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.

Fell Weather

I felt heavy and sad today, but I could see no reason for it. That is almost a worse fate than suffering at the hand you can clearly see. It was cold and dreamy and frustrating and brooding. I wanted to find peace but was too weak to look for it.

But I took pictures and finished my work and got some reading done and shared private thoughts with close friends, and that made the dusky hours more tolerable. Dinner and drinks in the evening were so enjoyable, I almost felt as if it must be a different day altogether. I'm still so tired, though. I'm afraid my body is trying to tell me something. And I would prefer that it just shut up about it.

     I've done so much crying, the flesh has left my bones.
          I've done so much crying, the flesh has left my bones.
     You can play my ribcage like a xylophone.

I love metaphors involving the sea.

I was just tucking in a bit after 2 A.M. -- 2:14, to be precise -- when I heard the rains begin. The sound filled my head with ideas. Worries about the morning and memories of other damp days. It was colder last night than the previous night. And I was glad of my recent shame-inducing expenditures in the luxury bedding department. I was quite cozy. Enough so that I forewent getting up and posting an entry at that moment, trusting that I would remember what I meant to say upon waking. That was risky.

As a reprise to my previous post about the various words of the day, I recall a few months ago when a word of the day was Lucullan, and I congratulated myself for already having known it and its origin. But then I promptly scolded myself for knowing it because it was part of the name of a cookie I used to eat in 1993. They were called Lemon Lucullans, and there was an explanation of the etymology on the package. I'm no genius. But I've got a crack memory. And I'm a fan of cookies with jammy fruit middles or cream filling. That will seldom be disputed.

Get smart!

Today's Merriam-Webster word of the day is weltanschauung. That's rich. What's also interesting is that, if I were to try to explain what it means, I would be tempted to use the word gestalt. Do you think the Germans have it all plotted out so that you can only explain their language by using their language? Was it a platform of the Weimar Republic? I sure do love German words. I think you have to work harder for them than for their latin counterparts. There are words in Japanese that are as triumphant for me. I love it when the meaning of a word has such delicate nuances as to only be explicable through a more thorough study of the language of its origin.

For expeditiousness' sake, Merriam-Webster defines the word as "a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint." There is also a literal translation of it to mean "world view."

I like to look at the various words of the day and pit the services against one another. Today, Merriam-Webster beats out A Word a Day's gormless and Dictionary.com's complaisant. It wins because I didn't already know the word and because it's extra fancy with all those vowels in a row!

I like to look at the words of the day, but I'm not in the habit of employing them right away. Maybe it's a fear that someone else receiving an email from me with the word in it -- someone who also subscribes to such services -- will assume I didn't already know the word or that I can only find inspiration in subscription-based information. I'll protest, "But I already knew that word. The email just reminded me of it." And then I will sound like someone who is afraid to appear to not know everything. I am not afraid to not know everything. But I am afraid of being thought to be afraid of that.

It's always raining somewhere.

A friend of mine wrote and described being snowed in and how he looks forward to it. The thought of being prepared to eat canned food and warm oneself by a kerosene heater and read by lantern light and type on a manual typewriter was enchanting to me. I want to run off to a cabin in the woods somewhere and experience stillness.

But only for a short while. I'll eventually go into withdrawal if I'm not asked to validate my parking ticket for days on end or if I haven't experienced the panic of not knowing whether I'm parked legally. The freedom becomes lonely. It would be like being banished to live on the moon.

Last week, there was one night it was so windy, I wondered if my windows would just blow in. The whole place was rattling and howling. It felt safe to be inside. It felt like refuge. That's when you drink hot drinks and stoke the fire and wonder where you put the board games. That's when you forget you ever have to go out again.

And now it's raining. Softly enough to make a tinkling sound on the windows. Quietly enough that I can hear the drops coming off the ends of leaves and splashing down on the shiny, wet pavement. I dream of nights like this.

"God speed all the bakers at dawn."

I am happiest when people like what I do. I am quite happy, also, when people notice at all that I do anything. My expectations are not so very high.

