Cleaning out my car some more to-day. The task seems endless, yet I know I'm gonna need to finish before 9:30 to-morrow morning. I haven't even started on the trunk. Among other things, I know there's a VCR buried in there somewhere . . .

Some of the best things I found to-day: Neon Genesis Evangelion volume 11, Sandman volume X, and Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie.

Some things that had another effect on me: a green cigarette lighter, a broken Hello Kitty compact, and a tiger named Koohii.

Well, back at it . . .

What a day.

What a journey through the back of my car!

I found;

Tom Waits' Alice, Neil Gaiman's Sandman volume VI, the Marquis deSade's 120 Days of Sodom, and a sketchbook filled with drawings I'd forgotten about, many of which were actually illustrations for my novel. I think I may actually use some of them.

I also did a very strange page of Doll Merchant.

And now I'm very tired, so I shall sleep.

This promises to be a very busy week for me. I have to clean out my car for one thing, which I am most certainly dreading. But then again, who knows what that excavation might yield? I'll probably find shit I thought long perminantly lost.

What a beautiful episode of Farscape last night. I only wish I'd caught part 1 of the two parter, but who knows when the frell it aired, what with Sci-Fi channel screwing with us Scapers.

Now what shall I do first? I feel like just working on my novel . . .

"Even though my heart is aching
I should be drinking a toast
to absent friends
instead of these comedians."-Elvis Costello

This SHALL BE, unquestionably, my last Sunday at TJ Maxx. Hell yeah.

They already screwed me over, and tried to screw me over further--originally, I was told my last day would be the 11th. Now it's the twelfth. I noticed this on the schedule last week, and when I pointed this out to the manager, I asked, "So then is the twelfth my last day?"

"Well, you agreed to the fourteenth as your last day actually, since you quit on the first. But okay, the twelfth's your last."

This easy acquiescence seemed bizarre to me at first until I realised that this conversation--quoted above--was taking place on the first! Basically, it seems she had planned to keep me later and, knowing I have a bad mind for dates and such, use the excuse that my two weeks noticed began on the first. She was taken offguard by my bringing up the subject this early, so she automatically refered to her pre-planned view of reality, realising in mid-sentence that things had collapsed. So ha! In this battle of wits, I am the one who is victorious!

...

Walking through the mall as I often do, a smile and even, occassionally, a giggle comes over me when I notice Victoria's Secret's "Look, I'm topless but you can't see my tits!" ad campaign. The looks these women have on their faces is priceless. They seem to be saying, "This is the dead serious game of woman power, do not defy me, and I bet you can't see my nipple!"

While we're on the subject of ubermench (uberfrauline?) femininity in the media, I've realised that there are few things more glamourous for a woman than to appear in a Vagisil commercial. Seriously, those things crack me up. Something about the spanish guiatar in the soundtrack, the sensually billowing white dress hems of purity, whilst laughing, mature woman faces suggest to us that, er, difficulties in the genital area are adventures of the most profoundly romantic variety, and that they're all part of the sacred cycle of being mamma-little-girl.

People take themselves way too seriously around here, I swear.

Will Not See


Sterile swamp land
In the underground parking garage
Seen from the oil spot
Seen through binoculars

Drifting dense
Swelling sweep
Of feathers and dust
Through the air of fumes

Can see a flower here
Yellow, red, violet;
They’re all big around here

Nothing to see around here
But the waves
Of heat

Can’t see the sun
You were made for;
You’re misplaced

Misplaced and firmly
Stuck
In this place

Sterile swamp land
Where nothing grows, and grows fetid
Dripping ooze of white plastic

Twisting tails
Of lizards long dead;
All the animals are ghosts
And are not distracting

Can find all time
To think about
What you will not
See.

Will not see
That behind every pillar waits a man
Your men, and for you
They have knives

I think the most annoying thing is that I've got "All You Need is Love" stuck in my head, and the only words I know are the chorus.

And so things don't get better. They seemed to get worse.

I exiled myself to North County Fair yesterday. Where shall I go to-day?

Yesterday I bought Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and The Books of Magic. The Batman volume was extremely good. I stayed up reading it until the wee hours.

Now what'll I do to-day to distract me from my empty innards?

Well now.

I looks to my left . . . no one. I looks to my right . . . no one.

Okay. I think it's safe.

I don't mind telling you, now that we're a little more intimate, that I'm feeling heartbroken right now. Ain't I a stinker?

If you were (un)lucky enough to read my blog between 4am and 8am on Thursday, you would have seen a rather nasty post that I deleted when I woke up at 8 because it made me feel sick to look at it. I lashed out at people I know, and people I don't know. I was angry. When I awoke, I was ashamed and tired of listening to myself bitch.

The unfortunate thing is, I have reason to bitch. It's just that my malaise tends to be rather annoying for everyone.

I've failed someone, you see. I was not there for her. Boo hoo, right? Cry me a river . . . I'm thinking I would like to be one of the Berserks. Except it would be so passe, no?

I'm dying here. No I'm not. Yes I am. No I'm not. I can't decide.

Bottom line: Don't get mixed up with me folks. I'm stupid, and I cry a lot. If that's what you want, I suppose you're better off with that big guy from Goonies.

I wonder if things are reparable? I wonder if even a golden ticket for Willy Wonka's factory would help at this point.

On the positive side, I did get a lot of writing done on Thursday. Seems like that's the only thing that's full-proof . . . I go all crazy otherwise. Guess I really am a writer.

Speaking of, I did a new page of Doll Merchant.

Now I'm gonna try to sleep. As I mentioned, I only got four hours of sleep on Wednesday/Thursday. But somehow I think guilt is going to keep me awake. And just plain old sorrow.

"Well I get up in the morning and I'm looking in the mirror to see, ooo wee!
Then I'm lying in the darkness and I know I can't get to sleep, ooo wee!

Nobody loves you when you're old and grey
Nobody needs you when you're upside down
Everybody's hollerin' 'bout their own birthday
Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground " -John Lennon "Noboby Loves You (When You're Down and Out)"

You're the Cheshire Cat. Your mysterious aura and
your penchant for riddles keep your friends
guessing. You dislike staying too long in any
one place. Your advice is always sound, if
somewhat enigmatic. The sum total of this is
that people are always following you and you
just WANT TO GET AWAY!


Which famous feline are you?
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A while back, I got a nice surprise when Cryptess sent me a bunch of her drawings in the mail. This is one of them:



Just thought I'd share.

...

I haven't eaten yet to-day. Not sure what I want besides orange juice and coffee. I need to buy some bags . . . some kind of containers to use to move all the stuff that's in my car into the new car I'm probably/maybe going to get within the next couple of weeks.

When I woke up this morning one of the first things I realised was that I have simply made too many plans for to-day. They can't all possibly fit together. I'll just have to let them fight it out to see which ones get done.

I suppose I should get started . . . I do hope one of the things I do involves writing . . .

I need more time. I can't wait until I"m done with this job.

Not much to say right now. Been writing a bit, not as much as I'd like. I've been feeling restless . . .

Song of the Free Sector


Knits and weaves and baskets things contain
Interests and intervals and meadeans
And looking past, out, acrash and stuck to refrain
Gone down on a sideways cart eating vegetables

Bag radicals and jumping beans
Carry your slosh slosh dream dream
Caving out on no nothing scenes
Always full up with something

Cacholigious, maxidigious, luck
And mortor, walls constantly beside ye
Warm lip sun have to nod and fuck
Or walk quackly by and not know

Sum of this and this one song
Something about the air and yen
"I think I know" grumbles woman in sarong
Pretty gold sarong, green dingy

Worn by princess in the confusion
Nothing but light from the sewers
No reason to reach any kind of conclusion
And every one thinks they know

No matter what they say
Ignorance paid lip-service in the air Where lips
Are the order of all day
And all night, all night

The bricks are cold and the walls the plaster
Everything is all night
We see people painfully, sharp alabaster
Plants wound our eyes

We see mirrors banefully dropped
Across our lap for pennies
We see the sky in our minds popped
At last, old blackhead

We breathe vomit and we sing sweetly
To ourselves in our boxes
We talk shuddery, shattery, softly
To ourselves

Tell ourselves to slow down
When you squint you can only see the neon
You can feather the dark
Until it's soft enough to sleep on

Going just a little mad and feeling just a little unhealthy in a lot of ways to-day.

I think I should get out of the house before I go to TJ Maxx. I'm so glad I quit that place. Already I can see it's been putting some bad twists on my brain. And some bad uses on my time. If only my last day would come sooner.

I have Monday, Wednesday, and Friday off. One of the things I hated about that place is that I never got two days off in a row. My manager came into the breakroom yesterday to point out to me, proudly, that she'd given me the day off on "July the fourth".

I looked at her, blinking, confused, thinking maybe she was just thinking I'd appreciate finally getting a day other than Monday and Wednesday off. "Oh, okay," I said. Then a moment later I realised. "Oh! Fourth of July . . . well, er, thanks . . ."

She couldn't have given it to a less deserving bloke.

...

Last week at this time I was doing so much better. I was getting so much more done. I need to stop thinking about what I don't and can't have and I need to start losing myself in my art.

