sunny day

this blog is two years old. that might be old enough.

where yat?

my mother prides herself on her knowledge of geography. i do not; one of the ways in which i do not take after her. nevertheless i sally forth in this world knowing not exactly where monaco is on a map but that it is. that is sometimes enough. until now. for you see, i was thinking on the way back from an errand and picking up some lunch about a post some days back wherein someone had likened himself to switzerland, sexually.

wouldn't it be fun to figure out what country i, you, we, are, sexually? answering requires far more than knowing that canada is north of the u.s. it requires a nuanced understanding of geopolitics and history and socioeconomics.

go forth, reader, figure it out. let me know what you come up with. i will do the same.

i been shattered

take a bite out of the big apple. don't mind the maggots.

last night after a drink with a former work colleague/pal who works for a few months and then goes off to live for a few months in places like guatemala and india and wyoming, i went home and decided to watch last tango in paris. i got a dvd of it, see, because everyone says what a classic it is, and hey, i like classics.

anyhoo, my first surprise was that it was in color. for some reason i had always imagined this film was a black and white picture. my second surprise was that bertolucci was behind it. maybe these don't really qualify as surprises since, apparently, i knew little about the film at all except it is supposed to be erotic or racy and it stars marlon brando. i also thought eva marie saint was in it. i was wrong about that as well.

unlike superbad which i hated and had to stop watching because i quite literally thought, 'oh my god! right now i am wasting my life!' i watched last tango in its entirety, but my affection didn't manifest. maybe i've seen too many other bertolucci flicks so that they all become the same movie about erotic entanglements and passion and love but is it love or is it lust in masquerade? the older/younger romance thing too feels tired. i'm not against it, just find it a little boring. the whole proceeding reminded me of bitter moon (a horrible film i've written about and watched with my younger sister one evening), i think that was a polanski joint.

i would like to hear a defense of this movie as being worthwhile. perhaps when it came out, in 1972 (the year my sister was born, actually, and happy almost birthday my dear; does this count as a gift?) it was completely groundbreaking but beyond that possibility, what makes it so shattering? i get the usual--he's in despair, she finds her annoying filmmaker boyfriend tiresome, the sex is raw, how far would you go for love. but besides all that, i was uncompelled.

speaking of shattering, this morning just before stepping into the shower, i banged my elbow on a wall in my bathroom and started bleeding. it hurt mightily, the bone, and the cut hurt too when soap reached it. now it's sore to lean on but i don't think i've broken anything. thanks for your concern.

oh, is there more? there is always. but i have to get to work.

street signs

on the way to the aeroport this morning, we passed 'hooker street' followed, a couple of blocks later, by 'cherry avenue.' if sex is on the mind (and is it ever at a total remove?), you can always find yourself a double entendre.

oh! i had the oddest idea this morning as i woke and stretched. i meant to tell one particular friend about it because i thought he'd find it amusing. but i forgot to mention it. so i will tell the whole world and that might include him in any case. it's an idea for a movie about the end of the world, a post apocalyptic tragedy, one man still alive who must forage through the tumbleweeds and burning tires and all that cliched imagery that always comes up in those end of the world cinematic scenarios. but here's where i thought, in half wakefulness, that i had come upon genius: mix into this man's best friend...a dog! make the movie but give the hero his faithful dog and turn it into a comedy. not a flatulence/masturbation kind of comedy but one on the charlie kauffman metaphysical/absurdist tip.