I keep finding myself coming home late and congratulating myself on a good time but also chastising myself for the crippling effect my carousing will have on the day that follows. I have to be up in less than four hours. I know this. I knew it long before I made my plans for the evening. But the lure of friends and drink and bartenders who know what I order is stronger than all the sensible proverbs ever wrought. For now, at least.

The title of the story was "The Nail that Broke Too Soon." But the story ended up being about a guy called Giuseppe who grew inhumanly taller with every chapter and increasingly more menacing to the townspeople, who had been blinded by his shiny toolbelt. When the chapter began with me, I said, "Jesus fell from the cross with a thud. 'That nail broke too soon.'" And then I continued with the story of Giuseppe and the clumsy attempts of the townfolk to relieve him of his valuable accoutrements. It surprised -- and perhaps horrified -- many people, and I was proud. Which causes me to suspect that I am not above saying things just for the startled expressions my words provoke. This points to a disappointing lack of standards on my part, doesn't it? I garnered similarly uncertain approval when I pointed out how unfortunate it was for all those people to have died at a Great White concert -- a concert they were more than likely unwilling to tell anyone they were going to in the first place. I have always maintained that I cannot cross the line, for there is no line. Many would disagree with me. But they aren't people I would ever invite over.

My humor isn't always cruel. And it is often at my own expense. But there is a certain intoxicating sense of power that comes from not giving a fig. Unfortunately, I am seldom able to commit to this brash nonchalance wholeheartedly. I really don't want to upset anyone. That is sure to be my kryptonite.

Fueled by pretzels and Red Bull, I bested the night. The rest can only be listed in the column with the word "Comeuppance" at its top.

The desire to be content and the fear of same are the metaphorical pugilists duking it out inside of me. I wish one of them would just set decorum aside and throw a real punch.

"It's a frog with bird feet?"

I'm done with work I should have been done with before. That has a way of diluting the satisfaction of being done in the first place.

I was walking down the street early this morning, and someone had left a crate and several bags of books out on the curb. There was nothing to indicate they were to be discarded. I walked past them twice before giving in and stooping to look through them. I felt a little vagrant-y doing it. But I saw the authors and the titles sticking up from the heap, and I was intrigued. Obviously left by a woman. Probably either Jewish or Black. Probably depressed. Smart. Socially conscious. Interested in erotica (classics of erotica included). And then there was Ibsen.

I didn't take any of the books, even though I was tempted to scoop the lot up and scurry home with them. I was fearful I would discover they were all filled with poisonous mites or bat eggs or something. Do bats lay eggs? I know nothing of how bats are made. So, I didn't take any of the books. But I made note of the ones I would have taken and added them to my Amazon shopping cart. Proving incontrovertibly that I have learned nothing from my mother about the sacred importance of getting things for free.

I was expecting more of a night than I got. But I'm stitched fast to the promise of getting what's coming to me sometime soon.

Unnecessary aside:

Soon is one of those words that is wrong by its very construct. As much of a hurry as one who uses it is probably in, it should be shorter. Faster. It has too many Os in it. What a waste of time that extra O is. I think the word soon should just be converted into a very slight lift of the eyebrow.

Come to think of it, a lot of words that would seem to imply the need for quick, succinct conveyance employ double letters with overtly gratuitous waste. Speed. Hurry. Zippy. Why the overkill? The impatient can't be trusted to write two Rs in a row. Honestly.

Incubator

What lives in me. The horror of it. The delight. All the memories and the madness and the girlish glee and the laughter that came too loudly. I keep so much that others discard. I hold on to so much that others release. Sometimes, demons are formed. And they rise up and upset things and eventually melt away into ice cream. I was never able to hold a grudge. To my doom.

There are scars. Left by words so cruel, they cauterized as they cut. Left by knives of fancy and deceptively pretty thorns. I gave myself to them like any fool. I learned to expect the sting, but came to hope it would soften. I have had dreams where I was invisible. And afraid of getting caught.

But I have come to believe that the valley is lush and verdant and worth discovering. As are the mountaintops. I have no plan of escape. Where would I escape to? I will linger. I will diminish. I will swell into fury and fire. I am not resigned to extremes. Nor am I assigned to any one outcome. I don't believe in fate. I prefer the irresolute randomness of folly. I prefer to believe that I will stumble into what lies ahead. I am so prone to stumbling.

