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Tuesday, 10 October 2000 (nostrum) 8:52am As I was popping one of the super-potent Vitamin C pills from Trader Joe's this morning (Linus Pauling may have been nuts, but he may have also had a point), I was suddenly struck by the incredibly tart taste. At first I wondered if I'd just gotten a bad one, then I realized they probably always taste that way and I hadn't wanted to notice. If that isn't a metaphor for life, I don't know what is. My brother and I spoke on the phone yesterday, and he commented that my voice is getting higher. I took it as a compliment; a higher voice is not a necessarily more feminine voice, but I wouldn't expect him to make that distinction, and he's not the first person to comment along those lines. So I guess that's good. Twice yesterday I got a doubletake when going into the men's room. I make a point of using the one in the lobby, since it gets less traffic and gives me an excuse to take the stairs, resulting in "exercise." Anyway, first a person walking behind me called out that I was going into the wrong one (I just kept walking, didn't even look back), and later on someone entering as I was exiting appeared startled and when they saw me, and their eyes shot to the sign. I guess that's encouraging.
The leggings which Rae made for me were quite nice, but the velour she used proved unable to handle
the pressure of my ass on a daily basis; after a month, holes began to appear in the fabric.
She's now making me a pair out of stretch velvet, which is what the ones I originally bought from
Belladonna Arcana were made of. I have to admit, I kinda like the thought of my clothes being
made custom. Beats buying muu-muus off the rack, anyway.
On the plus side, it's the first time I've crossed his path in at least a week. Just to be safe, though, I'm playing Coil's Black Light District. To ward off evil spirits, you understand.
Unlike myself, Pike seems to possess the ability to move about the building without wearing sunglasses (if they can't see my eyes i'm invisible), and as such
was able to observe that TFQ's shirt in fact says
"fcuk fashion." It's the clever logo of a clever clothing company cleverly called French Connection UK. Get it? It's shocking because it's true! (Or something.) I'm reminded of when Van Halen's For Unlawful Carnage
Knowledge came out: "That's what 'fuck' stands for, dude!" And yet, with this level of wit in the world, Howard Stern's ratings are going down.
Maybe there is a god.
did she make you cry? sometime after midnight Why is midnight referred to as "the witching hour?" I've never understood that. When did "witch" become a verb? I should probably go home. I'm not done, but I'm a lot closer than this morning. Besides, my brain is getting mushier, and I'm a bad enough driver under the best of circumstances. And I have to be up at the same time no matter when I go home. Although I'm not particularly tired, I'm not going to Roderick's. Duh. Of course. Like that needs to be said. Gee, I've been there maybe twice in the last year; my average is in no immediate danger of changing. Still, it would be a swell way to test my theory that if I just stay away from home, I'm much more likely to go out. Which, I realize, sounds like the corollary to "Wherever you go, there you are." Yep, I'm deep. Give a monkey a brain and she'll swear she's the center of the universe. Next Tuesday I have every intention of going to Roderick's (just like I'd intended to go to Shrine, or the gym), since Zaleska will be there on tour with Attrition and I've love to see her. I suppose I could rationalize that if I'm planning on staying out late next Tuesday to dance and see friends, then I can darn well stay here late (well, later) tonight to get work done, especially something which absolutely must be done by Thursday. But I'm too good at talking myself out of doing the right thing. At least tonight I'll get to test my other theory, that my problem getting up in the morning lately is from sleeping too much; if I only sleep for three or four hours, I'll have an easier time getting out of bed. I have a sneaking supsicion as to how this experiment's going to turn out, though, and it isn't going to be with a renewed appreciation for nightlife. (Random memory from last year: dancing at Roderick's one night, Imani finding me and leading off the dance floor to one of booths above the bar to join in an impromptu party for someone's birthday. I could never remember the guy's name, though he was as much of a regular at the clubs as I was at the time. A joint was passed around, and I smoked a little in spite of the fact that I was driving. I didn't care. I think I may have met Fernando that night, I'm not sure. Either way, though, it was very, very nice.)
