July 2003 Archives

it was five when i went to bed, not even light yet, but so tired i just curled up on the couch and told myself not tonight honey, in spite of the fact i'd been kinda hoping to get some. drifted into the dreams, such lovely dreams.

it was eleven when i woke up, though i had no idea at the time. churchbells began to ring as i was fighting falling back into the dreams, the lovely dreams. couldn't focus on counting the bong ... bong ... bong, this meant having to open my eyes. not as easy as it sounds. grabbed phone, peered at it intently while the blur resolved into little numbers. now you see, it could have been worse. it could have been noon. so what's the harm if i go back to sleep till noon, i wondered, since it easily could have already been noon, and there would have been nothing i could have done about it. bounced this around in the mindfog but kept working on the eye-opening problem anyway, all in all it took about twenty minutes to get up off of the couch, and an hour to get out of the door.

it's a really good thing i've trained those around me not to expect me before i get there. it's just not that easy.

i love hormones. it's like free drugs, but you have to just reach in the baggie with your eyes closed and take whatever you grab, sometimes you're a bloated psychopath, sometimes you wander around the house all day in a floaty little nightshirt barely able to resist throwing yourself down on the couch and having your way with yourself.

so i've heard.

six mintues two seconds. gonna jump in at the last minute with an amount calculated based on how much i'd pay at the one retail outlet still carrying this incredibly full featured but not brand new camera. 4 minutes twenty seconds. the reviews i read placed it, back in the day, at $1000 - $1200, it is $199 plus $20 at the outlet. it's $137.50 plus $10 right now. 3 minutes twenty seconds. i'll go $165 tops. i'd be using my overdraft protection to spend the rent money i'm depositing tomorrow and then working my -- 2 minutes 27 seconds -- ass off to be able to bill my client in time to cover this madness. not madness. necessity. necessity got it? ok, it's time, i'm goin' in.

nope. $167.50. do i go $182.50? that's still good. brought it up to $177.50, i'm high bidder. omg. 49 seconds. goosebumps the size of geese.

YES!!

oh shit. i gotta work.

the first few hours after the antichrist departs is an eerie time of detachment, peaceful regrets amidst the wreckage of this month's visit. like clockwork, she is, and sneaks up on me everytime anyway, easy enough the way i misplace the date in my mind all the time. first i'll notice the psychosis, then dismiss the thought and blame the circumstances; right around then's when i seriously begin to spin. at some point in this process there is always an epiphany of sorts, in which i look back at the past month's wreckage and realize aha! the cyclical bitch is back. unfortunately, this knowledge is virtually meaningless, i can be in full awareness and still be completely unable to identify and suppress this impulsive little psycho. let the evidence show i tried: email to friend midafternoon "can i call you i think i'm having a nervous breakdown". come evening, there is this frantic flurry of disasterous wrongheadedness, quicklike before any voice of reason can be brought in to interrupt us.

and then the consequences. and then the dramatic flinging my self on the floor in tears, say five minutes, ten, and then the rolling over and the staring at the ceiling. the calming followed, at least physically, though the swirling thoughts continued their hectic pace. around about halfway through the hour or so i spent flat out down there, i sensed them slowly shifting from rage to remorse.

by the time i got upright again, she was gone, and i was numb.

scalp burning sharp breath ragged gasping body trembling thrumming oh god the thing, the thing wouldn't fucking die. it wouldn't die. cat had it in the kitchen, i cheered him on, go kitty go, get 'im kitty get 'im but no. cat got him down by my couch and just. sat. there. frantic panic looking for a box i won't mind never feeling like touching again. a big one. grabbed some crap software box and told worthless kitty to move over. started pounding on the creature. i am not exaggerating i hit it maybe twenty times HARD and he's fluttering faster faster and i hit him and i hit him and he's STILL FUCKING FLUTTERING so i just go apeshit on him i mean BANGBANGBANG x maybe ten or maybe twenty, and finally it's over. worthless kitty comes to poke at the corpse, i tell worthless kitty to move over so i can take a picture. see worthless kitty's worthless furry feet there in the picture? yeah, he didn't move.

