wedthurfrisatsunmontuewed

merrily

merrily

merrily

merrily

dirty

ever so raw and 

empty a morning

i, i have no

wisdom teeth just

an abundance of

black bile

stuck in flux

of evolution and

vague allusions

i need your

hand on my throat

i need your

 

more thoughts on the girl in the dream

We were good friends in elementary school but drifted apart; I think we've always been friendly but not close in recent years.  

When we were little she was such a tomboy (though she hasn't been one so much since middle school) that whenever we were in public people would just assume she was a boy, calling her "young man," etc. and insinuating that she was my "boyfriend."  I remember being very fascinated at the realization that you could trick someone into believing you were a different gender.

I always feel uneasy when these characters from my past pop up in dreams, seemingly out of nowhere.

I don't feel explanatory right now ah fuck it.

dream (sorry)

Trapped in a compound of some kind but not altogether worried because I know that people on my "team" had escaped before and left the route open; it wasn't hard.  I make it to the utility-type room and gingerly scale the stacked miscellaneous furniture to the vent in the ceiling where I escape to the roof and slide down.  I run to my car (which, for some reason, is parked in the parking lot of the compound), I quite suddenly hear and see who I've been running from, and in the dream she's a girl I grew up with and I have no idea how she came into this dream or why.  She's on the roof coming after me and fucked with my car, though, and Little Honda will barely start, making all kinds of terrible noises, but finally I get the engine running and I look over and see the girl's car right next to mine, and I make the split-second decision to hop out and empty the air from two of her tires with my key.  She's laughing and yelling and it's getting louder and I'm panicking and trying to speed away but all of these agents are driving at me suddenly and I have to veer around them, and at this point the dream pretty much turned into MarioKart and I woke up.  

warm

I woke up today and saw green everywhere; put me in a very nice and even mood.  I have not been feeling very "even" lately and it makes me wish I could split in two and comfort myself, and have someone to talk to who knows me, as I seem like a foreign animal around others, always worrying for their comfort and understanding while feeling locked away as if in a crust of ice.  

But if there could be two of me, in an un-narcissistic way, we could know each other without the dance of interperson.  I guess I'm 

lonely?

But not really, just overwhelmed, looking for someone to run to with these cloudy emotions, mother deal with them, mother make it better.  I want to pull away from being a fool, I want to hold myself and see how I feel to others; inside myself I feel sometimes tiny and sometimes large but always electric and in need.  I want to fulfill myself.  I want to feel alive without seeking extremes.    

I need to be reassured.

I have the door open right now, the cats are at the screen sniffing intently.  

Goddamn it is a beautiful day!

why i love jonny

"I haven't had a chance to get properly intoxicated since being in Colorado because my mom and sister have consistently bitched at me about how much I drink (3 days in close quarters with my family without cigarettes and counting...), so I've been sneaking stuff from their liquor cabinet tonight after they went to sleep. I seriously feel like I'm 12 years old. I just now switched from the regular morgan to the private stock, and I got this odd sensation like I'd been having sex with a mediocre looking skinny girl but decided to have sex with the chunky girl with gorgeous eyes and great tits because no one knows I'm doing it.


Sorry, I'm drunk.



-Jon"

I don't care if you're mad I posted this Jonny. If you don't even read this, you'll never know.

xmas cheer update

adult brownies help.

eagle

I wanted to write down that I saw a Bald Eagle yesterday!  Flying over West O, bein' all eagle-y, hasslin' pigeons.  I know they're less rare now and are basically like garbage dump pests in Alaska but they are still big, majestic-ass birds.  

I always get way too excited when I see large birds, almost veering off the road to get one last glimpse of this heron or that hawk.

no thank you

Is there any polite way I can just opt out of christmas?

No, no I guess not.  You'll always sound like a dick.  

"I'm kind of hung over because I woke up at 5 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep."

"I didn't have any money to buy you things you probably didn't want in the first place out of some unspoken obligation."

"I can make a single fried egg more flavorful than this entire meal."

Sorry, I'm sorry, that was just was being a bitch on purpose.  I didn't mean it.  Please don't hit me again, Christmas.  

It's just that I usually feel some sort of warm holidaytime feelings, even if it's just an adderall-fueled frenzy of paper snowflake crafting.  This year I forgot it was xmas eve until my mom texted me.

update: nvm about the food comment it's pizza hut i can't even compete

honne & tatemae

I'm sorry I'm getting into that state where the school numbness is wearing off and I'm interested in teaching myself things.

"Honne and tatemae are Japanese words that describe recognized social phenomena.
Honne (本音) refers to a person's true feelings and desires. These may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required according to one's position and circumstances, and they are often kept hidden, except with one's closest friends.
Tatemae (建前), literally "façade," is the behaviour and opinions one displays in public. Tatemae is what is expected by society and required according to one's position and circumstances, and these may or may not match one's honne.
The honne/tatemae divide is considered to be of paramount importance in Japanese culture.[1] The very fact that Japanese have single words for these concepts leads some Nihonjinron specialists to see this conceptualization as evidence of greater Japanese complexity and rigidity in etiquette and culture.
Honne and tatemae are arguably a cultural necessity resulting from a large number of people living in a comparatively small island nation. Even with modern farming techniques, Japan today domestically produces only 39% of the food needed to feed its people so, before the modern era, close-knit co-operation and the avoidance of conflict were of vital importance in everyday life. For this reason, the Japanese tend to go to great lengths to avoid conflict, especially within the context of large groups.
The conflict between honne and giri (social obligations) is one of the main topics of Japanese drama throughout the ages. Stereotypically, the protagonist would have to choose between carrying out his obligations to his family or feudal lord or pursuing a forbidden love affair. In the end, death would be the only way out of the dilemma.
Contemporary phenomena such as hikikomori and parasite singles are seen as examples of late Japanese culture's growing problem of the new generation growing up unable to deal with the complexities of honne/tatemae in an increasingly capitalist society.
Debate over whether tatemae and honne are a uniquely Japanese phenomena continues in America especially among those in the anthropological and art fields."

Please enjoy another wall of text.
(bows deeply)

wikipedia on "eugenics"

Saving for later.

"In the USA, eugenic supporters included Theodore Roosevelt, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association and the National Research Council. Research was funded by distinguished philanthropies and carried out at prestigious universities.[citation needed] It was taught in college and high school classrooms. Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood of America to urge the legalization of contraception for the lower classes. In its time eugenics was touted by some as scientific and progressive, the natural application of knowledge about breeding to the arena of human life. Before the realization of death camps in World War II, the idea that eugenics would lead to genocide was not taken seriously by the average American, though Sanger's books and letters clearly outlined these ultimate social-engineering goals to include selective contraception, forced sterilization, and even forced euthanasia on "the feeble minded" or "ignorant". If the government was not about to force such measures on women, Sanger believed it was her duty to provide these options to the 'lesser' of society in an effort to stay off their cycle of breeding ignorance.

During the 20th century, researchers became interested in the idea that mental illness could run in families and conducted a number of studies to document the heritability of such illnesses as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Their findings were used by the eugenics movement as proof for its cause. State laws were written in the late 1800s and early 1900s to prohibit marriage and force sterilization of the mentally ill in order to prevent the "passing on" of mental illness to the next generation. These laws were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 and were not abolished until the mid-20th century. All in all, 60,000 Americans were sterilized.[57]

Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state of Virginia could sterilize those it thought unfit. The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.[61] A favorable report on the results of sterilization in California, the state with the most sterilizations by far, was published in book form by the biologist Paul Popenoe and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane. When Nazi administrators went on trial for war crimes in Nuremberg after World War II, they justified the mass sterilizations (over 450,000 in less than a decade) by citing the United States as their inspiration.[57]

However, methods of eugenics were applied to reformulate more restrictive definitions of white racial purity in existing state laws banning interracial marriage: the so-called anti-miscegenation laws. The most famous example of the influence of eugenics and its emphasis on strict racial segregation on such "anti-miscegenation" legislation was Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned this law in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia, and declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional."

