Hello, Gentle Reader.
I've had a lot of rum tonight. A pint, in fact. Oh yes, I'll pay for it, eventually. I'll sleep but little tonight. The sauce makes me pass out for two or three hours and then keeps me up for hours on end. I've heard that as the liver metabolizes alcohol, it produces a stimulant. I don't doubt it.
And this excludes the hangover. But it's not like I've got aught to do tomorrow.

I've not heard from The Boy Who Would Be Roommate tonight. I'm not surprised.

The high point of today was my swell package.
Umm... Not quite what I meant (though my own is not bad). Ms Llew's Package arrived today. Yay, yay, yay!
She sent me: Two books, Nalda Said, by ex-Belle and Sebastian bassist Stuart David (I've read 20 pages and am already in love) and The Wide Window, the next book in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
I've never said word one about the The Wide Window, but I've severely desired it. This only goes to show Ms Llew's utter perfection. (How I would marry her in reality if only things were differerent...)
She also sent a Lemony Snicket pad and some temporary tattoos. I've been seriously considering a new real tattoo, and I'd quite like to get the stylized eye on my arm. It's almost like one of those daft tribal sticky-ones, but it is cool. When I get money...
Also included were the two Sinister mix tapes. Well, CDs. How careful must I be in speaking of these! Sir Declan has spoken quite ill of Laura when she misspoke on these discs.
Which is odd, because Declan's is quite very good. I really liked it. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't knock it.
Michelle (who, as I understand, loves Robert Smith) also makes a good CD. I even said as much in private correspondance to Llew. I quite like MoonDance and The Time of the Season, which she put in. I'm still trying to decide the appropriate mark to leave in her booklet.
Michelle's is about Lost Love, which sent me into many reminiscences. It was quite odd, I thought about people I'd not thought about for a long time. It also made me think of a boy in particular who may have been very fond of me but who I never thought of that way. And we spent quite a lot of time together. We were quite inseperable. And we worked so very well together...
How foolish that was. I wish I could go back and change that.
But I can't. I'm not too mushy about it, as I know he's happy now. (Really, what does it take to get over me?) And that makes me feel better.

I cleaned the hovel today very, very well.

How I'd love to be anywhere else but here. Have you seen Sabrina, when she says that people should be in Paris when it rains? I've been in Paris when it rains, and I would love to be there again. I got lost in the Quartier Latin and got a Coca Lite and a napoleon in a little patisserie.
Everywhere I go, I get lost. I got lost in North London last time I was there. I wandered the streets of Camden Town, Belsize Park and Chalk Farm at 2 in the morning. I was cold and alone, then, but how'd love to be there again.
The last place I went was Easley, SC. No matter lovely that town was, it's time to go somewhere else. I'd love to go to DC or NY. Or even back to Manteo. Just somewhere away from here and all my troubles...

I dreamt last night I got an email from my friend Darren, inviting me to apologize. I wanted to, indeed. But I recongized it was a dream and I really couldn't.
I still would, though. Because, well, because I would. He deserves it. And I'm scum.

I spent quite a lot of time playing guitar today, "Judy and the Dream of Horses", "Roller Coaster", "She's Losing It" and "This Is Just A Modern Rock Song."

I'm still quite lonely. And afraid. And alone.

Word of the day: negus: a punch drink, named after the English navy officer who created it, made of port wine, water, sugar, lemon, and spice. It's mentioned in The Pickwick Papers.

Which I am still reading. Number XVIII, chap. LII.

I didn't watch Dr Who today.

Ms Llew rocks today because: I said it before -- she's great. She's just not great; she's psyically great. Indeedy.

Today's question is this:
What, pray, is a bacon butty?
It's some British food or other. I suspect it's sandwich-y in origin, but I'm not sure. I never had one when I was little, they don't have them in the US, and I can't find anything about it on the Internet. I mean, it's not like I want to try one. *Thinks of English food, shudders* I have no trouble with food from disgusting sources as long as it tastes good, but English food doesn't. " 'Ere, lads, let's mix beef fat and flour..."

It was cold and rainy today. I was up early (9 ish) and consequently had about 4 hours of sleep. I did meet The Boy Who Would Be Roommate, but I believe nothing till I have cash in hand. I've been up that road before. My interview went well -- for christ's sake it's a grocery store, what do you have to be not to get a job in one -- but I soooo don't want the job. Unfortunately I am in no position to refuse any job. Hopefully something better will pop up... (I've not heard from Center for Documentary Studies yet). When I got back I took a nap for the rest of the afternoon, and I've felt off since. And my leg hurts abominably... like the bone inside. Quite odd.
I do love the rain. It got warmer while I was asleep so it's warmer tonight than today. Soon it will time to wear the suede pants again!
In another world, I would have gone to Henry's tonight -- Thursday is going out night in Chapel Hill -- with Jamie. We'd sit in the corner and snigger at all the fierces poseurs and swoon over boys.
And yes, we'd be the best dressed ones there. I'd bum a cigarette at some point.
*sighs*

At least tomorrow is Friday. I'll turn all the lights out in the hovel, light my bottle-of-chianti candle and sit in the corner and talk to Murphy as a I drink my pint o' rum. Perhaps I will strum my guitar.

I was playing with Murphy on the counter today and he rolled over and fell to the floor. He gave this great "meo..ouch!" Then he popped back up, looked at me, looked at the floor and scowled at me.
God... that the exciting bits of my life should be stories about my cat.
Maybe it's time to go get two or three more.

I'm still reading The Pickwick Papers. I'm on the last 100 pages, which is quite exciting, as it's over 700 pages. It's certainly one of the longest books I've read.

