Wednesday, July 31, 2002

a six foot tall blossom and the new Boss CD

Everyone at work really loved my Magic Cookie Bars. One woman, Charity, demanded that I make her own private batch and bring it on Friday. She said she will pay me. They had yet to install a phone on my desk still, so it was another day working with the self-proclaimed "bitches," Luciano (the 22 year old mom, who was my trainer), Donna ( the cursing grandma), and her two sister-in-laws, both also grandmas and both also big fans of cussing. I know I already said how much I loved crude old people, particularly crude old women - I think this is because I'm sexist and just think that old ladies will be genteel and mild-mannered, and so it is so surprising (even though it shouldn't be) to hear one of them say "Oh, I bit my fucking tongue." Or a very common one throughout the day is "What the fuck?" Donna is always cracking jokes too, about panties, about silly stuff, and even on some of the co-workers. A new girl walked through our section, and Donna, no looker herself, said in hushed tones to Luciano and I, "That is one ugly broad." I love "the bitches" and wish that I would have started working there ealier so I could have had a whole summer's worth of their entertainment. My love of these women also has something to do with how in every one of my past jobs, cursing has just been generally frowned upon. I said "crap" once in passing at Yes, and Martha, an old lady, was so appalled by my usage of that word. I really love the fact that I can swear freely amongst my co-workers and not have to worry about offending them. I decided today that I loved the people in Wisconsin, that they are the most accepting and pleasant people anywhere, and that there really must be something in the water - why aren't people this nice everywhere?

There is that scene in Dennis the Menace, the fairly horrible live-action movie, where George has a flower that blooms only once every forty years for just a brief moment, we're talking like less than a minute, and Dennis, being the menace, somehow distracts George from this brief moment of beauty. And, it was this I remembered, the implausibility I regarded the situation with, when I read today about such a plant that was in bloom for a couple days here, a plant that only blossoms two or three times in its forty year lifespan, the titan arum. After I got off of work, I went down to the greenhouse where there was already a huge line of people waiting to see this plant. So many people coming to witness this fifteen year old high school girl, this moment of beauty, the height of puberty, before it withers in a day. Witnessing something fleeting and thinking that that means something, that we can say we saw it, and attempt to recall what this six foot tall blossom looked like. We can witness something our own size, something even a little bit bigger come into this world and go out, something beautiful and we will wonder about our own lives, wonder if they are just as transitory, if it is only our protracted sense of the passing of time that makes us think we are not blooming and withering and sinking back into the earth in impossibly brief spans of time, to do other things, to maybe even bloom again in twenty or so years.

I bought the new Bruce Springsteen album today. I like it a lot.


my future, according to MASH

Today at work, during one of the many downtimes where I had nothing to do and was not in a diligent enough mood to read Salman Rushdie, where I just needed to do something frivilous to keep from falling asleep, to keep from going insane, I played MASH. Here are the results:

I am going to live in an apartment.
Sadly, I am not going to marry Giancarlo or Justin, but PIRG Shane. He's weird.
I am going to have 3 kids.
Will drive a scooter.
Will have a pet bear.
Will live in Boston.
Will have 30 sex partners in my life.
Will die at the age of 90 by drowning.
Will be a photographer.

And to spice things up, I added some yes/no questions, which have revealed to me that I will have sex with Justin, and that I will not have sex with Shane Riley or with Andrew Hossack again.

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

on my way to and from work, i listen to the same two police songs..

The new Bruce Springsteen album is out, and I have not been so excited about purchasing a new album since high school. I just want it. I want to own it. To read the lyrics again and again until I have them memorized, to be able to play it whenever I want, morning, noon, night, or whathaveyou. I have no cash in my bank account. That does not matter. I am resourceful, I am an American, I have a $300 credit limit on my credit card and it is still at least $80 away from being maxed out, and goddamn, if I should try to be digging my way out of this debt and not be making indulgent purchases. Goddamn that line of thinking, I motherfucking want the CD, and tomorrow, I am going to the record store where Adam (Vagina Boy) works and hopefully he will be there, and I will motherfucking purchase it, and play that shit out like the end is near. During our little drive around Madison on Saturday night, I told Adam I was going to come buy it from him, and how excited I was about it, he laughed and said I reminded him of his good friend. Of someone he knew.

I had meant to buy it today, but after work, I was so damn pooped, not from working, however, since my job is the easiest job in the world, but from having to wake up at 6:45 to be at work at 8 o'clock sharp. Today, I really didn't even start working until 10:30, I just got paid to sit around for two and a half hours. Literally. They didn't even turn on the phones until 10:30. There was a brief staff meeting for half an hour at eight, where the employees petitioned for an aerobics period at the beginning of work, where we would all stretch together. This job is so funny, I could not even imagine that being asked for at any of my previous jobs. Gary Cha would hit me with a broom if I even had the audacity to jokingly ask for paid aerobics time. After the humourous meeting and until ten everyone just sat around and talked, read books and parenting magazines at their desks, waiting for 10:00, their first break. And at ten o'clock on the dot, everyone sighed a relief like they had been working on the railroad all the live long day, and breaked for fifteen minutes exactly. Not one second less. This job is so funny. I love it. I cannot believe I get paid $8.50 an hour to just sit at my desk and talk to all the moms around me about their kids. The person that trained me today is 22, and has a four year old and a three year old. During my lunch break, I just sat at my desk and tried to eat and read instead of going out to the break room with all the many people that I do not know. But, this other young mother came up to me and talked to me forever about Florida since she is moving back there, and I really am pretty sure she was trying to hit on me. She was just standing in front of my desk all goofy and shy and playing with her hair and trying to engage me in conversation way past the point at which I kept on trying to make a break, tried to make it obvious that I just wanted to read my book.

Anyways, the girl that trained me was funny and goofy, just like the people from yesterday, and the woman next to her, who is at least fifty and so Wisconsin, cussed like there was no tomorrow all the time. It was so funny to hear her saying fuck fuck fuck. I really like bitchin' old people that are crude - they are so cool. She told me that we needed to grow me "boobies" if I was going to sit with "the bitchin' bitches." So yeah, back to the point, or the attempt at one, after working I was so tired, and I had to go the store to get ingredients to make Magic Cookie Bars for our "munchies day" tomorrow at work. I came home, cooked them, and decided I was going nowhere, that I was too tired to go get Bruce, to buy him and something else, some part of me. But, I did read a really obnoxious cover story in Time about him, a copy that I yanked from the mail downstairs, a copy addressed to Hans Nelson, who no longer lives here. I also read a fairly fun memoir type thingy on this one guy's Springsteen memories in Salon, all of which made me very eager to listen to the new album, to talk to Adam, to make out with someone in a basement, to have sex with Giancarlo again, and to do all sorts of fun things. But, I can't, or at least not right now, I have to postpone the fun, put it on hold. I have to go to bed so I can wake up again tomorrow at six fucking forty five.

jibber jabber

I am now part of the American workforce, finally, finally employed. I started working today for United Government Services, an orginization that is responsible for the admindistration of Wisconsin Medicaid. Healthcare providers call and ask if their patients are enrolled in Medicaid, if they have any other insurance, etc, etc. It's such an easy job. The phone doesn't even ring that often. Most of the day was spent laughing and talking with these girls, and reading books.

These girls I worked with were so cool. Some of them were in high school, and had that fun laugh that only high school girls seem capable of, something almost performative it's so loud and unrestrained, but yet totatlly pure and from somewhere deep down, deep down good. Sadly though, by the end of the day, I had been moved to a different section, a more boring section, where old women sat with pictures of their kids all over their desks and bottle of Purel next to their keyboards. All of the people I sat with earlier were very stunned by my being moved, since some of them had applied to work over there a few times, and since I was just a temporary worker. I would have glady traded with any of them to continue sitting in the naughty section where we were told to use "inside voices" so many times, where supervisors were made fun of with glee, and oh, I am so going to miss that section. But whatever, my new desk has a computer with internet access so I can hopefully play around online all day. This job is so easy and I wish so much that I would have applied at the temp agency earlier so I could have been doing this all summer, saying lingo to people that knew what I was talking about. Saying that their patient was eligible for "straight title 19, A and B medicare, no private insurance." The easy motherfucking life.

I came home from work, ate some, read some, and took a long nap, went bowling with Bonnie and the PIRGers, bowled a 125, ate a really good cheeseburger, and heard another Smashing Pumpkins song. After I was moved to the boring section at work, I had lots of bored time, where I could no longer joke around with the high school girls, hear this one teach this white girl how to talk cool - saying silly Snoop words ending in -hizzy. Ex. For the schizzy off the hizzy. Yeah, so during my exile from the world of fun and laughter, I had lots of time to daydream, and I daydreamed so much about Giancarlo, thinking about how much I wanted to have sex with him again, and could not wait to call him soon to try to hang out with him. He said that he could hang out on Thursday for sure the last time I talked to him, I think because he has a boyfriend, and hopefully he still can because I want some motherfucking fun sex real fucking soon.

A dialogue between the white girl who was learning how to talk "cool", Katie, and myself:
Katie: Hey, you have some up-dog on your cheek there.
Me: What? What's "up-dog"?
Kaite: Nothing much, what's up with you dawg?
Katie and I erupt into wild laughter, only to be told to use "inside voices" by a supervisor, which only made us laugh more, and allowed us to make fun of her as soon as she left.

Sunday, July 28, 2002

the return of vagina boy (and an instance of cock-sucking)

Another action-packed day in Madison with more drama, more activity, more fun-filled excitement contained withtin the span of hours than sometimes happens within the span of weeks in Florida and Virginia. Yes, it is really 7:30 in the morning, and no, I am not just waking up, I am just getting home and have so so much energy and will probably not fall asleep till sometime this afternoon, but I get ahead of myself, way ahead. Let's take things one step at a time. Baby steps, as Dr. Leo Marvin would say. Baby motherfucking steps.

