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Thursday, 20 July 2000 (5:06am (every strangers eyes)) 6:18am Not surprisingly, the pendulum has started to swing back in the other direction: hmmm, maybe it would be better if I went to the gym at night...say, from 11pm to 1 or 2am, it shouldn't be overly crowded... 8:52am I just finished reading Rated X, David McCumber's book about The Mitchell Brothers, founders of the local sex palace The O'Farrell Theatre and corrupters of The Ivory Soap Girl. It primarily focuses on Artie, the younger and much wilder brother eventually killed by older brother Jim. (Played respectively by Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez in the Estevez-directed film adaptation which I have yet to see.) Danielle Willis also puts in a few appearances, as one of the only O'Farrell dancers to resist Artie's advances. Again the question comes back to me: how do people function on so many drugs? I'm not saying this as an anti-drug sentiment, but rather that there are so many references to Artie taking road trips while drunk and on coke and acid and stoned and whatever else. Shit, I don't like answering the phone when I'm stoned, let alone driving or attending a trial. He went to one of his own trials on mushrooms. Wow. I just can't fathom that. So many bad vibes. I can handle being baked in public. It's not something I do very often, which is fine by me. I took a hit from Burnout's joint before the Lou Reed show last month, and also smoked a little with Imani at Roderick's over a year ago. But that's been about it. Trips to Santa Cruz with The Ex used to be stoney affairs, as was also the case when going to movies, although more often than not the buzz wore off while in line. Hell, I was almost completely sober by the time Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas started, a cruel irony if ever such a thing existed. Sometimes it could time out perfectly, though. When we went to see a restored 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Castro, we made the most of the evening. I don't regret having missed the sixties, and in fact I'm glad that I was born in 1973 because the seventies ended before I really got a sense of how horrible they were, but this opportunity to see 2001 in the proper format was too good to miss. So we took the train instead of driving, and dropped acid about a half an hour before the movie started—one hit for The Ex, and two for me. I've never taken more than two at a time, and probably never will. I could definitely feel it by the time the movie started—the play of the colored lights in the folds of the red curtain in front of the screen helped—and was very much peaking by the beginning of the "Jupiter: 18 Months Later" segment. I think it helped that I already knew the movie by heart; as such I as able to really just experience it and not puzzle over what the hell was going on. Finally, the good stuff. The real reason for the film's reputation as being great for acid. "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite," also known as the "stargate" sequnce. The neato special effects. I see it as being icing on the cake; everything else that comes before it is wonderful in its own right, but still, this was gonna be fun. Except they got the reels in the wrong order. Most people today don't even realize that projected movies (as opposed to on video) are divided into reels, smaller rolls of film usually 15-20 minutes in length. The switching between reels is easy to catch if you know where to look, as anyone who's seen Fight Club can attest. In well-edited films it's done unobtrusively. In poorly-edited films, it happens at the worst moments and destroys the narrative flow. Star Trek V comes to mind, although picking on that movie is like making fun of a cripple for not doing well in the Bay to Breakers. Anyway, they showed the last two reels in the wrong order. This is bad enough with any film. It's worse with a film like 2001 in which the pacing is crucial. When you're on acid, it's borderline inhumane. After a minute or two they stopped the film, and we had to wait another ten minutes as they put the reels back in correctly. Not a simple process, especially with 70mm film. Talk about a buzzkill.
We did get a good laugh out of it, at least. When it became obvious what had happened, someone in the
audience yelled out, "You put the reels in the wrong order, Hal!" Turns out the projectionist's name
is actually Hal. Ah, irony.
and when the day arrives It was gray and somewhat drizzly when I left for work this morning, and the sky was still overcast when I got home this evening. That's a good sign. I called Phil and made appointments for the next two upcoming Mondays. For whatever reason, Mondays seem to be my day of choice now. I have no idea why.
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Wednesday, 19 July 2000 (5:01am (the pros and cons of hitchhiking part 10)) 7:25am I'm going to work. I don't have a fever and I'm not puking my guts out, so I don't feel I can justify not going. Besides, I'm feeling better than yesterday; yesterday, I should have just stayed home. Alas.
In any event, today there's new project which requires my attention. More importantly, we're being moved into
the new office on Friday night, so I need to start deconstructing my cubicle. Always a painful process.
