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Thursday, March 30, 2006
Who's more badass: Al Capone or Rasputin?   The mobster or the mad monk? The power of organized corruption? Or the power of mind control? My sister and I had this debate today. Before I tell you who I was rooting for.. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery? | Wednesday, March 29, 2006 THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER COMMENTS.. regarding my bowels on this here blog! It is now a banned topic, like horse cock. My stomach has settled a bit. I guess it remembered what to do with meat. And I'm confident I can find a new job by the time I'm supposed to move (in 2 weeks). The universe shows you what you want to see.. And I see a bottle of mango flavored rum. That's fine for now. =) |
Worst Day Ever Started one job, got fired from the other. Can't move out now, am stuck here until I find another job. After 10 years of no meat, accidentally ate pork and shrimp in some very deceptive eggrolls. Internal bleeding, no further details. Chorus of enemies, go ahead and laugh. |
Maybe an animal attacked the salamander. Like a squirrel, or something? No, squirrels eat nuts.. Or maybe when I threw the salamander back into the water, a fish gobbled it up. We'll never know. Am I still talking about this? | Tuesday, March 28, 2006 The Salamander Today I went for a walk in the woods, as I do on most days I don't work. But could not enjoy it, the spring air, the sun. My mind was too swimmy with human concerns: some dumbfuck ex-boyfriend who tried to play with my head this morning, whether the guy I'm seeing now is as sweet as he seems or just another heartbreak waiting to happen, stories I should write, stories I should submit, the new job I start tomorrow, how I'm finally moving out of my dad's house again. The nervous hope that everything will work. And the strange surrender that comes with knowing you're trying the best you can and there's nothing more.. After sauntering around the pond and through the trees, examining plant buds, but not really caring, I thought I'd lie on a grassy hill and stare at the sky. I looked down and something was squirming, just ahead of me in the soggy grass. Something dark and slimy, flipping its tail. A fish? A snake? It sort of looked like both.. I scampered back to the pond, broke off a reed to poke the creature with. Wasn't going to pick it up with my fingers. What if it bites? I gently lifted it onto the reed and noticed it's little arms and legs, it's bulgy eyes. It was a salamander. Black with blue spots. Would've been the cutest damn thing if its guts weren't spilling out of its middle. There was it's bladder, a yellow pea. There were its intestines, curly like doll's hair. Poor salamander was fucked up beyond healing. Condemned. Some piece of shit kid with no respect for nature must've caught it, maimed it and left it there on the grassy hill to die in the sun. I had to put it out of it's agony, spare it the long and dry death. So I picked it up by it's slick little tail, carried it to the water. Told it, "You'll be a lot more comfortable here" and "remember me in your next life", then tossed it gently into the pond. The salamander vanished with a splash and I cried a few tears. It's been on my brain ever since. I can't worry about anything else but how it must feel to have a hole ripped in your stomach.. The cruel beauty of nature is the only thing I really "believe in". | Monday, March 27, 2006 1983  Piggy bends over and says, "So if I let you do me in the butt, you'll be my friend forever and ever? Really!? Okay!"In the Asian zodiac, I'm a pig. A "water boar" to be exact. Which means people born in 1983 tend to carry the more emotional traits of the boar. We're naive and gullible, regardless of life experience. Generous to a fault if you get on our good side. Senselessly loyal. A boar will be friends with you for years, even if she hates your guts. Any boar you know probably has a collection of ex flames who she can't quite bear to part with, and vice versa. We are cultural, but in a general, somewhat superficial way. A Japanese proverb says boars are "wide in the face, but narrow in the back". We can name hundreds of bands we like, but only a few songs by each. (Note: MTV came out in 1983 and brought the music and film worlds to new lows of shallow). We've read tons of books, but couldn't quote a passage from a single one to save our pig-slop. Boars are charming and funny. We like to flirt and tell dirty stories. But to a stranger, the boar can seem quiet and maybe a little stupid. If you chill with a boar, the night will most likely consist of eating, drinking and talking. A boar will give you a sip of her drink, a bite of her food, will