Dear Sheila, I tried to post this under "What do you want?" but was informed that it's a private posting area and that i would need a username and password. so fuck it, this will do. Substance? i realized today that i haven't flipped up any of my calendars from september to october yet. i've been sort of avoiding the whole concept of october this year. it's strange considering that october has always been my favorite month. always loved autumn on the mainland, especially in montana. this year i'm afraid of october. my twenty-ninth birthday is quickly approaching. and i can't express the utter fear and dread i feel about being 29. i wish i could just sort of skip over to 30 and just get it over with already. but most of the time i'm lying to everyone and telling them i'm going to be 27. it works too, because most people guess my age to be 26. my biggest fear is regret. my second biggest fear is aging. i went to a party last night at my friend greg's new house. as usual, there was a very wide range of ages represented, from the freshfaced Seussmuffin college freshman boys and girls, to the old regulars. i feel somewhere in between. though, last night, given a chance to congregate in the circle of young uns or the circle of elders, i chose the elders. some of the kids are friends of mine, but it's hard to relate. not friends of substance, friends of circumstance, friends of fluff. it's hard to see my past in them. i really miss being 23. there's a lot of power in youth. the power of discovery and the power of beauty. my men and women friends i most relate to are anywhere from 30-60 years old. there is connection, shared experience, even substance. there's also hilarity, confident playfulness, lack of pretense. there are a lot of good things about older friends. i'm somewhere in the middle. the last three men i've dated have been at least 7 years older than me. this is true: i have a plastic surgery fund. currently there is approximately five grand in that fund. my exercising has become nearly manic. i work out at least 1.5 hours every single day at the gym, though i feel best after 2 full hours. it's not discipline that gets me there, it's addiction. the high of physical strain, pain, sweat. the feel of my own body moving, bending, twisting, pumping. afterward riding the intense wave of endorphine pleasures. it's the other side of drug addiction. drugs make me age, make me feel old in the long run. exercise makes me younger, rejuvenated. juve. juvenile. i don't want to grow up. is it possible to be young *and* substantial? Love, Sarah

NO, it's not possible.

yes, it is. I have a nineteen year old friend who has a lot more substance than some of my 33 year friends. She's one of the most right-on folks I know. Anothr friend who passed away last year was also full of incredible stuff. He was only 20. Some people don't need to wait til they're over 25 to obtain "substance" (btw, I like this use of the word).

dear sarah, yay for substance. yay for substance abuse. yay for the surgery fund , when the times comes to rearrange or replace the substance. at 29, i had no fears, certainly not about getting old. i didn't expect to live to be "old". i should have made plans. friends who were 29 the same time as me, and did make plans, have very different lives than mine now. not better, just different. i can still trade, any time, and they cannot. i still have the physical addiction thing for exercise, too. there is pain when you do it, pain when you don't. it could be anything, so long as there is pain involved. when you understand that there will always be the pain, there is no reason to pretend to become an adult. some things you never outgrow, certainly never escape. passwords, schmasswords. E H F forever. as if anything here is less than private. love, sheila

hey sarah have you found any good sites about plastic surgery, how it's done, what the risks are, and how much it costs? I'm too afraid to start looking. my new life starts tomorrow, and that's in a few minutes.

you don't need plastic surgery. i've seen the photos.

I will.

i wanna be a big, slobbering bull mastiff. anyone know of any sites relating to that? i'd be a real good dog.

Age is in Your head,I,m probably older than all of you,I still get carded,but I,m not stupid,I like to think that people like me for my personality(I have a good one)but the sad fact is that it,s how I look that got me where I am.Thats another reason why I want to live in Costa Rica,plastic surgery is real cheap there,and there are no poor people there,nobody on the streets begging.

people of substance shouldn't feel the need for plastic surgery.

It drives me nuts to think there are people going hungry in a country like ours,some bums I don,t feel sorry for,they are younger than me,and they look like they could work to me,but the kids,they don,t deserve this.I don,t think it,s right that there are kids going hungry in this country and that there are sick fuckers out there that would put a month old baby in a micro-wave and cook it to death.For what I pay in taxes,this shouldn,t be going on,what the fuck is wrong with people?It,s pretty sad when you see a child being neglected and going hungry,and you try to report it and they just blow you off and say it,s a life-style choice.It might be the parents choice to be like that but to subject a child to that is a crime as far as i,m concerned.

I have substance Swine,but people only see what they want to see,and they usually only look at the surface,at least that,s been my experience.

LADIES!!!! vaginal rejuvination http://cbs2.com/news/specialassign/news-specialassignment-980529-172443.html this all I could find on it but there are ads in the LA Weekly all the damn time. A friend of mine actually went to a clinic just to get the skinny and ran out of that place screaming....in her words, no laser was gonna get any where near her vagina. I have had this conversation with my wife,and i think plastic surgery is just so fucking ridiculous (for cosmetic puporses, not referring to burn accident victims or anyone else who suffered an injury). And Sarah, just a question not a pick, but does your desire for plastic surgery conflict with your feminist views. I am forced to ask "WHY" you feel the need to adulterate your body. What can a laser do that a few laps around the track can't do? I have come to learn that women will always crave attention, moreoften from other women, NOT men. Women in general are catty and competitive. I recently heard a random girl say at a party that the catty-ness of women is the most self destructive behavior women have. She went on to say that women truely don't want to have the power in our society, because once they do and they find nothing changes, who are they gonna blame? As it stands now, they have men to blame for inequalitites and until things change we will remain the punching bag. It seems to me adulterating your body to "make you happy" with yourself or to get that attention is counter productive to any attmept for women to attain any kind of equality. Whose standards are you attaining to? You may reply "yours" but they are not really YOURS are they, they are society's subtly imposed standards. I dunno, Swine summer it up harshly, but he is right, as far as this conversation goes. I told my wife, that it's certainly her body, and she can do what she wants, but I would be disapointed if she did anything unnatural to it. Just like she would be disapointed if i went and got my tubes tied. Sarah, you are beautiful they way you are, don't change. And Cyst, are you outta your fucking mind????

I don,t care what you say Waffles(and you know I love you)if my tits ever end up not where their supposed to be,I,m having them lifted.I never had them when I wanted them,but I never had to wear a bra,now I sort of have some,and I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed,but I know about about gravity,that,s a ride I can,t take.

yeah i though getting my nuts lifted when i hit 70............

feminism womanism wymynysm beauty standards self esteem issues male domination female oppression la-di-da-di-da-di-i-like-ta-party blah-blah-blah. big bag of contradictions. it's all static. i just tune it out.

This from a guy that wouldn,t fuck Janet Reno:)This is a good thing go here everyday http://www.hungersite.com/thankyou-cgi-ht1.h tml

That worked before I posted it,I don, t get it!

by the way, i told you sheila was lurking around here............ btw wisper? dinner lady? crimson? lucy? soem other folks i haven't seen in a while. hmmmmmm must be on those secret boards that require passwords.........i guess it's me and you J

That all good with me Big Guy:)

plastic surgery means not having to have substance. but luckily i already have substance. there are more plastic surgeons in hawaii per capita than in any other US state. competition is good, prices cheap. i figure i'm going for it right around my 30th birthday. i will be 27 forever. and my substance will just keep getting smarter and more fabulous. eat my dust.

where have i heard that before J?

eat me.

Thanks,go there once a day.

I used to have that condescending only-burn-victims-should-get-plastic-surgery attitude too. I think that's a pretty common viewpoint among young, attractive people like you and your wife, waffles. I like the way I look. so I want to keep looking this way. why is that bad? I have no philosophical problem with plastic surgery. I just don't like going to the doctor, and I'm afraid they'd fuck up. and all that shit costs a lot. those are the problems. substance, feminism -- who needs 'em?