I woke up this morning, and went to Jessica and Rebecca's house to go with them and Alex to Devil's Lake, which is a really pretty state park about an hour and a half from Madison. Riding in the car, talking, listening to music, feeling so at ease with these three people, wanted to stay in the backseat with Rebecca forever. And well, it was pretty darn close to forever, so I almost got my wish. The directions they had gotten were completely wrong, and so we got so lost, stopped at a farm, asked for directions, got them, and then finally, finally found Devil's Lake. Ate a little picnic, went swimming, and read forever under cloudy skies. It was so nice.

I was supposed to call Giancarlo early today, actually now yesterday, to make plans with him for last night. I didn't get home until about eight, and Gian had already told his friend that he would go out with him, but that he would try to make it to the Cardinal Bar to see me, since that's where Rebecca and I wanted to go. I went to Rebecca and Jessica's house for the Party Girl party, where we watched that very good movie, drank margaritas, and ate falafal. After the movie, and after seemingly endless primping by Rebecca and Jessica, we left, departed, and made our way to the Cardinal Bar, where Rebecca and I were going to try to get people to buy our drinks.

I was already pretty drunk by this point from the maragaritas, and soon with more alcohol in my system, the night just turned into an endless dance party, where really fun music was being spun, Jessica was making out with some random boy. And this went on for a couple of hours, until sometime nearing two, Rebecca and I, the only ones left - Jessica and her friend had left way earlier - the two of us sat at the bar and flirted shamelessy with so many people. I made out with a state represenative, and after doing so cheered, "Whoo! I made out with a represenative." The represenative, whose name I have no clue, laughed and talked to me more. I then started flirting with this one boy, Pete, until this hot obnoxious boy kept on interrrupting to flirt with me. I responded to this boy because he offered to buy me a drink and he was pretty hot. It was two o'clock and the bar was about to close, we went off to some table, and started making out until we left with everyone else and found Rebecca out on the street. This boy invited the two of us to some afterbar, and we of course, the lushes that we are, gladly accepted the invitation. Then, I saw Pete again and he invited me back to an afterbar too, and I wanted to go with Pete instead of the other boy because Pete seemed a little less trampy. I got in Pete's car, much to the other boy's disapointment, but Rebecca decided to not come with us and instead decided to go with random boy to some afterbar. Right now, I am really wondering what happened to Rebecca last night, if she ever made it home, and how the rest of her night was, and if it was anywhere near as crazy as mine.

After hopping into Pete's car, he pulled up in front of the club to pick up the other people he was driving to the afterbar, four more people. I decided to get in the backseat since I am fairly light, and ended up sitting on someone wonderful's lap. Can you guess who, Bonnie? You would be so excited. I sat on Vagina Boy's lap until we got to Pete's condo. I found out Vagina Boy's name is Adam, amongst many other things during our sort of flirting session in the backseat since he is straight and all. We drank a couple drinks at Pete's before we went off to some other party way out in the boonies, but not before buying some coke from someone way out in the boonies. Pete bought the coke, and soon we were snorting bumps in the car, driving to some after party at the VFW. We finally got there, and it was a little rave, outside in this field with rotating djs spinning techno. I snorted so much more coke with Pete, danced real crazy, talked to Adam forever, and then did some nitrous. There was a nitrous dealer there, with a tank, selling huge balloons which Pete also bought, and there was all these kids running through the fields with these huge, bright balloons and it looked so cute. I got beyond fucked up there.

Once the sun rose, we decided to abandon it and head back towards home, dropped off everyone until I was the last one left in the car. Pete asked me if I wanted to come home with him or if I wanted to go home. I told him I would go home with him, because he was pretty hot and I just felt like a coke whore, like I should since he gave me such coke. Whatever. I went home with him, we got naked fast, made out, fondled for a while until I sucked him off and collapsed into his stomach. We laid there for a while talking, trying to, feeling like we should since we just had sex or something. It was nice conversation, but I just wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed. He told me he voted for Bush and likes him, and I asked him to take me home, and it was totally cool and he was pretty damn hot. He had real abs, which was weird. I came home and I still am coked out of my head and am now going to read something boring until I pass out. The goddamn sun is out, and I want it to go away, to hide for just for a while, while I catch some z's. This is the worst entry I've ever wrote, I know it, I'm not even going to read over it. No need to try to be poetic, I am fucking jittery, I just had the most casual sex of my life, didn't even sleep in his bed, and got to to take me home. I wanted to sleep with Gian again tonight, but he was not there, and hopefully tomorrow we can, and he said that we for sure can on Thursday night. So whoo fucking hoo. I can't believe I went to this little rave thing, there is so much more to mention, the appearance of cops, witty dialogue with Adam, body parts touched, semen resting on bellys, cheeks also resting on bellys, buoyoncy in water, good food, feeling like I have real friends, and OC. Pete and all his freinds say O.C. all the time, meaning Outta Control, and I told them how that was insane, how O.O.C. (Out of Control) is one of my most used phrases. More more more, so much I should have said, but fuck it - maybe when I am sober and well-rested and not feeling the buzz of life, of other things, of death near - then maybe I will attempt to rephrase some of these things, word these events nicer, NICER, whatever the fuck that means, and well, fuck it, we'll see, or you'll see, and I'll do, because that's just like you to be a passive motherfucking consumer.

Friday, July 26, 2002

Giancarlo

Last night, again? Yes, again. Last night is the story of my life, always where it all begins, where things, mistakes, things that were not mistakes, aroused cocks, and ripped pants can be traced back to someplace temporal, the always-already last night. Julie Andrews knew it - we'll follow her advice and start at the very beginning, a very good place to start: Last night, I missed out on the free concert at the Terrace because Nora called, and I lost myself in an insanely long phone conversation with her, talking about things, the types of things we talk about, sitting in the hall on a stack of telephone books loving her, myself, and life, wrapping the cord around my finger for no reason whatsoever, the perfect reason. By the time I got off the phone with her, it was close to midnight, and so, I just decided to head off to the Rainbow Room where things are usually entertaining since I was in a good mood, a glorious mood, and wanted to spend my time amongst people, human fucking beings doing their human fucking things, to hear indiscernible chatter, a multitude of voices sounding lovely, a symphony of blah blah blahs, the soundtrack of any bar. Bonnie had gone to some PIRG party and pointedly not invited me so I had to go off in search of fun by myself. And, I'll foreshadow just a little bit, and say that Yes, my friends, Yes, my comrades, I did indeed find it, this thing called fun.

I talked to the same people I talk to every week there, my Norm, Cliff, Woody, Diane and Sam - I talked to Des'ree, to Tommy, to the bartender, to the dj girl, and to Suki, the girl that likes to dance real fun. I was one of the voices contributing to the hum, to the feeling of life occuring right here, right there. I danced for a long while by myself, danced real wild because I was in the best of spirits and just had a rocking good time, because what other way would you want to spend your time, what other way should you spend it besides having a rocking good time because you can, because are fucking young, as young as you're ever going to fucking get, because your heart is strong, your skin is tight, and your joy is the only thing you've got, the thing you can shake, your so called moneymaker. Eventually, I ran into Jason (an ex-PIRGer) who was going to the Shamrock Bar with Anka, and told me I should come with them. First though, I wanted to point out my obsession to Jason to see if he knew anything about this boy, this dark-skinned beautiful boy that looked like he was Indian or something, and who I had been staring at, sort of stalking around the bars for the past couple weeks. Jason didn't know anything about him, but agreed he was hot. An understatement, surely. This boy was so red hot, he was up there on Justin level of intimidating hotness and so of course I did not talk to him. Once outside the Rainbow Room, I kept on talking about how cute he was and how much I wanted to talk to him, and Jason being the either wonderful or the drunk person that he is/was, encouraged me to go, to go fucking talk to him, and to meet them in the Shamrock. So, I went back into the Rainbow Room, saw him, and decided that I would pee first and then maybe, maybe try to talk to him. I peed. I came out of the bathroom, and Super Hot Boy was nowhere to be found. Sadly, I left, went to the Sharmrock, sat around listening to bar talk, to the buzz of life that now sounded like the forced imitation of life, like going through the motions of what it is you think fun, happy people do, the buzz of an obnoxious fly, a pathatic bunch of people sitting around talking, blah blah blahing when they all should be fuck fuck fucking.

I giddily told Jason that I was going to go check out the Rainbow Room one last time to try to talk to Super Hot Boy, and Jason, again being wonderful, gave me the affirmations I needed to be boy-crazy, told me to fucking go for it. And so, determined to talk to Super Hot Boy, rejection be damned, just to try at least, I left, perhaps flew out of the Shamrock, and the second I stepped out the door, I lost a bit of my determination, by balls had run for the hills - there he was by himself, on an emty street, a mere two doors down, getting ready to go back into the Rainbow Room. I picked up my determination that was starting to fall around my ankles, held it up with my hands, and quickly went up to him before he could go back into the Rainbow Room. I blurted Hi at him, got a why-are-you-talking-to-me-exactly confused Hi back from him, and then in a quick breath, an exhaltion of my boy-craziness, I told him how I had wanted to say hi to him all night, and now I did, and now I was a happy boy. And then to my shock, to my utter delight, he did not say Okay, did not smile and make his way back into the bar, but instead said, "Can we kiss?" And we did. And then to my again utter shock, he asked me if I wanted to come home with him. And of course, I said Yes, maybe even Hell yes, and kissed him some more. During this kiss, the door to the Rainbow Room opened and Jenna, her boyfriend, and Rebecca came out of the Rainbow Room, and told me to come to the Paradise with them. I told them that I couldn't. They started saying how I had to, how it was Jenna's last night here in Madison (she moved to Boston this morning), and that I should come. Super Hot Boy told me that it was okay, I could go with my friends, and was about to make his way back into the bar, and I saw my opportunity to sleep with one of my obsessions quickly fading because of these cock-blocking PIRGers. I was not about to let this stand, I told him to fucking stay, that we were going to his house, said good-bye to Jenna, recieved a you-are-a -big-fat-ho look from Rebecca and made off with this boy I met a short two minutes ago towards his house, to have sex with him, to fuck.