Dr Who of the Day: Terror of the Vervoids, part one: Hey! It's Pussy Galore! No really, Honor Blackman is in this (she was Pussy in the Bond film Goldfinger). It's also the first story with companion Mel. She actually gets a good intro, really, and works well with Colin Baker's Doctor. Pity she didn't keep getting good scripts... and she really didn't work well with the next Doctor (starting in the story after next).
The Demeter seeds are little pellets of chromium, like you get at hobby shops.
I should explain that the last two stories, this one and the next are actually one whole story called The Trial of a Time Lord. They were one season (series in the UK) of 14 episodes, made after the show was off the air for 18 months and during which one of the writers died as he was writing the ending and the scrpit editor had a fight with the producer and quit. Nobody understands the last two episodes, even the people who made it. I'm not really sure the point of this so here: it also has the shortest lived arrangement of the theme (the above 14 episodes). It is also my favourite one. New Doctor, new opening, new music in the next season.Oh well.
Did you know the original 1963 version of the theme is considered one of the finest ever pieces of electronic music? It was all done by hand by two people (Ron Grainger and Delia Derbyshire) which is pretty amazing if you've ever heard it...

Word of the day: jingoism. See also Bush's foriegn policy on Iraq. (It ain't a war yet, thank goodness).
You know, in conspiracy theory circles, there's a popular idea that the Constitution was suspended when FDR declared a federal emergency in 1933. Because of the way federal emergency acts work, it couldn't be rescinded till he -- or any of his successors -- ordered it. Since the act gave him extraordinary power, he nor any of his successors did, and the president has been a semi-elected dictator ever since. Not all the extremely limited executive of the Constitution who is subject to the Congress and Supreme Court. (Read the Constitution, it's really surprising how little the president should do).
I don't know how true this is, but I bet President Bush fell for it hook, line and sinker. He certainly acts like a Roman Emperor, treading over the Senate.
I don't buy into Conspiracy theories, but I have this great dictionary of them. It's a great sociological/anthropological look at the US and how myth works in society. Get it: it's Everything's Under Control by Robert Anton Wilson.

Reason Llew rocks: She's letting me tatto her name on my shoulder...
Actually, I do want another tattoo, this one on my arm. This goes somewhere between that book of Tennessee Williams poetry and stuff to make absinthe.
(Hey look! An answer on my test! Go see it.)

So, there's been a little mini-rush here in a time zone far away. Like 17 hits, which is three times anywhere else but the US East Coast. It looks like Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, China, Mongolia or Siberia. It might be Western Australia, though, as the map is funky.
These people should so write me.

Amusingly, I'm more popular in on the other side of the world than at home.
Ha, ha, it's almost not depressing.
I hope Llew's package comes tomorrow. They would be swell.

Have a good trip, Ll.

I'm sooo going to hell*.
Indeedy.
In the past twenty minutes alone, I've thrown down the gauntlet for a girly cat-fight (the last little bit of hetero in me, I reckon) AND had terribly lustful thoughts about the boy who is to be my roommate.
(Note to self: don't frighten him off...)**

I'm off to my interview at the grocery store (?!).

*This post to be accompanied by Belle and Sebastian's 'The Boy Done Wrong Again...'
** It is, however, not my fault that he looks like Emo Glasses boy (See below).

This describes my day*:
I was nosing around in one of my Romanticism textbooks (looking up an obscure sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley) when I started perusing Jane Austen's biography.
Turns out she put on the spinster cap at 24, not 23.
Disgusted -- I'm 24 -- I put on a Belle and Sebastian CD, The Boy With The Arab Strap, to do something --anything -- else.
Ha, ha! The first line of the first song is...
"He had a stroke at the age of 24..."
So I started to read The Pickwick Papers. Mr. Pickwick was sent to Debtor's Prison.
*frustrated groan*

Tonight was also a Spoon concert. Needless to say, I didn't go, as I have no money.
I called Indie Girl Prime, who was of course going. I called her. She was watching Ed so she watched that instead. Of course, she did call back. Talking to her was nice, but brief. She's like a flash of lightening in the summer. You never know when she'll show up or what she'll do, but you don't want to miss it and it's always fun.
But I do wish she were around more...

I watched the Simpsons tonight. They had a parody of a British comedy, called Do Shut Up. Homer described it thus: "If they're not making time with a bird, they're having a row with a wanker." It had two drunks beating each other with bottles.
Now this confused me. I never saw anything like that on when I lived there, nor have I seen anything like that since. ('Cept maybe Andy Capp, and that was on before my time).
Oh, and maybe EastEnders, a bit.
[For the other Americans: that was a joke.]

Speaking of dreams -- I thought quite a lot about this today -- I realized I have one dream much more often than any other. It's about Manteo, a little town I used to live in on the NC coast. There's always lots and lots of water in the dreams. Not unusual as Manteo is on a island, but there's even more water than that. It's like Venice, built on stilts and pylons and islets. And the water is turquoise. I typically tool around the places I used to work, like the Half Moon Junction, Waterside Theater and the ship Elizabeth II and try to work there again.
This dream almost always goes hand in hand with a dream about travelling to Key West and the Seven Mile Bridge you take to get there. Not at the same time I have them, mind, but almost always both on the same night.**
I'm pretty sure these dreams are me trying to go back to a place where I was quite happy. But they are very pretty, with the water and the beaches.
Somebody -- a minx, no less *growls* -- told me that losing teeth means uncertainty about the foundations of my life. Hmm... How far back has Maddie read? Yep... the past few weeks have challenged them all, and that's a fact.

I'm told -- frequently, lately -- that Murphy is not a small cat. That he is, in fact, quite large.
How weird. He seems small to me, but then again I remember him when he was 3 months old.
Any way, I wish I was a) as comfortable as he looks when he sleeps
b) as cute as he is when he sleeps (head cocked to one side lying on his front paws with his tail wrapped around his back paws and nose crinkled up)
c) and that somebody looked at me like that when I was asleep.

Hmmm. Now I feel all alone and sad. Again. I wish it was raining.

