another trip to the drugstore to learn that they STILL don't have aosept and now i see that it's a whole fuck up at ciba and they are majorly behind in production or that they aren't producing now or maybe ever...it's so frustrating because that's like the only contact solution that doesn't give me allergies...and the alternatives are behind my swollen eyes the other morning...rrrr...

god i'm so fucking tired it's insane. i'm trying to keep up with everything and then i get some email asking me to do some useless grading exercise and i want to throw things again and scream at the moon...to no end. i mean wtf...can we just get through this semester without any more grading arguments? i know...let's just give everyone an "a" and go home because nothing at all is going to get solved by continuing to go around and around and around all of this. if i get one more email *requesting* that i pretend grade something i will...what? ignore it?

so how am i supposed to get this dissertation done while all this other crap is happening and i swear to god if the transcriptionist calls one more time i will...what? ignore it?

can someone put me into a sleep chamber until next week? next month?

wow. so as i'm slowly returning to the "real" world, i'm finding out that the seattle massacre actually took place in capitol hill a few blocks from where i use to live in seattle with the...and c said that he somehow knew that's where i lived even before i told him...

omg that fucking garrison keillor wrote on salon about the spas for "exhaustion" that i've been saying that i need to get into for years now. i'm serious...where are the treatment centers for exhaustion for the rest of us...ok, yeah, i know that exhaustion in hollywood means rehab. but still...i'm fucking tired after this past week and my super anemia and all i want to do is sleep right now! and be served fresh orange juice.

i got an email saying that the movie for thursday's film night is in my box but i can't remember what it was that i'd requested for thursday. i'll be in the dorm tomorrow so i'll be able to see and then spam it out. i swear i'm so out of it, it's amazing. i feel like i just returned from upside down world, kind of like how i felt after arriving in and returning from taipei last summer. and it can't be good that my med schedule is all messed up on top of it.

dr b and i talked of mania the other day, how certain things throw me into adrenaline supreme and before you know it i'm completely off the wall...but then...how many hours have i slept since yesterday? let's see...i had 16 hours of sleep last night...after having taken a 5 hour nap...

yeah, ok, cool. but i know why i'm so tired and why i was so tired before gdc and i'm getting sick of hospitals...the deja vu i got when crossing the bridge over university to the north side building...the elevator up to the 5th floor...just below the floor where i never want to spend another minute on...but i will if it helps someone...even if it gets me into trouble later...

i just wonder why they keep taking more blood from me AFTER they tell me that i'm getting more anemic? i mean call me crazy but isn't there a better way to check out whatever they are checking this time?

Ok, just an update/summary of GDC...here are the Game Accessibility SIG award winners for GDC06!

Most Dramatic Arrival: Richard and Sander for their groundbreaking performance in an "oops, the airline has us going to San Jose, COSTA RICA!!!!!" documentary

Most Dramatic Departure: Michelle for her time-bending performance in "somehow ending up in Illinois later than Giannis did in Greece" short film

Most "Braveheart" Moment: "The Right to Fun!" (a.k.a. Thursday afternoon's roundtable) -- screenplay written by Michelle; performance by Sander

Most Likely to Secretly be a Canadian Mounty: Kevin for his cross-border fighting scenes with our neighbors to the north.

Most Likely to Have the Most Embarrassing photo of Michelle: Giannis in "Watch Michelle ineptly tie Jonathan's hands behind his back during the accessibility arcade demo during the tutorial"

Best Argument: Michelle and Richard in "Kill PDF" parts one (Wednesday morning's roundtable) and two (Thursday afternoon's roundtable) where it was fortunate no one took out their plastic swords that some company was giving out at the expo.

Best Legal Secrets: Tom in "Whoa, there's a $10k Tax Credit in the US for Accessibility???"

