i can feel the cells scraping inside and i was thinking earlier as i was driving in the storm to the storage unit, before the airport, in the storm...that is it mania or is it just the magnet screwing with the compass, i don't know.

this just heard on the promo for tonight's top story on the local news:"tonight, an update to a story on a man accused of watching women tan. more at 10."uh, ok. big news month, eh? we had to revisit that amazing story...and, no, i don't know anything more about the story than he watches women tan...where? in tanning salons? in public? just in general as their skin tans when they walk around without sunscreen?

anyway...mri scheduled for next wednesday thx to all the migraines and then i have to go up to chicago for some more stuff and i wonder if they are going to put me on an atypical...not sure i could handle irreversible tics...and the dimmed lights...and the doctor said that i must be wired backward to not be able to get the words out aurally but instead find a way to get them out typographically at hyper speed...

i need to check my phone messages...to find out what my schedule is for tomorrow exactly.

hahahahahahaaha.

tonight, nbc will show the first part of their super disaster movie apocalypse: 10.5. ok maybe it's the fact that 10.5 is my birthday that i'm so hooked already to it even if the show itself is a sign of the apocalypse...or maybe it's the fact it reminds me of all the disaster mini-series on tv when i was a teen (only it was usually the former soviet union causing all the disasters...)...who knows?

what a rather useless blog post...

finnish nudes on display

finnish nudes on display
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

there's little doubt that this title will result in 10 billion hits on google but i like the statement that the window display makes, probably without intending to.

i don't talk about it a lot. i used to. i used to talk about it all the time because for a while it was like the medals that my masters advisor said that he'd needed after vietnam but then later was able to pack them away, that one day he woke up and it wasn't everything that he was. but it's been coming up again here and there and what we try to bury comes back to the surface again eventually.

yeah, i'm dyslexic. i have a so-called "learning disability" and i hate that term more than anything because i think it becomes something much more than it is, that it becomes an identity, an identifier...a way to sort me out."oh, i see...no wonder...you have a learning disability." "oh, i see...you can't read." "oh, i see...everything looks backwards to you." "oh i see...you won't understand no matter how well i try to explain it."that's why i don't talk about it any more. no, i was never in special ed. i was actually on the AP track throughout high school. they never even figured it out until i was a senior in college. which is weird, which puts this type thing into a very strange set of circumstances...i mean, if i were paralyzed my entire life and it wasn't "discovered" until i was a senior in college and that all those years before i was just somehow figuring things out for myself without anyone noticing that i couldn't walk...well, that would be pretty weird, that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.

but a learning disability...there's an interesting story, especially if you remain invisible, undetected. "how did you do it?" "how could you be dyslexic? you seem so smart." "that's a shame they didn't catch it early enough."

why? so that a label could be slapped on me, resultant assumptions made, a trajectory produced on how far i might go, expectations lowered, voices lowered...whispers in the hall about how that's all we can do, that at the end of the day that's all there is?

everyone has a funny story about how they are probably a "touch" dyslexic too and i tune it out because i've heard all the variations before. some days i have trouble hearing a bit when allergies strike so i'm a "touch" deaf. some days i wake up and find that my back hurts so i can't walk much until my back stretches out so i'm a "touch" mobility impaired. every day i wake up and i find i can't see until i put my glasses on so i'm a "touch" blind.

i guess we're all trying to make one another feel like we really do understand, that we're trying to point out that we're not as different from one another as it seems...but when we point out the differences, that means that we've noticed that one of us is not like the other. and is that good or bad? some days...some days like these, i'm not sure.

this should tell you where i am in the dissertation writing...i am a member of “GenX” – the generation of so-called “slackers” whose late adolescent/early adulthood wanderings were somewhat archived in movies such as “reality bites, “singles,” and “clerks.” i say “somewhat” because our generation seems to have run from being captured by any single ideal or shared goal and, therefore, seems to defy being caricaturized, even if through that we have become our own biggest caricaturists.so there.

