this imploding heart.

2002-10-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

She Doesn't Live Here Anymore...

This Imploding Heart has moved. Please find us from now on at

www.noematic.org/implode

promt your friends and relatives to do the same. We don't want anyone left wandering around lost now, do we? No. I don't think we do. (and if anyone knows how to do that autoforward thing, they should let me know.)

2002-10-09T11:12:00.000-07:00

we have the facts

Thanks to Molly for this. And to J for the continual gentle political ass kicking. It's suprisingly easy to write an email that says "Hello, I oppose. Please think of me when you vote.". I just hope no one calls and wants to talk about how I feel, because I'll break down and start wailing "You're killing babies and moms and dads and carpenters and miners and shoe salesmen with money I gave you and now we're all going to go to hell! No killing people! Says God!"

Whew!

Okay now.

1: Big chunk of uncomfortable metal in my mouth until my new golden tooth is ready. Tastes funny and is painful.

2: Put a big check mark next to life goal number 761. Bailey Coy books puts the first line of a novel on their sandwich board every day, and if you guess the book, you get 20 percent off any one thing in the store. I have wanted to know the book of the day since I moved to this city, and on Saturday, I did. It was Running With Scissors ( I bought Brief Interviews With Hideous Men with my discount, and ended up getting The Danish Girl and J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories. I'm ripping through fiction these days.)

3: I accidently turned the brightness knob instead of the volume/power knob on my television, so I woke up to the sounds of Sesame Street this morning. It made my day.

2002-10-08T11:20:00.000-07:00

with your nuclear boots and your drip dry gloves

oh dentisto, make my mouth all full of gold.

as all the cotton veined numb wears off it starts give off hints that its going to hurt like a son of a bitch pretty soon. it also makes me sleepy and irritable and itchy legged. See Also: i hate everything.

So can I be in your wedding or what? I'll be that weird thing where you stand by the guestbook and badger people into writing down their names. It'll be great. Please? I'll buy you a George Foreman Mini Grill.

2002-10-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

It's the year to be hated

It happened like this.

I was in bed trying to finish the book I had suspected would be terrible, but was hoping would do something to convince me otherwise when I heard them.

"Faauuuuckkkkkk Maaan! Fauuuucckkkk!"

It's 1:30am. The parking lot under my first floor window is rented out to doctors and is frequently patrolled for unauthorized vehicles these days. It's unlikely that a late working MD is making this kind of noise. There is a huge car door slam and again with the...

"Faaauuuuaaauuuuaaaauuuuuuuucckkk!"

I pop out of bed and peek through the window. The fauck guy is blonde, short, greasy and pissed. He's beating the shit out of the cutlass cierra they arrived in. A guy I've decided to call Champ is trying to calm him down.

Guy number 3 is the most interesting. He's most certainly wearing a little leather skirt that's short enough to expose the bottoms of his ass cheeks, but he's not really in drag. He has long man hair and Mister T arms. Big Fucking Huge Arms. He's wearing a leather vest, unbuttoned with no shirt and he has something of a beer gut. He makes a grunting sound at random but doesnt say much else. Once Fauck stops beating up the car, they all retreat on foot onto the stairwell that leads between Terry Ave and lower Howell.

Things of this nature happen on a semi regular basis in my neighborhood. No big deal, but for some reason, these guys scared the living fuck out of me. I had run upstairs while Fauck was still beating up the Cutlass and tapped on my manager's door but there was no answer. I decided I was over-reacting and went back to bed.

Two hours later, I'm finishing up my uber disappointing book when I hear someone muttering in spanish in the parking lot. I turned out my light and moved to the window. It was Mister T, and he was saying 'Grando!' over and over again. I tried to peek through the curtains without being spotted by my leather skirted companion as he pulled a duffle bag out of the Cutlass and sat it on the trunk.

"Grando! Grando!" He unzipped the bag and pulled out:

The Biggest, Blackest, Rubber Cock I've Ever Seen In My Life.

Huge. Perhaps you are saying to yourself, 'Come on, Sonya. It was the middle of the night. It was dark. You were hallucinating.' and I will say to you, No. Remember how the lights never fucking go off in that parking lot, creating in my apartment a constant state of brightness? Mm Hm. Big Giant Black Rubber Cock. The thing was bigger around than my freaking forearm and just about as long. Tip of first finger to Elbow. It had some kind of loop on the end of it, so I wouldn't be suprised if it comes with some sort of tripod support system. Mister T picked it up like a rifle. I could see the skin ripples they put on them to make them more realistic, this was getting really fucking weird.

