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Monday, 10 July 2000 (4:30am (apparently they were travelling abroad)) 6:34am We weren't able to get in to see Anodyne, as she doesn't have any openings until tomorrow. Just as well; getting my hair done right now has an air of turd-polishing about it. I might as well wait until after this latest round of zapping.
The possiblity was discussed on Saturday morning of me going into individual counseling to help me sort
out the events of the last year, to figure out why I'm feeling so profoundly screwed up. No,
actually not why; I know why. It's more a question of how to get past it. While I'll admit that
right about now a happy (or at least numbing)
pill sounds much more attractive, I can't deny that it's a good idea.
It's been said that hatred is often caused by being uncomfortable about recognizing elements of yourself in someone else, I wonder if that isn't partially the case here. He's as much of a workaholic as I tend to be, or at least often has nowhere better to go. Last year he took an involuntary vacation due to an immigration paperwork snafu, and during that time Summer and I happened upon him in the park next to the building. I would guess that he doesn't live in the area since he drives (then again, his love for consumer culture means he'd probably drive everywhere given the chance)—he just wanted to be near the office, even if he didn't go in. I can't really criticize him for it, I suppose, because I'd be hypocritical. I've been there myself.
Oh, I still hope he's gone. I'm just wishing I didn't feel it so strongly.
I wonder. I wonder if I'm not burning out on my job. I wonder if it isn't time I get off my high horse and seek out other trannies. I wonder if I haven't made a mistake, I wonder if I shouldn't retreat back into my shell, if I should have stayed in to begin with, if it's too late— When I'm completed with electro, I'm in for a huge disappointment. I need to prepare for that. If I'm going to stay awake for this, I might blow my chance of resting this evening. Dr. Vitale seems the most likely candidate as a shrink. There's already a background, even if she hasn't seen me in two years. I need someone who can possibly understand, someone who won't get hung up on what I am.
Godzilla 2000, Pokemon 2000: Japanese product ported to American audiences, and in at
least one case the bad translation is the point. But back-to-back trailers, followed by Remember
the Titans? Before Titan A.E.? Are we really running out of ideas?
if i give my heart, will you promise not to break it? It just struck me that we're back to where we were before: besides The Den Mother, there are two genetic girls in the department. Including Leigh. I have no idea what my role is anymore. My laserdisc player ate a CD last night. I'm going to have to crack it open soon to get the disc out. It's happened before; the last time was right before Maddy's visit in September. This tells me what I already knew, that the machine is dying. Could happen anytime. When it does, I'll let The Ex take whatever discs she wants, sell the rest, and that'll be that. I suppose that if I really looked I could find a used machine for sale. I don't think I will, though. I feel like I should just get rid of it right now. I noticed it when I tried to eject the disc that had been playing earlier (a freshly burnt copy of einstürzende neubauten's Silence is Sexy), the tray was empty. I sure didn't remember taking it out already, and Maddy hadn't done so, either. Which only left one possibility, at which point I just went to bed. There wasn't anything I could do about it at the time, so I decided not to stress. It was like when my previous machine started to die. April '94: Danny and I were in my apartment, tripping on acid late at night. It was his first time, and he was cetainly enjoying it. He was going on about the Narnia books, something to do with Turkish Delight candy. I never could get into Lewis so I wasn't quite following, but I caught the gist, and it had great relevance for him.
Peter Gabriel's Passion was playing (duh), and I started to hear almost a skipping sound.
No matter how much acid I've taken I can always tell what's real and what is not, and I knew it
was a problem with the machine. It was the worst possible time for it to be happening, but
there wasn't much I could do about it, either. When your mellow gets harshed (to paraphrase
Burnout, whom I wouldn't meet for a few years), you have no choice but to roll with it.
TFQ arrived as the meeting was ending.
they're walking away, shaking their heads. seem familiar?
you're never getting it back. and there reaches a point when you can only blame yourself.
what was it you did? dared the universe to dish it out, said you could take it? oh, you rescinded it soon enough, but it's an invoking the devil slash letting the genie out of its bottle kinda thing, y'know? 4:09pm This one's gonna be bad. sometime after midnight We've been a couple for a year now.
