short and sweet (or average and tired)

i think there is a hole in the roasting pan. there are three little chickens roasting in that pan, with stuffings and oils and other things. but i hear this tssssss.....tssssss......every so often while i sit here and i think, well, that sounds like oil drip dripping onto something hot like an oven rack at three hundred fifty. not that i'm moving.

tsssss....

i did make some delicious potatoes, however, which were made in about five seconds. lemon even! yum.

yesterday was the fourth annual starving artists' ball, otherwise known as the gala, otherwise known as the most tiring and stressful day of the newfangled year. and that includes most, if not all, of the leaf-raking time. i am worn out. really, i don't have much to say here. i blame yesterday.

looking through the boxes in the basement: who were you, then?

some music listening is happening now, plugged into my ears with a white cord going down into my snapped-shut back pocket, and i wonder if you crept up on me from behind would you think for just a second i was listening to my butt? i'm not. what would it even have to say? "hi boss. thanks for the premium top-shelf top-dollar underwear all the time."

but the music listening is happening, and it is incredible, let me tell you, here at the end of the question: will you find me? and the best part is even coming up, i bet. something tells me that is going to be the truth.

and while it's happening, i get to sit with my back to the entire law library, did you know? because this big table with the computer then the huge scanner to the left then the huger Microform Machine 1 to the left of that--and i always have to sit on this chair and lift the lever underneath the seat and spin around clockwise one and a half times in order to make the chair go down and not be so high for an average-sized cat like myself--is right smack up against the back wall of this icebox of a place. to-day i am looking at reel seven (7) and correcting mistakes others have made before me. "things they may have missed," if you will. i have been told i am inspiring a sense of "security," now that this is "in my hands." like bjork, i think: it's in our hands! it always was! now THAT is a song song song, the kind you wish there were more verses to, i'll tell you what.

this phone here! it rings rings rings! and we are back to it ringing and being so very rarely answered, and so soon! maybe the only one surprised about that is me.

there is a new video game that waits to be played and started and taken out of the plastic for the very first time, and they tell me--they being "the internet," of course, and one live person who works at my favorite game store, which provides all of my gaming needs and wants and even threw in a free comic book for me--that i will love this one. so much, they say. i won't even believe it. they won't see me for months, even! now we'll just see about that, now won't we? it makes me a little afraid to open the box.

but only a little.

the lazy lazy river in the noon-day sun

when i was younger and before i was in high school, sometime when my nanny came to live with us because she had developed an ulcer and needed a well-stocked refrigerator and nothing more--except perhaps to move out of elizabeth, new jersey, a terrible place--on the weekends we would have a special dinner and it would go something like this:

my father would come home from work and make himself and my nanny a scotch on the rocks. he would put a little water in hers and she would take one sip and say, "now david," and hold her glass out. and he would laugh and uncap the bottle and pour away. then when we sat down to dinner i always made him put the scotch on the other side of his plate from me because i didn't like the smell. ha. can you imagine.

before dinner we would watch wheel of fortune, because my nanny loved it. i wish i could remember if she could guess the puzzles, but i really can't at all. my mother would cook dinner, somewhere along the lines of chicken and potatoes and gravy, and my nanny would mash the potatoes because she could make the best kind, and stir the gravy because ditto. and my mother eventually would say, "mom okay, that's enough" because she couldn't stand that scraping sound of the fork against the pan, you know, when you add a little flour and some water just to make the gravy even out a little. it's thin, the gravy, and tastes delicious. i hate jarred gravy more than anything, let me tell you.

and then by the time jeopardy came on it was time to eat, so we'd eat and i'd pull my chair a little closer to my nanny's, and i'll let that speak for itself, and there was this little bear--i'm a little embarassed about this part--but this little bear that came from somewhere, who's wearing a vest and holding a little heart that says "you're special" on it, and the little bear has a bit on the back of him so you can sort of hook him onto a plate, you know, and i would always put the little bear on my nanny's plate. because, well. of course.

