Do not be fooled by his ingratiating expression

Posted on January 24, 2003 by didofoot

I’ve been visited by the zit goblin a lot lately. I’ve tried booby-traps – spreading peanut butter on the floor, so that he’ll be stuck and in the morning I can salt him until he shrivels and dies. I tried warding him off with Noxema amulets around my neck and deep-pore-cleaning facial cream jars nailed over the door. Nothing works.

I guess my only recourse is to start eating like a farm girl. You see, zit goblins do not visit our more rural cousins. The smell of pigs and the lack of good independent movies houses do not agree with goblins. Maybe if I alter my diet so I’m only eating dairy and fresh vegetables, the goblins – never the brightest of mythical night visitors – will be fooled. If this doesn’t work, I might be forced to also leave the house and exercise in sunlight like a goddamned field hand. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

I know girls who wait up for the goblin and try to reason with him, but I know better. Goblins don’t understand reason. One girl I know got so frustrated that she began to violently shake the little rat, which caused his sack to spill open all over her legs. She was pure zit from the knees down. I’m not going out like that, I can tell you. Not this girl.

Categories: General | 3 Comments

Mission Statement

Posted on January 24, 2003 by didofoot

Hi friends.

Sometimes I will tell stories that actually happened and sometimes I will tell stories I only thought of in my head. There will be no distinction made. I’m keeping a blog because I like stringing sentences together every day. It’s an effort to propel myself towards a return to fiction writing. Also, a lot of times my head stories are more real to me than the actual stories, so it makes sense to me to present them as facts.

If the stories are bugging you, it’s okay with me if you stop reading. I promise not to give pop quizzes later to see if you’re keeping up. I’m hoping the writing style will improve as soon as I get used to telling stories again, but there’s no guarantee.

It’s also okay if you want to keep screaming LIAR LIAR in the comments section, to sort of give other people a heads up that the story I just told about you or someone you know isn’t true. Just know that I’m not trying to pull one over on you, so identifying the lies will hopefully be less critical in the future.

Your cousin,

didofoot

Categories: General | Tags: | 3 Comments

Return of the Peacock

Posted on January 23, 2003 by didofoot

Allen’s home!

Actually it was kind of anti-climactic. I called in sick to work this morning since it’s apparently going to be my week for stupid, destructive behavior, and when I wandered blearily out of the Lad’s room at around 10:00 he (Allen) was asleep on the couch in the living room. Apparently he showed up after the Lad and I went to bed, scratching at the door like a puppy, or a small child who you have locked out of the house.

He looks awfully cute when he’s sleeping. But I haven’t been waiting a year to watch him sleep, so I sat in the chair and idly kicked the cushion under his head until he woke up. Then we did the whole thing where you hug each other. Then he explained that even though he had found this perfect present for me, he lost it at the airport when someone walked off with one of his bags again . Then he tried and failed to account for what had happened to the scarf I loaned him when he left. Then I asked if he wanted to go to breakfast but there was that whole vegan/non-vegan problem to wade through. Apparently it’s okay to eat eggs in Chiapas next to a beautiful exotic foreign communist girl but the best I can hope for is shared coffee. But not the kind that exploits the indigenous people of the world.

Then Sean(e) woke up and they started making lists of the top ten reasons why one should never sleep on a friend’s couch and I pretty much gave up and wandered back here to blog. And that is my sad tale.

Categories: General | Tags: , | 11 Comments

So dumb it must be true

Posted on January 22, 2003 by didofoot

Well, I suppose you’re all wondering how my first day of school was.

And the answer is, it was great.

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Me and E

Posted on January 17, 2003 by didofoot

Editor’s Note, written on August 28, 2008: This entry is a made-up story about meeting Elliott Smith. It definitely never happened. Please also note that I wrote this entry long before he died, so what looks like kind of a callous lie now was just a normal daydream back then. I understand some folks are pissed about the “sellout” comment, and I apologize if I’ve offended anyone. Elliott Smith was and is my favorite singer and I intended no disrespect to him then, and I intend no disrespect to his memory now. Thanks for reading and/or linking to me and have a great day.

Yesterday I met Elliott Smith. He was standing in line in front of me at Safeway where I was waiting to pay for my apples and the good couscous you can’t get at Cala Foods. Despite having spent the last three years idly stalking him and despite owning all his albums and despite that my walls are covered with his concert posters and I have his static-cling colorform thing on my car, I almost didn’t talk to him. That’s how shy I am.

But anyway I did talk to him as it turns out. I said “You’re Elliott Smith.”

He turned around and I was cute and he said “Yeah,” in a terrified kind of way.

I said, “You stole my friend’s film.” This is true. When Maggie saw him at Amoeba in SF which was right after Either/Or came out, she had her picture taken with him (he was still unfamous enough to where you could do that) and then handed him her camera for whatever Maggie reason. Then he sort of wandered off with it. A few minutes later he came back and returned the camera, but when she went home her film was gone. So I told him this story. “I understand why you’d do it,” I said, “because if there were 24 strangers in the world with a picture of me, I would want 24 pictures of a stranger. To get even.”

He was kind of entertained by this, in the way that indie rock boys (even sellout Dreamworks-label indie rock boys) are only ever “kind of” anything, but he denied stealing her film. (It is very possible that Maggie actually forgot to put film in the camera in the first place.)

That was pretty much it. He walked me home and we talked and all. To be honest, he’s not that interesting. Or maybe we were both just too shy to say much. But at least now I am in a position to say that the new album will almost definitely for sure be out sometime soon.

Best exchange of the evening:

HIM: Not too many stars around here.

ME: Yeah, I miss that.

