January 6th; say goodbye to a glitter girl

Sounds: Jonatha Brooke, 10 cent Wings Words: Melissa Scott, Trouble and Her Friends I'll reel in my addictions in the face of your distress aches and pains all shelved and put aside i'll jump to my conclusions, but I'll leap to your defense and I'll wish I were the brave one as I breathe another lie 'cause it runs in the family, it's coursing through our veins it lingers and gets caught in our hearts running in the family, it's a little like insane the trimmings and the trappings of the artist and the art blood from a stone, wine from water i'd die here alone, only daughter blood from a stone, wine from water i'd die here alone, like a lamb to slaughter

A lot has happened, my little droogs and pinpins. A lot, a lot. Where to start? Everything came to a real head just before Christmas. I was sick, tired, and I finally reached a breaking point. I spent a lot of time yelling at various people and then greeting them with a smile when i actually saw them. I think I've mostly gotten done with that, though. So things are strange now, between Shannon and I. I've made mistakes, he's made mistakes, and i'm not altogether sure where things are going to go next. I'm not sure where I even want things to go next. The thing that really terrifies me is that I'll lose him as a friend over this. So I'm trying to be really careful about what I do. This tension, though, is really distracting.... But we had a really wonderful talk last night, and I told him some of the stuff I figured out when I was away on vacation. I admitted (finally!) that I really don't know anything much about what other people are like--my information is based mostly on supposition and hunch, which doesn't work with people who are as definite as Shannon. Sometimes, there just isn't a lot of room for error. I've heard that the first step to real knowledge is admitting that you know nothing. Which is an unpleasant thing, because I like to bargain with the universe from a position of strength. Anyway. I went to California and then Vancouver over the time when I was off of work. My trip to CA was fair to middling--I had fun hanging out with my mom, but dealing with my father is never wonderfully pleasant. I managed to keep the peace, mostly, and I got some gift certificates for things like clothing and coffee. Very practical, my family. I went by myself to Vancouver--the first time I'd been to another country by myself. It was disorienting, because it is rather like the US, but there are enough small differences to make it a strange experiences. For example, TV in French. I took four years of French in high school, so I was mostly able to follow what was going on. But the idea of TV in French delighted me--all of those beautiful women, speaking this language with glottal r's and nasal vowels! I watched a lot of Music television in French while I was there. Two-dollar coins struck me as a lovely idea. I like the weight of them, and the fact that they don't wrinkle and thus are good for vending machines. I stayed in a hotel on the 25th floor, did tourist things, and basically flew totally free for the first time in a long time. It was very, very sweet. I've missed it so much... Stuff I wrote: foreign host imagine you are a machine transmitting bytes in the dark of wires, of routers, of cables. imagine, when you ping, the number always come back: 40% packet loss, 135 phonemes transmitted, 85 received. on the other end, your transmissions are being decoded painfully, each received packet carefully compared against context. Scrambled, filled in, ambiguous, must be decoded. eventually, meaning is assembled from these inadequate components. or perhaps you are a dissident in a small, war-torn country and I am listening on my little radio to your crackling voice, losing you for minutes perhaps but I am faithfully straining, hoping for news of the revolution. this communication is important, and as easily misunderstood. I say, I am sorry. I did not hear you. come again? 1/3/98, Vancouver annotation for foreign host I'll put down the other thing I wrote tomorrow, likely. As well as write more about where I think things may go from here.

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