oh we're so getting generic catfood next time.

and i still have to deal with the ... the corpse. the gooey, semi-dismembered ... oh look! just a wing (the rest seems to have disappeared). (ok, that makes up for it. kitty gets the good stuff. and a saucer of milk too.)

and in other news, apparently a person can bang a box on the floor really loud a bunch of times while vocally panicking, with all the doors wide open, and not wake up mr. whatsisname. good to know, good to know.

and in still other news, my quest to deface various cds continues ...

these just don't translate well into two dimensions. trust me, in person, they ... well, they kind of rock.

but, if you choose to do so, dotlizard dotcom doesn't want you getting caught. there's a new skin (it's in the sidebar too), an idea i stole from probably either her or maybe her, i can't remember exactly. i left the sidebar in, which makes it less word-documenty-looking, but all in all it's far less obvious than any of the current skins, and still retains all the same goodies.

it was hard to stay mad at the Kia driver who tried to commit suicide by bouncing off the buick on the 101 this morning. he didn't succeed, not even the bouncing part, but only because i'm really, really good at not letting stuff run into me. 'twas close, i'd say inches. but when i got up alongside him to him to give him a good gesturing, he was just shaking his head, and i thought, what a good way of conveying that he knew exactly what i would have been attempting to communicate, that is, that he's an idiot and needs to ... stop being such an idiot.

70 mph near-miss: excellent way to start the week out feeling awake and alive.

so i figured, go for it. i mean why not? sure it's been years. and years. seven? something like that. but in all that time i've never found anything like it, so ... ok then.

i walked my mountain. ok, hill. whatever. it's two miles and a sixty story building, is what it is, give or take i have no idea the exact numbers. goes like this: park 1/3 mile away, time to warm up, get blood flowing, 'cause the hill doesn't mess around. first couple hundred yards are like, vertical. i make that and i have to stop. have. to. stop. lean on somebody's fence, take in the view, argue with myself a bit, and finally order myself on up. and up. and ... all in all four stops to the top. ahh. the top. the rush. the wind in my beet red sweaty face. woo.

and down, down is just a different set of muscles. need less wind so can get fancy with the walking weights. swing 'em one way and it works the triceratops, while the hill itself is working the quadraptors and the tyrannosaurus maximus, i mean we are feeling the burn. bottom of the hill's a little further from the car, time to do some different things - extend weights, swing arms straight, which i can feel everywhere from the late triassic all the way to the mesozoic, oh my yes i can.

that's the best looking dirty buick i've ever seen in my whole life, man.

um. woo?

hummirror.

i've decided to do something HIGHLY UNUSUAL, that is, stay up all damn night just 'cause Jett is doing that thon thing and ... ok, wait, this made more sense a minute ago.

possibly the world's dirtiest running automobile, and sadly rather than ring up the folks at the guinness book, i fear i must clean the thing this weekend. a good four months of never littering does build up.

now. i am five foot four inches tall, and i was wearing three inch heel platform shoes today. this is me, standing eye-to-grill with the beast:

hummers = ridiculous. ok, well, maybe a hummer would be practical ... but only if you are a self-styled urban commando mercenary-for-hire who wears only homemade tie-died camouflage catsuits with gold lam

on a good day, calm, neat, even austere:

on a medium day, orderly expressions of some dark imagery:

on the day i wrote this ( and i sat and felt the visual inspiration slipping away, either that or it was reshaped into something ugly, something about supplication without absolution, about wreckage without redemption, something wrong... ):

even if the place was ugly as hell, i'd live here just for the air. i love the pressure of it at sea level, the feeling of mist on skin, and the oxygen spilling out of the ocean; tonight i was downtown, breathing, breathing and wandering, while the girls waited for the bus.


had to wonder about this. wouldn't the sand get stuck in the crisco?

a little late, the americruiser arrived, and i reluctantly wandered on home, while the girls adventured on to san francisco.

sometimes you nail 'em, sometimes it's nothin' but sky:

and this, well, around here lately it's harder to miss pictures of road construction than to get them.

**(note: click 'em, they get bigger)

* * * * * * later that strange afternoon * * * * * * * * *
In California, adults have always had the right to use the first, middle and last names of their choice. In fact, California adults have the legal right to change their names simply by using their desired new names. You don't have to go to court and you don't have to file any forms or pay any fees. This method for changing your name is called the "Usage" method.

any guesses as to what this means? oh yeah. and don't think i won't. because it would be just silly to think that.

sometimes i wish i lived back when everything was all sepiatoned. but there wouldn't have been bad religion back then, and it would be the thing that made the difference between the smiles:

and, i fear the freeway sign thing has lost its lustre. fish in a barrel, man.

it's become a sport, catch the freeway sign. well, until it gets boring. this one didn't bore me:

and i sat and felt the visual inspiration slipping away, either that or it was reshaped into something ugly, something about supplication without absolution, about wreckage without redemption, something wrong. and as it happened, a set of shuddery breaths grasped and then released me; i recognized them as the dry sobs which describe the search for release, when none is at hand anywhere near.

and i mourned without cause and ached in mourning and considered the impending morning with a modicum of dread and nothing else, unless vacancy means anything. and yes, i suppose it does. but it doesn't matter.

nothing does. implicit in this statement is of course that everything is mattering just a little too much, and i respond by setting whatever energy i have left against the matter at hand, wondering if that matters, though it is an idle and rhetorical sort of wonder at best.

and at worst, i find these times trying me and i wonder if will be found as woefully inadequate as i feel; a logical examination of the facts would indicate i will not, that in fact i will be honored as a worthy adversary before the ending begins the grim task of taking me down for the last time. not my last, of course.

and outside of myselves and one or two others is where this really begins not mattering; however understanding the insignificance of this teapot tempest does not mitigate the circumstances surrounding these words, beyond my control, yet of my own doing.

i have so many small golden smiling sharks. so very many. they all claim to be V.I.P.s, each and everyone.

important sharks. there's a message in here somewheres, but i have to start gluing things to other things and haven't time to decipher it.

so, has anybody seen me in the last, say, twenty years? if so, did i appear to have my head under a rock, or was i perhaps living in some sort of cave? i'm trying to figure out why i had no idea bad religion was so fucking brilliant. i knew i liked a song or two, but i was just looking up the lyrics for anesthesia tonight because ... well, i was also looking for i wanna be sedated and things of that nature, because i had to keep busy waiting for the pills to kick in and ... that's not important.

the important thing is i ended up at this br discography, just mindblown. and now i am obsessing contentedly, with the kazaa over here and the discography over there and the lyricbase ...

maybe the universe was saving this for some night i really needed it. i owe the universe bigtime for this, you have *no* idea.

and my pleasure center is the shelter for a reptile too!

* * *
can't stop
I

... this sort of a day. randomly: beer's involved. as is kazaa, and rampant lyrical additions. and you know, or perhaps not, where this sort of behavior leads: *sniffle*

two pieces of pizza and by this i mean orgasmic pizza and this related to the realization i don't know when the last time i ate ... an amount of food you'd call a meal. as in i can't remember. s'ok i'm still a big sturdy girl, no worries. plus i am all about the nibbling, i do eat, really i do. just not all at once like this.

eating peppers with a tongue ring: interesting.

was in the *sniffle* mode re: playlist/beer when the pizza guy got here. how many times do you suppose pizza guy's delivered pizza to the sniffling? musta thought i was some kinda weirdo.

bingo!

