from dinosaurs and robots:

"Then, there is the Los Angeles that I know. Aerospace surplus hardware stores, smoky and ashtray-less Koreatown English hunt club bars in crumbling hotel basements, perfect beer buzz lunches at the Farmer's Market in filtered sunlight, the wild dogs of Pacoima, sprawling thrift stores, trolling junkyards for old diaries and Polaroids, the drag races at Pomona, chrome plating shops, backyards stacked with 300 bicycles, gold miners eager to show their biggest nuggets, fishing for carp in the Los Angeles River, optimists taking over art museums, the nicad battery selection at Electronic City, the metal patination case at Industrial Metal Supply, Kit Kraft Hobby, the gem vault at the Natural History Museum, the szechuan peppercorns of Alhambra, the churlish bartenders at Hop Louie, the sneaker shops of Little Tokyo, the imported coldcuts at Monte Carlo Deli, the Japanese garden on the roof of the New Otani Hotel, the bicycle swap at the Encino Velodrome, the DDR kids at the Santa Monica Pier, the mustard at Philipes, the dimsum carts of Monterey Park, the carnitas at Carrillos, the buffalo at Hart Park, the Kris Special at the Waystation, the netsuke room at LACMA, the Remington Rolling Block at the Backwoods Inn, the coffee shop at the LA Police Academy, the abandoned restaurant with leather walls at Union Station, the yardage of the Garment District, the abandoned fire station in the Toy District with the quartersawn oak lockers viewable through the crack in the door, the first two rows of lowrider history at the Pomona Auto Swap, Abe Lincoln's hat at the Huntington Library, the camillia forest of Descanso Garden, the bolt room of Roscoe Hardware that is hidden in a kitchen remodeling home center, the genius at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, the chile pepper booth at the Grand Central Market, sneaking to the top balcony of the Bradbury Building, the threadbare and dented Variety Arts Center, the orange groves of the 126 and secret utility salvage yard in the northeast San Fernando Valley."

I'd like to take the time to make this sort of list for everywhere I've ever lived.

every sentence from here on out starts with "i".


i've been feeling really unhealthy lately. emotionally and physically. i've had a difficult time figuring out how best to cope, and a hard time remaining positive. i thought that i was dealing with things better than i am, as it seems that i've really not dealt with much at all. i had a really long day and i feel completely drained. gotta be up early for work again. fuck.

tv time

new recipe: yogurt, coconut milk, agave and a freezer. frozen yogurt!

listening to joy division and cooking dinner for friends. i made mac and cheese, roasted acorn squash, chocolate apple brownies and salad. i'm feel ok right now. pretty content about most things in my life. loose ends wrapped up, and i'm moving by november 1st. i've got a lot of stuff i should get rid of! i want to see mission of burma play in seattle on wednesday the 15th.

how i feel after another day of work

greatest grift movies

any ideas?

paper moon
the producers
midnight cowboy
run lola run?
raising arizona

what I'm thinking about today: the eleven

1. I worked from 10am to 8:30pm.
2. I will no longer be sleeping with ex boyfriends.
3. brandon got back from his 10-day meditation retreat. I am intrigued and we have plans to work out at the ymca and dicuss his experiences. so far, i'm scared and into it.
4. david foster wallace died on friday. i'm listening to him on public radio right now. he wrote a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again, a collection of essays that i read and found immensely comforting when I first moved to olympia.
5. club mate. so delicious.
6. the american financial crisis. I will be closing my bank of america account this thursday.
7. KUOW, the local AM public radio station. I can only listen to AM stations on my radio, and I'm glad I've found this. Looking forward to listening to This American Life on saturdays at 11am.
8. I need to call carli about TCTV.
9. I'm reading a book by A.J. Liebling, called Back Where I Came From. it's a love letter to new york city at the turn of the century. it's so beautifully written. I have a soft spot for love-letter-to-new-york books, and songs:

10. all i want for my birthday is thousands of antique teacups and maybe some other stuff. I'm thinking of going on that meditation retreat for my birthday.
11.

