krixfort special report:
here's the latest match on the social experiment. . .I'm going to have to try another site I think because if this is who comes up in the number one and number two positions then I am truly doomed.
these are from the number two match:
Last great book I read: davinci code
Favorite on-screen sex scene: I like watching movies.... 2 on 1's are a big turnon
If I could be anywhere at the moment: vegas or anywhere hot
Song or album that puts me in the mood: I don't need music to put me in the mood. I do like rock and roll. I enjoy pink,celine,dixie chicks
depressing.
Number one is the same guy, actually. He just has two different profiles out there; the number one profile is a bit more wordy.
Last great book I read:
5 people you meet in heaven. I like books that touch your soul. A good book that can make you laugh, think and cry. I also like books that teach you something, That challenge you to challenge yourself. Into thin air is also a great book
The five items I can't live without:
newspaper
sports radio
pair of running shoes/gym
diet soda/beer
I only count four nimrod.
WHY YOU SHOULD GET TO KNOW ME
I am a normal guy with a very normal life. I own a business, coach in my childrens leagues. I like to work out and look good so I am in great shape. I can keep a secret and I am very discreet. I am very open minded which I know alot of people say but to me openminded means if you want me to try something or do something and it pleases you or turns you on then I am ready to do it. I like to make love and also have mind blowing sex. Passion is a major part of me and also the ability to be very creative. I have alot to offer and I love being able to please a woman. It is a major turnon.I also am a good friend, a good person, I just want to live a little more. My headline basically is saying that we all have fantasies that we want to explore we all have the same problem though which is finding the right person to explore them with you. Lastly, I am just as comfortable belly up in a bar as I am in a 5 star restaurant.
About the only thing that's slightly intriguing is the last sentence.
I don't see a great match here.
well, if you login to blogger.com I'm sure you've seen this on the dashboard but for those that don't
Bloggers were named People of the Year by ABC news. That's just crazy talk.
I guess people are listening a little.
I should've addressed this earlier but the entire thing is so devasting it's almost unfathomable. I'm not going to preach about donating but I will give two links to organizations that are accepting donations, for those of you that are skeptical of the red cross.
doctor's without bordersaidindia.organd for those of you that aren't skeptical of the Red Cross, I'll make it easier for you to get to them too.
RedCross.org. You can make a secure donation over the web and the minimum is a low five bucks. Specify "International Response Fund" if you want your $$$ to be directed toward Tsunami relief.
one of my major pet peeves is shit customer service. If you have a business where your primary income is from customers then you damn well should provide adequate customer service.
I just went around and around with the web hosting company that I pay 50 bucks a month to. They used to be good but then the original company I was with got ate up by some other company that is very efficient with their billing but not so effiecient when it comes to account management.
On their website they give you the directions to follow if you wish to discontinue service. I followed them, only to be greeted by an email, stating that they can't take care of those requests over the phone or via email and I would have to go to the "Support Dashboard", log in, and fill out a trouble ticket. Fine. I go to the "SUPPORT DASHBOARD" and I can't log in because I have no fucking password. I click on the "Forgot your password?" link and then use the password they send me. Still invalid. I call their support line. I get a voicemail telling me to leave my name and number and someone will get back to me.
How many people do they have working there? ONE? I got a call back from the same guy that emailed me. He will probably be the same guy to tear down the account. I don't understand why that can't be taken care of with one email or one call? I understand if they required additional info or if I needed to fax something over like a signed letter or something.
Anyways, now, I'm busy backing up krixfort.com because who knows if they'll disable the wrong account. They seem fairly inept.
I was going to switch providers anyway. I guess this is a good time to do that.
ahhhhhhhh! what? too sick to blog? No!
ah yes, my friends, it's true. I've been layed out like a holiday ham (I don't even know what the hell that means but it popped into my head and there you have it.)
I have turned into the ultimate couch potato. I actually think that I have part of the couch melded to my ass. Not that I would have even felt it happen as I was UNCONCIOUS for the last two days. I had some minor New Years plans that I'm going to have to throw out the window. I just can't do it. (This is coming from the person who would rip off a snowplow in a blizzard in order to get to the bar.) But no, alas, my health is taking a higher priority this year. I haven't even smoked for days. Maybe I can kick the damn habit now. Oy.
This ramble is taking it out of me. I have to go lay down for a minute.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, cough cough, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Isn't it good to think of old friends, lost friends, and friends we have not yet made - the special times with them and all the joy they bring? Isn't God so good to us?
I keep getting spam from a Christian greeting card site. I am coming down with a cold and I feel pretty crappy. But I still might go do something in the 20 degree weather because I am a stubborn jackass. Anyway, back to the devotional spam. Let me answer that first three part question.
Isn't it good to think of old friends -- which ones. . .the ones that never write? The ones that wrote you off? The ones that stabbed you in the back?
lost friends the ones that were lost to drugs and alcohol? or the ones that just simply died?
and friends we have not yet made-- oh what joy the future is sure to bring, I am certain.
Isn't God so good to us? in comparison to what? As far as I'm concerned, God has a little bit to answer for this year. If this year was in his holy plans, than he needs a better engineer in my book. This year is at the bottom of my list. God can bite me on this one. And I'm sure with that, I have secured my seat at hell's dinner table.
so I have to go in each day and see what gets sent to webmaster@mycompany.com (don't get any ideas buddy.that's not the name of the place I work.) Anyway, the from address and the subject line on this one cracked me up:
From: She sleeps around [mailto:ladrksvxg@indiatimes.com]
Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 4:36 AM
To: Webmaster
Subject: Your wife sleeps around man
How would you like to get an email from "She Sleeps Around?" Is that like an Indian name or something, like two-dogs-fucking?
And the subject sounds like a stoner surfer wrote it. "Your wife sleeps around man. Bummer."
