Thursday, December 29, 2005
I went through a series of mood fluctuations today after getting a filling at 7:30am. I realized that I had not had a cigarette since the xmas party at our house on Sunday. I walked to the career center at the library and registered with “careerlilnk” which I have to do for my unemployment, and borrowed In the Shadow of the American Dream: The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz. We are reading Close to the Knives, also by Wojnarowicz,, for the book group that I’m in, but I haven’t got it in the mail yet.
Anyway, I realized that I was in a bad mood because of the lack of nicotine shortly after calling Skid, who is in DC for the MLA conference. He answered the phone sounding tired and hoarse. “Can I call you back, I’m going to get some breakfast.” For some reason, tears welled up in my eyes when he said this. I get really antsy and worried when I don’t get to see Skid for more than 12 hours and the fact that he is gone during the hardest time of year for me makes it worse. “just write this number down, Carter called and said that she’s going to be in DC on Thursday and wants to pick you up and bring you back here and hang out for New Years,” I said, pissed, and not knowing why. “Okay, hold on.” I new I was being irrational, but at the same time, wanted to be mad, so I remained silent. “Okay, I’m ready.” I rattled off the info. “Okay, I’ll call her.”
“okay, I’ll talk to you later,” I said and pulled the phone away from my face. I heard him say, “hey guess what,” which is what Skid sometimes says when he wants to cheer me up, which is usually followed by, “I love you” (this always works); but I folded the phone up and threw it on the couch. I was immediately confounded and pissed at myself for doing that. There was nothing I wanted to here more at the time. I got pissed at myself and worried again, and that made my mood worse. I ate and sat on the couch reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and eventually fell asleep for a couple of hours.
I woke up, ate and went to the coffee shop. I worked on my resume for a while, sent it a couple places. Kalie showed up with Marissa. They had come to talk to Hilary about a mutual friend of ours who is being shitty to all of them in regards to romance. I guess he’s like stringing them all along in the same way, but not telling any of them about the others, etc. So, they talked about what they should do about that for a while. I just listened and tried to offer an outsider perspective. I’m not sure if that was valuable.
Doug, who is Kalie’s partner, played a show at the Pittsburgh Deli Co., which is in Shadyside, a rather bourgie neighborhood of the burgh. Every month they have a variety show called “An Evening of Random Bullshit”. Usually there are lots of punks there, but tonight, it was “relatively punk free” as Kalie pointed out. Doug’s set was nice, he covered “Chesterfield King” by Jawbreaker, and some other songs which made me wonder what my relationship is to punk rock now that I’m older. (more on this another day). It also was inspiring, and made me wonder what kind of songs I would write if I could play guitar.
I had a great conversation with Marissa, who is a art/cultural studies major at Chatham. We talked about how hard it is to find good poetry, how so many art forms are dead, or decaying, or inaccessible. How we wished that more artists would approach capitalism from a viciously critical perspective. We wondered aloud how we are supposed to make this world a better place.
I’m at home now, sipping Trader Joe’s shiraz and wondering where my next paycheck will come from, how it is that I have this expensive machine on my lap, missing Portland so bad, especially because of the warm, wet breeze rolling through town right now. Hoping that nothing blocks my way from going to school as soon as possible.
Anyway, I realized that I was in a bad mood because of the lack of nicotine shortly after calling Skid, who is in DC for the MLA conference. He answered the phone sounding tired and hoarse. “Can I call you back, I’m going to get some breakfast.” For some reason, tears welled up in my eyes when he said this. I get really antsy and worried when I don’t get to see Skid for more than 12 hours and the fact that he is gone during the hardest time of year for me makes it worse. “just write this number down, Carter called and said that she’s going to be in DC on Thursday and wants to pick you up and bring you back here and hang out for New Years,” I said, pissed, and not knowing why. “Okay, hold on.” I new I was being irrational, but at the same time, wanted to be mad, so I remained silent. “Okay, I’m ready.” I rattled off the info. “Okay, I’ll call her.”
“okay, I’ll talk to you later,” I said and pulled the phone away from my face. I heard him say, “hey guess what,” which is what Skid sometimes says when he wants to cheer me up, which is usually followed by, “I love you” (this always works); but I folded the phone up and threw it on the couch. I was immediately confounded and pissed at myself for doing that. There was nothing I wanted to here more at the time. I got pissed at myself and worried again, and that made my mood worse. I ate and sat on the couch reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and eventually fell asleep for a couple of hours.
I woke up, ate and went to the coffee shop. I worked on my resume for a while, sent it a couple places. Kalie showed up with Marissa. They had come to talk to Hilary about a mutual friend of ours who is being shitty to all of them in regards to romance. I guess he’s like stringing them all along in the same way, but not telling any of them about the others, etc. So, they talked about what they should do about that for a while. I just listened and tried to offer an outsider perspective. I’m not sure if that was valuable.
Doug, who is Kalie’s partner, played a show at the Pittsburgh Deli Co., which is in Shadyside, a rather bourgie neighborhood of the burgh. Every month they have a variety show called “An Evening of Random Bullshit”. Usually there are lots of punks there, but tonight, it was “relatively punk free” as Kalie pointed out. Doug’s set was nice, he covered “Chesterfield King” by Jawbreaker, and some other songs which made me wonder what my relationship is to punk rock now that I’m older. (more on this another day). It also was inspiring, and made me wonder what kind of songs I would write if I could play guitar.
I had a great conversation with Marissa, who is a art/cultural studies major at Chatham. We talked about how hard it is to find good poetry, how so many art forms are dead, or decaying, or inaccessible. How we wished that more artists would approach capitalism from a viciously critical perspective. We wondered aloud how we are supposed to make this world a better place.
I’m at home now, sipping Trader Joe’s shiraz and wondering where my next paycheck will come from, how it is that I have this expensive machine on my lap, missing Portland so bad, especially because of the warm, wet breeze rolling through town right now. Hoping that nothing blocks my way from going to school as soon as possible.
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