August 2008 Archives

So I tried to take pictures with the built-in camera thing right now, and not only did it not work well (even though there's a flash-ish thing, because it's mad dark up in here) but for some reason, everything is backwards. Isn't that bizarre? I mean, all the writing and stuff. I never realized that my face was backwards, or that picture I took of me, Becca & Alison, where I guess we weren't in the same order... I never stopped to think about it. I'll try to get the corner up here so you can see what I mean. Maybe it's a setting? So strange.

Anyway - another stage of the fort / apartment renovations, I think somewhat to Kristin's dismay, but a small price for the big... um... price? What? I can't talk (type). What I mean is that us figuring a good rearrangement and shifting the energy around in here and having to adjust is probably a small exchange for halving the rent. I, for one, am Totally Psyched. I can't think of anyone else in the world I'd want to share space with. And I don't think she's all irritated or anything, I just know that it was Hers, and now lots of stuff is Ours, mostly the space that's become shared, and I know the feng shui will take a while to resettle. Cats notice it a lot. Speaking of, Delia is so down with hanging up here:

I don't know if this is a fort, or just a big cat-condo with band posters. Both, I think.

So, I didn't go down to Bumbershoot today, but a ton of awesome shit went down. I went back to the gym, which rocked, and I felt like a million bucks burning off a few hundred calories on one of the step-cardio machines, and ripping the shit out of my triceps too. Then we got the wardrobe dismantled, upstairs, and re-assembled. Then we rearranged a bunch of shit in the apartment, plus I went nuts setting up the fort (read: I didn't actually put any more stuff away, I just spent a few hours tacking shit up on the walls and looking around and being psyched and deciding what little scrap of paper should go where). I really got down to just my absolute favorite things before I left Connecticut, and so the stuff I have left to put up on the walls is just the best of the best. A card from the house of cards (the Joker, at that). A note from my father, circa 1987. Set lists, show posters, old black and whites of my parents, great shots I've taken and put in shoeboxes in the last few years - I've created a Seattle-worthy (in my book) space where I feel accomplished and stimulated to do more, all at once. To the soundtrack of Arcade Fire, the Wrens, and XTC. There wasn't anyone I was really peeing my pants about to see at Bumbershoot, besides Tapes 'n Tapes, but I'm alright with it having passed with all the nesting I managed to get done. A little more in the morning before I head out, and I'll not feel like a complete lunatic Monday (because tomorrow is going to be just about 12 straight hours of music).

I've signed up for some in-studios, starting with Langhorne Slim at 12:30 I think and then John Vanderslice at 2 or 2:30. Then Joshua Morrison may have gotten cancelled, from what I heard on the radio today, but there's a handful of other bands, and then I wage the sea of pre-pube teens for a shot of getting Ben Gibbard in the magenta stage light from the front. If I get in, and I'm not touching the bar, then I'll take seats or whatever I can get. But you can bet your bank account I'm going to give it a shot. I would LOVE to post gorgeous, well-lit pictures and write underneath them, "Yes, that's (member of Death Cab). No, I did not use my zoom." But we'll have to see.

Fort, weekend, scraps of my past, pieces of everything now - new spaces, new everything, old moments to keep me grounded. I thought I had a bunch of angst to get out but I guess not. And I made it to the gym, on top of everything? For sure today was a good day. I've got to go rest up.

Kisses,
VVB

I would rather get up early than stay up late. This will require some reconditioning on my part, because it always feels better to sleep when I have the choice, and later in the day, if I've gotten up, it always feels better to have gotten up and written, or gone to the gym, or both. Either. Both, preferably. I'll take anything but waking up and rushing out the door, Alex.

I watched Closer last night before I went to bed, from the fort (which is Awesome) where there will soon be decorations, and a wardrobe (because Kristin is Awesome) and today was the first day of Bumbershoot (all kinds of Awesome). Really, really awesome. Thanks for coming out. Right on. Awesome.

You fuck.

Sorry. Where was I? Oh, the awesomeness. Well, last night was all pieces of broken places, and I suppose Closer may not have been the best choice of films to engage in with my self, but hey, I'm a sucker for punishment. It just made it all so clear, all the ways we lie to ourselves, to each other, how we manipulate, how we get manipulated... the games people play, I guess. The games we play with each other. The lies we tell ourselves. It was like watching snapshots of every relationship I've ever been in at different moments, bad breakups, cheating, being cheated on, telling myself I'm fine when I'm not, telling someone else shit to take the focus off of my shit, manipulating, getting manipulated... blank stares from the side of the bed at the wall, wondering if this is it, if this was what I thought I wanted. Living a lie. Not all of it in every relationship, but little pieces, little sections. Not even chapters, more like paragraphs here and there. So tragic. So easy to fall in the holes we spend so much time learning how to go around.

I fell asleep to Damien Rice after that, with Delia all nesting with me in the fort. That part was good, and quiet, and perfect.

I slept in wicked late, later than I realized. I guess I needed it. Or maybe I need to not stay up until 1 am watching movies. But then I did, I needed to see it, and I needed to hear so much of it - I love you in all the places you hurt. Scenes being replayed that didn't work the first time, failed to be doomed the second. It's just a movie, but there's so many realities in it. Now, getting excited for Death Cab on Monday, it's all inter-spliced with moments from "I Will Possess Your Heart", and I'm willing to fare the fifteen year olds to get perfect magenta snapshots of everything. Who knows. If it's bad, I'd rather choose to move, then to have it be good, and wish I would have done the work to get up front.

So today, Day One of Bumbershoot. Walking around was awesome. Ian Moore and his band were not. Band of Horses was stellar, heart-wrenching, and tearful. Beck was the opposite of all of those things, and I left a few songs into his set. Neko Case echoed out into the stratosphere and made my toes curl up, as did the chocolate covered strawberries on a stick we all shared. Strange Fruit was all bendy and up in the sky, perfect, leaning, swooping, and good. Photos to follow. Thumbs-up, moments of omg omg omg I live here and I'm at Bumbershoot and omg I get to pick that I don't like Beck and omg. Tomorrow, I will bring a sandwich.

It got cold all of a sudden, and I still can't shake the chill from coming home on the scooter.

The thing taking up all the space in my head now though is the fact that this weekend last year Raf and I got engaged. I don't remember if it was Saturday or Sunday, but it's been a year already, and as Kristin and I talked about it before Band of Horses started, I was completely floored. I knew he was doing it, but not in that exact moment. I knew we shouldn't be together, but I loved him so much that I really thought we could get through all the shit we were in the middle of. A little voice, screaming, knowing that we new better, pressing on past it so valiantly, past all those signs that said stop. Past every single one.

My heart aches remembering when we used to be happy, it was just in the beginning, and it happened in the movie last night too, when she said she was watching all the love drain out of him in that second, I remember what it was like before that day, and how it never got better afterward. There was a night in the kitchen, where I knew it had to end, a few months into dating, and we didn't end it. And I was strong, and I wasn't afraid to be alone, and I said that line that seems to recur for me, where I say I don't want to wonder what might have happened, followed by a big speech about how we're all human... it's happened a bunch of times. And I've always been wrong. But I don't have any regrets.

But yeah - that night. I remember very, very clearly having a conversation about how until that day, it was like having this glass sphere we carried around, and that in one second, he picked it up and threw it on the floor. And we weren't innocent anymore. And it didn't work anymore. Before those moments, it's like a fairy tale, and I think the real, healthy relationships obviously get past fairy tale states, but they don't break the way we broke that night. Busted up, all shattered on the floor, and then glued together and maybe looking close to the same, but full of holes and missing fragments. Crucial fragments that compromise the whole structure, that the rest of the relationship is spent working around and trying to either repair or ignore, depending on which part it is. And it never works. I don't know anyone who has ever made it work past that. And the awful part is, you don't care about each other any less - so nobody wants to go. I can clearly remember many occasions after that night when it still worked. Where it still felt perfect. No television, listening to Howie Day, watching the snow outside the windows, all perfect. Right up through Valentine's Day this year, dancing in the living room, candles, all perfect. And the circumstances get worse, but the threads from heart to heart are still securely tied, and nobody wants to go.

There was a piece of me that really believed a year ago that the broken pieces were all temporary, and that we'd get back on track, and that it all would pass. And there was an equally present piece of me that knew that we would never be okay, that we could never go back to the way it was that night in my kitchen before everything was broken.

I am Victoria's shattered faith in Love and people being careful with each other.

I am Victoria's old, jaded insides; the stain on a favorite shirt. That's my other favorite way to describe it when it stops being that perfect thing, when you get that perfect shirt that fits you right and makes you feel like a millionaire or invincible or whatever - and then you get a little stain on it that you can't get out. And then the stain is all you can see. Sometimes not as much, sometimes more than others, sometimes you put a sweater on to cover it up, sometimes you pull it out from the back of your closet because you've forgotten how much you don't like how it makes you feel when all you can see is the stain, and an hour or two into the work day you remember why you never wear it anymore.

And cut to now, a year later. Back to ramping up to a whole complete self, which I seemingly cannot do within the bounds of dating. Back to taking time to take care of myself, because in all this, I forgot how to be careful with myself, let alone learn how to do it in pairs. Here, alone, because I need to be, while he will most likely be waking up next to someone, if not tomorrow, then today or yesterday or next week-end. And there isn't a single thing I can do about it, besides stop asking and stop looking and detaching a fragment at a time. It's like pulling out slivers where the skin has grown over already, knowing it's got to come out, being able to work around it for a while. Inevitably facing the inevitable.

I am Victoria's fondness for analogies.

The table is cold as it brushes up against my foot, as is my foot. The perpetual chill of the day just won't seem to get out of my bones, no matter how many blankets I pile up, how many warm things I surround myself with. I put the fan on at night to drown out the noise, noise to push out noise, white noise they call it I think. I slowly stop looking to see who is looking, and who he is looking at. I take days away like learning how to put down drinking and cigarettes. Although I keep trying to convince myself that I love cigarettes. I want to write until the pen runs out of ink, to run until I just can't catch my breath, to listen until my ears explode - to place both hands on the mesh cover of the speakers and get saved. Save me, not him, not you, not anyone. And as the sun sets behind the stage and everyone grabs onto that perfect moment they need, all at once, in the light of the Northwest Sky, church happens, and the saving begins. In these quiet paper lantern lit nighttimes, the only hands that can save me are my own. Shoved deep in my pockets, or busily pounding out words on the typewriter, or cramping from the furious pace of my pen, or holding the camera just so. No one can do that for me, no amount of warm, perfect wakeups; no glances in the stage-light when everything seems to be getting said - no big shiny toys for all the wrong reasons. There's no balance transfers here.

I am Victoria's harsh reality. In a good way.

Sleep beckons - I'd rather have the morning than the night, at least tonight.

xx
VVB

I've always said that riding out being alone is okay ninety percent of the time, and really really insanely difficult the other ten percent of the time.

this is my ten percent.

it's about to be my first night in the fort. so I figured I'd write a while first, and then run the extension cord up there so I can watch a movie on my laptop before I fall asleep.

so, yeah. the ten percent. I can make gratitude lists and go to extra meetings and inherently be okay, be not freaking out, or having a difficult time with anything in particular - but some nights, sending the wrong words to the wrong boy seems like it would be a good idea. because it's all that funny thing some of us can default to, like, I know I need to be alone, but please hold me for a while. cats are good at it, the, "please get very, very close to me so I can ignore you whenever I get a chance" thing. it's the same vein as the egomaniac with an inferiority complex, you know, all those riddles and rhymes we speak. leave me alone. hold me. I need you next to me and I need you to go away, simultaneously. stay, lie to me, just don't leave. and on and on and on.

I want to send big epic letters. I want to wake up to body parts, to arms wrapped around my insides. and the thing is, I've got all the love in the world at my fingertips. right here in my apartment. I can tell kristin I need her at any minute, any second, even a very inopportune one, and I know she'd be there. I can go to a meeting. I can nap with chacha. and it all works, the way spending eight dollars at goodwill works just as good as spending two hundred dollars at target does when you've got the itch to shop. but in these moments, I get all tangled up, and I think a date / bedmate / Boy / Guy / lover / whatever would ease my ache. and it won't. just like the big shiny toy, when bought for the wrong reasons, doesn't do a fucking thing. it's a break, at best, to be followed by still more ache, plus remorse. no thanks.

this will work. writing will. waiting will. we will. you are me, and we are all together.

and all around me, I get giant looming signs and examples of everything I don't want. the coworker of a friend who presses on past what she knows is right. the people back in new haven who are too afraid to tell each other the truth, so they make things up and play charades with each other, always hoping, never revealing anything. the boy who second guesses good enough. the world, this apartment building, a sea of voices as I come up from the laundry, four or five single apartments to a floor, like the end of a movie. always wondering. always hoping. the guy with a five-figure stereo and a mean wife. the list goes on and on.

my particular fave in these scenarios is the one where everyone watches each other set themselves on fire, and lies. ignore that which may be uncomfortable in the slightest, be sure to compliment the jeans. don't be a friend, win the popularity contest and ruin some lives. and then deny, blame, and pretend some more. this is a particularly localized epidemic in connecticut, I've found, or at least in some social circles (which I guess exist everyplace) where it's easier to save face than it is to man up. I know it well because I've been guilty of it, and I don't know about anybody else, but I am in this - my life, that is - to grow. to push. to do work. to improve. and sometimes, that means crying myself to sleep. alone. sometimes it means saying the quiet part out loud, and making people mad. forgoing what I want for what I know I need, putting aside pleasure for happiness. and I know that all relates to me, and not anyone else, but dammit, I'm not going to tell you how cute your new top is while your flesh is smoldering in front of my face. friends don't let friends drop the fucking ball on that level. I do a lot to further myself, and I suppose I have the expectation for people around me to do the same. or at the very least, not be pretending, and pretending that nobody is pretending. man up. just like the people on missed connections. say it. do it. tell the truth. because I don't want to be lied to, or coddled (well, within reason, I think we all need some coddling sometimes), so I don't like to lie, or coddle.

I am perpetually misunderstood on this point. it's not about living some perfect, mistake-free life. it's about owning it, to whatever degree "it" is. I am jack's stupid decisions. I am jack's pile of mistakes. I am jack's lonely bed.

I am victoria's rant.

but really. I don't know if I'm making sense, but I get it, and I know what I mean. I suppose that makes me demanding and unreasonable, all east coast and unapproachable. and I don't give a shit. there are enough situations where games start happening without extra games on purpose, without purposefully creating them. like how I have enough crazy all by myself without bringing in anyone else's. I may have less belongings than you could fit in a rich guy's bathroom, but I need an airport van for all the baggage I'm dragging with me half the time. we don't need more shelves, we need less shit.

I am victoria's ad on craigslist for excess emotional baggage. serious inquiries only.

so, yeah. I pick abrasive. I choose truth over roasting marshmallows on a stick over the embers of the fires you start any day of the week. especially if I have to tell you how nice you look while we get the perfect golden texture in the process.

I am victoria's annoyed, sad, let-down, broken heart.

I am sleeping in the fort tonight.

I am everything I've ever wanted to be, even just the beginnings of some parts, but still.

I am nothing I don't want in any bad, unfixable ways.

xx
VVB

Actually, it's amyl nitrite, those silly poppers, as I was so pleased to learn about in a Wikipedia entry earlier today.

I seriously could not stop laughing as everyone was up at the microphone last night. I was crying. Especially as someone would lean into the microphone to make a point, or to say something particularly touching, bordering on poetic, and all I can see is that girl Chloe in the cancer support group from Fight Club. All loud into the microphone with the amyl nitrate. I called Kristin today to talk about it and I was laughing so hard I couldn't even talk. And it struck me, when I got sober I couldn't talk without crying, and now most of the time I can't talk without laughing.

Much in the way of forts - the structure is up, albeit naked, but up. And there is much in the way of the evolution of forts, adult forts, the poetic and magazine-esque mosquito netted harem bedrooms that cost tens of thousands of dollars and are really just extremely expensive forts. Seriously. I can not wait to mack this thing out.

And I want to post the video of Chloe and the lubricants so freaking bad, and I can't find it. Dammit.

I would like to thank the Academy for yet another day of unrelenting, amazing, staggering amounts of help, today from Kevin, who helped move AND assemble the fort, and who deserves presents reminiscent of my scratch carrot cake, but who may have to settle for chocolate ganache banana bread instead. When I asked what his favorite thing was, he responded that it was whatever my favorite thing was to make... and lately it's been all bananas and Big Amazing Salads for lunch at work. For some reason I don't think a pile of spinach, hearts of palm, avocado, and homemade ranch will convey the right sentiment... so that leaves baking. Everyone loves a girl who knows how to bake. I saw that on a t-shirt at Forever 21 once, and it had a little picture of Strawberry Shortcake on it. It was adorable. But it made me think about weed.

BUMBERSHOOT is upon us, weather reports and fort photoessays not far behind. I am tired, as usual, most days with giant bags under my eyes, but I'm beside myself with happiness for having a whole complete life. Today I was going down the hill, and Troy (in the morning) was having like, the Best Set Ever, and the Needle loomed into view, and I laughed out loud at how good I felt. Like when I'm on the back of the scooter going down a steep hill, holding on with just my legs, arms all outstretched, eyes closed but moving and there's no car and no windows to put up - just all kinds of everything all at once. It was great.

Sleep tight, kids. xx
VVB

Reading missed connections on Craigslist is just fascinating to me sometimes. All this aching, everyone all wiped out on the pavement with love, I want to smack them and tell them to go running to whomever it is and speak up. Speak Up, people. You have nothing to lose. Fuck, I talked to Sean Nelson on Saturday, and if I have the balls to do that, you all have the balls to do anything. Really.

Like this guy:

I want to lick your mind... and then the rest of you. You are the most stimulating human I have met in a long time. I imagine that you taste like the pages of a 1st edition.

Or this guy:

Remember that I have looked into your eyes and it was like coming home...

Or even this guy:

You got on and our eyes met. We went to the back and you unzipped me and let me know your wet mouth. I didn't ask your name before you got off. Please reach out!!

Step it up! Even you, Mr. You-Fellated-Me-On-The-28-Bus. Even you.

As an aside, I swear, I could listen to this Arcade Fire album forever. It's so good. As the new relationship sky-breaking song comes on, as if to be on cue.

Ah... no, I won't go there. I'm starting to heal.

(something / filled up / my heart / with nothin' / someone / told me not to cry...
now that / I'm older / my heart / is colder / and I can / see that it's a lie...)

I guess we'll just have to adjust.

So I went to *the* greatest meeting tonight. It was just like home. It was every awesome thing about the Pacific Group when we started it years ago, without the bullshit, not a young people's meeting, not a show, not anything but people with strong recovery carrying the message. All adults. All anniversary night. And after like, a dozen people got up to share, with about ninety seconds left in the meeting, they called me up. I was half expecting it and half blown out of the water. And I cried and told my story in about forty five seconds and I got fucking bombarded after the meeting. About two dozen women gave me their numbers, every woman that was there it felt like - and I ate carrot cake with this really cool chick and we talked shit about boys and breakups and I'm going back next week. It was just awesome. I almost went up there and said, "I used to drink," with a pregnant pause, just to see if anyone yelled, "How much?" So I could go, "A lot." And everyone would laugh. I think I'm going to try that next time I go up.

I came home to appetizers and bonbons strewn about the apartment. My apartment. Because I really live here now, like really-really. Here. Aloha, Capitol Hill. A-lo-ha.

And on the self-imposed cockblock, which Movable Type does not recognize as a gramatically correct statement, or maybe it thinks I'm trying to spell corkboard (fish soap), I am really just out. O-U-T. I can't even communicate properly with the girl driving me to the meeting, let alone figuring out a moment or a date or an anything about anything. I mean, I know I already decided that and everything, but I am putting my white ass up on the shelf. Well, actually, I'll be taking it to the gym, where I'll be working out in a sea of gay boys (literally) that will not distract me. I'm going into winter under wraps, and I will emerge for season five a bright exploding desert flower, all hot pink and red and pushed up through a crack in a seemingly flowerless dusty chunk of earth. I'm going to write until my fingers fall off. I'm going to take pictures until I can't stand the awesomeness of it all, plastered on the walls, everywhere I look. I'm going to fort it up in my fort until I can't possibly fort it anymore, and then I'm going to fort some more. I will be ingenious. Brilliant. Something. All in an Irish accent, when I type "something", I hear Glen saying "something" like right before "I'm going to wait for you / I've got to send this tape to you" time.

Twisp. Fauntleroy. Vashon. Mercer? Creamer? Renton??!?! I hear the Arcade Fire in the speaker still, and it's reminding me of the time I saw Bell Orchestre at Firehouse 12, and how freaking good it was. All pictures reflected in the glass. It was so great.

I don't know if I have any words left. I feel like I just got carried, crowd-style, on my back across a sea of hands from one side of a stadium to the other. I feel cared for, protected, awake, alive, wrapped in gauze, in a good way. Tired but happy. Not like a cat tied to a stick. Not frantic. Nowhere near frantic. I wish they'd have more shit for me to do at work, so I don't sit around emailing all day, but that's about the worst of my problems.

I think I'm out of words. And the cd stopped, so I've got to go.

xx
VVB

I know, it's what Kristin has at wishville, but hey - she's all on the scooter kick now. And I reserve the right to enjoy the abundant styles Movable Type has left us - so I have. Don't hate the player... right? Isn't that what Jack Walters says on his bio page? I am particularly enthralled by, well, besides my whole life, the fact that the Pink Elephant car wash is so pronounced, and how the Needle is really a big magnet, and all things Seattle-y that I will love until they take my tourist card away. I know it's only almost September, but I'm putting Harvey Danger's "Sometimes You Have To Work On Christmas" on my MySpace page. Except the apartment isn't dull. It's awesome. Who do you know that gets to live with the coolest girl on the hill, and have her own fort too? Nobody I know besides me.