So the spam is from some native american stoner surfer dude who is ratting out his buddy's wife, probably after he boned her. . .or it could just be spam.
stick a fork in me. I'm done for today.
here's a couple of good ones:
subject: Improve your spermatozoan quantum and choice
Our lozenges are a scientifically formalised herbaceous
nutritionary blend to heighten natality by making better spermatozoid character,
count and motility.
Ensure my site(link to some porn site I'm sure)
and another:
subject: perch! But the snipe,
Hi,
Did you recieve my email from last week? I'm happy to tell you
that you are a p. p roved for a home l o a n with 4.1
Your tracking number is # 11 01 51
You must visit the link below in 24 hrs to confirm your details.
hffsk
Best Regards,
Bettye Mccoy
Senior Account Officer
and yet another:
subject: knife and blind eye,
Fri, 24 Dec 2004 00:48:18 -0600
Good Day:
After viewing your record we are unable to a p prove your
mor tga g e/ r e financ e at the r at e of 3.00. However we
can give you 4.0 deal.
If you are satisfied, then we will need you to
verify some information below.
Thank you
Dupree
What does all this secret code mean? Is it the key to some cryptic universal truth? Will it tell us that there is a meaning and a purpose to our existence? Or is it really only a link to an online mortgage application or a cheap viagra website or cyber porn? I think it has a higher purpose. Maybe someone is trying to communicate with me through SPAM? I mean, DECONTROL CARBOLY???? Earthmove Middlebury??? If those don't sound like a conspiracy theories in the making then I don't know what does.
I'm not sure what's wrong today. Nancy from Denver emailed me and asked me what I was doing for New Year's Eve. This is what I told her:
Kristeena wants to go to Times Square for New Year's Eve and at first I thought, 'well, you only live once. . .it would be fun to experience it.' Today, just thinking of it is making me tired. I'm not sure what I will do. Everything was cool last week but over the weekend I've become very depressed and irritable. Can't even blame it on PMS. Kristeena was singing Christmas songs on Christmas day while I was in the kitchen cursing out a cheesecake and when I heard the singing I just wanted to punch her in the face. Love her to death. . .couldn't stand the christmas cheer.
what is wrong with me?
I want to go to St. Thomas and lay on a beach for a couple of weeks. At an asylum.
It was all I could do just to get up today. I don't feel like writing. I don't feel like reaching out or communicating with anyone. I thought I would go to the Collins to have a Monday night bevvie (I like going out on Mondays. . .long standing tradition starting in Denver.) Now I don't even feel like that.
I could go to sleep right here at my desk.
I don't think it was the best turkey I ever made. Pretty sad because it's the only time I've had company to enjoy. (We did have some decent grub, though.) I'm also thinking everything tasted alittle bland but maybe that's me being overly critical. Hmmm might have to have leftovers and see if I know what I'm talking about. heh heh.
I got and A in Oral Communications.
Suck on that.
The turkey has been in for an hour and I thought I'd check in on my social experiment. As expected, nothing. So then I clicked on the "get matched" link to see what the computer deemed suitable matches.
Three married guys looking for affairs, a fat guy who said in his ad "no fatties, just because I have a few extra doesn't mean you can be a slob", and an unemployed aspiring "artist/musician" (read ALBATROSS.)
Good god it's grim. Here's an excerpt from one of the married guy's profiles:
WHY YOU SHOULD GET TO KNOW ME
I'm a passionate, loving, funny and sexy man in a long term relationship and I need more. I can't be the boyfriend, but if we click, I can give you lots of good lovin'.
I should send him a message. In it I will say: "You sound great! It's great to know that you're a cheater looking for another cheater. Your ethics are beyond my reach! I'd really like to get to know you because I think I deserve even less than you can offer and I'm hoping that you'll drag me through the mud a couple of times before you discard my body in the bushes."
Looking forward to the new year.
here it is, my effing personal ad. . .it's basically the same as my blog profile.
It has the same less than flattering pictures that are featured on the blog. It has the infamous "blowjob" picture. That oughtta be good for something.
oy. happy festivus.
after a discussion with my friend, who I will call joey-joe-joe jr. shabadoo out of respect for his privacy, I have decided to put my profile up on a personal ad site to see what happens. I bet him that I would have less responses and have less success than he does. We really should put money on this.
Anyway, this looks like an ongoing experiment which I will religiously track in this blog so that I can share my humiliation with the rest of the world.
So joey-joe-joe got called a snivelling jerk-off pest by someone he communicated with via personal ads. I am hoping to get called a psychotic neurotic bitch.
Let the games begin.
Two harrowing experiences to report today.
First thing: I opened up the medicine cabinet and the box of ob tampons flew out and landed upside down and open in the sink. One of the little S.O.B.s fell out and since we don't have one of those drainy thingys, it fell into the damn drain, all the way down to the elbow. Now I'm afraid my bathroom sink will turn into some type of research & development lab where we put the super absorbent bastard to the test. Will it be so absorbent that it expands and fully blocks our sink drain? Will I need to make a trip to home depot and get some kind of plumbing tools to take the u-joint thing off my bathroom sink pipe and fish the bugger out? How biodegradable are these things? Can we wash it away with a few gallons of liquid plumber? Will my sink get cramps?
Second thing: I had to go to the post office to pick up a gift from my sister. I only went because it was from my sister and I know she went to a lot of trouble to send me a gift (Thank YOU!!!) which I am very thankful for. Let me just say that all post offices are a drag at christmas time but when I enter the Journal Square office at ANY TIME of year, I feel I am in mortal danger, from employees AND customers. It was around 7:45 am and when I went in there was an uneasy calm. There were two, TWO, employees working. One handled the line to send. One handled the line to pick up. I got in the line to pick up and a woman in front of me with a package in her hand (clearly in the wrong line) busted out of my line and ran to the FRONT of the line to send and started YELLING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS to the poor postal worker behind the glass about why couldn't she send her package the way it was wrapped and blah blah blah. Evidently she had packaged her package in a way that was "against the rules" of that particular post office. (Don't ask me, I thought they all followed the same rules.) So, by 7:50, there was a HUMONGOUS screaming match and much loud grumbling as the each line grew and grew. While I was waiting for Tim Conway to retrieve my package, I heard the restless crowd behind me. . ."How many people are working back there?" "I hafta get to work!" "Someone should ring the bell!" "What? There's only one person back there?" "Yeah, she take her time, alright." It was all I could do to keep my karma shield up so that I didn't get knifed in the back by someone freaking out.
whew. the rest of the day will be a cake walk. Unless my sink explodes.
Administration Overhauls Rules for U.S. Forests
By FELICITY BARRINGER
The overhaul of the guidelines will make it easier for forest managers to decide whether to allow logging, drilling or off-road vehicles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/politics/23forest.html?thhere's more . . .
"The long-awaited rules relax longstanding provisions on environmental reviews and the protection of wildlife on 191 million acres of national forest and grasslands. They also cut back on requirements for public participation in forest planning decisions.
Forest Service officials said the rules were intended to give local foresters more flexibility to respond to scientific advances and threats like intensifying wildfires and invasive species. They say the regulations will also speed up decisions, ending what some public and private foresters see as a legal and regulatory gridlock that has delayed forest plans for years because of litigation and requirements for time-consuming studies."
"The rules give the nation's regional forest managers and the Forest Service increased autonomy to decide whether to allow logging roads or cellphone towers, mining activity or new ski areas. Environmental groups said the new rules pared down protection for native animals and plants to the point of irrelevance."
God. . .it's coming at us from all sides. It's like an amBUSH. Fuck, I don't even know where to start pouring in my support. . .is it for environmental issues and protections that are eroding, or for reproductive rights or do I rally for finding an ending to this war and bringing the troops home safe, or for making sure that equal opportunity programs are not reversed, or for making sure our civil liberties aren't stripped. Fuck. I'm overwhelmed. I can't keep up.
my apologies to all those disciples of the MLA and the Chicago manual of style and prescriptive grammarians everywhere for my lack of concern about and my general abuse of american english grammar "norms." oh yeah, and my lack of spell-checking.
so solly.
the word I looked up today is sycophant.
A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people.I've known a couple of those in my life.
Headlines for today:
Washington Post Company Buys Slate Magazine
Kristeena says it looks like Christmas threw up in our house.
fell asleep on the couch last night, remote in hand, watching Rudolph. I remember looking at my watch one last time before my sleepy eyes finally closed and it was 10PM.
Needless to say, I am a bit more rested today but still very sleepy and having trouble staying on task.
Tomorrow is Festivus, or so I've been told. Find out more about the Festivus tradions
here.You can also read about it in the NY Times article
Fooey to the World: Festivus is come.
I am completely and utterly exhausted. haft go grocery shopping tonight for x-mas foods. I think i"m going to the local store for all the frozen-y things and things that keep. Tomorrow will be turkey day and thursday will be whatever day and friday I will make a quick run for fresh stuff and then start the prep for the food.
I wish I had the week off.
some guy kept asking Alan for an "absolutely cranberry" last night. Apparently the guy was all kinds of messed up. I told Alan he should just give the dude cranberry juice, after all, it's what he asked for.
I am the master of the cream of soups. Currently my fav is cream of chicken, or as I like to say, cream of chix. like chix noodle. Why is it that I like an abbreviation that uses the letter x (krix) or chix noodle or kix or whatever BUT I absolutely HATE IT when somebody uses a K instead of a C like Kountry Kitchen or Kozy Koffee Korner.
that's kooky, cookie.
The first grade so far is an A in my Business Organization and Management class. Sounds boring but it was actually a cool class. I was challenged intellectually (that's a question they ask you in the course evaluation.)
The more cooler thing, or should I say, the coolier thing is that I'm taking my senior seminar with the same prof next semester. He's a complete freak.
Shiznit! If I can pull that javascript incomplete out and turn it into a good grade I should be able to stay on the dean's list for the third year in a row. My cumulative is a 3.714 which is probably the best I've ever had in any university or even high school. Working full time for a crazy growing internet company and pulling a 3.7. No wonder I'm fucking exhausted. (*pats self on back*)
SUH-WEEEET!
New F.B.I. Files Describe Abuse of Iraq InmatesBy NEIL A. LEWIS and DAVID JOHNSTON
F.B.I. agents witnessed the abuse of prisoners by U.S.
military personnel in Iraq, according to government
documents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/politics/21abuse.html?thnice.
I volunteered to cook ye ole X-MAS dinner. I was going to get fancy and try something new but I know I can cook a turkey so I'll stick with the basics. My strengths lie in the basic white trash comfort food group. Anything with mayonaise or sour cream or starch.
So I'm thinking the usual;
appetizers: artichoke dip, spinich dip, olives, cheese, crackers
main:
butterball,
stuffing,
mashed potatoes,
mashed turnip (kristeena's fave)
spinich au gratin (I saw this on the food network and it looked rockin')
orange ginger cranberry sauce (kristeena's specialty)
green beans w/sauteed mushrooms (Joe will need to pick them out.)
gravy
hmmmm. . .debating on a salad. I like a salad with seeds and stuff in it. I guess I could toss some romaine hearts, cucumbers, peppers. . .yeah, a green salad will be good.
shiznit. I need to go to sears or Pennys and get some pyrex cooking dishes. I was going to go to Macys but for pete's sake, they sell the same things.
and for dessert, the piece de resistance. . .
white chocolate raspberry cheesecake w/ almond graham cracker crust. Unbelievably easy and delicious.
Oy. I need to go to Sears tonight probably or at least to the grocery store.
feh! now is the time of the year when I REALLY START BITCHING. And what will I be bitching about for the next four months? The FUCKING WEATHER.
Currently it is 14 degrees F. (F doesn't stand for farenheit anymore. It stands for fucking freezing.) Oh, and I forgot the wind. Winds gusting at 26 mph, wind chill -5. It was -10 when I WALKED to the PATH station.
Clothing config for today:
1 jeans
2 long johns pants (yes, two)
1 tank top
1 thermal long sleeves shirt
1 t-shirt over the thermal
1 polar fleece jacket
2 hats
1 neck gator
1 down coat
I need one of those puffy North Face coats that looks like a sleeping bag and covers my ass. Train platforms get pretty windy and cold, don't you know.
Unlike me, my friends the Guppies chose to move southwest from Seattle instead of south then east. They are in Hawaii now, havin' a fine laid back, hang ten, Mele Kalikimaka. The have a couple of kids now who look like holy terrors in the BEST possible holiest-of-terror-I'm-having-a-great-time-being-a-kid kind of way. Here they are:
And here's a picture of my crazy friend Mrs. Guppy. She has always been a hoot.
I love her and her husband and if anyone I ever knew deserved to have kids it is those two. They fought hard for their family and I'm incredibly grateful that providence finally gave them what they wanted.
Today I sat in Union Square drinking a coffee, smoking a cigarette, watching dog-walkers and watching squirrels. The squirrels were out of control.
I was sitting there, minding my own bees-wax, trying not to think about Jason when something dropped on the ground in front of me. It was half a peanut shell. I looked up and sitting on a branch above me was this grey squirrel, who had apparently found a treasure trove somewhere. There was a guy standing near me with his back to me. Casually he slips his hand into his coat pocket, withdraws it and nonchalantly flips a peanut out into the walkway. Another grey squirrel comes out of nowhere, fiddles with the peanut for a minute and finally shoves one half of the peanut in his mouth. He then moves closer to the guy and just sits there, half a peanut protruding from his mouth. He sits there and stares at the guy as if to say, "Yo. Give up the goods. I know you got some."
I laughed out loud at the audacity of the greedy squirrel. The squirrel, after being ignored by the guy, comes scampering over to me. He just sits in front of me staring. I imagined he was thinking, "what YOU got?" and I thought, "you want a cigarette butt? How'd you like that buddy?" I think he received my vibe because then he took off with his booty.
One time a squirrel climbed into my book bag when I was at the University of Washington. I was outside the art building and I set my bag down. It was gaping open but there wasn't any food in there. All of a sudden this squirrel comes barreling out of nowhere like a bat out of hell and dives into my bag. Squirrels look so cute whern they're 10 feet away but when they're up close and personal they remind me of the killer bunny in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I had to stand there and wait for the thing to vacate.
Squirrels. If they were all cute like Rocky, wearing a little aviator helmet and googles, I'd be down with 'em. Squirrels. Fluffy and cute on the outside. Vicious rabid killers on the inside.
it's going to snow today.
Carleen and I were talking about how when we were little we never noticed race too much. She spent her first seven years in Trinidad, in a neighborhood which her aunt swears was fairly multi-cultural. Carleen doesn't remember any of the people seeming any different.
When I was seven I spent the summer with my grandparents on the central coast of California. I told Carleen that I was friends with a girl named Jean Green. When I was reminiscing with my grandma about that time, she recounted how Jean Green had taught me to count to 10 in Japanese.
"Why would she do that?" I asked.
"Because she was Japanese I guess," my grandma replied.
"She was? I had no idea."
I told Carleen that I don't remember anyone being diff. . .
The train I'm on is stopped on a bridge over the Passaic river just outside of Newark. It's pitch black outside and all I see are lights from another train's windows. Little square lights moving in the opposite direction.
I am on the verge of a panic attack as I imagine the bridge cracking in two. Gravity pulls the train down from the middle, cars grinding and crashing into each other and crumpling like accordians. There is panic among the passengers, screams, crys, scrambling and the cold water from the Passaic rushes in, filling the cars, pulling them down faster, making escape impossible.
anyway, I don't remember anyone being different but they must have been because my grandparents lived near an airforce base and there were a lot of military families that lived in the apartment complex they managed.
The only person I remember being different was this deaf boy who was about my age. My grandma had taught me some simple signs and the alphabet. I signed "I love you" to the kid and ended up with him tailing me all summer. Of course, I didn't mean it. Little did I know, a precedent was being set, even at that young age.
These are the words I looked up today:
- Petard
- A small bell-shaped bomb used to breach a gate or wall or A loud firecracker.
Word History: The French used pétard, “a loud discharge of intestinal gas,” for a kind of infernal engine for blasting through the gates of a city. “To be hoist by one's own petard,” a now proverbial phrase apparently originating with Shakespeare's Hamlet (around 1604) not long after the word entered English (around 1598), means “to blow oneself up with one's own bomb, be undone by one's own devices.” The French noun pet, “fart,” developed regularly from the Latin noun pditum, from the Indo-European root *pezd-, “fart.”
- concupiscence
- A strong desire, especially sexual desire; lust.
- jejune
- 1.Lacking in nutritive value.
2. Displaying or suggesting a lack of maturity; childish.
3. Lacking interest or significance; dull; meager; dry.
"Dude. Are you a teacher?"
I look around the dark bar. Surely that girl is NOT asking me that. "Do I look like a teacher?"
"yeah, you totally look like like a teacher."
"Maybe I was a home-ec teacher?"
"No dude. You totally look like a math teacher."
"I'm a programmer. It's pretty much the same."
I leave the bar. Unimpressed. Uninspired. Ride train home. Tired. Look at advertising. Listen to insipid conversation about hair care products. Roll Eyes. Bored. Eyes around. Grab wallet. Count money surreptitiously. Look at person sitting to the left. "Do you know what surreptitious means?" Person snores. Stare straight ahead. Glance at watch. Look at floor. Look around train. Everyone is gone. Start singing, softly at first and then loud, as loud as you can because your voice is being drowned out by the train but it feels loud and the train rolling into Journal Sqaure is your own Broadway Stage and you can get all of the voice out when you need to.
the short bus bumps down Broad street along to Newark Penn. For two years now I've seen the same shit again and again.
liquor.
chicken.
bail bonds.
braids.
unemployment.
halfway house.
undisguised rage.
This is urban renewal at its finest. don't understand? it's a work in progress. but I digress as the bus presses into Penn. I'll go home. go have a drink. rinse. lather. repeat.
I met Kevin when I moved to Denver in 1989. Sonya was waiting to score some weed so that maybe she could lay off the cuervo for a night. The door buzzes. Sonya shuffles over to the intercom.
"Yeah?"
"Sonya. Open up. It's Kevin and Billy."
"Cool."
Kevin busts in the door, talking a hundred miles a minute.
"Hey Seattle, what's goin' on. You wanna smoke some dope? Sure as shit Sonya, here it is. Had to run to my cousin Gerald's house and then over to my other cousin Phyllis's and then I got stuck over at their place. I called Billy and he came to the rescue."
"That's cuz you're a fool man. Gerald just wanted to get over at Phyllis friend. You know, the one that's workin' at Arbys man. The fat one," Billy chimes in.
"Yeah, she be eatin' too many beef 'n' cheddars."
"Man that's cold."
"Where's the shit?" Sonya asks.
"Hey is she gettin' high with us?" Kevin motions in my general direction.
"Nah, she don't smoke that shit. She's smart."
"Yeah, you don't want to get messed up with a bunch of addicts like us, Seattle."
But I already was. Later that night, we would end up going down to funkytown on a crack run.
How did I end up there?
A couple of weeks before I was in the ER at University Hospital. Diagnosis Herpes Zoster, commonly known as Shingles. Probably brought on by stress. Had a psych eval. Emotional breakdown. Severe depression. I immediately withdrew from the University of Washington. I immediately withdrew from Seattle.
And there I was, sitting on a brown naugahyde couch in east Denver, watching my mom's best friend get high with two ex-cons from Mr. Magic Auto Detail.
to be continued. . .
recipe:
one quatrain iambic pentameter tetrameter w/ rhyme scheme abba plus 8 plus lines free verse. Mix well.
I sit and stare and wait and stare
and stare. And wait for rain to show
its face, all slick. For wind to blow
and dry my eyes. Homesick, I'll share
what it's like to be
here. Away
from friends, family. Forging
my way, anyway
it's easier said than done.
Don't get me wrong, I like it
here. But I smell rain up north, a message
from home, from family.
Comfort and condemnation, we want
you back, your success means
so little.
Please come home.
I'm mining my email archives and I found this gem of wisdom from the goddess of all wisdom, Michelle:
Approaching 40 has made cosmetic augmentation the preferred form of body modification. Where once were dreams of "sleeves" and subdermal piercings are now wistful glances toward breast lifts and dermabrasion. If I were a piercer/tattoo artist, I would explore the wrinkling face of an aging nation and train in these easy, outpatient procedures. How much more complicated can botox be? Are we really so far off from Logan's "New You" quickie laser surgery? Maybe that's not such a good image to invoke. Farrah's plastic surgery hasn't exactly aged well. But you get my point, nonetheless.
when I lived at home with my mom and sister, my sister and I would write songs for our eighties pop band, "Club Sandwich." It had a very Duran Duran look and feel. My sister remembered the lyrics and sent them to me in an email which spawned a completely VH1 Behind the Music exchange.
From: Mel
Subject: Club Sandwich
North
South
East
West
I only know that you like me best.
But baby that's me, and all I can see,
Is the G*d Da*n trouble that you've given to me.
Written, I'm sure, in the 80's by Club Sandwich
----
From: Krix
Subject: Re: Club Sandwich - Behind the music
That song was really was poetry.
You know that one member from Club Sandwich went on to pursue other avenues of music in the nineties and was a big player in the Riot Grrrrrrl/grunge movement. The band, Cranky, was comprised of Krix and Hope who received a small amount of noteriety for their grunge/hardcore hit, Wrong Hole. But Cranky's meteoric rise was only equalled by its crashing, downward, spiral as both members hit bottom in the mid-nineties and were overshadowed by whiny male bands like the Counting Crows and lame dance bands like Jesus Jones and sad lesbian folk singers like The Indigo Girls.
after a nightmare descent into booze and pills, and a near death experience, Krix checked herself into rehab where she met her next collaborator, Kristeena. They discovered a mutual afinity for Jazz standards and Karaoke.
Armed with a new lease on life, a Mr. Microphone, and a stack of Ella Fitzgerald CDs, Krix followed her collaborator out to New York City to start out fresh. She is having modest success, playing gigs at Harold's late nite diner, The Green Note, and the Jazz Band-Aid.
She often reflects on the salad days, the golden years, the heyday of Club Sandwich and will often give credit for her success and strength to her Club Sandwich collaborator, partner, and long time friend, Mel.
---
From: Mel
Subject: Re: Club Sandwich - Behind the music - The Other side
The other member of Club Sandwich, after coming to terms that Krix had moved on, decided to go solo. Her first attempt at a number one, the Top 40 single 'You don't care, but I'm having your baby'.....failed miserably....Followed by an equally unsuccessful Rap song 'You don't care either, but I'm having your baby'.
