Sherilyn Connelly > Diary > May 1 - 10, 2008



2/28/08
My Face for the World to See (Part II):
The Diary of Sherilyn Connelly
a fiction


May 1 - 10, 2008

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Saturday, 10 May 2008 (descending lines)
sometime after midnight


Drove home while still slightly buzzed from two Bloody Marys. I am truly my father's daughter.

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Friday, 9 May 2008 (the last extension)
9:51am


However, earplugs plus headphones playing Sutcliffe Jugend equals noise complaints from coworkers. Whoops.

4:46pm

After a bit of drama at the station last night, the sort of thing which used to happen all the time and seems to just as common now, Bunny asked me: why exactly do you want to do a show again? It's a valid question, one which may prove to be moot anyway.

I've been asked to be the Assistant Director on a play at The Dark Room this December. I'm torn, to put it mildly.

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Thursday, 8 May 2008 (being what it is)
12:43pm


Much like at home, earplugs plus headphones (in this case playing Drone Forest) at the office equals not having to listen to people I don't want to listen to.

After work on Tuesday, Ilene and I had dinner at a Vietnamese sandwich place which was on the same block as the Tranny Stage last year. I'm not involved this year, but I'd wager it'll be right outside the door this year, too. If there was anything I should have told the new organizer, it was demand a better location. We then traveled a little further north and went to Divas, which Ilene had never seen before. It was slow, as is to be expected at seven on a Tuesday night. From there it was to the neat little store across from the Mitchell Bros. O'Farrell Theater to get dolma and hummus and especially olives, and finally back to her place to finish out the first season of Carnivale. Before we start the second season (which I've never seen) I've been hoping to show her the Battlestar Galactica miniseries to get her hooked on it as well. I'm like that.

Walking down Valencia on Wednesday afternoon, a guy locking a bike noticed me. I noticed him noticing me, but didn't give it much thought beyond that, except that I was in full on Urban Warrior Mode, making a point of not making eye contact. The sunglasses help, naturally. As I walked past, he said: hey! you're from the dark room! I replied: yep. He said: i was there a couple weeks back, for ronin. it was a blast!. Going into fill-on schmooze mode—he was talking about my show, after all—I said: i hope you can make it on sunday. we're doing daddy day camp. now THAT's a bad movie. He laughed and said: great! see you there! And I continued on.

Unsurprisingly, I spent most of the evening at The Dark Room, redesigning the Bad Movie Night flyer. I'd spent most of the day writing, so I decided to give myself a break from it for the evening. I also extended an olive branch to a castmember of an upcoming production, someone whom I've worked with before and who never seemed to like me very much, by asking him if he wanted to host sometime. He was enthusiastic, and I scheduled him for a few months from now. Sometimes it feels like the only currency I've got.

Tonight I'm going to Pirate Cat to hang out with Bunny during her show and continue my mild stumping to get mine back.

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Wednesday, 7 May 2008 (flanging with the long a)
3:36pm


I'm reading Aline Kominsky-Crumb's oft-referenced Need More Love at home right now. It brings to mind those few nights with Leanne, and those that followed.

Aline is currently talking about working with Trina Robbins in the seventies, and Trina's crusade against Robert Crumb. I met Trina Robbins when we both read at Lit at the Canvas in early 2004. She was nice enough to me (unlike the boy who read that night), and not having seen Crumb in several years I'd forgotten her connection, though it wouldn't have mattered. Also present that evening, in the audience to see Trina, was a cute dyke by the name of Leanne. She came up to afterward, said she liked my reading, and gave me a bunch of her comics. Though she returned to her native Canada the next day, we started emailing each other, an on-and-off correspondence. This was during my Fall From Grace, the first real backlash I'd encountered from my writing (especially surrounding the events which eventually became the story "Coma White"), and it was nice to have someone to talk to who wasn't intimately familiar with all the people involved, someone who could offer perspective. There was no small amount of flirtation involved as well, but it felt safe, what with her being all the way up there in Canada.