"Grando! Ha Ha! Grando!"

Mister T and Grando retreated to the stairwell and out of sight, ass cheeks bouncing all the way. Again, I don't know why, but this scared the hell out of me. I figure there's really nothing going on though, so I take down the plate numbers for good measure and go to bed.

6:30am. My first alarm has just gone off and I'm drifting back to sleep when I hear in the distance,

"Grando! Mucho Mucho Grando! HaHa!"

I roll out of bed yet again and look out the window. It's Mister T and his amazingly terrifying buddy Grando. He started up the Cutlass and drove off. I don't know what happened to the other guys.

the end.

2002-10-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

testing test test

2002-10-03T14:24:00.000-07:00

you can always be down or out

Here's the deal.

I will use your product for free, and you will get paid by marketing people to bombard me with advertisements. I expect this. This is reasonable. there is no free lunch.

However, if I pay for your service, I expect to be left alone. This, hotmail and yahoo, is why I will not be purchasing your fancyness. I will give you twenty dollars, you will continue to bombard me. I refuse.

(It looks like this imploding heart will be moving soon. Thank you, thank you, thank you to those who offered to be a foster parent. You're better than eating pancakes at three in the morning while sitting on the kitchen floor, and that's pretty damn good.)

2002-10-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

the skies are black, the light can ride you, like having a motorcycle stuck inside you

So now that I've commited myself to cutting my own hair nine times in a row before I decide that I suck at it, I find that it wants cutting all of the time. Anyway, Kate fixed this one after we played trivial pursuit, so it's much, much better than the cut I gave myself in the alley. Don't worry though, the hole is still alive and kicking. (speaking of kicking, the internet is kicking my ass at solitaire. It's a totally different game when you can't cheat.)

Now for the great confession. You know how I took a year off theater? Yeah? Remember that? Well I only made it six and a half months. More details about the tiny little project I've braided into my hair to follow. It was inevitable. Either take on a project or take on anti depressants. I apologize to everyone who asked me to manage for them and was brutally shot down(bret, carys, whathisface from that party with the beautiful seventeen year old, richter, random bathhouse email lady, laura...) with my false cries of "year off!". We all knew I'd crack under the pressure. bring on the mockery. I'll make out with your boyfriend and push your cat down the stairs.*

*or not. probably not, actually. Unless you're the bitch who almost ran me over in the crosswalk yesterday. If so, prepare to have a shoe indention on your pretty little face, baby.

2002-10-01T11:42:00.000-07:00

because sometimes we have nothing better to do than play online solitaire and take pictures of our knees.

My great new question is this. Why is it so freaking hard to get my hands on a cheap, sturdy, wooden CD rack? I'll tell you why... radio isotopes.

Radio Isotopes combined with my unwillingness to haul my ass down to the bus tunnel and take a metro out to the north end to trudge around a gigantic targetomartamania in search of aforementioned item. I did, however, walk down to the miniature fredmeyerama on broadway where I was once attacked by a woman buying cat food to purchase new bed sheets, a mattress pad and a new shower curtain. Watch my parents even TRY to call it 'artsy'.

In other news a woman just called my cell phone and in a kind of brooklyney accent started shouting "I kept getting calls! It was this! This number! the beeping, Oh, it was driving me crazy."

-sonya shifts down into customer service mode,even though this is a private line.-

"Ma'am, this is a cellular telephone number. There is no fax line attached to it, and no way whatsoever it would have been able to try and fax you yesterday evening. Do you understand?"

"Oh! the terrible beeping! Where is it coming from? are you doing this to me?"

I wanted to kill her, but I was extremely polite. It was just like the good ole days.

2002-09-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

Ah Ha! Thank you, mike for reminding me about the best thing that happened this weekend. I think patrick opie and I have finally named the damned band.

Have you been holding your breath? You can stop now, because I'm not letting that snakey poptart blow this one off like he did One American Haircut, which I thought was fantastic.

So we're standing in the kitchen and patrick is making these magic mashed potatos that are turning a pleasant shade of orange. He's explaining how sugar is the secret ingredient in everything 'and would-you-please-hand-me-that-giant-sugar-tub' when he turns on his heel to face me.

He points the wooden spoon in the air. "Oh yeah! How would you feel about being called 'Block that Kick'?"

I wiped a spot of mashed potato off my shoulder. "Margaret Hoolihan."

