fyi: email

friends: it has come to my attention that my comcast (primary) email had some sort of conniption fit recently, and i have missed several emails over (at least) the past week. if you've sent me anything recently and i did not respond, please resend. thx...

love, loss

quite a lovely remembrance written by bradley bambarger: chris's obituary.

more adventures in parking

and now for some non-depressing blathering. i trace my ability to do this to the happy fact that "orgasm addict" came on the 80s cable radio tonight at work. soccer moms eating their salads, i give you the buzzcocks. chew on THAT. random shout-out: B-- i miss you! call me sometime? my impending new roomie has a brother in rke, & i've already requested a ride-along next time she heads out yonder. also: can i get R's phone # from you? from what he said last time i saw y'all, sounds like he's as antisocial as i am, so maybe we'd be the perfect rva buddies. yesterday i found a flyer on my windshield when i left for work. i assumed it was a promo for some pizza place, so i tossed it in the seat next to me and put the car in gear... but then i picked it back up. and wow, how quickly i lost the calm that i had worked so hard to achieve in order to be able to get out of bed and even THINK about going to work... "DEAR DRIVER, CAN WE PLEASE HAVE A LITTLE CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS ON THIS BLOCK? IM SERIOUSLY NOT TRYING TO BE NASTY BUT THIS IS RIDICULOUS. IT IS A SHAME THAT SOME OF US CANT EVEN PARK ON OUR BLOCK BECASUE YOU ARE UNAWARE OF THE WAY YOU HAVE PARKED. PLEASE, LETS TRY TO ALL HELP EACH OTHER OUT AND PULL FORWARD TO THE CAR IN FRONT OF YOU OR PULL BACK TO THE CAR BEHIND YOU. IM SURE YOU UNDERSTAND THAT IT SUCKS TO HAVE TO PARK 10 MILLION MILES AWAY." yes, i realize i didn't need to type that whole thing out, and i know i've lost some of you already. but this thing has been eating at me for 30+ hours. the damn thing was typed out (yes, in all caps, and with likely more misspellings than i indicated above) and no, it was not signed. now, let me explain some things. parking here has an element of suckage, but it's not THAT bad. maybe half a dozen times in the past 4 years, i've had to park farther than a block away (meaning 2 blocks-- waaaahh), even though i keep night hours and the rest of the neighborhood does not. in general (as tonight), i park about a block away if i get home later than 8pm. if i wanted off-street parking, i would NOT live in this neighborhood. another thing: i do not share my american brethren's compulsion to get in my car every single day. specifically, even when i'm in too-much-work phases like now, i rarely drive on thursdays or fridays. friday's my work-from-home day, and thursday is for laundry and relaxing. this thursday, i had some errands to run, but i was home from that fairly early and got the last prime spot out front. i pulled up to the car in front of me (thanks for that parking lesson, einstein), in part due to the fact that i had no choice in the matter-- there was only one small spot available. friday morning, every else goes to work, comes home, showers, pre-games loudly, and hits the bars. cars of many shapes and sizes come and go. (seriously, the range is wide just on this block-- we've got little civics, vans and pickups, and a big old smelly dodge dart.) my car, parked mid-block, does not move during all this commotion. the random combination of sizes and shapes (and other people's actions) leads to gaps both in front of and behind my car that are too small to fit all but a mini cooper. what am i expected to do-- monitor the situation and go out and move my car every few hours? i think not. i've been brainstorming about how to respond to this ludicrous note, despite the fact that i am well aware that i should ignore it. my favorite plan involves hiring one of those billboard trucks to take up half a dozen spots on the block, with a "where you gonna park now, asshole?" message written on it. alas, my better judgement, such as it is, will take hold. soon. i hope.

what this girl needed back yonder

i feel compelled to explain that last post, for reasons that escape me. maybe because i can't really bring words to anything else. yesterday, the day before, i don't even know what day anymore, i was looking for an old almost-forgotten tape, which meant dragging the "suitcases" that house such things out of the back of my closet. it's been a while since those dusty things saw daylight, and i found myself ticking off sources and reasons... "first tape i made for B... first tape he made for me... tape i made with E that isn't finished because we got distracted by each other..." and so on. i stopped at one of them, thinking, nah... did i really? yes, i did. i made him a tape. what was i thinking? pulled it out, checked the tracks. are you kidding me? did i REALLY? memory says yes, yes i did. put it in a big green envelope and gave it to the fine folks at the USPS. and i'm mortified. i tuck it back into its slot. my heart and brain are clogged with too much else to think too hard about it, but it's nibbling at me still, minor faux pas or no. hours later, i'm googling, looking for i don't know what-- solace, i guess-- and i come across the aforementioned quote. and i feel a little better about the silly tape, because all three of those artists were on it. (no, obviously, i know i had no role in him knowing their music, or finding them to be of value... that's not the point!) minor, minor thing, to be made to feel less stupid about how i used the fleeting moments, but i needed it nonetheless. how much of human mourning is borne of the selfish desire for validation? not all of it, not by a long shot. but it's there, and i felt compelled to give it a sidelong glance as i stare down the other, more complicated parts, the ones that haven't matched up with coherent words yet.

what a girl needs, volume 1

"It's a good time to be someone like Steve Earle or Lucinda Williams," Whitley suggests. "There is a need for artists like them, because without them we'd lose our minds. It's like Tom Waits, who sold more albums last year than he probably ever has, thanks to what limited options there are in pop music. "You know, you can screw all you want, but sometimes you'd rather make love."

dark

Nostalgic, heart sick, biding time til it hits me for real. soon I’ll have to force myself to write. I can feel it bottling, pooling at the neck. I had a peek of it today, listening to that VB show... the shows have been the right background music, for now, reminding me of all the joy, the connections, the love. When I chose that one, I was remembering the friends who came with, the time we had. The photographer they brought with, wanting to fix me up, and the laughs later over the flaw that kept me from ever bothering to speak to him again (his negative comments about the performance that he waited to share til I left the table—apparently he forgot I was taping the show, and he was sitting next to the recorder). It wasn’t the dedication that got me—it was the song. Knifed me with the fact that there’s nothing I can do for him in his dark.

nano interruptus

Number of words I've written on the novel so far in november: 2800(+/-). Number of words in the email I wrote to biker boy this morning, in response to his response to my asking him to kindly tell me what's wrong with him so I can stop crushing so hard on him: 1711. You do the math...

nano update

number of words as of midnight nov 1st: nine. time decided on concept for story: 3 am november 2nd. plot outline, featuring 30 distinct chapters, completed: 6:30 am november 2nd. number of words completed as of 5 pm nov 2nd: nine. the concept is an offshoot (maybe more of a distillation) of the history of boys project. yes, that means it will not be 100% fiction, and no, i don't care if that breaks the rules. (it's a part that i hadn't gotten to, so i am following the november-only part of the rules, for what it's worth.) i will not be posting it, either en route or at the finish line, unless i have a serious change of heart AND gain permission from those involved in the non-fiction basis of the tale. i'll surely ramble more about it later. for now, i've got some writing to do. what kind of song would you give if you had a song to give what kind of life would you live if you had a life to live? wouldn't you wanna make something good that you could look on? give you lots of pleasure yeah you would what about this thing that you gave what if it weren't quite perfect what if there was something bad about it? would you love it just the same? would you still care about it? (yeah, you would...)