It's been windy but mostly dry this weekend. No doubt the rain will pick back up tomorrow. But that's okay.

9:19am

Courtney Love is a controversial figure for a vast assortment of reasons that touch on all aspects of sex, drugs and rock and roll, and still, I think that ultimately the scariest thing about her is that she wants. She wants and she's not afraid to say that she wants and what she wants. She is not afraid of her own desire, and that desire is huge: she wants everything, the most cake and the most of the most. She wants the freedom to be who she wants to be whenever without reprimands and reproaches from those who are not so bold.

—Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women

See, I'm happy to watch them burn because I used to have to work for them. Sorta kinda. During my last couple months at the company with the bad man, after I finally escaped from his claws but before I got booted off the payroll entirely, one of my projects was doing SEO work on their sites. I've done a lot of fucked-up things in the name of paying the bills, but in a lot of ways, that was one of the worst. Even the daily order processing I had to do for the handful of Viagra sites our company ran on the side didn't feel so icky. At least the stuff actually works, by all accounts. Enzyte and all their related products might as well be fucking sugar cubes. And, lest we forget—the European sexual underground! No, really! We didn't just make it up to sound all exotic and shit!

I'm tired of having to do bad things to make other people money. For as much as I enjoyed many aspects of my last job, there was one thing that got to me, the thing resulted in me losing the job entirely. One of the company's clients was a lawyer who focused on lawsuits regarding a particular disease. We ran a information website regarding said disease, and I was automatically notified when someone browsed the page. If they stuck around for more than thirty seconds and browsed beyond the first page (thus implying actual interest), I would launch a java-based chat client and ask them if they needed any help. Ideally, I'd talk them out of their phone number and email address to pass along to the lawyer. In other words, my job was to give him ambulances to chase.

In the month that I worked for the company, I never chatted with anyone. There was little traffic, and nobody poked around much. They had the option to talk to the "live operator," but you can imagine how well that worked. What's more, the project was functionally dead for the first week and a half that I was at home with pneumonia, since I barely had the presence of mind to continue with my webmonkey work. On my last day, I was told that the lawyer was upset that the project (read: me) hadn't generated any leads and was pulling his funding. That was where they got the money to pay me, so when that dried up, it was all over. It's hard not to feel like there wasn't a bit of punishment mixed in as well, but I'll never know.

As for the construction company gig back in December, I wasn't there long enough to detect any evil. But it was surely there, just beneath the surface.

Are you beginning to see why walking dogs is sounding appealing? It feels like it'll be the first honest job I've had in years. It isn't facilitating penis enhancement drugs, faux or otherwise, nor assisting predatory lawyers. (For the record, I do not believe that all lawyers are money-hungry opportunists, and I've always distrusted the concept of the "frivolous lawsuit," since I only ever seemed to hear about around elections.) Dogs need to be walked, and they're not trying to hurt or take advantage of anyone. No, not even the pit bulls. It's downright noble compared to what I've done before.

In spite of all that, there where no major mishaps. We didn't lose track of any dogs, at least not for more than a minute or two at a time (which is normal), and the only injuries were to our nerves. One of the reasons Lynnee and I make a good team is that we can get totally stressed but not take it out on each other. We cop to anything which might seem like snark, and we're generally able to laugh about it all a few minutes later.

Today was a rough one all the same. It was my first day out in the rain, and it was a light one at that. Other days will be worse, I'm sure. Just gotta get used to it. I also have dirt under my fingernails. That's a new one.

I haven't felt this beat at the end of a day since Girl Army. It won't always be quite so grueling. When I'm on my own I'll be walking smaller groups of no more than five, more likely three or four depending on how many I can fit into my car. While there's evidently no shortage of large dogs in the Sunset, I'm get the impression that there aren't quite so many pit bulls. They seem to be more of a Mission/Bernal dyke phenomenon. How that's for Middle America's worst nightmare? Not only is San Francisco crawling with homosexuals, but the mannish women are armed with pit bulls!

Anyway, it's not that I'm afraid of them. They really have gotten a bad rap, and the stories about the danger they pose have more to do with the owners than the dogs themselves. One of The Ex's younger sister's boyfriends, for example, deliberately mistreated a a pit bull puppy so it would grow up mean and dangerous. I really fucking hate humans sometimes. Anyway, the only threat they've posed is possibly getting knocked over as they chase each other around at high speeds.

Next week, I have a big decision to make.

