an occasional feature

February

2/25/99

Okay, the popularity has died down -- no more people sending me pictures in email, no more party suggestions, no more questionable job offers. I am a normal citizen again. So, like a normal citizen, I'm going on vacation. I'm heading down to San Fran to see my fella and maybe some other pals including my friend Fil who used to live in my basement back when he was in the Coast Guard.

I'm one of those people who really likes San Francisco, but has never fallen in love with San Francisco. Nice place to visit, easy to get around, good public transportation, okay library [complete with library scandal], nice park, nice bridge, a lot of friendly people who dress a bit nicer than I do. There's also steep rent, lousy public funding for libraries and schools, and a place that often seems drowned by its own history. And cable cars, I never understood the allure of cable cars.

Maybe this all dates back to the first time I went to San Francisco when I was twelve. My uncle lived right near the Zen Center and I had pretty much never been to a city besides Boston before, so my Mom and aunt gave me all the how-to-be-afraid-of-strangers lectures, and I spent so much time worrying about being kidnapped [I thought that the problem with strangers was that they tended to kidnap people] that I didn't enjoy myself too much. Except the Exploratorium, I loved the Exploratorium.

2/23/99

Now that the furor has died down somewhat, here's my photo essay of sorts about doing my laundry this weekend. Sorry folks, it doesn't get any better than this.

Also for what it's worth, the Seattle Times, who didn't have any actual prize to accompany this so-called award [what can you get for the amazon.com that has everything?] even spelled my name wrong. This used to be kind of a joke when I was a sickly child and the pharmacy [who typed the labels for my stuffy nose medicine by hand in those days] would regularly misspell my name in stranger and stranger ways and we kept putting all the funny labels on the fridge. Who do I petition to get my name in the Microsoft spellchecker?

2/22/99

Thanks to my new found fame, hits on this page have increased almost 1000% overnight. I expect them to decrease by the same amount in a day or two.

2/21/99

So, two years ago this site was chosen as the best personal web site by the Seattle Weekly. Today, I'm up early to open the Odd Fellows Hall for the Dances of Universal Peace group after a night of moderate to heavy drinking with some anarchist gun nuts and I check my web logs [why? who knows? cuz I need some time to drink all that water I need to not feel like death warmed over in a few hours] and they're outta control! Like where did all these people come from? Fortunately, some other weirdo is also up and online at 8:15 on a Sunday [thanks Mike, whoever you are] and hipped me to this page at the Seattle Times. Dontcha like how the name of the site is in all caps? I know I'm shouting, I like to shout. Now I'm not sure if I should do that journal entry I was planning on finally doing laundry after all these months...

2/19/99

I have been on a web design fit making this set of pages for my man Len. Beta test 'em for me, willya?

At the library where I work on Thursdays and Fridays [yes, one of my six jobs] we are having a book sale, where we get rid of the old weirdo books we don't want in order to spend more money buying stuff from Amazon.com. What this means is I get to pick up strange old books, for cheap. Here is a list of what I have in my box today:

• a book about the Nazi Olympics in Berlin 1936
• Coney Island of the Mind, poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
• The Gentle Anarchists: A study of the leaders of the sarvodaya movement for non-violent revolution in India
• Pissing in the Snow & Other Ozark Folktales
• Handbook of Homemade Power, by the folks at Mother Earth News
• The Encyclopaedia of the Labour Movement, two volumes about labor history in Britain

2/16/99

Friends who fear for my sanity have pointed out that I do in fact understand the aforementioned nasal phrase, winning the "Duh!" of the week award. I think maybe I can blame the cold medicine.

Of greater concern to me is this: I recall during high school psychology class that one of the notable signs of schizophrenics was that they interpreted proverbs literally -- that they had no conception of metaphor. So you ask them what "a rolling stone gathers no moss" means, they start talking to you about rocks. Now I'm not much of a hypochondriac, but I did check out a few symptom lists just to be on the safe side. I have a cousin who's schizophrenic who was in the news a while back [not in a good way], so I'm not goofing on this topic. Here's what I found out. Notable symptoms include:

• Unusual Realities: Schizophrenic people have their own perceptions of reality. Their view of the world is often strikingly different from the usual reality seen and shared by those around them.
• Hallucinations: you know what this means
• Delusions: Delusions are false personal beliefs that are not subject to reason or contradictory evidence and are not part of the person's culture. [note: I like the cultural relativism of this one, that leaves organized religion out]
• Disordered Thinking: The person may endure many hours of not being able to "think straight." Thoughts may come and go so rapidly that it is not possible to "catch them."
• Emotional Expression: Showing emotion that is inconsistent with the person's speech or thoughts

Split personality isn't a symptom of schizophrenia or at all related to it really. People who use the term that way are plain old ignorant.

So, despite my persistence in living my unusual reality, I can still appreciate a good Neutral Milk Hotel song, so I guess I'm okay ... for now.

2/15/99

People sometimes, when they are trying to teach you something, use the phrase "cutting off your nose to spite your face". I don't quite get it exactly. Like, if it's you doing the cutting, it's your loss just as much as it is your face's loss, right? Don't mind me, I've just been thinking a lot about cutting off my nose lately and that keeps popping to mind. You see, I have a cold. A code. Id by doze, dabbit! It sucks.

I did not, however, have so much of a cold in my nose that I did not smell something funny on the bus on my way home this evening. Now you say, who doesn't smell something funny on the bus? This was more of a pleasing odor really and I couldn't quite place it -- no hippies sitting anywhere near me, no overscented hairgel guys whose cologne just might have smelled appealing through all this mucus -- it was confusing. Confusing until a very loud-talking woman got on the bus and sat right up next to the driver [you can always worry if they sit too close or too far away] and said "Hey, are you the driver who burns incense on the bus?" Turns out that's what was going on: my bus driver is burning incense. Of course, why didn't I think of that sooner?! Fortunately, my stuffed up nose prohibited me from getting too much of the stuff [what flavor? passion. I am not lying] in my bronchial passages and having an allergic sneezing fit, which would have probably bummed everyone out.

2/13/99

My Trip to Vegas

The first day we were there we went to twelve casinos. Now, some of them were off-brand casinos like the across-the-street Nickel Town, but others you might have heard of, like the Stardust, or Bally's. There's a rumor in my family that my grandfather owned Harrah's for a week or a month or something, but like the rumors that he was related to Genghis Khan [his last name was Cohon...], they are largely unsubstantiated.

I don't gamble, but I do try to eat lots of cheap food -- an all time low last night of 3 Castle Burgers for $1.69 and some chili cheese fries, I asked the woman at the counter for water and she said "bottled water?" and I said "no, tap water" and she gave me a mini free-market lecture about how it wouldn't make too much sense for them to give away water, seeing as they were selling it, I quickly moved to the bar. I also peruse the slots for leftover money. This may seem unlikely and ridiculous but this trip Jack and I managed to find not one but seven slot machines with cash left on them. Seven is some sort of lucky number, I hear. Our motel [largest motel in the world] has 777 rooms, cute huh?

2/8/99

Sometimes the email I send just speaks for itself.

2/7/99

I do not think these things are related:

• I went for a walk today because I just needed to buy everything Pete Krebs had ever produced. On my way back, when I realized that 40 degrees usually is code for "wear socks" for most people, I noticed a large trailer truck, the chilled kind, out behind the flower shop [one of two I share my alley with, the other one is where the nice people work]. This is how I remembered that there is a holiday coming up.
• I have candied ginger in my tonsils from at least yesterday. I have never been able to ask people if they get stuff caught in their tonsils all the time, though I am usually good at talking to most people about most things.
• There was a party here last night that made it onto Seattle Sidewalk. I went and it was fun, though I just really don't understand the appeal of women dressed as anteaters, in tutus, with accordions, revolving around on wooden barrels.... never have, really, but the crowd goes wild every time.
• I am going to Las Vegas on Wednesday for a few days. No, wiseasses, I am not going to get married there. I am going because my friend Dave is turning 30 and I haven't seen the sun for more than two hours in three months. I think it may be starting to make me weird. I am going to bring $6 in nickels and blow it all.

2/4/99

I need to take a nap. This is the good news because for the last few weeks or so I have been kinda strung out planning the party, filling my house with guests and doing a lot of work for my new job. I've been going to bed at one and waking up at eight am -- those of you who know me know this is not normal, and possibly harmful, to my particular organism. All of which has been wonderful, but when the caffeine wears off and people go home and the hall has been mopped the the empties recycled and the email and voicemail returned and the blinds drawn and the computer turned off [I'm getting to it...] and I look around and say to myself "is there a clean pair of socks in this place??"...all I want to do is sleep. Fortunately, this is no longer difficult. Wake me when my english muffins are done.

This does not, however, solve my sock problem.

2/1/99

I had a party for 120 people on Saturday. It was a fandango of epic proportions and I am still catching up from my crazy weekend. We had 6 people reading stories, 3 poets, 6 singers and a lot of acts that defy all description, but included leather pants, throat singing, slide shows and stuffed animal art. If you didn't come, you are very sorry that you missed it. Here's an approximate set list: