed to get. It dampens my desire to get on with things.

Impotent Rage

Anger is like a disembodied spirit. If it can't find an entity on which to rest, it just roams the earth, haunting innocent bystanders from time to time, provoking laughter from schoolchildren, effecting nothing.

I bought tickets to a Mark Knopfler concert and received an email from Ticketmaster that the concert had been canceled and that a refund had been processed, minus any Ticketmaster charges. So I just paid twenty-four dollars and ten cents for the convenience of buying my now-useless tickets from them. That smarts.

I was also jacked by another online retailer earlier this morning. It sure does bite it when you realize how useless your well-verbalized consumer ire is. I'm still waiting for a number of companies to go out of business as a result of my heartfelt displeasure in the way they handled me. And it's discouraging to know that at least one of them is in the top five of the Fortune 500.

Fiona Apple sings at the precise frequency to make a human heart burst.

Tonight, I experienced a great deal that I didn't expect. I moved through phases I hadn't planned for. I got a lot off my chest.

And I was entertained beyond the expression of mere words by Paul F. Tompkins. I cannot extoll him with enough enthusiasm and ferocity. He is a super duper genius. And he made me blush when I coughed too much.

Sometimes serendipity comes in the form of a butter pat when your bread is dry.

Disappearing Ink

How simple a thing it is to rewrite history. How very many times I have already done it. With the addition of time and experience and perspective and cold, hard fact -- nothing is ever what it seems. Things don't remain as they were. Change gets in like unwanted moisture and spoils your favorite shoes. You can take a photograph today and then look at it again a few years from now, and it may very well be a photograph of something entirely different than what it was when you first took it. I feel as if everything in the world is being passed through a great, vicious sieve. And meaning gets lost in the scramble.

I am not good at leaving things behind. The network of my personal reference base begins to take on such an air of complexity and overcrowding that I barely have time to have a thought before I endow it with the meaning of a thousand previous thoughts. Bestow on it the mantel of the sum of my experience. Inject the whole of history and a few flashes of popular culture. Will anything that happens to me ever happen in the vacuum of the moment? Also, while I'm inquisitive, is it ever possible to be sure?

Caring for other creatures kindles warmth in me. I welcome such things when they become opportune. But few other corporeal beings could benefit from attuning themselves to the frenzied rhythms of my heart and mind. Surely, other living things are intended to sleep the night through.

Three cheers for bartenders who call me "Sugar."

I am grateful for nights when things go well. When I am performing well. When I am amusing and welcoming to people. When I make a good impression. I realize that I offer my hand to others without hesitating. That I want to help. That I am not at all stingy with my resources, however hard-earned they may be. I always got high marks in sharing.

I am also weighted down by sad loss in my extended family and fear of what the future holds. I catch myself being exra sensitive to the dips and swells in the moods of those I love. I notice even the tough ones giving way, if only at the edges. And I want to be a sandbag to that undamming. I want to lend my support. How to do it, however, eludes me. I am clumsy and coaxing, and I worry that I only say things that will make it all worse. When what I mean to say is, "I'm here. If you need me. Don't worry."

Laughter is a welcome respite from all of that. And letting go of trivia. And paying ever closer attention to the moments when the birds are singing. Even when it's silence that I crave.

Tearjerking

Music from these movies makes me cry:

Glory
The Cider House Rules
The American President
Murder in the First
The Muppets Take Manhattan
The English Patient
Schindler's List
Sunflowers
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Deep Impact
Hook
Meet Joe Black
North
The Shawshank Redemption
West Side Story

I also cry when I watch Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes but for wholly unsentimental reasons.

Los Angeles is a windy mother.

My windows are rattling. The trees are making that cheerleader pompom sound. And the wind is howling in through the crevices. It makes me want to go curl up under the covers and hide. With a flashlight and a book.

I can't put my finger on the weather the past two days or so. The world outside is a lot like I am inside. Too hot and too cold and seldom able to make up its mind and often in perilous danger of knocking something over.

Someone should save me. A girl enjoys a good rescue plot.

"Mad for a taste of light and air."

Find quiet when you can. It is more precious than the noisy moments will allow you to imagine.

