a mile underground and a million years ago

You should turn off all the lights and listen to this alone. Just do it. Trust me.

kitehz

So today I went over to Nat's apartment to see her/her roommate's kittens, Ysa (which is probably not spelled like that but I will spell it like that anyway) and Stuka. Guess which one Nat named.

They were fucking adorable, in an extremely violent way (since kittens will attack anything that moves, including their own shadows and sometimes themselves). At one point I was on my knees and they were fighting on top of my back, like a furry version of Kronos from God of War.

a great bad thing

(This story was written for my writing class last year, as a companion piece to Raymond Carver's "A Small Good Thing," from the P.O.V. of the kid in the coma.)

Even in a very deep sleep, there are still dreams. Scotty dreamt of his birthday party. His friends all came into the room and sat down in a circle facing his chair. There was no one there that he did not want to be there, none of his mother’s friends’ children, not stupid Anthony, not crybaby Steph, and not Steven, who bullied him when nobody was looking. Everybody was looking at Scotty now. They were sitting on the floor with their legs crossed, holding their presents in their laps. Everybody’s presents were wrapped in shiny green foil, except for Jonathan’s present, which was wrapped in a duller orange paper. In the middle of the circle, Slug padded around. Her tail was hung between her legs. She was sad because nobody would play with her.

In clockwise order, each of Scotty’s friends stood up and gave their presents to him. His favorite present was from Jonathan, who had gotten him every Bionicle toy ever. His least favorite present was from Sara, who presented him with a stuffed lion, a stuffed alligator, and a stuffed hippo. He accepted with a gracious smile and nod, but he did not like stuffed animals. Stuffed animals were for girls and babies. After each of his friends gave their present, they would leave the room silently. Once Caitlin had given him her present and left, there was nobody else in the room. Scotty felt a little scared about this. The door opened up and Spiderman stepped in.

“I am Spiderman,” he said in a perfect voice. “I have a birthday present for you, Scotty. It is outside. Come with me and I will show you.” Scotty followed Spiderman outside. The sky was a pure white and the light off the asphalt of the street made Scotty squint. Except for Spiderman, there was nobody else around. “Look, Scotty,” said Spiderman. “I got you a rocketship.” In the middle of the street there was a big, silver rocketship standing upright on its tailfins. It did not look like any of the cartoon rocketships on the posters and pillowcases in Scotty’s room. It was sleek and pointed. There was an open doorway just above the base of it. “Do you like it?” asked Spiderman. Scotty nodded. “I will take you inside.”

Spiderman grabbed Scotty and launched a strand of webbing at the rocketship, using it to jump and swing to the doorway. He set Scotty down. The metal floor was cold to Scotty’s bare feet. Inside it was dark and cool. It smelled like a cave Scotty had been to on a field trip. He could hear a very low sound coming from everywhere. Spiderman told him to climb up the ladder to the cockpit. He did. He climbed for kind of a long time. He didn’t see anything but the ladder. He started to ache, but then he reached the top. He pushed himself up over the edge of the hole and found that there was nothing in the cockpit except for a beat-up old leather recliner. The recliner was bolted to the floor.

He turned around to ask something of Spiderman, but then he saw that Spiderman’s costume was now black. Pieces of it ripped, showing skin underneath. Spiderman looked rotten. Scotty could see through his skin in some places to his bones and muscles. Spiderman grabbed him roughly and threw him into the chair. Scotty was very afraid. Spiderman used his webs to tie him down very tightly. He could just barely breathe. He closed his eyes.

He opened them again. It was dim. He moved his eyes around. He heard his mother and father talking, and tried to look at them. He saw their faces leaning over him. Someone grabbed his hand and squeezed it. His mother kissed his forehead like she was tucking him in for the night. He looked at his father. Standing behind his father, he saw Spiderman, most of his flesh now rotting away. He closed his eyes very tightly and screamed. Suddenly, he remembered what he felt like on his first ever day of school.

feel good by numbers

Sunday I was walking around Capitol Hill and saw a poster for the Go! Team playing at Neumos, along with Bodies of Water (my current favorite band) and some other group I'd never heard of. It seemed really, really improbable that not only would my favorite band that nobody's heard of be playing in town, but that they would be playing along with another one of my favorite bands who are totally musically different. "Goddamnit," I thought, "I must've missed that and now I'll never get the chance to hear two of my favorite bands play together like that." But it turns out that the show was tomorrow. So I tried to call up people to go with me, but everyone who might've liked it was unavailable. "Fuck it," I thought, "I'll just go alone, and maybe meet some people that way."

I actually did meet a reasonably cool girl but was third-wheeled when her boyfriend showed up, unfortunately. And then I met a drunk girl who was kind of stupid and not very interesting apart from being called Lilith.

The group I'd never heard of was Team Gina, a really fun local lesbian dance-rap duo. They had some pretty hot beats and now I occasionally get lesbian rap songs stuck in my head.

Bodies of Water was amazing. Since you've guaranteeably never heard their music: they're like a gospel band for some dead, forgotten religion, joyous and triumphant with weird undertones of mysticism. The singer/keyboardist is a woman in a long, flowing hippie dress who jumps around like she's possessed, the drummer is an overweight middle-aged woman with a glittery butterfly vest, and the guitarist and bassist are nondescript men with glasses and beards. My best theory is that they're trying to summon some ancient god. They just might do it someday, too.

Also amazing: The Go! Team. They managed to make pretty much everybody in the house move, and then proceeded to set the air on fire. Also the lead singer is a pretty good dancer. Then they walked off, leaving a guitar humming loud on the drumset and the crowd clapped and chanted their name and they came back for a double encore. My ears rang for the rest of the night.

but not a good profile pic

Last Sunday, I was out at Alki drawing the Seattle skyline for my drawing class, huddling under an umbrella to protect it from the rain. A photographer noticed me, and asked if he could take a few pictures. So I said yes. And then he sent them to me later.

corrugate

So I've decided to start a pictureblog. It's called Corrugate, and ought to update Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, probably mostly with photos because I have a huge backlog of those, but there will be drawings and maybe even paintings at some point.

EDIT: Now there's an actual link. Hoorah!