but that's not the point, not yet, the point is that after dinner and after another scotch, with the nice stereo my father had with the turntable that still works, when it was all in the family room--i started calling it the "den" because my best friend at the time, mary, used to call it the "den" in her room--my nanny would say "david, put on something i like," and he would get up and we would all get up with him, and go into the family room before it was the den, and he would put on something she liked. usually it was the mills brothers, do you know them? they sing about the lazy river? and she would say, "let's dance!" and we would all dance, my nanny demanding to dance with each one of us. and that was the point, really, just to tell about the dancing and being very happy and not even knowing the definition of self-consciousness, or anxiety, or even self-doubt, because why would those words ever need to be in my vocabulary in the first place?

so tonight, and just now, after a whole day of worrying i don't have a family at all--not even the one i've made for myself somehow--and making myself sick after this week and the pay phone and not going to work, i'm thinking about the smell of the scotch and the little bear and the mills brothers, and i wish more than anything i could feel like that now and let it be, let it be let it be, rather than feeling it and worrying and cross-worrying and worrying that it will never come again or wasn't how i remember at all. is that what peace is? i hope and hope to see it.

or at least appreciate what i remember.

add some casillero del diablo, maybe. and another zip code.

ladies and gentlemen, my dears and my friends, my sirs and my ma'ams.

today was a good day. that's a line from a san andreas song, did you know? soon i will stop stealing cars and killing cops, really. i have cops in my family. a long line of them, as a matter of fact, who say they will do everything in their power to help me graduate from law school: "we'd rather work for you than anybody," they say.

but that would entail moving to new jersey. which, what do we think about that? the st louis thoughts were joyfully received. what's with the band-aid, nelly? yo?

soon, the stopping of the stealing cars. i am going back to the one place i love the most: to spira, and to zanarkand, and to besaid. to some of the best musical composition i've ever heard. back to final fantasy x. that's right, that's right. i may or may not have purchased the soundtrack, containing 83 tracks, recently. may or may not, that is.

none of this though, is why today is a good day. today is a good day, an almost perfect day, because i have just watched an episode of CSI, season three, episode nine, in which it faded and faded out to everything everything everything in its right place. how can you beat that, now? i don't know if you can.

i hear there's some sort of arch involved.

i would like to direct you to the best website i have ever read on political issues (and other things too): it is right here. the reason it stands out among others like it--which are very well thought about and carefully constructed and interesting--is because you can read it without feeling condemned. and there's the thing, isn't it? to speak to people who should care and do care, without being hostile. these things bring anger and overwhelming sadness, very true, but to communicate with each other and outwards about them is a tricky practice. thank you, a-dam, for being such a communicator.

in other news, i am drinking a lager from the brooklyn brewing company. it is pretty good, but not for resale. on that very same note, may i mention that the west side market allows you to pick your own sixer? it does. and it's only one or two dollars more than you would pay for, say, a premade sixer of sierra nevada, or what you hope will be a lucky guess. it's all very true. and perhaps a trend here, for me, number 302.

oh boy.

so what else? i am blessed and lucky, and so much i wouldn't ever believe it, to have so many people i love so well. what is hard is the missing of them, and the majority of them are not even in the state! can you imagine? just one. all the rest are no less than two thousand miles away in either direction! my goodness gracious, is what i have to say about that.

how do we feel about st louis?

i added a new shortcut.

yesterday, i hit up the food pyramid. meat and beans, it tells me, is seriously lacking in my diet. and too much salt. apparently, i eat more vegetables than most of the known world. the problem i'm having now is i want to go back to the food pyramid and show it how good i really can be. which sort of feels like a relationship, doesn't it? like i'm begging the food pyramid to take me back, please take me back, i know i got a neutral face on my milk intake, but i'll do better next time! i promise, baby!

i can only imagine what this is like for others, unnamed others, who are already embroiled in a steamy, long-term, forever-and-ever-amen relationship with the "pyr."

tomorrow marks another beginning, as i start back up the endless toil towards making professors happy. i will pack up this here computer like i always do, put it in its nice carrying case, trudge across the street to the coffee shop, order a double latte with extra gasoline, and settling in for a nice afternoon of running searches, filling in boxes, and frowning for three hours. it's an honor, they say, so i try not to knock it. but. i mean. come on.

