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Back at work today. Though still reddish and sad-looking (really, it looks sad), my eye is doing much better. I'm continuing with the four-times-daily Vigamox drops, which isn't going to run out as I'd originally feared, and I'm going in for the followup tomorrow morning. I'm not quite as light-sensitive as I was yesterday afternoon on the blinding drive to The Sea Biscuit, and I won't even look too gory for my date with Gecko tonight. I intend to even get made up before then, since the area around my eye feels like it can handle it. Besides, I've found that doing so tends to accelerate my healing process when I'm sick. It's a placebo kinda thing, I suppose. If I act like all is well, then all becomes well sooner than later.
2:50pm Also from Alan Shapiro's essay "Why Write?", picking up where the last excerpt left off: And as if that weren't bad enough, let's consider the effect of what we write on those we write about, especially those closest to us. Over the years, I learned the hard way that nobody wants to give up narrative control over his or her life. People have a right not to be written about. Yet I violate that right in nearly everything I've written. I've done it in the writing of this essay. My theory's always been that if I only try to tell the truth, if I have no ax to grind and write about others in a spirit of forgiveness, curiosity and understanding, then no one should be upset by anything I say. Well, so much for theory. Even the most affectional portrait of a loved one, the most intimate praise (never mind depictions of estrangement or disaffection), can and will offend. In 1996 I published a book of personal essays. My mother called to congratulate me. "Have you heard from anybody about the book?" she asked.Pretty much, yeah.
7:45pm At The Sea Biscuit. I met up with Gecko (who kinda reminds me of a crunchy Ali) at Mission Creek Cafe. We talked for about an hour, then I gave her a lift home, which was conveniently in my neighborhood, so here I am. I don't work tomorrow—we have Good Friday off, for some reason—and I'm tossing around going to the Power Exchange, but I probably won't. I go back to the ophthalmologist tomorrow at a quarter past ten, and then I'll probably spend the rest of the day here writing until it's time for The Ten Commandments.
8:58pm One down, one to go.
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3:27pm At The Sea Biscuit. I took a sick day from work, since I figured that looking at a monitor all day long was probably not going to help my eye heal, but here I am now, the impulse proving stronger. I did get some housecleaning done this morning, including making my shiny new mop not so shiny and new by using it on my kitchen and bathroom floors. I'm rather disappoined that once they dried, they didn't look much differernt from how they had before. I guess that's what the decade of not being mopped will do. The drive over here was a little scary, though. The sky is overcast, but bright enough that I had to keep pulling over once or twice a block. (Thankfully, I don't live too many blocks away. Outer Sunset represent, yo!) I've always been light-sensitive, something that people have tended to misinterpret as me just being stylish or persnickety, and while I won't deny being stylish and/or persnickety, my light sensitivity is real, and it's really bad right now. That's part of the healing process, I guess. Assuming that my eye does get better. I've been putting in the antibiotic eyedrops (with the wonderfully Star Trek-ian name Vigamox) as ordered, and I can blink normally and most of the time today I haven't really been thinking about my eye at all, but maybe this permanent? Maybe the damage doesn't really heal, and this is just another step in my descent into vampirism? Oh well. I bumped up the font on TextPad to 14, black on white, and I'm doing just fine. And the next time somebody gives me static about how much I've been wearing my sunglasses (prescription Ray-Ban Wayfarers, I love my affectations and my affectations love me), I'll just give them a note from my ophthalmologist. If it hadn't been such an emergency yesterday, I would have held out for a female ophthalmologist—indeed, I thought I had, but for whatever reason when I was actually at the office, I got assigned to one of the men on staff. Whatever. He took the foreign object out of my eye so it was all good, but I was also reminded of why I tend to prefer female doctors. Aside from my basic sexism, that is. After he was done with the procedure and was doing some paperwork, I was ruminating aloud about the source of the red acrylic-looking shard: it's possible my ex-girlfriend has worked with it, but I haven't seen her in a few months, so obviously that's not it. Which is a highly stupid thing to say, but I was feeling a little giddy with endorphins and relief, and I've discovered that I tend to be chatty in these situations anyway. (Except with my general practitioner, because he doesn't like me and I want to get in and out as quickly as possible.) To which he said: that reminds me of something i've been meaning to ask, if it isn't too personal— Whooboy. here we go. you're obviously a genetic male. Gee, thanks! Aloud, I said in a neutral tone: obviously. but you haven't had any surgery, right? you're just living as female? Instead of answering his indirect question (yes, i still have a dick), I said: right. i've been on hormones for nine years, i've had facial electrolysis, and i've lived full-time as female since 2000. 