"Zis douchebagg costs ze German people 60,000 Reichsmark! It is clear he should die!"

Is interesting to me as, even before I knew all of this happened, I had some positive thoughts on eugenics, particularly around times of sweaty, bone-puncturing politics. It's how everyone feels about Communism once in awhile. It's a slippery wire to walk, though. Hey, it totally makes sense to not let the retards breed, since they seem to be popping out more retards. Oops, Holocaust.

time enough

There's a big part of me that wishes I could just be a housewife, because there is time to pursue the domestic arts.  

To marinate a steak and a chicken breast.

To go to the store and buy salsa and tortillas.

To soak and cook the black beans.

There is time enough to re-fry the beans!

(The term "refried beans" is misleading, as they are only fried once

tonight, in bacon fat

with a minced clove of garlic and a splash of vinegar

[as i do not have lemon juice]

there is time to eat the superfluous bacon 

lowly, with one's fingers, on the couch,

while watching BBC documentaries on atheism.)

There is time enough while the beans are cooking

to smoke on the porch 

and read The Neverending Story

in short, cold bursts. 

I am my own Henry Bernis

my bomb is christmas

and my broken glasses the necessity

of cyclical work and play.

And it's- it's- it's not 

it's not 

it's no-no-not

fair!

Back into

reading about serial killers.  

They really give me

perspective.

I've been feeling like an animal, waking up too early breathing heavy and thirsty and laying for hours, listening, staring at the obtuse shapes with my defective eyes and feeling strong because I still see enough.  Trying to will myself back over the invisible tripwire that sets off the dreaming again, trying to conjure the phantom fingers back to my skin in a sad, childish, sleepy way and when that doesn't work, stroking myself lazily, sadly, sadly.  

Coffee is done.  I'm sorry I've been so anti-anti-an-ti-a-n-t-i-

dreams dreams dreams

Dreamed in poetry, in words and images in an inexplicable overlay, which is weird because I usually subscribe to the "can't read in dreams" thing.  

Dreamed in a series of photos; the body of a young boy recently buried in a wooden crate, his face was electric-blue.  In the photos he was still half covered in dirt, over-saturated with color and grittiness.  His mother was buried next to him but she was only in the last photo.

Dreamed about a children's book, it had a purple cover and a red, velveteen lining.  The inside was signed by all my parents' friends, like a yearbook, and I was looking over them thinking how much I resent them because I've always felt like they hate me, since I got "weird," and went looking for god and found emptiness.  I shouldn't say that as it's not pitiful and I don't remember ever really coming to a conclusion, just a sudden shift of facts.  Maybe I'd be different if that guy hadn't shot himself in the head in seventh grade, maybe if someone had noticed I wore the same clothes for about two weeks and just kind of, i don't know, veered off-course.  Maybe if I hadn't lost my virginity to his brother a year later, and gotten dumped the next day.  Maybe I'd be different.

Most of my parents' friends were doctors.  

These are not pitiful thoughts, I am just having my morning thoughtful time, as I am wont.

Doing a lot of thinking.

Welp.

Going to Oxford next Ju-ly, if money situations work out.

I'm done.

I'm done I'm done I'm done & I'm

awesome.

ambulance

This morning at around 6 there were sirens outside, loud, that didn't doppler off into the distance but instead built a mighty crescendo then stopped abruptly, at one of the houses my building faces.  This woke me up and I was groggily peering out the window at the odd world that's been going on while I was sleeping, I hate how everything is still so sharp and clear when you wake up (it makes me uneasy, like I've missed something).  

They wheeled a body out into the ambulance but didn't go anywhere for about half an hour, red and blue lights still dancing violently over the neighborhood, dissipating into eerie northern lights on my foggy window.

I say "body" because they didn't go anywhere for half an hour.  

Something I don't remember experiencing before happened in the dream I had later this morning, I was with a large group filing into a funeral at a church and was just getting to my seat and the pastor or whatever started greeting the congregation and saying "Now, bow your heads and pray, pray, praaaaay, praaaaaaay" in this low monotone and when I woke up it was my phone ringing on vibrate.

You always see that in movies, where something in a dream is just a noise in real life you're misinterpreting, but like I said I can't remember it happening before.

The phone call was a lady I work with, who couldn't find my hours from last week.  I had given them to her and she had put them in the back of a manila envelope on her computer; I know this because she showed me she put them there.  

Rather than explain where she showed me she put them I just told her that's where I put them.  

White lies.

ladies:

stop

putting your fetus ultrasound photo

as your facebook profile photo.

thank you,

that is all.

lol

There's a new wireless network in my apartment building named "NAZI FUCKING POWER."

all work and no play

I didn't have my nose ring in all day, oops.  I've had it since I was 16 so when it falls out at night I usually fail to notice for a long time.

Now I can't find it.  (arms up wide in the air)

Things are going okay, one class is done but the others still require too much work! (arms flailing wildly)

I'm kind of boring and not cool!  (arms dropping to sides and twitching intermittently) 

update: I found it, undermypillow, thank you jewelry fairy.

hey

Rachael, I had a dream you were in:

We were with some group of people for a party or something, and shopping, and we suddenly had to choose our own teacups for tea.  So we're frantically looking at all of these teacups of varying sizes, colors, and materials, and I can't find one I like, they're either too small or too delicate or I think I can find a better Chinese dragon one that I like more.  And you've already found your teacup, and are standing over it like a mother hen, and I'm all "Hey which one do you have?" and I reach for it but it's made of paper, and it collapses under my hand, and you're mad at me.

The end.  

That wasn't the end of the dream, but the part you were in.  The rest of it was very complicated with skinheads in the next apartment cutting a hole in the wall to talk to me, and getting evicted the next day and going on a rampage.  The earth getting cut in half, not the whole sphere but all the land one one hemisphere going away and giant killer whales living in that part.  Incense.  Meeting on the lawn to gossip about old poetry teachers, who now live in a box of ashes.

I have an interview today for the Oxford thing.  I was told it's pretty informal, yay.

cold

The lake is cracking like gunshots again.

A professor once told my class that humans feel most at ease in their homes when they are on a hill, facing water.  

to be a pigeon on a mosque

to be a dove on a cathedral

to be a goose in the gale, crying for my fa-mi-ly

oh to be a gull 

oh, oh to be a gull to be a gull to be a 

gull gull gull

to be a cigarette, spent, out the carwindow

a decapitated snake! of sparks!

this is my body it

wants to be alive see it is

healing itself

may i please, may i please if you don't mind

i'd like to touch 

i will be reverent and emotional

i will treat things

with proper reverence and emotion

just promise you won't look me

in the eyes

i spook easy

is all

it's fine to not matter

if it's not at all

this

this is a blog post

last night i got drunk after not being able to focus on writing papers and fighting epically with my boyfriend and decided that i should punch myself in the face

it signifies being about to explode

it felt so good, didn't leave any marks but the feeling of my knuckles popping against my jaw, and how sore and stiff it is today

i know things will be fine in the future but i'd rather they be fine now

it felt so good to feel something

or maybe as i sometimes suspect i really need to wallow in my own dramatic shit once in awhile

it felt so good felt so good felt so good felt so good felt so good

this is where i do it, i wish i could only post "impressive" things for people to read and like keep it a polished, creative space like others do, 

ain't how i roll

on the verge of something here, my life feels like it's rotting

every winter

my mind goes kind of numb and life becomes a comic book.