(this is, what is it called, an editor's note added in after the initial post and prompted by the commentator from the boston area...one j.c. i think part of what i was thinking was, wouldn't that be funny, the world is decimated but not ONLY does the hero survive, so does his trusty dog. it's so lucky and absurd and yet in that way total movie grist)

does that seem stupid? or might i be on to something?

when I say chi-city, chi-city

that's where i be right now, in the 'business center' of a hotel downtown. i got here after a short flight but hours of wakefulness on account of insomnia at 3 am, so it feels like i did an overseas flight, and arrived very hungry and went and got some lunch and walked down the deluxe avenue which is exactly like the deluxe avenues in nyc or washington or l.a.

there is something extraordinarily depressing about (american?) cities, about the lack of uniqueness in the tourist areas, and everyone looks the same and acts the same and talks the same (wait, that's a song lyric too...courtney love circa 1995). i walked into a levis store briefly, considered buying some new jeans, and the salesguy remarked that the song playing was an m-l-k speech set to music and that that seemed wrong.

he also told me 'flare bootcut would be an oxymoron.' i think he might have meant redundent. or is it redundant? the conversation made me even more sleepy.

anyway, so i'm back here, going to take a snooze. maybe drink a little booze. what i got to looze?

metropolitan diary

i was walking tonight down 59th street on the east side, not far from the plaza hotel and the apple store, with an out of town visitor and we passed a young woman on her cell phone who said

'now i can feel you rubbing my nipple'

cannot imagine it was phone sex; seemed more like she was recounting her own earlier conversation.

now your turn.

virginity

last night i ran into a chum from elementary school. that means i haven't seen this fella in about 25+ yrs (yikes). i recognized him immediately, not just the face, but his gait, boxy, stiff and brisk.

anyway, he is still in touch with my fourth grade boyfriend, a nice guy with three older brothers, who loved baseball and once made a ring for me out of a pipecleaner. i think it was supposed to be an engagement ring. at the time, in fourth grade (though our romance was on and off through until 6th), he had a very good friend, a taller boy who was a little learning impaired and whose eye sometimes fluttered uncontrollably. at the time i was best friends with, among others, a girl who was this fluttering-eyed boy's girlfriend. get it?

one day, the boys asked we two girls to go behind the school at recess, to the teachers' parking lot, since they had something important to discuss.

with some anticipation, nerves, feeling of danger, we all four walked there. it was a warm, sunny day, i remember it. and then they asked us if they could kiss us. we were aghast. what kind of girls did they think we were? we said no. then, as we walked away i remember saying with some indignation to my friend, 'i want to stay a virgin until i'm at least 16!'

secret agent man

last night i saw two friends i hadn't seen in some time. one of them is like a character out of 'his girl friday.' she talks about 100 miles an hour (and i am too a fast talker but not like her), the other is an artist. anyways, the fast talker asked me about another mutual friend, a fellow who got a phd in history and speaks spanish and italian and portuguese and now works...well, that's the thing, none of us could say for sure exactly it is he does, though he eschewed the academic life for business and i think he does things to do with telecommunications and latin america but now it might be telecommunications and marketing or just marketing. and the fast talker thought perhaps possibly he is in the c-i-a because he is somewhat demure in explaining piece by piece what it is he does.

i guess it could be. he could be a secret agent man. right now he's in ghana with his wife (a friend too and a faithful reader of this blog). the few people i've known who were in the agency did not hide the fact of their employer, but were discreet about what they did for their employer. truth is i kind of distrust those folks which is knee jerk. i used to joke around with some friends that my father was in the c-i-a. it'd be perfect--a speaker of hebrew, arabic, reading ability of german, french, probably some other languages too, seems like a mild mannered professor, but why must he always go to meetings in morocco or tunisia or egypt or southern france. working until midnight every night of my childhood. rising at 7 so he could be at his desk by 9 sharp. that kind of discipline only a spy could have, don't you thinks? what a wonderful fantasy to have about your old man, like wishing you were in truth born to royalty or to italians who have a villa in sardinia and grill their own sardines.

so, my friends charged me with asking this friend of ours if he is in the c.i.a. or floating the theory. i am to gage his rxn and to make clear that i am articulating the suggestion of the fast talker. but who knows when i see him next, though hopefully when he and the little lady return to here. so i'm posting this on account of this way i know they'll see it.