Most Likely to Need Immediate Legal Counsel: All, the Complete GDC Ensemble Cast

Best Night to "See and be Seen": Thursday evening; Level 99 party, CMU party, Fairmont Lobby

Worst Possible Time for a Social Event for the SIG: Friday, 9am

Best Impromptu Musical Written Right After the Friday, 9am SIG Social Event: "Coffee: A Love Story"

Best Mod Despite what the Judges Thought: Reid for Doom3[cc]

Best Game Despite what the Judges Thought: Eric for Strange Attractors

Best Scholarship Winner: Robert

Best Improv Performance during a Question and Answer Session at an Overpacked Session: (Tie) Michelle for "Experimental Game Design: The Nobel Peace Prize" and Reid for "The Game Studies Download: Top Ten Research Findings"

Most Likely to be in a Future Documentary Film about WiFi in Africa: Goran

Most Brilliant Thing Said in the Last Five Minutes: All; the Complete GDC Ensemble Cast

Scariest Street Chase Scene Aided by an IPod: Sander in "The Return of Running Man"

Best Use of Corn Husks: Mo and Kasey in "The Voodoo Doll Adventures"

Most Stories about Teaching Lectures: Kevin for "Project Symbols: An Exercise in Embarrassing Sleeping Students"

Most Likely to Have Packets of Honey on Hand: Kasey

Most Likely to Consume Packets of Honey: Reid

Most Likely to Confuse Packets of Honey with Mustard: Richard and Sander

Best "Transformers" Imitation: Robert in "Muscle Stretch: The Musical"

Worst Costume Choice: Michelle in "Wow, was this pink scarf that has been choking me all day a mistake or what?"

Most Photogenic while Sleeping in the Lobby of the Saint Claire Hotel: Thomas in "Rip Van Winkle Returns"

Best Panic Attack Scene Caused by Airlines: Michelle in "Oh my God...is anyone going to be in San Jose in time for the Tutorial?"

Best Translation of a Ridiculous Phrase in Greek that Michelle Somehow Knew: Giannis in "Look, a shooting star"

Best Translation of a Non-Existent Dutch Phrase: Richard and Sander in "Slechte Stukje"

And...

This year's Best Picture Award Goes to....[drumroll]...

"Unidentified Woman in an, uh, Interesting Pose Whose Picture was Taped to a Parking Meter with a Windows Mobile Sticker"

i know i haven't been back for even half a day yet but i can't help but feel disconnected to my life here...i.e., my real life versus conference life. it'll take a few days, without a doubt. i'm sad to not be hanging around my friends anymore and i'm tired beyond belief and i'm really hungry right now too...i think it's the redeye combined with time shifts and me running on hyper adrenaline in the last week.

tons of laundry to be done and cleaning and writing and emailing and figuring out what the fuck is going on with 99000 things and then there's the doctor tomorrow and i think i'd better go to bed soon...

oh yeah, i decided to learn dutch because c told me today that i just wasn't meant to learn a foreign language after hearing me try to pronounce slecht stukje and knowing how great i am already at speaking german...haha.

ok...you know those spams that you get which include a whole bunch of random words so it can try to get past the spam blockers? anyway, i think we (i) should start collecting the accidental poetry of spam: vertigo, vicious
a spare part
stake honor roll
there was organization
a categorical sleuth
awakening mulch
purchaser, cabaret, impeach,
a regal of close-up rapture
brought tantalizing
the wedding hilarious
executioner as doorway
thrive the disaster people
the playoff arable
control tower
surgeon muddled
emigrant social studies
painstakingly sordid sellout
farm, a statutory end zone
a mute corruption
altruistic, fidgety, negotiable
girl scout rally
crack lantern first lady
pelvic as imperialism
affiliated, harelip mortgage
in a sweatshirt hungrily
a coagulation
doggedlyok, maybe not...

i'm so achy and tired yet i keep blogging because there's so much to say but then i get tired and just publish a post that's as random as hell (as usual)...i guess to sum up the gdc, i'd say that for the sig, it was as successful as we could have hoped. and, yeah, we were bold and gutsy and pushy and sometimes we annoyed each other too but we were all doing it because we're for the same cause but we also have our own groups we're responsible for and that always gets in the way...the things like rules and professional and seriousness that often keep us bouncing back and forth and fighting for time and plying people with our own sets of business cards and trying to keep up with enormous stacks we've received from others...and i both hate and love the lobbying game...i hate it because it removes the human in us...i love it because at least it is some sort of interaction with mass amounts of people...but i love the informal silly moments better...i enjoy when we can sit back and relax and remind each other that there's more to us than the labels we hide behind, we promote, we affiliate with...there must be, right?

throwing rocks at boys

throwing rocks at boys
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

kasey and mo went to the children's museum in san jose and made me a corn husk voodoo doll to drop kick whenever or light on fire for the next guy who said something completely clueless to me and it reminded me of this poster i saw in austria...maybe i will just throw rocks at the doll?

and it was hard to believe it when i saw the working girls parade through the fairmont lobby and marcos is taking pictures of the drunk me having a crazy fun time and i wonder how much i would charge if i were in their shoes? as sleepless would say...their backgrounds might not be all that different from mine...

probaby prague

probaby prague
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

shady blurred street on a wet night in eastern europe before we return on the closely watched train and this complex life and we're all damaged somewhat, aren't we? and that's why i hide, isn't it? that's why i run from those moments of light because i'm afraid that the compass is spinning out of control because no one will tell me where north is so i end up in reno and it leads to another spin of the compass...and i end up fearing lost and run to another temporary signpost...and run and run and run.

haven't had a dream in a long time...see, the life i've had...can make a good grrl bad...so for once in my life...let me get what i want...lord knows, it would be the first time...

stuck in san jose because my eyes were swollen shut and still mostly are and i'm stuck on the phone with expedia trying to get out of this city...and now it seems that i'm on a red-eye to atlanta then to indy where chris will pick me up in the morning and i need antibiotics for my eyes but i'm NOT going to an er and i can't find a saturday clinic that's open so i'm just going to sleep more...and hope for the best and i'm realizing that i'm so super broke it's unbelieveable as i get more emails about more stuff i need to put up the cash for and...i guess it will all get worked out somehow.

and i woke up having had dreams crossed with nightmares and realizing thatcaroline laughs and
it's raining all day
she loves to be one of the girls
she lives in the place
in the side of our lives
where nothing is
ever put straight
she turns herself round
and she smiles and she says
'this is it'

'that's the end of the joke'
and loses herself
in her dreaming and sleep
and her lovers walk
through in their coatspretty in pink, aren't i?

hair in the light, in the night breeze and i find myself looking back and seeing and i wonder sometimes why life is filled with random accidents we'd never seen coming and i really ought to turn the lights out, close the laptop...sleep and maybe in my dreams things will become more clear as to why i've been an emotional wreck since i returned to the room but i know and yet i don't...and everything is unclear and everything is about those brief flashes of brilliant light that remind us of all the past encounters with brilliance where you sit and wonder for maybe the rest of your life...that shooting star...

but i know better now even though i spend my life shooting from the hip...but i know better and isn't it funny how it was ten years ago, back when i first found voice or thought i did...but really? him sitting on green street a few years past and i never found reason enough to go back and disturb the dust and so i turn to t.s. eliot to tell me a love song about love...life...random flashes of brilliant lights that tell us it's time...time present and time past
are both perhaps present in time future
and time future contained in time past.
if all time is eternally present
all time is unredeemable.
what might have been is an abstraction
remaining a perpetual possibility
only in a world of speculation.
what might have been and what has been
point to one end, which is always present.
footfalls echo in the memory
down the passage which we did not take
towards the door we never opened
into the rose-garden. my words echo
thus, in your mind.
but to what purpose
disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
i do not know.i do not know.

the d sets in now that we are done...people are starting to leave...and the rest of us will leave tomorrow...and then we don't see each other again until who knows when...so we've been working so hard and now that's that. it's like post-project depression or something...something. and then realizing how much further we have to go and how far...how?

no, i'm not 24/7 as goth as you think when you read this blog and i've learned a lot about myself...when to stand and scream, when to let go and just have fun and celebrate a great accomplishment and laugh...and that maybe my outward front is more connected to me than i think, maybe when i laugh, when i yell and kick and scream rather than curling up in a ball under the table...maybe that's me too?

kasey and mo, my students, left this morning and i worry that maybe i left a bad impression on them last night when i was letting off steam or maybe i didn't teach them enough about industry or i don't know...i'm a guilt tripper, you know? i worry that i haven't been a good enough mentor for robert because i feel so tired today and that i feel the pain of being human and i don't want to go back, i do, i do want to go back home but i don't want to start the next series of treatments at the hospital, i don't want to deal...but i will...i remember that i always somehow do deal.