I've been sitting on my couch staring into nothing for about half an hour now, what shook me out of it was this sudden indescribable urge.  I was looking at the television (off) and feeling really odd, and then looking around the room frantically until I found IT, a reflection of myself, not here or there or there but in the side of the rum bottle, and I felt better.  The surface of the tv isn't reflective from straight-on and it made me feel just so unsettled that I couldn't find a reflection anywhere for a minute.  

I am so fat I sicken myself,I want to mutilate my body in some way but nothing seems right.

Feeling pretty ridiculous.  

Feeling pretty desperate for something but it's probably just a cigarette.  

edit: this wasn't a fancy metaphor about how I could only see myself in the rum bottle.

i can't get anything done

Why did I sleep so late?

Why can't I seem to accomplish anything that is an important step toward my future?  

Why did I dream about seducing a brown-skinned boy who kissed me too hard and I said "no, softer, softer," gently, until he listened?  I am not really attracted to younger men in real life.  I feel somewhat maternal toward them, though, which may be why I was instructing.  They are so awkward, so self-absorbed; such foreign creatures.  

But then, everyone is kind of a strange beast to me.

  

lists are cool

Writing from Nature

1 semester's worth of journals I have not started

10 page research/creative paper draft due Sun. night

Writing: Literacy

WP3

WP2 Revision

Portfolio assembly with Author's Notes by Thurs.

3-page Course Assessment whateverthefuck

RRs 1&2, possibly combined

Fiction

Peer responses

Story revisions

Portfolio

Women in Soc

Study for final

extra credit?

Early Am. Lit.

5-7 page researched essay for Mon.

Final questions, which will involve about 8 pages of single-spaced writing

extra credit responses

I hate everything, I want to die.

thinking aloud

This morning I woke up and my first thought was "I NEED TO GO ABROAD."

So this morning I applied for UNL's "Nebraska at Oxford" 4-week summer program.  I apparently missed the deadline by a few days, but figured I'd try anyway since the deadline is different on different pages of the site (some say november, some say december).  

I don't know why England, the dates (July15-August15 09) fit so well, english-speaking country, maybe I was thinking about how cute Simon Pegg is.  I've never even talked to someone who's done this program.  Will it be a bunch of homely folk who quote Douglas Adams and Eddie Izzard and Monty Python nonstop?  

I don't know if I made the deadline, or if I'll even get accepted.  Are these programs usually academically rigorous screenings, or does the university realize it's kind of a jack-off "I want to travel" thing for students?   

I don't know how I'd afford it, I'd have to ask my parents, or get a loan.  They've paid for my sister to go to portugal and christian concentration camp in florida, so.  If I get accepted I really kind of want to do this, unless someone tells me it's horrible or something.

I need a passport.

i can't

(Look for Simon Pegg Doppelgänger at 2:00!)

Minor achievement update:  This blog is now the first result if you do a Google search for "complainery."  Yesssss.

prine

I guess I'm singing "In Spite of Ourselves" with Jonny at the Zoo bar tonight.  Because he asked me.    

This blog entry signifies a mild anxiety attack.  

I'm trying to get it out of my system.  I don't think I'm a stellar vocalist or anything I just don't want to fuck up.  Oh god Oh god Oh god Oh god, when is the right time to begin drinking?

ETA UPDATE: it was fine.

sugar

good spirits

oh my god

pork sandwich with gruyere and sweet apple cream

oh

my god

watching football, going to drink some bourbon presently

feeling less overwhelmed

yeah feelin' alright

morningtime (whining)

I hate people who say "And that says it all!" when proving a point.

I'm also feeling lately that there is a giant conspiracy around me to not tell me that I am becoming massively obese.  

I'm not writing this for some kind of attention or like so people will tell me I'm not fat.  It's hard to explain.  I can see a 400 lb. woman on television and know how far I am from that, but it persists.  Do you ever feel like flaying off your own flesh?  Do you ever hate yourself that much?  Why won't anybody touch you?  Is it because you're really fat and everybody's trying to spare your feelings by not telling you?

I think my family would always just tip-toe around such issues.  When I hit puberty I was bigger than everyone for awhile and had that awkward baby-fat thing going on and they'd always drop hints about like how I should work out or eat less (except my brother, who would just tell me I was fatter than everyone and that no one else would tell me so I didn't feel bad).  Then, while I was still in the thick of everything, I'd look back at photos of myself and be mortified.

To this day nobody will just tell me "yes we could hear you throwing up for a year before you moved out."  

"We thought it would just go away if we ignored it."

and it

did

except not?

fightz

I need to not get all worked up and selfish about christmas because this happens:

bf: I ordered you a present last night!  I think you're going to like it.

me: Tattoo?  (joking and being "adorable")

bf: Noooo, it's not a tattoo.  I told you I can't afford that.  We'll have to be patient.

me: I've been patient...

bf: I know...

me: ... for like THREE YEARS.  I almost had enough saved this summer but then I lent it all to you.  

bf: Well your saving could have been going towards bills the whole time so really you were just making us behind!  

me: (SLAMS MICROWAVE AND EATS LEFTOVER TURKEY MOTIONLESS ON THE COUCH WHILE WATCHING THE DOG WHISPERER)

sarah's fireside chats: melatonin edition

Melatonin

Not to be confused with melanin or melanotan.

"Melatonin, also known chemically as N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine, is a naturally occurring hormone found in most animals, including humans, and some other living organisms, including algae. Circulating levels vary in a daily cycle, and melatonin is important in the regulation of the circadian rhythms of several biological functions. Many biological effects of melatonin are produced through activation of melatonin receptors, while others are due to its role as a pervasive and powerful antioxidant with a particular role in the protection of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA."

"Production of melatonin by the pineal gland is inhibited by light and permitted by darkness. For this reason melatonin has been called "the hormone of darkness" and its onset each evening is called the Dim-Light Melatonin Onset (DLMO). Secretion of melatonin as well as its level in the blood, peaks in the middle of the night, and gradually falls during the second half of the night, with normal variations in timing according to an individual's chronotype."


"Melatonin levels at night are reduced to 50% by exposure to a low-level incandescent bulb for only 39 minutes, and it has been shown that women with the brightest bathrooms have an increased risk for breast cancer.
Reduced melatonin production has been proposed as a likely factor in the significantly higher cancer rates in night workers, and the effect of modern lighting practice, including light pollution, on endogenous melatonin has been proposed as a contributory factor to the larger overall incidence of some cancers in the developed world."


"Many animals use the variation in duration and quantity of melatonin production each day as a seasonal clock. In animals and in some conditions also in humans the profile of melatonin synthesis and secretion is affected by the variable duration of night in summer as compared to winter. The change in duration of secretion thus serves as a biological signal for the organisation of daylength-dependent (photoperiodic) seasonal functions such as reproduction, behaviour, coat growth and camouflage colouring in seasonal animals. In seasonal breeders which do not have long gestation periods, and which mate during longer daylight hours, the melatonin signal controls the seasonal variation in their sexual physiology, and similar physiological effects can be induced by exogenous melatonin in animals including mynah birds and hamsters. Melatonin is also related to the mechanism by which some amphibians and reptiles change the color of their skin and, indeed, it was in this connection the substance first was discovered
"In animal models, melatonin has been demonstrated to prevent the damage to DNA by some carcinogens, stopping the mechanism by which they cause cancer. It also has been found to be effective in protecting against brain injury caused by ROS release in experimental hypoxic brain damage in newborn rats. Melatonin's antioxidant activity may reduce damage caused by some types of Parkinson's disease, may play a role in preventing cardiac arrhythmia and may increase longevity; it has been shown to increase the average life span of mice by 20% in some studies."

"Many supplemental melatonin users have reported an increase in vivid dreaming. Extremely high doses of melatonin (50mg) dramatically increased REM sleep time and dream activity in both narcoleptics and those without narcolepsy. However, one factor that may influence this perception is that many over-the-counter melatonin tablets also include Vitamin B6 (pyroxidine), which is also known to be capable of producing vivid dreams.
Many psychoactive drugs, such as LSD, increase melatonin synthesis. It has been suggested that nonpolar (lipid-soluble) indolic hallucinogenic drugs emulate melatonin activity in the awakened state and that both act on the same areas of the brain. It has been suggested that psychotropic drugs be readmitted in the field of scientific inquiry and therapy. If so, melatonin may be prioritized for research in this reemerging field of psychiatry."

"Melatonin has been studied for the treatment of alzheimer's disease, cancer, immune disorders, cardiovascular diseases, depression, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), circadian rhythm sleep disorders and sexual dysfunction. Studies by Alfred J. Lewy at Oregon Health & Science University and other researchers have found that it may ameliorate circadian misalignment and SAD. Basic research indicates that melatonin may play a significant role in modulating the effects of drugs of abuse such as cocaine."

some xmas list-time:

Or: a list of ridiculous frivolities I will not receive for xmas:

· tattoo

· Achewood books, any of them, all of them, specifically the cookbook.  I would also gladly receive and frequently wear a "Stoned Lightning" t-shirt.

· tattoo, it will probably be around $350?

· These hanging horn designs, in 7/16".  

· Additionally, these, probably in clear.  Also these.  

· TATTOO.

· A number of kitchen-type things, from a good knife set to a toaster oven that is not from the past and constantly in danger of bursting into flames.  Food processor/blender, tea pot, french press, rice/pressure cooker, crock pot, nice le creuset dishware, a real goddamn skillet, cutting boards, silpat/silicone baking implements, cookie sheet, containers, etc.

· Kitty things: a fountain, a solidly built play tree that doesn't look like total ass, or at least a new sisal scratching post.  

· This, in topaz.  It's on (deep breath) saaaaaaaaaaaaale.  There's no chart for the sizes on the site though so I don't know what the fuck.

· Drying Lotion or Buffering Lotion from here.  Quickly now before my skin frightens the children.

· Tattoo, please.

There, fantasy time is over for now.

4 months 3 weeks and 2 days

This movie.... goddamn this movie.

laurie anderson

strangely soothing.
her new stuff though, "beh"

what the

Seriously?  The twenty-fifth?  Where the hell have I been?  Why did I sleep so late?  Why haven't I done homework or been to class?  What is wrong?  

Apparently I'm in some kind of "wake me with the holidays are over" pit of quicksand.  I don't know what the fuck.  I can't do this.  Again.  

Can I turn in five final projects that are just like a tiny bottle of tequila taped to a single sheet of paper upon which I have carefully typed:

"I am really a very clever and interested person but I just cannot deal with this bullshit at this time.  I could, had I the mental wherewithal left, write a decently compelling and grammatically proper paper that wholly suits your requirements.  We both know this, but let's just skip that run-around, shall we?"        

  

I just stared at my vertical blinds as they gently waved in a pattern of hypnotizing shades for way too long.  

head

I didn't want to go to class today, anyway, but my head hurts like damnnnn and it feels good, for myself, to have a reason why I'm not there.  Besides general laziness.  I think it's mostly concentrated behind my left eye, which is now blurry.  The headache.  

I thought it was later than this.  My first class actually starts right... now.   I'm going to be killing myself with guilt by the end of the day.  I always am.  

Not everything is so tragic, it just feels that way.  In the morning.  Before coffee and cigarette.  I don't know where my midwestern work ethic goes.  I don't know how writing a one-paragraph project proposal becomes such a task by the simple fact that you don't give a fuck.  "Emily Dickinson was a lady who wrote some words."  I wonder if she feels her bones being picked by the clumsy hands of millions of american students.  I just die when I'm misinterpreted, and when I get all vague and bizarre it's not an uncommon occurrence.  And... you know.  You're here with me, I know that.  You understand.  

I want to hide for awhile but I can't, I need to but there's no place to go.  This headache is working out let's see about that coffee here, thanks for this time, this time we shared together.  thank-you for reading.  

Update: Hahaha I totally fucking forgot I don't even have one of my classes, today.

hi!

I am a post-mimosal woman.

I'm tired, scraping whatever barrels and getting only wet woody splinters.  When the barrel is empty it is a place to hide.  It is a place to liquefy and ferment and be drunk by Chinese emperors.

This is not about you, don't feel it, for me or for yourself.

I've been annoying me, and feeling fake everywhere, down to the flesh, of which there is always too much.  

This is not complaining, or a manifestation.  This is a manifestation.  This is a headache.

This is the pulp of the orange entering the body.  

This is never being comfortable.

This is an inability to remember comfort.

The fuck of it is:

I am bored.

I am bored.

I am bored.

I am bored.

I am I am

I am bored I am 

bored I am BORED

I AM BORED

I am BORED I AM BORED

I AM BORED I AM BORED I AM

BORED I AM 

BORED.

dream

In a small, shitty town surrounded everywhere by the tallest, prettiest mountains you ever seen, walking around there was too much ice and dirt on the ground and too many of those mexican carnicerias with paintings of pigs and chickens in the windows and red/green/white paper streamers hanging.  

There was an intense, videogame period where I was in my apartment there and the enemy was coming and I was trying to decide whether to hole up and defend or go to meet them; I think I ended up doing both, at the same time, dreams are odd in that way; branched surreality.

Then I was walking the streets of the town again, shopping, went into an antique-type store that was full of the usual decoratey things you see.  There were cats running all over, and one big motherfucker, mostly black with some white and golden eyes, was shaved on his sides and had been tattooed with a scene of two other cats, but like, "space-cats."  I was delighted by this.

I went to some more places that aren't interesting enough to write about (if there's some magical way somebody's actually reading this i don't think you really need to hear about me dreaming of wandering around giant warehouse dollar stores for hours looking carefully at off-brand body products and malformed sponges).

Then ended up at the ice cream store I used to work in between high school and college, since I apparently have to dream about that place a few times a year for the rest of my life.  Whenever I do dream about it, I'm always disgusted by changes they've made.  This time they had Chicken Ice Cream that didn't taste like anything because I was dreaming but it was "awful."  And the girl working wouldn't give me anything I wanted.  She asked to use my knife to cut the ice cream and I said "sure" and gave her my knife, and she just talked on the phone and cut hunks of chocolate on the counter while I waited, pissed off.

gasm

Went to the "Female O" talk.

There was a group of squirrely-lookin' dudes sitting in front of me who never took their sunglasses off, and would conspicuously high-five each other every time something saucy was said.  

Mostly I watched the girl with long ash-blonde hair sitting in front of me as she carefully ripped her program into perfect strips with pearl-painted fingernails.  I don't know how she was doing it.  It was amazing.

