04.28.02 you're the only one you'll scar


1. the seven a.m. smooth jazz blasts. i'm comfortable with people who enjoy their saturday mornings, but i object to elevator music at fist-pumping volumes. tell me, guys, that you're not rocking out to that downstairs - it just seems unnatural.
this eventually mutated into creed and lenny kravitz around twelve during the week.


2. her car is always blocking the driveway. it has emboldened his car, and the pair of them are always in my way when i'm late for an appointment or need desperately to pee. we're passive enough when he runs out to re-park that i think he thinks we have an arrangement. yeah, an arrangement where we pay for the garage and you block us for free. she just sneers like it's my fault.


3. the wafting meat'n'propane fumes. i've wished for a year that he'd grouse about my smoking on the porch so that i could say something about his nasty grill fixation. sometimes my lighter will materialize on a step i don't use - i think it falls to their porch and he replaces it. i'm afraid he'll complain about my piles of crap, and the wait is maddening.


4. they're poo-heads.


my body is having some sort of festival without my consent - i feel like an ewok knocking around in an AT-AT. more naps next month.

04.26.02 splashdown

pink moon out tonight: keep your eyes on the road.

the show last night redeemed an otherwise godawful week. bimbo's edges out great american as the purtiest venue in san francisco...it's an art deco mafioso supper club, complete with winking lights and intimate scarlet booths. as a co-worker promised, it made me feel grown up. the aquarium lacked its mermaid, but tanya - my god, that woman is a witch. most of the watchers had abandoned their tables and were swaying like snakes by the second or third song. as vinh will have the set list up in a few days, i will refrain from taunting paul with highlights (ah swoon slow dog the bees hot burrito #1 restless choo).

chuck's blood saved another life at work on monday. i promise him each time that this transfusion is the last, but i mean it now - he comes back so shorn and shaky. i'll get jude typed in case charlie needs him at some point, but i will get over forcing heroism on my cats as a general proposition.

i lie a little about the week's utter dreariness, for my roommate's visit was wonderful. yeah, i still call her that. no, i don't think it's weird.

can't actually talk about the bad stuff. best forgotten, really.

04.17.02 the contents of lincoln's pockets


san francisco gets all kinds of credit for the bimbo's show next thursday - it's difficult to loathe a city that brings tanya donelly within walking distance of my apartment. if i could find a decent burrito within the same radius, i - could learn to be happy.


stupid poverty trick #874: conversations gain infinite zest when one pretends that holes in clothing are mouths. my night shirt has a lot to say about truffles, for instance. joe and i should look to other people for entertainment, maybe.


sister carrie is - unusual. though dreiser is no genius, he doesn't appear to have lost any sleep worrying about it. i'm not learning anything new about the human condition, but i know more than i ever imagined i might about chicago and personal hygiene.

Her dresses draped her becomingly, for she wore excellent corsets and laced herself with care. Her hair had grown out even more luxuriantly than before, and she knew considerable concerning dressing it. She had always been of cleanly instincts and now that opportunity afforded, she kept her body sweet. Her teeth were white, her nails rosy, her hair always done up clear of her forehead. She had some color in her cheeks, a large soft eye, a plump, dainty chin and a round, full neck. Altogether, and at all times, she was pleasing to look upon.

we save the very deepest circle of prose hell for post-modernists.

04.16.02 that little friend of mine


no more magazines in the reception areas. apparently an Artful Breast compromised a client's well-being, and there is simply no room for that sort of thing in companion animal health care. i've intended to squawk about this - kidchamp has been pro-mammary-fun for some time, and this reception insult comes hard on the heels of a Society-wide spaghetti strap moratorium - but The Powers That Be are skilled, so skilled at compromising my missions. in this case, they filled the lobby with library donations like

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT ANTS


If the ant shares food with others, does it get some for itself?


Yes. The second stomach is for its own use. The ant pumps some of the food in its crop into this second, private stomach.


Do ants take care of the eggs and young because they "love" them?


Adult ants take care of the eggs and larvae because there is a sweet liquid on them that the ants like.


How does the work of the colony get done?


Worker ants can do every job.
But some ants of the colony get more excited than others. These ants start all the jobs going. Then other ants join the work.
One night I watched an ant make about 20 trips back and forth. It was carrying grains of sand from one place to another.
The ant did not always go back to the same place to get sand. And it did not always put the sand it was carrying in the same place. It did not seem to be getting anywhere.


Can ants remember things?


Many experiments have proved that ants remember the way out of the nest and the way back. Even after a winter of hiding in the ground, the older ants in the colony slowly come to remember the old trails.

04.11.02 i'd chew my foot off


careless reader that i am, i thought time's cover story was "Rabies Vs. Cancer" this week. right on! i can discuss (and dispense meds for) those, pat pat. no, they said Babies/Career. (C), i choose (C).

04.10.02 boom boombadoom


so much ink has been spilled over the satanic verses, so little on its onomatopoeia...actually, that could be a lie; i don't read reviews too often. lovely stuff, anyway.


via inevitable backlash (hmm): satan was bound to introduce consumer reports to hot or not? at some point, and exso ("tell your ex. tell the world.") is the demon child of their union. i'd like to see their database evolve toward all music's artist browser: if you want someone more Sober, Arranged than your ex-boyfriend, try einsturzende neubaten. information wants to be free.


on commodification, i've hired a cellar for my anniversary with the missus this month. i don't get particularly excited about the wine country, but if one intends to be foofy, i think one is obliged to be as foofy as possible. anthropology! anthropophagi!

04.09.02 these party games


so i'm watching the bachelor last night, and it's at the stage where eight girls catfighting over the nondescript title fellow are about to become four girls smooching said fellow and four girls crying and going home. one of the second group is rhonda, a twenty-eight-year-old real estate broker. watching her as the finalists get roses is absolutely horrible - she transitions from annette bening's american beauty "i will sell a house today" face to bashful-hopeful "he will see my special something at the last minute" poses to utter blankness, then she clutches her head and runs outside. it becomes clear that rhonda, a plucky and carefully groomed type who doesn't really draw the eye from the cheerleaders and actresses cavorting inside, was chosen for the show because she's prone to anxiety attacks. she proceeds to have one: the camera follows her mumbled repetitions and hyperventilation and the initial wooziness, then an ambulance arrives and the program ends.


the folks in television keep themselves in porsches by catering to women who need fairy tales - i know this, you know this, i think rhonda knew this. she also seemed to believe that her appearance on tv guaranteed her a hollywood ending - i'm aware that i'm giving this more weight than it deserves, but i ached for this poor bachelor woman. i hope the whole business was scripted.

04.08.02 clumsy lovers


"how much did that stuff cost?"
"i don't know. forty bucks."
"why do you buy all this shit that you never use?"
"why do you buy all this shit you never use?"
"like what?"
"pants."
"pants?"
"the new york times."


i suspect that living in new york these days means that one is automatically Literary, much as passing through san francisco was automatically countercultural thirty years ago. to wit,

The faithful convene on the second floor of KGB on Sunday evenings, some with pocket squares firmly in place, most in appropriately raffish boheme regalia: team jerseys untucked from 501's. The weekly gathering is the direct descendant of every dogeared, underfinanced literary salon. To be in the room is to feel the pedigree of Shakespeare & Company under Sylvia Beach: the consumptive hiss of the radiator, the antique yellow light, the peeling paint, the hubbub as the curious squeeze into corner tables.


(nyt magazine, 03.07.02)

jake collects the hip points for that, as he got us to KGB as we bar-wandered on our trip last month. i fear we're still a few castes below the movers and shakers, though.

The evening's eminence grise, MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM, talks of the time he was invited to read his novel "The Hours" at what he thought was a literary gathering in Zurich. But they were physicists, and once onstage he improvised a riff on how Virginia Woolf was the precursor to chaos theory: "It went over great!" he admits. John Varvatos' jacket, $895. At Saks Fifth Avenue. Prada shirt, $320. Grooming: Karlo for Pierre Michel Salon NYC. Prop stylist: Chelsea Maruskin for Art House. Tailoring: Keke Cheng. Fashion assistant: Gustavo Serrano.

and the academy awards are an "ass-licking brainwash"? want...to...write... can't...think...writers...are...pompous...fucks...

04.03.02 staying inside


dear ______,


i want to be the molly ringwald of your resume pool. curl your lip at my qualifications if you must - i realize that my output has been modest, that my achievements are gangly and somewhat eccentric. consider, however, my potential - i'm tenacious and plucky, and i might become spectacular with a nudge in the right direction. give me that nudge, ______. let me be your intern.


"it makes you sound insecure and odd."
"that's what i am."

04.01.02 no bigger than a nickel


charles bronson (the cat) debuted two years ago today - the merriest of birthdays to you, my rolling blackout! may your houseflies always be slow and gullible.


i'm not at the stage where i celebrate pet holidays, mind you, but it's very exciting to remember a date in a timely fashion. i was thrilled about my three year anniversary last month, but it appears to fall on april nineteenth. i think i'm twenty-three, but i count on my fingers every now and again to be sure. in lieu of useful things, i remember gems like a japanese song from second grade and my ex-boyfriend's parents' phone number in antibes.


partial solution: randomize gift-giving. nix hiding and forgetting presents, start unbirthdaying without cause. this could get me past my inability to keep surprises secret, as well - altogether, i'm very optimistic. a fine day to everyone, then. if i have your address, look out.