(incidentally this is beer three in like 4 hours, me=lightweight these days.) used to be able to pound thrice this many and be utterly not crying and singing to my computer. utterly. of course i was a bigbig beerdrinkin' girl back when. beer has calories, apparently.

some stuff to get outta this system here, which has been a bit of time building all up in there, and so might carry on with it a bit, hell i might be an absolute idiot for hours to come, and i'm fine with that. lovely muggy heavy-skied saturday evening in the july of the forty third year of this life, with stuff in the system needin' gettin' out, it's just that sort of day.

march twenty seventh, two thousand two - out and about with the camera, chasing the moon; found myself wandering down to the sand and on the way, there was art at my feet.

for the most part, it is a lizard's nature to be nervous, and i am one with lizardkind on that issue. however i'm really just a human who thinks she's a lizard, (shh! that's just between us, ok?), and as such i find there are times these nerves begin to get on their own nerves, and it's time for a diversion. this is how a playful lizard ended up in a bathroom with a camera, which as it turns out is some sort of fun, at least it looks that way:

* * *
later on, this same lizard experienced a sort of epiphany - it happened as she sat down to write about this one simple thing and in doing so she seriously made a discovery, i mean it made things feel different. and she wanted to give herself that pat on the back, and so she wrote this, for herself:

corny as that may be, and corny it is, still, it applies.

how many of life's problems can be directly traced to a floyd deficiency? many. many many.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by.
With bright knives He releaseth my soul.
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places.
He converteth me to lamb cutlets,
For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger.
When cometh the day we lowly ones,
Through quiet reflection, and great dedication
Master the art of karate,
Lo, we shall rise up,
And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water.

Bleating and babbling I fell on his neck with a scream.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

* * *
i can still remember the first time i heard this album. high school sweetheart's parents' condo in union city. excellent bud. everyone else passes out and i'm sitting in front of the marantz quad stereo reading that whispered part (in italics above) stoned out of my little gourd and going like, whoa, but it was a very emphatic whoa, like the most mindblown whoa ever whoad. and then i sat and watched the little balance indicator, which was a tiny CRT with green squiggly lines going out to the four corners of the screen. that stereo would knock pictures off walls, dude. you could stand in the middle of the room and scream at the top of your lungs and not be able to hear yourself. at all. i have no idea why the neighbors didn't call the cops, but they never did.

quarter of a century and the memory is still as clear and sweet as the day it was made. and still just as loud.

"Months in the making, this is a whole new design, a whole new concept and a whole new direction for ProgScape.Com", it says.

unclear why it took them "months" to rip off a blogspot template. i mean, i'll bet this person (random blog i found within five clicks of the recent updates on blogger), didn't take that long. and you know, i remember Jilly had that template. what, year and a half ago? so it's not even very "new".

maybe it's a coincedence. mmhmm.

as the sun set after the weird mini-hurricane, i nabbed the camera and headed out. the sunset wasn't spectacular, which didn't matter at all, it wasn't the point.

got in the car started out for the store and then i realized she was turning toward downtown. knew exactly what the car had in mind: we were going up to the cross. there were no roses to smell so we did not stop, but we did manage to get a picture of the theatre downtown [correction]: picture is through windshield (kind of obvious now that i look at it):

so turned up the tiny road behind city hall, wound up the windy little teeny little road, through the gate they close at night to prevent people from driving their nice comfy cars up there to have sex in. if people want to have sex up there, well, they have to hike in, in the dark. the park service is a big ole meanie. again, this is taken right handed out of the left-side window, so ...

the view from up top is sweet indeed, this is just a tiny bit of it:

the actual cross is ... well, it's a cross. they light it up at night, to taunt the horny teenagers who would heed its call and cruise up for a little teenage quality time.

when you finish the circuit and return to the bottom of the hill, it's three of the world's most lovely blocks down to the ocean:

so theoretically you could walk from the ocean and right into the mountains (well, foothills) in about fifteen minutes. and if you wanted to keep walking at that point, well, you would get one incredible workout.