Well, I'm more or less back from the land of sickness. Feelin' pretty shitty and stuff though. Been mostly sleeping and stuf past couple of days. Haven't done any work until the new page of Doll Merchant I finished a few minutes ago.

Uck. I feel bitter. I think I'll write a poem too:

The tree wants
To kill everybody
But he can't 'cause he's
Stuck in the ground

Looking through the eye
Of a squirrel far off
Tree sees he
and all other trees are meat trees

Bleedin', quivering, meat things
Dancing naked veins
Want to get involved
With the floe and go of things

Tree sees the squirrels and
Beautiful girls are
Only skeletons
The forest all

Is pretty skeletons
And pathetic meats
Tree wants it all to die
And he can pull

His head off
Pull his head off so's he
Can hide it in the
dirt

So's he can finally
Start to
grow
Start to grow.

Well I sure feel like utter, complete, super duper, in black diapers, shit. I'm sick, you see.

Feel oddly cold and . . . oddly sleepy. Have all day. Got worse at work, where I QUIT to-night. Oh yes, I sure did, hehehehe.

I had to . . . through heavy rugs and inhale fabric and dust and I had to run round and round and now I've a full body headache and I don't want to MOVE. I had so many plans for Tuesday . . . I want a hot cocoa. I think I'd settle fot some hot milk but I'm too tired to move. And I'm HUNGRY and I don't know what to eat.

Blaaaaaaaaah. I wish I had R2-D2. I wish SOMEONE would bring me a cocoa.

Actually, maybe a pretty girl instead of R2 . . . I think I may sleep ALL DAY to-morrow. I'd like to . . . But I HAVE to eat, but eat WHAT? Hungry . . . feeling . . . bitter . . . hungry, cold . . . and I want a hot cocoa. No. Wait. The milk's sounding better, damnit I'm gonna try. There's big loaves of bread out there, maybe I can eat one of those.

I want some hot . . . good . . . beverage. ANd a showre. At least to-morrow's not Thursday . . . is it?

I have this strange feeling of defeat. As if some invisible battle angels were fighting on my behalf on Monday had been lost.

I hope I'm just imagining things.

Saw Hulk a few hours ago. Easily the best comic book movie I've ever seen. And for the record, when I saw it, I was wearing purple pants.

More when I wake up.

For some reason, the first thing I did yesterday was to read The Cardboard Box. This, and a phone conversation with Trisa, took up my whole morning before I had to go to that TJ fucking Maxx. At two. No one should have to get up that abismally early.

Haven't gotten any writing done since Saturday night . . . I did finally become a werewolf in Morrowind on Saturday, and I've probably been enjoying that too much.

It's true that my character's actually much weaker as a werewolf--the "bonues" with which the designers have endowed the werewolf form pale in comparison to the modifications I've done to my character (max regular human strength=100. Werewolf strength=150. My character(Grushinka)'s strength, with enchantments=300). But I found that I was fulfilling a lifelong dream--as a kid, I was obsessed with werewolves. And now I've finally experienced the joy of terrorising the townsfolk in the form of a man-like wolf thing during the night, while being hunted and scorned during the day. Oh yeah.

As I awakened to-day, I also identified two of my favourite things; bribes, and clones.

I had a dream that I was browsing at a huge, fashionable clothing store in L.A., only to be accousted by Demi Moore. Apparently she owned the store, and asked me, in the midst of delivering to me streams of jittery, cheerful words, if I would like a job. I said okay.

It was basically straightening clothes, putting them away, helping customers, etc. I had to give special attention to a lot of celebrities, but the only one I seem to remember clearly is Ian McKellen. I gushed to him how much I liked Lord of the Rings and X-Men, and I also told him I'd seen, and especially loved, his Macbeth.

He seemed delighted, and as I helped him out the door, I could tell he felt sorry that he couldn't bring me with him.

...

After TJ Maxx last night, I went to Starbucks and wrote for more than an hour and a half. I put my scribbles on a good, thick segment of papers. Combined with what I did on Thursday, I'm getting an awful lot of work done on part eight. I think I'll play some Morrowind to-day.

I bought a Talking Heads album yesterday. It's pretty good.

I got it at a Wherehouse which, I'd learned from Trisa's journal, was closing down, so everything was on sale. Had a weird moment where I got the distinct impression that the girl behind the counter was furious I was there, and hated my guts. Odd, considering she was a total stranger. It wasn't like she was mean to everyone, either--she was quite courteous to the people in line ahead of me. Must've been my aura. Or maybe she hates The Talking Heads.

Oh. The big news . . . I spent ridiculous amounts of time writing yesterday, working on Part 8. I was so happy about it . . . I think I'll do more to-day.

I also finished reading The Magician's Nephew. I know C.S. Lewis was Christian, and that his work featured a lot of Christian references, but you know, that doesn't bother me. In fact, I think Aslan exemplifies a better deity than Jehovah.

It's strange to read a Narnia book all these years after first reading them as a child. I realised that the sensibilities of the narration had a profound influence on my moral and ethical sensibilities as an adult. Which I felt good about . . .

But I'm still not a Christian, so this just goes to show, I think, that art is rather deeper than religion.

Last night's Farscape took me by surprise by being an homage of Guy Richie's Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. It was fun, even if it made me blush at times. It was certainly more fun than the Rashomon episode.

While eating dinner later in the evening, I listened to Ridley Scott's commentary for Alien. The guy really seems to enjoy doing these commentaries, but, although his genius is evident, he's strangely inarticulate.

He got me thinking about how very dated Alien does not look, which is really quite extraordinary for a science fiction film. I also thought about the fact that, for the most part, Alien is one of those rare movies that take place in an entirely different world, and nearly all of the special effects are utterly convincing. There's nothing that looks fake in it. You couldn't say that about any of the Star Wars movies--including the new ones.

I wanna go back to sleep but I can't because it's Thursday. I have to go.

This made me laugh heartily.

I spent entirely too much money yesterday. Among other things, I purchased my first Cocteau Twins album, Blue Bell Knoll. It's really good, and even better for having songs with titles like "The Itchy Glowbo Blow", "Spooning Good Singing Gum", and "Ella Megalast Burls Forever".

To-day so far I've done a new page of Doll Merchant, and now I have to go. Bye!

Started out the day by watching The Misfits. What an awesome movie. I really like it.

Gods, I wanna just grab Marilyn Monroe and kiss her. Okay, you can all giggle now.

The film's not only Marilyn Monroe's last completed film, but also Clark Gable's. Gable's performance was not nearly as interesting as Monroe's, seeming mostly like a one note, debonair old cowboy--actually, in many ways his performance reminded me a lot of John Huston's (Misfits director) performance in Chinatown. A charming, irascible old guy. Only in Chinatown, Huston's performance of course had a more sinister tone to it than Gable's in Misfits. Gable's strong moment in the movie, for me, was when he was drunk and shouting for his kids who obviously weren't there. I think maybe Huston directed Gable this way on purpose, as at the beginning of the movie, we see Gable as Monroe's character pretty much seems to--someone to be friends with, but not much more. It's in his drunken hollering that we first really see this guy's hurt and vulnerability.

But I wanna talk about Marilyn Monroe. She's so good. She really was capable of conveying a lot with her facial expressions--she was obviously much better at that than anyone else in the movie. And I daresay no one but Marilyn could have played that role, as it requires your eyes to be magnetised to her at all times, wondering at this strangely charismatic, radiant creature and her tragic sensitivity. "Why do your eyes look like you've just been born?" one character asks her at one point, and we the audience have been sort of wondering this all along, especially as this innocence in her eyes seems to co-exist with a darkness that comes with experiencing all kinds of emotions with no protection against them.

Brilliant casting in the movie. Everyone fit their roles like a glove. Even if they hadn't been movie stars, it would have been brilliant casting.

The movie’s story, written by Arthur Miller, was also a brilliant meditation on death and losing people and things we love, or trying, and perhaps failing to cope with their absence or emotional unavailability. Marilyn had a lot of lines I particularly liked, such as one she spoke softly, wonderingly, that was something like, “Maybe we should always just forget the promises people make to us.”

...

Yesterday, I received a rather large package from Cryptess. Among other things, it including some of the best artwork I've ever seen her produce. Really wonderful stuff, and I love that Cryptess girl.

I also went to North County Fair mall yesterday for the first time in a very, very long time. I was happy to see that the place had a comic book store again.

Other than that, yesterday, my first of two days off from work, involved me driving around listening to Aimee Mann, Jesus and Mary Chain, and David Bowie. To-morrow's my only other day off this week, and I intend to get some real stuff done. In fact, I intend to get some real stuff done now. So here I go!

Movement of the Motionless


You're on the record
And you can be heard
Sweet CD perfect sound
And silent

You always run
And you're very fast
But you never move

Drop the cloth, heavy
Remove protection
And sweet Marilyn Monroe
Skin,
Infinite goodness

But the clothes are stuck
From living in the bog
Of four winged
Insects
Indistinct number . . . of wings

Play backwards:
Always try to escape the inevitable
But
Always try to find the inevitable
And sleep in it

Start without trying
Your dream is nothing;
death
And death might be life
If you try for it

Ever slow
Ever fast
You can't take off your clothes
But you can change them.