I am devising an incantation. But I am convinced it will never work.

But if of ships I now would sing, what ship would come to me
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a sea?

Full Moon. Dirty Something.

I am ashamed of how much I overdid it last night. I know I planned to. But the aftermath was brutal. I had a good show and received copious kind words from exiting audience members, which is always selfishly thrilling to me. Then I headed out, avec empty stomach, to poison myself. Which I did. I was having a great time right up until the time when I wasn't anymore. It must have been that last yucky creamsicle shot, I tell myself. But there's also the fact of my being on the verge of singlehandedly causing a vodka shortage. This girl needs a break.

I was grateful for sleep today. Although certain aquariums make far too much noise for my liking, and I kept finding myself being still but in a state of great tension. What fish needs that much air? Now, I've got driving to do and work to catch up on. And self-flagellation to get to. I have been away from home for a long stretch, and I can feel it. I want to go back to that previous state, when I wasn't always wondering what was coming next. I'm tired of all the surprises.

My little sister's dog got into a scuffle with a hideous opossum tonight. She appears to be all right. I have just grown to be very protective of her since that Thanksgiving a couple of years back when I took her out running with me and she was attacked by two big dogs. I cried the whole way home as I carried her, getting blood and fur all over my clothes and wondering why police cars kept driving by me uninterested. A few weeks ago, I took her for a walk, and a big dog came running after her, and I chased it away and scooped her up in my arms to make sure she was okay. I was in an adrenalized frenzy and on the verge of a panic attack for a few ghastly moments. I despise the accuracy of sense memory where fear and grief are involved. How easily it all comes rushing back. I would rather be assaulted by the neurochemistry of a sigh of satisfaction or a swell of sentiment or the sort of surprising gratitude that can't be voiced in words.

Beulah likes to watch Autopsy. I have noticed recently that even the discussion of death has some sort of dramatic effect on me. I get this sense of tragedy and loss and I feel immediately sad. I can feel tears welling up in my eyes just thinking about it.

I left the refuge of a friend's couch this morning and walked -- slightly shamefaced -- into the sunlight and the hubbub of a farmer's market. A girl was carrying a loaf of french bread and a bag of fresh vegetables. I liked her for it.

"I'm tired but I'm working, yeah."

This has been the longest week in the history of weeks. I have this slight rasp in my voice -- a foreign throatiness that got there from the enormous amount of gregariousness I've had to serve up. I've been ON for what seems forever. I'm ready to toggle down.

I wish I had kept better track along the way. I know I had a lot of observations to share and a lot of curiosities to write down and go "what's all this?" over. But time was passing faster than the cast of a canceled television show from which most of the stars are now dead. Ha ha. Who says I've lost it. That's gold, right there. Pure comedy gold. I was going to say faster than the cast of Diff'rent Strokes, but I think they are actually kicking off rather slowly, all things considered. Plus, I'm not feeling mean today. Just red in the eyes and a little slouchy.

I've been ordering Stoli Vanil with pineapple juice a lot lately. And everyone's been copying me. I hope my made-up drink will get a cool name. Preferably with my name in it. The Tropical Mary. Or the Spiny Forrest. Or maybe the Sore Tongue. I would weep with joy to be immortalized on a bar menu. Instead, my gravestone will likely read: "Mary Forrest, would-be trendsetter."

I received beautiful red tulips first thing yesterday morning and a kiss on the cheek. How lucky! I'm glad there are thoughtful people in the world.

But I think I am losing my fondness for coming home at six a.m. Especially when I have to be up at eight thirty. Notice how I write the times out longhand. Maybe this will catch on, too.

Romeo O Romeo, you've got to have your say.

A case for cloning

Today, I wish there could be two of me. That way, one could watch the Deep Space Nine Viewers' Choice Marathon on UPN. But, alas, there's only the one of me. And she won't be near a television. Rats.

Quickening of the Pace

It has often felt as if I was being left behind. As if I was always running to catch up. To favorable plains those around me had already traversed. Accomplishments I thought I should have completed earlier. To a reputation I wanted to fulfill. I still feel as if I am running. But it's suddenly like the plain before me is widening. A great triangle and I am at the smallest point. And my running feels more like an effort to stay ahead than to get ahead. Everything I feared most has certainly come to pass. But it isn't as loathesome as I imagined. I think even the most awful things become tolerable. Eventually.

For the time being, I'm not catching myself asking, "What's the point of all this?" But rather, I struggle to get it all done and ask, "But how will I ever finish reading this book?" Busier than ever. Freer than ever. Tossed headlong into a freedom I didn't want. Loosed from bonds I had grown to love. They are cautious when they let baby animals who were raised in captivity out into the wild. Not all of them know how to get by. But some of them make it. And I suspect, in the language of their species, all the others of their kind whisper and gossip and admire the newcomers for having been places they've never been and having had experiences they can't share. To the wild ones, even captivity must seem an exotic change of pace.

That causes me to think of humans escaping their cubicles and vacationing at places like Club Med. But that's a tangent that diminishes the sentiment I intended.

Clumsy Analogs and the Discerning Audience

I catch myself objecting to stories with happy endings. I don't think I like happy endings. They make liars of us. And, in future generations, our children will be burned by our error. In this metaphor, cynicism is like melanin. And reality is a noonday sun.

There are so many things I need to make time for. I don't know where to begin.

I like my face today. Maybe I'll take it somewhere.

At last, the cold.

Who knows how long it will linger. And I can't be sure if it isn't just my apartment, but it was chilly today. I'm pleased. I bought an orange sherbet-y colored scarf last week, and I'm itching to have it round my neck.

I spent some time looking for lost things today. No luck. How is it that what is most precious to you ends up among the bits and pieces scattered to the winds whose trace -- once faint -- is now absent even from memory. I almost wish I could forget the things altogether. Forgetting where they are is one thing. But remembering THAT they are only leads to the despair of longing and an endless dance of turning up everything else I never meant to find.

Do you know the way to San Jose? I don't, but I've got this handy mapping service...

Romantic Trees

When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough;
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow;
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain-air,
Come back to me! Come back to me! and say my land is fair!

     When Spring is come to garth and field, and corn is in the blade;
     When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid;
     When shower and Sun upon the Earth with fragrance fill the air,
     I'll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair.

When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold,
Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of trees unfold;
When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West,
Come back to me! Come back to me! and say my land is best!

     When Summer warms the hanging fruit and burns the berry brown
     When straw is gold, and ear is white, and harvest comes to town;
     When honey spills, and apple swells, though wind be in the West,
     I'll linger here beneath the Sun, because my land is best!

When Winter comes, the winter wild that hill and wood shall slay;
When trees shall fall and starless night devour the sunless day;
When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain
I'll look for thee, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again!

     When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;
     When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past;
     I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:
     Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!

Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.

I was beginning to dread the songs on Tolkien's pages, but this one was just the right bit of sweet and ironic and familiar.

"I cross over borders, but I'm still there now."

A glimpse of what I took.

Reunions make for tired homecomings.
The pressure was on.
Control is nothing like welcoming.
Escape.
Endurance.
That song is perfect.
Pineapple is my favorite fruit.

I feel small inside. And locked out. When did overdoing it become my thing? There are songs that will always mean something to me. And yet, it surprises me how their meaning changes. It is one of many methods I use to keep track of my growth. A measuring stick and pencil strokes where I try to stand my tallest. A metaphor for change and the capacity for it. There are things that strike me -- ripple my pond. They are like self-contained bits of time and space and sentiment. I always pretend -- or assume -- that you cannot fall into these pockets alone. When you fall, someone is there with you. When a melody transports you, when a lyric brings you back, it is a shared experience. If you dreamed all of a sudden of something that once meant something to only you and me, that was a special tenet of quantum theory at work. Time and space are only there to keep your heart from exploding. They are meant to mete out experience and response and emotion. If the moments were not required to end, surely the pain of it or the joy of it would be too much to bear.

"Nay," say I.

On the eve of this Chinese New Year, I am bold and unburdened. I'm even defying the natural part of my hair.

As January sinks into the sea...

I wonder where the day began. It feels as if yesterday never ended. The two just ran together. That's how the days often are. Paints swirling into that nameless grey goop that happens when distinction gives way to the blend. There are things I may remember about today. But I may forget why the memory of them lingers. I often feel as if I live in a roiling soup of déjà vu. Synapses, firing and misfiring, call up flashes of recollection that can easily be confused with premonition. I ask myself what that's from. When it happened. Why it feels as if I've felt it before. Whether all the other brains work like this.

There were words -- several of them -- that made a difference today. I could hear them without wondering if I was taking too great a leap in understanding their meaning. Or what was intended. There were moments that felt like progress. And I realized how new things are. Always. But also for the first time. It is all so new. I am not the same. I embrace what I once would have set fire to. I lean in instead of away. I accept. I do not know if it is a survival technique or a bandage or a form of magnificent denial. Whatever it is, I can sense its difference from what came before. I can scarcely remember the lure of old comforts. Old deceptions read clear and true. Old addresses. Old phone numbers. Stacking up like a great and useless math problem. Who even does long division anymore? There is room to laugh about it all. That's what calculators are for.

When someone else tells a story with magic in it, I find myself listening with great release. I am eager to hear something new. And quiet enough inside to not try and jump ahead to how it all ends. I used to listen to stories like they were a guessing game or a mystery to solve. I am no longer as interested in who done it. I am suddenly more intrigued by how it was done.

"This far and no further."

I would like to position myself above the reproach of a public who doesn't get me. But I still discover a strange bit of dismay when someone feels compelled to tell me what's wrong with me or to suggest that I could have been more than I am. A recent guestbook entry made me feel that. A sense of recoiling at the implication of narcissisim. The assertion that the world might be better served if I would put a plug in it. It's the sort of thing that might make a girl want to stop taking pictures altogether.

Maybe I shouldn't feel the ire of defense rising within me, but I catch myself wanting to tell everyone that I don't share all these pictures of myself because I dance around with glee at the sight of my own face. I take pictures -- and share them -- usually because there is a feeling on that day or at that moment, and I am hoping to capture it and keep it. I post plenty of pictures that display me some distance from my best. And I take plenty of pictures that don't have me in them at all. If that makes any difference.

In any case. Someone might have told Frida Kahlo to get a new subject. Or to pluck her eyebrows. Who says the opinions of the dissenters count for more than a hill of very small and inconsequential, bacteria-infested beans? I also dissociate the concepts of narcissism and autiobiography. Writing what happens to me or what I think is not a mere exercise in self-absorption. What else does one write? Fiction?

Nonetheless, I am tempted to issue a moratorium on pictures. Especially if they were taken today.

I wanted to say something about how God wrote the Bible and it's ALL about him, but I relish the title of blasphemer about as much as I like that of narcissist. The people who would be offended by this would not be welcoming vessels to my explanation, I suspect.

If you only knew me, all this would be moot.

Ciao, Tiger Lily.

The other day, I was filling out one of those questionnaires my friends send me from time to time. On one line, it asked what inspires me, and I started going through this list of the usual things. Music. Art. Beauty. Twilight. Sense memory. A perfect sandwich. But I realized it was all crap. The things that inspire me most are love and pain, which are really just two sides of the same hand slapping you.

I have been inspired by others. When I have loved them and wanted their applause more than all the acclaim in the world. I have devised wonders in the hopes of provoking a smile or a kiss or an appreciative embrace. The kind that says, "Oh, you!" There are people who have managed to pull wonders out of me. I hope the same will be said of me one day by someone who counts.

There is a weight in my head. It has been following me for days.

Early in the morning

I find gratification in productivity. Even when it seems like it's just busy work. I got up extra early today and did some rewrites and took some phone calls and embarked on some planning. With lunch meetings and twilight cocktails and afternoon parties on the verge, and the willingness of the besotted in my mixture, I am looking forward. Making plans is as good as making friends is almost as good as making an ass of oneself. A rose is a rose is a rose.

Onions for the Eyes

I like the way Henry Higgins put it when he said he was "devilish sleepy." Me, too. But not really. I'm tired. Drained to the very bottom. But not sleepy, really. Just unwilling, maybe.

