No time, no time. Just a few quick words of warning:

Stay away from apple juice, ants, old makeup, confusing hats, other people's maple syrup, and rulers.

Happy Halloween.

sigh.

The sky is cloudy with clouds to-day. Old fashioned, water oriented clouds. Which generally seems to be regarded as being a good sign.

Yesterday I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with my sister. It's heartening when she enjoys watching a good movie enough to watch it all the way through. I still resent the the experience of having her stop halfway through Bram Stoker's Dracula because the movie was too scary.

To-day, I wrote a few pages of novel in my notebook with a blue pen. This is my first time experimenting with blue ink for my prose and hopefully something horrible won't come of it. Things seem okay so far, but you never know.

Before, I was alternating between red and black ink (this idea of alternating ink colours was one I got from Neil Gaiman's blog--the idea is to keep track of how much one has written in a day). But now that I've run out of red pens, I've decided to try blue out, as blue should be more easily legible, in any light. I'm mainly thinking of a time a very long time ago when Trisa and I were at The Living Room under a red light that suddenly turned mine into invisible ink. But aside from that extreme example, the red is still pretty weak, especially on the thin lines of my current notebook.

I guess I was vaguely attracted to the idea of writing in red more than blue for purely aesthetic reasons--like maybe I wanted to tell people I was writing in blood half the time. Trouble is, it really didn't look like blood. What I'm getting at here is that it was fucking weak.

I also picked up Trisa's birthday present yesterday, but who the hell knows when I'll see her.

It was nice to sleep on a bed again.

I think I'll finally watch Scanners to-day. It's more than a week overdue.

I started reading Caitlin R. Kiernan's Threshold and so far it's pretty good. The Palahniuk book I read a couple of days ago is mostly written in present tense and so's the Kiernan book. It's surprising how something so simple as having the events happen now rather than earlier can sort of charge a work of prose with an intimate electricity.

To-day, I think I'll drop by Grossmont College and see if I'm supposed to go to class. Then my sister and I are probably going to watch a movie . . .

Ugh. I'm just saying, and not for any particular reason.

I finished writing a grusome short story a few days ago . . . It was about spaghetti.

Get your own nudist t-shirt!

Driving on Fletcher Parkway, into the cancer yellow haze, I looked up and saw, in a half constructed tower on the corner, the dark shape of a rotted corpse, silhouetted against the diluted sunlight, hanging from a noose.

Wouldn't it be funny if Armeggeddon happened on Halloween? The thought's crossed my mind more than once over the past couple days.

I've been spending most of my time at my aunt and uncle's house in La Mesa, with my back against a piano, in the corner, reading. I read the enirety of Chuck Palaniuk's Choke on Sunday and Monday morning. It was really very good.

There was a scanner being left off the hook that beeped once every ten minutes. My cousin spent all day walking quickly from one end of the house to the other, answering phones, spreading and infecting her own special brand of disinformation. One of the my many aunts who was staying there was dressed and wearing her hair exactly like my mother. She and my mother haven't been on good terms for about a year.

I still haven't heard from my parents. I knew they'd be gone for the weekend, but it wasn't until after the fire had begun that my cousin had informed me that my parents and sister were at Disneyland. More disinformation? Maybe. They were in Anaheim, anyway. They didn't ask to speak to me. Why should I care?

I was concerned about Trisa all day yesterday, as her house was one that was mandatorily evacuated. When I finally reached her, she was going out to dinner with a guy who made her feel safe and good.

I just took a shower for the first time in several days, and I still smell ash. Doesn't really bother me though.

My dad, who's a fireman, wasn't able to join the fray, being caught in Anaheim. But from what I hear, my parents are back, so I suppose he's going at it with more than a thousand other good men and women.

There's been eleven deaths and more than five hundred destroyed homes. And I feel a little sick.

There's a fire around here and people're being asked to evacuate. This house hasn't been asked to evacuate, but I guess they'll probably ask soon. I just wanna go back to bed. But I guess I'd better start loading things into the car . . .

Life's been too interesting lately.

So far to-day, I've done this.

Yeah, go ahead and make fun of me.