She found herself in the dumps and at the welfare office....determined, still....to make it big.
She released her independant-label-solo, self reflective album 'I'm going to church, because I don't want to party anymore and I lost all my friends'...which, suprisingly went platinum. She followed that with an album titled 'I really love church and have found my husband on the internet'...which contained the hit singles 'I'm moving to MICHIGAN??' And 'Holy cow you care....I'll have TWO of your babies'
She has since stopped performing, but continues writing....thinking about writing her biography....She will title....'Not just the bacon....but the WHOLE Club Sandwich'
She, too, often reflects on the good old days, the wonderful times of Club Sandwich and will often give credit for her success and strength to her Club Sandwich collaborator, partner, and long time friend, Krix.
My sister's pretty darn funny.
we had our company Christma-hana-kwanzika party last night but I chose to stay home. I just didn't feel so jovial after this stuff with Jason. The announcement came out that the company is moving south for sure on April 1st and I still haven't worked out transportation. Must do that soon; when I look at an email like this, the prospect of unemployment doesn't seem so grand:
From: krixfort
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 8:54 AM
To: annaP; brian
Subject: oh blorf
So, I thought I'd look at the SF craigslist to see if I was missing out on anything back in the bay area. . .The first job description I saw was looking for some to work on 'mission-critical' applications or some bullshit like that. . .my god. I wish unemployment didn't ask you to write up a job search record, then I wouldn't have to waste any time on these damn sites faking one up.
I'm getting really good at this game on MSN called double trouble. Its plot is about as complicated as tetris. so all clicking and no brain activity makes the day go by faster and beer o'clock come sooner.
yesterday I reached the height of pathetic-ness (patheticity, patheticality?) as I realized what I had reached in life: Me. Sitting in a room in my underwear in 90 degree heat, playing computer solitaire, while listening to the Breakfast Club soundtrack.
I hate the web. I wish it was never invented. Or I wish I had invented it.
I have to go now, put on some pants and buy a lotto.
not looking forward to that mess again.
I still talk to Hoff and I saw him and his new baby on my last visit to SF. In fact I got the baby an
Ugly Doll.
I don't speak to Brian much anymore. The last correspondence was a cursory reply to my inquiries as to how he was doing. It's okay. He still holds a special place in my memories and I have some silly correspondences from him that make me laugh everytime I read them:
"Today, I had the luxurious privilege of attending jury selection in Hayward, the auto-repair capitol of California. I arrived an hour late, it took me almost that long to fit into my old death rock clothes and find my top hat. Also compounding my lateness was the fact that the lobby guards practically made me strip because I was wearing so much metal; I was very tempted to just throw myself into the x-ray machine, and even volunteered that "I should have come naked." They didn't laugh, but hell, I did.
When I arrived at the jury room, the clerk explained to me that they'd carted off jurors to next lowest plane of hell, Fremont. I was a little nervous, as she didn't even flinch at my top hat -- made me wish I'd stuck with the bunny suit idea. Before she could mention Fremont again, I pleaded my case for self-employment and the resulting harm that would be inflicted upon my livelihood should my five senses be requested. She looked at me with that cynical DMV type look, and asked for a business card. LUCKILY, I had one and GOT OFF! ... I didn't even have to resort to simultaneously reading aloud the Communist Manifesto and Decorating for Dummies.
I left flaming foot marks in Hayward and headed back to Oakbooty. I thought about going back to work, and then I thought about my really retentive coworker who's getting on my nerves. I decided to drive around and pretend like the economy didn't suck and my job didn't matter that much, and to this end might mention that the Dandy Warhols really help when attempting to escape the gravitational pull of reality. It sucks to be back in the days where the employer has the upper hand over us employeeons -- they're sure-as-hell not waiting to tighten down those thumb-screws.
... One interesting phenomenon is the stock market, ebay fell to $40 on 911 and is now hovering around $60. BUT HEY FUCK EBAY, I put my money down on the "king of beers!"
Job wise, I know you'll be able to stick the buffalo ;0) (it still busts me up to remember D----- ranting on about what-the-fuck-ever and we've got a buffalo sketch upstaging him). I can't really stand web shit anymore either; it's a plethora of plethora that turns your life into this plethora of ill communication. Worse, I find myself resenting people who "seemingly" love it, or pretend they do so they can kiss ass, climb the latter, and then stop on the second rung to shit on everyone below. It's like "Hey, go chew on the third rung or fuck off. We're here to do a job, so leave your bullshit in your cupboard, because honestly, we could do without the smell of your less-than-ripe bullshit. If we weren't pressed between cutting code and pressing espresso, we wouldn't even be here." Fuck, whatever happened to the "People's Army?" 
Hoff and Brian
here's an old email I write to AnnaP back in the day. It cracks me up:
To: AP
Subject: Now the Truth Can Be Told, for $29.50!
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2002 11:39:44 -0700 (EDT)
Get a load of this jackass. . .he wrote a play about being employed by Amazon during the ubiquitous 'dot.com' craze. . . why does this bother me so much? I'm going to set up a cardboard box on the corner of 46th and 6th and do a little Punch and Judy puppet show with my Pets.com sock puppet. I'll probably get trampled by high powered executives.
http://www.mikedaisey.com/sec_21dyshow_theshow.sht "The fate of the galaxy would be very different had R5-D4's motivator been more reliable."
PS the funny thing is that the link above just goes to the guy's blog now and he has some nice stuff on it. I'm not sore anymore. I don't remember why I was sore in the first place. I just like the idea of a Punch and Judy style puppet show on a corner in midtown. It's very "Being John Malkovich."
I will never do my potential offspring the disservice of raising them in the Pacific Northwest. That place is toxic.
Someone wrote a nice obituaryI'm glad that his family is having a service. And I take back what I said about Jason not being an artist.
