Tuesday, April 25, 2006

uh...i DO remember it and it DID hurt and it DOES hurt...fucking liars! and, no, they aren't returning my phone calls.

wow, that sounds like i could totally be talking about something else. but, rest assured, i am only talking about the surgery. ugh...heating pad...now...
15 minutes until i leave for the hospital and i'm really in a foul mood because, well, i haven't eaten in days and i can't concentrate on anything and i wonder if i'm going to be too angry to put up with anything at the hospital and they had better put that versed into me asap or i'm going to either cry or throw something because my blood sugars are totally fucked up and why the fuck was this procedure not at 6am like most surgeries because then i'd be pretty much done by now and able to eat...and people? not eating is not a diet recommended by me...

Monday, April 24, 2006

in the "way more information than you wanted to know" category, i'd like to announce that i've now transcended food. my colon is free and clear of any food traces and i only have 32 more ounces of that drink left. :| i NEVER want to drink gatoraid again, whether or not it's mixed with 255 grams of powdered laxative goodness.

i'm so weak and tired right now that i'm watching "the fabulous life of celebrity religion" on vh1 and can't seem to change the channel...have i told you how dry my skin is?
omg...here i am wearing winter boots (yes...uggs), a bulky wool sweater...knitting a scarf...completely freezing...and i find this digestive system i could be knitting instead...

oh, i'm no longer really hungry, btw...in fact i can hardly fathom eating anything at this point...
i think i am really about to die...at least that's what i'm feeling like 3 hours into the prep for tomorrow's big fun super day. the cold seems to have been allergies so it's definitely on and now i have to drink a gallon of stuff that's really making me sick and maybe i'll finish this scarf today because i can't concentrate on anything else and yikes...

my day so far:* noon: took 4 tablets of bisacodyl 5mg
* 2pm: drank 8 ounces of gatoraid mixed with 17 grams of polyethylene glycol
* 2:30pm: drank 8 ounces of gatoraid mixed with 17 grams of polyethylene glycol
* 3pm: drank 8 ounces of gatoraid mixed with 17 grams of polyethylene glycol
no one mention food...because i can't eat any until tomorrow evening...and i'm starving...and i'm FREEZING COLD.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

helsinki disco walking man


helsinki disco walking man
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.
so the test isn't written yet and i need to figure out if i'm going to have a review session to guide people to...what? what exactly is going to be on the exam?

in indy, at the children's museum, i saw the artifacts of my life including the album of the first r-rated movie i saw...saturday night fever...which reminded me of my helsinki sign from a couple years ago...

and i have to wonder why that museum had so much archived from my k-12 years...maybe the museum archivists are my age? although, surprisingly, chris didn't remember the age of rented telephones and thought that i was misremembering 8-track tapes...but who could forget being scarred by the endless gordon lightfoot playing throughout the house...click...click...click

and as a shout out to loria...steady rollin', bob margolin...

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

it didn't really dawn on me that they were going to call and ask about my advance directive but now that they have...fuck, who could know what to tell them. so i'll tell you this much...if i'm ever in a persistent vegetative state...let me go. it's time for me to go to wherever that next place is. but this stuff about do you want a dnr if you are choking on food? that's just too much to think about...

where is that next place? it's one thing if you have faith, if you have a set of the rules of some kind of religion guiding you. but i do not. and how exactly does one choose? put on them all on the table...none of them sound all that great and do require, well, faith in the story that they are telling you. but i do believe that there's a place after this, that there was some point to the pain and the laughter and the things we can't control but have to deal with anyway. some place where we see each other at least one more time, where we have the understanding and capability to say how little we knew during our time in this place...some place where we can understand how the way we lived had an effect on how others lived...some place where we can realize it all but somehow be ok with it, be ready to forgive, be ready to understand...be ready to move forward in whatever system we're a part of without the baggage of this place...this heaven and hell.

ah...heaven and hell, the name of this blog. it's this place i refer to, on the eve of my five year aniversary of keeping this thing up...it's this place, the here and now where we ask ourselves "what are we doing and what's the whole point?" i have no answer to that, my friends...and i don't believe in the mythology that we grasp onto that start wars and anger and death...but i believe...i believe that there is some point, some point to all the crying that happens when we get home...

Monday, April 17, 2006

every paper is like another bad pill to take and it's ok, it's ok, it's ok...and i'm listening to the ever-growing soundtrack of my live including "wicked game," which i think is possibly the sexiest and painful song about longing and hurting written in the last few decades...and, yeah, that's a pretty bold statement. and it's the only song by the guy that i like...and it reminds me of driving, driving around the mountains when i was still just learning what it meant to hurt and be hurt...