The female presenter asked girls (in the "girl-only" part) to talk about their first orgasm.  Only one girl shared (pool jet).  

Mine is weird but it went down like:

I was around 13, sleeping, like you do, and dreamed I was in a forest, all dark and teal-green with motes of light drifting around.  I was sort of flying and I zoomed in to this one enormous tree with tangled, exposed roots, and there was a woman reclined there, beautiful and pale, with long hair, and she looked up at me with big, empty anime eyes and then my vision went all short-circuit and I woke up well, you know.  

There you have it.

this professor

keeps sending e-mails basically urging me to drop his "Film Directors" class I'm in next semester.

Warning repeatedly how difficult it will be, etc.  

It's kind of working.

I just wanted to learn about Jean-Luc Godard, and have words to describe the way I love film.  

I'm wondering if A. would maybe do an independent poetry study with me instead.  Or would that be even more terrifying?

I'm out of coffee filters.  My stomach is eating itself in protest.  

feel quite clean

I don't have anything to say, but here I am.

I'm pretty good at thinking on the fly.  It's what college teaches you; college, to me, has two separate spheres of learning: Personal and, since I can't think of anything clever, Public.  Personal learning is what a person actually, actively absorbs in a class.  Public is the ability to make the instructor/university believe you learned what they think you should have learned.

I forgot where I was going with this.

I'm pretty irritated at having been signed up by my professor for a one-on-one conference 20 minutes before my class would have normally started.  It is a small annoyance.

This morning-time is the only time I've had alone for awhile.  

Don't read this: I am fat and horrible and fat and I hate myself. 

I'm sorry, had to get the girl feelings out.  In other girl news, it's been about two weeks since I've put on makeup.  Additionally, I do not care.  Not in a flippant, "makeup is for cunts" sort of way, but in a simple, uncaring manner.  

I watched Grindhouse in HD last night and had forgotten how good etc.  It is the last movie(s) I saw in the theatre.     

This is boring.  You're bored.

some kind of

in the sink there is

a shattered purple

pyrex bowl

it is some

kind of

metaphor.

Are you a knee-bouncing person?  When you're stuck sitting in a place for any period of time?  That is me.  It's getting bad.  I feel like everything I'm doing is a waste of my time.  I see professors getting these sour and disappointed looks.  You know what I mean?  The worst is when, "Oh I understand the difficulties students face!  I know it's 'that time' of the semester!  Here's another paper assignment.  Reading and response due friday."

God help me if I sit next to someone who's also a knee-bouncer.  We are off, to the moon.  !

Taking great pleasure in cooking, slowly, doing things right instead of just feeding myself.  Letting the potatoes get crispy and brown, a task of patience.  Thick blades cutting fibrous vegetation.  Sweet, mellow smells on my hands for-ever, like I been finger-banging the goddess of garlic.  Leaning against the counter, reading a novel, stirring.  

It's really the only time lately when I don't feel like something's missing.  

things I learned to do today

1. Bail someone out of jail.

sarah dreams of summer

ss office

Things seen today at the Social Security Office, a magical place I visit a few times a month for my job, to copy client files of exhibits that have been prepped for appeal hearings:

The man in front of me in the metal detector line had a hunk of metal in his wallet, about the size of a credit card but thick as a pancake and matte silver.  He claimed it was a piece of the U.S.S. Nebraska, and he "just couldn't resist" carrying it around.  The security men (who are always sprawled just so in their high stools and lolling of the head like fat, superior cats) mumbled to him that it was okay, but the man just kept standing there with this thing in his hands, the piece of metal, jabbering loudly and seriously about how he would never use it as a weapon, and he was sorry, sorry, sorry, and was still there apologizing when I passed him and went about my business.

Sitting one chair away from me in the waiting room was an older couple, the woman using a big fuck-you four-pronged medical cane and the man all obese with moustache and unironic nascar cap.  He was reading some kind of benign waiting room magazine and kept trying to tell the woman facts.  Sitting next to them was just like a constant stream of:

"Did you know there's a zoo in Atlanta that has video games for Oranga-tangs?"

"Huhhhh."

(pause)

"How'd you like to go sniffing for mines with a rat?  On a little leash?"

"What?"

"They've trained these big rats to smell explosives, see?"

"Hnnnhhhh."

(pause)

"Did you know that some N'aanderthals had genes for red hair?"

"Hmmmmm."

So there's the waiting room then the big vast expanse of cubicle spaces behind a locked door with two windows looking into the waiting room.  Behind the door, someone who I presume was some kind of employee was screaming into the phone.  Nothing really inflammatory, in fact he sounded like he was on a totally normal business call, but just screaming.  Everyone in the waiting room got that whole collective discomfort thing going on, where you sneak looks out of the corners of your eyes at each other to see if anyone else finds what's going on as fucking weird as you do.  

Where is this instinct from?  The "must affirm that fucked up thing is actually fucked up with peers" thing.  It is primal.  "That one is acting stupid and out-of-the-ordinary, let's collectively feel this way so he may never produce offspring."

I want to try this on the phone someday, just yell the conversation all ridiculously loud pretending like everything's totally professional.  

Today five (count 'em) older men made a big deal about holding a door for me.  

I must have looked very nubile.

when

was the last time I didn't

feel so

odd?

when was the last time somebody surprised me?

what was the first piece of gum I ever tasted,

and who told me to chew, and keep chewing?

lately i either feel like i'm about to have a heart attack or

kind of drifting around in solemn loops in the air, doing the normal things

but

not quite all here, or here, or here

how timely

the current bmezine front page photo is exactly what I was describing a couple posts ago.  

(editor's note: it's not anymore they changed it)

minus the nipple tape.

god i really really fucking want a cheek/dimple piercing if only it didn't look so stupid and scene

character idea

so i don't forget 'cause I'm a little well you know

poorly socialized fellow who is convinced that if he learns to perfectly replicate the art style of a long-syndicated troglodyte newspaper comic strip like Mary Worth or Beetle Bailey he will convince the artist to hire him to replace him or her (the author) when he or she dies, thus perpetuating the horror that is being desperately stuck in the '50s next to "Dear Dr. Gott" and "Star News" for all the world to see.

whenever i see those nasty-ass Dennis the Menace cartoons I taste the sour, watery brainfreeze of dairy queen treats.

waxen chocolate

death to bill keane

 

confessions, or: self-deprecation feels good

1·  I have always harbored a guilty, subtle affection for George W. Bush.  Not in that I liked him, or agreed with him on anything, or thought he wasn't fucking up social progress in significant ways, but there existed in his demeanor a childlike bewilderment with the world that I found endearing.  You could look at him and see a man who was totally not in control of things, and wasn't sure why, like a pig who's been strapped into a backhoe and told to operate it.  This feeling may have been pity, which I have frequently confused for affection in the past.  

2·  My first burgeoning sexual fantasies involved characters from Dragonball Z.  I invite you to guess which one in particular.  (this is a test of our friendship)

3·  Whenever I do or think about having done something stupid or embarrassing, I've always gotten a mental flash of am image of some sort of pain being inflicted upon me that helps make the bad feeling go away.  When I was in high school it was projectile vomiting on whatever was making me feel bad.  For the past year or so, though, it's been sliding an 8-gauge metal skewer through my cheeks, like, in one side and out the other, through my mouth from dimple to dimple.  Like those sideshow guys did on television specials in the '90s.  It would probably not actually be fun but in my mind the pain oh god so good and then my tongue's pinned down so I can't say anything retarded and the metal going clickclickclick on my teeth and the warm salty iron blood taste drooling out, and also it would look hell of scary.      

homework progress

"Sarah" enters stage left, appearing cold and slightly disheveled but maybe kind of pretty, you know, to someone unpretentiously bookish -- but interesting, and kind -- who thinks she is interesting, and kind.