Mandy came up with a beautiful idea to celebrate our friend.
Friends of Trees is an organization that is dedicated to resoring urban forests and they will plant commemorative trees for people. Mandy, Kristeena and I are each going to get Jason a tree. He just graduated from Horticulture school recently so it seems fitting.
yes, I am partially in the middle of semi-completing all these tomes.
Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Timesby Geoffrey Nunberg
Nunberg examines the curious ways in which the modern language expresses far more about history, politics, and culture than most casual English users would ever realize. Going Nucular, besides having one of the more whimsical titles to come along in a while, offers up scores of chapters, each examining specific words, phrases, or verbal tendencies. And while words like "terrorism", "fascism", "appeasement", and "Caucasian" (and even the hapless "like" and "ain't") are tossed about regularly in contemporary usage, achieving an understanding of their origin and evolution can serve to better explain not just the word but the issue to which it is attached. Diary by Chuck Palahniuk
The Best American Political Writing 2004Dorothy Parker Complete StoriesThe Best American EssaysThe Best American Non-Required ReadingGood In Bed
"Merry-Go-Round broke down. Quite a looney selection for a bunch of drunken reprobates."
gold star if you can identify the movie THAT line came from and who delivered it.
the real break down however was last night as Kristeena DOH! Minerva, Mandy (note to self: need a secret identity for Mandy), and I got together for maudlin drinks. Kristeena called her mom after Mandy left and when her mom asked how I was doing I broke down and sobbed like a baby. Her mom is very sweet. Just imagining her little nice voice is enough to make me cry all over again.
The three of us were pretty sad. Each of us wears the sadness differently.
I guess there's not much more to say about this. I am working from home today, feeling a little punished by the shots of fernet I felt compelled to have. Once I got started, I pounded the shit out of my liver. I swore I wasn't going to and it just happened.
Anyway, at my house, there's a picture in a frame of Kristeena and Jason on the Oregon coast. I just keep looking at it. It's the only framed picture of people in our apartment. We don't even have pix of our families up in frames.
You know Jason, I missed you before but I was always fairly sure you'd come and visit again. In the back of my mind I was always waiting for your return. I even thought that Kristeena and I could've convinced you to move out here with us so we could hang out like we used to and drink wine and eat pasta and listen to music or play pool or go on crazy adventures like the time we went to Fort Warden and camped in the rain and saw the baby otters on the beach and you got so close to a deer that I thought you were going to be able to touch its nose. Didn't you try to feed it a cheetoh?
Now. Nothing. Empty. Void. Dead.
So fucking preventable.
I have a lot of friends all over the country. I never feel far away from them. I always feel like if we saw each other things would just go back to whatever and I try to keep that with me when I go to see people. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The point is, I never felt like he was that far away and apparently I was completely and utterly wrong on many levels.
I put him in a place in my brain where he really couldn't do any thing wrong. Even if he did. Or even if he was an asshole. I always overlooked all that junk. I feel very let down.
When we used to hang out, or even in correspondence, I almost felt like a mentor to him. Maybe because I was older. I feel like that's the vibe I got from him too. I feel like I let him down but that's ridiculous because I really haven't had any substantive conversations with him in ages.
I received an email from him less than a week before his suicide. In it he said his life was "
kind of in depressed limbo" and "
life outside of these concerns has been kind of meager and anxiety frought" and "
depression can be kind of an ass kicker, especially when it takes over".
I swear to god I didn't realize. I didn't know it was there, at that point. That fucking dismal-ass point of no hope. I didn't respond to his email.
But even if I did, would it have made a difference?
This event is all I can think about. All this other shit that I've written in the past 48 hours is tripe. Morphemes, kyoto treaty, silly little descriptions full of writerly tricks, a concert I could care less about.
I'm meeting Mandy for a drink tonight. Maybe we can make some sense of this.
Mr. Jet Brown knows this already but I have the wussiest feet on the planet. Case in point, I am wearing a pair of Skecher boots (they look like waffle stonpers if you're old enough to remember that terminology.) I've had these boots for 2 winters already so they're plenty worn in. Yet, curiously enough, while wearing them today, I have developed a bleeding blister on my ankle. It appeared during the ten minute walk from my house to the PATH train. So withing 20 minutes of having these damn things on my feet, I'm already bloody and bruised.
In other news, I guess the Knitting Factory has this open DJ night that the Onion was advertising. I told Kristeena it sounded interesting.
Segue: I'm going to start calling Kristeena by the name of Minerva in this blog so that I can protect her identity. Okay.
yeah, so I told Minerva about open dj night at the Knitting factory which was described in the Onion as
"Every Sunday in December, bring your inner DJ down to Knitting Factory and spin whatever the hell you please. Want to mix The Misfits into Martika? Fine. Beethoven into Bel Biv Devoe? That's cool, too. Knitting Factory provides two turntables and two CD decks. You bring the records and CDs. Totally freeform and completely free!"
and Minerva fires back a one liner "I'm nervous about anyone walking in and spinning Ethel Merman to Chemical Brothers"
Hear hear. I second that.
I had a lot of things I was going to talk about today. Somehow I can't think of any of them.
My brain tumor still hurts.
I have to drop the Prose Seminar because I can't afford it. That's alright. I will try and take it next fall or Spring. I need to worry about finishing that incomplete and taking the CLEP for Intro to Sociology. The advisor recommended I take the CLEP for $50 bucks rather than paying the NYU price to sit through an entry level sociology class. I wouldn't mind it. Maybe it would be an easy A. But I've taken so many social science classes, I think it would be redundant.
I brought my mail to work.
One was a denial of credit from Honda (no duh.)
The next was an offer from a bankruptcy lawyer to get me to pay them $860.00 to help me file bankruptcy. "It has come to our attention that you are being sued in an attempt to collect a debt, etc etc." hahahahaha It cost me 892.00 to settle the effing case and not declare bankruptcy. word.