And it's actually romantic. Imagine that.
who knows where or when
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Tuesday, 18 July 2000 (4:58am (dunroamin, duncarin, dunlivin)) 7:27am Sheesh. Twice now recently I've come home to find that I never actually uploaded my last few journal entries from work. I worry about myself sometimes. 9:14am Phil was late yesterday. I got there around 5:30pm, the appointment was technically for 6 and by 7 the woman who works in the salon next door noticed how long I'd been waiting and offered to call him. I got the impression this isn't the first time it's happened. She spoke to Phil's wife, who tracked him down at a bowling alley, one of his regular haunts. (To each their own.) He finally arrived at about 7:30, extremely apologetic. I assured him that I wasn't upset, and that if he wanted to make it up to me, he could do so by clearing my upper lip. Completely. Showing no mercy. Zapping every hair with extreme prejudice. I made sure there was no doubt about my feelings on the matter. I thanked him for being considerate and going easy on me, but that I really wanted it done, and that was what mattered. It's been extremely unsettling to have so much hair on my upper lip, made worse by the fact that it's been uneven for the last week. I could tell he was concerned about the level of discomfort involved, but for better or for worse, inflicting discomfort his job. If his client is requesting a level greater than he'd like but which doesn't necessarily pose a greater risk, then that's a request which should be granted. It probably doesn't help matters that when he actually had it, I used to request he use the painkiller spray. Sent the wrong signal, that I truly required it. I'm not saying I don't miss the stuff. I do, but I don't want to slow down just because he doesn't have any more. The burden is now on me to deal with the pain however I can.
I don't know if I'm unreasonable. I don't know if I ask too much of the people around me.
I suppose just the fact that they have to deal with me as my appearance changes
bizarrely is asking a lot. But there are specific areas where I simply cannot compromise.
Electrolysis is one of them. It's my face, I'm the one under the needle, what level
of pain I endure and how I do so is my decision and nobody else's. Yes, care must be taken
not to actually damage the face, but that's not the same thing.
i think that you might want to know the details and the facts Pain is so banal, I realized last night. Christ, it's boring. It gets old really fast. The trick is to get used to it. To approach it with not with negative anticipation, but neutral. Here it comes again: oh, yeah, whatever, been there done that bought the zippo. (Lest I be making myself sound like some zen master, I'm not denying the important role that drugs play in this, though the stuff I have at my disposal can only do so much.) But that only works if it's worth something. Which is what was so frustrating before: to go through the last few sessions, only to walk out with visible hair on my upper lip. It's not as if he wasn't working on other parts that needed it as well, but the lip doesn't actually take very long to do, and it bugged me that it wasn't getting done because he thought he was doing me a favor. The road to hell. Nothing worse than someone convinced they're looking out for your best interests and not actually caring about how you genuinely feel. Don't get me wrong. Phil's a very sweet guy, and I'm not angry with him. I just now know that I need to be a little firmer with him. A lesson I've been learning the hard way lately: sometimes in what should be the most benign, safest environments, you need to stand up for yourself or you may very well get walked over by someone who thinks they're doing the right thing. I hate conflict and I hate politics, but that's life.
Just to prove there were no hard feelings, I showed him the pictures of myself which I'd promised to
bring along. He never gets to see me at whatever might qualify as my best; I enter hairy, and leaving
sizzling and orange-faced. So I brought some pictures of me in a more presentable mode. He kept
a few, including a print of my journal picture from last April. He even promised, jokingly, not to masturbate to them.
What more can I ask?
So I'm standing in line at one of the overpriced local delis buying teriyaki chicken and prepackaged, gawd-knows-how-old sushi when a somewhat sweaty gentleman in front of me starts talking with a friend of his in the next aisle, discussing their assorted feats at the gym, talking of reps and dropping references to mountain climbing and the like. That's another one of the reasons I've been having such a hard time finding the energy to go back: I hate being around people like that. When I'm working out, I don't do it to be seen or to impress anyone. The less I'm seen, the better. Nothing fills my heart with joy like walking in and seeing the treadmills deserted, which is why I used to go in the dead of night. (That location being the one which is now closed from 2am to 6am.) Conversely, I hate crowded gyms. Keeping an eye on the clock and having people waiting to use the equipment is contrary to the state of mind I need to be in.
And it really struck me this morning what a problem showering is going to be. I'll
be using the men's locker room (duh), and while the bottom half is pretty much what
it should be, my top half is a tad incongruous. Is anyone going to be looking all
that closely? Probably not, and while I'm actually working out I'll be wearing a
sports bra, but...well, it's another compelling argument for going as early as possible.