2001 would be slightly more accurate, when I got laid off from CNET and changed my driver license and Social Security card, but for no good reason I felt like 2000 would be more...impressive. Or something. i guess what confused me is that you identify as female, but you have a girlfriend. that threw me off. One of the few points that I make in both my essays about marrying Maddy ("Two-Sixteen-Ought-Four") and breaking up with her ("Three-Twenty-Seven-Ought-Five") is the fact that even while we were legally married, I tended to refer to her as my girlfriend when talking to strangers for precisely this reason. Especially straight people. Flashing briefly on someone I met recently who said they didn't realize I was a tranny until they started exploring my website, I said: yes. i like girls. i identify as lesbian. Trying to keep my tone as light as possible, I added: you must be new in town, huh? there's a few of us around. so you identify as...transgender lesbian? right. in fact, most of my male-to-female friends are into girls. See, the thing is, I've never had this sort of exchange with a female health professional. Only male. Not that there haven't been a few female quacks in my time—my first endocrinologist comes to mind—but the men are always more like to be confused, and/or threatened. He wrote out my prescription, said I'd need to return on Friday morning, and then: can i ask you one more thing? Oh, why not? For better or worse, I was still dependant on this person, and if the price of getting my eye fixed is his clumsy interrogation, fine. (Were but it the only price, and not money as well.) I said: go ahead. what was your name...before? Wow. Just, wow. I couldn't remember the last time someone had asked it so directly. It's not something I've ever tried to keep secret, and sooner or later I mention it whoever I'm dating, yet I came very close to declining to answer...but no. No secrets, no fear, an open book, my past is responsible for who I am now, yadda yadda. So after a pause which he couldn't have helped but notice, I said: jeff. ah. i was just wondering if sherilyn was a female version of anything, like christine from chris, that sort of thing. I replied: nope. i don't like those very much. i've always felt like doing that was a dead giveaway, but that's just me. Thankfully, that was the end of that. I got my prescription, made the appointment for Friday, and left.
7:42pm Tres 2008: constantly reloading Gmail on my phone. did she write yet? no...how about now?...or now?...now?...okay, okay...oooh, how about now?
8:44pm They just started watching No Country for Old Men at The Sea Biscuit. I'm glad I saw it this weekend in a theater. On a teevee in a coffeehouse—what a horrible way to watch a movie like this. Ignoring for the moment that I haven't really been in any condition to travel beyond my little corner of town, and the eye thing is taking a toll on me emotionally, I've felt kinda brushed aside tonight. Weren't we going to talk? Wasn't that the plan, the offer? What am I?
11:52pm Expectations. It's expectations that fuck me up every time.
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Last night's excuse for not going to the gym was that I was at Ask Dr. Hal until half past midnight. Tonight's excuse for not going to the gym is that I had a pinpoint-sized piece of what appeared to be red acrylic removed from my left eye this afternoon. The actual removal of it wasn't painful—didn't feel a thing, yay for nerveless eyeballs!—but I was pretty miserable for most of the day leading up to it. Calling around to find an ophthalmologist on my insurance who would actually see me today was no picnic, and I'm not doing so great now. My eye is thoroughly bloodshot and teary and more light-sensitive than usual and in general looks gross, and I feel weak and tired. I have to take antibiotic eyedrops four times a day, and I'm going back in on Friday morning. Copay on the office visits is forty, the antibiotic is sixty, and in all likelihood I'll need a refill before Friday. Random fate sure can be expensive. What probably annoys me the most is the down time. I have work to do, damnit. I should have spent tonight at The Sea Biscuit or The Dark Room or somesuch writing, not lying in bed at home sleeping off having an ouchy pulled from my eye.