Fresh scenery hides from me. I am determined to find it out. Girls like me get cagey. When the sameness sets in. We desire a new coat of paint. A window blasted in a bare wall. A tunnel to China. There are so very many means of escape. Even the small, symbolic ones will do. It's so infuriating and amusing to me that when I am most in need of an adventure, I often have to settle for tidying up.

The Breathy Sound of Sleep

I never wake from my dreams the way they do in the movies. There are many things I never do.

My recent dreaming has largely been filled with the things I do my best to avoid thinking about when I am awake. As if that ugliness needs an outlet. As if it just waits until my conscious defenses relax. I feel myself wearying. Drained by the act of sleep itself. Waking with some urgency. It's easier to take pictures when the sun is out. Only certain things flourish in the dark.

I am the restless agent of my own undoing. That's what dreaming tells me. So I avoid it. Starting fires late in the night so I will have a reason to stay up and watch them burn. And however late I begin, I end as early. And things look only slightly different in the wash of mid-morning. Some things drive you to the brink. But staying awake is no excuse for staying asleep.

It's especially sad when the writing on the wall manages to write itself on the walls of your dreams. That's a persistent form of anguish.

Snippets that went missing.

Scott Aukerman (of Taint fame) was standing behind me at the Joe Jackson concert on Friday night. He once complimented me on a little Chinese dress I was wearing. But I'm sure he won't remember that.

Joe Jackson is one of the palest men I have ever seen. And he plays music in such a euphoric manner that you forget all about it. He did a solo piano cover of the Beatles' Girl, and the entire audience made that sucking in sound when you're supposed to. Joe exhaled instead. And some people made the sucking sound after the second "girl," which is stupid and wrong.

Natalie Portman was having lunch at Newsroom when I got there. She walked past my car a little while later, as I was getting into it. I said, "She must be on spring break." She looked very pretty. This woman sitting to my right who is an actress whose name I probably don't know yet didn't look so very pretty. It's funny how the camera lies with such inconsistency.

I, half crazy apparently, actually thought I was going to get to leave Amoeba Music last night without buying anything. I didn't have any titles in mind. I was a little caffeine-dizzy, and I was tired. So I wandered the aisles. And then I realized I was carrying so many items that my arm was fatigued. I have no idea how that happens. But I'm running out of places to put things.

It was a beautiful day today.

The face that is slapped and the thing what slaps it.

I'm up and down and all over the place. Who to forgive. Who to forget. Who to show kindness to. Who to dismiss. Who to count on. Who to count out. Who to go to. Who to lose. Who to be lost to. Who to dream about. Who indeed.

I have all this music resonating inside me. Some of it dirgelike. Some of it triumphant. But I can hardly bear to listen to it. I can hardly bear to acknowledge that any sort of journey has been made. In any given moment, I am hopeful -- even happy -- in command of myself and enchanted in some ways. But then, of a sudden, the thing comes out and confronts my cheek with its bony palm, and I'm left with that stinging that can only be nursed by the salve of time and a little bit of running dialogue in my head. Ill-begotten ideas. Memories I shouldn't have. The stain of what is now true. What I would have been willing to pretend could never be true. What I would have played at believing was something entirely other than what it was. What it is.

Doors get opened. Ideas get planted. Something germinates. And all of that goes somewhere. Sometimes to a place of dying. Sometimes to a greenhouse. Sometimes to another metaphor entirely. But then there is the secret dark stuff. The inky fog of memory and the desire to remove what pains me. The frustrating fact of the impossibility of removing the assailing pain with the pain itself. There is no such thing as undoing. Even in untying a knot, you create the state of the un-knot. It never moves backwards. It never becomes a circle. It is always what is ahead of you. Like it or not. There is the possibility of a reference to Superman and the undoing of present and the erasing of memory, but that is an analogy that has been soiled for me.

I can't decide if callus is something wonderful or awful. Is it a cold shell of indifference? Or is it a mighty armor that shields the tender innards from what would poke at them? Should I grow callous? Should I applaud those who got there before me? Should I abhor them? Is it any of my business?