Sunday, April 16, 2006

st. petersburg train


st. petersburg train
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.
this was one of the tamer crowds on the st. petersburg subway but i saw it on my flicker, uh, ticker tape thing on the side of my blog and i remembered what i told christina in the car yesterday. at some point, in this life, before you get married, before you settle in to that life where we just don't change all that much anymore (and i'm pretty sure i haven't reached that age yet)...go. go travel to some country where you don't speak the language BY YOURSELF...go walk amongst the people, sit at a cafe and write and not worry if someone thinks...fuck, who cares what they think. just go. just get on a plane, a train...just go and run free in a city you'd never thought you'd ever be in and notice everything, remember everything. because these are the stories we carry with us. we're born alone, we die alone...be alone at some point in the middle and just live, for fuck's sake, live without fear as best as you can...be as brave as you can...and remember that we carry these things around inside us like invisible badges of honor...and that day, when that day comes and you wonder what the point is...remember these things, remember what it was like to live, to be free, to know what you could push yourself to do, to know that you are so much more than you might think...because you are. you really are. even when you feel like the rug's been pulled out from under you, you've gotten a sucker punch in the gut...it will all turn out ok. these stories we have...these moments of pain that comes from the honest torment of being here...someday they will just be stories. i didn't really realize that last bit until this evening when i talked to ries...that greg? he's just a story now...even as bad as that relationship was when i forgot to be strong, when i let myself take all the abuse, the mental, the physical...he's just a story now...one of many collected stories that i'm sure one day will flash before me but only for a second because there are so many other collective stories that make up this life.
i've thrown up exactly three times this weekend and i have to say...it's getting to be fucking annoying. believe it or not, i'm not a big fan of the whole throwing up thing and would rather not be doing it. but i just can't keep anything in me right now...and is that a symptom or a reaction to the 25th? i swear i can't remember shit right now...

so the news gazette article came out today but they didn't put it only so i can't share but it was on page a2 and it was 3/4 of a page. damn. so far, no reaction and i wonder if there will be and as i told dr. b...it could be that i both want and fear reaction...and what a fun place that is to be.

chip has some reservations about the whole unsolicited thing and he said that he thought that my interpretation of the world was correct...which makes me sad that we have to feel this way about it all. why the fuck can't we do what we want, why the fuck do we have to live paycheck to paycheck if we do it anyway, and what the fuck is the light at the end of this tunnel?

and, oh it makes me tired...like t-shirts everyday and seeing how many days can we all really go without washing our hair...

and, oh it makes me tired...like trying to get yourself out of bed those days when there doesn't seem to be a point and those other days where you realize that only by dying can we really learn what it means to be alive...

and, oh it makes me tired...like driving from 81 to 64 when you don't know why you're going in this direction in the first place but the other direction doesn't seem to be right either...

and, oh it makes me tired...like realizing how much i've lived through already and realizing at any point that could have been me strapped to the gurney...

and, oh it makes me tired.

and, yet...

still i stand.
thanks to ries, i now have a ton of new tunes (you can see my last fm list, which looks like i listened to the same songs over and over...which probably is true) and it was good to talk like we all did back in undergrad and i remember paul and marvin and some of the others that i will not name (before things got weird and changed) and i realize that i've always been closer to my guy friends and, daddy, how can that be? at any rate, that's how it is and i'm glad to have jesse and ries and steve and jerome to talk to, either in real life or in virtual life but at least, now, i've met everyone in real life even if it's a long while before we see each other again...

Saturday, April 15, 2006

finnish anti-american sign of some sort

help...finnish speakers of the world. help me translate this city sticker. yes, it's an anti-american sticker, clearly, and it's about our big global corporations. which is fine. i just want the main gist of the text, especially if i've misinterpreted it. :)
something has me spouting out advise and stories to whoever wants to listen right now and i'm not sure why. i told dr. b that i feel sick, that i feel like something is wrong...that even if this isn't a big deal, even if it turns out not to be a big deal...something inside has me prepared for the worst. so maybe if, as they say, the worst that we can imagine will never happen is true...than maybe this is a good thing.

it was strange driving everyone back up 74 and talking about the cold war and there we were surrounded by the still dead fields that always remind me of the day after...and there we were talking about relationships and how you never know what's coming around the corner...how we were convinced that we wouldn't really survive back then, back when my friend's parents were locked up at the pentagon, at quantico, at all those locked and secret places back then when we thought that we really might not be here the day after...and i remember moscow in the spring and one day maybe i'll go there and at least see how it is now and i wonder where yuri from leningrad (now st. petersburg) ended up...

and damn...this is a crazy, crazy life and i look at my passport and i wonder where next will be?