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i kept wondering how it was that you seemed so free and yet so insecure at the same time.
6:22pm At the Marsh Cafe, around the corner from a fire, attempting to get some work done before going to Ask Dr. Hal tonight. It was originally going to be a date with Gecko, a girl I met at Harvey's party last month. The timing didn't work out, though, so we've rescheduled to this Thursday. Probably going to the comedy show that night at the Dark Room. Ennui may be at Ask Dr. Hal with Jack, and Jezebel expressed interest. Meanwhile, I'm also arranging a first date with a girl I met at Chez Badunkadunk. That'll happen when it happens. Speaking of feast or famine, my beloved femme visibility essay may find its way into print after all. After talking talking with Mattilda and explaining why it's relevant in spite of being about dykes and trannies rather than faggots, I submitted it for his anthology Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? I'm not expecting it to be selected—really, I can't believe he would have such a dearth of on-topic submissions that there would be room for mine—but it felt good to send it off all the same. Even printed it out and mailed it in a manila envelope, the way I imagine real writers used to do. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm actually quite happy to be living in this digital age, but as I've mentioned before, sometimes I wonder what it was like to work exclusively on, say, an IBM Selectric. I did do some typewriting when I was much younger, but I also gravitated quickly towards word processing, on my Atari 8-bit or Jonco's Apple ][+ or whatever else was available at the time. Less than a week after I sent off the essay for Mattilda's book, the editor of the femme visibility anthology sent out an email announcing that she was handing it over to another editor, followed a few days later by an email from the new editor saying that she'd found a publisher. Whether or not the piece has been accepted is unclear at the moment, though the original editor did say the new editor would honor all submission decisions made so far. The rest of us just don't know what they are yet. Oh well. That's cool. Anticipation can be nice (it had better be, since there's so goddamned much), and in the meantime, I'll just keep plugging away at the new stuff. That's more fun anyway.
7:50pm There was something she said when we first started out, between our first date and that first night we spent together— no matter how damn fine or how much somebody can make my brain twinkle or my pelt glossy...i run fast enough to make sparks from those with serious agendas involving me.I understood it well enough then. And it defines me now.
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Today's Good Movie Morning feature was No Country for Old Men (Juno was listed on Saturday, but not when I got to the theater this morning), and tonight's Bad Movie Night feature was Death Wish 3.
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The honey's washed off and I sweated away most of my makeup, but the glitter remains, as does the sense of the needle hovering over the vein, teasing.
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I washed my clothes last night at a quarter to midnight, well over an hour and a half past their stated laundry curfew. Why? Both because I'm an inconsiderate wretch who has no concerns for the quality of their life—I mean, if it was dead quiet in their living room, there's a distinct chance they may have faintly heard the sounds of the machines below—and because I really needed clean clothes. Had to stay a bit later than usual at work today, and to compensate I'm taking a taxi home rather than the train, which is notoriously slow and unreliable on Fridays. It should easily cut an upwards of an hour off the voyage. It's a luxury, to be sure, which is why I'll only shell out the money a few times a year. Damn, though, I'd forgotten how cranky it makes some drivers to have to go all the way to the Outer Sunset, especially around rush hour. Judging from the scowling and constant heavy sighs, this fellow certainly doesn't seem pleased at all. (The reckless driving is just a cabbie thing in general, of course, and whooboy, I'm glad the backseat has shoulder-strap seatbelts.) (Note to self: do not get brave and try to ride a rollercoaster in Santa Cruz tomorrow.) He's no doubt thinking about all the fares he'll miss when he schleps his way back to civilization after dropping me off. The fact that I'm writing on a laptop at this moment probably isn't helping, either. We're not very popular these days.
sometime after midnight In honor of Pi Day, after The Ten Commandments tonight Rhiannon and I went to Bakers Square for pie.