so now i'm done packing and i'll wipe the rest of the tears away and just save the rest until the morning after...

last day of the gdc and i'm meeting with our publisher in 30 minutes and i feel sooooo exhausted from this week and i think i need a thousand days to recoup.

i can hardly type...nintendo booth...they have an internet cafe...??? on the show floor?

ugh. this makes no fucking sense

prague

prague
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

a bench somewhere in prague...and c & i sit laughing but the shot could suggest distance between us but i think that we just don't want to share the joke with you...or maybe the fact that we are both introverts, although who would believe that i'm an introvert...i swear that that damn myers-briggs test always has me as an infp *i never find perfection*

disappointing awards show this year just cause it was sooooo long...but more disappointing because neither reid nor eric won their categories. i was particularly ticked off that reid didn't win his because his competition was so fucking obnoxious...christ. i met them earlier in the day while looking for reid and of course i got totally harassed by their colleague *g-spot* (i believe the quote of the day was "yeah i own it and i can hit it"...riiiiiiight) and then the rest of them looking for their "booth babe" dates they were going to "grab" for the show (yeahhhhh...riiiiiight) and i was like, omg, this fucking world sucks.

and the dutch boys (richard and sander who call this my goth blog), who i couldn't find tonight but then again i was in so much pain by the end of the show that all kasey, mo and i could do was eat and crash, didn't have to witness any of the sexist slurs i was the target of today but thank god they were there yesterday or i might have either punched someone or curled up in the fetal position for hours. and i just didn't want to deal with anymore men calling me a piece of ass again tonight...and i called chris this morning and i miss him terribly and i wish he were here because he knows, he knows me so well and he knows how that sexist crap tears me up inside, glass churning. and he knows that me that people don't see when they meet me...that me that comes with breaking down all those barriers...

so my dad is still emailing me about the "procedure" i get to undergo monday when i get back at 8am...it's just so fucked up that he doesn't want me to do it because, fuck, all the signs are there...the c has returned and i've gotta deal with it. and i think this week i've been trying to live a year in each day and all the memories come flooding back and old friends have returned and some are gone...here...but gone. what can you do? just keep going and try not to look back so much i guess. but as i told the doctor...i feel very serene about it this time and he asked me why that was and i don't really know, i still don't know...maybe it just doesn't scare me any more?

riiiiiight.

my feet are covered with blisters but that's the gdc for ya. stayed up too late drinking and talking and woke up too early in order to give presentation #2.

but it seems that i won an award for mvp for the igda for my work in the last year and i totally wasn't expecting that! i didn't even know that there was an award. but now i do and i have it. they totally tricked me by telling me that i was supposed to give an annual report on the sig so that i had to go. too funny. and also pretty damn cool.

a logan's run remake in the works, holy hell, that cannot be a good idea and i heard this from the bbc guy and i must remember why i stopped running and then i hear about films about main characters with dicks as noses and i'm like what the fuck is that all about???

tired...surprised to see sleepless standing in front of me as i chatted with the omnious guys during the lunch break and i stormed into the ms tutorial and shouted hey losers and marcos gave me a big hug and then john told me oh yeah, btw, you guys took all our power for your tutorial and said that i was on the outs until i returned it so i said, yeah, yeah, you'll get it back at 6 is that cool? and i had too many drinks today but it's the first heavy drinking day so i should be fine in the morning and i got a deja vu in one all day where i knew, yes, this is an amalgam of all those past and the mercury level's toxic for sure but i've taken so much poison in this life that who could know what anything could do at this point but i'm older now...and games...are just that.

would i really be a booth babe if i were at e3?

