It is seeming to cheesy to create a title everytime I write something. Too much contrast when the content is far from grand.

Final packing being done. Still want to put on two more coats of nail polish, and it's not looking good. Harry went to get Subway for lunch; my train leaves at 4:25 and it's 1:25. Harry is my ex-boyfriend and primary friend. One day we will move on, but for now we enjoy the parts that attracted us to each other without the grief that drove us apart. And he loves my dog, and she him, so I am insanely lucky to have this kind of house-sitter arrangement. My dog is Riley, a little Toto-like terrier who after 12 years as my equal is past the kennel-the-dog stage. Makes it hard. But she's the best.
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One hour to go. Bags are packed and one foot is painted. Harry is here, the dog is nervous, and I found the lid to my hairspray. I cannot help that I am a big-hair kind of gal. I need to bring my hairspray. It's probably not as bad as you're picturing. But the hairspray is part of my life. I have empties piled up next to the dresser that tease me with hollow jangles when I knock into them. I know how the closet wino suffers.

Blue-pink Nail Polish

Makes you look tan -- really tan -- even when you're not. I'm enamored. And have a pretty fine Priscilla Presley look going on. For better, or for worse.

A More Bloggy Entry

So I'm not into writing essays about the political climate. And I don't have interesting and clever things to say about the heads of business and how they're fucking things up. Neither am I a true geek who can offer enlightening shortcuts to all things web and media. Even as a technical writer, I can't decide whether to capitalize 'web' or not (oh, how the debate rages on!).

Lofty aspirations left on the roadside, I'm going to do here what is simply more me, and that is the unoriginal but compelling chronicling of my own daily life. I'm kind of embarrassed that I kidded myself otherwise in the first place. Why be ashamed when that's the very stuff I love to read, anyway? I love diaries and personal musings of other (interesting) people. And since interest cannot be created, only attracted by like minds, that part is really out of my hands.

So, I'm sitting in my home office on a Thursday night, writing here instead of packing, cleaning, or otherwise readying myself for the trip I embark on tomorrow. Taking the Amtrak to Chicago at 4:25, and I CAN'T WAIT! I think I already posted the details of my little journey. Want to hear the fear?

I'm afraid that I won't be cool enough for the three talented ladies I'll spend two days in a van with. They are two incredible singers--one that bests even Liza Minelli--and a very talented artist. They don't wear make-up. How do I fit in, with my mascara and big hair? I have a Priscilla Presley theme (early, married-to-Elvis, Priscilla) going for the trek, and maybe it will seem just something enough to count. Intellectually, and in most ways altogether, I get that I stand quite well on my own; have proven my talents, etc. But there's that ugly funked part that bobs up to take over on occassions such as these. Sometimes, not always. Likely not this one, but venting the worries is better than letting them fester in my neck muscles.

It will be a great time, and I'll save the freakiness for my writing. :P

The Muted Tones

Test-running the new color scheme; I like the fleshiness of the tone. Not bad for the free Blogger, I'm thinking.

Are you of one religious mind? Is it possible to be thoughtfully certain of all things religious? It seems to me that those of solid faith are solid precisely because they abandon certainty. A nice feeling, I'll bet.

I realize that I've stopped writing what I am really thinking or feeling. Instead, I've tried hard to craft something Worthwhile the past several months or year. I don't see how trying to figure stuff out about myself, life, and their interaction is exactly publishable. And I do want to put out something that has hopes of connecting with another mind. I have books and Word docs filled with conversations to my "future people" as I think of them, the reader that gets it, but how to give those mobility, I'm just not sure. So I've been working on fiction, and on personal essays, but realize that my trying to go a certain direction is affecting the quality. Drat. My gut tells me to go back with the flow, write what wants to be written, even if the subject matter bores me at this point, and let the form take care of itself down the road. Because that's the direction, and those are the topics, that still sock me in the gut, make my stomach hurt, make me feel. And that's where the writing happens.

Hey, Helen Keller

Last night I had a dream of the feature-film variety, where today it still seems made up of a kind of reality deeper and more real than this one. This guy was stalking me. I spotted him when I was walking across a parking toward a building that was a combination of the building I work in, the rollerskating rink from the pre-teen years, and a lofty artsy gallery where a party was going on. He was in a car, and I knew he'd be coming after me. But a small part of of me worried I was being melodramatic, so I just kept walking. Then he got out of the car and moved my way, and I started running, booking, as fast as I could to the door, and he started running after me. His hair was red, his face not bad, even kind of pleasant, and youngish. His legs were deformed and very short for the rest of his body, but strong--he was fast. (Morph the jester from Gulliver's Travels with Danny Bonaduce.)

I rounded the corner of the building for the last stretch to the door, and realized I'd need to get my access card out to get through the automated security door (like at work). In true horror-movie fashion, I fumbled with my wallet, heard him approaching, got the card out, and made it inside the building just in time.

Upstairs at the gala affair, which may or may not have been some celebration of my celebrity, I resumed normal mode, then told a few people about the stalker guy. They thought I was exaggerating, it just didn't sound like real life, etc. So maybe it wasn't. Maybe I'm theatrical. I socialized and moved ahead.

Then I saw him at the party. Across the room, which was mostly white, through people dressed in shininess and white, I saw his face, the red hair, and the crazy checked jacket. He was looking around for me, but hadn't seen me yet.

I ran around the back way to the stairs, flew down them, and ran outside. The exterior matches my workplace, meaning located downtown Detroit with the rough edges and nighttime vacantness that brings. Except for the night people, of course. Instinctively, I knew he was already aware of my escape, and was on my trail. There was no cover anywhere, except the parking lot, and I worried that was too obvious. Better to take a longshot that might mean survival. I ran across Woodward, down a sidewalk--still in plain open view--and around the back of a building. There I laid on pavement, watching the front of the work/party/roller building that he eventually shot out of. Wild. Powerful in his singlemindedness.

A nice girl helped me hide when he came running our way, but it was inside a closet, and really just a stall until he found me. Which he did. I was curled on the floor, like in a tornado drill. The door opened, the light went on.

"Hey, Helen Keller." He smiled at me, playful, and sat on the floor next to me. I had to give up--what other choice did I have. And he really did like me. In his own way. He was just crazy in that stalkerish way that means you might die if you muss up his version of reality.

It ended with me trying, valiantly, to outsmart him, to use psychology on him. His reality was not very well thought out, obviously; he lived on the superhuman strength of his immediate emotion. It seemed there was a shot that if that reality became boring to him, or too much effort, he would go away. "So, what next?" I asked him. Now that we were the Happy Couple, "where do we go from here? You're the boss." I feigned excitement at our romantic life together, eager, pressing. Zero challenge.

And as always, felt a huge lump of sadness at my non-importance as I saw his eyes glaze over with the boredom that would mean my freedom.

Eaves

eaves (eevz) noun:
Overhanging edge of a roof.

Wordsmith.org's word of the day. I'm surprised to see a word list in its plural--why not "eave?" Can one not have a single eave, but only eaves?

The overhanging edge of a roof, in any case, is a scary place. There lives spiders, whole generations of spiders that live and die in their own eaved universe. Perhaps a hurricane passes through via a garden hose, and the squnch up close and frantic in the corners and indentations, the survivors rebuilding in quiet and damp peace, not speaking of the ones lost.

My great-grandma's house had those kinds of eaves. Playing on the dark side of the house, an alley-ish strip between brick and overgrown fence, you could look up and see the underside of eaves never touched by hurricane hoses, or brooms or harsh wind. I would not want to put my hand up in those shadows.

Pyrrhic Victory

Pyrrhic victory \PIR-ik\, noun:
A victory achieved at great or excessive cost; a ruinous victory.

Dictionary.com's word of the day. My mental health is a Pyrrhic victory. Achieved by losing the guts of attachment to people I grew up loving. People I still love. Leaving a faulty system doesn't make those feelings go away; if only. Sometimes, the loneliness and heartbreak does feel ruinous.

Today I am title-less. This post, anyway. It's like being shirtless. Have you ever been shirtless, as a female, in a non-sexual way? It's a great feeling, and always made me resent that boys get to do it and I can't. Freud is so off-base about the kinds of things that make you jealous of males; trust me, it's not the penis. But riding a bike down the street with wind breezing against my chest, touching all my skin there, and rounding out over my shoulders, that is plenty to be jealous of. Even when you're older, and you can hang out in your own house reading a magazine and eating a sandwich, lounged in a beanbag or recliner with no shirt on, a boyfriend or husband will find you sexy, and want to ruin the vibe of the moment by changing the mode to swanky music. Or, if you have a boyfriend or husband lurking around, there is the compulsion, the obligation, to suck in the parts of stomach that fold up when lounging with the newspaper, one leg crossed over the other. Either way, attention to it wrecks it.

I like the feeling of naked from the waist up.
When was the last time I got to feel sunshine and wind on my rib cage?
Boys and men get to feel the sensual pleasures of nature in addition to the ones of sex.
Of that, I am jealous.
(Also of how they can bond over a game of pool.)

B. O. R. E. D. O. M.

How do other people handle the boredom? I don't get it. And it drives me crazy that nobody is e-mailing me, so they must not be bored, but then why don't they give me the secret? I am doomed to a mind exquisitely tuned to pick-up scraps of boredom.

That is not really true. It's only in truly boring situations. Like this one. I am rarely bored when I can live without restrictions. Like on a Saturday, in my overalls and barefeet, with piles of books and the great out doors.

Upcoming Omega Trip

Have you ever heard of Omega, in upstate New York? Lynda Barry gives a week-long writing workshop there every year, called "Writing the Unthinkable". It's next week, and I'm going for my second time.

I am so excited. I'll come home with a tremendous body of work, and have spent all those days basking in the nourishment that is Lynda. And the people who love her. And even the greatness of Omega. Whew.

Firstly, though, I am geeked for Leg #1 of this adventure. I head into Chicago via Amtrak Friday night, just in time to catch Kelly Hogan's show at Schuba's. I met Hogan that first Omega experience, and will be roadtripping with she and friends to New York Saturday morning. I have great visions of hungover bonding piled in her van; these are good times. It's nice to know about them ahead of time once in a while, cool to look forward to.

I am so lucky to have hooked up with these incredible ladies of enormous talent.

Hairballs of Boredom

Because another thing is, I started this thing so I'd have something to do during the hours of mind-numbing training I have to sit through this month. I'm an excellent student, but in this case I'm part of the training end of things, and instructional designer here for support and eventual delivery. Here in this computer lab I sit with 30 employee-students. In around an hour I'll get up and tell them all about the Fixed Assets module of banner, 15 minutes worth, then sit back down and twiddle until closing time.

Too Embarassed to Blog?

I went and told a person or two that I had this blog going. Now I don't want to write anything, because my true literary-genius identity can be confused with this normal-person, 8th-grade, very girl-like electronic mumbling. Dang it all. All I can say is hang in there, the great stuff needs unclogging, which I'm doing via blogging, so if you don't want to read the clog, avoid the blog!

This blog is the hairball in my literary throat.
Stand back!