born into this mess
Thursday, April 29, 2004
  fire the cannons, i think i'm drowning
some days i want to get me a raft and just take off down the mississippi, a la huck finn.

instead i just flash my tits at the guys i work with and throw up red gatorade.

if i could just hate you, it would be so much easier.

i can't get you out of my head, like the way i can't help taking big legflailing steps when i walk down a hill too fast.

i'm still wanting my face on your cheek

 
|
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
  girl, (da da da dum), you'll be a woman soon
So, I don't really even remember my first Sex Talk. I had a book my parents gave me about bodies and how they worked and how they fit together, and sometime in the middle of fifth grade the teacher took all the boys into the other room and showed us a very frightening video about the uterus. But they'd always said to expect puberty to start around 13 or 14.

Right.

I started kindergarten when I was four, something to do with cut-off dates and being bored in nursery school, and so was always a year younger than everyone else in my grade.

So there I am, eleven years old, the night before the first day of seventh grade. I've got my outfit all laid on on the chair by my bed (orange and yellow Hypercolor t-shirt, yellow fingernail polish, white Umbros, black hi-top All Stars Oh Hell Yeah) and I'm downstairs watching my allowed daily hour of TV (Star Trek: TNG). I have to pee, but I feel a little bit slimy, almost like I've wet my pants, and when I sit down on the toilet, there's All This Blood.

It's scary as hell, isn't it. Those first few times. It took me years to get over the initial shock of it. So much blood.

So I wad up some toilet paper in my ruined underwear and go dig through my mom's cabinet in her bathroom for pads. Of course, she catches me and I'm mortified by her Our Little Girl is a Woman Now speech to my dad, who, as far as I am concerned, would be perfectly happy with having a little tomboy forever.

So anyway, the first day of school, which ought to be incredibly exciting, what with the new kids in homeroom and the seating charts and the lockers and the cute boy in Social Studies, is absofucking horrible. I can't figure out how to change my pad in the bathroom without everyone knowing, seeing as I'm not one of those girls who carries a purse, I'm wearing white shorts for fuck's sake, there's this hideous bunchy mass in between my legs and I'm supposed to be playing basketball, and I end up just barely making it through the day without just taking on off out the door.

and that's pretty much how the rest of the year would end up being:

just barely making it through the day without taking on off out the door.
 
|
  prologue to long rambling memoir-type thing
One of the qualities that defines my adult life (as opposed to grown-up life, which, as far as I can see, I will never EVER experience) is the ability to look back and say, there. Then. This is why, and this is how.

This is not to say that I am right, that I haven't invented these memories and then reinforced their connection to one another in my brain by ceaselessly recounting them to myself, lying on my side alone at night, stroking these thens and theres, taking them out and arranging them on the pillow next to my head, lining them up by order of magnitude, adding little bits of glitter and fluff to make them fit together better.

But this is how I remember it starting.


I grew up in Lower Northern California, in a string of towns just south of San Francisco: Redwood City, Palo Alto, Menlo Park.
I was a normal weird little kid; you know, read books up in trees, shunning Barbie to play with dirt, a wolf under the bed and a witch in the closet. I did well in school, and someday, I told everyone, I was going to be a writer.

Then, just before fifth grade, we moved to suburban Atlanta.

Very Bad Culture Shock.

Cookie-cutter subdivision. Cliques in school involving the brand name of jeans you wore. Bangs up to here. Boyfriends.

Honestly, I don't remember very much of the first two years in Peachtree Corners. I figure I spent them gamely trying to keep up with everyone else. It took me a while to understand why exactly it wasn't cool to spend recess behind a tree curled up reading Tolkien, but I imagine I figured it out eventually.

So anyway, there's these two years of blur, and then, coinciding with the first day of seventh grade, it all started Changing.
 
|
Monday, April 26, 2004
  broccoli, portabella alfredo, rigatoni, and smoked salmon (alaskan wild FYI)
well helLO there interweb. it sure has been a while, hasn't it.

see, I go into work at around 2, the kitchen closes at 10 and they deliver me a Budweiser while I clean up and wrap shit in plastic waiting on the last tables to order desserts, then I got sit at our bar til the bartender kickjs us out around 1 ish. today it was early enought for me to go to the store and buy food for the first time in weeks.

tomorrow I intend to make mint rosewater simple syrup if'n it kills me.

I want to go to the strip clubs just cos I have never been.

