10/30: Other Types of Light Fixtures or Interior Design As Blank Slate For Disappointment

Coat hooks
Foot rails
Bench backs

(important for convenience
and productivity and urgency
and calm)

the efficacy of sweaters
the efficacy of casual tennis
shoes for efficacy in the puddles
constantly thwarting slacks

(transitioning from greeting
to networking to flirting)

hanging lamps
barely
sway

(indie business casual
ties optional, rare,
no overriding aesthetic
excepting default cleanliness)

Exposed pipes
Exposed brick
Buffed, sanded,
Knots in the wood.

(everyone is writing up
proposals in their handshakes,
hoping the next check that comes
their way is
blank)

Those Lights, Those Pipes.

Top floor of Vita, as the day transitions from natural to artificial light, and the destinations of commuter buses shine. Mukilteo. Lakewood. Ash Way Park and Ride. Detroit minimalism in the headphones, where you see the inorganic turning grass again. Flowers. Never been to Detroit, so it remains unsafe from romantic narratives. After a full press of e-mails, clicks and drags, work that doesn't feel like work, but feels so much heavier than

work.

If I have to see another friend in the hospital I swear I'm going to

just go see them, what else can you do? Again again again. Everett. Federal Way. Mountlake Terrace. Atlanta bounces and bangs through the coffeeshop speakers. They've transitioned from day to night music, from coffee for business to coffee for necessity. Americanos are an all hour drink, eyes sleepy or engorged. Mouths dry from telling stories. In telling stories, in

sharing

concern I'm trying not to be a gossip. Trading others' troubles across platforms like handshake bribes at a party. Ways to make it to the invitation. Staying here with the mottled wood and metal pipes and architecture's dance between warmth and starkness. Outsidde keeps dimming. Fully artificial. The sky is so dark and these lights are so bright and the sky is so dark and these lights are so bright and the sky is so bright with: Tacoma Dome. Bothell. North Lynnwood.

19/30! Combustible Vole Statue Don't Work For Free!

I was worried about the inflammation of the vole statue as predicted by the geologists. It's not that difficult to imagine, how under current conditions the statues of certain animals would be more prone to combustion and inflammation than others. There's also the issue of flooding; one can only hope that the two such disasters would follow eachother; the theory is that they'd cancel eachother out, but I know the truth; everything would just be broken and soggy. In my worry I boarded a bus to the far end of the city and broke sticks in a 711 parking lot waiting for inspiration. The sculptures were all guarding inner neighborhoods, if the worst happened, these blocks would simply look better by comparison. That said, inspiration was not forthcoming and I started to wonder if my fascination with a post-apocalyptic structuralist reinterpretation of classic disney tropes had been a waste of my considerable sculpting and metal working skills. Nowadays, it doesn't seem so much like looks of comradery and appreciation on the faces of the City Shadow Council but. . .

they were laughing at me! And here I am riding secondhand waves of glory in third rate architectural magazines. All the columnists, all the council members, all the neighborhood activists can go fuck themself; I've got a hot tip from the meteorologists and this nine story owl statue at the edge of town will show them all.

Walking isn't always walking.

Tomorrow I am working a men's fashion show. I haven't changed careers, there just happens to be a men's fashion show at Lotties, and as such I was asked by my supervisor to "try to look cute, for once." For me this will mean that I probably put on blazer, and throw some goo in my hair to dewispify it. Plausibly shave. Oh! The effort.
For the record: I have walked in one fashion show, in my life, it was fun, I wish I'd gotten to keep the suit.

Here are some cool things! One is a strange and mesmerizing story about a bathtub over at Wonder and Risk. Another is the simple fact that Ryan A. Johnson is writing again, and well. Keeping up with George Parrotian narratives, while sharpening the prose-poem technique. Paul E. Nelson wrote a fairly comprehensive review of the Cascadia Poetry Festival. I didn't make all the panels, but the mainstage stuff I saw was engaging and interesting, the bookfair was cool and the events I helped throw together went mainly pretty smooth. A more comprehensive review on my part is, I think, probably not necessary.

The sun is out and from this library view Seattle looks as sci-fi as it ever has, ever growing more so.

don't call it an anniversary!

The sheer number of bros, back in the day, who took up the chant "This IS SPARTA," was one of the many factors that played into my never seeing 300. Also, the fact that despite the spectacle and women in leather, Sin City left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

all this is appropos only because this is, in fact, post #300 on this particular corner of the internet. Vast importance. To think, it was a mere five years ago, that, with bitterness in my fingers and bile in my heart, I created a refuge away from prying eyes and lurking lovers, a spot where I could say "whatever the fuck I wanted" and did, sometimes. Of course, over time, this has become a staid affair, as my own interest in my life has waned quite a bit, and many of those whom I'd once sought privacy from found me, either of my own accord or by happenstance, and the reaction from the universe was, as it often is, a resounding "okay," shrug, and wander off to get some pizza.

6/30 and 9/30

6/30: It Was Safer With Dialog Boxes
we make ceilings to hold the balloons in. the dialog balloons, thought bubbles, the Hmmms, and yeah rights, and we’ll sees, just hovering above our heads. walking our thoughts on a leash, hiding them in air vents, equal parts ownership and denial. We keep suggestion boxes by the office doors to store these bubbles, every meeting requires new balloons. but all the thought bubbles came untethered, floating at first around our heads, nudging the soft borders into dialog bubbles. afterwards, always a slack-jawed moment, a “I didn’t mean to say—“ “oh, I’ll bet you didn’t—“
was that a thought or a talk? we invented glue for these things, and propriety, and physical violence. with all these phrases floating around the building, freed from their people, so many things ended. marriages of convenience, friendships of duty, plans to open a novelty toothpick store. a few things started as well, mainly improv troupes.
At the end of the work day, when the glass doors open, they are smeared with confessions, fantasy draft picks, and complaints about architecture. The workers spill into the afternoon with nothing to say, thoughts all sucked into jet engines. The custodians at the building spend hours cleaning stray thoughts off the wall, receive pre-emptive sexual harrassment settlements.

9/30: Pained Architecture
he wanted everything to fit the shape of the diagrams he drew on a napkin in Subway at sandwich-closing time. he got the shapes from a dream he’d had after a six inch pepperoni-salami-bacon-combo, extra peppercinis, half-gallon of cola and a white-chocolate chip cookie.

there were falling cages, trap doors, and randomly placed swinging blades, but it was the doors he most intended on recreating; pencil-prisms of light and space; each room a new dimmension, galaxy, universe. light years away in your own house. every window a whirling vortex. each step an ‘80s dj scratch, a slide, a collapse-and-rebuild-and-takeoff. the corners, each would hold a world around it, the house both a maze and a meadow.

that, is impossible. we will build you a blue box, like the ones up the hill there, it will have solar power, and if you want, we’ll narrow the doors an inch on either side. the walls are thin so get earplugs for sleeping.

there were also winding staircases, a statue of a giant otter, and multi-colored walls. but he'd known better than to even ask.