I am on the verge of a sort of exhaustion. And I fear that it comes from the dull, repeating play of getting my hopes up and then having them dashed. Like the cruelest sort of broken record. Hope. Tonic. Elixir. Toxin. Opiate. Better to have had it and lost it. But ignorance is bliss. None of the sayings make sense anymore.

"Activity suggests a life filled with purpose."

I went to see The Sound of Music at the Egyptian tonight. It sure is nice to just sink into a good old-fashioned romance every now and then. I suppose this film has too great an abundance of nuns and lederhosen in it (and don't forget the singing) to be considered a traditional romance, but there are certainly some sweet, tender moments. And Christopher Plummer -- who, my dad is quick to point out, never seems to play anything but a villain -- is a lovely romantic lead.

Robert Wise and some of the actors were there for a panel after the screening, but I made for home. I've already seen Robert Wise talk a million times (well, two), and I didn't want to spend another moment listening to the shriveled crone behind me crinkling the infernally noisy bag her candy came in. Sweet Factory and all such similar candy-by-the-pound establishments, I implore you: please start giving your customers soft cloth sacks to tote their selections in. Or just make them carry the stuff out in their hands. That ruddy crackling cellophane noise is likely to instigate a small, but bloody, altercation at a cinema someday. And you don't want that on your heads. Especially if that bag contained some of your sugar-free offerings. What would be the point?

P.S. Poor Friedrich. He looked like an alpine fairy in every scene.

Do not disturb.

There is a guy who has been doing work in an apartment in the building behind me for several weeks now. I am growing to despise him. Every day, he parks his giant truck diagonally in front of the two garages behind me so that I have to go fetch him and ask him to move before I can get my car in or out of my garage. And each time I've asked him to do this, he has this attitude. Oh, it's nearly imperceptible, really. But it's just enough so that I want to take him by the throat and yell, "I pay to park my car here, you circular-saw-toting imbecile! I live here! And I am often trying to sleep when you are hammering or drilling or planing or talking on the cell phone right behind my bedroom window!" But I smile and thank him politely, even when he puts me off for ten minutes while he finishes a phone call in his truck's cab, giving me the "just a minute, lady" hand gesture that makes me want to catapult him into the chilly solitude of outer space. I'm on the verge of launching a shock and awe campaign of my own.

I am a modern Asian girl.

I think a van just drove past my kitchen window playing some sort of popular, contemporary music with a koto as the lead instrument. The cherry blossoms are always calling me home.

I think I have figured out a tenet of my taste. It was nice to realize it. For the past few years, I have found myself surrendering my tastes. To loved ones. To jobs. To circumstances. To such an extent that I began to wonder if I really had any idea what I actually like. But today, I had a firm grasp on it. And I knew that, had I the resources, I would reinvent my surroundings to reflect what pleases me.

Reinvention is key. It's so easy to just wallow in sameness. To say you thank the lord for all you have. To tell yourself you want for nothing. But I don't think it is the natural way of things. Everything around you -- including you -- it's all constantly dying. It's all falling away. So you have to compensate. You can't sit still. Or suddenly you will find that you are up to your collarbone in flakes of dead skin and the fecal matter of dust mites. You've got to keep moving. And brush yourself off once in a while. It's the itchy build-up you want to avoid. Removal is renewal.

Memory lives in the things around me like scent in a sweater. It's important and wonderful. But it's dangerous. Like the charmed poppies in the Land of Oz. Memory threatens to take on the cast of lullaby. And I linger. And my lids grow heavier. And the passage of time becomes a forgotten thing. I know this from the many times I've gone to tidy up a room and found myself sitting cross-legged on the floor flipping through old postcards or scanning journals whose pages have rippled from having been dropped in the swimming pool. I have gone through my closets and boxed up clothing I don't intend to wear, labeling the parcels "Sentimental." I have saved napkins and wrappers and corks and pennies and candy bars and drinking cups and shreds of unidentifiable substances that were once part of something whole. And then -- at some later date -- I go through it. The distraction is intoxicating. (Is this something only girls do?) Even my fantasies are often retrospective. I am keen to relive. Keen to go back. To revisit. I order the thing I know I like at a restaurant. I go to restaurants I know I've liked before. And the widening of the circle slows down. Until someone or something pops through and nudges me a little further out.

