halloweeny

We went out last night. First to a program function (which always makes me want to drink) and then on to a real bar. The costumes out and about ranged from the traditional witch to a whoopee cushion. My favorite was a really really skinny girl, a genuine Nazi Atrocity, dressed in a black body suit that was painted with glow in the dark bones. This girl had no boobs, nothing to get in the way of the shape of the suit, and she could dance like crazy. Her face was so well done. She looked alot like the dancing Grateful Dead skeletons. Ragged top hat and all. But at the program function, what is always so entertaining to me is the way the sluts dress like sluts, the bitches like witches, and so on. It is so revealing.

down time II

Well, a. has been called by General Wesley Clark. I got Ed Begley Junior. Wasn't he in Arachnophobia? I answered at least 10 calls yesterday. Less today. Good for them. It drives me crazy, but all in all, for an important cause. I voted yesterday. I've made sure all the people in my immediate sphere of influence are voting.

Oh... I got the job! Yay!! The good one. I start monday and can complain from then on out.

So, anyway, isn't it interesting that Osama is talking again so close to election day. What does it all mean. Conspiracy theory tells me that the Neocons put him up to it. He talks down Bush so it will seem like a Democratic trick and turn votes to Bush. All to convince those few still on the fence. Who are the undecided? What was the question? The answer, for now, is Kerry.

Anyway, I'm employed and hopefully will be able to rediscover my sense of humor when this virus vacates its unwilling host.

sick

See someone. See someone cough. See someone try to sleep it off like a viral hangover. I have too much to do to be sick like this. I cannot be clever in interviews with a head full of sludge. I want a gun. I want to be sharp and clever and back in the saddle again. I am sick and I am tired. And I just want to say, to all the heroes who go to work sick, who shake my hand and wish me well, and complain and carry the world on their shoulders like no one else can: fuck you. fuck you and your whole army of nasty little pathogens that have invaded my world and won't go home. Oh... and yeah: get well.

time passages

I wonder if I'll ever get a job. Really. It is the dead heat of the job hunt that has me twisted up inside. I remind myself that I have a job, really, soon, March.... but it isn't March. It is October. And funds are dribbling through my fingers. The interviews are going very well. Actually, I did get a job. A really crappy job for less than half of what I'm used to. And I know humility. I've done my time. Trust me on this. And I'm happy to do an easy job for that amount of money. But not this. This is a really hard job. A 40-hour salary job that averages 60 hours a week. I know myself better than that. And they don't use computers. I'd be going to work for LUDDITES!!! That wouldn't be any fun at all. I'm not even sure my dinosaur fingers can make letters anymore. So, I've pretty much talked myself out of it. I'm going to Bi-Mart or Freddy's and get a seasonal job.

What I will agree to during an interview startles me. I almost laugh. Sure, I say. No problem.

Sid

I've been busy wiping up after my new puppy. Sid. Sid-not-very-Vicious. He's ten weeks old and cute as puppies need to be to prevent you from throwing them off the porch and into traffic. He's smart, so far, and hits the paper most of the time. He follows me around like a newborn duck, eyes glazed over in that depth of admiration I expect from strangers on the street. He looks like the "His Master's Voice" dog --white with brown ears, head cocked to one side like some people do when I say things outloud.

So, that's what I've been up to. And filling out applications. I gotta tell ya.... sometimes I wish (not really) I worked at Wendy's. I wish I was qualified to do something that had a simple application. Can you speak? Do you have eyes? One good arm? You're in. I am so qualified it would make you sick. My excessive experience has netted me exactly nothing in the way of a job, but it sure is impressive to write about. By the time I finish an application, bleary-eyed and carpal-tunneled, I think, shit... I'd hire me.

I have two interviews tomorrow. Hope springs eternal.

Gotta get the puppy inside. He's training me.

Locks

In Southern Oregon, I never locked my doors. I tell you this by way of preliminary defense, so you won't jump to the immediate (if eventual) conclusion that I am an idiot.

Also, to give credit where credit is due, my sweet man asked me didn't I think it would be a good idea to gas-up before the last fumes escaped. Honey. He said Honey. So I said, No, I'll decide. I've got the whole world in my hands.

Enough of a set up? Can you guess what happens?

I left the comfort of my vortex to meet Shawna at the Nooner for her birthday. 7 years. I thought I'd leave a little early, get her a card, you know the drill. So, I whisk out the door at 11:30, and as soon as the door clicked behind me with all of the finality of Fort Knox, it occurred to me that I didn't have my keys. There is no way back in. I've determined that already. I'm not going cat burglar on it. NO second story work for me. To my credit, I looked great this time: black turtleneck, good levis, no coffee stains. And I thought, okay. Well, I have money and a vehicle. No problem. I always carry an extra truck key. Good girl scout. Maybe I'll just drive around after the meeting, run some errands, then drive out to Hillsboro to get hubby after work. No problem.

But the vehicle was out of gas. Remember?

I think: okay. No problem. (this thinking precedes many problems for me...) I can make it to the gas station, and still make it on time. I won't be able to get her the card, but oh well. So, I drive to the gas station and pull up to the pump. Mobil -- 205.9 a gallon, but I don't have time to drive to the belmont arco where its 189 or so. So, I drag out a ten dollar bill as the woman comes to my window. "Key." she says. Its pretty simple. But the thing is, I'm just not used to the whole fear factor thing about living in a city. Although with the relative value of gas.... My husband bought me a locking gas cap when I started coming up here regularly. Before he was my husband. Well, you can guess that I didn't have an extra gas key. Shit. I ask her if she can pick the lock. She works at a gas station, she might have some skills. Me? I've been clean too long. I don't remember how to do anything wrong anymore. She tells me she can break the lock. I consider it, but drive away instead. I'm going to creep home to see if Nicole will show up for lunch. Sometimes she does. Sometimes she has a housekey.

I approach our house and see her walking up the street. Thank you Jesus. I walk to meet her. "please tell me you have a key." she doesn't, of course. But she knows where one is, and its only 40 blocks from here. I drive her to her mother's house, breathing fumes all the while, and back again. Whew. We get into the house, I get my keys, take her keys, feed her banana cake (god, i've been baking cakes like betty crocker) and grab hubby's keys to HIS truck. (Mine is bone dry, remember.) And we hop in the white truck and I drop her back at school, a block away, like a good step-mommy. I'm half an hour late, but I make it. I make it. Later in the day I take a gas can and start out for the gas station. What I don't remember is rush hour. If you live in a city, it is something to keep in mind. a real phenomenon. very inconvenient when you're trying like mad to sneak to the nearest gas station.

It was stop and go traffic all the way up Division, but I made it.... and I didn't hear much about I told you so from honey about the gas. I know it would have been a better story if I'd run out, but not for me. After work, I rode to the esplanade to meet K after work, and I said, (a teensy bit defensive) "Okay okay, you were right." And he said, "No, you could say I was right, but in your heart, you'd know I wasn't. You didn't run out of gas." But the point was not whether or not I ran out of gas, its that I had every opportunity to fill the tank and did not. And the degree of stress over the lockout was compounded monumentally by my own stubborness.

But all actions are born somewhere. Its funny. The closer I get to poverty, the more I act like I used to. Coasting on fumes, putting in two dollars at a time, this is a life I know by heart. It is a luxury to fill up the tank. I've been fortunate for a long time, but I remember looking for quarters between the couch pillows like it was yesterday.

I've been beating the cosmic streets in search of gainful employment. Without the old-time face to face, its tough to really experience the full effect of rejection. But I'm getting closer.

In the pink and out again

I'm going stir crazy. For four months it was fine to not have a job. It is no longer fine. I want a job. A bookstore or coffee kiosk would be fine. Just something to do. So, I'm painting the bathroom. I know me and boredom. A dangerous combination. And danger... ah....mother's milk. So, off I go to the paint store for another gallon of not-quite-white as I like to call it. I'm painting it all. I'm painting the vinyl wallboard around the tub. HEY I'll paint the tub!!! I'll paint a mural on the underside of the tub which is currently lime green. Any ideas? I'm wide open. It used to be a mystery to me why old people (Elizabeth, the former owner of the house, old german lady) have such abysmal taste (lime green tub, pepto bismol pink room). Or had, in Elizabeth's case. It took me years of nursing home work and eight hour days of not exactly critical observation to figure it out: they are blind. They can't see the fucking colors, so they choose the garish ones. It's all they can see. Otherwise it's all gray. I'm still working on answering the question of why so many "plant" plastic flowers in their yards. I'll let you know what I come up with. Although if I am on the right track, I think its because they don't care. Like me.

My husband says he'll miss the pink. I'll save him a corner.

Satan and Boy Robin

Wow. Cheney is Satan, huh? Permafrost. Erudite iceman. I don't know who won or lost, but they sparred. That much is for certain. Americans have been lulled into believing -- no -- it is more likely the result of the continuous terrorizing, awfulizing, catastrophizing, on the part of this mis-administration that has desensitized the populace and led them to consider the 2 party system defunct, impotent at best. And I'd rather have more like 10 parties (you know how I love parties) but for now, two is alot more than we've got.

Bumper sticker de jour: Let's Not Elect Him This Year Either.

And Boy Robin (can't you just see him in the cape, saying: Holy Halliburton Batman!") did get his nose rubbed in it some, but I do think the Halliburton comments pissed Cheney off. He did fine. Shit, I wouldn't want to go up against that guy. He's mean. Wouldn't it have been great if Cheney stood up like he did in the Senate, metal chair barking against the linoleum, and told Edwards to get fucked? Man. I'd love to have seen that.

faith and science

Took a daytrip up to Mt. St. Helens today. It was a beautiful ride. I'm glad we took the bike because if anything bad happened, we could have slipped past the clusterfuck of onlookers racing from showers of falling magma. There were all kinds of people up there. Carloads of brave and stupid souls (like us) waiting for the big event. The geologists speak, like GWB, with such certainty. But I wonder at the random universe, and how much is unknown compared to what is known. I mean, we could have been blown off the map in a cataclysmic geologic event heretofore unforseeable. And the news would have read: Unpredictable eruption Takes out motorists up to 10 miles away.

Everyone is an expert at these things. Everyone has a fact to share, like:
"The eruption at Mt. Mazama was 39 times the 1980 St. Helens eruption," and,
"...see that rock up there? the one that looks like a snaggletooth? It wasn't there an hour ago,"
and, "the ash cloud was moving at 300 mph, so you couldn't outrun it if it happened, "
and, "the force of the explosion was 47 times the energy of an atom bomb."

Really. That's pretty big. Anyway, how would he know? Just because that guy had badge hanging from his neck that read something like: US Department of Defense, Non-uniformed Division, gave him no credibility in my book. Especially when, in the background, I continued to listen to him drone on to anyone who could hear: "The difference between necromancers and magicians is...." Jeez... Shut the fuck up. Just another nutbag with a homemade badge.

There was an actual scientist up there with a huge telescope in the back of his truck. I'm sure there were many others, but this guy had some real information.

We passed through the ominous shadow of the Hanford (?) nuclear plant twice. That was creepy. I think it is dead now. I don't know. I know some guy who had to have tests done becuase he lived nearby. Silkwood.

It is now Tuesday. The mountain has blown off steam twice. The media is frantic in the absence of human suffering. I thank a. for her posts relative to geologic time. We raced a red cadillac home and lost. He passed us going 100 like we were standing still.

relief

Mt. St. Helens erupted once today. It wasn't a big deal, and I think the media morons are so disappointed no one slipped in molten lava, rolling downhill at mach speed headed for metropolis... no wait, that's another story. It blew, and like so many other things, it reminds me of another time and another place, but dimly...

I don't remember the first eruption. If it was between the years of 1980 and 1984, I was outrunning somebody, baby in tow, probably during my first escape to Coosbay. My face, bruised and swollen, was its own little catastrophe. I slept in my car, in a park, drinking wine and trying to keep track of the baby. I woke up in the middle of a family reunion, my own, and didn't know a soul. Some of the nice ladies looked at me and tried to see the resemblance to my mother, but it was a stretch on that day. I do look like her. But what I remember most clearly, is the pain of having the nice girls french braid my hair. My head was so sore. And when I walked into the restroom in the park, a pretty blonde woman came into the bathroom behind me. There was a wood moth hanging out near the base coving, under the barnwood panelling, as they will. They are beautiful, if you like that kind of thing. I pointed it out. She screamed, then looked up at me and screamed again, saying, "Oh my God. There are so many terrible things."

Boy Howdy.

I'm sorry to keep telling these stories.

But the point is the not remembering. I think I was the only person my age in Apollo 13 who didn't know how it ended. I leaned over to whisper in the ear of the man I was with. "Do they make it?" I asked.

They do. They make it back. It's amazing.

post debate anxiety

It is so clear to me that this election has almost nothing to do with the issues, with thinking. The spin is so pronounced, so effective, that all the bush administration has to do is to say, "We won," and that's what the news whores spout. Reminds me of Patrick Stewart as the Star Trek captain saying: "Make it so." People are such sheep.

Say it ain't so.

I watched the debate, of course, but it was torture. I imagine being one of those on the fence (I have an active imagination) and what my response would be if I felt the current president had any credibility. If, last night, the question was raised whether he would do another preemptive strike, and he said, "golly gee whiz I hope not" and this morning a battleship sets [figurative] sail for Korea, am i missing something? I am so paranoid that I can see the following: Bush gets back from the debate, says, "Fuck that anti-nuculer asshole, heh, heh, heh.... I'll show him." and sends a boat to straighten out Korea before talking to anyone. Its Beavis and Butthead. And I want to write a letter to Jim Lehrer, telling him not to coach the president like he did.... "Hey, Psssst, GW, he used the T word again. He said "truth" you gonna let that get by ya???"

I am venting. I am St. Helen.

On a more positive note, I loved what Kerry did with the set-up question about character. The "certainty" answer. It was well put and did not belabor the obvious or give moderator (or the audience) the blood they were looking for. He made some nice direct hits, but I don't know who listens, really. They just wait for the spin to tell them what they think.

I am not a saint, really.

On a more/less volcanic note: How serious is this? In a news era where they warn about rain in springtime and snow in winter, what am I supposed to think? What if the mountain blows and I don't have a Y2K-sized stash of tuna and peanut butter? All I know for sure is that I'll need to wash my truck or it will be coated with cement. It is so hard to know what to take seriously. I guess I should get some masks and water stashed for the eventual catastrophe. But in geologic time, what does 70% mean?