I'm home

I don't want to write about my life right now, i just want to watch these videos.






i don't like this song that much, but i think the audience parts are brilliant:

Sitting in a theatre agency in Berlin, Germany, putting together excerpted reviews for press releases, I feel divided/conflicted/nervous/ill at ease/an entire sea of similar discriptive emotions about my experiences this past month. I left home at a surprisingly inconvenient time, just as conflicts were being addressed, new possibilities raised their heads and old relationships seemed finally laid to rest. I have only the slightest clue as to what it will be like to return home, and I'm not sure that I'm excited by it. I'm worried as to how I will fit back into my life, and concerned that rejection and disapointment will be inescapable. These past two weeks, particularly have given me ample oppurtunity to set myself up for these feelings, and I'm kicking myself for it. While the start of the tour was dazzling and vibrant and full of new people, I've found myself settling into an all-to-familiar domesticity that I had taken this trip to escape from in part. Within that, of course, I'm rediscovering dusty and forgotten parts of myself that I didn't know I missed. For this, I am thankful, and perhaps cannot explain the importance or personal significance of hours lost in a library, or the thrill of exploring and discovering the secrets of a city that may not excite anyone but myself.

I'll be back at home on Sunday, and I'm on the fence as to if I want to burrow back into Olympia and that life, or if I would prefer to shake it off, uproot and start anew. At the moment, so far from everything, I am tempted by the latter. I just finished reading Paul Auster's City Of Glass and was struck by how beautiful an oppurtunity it presents for shaking off the vestiges of your history and escaping life. I know I have a bad habit of blinding optimism in my interpretations, but I thought it showed less of a pitiful fall from grace and more of a rebirth. I might be a little starried- eyed from all those library hours.

my new old favorite food: the zucchini

Today I would like to speak of my current favorite vegetable, the Zucchini. Not simply delicious, but delightfully nutritious (see chart), I would like to share my favorite preparations for this charming vegetable.

1. Sneak them into pancakes. No one else will like them, but I think they are really really really really tasty.
2. steam them until they're about to fall apart and then dip them in a mixture of nutritional yeast and mustard. it helps if they're heavily salted before you steam them. also, my version of steaming is more like boiling, since i'm never quite sure where the steamer basket is.
3. grated and tossed with lemon juice and olive oil.
4. in ratatouille, along with over-cooked eggplant, another old favorite.
5. not with cheese, i always thought that was totally gross.

I'm leaving for Europe in //\\//THA-REE\\//\\ days!!! WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW, gunna have such a crazy good time and overdraw my bank account. here is my packing list:

-toothbrush and paste
-hair tie and brush
-2 pairs of socks
-4 pairs of underwear
-3 tshirts and 1 tanktop (or similar combination)
-1 pair shorts
-1 pair pants
-1 sweatshirt or cardigan
-1 flannel shirt
-1 pair earplugs
-1 summer dress
-1 sleeping bag
-1 book (to be traded unpon completion for another english book)
-trillions of dollars, worth nothing at all in europe

later.

shit's fucked up

fun with face masks

today my ebay casette package came in the mail.

the jam peel sessions,
new york rockers comp (television, the dictators, bad brains, james chance, richard hell and more)
duck and cover sst comp
wipers silver sail
wire document and witness
wire 8 different versions of the drill



i'm listening to the jam right now. i'm gunna see if i can find a misfits cassette and someone to move into a railroad apartment with me. i found my copy of old fashioned recipe book: an encyclopedia of country living. it's got a recipe for cabbage bread, my heart is won. seriously the greatest.

ouch, i am feeling unhappy.

i like blogs about ebay

today was summer thanksgiving. i walked my bicycle home from work, sweating. i rode to the co-op and back, cooked tofurkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. food-specked cans rolling from the recycling pile only spoke to the help I recieved from campbells and generic brand french cut beans. we all agreed it was really tasty. jean and i broke up and i'm too young to not make wild mistakes. all i want to do is go out on dates, except all i really want to do is not go out on any dates. you can catch me at the ymca at 8:30am tomorrow morning. i'll be sweaty. jesus and mary chain tomorrow night, i just bought my ticket. chris'll be in seattle, maybe we can stay up all night drinking coffee and eating little donuts. i really hope so, i miss that guy.



//////3 WEEKS 'TIL EUROPEAN VACATOUR'08\\\\\\


i keep having crazy dreams, but none of them are sexy, they're all a little gloomy.

i've got a puppy share.