* This post should be accompanied by Bach's "Air on the G String," BWV 1068
** Except this bit. Go listen to Sara Vaughn's "Key Largo"

All right I'll tell you: this was my dream...*

I have two recurring dreams. One is quite boring, involving my teeth falling out. I have this once every few weeks.
The other one, which I had last night, is a bit less common but always quite vivid. I'm in a book store. Usually I don't recognize it, but I always recognize bits and pieces of it. Last night, I remember nine foot mahagony bookcases.
Anyway. I go and look for Dr. Who books. I always find them...
I have to interpose. I have every Dr Who book from the past 12 years and I know every one released (two a month -- check out the cult link below).
...but they're one's I've never seen or heard of. The covers are always very, very vivid and the titles appropriate. Usually, I don't have enough to buy all the ones I want, so I debate over which ones to get. That's as far as I get. Then I wake up.
Usually, these dreams are unprompted, but last night I was nosing around the BBC books site (again, it's below) looking all the ones I'm missing. The importer BBC used went out of business and no new books have gotten to the US since May. I'm out about a dozen books.
And man, am I Jonesing. Like a junkie. It's been years -- literally -- since I waited so long for a fix.
So here are a few of the best releases this year:
Mad Dogs and Englishmen: this is the 100th BBC Dr. Who book. Simply put, Giant
Talking Poodles collude with Noel Coward and J R R Tolkien to change history. Trippy (check the cover)
and fun.
Hope: set vastly far in the future, it's all about death and rebirth. It's also excellently plotted: you think
you know what's going on, but then you find out what's really happening. Like Fight Club, it was quite
obvious, really.
Anachrophobia: Creepy. Very creepy. People turn into clocks. Sounds cheesey, but like the best of the
TV show, everybody has such crazy belief it works.
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street and The City of the Dead are both great, too, but you have to have
read soo much to get them. The others anybody could pick up and read. So do it!

*The opening of Act II in Fiddler on the Roof.

I watched The Gilmore Girls tonight for the first time. Not too bad. I quite like the mother.

I'm becoming apathetic. Terribly apathetic. I just... Yeah.
What was that Smiths song? *laughs ironically* Which one... Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now or Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want.
Yeah.
I don't feel like writing any more tonight.
'Night, emo-glasses boy.

Find your inner random object! by Emily

I think that should work. If not go here: What's your random object? If you're cool like me, you'll get this boy with glasses. *growls*
Maybe Llew was right... Maybe I should wear my glasses more often.

I Just Don't Get It!
If I thought all the various shit that has happened to me had a reason or a point, I could deal so much more easily. Right now, it just seems like sorrow upon sorrow drops on my shoulders like rain, and with as much logic. I wish I could explain how frustrated it makes me or how sad or how confused.
I feel like I'm five or six...things happen and I don't know why or how and there's nothing I can do.'Cept when I was little, I always knew there was a reason that I could find out if I tried enough.
(It's raining because a cold front met a warm front out beyond Hatteras and the heat from the warm front gave the water in the cold front the energy to condense and the prevaling winds blew onto shore...)
Doesn't work too well, now.
I have a friend -- she's Catholic, which is worth noting -- who says it much easier to be an athiest. She says they get to believe whatever they want. I tried to explain to her that, it's much more difficult to build up a coherent world view and system of morality and justify it than to blind buy into catholic dogma. Good little Catholic girl she is, she doesn't even question what's given to her. (She doesn't practice either and doesn't really believe in catholicism, so I think she's on really weak ground here...)
Point: I wish I could blithely say "God's in charge and there's a plan." I come close, I've got the idea that things will work out, and I try to hope that, but it'd sure be easier if I thought there was A Point.
Also, I always thought being unemployed would be easy and carefree. It's not. Every minute, I'm toting up a) what I'm not making and b) what I'm spending. (I would have earned $50 at Elmo's today... I spent $3.50 on cookies and a Diet Coke)
The end of the month is coming and if I don't get a roommate, I don't know what I'll do. I know I won't even attempt to pay bills.

I meant to mention this earlier... Last week on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (on Adult Swim, on Cartoon Network on Sunday nights: great TV!) the lawyer for the prosecution was reading American Dramaturgy! Of course, he was also a flaming gay send-up.
Which is odd, because no dramaturg I know is gay.
That was another reason I am all down: I spent a few minutes looking at grad schools today. The only people with dramaturgy programs were Ivy League schools: Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Brandeis, NYU. Utterly pointless to look at them, really: I couldn't even afford to apply for them. As if they'd let me in.
And no, No, NO, NO! I will not explain what a dramaturg is, dammit. It's what I want to be. Go here instead.

That's another thing wrong with me. I use old books and plays to relate to the world. Like right now, I feel like a character in Eugene O'Neill. (Long Days Journey Into Night, incidentally.) And of course, No-one knows what I'm talking about.
Oh yeah? Titus. Great movie, directed by Julie Taymor, who did The Lion King play. Which is more significant: Taymor's use of imagery or her manipulation of the original text?
And can anybody use the original text with a straight face, really? I mean, it's so bad there were critics who said it had to be a parody. (Probably not: it's probably the first play of somebody who had to write in popular, though awful, genre.)
Is death/bad end of the protaganist a given in a classical tragedy? Does it change anything substanial if Dr Faustus snuffs it in the first scene?
Why do people keep going to travesties written by Andrew Lloyd Webber (let's face it: he's a fuckin Bond Villian, not a hack) or Stephen Sondhiem? Why does the bourgoisie insist that not only is legitimate theatre, but is the apex of the theatrical art? (Wagnerian gesamptkework notwithstanding)
Umm... sorry.

On a related tangent: last night, I saw the web page for the Noel Coward Society. I would soo love to be in that (They even have a test you have to pass to be a member -- I can't even imagine...) but it costs 25 pounds.
On a tangent to that... If I had money to blow, I'd call a phone sex line (one that advertises "We'll talk about anything you want..) and talk philosophy. "Baby, tell me what you think about Kant." "I want to lick you all over..." "Hegele, baby. Are you self-actualized?"
Hey, it'd be my money.