Just big enough apartment + excellent old friend / new roommate + KEXP within walking distance, technically = awesome life, with a side of perpetual temporary self-imposed cockblock and seasonal views of the Needle from my office building. Yeah. Besides, Kristin, if you are peeved at my blog template, just tell me and I'll clean the bathroom for you for the next three months or something. Anything you want. Just don't take it away from me. And for all my friends at home, this is Kristin's blog, and I am ripping from her original game, because she did it / came here / lived it first. Just for appropriate credit where credit is due. I mean, I've got my own trip and everything, but - you know what I mean.

Tonight we made a bunch of buttons, went to Dick's, and made a bunch more buttons. And on the note of old friends paving the way for new experiences, I've got to say, I have missed this terribly. Old friends went from everyday to visiting to maybe I'll see you once in a while to how did it get to be so much time has passed since we've gotten together? And it's kind of like one of those things you don't realize you've missed until it's right there again, just like how you couldn't put on a list the things you would want to get out of an experience you've never had because you don't know what it holds, and even if you projected some of it accurately, you just wouldn't know because you didn't know yet. So tonight was one of those nights, feet up on the dashboard, in the harsh side-lot light of Dick's, eating french fries and talking about boys. Reminiscing about CVS. Having these little secret moments that you can get close to with New Friends, even really close good ones, even newer Old Friends, but that aren't the same as the things you feel sitting next to someone you've sat next to while you were cutting your teeth on growing up, courtesy of the Daily. People you know enough that you don't always have to say anything, people who Get It completely, that the fights never stick with, that you never second guess. Besides Kristin, I think I only really have maybe two other people like that in my life, and they're all back East. When I first got here, Kristin said to someone, this is my best friend, she just moved here, and I wanted to cry. All in a puddle on the floor of wherever we were, rendered immobile from the weight of all the love that was in that one little statement.

And she's so amazing. I am so grateful to be here, and so lucky to have her in my life. Above and beyond all the technicalities, when someone opens their home and their life and their friends (and their boyfriend, and their boyfriend's truck) to you - not to dismiss that, but including that, and past all of it, is just this bigger thing that I don't even feel qualified to give words to right now - I can just see how much and in how many ways I didn't have very many of these relationships at home, with my New Friends and New Old Friends. Everyone I knew from the beginning of the game in AA got loaded or disappeared. And so I'm jaded and opinionated, and New Friends don't always take all that the right way, so I didn't win any popularity contests with them. And then there are the few good people in AA like there are in my pre-AA past, but again, it's two or three people at best. People that can just crawl inside your heart and know everything without much more than a look inside a fraction of a moment. That's hard to find. And it's piled up everywhere here in this living room, it's everywhere I look, from the words on my bulletin board to Saturday mornings on the back of the scooter for Designated Nothing Time outside of Lladro.

As an aside, I am up to quads. Yes, the coffee is better here. No, I'm not moving back. No, I'm not coming to visit anytime soon, and if I do go to CMJ in October, I'm hiding out in Stamford and not telling anyone if I'm actually there or not. Those are all the regular questions I've been getting, so on the topic of coffee and where Home is, I thought I'd answer.

National Nesting Week, Phase I: the mattress for my new full-sized bed. I didn't get a twin, because I would have rather blown my head off for all the tragedies it held between Ben Gibbard and Sean Nelson's words about it. NG. So I go to get the mattress today, and it's in a frat house. A clean one, with nice young men, a few of them wasted playing beer pong at 7 pm on a Tuesday, complete with Dave Matthews on the stereo. White college hats. They politely disagreed with me about the fact that it was indeed not a frat house, because there were no letters on the door. I assured them, being ten years their senior, that Alpha Omega whatever (oh, the TKE house at UConn! the boys, the barfing, the parties... sigh) or a lack of it made no difference to me, or many other women for that matter. A community of Boys, kegs, beer pong tournaments, and DMB bootlegs a frathouse makes.

But yeah - back to the boy with the mattress. At the risk of aging myself, what a nice young man he was. Clean, for a boy, and giving up a focus on a business major to study geology instead. He was about to go back to San Diego and then to Spain for a semester to fulfill his language requirement. Such a rough life these kids have, all perpetual students. But he was all down with KEXP, all nice about everything, helping me tie my new bed to the roof of my car, chatting it up, apologizing for the roommate that was extra drunk and talking to me a little too close. They were all just kids, like, 21, 22 - I felt old in a good way and a bad way all at once. Oh, and the other thing - this kid had a teacher who taught him to knit, and no, he's not gay. I wanted to pinch his cheeks and hug him. We bid each other farewell, and I drove off in the drizzle back to the cabana.

It's like, two years old, the mattress, but it's relatively clean and I'm going to Febreze it and toss an egg crate on it, and call it a day. Anyway, I'll be sleeping on it alone, and I've been in much worse places than on a not-too-old mattress from a not-quite frat house. Life could be worse. And Phase II is on Thursday, when the loft comes, and then Friday we're going to get the wardrobe from a guy named Woody. In Ballard. Of all places. I still want a Ballard hoodie. And I think I'm going to write the kid a thank you note, only I'm going to make it from the mattress, not me, because I think that's funny. And I have to bring the ropes back, so I might as well give it a laugh while I'm at it.

I am not defeated, lying on this couch, about to be in my new full-sized bed. I'm not. This is the beginning. How can I feel bad about taking the harder road to a new, full life? About ending a relationship, that, while it hurt like hell to end it, was undoubtedly the best thing for both of us? About giving Buddy a good home, because he wasn't happy? I guess the hurt outweighs the getting set free at first, for everyone when a home is broken apart, but at least for me, it's as good as I could have hoped to do, as right as I can hope to be - right meaning in the proverbial way, like doing right to everyone around me, and to myself. I hate it that Raf hurts and that we can't hear each other anymore, and that so much has gone misunderstood. But I have to just be okay knowing I did the right thing. I did. I know I did. And my whole life, people may never get why I do what I do, or vice versa, and it just has to be okay. At the end of the day, the night, whenever - when I'm not convincing myself that anything is okay, or that situations are alright because I've talked myself into them being alright - when things just are and I don't even notice - that's when I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. I notice all this space now in my head, where the conversations used to be, the ones where I would be trying to tell myself all sorts of things, or hoping for stuff that never was and never could be, or thinking that it was about shelves or clean floors. It's not. It's the zen clock that says "now" for every hour. It's this instant. It's being careful with me, and you, and paying attention, and not slaloming through excuses I make for myself to try and rationalize awful behaviors that are "technically" not "bad" because it's not stealing or drinking. It's just all okay. Because I'm not even noticing it.

All those alarms I kept ignoring - I kept hitting snooze on my life. Eventually you just shut it off and can't remember why you set the alarm in the first place, until you wake up late for everything and you've missed your train and you try to be alright with it but really, it's not. It's worth the getting up on the first beep. Every single time. We can sleep in on Sundays.

And on that note, that's all I've got. Big meeting with a podium tomorrow night. I'll keep you posted.

:*
VVB

Oh Em Eff Gee. Seriously. And not in the ways I've OMFG'd before, I mean, this was a real doozy. Did I just say doozy? Holy tired Batman.

So I pick Kieran up tonight at Sea-Tac, to give him a ride back from his trip to Bend (Oregon) to see some friends, do work stuff, whatever he was doing. I call Kristin on my way to do this, suddenly realizing that I live in Seattle, and that I'm picking someone up from the airport. She tells me soon I'll be giving tours and talking about the building in Queen Anne from the top of the Space Needle. And so I find him on the sidewalk, carry-ons and cigarettes, and we're all driving and I hate him a little bit for seeing a sick Wilco show, which he followed up by hearing Beck across some water someplace because the show was outside. It's a blast to catch up. I've got directions but we just take the highways by signs, battered and wooden, knowing we've got to get to the West Seattle bridge, so that's where we wind up. Fauntleroy? Vashon? I almost couldn't see because I was practically crying from laughing so hard. Everything is funny these days.

So we're cutting through, and West Seattle in the nighttime doesn't look as glorious as it does in the day - I mean, it was pretty regular, main streets with side streets in-between, and eventually we turned off to get back to his friend's place. What I didn't realize is that the bulk of the streets all dead-ended a few blocks down, because the backs of them stuck out of a hill that overlooked Puget Sound. It's the same set of roads that Kristin follows that I see from the back of the scooter. All aghast and lavender nighttime sky, wondering how awesome it is to live there, happy I don't have to pay for it.

Right. That's where I was last night. Not kidding.

Here's me, beat up car that I still haven't washed since driving it out here (well, not the inside anyway), blasting KEXP, in love with my fort-to-be, all pulling half into the driveway up to the front of the new CR-V, something else, and a Beamer. Like, a big one. A Beamer SUV. All shiny and damp from the drizzle, all brick walkway going up to the door, a hose hanger on the corner of the house, and I whisper to Kieran something about oh - these people like, landscape and stuff.

Cue front door, big and glass and heavy, with Hot Older Guy holding it open. We're all whispering, you know, because The Baby Is Sleeping and My Wife Will Be Irritated I Have Friends Over. I've been the one getting yelled at, and I've been the Irritated one, and I immediately smell the scent of relationship diress. I only know this because it's so familiar. We walk in. Kieran takes off his shoes. I go, "Hi. I'm Victoria. Your house is fucking baller." In baby-whisper voice. The whole thing is pretty funny. I tell Rob my feet probably smell, and that I should leave my shoes outside. He laughs at me.

We walk in and I'm all aghast. The house is all clean and perfect and full of All The Right Things. Hardwood, granite, a whole wall of windows, houses out the window below, water, Seattle, the shadows of mountains, little glittery lights. They immediately lead me past said spouse (who I am polite to) to the windows so I can See The View. I ask which lake it is. I am informed that it's Puget Sound. Which is how I knew to write that earlier. We go downstairs shortly after that to where Kieran is staying, to the Man-Den that should have taken over the entire first floor of the house. But, as the host said, something to the effect of She Would Kill Me, or I Don't Think My Wife Would Let Me Do That. Those moments, just this guy living his life, it all gave power point presentation of everything awesome you can do with a bunch of money, and a bunch of stuff that I don't want. In every way imaginable.

So, yeah. The Man-Den, where there's even a view from the basement doors. Only they're not your mom's basement doors, they're all real doors with blinds and there's a good paint job and nice shit down here too. And by this time we're cracking jokes and I'm not worried about my feet anymore, and we flop on the couch, and Rob starts talking about some kind of Super CDs. Super something and something CDs. Like HD for your ears, only better, like Blue Ray, or Blu Ray, or whatever it is. CDs are, apparently, 44 measuring units of something, I don't think it's megahertz-es, or maybe it is, and these things are like, millions. So it's like every nuance, every everything, plucking strings and drawing breath, multiplied, like everyone in the house has on the greatest headphones ever made. It's retarded. And so you can get these crazy cds, and you can get the crazy cd player (that plays regular cds too), and if you're lucky, you can be an audiophile with an unlimited budget like this guy.

He starts talking about all this shit and I'm say something to the effect of, what the fuck do you do for your job? And he laughs and says that he sells medical equipment. Kieran tells me later that it's lasers, for like, dermatology or something. So he leaves to go upstairs and do something, and because I'm completely classless, I ask Kieran to put a price tag on the stereo system. He tells me. I choke. I then text Kristin that I am in a baller-ass house in West Seattle, listening to Wilco on a $50,000.00 stereo and digging the view. I send the text with the same gravity as, "I am flying over Tupelo with America's hottest band, and we are all about to die" kind of tone. And that it's fucking nuts.