thanks for the compliment, i dunno, of course anybody can do what they wish with their bodies and i would never hold it against someone, but i do have an opinion, as you can see. I dunno, it just seems artificial, cheating nature, not that we don't do that all the time, but.... i mean who doesn't want to keep looking they way they look in their mid 20s......but the acceptance of aging seems to reflect some sort of maturity, I think??? I can think of 5000 things i could better spend the money on. In my wife's case, she contemplated a breast job, and of course i was disapointed becasue i like what i like, i felt she would be tainting her physical appearance for someone else's standards, she has some how accepted that her body is not in proportion, who told her that? where did she get that idea? being in the textile/fashion industry certainly doesn't help, but it just seems it would be for all the wrong reasons. unnatural manipulation of the body for cosmetic reasons is just wrong, especially when you are out to repair a wwounded self image.....

waffles - is it wrong for graying women to dye their hair?

you two should get together and make crack babies.

no more than punkers who color theirs red...but hair is not permanent. not that that is a determining factor per sey....my little list of fruitless, repulsive and cheesy physical manipulations hair for men going bald-JESUS accept it already!! penis enlargements-puhhhlease! vaginal rejuvination-whatever?!?! boob jobs-silly and not necessary fat sucking-go to the gym tummy tucking-stop with the beer and wings already ass reconstruction-see the two above all of these seem to have no purpose other than to increase sex appeal....speaking for a lot of men, women, we like you the way you are, bigger boobs or fat sucked asses are not going to make you any more attractive, being a bionic, reconstructed human isn't going to make you anymore attractive. Those marks on the sides or your tits from a the implants look nasty, stretch marks on thighs that have had the fat sucked out of them look horrible, cellulite can look better than that. I guess I just wish women didn't feel the need to do these crazy assed things. I mean if somone who's a little over weight and wants to have fat sucked out, i say get your head out of the bucket of chicken and the mcdonalds before you do anything. I have a subscription to Penthouse i rcvd as a gift. I am particularly fond of the the Tony Ward photo spreads (no pun intended). He uses all natural models for the most part. The other spreads are usually of these blond, tummy tucked women with unnatural looking racks and i just wish i had a large mega phone to shove in their ears and deliberatly tell them how ugly they are. I actually feel sorry for these woman living with this false pretense of being attractive only to truckers and 14 year old boys. It's kinda pathetic.

Shut you mouth mudda-fukker

hey look everybody, it's the teamsters.....hey slack fuck, i got $20 bucks, you think you can get off yer lazy azz and move 2 boxes for me.......i'll pay scale +10% but no overtime..... DEAL! better yet strike a match and light yer mouth gaseous fuck

The sleep must be wearing off. I have very low inhabitions when I first wake up, so I'm apt to say things I wouldn't normally say if I were thinking properly. Like that some of the guys who post on this board are compleat idiots. I will not say that. My self-restrant is returning. I would like to adopt Sarah in some capacity. How weird. For some reason tonight I feel much contempt for all the men I see, and tons of admiration and acceptance for the women. Maybe it's the depo.

Da 20 bucks da scale da 10% an ya blow me DEAL! ps don't fukka witd us or ya get da same deal Jimmy got!

Dear Gee, Why do women exist? Because cows are too big. Sheep can't cook. The chickens explode. Honey work on your spelling. When calling others idiots, you shouldn't look like one yourself. Love, Daddy

Daddy,go fuck yourself!!!! How about those Diamondbacks?Yes!!!!

i swear to god Gee as much as you want to bust my balls, that unamed post was not me...

actually 1279, i was thinking of picketing your mutha, i heard a bunch of scabs have started to collect overtime in her crotch.....

sorry J, yer Diamondbacks don't have chance if they come up against Atlanta, as a matter of fact no one does, unstoppable they are ....YEP.....the baseball team of the millenium.....

We will see Waffles,the Big Unit is out for blood besides he got paid way too much money,he better come through.He reminds me of a giant redneck.I like Steve Finley.

baseball is silly. i think thats what you're talking about.

"The Big Unit"??? shiiiiiiiiiiit. that's what they called the mariner's pitcher when i lived in seattle. must be the same guy. he is, without question, a giant redneck. the proof is in the haircut. word on the street is that it's gonna be a subway series this year. of course that street was broadway, so i'm sure those folks are a bit biased. anyway, i couldn't give two pinches of dried-up shit off a dead rat's ass about baseball. that sport is just about as boring as cricket.

yeah i know, i am kinda the same way but i like to dish out the shit,and frankly i only know what i hear from others.....i never watch it

I do,and basketball.

"feminism womanism wymynysm beauty standards self esteem issues male domination female oppression la-di-da-di-da-di-i-like-ta-party blah-blah-blah. big bag of contradictions. it's all static. i just tune it out." Um, swine, didn't nate once throw that same basic line at you, and you got all indignant about him presuming to know how hard it is to be a black man in today's society? Is it different with women?

I am supposed to be looking for a job right now but this list is so fucking great. I don't know what makes me laugh harder, the vaginal plastic surgery lines or the hunger site... Oh my god, I have no idea how I am going to pay my rent this month... Youth really is wasted on the young. I am so much smarter than I was ten years ago. I am almost 28 and I think I could probably use plastic surgery already. I have been nostalgic for Montana fall weather all week now.. but New England fall ain'st so bad either...

man, i have no idea what you're on about. nate said some shit about the oppression of the white man. waffleboy said some shit about being sick of people bitching about things which he found trivial. neither of which even remotely have anything to do with my comment on the various and contradictory political stances that exist in many women's movements. (men objectify women! don't objectify me! why aren't you objectifying me? it's because i don't fit into your narrow concept of what is beautiful! objectify me, dammit! it's your fault my self-esteem is in the gutter! etc, etc, etc, pass the beer nuts) so there ya have it, jim. does this mean you're gonna start getting "all indignant" about me presuming how hard it is to be a woman in today's society? at least that'll be interesting. even if i haven't presumed anything. i said i tune all the static out. like i'm about to do right now. see how that works?

naw, naw... that was basically my point.

Hmm. vaginal rejuvination, crack babies, hunger sites and human substance and changing hair color. Yeah, it all adds up somehow. I have grey and silver strands of hair appearing. People tell me I should do something about the grey, but I can't imagine why. But then I rarely wear make-up, either.

No, I can't get indignant about that. I'm about as insensitive as they get when it comes to women's movements. Or anybody else's movements, for that matter. I just wanted to see you rationalize that one.

your logic is wack. i still have no idea what you were talking about. anyway, whatever. the bodega calls.

nate did you get my fax? comments?

i did. i agree 100%. fuck those SOBs in SUVs.

me and Angry Sam are putting together stickers that we are gonna start taggin around our neighborhood. As gentrification becomes more of a reality, we have noticed the increase in SUV traffic. the stickers will say something catchy like S (selfish) U (yUppie) V (vehicle) and some sort phrase telling them to go back to the west side and stay the fuck outta silverlake........ the best part of the article were the interviews..."Why are you such an asshole?" "Well at first I wanted to go with teal but when my wife saw forest green she just had to have it.." and so on

disclaimer: my views and opinions in no way represent the views and opinions of the travesty of what is considered modern feminism and or popular feminist philosophy and ideology. dear sheila, i know that plastic surgery cannot overcome pain. i certainly do not WANT it to take the place of pain. it's all about the power of beauty, isn't it? the power of a great mind is, on our society, secondary to the power of a great physical appearance. i don't fear adulthood. in fact, the older i get, the more fun i have. i still have days where i wake up and think to myself, hey! i don't have to do anything people tell me to do! i can eat lemon pie for breakfast if i want to, smoke pot in the afternoon, and surf until sunset. and there is nobody who will ground me or send me to my room. that is so beautiful to me. still. i don't even fear death, really. the only real fear is of aging. and i will do everything in my power to slow down the process. looking back, what plans do you feel you should have made when you were twenty nine? i need to know. love, sarah p.s. Gee, will you be my date friday?