It's (slowly) beginning to get cool and rainy. Hurrah... I want to walk in the rain, late at night, alone under sodium lamps.
It always makes me feel disconnected from the whole world, like a ghost. A relic.
Yeah. That's exactly the right word.
Relic.

So I heard a song today that made me smile:

If you see a girl with long brown hair
And a funny little smile on her face
That'll make you laugh or hold your breath
As she travels from place to place.

She'll meet all kind of people
Where ever she may go
And all her friends will tell you that
If you should want to know.

She's Llew. (She's who?)
She's Laura Llew (Of course!)
She's quite at home in a big space ship
Or sitting on top of a horse.
She's been to the past and future,
But whatever she may do,
She'll always be a friend of mine.
(Llew?) Laura Llew!

If you look way up in the sky above
And see a little streak of light,
It's not near dawn nor an early bird
As she streaks on through the night.
But even an early bird can't groove
So what can it be?
And this is what I'll say to you
If you should ask of me...

It's Llew, it's Llew,
It's Laura Llew of course.
That streak of light up in the sky
Means that she's off once more.
She's been to the past and future
But whatever she may do,
She'll always be a friend of mine
(Llew?) Laura Llew.

La la la la la la la la la la...

It could be Mars or Venus
But whatever she may do,
She'll always be a friend of mine,
Laura Llew...

Okay, so it was written for Dr Who, but I realized at the gym you could switch in Laura Llew and it would fit. And quite frankly, Llew should get the opportunity to Time Travel...

An oddish sort of day.
I woke up early so as to be ready to show the hovel. 'Course he didn't show up. I've decided to overlook this --he claims he'll appear tomorrow -- since he was obviously a) woken by me and b) hung over when I talked to him. It's not as if he didn't ask me/tell me was going out drinking last night.
I've made up my mind he is cute and this explains by beneficience.

My parents also showed up. They've gone on a multi-week business trip and came through Durham today and so visited (Both I-40, a major east-west road and I-85, a major north-south road go through Durham, the next town over). They brought milk, Diet Coke and chicken salad. Essentials, then. And the Major changed the D-string on my guitar, something that's needed doing for a while.

I'm listening to Duncan Sheik. Do you know him? Guitar-driven singer/song-writer? His single 'Barely Breathing' charted the longest ever of any song on the AC charts (50+ weeks). Course, that sounds nothing like the rest of 96 STR. His next album was okay-ish and his third, Phantom Moon, was also keen.
Phantom Moon was the soundtrack to a play by Steven Slater (never heard of him, either) but Sheik works incredibly with the words. He has a lovely voice. He's apparently working on a musical version of Spring Awakening (a Frank Wedekind play about adolescent sexuality, written 1896 and not preformed in an uncensored form till 1991). This intrigues me. It has a circle jerk* scene that has still to be done on stage.
Anyway, he just released another album of crappy pop-y stuff. I downloaded one the big single and was terribly disappointed. Had I money, I'd still buy it, but he's prolly like Star Trek: only every other realease is good. He also has a version of 'Reel Around the Fountain' that puts Moz to shame.
But his first release is soooo very great. Mellow and melancholy and sweet, like a rainy Fall afternoon where you remember an old flame.
Did I mention he's a dish?
I can't quite decide if I should tar him with the "Faux Indie" stripe**...

Have you seen that objectionable ad for Cingular One: "Now an American can be an American all over the world?" With this jackass heckling a camel driver and inducing a Venetian boatman to make a U-Turn? Ugh. I'm not like this. Nor will I allow my fiancee when we go to Europe for our honeymoon. (I ain't a-payin for it.)

I saw the movie The Omen tonight. It was quite good. It was of course ruined by the fact that Patrick Troughton was in it in a serious role.
Yep. The second Dr Who. I kept waiting for a Dalek to appear. When he started to run from a supernatural attack, I kept waiting for a "Now.. When I say run..." He even had a scene with Gregory Peck...
It's like when he appears in Jason and the Argonauts or when Tom Baker is the Bad Guy in the Golden Voyage of Sinbad...

*Use your imagination. It takes more than one boy and is used as a Fraternity initiation.

** Faux Indie... Euch! John Mayer is the worst example of this. "Your Body Is a Playground'?! Like he's banging away on Jennifer Love Hewitt and not, in fact, taking it elsewhere. Not that I have an axe to grind with this 'fierce poseur...' [Noel Coward joke]

I am sooo bored. It takes money to do anything. Except go to the gym, which I have been doing in excess. I even went today and I never go on Saturdays. It's out of the house, though.
I'm broke again. As in not a dime. Thankfully, I've got half a tank of gas. God only knows what I'll do when that's gone. At least public transport is free in Chapel Hill.
Plenty of food though. Thanks, Mom and Dad. Did I tell you? I got excess from their restaurant, hot dogs (gone now), BBQ, hamburgers and chicken breasts. I spent the last dollar on hamburger buns.

I want a job now. I need something to do.
I want my hair back too, for that matter. The connection: time, my dear. I just have to wait.

I've somebody coming tomorrow to look at being a roommate. They sound quite nice. He works for Save the Children, and went to Art School, studying photography. His minor was Art History (like me!) and also like me specialized in the Early Italian Renaissance.
After I went to the gym, he left a message asking me if want to go along for a beer.
I can't make up my mind quite what that was.

There was some quite witty exchanges on the petullant web site today. By the by, the aforementioned pix of Barbarella are there, along with certain asserverations from her bookselling doppelganger.

Tonight I'm watching As Time Goes By. I do like this show. It's like red wine, it requires subtlety and time to appreciate it. Or so I asssume. Red wine makes me physically sick after a night and a gallon of cheap cooking burgundy. Just serving it makes me want to retch. It's a pity, so many cool people rattle on red wine at bars and I stumble through with rum and coke.
Look at me, still nattering on about the cool kids...
Anyway... guilty fanboy joy: Geoffrey Palmer was in the 1971 Dr Who story The Mutants (and was killed before the end of Part 1) and Joan Simms was Queen Katryca in the Mysterious Planet, which I watched last. She died, too.

