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2001
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++++++++++++

Stalking
Lone Star Thomas
Goodies

phone home

7/30/03
Uh oh, I’d better retract a little of yesterday’s disgruntledness. Today at work I was treated to an impromptu birthday celebration, complete with pop tarts and a giant Hershey bar. Now, the inclusion of those two items could spell trouble. I didn’t even initially get their significance until it was explained to me how I’d told sad tales involving these foodstuffs on my website. Er, my website? I’m not secretive in the least, but I didn’t realize anyone read it that closely and with such an eye for detail (of course, these are library workers, after all). I’d better watch what I say from here on out, but I should be given a little leeway if I’ve been a crank recently—after all, I’ve been feverish and peeing blood the past two days, alright? Now I’m all hopped up on antibiotics (and finally got someone to write me a prescription for “prophylactic” antibiotics, which is kind of creepy, taking one every time you have sex, but it beats bi-monthly bladder trauma). I also received gummy bears at work, which is weird because James got me this totally nuts ice cream cake (apparently in Chinatown when they say ice cream cake they mean just that, a cake made solidly of ice cream and frosted, there’s no cakey layers) from Tai Pan bakery and it had gummy bears around the perimeter, along with a solid side coating of multi-colored sprinkles. I also got a really great lunch tray-style cake, if you can imagine such a thing. If you’re not that imaginative, it’s here on a friend’s site, at least for the time being.

7/29/03
I’ve never believed in PMS (I also tend to think people are exaggerating when they say they’re allergic to animals), at least for myself, there are bad moods and good. And often they are triggered for no particular reason. I feel like I’ve been in a rut of a nasty mood for at least a week now. I don’t know if it’s birthday related (that was Friday for the record) or just general irritation. My big problem I think is high expectations and easy disappointment. It just seems like birthdays suck and suck more the older you get. Not just the getting older part, which I didn’t think I had a huge issue with, but am starting to. Friday night James took me out to Patria (which is a perfectly nice special occasion restaurant, but it’s just not somewhere I would’ve picked. Like last year I hinted enough that he made reservations at Anissa, when left to his own devices he always chooses someplace meaty and/or latin-inflected, past choices have included: Peter Luger, Churrascaria Plataforma, Mesa Grill, Keens Steakhouse. I’m growing ungrateful, I’m afraid. But now that I think about it, so he takes me where he wants to go for my birthday, but I did the same thing for his birthday by choosing Morimoto. I’m the one who has the Asian food fetish, not him.) and towards the end of the evening I was in the bathroom with two younger women when an older woman walked in with this short, white/gray and black funky hairstyle, and they told her how great her hair was. I was hearing all this while in the stall. The woman thanked them and said she’d just turned 60 and how she was feeling pretty good about it all. I complimented her hair when I came out (I only talk to strangers when drinking) and mentioned how I was nearly gray, myself, but couldn’t pull off her hairstyle, and she replied, “Well, you’re probably only what? Thirty?” implying it was an older hairdo, but I was miffed by the 30 guess. Of course I had to mention that I had turned 31 that day (no one seemed to acknowledge my birthday this year, I was totally feeling 16 Candles. Like at work they throw parties for everyone, my replacement, who’s only been working there for about a month turned 21 last Wed. and they took him out drinking. All these work study kids had birthdays last week and my office bought a cake. I, however, received nothing, not even a card, and when I was first hired was even told you get your birthday off, but seeing as how I already have Fridays off, that did nothing for me this year) as if to counter something. I’ve always felt I looked a few years younger than I actually am, in fact a coworker recently thought I was 23-34, which is a bit much, but I could easily get away with 27-28. But now strangers on my very birthday are guessing my age on the nose and it bothered me. Yesterday at work, my downtrodden, overly-defensive often-complaining, ever-irritated sort-of-supervisor (hey, don’t kill me if you ever find this. We all know I’m the one with the problem, right?) was talking about spiritual crises, and asked if I was religious, which I am most certainly not. She’s not either, and was speculating that maybe that lack was why she’s never happy or satisfied, you know, constantly disappointed, just like me. I said absolutely not. Miserable people are just miserable, but dammit, if it didn’t make me want to not be like her. I’d better get my emotional act together. Oh, then she was telling some story about some person, and I wasn’t really paying attention until she said, “she’s our age” and I’m like wait a minute, we are so not the same age. This has actually been a source of speculation among other coworkers and myself. No one can figure out how old she is. I’d say early 40s, though some guessed higher, the clincher being she has a preschool aged child, so she can’t be too old. However, last week she mentioned watching the Ed Sullivan Show as a kid, and let me tell you when I was a tot the Beatles were not even on my radar. I’m part of the MTV generation, dammit! How the fuck is someone she knows “our age?!” I’m very sensitive these days (and not just about age, let’s bring weight into this too while we’re at it. It just struck me that I’ve lost 15 pounds since April, which is pretty good for me since I’m a snack freak, but it’s totally unnoticeable to the naked eye. I mean, I