- 7 May 2004 - Today it is warm and so I am wearing my halter top for the first time. It has a very pleasing pink and brown pattern, and as an additional bonus I now know what it's like to suspend the weight of my breasts from my neck by a string. Painful. Painful is very much what it's like. You may notice (as I have) that I never talk about anything important here. Serious. Whatever. In part that is because it's more enjoyable to write funny short things, and (as in actual conversation) I can't articulate nonfunny things for shit. That's what happens when you spend 22 years painstakingly not articulating. Again, whatever. But today I spent some time reading through the many comments here (Comma's journal, which I read on occasion) about Swarthmore community and other college communities and whether being a Swattie is a real and recognizable identity or just a word for any person who graduated with all those other freaks from that place. Et cetera. I have no real response to those questions, but reading the discussion was certainly interesting, in the same way that listening to other people's discussions was interesting for four years at school. I didn't participate, since that didn't make sense to me. There may have been community, but it probably didn't make sense to me, either. What can I say that doesn't make me sound alienated and apathetic and very sad? Because I am not any of those things although I have mistakenly called myself all of them before. I don't know. I loved Swarthmore although I was not part of whatever community there was and I'm not deluded enough to say I wouldn't have been equally happy at many other places. Whatever. See? This is why I don't talk about anything important. All I mean is that I have given up feeling like I have failed everything around me and now without the fiction of belonging I am happier than I have ever been. Not in this instant (greasy pizza, two more hours of work, painful shirt) but in the general present. You understand.

- 6 May 2004 - All right then, before anyone expires from anticipation: The Swarthmore film department benefit -- best: free food and drink (named punningly after various films), opportunity to get dressed up (black dress hot boots), an elevator into which one could fit an elephant. And a half, maybe. If one had half an elephant. worst: WHOA SWATTIES! I knew there would be a downside. Rather, Swatties trying to schmooze. (schmooze?!) The Wedrock benefit show -- best: HOLY SHIT! John Cameron Mitchell (Two-Headed Boy cover!!!! also Origin of Love with Margaret Cho), Alan Cumming, Margaret Cho, Le Tigre, Sleater-Kinney (couldn't match Le Tigre's enthusiasm or outfits, though), Lou Reed, Lady Bunny the charming host... and more, and more. worst: Sandra Bernhard and Penny Arcade both mildly frightening and incoherent. Moby and friends covered Walk on the Wild Side, which it turns out is less than exciting after you've just seen Lou Reed do it. The Saddest Music in the World premiere thing: best: fantastic movie! (PROSTHETIC BEER GLASS LEGS!) The director, Guy Maddin, telling us about it afterwards. Also free beer. worst: what? No. None! Free beer, remember? So on, so forth, requisite catching-up. Last weekend my mother visited and next weekend Sarah is visiting. The good! Last Monday I caught sight of some goddamn hipster on my way home -- corduroy pants, dirty suede shoes, velvety mismatched jacket, deliberately messy hair, Strand tote bag, messenger bag -- and then OH SHIT IT WAS ME. I have to go now and poke myself in the eye or something.

- 29 April 2004 - WELL DAMN. I was going to wait until next week and report on all the things happening this week, but since last night at Wedrock, the Freedom to Marry benefit show, dfhnqfhfefhDAKKHJKHKZKL oh sorry, my hands starting flailing at the keyboard again. I was going to say that HHIGUIHLWLIAERGHJKFGHJEAGLAEGRKLHJERGLERLKERAGHBhjklbhjkfdjhkjhkljkhjkh!!!!!! This is a small problem. I can't help it; it's just that FUCKING JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL SANG FUCKING NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND NOW I AM MAYBE A LITTLE FLAILY!!! Oh man oh man convergence of incongruous excellent things. Ideal things. As I said before, many other things are happening this week and many other things happened at the benefit, and I will brief the internet later on the rest. For now I work. If I can. IHLFGJKNEIOJ:FEIOJ:iojijkkjJJLLJklkljkliojgerrsijfoepwrieopwri!!!@!

- 24 April 2004 - Hm. Where's the manual for the sewing machine? You know. The manual that explains how to make it go. And what the NINE different presser feet do. Not in the box. Hm. Not near the box. Not in the art cart. I'm beginning now to have a vague memory of throwing it away. Surely I wouldn't have done that. Surely! Dammit! Where's my time machine? I won't use it for ill. I just need to go back and PUNCH MYSELF IN THE MOUTH! I threw it OUT?!?

