breaking news

New top-five favorite film:

(Oldboy)

I've been meaning to see it for years (not hyperbole), and at the same time I'm glad I waited until this point in my life to watch it (It is a recent development that I am sometimes perceptive to the point of phantom pain).   

kishkash

Monetary transactions are so bizarre to me.  Yes banker may I please move these numbers representing my imaginary worth.  I am sorry I have not yet given the numbers back that I have taken from you, thank you for being patient.  Please do not file me under "D" for "Deadbeat," I may be beat but I am only half-dead, for you see my nine-digit code has not yet expired.  Supermarket please take some of this debt in exchange for goods.  I put the wrong price tag on the bulk licorice bridge mix and saved several small debts for myself.  This you shall never know.

more dream

Dreamed a thin tornado far away then tearing through my parking lot, fireworks going off all around being sucked in circles of spinning motes of light and I was scared and told my sister to get to safety and protected my cats but the tornado knew me and instead of clashing I absorbed its power spongelike but diffusing and not at all evil.

flavor combination idea

licorice and jalapeno pepper

too lazy to find the 'n' with the tilde

deal with it

after me

Still wearing a towel long after I've dried.  Dreamed about walking in a cemetery on the wind-blasted yellow prairie and meeting a priest, who told me about his beliefs and why I should believe them while I ignored him as politely as I could, which is really how I react to most people who tell me their beliefs, unless they are one of the Flowers, as C. once said (or: "Angels").  

Then (in the dream) I was late to my dance competition for which I had no recollection of the choreography.  I was racing down my street in Beatrice to get there and passed the Spady's house, where a herd of cop cars were blazin' cherries on the front lawn, and policemen were everywhere with their guns drawn, shooting seemingly at random.  I saw a man on a bike approach one officer at high speed and be shot in the back by another, and then I saw a little hiccuping echo of that same image, deja vu.  

There was more to it, the dance competition green room where I watched my partner's half and tried to move in tandem, positioning my legs just so on that spinning leap, quick footwork, pointed toes.  I varied between supreme confidence in my ability to bullshit the dance and panic that I am not an actual professional dancer in any sense.  

to-night

The boy is doing outdoorsy things but.  I missed the boat while I was working.  Now I have to decide if.  I'm going to do what I always do and.  Start drinking and smoking with the television.  And the cats or if I'm going to.  Be brave and go out into.  The world make contacts meet new people like.  I did long ago when I'd go to coffee houses by myself.  And read for hours just hoping.  That someone interesting would arrest my time.  But it rarely happened.  And I'd go home feeling.  Worse.

Too often I allow other people.  To take my destiny out of my hands.  Because I am desperate to be amused.  This may be why I am so often.  Disenchanted.

Update: Goddamn I am a whiney shit.  Ended up driving around Lincoln forever, buying cat food, going downtown, walking around for about an hour aimlessly trying to find a friend, bought a $4 iced chai that was worth it, went into Iron Brush and finally scheduled a touch-up for my hip tattoo, (they always call you "honey" and hearing that from sweet tattooed men gets me bothered), finally found friend, talked to him for awhile, bought self a gyro, and came home.

Did pretty well I think.  

Seriously though how do I not be such a weird-ass social retard.

the worst dreams

are the ones where you want someone to love you and touch you and they won't and then you wake up and think "why was I so sure that making them watch me fuck someone else was a gentle way to prove that they also want me" and then you wake up more and slowly realize that your bizarre sleep situations are just exaggerations and misinterpretations of the real-life human thought process, ALWAYS.  

I swam home from class today.  

Am trying a long-shot for another job I actually want but am scared to hope.  

Am hoping anyway, thanks Pandora you slllut.

guess who

:)

idea

For the future of body modification:

Make it possible to graft small sections of another mammal's skin onto your own, perhaps in fun patterns.  In my imagination this is already possible, but nobody has tried it yet.  It would have to be an animal that one would already be using for meat (no housepets).  But man to have an armband of holstein hide with the fur and all as a part of you would kick ass!  And piss off the old people.

