update

Hey. It's been a while. If you're still reading, thanks. I finally liberated my laptop from the repair shop. They took entirely too long a time with it, but the guy also surreptitiously replaced my disk drive and downloaded some anti-spyware software for me and didn't bill me for it, so all is forgiven. In the meantime, all kinds of things happened which normally would merit full reportage. Only it was all so long ago that none of it seems that remarkable anymore, and also the computer is in the un-air-conditioned part of the decaying Victorian manse where I live, and it is 105 degrees in the shade today and C. is entertaining himself by reading me a list of fines off the traffic ticket I got on the way to work last weekend, and all in all, for my sanity, I'm going to keep this brief.

1. A close friend of mine came back into town for a few days a week or so ago, and she had just dumped her boyfriend, so C. and I got her stoned and then took her out and got her drunk and then came home and made out with her til all hours of the a.m. I had a good time, tempered with a certain apprehension of emotional consequences, but so far there have been none. She went back to graduate school, C. and I settled back into the normal routine, and peace is upon the land.

2. Last week I worked six days back to back, in a final burst of effort designed to fund the summer road trip C. and I take every year. I made good money, especially considering this is the slow time of year hereabouts, and nearly met the unrealistically high goal I had set for myself, but then had a panic attack on the sixth night, a Saturday, the first attack I've ever had at work. It wasn't dramatic. I got anxious, and then I got short of breath, and then I got claustrophobic, and then I started to feel my grip on events slipping away from, and began to be haunted with the feeling that I was powerless to prevent myself from doing something socially inappropriate -- say, lying down on the floor and howling like a baby wolf. Crowds have this effect on me occasionally, as do flashing lights and loud music. As a matter of fact, it's sort of minor miracle that nothing like this has happened at work before. Lucky for me, managers were very understanding and let me go home early. I held it together pretty well in the car, and then back at my house my teeth started to chatter uncontrollably. C. rubbed my back with a new lotions the smell of which reminded me of my grandmother's house, and I had to go and take a shower and spend an hour rehearsing unfortunate childhood memories, the time my grandmother slapped me for going outside in underpants and an oversized t-shirt (I was four), the time she made me get down on my hands and knees and pick up potato chip crumbs, one by one, the time she locked me in a shed for being loud. I went to sleep finally around 3 a.m. and then was awake with the sunrise. I got up and took a bong hit, hoping it would calm me down, but it had the opposite effect, and I ended up curled up at the end of the bed, hungry and weeping. Fortunately, my boyfriend is a perfect human-being and knows me very well. He took me out for coffee and breakfast tacos and we talked about Dream Theater until I felt OK. I've been fine since.

3. That was my last day of dancing for the near future. This week I have once again traded in heels and thong for sweatshorts and "Coach" T-shirt, and am teaching 3-10-year-olds to cultivate a peaceful mind while walking around on their hands. It doesn't pay nearly as well as dancing, but is a hell of a lot less stressful. Except when I'm making a nine-year-old boy go sit in the Peace Circle or something. I wish we had a Peace Circle at the club. I can think of some people who really need to go there.

4. This Saturday, more or less at daybreak, C. and I are taking off for parts only vaguely known. We will head north and get out of this blasted hellmouth weather, and west, hoping to hit the Redwoods, which is about my favorite place on earth. Nothing like 1,000-year-old trees to restore some perspective.

5. The telephone domination service hired me as an "erotic consultant." I start August 21. C. got into art school and starts August 19th. Grand things on the horizon.

Hope everyone out there is also doing well. Peace.