Yesterday felt like endings and new beginnings. And stuff. Most importantly . . . stuff.

After "work" at TJ Maxx, where I casually informed the manager that I would like to quit, I went to Starbucks and finally continued the actual writing of part eight. Seems to be going well, even though I was working from only a partial outline. I just couldn't wait any longer.

And, folks, it felt good, yes it did, yes it did.

Yesterday also had me driving around listening to very loud music. I pulled out The Crow soundtrack and, later, Morrissey's Your Arsenal.

Now I have to go make the Father's Day rounds before going back to that miserable giant shitbox called TJ Maxx. Au revoir.

The Withered Lover


What sign of the Black Zodiac are you?
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First of all . . . on Wednesday I wrote an entire short story. I feel very good about it, although I'm not sure how I feel about the story. I read it aloud to Trisa, and she said she loved it. I suppose I should have faith in that. Reading it over again, it looks sort of like I was trying to do an HP Lovecraft meets Weird Science sort of thing. Even though I wasn't.

I wrote the story whilst hanging out at Trisa's Starbucks. I chose to do it instead of working on my novel because there're still a few details I want before proceeding with part eight--and I need to finish the outline.

That same day I did design some uniforms for part eight, so it was a very productive day.

Thursday was not nearly as productive because, ironically, I had to go to work. I did finish reading Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, which was good. The guy obviously loves Dostoevsky, which, if nothing else, is certainly a sign of good character in my book.

Now I'm reading CS Lewis's The Magician's Nephew, a far more profound and interesting work than Tropic of Cancer which, don't get me wrong, was good, but didn't come close to living up to the blurb on the back about it being the greatest novel of the century.

Henry Miller, I think, really ought to have had a go at writing straight philosophy books. That's what Tropic of Cancer really felt like it wanted to be, as its best moments are when, in poetic language, it goes off on a riff about the nature of existence and how a fellow ought to approach it. His soap operatic tales of he, his friends, and a variety of prostitutes, doing things and living places in Paris would be more interesting if he were actually a friend of mine writing to me about his experiences abroad.

As it is, the book reads like a collection of mildly interesting anecdotes interspersed almost totally anachronistically with grandiose speculations about reality.

Which Member of the Endless Are You?

Dream Dead


Almost quietly:
Under floorboards creaking, almost
Killing the grass
Almost the end.

A taste of the sky:
airy, empty
Makes you dry

Remember a glimpse

Remember seeing
Something that wasn't there
Translucency, water colours on wax
fading, melting, intangible
Beautiful

Image stretched already beyond
This thing was meant for no matter
No matter . . .
Hard, choke snot rock cry
Silent, or almost almost silent

Path is dry
Dry dead riverbed
of old

Stones, smoothly, tumble
And clatter resonance
for shredded pink feet

Nobody sun
Sees nothing
And all cameras are
Nowhere

Small, naked, missing
Portions of body mass
No clothing to fill
Cadaverous holes in
Stomach
Ribs

Frail absence, blue white translucent
Skin
Reality of cold like a shadow
In the light
Of no one

Dreams are reality and
Equally lost, spilt between
The rocks
Now is only cold
And light
And stone

Possibly tired but
Forget to sit
Or to sleep
So keep walking

Only
Keep
Walking

The best thing about Tuesday was Monday night.

Monday night put me in a good mood for all of Tuesday. Because on Monday night I hung out with Trisa. It was great seeing her again.

We saw Matrix Reloaded, which was actually not bad. And we ate and talked and it was nice. As others have recently observed, she's a very cool girl.

Oh . . . FUCK.

Awakened a short while ago by a bird screaming outside my window I realised that I had two songs from TJ Maxx stuck in my head. One of them being a Celin Dion.

And I feel terrible.

I wanna die.

I learned something about myself on Sunday:

I don't like cordoroy.

Not that I liked it before, it's just the first time I became conscious of my hatred for it. Because I touched it. I touched it, and it made my fingertips feel like they were gonna shrivel into useless little bags of flesh.

Sunday I also bought the new "Weird Al" Yankovic album and drove around listening to it, giggling. Unfortunately, I missed a page from Trisa, which sucked extremely as I really wanted to hang out with her.

Money!

You can buy anything with money
You can die without it
You can be boring and invisible
Without it.

With money you can eat.
With money you can live.

With money you can sleep
All right.

You need money to be seen
You need money for her
to love you.

Money is sweet and money
Is good for you.

Money sticks to your ribs
And money dances circles
And money has young hips
To kiss.

Money's fireworks and walking
Tiger toys
Marching on an elephant's back.

Elefocadompolis

--a creature that eats whole planets for
Breakfast lunch and dinner!

For breakfast, babe
You need money!

And for dinner too.

You need money to count
In rows on your car
--you need money for cars
And for socks too.

Money's the best!
She'll love you if you have money
And bees probably won't kill you!

Yay money!

Blech.

I've just eaten a bagel with eggs and chedder on it at Einstein Bagels--usually this item is pretty good, I've gotten it many times. But for some reason it's not sitting with me very well to-day.

I have to be at TJ Maxx at 2pm to-day. That's why I'm up so obscenely early.

So far to-day I've driven around listening to Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral and Tom Waits' Small Change.

I hadn't listened to the NIN album in full for a couple of years. A lot of the songs were shorter than I remembered.

And I will say that, even though I like the Johnny Cash version, the original NIN version of "Hurt" is still by far the best version. By far.

"You are someone else . . . I am still right here." -Trent Reznor

Dreamt, this morning, that David Lynch was shot and killed by a girl I know. Although exactly who this girl was--or if I even actually know her--I can't remember.

David Lynch's final work was a film version of Naked Lunch, remarkably similer to David Cronenburg's, only it had Rygel from Farscape in the role of BIll Lee. Which, even in my dream, I thought was excessively strange.

I guess Rygel's pressence is explained by the fact that I caught the 5am showing of Farscape before going to bed. It was one of the last episodes, and after having watched most of the first and second seasonm, as well as the first few episodes of the third, I can see that the show was truly in top form at the time of its demise.

I hope that show comes back.

...

Forgot to mention that several nights ago I was surprised to hear Tori Amos at the supermarket. A song called "Strange", and it was strange.

Also strange was that I was buying a case of eighteen beers for my uncle, and the cashier didn't card me. Guess I don't look as young as I thought I did . . .

Yesterday, being Thursday, had me forced out of the house for most of it. I spent the day driving around listening to Tori Amos, Kate Bush, and Morrissey. Didn't get much done, and I had to go to fucking TJ Maxx which I have to do again to-day. I wish they'd fire me. A lot.

To-day so far I've watched Throne of Blood (which was brilliant), and done a new page of Doll Merchant. Now I have to waste five fucking hours at TJ Maxx so ciao.

I got lucky at Wal-Mart yesterday when I went to get an oil change. Firstly, the oil change took only thirty minutes (instead of the two hours it usually takes when I get an oil change there). Secondly, while waiting around inside the store, I found, in the 6 dollar DVD bin, The Misfits, starring Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, directed by John Houston, screenplay by Arthur Miller. So talent in all major respects, and it adds up to a great movie. And shockingly cheap at 6 dollars, no?

That night, I was going to hang out with Trisa, but she ended up not wanting to. So I went with Tim instead to Parkway Plaza where he picked up Bloodmoon, the latest expansion pack for Morrowind, and friends, it was impressive. A whole huge new island with completely new enemies and armour and clothes and I dunno what all.

Worked more on part 8's outline, but not much. I felt kind of sluggish about writing yesterday actually.

Yesterday I also cancelled my pager service, so I guess it'll be hard for people to get ahold of me from now on . . .

Now how could you call this guy pretentious?

Honestly, I'm feeling a little sick that I even felt sorry for him in the first place.

Both Trisa and Cryptess have recently expressed interest in reading what I have of my novel so far, but after going through the first few chapters a bit, I've decided to wait until I've finished with the second draft of the entire thing. There're just too many major changes I want to make that I can't do now for two reasons; doing them now would distract me from finishing the first draft, and I'll probably want to make more changes--or perhaps fewer changes--when I'm looking at the thing from the end of draft 1.

I am making some good progress with part 8, and it's helped that I've been spending a lot of time at the Starbucks where Trisa works, waiting for her shift to end.

This also gave me opportunity to meet her new friend Anthony, who seems very amiable and manly. He apparently wants good Trisa for his ladyfriend, and I got to watch him give her a pretty little fresh flower at Starbucks one day. He seems like a sweet guy, and Trisa could do a lot worse. He did kind of set off my homophobic-phobia, but maybe I'm just paranoid.

Speaking of bigotry, Trisa's Starbucks, while being 90% a nice place to be, was nontheless the scene for my first time ever being the subject of anti-semitism. Which is a little odd given that I'm not Jewish. I'm told by one of these bigoted fellows that it's because I dress like a Jew.

In that case I must say that I'm happy to be associated with any group that has such a keen fashion sense.

Well. I've lost all my sympathy for Vincet Gallo.

