i am looking for you. i have been looking for you. i can't stop looking for you.



ever since you left me last spring, i've gone in circles searching...hoping...



i look in all the wrong places...in cigarettes and vodka lemonade...the hypnotic flame of a zippo...in rock 'n' roll...in the books i read...poetry...songs i write...solitude...sunsets...stars in the winter night sky...in the face of the moon...in the pictures you left behind...in the memories from the distant past...strangers in the city...in the boys i don't love...in my dreams...



you're not there...i'm still alone...i'm still lost...i'm still afraid...



and i don't understand...i will never understand...not in this life...

the laptop is dead...long live the laptop!



yes, i have seen my soon-to-be-coronated new work laptop, and it is tiiiiiiight! it's still heavy for a laptop, but i will forgive it this misfortune because it has a 15" screen...DVD drive...CD-RW...1.8ghz processing speed...512mb RAM...and the docking station--get this--is ELVISH SILVER...oh, it's true...



and here is an excerpt from last night's reading of life after god by doug coupland...go get your own copy...leave a couple for me...



"sometimes i think the people to feel the saddest for are people who are unable to connect with the profound--people such as my boring brother-in-law, a hearty type so concerned with normality and fitting in that he eliminates any possibility of uniqueness for himself and his own personality. i wonder if some day, when he is older, he will wake up and the deeper part of him will realize that he has never allowed himself to truly exist, and he will cry with regret and shame and grief.



and then sometimes i think the people to feel saddest for are people who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder--people who closed the doors that lead us into the secret world--or who had the doors closed for them by time and neglect and decisions made in times of weakness..." --from life after god by doug coupland



i feel like there are people in my life, people who may or may not be my friends, who seem to be telling me to hurry up and become jaded...to stop being so affected by my surroundings...to unpin my heart from my sleeve and to tuck it away somewhere safe and unnoticeable and impervious...some of them mean well...and then there are those who i think just feel the need to pull others into their world of numbness and indifference so that they themselves won't feel alone in it.



and i'm trying not to give in...i want to continue having my moments of epiphanic proportions...i want to feel sadness and joy and not be ashamed of these feelings...am i just naive? or stupid? or misinformed?



i will not be jaded...i will not be jaded...i will not be jaded...i will not be jaded...

i'm alive, my oven works just fine, and the pizza was yummy...

i am doing something tonight that i have never done before...i am using the oven in my apartment...those of you who know me know that i don't cook...those of you who REALLY know me know that i KNOW how to cook but choose not to...anyways, my choices for dinner tonight were poptarts, cereal, waffles, dried apricots, craisins, or a veggie digiorno. i opted for the pizza because i was predisposed to using the oven anyway from having spoken to a friend last night on the phone who was making brownies and cussing out his oven for not working. it occurred to me that i had no idea whether my oven worked or not because i had never used it in the 10 months i've been living here. besides, it's fruckin' cold in here, and i would've used any excuse to supplement my normal heat...my feet are numb, literally...i hate being cold...unless i'm skiing...



now i'm a little worried...what if the oven SEEMS to be working, but it's actually stealthily malfunctioning, leaking poisonous fumes unbeknownst to me? mind you, i spent the first 6 years of my life in a 3rd world country where we burned coal to keep warm, and carbon monoxide poisoning was a daily normal occurence...my entire family was almost wiped out in our sleep one night; if it weren't for my mom's spidey sense we'd surely be dead. now i don't know what kind of noxious gases can be leaked from a gas range, but i imagine it can't be very healthy...so if i haven't posted again by noon tomorrow, someone who knows where i live call 911, eh?



ah, veggie pizza and beer...not just any beer...CZECH beer...from PRAGUE...it's called STAROPRAMEN...i think it means star of prague...the star part i can see...pramen...that must be the ablative form of prague or something...i've got pictures below on one of my posts...i just think it's funny that the word RAMEN is in the name of this beer, ramen having been an important part of my childhood and college years...a bit of sapporo ichiban w/ some fresh chopped green onions and an egg thrown in right when you take the pot off the stove...yummy...bad as hell for your health though...



i have left the oven door wide open so i will either die more quickly or hopefully, and the effect i'm going for, i'll warm up finally...



i am going to curl up and read the copy of life after god that my friend joe was nice enough to lend me...i love this book...i will probably cry tonight...but those tears will be tears well shed...



tunes--

entertainment!--gang of four (i've been listening to nothing but gof in the car...mainly cuz i'm too lazy to change the cds i carry around...but why would you need to listen to anything else?)

fevers and mirrors--bright eyes

#1 record--big star

radio city--big star

jeff tweedy bootleg

very emergency--the promise ring

daydream nation--the sonic youth

right now i am listening to bright eyes (conor oberst)...specifically the song the calender hung itself...this song always makes me wanna go stir crazy...i love the way he sings 'you are my sunshine...my only sunshine...' it's creepy...sinister...yeah...i'm sorry...i'm a saddlecreek fan, i can't help it...conor is a genius though...he tours w/ a harem of female musicians...if i ever had a band, it would be all male...like neko case...



so i'm still at work...it's cuz things are crazy around here...they leave me nothing to do for weeks on end and then all of a sudden everything must be done in the next 5 minutes please...shit...i suppose i shouldn't complain though...it's a job...and they treat me reallly well...considering i barely drag myself in here every morning by 9:30am...like where else can i get away w/ coming in after 10am occassionally from a midweek show that keeps me up til 2am? i SO need a vacation...josh, i'm coming to new york the week before your bday...



on a brighter note, my laptop at work died today...(btw, don't click on that link unless you're 18 or over)...i've been waiting for that bastard to call it quits for the past 2 years...my boss told me i could get a new laptop, and since i'm friends w/ the dude who's gonna purchase the machine, i'm gonna get a really sweet one...cd-rw/dvd combo drive...1.7gig processing speed...lots of RAM...LOTS of RAM...i'm a total taskmaster w/ my computers at work...i usually have 2 microsoft access databases open, lotus notes for work email, payroll software, excel, word, 3 copies of internet explorer, and my musicmatch jukebox...i'm gonna have to bribe my tech guy to install my musicmatch software cuz they've made it impossible for us to install stuff ourselves on the computers any more...otherwise i'll be stuck listening to cds...which isn't the end of the world...i just like making a 70-song playlist for a workday sometimes...



alright. i'm going home...



p.s. i'm gonna be a GROOMSMAID for josh & lielle's wedding in october...that sounds so weird...i hope that means i don't have to wear a dress...that would be so sweet if i got to wear a tux! megan told me i'd probably wear a black dress. oh well...i don't like dresses...josh is getting married...woah...we're getting old...