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Sent Tuesday afternoon to my landlord, and addendum to the longer email about Them monopolizing the machines:: Oh, and They've once again left junk out front.Then, when I got home late that night: I just got home--it's one in the morning--and not only is the junk still out front, making us look like the shabbiest house on the block, but the dryer has stuff in it. The washing machine's empty, but, as I say, the dryer isn't, meaning the washing machine isn't of much use to me, and unlike Them, I'm gone all day long. This is really inexcusable behavior on Their part. Please ask Them to clean up after themselves, and not to monopolize the laundry machines overnight.He replied that morning: I will reply to them.He wrote again yesterday afternoon, as I was sitting the coffeehouse under Cassandra, leeching Ennui's wifi. They are sorry about leaving the clothes in the dryer and took them out. Their request is that the landuray not to be done after 10 PM.Seething, I dashed this off, bcc'ing Maddy: Did They also apologize for frequently leaving clothes in the washer this past week as well? And, no, I cannot grant that request. Between the hours that I generally keep (and part of the reason I keep those hours is because I don't like being home much during the day or early evening because of the noise) and the fact that They're using the machines most of the time during the day when I *am* there, if I don't do my laundry after 10pm it might not get done at all. Which *has* been the case lately because of how much They've been monopolizing the machines.That was over twenty-four hours ago, and I haven't heard back. Nor have I been home yet. (And, for the record, making sure all the instances of "They" and "Their" are capitalized is actually a pain in the neck. But it's worth it.) Ennui called me a little while later, and I went upstairs to join her for a low-key workdate. She had reading and note-taking to do for her current research job, and I always have writing and editing to do, though at the moment I'd switched gears to website stuff. Specifically, getting my pages ready to be switched from sfgoth to Laughing Squid. After nine years, I've outgrown sfgoth. Not philosophically, mind you. I still love how it sounds, I wish I could stay on it, and I'm especially bummed that my sfgoth email addy has finally succumbed to the spam swarm. But, I need more space, and considering that I've had nine years of free hosting on a server in the living room of a guy I've never even met, I can hardly complain. It was a good ride. With any luck, sherilynconnelly.com will be up and running by the end of the weekend. Of course, it already is. I've owned the domain for four years, and it currently points you towards my sfgoth site. Now it'll just stay on sherilynconnelly.com, and be hosted by laughing squid. Really, I should have done this a while ago, but like any breakup (for me), it takes a while to actually do the deed. In any event, for most of last night and an hour or two this afternoon, I've been making individual redirect for every single frackin' page, so there shouldn't be any broken links. And, with any luck, it won't take long for my googleability to return to its current, soon-to-be-former glory. Without ever intending to, my site is optimized like mad. Seems google really likes text-heavy sites with frequent updates, especially when they've been around for the better part of a decade. We worked for a while, sitting side by side on the bed in her living room (there's a bed in the living room, y'see), ordered Indian pizza, worked some more, and finally called it quits around eleven. She made hot toddies, which we drank as we cuddled and watched our respective favorite episodes of Strangers With Candy, and finally crashed around half past midnight. I'll be seeing her again on Saturday, when us a bunch of her friends get into Chicken John's bus a for a trip to the Santa Cruz boardwalk. It occurred to me last night that I haven't been to a San Francisco Performances show in a while. I guess the last time was when Vash and I saw Philip Glass last September. It just hasn't been on my mind, even though I can get free tickets. So I looked at their schedule and jotted down some neat-looking shows, which Ennui may or may not be joining me for. Speaking of neat shows, here's a video of the Steve Roach show from last year, with a special emphasis on the pretty, pretty lights. It's a shame that my companion was asleep through most of it, but such is life. I need to get away for a little while, and I had been strongly considering going to my uncle's house Grass Valley at the end of this month, my first free weekend after The Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, much like over xmas, my uncle's wife isn't up for houseguests. I can't blame her, really. I don't like houseguests either, though their place is much bigger than mine, with extra rooms and everything. Anyway, it looks like I just have to forget the whole "Grass Valley as writing retreat" concept. There's always Fresno, I suppose. It isn't that much farther, and I know my mother's standing offer of a place to stay is legit.