can tell because my collarbones are coming back, and my pants are loose enough to pull off without unbuttoning, but it’s not visually obvious because I have one of those retard bodies that can go 20 pounds in either direction without much difference, like I’ve gained 20 pounds in the past and not even noticed because my clothes still fit. All annoying hips and boobs, like someone like me [younger, of course] who wanted to be a model could try their best, get all fit and they’d be forced to do swimsuit or catalog modeling [I see these types of women in the Newport News catalogs they send me relentlessly—seriously, like five in one week], as they’d be too curvy and gauche for couture or runway. While other people lose five pounds and everyone’s ga ga over their slimness. My boss came back to work after being out for six weeks and everyone was impressed with how thin she looked. Well, duh, she had a four-pound cyst removed. She was all, “uh yeah, I lost four pounds,” being the only other one seeing the humor in being complimented for getting a large cyst removed. So, I could probably lose an additional 15 pounds, and might by autumn if I keep at this rate, and I’ll probably still look like a blob. Which brings me to these Discovery Health Channel weight loss shows. I don’t mean, lying infomericals, but all these documentary health cop shows they do. On one episode one of the women’s goal was to get down to a size 14 and she did at 240 pounds. She was not tall. I am nowhere near 240 pounds, not even close and I haven’t been able to wear a 14 since high school. This woman was chunky and had those upper arms that look like hams. My upper arms do not look like hams and there’s no way I could fit into a size 14 [well, maybe a shirt, but definitely not jeans]. Is there an optical illusion at work, some sort of body mass hologram? This isn’t worth speculating on but it gets me. I have friends who currently weigh more than I did say in my college years and they wear a size 8. I’ve never been an 8, in fact I wore a 10 in 5th grade. I was a 14 in college. How can someone who weighs less than another be three sizes larger in clothes? I think I’m delusional) Hmm…and then there’s the issue of the birthday party, itself. I don’t plan on having another one ever again because they always end up totally lame and no one shows up like it’s grade school all over again. I mean, I had friends as a child, but having a summer birthday sucked because you never got to bring cupcakes to class and invitations for the select few. You had to mail them, which was a hassle and then everyone ended up being on family vacations the day of my party. This year everyone had another party, a show or a wedding (what is up with all these fucking weddings? Seriously, like has every single single person in NYC decided to tie the knot summer ’03?). Fine. You know, one of the things that has kept me from moving is that I know people here, I showed up out of the blue, and now have settled-in. After five years, roots take hold. But that’s not really true. I know, and know of, a good number of people, but not in any way that matters much. If you can get a table-full of people to show up at short-notice for drinks and only three to show up for a well-planned birthday party, what does that say? So yeah, in the back of my head I’ve been scouting out potential places to move. I mean, if I’m going to be disappointed everywhere in the world, I might as well be somewhere cheaper and lower-stress. Though, I will face these truths next summer after I graduate, not now. In the mean time, I feel floaty and uninspired. Like I have lots of free time between now and Sept. I should pursue writing assignments, send out queries, but I’d rather lay on (which is less pathetic than laying in) my bed thinking about nothing or reading lame, yet engrossing best of collections like “The Best American Short Stories of the Century” and “Best American Short Stories 2002.” I love short stories. Perfect. And not because I have a short attention span. They’re just right. The summer of ’99 I also felt like shit and did nothing but lay on my bed (sans air conditioning back then) and read short stories and discovered my favorite book (though that fluctuates) “Winesburg, Ohio” and have read it a couple times since. It wasn’t as good as the first time, but that’s typical. Oh, and yesterday I woke up with another urinary tract infection. I had one on my birthday the year before last, too, and had to run out at 4am in the rain looking for those little red pills that temporarily make peeing bearable. Randomly, I had a dr. appt. scheduled for Wed. morning (tomorrow) so I’m going to force them to do something. I don’t know what, but this is ridiculous. I just had a UTI like a month ago. I want antibiotics to have around the house (which they let me do in Portland), and was told last time that unless you had more than 10 in a year, it wasn’t serious enough, and that’s crazy. Today I found all this information saying more than two UTIs in six months is considered chronic. I’m well beyond chronic. All my bones and muscles hurt and my kidneys are probably rotten by now, as this has been going on for over ten years, and all they ever tell me is the stupid classic advice I’ve been told over a million times: drink lots of water, wipe front to back, urinate after having sex. Duh, and every time I’m told these sage suggestions it’s like they’re imparting some new medical breakthrough knowledge to me. Wouldn’t you think by the old, death’s door, rancid-bladder age of 31, I’d know these things already? So as you age, birthdays become more and more like New Year’s Eve, it appears. A lot of effort, gussying-up, spending money, drinking and eating, a special occasion marking the passing of another unimportant year. God, I’d rather dwell on my imaginary growing kidney stones (and my nasty hair—did I mention it’s all green? And I don’t mean subtly, I have a goddamn swamp on my head) than ponder the passing of time.

