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april is for fools.

i traditionally greatly dislike girls but jane is a better friend than most boys, and i might have to betray my earlier opinion. we meet up at the dark, cozy hipster (denver's version anyway) world of gabor's with its loungy soundtrack and red vinyl booths after work-- a day of hand-wringing, hair pulling frustration with work people (someone at the top has a Brilliant Idea! and says "make it so!" "uh...in a week!"... not realizing that to attempt to synch up 8 different teams in such time and tell them to start everything over at the last minute is only going to make them look more foolish, argh).... after a few hastily downed wild-eyed pints i could finally breathe normally again, and embarked on another 6 hour bulimic chatfest with my new girl friend, eyeing distractedly the shaggy rocker boy in the corner and quickly nearing the point of being unable to do much of anything other than loll about stupidly and drool.

my apartment-to-be in denver was snatched up before i could decide it was my apartment-to-be, so i spend all day wondering if i am happy to stay in boulder or not. venturing out in my woolen coat with the hood to walk in the mist and point my camera at the mountains dotted with fog and green, i decided i am indeed satisfied. boulder is home, after all- more so the closer i get to spring.

i get a call from a patron of one of those scandalous online meeting places i secretly frequent, 'the reverend tommy tommy tommy!"- which right off the bat tells me he might be too superficial for me. we meet at a wine bar, he is a skinhead, but only cool from the spiky collared neck up... otherwise his white shirt is tucked into khaki pants, with a hint of man-teet poking out. i sighed when i learned he is 39, divorced, with two kids, and groaned when he started talking about "the burn" as only a fanatic burning man attendee could do. a huge fan of customized drugs which he scores from chemistry major pals and a little too overtly sexual for me, i sent 'x' a frantic text message as soon as he took a bathroom break saying "eek this guy is a freak" and furtively planned my escape ....but somehow by the end of the night i ended up back at his apartment listening to music, with him perched happily on my shoulder half asleep. the conversation, though laced with protestations that i didn't want to "be sensual", actually ended up being convoluted and fascinating, and i felt non-threatened as the man was more gay for a straight man than most gay men are, with his dramatic squeals and carefully decorated home interior. he had good taste in music and books. when the vibes got a little too aggressive/oppressive i finally stood up and left unceremoniously, but allowed him a big puppydog hug as i did. walked all the way across boulder under the full moon, dodging drunk kids and shadowy homeless people, shivered off the freak vibes, & let 'x' keep me company with his babbling on the phone.

sundays i sleep in too late and always hit myself. half the afternoon is gone before i even realize it is the weekend. i watch movies, do my laundry, buy groceries. check another day off my calendar. drone.

after work which is a ridiculous excuse for wasting time, i walk companionably up capitol hill with a grizzled black man who gasps for breath and said to remember that people forget you when you're old. meet d and k in a bar, where we are polite until we are drunk at which point we are silly. i escape their coupledom and sit at the bar, with another grizzled man who lost both teeth and apparently his mind in vietnam. wanting to purge what's stuck in his skull he tells me his has killed men simply because they were there to kill. he sighed and advised to remember that the government will forget you... d and k eye me lasciviously and we head to a zombie movie, drunk carnage viewing to break the curious ice. i cross and uncross my legs nervously in the dark as k rubs d's forearm in the dark and my mind wanders away from the pulsating, blue veined belly of the zombie woman who pops out a zombie baby in the shopping mall, and dream of thailand.

in real life, if you let it get to that point, you become sedate, you suffer quietly, you feel only what you feel you are allowed. you have the unsatisfactory relationship, you struggle, you let your life's work become something that drains your soul slowly out your arse. coming back to it i am afraid, disappointed to find the people i knew growing less alive. in a desperate attempt at salvation! i meet d in a dark bar and get him drunk, trying to win him over with life, with passion....he nods wide eyed at me. i explain to him that you have only what you have and you have to ignore all the rules and make the best of that. people will virtually rob you blind the minute you have any obligation to them; ties bind.... all that. maybe i am becoming fanatic? ... ahem well i just think there is a lot of stuff to see (and do)...anyway d has a passion buried in his brain and a lack of direction to reawaken it, and i want to save him. but alas, i remember, you can't save anyone but yourself. we mostly discuss politics.

i could go nuts before i escape denver. i could start wearing polo shirts with 'qwest' embroidered on them, start smoking cigarettes and buy a volvo. i could meet friends for brunch on sundays and discuss who is fucking whom and where is the best sushi and whose kids are bad apples and who has an embarrassing vice and thinks it's secret and who doesn't brush their teeth before bed. i could have a career and take vacations to florida and buy my mother handicrafts for mother's day and marry a nondescript boy who loves me because i give good blow jobs and can make a cake.