Up until Lee nudged me into starting this diary, I was bugging my friends in email, sending rambling opuses about recent events in gory detail whether they gave a damn or not. I just came across this one, which I wisely didn't compose online. Near as I can tell, I wrote it a couple days before my first journal entry. I've been tempted to go back and make it the "new" first entry, but that strikes me as a little dishonest.
It all happened, I remember it, and I wrote it down immediately so I'd never forget. And yet it all seems very unreal to me. 4:43pm I now should be able to get into the company network through my dsl at home, meaning the next time I need to work at midnight, I can do so in my stripeys with Oscar on my lap. Not so bad a deal, really. 8:36pm Hrm. Maybe I won't be working much from home after all. NT4.0 is such a fickle mistress. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure if I'll be going to work tomorrow. Today took something out of me. It wasn't a particularly busy day workwise, but I think I'm still not entirely recovered from last night. And I got too much sun today. Way too much sun. My head was pounding by the time I got home, and it felt like every little red welt on my face was storing up solar energy, just in case. Ah, the glamour of it all.
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Monday, 17 July 2000 (4:56am (for the first time today, part 1)) 9:30am For as little sleep as I got on Saturday night, it only figures that I should sleep too long last night. The 24-Hour Fitness on Ocean is still closed from 2am to 6am. Apparently that construction never got finished. The one at the 2nd and Mission is seeming more and more likely. Cheaper than starting a Club One membership, and I'm sure carrying a towel won't kill me.
Any day now, surely.
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Sunday, 16 July 2000 (4:50am (go fishing)) 4:57am I guess it's officially Sunday now. Oh, goody. 9:10am I slept for a few hours, what most people would consider a nap. About the most I can hope for, though. Maddy is still sleeping, and surely will be for a while. My habits are as mysterious to her as hers are to me.
No, that's not fair. I can appreciate the appeal in sleeping for eight or
nine hours, or at least the desire to do so. I have the desire. I
just seldom have the ability.
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Saturday, 15 July 2000 (4:47am (the remains of our love)) 5:57pm I love libraries. They're like the proverbial candy store to me, except it's candy which is free, won't make you fat and won't rot your teeth. (And doesn't taste like sugar. I hate the taste of sugar, and as such don't care for most sweet things. I view anyting with a Brach's label much like the way the rest of the planet views broccoli.) Whatever else is wrong with this country—and their name is Legion: for they are many—at least we have public libraries. If the government ever truly feared a revolution, the first thing they'd probably do is shut down the libraries.
I managed to restrain myself in the candy store today, however, because as mothers are
constantly telling their children, I already had stuff at home. And in fact I do have a
lot of books to read, although I should point out that I never got that answer from
my mother, because we never had candy at home. (I mean real candy, not mean metaphoric books.)
And I didn't ask, so she wouldn't have had to answer like that. But anyway.
Sometimes, though, the Haight can be painful to my fragile little self-image, and today was one of those days. The assortment of small, cute girls employed at both Anubis Warpus and Wasteland with their rootless black-and-red hair and perfect bodies were utterly killing me. Okay, they didn't all have red in their hair and some of them would argue the characterization of their bodies as "perfect," but it still felt that way to me. They just looked so...complete. So assured within themselves. Maybe that's the farthest thing from the truth, I can't say. I didn't resent them for it, though. I still don't see the point of disliking people who look the way I want to, because it's not their fault. It's my responsibility, not theirs. I'm the one who should be more disciplined than I am. I'm the one who should be at the gym right now in the wee hours of the morning rather than bouncing over to the computer when I sporadically wake up. (Mantra #67: I need to call the 24 Hour Fitness on Ocean and see if they're done with the remodeling or whatever the fuck it is they were doing and are back to actually being open 24 hours. I need to be careful with how I phrase it, though, because their simian employees will scoff if I simply ask when they're open. Hell, even if they are in fact closed in the middle of the night, they'll think I'm an idiot for asking. "What are your hours?" "(incredulous pause) We're open 24 hours." "Oh. I remember that a while back you were closed from 2am to 6am, and I was wondering if that was still the case." "Oh, yeah, we are still closed from 2 to 6." "So you're open 24 hours, except from 2am to 6am." "Yeah." This is the level of intelligence you have to expect from a gym that doesn't supply magazine racks.) (#221: God, I really wish my corset from Gallery Serpentine would hurry up and get here.) Right now, though, where I really ought to be is Orky's annual birthday party. He's an old, dear friend and I feel very guilty for flaking on it. It's bad enough that I've made such little effort to keep in touch with him over the last year and a half. I feel even more guilty about it, though, because I happened to run into him in Amoeba today. First time I've seen him since we saw The Matrix together last year. All days to see him, the day that I'm flaking on his party. Guess I can't use sickness as an excuse, and indeed when he asked if I was going to be there (and subequently why I wasn't), I hemmed and hawed like nobody's business. The real answer was something I couldn't say: I look like shit, can't you see that? Because he wouldn't have seen it. What I consider to be the atrocious amount of facial hair most likely didn't register on him, and wouldn't have mattered to him one way or the other. But, no, apparently that's how much I value friendships. Maybe that's why I seem to have a such a hard time maintaining them lately. oh, you again. welcome back. I can't decide if late-night TV is the dilemma or the blessing of the insomniac. William Shatner on Columbo suggests the latter. I miss the late-night porn channel, though. Two minutes of softcore footage alternating with three minutes of 976 ads. Ooooh! The Devil's Rain! It's a Shatner-o-rama! I do find the commercials for prescription insomnia cures amusing, though. Jeez, guys, add insult to injury, whydon'tcha?