I then go to myself, and say out loud, that I love my fort. I love my fort. I love not being married to my stuff. People with all kinds of stuff always romanticize about not having stuff. I embody (sp?) that. I love my fort. I love that my whole life fits in my car pretty much. I'm alright with my no-stuff, but it's fun to play with other people's fancy stuff, kind of like how kids are fun for five minutes when you don't have to take care of them full-time. That's what it all felt like.

So the house is stupid, the stereo is retarded, and to top it all off, this guy, Rob, the friend of Kieran's, has crazy mojo. Like, some kind of energy or something, I don't know, but he's charming and awesome and has all this fun shit to play with. But I'm drawn to him, he totally fascinates me, and I say things out loud when he rejects my choice of sushi with Kieran for lunch tomorrow like, "Dude. Give me a break. I make sixteen dollars an hour. Where else am I going to go for lunch?" without flinching. It's funny. The whole night is funny. The stereo is kicking my ass. I firmly believe I could have turned it all the way up, laid down on the floor, and died from the spectacularness of it all without being sad for a second. As I've stated recently, I think we can all put our hands on the speaker and get saved. And this guy had basically built the church for the kids that know the New Math.

The crazy part of it all is, and part of why I am fascinated with him and the science project I observe my mind / body to be in peculiar situations, is that he (Rob) only has one arm. And that's not even worth mentioning, because it doesn't have anything to do with talking to him, but the crazy part is that I didn't notice it for like, practially the first twenty minutes of being there. That's how much... something that this guy has. And I can't quite put my finger on it. But it was a blast to experience, even though I'll probably never see him again unless Kieran comes back out and we're all in the same place together or something. I am perpetually fascinated by my sub/unconscious.

So, he (Crazy Awesome Mojo Rob) likes Death Cab. I ask him if he has any older albums on Super CD-whatever. Sadly, he doesn't, but he's got some old Beck, and then we listen to Pink Floyd. And then the baby's up, and he has to go, and Kieran and I hang for a little bit until I remember that I have a job to go to and a drive home still. But before that, I decide I never want to leave. But then I had to go. And the drive home - well, it was my first lost-lost, and thanks to Kristin, I knew to head toward the three radio tower antenna things in Queen Anne. It got me through a little piece of not-so-nice town, I think, until the streets said E again and I cut up Madison from 23rd to Broadway. Phew. It got sketchy there for a hot second, but then it was fine.

So, yeah. That was my Monday night. And the potluck dinner at my Monday night meeting was great - I made plans with a girl to hook up for Wednesday for some big meeting, and then I'll hit Friday someplace too - and my numbers keep improving.

I just had to type improving ten times to spell it right. I've got to get some sleep.

I LOVE MY LIFE. Every single shattered beautiful fort-ready piece of it.

Kisses,
V.

I had all these good intentions last night - I set the alarm a half-hour earlier, I made plans with myself to go write at lladro or wherever the morning saw fit, and then I had these pressing, awful nightmares that took away like, two hours of my night last night. it sucked. and I'd much rather be writing about it from a chair out in the world in a cafe, but I just couldn't move this morning. the good news is that I was up and functioning at 6:30 instead of 7, so I will have to be patient with myself, and be okay with steady improvement. or maybe I just get to tell myself that so that I don't feel lame about my lack of progress. or something.

but there's not a lack of (color) progress here at all. and I will not take the time and space to recount all the things I'm doing right, because I know them, and people remind me, and kristin reminds me, and it's not all out the window from one stall-out in the driver's seat. you don't shut your whole life down, you just restart the car and go.

hi. I'm going.

my head is full of moments from fight club, illusions, truths, hopes, and fears. I was almost there, he says so earnestly. I was almost complete. if I could only find the right wardrobe... I think fight club should be like, mandatory weekly viewing. like it should replace a meeting night. sundays = pot luck and fight club. only we're not allowed to talk about it, so I can't tell you anything else.

so now it's 7, and if I get up at 6:30 all week I might make some progress. I am okay with that. and the nightmares are ridiculous, and they've always got the same theme. the whole time, from the beginning of the dream, I know in the dream that it's going to be a nightmare. this time, I was staying someplace, there was a boy and a car and getting dropped off or stopping my by grandmother's old house in new jersey, and then leaving. and there is always some kind of direct or far-off interaction with the villain, who is always the slow-approaching, creepy, michael meyers horror movie type. this time, I actually said hi and called him john, or uncle john or something, maybe it was bob? but in the dream I'm like, that's the wrong name. he's the bad guy. why aren't they yelling cut and redoing the scene? and then I'm wherever I am, a hotel room or apartment or whatever, and I know the bad guy is coming, and I see a shadow all looming outside the window (that I've locked and bolted, so that I have time to get away, because I know it's all coming) so I take off, and I wake myself up. it is the strangest thing. and then if I fall back asleep in the same position, the dream will re-start, sometimes the setting changes, but it's always a repetition of that moment when I'm aware of what's going on and trying to stop it or get away. sometimes it gets to the point where I start telling other people about it. and always - always - when I wake up from a nightmare, I am flat on my back, which is why I always sleep on my side.

so, settings notwithstanding, it's always all crazy like that - the dreams. bizarre. I don't know what that means.

on to the morning. this is National Nesting Week, and I am declaring it annually so, where we get our literal houses in order (weather permitting, meaning it must be lousy out to really engage in it). kristin moved like, the entire apartment, completely rearranged, in the time it took me to get a bag of stuff at qfc and come back. and it's awesome. and her room looks bigger with stuff in it. and the living room is all spaced out and ready for the fort. so far, we're picking that up on thursday, and I've got about 40 emails (well, like, 15 really) out about mattresses and wardrobes. the killer-ass wardrobe deal, where we'd be getting like, the greatest wardrobes ever for the best price this side of I don't know what, hasn't written back. but there's a few other ones that will do, and I think the mattress thing should be all set. then as long as I can score a little table / desk thing and dresser, it's game on. I can't wait for the part where it's all curtains and tiny lights and posters. !!!!!!!!!

that's it, kids. nightmares, National Nesting Week 2008, and then Bumbershoot. Oh Em Eff Gee. oh, and super-fresh amazing salads. and mud.

xx
V.

and only my right armpit is sweating. I don't get it. I think I need to change my deoderant.

so, I had all these words, and they've flown away. I just processed photos from the last week into my laptop, and it's all backdrops so crazy they look fake, and boys on stage aching who write books with their eyebrows that I talked about earlier. both leave me in the same state, jaw all slack, amazed that this is where I live now. hi.

first, the backdrops, from the cascade loop trip last sunday...

don't these look fake? like, you're at a ride at disneyland that's supposed to look like the mountains, or something...

and, the boys:

a guy walked past me at the in-store just now, pushing a baby carriage, the same kind we had made fun of earlier with the bike wheels being pushed by someone who was not running. and he had the end of a black eye, when the bruise starts to change and turn a couple of colors, and I was like (a) this is a sign and (b) I wonder if he's in a fight club. which, of course, I couldn't ask him, because he would have had to pretend that he didn't know what I was talking about. but yeah. the signs are definitely back. I am free in all the ways that you are not. and I need more espresso, and dinner, and more bands are beckoning.

I just had to take a second to show you guys the eyebrows.

xx
V.

And what if every blog entry had crazy, sentence long titles? And what if Mariah Carey didn't cut off her songs so that you could post her crazy mulatto-ness on your MySpace page?

So I've had a lot of espresso this morning. Whatever. I'm treading that fine line between Extremely Efficient -slash- Motivated and Totally Retarded. Not to be confused with the Totally Retarded from being under caffeinated. I think it's kind of just like drinking. I feel great! I want more! Oh, shit - wait - how much did I just have? See, I upped the ante this morning since the triples were starting to not work as well, so then I had a quad instead, but then we wanted more coffee an hour later, so I had a redeye, and then Kristin got served extra shots by accident, so we couldn't let that go to waste... I think she had 8 shots total, and I had about six if you count part of the quad.

Right. I just ate a banana. My hands stopped shaking, so I figured it would be a safe time to type... I might have misjudged that one. But we'll see what happens.

Ready? (deep breath)

I want to write my NaNoWriMo novel at Lladro, in the corner window. There's owls there. Pela played with Carter from Tulsa opening last night at the mural, and it was my favorite thing ever. They're all aching with eyebrows to match. I fall in love a hundred times a set and there's shattering of hearts and perfect photographs, and I declare it's all my new favorite music. Janet points out that every time we go to a show, I say that. But it's all my favorite, really. I swear.

I've decided that when I decide to go back to engaging in the dance of relationships (did I mention I can't dance?) that I am not going to settle. I finally had this solidified on several different levels from watching the way Billy from Pela looks at the microphone in a silent instant right before he starts screaming and falling apart, and I want to be looked at like that. You who know will know this look of which I speak. I want it all to explode in the nighttime, to see that look right before a Boy kisses me. And it needs to be the Boy that's kissing me, not the Boy that's up on stage in that moment, because I confuse everything sometimes when too many moments are shiny and sparkly and I lose the ability to discern compatible pheromones.

The signs are coming back (and they happened before I had all the caffeine). I started writing Kristin an email about it yesterday, about how when I'm aching and broken and I can't embrace it and it all hurts so bad that I want to slump over in a pile on the floor and I ask for signs - and it's like I want this earth-shattering unmistakeable moment, right in that second, and of course nothing happens... and so I get through, we always get through it somehow, and then as soon as I've forgotten that I needed it, I get the signs. It's amazing. A single magnetic word in the top of a file drawer that I was on a footstool on my tiptoes to reach, waiting there for me. Ladybugs flying into me at full force, taking up residence on my shirt. Owls. Turtles. And the best part, the tuning in of the... fractal radio station, I want to say, where I know I'm where I'm supposed to be and doing what I'm supposed to be doing, because I can feel it - or more accurately, I don't feel like I'm not all of those things. So I'm all tuned in. And I get posters and raffle prizes and perfect cds in the bottom of a giveaway box at the KEXP volunteer appreciation party, just by chance, even though people have pawed through it already - including, but not limited to, the 48 track copy of station IDs that got taken on a New York broadcast. Ben Gibbard. The electronic voice guy. And best best best, the whole one about how you wouldn't put Charlie Parker in with the rock 'n roll.

One hand up in front of the stage, the other pressed to my chest, hiding a smile behind a pink scarf, eyes closed, and I worship at the church of Charlie Post. Seriously. Only it's Pela, and I'm under the Needle.

All this music is so good. The Duchess and The Duke (that song Mary just kills me), Jessica Lea Mayfield, all everything all the time coming through the stereo and I want to put my hands on the speakers just so I might get saved. I'm getting saved like that, almost every day it feels like. And the weight is a gift - it's not a maybe. Because now I can see what I can lift, and it's way more than I realized, like one of those things you can't even put on a list because you don't know it exists - and this is all just the beginning.

