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January 31, 2002

i'm just a soul who's intentions are eeeeeeeee!

My friend the rzanimal, has a 4 year old kid named Samadhi. I made her a mix CD with a bunch of songs I love, and evidently he likes them too.

It's no surprise that he likes the They Might Be Giants Song, but more surprising is that he likes the Tom Waits version of 'Downtown Train'. The strangest thing is that his favorite song is Nina Simone's haunting and beautiful studio recording of 'Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood'.

Evidently he runs to the stereo when the song comes on, puts his ear right up to the speaker and sings along. Only when she sings, "I'm just a soul who's intentions are good, oh lord please don't let me be misunderstood," he sings, "I'm just a soul who's intentions are EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" It's sort of a high-pitched squeal, and definately not the word "good".

His mom has tried to tell him the correct lyrics, but he insists he's singing it the correct way.

He's a pretty intense kid. I was stunned when I found out he had been age 3 when I met him. He's astoundingly creative and articulate, and has a fascination with rhyming and consonance and onomontopia. He'll just sit in the bathtub and bark out little songs like, "Cho-a-goat, Zo-a-jote, Splash of water, tow a boat, cho-a-goat, do-a-jote, soapy goat!"

So anyway, I'm making him a mix tape. I'm for sure going to put some more They Might Be Giants, and some songs with repeating sounds like The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird (The Bird is The Word)". I might even put Tom Waits' "Swordfishtrombone."

Any other suggestions?

P.S. rzanimal, if you're reading this, don't read this to sam yet or it won't be a surprise!

the tinyblog tool

You know, I don't look at stats anymore, so I can't compulsively check referrer logs. I do, however, occasionally check google to see if there's anyone linking to me that I've never heard of before. Well, when I searched for tinyblog today, I found something new.

Evidently TinyBlog is a new CMS written in python. Fascinating. Well, I still rank higher than it in google so I won't have to kill Steve Jenson just yet. Hehehe.

I hope it's good...anyone tried it? I would, but I happen to be using the best web application for weblogs according to the bloggies.

dorky blogspot blog of the day 13

Many of you now know the brilliance that is I, Asshole, but probably much fewer of you know of the brilliance that is Asshole's 14 year-old sister. Not one to jump on the bandwagon, her blog is almost nothing like I, Asshole, and for a blog about the trials and tribulations of girls trying on each others' waterbras (among other things), it is amazingly fresh and funny whenever she posts.

As far as I'm concerned, her taglines (kicking squealing gucci little piggy) blow away Wil Wheaton's stupid monkey tagline anyway.

I'd post a few more links to her past funny posts (like the ones about her class mates who made up a new religeon based on her, called Morganism, which sounds a little like a disease) but she needs to republish her archives, and she doesn't have absolute links anyway.

Enjoy Opinion Pie!

2002 bloggies

Well, as a weblog that loves other weblogs, I think I would be a little amiss if I didn't say anything about the 2002 bloggies, the annual weblog awards.

For one thing, I'd like to pout a little that hardly any of my friends won anything. What's New Pussycat won the Best Kept Secret award, and I think that may be the most righteous award given all year. If she's a secret, then what the hell am I?

Movable Type won Best Web Application. Duh.

Then of course Wil Wheaton won every fucking category he was nominated for. Which was most of them. Look...it's a good weblog. He is actually really funny, and I would hardly deny a washed up child actor the delight of a new (albiet much smaller) smattering of fame. But CHRIST PEOPLE, there's so much other talent out there. Who were all these people who felt the need to vote for him in every goddamn category!?

Well maybe next year people will be good and sick of him. Let the backlash begin! I wonder who this years' up and comers will be? I remember back when dollarshort.org was a fresh new thing. What a fucking crime she didn't win best new weblog. Oh well. I could only vote once.

Plus, if Wil Wheaton hadn't won in a majority of the categories, I would probably have more to write about. Damn him for his funny stories about how much of an asshole William Shatner is. Damn him!

January 30, 2002

fela kuti

I only knew the words Afro-Beat or Afro-Pop before a friend of a friend played me some Fela Kuti.

Fela thumbed his nose at the various Nigerian military governments in the 70's, both in his music and actions, for his entire career. Even when they burned his house down twice and threw his mother out the second story window of his house, he still continued to write brilliantly caustic beautiful songs like Kalakuta, Coffin for Head of State, and Zombie.