Lately I have been worrying a lot about becoming elderly, and exactly what crazy shit the kids then will be doing that will shock and confuse me.

bakery news

I wrote on my first cake today!

"Good Luck Amy, We'll Miss You!"

Only artful in technicolor frosting.

The job is just wicked embarrassing but it's a job

it's a job it's a job it's a job

The work is not terribly hard

It's the first food place I've worked at where I do not find the product in any way appealing

(do not buy grocery chain store baked goods)

(seriously don't buy or consume them)

The people are nice, the cake girls are cute cute 

the old ladies are bossy and kind

the men are quiet

everything is distressingly filthy 

i write poorly because the job makes me tired

being tired without getting fucked up feels good

i have not had to deal with anyone sharing horrible

opinions or knowledge

a boss i had once used to mention to me her yeast infection

and how she didn't like working next to one girl because

"black people just have that really strong smell, you know?" what

my last bosses were way racist 

but in that way where they prefaced every racist comment with "I'm not 

racist 

or anything"

Edit: You can eat the cookies, the cookies are probably safe and delicious.

Another Edit: They are selling the cookies in wrapped in FRISBEES-as-plates this week!  What manner of genius is this?!  I'll bet the cookies make pretty good frisbees too!    Frisbesasplates would be an excellent name for a fantasy character!  Perhaps a wise old tree spirit!  

accidentally vegetarian lately

Blaming it mainly on this roasted red pepper hummus which, when applied to toasted pita + feta + lettuce + sauteed onions and mushrooms (with Sriracha on the side for spicydips), is probably one of the most delicious and easy things I could make for myself.

I need to purpose to eat more mushrooms.  All kinds of mushrooms.  I forget how much I love them until I'm eating them but it's something I never think to buy.      

My sister has been a vegetarian for many years now, not terribly strict but it's something I'm kind of proud of since when she first started it in like middle school I was one of the ones all "ha, ha, let's see how long this lasts."  Or maybe it was my jeering that made her stick to it.  Either way, I like my sister, she has been in Florida for awhile on some retarded Christian Concentration Camp.  I usually don't think about it when I haven't talked to her in awhile but I kind of miss her.  I haven't seen/talked to my brother since he moved to Minnesota like six (?) months ago.  With the exception of my mom my family's kind of "like that."  We tight and on separate orbits.  

I like meat.  I like feeling active again.  The muscle definition is returning to my body and I feel a little bit more like myself, which is a funny thing to say since my entire life consists of this endless search for self-definition; "myself" is the abstract.  

I'd like to say the change on the wind is still coming but I think it may have been snagged on the Solstice and is lulling into the summer dreamland.  

I am not upset about this. 

imprints on the spirit

I love and hate dreaming about someone you used to know, who you'd feel weird contacting after this time.  In real life they fucked you over but in the dream they were kind and wanting of your company.  Etc.  I don't really know what to do about this, I'm mostly just vaguely documenting so I don't forget... 

The past few weeks and everything laying before me right now is hard work that I have absolutely no love for.  What kills me is not knowing if I'll ever be able to be content again.  I don't need anything handed to me, I just need chances to show how good I am, how very, very good.  Not even getting those.  My youth is wedged into the few hours between the everything and the nothing each day, and they zip by tktktktktktktk I just want to vacate and vacation but everything about my life says no.

observation (drunk)

Be aware of the man who drinks beer from a bottle without tilting his head back.  This man is hard; this man does not bend to the ease of beverage intake.  This man has something to prove. 

cats man

Jauffre's new "thing" is to go into the downstairs bathroom and sit on the counter and meowl and howl until I get pissed and/or worried enough to come and see him, at which point he leaps for my back and has to get a ride around the living room before he's satisfied.  

Just noticed while in bathroom:  Having a V-shaped tan on your neck/chest gives you mad titties.  

a thing that happened

I was walking to my car after class, making my way over the 10th street bridge that goes down into the 'Bottoms (which, by the way, has a trés assez and extremely random plaque-and-bench area explaining the historical and cultural interest of the neighborhood right across from the computer/magic store where I used to work [i.e. not a place of particular beauty]).  

So you see a lot of joggers huffing over this fairly abrupt bridge, which is exactly what I saw, moving toward me on the opposite side of the walkway. He was an older man, tall and lumpy, bobbing along in that shuffling heart-attack pace.  

And then he's looking at me, which I can see because I mostly wear sunglasses for the specific benefit of being able to see who's looking at you, not to see who's "checking me out" or whatever but because humans are just so fucking curious about each other that when they think someone is not looking they will just stare and stare and stare, drinking the other person in in that instant when it is polite to look without seeming like a dick, then using their own personal method of looking away quickly to avoid awkwardness.  My method when I get caught staring at someone is the "Oh, I am looking in many different directions!  See how I look here, and now here, and you just happened look up and into my eyes at that precise moment when my head happened to face you directly!"  There are also methods such as "I was looking at the thing behind you," but my body does not prefer them in that primal moment of terror at being seen. 

Except sometimes people do check you out, which is what this guy seemed to possibly be doing.  Staring.  Right.  At.  Me.  And running closer, huff, huff, until he was nearly parallel with me, at which point he loudly hissed "CONCENTRATE" and yanked his gaze away, continuing by.  

And then I spent way too much time thinking about those queer few seconds of my life, and then I wrote a blog post about them.      

give me money for things

What I really need to do is find all those old Judy Blume books and read them again, christ, that woman was a genius.  When I was around eleven those books were porn to me, even while giving that creepy '70s vibe and offering only vague language about special feelings in special places and luridly detailed descriptions of bodily functions.

You know what, nevermind, I just need to get some actual '70s porn books.  And some regular porn.  FAN-TASTIC.

  

ay me

Today is the three-year anniversary with the boy, and there is not even money for food beyond the eggs in the fridge.  Material celebration isn't necessary, I guess, but I do love an excuse to eat and drink with abandon.

For instance, I cannot remember the last time I was involved with chinese food.

I have cemented myself to someone who is unwise with money, which makes my life a kind of all-or-nothing situation.  It has been "nothing" for the past seven months, but I don't know if I was even happier with "all," or which is preferable.  It's been so long now that I can't remember if "all" made me feel like exploding less.

What is Adult ADD like?  Is it like when you're trying to take a logic quiz and instead of being able to focus on the little symbols and capital letters, the cigarette machine from the country club of your childhood hovers in your mind, all gold and clear crystal-cut plastic knobs, like something rich and fabulous and full of mystery from Wonka or Whangdoodles, and is that why I was always secretly a smoker inside, or did I become one and forget the transformation?  

Would I have this difficulty concentrating all the time if I actually had things that were necessary to concentrate upon?  

the fuck of it is

Too much time hating what I have and glorifying what I don't.  Retrospect gives things a tint that is classy and kind.  Someday we will all flatten to caricatures of good and of evil between pages in time.  Time is slowing and solidifying around me already, I can feel it if I concentrate, the sparkling weightless protoplasm.  The cats see a bird and the air turns to syrup for an instant, then the trickle starts around the edges and the whole suffocating waterfall flow of it presses on and on and on and on and on.  

Is it trite is it trite to even to even try?

waiting

Caterpillar News: They have both made cocoons!  The bigger one took about a day longer because he kept being retarded and trying to make a break for it off the porch, so we finally put him in a jar with some sticks and he settled down.  

Otherwise, I am ill and tired.  Ill from food poisoning, tired of dealing.  I... cannot deal.

ch-ch-ch-changes

I woke up at 11 a.m. and he was still himself, all curled and dark.  An hour later I looked again and he was this.  A tiny dried ball of striped skin was below him.  

bonus photo of sunset after tornadotown wednesday

sugar

ideal summer diet: orange soda, pistachios, red vines, rum

list still in progress.

The caterpillars are still hanging around and seem fine; the little one has sort of hunched up and anchored himself to a stem with two strands of silk.  What is he up to?  What is he plotting?  I'd love to see him start chrysalis-ing it up already but he's smaller than the other one so weird, I guess.  I did not name them because I guess I am just extremely convinced that they will runnoft or die horribly.  They have not.