- 23 April 2004 - Why people don't bother me on the street: Because sometimes on my way to the subway I might be making up a song in my head about how my pants are baggy and how much I enjoy my baggy pants and I might start moving my lips as I think of the song and then I might realize that I'm whispering a song about my baggy pants to myself in public and then I'll start laughing and THEN I'll be laughing at the pants-related song I'm singing to myself! On the street! Mystery solved. Why Tiffany is the best: Because last night she acquired last-minute tickets for the Amazing Beautiful Lion Show of Spectacle and Puppetry and Song and Dance and Trying Not to Weep Lame Tears of Joy! I think it was called something shorter on the program, like The Lion King. Whatever.

- 18 April 2004 - The number of fur mousies I retrieved from beneath the art cart + beneath the oven + beneath the refrigerator today = nine. Nine! The cat is not smart. Friday night at 5-something in the morning we woke to the sound of a potted plant falling from two shelves high, helped along by Squid. Tremendous crash! Shards! Dirt! It was just the mint that hadn't sprouted anyway, so that was fortunate. But GOOD LORD, cat! On Saturday night we took a cab home and the driver's ID in the window read "CARLOS FUENTES." Who knew!

- 16 April 2004 - 1. Plant update: Margot is still sticks; she's living outside on the fire escape where we're not supposed to keep plants. The basil is coming up in little sprouts in a big red pot that I hope will accommodate the crazy-long basil roots. The mint is not coming up at all but I have faith. It's MINT. We'll be lucky if it doesn't devour a cat some night after it actually starts growing. The dill came up suddenly and cutely in little tucked loops of sprout; some of them are flipping up and growing into spindly things. The cat-grass is growing madly and is already several inches tall a week after planting. If you look at the bottom of the pot you can see a root trying to creep out of the drainage hole. I fear the cat-grass. 2. The other night Tiffany yelled at Squid and tried to simultaneously call her "jackass!" and "dipshit!" and it came out kind of like "JESUIT!" 3. This morning I almost poured the Honey Nut Chex into the coffee pot. 4. Today I go to the thrift store after work! Where I will drop off old clothes and acquire new old clothes! I have worked myself into a fine state over this. One of the upsides of living the, uh, carefully budgeted lifestyle is the great joy one finds in small purchases. Hooray! Old pants! Shirts and scarves that I will make into new and interesting things! Funny dresses, old books, useful pots! OH BOY. 5. Man am I a dork. Guess what! My mother's coming to visit in two weeks and Sarah's coming to visit two weeks after that. Sweet!!!

- 12 April 2004 - In proper Monday fashion, I have forgotten my teensy reading glasses and so I'm going to be squinting at my computers all day long. I predict headaches and crankiness. I will take to the gym after work and become strong, and also not need to see. This weekend! Well. Tiffany went AWAY to see people so I had the confusingly empty house to myself. The cats and I did yoga. I put the plants out during the day and took them in at night. I slept for many hours. On Friday I attempted to do my taxes online, but it remains to be seen whether I was successful. I might have just spent a couple of hours bumbling around online and drinking a Guinness and making my personal information more available to anyone paying attention. It seems I can't actually e-file, though, so I guess I will mail my return in with a nice note that says "I am Really Poor, you owe me mad money, just trust me here." Because it's true. Saturday night I was overpaid for the privilege of baby-sitting Max for an hour and then reading and drinking tea in a fancy 8th-floor apartment with three nice cats for four hours while Max slept. Okay! There was no Easter celebration to speak of: I hard-boiled some eggs to dye but then we were hungry and they became devilled eggs, so that may be the opposite of Easter. I celebrated the fact that the night before when I'd come home at 1 am there was not an intruder lurking in the apartment even though the lights were on and I was SO SURE I had left them off that I lurked in the hall for 15 minutes consumed by terror. Then I went in. I guess the cats turned the light on somehow. I wouldn't put it past them; Squid often attacks the walls. What else? I wrote some poems, but I have no scary workshop to tell me whether they're horrible, so maybe I'll wait a month and look at them again. Happy spring, happy rain!

- 8 April 2004 - Things I bought at the plant store (with Tiffany's money): four plant dishes, Miracle Gro, 6 quart bag of potting soil, small pot to break for useful shards. Things I did not buy at the plant store: DRIED BLOOD IN A BAG.