Cafes in the sunshine, photo editing, OH! And I'm going to get to build a permanent fort in which I will reside. I am not joking. Kristin and I have decided to try some communal, budget-conscious living, so that we don't have to spend as long as we think we might have to indebted to medical bills and credit card extravagance. We found a guy on Craigslist that has a loft from Ikea for sale - the nice one - for mad cheap, and we're going to move the living room around and curtain off a piece of it for me. A wooden loft (fort) with curtains around it (fort) and I'm going to put up posters inside the desk part underneath (because it's a fort) and little tiny sparkly lights (in my fort) and the small scale and amazing possibilities of it all just fucking floors me. Really. Who wouldn't want to live in a fort? As long as the Chach figures out how to climb up, I will be whole and complete and want for nothing. Light blocking curtains, earplugs, and considerate hetero life partners - and tiny lights - and posters - I mean, really. I can do anything.

Is that it? Cripes I had so many words all piled up.

Tonight is mini-tour 4000, in lieu of SlackFest (which wound up being quite the commitment that I couldn't really make, because I needed to write and rest and sort and spend a quality chunk with my cat, which sounds silly, but she misses me). It starts with Carter from Tulsa at Sonic Boom in Ballard at 5, Cupcake Royale for words and caffeine in-between, Neil Halstead that Cheyl had on at 8 (all of this is within a block of itself, btw) and/or Harvey Danger and the Lake Union Fest at 8:30. I'm inclined to write until I'm done with much cupcakes and then hit the Lake Union Fest for $5.00 then spend $12.00 for a guy that I don't know if I'm going to like or not (even though I am quite the sucker for British Accents).

So. There's a lot to do, including time to dream with my legs out in the sun on the Aloha Veranda, which I think I need to do, like, now.

Go big or go home, right? It's all huge and vast and expanding, and I am home.

xx
V.

I thought that was a misprint. and then I went here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycophant

and saw that all the lyricists out there I found from consulting the oracle of Google were, in fact, correct.

Be sure to check the pop culture references.

VVB

AND just to prove that I, indeed do know it all.... Hitting the hay harkens back to the days when we/they well, people anyway had mattresses stuffed with... drumroll please.... hay. It occasionally needed to be changed- to keep the lice to a minimum and keep the stink down, and while the act of re-stuffing may be in part where the saying comes from (as in I want a stiffer mattress I may pack in more hay thereby hitting the hay to add more) I'm betting it's the simpler explanation of landing on said mattress when going to bed...

Mr. Useless trivia nerd and fellow cupcake,

Kevin

there you have it. and right when I thought nobody could possibly still be reading besides kristin, and the girl erin (hi!) that emails me when I wonder if anyone is reading, and cheers me on as such.

in case anyone cares, kevin was also kind enough to inform me that huey lewis (yes, and the news as well) are alive and kicking, and touring through the area quite soon. oh shit, I just spent my extra money on bumbershoot. drag.

cupcakes (and dilly bars at DQ!),

VVB

...because there has been a baseline shift, ladies and gentlemen. (And yes, I did just go there - don't tell me you can't see one, if not several, Huey Lewis images in your mind.) (Whatever happened to them, anyway?)

Bonus points, and a guest post, for the best HL&tN update, to victoria (at) hot avocados (dot) com. I dare you.

So, today was all out of perspective. A lot of stuff was. Every time I type alot, I see this cartoon that was up in a junior high school classroom I sat in, I think it was Mrs. Perrelli, Ramona Perrelli, with the orange lipstick. Puke-toilet was the nickname we gave to the color. Jon Vail and Steve Tirozzi wrote a song about it. Or Jon Vail and somebody. Anyway - it was this cartoon where a caveman was breaking "alot" into "a" and "lot" and throwing them into separate bins. So there was a big bin of "a"s, all piled up, and the same for "lot", all overflowing out of the bins in piles all around. And anyway again, yeah - I was all cracked out. I know very few things about myself that I don't flip-flop on depending on circumstance, and one of them is that if I have too much time on my hands for an extended period, I go nuts. Not unable to sit still and love myself stuff, or not sitting consciously stuff - I mean weeks and weeks without a job, or last time being at a job with nothing to do and not being able to do much about it (mortgage time) - all of a sudden I got way too self-focused, way ungrateful, and way just out of whack. Totally. So that kind of happened over the last few weeks, too much time past the point of relaxing, major changes and upheavals, plus not enough meetings = crazy Victoria time.

So, in all of that, moving here and finding a job and "settling in" started to become something on the list to do, to make happen, to get over, to tolerate. No way, right? Way. It wasn't about the bravery of leaving everything behind and finding out what I'm made of. It wasn't about super amazing goodness needle and twelve shows any given night of the week time. It was about getting over something, crossing something off a list - until tonight. Oh yeah, and in the meantime, I'm all strung out on Connecticut, where everything is the same, and where I wish I could convince every single person to get out of their comfort zone so that they could see what happens - it's scary and hard and amazing and freeing and everything.

Several things happened tonight. One, an extended convo with Becca, during which perspective came in several forms. That my mere existence and self-imposed circumstance is a gift. That I am lacking in gratitude. And that ending a relationship does not suddenly give the person I ended the relationship with a new set of skills with which to relate to me... so why am I (a) expecting that and (b) looking for it, actively seeking it? See what happens when we let people in? They can help us with these qualitative statements (please tell me who I am) and say obvious, mind altering things. Permanent rearrangements. So that was that, and it didn't hit me until a little later in the night.

So, okay, not several things happened, like, it's only two major categories, which are both the same heading, but still. The other thing was getting in the car with Janet and realizing the pre-fall tour scope of our week, and she's like Kristin where she's been here for 4 or 5 years and is still at a resting state of psyched, still loves everything, still gets excited to see the needle, and still is all yes and now and bookshelves filled up with awesome things and tiny little lights. I started off telling her my perspective problem. And then we said, well, tonight is Hazelwood Motel and the Purrs. Tomorrow I can hit a meeting and do some home-stuff, and she's going to Radiohead. Thursday is the volunteer appreciation party at Chop Suey. Friday is Pela, for free, at the mural. Saturday is Slackfest. And Sunday, eight pound six ounce day, is the day of Rest, and will be treated as such. And then next weekend is Bumbershoot. And fall tour is soon to follow.

And then, all at the Tractor, all taking beautiful stills in the wash of the red light, all interacting with everyone else that took the time to come down off The Hill in the rain on a Tuesday to see some good music - it all fell together. Seriously. This is not a thing to be tolerated, or gotten over, or pushed past. This is my life. Cut to me, in Seattle, doing amazing things, closer to what matters. This is me with a job two weeks out, with a spot on a guest list, with an in-studio under my belt already.

This, my friends, is Totally Amazing.

Then, all the extras, like Kristin making good dinners because I'm living on snacks and just loving the shit out of me because I can't love myself all the time. Like tipping the bartender an extra buck for that night's poster off the wall. And maybe, just maybe, a real artist project with black and white pictures of a Boy in a band that's too shy to show up and wants to do it anyway.

And it's been three weeks. Well, three and a half, this Thursday is four weeks already then? Shit. I mean, I'm all hurting and processing and cracked out, but life is inherently good. When I take the time to lay it out as such, and just stop, and pay attention to the undercurrent.

Photo essay of last night to follow, but I've got to hit the hay.

What does that mean, hit the hay? More bonus points if anyone feels like answering that one.

xx

V.

I'm somewhere between tasting stars
and a mouthful of dirt.

with you up there on the screen
I'd be your future Boy
my big eyed bird in the movies
I'd be your future Boy
'cause if that is what you need
a cinematic Boy like me
who'll come along and set you free
don't fear
super Boy is here
and it feels good to me...

I had to apologize to Kristin today, for not knowing the breadth and depth of Catherine Wheel, for forgetting most of that night at Toad's place a hundred years ago, all wasted and amazing, that's a few moments for me but mostly a big expanse of nothingness.

as the wisdom runs
a Boy should know his limitations
but I've talked myself through less
can I be your future pest
'cause if that is what you need
a sycophantic Boy like me
who'll tell you things
you really don't need...

so many things are so far out of my reach, in a good way, pulled out forever and slipped beyond my grasp, but it doesn't mean I still don't try to stretch for them, straining for a touch, like reaching up out into the sky after waking up from a nap and feeling like the clouds are within reach. but then that's too lofty, because it's a mouthful of dirt from that nap, and I'm really waking up choking some days.

it gets under my skin, under my nails, into my deep breaths, even from three thousand miles away, and it's utterly ridiculous. and I keep looking, like torture, like a train wreck, pupils burned out from opening my eyes too wide, and I can't stop checking to see what's happening next. I can't. and I have to. it's like that imaginary switch that has to flip by itself... "Let go," they all cry, all with good intention, and it seems like it's in charge right then, that it's not something I can leave on that dirty ground and never see again. I'm haunted some days by the ghosts of what might have been, what could have been.

and strangely so, because it's the first time in forever that there aren't any regrets. and I can't remember anyone being sad that they finally learned how to stop putting their hand on the stove, just to touch, just to see if it's still hot, just to check and make sure it still hurt. as ken would always talk about - there doesn't need to be a discussion about whether or not your hand is burning.

Just. Let. Go.

and then that's it, and it's all a vanish. but I don't care if it's chapel street or the corner of harvard and boston over the highway, or old apartments in chicago - we've all got our ghosts. healthy and whole as we may become. I suppose it's just that mine are particularly loud today.

I finally walked into a meeting here, the one I haven't missed since we arrived, and when they asked me how I was, I said I hated everybody and that my ex was fucking everything that walked back in my hometown and that everything sucked and that I hadn't gone to AA in a week. they welcomed me, and I sat in their business meeting, and promptly got nominated to several service positions. one of which is chairing the open discussion group on mondays for the next two months. and I knew I needed it, and I pushed through like pushing through the end of morning pages when you know there's more there, and technically you could stop - but do you want to change, or do you want good enough?

I don't want good enough. I know I just have to go easy on myself sometimes, but good enough is just good enough and it's not enough. I want to be amazed. I want to be blown away, and not in control in the right way.

and cut back to Seattle, where my movie roles have changed, again for the good. and I shift from damsel in distress to the counterpart, best supporting actress, only none of it is a lie. I'm the perfect chord that makes the chord before it mean more. I have black flats. I like bendy guitars and organizing office lunches with goat cheese pizza. I am camera lenses, black ink, open wounds, and post-trauma. it's nice to go from under a tree to the top of the hill. not quite a mountain. but a hill will do. for now.

well, I'll always like bendy guitars. but you know what I mean.

I thought I had more words than that, but I guess I'm more alright than I thought.

Kristin had dinner waiting tonight. I cried, for the epic moment of it all, for being really loved and cared for, the way I love and care for, the way almost no one loves and cares for in return. "It's just eggs," she said simply, and that made me cry more. It's really not every day that these people come along... the us, that when you are us, you know what I mean by us. The busking and screaming but sometimes it's just a word, or a moment, or a sentence, or a written page. But we have it all connected between us, that moment when he starts to yell and our hearts catch and skip some, just for a second - we've got to stick together.

I can't get through all these mountain passes alone, and neither can any of you.

xx

and another late night from a white stuffed animal fur couch on Capitol Hill (and varying degrees of capitalization, and then not, and then again),

Victoria

I don't even know if this is the right map, but we've been out since 8 this morning (that's 8 am Pacific Time, kids) driving through mountainous epic scenes and scabby brushy tundras going all around and up and through the Cascade Loop (I think) and swimming and eating and singing and finally we got back around to here. Back home. Because (I know, I know, it's getting old) I live here now.

We live here. It reminds me of being all hippied-out and there was a sign up in Vermont as we were going down to this lake to get all baked out that said "WELCOME TO VERMONT" only someone had blacked-out (greened-out, really) the L so it said "WE COME TO VERMONT" and every time I say I live here I think about that in my head. We Come To Seattle.

It's really killer, and the landscape is breathtaking, and the bison is good, and the scenes are vast, and the soundtrack keeps getting better and better. I am going to sell a bunch of shit so that I can have even less debt and even less shit.

Pictures to follow. Must rest.

xx
Victoria

if you weren't made out of stone
I know that you'd catch me
if you could.

11:00 pm on a Friday, and another thoroughly awesome day has passed.

The first time Kristin sent me any emails from Steve Pavlina to read, one of the things I remember him saying was about crossing the days off of your calendar. At the end of every day, or the next morning or whatever, you cross the day off and say something to the effect of, "This (That) day is gone, never to come back (appear, whatever) again." And it really works for me, it makes everything tangible and real and makes me want to pack everything I can into the time I am awake. It also makes it resonate very, very deeply when the time is wasting and passing and the time just isn't adding up. It's very... I want to say real-izing, realizing, centering, I don't know - it just works.

So tonight was work and then cutting up Denny to the station, meeting Deb, eating pizza, and catching the Maldives and Jesse Sykes at the Mural (same place where all the outdoor movies were, except Almost Famous) and just hanging out in the grass under the needle. Stellar. Seriously. And I'm all singed from being out in the sun, I'm sure it will fade out to a tan at some point but I'm just all pink and blinking in the light and happy and unraveled (in the good way). Untied from all the knots that pile up in my mind. And tomorrow is some big party out in West Seattle, and coffee and a meeting and whatever winds up coming down the pike.

Kristin makes water with all ice and lemon wedges and mint, and I love it.

Jesse Sykes was all angst-ridden and pensive, and there was some amazing line (well, a bunch of them) in one of her songs, I wrote it down - I have to go find it with an appropriate picture to post. it was something gorgeous, like if you weren't made out of stone / I know that you'd catch me / if you could.

More to follow - over and out.

VVB

Grown men discover the joy of throwing gang signs, as well as all the West Seattle Scooter Goodness you could possibly a multitude of sticks at, here.

:*

More photos up in the Seattle gallery.

Oh, and check out the new home page too. Kristin is available for hire, and will do you right. I swear. She's like, stupid good at this stuff.

I'm serious.

VVB (with a flourish)

so I'm on my lunch break at my new job. where I get to wear jeans on fridays. holla. everyone here is so nice, the pay isn't too bad, there's a little courtyard outside my big giant windows, and I think they like me. katy and chris came back from office max with my whole wish list, and it was all cute and color coordinated. a shiny blue gelatinous bar for your wrist-wrest at the keyboard, and a matching one for my mousepad. and a bulletin/dry erase/magnet board (which I totally could have lived without). AND pushpins in blues and greens and purples that make me think of kristin, and an exceptionally well designed clear caddy for pens with these little drawers that swing out for tacks and paperclips and what not.

hi. I live here.

I just walked down to cafe vita for coffee, turns out it's a block away from silver platters and sushi land. double yay. when I am in a financially stable situation, I will be breathing down the neck of New Release Tuesday to get my paws on whatever is coming out that particular week.

I don't know if there's any online monitoring going on or anything, so I'll have to keep my online lunchbreak writing-break on the clean side. I have no idea how corporate stuff works, but I am going to err on the probability of Big Brother doing some Watching.

I felt all cracked out and disheveled this morning getting ready to leave, and as I sit here with my triple espresso and my apples & peanut butter everything seems to be alright. it's like by working all day that I thought I was going to be missing something, I don't know. what is there to miss? everybody's working. and everyone can email at work, so it's not like major stuff is going to go down that I need to be sitting home for... what a difference a (half of a) day makes.

so I'm two blocks from coffee, a record store, the needle, and about twelve seconds from KEXP. oh, and like, a mile from Home. I'm not quite sure what else I could ask for. speaking of KEXP, I put in an email to shoot Rocky Votolato tomorrow. I think he's good, from what I've heard people say about him. I freaking love the in-studios, being at them and in them, I mean. it's stellar.

well, it's nearing the end of break, and I should like, break, because my mind is chroncially otherwise occupied. some nothing with a side of espresso might be nice.

kisses,

LG

so for two weeks now I've had the luxury of just writing at will (well, 3 weeks, with the driving) and now today it's up-and-out to get to work on time - and it's like dishes piling up or trash that has to go out. I'm filled up, all words rattling around, all needing time to open up and bleed onto the page (screen).

and now that I'm taking five minutes this morning I'm feeling all pressured, because I've got to get ready, so I'm thinking about how much time I have and not what's got to come out. ugh. getting up early really is the way to go - at least I'll know for next week.

as an aside, tonight should be a blast, work and then meeting deb (and janet too, I think) for jesse sykes and the sweet hereafter at the outdoor amphitheater at the space center. free. just like last night, super free awesomeness, all warm summer nighttime up on top of a building after a gorgeous scooter ride and the best cupcakes a girl could ask for. all singing tiny dancer. all heartbreak and perfect movie lines, one after the next after the next.

so what's rolling around... I'm not getting to enough meetings. at first I was just kind of stunned, laying there with the wind knocked out of me, and now it's somewhere between stunned and unmotivated or other fun thing to do on whatever night it is. with this job stuff lined up, temporary as it may be, I've got to get serious about a dedicated schedule that includes getting to meetings. like tonight, there's one I can go to at 8:30, but dammit, I really want to be hanging outside seeing this band - and I know that I wouldn't be able to do any of this without being sober, but part of it is feeling like I just got out of jail. from watching movies in a cat carrier, all breaking open with nowhere to go, or maybe like a fat kid home from diet camp - I just want everything. and I want it on my terms.

I've also got to go easy on myself, because Things Take Time and I know I'll adjust. there's a morning meeting about a minute from where I work, and I know that on top of meetings that I can learn how to make the time to write and pack healthy lunches and all that. oh, and there's and applying for more jobs, since this is just a temp gig, so I've got to make the time for that too (and adjust from spending from 8 - 12 doing that after I've written for an hour at Victrola, because it just isn't on the table anymore). I forgot about that part.

it's all stuart smalley time, all looking at myself in the mirror, telling myself it's okay to have needs. I need time to adjust. it's funny how all I see sometimes are setbacks and failures and everything I'm not doing. you know, off for close to three weeks, I have a temp job twelve days after I get here, and suddenly I'm not good enough because I don't know how to have a perfectly balanced schedule. like, immediately. I just don't know how to give myself a break.

I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. and I'm capable of better time management. (I fuck like you want to fuck. I'm free in all the ways that you are not.) I feel like there's more to write, and I have to run. good thing it's the weekend! tonight will be full but in a good way, and then there's two days to regroup.

you know, from everything. because my life is so tragic and difficult.

xx

LG

off to the new job.

but first...

here is the kexp flickr stream, the Hazelwood Motel set should be right up on top (it's linked to the in-studio set page).

!!!

season 4, here I come!

VVB

PS - I got the job. Admin bonanza somewhere in Lower Queen Anne. Curtain at 8 am tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel for six to eight weeks, at a rate of pay I can live with.

Thanks Kristin! :)

William: I have to go home.
Penny Lane: You are home.

I did my first in-studio today with Hazelwood Motel. Pictures to follow. They're playing at the Tractor on Tuesday for six dollars. I get to go shoot them. I felt like I was in someone's bedroom when they were playing, it was so crazy and amazing and everything all at once. I wish I didn't have to have a day job.

Hi. I live here.

:*

I know it's typing and not writing but I'm here and it's not nothing, so I'm doing it. I've got an interview this morning, so there's showering and suiting up for this prostitution gig I'm about to slalom through, hopefully with good result. It's practice nonetheless. And I'm stalling about writing because I don't know what's going to come out, I'm still dangerously close to the place where I would lie in my notebooks because I wasn't sure if Raf was going to read them or not.

To wit, from Kristin, in an email, on cue, all at once:

Good luck today. You are an administrative Goddess. AND you've got a really sweet suit.

~k

Perfect. Seriously.

And now all the wind is gone out of my ache. I woke up aching, aching for words before I could even see all the way, knowing I had to rehearse questions and Eat A Good Breakfast and all that. And I swear, following up on Raf and rereading old emails and taking out all the pain and sadness and fondling it all the time - I might as well be one of those people that cuts myself. Really. And I'm not, and fondling my grief is not a way to emotionally eat Wheaties in the morning. When that happened ten years ago with Robert, eventually my mother and I took the little packet - all the notes and moments and the one slightly blurred picture I had of him, worn on the edges from carrying it around - and we tied it up with a ribbon and set it on fire in the backyard. And it was like killing myself at first, and then it worked.

Except I can't take out my insides and set them on fire. There's no heart-brush like a lung-brush, no purge, no cleanse - just words words words and time taking time to pass.

I had insane dreams before waking up, of being on some deserted island with backstage passes to see some artist I don't know, I want to say maybe it was Alicia Keys or someone like that? All getting lead around this mansion everywhere, doors that looked like we were going so far away from where we started from and then right before we finally left and headed into another part it looked like one of the first rooms we saw, like the person taking us around was looking for something and never found it and didn't want to be embarrassed by telling us or whatever it was, and then the sounds got closer as we got closer to this backstage place all outside on this island, and it was just so strange. people going to the bathroom outside and no one thought twice about it. And it was so real in the dream, the singing got closer as we got closer, and I'm wondering if Kristin was singing as she got ready this morning, and then when I woke up at about 7:45 I could have sworn I heard her voice, like she had just left and I could have called out and caught her and that she would have walked back.

I'm just thinking about the interview and everything for today, and I've got to do this stuff myself. I feel like I can't some days, and I've done so much, and I have so much experience to draw back on, and yet none of it seems real and I feel all scared and incapacitated by - well, everything. Life. I feel like I've forgotten how to do so much, and part of me feels like I missed my shot. Even though I know none of that is true. And we were at this coffee shop in Wall, and there was this magnet that knew what I was talking about, that said "It's not too late to be what you might have been" or something, only it said it better. And were I not the woman I am today, I would have stolen it, which would have been all counter-everything, but still.

This is going to take some work, this life of mine, starting with right now. I feel like I'm at the part in the morning pages where there's still another section left that I have to push through, but the cursor is blinking and the morning is passing. I really want to do the interview rehearsal stuff before I get all up and moving.

So I'll pause for the cause and continue tonight.

I am free in all the ways you are not.