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Monday, 9 October 2000 (pancho & lefty) 9:12am So, we did in fact see Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box. Especially after Maddy bravely made it through horsepills-in-wheatgrass of 8½, some mind-candy fluff was very much in order. Okay. Yeah. They're gay. Fine. Whatever. I found the blatant boy-body worship amusing, really. As one of my favorite reviews of the film says, "With the prominent shots of strapping young lads playing Siegfried and Roy as boys and teens, this has more appeal to the NAMBLA market than any movie since Spielberg's Hook." Pretty well sums it up. I can't help but compare it to the Liberace Museum, though. In both cases, it's the lasting testament of a Las Vegas stage act. Like any live act, once they stop performing, it's all over, except for whatever they leave behind to mark it. Liberace had countless records and teevee specials, but the museum is the real momument, and I think he knew it. S 'n R surely know it, too, and while I suppose it's possible there'll be a museum someday, this film is probably how they want to be remembered. It's a (harmless) propaganda piece which makes you wonder how Triumph of the Will or Olympia would have looked if Leni'd had this technology. What I find particularly interesting is, both Liberace and the Not So Ambiguously Gay Duo were dressing up a fairly simple act in the gaudiest clothes imaginable. Liberace tickled the ivories; when Siegfield isn't tickling Roy's ivory, they perform elaborate versions of the disappearing coin trick. I could play the piano if I really set my mind to it, and I could also perform magic tricks. When the day is through, music has been played and the eye has been deceived, depending on which one you're doing. The thing is, S+R make Liberace look honest. Yeah, he played the piano well, but that wasn't what brought him his fame and fortune, and he didn't try to deny it. The mirror-ball Cadillac or Bicentennial Hot Pants (I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted to) didn't make him a better piano player and he didn't pretend otherwise. He was a showman, and goddamnit, he was putting on a show. And he did it well. The music was almost incidental. Chopin is Chopin no matter how many rhinestones you're wearing, which is why he tried to call so much attention to the rhinestones. And that's why I enjoyed the museum so much: it was spectacle for spectacle's sake, with ultimately no pretensions otherwise. The shiny things were shiny because shiny things are pretty, period. The shiny things were not shiny because shiny things result in better music. Meanwhile, all through the movie, I was waiting for the Riefenstahl Boys (especially after their arrival in Las Vegas, and I didn't believe a moment of their alleged "life story" up to that point) to mention that in the long run, they were showmen. Nope—what they were doing was magic. The fire and animals and kazillions of extras and all that? Magic. Um, sorry, no. That's putting on a rilly beeg shoo while making coins disappear. And there's nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong at all. Just don't try to prentend it's something else, something deeper. <!--sodomy joke goes here-->
By the way, the assorted felines were utterly adorable.
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Sunday, 8 October 2000 (expiration date) 9:42am Mmmmm. Nice beeg zit on my lip, for sure. I can imagine that when I'm finally done with zapping, it won't matter because I'll be covered with acne scarring. When did this happen? Oakland Coliseum is now known as "Network Associates Coliseum." At least there aren't any other major venues left to be renamed; I don't think I could handle "CNET Stadium." Now that I think about it, the rain might not be a good thing, considering that Maddy has a flight on Friday.
Current plans for today: Fellini's 8½ at The Red Vic—one of the greatest
films ever made about filmmaking, and one of the greatest films ever made, period—followed
by the Siegfried & Roy IMAX film. Somehow, I think Fellini would approve.