"What?"

"Block That Kick, (Margaret Hoolihan)."

And because this time the laughter wasn't mixed with "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard", I'm going to hold on to it as long as I can. (See: 3 weeks, tops. )

Snide remarks about how it's stupid and way too long welcome. Nobody gonna break my stride. Nobody gonna hold me down.

2002-09-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

Rose and Valoree, screaming from the gallery

(So, do you want to help me move this to a real location and hold my hand while I learn how you buy a domain name and get hosting and all that? Skills=limited. Gratitude=abundant.)

and now, a short list of things I love:

1: flat front panel, pleats all the way around in back.

2: Overcast and windy but dry.

3: Big safety pins being there when you really really need them.

4: "Wanna take a cemetery tour?" 11:00pm.

5: lightbooths

6: orange and vanilla ice cream cups with those stupid little wooden spoons.

7: being stubborn about absurdities.

8: brick showing through where the asphalt has chipped away.

9: "They're tearing up streets again, they're building a new hotel..."

10: black shoes, straps and buckles.

2002-09-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

this is my congratulations, mixed with fingercrossing and eye winking in hopes for the best. I heart you lots, J. Also, best of luck to TS on her trip to the belly of the family. May evil aunts be filled with unexpected kindness or indigestion.

I had a dream last night that she (not TS, another she.) and I were running around a race track while each discussing how we felt about the situation. I explained my viewpoint. She explained hers. She was kind and I was forgiving but I still woke up with razor wire all under my collarbones. I feel like I've swallowed a headstone, a dozen roses, and a bathtub full of no.

In other news, the 'Real Way' of playing Trivial Pursuit is totally dumb, and everyone should convert to the better way, which just means when you get all the pies, you win. None of this go to the middle bullshit. Ben and I are winners.

2002-09-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

And she's not afraid of anything

Mom: "I have tests today."

sonya: "What kind?"

Mom: "I have to collect all my urine all day. I have a little hat I have to..."

sonya "You pee in a hat?!"

Mom: "That's what they call it!"

sonya: "Hat!"

mom: "It looks like a funny little pilgrim hat."

sonya: "what color is it?"

mom: "White. A little white pilgrim hat. I had to pee in them all the time when I had my transplant, but I didn't have to save it in the fridge."

sonya: "AAAUUGGH. Gross mom."

mom: "I know. Super gross. I've got it all wrapped up in extra plastic bags and I moved everything away from it."

sonya: "Still. Very gross."

2002-09-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

Part Two: Everyone loses something:

(The basement room. R is looking around, under covers, etc. G is tightening all the yarn ties on the quilt that covers the bed.)

R: Have you seen my keys?

G: What?

R: My keys. My car keys, have you seen them?

G: Your what?

R: KEYS. Have you seen my keys.

G sits quietly for a moment, mouthing ‘have you seen my keys’ to herself over and over. After a moment she looks up.

G: No. I haven’t seen them.

R: Let me know if you do, okay?

R exits and G does not respond.

G stands and faces the audience but is not necessarily addressing them. She sits crosslegged on the floor and continues to fidget as she speaks.

G: I’m developing this distinct feeling of loss. Like I had pants pockets full of grain and jewels and phone numbers and plastic cowboys and somebody came along and cut holes in the bottom of them. Jewels and numbers and cowboys and grain all falling out the bottoms of my pantlegs while I was trying to think of something witty to say at the party. Perhaps from now on, I’ll just pin little sayings into the sleeves of my cardigan and pull them out like fortune cookies whenever the mood strikes me. ‘Have you seen her baby? It’s absolutely beautiful, not like most babies, who are born ugly as sin. It’s not their fault, though. "
‘He bought the house during the boom and must have invested wisely, because he’s the only one I know who was able to keep it.’
No, I suppose those wont work. I’ll have to think of something more applicable. "I saw a sweater just like that one while I was rooting through cardboard boxes in the alley last night!’ they’re most certain to take that as an insult, as they’re unlikely to be aware of the riches that lie in cardboard boxes left unattended. That’s where kittens come from, and sometimes where kittens have to go, if you picked up the stray after it was too late. Many a childhood afternoon wrapped in a coat of dad’s in front of the grocery store offering little tiny lives to strangers passing by. Please, somebody, take this little life for free. Take it home and let it love you. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m sitting in a cardboard box with the words ‘free to good heart’ written on the side. Sitting in this box and hoping it doesn’t rain.

Q enters the room and grabs boots and a jacket out of the closet.

Q: It’s raining.

G: What?

2002-09-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Ready? here we go.

1: You get your foot shot off in the warzone. Do you carry the bloody, saggy, severed foot across the battlefield or start thinking of colors for your prosthetic?

2: A team of you and all boys or of you and all girls?

3: Babies in tires VS Kittens in toilet paper barfight, who wins?

4: Death by Jellyfish or Death by wood chipper?

5: Doomed to a life of mullet or Doomed to a life of moustache? (forever.)

6: Ditch study hall and make out under the fire escape or ditch study hall and play Street Fighter 2 at Brian's because his mom works during the day?

7:"My cat's name is Mittens" or "The doctor said it would stop bleeding if I just kept my finger out of there."?

8: "You're so pretty when you're angry." or "I just woke up early to watch you sleep."

Go! Now!

2002-09-23T16:47:00.000-07:00

Additionally:

If, by chance, you were cruising around Seatown this weekend and you may have heard someone shouting,

"I want a baby! I want a kitten! I want an antique carousel horse! I want an arcade version of Pac Man! I want a sugar daddy, dammit! I'm so-ho-ho fu-huh-huh-huh-huhking mi-i-i-i-i-i-ser-a-ble!"

she was kidding about everything except the Pac Man, (and occasionally the misery.)

2002-09-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

(Patrickt. Please come home. Nobody gets it, and it's really, really funny.)

2002-09-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

It's here in the smallest bones

This becomes a story about changing clothes. I'm sorry.

I'm preoccupied because my fingers continue to smell slightly of garlic cloves, even after I took the lemon out of my drink and ran it over my fingernails and threw it away. The High Performance King thought this was gross, but he was being particularly obscene in German, so I wasn't going to think twice about it. That was during dress number one. (Aqua and silver, 3/4 sleeves, polyester. Wait, there's a picture of me wearing this dress and being very, very drunk here.-'Daddy, baby needs a fix.'- Do you care about dresses? Of course not.)

Dress number two is the dress equivalent of a pink birthday cake. Josh was walking around the party carrying that ridiculously heavy pack of his as tricia and I took a thousand accidental pictures of ben smoking a cigarette while trying to make the light meter on my camera work. We left around midnight, but I was discontent. Tricia and J and I got a ride to their house where I changed into aforementioned Schmezzle Schmagger shirt and coveralls. I still have really fancy hair and am wearing party shoes, but I'm a little bit soft around the edges already, so I assume no one will notice. We walked up to the Summit Public House and proceeded to play the "If I were to get in a barfight, which one of these guys do you think I could take?" game. We chose a particularly scrawny new wave fellow, but he was fully capable of kicking my ass royal. The summit was sporting a tough crowd, so we switched to the "Who's my new boyfriend?" game.

Josh: "What about that one?"

Tricia: "too old, and kind of slimy looking. What about that one?"

Sonya: "He looks like he'd be mean to kids and pigeons. What about mister hat over there?"

Josh: "I think you just answered your own question when you called him mister hat."

Tricia: "What are your feelings concerning punk rock?"

Sonya: "Would *I* have to go punk rock?"

Josh: "Not necessarily. The one in the corner?"

Tricia: "Yup."

Sonya: "Sassy. Okay, yeah. Punk rock is my new boyfriend."

This incited an hour of Josh:'Go ask him out!' Sonya: "No Way!" Josh:" Go! Go Now! Do you want me to do it for you?" Sonya: "NO!" The bartender enjoyed it.

We drank whiskey through last call and walked back to T and J's. I flopped down on the couch and J slid to the floor, proclaiming "I'm not laying on the floor because I'm drunk. I'm laying on the floor because this is my house."

2002-09-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

because talk like a pirate day lives on in my heart

I feel like several people at once. (Cast my demons into a herd of pigs that will throw themselves off a cliff. That was my favorite story.)

Stage Door Opening. Ho-ly-shit. It's fantastic. Go buy tickets right now. You love theatre. You do, you just might not know it because all you remember was your sister's school play from the Samuel French catalog that was a spinoff of the James Bond movies. Stupid farces are always the cheapest.