HIM: I used to just stare at the stars all night, just sit outside and like write songs all night and then when I wrote one I’d play it like eight times, or just a part of it over and over. Just to sort of get to know it? I guess?

ME: Sounds nice.

HIM: Yeah, but I lived in this total shithole and I had, like, a hundred neighbors and by, like, two in the morning they’d just all be screaming out the windows at me, “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” You know and stuff like that.

ME: Uh oh.

HIM: Yeah, plus I was taking a lot of, like, amphetamines and different shit. So I would yell back at them but for some reason I only would yell in rhymes.

ME: Like what?

HIM: Like, um, they’d say “shut the fuck up!” and I’d say “sew the duck up.”

ME: . . .

HIM: I wasn’t totally coherent or anything. I usually had to rewrite the lyrics to most of the songs the next day with a hangover.

ME: That explains why they’re so depressing.

HIM: Yeah, I guess…

Categories: General | Tags: , | 14 Comments

Our Friend, Jason

Posted on January 16, 2003 by didofoot

Everybody thinks Jason is great. Jason is so nice. He never says anything mean. He will eat where you want to eat (unless it’s Pasta Pomodoro). He is a supportive friend. He is so interesting. He is so smart. And, hoo! Funny? The man was born with double the funny most people are born with! If not triple.

Jason is leaving soon for a small, virtually abandoned mining town in Vermont, where the economy is practically suicidal. He will be working with small tiny kindergartners who cannot read or write or say their small tiny alphabets or see out of both eyes at once, in the one room schoolhouse on the edge of town, surrounded by barking rabid dogs and viscious gangs of disgruntled urban youths. (It’s a hell of a commute, but these youths are dedicated.) Every day on his way to work he will dodge gunfire and rabid saliva, but he will show up with a cheerful smile and a will to teach which the kindergartners will find inspiring.

After work and more bullet dodging, Jason will return to the cramped room at the Y that he will be sharing with eight taciturn miners. Gradually, the light from Jason’s sunny, eating-wherever -you-guys-want-to-eat demeanor will creep into the black hearts of these men. Each of the miners will meet a kind, pretty postmistress and marry her and never beat her or anything. (Except one miner who will die from black lung, but not before recognizing life’s beauty and goodness and also making peace with his estranged eldest son.)

Yes, everyone thinks Jason is great. But frankly I think he’s just riding on his reputation these days.

Categories: General | Tags: | 6 Comments

The true heroes are the ones who write the books about the true heroes

Posted on January 15, 2003 by didofoot

I just finished reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver which as you know takes place in Africa. Afterwards I was feeling really inspired by the way she writes about stuff that matters. I decided I, too, will become an inspirational and politically aware novelist. I spent some time considering the phrase “political unrest” and how inadequate it is to describe what actually goes on during a time of political unrest. Later, after I had written my two socially conscious books, I wove this profound thought into my acceptance speech at the award ceremony where I received my third Human Rights Awareness award. They created this award pretty much just for me. Also in the speech I made sure to mention how I owe it all to Barbara Kingsolver and her book The Poisonwood Bible. When she saw my speech on national television, watching from the den in her spacious home in Arizona, she wrote me a heartfelt letter saying how much it meant to her to know that she had affected the life of another, and that in this way the chain of good works would be continued. Until she heard my speech, she just didn’t know whether anyone was listening to her. But I was. And man, that audience sure loved my speech. Especially the part where I cried, for all the children.

Categories: General | Tags: , | 10 Comments

After these messages

Posted on January 15, 2003 by didofoot

Boy spots attractive girl sitting across the aisle from him on the bus.

Boy spots old old woman entering the bus.

Boy gallantly rises to give old woman his seat, incidentally moving himself closer to the girl.

Girl spots his game and is not displeased.

Can I get your number? says the boy.

Girl shrugs. I don’t have a pen, she says coyly.

No problem, says the boy. He whips out his do-it-yourself tattoo kit.

Next scene.

The boy jumps off the bus with a jaunty smile and the numbers 555-6173 etched into the skin of his arm and still bleeding. He turns to the camera and holds up a VHS tape with Guy Pearce’s face on the cover.

Announcer: Memento. The Freshmaker.

Categories: General | 4 Comments

“For we are the king of the boudoir, we are, and the king doesn’t like to wait.”

Posted on January 14, 2003 by didofoot

Last night in my dream I was watching cautionary presentations by female convicts who had been raped by prison guards. I woke up in my own bed, unmolested. What a strange accident that I am not a woman being raped by a prison guard. Who died to make me king?

Was it Elvis?

Was it Cole?

Was it Aslan?

Categories: General | 10 Comments

From the jokers who brought you Devil Bunny

Posted on January 13, 2003 by didofoot

I have this game and this game now. I urge you to believe me when I tell you that they are fabulous, even though this is pure speculation on my part. And if y’all want to play them with me (I would play alone if I could, fearing you and all people as I do, but I cannot) why just name the time. Allowing a week’s advance notice for my busy schedule and friend-packed social life and potential schoolwork as of next week of course.

Speaking of the Lad. I had dinner last night with Himself* and the assorted Woods. It was the first time I’d ever eaten chili (mercifully bean-free and fabulous). Now I just have to experience bowling, drive-thru movies and DQ and then I am officially American.

None of this is my fault, people. I was raised by wolves. And communists.

*I have begun to refer to the Lad as He or Himself when I call Ward Street and get a roommate, as in “Is He home?” or “Is Himself home?” I’m not sure, but I think that my persistent reluctance to speak his name is just as annoying in person as it is on this website.

Categories: General | Tags: | 15 Comments