MIDNIGHT WALKERS, CITY SLICKERS

Chynna asked me why I go to Starbucks to hide and write. Not why as in what purpose does it serve, because she knows it protects me from the freelancers like herself that would seek to suck me dry every hour of the day until there is nothing left for myself. Though that’s not Chynna these days. She’s actually been pretty on top of Blue Monday: Nobody’s Fool and Scooter Girl. No, the sort that feels that my schedule is built around them, that because they can’t work an eight-hour day or get things done at normal hours that my nights and weekends should be in service to them. I mean, if they’re working, I should be, too…yes? (Bitter? You bet your ass, fucker.)

No, she wanted to know wasn’t there someplace “cooler” in Portland. Well, I suppose in a land of self-invented cool, yes, there is something with better self-invention. But coolness isn’t really the point. I come here because it’s convenient, mainly, but also because the less cool places are much better to visit if I really want to do any decent people watching. Hipsters don’t need to be observed, because they’re easy to make up. Real people, on the other hand—they’re the reason someone had to coin the phrase “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Of course, there is no one here right now to prove my point with, but frankly, no one is paying for the pleasure of reading this blog, so you have to accept what you get. (Still bitter? Does the Pope have saggy nuts? It’s been one fuck of a week.)

Besides, hipsters need to be noticed. Quiet work is not possible when there is a guy with a horrid ski cap and an ironic T-shirt for the honest-to-goodness Johnson High School Athletic Support Crew explaining what he thinks of Adaptation to a college freshman co-ed too busy wondering why her new chin piercing still stings to realize he’s wrong. Sometimes stupidity is too difficult to ignore.

And yes, normal people are pretty damn stupid, too. But I don’t have time today, and more of the Portland unkempt made it difficult for me to drive home quickly and safely today than the hoi polloi, so it’s their turn for my ire.

Anyhoo…today’s mission is Gravitation. Volume 1 is due in a week, and I’ve only dented it. It’s a good dent. I am taking to this book quite easily. I was the right choice for it—which is as close to an ego chest-puffing statement as you’re going to get with me—and I am quite enjoying it. Hopefully the batteries on my MP3 player will get me through the night. Massive Attack’s Blue Lines is the current choice. I am gearing up for 100th Window to arrive in the mail. I haven’t read the reviews, but something is in the air, and I am scared it may be their first time to fail me. So I am making sure their greatness is fresh for me, just in case, so I can be prepared to cut them some slack.

This place is also good because it will close right about the time I should be getting my ass home to catch Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Hopefully 100th Window won’t be to Massive Attack what Criminal Intent is to Dick Wolf. (Though that show seems to be finding sturdier legs. And I’m pretending Dragnet does not exist.)

Primal Scream, Evil Heat for energy. The Lord is My Shotgun.

Wendy James, Now Ain’t The Time For Your Tears for pop trash attitude. “This is a test, and it’s going to cut you down to scale.”

The main character of Gravitation, Shuichi, is an aspiring musician in high school. He makes techno music, and is a frustrated teenage poet. There’s a certain amount of fun in drawing on my past as a brooding adolescent (I know, just last year) and play around with his mood swings and overwrought lyrics. Even funnier, though, is that the object of his affection, Yuki, is a novelist. I got to write the lines, “Writers sit around in their underwear all day. They’re all perverts. I’ll bet he’s losing his hair, too,” with all the confidence of someone who is still fully coiffed and wouldn’t care if he wasn’t. Though if I were not here, if I were at home, I would likely be in my underwear. I probably will end up posting this in my underwear, though—which is a nice personal detail for someone who told me that she wished this journal was more personal. She also thinks I’m one of the biggest perverts she knows, but another female friend says I’m not nearly as perverted as I think. Guess it depends on which side your ball gag is buttered. (Editors also get some jabs in the book, and I got to appropriate a line I used on Kelly Sue the other day: “Editors have brains of death.”)

A bunch of Bowie covers by the appropriate ‘80s folks—Big Country, Duran Duran, Ian McCulloch, Polecats, Edwyn Collins, Blonde. Is it any wonder?

I hope I am using the word “oeuvre” in a manga for the first time. I want to be a pioneer.

Arcadia, So Red The Rose. Because I feel pretty. And I’m moody and gray, I’m mean and I’m restless (so restless…so restless indeed).

Current Soundtrack: 808 State, Utd. State 90

[This was written last night, Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t go online when I got home. My MP3 battery conked out as I was walking home, just after Arcadia ended and I was trying to play Starsailor’s cover of “All or Nothing.” It is my loyal friend.]