12-30-07 - She'll be coming round the mountain

Katie came back from North Carolina last night. She has a tough time kissing me or, for the first few minutes, even looking at me, when she first sees me after a long absence. Whenever it's been a while since she's seen me, she always claims I "look different", which makes a certain amount of sense, given how much my appearence changes as my hair grows, or as I gain or lose weight.

It's none the less annoying for being true, however.

12-29-07 - We Gotta Get Outta This Place

If you sleep until noon, you don't get to feel bad when it gets dark at 4:30. My cat, Honey, stayed at Steph's house while I was in Arizona, so today I went down to Brooklyn to pick up her up (Honey, that is, not Steph), and since Steph lives in roughly the same neighborhood as Katie, I rode to Flatbush and walked.

Amazing how a few days in car-culture will make you forget what it means to ride the subway everywhere you need to go: it took me an hour-and-a-half to get there, all of it torture. My resolve to move to Brooklyn was increased substantially.

12-28-07 hell is other people (booking your air travel)

My dad booked my flight home, and unfortunately he misread the departure time when he bought the ticket. So instead of leaving at 11:45 AM, I left at 11:45 PM and flew all through the night and into the late morning. No exit rows, a middle seat on a completely full flight, and a seat-mate who was, shall we say, large, with a baby on her lap.

I didn't sleep at all, and Dad has to let me book my own tickets from now on, even if he did apologize.

12-27-07 Mexican or Mexican't?

On my last day in Arizona, my father asks me what I'd like to eat, and I of course answer Mexican food. As good as the food is in New York, there is nothing like authentic Mexican food in Arizona, and I really want to get a taste of it before I head back to where I: a) have to pay for my own meals, and b) find "Mexican" restaurants are mostly run by Chinese.

My sister orders a combination platter with rice and beans, but she doesn't want her rice, so she offers it to me.

"You don't like Mexican rice?" I ask, "What are you, some kind of rice-ist?"

12-26-07 absolution

The sink fills up with dirty water, clogged again, and my father goes out to investigate. My sister suggests that I may have caused the commotion since, yesterday, in preparation for our Christmas dinner, I peeled potatoes directly into the sink and into the garbage disposal, where I thought they’d be taken care of.

Thinking I should confess, and help out the process of fixing the problem, I say to my father as he walks by, “Uhhh, listen, Dad, I think I know why your sink is clogged.”

“No you don’t,” he says, walking away.

12-25-07 melancholy christmas

A good christmas, but I feel very melancholy. I tried to avoid telling Katie about it but I think she just felt I was shutting her out. When I get in a mood like this there's nothing to be done, unfortunately, so I'd rather just not splash any of the shit I carry around in my bucket.

I found some poems I wrote in high school that somehow managed to avoid the fire I lit for them when I was in college, and they sounded about like how you'd think poems written by a 17 year old depressive would sound.

12-23-07 Mama wants a gun

My mom is thinking about buying a gun, because she's getting older and wants to feel "safe". She and my sister Dawn have a few semi-heated discussions about the matter, with neither really changing their position at all.

Finally, after one of these discussions, my mom says, "Well, I promise not to shoot your father, does that make you feel better?"

"Oh," Dawn says, "you don't have to promise that."

12-22-08 Putting it together

My father decided that he was buying, “for my mother”, a fifty-seven inch, DLP, HDTV. I sort of saw it as the Simpsons episode where Homer buys Marge a bowling ball with his name engraved on it, but whatever They seemed happy enough about the arrangement. I got to put together the TV stand which had a sort of IKEA feel to it, but since I love putting stuff together, I had a good time too.

12-20-07 - Perspective

My father and I delivered food and gifts to “less fortunate” (i.e. poor) families today for the Rotary Club. We showed up on the doorstep of this family in an apartment complex near my parents house in Phoenix, and they were watching TV. The man of the house was drinking a beer while the mother of the children nursed a child in her lap. As we left I said to my father, “Hell, I’ve lived in worse places than that, and nobody brought me anything for Christmas!”

12-19-07 flying

Fled the city like it was on fire. An early morning and a long day without food, which seemed to increase my sense of everything being filled with "meaning" and "portent". As we flew over the Rockies, the rivers and dams gleamed in the sunlight like they were made of gold.

A ridiculously attractive couple sat in front of me on the plane, and I wondered if people like that actually have to ride in coach, or if they were normally shepherded in to first class, and these guys were just slumming.

