December 2005
The year of fatal mishaps – Another year of amatory bewilderment, of glistening invitations, stubborn pokings, and graceless abutments of flesh. Faced with too many confusing possibilities in the flowchart of homosexual ardor my
December 2004
A Christmas neoplasm – A doctor's office waiting room in Christmas week is sort of like a neighborhood bar in the afternoon. Mostly old men sitting alone, an atmosphere of durable despair, the haunted feeling that happiness
Cocksucker of the year – Memories and photographs. Look, here I am at twelve, cutting pictures of Robby Benson out of magazines. I went through a phase when I was in love with his character from One On One. I believe I was ma
Crimes of passion – As Christmas approaches our thoughts naturally turn to violence, death, and catastrophe. These thoughts are similar to our death-related thoughts at other times of the year, but with a nice pine scent
Dirty – Earlier today I warmly embraced a white-haired dog and spoke to it with affection as it cheerfully imagined a thick pork chop where my head was. Later, while reading, I noticed in the glare of my read
I can't stand you – The other day I was out for a walk in Laurelhurst Park and it was cold and rainy and windy and so on, and I walked by this man and woman deep in conversation, and the twenty-something man (whose poor
Insomnia caused by gravity – In the new New Yorker there's a review of a new biography of Willem de Kooning in which the painter is quoted as having once remarked to his wife (after gazing at the night sky), "The universe gives m
Maybe even gruesome – I see you've noticed my head. No, it's okay, take a good look, everyone else has. I don't know, it was like this when I woke up this morning. No, it doesn't hurt. But thanks for asking. Most people, t
No new information – The inexorable degradation of my precious myelin sheaths continues apace. I'm just going to become addicted to Adderall and be done with it. I'm starting to do that finger-snapping thing when I can't
Nurse D – My friend D recently moved back to San Francisco from Boston. We had worked together when we both lived in San Francisco, in that faraway time called the 1990s. She had been sort of drifting along in
Object relations – Did it make any difference to me when I was informed that you're inanimate? Did it? I'm asking you. No, I took it in stride. I'm always accommodating, I'm always the understanding one. It turns out y
Opinion bloat – The sheer number of opinions I've formed over the course of a lifetime is beginning to feel burdensome. I'm going to have to cut this number down, get rid of some, do some year-end winnowing. Then I c
Regret ledger – The end of the year is the traditional period for taking stock and contemplating the inexorable march of time and how it's ravaged our once-beautiful faces. In most of the northern hemisphere we assoc
That's the me we like to see – I've been talking to the mirror again. This behavior comes and goes. I go through the motions of "catching" my reflection, as if somehow I didn't know it would be there (a mirror in the bathroom?), an
The very limit – I've put up with a lot, but this is the end. How fitting that it's the last day of the year. I can't take anymore, it's as simple and idiotic as that. After all, I have to look at myself in the mornin
December 2003
A cloacal Christmas – There are ways to combat the season of mandatory cheer and spiritual fraud and consumerist rapacity, just on a private personal level. You will have no effect on society, but when do you ever? You cou
Add it up – After doing some quick and dirty calculations on a napkin, I've concluded that I am exactly equal to the sum of my parts.
Bad signs – Falling Rocks. Why even mention such a possibility? Nothing's to be gained. If we're driving on the interstate beside a sheer rock face and we see such a sign, nothing is changed except that we're mad
Badly wrapped – Among the many things I am terrible at, giftwrapping is one of the most trivial, but it is vexing. I don't make it easy on myself either, trying to wrap things on my lap or on the sofa cushion instead
Blind – I often wonder how I would react to a sudden permanent impairment or disability. I don't know why I do this, it isn't like such morbid rehearsals of woe prepare one for reality. Nothing prepares anyon
Boning up – Two useful items I received as Christmas gifts, new underpants and a book about paleoanthropology. I really need to bone up on my knowledge of human evolution, and this book, The Origin of Modern Huma
Box of crap – There are some things in my brain that I wish weren't in it, that never should have been in it and which I never invited in, to the best of my knowledge, yet there they are somehow and they are appare
Centrifuge – I believe I need to have my bile spun in a centrifuge to more readily identify its components. Other people are a wall you can't get over and can't get around, and it doesn't make sense to use my head
Cheerful chimp + tympani = ? – Chickpeas, how I adore them. The unassuming legume that nonetheless draws your attention, have you noticed the likeness of its contours to shapely wee buttocks? It's everything I need in a food, its n
Circle of life – Familiarity breeds contempt. Contempt breeds ridicule. Ridicule breeds humiliation. Humiliation breeds pity. Pity breeds commiseration. Commiseration breeds compassion. Compassion breeds sympathy. Sym
Coffee table – I was looking at my calendar the other day and I noticed an alarming increase in the number of years I've been alive, just in the last couple of decades. No one else was around, so I asked the coffee
Cuttlefish – As I passed the Asian market, a little girl of about three and her mother came out, the girl all bundled up in her red winter coat, clutching to herself a large bag of dried cuttlefish. Her expression
Department store – I wonder how long department stores will survive. When I was a kid, department stores were still thriving but there were signs that the end was near. In trying to be all things to all people they ende
Dolt bolt – In many common social situations, etiquette or expedience often requires you to smile warmly at someone whose violent death you are at that very moment imagining. The goal is to be rid of the dolt/ass
Don't bother trying – Never vow to someday show the world what you're made of, because you just don't know how the world is liable to react to something like that. Any further jokes or puns in the form of "____ Eye For Th
Erotic frenzy, parking lot – There you are, here you come. You are the embodiment of my wretched inability to escape from wanting, how cruel you are to exist, if only you knew! Surely such as yourself wouldn't be able to refrain
Evil tree – In front of the Sunnyside School there's a terrifying gnarled old tree, a tree that always strikes me as morbid and grotesque, and I love how it lives in the small grassy area in front of a school for
Eyelashes – As we know, actor William Shatner was nearly driven to suicide by chronic, maddening tinnitus. He reports being on the brink of personal annihilation before he finally found a therapy that helped him.
