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Location: Work.
Yearning: A lightning storm.
Listening: "Bad Reputation" ~Freedy Johnston.

Yesterday afternoon, after my mother hung up, I closed up shop and left the office five minutes early. I was feeling claustrophobic after my conversation (my mother has never been very adept with delivering difficult news and I was amazed that Mr. Dismuke died at M.D. Anderson on Saturday and she was telling me five days later) and needed to get away from the fluorescents. When I walked out into the parking lot, the air after the rain smelled, for just one second, like it used to when I would walk out of the stables at dusk. That made me smile.

I took an alternate route home and decided to drop in on my local comic store, where I picked up Child Of Rage--the latest SIP compilation--and Form And Void--the latest Cerebus collection. Both were surprises for Peter. He leaves for Pennsylvania this Thursday night and I thought he might want something new to read while he's away.

When I got home, I presented Peter with his gifts and we stretched out on the bed, smoking and reading in complete silence for two and half hours. He decided to start on Form And Void, which was ideal as it gave me a shot at Child Of Rage...

Of all of the Strangers In Paradise compilations, Child Of Rage is by far the most violent to date. It also happens to be, in my mind, the one that goes the farthest toward developing the darker side of Katchoo. I won't try to explain here--it's tangential and too complicated story-wise--but suffice to say, the book shifted my mood considerably. Not the shift I was anticipating, though...

The reason that I became so enthralled with the persona of Katina Choovanski is that she reminded me so much of myself from the ages of about 17 to 23 (although, even on my best days, I never claimed to be that cool)--emotionally skewed, angry, self-destructive, fearless and incredibly stubborn--and, sitting on the couch that first night, reading I Dream Of You,
I had the distinct impression that someone had finally gotten it. Although I bonded with the character of Francine as well (especially in the portrayal of her mother and sheltered childhood), it was Katchoo in all of the images that were constantly catching me off-guard. I'll page through the books and occasionally flash back to what has become my "other life" that Terry Moore manages to nudge up against. Everything I don't talk about is layered into those books--sometimes factually, sometimes just emotionally--and more often than not, I'm just not prepared for what I'll remember.

I had another flash last night when I came across an image of Katina in a bathtub, fully clothed , wrecked and smirking as her business partner rages at her.

I lit another cigarette at that point and stared at the wall, listening to the rain, thinking about people I'll never see again. I was surprised at how many there were, when I actually considered it; friends, lovers, acquaintances from those six years who were dead, in jail (or out again), in self-imposed exile or simply unable to come back. It sounds more intriguing than it was, but it's hard to express what I was thinking or feeling last night, lying on my bed next to a boy reading comics, listening to the wind and my neighbors moving through the courtyard, wondering what had put me there at that moment and so many other people who shared the same space at the same time in such completely different circumstances. I felt tired and sad and cynical. I wondered why I had gotten to watch everything happen around me and then walk through it to graduation and a corporate job and all of those notoriously "normal" little things like it was all some kind of museum. I'm certainly not in Katchoo's position. I was never a call girl or a killer. No one is chasing me down. Sometimes, though, when I get into these moods, it feels like they are and I wonder where I'm supposed to go from here.