Sarah: (opens 1.5-page draft of document that's been "in progress" for a month)

(looks over requirements, again)

(silently panics as steely clouds race over the horizon)

(by and by, drinks)

(END SCENE)

tzitzikas

i feel better here in the grass
where the thick stems crackle and spar
where it feels like falling off the earth
stuck to it with electric strands of
stubborn will
hairlike invisible filaments
from the fingers
when i touch you i know
you feel them
there are kind old women who care
who suggest to me
where to go
and where to place myself
and seem happy
and sometimes i listen
but mostly it’s the chirrup and hum
the red-tail wail
the green wet froggy chorus
and here down the path the
electric insect purr of
exoskeletons
and i can rub and stroke my body
the way they do
but i only make the noise
when you’re here my
coyote yips
my
gander cries

implacable fondness

my d

my   r

my    e

my     a

my     m

my       s

you're there

you're in

you're in me

in and

    i want

in my

you're in

you've always been

and always 

been

you'll always 

be

Fall-Back Into SADness

"The SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) season births its symptomatic depressive moods upon us generally around the same time when we turn our clocks back from standard to daylight savings time. The fall-back one hour change results in shorter daylight hours. For those of us who depend on sunshine to brighten our moods the shortened daylight makes us feel SAD, and are likely to continually feel even SADder as the season progresses. SAD hovers above our heads, its emotional clouds filled with feelings of depression, melancholy, and anxiety, as we do our best to muddle through each darkened day.


SAD Symptoms

Change in Sleep Patterns
oversleeping but not refreshed
cannot or reluctantly get out of bed
require afternoon naps
Depression
feelings of despair, misery, guilt, anxiety, hopelessness, etc.
normal tasks become frustratingly difficult
withdrawal from friends and family
avoiding company
crankiness or irritability
lack of feeling/emotion
constant state of sadness
Lethargy
decreased energy
everything an effort
decreased productivity
Physical Ailments
joint pain
stomach problems
lowered resistance to infection
weight gain
premenstrual syndrome (worsens or only occurs in winter)
Behavioral Problems
appetite changes (usually increased appetite)
carbohydrate craving
loss of interest in sex
difficulty concentrating
not accomplishing tasks


Seasonal Affective Disorder, also called Winter Depression, affects approximately 10 million people in the United States alone. Women are three times more likely than men to suffer from this disorder. People who live in colder climates have a higher incidence of SAD than do those who live in warm, sunny locations. It has also been documented that suicide rates are higher in places of increased light deprivation."

did you ever go all emo on a blog and feel like a fool?

did you ever

craft a persona who was

totally in control of the

situation?

did you see happiness

everywhere small

because there was no happiness

anywhere big?  

have you ever been

stuck?

have you ever been

drunk near every night

for two and a half 

years?

did you ever have

secrets you had to drown out

by screaming inside your

head?

and other secrets 

that secretly consumed your

reality?

were you ever

fucked over?

was it really your

fault?

don't much

care for my self

lately

nobody understands

when I try and explain 

what I assume 

is a deep spiritual connection with Jon Bon Jovi.

it is most probably

a pure accident of the cosmos

as I am not so much a fan

but he keeps being there

for no reason

for example

as a scrabble word the first time I got drunk

(only spelled "Bong")

and I wanted to kiss my friend

but couldn't, because i realized for the first time

i just couldn't, and wouldn't.

Whenever I think about him

the way thoughts stir into your head 

like settling leaves

I will hear one of his songs soon after.

Sometimes I'll have a memory of a good time

and suddenly realize the song my friends and i were singing

was by his band, when i didn't know before;

These are just

examples.

11.4.08

we drank champagne and cried

met the author before I read the memoir

I advise against it.  Now I can't shoo away the image of the adult man who spoke to my class as I'm reading and it's really a distracting experience.  

A jacket quip says he's the "David Sedaris of nature writing" or something and I was all like "pshaw" but his style is really pleasantly similar (anecdotal and self-deprecating with a taste of 21st century fantasy jump-cuts), just not as dirty as I like, probably.

I'm calming down, I was a bit of a mess earlier.  

becoming increasingly harder

to ignore all of the racist-ass "i hope u enjoy paying for my healthcare with your arab/socialist obama" facebook statuses of some aggressively retarded folk I went to high school with, and just delete them instead of engaging them in some kind of pointless waltz of impotent intelligence vs. mouth-foaming ignorance.

Maybe insulting them with their own language, in their own obtuse fashion, is the key:

((I had a bunch of racial slurs here but deleted them because it felt too dirty))

THIS FEELS ILL AND GOOD, LIKE BULIMIA, TRY IT.

I love nielsen

A couple months ago, the Nielsen TV Ratings people sent my "household" a survey that included two dollar bills, "advance compensation" for filling out the short, general survey about your television viewing habits.  

I thought "Wow, nice, sure I'll fill this thing out since they sent me two bucks and all."  And I did.  In the following weeks I received a couple phone calls from what Google revealed to be the Nielsen survey people again.  I never answered, mostly because my instinct when I see a number I don't know is to let it go to voicemail because "aah fuck who the fuck is calling me what do they want aaaah (puts phone under pillow)."  

So, I thought I was done with them until today, when I received a large envelope addressed to "Cool People" (the name I put in on the website when I filled the survey out).  Inside was a kind, informative letter to "Cool," a TV Viewing Diary to fill out over the next week, and $30 cash.

Now I am all like contemplating a career in telling people what television shows I watch.  Can this be done?  I would be very skilled at this work as I have been practicing for most of my life.  

Anyway, thank you kind Nielsen folk.    

The chili pepperis the fruitof the plants fromthe genus Capsicum, whichare members ofthe nightshade family

Ain'othin' that makes one feel attacked by one's own stupidity more than touching your eyes with pepper hands.  I made soup, whose ingredients included chicken and black beans and rice but also included bell peppers and chilis, and I thought I washed my hands well enough but taking out my contacts almost made me scream.

(Then blissful, drunken sleep.)

Then I woke up, having forgotten last night's ordeal, and popped in my right contact lens to blistering hell pain.  Once that died down and I could kind of see through my bloodshot, tear-filled squint-gap, I decided to repeat the same process with the other eye.  

I am filthy.

The cats are hungry.

I can't pay my electricity because I didn't get paid this week.  I hope they don't shut it off.  

was remembering today

I read this book in third grade, and can probably trace any threads of rebellion and dystopian paranoia back to that point.  

It is a good book, read it to your children for I am having none and cannot.

No, let them read it on their own.

let's do this

Registering for classes is always a big deal to me or whatever.

ENGL202 Modern British & American Poetry TR 9:30-10:45

ENGL219  Westerns T 1:30-4:40

ENGL239  Film Directors MW 11:00-12:15

ENGL315A Med. & Ren. Women Writers  TR 11:00-12:15

ENGL373  Japanese & Asian Cinema W 1:30-4:40

I am pleased.  

I feel kind of left out in that I've still never done any "Independent Study" and/or "Honors"-type stuff.  Should I have done this shit?  Does it matter?  

I AM KIND OF DRUNK NOW SO NO.

studies

Been cleaning things out, rearranging.  

Everything's pretty okay.  I've hit the wall in the semester where I can no longer fluidly bullshit things like response papers; I'm dry.  I'd estimate I've written about 25 of those-type things, at least, since August.  Is that ridiculous?  This is the part of the semester where I get really irritated at teachers and their massive pet projects they think are fun and educational and not making me feel like crying with frustration.  I'm kind of selfish.  Underprivileged youths in far-away countries would kill a mighty boar with his own tusk to be able to undertake an 8-page research project.     

I'm reading this book:

I shouldn't be reading this book because it's not for a class, though it ties in well with the first half of my Early American Lit class.  I think I need to take a more Puritanical approach to education.    

I'm waiting to register.  The paper schedule-of-classes thing told me I could register at 9, which I should have double-checked, because it's actually 10.  The classes I want are all still pretty well-open, though.

(fingers, crossing of)

visiting home

Kelly ran up right away and was cute and a dog, as she tends to be.  The fur all along the side of her neck was stiff, and I noticed a red substance on her collar.  Thinking she'd hurt herself, I asked my mom what had happened.  

"Oh, your dad spilled ketchup everywhere earlier!"

The wind today was like the world was being made again, scoured and wild.  When it groped you up and down you could feel the animals on the verge of creation, galloping and veering on shaky legs.  

We snuck up on three deer as they laid in the thicket of hackberries, our scent and footfalls spirited away over the golden grass with the corkscrewing cornhusks.  

soon

I'll write more shit in here on a daily basis soon.  I feel guilty when I don't.  Just that I'm missing things, and so often the things that go undocumented fade to nothing, and then I'll just be sitting on a mighty mountain of nothings and that will be my life.  

There's a great part at the end of "The Neverending Story" (the book, FUCK that movie(s), the book is a stunning work of fiction that makes me feel such ways), where Bastien loses his memory and is trapped in some sort of memory mine where all forgotten memories ever are frozen in ice, and he has to mine them for years and years until he finds his father trapped in a memory and he can remember and go home.  

I need to read that again.

But anyway, that's what it's like, see.  

My trip to Minneapolis was hard on me, mostly in a mental way that I can't really pin down.  I've felt "different" since.  All I want to do is travel to every place, it doesn't matter how small or far away, to see the ways each of the places makes me feel and changes me, ms. malleable.

I've been feeling manic, like my body and mind want to move faster faster faster but nothing else can catch up, and my heart's like "woah, fuck" and I'm twitchy and on the edge of panic.  But you can't see from the outside.

got worried

today that wanting something real bad is just a form of narcissism.  Like, when you want something so bad you feel like you deserve it, and there is only one wicked obstacle in your way, you're really just thinking too highly of yourself.

Then I convinced myself it was okay, and I was overcomplicating a basic human thing into a dual cruelty.  Try to stop "wanting," try to find peace and respite from needing a something-or-other, and knowing it will please you.  

didn't realize til yesterday

how miserably sick of lincoln I am.

hint: not in lincoln now.

blogging

I need to stop getting bojangled and acting on urges write my little retard poeticalitical manifestos.

I got too much shit to do lately, mostly shit I don't want to do.  But I'll do it.  I don't know, will it bore you if I complain about homework?  Boo hoo, middle-class white girl?  I'll leave it for now.

I've been shown incredible kindness recently, from close friends and strangers.  It makes me feel good, and good.  I really love anyone who takes the time to consider and be nice to me, you have no idea.  I AM EASILY BOUGHT.

Why do jeans often have what look like little button-halves where the pockets' attach to the pants?  Is it a grommet-type thing, for sturdiness?  Ornamental?  Or can you attach little things with the matching (female) snap button half?  If not, did I just invent a thing that could do that?  Patent pending.

I've agreed to go to Minneapolis Friday-Monday with my mom, to see my brother.  WHY DID I AGREE TO THIS.  I'm really pretty excited but I keep forgetting it means two 6-ish hour trips without smoking, which doesn't sound so bad now that I type it, but it's in the car.  With my mom.  Smokers know what I'm talking about.  

I dreamed of saving wet cats and reading Latin aloud.

gettin' political

Sometimes keeping myself to measured, rational thoughts makes me feel like I'm ripe to explode.  

I see the connections, I see everything the the past few centuries that influenced America to its current manifestation, a festering infestation, sequestered idiot nation.  It's just that I can't do anything about it; I can't make them understand me.

Let's rewind to survival, let's let the thinkers think and the knowers know by candlelight when the muskets are sleeping silent, let's all of us have been born big men with big cocks and bigger swords and let's make our soft silent ladies from flesh that forgot how to feel and let's make it remember, slick like dolphin and stretched by gravity, hard bones, soft skin, where did our tails go, flexible, we forgot how to balance.

I'm sorry about this, really, sometimes I got to say things got to get em out

anthropomorphization

Makes dinner feel like genocide.

(kraft whole wheat mac & cheese with a little black pepper, chili powder, and garlic powder; old shredded sharp cheddar; octodog)

Oopsu.

Accidentally downloaded the entire series in Japanese.

God, though, the art.  God damn.  

slim goodbody

observation

Pinching yourself with the pads of your fingertips hurts more than pinching with nails.  

I say "yourself" because I'm assuming that when you pinch yourself to see if you're awake your fingers instinctively try not to do much damage.  Nails could probably fuck a body up more if you were trying to hurt someone.

Edit, Memory:  In third grade I got to thinking it was a funny thing to scratch people with my nails, like it made me powerful and interesting and I was way too into animals or something, I don't really know why.  We used to touch each other so easily then.  Anyway, because of this my teacher had to sit down and have a talk with the class in a move of kindness and cruelty (I can't face one-on-one confrontations with authority without feeling deeply disturbed; The whole class know who she was talking about.).  We then had to watch a terrifying video about AIDS (what the fuck?  I don't think it specifically said "scratching someone" was dangerous but I remember feeling like I was a potential AIDS-spreader.  It was awful.) and have a talk about it, and I felt really weird because my good friend kept saying "sex," not just to say "sex" but asking questions about the video which explained how you could get AIDS , and man it made me so uncomfortable that she was saying that word.  The video was by that creepy fucking guy who would wear skin-tight bodysuits often colored nude with a single system of the human body painted on.  I think he had a curly mullet.  

the bridge is back

The O Street bridge opened yesterday, cutting about 10 minutes off my commute time.  

It has been one year.

I'd like to make a bet with myself to see how many times I try to take the detour, still, out of muscle memory (cars are, oddly or not-so-oddly, extensions of ourselves; I read an article somewhere that explained this, how people always instead of saying "He hit my car with his car!" will say "He hit me!").  

I will miss the Sun Valley detour, which takes one past lakes and marshy ditches; you might see a heron someday and almost swerve off the road, you might see a turtle and stop to tote him away from danger.

It made my day yesterday, though.  It is so rare that things get easier for me, instead of more difficult.  

The leaves are purple and yellow.

The gulls are back.

I dreamed of yellow leaves.

I dreamed of plummeting for miles and landing softly as thistledown.  

