Yeah, so maybe that call from my cell to yours last night was just a grown up version of casually rummaging through my backpack by his locker in order to 'bump' into him and say hi, but you didn't have to SAY that, did you?
Can't a girl sit on the steps, looking adorable and applying modest amounts of lipgloss for no reason?
when I finally get in the barfight that bursts my eardrums and removes me from my teeth, I'm going to have all my molars and incisors replaced with tiny harmonicas. I will die from starvation shortly thereafter, and it will be enormously loud.
Friday =
Parrot Fever at Union Garage =
all those shots and the beer that guy stole =
"Alright. ...but you're gonna get sick."
"I'm not gonna get sick." =
Saturday afternoon =
rolling out of VV and running into the fat boys =
"Awww, does somebody have a hangover?" =
"Hi, I'd like the chicken with potatos and vegetables, except I want gravy on everything." =
Fat Boy Secrets and free Juke Box =
Herbert West: Reainimator at Open Circle =
Chasing down actors and guitar players and then standing in line holding a box of whoppers, a watermelon, pink Peeps, and a pair of pink rubber gloves. =
Pretty Girls Make Graves at Graceland =
Sunday Morning Telephone =
"Morning, Sinner" =
Design layout, mani, pedi, piercing, bare legs, no bra, "I suppose you can fuck off if you don't like it", long nap =
2:00am, can't sleep, teaching myself to skateboard, sorting all my books, wishing you were awake so I could call. Neighbors having sex in the laundry room and laughing.
I know you think you've got me pegged, but just yesterday I dropped into an insurance agency and started insuring things. Just for fun. My agent's name is Hi, and I think he was a little discouraged that when I shook his hand, I went for the regular handshake handshake instead of the hand-clasp-around-thumbs thing he was going for. I'm cool, insurance man, but I'm not that cool.
...and I finally got someone to explain what those signs you always see in asian businesses mean. Thanks Hi!
Dear Chris,
You got married. You got married and you didn't tell me. What about all that hiding from chickens we had left to do?
congratulations! It's a good thing I like sarah.
sonya.
Dear Dad,
They don't really make 'applications' for jobs like Master Electrician. You have to make a resume. Yes. I'm sure.
love, sonya.
Dear Zach W.,
I can't find your phone number, cowboy.
(please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any other questions or concerns, and thank you for writing to....)sonya
Dear Dude from the Rendevous, Dude from the Bus Stop, and Dude from the Library,
ahem, "I Can't Find Your Phone Number."
sonya
Dear Brother in Law,
I totally saw you sneak that tall boy at 6am, but I'm pretty sure you saw me roll off the red-eye all red-eyed, so lets just call it even.
sw
Ahoy there. I see you've got molasses all over your fingers. Seems you've been flipping through my rolodex. Seems you've been taking what's not yours. Seems like a good idea to put it back now, doesn't it?
Ladies and gentlemen, not to be a bitch about this, but Somebody's been blatently ripping me off. Somebody's front page was 80 percent composed of things from my archives over the last 2 years. Somebody's been taking my conversations, my short stories, my bullshit, the things I like and dislike, and claiming them for her own. She's been sweet enough to take most of it down, including the stuff she stole directly from the Darling Rockstar Sarah Brown. Come the fuck on, girl. You have a kid and a job and school and seeminly a lot of things to be interested in, and you choose to copy directly from the lives of others. Get a hold of your own voice and keep your dirty little hands out of the cookie jar.
Don't do it again, Danielle.
I'm sitting in a restaurant in Moses Lake, Washington and I'm extinguishing my sixth cup of weak coffee. I'm exhausted and my bus doesnt come until 3:45, 3 hours and seven minutes from now. If you were awake, I'd call you. I'd read you the paper I just wrote that seems brilliant now but is going to be hateful to me tomorrow. I'd tell you that theres smudged ink on the outside knuckle of my pinkie finger from the weird way I hold a pencil & I've been writing for hours now. I'd ask you to remind me to call the cake tomorrow between 3 and five. I'd ask about your sunday, and your sundae, and express how uncomfortable I am to be sitting here.
I wonder if I'm going to start editing now. I have to pee again for the 3rd time in 20 minutes, but I'm worried about leaving my stuff here.
What is it called when the mineral content of the water makes it so the soap wont wash off? The water is like that here. I want to brush my teeth. I'm going to hate myself tomorrow because I'm not going to sleep at all tonight and I stayed out until 4 last night. I made out in a car by the river. It was just like old times and it made me sad. I drove my old car home from church and I told my mom I was going to get married in that car and she said "Fine. Whatever." It's easy to write like this. That other writing is certainly harder. I'm so tired. I'm so, so tired. Remember last Easter?
here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people
but if you take your fingers out of the middle and interlock them, your hands are no longer worship place hands. Your hands are ray gun hands.
I'm trying to keep my hands folded into churches with my bitten-up, clear nail polish doors keeping myschevious finger people safely tucked inside, but my ray gun keeps slipping out. You smile and it's "churches! churches! churches!" through my teeth with my eyes closed tight and my bottom lip bit, but soon enough, "Ray Guns."
I stand with my feet apart and my arms outstretched meeting together to point the steeple barrel at you. "I'm not actually ray guns, you know. I'm pretty sure I'm made out of churches."
"That's part of the best part," you reply from between the crosshairs, "All of your churches make your ray guns twice as deadly."
1: Would you rather be the president remembered for being an illiterate idiot, or the president remembered for being too large to ride a quarter horse?
2: Congratulations! You're getting married! ...to a person chosen by one of your friends. Who do you pick to make the big decision and why?
3: He/She's coming to your place for the first time and you'd like it if He/She decided to sleep with you. What are you going to leave 'casually' laying about the flat to try and sway the polls?
4: Bathing in melted gelatin or gasoline?
5: Little girls in hip huggers and shirts that show their stomachs: Cute or Creepy?
6: Finish this phrase: "In High School, I spent most of my time_____________ because I was _________________."
7: Delicious Poison Cake now, or Maybe Not Quite as Delicious, Not Poison Cake Later? (Maybe Much, Much Later, though.)
8: It's election day and MC Hammer circa hammer pants is running against George Michael circa 'Faith'. Whos the new president?
9: Crying on a barstool or passed out on a front lawn? (Not yours.)
10: Which is worse: White tennis shoes with a suit, or dress shoes with white socks and shorts?
I keep doing this. Hello, nice to meet you you know it's funny I can imagine your tongue in my mouth so howsabout you do that because I've got this other one I can't seem to stop thinking about and I think it would really help if...oh, that's nice. Hello mouth.
......
Goodbye mouth.
......um, goodbye mouth. Okay, yeah, goodbye. Okay brain, no more mouth, think about something else...
something else.
anything.
really.
Hello, nice to meet you, i've had this other thing on my mind for a while now and I can't seem to get out of it so if you're not busy would you mind if I borrowed your mouth for a minute? Really, you're sure? Thanks. Hey funny, i really like this band too and that's a neat book and....oh, that's nice. You're very very nice.
the mouth replacement trick is dangerous because the new one tends to become the old one. I need you to keep an eye on me.
I learned a fabulous new game where you get to punch somebody every time you see a rainbow. (this coffee is no good. This coffee is never ever good.) I spent all day yesterday waiting for the rainclouds and the sunshine to kiss and make pretty, but nothin'. (I can't even explain how relaxed I am. I could probably break the world record for banana eating right now and just be like 'okay. great.') So first thing this morning I roll outdoors with my belly all roundy (with literal and figurative cake, actually. And chicken skewers stolen from a wedding.) what's the first thing I see?
You bet. Rainbow, fresh for the punching. Followed shortly thereafter by a pigeon pooping demurely on the sidewalk. I laughed.
Ahem. Teaching Baby Paranoia is brilliant. Click on the panel to view the full comic.
Today's commentary sparked a little anecdote in me, but it turned out to be about menstruation, so I'm going to spare us all the pain.
You climbed in my shopping cart and I opened your protective seal and took a mouthful bite of you before I read your ingredients. It turns out that while you are delicious, you are not the least bit nutritious and I have no way in which to justify you when I really should have just waited and had an apple, or even some processed canned cheese. You are pure cadbury egg filling. You are triple chocolate fudge ice cream with cookie chunks. You are cherry kool-aid with an extra cup of sugar, and I've got red stains on my lips.
Vacation stories may be limited. Get yours today!
Really.
Okay, I'm on the subway headed to the train thats going to take me to the bus thats going to take me to the airport thats going to take me home. I'm wearing the pink hat Molly made me, and maybe that's why this happened. I dont know.
There are 3 men and me on the train when a kid gets on from the car in front of us. He steadies himself on one of the poles and adjusts the giant box of candy under his other arm.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION." (he really does speak in capitals. Not yelling, but announcing in a kind of monotone.)"I AM SELLING CANDY FOR MY HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL TEAM. ALL OF THE PROCEEDS GO TOWARD EQUIPMENT AND NEW UNIFORMS AND MONEY FOR BUS TRIPS. THE CANDY IS M&M'S WITH PEANUTS, AND IT COSTS ONE DOLLAR. CAN I INTEREST ANYONE IN A PURCHASE."
Nobody on the train says anything, but the guy in the warmup suit across from me kind of motions at him as he walks by. I look away for a moment, and when I look back up, the kid kind of wags a bag of M&M's in my face.
"Oh, I didn't..."
The kid kind of points at the guy across from me and hands me the candy. I look at the guy "You don't want these?"
"No no, for you."
"Thank you very much."
and then we have a bit of silence. My mind is racing "Okay, he probably wants you to talk to him, but we have 2 problems. 1: you're on a train, and you can't hear worth shit anyway. 2: What the hell are you supposed to say? "How's it going?" It's kind of too late for that. Shit, he's looking away, you're making that nice, possibly insane axe murderer man nervous, sonya. Hey wait, the map on the wall doesn't match the directions Chloe gave me... I get out my little timetable and start looking at the stations. It doesn't make sense.
Possible axe murderer glances at my map and says "need help?"*
So I sit next to him and hand him my map and ask him if he rides this train often.
........
Now, it should be stated that I was sure he was speaking english. There had been recognizeable sounds traced all through his sentence. I took a second to try and sort them out based on the information my ears had allowed to seep through. Nothing.
"I'm sorry, I'm a bit hard of hearing, what did you say?"
and he speaks again, and again words that should make sense come out of his mouth, but all I can do is stare at him.
He looks at me expectantly. Makes a noise that I take to mean "You understand?"
I must look as though he had just grown baby snakes out of his nostrils, because I don't know how I'm going to explain that I just can't understand a word he's saying.
A conversation that should take 3 minutes takes 15, but through the course of it, I find out that he was raised in Poland, but came to Queens 12 years ago. He's speaking english, yes, but with the most bizarre mix of a thick polish and a thick queens accent I've ever heard. He asked me for my phone number, and I didn't have the heart to explain that if he called me, I'd still have no idea what he was saying. Thanks, polish queens guy, for the candy. I ate it on the plane.
Later, on the phone with Chloe:
"See, strangers may buy you candy, but I'm the only one who's strangers are polish men from queens who are impossible to understand."
*How I was able to understand those words, I have no idea.
New Math Book. pg xxv. first entry.
Applications Index
A:
Abominable Snowman, pg 515.
I'm pleased to see that they're finally writing textbooks to suit my needs.
1:
sjet: "I just think it might be a bad decision."
g: "Why?"
sjet:"I'm in my early twenties! All my decisions are bad decisions!"
Man buying peanut butter laughs out loud.
2:
Near the knitting needles and the cushions. I walk away from the girls and hear a tremendous WHACK, I turn around in time to see Molly restacking a giant pillow and scuttle away.
3:
licking spoons and putting them back in the display is the hottest thing I've ever seen.
Dear Poppa,
You're turning sixty 2 fridays from now and I'm trying to figure out how to get to Idaho to have dinner with you at the Iron Horse Restaurant. Perhaps one of your brothers will drive me. Your other daughter, my sister -you know the one- has asked everyone to write down a memory or a story or a something so she can make a book for you. I think this is going to make you really uncomfortable. I think you're going to like the book, and be really interested in it, but it will make you painfully embarrassed to open it in front of the people who've contributed to it. I don't know why I think this is true, but I do.
...And I don't know what to write. How to write it. Neither you or mom know that I've been writing every day for the last 3 years. That shouldn't make a difference, but it does. I'm torn between wanting to write you a deeply personal letter about how you were entirely right about boys and finances and I wish I would have listened better sooner, and blowing up the picture I took of us where you're looking kind of annoyed and wearing a nametag, and I'm smiling really big and wearing a spiderman shirt. I keep that photograph on the mirror over the sink. For a while it had the words "That's my dad, he'll kick your ass." written by it in brown eyeliner. That amused me to no end.
Guess what? What? You guessed it!
sonya
I'm just not pretty enough to live in New York.
Wait. Let me rephrase. I didn't have enough time or insight to prepare or create appropriate clothing and product to be pretty enough to live in New York. Those girls knock that shit out cold, and I just wasn't ready. I really feel like I've betrayed my coast, as what would have been a fashionable and somewhat extravagant packing job for Seattle just looked like shit compared to what those ladies were sporting. I sorely missed the products that may have made the difference. (see: sticky gel, moisturizer, apricot shell scrub, tweezers, hairspray and a hundred pairs of shoes I don't own. The effort was amazing.)
The plan for next time is as follows.
1 black dress
1 patterned wool skirt
1 black kick pleat skirt
2 camisoles
2 sweaters
An entire duffle loaded down with lipstick, hair product, handbags, shoes, and accessories. I'll never make that mistake again.
the crazy part is that I'm in this house at this college, attending a lecture by the nun who wrote Dead Man Walking (which was freaking amazing, excerpts from my 3 pages of notes later), playing soccer in my shitkicker shoes and rendering myself barely able to move the next day, drinking plastic cups of beer in the bar under the cafeteria, borrowing Chlo's clothes, hanging out with her friends, discussing the relative merits and drawbacks of drum circles, and it doesn't seem weird. Because she's about and I can kind of tell, so it's no big deal. No matter what happens, one or the other of us is pretty certain to be able to figure out a suitable solution.
East coast indie band common knowledge is turning out to be totally different than west coast indie band common knowledge. I think this is encouraging. (Lets start a gang war. The west coast can call themselves One American Haircut and the east coast can call themselves Aunt Thelma's Sweet Revenge. All yall in the middle can be Astronaut Laundromat. I am a freaking genius.)
The great thing about vacation is that you can eat a donut and a hershey bar for breakfast and then go back to bed for an hour or so, and if you end up kissing dorks, it doesnt matter because you'll never see them again.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, goodnight.
"Oh yeah? Well you're eating bambi's mom!"
"....."
"........."
"Um, no I'm not..."
(hey patrickt. I got your email but the world wide web is fucked. I made it just fine, mister rushy rush. heart you.)
Dear rest of the world,
The state of New York is filled with little provincial towns with big old victorian houses that I pretty much want to eat whole. I took a train from NY NY to Poughkeepsie NY this morning, and now it's lightly snowing over the leafless trees. Somehow, I've been able to make it snow within a few moments of my arrival nearly everwhere I've gone. I'm an ice queen. I get the joke already, weather, and I didn't bring appropriate clothes for this. My ass is cold, yo.
I've also been asked about religion almost immediately upon arrival everywhere too. I think I've got the shorthand explainations for cynics pretty much under control at this point.
In other news, I've been thinking that I might eventually want to go to fancy school, but I'm sure fucking glad I never lived in this kind of community. Fun for visiting, but not for living. I'm too easily annoyed. (and I'm not that easily annoyed.)
Why doesnt the west coast have trains that just go across the state every mornin like it's no big deal? West coast needs to stop sucking like that, pronto.
love you.
sonya