Ughhhhh

The Dexalone Cowboy
[My Solo Project]
www.decaying-industries.com/dex/
myspace.com/thedexalonecowboy

New EP: “Marked + Empty”
Available from Coffee-Hut Records

Coming Soon: “Digitalis” CD
[Add the MySpace page for updates and live show postings]

The mister and I recently toured a lovely two-bedroom up in a duplex within 3 hours of looking for apartments on craigslist. Since we agreed we couldn’t just take the first place we saw, we deliberated and looked at one other apartment, which sucked, then got back to the landlord at the first place with our rental application, which was promptly approved. We’re moving on December 1st. This place is just off of Warren and south of Madison, for those who know Lakewood. Here’s some pictures of the insides from the ad:



Besides being a really nice place in a good neighborhood, the landlord is a personable guy who lives downstairs. He seems pretty laid back, but I guess I won’t really know until I move.
I won’t need help moving, since I don’t actually own things like “a bed” or “furniture.” My boyfriend needs help, but I doubt you want to go to Fort Wayne to carry a hide-a-bed down a flight of stairs. I know I don’t.

Cut a New Seam
www.cutanewseam.com
myspace.com/cutanewseam

I’m gonna write about music that I wanna write about.
Updated every Tuesday.
Add the MySpace page for bulletins/blog posts when there’s an update.

Like so many of my peers, I have long since wearied of the speciesist thrall the world of art has been held in for the last few thousand years. Sure, every once in a while some Jane Goodall want-to-be gives a gorilla some fingerpaints or shoves a brush in an elephant’s face, but where is the craft and sophistication that seperates fine art from some twaddle the zoo is auctioning off to build a new wallaby enclosure?

I could have easily left the world in this sad state and continued to stew in my own juices, but I am nothing if not a woman of action, and I took the action of teaching one Gira “The Juice” Wedgie, common housecat, the finer points of draftsmanship. It was by no means easy going, as “The Juice” is commonly known to be inattentive and, to veer into the colloquial, “a complete fucking dipshit” at the best of times. I have chosen to let the results speak for themselves.

Jeffrey Curtis, by Gira “The Juice” Wedgie

Mabel, by Gira “The Juice” Wedgie

Joseph Frankland, by Gira “The Juice” Wedgie

Human and Cat, by Gira “The Juice” Wedgie.

So, this last weekend I finally got a tattoo I’ve been wanting for over a year. Here he is:


Sorry for the utterly shitty picture quality, but the tattoo has been coated with A&D until this evening. I’d have to say that right forearm tattoos hurt more than right shoulder, but it was worth it. It came out really nicely thanks to Eric of Voodoo Monkey, and the experience was made more comfortable by talking about Futurama with Mr. Boyfriend Man and Mr. Tattoo Guy. It’s nice to get a tattoo and think “oh, wow, that’s great” rather than “what the fuck have I done?” Not that I feel that way about my other tattoo, but it’s good to feel confident after the deed is done.


Due to the convenient travel and actually getting paid aspects of Wm.’s job, he was in town again this weekend. And you know what that means — errand running time! This resulted in me picking up some Nicorette and, without planning it in advance at all, quitting smoking the same day. It’s hard to explain, but I’m really just bored with smoking. I quit for almost six months last year, and I’m tired of it again. I’ve also been smoking from stress recently, which put me up to nearly half a pack a day instead of my usual pack a week. However, cold turkey results in severe surliness, weight gain, and constipation, so I’m trying the gum this time. So far I like it, since it seems stronger than real cigarettes and kind of gives me a buzz. I’m getting all that achy-lung coughing-up-weird-things part, but not as bad as the last time I quit. I’m doing okay moodwise too, and able to keep up with my 12 hour workdays (which may be a thing of the past, but I’m not going to jinx myself here.)


I also got a 6ga taper in the mail and tapered out one of my ear piercings. This probably ranges from boring to incomprehensible to pretty much anyone reading this, since I don’t know a lot of people who are “into piercing,” but I felt like mentioning how I’m healing some tapered holes right now on top of this whole tattoo thing.


Oh, and my math class is still ridiculously easy so far. I got 95% on my first test, and only got one wrong by putting the wrong numbers in the calculator. I really hope we get to algebra before I get too bored to put forth any effort.


I guess the recurring bad news is that I’ve had a learner’s permit since January and have still only practice driven three or four times. Now Jeff’s car is broken and they’ve completely torn out Athens Street by my house, which means I have no idea when I’ll practice again. Blah.

In a recent dream my subconcious devised a plan elegant in its simplicity, but not so elegant in its making absolutely no sense. First, I created a 12 x 18 painting of Batman with giant glowing cat eyes and put it in one of those frilly gold frames. Actually, I’m not sure if that happened in the dream, but I somehow had a painting of Batman that I had made. Then, I broke into a computer store in Tacoma (in a real strip mall, but in a location that is actually a Fashion Bug). My lock-picking tool was a strand pulled from a ball of steel wool and maybe some kind of glue (though in the real world glue is used to seal padlocks shut). I entered the store and stuck my painting in a display case near the front register, along with a card stating that prints were available in a series of 3, 6, 9, 15, 18, 21, 24, and 27.

