February 10, 2001

The days are becoming a blur. My nights are being spent awake in pain, unable to sleep. The screaming meat I call my leg prevents me.

As the sun rises, I’ll eventually find some rest, only to be woken by the alarm within an hour or two. It is then that I test my leg, and see if it’ll support me to stand, get up, and go to work.

More often than not, it does. The rest of the day is spent in a sleep-deprived daze that puts an edge on things, and makes the world seem much more slow, and harsh than it really is.

On other days, I lie in bed, unable to stand, and I bite my pillow to avoid calling out in pain, hoping that my employers will believe me again.

...

I will be going to work tomorrow, and Sunday as well. Regardless of pain. I’ll put in my hours, I’ll do my work, and I’ll leave and do it all again ten hours later. If I choose to quit my job, that’s one thing... I will not allow my performance at work to become substandard, however.

...

It seems there’s been nothing happening that is not work and is not pain.

I don’t know what’s happening with the show on Valentine’s Day. I don’t know if it’s happening. I haven’t been able to follow up on anything.

I don’t know whom I owe money to, I don’t know who I’ve paid off. I’m uncertain as to what day of the week it is, what my commitments are, and if I have any desire to attend to them at all. It worries me that I do not feel guilty about this.

The world is cardboard right now, thin cutouts and tinny recordings. This will pass, given time. All things pass, given enough time.

Existing in the moment, however, it is hard to escape to the future.

At sixty miles an hour, turning with the skid is not a viable option.

I was finally out of Reno. I've been here for about a week and a half, succumbing to torpor, death by desert. I know this town too well... I was brought up and raised here. I see the ghosts of my past on every street corner. They play Pai Gow and craps. They are old, fragile, and immortal.

But I was finally on the move again, out of this town, heading down to sunny Santa Barbara for a friend's 21st birthday celebration. It was going to be a weekend-long party, one that would kick off my week-long voyage home.

Snow on Donner Pass is no big deal. One would have to be naive to assume that no incliment weather would occur between Reno and Sacramento during winter. These are the Sierra Nevadas. More than a hundred years ago a family and their companions cannibalized each other to survive, to make it over into the golden hills of California.

I stopped in Verdi at around one thirty to pick up a new set of tire chains in preparation for negotiating I-80 through the mountains. About two miles before the chain installation point, however, I hit a patch of ice under the snow.

I've always been taught to turn in the direction of the skid: sure you spin, but you spin around to face where you were headed originally, and it's less likely that you'll flip your vehicle. I slowly laid on the brakes and began to ease my car into the spin, but a spin arc is considerably larger at fifty miles an hour than it is at fifteen: my vehicle, the Stannous Bebop, spun its front end into a ditch, bounced, and landed on the right lane of the highway, facing west. My dashboard computer screamed, "STOP!!" in big, friendly red letters while a veritable christmas tree lit up in front of me. I pulled over to the shoulder of the highway and rushed out to assess the damage.

Myself: nothing but a sprained pride and a bruised ego. I'll live.

Driver's side: nothing. Okay, all right.

Rear: Oh, looks like I got some dirt on the back panel. But no major bruises. Moving on.

Passenger side: fine up until the front where the quarter panel is pushed back slightly, rendering the passenger side door unopenable. I can deal with that. So what about the...

Front: JUMPING JESUS ON A POGO STICK! The entire front bumper, which is mainly trim anyway, is gone, and Stan is vomitting motor oil all over the snow. The ebony on ivory momentarily entrances me, but then I realize what this means: I, to use the classical term, am fucked.

Sissy Hankshaw herself would be proud of my thumbs and their ability to flag down a vehicle in even what has become quite the nasty snow storm. A moving van pulls over, and the driver offers his cell phone. Two Elvis Costello songs later (I was almost through listening to Imperial Bedroom when the car spun, and that was the first album of the trip), the CHP shows up, and Officer Kurrle (prounced "Curly", I swear to God) takes down the pertinent info and calls a tow truck. Maybe ten minutes pass, and I'm in the cab of the truck, listening to the radio pass along such optimistic conversations as this one:

TOW DRIVER 1: This is nasty out here. I can't see shit.
TOW DRIVER 2: No kidding. I can't even find the car I'm supposed to tow.
TOW DRIVER 1: I can't even see the cars in front of me.
TOW DRIVER 3: (breaking in) You think you guys have it bad? I can't even see my fucking windshield wipers...

I sigh whistfully, realizing that it's very possible I'll be stuck in Truckee this evening.

The tow driver is a very friendly fellow, who I think is just resigned to his station in life: picking up the pieces of arrogant arsefaces who think they can beat the mountains. I call the insurance company from the tow yard just as my agent is going home for the day.

