what would you think if you got a letter from your parents, and its contents consisted chiefly of this photograph? yes--dead woodpecker, no explaination.

there is a new addition to our lab these days--a little tank of carbon monoxide sitting quietly in one of the fume hoods. it has mr. skull painted on it. i knew him well, mr. skull--i believe he was the last guy who thought it smelled good, that carbon monoxide. but see, that's the whole point about that particular perfume--it don't smell like nothing. like nothing at all. you know you've been smelling it when people start calling you mr. skull. and that's the only way.

i'm forcing myself to be in here with it. ah, what a good exercise. already this morning my fingers hurt, my eyes are watering, my hair is falling out, my teeth are loose, and my feet are swollen. and i feel woozy. but i guess i always kind of feel woozy . . .

To: mia
From: josh
17 aug 2004

last night i stayed up till forever doing absolutely nothing on the internet. i started going back through pictures to see if there were any i had wanted to post. i remembered this one:

{picture was here}

now, i really like that picture, and i wanted to put a picture of you on osmium. but i didn't, because i know you well, and i knew you'd hate it. (actually, i did put it on for like ten minutes, but then i took it off again.) now, in order to prevent my doing it again, you must provide me with five reasons i should not. good luck.

To: josh
From: mia
19 aug 2004

the advertisement thing is gone from the top of the page, and now there is a button that says "next blog". it randomly takes you to some other blogspot person's thing.

i pushed it three times and came to a valuable conclusion. blogs suck. they do.

tonight i was walking down the sidewalk, and one of those red laser spots appeared just in front of me on the ground. it was pale and red and shaky, like the view-finders you've seen on rifles in about five dozen crappy action movies. i kept walking, and i wondered if i was the person they were aiming at.

yes, i know it was one of those stupid laser pointer things, but walking past a bunch of dark windows in a six-storey apartment building, your imagination has a great time.

how much do you like to fit in? for instance, must you be the iconoclast, do you prefer the homogeneity of the average sig-ep chapter, do you like to be surrounded by your own kind? and to what extent and in what way--alike in thought, past experience, physical appearance, financial means?

being around people just like you can be a real bore, you know. but if you're perpetually the outsider then you might lead your life entirely in your own little personal space. there is a balance.

i find much symbolism in an audience. i went to see a.c. newman at the bowery ballroom on thursday. (or was it friday?) there i found something it is nice to find on occasion: an audience one has no funny feelings about being part of. might i have a hang-up where this is concerned? i went to see death cab for cutie and found everyone there to be 18. i went to see the mavericks, and everyone there was 40 and having an affair. for god's sake, i went to see repo man and everyone there was geriatric. at the a.c. newman show i saw myself. yes, myselfs and overweight myselfs and female myselfs and even overweight female myselfs. we could have broken up into discussion groups and talked about our freshman english classes, or something else universal to young college-educated people, and no one would have been confused. sometimes this is a nifty feeling. repeating it too often might cripple you, however--you'd forget that most people didn't have a freshman english class.

lately i have thought a lot about the bus people, meaning the people i see every day on the bus and recognize by sight, but whom i know nothing at all about. if you spend time creating lives for them in your head, you find that they have the potential to be a very interesting group.

there is one guy who is short and sort of round with a mustache. he's very chatty and also very nice and kind, and he is the archetypal new yorker, at least as i see it. his defining quality is that he knows everything about everything, and will explain it to you in a non-sententious, non-snotty way. one morning, back before i even took the bus every day, two buses arrived simultaneously as he was chatting me up. "great, two buses," i said. then he explained to me how bad it was when two buses arrived at once, because it meant they were not on their schedule. such an occurance greatly disturbed him, i suspected.

on some other day, he told me about how sometimes the bus driver misses the bridge to manhattan on the triboro bridge, and you have to be ready--yes, you have to be ready--to explain to them how to drive through the south bronx and get the 3rd avenue bridge and get the bus safely back on its route.

long long long story to brief point: this morning i was reading (albert camus) on the bus, and i looked up and had no fucking clue where we were. complete alien landscape. um, did i get on something i shouldn't have?, because as far as i remember it, i have only one choice at my stop. after that i watched silent panic travel around the bus as one person after another did the same thing--look up from book, double take, quickly look out every window, scan faces of fellow passengers for signs of trouble. so then we got on the 3rd avenue bridge and arrived safely back on the route. someone must have been ready and told the driver what to do. or maybe she knew already.

tommy and jennifer are visiting. jen does a great impersonation of a new yorker. i would never know. . .

right now might be the nicest weather i have ever felt. it is slightly below 70 and breezy, which i realize would qualify as everyday weather in an earthly paradise like san francisco, but i can only describe my recent feelings about the weather in the following manner: "every wavelike manifestation of heat pouring from the sun and reflecting off of tarry, black concrete and entering your skull." so 70 and breezy tastes good. real good.

tonight i listened to china girl with tim the barman. tim did air guitar for a second. nothing makes someone human like watching them do that. women despise air guitar, so men find it endearing in one another.

the American Museum of the Moving Image played Repo Man yesterday as part of their series Paradise (Lost): Los Angeles on Film. in recent history i've missed repo man twice, once as part of the howl festival and once as the midnight movie at sunshine cinema, so i cleared my schedule for one day on either side of sunday to make sure i couldn't screw this one up.

now here's the interesting thing: yesterday i watched repo man in a theater full mostly of eighty-year-old people with walkers and forty-year-old guys with greasy hair and unkempt beards who laugh like revenge of the nerd characters. apparently the bulk of the museum's audience for any given movie are the people who go see every movie they play. not the repo man crowd i would expect, but nice, right? hey, gabba gabba we accept you, i suppose.

i don't know if i am punk rock. i just don't know. but in absence of any other representatives, i might have been the punk rock delegation to a showing of repo man. does this put a huge responsibility on my shoulders?--like to go apeshit and rip up some seats? if so, i failed. i just watched the movie.

on the way out i was eavesdropping everyone, of course, and the statements i heard were shocking. "just horrible horrible music, but i love that film." but how. . . how. . . but. . .?

and please don't call it a film! pleeease.

it is a rainy day in nyc. seen this morning at astoria park track: ladies running with umbrellas.