My tee shirt says, "Unicorns are stupid." It's true.

einz, zwei, drei

I haven't been sick in a long time. This week, a little surprise of a cough has taken hold of me. I tried to beat it down last night with a five-mile run. That was woefully bad strategy. I came home and realized it hurt to breathe. And the cough has been getting worse. And sleep eluded me last night like so many things. I even got into bed before 2 A.M. -- a wonder of earliness for me.

I breathe shallowly today. Hoping to avoid awakening the cough. I have been remanded to that weakened position of tiptoeing round the fact of things. I suppose another, more confident girl might cough proudly. Might spray the faces of her lunch companions with her aspirated chewings and then laugh, in that half laugh-half cough sort of way. But I -- meekly -- choose to suppress. I would prefer that the world not know I suffer from any sort of ailment. Pink lipstick helps with the illusion.

94% is the longest percent of them all.

Almost done. Almost. This is worse than a real job.

Taking the leap

I want to cry out, "I'm still here!" Like Papillon at the end of the movie, when he jumps off the cliff into the ocean to float away on his raft of bags and cocoanuts. But I'm not saying it in defiance. I'm saying it in desperation. Distilling gigantic documents into little bite-sized PDFs is no fun at any hour. Particularly this one.

I give up. I'll go eat ice cream to pass the time.

The itchy ache of progress

I've gotten so much work done today. And it really just took sitting still for hours and hours. With music playing and ready access to cool water and a nice warm jacket on, I have just been tackling it all like a champ. My back hurts so very much right now, of course. The sitting. The hunching. The never quite keeping both feet on the floor. I would like to take a never-ending bath, and I would like to simmer like a lobster. I won't be happy unless I'm all over pink when I emerge. A combination of bathing and braising, really. I would kill for that.

I sort of forgot to eat and just kept working. The TV was on in the living room for a good bit, but I had my music up louder than what was playing. It's all just stimulus. Even if I only catch it in my peripheral vision. It's good for me. For the same reasons that people put mobiles above baby's cribs. Maybe I will hang a mobile in my little office. But only if I can find a really stupid one.

For some reason, that reminds me of when we used to tie thread between the head and thorax of red baron beetles we captured in the wild of the Philippines. They would fly, and we would hold them on the string like a kite. It seems cruel now. And gross. What made me want to pick up some yucky beetle and dress it with string? We were filthy then. Eating guavas without washing them. Sucking on lemon grass we picked in fields. Lemon grass that was, in all likelihood, covered in all manner of animal pee. If you know me at all, you may have heard my explanation of why thinking about this would make me suddenly feel like having a good throw up. It's a fine line between tropical fruit paradise and pee-covered produce extravaganza. I wash every piece of produce I buy. Twice.

This is just proof that I have a lot of unruly short hairs.

"Every breath that is in your lungs..."

...is a tiny little gift to me.

It was just that kind of day.

I got home late last night. I went to bed later. And I woke up early early early. But then I filled the time and the sun came up and I planned and prodded and produced. It's strange, though; the more I do, the more I must.

Artificial Heat and Ghosts in the Wee Hours

I tried to sleep without the heat on again. But I awoke shivering and with an especially cold nose. And I realized I had been dreaming very intensely and that I was in need of something.

If today has already begun, it feels nothing like it. But don't trust a girl who's had three hours of sleep.

Swashbuckling Gridiron

It's unusual for me to know this far in advance the names of the teams contending for the Superbowl trophy (which is a giant pewter elephant filled with fruit cereal, right?), but I heard it would be the Buccaneers versus the Raiders, and I thought, "Finally! An appropriate occasion for me to wear an eyepatch and carry a parrot on my shoulder!" I won't, of course. My depth perception is bad enough, and parrots are hard to come by. But it was a pleasant thought.

"I drove all night."

My sister and I were lamenting the fact that Celine Dion is singing Cyndi Lauper's song in these intolerable car commercials. What made anyone think that Celine Dion singing in a car would make me want to buy it? I feel as if I never want to buy anything again. And she's putting her kid in the commercials, too? I should go check on eBay and see if she's selling off bits of her DNA, as well. My advice? Keep it, lady. There's enough of you in the world.