The last one was an invite to attend the Dean's List Reception because I am officially on the Dean's List for the second year in a row.
Hip hip hooray.
I can't write about anything so I'm just going to describe people:
Krix is not a writer but plays one on the internet.
Cynthia wears rubber gloves and surgical masks on the subway for fear of germs.
Roy spits when he talks and smells like Chapstick.
Gavin sits at a bar full of acquaintances, swapping stories, telling tales of better days.
Grace receives acupuncture at the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center on Canal.
Carla's mom is from Trinidad and her father was a Black Panther from Brooklyn.
Robin can't afford Christmas presents for her niece and nephew but can buy a bottle of Bolla every night.
Lisa looks out the window at the graffiti that says "LIVE FOR TODAY" and thinks it says "LINE"
Kerry eats Pho at Nha Trang Centre like a human vacuum.
Bernie gets on the Path train, wearing Timberland boots, wearing a Jacques Cousteau hat, carrying a Hefty bag.
Peter walks down Broadway in a pair of size 2 women's pants, tall and skinny with long blonde curly hair, looking like a glamorously ravaged rock star.
Mr. Mustard eats pine needles from the Christmas tree when no one looks.
Krix can disect a computer, disect a sentence, and disect a psyche but can only fix the first two.
Gregor woke up one morning and scuttled up the wall.
Darwin dropped the pretense of being friendly, preferring the company of his Corgies.
Katie throws up when encountering clowns.
Holden tells the morons at Pency Prep to sleep tight.
Moonachie eats bamboo leaves while people are at work.
Chinaski rushes to get home and push up on Betty's ass.
Amanda got drunk and interviewed a post card of Van Gogh.
Troy thinks the details of a life are inconsequential and huge.
It feels like there are rubber bands wrapped around my head and fluid is building up behind my eyeballs. There is a lump on the lower right side of my head. Kristeena felt it. She thinks it is an inflamed tendon but I know it is a tumor. Who gets tendonitis of the head. I have a tumor on my medulla oblongata which is going to disrupt my autonomic nervous system.
I hope I can graduate first.
I was telling Jeff about morphemes today. Morphemes are the smallest piece of a word that can change meaning. the letter "s" is also a morpheme. By adding it to a word you change the meaning of the word. The word Bee does not have the same meaning as the word Bees. Yes they reference the same entity or type of thing but a bee is not the same as bees. Ask anyone that's been attacked by bees.
Anyway, you usually see morphemes in English in the form of prefixes or suffixes. Some languages actually have infixes where a morpheme is inserted in the middle of a word to change the meaning.
Morphemes make English great because we can string morphemes together to make new words all the time and I can make a word that may not sound correct and may not exist in Webster's dictionary but I guarantee that you and I will know exactly what it means.
Take for instance the word undesirable.
1st morpheme = un = not
2nd morpheme = desire = verb meaning to want strongly
3rd morpheme = able = having the quality of (being desirable)
so if I said undesirabler, that word would be a comparative relative to undesirable. Undesirabler would be more undesirable than undesirable.
and if I said undesirablenessability that would mean the the ability to be in the state of not being desired.
here's a nice paper on morphemes. I'm not making this stuff up.
prattle. prattle is good and distracting.
it was so cold when I got oout of class tonight. So cold I should have been wearing two hats, three shirts and two long johns pants, my usual east coast winter clothing configuration. I told you I HATE the cold.
When I got out of the path train it smelled like snow. It smelled like the top of Mt. Bachelor. That's not a euphemism. Mt. Bachelor is a real place. It's in Bend Oregon numb nuts.
See for yourself if you don't believe me.
argh!
Tomorrow night, 12/15/2004, at the Hammerstein Ballroom. . .ta da!
It's Le Tigre and The Pixies!!!!
grak! Where can I find $42.00?
Damn.
(Hahahahahaha. . .I feel like I'm sixteen again begging my mom for money to go to a concert. . .wait a minute. . .maybe my mom has $42 bucks. . .hmmmm.)
here are some before and after pictures of me
Before NYU
After NYU
And here's a picture of my hero Charles Nelson Reiley
so yeah anyway. I'm still pretty pissed but now mostly just sad. Kristeena said she didn't feel anything yet but sometimes she gets like that. It'll hit her on a weird day when she's going through her photographs and she finds pix of her and Jason in Florida or on the Oregon Coast or something. I have nothing to remember him by except memories which are cloudy and wispy. And a few digital photgraphs. The one in the previous post was from 2003 in front of the Collins when he came to visit. That's when we met Mandy. YAY!
This one is from Oregon just prior to his ill-fated wedding, Kristeena's move to Jersey and my move to SF in summer of 1999.
I'm very sad.
I know you were happy once.
I heard the news that you're dead you mother fucker. Your fucking suicide attempts finally worked and now you feel better and the rest of us can rot you piece of shit.
You wasted it. You wasted it all. 10 years of knowing you. Me AND Kristeena AND Mandy. And none of that is worth a shit. YOU FUCKER!!!!
I know you were fucking miserable. Why couldn't you at least reach out to your friends. They were there. Casting. Waiting. They would've given you everything you ASSHOLE.
Why didn't you see it?
Believe me, I've been there and I know that's why you fucking wrote me that fucking email less than a week ago. And I didn't know how to respond.
I am starting to numb down now and the reality of this will sink in. And I don't really know if your parents will have a funeral and if we'll be asked to attend and will we fly back to that godforsaken state of Oregon, in which you WERE THE ONLY BRIGHT FUCKING SPOT.
You have disappointed me. You are not an artist and you never were.
FUCK YOU.
do you hate your retail job at Christmas time? Listen people, I sympathize.
