grep

jellied ink or melting hard candy

2008-11-08T19:19:40Z

Somehow being sick has made me self-conscious in a way that makes me take everything I think completely seriously. I am too tired to make fun of myself, and that is usually what it takes to make me realize I'm being stupid. Oh well, I will sleep through it.

I rode the moped for five minutes and it broke down again. It's probably the clutch plate this time, it was already in pretty bad shape.

My dad keeps giving me small cardboard boxes to pack my stuff into before I leave. The largest has been maybe 12x6x8 inches, the smallest, 8x6x4 inches. I have four of them so far, still empty and scattered around the room.

annegram @ 2008-11-07T21:59:00

2008-11-08T03:29:30Z

Currently cheerful in a belligerent way, lying in the fetal position yelling "THAT'S GREAT" inbetween hacking up multicolored phlegm. Curse this awful virus! I woke up at 10am, then slept from 2-6pm and had an amazing, very realistic acid trip dream, so I think I'm set even if I don't ingest the real thing anytime soon. I watched my backpack ungulate, played with puppies and went to a bizarre Halloween carnival. I woke up thinking it was real and I had actually ridden my moped to downtown Conway and then fallen asleep, making me inclined to doubt the memory: but no, it was completely real! Wonderful; my sick dreams usually consist of bizarre tasks like doing inventory at abandoned general stores and counting every stitch in a sweater as I unravel it.

I got the moped back this morning and recieved the most informative criticism of my taking long trips on it--the gears are made of NYLON, of all things, so can easily become distorted if I run the small, compact engine for too long. I leave for Charleston tomorrow and will take lots of breaks..this will be my last long trip. I can't believe I'm moving to Durham in only eight days.

annegram @ 2008-11-03T22:10:00

2008-11-04T04:11:19Z

"Eeny, meeny, miny moe
Catch a fella by the toe
If he hollers let him go
Eeny, meeny, miny more
A Blackbird came down
from heaven and said
you are the one
who will be dead"

So tired! Chapel Hill was a lot of fun, I was fairly rolling around in new, awesome people, I wandered around with Stu, the concert and seeing Rebekah again was indescribably awesome, hitching to Fayetteville went well overall, AND I got the catsitting job so am moving to Durham on the 15th!! My moped is still dead but we're taking it to a shop tomorrow.

My mom is finally kicking out our old house's current tenant. He cooks and sells drugs there, treats the house like shit and his increasingly sporadic rent and bill payments force her to cover for him so that she is usually broke despite working a ridiculous amount. While I'm catsitting they're probably going to clear all of our stuff out, and I suggested that we have a farewell party there for both the house and the moldy but beloved inhabitants of our cat cemetery. It will be bizarre and amazing.

as for me, i'd rather be eating canned corn in the dark, eating canned corn in the dark

2008-10-31T06:05:16Z

I let a drunk auto mechanic friend of my dad's girlfriend try and change the belt on my bike because it was so chewed up we had no idea how to set it right and ohhh never let a drunk auto mechanic touch anything you might refer to with gendered pronouns. They will fuck things up in ways you can't even comprehend. Hopefully the reason why it won't start is something simple and relatively inexpensive, like the belt being put in improperly, or the battery, or the spark plug..

I'm still going to Chapel Hill, getting a ride there tomorrow. I'm really excited about this trip, it promises to be a lot of fun. I'm bringing my bike!

dreaming of a blue angel

2008-10-30T01:49:59Z

Back in Conway with my feet wrapped around a cup of coffee. Turns out that when I run my moped at top speed and with passengers on it, the drivebelt snaps from the strain and leaves me stranded on the outskirts of Georgetown. All is well, though. I am fond of learning things the hard way--I wouldn't have believed anyone who said that carrying passengers on long trips would fuck things up anyway--and I was able to get a ride for both me and my bike from my dad's awesome girlfriend. This brief period of riding with passengers was pretty fun. It is fun richocheting around, partially distracted from traffic and bumps by yelled conversation. And Paul's legs shaking uncontrollably while my toes become rigid and immovable. Oh well. Hopefully I'll be able to replace the belt tomorrow..changing the old one out seems like it will be a very simple process. I will also get the extra belt I should have been carrying all along, permanently move the Haynes manual into the bike, make sure I have all the tools I need in the underseat storage compartment, and get a spare headlight bulb. And I need to replace the screw that holds the headlight casing on. The electrical tape currently holding it on has to go sometime and I can't afford a twenty-five dollar replacement headlight. Anyway, YES: manual, tools, replacement screw, new belt, replacement belt, spare bulb. All pretty cheap, I think. The only tricky part is getting a ride to the store tomorrow.