Last night TCM had a number of good movies on and I watched three of them. Portrait of Jennie, The Haunting(1963), and Vampyr.

Portrait of Jennie was very sweet and had great dream-logic for it's supernatural stuff--the kind of logic that feels like it makes the right sense, even if it doesn't technically add up. The most tantilising kind of logic, really. And perfect for a romance movie.

The Haunting was damned good. I haven't read the Shirley Jackson book it's based on, but the movie's tight point of view from the character of Eleanor put me in the mind of We Have Always Lived in the Castle--a Shirley Jackson book I have read. The strength of both pieces is the narrative of a character who we know is going a sort of crazy and yet it's somehow the sort of crazy that pulls us right along. When Eleanor says fearfully of the noises outside the door, "It knows my name!" we know precisely what she means, and how she's afraid of it, even as we detect the madness in her voice. We recognise that madness in the same way we'd recognise madness in ourselves. It's that kind of intimacy.

Vampyr was very good, and obviously influencial. I see now where Francis Ford Coppella got the idea for the independant shadow he gave to Dracula in his film. My only complaint about Vampyr is that I found the music a little distracting for some reason. Otherwise, the movie has a great mood, and I actually aplaud the directors preference for not using professional actors.

I did end up staying in all day yesterday, and I suspect I shall do the same to-day . . .

. . . water . . . water . . . water . . .

. . . want . . . water . . . there's just . . . no . . . water . . . need . . . water . . . oh . . . oh, gods . . . Sets, no . . . gods, don't . . . don't . . . mustn't . . . drink the . . . tap . . . water . . . not the . . . tap water . . . mucus-like . . . tap water . . . no, Sets . . . stop . . . !

I'm listening to "Stairway to Heaven" and, blog, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I'm reminded of the time I saw a troupe of three musicians dressed as Pirates wandering through Parkway Plaza performing various songs, usually having to do with pirates. But they also played, upon request from a guy at a cell phone kiosk, a surprisingly very good rendition of "Stairway to Heaven."

Well, unless Trisa's up for watching Scanners or something to-night, I'm probably going to spend all day in this house. I suppose I'll get quite a lot done . . .

You know what? I wanna draw something to-day. So I think I shall . . .

Where to begin . . .

There's too much.

Suffice to say, Rasputina was a great show, but I got my car towed in the meantime, and I now owe Trisa around a hundred bucks. We wandered around, frightened that my car'd been stolen before we finally figured out that we'd parked in some silly private parking area that only welcomed giggling young men who ineffectiually kicked at each other (it's true, I saw them).

Paradoxically, I do feel a lot more comfortable driving around L.A. now. Or at least that part of town, which I believe is actually Hollywood. I knew we'd be better off if I didn't bring any directions. Yahoo! maps gave a frilly, over-complicated route when all we needed to do was take 5 to 10 to La Cienega to Santa Monica. And done. No tricky intersections, no nonsense. Well, except that there wasn't apparently any good parking.

Yesterday also marked the first occasion where I sent a short story to a magazine (Azimovs). I confidently expect a rejection, but at least I'm not afraid of the mailbox anymore.

I'm broke 'cause I gave all my money to Trisa who, poor thing, had to be at class at 7am--just two hours after we arrived back in San Diego. She had a big test thing and I wish her luck. And sleep.

"I doused a friendly venture with a hard-faced, three word gesture." -Morrissey

Aeryn: You are Aeryn Sun. Some might call you cold,
or even tight-assed, but it's okay, 'cause you
can take 'em! Cool, calm, and collected you
work well under pressure and aren't afraid to
take on the boys.


Who the FRELL are you? A Farscape Personality Quiz.
brought to you by Quizilla

Your ultimate Farscape sex toy is Chiana. Have a
frelling fantastic time!


Who's your ideal Farscape sex toy?
brought to you by Quizilla

So to-morrow Trisa and I go to L.A.

I must admit, I'm rather nervous, especially after reading this.

Looks like we'll be arriving at night again. All we need is a rainstorm and visibility shall be as bad as last year . . . Oh, I do wish we could arrange to arrive during daylight, but apparently that's out of the question. Driving in L.A. is, for me, in case I have yet to make this clear, kind of intimidating. And certainly nerve-wracking. And it just has to be at night, doesn't it?

sigh.

Well, blog, I hope we see each other again . . . To-morrow's not Sunday, after all.

Eh . . . To-day, I will get an oil change . . . for my car.

I'm surrounded by fascists. Go 'way fascists! I really think I am surrounded by them.

Reason takes a back seat to "feelings" these days. It's cloying and it gives me stomach ache.

Woke up with a bad stomach ache this morning. And a headache. I dreamt I was part of a team of teen vampire hunters. We were all drving about in old Buick--there was me, another guy who had shoulder length black hair and glasses, a chubby blonde guy with a buzz-cut, and a guy and his girlfriend. This guy had glasses and short, oily black hair, and his girlfriend had mousy brown hair and wore big sweaters.

We regularly drove to the graveyard to hunt vampires who were rapidly taking over the world. One night, we were over powered. The guy and his girlfriend were making out in the back seat so they never saw it coming. The other two guys vanished into the crowd of blood-suckers, and I was the last one fighting. I finally lost consciousness, and when I awoke, I was in a regular looking hospital. My friends were there and we were all okay. Only we were all vampires now, of course. As was everyone in the world. But it turned out that it didn't matter at all--everyone was exactly the same as a vampire, only we had pointy teeth.

. . . Just watched the last episode of Evangelion. Am I a sap for feeling terrifically better about reality for having watched it? Maybe. Maybe it helps to be reminded of very simple things now and then. It certainly seemed to help Shinji.

The last episodes of Evangelion are always better than I rememeber them. I almost don't wanna watch the Evangelion movie, afraid it'll spoil the vibe . . . maybe I'll wait on it awhile.

Hideaki Anno was right. How the last episode went was truly better than how a lot of people thought it should have ended. The series really was about being human, and not about big robots. Kudos to Anno.

On a side note, it becomes very apparent in the last episode that the voice of Rei, Megumi Hayashibara, is also the voice of Lina Inverse. And Girl-type Ranma. And . . . well, lots of people . . .

I feel like shit. Like Spangler said at the end of Ghostbusters, I feel like the bottom of a taxi cab.

But I shall press onward . . . I managed to get some laundry done last night, finally. And I drank copious amounts of Cherry Coke.

Talked to Cryptess on ICQ last night. Our first real time conversation since I left Seattle. She has sung in an opera thing.

Also last night, I spent a lot of time plotting the trip Trisa and I are taking to Los Angle-lease on Wednesday. It can't possibly go as bad as last time.
I have class to-day . . . But first I will have coffee.

"Now where am I?"-Ryoga Hibiki

Last night's episode of Justice League was surprisingly enjoyable. It really surpassed any previous episode. Even though there technically wasn't anything wildly original in the plot . . . It rather firmly held my attention. Perhaps because the animation is not only good but also, unlike it's counterpart X-Men: Evolution, it's very sensitive to how people actually move. Unlike most American animations, this one seems close to that typically exclusively Japanese knack of knowing what to animate and, when you don't have a massive budget, what not to animate.

X-Men: Evolution is a good example of this widespread folly as it is a show with good animation. The problem is that, the characters, when in conversation, or casually walking about, give one the sense--from the unnatural, overwrought gesticulations, and at times, outright bizarre walking frames (witness the Sirens episode and you'll starkly see what I mean)--that the people working on these animations have never actually witnessed a human being in motion.

And it's also true that the writing is a little better on Justice League. The premise of X-Men: Evolution, which attempts to pander to the Britney Spears-ish teen crowd, makes several miscalculations, most notably the absence of the Wolverine/Cyclops/Jean Grey love triangle.

So now I'm hungry . . .

It's definitely blue beach-ball time around here.

I bet you all know what I'm talking about and I bet you all have had the experience of bemusedly shaking your head, sighing with nigh frustrated affection, at the antics of those around you who bring home the blue beach ball that they naturally coinsider tyo be the best thing ever and always (I left my typos in because I liked them).

