this weather has me wanting love more tangible, something I can hold...
I feel pretty cramped-up inside my head right now, almost panicky but not quite. For the past 4 days I haven't really left the house except to go to work. I'm so tired when I get home from work that I just want to get in my bed, but I feel restless and antsy. I really enjoy my job and all, but I'm getting cranky from not going anywhere or doing anything.

I've been sitting in bed with a glass of shitty white wine reading Larry Brown's Fay. I called the boy after work like I told him I would but he hasn't called me back and it's kind of irritating me. I've been pretty cranky lately, what with the allergies and the bones aching and all.

I should get out and go somewhere but I'm all sore and worn-out. I wouldn't mind just going for a drive but I've had this headlight out for a while and it makes me paranoid.

Bah.

 

we hit concrete @ 5:57 PM

  don't let your guard down and don't live far from town
wow, this is the hangover from hell. I've spent the entire day so far lying in the loveseat watching movies. last night after getting pounded at work for 14 hours I ended up drinking Way Too Much on top of the 12 sudafed I'd taken. So when 3 AM rolled around and the boy dragged me into the tiny afterhours bar where half of Midtown was wasted, I made him take me home and left my car in front of his apartment.

so now I'm sitting around a little irritated and with a pounding headache, waiting for him to come get me and take me to my car. I just realized I left my chef jacket in my car and I need to wash it before work tomorrow at 2. I kind of want to cuddle with him and kind of want to scream at him. he gave me this big speech this morning about having committment phobia and that's why he refuses to call what we are doing dating. blah blah blah. I mean, dude, I'm not planning on falling in love with him, cos there's no way my poor lil heart could ever take another breaking, but as far as I know, when two people like each other and hang out a whole bunch, some of which involves fucking, that's usually called dating. but whatever.

here's a list of people I love, for no reason:

Will Oldham
Captain Jack Sparrow
Morgan Fox
Maggie
Squidge
Pony Boy
Niki
Ally

and cigarettes.

 

we hit concrete @ 6:47 PM

  stupid fucking text messages
-i swear to god you make me crazy with this work/dating bullshit. why do you even keep calling me?

-would you rather i didn't?

-i'd like to know why you bother if you think it's such a bad idea.




BAH.

120 reservations tomorrow, 14 hour shift minimum.

good times. 

we hit concrete @ 10:03 PM

  start start no stuff won't be no stuff
today I start working at Stella.

which means, after three weeks, I will finally find out what Black Pepper Chamagne Mignonette is.

soft opening is Saturday.

speaking of soft openings...

everything is okay with the boy. a little early morning low blood sugar over-reaction.


holla. 

we hit concrete @ 6:52 AM

  but now it's naptime
yesterday I pulled a quarter-inch piece of catcus spine out of my finger.

this morning he says, you're sweet on me, and it's a terrible idea.

so I say, then let's stop hanging out, and walk away without saying goodbye.

then he texts me twice and calls me and says, we should talk about this.

but it's a beautiful day and I don't want to think about what I'm getting myself into.




what the hell am I getting myself into.

stupid boys always gotta make sure you like them before they spring this you shouldn't like me bullshit on you.





veggie bacon sandwiches on the balcony with my roommates and best friend and my cat. 

we hit concrete @ 10:45 AM

  rrr
too. many. cookies.

can't stop thinking about kissing him.

I hate being boycrazy.

dawn of the dead tonight. 

we hit concrete @ 4:02 PM

  oh and
please ignore the typos. see, my dial-up is so slow the window I am typping in won't load and I can't see what I am writing.

and earlier, for the first time, while discussing OCD and the cleaning of stainless steel fridges, I made this statement:

"when I have my own kitchen, I'm going to have white enamel appliances."

and you know what? I believe it.


It's all happening... 

we hit concrete @ 12:08 AM

  twist your head around; it's all around you
dear blog,

it's sure enough been a long-ass day. see, last night I started drining at 2-ish, smoked a little pot, did the hustle on the balcony for the rush-hour traffic, had sushi, then took a few percosets and went to see Trans Am.

So when i got up at 10 to go to New fancy Job Orientation, it was plenty for me just to take a shower and put on my Batman t-shirt. I figure I'm back of the house and don't need to be presentable AND I'm golden with the owners, so who cares if I am gutterpunky anyway?

I walk in and look around at all the waitrons. There's this one that has These Eyes. yeah, I'm thinking, he's the one I'll have the hopeless crush on. I tell myself he's gay or married. So I sit thru an hour or so of ireelevat servotron questions in my typical back of the house fashion, figuring I'm really there just cos Johnny wants to pay me for Something. We fill out some forms, go eat lunch at the Little Tea Shop.

Brown Eyes and I eat some cobbler. He sure is hot.

Then, after amazing new Bosses buy us all lunch, we have the wine tasting. I'm reveling in the fact that i will never have to sell anyone wine or fuck with angles of bottles when pouring, staring at Brown Eyes pretty openily after the first few swigs of posh wine, giggling with new waitress friend (we are sharing hangover stories form last night), trying not get wasted. After it's all over we finish off our glasses on the patio with our cigarettes and Brown Eyes keeps talking to me.

I learn the following things about him:

He's my age.
He's just quit ingesting Substance.
He READS, and is reading a book by the Dalai Lama.
He went to high school with a huge crew of my friends.

I never got around to finding out if he was single or not, but as we walked to our cars we ended up deciding to go see Secret Window. To kill time we went and watched the sun set over the river.

He paid for my ticket and then played Tekken with me.

oh Blog, I have a new crush.

if I wasn't already dying to start the new job, I am now.


lsitening to bjork right now, feeling reallu full of love. everyhting good happens to me in waves, just like everything bad. things are on an upswing right now, and I am going to revel in it as long as my poor serotonin receptors let me.


dear blog, don't let me fall. 

we hit concrete @ 12:01 AM

  big bad something
yesterday I sat at the record store and played uno and read big bad love. something about larry brown plunges me inot the depths of wanting to just drink and write all the damn time, but he is a fine writer.

 

we hit concrete @ 4:00 PM

  reading like a motherfucker
stupid fucking computer. I really hate it. I can't tell if it's somehow changed its own settings or if there is something wrong with it, but it keeps popping up IE windows even when it's not online, as well as now going to http://no/ whenever a page won't load instead of the c:// address that normally shows.

so instead of adding these as amazon links, here's what else I've been reading:

I've been working on the Garcia Marquez autobiography for a while, and it's made me want to read his fiction, so I got Love in the Time of Cholera, and I'm about half done with that.

Yesterday I read Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore, mostly cos I liked the name and it was facing out at the library.
Before that I reread my true love Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I read it back in 2000 when it was new, but I liked it even better this time. the paperback is a bit different but I didn't notice much, except the appendices.

I think tomorrow I am gonna spend all day composing a love letter to him. that and doing laundry.

fun.  

we hit concrete @ 8:29 PM

  gonna clean these veins again...
this is the last week of winter. it's been a pretty hard season, but it seems like it's gone by quickly. every year it gets a little easier to make it through the cold and the rain and the grey skies.

or else i just kill more brain cells drinking every winter and remember less of the misery.

hmm.


i've been in bed with my Tachi all day, reading love in the time of cholera (or face-planting on it). it's strange to read him in english again after so many years. it's not the same. not at all.

nothing ever is. 

we hit concrete @ 9:53 PM

  dream lice
in my dream last night, my roommate and I had been taken prisoner in some sort of Nazi concentration camp, except that it wasn't back in time, it was now. they kept sneering at us with our evil ways. there was a whole lot of resisting in the camp. One kid skateboarded (on some weird modified board with tank treads) down this impressive hill and up off of a huge hill. then they shot him in the stomach.

I had lice in my dream and the last thing I remember is being in the shower trying to scrub the lice out my my raw itchy scalp. 

we hit concrete @ 6:14 AM

  I just can't stay here every yesterday
There's a lot going on in my head lately, and surprisingly enough, I don't really feel like writing about it.

Instead, I'll tell you this:

I sat on my bed, white cat on my arm, under a white duvet, the afternoon light bright on the walls. Through the open window I heard the first ice-cream truck of the year. It was playing the first line of "Fur Elise" (stupid umlaut won't work, rrr), over and over as it circled my block.

11 more days til spring. 

we hit concrete @ 8:04 PM

  she had her nipple on my window
so last night, as I drove Lacey's car through the housing project and into the rundown part of town, I was telling her about a lady who had asked me for a ride, right back there on the corner, she'd been beaten up and i drove her across town to her friend's and gave her some money. there's a light we were about to pull up to where every time I stop, i get yelled at, catcalled, or asked for money by people who walk right up to my car, knocking on the window.

so just as we pull up to the light this lady starts walking up to my car. she looked kinda cracked out, staring into space, walking kinda wrong.I freeze, thinking maybe I'll just run the light. Then I realize she has no shirt on and is sort of half covering herself, clutching her shirt between her breasts. she looks really fucked up. before she's even got the words give me some change out of her mouth Lacey and I are digging in our pockets. I stuff the money in her hand and she withdraws her nipple from the window. we both chew on the insides of our lips, not sure if we should laugh or cry.

god this town is fucked up. 

we hit concrete @ 7:57 AM

  oh hells yeah
I finally made it after laying awake thinking about it for weeks.

so here it is, y'all, seared tuna with pomegranate reduction:

2 tuna steaks
450 ml size POMI pomegranate juice
1 shallot, minced
good olive oil
2 T finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp orange zest, freshly grated
a pinch of allspice
a pinch of dried chili peppers, crumbled
2 cloves garlic, minced or pushed thru a garlic press
2-3 T butter



wash, salt and pepper the tuna and set aside.
heat a heavy skillet over a high flame (i suffered thru using my friends' electric stove, but it sucked), then add a few tablespoons of olive oil and saute the shallot until it becomes translucent. then pour in about half the juice (it should foam up and spit a little) and let it boil. add in the rosemary, allspice, orange zest, and dried chili. as the juice boils off, add more. you want to reduce it down to about 1/3 of its original volume. right after you have added these seasonings, begin heating a large heavy skillet or a wok.

add enough olive oil to coat the pan, plus a little more, maybe 3 T. when it is shimmering hot, slide the tuna steaks in. i like my tuna pretty rare, so how long you cook it is up to you. if you have a nice hot pan over a good high flame, about 2 minutes each side should do. you can kind of cut into the steaks with a spatula to see how far you have cooked them. I like them to have about half a centimetre of white on each side and the rest red. right before the tuna is done, carefully pour the juice mixture into the pan- it will boil up, so be careful. let the tuna steaks cook in the mixture for about 30-45 seconds on each side, then lift them out with a spatula and plate them.
to the liquid in the pan add the garlic and the butter and stir until it has about the consistency of pancake syrup. if you want to throw some green beans, asparagus, or small cauliflower florets into the glaze, do it with the garlic and butter.

divide the pomegranate reduction between two plates, and accompany with buttered crusty bread.


damn skippy. this is the best goddamn recipe i ever made up. let me know what you think, lil pookies.

it goes well with a nice mouthy red, i had it with a french blend of grenache, syrah, cincault and mourvedre, but even a merlot would be good.

or a decent sake, or a really nice crisp hoppy beer, maybe an IPA.

holla. 

we hit concrete @ 6:57 AM

  bah
I just deleted my livejournal.

Of course, this is the second time I've done it.

I don't know how long I'll make it. It just got to where everything I wrote was sort of motivated by whom I thought would be reading it.

That and maybe I just don't need to know what certain people I have painful feelings for are thinking.

Oh blog darling, you are so much easier to handle. even when I go and look at the IP address records, I still don't know exactly who is reading you. I don't feel so attached to you, either, and I try to write only things that are worth reading in your minimalist pages.


In other news, I am housesitting down in the remoter part of East Memphis, taking care of the most amazingest dogs ever, watching digital cable, and trying really goddamn hard not to get stuck in my head about the boy who doesn't like me the way I like him and it's making me miserable cos I am really goddamn sick of not being good enough bullshit.

I got my little leopard-print suitcase, I got my teddy bear, and I got a hurty lil heart.

The sun is out, and if this Vioxx kicks in enough to make my shoulders stop throbbing, I'm taking the dogs to the park. 

we hit concrete @ 8:06 AM

  like Sisyphus
Last night I dreamed that my boss sent me to clean the governor of the Phillipines's house. The gubernatiorial mansion, I guess. She said he has specifically requested me, and that everyone else she has sent there had done a crappy job, and that he would pay fro up to 8 hours, plus room and board overnight and my plane ticket.

The house was humongous and had like a dorm style bathroom every 25 feet so there were like 100 toilets to clean and the a whole lot of mahogany furniture and stainless steel appliances to polish.

In my dream I had just cleaned the bathroom when a swarm of women descended upon it to bursh their teeth and wash their faces and shed all over it, leaving it worse than it was before I cleaned it.

When I had finished (there was a big gap in my dream here I think) I fought with the governor in Spanish over his satisfaction. I told him off for having so many wives and children and relatives and told him I hoped he went to hell and died.

Then I dreamed that Matt callled me at 6 AM and I told him about my dream.

Then I woke up.

I always have stress dreams about cleaning right before I have to go somewhere really anal, like the Eclectic Eye, which we did this morning. Two hours of polishing counters and mirrors and stainless steel sinks and dusting 800 bazillion pairs of glasses, it's like some absurdist play about hell. I swear to God if a herd of rhinos stampeded through the store I would'nt have been surprised.

Esssh.

7 more days and then I'll never clean again. 

we hit concrete @ 8:48 AM

  stupid fucking tv
it's so fucked up that 60 minutes just did an anti-war piece.
well, it guess not totally anti-war per se , but it seemed to be all about dead soldiers and the uselessness of the whole thing. and i heard the phrase "and it is that much more bitter since the weapons of mass destruction were never found" or something like that.

then there was a bit on gay marriage.

i'll just hazard a guess here- somebody doesn't want bush to win.

shit, me neither, it's just ironic that a year ago most of the major networks were portraying all us protestors as a bunch of stuttering hippie nitwits.

fucking media. you go to hell, mass media. you go to hell and you die. 

we hit concrete @ 6:08 PM

  y'all don't wanna hear me, you just wanna dance...
Sitting here, eating a veggie bacon sandwich, with the window open. about to head out for a bike ride, cos it's fucking 71 here.

car driving by blaring 'hey ya!'

hell yeah. 

we hit concrete @ 12:15 PM

  changed my mind so much I can't even trust it
Hey, y'all. Sorry I haven't posted anything in a Whole Week. Things have been kinda crunchy here in the M-town.

Let's see:

Things have worked out well with that Boy, finally. I have a tendency to obsess over people I don't know very well until I am sure they like me. This doesn't necessarily mean LIKE like. In this case it's a sort of strangely satifying "thrilled to be in the same post code as you" thing. Sort of, OH MY GOD YOU MEAN YOU WANT TO BE MY FRIEND??? This mainly seems to happen with members of the opposite sex, especially when they seem to possess all the qualities I like in myself. This one even kind of looks like me. Reads the same books, has the tattoo I wanted, I have the tattoo HE wanted, listens to the same music when being emo and mopey. Smart as a tack, too.

So anyway, after a lot of weird LiveJournal nonsense on my part, he finally called me. We ended up getting totally wasted at the sketchy "irish pub" at the downtown mall and seeing the Jesus movie.

See, I'd had a thing about this one for 10 months. We just never hung out much except for running into each other at shows and coffee shops and parties, which involved a lot of drunk Sue staring wistfully at him and thinking gee, he sure is swell. I wish he wanted to hang out with me... That shit ALWAYS goes sour.

so yeah, it disintegrated into a bunch of morose emo shit, but it's all ok now. We hung out 3 days in a row and I found myself telling him things I don't really even talk to my girlfriends about. Shit, we even had a god talk after the movie got out. Hrrrgh. so. much. blood.

finally, yesterday he made me Talk to him, and once we pinkie swore never to fuck things up by fucking, everything sort of seemed to be all right. Now I have this amazing new friend AND I've conquered that annoying obsession.

oh, and yesterday was two years since my fiancé left me for another girl. I got super-emo over that one and don't wanna talk about it no more.

stupid dial-up. stupid modem, when I get my new job I am buying a goddamn I-Book.

Now I got comments, so y'all holla! Didja miss me? 

we hit concrete @ 8:26 PM