zloimorzh

I'll give it a shot, if its possible. There will be no use of the backspace key!! Well, perhaps to correct small grammatical errors. I'm floating at work now. The house has been a much happier place lately. We got rid of a few obnoxious kids, and are down to six. There is this Russian girl who just started taking community college classes where I go to school. I've been helping her with her homework a lot lately. I would probably have been smitten with her if I were 17. No wait, I was a crazy closet case back then...

Pills, pills. I usually don't buy them. I found a hookup from chandra's coworker, and he sold me some for casey. We got a nice little variety pack of lorazapam, diazapam, and somas. I was going to save them for days when I was feeling insane...but clearly eating them all within 24 hours was the best policy. Otherwise their mere presence would constantly tempt and gnaw at my subconcious. Best to destroy them at once, and enjoy a nice little holiday.

Valium is a funny drug. I don't take benzo's very often, because I really like them. Its such a subtle feeling. Just a peaceful, lofty, indifference. With all the adderall and coffee, It results in a sort of careless productivity. I am unconcerned about the heaps of work I have to do, and my nagging depression.

Nona pointed out that I apparently have low self-esteem despite all of my narcissistic talk about what a badass I am. I guess its just from being lonely. I mentioned this to my mom the other day, that i was lonely, and she couldn't wrap her mind around it - on account that she really does spend all day at home by herself, and doesn't really do anything. I guess I have a very large amount of fine acquaintances...and even a few good friends. They make me pretty happy too. I guess I just want, every once in a while, someone to just hold me for a bit, and tell me I'm alright. Who doesn't need that though, really? I like to pretend I don't, but i think most people see through the silly butch act anyway.

I should probably be doing some sort of studying. I haven't written on here for a while. I just started shaping this piece of wood. My friend monica gave me it our first week of class. Her mom died on our 2nd day of school, and she had just started learning to do some wood-carving. Monica gave me this gigantic crate with a few hundred dollars worth of tools and wood in it, because she was just going to donate it somewhere. We had just met at the time. I really want to make her something awesome out of one of the pieces...something thats not too... personal? I don't know, thats kind of personal territory. I hang out with her all of the time, and we usually study together a few days a week outside of class.. usually in 3-6 hour chunks. Given my propensity for falling in love with everyone, its not terribily surprising that I am smitten. I do really like and respect her girlfriend though...and unfortunately I don't do the homewrecker-thing anymore.

I think we will definiately end up being friends for a long time though. It seems like nursing school is one of those things that really forces you to bond with people, and we are the only two queers in the class. She is sort of eerily perceptive about me, which I find off-putting. If I say hi to her, she will immediately know that I have a headache...and literally the second that it goes away she will say something like -oh! I'm so glad your headache is gone!...maybe she just has good assessment skills, but its kind of creepy. We were talkign about synesthesia the other day, and she is totally fascinated by it. She keeps trying to get me to draw it all out for her with colored pencils. Its just such a weird intimate thing to do. I feel awkward when she seems to fascinated by it in front of her girlfriend. But oh well. She is a good friend, I'm just tired of crushing on unattainable people.


I found a deck of tarot cards in the office yesterday, in a box of donations. They have been amusing me. Its funny how I don't feel like studying wtih all this valium and ativan in me... strange... must drink more coffee.

Had band tonight, which was actually pretty fun...even though all our cool hipster trumpets have abandoned us because of the dyke drama. Trying not to be too smitten over Jenny. I think I always come across as creepy and awkward. Maybe I should try being less forward, and more romantic. Or possibly just give up already, becasue she isn't interested in me. Yep.. I mean, its bound to happen right?

I think I am actually the only single person in my cohort at school....well, except one woman who is going through a divorce. I know they must all envy me like crazy, so I try and think about that. Hmm.. yes, this all clearly means I'm not busy enough...

I like school though. Last week was kind of boring, but its just a lot of stuff to learn. SO much. Definitely never studied like this before. Been doing less music stuff, so I have had more time to sleep and do homework. I did pick up a gig this friday though. Music helps, when I have time. Otherwise, life is just a little too colorless, and it seems to drag on a bit. School is interesting, but its hard to put much love into it. Maybe thats easier when you have actual patients. I put love into my bass though, and I can put love into wood, and sometimes food. Sometimes I get some of it back too.

Kind of sad, the need for reaffirmation. Maybe thats just one of those pesky human qualities. I'm good at making myself feel better, and I guess having that kind of independance is good...although it probably makes it easier to be contemptuous of all of the lesser humans, and so forth. I'm reasonably sure that I will find someone at some point, and we will have a happy relationship for a while before it self-destructs. I should try and preoccupy myself with loftier and more pretentious goals.

Sad, I was hoping my pill popping would lead to more intruiging conversational topics. Just enough indifference to blurt out whats actually on my mind. Its january, I'm never in sync with the rest of the city, and I wish I had someone to hold me for a night, and love me.

Gross.

With a vengeance!

For just having spent 17 hours in a car, and going right to work, I'm in a pretty great mood. Granted, there are all sorts of interesting chemical processes involved in that, but when aren't there?

I'm full of blurbs


Even though I'm totally goofy right now, I just had a really great talk with one of my favorite angry teenagers. There is nothing like giving an inspirational speech, and seeing it taken to heart. Especially when you give ones that involve a lot of swearing, obscure philosophical tangents, and repeated use of the words "bullshit" and "douchelords." I love working with teenagers.

San Francisco is amazing, and I fell in lust with it this weekend. Its so technicolor pastel and endlessly diverting. I was a little surprised by how happy I was to see Seattle, and not just because my ass hurt. I felt a little guilty for all the Seattle bashing I did in San Francisco. I mean, yeah its kinda depressing... but it has a lot in common with San Francisco, just smaller, with fewer colors, and its a little more accessible. Granted, its still full of pretentious hipsters and yuppies and hippies, but with more of a small town feel. Maybe people here just take themselves slightly less seriously. Probably because here you don't feel cooler just because you are in SEATTLE...I mean, unless you are from any other part of the northwest...or midwest. We do get a lot of gay refugees... I would still love to live in SF at some point, but appreciating home in the meantime isn't such a bad thing.


My coworker's mom had a heart attack, and he has to fly down to georgia. I'm working alone tonight. MUST STAY AWAKE.

*twitch*

I drove nearly all the way home again, save for about an hour and a half. Uppers and driving fast in the mountains is so much fun. I felt like Neal Cassady. I could definitely drive that far by myself, perhaps even faster, because I could turn the music up all the way and not worry about having a kid in the backseat. Someday soon I will take time off work, and get in my car and just fucking drive and drive. I would love an adventure by myself. I mean, sure I might get stabbed in a truck stop or something...but for some reason crazy people always just want to kick it with me. Down wanderlust, down...


So what is this whole sanity business about anyway? To me, insanity means to act against one's best interests, or outside of the beliefs of "society"...whatever that means... Hmmm.. the dictionary says it means to be deranged of mind. Hmm... Still, that seems a little subjective to me. How do we define what is sane anyway? Who decides what normality is, if there is no observer, or god to decide what way of looking at the world is right? Is it just the collective average of human behavior? A set of standards that don't actually exist in nature? Kind of like a wikipedia article thats been edited so many times that its no longer represents anyone's actual thoughts or beliefs? Anyway, those sorts of averages sound like some fuzzy math to me. Maybe its just scary for people to think that no one really experiences reality quite in the same way. I guess its lonely in a way, but its also beautiful, and really really funny.


I wonder what the most universal human experience is... or similarly experienced experience. I mean, even breathing has to be pretty different for different people. Or the feeling you get when you are about to be eaten by bears. I guess there is no way we can ever know conclusively.