And what's not to like, really? It's round with a rubbery skin and filled with air. It's bouncible and playful.

Things can get scary though. I once heard of a woman drowning her own children rather than let them be tortured by blue-beach ball Death Collectors.

Of course, that was back in the forties, and to-day blue beach balls are generally deemed something like soma that's okay for kids. Kids even.

Sure, you get the popping accidents now and then. But it's kind of inhuman to deny anyone their basic right to blue beach balls, so whatta you gonna do?

. . . okay.

I'm gonna go for broke.

I'll just say it . . . I DON'T GET IT. WHAT IS SO FRELLING GREAT ABOUT THE BLUE BEACH BALL??!!

Oh! I almost forgot to mention . . . The Pumpkin Smash smoothies at Jamba Juice taste exactly like the vanilla milkshakes at Jack-In-the-Box.


"But answer there came none--And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one." -Tweedledee

Okay, so come 7am I did actually sleep, I think. Ha, eat that, gods. Or whoever you are.

Empty coke can still next to my mouse . . . I ended up watching more Star Trek and not being at all productive. It really is amazing how soothing it was to watch Star Trek. I never realised before what a tonic it is.

I'd made these Star Trek tapes a very long time ago . . . High School, childhood. I wonder if this is why Randolph Carter was so interested in pursing his childhood. Maybe if I keep watching my old Star Trek tapes . . . I'll slip out to where the Old Ones are?

I promised Tim I'd help him get a bookshelf to-day. I also need to buy shaving cream and deordant . . . I'm just so exciting, ain't I?

You may have noticed I added a bunch of links to this page. Go visit all of them repeatedly until you're reduced to a feverishly sweating, meaninglessly giggling little baby with bulging, senseless eyes.

I wanna get coffee . . . but first, I will do some crunches.


"Don't believe in yourself, don't deceive with belief, knowledge comes with death's release." -David Bowie

Halloa. I know this feeling. It's the feeling that says, "Hey, guess what? Yer not gonna get a wink of sleep to-night. And what's more, you probably won't be very productive."

What I need is a sedative (he says as he sips his coke).

As sedatives go, Star Trek is amazingly effective. But it's not enough.

Damn it, I swear to the gods that if I can't sleep I shall, damnit shall be productive.

Your soul is bound to the Fifth Totem, Homid:
The Monkey.

Homid appears as a viridian monkey. He embodies
intelligence, potential, understanding, and
skill. He is associated with the color
viridian, the season of spring, and the element
of fire. His downfall is pretentiousness.

You are most compatible with Owls and Tortoises.


Which Animal Spirit Totem Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yesterday I encountered a man praying before his meal at the mall food court, a woman calling her boyfriend a retard in cloying, false anger, and a young woman who yelled vaguely near me at no one in particular about lesbian-haters, lazy communists, and fucking tits.

I also, because I was writing a scene in my novel that I was very happy with, felt more at peace with myself, and stronger, than I have felt in many days.

But right now, I'm angry because apparently I've just narrowly missed Trisa. It's the kind of cursed miss that gets thoroughly under my skin . . . So fucking angry . . . Maybe I'll try calling her from the mall. Maybe somehow the gods will allow me to reach her from there.

Old gum is bad gum. Don't try it.

I found some old Bazooka Joe bubble gum in my coin basket, leftover from when Trisa and I went to a nice 50s restaurant a long time ago. I was gonna throw them away but . . . I had to see the Bazooka Joe comics. And once I'd opened them, naturally I had to chew them. It's something I regret.

Oh, but . . .

Iichiwawa!!

I've been flat broke for the past couple of days but now, thanks to my enormous store of pennies, dimes, and nickels, and my patient coin-rolling, I have thirty-four dollars!! Yes, it is all from loose change.

The biggest yield was the dimes, which alone gave me twenty dollars. I was only able to roll two dollars of pennies as I had only four penny roll sleaves, and four dollars of nickels, as nickels seem to be by far the most scarce coin. I wonder why?