Thursday, April 13, 2006

so...i'm perplexed. when you hear something in a lecture that makes you go WTF???? and you are a TA? what are you supposed to do, exactly? here's the big secret -- sometimes professors don't know everything. yes, i know you think i jest. but it's true. i live with one. trust me. but even if you don't...just assume all this is true for a second.

at around 11:30am US central time, you should have heard a loud boom. that was my head exploding as i heard one of the most crazy things i have ever heard. i'm not going to say what it was, as this is not the right forum for that. but it was insane. take my word for it. i mean i didn't even know what to do in my discussion section after that. we just sat outside and picked at the grass and talked about random shit. seriously random shit. then i spent 15 minutes trying to remember where i parked. i mean when you have a blow to your head that severe, some memory loss is expected, as well as vertigo and nausea.

then you might have heard a crash at around 4:45pm US central time. that was my jaw hitting the ground when it was repeated in a meeting. how come students just don't take our word for things? well...maybe because IT WAS THE CRAZIEST SHIT I HAVE EVER HEARD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. and HELL YEAH i want some fucking references. can you cite that for all of us please?

i mean...what...the...fuck????

i feel ill. seriously ill.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

helsinki trash can sticker


helsinki trash can sticker
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.
yes, this is quite possibly my favorite of the both the trashcan and city stickers collections and it's even better because it fits into both categories.

if you look at the big creature's belly, it looks like it's actually another creature wearing a hat that looks kind of like a monkey.

i don't know what any of this means. but it does make you think.

think about what, i don't really know.
there's not a lot that i can say is true 100% in this life...but this much i believe:

1. coca-cola blak is a horrid, horrid mistake. just bad. awful. like melted cotton candy with nutrisweet. like a bad accidental drink mix some kid playing around in the kitchen made.

2. the lasik eye people are behind the whole contact lens mess and there's really no way i'm getting that eye surgery so fucking put aosept back on the shelves so people like me don't get major eye infections (yes, that was the solution i was using in san jose...)

3. if you complain, you will find that you feel 1000 times worse than had you said nothing because most likely the people you complain to are going to turn it around and make it into your fault in the first place.

4. you should complain anyway.

5. if you stick -je to the end of any word, it means that it is a smaller version. in dutch, that is. although sometimes that's -nje -kntje or -kn8uje depending on what time of day it is and where you are in your menstrual cycle. and that goes for men too.

6. men have menstrual cycles.

7. men will put themselves in harm's way trying to avoid calling a repair person when they know it's just something wrong with the belt or a screw is loose or the flim-flam has separated from the jim-jam.

8. you will wake up feeling like shit some days and there's really nothing that can be done about that. that's just how it is.

9. you still have to get up or you'll lose the fight.

10. the fight will make you tired, angry, sad, put you in denial, make you bargain, make you realize that you cannot possibly do it all, make you feel like the muse, make you feel unheard, ignored. but you have to stay and fight because that's all there is. that's the whole fucking point.

Monday, April 10, 2006

i think that i just have to start showering in the evenings or my hair will never get done otherwise...the way i've been so tired lately, the idea of getting out of bed and getting one less hour of sleep to deal with my tangled mop of hair, to straighten it or at least make sure it doesn't turn into frizz city and that's such a narcissistic thing to say...or is it? i mean maybe it's narcissistic to not look my best because, oh, these are people that know me...why should i make such an effort? but, ugh...this is a stupid blog post about superficial things...but it only makes me crazy that things like this enter my mind when i should be research, researching, researching right now...shouldn't i look like the exhausted grad student a step away from being locked up instead of having straightened hair? i guess it's also me trying to look better than i feel and that i feel like i must look given my physical state at the moment.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

so if you like my eye, you can read this interview with me in the italian game journal videoludica. i mean you can read it even if you don't like my eye too. that's fine. the interview was pretty babelfished, though, but, eh, what can you do?

did i ever tell you about the movie snafu from a week ago? so housing sent us the movie pulse, a japanese thriller...only they didn't. i mean they did send me a movie with the same name...but unfortunately it was pulse, a 1988 film with joey lawrence in it. yeah. shit.

