That’s that old shit right there.

Found some old stuff!

——

The last time I saw the dock I was sitting with James eating a peach and dangling my feet in the murky water. He sat next to me on the hot wood, tracing circles with the end of a burnt match. We had rented a paddle boat. The day was hot and still; the air lay close against my face. My stomach turned an easy somersault.

“So do you want to get in this boat or what?” he said.

His car was in the parking lot, packed with the detritus of four years gone wrong: books with endearments scrawled in the front, sweaters that my mother sent for Christmas, the tags still on. The cat had left the house when she saw the boxes in the hallway and returned three days later, all matted fur and contempt. She slept in the space between us in the bed, stretching her body across the distance.

“I guess we can get in the boat. I paid for it,” I said.

The boat wobbled and water sloshed over the edge as James set a wary foot inside. Our pace was slow and we moved in silent, deliberate circles around the lake.

“This is fun,” he said. He trailed his hand in the water and avoided my eyes.
“Yeah, this is great. What a good idea. Paddle boats. Who rents paddle boats anymore?”

Four years of living together had reduced us to an awkward first date, paddling aimlessly around a lake in July. We were tired.

The boat came to rest after ten minutes and bobbed gently on the waves created in our wake.

“Are you going to come visit me in Seattle?” he asked.
“I don’t know. No. Probably not.” I said.

We lapsed into silence, looking across the lake to the camp that was there. Kids in bathing suits and life jackets ran full til on the dock, bright colored dots moving on skinny legs. A girl sat on the dock, hugging her knees. Her friends looked back and waved and she shook her head as they jumped into the water one by one.

“I guess we better get back,” James said.

He started pedalling and I followed suit, going at a languid pace until we reached the dock.He offered his hand as we got out of the boat and I grabbed it. His palm was sweaty. We walked back to the end of the dock in silence.

“I guess I’m going to take off. You want a ride?” he asked.
“I can walk, it’s fine,” I said.
“I’ll call you in a couple weeks,” he said. The words fell flat.
“Have a good flight,” I said.

I watched his back disappear as he walked up the hill towards his car.

How To Handle Heartbreak

The First Night

For starters, turn on the television. Flip past anything with human beings interacting with each other. Settle on the Food Network. Watch Rachael ray make 30 minutes of dpressing chili. Wish you had the strength to leave your bed. Your stomach is oddly light, full of stones that weigh nothing. You sleep with your eyes open that night, tears drying on your cheeks. The light from the street lamp casts a long beam across your floor and you think before you go to sleep that you look like a painting, motionless, serene.

When’s the last time.

It’s been a sec. I haven’t done this in a long time, so now I will do this more often. Here’s a little ditty about some things I’ve been thinking about. I’m re-working my thesis after an inspiring conversation. I am in love with a bike. I’m not sure what San Francisco has done to me but I think it’s ok.

You never know how much it’s going to hurt until it actually happens. You expect romance novel bosom-heaving, throwing yourself face down into a pile of satin pillows, heart beating madly against your ribcage, dying to get out. Perhaps you need chocolates, potato chips, things to throw. You want to smash plates or stab a pillow just to watch the feathers fly about your head in slow motion.

Heartbreak is not this dramatic. It’s a quiet, slow pain. It takes a while to reach your heart. It starts in your stomach, a numbness that spreads to your extremties until you feel as if your head has removed itself from your body, floating free above the stem of your neck. You spend an hour or so wandering around your apartment chasing it, watching it bob on an invisible thermal just beyond your grasp. This feeling takes over each room slowly, filling the space with huge gray thunderclouds, pushing you out slowly until you’re clutching the walls. The only place you’re comfortable is the cool porcelain of the bathtub, the door to the bathroom closed behind you, the lights out. Sit in the bathtub. It feels strange at first. You’re not supposed to be in the tub with your clothes on. Something about this is familiar. Your mind wanders to bad metaphors about the womb, but you know that’s not it. The bathroom is quiet. The tub is cool. The space inside the bathtub with the curtain drawn is manageable. Here you can quietly sift through your emotions, take stock of your dignity. Moments that replay on an endless loop on a jumbo screen are minaturized, compressed into teensy moving figures like ants, images on a dollhouse television set.

You want to sleep in the bathtub. You can work from home from the bathtub, the cord of your computer stretching like a tightwire across your living room floor, snaking under the closed door. You can peck away at the computer with a renewed spirit, taking phone calls, hoping that no one hears the strange echo of your bathroom. A pillow would help. Your body starts to mold to its countours.  Bottles of half-empty shampoo form a cityscape on the edge. The light that filters in from the window is weird and clear and throws everything into focus.

Stay in the tub until the clouds retreat, until you no longer feel the need to belly across the floor, dodging memories. Stay in the tub until you know it’s safe to be outside again.

Ghetto revival.

I’m not quite sure what’s going on. I’ve been in California for 2.5 years now, which to me is a long ass time to be anywhere in these delicate years post-college. I’ve settled, made friends, started a little life. Shit is good. The last time I lived in California for any extended period of time was when I was 17. That’s 8 long years ago. When I was in high school, I was kinda ghetto. I think I’m experiencing a revival.

See this song? This song was my JAM senior year of high school, for serial. I have fond memories of dancing like it was my job at Grad Night at like 3 am to this song. I’m fairly certain that when this came on at my senior ball I screamed, hiked up my dress and did it cause I love it on the dance floor. It’s coming back. I’ve been listening to dirty-ass rap non-stop for the past two weeks, with no end in sight. I think this is a good thing, but who the hell knows. This might never end.

Oh my god.

This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

optimism?

is it possible?

i came to the realization today that i am way too trusting of others, especially because i believe that at the heart, people are out to fuck you in the ass as hard as they can, with a dildo the size of your forearm. this worries me. perhaps i should work on changing my world view. would i still be me?

also, i got a new job. i start on monday. possibly my life will be that much more entertaining and awesome and i will update this piece of shit way more with photos! and stuff.

vomiting in public.

this is kinda awesome as well
http://www.adidas.com/adicolor

i like graphic design, i like sneakers and i like websites that are heaavy on flash(sort of).

it’s bene really nice for the past few days here. thank GOD. the sun was out and yesterday greg and wendy cam eover and came into mjy house while iw as asleep on the bed and went to the roof and then we sat on the roof and we drank beer and talked and it was bice. finally, a fucking nice day. after about three hundred years of rain. if i heard someone make a fucking ark joke one more time i was going to kill.

here’s another list of things. i prefer doing this in list format since i work way better making things in a list. etc.

1. my drug test at the chron was inconclusive/dilute so i had to take another one yesterday. i tried to flush my system the natural way and everyone is assuring me that i passed so ia m believing them. i had to talk to like 5 different people while i was waiting to go to HR and they all told me how happy they would be to have me work ther eand blah blah. and i vomited a little in my mouth and smiled through it. then i got a pep talk from mc and then went to take the drug test. the end.

2. i have a mini crush on jack the paralegal who comes into peets all the time. i have been bringing out the big guns, working the rapport etc but i am running out of time. i have been given a variety of suggestions in how to ask him out, including but not limited to slipping a note in the bag with his bagel and just asking him to get a drink with me/go to wendy’s birthday party this weekend. i vomited quietly ino a garbage can at the thought of all of these things. most likely none of this will happen, since i am not going to ask him out and there’s just no way.

3. i cou;d’ve done away with the list format and merely just had paragraphs. oh well.

4. thank god toto is on the regis and kelly show.

5. the weather is getting nicer, i might have a jobn at the chron so it looks like things are on the up and up. and dave will be coming back to the united states in a month or so.

i don’t even know anymore. i really dont.

thank god

this book cracks me the fuck up,
i remember reading about it when it first came out and now it’s out and available on the internet in full. i kind of want to raise my kids this way, complete with sgt. pepper jacket and wacky hippie hubby.

http://www.itsjustaplant.com

good shit

here is another list.

things i like right now.

1. fafi: http://www.fafi.net
a hilarious, interesting, creepy graff artist.she’s french and writes in broken english on her website and she shows at a really great gallery that i have been getting email alerts from for like 5 years called sixspace in LA. there is one of her crazy ladies painted near upper playground on fillmore. love her.
2. the blanket i knitted.
3. my apartment and my gardenia scented castle.
4. my new haircut
5. kidrobot, which is a store that fulfills my desire for kitschy, vaguely subversive cartoony art from japan etc.
6. shaina’s new voluminous haircut.
7. the fact that lindsay lohan is on snl right now and she’s a fucking retard.
8. fin.

wow

i got a really expensive haircut yesterday. it is precious. but expensive and i fear it makes me look like a lezzie. but i am sure it doesn’t. so that’s fine.

the aftermath of the drug test was sort of a nightmare. the detox shit that i was told to take by everyone made me pee for days. my pee was bright yellow. and apparently i peaked while i was sitting in the clinic waiting to go pee in a cup. i had to pee so bad that i nearly vomited and i was shaking and sweating like a stuck pig. the kindloy nurse practicitioner obviously thought i was a crackhead/recovering meth addict beccause she looked at me like i was crazy. as she should have, because i looked a fuccking mess. then i peed in a cup for like 20 minutes because THAT’S HOW MUCH URINE I HAD IN MJY SYSTEM. ew x 10884. lightened of my load, i skipped merrily off to meet my mother at loehmanns where i listlessly rejected almost every item of clothing she tried to purchase and then ate some sushi with her and then went home.

all in all, it was a productive day.

that detox shit is still working it’s way through my system if you know what i mean.