Agingriotgrrrl’s Weblog

a lot of funny things have been happening. the unfunny ones are what is plaguing me, but perhaps the funny ones would make a more interesting blog entry. like: we have two clients at the law firm who are twin brothers. they are both very socially awkward & troubled–my unscientific diagnosis is asbergers’ syndrome in the quiet, well-groomed one and unmedicated manic-depression in the wild-haired one. this is just a guess. they are both very sweet, even if they do call me at work 5 times a day asking questions like, “my phone has been shut off. what do i do?”

anyway, they are selling their dead father’s house, which is why they are in here. yesterday they were hanging out in the waiting room, right next to my desk, waiting for my lawyer to see them. their perky, normal-person real-estate agent was there. i overheard the following conversation:

perky, normal real-estate agent: so, did you get rid of those…problems in your house? [the wild-haired twin has been having roommate issues, to put it lightly.]

wild-haired twin: huh? [pause, then his eyes grow wide, crazy, and bright] oh, you mean the demons and the concubine? i kicked ‘em out!

the demons and the concubine. what precise nicknames. i heart my job.

i also heart a lot of our other clients: the 80-year-old black lady with a foot-high blonde bouffant; the lady who tells the funniest fucking stories about playing pranks on a woman who wore spandex pants with her adult diaper; and more. i could go on and on, but i shan’t.

things are kind of lousy with me, honestly. i am dealing with something that could either be life-ruining or totally benign & i won’t know for a while. the list of evidence in the “life-ruining” column is escalating & the list of evidence in the “not a big deal” column is dwindling. i don’t know how to talk about it, mainly because i am highly superstitious & don’t want to jinx anything. also because it is too scary, because opening my mouth makes my throat close up. mostly i feel like i can deal with anything, but sometimes i don’t think i can deal with this. i asked some girl to come home with me largely because i want someone’s arms around me because i am tired of dealing with this alone. did you know that in acupressure, the trigger points for letting go of grief and deep sadness is at the front of your chest, exactly where someone else’s chest presses against yours when you hug them? i learned this while researching a paper years ago, and i’ve never forgotten it. anyway, that girl didn’t come home with me but i had a good phone convo with one of my best friends, who’s been through this sort of thing before, and in a way that was a lot better.

in brighter news, i have become a karaoke fiend and gotten far more recognition for it than i had ever expected. i remember i lost my stage fright around this time last year at the queer studies department end-of-the-year party, reading poems & finishing up with an amazing piece by david wojnarowicz and i had everyone, i mean they were really truly with me, and they all cheered, and it felt so good. an ex-zine pal once said, “being up at the mic is better than fucking, better than being fucked.” and it’s true.

i don’t have any poetry outlets in the burgh so i just sing songs from the 90’s that i remember hearing on the radio back when the radio mattered. i didn’t think it would mean as much, or be as satisfying, but it’s pretty close. close enough. cindy from doris wrote this amazing piece in “doris” #24 about how she never felt okay until she sang in a band because her scream was powerful & she never knew she had it in her. i scream a lot anyway, but i can totally relate.

last night was fun, full of bad songs, too much booze, gigglez, something that should have upset me not really bothering me at all, & a good phone conversation that lasted until 3 a.m. these past few days have been full of love & appreciation & i need it, in the face of this scariest thing.

now i’m at work; i woke up still drunk this morning and i am feeling pretty rough. two cute lesbians were canvassing my neighborhood & talked to me & i blew them off because i was late to work. i’ve been at work for over an hour, nobody has come in, and i have hardly done anything at all. i coulda talked. they keep walking by my window overlooking butler st., & they are so hot.

aren’t i, like, so deep? my ulnar nerve is tingling & i know what this is, thanks to my carpal tunnel zine that i’m writing. isn’t it sad that “zine” comes up as a mis-spelled word? lately i have been re-reading the “how sassy changed my life” book, which i am in (check me out in the index!), and arthur said that he was in manhattan the other day & saw julia stiles walking down the street with that book in her tote bag. “somewhere, ocean, julia stiles is reading your name!” i haven’t watched any of her movies, so i don’t really care, but that is pretty funny.