If the belt was about to go when I left Charleston, though, it's lucky it snapped now instead of halfway between here and North Carolina.

I also want to make a small book for recording types of replacement parts, the scooter VIN number, the odometer readings at which I do gear and motor oil changes, dates when I go on trips plus the distance and how long it takes, and how much gas I end up using. And a chart showing how long it will take me to go however many miles if I'm traveling at 45mph the whole time.

I still want to go Chapel Hill for Halloween, and I do need to be in Durham on Sunday..There is no way around it, I must have my moped for this whole crazy trip.

OH and I need to change the gear oil tomorrow, which means I need to borrow a ratchet set from someone. I should drain the oil before opening up the gearbox, really.

annegram @ 2008-10-27T21:57:00

2008-10-28T02:35:53Z

However this happens, I have an absolutely INSANE amount of moped-riding coming up.

It's very likely I'll be catsitting in Durham from November 15th to January 2nd, but I need to get up there for an interview before anything is decided. This will happen either between now and Halloween or on November 2nd. The plan that makes the most sense..

Thursday, October 30th: leave for Greensboro or wherever.
Friday, October 31st: head to Chapel Hill, hang out with Rebekah
Saturday, November 1st: back to Greensboro or wherever
Sunday, November 2nd: Durham and the interview, then..?

I could just leave for Chapel Hill on the 31st but it's about a seven-hour moped ride and that is fucking exhausting and puts me into awful spirits. I mean the sort that have me prone and mumbling incoherently for hours--amusing but not enjoyable. Perhaps camping inbetween Conway and there.

I'm also trying to think of ways to cut back on the amount of moped-riding, as it will be fucking cold. I will at least ride from Conway to Greensboro and back again and from Greensboro to Durham and back again. The rest! Hitchhiking to and from Chapel Hill would be really easy, as would to and from Hickory (if I do it like someone with a brain this time). Hmm. I don't know. Aside from Chapel Hill on Halloween and Durham on the 2nd, everything else is quite flexible, so I will come up with something to sensibly link all this hopping from city to city.

annegram @ 2008-10-22T21:59:00

2008-10-23T02:04:04Z

My sister is getting drunk, which consists of her screaming and giving the dog chips and then screaming at the dog that she (the dog) is a bitch because she's running away from her, because she is having chips hurled at her by a drunk, screaming teenager..then fawning over her awful, possesive boyfriend once the dog runs off to her room to lie down. All this as I sit in my room confusing a glass of wine for two jars: one containing piercing-soaking water and the other, a dead possum floating in diluted rubbing alcohol.

annegram @ 2008-10-13T21:46:00

2008-10-14T02:13:27Z

Changing the headlight as often as a condom, minus the option of rinsing it and hanging it out to dry when it shows signs of ceasing to function! It's like constant stealth mode! The distinction between breaking the law and a breach of the law is slight but very important.

Today consisted of taking most of the panels off of the moped. I am amazing at that, at least. Er aside from all the "extra" screws. Is there a fuse box? If there is, where the fuck is the fuse box? There is no fuse box!! AHHH.

I keep dreaming about a bowler hat I could have easily stolen from the Goodwill here but didn't because it was a little too tight. I thought I had gotten crazy enough over Charlie Chaplin to prevent this ludicrous behavior but I was sadly mistaken.

Eviction plans consisting of a southern accent, a cat, a bottle of vodka, a cigarette with a really long ash and a robe unbuttoned just enough to reveal part of an old lady bra.

annegram @ 2008-10-13T12:25:00

2008-10-13T16:46:15Z

I'm buried in yarn and started sort of a long project with some light, slicy yarn that has already stripped the skin off the side of my left index finger.

I haven't ridden my moped for the past few days because the headlight is out. Some fucking kid smashed it with a baseball bat! No, it's either the bulb or the fuse. Somehow I ended up with a socket set without a socket wrench so I can't get into what I think is the fuse box. That is easily taken care of, though, they are such tiny things. If it's not that, though, I have yet to figure out how to get to the bulb.

I was supposed to work last night but the mother of one of the kids I'm watching took the night off from work, so I was not needed. As her mother is now in town, I won't be needed again until Sunday, so I've gotten only one night of paid work and although I am on call I may have to wait six days to work again. Oh well, the USB cord for my main camera broke but I finally ordered a replacement and I have eighty or ninety dollars worth of stuff waiting to be photographed and listed on ebay.

I can't say how I am in terms other than practical ones. Especially today, when I have no work so there is no initiative to get my scooter quickly straightened out..I could easily spend a lot of time doing nothing. There is some traction but otherwise I'm too tense to really think--my usual state, when I drink lots of coffee and don't ride my bike regularly.

old rocking chair is gonna get me

2008-10-10T17:00:44Z

Sort of trained with my dad's girlfriend and the kids I'll be watching last night. We left at midnight and her truck broke down on the side of the highway, between a gas station and a pumpkin patch. I always feel weird interacting with friends and parents at the same time, or people I'm less used to around people I'm quite used to. It's the same with being around the parents and the kids at the same time. I just want to bark at the kids and attempt to sing "Bed Bed Bed" at a pace where the lyrics are comprehensible but despite my appearance must show the parents that they are not leaving their kids with a psychopath. Business cards tucked into a copy of Fear and Loathing. Tonight I work alone for the first time. I think it will go well, I am pretty good with kids and never get angry. The kids are awesome, the 14-month-old is really sweet and the two-year-old is crazy, hyper and somewhat malicious. She kicked me in the crotch but it's okay. Goddamnit I'm supposed to hate babies, but I suppose it was really just fetuses all along.

I ran into some trouble while trying to figure out how to change the gear oil in my moped yesterday, but my dad's friend came by today and all is well. It's an easy procedure, I just freaked out because I'd never done it before and was worried I'd damaged something that couldn't be repaired. I should sell it before it gets too worn out as I really need something for touring, something faster and a windshield is VITAL if you're going on long trips at pretty high speeds, otherwise you are freezing and it kills your whole upper body. Also I must bring a gas can if I go on any more long trips on my current bike, I haven't worked out the mileage yet but with gas shortages and the added trouble of requiring premium fuel and trying to get it while taking rural routes to and from North Carolina, I came close to running out a couple of times on my last trip. Certainly I could push the moped to the next town but I'd rather it didn't get to that point.

Well, time to make a yarn run.

annegram @ 2008-10-05T01:06:00

2008-10-05T05:13:07Z

My mom taught me how to crochet while we were both drunk and tonight she taught me how to crochet in rounds while we were both drunk, although drunk on white wine instead of red--a higher level of skill requires a lower level of drunkenness. We also talked about how awful neighborhoods with homeowners associations are and I told her about a dozen times, in different ways, to quit her job and find a less awful one.

Tonight I saw my sister's doppelganger, walking down the road that serves as a shortcut from 501 to 90. She doesn't want to believe, but I KNOW. It was wearing her jacket and pajama pants, had the same build and hair length. What can it mean?

Yesterday was terrifying, it involved our asshole ex-military neighbor, pot, the police, and me getting chased by two obnoxious kids while I was on my bike. Luckily nothing came of any of it, but I hate this neighborhood more than ever.

This morning I took a really amazing self-defense class where I learned how to effectively kick and hit someone and how to break out of some holds and stop people from choking me.

a cat a cat a cat, all it wants is to be fat.
can you tell me, why is that?
why the meowing and the whining? this problem begs defining

can we stuff it full of bread?
can we pump it full of lead?
no! then it would be dead!
Will, have you lost your head?!

Later my dad's girlfriend gave me a job babysitting for strippers! Tomorrow I ride 200 miles for some birthday cake and a brief visit with the Blitches, dogs, grey-hairs and all.

annegram @ 2008-09-08T17:58:00

2008-09-08T23:11:49Z

Moved all my stuff to the sunroom today, despite immediately declaring it to be too moldy for clothes and book storage. I will drag it all to my mother's house tomorrow even if it requires grabbing my sister by the shirt collar and threateningly hovering the Millwall brick a foot above her face. Then I have two or three days to straighten it all out and pack for another round of hitchhiking. I was a little too thorough in packing everything up, so that not even my toothbrush, journal or the book I'm currently reading remain.

annegram @ 2008-09-03T21:34:00

2008-09-04T01:53:17Z

Last night I dreamed that some kids were attacked by a police car attached to a helicopter. We hid inside the one kid's one-story house as it bashed itself against the sliding glass back porch doors.

I'm not sure why I came back..I don't really want to be here; everything disagrees with me. Well there are Silver Jews in the near future and then clasping my hands and looking towards Indiana. I really want to volunteer/live at Deep Roots this fall and winter but have yet to manage to get in touch with anyone there. I don't want to get back into this life of eating too much dairy, thinking too much about what to wear each day and spending way too much time inside and online.

I think I may have a yard sale with my sister's Salvation Army stuff. It's more fun than just donating it. Today I went for a bike ride through a swamp, deep-fried some tofu, onions and potatoes and went to an awesome jazz concert. A very good day by Conway standards.