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Friday, 14 July 2000 (4:41am (sexual revolution)) 9:14am The problem is obvious, really. Every time I put my hair up in a ponytail, I hear a snapping sound. And it isn't the sound barrier being broken, either. It's no wonder my hair is so fucked up—I have this big huge mane and am apparently incapable of treating it properly. Anodyne has no idea what she's in for. 11:08am We were tossing around the idea of going to the X-Men movie tonight, but I think we're wising up. Dealing with opening-night crowds can be bad enough, then considering the huge fan base which neither of us entirely belong to...I'm always there for premieres of Star Trek movies, for example, as well as The X-Files a few years back, but I've never read the X-Men comic. Maddy has, though not for a long time. In fact, I'd never heard of it until the mid-eighties when my friends started debating whether or not Freddy Krueger was a rip-off of Wolverine. I had no idea what they were talking about. 11:56am Another meeting this afternoon, courtesy of the newly promoted Den Mother. The more meetings you put your staff through, the more productive they'll be. 12:27pm Paige sent me the photos from the catalog shoot in May. (I still haven't seen anything from the fashion show in June, and I don't expect to for a while.) I'm not sure how I feel about them. She asked me to let her know if there's any I'd rather she didn't use in the catalog, which is sweet of her though quite unneccessary. As far as I'm concerned, it's not about my ego but rather her clothes and how she wants to present them. If she still wants to use pictures of me in them (I thought for sure that once she actually saw them, she'd have second thoughts), then I can't help but be flattered. Even I have to admit the bare midriff pictures didn't turn out too badly.
I'm going to reserve comment about that face, though.
Perception is faith.
it was just a fluke, and it'll never happen again. besides, it didn't really hurt, did it? wash. rinse. repeat.
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Thursday, 13 July 2000 (4:39am (for the first time today, part 2)) 9:40am I needn't have worried about The Den Mother chewing me out; according to both Brian and Leigh, she was barely even aware of my absence from the meeting. Besides, as it turns out, she has bigger things on her mind, namely her promotion to Associate Vice President. *shudder* I hate politics. I hate office politics even worse. And I'm trying not to think of who might have done what to whom for this to happen. She now has more power and more influence, and she'll continue to wield it like a blunt object. I'm getting a massage this afternoon, as an anniversary present from Madeline. She's not giving it to me, but rather she bought the time for me from a professional masseuse who comes by the office every so often. I'm looking forward to it a great deal.
I still haven't gotten anything for her, even though it was it was a few days ago. I'm bereft of ideas. I don't think
my head is in the right place yet.
She seems happy to be taking me on as a client, and I'm happy to finally have someone doing my hair who knows precisely how it should be done. (Like she said, she's done it a million times before, and she's worn it herself.) I love Miguel dearly, but he never *quite* got it. The quality would vary from visit to visit, probably because most of his clients are of the "old blue-haired lady" variety. I suppose I should call him and confess that I've jumped ship. Knowing me, I probably won't.
For that matter, I should probably contact Anodyne again and find out exactly where her salon is and
how much she charges. The little details.