'x' often talks about empire building, and never having desired power i stare blankly in response. but i am realizing power is the only way to make your stake, to get any sort of credibility, to really become free (and if you choose help others to do the same). at work i shudder as i look around at the pale, passive ghosts of people who don't even know they are people and i start a mini revolution. i stand up and preach, i voice what no one dares. i have an empire and i am building it up. (as 'x' says).

later in the fog and rain i sit quietly on my bus seat and stare at the static nothingness outside the window. i imagine the bus taking us (the dead) to heaven in the mist. a man behind me talks loudly of how the rest of the world is in the bronze age and the u.s. of a. is in 2004- the primal beasts who have power over the lowly rest of the world. thinking, doing while others just wait for their portion to appear magically and conveniently before them. i quietly hate him for his racist remarks and his arrogance, but wonder to myself if that is not exactly how i view things. i gotta get out of this place.

family is something that i was bewildered by once- a blur of colors and sounds and maddening (repression of) passions and exploitation of disappointments. i was part of one once!, though not integral and often misunderstood. i have abandoned mine, hoping to salvage myself, and succeeding.

but my baby sister, a child when i last left her.. twirling on a hammock and blushing shyly as 'x' slipped her a flask to corrupt when i wasn't looking..., has appeared for one day with her big blue eyes and her matter of fact needlessness. she has a man now, who pushes her hair out of her eyes and looks at me like i am a wolf among sheep... but i give him a sly look; i am the wolf in disguise, i am like him and i can steal my sister back just as easily ( :) ). i tell her not to shackle herself by doing what she is told she has to do, feel what she thinks there is to feel. you know, the usual... (the boyfriend growing colder as he eyes her fertile belly...)... sigh.. yeah. baby sister. i want to tell her there is so much more than a couple of parasites hanging off each teat. i remind her she once thought i was her mother and that she is so much of me that she can't possibly be them. but she leaves with her man and a sweet slobbery dog and her thin gold ring with the diamond that says you, my sister, i beg to disagree. . 

i went outside in my slippers and smoked on the porch... a serene, dark night with low hanging clouds and a sort of discontent in the air. and more damn-ed snow. i had just finished a movie about people who chose death as a sort of life... an escape from the mundane humane- one of those films that makes you annoyingly pensive about something you can't quite put your finger on. i took large gulps of frosty air and stretched and closed my eyes on the way back in, up to my box, the comforting room where nothing quite exists outside as long as i have to live (curl up) in it.

'x' says the rubberband man i gave him has disintegrated and he has no luck to keep him warm. i try to explain to him >i< define warmth but in his confused way he blusters stupidly that women are fragile and weepy and they only bleed and fail. i try to explain i am not a woman!, so there!, and i am locked up, kept just for him, waiting, waiting for a secret time that will never come, and meanwhile i am happy as anyone can be in life, as a woman in denial. :) but in fact it's real happiness. i sip wine and hold myself, rocking back and forth and dreaming of a time in which i too will slip away into that life that is anti-life of hours (oh wait, it's here already), alone as i entered... i seal an amulet in an envelope and send it off to him with a kiss and a wish for something more.

and the crappy movie ends.

it was easter dammit. all day and nothing was open. i ran into inescapable conversations with two homeless people on the hill. it was sunny. i smile too much. i made a trek around boulder in the slush... tried to go play racquetball and sing to myself as usual on a sunday but shite happens. read some travel books in the store and got irrationally terrified of japan....attempting to have a smidgen of motivation after this weekend to finish something i start> but there is simply no time. back to work tomorrow. argh.

meanwhile, marc came over and watched some very bad tv with me on my bed. it was 'brazil', in spanish.... interesting. except for the sex manual being thrust in my face ("but, you said the word 'buddhist...!?" )...
then i kicked him out in the snowstorm before he could think of an excuse to stay... but before i felt guilty. um, he's a sweet guy.

now i am NOT watching tv for once but listening to the radio show i discovered a couple of sundays ago. i'm thinking it's trance. it enables me to have intricate dreams of opening a lord of the flys-style orphanage in cambodia...... (that one's for you mook.)

no sleep, frustrated sex dreams. making out with mido in thailand and backpackers keep traipsing through our (gorgeous rented) suite to jump in our hot tub. damnit! illegal pete's feels good in my belly. bad tv (is there any good?) and bed. 'x' calls rather drunk and suicidal at 1:30a. tired. so tired.

another shadow of a day. work. gym. home. eat. sleep.