Then later in the same night, I had another dream where I realized that leaving something that I had signed my name on in red paint somewhere I had broken into probably wasn’t a good idea. My plan was to break back in and take the painting before anyone noticed, but at this point in the dream I couldn’t remember the burglarizing skills I had earlier. I was standing outside the store near a picnic table and saw a tweezers, some steel wool, and spackle sitting on the table, which I realized were my lockpicking tools. I tried to covertly grab them, but then some random annoying woman came by and tried to make small talk with me.

I then realized that I could check in the store and see if the painting was still in the display case, since they were open. I figured if it was in the display case, they couldn’t be too mad about me breaking in to leave a painting there. So, I looked in the store, and they were doing brisk business in computer goods with my painting still sitting in the display case. I think at this point in the dream I stopped caring and it ended. Though later, while half-awake, I realized I should have just bought the painting to get it out of the store, since I only wanted $40 for it anyway.

I’ll start with the part of this whole story I end up having to explain to people the most first. I dropped out of both high school and college when I was 17. You see, I was in some kind of “smart kids’ program” where you went to college instead of high school for dual credit. However, a class lasting a quarter in college counted for an entire year in high school. I took advantage of this to graduate in March rather than June. My birthday is in May and I left home the day I turned 18 for various reasons. If I go into discussing these reasons, it’s a whole new messy tangent in this story that really has nothing to do with anything, so just take it as it is. I stopped going to my one remaining class in the spring quarter sometime in April. Therefore, I dropped out of college at 17. I dropped out of high school at 17. But I still graduated. Now you know.

Earlier this year I decided to go back to college. In essence, I felt like I wasn’t really doing too much with this whole “life” thing and that I needed to get out of the house more in ways that aren’t elaborate excuses for getting shitfaced. Plus, I have vague ambitions to get a radio show on WCSB and subject everyone to my superior taste in music, but I’m trying not to put the cart before the horse on that one. Conveniently, having turned 24 this year, I can now clean up on the whole financial aid tip.

Thus, I applied to Cleveland State University. I considered going to Tri-C, but I would actually have less than a year of classes I could take there, plus there’s no radio station shenanigans. I got accepted. I applied for financial aid. I went to new student orientation. I sat around. I got kind of nervous. I eventually got on the Rapid and went downtown last Tuesday and found my class. I stopped being nervous.

I seem to have lucked out and got a professor who is both competent and has a sense of humor. If things go well, I might actually try to get her for the next math course I have to take. I’m already getting over my tendency to get shit-scared as soon as I see “x” in an equation and figuring out things on my own from chapters we haven’t even covered yet, which I would say is a good sign. A lot of my friends would say I shouldn’t be surprised by the ease of Math 087, but I’ve never been real strong with math. Well, not so much math as algebra. But I’ve probably gained some abstract thinking skills over the 10 years since Algebra I and II. At least I’d like to think so.

I was even excited to do my first homework assignment. I think I might end up getting a big hard-on for math. There’s probably some sort of joke here about penises and the whole “girls can’t do math” thing, but I’ll let you make that one up for yourself.

I’ve actually ran into a couple of friends who I don’t see enough of on my two trips downtown too, which was pleasant.

So that’s me and school. I just have the one class, Tuesdays and Thursdays at CSU. Now you can stalk me. Or you can hang out at the bus stop with me after class and help me chainsmoke and curse, just like in high school.

Tacoma has a way of rendering color snapshots taken with cheap digital cameras into nearly true black and white. This is the green-grayish tower on the new Narrows bridge, which opened this last weekend during my visit home for my brother’s wedding. The new bridge (which is *cough* the third span, with the most famous one now located underwater) hasn’t been given a name other than “2007 bridge,” a fact I frankly find retarded.

Here’s the 2007 span and the 1950 span and about 40,000 geegawing Tacomans. My dad and I walked across the bridge and back through this crowd, and ended up walking all the way back to Tacoma Community College (my alma mater) rather than waiting in a ridiculous line for the free shuttle.

So, yes, I haven’t posted anything to the blog in a while. I went to Chicago on the 11th to see Os Mutantes, a Brazillian psychedelic band Jeff and I are currently into, on a very rare US tour. I remember hearing that this was their second US tour in their 40-year history. I’m not sure if it was worth driving to Chicago and back, but it was interesting in any case. In short, the songs I recognized from their first two albums were fun. Everything else, mainly consisting in songs in English from their lesser 1970 album, was passable. I also didn’t enjoy $6 Sam Adams and getting bashed into by a Brazillian fratboy, but such is life. We stayed in Jeff’s friend’s enviously nice apartment and explored a little bit of Chicago before the show. I still didn’t find much evidence for it being anything but a really big, or, rather, really inhabited Cleveland. Aside from this trip, I’m only familiar with it from being obsessed with the Blues Brothers movie in high school and getting stuck in the Greyhound station once for six hours, so there’s probably some kind of magic and mystery there that I’m missing. For now, it’s “New Yorky Cleveland Town.”

So I returned to Cleveland the evening of the 12th, then in about 24 hours had to ship off to the Cleveland airport to go to Washington. I was hoping flying on Friday the 13th would leave me with a half-empty flight, but people just aren’t as superstitious as I want them to be. I was wedged into the window seat with two other people between me and the aisle. I never try to make small talk with people on planes. I’ve flown a lot in the past, and it just seems like people on planes never have anything in common with me, or anything interesting to say. I suppose my “I have no job and I hate my family and I don’t watch TV and I listen to music you don’t know exists” status probably makes me a small talk challenge to the average Joe/Joan. Oh well, fuck it.

I showed up at Seatac at 11.30 PDT, about an hour late but otherwise without complication. I think I’m going to try to get the Continental nonstop flight whenever I go back again, because it’s so much nicer than dicking around at Midway or Detroit or Phoenix or Dallas wherever the shit they feel like sending me. My dad was there to pick me up and launch into one of his infamous “long tangential tirades that are sort of interesting for the first fifteen minutes, then get annoying.” I notice that my dad swears a lot more than he did when I was a minor, but I like it. We stop at Jack in the Box for some late night fries and a blackberry shake. I go home and say hi to my mom and everyone goes to bed. Well, they go to bed, and I try to figure out what the fuck is up with my parents’ computer, try to sleep, eventually take Tylenol PM, then sleep fitfully.

The next day featured Taco Time and my brother getting married. I introduce myself as “Matt’s little sister” to everyone, which is weirdly funny since I’m almost as tall as he is, but accurate since he is 13 years older than me. I honestly like his new wife. She gives off this “sincerity” vibe that I dig. She also has a twin sister who reminds me of Helen, this sort of “vixen” actress from ’50s/’60s Bollywood movies. They’re from Panama and her mom speaks no English, which is kind of awkward. They also do the “air kiss” thing a lot. Even though that’s kind of awkward too, it makes me feel like there’s at least one classy part of my family. The ceremony is short but sweet and takes place in this botanical garden I didn’t even know existed in Tacoma. Then we all go eat Mexican food.

Then the day after that was the bridge trip, and a visit to my favorite sushi place for some avocado nigiri and sake. I wander around in the woods by Tacoma Community College, chainsmoke, and listen to Rudimentary Peni’s “Death Church” on headphones. I don’t see another person from when I leave my parents house until I’m in the sushi restaurant. I try to take pictures of a flock of crows. It all feels too much like the weird time I had between me moving back home after basically running away and leaving again. This period was mainly marked by me becoming nocturnal and avoiding all human contact for weeks at a time. I hate it at the same time that I want to do nothing but wallow in it. I’m glad I’m only staying for three days.

The Monday I left was uneventful to the point that I can’t really remember it. And then I was gone and relieved. I’m beginning to hate Tacoma again for entirely different reasons than I did as a kid. Tacoma, the place so nice you’ll hate it twice? There also seems to be a limit of two or three days before I start to become insanely frustrated by my family. I’m very civil towards them and we don’t get in fights anymore, but I just can’t take very much of them.

Oh, and I finally got a picture of my dad’s awesome Alaskan totem pole bowling trophy.

Also, the 1964 Chevy Corvair Monza Spyder (the car that made Ralph Nader famous) I last remember being in working order sometime in 1986 has finally been restored!

I wanted to go for a ride in it, but forgot all about it until I was on the way to the airport. Actually, I wanted to drive it, but inasmuch as I sort of only know how to drive an automatic, I don’t feel like taking my first stick-driving lesson in this thing. According to my dad, it drives like a beast. No power steering (he said it’s something like five and a half turns lock to lock), the finest in transmission engineering the American car industry had to offer (he couldn’t even get it into gear taking it out of the shop), and a modified carburetor that allows it to run on unleaded gas at the price of having the engine constantly a hair’s breadth from backfiring. Oh, and in case you didn’t know, this thing has a turbocharged, air-cooled aluminum engine located where the trunk would be on a normal car. I once overheard my dad saying that he’d rather part with my mom than the Corvair, and I can’t say I blame him. It seems obvious now that my dad’s unswerving devotion to a completely bizzare, frequently maligned car that didn’t even run for 20 years left a big chrome streak down the middle of my psyche, but, eh, what are you gonna do?

These are the custom postcards I made for a select few while I was in WA. Much better than the salmon-apple-Space Needle crap!



Carter’s DNA




Economic Negativity




The words of God are made flesh. . .




Good to Go




I Feel Good




Ridiculous




So now what?




Wacky Play




Who Moved My Cheese?




‘Xanadu’: