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i’m at the beach with laura’s dad and her brothers.  it’s 5 in the afternoon, and they are all asleep, and have all been asleep for 2 hours.  we all got a full night’s sleep…i don’t know what’s going on.  have they all been drugged?  what did they eat that i didn’t?  did they swallow the ocean water? no, why would that make any difference.  what’s going on here?

we’re staying in port aransas.  got here yesterday.  during the 3 hour trip, my air condition decided to stop blowing.  so laura, myself, and her brother all sat in a very very hot car with a little bit of cool air wafting out of the vents.  then we remembered that such things as power windows have been invented and installed on my very own car.  it’s great living in the future.

in the pool last night there was this kid with swimming goggles on.  he was about four, and kept following us around the pool, splashing and flailing wildly.  then he’d leach onto you and start licking your face.  well, no he didn’t lick anyone’s face, but he’d leach onto us for sure.  he followed us into the hot tub and threw his arms around my neck and started pulling on it–my neck.  “where are your parents?” he asked me.  “they’re gone.  do you know why? because they kept choking me with their arms.”  he stopped after that, and then his mother came in.  she was drunk, and the little boy and his brother, about 8, sat in the corner and watched as she made passes at laura’s dad and talked loud and angry.  we decided to leave and she said, “i’ll never hear the end of THIS! you got in so our friends had to leave!” we kind of laughed a little, then she said it again, louder.  “i’ll NEVER HEAR the end of THIS! always PUSHING OUR FRIENDS away!”  poor kids.  they were just begging someone to kidnap them, and now i see why.

i don’t think i have any more to say.

i just wrote and posted brown carpet.  read it before you go on.  here is what it is based on:

we’ve had brown shag for years, and then my mom replaced it with new carpet, shorter shag, white.  one night i came home and saw a little brown fiber from the old carpet.  for a second i thought, “it’s growing back!” but then realized that it couldn’t be growing back.

oh dear…i just realized that i’ll be posting two times today.  this is not good.

i went to see the long winters and the decemberists in austin at the parish the other day.  these are two bands. not the parish.  that was the venue. 

i was really looking forward to the decemberists, being a big fan.  well, not BIG.  i don’t have their names and pictures tatooed on my butt or anything–just initials–but i hadn’t ever heard anything by the long winters.  after hearing them, and hearing their cd, i can give you two pieces of advice:  buy their cds first, realizing that although they aren’t bad cds, the long winters are ten times better live.  two:  if you see them live, the cd might be sort of a letdown…so, to avoid this letdown, follow them as they tour around the country, around the continent, NEIGH, around the world.  they hang out at their merchandise tables, so poke them and sniff at them, and tell them you love their show.  the guitarist was very good, and great with the audience–he was hilarious, and he did wonderful acrobatics across the stage swinging his guitar about.

as for the decemberists, they were pretty much what i expected, in a good way.  i don’t know if a non fan would enjoy it very much…but i think this show was the funnest i’ve ever been to.

the long winters’ bassist, a long blonde haired hippy looking fellow that laura was drooling over [i was NOT drooling over him, cora was. -Laura], went out right after their set and got a tattoo down the street.  he’s hardcore. 

before that we went to waterloo and i bought the delgados’ peloton for a little mexican girl.  she pointed out that the band’s name sucked but the music was excellent.  so i took the cd back from her and broke it over my knee.  “whose name sucks now?” i screamed at her.  she rolled her eyes.  “give me that remaining shard,” she said.  “maybe it can cut my flesh.”

i just wrote and posted the appendage.   yes i just wrote and posted the last one a few minutes ago.  yes this is a deep and severe problem for me.  yes i am trying to seek help.

i just spent five hours at Borders Bookstore, waiting for laura to get done with training for her job.  it wasn’t bad.  i read a lot, didn’t spend too much. being there made me think about all the art i want to complete–writing, comics, music–…i work out now.  lifting weights.  one of the things i do is situps with two ten pound weights on my chest.  when you work out your muscles tear, then repair themselves, getting larger.  when i do a full round of 60 situps with the weights i’ll often sit on the couch.  my stomach is kind of squinched up when i sit like this.  i imagine my muscles repairing themselves like this, so that i can’t lie flat.  and when i force myself to lie flat my muscles in my tummy all stretch, stretch, stretch, then snap–POP!–, and there’s a huge soft gap in my belly and it turns blood red as i slowly bleed to death internally.  that’s how i feel right now with writing, need to lie flat and write it out, stretch.  maybe it’s not so much like the belly thing.  but it feels like it is. anyway, i’ve been doing a lot of sketching lately after not having drawn very much at all for a year or more.  i’m planning on turning some of my stories into comic strips.  does this have to do with reading McSweeney’s 13?  maybe.  so what? bite me.