I have a scooter now and am horrified by the huge imbalance in the amount I've been using it versus my level of mechanical knowledge. Tonight I will read through the manual and the SC Driver's Manual section on mopeds/motorcycles again, then thoroughly go over the bike tomorrow morning before I leave for Charleston. I really don't like what having this scooter is doing to my head. Riding a bike used to be the best thing ever but all I could do today was compare it to riding a scooter. I don't want biking to slip into being just another hobby in which I can easily lose interest, but it seems unavoidable. Maybe it's just that my bike is too small and also falling apart. It's easy to get tired of your knees hurting and the derailleur making bizarre noises.

cat nose!

2008-08-02T03:25:38Z

One of my immediate family members was told they have a bicornuate or horned uterus, and I learned that another family member has one, too. Apparently it's hereditary, so more than likely, my uterus is horned as well. EEEH. It is a beautiful thing.

“At about two months of pregnancy, the uterus in a female fetus begins to form. It develops from two tubelike structures called the Mullerian ducts. As the baby grows, these tubes enlarge and their middle portions fuse together to form the uterus. The upper portions of these ducts go on to form the fallopian tubes. The fused tubes continue to grow; as the uterus enlarges, the area where the tubes touch each other dissolves, leaving one hollow muscular tube — the uterine cavity.

"It is a miracle how this chain of events happens. Yet things can go wrong. The ducts may not merge; the result is a double uterus. The ducts may merge incompletely, creating a heart-shaped (bicornuate) uterus. One of the ducts may fail to develop, forming a single-horned (unicornuate) uterus with only one fallopian tube. Or the ducts fuse, but the area where they joined does not dissolve, leaving a dividing wall inside the uterine cavity — a uterine septum.”

"If a fertilized egg implants in one of the horns, that pregnancy usually is not viable as the horns do have the normal uterine tissue to support a pregnancy, nor the space for a baby to grow. A bicornuate uterus can be associated with miscarriage, pre-term delivery, fetal growth retardation, and an abnormal fetal presentation (breech or transverse), and sometimes various birth defects of the baby."

annegram @ 2008-07-19T14:07:00

2008-07-19T18:59:34Z

Between when I visited Charleston and when I moved there, I found a stray cat hanging around a church near my dad's house. I hung out with and fed him every day until he disappeared about a week before my move. Yesterday, he was back. I like this cat. Hanging out with him makes me really calm and I notice interesting things while around him, especially really cool insects. There is also a feeling of impending doom. I met him while already in this mood and it seemed fitting that I should I befriend a stray cat during this time, but I stopped feeling that way in general. Now it is just around this cat. It's just the feeling of hanging out with a stray in bad shape, I guess. He is really skinny; if you put your thumb on one side of his ribcage and your forefinger on the other, there are only about two inches between them. Yes, that is fucking terrifying. He also has scabby bald patches. Ohhh poor beast. I wish I could take him in until he was a healthy weight. Maybe I could transport him to my mom's old house and let him live in the backyard--where he may be attacked by a snake! Or hide him here until I leave..but he yowls too much. Oh, cat, you cannot infect me but the plagues you could spread to all other animals.

Life is a cycle of coffee, internet, bike, coffee, internet, sleep. Luckily I will be out of here in a week and begin traveling soon thereafter.

john says, say no to debt

2008-07-04T04:27:18Z

At best, aside from occasional creepy rednecks dotting the shoulders Depot Road is as empty as a blind man's heart. It's a creepy old one-lane road with swamp on one side and more swamp with railroad tracks running through it on the other. It is nice in that it feels so isolated that the road, people and cars seem out of place. At worst it's like "Girl--now girl--you gonna fuck this deer while I get it with this shotgun. Alright now..go ahead. Now, don't be shy! There. Right. Just like that. Okay, now lean over. Little more. Little more. Great. Okay!" BLAM

But it's only 1.8 miles to bike or drive or whatever and then you've gone from highway 90 to the foot of the Waccamaw River Bridge without having to really get on 501.

Between dumpster diving and collecting half-smoked cigarettes: I will never smell clean again. It's kind of like that Cure song.

annegram @ 2008-07-01T14:16:00

2008-07-01T18:28:28Z

My floor is covered in ants. I step on twigs and get sand spurs lodged in my feet as I walk around the room.

I hate all humans but mostly I'm really bored. Look at this crazy thing!:

Oh, these drowsy summer days awash in coffee and child pornography!

Also: IT'S REAL!!! AHHH AHHH AHHHHHH

feline carrion bird

2008-06-30T01:18:43Z

My mouth always tastes like my teeth are rotting. Maybe that's not brushing my teeth after drinking coffee, though. Or tea made with re-used tea bags full of black tea that have been sitting on the windowsill for a day and so it tastes like fish.