I had Rothko paintings in the eye of my brain today. For some reason. Glorious, genius, tragic Rothko. There's a painting of his at a nearby museum, and when I look at it, I feel as if it is me on that canvas. Flesh and blood and white stuff. I once knew euphoria at his hand.

Ice cream did not find me. But many other pleasant things did.

His surfaces were velvety as poems of the night.

Give us a tune.

I had myself a mess of dreams last night. Sleeping fitfully does not contribute very forcefully to wanting to wake up. But I awoke often, so the jarring was deadened. I was sure I would rise with a hangover, but I felt no such thing. Instead, I was up and doing laundry and appreciating the way the sunlight streams through the glass in the French doors and makes the leaves on the bushes seem translucent in an electric sort of way.

I want to go somewhere where there is ice cream.

This photo made me think of those certain German and Russian expressionists whose paintings were all shadowy angles and awkward points of view. I used to sketch angles with a soft pencil and pretend I knew where the shadows were meant to fall.

How Tiresome It Grows

I wasn't sure how I was going to spend the day, but somewhere along the way, the itch to be with friends and family made itself plain, and that swayed me. I've had too many drinks for a girl who hopes to maintain her complexion. And I've had a night that was mostly fun and adventuresome. But I am tired again. And lacking in poetry. And wondering if the secrets are hiding somewhere just below my surface.

The weather makes it difficult to get any sense of what January usually means. The dratted coastal fog wreaked havoc on my progress. I wore a cute sweater that was woefully too warm. I cooked dinner and hoped the scent of it wouldn't linger too long in my hair, like it does.

I had a chat today with a close friend, and I found myself making the assertion that -- while I am ever so open to influence -- I am not what I would consider to be intellectually or spiritually impressionable. And I usually find those that are to be sort of disappointingly weak-minded. I'm all for being changed by a book. But if a book is able to change your life, what is that saying about your life? I like movies. But I've never had one alter my world view. I have been devouring a heap of challenging reading material lately. And even the stuff I despise is fodder for the mill, as far as I'm concerned. I'm thrilled to be adding to my lexicon. I glide over the works of other writers in a sort of dance of Braille, sightless fingers interpreting meaning as rote and racing for the end of a page without any assurance about the actual end of anything. I am as open-minded as they come. Anxious to accept and to be affected. But I think there is a strict distinction between openmindedness and tongue-lolling apathy. However great the prose, no one will surreptitiously convince me to suddenly subscribe to fascism or some form of religion or a vegetarian lifestyle. I'll make those decisions separately, thank you. And I'll reserve a special form of judgment for those who do otherwise.

I asked my friend if this makes me despicably elitist. He said no. But I wouldn't have minded if he had said yes. Elitisim has always been my bag. In a very welcoming, come-on-up-and-join-us sort of way. I believe in exclusionary evaluation with an underlying desire to include. If that makes any sense at all.

I think I was impressing someone tonight. But he clumsily tried to pay me a compliment and ended up insulting me. In a very jejune fashion, of course. It has no lasting impact on me. But it was amusing to watch him flounder as he realized that his flattering intentions had gone awry. That his bar-side instincts had served him poorly. It was a convenient ushering in of an exit, and thank all that is holy for that.

Last night, I was talking with a pair of friends and letting them in on the not-so-secret secret that so many artists usually create most fervently when they are abjectly dissatisfied. It was intended as a comfort. A mark that the lack of creative productivity in their lives might be a sign of contentment. That one might have to work specifically to find a path to creativity that immerses itself in bliss. I recognized that in myself. That the years when I had considered myself most happy were also the years when my writing nearly stopped altogether. There were other things, of course. And even in my happiest times, there were travails to contend with. I can't say the experiment is scientific, in my case. But today, when I can't really put my finger on the size of things -- when I'm not certain whether I'm fine with it all or flailing about in the frenzy of malcontent -- it's difficult not to be pensive about how my path will form itself in the coming days and weeks. So much that I can do. So much that I must do. So much that I want to do. And no longer a story about the absence of time or the inconvenience of ill-timed inspiration. It's all there. It's all mine. I'm grateful and fearful and occasionally just numb. The girl who never sits still does so for a reason. All that sitting is murder on the back.