I may well have to go back to being slutty to get over this last guy, interweb.

yep.
 
|
Sunday, April 25, 2004
  why I do it
Denise spent the next summer in the Hamptons with four of her dissolute college hallmates and lied to her parents about every aspect of her situation. She slept on a living room floor and made good money as a dishwasher and prep drone at the Inn at Quogue, working elbow to elbow with a pretty girl from Scarsdale named Suzie Sterling and falling in love with the life of a cook. She loved the crazy hours, the intensity of the work, the beauty of the product. She loved the deep stillness that underlay the din. A good crew was like an elective family in which everyone in the little hot world of the kitchen stood on equal footing, and every cook had weirdnesses concealed in her past or in his character, and even in the midst of the most sweaty togetherness each family member enjoyed privacy and autonomy: she loved this.

From Jonathan Franzen's the Corrections, copyright 2001 Farrar Strauss and Giroux, New York
 
|
Monday, April 19, 2004
  do it now
at work, we are all obsessed with Arnold.



yep.

I made myself a patch for my chef jacket of this picture with do it now written on it.

I rule.
 
|
  searing
me and the Tach are chowing down on some seared tuna. he's working away on a chunk about the size of his head. sort of purring and growling at the same time.

mmm. food. free fish.

WAY better than nothing but half and half and pasteurized egg yolk for dinner in the middle of getting reamed on saturday.
 
|
Sunday, April 18, 2004
  tornado
I haven't written anything in about a week; I feel like all I write is the same goddamn thing over and over:

slammed at work
drink too much
so lonely you could fill up an olympic-sized swimming pool with it
wish I had someone to spoon with
overdrawn bank account
one headlight
constant rejection from boys I like whom I shouldn't
love/hate job

Still, this has been one of the best days off I've had in a long time, especially since I wasn't hungover for all of it, despite staying out drinking til 4. I woke up and went over to Pony Boy's and we went and fetched Squidge and Lil Blueberry and went to Ellen's Soul Food Kitchen. Their fried chicken is so goddamn good, as are their purple-hulled peas. They bring you these amazing cornmeal pancakes and their sweet tea is so sweet it gets you high.
Later on we went and lay by the river and digested.
It's a good feeling to have all my friends in one place at the same time. It makes it easier to face another week of hellacious over-booked full-house not-enough-time-to-get-my-fucking-prep-done bullshit.

I just get so fucking sick of people giving me the let's be friends spiel and then blowing me off. I fucking hate it.

here's some Damien Jurado lyrics; exactly how I feel about this shit:
He'll come around when he's bored
And she'll pay him no mind
"We must stop meeting like this,"
He said with a grin while walking in
And she just slammed the door in his face

I'll see you around sometime

She hangs her coat on the door
He hangs his head on her hopes
She sleeps alone with her thoughts
She dreams of good times

He'll come around when he's old
She'll pay him no mind
"We must stop meeting like this,
Coming to bed with no words said
Makes it tougher on both of us."

And I'll see you around sometime

It used to be much better than this...
 
|
Sunday, April 11, 2004
  we must stop meeting like this
after a lot of stupid livejournal bullshit the general goodnatured horniness of the night has fizzled out and left me all hurt..,

BUT, I have leftover potroast and dont have to work in the AM and tachi is yowlering for some meat.


me too, baby.

PS i think when my roommate cleaned my room she hid my vibrator.

 
|
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
  see, here's the thing:
up until just under two weeks ago, I hadn't eaten meat since thanksgiving of 98. pork for maybe 8 or 9 years. fish in forever, since my mom's a strict pot roast and pot pie kinda lady.

now, I eat bacon about every 4 hours. I crave it. today I had a long wistful conversation about Jackson Open Air Barbeque's Brunswick stew, from down in Jasper County GA, and I am fuckin craving it now.

fuck some tuna tartare; I want me some barbeque.

the thing is, I became a vegetarian back when I was all Buddhist. lately, though, I just feel like the world's so fucked up that i should be worrying more about kids my age voting than some poor chicken. I thought I'd get sick, physically and emotionally, but instead I crave it.

I think tomorrow i may lunch at corky's.

damn it's been awhile.
I think all this
bacon and chicken eating has me indavertently on the atkins diet; i've lost five pounds or so since i started cooking fulltime and stopped cleaning.

i go in at 2 so i'm fixin to get in bed with some larry brown and see y'all later.

just a few more months til cicada season and the evenings turn blue.
 
|
Monday, April 05, 2004
  AND I smacked my funny bone on the handle of the walk-in door
full moon.
dead at work and got sent home after only 9 hours.
uterus is getting full and starting to fuck with my head again.
go on and shed them unused cells for me, baby. bring it the fuck on.