and in other news: my lips are again so chapped but i think i left my little bag of ointments at home (or else the lady sitting with too big a coat and her legs spread so that i had to squeeze next to her on the subway swiped it out of my purse as penalty for not giving her as wide a berth as she might have desired). so now i think i gots to run out to the fine duane reade and buy some of that roche posay pour les levres seches. then, let the games begin!

lrb

i must recommend the personals in the london review of books. they are the most entertainment i've had in the past three minutes.

here's one

'sexually, i'm more of a switzerland.'

if craigslist was like this...the world would be wholly different (and by different i think i mean better).

raw

have you ever kissed someone so much after a long time of lip solitude that your lips are very raw? once a guy i was messing around with needed to use some of my chapstick (this was in the days that i preferred cherry chapstick) before he went home and then i bought him some as a little gift the next time i saw him (maybe i didn't, but i know i meant to. memory is funny; see earlier post). but that's not the point of this post. the point is my lips this early morning hour are so chapped they hurt, like i've both been kissing too much (which i don't think is quite possible) and eating too much salt (which is). the latter i did last night. very odd. ta ta.

headrushing

today is the second day in a row i am having occasional headrushes. dizziness. is it because of the anchovy-egg-lemon-olive oil sandwich i just ate at my great aunt's house. ought i have eate something less extreme?

she is 101.5 yrs old. one day, recently, she thanked me for spending time with my 'alte tante.' she doesn't have to thank me for it. it is really my pleasure. she is getting forgetful. she asked more than once at lunch what my evening plans are. when i said i was meeting some friends for dinner, she asked what kind of restaurant. when i said mexican, she asked what kind of food that is (she has never had mexican food in front of me and i'd be shocked if she ever ate it). then, a few minutes later, she asked me a similar battery of questions. then, minutes after that, she said, 'so you're going to have mexican food?'

her memory is not gone but it is a little unreliable. so is mine, honestly, not as bad as hers. or as my landlady's who left a msg yesterday that i had never before complained about something i called to complain of yesterday. which is patently false. i know i did. i also know that she either willfully pretends it never happened. or she is forgetful. for ease of relations i conceded, 'well, maybe i am mistaken and never mentioned it.' it's annoying, though, since there are many little things wrong in that joint and though i've mentioned them all, i haven't been persistent and so she has forgotten about them all and were i to mention again, she'd think i was negligent in waiting so long to mention them.

today on the subway, this morning, a homeless man was asking for contributions so he could get something to eat. i had a piece of fruit in my bag, a snack for later since i've been rising and shining at 6 am to exercise and when i do that, snacks are necessary later on to avoid a case of the crankies. so i pulled the fruit out of my bag and offered it to him. he refused, said 'my friend bobby told me not to take food. you never know if somebody injected something into it. it could be poisoned.' i see his point. instead, i just ate that fruit myself. it was not poisoned. it was, however, regrettably mealy. after the homeless man explained his refusal, another man standing near me leaned in to make a remark about being ungrateful and beggers shouldn't be choosers. but i don't really remember what the man said because he spoke very softly and also he looked so much like boris yeltsin that i couldn't really concentrate on his repartee. but boris yeltsin had he lost about 30 lbs.

one another note...that song 'dirty old town' is stuck in my head. i cannot get it out.

nightmare on u street

one of my friends in washigton, on whose couch i slept, suggested that my dreams are too vivid and perhaps they exhaust me or maybe she asked if they do exhaust me. each morning when i woke up (i'm not a person who has trouble waking up and being full of chatter start off) i told her exactly what i dreamed of. the first night wasn't so upsetting (inadvertent shoplifting, absolute promise and intention of reparation). the second night was full of savagery among people i know. fueled by liquor and reefer. it was violent and very frightening. and then i heard a loud sound and woke up with a start at around 4 in the morning, having gone to sleep only two hours earlier, after a lot of talk and laughter and dinner and wine and delicious strawberries and raspberries. and b/c i was in an unfamiliar setting i suddenly became convinced at 4 am that there was an intruder (i know, i had a similar fear last week), and i kept very still trying to hear some tell tale sounds that'd let me know for sure what was to come. i considered calling 911 on my cellphone or going upstairs to my friend, where she slept in her bed, but then i thought, oh, what if the intruder is up there and has already done something horrible to her? and what if that bandit is now waiting for me? should i run out and down the street bare foot, raining, washington dc? and where would i run to?

(it occurs to me yesterday was the ides of march. does that bear significance?)

fatigue set in, i fell back asleep, and was very glad to wake up in daylight and all seemed okay. these are childish nightmares/fantasies. i wonder why they ebb and flow so? and now i am very tired.

dateline: washington

my friend k is leaving washington, the capitol city, next week on account of her job was getting her way down and time was afoot to change her lifestyle and have adventure and so she is about to embark on that and i am here in the capitol, warm as it is, some blooms on trees, to wish her bon voyage on the journeys and also mazel tov on the jump. 

and so, last night, when i walked from the metro to the bar where she was holding court i heard this guy harrassing a young lady. she was on her cell phone and he seemed a little of out sorts. and he finally yelled, very loudly, 'down with selassie!' and she seemed surprised and also, she looked like she might be ethiopian, there is a big ethiopian population in this area. that is heckling i haven't heard in nyc (i do recall once my friend a walked out of a deli in nyc and a fellow on the street said to her, 'i'd like you to sit on my face'), and is selassie still in charge? and what does such a heckle even mean? i don't have any idea. she looked as flummoxed as i.

then today we went to the national portrait gallery, cause there are good museums in this here town and there was an exhibit of love letters from or to famous artists and their lovers or spouses or friends. some were illegible, tiny handwriting, others were quite legible, romantic as the day is long. the one, especially, my favorite was from eero saarinen to his wife, aline (i think that was her name), the first part of it was so funny and sweet. 

then, we went to a bar and had some wine and cheese and oysters, which were delicious. k says she apologizes to any readers who think that this bar, ebbets, is a cliche but that really their oysters are supreme. and i agree. the ones from martha's vineyard especially scrumptious.

we did not, however, go to a disco which i somehow imagined we would.

insults, injuries

i had a whole three paragraphs written and just deleted them all. suffice it to say--i have been insulted this evening. but i will get over it. my skin is thin but not so thin that it's like tissue paper. that comes later. after 100 years of age.

reverie

i have a recurring setting for a dream, which appeared again last night. the setting is a brief spit of land, on the one side of which is a still lagoon. on the other side there is open, rollicking, deep ocean. sometimes the ocean rises up, on this stretch, and then slams down on me, drowns me. other times, it's an idyll. sometimes there are tall trees all around, like the sea appears suddenly in a thick forest, as a kind, not literal, oasis. yesterday there were a lot of indians (from india) at the lagoon. i was on some kind of work project, visiting nearby and pulled along my battered suitcase on the sand (that's a bit taxing and not recommended), trying to steal a small area for myself in the afternoon to go for a swim while everyone else had a siesta indoors. the water wasn't cool enough to be refreshing and was murky and thick with algae.

it puzzles me, that this is not really a recurring dream, it is a recurring setting. i said that already, that phrase, in the first sentence, which makes it a recurring phrase. anyway, now i have it my head that i must get to a beach, that all i want is to loll in the hot and go for a swim to cool off. that sounds divine. i hope it won't be too long before i do it.

holy land

the last time i was in israel was after college and lived there for a while, working a couple of often dull jobs but with kindly folks around who looked after me and tried to convince me to stay.

one of those peoples was a guy my age, a modern orthodox fellow, whom i had first met about 10 years earlier in 8th grade when i lived there in eighth grade. you could say he was my eighth grade boyfriend. say it! feel better now?

anyway, you'd be right. he was funny and cute, very dark eyes, skinny. he didn't mind too much that i wasn't actually orthodox, that my family wasn't/isn't but that i went to his orthodox public school anyway because the local secular school had no room for extra students visiting for the year. i think to him it was exotic to be associated with a not really orthodox eighth grade girl who was nevertheless not so very wild, so still within bounds of possibility while also breaking rules.

when i returned to j'lem after college i didn't know too many people my age and since i was on and off in touch with friends from my earlier life there, i fell in with them all again (they by now were out of the army and working or going to school) and it was comfortable and warm and nobody minded that i was not religious and i didn't flaunt it. if they did mind, they were discrete and diplomatic. some probably thought they'd woo me to their lifestyle. (my roommate was a bit of one of those. she wanted to prove to me that god exists and offered as proof that when soldiers are in foxholes they start to pray. she meant well and sent me linen napkins once as a gift. or was that what i sent her? her father was a stern englishman, her mother was dutch.) anyway, this fellow and i didn't 'go out' whatever that would have meant, though i nursed a crush on him, probably out of loneliness and a desire to have everything taken care of the way i imagine it can be in the orthodox world, limited choices, more prescribed paths. and he looked out for me in an avuncular way, seeing me to the door if we went out, making sure i sat next to him in restaurants, and every now and then i'd go to his house and nothing happened, we'd chat, it was all very above board, and he told me he was dating a very lovely, demure young woman (she struck me as very young which now seems funny because we were all very young. no more than 22). he could only marry an orthodox girl, that made sense, he also told me he was descended from some famous rabbinic line and was a bit astonished i was unfamiliar with that particular line (another time, in a shop that sold nuts and seeds and dried fruits on the way downtown, my roommate asked if i recognized the man in a big photo behind the cashier. i guessed, rabbi soloveichik, a rabbi from the boston area. she laughed. she might have guffawed. it was schneerson. how was i supposed to know. why was i supposed to care?)

but we were sitting on the couch, day light was dimming and it being the sabbath, no lights on, and he had a blanket over his lap and i realized he had an erection there, sitting next to me. but we neither of us acknowledged it. i did, though, feel glad, somehow flattered and a little powerful.

i sometimes wonder about him, about his life, how many kids he has, if he messes around (he had a bit of the cad in him and i'd not be entirely surprised) what his job is, if he knew any of the kids who were killed last week, though that yeshiva seems full of people far more religious than he was then.

another thing that happened in israel back then: one of my jobs was that i worked on a public health study in which i'd go to the beit she'an valley to religious and secular kibbutzes and take blood pressure, ask some questions about diet, sleeping habits, etc. our driver on these excursions was a man, probably around 60, from morocco. he'd chat with me. i think it amused him, this young woman in israel, a bit naive, a bit alone, good hebrew but ignorant of the discotheques. and he told me his wife was a nurse and that they wanted to have me over, fix me a moroccan feast, since i was kind of an orphan for the year. but i didn't have that much to talk to him about and didn't really want to spend the evening with him and the missus. so i kept putting it off.

one night, i was at home, and the phone rang and it was he and he said, 'oh, i'll just swing by' and before i could think up an excuse he swung by. and in the car which was a minivan he said his wife had to work and we'll just go pick up some food (did i want grapeleaves? i did. and hummous too) and bring it home but first to the king david hotel for a drink. all of which happened and we both looked exquisitely out of place there. and then we got to his apartment and i sat on a chair and he on the sofa and he said, 'oh, come sit by me,' and i hemmed and hawed but he insisted and i didn't really know to refuse or assert and so i sat in the corner of the sofa. and he moved over right next to me then, put his arms around me and started to kiss my neck.

i jumped up and said, 'i really have to go.' he asked why and i answered, 'my parents are going to call me from america and they'll be worried if i'm not there.' it was a lie. he offered to drive me home, i said no thanks, i'll take a bus. and my orthodox roommate, when i told her the story, laughed at me and my naivete. and i did feel naive, and didn't tell anyone in my family about it. my parents thought i was too trusting to begin with, this story would have confirmed that hunch. but isn't it good to be trusting?