9:58pm I've been working at The Dark Room this evening, and even though I should be going to the gym, I'm going home. It's ten o'clock, and I have a lot of laundry to do.
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this is how it should have been. That was the thought going through my head as I felt Ennui's hands on mine. She was on the other side of the St. Andrew's Cross in the basement of the Citadel. (Sadly, Maggie was nowhere to be found. I wanted her to see me with Ennui.) We were there with her friend Patty, Ennui and I bottoming to her, together. Patty alternated a blindfold between us, so sometimes I could see Ennui but she couldn't see me (or anything else), or vice versa. Patty also put earplugs in my ears, and then a satin hood over my head to increase the sensory deprivation. The latter freaked me out a little, but it was something I've been wanting to try for a while. And the whole time I could feel Ennui's hands in mine, where they met at the top of the cross. Her and I functioning as a unit, so to speak. Like I told Patti, I wanted to feel whatever Ennui felt, even if it couldn't be at the same time. I wanted us to be in this together, and so did she. Patty flogged and whomped and spanked us, individually due to the laws of physics, but always with the other present. The medical table underneath the stairs in the basement, where Ezri and Poppers really connected for the first time, was gone. Moved somewhere else, I suppose, and replaced with a sling. Everything goes away. We headed upstairs after a while to relax. It was a fairly typical Citadel crowd, including some of Vash's best friends. They made a point of coming over to hug me and say hello, which felt really nice. I found myself very temped to ask about Vash and to have them tell her that I said hello and that I miss her, but I didn't. It would have been all true, and Ennui wouldn't have minded (she knows that I love and miss Vash, and doesn't feel threatened by it) but the timing felt spectacularly wrong, and, well, that's just not a road I'm ready to go down yet. Nowhere near enough time or space yet, nor enough scar tissue. Still, it was reassuring that they acknowledged me and did seem to think I'm this evil rotten person like so many did after I broke up with Maddy, and still do. Which isn't to say that I'm not an evil, rotten person. I most likely am. For example: Maggie wasn't there, and I wished she was so she could see me with Ennui. She would probably feel just a little tiny bit envious of me for being with such a hottie, and I'm still bitter about wrongs I feel she perpetuated nearly a decade ago, both philosophical differences and outright snubs and insults. This is my revenge, living well, being with beautiful girls, since...well...I mean, of course I'm biased, but I tend to consider the girls I've been involved with whether it be deep love or cheap sex (The Ex, Maddy, Vash, Ennui, Ryder, Ripley, Hayley, Jezebel, Collette, Jarboe, possibly Gecko, a good run) to be considerably more attractive than the...I mean, aesthetics are individual thing, no question, but, like, when Vash and I ran into her last November, and I couldn't help but notice that Vash was so much prettier than the girl that...okay, yeah. Definitely evil and rotten. Shallow, superficial, all those things, no argument here. Our next destination was the railing overlooking the stairwell near the restrooms, both because it wasn't being and because there was no shortage of pillows and other kinds of padding, and we could be on our knees. Ennui went first, on her knees and her hands on the railing, and Patty told me lay close by under her, so I did, making myself comfortable. As she went at Ennui, I occasionally glanced over at a dog playing fetch with a large stuffed fish. (Whatever works.) It would have been nice to have investigated as Ezri, and it occurred to me that it this year's Dog and Pony Show is coming up in a couple of months—yeesh, it had been ten months already?—but I almost certainly won't be attending. I mean, there's no law saying I can't, but no. I don't want to do that to myself. Besides, the memory of last year's event is too crucial, and too much can go wrong. Most definitely Poppers will be...accompanied differently this year, and as I say, I don't want to do that to myself. After a year and a half I should have adjusted to that particular reality (looks like I won't be the record-holder much longer), but I haven't, and I really can't handle the crush of that pain all over again. Constantly reliving it while writing the book is more than enough. And then it was my turn, and Ennui assumed my prior position, looking up at me. There was a non-turning mirrorball above us, and a strong light