7/12 i bought a laptop over the weekend. A Compaq Presario 1620, with a 14.1 in screen and DVD player. It's kinda going to be my entertainment system when i move, I hope. I'm going to get really good speakers, and then i can watch movies and listen to CDs on it. I'm just waiting for the DVD version of "Duel in the Sun" to be back in stock. ain't technology grand?
I saw "Run Lola Run" last night. Enjoyable. Very attractive, fast-paced. Insipired a long daydream missing Berlin. Especially all those kissy-mouthed german boys and girls. So lovely. I've been to Berlin four times, and always enjoyed it mightily. The leftoveratmosphere of a walled city, slowly being consolidated, so i hear, re-carved and fixed. fixed like you fix your cat to keep him from wandering, making a stink. I think of crusty squatter punks, mostly, and less crusty ones, and squat clubs with jungle booming out the boarded windows. th bullet holes in the apartment buildings in Former East Berlin, left from the war, or later conflicts. I think of my distrust of Germans older than 40, rooted in the heavy history of half my family. i think of my friend the dancer/bodyworker, i think of leather jeans, and heavy humor that i could always see the faultlines in, and sprout ideas and jokes that set me off from them. yeah i liked the attention. Travel and sex have always been intertwined --one of the easiest ways to connect with a new city. Through flirting, the cafe pickmeup, glancing and lassoing looks. no disrespect and a lot of honest appreciation. That's one of the weird things about moving to London. I don't know if those games are suited for longer-term living. I don't know if I'm in that mood anyway.
Still spending time with newboy. easy time. Interesting to me, that unlike mr. zing, it's really this ease which attracts me. Our ability to mouth off simultaneously, our attitudes towards art, but even more the natural way we interact verbally and non. I sometimes wonder if he's dampening disagreements because i speak strongly, or because he wants to keep that ease. but it seems natural enough. maybe I'm just unused to give-and-take unweighted by a couple years of pleasure and guilt and too-familiar frustration. 

7/7 Whooosh. haven't been feeling very journal-y lately. also haven't been at work much. which is all right. all kinds of right. I moved into my house-sitting gig on Monday. a 7-room victorian house in a part of town I've almost never been to. it's cosy. quiet. unfortunately the first thing that happened was the fucking vcr broke. o well.. At least I'm not paying rent.. to backtrack:
The 4th was nice. All weekend I was at my parents', sleeping in air-conditioned comfort. I finally crept out around 5:30 to go to a bbq in Cambridge with all my ex-neighbors. It was a damn good time, despite being sweaty and limp. Wandered up the street to see the fireworks from a gravelly rooftop, then lay on the roof and shouted cheerfully at the swarms of people coming back from watching the fireworks. cheered on polite cyclists, mocked would-be hotshot in-line-skate doofus boys and bad car moves. yep, lying on our stomachs, heads over the edge, shouting nonsense at strangers. it's the simple things in life, you know?
Been kinda seeing the nice boy, latenight talker, roommate of my good friend. It's so easy to talk to him, it feels utterly natural. and nice to say hello to a new body, and introduce mine. so nice to hang out with someone who is unreservedly enthusiastic, about me, about life. those nice vibes in the air are playing my song, now. not mine, but harmony, anyway. So good to have some sweet without the bitter.
Monday melted into town, fled to air-conditioned 'Summer of Sam" which I liked very much. a hell of a lot better than "he's got game." So well-constructed. and the soundtrack was really good. not just the choice of tunes, but the pacing, the rythm and interweaving of radio broadcasts of baseball, the Who, and disco. Spike even complicated his whole virgin/whore slack-ass female setup for once. it almost atones for his lazy-ass way of dealing with the ladies in 'game', especially the (must rant) utterly pathetic and lame supermodelwhorewith-heart-of-gold character. Anyway, summerofsam was fierce, John Leguziamo was fantastic, his character was so recognizable and so utterly utterly fucked up. There was this amazing expression he would get on his young face, trying to talk his way out of another situation with his young wife: the indescribable "I'm lying a WHOLE LOT. ABOUT EVERYTHING" face.. but you can't quite hate him because he's trying so hard. it's not that he doesn't care, he's just so mentally torqued.. the face that's funny unless you're the one looking at it trying to see the real story. Went with my (still)ex and one of the boys i mentioned in an earlier evening story, plus some ladies i used to work with at a cafe, also neighbors. it was okay to hang out with ex. we had a decent talk the other night and i'm feeling more settled than i was.

More blasts from weeks past:

July 16, 1999 Salty and headachy, back from Elements after a nice lift on the white steed snowball. Jordan Dare spun a boring twosteppy set. Really loud. Gave me a headache. Cranky. Talked to DJ Duo afterwards, though, and he invited me to spin on the radio on Saturday night from 2am. wheee! And I got invited to play 3 gigs. I like knowing lots of folk around here.
Around here-here there is a fight going on outside. A man and a woman are yelling. The word bitch is used. And he said "shut up do you ever shut up?" the sound comes and goes, but it's definitely sad. I can't see them out my window, which is probably good cuz I'm sitting in my bra and army pants taptapping with the salt drying on my forehead and upper lip. I need to shower soon. Her voice rings out again. Echoes. I keep listening for the sound of physical contact, but luckily there is none. It's all a little scary in the light of the downsouthshoreboys' friend who has disappeared, and police are finding traces here and there down the south shore.

There's something about a really good soul song, sung by someone with the killah voice. The killah voice makes me want to call up my ex. Otis and Lauren make me call him, make the memory of pain sweet and intense. Like James Baldwin can. This morning I did just that. Be careful girl!

July 16 -later, actually morning after I slept--- Dinner:

  • stiryfry tempeh with lotsa lotsa veggies
  • Bread
  • Gazpacho?
  • Brown Rice
Yeah!!!!

July 16 -still later, 7:22 pm to be exact
My hands are wrinkly from chopping vegetables. The cuisinart doesn't seem to work. Unless it has some kind of safety catch I don't know about. Neither the big one or the little one works. So it's chunky gazpacho for the masses. And yummy stirfry. Mmmm.
Final lineup:Two musicianfilmsmartboys from round the way, ex-roomie girl genius whom i don't see enough of, boy-i'm seeing and his friend, nice girl i know and her two friends. I think that seems good.

July 20, 1999 Sitting in the yard, on the computer with a cd playin off it.. being more '90s. Last night saw a double feature film noir: "Double Indemnity" and "Pushover". The latter with Fred McMurray and debuting Kim Novak. Kim was not very attractive in the face, but she was pretty damn sexy. I found Dorothy malone much more appealing. Kim has a small mean mouth and puffy cheeks. Her lipstick painted on a larger mouth but she still looked a spoiled girl. Interesting undertones: Fred's character talks about his unhappy parents arguing about money, he falls for Kim and overturns his whole cop career. His friend had happy parents, falls for the pretty, spunky nurse.
Sat and saw them alone. Made a few sentences of a small talk to a man at the end of the aisle who was eating a pint of haagen dasz. He didn't respond, but he smiled too-widely. At the end of the movie he stood up and started to sing "beYOOtiful, LOVEly, girll" and I realized he was that horrible creepy guy who sings that aggressively at girls in public places. He's sung it at me before. Trust me to pick the one creepo to make small talk with. People wonder why girls don't respond well or talk to strangers. Guh. I ran for the subway, and kept an eye out for him so I wouldn't accidentally be caught on the same car as him. He didn't seem to come down. Definitely made me feel gross.

Today I walked around the corner to Gallivan Blvd. And Adams street. Past a car accident, surrounded by cop cars, firetruck and two or three silent ambulances, a car had somehow crashed into the side of a porch (the columns supporting the roof over it were at 20 degree angles). It looked almost like it was parked there, but for the tilted roof and the front end mooshed into the house a little. Found an Osco drug, an "Irish Bakery" where they sell soda bread, scones, brown bread, coffee, ice cream, sandwiches. Two fresh off the boat Irish lasses behind the counter (one with a celtic knotwork cross, a diamond-shaped emerald in the middle tattooed on her shoulder). Many older folk with Irish accents sitting around. I sat and read some Lord Peter Wimsey mystery over an iced coffee and a brown roll with jam for an hour or so. Funny: when I walked across the T station to Dot ave and it was African-American dominated, but the other way to Adams street was irish land.

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