sitting in a room with the least exciting people i work with for 8 hours every day this week is not as fun as it sounds. apparently it works for them though. they bring me bagels and i sit in my habitual corner with a well masked scowl. it's occasionally fun to play a little game with them and get them to go off on a tangent, but besides that and guiltily checking email on my laptop lap i am bored. i get a paycheck tomorrow that will finally save me... and meanwhile i occasionally lapse into a coma and gargle starbucks.

habitually antisocial. after inadvertently hitting on a middle aged lawyer who frequents japan at the red plastic bar i gulped and kept quiet and waited for jane. she showed up and so did her boyfriend jack ten minutes later. he was funny, sort of in a homer simpson way. at one point in the night he referred to himself as a were-pig....he was accompanied by a tattered boy who kept professing to be on the run- from something or other. i hadn't eaten all day and in a sudden unexpected drunken stupor i agreed to go with them to jane's house to barbecue- not an event you normally find me at in america. i feel rather alien around my normal countryfolk. they had a gorgeous place that i coveted aggressively from my position in the corner. jane swung her ponytail and skirt and put rolls in the oven for dinner. jack threw slabs of dead cow on the grill and broke out cases of expensive beer. tattered boy offered to drive me home later and i misunderstood to my later embarassment that he was going to drive me all the way to boulder. felt really dumb all night. enjoyed the porch swing. politely choked down a steak and ripped my napkins nervously into art on the formica table. kept hallucinating a cat running through under our feet. eyed jane as she played dutiful wifey. scowled at tattered boy who kept insisting jane and jack were yuppies...with which i secretly agreed. was bewildered by funny jack with his butt jokes. suddenly felt overwhelmed and forced them to drive me to the bus stop and went home to my safe misfit bed.

went to see kill bill 2 w/my sweet ol' pal d and his gal k. it was surprisingly rather emotional for a tarantino film. (i got the feeling he is in love with uma thurman). questioned whether i enjoyed it or not in the theater- was assured when later on i couldn't stop thinking about it. d's girlfriend with her perfect white skin and a limp drove us demurely in her new volvo. i felt quiet and exhausted and d seemed to as well. i wonder if he likes hanging out with his girlfriend and i. i am starting to get used to it but i wish something interesting would happen. i jump and go home suddenly, not realizing it was so late. d curiously features later in a sex dream.

marc sent me an invitation to a show at boulder theater. he had free tickets. i met him at a dark basement bar with flowers on the wallpaper. his friends were all old, but nice people. i felt dislocated in the crowd and place. we traipsed to a deserted underground garage to smoke and chat. i flirted with a super superficial lass from southern california who loudly proclaimed (jutting huge exposed breasts for effect) she had three generations of rockabilly in her family and pointed out her brand new 'hot topic' ensemble. i liked her cherry earrings. she sat between marc and i, alternately hitting on us both. it was dark in the theater from the balcony where we sat. i stared from the corner as usual, quietly entranced. the band was jazz... they were sort of jamming. the trumpet player kicked as he played. i felt as if i needed a cigarette holder and high heels. i fell in love with the black faces around me, including the sad childish one of the slightly mental girl who smiled at me from across the aisle. i left suddenly to walk home in the warm night.

if there is one natural element i despise it is wind. it terrifies me. and it's annoying and cold. boulder has some magnificent winds which spring uninvited from the canyons. it hides behind a deceptively bright sun. i had a lovely breakfast at dot's (luxurious hippie diner on the hill) & made it to my gym before it got too harsh. slammed the racquetball against the wall as hard as i could for an hour (surprisingly therapeutic). pushed myself back into the wind just long enough to grab some stuff from whole foods and go home.

marc dropped by later. i loaned him some old porn and gave him girlfriend advice. i can't tell if we're friends or not. it seems to have turned into a platonic (ie. gay) friend thing. we smoke up together sometimes though and then i find him very easy to be with... i finished the day off by lounging in my room with music, dvds, and internet to keep me company. my new blue light hanging over my bed is decidedly eery.

cloudy, anxious day. work easy but i am uneasy. watch gory tv- on fear factor they had to get in a box with super slimy freezing cold fish that smelled- eww. i ate artichokes and basked in the aphrodisiac effects as i tried to get my modem to work so i could go online and do nothing.

ditto yesterday, just change the fish to snakes on animal planet. what is with the clouds and the cold? what is with this hellish anxiety?! my lips are continually purple and i feel my face shriveling into a medusa-like sneer. 'x' feels the energy too- he broke into giggles in the middle of a meeting today which is quite out of character i assure you. :) i am trying to remember if i (we) get this scared of everything before every trip. i go a wee bit crazy indeed. ....it's still a few weeks away (oh, did i tell you about that? i am going to thailand for a sanity break... stopping over in tokyo with 'x' on the way. my life is cool.)