I forgot to tell you all something:

the other day, maybe about 4 days ago, I was driving down Vance to Downtown, kinda through the housing project
where we had the nipple-window incident.

as I crossed the tracks I passed a very tall elderly gentleman, of approximately 75 years of age and almost 7 feet in height, in an immaculately kept suit and hat, walking stooped over and very slowly.

he had an almost beatifically calm expression on his face, and he was carrying a bouquet of intensely bright red flowers.



tell me something good.
tell me that you love me.

 
|
Thursday, April 01, 2004
  sign here if you are the translator...
I am the official liason between the rest of the kitchen staff and our incredibly hard-working identical twin Mexiacan dishwashers.

the funny thing is, since they are hourly AND get tipped out 1% of all the waitstaff's tips, they are making more than me.

HA.
 
|
of you folks up in this mess

I'll lean on you sometimes.
Just to see if you're still there
These feet can't take the weight of one,
much less two, so we hit concrete.

How were we born into this mess?

Jawbreaker, "Kiss the Bottle"

ARCHIVES
07/01/2003 - 08/01/2003 / 08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003 / 09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003 / 10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003 / 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004 / 01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004 / 02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004 / 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004 / 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 / 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 / 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 / 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 / 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 / 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 / 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 / 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 / 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 / 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 / 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 / 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 / 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 / 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 / 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 / 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 / 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 / 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 / 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 / 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 /


why I am ashamed of my government

baghdad burning
changing face of iraq
free iraq!
iraq body count
iraq in pictures
today in iraq
Cost of the War in Iraq
(JavaScript Error)
To see more details, click here.


cherry blossom special
clearance bin: bent robots
margaret cho fucking rawks
exploding dog
neil gaiman
indy media: you see it, you write it, we read it
in your face
memphis scene
michael moore
the morning news
pulp faction
que sera sera
rachel and the city: memphis gossip
saturna: moms can be DJs too
teaching baby paranoia
this imploding heart
where we're bound
white ninja comics
wil wheaton
will you marry me, dave eggers?


ryan adams
cory branan
harlan t bobo
dixie dirt
eminem
the faint
the glass
godspeed you black emperor
jawbreaker
damien jurado
lucero
will oldham
bruce springsteen
this bike is a pipe bomb
sigur ros
songs: ohia
tom waits
the yeah yeah yeahs


monkeys susan minot
of love and other demons gabriel garcia marquez
how we are hungry dave eggers
a true story based on lies jennifer clement
frida barbara mujica
confessions of an ugly stepsister gregory maguire
the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay michael chabon
taft ann patchett
drop city t c boyle
song of solomon toni morrison
strong motion jonathan franzen
a house for mr biswas v s naipaul
the last samurai helen dewitt
retrato en sepia isabel allende
the sun also rises ernest hemingway. ernest goddamn hemingway
de todo lo visible y lo invisible lucia etxebarria
bastard out of carolina dorothy allison
light can be both wave and particle ellen gilchrist
the last report on the miracles at little no horse louise erdrich
the onion girl charles delint
oblivion david foster wallace
underworld don delillo
for hearing people only:answers to the most commonly asked questions about the deaf community matthew moore
dress your family in corduroy and denim david sedaris
the feast of love charles baxter
an unquiet mind kay jamison
the adventures of huckleberry finn
the adventures of tom sawyer mark twain
middlesex jeffrey eugenides
interpreter of maladies jhumpa lahiri
american psycho bret easton ellis
how to be good nick hornby
as i lay dying william faulkner
the book of joe jonathan tropper
portrait of a romantic steven millhauser
tiny giants nate powell
how to be alone jonathan franzen
diablo guardiƔn xavier velasco
white teeth zadie smith
candy mian mian
vivir para contarla gabriel garcia marquez
raise high the roof beam, carpenters & seymour: an introduction j d salinger
girl in landscape jonathan lethem
in the penny arcade steven millhauser
amnesia moon jonathan lethem
motherless brooklyn jonathan lethem
a plague of dreamers steve stern
franny and zooey j.d. salinger
lies and the lying liars who tell them al franken
sick puppy carl hiaasen
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes, trans. Edith Grossman
Travesti: sex, gender and culture among Brazilian transgendered prostitutes
Don Kulick

Talk: a novel in dialogue Corey Mesler
Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs William T. Vollmann
The Once and Future King T.H. White


black lodge video
burke's books
decleyre housing coooperative
hi tone cafe
live from memphis
digital media co-op
memphis flyer
metal museum
midtown food co-op
miz ellen's soul food
p & h cafe
stella


Powered by Blogger