VVB

But I was clumsy, and making her suffer even more, because she was down in an inferno of her own creation, so far away from me that the sound of my voice made the hiatus seem worse. Then I tried to talk to her of other things, and I tried to make her laugh at my obsessions. Look lady, Arturo Bandini, he's got a few himself! And from under the pillow I drew out Camilla's tam-o-shanter with the little tassle on it.

But she was not listening, and she staggered off the bed, and she fell on her knees before me and begged me to tell her she was not disgusting.

~John Fante, "Ask The Dust" pgs. 86-87

(Say, "scoot a-boot", like a naughty Canadian. Eh. Or something.)

I feel like I am getting the extra special secret handshake welcome to Seattle. People showering me with love. Boys taking care of needs I didn't know I had (no, not like that), all drawing me maps to meetings and leaving me unkissed and several well-thought books on cue. And beautiful, perfect, dark cobalt with some periwinkle and lavender for good measure, skies. I know that's not punctuated correctly, and I don't care. And the weather - it's been totally delicious. Well, almost totally. 98%.

And seeing the city from the back of a scooter - that's the best part. Cupcake rides like, every single day. Tonight there was a part of the ride where we came up over the hill and the landscape looked like Mars, all hillside and tiny lights and then big craggly mountains in the landscape behind with the end of dusky skies and scraggly thin-drawn clouds cutting across. With flowery strings of lights slung across the front, and hand-drawn hearts on the back, and I finally forgot about everything and held on with my legs as we coursed down hills and I held my arms out like wings and everything flowed out. Everything. You come back all smiling and refreshed and set free, no matter how you start. It's like drugs, only real, and better, and amazing. And real. Wind in your hair and your scarf real, shiny nighttime luminous scenery real. I couldn't plan anything like it, because I didn't know stuff could be that good.

I think that says something about something about me, that I just said that.

Kristin and I wound up walking some of the same parts of Eastlake today where I was Saturday, the part where the sidewalk dips down to the docks, since it's right across from one of the buildings she works in. Which, by the way, has this totally baller view from like, every single window and every angle and every everyplace. She just might have the greatest job on the planet. Just being able to stop and get with all that at varying points in the day - it's the best. Everyone should be so lucky, to see everything we see here every day and every night. I'm amazed with every corner, struck with every turn, I want to go up to people in the morning and go, "Did you see the way the needle looked last night? All lit up and perfect and sky all perfect..." And maybe you get sick of it after a while, I don't know, but I'm pulled in like a giant magnet, a moth to a flame, only without getting fried at the end of my journey. Drawn to might be better. Drawn is the word of the day, in case anyone missed it.

My eyes are closing all by themselves. I have applied for about 35 jobs since the end of last week, and there's still more to come tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to be another productive day where I Mail Things and Get Alot Done. I have like, pens, and a bulletin board, and stamps, and things that need to notarized. Like, stat. But I'll be back to post more when it's all done at like, 1:30 and I have nowhere in particular to go.

Scooters and sunsets and little lights shaped like flowers,
V.

Okay, so the video is weird. But still. And yes, we are in fact black and proud.

:*

~VEvB

so here I sit out alone in the living room, quiet, frames, a mix tape I made on the background -

alone. really and completely. no parents, occupied friends, the ticking of a clock near a television that's off, cat in the other room. no job. nobody left to keep tabs on me but me.

I hope that's not coming across as morbid, I don't mean to imply that no one cares or that this is in some way tragic. it's not. and they do. but when you get stripped of everything, down to your last hundred bucks, you're alright for a few weeks still, the cat's fed, there's clothes on your back and a suit hanging in the closet, all hopeful and waiting for an interview - but it's getting down to my bones now. no boys. no distractions. there's me, a notebook, my scars, and a silent living room.

I'm writing this out in an email because it seems like it should be a letter to him, or to someone, so it seems like the right format, but I know it's just me. and on that note - at least it all got me writing. it always does, and it was the same interactions and a little less at a little faster pace, but it was just the same, and it did the trick. my veins are open, and my heart is full of black ink. and that's how I like it, that's how the words happen, that's how it's supposed to be.

I'll allow myself a momentary tangent, I guess, to lament over boys and things, too many words sometimes and not enough words sometimes - it's not purely situational, but there's this huge discouragement hanging in a fishing net from the ceiling, the cold reality that there are no moviescript moments kissing in the rain under trees, and that most times if there is it's just a game anyways, and that there is no showing up at the window too late on a weeknight to a Boy on the sidewalk who was just nowhere near your neighborhood. there's no mixtapes that say it all the way the ones I make do, there's just songs that leave me guessing and moments that don't add up. but then I don't know how to tell the truth, in either case. saying or discerning or otherwise. but see - the thing is, all these beautiful words start to come out. words like a thumb just so on a cheekbone right before a kiss happens, like aching in front of speakers for another moment... and on top of the words there's the momentary glimpses of everything I ever wanted. as long as I don't try to pull back the curtain on it. and then from that, there is hope, just like the cards said there would be.

so, at this part of the movie scene, it seems like there's nothing left - but really, it's the beginning of everything. there's power and glasses and eyelet skirts and heartwrenching moments in kristin's arms where we know just by the fact that there's words for things that they've happened already, and so there's no more loneliness. because if no one got me, and everyone was scared to engage, I wouldn't have people in my life for real, all wrapped up close to my heart, that know me, really - really and truly. right now there's only like, one or two, and a bunch of awkward interactions with a Boy doesn't undo all of that. it can't. I'm too strong for that to be my reality.

I might be broken, but I'm still amazing. every jagged little bleeding part of me. I've got pages and pages to prove it, but I don't need to.

I want to paint. big sweeping canvases, and I want to use my arms and legs to make masterpieces. like, all covered in paint, all tortured by it on the floor, doing whatever it takes to get it right. I want to blow up big superimposed prints of perfect pictures I've taken and blow myself away. I want to sing with someone and have it mean something. I want to be understood, dammit, I'm tired of trying to do all the understanding.

all biting my lip on the couch on a sunday night, half expecting - whatever
not really expecting anything

I want a job, so I'm going to go and get one. I can't stand relationships, so I'm not going to engage in any except for the one that goes on in this apartment (well, ones, if you include taking care of the girls) and I'm going to stay all east coast and unapproachable, because it's going to save my ass. I'll send long-winded emails and say the quiet parts out loud and I don't care who doesn't want to hear what - if you don't like my lyrics, you can press fast forward. or throw the whole thing out the window. because at the end of the weekend, in an apartment like this in the nighttime, it's me on those pages in my notebooks, nobody else. no one is going to do this for me. well, I mean, kristin is helping with alot, but I kind of put that in the category of me being sick and cracked out and her taking care of me, only it's all mostly my insides that need the help - but I sit here on this furry couch and it's just me. there's no packing up to go anywhere, and there's no one to put words in those paisley midnight skies.

this is my life. and this is my shot. I'm getting amazing emails and texts, people throwing me flowers (I guess I'm not as well / as I had hoped) and saying things like, it's your time to shine. I have to find some kind of empowerment in being all stripped away. it's either that, or give up. and I'm not giving up.

I wish I could walk into jobs and give them my real resume. all the moments and the courage and the words and the real parts, the smashed up beautiful parts - I'm all stuck on this awkward representation of myself that I've got to conjure up. kristin has been pretty consistent with her opinions about that. must wear jacket, must have sensible shoes, must not show cleavage. must learn power point. must wear pearls, if applicable.

songs just stop me in my fucking tracks. really. you should be able to make a job out of that moment I just had just then.

I watch
the patchwork farms
slow fade
into the ocean's arms
and from here
they can't see me stare
the stale taste
of recycled air...

so calm down
release your cares
the stale taste
of recycled air...

I've got to keep telling myself that this is the truth, that it's not all waking up to wet sweaters on a sunday morning that make you wish you could rewind your saturday. I have to hang onto something. it just has to be all this everything else that I hope it is. if it's anything else, if everyone is lying and just trying to be nice, I'm doomed. and I can't be doomed. there's too many good shows coming up to be doomed. I mean, seriously, fall tour is around the corner, and I'm living in seattle now.

really.

:*

blowing kisses out into the quiet, empty nighttime -
vvb

today was just a regular day, except it was awesome because everything is awesome these days. from what I can tell, it's going to take quite some time for the shine to wear off, seattle is just so big and so much and so good - between that and KEXP and getting to live with kristin, I believe it will take about... oh, forever to get bored with any of this. besides, a friend of mine wrote me and said something to the effect that bored comes from boring, and my life is anything but boring. it's either awesome, or I've got the equivalent of an emotional shotgun out and I'm making a mess of things.

so I got myself a suit, all proper with sensible shoes, it's funny how you to have to put your best foot forward when you're out looking for jobs - but the definition of that means presenting, in my case, a classic office goddess with appropriate attire and not too much this or too little that (no cleave, no flip-flops) and it's like - like I have to give them a snapshot of myself, just the right piece, so that I can obtain gainful employment, so that they can tell me that I don't have to wear a suit, and then I get to tell them that I don't wear suits anyways. so, that whole process seems strange.

---

it's time for dinner, so now will have to come... er, later.

a million brilliant moments in the shade of the sunshine. hilltop, passerby boats, soundtracks and song - song I save for everyone, song I always have alone. song I wound up sharing, finally. but maybe it was just supposed to be something to compare things to.

(from the couch)

sitting there today in the sunshine was like nothing I'd ever dreamed of, and everything I always wanted. and you complied, you always do, so gracefully and right on cue - like you can see through the translucent membrane that I half-try (so desperately, that half) to hide behind - all the while wanting so badly to be caught. I'm transparent and I know it. to pull back the curtain on me,

like a book elegantly bound but
in a language that you can't read

I see the highways and the scenery from a thousand new moments, a thousand new windows, sometimes not at all, and I restrain myself only because I want someone to bleed for me the way that I bleed. where I can finally stop pretending that there's more than love that matters, where every shining second can finally be about the sparkling little moments reflecting back from those perfect little round mirrors.

---

I can't tell the difference between staying away and running away. in either case, it's all slipped too far out of reach. all these intentions except I can't quite figure out what got said, like a roadblock on the only path there is to take... I'm left clawing at the speakers, to pull out one more word for one more second, and once again I'm torn between wanting to say everything and not wanting any of it at all. I guess this way I get to do both. and I'm left here with empty, open, beautiful hands.

that, and I'm soaking wet, you see, so it's time for me to go.

I am in seattle, after all - I'd better get used to the rain.

vvb

You'd think we were like, teenage boys or something.

Seriously.

But really, we're not boys. We're hot, organized girls with computers and espresso. And glasses. And Barbarella. I don't think it gets much better than all of This, all right now.

xx

V.

If it's a broken heart, then face it...

I continue to be totally and completely amazed. Daily. All sitting on the edge of my chair, all starting sentences with "all" and "and", all writing for almost an hour to start my day in what is quite possibly the greatest coffee shop known to anyone.

Last night I drove around by myself for the first time, down to the station to go to orientation for the BBQ this Saturday. Jon and I will be setting up fence at 6 am, which blows, but a free pass to come back to see the Helio Sequence and Joseph Arthur isn't too bad at all. I can't say I mind. All (there it is again) sunrise with the top down, needle and sweeping cityscape, work and reward, maybe some naps in the sunshine. Then movies under the needle in the nighttime, and Rocky Horror Picture Show if I can manage to stay awake for it.