"Where in California?" he asks, tired of the demanding trials of the insurance business.

"Truckee," I say, tired of snow and snow and snow.

"How do you spell that?"

"TRUCK-E-E."

"And what happened?"

"I hit a patch of ice and started to skid..."

"Wait, ice? I thought California had nice weather."

I want to scream into the phone Yeah, well, it's a pretty fucking huge state the west coast has weather too you know you arrogant prick but I give a casual laugh instead and tell him, "Southern California, sure. Northern California, not so much."

So he says he'll notify an appraisal agent and I just need to wait for a call. I get the feeling I'll be waiting for weeks by the way things have been going recently.

The tow driver, Dennis, gives me a lift down the street to a diner that was actually moved from West Chester, Pennsylvania. Strange, that. I sit and sulk for a while, then call my mom in Reno. She's at an appointment, or has to check with weather service, or just isn't sure. But she'll come up.

I've read about forty pages in my book by about five o'clock. I've been drowning in snow for three hours. Let me get this straight: snow has its purposes. I *heart* skiing, I *heart* good-natured snowball fights. I fucking *hate* being stuck in it. So when my mom shows up, I'm one happy kid. This is the one time I'm thankful I know someone who owns one of those gas-guzzling, earth-murdering SUV's: when they're put to an actual purpose (aside from negotiating nothing more treacherous than a road hump), they're really not all that bad.

So I'm back in Reno. My car's in Truckee. The party's in Santa Barbara.

I'm not pissed i'm not pissed i'm not pissed i'm not (oh, fuck it... I'm going to go get pissed now...)

I sit, alone, using my CD Player as a tool to explore my emotions. As strange as it sounds, I find that I use myself as a form of entertainment..

I look in myself and find emotions. Find feelings, with no particular importance or meaning attached to them, and I ride them out. At the time, I am involved with these emotions, there is a deep, almost obvious, meaning or experience attached with each one, but it is fleeting. Afterwords I can barely recall what it is that I felt, I only remember a vague trace of feeling.

When I am awake, I require a catalyst to start one of these trains of thought. As I listen to New Forms, I try to determine the order behind the multitude of drums that sound again and again faster than I can think. I am amazed at the power of the bass: How visceral it seems, the way I can feel it not just in my ears but in my body.

I recognize the repetition in the song. The same basic pattern, with small changes coming here and there, disappearing almost as quickly as they came. No way to track what has come and gone.. all I can remember is what is now.

Today is not a particularly involved day, I do not find myself inventing a story or a string of events, concrete or abstract, to react emotionally to. I feel like an observer. I don't know my place. So, I browse, quickly, through everything: My room. The TV. E2.. The web.

So quickly that everything loses context. Taking sections of a whole and examining these sections on their own. Suddenly, almost everything ceases to have meaning: Life beomes a Salvador Dali painting, surreal.

This week was a blur. My relationship with my boss has been the same, except that he is trying very hard, and I'm not really responding. My co-worker continues to annoy the crap out of me because he is interfering with my project. Oh well. I have decided to do what I do well and not go trying to save the world so to speak.

Meanwhile my studio is back to being a mess, but I am going to improve that this weekend. Also on my to-do list is to see a couple of brainless movies. That Saving Silverman (I think that's what it's called) looks good for some zero-thinking-laughing action.

I guess my life is like a CD-player on repeat right now. A few great songs, a few so-so ones, and it keeps going and going, few surprises. I can handle that, at least for now.

My relationship with my feelings until recently was somewhat out of synch--like trying to have a coherent conversation through the time delay of a shitty long distance connection.

I should have known that I was still in love with my ex-lover when it was so important to me to avoid walking past her with my new lover.

I should have known that, while she might have been “in” love with me, the new girlfriend didn’t love me, when her first question to the doctor was how soon after surgery we could have sex.

Node to self:

Movies to watch:

• Crumb
• The City of Lost Children

don't forget to:

• clean the house
• do laundry
• take out the trash

Yesterday sucked, if for no other reason than I got called at home, on my day off, being told that I had to fire 10 people. Immediately. Fortunately, we had just terminated several due to failure to show up, but that still left us having to fire 5 perfectly good employees. Actually, not all that good. Mostly what we cut at this time of year is people who suck, but many of them have become my friends over the last couple of months, and that doesn't make it any easier to terminate them.

That done, I really accomplished nothing else - but I did have a bizarre dream. I had to fire people. Again. People I liked. I guess that was my subconscious telling me that it bothers me more than my conscious is willing to admit. Whatever. Freud I'm not.