6/22/03
I’m nervous, not for myself, but for this vacation that’s coming up soon. I plan on having a good time, but James seems to be convinced something bad will happen (and I’m one of the most negative people on earth), we’ll get scammed, or robbed, or who knows our heads will get chopped off. I just don’t get hung up on bad things happening in other places (here, that’s another story—and one I’ll get into shortly). Maybe it’s the fear of the unknown, but I’ve never heard anyone with a single horror story about S.E. Asia. He’s just freaking out because his mom is from the Philippines and has nothing nice to say about Asia or Asians and totally threw a fit when he told her he was going last week (he wasn’t even going to tell her at all) and how “hurt” she is. Uh, ok. But I do have to admit, the last time I was all happy-go-lucky, feeling NYC-tough on a vacation, we got our rental car broken into and all our stuff stolen (including passports, checkbooks, and house keys, which is much larger a trauma than it seems at first, especially if no one you know has copies of your keys). I really didn’t expect Vancouver, B.C. to be some crime-riddled shit hole, and it’s probably not really, but we cut our time there short, and I have no desire to return. I often expect bad things to happen, but not of a crime-related nature. That’s why I was so caught off guard yesterday on the way home from work. There’s this 24-hour produce stand on the corner of Third Ave. and 26th St. under the BQE. It’s more than a stand, it’s a pretty big place with better fruit and vegetables than you can find in the rest of the neighborhood. It’s about six blocks from my house and only 1.5 from the subway. I hardly ever go straight home from work (I either go out, or try to go to the gym or whatever, I hardly ever buy groceries near my house, mostly because they suck so bad) so I thought it would be fun to swing by the produce place and get stuff to make a weekend sweet potato salad and vegetable skewers. It’s weird because I’ve been all over my neighborhood, I walk a lot, but I don’t recall ever walking down 25th street towards the water. I was noticing these nice, old buildings, that had Rectory (I couldn’t tell if it was still a rectory or what it was) and the year 1991 cut into the stone. There was a guy across the street, and it was funny because he was scrutinizing them too, like he’d never noticed them either. I get up to the BQE intersection, which is really annoying and intimidating because it’s like four lanes straddling each side of the overpass and people drive like maniacs, and stop lights and crosswalks are sporadic. I was lucky that 25th happened to have traffic lights. After a few speeders ran through the light, I crossed to the half-way mark, this large median/parking area created by the width of the BQE. Anxious to get across the other half while the walk signal was still on, I started to pick up my pace a bit. That’s when this kid comes up next to me and asks for my wallet. I seriously didn’t know what he was talking about. I was like “what?” And he was all “give me your wallet” making this mean face. And I was so pissed because it’s broad daylight, the store is just across the street, at the end of the corner, I can see people down there, but I’m in this isolated patch under the overpass and I was so taken by surprise that ration hadn’t kicked in yet. I just kept walking, I was freaked out, but the kid was smaller than me and probably not older than 16 so on a physical level I had him beat, but then he started putting his hand in his pocket implying he had a weapon, which I kind of think he didn’t or else you’d think he’d actually flash it. I was all, “so, you want the wallet or you want the money?” cause he kept asking for the wallet and then he got all menacing and desperate and high-pitched and I thought maybe he really would pull out a knife, but I kept walking anyway and told him I didn’t have much money (I only had about $12 on me) and that I was going to buy groceries, so there. It's more comical when I think about it now, he totally wasn't getting anywhere with me. And by this point we were almost at the store so I walk faster and he takes off. And then I didn’t do anything. I’m always retarded in these types of situations. I mean, was I supposed to start yelling, should I have asked to use a shopper’s cell phone and for what good? I’ve twice had to deal with calling police over incidents in my neighborhood and nothing gets resolved. He was clearly a minor, he might’ve or might not have had a weapon, who says they’d find him, he looks like every other black kid in NYC (yep, I’m going for the they all look alike racist approach because New York makes you nasty that way. I never had problems with anybody until I moved here. And now I’m so intolerant I only want to be around people like me [scratch that, I don’t even want