mimesis. mimosas.

That's what I want. To play with m words, enjoy the flattery of imitation, have champagne at brunch. The reality of my new schedule is sinking in. It's no joke. And I need a back rub. I wrote $60,000 worth of checks this morning, and I think I actually strained a check-writing muscle in my neck. I got kind of into it, actually. Here I am distributing hard earned money to people's pension plans in $100 chunks. I can get passionate about anything though if I set my mind to it. I was even inspired by the HEB company orientation program. On a Saturday morning. Sad but true.

I kind of like scanning groceries. I get to have some good conversations. It's a much more imprecise science than I would have guessed, grocery scanning.

Annie Lamott is writing her column again, just in the nick of time. I can't wait till this election is over, can't wait, can't wait.

All I think about anymore is sex and death. This is what happens when I don't have Buffy and office gossip to think about all the time.

perestroika

I have a recurring dream about returning to high school. I'm still 20 or 23 or whatever age I am when I'm having it, but NRHS has discovered I never fulfilled all my science requirements and they make me come back. And I sit there in 4th period English, trying to remember if I'm supposed to go to pre-calc or chorus after this, looking around at all the teenagers around me, with a funny feeling that there's a class I've completely forgotten to go to all semester. And then I start to think--wait--am I really supposed to be here? Didn't I finish this already--and go to college even--and then graduate from that? And then go out into the world? No matter how far I've gotten some part of my brain thinks I still owe something to the high school gods, that I didn't do everything I was supposed to there.

I got to find out what it would be like to go back. My cashier training started tonight, in a classroom with desk-arm chairs and flourescent lights and 15 high school students, all of whom knew they were supposed to wear their uniforms to training (I did not). The teacher, at the front of the room, asking me to tell everyone my name since I was the only one without a name tag, calling out questions while people raised their hands, grading our pop quiz with a red pen. It was so surreal, you guys. I spent a lot of time thinking about who I was in high school. I also hopefully learned how to scan grocery items.

I wish I could post this whole essay since it changed my life, when I first read it on a train when I was 19. New Jersey Transit, not, like, a romantic train. I read it again today and I'm just going to give you the last three sentences because if I read them on their own, I'd probably disagree and maybe even get mad--isn't that great?

"Marx was right: The smallest divisble human unit is two people, not one; one is fiction. From such nets of souls societies, the social world, human life springs. And also plays."
--Tony Kushner, November 15, 1993

vanquished!

I found a renegade social security agent. Her exact words, after going through my files for about fifteen minutes and trying to ascertain exactly how the Yonkers district office of the NY State Department of Health would let the Austin office know that I am, in fact, a female, were:

"Well, it says we're required to verify your birth certificate with its issuing agency. But it doesn't say we're not allowed to not verify your birth certificate."

Amen.

***

The only good thing about Ivan is that all the film productions that got lured away from Austin by New Orlean's tax incentives ("bribes," said Suzanne) are coming home to wait out the storm. Bring on the Texas hospitality. AFS screened Fire tonight, and I liked it a lot. It's a family melodrama -- sometimes when the characters are alone they say how they're feeling out loud so you understand their motivations -- but other things, some of the interactions and the imagery, where nuanced and very real. There's this recurring image of one of the heroines as a young girl sitting in a field of yellow flowers with her family, and every time it came up I knew exactly how she had felt when she was there with them, and how it made her feel to remember it.

Today's Bumper Stickers
Su Voto Es Su Voz
Redneck Democrat
78704Peace(Politics and zip code pride in one)

mtf

Social Security and I are at kind of an impasse.

Ok let's be honest Social Security is totally kicking my ass. My mom is pretty sure that I and all the other progressive activists are on a secret John Ashcroft blacklist and little by little we're going to find funny inexplicable problems popping up in our paperwork till the next time we show up at the polls our voting records are going to have us down as convicted felons from Yemen.

Let's think of things I could do while I'm still legally a male. I could...MARRY A WOMAN! In TEXAS! Ok that was obvious. Is there anything else guys can do that girls can't?

I'm actually a little sick about the whole thing. Bureaucracies are by nature inefficient, right? And subject to human error. How many of the people who have been rounded up since 9/11 and held without charge or counsel or contact with their families because they were born in the wrong country and had a problem with their paperwork are there because of a data entry mistake?

What do you remember? Listening to records in the tent your surrogate brother made in the livingroom. Is that just a movie scene, or did it really happen? I think I dreamed about you guys

Bec it was so good to talk to you. I can't wait to hear how the next week goes. I bet Yorkish weather will sound romantic when you write home about it. Remember: Beware of the pubs.

I've heard a rumor that one of the cast members on the new Real World was on Ghostwriter when he was a kid. What's up, Brooklyn.

bare bones

lovely rita meter maid

Today when I took out the compost I discovered someone had dumped a handful of change in the bottom of the bucket. It was all mushed in with the egg shells and rotting fruit skins -- why would someone do that? I don't know but I'm not a proud girl. I picked it all out of the compost heap and washed it off with the garden hose. Almost four bucks. That shit will arm me for parking downtown for weeks.

pound of rocks, pound of sand
broken stones, broken breath

It's so immediate now, isn't it? Have you gotten to the point with someone, where you feel what they're feeling by the words they pick? And it's like a tuning fork, those words make you buzz uncomfortably. Anyway that's how it feels to me sometimes when I know someone so well

Kara you are my hero. If you can handle everything you're handling then I can take care of this one little bureaucratic snafu.

