me me me m(feminine)e

"My brothers name is Nathan," she said to me.
"Oh," I said.
"...," I paused.
"Is his name Nathan, or Nathaniel," I asked.
"I have two brothers," she said. "One name Nathan, one named Nathaniel. And my name is Nathalia."
"Oh wow." "Nathalia."
"Yes, not Natalia, but Nathalia."
"I bet that happens to you all the time."
"Uh huh."

indulgence

At one a.m. this morning, with one beer, two cigarettes and an irritatingly expanding bladder in me, I decided that I wanted nachos.

Since I became a vegetarian non-mammal eater about three weeks ago, I hadn't visited my favorite Mexican restaurant. I decided that it was time to test them out with my new limitations.
I entered and noticed their veggie menu, something I previously ignored. Good omens. My choices were settling between a veggie burrito, and veggie nachos. I chose the nachos and paid my five bucks.

I sat down to wait for my food, understanding that it sometimes takes them awhile to prepare it. They get very busy at night as the drunken crowd wanders in. I picked up a reader and read the cover story while I waited.

It was about a man opening the first USDA certified organic restaurant in Chicago, and the fourth in the nation, and the difficulty that exists in getting certified and remaining so. It's going to be a pizza place in Wicker Park, and I doubt I'll ever go there.

While I was waiting, a woman and three men came in. I heard the woman say, "we're getting it to go." They were dressed tightly, fresh from a bar, and the men were drunker than she. She helped them place their orders, asking each of them what they wanted, and then paying for all of it. The story on the pizza place segued into an organic bakery by way of a shared wholesaler. The pressure in my bladder grew painful.

As I read, I noticed that two of the men had already received their food. What? Hmmm... I continued waiting, eyeing the counter. Then the last man and the woman got theirs and left. I left the paper and went up to the counter. I really had to pee.
The order taker looked at me blankly. I told him that I ordered a veggie nachos about twenty minutes ago.
He looked at me and said, "veggie nachos?" I nodded. He turned around and grabbed a Styrofoam container from a pile. A man next to him stirred beans, nonchalantly. I felt like grabbing my crotch and jumping up and down. The place did not appear to have a bathroom. They must not eat or drink anything while they work.

The order taker prepared my nachos in less than a minute, put it in a bag, and handed it to me.

I stared at him.
I felt like asking for a free drink or something. Extra avocado please?
I didn't. I left, thinking about a toilet, or a dark, out of the way, place. I thought about an article I read recently, citing that 95% of all Londoners have peed, shat, or vomited in public, due to an extreme lack of public toilets in London.
The pressure in my abdomen was awful, and it made me very aware of each step, and my surroundings, like a suddenly turned on spider sense, with an emphasis on urine.
I thought, "I should try to enjoy this extra awareness, and forget about the pain.

I didn't enjoy it.
I got home, and couldn't pee fast enough. I felt that my urethra might tear.
Relieved, I turned on a movie and opened my nachos.
Although they were made in under a minute, they looked good. Cheese, sour cream, guacamole, beans and jalapenos.

I munched through them.
They were much better with chorizo.

peskitaryan?

I've had internet service back in my home now for about three weeks, following a seven month stint of zero home connectivity. I had anticipated my return to easy internet use, and had been preparing myself for it for months, as I contemplated connecting the service. During this blackout period, I decided that I would become a better net user. I would be more productive with it, and, especially, having the ability to blog again would be great for my writing. I felt that I was ready to blog everyday, regardless of the content.
Well, that hasn't happened. Habits are strong, and I've found that my daily internet activities consist mostly of checking the weather and reading boingboing.net.
So it goes.
About a month ago, I became a selective vegetarian. A pescatarian? A peskatarian; only eats pesks? What's a pesk? I stopped eating mammals, but I'm willing to eat their eggs.
Three weeks ago, I had a dream that I was walking around and waiting for something with some friends from high school. I had a bag of cheeseburgers, and had already eaten one. I reached into the bag and pulled one out-- and remembered that I was a vegetarian. "Oh shit! I can't eat these!" I offered the bag to someone else. Later on I woke up. End.

meaning

I had a conversation about meaning last week.
Where does meaning come from?
If I make something with a very specific meaning in mind, and give it to someone else, they'll find their own meaning in that thing. The meaning they impart to the thing will be different from mine, even if I do my best to explain what my meaning for it is.
Is my meaning more important because I was the creator?

