I am finding it hard to get anything done. There is claustrophobia in concentric circles around me: cubicle, city, culture. (I did not plan for the overabundance of 'c' words in that sentence.) I spent a long time researching grad schools in Alaska, figuring that I'd get a masters degree in whatever they're good at up there, but my research did not turn up anything that the grad schools in Alaska were good at. And work is like a sick parody of the arts, wherein talent and effort actually is rewarded with insistence for more of the same. In work, I am trying to earn the prize of being left alone. But from work, I get what I'm looking for from art; and in art, I get what I'm looking for from work. So it goes.

HAUNTED ALASKA Anchorage: The Little Karaoke Place.
Chinese weightlifters killed the owner in 1999. The owner's Ghost is seen looking out the window.

Shit!

After an extensive campaign, my mother persuaded me to send a card for my great-grandmother's 90th birthday. We've never been close or even especially aware of each other, but she was still sending $10 checks as of my 23rd birthday, so, by any reasonable measure, that's worth a card for the big nine-zero. Finding a suitable one wasn't easy, though. How many birthday cards do they make for 90 year olds? There are probably all of two designs, at most, and odds are she's received both a dozen times already. In the end, I bought an age-neutral 'fun' card that had a bee on it and was fuzzy all over. I thought that might be fun to, you know, feel. So, I hope she enjoys the card. I have not yet mailed it, though, because I am stuck for something to write on the inside.

This claustrophobia fucks me up as a writer. I cannot effect any distance from myself, from my immediate thoughts. I think the reason why I've never been able to completely embrace Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy is that his inspiration was so much better than what he created from it. He felt intimidated that his girlfriend had traveled more than he had. From that, he extrapolated the intimidated by sexual experience plot, which just seemed so mundane in comparison. The only people I am ever really intimidated by are people who have traveled more than me. It's amusing, I think. But it's there. And there's this claustrophobia.

There was leftover pizza in the office kitchen this morning, from one of my favorite pizza places in the city, with pesto and other toppings. I had four pieces. Morning glory, afternoon trying to start fights with people.

Early summer crazy, y'all.