That didn't stop me from walking in and firing someone today (they didn't get the message last night, and showed up for work anyway). On the one hand, I find it easier than most. I'm just doing what's good for my company. On the other hand, it's difficult to let people go when you know how much they need a job. But I do what I have to do.

The good news is that yesterday, I decided to buy a new car. My first car. A Toyota Prius. A "green" car - Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle. It's a hybrid - gas / electric - and gets pretty damn good mileage. Only bad thing - it takes 3 and a half months for delivery. *sighs* Oh well - good things are worth waiting for.

3:43pm

I just got back from playing paintball for about 4 hours. I'm pretty exhausted and have a few sore spots to tend to. There were a few times I was really taking people out, then other times when I just couldn't last even a minute before getting taken out. One field was interesting in that it had lots of sand hills. I was tumbling over them back and forth and managed to not get hit in that round. I've got about 3 or 4 obvious bruises, but not like some of the other people there who were hit at close range (one was bleeding from being shot so close). I had a great time and I plan to do it again. I think I'm going to go take a nap now :)

I might go study tonight at the library, depends on when I wake up. At least it's something semi-social to do that doesn't cost anything. Even if I don't study, there's usually some stuff to read there :)

My life is really dreadfully boring.

Today I slept through my alarm and got yelled out for not taking the dog out early enough. Afterwards I went out to run some errands and try to learn how to drive a manual transmission.

Went home, watched Predator. Nice SFX for a 13 year old movie.

Sat around. Noded.

Watched Survivor 2. Talk about babewatch all over again. Yuck.

Noded my daylog. About to go to bed.

Does it get any more dull? Not a single car chase, murder, system crash, I mean I didn't even get a phone call. And Soujirou, whom I usually hang out with, is at an art convention-thingy all week.

This is only the beginning, methinks.

I am not happy.

But, I can't put my finger on it.

I should be fine, I can't find a reason for my sadness.

I was sick all week, but I still dragged my boy to see 'Hannibal' (good movie). I should be happy, because this morning I was actually feeling decent, and not choking on phlem for once. I think that green stuff from my lungs has finally made me quit smoking for good.

Though I'd love a cancer stick right now...

Making love while on your period, on top of a white blanket seemed like a good idea this morning. Though I think the stains look pretty, I wished for once I drew in color, it would be a challange to draw the blood stains in charcoal.

I am not happy.

In fact I think I am going insane, though I suppose if I was I wouldn't think of it. I told my boyfriend to leave the room cause I wanted to be alone. But when he left, I got lonely and called him back. This node isn't making much sence but at least I feel like I am organizing my brain into little compartments based on dates of the week. I don't write enough anymore, nor do I draw. I am however constantly thinking up more and more creative things I want to do to human flesh, though I don't think it would be legal -- Yeah, seeing "Hannibal" last night wasn't a good idea. I guess if one doesn't have a creative outlet, they will turn on them selves. Or those they love, and use them as a canvas for their bottled emotions. But, spinning webs of drama has always been my specialty.

I called John last night, yes, 'the boy that will always have my heart tomorrow' and told him I was in love with someone. He apperantly, broke it off with Laura to try to get back with me. Ahh, such perverse pleasure from hurting. Though I never made him any false promises.

Aaron e mailed me again this morning. Aaron hates the person I love, and somehow, I am suppose to care. Does he really thing that we are that good of friends that his opinion matters? All my good friends hated everyone I ever dated until Jason, doesn he think his one vote will make me change my mind?

This node is becoming a rant, but I feel like if I go back to proof read, it will not be a pure stream of conscience anymore, so I am just going to leave it here to get downvoted to hell for lack of content.

I got a Playstation 2 today, and yes, I think it was worth the wait. The graphics are truly stunning, and the DVD player apart from wanting a password everytime you want to watch a movie, is excelent. If you want a good gaming system and you want a DVD Player, get one of these gems.

I went to a memorial service at a church today. It was for all the people who had died a year ago (or so) and been taken care of by this particular funeral home. My grandmother, Mema, had died February 2, 2000. It was a terrible time for me. She was 87. The service was really good; it was short, and there was a candle lighting ceremony that involved everyone holding a lit candle for awhile. It was helpful, cause I've been thinking about her a lot this month.

She was the only person in my childhood to love me unconditionally. She never told me not to eat something cause I was too fat; she never yelled at me. She never hit me. She only told me how pretty I looked, how smart I was. She welcomed me into her home every summer for four weeks at a time - along with my two brothers and one sister - and nurtured every one of us. When I was at her house, I played all day long. I was allowed to be a child. It was the only time in my childhood that I felt loved, appreciated, and cared about - unconditionally. I miss her a lot. I hope she is at peace somewhere, someway.