- 7 April 2004 - All hail the first iced coffee of spring! HAIL, HAIL! Tasty. I've spent a great deal of today MOSTLY WORKING but also looking at my own webpage, because I am a big winner. No, because I was curious, and it's the best record of several years of stuff since my computer with journals and such got stolen. It's all best and worsty, which on the one hand is pretty lame and vague, but on the other hand, is pretty appropriate to the last four years or so. What is this? It's all a big weird list of things like "sun, oatmeal, reading, chai, dancing, not sleeping, study break, wandering, anxiety, silence, more oatmeal." But it's not as if that's not accurate. That's pretty much the blur I come up with now when I try to remember, and I think it was pretty much a blur at the time. So. We strive for ACCURACY! At least as much as we strive for anything, ever.

- 6 April 2004 - Hello, Spring! You're REALLY WINDY. You settled for embedding grit in my eyes and lip gloss only after you tried to peel off my whole face. You even managed to get little gritty pieces IN MY MOUTH somehow so I keep accidentally crunching mysterious debris with my molars. That's just gross, Spring. But I guess I forgive you, because you did that thing with all the red tulips on 64th Street.

- 5 April 2004 - I forgive daylight saving time for taking my hour because it gave me such a bright pleasant trip home from work today. Living in New York, Best: this weekend we went to a free circuit bending workshop with Malia. Circuit Bending Workshop! Yes! We collected creepy electronic talking/singing children's toys from thrift stores on Saturday and on Sunday we went to the workshop where some enthused and dorky people showed us how to take them apart and poke them to make them warble insanely or sing like the Chipmunks or make audible-only-to-elephants sounds. Malia made an amazing Baby Dirge Machine. Tiffany and I just fooled around. (With the TOYS.) (The CHILDREN'S toys.) Living in New York, worst: Five dollar tubs of ice cream, dead pigeons in the road, knowing which homeless and/or crazy people belong to which subway stations. At work I came across an intake form for a Powerbook and the customer had written in: What is the problem with the machine? BEER IN IT. What do you want us to do? NO BEER.

- 31 March 2004 - Additional update! Air America is on the radio right now and we are listening to it at work. Many reports say the streaming webcast thinger isn't working very well, but here is the site if you want to try. Check out that date. This morning I walked past a sign that had the date on it, and I stopped and looked at it and said out loud "Ha! There's no MARCH 31ST!" And went on my way, certain that it was April 1st. But you know what? It's March 31st, and I'm a dumbass. Let me see if I can think of some things that you did not already know. Yesterday I did not see Dawn of the Dead and the day before I did not see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind although I intend to see both these things and I was invited. My life exists in negation! The cat's nails are bright pink and so are mine. I spend probably 12 hours a day looking at screens and another 8 sleeping, 1 in transit, 1 eating, so that leaves only 2 for all the things I'd rather be doing. It is fortunate then that I don't know what any of those things are. You think I don't mean that, BUT I DO. Yesterday after work I stopped by the pet store and bought what amount to diapers for my cats. Or rather, diapers for my cats' box. It seems somehow wrong. Now I must go do work, because that is part of what I do. I type a lot of things. I do not write or paint or ride dolphins or mess with plants or take care of animals or make things to sell or drive a taxi. Negation! Never mind! What?

- 26 March 2004 - It's after 5 on Friday and I'm sitting at work shoving handfuls of Veggie Booty (smells like drywall! looks like rabbit food! made with spinach and kale!) into my mouth and reading The Panda's Thumb. It's a good time, by some extremely narrow and slightly sad definitions. But soon, sneak preview showing of Hellboy! Oh man I just keep getting cooler.

- 25 March 2004 - As promised, the dog. There are more pictures of both dog and cats, thanks to Roban. Is he the cutest puppy ever? He's up there. He loves the cats! He loves the people! He's an unneutered male puppy who doesn't want to pee on everything! Or ANYTHING. At least not when I walked him. Love him! Love him! Thank you, that is all.

- 23 March 2004 - It's time for me to be at work. Instead, I am at home with a good 35 pounds of overenthused undertrained 4-month-old Shepherd/Pit Bull/Boxer love! We said he could stay with us last night because we're suckers. Today we'll take him back to the shelter where someone will adopt him because he's the cutest, most good-natured thing ever. With pointy ears (one flopped and one up) and a wrinkly concerned brow. Perhaps, later, there will be... pictures!

- 22 March 2004 - Saturday - worst time getting a cab, followed by best cabdriver ever. There was a monologue about how he took the earlier part of the day off because of the demonstration and if he had tried to work during it there would have just been angry people outside the cab and angry people inside the cab and if he tried to ask the police for help they would have gotten angry too and at home, yeah, his wife and daughters are mad at him, but at least they don't try and beat him up, you know! And why were we waiting so long for a cab, next time we just have to yell HEY CABDRIVER and then he'll be there to pick us up, you know! But still, nice cabdriver, however nice you may be, you have not lessened my deep aversion to taking cabs. I mean, how weird is that? To pay some guy to drive me around in his yellow car? And I got used to riding in cabs in Quito where I could bargain down to a dollar or so for nearly any destination, so now I'm spoiled. GENTLEMEN, FILL ME UP WITH BARBECUE SAUCE, FOR I AM DUMB AS HELL! We had a lovely time at Emily and Roban's (dinner, dessert bars, eraser-making (!!!) and cards) and the cats continue well and obnoxious. If "horfing up food as soon as it's eaten" counts as "well." I think it does, I think Pigeon is FINE, just not bright enough to refrain from gorging herself every time we put new food down. Then she waddles over to where we are, looks apologetic, and brings the kibble back. Ew, kitty. Ew. Then she realizes she's still hungry. Et cetera. Sunday was shopping again! Domesticity, ahoy! But now I must return to my regularly scheduled Monday.

- 19 March 2004 - Things about which I am excited: 5 hours until weekend! Upon the commencement of which I will hurry home and take off my pants (and put on more comfortable ones, you creep, come on) and drink tea and, uh, exercise my leisure. (Is that oxymoronic? Or does it just sound dirty?) Impending visits! My mother at the end of April, Sarah mid-May. I am all ready to hostess. Pull-out bed! Clean linens! City funtimes! I will bring it. Spring cleaning! (SSSSHHHHHH.) THE FINALE OF AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL ON TUESDAY! Things about which I am less than excited: taxes.

- 17 March 2004 - Well, THAT was unwise: Just now when I went downstairs to get water and there was a plate out with little squares of unidentifiable brown treats and I sampled them. HOW did I know they were treats when I could not identify them? Clearly I should have thought more about that at the time. The part yesterday where I checked the forecast in the morning, noted the 90% chance of wet disgusting snowfall and wore a jean jacket and no hat. On the way home I looked down at myself and my brain identified: DENIM YETI! True. Now I can't think of anything else unwise, but I know that can't be right. Oh, there was the part where I spilled all the (clean, thank goodness) cat litter on my foot. And the cats perked up at the prospect of being able to Go all over. (No!)

- 15 March 2004 - It was a weekend of many wonders! A weekend of happy moderately drunken revelry! (Happy Birthday, Laurel!) Of french toast and hangovers! Of hot pirate action! Of deeply gratifying consumerism and domesticity! Yes, well. We got a garbage-can-within-a-garbage-can deal at Bed Bath & Blah, so now we have a nice shiny tall garbage can for the kitchen and the cats have a much harder time of it if they want to climb into the garbage and chew on plastic and vegetable chunks. (They do.) The little tiny garbage can has been stationed next to the litterbox so that we can clean it constantly and seal up the stinkiness in the lidded can, like one of those baby-diaper-containment things. Have I mentioned that the new cat stinks? A lot? And often? AND UNGODLY??? We stocked up on scented candles on the garbage can trip, too. It's all part of the ongoing battle against stench. I don't understand how such a small, sleek, glossy, active animal produces odors like that. Pigeon looks appropriately smug a lot of the time as she watches us realize that, by god, she really IS the good cat. Hey, do you all have Plans? Like, we're done with college, time to execute the Plan? I worry that you do. Not even fully-formed Plans, maybe, but scraps of Ideas, or fledgling Plans. Half-Formed Desires! Goals! Anything? Am I supposed to, too? Ah. I was afraid of that.

- 12 March 2004 - I am going away for part of the weekend. Feel free to amuse yourselves by reading Mimi Smartypants, Tremble, Miss Doxie, or Dooce. Yesterday on my way home from work, a woman stopped me to ask "Do you know if movies start right away, or...?" I was waiting for her to ask about a particular theater, or for directions, but no, that was all. She just wanted to know when movies started. I told her about previews. We ordered more Soft Paws for the cats; Squid's will be pink. Let the games begin!

- 10 March 2004 - On Monday as I was leaving work I passed two men on the street and one of them said to the other, "Do you even know how to flush a toilet?!" And the other said to the first, with a great deal of conviction, "I shouldn't HAVE to!" I would make fun of that man more, but between work and the gym I've gotten so accustomed to automatic sensor operated facility thingies that I regularly spend several seconds loitering in my own bathroom at home waiting for the toilet to flush and the sink to turn on without my help. My favorite sign from the new catalog: DANGER ROBOT MOVES WITHOUT WARNING KEEP AWAY . . . . . . . . . . Tiffany stalked the wily internet at Time Warner yesterday and trapped it and we brought it home in a sack! Then we hooked it all up as if we were supercompetent types, which, apparently, we are. Squid's going to get thrown out of a window soon if she's not careful. I vaulted out of bed so many times early this morning to grab bits of plastic and tissues and paper away from her. Pulled a dryer sheet out of her mouth. Then she decided to settle down in bed and eat my hair. NO, KITTY! NO!

- 5 March 2004 - Soon a new computer will be coming home with me. This is the good! I am a bad ungrateful relative/friend who does not write letters or emails or thank-you notes or make phone calls to the people who are owed them. Instead I watch television. I don't even LIKE television! What DO I like, anyway?

- 26 February 2004 - 'NOUNCEMENTS! Next week I will get a computer and drag it back to the Upper East Side somehow and then, maybe, finally, I will breathe life back into this page. I still miss the old one. I'm a Big Fucking Baby! I don't have enough work to do today, so I am stalking everyone I can think of. I figured out how to retrieve the current homework assignments from my old high school teachers! I'm tempted to do some and mail it back to Ohio. Not very tempted, however. ROCK ME AMADEUS! The cats are supercute. I was going to call them superfuckingcute, but I think I'm swearing too much already. I'm going to the gym tonight if it's the last thing I ever do. I swear! I love my corporate discount. I lift Heavy Things! I hope it's not the last thing I ever do. You should all track down and watch the movie Black Cat White Cat. BABY BABY DO IT TO ME ROCK ME!

- 20 February 2004 - Because of this Tollund Man when I read this Tollund Man I hear it in John Darnielle's voice. (Too lazy to figure out how to link to the song lyric page itself, apologies.) . . . . . . . . . . Last night Squid dragged everything out of the cat-toy-box and deposited the Christmas Cat Cape on the foot of the bed. Maybe she wants to wear it? Also, countless socks! They can hardly stay in that pesky sock drawer. Everything's ok. I'd feel better if someday I didn't get rewarded for the same half-assed half-brained effort I make at everything. Sometimes this joke gets really fucking tired. Or I do. Or something! I'm sorry, I'm going to go look forward to my salad while I do some work and read some Seamus Heaney online while trying not to cry about it.

- 10 February 2004 - The only thing better than Nerds for breakfast is Nerds for breakfast AND the previous dinner!

- 9 February 2004 - I opened a box of sweetheart candies and we were laughing at how lame all of the messages are but then I found one that had been misaligned and part of the message was cut off so that it read REAM GIRL Happy Valentine's Day early. Whoa. . . . . . . . . . . Last night (early this morning) the little cat woke me up scratching in her box and then immediately hopped into the bed (the better to share the reek with us, of course) and I kept trying to herd her down to the foot of the bed but she was having none of it. Finally she curled up on my back and put one paw on either side of my neck and purred herself to sleep. What a cat.

- 6 February 2004 - FREITAG! There are several places I may be this weekend; it is undecided. What is certain is that I won't be at work, where I only manage to scald myself with pizza (and not the roof of my mouth, no, I mean fistfuls of steaming cheese!) and walk in on someone in the bathroom. Again.

- 5 February 2004 - A Brief Timeline of Squid January 20 - February 1. Squid arrives home, commences sneezing, does not stop. The interior of our apartment is speckled with a light coating of dried cat snot. She favors the VCR, the comforter on the bed, and our sleeping faces. She doesn't eat much and seems generally miserable. There are trips to the vet. February 2. Suddenly, Squid's eyes dilate, she slumps to the ground and lays rigid, eyes open, not breathing for several seconds. Then she sneezes, gets up and bats at a mouse toy. February 3 - present. Nothing like near-death experiences to get a cat up and moving. Squid's nose becomes wet and her sneezing decreases. Squid sniffs the whole entire house like it's brand-new, she hoovers her food, she tries to eat the jewelry box, she attacks my braided hair, she drinks the tea from my cup. I come home from work and Tiffany asks "Where did you leave the can of cat food when you left?" "Where I always do...? On the counter." "Covered?" "Covered." "So... not on the floor with the foil off and full of tooth marks?" "Probably not, no." It's a real kitten! I can't wait until it's a real cat.

- 2 February 2004 - I am glad that the new cat loves us so much, but I wish she could express it in a medium other than phlegm. I am too cranky to report anything else because the bank and I are disagreeing about how much money I have and the prospect of living on $15 for the next two weeks is not appealing.

- 28 January 2004 - I'm wondering where I can buy echinacea for my cat. In case anyone wanted to know the precise sort of monster I've become.