I broke up with Maddy the following March. About a week and a half later, Leanne wrote to say she was coming to San Francisco in a few days to hawk her wares Alternative Press Expo. Given both of our busy schedules I wasn't holding my breath on seeing her at all, but she made it to the third Bad Movie Night, beginning the weird and possibly inevitable intertwining of the show with my dating life. It took me a moment to parse her as who she was, because I only vaguely remembered what she looked like from Lit at the Canvas over a year previous, her hair was essentially a buzzcut now (growing in from having shaved it off entirely the month before for a childhood cancer fundraiser) , and I just hadn't expected her to show up.

Maddy was there as well, and I tried my best to keep my chat with Leanne brief. Leanne and I made plans for her to join me the following evening for my Pirate Cat Radio show. That and Bad Movie Night were among the few nights since the breakup that I hadn't spent helping Maddy move and/or get settled into what would soon be called Unimatrix Zero. I'd even canceled a gig with the Tranny Roadshow the previous Friday to help her move. (I did read at the Roadshow on Thursday, though, and Maddy got upset when I suggested that maybe she shouldn't go because I was planning on reading "Two-Sixteen-Ought-Four," the piece about us getting married.)

After my show on Monday night—most of which was spent waiting for the signal to come back on, as was so typical—Leanne and I went to The Lexington. We talked, I drank orange juce, and after she had a couple of beers she said: can i kiss you? Which I kinda saw coming, but then again didn't, so it was a pleasant surprise. We made out for a while, and she asked if I wanted to go with her to a a play piercing workshop taught by Midori at Madame S that Wednesday. I was unsure about it at first, especially since it would be twenty-five bucks each if we went dutch, I still hadn't gotten my first NakedSword paycheck (understandable, since I hadn't started yet), Maddy was keeping an eye on my spending, and I knew she'd freak out if I went on a date. But Leanne offered to pay my cover, and she really wanted to do this with me—especially because of the e'er-controversial piercing story—and I was single, right? So I just wouldn't tell Maddy about it. Indeed, Temple was the only person I told. In those increasingly fractious days, there was nobody else I felt I could fully trust.

But I had to tell Maddy something, especially since she asked me to drive her on errands Wednesday night. Without going into any details, I said that I was hanging out with Leanne, emphasizing it being her last night in San Francisco before heading back to Canada. This had the plausible denability of being true, but Maddy got upset all the same, admitting she was jealous and saying she felt I was already moving on. But I kept my plans with Leanne all the same.

Monday was first night alone after moving Maddy out, and Tuesday was my first day at NakedSword. That night, after work, I borrowed Collette's industrial-strength vacuum cleaner to take care of the accumulation of dust, fuzz bunnies and cat sand on the ground where the bed had been.

I arrived at Madame S on Wednesday evening well before Leanne, or really even before things got started. Ah, San Francisco fetish time. Leanne had prepaid for both us, so I was able to go right in.

She had still not arrived when the Midori's lecture began, and I began to wonder if she stood me up. If so, it was a peculiar way to do it, especially since it would have meant she was out fifty bucks. But stranger things had happened, and I figured that if I was going to start dating (and this, I reckoned, was my first real post-Maddy date, even if I felt the need to keep it on the downlow), being stood up would just be part of it. Hell, I may even wind up doing to someone else. Temple may have often called me "Saint Sherilyn" because of how long I stayed with Maddy—and occasionally "Ethan" in reference to the main character of Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome—but I also knew damned well that I was not a saint, and that my behavior had the potential to be increasingly un-saintlike. All the same, I knew I wouldn't be writing about this night in my diary. Misbehaving was all fine and good, but I didn't want to have to get static about it from Maddy, especially not after having gotten so much of it for the past six years, often for crimes negligible or non-existent.