They took Monarch of the Glenn off the air (they ran through its entire run, I expect it will come back a few months after the new series is aired in the UK). *Sighs* Sorrows seem to be coming in packs.
Least I got a keen picture of Archie. It moves with a print of a Dorree engraving called 'The Enigma', a triptych of Mao (see the link above), a still of a Cyberman coming out of his Tomb and Hoppers' Nighthawks as my computer's wallpaper.

Dr Who of the Day: Mindwarp, part IV. Yes, again, I don't remember watching it from last night. Great lines... "This is Dorf and you are scum." and "Everyone has a point these days. I am a man of action, not of reason!" Both of these are Brian Blessed's character. There is also, to the great acclaim of fans, a pink tereliptel. Whee. But do see the first installment, where I mention the Technocolor 80s.
Oh yes. Peri snuffs it as well. It's a cool way to go, brain transplantation, but it seems wasted on Ms American Leotard that'll show 'em off Brown (hmm. see yesterday's entry on Boobs). I should be nicer, as I actually have met the (completely British and not-at-all American) Nicola Bryant, who played Peri. She was quite very lovely and interesting.

Book of the Day: The Pickwick Papers, Book XIV, chap. XXXVI.

Word of the Day: sackbut -- an antique musical instrument, like a trombone. Not quite as cool a word as shawm or rebec (other obsolete instruments, like an oboe and like a violin) but it gets point for obscurity and phunky-soundingness.

Reason Llaura Llew rocks: "A man, hunh?" *bites off head* "Tastes good."
Remember, Laura: Watch those teeth. They can hurt.

Hey kids...

Yeah today was slack. All the phone calls I expected didn't come. I will never get a job.
I did go the gym and I did get some rum. Whereupon, I drank it.

So I got drunk and danced and sang by myself. I listened to This American Life. I irritated the cat.

So another reason I just don't get boys: Girls Gone Wild. I don't understand it. I suppose I just don't have an appropriate appreciation of boobs. That's all it is, lots and lots of them, like they never get old. I mean, it looks like it would only appeal to 15 year olds who've never actually seen any before. But no... it's for an older set. How great can they be? I mean, if you've seen two...

I didn't see the Boy today at the gym.

Yeah, today sucked.

Book of the day: The Pickwick Papers, Book XIV, Chap XXXVI

Dr Who of the Day: Mindwarp, part 4

Reason Laura Llew rocks: Who else has Chocolate covered Boys?

Word of the Day: to olfact - to smell strongly

Ms Llew got her present today. Yay!
*does a little dance; butt wiggles like a really happy dog*
She liked it.

Rushed away home for a minor emergency. Came back earlier than anticpated.

Saw two amusing sites:
Here and Here.
Steve -- yes, the old school host of Blue's Clues -- has is own site. Apparently, he works with the Flaming Lips (?!). I downloaded one of his songs, but haven't listened to it. He affirmed me.
The other site is Murphy's spiritual home land.
My spiritual homeland is South of the Border. Oh sweet god yes. My... acquitance, I geuss, since it is now THREE months since I heard from... wanted to write a novel about Ernestine, the old lady who operated the elevator up and down the Giant Sombrero. (I've known Darren for over half my life... Isn't it sad?)

I almost had a panic attack last night. I'm about to freak out. I have less than $15. And the end of the month is getting soo close. I have bills and rent and No Job and No Roommate.
Usually I can deal, but last night in the dark, it was rough.
For the first time in a long while, I really, really wanted somebody to be next to me.
Not bitching about it (and I did this in a drunken email to FR3 -- no, you don't know what it means -- a few months ago) but seriously wanting another human being next to me. *casts his eyes to the ground, make a little sigh*
On Fridays my best day of the week, I have to go to the gym early cause they close at 8. There's this boy I always see who's very cute. I recognize him from somewhere, but I'm not sure where. One of my Art History classes, I think. I'd love to talk to him, but he's always leaving as I'm going in. I always get all weird though. I'd hate to make a fool of myself or get punched. I'm not sure which would be worse.
If I was sure he was in my Art History class -- Art 56, the Early Italian Renassiance, by the by -- I'd be much quicker to attempt it. In the words of my Very Last Girlfriend, most boys in Art History classes are, well, you know...
Ha. How Right You Were, T----. (How Restoration Comedy, the initial and dash...)

Have I mentioned my Fridays?
They used to be paydays. Since I was a waiter, the paycheck was $35 or $40 and pure me money, since my tips paid the bills. It was also my day off. I'd wake up late, check my email and daily sites. Then I'd get my check and cash it. I'd get the monthly edition of Dr Who Magazine (yay!) and grab a quick cheap lunch where I work. Then I'd listen to Viva's show on WXDU, and go to the gym. [Here I'd see The Boy] Then on the way home, I'd get stop at the liquor store. Then I'd listen to This American Life. Then I'd meet friends, get a drink and we'd go see a movie.
*Despondant sigh* But now I am unemployed, can't afford DWM, lunch or a movie. And all my friends moved away. Now I'll just scrimp a fin, buy a pint of rum and drink it alone.
Oh well. The radio's still free, so I can listen to Viva and Ira Glass.
I hear back from the swank job tomorrow. I need some good news.

I had to miss training tonight because of my inpromptu trip home. I hope they can still train me. I don't think I could deal with another blow right now. I was really, really, really looking forward to that job.

I've decided my life is close to a Greek tragedy since pretty much everything gone wrong is my own fault. (God that's so not true. I think I might be able to deal better if it was.)

Book of the Day: The Pickwick Papers, book XIII. Today was the Trial of Bardell v. Pickwick, which was so great. You can tell you've found something great in Dickens when you read this, his first book. Readers must have been so excited in the 19th Century. But is there ever a better feeling when you read a groovy first book?