I was thinking about casey, and how we both have synesthesia, and how ours are completely different, except we both experience sixes as a nearly identical shade of purple. Anyway, I imagine if we all have something in common, it must be exponentially sillier...at least it would be if I were god.

Oh my brain tickles, I think I should go watch some cartoons. This weekend was the most social I have been in a really long time. It was a lot of fun, and I got some much needed perspective on my life. I am so much more introverted than I used to be, which I always used to think was a bad thing. I guess what I mean by that is that I've just learned to be happy alone, and trust my own counsel, and care a little less about what other people think. It was also good to remember that I actually do like people after all, and maybe they aren't all fucktards. Life could be much much worse, mostly because its pretty good. I just checked my calendar, and I have to play music with my friends six days this week. I better go cry myself to sleep.

I found this a little perplexing...Who buys a half a gallon of hair gel? Who actually uses an entire half-gallon of hair gel?? What kind of person would store homemade sauerkraut in an old hair gel container, when there is clean tupperware available? Why is there still an intact price tag on the container, indicating that its never really been washed out? Why would anyone think that angry teenagers would ever eat stinky pickled cabbage, even if it wasn't stored in a hair gel container? Is that child abuse? Were my coworkers dropped on their heads as babies, or raised by ukrainians? Will wonders never cease? I'm just grateful that I don't have to deal with these fucktards for more than 15 minutes a day.

Can you tell I got a new camera phone? Whee

I just had a backwards kind of day... I woke up around 2pm yesterday, went to my friend's house, drank before band, drank after band, went to work, and then just spent TWO HOURS this morning, after being up for 20 hours, trying to apply to an LPN certificate program, and attempting to convince the people at north seattle community college that SOMETHING on my transcript from berkeley is equivalent to English 101, which I didn't take because I tested out of it with IB (which they hadn't heard of)

Apparently nothing on my transcript legitimately qualified, even though every class I took in college was based soley upon written papers. The administrative assistant in the nursing department was awesome though, and I printed up some course descriptions, and confused her enough to slip through the cracks. She said that no one else will actually look at my application to catch my weaseling, but that I will have to take english 101 to get into an RN program.

I wondered aloud why I even bothered getting a bachelor's degree in the first place, because it hasn't done a goddamn thing for me, aside from getting me a low paying job where I babysit and play videogames. She agreed and said that if it made me feel any better, she had a masters degree in scandinavian languages literature. At least I had the sense not to go to grad school for Russian...

I went and hung out with my shrink today. I made sure to be extra caffeinated, because the last few times that I saw him I was rather taciturn and sleepy. I figured I better use up the whole damn hour on account of me paying him so damn much money. I know its just my insurance deductible, but cutting him a check for 500 bucks today kind of hurt. I somehow have managed to see him for almost a year and a half and never go on too much about my family. I gave him a good rant, and I got the pretty typical - "your family is abusive and you shouldn't talk to them" textbook response. I hate having to pay someone 175 bucks an hour to tell me that. What a racket.

My boss was asking me yesterday morning why I don't want to get my masters in psych. I told her that I pretty much grew up in the DSM-IV and I would rather spend my money learning about other things and being well rounded.I get the feeling like this strategy is only going to be of any real use if western civilization crumbles, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed and learning to make my own shoes.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I really want to do with my life, and I keep coming back to hunter-gatherer or possibly cult-leader. Sometimes I wish I had the guts to tell everyone to fuck themselves, and go live out in the woods. Instead I still feel compelled to attempt to jump through all the hoops and try and make money so I can buy my own land someday. I hope that when I'm able to retire I still have the energy for subsistence farming.

Stupid stupid cognitive dissonance. I want to try and be true to myself, and what I believe in. I imagine most people do. Things like jobs, school, money, gender, most laws, respecting people's religions... its just all a game to me, a big joke that I laugh about. I guess what it really comes down to is that its a price I am willing to pay for the comforts of living in a house, eating food from a store, having instruments, and driving a car. I'm ok with being a big whore I suppose, admitting it is the first step, right?

I guess when it comes down to it, I have a hard time seeing humanity as being much different than a bacterial culture, or a bunch of cells, or other critters. Or beer for example - just a bunch of yeast fucking and dying and shitting until they all die in their own waste, and are consumed by some frat boy. Is the chemical impulse driving the bacteria to do this any different than christianity for example? Saying to fuck and pollute as much as possible, because the end is near, and thats what god intends for us? I haven't read the bible, but I think thats how it goes. The same old shit, just evolution finding a fancier way to say it.

Anyway, I'm full of long, drawn out ridiculous metaphors. I don't quite believe we are as significant as all that. I tend to think of our universe as being more like a piece of a dust molecule inside of someone's vacuum bag. That being the case, it really doesn't make any difference if I choose to cut off my breasts, and become wild, hard, and androgynous, making my own knives and living with a pack of wolf dogs out in alaska. What kind of an evolutionary joke is this whole self-awareness thing anyway? If I'm just as hard wired for conformity as the next bit of protein, why all the extra frills? It does seem to point towards a god with a cruel sense of humor.. but I suppose the good ol' primordial slime has led to stranger experiments than me.

whew.. didn't see that one coming. I'm gonna go watch tv until I'm lulled into a complacent homework-producing-state.

Oh boy! Its the start of the week again. Im attempted to get my brain rolling again before I settle in for what is a hopefully a productive "morning."
Ahh, its so nice having a functional keyboard, my space bar and my "" are broken at home.

Its getting to be crunch time for school, but I think I can handle it, im not stressing too bad yet. I'm more worried about making all of these ridiculous hand carved christmas presents... I feel like a crappy elf or something.

I had the day off on friday, and I got off work, and decided to just stay up and make food and study. I bought a bunch of vegetables, and made a stew and some bread, and people smelled me cooking, and I ended up having like four people over for lunch. I guess the new owner is really cool. She decided to just pay residents to remodel the building instead of hiring an outside contractor. So a bunch of my guy friends who were doing the construction came over and ate all of my food. It was kind of funny though, because I don't usually experience such stereotypical gender roles like that. Like, cooking a bunch of food for all of the manly men who are out doing manual labor or something. It was kind of a trip, and they were teasing me about being a woman. I need to start charging them.

I was talking to mike, the building manager, and rick, the guy that is in charge of the remodeling. Rick has been friends with the new owner for years, and he was saying that she moved here from Hawaii like ten years ago, with absolutely no money. She got a job at some sort of place that works with first time home buyers, and managed to buy a crappy house with no money down...and just basically kept trading up until she bought our building. He was saying that she really wants people to stay in the building, and is willing to completely cut out the middle man, and just hook us up with inside deals...both of them seemed really confident that she would work something out with me if I was interested, and they REALLY want me to stay in the building. I am pretty skeptical...but I think I might meet up with the owner sometime this week, and see if she can actually show me some numbers... I know the mortgage would be at least 1k...but If I could find a roommate or something to help me pay that, I would be able to sell it after a year and make at least 50K or more... she would sell to us for about 60-70k under the current market value. So... that would be awesome. I'm not going to get my hopes up about it, but it is definitely an interesting idea.

My friend ray came up on friday night. He had been eating tons of xanax all week, and was completely dissociated. He drank a beer, and was just completely fucked up. I had a lot of homework, but I let him come crash because he was fighting with his dad, and didn't have a place to stay that night because he had a couple of days before he could move into his new place. He didn't remember a damn thing about visiting me aside from puking his guts out later in the evening. We were sitting around in my room, and I think I made some comment about needing to get laid, and he was like, you know laurel, you would get more pussy if you lost some weight... I mean, damn, I remember you in high school, and you were actually kind of attractive. But, damn. What the fuck happened, you just totally let yourself go. He asked me how much I weighed, and when he found out we weighed the same, he got this expression of absolute horror on his face. He started freaking out, and was like, OH MY GOD. I can't believe that we weigh the same. Do I really look as fat as you do? And just started going off and panicking, and demanding reassurance that he didn't look as fat as I am. It was a real ego booster.