I want the circle to splay out in every direction, amorphous and uncontrolled. I want to find myself elsewhere, in the blobby recesses of the shapeless border that was once a circle but is now reminiscent of a political map of Finland.

I blabbed about my intention to visit Paris to a couple who had recently been there. They urged me to go with great haste. They even complimented my coat and said that I would fit right in. That I looked Parisian already. I was immensely encouraged and flattered. In the persistent tug of war between the desire to look like everyone else and the desire to look nothing like anyone, I often find myself getting rope burns.

So, I will go to Paris. And I will go to South Dakota. And I will go to Moscow. And when I'm in each of those places, I will buy a souvenir and put it in the box with the sentimental clothes. And one day, I will waste another afternoon reliving it all when I should be doing my spring cleaning.

"Strike" is a verb for snakes.

So, we are at war. I hope it is swift and that it requires very little in the way of bandages.

If I should die before I wake, I wish I would have gotten up earlier today.

I am ready to come to terms with the fact that I don't think interesting things.

"When it's cold outside, am I here in vain?"

I got up early this morning -- hung just enough over to make that a thing for lamenting -- to take my car in for service. I paid $4.00 on the toll road to avoid nasty traffic. I was given a lift home from the service center by a nice guy who thought I was younger than I am. Enough for it to be flattering. Not so much as to be insulting. He even began trying to set me up with his brother, a tattoo artist who lives in Los Angeles. But we were both distracted by the near-collision we had with a careless minivan. I nursed the hangover for a bit. Mostly with dozing. I listened to news coverage and had unfulfilling dialogues in my head that couldn't be spoken aloud for fear of strife. I went and got a replacement knob for the temperature control on my car's air conditioner. I have been unable to crank up the heat for several days now. With the rain and my hands that are so chilly as a rule, this was a source of great duress. And shivering people sitting in the car with me were understanding on the surface, but I feared their secret wrath and/or disappointment. I picked up my car, in exchange for six hundred filthy American dollars. Then I went to my sister's house to kill the time between then and the concert we were going to see.

I was afraid we would have a lousy no-good time. Our moods were both less than perfect. But we ended up enjoying the night immensely. I even bought her a concert t-shirt. Something she would never ordinarily do for herself. I buy souvenirs almost as a rule. I don't know why. I figure the chance to commemorate will be fleeting. That's a surefire way to market to me. Another surefire way to market to me is to give me an opportunity to buy for someone else. Gift-giving is my bag. I would have it be Christmas every day, if it weren't for the inconvenience of city-wide store closures. And I do tire of the color scheme after a few weeks.

My mind is on many things.

It's not my sense of emptiness you fill with your desire.

The worst thing about war is...

...how it makes some of the people you love look like morons to you.

I've taken a step back from my low-grade activist stance these days. I've realized you can't convince people of anything. And what's the point of trying anyway. No one I know can keep us from bombing. No one I know is involved enough to even respond to a web site poll. I don't need to change anyone's mind. I'm reluctant to even ask anymore.

For the record, I don't think we should be attacking Iraq. I know some people will think I'm a predictable liberal know-nothing. But I probably won't run into them when they're deployed in the soon-to-be-worldwide regime change and occupation we are about to embark on. So who cares, really? And it's easy for me to be sarcastic, I know. But the truth is, my breath is wasted in queries about how war will impact us economically and whether we have employed any sort of foresight in making this decision. No one wants to have an informed discussion. If a dude is for the war, he smirks and snorts and rolls his eyes when I say why I'm not. And if a dude is against the war, the discussion we would have would consist mostly of, "Yeah, I know. I feel EXACTLY the same way."

I don't think it's unpatriotic to question aggression. I support our troops and hope that we don't lose any of them. But that doesn't mean that I think we have a leadership that is infallible. As if we could. The silencers out there seem to be plenty willing to question leadership whenever it's someone they didn't vote for. That drives me nutty.

Of course, I don't want to generalize. I'm sure there are plenty of reasonable, informed folk out there who like to FORM an opinion rather than assume or accept one. But they never seem to be nearby when I'm watching the television.

