Geocaching today took us through the gullet of the Hoover Dam area. Along the way and through a wash that's also seen better days, we stumbled upon a car - freshly battered and left behind. It suprises me still, the number of personal effects you can find tossed along dirt roadways that seem too barren - too barren for refrigerators, a shoe, a car... Until I realize, that we've all been here before, if not on this road, on some other desolate dirt byway in our heads. And along the way we leave our hopes and cares, thrown voluntarily from moving windows of opportunity or ripped from us by Fate.

But it was just a car on a dirt road, after all.

The countdown is on...

In just a short hour and a half, the partying begins.
I'm all atingle with excitement.

Ooh...

...And before I sign my brain out for the night: a quote, I've long held as true and lately have begun to appreciate fully...

Certain things should just stay as they are.
You ought to be able to stick them in one of those
big glass cases and just leave them alone.

JD Salinger

Time: 9,000 hours into this workday
Feeling: Name an emotion; that's me... well, maybe except for mortal terror. Not really feelin' that one right now.
Experiencing: Boredom heretofore unknown by mankind
Hearing: The homogenized slop called Infinity radio broadcasting, in particular, a more-than-boring Creed "song"
Thinking: Friends need to be easier to come by.
Last dream: Involved betrayal and a shotgun sucker punch to the gut.
Realizing: Damn, I need to find time to write Jenni all the way over there in that big Chicagotown. And I will.
Strongest psychological needs: Validation and recognition
Anticipating: Drowning both psychological needs in various alcoholic flavors on Monday when Tony turns 21
Looming Decision: Whether or not some things are worth holding onto and if maybe I should just take what I've gotten and leave the table...

More enlightened goodness:
Working For Change

This second finds me dripping with absent remorse, like a naked girl shivering in a drained bath tub. All along, I never really believed these things, never held them in my hands and felt them.

I never took them in and studied them to realize that what I once had has been replaced by echoes. Shells of memories and lies and hours, hours I threw away happily on the most trivial of things - words.

But in this second, the substance is ripped away, and I'm left with just the skin, just the surface.

What I once bathed in is gone. And just the drops are left behind, in strange quiet places on my body, until they flinch and roll slowly off onto the floor.

And in this second, I'm shivering and trying to smile.

And in unrelated news, Camille Rose Garcia has painted new nightmares for my head. Thanks, Camille.

As we sat there waiting, in the penetrating blue of twilight, I suddenly began to suspect that maybe... just maybe... the cat wasn't the best (person) to send out for Chinese food.

"Nope, he's not coming back," I finally said aloud, sighing audibly and crossing my arms.
"Yeah, there goes my twenty bucks..."

We could have blamed each other, but we both knew it was best to just blame the cat.

Weird Random Thought of the Day:

If I were in a chick band, I'd do a rockin' remake of Voices Carry by 'Til Tuesday. I don't know why. I just would.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

USA Today: "Facts" about file sharing

You have no right to privacy anymore. What you do will be tracked. What you have can be searched. The 4th amendment of the constitution has been abolished. ...At least when it comes to your computer. And this is what mainstream media sources like USA Today are feeding the public to habituate us to the new America - an America in which the Constitution is just a tourist attraction.

At the moment, I'm supressing the desire to go off on a long and very angry rant about the unconstitutional practices and evil ways of the RIAA. Instead, I'll turn the mic over to people with more energy and time... Visit, learn, and pass it on.

Boycott RIAA
Another Blow To Privacy
ACLU: Privacy and Technology

Where I work, I'm (un)fortunately privy to the opinions of many travellers a day and how they feel about where I live. For some reason, vacations just bring that out in people - the need to critique the pros and cons of a place they've only been to once. Last week, as I paced anxiously behind my ticketbooth like a caged animal, I listened to the one-sided cell phone conversation of a tall, bald man standing by the door.

"No, no man... Nah. Look," he says, and I gather myself for the coming wisdom he's sure to impart to his absent friend. "Look, Vegas is in the fucking desert, man. It's the most illogical place to put a city.... Yeah, yeah. Everywhere you look, there's dirt. There's no green anywhere, except if you go looking for it in a park or some shit."

He was obviously a wise man.

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And it's fuck-ing hot," he said, emphasizing every syllable as though trying to outdo the Weather Channel's warning of one hundred and six degree heat. "HOT, man. These people who live here must be fucking idiots. They're in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a desert, and it's so hot you don't want to leave your hotel room. The only reason for this town being here is the tourism and gambling, and shit, you can do that anywhere."

"Yes, you can do that anywhere," I added silently from behind the brochures and travel maps, "so why don't you go anywhere else and do that?"