When Leanne did arrive, I had a dissonant moment similar to when I saw her on Sunday, of not being sure who I was seeing. At least at Bad Movie Night I hadn't seen her for over a year, and we'd only met briefly that time at Lit at the Canvas. Now she looked different to me yet again, but for good reason: she was in full-on femme mode, wearing makeup and a short red wig, which combined gave her a striking resemblance to Molly Ringwald. I wouldn't have guessed she was capable of such a thing, but there it was. I had no idea why she was wearing it, and didn't see any point in asking. All that mattered was that she looked really hot, that intentionally or otherwise she was playing to my aesthetics.

There weren't any seats near me, so she had to spend most of the lecture portion sitting across the room. At one point, looking at her, I felt a surge of desire like I hadn't experienced in years, a warm all-over tingling. In my usual way, I found myself wondering if her and I were going to do anything together. Sure, she'd invited me during a drunken makeout session and paid for me to get into the workshop, but, wasn't it presumptuous to assume that she was there with me, that it was a date?

The lecture and demonstration portion began, and now it was time to go to practice—first on oranges, then on each other. By this point, Leanne had switched from the short red wig to a long black one, changing her approximate visage from Molly Ringwald to Danielle Willis, and the resemblance was all the stronger. Her teeth even looked a little sharper. She came right over to me with a look in her eyes that said, yes, this was a date, and she was there with me, and she had intent. It was something about the wig, I figured, a roleplaying element. It was making her more mischevious than usual, and that was saying a lot. It was appropriate that she looked so much like Danielle, because Leanne was channeling her in a big way.

Unfortunately, there was very little actual time left in the class, so she was only able to get a couple needles into my arm before she had to remove them again. So close, so far, as always. But for a few minutes, as the adrenalin began to build up, it was wonderful.

Afterward, Leanne and I went around the corner to Brain Wash to eat, and then knocked around town a bit more, finally winding up at what was then still called the Cozycave. It was a bit of a disaster, since the majority of my time for the past couple of weeks had been spent packing up Maddy's stuff and moving it out, and I hadn't yet had a chance to clean up. Leanne asked if I could put on some music. Feeling rather pathetic, I told her that it would be difficult at best, since the computer was disconnected in anticipation of taking it to Maddy's the next day, and it would involving lots of rewiring and stuff. She was skeptical, but let it go.

Though the bed had been moved that past weekend, I still had the couch. It was moot anyway Leanne and I didn't make it past the kitchen, spending the next hour or so making out against the counter. She'd taken off the wig at Brain Wash, and I was tempted to ask her to put it back on now—as has been well-documented, I like long black hair—but decided not to, fearing it would make me seem creepy or overly male or something. And she was still plenty hot, especially in her aggro, roleplaying way, whispering into my ear who I was and what I was doing (...you're a teenage girl in the schoolyard, and all the other girls are looking at you...), lifting up my shirt and going after my nipples, the first real attention they'd gotten in years since estrogenating and grown, especially attacking my right one, all teeth and menace.

It was pushing one in the morning when she said: i wish this could be an all-night fuckfest, but i just don't have time or the energy. i'm leaving in the morning, and I have to get back to larry-bob's house soon. I told her I understood, which I did. I didn't say that I was kind of relieved that it wasn't going to be an all night-fuckfest, because even if I did have a bed, it would have been way too much pressure. I hadn't had sex with anyone other than Maddy since 1998, the only other girl I'd ever been with was The Ex. In both cases I was still arguably a boy hormonally and socially, and our sex lives had been either DOA or died on the vine quickly enough.

As a result, I realized, tne next time I had sex was going to feel in a lot of ways like the first time I was having sex. It would have to be with someone I felt I could trust, someone I felt comfortable with, someone who had my best interests in mind. For as hot as being with her was and as much as I wished we had more time, I knew Leanne was ephemeral and did not qualify. The only person who did was Collette.

I drove Leanne back to Larry-Bob's place (after a brief stop at the Cala Foods in the Haight so she could get supplies to clean his bathroom, which as near as I could tell was part of the deal of her staying at his house). Though we continued corresponding on and off over email, increasingly infrequently, I've never seen her again.

After work the next day, I had deliveries to make: one was taking the computer to Maddy's and hooking it up, and the other was returning Collette's vacuum. Maddy wanted me to come to her place after returning the vacuum, but Collette wasn't going to be home until late, so the timing didn't work out. Maddy seemed suspicious, but let it go. We had dinner at a terrific sushi place down the street from Unimatrix Zero, hooked up the computer, and generally had a pleasant time. She didn't ask about Leanne, and I didn't tell.

I got back to my increasingly empty yet messy apartment around ten. I called Collette to confirm she was home, then brought over the vacuum. We sat for a while on the couch in her living room and talked. Which lead to making out. Which lead to going into her bedroom and having sex. Which was wonderful, and, as I suspected, felt like the first time, and she was as warm and giving as I'd known she would be. And she went after my right nipple even more ferociously than Leanne had.

The next day, I had an appointment with The Nice Lady. (For the life of me, I'm not sure if I've seen her since.) She had no objections to my activities the past week.

I continued to help Maddy move on Saturday. We spent most of the day together, including having lunch. While we were in the harshly lit ninety-nine cent store a few doors down from The Dark Room, she looked oddly at my neck, then announced that I had a hickey. Her eyes started to water and she turned away. As she stalked off, she asked: is that from leanne?

I've long had an unfortunate habit of telling the truth in risky situations—even though many years of experience in this particular dynamic taught me that I'd get no points for honesty—and this was no exception. I said: i guess so. Because I honestly wasn't sure. It may well have been from Collette. Leanne later confirmed that it had been from Collette, but at that moment it was just as well that Maddy think it was Leanne. In any event, she either didn't pick up my vague answer or interpreted it as evasiveness on my part. She barely kept it together in the store—which we left immediately—and was full-on bawling by the time we made it to the car.

I remained silent as I drove Maddy back to Unimatrix Zero, her screaming at me: slut! slut! SLUT! i can't believe how hurtful and inconsiderate you're being, you slut! the bed isn't even cold yet, sherilyn! you're already fucking other women! slut! slut! i thought you were my friend! slut! you SLUT! the bed isn't even COLD yet! I said nothing, merely ruminating about how I hadn't heard the word slut used as a pejorative in years, and certainly not in sex-positive San Francisco, where it was usually a badge of honor. Besides, I didn't feel like I'd earned it. I admired my friends who identified as sluts and I wanted to be like them when I grew up, but considering that all I'd done was make out with one girl and slept with the other, the word didn't apply to me at all. I dropped Maddy off, and she ran upstairs to the still-warm bed in question.

Having nowhere better to go, I returned home. The phone was already ringing by the time I arrived, and it kept ringing for a long time until I gave in and answered.

She demanded: is there anyone else? She kept asking this for a while, and I kept not hanging up.

Finally, I said: it's none of your business. Which I felt was true, since I had broken up with her exactly twenty days earlier.

Getting to the point, she rephrased the question: have you done anything with collette?

I did not say: as a matter of fact, we had sex last night, the best i've had in years. I did say: i don't feel i have to answer your questions.

but you are pursuing her, right? you do plan to court her?

It was hard not to laugh, not so much because Collette and I had already consummated said courtship but because courting her (as I understood the term) was not necessary. Collette had been into me for a long time, and I didn't need to pursue her. She was already there. I simply said: i don't know.

The conversation went on for an like that for about an hour. She eventually cooled down, and we decided to finish up the erranding we'd begun that day. The main thing left was for her to get her aquarium, which wasn't as simple as just hauling it to and from the car like I'd done with most everything else of hers. This required her actual presence, so she came over to prep it for travel.

It didn't occur to me until it was too late to take down the calendar from the wall, on which both Taos (for root reblondifying) and Collette were listed for the following week. Maddy melted down once again, and asked me not to date Collette for three months. She later upped that request to six months. (Ironically, and quite coincidentally, I broke up with Collette six months later.)

Maddy apologized the next day, but not before starting a shitstorm on LiveJournal about the fact that I'd gotten a hickey. They were locked entries and as such I was not privvy, but I was informed that there was a slight backlash, that the general consensus was that she was overreacting, and not the chorus of yeah! sherilyn's a bad evil filthy slutty ho-bag for having a hickey three weeks after the breakup! she may have been expecting. But there would be many more opportunities for shitstorms in the ensuing months.

sometime after midnight

you look like
a perfect fit
for a girl in need
of a tourniquet

but can you
save me?
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Tuesday, 6 May 2008 (digesting ghosts)
12:24pm


When Ennui met me at The Dark Room last night after she got off work, she said she was hungry for spicy food, preferably Thai or the like. So we went to Spices!, the original location. Even though I've been there before, her and I have only been to Spices! II together, so we weren't breaking our "only new restaurants together" rule. Appetizer-wise we got the somewhat disappointing Pickled Vegetables (it was essentially cabbage in a red oil, not very pickled at all), and the Cold Shredded Bean Curd with Sesame Oil, which was both yummy and by virtue of being cold and not-spicy, acted as an excellent counterpoint to the hardcore spiciness of our entrees: I ordered the STiNKY! Tofu with Mixed Chili, and Ennui got the Spicy Chicken Bowl with Flaming Red Oil. Her request for spiciness was well-satisfied, and she even liked the STiNKY! Tofu. Not everyone does.

Afterward, we went to Divas for a drink. While we there, Alexis Miranda introduced me to a young tranny from North Carolina who had only been in town for a few days and was about to go back home. Alexis sat her down in front of me and said: this is sherilyn. she can help you out. The tranny was beautiful, but had a slightly dazed look about her, and when I squinted I could still see the little birds circling her head from having fallen off the turnip truck. San Francisco can have that effect when you first get here, as I learned all too well upon arrival. Most of her questions for me were about where to find sex work, and I told her what I knew, which ultimately isn't a whole hell of a lot. I gave her my email address and told her to drop me line if she should find her way back. Funny how it works, though. Sometimes I feel like I have nothing to do with the tranny community in town, and sometimes I'm the welcome wagon.

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Monday, 5 May 2008 (with dark forbodings)
10:31am


Writing at the front desk of The Dark Room yesterday while rehearsal for The Bad Seed and The Blob was held in the theater, I finally got some momentum on my essay for Meliza's show in June. It's still going to be a lot of work, but at least it has a direction. That's half the battle. Bad Movie Night also went well, with a perfect-for-us movie (I Know Who Killed Me), and an enthusiastic crowd. There were some newcomers present, including Ilene and Bunny.

Among the many things I love about Augusten Burroughs's writing is how he describes desire, how crushes are as much physiological as emotional. From Dry:
Foster appears beside me [after an AA meeting]. "Hey, Auggie, wait up," he says, pasisng me a slip of paper with a phone number written on it. "I just wanted to give you my number, you know, in case you ever need to talk." He winks. Or is it a twitch?

"Okay, great—thanks," I say, slipping the number into the front pocket of my jeans. "I appreciate it." I try to sound normal, casual. An experienced phone-number recipient, simply working the program.

"See ya next week then," Foster says, smiling as he heads into the street, arm extended, a taxi stopping immediately, as if on cue.

As I walk to the Perry Street meeting I can feel the slip of paper in my pocket. It seems to contain a heat source.

--snip--

I slip the number out of my pocket and stash it safely in my wallet. It gives me a little thrumming sensation in my chest knowing it's there.

--snip--

I read a paperback novel, but must read each page twice because my mind won't focus on the words. At ten, I turn off the lights and go to sleep. I lie awake for at least an hour, replaying the moment Foster handed me the phone number.

And then in a moment of shining epiphany, I realize I didn't actually see him write the number down. Which means he must have written it down before Group. Which means at least once, he has thought about me outside of Group. Which means that whether consciously or subconsciously, this could have affected his choice of what to wear to Group. Which means that the tight white T-shirt could very well have been meant for me. Sometimes people compare gay men to teenage girls and they are correct, I realize. I think the reason is because gay men didn't get to express their little crushes in high school. So that's why we're like this as adults, obsessing over who wore what white T-shirt and what it means, really.

"Are you asleep?" my roommate asks softly.

I mumble, as if I am half asleep. Best to keep my obsessions to myself for now. Besides, nobody in rehab said there was anything wrong with having a little fantasy.
I would argue that it isn't just gay men, and that for obvious reasons trannies are all the more like teenage girls. We even have the fracked-up hormones to top it all off.



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Sunday, 4 May 2008 (where do we go now but nowhere?)
2:49pm


I did in fact hook up with Ilene after The Birds, meeting up with her at The Spot Lounge, surprisingly located in my neck of the woods. It was a karaoke birthday party for an old friend of hers, someone I haven't seen since Shrine of Lilith. Which is to say, a hell of a long time ago.

11:29pm

she likes me better when the weather is fairer

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Saturday, 3 May 2008 (there is a kingdom)
5:43pm


Yesterday evening, I finally worked up the courage to call her and leave a voicemail apologizing for my flakiness on Thursday. That makes everything better, I suppose.

I worked the door for Attack of the Killer B-Movies: The Birds at The Dark Room, then met up with Rimma and Ilene at the Cat Club. For the life of me, I don't think I've set foot in there since that Folsom Friday with Vash in '05. (if i could relive one day of my life...) We tried in March when we went to Chez Badunkadunk, but that's about it. The club this partricular evening was Strangelove, a goth/new wave/et cetera extravaganza, with a theme of Dead Sexy, sexy clothing encouraged. Oy. Looked pretty much like any other goth club, the way they always have and always will, and that's fine by me. Still, I sometimes felt like the older one in a buddy cop movie: i'm getting too old for this shit. Which I hope is not true at all. I've got a few years left in me.

Ilene was already there when I arrived, and we hit the bar. As usual, my first request was for a Bloody Mary. I sometimes a feel a little dorky asking for one, but damnit, if Zeitgeist (such a bastion and yardstick of hipness) make them, doesn't that mean anywere might? They didn't, nor did they have the makings for White Russians. Before I could admit defeat and get a rum and Coke (like I did the other night with Bunny), the bartender suggested a mudslide. That gave me pause. I don't believe I've had a mudslide since I was twenty and got horribly drunk on them, thus experiencing my first and to date worst hangover. Granted, I was heedlessly mixing that evening, which didn't help at all. Anyway, I figured to give it a shot. After the first sip I remembered how goddamned seductive they are. But I only had the one, and my mixing was limited to a few hits of grass. (Blow had been suggested, and I was game, but it never materialized.) Danced quite a lot, got cuddly with Ilene, had a few quasi-stalkers (including one who bore a superficial but jarring resemblence to Collette), and at the end of the evening I crashed at Ilene's place. She has a pair of sweats and a t-shirt which have been designated as my jammies, and they do the job nicely, especially for nights like this when I hadn't anticipated staying with her.

This morning, we drove into the Mission and had breakfast at Los Jarritos. It's great food in its own right, and even better when one is the nursing the slightest bit of a hangover, as I was. As usual, the head waitress gave me gentle static for not having been in there for a while, often specifying the two of you. I suspect she may not have picked up on the fact that I'm usually there with a different girl (Ilene, Ennui, Ripley and Vash, counting backwards). Since it was a beautiful day and I'd found an unmetered spot for Phoebe, I walked with Ilene back to her place downtown, then walked back into the Mission. Turns out my body, and especially my legs, enjoys that sort of thing.

I'm at The Dark Room for The Birds again tonight. Ennui and I had planned on seeing each other tonight, but that fell through, so after the show I'm probably hooking up with Ilene again.

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Friday, 2 May 2008 (activepassive)
11:03am


Nah, probably not going to get the Kindle or anything like that. It's tempting, but, no.

Spent most of last night at Pirate Cat, hanging out with Bunny (the incredibly cute DJ whose shift I would follow) and negotiating with the owner to get my show back. Looks like it may well happen. Bunny was on the air from six to ten, after which we went to a bar in her neighborhood to have a drink. I then returned to Pirate Cat and hung out with KrOB until his shift ended at midnight. All the while, I was being a very bad person and flaking on a girl with whom I was supposed to meet up with at eleven at the Cat Club. I mean, I did text her earlier in the evening to let her know I had to bail, but that's a highly unreliable way to contact someone when you don't even know if their phone accepts text messages. But I was too chickenshit to call at the time. So, I'm going to do the right thing and call her for real in a little while (after noon, I figure, so there's less of a chance of waking her up—she's nocturnal) and apologize. Hopefully she got the text and proceeded to have a good time anyway, but in all likelihood I just hurt her feelings.

5:13pm

deus, dona mihi serenitatem accipere res quae non possum mutare, fortitudinem mutare res quae possum, atque sapientiam differentiam cognoscere.

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Thursday, 1 May 2008 (nobody's idea of a good time)
9:55am


I spent last night at home with Perdita, since I'd been gone since Monday. I did some housecleaning while I watched/listened Little Miss Sunshine (liked) and The Number 23 (eh), and was in bed by eleven. I set my alarm for four in the morning with the intention of being brave and going to the gym (and heaven knows I got up before five countless times with Vash), then managed to talk myself out of it, finally getting up seven. Epic fail, as the kids like to say.

Another attempt by the tranny on Sunday to get me to admit that she knew me was: you're into craigslist. you post there constantly.

I replied with the truth: no. i haven't posted there in a well over a year, probably longer.

A little while later, before Sadie and I went to Flora Grubb, we stopped by the Mission Indie Mart at 12 Galaxies. I bought a pin with a picture of Anais Nin holding a shot glass, with the following quote:
i postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.
Pretty much, yeah.

11:37am

Oh my gods. I'm not an early adopter by nature, and even though I'm attached to my laptop and my cell phone and (to a lesser extent) my mp3 player, none of them are exactly the top of the line or this year's model. I enjoy playing with other people's iPhones, and the fact that the monthly charge through AT&T is the same as what I'm paying now for Sprint certainly makes it tempting, but ultimately I'm happy with my lower-fi phone. (The fact that I can use it more stealthily than the iPhone is a big plus.) And, in general, I don't like to splurge on something unless I know I'll get a lot of use out of it, as I have with the laptop and epsecially Phoebe.

But, damn, suddenly I really really want an electronic digital book reader thingy. I've been vaguely aware of them for a while, since Medialoper's done a few articles on the topic, but they didn't really enter my consciousness until this past Saturday. I was outside the Kabuki talking to a cute (and mostly deaf, judging from her hearing aid and speech patterns) dyke in front of me in line about the books we were each carrying. We both had similar habits of always having a book on us, and bringing along a second one in case we're almost done with the first. (I've done this since I was a kid, and I got the idea from watching my brother Barefoot, who was always reading in church up until the last possible moment. No doubt to my mother's chagrin, I soon started doing the same.) She told me about the Amazon Kindle, making it sound really neat, though I didn't give it much thought after that.

Just now, I saw a Sony Reader Digital Book at Borders. At first I wasn't too impressed, since the display looked like it was literally paper, for (as it were) display purposes only, a fake screen. Then I started pressing buttons, and the screen started changing, and I fell in love. It actually felt like reading a book. Oh man. Want.

4:27pm

On the other hand, there's the fact that the content is not free. It's less expensive through the Amazon Kindle than Sony's service, sure, but it's still cheapest through the library. They're actual books and thus not as convenient—and convenience is, of course, the whole damn point—but the price can't be beat. I like not paying for conent. I'm a pirate, arrrrr.

Speaking of which, in a couple hourse I'm going to talk to the people who would need to be talked to about getting back onto Pirate Cat Radio. I've been rediscovering my love of noise and ambient music lately (which probably speaks volumes about my mood), so of course that means I want to go on the air and share it with literally tens of listeners, if not dozens. I have some hesitations about the location of the studio, but, well. That's San Francisco.

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