26 December 2006; 10:56 AM

vieques II

i have seen three huge spiders in our bohio. i have also seen a cow and her calf grazing with their horse friend in the field beyond the swimming pool. some kind of egrets often come and land by the pool and have a drink.

last night we met the bead lady up in chez shack. oliver knew her name and she remembered him. she had just gotten back from peru. i looked at the smile lines around her eyes while she told us that the women there wear bowler hats and carry babies on their backs in satchels. she said that the kids there carry baby alpacas or baby goats on their backs in satchels too, instead of baby dolls. she told us this while she killed bee after bee. bees were hanging around her little jewelry store room, and while we stood there one stung her finger and she didn't even make a sound. she knew who made my necklace, which i got in brooklyn.

i stayed up until 4am absorbing the aloneness of night time. i saved oliver from spider bigger than a silver dollar while he slept. when i finally laid down to sleep i loved him so much i wanted to wake him up but instead i just petted his back gently. i slept until 2. when i woke up i tried to do yoga while looking at the ocean but i mostly just laid on my mat waking up.

24 December 2006; 07:47 AM

vieques

we got into vieques yesterday afternoon after about 12 hours of redeye travel. we took a tiny propeller driven plane from san juan into vieques. i passed out soon after we got our bohio and forced myself to sleep until 7am. i think i slept 12 hours!

there was a heavy tropical rain in the night, and i woke up to roosters crowing and a pack of semi wild dogs frolicking by the pool. there was a party down the hill in town last night, and i can still hear them partying now, almost 8am.

22 December 2006; 09:32 PM

message

i got tired of walking around manhattan after we left santacon around 3pm. i was hungry, and i had become a little overwhelmed by recent depression and stress. we were in chelsea which never seems to have anything good. i started crying with some kind of muddled sadness and frustration mixed with general built up unhappiness. we sat on the curb a moment and evaluated our options. it was kind of cold and i was wearing a santa dress and a santa hat with holes cut in and bunny ears poking through.

a serious but hip looking young asian man pulled up in some bland car, and asked if we were saving the parking spot that our feet were inadvertantly in. we said no. we moved up to sit on the sidewalk and he parked and got out of the car with his wife and dog. they began unloading packages. the dog licked us a lot and the man apologized for her a few times. oliver complimented the man on his parking spot. we asked them about a diner we were trying to find where oliver promised there were grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. the man gave us some advice that resembled the advice the people in the coffee shop gave us, and he also completely ignored the fact that i was dressed like a santa bunny and oliver was a full on santa with a fat belly and jester style santa hat. his wife ignored us completely. it sounds like i didn't like him but i was very comforted by the interaction and his steadiness.

we walked around the corner, continuing on our diner goose chase, and wandered into a bookstore we'd passed before. there was a large painting on the wall which seemed like a message straight to me.

after that day i had a couple more bad times with some crying and release of pent up stress and emotions that i haven't been talking about because i've been working too much and being all anxious about talking about anything. finally on tuesday and wednesday i was happy and felt more myself than i had in a few months. i really need to not bottle things up. it's hard, i have to make an appointment with myself to feel things and then maybe i can make an appointment with someone to talk about feelings, but i hate appointments so i'll probably just keep bursting forth randomly. which is fine. we are all different.

oliver asked me if the time it takes me to adjust to where i am is the same amount of time no matter how long i'm staying, or a time period relative to the length of the entire trip. i thought about that question a lot. i didn't really think about what the answer to it actually is, but instead i just thought about all the possibilities inherent in the question and would mix them around in my mind while i was falling asleep or between comments in conversation.

in the airport in new york oliver bought me a book about a call girl. i finished it by the time i went to sleep in san francisco. i love stories about hookers and drug users.

...

list of new york activities, all out of order:

- went to the met to lay happily near the temple of dendur, and oliver petted my hair
- went to great lakes and saw dp and drank only water and gingerale
- party at pete & urcella's
- got all these ideas about shit i want to do
- went to PS1 (AMAZING)
- santacon
- tried to go to little branch. too crowded, like a sauna, upright bass or whatever might have taken it a little beyond for me
- argued in the union square holiday market, actually became BORED during argument related anxiety attack, then had sudden bizarrely easy reconciliation and shopped like normal.
- drinks at the 80s B Bar
- gave pinky a footrub since she walked across mhtn for 12 hours in bedroom slippers
- admired juniper

...

i'm going to vieques island for a week tomorrow night. i know i should go there and stay off the computer but i want to build some stuff in second life, which is what i did last time i was on vacation and it was wonderfully soothing.

18 December 2006; 01:09 AM

lately

i have like 10 unpublished entries in movable type. i write them, then i don't post them. they are mostly about the ways i've felt bad lately, and part of why i feel bad is something about what others think of me, so i can't really post them lest it make everything worse.

15 December 2006; 10:10 PM

new york cares

i am sitting on the couch at pete & urcella's. feebee the cat is here next to me. yay!

12 December 2006; 12:15 AM

fat ladybug

i just found a friendly ladybug on my basil plant! i don't know where he came from or how he got in, but he must be PSYCHED, because that shit is covered in aphids. i watched him for a while and he was just walkin' by aphids right and left, probably because he is full. imagine his little fat ladybug groans "uggghh so full. too many aphids."

06 December 2006; 11:13 AM

sadness

today was really hard. i did not know james kim or the kim family personally but they are in my extended community and i had been following the search for james closely and with much emotional investment. i spent the day in a sad daze of heartache. my thoughts are with the kim family.

i was lucky to spend the evening with friends at a dinner party. it was good to be around friends, even though mine are often a bunch of callous bastards on the internet, they are my family and many of them have known me for over ten years, so there is comfort there. i also spoke to an old friend i hadn't talked to in a while, today, and that was also comforting.

i originally came here to write some reasons why i love oliver so much. it's true that my love for oliver has been very strong in the past few weeks since thanksgiving, but following the kim ordeal has made me more acutely aware of how important he is to me. but i will save my cheerful ruminations on his qualities for a less sad day.