Update: It seems he IS preparing to make a chrysalis!  That over-winter business was apparently nonsense.  He should do a final shed in the next 12 hours or so and then the cocoon will be formed. :) :) :) :)  The other one has been really zoomy lately too which means he is also probably ready!  Once they make them I'll put them in a nice container with air holes so they don't become damaged and also so I may see their butterfly selves before they fly away.  

Another thing about the caterpillars: When they feel threatened by you touching them they unleash the two sticky vermillion "horns" I talked about earlier.  I've learned through trial and error that the horns also smell to high heaven like a sweet, tangy, but unpleasant stench that I imagine says "Shit, bitch!  I'm POISON!"

Watching boxing.  Ira Glass taught me that there are boxers who make their career by losing to much better fighters.  How does this work?  Could I be one of them?  

Lazy and broke but hungry for something to do, man.  I need some easy friends.  

kitterpitterbees

Today I liberated two fucking awesome caterpillars from work.  They were hanging out on a parsley plant; I poked the largest one gently and two little red, gooey antennae shot out of its head like a stress toy and I fell in love.  I kept watch on them all day, there was a tiny little one too but it disappeared at some point.

I was thinking of just trying to sneak them into the wilderness, but I'm glad I took them plant & all because it turns out they are "Parsley Caterpillars," which turn into Black Swallowtails.  I hope they will do okay and nothing happens.  Apparently they overwinter in-chrysalis which is troubling but I'll do my best to be a good mom.  They are out there on their plant all nomnomnom so hopefully all is well.  I will try and take some photos later.

Someday they will hopefully turn into this: (!!!)

UPDATE: Here is a picture of them awwwwwww.  The one in focus is the big one, who's almost as fat as my pinky (keep in mind I have skinny-ass fingers).  

cccyclesss

I loved my job today.  Or, rather, I realized that I have been loving my job ever since I learned what was what enough to come in every day and perform it.  This afternoon in the beatific late spring sun with the cottonwood tufts drifting by, everything was perfect perfect.  The flowers have become dear to me; I like myself when I'm caring for them.  I like my skinny brown forearms and my dirt-crusted fingers.  I like wandering around stroking and smelling them, pruning off dead matter, plucking petunias and deadheading daisies.  I see them grow and bloom and shrivel and bloom.  I keep tabs on the small cluster of iridescent yellow eggs that has hatched into a tiny horde of caterpillars.  When a little cactus-y plant finally bloomed its spiky purple blossoms and I saw them close as the sun was obscured, just like I expected them to, I laughed out loud.    

This, however, is probably my last week of the job before the suppliers pack them all up and take them elsewhere, to the compost heap or I don't know.  I've been asked to stay at the store and work inside after this happens; I worked as a cashier yesterday when it was raining and was a walking anxiety attack.  I hated it, and myself, I do not want to subject myself to that, no no no, god take it away don't make me.  I think I am going to decline their offer even though I have no other income or job prospects.  I think I have to.    

Everything has changed since last night, new class, new revelations about the past, new anger and regret and unhappiness and that tearing apart feeling when you didn't want it to change, and don't want it to change, but it can't be taken back.  I'm being vague.  My whole body wants an apology.  It's reaching for the gem of revenge that's hardening somewhere in my throat/chest region, but I know if I grab it it will only turn me into a soulless gollum creature.

In middle school when the adult awareness started seeping in I started to feel "bad" all the time.  I was shy and embarrassed before but the badness would grab me and hold me in nausea and I remember one day in music class I realized that if I just "played" classical music very loudly in my head in a sort of meditation, it helped the badness go away.  

Now I drink.    

dramatic words

I have had the worst day.

I have a very unbearable headache.

I wish everybody I know would stop being such a dick.  

I wish the pills were working.

I wish the alcohol was working.

I wish I could run away.

Everything right now is just so profoundly disappointing.  

a funny way to kill someone

would be like in a department store (no cameras) at night, lure the victim there and club them out cold with a heavy object nearby (like part of a clothing rack, I don't know, be creative!).  Then, when they're passed out on the floor, unscrew the hands of a mannequin and strangle the victim to death with the mannequin's hands.  Once the victim is no longer breathing, replace the mannequin's hands and position it slightly differently than it had been before, perhaps staring down at the body.  Leave no evidence of yourself.  Enjoy tomorrow's news.

an end

I finished my 3-week class today; I am feeling strange and sad.  I dug on the professor and the class so hard but there was only so much to learn and discuss, and now it's over.  Instead of being full of inspired ideas, though, I'm feeling as empty as ever.  

A large part of my life is overshadowed by the fact that I'm just clever enough to realize how un-brilliant, un-crazy, and un-unique I am.  This is why I am often torn between trying (i.e. getting good grades, pushing toward a prestigious job, really trying, etc.) and NOT trying, living a deep, inner life where others don't need to hear about my ideas or opinions or whatever hackneyed art I produce; shooting below my potential because I'll never sink my claws into lofty goals I fantasize about because my idols are so far above me intellectually and spiritually.

It occurs to me that both of these options, and anything between, are unsatisfactory.  

oh and

The other night I dreamed I lived in a mansion and Bret Hart came to visit me with his girlfriend.

I do not know why, since nothing I've seen or done or thought about in the past few years had much at all to do with Bret Hart.

I even called him "Bret Hart" in my dream without being able to picture what he looks like while awake.  And then I looked up photos of him, and yep, that guy was in my dream.  

aw hell

I am a person who devotes an embarrassing amount of time to considering what modifications I would do to my body if I had the time/sweet job to allow it.

I know what I want on my chest/shoulder area, and on my forearms.  These will both have to wait for the reasons mentioned above.  I have recently decided that a prime spot for my next tattoo is the spot on my leg about five inches above my ankle-bone on the inside.  This 3x4" spot is precisely where my calf was mistaken for a soccer ball by a Waverly girl my junior year of high school.  It hurt both of us, but I think it hurt me more, since I begged to be taken out and my coach thought it wasn't much of an injury.  Later that night the spot began to swell and continued until it looked like I was hiding half an orange under my skin.  It was somewhat like having a small, nipple-less breast on my leg, which was as interesting as it was troubling.  It hurt like fuck, and I had to wrap it in an ace bandage for weeks to get the swelling down.

Currently, that spot feels like there is some harder scar-type tissue underneath, and I have no feeling in the skin on the surface.  This is why I have tended to maniacally scratch it in my sleep for the past few years, waking up confused in bloody sheets.  (If I get tattooed there, I will tie my hands to my bed if I feel like this will be a problem.)

My only issue now is I have NO IDEA what I want etched into my skin there.  Or if it's even wise, with the scar tissue.  The fact that I can't think of any ideas for something has been troubling me, lately.  I know it's something I shouldn't force because I can't really afford it anyway, but damn, I don't even know where to start.  I was thinking of getting a Roman Owl Coin symbol (Athenian Owl), but that would make ALL of my tattoos birds which is getting a little out of hand.  Also, I was browsing the tattoo megathread on the SA forums and saw some girl bitching that someone who got an Athenian Owl on her ankle was "copying her" which means there are like a million people with that tattoo already.

I will continue to meditate upon this.  

It was a boring blog entry, thank you for staying. 

UPDATE: Some kind of beautiful arts & crafts style woman, or something with a dog/wolf/fox!

transparency

Yesterday I overslept and showed up for work an hour and a half late.  

Nobody noticed.  

recently

i have begun to anthropomorphize my car, stroking her false japanese hide and praising her for being my scrappy best friend since I was 15.

i do not know yet if this is akin to cheering on an old mule who will never die, or playing with your old dog more often because he's gotten all thin and wand'ry eyed and probably won't last another winter.  

little honda she has two fruity dolphin air fresheners that stopped smelling like anything years ago.  i will never bring myself to remove them.

she has cigarette burns and old stains and is filled with scratched cds and straw wrappers.

i wish i had the money to take care of her.

i will cry

when she goes

to the junkyard

in the sky.