Next month: working with my mom's boyfriend, month after that: traveling with John.

Conway is like renting a room. Every few days I become interested and look around for a while and then think "Wait, no, you're being STUPID" and am back to where I started.

I found a hardcover of The Fermata!! at a thrift store.

Hmm whiskey..it is the only thing that makes staring out at the rain as golf carts drive by kind of pleasant and I wish I had a gun to shoot out the streetlights, and that it wasn't supposed to rain tomorrow as well.

folks say he died taking Cobb's Curve at 60mph

2008-06-28T00:08:43Z

Good dreams, lately, friends coming to visit and bringing people for me to sleep with, plus being given $1800 by a relative in apology for singing me hymns as a child.

Reparations for unwilling exposure to Christianity! Five hundred dollars for every involuntary baptism! Five hundred for every Bible story slipped in among the storybooks!

Working on erotica all afternoon, which involved playing with a tape measure in order to try and decide on a character's penis length. Distracted by the ridiculousness of my writing methods, I'm now stuck on whether to include urethral sounding in the story. I guess I'll leave it alone for now.

Boredom boredom boredom. But money-making opportunities and adventure loom in the near future. Yes I sound like a fortune cookie.

annegram @ 2008-06-17T16:04:00

2008-06-17T20:45:58Z

Looks like I'll be getting a moped soon. My escape plans are coming together nicely.

Ohh, Casey, so wonderfully terrifying. That frantic head-thrashing as he tells me, wide-eyed and insane-looking, that no, that horrifying thing he told me earlier in the day was NOT a joke; actually, he was completely serious.

I can only conclude that my sister's and her boyfriend's and various other people's problem is a lack of imagination, plus maybe a little too much of the old cathode rays. Reality has destroyed their imagination instead of supplementing it, their happiness and overall satisfaction with life depending on something over which they have little or no control.

Reminds me, must reread this, and finally read Ecodefense.

annegram @ 2008-06-16T18:17:00

2008-06-16T22:26:20Z

I made my sister a CD for her birthday, because if I can't stop her brain-damaged racist born-again Christian drug dealer boyfriend from converting her, I can at least give her non-mainstream rap..including MC Hawking's "What We Need More of is Science," which I just listened to for the first time in months after burning the CD at the library. "Fundamentalist assholes. Screw the whole lot of them." Um. It's so good, though. Her boyfriend's going to hate me forever.

use my hydrometer to see how warm you are

2008-06-14T17:19:59Z

Befriending people consists of finding a way of interacting with them that you can use all of the time, deviate from briefly in the hopes of broadening your interactions with them and revert back to whenever it gets awkward or a new approach otherwise falls flat.

I enjoy being alone most of the time, waking up and listening to loud music for hours, but without people it is satisfying to interact with around it feels sort of hollow, and I feel kind of stupid for leaving that behind. Although I must conclude that the most responsible thing to do is to buy the moped and then stay here and work until I can pay my dad back or at least earn enough money that, wherever I move next, I won't be homeless until after my first or second paycheck. At the same time it's like a dog not taking the opportunity to escape when its owners leave the gate open. Aren't wet, cold woods in North Carolina better than an air-conditioned room in South Carolina. Air-conditioned nightmare!

Alright, library closes at two, AHHH.

are you a dog, or do you just look like one?

2008-06-14T05:33:02Z

I heard the song "Desperado" twice tonight. This is intolerable. Lately. Much raw garlic. Eventually I will just toss entire cloves into my mouth instead of slowly eating single cloves along with other food in order to relieve the burning. Seven minutes in oral agony! Drooling or at least squeaking excitedly over mopeds despite the vague negative associations I have with them. I obviously can't afford a car and I want to travel without bothering with people. Perfect. I need to scan drawings and send them to Barrett tomorrow, although recently they've mainly been creepy drawings of anthropomorphic animals. This will work out nicely as my main dumpster is close to the library, and I want to dumpster-dive tomorrow as well.

annegram @ 2008-06-07T17:57:00

2008-06-10T22:08:52Z

Now to find:

-transportation
-cheap place to stay

But first, visiting John.

Negative $98 after being overcharged by $40 at the zombie station, plus overdraft charges. Goddamnit.

I am thinking more and more of Greensboro as a good base of operations. If I can manage to find a cheap place to live, it would be ideal; food and money are easy to come by there.

EEEEHH

2008-05-15T18:51:23Z

I can't believe it. I am so goddamn lucky. She probably is as well. I assumed she was dead. But,

MOUSETEETH LIVES!

And yeah, Ishmael too!