I don't know, a machete I guess.

Okay I got the job this time. Yay great. I don't think it is paying anymore but it is a step in the right direction, if a longer step. But these things take time, yadda yadda.

More importantly, let's talk about a genuine concern I am having right now. A concern that manifests itself directly outside of my home. But first, there is the trouble of the home itself. Demonstrated:

We have no heat. Well, I guess last night that was fixed supposedly and our radiator should be working fine but aside from a strange dull glow of warmth as I place my hand firmly upon the metal, nothing really seems to be happening. The heaters in our room are very ornate and beautiful (though in need of a good polishing, how do you "re-finish" metal anyway?), but of absolutely no practical use. Thus, it is constantly cold everywhere. I have a space heater (which for the first two months I thought was a radio. haha whatever), but turning it on runs the risk of problem number two.

Our power goes out constantly. You cannot have many things plugged in and functioning on the second floor at once. If you do the wire cuts or the breaker goes off or the electricity plummets or whatever god damned term you use when too many things drain power and all of a sudden it feels like you have entered the very real set of some horror film (except it happens all the time so it loses its allure very quickly). There was a three week period when an additional party was staying in our abode that the power went out six times in one hour. This is ridiculous. In order to turn the power back on you have to deal a part of problem number three.

Murder stairs. Yes. The stairs that shoot down into the basement lack the secure feeling of knowing no one is going to reach their hands through the slits and pull your legs out from under you causing you to smash your face into the edge of a wooden stairs, not only knocking you out but also getting small splinters into your face and if you think about this and lets face it i think we all are at this point splinters in a palm hurts enough i don't want any fucking splinters in my face. From that point on its up to your imagination really. Does the person in your basement at this point kill you or just steal your things or do other unspeakable acts to your unconscious body. really, you fill in the blanks. Also in the basement is a small furnace that opens up like you would put a miniature witch into, as well as a series of pipes that sound on the brink of bursting at all times of the day.

Also there is a door from the kitchen that leads to a three or four foot drop directly into the backyard. I want this to be a problem but actually it's pretty secure in that I can hardly open the door anyway, much less fall out of it. Plus there's a lock. Or something.

However, and the real issue at hand only seems to be an issue in the winter but this makes it no less real, the actual issue here is dangling from the trees outside of my home.

Icicles.

Today, still groggy from waking up at all and sad and angered by having to walk out into the chill frosted air that is Portland I chanced and looked up at the sky to shake my fist but met with the icy glare of icicles dangling precariously above me. As an Ohio bred child I don't understand why this was never a scary thing for me before, but as the wind picked up and the branches swayed I suddenly thought of the possibility of these cold knives slipping from branches and aiming their pointed glacial revenge straight for my ill equipped noggin. Global warming is no myth and I have no doubts that mother nature is a cruel cruel force indeed. For the rest of the walk to the bus stop I considered the fowl mess of blood and gore and bits of skull spent violently against the grey cracked sidewalks and feared for my life.

Over dramatic? Sure. But what's the harm in preparation.

Getting over it, I reached up and grabbed an icicle down and held it in my hand the rest of the way to the bus stop. As it melted in my hand I considered what a different place I find myself in now. That not only does water fall from the sky at all, it even hangs out for a while in a useful shiv format. Then, feeling a sudden rush of clue-like guilt I threw it to the street below and watched it crack into four distinct pieces. Already melting into non-existence.

There's a lot in a day guys.

A lot.

a wet dog

Today.

Woke up to the MLK day thinkin nothin except how to get to work. Opted out of figuring on anything and creaked open the rusted hinges of my car door and just polluted my way to work instead. Honestly so cold here anyway, maybe global warming isn't always a bad thing? Maybe I just need a scarf and a hat. Or a scarf hat. Hatscarf. Is there no market yet? Who could say.

At work it was boring and I was hungry but excited from too much coffee on too empty a stomach. People keep telling me lies telling me coffee is an appetite suppressant but it's just like apples; just a bit makes me crazy in hunger and i can't stop thinking about putting somethinganything in this stomach of mine.

New books day and on sale tomorrow so I spent a lot of time flipping through pages. Read about 15 pages of Beautiful Children and can't decide if this one is worth the time or not. Interesting maybe but I don't know. Too much in queue anyhow. Anyhow.

Well the sun shone down all day today in through the halfway miraged windows of our warehouse and mostly over the screen of my computer making it unreadable except when I held invoices briefly over it in order to make my work work. Yeah the blinds go down but it's so rarely sunny here. You start to pine for it and when it happens you're almost willing to pay someone. Just make it stay a little bit longer just a bit brighter just make it another day. Maybe a day when I don't work for once.

This is an opposite feeling from the GOOD OLD DAYS OF PHOENIX. I capitalized that to make a statement.

So anyway today it was the sun right. All bright up there, annoying but in a little kid way; you kind of want to slap it and make it hurt or cry or just leave but at the same time you can't stop loving it anyway. Makes you smile for all it hurts. Now it's just the reverse. The moon is hanging up there unnaturally watching through a sky surprisingly absent of clouds. I can almost see it sitting regularly from my bedroom but for an overhang or i suppose the roof coming down, angling off the one bright spectator of the night. I thought I'd see more stars living in Portland; I hardly see any. Just a drive away. Yeah yeah.

Back on track. Work was 8ish hours. Drove back home.