wednesday. i handed off my project at work and i am in that strange paranoid limbo where i am not quite sure if i have more work to do or if i have to go knocking on 'x''s door in NY. at least for now work won't be the constantly shifting hell it has been in the insanely busy past two weeks. breathe out...

terrified of the (wintery) weather. my heater blowing, feeling wobbly, watching a girl have her first period on roseanne- ick. 'x' calls to tell me we once had too much sex. i need a massage and perhaps a good looking to but not from him so there.....dickens is nice on the bus in the fog. steerforth just betrayed his homo friend david copperfield (gasp, shock, with his old love!) i need... something.

a smiley brown boy with curls with a similarly curly brown dog showed me a great place to live today... if i had to stay in denver. at least i suppose i could smoke weed and take baths. throw rocks at cowboys. something.

had a big complex struggle with and for power today at work- don't wanna talk about it. luckily it was friday. met up with jane in andrews -pub with the flying pig- drinking lite beers since we both have pending trips abroad (hers in mexico). i intentionally/accidentally walked into the men's bathroom where stood a man peeing. he was so aroused by that fact that he bought jane and i drinks all night long. i had a shot that looked like a stoplight (3; red yellow green). something fruity, a couple beers. oh, and some free pizza too. fun fun. jane and i escaped at last without getting mired in a pesky conversation with generous peeing man- she clutching a designer purse, me with a bulky backpack. tripped and slobbered our way to a cuban bar for a pitcher of sangria and hot pepper crab dip. talked with some yuppies, desperate not to be yuppies but drunkenly proclaiming said yuppiness around the bar. talked distractedly about politics and stability. i smoked too many cigarettes for some reason and went home on the bus feeling starchy.

after breaking the fast with a fine meal at dot's over the paper with coffee, i moseyed on down the hill in the very spring-like day. ran accidentally into the crowded farmer's market with it's organic new age everything. happened upon the kinetics parade- full of homemade vehicles of all shapes and colors built to race at the reservoir. there were lots of little dogs running around- quite different from asian dogs if i may comment. and kids. bought some sunflowers for my window. splurged on vegetables at wild oats. was alone.

3| | |wow!| | |4

<<whoopee!>>

bored as hell after the gym i play on (and learn some new code from) myspace. i close my blinds so i can't see the sun and bury myself under the bedcovers for a bit. 'x' calls and i blow up at him for leaving me so lonely in colorado. he hangs up mystified and i decide i had better go to bed.

knowing in a week and a half i will be in thailand again makes me both hysterically excited and irrationally anxious at the same time. mood swinging accordingly, i try to make it through the day without succumbing to the mutinous feelings i am awash in at work. i surf some rental sites for a place in denver so that upon my return at least i have something to look forward to. otherwise i fear impending suicidal feelings. only six more months to get through total before i can start planning my big second trip.

feeling like if i don't get out of this place (denver/boulder) i could perhaps die, i walked down the hill to the library at 8am to email my boss and tell him i couldn't work because my laptop died. which it did indeed. 'x' called to tell me he read in a study that people go into mourning for lost computers much like a child. i shrug it off and make 'x' buy me a new one online and ship it overnight. he assents, like the very best friend he is. (i can pay him back in 2 days). i enjoyed the rest of my time outdoors, looking at the ridiculously ripe tulips on pearl street while i munched some granola and orange juice and watched the buskers set up for the day... the calendar-esque mountains, the fluffy clouds, the recently mowed lawns... this place makes me sick. i sat in utter boredom on my bed for the rest of the day and night, feeling bad and thinking of nothing to do. wishing i was going back to thailand for good and resenting the fact that i owe so much in taxes that it will be at least 3 months before i can go anywhere.

just so you all know kiddies, out there, buying your round the world tix... this is what it is like to come back home if you prefer to live travelling. make notes.

i probably could have gone to work today and i probably didn't have to buy a new laptop, but what's done is done. customer service people are all freaky these days. they don't get any damn thing right. so not only do i miss work today but also tomorrow waiting for them to deliver my priority overnight order. (i am secretly NOT complaining). i luxuriate in my free time until i get stuporously bored. take a nap. later i make myself walk around and somehow end up at the cemetery.

trying to placate my boss in email at the library. i eat afterwards at a cafe in the sun. walk around alone by the creek. check about 80 times at the hostel. finally get my box and spend the rest of the night in worship of my new means of subsistence (a shiny laptop).

sheesh. ain't it over yet? not long now til travel.

© 2003-2004 elocin

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