Finding Leah - January 27th, 2006

Slept at Pippo's but forgot to turn off my cell phone alarm clock, which electronically plays 'ASIAN TUNE', a particularly fastidious sound which is why I use it on my alarm..I'll always wake up to turn it off.
At 7 AM sharp it brutally woke me, only today I didn't NEED to wake up at 7 because Gillian spent the night at her friend Charlotte's house and so I didn't have to wake her for school. I couldn't go back to sleep after this starting episode so I lay awake in bed until 8:20.
Leaving Pippo sleeping, I returned home.

The elevator broke while I was inside alone.
It stopped somewhere between the first and second floor and my view was of a concrete wall with a gap of 6 inches of hall space. Fortunately, the yellow bell alarm button worked and equally fortunately, it was still early in the morning so the portiere, Gianna, was up and atom and heard the alarm. She even knew it was ME inside the elevator.
Cursing all the while, she attempted to keep me calm. The elevator fix it guys had just fixed it a few days ago..I wait, and wait, and wait. I didn't know how long I would have to wait, so I didn't know whether I should sit down, though I certainly thought about it, but I also thought sitting down might somehow add bad juju to the trauma, so I didn't.
Gianna had to turn the electricity off to fix the elevator, so then I got to wait enclosed in darkness.
Finally the elevator slowly rolled back to the ground floor and I was freed.
Now I know for a fact that the anticipation fear of getting stuck in elevators is worse than the reality. The reality ain't no great shakes either, though.

Five floor walk up the stairs and into the apartment and I turn on the computer.
I've been wanting to write about the Leah connection all morning BUT my computer doesn't connect, why? The telephone doesn't work. I use my cell phone to call telephone co.#1, after the usual 10 minutes of eardancing with robots an operator tells me that as of last Jan.6th I no longer have a telephone acct. w/them. I call telephone co.#2, another 10 minutes of robot eardancing and they tell me TODAY my old acct is being switched to my new acct and it will take a few hours.

I go up the street to the internet café. Their computers can't log in to LJ.
I go back to Pippo's because I don't want to go home until the elevator is fixed and I have a telephone.
Pippo is awake but we fight. I'm calm voiced and nice, he is aggressively hostile.
I return home.
The elevator is ok, the phone is ok BUT I still can't connect w/the computer because my old server acct. doesn't work with my new phone acct which exclusively uses their own servers.
ELEVEN robotic eardancing operater waits later and three calls to the techies and I'm up and running. But soon I'll have to change my acct. again. That's my blog purge, apologies..

Two salty damp haired adolescent girls wrapped in beach towels sitting on the bumper of a light green Volkswagon bug, giggling hysterically.
Cops are interrogating the owner of the vehicle which is parked outside the entrance gate to a private driveway off of Encinal Canyon Drive in Malibu.

A brown paper wrapped package with a pair of pale blue fuzzy slippers with a note enclosed which asks; Did you forget these?

A man sleeps on a fold out sofa bed. A girl crawls under the bed and begins to slowly snap the springs, enjoying every broken silence the twanging metal brings. He’ll think it’s the kittens..

Conspiring a plan…hush-hush…I’ll make like I’m leaving for school, but won’t. I’ll hide in the closet. Then when everyone else has left, I’ll come out. A brother leaves the side yard gate with his bicycle but returns 5 minutes later? What? Why? THAT wasn’t supposed to happen. I hear my brother chit chatting in the distant livingroom with my co conspirator. What? My mother’s voice too…she is laughing. I come out of hiding.
EVERYONE made individual hooky plans, even Mom, who didn’t go to work. After picking up the one brother that did go to school, from school, going and getting breakfast outdoors.

A shopping mall in Southern CA. No, I don’t want school clothes. No, I don’t want anything. Yes, I’m sure, not anything.

My own pillow.
Brightly colored streaked light lines on crap developed snapshots, sand in the camera.

A transparent car.
A teflon tube running from the mouth to the arse.
A garage sale with Disneyland ride passes.

Mom says I can’t go to the airport. Crying ferociously. Door locked. A soft voice pleading,”Heather please come out…” refusing.

White v neck men’s medium Hane’s undershirts. Beige or Grey corduroy Levis, white socks, tennis shoes.

A shoebox in a closet reveals a small orange crystal the side of a rabbit turd. I wonder why it’s called a red ruby if it’s orange.

Tape recording every cuss word we knew and various farting sounds.

Addressing and sending a letter; “to the deceased Mr. Bill Mcfarland,
P.O. BOX 65 Malibu, CA (w/the zip)”

Mom calls a family meeting in the livingroom. She’s invited a friend, a soon to be ordained Episcopalian priest. Leaning crouched back to the wall silent.
“What?” “How?””Cancer?” No. I know. I knew. No surprise.
Priest is concerned about my silence, lack of tears and expression, “He was a very unhappy man..”
Calmly but totally seriously,“You didn’t even know him, get out of my house.”

The radio ad; “Put a tic-tac in your mouth and get a BANG! out of life.”

PSA= Plinky Stinky Airlines roundtrip SF-LA 20$ for under 12 year olds. Put my hair in pigtails and wear pink, I’ll look stupid enough.

Axing the fronds of short palms to make a capana. Getting tired. “Gotta be gentle with the plants.”

Darkness. “Do you want to sleep with me?”
“No.”

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road on piano without vocals.

A fuzzy tattoo of an anchor.

Fisting a hot potato at a dinner table attended by 5 minors and their Mom.

Spilled coffee on pancakes, and attempting a replay.

Banana Records and YES fans.

“It’s not a word!”
“It is!”
“It is NOT”
“Do you challenge it?”
“Yes.”
“See? It’s NOT a word”
“It IS! It is, if you believe it is..”

A man’s voice on a telephone,”I’d like to meet you, would you like that? Your mother has told me a lot about you..”
“Like what?”
“I’ll tell you when I meet you”
“OK. When?”
“Next week.”

Knee socks. That new kitchen floor was perfect for surfing across, in knee socks. That day, with red white and blue cool-ots (sp.?-those shorts appearing as skirts) as well.

Slamming into a person you’ve never met before who tells you immediately, “I love you.”

She has darker skin than me and a squeakier voice. Thicker darker longer hair and a puggier nose.

Explaining what is a greeb. They come from Greebland, another planet. They can’t speak, they don’t have sex. They can only see. They do all sorts of things. They sit a lot. If anyone else draws on top of them or changes their features they become Greebles. Greebles too, are from another planet, their own planet, and they are evil.

Two guys die in the motorcycle race we’re watching from above the loop at the lower edge of the curve.

“I don’t like people.”
“You like me.”
“I don’t like people generally and I hate adults”
“Why?”
“Adults are horrible”.

Sitting in a church. Blank seat next to me. A ghost is in the blank seat. I go to the bathroom to get away from the ghost. I return. Mom asks me where I went.
“To the bathroom”
“Do you feel better?”
“No, the ghost went with me.”
“I feel it too.”