A Hooker’s work is never done

Firstly, I never realized how hard it is to letter paper when you actually have to think about each individual pencil stroke. This whole Vertical Lettering System is presently kicking me arse.

Secondly, my hands are shaking due to the amount of caffeine I’ve ingested in the last 24 hours in order to stay awake enough to do homework. And my awakeness, and caffeinated state are keeping me from doing said work! It made me cry out of frustration a minute ago, when I fucked up this one ‘E’ three times in a row. I swear, if I have to start this damn project over one more time, I will probably spontaneously combust. I have to write this one sentence over and over again, until it fills a 9×12 page in various sizes, but with consistent spacing all around. “Emily’s azure eyes were quite perplexed to view the swollen tears of joy rolling down Andrew’s blemished cheeks.” It’s some form of torture, or also known as, a sentence that contains every letter in the alphabet.

Evidently, I have another very long night ahead of me, and I don’t know how I’m gonna get my work done if I can’t drink caffeine to stay awake, but the more caffeine, the more shakes. It’s a catch-22. I hated that book, by the way.

I’m officially “in it”, as all of the upperclass grads of drafting like to remind me every day. In graphite shavings, in eraser shreds, in a dizzy state of hyper-concentration, what?

It has come to my attention today, when I had TimeWarner install internet in my home (finally!), that the need for a new computer is one I can no longer ignore. Mind you, it works well enough that I am typing this right now, but really, browsing the internet and typing short documents is about the extent of this computer’s scope. Thank you, NCSA tech support. And school won’t even give me a loan to buy the new Mac I need, complete with all the graphics/drafting/production software I’m expected to have. It all goes back to attending a rich-kid school…they assume everyone can afford everything, always. Gah.

Also, thanks to TimeLife, I realize now that I am partial to a genre of music known to some as “Arena Rock”. I don’t know how I feel about being an arena-rock-lover. I guess I should just get comfortable with it…after all, I want the compilation they were selling on TV, and I can’t stop myself from rocking when I hear some old AC/DC. Why would I want to? I mean, really.

I am procrastinating right this very moment…there is a huge rendering hanging over my head, with less than twenty four for completion time, and still I sit here and smoke cigarettes and examine my cuticles and pretend it’s not laid out on my drafting table ten feet away, just waiting for my attention. To top it all off, I’m also not working on a lettering project for my drafting class. At least that’s not due til Friday.

I gotta quit this procrastination business. I think to myself that I work best under pressure, but I think that’s just a convenient excuse on occasions just like this one where I just don’t feel like doing homework.

I am learning how to make paint…that’s pretty fuckin cool, if you ask me. I DO love what I’m doing, contrary to that bitching directly above.

Oh, a crackhead with a Bible came to my house a couple of days ago, and then I found him on my front porch at 4 a.m. when I was coming home from my friend and neighbors house, the same day. I am SO SICK of dealing with crackheads. I unleashed the sound and the fury on him, since I had my seven foot tall friend Pat with me, but damn…what might he have done if I was just a lone female entering my own home? He gave me some cock and bull story about needing to get to the Moravian church across town, the same story, coincidentally, he gave Daniel when he arrived at the house twelve hours prior. I never thought I’d want to own a gun, but I kinda do now. After the original three burglaries, I have come to realize that a crackhead at your house twice in one day is a bad sign indeed. I swear I’ll be so happy when I live somewhere that doesn’t have to include a constant milling crackhead population. Drugs are bad, m’kay? And being poor sucks, because we all know rich folk don’t have to deal with milling crackheads. Oh well, welcome to the 21st century, right?

When I arrived at the party on Friday night, a fire had broken out in the outbuilding, which was an old falling-down two story shed, essentially. It burnt to the ground. A lot of drunk dancers in high heels were running around screaming about the fire. So no party. But it will be a legend, for sure. Good times. Makes me feel like I’m really a college student…the fire dept. breaking up raging parties. Sheee-it.

Last night, Steve, Kaylan and myself made a song, entitled the Kitten Project. The album will be debuting early spring…  Really it’s just me and Kaylan making wookie noises while Steve boops and beeps, all set over top a synth pop bass line with some drums and whistles, and a ‘ping pong’ effect, whatever that means.  Maybe it’s only funny and fabulous to me.  Or m a y b e we’ve hit gold. 

The United States Institute for Theater Technology is having a conference on campus this weekend…there are loads of crazy theater professionals wandering about town consequently.  There are master classes all weekend (but they cost $$$!) on things like Blood and Guts (how to make them realistically) and how to fly people across stage, safely.  It’s a good networking oppurtunity’ according to school, or also Another Way to Make Money Off Of The Students.  I feel like it ought to be free to us, since we cleaned, did all the prep, and have to handle all of the ‘volunteer’ spots throughout the weekend.  As much as I love my school and all that it affords me, I still get pissed when I realize that education is one of the great Big Businesses of the 21st century. 

