good weather

i was walking every day before the beastly summer descended... and DIDN'T GO AWAY.

till now.

yesterday, fall, finally.

took a walk to trade some dvds in.

headphones playing 'bitte orca' by the dirty projectors.

thoughts of ingmar bergman controlling the lighting for his interview, suggesting he interview the interviewer instead.

bright blue sky. breeze.

to walk with hands in pockets, or swinging free? a little of both.

tromped across a grassy field.

on the way back, a poor woman collecting fallen pecans.

following the brackenridge park train tracks to mulberry.

as the train passed, waving to the few kids inside.

a dog hanging out by the river.

two guys fishing.

one of those empty lots with a concrete foundation in it. did a house used to be there? did they pour the foundation and run out of money? would be a good place to shoot a music video.

passing firetruck.

boyfriend calls. "where are you?"

walking home. almost home.

feng shui?

life-changing event #3,771:

i rearranged my room today, effectively opening up an entire corner of the room that was being neglected.

it's like the room is breathing differently. i like it a LOT.

photo shoot

this is me as of one week ago, standing in front of the wall across the street from our house.

week's events

it's been a very busy week for me.

david has been in denver, helping his mom move and seeing friends.

i went in to get labs done, including an X-ray (i'm not sure why, i guess my doctor ordered it).

i got a haircut. i had a photo session with my nephew (for resume pictures).

i drove 2 hours to smithville texas, where i was a special guest speaker in my friend lisa's 7th grade Teen Leadership class. she likes to shake the class up sometimes, so she had me pose as a person who had at one time been homeless, to see how the kids would react. so i came up with a whole backstory and stayed in character all day. the kids were very respectful (at least to my face) and after the first class "performance" i got a pang of guilt. it felt a little wrong to be manipulating them that way, inherently dishonest. and they bought into it so completely. and yet something about that character i was playing, this man whose life is not much like mine at all, came out of me quite organically, and therefore felt quite honest. lisa said the kids were talking about it all the next day and wanted to send me letters and presents. all in all i take it as a great (if voyeuristic) life experience, and a valuable acting experience as well.

i went to three southside high schools to work with students on scholarship monologues. these are students with not many resources (in some cases, hardly even a teacher to count on) but who remind me that the world is much bigger than my usual beaten path.

i had lunch with two good friends and dinner with two good friends, where we watched rufus wainwright's new concert video done in milwaukee. i thought rufus camped it up a bit too much but then i realized... i think that was the point. he looked especially gorgeous in drag.

today i was going to go to two more southside schools, and i was going to see a play, but i felt sick all day, headachy and sore throaty. so i stuck around home drinking Emergen-C and gargling with salt water. i also thought of fran when i took some oscillococcinum. just in case.

boxes

my friend barry wrote something that rings true for me.

Thinking outside of the box is something we must do every day of our life as we are constantly creating new boxes for ourselves. Even the ones we feel comfortable in are best served by our examining them for restrictive qualities. Stimulus is our best asset in helping us to get out of our own way. It can come in millions of forms limited only by our antennae and willingness to receive.

cars

yesterday my dad helped me finance a new car. it's not a new car. it's from 1996. it looks like this. i like it because it is smooth and reliable. it is sort of like gliding in a silver cloud. i feel invisible in it.

this article says you can tell a lot about a person by the car they drive. they don't mention the mercury grand marquis. only porsches, hondas, mini coopers... kind of a stupid article actually. but i was thinking about that question as i drove home from kerrville yesterday. i was thinking, what does this car say about me? that i want to disappear into the background? that i crave practicality? or simply that i am poor and had to rely on my dad to choose a sensible car for me? this last option seems most accurate.

my old car looks like this, except much less shiny and with more dents and rusty spots. it has a lot of character. but character only goes so far when you can't rely on it.

rage of murk

my alma mater has just sent me a postcard announcing an "alumni weekend" at the end of the month. why did they just now send me this, on october 7th? 2010 will mark 20 years since i graduated. what about our 20-year reunion? i mean isn't that sort of something special that should be organized and done right? i am not interested in some sort of general "alumni weekend" that i get a POSTCARD for, THREE WEEKS BEFORE IT HAPPENS!

i have always said i would never go to my high school reunions, but would be interested in a college one.

perhaps instead, next spring, i'll go visit ET in W-S and we'll just have our own private reunion. that way i won't have to worry about certain people in my class gloating about how successful they've been.

i feel crappy today. i'm hot, and my car isn't working, and i have no money.

no one in my class would gloat. that's a statement rising out of my current crappy mood, which manifests as bitter insecurity.

i'm walking to have lunch with my old high school drama teacher soon. we've been meeting for lunch every wednesday. we have great talks and there's a lot of love. there's a turn up.

my cat left a roach on the floor of my room for me this morning.

i watched a 50-minute documentary on frank zappa and the making of "apostrophe/overnite sensation." he is inspiring for these reasons:

prolific

unflinching

knew what he wanted to do

did it on his own

reverence for absurdity

incisive and intelligent

demanded excellence

today i feel like flailing on the ground, flailing on the wooden floor so hard that i would break a hole through the floor, then flail through the foundation, then flail through the earth and just keep flailing until i wanted to flail no more. somehow i feel the need to break free or release something. it's a murky sort of rage inside.