gladly do the driving. But do not take advantage of her generosity. Once the boar senses you're using her, she'll hand you your testicles on a plate and kindly show you to the barn door. The boar is unforgiving. She has to be, or she'll get eaten. Boars are paranoid. They don't trust easy. They can never be too sure who's their real friend and who's out to make them into a pork chop. There's another proverb that says people will help the boar only to fatten her up so she'll make a better feast, come new years. Asian New Years usually happens around late January. So those of us at the end of 83 (like me, born in November) or the beginning of 84 are extra gullible, extra succeptable to getting tricked. Boars get along best with dogs and rabbits. Also rats and goats. Most of my friends are dogs and rats (1982 and 84). Boars get along worst with snakes and sometimes have difficulty with other boars. So yeah, I don't know where the hell I'm going with this, but it was fun to write. Maybe I can get a job writing placemats for Chinese restaurants. hehe | Friday, March 24, 2006 New Hair  After 3 bleachings, it looks pretty good. My scalp is crusty and raw. There's still some brassy orange patches in back. =( |
=) | Wednesday, March 22, 2006 Fiction Writers.. In Outer Space! I had a dream last night. And you were there, and you, and you and you.. All my friends from school were there at the rocket-launchy thing they set up next to the Sears Tower. Our ship would arrive in 45 minutes. We had one last chance to wander about the town and say our goodbyes before blast off. I got lost. Somewhere up north. Maybe I was trying to walk all the way back home. I climbed the stairs to an el platform, tried to figure out where the hell I was. Then I saw it in the distance, peeking between the skyscrapers. Like a thousand foot tall bullet, silver, shiny, leaned against the rocket-launchy thing. The ship I would ride to space. I caught the next train to the Loop. And got there just in time for boarding. My friends from school were giddy and terrified. Giggling through tears and squeezing each other's hands as we climbed the stairs to the space ship. A crowd waved and cheered below us. Such heroes we were, the first fiction writers in space. In the belly of the ship were a fuck load of research monkeys. Big, fuzzy apes, little spider monkeys. Deformed monkeys with 18 fingers. They howled and rattled the bars of their cages as we passed. Before we could proceed, a scientist had us autograph a monkey's stomach. I gently pushed aside it's fur to write my name. It didn't seem to mind. In another room were these donkeys with enormous mouths. "They're our newest creation. Donkeys with horse lips!" a scientist eagerly explained. Uhh.. okay.. We climbed more stairs to a locker room where we'd change into our space suits. I'd forgotten mine, but they had a spare that seemed like it would fit. Soon, we looked like 80's Ghostbuster marshmallow men, or children set to play in the snow. It was time to take our seats. The scientist opened the door to the passenger area.. and I woke up! Fuck! Couldn't get back to sleep because my stomach was squeezing with pain from the green pepper I accidentally ate last night (I'm deadly allergic. And couldn't tell it was a green pepper because it was covered in tempura batter). But I believe dreams are real. In some time, in some dimension, there are fiction writers in space. Oh yes.. | Monday, March 20, 2006 Important Update My hair looks awful. I'm ruined!! |
This is So Addicting For geeks who get wet for dialouge: Bombay TV Make your very own Bollywood film. Here are some I've made: http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/play_uk.php?id=928730 http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/play_uk.php?id=928760 http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/play_uk.php?id=928783 |
Goodbye Bright Red Hair So I'll look like a harmless white trash girl and no longer an art school freak. No one will hire me with hair so obnoxiously red. And I'm trying to move out April 1st, so I need more money. Bla bla bla.. there is no excuse. I'm doing what you kids call "selling out." | Sunday, March 19, 2006 Reclusive Stayed in the last 2 nights. Out of apathy, fear of people, lack of $. I regret it. Woke up bored with a headache, having slept too long. This is not like me. Somethings wrong. | Saturday, March 18, 2006 Fuck Women's Lib For some fucking reason, I've started getting student loan bills in the mail. I wasn't supposed to see any of those until June. But now the facists want me to give them half of what I earn each month! So what I'm expected to do is quit my easy, only mildly soul-sucking job, dye my hair back to it's natural, boring blonde-brown, buy a god damn pinstripe suit and indenture myself for 8 hours a day at some get-coffee-for-cunthead-boss real job and rot there until I am cunthead boss, herself. It's what the feminists fought for in the 70's. The right for women to be asshole corporate slaves, too. But if you know me, you know I'm not cut out for that crap. I feel much more fufilled on my days off when I'm home vacuuming, reading, writing, doing laundry, cooking a big tasty dinner. Grocery shopping makes me giddy. Folding socks brings me inner peace. If this were 1954 and I were expected to marry right out of college, if my only job was to hit the salon with my gal-pal Mabel, gossip and get pretty for my husband, then go home and whip up a cassorole.. Hey, that's not so bad, girls! Why all the bra-burning? Fuck women's lib. Fuck feminism for de-feminizing women. I guess if a chick wants to put on a suit and suffer, it should be her right. But those of us who are sweet and humble, a little bit spacey, not good for much more than fucking and entertaining should still have the option of doing it the old way. (Being a 2000's housewife doesn't count. Cuz you're expected to go to the gym and still hold a job and drive an SUV and that doesn't exactly appeal to me.) Also, men have become so disgustingly spoiled. The "sexual revolution" has turned womenkind into their playground. They used to have to buy us a house before they could fuck us. Now, they just have to buy us a beer. What insentive do they have to stop acting like selfish, hornball teenage boys? And most men can't make a girl cum, anyhow. The least he could do is reward his girl for a lifetime of sub-par sex with a shiny new car. So if I can't be a 1950's housewife (in an adorable polka dot dress) and refuse to be a modern corporate slave, then what can I do? How can I pay off these pestulant student loan bills? I'm not sure yet. It'll take me a while to figure things out, but I'm sure I can scrape up a 2nd or 3rd only mildly soul-sucking job. Or go teach English overseas. I'm still considering that, but it makes me incredibly nervous. So fuck men today for not being worth marrying. Fuck women's lib for sending pretty young girls to financial hell. And fuck me for not being good at 2006. | Friday, March 17, 2006 They should have called it Story Week 2006: Old people read about sex or Fetus Week 2006: Stories of Abortion and Masceration hehe | Thursday, March 16, 2006 If I were going to write a post, it would be called Why are my Panties so Full of Ice? or Story Week Ghost But dammit, I'm drunk. Goodnight. zzzzzzzz | Monday, March 13, 2006 Also, I'll be reading my Sabrina story tomorrow at the Story Week Reader release party. 8th floor of the 1104 S Wabash building at the unholy hour of 11am. Be there and cheer loudly! |
So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy. (from Happy Hour novel) The shrink who diagnosed me as bi-polar barely spoke English. Yet in one 30-minute session thought she knew me well enough to stick me with that label, upgrading me from mere depression. I was only 15 at the time and would spend the remainder of my high school years doped up beyond coherence, nodding off in class from the heavy sedatives. I gained 50 pounds, which is fucking traumatic for a teenage girl. Spent many months locked away in dehumanizing, underfunded state-run facilities, since I didn't have health insurance. And if you tell a kid she's crazy, tell a kid she's anything, her sponge brain will soak it in, her body will act out the role you've cast her. She'll learn to quote Sylvia Plath: Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air. Nobody bothered to ask me what was wrong, what was making me so damn nuts. They would have realized I was just an extra-sensitive, creative and weird young girl surrounded by bratty classmates and closed minded teachers. That's not too abnormal. Who wouldn't go nuts? Instead, they declared me "mentally ill", a hopeless case, doomed for life. The label would follow me after high school and that, plus my over-emotional nature would land me in the loony bin a few more times. | Saturday, March 11, 2006 Do Not Put a scorpion up your butt. | Friday, March 10, 2006 My Lovely Pet  Her name is Apostrophe. Can you believe she's 8 years old? | Wednesday, March 08, 2006 Girl's Search for Meaning When I was 18, in Psych 101 at the community college, our professor assigned Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. I didn't read it then because I was a punk-ass kid skipping out on my homework. But at the time, the book might have been lost on me. My life was full of meaning. My mom had just died and each day was a strange, rewarding struggle just to get through work and school, despite how fucked up and cruel life seemed. But as we've seen from yesterday's post, I'm having trouble finding meaning today, in this slow "now what?" time after college. So I picked up the Frankl book, read it in one sitting and here's what I learned: - "He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how." -Nietzsche -"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us." -Frankl -With the fading of certain animal instincts and human traditions, many young people today find themelves in an existential vaccuum (a fancy term for being bored and not sure what to do with your life). Too many options, too few expectations. -When acute mental tension is lifted (like when someone gets out of prison), a person experiences the emotional equivilent of the bends- they continue to act bitter and defensive, even though life around them is no longer brutal. -Laugh in the face of pain, guilt and death. It's the only way to defeat them. Tragic optimism. -Human action goes beyond the sublimation of animal drives (the id), contrary to what Freud accused. -Meaning goes beyond utility. Learning, enjoyment and spiritual growth have meaning. -To face a phobia, tease it. For instance, if you can't sleep, lie there and think about how you can't sleep until it gets funny and boring and you pass out. Drain the phobia of its mystery, of its power. -Those with a rich inner life, as flaky as they may seem in normal situations, are often the ones who pull through a tragedy best. They have their internal world to lean on. -Follow your meaning. It will save you. Example: a doctor (Frankl) stayed with his patients, from camp to camp and survived the Holocaust because of it. He did his job and somehow, things worked out for him. -The meaning in "meaningless" tragedy is how you deal with it, how you grow. -Humans can get used to anything. But happiness, homeostasis (the American dream) is not enough. | Tuesday, March 07, 2006 Crazier than Ever I've supposedly become so calm and sweet. I go through most of my days feeling careless and content. Seems I've finally learned to chill. This is good. This is healthy, right? I'm all better now. NO! This is the craziest I've ever been! I'm terrified of sadness, of disappointment, of pain so I don't do anything. I don't write, I don't love, I work as few hours as possible. Still, I see friends, I read, I go for walks in nature. But my life doesn't really transcend enjoyment. To do so, a person needs meaning. But to have a meaning is to have something or someone you would die for, you would live for. Passion brings the potential for suffering. So while I go on about how I'm avoiding relationships, avoiding over-working myself, avoiding being so god damn restless and loony, under the guise of self-protection, it's all crap. It's a cop out. I need to do something scary. Not physically scary, but something that will test my emotions, re-light the fire under my ass. I need Kali Ma to dance upon my chest again. I have been her. But how to invoke her? |
The first lillies of the valley have sprouted! Yayy! | Monday, March 06, 2006 Tired of the Cock I've tried young ones, old ones, white ones, black ones, brown ones, new ones, ones I've known for years. I've tried big schlongs and tiny ponies. Manly ones and ones beneath a skirt. I've tried rich ones, broke-ass leach ones. I've tried the mean, I've tried the sweet. And I'm fucking sick of them all. So I'm in search of a girlfriend. Spread the word. | Sunday, March 05, 2006 Can't dance like I used to. My feet have grown the cutest blisters ever. Re-broke my baby toe, threw my hip out of place. My shoulder blades collapsing, posture of a crumpled origami doll. Want to remove my bones and spend the day in bedsitland as a bag of guts. The music, it was out of tune. The treble shred my eardrums. I had just one drink but sometimes that's worse than 10. Did not make out with 18 people. Self-respect and all. Tried to steal a fedora from a tall boy who did not seem very smart. To hell with you too, pretty vaccuum face. Good to see you. Later at the diner, I would see this girl from high school. She does not say hi. She wonders why I'm not there with my fiancee. The first one. Thinks I look much better now, sans the extra 40 pounds, the unibrow and scowl. Never made it to the party. Got the directions a bit too late. I'm sorry. | Saturday, March 04, 2006 With friends like these.. | Friday, March 03, 2006 6 Things that rock my sparkly socks: 1. Space heaters, with adjustable fan control and a safety shut-off feature, so it won't ignite the carpet when the cat knocks it over. 2. Teaching English overseas. I've got plans in the works. Last chance to talk me out of it. 3. STORY WEEK! March 12-17. Writers, editors, readings, panels, drinking. Yay! I should camp out at school, set up a little tent on the 12th floor. 