Claro, mi amiga mejor, el mensaje fue para ti.

I made veggie enchiladas tonight. Not bad for a first stab. The real challenge is Perfecting the Sauce. I have to master a good salsa verde. I know what my mother would say, she would say the trick to good enchilada sauce, you soak some pumpkin seeds in salt water a few hours, than roast them, right? Then toss them in the food processor. Then you sift out the shells from the meat and add it in your salsa, and that's going to give you the best kind of flavor. There must be an Easier Way.

OK, guys, we should make a top ten list: Ways we are going to comfort ourselves if Bush wins the election. And, go.

hold-up

Cielito: Estoy tan orgullosa de ti, y de tu corazon carinoso y fuerte. Si necesitas cualquier cosa, llama a mi, o a Milo-- el puede ser mi representante in D.C. ¿No ha sido un verano bonito, verdad? Ya ha pasado. Te quiero y estoy pensando en ti toda la hora. Charlamos pronto.

***

My epic battle with the Social Security Administration continues. I think they have my sex right now, but it's also possible I am now registered as having been born in the Bronx. A few letters, a few miles. I figure Close Enough. I was born Bronxish.

Tonight I'm working at the Patty Hearst doc screening, which I'm really excited to see. Militant 70's radicals fascinate me.

labor

Today I went tubing down the Guadalupe River with some friends of Claire Moreno--you remember Claire. She was the girl who swooped in to save my life when she came to FCNL for May term. She's been setting me up with her friends all the way from Bloomington, Indiana.

I liked these kids alot. It was pouring the whole way down to San Marcos, and we kept driving like we really thought it was going to clear up. When we got there it was still raining, and most people didn't want to go out, including Claire's friends. I really felt like I should side with them since they were my primary Potential Friends, but I took one look at that river and I was a goner. It was so green, and rushing, and beautiful. And after about an hour of standing at the bank and deliberating we all decided to rent the tubes and go for it, and just then the sun came out. It was gorgeous. We brought a bunch of six packs and floated them down the river in an extra inner tube and drank Lone Stars going through the rapids. When anyone comes to visit I will take you tubing, ok? You will love it.

I miss New Rochelle today. Are you out there, Helcat? Me haces falta, hermanita.

New Jersey

On Friday Aaron and I went to see Garden State. In the Jeep. I love the Jeep, ok, I love it. I saw a shooting star from out of that baby. That's what you get when you don't have a roof. It is a fine movie. Good voice. I love the part when he gets out the car and the gas pump is sticking out the side. And he just looks at it, and snatches it, and stalks over to the dumpster. I thought Natalie Portman was wonderful, and Peter Saarsgard, and the guy who invented silent velcro who so much reminds me of someone I know and I can't seem to figure out who...So the movie could be a little preachy at times, but I was ok with that, cause I mean, aren't you a little preachy when you think you figure something out about life? How old are you, 24, 26? Yeah I know that's what we are. Very zeitgeist.

I personally know nothing about life. Today I went to meeting and parked under the live oaks trees, and went to a bead show with Nicky and Sue and met some jewelry makers from Silver City, New Mexico. I told them I had a friend from Silver City and took their card so I'd be able to tell Marya about them. I miss you, Mar.

dinner with martin sexton

Today I walked in from the grocery store (more on that later)to find the living room and kitchen spotless and Aaron pointing at the floor in pride and delight as he talked on his cell phone. If any of you were wondering what it would take to open my heart to love again, now we know. He CLEANED! Our house is so beautiful. I've been meaning to tackle that all week, but have been a little overwhelmed. Tonja left things chaotic when she went to burning man.

I went to Whole Foods today to use the gift card Val gave me. What would I get if I could have anything I wanted from Whole Foods? Cheese, mostly. Cheese or cheese-related products (ie the mac and cheese I am currently eating) made up more than half my purchase. That's what you get when you eat vegan for a week. Or, what I guess I get.

Work was awesome today. I really like Nicky. I delivered posters all over downtown for the gay and lesbian cinema series that starts next week, and I signed up to write the program notes for His Secret Life. I filled out my paper work with Central Market and found out they will pay for me to take Spanish classes. Mr. Sexton is singing Amazing Grace for us.

Annoy a Liberal: Work Hard, Succeed, Be Happy

Heh heh. That's a great bumper sticker.

I saw it on the RNC coverage I watched on Democracy Now today. That's right, watched. Did you know they even did a television version of that show? Well apparently they do, and in Austin you can watch it. I got to see Medea Bejamin getting dragged head first off the convention floor during Arnold's speech, yelling at the Vice President 20 feet away, Mr. Cheney, stop the killing! That little go-getter.

I'm going to fill out my paperwork at Central Market tomorrow, which is excellent, since I'm feeling a little underemployed. Not that I'm pessimistic or anything. And I just want to tell you all y'all, who might not have faith in this economy: don't be economic girly-men! Heh heh heh heh. Girly-men. What a pussy. I love republicans, they're so funny.