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Sunday, 9 July 2000 (the mark has been made) 7:22am We dared the horrors of Saturday afternoon movie crowds and saw Titan A.E.. I suspect that we're going to look back on the summer of 2000 and wonder why this movie got overlooked while Gladiator and Gone in Sixty Seconds were big hits. I assure you that I'm already wondering, and I'm glad I got to see the movie in a theater. I'm sure it'll look great on DVD, but there's just something about a really pretty movie on the beeeeg screen. While standing in line later at Ballbuster (we still have coupons, and a recent dream had me jonesing to see Three Kings again), I noticed something very odd: the westerns are mixed in with the action films. I'm not much of a western fan—my two favorites would probably be Unforgiven and Dead Man, hardly John Wayne territory—but to just lump them in with action strikes me as ignorant, if not disrespectful. It's a completely valid genre, and just because it's not as commercially viable as it once was is no reason to pretend it doesn't exist. (Gets me to wondering if musicals have also been assimilated.) As any film geek worth their salt will tell you, the first narrative film was a western: Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery in 1903. But now, almost a century later, the 800-pound video gorilla that is Ballbuster Inc. has decided that the public is too scared of westerns. Shut up, kid, we know what's best for you. Walking down the street yesterday I saw a blonde girl with pigtails and a bare midriff showing a stomach very similar to mine. My admiration for her knows no bounds.
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Saturday, 8 July 2000 (cold irons bound) 10:15am Phil's all booked up in the evenings next week, so I cheated and made an appointment for 3pm on Tuesday. Which means I'll have to leave work by 1:30, tops. If nothing else, there was the distinct possibility that I was going to be gone from work for most of next week anyway, so leaving early shouldn't be too catastrophic. Certainly Brian and Leigh will understand. I'm also waiting to hear back from Anodyne about having her do my hair, which except for my self-administered bang-trim has been neglected since well before the fashion show. With any luck, we may be able to get in after our counseling session this morning.
Speaking of the show, I dreamed about it last night. It was taking place in my old church
in Fresno. I'm sure there's meaning in that on some level, but I couldn't begin to guess
what it might be.
It's looking like I'll be able to get zapped on Monday night, which'll be a nice one-two punch combined with Tuesday afternoon. And I still have the appointments for the following week, too. If it were up to me, I'd never touch a razor to my face again.
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Friday, 7 July 2000 (it's all right, ma (i'm only bleeding)) 8:03am I need to stop fighting my body's rhythms. When I wake up at 3 or 4am, I should remain awake. Maybe I should take the opportunity to go to the gym, like I used to do, like I've been telling myself I'm going to start doing for a well over a year now... 9:38am My neck and right shoulder started hurting this morning. They feel very tense. (Shush, you.) My entire body is tense, really—those are just the worst parts. I'm out of shape and stressed out. I need to exercise, I need to relax. So what I do buy on the way to my office? An el toro rojo and, more damningly, a frosted chocolate fudge Pop-Tart. Haven't had those in years, and once upon a time, I practically subsisted on them. Surely a little indulgence can't hurt... Yes, it can. I know better than that. Because one leads to another. That's why I'm a heroin addict now, from years of smoking grass. It's almost time to check and see my latest jury status. I also got the urge this morning to make an appointment to get zapped next week. Originally I'd scheduled it for the week after next since next week we were supposed to get moved into the new office, but the move has been postponed by a week, so...aargh. I get a headache just thinking about it. If I have to report in for jury duty next week, that means I probably won't be able to get zapped. Civic duty sucks ass.
Did I mention that I'm in Group 603? I can't believe they expect us to hang on
to the summons for a year—hell, I think I've already lost the referral
my optometrist wrote me—but I'm done with it for now, thank dawg.
As always, though, if I had to look like a boy but at least were given the choice of what boy I could look like, I'd go with Johnny Depp. Damn, he's beautiful. And I suppose it goes without saying that if the opportunity presented itself and it wouldn't qualify as cheating for either of us, I'd do him in a heartbeat. If you watch Platoon, you'll notice that he has "Sherilyn" stenciled on the side of his helmet, a reference to his then-girlfriend Sherilyn Fenn. Coincidence? I think not. Which gets me to thinking of probably the funniest moment from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, a deleted scene buried deep in the extras on the DVD. (I'm glad I didn't see it in the theater, because I didn't like it well enough to watch it a second time.) Mike Myers as Fat Bastard is standing face to face with an extremely uncomfortable-looking Rob Lowe. Finally, Myers blurts out "You're prettier than most girls!" As Myers goes on to describe the the aesthetic perfection of Lowe's ass, Lowe looks like he wants to jump right out of his skin. He probably hasn't been that freaked out since Entertainment Tonight got a hold of a certain videotape back in the eighties. Personally, I was howling, and it reminded me of what Groucho Marx said about Margaret Dumont: she was a great comic foil because she never got the jokes. She always looked confused and perplexed because she didn't understand what was he was saying. Hell, she might not have even been aware the films were comedies.
There was somewhere else I wanted to go with this, but for the life of me I can't remember.
I do know that it's been almost two weeks since I've shaved—Saturday before last, right before the eels show. I haven't been able to make an appointment, but I'm counting on getting zapped next week. So I'm not going to shave again for a while. I'm healed. Damn well better be, for eight days after my last session. The upper lip is darker than I'd like, but overall there's no shadow. There doesn't even seem to be a lot of light hairs. Progress. Which is why I've gotta keep going. Next week, the week after...fuck knows when I'll make it to Shrine or even get made up again. It's a scary thought, particularly the latter (what can I say? it does my mood a world of good to get dolled up once in a while) but the proverbial iron seems to be hot right now. Have to be strong for a change.
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Thursday, 6 July 2000 (what's real and what is not) 9:48am Since I was running late to work anyway, I stopped at Tower yesterday morning and bought a new pair of headphones. I've been waiting for replacements to arrive from The Good Guys, and considering the average intelligence of the employee there is only slightly above that of a drummer, I'm not expecting the order to ever arrive. Indeed, I doubt it was made properly, and I suspect that if I go into the store to try to find out, they'll find no evidence that I was ever there to begin with and look at me like I have a third eye growing out of my shoulder. Is the cost of running a business so high these days that they can't even bother to train employees? Do they hire people who look like they'll probably arrive on time and won't steal from the register, and leave it at that? I mean, shit, working at a video store may be a notch or two above burger-flipping, but at least I knew my stock and would have answers to most questions. And, in fairness, during the brief, hellish period in '95 when I worked at The Good Guys (between video store gigs, natch), I probably came across like a total idiot to most customers. But I was a brand-spankin' new employee who was completely out of their depth. By the time someone reaches a supervisory position, they should have SOME idea of what to do when an employee comes in with an item to exchange. Even if that same item is no longer carried—for how often products stop getting manufactured, especially in the electronics industry, hasn't it occured that if you're going to offer to replace something (as they do in their in-store insurance), that your employees should know what to do if the exact item isn't available anymore? But I digress. I was planning on getting another pair of the "earbud" kind, the ones that actually go right into your ear like a hearing aid, but I couldn't help noticing that one of the higher-end models was on sale. For under $20, too, which is damn good. They're the larger, bagel-shaped kind that make you look like Princess Leia. And, in addition to having a higher frequency range than most of the others (yeah, I'm a geek, I read the specifications), they don't actually touch the ears, but rather the space around the ears. The net result is a deeper aural space giving greater depth to stereo effects and creating a more realistic sound. It's the same principle as I was describing before about certain kinds of movies, a different place, a different audio environment. This is especially neat when listening to more experimental music, or noize. Which I've been listening to a lot of lately. I've always maintained that anything can be music. If you want to bang pots and pans together and call it music, swell. The key is that nobody else needs to like it. (Well, yeah, if you intend to make a living it helps if others like it, but we're not talking about the evil that is the music industry. Courtney Love nailed that one better than I ever could.) If, to paraphrase Frank Zappa, it sounds bitchen to you, then it is and that's all that matters. There is no such thing as good music. Ergo, there's no such thing as bad music, either. It can appeal to you or not. It can trigger every pleasure center in your brain or make your most recent meal escape through any available orifice. Both responses are completely valid to you. In all likelihood, they won't be to everyone else. So? I don't like fruit. I wish I did 'cuz I would be a much healthier person as a result, but I don't. (In some parts, my dislike of fruit is almost legendary. I have no idea why, but a lot of people find it amusing as hell.) I'm fond of vegetables as well as most of your citrus lifeforms, but put a fruit salad in front of me and I'll probably go hungry. Does this mean I think you have bad taste in food if you do like fruit, and that you should start eating good food for a change? No. My tastes are as subjective and personal as yours. The fatal flaw in this example is that food is a very personal experience; except for the smell, anyone can eat anything they want around me and it makes no difference to me. When The Fidget Queen turns up his swooshing-diva-dance music, my brain wants to spontaneously explode in order to end the misery. It's much easier to avoid taste than sound, which is another of the nice things about these headphones: it's much easier to tune him out. As for people who, for example, go to a club and complain about the music, I offer a modest proposal: don't go to the club. Just a thought. ("Hey, Doc, my arm hurts when I bend it...") A better example might be the manager of my video store in Fresno. Among other things, she had a portrait of Jon Bon Jovi on her office wall, and would frequently play a Hooters video before we opened the store. Sure. Fine. Whatever. I didn't give her any shit about it. Seriously, I didn't. I didn't see what the point would be. So one time a Tom Waits video is playing; it's his version of Cole Porter's "It's All Right With Me" from Red Hot + Blue. (By the way, the video for Sinead O'Connor's version of "You Do Something To Me" is one of the most inexplicably sexy things I've ever seen. It's probably the only time she's ever glammed herself out—think Veronica Lake—and it works. Really, really, really well. Maybe it's just the shock of seeing her in a blonde wig and makeup. Or those eyebrows. Or maybe that she looks like a nervous, somewhat insecure tranny who doesn't quite believe in her own beauty, something I can relate to.) After a minute or so of hearing him sing, she blurted out, "It's not even a song!" Tom Waits is an acquired taste, no question. Even I can only take him in small doses. She'd decided, however, that because she didn't like his voice, it didn't even qualify as a song. Again, I didn't see any point in arguing. Anyway, these kinds of headphones are perfect for an artist I recently stumbled upon via the wilderness that is the usenet, durtro. He physically resembles Michael Stipe in a really foul mood, and his music is...very difficult to describe, and surely my old manager would object to the "m-word" being used. durtro calls his own work "sound-experiments," which is as accurate as any description could be. "Noize" also comes close, as does my favorite adjective, "hallucinatory." Most importantly, I think it's incredibly bitchen. I don't think many others will. And that's okay. In the beginning of my splurge-a-thon earlier this week, I ordered all six of his CDRs being sold though MP3.com. The prices ranged from $6 to $7 and I'm bourgeois enough to get a warm and fuzzy feeling from supporting artists, so it seemed like a good idea. (maybethiswillmakemehappy) They arrived today, and I'm listening to the appropriately entitled retribution, and forgiveness right now. Within it is, of course, whatever meaning I choose to find. And I have to respect his suggestion: "oh, just smoke a fattyboombatty and strap on the headphones, stop reading, and listen."
Sounds good to me.
there are a lot of hooks in you, kiddo, and you haven't even begun to struggle yet. you have no idea what you're in for.
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Wednesday, 5 July 2000 (gates of eden) 7:12am I've been hearing a lot of fire sirens this morning. Guess it was another typical Fourth of July in the Sunset District. Didn't leave the apartment last night, but from the sounds of things both then and now it was pretty lively. I'm sure there'll be scorch marks at random places in the streets, which is always cool when you live in an area that isn't a war zone to begin with. I do love being middle-class sometimes. 11:19am The floor of my cubicle is somewhat moist, but my computers are back up and running. When I came in on Saturday, the overhead lights had been plugged back in. I seem to recall having unplugged them, but now the ones by TFQ's desk are on. Guess I missed them. It is now much brighter in here than it should be.
According to Brian, we are definitely moving next week. I really hope so.
I finally did some long-overdue maintenance on my buetz with a plier, and they're much easier
to lace. There's something oddly satisfying about mending one's clothing with hardware.
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Tuesday, 4 July 2000 (like ice like fire) 12:30pm Continuing on the proud tradition began eleven years ago and unobserved since then, I stayed up all night before the Fourth of July. The first and only other time, Conk and I were doing 'shrooms. This time, no drugs were involved except el toro rojo and Penguin Mints. Dana and I talked all night long; we just got in a groove, and time stopped mattering.
Maddy and I are probably going to Santa Cruz today, somewhat continuing the proud tradition began
(four?) years ago but nearly put on hold by barefoot and his wife instead deciding to go to
Vegas. I say "probably" because, of course, we may not. Kinda up in the air right now, like everything.
If nothing else, I'm functioning on about two hours of sleep, tops...
She's gone again.
The rational part of me says that it's the right thing to do. The emotional part of
me, every nerve ending, anything that isn't located in the cerebral cortex, is screaming bloody murder.
independence day, indeed.
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Monday, 3 July 2000 (abreactive) 9:09am Water has been such a recurring theme in my dreams lately, I wonder if I'm destined to live in Venice someday. Or maybe my subconscious just loves cheap imagery. One wrong step, and... Missed my 'mones yesterday morning, since I didn't bring them along with me. I don't appear any more masculine today, though, so no harm done.