to be around people like myself] Speaking of vitriol and racism, if anyone hasn’t seen the new Craigslist section Rants and Raves, well, they’re in for a treat. It probably started out as a good idea, and maybe in S.F. these sort of public forums work for good, but the NYC one is 99% filled with people talking about how much they hate jews, spics [but just Puerto Ricans and some Dominicans, not Mexicans or S. Americans] white Park Slopers who push their coddled children around in giant ergonomic strollers till they’re 7 years old, blacks who hang out around Times Square at night, cruising around acting like idiots. Or how sexy Asian/Columbian/Middle Eastern/Indian/insert-your-favorite-ethnicity women are. Did you know Staten Island girls give the best B.J.s? Did you know people still called blow jobs B.J.s? Until yesterday, I also wasn’t aware that the word yuppie was still in vogue. But it’s not all about race, there are open letters to folks like the person who took a dump in front of someone’s Upper East Side apt., to short men who wear horrible baggy pants that only make them look stubbier [this I agree with, only I’d add pleats to the baggy mess], and to tan women who wear beige lipstick with darker liner who look like they have no mouth pigment. I’m only baffled there aren’t more rants about the hideousness of low-rise jeans. I’m so down on the low-rise, short-shirt look for any body type. Fit, fat, I don’t care, I don’t want to see your stomach. And I really, really don’t want to see pregnant women with little baby [no pun intended] tees, which seems to be a thing with all these rapidly-approaching-forty, white, urban sex-in-the-city mommies-to-be. Then, there’s the matter of those horrible terry cloth/velour track suits, which can easily be combined with the above low-rise issue. There’s nothing sexy about some charbroiled tan NYU student with furry, flared pants just barely covering their pubic hair. I think people should start wearing them even lower. Vaginal cleavage can be the new décolletage—just wait, it’s only a matter of time before the NY Times Sunday Styles declares this sleaze to be trendy). Nothing would get done. So, I didn’t do anything except sift through zucchini, steaming, angrier and angrier by the second. I can’t even buy vegetables, a couple blocks from my house without getting harassed now? I’ve semi-seriously entertained devices I could whip-up to use if anyone started shit with me. I was thinking more along the lines of cars that almost run you over, or people who yell out of cars, like you could throw something at them. Just last week I was cracking myself up thinking about the old-fashioned loose change in the sock weapon, like how nuts it would be to carry it around. Now, I’m serious. I don’t care if you’re a youngster or not (I was once mugged with a real knife in Portland and it was by teens, too. I’d like to think of myself as a teen magnet, but in a sexier way) you're going to get it the next time you barge in on one of my semi-peaceful, mining-my-own-business walks around town with your bad manners. Hmm, then that night I got call from the Census Bureau. They're always bugging me because I guess at one point last year I agreed to be a part of some survey, and periodically they show up at my apt. with questions, but I've never actually been there when they've done this because I'm rarely home, they just leave business card to call and I always forget. So, the woman was very excited to finally get me on the phone because they have deadlines and I was really pushing the limits. They just want to know about education level, employment and whether or not you own a farm. She needed to contact me next month, right during the time I'll be out of town, and it turned out the last day for the survey is the day I get back, and I agreed to call, but you know after being on a plane for 24 hours you're not going to remember to call the Census Bureau. But anyway, she asked where I was going (then proceeded to give all this advice about moving around on the plane and how she did little exercises on her recent Europe trip) and I said Asia, and she was all, "oh, you'd better be careful." And I was like what the fuck is up with people thinking I need to be careful. "You mean, SARS?" I said, and she replied, "no, you just need to be careful, more alert when you're over there." "Have you ever been to Asia?" was all I could think and say, and no, she hadn't. So, why would she tell me to be CAREFUL over there?! Apparently, the only place I need to be more careful in is the 11232 zip code, her assigned census district, where kids roam the street like stupid animals. I should've told her that maybe she'd better be careful the next time she came out here to do surveys in person. Asia, nothing. Well-intentioned or not, warning advice like everyone seems to be so ready to dole out, is really lost on me.