We went to safeway later to buy beer for him, and a rock star for me..which was a bad idea. He mentioned that he was fucked up to the clerk at safeway, and he wouldn't sell us the beer, and ray flipped out, and started just cussing this guy out like crazy. I had to physically drag him out of there before they called security. He was just an ass for the rest of the night, and pissed off my friends... He also put a cigarette out in my rock star, which was not a very pleasant surprise. Jason, Dorian, and Amy were over... Amy is a friend of Dorian's that just moved in next door to me. It was the first time I really got to spend time with her and she is really cool. They all eventually decided to go over to Dorian's work later, because I had to go to bed early, and Ray was being unbearable. He isn't allowed over anymore if he is eating pills.

I saw jason the next morning after I got back from class, and he looked like he got hit by a truck. He was pale and shaking, and his face was just smashed. Apparently he and Amy went over to Dorian's new shop that night, and decided to nap up in the loft while he was working downstairs. He has an old gas heater there, and he had been having problems lighting it, but thought he had gotten it up and running. Jason said he woke up all disoriented at about 5 am because Amy was moaning in her sleep like she was having a nightmare, and he couldn't wake her up. He said her head was on the ground and her feet were up on the couch, and she just wouldn't wake up... he realized he was feeling really strange, and yelled for Dorian. Apparently the pilot light went out, and the whole loft had been filling up with gas for hours. Dorian realized what had happened, and carried Amy outside. Jason tried to get himself down, and by the time he got outside he blacked out, and did a face plant right into the curb. They went to the hospital, and had to spend six hours in the hyperbaric chamber...which sounded pretty brutal. It made Amy bleed out of her ears. Jason said the team of doctors told him that he had the highest blood levels of carbon monoxide that they had ever seen in someone who was still alive, and they were amazed that he managed to even wake up and hear Amy. Dorian was actually about to go up and sleep in the loft with them, which is pretty scary. So they were all just really lucky. I'm glad that I don't have three dead friends.

Jason had to get a bunch of stitches in his face, and just looks like shit. I went over to his place, and he was really upset, because he might have permanent neurological damage. I guess carbon monoxide poisoning can unmyelinate your nerves, but the symptoms won't show up until several days to a few weeks after it happens. He might have parkinson-like symptoms, or severe personality changes, or something terrible like that. He just started sobbing, and it was really sad. He said if something like that happens, he will move back to alabama so that Dorian won't have to see him everyday. I think I actually felt worse for Dorian. He knew the heater was fucked up, and that would just be a shitty thing to have hanging over your head.

Anyway, im writing a lot. I should probably go do some studying or something. I got sucked into that okcupid website earlier today, which is kinda cool, but still makes me feel like a loser.

I stayed up really late today...or is it yesterday, until 6pm and cleaned my room. Well, at least I started getting it organized, and rearranged everything. Its definitely on the way to becoming a very happy cozy space. Zoe's mom came over this afternoon, and cleaned our kitchen for five hours. It looks amazing. Her mom is this super butch nice funny old hippie woman. She used to work construction, and smokes weed. She is apparently straight, and I really liked hanging out with her. She worked her ass off, so I felt obliged to be putting in a similar effort elsewhere. It snowed a little bit today, which was very exciting. It is supposed to be snowing tonight and later today... So I have been watching out the window all night, but no luck yet.

My neighbor Gabe, was over this morning. He always drives me nuts, he is like a big goofy monkey, and has the worst case of ADD that I have ever seen. He reminds me of a 3 year old, as soon as you pick something up, or start doing something, he wants to do it too...RIGHT NOW. He is always popping into my room when im half-awake, and wanting to play my upright. He gets on my nerves, and I am always hearing stories about what a complete dick he is.

He wanted to buy some adderall from me this morning, and I agreed. I had been trying to put up this closet organizer thing for about two hours, and it just wasn't working. It sort of requires a closet, or at least a corner, and there are no 90* angles in my room, so it was really frustrating. I remembered that he does construction, and I proposed that I give him some for free, if he agreed to take one right then and help me finish this project. He took one, and then just threw away the directions, and figured out a much better way to do it, and had it up in about five minutes.

We had to go down to the woodshop in the basement to get some screws, and he gave me a little tour. I had always just assumed that it was an old cluttered pile of crap from 20 year ago, like most of the things in the building. He and Dorian apparently had cleaned out and pressure washed this room in the basement in hopes of growing mushrooms there, which didn't work out. So they put like ten big work tables in there, and they have all of their professional woodworking equipment down there. Big crazy saws, and drill presses, and other heavy, sharp, expensive things that I don't understand.

Apparently Dorian has his own cabinet making business, and Gabe is going to school for boat-building, and works full time in a custom boat construction shop. He showed me some of the stuff he has done, and its pretty amazing. I was overflowing with dykey envy. I told him how I really want to get into woodworking, but I know next to nothing about how to use tools. I guess he used to be a woodshop teacher for a few years, and he said he would give me wood/tool lessons in exchange for upright bass lessons. So that seemed like a pretty good deal to me. I just bought this book on the proper german technique and all of that, so having to teach it to someone else will probably make me actually practice it too. I think we are going to start meeting on wednesday nights, which should be pretty fun. We talked a lot, and we are actually into quite a few of the same things. He has a lot in common with my inner 12 year old boy.

Gabe got pretty crazy on the adderall, and was ridiculously productive. We came back upstairs, and he built us this really cool, minimalist sort of shelf out of a panel and some wire for the tv, and then rearranged all of the furniture, made a rack for zoe's skateboard, put up a paper towel dispenser in the kitchen, mounted some mirrors on the closet door, and then very artfully arranged all of these pictures and anti-drug posters in our living room, and put up christmas lights. It looks awesome. Our living room walls are this god-awful grey-sage color, but now that its all arranged, it has a very nice authentic hip grungy feel to it. We cleaned all of the floors too, and I think its at a point where I can start doing fun projects like painting, and it will be fucking awesome. I'm just really happy about it, and it was so nice to get some help. Even with three people working their asses off for six hours, we couldn't completely get the place together. The apartment has just been like this giant leech sucking my soul out. I stayed at my parents for three days just so I wouldn't have to deal with it this weekend. Anyway, yay.

12:05 am
My new coworker Stanley is here tonight. He is an old black guy with a gold earring, I learn later that he used to be a pastor. He shakes my hand and says something like , "I'm so glad to meet you. Ryan here told me that you were really into baking, and I was like, 'Oh no!' But as soon as I saw you I was so relieved, I can tell that you are cool." I wonder about first impressions.

5:45 am thursday
Leaning against the hood of my car, smoking a cigarette. Its stopped misting, and the faint bluish glow in the east suggests that I might actually get to sleep through some sunshine later. The street I work on only has houses on one side, big white and brick officers houses. There are tidy old-fashioned orange streetlamps casting a coppery glow over the sprawling lawn, and the raindrops on my car are soaking through the ass of my jeans. As I am standing there, a big raccoon lumbers out of the cedar tree in the front yard. It stands up, and looks at me, then begins methodically scouring the lawn for nightcrawlers. It has a very strange gait. With every step, it pulls its elbows as far back as possible, and then lunges forward, bringing its front paws together, like a diver. It does this the whole length of the lawn, moves down a few feet, and proceeds back up the lawn. Every few moments it stuffs a worm, or bug into its mouth with its little monkey paws. Eventually, on its last pass it comes within about 6 feet of me. It rears up, and we look at each other for almost a minute. I smoke, and it stares. I spit, and it runs off to hunt on the neighbors lawn.