behind it, and I noticed that the shadow on the wall resembled the cover of Coil's Time Machines. I studied it as Patty whomped at me, occasionally going after the insides of my thighs. I'd told her earlier that those are especially sensitive, and they are, since I still flinch from Jezebel torturing me at the Power Exchange that night. Then I would look down at Ennui, who was looking up at me, and feel a strong love through the pain and endorphins. Then back to the Time Machines shadow. The track titles are of hallucinogenic compounds, and the drones are meant to have a similar effect, and according to the late Jhonn Balance they facilitated time travel. This is what a proper flogging should do as well, or at least take you out of time and ego, and after a while I finally remembered the blindingly obvious: scratching. I had somehow forgotten to tell Patty how much I like a good shred, and when I did, she was more than happy to oblige. ...(7-Methoxy-ß-Carboline: (Telepathine))... As she tore into me with her nails and I looked at the shadow on the wall (and sometimes down at Ennui, admiring the shape of her eyebrows, the way that smile illuminates her face), I found myself thinking about the third act of the book, the journey it describes, and it all fell into place. When Patty was through with me, I cuddled on the pillows with Ennui, still rushing, subspacey, and a little teary. ...(5-Methoxy-N, N-Dimethyl: (5-MeO-DMT))... I'd told Patty earlier that i wasn't comfortable with full noodlety, but topless was okay, even though I'm horribly sensitive about my stomach. I'm not a fan of my legs and thighs, either. Ennui knows well what my body looks like, but even know I still often try to hide my body from her, at least when the lights are on. I told her as much now as I lay curled up with my head in her lap, the tears starting to feel a little more insistent. She laughed, not unkindly, and assured me that she's very fond of my body, and I don't doubt that she is. I was reminded of when I was on Ecstasy with her at the Pattern Party. Well, good. That's the point of this sort of thing. And I really wasn't caring who was around or how much they were seeing however much of my body. All I knew was right now I felt safe and vulnerable in equal measures, and I was shivering, and I had to tell her where I was. Feeling a tear streaming down my cheek, I said: i've been afraid to tell you...i mean, it's the truth and i mean it, but i've been terrified to tell you how much i love you. but i do, a lot. She hugged me hard and said: oh, sherilyn, i love you too, sounding as genuine as I've ever heard anyone sound about anything. ...(2,5-Dimethoxy-4-Ethyl-Amphetamine: (DOET/Hecate))... Certainly all the signs had been there, down to the roses she gave me earlier in the evening. So many things which indicated how much she cared. And I also realized that I may never say "I love you" again, that I have such a severe distrust of that phrase now, of how it's been used as both a blunt object and as a yardstick. Though I would continue to feel it, I wouldn't be saying it to Ennui a lot. If she said it first, absolutely, yes, but that the next time I said it may well be to someone I haven't met yet, that next epoch which would surely be starting before 2008 was out. Now beginning to babble, I told her that I'd had a breakthrough on a book, that certain thematic elements had presented themselves, or at least clarified themselves, but I didn't feel right talking about it here. She asked me the next morning as I was driving her back to her place, so I explained that the first act is about Vash and I coming together then starting to fracture, the second act is about getting involved with Jezebel in an unsuccessful attempt to make up for what felt like the loss of Vash's love (exchange), and third act, still existing mostly in note form, is about the lengths I went to connect with her once more, culminating with the Dog and Pony Show (descent). Quite coincidentally, R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" came on the stereo at this point, which summed it up nicely: the lengths that i will go to, the distance in your eyes. Presently, a considerably more noxious song started playing at the Citadel: "Closing Time" by Semisonic. It was repeated several times, their not-so-subtle way of announcing that it was, in fact, closing time. I was a little surprised that it was only one in the morning, but realized it was because I'd been so inured by the Power Exchange, which is often just getting rolling at this point. If I had to choose I'd go with the Leonard Cohen song of the same name, but I guess the point was to get people to want to leave, and the Semisonic one sure did the job for us.