anything that gets me where i want to go though, i suppose. i was told i need a long-term plan by one of those lawyerly types. you know those types. he told me it was a good start to want to be a pro-see-cute-or. and then he said, "after that?" and i said "complete burnout, in which i re-evaluate the human race and my desire to be any part of it, and then walk dogs for a living?"

laugh. i can always get the laugh.

isolation station

come on, cat, let's go try the internet, is what i said to myself today in order to drag myself out of bed. times like this, when i'm feeling very confused and overwhelmed and lonely, the bed is difficult to leave behind and even more difficult to avoid returning to. so here's the internet! imagine me sitting in a dark corner with my back up against the wall and about to order some strong tea because my throat hurts too much to talk, as the rest of the internet-attendees bustle around click-click-clicking. and there, maybe you'll have it.

i haven't felt like this in a long time, really, this particular brand of overwhelmed comes with an almost certain push for isolation among its contents, and the nutrition information is salt-and-peppered with all the usual suspects. someone i know, or used to know, would tell me i am just mourning a loss, and that it's okay to be so, and what a big loss it is! and that's true, still, isn't it? even though i won't be told this, it's still real, right? sure. okay. let's not think any more about that now.

i wonder how to put that in the food pyramid.

this sort of scared locking up of doors and pushing voices away is frustrating and ill-timed, even! i have so much to do and decide, decide, decide. did you know minnesota requires the same three exams as ohio? did you know illinois requires an extra exam? it does. it's called the multistate essay examination. and then there's washington. yes, that's what i said. i know, i know. i'm okay with being laughed at. the point is that washington requires none of that, did you know that? just their own bar exam and that's all. that sounds rather nice, doesn't it? rather simple. rather scary as all hell. we're talking five years, here! five whole years! people (all people) move away in five years. they move in five months, sometimes. so my question is, which is it going to be? three exams, four exams, or just the simple single one? it seems like a foolish question, i know. leave it up to God! will God take the exams, too? i hope so. i will need it.

is that a violation of the code of professional responsibility? Dear Ms. Loya: We are permanently banning you from the practice of law as a result of God, The LORD, taking the bar exam with you. What are you, some kind of nun? Cordially, The United States of Lawyers, LLC.

but isolation! i will break that soon, i will stop doing that soon. i will not be scared soon. i wish it was sooner than soon, even. get up and ask already, is what i say to myself, and stop cowering here in the corner of the internet.

come on now.

driving backwards in the fog

i lost two days of my life this week. two days that seem very far away at the moment, and hazy, and though i can remember more clearly what was said to me and how and the straining so hard to keep my voice down on the pay phone in the lobby of the hotel so much that my throat was sore, the kinder things are the ones i'm going to say here. i always forget saying how incredible it is i have these industrial strength steamstresses and tailors all around me, a handful of them, who mend and hem and stitch when i get ripped apart. they leave themselves behind a bit, an honor really, and i get to get up, eventually, all patchwork and together again.

i lost two days of my life, and in those days i had my heart broken in the o'hare airport, city of chicago, state of illinois, standing at a pay phone with one hand on the receiver and another on the wall of the booth. don't break it! i said to that hand. keep it in! but i thought we weren't going to talk about the pay phone, and that's true. it just seemed to fit, right there.

another thing, too, is that those two days were worth it, did i say that part? realizations were made about career and moving and how and why and when and where to go, and thinking finally that yes, remember this feeling? you respect and genuinely care for and love these people, and it's you, catherine loya who do finally, and not only a part of you you've invented in order to protect yourself, it's really you yourself. remember that? and you can sit with your back to the door and look people in the face and realize how much you miss if you don't while they're talking to you and you can stretch out the evening even in person because you are so rested and at peace and having such a lovely time.

here's where i try to be less vague and more specific: i was stranded in chicago because they grounded o'hare for too long to fix it properly. i am not taking the ohio bar exam, because i am not going to live in this state. there are three cities that i am considering. sometimes when i'm not thinking about how it sounds, i call them the top three. when i finally go, i will be able to live alone but it is time to live among. it is hard, like a ton of granite, to be here. i miss being really me myself and safe. i miss too much, actually, to even see it written down. i am not going to write a book entitled How My Summer Vacation Changed My Life by Catherine M. Loya, so don't worry, but the chapters are working themselves out in my head. when i finally walked in the door last night i put everything away and ate and drank a little and tried not to come apart before i fell asleep and i was unfortunately very successful. today that ton of granite sits on my chest. things are in pieces! can you imagine it would be like this when i got back? i never would've suspected. so now it is time to really feel it all out, and step carefully, and try to ask and let myself be taken care of. i promise to try to do that. it's really quite simple, just pick up and ask and there it will be, but i'm afraid--and maybe because of the pay phone--that it will be too much somehow. but i will try soon, and start to assemble again, and figure out all of what awaits, like jobs and cities and moving.

but today is just the trying to ask, and the feeling out, and carefully, with grocery and dinner and trying to keep the granite from doing what granite does best.

full up like a landfill

today, on the last day in cee-at-til, i have had a cup of coffee at the famous bellino (though i freely admit without reservation or bias that it was certainly not as good as the last two coffees i've had the pleasure of having from that fine establishment this week), sitting outside with a dog who loves without fear and two favorite favorites.

then some other things happened, like workshopping another scene from katie's film (which of course is the comic relief!) and a lunch made on the fly with leftovers (which wasn't so bad, really) and dishes done (and done). now there is a trip to the record store and then some dinner at a favorite spot and packing everything all up for the going-away time and then another game of scrabble, well-timed and for something to do other than sit while my eyes get sadder and sadder. at the table now, left alone on this nice white box, very flat and transparent, they are sad enough. i can't imagine how they will be when the time comes.

what i mean to say is: thank God for this given thing, and this other one, and the epiphany on the beach with the rocks and the blackish fine sand, and then the big decisions i have to make when i get back into that nice and quite quiet apartment with the four lanes of market outside the window and the kitchen with the stove that needs to be cleaned and cleaned but of course i will never clean it because, naturally, it'll just get dirty again! and you know, i'll have to just settle in a little and keep myself from feeling everything that waits for me and everything i left behind, and by settling i mean watching the old show or maybe driving around and stealing some cars until i am too tired to think very much before i lie down again in my nice bed. that's what i mean to say, just now.

how did this even happen?

Welcome to Catherine Loya's brain in writing. Her brain is currently occupied with the spelling of words onto a board, so she has invited a guest to fill in. This is Seattle, here. I'll do my best. This little white box is a bit different and larger than my own.

First of all, let's just say that the previously mentioned Brain started this game off with the word QUAY. And we haven't looked back.

What next? Today's highlights, I guess? (I don't mean the magazine. That would be better than this, though, wouldn't it? Remember the little hidden pictures you had to find all through the magazine and trying to find them all while waiting for your dentist appointment?)

Highlights!
We went to the farmer's market today and bought some fennel.
Later, or sooner, The Brain will cook us some delicious dinner with hand-crafted drinks.

We have to go, in a hurry now. So abrupt! Over and out.
love to all,
Seattle

welcome to it.

greetings from the kitchen of one hundred thirty and one-half twenty-fifth avenue east. there are some gerber daisies to my right and a guitar-strumming katie meyer to my left. we are waiting. soon we will not be waiting any longer and will be drinking some decidedly delicious coffee. and then i will lament my zip code, for the fifty-three thousandth time. this morning. no no, i exaggerate, i mean, in the last twenty-four hours.

there are a lot of numbers in this entry, have you noticed? ever since i finished that number puzzle on the plane, in the biggest surprise of the century, my confidence in such things has been semi-restored. restored? that's the wrong word. considering i don't even like seeing numbers as they are and much prefer to use the words that belong to them, there is no restoration that needs doing.

the addle by the sea is filled with things that are almost too much and too real, and so nice and a little sad, and relief relief relief. of course. i am trying to remember all the things i want to, and so far okay? also imagine the cigarettes i have not smoked, the beer i have not drunk, and the fun i have not had. when you imagine it, you will be left with nothing at all. maybe that will change, just like that, but something tells me that has become impossible.

embrace all this real feeling! with both eyes open but unafraid(?) to be closed, and two open palms for once. done and done.

i tried to keep the glass together here

this will not go well, but just loosely and a little desperate and angry. so.

it seems that we are spending more and more time, alarmingly now, trying to prove ourselves right. and worse! prove each other wrong. excuse me, i don't mean to be vague this time, i mean to be very precise. when i say "we" i mean Christians. when i say "ourselves" and "each other" i mean Christians who identify with a particular american political party. and when i say "party" i definitely mean "not fun." and i don't mean "american political party" like i'm running up the anarchy flag and winding up to pitch another worthless I Hate America speech. i mean it as a fact and not an opinion.

why are we doing this again? i can't remember. i recall something about having healthy debate and so on and so forth, which is fine. i recall also a lot of terrble things happening in the world, and America doing and not doing in response, and naturally there will be a whole host of responses to that, so that's fine too. and there have been some very sharp lines drawn in recent years for whatever reason. i'm not really interested in going into those reasons, because we'll never get anywhere. questions of sociology never did it for me. just going over the background, and that i understand all that and i'm not interested in hearing about it. i understand why we identify with one or the other of these parties, sure. conservatives, for the most part, because they have a unified effort, liberals for the most part because they fall into that camp for whatever individual reason or reasons--including not fitting into that uniform conservative effort. what i am interested in hearing about, and want to know, is why we are identifying with these parties so much that we let it dominate what we say to each other. and when i say, "we" and "each other" i mean Christians. you know, us Christians? with the community? with the brotherhood and sisterhood? us? right?

so why are we doing this? these parties are created by the world and run by the world, right? i mean, God didn't create a political party, did he? the Onward Christian Soldiers? the Lions of the Tribe of Judah? no, none of these look anything like the words i see on the ballot boxes.....so......i guess the argument that will come next is that God is driving one of the parties, huh? the conservatives, who seem to be filing theology down to a very sharp point? or is it the liberals, who promote some sort of tolerance and don't file theology at all to let it go dull--except of course, in the face of the conservatives, who are attacked at all costs--is it them? i can't remember what it says in the bible about that. and that's not an invitation to whip out the NIV study bible with all the earmarks and tell me that this quotation in romans is going to prove to me why Jesus voted for ronald reagan or jimmy carter, and why we should be steadfast, strong even! in promoting God's Cause in the political arena. i know all that. i agree with it, even, that we should argue and debate over matters of the world.

what i don't agree with is when it takes over our community. that's a silly word to use, isn't it? a community. there is no community on the grand scale, not one formed with God as the head anyway. there is one with God Who Hates Bush and there is one with God Who Listens to This American Life and is a Vegetarian, and then there is God Who Thinks Gays Should Burn Baby Burn and God Who Hates America, but no community really, just little communities fighting among ourselves. our community, remember, shouldn't that go something like, God knows us all individually and therefore we will disagree about the world and what It Means to Be Like Us and inevitably, of course, in order for us to relate to as many people as possible? and we disagree? but what makes us different is that we can disagree and still love each other? without thinking we are stupid or terrible, or whatever word you want to put down there? as Christians, we have the power to freely disagree and think someone is wrong without division, right? or did that end somewhere, when the towers went down and we lost our heads and sight of who we were?

and unity, i'm not so naive to think that means we all believe in one single thing and set and code of beliefs, that we are brothers and sisters! and that's all! and we should trot merrily off to the Big Jesus Parade and all hold hands together while we watch the Noah's Ark Float pass by, featuring Jars of Clay singing "Flood" to the audience. not unity like that. unity like we are not trapped underneath blankets that say Conservative and Liberal and America or whatever else those blankets say. unity like we are not americans, really. unity like we can somehow remember that our language is spoken with gentleness and respect rather than broken glass. unity like we do not believe in a man with a tie and a woman with a pin on her lapel, we believe in a paradox that is very real and very much alive and does not need the tie or the pin or the blankets to do the work. unity that we suffer because others suffer, even if we disagree how to stop that suffering. unity that i can still feel the change that is almost palpable when The Big Reveal comes and i find out someone i meet knows God, that change that takes away some of the rules of the world, that i can still feel that change rather than dread. and unity like i can stop saying, i am a Christian but not that kind! and not be ashamed of my individual relationship with God, have that be respected and i remember that all myself, just in time to stop the anger when it comes and the broken glass from being crunched around in my mouth. unity like that. and like a thousand thousand other things.

