woke up at 3 am to a dream of being in NYC with jake and he and I were in the process in the process of evacuating the city. nothing had happened yet but apparently something was, something with water I think but don't remember. details like that, the big ones, never retain once I wake up.

it was a strange dream, he and I were running around gathering things and saying goodbyes- I feel that whatever was upcoming was final, because I was saying goodbye, not see you after this blows over. yet it didn't bug me too much. there was a bit of an air of preparing for a hurricane to it. there was the possibility of danger but it was far away and not going to affect us.

my apartment with jake looked like my old apartment with jackie, and for some reason I had to go to a meeting at the auditorium of my old elementary school. I got woken up at some point by my cell phone and in aggrivation I turned it off and fell asleep. generally such a thing would cause me to start a new dream, but I fell back into this one seamlessly. I woke up and felt very unsettled despite nothing entirely bad happening.

31 August 2004 at 3:26 pm | No Comments »
dreams

Oh, I've got an interview today. Woot me.

31 August 2004 at 6:12 am | No Comments »
hear ye!

So I did some rummaging yesterday and managed to dig up an old layout from the beginning of 2002. The important thing about this layout is that it was the first layout I'd done upon vacating my parents' house, so it's got all the entries of that time. A chronicle of my first months on my own, ooh. Plus it fills in a void of the writing before the first entry in this journal.

Since these entries have no titles, and since there's already an "introductions" entry on 6/17/2002, I've left these new entries with just the dates to act as titles. Hopefully that should make it seem clear that they're seperate. Just check out the archives and scroll to the bottom for the old new additions.

31 August 2004 at 5:24 am | No Comments »
hear ye!

I'm pretty frightened of New York during the RNC. I'm pretty frightened by the number of people who've descended upon this city to support a man who cannot correctly pronounce nuclear.

Midtown Manhattan's in a state of lockdown. That's the scariest part.

I contemplated doing the protest along with everyone else but I've decided against it, partially because with the climate of division in New York and the US right now I'm just holding my head, because Madison Square Garden feels to me like a room filling up with exhaust or gas from a pipeline. It's fine while the room's just filling, nobody notices the smell or the fumes, nobody realises the bomb they're sitting in, but all the while the room is gathering fuel and it won't be fine when someone decides to smoke.

So I skipped the protest cos I've got a bad feeling that this is going to blow up pretty badly, and while riots are one thing, riots that I'm stuck in is quite another.

NOCCA seems to be coming up a lot in my referrals from people searching for it. I don't know if I like that, since I think I've only written one entry about NOCCA. A quick trip on the intersite search engine proves me wrong– I've written twice.

I hated that school. I reversed the search back and came up with all these sites from people I didn't recognize, but whom might've been younger siblings of people I went to school with back when I went to school. It was cute to see them scribble about New Orleans alternative bands and so forth.

I dunno. I have no point for this entry. I need money, bitches.

29 August 2004 at 11:02 pm | 1 Comment »
proselytizing

I remember speeding down the highway one night, with a friend and his friend in his car after a night of going out to a club, my first real club experience, at dawn, on the break of a new saturday.

He was drunk. So was I, honestly, and I know the rules against driving while intoxicated, but after going around the world in 80 days with my (recovering, perhaps?) alcoholic mother, my standard is as long as I feel confident they can drive then it's cool. He was borderline. I had three drinks and my metabolism burns them off practically after I've stopped sipping.

So we're in the car, a bazillion miles from home, in god-knows-what part of the city, and he's swerving. So I say, okay, hold on, pull over. I evaluate the situation. He's drunk, shouldn't drive, whereas I can't drive. Let me qualify that. I can drive, just not extremely well or legally. My ability to drive is exponentially dependent upon whether or not there're other cars around me; it drastically declines the more you ad. His friend wasn't even at that level, had no driving experience.

So I say, okay, I'd like to get home before the sun completely rises, undo your seat belt.

The most I've ever driven is from the grocery store to my house. I was terrified. Cars terrify me. It wasn't great. So I'm driving for twenty minutes, getting more in the hang of it, when a cop flashes us.

I'm in a panic but my mind switches into Rico-suave mode. I tell my friend to grab his stomach and look sick. I tell his friend to look worried, a part he was excellent for because I do believe he was already going to piss himself after the first cop-siren.

I pull off to the side of the freeway. Cop comes over. Window rolls down.

"Hello officer, do you know where the nearest hospital is because my friend well we all just went out for dinner because it's his birthday and he wanted sushi but he's allergic to crab and the sushi was made on the same plate with the crab and we didn't know and now he's really sick and needs to get to the hospital as soon as possible but we're not from here so I don't know where anything is and we really are lost." I teared up and my voice went up an octave at least twice, and my friend recalls a tear or three. I want an oscar.

The cop looks me over once and then grunts. "Turn off at the next exit and get on the westbound road. It's four exits past that, you're actually really close. I'd suggest next time your friend needs to get to a hospital you drive at the speed limit instead of twenty miles below. You kids have a good night."

We pissed ourselves laughing after he left, and yes, I drove at the speed limit. That was one of the best nights I can remember. I knew where the hospital was, and I knew the city intimately. An hour later I was home and my friend was sober enough to drive back.

It just came to me. I started giggling in my chair.

28 August 2004 at 1:37 pm | No Comments »
poetry/prose

I found this, just now. Stashed away in an old journal. I don't remember writing it, but it's dated 1/9/2002. Right after I moved out of my parents' house.

torn (for kent)

This is what I'll say
when I'm also standing
on some great arcing bridge into that dark and powerful forest:
What god has torn you from me,
ripping soul from flesh as tears poison the wound?
What prayer can I try to give? None–
but just to beg that your grove never shadows;
no stars can pierce your trees' spidery boughs,
and yet the inside always shines.
This is what I'll say
when words go beyond speaking,
and I know that you will sleep beside me
beneath the blankets of your forgiving night.

28 August 2004 at 6:13 am | No Comments »
poetry/prose

I have no sleeping schedule anymore.

I wake up for an hour or two at a time and pretend to function as a normal human, then go back to bed.

Forget whatever mumbling comments Jake makes, I'm calling myself a vampire.

I got some good news yesterday, at least. I contacted the unemployment office to see about when my benefits would be reinstated. Despite having my claim disqualified in decembre, I continued to claim benefits for several months while the appeals were going through.

So I called to ask about those claimed cheques, as I was reinstating a prior claim, whether or not I'd receive this money. Given the notice (ie, none) that I'd received in losing my job, I have no money in savings and thus no money to pay for rent. I was banking and praying on receiving the prior claimed money because that was the only way little Frost's rent would be paid on time.

Much to my relief, the agent I spoke to assured me that once the benefits were reactivated, I'd receive that money. So I'm only hoping they get reinstated in time, because it's a cheque for over a thousand dollars that I'll be getting.

Unless ofcourse for whatever reason my benefits aren't reinstated.

Then I will kill myself.

28 August 2004 at 3:41 am | No Comments »
the daily things

I finally get an email back from among the multitudes of emails I have sent since returning from New Orleans.

It's from a company for an administrative assistant position. I read the email. They like my resume, would be interested in having me come in to interview, start at more than I made in the last job, benefits, etc etc etc.

I get giggly. I shouldn't have.

They'll be calling next week if I'm still interested to set up a time to meet, and the position will be starting mid-late Septembre.

I want to shoot myself.

26 August 2004 at 12:34 pm | No Comments »
the daily things

You ever have one of those change-your-life days?

It's like that moment in the Mary Tyler Moore opening where she throws her hat up into the air. I'm not talking about outside events that happen and change your life. I'm talking about waking up and going, "you know, I'm gonna change things today."

I get that way a lot. Usually that feeling comes when I'm fed up with a situation and I hit my tolerance point and go, "I'm not putting up with this anymore." It's what prompted me to quit my shit job last year and lose my mind for three months before ending up further on top than I was before. It's what made me leave New Orleans in the first place. Generally when I have this fed up feeling it's clear what I need to change.

However yesterday it hit me full on at 6:30 AM, enough to get me up and showered and dressed– despite the fact that I hadn't yet slept– and out of the house. It's hard to do anything about feeling fed up when you're fed up at not having a job and already doing everything within your means to change that. It's not really a matter of going up to the first office building I find and asking if anybody's hiring on the first floor and working my way up. I knew a guy who did that and ended up as the art director for Conde Nast, but my luck's not that great.

So instead I wandered around Times Square-east for an hour and a half, playing Hole and eventually got an egg McMuffin. It's not a job but it made me feel better.

I also came home and wrote Kevin an email. I hadn't talked to him since we parted ways in Decembre. I got to thinking.

You all know me, and this journal certainly chronicles this fact. I enjoy burning bridges. I find it incredibly thrilling to shut down all communication with a person, group, company, etc. Not just shut it down, I love to leave a job on such horrific terms that they'd never answer the phone for me again, much less provide a nice reference. I guess it gets me off, cutting ties and starting new. It's what I've done for as long as I remember. I've no qualms with removing you from my life with surgical precision, no matter who you are, how long I've known you, what you mean to me.

Nobody's safe. It's who I am. I'm not saying it's a great trait to have but it's served me well, and honestly I can't entirely look back on my life and say, "Damn, I wish I had kept that person in my life." I'll get by. If I needed something from you and now you're gone, I'll get it some other way.

I'm nothing if not evil resourceful.

But I considered. In New York, at least, maybe it's a better idea to be a bit more forgiving and drop some issues. Maybe here it's better to have friends than enemies.

25 August 2004 at 5:57 pm | No Comments »
introspection

C.S. came by around 12 AM, to celebrate his 33rd birthday. And celebrate it we did, like dorks, by hooking our computers up together on the LAN and playing god-micromanagement games until the wee hours of the AM.

I find it discouraging that no matter how many resumes I email and how many listings I respond to, nobody calls me back. It's not like I have no experience. I have a lot of experience. I'm not understanding why I'm not being asked for interviews.

Sigh.

24 August 2004 at 5:56 am | No Comments »
bitching