Much of the broadcast journalism on the air in this country is an insult to the collective intellect. So, by the way, is Cher's lipsynching.

I must be wasted.

I'm actually laughing at a rerun of Jay Leno. Apparently, drinking a lot of wine turns me into Kevin Eubanks. Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Some of the wine I drank was green, even.

How far will one girl go to avoid stepping in a puddle?

I continue to declare my love for the rain. Even when the gutters are pregnant with it, swollen up and overflowing. Even when I have to yank my jeans up over my knees to avoid getting them dunked. Even when it brings difficulty. When else will I ever have cause to do that little dance of duck and cover. When my jeans are wet with the rain, I'm especially grateful for a warm pair of socks.

Last night, I got to hover in several of my different worlds. I realized that I am grateful to have so many disparate circles of friends. And I noticed that I am not always happy when I realize it's time to go home.

"This was unexpected."

Do you ever go to a place you've not been in years and realize you had a completely inaccurate recollection of what it was like? You go back to a place you remember going. You even remember the circumstances of the last time. What sort of day it was. Who you were with. Interesting little details about what went on. And then you go back, and the place is half the size you thought it was. Not because you were a child when you were last there. It was only three or four years ago. And it was light out the last time, but not so light that spatial perception is altered. It's so distracting when that happens. You get so caught up in how different it is from how you remembered it that you forget to pay attention to why you've come back. And the only new memory that is ever made is the one of your realizing the incorrectness of the first one.

I am against missing chances for the making of memories. Maybe that's why I feel so dashed when plans don't work out or when the evening ends earlier than expected.

I think I have been a bit cruel to myself this past week. I hope it won't happen again.

Don't knock today.

It's already been a twenty-hour day for me. But they have been mostly wonderful hours, filled with things for which I can pat myself on the back, or -- more importantly -- things about which I can scribble in my journal, probably in a self-congratulatory tone. My only complaint is that I'm not finished. I'm never finished. I never get to shut down and brush my hands together in an "I'm finished" gesture and do something else. It's all become this endless, linear thing with no demarcation whatever. My younger sister told me about the Lost Boys of the Sudan today. And I suppose I have less right to complain about a seemingly endless journey than they do. But I can only speak from this frame of reference I have. And from where I sit, I need a lengthy vacation. But such things aren't written in my book. I am forced to get my vacation feeling from trips to Whole Foods. There are a lot of things with foreign-sounding names there. If I hang out in the cheese section long enough, I can pretend I'm in France. It even smells funny.

Here's my vow to smell the cheese in France. Perhaps not before the year is out. But certainly before they stop selling cheese there.

"We'll jump, and we'll see. That's life."

In the past couple of days, I have been nearly hit by cars more times than usual. Even as a pedestrian. Well, I was running, but I assure you, I don't clock in anywhere near light speed, so I should have been readily visible to that creep in the white truck who nearly flattened me and then glared at me as if my being on the sidewalk was a statement of my hatred of my country.

I've also noticed that the cars that almost hit me in my car are almost always being captained by someone holding a cell phone to their ear. Can it be? Are the activists right? Is legislation necessary? But I wonder if they can legislate the absolute remorselessness that sets in after the near-miss. That's what gets me. Hit my car. Fine. But don't give me that look. Maybe it's that sudden flash of adrenalized embarrassment that causes people to freeze up and become jerks when they've nearly caused you harm. But that's not how I was raised. And, no matter how much I would prefer to rise above it all, I'm realizing that it's difficult to maintain an air of politeness when someone is being rude to you. Rudeness is infectious. And it has a tiny little incubation period.

Thursday is the day when the gardeners come and use heavy equipment to mow the 6 x 6 patch of lawn behind my bedroom window. Thursday mornings, I'm often tickled by a compulsion to pave over that 6 x 6 patch of lawn.

You never know what's coming. That's the beauty of it. Even when you've got yourself a solid plan. Even if it's spiral bound with a nice, thick cover. Chuck it. You never know. You can't. There's inclement weather that will have a go at your bathing costume. And sunshine that will heat up your galoshes. If I could ever just learn to try and not know, I would probably be better for it. For now, I always leave room in my handbag for a small umbrella. And a camera.

There's more than a bunch of big teeth in Jimmy Carter's mouth...

...there's also wisdom and eloquence that comes at a crucial time. See for yourself.

"I'm so tall, can't get over me."

Among the search terms used to call up my web site this past month were the following:

"pork mary forrest"
"36-25-36 filipino"
"red light district"
"eternal punishment"
"a poem of the mahabharata"

My interest in this is purely scientific.

I check my email often. And I'm beginning to notice my self-esteem being affected by the contents of my inbox. When a slew of emails with subject lines like "Gingivitis? Bleeding gums? Gum disease?" or "Don't keep psoriasis a secret!" show up, I ask myself whether a friend anonymously added me to some list in the hopes of alerting me to a problem I need to take care of. Or what about the ones that ask if I'm a homeowner? No, I'm not actually. Do I really have to feel like I'm not financially successful enough to read this piece of unsolicited email advertising just because I don't meet that criterion? I've also noticed there are new deceptive tactics being employed by email advertisers. I keep getting emails from actual food items. The sender field will read "Red Beans and Rice" or "Lobster Bisque," which causes me to feel tempted to open the emails. What might "Pear Custard Tart" have to say to me today? Is "Turkey Tetrazini" concerned about whether we will go to war? Have I said or done something to offend "Chicken Pot Pie?" I'm so reluctant to get tricked into opening an email I don't want to read, I have actually discarded electronic gift certificates sent to me by friends. There's a baby/bath water analogy in there somewhere.



The past few days were tip top. And The Fifth Element is playing on TV, so today continues the ruling trend. I feel lucky. As if I am the keeper of a wonderful secret.

Part of that secret -- the not-so-wonderful part -- is that I just hit my head really hard again. This time on the mantel, as I was reaching for a log for the fire. There is a purplish bruise beginning to form on my forehead. Someday, science will determine that -- had it not been for this most recent bump to the braincase -- I would have discovered a replacement for fossil fuel. It's a good thing for the Middle East that I'm as clumsy as I am. That was a close one. For them.

"Sometimes, accident happens."

I went to see Ex-Girl at The Casbah tonight. I loved them. They made me long for Japan. So I said hello to them afterwards and bought their merch and reminisced a bit about the good old days in Kanagawa Prefecture. I was a different girl back then.

Apparently, the wig-bedecked ladies have a new drummer playing for them now. She ruled. They all did. Japan teaches us the importance of packaging. And theatrics. And showmanship. And white platform boots. Bless it for that.

  

Some facts I learned today were of that shifty variety where you're not sure whether to be flattered or dismayed. I experience that a lot. I'm beginning to lean towards shunning the grey areas. Draw me a line, someone. Please.

I want everything to last forever. And instead, nothing does. Maybe this is what's wrongest with me.

Border Crossings, Real and Imagined

It takes more than stripes of paint to make a zebra of a donkey. So many other truths can be lifted from the grimy surface of a day trip to Mexico. What a rich trove of semiotic treasures lies just over yonder, past the trash river and just to the right of the soul of the place where the bad smell originates. You've also got to be exceedingly clever and sharp-minded and focused to be able to carry on a conversation or attempt an anecdote. Just as you're getting to the climax of your sentence, you'll have to pause to tell the mariachi band that you don't want a song just now or to regretfully decline the urging of the silver jewelry salesperson who is certain he has something you will like. One frank entrepreneur called out as I passed, "I need your money!" And I thought that was a refreshingly honest description of the transaction that would have ensued. He needs my money. In exchange, he will give me a colorful pile of crap. Or braid my hair for me.

But what then? What if you follow your tequila-rimmed excursion with a trip to the Asian market? Now, that's what I call adventuresome. A sort of ethno-bending escapade into that special place where -- whatever the language they're speaking -- they're able to read the markings on your cash currency. And that's all the reading they need. Asian markets are also disarmingly smelly. And there is a curious lot of yucky-sounding, isn't-that-actually-garbage foodstuffs being sold in your choice of fresh or frozen packaging. Many of these items have the required nutritional disclosures affixed to their outsides, but if you look closely you'll see the ingredients list says, "You don't want to know, sailor." So very little of this is true. I hope Asian marketeers aren't discouraged by my gibes. I'm known to buy cartloads of curiosities of the edible variety, and I'm not sorry anyone knows it.

My brain is all a-scatter. How far can a girl get on ninety minutes of sleep?

"Did they laugh at me when I won the gold championship?"

The fact that my day is just ending is testament to the sort of day it's been. It was full of laughing and frowning and driving and singing along and firsts of a few sorts. And, having long since crossed into the realm of tomorrow, it's my mother's birthday. Hip hip, and all that other business.

If I'm able to get any sleep at all now, it will be a wonder.

What's so fat about Tuesday?

I can't tell why it feels to have been such a long day. I was tired. But too antsy to rest. And I found my obligations to be more time-consuming than I had anticipated. But I didn't stretch and strain so very much.

Mardi Gras last year involved Chinese New Year (the blasted lunar calendar confuses me to crumbles), celebrity sightings, a seedy strip joint, nearly getting lost in Silverlake, and finding my way home late after much dimly-lit activity. It went from red lantern to sotto voce. And that's a fine spectrum to traverse. Was it even Mardi Gras today? Does it all just seem phony and dumb the further you get from the French Quarter? Will Ash Wednesday be celebrated with as much aplomb? I will look for ashen crosses on the foreheads of folks tomorrow. I'll wager I won't see many. Another Mardi Gras passed. Another nameless Tuesday, but this time with a name.

It's not the best plan to live in the past. But if you can keep your past sorted out with postcard-style snapshots of the memorable moments, I don't consider that a bad thing. And if you can recall vividly those moments when you were tender and shy and nervous and anxious, you should. I try to. If you can string together the lantern-lit flashes and turn your recollection into a lifetime's worth of first kisses and carnival cotton candy and sand between your toes and raised glasses, you should. I'm certain of it.

I'm not living in the past tonight. I'm living in the moment between then and later. It's both after and almost. But not quite now. It's like seeing everything you ever wanted, neatly packed into a cellophane package. So perfect it would almost seem a shame to tear the wrapping and let it all tumble out. It's that rare sort of pause. Wanting to wait. Wanting to freeze and stand utterly still and not breathe for a moment.

We can sleep all of our worries away
'Cause tomorrow, today will be yesterday.

Lullaby. And good night.

Sun kissed. Freckle splattered.

It was the most beautiful day. The very most beautiful possible day. The sky was perfectly clear and the shade of blue that is probably a crayon. But only if you get the boxes of 64 or more. I never had those. And today, I've learned, they come with metallic colors as well as the luxurious built-in sharpening device. That makes me feel cranky and underprivileged. But I digress.

It was picnic weather. And the marathon had the streets nearby closed off, so I could stroll out across what is usually a treacherously busy thoroughfare and take stock of the runners and walkers and stragglers and policefolk. And then have lunch. Sometimes I wish I had a pool to sit beside. Or even a David Hockney painting.

The boardwalk at Venice Beach is good for a stroll. The canals are pretty. Ducks let you walk right up to them. The parking is hard to come by, pricy when you get it. Sometimes it feels as if all the world is a street fair, and the old lady at the shaved ice stand overdoes it with the syrup.

There is this theory that every time you go to sleep, it's like dying and you wake into a rebirth. If it's true, I died early today. And was reborn an hour or two later, in time to take stock of the extra freckles on my cheeks and the pinkness on the tip of my nose. There are days when I wish I never had to go home. And there are days when I wish I never had to be anywhere else.

Learning to laugh in a room on your own

Mottled sky. Windblown me. Tired and small and drawn to the indoors where books beckon and the posture of night can be assumed at any hour. Today was like traveling in secret. Like sneaking about. Like looking for something but forgetting it at the same time. I can taste the sun on my tongue. Feel the tingle of a breeze in my hair. I catch myself longing for it to be easy and trying to keep from wanting what I don't need. With one hand raised, I bear the sky upward. And it is heavier than one might think. I travel perpetually, but I never manage to go anywhere.

Payment of Lip Service

There is something incredibly dreary about always feeling the same.