Not even a block away, we landed into a bench somehow, made out, gropped each other, got a little dose of sexual satisfaction to hold us over until his house and then continued on our walk. I found out that his name was not actually Super Hot Boy, but was perhaps something even better, even more appropriate, more sexy, Giancarlo - that he was not in fact Indian, that he was just a dark Italian. A beautiful one, skinner than me, my height, and a lovely head of dark, scruffy hair. There was another stop, another rest stop, in someone's front lawn where he demanded that I take my shirt off, which I did, where he literally ripped my pants off of me, and where he then proceeded to try to give me head while there were two people sitting on their stoop about five houses down. I felt so rude to these people, made him stop, which was not easy, since he is much more aggresive than me. I held my pants together and finally we made it to his house, to his bedroom, where immeaditly he stripped naked looking so so beautiful, I stared and stared and eventually kissed and kissed and did other things and did other things.

The stretching, the tensing of his foot, of his toes into the ball of my foot, curling up into the place that was meant for them. Scissors somehow making an appearance, him talking about how he trims his pubes and how I needed to trim mine, how he would do it, not to worry. Snip Snip Snip, scissors perilously close to my genitilia being held by some drunken, sexually agressive boy until someone, some roommate burst into his room. Thankfully, that little project was forgotten. Water being brought to me, Gian standing in the doorway, light filtering in behind him, a beautiful, partially-visible naked silhouette holding a cup of water. It was such a beautiful image. A night of continous ones, beautiful images, I mean - a slide show where eyes are closed, things are dark, things are sucked, kissed, fondled, pinched, and then there's the brief shutter opening of the eyes, the physical world makes an appearance into this half-dream state for a brief second, a partial second even, just long enough for the light to expose an image, always a beautiful one, seeing cute smiles exchanged during breaks from kissing. Getting head in his kitchen when we went for water, opening my eyes to see his kitchen cabinets, his fucking cabinets and his dark hair over my cock, and did I mention the ktichen cabinets - they were lovely. His dark skin being touched, glazed over by my dark skin, the feeling was something so close to heavenly to lick someone my own color, to abandon whatever the fuck bullshit I've said about being beyond idenity politics, that there was something wonderfully affirming about seeing someone hot my own complexion, someone I liked, their skin reflecting against mine. The symmetry of man, of the world, of life - looking up from his dick for a second, seeing his chest that could easily be sliced down the middle, too easily, so fragile, all of us, and the two pieces would look exactly alike, a mirror image, save for probably the gruesome blood stains. This means something, I know it does, I'm not exactly sure what but I do know that it is something wonderful, something about us, about all of us. That to lie with my chin rested in the slope of someone's back, to hear someone say "hold me" sincerely - that all this means something good. That today, I woke up in a damn good mood, that I had not experienced this feeling in over a year, that I like waking up singing Beach Boys songs, feeling wonderfully exhausted, nipples still hurting, thinking that my asshole is still moist, that I want to do it again, to run back around to the front of the line as soon as getting off the Rebel Yell, to race through those barricades, running through the line with a friend, criss-crossing through the rows of lines, those metal fencey barriers that you walk back and forth through like a fucking lab rat, running my hands over the chains of these lines, letting my skin grace something else. To do it again, to scream, to feel that high of urgent living.

Thursday, July 25, 2002

because jesus loves me

I am in the library right now because I had to print something out, and right as I was about to walk into the library, probably no more than five short minutes ago, I recognized a song some guitar strumming street musician was singing, I wavered for a second, the song resonating but not yet identifiable. And then I heard it. "The killer in me is the killer in you." Smashing fucking Pumpkins. Disarm. I sat down on a bench to hear this song, this lovely song, that I had a nostalgic fit about a couple days ago at the bowling alley, and now here it was again, presented to me as a cover by this annonymous folk singer, and here I was involved in another all-consuming nostalgic fit of ecstacy on this little bench. It sounded so, so lovely. Put me in an even better mood than I already was. And that's saying a lot because I was already in a pretty damn, good mood.

This afternoon, I called the temp agency again out of habit, expecting the same answer I have gotten everyday, the same kind sorry, but today something different happened, fate intervened, and she said that she had a job that required a three month commitment, and asked if I would be in town that long. I lied. I said yes, yes, of course. And so on Monday, I start working at some job I am going to learn more about tomorrow afternoon, but which appearantly deals with answering and researching people's questions concerning Medicaid benefits. The pay is $8.50 an hour, and it is five days a week, 8 am to 4:30, a real job, kind of - how weird. I am sort of very excited about this experiment in labor that I am about to undertake. So, that made me feel good, but what intensified this feeling all the more, entrenched it into what will probably be the future remembrance of this day as a good day, the type Ice Cube sang about, was the little trip I took to Cub Foods to celebrate my soon to be employed status. Bonnie is having a wine and cheese party tonight with the PIRGers and took our last bottle of wine. I decided to have my own wine party, to fuck Bonnie and her silly PIRGers - I yanked two bottles of wine, one of Cabernet Sauvignon and one of Chianti. In addition, I yanked a box of fried chicken, hummus, and bagel chips. Came home, pigged out on food, downed two glasses of yummy Cab and then walked to the library, so slowly, more than a little buzzed, and absolutely in love with Madison for a change, with the shit smell that I know I just complained about yesterday, with the setting sun, the pastel colors serving as the backdrop to my walk, with even the nats buzzing around my eyes, even they, in their parasitic flutter about me were lovely. I walked by the agriculture buildings and the horses were still outside, so I went and petted them for too long, watched them chomp chomp on hay, and shake their long, hairy tails.

And then I came to the library and heard one of my favorite songs sung so lovely, and today is one of the good ones. Tonight, there are two cool indie bands from the Twin Cities playing on the Terrace, Twinduster and Kid Dakota. I am going to go home, drop my shit off and then come back to the Terrace, and if that is not as exciting as has been rumored then maybe I will make my way to the Rainbow Room. Fucking Disarm, he was playing, am I living in a dream?

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

rayuela/hopscotch

I thought that I could hop, skip, and jump my way through this summer, that I would make it, would pick up the pebble and make my way back without falling and losing my balance because I could not stand on one leg. Yesterday - it is always yesterday here, a permanent state of noneventfullness that seems just like the day before it, whenever that was - during that day, those days, I went to the bank, took out two dollars in quarters so that I could do my laundry for the second time this summer, so that I could stop smelling like b.o. as much. When I got my reciept back, I glanced at my balance to see that I had $28.36, and I don't know why I just did this, but I just checked my Bank of America account which I haven't been able to use in Wisconsin to see what my balance was there, and yes it is at negative $34.08. I might be able to get it down to negative $4.08 by calling them since there's a freaking thirty dollar overdraft fee that they have waived for me so many times before. Too many times.

A couple of hours ago, there was a knock on my door and I knew who it was and what this person was going to say. Somehow, I could feel it in my gut, in that deep part of me that can sense financial woes. And, I was right, or my instincts were, whichever - it doesn't really matter at this point because I answered the door and it was Gerritt and he did come to tell us that we need to pay the next portion of our rent by Wednesday at the latest, a rent payment of $166.67. Now without a math background at all, you can clearly see that things are not adding up, that no matter how you add it, it can not work out, that I am soon about to lose my balance and fall. Gerritt also told me that he would need the third payment, also $166.67 in probably two weeks. Not only am I going to lose my balance and fall, but the earth is going to open where I land and swallow me, but not before I am pegged in the head by some wicked boy with a wicked laugh with the rock that I was trying to collect.

Now there are two options here. At least two. There's always the robbing banks options and probably lots of other neferious methods, but we are going to stick to these two.

Option #1: Call my mom and grovel, explain to her my situation, and hear her sigh for me, for my life, for my future or the troubled one she forsees, souding disappointed and unhappy that I have failed to obtain a job, that I did not pay all my rent up front like I told her I did, that I am very obviously not saving up money for school and rent next year like she wanted me to do, and that I am a big idiot. I'm not so excited about this option for obvious reasons - I do not want to feel guilty, which I will, my mom's sigh instilling in me shame, shame, shame, will make me so sad that I was unable to please. It's not like she is going to say any of this, she will simply sigh and with her midwestern reserve, express in a few sentances how she is disappointed and how I should have just stayed home and worked this summer. And in these lines, I will know what she is really feeling, or at least will have strong suspicions, and will feel the Catholic guilt I was raised on, will feel like I have let down my mom.

Option #2: Try to take out the money on my credit card, which I know there is some way to do. But, this is also an option I am not too excited about since I don't feel like racking up two hundred dollars in debt on my predatory credit card with an interest rate of like 18% or something. And, I know I would rack up those insane late fees by doing this since I do not have a job to make the stupid payments on it.

I went to Ian's to apply for a job today, Ian was not there again. I called the temp agency to be told that they didn't have any assignments right now - and that was my day today, it was also my day yesterday, probably will be tomorrow also, and every other fucking day here in this town of Madison, WI, where the air smells like cow shit, where it is impossible for me to get a job, where no one says anything of interest ever, just drinks and turns the music up louder so they can forget this fact, and where the people are nice, too goddamn fucking nice. Where's the fucking rage in their hearts? I will show mine, will yell it from tall places, from open car windows, from lungs that are eager to swallow salt water - something harsh, not soft like your long fingernails and southern belle hand waves. Will someone scream with me, please - just come to tall buildings with me, ascend them and jump with me, you don't even have to hold my hand, let's just fucking jump and yell like it is the fucking apocalypse.

whiter than whtie

Just a quick note to say that I am sorry. I am sorry because I am too cold to write this entry and need to go bundle up in blankets. But I have things to say. Obviously. Everyone does. But, I really will say them, and at the same time will encourage you to say your things, but will not conflate telling you to say things, with me actually saying my things.