I just don't have the will for activism. I wish I did. I still feel guilty for
not having been more vocal in my opposition to the Gulf War.
In what qualifies as a monumental act of foresight on my part, before I went to the masseuse
I removed my bra, cincher and fishnet shirt so she wouldn't have quite as many layers to work
through. It was quite nice, and as always the difficult part was simply relaxing.
It's weird how much effort it can take to not use muscles, which is essentially what relaxing
is. Still, though, if I can learn to relax during electrolysis, I can do it during massage.
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Wednesday, 12 July 2000 (4:37am (...and west german skies)) 7:27am Ralph Nader is running for President, and I intend to vote for him, as I did in 1996. In that election, he got less than one percent of the votes, and I'm rather proud to have been part of that one percent. Hey, as percentages go it's a whole number, right? My mother, as all mothers probably do, calls voting for third-party candidates "throwing your vote away." Mind you, she voted for Jack Anderson in 1980, although she told everyone she'd voted for Carter. As we left the polling place she confessed to me and made me promise not to tell. To my seven year-old mind it was an important lesson in the nature of duplicity in humans and politics: my own motbher was telling me it's okay to lie because of how she voted. The one serious argument in voting for a major candidate, which in my case would have to be Gore, is the Supreme Court. That's a toughie. Then again, I don't have an electoral vote, just a popular one. (And if you think my vote is popular, you oughta see my...but I digress.) Who I vote for for president is really quite irrelevant, since my vote isn't actually a deciding factor. And it isn't a secret, either. The coverage always includes both the popular and the electoral votes, and occasionally the anchor will even comment how far each candidate is from the required electoral votes to win. But we still get worked up about it anyway. How jonco can be in politics for a living is a mystery to me.
Oh, and though I'm voting for Nader, I'm not registered with the Green Party. It's not meant as a protest
or anything; in truth, I'm not sure how I'm registered.
Brian is in fact trying to replace me, but only because he's working on evacuating me, him and Leigh from the department and away from The Den Mother. I wouldn't be ending up in the same place as I would have if my previous attempt to switch departments had been successful, but that's okay, since it would have been just myself, and I like the idea of keeping the three of us together. We're all on the same wavelength, a comparative rarity in this (or probably any other) business. It would be perfect if Pike could come along too, but such is life. And this may not happen anyway. I just hope that if it does, it'll be before the move into the new office scheduled for next week, which while granting Leigh and I a little more physical isolation would keep us under the negative aegis of TDM.
Could we end up somewhere worse? Might I find myself near someone even more irritating that The Fidget
Queen? Possible, perhaps even probable. But that's no reason not to try. There are weasels in every
woodwork.
The left half of my upper lip hair doesn't look like it's been touched at all lately. The right half
is okay, and the net result is not only me looking like I'm trying to grow a moustache, but like I'm
only trying to grow half of a moustache. Which is almost worse than it covering the entire lip.
At least the redness will be more visible than the hair until this weekend (healing usually takes about
a week), so I won't appear too unbalanced to the casual observer...
There was a follow-up to Monday's "special mandatory" meeting scheduled for today at 2pm, and I spent the better part of the day dreading it. Partially because I hated the first one and am very uninterested, and partially because TFQ is back, and it would result in me being in his presence. So at a quarter to two Leigh tells me that a big super-important project has just been dumped on our collective laps, and that it needs to be up by 2. Um, yeah. Right. Particularly because it's going on a new server we just gained access to, the publishing tool for which was apparently built by people who think that uploading more than one file at time is wasteful. (If it was a few years old I might understand, but it was written fairly recently, and by people within the company. I think they did it that way just to laugh at us.) So there's no chance in hell of it going live in 15 minutes, even if it had already been built, which it hadn't. No matter, because it gave us something to work on and got the adrenalin rushing (I do love an impossible deadline), and best of all, functioned as an excuse