at espresso on windsor, the one no one is ever at and will probably be closed with my luck any minute now, just as i'm getting used to the idea that this will be my temporary summer office and i get an email that tells me my final report of the year is due on wednesday and, gee, maybe you could have said a little something about that before now more than "oh can you write up a paragraph about this/that sometime?" when meanwhile i have 17k things in the queue and am just starting to find my footing with my dissertation again...

and the bright lights flash and the dreams come to me as if trailers for some upcoming film and i dream that you pull me through the veil but i'm not mormon, we're not mormon and everything seems to move so fast and remember all the questions about how i could be so sure about a diagnosis for you and i laughed inside because no one could really know unless they've walked the path as well but how could you take my word for it when revealing it would mean telling you about hammers and you'd walk away thinking that it was my own desire to see myself in the world.

and the dissertation begins to look like a screenplay as the chunks of words come spewing out at a speed so fast that i'm afraid that if i don't keep writing as quickly as i can they'll be gone again, locked up again...hidden from sight, from your view...frustratingly part of a mind that must remain locked for fear i do something too inspired but not in a good way and i said to you, i said that i'd originally planned to write my dissertation about the creativity that lay within the impaired, the different...and you said that i was.

hint of apple

hint of apple
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

i was so tired after the 8am exam that i slept through the really important one about the migraines at 12:30 and it's really getting hard to remain persistent about the whole thing because, well fuck...i'm really wiped out right now! i cannot even describe the pain.

the interesting thing is that when i'm in a migraine state, i'm at my most unblocked, non-avoidant state so wtf. and it makes me wonder, again, about that connection between mania, migraines, and schizophrenia...the psychotic states of being where somehow things seem to make sense...even if they are far from it.

"when a woman suspects any wrong, it sometime happens that if she be already in this matter, she insensibly strives to cover up her suspicions even from herself. and much this way it was with me. i said nothing, and tried to think nothing..." (rephrased from moby dick)

this life is not easy and that goes without saying and knowing that a friend of mine is now dealing with one of the worst possible losses brings me great pain...

yesterday at the carle ER when i came in with a migraine so severe that i had no idea if i was in real medical jeopardy or not, i couldn't help thinking of october...although my trip was only for 30 minutes, i wondered what else was going on during my stay.

sometimes you think how easy it would be to just disappear. but it's not. not to everyone left behind, left behind and wondering...

all the sudden i knew i had to go to the er because the right side of my face was numb, my arm was getting numb and i had a migraine so bad that i was crying from the pain and my normal medication wasn't working at all...but at least it was a quick trip and they just gave me a shot and sent me back home to sleep. i really wasn't in the mood for a full workup -- a migraine-free day would be a much better day for all those scans. that and i didn't feel like paying 4x's the amount for the diagnostics because it was an ER visit...

ugh...what now? what else is going on?

suicide. and when i saw the part about other schools trying to copy what we do at the university of illinois i couldn't help choke on my soda knowing how it *really* works around here. and then i opened my email to learn the unbelievable and i felt so selfish for thinking about my own situation and the confusion i sometimes feel when i don't really know what you are thinking and i feel unsettled and i try and i try and i hope.

but you are here. you are here. and that's the most important part. you are here.

sometimes it's hard to recreate it. i mean how can we ever hope to tell the truth of the matter and i know that we can't but i'm frustrated at how we come nowhere close, we can't, we can't go back even if we live our lives defined by the place, trying to recreate...trying...trying and i'm trying but sometimes the words just don't come to mind and it seems more noble to give up trying rather than get the half-assed version out there because you know that you'll never give the idea its rightful place, its rightful words.

the 15th and i realize it's been five years and, yeah, i know you don't know what the fuck that means but i do. five years...and i'm trying to write it down. but i'm realizing that maybe i can't write it down without writing down the here and now, without owning up to the years...

cafe paradiso and listening to sufjan sing about this state and its affairs and i think about how we were talking about my bipolar ego and if you only knew how much i want a cigarette right now even though i don't smoke and i write about the social construction of rules and i wonder how .... and .... they are and how, yeah phil, we know...the game is still being played only there's no way to stop it really, is there?

