July 12th, 1999

Well, here I am on my new laptop. So far, it’s pretty plush. But I think I’ll need more memory once I start messin’ with the internet. Oh jeez this version of Word has that completely irritating spellchecker that underlines every fucking word it doesn’t recognize. It’s kinda xenophobic and antislang. I’m a hafta check this shit now, yo. ‘Kay I’ve turned it off, and now I’m feeling pretty damn good about this fourteen-point-one inch screen. Yummo. And the little speakers are holding up under my jungle cd. Not huge, of course, but not too bad, either.

Maybe I’ll try to start writing every day. I can publish it or not. Once I figger out the web-access thang.. I’m pretty impressed with dad telling me about his daily writing plan. An hour a day or more -pretty dam good. It was such a nice lunch with him a few weeks ago. He talked more about his depression and therapy than I think I’ve ever heard before. It’s weird.. I remember talking to a friend of mine about her dad, who has what sounds like much more severe depression, and she talked about feeling ashamed of it. And I thought woah, that's so common, people have this guilt, and probably other people (maybe especially family?) give you more grief about things like depression.. I guess My dad has felt that, even. I never thought of it in that light. As mental illness, something to be ashamed of. It’s just something goin’ on with my dad. The way he is, and it has a name, unlike what goes on with other people’s dads.

--ohh and one of my best friends was diagnosed with Viral Meningitis. That is scary. I need to find out more about it. Well, it’s contagious, somehow. It’s an inflammation. Of the fluid in the brain, apparently.

July 14, 1999;
Well I didn’t fulfill the hour-a-day thing, exactly, since it’s after midnight and I’m going to bed. I have a sinus infection. I didn’t remember to get treats. But I did get to Sidney Borum and got some antibiotics. My homegirl gave me a key to the loft where she, my best friend (with viral meningitis) and three nice boys (one of whom is the guy I'm currently um spending time with). So nice of her. Still feel a little wishy-washy about HIM giving me a key --I wouldn’t take it from him when he offered the week before-- and saying that he'd described me as his girlfriend. I don’t see myself as someone’s girlfriend. Somehow. I don't have that caught-up, giddy "in love" feeling, that hyper attention, that self-esteem-affecting worry. Not that that’s bad. Not that I feel anything bad. I’m actually kind of glad not to be all caughtup in something. This is a bout the speed I can handle right now. I guess if you want to call us boyfriend and girlfriend I wouldn’t kick, but to me that implies something more -- something longterm. Maybe deeper? But is this shallow? I can’t tell. It’s very easygoing. which is exactly what is appealing to me. I think I'm dealing easier with the whole thing because I know I'm leaving.. He was very good, at one daytime pillowtalk moment, at describing us in a way that I can’t actually remember but which was on the wavelength of "people who like each other enough to have sex" or something like that.

Uh. First I get my period with a migraine attached. That ends and a sinus infection kicks in. I would like to be physically untweaked for a while now, please.

The tiger in the forest on my arm is coming through in beautiful deep orange, now. The ink is settling in, less neon than before. I’m getting a ton of compliments on it. Tons of comments in general. I’m sure I’ll be murderously sick of them soon. I’m trying to be goodnatured about it. Still get hair comments too. Yesterday, this girl at Store24 asked me if it was real. I asked her if that was her real hair color (it wasn’t). She said that she saw lots of people with hair like that and always thought it couldn’t be real. I asked her what made her choose to ask me. She said "I don’t know. I’ve never been this close to someone with it before." Lie. She works in Dorchester f’gods sake. But she is closer to me in skin color. Bein’ a white girl like her I guess I’m not one of those scary black rastas. Or something. Sometimes (cheap envy) I wish I was more threatening. Just so people wouldn’t bug me. But if you’re too threatening then the machinery starts working against you, more violently and more completely.

