13 mar 2002 wed « »
np/witness uk

so i've got a ticket, in wauwatosa, a rich little milwaukee suburb, for $65. for what? parking more than a foot from the curb, on a bend. more than a foot. from the curb. on a bend.
i keep trying to justify it. somehow. so that every time i think of it i'm not enraged anew, but it's just not working. i cannot bring myself to seriously consider paying something so, so outrageous.
i was, at most, 14 inches from the curb. it was nothing but parking cops come through that area hourly and they literally need to give tickets to meet their quota. it's so unbelievable that i can't take it seriously.
i'm not going to pay off that ticket for a long, long time.
in fact, i think i'd go to jail before i paid off that ticket.

anyway, when i get irritated, i sit and think of all the things i can which irritate me now, or have irritated me in the past. it makes for a right nice time:
good morning wednesday!! i'm pissed off! YEAH!! fuck you!!

stop it. i will not think of things that irritate me.
what do i want to listen to? i want to hear vinyl. not sixties. not 70s or 80s. something modern.
mountain goats -- i've got full force galesburg on lp, haven't i?
WHY DIDN'T I GO SEE THEM?!!
stupid, stupid, stupid.
i wonder if they played my song. twin human highway flares.
god.
actually i still haven't found my wallet, but i've found my passport, which will work just as well. but my wallet has my subway (sandwich) card in there, and the stickers are full and i can get a free sub now. :( when i find my wallet. i don't think it's got anything else of import, apart from my phone number list but the people i call regularly, kurt and julie, their numbers i have memorised.

last night i swore i wasn't going to go out because what's the use? anyway i stayed home from work and i've still got that little guilt complex left over from school, when i'd stay home and my mum wouldn't let me out to play later that night because 'you stayed home from school, you must be too sick to play!'
but melanie was going to walk to the library, and she didn't want to walk back. julie was supposed to be over later, around 7:30 to go through some clothes i was getting rid of for goodwill (she ended up taking them. all.) so i phoned her and said, brandon picked up the phone, and i said can you ask julie to pick melanie up on her way over here? she'll be waiting inside the library at about 7:30ish. -- because julie lives like in the next block over from the library.
i thought i'd communicated my intentions properly, but apparently not because she got here expecting to take melanie to the library. when she was already there.

anyway i was on the floor, sitting in the kitchen/livingroom hall, crosslegged back against the door typing -- i signed onto a chat program for the first time in perhaps months and nate came on -- nate from milwaukee, i haven't seen him in ages and he said, i thought you'd disappeared! i missed your silly stupidness, where've you been?!
and we talked about him living with oh evelyn (it's an old pop will eat itself song, and i can't hear her name without thinking of it) and his art and he said he'd make me something and i got nervous and 'i'm not worthy' because his art is legitimate; and i panicked and said, well i'll give you something! a tape! a story! aannyyyythiiiinnng!!
heh. nate. i'd like to write him a story. i haven't written a story in a good long time but i'd like to write one for him. i could make it worthwhile. and then elliot came on, and i hadn't talked to him in ages, but there was a terrible lag on his end so there was more confusion than communication but we said hi all the same. i think he needs to find a job.

so after julie left again and got melanie i felt guilty and went out anyway.
that's my story.
i mean i didn't drink though, and i'd talked to ryan earlier in the day, and jim too, and i told ryan to come to bowling so i'll have someone to talk to. and he did, he showed up later and jim was there and i hadn't felt like changing so i was there in my black 60s dress, it's sleeveless and i wasn't drinking but going back and forth between the lanes while everyone else got progessively slurrier and stumblier.

ben was drunk and unhappy, which is his habit now that he lives on his own and lisa's gone. and i can never get him to believe that he's as dynamic and brilliant as he is. julie, proving herself drunk in one sentence, said, you and ben are so cute, you should get together!
you have to understand, julie turns into a fairy freekin godmother when she's drunk, she turns into cupid and everybody should get together. when she's got a boyfriend she raves and spirits, and when she hasn't she mumbles it miserably. in any case, at the end of an evening with julie she'll have mentally paired me up with atleast one (un)lucky individual. it's cute, and consistent, and always amusing. sometimes embarrassing, when it's declared in front of said boy, but ha haha all the same.
jaime, why don't you date tony, why don't you date peter, why don't you date ben, why don't you date kurt, why don't you date so and soandsoandso? you guys look sooo cute together!
alright, i had vicoden and coffee and the world wasn't completely straight but it was fun in a way i hadn't expected. too many nights relying on alcohol to make me stupid.

(now i'm listening to let's active. the first time i heard them was driving with dave to see falling down at the times cinema, for a midnight movie. it was playing on 'mse, and i was jumping up and down in excitement, dave, dave what's this?! listen to it! listen to his nice voice, this music is so nice, who IS this?! and when the dj came back on i wrote 'let's active' in capital letters on my hand. but i didn't actually get anything by them until last year, in minneapolis with elliot and dave at let it be.
they weren't playing the faint that time.
and i found two let's active records.
and the gods were happy.)

poor ben, sitting beside me needing to not be drunk, needing to be sober and convinced that he's decent, and he's clever and creative and he's so desolate, now, now that he drinks nearly every day.
he drinks because he's unhappy, and he's unhappier because he drinks. i don't know what sort of correlation it is. but it does break my heart every time i see him like this. because he's not the ben i knew. he's not the same person and it's killing him. and i can't do anything because i don't even know him anymore.
i remember wanting to bring his mother flowers for mother's day, only a few years ago, just as a congratulations for bringing up such a good human being. respectable, and polite, and fun, and so creative, and independent, and aware, and active .. i felt proud to be his friend. now i feel sad.
but other people sat by him, and got other things from him; i'm the sort of person who absorbs sadness. my body is very condusive to sadness. i can't help it, i've always been that way. but for julie to sit by him, it slides right past her and her energy makes you forget. my energy makes you wallow.
go figure.

but we drove home, ben on my lap talking to himself and laughing a genuine laugh i hadn't heard in months, the kind that rings in your ears and you're beside yourself in joy but i wonder.

by the time mike got here i'd brushed my teeth and made the bed and was about to turn off all of the lights, and in bed he asked me again if i'd be his girlfriend and he said that all of this, everything, he'd show me that he could straighten up. he'd show me that he can do it.
and i believe he's trying but i don't think the cause is great enough to inspire what will be a long, difficult success.

9:27am