My dog. Well I don't know what happened but he shit his fur and I guess I didn't notice it because I am a bad owner of dogs but when I called for him to come back inside everything smelled terribly and I checked my shoes in a panic thinking I had somehow stepped in something INSIDE MY OWN HOUSE which of course would mean that my dog had in fact shit in the house and he doesn't do that really so I wasn't concerned which is when I looked down and said OH MAN and epsilon is trotting around with deep black stains streaking up and down his fur and i said OH MAN again and had him follow me upstairs and locked him in the bathroom while i looked for some sort of shampoo and mindy had some because mine like other things i own(ed) is in ARIZONA and I took this and the skull shaped cup that everytime i drink from things spill down the sides of my lips and i only drink red things from it so i feel like a vampire and i washed him right in the tub, unclogging the drain afterwards of coarse white hair that he is all too well known for really you should see the floor of my house sometime.

I really hope you read that as it is punctuated.

pause.

So now anyway I guess we're up to speed. Oh maybe not.

I got home and aside from the dog situation everything was if not great pretty okay and then I am checking my emails and go from high to low within ten minutes and now I guess i'm sittin in the middle somewhere. If you're there too, hi!

that's it i guess. it's only 630. more things may happen.

a busy schedule.

so i didn't get that job and ok. old news. but right now my job.

it's easy to fall into that "well at least i get a check" response and at least money is coming in and at least it's a step in the right direction. i don't know. today i spent 8 hours pulling labels off of books so we could return them to publishers. two days ago i spent 8 hours putting labels onto books to place in our stores. don't get me wrong. it's an easy job, i'm not restricted by much of a schedule; i can take breaks and lunch whenever. i have a quota to meet but a monkey missing an arm could meet the quota. it's just too brainless (forgive me, monkeys. i don't mean to imply you're not smart). i feel as if i am reasonably intelligent but any hope for this being developed by means of constant use and challenging projects is quickly evaporating.

i interviewed for a new position in the same company but i don't feel like it went well. my confidence was a little shot by the fact that my last interview went so well and i didn't get the job, and on top of this after emailing the people about what i could do to improve myself so that i'd have a better chance next time, i never got a response. this after they ended our conversation with "we really encourage you to apply again next time" right. making matters worse is the room we were sitting in for the interview. they sat facing the sun and, understandably, squinting as a result of this. it's hard to read a squinting person. in a panic i told some ridiculous anecdote about book buying and then afterwards felt like an asshole. i normally feel like i interview well. i am a bit awkward and sometimes some question will just throw me off for no real reason.

i interpret things abstractly and that's an issue for me. it always has been. i hear a sentence and the meaning i take from whatever is being said is so far removed from what the point is, but somehow it feels justified to me thinking i have the real meaning. so sometimes when i hear a question i think one thing is being asked when it's not being asked at all. maybe i just try to rush through my answers.

and i'm spending too much money. and this next job if i even get it, i assume isn't a pay raise. lateral moves are nice but don't do much in terms of income. maybe i need to start a second job.

maybe i just need to start really writing. doing something with that. something is starting to yearn for that creative outlet again, and it's about time.

contrary to this post, things are actually really good right now. i'm a bit panicked about a few things, but i'm always panicked about a few things. this is just the life i lead.

more about good things some other time. this is my vent.

a quick list

Monday:

Work. Russell's bar. Drunk.

Tuesday:

Work. Fred Meyer's. Nachos. Margarita. Just one drink then we'll leave. Drunk.

Wednesday (thus far)

Work. Sushi sale. Russian man going to bus. Wrong directions. Woman waiting for bus. Conversation. Off to see a band.

Priscilla, you gave your name but sadly I just don't recall it.

But I remember most everything else.

What may or may not have been a wig in deep black curls hat extended in a halo that felt like lifted for miles vertically around your face. A five inch gap of black which turned into a faux-aged white. Where is this fashion grabbing from?

Priscilla you had chest hair creeping defiantly up your cleavage. I watched a woman poke at your tits with one slender finger in the mirror and saw the lump move to the side, as if parting for something more real.

In a way of sorts you were up against the most gigantic and invisible piece of glass in the world; your whole body stopped abruptly 4 inches away from your face. Your lips stopped in some sudden shudder of red outline in black pressed flat. Your not-breasts stopping slender and square and your beer(vodka?) belly compressed into one thick block of non-care.

You were delightful and nice in your leopard print dress which outlined your non-shaved armpits. You had a tongue red enough to have been lipsticked upon that drew out I can only imagine what. But it was so fake as to be glamorous and spiteful all at once. Like some demon having escaped from hell desperate to win someone over to its side without knowing how. It curved and twirled and was repulsive but interesting.

You and your band of "we just don't know"s sat in the corner drinking whiskey cokes and chatting up the entire bar in a tirade of loud sounds. I didn't listen much.

I sat at the bar and watched in the long mirror admiring all of you. You are all such stories and people and amazement. You are beautiful and terrible all at once and I can't wrap my head around it.

I guess it's a new year. Time for resolutions. I abandoned a long time ago that aspect of jolly drunkenness, but I suppose I do want to at least try to start writing more this year. It isn't so much I lost a lot of feeling. It is all there and on the skin and in it. I just never feel settled. I feel like driving North forever. Until the road stops or until I stop or anything at all stops.

It must end somewhere.