At Denny's last night, Trisa drew this too flattering picture of me on the back of her placemat:



Later in the evening, I rattled on to her about Jeremy Brett for no apparent reason, and we watched The Smiths, Live in Germany circa 1984. Morrissey rules.

I also made good way with my novel, coming up at last with the beginnings of solid outline for part 8, which I'm suspecting shall be long and complicated. It was nice to get back at it, I felt like I was finding a part of myself that'd been missing for a while.

Not much time, so I'll leave you with the the lyrics for The Smiths' "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" which perfectly describes my feelings about working at TJ Maxx:

"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now"
lyrics by Morrissey

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But heaven knows I'm miserable now

I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now

In my life
Why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?

Two lovers entwined pass me by
And heaven knows I'm miserable now

I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now

In my life
Oh, why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?

What she asked of me at the end of the day
Caligula would have blushed

"You've been in the house too long" she said
And I (naturally) fled

In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye ?

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But heaven knows I'm miserable now

"You've been in the house too long" she said
And I (naturally) fled

In my life
Why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?

I found my copy of Tom Waits' Rain Dogs this morning, which made me incredibally happy. I thought I'd completely lost the thing! Now if I can only find Alice . . .

This morning, I also overheard a conversation between my grandmother and five-year-old cousin that made me cringe:

Apparently he'd tricked her into thinking he'd taken some of her pills she'd left out. When he revealed he'd only been kidding, she sternly told him that it wasn't something to joke about. If he'd taken the pills, he might've had to go to the hospital. He informed her that he was going to live forever and that nothing could kill him.

The part that made me cringe; "No one lives forever," she told him in a voice of phoney brevity, "Always remember that."

Something . . . something about her tone of voice, and the fact that the kid obviously wasn't listening to her (evidenced by the fact that he kept speaking while she was speaking, "I have the power of pokopooku! I'll live forever!"), gave me the impression that she was sort of seeing this like a movie she was starring in. I could almost hear in her mind the Richard Dryfuss voiceover; "And that day, although I didn't appreciate it then, my grandmother said something that I've always remembered . . . a little lesson about life and what it means to be alive . . . meanwhile all I could think about was meeting Joe-Joe and Slappy Bill at the swimming hole where we were gonna set up a tire swing . . ."

Made me wanna retch.

I wanted to start singing "No one lives forever! Let's have a party, there's a full moon in the sky, it's the hour of the wolf and I don't wanna die!" (that's an Oingo Boingo song).

...

I was also having a journey into nostalgia this morning as I was going through old files. I found that, incredibally, my old guestbook from my old website seems to still be working. That company apparently just has more file space than it knows what to do with.

I'm starting to think I have a connexion with Lauren Bacall:


You are Lauren Bacall. You started off as very shy
but with a little help, your roots come out.
You're an honest person and your values,
beliefs and convictions are very clear. You
love a good time, and you want security at
heart but you're ready for anything that comes
your way. You may also have an air of grace
about you, and more beauty than you'll ever
realize. But others will see it.


Which vintage movie star are you most like?(For girls)
brought to you by Quizilla


(got the quiz from Mel's Live Journal.)

I made an appearance in Marty's movie to-day, blindfolding people and leading them ominiously down a narrow hallway. It was fun.

This was shortly after having just woken up, too. I hadn't shaved for several days, and in spite of the heat I was wearing a black turtleneck with faded black pants, due to the fact that I'm behind on my laundry, so I wasn't looking my best. Hopefully that'll just come off as "sinister".

Hung out with Trisa yesterday, and I purchased a copy of The Others for only eight dollars. And that's for the two disk special edition set-thingy. I gotta stop making these good finds.

Marty lended me Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, which is apparently a version of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Needless to say, I'm tremendously excited about watching it.

I sure wish I didn't have to go to work at TJ Maxx this evening.

I still hate Thursdays.

Augh. Maybe they'll let me curl up on a bench and sleep at the mall . . . I suppose I should do something useful with the fact that I have to be up early to-day. Maybe I'll see a movie.

Wish I'd remembered to do my laundry yesterday.

Watched Mulholland Drive last night and had the DVD freeze up on me near the end. I looked at the bottom of the disk and saw it had a whole weird circle of scraches. It was a pretty cruel thing. Guess I'll need to buy another copy. Frell.

First word as I awoke this morning; frell.

Did I mention I want to go back to sleep?

Currently listening to Elvis Costello's "High Fidelity".

It turns out I can generate a lot of ideas by lying on my back, naked on the bathroom floor. Something about the cold tile, I think, discouraged my brain from lethargic meanderings and had me getting to the point on several issues. Most of these issues, I'm happy to say, having to do with my novel, and I believe I've finally gotten over some of the major stumbling blocks that'd prevented me from continuing with chapter sixty six. Which is well as I've decided a lot of my current unhappiness has come from lack of attention to my writing, causing my focus to wander to more confused, less healthy things.

I'm feeling a great deal better now, by the way. Thanks for the e-mail, Cryptess.

...

I should also note that on Tuesday I purchased Farewell My Concubine at Tower Records for just fifteen dollars. Between that, Miller's Crossing, and Artificial Intellegence, I've certainly been getting my share of great, great movies for peculiarly low prices. I hope this trend doesn't make me broke.

I guess this is one advantage to this fucking job. Money. But is it enough? Methinks . . . not.

But I don't wanna think about that place right now. I don't have to go back there until Thursday night, so I think I'll just try and forget it exists.

And concentrate on things that don't exist instead.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck. I really don't want to be in the mood I'm in. Gods . . .

I'm pretty fucking low. Pausing to wait for the tears to move so I can see the screen and all that jazz.

It's been quite awhile since I last felt this terrible. I think I dimly believed there was a chance I'd never feel like this again. So much for that.

I don't want to go into details. One of the reasons I moved this thing from LJ to blogger is because I wanted to start fresh on not hashing out the details of the things in my life that make me feel this kind of terrible, as publishing these details in LJ almost invariably seemed to make things much, much worse. This blog is supposed to be about my work--my real work, not the retail purgatory. Inspired a bit by Caitlín R Kiernan's blog, although she's strayed a bit into the realm of personal lately, so I suppose it's, in a way, only natural that mine would follow.

But I think I'll try to stay away from saying things that'll hurt others. I don't want to get my catharsis at the expense of people I love, particularly as, as a mode of catharsis, this is very fleeting, if effective at all.

I remember once when I was feeling this kind of low I wanted to sell or give away everything I own. I had some vague idea of starting with nothing, and there was something oddly blissful about the idea of losing all my things. I think I'm starting to feel that way now, especially as I got my car back to-day, which brought home to me the conception of having the smother weight of vulnerability strapped to oneself in the form of large amounts of beloved stuff--in this case, my many possessions that I keep in my car.

Let's see, I feel . . . Gods, the words "alone" and "inadequate" really don't convey it. I feel sick; although I'm very hungry, I feel almost afraid to eat. As if my pizza hotpocket is going to turn out to be nothing other than a steaming pile of shit as I cram it into my throat.

My thoughts drift again through estimates on how many people in this world lead or have led happy, fulfilling lives, and it's my suspicion that less than five percent of all the humans living in the past couple centuries were happy and fulfilled in life. Think of all the ones who died slaves. Think of all the women who couldn't pursue their dreams because of social stigmas. Or the children in Africa right now, wasting away and dying before they're ten.

People seem to regard suffering as a natural part of life. For example, often when I complain about a particularly obnoxious customer to someone who has never worked in retail, I'm told, "Well that's your job security. Without them, you wouldn't have a job."

How boorish! The idea that if people simply practiced common courtesy I would find myself out of a job for it. I refuse to say I owe any of the better things in life to gross, pig-headed stupidity. To insufferable people and things. I refuse to accept that life would be worse without bad things.

Anyway, yeah, I'm feeling paramecium. In the face of all my contemplations about kids dying horribly in Africa, I also find the time to feel like I'm being denied something huge and fundamental. Ain't I a lovely human being? So lovely that many a time at TJ Maxx I obsessed with imagining a gun blowing my face open.

Thing is, if I were away from even the possibilities . . .

I did a new page of Doll Merchant.

...

I felt really bad for Vincent Gallo this morning. I mean, think I'm shedding some tears for him, even though I've never seen any of his movies, I could kind of imagine something of what he must have felt, and I'm certain he didn't deserve that humiliation. I felt bad for Chloe Sevigny, who I have seen and who I rather like.

As I slept through Saturday morning--or tried to sleep, as Victoria the cat awakened me every fifteen or twenty minutes--I had a dream that frightened me.

It's been awhile since a dream's frightened me, and I think it was a result of my decidedly gloomy lines of thought of late, the abrupt changes in my life's routine for the decidedly worse, and the decidedly imaginative creatures created by the Jim Henson company for Farscape.

I dreamt that Trisa lived upstairs. I "awakened" one morning to her unceremoniously entering my room because she needed to use the computer. She eyed me coldly only for a brief moment to tell me that she didn't like my underwear. Then she sat down at the computer--the urgent matter that had required her attention was some nude pictures of herself that she had put on her web site. She commenced to simply staring at these while I gathered my clothes and made for the bathroom.

It was an awkward situation (for me anyway), and I think I was trying to reassure myself, convince myself that I must acclimate myself to such mornings. When I switched on the bathroom light, I saw in the mirror that a small, pale red-orange crab-like creature was on my glasses. Exactly like the half-moment of shock one might expect to feel in real life when abruptly noticing a dangerous looking spider on one's arm, I was stuck motionless before, in my terror, swatting quickly at the thing, knocking it off of my face before its pinchers could do any damage.

Going back into my room, wanting to tell Trisa about it, I was startled to see a giant worm like creature with a circular mouth rimmed with rows of razor sharp teeth lying on my bed--this thing startled me so much that I think I actually spoke (outside the dream), saying something like, "God damn!"

"What the frell is all this madness?" I asked Trisa (and yes, I clearly remember using the Farscape word "frell").

She told me distractedly that creatures were coming from a small gargoyle on a thin black rope that she'd given me as a present a while ago.

I then woke up.

“The sanest days are mad.” -Morrissey

I'm not half so angry as I was Friday morning. It's kind of melted away like heavy wax, and pooled at the bottom of my soul to make me feel sort of leaden.

I wanted to stay furious as I went into work. I'm still not sure what happened, by time kind of dulled me down in a special way and I got to thinking about . . . shitiness. And mermaids and scientists.

I watched former President Clinton talking to a classroom on C-Span after work. The most impressive thing he said was that Democrats and Republicans are generally more complicated than "Democrat" and "Republican" and that we'd be better off seeing them as complex individuals than as groups all sharing the same mindset. What a nice thought.

I got sad watching Clinton. He's still all charming and stuff. He had two terms as President, and really, he's gotten all he's ever could have wanted in his life, his life as an ambitious politician. What more could he want? And yet I wondered if he was really happy. Say what you want about him, but my theory is that he honestly cares about this country, whatever his faults. He claimed he did all he could do. But I think we can all agree that it wasn't enough. Some would say he did nothing. Others--rather few, though, even amongst his enemies--would say he's fucked things up. But he's now doomed to watch whatever shit hits the fan in the country and there's nothing he can do.

At work, I thought about my aunt who recently had her nose removed due to cancer. I thought about how, beyond the simple cosmetic issue, which is horrible enough, it probably makes one question one's mortality. Life was this, life was that, and now here I am without a nose. Is this the climax? Is this what we were leading up to? All that I hoped for, or that I hoped wouldn't happen, whatever desires . . . here reality is, and I'm literally falling apart. And it's hardly worth thinking about for most people.

She'd also lost her husband a few years ago. This newest development must seem like the latest chapter in a relentlessly morose book.

I can't think of anyone whose life would justify their death. Everyone I know needs to do more, needs to go further. That includes me.

I can't escape the feeling that there is never enough. Sometimes I think that death is a sign from the gods signifying that one has done enough, regardless of whether or not it seems that way. But what's the use of it if you don't feel it yourself? Perhaps life is principally about moulding one's own emotions and perceptions. You are fulfilled when you can make yourself believe you're fulfilled. Or go to a state where it doesn't matter to you what happens. Is there anything wrong with the life of a stone?

What is so wrong with nothing? Why do we all want something? Do we?

When I write I often taste something like a satisfaction with existence. When I write fiction (not this here. This is just moping), I feel something wonderful, and fuller than anything else I've ever experienced in my life.

So on the one hand I want to keep going after that, and one the other hand there's nothingness. It's only the thirst for the former that draws me away from the latter. And somewhere in between is the horrid realisation that I'll die without feeling like I've done enough.

...

I discovered a few hours ago that Trisa has written a very nice poem in her journal. I think it's a meant as a joyous rendering of spontaneous casual sex, but it really only made me feel kind of sad.

It also made me feel like I would like to do nothing but write and make art in all my freetime in the near future. I did a new page of Doll Merchant.

Currently listening to a piece from the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon soundtrack and it feels good.

I don't wanna go to work I don't wanna go to work I don't wanna go to work I don't wanna . . . dear gods I hope they fire me dear gods I hope they fire me dear gods I . . .

NO. No I shouldn't wish for that. No I shouldn't wish that they uncover some scandelous and devilishly deviant aspect of my personality or pants and make it so I can never ever work in retail in this country again.

Fuck that sounds too nice. I have to stop this. I need money, and it's easy work.

Moving myself around in that place, a lot of things are coming back to me about working in retail. Such as the extreme, inexplicable, and definitely disturbing hatred I feel for all of the customers. Such as the over the top fantasies of people's heads going explodo on the walls . . .

What's wrong with me? Am I spoiled? Or is it simpler? No. I think that regardless of my financial and/or social position, this bizarre hatred would still be there.

Usually I'm pretty serene in my acceptance of the fact that most people are obnoxious idiots. But this context makes me feel more than a little bitter about this state of affairs.

I know, I sound like an arrogant jerk. How I wish that really was the problem.

"I want to kill this killing wish." -Tori Amos

Gods, I hate Thursdays.

Before work last night I purchased The Chronicles of Narnia, and even though I'm not technically done reading Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, which is not a bad book, I think I'll probably read The Magician's Nephew to-day. Just because I've been so in the mood for fantasy literature lately. It'll be very much a comfort read.

Well. My clothes are on the bed, just waiting for me to get into them. I suppose I should go somewhere to eat . . .

"The movie sidesteps the happy ending Hollywood executives think lobotomized audiences need as an all-clear to leave the theater." -Roger Ebert from his review of Ghost World.

Well, well, well. Here's the naughty Mister Setsuled, skulking back to his blog. What have you been up to my boy? What have you been doing?

Monday was an eventful evening. Following a class session where a story I liked got voted down because people can be stubborn and angry at things casually fantastic, Trisa and I went for dinner at a very good place. Here, I ate a tastey breakfast burrito that I would never eat for breakfast while listening to Trisa talk about her new job at Starbucks and her new, very good friend Anthony, with whom she has formed a sort of bond that I find somehow mysterious. From the sound of things, he is one wild and crazy guy, and maybe it's because most people I've met who've been described that way tend to strike me as being tedious that I'm so confused and stuff. But I've come to realise several times over the past several days that I'm something of a snob.

Later in the evening, I had a very constructive conversation with Cryptess and Richard on IRC, and we were later joined by Mel. Three folks I've known for a long time, talking with 'em in the olde fashion. Ah, it was fun. I should do it again, if I have time.

At the moment, though, I'm broke. So I'm giving Tim my last four dollars to take me to pick up some mail . . . so . . . au revoir.

Ugh.

Feeling kinna shitty this morning. I guess pizza and orange juice really don't go together.

Last night I was feeling a lot nostalgic while watching a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode that'd been taped in 1993. I was eating at the same time so I didn't bother fast forwarding through the commercials. And I was struck by how much commercials have changed in ten years.

Gone, now, are the innocent "if you chew our gum/use our detergent/listen to our stereo you will feel happy and bouncy and super full of life" commercial jingles. It made me realise how much smart-ass sells these days. Every product has to have a 'tude. Even Snuggles has a hedgehog nemesis now. A googly eyed critter who is not about making clothes snuggly soft, but more about screwing up and taking snippy verbal abuse from the once ultra-gentle Snuggles.

Commercials still suck. But at least now they assume we can't be bothered with faux innocence, or anything that isn't extreme!. Even our stupid commercial jingles cannot afford to avoid cynicism.

Here's something that made me think about the death of innocence in the media.

...

Was gonna hang out with Trisa last night but she was to see a movie. It sucked because I've missed her. Especially after Saturday night when we came within a hairsbredth of hanging out, but I missed the page and when I called a few hours later, she'd already made alternate plans. We talked about hanging out on Sunday but, again, movie happened.

Oh well. We'll probably see eachother to-night.

So I ended up, last night, catching up with Tim instead. He, folks, had beaten Inu-Yasha.

It's not humanly possible to love someone forever unconditionally. The relationship would seem pointless if you didn't get something out of it--I do not necessarily mean anything as overt as sex or reciprocated love. But anything, even if it's nothing more than the target of affection's presence, or appearance of presence.

And if things were not this way, then things would go wrong.

That's partially the premise of A.I. Artificial Intelligence (the movie). Watching it last night, after having purchased a copy at Hollywood Video on the way home for only ten dollars, I was impressed by how very good a movie it actually is. I really don't remember being so impressed when I saw it at the cinema and I think this is probably another case of a movie viewer experience effectively being ruined by my fellow movie-goers.

Anyway. It's a movie that deserves more attention.

I watched a documentary on the Mall of America a few hours ago. I think it was definitely the inspiration I needed for the part of my novel I'm currently on.

You are Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lector.
Wowie.


Which famous film murderer are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I've been hearing some real crappy covers of some real great Tom Waits songs lately.

At work a few nights ago, I heard for the first time Rod Stewart's cover of Waits's "Downtown Train". To say that the Waits version is better is an understatement of such astronomical proportions that the very idea of Rod Stewart being bmore commercially successful with the song makes me feel . . . well, it's another thing that makes me feel like my brain's from a different dimension.

I did hear an Elvis Costello song ("Veronica") at work the next night, so that kinna made up for it.

Anyway, I gotta go to work now, speaking of. I leave you with a new page of Doll Merchant.

I'm beginning to feel slightly shipwrecked. Work, by the way, sucked last night. No, it wasn't particularly difficult, it was just tedious and, above all, a lot of time spent doing things I didn't wanna do and I was unclear with myself about the reasons for my doing it.

I remind myself now: it's because Trisa and Cryptess and I have been talking about getting a place together.

Oh, gods I wanna find another way of making money . . .

Anyway, yes, I'm shipwrecked. My car's still not working (I noticed last night that the dome light doesn't even come on anymore. Methinks battery be dead) and my hours mean I pretty much can't hang out with Tim or Trisa. I guess it just dawned on me this morning what a tight and constricted routine my life is likely to be for . . . well, indefinately.

On the bright side, part 3 of "Look at the Princess" is on Farscape to-night and I'm ravenously looking forward to it. I had planned, last night, to do some writing after I'd watched Farscape, but I think the show intimidated me or something. I gotta realign my brain into my own worlds.

Now I'm hungry and I have to leave.

To-day it begins again. I will be shackled.

Against my better wishes, perhaps caving into the desires of those around me more than I care to admit, I got job. And to-day is my first day--from 5pm to 9:50pm, I am an employee at T.J. Maxx.

My aunt asked me if I wasn't even a little excited. And I told her no. I'm not even a little excited. I'm only dreading it.

Anyway. I guess I should go now as there're some things I wanna do first.

sigh

Imagine being in a classroom and seeing someone walk in and set down a beach ball in the middle of the room. Now imagine everyone else in the class falling over themselves in awe at the very sight of this beach ball. Now imagine yourself not having any idea what is so special about a beach ball. Imagine all this, and you'll have a pretty good idea of how I felt in class last night.

Truly, I'm beginning to feel I'm missing something fundamental about life and art and everything. I almost wanted to plead with the others, go on my knees and tug at their shirts or skirts, and beg, "Please, please show me the secret! Show me why this stupid story about a little girl living on a farm that sees her father killing a chicken is as brilliant as you all seem to think it is! Tell me how you can be fulfilled by it, while I am left wanting!"

It wasn't just that story but also many others and some poems. When I said one poem was a cheap knock-off of H.P. Lovecraft, no one knew who I was talking about.

I am alone.

I am alien.

I am freak.

Yes, I felt pretty damned isolated. Am I gonna need to have such a low opinion of everyone in my class, or am I really, and truly missing something? "Yes I am blind!" as Morrissey says.

I wish, reader, I could share with you the mediocrity of some of the "best works" we've reviewed in the Acorn Review class.

I am snob. Regardless of whether or not I'm right.

It didn't help that I had to walk home last night. Of course, it's totally unfair of me to expect a ride from Trisa. She's under no obligation, and she can't run her schedule around me. But I was angry at everything at first--I was wearing completely the wrong socks. I was wearing the blister making socks. But towards the end of the walk, I was just really, really hungry. No, not particularly tired. Just extremely hungry.

I was triumphant and overjoyed, though, when I found, upon my return, that I had managed to get back in under two hours.

I didn't miss Farscape.

And what a great episode it was. For those of you who're fans, it was the one where everyone switched bodies. Crichton in Aeryn's body and Rygel in Crichton's were hilarious. I loved when Crichton/Aeryn had to explain to Rygel/Crichton how to take a piss as a human. Great stuff.

I did a new page of Doll Merchant.

Now I go elsewhere!

Hey folks. Didja miss me? I've been a little distracted . . . Something got my full attention without me even asking it to. But that's done (for now) so . . .

Last night was filled with a diversity of entertainments.

I ate ramen and was standing up, watching a bit of MST3k, when I noticed something like a hummingbird bouncing around the room, crashing into walls, drapes, and especially light bulbs (turned out to be a moth).

In less than half a second, the keepers of the peace, aka, the cats, were on the case. First Lucky hounded the thing through the kitchen and into the living room, actually managing to pin the thing down. But apparently Lucky wasn't interested in using his claws just yet as the moth seemed right as rain (or as right as can be repeatedly ramming into the walls) when Lucky released him. Then, as things moved up the stairs and back down again, Victoria appeared. I gotta say, it was kinna beautiful watching those two cooperate on something for once.

But it was at last left to me to capture the thing. I meant to toss it outside, but it was so hard opening the front door while similtaneously holding the guy that I think I accidentally tore off one of his antennae. Oh well.

I also watched The Big Sleep starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Having much enjoyed the book I was generally pleased with the movie. I was a little surprised to learn that the screenplay was written by William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett.

I love orange juice. I can't stop wanting it this morning.

And no, I don't have time for the Sin Osanap source book this morning. Three--count 'em, three--seperate things came up demanding my attention.

I long for a day of nothing and no-one . . .

Things would be much smoother if I wasn't sick as I'm beginning to suspect I am.

Whatever illness it is, it's new to me. It means basically a constant headache, a semi-constant queasy stomach, and general achy limbs. I wish it would go away. I wanna get back to a state where I can easily stay up all night working on things.

Work, work, work. Eventually.

Tuesday I was bullied into turning in an application for T.J. Max. I really don't wanna work there. Although my rational brain tells me it would probably be a good idea as it is in walking distance, and is similer to my previous job. Plus it has two things going for me; my grandmother's talked to the manager, and one of the people working there is one of my former managers from my last job. Two things going against me; I went in not-neatly-dressed and I neglected to ask for the manager. Probably because, as was once said of the makers of Attack of the the Eye Creatures, I just didn't care.

But.

Later in the evening, when I went to see X-Men 2 (a very good movie by the way. Loads of fun), I noticed they are hiring at the best cinema in the world, Madstone. So I picked up an application and shall be attending the hiring fair on Monday. Probably.

Looks like Trisa got a good chance of being hired by Starbucks to-day, which is good.

...

So how's the writing, Setsuled?

I kinna put the novel on hold for a little while until I've come up with the new edition of the Sin Osanap source book. I realised that I really must have one, or at least a write-up of all relevant material, before I proceed further.

I hope to at last have time for this in the morning.

Action! I must take it!

Sorry I've no time to say more (unlike Neil Gaiman who says he has only a moment and then proceeds to write a very long blog entry).

Shall I return? Shall I emerge . . . ?

At Tim's last night he and I watched one of the Urusei Yatsura movies that'd never been released in the U.S.

It felt quite a lot like a longer, better animated episode of the television series. It involved Ataru getting engaged to an alien named Lee who comes to retrieve him in an enormous space ship shaped like a rose. Of course, Lum's not happy about this, and neither is the Lum Defence Force.

It was an extremely rough translation that, for some reason, played wonky with people's names. Lum became "Lamo" and Ataru become "Dongue". Halfway through the movie, Dongue spontaneously became "Stan". Ten was called "Ivey" and several of the girls were named "James". Still not sure who "Mr. Gold" was. Strange stuff.

Yesterday also saw Trisa and I trying to carry out an assignment for her psych class involving us approaching people at Balboa park with a camera. Trisa then interviewed whilst I recorded--the idea being that as she asked the subject general questions about the war, cloning, or whatever, she would steadily move closer to them, invading their personal space. Unfortunately, the power hungry camera only allowed us to conduct two interviews before crapping out. Trisa did well enough though, I thought.

To-day I've mostly been kicking about with Victoria the cat. It's strange how a single cat can utterly absorb one's attention. And a new page of Doll Merchant somehow got done.

I spent most of last night working with tutorials for 3D Studio Max. I think I might actually end up being able to use this programme. It's funny, it's been a very long time since I've picked up any useful skills for real life. Kinna sad, huh?

I am wondering, though, what it'll mean to me to know how to properly use 3D Studio Max. Mostly I fear it'll be a distraction, as I'll prolly use mostly for making models for video games. I had some thought about making virtual sets for some of the locales in my writing, but I dunno how practical that would really be . . .

Yesterday, after I got kicked off the trolley at 32nd and Commercial for not having the proper ticket (how was I to know "One Way" only meant "To the next station"? I was only going one way, after all. One way to Downtown), I walked a few miles and stopped a Starbucks I'd never been in before. Before there commencing to read a bit of Henry Miller's The Tropic of Cancer (a book at first I thought good, but a sort of watered down Kerouac, that I now think--as I've learned it was probably written before Kerouac was published--is almost a prototype of Kerouac. Something that Kerouac took several steps further. It's good, though), I began working on some designs for some locations in my novel. I'd got myself in "source book" mode for the first time since high school, I think, because of another project I'm working on with a group of people. So info for me ought to be forthcoming, which is good and, I think, very overdue.

Trisa's on her way here now so I should go . . .

I wish had a better method of totting things than my backpack. I don't feel like having that big growth of a baby-thing on my back all day as all wander San Diego county on foot. But I guess it's just how it's going to be.

Anyway, folks, circumstances pull me into the world for now. Ta-ta!

Stupid moments in television!

I witnessed two this evening, beginning with what was quite possibly the stupidest episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the history of all realities.

Apparently Buffy's "Scooby gang" thought it wildly unreasonable that they should attempt to attack the villain they've been preparing to attack all season. So unreasonable that they voted her, one of their most powerful and valuable allies, out of the gang. Honestly, she could've stumped all of them with, "What else're we gonna do?" Given that the Caleb guy appears to be nigh-omnipotent and merely toying with them or something before killing them.

I realised to-night how much better the writing on Angel is where, even if logic goes out the window on occasion, at least it's still all in good fun. The difference is most marked by the behaviour of Faith, a character who has recently been on both series. On Angel, she was a pragmatic, complicated and interesting ass-kicker. On Buffy, she's a confused, faux teen-pop speakin' girl who can be beaten up by regular human police officers.

The second bit of televised stupidity witnessed by me this evening was X-Men: Evolution, where Storm conveniently forgot that she's able to control the weather.

Oy. Why didn't she just look at her name tag and ponder for a moment why it says what it says?

Bright spot this evening was that Justice League featured Superman and Wonder Woman fighting in a three story mall. That was nice. That was very nice.

I'm back, and I'm a-watchin' Justice League.

Class to-day involved attending a rally--er, reading starring an author named Victor Villasenor or something.

He didn't read from his books. He did paraphrase them quite a bit. He was kinna interesting when he talked about his family history, like about how his great grandfather was in a Mexican army and was ordered to kill Native American women and children. Which he did. But then he saw a little Native American girl running towards him with her hair on fire, and he suddenly realised that she was not a demon creature as he'd been taught, but a little girl. He not only spared her, but shot his companion who tried to shoot her, and adopted her. She ended up being Victor's grandmother.

Victor was kinna interesting when he discussed his life in an anthropological sort of way, but when he got into talking about how everyone in the world should recognise that there is one earth and one god, he kinna lost me. He also had an annoying habit of asking the audience questions he already knew the answer to, or thought he knew the answer to ("How many of you have parents?"). All in all, the guy had too much of "a message" for my tastes, even if I for the most part agreed with him.

(Now watching X-Men: Evolution. By no means the best X-Men incarnation . . . I love Storm. I've always really liked her for some reason, I'm not sure why).

I was so irritated by the guy that when he had us all turn to our neighbours and say "God bless you" I turned to Trisa and and said "Gods damn you". I immediately felt guilty about it though, and took it back.

Perhaps karma caught up with me on the way home when I noticed that my battery light had come on, and so had my airbag light. After arriving home, I discovered that my car won't start anymore.

I called Tim and he suggests that it's probably my Alternater. The same thing'd happened to his car, and getting it fixed cost him four hundred dollars. And as always seems to be the case when my car goes kaputz, I happen to be broke at the moment.

Oh well. At least it didn't die in a parking lot or on a strange street corner somewhere.

...

Last night Trisa and I watched a movie called The Red Dwarf. It was strange and funny. We also had some cinnemon ice cream which, you know, really ought to be more commonly available. That and Green Tea are probably my current favourite flavours.

Ugh. I feel like crawling into a giant turtle shell. But I've got things to do . . .

I'm in a bit of a hurry because I dilly dallied too long watching the Francis Ford Coppola Dracula and hanging out with a cat. So I need to leave a few minutes ago.

New page of Doll Merchant up though.

Saw a coupla bands last night (Cursive and Appleseed Cast) who sounded as if they've spent lots of time listening to The Cure. They weren't bad, certainly weren't hindered for having good taste.

Trisa and I discussed things with Cryptess on the phone whilst we ate at a new Denny's. Cryptess impressed everyone with her adorability over the telephone device.

I actually played some Morrowind last night for the first time in quite a while. And I felt okay about it because I'd done Stuff earlier in the day. The outline for part 8 is progressing. I think I need to find a quiet coffee shop in which to write it all down. Unfortunately, I don't think that's gonna happen to-day thanks to my inordinately busy schedule. As I told Cryptess last night, this day has three events written in its calender square, which is quite a lot for me. But I'm gonna eat first.

Currently listening to Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime."

They're right. This ain't no party, nor is it a disco, and etc. And, you know, really, this just plain ain't no foolin' around.

Worked a lot on the outline for part eight of my novel last night. A lot of the time was spent just staring into space and thinking. I think I actually only wrote down about two short sentences.

Trisa and I saw a movie called Divine Intervention which was not a courtroom drama directed by John Waters. Rather, it was an interesting comedy on the relationship between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

Also watched Run, Lola, Run, which turned out to be another vehicle for the old Sci-Fi standard of alternate timelines, but I guess, in this case, made palatable for people who don't like seeing Vulcans in movies.

I wonder if this half-and-half is good . . .

Good morning world thing! What's that you say? Oh.

Not too much going on so far. I'm extremely hungry and very much wanting some coffee. I'm not very lucid and stuff and having a hard time concentrating.

I found a CD I'd been missing for quite a while the other day. Very happy I found it.

I'd planned to do a bunch of work to-day but it's looking like I probably won't get to. La la la la!

Trisa said she'd pick up a coffee for me on her way here. I'm looking forward to this. I'll see if I can also interest the both of us in waffles.

My teeth hurt. I guess this Coca-Cola I'm drinking probably won't help matters. Nor, do I think, shall the third of a birthday cake I ate a half hour ago.

Talked to Cryptess on the phone for quite awhile to-day. Looks like she's gonna come down here rather soon.

She'd told me in an earlier phone call about some of the adventures she's had with cheese lately. We also talked about coat hangers, and people that resemble them, and are sexy for it. And also about men who have unfortunate masturbatory experiences with coat hangers.

Cryptess inspired me to eat a certain sandwich to-day--the Submarina vegi sandwich, the kind I used to eat across the street from my first job.

Good sandwich. Lotsa bread.

On Wednesday evening I also, with Trisa, watched The Princess and the Warrior, which was a very sedate and sensitive sort of action film. In a good way.

I want to get up early to-morrow.

I will get up early to-morrw.

I hereby set my alarum clock . . . for noon.

Early.

Coffee's been black and cold for six hours and I'm drinking it.

There's a cat sleeping in my bed, I've a headache from lack of caffeine, and right now I can feel reality conspiring all over the place. What, gods, are ye gonna do with me?

That is all.

Just watched a movie starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland that started out with a message saying that the film was fondly dedicated to vaudville, and proceeded, in the first half of the movie, to be a sweet little romance with singing and dancing. But the second half became peculiar war propaganda (for WW2, although the story was supposedly set during WW1).

Even so, it was cute, even though I have no desire to ever see Gene Kelly wielding a machine gun again.

I ate lots of candy as I watched and came away from the movie feeling giddy.

...

Listened to a bunch of people in class to-day talking about how "stupid" the short story I'd submitted was. Trisa tells me I shouldn't listen to them as they're all idiots. That could be true, although I think it might be more accurate to say that they are xenophobes. Which is certainly a kind of idiocy in my book.

It was all still a little dispiriting, but I think I'll live.

I got some nice compliments about another project in my inbox when I got home, which helped quite a bit.

Goodnight folks.

Imperial Star Destroyer.

Just felt like saying that, for all the use it's gonna do this damned world.

I feel deeply disoriented in a way. Trisa and I saw some marvellously horrid instruments of torture at the museum to-day. Some of the descriptions of people getting torn, mutilated, dismembered, coupled with the tangible evidence, got through to even my jaded heart.

Saw Far From Heaven to-day which, like most movies, starred Julianne Moore. It was fairly good.

I did a new page of Doll Merchant.

And now I feel like sleeping. And thinking about cold space. We'll see . . .

This sucks.

I'm really sleepy right now, and I have to get up early to-morrow.

And yet . . . I'd vaguely planned to get a lot of stuff done to-night, but now it looks like I won't. Just like last night and the night before and etc. (not to mention the days).

I feel like such a slug.

That's it! To-morrow, it all stops, it does. I'm gonna do shit, I am!

Trisa and I are supposed to go to Balboa Park. I'll try to talk her into going to read/write/study for awhile at Starbucks, before or after.

I gotta do some stuff soon before I go completely pla-ploookada!

Isn't it weird when a taste appears in your mouth, created by what you've just eaten, but resembles not said lately eaten food, but something entirely different? It's happening for me right now.

Let's see . . . what I ate was a bowl of ramen and a very, very large piece of chocolate birthday cake. And with this I drank some lemonade that'd been in my backpack for the past several days.

What I now taste is something like . . . pea soup, with pepper. Most peculiar.

Saw Cowboy Bebop: The Movie on Sunday night. 'Twas a fun experience.

Often times I think I like Cowboy Bebop more for what it tries to be than for what it actually is. It all seems like a very good concept but there's such an unintentional innocence to the execution at times that it just makes you sigh. But you want to play along.

Trisa gave me a Morrissey CD to-day. Very happy about that.

So Friday was my birthday and it wasn't so bad. It was pretty good actually.

I got candy and book and CD from Trisa and vinyl from sister and money from everybody else. And lots, and lots, and lots of cake. Still have plenty of cake left.