The best part of this becoming my new job, if it indeed does? (And there's no guarantee that it will. The potential for failure is still high.) I'll finally be able to justify getting a Dog is my co-pilot bumper sticker. I've always wanted one, because I'm amused by anything which might offend theists.

Speaking of my craptastic car, I saw another lapis blue Neon today with not only the same paint peeling—those are a dime a dozen in this town—but with the same rusting roof issues. That cannot be a coincidence. (No, it can't. Shut up.) Makes me feel just a little less negligent.

Thing of it is, I can't remember ever not doing it for a living. Every job I've ever had has involved picking up shit. (When I worked for the very bad man, it was also frequently shoved into my face and I was forced to eat it. It was like being one of the victims in Pasolini's Salo, except I wasn't paid as well.) The difference is, I'll be doing it literally now. It's like what Anna Joy used to say (according to Lynnee) about stripping: at least when she was taking her clothes off, she was taking her clothes off for real, not just metaphorically. I get that.

Didn't walk dogs with Lynnee today. Instead, I worked on business cards. Gotta make myself all professional-looking and stuff.

I contacted Stompers. Turns out the boots in question are no longer being made (of course they aren't), but that they get a lot of requests for 'em, so they'll be checking their vendors for similar items. In the meantime, I'm strongly leaning towards another CD/DVD purge at Amoeba to defray the costs of a pair of Lucky Studs from Fluevog. ( If I'm really brutal with myself—they're my favorite Neil Young albums, and the only ones to survive the last purge, but do I need to own Trans and Landing on Water and Dead Man on CD when I've long since ripped them to mp3? especially considering I'm not enough of an audiophile to recognize that they don't sound as good that way?— I can probably finance them entirely. They're a little more expensive than I'd like, and I'm not so crazy about the name, but unlike seeming every other pair I've tried to track down they actually fucking exist, and in my size, and with hooks rather than just eyelets so they won't take forever to put on. Besides, nobody needs to know what they're called.

Maddy and I went to see Dr. Strangelove at the Red Vic tonight. I've seen it a zillion times before, but it never ceases to blow me away. How can humans, so flawed, make something so damn near perfect?

Lovely girl, you're the murder in my world
Dressing coffins for the souls I've left to die
Drinking mercury to the mystery
Of all that you should ever leave behind
In time

Week Two, the first full one. It gets more real now, I think. Rain is predicted for Friday, which will be good experience. It's funny, ironic, something—I've always been glad I didn't have a job which required me to be outside. Ha! That'll teach me. Rather, it confirms what I already knew: all fears come true. Whatever you don't want to happen, will. Whatever you don't want to become, you'll find that's what you were all along.

9:10pm

Days like today remind me why most people dislike Mondays. I don't think it's just having to return to work. I think it's because bad things seem to happen. Today was certainly filled with its share of mishaps, mostly related to the walking of dogs. Nothing tragic, but very little went right, either. Poor Lynnee was seriously stressed and frazzled. I've seen him like that before, and it always breaks my heart.

The mishaps continued, all the way into the radio station for my show. But it's all better now. I guess.

My left leg hurts. It's been hurting since last week. From all the walking, no doubt. I've gotten back in the habit of doing crunches in the morning, a regimen I let slide several months back. Now, the trick is cutting out the late-night munching. Like, I'm at the studio right now, and I'd like nothing better when I leave than to swing by the taqueria across from The 12 Galaxies and get a burrito. (Cancun is much closer, but I don't like it as well.) There are many, many reasons why I shouldn't, not the least of which is maintaining the proper calories ingested/calories burned ratio. I'm pretty sure I've been burning more than I've been ingesting, which is a very good thing, and I don't want to upset that balance. I want people to start worrying that I'm not eating enough, like they did a couple years back. I have issues. What, you don't? Thought so.

Doing better today. I had to flake on hanging out with Matthue, but I've been all kinds of productive otherwise, recoloring Maddy's hair and rewriting an email interview for a book about Ladyfest '04—I'm actually really happy with how the interview is turning out, and turn part of it into a piece in its own right—and doing mine and Maddy's taxes. Didn't leave the house once. I'll be out of the house enough this week as I continue to accompany Lynnee on his dogwalking rounds, hopefully working up the courage to start doing it myself.

Normally my father does our taxes, but our original plans to go to Fresno got waylaid, and we're not sure when we'll be down next. I'm told that he's not doing very well, so the sooner we get down there, the better.