Word of the Day: boscage (thanks Pigtails!) -- low-lying forest, sort of scrubby landscape

Reason Llew rocks for today: Hmmm... Because "eeep" is a verbal love bite.

I didn't watch Dr Who today because I was plotting out my novel.

Aruni may be on now... I think I'll go listen. Maybe she'll play Belle and Sebastian. (...on the radio...)

I go in for training at WXDU tonight. I'm quite excited. When I was in Durham Tuesday I looked for the place. I didn't quite find it, bit I did find East Campus and one of the cross streets. I will of course get lost tonight, but I will factor in that much time.
Incidentally, the cross street I mentioned was Broad Street: where the Basement is, and where I stood Aruni up. At least I can find it now. Hmm. I need to email her.
O Gentle Reader, we had a visitor.
To answer one of his questions, here is the source of the Blog's name: It is a reference to a play and a painting. The play is Tennessee Williams' The Eccentricities of a Nightengale. The painting is Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, a print of which I've had since I was a sophomore in school. That's pretty much me, somewhere in between those two.
(And as it happens, I haven't read the Motel Chronicles, though I have read most of Shepard's dramatic work. His earlier stuff, like The Hidden Hand, I like best.)

I've been trying to post this since about eight and It Just Hasn't Worked! I'll try once more, though.
I didn't post yesterday because I was so busy. I applied at four different places...
a) a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Durham (Never, ever will I work there, even if I get the job. They play country all the time)
b) a little coffee shop (quit nice)
c) a grocery store (ditto the never, ever bit)
d) the sehr posh University Club, a private alumni club for Duke University.
After that, I came home and worked on my book, went to the gym for two hours snd read an entire book of The Pickwick Papers.

Consequently, I was very slack today. I did get a nice email from a place a put in a resume (the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies), telling me they were looking it over. Nice to know I'm not right out...

I spent way too much time on the Internet. The high-lights:

The Friendship test: I went to take a friend's test and did very poorly (30 out of 100 points) so I went and made one of my own. Turns out, when I took my own, I only made 80%. Just goes to show my life is an utter fiction. Even to me. You can visit and learn lots about me: yes, it's Ten Things I Hate About Jay.

Pix of Barbarella for the Bookshop Barbarella. This apparently scares her. But it's true! Just think: she's beautiful, vicious, fearsome, thinks about Black Leather, spends time with [other] sex pots, and has been called a loner -- and all just in a week. Oh yeah. It's sooo right it's scary. (I only hope that makes me Dr Duran so I can spawn an 80s supergroup...) You'll have tofind your own pix for this, as I can't post any here.

This place. It's so cool. I want to adopt the King of Kraut. Oh yeah baby -- I love commercial imperialism. I love the whole vibe of the place -- its oddiity. (Or is that its quiditas, claritas and unitas? Geddit? It's a James Joyce/St Augustine joke. No... I don't like Joyce, either, but I had to read him throughout school. Lousy blind expatriate mick.)

The Giant Floating Head of Mao. I first saw this during my Sinophile period, while I was studying the History of Communist Revolution in China. I spent a lot of time nosing about virtual galleries of Chinese Socialist Realism, GFHoMs are quite a common image. I lost all of my original addresses when I finished school, but found some today. This site has a couple of good ones. Bask in their nigh-Zen absurdity and feel the warm glow of Mao's head watching over *your* class struggle.

I also went to Nerve today, to look at my lonely little ad. It's lonely cause no-one ever visits it. Friends of mine posted it for me, so I went to look at other ads to see what was wrong with mine. This one won the assinine award hands down. When asked what five items he couldn't do without, he said "my glasses (understandable -J), my laptop, my PDA, my Jeep Cherokee and my Dave Matthews CDs."
Seriously, why is he gay? What he needs is a trophy wife and a comfy closet. His screen name (and Iknow I shouldn't say, but still) is 'Fratboy.' Like you even needed to be told that.
It just goes to show that Fraternities exist only to shelter guilt-free gay orgies. Why else would they be called Greeks? I've said it before, Gentle Reader. On 6 Sept. as a matter of fact.

I read an email today where someone swooned. In fact, they didn't just swoon, they *swooned*. As they are female, I let it slide. But I was Not Amused.

Today's question: Is the appropriate adjective for Murphy 'murph-alous' (as in marvelous) or murph-tastic?
Let me know.

Dr Who of the Day: Mindwarp, part three. Evil Dr Who. Who knew it would take 23 years for somebody to try this? Billy Hartnell (Chatterton, Chesserson, I mean Chesterton...) always wanted to do The Son of Dr Who, as an evil time traveller, but it's not quite the same. Sounds a bit like Panto. Do other Americans know Panto? It's just what we always suspected, really. The entirety of the Brits queer up for a few weeks at Christmas. Trust it to start in the theater. (Revenge for poor Brit turn out or the truth? Ask your local Subject of the Queen...)
Anyway: Does anybody think the Doctor has really become evil? Of course not! It took a concerted campaign over several years by Virgin books for that! But what else would the World's Most Evil MutiNational Conglomerate do to an innocent eccentric gentleman?

Book o the Day: The PickWick Papers, Book XIII

Today's reason Laura Llew rocks: Hmmmm. The lost art of pouting*.

Word of the day: scorbutic -- appearing to have scurvy. There is a scorbutic lad in The Pickwick Papers, Chap. XXXII.

*I have never actually seen Ll pouting. This is perhaps unfortunate as it is no doubt alluring, but also perhaps fortunate as her fearsomeness suggests I would not like to be the source of said pouting.

Hey Kids.
Still trying to be light and fluffy. On that note, a word about statistics. People from all over the world seem to be visiting. Literally. Although a hefty percentage is coming from the East Coast of the US (followed closely by the West Coast), there are people from several countries. England, though, is quite lacking. Two people. Sod you lot, then. I thought I had several English friends. I jest. I have no English friends. (kidding then, as well)
New Zealand (?!), Australia (both coasts, no less) and what appears to be central or western Asia, perhaps Bangladesh or Thailand, are all there, too. Though why New Zealand gets more consternation that Bangladesh is weird. Old Zealand (And yes it does exist. It's an island off Denmark) needs to represent.
Hey foreign people! Drop me a line.
But oddly, the only place with one hit only was the Midwest. Apparently I don't appeal to Corn-Fed Goodness.
Although, let's face it. I only get spill over from a Petullant site.
I spent all day getting my resume and cover letter ready for an application at the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies. Another job I won't get.
Did I mention I got all my hair chopped off? The price of going to visit my parents for sympathy. I'm still reeling, and there's no fountain in sight.
I also got to see the Garm. Have I mentioned the Garm before? She's my parents miniature daschund. Her 'real' name is Nikki, but I, struck by her disproportionate viciousness, named her after the Norse guardian of the Underworld. Yes, a weenie dog named after a god. And yes, she looks like a rat. And yes, she yaps incessantly at anything that moves. Murphy the Wonder Ocelot (he's still on his tangent) would whupp her ass.
My mother confuses our names. While I was at home she not only said "Jason, get down off the couch" but also "Nikki, do your laundry."
It also turns out the Garm has taken my place on the couch. She plonked herself in front of me and stared (daschunds do that very well) when I sat down. My mother was not moved when I complained. "What do you expect? You're in her seat."
Displaced by a dog. A little yappy dog.
I did get a Cheerwine supply though. I thought of Kirkus. Specifically, how he does not at all resemble some variety of sea monster, which by his name you would think. You know, a kraken with glasses. But this is not the case. Not that or the Karkus, which was a superhero in the Hourly Telepress in the 21st Century. But that was just an episode of Dr Who (The Mind Robber, 1968: sehr trippy). But Kirkus would be cooler with an Anti-molecular Disentengrating Ray Gun. But who wouldn't?
(That's right -- Llew. Although... Hmm. Bookshop Barbarella? Oh how I like this one.)

Book of the Day: The Pickwick Papers, Book XI
Reason Laura Llew rocks: The joke about Ayn Rand. Absolutely classic. This apart from Bookshop Barbarella, which still fascinates me...
Dr Who of the Day: Mindwarp, part two. I Love The TECHNOCOLOR EIGHTIES! Flourescent pink water! Ultraviolet shingle! Yellow amphibious monsters! A thing called a Raak (or perhaps Rawk, which would be soo much cooler) that defies any attempt at description besides The Teeth, man, The Teeth!
And it's got Brian Blessed. That's right -- classically trained, legitimate theatre star Brian Blessed, as seen in several Ken Branaugh movies -- in 80s multicolor eye shadow and in a kaftan, being so incrediblely lovely-ly OTT (over the top) as the Warrior King Yracnos: "Swiiiiiiine! Animalllllls! I shall pull out your heart and eat it lightly sauteed!"

Hmm. I feel down again.
I think I'll watch some porn.
Am I kidding? Am I not? Who knows?

Hey Kids.
Sorry I've been gone so long. Murphy the Wonder Ocelot spilled Iced Tea on my keyboard. He killed it.
Also, the Major heard of my unemployment. I was summonded home.
It turned out well. I got a new keyboard (obviously) and a new printer. I also got groceries and some cash.
Most importantly. I got some happiness. I felt all special after being home, like I can get a job and a roommate.
Well, it was mostly good. I tried to play piano, but it's been so very long, I remembered next to nothing. Although, if I turned off my brain, my hands could play a bit.
My parents offered to let me move back in. But I can't. Oh how I can't. But I can appreciate the offer.
And I snagged some more Chopin music. Old vinyl. And, for some reason, it has some old version of popular music: imagine polka versions of 'Mack the Knife' or 'As Time Goes By.' Lawrence Welk goes wild...
I kept a decent journal while I was away. Perhaps I will post what I wrote.
Most of it was petty: which Real World boy was cuter, the one from Chicago or New Orleans. Real Important stuff, yeah?

I don't know what to make of this:
At the gym tonight, I watched a story of firemen who gave CPR to a kitten who had stopped breathing and whose heart had stopped. A teeny little thing it was, maybe four weeks old. And he did this kiss of life on little puss for 14 minutes. Kitty pulled through in the end and is still alive. Firedude adopted him and named him Smudge.
Now I can't decide if this is sweet and lovely or dumb. I certainly wouldn't give CPR to Murphy the Wonder Ocelot (he still thinks he's a small Meso-American jungle predator and not a small suburban housecat) at all, let alone for a quarter hour. The scarring would make me look like a cat-baiting victim.
Do you know cat baiting, Gentle Reader, as I've babbled about quite a bit since discovering it's real? But I need something to believe in.

Unemployment, Day III
I put in an application and had a little interview at a place called Thunderbird or Firebird or something. I so don't want to work in another resteraunt. Before this, I got all the local want ads/classifieds. Tomorrow, I go to another R. and call a third. I have heard nothing from Duke U Press...
...Sorry, but I just saw an ad for a local fundamental Christian church that blames homosexuals for All The World's Evil. We're not, you know. We do have big meetings once a week, but it is only to discuss cute boys. We have no plans for world domination, massive social plans for depravity or the continued removal of prayer from Schools. Just so as you guys know: blame the Neo Nazis... Oh wait... They don't want to go incrimanting themselves.
I am so sick of spaghetti. I get my last Elmo's paycheck Friday. It will be $30. Fifteen of which has to go for an ad to find a roommate, $5 for gas, $5 for food and a fin for a bottle of rum. How I need a job.

Dr Who of the Day: Mine! With all this spare time, I've been writing a submission for BBC books. I quite like it. I'm thinking of calling it Deus ex Machina. Short version of plot: there's a machine lost in time trying to create the scenario in which it was constructed (a big war), so it manipulates time. So far, I'm setting it in North Carolina (cause he's never been here, natch) with Lost Colony and the Gimghouls.

I so love The Basic Eight! I've read 150 pages since last I mentioned it.

I realize that with all this self-important, self-indulgent moaning, I've forgotten something important.
Today's reason Laura Llew rocks: Part the first -- she doesn't mind I've forgotten she rocks on a daily basis. Part the second -- she doesn't mind I never sent her the present I promised.
Umm, financial issues cropped up.
It was great, too. I'd say what it was, but then it would ruin the surpise when I do finally send her this Gear, Fab and Boss present.

That's it.
I've decided that if I am going to waste away unnoticed, then I shall do it in appropriate style.
I'm making myself Absinthe. When I have money again.
Then I shall drink it.

I've been thinking a lot recently. Not things I'd put here: generally, the paranoiac thoughts that haunt you when you are attempting to sleep (not that I do that much lately, even less than normal) are generally bad news. I'd hate people to worry.
But here's one*: in contemplating the Exodus -- and I do mean it in the epic sense suggested by the Biblical capital -- of friends away from Jay, I have thought on wit. In darker moments, such as I described above, I think whatever company brooks me does so out of a desire for amusement. "Oh," they think, "Jay and his remarks will amuse us, no matter how deplorable his comportment elsewise may be." Deplorable here means "When his wit is turned on people we like." Hardly anybody -- I would have said nobody, but there are one or two blessed souls I can recollect -- discusses literature or poetry or art history or drama or music with me. I mean three of the four I have actual degrees in and the other (music) I've studied even longer, (I took piano for a decade).
The one person -- late my best friend, now silently removed to Boston in the Yankee Beyond -- I talked to about philsophy is gone.
It feels like I am sorely lacking in actual, meaningful interpersonal relationships. I can't connect with the people I'm with.
And then it hit me. Wit**
It's a shield. If I make some witty/smart-assed remark, you learn absolutely nothing about what I really think. If it truly is wit and not petty vengeance, you can't even determine anger or irritation. All's one to the wit -- and I think that's a quote from a Restoration Comedy***.
Nobody likes me because nobody knows me because I never let anyone find anything out.
(By the by, I know why that happens, too. I can deal with people I don't know and/or don't like me. It's when people are nice and/or like me that I get all confused. I know why that is, too, but I will have some discretion.)

To remedy this, some random personal information. Well, it makes me feel better to tell it, even it is the Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness.

*This post should be accompanied by Chopin's 'Rain Drop' Prelude (Opus 28, no. 15, in D flat major). It is very beautiful. I could play it once, when I practiced and I had a piano. I'd probably cry like a baby if I heard it now, especially the middle part, where the melody moves to the left hand and is played with big, loud block chords that you literally have to fall into: Bum bum bem bummm, bum bum bem bummm (little flittery right hand note)... Sigh.

** Not too long ago, I ran one of the follow spots for one of the first regional production of Wit. This is a great play. You should read it. This train of thought should have hit me one of the 60+ times I saw it, as it is about a woman in the same position. 'Cept she's dying. But aren't we all...

*** I love Restoration Comedies. These are English plays written (obviously enough) during the English Restoration [of the Monarchy, c. 1666 to 1740]. After a generation of the playhouses being closed by law, all theatrical tradition was gone. They were, at the time, a wholly new theatrical and social event. They still have little in common with our modern theatre. Their entire basis is on witty exchanges. Within a relatively short time, they passed away, largely because people couldn't tell the difference between Wit and Spite.
They were replaced by Sentimental Comedies. (ugh.)

Hey! You know how you can tell meat is better than Ramen?
There's meat-flavored Ramen but not Ramen-flavored meat!
Chicken with Garden Vegetables is the best... It's almost like A Real Meal, what with sodium based vegetable flavor and sodium based chicken essence.
If poverty don't get me, the incipient heart disease will, the two hours a day at the gym notwithstanding.

I'm reading this faboo book (words straight boys can't use 1867) called The Basic Eight. It is a trip. I laugh out loud on practically every page. How I wish I was like that in High School! (That's my only complaint about the book: these kids so aren't high school kids. I wasn't even that chic, hep and witty as an undergrad. Dinner Parties? Wine? Maybe San Fransico is vastly different than Hickory, NC) Then again, I think was relatively happy in high school.
Apparently, I wasn't. My friend Darren (who has disappeared into a hole called Boston, evidently permapeeved at me) swears up and down I was miserable. Oh, the Joys of Supression! I don't remember a damn thing.
My high school was so very, fundamentally weird. I'll tell stories one day. Of course, when I Become Famous I will say I attended St Brendan's Academy in Norwich, Connecticut. Who's to say I didn't?

Unemployment, Day II

I turned in my resume to Duke University Press early this morning. I also went to the Employment Security Commission to file. I learned that -- should I be approved, and I may not -- I will get $100 a week. Starting in a month. And I am fit only for retail/service. Sod that. So sod that.
Wheee..
Tomorrow: the new Village Advocate and Independent come out, so pavement pounding. I'll take anything at this point.

I miss protein. All I have left to eat till I draw my last Elmo's paycheck (a whacking $30 -- and won't it be fun) is rice, spaghetti and noodles.

So I have this friend I talk to very late at night.
This is great. How much better does it make me feel to talk to somebody then? I could never say...
Now, I'm poor and unemployed and riddled with debt. I *know* why I'm up.
But why are they (yes, ungrammatical, but still) awake? Are they worried like me, or upset, or hurt. Of all the people I know, they deserve any of that the very least.
So, yeah, this isn't an subtle inquiry, Person (at all, obviously). I think I've just got so many worries I'm parcelling them out commutatively.
JayleMurph: the lost Baudelaire orphan.

Somebody send me the boy from this month's Sak's Fifth Avenue spread in Esquire. (Go get the mag and look at him -- new word here -- *megaswoon*). Perfect hair, perfect eyes, perfect lips, gorgeous cheek bones: if he can't make me happy, Nothing Ever Will.