4. Cheap Chinese food. (No comments about cats and dogs.. you know I don't order the meat.) 5. My Sister's Continent, by Gina Frangello. Awesome. Complex and scandalous. It gets to your brain and your feelings, the way good realism should. 6. My little blue car. Still running okay after 11 years, 146,000 miles and 5 crashes. (As pictured in lame, suburban driveway. No, my house is not a trailer.)  6 things that make me sicker than milkshakes do: 1. Drinking so much coffee, your heart does tae bo. 2. While on the subject, tae bo. STUPID!! We had to do that shit in high school gym class. It's traumatic to look that silly in front of your peers, at age 16. 3. Professing your deep and undying love.. on Myspace. To someone who lives 500 miles away. Pffft! What's become of our generation? 4. Managers on a power trip, handing out "write ups" and firing people right and left. No.. my boss isn't like that at all.. heh.. 5. My dad's mean spirited, unfunny, drunk-failed-lawyer jokes. "The legal clerk, he flunked out of law school, heh, then he gave out the wrong deposition.. haw haw!" 6. Boys who never call/ Boys who bug you every hour, like a telemarketer/ Being young and having to date boys, instead of men because the only men who will date a 22-year-old are emotionally defecient with hints of pedophilia and/or a frustrated paternal instinct. (Are #5 and #6 somehow linked?) |
le sigh | Thursday, March 02, 2006 I was 7. It was my acting debut as caveboy "Little Grunt" in the school play. My costume was nothing more than a thick, brown blanket. As part of my role, I squatted down to start a fire with a pair of twigs. And squatted a little too wide.. The kids in the audience saw my undies and laughed and laughed.. And that day, I became a writer. or Prehistory According to Allison Quick Have you ever thought about who you'd be in prehistoric times? Back before language, schools and the tedium of modern thought? Your lot in life would be cast by your body type. Take me for example: I'm fairly attractive, have wide hips and can't run very fast. Chances are, I'd never see the sun. I'd be closed away in a cave with my 15 children, all by different caveman dads. This also explains my protective nature. How the one time I was arrested for violence, it was not in self-defense, but because the fucker was teasing my friends. Mess with me? Whatever, I can take it. Mess with anyone close to me, and I'll give you a concussion. Could be a left over instinct from when I had to protect my cave full of children. Skinny, waif-like women were probably not the sex symbols they are today. A caveman's goal with sex was to pass on his seed. He wouldn't choose to squirt it inside a girl who looked like she could break. So the skinny girls were gatherers, the ones sent to collect nuts and berries for the poor suckers like me, stuck having babies in the cave. Floating quick and light through the woods, the skinny girls could outmanuver snakes and mountain lions. Now-a-days, we call them yuppies and they do quite well in the business world. Likewise, skinny men were the hunters. A mixture of strength and stealth. They invented tools and weapons. Today, we know them as nerds. They satisfy the hunter instinct with video games. And of course, there were warriors. Men so cruel, only human men could give them the fight they craved. They spent their days wandering to the lands of other tribes, raping, pillaging, etc.. Then would arrive home to feast and impregnate me with child number 16. As quick as he could, before I reached for my club. Heh heh. As for fat men, they were ill-suited for hunting and fighting. They got bored. So they invented art, specifically humor. Think of the most creative, entertaining men you know. Chances are, they're big guys. We have fat men to thank for bringing us out of the cave days, for making life about more than just eating and breeding. Some people were caught between the body types. Men who were somewhere between inventor-hunter and entertainer developed religion and philosophy, mixtures of science and art. Men who were somewhere between inventor-hunter and warrior became the tribe leaders. And of course, there were Amazonian huntress type women who superceded the gatherer/breeder female dichotomy (they probably had a hell of a time). I'm rather glad to be here in the day of college and birth control. I can run through the woods like a skinny girl, make art like a fat man. But still, I'm cursed with attracting warriors. The meaner the man, the more I seem to want him, and vice versa. | Wednesday, March 01, 2006 The old man in my dream had road signs pointing to the sun. |
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