These are things, but not the things I want to talk about, but things which I will list since this is my diary and all:

-Today was it was cool out, cold even at night.
-I read a lot.
-I talked to Rebecca on the phone, hatched plans which Bonnie later stomped on, and talked to Becky on IM which was really nice. I hadn't talked to either Rebecca or Becky since sometime when I was living in Virginia. The word, Virginia - the notion of home sent me into a fit of nostalgia, wanting to go home so badly. So badly.
-Did laundry.
-Went with Bonnie to Cafelli's which was more than a little out of control tonight. Things just seemed so hypersexual, like watching a bunch of people that are rolling and feeling sort of paranoid, sort of out of place. Gay Jason was hitting on and even smooching Rebecca. Bonnie was making out with any PIRGer that moved, even Mike, who I had told Bonnie on the walk to Cafelli's was so cute, and Bonnie told me that she would NEVER make out with him, that he was annoying. So that was interesting to see. I danced with this super tall Dutch-looking girl forever who was such a fun dancer. Bonnie told me that the two Mikes, Megan Ho., and her (aka Bonnie Ho) wanted to have a fivesome or whatever. I was like no way Jose, you insane girl. As much as I really would like to have sex with "Chunky Mike," I do not know about any of the others, particularly Bonnie - being in a sexual situation with Bonnie would just be so weird I think. So I fled the horniest creature on Earth, the 50 foot tall Wild Woman, otherwise known as Bonnie with some booze in her and ran and danced with the tall girl some more. Bonnie appearantly told Mike that I thought he was cute and wanted to make out with him, and I was very ready to kick her ass, when Mike kept acting goofy around me. Bonnie has this horrible habit of telling people secrets you don't want them to know. When the bar closed, I left by myself because Bonnie was getting with someone(s), which good for her and all, but for some reason that walk home was so painfully long by myself, without anyone to talk to along the way, someone to give the allusion that I am not a complete loser walking past groups, scary groups of people leaving closed bars, walking by myself, already feeling slighty lonely, but feeling it even more so when I have to walk by groups, people together interacting, looking lively, looking happy.

Oh, and is Michael Jackson utterly insane these days or what?

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

a score of 154

I used to be a little boy and something about what I choose is my choice, and let us not forget the killer in me is the killer in you. That song that sounds like the feel of worn denim, your favorite pair of jeans that still fit you, that fucking song - the Smashing fucking Pumpkins one from Siamese Dream. Tonight, I went out with the PIRGers to a bowling alley/dive bar in Middleton, drank some fifty cent beers kindly bought by Bonnie since I didn't have any cash, and then played two rounds of one dollar games. A pretty good damn deal all around. The first game, I got a one something, maybe a 112 - the number I associate with MTV, the station MTV used to be when I was a teen, before they switched from Media General over to Cox digital cable and I had to learn a whole new set of numbers to associate with stations and bowling scores. It was during the second game we bowled, a game (in which I must say) that I was on a roll for the first half of - it was during this game, or the first half of it, that this nostalgic gem was brought out of a shoebox by someone for me, just for me, and maybe Bonnie also, since she sang along. At the end of the fourth frame during this second game, I had a ninety. The PIRGers kept on commenting on how I threw the ball so hard, appearantly not what they expected from Bonnie's gay friend that likes to dance a lot. Austin made some comment about how I was on track to get a 200, and that is when I got off this rumored track, the point at which I failed to knock on wood, where there were no matching socks to be found, clean or otherwise. The Smashing Pumpkins song that made me feel so good was no longer playing, and soon no songs were playing, since they had cut off the music to encourage us to hurry up and leave since we were the last people bowling. The quiet was too much, having people make comments, being able to hear them, not being able to get into the groove of a song and casually throw a ball down a lane, lining it up with the middle arrow, the biggest one, and letting it go, led me to start doing a lot worse. Not exactly bad, but not continous strikes and spares anymore. Music allows me to concentrate, no matter what high school pyschology teachers told me about music hindering concentration. Music allows me to concentrate far more on what I am doing, what I am attempting to do, allows to make that smooth connection between the attempt of and the completion of without excessive frets and worries, a rhythm to work to, to live by even. And so, when that music was shut off and there was the halted attempts at conversation, I could not think, could not interact with anyone without feeling so self-conscious, let alone bowl. There was an overwhelming silence that scared me, louder than the alt rock songs that preceded it, reverbeating through my paranoid ears, craving noise, music, order, and a rhythm to step to, something to hum along to, maybe even shake my toosh to, but more importantly, something to live by, to allow me to think that I am living, that I will always be, that no matter what, that that Smashing Pumpkins song will be played on radios, hummed to, sung to, and bowled to.

Sunday, July 21, 2002

One Diatribe About One Thing

This thing, being the worse movie to stink up the screen in recent memory, a movie so horrible that I left after half an hour even though they wouldn't refund my money, the oh so horrible, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing. It was bad. So bad.

Today was the most wonderful of days prior to this film. It was appearantly 103 degrees, hot as motherfucking Hades. It still is. I am pouring sweat in my room, sitting in a swimsuit since our house doesn't have AC. That is okay though, because I am no longer sitting watching that piece of crap movie. So yeah, earlier today I went to the Gay Pride Rally for a little while, walked around forever, and then came back, went to the park, sunbathed and read forever. Sang to David Bowie, stole a bunch of books from Barnes and Nobles with Bonnie, and then stole lots of yummy food, including the most insane amount of Amy's Burritos ever.

Then Bonnie asked me to go see this movie with her, a movie that I was sort of wary about going to see, fearing that it may be crappy, and I am on a fixed income, I'm a retiree, damnit, I can't be spending eight bucks to go see bad movies when I only have fifty left in my bank account. But, I hushed my doubts and excitedly went to go see this movie since I love going to see movies. Spending two hours in an air-conditioned place also sounded pretty damn good.

We sit down, the movie starts soon afterward and already during the very first scene, I am cringing at the badness, wondering why why why? The actors were so stiff and rigid, doing what was the worse blocking in the world. The actor comes home from work, talks to his wife, and slowly hangs up his coat, because obviously that's what people are supposed to do in films when they get home from work. Bahh. The dialogue - dear god, the dialogue, if you are going to have a movie entitled "Thirteen Conversations...", you damn well better have some interesting dialogue, not contrived attempts at it, that come off as cheesy as motherfucking Kraft cheese.

Scene two is what really sent me over the edge though, and led me to start pulling my hair, to try to make eye contact with Bonnie to see if she also thought this movie was terrible and wanted to leave. Do you remember how silly and over the top that rich white girl who became a crack-whore in Traffic was? Okay, that was nowhere near how silly this next part gets - you may think this must have been a parody of film cliches, but let me tell you my friend, it was not, not at all. Matthew McConaughy (MM) is some prosecutor out drinking with his co-workers all excited that they locked up some bad guy, that they won a conviction, talking about the rule of law and how it keeps everyone in check, how people need to be punished. Cut to MM driving home drunk, and yes, he hits some blonde girl, kills her, and drives off. Isn't this some video that we had to watch in Driver's Ed? It gets worse. The next day at work, MM is bleeding from the cut on his forehead, and a big drop lands on to his legal pad. It was that silly. I laughed. No one else did which annoyed me even more, that there was a theater full of people taking this bullshit seriously, not giving it the same ridicule treatment they would if this was some movie that was playing in multiplexes. Movie viewers privlege films that are marketed as independent or low-budget, giving it far more slack, and fail to hold these films up to the same critical standards that they would any other movie. Because these movies are "art." Yeah, fucking right they are - there's more art in my brusided toe, in my dirty laundry, in my fucking feces.

But wait, it gets even more contrived, more moralistic, and more dumb - MM is assigned to work on his own case, someone else is being charged with the crime, and it is MM's job to prosecute them. This was when I did some serious hair pulling action, some serious face in hands action, getting so frustrated, telling myself that this is not happening, that this movie could not possibly be this horrible. I don't feel like I am accurately conveying the horribleness of this movie. Let me explain a couple more things about it. You know Bahktin's theories on the dialogic nature of the novel? The polyglot and all that crap, how the novel is composed of so many voices, and that is where its magic lies. Well, I would say that film has even more potential to absord different voices, and these are the good films, the rocking ones. I mean why, oh why do some filmmakers make these horrible movies, ones like this one, and there are so many like this one. The characters are all rich, white people that are not like any people I know or have even encountered - they are stiff, lacking spunk, there are no fun editing cuts that would distinguish the film from that of a videotaped stage production, and the soundtrack is classical music. Can you get any more monlogic than that? It frustrates me so much to see films like these, where the filmmaker fails to exploit the potential of film.

Okay so yeah, I was getting fidgety, annoyed, and felt like I could not sit through this crap anymore and so I told Bonnie that I would meet her at home, and left the dark theater. I asked the theater employees if I could get my money back since I just stayed for the first half hour, and this stupid fag asked me if I didn't like it, and I said no. And he, like stupid fags all over this great country of ours, said that it was so good and that he couldn't understand why I didn't like it. Not that big a surprise, since he probably also couldn't understand why microwave popcorn pops when you put it in the microwave, so it is quite understandable that this mystified idiot with painted fingernails would not be able to comprehend why a movie is not necessarily good just because it is playing at the "indie" theater. Bah. And I didn't get my money back. They were so confused, and were like, Sorry, we don't do that here.

I left, walked home, wanted to cleanse myself of the bad movieness and I thought that the best solution would be to submerge myself in water, the beach would be the solution. And very bizarrely, Bonnie just came back from the movie talking about how much she misses the beach. Now, we are going on a walk. We have energy that needs to be put to use.

Saturday, July 20, 2002

a ja rule and mary j. blige duet

It is raining. I have mixed emotions about this. Because rain is lovely and all that, the perfect weather for curling up inside and brooding - but this is also the downside to it - that it is inside weather and right now I am most definitly in an outside mood, eager to walk miles, soak up sunshine, and feel the pulse of my fast heart, that of the world, that of you. Take a look at this picture I just took from our front window:

I will be feeling no fast pulses today - it is so goddamn dark outside and it is only 3:30 in the afternoon. I had just taken a shower since the bathroom was occupied everytime I tried to take a shower this morning. Die Shower Boy, die. Got out of the shower, perhaps spent far too long dancing around to Afropop, and then once dressed, saw the sky, the dark thing preventing me from going outside, throwing a major mokeywrench in my plans for the day, a major lugee spit into the face of my excitement. I really wanted to go check out the overhyped Maxwell Street Days to see what all this talk is about, but fucking hell if I am going to walk the two miles to downtown in a fucking thunderstorm. It is almost like I have been stood up, a similar feeling, all dressed up, excited to go somewhere, to do something, and then the sky canceled on me, leaving me here without a date, without plans, without the hoped for possibility of a goodnight kiss. Another day curled up in Babcock House lies ahead of me for the rest of the day. I guess I'll go back to dancing to this Pan-African music show that is playing on WORT right now and dance like no one is watching, because sadly, no one is.

Sometimes, I can be so oblivious to my surroundings. Today, Bonnie went to go meet some boy at around two or something, and asked me to give her a ride downtown because she didn't want to have to worry about parking. I was too comfortable on the couch reading, and sort of tired of serving as Bonnie's chauffer since she is perfectly capable to drive, so I told her no, and then she left to go meet Russ. I had just assumed that she drove there and that her car wasn't here, and that I was homebound since it was rainy and yucky looking out.

All throughout the yucky weather where I was trapped inside, I was really kicking myself for not driving Bonnie so I could have used her car to go somewhere today, to have gotten out of the house, to have gotten some food instead of eating five bowls of lentil soup. When I was so bored that I thought it would be a good day to pick up Ulysses again, to try to be a good lit major and get the stupid book under my belt. I tried. I really did. But, after reading just three pages, I woke up two hours later with the book at my side, wondering why the hell this book puts me to sleep like no other. Then, I wished that I had driven Bonnie, that I had her car to drive around in.

So, I just went down to the kictchen, microwaved the last of the lentil soup, the last of our food in the house, and came upstairs, glanced out the window as I walked up the stairs, saw all the cars in the parking lot and kept walking. A glance I had done countless times already today. And then, I realized that Bonnie's car was there, I checked out the window again, and yes, I am the biggest idiot in the world sometimes. Bonnie's car was here all day, sitting right there while I moaned about how I wanted to get out of the house and go somewhere so bad. Maybe I will take a trip to Taco Bell soon with this car. Maybe not. Maybe I will curl up with a good book and some wine and just end this boring day, put it to bed, so tomorrow's can start that much sooner.

Friday, July 19, 2002

i told him to reach for the sky

No one wanted to go home yet. Or some people did, but the people that they came with weren't ready to go home yet, and so we were all waiting outside on the sidewalk. It was shortly after 1:30, we had just been shoved out of the Rainbow Room with all the other bar patrons, and were standing around talking to random people. Bonnie was somewhere making out with Austin. Somewhere in eye sight trying her damnedest to get some play. A constant in last night's background, always there, sometimes falling, and even more often, making out with someone. I talked to Rebecca and Jason for a while and wondered where the hell Anka was. Where was Anka? Has anyone seen her? Where could she have gone? Where the hell were we?

And then, without break, smoothly blended from whichever moment preceded it, whichever drunken conversation I was engaged in passionatly, I was talking to this young gay couple, Shawn and Jason, who wanted me to come home with them. I hesitated at first, sort of scared about a threesome, of what dynamics are at play, if I would be up to par with these boys, and then I drunkenly thought to myself, "Fuck it, it is summer, I don't have to get up for work tomorrow, now is the hour, the age to be sexually adventurous." And so, I told them that I would, and they said something dirty and one of them bit my finger or something that got me really hot, and I told them that I just had to say bye to my friends and then we could go. And I ran and ran to the end of the block, excited about what possible sexual thrills would occur as soon as I said good-bye to the PIRGers, I ran perhaps wanting to speed up the start of this threesome, the getting naked with other boys and the furtive touching. And I got to the end of the block, said good-bye to Bonnie and Rebecca, and then smoothly blended, another event in a continous narrative that seemed perfectly logical, I was in a new moment, forgetting about the threesome, picking Bonnie up off the curb, who had just fallen. I tried to sturdy her since she was falling all over the place.

And then Eric somehow made an appearance (for those of you who don't know, Eric is the boy I went out on a sort of date with a few weeks ago and then blew him off until I told him I didn't like him), and he told me something jokingly about how mean I was to him. And I was drunk, and was concerned, and was ready to talk forever, so I pulled Eric from the crowd so he could tell me why I was an asshole. And he did, he mentioned how petty the CIA thing was, how he doesn't think I am comfortable being gay, how I am afraid of intimacy, and blah blah blah, all lines that sounded right on the mark, too on the mark, it made me like him for his precise criticism. [But of course, I found out this morning, that Bonnie had told him all of these things in the bar, about the reasons that I didn't like him]. I was deep into this serious conversation with Eric, right at the point where he is telling me why I should not just have casual sex, why I should try to develop intimate freindships with guys - right at this point, when the couple came up to me and tried to get me to leave - and so, I had to tell them that I couldn't tonight, that I'd see them around. I was sort of sad about missing out on the threesome but Eric would have killed me if I had ditched him for those two skeezy guys.

Blah blah blah, more and more talk, everyone is now long gone - so we walk towards our respective homes together, talking more and more. At some point in time, we were showing each other our cartwheels and handstands. Or he was showing me his, and I was making sad attempts to do them. Then we were climbing some tree, and he said "Where do I go now?" since there were no more strong limbs to climb up higher on, and I urged him to reach for the sky, just half jokingly. That the sky was the limit, and to keep going.

And we kept going. Going until at some point in time we decided to abandon the heavens for the sea, the water, Lake Mendota. We walked down to James Madison Park, stripped naked and walked forever through shallow water, through the densest seaweed [Bonnie has since told me that seaweed doesn't live in lakes, and that it is something else, but she couldn't think of what it was, and I am fine saying seaweed, so I am going to keep calling it seaweed. All you marine life people can go to fucking hell if you want to quibble over squishy, slimy green plants that live in water], moving through this heavenly feeling seaweed until I could get to someplace deep, someplace away from the shore, away from silly, shallow conversations, away from cars, clubs, lights, and noise. Deeper and deeper into the water until I got to a place that was all right by me, and I watched this beautifully defined torso moving through the water, leaving a path of ripples, an arrow that was slowly making its way towards me.

For a brief moment, the ripples subsided, and Eric stood in front of me and we smiled because the night was beautiful and our excited cocks were hid just below the surface of the water. Sebastin the crab was about to break into song, singing, "Sha la la don't be shy, go on and kiss the..." And the solemnity, the forced attempt at it, the something needs to happen silence needed to be broken, and so I took charge and leveled a big hunk of slimy seaweed right at Eric's head. I laughed, he did too, and soon we were in a seaweed fight, occasionally wrestling each other, occasionally feeling an excited cock brush against a leg, and feeling alive, that things were all right in this world, better than all right, perfect even. With the perfect transition of none at all, we were savoring the feeling, the night, the slimy seaweed all over our bare skin, the lake smell, and we descended, or perhaps even ascended, into a long silence. But not a silly-something's-gotta-happen one, instead a something-is-happening-one where we each floated in the water, swam around and tried to figure out what exactly it was, made the decision that whatever it was, it was lovely. And we let it consume us.

We stayed in the water forever, enjoying this thing called life. Maybe not forever, obviously, but it fucking was - each moment was and is forever - there was no worrying about my lack of a job, my family, far too many numerous guilt-inducing things from my past, the future of school, and the lack of one beyond that, just an eternal present - a forever that lasted until I started to shiver, until Eric wrapped his arms around me to warm me up and I felt his hard cock in the curve of my back, I pulled his arms to make them tighter against me, his arms and his cock. We watched a family of ducks on the shore of the lake, watched them do as ducks tend to do and waddle their way into the water. Waddle waddle motherfucking waddle. We rolled around in the shallow water by the shore, found whatever excuse we could to touch each other, to glide palms over wet skin, shivered even when we weren't that cold so we could hug each other, touch skin to skin. Cocks bumped into because it felt good, rubbing a hard cock against his leg, or his against my leg, and all of this until I really was too cold, shivering too much to stay in the water anymore. We got dressed slowly, reluctantly on the shore, watched each other get dressed, and once dressed made our way to the swingset, where we again reached for the heavens, swinging as far as our kicked feet and pulls on swing chains would take us. Feet inches away from tree braches, high up ones, the sky just beyond that, and beyond that something else, something also obviously wonderful. Kicking and swinging forever, yes, forever asshole, laughing loudly until we stopped kicking, until we let our swings slowly run their course, arcing lower and lower with each back and forward, talking on the barely swinging swings about nothing, the wonderful sort of nothing, until tired as hell since it was nearing five, we made our way back to our respective homes.

We walked for a long while together down University Avenue, the events of the night still occuring, the rush of living still in me, the sky slowly getting lighter as Homer's "rosy-fingered Dawn" slowly, very slowly started to reveal her early shape. We seperated at some block intersecting University, because I am weird and was starving and was ready for the night to end, to go to my bed by myself with mircowaved leftover pizza. Eric didn't seem too upset, because I think he is already thoroughly convinced that I am weird. We kissed goodnight, a lovely kiss. Said goodnight, and then not wholly satisfied, wanting to extend it for a few more brief moments, we kissed once more, lovely again, and then I finally made my way home, watched the dawn slowly but surely make more and more progress in bringing my night to an end, to a conclusion of sorts.

Thursday, July 18, 2002

d-land is being funky, so I'm posting here tonight

Today, I seriously did not do anything except lie around our room and work my way closer to finishing White Teeth. At around midnight, feeling guilty that I would have done nothing active all day, would not have gone anywhere, I decided to go for a jog. It was so nice, and I made it much further this time than I did on my failed attempt at jogging last week. However, I was eventually plagued by that weird knee-clicking noise again, and so I decided to just walk. I think the knee-clicking noise has something to do with all the inclines in Madison, the little jogs uphill, and the little ones downhill - I never have to deal with those in Florida or Virginia - it's a good, flat land, and I think maybe that is why my knees are being more sensitive when I go jogging here.

I walked by a parking garage and saw a pack of skater boys being American youth and finding novel ways to entertain themselves, making dreary, concrete parking garages into a playground, a gigantic four story slide. I guess they walked to the top floor and then in a big pack all went down the spiraling ramps since no one is in the parking garages at midnight - and it looked so fun and made me really wish I was a skater kid. But, not even a skater kid. Just one in spirit. One of those kids who is always going on late-night adventures. And not to bars or clubs or any of that shit. But being able to hang out in a parking garage or in front of a store or wherever and make it exciting. It made me miss so much the late-night adventures of my first year in college with Rebecca and Leslie, hanging out on the shit hole in front of Shell, midnight bike rides, sneaking into that animal garden place on Bayshore, just causing havoc, living intensely - and not acting like you were, making a show of it, drinking to get loud and out of control, trying your damnedest to impress upon yourself, but even more so, upon others, that you are cool, that you're life is interesting, and that you are Exciting.

I walked back toward home feeling very nostalgic, yearning for a partner or partners in crime and spirit who would possibly do such things. Rebecca, why aren't you living with us next year? I walked past a bunch of sprinklers that were watering the massive lawns of some school building, and thought how before in those fun times I probably would have run through those sprinklers and roll in the mud. And then I exclaimed to myself, to the empty streets, "What kind of world is this if I don't play in sprinklers?" I yelled this excitedly as I was running across the street, knowing that I was going to run through the sprinklers. I ran through them once just so that I could say that I had done it, feigned the motions of living. And the water felt so good against my shirt, and I ran through again and again, doing cartwheels over the sprinkler head, diving in the air in cannonball poses through the sprinkler, landing on the damp ground. Soaked and glowing, I continued on my way home, walked over the overpass, climbed the fence, hung from it, and watched the traffic pass on Campus Drive, feeling something good. I came home and drank lots of water. Lots of it. And now, I guess I will read more of White Teeth, maybe even try to finish it since Bonnie might not be here tonight to bitch at me to turn off the light.

Bonnie is still not home and I have two predictions for what will happen, and the fact that I can predict exactly what she will say, the you'll-never-believe-what-happened facial sighs of tiredness that she will make, doesn't make me very excited. Every night is the same story with her, getting trashed, doing something with the PIRGers, and blah blah blah, some crazy person she canvassed to. I wish when she would walk in she would tell me about the taste of bananas or how she feels about fluorescent lighting, but I know it will be about PIRG. It always is. So anyways, enough of me being the passive-aggresive bitch here, and let you know the two possible options we have here:

#1: Bonnie will come in in about an hour, right as I am about to go to sleep, will throw her bag onto the couch, tell me that Whoa-it-was-a-crazy-night, as if it was somehow different from every other drunken night, and then she will say that she'll tell me but first she has to pee, and she'll pee and then come back and tell me about it.

#2: Bonnie will come in tomorrow afternoon probably around noon since she has to be at work at one or something, and will sigh, and laugh and tell me about how she didn't think it was going to happen, that she didn't think she was going to get that drunk or stoned, but she had sex with Mike or someone. And then I'll drive her to work.

Of course, there is always the possibiltiy that I am wrong and she is sober and in a knitting circle right now, but for some reason, I doubt it. PS- This is all mainly in jest. I love bitching about people in my diary, which I probably shouldn't do since Bonnie (you) seem to take offense to it everytime I do.

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

jack daniels (1866)

People, I don't know exactly what I just saw, but let me tell you, it was not good. Or it was good, for them, but just sort of weird for me to see. I just went downstairs to get the last Newcastle in the fridge, spritely left my room more than a little tipsey in my silly yellow pj shorts. I encountered a roadblock though at the end of my hall, a girl and a guy sitting on the stairs, doing that end of date flirting thing. I had taken my contacts out but it was very obviously Mariah, the just moved-in resident Pin-Up Girl and some cute, blonde boy. I said sorry like the guilty drunk I am. Sorry for drinking, for being drunk, for still being awake, for interuppting your moment, for making you move so I could get by on the stairs, sorry for being gay in these bright yellow shorts, sorry for living in your house.

They kindly let me by on the stairs, the guy saying "Hey Charlie," meaning that he must live here, but I could not tell exactly who it was since the hall was dark and I didn't have my contacts in, but I am pretty sure it was Soccer Boy, and way to go Soccer Boy, scoring with the hot chick. I opened the fridge, dug around for the remaining beer, and thought of how cute, how good, hot hot it was that Soccer Boy was getting some play (or is most likely going to get some). With a can opener, I popped the top of the bottle, and resolved to go up the front staircase so that I would not have to again interrupt them. I went up the stairs into the living room, seeing that the tv was on, an undiscernible blinking image, but the lights were off and there was no sound on the tv. Once in the living room, I walked by the tv, towards the other staircase, saw a naked couple having sex on the tv, some good old fashioned softcore, and then I saw some male figure on the black leather couch as I kept on walking. He seemed to be quickly fiddling in the area around his crotch, making me think that he had been masturbating, making me even more worried, or even more guilt-ridden about disturbing people. Remember, I didn't have my contacts in, so I have no idea who this boy was, or if he was in fact even masturbating. I kept on walking towards the stairs, why the hell were they so far away tonight, and he made some comment, He, this annonymous male figure on the couch, He, the male gaze, said, "Ha, It's a good one," perhaps trying to make the somewhat awkward situation lighter, and I laughed, chuckled lightly cause that's what I do when I don't know what to say, and I finally reached those stairs. And now here I am. I have to pee like a motherfucking racehorse because this is my fifth beer I am now drinking, but I don't want to go to the bathroom since it is right next to the stairs that Mariah and (possibly) Soccer Boy are sitting on, flirting, maybe even making out on now, and that would be weird.

So, I will hold it for as long as I can and tell you something scary that happened to me today. Pass me the flashlight, gather round, and hear this scary story of Scary Cub Foods. So, this afternoon, I went to the store to procure some beer, the beer which I am now finishing up. And by "procure," I am referring to the five-fingered discount variety. I stuffed a six pack into my bag, and while I was in the liquor section, I also stuffed a bottle of Jack Daniels into my bag. I grabbed a couple more essentials as I walked around the store, and then feeling bold, brazen, and seeing lots of open aisles right by the door, I decided that I wasn't even going to purchase anything, that I was just going to casually walk out the door, suspicions be damned. I was almost out the door, a few feet before it, walking through the sensors that are in every grocery store but which never go off unless you steal vitamins or body care products or something. But no, today was different. Today, they went off for me. BEEP BEEP BEEP PLEASE RETURN TO THE CASHIER AND FINISH PAYING FOR YOUR PURCHASES BEEP BEEP BEEP. My heart pace went from normal rhythm to something close to that "Bombs Over Baghdad" beat - ridiculously fast, so fast that you don't know what to do to it, not exactly sure how to move. And I froze for a brief second.

But just a brief one, mind you.

I soon gathered my senses, being motivated by a terrifying Fear, and walked as fast as my little feet could carry me, fearing for my life, for being arrested for a fucking bottle of Jack, for having to pay fines I don't have money to pay for, and I was close to running speed. And I reached the second electronic sliding door. Since I approached it so fast, it did not open immediatly - the motion detector takes a little while and all. But, I was not realizing this, I was sure that the door didn't open if you set off the sensors and that I was trapped here to die, that soon I would be approaced by security, I was ready to cry, I was about to push my way through the door, to bang on them, demanding my freedom, my life, my innocence, my youth, panicing, becoming anxious, when finally that stupid door opened, and at this point terrified, I hightailed it, running, not caring if it made me suspicious, if it made me culpable - I ran as fast as my feet could carry me, past the clicking tongue and mm-mm-what's-wrong-with-him head shakes of some middle-aged woman walking to her car. I ran to the car even though no one was following me, no one had come to chase me, hopped into the car, did not even bother to remove my bag from my back, and fumbled with the keys. Fumbled because my hands were shaking because I was so nervous, so nervous and so shaky that I had to stab at the ignition about five times before I finally got the key into it. I quickly started the car, backed it out, put it in drive, and fucking drove like it was the end of the world.

the people united can never be defeated

Hey guys, I have already e-mailed most of the people I know about this, but for those that read this that I haven't, I wanted to alert you to the RAVE Act (S. 2633) that is going to be up for vote soon in the Senate. What it does is alter the crackhouse laws of the 80's to allow authorties to shut down dance clubs and penalize promoters and club owners if ecstasy is used there, which is just about every dance club. So contact your senators, flex your muscles, and let them know this is bullshit, that you like to fucking dance - here's a site where you can find out more about it, and just type in your name and shit, and it will send out a from letter. How easy is that shit - you have time to do that!