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Saturday, 7 October 2000 (you can sleep while i drive) 10:03am Happy birthday, Madeline. 3:11pm A tattoo artist at Anubis Warpus today honestly guessed Maddy's age to be 19—he was concerned about doing a certain tattoo (or, more accurately, a tattoo in a certain place) on someone as young as her. In spite of that, she still thinks she looks old. Some people just can't be consoled on their birthdays. (Potkettleblack? Perhaps.) In this case, I don't think that even a gorilla in a tutu would do the trick. 10:58pm We entered the weekend with every intention of going to Shrine tonight, especially since it's Maddy's birthday. But, we're not. Part of the problem, I think, is that it's too easy to get comfortable here, relaxed, tired...I think if we'd been elsewhere, it'd be different. Like, I'm going to find out if Anodyne can do my hair next Saturday. Maybe we can do it at her place late in the afternoon—she's between salons right now—then get ready and go to Shrine from there. I suspect my energy level and enthusiasm will be much higher that way. Or maybe I'm just getting lazy. That's a distinct possibility. At least it means I don't have to shave just yet. My face didn't heal up nearly as quickly as last time; there's still a lot of dead skin, and to add to the fun, I'm getting a pimple on my upper lip. On the other hand, no dark hair has grown there yet, but I know better than to get my hopes up in that respect. Which has never stopped me before. I mentioned it's Fleet Week, right? Including prostitutes working overtime, it also means A) very loud noise as the Blue Angels zoom by, and B) lots of sailors downtown. I can't believe that the Navy still uses that dorky white uniform with the little hat and black cravat. I'm sorry, but jeez, hasn't anyone noticed how incredibly gay it looks? Was the Village People song not a big enough hint? Speaking of flamers, Maddy wants to go see Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box, a 3D IMAX film showing at the Evil Sony Metreon. She dared the Liberace Museum with me, so I'm more than happy to oblige her. It's supposed to rain next week. This is a good thing.
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Friday, 6 October 2000 (...wormwood, wormwood...) 9:07am See? License and membership card, right here on my desk, sitting here for however long it's been. Good thing I haven't tried to drive anywhere in the last couple days.
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Thursday, 5 October 2000 (duckstab) 11:52am Note to self: after having walked ten minutes for a meeting in a different building, don't sit on the table while waiting for the others to arrive. The sweat mark remaining when you stand up is terribly embarrassing. 2:06pm It's Fleet Week. A good time to be a sex worker. 5:05pm I don't like this month's picture. I don't like any of the others taken recently, either. (They're in stark contrast to pictures of Madeline taken the same day. Despite her protestations to the contrary, she's holding up much, much better than I am. Yeah, I know, smiling makes all the difference in the world, but it's more than that.) This is something that won't change unless action is taken. Tonight, for the zillionth time, I intend to take that action... 9:42pm ...and I derail once more. Left my friggin' driver's license at work, and along with my license, my membership card. So no gym outing tonight. But I was going to. Honest. Maddy can confirm. I didn't eat much tonight, at least. Haven't eaten much the last few days, really. My appetite seems to have gone down, perhaps by force of will or perhaps by dumb luck. I don't know. Maybe I won't be quite as bloated and distended by the end of the month.
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Wednesday, 4 October 2000 (how to disappear completely) 4:29pm Got it all back-asswards, I did. Instead of waking up early, I overslept. Right idea, wrong polarity. Got to work late only to find the sky falling. I didn't get any static for my lateness, though, which is nice. That sort of thing can spoil a person. 5:34pm On the way to work this morning I saw a license plate which made me shiver: 49RSCOM. Maybe they worked on the site, I don't know, though you won't see me in a vehicle bearing NIKECOM or CNETCOM unless my hearse is coincidentally given that license. If it's a fan, I suspect it's the kind of moron (a moronic football fan? is that redundant?) who would then tell me to get a life because I'm excited about the premiere of Star Trek: Voyager tonight. My father emailed me last night. Turns out a credit union I belonged to in Fresno is going to close my account due to inactivity, and my money'll be given to the state or something if I don't get in touch with them pronto. I sincerely doubt there's more than ten dollars at stake, but it's nice of both them and my father to let me know. The last line of his message read:
Can't fault him for trying. I should follow his example.
