gone.

Sitting in my office chair, my stomach has turned violently against me. My head, pounding, is playing in repeat regret. Just words. They were just words I collected over the last nine months. Just moments, preserved for memory's sake. all gone.

Laundry Shoppe O' Horrors

Allow me to rant for a moment, or through an entire blog.

Today I have to do laundry after work. After catering to a bunch of lawyers, who think being a receptionist makes me a phone-answering dishwasher and general all-around mail-distributing housekeeper, I have to go drag my tired body down to a laundry mat to wash and dry my clothes and sit there for two hours to ensure my panties don't end up on the ground, or stolen and sniffed by some sick fuck.
On several occasions I have returned to the laundry mat to retrieve my clothing only to find someone has haphazardly thrown my clothes in a basket and pushed them off to the wayside. On one unfortunate occasion I actually witnessed a man, much larger than myself, ripping my clothing out of the wash, with filthy hands, after the machine had finished it's spin cycle only 3.3 minutes prior (I have that shit timed, man). I ran up, ready to beat this man within an inch of his life, when I realized he could probably kill me much easier than I him. I did tell him that I thought he was a jerk!, and that I had only been gone a moment, but he was unmoved by my insults and declarations of timeliness. I had been defeated by the laundry mat once again!
On another especially awful occasion, my laundry was actually trapped in one of the washers for more than an hour. There was no number to call and no one around to help me. After deciding against calling the police to inform them that a washing machine had taken my clothing hostage, I ended up calling my Dad back in Portland who could do absolutely nothing but laugh at my predicament. This did actually pull me back from teetering on the edge of my very sanity, but it did not however release my clothes from the evil grip of an unfeeling washing machine. Finally, after ages, some dirty hippies walked in and glady kicked the door repeatedly until it opened. I was happy to have my laundry back and happier still to have seen the machine abused in such a ruthless way, but again, the laundry gods were laughing at me alone.
I really was at one time a diligently clean-clothed person. I used to do my laundry every other day when all it took was the energy to walk down a flight of stairs and deposit my laundry in the wash. I usually did this in some unsightly, ill-fitting garments since I had the luxury of doing laundry in the privacy of my own home, but no more. Now, I have to dress appropriately to clean my clothes and waste precious waking hours to do something I loathe. I only wear a week's worth of clothing mind you, making these trips to the laundry mat necessary at least once a week. Today is Tuesday. The last time I made the inevitable trip to the privacy-free, filthy laundry mat was not this past Sunday, but the Sunday prior. For me, this means that today I'm wearing sweat-formed socks and no underwear. It is not liberating. I do not feel punk rock. I have been reduced to a crusted-sock wearing, underwearless dirtbag.
And, as if it wasn't aggrevating enough to have to wash and dry my clothing outside my home, I also need to wash and dry my bedding and towels. This will take an extra roll of quarters and an extended visit to the bane of my existence. Now I do know that I'm lucky to be alive and even luckier to live in a home in a quiet neighborhood in Oakland with nice, respectful roommates, but holy fuck! Why couldn't I have been blessed with on-site laundry as well? Dear Santa Claus, all I want for Christmas is a washer and dryer, or a nevertnding supply of clean clothes and sheets. That's all.

Yesterday's clouds hung around on today's late morning. A thick, gray ceiling; inpenetrable and wide. On any other day I would have felt such a sky blanket me in some Northwest nostalgia and place me smack dab in the middle of an old familiarity, but today the sky crushed any resemblance of home. The night before had traced itself in an outline of dirty, wet clothes over my skin and I just nearly escaped to morning with teeth chattering, hushing shivers...

rotary phones and paper journals.

Today I realized I have yet another stupid problem to add to my long list of stupid problems.
Oh! Technology, my foe.

More specifically, an absurdly expensive piece of technology that fits in my hand and serves as my major connection to the rest of the world, not to mention being my only journal, calculator, map and camera. All my eggs are indeed in one fucked basket.

IPhone, you are my problem.
Although this problem of mine is perhaps between only myself and me, and there's certainly a simple solution involving some exercising of demons and summoning the power of a great wizard, I'd much rather whine about it here, like a asshole, on the privacy of the internet. So...