1996 or so, early. thirteen years old. it was a snow day. we were at d.’s house, because it had the lowest amount of parental supervision. d. was a troubled loud crazy girl from a really fucked-up family who i was secretly in love with, e. was a pretty little blonde from a really fucked-up family (and who is still one of my best friends today!) and i was a tall awkward bookish dork from a really fucked-up family who was just coming out of my shell, just learning how to talk so people would listen, just learning how loud i could scream & what it could do.

anyway. three thirteen-year-olds (perhaps e. was 14 by then. she’s an aquarius.) snowy day. bored. this was before the interweb. sitting in d.’s living room we saw some teenage boys walking by us. we dared d. to say something to them. she opened the window, pulled up the screen and screamed, in her waking-the-dead voice, “EAT ME OUT, MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU AIN’T SHIT! EAT ME OUT EAT ME OUT EAT ME OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTT!”

we all laughed. then one of us said, “oh shit, they’re coming towards the house!” we all panicked and ran out the side door, up the hill in d.’s backyard. no shoes, no jackets. d.’s backyard was a hill at about a 50 degree angle, straight up and totally icy. we ran up, half scared, half giggly. i looked down at e., climbing underneath me. she had a kitchen knife between her teeth, blade side pointed away from her tongue. she had a truly crazed look in her eye. i had a moment that i’ve had a lot of times since, where i look around and think, “this is so fucking crazy, and this is so where i need to be.” barefoot on the ice? why the fuck not? e. was so quiet in school, the only conventionally attractive one in our whole social circle. everyone thought she was so normal. but she had a knife between her teeth, and she took it out once we reached the bushes at the top to hiss, “if they come up here, i’ll stab them! i’ll stab them!” i have never loved her more.

that was the first time i fell in love with tough girls, the first time i made a vow to always have my life be crazy, the first time i looked at danger and got exhilarated. before them–just two years ago–i’d been resigned to a life of reading books in my old beatup chair. nobody touched me & nobody heard me. i would talk and people would just look in shock. i didn’t know how to be loud. people said my name like a punishment. who would have thought in just two years i’d have a new name, i’d be standing on a hill with knives & we’d talk about stabbing boys. we’d do it for each other, if that’s what it came down to, because that’s what we meant to each other. two years ago i would have cringed at “eat me out” and “motherfucker” but now my mouth was filthy, now it was curved to fit the shape of those words.

the boys knocked on the locked door & eventually went away. we went back inside and prank-called people and laughed until we couldn’t breathe, until we all thought we were literally going to die. & that was just the beginning, just the beginning.

my life isn’t really all that crazy or dangerous anymore, and i don’t really want it to be. but sometimes i miss that self, wire-rim glasses and all. i have a waking-the-dead voice of my own; that girl who screamed has a baby & lives on the other side of the country & hates me so much she won’t speak my name. that’s fine, i guess. she helped me enough.

last night, amanda & i were walking to 80’s night & we had the following conversation:

o: i totally want to stay sober tonight, but i was wondering, have i ever danced in public when i’m sober? [pause] i don’t think so. [pause] well, it’s been a really long time. i was thinking about how blahblah once confessed that she’s never made out while sober, and then yadayada said she never had either, with ANYONE, but i guess that makes sense because they’ve never been in a relationship. [pause] OH MY GOD!!!

a: what?

o: you know how everyone always says, “i’m sleeping with this person…but i don’t know if we’re dating…what constitutes dating?” DATING IS WHEN YOU MAKE OUT WHEN YOU’RE SOBER!

a: oh my god, you’ve cracked the code!

and it’s true! i feel so defined. there is only one instance in my life where i’ve made out with someone i wasn’t dating while sober, and that was more coercion, loneliness & boredom more than anything.

incidentally, we went to 80’s night and stayed sober and danced way past the point of sweatiness and had an awesome time. the only real difference between dancing sober and dancing drunk is the fact that i felt way more awkward & insecure & i was way more conscious of everyone else around me than usual. there was a girl dancing near me who dressed & moved like a pal of mine who is dead & it was making me very upset, but also kinda happy, like i got to be around her again.

i think tonight i will decorate my carpal tunnel brace with stars. i think i will scrub my house with eco-friendly cleaning products while listening to mixtapes so old they’d be in middle school by now if they were people. it’s hard to think about the future when it feels like the world is ending, both in a large-scale way & on a personal bodily level, but i want so much. so many plans are hatching & i don’t know where to put them all.

i don’t think i will ever understand hipsters.

yesterday, a friend told me that i remind her of “a bloodthirsty dinosaur with sauce all over its face.” that totally made me laugh.