all we can do is try to do better than we did on our last turn. you don't have to be proud of the last time, especially if it's the last time. but let's not kid around...let's not pretend we'll keep in touch if we haven't been when we've been so close. but we don't have to forget. and we can feel the sorrow for the loss of who we were when we learn that one of us has passed out of this place.

luck and love and all that jazz and it felt weird to say goodbye to so many people all in one week and i couldn't say it to some because i hope we see each other again someday soon and i just don't handle goodbyes very well. so i hope you'll forgive me if i didn't do a proper send off...it's because i hope we'll still be friends and see each other again in this life.

full circle. as people told me how old they felt i remembered feeling the same back then and i was at once excited and sad about the things that lay ahead for them...for all of us, really. i just hope that they remember that we all go through these things and even when things seem bad that there's always something around the corner they won't ever expect, that none of us ever expect. be who you are but don't be afraid to revise it, add to it when you need to.

it felt weird to talk about next year...already planning so much for it and the body's not even cold on this year yet. but that's how it goes...we move to the next thing, we plan for tomorrow. and i saw you again and i was sad to see how i was out of the picture now and that was ok. there's no need to repay the time...at least not to me. but i hope that someday you'll understand why things happened the way that they did, why they unfolded the way that they did. but i'll never forget the helplessness of that day and a half in october and standing in the doorway at hospital and crying...crying for me and for you and for all of us that this world can sometimes just really suck the life out of us. and i hope you never feel that way again, that you'll never find yourself that helpless and without hope again that all that seems to be possible is the end.

but we go on. and i was happy to see another you seeming to be at peace with things and ready to go take on the world and i know that there will be times where you'll be lonely and maybe a bit lost and i saw go to a cafe and write about it and remember it...and know that it's ok to be lonely, that it's really just becoming familiar with being alone, being comfortable as an individual. my favorite movie says that we are born alone and we die alone so why not celebrate aloneness every now and again...only, unlike the movie, it's not a pitiful theory. we can never really know what we have in our friends and family until we become comfortable with who we are alone. be bold and be brave and be outragious and everything will fall into place.

but we go on. and it's not my place to judge what path will be right for any of you and there's the rub...we all need to figure it out for ourselves. and we will make mistakes, missteps and hurt others without really meaning to. all we can do is say how sorry we are and try to do better the next time around and accept that we are not perfect people, no matter what we might think. and that's ok.

but we go on.

johny says...

johny says...
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

ah helsinki again...

don't worry, i didn't turn left. i didn't let the threatening gun influence me. i stood my ground and proceeded down the street to, uh, somewhere else. this was my first jetlagged day in the city. the day before i was at the airport city where i spent way too many hours waiting for my lost luggage and just collapsed at a hostel.

god, i can't WAIT to go to london this summer for develop and, yeah, it's in brighton where i went to school for a bit but after that i plan to hit all my fav hot spots in londontown and then hop over to amsterdam to see ries and sander and talk shop and coffeeshops...

;)

omfg...the grades are in and over and done for both my classes. i thought i was gonna cry when i had to recreate the gradebook from scratch all over this afternoon. apparently there was a "critical error" in certain gradebooks created after some crazy date in the semester (was there a friday the 13th in there?).

grading is always one of those things that i hate. i just hate having to apply a number to people's efforts...but i don't have any other solutions for this world we live in. yeah, maybe i'll get killed for it this time around but come on...that many extra credit points? grades were through the roof for my psych class. i have to admit that i was pretty panicked when i realized "oh shit...when all these justification reports come in to my department, i'm gonna get yelled at." but after i sent the lamest email ever i realized...ok, suck it up and just face the firing squad and don't make the frustration of the past three days of dealing with compass the reason you are about to lame out. what can the department do? FIRE ME? i don't think so! hahahahahaha...no more two hour weekly TA meetings! no more weird assignments! no more tests that are completely crazy! victory to all!

