Tuesday, February 21, 2006

what happens when you accidentally hit "paste" on a shared computer

She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

day on/day off

There are the days when one is constantly on the verge of tears, tears that can quickly turn to anger when one is around less sensitive beings than one's self.
So, I left work again. No one seemed to notice. I don't care if they do. It felt too nice, walking up Pine, away from the stupid ass law offices of McKinley and Schmirkel, away from the mindless hours that comprise the workday.
I sit in a cafe at a strip mall, in the far corner of the place-the ultimate left hander's table. I watch the various people lining up to attend the movies next door: the two old women who pull their large, soft wallets out 20 paces ahead of the theatre, just like my mother, who uses her turn signal half a mile before her actual turn. One woman is very tall, has a bandage on her wrist and dresses smartly, in a pair of low heeled beige shoes with bows on the toes. They are widowed, I imagine. They manage their money well, keep careful records of bills paid and bills to be paid.
There is a table to my right, talking incessantly about cake. One guy, with a bald patch surrounded by growing out dyed red hair, keeps complaining that the waiter gave him a different kind of cake from the one he ordered, yet when the waiter comes around and asks if everything is alright, the guy poutily says ..."mmmhmm". Now he is talking about how much better the cake is at the Cheesecake Factory. I might freak out on him. If I wanted to hear this inane kind of stuff, I would've stayed at work all day.

A girl like me would be a kept woman who is kept easily by anyone who has a place to crash and seems to offer anything-cable tv-a new carton of cigarettes-anything to stave off the gnawing loud loneliness of regular existance. Me as a kept woman has some sort of chemical dependence. She is never truly happy because she has no discernable self-she enjoys drugs, tabloids, and lots of tv and masturbation because those are the things that make her feel like one with the material, the deed. For all her lovers, she has never felt something other than her otherness. She has an amazing ability to morph into the form of a fairly benign hood ornament, pleasing and unobtrusive. Kept woman is always on the make, in a very unassuming way-not even she knows what's she's up to. Most other people can smell her need before she can.

Who else is here? Loud powerful lesbian with a shaved head and thick black glasses.
Lone black woman, wearing an XXL sweatsuit and mumbling to herself. Is she on a phone? Is there a phone somewhere on her? Workout sweats, aerobic sneaks, and cake. Salve for my burns. OK, she has a phone in her right ear. Shew, I thought she looked together.

Sometimes it's the people with killer instincts I can't stand. But boy, do I admire them. The ability to get things done, to cross errands off their lists in rapid succession, to enroll in programs and get up at 6am to go on jogs, to piss off the waiters and cashiers by being demanding and difficult. I admire people who don't mind being hated, who can stay up all night and sleep all day. I am too obedient-even to the sun and moon, who don't care what I do or when I do it. My roommate, an extremely hard worker, has the ability to focus all of her efforts on one thing at a time: to work hard, play hard, and sleep all day on the weekend. I exist in a more neurotic, semi-agitated state all the time.

Everyone is a fake, to some degree. And I think that when people are not fake, we call them crazy. Crazy people are annoying too, but I would probably rather be in the company of someone crazy than someone completely fake. Unless said crazy person was a poo flinger. I don't like superficiality, but then again, I don't like it so real that someone is throwing their poo around either. There's gotta be some middle ground.

ancient wisdom

There is a probably North African guy sitting down at a table across the front window of Starbuck's. I think he's a taxi driver. Baseball cap, moustache, cigs. I hear him speak his native tongue a few times to different guys who happen by. He speaks in a mixture of Arabic and English. As a friend leaves, the man calls after him and offers him some advice, which I imagine to be some blessing or prayer or 3,000 year old saying. The man does not hear his words the first time and asks him to repeat.
"Pick five. Pick five is very good. Only $1 a day. You can win very big".

Monday, February 06, 2006

Regina and Bill (1)

Bonnie had never met her real mother. For most of her life, she'd never even thought about it. She'd been adopted at birth by a couple of real sweethearts who were nearly 50 and had never had children of their own. Regina and Bill. Mom and Dad. They both had short gray hair. Bill was in the insurance business, Regina was a librarian. They kept a severely organized home. They had a cocker spaniel named Peanut Butter who could only hang out in the laundry room. Bonnie was not allowed to really play with Peanut Butter because of a 'genetic flaw' in the dog that caused him to urinate uncontrollably whenever he became excited or agitated, which are the only two states a dog can be put in while in the company of a child.

Friday, February 03, 2006

myspace=my nightmare

What the hell is up with people on the internet pretending to be other people?
I just found out that some loser is actually pretending to be Molly Harvey on myspace.com in order to "brighten people's days". That's like pretending to be actress Lauren Tewes of "Love Boat" fame in order to get a good table. Who cares?

The lamest part about it is that the person pretending to be me can't spell or punctuate worth a damn. It's embarrassing, frankly. Also, the text on my profile is yanked straight from my actual website (mollyharvey.com) so not only are they unoriginal and lazy, (and breaking the law, as they're using explicitly copyrighted material without permission)... they're totally boring! If you're going to pretend to be someone else, why not make them as trippy and over the top as you possibly can?
Apparently, I'm just into meeting Residents fans, and writing Residents song lyrics on people's message boards, and asking people to write me and tell me their favorite Residents songs. I mean....HELLO? Is this person legally retarded? As much as I love love love love love love love the Residents, my relationship to them occupies about 1% of my consciousness and I would NEVER use my connection to them as something that defines me as a person. As an artist, definitely, but I would never use that as my profile on some website! And though I completely appreciate anyone who is a fan of the Residents, or of myself, I would never crassly seek out connections with/ attention from, people who are fans.
I don't normally write things that are personal and true here. But this is true. So please, if you are on myspace.com and you see a profile that says "molly" and it's a photo of a girl with long pink hair wearing an evening dress and a pair of huge rubber boots, please know that (though that is me in the photo), the person who has written that profile is NOT me. Ironically, I have now made a real profile on myspace which difinitively proves how maudlin, unglamorous and homey I am. It can be found at www.myspace.com/mollyharvey
If you would like to view the fake profile you can go to:http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=47897512

That is all. Thank you.