Thursday, March 10

Shuffled, Too

Set your iPod to Shuffle. Post Tracks #1- #10. Courtesy of he who investigates Is-It-Safe.

1. Pavlov's Bell (live) - Aimee Mann
2. All Across the Universe - Fiona Apple
3. Breathless - Angie Hart
4. Jeremy Engle - Liz Phair
5. Plastic Sun - Sonic Youth
6. Hovering - Beulah
7. At the Bottom of Everything - Bright Eyes
8. The Distance - Travis
9. Stars - Dubstar
10. Life and Death of Mr. Badmouth - PJ Harvey

Wednesday, March 9

Chaotica

Holding 3 jobs at the moment under one organization. And fuck it, I gained 3 kilos. 1 kilo per job. Multi-tasking should come with a calorie breakdown. Fat from sugar. Fat from stress.

Constantine was okay, but I agree with dododawg, it's oderless shit. I want my movies disturbingly stinky or cloyingly sweet. Gym clothes sour. Dark alley piss-pungent. I would say that Finding Neverland smelled like cotton candy, pink popcorn, and petrol; Closer like sour cigarettes and melting electronic.

I can't get this guy out of my head. Ice. Is what they call him. And he's very trained at making me feel inadequate. Met him at one of the high school get-togethers, a friend of a friend. Pale and pogi and plirty. He's very good at ignoring me in the first few minutes (or hours) of drinking when the first tagay goes around. And I watch him, waiting for eye contact. Until I get bored, or drunk, and then we finally talk, and his eyes seem to sparkle, and I'm blabbering like an idiot so I just stare at his fingernails. He has stubby fingers.

Weird, though. His real name is Abner. Another Abner. Just my luck to meet 2 Abners (both cute --- the luck factor) in a year when I've never met any Abners in the past 30 years.

At the end of the day, or the break of dawn, drinking is just a little more fun with cute guys around.

Friday, March 4

He's Got a Ticket to Ride

High school buddies are like walking archives of yourself, you meet up with them and all the awkwardness and silliness of clumsy flirting, expert cheating and naive break-ups hit you like a slap on the face, sudden but not as painful as you thought it would be.

Mickie was like our prom queen, only, you know, queen. He was the first among us to kiss a boy, to openly flirt, to fall in love, and I suppose, to get his heart broken. I would watch from the stone benches around the school quadrangle how he worked the boys, and it was just magical. He was the key to a portal, an alternate reality to gayville.

Dab was quiet, sometimes awkward, and very stiff. Like he had some weird bone disease, cemented joints. A tinman who had played volleyball and sang Jose Mari Chan songs. Sometimes, at the same time.

I rarely thought of them after finishing high school. And never really missed them. Thinking back now, I did cut them off like a leg. Diabetic and useless. I just wanted to move on from the rejection, the laughed at spelling bee champion.

14 years later, and it doesn't really matter. Fact is, we all laughed and loved our young hearts out. Together, mean and brilliant and innocent. And drinking together now is, I don't know, like being in the then and now. A temporal fold in the space-time continuum where we are grown-ups and children at the same time.

Mickie is still graceful, still coy and majestic. Dab, dark-eyed and now gay, has a welcome sweetness. A real warm smile, as palpable as heat.

Dab flew over to South Africa last week where he will manage his father's printing press business. And I can't get over it, can't jump across the void he has left. It has been a four-month reunion, of careful catching-up and careless drinking. And suddenly this.