The gulls, and the winds.

let's talk about copper

"Copper (pronounced /ˈkɒpɚ/) is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (Latin: cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with excellent electrical conductivity. Copper is rather supple in its pure state and has a pinkish luster which is (beside gold) unusual for metals, which are normally silvery white. It is used as a heat conductor, an electrical conductor, as a building material and as a constituent of various metal alloys.""Copper is an essential trace nutrient to all high plants and animals. In animals, including humans, it is found primarily in the bloodstream, as a co-factor in various enzymes and in copper-based pigments. However, in sufficient amounts, copper can be poisonous and even fatal to organisms.
Copper has played a significant part in the history of mankind, which has used the easily accessible uncompounded metal for thousands of years. Evidence has been preserved from several early civilizations of the use of copper. In the roman era, copper was principally mined on Cyprus, hence the origin of the name of the metal as Cyprium, "metal of Cyprus", later shortened to Cuprum."In Greek the metal was known by the name chalkos (χαλκός). Copper was a very important resource for the Romans, Greeks and other ancient peoples. In Roman times, it became known as aes Cyprium (aes being the generic Latin term for copper alloys such as bronze and other metals, and Cyprium because so much of it was mined in Cyprus). From this, the phrase was simplified to cuprum and then eventually Anglicized into the English copper. Copper was associated with the goddess Aphrodite/Venus in mythology and alchemy, owing to its lustrous beauty, its ancient use in producing mirrors, and its association with Cyprus, which was sacred to the goddess. In astrology alchemy the seven heavenly bodies known to the ancients were associated with seven metals also known in antiquity, and Venus was assigned to copper."
"Copper is germicidal, via the oligodynamic effect. For example, brass doorknobs disinfect themselves of many bacteria within a period of eight hours.[18] Antimicrobial properties of copper are effective against MRSA,[19] Escherichia coli[20] and other pathogens.[21][22][23] In colder temperature, longer time is required to kill bacteria."

lol

I got ready for the clean part poetry thing, put on a dress and heels, then ran late and couldn't find a parking spot close enough to make it in time in the heels, so I came home.

I need more mirrors everywhere so I can grin sarcastic and flip myself off as often as it's warranted.  I don't know the exact name for the emotion described by that action, but I feel it a lot.  

doodles

All the notebooks I use are slowly becoming covered in rough sketches of animals, mostly dogs.  I don't know why this habit comes and goes, but it usually happens when I'm feeling lonely or bored.  I'm not really too lonesome lately so I think it's just classes starting to drag and grate, and the two-day respite called "Fall Break" feels like a middle finger, but it's a fingering I'm looking forward to.  

I wish sometimes I'd gone to a college that had the three-week classes.  For three weeks, you take one or two classes, then you're done with that class.  It's the perfect amount of time, for me; summer classes (3 and 5 week) were a delight and a breeze.  I didn't get bored, and I didn't start staring at my each of my professors' every detail more and more and analyzing every little thing about them and wondering what they're like just chatting like with their boy-or-girlfriends and not making all like extra special eye-contact with you and speaking loudly and enthusiastically.  

I've thought about going into teaching at a higher level before but I just know that I'd start out all cheery go-getter at first then about three to five weeks in I would become bored and they'd find out how many shits I really give (few).  Are there any professors as cruel, lazy, and false as I would be?  I don't belong guiding anyone's future.

I went off a little, there.  Anyway: bored.  When I said I wasn't lonely earlier I didn't think to mention that way in which we're really always alone with ourselves, I got that hard.     

sleep mode

Having trouble wanting to write in here.  Dreams too beautiful to describe; life too monotonous.  

It'll come back.

I feel like I'm really missing out on something lately but I don't know what.  Like I'm not feeling things enough, or I'm saying the same words too often, or performing the same actions like a ro-bot.  

I think this means I need a big change.  

The dreams are either lovely or, all the time lately, almost every night, I get "caught" doing something minor I'm not supposed to and a man will come attack me with inappropriate rage for my indiscretion.  I walk through the store anti-theft doorway things and they go off and a man, I can see him coming from the distance, always, attacks me.  I drive my car into an area I'm not sure I can go to and get out and a man attacks me.  I walk into the wrong room and a man attacks me.  The whole time I'm putting my arms up submissively and saying I'm sorry but it only makes him more angry.  

Last weekend I took a country road-trip and I could see the stars, and it made me so happy, felt like coming home.  The grass and fences blue-black in the the moonlight sweeping by, lining the gravel road and the crunch of it, the critters in the brush flashing their magic eyes at the headlights, and the quiet of it, and the schizophrenic radio playing spanish guitar the nu-metal then '80s dance then ozzy then piano concerto, the grape-flavored blunt and the stink of manure I pretend to hate when other people do because I don't want to be that person who announces they like an ill-thought-of thing to be different, the sickle moon getting low and golden, and the stars.  

I can pretend to be a hip kid all I want but this landscape is all really really truly truly where I come from, really real, truly true.   

let me just say

I mostly pretend not to see people, outside, when walking around.  It is a selfish thing because it forces all my interactions with mere acquaintances to be ones they initiate, so I know that they actually want to talk to me.

It is an unselfish thing because I know it makes things easier for a few, just like me.  We don't need to acknowledge that we know each other, we know, we know.

bored

I'm getting tired of one-trick ponies.

I am a dynamic animal.

I want to be a

I am the lady dynamo.  

the mexican couple

is fighting outside their apartment, probably so their adorable little kid can't hear. :(  

I wish I knew what she was mad about, her voice gallops and crescendos like birdsong and makes me very glad she isn't mad at me.

super-happy-outstanding-candy-smile-time!

I'd had a shite day at class/work, but a small parcel from Japan was waiting in the mailbox to brighten my spirits.  I've tried them all and they are amazing, really, fuck, goddamn, in a way that makes you wonder why most American candy sucks so hard.  

Stay tuned for a full-length photo and tasting review, probably while I'm watching my subtitled Death Note dvd rips and masturbating furiously to fantastic manga scenes of blushing girls being deflowered by tentacles.    

~Japan~is~cool~

reversion

It's been more difficult than usual for me to function these past few days; I've been trying to chalk it up to a myriad of different factors, but I've realized slowly that I am actually sick.  The sore throat was the only disabling symptom and I wanted to leave it at that, but the feeling really tired and generally blah is now making sense.  

I was just about to write how I feel like I'm in a state of flux again, but then I tried to think back to a time when I didn't feel this way, and I can't.  It might be the nature of the mood, or maybe being a maturing creature of comfort means that I'll never feel settled.  If you were to chart a calendar of my mental life it would just be a long line studded with a series of goals, as minute as "have a drink here in a little bit" and as large as "graduate," tangible as a beverage and intangible as the final goal, The Big One, at the end of the line.  At each of these points I am altered slightly; offered choices.  They are important because they are things I want to do, or, rather, things set in motion by me.  In between these points on the line are all of the unforseens and obstacles, the things I have to react to as opposed to an action.  The points are the things that make me feel good, and the inbetweens shake me up, though they are necessary.  Feeling in-between all the time might really be a lack of important goals.  I need to think about this more.

If you just read all that I'm sorry, here's a picture of Hitler-chan for your trouble.

colored

When we got our papers back for my sociology class the other day, my professor made the following announcement:

"While reading these, I noticed a lot of you, when describing African-Americans, used the term 'colored people.'  This is... not okay.  You need to change your terminology."

I knew I was taking a kind of cattle-call soc class but... what.

valerian root:

y'all are missing out.  I like plants that do things to the body.  Also chemicals.  Things that do things.  We cultivate them en masse, a leftover primitive impulse refined and humanized in that innumerable-strings-attached way.  I like having control over my body.  Losing it is a fear.

I need to stop this birthday indulgence; already it's a day stale and I'm still letting myself eat all the cheese I want because "hey, birthday."  

But I really didn't do anything on my birthday, except get a wicked sore throat that's persisted.