Echo

what if jesus really were a rockstar. but he had a serious coke and sex addiction.

i wish i were psychic enough to know which of my coworkers are secretly sleeping together.

on the other hand, i like catching fish but i refuse to be responsible for killing them.

snakes are sensual creatures. i don’t want to own one or have one in my house, but i do love touching them and having them across my skin.

on saturday my boss came by, captaining a tour boat through the canal as i sat on its edge, deep in thought. he surprised me by saying my name as he passed, and i looked up and saw him smiling. i smiled and waved, happily.

yesterday, i ran into him before my shift and he asked me, “so what were you doing in the red light district?” i got a little embarrassed and then said, “i live there.”

“you do?” he said. i know they talked about me. i introduced myself to a bartender yesterday who said that she’s heard about me. i was surprised he didn’t already know that fact.

“yeah.” i paused then grinned. i could never keep a secret. “you want to know the real reason i was there?”

“sure,” he said.

“i was watching the building across the street and i was timing this guy. i had him pegged for a 7-minuter.”

“7 minutes!” he said. he sounded incredulous but i couldn’t tell if it was a reaction to my timing guys as they fucked whores or because i only gave him 7 minutes of stamina. “were you right?”

“giving him 5 minutes to take off and put on his clothes, he came out after exactly 12 minutes.”

the green is so much better in california.

but the people are much more colorful here.

yesterday i was paired up with a white american guy. he was squat but solid with a round, shaved head, and wore a gray hooded sweatshirt, baggy jeans and a black cap. he reminded me of the guys who were always on bart around oakland.

we started talking and he was kind of a gruff, but as he opened up, he started talking about his life and his passion. he loves growing weed. he’s lived all over the country but he loved being in humboldt and growing. he loves walking into a room full of vibrant plants, and watching them bear fruit. he’s entrenched in the underground of weed growers and he’s very frank about it being a business like any other, though with more shadowy characters and risks.

he’s staying here because he got caught with quite a big load in the trunk in the midwest. the potential sentence is jaw-dropping. you would think he had heroin or guns or a body in the trunk. so he can only stay here for 3 months before he has to move on, and he believes unless obama becomes president, he can never go back to the states.

if i could go back to the states and live anywhere, i would definitely go back to california. i really loved everything about it, he said in a moment when it was just him and i.

i could tell he was a guy who had dealt hand to hand with life enough to make him tough but proud. everything about him reminded me of a bulldog. but in that moment, as he thought about california, i could swear that i felt his heart beating warmer.

today i went to the red light district and waited in the alleys with the girls and their tap-tap-tapping, watching the tourists pass, watching for the real customers. i saw a kid about 24 years old come out of a room and greet his two friends who had been smoking cigarettes outside, waiting for him. the blonde he’d just been with waved insistently at his friend from her doorway, her thong replaced in such a careless rush that it was twisted in a way where you could see the top of her slit. he was talking to his friends excitedly and rapidly, but it was in a language i didn’t understand. when he walked by, i inhaled deeply, trying to pick up his scent, not quite sure what to expect. i smelled mostly ozone and a faint whiff of baby wipes. it just seemed important to me at the time that i do this, because i just want to make sure i get it right.

spent the last few days vacationing in the beautiful city of maarstricht. well, it wasn’t what i was expecting but i guess i really created a ticking clock for myself.

i’ve been feeling that if anything were to happen, it would happen on September 11th. And now I’m going stir crazy and moody as the day approaches.

it bothers me. it all bothers me.

it’s my day off but david had to work in the morning, so i got up while he was in the shower and started the tea. later, he brought the mugs in and placed them on the square of moroccan tile on the floor, getting into bed next to me.

i can’t stop thinking about marrying you, he says.

he brings this subject up a lot but as usual, i’m feeling everything he’s feeling, but i look at him and don’t say anything.

from the moment i woke up, it’s all i can think about, he says.

i look deep into his eyes but i don’t say anything.

sorry, he says.

why are you apologizing, i ask.

i don’t want to freak you out.

what were you thinking about.

i don’t know. like where you would want to get married.

where would you want to get married?, i ask.

wherever would make you happiest, he says.

the conversation drops. later, after he’s left for work, i text him.

hawaii

just don’t do it for the money. then you’ll never feel like a whore.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/technology/06sweat.html?_r=1&ei=5088&en=b9031b1ab51405e4&ex=1365134400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

i suspect it’s going to be a big, big problem when it comes time for me to leave.

?

jessie lou’s report for wang convention:

report from wangcon recon: wangs at sapphire (a recommended venue) are really dumb and not nude, i repeat, NOT NUDE. it’s like f’ing me in the v, when you’re not planning on f’in me in the a: TOTALLY POINTLESS.

agree or disagree?

the men are intriguing in europe. i highly recommend a trip during a time when it rains.

david and i are really smart people who both got C’s in art.

i got it because seniors in the period after kept pouring paint over my work, so i had to repaint something every day based on what I could cover. the art teacher (also the woodshop teacher who chewed tobacco and had a stump of a left ring finger), appeared too bored to take my unusual predicament into consideration when handing out grades. later, in parent-teacher conferences, my biology teacher, this manic-depressive woman with a bowl of bangs looked over my report card and yelled, “how the hell did you get a C in art? no one gets a C in art. How the hell did you get a C in art?” i was mortified at the time and my parents were embarrassed, but in hindsight, her reaction did help me put that situation into perspective. my mom keeps that fucked up painting in her office– it’s a bridge on a stormy night with red warning lights because i had to find a way to incorporate the red paint they’d poured on it the week before it was due. i always wonder if that experience just completely demotivated me to try hard at school.

david went to a similar school where people in general were idiots. in terms of art class, he wasn’t interested in copying someone else’s style, but wanted to create things that would be original. he got yelled at by his teacher that everything’s been done before and there’s no such thing as original art. for the final, he knew everyone was supposed to do something classical but he wanted to draw robots. so he turned in robots. “i’m like 15 or 16 and we’re supposed to draw something that we’d learned, but i wanted to draw robots, like i’m 9 years old. i was well into robots.”

fuck art class.

hide the human and the words take on more meaning.

gentle downpour over a gray and white city and somewhere in the open clouds i swear i can connect with god if i could completely let go.

a friend wrote me today and asked me to be honest and tell her if i’m secretly married. she said it would be “just so…you.”

it made me laugh because it is something i would do, but i wonder what about me made her come to the same conclusion.

i’m learning a lot of things about myself here, and pixel by pixel, i’m starting to see what i look like from the outside in.