6:30am
reading the news. apparently chickens have advanced ways of communicating that they previously had only recognized in monkeys, and other higher mammals.

10am.
Sitting up in bed reading with my back against the wall, and the top of my head wedged under the ceiling. I have to slouch a little but thats natural for me anyway. Drinking stolen french wine out of a jelly jar. The cat tears up the ladder to my bed, puts his paws on the wall, and begins licking what I assume to be a previously-missed cum stain from the previous occupant, off of the ceiling, and is purring obscenely. Appalled, I throw the cat off of the bed and half-hope that he lands on his feet. I turn off my bedside lamp, which is five feet tall, and sits on my desk, roll over and try to go to sleep.

4pm
I'm slowly pulled out of my dream by the sound of someone singing and playing guitar. I can't recognize the voice, its slightly raspy, but with a nice tone, and the guitar playing is excellent. I am happy to just lie there and listen, and try to drift off back to sleep. Its impossible though, because although the singing is quite melodic, the guy is doing it at the top of his lungs, almost screaming, and just beating the hell out of the guitar as hard as he can. I slide off of my bed and stagger blindly into the living room, and can't quite make out who is on the couch with my contacts out. Its douglas, one of my crazy old coworkers from crave. He is this skinny, vaguely hispanic, tortured artist type of guy. He always wears a fedora over his long greasy hair, and is usually on an impressive array of drugs. He is really out there, he will be quiet for a long time, and then say something like 'do you hear that? your refrigerator is making my head buzz like an electric slinky....electric slinky, electric slinky."
Sometimes I think he tries too hard, but I don't know him that well. He may genuinely be insane. He apologies for waking me up, and says that he is waiting for zoe to get home, and that he just ate a ton of acid, and can't stop playing the guitar. He does it a little quieter for a while, and I pass out again.

6pm
im awake again. There is a lot of music coming from the living room. I stumble into the shower, and back out again. There is another cook from crave in the living room, and he is playing guitar with douglas. Zoe still isn't home. These guys have just been partying in my living room while I'm asleep. There is an empty case of beer on the floor, and they are both tripping on acid, smoking weed,doing lines of coke off of one of my dvds, and writing songs. They said they just started a band called the chandeliers, and its just the two of them. I stand in the doorway a while, and listen to them. They are actually ok.
There really isn't any room, but I haul my upright into the living room, wedge the peg under the coffee table, and recline on the couch with one leg over the arm, and the bass inbetween my legs. Douglas starts playing the blues, and I join in, my left hand is way back behind my head, and its completely silly. We keep it up for about an hour.

7:30pm.
I decide I need some caffeine, and go out on a mission to the "murder-mart." The chicken place at the end of the block smells really good, and I remember the article I read about how intelligent chicks really are. I am struck with an uncharacteristic meat craving, and the superstitious urge to consume their flesh, and thereby absorb their previously undiscovered mental prowess. Its a stupid, evil impulse, but I decide to run with it.

The chicken place by my apartment is a little notorious. I've only gone there when Sabrina had the occasional urge to embrace her blackness, and go through the drive-thru in her decked out black SUV, blaring rap music. I take a moment to decide between the white meat dinner, and the dark meat dinner. It sounds too greasy anyway, so I go with the white meat. The black woman at the counter gives me a look that makes me feel like a racist. I go back home, and the kitchen light blows out. I eat dinner in the dark, and feel a little dirty.

8pm

my friend ray shows up, and wants to go to see 'The Album Leaf' play at a bar by my house. Everyone is drinking and doing more drugs. I get high off of my rockstar and adderall. We play more music, for about an hour and a half. Its actually decent, and we have a good time. Ray and i piss off douglas by having a conversation over the music. We are both playing without looking, and yelling across the room about this book about the philosophy of music theory that ray is reading. We are pretentious assholes. All the boys really hit it off, and lots of vaguely uncomfortable macho heterosexual - hey, I really had fun with you, but just in a musical sort of way, im not a fag or anything, type of talk, which goes on for at least twenty minutes as we try to leave.


10pm
At chop suey, this dark psuedo-chinese themed bar. Ray and his "big goofy white friend" join this girl at her table. She is all alone, from tennesee, and just moved to BC. The bar slowly fills up with ubiquitous seattle hipster boys. All with the same black hoodies, receding hairlines, beanies, and thick black glasses. I'm the only one standing out of our group. I see a couple of fags, but its a pretty straight crowd for capitol hill. The music starts, some kind of experimental rock stuff...one guy is doing a bunch of electronic loops, and another is playing drums. The beats are interesting, but the music is all one chord....which really is harder in someways, and its pretty, but it doesn't do a lot for me. Some of my friends have been trying to get me to listen to more electronic music lately...mostly ray and my neighbor dorian. I'm learning to appreciate some of it. To me, some of it sounds like a bunch of punk kids took the two chords they learned, started taking a bunch of acid, and decided to play it through a computer. I try and appreciate all of the suspensions. I reflect on how I tend to use all of the rapid chord changes in jazz as kind of a crutch. I mostly can just touch on the roots and the tonic, and be done with it, because they go by so fast. Still though, a lot of this stuff bores me. Its just a big pastel smear. I've been noticing more that I have some mild music-color synesthesia. I always figured that it was how everyone experienced tone and texture, but I think maybe its a little more. I don't like pastels.

Some guy brushes past me, and I stand up straight, plant my feet, and do my most intimidating butch stance. I despise everyone in the bar, and try to reason it out. After all, I'm for all intents and purposes a white twentysomething hipster too. Maybe thats why I hate them. Although I had a 24 oz rock star earlier, I get a red bull at the bar so I can be drinking something too. I'm high too, and my pulse is racing. Rayburn suddenly yells in my ear that when he was a fetus, the veins and arteries in his arms grew in the wrong places. I feel his wrist, and he has no pulse there. Its pounding along the top of his hand, where a vein should be. He yells that the main artery in his hand isn't protected like with most people. If he ever gets cut on it, it will spray dark red blood and he might bleed to death.

Everyone here looks like they are trying hard to look cool and enjoy the music. Its...nice. I wonder if any of them are having a deep spiritual experience. Does hearing some kid playing drums to music from a laptop touch their soul? Are they here because they read that it was cool to like this band in a magazine? I feel detached. I think about last night, and how ecstatic I was listening to the jazz/blues jam session I went to. How comfortable I felt sitting with some old black guys, rubbing shoulders with some random irish bum. How they all shook my hands, clapped my shoulder, lit my cigarettes, and told me stories. I was overflowing with genuine joy, and yelling my appreciation up at the musicians. Jazz music feels like brighter bolder colors to me. Raw, elemental and sensual: Deep golden browns, liquid metallics, vibrant splashes of color. Like juicy ripe vegetables, wood, honey, smoke, dirt, blood... Things like that. Still though, I would like to learn more about making electronic music. I think there is a lot of interesting potential there. Ray is working pretty hard at it, so hopefully he will be able to show me a few things, and I can overcome my biases.

11pm
Ray is really fucked up now. He starts yelling in my ear about chess theory, and how I am really just a few moves away from being a real scholarly player, but my problem is that I can't see what the most relevant point is, and therefore I miss the best moves. I feel a pang of guilt, because I haven't played in about five weeks. I tell him that its a general theme in my life. I get by because I will have an obscure insight that no one else will think of, but in most cases, I am unable to recognize the main idea.


11:45 Driving to work I feel like someone is pulling me along a string, and I'm floating. I remember some oscar wilde quote ...something like, those who see a difference between the body and soul have neither.. I've been kinda down the past week or so, and I think its due to how unbalanced my lifestyle is. I think I am being held back in a lot of areas due to physical limitations, because I am treating myself like shit.


Anyway, I've written too god damn much. Its almost 3 am. I just had too much caffiene, and I couldn't stop the terrible reflective narrative. Internet girl never wrote me back. Oh well. Time to go study.

I had a pretty funny night tonight. I woke up tonight in a good mood, which quickly turned after I took my new medication. It makes me feel like my soul is stuffed full of cold rotten fish. Several different drugs later, I finally managed to balance the equation in my bloodstream into something bearable. Its a tricky operation, finding just the right mix of caffeine, nicotine, and thc to balance out the adderall, methocarbanol, and volatrin.

*pats liver* Hang in there boy! You are doing great!!

Yes. So I went and ran a few errands with Zoe, which usually means at least a handful of misdemeanors, if not a felony. She was stressing out about losing her job last week, but had two offers today, and might take both. I was quite impressed at her iniative, she went to at least six interviews in the past three days. Really quite astonishing for someone who smokes about a half an ounce of weed a day. We are getting to be pretty close. She can be a little immature and dramatic sometimes, but she is a good friend. We ran all around Beacon Hill and listened to reggae music, which cheered me up a bit.

I went to this jam session down at the new orleans cafe in pioneer square, and met up with my coworkerish person from next door, this old guy will. He skipped out on work tonight, and was all dressed up in a suit, and I almost didn't recognize him. We were outside smoking, and this homeless irish guy came up to us, and had a sob story about just immigrating, and getting robbed. He had one of the thickest accents that I've ever heard, and kept trying to show us his police report. Will invited him in for a cup of coffee, and to get out of the rain. The set was so amazing, and there was no cover charge. There were all of these pretty famous musicians there, all in town for someone's funeral. Will's cousin is the band leader, and so I got to sit around with all of these old old jazz guys at our table. It was kinda crazy, they were talking about people like herbie hancock, oscar peterson, and bill evans on a first name basis. Anyway, they were just fucking awesome. It really made my day. Especially the way this random homeless irish guy kept standing up and pounding his chest and saying, Gah! They jest cahnt doooo it lak that in Ireland!...over and over. It made me really happy.

Apparently its rained over 11.5 inches already this month, which already makes it the wettest november ever recorded in seattle, and we are only halfway through it. At least its usually too dark for me to tell anyway.

My mom called me tonight, and I guess my cousin Jen (who I just found out is pregnant) is going to keep her baby. I'm really surprised by how excited I am. I am a bit enamored with the idea of being someone's crazy aunt. All for now!

I feel like such a zombie tonight. I've been taking these new meds for the past few days to help with my fucked up shoulder and tendonitis. One is a muscle relaxant, and the other one is an anti-inflammatory drug. It has a million scary side-effects, and aside from things like sudden death and stomach bleeding, it can cause depression and sensitivity to sunlight. Like there isn't really enough of that going around already. Anyway, the combination of these with my adderall, and constant weed-hangover is just kind of gross. Its like I'm really focused on some point about two inches behind my eyeballs, and there is absolutely nothing there. It feels like I am obsessively staring at a blank sheet of paper with terrible writer's block. Its a little unpleasant.

I've been feeling better about my job in general, but the past couple of nights have been really rough. I haven't been able to write as much, or do any carving or fun stuff like that. Just sitting at the computer makes my shoulder ache, and I get stabbing pains in both of my forearms. Booo. The pain isn't that bad, I just don't want to aggravate it. It makes me really frustrated. I couldn't even carry my usual gear last night, and I've been having to use my shitty little practice amp and bass guitar. I guess I was relying too much on all of these creative outlets to keep me happy, and now I don't really know what to do with myself. I've been studying more, and I guess I can read...but fuck. I really miss all of my friends. I think I just need a hug, and some sunshine...and maybe a puppy. I bet that right now, somewhere, some happy bastard is holding hands with someone on a beach in the sunshine, and playing with a puppy. Thinking about setting them on fire makes me feel a little better.

I was up really late saturday during the afternoon, and was all fucked up and bored, and emailed some girl on craigslist. She actually seems pretty cool, and we've written back and forth a couple of times. She sent me a picture today, cute little stoner girl with pretty dreds. We might chill on saturday night after my midterm... I feel a little bad, because I don't think I really have time for anyone...but I guess I will see how it goes. I'm so pessimistic when it comes to possible relationships. I can easily think of around 30 reasons why it is doomed, and I haven't even met the girl yet...Anyway, I am sure this will come back to bite me in the ass, but even a little girl-drama would be a welcome distraction at the moment.

I hung out with Meg today before work. She is a geographic information systems database technician, at quadrant homes. Apparently tomorrow is National GIS appreciation day, or something like that. She made all of these sugar cookies to take to work. I helped her frost them, and made some with maps of washington, and piped out silly slogans on them like. GIS ROCKS! Hug your mapmaker! Happy GIS day...etc... Meagan always makes me so happy, she is such a dork, and its great. One of the things I love most about Meagan is how she has the motivation to take some completely random idea like that, and turn it into a huge production. They apparently had a new database at their work, and she organized some silly competition to see who utilized it the most. She made some gigantic five-foot chart and posted it in the hallway, and kept track of everyone's progress with little gold stars. I guess everyone got really into it, and her boss gave her money to buy actual trophies, and they are having some ridiculous GIS day party to celebrate the end of their GIS competition. Its just been funny to watch Meg grow up. She always did silly stuff like that as a kid, and I'm glad that she hasn't outgrown it. I don't know if very many people get to know her well enough to appreciate what a fucking weird, surreal sense of humor she has. Its almost like performance art sometimes, and I'm always amazed at the amount of time and planning she will put into organizing a single strange moment...Like when she tracked down my dad's biological father, and arranged for us all to meet for the first time at a jelly bean factory, underneath a gigantic jelly-belly mosiac of ronald reagan. Thinking about that cheers me up a bit. Oooh..only an hour and fifteen minutes of "work" left. I think I'm going to go drool into a book

Damn, its nearly 5am already. I went out for a smoke a couple of hours ago, and ran into the staff from the program next door. This old guy Will that I talked to the other night. The group home he works at is 18 and over, so he is allowed to leave them unattended. He brought over this DVD of The Three Mo'Tenors, and watched it with me. I hadn't heard of them before, basically the black version of the three tenors, but they do opera, jazz, blues, and motown stuff. It was really entertaining. I sure enjoy old people, he has a lot of good stories. They finally hired another full time grave staff here. He starts next week. Some older guy named stanley, who is in his sixties or something. I hope he has good stories, because he is going to be my new best friend. Or at least the person I spend the most time with. Will wants me to go check out this jam session next wednesday night that he goes to every week, and he is going to go to my thursday night one. Should be fun.

I had my first bass lesson today. Ev is so cool, and he spent an hour with me, and then let me stay for another hour and play with this guitar player. I felt pretty damn lucky to get a free two hour lesson. It was very humbling though, which I had prepared myself for. We spent most of the first hour just talking, and sort of philosophizing about music. It was kind of like the first session at a shrink, where you give your personal history. He really made an effort to get inside my head, and see the way that I think about playing, which was pretty cool. I've been feeling really stuck lately, and I can tell that my self-taught technique, or rather, complete lack thereof is getting in my way. No one has ever showed me how to hold a bass properly, or why it is better to sit down on a stool when you play. The way that I shift, and use the fingers on my left hand is just completely fucked. I pretty much am going to have to just start at the very beginning, and completely retrain my muscles. Its just going to be a lot of tedious work, but I don't really mind. I've been having a lot of pain lately in my forearms, and in my right arm it goes all the way up through my shoulder joint. I'm a little worried that I might be starting to get carpal tunnel or tendinitis or something. That would really blow. I do spend all of my time on the computer though...and when I'm not doing that, I spend a good portion of my time playing bass, wood carving, masturbating, or chopping vegetables. Actually those things probably make up nearly all of my waking hours...well, and driving, which isn't too hard on the hands. I should probably cut back on some of that stuff... but its all just so much fun. Lameness. I guess I could be studying instead.

One thing that Ev really got on me about was that I rely too much on written music. I guess I hadn't been thinking of chord changes as written music, because improvising from changes was such a scary leap from having every note written out. I really don't have any songs memorized. When I played with this guitar player, he let me glance at this progression, and then took it away from me, and said I had to use my ears. It was a little embarrassing. I need to learn to just hear the key, and listen to the leading tones to figure out what the progression is, and just not have to think about it. I used to be much better at it, but I really let it slip. I felt pretty good about it all though, considering. I guess I should focus more on theory and ear training and give my hands a break for a bit, but I really want to practice.

Ugh, its five now, and I haven't done any of the busy work that they stuck me with during the staff meeting. I left my house at like 6:30pm last night, and I didn't get home until 5:45pm this evening. I had to go to a fucking FOUR AND A HALF HOUR staf meeting today until like 4:45. Wtf. Cruel and unusual punishment. I was just happy I didn't pass out in a puddle of my own drool during the meeting. I guess I should go count some pills and do some filing before I have to wake kids up. Lame. I'm behind on my homework too. I should be able to name all of the muscles in my arms that are aggravating me by now. Boo. Maybe I can suck it up and get a few hours of studying in today before I pass out. We shall see.

What a screwy day. I am definitely investing in an actual alarm clock on my way home today. My cell phone alarm has not been terribly reliable this week. I stayed up for 34 hours, and slept through my alarm at 6:30, missed band practice, and was late for work. I got a call from my coworker at 11:30, asking me if I was coming in today. I was confused because I thought it was about 5:30 or so. WHOOPS. Sleeping in until 11:30 is just a weird way to start the day. Its 2:30am now and I still haven't eaten breakfast. I have band practice at like 7 tonight, so I am going to have to probably just eat sleeping pills and drink wine when I get home to get back on schedule because I slept for eleven hours. My body loves me.

I am working with an on call guy that I haven't met before. His name is Dylan, and he is a yoga teacher and looks like a movie star. He is doing yoga in the living room. I just made two sweet potato pies, drank a rock star and smoked a cigarette. Im such a fat sack of crap. He will not be able to resist the pie, but it probably won't make him fat. Oh well. I guess you can eat all of the pie that you want when you are a fucking yoga master. If I haven't blown the rest of my money on manic impulse purchases by next week I think I am going to sign up for martial arts. There is a women's kung fu place a block and a half from my apartment. If I'm not getting laid, at least I can fight. Playing music with friends, masturbating, and getting the shit kicked out of me should be a sustainable substitution for being in a relationship.

I've been wondering a little lately if I have been getting involved in too many things. I don't really feel over extended, so maybe I am alright. There are just so many things I want to be working on. Maybe its not too much... just school, artsy stuff, and getting in shape... and theoretically I can work on all of these things while I am at work. The artsy stuff category keeps getting a little broader. I think I am going to put off the writing class for a while, because I think I can still do a lot of improving on my own. I really want to get my room fixed up, and have a sort of wood shoppy kind of area. There is apparently a huge wood shop (and auto shop) in the basement of my apartment building. All of the guys in my building work in construction, or boat building, or what have you. A few of them are trying to learn to read music, and more about theory because they are learning new instruments. I want to find time to try and arrange some sort of exchange with them, where I teach them about music, and they teach me more about wood working. We have like half a log of yellow cedar in the basement, and I think that I can have some of it. Its really nice for carving and what not.

I have been thinking alot lately about what it is that I really want to do, what I want my life to look like, how I want to do it and all of that. I think I am starting to get a pretty good idea of it, and it makes me happy. Parts of it may even be feasible. For the next three or so years, I just want to get through nursing school, work on becoming a better jazz musician, and hack up pieces of wood to relax. I think I am going to do this ladder-program at north seattle community college, where I am taking my ANP class. I have about 4 more pre-requisites to take. I am going to do the second ANP class winter quarter, then have the other two done by the end of spring quarter. I can apply early to the program in the fall, and start the actual program in spring of 2008. Damn, that sounds a lot farther away than it actually is.

ooh my pies are fucking pretty. Pretty boy is very excited about them. I think I was cooking them at two low of a temperature though.

So anyway, once I start this program, I will be a LPN within a four quarters, so a year if I go through the summer. I have to work for six months as a nurse before I start the second part of the program, which is only 3 quarters, and will turn me into an RN. I think that this is a better option than just going straight through and getting my RN right away. It will give me a chance to actually get some experience working in the medical field, to see if I want to keep pursuing it, I will have a nice break from school, and I will be able to make some decent money, and pay for the rest of the program. I think I would feel like an asshole if I started working as an RN straight out of school with no experience, and had to order around LPNs that have like 20 years of work experience. I also like the idea of gradually working my way up the food chain, it makes it easier to relate to people later on. If I ever become a doctor, or a nurse practitioner or something it will probably make me appreciate LPNs more later. I can say things like, "I know how much it sucks to clean out this obese man's festering anal abscess, and I really appreciate you doing it. I have cleaned out many a festering anal abscess in my day, so here is a fucking medal." Or something. Actually, I think I would be able to honestly say that without ever having to clean out a festering anal abcess. Damnit. Well, its got to be good for like... my soul or something. Or maybe it will be good material for later, after working in medicine turns me into a jaded shell of an anarchist, and I go hide in the woods and write the great american novel.

So really hiding in the woods is what this is really all leading up to. I have these two very strong and conflicing desires. Part of me wants to just be a nomad, and aimlessly wander the earth, and the other part of me wants a big fucking communal farm in the woods, maybe by a lake...with a huge house with lots of guest rooms, and a big recording studio in the basement, and a pack of hounds. Granted, it will be a while before I can do that...but the cool thing about nursing is that if I am ever coming down with a bad case of wander lust, I can pick up a travel assignment, and leave town for a couple of months and come back. Hopefully I will be able to invite some trust worthy hippies over to hold down the fort and take care of my pack of hounds. Its kind of weird to start thinking about things like... eventually buying a house.

I've been reading up more on this whole travel nursing business. Most of the assignments are 13 weeks, you get between 35-50 bucks an hour, they put you up in decent free housing depending on the company, and you get a travel stipend. Some places even give you a cash bonus on top of that. Still though, long shifts, and shitty hard work. Anyway, something to aim for. It would be a fun way to visit friends, since I have so many scattered all over the place. I could just work in the same town for a couple of months, and not have to imposes upon them. I like the idea of traveling around, sewing up holes in people, and going and playing in jazz clubs all over the country on my nights off. It would probably get pretty lonely though, but I generally make friends with everybody in a matter of minutes, and it would definitely be a very colorful way to spend my thirties. It would be fun to have a dog to drag around with me. We could go breaking hearts all over the country. I would have to trade in the civic for a black volvo station wagon. One of the old ones from the 80s, and put some kind of crazy engine in it... Like a racing engine, or maybe if I am feeling guilty, something a little more eco-friendly. It might need some flames painted on it too.

Anyway, thats apparently the kind of life I want for some amount of time. But who knows, I have no attention span. The other thing I really want to do, which all of the wood-working stuff is in preparation for, is learning how to make instruments. I would really love to get an apprenticeship to a luthier. Maybe when I'm at a point where I can just work a few months on, and a few months off, or just work every other week or something. I just get such joy out of creating things, and I think I could be really good at it. I would love to learn to make upright basses someday, but im definitely years and years from that point. I should probably start out with some guitar kits or something, you can buy them online. I hear you can actually learn quite a bit yourself from books, if you have all of the right tools. I want to eventually make crazy custom instruments, carved into all sorts of ridiculous shapes, with lots of intricate patterns shaped and burned into the wood. Things that look old fashioned and organic, but sort of psychotic and trippy at the same time.

I also would like to be a ninja, and a black smith. Maybe I can set up a forge on my hippie commune. I really want to learn to make knives. Also, I would be really interested in finding some more underground nursing assignments, although they probably don't pay as well. Like spending three months as a nurse on a pirate ship, or maybe for the mafia. Pirates need nurses god damnit. Or do they just throw injured people to the sharks. Who knows.

Yay my pie is fucking delicious. One of the kids just came down because they are sick, and is having some hot chocolate and pie with her pills. Im such a fucking mom, I get a weird maternal kick from having homemade sweet potato pie to feed to insomniac teenagers in the middle of the night. Creepy. At least I can get my domestic urges taken care of at work, and spend my life doing more important things, like becoming a ninja jazz musician nurse that plays homemade instruments carved with homemade knives. It makes perfect sense god damnit. Time to go count some mother fucking pills!

Today is a very full day, the kind with 30 hours in it. I accidentally slept all night last night, from 6pm to 5:30am, which was kind of lame. I meant to wake up at midnight so that I could stay on schedule, but I accidentally set my alarm for noon instead. I really need to get used to military time.

I went to work with Zoe today, thinking that they didn't have anyone to wash dishes for brunch. Some random kid showed up, and really wanted to work the shift, so I stayed for the first four hours and trained him and helped with prep because the cooks had been up all night, and were hung over. So of course to cure their hangovers they started drinking and doing lots of coke in the bathroom. It was the first time I've worked there and not been washing dishes. It was genuinely enjoyable. I chopped about 20 quarts of potatoes, until my fingers blistered, and got to make up some fun sauces for the specials. The kitchen was so tiny that when I had to scramble the eggs, I just put on my jacket and went into the walk in. I sat on a big cambro next to the box of eggs, and put a 12 qt container between my feet. We all had been smoking spliffs, so I was nicely hazy. I just whisked with my left hand, and cracked them with my right. I was pretty happy that I finally got my one hand egg cracking technique down. Its a lot of fun to crack like 150 eggs one after another with one hand. I felt like a stud. And kind of gooey.

After work i went on a manic stoned dykey expedition to the hardware store, and bought a shower head, and a bunch of pvc pipe, and a drill, and some wire and hooks. I drilled holes in the ceiling for the hooks, and sawed up the pipe, and made this big rectangle, and suspended it from the hooks with wires, and then hung shower curtains on it. It looks fucking terrible, but it works, and I felt like I earned some extra butch points. Im very excited about the drill, because I can use it to bore holes into dowels, and I should theoretically be able to make my own flutes.

My friend Ray came up in the afternoon to play some music. We went to the musicians exchange, which is this awesome second hand instrument shop, with many distracting and strange things. I got a decent high hat and stand for really cheap. Im working on using it while I play my upright. I can do it just fine if i stick to pretty simple rhythms, but its something im looking forward to playing with, especially since we don't have a drummer in my combo. Of course, if i fuck up, it would totally de-rail everything. Maybe when I get a little more coordinated, I will get one of those harmonica neck thingys like dylan used, and I can play the harmonica and bass, and stomp out some rhythms on the high hat. I want to be a one woman band like burt from mary poppins. Maybe I can go down to pike's place and play for money...but I probably won't be able to compete with the guy that plays guitar, and the harmonica, and hula hoops at the same time. Oh well, a girl can dream.

I am so happy october is over. My month of hellish transitions, withdrawing from summer, the sun, my old job and friends, old bio-rhythms. It finally feels natural to be in bed by noon, and if I happen to wake up 'in the middle of the night' and see sunlight peeking in through the cracks in my foiled over windows, I'm relieved that I still have plenty of time left to go back to bed. Being nocturnal really has a few advantages. I find the rain much more bearable at night. When it is rainy during the day, I always feel a little cheated, like the day is sort of wasted. I just want to stay inside, and its just more oppressive in general. Especially the bleak white skies, and constant drizzle. It just wears a person down after a while. Rainy nights are a little different. Its lighter out than on clear nights, because of the city lights reflecting off of the clouds. The rain catches on the street lamps, and the roads are smeared with streaks of bright neon from the store windows, and stoplights. Its not a natural sort of beauty, but I'm learning to appreciate it.

I have every night of the week mapped out now. Mondays I get up, go to this jazz workshop, and then head to big band. Tuesdays I have combo rehearsal, Wednesdays I am going to go to this jam session downtown with all of these really old school jazz guys, at this place called the new orleans cafe... Thursdays its a jam session in ballard... fridays Im cramming at the all-night greasy punk diner before class saturday morning. Living in the dark has been making me work harder to find new ways to be happy. I think its working out, I feel like I'm making my own light, and its not really dependent upon anyone else.

I woke up tonight, went across the hall and hung out with my neighbor jason for a few hours. We smoked cigarettes and listened to this old country program on the indy radio station. Then I went down the street to this corner deli i discovered a couple weeks ago. Its like a fancy mini-mart, but they make these enormous thick grilled sandwiches for like five bucks. They are amazing, and I usually get a few meals out of them. I got one of those, and then drove across town to this jazz bar in ballard. I met up with one of my friends from my big band. This girl jenny, who plays trombone. We have only hung out one other time, but I think we will get to be good friends, especially since she has a girlfriend. She is pretty butch, but in the ponytail tomboy sort of way. She is a really good horn player, and brought a couple of her friends with her. They are nerdy fruity straight boys who are musicians too, and work at the utilikilt store. One of the guys was practically having an orgasm over these new comics that he had just bought, so I figure they must be good people.

Ellie, my crazy singer/accordian player, and legal owner of my bass was there too. She is always an embarrassment, I was glad I wasn't sitting with her. She tried to play along with some of the pros...and she just doesn't know what she is doing. She also talks to the people onstage very loudly from the audience between songs. She is a complete attention whore.

I'm really falling in love with the whole jazz scene in seattle. There is just something so romantic about starting my day off in a dark cafe, with rain drumming against the steamy windows, watching the different colored lights reflect across the trumpets. Shutting my eyes, and sipping good coffee, and listening to these amazing musicians. Lots of familiar faces in the audience and on stage. It was just really cool to feel a part of that community, even if I wasn't playing.