i just wrote and posted the father of communication. yeah, it has words and stuff and no pictures or anything, so that might turn some of you viewers away. literature is dead. 

speaking of people killing literature, why do so many people see fit to worship chuck palahniuk right now?  is it because he wrote fight club?  i’ve read two of his books, choke and lullaby.  the premise of choke wasn’t really that great or even strong.  a guy has a scheme where he goes to restaurants and pretends to choke, a stranger saves him, said stranger feels like the saved guy is their son since stranger saved his life, so stranger sends him money each year on his new “birthday.”  he does this at many many restaurants so he gets many many checks.  now, interweaved throughout this story is sexaholics, weird sexual encounters, etc. 

the most obvious questions is why would these strangers send him money?  chuck’s answer is because they feel like he’s their son.  but…they saved HIS life…wouldn’t…er…why would this even be any sort of outcome whatsoever?!?

anyway, plot aside, his writing isn’t really “touched with psychopathic brilliance” as L.A. Weekly said.  but perhaps the most disturbing blurb is from Bret Easton Ellis: “Maybe our generation has found its Don DeLillo.”  OUR GENERATION’S DON DELILLO?!?!

for those of you who are not familiar with DeLillo…well, i’m one of you.  i’ve only read one of his books, Underworld, so i’m not an expert on him.  but i can tell you this:  i’ve never been a big fan of baseball.   i used to play it as a kid, but i don’t really like watching it.  ever.  in the beginning of Underworld there are about 50 pages describing the events in and surrounding a baseball game.  for someone who is not interested in baseball, this could be very very boring.  but i loved it.  i can’t explain it.  i still think baseball is boring to watch, but seeing how Don DeLillo watches it is not only interesting but captivating…but that’s too cliche a term.  it made me want to go out and buy a yankee uniform and one of those big foam hands (that’s baseball right?) and get a hotdog and follow the team around the country.  this, i think, is what measures great literature.

Choke, on the other hand, made me wonder why i had paid 24.95 for this hardback book, that more or less amounted to a poor plot with sick, sleazy sex scenes (isn’t this the definition of a bad porn??  maybe good porn, depending on who you are).

Lullaby was better in the plot field.  a guy memorizes a poem that kills people when they hear it…and then he can just think it to them and it kills them.  i think…it’s been a while and that detail is a little vague.  another guy also learns the poem.  there are plot holes in abundance here,  no doubt (why doesn’t it kill him when he says it?  why, since he feels a threat from the other guy who learned the poem, doesn’t he just think it towards him and kill him?  i don’t know, and i don’t think Chuck does either.)  but the writing was still…eh.  it was average.

i went to see Chuck Palahniuk give a reading in Austin at BookPeople when he came through town.  it was a very enjoyable reading…not a reading at all actually, he decided to just do a Q & A.  the guy has tons of disturbing stories to tell, and they all sounded true (he did say they were true…but you know…everyone lies) and he seems like a really nice guy, like he’d be a great conversationalist, really easy to talk to.  the amount of ideas he has seems to be endless.  if only he could write like he talked to us.

i didn’t mean for this to be a book review.  i mean, who cares about books? literature is dead! burn them!  burn the stinking books!

it’s been drizzling all day.  i’m wearing grey shorts, and the drizzle collects on them and is easily seen.  it looks like i peed myself, only in very small, restricted amounts, and all over my shorts.  i show this off with gusto when i enter a store.

i ate tofu last night.  laura is becoming a vegetarian and, though she promises me she won’t try to make me one as well, she’s only making vegetarian food.  i’m not surprised, this is how it happens, right?  jules knew it.  tony knew it.  and antone shoulda better fuckin’ known better.  oh wait…

anyway, i’ve always thought of tofu as, you know…semi hard diarrhea.  only…lighter.  and not so smelly.  not even brown really…so not really like diarrhea at all.  but something else that’s gross. but she mixed it with some pesto sauce and it was really good.  now i think of tofu as hardened air.  lots of vegetables…i think my stomach was vomiting on itself.  it was more vegetables than i had the entire month of may.  as soon as we cleaned the kitchen up and laura went to bed i tore open the freezer door and ate a t-bone like an icecicle, couldn’t waste the time to cook it.  too hungry for meat.

if you haven’t already, you need to go buy McSweeney’s 13.  McSweeney’s is usually a literary journal with short stories and such, but good short stories, but 13 is different.  it’s entirely made up of comics and articles on comics.  if you aren’t a comic fan, you should definitely get it.  it will make you appreciate them more.  if you are a fan, get it. it’s a great anthology.  http://store.mcsweeneys.net  don’t resist the temptation.

do you ever watch daria?  the only station that i think it’s on is nogin.  it’s a very creepy station to me.  it’s on late at night in a segment called “the-n.”  i think it’s for early teens.  they have a show called degrassi, the equivalent, i believe, of a teen pre-pubescent soap opera.  i’ve never actually watched it though (i swear…i haven’t) but the previews are always on between daria.  that’s another creepy thing…all the previews and ads are for and about the station.  there’s no training bra commercial, no anti suicide or drug commercial, it’s just nogin.  nogin is a vortex.  after every daria they have a music video. only one.  this is another reason nogin is creepy.

the x-files are on now.  i miss my sisters when i watch the x-files.  when we’d watch it religiously every sunday, if there was every a suspenseful moment, like a door opening, or mulder or scully hearing something out of place or if they were just looking for who was in the room, we’d always shout “IT’S AN ALIEN!!”  do you even get it?  i dont’ know.  there were so many things that i really think only my two sisters and i got.  everyone else tried to play along like they knew, but it was just like how us losers would laugh when the cool kids said something that we thought was funny.

what ever happened to those two kids in The Others?  i really liked them.  it’s an alien!

i just posted suck and fat. i’ve been working on it for a while…part of it was written about a year ago…and then i’ve been finishing it for the last week or so.  i like it.  i was afraid i wasn’t going to have an ending, or be able to tie it all together.  but then i started writing the last few sections and realized there really was a good ending.

went to Laura’s graduation and was sharply reminded of the reasons i’m glad i’m out of high school.  i don’t know how Laura survived in that place.  the majority of the people are so stupid and they talk crap ALL THE TIME.  the valedictorian gave a speech that was long, confusing, self-indulgent, and petty.  this, i believe, sums up most of the students who listened to her, i think.  maybe it was better suited than we all think.  besides, none of them were listening to her anyway.

i’ve been collecting pictures for my overgrowth series for the last few days.  i’ll be putting them up soon…some of them, or one of them, tonight. maybe. 

what is it about summer that makes you so bored and makes your website hits drop dramatically?  don’t college kids have computers when they leave school?? worthless ingrates.

i have added overgrowth (one) to my site.  first in many to follow…i have a few more pictures that are almost ready to post, and many more ideas.  all i need to do is remember to take my camera with me everywhere i go.

i took this picture about a month ago.  i had to set the camera on a tripod because i couldn’t hold it steady.  the tripod is old, and we got it with an old camcorder we had while i was growing up.  the camcorder weighed about twenty pounds and took regular sized vhs cassette tapes.  the camcorder no longer works, but the tripod is fine.  but when i grabbed the handle to the tripod a sticky blue substance attached itself to my hand.  it was all over the handle.  it didn’t have any smell but i could swear it was burning me, burning right through my hand. this could have just been in my head.  i kicked the tripod and went inside to get a paper towel to wipe off my hand and wrap around the handle.  then i took the picture when the cat walked in front of the camera.  i kicked the cat and took the tripod and camera inside.  on some levels i hope the picture isn’t too big on your computer.  but on other levels, i hope it is, so you have to wait in anticipation if you have a very slow connection, like myself.  then you find out all it basically is is a picture of a blurred cat.  but i don’t think it’s too big.  maybe even a little too small.

after hearing so much about Iron & Wine, and after reading the guy’s interview in some magazine, and after seeing all my friends, both of them, listening to it, i finally got it for myself.  it’s pretty much what i was expecting it to sound like, but in a good way.  the first thing that comes to mind when listening to it is Nick Drake.  and then “designer vagina.”  thanks to Iwanttoleavemybody, i’m constantly running that phrase through my head, and in my head i’m laughing hysterically.  sometimes on the outside too.

i believe i said yesterday that i’d post a picture of my girlfriend laura.  maybe i didn’t.  but i meant to.

i’m at home for the summer, and when my mom saw the picture she said, “chris! she’s in her PAJAMAS! you can’t put that on the internet!!”  it reminds me of another internet related episode with my father.  he was on the computer, then all the sudden starts screaming at my mom to come look.  she runs in there to find a picture of a half naked woman on the screen.  “look at this!” he said.  “it just popped up!  can you believe this is on the internet?!”  thank god the woman wasn’t scantilly clad in her pajamas.

my internet has been down for the last three days.  it’s up for an hour.  then it’s down for twelve hours.  then up long enough to think that i can check my email, and then it gets disconnected.  how annoyed am i? very.

i bought a game for my playstation two.  i don’t have very many games…not a very big game person…but i play it on occasion.  the game was XIII.  i’d heard a lot about it, and it does look pretty cool, but i have no idea why anyone in their right mind would choose to have a first person shooter on PS2 than on the PC.  you can get much more accurate aiming on PC…with a PS2 controller i feel like i’m just running around waving my guns all over the place, spraying bullets everywhere hoping one of them hits someone. they usually don’t and i usually die.  i guess this is why i’m not a game reviewer.  that and since i was twelve i haven’t found it possible to play games for extended periods of time. 

my girlfriend laura is the salutatorian for her graduating class this year.  she’s lying on the floor behind me writing her speech.  her graduation is in a week on friday and she has to get her speech proofread tomorrow.  she’s on her first line.  procrastination.  this is why she is my girlfriend.  she just got mad at me because i was reading it. i sometimes wish i had actually tried to be valedictorian or salutatorian in high school.  then i could have written a killer speech…only it wouldn’t be written.  i’d just bring a copy of something like naked lunch or on the road and go on a rant interjecting quotes from one of these books into the whole thing.  spit would be flying everywhere and all you’d be able to hear would be gasps from the parents and school board (the students by now would no doubt be bored comatose). 

when i was in high school i was artist of the month some time in my senior year.  (it wasn’t really a high honor…my art teacher knew the seniors got pissed off if they weren’t artist of the month at some point.  i didn’t really mind either way).  artist of the month means you get to display a bunch of your work in a case outside of the art room with your bio.  i wrote my bio and then cut it in half right down the middle, vertically, and put one half on one side of the case and the other half on the other side of the case.  a whole lot of people didn’t get that it was all supposed to be read together, so they’d read one line on the left one and then go down to the next line, and you could actually see their brains imploding when the sentence didn’t fit.  i’ll post it sometime soon if i can find it.  i believe it’s tacked to my wall.

i’m reading fear and loathing in las vegas again. watching the movie really made me want to read it.  so i am. i bought this copy in London, England, at a Waterstone’s a few years ago.  i think it’s kind of like a Borders is here, except much smaller, all the workers i spoke to actually like to read, and the books all had different covers than they do at Borders.  though this had more to do with the fact that it was great britain and not america.  it was on a 3 for 2 sale.  not buy two get one free.  why?  because the british are smart; there’s nothing free in this fricking world. except maybe fear and really bad drugs…the brittle kind. with urine soaking it.

Saturday midnight…Memories of this night are extremely hazy. All I have, for guide-pegs, is a pocketful of keno cards and cocktail napkins, all covered with scribbled notes. Here is one: “Get the Ford man, demand a Bronco for race-observation purposes…photos?…Lacerda/call…why not a helicopter?…Get on the phone, lean on the fuckers…heavy yelling.”  Another says: “Sign on Paradise Boulevard–‘Stopless and Topless’…bush-league sex compared to L.A; pasties here–total naked humping public in L.A….Las Vegas is a society of armed masturbators/gambling is the kicker here/sex is extra/weird trip for high rollers…house-whores for winners, hand jobs for the bad luck crowd.”

-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas