assault at the gas pump

pumping gas this morning. i've got on a above-knee pink eyelet skirt that is very "pretty" and "cute" and "girly." i never wear it without black boots. that's totally mandatory. since it's summer, i can't wear my tall black boots, or my medium-tall black boots, or even my slightly-above-ankle black boots – so this morning the ankle-high stomper boots were the choice. they're so tough (Frye), plus the memory of 382 rock concerts is impressed into their "sole." when i first started wearing them, i had to grow new muscles on the fronts on my shins. the soreness was unreal. i guess each one weighs a couple pounds because the 2.5" heel is solid wood and the leather is thick. quality shoes, great tool.

with the "too pretty" pink eyelet skirt was a white tshirt, short black cardigan, and heavy black belt with a silver buckle slung low on my waist. a coordinating silver cuff bracelet to bounce off my thick silver hoop earrings and the belt buckle told the rest of the story. it's all incredibly balanced. this outfit is pure HCL, which should always be one's goal if maximum sexiness is what they're looking for, or even maximum interest.

i finish pumping gas, return the phone to it's receiver ($4.69/gal for the low grade!), and turn around just in time to hear a short, messy-haired, dirty tshirt-and-jeans-wearing construction dude with a truck yell loudly as he passed me by, "NICE SKIRT! NICE TOP! HORRIBLE SHOES!...JUST THOUGHT I'D SHARE THAT WITH YOU." i'm such a dummy sometimes, i laughed and said, THANKS! and smiled. he was already gone then. and i'm glad he didn't see my smile.

slowly over the course of the day, it has occured to me exactly what a fuckhead thing that is to say to a woman. yeah, especially to a woman. thoughts of sexist high-heel female expectations have been steeping in my coconut ever since. the fury builds. what a fucking motherfucker! what a lousy piece of shit sad excuse for a man who gives men a bad name! why walk around yelling random criticisms at women about their outfits? in the morning? while they're pumping their own gas? something that should maybe be a stupid, dirty man's job?

my grandmama taught me to refrain from ugliness, but i have these thoughts anyway:

"Oh really, dirty man? will you please teach me about fashion?"

"obviously you know nothing about sexy."

"my horrible shoes are way effective at kicking ugly asses."

or the uncreative, but always effective, "FUCK YOU til the cows come home you rude, idiotic cunt."



ps. hey D, check out how great your fuschia is coming along this season!

Injury Log #5 follow up

so my substitute primary care physician doesn't know what the rash is. he didn't know anything, just like most of them. didn't ask me any questions. It was my idea that it could be poison oak, after he was about to send me packing with Tinactin for a foot fungus and a case of vascular id. very interesting, vascular id. when an infection moves from one part of the body to a different, very far away part (like for me, from toe to palms of hands after 6 weeks), it's called vascular id. (when he said it my first thought was, Of course. My id. My id has something to do with this). it has to do with your immune system becoming compromised and the body expressing stress by transplanting the problem elsewhere. (many many metaphors can be made here, none of which i have the attention span to work out, not even on strattera).

my substitute doctor walked in the room and it was nothing less than a shock. he was a total turtle-man. like the guys you see with all the underarm muscles that make them walk funny over on castro street. i liked him right away. he's an extremist. he's got a tiny waist.

substitute doctor was very nice and totally accomodating, but i did not bring up the sourdough spore fungus idea. he wouldn't have had a clue. he liked the idea of poison oak since i have a cat who lives outside in the marin hills, but the fact that the rash started on my toe and then just showed up on my palms is inconsistent with poison oak. unless it was vascular id, but poison oak doesn't really work that way...it spreads from one source outwards very rapidly. this stayed localized for over a month, then showed up on my palms right as it started to go away on my toe.

muscle doctor gave me a script for steroids without finding out if i'm even on any other medicine that it could counteract with. maybe it doesn't counteract with anything, but i find that unlikely. especially in regards to me, where everything affects everything. i asked him what kind of medicine is prednisone. he said steroid. it will make you irritable, gain weight and not sleep, but it will get rid of the rash.

when i realized our conversation had created about 20 new questions for me, i just stopped talking. it was useless besides i had another agenda to carry out before he got tired of me.

klonopin. what i always take when i fly, except twice. only one of those trips wasn't a horrific nightmare come to life. it's a touchy subject though, asking for a drug that has some recreational properties (although most people would just pass out, like guy did at his desk once when he took twice what i told him). i have experience with this so i broach it carefully and completely premeditated.

"I also wanted to ask my doctor if he would give me a refill on some klonopin because i'm taking a trip in about a month."

what's your dosage?

"1mg (although i always take 2mg in a sitting while traveling, saying the maximum would get me found out as a true obsessive over it's active ingredients. .5mg is the minimum and only for drug virgins, therefore declaring the middle is a smart tactic)."

how much do you need?

"hmmm." i thought for a few seconds and sort of made a counting motion with my head, because i was counting in my head and answering the question for real. "ummmm, let's see...two...four...six (seven eight nine)...and then back...i need 10." he smiled at me and said, so if i give you 20 you're not gonna pass 'em out at parties are ya? i looked at his face, saw nothing condescending, thought about how funny that would be if the general public took klonopin to party with, how fast they'd pass out, and told him, "no. i don't think so."

he gave me a script for 20 klons and a run of steroids.

doctor muscle does not know what's on my hand and what was on my toe and he wants me to take a drug that aggravates my biggest problems in life...this was just too much to truly believe in, but by the end of the day i had swallowed one day's worth of steroids. just to see.

the result wasn't immediate. it was the day followoing that was very very unpleasant. i had an overall feeling of unhappiness and dissatisfaction with every turn. it was like being on the estrogen and projesterone i had to take for the endo. so bizarre, and yet so familiar...which is what made it bizarre.

my decision to just continue to apply the decade-old steroid ointment came easily. although i am not lost to the fact that i am still on steroids, it is obviously a much kinder solution. plus, he said the ointment is still good, as he also commented, "our out-of-date medicines don't work, but we send them to Africa, and they work, so..."

with this doctor visit, as with all the others i am reminded that it's best folks, just to educate yourself and do it thoroughly. with anything that goes wrong. if you keep track, do research and listen to your body (refrain from hippie jokes), you are your best doctor. just use the people in the white coats as drug dealers because that is 90% of what they are.

Injury Log #5: the rash

1. so, the rash is still here. the toe rash. i thought i healed it with the decade-past-expiration-date medicine. then it came back on my toe and showed up on the palms of my hands. i told my friend A. about it, who gave me the medicine, and who also told me, i thought, of the "sourdough spore" fungus. turns out, she doesn't remember that at all, in fact, she has never heard of a sourdough spore fungus before. i was astonished to hear this. i so trust my visual memory, and i remember her voice and the inflections, and what her face looked like as she said it and handed me the medicine. but that's where memory gets weird. she said she never said that, never even heard of it. what crossed wires happened in my brain to invent this? maybe the same thing that saw a period in a particular sink hardware "call-out" on a "spread" at work, that was never there. saw it twice, changed every spread that had the call-out without the period. only to find out...there's no period there, never was. look, here's the email showing how there's no period there. the same email i made a sticky note about, and checked twice. "you see what you wanna see." or so they say.

i cross-referenced the medicine. it's a general purpose ointment...

we'll see tomorrow when i go to the doctor. A. swears she got it for eczema. i'm pretty sure i don't have eczema.

maybe i'm hallucinating all of it. nevertheless, it didn't show up in the webbing on my thumbs until she told me she used to get it there.

2. tripped pretty hard going up the brick staircase from the studio to the house. slammed my right knee directly into the edge of the second-to-last brick stair. had my laptop in my arms, with a fortunate nalgene bottle cushion right in front. both went slamming down. computer fine. nalgene fine. hand, has three small bruises right on outer bottom knuckles where bottle/computer slammed with all my weight behind. overall, a successful mission.

3. dreamed i had a huge scab right on my hairline. kept picking at it in my dream. woke up picking at nothing. at least we know this one isn't real.

Thirstin' for more lovin'

thurston moore has a new record, Built for Lovin'.

i'd say.

The Happening

very excited to see m. night's new movie. wonder if he based it on the pixies song. as always with his movies, the end is a supreme surprise, so who knows.

The Happening
by The Pixies

they got a ranch they call
number fifty-one
they got a ranch they call
number fifty-one
can't see it all
'less your flying by
just sitting there square
baking in the sun
beneath the sky

they're gonna put it down
right on the strip
they're gonna put it down
on the Vegas strip
they're gonna put it down
and step outside
into the lights
right outta that ship
saying Hi!

i was driving doing nothing on the shores of Great Salt Lake
when they put it on the air i put it in the hammer lane
i soon forgot myeslf and i forgot about the brake
i forgot all laws and i forgot about the rain
they were talking on the 9 and all across the amy band
across the road they were turning around and headed south with me
it got so crowded on the road i started driving in the sand
my head was feeling scared but my heart was feeling free
the desert turned to mud it seems that everybody heard
everybody was remembering to forget they had the chills
then i heard the voices on a broadcast from up on the bird
they were getting interviewed by some Goodman whose name was Bill
i'm almost there to Vegas where they're puttin' on a show
they've come so far i've lived this long at least i must just go and say
hello

Anger Analysis

my friend, W. has this opinion about my anger problems like maybe it's about the lie about how my dad wasn't my real dad and that i always felt different and didn't fit in because of the lie, then i found out the truth that it was all a big fat lie and it pissed me off and made me feel differently towards people and even the best of people like my mom and it all made me angry and i carry my anger with me all the time now and, she's not sure, but with all that i went through as a young person, she thinks it would make me depressed and angry and distrustful.

but i don't know.

...but keep the old

spoke with oldest friend in the world, M. it's been 31 years for us. how totally unreal. i told her, "Our friendship is a whole adult who could have three kids and be twice divorced by now."

she said, "Our friendship could have it's OWN 19 year old kid who could have THEIR own kid who could be in the middle of a divorce."

righteous.
(...one is silver and the other one, gold)

Behind the Garage Door

if they knew what was going on in here, they wouldn't let their children come so close to the garage door.

nebulas exploding. dented molecules. ones and ohs all over the place. fat stomachs full of egg salad and cookie. drugs. alcohol. cigarettes. madness.

spiders.

Cat Show!

Alameda Flea chair

bought a cool midcentury chair today for my new studio at the alameda flea market. very cool monthly event i've never been to in all my years here...it's gigantic. acres. like bangkok's sunday market, but sane.