deathday rigamortis.

I can think of five words where I for some reason skip an R in my pronunciation: 'rigamortis,' 'resavoir,' 'silvaware,' 'famaldehyde,' 'wostyasheer sauce.' I guess I inherited this from my mothers' Vermont accent maybe. I had a Vermont accent, too, until I was about ten; I have tape recordings to prove it. Notice how almost all of these examples have Rs missing, yet still have other Rs pronounced. What gives?

I never wrote about my birthday-deathday event of four weeks past. We got together at Elysian Park, you know, like the Elysian Fields. I had never been there before. I originally wanted it to be at a cemetery, but food isn't allowed, so I decided I needed a park. The way I found it was simple: I called up the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation office and told them I lost my backpack in a park, and asked at which beautiful hilly green park I might have lost it in. The lady suggested Elysian Park. As we arrived, I didn't realise the park was so vast. Cindy and I ended up in an obscure area of the park where a lot of men stood by themselves behind bushes, or waited in their cars or circled around staring at us like we were going to talk to them. I was suspicious that we stumbled upon either a gay cruise or a drug dealing center. However, we all found each other and began our celebration. It was not as elaborate as the kinds of birthdays you see in parks for Mexican children; there were no grills or balloon men or bouncy bins. We held a wake for me; Amarantha did some rituals while friends of the deceased gathered around me and spoke of what they remembered about me. Mostly negative things, probably because I'm still alive, but at least they got it out of their system before the real thing. And then we started banging out rhythms on the trash cans—they surrounded a large courtyard patio—and as we banged on them, Amarantha danced. And at the end, we sacrificed me. The best part of the whole thing was that several people dressed as though they were attending a funeral; Katie's outfit was the best, all black and hat included.

Lately I've developed a lot of new habits, just from having a different lifestyle. I drink tea a lot. I eat apples a lot. I keep all my most used possessions in my car. I haven't had sex since I moved. I haven't downloaded any music in a month. Some of these things are driving my crazy. Everything but the tea.

For Halloween, I'm going to be Babalu Aye, the orisha of illness. He is plagued with diseases, has bruises, blisters, walks with crutches, and two dogs follow him around to lick his wounds. All the other orishas got mad at him, because he would give them diseases. But he's seen as a healer more than a transmitter. Recently, he's become affiliated with HIV, which would be especially interesting if I attend West Hollywood's Halloween party. West Hollywood is 27% HIV+. I can be their good luck charm. I told Cindy about my costume, and it turns out she knows all about Babalu Aye. She suggested I walk in rhythms of seventeen, because that's his number and he limps. Cindy's so clever. Tomorrow (or later today) King Sunny Ade will be giving a talk at my school, but I probably have to miss it so I can get crutches.