cycloid sally

I didn’t have to close tonight. I didn’t expect it but Forager Girl met me at the bookstore and walked home with me. She was upset about something but wouldn’t tell me what. We had noodles but noodles didn’t help. Chain called and said he was going to be late. Forager Girl made me so nervous I didn’t have the heart to hassle him about skanks. Barris and Harry showed up. That was weird too: I didn’t get a chance to open the door for them because Monkey somehow did it. I don’t know how: the chain was on. And that is very high on the door. Just once I’d like to catch him at it.
So anyway we all sat down – on the floor, we don’t have four chairs – and Barris and Harry told us this amazing yarn about the forces at work in the city and I’m not supposed to repeat any of it but I am supposed to believe it all. The thing is, I think I do, and so does Forager Girl, or at least I think I believe that something’s going on that may or may not be exactly as they say it is, but is probably of some similar nature. So I promised to be careful.
Now that I think about it, I realize I’m not supposed to repeat this to anybody “not in the house.” And at the moment that Harry said that, Chain walked in. Harry changed the subject, so I guess he didn’t want to talk to Chain about it right then, but I also get the impression that he knew Chain was in the house already.
Anyway, at least now I have a reason to pin all those weird people on.

I tried the matte finish fixative and it’s not great.
Then Chain made me walk all around the City with him and Monkey and he wouldn’t tell me why. It was the reservoirs, though we did a lot more than walk from each to each. He had the map.
Monkey was very interested in each of the reservoirs.
Then when we came home, completely exhausted, Harry said we should probably not do that walk a third time. How did he know we had done it at all, or that Chain and Monkey had done it before? And Monkey seemed to be arguing with him, or Harry seemed to be arguing with Monkey, but I was too tired to take much note of what Harry was saying. Monkey wasn’t saying anything, naturally, he’s a dog. What’s with Harry and the dog, anyway?
Chain showed me the metal collar that Monkey came with. It’s very heavy and the edges are not that smooth. Poor dog. He said that Monkey just showed up one day when Chain was hanging around at Moneybags Park and that was it. Chain gave him two-thirds of a panini sandwich and Monkey followed him around the rest of the day and came home with him, and a day or so later Chain got the collar off and translated. Mikey did it.

Barris Mackey was at the Universal Café! And he paid for breakfast (yummy yummy jook, but Harry and Barris had huge plates of sausage and fried eggs and pancakes and and and). But they wouldn't talk about art. They kept talking about factions, and I tried to be a good girl and pay attention because who knows? someday maybe I won't be working in isolation, I'll have a whole "school" of mixed media artists that I belong to, and maybe this political stuff might become relevant. But it was boring. At least something concrete came out of it. Barris said if I wanted to have a show, to put together a new portfolio and call him -- and he gave me his number! -- and he'd introduce me around. He said under no circumstances was I to allow myself to be patronized before I had another public show, and especially not to take commissions from random people who seemed to know more than they ought to be able to. I guess Harry told him about that woman who keeps coming to the bookstore. She hasn't been back in a while and frankly I'd sort of forgotten about the intriguing cylinder project. For a minute there I felt like the naughty little girl who tried to get the liquor down from the top shelf.
So but that was good. That was not bad. That was an offer to get me a show when I have enough new work. I asked him how many pieces it took to make a portfolio and he said "I don't think you're going to like this, but it all depends." And then he laughed. "No, really, but you should have at least ten in your portfolio, and at least six of the pieces should be really new work."
That will keep me busy for months.
Work was work. A few quaint individuals, but nothing to get excited about. Found The Secrets of the Masters on the wrong shelf again, so I took some time to read it for a while.
After I got home I found a message from Forager Girl. I wish she had a real name. Forager Girl sounds like something out of a precious fantasy story, the kind with mystical sex in it. She was at Wednesday Wanderings last night, and she spent the whole time drawing these cool patterns. She said they were notes about what Harry was saying about universal symmetry, but I didn't get those from what he said. I didn't get much. I said so, and Harry, who was slouching around nearby, said that was a good thing and I should cultivate it. I said, "what, not getting things?" And he said yes.
Forager Girl and I are getting together tomorrow, when I am not working. I don't think Hugo has noticed that he has me working six days on a good week, seven sometimes, and only two days off in a row every month and a half. Or maybe he has and is playing dumb so he doesn't have to hire more help. That's probably it: my paycheck was way more than I expected again last time and when I tried to get him to fix it he said it was too much trouble and he'd take it out of some other check. The last time he said that he never did.
Note to self: remember to ask how come Monkey’s called that instead of a normal name.

So this has been, as usual, a weird weekend. For once Hugo and Josh gave me the weekend off, and I took it, because I forgot that Chain's off biking with Mikey and I would be on my own. Which, when you think about it, is actually a good idea for me, since it meant I'd be undistracted and free to work all weekend long. So I was undistracted, and Saturday I got up really early, before light, to get a lot of work done, and I got into one of those moods where everything I touched seemed all gray and unappealing and I kept dropping things and crap. So I was unproductive and bored and eventually I took off with Monkey for the longest dog walk I've ever taken. I didn't just head for a park or something and I didn't use the leash, which seems kind of demeaning with a dog like Monkey.
After a while I kind of let Monkey do the leading, and we went all over the City. It seemed like we were going to all the reservoirs. I guess Monkey likes the smell of water. But I thought that was funny, because of the map that Monkey brought to Chain. Like he knew that was a water system map and he wanted to take this walk and check in with all his favorite places.
The reservoir system is pretty well designed, actually. They're all set up a little above the local street level, and they're about equidistant from each other -- not on a square grid, though, I looked at the map when we got back and they're radially symmetrical, kind of like a Wheel of Water, and that got me all charged up about the Wheel of Whatever again and I made a whole bunch of things for it. It's coming along, in spite of the fact that I never glue anything down because I'm afraid I'll have to rethink the Wheel or some of its parts or I'll decide I made a bunch of things wrong.
So I worked all morning Sunday on the Wheel -- we got home after dark on Saturday and I was exhausted and all I could do was read the map and drink tea. Chain buys weird tea, by the way, with sinister images on the fronts: this one has a dragon, but it doesn't look like the wise, beneficent Chinese kind, it looks like an agent of darkness wants to devour somebody. And there's a trick of the lines that if you look at it sideways and tilted in the light it looks like one of those paintings of Hell where all these naked people are flailing around in molten lead. I study it even though it gives me the creeps because if it was done on purpose it was a magnificent piece of work. Even though it's alarming. Chain likes alarming art.
And then, right in the middle of putting teats on a lioness, it hit me: what I need for the Book of Crinkly things is something like gesso to hold the ink off the fibers of the paper, but clear. So the brown of the paper shows through. Or maybe I could tint the gesso to the same brown as the paper. Because I can't imagine anything that's clear that would act like that but isn't glossy, and gloss is the last thing I need.
But by then Birdy's was closed. Stupid Sunday hours.
I wish I knew an animal behavior specialist who could explain this thing about Monkey and the reservoirs.

A nice day in the shop. I only had to work for about three hours but I ended up staying for longer because Hugo had this storyteller in who was reading books and telling stories to a little gaggle of kids from the neighborhood. Really nice. Mostly quest ones, which are always interesting. And really nice pictures.
There's something familiar about that man. I can't think of who he is, but I've at least met him before. He didn't seem to recognize me especially, but he didn't seem especially interested in me either. I didn't catch his name
Oh, and Monkey came to the shop with me. I didn't invite him, he just came. I guess he's decided he likes hanging out in the bookstore. He was really calm and grave when the children pet him and sniffed the storyteller all over, including a rather rude place, which the storyteller was gracious about.
Then I came home and arranged blobs of Fimo on the Wheel and when I couldn't stand that any more I worked on the Book of Crinkly Things. I've been testing printing methods. The brown paper bags are a little hard to work with but to my mind they are essential to the project, since nothing else crinkles just right.

11/10
Bella

That Harry Smith guy is a trial upon my life, I do swear. I got stuck with the Wednesday Wanderings again last night but honestly all I wanted to do was to get back to the house and make Fimo animals. I have a better idea about what the wheel of animals ought to be like, and it's like all I can think about for any amount of time, not even the Book of Cirnkly Things gets my attention for long.

So I took Chain's advice and I brought Monkey along and that was amusing. He seemed to think it was his personal job to inspect and pass on all the people who came to the shop. I swear he wasn't going to let a couple of them in, but Harry said it was okay! And then he gave me one of those looks. He keeps giving me those looks and I don't know if he wants to do one of those old men seduces the young women thing and he's trying to mesmerize me but I'm not falling for any Svengali number. Just give the damned talk, and let me sell the books and give out the tea and cookies.

Hugo came round for part of the evening this time. He approved of Monkey being there. It had me worried for a while, because most people don't trust dois in stores. But Monkey isn't just any dog. He's my bodyguard. Chain said so.

So most of the evening was just like the other one but all of a sudden Harry was going on about D'arcy Thompson. This weas odd, because I thought Harry was strictly into the metaphysical stuff, or at least his audience is, but D'Arcy Thompson is straight science as far as I know. Growth and form. Form follows function. Function follows form. Everything is beautiful because beauty is function and form and everything.

But he wasn't talking about beauty. He was talking about revelation. All of a sudden from nowhere he dragged out this huge poster I think he hand-did hnimself with fountain pen and colored inks. It was a geometric design, more or less, kind of organic in a way, kind of architectural in a way, symmetrical, incredibly detailed. I immediately wanted to make one myself. Especially when he began pointing to places on the design and saying stuff about the music of the spheres and the rhythm of the stars, like not hyperbole but as if there was something precise and telling about that. I don't know. I made a little sketch of a piece of it, and Harry looked me in the eyes and said, "Not yet you don't, kiddo."

Which was unnerving and I lost my place and the drawing I ended up making wasn't much like the thing I was trying to copy, and he seemed to notice that and take great satisfaction from it. One of those ones that Monkey hadn't really wanted to let in, a woman who was here last week, also gave me a look and raised her eyebrow at Harry. Who naturally smiled a really dirty smile back at her. I don't know why she didn't stomp out. I would have. Ick.

She's a pretty strange duck herself. She came and asked to look at my drawing afterwards and I showed it to her and she like critiqued it or something. What's that for? She seemed to think she knew what she was tlaking about but her suggestions were all "put a dot over here, probably," and "that line is too close to the other." Like she knows.

I know I sound like a cranky brat but I'm tired. And I won't see Chain hardly all weekend because I'm working hours and hours extra so the lover boys can go have a twenty-third honeymoon down the peninsula.

Well, that was weird. I guess it was mainly unpleasant, but not very. Josh and Hugo pretty much abandoned me to do the gig on my own. I'll probably find double time in my paycheck or something but I didn't expect them to cut out like that.
I'll say this. Harry is an odd duck. He starts every conversation with this blank leer -- honestly I think he doesn't know what planet he's on and he's stalling for time so he can pick up clues before he gets into it. The old coots that came in to hear him talk weren't phased by any of it. They just nodded their heads when he talked and they asked questions that as far as I could tell had nothing to do with what he was talking about but that seemed to be all right because his answers seemed to have nothing to do with the questions they asked. And yet. They all seemed to think they were making sense.
Well, it was billed as "Wednesday Wanderings," and I suppose that's what it was, really. Wanderings through the mystical brains of Harry and his followers.
I have to admit I was kind of disappointed, because Hugo said Harry was going to talk about the pull of pattern, whatever that might be, and I thought that he would maybe just hit on this thing that's been happening to me lately but not, as far as I could figure.
He had quite a lot to say about paper airplanes and the rhythm patterns of disco and techno music.
I was down there till one o'clock, folding tables and sweeping up cookie crumbs. It's a good thing the store is only a few doors down from our partment, because if it had been any farther, I would have slept over. It was creepy out there!
I shouldn't have said that. Chain, you are simply not allowed to go all protective and knightly on me. You will not walk me home from the bookstore when I'm there late at night. Though next time I may bring Monkey.

In other news, I have a plan for the Book of Crinkly Things. Like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, only the choices of which pages to go to will be determined by a mathematical sequence. Why may necessitate numbering the pages out of sequence to get it all to work. I have other technical problems anyway so I won't be starting it too soon. I have to figure out how to run brown paper bag paper through the printer. Should I crinkle the paper before or after it has been printed on? And I have to decide aboiut text. Part of me wants a strong text presence, and poart of me thinks that's hokey and the visuals should speak for themselves.

I wish Monkey hadn't ditched that stack of elephants. I wish there had been lasagne left. How did it go so fast -- were there a jillion bike messengers in the apartment while I was listening to Harry? Or skanks?

Wednesday. A long day for me. I have a regular shift at the bookstore and then a Wednesday Wanderings at the bookstore. We'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, I went to go down to the Korean store to get food this morning and Monkey wouldn't let me out of the house without him soi I had to take him along. Luckily he's pretty good about waiting outside because state law says you can't take a dog into a grocery store, even one with mostly bootlegged videos and pink plastic folding clothes dryer things with integral blue and purple clothespins on them. And stuff like that.

Confession: I almost never put Monkey on a leash. So He trots down the street ahead of me, or sniffs around behind me, but he always kind of squeaks when he shits -- I've never heard another dog do that -- so I always know when to clean up after him. People give me the evil eye, sometimes, but that's the price of living in the city. Not everybody's going to like you or what you do. He doesn't chase cars, bite kids, or fight dogs. Well, hardly. He's never bitten a kid, but he's done a little wrassling and chasing of invisible enemies in the park.

Actually, today I wished he was more aggressive. And then I wished he was less, a few minutes later. This guy comes looming out of nowhere when I've got my arms full of gorceries and he hands me a paper with some kind of gibberish on it and tells me he can sense I've got great -- I forget what: ki? chi? karma? chakra? soiul? One of those damned words that all seem to mean the smae thing or no thing or something. I'm waiting for the light to change, I've got my arms full of groceries, and the dog is doing me no good at all. I thought about turning around and going another way but suddenly the corner is full of people and I can't go anywhere but across and I'm not crossing against the light when there's sixty-leven SUVs and thirteen bicylces roaring through the intersection anda beat cop right there too. So I even tried to make eye contact with the cop but he's not interested in saving me from the guy who thinks I have a great something. Maybe it was my chest he thought was great. Couldn't be that because I was smashed up behind a bag of groceries (shut up, Chain, I got the groceries in a paper bag because I need lots of brown paper to make the Book Of Crinkly Things, okay?).

So I stood there and he kept talking about this idea he had that artistic people like me -- I think he said artistic and not autistic -- should be trying to coordinate our efforts to saving the world. Dog, where were you? Sniffing the damned utility box and even the cop's shoes. Fortunately for me the cop wasn't interested in loose dogs either. Anyway, the guy went on for a long time and I just had to listen to it, but I didn't quite get what he wanted me to do.I mean in particular. I understand about wanting me to use art to save the world. I want to also though I have to say that nothing I've ever thought of doing would save the world much. I've thought about it. I'd do it if I could.

Those projects that I can't shake off, they feel like I could save the world with them but I know better than that. No world's going to be saved by rag dolls or little Fimo animals stacked on a wheel. Or even the Book of Crinkly Things.

I didn't describe the guy. He was almost normal looking -- I guess he was Indian, to account for his beautiful deep-set dark eyes and his gorgeous but hardly comprehensible accent, and he was dressed in nice jeans and a button-down plaid shirt. Except for the line of crazy crap he was giving me, and the fact that he was talking to me at all on that corner -- and not about the traffic or the weather or the City Council elections or anything sane strangers talk about -- if it wasn't for all that, he'd seem like any ordinary 40-something engineer or landlord or something. Except that most of those guys are repellent and this guy wasn't, except for the crap he was talking about.

Finally, Monkey seemed to realize I was being bugged, and he peed on the guy's shoes. The guy didn't even complain, just looked sad.

Anyway, I got back and I made Lasagne! For Chain! To eat! For Dinner! And BREAKFAST!!! You can EAT BREAKFAST TOMORROW, CHAIN!!!

I think you're right about Monkey and Harry's boxes. But I have it on good authority(Hugo and Josh)there's nothing in those boxes but papers, patchwork, painted eggs, and 78s. Paper airplanes, too. Must be rats nesting in a box or something.

The serial number on the coupon is in three colors. You guessed it, red, purple, blue. What does that mean?

Also, Chain, how do you expect me to believe it's not skanks when you smell like an oxygen bar and won't tell me where you've been? I mean, I don't mind on principle about skanks. I told you there's no exclusivity clause in the contract. Only in practice because I hardly ever get to see you lately.

It was a long night. Mission Street wasn't like this last year. It was like everybody's going away party plus the most raucous of wakes and New Year's Eve and somebody's naff idea about Hell on a shoestring independent movie set. And that was just the early part, when it was still mostly kids. Most of the time I had no idea what the kids were supposed to be.

(note to ritaxis, who's reading this, I know: yes, Chain was grumpy about it, especially after about two in the morning and he'd been woken up six times. He had to work today and he says he likes his beauty sleep. Pretty well futile if you ask me. I mean, he's a bike messenger, for dog's sake, where's the beauty?)

Since I couldn't sleep I worked a lot. I'd have finished the stacking animals one, too, if Monkey hadn't taken it into his little doggy head to remove several of the stacks and distribute the little plastic animals all over the apartment. And then -- this was really weird, he never does crap like this -- he took the elephant stack and ran out the door when I was dealing with some adolescent trick-or-treaters who apparently weren't after the candy so much as they were asserting their right to ask for it. Does that make sense? So there I was -- Chain was out there somewhere at that point, probably chatting up some skank -- door open, dog tearing down the hall and a bunch of teenagers wanting to banter. I yelled at them to get the dog and they tried but they failed, natch, Monkey can be pretty fast when he puts his little doggy legs on the job, and I had to go after him -- he got to the street, and into the crowd, taking evasive action the whole way. Monkey doesn't do shit like that. By the time I caught up with him, he'd lost the stack and was sporting a hot pink feather boa fragment and a big poufy marigold stuck in his collar and carrying a Slim Jim, you know one of those skinny dry sausages they sell in the plastic tube. I guess somebody thought he was a trick or treater.

And then -- the doors were locked and I didn't have my key. Or a phone to call Chain. Luckily for me that guy Harry was drifting in around then -- I think it was only ten or eleven by then -- and he opened the door for me. I was only standing there on the sidewalk, barefoot, with an unleashed dog in a feather boa and a flower, for maybe twenty minutes. But somebody gave me a gummy ghost lollipop and somebody else gave me a coupon for a two-egg breakfast, so it was not all lost.

Our own door locked when it closed behind me too, but Chain got home around then, not wasted but a little smug and smelling of that damned oxygen bar down at the yuppie end of the street. It must have been a skank: there's nothing else in this warped galaxy that would get Chain into such a yuppie establishment.

And so Chain tried to get some sleep and I tried to recreate my work until Chain went off to messenge and I crashed.

Tomorrow is the first of the Wednesday Wanderings that Harry's supposed to host. I have to work that night. I hope it's not too dreadful.

monkey woke me up right after chain left. It was all dark and stuff. i was not a happy little girl. he had something in mind, i don't know what. chain says that monkey seems to think there's something under the stove, and chain thinks it's a rat, maybe. i think it's that monkey has figured out that if he acts freaked out enough i'll get out of bed and look at his dish and maybe even give him a walk.

i did give him a walk. what else was i going to do? i was awake.

i must say that mission street is pretty well creepy before light. there are more people on the street than you would think and they all have this look, like they've got business there and you damned well don't want to know what it is, and they wish they didn't know either. and i passed the bookstore and that was creepy too, because either hugo or josh left the one light on that's over in the weird shit section and it made it look like there was somebody there reading the weird shit. but it was just the shadows.

so. ch ch changes. hugo and josh are trying to get more help in the store. they asked me to take on another section, which means more hours, which means more money, but it means less time with chain and monkey, but i guess i can deal with that at least for a while. and hugo asked me to ask chain if he'd like to pick up a few hours in the store, taking care of the sports and fitness books. i can just see chain's opinions of most of the books. chain, are you reading this? if you are, give it a thought. tell hugo or josh when you know.

more ch ch changes. some old guy friend or something of josh and hugo has showed up and he's going to be sticking around for a while. josh and hugo are really excited about this. the way this affects me is that they're going to have wednesday night readings? lectures? i'm not sure what, with this old guy, at the store, which means that yours truly is staying late to lock up and stuff. i don't know why me and not, for example, hugo, or josh, but hey, it's money, and chain's always asleep by the time i get home anyway, what's another two hours?

tomorrow: i practise the fiddle. three hours, build up that stamina. monkey can put up with it. and so can the neighbors. i'm not that bad.

dchain, lookity, lookity! I can talk to you all morning while you're breaking your neck downtown getting the yuppie papers from one place to another, and you can read it all night while I'm pushing paperbacks at the derilects in the bookstore.

Walk Monkey? I did this morning but it was so crowded on the street it took twice as long as usual to get sniffed. We came home after halfway. Deep sincere apologies if there's any damage.

Monkey is some kind of headcase dog, you know that? Every so often he takes this deep dislike to somebody. Doesn't attack. Doesn't bark. Doesn't growl. Just eyes them and I swear he's circling around me to keep them away. As far as I can tell, there's nothing that they have in common, not that a person would notice. Maybe something dogs care about -- some kind of smell or something, maybe.

Also, look in refrigerator for noodles with peanut butter and hot chili oil.