Evidently he had 28 wives, most of them dancers in his stage show. He was known for conducting performances and interviews in his underwear. He died August 2nd, 1997 of heart problems and complications of AIDS.

I just thought I'd mention him because his music is really moving me these days.

January 29, 2002

what it's like to have a body

My mom had visions naturally. I had to take drugs to get the same effect.

Sometimes I meet these people who are so etherially high. They speak in abstractions and never think of logistics. They see the world in symbols and only see numbers as shapes. They never leave the house on time.

But I, like it or not, am grounded in the element of earth, and I am very aware of my body. It has always worked pretty well. I can lift heavy furniture when I need to and chop wood and climb trees and do yoga.

All this in spite of the fact that I am so broken. I fell and broke my back (twice), my elbow (twice), my wrist, and various fingers and toes. I'm never happy about it, but never 100% surprised when it happens anymore.

And also I hardly ever remember my dreams. My sister and the rzanimal and her son samadhi remember them almost every night. They have little dream caususes in the morning and compare notes and write them down. I only remember dreams sometimes when I nap in the early morning, and then it is very vivid. I always think I'm going to remember them later because the feeling of them in my body is so strong. But then of course they are not really there in my body like the steel rods and plates so they fade into the distance by the time my breakfast has digested.

My body is hairy. No, more like furry. It's thick and soft...so is my beard when I'm growing it. Like a little beast I am.

Someone once called me Baba Yaga, and I don't know why except cause she's a crazy Russian witch with a big nose. And I'm Russian, and I have a big nose and sometimes wild hair, too. That's why I guess. And the crazy part, too. (But not the part about having a magical house on chicken legs. I wish!)

I had some friends from Singapore and they use to call me "Mo Mo" which is Cantonese for "hairy". In other asian languages it usually means "meat filled dumpling" so I'm not sure where they were coming from with that one.

My step-dad, he used to affectionately call me "shit-for-brains". I think he meant the English phrase, but sort of idiomatically. He was funny like that.

This body is basically on loan to me. I'm going to have to just drop it at some point, so when I break myself I try to remember that. Breaking myself has actually made me less focussed on trying to be a body and remembering that I just have a body, like a snake skin. Eighty years or so is not that long, need I remind you?

I like other people and their bodies too. Even dirty people or crooked people or fat people, I rarely find people really repulsive. Bodies are just bodies.

I think it's been a long time since I posted a post that had less of a point. That's so great.

January 28, 2002

news of friends

One friend just finally realized her great dream of many years and moved to New York City. She will be so missed, but how can you blame someone for following their dream?

My friend the rzanimal just left the father of her young child and is trying to hack it out on her own for the first time in years, and definately the first time since she was a mother. I think she may even be foolish enough to let me teach her how to drive. (Heck, she can't do much more damage to my car!) In any case, we (ahem) at the tinyblog wish her all the best in her courageous endeavor.

My friends Buster and Rachel just recently started their own weblogs. Maybe I'll ask them to come to the dark side of Movable Type away from LiveJournal and be my bitches.

Oh, and speaking of friends: by god go vote What's New Pussycat? as the best goddamn blog on the planet.

January 26, 2002

unravel

good bjork! evil bjork!

"The intriguing concept for the sleeve is born out of the Bj�rk song Unravel. A couple of opposite photographs of Bj�rk depicting goodness and evil with the evil Bj�rk unravelling the others' love and sucking the goodness from her, represented by strings of yarn, into her mouth."
- http://www.bjork.com

The lyrics to unravel:

While you are away
My heart comes undone
Slowly unravels
In a ball of yarn
The devil collects it
With a grin
Our love
In a ball of yarn
He'll never return it
So when you come back
We'll have to make new love

Like to hear it? ( bjork-unravel.mp3 3.26k )
I'll leave it up until at least the end of February 2002.
Enjoy.

January 24, 2002

i move to dismiss!

Yes, I got to say those magical words today.

You see, three months ago, I got a speeding ticket in Edmonds by a bored motorcycle cop who pulled over someone else while he was in the middle of writing my ticket. I went to court and got the ticket deferred. This means that if I don't get another ticket for a year, then that ticket will disappear from my record. If not, then in addition to paying the court costs for the deferment, I have to pay the full cost of the original ticket and it goes on my record.