Thankfully, she was able to go to sleep. She was scared by how powerful it was, and understandably so, since it was far beyond anything she'd experienced before. And it was making her sick, also an understandable reaction. After giving honor to the porcelain throne, she returned to the bedroom and slept. I was glad, because as I heard her steady breathing I began to realize just how stoned I was. Really, really, really. My mind was in utter chaos, I was seeing trails, and the paranoia was setting in. I knew that none of what I was thinking or feeling was real. I had a very powerful drug in the system (or, more specifically, a very large quantity of an otherwise manageable substance), and it would pass. Everything was going to be okay. I simply had to keep it together. I wanted to sleep, but it was impossible. I'd never felt less like sleeping in my life. No small irony there, since I've smoked grass on more than one occasion in order to go to sleep. Besides, it wasn't even 8pm. Hooray for small miracles, since the more time I had to ride it out and sleep it off, the better. And the simple fact was, I had to go to work the next morning. Period. Even if I was up all night tripping my brains out, which certainly seemed a likelihood. Hell, not only did I have to go to work the next day, I was getting zapped afterwards. The next 36 hours were going to be very long, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. what if i never come down? There's always that bit of panic when a drug experience is less than pleasant. Again, no matter how much you understand intellectually what's happening, that fear can still crop up. When I was able to talk that one back down (you are merely a paranoid figment of my imagination. tomorrow you'll be out of my system. fuck you), but it was always quickly replaced by another, deeper, more darker and idiosyncratic fear: you'll never make it, you know. you'll never fool anyone. you'll never pass, you'll never be taken seriously. how could you possibly expect otherwise? have you looked at yourself lately? do you realize what others see, how foolish you appear? give up. you haven't got a chance. even if you weren't too arrogant to pray, you wouldn't have one of those, either. Those were a bit harder to make go away. I tried to follow her lead, to force as much of it out of my body as I could. After all, isn't that what vomiting is for? I stumbled into the bathroom, thoughtfully put a towel down in front of the toilet so I wouldn't be kneeling in cat sand (although I put down the towel she normally uses after showering, so the overall thoughtfulness of the action is questionable), and leaned in. Closed my eyes. Opened my mouth wide. Nothing. I was queasy, but nothing would budge. The space inside my eyelids started to flash and pulsate, as though trynig to distract me. No. I opened my eyes, reminded myself of where I was and what I was doing. "This is not going to be a bad trip," I told myself. "This is not going to be a bad trip. This is not going to be a bad trip." I leaned in again, closed my eyes, tried to ignore the flashes and patterns of the fireworks inside my head, and stuck my finger down the gullet. Closer, closer. It's tough, y'know. The gag reflex is well-guarded for a reason, and despite my tendency to romanticize the more drastic causes of weight loss (i.e., my not-so-secret love of heroin chic), I've never been a serious candidate for bulimia. The last time I tried to induce vomiting it failed, and in Vegas last month when I thought for sure I'd hurl on the sidewalk, ultimately nothing happened. (Proceeding to eat a big greasy meal and go on the equivalent of two roller coasters didn't even shake anything loose.) This time, though, I knew I had to. My gag reflex was stirring, but nothing was coming up. I could feel every single muscle, my throat opening up, readying itself for the outpouring of what I imagined would be mostly brownish puke. My body felt like it was inverting itself into the opening at the back of my mouth, as though my insides would be sucked through it like a black hole—although I was envisioning it being more like the entrance to Space Mountain, with ripples running through my body like tremors, everything working towards the single goal of evacuating the substance which I should have been more careful than to allow in to begin with. My brain was happily providing the internal visual pyrotechnics in anticipation of the very biological show about to happen. Except it didn't. I slumped down next to the toilet, resigning myself to the fact that I was stuck with it for as long as it wanted to be with me. "This," I reminded myself, "is not gonig to be a bad trip." I got up and walked into the living room. The new xmas lights we'd put up cast it in a greenish-blue glow which I hadn't yet become accustomed to. I looked around, took everything in, acknowledged my surroundings. This is my home. I'm as safe here as I've ever been anywhere. Certainly I've lived here longer than I've lived anywhere else in the last seventeen years. I've survived a lot, here; this, this is nothing. This, from an endurance point of view, is a cakewalk. I sat at the computer. Read some email, most of it making no sense. I glanced briefly at the usenet, and realized that it was beyond me at that moment. It took very little for my mind to wander—well, not so much wander as scamper off in a random direction like the insane, chattering little monkey it was. I went back into bedroom and laid down. She was still very much asleep. Eventually, I joined her.