johnny boy

d'ja hear...guv'nor has been consorting with call girls. call women, really, i do hope they are not underage also. sheesh.

unsex me now

yesterday i went to see macbeth. was going to go with my sis but she had to go to a funeral so i asked my good pal, a-l, who is an outstanding knitter, a devoted gardener, an excellent friend. before it started a-l and i were chatting about it and mentioned the lead actor, patrick stewart, and this couple two rows ahead turned around and started chatting with us, asked if we are star trek fans, cause they are, in town from tx and ca for the convention and had just seen stewart that morning. i am not really a star trek person. so when they said that 'data also has done shakespeare' i was unsure who data is. it struck me, though, as funny that on star trek people have national origins. capt picard is french, non? does that ever come into the show? does he like camembert and champagne uniquely? did he pass his bac? (that would be pretty dopey but on television such things pass for character and identification).

when the show was over and everyone was screaming bravo and clapping with their arms above their heads for emphasis, the woman made the sign of the high priest (aka the star trek sign that i know really from mork and mindy).

right now, outside my work building, is a huge group of protesters chanting on behalf of freeing tibet. from here it sounds like they're saying 'out! out! get out damn spot!'

the thing about macbeth is, and this is going to sound about as jejune as it gets, the writing is mind blowing. the metaphors! the lushness! it's incroyable!

that soliloquy of lady macbeth's, the one referenced in the hed, was one we had to memorize in high school, junior yr. i told my friend that, she thought it was awfully provocative for our teacher, who was a strapping old money rebel freckled redhead with whom everyone was in love (boys and girls alike) to have us memorize that bit of all the great bits in the play (tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...is that a dagger before me?...boil, boil, toil and trouble...)

and the creepy menace of the witches was such that when i tried to fall asleep late last night i kept hearing sounds in my apartment and worried my own murder was nigh. then i had awful, frightening dreams i cannot now recall. but they woke me, along with a belly ache from some fried chicken on which i supped.

in other news: ach. what other news? if i think of any that is not depressing or trivial i will be sure to pass it on.

here's a notion

so bush endorses mccain today and they do the usual slap-on-the-back-i've-always-loved-ya and we-gotta-beat-dem-dems bullshit. and then i read about medvedev and putin, and aside from the deep purple crap (that should have been warning enough; i have a picture taken with deep purple's third lead singer), it seems not entirely inconceivable to me that mccain would tap bush to be in his cabinet or to be his veep. you can imagine it, right? i can, and to bastardize—is it herzl?—if you will it, it is not out of reach.

i heard on the radio today some pro-g.o.p. voter who called obama with disdain a 'socialist.' hilarious, if it wasn't so depressing to be reminded of rampant myopia. i'm finding this whole race increasingly disheartening and, in true fashion characteristic of a democrat, i fear the republicans will win. in spite of the abysmal policies of recent years. it discourages me.

so what shall i do to forget? right now i'm going to meet my friend jzk for a drink. he's always good for a story about his vida loca. he writes about hockey. i once asked him to set me up with marc messier, but he refused (to be fair, twas a nonstarter). and still i am friends with him.

forget me not

a tv producer fellow told me a while back that he loves mystery books. he was incredulous that i don't. in fact, i said, i couldn't remember the last time i read one—maybe some nancy drew thing when i was a kid. well, two things have jogged my (failing) memory: a story about richard price and a story about harriet the spy. i read clockers and liked it, though what i remember most is that the hero has an ulcer and soothes it by drinking yoohoos. that detail is unforgettable.

as for harriet the spy, i don't remember reading it and i don't remember why i didn't, though perhaps just seemed that the girl power/girl sleuth struck me as corny or too deliberate. i was much more into childhood trauma a la blubber. but a radio piece about the book this morning made me reconsider and i might give it a try. apparently harriet's babysitter or nanny writes her a letter and tells her it's okay to sometimes tell small lies if they spare people's feelings. but always be true to yourself.

