Don't get me wrong. I'll be sad when it's over, because the inexorable, painful crawl to xmas begins. I've promised myself that I'll keep my bitching about it to a minimum for Maddy's sake, however. Besides, I'm attempting to come to terms with the fact that I need to start looking for quote-seasonal-unquote work. At places which may even play xmas music all day long, which, to me, is a form of torture. Hell. It grates every last nerve down to a bare hub of noxious irritation.

But that's what I get for not showing more initiative at my last job, isn't it? My Boss always said that I wasn't doing enough on my own, that I had to take charge of things more, all that stuff, and I didn't. He ruminated a little about a potential project and then said nothing more about it, only to tear into me some months later for not having gone ahead and started it on my own. Having to be asked to do things was a sign of a lousy employee, especially one whom He was paying almost seven dollars an hour. He could get a starving college student to do it for free, y'know. That was money I was stealing from Him, like taking the food from the mouths of His family. Not that He had a family to feed. More like, um, stealing cigarettes our of His pocket, or from the glove compartment of his BMW.

Speaking of such things, the company essentially got kicked out of the building because of his smoking. Whatever schadenfreude I may get out of that is tempered by extreme sympathy for his admin. Trying to find a new conference table was a hellish, demoralizing experience, so I can only imagine trying to coordinate a move.

Second day of Bride of Spookycon.

It's always amusing to see the ripple effect of goth-oriented conventions, as the neighborhood crawls with people in black. Sometimes there's a subtle level of hostility, though. We went to a market across from the hotel for AA batteries. The suitable batteries they carried were Pokemon-branded, complete with pictures of Pikachu. They were about half the price of the ones at the hotel, so, sure, okay. The clerk felt it necessary to observe that buying them might hurt my "horror image." His tone was joking, but the look on his face told me that he felt like was taking us down a notch. Like the convention t-shirts say, you're just pissed because my lifestyle looks cooler than yours. Really, though, my horror image? I have a horror image? Okay, yeah, it's reassuring that I'm still been parsed as goth in spite of the changes to my hair—a cute crayon-haired girl struck up a conversation with me at the library the other day, as though we'd known each other for years—but my horror image? He must not have noticed I was wearing kitty ears. That's gotta negate any horror image.

Hell, Maddy wasn't wearing her new fangs yet. She's wanted them for about as long as she's wanted anything, and though we've had a standing offer from c0g to make a pair (and he does damn good work), it's never quite come together. The iron was hot, and she struck. They look great on her, I gotta say.

Something was off about my appearance, though. I kept getting read as male. They'd correct themselves upon further inspection (usually), but getting called "sir" is painful all the same. Then there was the (homeless? drunk? homeless drunk?) guy who referred to me as "the tall one with the deep voice." Shut up. My voice is not deep. Is it? No, I don't think it is...

Weaselboy's Bride of Spookycon is this weekend. We'll be there, since we've had our tickets since shortly after the first Spookycon last year. Poppy isn't able to make it, and Caitlín R. Kiernan had to cancel (no, really, we'll actually meet in person one of thse days), but Christa Faust will be there. It'll be nice to see her again. At Weaselboy's suggestion, I gave out a pair of passes on my show on Monday, so I'll be keeping an eye out for those people. Actual honest-to-god listeners whom I don't actually know. I have to remember to bring along a stick so I can poke them to make sure they're real.

Oh, yeah. Maddy and I are both participating in the Morbid Curiosity reading on Sunday at Spookycon, along with Collette and Allegra. That's actually the first one in what's going to be a full month of Sundays for me. (How melancholy was I as a teenager? The back-to-back sequencing of "A Month of Sundays" and "Sunset Grill" on Don Henley's Building the Perfect Beast got me every time.) (How am I different now?) I'm amongst the many features at K'vetch's anniversary show on the Sunday the seventh; on the fourteenth, I'm in another long lineup of features at Ryka's Transgiving event in West Hollywood; and on the twenty-first, Shauna Rogan has asked me to host a benefit show at The Dark Room. Maybe I'm not completely moribund just yet. Now I need to find out if there will be any open mics in New Orleans during xmas week.

Anyway, she's put on a bit of weight recently from rehab, and, really, it suits her. She's not fat by any stretch of the imagination, but it has the effect of slightly obscuring all the scary plastic surgery she's had done lately. If anything, it felt like a throwback to the Live Through This era, and that can only be a good thing. For having recently rehabbed, she didn't seem to be altogether there. (Compared to, say, another sexy ex-junkie chick I could mention, whose current state of lucidity continues to astonish and delight me.) (And whose birthday celebration at Annie's that evening we were unable to attend, since we were both blasted after the show. Sorry, Danielle.) The audience knew more of the lyrics that she did, and evidently she decided just before going on stage that she wasn't going to play the guitar. Not getting to see Courtney in Angry Rock Chick mode with her guitar disappointed Maddy, but still. It was Courtney up close and fairly personal. I mentioned that we were coochie level, right?

The doors opened at seven, and we were in line by a quarter to four. The front of line, goddamnit. I wrote this in my notebook:

In line to see Courtney, perched at the foot of a defrocked flagpole. At least another hour for the warmth to be sucked into the ground. There is nothing I like about this process. So much stress and humiliation and money spent on...what? Celebrity worship? Starfuckery? What does one take away from the experience that wasn't there before? It's one of the reasons I ultimately don't regret not getting to see Manson next week, even though Maddy offered to buy me a ticket. Collette was bitterly disappointed that the show sold out before she even heard about it. Just as well, on my part. The stress-to-pleasure ratio will be much more in my favor if I just do my show that night. Maybe even take requests for Manson tunes. I got 'em all.

The most difficult thing is not acknowledging what appears for all the world to be a cosmic joke retelling itself for the umpteenth time, slightly altering the characters and the setting but retaining the same brutal punchline. The creator doesn't just have a wicked sense of humor; we are the cat and he's the one tying on the tin cans and string and lighting our tail on fire, laughing until he bleeds onto the world, a blood of dark joy.

Hey, I was cold and dark, so I rolled with it.

I early-voted at City Hall today. (Who'd I vote for this time around? Did I throw away my vote again? If the worst happens, will it be my fault? You might well ask.) It'll feel weird on actual election day not to go out and vote. If election day actually happens. Not to get all conspiratorial, but I'm not going to believe it until it happens.

How fucked up have things gotten because of this election? Moby supporting Eminem. I'm no Moby disciple anyway, but even I think "Mosh" is brilliant, the closest thing to a genuine call for revolution that I've seen in a long time. It's almost sad that in less than a week's time we'll no longer have this common cause. Unless Kerry loses, of course.

And if that happens? I ain't goin' anywhere. It really disturbs me to hear intelligent people threaten to expatriate themselves if Bush wins. Folks, four more years of the Cheney Regime is when this country will need us more than ever. I don't even consider myself a patriot, for pete's sake, and I get that.

The new hair does seem to be a hit, though. It was also the first time I've read bundled up, still wearing my coat and gloves. What the hell. It was cold, and I just didn't care enough to strip down, as it were. Isn't part of being a rock star being fabulous no matter how you look? Sure it is. Courtney Love at the Fillmore the night before is a good example of that principle.

who understands anyone these days... who wants to?
gosh, I want to kiss you so bad, dinky.
it's good to want things...

A good end to a tumultuous week. Growing pains a-plenty from our new paradigm. Further mistakes and revelations and confrontations and reconciliations, all turning out as well as and in some cases better than we seemingly could have hoped. I think it's going to work.

7:32pm

After much thought, I've decided that the fact that I'm obviously not self-conscious when reading is a good thing. That Reverend Michel, he keeps you honest.