Then I found lots and lotsa quarters, and a single coin dollar. I also found British money, Thai money, and Star Wars action figure collectable coins. Not to mention all the movie stubs I found (Divine Intervention, Russian Ark, Wild At Heart). And oh, yes, the gum . . .

Sometimes I wish I had been born an eye. Just an eye . . . A big, annonymous, sensor. I feel that disinclined to generate output. Well, most output. I did do some writing to-day . . .

I have class on Wednesday and I wish I didn't as I'm currently broke. I don't have money for any gas except what's already in the tank.

Hmm . . . Most of the things on my mind right now are things I don't wanna write about here . . .

Life would be better without plastic. I think.

I think I'll just read right now . . .

??

Yup. I want another coke. But it feels like a bad idea . . . Actually, what I really want is orange juice.

To-morrow I'd like to use for getting lots of things done. But I doubt I shall. I have two appointments (hehe) to-morrow. Well, social calls. But social calls are impoitant, very impoitant (that's how Chiana's brother Nerri says "important").

Okay . . . I'll have another coke. I meant to do so much to-night . . . but a single new page of Doll Merchant was all that I managed.

Can't . . . stop . . . drinking . . . cokes! Can't stop! Huah! I'm on my third can in the last three hours . . . Oh, that's bad.

Maybe I'm just trying to get the taste of the Pepsi Vanilla out of my mouth.

Weeks ago, Tim recomended that I try the Pepsi Vanilla, saying that it had a stronger vanilla taste than the Vanilla Coke. My attempts to purchase the Pepsi Vanilla were thwarted by machines lacking the item and by machines bearing erroneous labels.

But finally; a stroke of luck. I got one.

So intense had my expectations become by this point that I could do nothing but feverishly scream/think "eureka!" as that, indeed, indelibly vanilla-ie stuff dribbled down my gullet, impregnating my eye with madness.

To-day, bearing my bottle of Pepsi Vanilla proudly to the home of my mother, I, in an aloof and mischievious tone, asked of my sister, "Have you tried the Pepsi Vanilla, hmmm?"

"Yes," she said. "It tastes like medicine."

Lightning flashed through my synapses(sp?) and I gasped, very like Inu-Yasha, foiled by Naraku. "It is true!" gasped I. For verily did it taste of cough syrup, and mine eyes and throat and the odd eyes in my throat and those things which feel things in things all viciously did attest to mine brain squegee; YES! IT IS BAD! IT IS PEPSI BLUE ALL OVER AGAIN! BUT WITH BLACK MAGIC!

Just when I thought words could not be emphasised in any other way, things got underlined, and I sunk into the despair of Knowing . . .

Later, I had myself beaten senseless by Lizard Man. Or the Lizard Men, I should say, as there were at least five of the bastards. This was at Tim's house, inside a Game Cube and a television, and I made Tim uncomfortable, and he had to leave the room. It was team battle (this was Soul Calibur 2, by the way, in case you hadn't picked up on it) and I was using Charade, Talim, and Taki against Lizard Man after Lizard Man, and not passing that stage for, as the game clock noted 90 frelling minutes. I had used the randomiser option to choose my characters (one of the challenges I set for myself. That, and the fact that I refuse to play on any level other than extremely hard), but it was still what I considered to be a good crew. Not to mention a sexy crew, as Talim and Taki are young, scantily clad women (Charade is a sexless construct/golem. But I bet there're some people who go for that). But having my--their--pretty little asses kicked repeatedly, so very many, many . . . many times began to make me feel I was being subjected to a brutal cruelty towards women. Lizard Man can not afford the ticket back from Suffragette City. Er, does that make sense?

The point is, folks . . . I went farbots in that little battle cage. Yes I did.

So . . . I've decided that I shall get more work done without the air coditioner, and with less light.

AH! I found my copy of Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes! It was in one of my Farscape DVD cases. Of all places! I don't remember why I put it in there . . . If I hadn't decided to watch A Clockwork Nebari to-day, who knows how long it would have been before I found it?

Gods . . . I hear children's voices elsewhere in the house . . .

I'm behind on a lot of things. I've taken the last couple of days for "research into the the arts" *koff, koff*

In the shower this morning, I started thinking about the entirety of my novel . . .