then if that weren't enough...today at the museum? total bust. i mean i was proud as hell at what the girls and i were able to pull together in such a short span of time and i really think it ended up being one of the most interesting shows of the year...only maybe 9 kids showed up. why? oh...because THEY DIDN'T FUCKING ADVERTISE IT. yeah. all that shit about how they couldn't move the date because the ads went out...only they never went out. and the dumbass they hired who doesn't seem to realize that he works at the museum yet just sat around asking me if the people who worked there before him did anything during these events. yeah, dude...they RAN the events. remember? you have the job that pays money? we are the volunteers? so i about hit him over the head when we left as he said "thanks" in a way that suggested we'd rented out the beach house and left it a mess instead of an "omg, thanks for doing my job because i'm an absolutely clueless human being who can't really figure out why exactly they hired me here because my only qualification was working at best buy but it was cool cause i totally saved the money while i lived at home and then i lived on that money while i went on the road with my buddy's band" kind of way.

super fun, boys and girls. super fun.

so i haven't decided what kind of letter to write and to who about the whole fucking messed up situation and at dinner some of us wondered...you know? maybe they hired him because they WANT the museum to close so that they can turn the whole building into a renovated theatre with a restaurant out front...because, you know, the renovation of the museum...it isn't really happening we've noticed...

oh please tell me that this town isn't as super fucked up as all the rest...that's it. i'm moving to another country. this shit's getting old.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

here's how thursdays have worked out for me this semester: me = passing out.

so i passed out again this morning and missed my class and someone called 911 and the next thing you know i'm coming to with an illinois police officer yelling my name and i'm nude and i'm like wtf? wtf is going on here? hyper glam way to start the day...well, in my case it was start of the afternoon.

this whole "resting" thing would be so much easier if i wasn't aware of how much stuff was not getting done and it makes me sad that in one of my jobs things just don't happen at all if i don't do them...so i feel like the whole program's a disaster right now because, hell, i can't call on anyone on staff to do anything because we never have meetings, we never have anyone assigned to helping with any of the activities...so if i'm not there...see dr. b? this is how i end up feeling like i'm holding up the whole world and i feel guilty that i can't do it.

so what am i doing about it at this exact moment? knitting another scarf (why?) and watching last night's amazing race on tivo and drinking some coffee...because you know it's a bad day when you get woken up by a police officer...i give up. i give up on today, that is. tomorrow will just have to be different somehow.

best picture of the year


best picture of the year
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.
so we found this walking down some street in san jose, tacked onto a parking meter with this nice windows mobile sticker and so this won the "best picture" award for gdc 2006...which in this case...hmm...is this the best picture of the "best picture"? i don't know...but what WILL we do with all of that money?????

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

hmm...blogger's going to have an outage in about 20 minutes so i'll keep this quick and besides i need to run to the store to get stuff for coffeehouse tonight. naturally my monthly female fun has started so my energy level took a nose dive (remember that whole severe anemia thing? yeah...and then i got a call today to remind me of the FAR blood drive tomorrow...i think i'll pass this time...i think that they'd MAKE ME pass this time).

so the news gazette is apparently doing a story on me on friday afternoon and i'll give you the link to that when the story runs. right now i need to do something with my hair before i leave the apartment. zzzz. what a boring blog entry this time! sorry -- more exciting things are bound to happen later.
quarter til 5am and i'm still awake...not sure why really other than this pain med not really working too well at the moment. but i'm now just going to try to force myself to sleep...

Monday, April 03, 2006

estonian's mean business...


estonian's mean business...
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.
yeah, i know this is some tow truck sign and that any day now my ass is gonna get towed at university for parking because i keep forgetting to call that number on the red sticker and i keep forgetting to pay my fines online...

but anyway i think the sentiment matches the day or at least the way i would pronounce it does...and, ugh, why why why am i so out of it?

Sunday, April 02, 2006

the 20th is the five year anniversary of this thing and i took a 7 hour nap today and the laundry's going and the squeak finally stopped and my wake up alarm was the tornado siren's going off and now the whole machine's broken and i'm trying to figure out if it makes sense to take another dosage of medicine or what at this time of night and outside it smells like a fire's been put out and i'm trying to figure out where the anger is coming from and this time it's not from me...

i think i need two weeks...one to just sleep and another to get shit straightened out and then i can restart the time clock again...but it's all still marching forward and the 25th's the day and i'm losing this week...there's nothing much i can do about that...and wouldn't it be nice to just grab a ticket to anywhere but here for a minute and i keep thinking...