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Got here at 6am; should be able to leave at 6pm, get home by 8, get ready, leave for Shrine at 10pm.
Yeah, that'll work.
And I bloody well need it. My glasses are ready to be picked up, and of course paid
for. My supply of Meridia needs to be refilled (and I don't want to stop now, as it's finally
starting to kick in again).
I'm not missing it again tonight.
something is missing, but something is found
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Thursday, 29 April 1999 (revenge) 4:31 pm Been a busy day, interrupted to by a group lunch jaunt to a nearby restaurant, the kind which I could never afford to go on my own—the prices weren't listed on the menu. That sorta place. Had a "seared tuna salad," which is best described as evidence of sushi's influence on western culture. This isn't a bad thing. Wasabi and ginger? Hell yeah! I also did something I haven't done in a long time, longer ago than I can remember: I had a hot fudge sundae. (That and the key lime pie, a lovely shade of beige, seemed the most popular choices at the table.) Ate the whole damn thing, and it was generous. The logical conclusion is that I was either stoned or depressed. And I wasn't stoned. It was good, damn good, but at the same time I find I have no particular desire to get back into that sort of thing. That kind of indulgence is nice, even nostalgic, once in a great while, but otherwise I don't feel my life is lacking for it. Sure, yeah, I get cravings, no question, but seldom if ever for anything *that* extravagant. The cheap nonfat stuff from the supermarket will usually do just as well, thank you very much. I also got the pictures I took at Lee's last weekend, including what will probably be my only one of Sara. That's okay, though, it turned out well. b&w film is a wonderful thing, it's a genuine shame that our culture is so color-centric. My face has healed for the most part; I can still see a little red in cheeks, but probably nobody else can. So, I'm going to Shrine for the first time in...three weeks? Four? Something like that. And Sara and I are tentatively planning on going out Saturday night. Still haven't seen The Matrix, though. I get the distinct impression that a lot of people are curious about what I'm going to do with my desk in the new office space. More than once I've heard suggestions of some kind of canopy or the like. People are expecting great, or at least strange, things from me.
My first day on my own has gone well. The politicking above me is still rather
mysterious, but I'm getting a grasp as to exactly what's going on. Like all politics, it sucks much ass.
Shortly thereafter, again much to my (neutral) surprise, The Ex showed up. I don't know exactly why she came by, but she offered to let me take the car to the store, since there was no telling when I'd have access again. She may or may not be going to Shrine (Sara definitely isn't), and I'll probably have to get out there on my own. I thought about showing her the carbon of the car payment I mailed off today, but decided it wasn't worth it. Must get to bed so I can do the whole thing over tomorrow...
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Wednesday, 28 April 1999 (regret) 7:51am Things will be very different soon. My department is moving into a new building next week, one which apparently has lots of windows and sunlight. We'll visit it later today, as well as have our pictures taken for our new ID badges. Oh, man, this is all going to suck very hard. After today, I'm essentially alone in my department, or at the very least this branch of the department. Both of my coworkers will be gone for good, and for that matter by the end of May Summer will most likely have left as well. So, I'll be practically friendless and surrounded by sunlight. Aaargh. I knew this was all too good to be true.
One of our CEO's got interviewed by CNN yesterday. About ten feet away from my
desk, in fact. I have no idea if the camera ever actually pointed in my direction
or now. Figures they'd be doing it on a day in which I don't have my hair up in
pigtails, though. It's now appropriately styled for my ID picture, though. My face is still
somewhat red, but I'll be paling it out soon enough.
My e'er-progressive, forward-thinking hometown has banned Marilyn Manson. The mind reels. Speaking of such things, I saw my friend Howard last night for the first time since I went to the Manson / Hole show with him and his wife Melissa. Melissa happens to be, among other things, a designer for bebe (*sigh*) and an old-school goth. While out of practice, she clearly has not moved entirely beyond it and by her own admission usually just needs an excuse to dress up, which the show provided. It was an honor and a privilege to get to go out with her in that capacity. Anyway, Howard asked me the standard assortment of questions last night: what I'm taking, how long I've been doing it, how far I plan to go, what changes I've noticed, etc. I'd never came out to him per se, but I did to Melissa before the Manson show. He'd pretty much had his suspicions all along, and if they were genuine and not just revisionism on his part, then he'd picked up on a lot of stuff which nobody else had seemed to notice—or if they had, they didn't say anything. Which is very likely, I suppose.
He's quite cool with the whole thing, adopting the "Hey whatever makes you happy is fine with me" attitude. Whatever else may happen, there's no question that I'm incredibly lucky to have the supportive (or at
least non-judgmental) friends I do.
And I just got back from having my photo badge made (awful, awful picture, I simply do not do mug shots well) and touring
the office we'll be moving into next week. Wooden cubicle walls, overhead flourescent lights, no appreciable air
circulation...very unlike the office I'm in right now. The new place is much more standard corporate bullshit. As soon as I find
out exactly where I'm sitting, my first goal will be figuring out how to block out as much of the overhead lighting
as possible. They think my current space looks strange? Ha...
I am, for all intents and purposes, going to have to start fending for myself. My professional life is taking after my personal in that respect. I'll be wrestling with the clients and the other departments and just about fuckin' everyone, because they will walk all over me given half the chance, so I mustn't allow them that chance to begin with. Flexibility should be maintained, yes, but when I call bullshit—and, lordy, is there a lot of bullshit to be called—I'm going to hafta make it stick. Period. In a way it's flattering that I've been given this much responsibility, for it suggests I'm trusted, pigtails and eyeliner (and I really went nuts with that and the shadow today) and so forth notwithstanding. Or maybe all that has something to do with it, I don't know. This is an industry which prides itself on its freak population, after all. (By the way, I work at CNET. Why I've been making such a point of not mentioning that detail, I can't really say. But there it is.) Whatever the reason, it's time for me to get much tougher than I have been before. To overcome what seems to be an inherent degree of passivity. To fuck the shit up which needs to be fucked up, to rock that which needs to be rocked, to become a force to be reckoned with. To put these mood swings to good use.
Wow. I'm scaring myself.
Yeah, it's safe to say things are incredibly intense right now. But I can handle it. Bolinas grass is amazing stuff.
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Tuesday, 27 April 1999 (escape) 1:09pm The crunch period has begun. I should be getting my new glasses next week. I also need to see a more hardcore doctor to have some big tests done regarding the glaucoma which runs in my family. It hasn't asserted itself, but the signs are there that it wants to happen. Swell. David Cronenberg's new movie, eXistenZ, is amazing. The train ride home was very strange, however. More on that later.
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Sunday, 25 April 1999 (in a chapel bodily termination) 1:39pm So now I have a decision to make: whether or not to go the club tonight where Pandora and Louise may very well be. Arguments in both directions abound. I haven't been out dancing since Roderick's on Tuesday. It would involve getting the car from The Ex tonight, which she's willing to do although she didn't sound too thrilled with the idea. In that respect, I need to make up my mind, and soon. Naturally, i spent too much money this weekend, though it was for mostly practical stuff (if the skirt I bought at New York Apparel counts, is questionable, although it is a straight slit skirt, which I've been wanting for some time so I'm not always wearing the same pleated one). On the other hand, the cover charge is just a few bucks, and it's not like I'll be spending money on alcohol. There's lots that needs to be done here, mostly cleaning and whatnot, and there are some shows on that I'd like to see. Yesterday with Sara and Lee was a lot of fun, and I'm probably going to a movie and/or dancing with Sara tomorrow night. So a night at home won't kill me. Which implies there won't be a lot of those coming up, as I know there will. There's a lot to be said for getting out as much as possible, whenever an opportunity presents itself. My face is still not at its best. The swelling and redness have both gone down considerably, to the extent that I can probably quite effectively cover up the discoloration with makeup. The misshapenness might not be noticeable to anyone other than myself, particularly in a dim nightclub with my hair arranged to cover the trouble spots. Louise probably doesn't want to see me. That my be the most important detail. She's been doing well enough without having any contact with me for the last year and a half, not even responding to me directly regarding Mary's death. Pandora's probably told her about seeing me on Tuesday, and that might well pique her interest. Then again, it might not. It could be a disaster.
I honestly don't know. Sometimes it's really now or never, you have to decide.