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Tuesday, 3 October 2000 (callow) 7:18am Well, no. That's not entirely fair. The journey from Alameda last night was just a bit more nerve-wracking than usual, since I was operating under the foolish assumption that the shuttles which used to take me to the O line were still running. They weren't, and when I finally panicked and asked a 51 driver, she said the shuttles hadn't ran "in months." Months? Had it been that long since I'd gotten home under my own power? Maybe. I don't know. It's the chance you take when travelling after sundown in the East Bay, though, especially if your destination is in the west. I made it home safely, plopped right into bed, and tried to sleep the past two days off in four hours. Seemed to work, I think. Again I find myself wondering if the real problem with my sleeping habits lately is that I'm trying to sleep too much. It's always been easier for me to get up after three or four hours than six or seven. It depends on what I'm doing with myself, of course. The healthiest I've ever felt was when I was working at Autodesk; I got up very early, but was also working out for a couple hours each day. Everything snapped into place, too. A strong impetus for me getting up early was to beat the Golden Gate Bridge traffic, not to mention avoiding the rush on the bus, but getting there before the gym opened and beating that particular rush helped, too. Then I switched jobs and started listening to the false prophecy of oooooh, you work closer, you don't have to get up as early, wouldn't you rather just sleep? Not right away, certainly. At first I was trying to maintain one of the few good habits I've ever developed. But it didn't last. They hardly ever do. The human will is not a force for good. And so it begins, another round of that classic parlor game of "Garsh, mebbe I should start going to the gym in the morning." I wonder what would happen if I set my alarm clock not to 5:15—it seldom gets me up before 6 anymore anyway—but to 3:15. If I would hop right out of bed at the first buzz, grab my stuff (which I'd thoughtfully gotten together the night before) and head out to the L-Owl, just like the old days. Truth be known, one of the things that helped me to get out of bed so early back then was the knowledge that it was absolutely necessary if I wasnted to get in shape. I had a much firmer grasp of the mathematics then than I do now. Am I just waiting for the rollercoaster to peak? Or to hit rock bottom, depending on your choice of metaphor? Is the fact that the wedding is in less than a month not inspiration enough? At least Phil did a thorough job last night. I shouldn't panic and want to go back before the beeeg day. In all likelihood. The best day for it would be the Monday of the week before, and I he's already booked. So I should just put it out of my mind.
He really, really liked my new jacket. I knew he would.
there's something in the air
The classics, they never die.
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Monday, 2 October 2000 (broken things) 7:18am Yes, I know it's a new month. I'm working on it. Don't rush me. It was an extremely long night. 9:11am Sheesh.. Three, count 'em, three entries from Friday that I apparently never got around to posting. They're nothing special—indeed, they're evidence of my tendency towards filler lately—but I'm still terribly embarrassed for having forgotten.
Much better. I guess.
in those moments, the absolute most important thing is to be unafraid. open your eyes. look around. stay grounded. remember where you are, who you are, what you're doing. it keeps the fear away. a bad trip is a loss of control. 4:24pm Going to get zapped, for the last time before the wedding. Really. I'm very, very, very tired of this. Someday my body will be clean and healthy, inside and out. That day seems a long way off. sometime after midnight Two bad trips in as many nights.
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Sunday, 1 October 2000 (special spices, so to speak) 7:00pm There's an SUV convention going on outside. More accurately, there's a convention of SUV drivers going on upstairs. Seems the element my neighbor would want to associate with. He's a Dartmouth alum, after all. On the plus side, the Mill Valley Film Festival is running a series of commercials involving a man falling in love with a sheep. This is the sort of thing that makes me happy to live in the Bay Area.
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