dead ant

these fuckers are everywhere and i don't have enough energy to deal with them. them and flies. pests.

from the Life and times of TRISH STOWELL (the early twenties)

sometime on March of '03 while at network admin school in SD. Just before leaving for westpac.

MTV. The televised equivalent of those beauty/fashion magazines that tear at the self esteem of young women everywhere. Case in point: Sorority Life Marathon. I can't tear myself away. Why didn't I join a sorority like a normal person? I start to think people who don't do the "Greek Thing" might not make it in society. Do I do enough to foster personal growth? How are my relationships with peers?
I feel like a major underachiever. I have cellulite. I eat wrong. I have pimples. I am shit. Starting tomorrow I will launch the ultimate campaign: the campaign for myself.
1. sign up for SAT
2. take college pre-test for ship classes since I'll be on the boat for 4 months and can't do ll the things I wish I could, i.e. dance lessons, community service, etc. But it's a start.

Real sharpness comes without effort
No growth without assistance
No action without reaction
No desire without restraint
Now, give yourself up and find yourself again.

things that keep me form others

I live in a pink house with a big kitchen and lots of room to entertain. I set up a bar in my dining room. I wear dresses and skirts because everyone knows they make a girl look cute. I read and listen to NPR so that I'll have interesting topics for conversation. I know the difference between a gas and diesel engine. My favorite food has got to be barbeque and boy, is there a sadness in me if it's bad barbeque. I'd like to own a bar, but only because it wouldn't really feel like work and people will always need liqueur to keep their spirits up. Ladies don't normally care for me - I think it's my caustic nature.

10 Things I Thought I Knew For Sure

1 A cow lying down in the field or corral means rain
2 The weather always comes from the West
3 Goats make the best lawnmowers
4 I'd be married with kids by now
5 Boxed wine isn't that bad
6 My depression isn't real
7 Being at home makes me feel better
8 Extreme weather back to back (very hot followed by very cold or the inverse) means an earthquake
9 Honesty is always the best policy
10 People would love me no matter what

homecoming queen

I left the Navy with high hopes of a ticker tape parade upon my return and mounds of support from my family and friends. I didn't anticipate burning all of my bridges in less than a month and living in the HOJO on the wrong side of town.
I ask if I can come home for the 4th of July holiday, since I have nowhere to stay. "I guess" is the answer. How did I become a burden?
I now see how there can be homeless vets on the street corner with signs begging for money. I could be one of those vets. I can't find work and I'm homeless with no family support. I can't even get the VA to provide medical benefits because 1) I made too much money last year and 2) my paperwork hasn't been processed yet.
So I'm here in the HOJO on the wrong side of town feeling sorry for myself, wanting to run but not knowing where to go. I don't have my passport otherwise I'd be gone - somewhere in South America perhaps. As it is, I've settled for lots of dramamin as it's the only thing that keeps me from whole nights and days of tears. So what if I take too much.

Corporal Punishment in Modern Youth (or at Least Restaurants)

I'm always horrified that people bring their children into public - especially restaurants. If they do choose to bring their bundles of joy, they should be required to also bring a choke chain or lots of rope and a gag ball. At a minimum, a tarp is an order. More than this, I'm amazed that parents are oblivious to the headache they are causing the wait staff and other diners.
Recently, I decided to treat myself to a nice lunch and a glass of chardonnay after a rough morning of job searching and errand running. What I got instead was not a rarity, but quite the specimen: two kids of indeterminable sex running wild in the would be solace of the outdoor dining area. They were all over the place. Climbing on unoccupied seats, screaming at the top of their lungs, refusing to sit down and eat. And who can blame them? The two woman who I assumed were their guardians simply let them loose and yelled across the patio now and then for them to not run out into the street.
I know I'm evil and will probably go to hell for this, but at one point, after one of the two monsters bumped my table, thereby spilling some of my wine, I gave it the look. We continued our staring contest as she sheepishly slithered over to her guardian. I imagine there was a complaint lodged against the "mean lady over there" because the guardian suddenly yelled her apologies to me. I gave her a look that I hoped would communicate my unwillingness to forgive and forget. I hope my look said "wrangle your heathens in, asshole."
Sometime after my soup course, the guardians discovered that their precious midgets had used their crayons to color on surfaces not normally approved for such artistic expression.
"Oh, no. Did you use your crayon on the cement? We don't use crayons on the cement. Chalk is different, it can be washed off, but not crayon." The degree of upset was not to my liking. Here these curtain crawlers had ruined what might have been an enjoyable lunch, but now they were tagging? Inappropriate. They needed a hand slap or at least a good tongue wagging. The guardian made it seem as if this sort of behavior was tolerable.
"We have to clean it. It's our responsibility." The guardian disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared with three paper towels.
"These two are only wet with water. This one is wet and has soap and I'll use it to try and clean the crayon off the cement." A few seconds later: "It doesn't look like this is working, does it? I'll have to tell the manager what we've done and run to the store for some WD40. That removes crayon."
I sat back and waited for the entourage to leave so that I could enjoy my last few sips of wine.
The waiter, manager and a dude of unknown occupation came outside to assess the situation. Apparently, the dude of unknown occupation had 600 hours of experience removing graffiti. I wanted to ask him what he did to get himself that training and wondered if the two departed monsters didn't deserve the same punishment.

waning moon in carmel.