Ev, the guy who is going to start giving me lessons runs the jam sessions. I saw him play for the first time tonight, and he was amazing. He had written me an email saying that he wasn't a great player, but maybe he can show me a thing or two. He is very modest. I really liked his style. He sits back, but just has this very jaunty, precise, joyful way of playing. It reminded me of a really happy alpha dog prancing around with its tail in the air, smiling around a big stick in its mouth... if that makes any sense. He is one of the friendliest people I have met in a while. He came up to say goodbye to me and my friends before we left, and talked to each person, learned their name, and had some personal story for each person about where they went to school... or where they worked.. or something. He remembers every little detail about people too, its impressive. Just a really nice guy, and he tore it up on the bass. He played with a pianist and a drummer, and they were amazing. The pianist was this big fat italian guy, who played with his head to the side, and had this vacant snarling expression. He almost looked autistic, and was drooling and growling. It made me happy. I feel pretty lucky that Ev is willing to give me free lessons, and maybe let me play bass in this combo workshop that he does. I think he usually charges about 300 bucks for the class. I'm going to meet up with him some morning after work next week.

I guess its time to do my homework. I've got a lot of bones to learn by saturday.

I sense that I am going to become a complete livejournal whore. It is definitely a very comforting distraction, and a good way to eat up all of the most productive hours of the day. It never ceases to amaze me how fast these night shifts go by, it just doesn't feel like eight hours. Once it hits 5 am, its hard to get any work done, because I have to start waking kids up, and writing my progress report for the night, and making breakfast and all of that.

In an ideal world, I would really structure my shifts. Maybe just fuck around the first hour, limit emails and writing to an hour or so, play my bass for an hour, do homework for two hours, maybe do a bit of carving. Maybe I will manage to find the self-discipline soon. It would be nice to systematically improve in all of those areas. Writing is by far the most seductive, especially emails or now livejournal. It is a tantalizing illusion of human contact. It doesn't feel entirely wholesome however, and tends to leave a somewhat bitter aftertaste. I think it is because I am just doing it a little too much. I put more energy into the emails I write to my friends than they do, because I have hours upon hours to do it. It leaves me feeling really needy, and more than a little desperate, and thats not something I want to be. I think any kind of relationship needs to be an equal exchange. Moderation, right... still trying to get the hang of that one.

I just have so much time to think these 'days', and I haven't quite gotten into the habit yet of keeping my thoughts to myself. I have a tendency to blurt things out as soon as I think them, and bounce my ideas off of just about everyone I meet. As if once they are formed in my head, they become their own living entities, and I need to birth them out into the world. Maybe birth is the wrong word, vomit or expel might be more fitting. I am constantly seeking reassurance, and validation. Needing to know that I make sense, that I am not insane. Afraid my ideas are vile poison, that its not safe to just let them sit inside me. I've loathed myself for such a long long time. I was worried at first, that working graveyard by myself would just make me lose it. That I would just sink down into despair, depression, the old self-hatred. The sleep-deprivation made me a little batty for a while, but I've been pleasantly surprised to find that this just hasn't been the case at all. Most of my life, I've never felt that I've had any sense of myself; who I am, how people see me, etc. I have been getting a better sense of it in the past few years, but just in the past few weeks, sitting in a room by myself, having time to reflect, I'm just getting a better sense of me. I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that I like what I see. I am still well aware of my faults, but... they are human, and things I think that I can improve upon. I'm learning to forgive myself, and love myself - not just in the biblical sense (although thats probably in the bible, I never did read it).

I think that my compulsive need to be open with everyone all of the time will slowly fade away. After all, glasnost (and vodka) did destroy the soviet union, right? At least I don't drink. I'm digressing, my head almost came out of my ass. Back to me. I'm not saying that I want to become a complete hermit, just that I think I'm starting to trust myself more. Enough to keep my own secrets, enough to keep some of my energy and love for myself. I figured this was just one of those sink or swim situations. Its making me an emotionally stronger person, and its such a relief...at least to see that I'm heading in that general direction.

Another thing that I am trying to come to terms with is that...well, I just have a lot of potential. Its one of those things I've always heard, but I only do what I need to do to get by. I've always been content just... not doing my homework and coasting through with B's and the occasional A-, or never practicing and being second or third chair in band. Honestly, I could probably count the times that I've REALLY tried on one hand. Or maybe one finger. Shit. I can't even think of an example. I tried pretty hard when I took an intensive russian course at UW before my senior year of high school...but honestly, I could have tried harder. I always say its because I'm lazy, or because I can't focus...and maybe those things play a part. Really though, I'm just afraid to find out how deep my talent runs, and what its limits are. Not because I'm afraid that I will find that I'm not as good as I think I am... just.. I don't know if I'm comfortable with shining that bright. Anyway, hopefully if I ever become that actualized, I won't feel the need to smear the internet with my narcissistic ramblings anymore than I already have tonight. I guess I have put off doing this stupid stupid AmeriCorps report long enough, time to get down and dirty with some bureaucratic paperwork.

Monday morning is so much harder when it starts right at 12am. I'm not quite here tonight. Its cold, and I've been up all day, and smoked a lot of herb earlier. I keep fading, and coming to when I hear my drool drip onto the desk...*splat*...oh look, there went another 7 minutes.

I guess I have finally given in and started using this silly journal. I have had an account for years, and I've never written in it. It always just seemed a little too voyeuristic, or narcissistic. Apparently I've finally reached that level of self-absorbed desperation, and I'm willing to throw bits of my most personal inner-narrative out into cyberspace, fishing for some shred of human contact. I guess I have always been turned off from it because I hate censoring myself. When I write in my journal, or just emails, I tend to just let it all out. Writing multiple entries with varying degrees of detail is too exhausting. I could go on, but I'm bored with this thought.

I've been in a pretty good space for the past few days. My head has seemed like a big pot of soup at a rolling boil. All sorts of thoughts and impulses swirling up and down like random chunks of carrot and onion, delicious and diverting. Life has felt rich and warm, and slowly cooking down into something consistent. Tonight, I feel like the burner was turned off, and now its cooled and congealed. Like there is a thick waxy layer of fat separating me from myself, and I just can't bear to disturb all of the pretty little beads of water that have condensed on the surface. Hows that for a terrible extended metaphor?

Really though, I am procrastinating, because I don't want to do this stupid report for the end of my americorps service. I know it will make my team leader look bad if I don't do it. Part of me just wants to see what happens if I don't do it at all. I feel a little like my bastard cat, who likes to slowly push full glasses over the edge of the table just so he can watch them shatter on the floor. We have been fighting lately. He doesn't like my new hours, or his new cat food. He sticks his paws in my drinks, attacks me when im masturbating, leaves muddy pawprints in the bathtub, and does these embarrassing hit and run attacks on people in the living room. He tears around the apartment so fast that he can actually run up and along the wall while he changes direction. He is pretty cute and furry and all of that, but lately he has been intentionally antagonizing me, and trying to tempt me into terrible acts of animal cruelty. He fills me with bursts of the darkest, most uncontrollable rage, and sometimes i almost bite through my lip. Its not a side of myself that I really like seeing.

I think Im starting to get used to being alone. It still hurts, but I'm developing a tolerance. I'm so used to being an extrovert. Exchanging my ideas with people, give and take, all of that. I put most of my energy into other people, and I get so much back in return. We scratch each others backs and all that. Being out of the loop is a little disconcerting. I feel myself slowly changing into an introvert, and it tickles a little. It still sucks, but I'm getting stronger, a little quieter, more resolved. I'm getting to know myself better. I really enjoy taking anatomy at this point in my life. Its keeping me grounded. Staying up alone at night, its easy to get lots in all sorts of terrible existential questions. Its good to be studying something so straight forward. This is why my heart beats. This is what my flesh is made of. This is how my fingers move. This is what my insides look like. This is how fragile I am. Its humbling, to realize that my own body is a universe vast and complex beyond my comprehension. I should really make sure all of the kids are still alive, and do some actual work... or at least go try out the new ps2 game. Or practice some of the songs that we are recording for our demo cd on wednesday. Or finish the stupid snake I am carving. Fuck you brain. Rar