to get out of the fucking meeting. I wasn't the one to break the news to TDM—Pike got that unlucky task—and she didn't seem too happy about it, but she left us alone. We weren't so lucky with one of the other producers, the guy whose baby it technically was, and as such he felt compelled to hang around and watch. There was nothing more that he could do but wait, and after I while I informed him that we'd let him know that it was ready. Much to my surprise, he left. I'd like to think it was to avoid getting into an argument with a half-moustached freak. We finished at about 4pm, when the meeting was supposed to end. It didn't. It just kept on going. I knew TDM would be expecting us to join in and to bring our research and ideas as requested, but I wanted no part of it. I'd wanted no part of it before, and I wanted even less now. Worse, Maddy was going to be picking me up in front of the building at a quarter past four, and I had no way of getting in touch with her. (I guess I should write down her celphone number.) So I did the only honorable thing: I snuck out. I'm sure I'll catch hell from TDM about it tomorrow, and as we were driving away I couldn't help feeling like I was doing something genuinely wrong, but fuck it. She treats us like we're in school (posting grades from a pop quiz?), and every class has its problem student, no? I never got to be a punk in high school—oh, my grades sucked, but I didn't have much fun—so I might as well be one now. Once home, I decided to take another plunge into villainy: Napster. There's a few songs I've been looking for, so... It's okay, but I don't think I'll be using it much. As Courtney Love pointed, the R.E.M. stuff is seriously lacking, though I did find the Dylan song I was looking for. Still, the usenet provides a whole heck of a lot more and neater stuff, and it's not in the headlines or being sued by Metallica. Wherever the spotlight is, it's a safe bet people are having more fun in the shadows. Or, to quote Neil Young about having a Number One hit: "This song put me in the middle of the road. Travelling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I met more interesting people." Which makes me think of a pro-Metallica moron from a mailing list I'm on who complained bitterly about Napster a while back. She was upset that because of Napster, nobody would buy her band's albums, and how the heck is the band supposed to buy studio time if people are swapping their songs for free?
I checked. Hmm, they don't seem to have made it onto the Napster radar just yet. I guess
all you can find on Napster is stuff people have heard of, and nobody's heard of that band yet.
Gosh, what's the name? I wish I could remember...oh well. Exposure's not important to a
struggling group, so I'm sure they'll do just fine in spite of that mean awful Napster.
The computer works, and the cheapie Radio Shack switchbox works. The disk drive appears to be hosed, but still, this is as close as I've gotten.
Meanwhile, I stumbled upon TimmyBigHands, a(nother) humor site,
but this one by the writers of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Meaning it's the greatest
one ever.
I'm just missing it all. I haven't been out since the show, and I'm missing it terribly. I know I'm not supposed to, that in the current climate it's tres gauche to show anything but disdain for clubbing, but I don't care. I'm tired of that negativity, of feeling guilty for enjoying myself. I've heard that Dark Sparkle is very old school goth, and that I love the sound of that. I wish I'd been around in the days when pretentiousness was the norm, rather than the kind of self-consciousness which is so pervasive now. I feel like I missed something. (Yeah, yeah, I know, go to Roderick's.) I need to call Club One tomorrow to find out about restarting my old membership, which I allowed to expire almost a year ago based on the theory that I'd use my 24 Hour Fitness account instead. I think I've used it twice, because A) there aren't any conveniently located on the way to work, and B) they don't provide towels. There's a Club One between the muni station and work, and they have towels, and I really fucking need it. Three months until Dana's wedding, just for starters. And I'm shallow enough that I feel better about myself when I get in shape. I had a pretty face once. (Not to mention I was actually capable of taking care of my hair, which was probably just beginner's luck.) I realize that now. Over a year ago. I hadn't had it for very long, then I got lazy and put on weight and that face went away. I want it back. the standards by which i judge myself are mine and mine alone. i judge nobody else by them, nor am i unduly influenced. this is just me, how i am. If you suspect you might be losing your mind, then by definition you aren't because of you suspect it, right? That's how it works, isn't it?