half hour ago, was the weirdest thing. day was gorgeous sunny all day. then all sudden like, it gets tropical cloudy, not what you folks who live where there's real weather have, but it's humid for here. and the wind. gusts of it, banging the doors -- blew down the sign at the car wash. big sign. sign that is built to take our east winds, so not a flimsy thing.

and then it ended. still steamy grey skies and sticky air, but it's stopped acting like a hurricane at least.

weird.

a bad, bad thing just happened.

it's hot today, and so i decided to wear this cute little floaty hippie shirt i have, which meant i finally had to mend the sleeve. so i sat down with the thread, and the needle, and ... well shit, how am i supposed to get this blasted ... damn thing's just too freakin' small i mean what the hell are they thinking *grumble*

and then i swear it, i hear: 'psst. hey. hey, over here'. i look over and there on the nightstand, are chris's reading glasses. i'm thinking no, no way.

but yeah. yeah. they really helped.

my daughter's right. i'm a spazz.

... so i decided i would (dramatic flourish) buy underwear. on my lunch hour. and so i went to kmart. and had a nervous breakdown.

you see it goes like this first of all i'm cheap and then there are of course the body issues and then of course trying to find matching things i would just like some things that match is that so much to ask and oh by the way the sizing if the sizing made any sense that would be a nice change and the time's passing and even though it's within utterly normal lunch guidelines i never take lunch so there is this growing feeling of panic and then we get to the guilt and weirdness because sure as hell i turn up with new chonies ole whatsisface is gonna be on and on about the snarky shit ooh what are you buying underwear for, um hello it's to cover my ... never mind what it's to cover, mister and then the fact i shaved my legs and he'd be all ooh you're having sex, got polaroids and i'd be all no, i am not having sex because the truth is i couldn't get laid to save my never fucking mind what i can't get laid to save ok look i'll buy ugly stuff i know i saw some now where the fuck is it now i know i wasn't hallucinating and at this point at least part of this discussion is happening out loud and people are starting to look at me oh ferfucksake i just want some fucking underwear i don't hate and WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIRTY TWO DOLLARS.

fuck.

so if you have a totally automatic digicam that insists upon handling everything including exposure and focus no matter what, and you want a blurry shot of a freeway sign, and you are going 75 miles per hour, and rather than seek the therapy you so desperately need at this point, you become determined to get the picture, well ... first of all, don't bother with the viewfinder, it's useless, just use the force. now timing? have to figure in the interval the autofocus will waste not focusing and factor in moving 110 feet per second, and you have a full half a second window if your aim is perfect. fun stuff.

now here is an example of something i have in perhaps twenty different versions many with entirely different opinions, the one i found in the garage was nowhere near the one i remember liking. so i revised it again. and will most likely continue to do so ... indefinitely. 'cause it's not done. and incidentally, i've lived in ventura for eighteen years now. and i feel totally differently about it now. but i remember in a vague way what i was trying to say, and i want it to say that, the tenth year thing. no matter how long it takes.

you know, so posting something in sixteen minutes is well, unusual. to say the least.

***
now. the version here has been reworked. the old version is in the comments. the difference is ... well, one is nearly done (this one) and the other one, well, the other one sucked. not horribly, but still. this is what i meant, when i said not done -- i meant, it hadn't become this yet. big difference. trust me.
***

ventura in the tenth year

time moves
at a dream's pace,
hours passing
for days as
we become
attuned to the benign
and begin blending, our
edges replaced with
soft-focus complacency,
a consistency not at all
dissimilar to the summer
sunrise, all hushed tones
whitemist and wetsand
obscuring any appearance
of controversy, here where
nothing is uneasy, where our
collective somnolence on
any one sunday is
likely to continue
long after brunch
and then go strolling
downtown, browsing,
eventually ending
spent
in a suffusion of
restful peace
in this
intimate indolence,
in this
town ten years have
shown me
is really only extremely
dreamy and very very
little else.

-(me) 1995

so i have this little zen garden. it's about 2 x 2 1/2 inches, mabye a half inch deep, and it has sand and three chunks of obsidian and a little teeny wooden rake thingy. i play with it all the time. i make little patterns in the sand with the little rake. but over the weekend, the sand totally settles and the patterns disappear.

welcome to the land of not getting a damn thing done.

seven thirty-five: open up textbox
seven forty-three: huh.
seven fifty-one: well that's it then.
*-*-*

more than alone

lavender and lemongrass
softness the light fades glass
radiant warm while air swirls
chills across just a
touch of sweat and
somehow
these nuances
consume me
and somehow
this is enough
and that is untrue
and yet none of these words
are lies unless they
are and are
considered
necessary. and
they are. oh they are.

yes.
and the
next word
which occurred
was please.

dream

what demons await, salivating at
     the delicious prospect of my
     impending sleep, their
     brushes poised to paint
     twitching lids with travesty?
i dreamt i stood
     in a harbor, holding
     the flame of my free will
     high, symbolizing the coming
     apocalypse and consumed
     from within with
     shame.
then came
     the naked dream; exposed before
     my myriad mirrored accusers,
     bereft of even the
     smallest shred of
     dignity.
a chorus of condemnation comes crashing
     down around me
     as i awaken in a
     daze of disillusionment,
     fully expecting further failure.
morning's hints of hope cannot help me
     and the nightmare remains, my
     constant reminder that
     if all is not yet lost then
     soon, it will be.
& the mind declines, deprived
     of rest, its struggles
     focusted inward, forming
     a burning pinpoint of
     despair no daylight can disperse ...
a sudden scream shreds the sky -
     a dazzling display of defiance
     everywhere, exploding
                    &
                changing
               everything.

-(me) 02 sep 89

ok, well slowly might be the wrong word. infact the verb tense in the title statement might indeed be the incorrect tense, all things considered. aside from that, or well, because of that, everything seems fine. certain aspects of denial (as long as we are speaking of truly delusional levels of the stuff) can be quite blissful, did you know that? well they can.

i believe i'll have a beer. maybe more. maybe many beersies. whatever it takes, i'm willing.

i take the 101 to work. a little too literally maybe.

creature of the night.

coming right along (number two hundred eighty four, that one)

i feel like i'm channeling a vampire from sesame street.

yeppers.

sometimes i wonder. all the whining i do, and i do whine, not always outloud but believe you me there's a whole lotta snivelin' goin' on at any one time, somewhere inside somehow someway. and yeah i don't always get what i want.

but people who know me bring me strange little shiny objects, yes, when people see small glittery things headed for a wastebasket, they think of me. which is utterly delightful.

and then there are random kindnesses that are so out of left blue yonder and just in the nick of time, a tick or so before some detonation. it's no wonder i live well the hell in denial most of the time, you would too if the universe had saved your sorry ass as many times as it has mine. it's not that i expect it, it's just it's become fairly difficult to envision the terrible things that might happen that are supposed to happen that are just about supposed to be right about now ... now and ... and then there's this sort of swooping scooping move, this graceful save out of nowhere and ...

maybe this is normal and i'm just really paranoid about bad things i shouldn't even worry about? no.

no, it's not normal. i'm not sure i entirely deserve it either and before you go disagreeing may i just say you don't know everything about me, and we'll leave it at that? ok then.

wow i'm not really good with thankyous am i? in case it's not clear, that's what this is.

just this side of solstice the night arrives silky cool across all the skin i can bare and finally finally the damn day light goes and i am home in time and bathed in the particular way the bright waves fade and ebb from my periphery. somehow the music owns more space in the night time, have you noticed this?

there will be times i will abruptly leap to my feet or at least think about it and scowl expressively in a way that, without any unduly vocal announcements, makes it known that it frustrates me entirely that it would be perfect and figuring or at least suspecting that i am the only one realizing this and therefore it very well may never and excuse me but this is a major fucking loss on someone's part doncha think?

well i do.

people are weird.

so i glance out the window, and there's this guy on the corner, checking out the debris from the big carcrash earlier today. he's not cleaning it up, and i doubt accident inspectors wander around in grubby jeans with their shirts unbuttoned, sporting a 'do that either took hours and handfulls of styling product or weeks between showers -- i'm betting the latter.

so, dude has spotted some shiny things. he takes a few steps into the street, bends over, and dabs his fingertips at the ground, like you would if trying to pick up something tiny by getting it to stick to your fingers. he does this for perhaps five seconds - a long time to stand bent over in the street in a busy intersection. he stands up, wanders back over to the sidewalk and paces back and forth for a bit, glancing around like looking for someone. he veers off into the grass, shuffling his feet around, feeling for something? which he maybe finds, he stands there nudging at something with his foot for a few seconds. must be nothing; he returns to sidewalk pacing. back and forth, out in the street, glancing around.

looks up at the building and sees me watching intently. casually starts walking down the sidewalk, a few hundred feet, crosses the street and out of my line of sight; fifteen seconds later there he is right back again, crossing the street, pacing his now much longer pacing path, glancing around, glancing up.

this went on for at least fifteen minutes.

people. weird.

for however long, it was all need, all the time; then abruptly the urgency was gone. she slipped out the window leaving a pillowy decoy wadded up under covers like the horny adolescent we once were; strange what desire will make foolish people do. would that i could have just said good riddance, laid down some unlivable under my roof rules, changed the locks, and nailed the doggie door shut, thereby reducing the incidence of delinquency in my life to just the car payments.

but no. the prodigal need has returned, look at her drag herself through the door all tired eyes and badly camouflaged hickeys, her only energy this brimming thing, with the well-rehearsed reasonable explanations oh my yes i can see she's got a lot of why in her. i pass on the performance, shrug an unconditional sort of shrug and send her to rest up, reflecting on how badly i needed the youthful strength of that impudent, imprudent aspect of my otherwise rapidly middle-aging self.

this is reckless energy, nothing subtle or sophisticated, no nuance no romance just blunt and direct and inadvertently eloquent, describing the intensity of this need better than i could ever: we're talking about a girl would look you straight in the eye and say, ever do it in a buick? and then back up a bit so it could go either way, harmless mischevious or something else, something lighthearted not serious and at the same time, not kidding. this girl is shameless, impatient, and has roomy leather back seats.

(may as well admit it i'm all talk. but it's some talk, yes? mmhmm.)

this is also the girl who seems unafraid of the hope that otherwise terrifies me; she is the insistent voice you hear in spite of everything, saying anything can happen.

so there i am in vons planning the speech. nice and irrational: that's the last time i do groceries i don't care how many hours you sit whining you're hungry while your company car with the current registration sits out there with the full tank of paid-for gas and ... and then my eyes settled on the little drink holder in the basket: starbucks. there's a starbucks here. and magically the attitude vanishes. as i approach the counter, the thought "i'm going to get wired" slices a wide bright swath of enlightenment through the dark grumbling & the hysterical speechplans. grande caramel frappuccino with an extra shot, oh yeah.

it's not even so bad that we're all home today so this means much pointed cleaning, punctuated with demonstrations: "see, this is where the fruitflies breed, they crawl down the little straws of the juiceboxes." how nice.

according to the cURL site, "Install clearly describes how to go ahead when you want to compile and install curl on your system. "

i have included the text of the aforementioned clear description, in the more text, due to its startling ... clarity.

i found more ... clarity out there than you can shake a stick at. and then i found this place and these instructions:

cd /usr/local/src
tar -zxvf curl-x.x.tar.gz
cd /curl-x.x
./configure --with-ssl
make
make install

* * * * * * *
now this doesn't cover the part where apache continued to give me an error message about my version being too old, or how i ran through several reconfigures including the big scary one that says USE AT OWN RISK but KISS YOUR SERVER GOODBYE FIRST, which wasn't so bad afterall. and i finally got cURL installed.

now the only problem is the script that needs it? doesn't work.

small detail.