With the full moon waning, so is my lust for life. I smoked the last of the pot that was given to me as a going away present and find myself jonesing for a fix.
Carmel is serene. My brother keeps telling me to walk around town so that I can find myself a "poncho." By that he means a man. I'm no expert on Carmel, but from what I can tell, the men here are not my type. Not that I have a type, per se, but the majority of them seem to be older. Like gray hair old. Plus they have their gray haired ladies in tow, so that usually ruins a good flirt.
Nevertheless, I paid $70 for a pedicure that I ruined less than 10 minutes after I paid for it. I was sauntering up to a bar when it happened and immediately ordered a chardonnay to take the edge off the disappointment. I tried to think of a stiffer drink but I tend to get intimidated by bars as it is. I never know what to order. So I stood by the chardonnay and settled in to listen to a conversation between the woman and man to my right.
The woman was going on about a friend of hers whose daughter recently had a nervous breakdown. She was telling the man about all amounts of lithium and anxiety medication the Dr.s gave her to fight the manic depression. According to the woman, all the girl needed was a good massage. The man agreed.
"It's relaxing and invigorating and removes all sorts of toxins. I recommend them to anybody," she explained to the man.
Again, he agreed. She continued her recount of the breakdown with an example of the girl's manic behavior.
"She wakes up at five in the morning and then, of course, the whole house has to get up because she's banging around in the kitchen making coffee. I mean everybody - even the baby. Then, she goes for a run and comes back so exhausted that she needs a nap," as if this is manic. Sounded to me that her poor internal clock was in need of setting.
The man asked how old she was.
"Oh, twenty four, twenty six. Her parents just put up with it too. Ask me, she'd be just fine without them. Her mother, she's the one. Told me one day, in tears about her parents. How they bought her everything she ever wanted but never loved her."
At this, both the man and the woman looked at each other as if to agree that the woman should just shut up about it.
The man said, "Humph. Plenty of kids have parents who don't love them and don't buy them anything. I mean my father, he was a cool one. I remember bringing beers to my dad on the couch because that's the only intimacy I had with him. Damn shame, too, but you don't hear me crying about it. You'd think all that money would buy her something else to obsess about."
"Oh, you know, some people shouldn't even have kids."
At that point my knife slipped out of my hand and made a huge clattering on my plate. The whole restaurant looked over and the man and woman stopped their conversation to stare. I shrugged my shoulders as if to say that I was sorry for being such a klutz and tried to look as sweet as possible so that no one would curse my name.
"Hey, try to keep it down over there," the man said to me jokingly.
I laughed as if it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard, again, to make me seem fun loving and not at all embarassable.
I paid my bill and as I was exiting the man repeated his joke and wished me a good day. I laughed, thanked him and returned the pleasantries. As I walked out the door the heat of the day hit me like a wall.

prelude to Carmel

Here I sit at a corner cafe in San Jose. To my right at oh, 2 o'clock is a Chevron station; at 8 is a vast expanse of parking lot. Cars rush down the street just past both landmarks. Everyone here is either in a hurry to get somewhere or moving extraordinarily slow: oblivious to those who might be trapped behind them. Everyone here drives foolish cars, those type that are so unnecessary for the climate, altitude and terrain. All the men have goatees and beer bellies and look as though they might be harboring tobacco in their cheeks.
I find it hard to get out here. Where to go? Everywhere is sidewalk and strip malls intersected by roads with fast moving cars.
I pretend I'm abroad on vacation. I listen to the siren wail and interpret it to sound like a European wail. Instead of the irritating RAIL RAIL RAIL, it's EEEAAW EEEAAW EEEAAW! and somehow that's better. I look past the concrete buildings to the foothills and imagine them sudded with vineyards and villas instead of multimillion dollar mansions.
My brother knows people who take crystal methamphetamine. I mean they smoke it. I wonder how they live with themselves knowing they smoke crystal meth. How they can sleep soundly or look at themselves in the mirror: "Everything's OK," they tell themselves and they believe it.
I took my father and brother out to lunch on father's day. I sat next to dad and noticed he kept his distance. Couldn't hardly look at me. Suddenly I worried that I smelled bad.
I want to go to the mountains and do a lot of drugs. Like the Indians do at religious ceremonies. I'm of the impression that drugs are the only true religion. Everything is exposed to you without ego. The futility of logos, the silliness of society and politics - what's really important. It gets your mind straight, you know. It's like you're really living your life then.

For the past week I've steered clear of meat and dairy in an effort to lose some weight. watermelon, salads and grainy bread with no dairy or flour involved have been my main sources of energy. I figure if this sort of diet can work for Africans and peasants in China, it can work for me.
The catalyst to this "better for me" diet was a book entitled, "Skinny Bitch" in which two woman berate you into becoming vegan primarily by pointing out that meat is rotting animal carcass and dairy is what fattens baby cows from one hundred to 500 lbs in their first year. It all makes perfect sense. I admit that I haven't even had a craving for meat but that I have been a little disappointed in the weight loss. 5lbs lost in the first week. I suppose this is good, but I feel strange eating the equivalent of 700 calories per day. Surely this can't be good for me. What if my period stops?

to be continued

He knew he shouldn't park there, but he did anyway. While in the small house gathering essentials for his trip (leather traveling bag: brown; t-shirts, 2 each: white, black gray; amphetamines; scope mouthwash; pictures of XX in various sexual poses - her mouth set in a pout, her eyes half lowered in seduction) he took time to pull aside the ragged curtains to see a meter maid, squeezed like a sausage into her all black uniform, stop her golf cart next to his half size white pick up parked in the fire zone. snapping her gum while she waddled around the truck, he could tell she was having a hard time breathing from the exertion. it was dark out - on a dark street - the kind of neighborhood where you don't keep the lights on inside so passersby can't see in. Two or three blocks away was a busy intersection and he imagined approaching the fat pig while back lit by this light. She wouldn't be able to see his face and he could easily drag her into the small house and kill her. She would scream and struggle, but would become complacent after a few punches to the face and his hands around her neck. Fat pigs like this never know how to use their guns - otherwise they'd be out catchin' the bad guys, right? He needed a gun, too.
She had snot and saliva all over her face from crying and struggling and her hair was mussed and even missing in places. He ordered her to undress so that he could take photos of her in the fashion of XX's pictures. He wanted her to look at him with those half closed bedroom eyes. But the pig was too fat and looked nothing like XX so he decided to cut off her stomach. That make it better, but her arm fat still rolled over her elbows and her butt resembled an orange rind. after a few hours of sculpture work he gave up. the pig was a lost cause.
A ticket was on his windshield when he threw his brown leather travel back into the passenger seat. he grabbed it and put it and the fat pig's gun in the glove box, and flipped a bitch toward the busy intersection two or three blocks away.

in case you ever wonder

i tend to avoid situations where i might seem needy. you might have mistaken this for independence or snobbery. it had everything to do with you and my intense wish to make it work this time. whatever it may be. because honestly, i'm not sure i believe in love. i'm not sure it's possible for two people or anybody for that matter to connect on anything but a superficial level. and that's all my fault. oh well. you'll find someone else: someone more suited to your lifestyle. i'm too tired to have fun, too insecure to splash around in the ocean or host parties on weekends.
i'm just too tired.

biting metal

I can only say that it's like the way it feels when you forgot to take off all the wrapper on your gum (back in the day) and accidentally bit into a piece of the metal. that feeling of surprise when all you can focus on is the pain and how to stop it. that bright flash of blue light that comes from out of nowhere.
this is the way i feel when i see things that remind me of ex boyfriends or things that should. this is the way i feel when i walk past the princess pub or drive up the 101 or the 5 to my parent's house. when i go into nob hill grocery store at home, or the cedar house, or taunya's i always have this feeling. when my phone rings or my email chimes or i open my mailbox: hoping.

grand mal

this afternoon I witnessed my neighbor having a seizure. this has to have been the most terrifying experience i've ever endured. in the back of my mind i was searching for some way to help him while he writhed on the steps - body on the landing, head on the way down. you can't hold a person having a seizure; they have 'retard strength.' i called 911 and hope to never need their assistance in the future. it seemed forever before they got here. so the guy was there, just writhing on the steps. i couldn't just watch him. i wasn't sure if he could hear me, but i told him help was on the way. i recall that it was so quiet. he wasn't screaming in pain. he wasn't making any sound at all which made me think that it must be very painful. he was spitting everywhere. this is how i imagine it's like to be possessed. i ran to my apartment and got him a glass of water.
finally his episode was over and he just got really quiet. his breathing got really deep and finally he just popped his head up and lay his head on my lap. he looked up at me, confused, said hello, then lay his head back down. I tried to reassure him, let him know it was alright, that he was fine. I don't think he heard me.
the lady at 911 said he would be confused, probably act like he was fine, and he did. he walked away in fact and the paramedics made him sit down. the crowd wandered off and i did too. i picked up the cup of water still sitting where we left it. the 911 lady told me not to give it to him.
i can't seem to pour it out...

cover me

I bought my goddaughter this outfit when she was less than six months old. I've never been good with measurements so the fact that it the top was for a toddler and the bottom was for a one year old made no difference to me. It looked right.

What I love most about this outfit is that it resembles wallpaper or upholstery. I have a deep affinity for these types of prints which are, much to my despair, only reserved for the aforementioned. I want my wardrobe to have bold fleur de lis, rough fabric lined with satin. I don't understand why the average consumer would rather buy a solid colored sedan over one with a wild print.

another of life's mysteries.

you can't start a fire without a spark.

Wear Sunscreen