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Tuesday, 11 July 2000 (4:33am (running shoes)) 6:50am No. No, no, no. 8:48am The zapping session lasted four hours last night. It's a little longer than he normally cares to go on a weeknight, but he wanted to get me cleared so I didn't have to come back in today. Very sweet, really. All things considered, he was in much more of a...jeez, I don't know what the word is. Sympathetic? Nurutring? Maternal? One of those kinds of moods. Among other things, I think he was feeling guilty for being out of topical anesthetic. It really does make a difference, because without it there's nothing on the skin to dull the pain. The nerves are awake and alive and ready for duty, ca'n. All you can hope to do is change your perception of it, to help the brain in its thankless pain management duties. At one point he had to stop because he started crying. I'm not entirely certain why and I didn't ask, although I did ask if it was common for his clients to cry during sessions. He said it wasn't in the least bit unusual, and that he'd done it more than once while under the needle himself. The pain is the catalyst, but what it really takes is just that one stray thought, the one unpleasant emotion, to open the floodgates. They're like opportunistic infections, just waiting for the body's defenses to be lowered, and bam. It was reassuring to hear him say that it happens all the time, because I've tended to feel guilty about crying during sessions and try to keep it to myself. Sometimes it's necessary; I've gotten in trouble for crying about the wrong things during electrolysis. Ultimately, though, I think it's a combination of stoicism and unwanted machismo. Boys don't cry and all that nonsense. I've never considered myself a boy—even long before I came out, I knew I didn't quite fit the criteria—but old habits can die hard. While for the most part I don't tend to repress or hide my emotions, sometimes I just want to be stoic and unreadable. Which may be why I then went into the restroom and started crying. I knew it was only a matter of time, so I figured I might as well get it out of my system in private. As a courtesy, perhaps, even though I knew Phil wouldn't mind. Once again I noticed the duct tape on the wall of the bathroom. It covered a little over a square foot, and I behind it was a hole. I know this because I put the hole there. Two weeks ago, in fact. It was in the middle of a particularly harrowing zapping session, my mood for which was not helped by a nasty argument with Maddy that morning regarding my self-medication. I take a lot more vicodin than is prescribed; the bottle says "Take 1 tablet every 4-6 hours as needed," and on average I'll have already ingested three or four before the session even begins, with supplementation as breaks allow. On top of that I'm now including Walgreen's brand Green Death, since the stuff is ostensibly supposed to help you sleep while uncomfortable. She was very worried about me taking more than recommended dosage as well as mixing the two, and it ended with some shouting outside my building. We made up a short time later, but it stuck with me. Particularly as I was lying on the table that evening with the needles going into my skin. Phil's office is on the second floor, and the building's one restroom is downstairs and only accessible from the outside with a key. No telling how many people use it, but it definitely has a communal feel to it. There's parking behind the building, and the cars drive right by the bathroom door. As I was walking there, some young guys in a very large car hooted and called me a faggot. Not the first time it's happened and probably not the last, though I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. I was wearing red-and-black stripeys, which might have had something to do with it, since I was similarly clad the last time. Ignoring for the moment that it's inaccurate because I'm not a gay man, I don't consider the word an insult as such; to quote Joe Jackson, you don't want to sound dumb, you don't want to offend—so don't call me a faggot, not unless you are a friend. Whatever else I am, I'm queer, and as far as I'm concerned that means we're all in it together. At that moment, though, it was all a bit too much. Y'know, I'm awfully sorry the rest of the world finds me so damn enigmatic and would prefer I wasn't how I am. Can't it just leave me alone? Is that so much to ask? Can't it just let me be, let me exist? I'm doing the best I can here, and if you don't understand it or don't approve, swell, fine, whatever, that's your perogative. Just leave me the fuck alone and I'll leave you the fuck alone, okay? Once inside the bathroom, I wailed, slammed my fist into the wall, then kicked it. It was a sudden burst of negative energy which had to go somewhere. My fist left a barely noticeable dent, but my buet made more of an impression on the somewhat flimsy wall close to the ground. Broke right through it, in fact, though I didn't realize it at first. I was too busy grasping for catharsis. When I did realize what I'd done, shame overtook me. Christ. Whoever maintains this bathroom needs a hole in the wall like they need...well, like they need a hole in the wall. It's a low-rent building in a low-rent neighborhood, and here I come, a vain overpaid dot-commie wreaking havoc because of her existential dilemmas. I briefly considered mentioning it to Phil, and discarded the idea just as quickly. My urge to confess only extends to those things which won't get me into trouble, it seems. By the time I returned for my next session a couple days later, the hole had been patched up with the duct tape, as it is now. As it will probably be for a very long time. I doubt they can afford to fix it properly. Most things that are broken don't get fixed. It's the things that ain't broke which tend to get more attention.
So I'm going back next Monday. Again, he didn't completely clear my upper lip, and I think it was because
of the pain factor. Last night when I was trying to get the zapped hairs away from my nostrils without
using my hands, he interpreted it as me being in pain. Which I was, but that wasn't the point.
I'm going to have to assure him next time not to worry, that I can handle it, I'm
just sick of looking like I'm trying to grow a moustache....
RITE AID PHARMACY #5957
One of the nice things about being a congenial packrat is occasionally finding things
you're actually glad you kept. Like reminders that no matter how bad things might have
been at the time, there will usually be at least one pleasant memory...
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