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Okay, ew. I just got stalked between Taqueria Cancun and The Dark Room. I was in the former waiting for my Urban Food Log when a derelict came in and said something to the clerk. I didn't hear what he said, but he took a long look at me on his way out. Then he turned around, came back to me and told me he liked my hair. I thanked him, because my mother raised me right. He left, and as I left a moment later with my bag of carne asada goodness, I noticed him nearby. And he noticed me. I crossed to The Dark Room, took longer than I would have like to find my keys, and noticed him approaching in my peripheral vision. When I managed to step inside and turn around, he was near the curb, staring at me. Like I said: okay, ew. He left almost immediately, but still. Gross. I'm at The Dark Room for lack of anywhere better to go. My table at The Sea Biscuit was occupied, as was just about everywhere else I tried, so here I am.
8:56pm ...and not being quite as productive as I'd hoped, since I spent the last hour or two talking to Jim. Well, heck. It's his place, so it seems only right. Catching up on my work is likely to be my excuse for not going to the gym tonight. Last night's excuse was hanging out with Ennui and her girlfriend Jessie. Due to vehicular issues (not Phoebe, who was fine and unmolested in spite of being parked in the scary place), the writing clambake was held at Jessie's place. She lives in an in-law apartment in a ritzy part of town, one of those neighborhoods where I always feel out of place, and can't help but wonder what one has to do for a living to afford a home like that. Can there be that many doctors in this town? Before heading over, Ennui and I went to a market by her place to get clams. For the baking, you understand. We ate clams and salad, drank beer, then actually got some work done. Among other things Jessie and I went over the copy of the manuscript I'd given her a few months back, which she marked up quite a bit, finding several zillion typos and grammatical errors and such. Afterward, I drove Ennui back to her place, then returned to the Black Light District. My landlord had emailed me the latest water bill, and I was equally amused and frustrated to see that the Bad People neglected to pay their share of the bill last time. It also shows that I promptly paid my portion, because my mother raised me right. He also asked me "How is everything?", so I replied: Well, since you asked--there is really no way that I've consumed 20% of the water. I'll pay it tomorrow (unless you tell me otherwise), but even though I'm one person and They're four people, it's waaaaay out of balance. Bear in mind that I'm usually only home between 10pm-8am, on average, and I've started going to a gym at night so I'm often not home until well around midnight. I shower once, in the morning, and often there's no hot water left because They've already been marathon-showering. (As I write this now at a quarter to midnight, they're using the shower.) And I use the washing machine every other week, tops. Speaking of which--please ask Them not to leave their clothes in the machines overnight. I really need to do my laundry, and for the past several nights when I've come home the machines have been full. It's extremely inconsiderate of Them. Whether They like it or not, I live here too. I'm expecting that the machines will be full when I finally get home tonight, too. I'm gonna be stinky this week. Unless, when I get home, the washing machine is available. Which I highly doubt. But I'm at The Dark Room writing now, so all is well.
10:16pm Heaven help me, I'm actually considering going back to Pirate Cat Radio. I miss my old show, Rush Hour on the Event Horizon.
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