Tomorrow I will fly back to New York for a week. It was my last day working in the warehouse today, and I can't wait to come back to Olympia and spend my time away from work. I'd like make a huge jesus and mary chain painting. I'll sit outside reading books and drinking brass monkeys, talking on my cell phone and buying things on ebay. I will keep my room clean and do my laundry. I will ride my bicycle and wear shorts. I will be more fashion forward, and on a tight budget too!

I am excited about Community Print, I am excited about warm nights and barbeques, I am looking forward to summertime and not talking about relationships. I am thinking of chopping off all of my hair and wearing cut-off shorts. I have plans to write letters to people nearby. all I ever want to do is listen to jesus and mary chain cassettes and think about boys. both at once totally rules. I'm doing it right now.

today i watched Green Porno, and it is great. The Bee is my favorite.

here are more things I really love:






I'm quitting cereal and dairy again, forever this time.

you were right!!!!

also, check THIS out!

Was Aquaman always blonde? I remember an underwater superhero with dark hair and really high eyebrows. I'm going back to New York-Boston on may 31st. I'm having dramatic issues with my bike-- the sidewall on my front tire blew out and i haven't bought a new one. maybe i'll get one on ebay.

i'm going to apply for an ak press job in oakland

tomorrow is dad dinner, garden planning and first day back at kill rock stars.

i wish that the gin blossoms had made better music videos.

i'm sleeping in my sleeping bag tonight because my sheets are in the wash and i forgot to dry them. it also feels like camping, and i think that is ok. life is a hectic place, and i'm scared a lot of the time, but my new reckless self should be throwing caution to the wind. sometimes i can, and mostly i can't. i bought a set of calvino books without the ugly covers. thank got for the 1980s. 90s. i didn't check the date. tomorrow is work again, twice over, since i'm re-starting at krs. goodnight i'm tired.

tonight, brandon and marty and i founded the post-apocalyptic film club. we watched road warrior and talked about smoking pot and doing drugs and battle royale. then we looked up other killer klassics to watch in the future. it is our favorite film genre, so it's a good thing that we found one another in this cold, cruel world. what lucky duxxx.

i'm going to move in with lauren and judd next month. i'll miss this silly old house, but marty's going to move into my room and i'll still come and hang out here. it'll be nice to be on the west side again. i'm really going to miss living with brandon, because he is a nice friend and roommate and i like sitting around shooting the shit in the evening.

i bought a dead moon best of album today and it rules so hard. so does roky erikson and this one neil young song.


we made caramel corn tonight and it was so amazingly good.

melt one tablespoon butter in pan, add a cup of sugar and a bit of milk. stir over med. heat. add salt and vanilla. pour over popcorn.

i ate a lot and my stomach is probably going to feel bad in the morning.

going back to new york city, going to feel the wind in my hair. going to come back to the northwest feeling whole and happy again. already excited.

mom and i have plans. she'll pick me up at the airport at 8am and we'll get breakfast at the waverly for old times sake on my part. we'll go to museums and the hospital and enjoy the time we spend together.

erika and anna and chris and i have plans. we're going to fall in love with each other, at least, that's what my plans for the trip home are. i'm going to fall hopelessly back in love with everyone. life in olympia's been bumming me out. i feel sad and empty a lot of the time. i think about boys a lot, and not enough about the things that will make me happier.

i hurt the shit out of my finger.

my mom's doing ok. I'm working at K and KRS at the time being, as well as at old school. My house is always warm now, and it is nice and full with five people instead of three. The weather is disgusting and I'm sad a lot of the time. I had the flu and am recovering. I want to do fun and exciting things, but I can't think of anything. If I can find any time, I'm going to work more with community print. Maybe tomorrow. I should go to the gym too, but I've been feeling too down on everything to embark on any sort of project without immediate results. bad excuse.

back to olympia! pancakes at midnight!

my nail polish is cracking off and i'm leaving for the airport at 4:30. i'm Horovitz-late, which means I won't actually get anything done that needed to happen, namely bidding tearful goodbyes to ridiculously beloved friends. I'm a fickle beast, and now i think I could make a cozy little hole for myself here. Ten minutes back home and I'll either be terribly homesick or will have totally forgotten I'd ever left. I had an omelet for breakfast and all this dairy I've been eating has made my throat so sore and I'm also getting fatter. I'll wait til I get home to detoxify myself.


my unfunny new years resolution is to lighten up and start doing all of the things i used to do that were fun and stupid and bad for me.