I am going through as many papers in my room as I can; stacks of used notebooks, materials from classes I've taken, photo contact sheets, piles of art, postcards, letters, photographs, magazine and newspaper clippings, posters. In the course of my sorting I came across various quotes I tacked up in Nick's dorm room my senior year of college. They were meant to . . . well, not to "cheer" exactly and "inspire" sounds corny. I guess, they were meant to remind the both of us that life was worth living.

( here they are, formatting unaltered though perhaps not original to the source, except for the V quote which was all-capsCollapse )

This book deeply affected me. Here are some of the parts that were particularly pertinent.

( cut for lengthCollapse )

Thanksgiving was pretty great. I spent Tuesday making dough, Wednesday baking, and Thursday doing everything else. We had it in the conference room at gushi 's office. Approximately 10 people came, enough of them familiar for me to be comfortable. I'm not so good with the "socializing."
gushi made mashed potatoes, an Alton Brown turkey, and sausage stuffing. He also shook cranberry jelly out of its can but I don't count that for much.
I made 2 spicy pumpkin pies, 2 apple pies, a pumpkin cheesecake with graham cracker crust, fresh cranberry sauce, a stuffing I made up as I went along pretty much, and sweet potato casserole with marshmallows. Everything was vegan except the graham cracker crust had honey in it. I had difficulty finding graham crackers that didn't. A few people went home with leftovers.
We also watched Addams Family Values, a Thanksgiving tradition.
Clean-up wasn't over until after 2am but it was worth it.

The writer Rebecca West saw, on evenings in June, pale-faced people sitting in Regent's Park. Some of them, she wrote, walked over to the roses in great earnestness and inhaled the fragrance, as though to say: "This is what roses are like, that is how they smell. We must remember that, down in the darkness."

In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century
Geert Mak

I frequent an independent local coffee shop (The Grind), attached to a video rental place (The Groove). And by "frequent" I mean I walk there almost every day after work and hang out for 1-4 hours. Their "genre of the week" $1 rentals rock, they sell vegan donuts,

They co-sponsor a monthly open mic night, where people mostly perform music. It's gotten rather popular, about 100 people came to the last one. I read two recent poems, the first time I have read in front of an audience in many years. I was very nervous up until I got to the front and then it felt natural and easy. I was pleased with the response and promised several people I would read at least one fisting poem next time. It really re-energized me with regard to my writing, and boosted my confidence.

I haven't mentioned it, but I'm on a cross-country drive with Sherrila. We are driving from San Jose, CA to Atlanta, GA. The trip got a late start, so it started rather than ended in September. Right now we are in Oklahoma City which is far more happenin' than any other place we have spent a significant amount of time in thus far (Bakersfield, CA; Kingman, AZ; Flagstaff, AZ; Alburquerque, NM; Amarillo, TX). Next is Memphis, then Atlanta.
Alburquerque had an amazing vegan Thai restaurant.
Amarillo had three random burning outlines on the freeway, all in the same half mile stretch. What were they? Fallen crosses? Swastikas? We may never know.

I stopped brushing my hair for a few days in the beginning, so it locked up into this Katamari-like bun, pulling all other nearby strands of hair into it. Small, free bottles of conditioner from the Hilton and I are working on it.

While there are no pictures or extensive descriptions of roaches or roach-like creatures, there is discussion about roaches. If you feel this will be too much for you, please do not continue. If you are going to defend roaches, know that the only roach I have any tolerance for is the one in WALL-E. Non-Pixar roaches can all die and burn in hell.

( why this past weekend was like aversion therapyCollapse )

People are often astonished when I tell them that our "apartment" is actually in a hotel, albeit an extended-stay one. They ask me why we haven't moved yet. This is an explanation of why we still live here, why it's the best choice for us right now, and why sometimes it makes me intensely frustrated.

We wouldn't be here still if it weren't better than alternatives. Two miles to gushi 's job; walking distance to my chiropracter, gyno, denist, and a train station; fully furnished; wifi; air conditioning; cable tv; no utilities bills. We would have to pay 50% more to get even most of that in an apartment building.

So what sucks about living in a hotel? Things that gushi claims he wouldn't let me change anyway. The average hotel's decor is inoffensive, boring at best and ugly at worst. Already we have switched out the hotel sheets for our own, I covered the couch with a sheet, the desk chair has been swapped, the hotel art has been covered with clippings and postcards, and we've added two of our own bookcases, one of which I painted.

I am fighting the good fight to get gushi to stuff those awful curtains in storage, or at least the back of the closet, and buy new ones. But, he has the reasonable response that this involves spending money on something we don't actually need.

I haven't been writing here much, besides posting poetry under my writing filter and complaining once in awhile about my mental health issues under my general friends filter. I've decided to change that. Not to say that my life has somehow gotten more interesting because, y'know, it hasn't.

BUT I am still a big consumer of books/comics/movies/tv and I miss writing about these things. It's not as if I somehow became less superficial when I stopped admitting in public how much of my time is spent being useless. Since I am no longer gainfully employed I've stopped buying comics (sadface) so I'm super behind. I could just download them but that feels a little dirty. I wait for bound collections to come out and hope an in-county library has them.

I've become a more frequent library patron, which is cheaper than just buying books but not free because I am crap at remembering to renew and/or return materials on time. Also, we have approximately 311 square feet, much of which is taken up by installed appliances such as the refrigerator and our king size bed, which is about as big as our bathroom, no joke. Space is valuable and more books take up precious room that could be used instead for what SOME people (ie: the one who pays the rent) consider more important purposes; ie: manauevering around furniture.

I will post again later tonight on the media I have recently been eagerly, passively lapping up like the good child of consumer culture I am.

Usually I love Ross Zietz's designs but this . . . Does anyone else find this a bit inappropriate?