Alright see now, I was the only one wearing a cocktail dress for reasons I don't care to discuss. After lounging at The Dubliner and talking shop with an old school SM* and a new school SM (I'm just a school SM, by the way.) I invited benjamin to be my ready made night in shining helmet and walk me to my scooter on his way to his. This was only after I walked outside in said cocktail dress and an old scary fisherman with jagged fire shooting teeth bent down and made the "gimmie gimmie gonna eat em all up yeah" grabby hand motion. I was afriad. I will admit.
Ben walks me up the hill. I offered to let him carry me, being the damsel and all, but I realized that 1: that would be terrible for ben. and 2: this would probably incite more of the grabby hands motion on the parts of passersby, as it would have exposed a significant portion of my delicate laundry. He waits while I pull on the scooter pants** and jacket and goggles and helmet, kisses me on the cheek, I thank him for his kindness, cut out his heart and take it to the evil queen.***

So okay now. I'm at Denny and Westlake and an SUV of SWM pull up. The two in the front seat are talking to each other pleasantly, laughing and being pretty normal, when the back window unrolls and out comes a screeching

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEE BABY! UNGH! YEAH!"

I look around, nobody else there, it was for me. I consider for under half a second and decide to feed him the fury... "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEE! YOU ARE ONE FINE PIECE OF MEAT BABY! YOW!"

The sober guys in front think this is totally hilarious. I, also, find it to be pretty fucking funny, because the guy in the back is kind of going nuts now. Meowing and the like. Sober and Sober seem relieved that I didn't get all sexual harrasment on their asses, the light changes, we all drive away. I relish in the fact that Drunko McDrunkerface didn't even know I was wearing a smashing cocktail dress and lovely party shoes. I got home and peeled off the scooter pants and jacket and felt very much like a secret agent.

the end.

*(SM stands for stage manager, you ass slapping leather wearing maniac.)

**(scooter pants=pants big enough to fit over skirts and shoes that can be easily removed upon arrival at location)

***(everything except the part about the heart cutting out really happened.)

2002-09-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

shamelessly stealing ideas from others, ahoy.

Take my Quiz. Take iiiitttt!

2002-09-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

What would you do if I sang out of tune

And now, The Wonderful Paul

Hi, Sonya!

I've written you a poem!

(I also sent it to "poetry on the busses.")

I Am Writing This to Destroy You

On the 23 day I found your radio tumors inside me.
Their voices mingle with the Mars Climate Orbiter.
For the past year, I've wanted to sew your picture into my jacket and leave it at the Salvation Army.
Instead, I'm using rumored disasters to silence you.
You are lost in a suspected Indian earthquake.
Bees! Bees! Bees! Bees! Bees! Bees!
I'll snap my fingers right in your face.
You just lost five minutes.
Sleep.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2002-09-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

Mom calls at 10:28

Mom: "I have to come over for x-rays and a biopsy and a blood count and something else, I can't remember. I hope it isnt that weird bile pill on a string thing. Remember that? Ugh. They're going to do the count first at Virginia Mason, and then move me over to the U dub for everything else. We'll be over on the fourth. Can we stay with you? We'll pull that mattress out from under your bed."

sidenote: there's a futon mattress being stored under the futon frame with the real mattress on top of it. It took me 2 hours to manipulate that fucking thing under there, and there's no way in hell I'm ever moving it out again except to throw it away, and I haven't brought myself to terms with that yet. Every single time my parents come over, my mother insists that we should pull out that damn mattress so I can sleep on it instead of sleeping on the floor, and every time, I explain that 1: there is no way dad is strong enough to lift the bed from one side and hold it while I drag it out. 2: It's a huge pain in the ass, and dragging it out will make my back hurt significantly worse than sleeping on the damn floor, which I did for several years in high school due to a theory concerning spiderbites and vertigo that I don't care to explain.

Sonya: "Mom, it's fine. I'll sleep on the floor. We've already had this discussion. I slept on the floor for 3 months after Tracy moved out, and you and dad didnt say a thing. Then I had the most comfortable bed in the world, and you took it to the dump and spent a hundred and fifty dollars on a bed that gave me leg spasms. I'm still really not over that."

Mom; "No we did not. Did we? I guess we did, but I'm sure we thought it was in your best interest."

Sonya: "You didn't even ask me if I was uncomfortable in the old one. If you hadn't thrown it out, I'd still be sleeping on it today. It was the best bed ever. Additionally, I was already 18 and moving out in 7 months. I go to school one day, I come home after my show that night, and theres a new fucking bed, old bed nowhere to be seen. I was furious. You spent 150 bucks. Everyone was unhappy. It didn't make any sense."

Mom: "Well you just wait till you have kids young lady. We thought we were doing the right thing."