so then. what happened to us, i mean, and why are we doing this? answers, please. in whatever form you'd like to put them in. i'll even take those verses now, but let us talk like ourselves. we do not belong to the world, but we live in it, so let us work the best we can. ready set go.

vanilla, cherry tree bark, licorice, sarsaparilla, sassafras, nutmeg, anise, molasses

here's the thing about this university: all day classes on the weekends, ladies and gentlemen. how many of these have i taken already? a lot. well, maybe not really a lot, but enough. enough to notice. enough that it seems like it's happening all the time. and the saturday i can kind of handle, you know. just a little grumpiness over it, but it's sort of nice to be up and awake for more than just the time it takes to get to the bathroom and back to the bed early on a saturday, when the sun is not too hot and the people are not too loud on the street. but the sunday? the sunday just kills me. the coffeeshop across the street is not open that early, the little cafe that makes the nice grilled cheese with anything i want inside is closed all day--and really, just how am i supposed to drink a deliciously frosty root beer in the afternoon if that cafe is closed, i ask you--and it's rather miserable to leave my nice bed as the thin lines of sunlight peek through the blinds. happy sabbath.

but that's okay, at the end of tomorrow i will have another whole hour of credit, nicely taken and pretty painless. so there's that, right? yes. no frosty root beer, but at least a nice lovely grade. that has to be worth something.

tonight, friends, will either involve CSI and video game or studying. place your bets.

i am ready to go home now, please

i am covered in protection from the harmful sun-rays on this planet, level thirty to be exact, which i think is kind of like wearing a long-sleeved shirt. i haven't gone out yet, but the beach waits and the ocean too, for me to go in it when i can't take the sweating and the reading ohio code and the too-dark green highlighter (or highdarker, in this case) any longer. but before i did all that and tried very hard to numb myself down and just let the learning law brain part of me take over, i thought, maybe just write something down, just a bit of it, maybe that will help a little and free up some more space for better thoughts.

so, here then. i would like to breathe slower, and smile better or more easily is what i mean, the smile where i show my upper teeth--which are very small, really--and where the smile is all in the eyes because, let's face it, i have no lips with which to show the smile, only big eyes with lines all around them in times like that, like the smile-time. and i would like to just talk and not worry so much, without the lines that go like this: don't cry please it will be too much for you and why does this still hurt you after all this time and how could i have refused to come though and then be able just to rest without all that greeting me in the morning and tucking me in to bed at night. the days themselves are good, and filled with sun and musics and restaurant-picking, and there is only the slight urge to get here or do something and anything connected with someone or someplace that knows me rather than having that part be secret and withheld and suddenly i'm eight years old again at this beach with inescapable sun and sand and i can't seem to catch my breath when i talk about it because, you know, there is too much just pushing to get out.

and still! at the same time! too much pushing to get out and all the while every single word is killing me as it comes out, because it's my own damn fault i have to say them in the first place and i just want to get home, and home, and be alone and have no worry about what to say or how to escape or should i be doing this or not this or that instead. and where i can sit with my back to the door, remember, when i started talking in hour increments in that little room with the one window and i had to move my chair, every time, so i didn't have my back to the door, and then finally towards and at the last i moved it the other way to be square up against it, i was so much at ease and comfortable and finally talking slower and calmer and i could just let the words come as they did and didn't worry about the speed at which they came or what they sounded like once they were in my mouth and out.

so. that's done and said now. it's time for waves and big bright sky, and for swimming out and out and out and just talking to the water again, no matter how crazy i am for it. i am ready for the company of people i can sit and close my eyes and have years behind and ahead with, but today i am afraid to believe in them at all. i am trying to remember, though. i am hoping the water will remind me.

today i told my troubles to the ocean

here i am again, i said.

quick! before they catch me! go and read youareokok's entry for the fourth of july, independence day, in the year of Our Lord two thousand and five. i had been thinking what to say and how to say it, but she has relieved me of that task and put both perfectly. go on now.

GTA: MB

here is something i learned to do: steal internet.

here is something you should do while i'm away: the man behind the best monkey impression ever.