Except for the way my face looks, of course, and it would be the same regardless
of my current estrogen levels. Haven't shaved since Saturday
of last week, so what hair escaped getting zapped on Monday and Thursday are
now getting quite long, although the redness and pitting is more noticeable
anyway. Pretty bad this time. I'm trying to decide whether or not it would
be safe to shave and wear makeup today, because it's been too long. The
more time it gets to heal the better, but damnit...
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Sunday, 2 July 2000 (flummoxation) 7:34pm The worst part of Sundays, at least for those of us who are no longer dragged to church against our will, if the occasional drive back home on Sunday afternoon. It's always brought on the worst kind of depression for me, probably because so often when I was younger it was after a wasted Sunday and I had nothing to look forward to but going back to school the next day. Combine that with the Fresno heat... I wasn't getting it quite so much this afternoon, though. It had been hot in San Rafael, but heading into the wall of fog surrounding San Francisco was comforting, enough to keep my mood from drifting too far downwards. My home. The tendrils of the fog bank were creeping over the mountains, visible from San Rafael, like a reminder. This is where you belong. It was almost 6pm on Sunday, and I hadn't been home since Saturday morning. This wasn't intentional; so far as I knew when I'd left the apartment yesterday, I was going to be back in a few hours. Maddy and I had our couples therapy session at 11am, and then I figured I might go the office to check out the water damage and maybe do some shopping before going back to the apartment, and she'd drive back to Summer's place, where she was technically housesitting. We'd see each other again sometime next week. After the session (which was intense and painful and soul-rending, which is how they're supposed to be if they're going to work), we walked together to her car. We almost didn't; I could have left right away, since we were in the midst of a quasi-separation—my idea, it should be noted—and quasi-separated people don't spend any more time together than absolutely necessary. That's my understanding of the concept, although it's always been easier in theory than in practice. Indeed, the day after The Ex and I broke up, we went on about our business as if we hadn't, since we really had no idea how else to proceed. Presently, I needed to go to the nearby Borderlands bookstore to pick up my finally arrived copy of Still Dead, and Maddy accepted my offer to come along. Afterwards, we stood at her car for a while, trying to decide what to do next. She didn't want to go back to San Rafael just then, and I didn't really want to see her go. Eventually we decided to go get something to eat. She'd been wanting to go to Pasta Pomodoro, and there was one next to a magic shop down the street from the theater in the Marina where we'd seen Mission: Impossible II earlier in the week, and I'd been thinking about going to that magic shop anyway to get Dariel Fitzkee's Magic By Misdirection. So we took her car into the Marina, I got the book, we ate at Pasta Pomodoro, then drove back to my car. She still wasn't in any great rush to head back into Marin and I had no desire to push her away, so each in our own car we drove to my office to survey the water damage. It didn't look so bad, I suppose. My area wasn't directly hit by the water from the sprinkler, but the ground has been soaked because the sprinkler ran for quite a while. My computers, of course, are on the ground. Or, at least, they had been at first, and now they were on my desk along with all the boxes and xmas lights and whatever else I had down there. I took the opportunity to throw a bunch of stuff away, and when it was a bit more to my liking, we left again. We stood out by our cars on the Embarcadero as the tourists past by for the better part of an hour, again trying to decide what to do with ourselves. It was getting late in the day, and one way or another, she would have to be leaving soon if only for traffic reasons. As I was attempting to describe to her the various pockets of civilization in the otherwise Fresno-esque burg that is San Rafael, we decided that I should go back there with her. To show her around, since I was familiar with the town. Then I could drive back home that night. Sure. So we both drove to Summer's place, then I hopped into her car and I showed her around. We shopped a bit at the mall across the freeway from Autodesk, went to a grocery store to stock up on soda and ice cream and other essentials, went with the e'er-reliable Taco Bell for dinner then returned to Summer's with the intention of watching a movie before I drove back to San Francisco. We never did actually watch a movie (videotapes of Summer's old television appearances provided more than enough amusement, even if we weren't lucky enough to happen upon any Mr. Ray commercials), and I never did drive back that night. We retired to Summer's bedroom and simply fell asleep in each other's arms. As though there hadn't been anything wrong, as though with one another was the most natural place in the world to be—no matter where we might happen to be geographically speaking, and certainly Summer's place had previously carried some extremely negative connotations for me—as though it was all that really ever mattered... She'll be back in a day or two, and she isn't leaving again.
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Saturday, 1 July 2000 (the way things are) 10:13am No good can come of this.
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