Is the meaning that Picasso put into one of his paintings more important than the meaning I derive from looking at it?

Terror

I am in love with the terror of my existence.
I am in love with the terror of my existence!
Sometimes it is like a drill coming through my temple,
slowly digging into my brain.
So slowly that it would take my whole life to drill through.
It pulls at the edges of my skin
and wants to tear my face off.
I am in love,
with terror!
With terror!
And there is no end to it!
I want to cry,
and I'll die, too!
I am...
It's...
It's a gun!
Somebody give me a gun!
I want to kill,
I want to shoot them,
and tear them apart with m y nails,
with my teeth.
I want to drink blood,
but I could never get enough.
I could drink until there was no more,
And I would still be lonely;
My own blood being the only answer left.
Is the only answer,
My blood is the only answer I have!
I-
I-
I will spill it!
And I will pour it,
and throw it,
and I will shower you all with my blood
and I will drown you in it.
I will suck up the sea to make
MORE blood
and drown the world with my blood,
and I will swim through it,
breathing it,
and I will still be alone!
Whatever blood I have left
will again be the only answer.
I can't kill you, love, terror,
I can only kill myself.

And when I contemplate that answer,
it's just too goddamned easy,
and too goddamned funny
to realize that I don't really want any answers.
Leave it alone,
Just leave it alone.

Shards

It's not human,
but it wants to be.
It is sucking warmth,
a hole because it is broken and fragmented.
Shards of a face
stare back;
a little piece of chin,
half an eye, blinking.
It looks empty, but has a semblance of face.
Where is the terror? Where is the love?
A low, steady keen is filling the space,
which swells to brittleness.
The floor shatters around the shards.
It is too much to ask,
to be held up.
It is not a given.
The shards fall, the keen recedes,
and as it does,
it loses its pervasive monotony.
The sound, growing softer,
acquires pauses,
and tonality.
It is saying something,
but as the sounds form (words?),
they become quieter,
and as I listen,
something so close to coalescing,
fades away.

wine

I just watched a short from an episode of nova on aging. They were discussing how certain genes may allow for longer lives in creatures fortunate enough to have them; fortunate, if the creature wants to live longer.
It was mentioned that resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, extended the life span of mice by ten to twenty percent.
They then said that a human would have to drink one thousand glasses of wine each day to achieve the same effect.
"Salud! (Please drink responsibly.)" - Nova

re-introduction

I have just re-acquired the internet in my home after a long dearth, in the form of dsl. The flow of bits is now constant, according the flashing green light on my little electric box, mailed to me via the ubiquitous network of brown vans, sporting the fashionable "UPS" symbol.
If I could get one of their jackets... I'd be the talk of the scene.

Scenes.

I had a conversation tonight, during which someone told me that they'd had to leave the scene for awhile, as a reaction to a bad experience within the scene.
I asked, "What is a scene?"
I was told that it was the poetry scene.
"Ok, " I said, "I've never really been in the poetry scene here. Just in and out a lot."

This is in Chicago. Scenes seem really foreign to me now, but it didn't used to be that way. When I lived in Utah, the first scene that I became a part of, outside of the horrid high school scene that I had fought for survival in, was the rave scene. I was definitely a scenester, then. I knew who everyone was, and I knew what was going on. I got satisfaction from that, and felt badly when major events took place that I wasn't aware of.
Later on, I became a part of the poetry scene. I was getting to know circles of people in that crowd, and I wanted to know when and where the events were. Satisfaction.

The person I was talking to went on to say that s/he was back now, and feeling alright about things. A quick bearing of hir immediate sense of wellness.
How much is my own ability to feel good about going out and socializing a measure of my own mental health?
Like everything, I feel that it's the middle ground that is the nice place to walk. Go out, talk to people, communicate as a happy human, and then go back to aloneness, and find some satisfaction in that solitude.
The solitude allows me to write this. The happy human gave me something to talk about.
We're all happy humans, sloshing about in my belly. With some beer. And tea. And a squishy little rice cake with a dot of sweet, red bean paste in the center.
Welcome back to my home, internet.