I never asked for this kind of responsibility. I never wanted that kind of bankroll in my hands. I don't make enough money to own an IPhone. I don't care for the kind of garish flaunting that is assumed of me while using such a recognizable design. I feel like a walking advertisement.

I am a walking advertisement. And for one of the most unnecessary contraptions ever. First of all, every "generation" of IPhone, like every computer, becomes obsolete every 33 fast seconds. Fact. They're like college textbooks in the way that what you have at hand is never what they tell you you need (they, being Capitalist Bastard-The Man), and you can't sell one to anyone, without lying. No one wants an old IPhone, because in order to be "respected" in The Man's world you have to have the newest, biggest, best. I have had several people ask me if I have the new "generation" or the old "generation" Iphone and when I tell them I received the stupid thing 8 months ago they give me this sympathetic look. It's that look people give you after you shoot your best-friend-turned-rabid-hate-monger Old-Yeller in the head. How tragic that I have an old IPhone.

For those of you fortunate enough to not own one of these asinine communication devices, consider yourself blessed. Please. And quit looking at my phone. I am tired of trying to hide it while I use it. Having to walk around the corner, talk into my sweatshirt, or text beneath the cover of a table. A phone should not inspire envy, nor should it grant permission to shake your head at me in punk rock disapproval. It's a phone. It's an expensive, glorified phone. There are phones on the market for the low, low price of $5. Get one of those. I do not wish the trouble of an IPhone on my worst enemy. It is a constant, and painful, reminder of one more responsibility and a severe dependency on technology.

The real problem for me is that my IPhone has replaced so many things. Where I used to carry a journal and a pen, a camera, a map, a cell phone, a music machine, a day planner and a calculator, I now only carry an IPhone. Perhaps this isn't a problem for someone who has no trouble holding on to electronic devices, i.e. not dropping them in toilets, leaving them on top of cars, or throwing them down many flights of stairs, but for me it is the eye of the storm. I have 8 months of writing and snapshots in that fucker. That's a lot of memories that I've carefully documented and kept with me at all times. That's a lot of emotional significance inside of an emotionally incapable object. It will not cry when it loses me. It will not mourn my absence if it is stolen and used by someone else. My Iphone doesn't care about me. For that much money, it should.

Today, I lost my IPhone for approximately 20 minutes. I was immediately sent into an EPIC state of panic. With each passing second I realized something else that would go lost along with that phone. I became accusatory and emotional. I turned into an asshole. I needed to have been born with an "OH SHIT!" handle attached to my head. I needed to have had some sort of alarm attached to my mouth in moments like those. Something that would inhibit speech, something that would keep me from making a fool of myself. But, what I really needed at that moment was to have actually written in a journal, taken pictures and developed them, and to have learned the ability to not give a fuck about the rest of it.
Today I began backing up all my writing in my own handwriting on paper, and transferring my photos to my computer where I can at least eventually print them out.
Fuck IPhones. Dependency No More! Yay Meth! One small step for me..not really a large step for human kind, but whatever.

These days seem so small, so fast in their passing. It's been a long time now since I moved away from home. Long in terms of memories and of short attention spans. I miss those days of reckless waking and wasted sleeping. I miss my early twenties. There are people here I wish I could have shared those moments with, there are people from that framed nostalgia that I wish were here with me now.

Work is work. I have a hard time negotiating those terms with myself. I have a hard time waking up to go to a job that has no meaning. Answer phone, fax, fax, answer phone, open mail, answer phone, copy mail, answer phone, distribute mail, answer phone, clean dishes, answer phone, fax, fax. It's not that I'm looking for a challenge, because I'm really not. I'm looking for a way to live the rest of my life without working at all, or at least not sit in a chair all day long, or have to sell anything to anyone. That's all.

Friends are friends. They're just really not as there as they once seemed. Failed to call. Failed to show. Failed to know. Failed to care. Failed to read my mind...
I miss you though.

Love is...

for the pigeons. and me. and you.

Tomorrow is June. What happened to May? I remember my birthday, vaguely. I remember that first kiss in April. Hindsight distorts memory and I can't accurately describe one single occurrance over the past 26 years of my life. There are so many pasts; past loves, friendships, train wrecks, rain storms, dreams, homes. I should have wished for words.