dear Sarah, mmmmmmmm. pie for breakfast. i should have invested the $$$ wisely. instead i threw it away with both hands. i should not have taken so many drugs; it made everything so easy. (not that easy is necessarily bad). i should have kept the vintage clothing. i should never have been married so young (delete the so young part). i should not have taken myself so seriously. the fear of aging is too much connected to the fear of gravity, of not being beautiful, of breaking down the substances. that is what getting old means to us, now. it shouldn't. but it does. otherwise, we wouldn't fear it, except if we measure ourselves by the amount of time we have. we have to measure ourselves somehow, right. or do we? either that, or allow someone else to do it for us. are you sure? measure is a word made up like all the other words. i fear being stupid. forgetful, careless, dead inside, remorseful. all those things spell o l d to me. the loss of physical flexibility is fixable. i should have known that almost everything is fixable. oops, that came out faxable, but i'm changing it. love, sheila

J - You're swell. Waffle - I like the way you rush to defend yourself. You didn't have to. I didn't think you were the type to leave messages unidentified. Sarah - I would love to, but I'm too poor to buy a plane ticket. If you ever come to Toronto we'll go out and you can pretend to be my sweedish cousin who doesn't speak any english. Pink - Don't be such a wuss.

damn, Sheila, I've missed that. don't go away for so long again. how are your critters?

dear sheila, in a very dark hour, was it two days ago or more, i don't know, i've lost this whole week, i thought of calling you on the phone. you were the first person i thought of when i was wrapped up in post-rejection desperation. when i was about to do something stupid. there's no 12 step program for pathetic and disgusting self pity. last night the witches came over for the new moon ceremony. 13 of us, properly. i jerryrig'd a rack under the lanai for the brooms. white sage from the sierras, three buddhas fresh from tibet, shiva, incense, white coral wrapped in a ti leaf, and one very special goose feather. we lit the candles and recited the october incantations. jude said the increasing and very palpabale chaos - we are all feeling the chaos aren't we - comes from the acceleration of time, and our choosing to change the patterns of the way we deal with the events in our life, in the world. even the most unconscious people, and the most apathetic people, the ones who believe in nothing at all, i bet even they have an unconscious sense of unrest or even alarm. it's not just the north american millenium hype. it's not just the odometer reading of time. it's not nostradamus nor doomsday prophets nor oracles nor The Matrix. it's a real force, the force of god or the universe or the earth or the world, whatever you want to name it. even here in the slowest, earliest place on earth, some people are making preparations, some are holding their breath, and the ones who deny or can't cope, they are the zombies we've been talking about all along. we're stirring it up even more by breaking old patterns. the key now, we concluded, is to cultivate the abilitily to deflect the chaos in an almost daoist way, by not acting or reacting, but by nurturing simplicity. no matter what. in that circle i managed to find a strength and hope that i had abandoned to loss and sadness and sleep and valium. i do this over and over again. i've been here for many years now and you've seen me go through the cycle. i think i've finally identified it. it's ok for me to run when i need to run. but i can't heal myself by being the healer that they all see me as. i want to heal them because i need them to need me. i have to abandon that somehow. i have to stop looking for my own healing in others' tragedies. maybe after i've stopped the search, after i've broken the addiction to the fairy tale, i'll stop looking in the eyes of every person for signs of the one who will be the one to stroke my hair at night and call me sweet baby. i've been neglecting my writing and my yamaha steel string. in every extreme that i seek, in every drug and endorphine rush, in the climb, in the free fall, in the push ups and the bench pressing, it's been the escape, the zombie. perhaps now it will become strength and health and love. love that i can give myself and more than i can share. we read in a book, it said: when you love yourself enough, forgiving other becomes irrelevant. this is the power of the autumn, of october, of the spiral light of venus, of balance - which i realized is why i've been avoiding the concept of october for ten days now. which is why i got off that airplane. which is why i seek refuge in lust and attention and the sometimes dark powers of femininity. i think i can let go of some of that now. and maybe some day i will even be able to let go of 27 years old. but not tomorrow. tomorrow i will be 27. we closed the circle and sent the directions and elements on their way with gratitude. we all felt an unprecedented sense of completion. then we ate pie. love, sarah

but 27 or 29? you can be 18 or 42 if you want because age is irrelevant as it is only relevant to you. i only mention it because the simplicity and the letting go are so right on that i don't understand. and it won't be long before i'm 29 (looking 22)

that came out all wrong

dear sarah, of course there is a program for disgusting self pity. we all have to take the steps before they give us our license(s) back. but you can cheat; you can do it in three or four steps, or you can do it backward. most of the time they are so hopeless, they don't know the difference. look under s-o-r-a-b-j-i in the phone book. lucy feels the tweak of the feather, the pull of the tides, the gibbous moon shine. she is stately now, in full feather for winter, fat and glossy and in charge of her family. they surround her and worship her, and of course fuck her. it's a firm rule: no second chances for weenies. even if ten years later they own the biggest hotel in town, and a few subdivisions plus a car dealership and internet stock. weenieism is the death sentence. there is no reprieve. you should have called. i'm here. it's sunday, the day i get ready for work, tending to my corporeal needs like buffing and waxing and decorating. i hate this long twilight time of year. to be born in october. yay. of course, it can go either way and the dark side prevails. once in a great while even hopeless weenies are born in october. if they aren't culled at birth, it's naught but grief until you finally institutionalize them. today i accidentally vacuumed up the little desiccated lizard who rested on my monitor (the monitor lizard) and he is gone into the shop vac canister with all the spiders who failed to heed the two minute warning. later, they end up out in the north paddock thinking in their spider brains "where the hell are we?" one second you're in the laundry room, the next you're in the arachnid equivalent of kansas. one day out of necessity i started to do my own housework, and from that moment i was addicted to Power Sucking. if it will fit up the hose, it will be vacuumed. if it won't, it will be smacked first, then sucked. the last time i did a benefit dinner at the community center, i was the last one out in the parking lot cleaning up when someone crept out and said please, just turn off the vacuum and back away slowly. the snowplow will take care of the rest in the morning. i know well the disgusting self pity that follows rejection, and often precedes it. i've been wallowing in it myself lately. pie always helps, but it's no vaccination against future infections. to release all desire, forever. you cannot get rid of it, because you don't own it. it inhabits you like a dibbuk. i'm so afraid that if i didn't have desire, i would have..........nothing. i almost forgot, i'd still have the fear. we should talk.

lithium

LOL vacuuming the snow what a great image The older and wiser I get, the more the teachings of "Bob" make sense to me. I get the joke and the message behind it. I generally like October, but it seems that spending it alone (so far) takes away from it, or maybe it's the general missing of friends. My revelation for the day was that it's not the family that is the basic unit or "backbone" of America, but the local community, which is rapidly becoming a rare animal. How many people know who their neighbors are anymore, when they or you keep changing locations? And will the internet succeed in creating the new communities that need to take the place of extinct old ones?

dear sheila, this probably belongs under drunken ramblings, but when you're drunk and rambling you really don't give a flying fuck about much at all. when the rest of my friends went home, i stopped in at Anna's to have another round. the comfort of familiar faces, the intrigue of new faces. i was by myself, drinking baileys and soda. didn't have to pay for a thing. could have gone home with half the men in the bar and possibly all of the women. but i came home alone, even after an incredibly soft, wet, sexy kiss from a young hapa samoan boy who was kind enough to walk me to his car. he gave me his t-shirt. but still, i came home alone. and it's good. it might have been a night of random strangers, of anonymous sex, of the danger and thrill of being held down and fucked good on a stranger's bed or floor or couch or kitchen counter. people don't like to talk of such things. that whore, they would say. such low self esteem they would say. how sad, how pathetic, they would say to themselves as they lay safely in the comfort of their bed next to their spouse or lover, next to the comfort of the person they trust to be there in the morning and the morning after. i'd be in bed right now, alone, except for the spinning sensation. two aspirin, one ibuprofin, and a liter of water. maybe i'll be alright. i've lost at least 30 pounds since i saw you in july. i'm not making this up, sheila. perhaps i should take a photo. even Stuart and Bad Hair might not recognize me now. it's too late for me to marry too young, but i will take your advice and save a little more money. i will still be as sensitive as i always have been, but i will try not to take myself or life too seriously. it's an ongoing battle. as for desire, well, thank god for desire. i mean, when it comes right down to it, when you strip everything else away, it's why we get up in the morning and bother. as for the fear, maybe the best we can do is remember not to take our lives and our selves so seriously. the fear will be there but we have to be vigilant about making the choice of substance over fear. somehow. i don't know how, but i'm sure it's possible. watch the goats butt their horns. i think they have a secret we can learn. love, sarah

i didn't say save more money; i said invest it wisely. saving and investment not same thing. i have no regret for things not saved, only for things not used wisely. i just don't want the image of the crazy old bat saving cash in a tuna can in the back yard added to my list of crimes. a "substantial" weight loss is about more than your body, although you have put it through some changes. i would like to see a photo, i bet you are recognizable and i'll show it to Bad Hair and Stewart. i'm thinner, too. had to get new clothes that fit to wear to work. actually paid retail. i've asked llama for a short course on midden, but i think my sorabji mail may be on time delay, and the fbi are here messing with the internet access again. now they think the trial will be in the county where i live, not where i work. but it's federal, so we don't have to be concerned that the jury pool consists of Brownie and his buddies. when i moved into my quarters down at the plant, i hung a poster of Conrad Holmfeld on Abdullah, taken during the 1984 Olympics. i got lots of strange looks, until i realized that my phantasy forty-two year old with the wife and two kids who now has a broken ankle but is my reason, other than the $$$ for commuting daily, looks like Conrad. in the photo he is flying free, intent on the next jump, and Abdulah's knees are in perfect position. i forget what the point was here, and i just got up and it's my day off. later, in the dark time.

i didn't know you had days off. that's good to know. maybe you could use the time to eat something. so life resumes it's steady current; a softer light shines on the world today, like the glow of a candle flame. by the end of my day, for whatever reason, like magic, i seem to have finally been released from the rollercoaster from hell. you know, being a miserable, pathetic slob eventually gets really boring and tedious and then you run out of valium, and maybe you drink a cup of joe, pull up the shades on the windows and look out over the ocean and diamond head crater and you begin to have hope again. but still, sometimes you just need to be sad and lonely and wounded and melodramatic. sometimes i forget that melodrama not not = substance. oooops. i'm down to a 13 minute mile now. i have this hawaiian gay pride shirt i like to wear to the gym. it's white, with heiroglyphs on the front and the back, and it says something like celebrate diversity in hawaiian. i bought it at a fundraiser when, years ago, i used to sing in the Honolulu Women's Chorus. all lesbians and bi's. dang i miss those girls sometimes. oh, there was one straight girl in the chorus, her name was Dianne. no, that's not it. i can't remember her name now, but i did when i ran into her in the bra and panties section at JC Penny a few weekends ago. she was real uptight about chorus stuff and acted like a drill seargant and she hated me because i was always goofing off. she was pleasant to me at the department store, but a lot of time has passed since we both quit. on monday my friend joan gave me a bottle of pear distilled cognac, in a sand blasted glass pear-shaped bottle. i think i might try a taste of it this weekend. what do you want for your birthday this year?

Tammy. her name is Tammy. whew. that was bugging me all night.

I had to buy a birthday present today. I went to a store that sells dead stuff, like sheep brains and desiccated bats, and I bought a ulysses swallowtail butterfly from new guinea. it's mounted in a double-paned glass frame. its wings are shimmery green-blue.

You passed up the sheep's brains. Damn.

Amee use to work in a store in Glendale AZ,called Saints and Sinners,they sold religious and satantic artifacts,they sold a candy made of human ashes,and to think some people try to make me feel bad for eating pork rinds.

Is that legal? Human ashes, I mean. And were the religious artifacts right next to the satanic ones, or were they one different sides of the store?

ON different sides

the store I went to had different shelves for the witchcraft and the mexican catholic stuff. not a different section of the store, but different shelves in the bookcase. I didn't want the sheep brain jar to break in my bag en route. and I really, really like the butterfly. it's very beautiful.

At Saints and Sinners,it,s just a mix,very ecclectic,Sangria,Voodoo,all that stuffed mixed together,I was trying to find an article they did about it in the Arizona Republic,but not having much luck.One day Amee called me and said the man that owned the store told her Mike Ness was going to be in sometime that day,I hauled my ass over there,hung out all day,he never came.