A few words on harmonica pedagogy. the Who. I never got that. The Kids are Alright is on IFC and Roger Daltrey is performing a lewd act on a harmonica, eyes rolling up to make contact with the audience, but instead having the effect of the rolling eyes of a stuck hog hanging from a tree branch and bleeding dry. Erm, uh. Not sexy. I'll give Pete Townsend the benefit of a doubt for now, and use this opportunity to bring up the Uber-icky Gary Glitter. Now Gary wrote some great stuff, but what a perv! Not good, yummy perv, but revolting, wildly un-sexy perv. He was actually thrown out of Cambodia for perversion. Child-sex tourism is common in Cambodia, so I'm wondering--just what exactly does one have to do to be called perverse by the Cambodian government??? On second thought--I don't want to know.

OK. Today was the second day of new job, and it is going so much better than I expected. I do expect I'll have gargantuan annoyances to bitch about toute-de-suite.

I have sort of accepted a job helping out in an office, and I am wondering what the fuck I have gotten myself into. I detest boring busy work, and I fear I am going to have that shit aplenty dumped in my lap for the scant hours I will be working. I will only be working two afternoons a week as a relief for the full-timer at the office, and it will be a challenge to keep the bullshit at arm's length. You WILL be hearing about it, no doubt. Work starts at 1pm tomorrow. I dread it, but I need furniture for my work studio and for organizing the apartment. I'm the classic creative type who loves disarray--sometimes when things are a jumble I see unexpected combinations of elements that are brilliant, and that is vital to keeping my creations fresh, in my opinion. On the other hand, I have never in my life had adequate storage for all clothing, shoes, etc, and the clutter of this apartment is actually beginning to wear on me. Wish me luck.

Last night i dreamt I was in someone else's house and there was a huge sliding glass door and out the window about half a mile away was a giant tornado with another nearby, and the house was flying apart around me, and I ran to a closet which was suddenly mere boards swirling and I went deeper into the house, into a closet in an inner bathroom, and suddenly all that was evaporating around me, boiling up into dust.

Heigh ho! I just found a cd in the parking lot whose track listing includes 2 Are you the motherfucker with the banana and 4 Farts are jazz to assholes.

Today is gloriously rainy and glum. My favorite weather. Exceedingly rare are my headaches, and only then the day after drink, but I haven't had a thimble full in over a week and today I feel like a pig shat in my head. No matter--there is no keeping me indoors when the firmament bursts forth so. I hopped in my pickup truck and wended onto a rain-slicked freeway by downtown and northward on errands, the very tallest buildings on my left swallowed up in mists. I flipped on my radio and nothing could have been more perfect to hear than Time from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. That sound is mournfully lovely, like the forced slow cadence of marching leaden feet through treacle... I am thinking of Spalding Gray, and how he was reported missing by his wife on Saturday. At 21 I saw Swimming to Cambodia, and I marveled at his raw and bristling honesty. So very much of what is served up as entertainment is contrived and weakly conceived, that when someone reaches deep within themselves and says "here it is: this is me and this is why I'm fucked up and although it's tragic, isn't some of it hilarious?," well I just find that deeply stirring and it makes me feel less alone. Life has no easy answers, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't question. Here's to you, Spalding.

An animal lover with 3 large dogs and 5 cats moved into the loft down the hall from mine. Heaven knows I adore my little bitch, but I do have my boundaries. When the new neighbor met my little terrier, she put her face up to my dog's and said in a 'tard voice "give me kisses," as my dog stared at her blankly. "She won't kiss me," the woman said and I just shrugged. From the earliest stages of puppyhood, I did not allow doglet to lick me in the face, and so it baffles her when she meets someone who has that expectation. It's funny to think someone might think my dog just is picky about who she licks in the face, rather the fact that I take a dim view of swapping spit with dogs.

Speaking of the doglet--she humps legs--isn't that peculiar for a spayed female dog? Because she is small I have tolerated more bad behavior from her than I would have of a larger dog. She never has accidents in the apartment, and she is sweet and cuddly. I have learned not to leave the apartment with pungent things in the trash, because she will disgorge the can of its contents. Recently, a friend came over and apparently left a soiled tampon in my bathroom trash. That evening I was puzzled to find the bathroom dustbin toppled and its contents scattered. All became clear when several days later doglet struggled a la childbirth to poop, and finally produced a turdpon. After a protracted struggle, the offending tampon fairly leapt from her arse only to dangle gracefully by the string for an instant, at last falling earthward. THAT is why one should not allow dogs to lick them in the face.

my hands are shaking as I apply a fresh coat of lacquer to my nails. My husband got me a very nice gift for our tenth: a white diamond and yellow sapphire ring. Ab fab. I've wanted something nice with yellow stones for ever so. Anyway, excited about picking it up in a wee bit, and want hands to look purty. Thanks bb.

I wonder if you can tell when you start smelling old? My breath has been really bad (to me) lately, but my husband says he can't smell it. But that's just bad breath, not old smell, thank the big-tittied goddesses for that. You know when old people have a certain smell? Perhaps it's less attention to oily areas like the ears because they are old and not likely to need them properly cleaned for a good nibbling session, or maybe it's because arthritic joints don't allow for a wide enough range of movement to scrub all areas. Hmph. My policy is that if we can put a man on the fucking moon, there must be enough products to ensure that my naturally curly hair looks great at all times and that I smell good, dammit! My imagination works overtime. I see brilliant period costume dramas and imagine how rotten the real people would have smelled. Ew. Kinda spoils it for me. Just think of it: people in early England probably smelled as revolting as, well, modern-day France. If some major life altering event occurred, the survivors of North America would have a major adjustment to a lo-tech existence which might limit access to personal flower-smelling products. Heavens to Betsy! I am as adamant about smelling good as the next person, but we've crossed some nefarious line when maxi pads and garbage bags have fragrances you can choose. I'll know we've arrived and can climb out of the handbasket when they market a pc with an aromatherapy feature. The little fan can blow out fragrance as it cools the brains of the operation.

My sister and I talk on the phone every day, and she usually cleans like a madwoman when she does, in addition to chasing about after her two small children. For Christmas, I got her a cordless hands-free phone she could clip on her belt and not have the permanent neck strain of clutching the phone between the ear and shoulder. Actually, the clip is pretty inefficient, and like I do, she usually ends up stuffing the unit in her sports bra. She has forbade all in her household from using her lovely new phone. She calls it "my precious."

It seems like shit in this world spools so out-of-control that there is no point in being aware of it. Evil and oppression are so common that it seems all I can do is have a mute sense of tragedy about it all, particularly the erosion of freedoms in my own homeland. I used to always be critical of people who don't know what's happening beyond their narrowly personal sphere, but now I'm beginning to believe they are the smart ones. If I can't do anything about the bad things in life, what is the point of me knowing and worrying about them? Life will continue apace, and I'll write my inane little blog and things will happen or not in the world whether I'm aware or not. Shutting it out--maybe I'll be happier.

OK. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Any love songs unless they are sung by Nina Simone, and only then because they are utterly devoid of saccharine and are generally bittersweet, anyhoo. Hers always seem mournful and sad to me, so that is ok. That is appropriate.

Have I told you lately that love songs make me positively ill? Seriously. Fools! Why do they fall in love? Why? Why?

Once before I paid the damned thing off, I farted around and waited until the last day to make a payment on the Discover card, so I went to a Sears store in Dallas to remit at a cash register. I generally detest malls and loathe Sears in particular, so I plastered on a smile that was two tics from a grimace, so as not to belie my discomfort to the sundry unfortunates loving their grand day out at the mall. The register was about 30 yards from the door, and I marched resolutely toward it, relieved to see there was one person being waited on and no line behind her. Ahead and to the right, I noticed a couple noticing me, and hastening to the register also. I slowed my pace and allowed them to take their place behind the woman who I could now hear was struggling with the English language whilst emphatically questioning the cashier about a returned item. The couple appeared of Latinate extraction, and shuffling out from under a clothing rack came (no! not goblins!) two small children who looked as though they and had been used to tidy up the floor at a porn cinema then dipped in flour and cinnamon, with the issue of sinal lavage ever streaming down their crusty upper lips. I tried to breathe shallowly, knowing that tuberculosis is rampant in third world countries. The woman stood the required distance behind her man as the fruits of their loins squealed and soiled merchandise far and wide. A tall rack of fedoras stood to my right, most of them adorned with feathers, until at last the little demons noticed them. The future felon and incubator came over to the rack and began plucking the feathers from the hats. I must have gasped, because the woman turned around and looked at me, and I pointed to the male pup and said "Is that yours?" She spoke to her man, and he chastened the hellions, who simmered down immediately and looked at me with ovine stupidity. That's right. I'm "the man."

Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.

Samuel Johnson

turn your head away from the screen, oh people.

it will tell you nothing more.

don`t suck the milk of flaccid bill k. public`s empty promise

to the people that the public can ignore.

this way of life is so devised,

to snuff out the mind that moves.

moving with grace the men despise, and women have learned to lose.

throw off your shame or be a slave to the system.


i see you take another drag,

one more lost soul to raise your flag.

the sky is a landfill.

Jeff Buckley

26 December 2003
Driving deep into the night across West Texas. The crescent moon was a companion as we left the plains for the mountains. It sat like a cup on its back, blackness and stars spilling from its upturned bowl. Its arc followed our progress westward until finally it wafted earthward like a great celestial toenail clipping. Now filtered through more layers of atmosphere, the moon donned an orange glow to match the approaching lights of El Paso.

Civilization is like a train in the desert: we're big, loud and and make a terrible noise, but in the end we are as temporal as anything. Only the tracks we leave will note our passing.