Which is to say, I'm going to ask my landlords if I can get a cat. After The Ex has moved out, by which point they'll have been made aware that her and I broke up at all. As of yet, they don't know. We're not supposed to have pets, and the original reason cited was the child of our upstairs neighbor being allergic, although there's no ventilation connecting the apartments. Those people are long since gone, and I'm pretty certain my current neighbors have a cat or two. The landlords, who don't actually live in the building, are also unaware that we had a cat here, Mary, for quite some time. I got Mary on June 16, 1984 (coincidentally my eleventh birthday) and she was my near-constant companion until her death on Friday, March 13, 1998. The only significant amount of time she spent away from me was from August '94 to May '95, while I was living on campus at SFSU; The Ex kept Mary for that time. But I spoke to The Ex on the phone every day, and I could always hear Mary in the background. Background? She was quite the talker, and would always get on The Ex's lap and make her presence known. No, I'm not suggesting that Mary knew it was me, since that would mean she grasped the concept of the telecommunications, and I'm not about to anthropomorphize her *that* much, thank you. But when The Ex was on the phone with me, Mary was quite easily heard. It made the nightly calls that much more therapeutic, getting to hear the voices of the two beings which meant the most to me in the world. The Ex and Mary (in that order, I might add) reminded me that someone out there loved me, in spite of how barren and empty my life otherwise was at the time. Mary had been sick for a while when her time finally came. Something was very wrong with her digestive system, and most of what she ate came right back up. Unfortunately, we simply could not afford to have the tests done to determine precisely *what* the problem was and how to treat it, or if it even could be. Earlier that day I'd received wonderful news: I was employed once more. Through a temp agency, but that hardly mattered. Week after next I would begin at Autodesk after two months of unemployment which didn't do my relationship with The Ex any favors. The pay would be pretty good, too, the best I'd gotten so far. So I was in a pretty good mood when Mary fell. I was sitting on the couch in the living room, and she was on the desk chair. Whether she jumped badly or actually fell is not something I'm certain of, but either way she ended up on the floor, legs crumpled underneath her in a decidedly unnatural fashion. She was looking at me and yowling in the most unpleasant fashion I'd ever heard in all of her fourteen years, and this from a cat who never once shut up. I picked her up and laid her down on the bed. She wasn't stiff, exactly, but she wasn't getting much use out of her body, either. I immediately called The Ex at work and told her that Mary needed to go the vet NOW. No questions were asked; she drove home immediately. The vet told us what we already knew: that the only way to find out exactly what was wrong would be extremely expensive tests that would likely only confirm the obvious fact of her impending death. So the necessary decision was made. I was there with her for every step. She was looking into my eyes as hers glazed over and the vet announced that her heart had stopped and she was gone. That was over a year ago now, and Mary now seems like the first step in a chain of loss which resulted in me being where I am now, alone in this place. I spent most of my teenage years similarly alone except for her, and considering how much I feel like I'm going through a second adolescence, the thought of doing it without any kind of feline companionship is terrifying. So when the time is right I'm going to ask them if, considering the circumstances, I can get a cat. Pulling another stealth job like we did with Mary isn't an option, so if they say no I'm pretty well fooked. I don't think they'll say no, however.
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Thursday, 22 April 1999 (situation) 3:38pm I'm seeing Phil this evening. Zap zap zap. I haven't shaved since yesterday morning, and even if nobody else perceives it, I certainly can. What really sucks is, the hair on my upper lip is just a little thicker than the rest, so it almost looks like I'm trying to grow a...*sigh* It almost looks like I'm trying to grow a moustache. Even when I had a full beard (a zillion years ago) I would have never had grown just a moustache. I've always hated how they look, and I'm glad they're out of style. Burnout shaved his off about a year ago, and I haven't seen any since. And about six hours from now my upper lip will be red and quite hairless, thank you very much. For that matter, the rest of the bottom half of my face may be too; looking closely, I realize I may be at that place called "maintenance levels," meaning the growth has been sufficicently thinned out to where a single session is enough to clear the face. It starts to grow back and you have to return and do it again and again, but the fact of the matter is it gets progressive thinner until the shadow disappears, and finally you don't have to shave anymore. You don't have to shave anymore. A lovely, wonderful, mindbending thought. I would have already been there if The Ex hadn't left her job last September, or had been able to find another decent-paying one since then. But she didn't, so I couldn't coontinue. I hadn't thought I could last this long, but I have. I had no choice. No Shrine tomorrow night as a result, but it's a small price to pay.
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Wednesday, 21 April 1999 (thesis) 1:01pm The Trench Coat Mafia. Oh, PLEASE. You have got to be kidding. Now my mother's going to start associating goth with neo-nazi assholes going on killing sprees. That's just fucking perfect.
Here we go again, though. Another media feeding frenzy. Oh, being the amateur sociolgist I am it's all quite
fascinating, and this article is just about the funniest thing I've ever
read in my life.
I think I'm beginning to understand.
Wow. He just blamed parents. Apparently, the filth in culture (including, specifically, rap music—way to stay on topic, Pat!) is a more pressing issue than the environment. Asshole!!! Oh, man. Things have been bad, and they're about to get a whole lot worse.
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