ok, though, seriously...i hope it just goes unnoticed by the department. sort of. because the course (not my section) really does need to be looked at on a whole with regard to, uh, just about everything right about now.

but that's enough of that. we move on...

ok, you all already know that i'm absolutely insane...but grey's anatomy has me sampling new music like no other media form has ever before...and i know, i KNOW it's all part of the cross-media promotional *thing* that we're all in now (to feel like you are on survivor, "buy the new merged tribe buff" and to feel like you are a medical intern, "buy these songs"). buy, buy, buy. or steal. whatever.

why do i like that show? duh. the seattle connection, go figure. but i thought about last night's episode, where dr. mcdreamy looks at meredith like she's a slut and she says you have no right to judge me, you have no right to say anything about who i sleep with, what i do...and it reminded me of all those breakups in the past and i felt empowered by the fact that she said just the right words...those words we never can say when we're in the moment. but i did once...to the londoner after he came back and dumped me promptly and i just walked out and said "you know...i'm not dealing with your criticisms of me...i'm not dealing with you anymore at all."

now i have to figure out this whole issue with dr. b and, yeah, i'm mad at him because i'm mad that i feel like he sees me now as this pathetic creature who just won't move past things but, you know, these are dangerous times...and i'm not sure i want to tell him all these things...but at the same time, i'm just really tired of doing nothing in session each week...and i'm just really tired at the idea of blowing the dust off the rose petals...and he doesn't seem to get me...and that i won't let him...

these are by far the most dangerous times and i feel tired and i dread going there...because it's not cathartic anymore...instead...do i trust him with the parts i've never revealed? to anyone?

2:15...tomorrow...blah...blah...blah...

actually, no blah, blah, blah. just this: michelle, tomorrow 2:15, *click*

fine, whatever. and i know this holds the key to it all but i just can't figure out how i got here and why that is and how much damage unraveling it all will cause. but there's just something about sunday evenings...and...

ugh. how many of my posts have started with ugh? no, don't count and i won't either...it's not a good use of time and who really cares?

anyway...i'm on a tear about my rapid cold detox plan i ramble about every time i have the flu or some cold...like i do right now. so really...here's the plan. somehow they create some kind of vacuum thing that removes all the crap from your lungs, etc...and, hell, maybe it already exists? i mean i'm sure someone in hospital has picked up a virus and this idea has come up before.

ok, after the vacuum thing, you are put under using something stronger than versed, obviously...kind of like the whole rapid detox idea for drug addition. then when you wake up, the cold is gone and *all* you have to do now is break the psychological addiction you have for colds. i mean come on...who doesn't crave the fevered highs of the flu? the warm, burning sensation in your throat and chest everytime you cough? but then there's the living day-to-day, hour-to-hour looking for how to score the next virus...and then all you become is a virus seeker, not caring who you step on, who you steal from...maybe you'll even sell yourself to get the next viral fix?

Voodoo fun

if you look carefully you can see the pin head (gold ball) on the left side of the scarf...this is to recognize how ridiculous some people are and to say "hell yeah!!!!!!!! i don't want to deal with you again you ridiculous lady!"

and i don't have to. yeah...the original purpose of the doll that mo and kasey made for me at the children's museum in san jose was to stick pins in it when men said offensive things to me during events such as GDC...but hell, i think this lady needs a pin...and she needed a scarf to differentiate her from bum guys.

aiaiaiaiaiaia...

yeah, these have been some ultra fun times lately...i went from the surgery into being loopy from the crap i had to take after...to, yes, that time of the month starting on today, may day, international workers day...and i slept most of the day and, you know, it felt pretty damn good. so there you go.

so much to catch up on...exam grading, reports to write, offices to clean...i'm broke and i REALLY need the reimbursement money NOW...the only money i have is my tech money which has to be spent asap or i'll lose it...and i can't friggin' write a check at worst buy...oooh...i just remembered that amazon allows withdrawls from bank accounts. whew. that's what i'll do.

yeah, this is a boring entry but i just wanted to say...omfg...it's may. more later.