disastro

11:25 PM
I've spoiled my cats. They are the bitches of the neighborhood. They go outside, get in fights and wake up the neighbors with their shrieking. Then they pretend to be hungry and everybody feeds them. The teenage girl next door told me she thought Molly was starving by the way she was meowing.

Right.

I should never have started letting them out.
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12:22 PM
The national media's coverage of the bombings in New York, particularly the TV news, is driving me crazy...can't watch it anymore. The Larry King call-ins, message board rants, person-on-the-street interviews are beginning to wax of rabble-rousing.

I don't want everyone's take on this disaster anymore. I can get that at the bar, at work and in myriad other places. I want some facts, articulate discussion and less emotionalism from the media. They have an obligation to elevate themselves to a rational, thoughtful discourse that, by and large, they are not meeting. By reducing the discussion to fear-mongering and sentimentality, I view the media as complicit in creating an environment of paranoia that is the ultimate objective of terrorism. The mis-reporting of facts and prognostications is irresponsible, to say the least and ultimately dangerous for obvious reasons.

From Carolyn in NYC on her site dangerouschunky...

Hoping for a little more compassion and dignity out of people... a little less cheap sentimentality and vicious fanaticism.
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11:07 PM
I spent some time hanging out in an apartment near Wall Street back in 1994. It was a few blocks from the World Trade Center.

I briefly considered moving to New York. I remember getting up and going down to the street to get a paper and some orange juice and doing the crossword puzzle on the roof.

That part of Manhattan is/was a little different than the Village, or places further north. The streets near Wall Street teemed with people before work, during lunch and immediately after work. But around six p.m., it was a ghost town. Kind of nice...it was like watching the tide, except instead of water rising and falling, it was humanity. I didn't have a job at the time. I was just hanging out with someone after one of our tours ended.

Things kind of took a turn for the worst and I took a bus from Grand Central Station back to Minneapolis.

I keep thinking of that time, watching the news. Very strange...it's like something was just erased. I wish I had a good reason to visit there again, sometime soon.
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9:40 PM
In other amazing accomplishments, my friend Mo just launched her Web site that teaches kids how to cook. It's called KidChef. Check it out..."Whole Lotta Pizza!"

Warning...DO NOT listen to the theme song. It will stick in your head and drive you crazy..."whip it up, cook it up, heat it up/whoo!/you're all right/cool as a Kid Chef."
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8:12 PM

My friend Cynthia lives in Los Angeles. This summer, she decided to go visit her mom in Vermont. Her transportation of choice was her bicycle. She did it in about six weeks.

Cynthia is about 40 years old. She didn't train more than 25 miles a day in LA before hitting the road.

She doesn't even think it's a big deal.
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12:56 AM

I'm entering a local art show. September 22. I have to submit my work...we'll see.

I just want to enter the show so I can hang my work while other artists are there. We'll chat and subtly snub each other. I'll pretend like I'm an artist who's pretending to be a project manager who's really an artist. You know...just a day job.

Wine. Cheese. Laughter. All my pieces will cost between $300 and $4,500. I'll discuss my work in the context of broad, sociological themes. I'll act preoccupied, disturbed and unapproachable. People will love me. I'll quit my job and marry a professor at the local university. I'll write haiku about the dew, and short poems praising the poetic languor of my cats. Paint the fence. Feel good about the seasons.

That kind of thing.
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12:04 AM

A bunch of people in Minneapolis and Austin are asking me why I decided to stay in Austin.

It's a long story...some things have come up that are incenting me to stay in Austin for a few months. Also, some things came up that made me not want to go back to Minneapolis for a while...or maybe go somewhere else.

Not since Fargo have I lived in a city that I've found as personally disatisfying as Austin is for me. I've been told it's a fine town. It probably is. Personally, I prefer my suburbs to be attached to a city. But that's just purely a personal preference. They do have some fine multiplexes here. I particularly enjoy the one right next to that thing with all the stores. You know, the place with all the stores and restaurants? Can't remember the name of it...

The real story is I'm finishing a project here at work, saving a few more bucks and then hitting the road with no plan whatsoever except to repair career-inflicted psychological damage. I need to spend some time thinking, doing stuff that's really fun again. I've got a few ideas. I haven't really enjoyed myself in so long that it's starting to truly affect me in slow, subtly terrifying ways.

It takes some stamina to pretend like you give a fuck every day. It takes more than I ever thought.
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