Dallas airport

dallas airport

oh my fucking god this cell phone camera sucks and also i look like hell after 4 hours of sleep and too much time at airports...

mother fucking god i hate the illini women's tennis team and men's golf team for fucking up my flight schedule but the good thing is that c and i got to spend another day together and then spent the evening laminating everything in my apartment...not really, just the 9000 things i have to bring to gdc and right now i'm sitting on the floor of the dallas airport that apparently has tmobile connect and i'm like, oh yeah, duh...i *do* have that. so here i am blogging en route to san jose waiting for them to change the fucking departure sign to san jose from kansas city and i think that other gamer peeps are starting to represent here in dallas and i'll be finishing my presentation on the plane but what else is new there?

chip asked why four presentations and it's really one GIANT presentation and then three discussions and then a LOT of chatting and standing and drinking and chatting and standing and drinking...getting a few hours of sleep...then drinking coffee and chatting and standing and drinking. well, kinda. yeah, it's industry...what can you do?

shit. did they just do a gate change?

it can be a sad life sometimes...if you decide to live it, stick it through. it was hard today to not give too much away, to say that i was scared too, and that i have no idea why it has to be this way.

mr jones was just a little too funky today and i spent the day not doing, avoiding...remembering that i needed to bring the irb revision back and hand it to the autocrat...and then i checked my email while waiting for four hours for no one to show and i saw that they had tried to call my mobile, i saw that they needed to get in touch with me and something was wrong, something was very wrong and it was under my social security number and not my university id because i'm in the old system but i try to be new, i try to stay new...

and i didn't really have anything to say tonight, anything that i wanted to say.

but it's back. and i missed the signs. and i want to shout at the moon and scream out in anger and pain and throw and break things and i saw her pass by in the hall and i think "do you know? do you even know?" and i think of the tests and the money and the gowns i've worn far more recently than the type with caps and tassels...and i think, yeah, how exactly am i still losing weight? and i stay up, i yell about yelling, and let people make giant messes and i think that i won't die trying...trying...not finishing.

and i walk back to the car. and i come home and he's asleep and i knew it was getting late...but i didn't want to think anymore. me. all day. don't think, avoid. and the call...back to the call...and they said before they knew for sure, i needed more tests.

because there's always more tests. even when i'm waiting for other tests to arrive that show up late. and i wonder how much longer i have? at some point i'll have the final in my hands...

yes, it's women's history month too, but march is also national colorectal cancer awareness month, which IS NOT just a man's disease...it's about 50/50 for men and women. so one of my daily guilty pleasures is reading salon's since you asked column and that's where i was reminded of my own appointment tomorrow afternoon for general pre-screening. yeah, this is super fun topic to think about and talk about but, you know? we have to get over it and start and keep talking about it. because this shit's* serious.

* yeah, i DID put that pun in intentionally. i admit it. i'm guilty. whatcha gonna do? fire me?

so dana reeve died this week of lung cancer and i can't help but think, god damn, what the FUCK is going on in this world? i just can't help but feel like there's nothing we can do but just hang on as best as we can and hope we're somehow helping.

and that's all she wrote.

wow. you know i never watch desperate housewives. i've never watched a single episode. why? who knows. i never watched sex in the city either. same kind of show in my mind. ok ok no, i can't say that for sure since, as i said, i never watched them. they just leave me with the same disinterested feeling in my mind. i also never watched friends and i've never seen an episode of the oc or american idol.

there. there you have it. i'm not the media whore you might think i am. but...all that being said, desperate housewives star teri hatcher's coming forward with her story of sexual abuse has absolutely amazed me. i don't give a shit about what negative crap people have to say about "oh she's attention seeking" or whatnot. christ. people get a grip. that is one fucking brave thing she did. i don't care who she is or is not. to face the truth? to tell the truth for the whole world to hear? that's fucking brave.

'nuf said.

vitamin v which means that i'm blasted out of my mind right now and i'm tired and in way too much pain and chris and i got into a fight about it because when the pain hits, i am literally not capable of figuring out what level the pain is at -- vicodin, demerol, or morphine? so i go into shut down mode and i can't figure out what i need to do to help myself and that's when i hurt without meaning to hurt while screaming, curled up into a ball and it amazes me that pain killers can cause other parts of you to hurt and i can't believe it's been two hours and the pain is already breaking through again and i wish that there were any options left.

my head is killing me.

hey, cool...yes bunkadoo i still have the death doll. :)

not much to say today other than i refuse to leave my apartment because it's unofficials today. and i'm trying to make compass do things it doesn't seem to what to do but i'll figure it out. stupid ass technology.