And for people that don't think this will make a difference, it already has - the Washington Post is running a front page story in tomorrow's edition about how many people have already contacted their senators, about dancer kids causing a fury. Let's flex our muscle, people! If you haven't already contacted your senators, do it fucking now, instead of jacking off reading bad online diaries.

Monday, July 15, 2002

does this have something to do with the womb?

An amount of lentil soup that could only be cooked in an industrial kitchen, one with pots big enough to bathe in, is now cooking downstairs in the kitchen. There was a bag of lentils from the bulk section that we had got forever ago at the store, and I decided that I would finally put it to use and make soup with it, so this morning I started to soak the lentils. The lentils have since expanded to an amount that makes me look utterly excessive to all of the agriculture boys who have come into the kitchen to make single serving meals like normal people and have seen me stirring this huge motherfucking pot of soup that is Soup Kitchen type huge.

Oh well, I guess I will be eating lentil soup for awhile. That is okay. Most things are by me these days of summer, these casually lived days, where I could just as easily do something as not do something and feel no difference either way. Today, I called and harrassed the temp agency about throwing some work my way. Then, rather than do something that would have made me seem productive, maybe even had made it seem that I was actively trying to find employment, I walked down to the park with a blanket, a big bottle of water, a book, and a magazine that was delivered to Hans Nelson who no longer resides in the house, which to Bonnie and me means his magazines are up for grabs even though we have recently learned that he does periodically come by to pick up his mail, and sunbathed and read, soaking up the comforting rays of a bright, July sun and also the almost equally comforting energetic sentences of Zadie Smith's White Teeth. There was a sentence that made me relate the book to my surroundings, to the nourishing sun, to my relationship with it: "[Samad] worries about whether Magid got enough direct sunlight. What was the country doing to his sons, he wanted to know, what was it doing?" (150). And, I looked at my skin, which is not nearly as dark as it normally is, and then I squinted and looked directly into the sun, which shrank my pupils to the tiniest of dots, making everything seem darker except the bright sun, making me feel good, making me feel drugged even, that aggreable heat stupor where everything seems Okay. Everything. The sun, my mother that I haven't called in too long, brought me to her breast anyways, always forgiving, absolving me, and let me suck her tit, fed me, let me feel the life force, and made me resolve to spend time in the sun everyday, to feel this thing more often.

I came home and dipped my hands into the soaking lentils to stir them, kept my hands submerged in the lentil water for far more than was neccesary to stir them, but for just the right amount of time to feel like a little kid, to be amazed by my sense of touch, by how squishy and wonderful my hands in lentils could feel. It kind of made me want to take a lentil bath, to be entirelly submerged in this pot of lentils, in the feeling of feeling something that feels strangely familiar but not knowing why squishiness triggers that sense in me, wondering why exactly it does, and then realizing why, again immersing my hands and my sense of wonder into the lentils, knowing that that is why, that I cannot even verbalize it to myself, let alone to you, that to do so would be silly and miss the point, that this is why, my hands right here in the lentils, no other reason.d

three yums - one for each yum yum yummy feeling

i just made the most insane amount of lentil soup ever. insane meaning probably at least two gallons. and the first test taste is in: slightly bland. but hey, it's lentil soup, it's supposed to be. i'm going to add more spices now. but it still gets a super high rating of: yum yum yum!

Saturday, July 13, 2002

joel thinks bonnie and i were having sex

Our room smells so strong of summer right now, of being a kid, family picnics, classic rock, and covertly sipping beer out of adults' cups like you're cool and grown-up. Inevitably, someone will soon put too much potato salad on my plate. That too, always happens. Someone near us, down wind of us, is having a bar-b-que, and our fan is sucking it, the scent of burning charcoal, of too much lighter fluid squirted by overeager guys, of roasting flesh, of death, but even more so, of life into our little second floor room in Babcock House. It smells utterly lovely and Bonnie recently remarked about how she could not stand the scent. She is weird like that, and is far too sensitive about meat, the smell of it in our room, in her self-righteous vegetarianism, which has made her moralistic about all the wrong things. About death, which is lovely and fascinating, the sight of uncooked meat is her own death, and well, its mine too. But for her, thats a problem. For me, it is something I relish, something I love. I am fascinated by meat - I want to mash my hands into some right now, to feel alive, to feel something that is not and to love that feeling, that contact, and to wonder what it means.

Today, we went to the beach, sat in the sun, and read. It was an entirelly wonderful sort of feeling, of delirious living. Heat waves, sweat, dehydration, and the smell of the lake, that ishy lake smell combined to produce some warm feeling, of being alive. I thought about my mother when I read some Sharon Olds line, and wanted to be next to her, to hug her, to make sure that she lived forever. I was for some reason worried that even though she is a healthy middle-aged soccer mom, that her death was so soon, and I wanted to prevent hers. And now, I am off to go see Road to Perdition with Bonnie if she would put on a fucking shirt.

Friday, July 12, 2002

The Blush Boy and Vagina Boy Cameo in this Episode of Charlie's Diary

It was already eleven o'clock and I was too worried that I would end up missing the whole show, so I wrote a quick note explaining it all to Bonnie, and then left, walked with all my energy and a decent amount of excitement towards the Terrace to see Bratmobile. I got there right before they took the stage and found a place to stand in the crowd up front. I had missed the Blush, which I was sort of sad about since I really liked them when I saw them at the Annex. But Bratmobile took the stage and ra-ra-rocked, the lead singer was dressed in real bright clothes which made me excited, since I'm sort of sick of hipsters not wearing any colors, and she danced. Boy, did she dance! She was dancing with so much happiness and abandon, and it made me realize why I love dancing so much, why I think it is one of the most beautiful and pure types of expression, but sadly, I did not have enough abandon to dance by myself. I just bobbed my head to the rockin riffs, and wished that Bonnie would have gotten back from work so she could have came and danced with me.

While I was standing, bobbing my head, loving Wisconsin, some boy walked past me and I tried to think of where I have seen him before and then I remember that he is the cool Blush boy that dances really cool, and that both Bonnie and I are obsessed with. And of course, I was wishing Bonnie was there, so I could get giddy with her and we could stare and talk about how cute he was, maybe even believing that something would come of our crush. A little while later into Bratmobile's set, I think when she was singing the real fun song that went something like:

Give me back my Cheap Trick record
Don't write a song about it, just
Give me back my Cheap Trick record!

Yeah, right during this song, this song that for some reason awed me so much, partly for its mention of Cheap Trick, and even more so because it sounded so real and it's so relatable - there are those people that you are just never going to get your cd's back from - this is the song during which Vagina Boy walks by. And, I have no idea who he is at first, I just know that I have talked to him and know him from somewhere, that feeling, you know? And so I watch him walk past, thinking as hard as those little wheels will spin who the hell this hot boy is, and then once he is lost somewhere in the crowd, I remember being drunk, being led through random streets, and then encountering this boy and his six foot tall paper maiche vagina. Again, where was Bonnie to witness another one of our crushes? Cute boys all around, a sea of them, of cute tiny hipster boys, little femme boys, little indie boys, I was in heaven but had no one to describe it to. And what would you do if you were in Heaven by yourself? Is it really Heaven if you can't share the experience with someone else, have them reaffirm your thoughts about Heaven's heavenlyness?

After the show, I was leaving through Rathskeller Hall and saw a boy in a WISPIRG shirt about twenty feet ahead of me, a tiny little boy, that I like a maniac, ran up to and grabbed, and asked him if the other PIRGers were there. After his intial shock, the look that he was about to be mugged or killed or even raped faded from his eyes, and he told me that they were still there, and he led me to where Bonnie was, who had appearantly gotten there during the last song. I was so excited to see Bonnie and talked to her briefly before I was going with the PIRGers somewhere in Mike's car. I had no clue what we were doing at all, and then we went to La Bamba's which really does have some of the nastiest burritos in the world, but I purchased one anyways just because I was hungry. And for some strange reason, I thought we would just sit down and eat them like normal people, since no one told me otherwise, but soon I was told that we were eating them at the PIRG house and that we were going to a party there. I was sort of real pissed at myself for coming with them, because the last thing I wanted to do was go to some silly party at the PIRG house. I was really wishing that I had not seen that tiny boy in the WISPIRG shirt, all I really wanted to do was just to sit in my house and read, and now I was in the tiny backseat of some silly car that was blaring loud Nelly music with too much bass and soon I would be at some lame party, listening to more music that also would not enrich my soul in the least, and probably would actually cause harm to it. I got in the house, ate my burrito cause I was damn hungry, surveyed the people in the room, none of the PIRGers that I like to talk to were there, and so I told Bonnie that I was going to leave soon.

I really do hate parties, there is something incredibly lame and forced and completely god awful about them. And when Bonnie wanted to go out back to talk to all these chachs (lame boys - a UM term that I learned yesterday from Rebecca - rhymes with crotches) who were smoking, so I just left and was going to enjoy the probably three mile walk home. And the walk was sheer bliss, it was chilly, the sky was black, and I had no idea how to get home, and I really liked that feeling of being lost and just wandering the streets. Eventually I spotted the dome of the capital and headed towards there since I know how to get home from there, and once there, I ran into Jessica, Jenna, Rebecca, and some gay boy Rebecca was bringing home to have sex with. These are the PIRGers that I like, that I think are reasonably intelligent, that don't make me want to run from houses they are talking in, run for my dear life, for the saftey of my soul. I chatted with them for a while, and then was dragged back to their house by them. The party was much more bearable with their presences, even fun. Silly talk and mashed potatos and playing with Rebecca's hair filled the rest of the night until we were kindly driven home by Megan (another bearable PIRGer), who played really fun music in her car (Sumac?), and then I came home and slept like a baby in the deliciously chilly air that was circulating around our room.

This morning, I forced myself to wake up since I had an interview with a temp agency today, and yes, I forced myself. My body did not want to cooperate with my mind's monetary instincts, but eventually I willed myself to get out of bed, took a shower, got dressed, drove Bonnie to PIRG and then went to QTI, another company with a silly acronym that I have no clue what it stands for. Probably Qualtiy and Temp or Temping. I don't know about the I though. I don't really care either. The interview and tests went well for a change, where I actually engaged in spirited banter with all the people in the office. I'm supposed to call them next week about jobs, which is very much so a relief that now I at least have some form of employment, even I don't end up getting to work that much. But of course, with everything, we shall see how that actually goes. I will just keep the good ol' fingers crossed, as they say.

The Blush Boy and Vagina Boy Cameo in this Episode of Charlie's Diary

It was already eleven o'clock and I was too worried that I would end up missing the whole show, so I wrote a quick note explaining it all to Bonnie, and then left, walked with all my energy and a decent amount of excitement towards the Terrace to see Bratmobile. I got there right before they took the stage and found a place to stand in the crowd up front. I had missed the Blush, which I was sort of sad about since I really liked them when I saw them at the Annex. But Bratmobile took the stage and ra-ra-rocked, the lead singer was dressed in real bright clothes which made me excited, since I'm sort of sick of hipsters not wearing any colors, and she danced. Boy, did she dance! She was dancing with so much happiness and abandon, and it made me realize why I love dancing so much, why I think it is one of the most beautiful and pure types of expression, but sadly, I did not have enough abandon to dance by myself. I just bobbed my head to the rockin riffs, and wished that Bonnie would have gotten back from work so she could have came and danced with me.

While I was standing, bobbing my head, loving Wisconsin, some boy walked past me and I tried to think of where I have seen him before and then I remember that he is the cool Blush boy that dances really cool, and that both Bonnie and I are obsessed with. And of course, I was wishing Bonnie was there, so I could get giddy with her and we could stare and talk about how cute he was, maybe even believing that something would come of our crush. A little while later into Bratmobile's set, I think when she was singing the real fun song that went something like:

Give me back my Cheap Trick record
Don't write a song about it, just
Give me back my Cheap Trick record!

Yeah, right during this song, this song that for some reason awed me so much, partly for its mention of Cheap Trick, and even more so because it sounded so real and it's so relatable - there are those people that you are just never going to get your cd's back from - this is the song during which Vagina Boy walks by. And, I have no idea who he is at first, I just know that I have talked to him and know him from somewhere, that feeling, you know? And so I watch him walk past, thinking as hard as those little wheels will spin who the hell this hot boy is, and then once he is lost somewhere in the crowd, I remember being drunk, being led through random streets, and then encountering this boy and his six foot tall paper maiche vagina. Again, where was Bonnie to witness another one of our crushes? Cute boys all around, a sea of them, of cute tiny hipster boys, little femme boys, little indie boys, I was in heaven but had no one to describe it to. And what would you do if you were in Heaven by yourself? Is it really Heaven if you can't share the experience with someone else, have them reaffirm your thoughts about Heaven's heavenlyness?

After the show, I was leaving through Rathskeller Hall and saw a boy in a WISPIRG shirt about twenty feet ahead of me, a tiny little boy, that I like a maniac, ran up to and grabbed, and asked him if the other PIRGers were there. After his intial shock, the look that he was about to be mugged or killed or even raped faded from his eyes, and he told me that they were still there, and he led me to where Bonnie was, who had appearantly gotten there during the last song. I was so excited to see Bonnie and talked to her briefly before I was going with the PIRGers somewhere in Mike's car. I had no clue what we were doing at all, and then we went to La Bamba's which really does have some of the nastiest burritos in the world, but I purchased one anyways just because I was hungry. And for some strange reason, I thought we would just sit down and eat them like normal people, since no one told me otherwise, but soon I was told that we were eating them at the PIRG house and that we were going to a party there. I was sort of real pissed at myself for coming with them, because the last thing I wanted to do was go to some silly party at the PIRG house. I was really wishing that I had not seen that tiny boy in the WISPIRG shirt, all I really wanted to do was just to sit in my house and read, and now I was in the tiny backseat of some silly car that was blaring loud Nelly music with too much bass and soon I would be at some lame party, listening to more music that also would not enrich my soul in the least, and probably would actually cause harm to it. I got in the house, ate my burrito cause I was damn hungry, surveyed the people in the room, none of the PIRGers that I like to talk to were there, and so I told Bonnie that I was going to leave soon.

I really do hate parties, there is something incredibly lame and forced and completely god awful about them. And when Bonnie wanted to go out back to talk to all these chachs (lame boys - a UM term that I learned yesterday from Rebecca - rhymes with crotches) who were smoking, so I just left and was going to enjoy the probably three mile walk home. And the walk was sheer bliss, it was chilly, the sky was black, and I had no idea how to get home, and I really liked that feeling of being lost and just wandering the streets. Eventually I spotted the dome of the capital and headed towards there since I know how to get home from there, and once there, I ran into Jessica, Jenna, Rebecca, and some gay boy Rebecca was bringing home to have sex with. These are the PIRGers that I like, that I think are reasonably intelligent, that don't make me want to run from houses they are talking in, run for my dear life, for the saftey of my soul. I chatted with them for a while, and then was dragged back to their house by them. The party was much more bearable with their presences, even fun. Silly talk and mashed potatos and playing with Rebecca's hair filled the rest of the night until we were kindly driven home by Megan (another bearable PIRGer), who played really fun music in her car (Sumac?), and then I came home and slept like a baby in the deliciously chilly air that was circulating around our room.

This morning, I forced myself to wake up since I had an interview with a temp agency today, and yes, I forced myself. My body did not want to cooperate with my mind's monetary instincts, but eventually I willed myself to get out of bed, took a shower, got dressed, drove Bonnie to PIRG and then went to QTI, another company with a silly acronym that I have no clue what it stands for. Probably Qualtiy and Temp or Temping. I don't know about the I though. I don't really care either. The interview and tests went well for a change, where I actually engaged in spirited banter with all the people in the office. I'm supposed to call them next week about jobs, which is very much so a relief that now I at least have some form of employment, even I don't end up getting to work that much. But of course, with everything, we shall see how that actually goes. I will just keep the good ol' fingers crossed, as they say.

Thursday, July 11, 2002

sex, drugs, and oljs

Today I did nothing. Nothing. I can do that and not feel guilty about it on good days. Tomorrow, I have an intereview at 1:30 to help disabled people that I probably will not end up doing. --All my ruff ryders meet me outside, meet me outside, says Bonnie. Shower Boy is in the bathroom. Again. Bonnie just slammed the door and screamed, "Motherfucker, guess who is not brushing their teeth tonight." And she is now stripping off her clothes, getting ready to hop in bed. Shower Boy is always in the shower at the most inopportune times, he is in the shower at all hours of the night, when you are drunk and need to pee so badly, when you just want to wash your face before you go to sleep. One fucking second. Friday, I have an interview at a temp agency, and Bonnie's going to see how she feels at ten am tomorrow. She is babbling incoherently, and I love it, it amuses me, and I want more people to babble to themselves. Everyone to. And maybe I will babble some to myself in my bed, into my pillow since now I must get off this computer since Bonnie wants to go to sleep. To sleep. To die, little children. And I don't think I'm getting any beer now. Oh well, the price we pay to wear things (not neccesarily our hearts) on not neccesarily our sleeves.

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

wisconsin summer

The summer of lovelessness continues in its hazy fashion, something like a dream, perhaps something more like a nightmare. No real end - did it ever even begin? The opposite of linear time prevails in the heat, a stupor of moments that seem like they are always happening. A purgatory where I am awaiting Something - what exactly, I have no idea - no clue what exactly it is that I am anticipating, that I am acting all mopey about because It still hasn't happened, waiting for Its excitement to appear before I show mine. Show me yours and ... yeah well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. If we do.

Today I wanted to fuck someone. Hard. Or for someone to fuck me. Hard. That did not happen. Not a big surprise. I spent the day in my cage here doing jackshit - also not a big surprise - mourning the summer that I was sure I was missing, sad about all the missed people, events, and jobs that I was too lazy, too unmotivated, too lost in this haze of summer to go out and search for.

So, since I was horny and all, I masturbated. Hard. Or, not really - since you can't really masturbate "hard" - the hard quality of uh-uh hottness can only come about with a partner, where aspects of performativity occur - you get into it to turn them on, they do the same to turn you on. Masturbation, by its singular nature, never has that "hard sex" quality. I mean, it can be good, better than good, transcendent, and a great release - but it can never reach that "hard" status. And so, bored and horny, I masturbated on the couch today, knowing that I really had nothing else to do, thinking about this, thinking about nothing, and almost absent-mindedly stroking my cock, trying to make it last forever, melding with the haze, with the heat circulated around our room by our pathatic fan - trying to make it last forever not because it was Heaven, a moment I never wanted to come down from, but because I had nothing to do afterwards and didn't want to have to think about that, did not want to have to think of something to do, did not want to think that I should be doing something, that I was wasting my time, my summer, my life. But eventually, my cock's excitement prevailed over my mind's zombie instincts to sit and masturbate forever, and I came. And well, afterwards, I sat in the hazy heat of our room, fulfilling prophecy, thinking that I had nothing to do, tried to think of something to do, realized, feared, and felt guilty that I was wasting my time, my summer, my life.