Last night, I played for four solid hours.  Not video games, not cards, just playing.  Steve and Kaylan and I ran around his place last night, painting and making a light show, and making that song, and having good times with fiber optics…it was like the high-tech playground of a wealthy child prodigy.  I laughed, oh man I laughed, and I am reminded as to why my grandma told me recently she’d rather volunteer at the the elementary school than work in the nursing home…because carefree playing and unguarded laughter keeps the heart young.  I know I feel ten years younger today than I did yesterday…

There is a school party tonight, Friday Beers as it is known throughout Design and Production, at this guy, John Willfong’s house.  Doesn’t he just sound like the kind of guy to throw raging parties?  His home, which is a huge, delapidated two story home (turned into a frat, for all intent and purposes), has a giant, galvanized steel bar, complete with glass blocks lit from behind, fiber optics running through the bar, and a fishtank.  To his credit, John built this bar, and it is fuckin awesome…  Also, to round out the thematic atmosphere, John built a STRIPPER STAGE at the base of his stairs.  A large platform, angled into a diamond, with a pole in the middle which is bolted to the ceiling, and two smaller platforms off to either side behind the pole.  I mean, it has the makings of a good party.  Of course, I have no interest in seeing some drunk girls from the school of Dance get naked and wild…I mean, wait.  Just kidding.  I can’t wait for the party. 

And remember, never waste traveling back in time on anything less than revenge.  A wise sage named Amanda said that. 

You never miss it til it’s gone. I’m not scheduled to get service for another week at my house, and mine and Daniels attempts to pipe wireless internet in using a Pringles can (wish I was kidding), well, they failed. So I have to catch where catch can, as far as internet usage goes, and it’s making me crazy.

School is back in full swing…it’s crazy. I love not being a freshman anymore…I can’t tell you the exquisite pleasure I took in passing the mop when the paint sink overflowed. Poor lil freshman boy, his first day of crew, cleaning up paint gunk that smells like rotten milk. Mmmmm.

Life on the paint deck is going to suit me just fine…It’s a bunch of ladies, mostly, that walk around coated in paint everywhere they go, and I’ve always been slightly envious of that…like when I’d see a guy in the grocery store with overalls splattered in whitewall, I’d always think that I’d like a job where I REALLY got dirty. So now I have one. Unfortunately for me, there is a rite of passage for all new paint charges, that being cleaning out the paint traps in the four industrial sinks. I cannot explain the smell and consistency of the gunk I pulled out of these traps, I can only say: Imagine a refrigerator full of meat and milk, unplugged and left in a treeless vacant lot for a month. Then imagine opening it and spooning out the liquified contents with your hands. Are you there? That’s what my first day back to school was like. But I love it, nonetheless. I get to spend eight hours a week painting, and I get college credit for it! I can’t get over it…

I’m also learning how to draft, which is going to kick my ass, but I’m excited about it. I’m trying to look at it as learning a new language in which I can communicate to anyone using a graphic language. I’m definetly going to sub in drafting in my five year plan (instituted at age 25). My five year plan stated that I’d have a college degree, speak a foreign language fluently, and be proficient at a musical instrument. My only question is, does whistling count as an instrument?

I have a really cool rendering class, which is drawing and painting for the designer…It’s taught by this old Brit named Franco, who dressed like Colonel Saunders, and either has early onset Alzheimers, or is stoned and drunk all day everyday. I hear it’s likely the latter…But he’s an amazing, legendary scene designer, and I know I will learn alot from him. The work load is gonna be kinda intense, since I only have his class once a week for four hours at a pop (same with scene painting), so we have major projects due every time we walk into class, and it’s a bit intimidating. I should be well versed in painting in perspective when this year is over, though.

My house is a dream for me…It’s huge, my studio is just frickin awesome, there are other students living all around us (but not on top of us…across the street, down the street), and Cleecloe is very happy. Lots of sunshine and room to move and breathe. I still can’t believe that my kitchen is really MY kitchen…every time I walk into it, I marvel at the fact I get to cook there whenever I want.

I have already snapped back into my anal-retentive, overachieving school mode…which is good, I suppose, but I am exhausted today because I stayed up late last night practicing my lettering for drafting. I mean, that’s crazy talk. I remember when I’m in school that I have a slightly obsessive compulsive nature when it comes to school work. Is that just being a perfectionist?

And of course, with all that obsessiveness, the drive to be the best has snuck back in with a quickness. I feel like I have to be the best drafter because I’m the only sophmore in a class of freshman. I feel like I have to be the best scene painter because I’m the only scene painter in my scene painting class. I feel like I have to be the best in my rendering class because I want to be able to design shows next year as well as be a paint charge. I guess I’ve just tapped into ambition that has been lying dormant inside me for a long while. Or else I’ve gone and gotten myself a big ole ego.

It’s thundering outside…that’s a noise I haven’t heard in a long while. The last time I remember thunder, I was spending the day at Brandi’s and we woke up from a nap with thunder rolling above us in the clouds. Nice memory.

I’m on my friend’s computer and she is looking at me like, Hurry up bitch, so this is me, saying adios, pendajos. Via con dios, gringos.

Winston Salem is officially flooded with milling NCSA students, antsy from a whole week off of work from their respective summer jobs…as such, there are parties galore right now. It was crazy Friday night…hundreds and hundreds of people party-hopping in a mile radius. Unlucky for me, I stayed at home til midnight to get drunk before the parties and drove by each house and the cops were herding people away. Alas…

I’m consumed with settling into my big ole house…it’s just fabulous. Aside from the fact that we haven’t gotten our gas turned on to power our water heater (they want a $350 deposit, can you f’in believe that?) and our internet isn’t set up yet, it’s a dream. Poor kitty cat is wandering around looking for Stella, her old partner in crime…I think Cleecloe is lonely and freaking out a little about how big the place is…we’ve never had stairs on the inside before and she is still getting used to the noise she makes walking up them…often she runs while looking back, thinking something is chasing her, not realizing she’s the one making the noise…it’s amusing.

I have to admit…I am loving the Kathy Griffin show. She’s unbelievably funny.

Also, I am fully addicted to the tv show Weeds with Mary Louise Parker. I totally have a crush on her. But that’s not why the show is genius…the writer and production staff and all of the cast are just brilliant. Check it out…I highly recommend it.

Must go prepare for another party. Ah, the life of a social butterfly.

I am disgustingly excited to be back at school…I never thought I’d see the day.

Phew…I’m finally done with my premenstrual self-pity party of one, fueled by red wine with my stepmother, induced by the bland city of my youth, and my discomfort at being around my dad so much for three days (we’ve only talked once since I found out he was cheating…). But I’m in Winston Salem now, unpacking my gorgeous home in the historic West End, and readying myself for school starting…which has vastly improved my mood in a meager 24 hours.

Yeah, so my apologies to anyone who might have read this blog in the last couple of days…I am prone to fits of oversentimentality and generally regurgitate it onto whoever, whatever falls in my path when I’m taken with such a mood. Sorry.

I love seeing returning students out and about…who got gayer, who got fatter, who got a bad haircut…
Nothing like seeing your rivals lookin awful to boost the self-confidence.

I have never cottoned to transitions, I have known this about myself for some time now.  Still, I am always surprised by how lethargic and mildly depressed I get when in the grip of a serious transition.  I think if I were in Winston Salem right now, unpacking, settling in, preparing for the onslaught, I might feel okay.  But here in Raleigh, where sitting on my ass, twiddling my thumbs and essentially waiting for people is all I’ve got…here–I’m going a bit batty. 

I love my family, but like most that I know, I have about a three to four day cap before I start becoming aggravated by the tiny things.  Late in day four, I revert to teenage behavior, arguing about things I don’t give a shit about, just because I’m irritated that I’m in the house at 10 p.m.  By 11:30, thankfully, I’ve come to my senses and can converse as an adult again, but only after having to admit that I’m bent out of sorts about X, Y, and Z…of course I have to explain myself, and then my folks want to talk about things that I’d rather not rehash (especially those things in the ‘relationships’ arena that my stepmother just eats up!) and then I wind up getting irritated again, and so the circle is complete. 

I gotta get out of this place.

I swear, once the sun goes down in Raleigh, this place is a ghost town.  Unless, of course, you can shell out the money to head down to "The Creamery" (otherwise known as Glenwood Ave at Peace St., before the yuppies got it) and eat up steaks and smoke cigars and drink watery martinis.  But since I’m barely scraping by right now, the best I could do was a drive-by, to admire those people that, on the surface, don’t seem to have a care in the world. 

I can’t even seem to enjoy TV…I watched tennis (!?!) for a while, then switched over to Naked Gun 2 and a Half…what have I become???

I thought for a long time today about the relative life of ease a drug dealer must lead.  I mean, before The Bust and The Jailtime, of course, but damn it’s looking appealing!  No clock to punch, no ass to kiss, no uniforms, no disappointing paycheck… Who’d ever suspect a lil ole white girl like me?  In Winston Salem, the answer is most likely, NOBODY, but while the idea is tantalizing from right here, the thought of no more student aid ever were I to be busted, well…that’s enough to quash that dream.  Can’t put my education on the line for the cash,  but without the cash, I can’t get the education.  And another circle is complete. 

Maybe I should hold a Walk-A-Thon for myself like old stinky John Miller used to do, here in Raleigh.  This bitchy-ass crackhead that always wore a construction worker uniform, he was the only man in town that actually had a license to panhandle, and man did he do it up.  Fliers for John Miller Walk-A-Thons all over the place, and it was only a two mile walk he wanted to get sponsored.  I admit the man had a certain unique vision to his ’spanging’, but he lacked the scope necessary to make a personal Walk-A-Thon profitable.  Perhaps I could improve upon his idea, make it my own… 

If not, I have perfectly good plasma that someone wants to suck out of my veins.  I assume.  Although I’m not allowed to give blood since I’m gay and tattooed…

I’m going to go eat cookie dough and try real hard not to think about that Mountain Cupcake that I’m missing.  It’s hard though, when I dream about her every night, four nights running.

Note to Cupcake:

I do miss you, you know.  It’s nutty, I’m aware…  I’ve only been out of town for five days, but I’m lonely and it would make me feel better just to hear your friendly voice.  Although, I guess there’s the possibility you don’t want to talk to me, which would be fairly unsurprising, since you have someone to keep you warm at night, and I just have a handful of memories and a too-big bed.  Maybe you’re busy, maybe you want to forget me and get on with your life as it was before I came in and started causing problems, maybe you weren’t even kind of kidding when you said you needed time to figure things out, maybe you think I’m the one that has perhaps gone a little crazy (and maybe you’d be right), but I miss you, like for reals.  I guess I just want you to know that my feelings are sincere, they’ve always been sincere, and that is not going away just because I can’t see you anymore.  I suppose I just want to reiterate that I’m thinking of you, and I wish things could be differenet.

Shit in one hand, wish in the other, and see which one fills up faster…thats what an old merchant marine named Jakie told me.  I figure an 84 year old must know something about unfulfilled wishes…  He’d tell me to ‘buck up’, and to ‘quit my whinin’!’ so I guess in his honor, I will.

I seriously think I’ve developed an allergy to this place…If it weren’t for the fact that my family and three old friends still live here, I’d never set foot in this town again.  It’s just so very upscale yuppie these days.  All the quaint, cozy, spirited things that initially drew all these people to Raleigh, all those things have been bastardized, destroyed, turned into expensive shops and boring restaurants that cater to the folks driving the Beemers and the Benz.  Borrrrring.  I actually can’t wait to get out of here. 

I’ve decided that Kathy Griffin is being primed to take over Joan Rivers’ job.  They have the same schtick (putting down celebrities) and they have the same nasal-y persona, that makes the hair stand up on my arms if I hear their voice at higher decibels. 

I do believe Joan Rivers has been a cryogenic puppet for a while now, and she is probably starting to rot from the inside out, and we all know you can’t put a woman on the red carpet with rotten breath to interview celebrities.  And so–here comes Kathy Griffin.  Mark my words, people. 

I can’t seem to stop myself from watching the Distaster TV these days.  I am aware of the fact that, at this point, I am learning nothing new about the situation, but like a car wreck or a girl-fight, I can’t NOT watch.  Tomorrow is a new day, though. 

Tomorrow, I will NOT watch Disaster TV.

Tomorrow, I will figure out my budget for the year.

Tomorrow, I will find a product to de-frizz my hair.

Tomorrow, I will let my little brother win at cards.

Tomorrow, I will only have one more day left in Raleigh.

Tomorrow, I will lighten the fuck up. 

I have been so tired and groggy for the last several days…I like to think that it is the change in elevation…I hear that greatly effects some people.  Really, I believe it is probably the minor depression I always feel post-leaving Asheville. 

I’m in Raleigh now; spent the day playing with my little brother.  I have a real problem letting anyone beat me at cards, and I feel this is mildly inappropriate when talking about a seven year old.  I know I ought to let him win, but I just can’t seem to play except exactly as I normally would.  Bah.  I’m trying to not be so competitive with this lil boy, but it goes against the very nature of my being.  Isn’t that ridiculous?

My house in Winston Salem is off the hizzie, as they’d say on MTV.  It’s easily the nicest pad I’ve ever had the priviledge to call my own, and I’m so looking forward to the decoration and the consequent house warming party.  Hells yeah.

I’m off to go crack marbles with Eli…add marbles to a hot pan, then dump them in ice water, and voila!  instant marble art.  Don’t try this at home, kids.  Or actually, do.