Even though the area I live in is pretty fancy, with a lot of big rambly houses and yards, it’s still dorchester, cuz the only place to buy food in walking distance is the store24. Ghetto stylee. That sucks so bad, poor folks can’t get a decent loaf of bread. Or decent cheap groceries. Or fresh produce. Took a walk down the section of Dorchester Ave after Ashmont. Passed several bars, a nail salon, a hair salon or two, some attorneys (I think, or dentists), a dunkins, store24, a sweatshop on a corner. Some closed up buildings and some apartments. Not a metropolis, exactly. I think of taking the streetcar to Mattapan, which is where I buy dancehall records, but where is it exactly in relation to here?. Maybe hopping a bus just to see where it goes.

July 15, 1999

Listening to flamenco. The best CD of the three Prof. T the absentminded remembered to bring me from Spain. Lovely!

Another latenight entry..but I actually need to vent. I also need to cut my tickytack fingernails..

Hung out with Boy tonight. He had called and said he wanted to make a date with me. When I got there he said he wanted to spend time just the two of us, and he wanted indian food and where should we go? So I ungraciously chose somewhere. I thought he had some kind of plan. I’m post-msing or something I guess. Dinner was nice except for the world’s most annoying overeducated first date next to us, having the ultimate in preprogrammed conversation. I got the impression that they didn’t necessarily like each other but would probably hang out again and again and possible hook up. Disagreeing over fundamental things like "she doesn’t see the point of fantasy" and he "spent three years of his life in role-playing games;" she "loves john coltrane," he "hates jazz." (how can you love coltrane and hate fantasy?) Anyway they were right on top of us and very distracting. We walked up to central and hopped the train, went up to his place and fooled around. but he had to stop by a nearby club to shmooze a neighbor who was spinning there. Then he had to move stuff upstairs. I ended up getting crankier and crankier. When I make a date, I give someone the evening, unless I say to them that it’s a dinner date and I have plans later on. I think he was realizing how lame it was at dinner when he started talkin about how he regretted always booking all of his time because it makes him feel like he’s working for his life. How he wants to hang out later but has all these things to do. I had nothing to say. Yeah, you shouldn’t have made plans after dinner with me if you were calling it a date?

And I must rrrant. I don’t yet know how to say this to him but it’s gotta be said. I HATE THE TASTE OF CIGARETTES. IT’S TOTALLY UNSEXY. PLUS THEY DRY OUT YOUR MOUTH. UNSEXY. And what’s infinitely more of a bummer is when he takes his fingers out of me, and puts them in my mouth, and all I taste is cigarettes. And it makes me feel really not psyched about having his fingers in me.

I’m also cranky because I was hearing some gallery talk between him and his pal who run the art gallery, and it reminded me of everything I hate about "art" as in "art which is sold for money as a business". And art galleries as businesses. pal was talking about how Cambridge wasn’t the right place because it has no artists or art buyers "it has social activists." And how the center of all REAL art in boston was right there at their loft space on the edge of chinatown up to southie. And I just wanted to say first of all that that’s great if you want only white people and some asians to come, that’s great. You’ll get some rich white people, some out-of-town dealer types, and some indie-rock mostly white hipsters who live in the cheap lofts. But very little actual community cares there, as opposied to cambridge. What’s your community on the edge of chinatown and downtown and southie? What community do you serve? Other artists in lofts? Daytime suits? The poorer immigrant communities don’t really give a shit about the stuff that gallery has shown, right off the bat, because the gallery makes little effort to include those communities in its artistic endeavors..apart from leaving the door open in the summertime. In cambridge, the locals totally will. Yuppies or hippies or not, the folks in cambridge, the families, etc, believe in the kind of art that I've seen in the gallery. And that’s way better than rich out of towners and other art students and motherfuckers from artforum. And then I knew what he would say "we’re not running a charity/social action." My least favorite phrase and concept. Why aren’t we? If you don’t who will? What good are you if you’re not?

more re-updates later, yo. I gotta get some sleeeeeep