Oh, I've also been boot-hunting from home. Called around to the San Francisco stores listed on the Doc Martens site as carrying their product, only to find that the majority of them either don't carry them anymore or are phasing them out. Swell. Stompers here in town as has been suggested to me from a few directions. (Ironically, they're right around the corner from the company I worked at up until a week ago.) They don't carry Docs anymore either, but look at the picture in the upper right corner. Those are totally the kind I want to get, dead ringers for my dying Fluevogs. (I like the girl's hair, too, but that's another topic entirely.) Naturally, I can't actually find them for sale on the site. Because they don't exist anymore. They can't possibly.

All of which makes this news story all the more chilling, about a thirty-one year-old actress who died last month of pneumonia. (Hey! I'm thirty-one!) In fact, she died on the first day I stayed home from work, which means nothing whatsoever. Equally meaningless is the attention paid in most of the articles to her role in Meet the Parents, a movie which I'll never forgive for stealing one hundred and eight minutes of my life. I'm not claiming to have been a fan or even been truly aware of her existence, but I'm really bothered by the emphasis in the press on that movie. The first line of the AP story, which the majority of the news outlets reprinted as is:

Actress Nicole DeHuff, who memorably took a volleyball in the face from Ben Stiller in the 2000 hit movie "Meet the Parents," died of complications from pneumonia.

That's her fucking obituary, a reference to a cheap slapstick laugh in a bad movie. The press release article then makes a brief, vague mention of being sent home from the hospital twice, then goes on to describe the plot of the fucking movie. Pardon my redundant use of the f-word, but I'm more than a little disgusted with the media right now.

According to more journalism-minded articles, she was misdiagnosed twice. The first time she was sent home with a painkiller, and the second time it was declared bronchitis. Man. And this was at a real hospital, too, with the full power of the Screen Actors Guild heath insurance behind her. While my case was not as severe, I think I got better care at the low-budget Waddell Clinic.

Gosh, though, doesn't that article make you want to go out and rent—or, better yet, buy—Meet the Parents right now?

Feh. I'm tempted to say "fucking media whores," but some of my friends are whores, and I don't want to insult them.

10:54am

What I played. I was supposed to be on from ten to eleven thirty, but kept going until midnight.

"Stagger Lee" - Nick Cave
"Souljacker pt. 1" - Eels
"Sunset Strip (Alternate)" - Courtney Love
"Ballad of Maxwell Demon" - Shudder to Think
"Rose Garden Funeral of Sores" - Bauhaus
"Body Electric" - Sister of Mercy
"Another Girl, Another Planet" - The Only Ones
"Bring tha Noise" - Public Enemy with Anthrax
"So Pure" - Alanis Morissette
"Big Exit" - PJ Harvey
"Smack My Bitch Up" - The Prodigy
"The Sporting Life" - Diamanda Galas and John Paul Jones
"Primitive Painters" - Felt
"I Walk the Line" - Alien Sex Fiend
"Setting Sun" - Chemical Brothers
"South Side" - Moby and Gwen Stefani
"Another One Bites the Dust (Meeks Remix)" - Adam Paskowitz and Doug Aldrich
"In Search of My Rose" - The Tear Garden
"Like a Prayer" - Bigod 20
"Violent Mood Swings (Thread Mix)" - Stabbing Westward
"When Doves Cry" - Prince
"Personal Jesus" - Marilyn Manson
"Worlock" - Skinny Puppy
"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" - Revolting Cocks
"Solyent Green" - Wumpscut

The DJ after me seemed a little (perturbed? surprised? put off?) by the fact that I was running it all off my laptop, saying in what I was surely meant to be a joking tone, You're Like The Anti-DJ! Feh. Whatever. It was all the same to the people on the dance floor, and it allowed me to dance a bit as well. What's wrong with labor-saving devices, anyway?

The device in question is a Mac Pismo PowerBook G3, which he'd earlier informed me has inferior sound to his newer, shinier Mac laptop. Yeah, whatever. (Dunno what kind his is. Slightly larger, and literally shiny, silver as opposed to the black of mine. I don't keep up with these things.) It does the job just fine on the radio, as well as at The 12 Galaxies. All things being equal I'm more comfortable with Windows than Mac, but what I have is what I have. OS issues aside (and I think getting militant about one platform versus another is fatally stupid), I'm growing fond of my clunker of a laptop, which probably should have croaked by now. Instead, the obsolete little guy just keeps chugging along. Very punk rock.

5:35pm

Tired. So very, very tired.

Later, I did a two-hour DJ set at a private party. Received accolades a-plenty, including one from the host, who was taking a chance on me. It helped make up for my miserable failure earlier in the evening..