I saw Lost in Translation with Trisa on Thrusday, and I'm still in afterglow, because it was a very good movie.

In fact, the next day it put me in the mood to do nothing but absorb. Lost in Translation was the kind of movie that makes me want to take the time to appreciate art.

To watched Farscape and Star Trek: The Next Generation, read a Sherlock Holmes story and a Peter Straub story called Mrs. God, which is phenominal (of course).

Those two stories, mind you, are both short stories (actually, I think Mrs. God is a novella)--I haven't started reading a new novel since I finished Age of Innocence a few days ago. And I'm a little frustrated.

I could not begin to give you an idea of the massive quantity of unread books I have that I desperately want to read. And some of those, I'm even under a sort of obligation to read as soon as possible.

I think I've decided on Huxley's Brave New World as it was giving to me around two years ago by my cousin who I but rarely see . . . except for the fact that, starting a few days ago, he now lives in the same house as me. So I must read this book.

And after it, I suspect, I shall read the other book he gave me, and then Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk, which Trisa gave me not long ago with an air of "sponaneously read this now for fun!" I'm afraid I had to schedule that spontinaity for a later date . . .

I also need (and desperately want) to read several Peter Straub and Stephen King novels that Marty loaned to be nearly a year ago. He's been such a good sport about letting me borrow books . . . I really need to impress upon him how very slow a reader I am.

And in the meantime, I shall occasionally gaze sadly at my untouched stacks of Ursula K Leguin, William Gibson, Leo Tokstoy, Charles Dickens, Caitlin R Kiernan, Poppy Z Brite, and who knows what all . . .

You are Mitsurugi -

Both mysterious and attractive, you captivate people with the fact that you seem to be
good at everything! Spending quiet moments with a friend and talking about what life means to you is your ideal situation. You don't like to stand out very much and you seem to be more old-fashioned
than modern, but when you do take the spotlight -- you command the floor!


Which Soul Calibur character are you?


this quiz was made by david park

Bad Words


Saying things off
Truth in our seperate seats
Filled with everything
Sharing nothing

Shaded, dull, fake
Leaves of grey anonymous plants
Empty records reveal
The ordinance of silence

Pretty character of
A different story
Only canons speak
Between our galleys

Dry gunpowder and
Stupid sparks
Kill
Even as they pump blood

Every laugh is a recording
Every thought is a charity
Every moment is spent longing
For a return to sleep

We don't know what we saw
We can't wrap heart around it
Blinking we go
Invisible grocery shopping

The supermarket is a church
Alters are freezers
And in the morning sun
This is no place to be

"Jimmy rapped on and on about his suicide, how he'd kick it in the head when he was twenty five . . . Don't wanna stay alive when you're twenty five." -David Bowie

At twenty four, I basically do wanna stay alive, I guess. I got volume three of 1602 yesterday. It's shaping up to be a good little series.

To'day I'll thing some dos and what some whos.

I just got up to do something . . . and I sat back down again.

About an hour ago, I went to the supermarkert to buy something . . . and when I got there, I forgot what it was I meant to buy.

I was gonna buy something at the mall to-day . . . and then I inexplicably didn't.

I was gonna say something else here . . . but I forgot what it was.

I didn't mean to vote to-day. And I didn't. Hurrah for convictions. Y'know, Jack Kerouac never voted.

(of course, when I keep saying "to-day" what I really mean is Tuesday . . . I haven't gone to bed yet).

I ate dinner at my parents house where they've installed a new fountain in the backyard, so we were constantly treated to what sounded like a twelve foot tall man urinating. I have to go back there early to-morrow for doughnuts. Then, I have to go to school. I need to fill out the take-home "quiz" before class to-morrow . . . It's an infuriatingly simple exercise, and one which that frelling bastard has made us do in class and in groups THREE FUCKING TIMES now. Oh, yes, I had it the first time. But far be it from me to suggest that even the vaguest opportunity to force me to interact with humans should be passed up.

And now I do get to do one on my own. Oh, goody. I'm not sure if I can do it because if I do, I think I may just start to cry.