Trisa and I went to see the new Neil Jordan movie, The Good Thief, which was similtaneously sensually slow and excitingly fast pace. Very good. The Russian girl playing Anne was gorgeous. Was weird seeing a Neil Jordan movie without Stephen Rea in it. I wonder if they got in a fight?

I've been really busy and stuff with a billion random things for the past couple of days. I hope to get more time for writing in the days ahead.

I did manage a new page of Doll Merchant.

I want a sandwich.

I am at this moment at the home of my aunt and uncle, house sitting. I shall be here for several days.

I had this vague idea of using this strange place to get some mad writing done, but right now it's too interesting or something.

One of the cats here, named Macy, is extremely sweet. I just met her, and already she's jumping into my lap and stuff.

My original plan was to stay up until 6am to give her breakfast at her regular scheduled time, and then go to sleep. But now I'm thinking I might try going to bed now--sleeping for five hours, and trusting myself that I'll awaken at the right time. Why do I trust myself when I've burned myself time and time again? When will I learn?

I bought so much water to-day. Sixteen gallons. Lemme tell ya, it sure improves the coffee. I think the tap water was making me sick, and infecting me with a mild delirium.

My goodness, but the monitor for this computer is far away. It's a flat screen, and it's all the way at the other end of the desk, under a shelf. I feel like I'm looking at proscenium stage.

I see that this family bought into that most pointless of all computer accessories--the cordless keyboard. I hope the damn thing doesn't run outta batteries while I'm here.

I've never seen or read Astro Boy, but it makes me feel good knowing that a nation is this nerdy.

I did a new, rather saucy page of Doll Merchant.

I wonder if it says something about me? I hope I'm not derailing the plot with this sex scene. But, as with every page, I'm not really planning things in advance, so this is just where it seems to be going. I look at it, and I guess it works with the whole underlying scheme that seems to be going--especially as the Merchant seems to be examining Eyeball Pale like she was a doll . . . Why am I trying to interpret it? Shouldn't I know?

Again, I wonder what this says about me.

Sheesh.

Well. Spent most of the day with Trisa. We went and saw The Pianist, which I thought was okay. It made me realise how very jaded I am. I think. Or maybe it's how Roman Polanski had meant it to feel--which would be genius in a way.

Unlike in Schindler's List (a film which I was constantly, compulsively comparing The Pianist to), where every instance of a Nazi killing a Jew was devastatingly heartbreakingly horrific, in The Pianist, it got so it was regular. Horrible, but regular. People were dying in the streets, lying in pools of blood and filth. The dead were begged to awaken by their children . . . and it was all trees in the forest.

Adrian Brody's character, who we experience the movie through almost as if we were reading a novel written in first person, has a life to get on with and he often just has to adjust to Hell itself to try and get along. I unmistakably got the sensation of, "If I was there, this is probably how I would have reacted,"

A very, very good film.

I had this incredibally vivid dream last night that San Diego was bombed.

I was at a house with an enormous window that gave full view of the buildings in Downtown tumbling against eachother surrounded by orange fiery halos, the structures blackening. And this black and orange spread throughout the landscape, and towards me, until I felt all my environment shaking.

I also dreamt of the next day when I had to search through the rubble of Downtown for my car. I found it turned over on its side, and I was surprised to find that, when I put it back on its wheels, it still ran, although the driver's side door wouldn't stay shut.

I'm currently listening to David Bowie's "The Voyuer of Utter Destruction as Beauty."

W-ooooooow.

Billion things I meant to do to-day. Billion things I didn't do because I ended up getting caught in the garbage disposal of a billion other things.

I went to Trader Joes to-day to buy tamales and veggie buffalo wings. The people at Trader Joes are really scary. As I was telling Tim, they all seem like the sorts of people who have solid gold sinks in their bathrooms which they're terrified of getting toothpaste on. I could swear they knew me as an intruder in their world, and their sharp,, distrustful eyes seemed to aimed at me the whole time I was their, like spears in the hands of the cannibal people of the uncharted tropical island.

Monday night seemed like a string of things went wrong. Isn't it weird when bad things come in groups like that? They day had been feeling good early on, but even so, I ought to've realised something was off when they refused to sell me iced tea at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. The girl told me they were now only allowed to ring up hot tea.

After that it was misadventures of relationships with friends, strangers, and technology.

Maybe it was all to karmically offset the fact that a short story of mine got accepted in the Acorn Review. (yay?)

Judging from some of the negative reactions people had to it, I've realised that many people are far easier to confuse than I'd previously imagined.

Trisa did me a great honour by likening my "contraversial" storytelling technique to William Gibson's whilst defending me. Cool girl.

So now I'm extremely sleepy and I think I shall just sleep about it soon. I talked to Cryptess on the phone for a while to-night and she has perhaps the cutest voice ever in the universe.

Setsuled is a Broccoli-Eating Sumo Monkey ...with a Battle Rating of 7.4 To see if your Food-Eating Battle Monkey can defeat Setsuled, enter your name:

Something very profoundly and indelibly creeped me out to-day, so badly I don't think I'm even gonna say what it was. I almost feel ashamed of myself for feeling like I do about it. It was seriously one of those things that made me question the validity of my continued existence, and made feel afraid of living a life stuck in a train I cannot escape from.

I hope I'm not stuck in some ugly tar pit of human helplessness. I hope the things that I've believed have been making me feel fulfilled have actually been fulfilling, and that I haven't been elaborately deluding myself.

Blah.

I finished reading The Brothers Karamazov a few nights ago. The book I began reading on the trolley on the way to the Comicon last August . . . and I've only just now finished it.

It was a really great book. Enthusiastically written with very complex, thought provoking characters. Very real characters, at the same time that each one of the brothers personified a specific quest on Dostoevsky's mind.

I read that book for so long that it's gonna feel strange not to see Alyosha or Dmitry or Grushenka again . . . I think Grushenka was my favourite character. She was the kind of girl I'd probably really go for. Or maybe Dmitry was my favourite character, I'm not sure. I think I identified more with Ivan than anyone else.

Ugh, I'm so tired right now. I've been feeling weirdly extra tired lately.

But I did manage to get myself to do a page of Doll Merchant.

And I've been working on my novel a lot too . . . I think I'm going to enjoy writing part 8 in many of the same ways I enjoyed writing parts 2, 3, and 4. Well, I dinna really enjoy writing part 4. Part 4 made me feel like I was losing my mind.

Spent nearly the entire day reading The Brothers Karamazov. I also worked for quite a while on an illustration for my novel--mostly I thought about what I should do with it. Probably did more work in thinking about it than actually drawing it. And even now I'm thinking of majorly changing it before colouring it.

I went to Tim's for a while and played Morrowind a bit, then drove to a Save-On well out of my way to buy some Sobes before coming home.

And it looks like I'm finally getting back into my regular swing of things--no more days, I hope, like the past several where I just felt like sleeping for all time.

And I did a new page of Doll Merchant.

I've been encountering a lot of things this morning that've made me giggle. Which is good, I think. I don't feel too crass.

Saw The Hours last night, the best part of which was its Philip Glass soundtrack, with the acting coming in at a strong second. But an all around tolerably good film about ennui. Made me wanna read some Virginia Woolf, which I've never done.

I wonder if Wolf Blitzer's real name is Wolf? Wouldn't it be funny if he found one day that he was in fact a descendant of Virginia Woolf and that he was legally obligated to change his name to Wolf Woolf?

I've been sleepy all day but now that it comes to it . . . now that it's go time, and I'm looking at my bed . . . I can't do it. I just can't.

I couldn't eat dinner either--this, I believe, is because I got six breadsticks for lunch when I only ordered four. Those Pat & Oscars breadsticks are quite filling.

Makes me think of the scene in the Chinese movie To Live where they make the doctor gobble down all the rolls and then drink a bunch of water, so his stomach accidently swells enough to kill him.

I was just thinking, too, about a number of Chinese movies I'd like to get on DVD. There was a time, a few years back, where I rather compulsively sought out Chinese cinema at the video store.

Right now, though, I'm watching a Japanese movie called Ran and I'm thinking about Laurence Kasdan. And A & W Rootbeer. The rootbeer's giving me a stomach ache, I'm pretty sure.

It's looking like the U.S. is prolly gonna win this war thing. I couldn't really bear to watch the news to-day. The people on CNN were kinna struggling most of the time for something to report, it seems . . . I was at Tim's house, and I was trying to get him to finish watching Ride with the Devil, which we'd started watching a few days ago. But he just couldn't take his eyes of the War, and I'm ashamed to say it put a rather gleeful smile on his face. I think that's when my stomach ache started.

Republicans scare me. Republicans like Tim, like George W. Bush, and, yes, Republicans like Joe Lieberman. Especially Republicans like Joe Lieberman.

The name Joe scares me.

I think I'll start doing some concept sketches for some of the characters in part 8 of my novel to-morrow . . . For now, I think I'll read some more. Or finish watching Ran.

Was reading Peter Straub's The Buffalo Hunter a few minutes ago. Just read the scene where Bunting goes on a blind date and I thought . . . this scene was so exquisite. Peter Straub's a plain genius.