He didn't read my mind.
He turned his head in my direction and did one of those up-nods that seems to have become a permanent gesture in our culture's body vocabulary meaning something akin to the rhetorical, "Hey, what's up?" I raised my eyebrows and pursed my lips in a tight half-grin, my face bound by paycheck to pay the man kindness as he berates my home.
He didn't get that either.

"Yeah, yeah, man. We're gonna hit up some titty bars after this and head the fuck home... where people appreciate culture and shit."

He was obviously a wise man.

They pulled her from the water today, just a piece, just a part, just left over from some sick feast of violence. And they asked the standers-by, "How do you feel? What do you think?" And the standers-by, they stammered and grappled and stumbled over words like, "I just don't know. It makes you think. And we never thought it could happen here." They never did. I never did. It never would. Happen here, that is. In our peaceful little town, this body creates a stir, a fuss, a scare. And the standers-by, on the news, they worried, "We're going to be on edge for a while," because this piece, this part, this torso... disrupted the quiet. How dare... Nevermind the woman that was. Nevermind that.

The farther you drive into the middle of nowhere, the deeper your realization that you have only yourself to blame for what you call your life.

We slid down the roof tiles and landed on our feet, holding hands like children and holding back laughs.

We hid in the shadow of a seven o'clock day and suddenly believed all the things we had wanted to, just holding back the truth and holding yellowed papers we couldn't bring ourselves to toss.

I didn't know what I meant, but I think you did...

What I like most about being both blameless and powerless in a work situation is the fact that it becomes ten times easier to slip into indifference mode.

I didn't cause the problem, and I can't change the situation - so fuck it.

Ahhh.... feel the weight of worry dissolve.... nice.....

My weekend (by which I mean Sunday and Monday) melted and slid away like a candy bar left on the dash. I had freedom for a moment, and I could taste it. Oh, I tasted it. I felt alive for a brief 48 hours, breathing without anxiety and walking without the weight of wonder... did I do this right? did I say that wrong?.... And Tuesday morning comes in like an anvil, falling on my soul with the pressure of what they call "real life" until I can't breathe, until I give in. Take me for another five days. Have my spirit for one more week. And when another weekend comes, I'll taste real life once more.

Still one of my favorite presidential critiques.... Bush vs. a box of Tic Tacs. You decide.

One bag to rustle, power cords to swat, and five hours of REM...
A cat is unstoppable in the morning.

Another Friday the 13th... come and gone without incident.

I'm really beginning to question the idea that that day has ANY kind of cosmic curse on its head. My Friday the 13th consisted of (yet again) sitting at work for a tedious 9 hours and letting (as usual) people who shouldn't be allowed to own telephones ask me inane questions. And yet, not a single out of the ordinary or fantastically screwed up thing happened yesterday. How dull.

Friday the 13th lets me down... again.

Just once, I want to see some insanely bad luck or an obviously doomed event come out of that day. You know, like I'm walking down the street on a beautiful blue-skied Friday the 13th, just whistling like a moron and listening to the birds, when all of a sudden, WHAM! The clown leg of a circus tour bus entourage comes barreling down the street toward me. "Brakes out! Brakes out!" I hear through the din of the growling engine and a cacophony of honking red noses. Just as it appears that the bus will stay on the street and miss hitting me, a small kitten will run out into the road, causing the rainbow-haired bus driver to swerve, slamming into me on the sidewalk and plowing through an 86 year-old woman's living room, destroying her "TV time with Regis and Kelly." I'll live of course, but only after extensive surgery, and several hospital visits from 35 incessantly apologetic clowns.

Now that's what I'd call a Friday the 13th.

By November of next year, I sincerely hope - for the sake of the entire FREAKING planet - that Americans have their heads screwed on straight and realize that the only thing Bush is going to give them in return for keeping him in office is more of the same:

growing unemployment
desecrated environmental policies
and the destruction of millions of dollars of vital social programs

I think Thomas Friedman of The New York Times puts it best.
"...when the president says he wants yet another round of reckless 'tax cuts,' which will shift huge burdens to our children, Democrats should simply refer to them as 'service cuts,' because that is the only way these tax cuts will be paid for - by cuts in services. Indeed, the Democrats' bumper sticker in 2004 should be: 'Read my lips, no new services. Thank you, President Bush.'"

Now if only there were a way to broadcast this invaluable revelation to the American public... say, during whatever reality show people are drooling over now... if only there were a way make them see, maybe this country could avoid imminent implosion.

When I was in elementary school, I was fearfully known throughout the lower grades as the Queen of Four Square. And it was true. I had mastered that playground arena like nobody's business. Step into my square and prepare for a world of hurt. ... Well, as much hurt as a seven year-old girl with a playground ball can inflict, anyway.

Tetherball, on the other hand... now that was just scary. A ball on a string, flying at a little kid's head at ungodly speeds - that's just not right.

My point?

Just feeling a little nostalgic this morning....
Games Kids Play



Oh, and for the record... the "IT" rhyme goes:
Eenie meenie minie moe
Catch a tiger by his toe
If he hollers, let him go
Eenie meenie minie moe
My mother told me to pick the very best one and you are not it.

So there.

...exercises in narcissism.


I wanted to tell you... no... It's time for bed. Maybe I'll see you there.

I'm watching the trees on the other side of this window fidget in a hot night's breeze.
I'm inside, cold and barely awake, wondering how the trees can be more alive.
I realize it doesn't matter, on this side of the window, and no one will ever know.
I'm watching them toss up birds like discarded birthday cards.
I wonder how the birds feel about this on the other side of the window.
I realize it doesn't matter, and no one will ever know.

It began with fire, flooding around us, filling the stadium.

Bodies dripping with flame tumbled at our feet as we ran screaming through the exit tunnel. Barely recognizable as human beings...

And the hours passed as we waited for the second shock to finish off those who survived the first, force and fire. And we waited for the wave of chemical death to sweep over us, and bring the inescapable nothing to our skulls.

I sat with my sister, watching a clock in a small, yellow room, waiting for the time when time would come no more, clutching my restless black cat and rocking, back and forth, waiting for the wave.

Waiting for the
end.


And then I woke up.
To an empty house.

Honestly, she thought, I wanted to find the whole thing laughable. The idea that we could actually make the distance... absurd.

She shrugged, and pushed out a reluctant chuckle of incredulity.

But something happened as she feigned sneering indifference: she realized that she actually believed it. Knowing the chances and the odds and the rolling dice of Fate were against it, she kept behind her lips the knowledge that none of that mattered.

We have lies we tell others.
And ones we tell ourselves.
Those are the ones that make lies of us all.

It was time to get out of bed.

Even in my sleeping subconscious, I'm working. I'm working during the morning, during the day, during the evening, and now during the night. There must be a law against all this overworking.

I'm sorry...

I can't even think anymore.
Maybe I can find my brain sometime tonight after work.

My little sister has graduated, and I am now officially ancient.



Oh well.
Time to crawl into bed... before 11... so I can work nine hours tomorrow....

(Sigh)

Warning: Proceed with caution. The following is a
Runaway train of thought......................

Now playing: Sparklehorse - Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy Man

This has to be one of my top twenty favorite songs.... "His eyes were crazy, and he smashed into the cemetary gates...." How can cats be comfortable lying in laps, anyway? Curled sideways and twisted with legs hanging off legs - it just looks unbearable. But Jack goes on sleeping, his head resting across my left arm, tail twitching down the side of the chair.... I worked 9.5 hours yesterday, in 102 degrees. I can't even wrap my mind around how I survived that. Though, I have to admit that when I finally collapsed on our couch at 7:30PM that it felt like some sadistic hardhat had speared rebar through my skull.... The thought of handling tourists' money makes me nervous. What if they have SARS or West Nile or some other disease that the news tries to scare us with?... Heh, I guess it works... Either way, I have 1.5 hours until I dive into those depths again, standing and smiling, reciting "How can I help you?" Somehow I feel my college education being wasted....

1.5 hours of freedom. Damned if I spend it sitting here.

"The Magic Eight Ball will know!" the children shouted in chorus with exclamatory upraised fingers...

MEBQ: Good evening, Magic Eight Ball. How are you?
MEBA: Signs point to yes.
MEBQ: Yes, it is a good evening?
MEBA: Signs point to yes.
MEBQ: Alright then. So... Do you agree with me that 30+ hour work weeks are killing my soul?
MEBA: Reply hazy. Try again.
MEBQ: You know, you're getting to be pretty useless.
MEBA: Yes definitely.
MEBQ: Well at least we agree on that.
MEBA: My sources say no.
MEBQ: Damnit, Eight Ball. Okay, here's an easy one: Are the White Stripes overrated and ultimately hiding a complete lack of true talent behind a pretentious artrock facade that's been eaten up by trendy outsider types?
MEBA: Yes.
MEBQ: Brilliant. Well, I think it's time for me to wander aimlessly toward unconciousness.
MEBA: Without a doubt.
MEBQ: Goodnight, Magic Eight Ball.
MEBA: It is decidedly so.

Possibly the only workday worse than a Monday is a Monday after only one day off.

I change my mind. I do fucking hate work.

I didn't have any stories to tell, I thought. And although I was trying my damndest to appear as though I were searching my darkest memories for a juicy anecdote, I knew from the impatient eyebrows in front of me, that I wasn't fooling anyone. These days it's impossible to even pretend I have a life.

So I rolled out a, "Well you know how things are..."

But how could he? How could anyone know how things are? We live our lives inside boxes, testing each other's resolve to remain interested, to stand by as we trudge through the bog of everyday routine.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know," he finally said, looking past me at the clock.