Sonya: "but you'd done very few things like that in my life. As soon as I reported I was moving out, you started doing all kinds of weird shit. You threw away my bed and expected me to keep the shitty one. You stole my picture album, cut out all the pictures of my friends into weird shapes, pasted them into a Lisa Frank book with pink unicorns on it an put little captions over their heads. You started insisting that I eat dinner at the table, which we hadnt done since I was five. The only other time in my life you did anything like that was signing me up for girl scouts, and when I started crying, you yelled 'You're gonna go, and you're gonna like it!' and slammed my door."

Mom:"....I did not do that. Did I?"

Sonya:" Oh yes. Yes you did."

Mom: "Man, you hated girl scouts."

Sonya: "I got kicked out for slapping the leaders daughter, remember?"

Mom: "That I remember."

2002-09-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

we are holding hands under the table. You are trying desperately hard to listen to my mother talk about something the dog did last week as I am tapping out 'be bop a lula she's my baby, be bop a lula I don' mean maybe, be bop a lula she-he-he's my baby love my baby love my baby love' on your shoe and pulling on your trousers at the knee to make the hem dance.
It's a family game. Dad loved to come up behind me and put his arm around my shoulder during conversations with old ladies at church. He'd pinch my arm with his thumb without tensing his fingers, so Mrs. Maglumphy wouldn't know I was in terrible pain and resisting the urge to scream "Dammit Dad, will you fucking stop that shit?" as she asked me about how school was going and do I have a college picked out and so on. I'd grit my teeth and smile at dad, and he'd laugh a little and give my arm an extra squeeze indicating 'Just you try it, kid. You've got no way to prove it and no one will believe you.' I'm telling you, my dad should have been in the mafia.
You've pressed my hand flat in your palm, and you're pressing my fingers like guitar strings. I can feel the calouses in your fingers. Cylindrical and rough from fat classical guitar strings. I'm proud of myself for being able to keep up. The first note, your fingers in an arch over my pinkie, middle and third fingers...D. Second note, first, middle, and pinkie....C. You're taking it easy on me. You press my hand into what might be an E, but might also be an A minor, I can never remember. Now dad's talking about his plan to buy a wood splitter and make a million dollars. (I'm mister plow, that's my name, that name again is mister plow) You're agreeing with enthusiasm and singing barely audibly under your breath with the notes you play 'lovely Rita, meter maid, nothing can come between us'

2002-09-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

PS

Paul's a genius.

2002-09-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

when you got that spiderbite on your hand

If you happened to be driving down Fremont yesterday night, and you happened to see a girl standing in the rain tearing her left shoe and sock off and searching through them like mad, sorry if I disturbed you. To those of you who insisted there was nothing in my shoe, I'll have you know that I woke up this morning with a bite the size of a small island nation on my ankle. It hurt like hell.

Happy birthday Bill,Brendan, and coffee delivery guy. Presents of various assortments for everyone.

2002-09-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry Charlies, 11:30pm Saturday. transcribed from notebook.

I am going to try to explain this to you.

There is a stuffed swordfish over the call window and miniature cereal boxes sitting atop the pie case. The tables in the restaurant side are classic greasy spoon booths, but 2 tables away you are in the piano bar.
An ancient man plays a baby grand like water flowing over rocks. A man in his sixties is singing opera in Italian. It's open mic. 2 tables over and the lights go dim, but on our side, the booth and restaurant side, it's diner bright.
There is a feeling like this is one of those dreams that starts out great and threatens to turn bad but never quite does. It just continues being a kind of correct only the dream can fabricate.
Now there's a girl singing a beautiful and jaunty version of That's Amore, and the old man pours out a life of experience over the keys.

I'm overwhelmed. I want to preserve this thing. "When I have a brand new hairdo..." I want a piece of my DNA to be left on a fragment of time. I want to be able to come back to this emotion, to this light, to that old man playing the piano and the girl in the corner smoking cigarettes and the guy with the date who's way way too young for him and they both know it and the waitress who's older than my mom and the juice you can only get out of the bar spicket. I want to come back to meticulously peeling this lable and tugging at my socks and borrowing this jacket that smells like my friend who has gone to find his pen. I want to grab hold of this moment and kiss it with my tounge. "Who enjoys being a guy, loving a giiiiiiirrrrrllllll like meeeeeee..."

On the wall, there are charcoal pictures of a fish wearing a sailor hat crying behind a rock where a mermaid brushes her hair.