12.23.02 - 1:12 p.m.

Enjoying hearing homeland reports from my peops. (That's pronounced "peeps", but spelled logically.) Triet is back in Austin, Shawn's in NY, Cosmo's in North Dakota. So interesting that they all have this precise sense of home, this ability to return to a place they understand. I don't know if Las Vegas does that for me. It's nice to be able to navigate roads without having to consult a map every five minutes, but I've never felt like I belong. I go only because my parents are there.

It does shape you, though. Everyone has a unique template of the wilderness-- what you see in your head when the word is mentioned. Since I grew up in Las Vegas, "wilderness" conjures up images of Red Rock, desert landscapes, flat brush and yucca trees, expanses of parched earth-- a desolate kind of beauty. This beauty is part of what made Burning Man such a great experience. Black Rock City gets built in the most extreme species of desert, and camping there is like camping on the moon. It felt right to be there, even though the weather alternately baked and froze our loins.

Got a few more days at work, then Az. and I are off to Baja. We're gone from the 26th to the 6th. There's a total of 12 people going on this trip and I only know two of them counting Az. I can't remember the last time I took a roadtrip with a bunch of strangers, but I have a good feeling about it. Hopefully 2003 will find us lounging on a secluded beach, sipping tequilla and eating fresh fish. Chris (the organizer of this caravan) has his shit together and he seems to know Baja pretty well, so I think we have a good chance of avoiding tourist traps. Alexa said to check out "Canyon de Guadalupe", so I might lobby for that.

My sleeping bag (also my uzi) weighs a ton

Nate's bday party on Weds, company party on Thurs, Last Tango in Paris slumber party on Friday ("the butter! fetch the butter!" gads that movie was bad), borscht in Menlo on Saturday, solstice celebration at Jayeesha's on Sunday. I am ready to sleep in my own bed tonight. I crave company 80% of the time but that other 20% is important for sanity.

Rusty's yoga class on Sunday-- really intense, my hips still hurt

Why am I still writing, do I have anything of import to tell you? I think I am too much favoring the main clause comma supporting clause construction. I like how run-ons sound and I know they are grammatical offenses. I am back in a mood to smoke and listen to music; the kozy shack hookah is not helping. Bought the first two Jay-Zs (reasonable doubt & in my lifetime), Pinback, another Jesus Lizard album (how do these weird compulsions emerge? that last review I posted was pat and despicable; servicing the truth requires way more thought. but at what point should precision give way to brevity? the lizard make ugly music and this fact should not be danced around, but examined. why listen to ugly music? can it be ugly if i enjoy it? is ugly the wrong word?) and Wire's 20th anniversary issue, even though Wire is impossible to read due to the boringness.

Chris and Tirza have been visiting. They blow through my life once a year and provide inspiration. They're headed back to Argentina pretty soon. We all spent some quality time in Jayeesha's hot tub last night. I still reek of chlorine. I came to work in pajamas because my pants are wet. Nobody seems to have noticed. I am a sorry excuse for a professional. Look at me sitting here, dressed in pajamas, writing in my online journal. Is there a level of hell reserved specifically for layabouts such as myself? Nein, there is no afterlife. You have to get in all your fucking and boozing now. Actually that applies even if there is an afterlife, because I doubt there's much fucking and boozing going on in heaven or hell. What's the point then?

Ha, I can ramble till the cows come home. The resolutions thing was very useful last year. I should remember to do them again this year. Grad school will be high on the list. Also camping more, trying harder to stay oriented (literally; need to buy maps and read them even when other people are navigating). Visit Mattch in NC and Mattorb in Boulder and maybe even Jenny in Tenerife? She called with a nice Christmas message; weird synchronicity because I'd just written her a letter (not yet sent, never sent). I think about her every so often. She's out of the US indefinitely; could I be an expatriate? If Bush wins again, there's always Canada.

How am I doing? How do I feel? What is my state of mind here and now? Content, mostly, although I need to find some direction. Everyone I know is going back to grad school and it bums me out. Happy that Az. and I found each other but I wonder if it makes me complacent. Impossible to imagine the future because I lack imagination; too easy to move from day to day reacting and not instigating. I still love music and I think art can sit in for spirituality, philosophy can address the same questions as religion but without having to eat wafers and breed relentlessly. If my broad brush offends, pay me no mind. I am just typing. I am discarding the exigencies of audience and disregarding whether or not 'exigencies' is the right word and paying no mind to whether or not it's pretentious but growing weary of meta-commentary because meta- is like post-modernism, it is beyond the end and thus ultimately empty. If my broad brush offends, pay me no mind / it won't cost you a dime

Fucking record companies destroying audiogalaxy... I miss it so. For a brief few months there was a golden era where any music you read about, heard about or thought about was instantly obtainable. I learned so much. I am buying Jesus Lizard cds now because I downloaded "fly on the wall" from epitonic.com and enjoyed it. I am buying Pinback cds because I heard them in the Bi-Rite grocery store on 18th and then downloaded their mp3s from audiogalaxy. I am buying Jay-Z cds now because I downloaded "streets is watchign" from audiogalaxy. AM I ABNORMAL IN THIS REGARD? sooner or later web-based song-based distribution has to happen. Major labels are essentially organized crime.

Confusion is sex. I wish I could talk here about sex. I always enjoy reading other people's writing about sex, in any form. e.g. habbit's xmas s&m dungeon special. Ok it's prurient, but it's such a basically interesting thing. I don't have the kind of relationship with most of my friends where we talk about sex a lot. Maybe that's a good thing, but it leaves me curious. I remember reading in Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius that he masturbated once a day, usually in the shower. That should be a baseball card fact. Name, height, masturbation frequency. I will say no more unless provoked. Sometimes I wish I had started a totally anonymous journal with just initials for everybody. But I would miss the sense of community that dland reinforces. I like that angichau is angi, triet is triet, captainb is shawn. (Well ok that one doesn't work so well, but it's not like he's hiding his name or anything.) Laura's friends all use their nicknames when addressing each other in dland, which I find hilarious. When Ellen & co. write to me they call me "jcruelty". I should have called myself superhunk2000.

Speaking of dland, does anyone else find it fascinating that bobby and justin are now hanging out with each other? It's like when Homicide did a cross-over episode with Law and Order... weird to see stars comingle. For those who don't know (i.e. for those who have a life), Bobby and Justin are dland superstars with thousands of fans. i suspect most of these fans are 14 year old girls, but who knows. They are very different personalities, but perhaps they were fated to meet because they both have the kind of personality that makes them want to spew intimate details of their lives to total strangers on the internet. I guess we all have that in common.