12-18-07 - scrabbling for change

I tore apart my room searching for the extra fifty cents that would ensure that I will be able to get on the bus to go to the airport tomorrow to fly to Phoenix for Christmas. For a good twenty minutes I looked under things, through things, I opened drawers and boxes, but no luck.

Finally, on a whim, I looked where I keep my old cassette tapes and, lo and behold, there were two quarters that probably hadn't seen the light of day for years. I walked around the room in a big circle, laughing maniacally to myself, thinking "That may be the last money I have in this world, right now."

12-17-07 - “Squaaaare eyes. Turn the oth-eh way. I don’ wanna see. Ya criy-y-y.”

Played too much “Halo” again last night, and I finally understand the appeal. It’s like starring in your very own action film.

I still haven’t taken the air-conditioner out of the window from this past summer, and the duct-taped board I used to block the outside air from getting in has pushed half-way out of the sill. The wind comes in cold around the board right above where I sleep, snaking down onto my smiling face as I sleep all snug and warm beneath my comforter.

12-16-07 - ghosts on my retina

I woke up after the long party at about 1:30 in the afternoon, which is the latest I've awakened in several months. The wind was blowing hard outside, a real "nor'easter", I was told. I could hear it hooting at the windows and wooshing around the cracks in the apartment, like it was thinking idly about how to get in and tear the walls down.

I stayed inside in my pajamas all day and played "Halo" until, whenever I closed my eyes, I could see the images of the hundreds of aliens I'd murdered, dancing on my retinas in ghostly afterimages.

12-15-07 - Golden Flow Orange Juice

Walking home in the rain from the cast party for Christmas Carol, all the suffering of the last couple of months dissipates into a feeling of gentle, clear calm. The rain is freezing, I'm cold and wet, but it doesn't feel bad because I have no opinion about these circumstances. I wonder if this is what "enlightened" people feel like all the time, and what most people would give to have this unforced openness.

A truck with the phrase "Golden Flow Orange Juice - Like You Grew Up With!" rolls past on the otherwise deserted street and I smile to myself, both because of the phrase's aptness to the moment, and because it sounds like a sexual act involving pee.

12-14-07 - must be a nosedive party

Pete knocks over a beer into Marc's lap. "That's the second day in a row that's happened!" Marc says as he leaps to his feet.

I take Pete's "short" of Jameson and make as if I'm going to sniff the empty glass. "I thought it was empty!" I say in dismay as I dump a dram of whiskey on my chest.

12-13-07 - Where Christmas lights come from

Walking home from the show, way too late. Tired and, as usual, stuck in my own self-absorbed melancholy. I look up to see a street light shining through the branches of a tree cocooned in a layer of perfectly clear ice, so that every branch and twig of it sparkled and shone.

"So that's where Christmas lights come from," I thought, reaching up to stroke a glittering, icy branch.

12-12-07 - metrocard athlete

I take the wallet out of my pocket, flip it open with the same hand, and thumb the metrocard out of its slot at the front. I walk up to the entrance to the subway, and in one fluid motion, without breaking my stride, I swipe the card and bump the turnstile with my leg. I continue down the steps to the train, exceedingly proud of myself and my prowess with the transit system, all the while putting the metrocard back in my wallet, and all without using my left hand.

Tonight the moon came up like a sliver of fingernail above the buildings in Queens and I thought, "It's so quiet in outer space."

12-11-07 - There is no good in tarot cards.

I've been freaking out all day about the turn that my life has taken since my separation from Stephanie. Things seem to be spiralling out of control, and no good seems to be coming my way, just more and more darkness and frustration.

I did tarot reading after tarot reading, and all I got was cards like the Ten of Swords (reversed), the Ace of Swords (reversed), Nine of Swords (reversed), The Chariot (reversed), The Lovers (reversed) - not that that means anything to most people, but just basically shit piled on shit, all in a shit sandwich.

I think (I hope!) I'm just scaring myself, though, and I probably just need to stop doing tarot readings before lunch.

12-10-07

Katie called me at work and told me about how she snaked the best seat on her tour bus by putting her purse there the night before. "If it's just a pillow, someone can move it, but a purse says that you were there earlier, because who goes to their hotel room without their purse?"

"You totally scare me sometimes, you're so sneaky," I said.

I also did an audition today, which was pretty awesome since they didn't call me back for a dance call (which totally would have sucked since I don't like doing dance calls), which means I can stay home tonight and play "Halo" and maybe have some kratom.