Dear People Who Read This:

For the past couple of days I have been under some housing related stress and have experienced a general dissatisfaction with things I’m not really clear about. However, the good news is that in a couple of weeks I will be moving out of the hellhole I currently reside in and into a wonderful and much tinier apartment. When in my new apartment, I will have high speed internet and will no longer need to compete with my boyfriend for the phone line. That means I will have no excuses to not update my website. That also means that during my moving period, I probably won’t be updating my website regularly. Please bear with me in the next couple of weeks.

Cordially,

The Person Who Owns This Site

Well, I lied. I didn’t finish “Hellspeare”, but instead was inspired to write the post below. Not that I really have to apologize since I have one undemanding reader at this point- my boyfriend.

I’ve noticed that lately, everything creative I write is a divergence from my typical style. I’m currently obsessed with experimenting with styles and forms and haven’t written anything using my “typical” form for awhile now. It’s important to continue to test boundaries and then push beyond them as a writer- that’s a big part of how all great things were written. The below style was a sort of chatty, over drawn style that was my attempt to emulate a crowded street. I personally feel that it got its job done, but I also don’t think I like it. It’s not me. Let me know what you think.

P.S. Don’t forget: Message Machine plays today.

You. I know you. I know your walk, your clothes, your face. I know that you lived a floor below and some thought you were the most perfect person possible. You had a four-point-oh in every class because you studied all day- sometimes you studied too much. You hated your roommate, and so did we all because he lacked social skills and he was Mormon and would walk in peoples’ rooms when they were having sex- or were close to sex. But you weren’t there that year when he invaded three different moments of utmost privacy, moments when his neighbors were twisted into and around their loved ones with faces even more twisted in the blue-tinged darkness of ecstasy. He would stand in the doorway, dumbstruck, awkward as both his Mormon eyes, and those of the lovers, would explode from uncomfortable silences and mutterings stifled only by the darkness of the room. But you weren’t there. Now you are here, smoking your cigarette and walking towards me. You look through my translucently white Seattle skin and take a long drag at the death between your lips as you continue to saunter closer in your khaki pants and button-down shirt. You can’t smoke because some say you’re the most perfect person possible and you were accepted into a school better than ours after one year because you never had a grade under the highest possible. Looking through you in return, I know you’re not you because you would be in Oregon with your family right now, during the summer months, and not here in Washington. Looking through you, I know you don’t smoke. As you walk closer to me, and closer to death, your face transforms slowly, and you are less you and more someone else. I was mistaken, you are not you.

But, you I know. Yes you, in your brightly yellow shirt with the words “Jews for Jesus” stamped across them like some Hitlerian banner. I do know you, because you went to my work one still summer day and harassed me and my manager. You harassed us even though we’re not Jews and she’s for Jesus and I’m for something else that’s not Jesus, but is spiritual like Jesus and Buddha and Zeus. You harassed us because we work for an organization for Jewish college students. All of the Jews were gone so you annoyed us instead. You wouldn’t leave, so we threatened to call the police. Then you left. Instead of through you, I look at you, with the hatred I try to reserve for bad cookie recipes and other not-important-in-the-grand-scheme-of-life things. You do not deserve to be looked through, but at. Sadly, you don’t notice because you’re too intent on the old Christian woman who believes what you do is good. I know you, and you are not a Jew for Jesus because such a thing can’t be.

You I don’t know- but I want to. You’re crazy and funny and you don’t like Bush. I am your kindred spirit, flying in a sea of muck and media. But you wave your sign on a college street- a street where fat white men with boats don’t spit on you and yell that you are a rapist because you don’t want innocent people being killed. Maybe you went to the big protests downtown where so many people filling the streets- filling the streets like a custard donut- made it safe for you. But you weren’t there with the small and brave assemblage of aging Hippies rolling a black coffin through the media-inspired hatred and hostility. You weren’t there when they rolled along without anger. I was with those Hippies, but I was not one of them because I yelled back at that man who forced his angry opinions on us like that of a rapist forcing his angry body on a victim. I was so enraged because I knew what being close to rape is like, and he only knew what raping was like. I give you one thumb up. But I do not look through you, or at you, but past you. I have decided I don’t want to know you any longer.

But I’m not sure about you. It’s unnerving having you walk so close behind me while I’m carrying my newly printed copy of The Stranger which protects my two preciously new David Sedaris books from the fresh droplets of gray. It’s even more unnerving having you mutter “Have a happy Friday” with a voice that sounds as nervous as you walk over and over again. How can nervousness spread from every inch of you to me? How can it make you convulse and contract in the manner of a caterpillar? You suddenly walk jarringly quick past me with twitches and jerks and yell to the man getting in his car about a “’68 for sale”. The college boy walking towards us is confused. The man getting in his car is confused. I am concerned. But I’m also not concerned. I’m something else as I secretly watch you, intrigued by how much your body and your voice twitch to the same rhythm. Then you dash across the street towards the beautiful shining Frat bar with its antique brown mirror windows and I think I want to know you.

Sorry, there’s nothing creative for you today. I’m working on finishing up the Hellspeare story which has a link (but no page) on my Other Writings section. I hope to get that link up tonight or tomorrow morning, so check back tomorrow to read it.

Two days ago, I mentioned my Beginning Short Story class and how my TA, Ian, made us read some really messed up stories. Some of these stories were so messed up that the majority of the class had nightmares. Here’s my list of these strange pieces of creative short fiction- the end of the scale closest to number one being the strangest/most disturbing of them all for me. If you decide to pursue these stories and read them, have fun and email me your thoughts about them when you’re done.