And that's just one day. One. A regular Saturday.

And the rest of my day yesterday was grand, before orientation it was pizza with Janet and Deb and Deb's daughter, and I was excited to see them, and they were excited to see me, and I was excited that they were excited, and Izzy played with pizza dough. And afterwards, Kristin didn't see my text, so I kept driving for a while - all down Broadway, down and around, up Aloha, up to what seemed like the plateau up on top of the hill, and back down again. There was a pretty spot with needle and sunset Kristin took me to on the scooter, and I knew it was closer to downtown based off of the needle in the frame, and then I shot down a main drag towards the other end of 10th and came to Harvard. And it was all houses on the left and open on the right, a low metal kind of fence that wouldn't keep you from jumping over and a highway underneath. And past that, all pieces of the edge of a city, all houses stacked up on the hill, shiny grey bridge and sunset over mountains. It was great. I didn't know if it would be okay to park, so I cut around another couple of streets and picked Boston to go down, because Boston made it seem okay, and then when I went right onto Harvard with the open sky on my left this time, I discovered it was alright to park. I turned up the music and shut off the car and sat there, head resting on my arms, watching the Earth turn, all pinks and oranges reflected up in the patches of clouds, cartoon sunbeams shooting out. And it was perfect, and I was happy, and I cried, the second half of a first side of a mix tape ringing out over the noise of the traffic below, and it was all perfect.

Hi. I live here.

The concept of interacting with a Boy, or anyone for that matter, on an open processing plane is comforting, staggering, intimidating, and all kinds of good all at once. So many times, in so many ways, I've forgotten how to make friends, and focused on how I thought I wanted to sound when I met someone (pants-off potential or not) and if that wasn't the case, I was in old familiar ways and places and I didn't have to think about how I really felt or what I wanted to say, because I was already in the middle of comfortable things, things that came with opinions and set-up scenery... and now, I get to see what I'm made of. I get to remember why I feel certain ways, and why I don't, and how I came to those conclusions, and where I'm right, and where I'm wrong. Talk about putting my recovery in a suitcase and taking it with me. It's a whole different ballgame in a whole different ballpark, like, the bat and the ball and the bases are all there - but all of a sudden I'm in China or something. Same movements, new languages, and an inherent simplicity that you can't get when everything has gotten too familiar.

Seattle is big, in a nice way. Big enough to get lost and stay new and not run out of things to do and to see. Not so big that it freaks me out.

Today I'm actually going to apply for a few jobs, I've gotten registered with UW already, and I'm going to hook up with a few temp agencies too so that I can have a good amount of options. The question of actually having a tough time finding a job has not plagued me, it's just where and when I'll wind up at one. I'm putting some pretty lofty manifestations out into the Universe, like a comfortable environment, good pay, and a pretty commute that has nothing to do with the horror stories of the highways I've been told so far.

I wish I had my headphones, although I like being conscious and hearing what's around me.

Between morning pages and this, I think I'm out of words. Time to get to work, or something kind of like it.

Bon Courage,
Penny

It's about 10:30 here, but I can't escape feeling like I'm going to bed at 2 am and waking up at 10 am. I wonder if that ever changes, or if it's just the light and the time that people do things... I mean, really, it's all the same. But for some reason it feels superior, like we get more day than the east coast, and that we get to stay up later, and sleep later, and still have the same amount of active time.

Awesome.

The days are just one big sunshiny burst of goodness. Today we went all over the place, and seeing Seattle from the back of a scooter - it's just the best. It makes it easier to drive when I have to take the car around, which I have yet to do alone. But really, Kristin comes home at noon all week this week, and then yesterday we went all over the place in Alki and West Seattle (pictures to follow) and today she made me a button and we went to Golden Gardens - all beach on the Puget Sound, right on the edge of a city. Then we cut back through and saw the Locks and came in from Fremont, all eating fresh tomatoes out on the veranda, wanting to nap but not, ridding myself of extra things I don't need, staying fresh and light and stringless. This place is amazing.

I am so, so lucky to have Kristin in my life, to have her have gone through everything I'm going through practically verbatim, just in different states and different sized shoes. It's like having a sponsor for just - well, life. Speaking of, I'm not getting to a ton of meetings, but I'm not giving myself a hard time about it - I've gone to two in the last five days, and have met up with a bunch of people to go to some group of theirs on Thursday night. They seemed nice, a few women and a bunch of gay men mostly. But I'm not worried about it, I know I'll find my stride... it really feels like I just got back from a war or something, all bleeding heart on the battlefield, all soul shot through with big gaping holes and I barely made it here alive. And she just... I don't even have words for it. Saying she Gets It just doesn't seem like enough somehow. And with the lack of contact from people back home, people that (a) Get It and (b) are willing to Work On Keeping In Touch and all other kinds of relationship-y things... well, they're few and far between.

Who knew, all going to a Mighty Purple show in November that year - that it would open up so much and put us all here, all in this moment, all living with Kristin and emails from Will - I guess I can't hate Steve so much after all, even though I still do. Not hate really, because hate is so rough and jagged, but I just have a lot of problems with his... wavelength, I think. So many things come down to what kind of projected energy is going on, direct and indirect.

So, yeah. So Kristin is amazing, and all she's doing is just living her life and opening her home and doing what I'd do for her... she's all free and awake and tuned in and I'm just so grateful for all of these pieces falling together the way that they have. Part of me feels all in the way here, but I'm not really, and I know she'd have no problem addressing it with me if my crap all over the place was making her crazy. My crap, what little I have left of it, is kind of all over the place, but I'm doing the best I can, and besides, she Gets It, so it's not a big drag. I remember a therapist telling me that I was in charge of my mind and my thoughts, not the other way around, but I still have a hard time harnessing that and really embracing it as truth - it's almost like I have to embrace my broken mind and let it do whatever it has to do, and let it pass, and then I get to have it back when it's done freaking out. I don't get it. But I do it anyway.

Tomorrow we are going to bring Cheryl chocolates and flowers and just make her day, hopefully akin to how she made mine today with my multi-sentence shoutout after a practically instantaneous Wilco request (I'm Always In Love, because I perpetually am). I literally jumped up and down in the living room, and I really felt like just then that life couldn't get any better. I think this weekend we're going to have to go gets me a suit, so I can go gets me a Real Job, and start doing Big Girl Things like that so I can Get My Shit Together on some kind of technical level. I have to say though, this simple living is really nice. Really, really nice, freeing, stringless, and beautiful.

I'm going to go look on Craigslist. Good night, Irene.

:*

~Penny

New photos up in the gallery - I have so many words, but it's so late... it's been a beautiful, touristy, sunburned seafood day. Tomorrow is Stacey's last day here, so we'll be doing the needle and a whole bunch of other "before you go" types of things. Updates to follow.

Bon courage,
Victoria

:*

It's Saturday, about 9 pm PST. I take some kind of perverse comfort in the fact that there's still more left to the day than there is at "home", or should I say in New Haven, because it hasn't felt like home in forever. And now, in this zen-retreat of an apartment that Kristin has set up here, is the closest to home it's been since I've been unable to return to my mom's house. We used to get all wasted and cry and go, no really, dude, I love you more than my parents! Now I can see that it's chosen family, all surrogate, in a good way.

Kristin just left to take her friend Kerry home on her scooter - which makes every single event baller, by the way, even just going to Trader Joe's - and we're going to do pedicures and watch movies when she comes back. There's all good words taped up on the walls as I sit here typing, like, what if the best day of your life kept happening over and over? (as Arcade Fire spills through the speakers, the one from the mix, waking up, like new relationships, all cinematic and sweeping) and today we were at a coffeeshop before a meeting, and the headline read Be Prepared To Dig Deeper, which I promptly bought, came home, cut out, and tacked up onto the bulletin board.

Everything here is glittering and amazing, partly because I am all glittery and amazed. My to-do list for after Stacey leaves on Tuesday consists of finding out when a bunch of shows I want to see go on sale and not looking for a job (because I've been remanded to taking a week off, from jobs and apartments and everything) and consuming massive quantities of espresso. (I guess we'll just have to adjust... perfect.) Apparently there's been talk of a "Hi. I live here." scooter ride to celebrate my arrival, and possibly timing it to end at the Lake Union annual festival thing, where there is organized kickball and Harvey Danger. That's just the fucking shit if I ever heard it. And there's all Bumbershoot and Pinback and it's not even fall tour yet...

I've been practicing being specific about my manifestations. When asked what I wanted to pursue for employment, I replied to the effect of wanting a cushy office job where I am Understood and paid a fair wage so that I can afford to Go To Shows and Take Time Off When I Need It (mostly to shoot in-studios for KEXP when they arise) and the like. I don't need to be starving. I need to take care of myself financially so I can do what I love, I don't have to do what I love when I'm in positions where it can't support me financially. Among a variety of other needs that will only manifest if I do the work to specifically manifest them.

For some reason, I keep picturing my car covered in love notes and sunflowers. I don't know why. Maybe because it's coming. Maybe because I've been bombarded by love and flowers thrown out into the Universe from every direction, and then gifts of Love and Welcome from the new people I'm meeting. Like books. And good directions.

This Arcade Fire album is just always so good, when I got to see Bell Orchestre at Firehouse 12 in New Haven I practically shit myself. Max about 50 people there, with Clogs opening (with some guys from the National) and I took all these stellar pictures with everything all reflecting in the walls of the performance studio.

So I'm shooting low but shooting high all the same. The other thing all of that will afford me to do is work on some debt while I stay at Kristin's for a little bit, which will continue to ease the pressure, and then Stage II will involve getting back to starting my continuing education - I'm sure they've got to have some kind of community college here that is along the lines of Gateway where I can keep working on my associate's.

I love sitting in Victrola in the mornings, all out the window, all notebook and deliciousness and a double shot over ice. I love little lights on strings and taping postcards to the walls. We watched movies outside under the space needle last night, all Princess Bride, all schlocky and romantic, and while I'm well aware of my inability to even sniff around anything remotely like dating or relationships, it made me pine and ache a little bit, and I think that's good. The aching keeps me motivated.

There's been talk for tomorrow about the Space Needle, gourmet cupcakes, throwing fish, and a variety of band-name-slash-insane-asylum-qualifying sounding events. Like, "Delicious Panties in ChaCha's New Food Bowls". Things with lusty checkered pasts, people who derive a level of detachment that can only come from reading too many books, mix tapes that leave me on the floor in a puddle (in a good way) and maybe even new heart-shaped tattoos. Maybe.

It's time for the ultimate breaking the rule about listening to a band before you're about to go see the band, which I break but Kristin adheres to, as we prepare to watch Singles with Stacey (because she's never seen it) as we sit in a one bedroom apartment.

In Seattle.

Because I live here now. Hi.

From my new time zone,
Victoria

Photos added to the site, here. I haven't had time to label them all, but it's leaving Minnesota, through South Dakota, Wall Drug, the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and some shots of the landscape that don't do the landscape justice.

We drove in safely last night, although getting in all in the middle of the rain and everything was a feat - unfamiliar highways and crooked streets. But we made it.

Updates a-comin'...

Victoria