7/21/03
Phew, I can totally rest easy now that I've realized I'm not really turning 31 this week, but 22! Yes, The New York Times declares 30 the new 21 and you know if it's in the Sunday Styles section it's totally true and relevant to the entire world. I can buy the concept that 30 isn't scary and haggard like it used to be because people "grow up" so much later nowadays (is that an annoying word, nowadays?). Marriage, babies, home-buying, and in this economy "good" jobs, all seem to come later in life. So, we're all emotionally stunted and at the maturity level of an early-mid 20-something from the mid-20th century. I know for myself that I'm just barely, barely starting to feel adult. But then, The Times always has to go and make me want to barf by showcasing how New Yorkers assimilate these trends they always claim are being set. Didn't you know that all 30 year olds in NYC are publicists, creative directors, and founders of tech companies? It's true. And it's totally typical to spend in the neighborhood of $30,000 to celebrate one of these third decade birthdays ($1,000 to mark each year passed, perhaps?). Tiffany's jewelry, Rolexes, yacht parties, weekends in the Hamptons with 600 guests are all de rigeur. Pity the poor schnooks in the rest of the country who are unable to experience all the fabulousness that is the NYC 30th birthday. I'll be lucky if I can coax ten people out to my shit-hole of a backyard for some bbq and sangria made with that ubiquitous "Two Buck Chuck" at Trader Joe's that's unsurprisingly three> bucks in the NYC/NJ region (well, NJ region, there aren't any Trader Joe's in the city and only one location in NJ even sells alcohol). An extra dollar for us mid-Atlantic folks? Heck, I spare no expense, only the best for my guests. God, speaking of suburban NJ shopping experiences, yesterday we headed out to the above mentioned Trader Joe's. Fine. Then I wanted to go to the Hong Kong Supermarket (there's also one in my neighborhood, but this NJ one is the total mother lode) in what I swear was Union, NJ. We've been there twice. The first time by accident, we were looking for a Goodwill near Trader Joe's, got driving directions off Yahoo and it turned out there wasn't one in the shopping complex, yet there was an enormous Hong Kong Supermarket. Now, it's not listed in Yahoo Yellow Pages. I could've sworn there was a T.J. Maxx in the complex so we got driving directions to the T.J. Maxx in Union figuring it would have the same end result. Well, no. We ended up at a different T.J. Maxx. I racked my brain trying to conjure up the street the HK Supermarket was on to no avail. I swear there was a T.J. Maxx, but then conceded and suggested it might've been a Marshalls (Verizon 411 had listings for neither). I know for a fact, diagonally there was a Sears home improvement type center, not a regular Sears. But alas, they had no listing for such a place either. I was pretty sure it was on a street that either was a tree name or Forest, but that's pretty useless. My last resort was to try Goodwill since that was how we found that intersection in the first place. Nope, they had no listings for a Goodwill in Union, NJ. I totally felt like I was going crazy. Obviously, at least one variable had to be wrong. James insisted it wasn't called Hong Kong Supermarket (I know for a fact it is) and then doubted it was in Union (we had a road map out, scouring street names to job our memories). We drove around aimlessly till I got annoyed, and now being after 6pm on a Sunday, it was futilely late anyway. Why aren't there any internet cafes out in small town NJ? I've since deduced that the store is called Hong Kong Supermarket and that it's at Park Ave. and Oak Tree Rd. (see, I had the tree part right) in Edison NJ and that's where I'm baffled, but whatever. The yellow pages have no listings for a T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, Sears or a Goodwill anywhere nearby. There's no point or moral to this story. I'm just re-counting how I wasted an entire precious Sunday afternoon seeking Asian basil, cutesy candy and Thai chilies that I could've found in my own neighborhood. Maybe 30 is the new 21 but it doesn't make you any smarter.

7/18/03
At work I don't really have time to play around on the internet much, I flit here and there trying to take in large amounts of information in small goes. And a couple days ago this ad caught my attention, well the graphic because there was something really off about it, so I quickly saved it and now I don't remember what the ad was for. It was blue, and I was thinking AT&T, but it seems like a dating ad from the copy, but I don't think it was. I don't know if it's the way the image is cropped or the guy's feature's, but it just feels peculiar, it doesn't seem like a proper banner ad face. Anyway, my old freshman in college friend Adam was in town this week and it was genuinely good to see him. He's one of those people that can make like anything (though trivial, what always stands out in my mind as the classic example of his personality is in first-year ceramics class we had to reproduce an art image and then carve it so it served as a whistle. The angles had to be just right, the hole in the right place. I had this freaky gargoyle that barely produced a sound. Adam, however did the assignment then started carving baby carrots and was able to make miniature whistles out of them. Anyone who can coax music out of baby carrots alright with me) is full of ideas and actually executes them. And now that he's back in Portland and hasn't succumbed to the slacker, all-talk black hole, but instead is supporting himself with his clothing design business, it's impressive. I'm rarely complimentary to friends, not because I don't have the thoughts, but because I'm emotionally repressed like some mean-seeming, stoic father who expects too much from his kids and never tells them he loves them until it's too late. So, it was nice to see him. He was talking about how he used to follow me to the bus stop after school because he wanted to meet me, I was all ratty blue hair and thrift store smocks, but was too scared to talk to me. I was too scared to talk to him, too. The first day of class when he said he was from Vancouver I thought he meant Vancouver B.C. because he was all funky like he had to be from another country (albeit Canada). There's this weird stalkerish, admiration relationship that only seems to develop between me and non-heterosexuals. I just love getting together with Portland people because they always have the best stories without even trying. Everyone's naturally fucked-up. Adam used to have this friend Charlie that looked like a tiny, androgynous, Jodie Foster, teen runaway. My sister and me totally followed him around town, the first time we saw him, when we were teens. He lived in Gresham too, not surprising because Gresham produced a disproportionate amount of gay teens. It was almost a weird '80s, suburban subculture in itself. I guess Charlie still lives at home with parents in Gresham...with his 38 yr. old boyfriend. So wrong. I mean, he must be late 20s by now. My friend Lema, 31, still lives at home in Gresham, but she's never really had a real boyfriend, she just sees this 40-something, divorced alcoholic who gets the kids on the weekend. Adam also had this friend Molly, he grew up with in Vancouver, WA (where Tanya Harding currently lives), they had the same birthday (also next week, we're all 1972, July Leos) and she was all fixated on him like they were going to get married. She was large, a little scary and he'd give her these big black Snow White hair-dos. Now she's married with three kids and lives in The Dalles and her husband is a Sasquatch fanatic. He's a member of the Bigfoot Society. I guess he's big and hairy naturally, but for their wedding dressed in a Bigfoot costume. So wrong, the northwest. Anyway, it's come to my attention that it's my birthday a week from today and I'm absolutely clueless as to what to do. In fact, no one's even mentioned it. Regardless, I'd better cook something up asap because a birthday plan put-off makes for a very sad party indeed.

7/13/03
I’ve been reluctant to write here, I think partly because anything I’d say would seem like whining (like that’s stopped me before) or exaggerating. But it’s not, this five-day summer class I’m taking is totally torturing me. Of course, I can immediately thank my lucky stars that it’s only five days instead of the usual 15 weeks. It’s this required class: Information Technologies, you can’t waive it, I mean you could be some computer genius (which I’m not) and you’d still be forced to take this class where people don’t know how to right click the mouse, or save images from webpages, how to scan, how to use Excel, or how to save to disks. It takes remedial to a whole new level. The entire first day, all 8.5 hours of it was spent learning how to make webpages, cutting and pasting from the teacher’s hideous 1996-style (he really did make it in ’96 and hasn’t changed it since) template. I’d link to the class page, but I’d probably get into trouble. I expected everyone to be annoyed by this class, but after he asked who had made webpages before and only one other person raised their hand (she clearly hadn’t either because she absolutely didn’t get the concept of how things get from being on your desktop to being visible to the public) I knew I was in trouble. I spent the first day seething, not doing any of the exercises we were very, very slowly walked through while everyone kept getting upset and making him stop and repeat himself repeatedly, I just covertly read my how to learn Thai book. I hadn’t felt like this since I was teenage, just nasty, annoyed, superior (though emptily since it’s not much to feel smart about), disrespectful. It had to have shown on my face, though I tried to politely answer questions when called on and tried to interject a few interesting tid bits since participation counts in the grade. I figured that I was paying around $400 a day for this nonsense. I could do a lot with a couple grand. If someone were to stumble in on this class they might mistake it for GED prep, or English as a second language, or maybe some program to get welfare moms job skills, no one would mistake it for grad school. So, the second day, last Thurs. half-way through the day (when we were still doing internet crap, even though we were supposed to have moved on to databases, which would at least be something semi-new to learn about) the prof. (I hesitate to call him as such, and I know that he takes offense to being called a teacher), no the teacher, was doing his rounds, and said, “could you see me after class.” My god, it really was like middle school. As if I wasn’t annoyed enough, the whole rest of the afternoon I was racking my brain in a frenzy trying to figure out why the hell he wanted. My first guess was I was in trouble for having a bad attitude or something, though I thought by 30 a crap attitude was your own business, it’s not like they could call up my mom and complain about what a wretch I am like in the old days (my mom always told them to fuck off anyway, and I’m sure she still would). Then I thought maybe I’d have to put out, perhaps I’d turned him on with my advanced FTP know-how and ways with and tags. I knew it wasn’t something good, but allowed to fantasize anyway, maybe I was so beyond the course material he wasn’t going to make me do all the pitiful assignments, or better yet, maybe I could get out of the class, altogether. No, I didn’t really think so. This guy was some engineering hack who was about to lose his job at Pratt in the early ‘90s when they cut that program. He was allowed to keep tenure by his getting an MLS and teaching library science instead. I know, only because this is the story he told us on the first day. He seemed very irritated to be a PhD and to still have to do the lame-ass MLS. There’s no way he’d let anyone out of taking 654: Information Technologies. Did I also mention he’s my advisor? So, after class he makes me go wait for him in his office and I’m brewing, wondering what the fuck this ass (he does Emeril impressions, for crying out loud) wants. He shuts the door then says, “You need to calm down. You speak very fast, I don’t know if you’re nervous, but you need to calm down. You’re hypertensive. It’s making me nervous. Are you alright? Is the intensive nature of this course causing too much stress. I know it’s a lot to learn in a short amount of time.” And I’m not talking fast at this moment because I’m speechless. I could’ve literally spit on him, that’s how mad I was (don’t worry, I don’t really spit on people). I know you don’t know what I sound like, as this is a text-based venture, but I talk fast, I’ve always talked fast, it’s not a nervous habit, it’s how I speak and there’s nothing I can do about it. And heck, I am hypertensive, you know. I could’ve taken the girlie hurt feelings approach and started crying, saying how I do have high blood pressure, and I’m taking medication for fuck’s sake and make him feel bad like I have some affliction. But I think he meant hyperactive, like when someone calls you hyper, I think that’s short for hyperactive, not hypertensive (I’ll have to use my brilliant library skills and look into this). I had had almost no verbal interaction with him the entire two days I’d been in class, so this was totally freaky and uncalled for. I got annoyed once because the printer wasn’t printing and asked him if it was working. Not a big deal, considering other students (grown ups) yell out loud and throw fits every time they can’t figure something out, or get behind during a demo. The first day, I found his syllabus confusing and asked him to clarify our final project, and he got all crazy and defensive and told me I was being HYPER. That’s it. Completely bizarre. All I could say was “yes, I talk fast, there’s nothing I can do about it, and it’s not going to change.” Goodbye. I mean, of all the fucked up personality quirks in library school, he singles me out for because I get easily wound up? Crap like this hasn’t been an issue since first grade when they wanted to put me in speech class and I was all hell no, that’s for retards who lisp (now that I think about it, I was told to slow my speech by a temp agency last summer. They also told me to dress more conservatively, and never got me any jobs anyway, so who needs it?). So, I’m completely offended, mainly because he’s so clueless that he thinks his class work is hard and a gifted fourth grader could master it no problem. I would complain, but as I said he’s my advisor. Then I realized I have this guy for a full 15-week class in the fall and totally panicked. Then I also remembered last month at the Special Library Association conference I met a Pratt graduate who told me the most useful class he took there was Database Searching, but never, ever to take it with this particular instructor because he had no library background, he was an engineer, and clueless at that. I blew it off at the time, the guy telling me this was kind of an eccentric, arrogant Russian. But damn it, if he wasn’t on the mark. I totally spazzed out, and ran to the office to desperately try and switch into a different section. Amusingly, the class I’d signed up for only had one other person in it, it was clearly going to get cancelled anyway. Apparently, I’m the only one who didn’t know this guy has problems. Then everyone in the office started going on about how horrible he is. And I was supposed to get my advisor’s approval before adding/dropping classes but they took pity on me in this case. Jesus, I haven’t been this loatheful (I don’t think that’s a proper word) of another human being in years and years. We have this week off, to do nine reading reports, build a webpage, and observe an IT person and make a PowerPoint presentation out of it. None of that is terribly hard, but I have zero desire to do any of it by next Tues. when it’s all due. I’d really rather goof off and do crap like ruining my hair like I just did an hour ago. Against my better judgment, I went all wild with that new L’Oreal Couleur Experte. I knew I shouldn’t have, especially since I don’t care for highlighted hair on others (my grays had totally taken over, like 30-40% and I was going to put dark brown [my real hair color] back in. It could’ve been cool. Now I’ll have to cut my hair off, and let it grow back out to get the gray to show) and I was suspicious because all the models on the boxes had straight hair except the dark brown one who had a curly, wet looking style. You couldn’t get a sense of how the highlights fell or how light they were because of the waviness and sheen. I thought they were trying to hid something, but it didn’t stop me from buying it anyway. And now I totally have orangey-gold chunks. It’s not completely hideous, but I don’t know if it’s me. But seeing as how my student/teacher relationships have regressed back to pre-teen picked-on defensiveness coupled with venomous aggression, it’s only fitting that my hair looks the same Sun-In ugly it did when I was 11 and first discovered hair lighteners (and disdain for others). Unrelated, but worth relaying: Last Thurs. I also had the privilege of dining near a couple being filmed for “Blind Date.” What a stroke of luck, huh? I always wondered where they’d go on the NYC version (Three of Cups in the East Village, apparently) and what do they do afterwards, since there aren’t hot tub shacks on every corner here? They were really dull, she was small and blonde, he was thick and dark, they didn’t talk much, and didn’t eat any of their food. Oh god, I really need to start on all this busywork, homework, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to go stare at my hair don’t for a while in the mirror.