7. “Initiation” by Viktor Pelevin
6. “Arthur Bond” by William Goyen
5. “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortàzar
4. “Letter to a Young Lady in Paris” by Julio Cortàzar
3. “Blood” by Shelley Jackson
2. “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” by Denis Johnson
1. “A Distant Episode” by Paul Bowles

The best thing of all, is that I accidentally signed up for another class with Ian this fall. I absolutely adored him as an instructor, but I also have this philosophy where I want only one instructor once so I can pick up a variety of ideas about writing. Hopefully, he didn’t tone down his reading selection for this next class- I’m looking forward to reading even stranger works in two months!

P.S. Message Machine is playing a gig near my pad tomorrow. Here’s the details:

Saturday August 23rd 7PM
Earth River Records
4744 University Way, Seattle, WA
FREE, All Ages

Sunlight. Blinding sunlight. Sunlight so vivid, I cannot distinguish the stop light colors. Is it the red of immobility or the green of motion? So brilliant is this sunlight, that there are no colors, only washed out forms which necessitate squinting in order to understand. The sheen of windshield dirt awakens and dances in a vibrant blaze of white so white it’s black with blindness. The red interior of the car glows with warmth. It grows warmer and warmer, suffocating us- the driver and the passenger.

The sunlight blinds us. It forces us to rely not on our eyes, but our memories. We must recall at exactly where what obstacle falls on our path homeward. A mistake in memory, and we risk smashing to a halt. A correct memory and we continue into the sundrenched path.

I can smell you sunlight. You smell of a hot car, of brown dill, of fresh basil, of Nature’s Gate Shampoo. Underneath, you smell of exhaust, of fast food, of yuppie flowerbeds. Your smells are those of everyday life, but heightened by your heat. You diminish sight, and leave smell times two in its place.

You blind us, but we find our way. You attempt to trick us, but memories tell us you lie about your sundrenched elsewhere.

This morning I had a dream where my dog and I were kidnapped and two young, rich guys tried to trick me into giving her blue pills. They gave her the first one and it made her really sick. I didn’t want her to swallow the pills, so I instead shoved them down her throat, knowing that the second no one was looking at her, she’d spit them out. The rich guys fell for the act and left us alone until they wanted me to give her another pill. Eventually, I was able to find the bottle where the pills came from which had all natural ingredients labeled on it, the most present being acorn. This relieved me a little bit. However, I still didn’t want my dog taking pills that made her sick, so I continued the façade. Then, a skunk with huge bug-like wings sticking out of its back appeared in the dream and tried to bite me. I soon discovered that the rich guys were doing experiments on animals to get useless bug wings to stick out of their backs. Thankfully, my dog hadn’t swallowed any of the pills so she remained normal. But that still won’t keep me from never wanting to eat another acorn as long as I remember this dream.

Most of my dreams are stranger, and often more frightening, than this one. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I rarely seem to have what I call “normal dreams.” Perhaps there isn’t such a thing, but it sure seems like it to me when I hear others talk about what they dreamed.

One observation that Neil Gaiman made on his website is that it’s hard to take a dream and turn it into a good story because the logic differs from the logic of everyday life- which I also think of as “dream incoherency”. I tend to agree with him in this aspect, especially since you can see that the above dream paragraph didn’t flow as well as it should have. I also have troubles transcribing my dreams because of my habit of “rewriting” them. Often, I’ll start over somewhere in the dream and have a completely different sequence happen afterwards. Once that happens enough times, I’ll easily lose track of what events happened by the time I wake up. Yet, despite the troubles of forming a dream into a coherent piece of writing, I think it would be an interesting experiment for a writer. To be able to take an incoherent story from when your mind was in a lucid state and then turn it into a readable work of fiction would help with fleshing out descriptions and the plot setup, as well as with putting fragmented ideas into story format. Besides, after the Beginning Short Story class I had a year ago, I’ve come to the opinion that many writers do turn dreams- or drug-induced hallucinations- into stories. I’d be scared if the writers my TA had us read wrote their stories while wide awake and sober.

I saw this Saturday evening when walking back home from a satisfying meal at A Taste of India with Tyler, Jeff and Shiori (my former language exchange partner).  I thought it was hilarious and had to take a picture.  I think I’ll call it the “SUVousine” for lack of a better name.

After months of working on this website, here it is.  I bet you didn’t know I was even working on one, did you?  Eventually, this page you’re reading will make way for something bigger and better (hopefully).  Since writing is important to me, I figure that I’ll probably turn it into some sort of blog-style thingy.  However, I WILL NOT talk about my friends and use this page as a tool to manipulate people (if you think I’m talking about you, then you must not be a very nice person to do something like that to your friends).  Instead, I plan to use this space to encourage myself to write creative things that I’m not forced to write for classes.  Basically, if it’s not related to how my day went or my bowel movements or how so-and-so is mean, then it will go up here.

Some of the links aren’t working so you’ll just have to deal with it.  I plan to have everything smoothed out before the end of September when school starts as I know I won’t have a lot of time after then.  Also, I plan to remake my navigation bar on the side so that it’s in PHP- but that may take some time.

For now, I will leave you with a nice little picture that I took one Sunday afternoon when Tyler and I snuck into my work and borrowed their crappy Nikon Coolpix camera for the day.

This is the center of an Agave right outside the Botany Greenhouse on campus.  Someone might have already named it, but I’ve decided that Pepe is a good name.  No, it’s not after that French skunk, it’s after some Hispanic singer I saw in Eugene, OR with my cousin.  He may have looked like the middle-aged version of Ricky Martin, but he was cool.  His music was so spicy and fun to listen to that there was a dance party that covered five different blocks of downtown Eugene.