Fag Flintstone – Some scientists are advocating a return to the dietary habits of our Paleolithic ancestors, to whom heart disease, obesity, and other common modern ills were rare or unknown. This pre-agricultural men
Floor plan of apprehension – Dining room: Where random piles of junk are kept. No dining takes place here. Contains wall that dog barks at for no reason. Living room: Where dining takes place. Largest room in the house. Name is
Flu – Clearly every man, woman, child, and probably dog, cat, credenza, and area rug in North America will be infected and made miserable by this year's headline-grabbing flu bug, and since I am a person wi
Ghetto laundry – It's after 2AM and I am doing laundry. I still think of doing laundry in the home as a special privilege after so many years of laundromats. I can do laundry at any time, day or night. I can launder m
Humiliated by nature – I wonder if nature derives any pleasure from repeatedly humiliating the things it creates. Nature wears that smart expression, smirks in that superior way as it clobbers us and everything else that ha
Log Lady – It was the Log Lady who so famously said, "Close your eyes and you'll burst into flames." How true, whatever it means. When you sleep you're not free of your anxieties, far from it. If anything they s
Look down – I realized that I like looking at the ground when I walk along. I enjoy the sidewalk or path or whatever's underfoot, more than I like the scenery or faces or cars or buildings. I prefer it, so I'm no
Mall face – This is the time of year when the population of the United States appears to suddenly multiply tenfold, and you can't make simple plans without considering the millions of people suddenly milling abou
Marginalia, page 64 – ! very true { ??? blowing smoke here X YES
Merry Christmas Vicki Lawrence – You have no discernible talent. You were plucked from the obscurity of a patriotic squeaky clean singing group to audition for The Carol Burnett Show mostly because you looked like her and could play
Next year is the year I really begin to live – The middle of winter isn't the best time for the traditional New Years Resolutions. It's not really a bad idea, yearly promises to oneself, it does force you into some clarifying (if delusional) self-
Peppermint tea – I have a hankering for peppermint tea, which is odd because I never drink tea and even if I did drink tea peppermint tea wouldn't be one of my top choices, far from it. Moreover, I've never even had p
Phrase – A phrase I really like is "night vision goggles." Not the goggles themselves, or even the idea of them, just the phrase. Actually come to think of it the goggles are pretty nifty, but still. Tonight
Secret Santa – Secret Santa is not an evil Santa or a simple anti-Santa, that would be too easy. Secret Santa paradoxically compels a gesture of goodwill and a bestowal of the simple joy of the season to your desk,
Sugar knoll – I'd like some tiramisu. Do people still eat tiramisu or has it gone out of fashion? You used to see references to a dessert called baked alaska, but now nobody mentions it. It's like something Lucy wo
The cynical pedestrian – It began to snow an hour before I went out. I was fortunate to be able to stomp through many blocks of virgin sidewalk before their pristine whiteness was ruined by the shoeprints of others. Actually,
The nightmare of growing bodies – Today's ridiculous neurosis is the horror of physical growth, the growth and maturation of bodies, specifically the size increase. Most discussions of growth focus on aspects like sexual development a
The western lands – When I was very young, perhaps four or five, my family moved into a newly-built house on the western edge of a development in Vallejo, California. There are photos of me and my two sisters inside the
The wrongness of me – Evidence of old derelict obsessions can make me feel a kind of shame or it can make me feel a tenderness for my younger self, in the manner of an older sibling shaking his head and smiling at youth's
The Year of Bracing Honesty – For me, 2004 is going to be the Year of Refreshing Candor, and I'm getting started a few weeks early. I'm very tired of always being cagey and afraid to risk anything when it comes to communicating wi
Three occurrences involving telephones – 1. Person A is sitting in a chair, then gets up to get a glass of water. On the way to the kitchen he or she sees the phone sitting there and without thinking about it too much picks it up and dials a
Twenty dollars – I found a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk at 32nd and Yamhill today. I was walking along, not another person in sight, and there it was, folded neatly in half and sitting smack in the middle of the
What do I want from people and why do I want it? – In retrospect, it's possible to trace the beginning of the deterioration of my relationships with people to the moment I first met them. The day you first meet someone intriguing is like your twenty-f
What happens – Personal histories aren't really comprised of events, there's something false and beside the point about standard biographical data. I passed this parked car and just as I walked by a woman and two bo
What's left – I went for my usual walk last night. The streets were wet and empty and seemed to suggest that under no circumstances were they to be pitied. I exchanged glances with the occasional fellow pedestrian.
Why would I lie? – 1. To spare someone's feelings. 2. When to tell the truth would betray the confidence of another person who swore me to secrecy. 3. To escape an emotionally difficult situation. 4. To escape jury duty
another page
other things
augusts