7/9/03
I'm not sure that Fourth of July was all that eventful, though I did a variety of things like hanging out at the Garden State Mall in NJ, going to a BBQ in Greenpoint, watching fireworks from some gravel pit, truck parking lot on the East River, then getting inexplicably tired/sick/drunk? and having to go home early. I don't know if that's the first symptom of aging, when you drink half as much as five years ago, but get all tipsy and sweaty (it was super hot out) too quickly. The odd thing of the day was the BBQ hosts. I'm not completely clear on who knows who and how, but we heard of it through a friend Deann, whose friend Anthony was throwing it. I don't know how they know each other. Anthony lives with his girlfriend Betsy. That was the weird part, she was really familiar to me. I was pretty sure that I'd met her during my first trip to NYC in '94 when I won this travel scholarship at graduation and came with an art school friend Kristin, who'd been an exchange student for a semester at Cooper Union. We stayed with and hung out with her Cooper Union lesbian friends (she was a lesbian). Betsy was one of those lesbian friends, the only difference being her hair was blonde (now it's brown) and that she was nine years younger, of course. I remember her having a crush on Kristin and Kristin being very not into it and one point Betsy wanted to use her chapstick and she got all grossed out and threw it away later. Everyone thought we were "together," which we weren't, we were just pals, though I did find out that Kristin had some nutty thing for me, which I totally didn't know about. It's probably the only time in my life that I've been the object of a crazy unrequited fixation. I should've relished the attention while I had it. We stopped talking once I moved to NYC. People think that's weird, but she's also an INFJ, so I get it. There are different phases of life. I'm pretty bad about keeping in touch with past people, too. So, I guess this Betsy character is not a lesbian anymore? I don't know why I care, but I became fixated with it at that party. I asked her if she went to Cooper Union in the early '90s and knew these other girls and she said yes, then got sort of weird and didn't really continue the conversation. I think I'm just a real black and white type, like I don't get gay people who decide they like the opposite sex all of a sudden, like how does that work? Sexual shades of gray, I just don't know. I had this good friend Chris in Portland. We were never more than friends, though it seemed like we should've been, people thought it would go that direction. My sister started making fun of me when she heard I was cutting his hair. To her, that’s the signal that things are getting touchie-feelie. She always ended up dating the guy, if she ever cut their hair. It implies something, I agree, but it wasn’t dirty in this case. I mean, he called me Garcia. Last name users stay in a certain realm. The thing about him was that he was completely me as a guy, and vice versa. He was totally funny and sharp witted, good with details, not a bad dresser, prematurely graying, depressive, full of ideas that never got seen through, chunky though not grotesquely so, and would totally jog and exercise and still not lose weight, had good taste in movies and books, poor, more suburban than necessary (he lived in this grown-up house way the fuck out towards my dad's, not in Portland proper). We'd talk on the phone almost every night, and crack each other up making fun of people or telling dirty stories. Some people, particularly gay men, thought he was gay, but he wasn't. He hadn't had a ton of girlfriends, but did have some casual thing going with this Asian drug dealer girl in a wheelchair (a lot of guys did, which was totally creepy to me-- Portlanders must have some paraplegic fetish.) that he wanted to make uncasual, but she wouldn’t stop with the other guys. Our big difference was that he didn't drink, one of those people who can't drink because they messed it up so bad in their teens and early 20s. That's always weird. I think he thought I was a drunk like he used to be. I ruined a party of his because I realized he had a thing for this tiny lesbian girl. She was a hairdresser. He always liked pixie types and that irked me, but then, I always liked lanky guys so I was a hypocrite. We didn't talk much after that. I didn't want to date him, I just didn't like the idea of him and this girl. And to get back to my point--what is she doing with guys, anyway? They got married in maybe ’97, I ran into them when I was still working at the library in Portland and he said he’d send me an invite to their Christmas party, but he didn’t. That’s the last time I talked to him. I think she was still doing hair, and he was doing construction, working for her dad. He's one old friend I actually do wonder about. Which reminds me, one of my best friends from freshman year in college that I haven’t seen in years and years will be in NYC next week for some textile show. And if it turns out that now he’s into women, I’ll definitely be left dumbstruck over the ways of the world.