Well, about three months ago, while in a rush to take my cousin to the airport. I ran a stop sign and got stopped by a cop waiting behind a little wall for no other reason other than to bust people at that specific stop sign. Damn. I calculated quickly in my head the almost two hundred dollars that cost me.

After a bit of careful consideration I decided to go for gold. I asked for a contention hearing, meaning I say I didn't commit the offense. At the little pre-hearing I said I did indeed want to contest the charge and...here's the key...subpoena the officer.

Now no cop wants to show up in downtown Seattle over a stop sign ticket that happened several months ago unless you did something to piss him off, and I had been very polite to the officer. If you subpoena the officer as a witness, and he (or she) doesn't show up, then you don't even have to make an argument. You just get to have the case dismissed.

So I've been waiting months for that stupid hearing, knowing there would be a chance the officer would show up and I would be screwed. But when the day came today, and 2:30pm rolled around, I saw two cops in the courtroom and niether was the guy who pulled me over on the top of Queen Anne hill.

I waited with giddy excitement until the judge finally called me and opened my case.

"Is an officer present for Talsky?"

Deafening silence.

"Mr. Talsky it looks like you supoena'd the officer on this infraction, is that correct?" He looked over his glasses at me.

"Yes your honor."

Here's where you're supposed to wait for him to look at you ponderously for a moment until you fully appreciate how lucky you got, and then he's supposed to say, "Would you like to make any motions?" but I couldn't even wait.

I immediately blurted out, "I move to dismiss!"

He looked at me over his glasses ponderously (he had to do it sometime, and I think he was a little annoyed at my eagerness) and finally said:

"Granted."

January 23, 2002

marlamewa

The Tibetan word marlamewa refers to the light in the sky of a beautiful sunrise, where the sky is filled with a copper-colored light.

There's not enough words like that in the English language. Perhaps we can trade-up some words like 'correspondant' and 'virtually' for marlamewa and chiaroscuro.

Oh wait. This is English. We can just start using it and call it an English word. That's so great. It's a living language.

January 22, 2002

a chink in the armor of maryromantic

I know, I shouldn't be so excited about this but I can't help it. I have an obsession with maryromantic like Asshole has about young earnest christian bloggers.

As you may know, one of the only conditions by which you may write to Mary (besides being her potential true love and properly filling out her form) is to inform her that you've sent her a link to her site. Which I did, back when I posted my original post about her. In that Email, I sent along a personal note asking for some correspondance if at all possible, to which I got a form letter denial.

The permalink was to the version of the site on shauny.org, to which the permalinks no longer exist. So just recently I got an Email from Mary asking if there was still a working link to her, as she was building an external links page finally.

I wrote her back with the updated links, and another sincere request for an interview. Only this time I actually got a personal reply back! It didn't say much, but it did say she was putting up a link list, and would notify me when it was up, and that I could ask her again then about an interview.

Excellent.

I have a handful of interview questions in mind, many having to do with the material that used to be on her site in the tripod version but was removed. However, are there any readers who have questions they would like asked of Mary? I would be curious to know.

January 21, 2002

sick, sick boy

On Friday I went out and met the ever sparkling Jessamyn and got sucked into MIT's yearly insane quiz race known as the mit mystery hunt.

In the middle of messing with dozens of strips of colored paper and at least two rolls of scotch tape, I started to feel a little queasy. I asked for some peppermint tea, and then quickly realized that that just wasn't going to do the trick anymore.

I threw up my dinner. Then I spent the next 12 hours on Jessamyn's bathroom floor trying to keep the correct end over the toilet when needed and thinking maybe it wasn't such a good idea to to go lay in bed with my very sick friend and read to her after all.

Within the next 36 hours I had some other health milestones, like being able to:
- Crawl into the living room.
- Drink a whole glass of water.
- Digest a painkiller.
- Eat a banana.
- Drive home.

Now, aside from the feeling of being just generally poisoned and having a constant wicked headache (which may be, in part, due to having no coffee for 3 days), I feel okay to sit in front of a computer. I may even go to work tomorrow. Crazy.

January 17, 2002

danieltalsky.com

I bought danieltalsky.com too, while I was buying domain names. I was so consumed with getting the tinyplace moved that I didn't put anything there but an Email link.

I wanted to wait until I could put up a meaningful placeholder page...something with class and style that would really represent me online.

Here it is.

Eventually of course it's going to be my professional site. The web page I can give people the URL to when I want them to know I have a web page, but don't want them here.

January 16, 2002

the land of maryromantic

Evidently, Mary has toned down her site since she moved over to her own domain and isn't quite as forthright about what she wants as she once was.

She used to host the site at Tripod's free servers and had a much more extensive description of her..."requirements".

How did I find this out? Well, Metafilter ran a couple of threads on her, one in March 2001, and one in April 2001. I found these comments to be most revealing.

Among them (although this is not verifiable):

On the main page of the site (here), I couldn't help but notice the large white space at the bottom. She has about a thousand words there to "to help my page be found". (They're white, same as bgcolor, so highlight to see them). They are so many as to make searching for the page practically useless, besides the fact that they are often contradictory and just plain weird, like the rest of the site. Among those words:

single dating honesty worship wisdom atheistic atheist interpersonal what do woman want what do woman want abstinence lonely female domination story love match yahoo profile aol words of wisdom female picture woman looking for man lonely woman atheist pretty love relationship looking submissive older lady intimacy husband male slave

I seeeeeeee. Hehehehe. Well, I don't think she's a professional dom or anything, in light of reading these threads. I do think she's really looking for her true love, but I think she's figured out a decent way to pay a little rent while she looks. Monetary gifts on the first date indeed.

welcome to tinyplace.org

Right about this time last year (January 20th), I screwed up my FTP account over at Freedom to Surf, and asked if anyone would be willing to offer me hosting space.

The super deluxe Shauna Marsh of shauny.org almost instantly extended me unlimited generousity and trust with her shell account, and made it possible for me to develop the tinyplace as I learned to code HTML.

Now, finally, a year later, I'm paying for hosting space and the domain tinyplace.org, and have converted my entire blog to php. I reorganized all my files and realized that moving to your own host account is like moving to a new apartment. I know I'm making a big deal of something silly, but the website has become a big part of my life.

Thank you so much Shauna, and thank you to everyone who has read and commented. If I hadn't wanted anyone to read it, I would have written it in wordpad, eh?

From now on I'll see you at tinyplace.org

January 14, 2002

letters from cammy VII: i am so tiny

I hear everything AND
I know nothing.

Maynard and I am soulmates, he taps right into my insanity.
What matters after that.
WHAT MATTERS
WHAT
WHAT

Don't we all seek the perfect circle.

Church boy is still running after me
GOOD FUCKING LUCK, SORRY i SAID A BAD WORD, CAN I BORROW YOUR JEEP,

I have failed a thousand times
go away, i am killing you
for what
for christ

and you my Daniel,
You are always obvious, I am, I am,
isn't it difficult to feel passed over.
i LASTED WAY LONGER THAN I SHOULD HAVE,
ARE YOU naked, lost.

don't see me
don't see me
don't see me

Eyes of a tragedy,

i see through it all
i see you
the obvious,

behind me
behind me

oh well
APPARANTLY NOTHING
APPARANTLY NOTHING
NOTHING AT ALL

YOU KNOW YOU DON'T SEE ME

YOU KNOW
YOU KNOW
YOU KNOW

YOU DON'T SEE ME AT ALL

IN JAIL IN THE CRAZIEST MOMENTS, THAT'S ALL THAT GOT THROUGH
YOU KNOW
YOU KNOW
YOU KNOW
YOU KNOW

SO MANY JUNKIES TO MEET SO MANY PEOPLE SO LOST
A FIREMAN, TULALIP BAY, RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER

POOR MAN

ALL MEN ARE LOST TO ME, i HATE THEM,
I FEAR THEM, I CRY AT THEIR FEET, THEY LOVE THAT.
I WILL LEAVE, I AM SO TINY AND IN NEED OF THOSE BIG STRONG ARMS,
THEY SEEM SURPRISED AT MY RAGE.

I WILL FIND THE CENTER IN YOU, I WILL CHEW IT UP AND LEAVE,
I WILL I WILL I WILL I WILL

GOD HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL
I AM

January 13, 2002

letters from cammy VI: unravelled

WANNA KNOW WHAT I DID ON THIS BEAUTIFUL $15,000.00 DAY
WELL .......
MY BOYFRIEND TOOK ME TO RAYS BOATHOUSE FOR A LOVELY LUNCH ON THE WATER AND
THEN TO THE ATHENIAN OVERLOOKING ELLIOT BAY AND TO BELLTOWN PUB AND THEN WE SHOPPED ALL OVER BELLTOWN
AND WHILE I GOT MY HAIR CUT HE ASKED ALL ABOUT YOUR SO CALLED
LIFESTLYE...........what could i say just the truth.......
I THINK THE WORD WAS "NEEDS ASS KICKED" BUT I SAID 'NO MR. L.A. NO NO
HE HAS WHAT HE DESERVES he sleeps without me......

BALD BALD BALD BALD BALD BALD BALD BALD BALD what what

SEE HOW THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING

SO PROBABLY YOU WILL BE HEARING FROM HIM.
NO BIG DEAL JUST A 'man' to MY MAN....
CANADIANS RULE

OOPS THIS IS PROBABLY CONSIDERED WHAT WAS IT HOSTILE OFFENSIVE ABUSIVE YES
THAT IS THE WORD ABUSIVE ABUSIVE ABUSIVE ABUSIVE ABUSIVE OH AND WHILE I AM
AT IT ......

YOUR SLUTTY FRIEND CARA WITH THE CRABS SHE STOLE THAT LINE
'DICK, DICK, DICK, DICK, DICK' FROM RESEVIOUR DOGS ..... LIKE SHE COULD BE
ORIGINAL ,,,,,,,

WHAT AN IDIOT I HOPE YOU TWO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. DOES SHE MAKE YOUR SHOES YET. HAVE YOU MOVED TO HER COMMUNE YET HAVE YOU BEEN TO NEPAL YET ARE YOU A MONK YET NO NO NO NO NO NO WILL YOU EVER FUCK NO DREAM ON STEVEN, DREAM ON DREAM ON DREAM ON BYE STEVEN

coming, er...going soon

I just wanted to make the general announcement that I've finally made the leap, and purchased my own domains and lighning fast hosting space.

I am in the process of moving the tinyplace over to it's new home at tinyplace.org. It's a fair amount of work...I'm converting the whole blog to PHP, and just trying to have things a bit better organized, and that means converting a lot of links and filenames, and moving this whole Movable Type operation over there.
So what I'm saying is, this is not going to take place by tomorrow.

However, it will happen soon, and then I will only be Shauna's honorary sweet, sweet bitch. Wish me luck!

January 12, 2002

letters from cammy V: sometimes

Sometimes the girl knew me far too well for my own good:

There's something I've been wanting to say to you, now is probably a good time.

I've known you for along time and I know that you have a good heart and if you acted with as much mindfullness in your day to day life, as you do with your shrine room and your dharma books, life might be a little easier with Less conflicts and suffering and all of those Dramatic frustrations.

You act with great care around the "Official Dharma items" but with other things in your day (some of the time, not all of the time, but enough) you act as if your actions do not matter, or you are completely oblivious to the person or item that you're bruising, in the end the lack of mindfull ness causes you more suffering. I become so frustrated when you just pay no attention.. I think I have pelted you with vicious attacks bout your selfish me, me, me-ness and about pushing me out of the way and spilling things on the carpet, but those really aren't what is at the root of things...

Remember when I got so mad at you when we were at the lama's and you had your shoes on in the kitchen and i said you should take them off. that's what i'm talking about. and i feel so sad when you are confused and hurt, and then i get madder because i can predict what's going to happen. i see where a huge samsaric tidal wave crashes over you.

My intention is not to hurt you Daniel. This is not an attack. I love you and maybe I am so wrong and full of my own puffed up feathers. I only want peace for you and for our household.

I also had a wonderful time over the holidays. you little tender nugget

January 11, 2002

letters from cammy IV: me and my advice

This was the Email from her:

Oh, oh, oh Chicken dinners are not good at 8:30. Especially topped off with Ben and Jerrys. EEEEEEEEESSSSSHHHHHHH!!!!!! Bad, Bad 4am grouchy. I keep having bad dreams i think i will talk about them with you because almost every night i wake up in a panic and they are the dark scary kind of dreams. Could it be eating late??? Feeling better now but my head still hurts. Wait, who said I listened to Wham? Oh no not me. My brother would have disowned me.

Fiona Snapple and her 90 word album title. I don't know. Maybe if she eats
something soon.

I would love to see Being John Malkovich tomorrow and go to Larry's and the
PCC. Won't you be, Won't you be, please won't you be my Daniel.

loving you, longing to be loving on you
c

and part of my reply...

No doubt that a heavy meaty, fatty meal eaten 1-2 hours before bedtime is a
sure recipe for nightmares and fuzzy head in the morning. Ice cream and cigarette's too. There's a King Crimson song called "The Grand Deciever" where he's making fun of "Health Food Faggots" and the lyrics go "Cigarettes, Ice Cream, Cadillacs, Floozies." I spose a lot can be said for those things, but more so when you're a rock star.

Speaking of health food faggots, some kind of vegetable really helps your body to process the other food. And in some variety...if only we could exclusively eat mashed potatos. But it really doesn't supply everything you need. Sometimes you have to have yellow veggies and more than sometimes you have to have to eat leafy greens and edible pod peas. They're like the staff of life. They're SO good for your body. Last night was such a good meal, however. I did really enjoy it and the whole evening in fact.

January 10, 2002

letters from cammy III: car stolen

This is from when we lived on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. (Our cars were both stolen...hers, twice. Boom City is the big field where they sell fireworks to tourists on 4th of July and New Years. They are only legal to sell there.):

Car stolen, sherriff responds, says "I'll find your car somewhere on the rez. Someone just needed a ride home." Within 2 hours the alledged stolen vehicle is found full of empty bottles, a Tulalip Tribes Basketball Tournement Championship Jacket, and a picture of the thief and his girlfriend, where might you ask, BOOM CITY.

January 9, 2002

letters from cammy II: lassie

My boss Carrie is new grandma, her grandson was born yesterday, his name is Tyler Joe. The escrow department is giving her a gift of what stories, What we remember most about our grandmas.

So beside bad cooking, I have been searching my memory and telling Janine and Patricia little tidbits of the Farm. The winning story is my first job feeding the chickens, I earned a quarter a day. Little Farm Girl Stories amuse my coworkers.

They didn't laugh about my story about wanting to marry Lassie. Janine said it was a tear jerker?!

letters from cammy I: the kitty stories

I'd like to start with something nice, because I've presented Cammy as a pretty intense lady (and she is), but I fell in love with her for a reason...she is one charming lady!

Okay, so here's a part of an Email after I didn't live with her anymore. (Eric is her little brother...):

I want to be a cat. Eva and I just had some tuna, so good. Poppy is POPSTAR, the stunt cat. she loves to ride on the hood of the car. and she thinks that she is a champion swimmer. Grometer is a big furry beary baby. So needy.

We made a kitty box condo in the living room and they try to pin each other down. the kitty sleeping post is that funny chair you threw in wood pile. Poor Grom, He has such a loud meow. Eric says that I encourage him because everytime he whines I kiss him. well he needs to have reassurance that he is a good cat. and that he has an important place in this family.

Eva is my baby, Poppy is such a POPSTAR that everyone laughs at her and so Grom will just eat and eat. So I don't want him to have a complex about his chubby belly. He is so chubby that falls over when he tries to clean himself. Poppy sees this and she pins him down to clean him. She cleans me too now, in the morning she likes to clean my sweaty face. I know all 6 cats in the dark just by their sounds, even their tiny breathing is distinct. Eric doesn't like to share his food with them and they could care less if he sprays them. they love spagetti and Amy pizza and poppy LOVES my blackberry jam and my pumpkin bread, she ate the top off.

Grom ate some chili with me and then puked all night. what a sight. they like to puke off the side of the couch or the bed. it must be easier. Horray for Resolve, I go through a can a week.

letters from cammy: intro

I got a call from Cammy this morning. She is in some kind of facility in Cashmere (instead of with some drug lord, which is good) and she was saying she found some old notes of mine. She read me some. It was kind of intense.

I told her I had been writing about her on the tinyblog. She asked if I had any notes of ours, and said I should post them! Well, at first I couldn't think of any, and then I remembered I have only about a hundred Emails from her on my hard drive at work. I felt as if I had permission (she was unusually sober and lucid), so I'd like to feature some parts of her Emails to me and some parts of my Emails to her, in hopes that it will give a little insight into me, her, and perhaps even Borderline Personality Disorder, and Dissociative Personality Disorder, which she has since been diagnosed with.

So, without further fanfare...

January 7, 2002

form reply from maryromantic

this is my response to an Email to maryromantic, about this post about her...

>From: Mary1777@aol.com
>To: danieltalsky@hotmail.com
>Subject: Thanks for linking to Mary's site
>Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 17:52:29 EST
>
>Dear Daniel,
>
>Hi. Thanks for mentioning my site at yours.
>
>I can't extend my friendship to you in the way of additional correspondence,
>because I put all the time and effort that I can into finding a mate. But if
>I can be any further support to you through my other and ever-expanding web
>site, that would be great. I've written several articles on my values
>regarding relationships. There's a link for you below.
>
>Remember to send me the special e-mail I request at my web site if you ever
>think that we may be what each other is seeking.
>
>My site is at
>http://www.maryromantic.com
>Gentle, Romantic Woman Seeks Agnostic or Atheist for Strong Attraction,
>Friendship, Eventual Marriage, and Deepest Love
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Mary
>Mary1777@aol.com
>http://www.maryromantic.com

January 6, 2002

not regretting it a bit the next morning

a tinyblog poem. shhhhhh...

I laud the practice of drunken familiarity
remember that everyone in the bar really is your friend

Your eyes
     your ears
          your nose and
your mouth breathing your hot breath into every ear
winning sloppy pool games and
remembering that the bar clock is at least twenty minutes fast

January 4, 2002

hi, my name is mary

I can't help but have respect and curiousity for Mary, while at the same time finding her completely heartbreaking (and...well, kind of spooky).

Why respect and curiousity? Because here is a woman who knows pretty much exactly what she requires in her potential mate, and has chosen a decidedly scientific method to go about finding it.

Her site is well designed (in terms of usablility, not color choices) and she even provides tech support to potential non-tech-savvy readers who are not able to cut-and-paste, or view her site. She's obviously set up some kind of email filter to weed out people who don't follow her very specific instructions. Everything is executed with the same precision that one would imagine one could expect from every part of the process. However, she seems open-minded enough, that apart from her very specific needs, she is willing to put up with a wide range of different types of men.

So what is heartbreaking? From her "Most Men Find Me Too Needy" page:

"I never want to hear another man I love say, 'I don't want you to need me so much.' All other things considered, if I wait for someone who needs me as much as I need him, I trust that I'll never hear those words again from someone I've come to adore."

I mean, this 'article' of hers just blows me away. It's just really moves me that she can just be so goddamn wierd and at the same time lay herself so bare on her little website. I just have this feeling in my heart that she will never find what she's looking for the way she's looking for it. The No Masturbation rule doesn't help much, I'm sure. Hehehe.

I'd just like to give a shout out to her, and put all my good juju into her being able to find what she's looking for, the skinny slender or lean 35-55 year old agnotistic or athiest non-masturbating needy guy of her dreams.

January 1, 2002

tinyblog sudden fiction II

If more people got to feel how unnerving it was to be punctured like this, they would be a little bit easier on the trigger, he thought. He had imagined how it would feel to get shot. He thought it would be something that would just be so painful he couldn't handle it.

Now here he was trying to convince his Commanding Officer to concentrate on putting direct pressure on the wound so he would not die, which seemed important. That man had been on the battlefield for the last six years. He was a Sargeant, and now he was acting like a new recruit. Hell, he wasn't even the one who got shot.

Even now the pressure against his chest was wavering. Annoyance crept into his voice, "Keep pressing!"

His C.O. shuddered a bit and looked up, his face looked veiny and ghoul-like. He repeated the pressure, but just kept saying stupid, inappropriate things, like, "Do you think your wife will be too mad at me?"

"No, she'll understand. She knows you look after me."

He did not want to be comforted. That did not matter at all. He felt a little like a robot, very pragmatic, computing how long he could continue to sit in that position that let him breathe. If he relaxed too much, it started to feel like his lungs were being slowly pushed underwater. He only wanted someone with the skill and equipment to take that thing out of him and make him unconscious until they could make him be able to breathe again.

"Keep pressing!"

"Oh shit I'm sorry," he renewed his pressure, but it slacked off almost immediately as he asked his question, "oh God man, why did you enlist?"

"I was hoping I would get shot. Please push, I can't breathe if you don't push."

"Ok, ok, I'll push, I'm sorry. Are you going to die? Are you...why are you laughing?"

He was laughing because at 8 years old, Brent Crudite had unfairly critiqued his acting skills during play at war.

"That's bullshit," Brent said, "you wouldn't just fall down like that if you got shot, you'd writhe around and scream or something. It hurts so bad when you get shot that you just can't take it!"

Brent was wrong, that little punk, and Brent couldn't have known that the sweetest sound in the world was actually helicopter blades in the distance.