Day: October 4, 2004

!! They Fight Crime !!

That I am so amused by this, as are my friends, portends doom for the lot of us. We are simple people. Simple people who dance around in their underwear to violently anti-plur dance music while on the phone with their mothers while brushing thier teeth. Perhaps it’s just me who does that last bit, but still! We’re too easily amused.

I’m glad I’m going to the Slam tonight. I need distraction, interaction, something outside of my head. I owe myself a foray into the world. I likely owe some of the poets a visit. I could have at least phoned, I know, but I have my reasons. I’m looking at my phone with a bit of trepidation these days. When it rings, who knows who’s on the other end? People from all over have been calling. I’m the International Girl Of the Wrong Number. Wales and Australia, both this week, as well as five, count them, five drunken phonecalls that were for someone’s boyfriend. “I know you shlept around you bastard. She’s right here and we’ve been telling eashother everything..” “Yes, um, Hi! you called me last night too! I’m not the guy! Thanks!” *click*

Now I’m off finally to the Cafe Poetry Slam, which is just like every other, except for the words, and even they stay the same. Like memory enters into it not at all.  Take off the beret!  At least we host the best of the best. Otherwise I don’t think I could do it. I’d walk in one day with a clip to empty.

Is it a sign of my declining mind that I think of you too much?

from boingboing:  The age of commercial space flight officially began this morning: SpaceShipOne successfully completed the second of two flights into space, securing its win of the $10 million Ansari XPrize. On today’s edition of NPR’s “Day to Day” I speak with host Alex Chadwick about today’s historic news — as well as some of the lesser-known space history surrounding Mojave airport, now America’s first licensed spaceport. Link to today’s segment.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. Seems rather meaningless considering how well they did. How about awarding it to someone whose plane didn’t almost roll out of control? Still, one step closer means much. Take us from this disaster, let us look at it from above, like a game of chess. Every day you can look up and see nothing, how would it be if that were to change? If one day we look up and see the sparkle of a city?

from Ian:  Searching for ways to convey law enforcement professionalism to the Iraqi police, Marine MP Company C in Camp Al Asad, Iraq, developed a costumed mascot, “Farid the Crime-Fighting Falcon” (patterned after the famous “take a bite out of crime” dog, McGruff, but using an animal they believe the Iraqis better respect). Cpl. Justin Weber has the easy job, putting on the falcon suit; his comrades have the more difficult task of explaining to their classes just how Farid fits into effective law enforcement. [Marine Corps News, 8-28-04]

Found at News of The Weird.

I find myself wondering if the suit is body-armoured.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m making the right decisions in my life. It’s a very rare thing for me to wonder, as I don’t tend to think about my motivations much, but today is one of those days. This is entirely the sort of crisp fall day that should be spent lying naked on the bed with a lover. Anything else is wrong. I know there are at least five people in town who would be more than happy if I were to pluck them from their lives and slot them into this place. I think, how horrible of them to offer me this. Sometimes I could almost hate them. Sometimes I agree that having my relationship in another city is odd. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not being a fool. I need to make some hot tea to go with the veritable pile of grapes I’ve got and run my toes down the back of a leg. Gently talking about nothing in particular, reading maybe, just lying in the sunlight together. We could both have books and be only part under the covers. Another day and I’ll go mad. It’s that time of month again. Could you tell? Red dripping lines like the oldest language, like lipsticks prints on the inside of my thigh. Curves and gravity of crimson driving me into desire. I’m not going to dare spend the night with anyone this week and I’ll be glad when it comes to dance. Saturday, saturday, saturday does not help me now. I’m craving affection like breathing, and hands, and touch, and cupping me right there like this, but with tongue. It’s blackness. I hate need. I can’t imagine what I’d do to someone if there were anyone to take this out on.

This day deserves more than I have.

I’ve been reminded how immensely marvelous bototron.com is. It reminds me of black and white sun cascading down my face. Especially the witty little advert they put together for thier deathrays. It’s vile that Ray doesn’t have one. Practically a crime.

I’m slipping into a quiet day. I know that somewhere along the line I made plans for today, but unless the person I made them with steps forward, they’re going to be stood up. Many apologies.

Mckenzee was just saying yesterday that he finds it wonderful how much life is documented here and I agree. Little windows into the world, it’s fascinating. Doug is getting married and Sarah left town on Alix. I’m touched by both of these, and I may never meet them. When I do start traveling, this place may decide my itinary. How splendid might it be to visit everyone who matters on your friends list. These people you know through text and image only. Meet thier husbands, smell the paint in thier studios, have the cat you’ve seen in so many pictures curl up in your lap as you sip some tea, rain pounding down outside in a way utterly different than where you’re from. I think there could be a slight feeling of awe. We live in a world where this is possible, where we meet these people, where these connections exist. It’s what I want, it’s what is here. How lunatic to meet people over the internet, to give them our image, our personal information. How breath-takingly joyous.

You people are more real than my neighbors. 

I came across the line every time I lose a girl today on my friends page. The thought of losing a girl lets me into an image of forgetting her behind on the subway, like a bag or a book. Just a girl, sitting emptily and you see her through the windows and the door whishes shut and you yell for a second, but there’s nothing you can do. You try and catch the train, but you never find her again. She never comes home. Every day for the next three months you remember her, sitting with her hands in her lap, hands curled together on her green skirt you got her for her birthday. She laughed and insisted on putting it on, right there in the park next to the basketball court. You reached up to help her wiggle out of her pants when she got caught and she looked down at you on the red plaid blanket and said ‘thank you’. It broke you, remembering her in that skirt. Her laughter, however cliche, was like bells to you. It chimed. The light was yellow when you lost her. It was night and the only light was from inside the train. Sallow light on her rich hair, but still she was beautiful. The tips of it brushing her shoulders, you had been secretly delighting in watching her that night. Wanting to run your fingers through that hair, to brush it from her face before kissing her. It was going to be a deep kiss too, and now it’s The Kiss. Your entire relationship shifting to center on the Kiss That Never Was, because she never came home. Lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, you imagine her sometimes still on the train, going around and around. One day you’ll step on a car to find her there, sitting, waiting for you.

The world is my giant huggable friend. Dominique came and spent time today, when I got to Sukkot it was winding down, but still interesting, Silva gave me a bicycle that was made by someone brilliant, and I rode home with green grapes and nectarines to   in my in-box cracking me up. Plus, it seems that I still have a little candy left from Ian. I’ve got Death Cab for Cutie on mixed with the Pixies and Pulp, and I think I’m going to be able to sleep before 3 am. Riding a bicycle after an almost three year hiatus was slightly exhausting like I feel my lungs are about to cease to work any minute now but perhaps my heart will burst before that, leaving me to wonder if this is such a good idea after all and holy hell I’m finding out that the back brake isn’t as tight as the front just as I’m hitting this incredibly tall hill. Oh look – I can see the other side of downtown from here and that? That is a drunk driver. Too late. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee. Fluttering past, sitting upright in a tailcoat and a tophat, I wonder what I must have looked like. I know I almost died hauling it up the stairs, light as a stick as it is. Apparently I’m still recovering. I think I can do better than I can, but I don’t care. I’m mobile now, Beware. I forget that a truck is a rather large object to be hit by. Still, it’s going to be three years come January. My settlement mediation is in November. I’ll finally be able to pay back all of you who’ve been too kind.

edit: another happy – my player finally supports .ogg. I finally get to hear William’s drunken choked up thank you. How beautifully surreal. I want all your voices now.

With who and what am I doing Monday?