It's one of those things that you feel ought to make you feel like you're accomplishing something, as it's an important school assignment for the betterment of your grade. But when you look at it, you find that it's very lame, and you realise that upon finishing it, you going to feel very empty.

Gods, is that really what I'm whinning about here? No. Not just that. This little piece of emptiness just kind of carries with it feelings of all sorts of sensitivity of the emptiness. Things like, "Hey, I'm gonna vote for the governater!" or "No, brother, I don't want to watch Farscape, even though I'm sitting and watching nothing on the TV" or "Now, boys and girls, we have to feel all the feelings in the world, okay?"

I've been watching Neon Genesis Evangelion a lot lately, and Asuka's line; "Mina daikirai!" ("I hate everyone!") keeps resounding in my head.

I don't want to hate the people I love. I love the people I love. But lately I've been wanting to scream at most of them . . .

My mother was watching Oprah to-day. I stood close by as Oprah interviewed a woman who'd been in solitary confinement.

I could do with being in solitary confinement. How nice if the whole world was contained within four, very close walls . . .

I was surprisingly sociable yesterday. I gave out my URL to two people (If you're one, or somehow both, of these people, welcome). Hopefully I won't all together fall off my anti-human wagon.

Yesterday I also had a brief and depressing visit with Trisa. And I had two brief, but depressing classes.

Time for me to go. I suppose I oughta go vote. But since when have I been a legal citizen of this planet?

Currently wearing headphones with no sound coming out of them . . . yes, let's have some music . . .

Ah. The Rasputina cover of Velvet Underground's "All To-morrow's Parties". Good, good.

It's hot in this room.

I need to go to sleep.

I don't want to sleep at all. I wanna wake up and have Monday happen already. I'll be honest with you, I'm disappointed with myself. I'm completely unprepared for class to-morrow and that bastard'll put us in groups.

Ugh. I feel frantic and lethargic, exhausted and impatient, consumed and empty, and all that usually unusual rot.

I told Trisa a few weeks ago that I was going to cultivate my uselessness. I'm making headway, but I need to go further. Or so the Lovecraft Tarot tells me.

There's a big crack in my windshield. I think it just might be getting steadily larger. Tim told me it could just break on me while I'm on the freeway. I thought this was just more of Tim's paranoid claptrap. That guy slept with a black widow spider last night--he told me he's gonna do something about it to-night.

I'm gonna keep up steam until dawn. Let's list the things I oughta be doing. My horoscope said I should do that on Saturday, but I procrastinated. So here 'tis now.

I need to work on my novel.

I need to kind of rewrite everything I wrote for part 8. Or at least heavily edit it.

I need to read a lot of my text book.

I need to care, damnit. I need heart.

Plus I have another project I started on Friday . . .

And there's a short story I wrote half of a few weeks ago . . .

I have eight dollars. Hurrah! In your face "hurrah"! I can get coffee to-morrow morning.

You know what I want, though? A pretty concubine.

Well, I don't feel like doing a damn thing to-day. Not a damn thing.

Is there anything creepier than people? I mean, really, people are really, really creepy. People are seriously creeping me out to-day.

I do have a good cup of coffee next to me, though . . . Ugh. And you know, there are a lot of things I need to do? I just so don't wanna do 'em.

I stayed up late watching Seven Samurai last night. I'd never cried watching that film before, but I cried last night for some reason. It's a great movie. Blah. Blay blah.

I'm going to give my sister my old DVD player to-day. I have no place for it . . .

I need to pee.

I cannot get to the bathroom.

Should I go to the mall? Should I really go to the mall, just so's I can pee? Has my life really come to that?

If I go to the mall, I'm liable to spend a little money. I'm liable to get a coffee, at least. I have twelve dollars. I wanted to save some for the vague possibility that Trisa might have some free time this weekend, and she and I could go see Bubba Ho-Tep, Lost in Translation, or any other of the many movies that she and I have talked about going to see.

Oh, but I need to pee. What'll I do? What options do I really have? And no, I'm not going to wet myself. I don't care if I have a closet full of pants next to me . . . And by the way, I like pants. Just thought I'd say that while I was thinking it.

...

Got free lunch at a place called Mimi's today. Ate with several of my relatives, spent most of the time keeping my eyes dead and fixed on my coffee, similtanously to discourage conversation, and as a way of using the time to think.

I've been wondering about part 8 of my novel a lot lately. I may do some serious things to it . . . To-day, at Mimi's, I finally thought of something I'd been trying to get at in my brain regarding the overall thrust of part 8, which I rather need, as I am now entering part 8's last couple of chapters.

There's something strange about the deliberate way I've been placing configurations of words in this novel. It's sort of like a very, very long haiku. I'm wondering also if this format shall end up detracting from the novel, or being an enhancement.

Don't know.

I wanna pee.

My water smells like feet. Which is too bad because I'm very thirsty. I've been thirsty a lot lately.

My wild cherry pepsi, which I bought on accident last night as I attempted to buy the new vanilla pepsi, just to try it out, smells like laundry deturgent. It smelt that way last night, though, so I guess it's okay.

. . . It' weird, the sorts of things that can captivate me. Yesterday I went to the mall, and going to one of my usual parking spaces, I had to come to a stop because some morons had decided to rope off the road just around a very tight corner--I think so's they could paint it. There was barely room enough for me to do the old Scoot Forward A Little, Back Up A Little, Scoot Forward A Little manoevre until I'd somehow edged my way out. But when I finally did, and drove to another parking space, I left my car to immediately go to a spot inside the mall where I could watch other cars abruptly finding themselves in the same predicament. I was treated to seeing two cars going down the street at once, and saw the car in the rear had to back up first for the lead car before going into the same edging manoevres himself. Meanwhile, I could see the painter foreman, or whatever, frantically yelling at his people to remove the tape blocking the little road. Good fun, good fun.

Oh, and it was another hot day, of course.

First of all . . . I got me a copy of Shadows Over Baker Street!

I am irrationally happy about this.

I read the Neil Gaiman story, A Study in Emerald, last night. It was brilliantly creepy. And bless Gaiman for turning the tables just as I was starting to get a sick feeling near the end.

Then I read part of Elizabeth Bear's Tiger! Tiger!, which is all right so far, even though it doesn't actually have Sherlock Holmes in it . . . Although I would very like to skip to the Caitlin Kiernan story and the Poppy Z Brite/David Ferguson story, I have decided to strictly adhere to reading each and every story in order . . . not for any particular reason, except that, perhaps I don't wanna end up saving the best for first (which, I know, I might already have done by reading the Neil Gaiman story first, but then again I honestly find some of Kiernan's stuff to be much stronger than Gaiman's).

So for that, I'm down to only 36 dollars, but it was worth it. It was worth even having the sales clerk root around in the back room for it. It was worth it.

You know, there're just too many good things coming out lately for me to be keeping a responsible budget. Supposedly the new Elvis Costello album's coming out soon, although I don't know exactly when. And last week, I bought the new David Bowie album, Reality.

The review in Entertainment Weekly accused Reality of being the latest example of a very misguided ethic that Bowie's been employing in his music making lately, saying that the music is so studio slick, and overly tampered with by Bowie, that any good melody is lost under the sort of cacophony. The first time I listened to Reality, I might have agreed, but by the third listen, I was very much under the album's spell. There's a kind of wonderful, vicious insanity about it (underlined by the presence of Aladdin Sane pianist Mike Garson), especially evoked after I had sat down and read all the lyrics. I especially liked "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon" and "Bring Me the Disco King". The title track, "Reality," is kind of nightmare-ish and sort of makes me wish that Bowie would do an entire album of nightmares.

I also obtained a copy of Radiohead's Hail to the Thief from Marty as well as a copy of a Cranes album from Trisa. Both are very good, and still percolating between my ears.

...

Yesterday felt very frantic for no apparent reason. It just seemed like I had no time to sit still. I meant to do some writing, but it didn't happen. Well, unless you count the new page of Doll Merchant I did (just now realised I should've been italicising Doll Merchant all this time. At least, I think so . . .).