(also, i liked the yiddish policeman's union, which is kind of a mystery, i s'pose, and the secret history, also has whodunnit threads, but that's not what made it delicious then)

that said, i apologize to that tv fellow for misleading him about my own history of mystery.

be advised

had an odd conversation yesterday with a man who said 'i think you know that i like you.' always nice to hear that affirmation. but he also asked me when i was last tested for HIV, and i told him, but isn't that an odd thing to ask someone you have gone out with only one time and that time was chaste? maybe it's not, maybe i've just only ever been in situations where really people don't bring it up, before or after, in spite of all the public service announcements to talk with partners and be open about sexual history. maybe all my partners have been more reserved or disease free and assume the same. maybe that is what i have done too. so, seemed to me a bit presumptuous about what he expects on a future second meeting. plus he tried to convince me of the merits of condomlessness for both parties and when i said that the line of conversation was making me feel uncomfortable, he said something like 'we're just talking like grown ups,' which had the effect of making me feel infantalized and emotionally stunted.

he also asked me if i am a lesbian. one other time someone asked me that too, it was a guy i can't even recall -- oh wait, i do, an around the way guy from little italy who i didn't want to sleep with even though we were fooling around. this was years ago. and i didn't want to because i found his apartment so depressing, the whole scene. we came into it and the tv was on -- left on by him, and he had a futon which he slept on but it was in upright/couch position, and there were crumbs all in it and there is another tawdry detail having to do with the same bottle of oil that he used for cooking and handjobs.

in a way it's funny, though, the level of egotism that operates in the mind that articulates the lesbian question; the man never thinks you might not want to sleep with him because you have ambivalent feelings about him or maybe ambivalent feelings about yourself or maybe you are actually interested in someone, a man, altogether different; it can only be because you're a dyke.

so, is it a sign of immaturity or prude-ish-ness if you don't want to talk about the merits of condom-free intercourse on the telephone with someone about whom you have doubts in any case? no matter the answer, to me it seems rather early for that lobbying effort and also, frankly, it's kind of bullshit -- here's a consideration other than an std: unwanted pregancy.

then i thought, what if we do go out again and again and again and i grow to like him and we ultimately start telling each other private thoughts and histories and this blog comes up. am i basically deciding against someone when i write about them here? is it okay not to tell a partner everything? and if not, then, when they find out about it, if they do, will they be offended? i might be if i were in his shoes. might is too weak a word. i feel that i would be. this thing makes me feel very cruel and i don't want to be that.

a saturday observation

the song 'Supernatural' by Nick Cave. listen to it. i hope you will love it as i do.

last night i had the strangest dream

that is true but is also a song lyric yet i don't remember from what (i think it might be a pete seeger thing or someone of that ilk, it's definitely an antiwar song because later there's something about 'put an end to war'.)

my dream: i was on the first day of a new job on some kind of radio show, a news show, and there were two women there who were in charge though it was unclear if they had been on this gig for a long time or if the whole show was new and they were its senior producers.

none of the new staff had designated positions yet, as far as i could tell. it was like we were jockeying for position or simply being told on the spot what our role that day would be. anyway, the more senior of the women, who was 28, asked if anyone had an opinion about how hillary clinton is being treated in this presidential race, how she came to be a pariah in some quarters, and i did. so, with her permission, i launched into my explanation, aquitted myself well, i thought, and with heaps of passion. when i finished the more junior of the women, who was condescending subtly said only, 'you rambled.'

felt like an audition.

something i just thought while in the wc, more related to courting, or, more correctly to sexual exchanges: why does the word 'john' both mean someone who visits prostitutes and a toilet? and do you know anyone who ever uses that work in the second context, because i can't think of the last time i heard someone i know say 'i need to use the john.' i'm more apt to say 'i have to go to the toilet.'

come to think of it now, i can't think of the last time i heard someone i know use the word 'john' in the first context either.