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this is really supposed to be a picture of a mojito but apparently my mobile phone only wants to send this laundry photo over and over and over again...

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from thursday when the sky opened up and dumped buckets of water on me as i was exiting my car and then became about 300 degrees hotter.

speaking of...my grandmother did NOT get on the train yesterday and my dad's gone fetal and for fuck's sake what's with all the restaurant reservations?

i should understand all this, i really should. i mean at the intellectual level, i do. i know exactly what's going on. i'm a psychologist for fuck's sake. [note: wow. that's two "for fuck's sake" in one post.] but somewhere back in there is that wounded little girl trying to figure out why i absorb all the pain?

it's tragic, really. there's no other category the whole story belongs in and if i told you the whole story you'd be tranported back to high school trying to make heads or tails out of sophocles...and i hate to do that to you.

maybe he's right? maybe the whole thing belongs between a front and a back cover of a book...

the earth just might be on fire

run, motherfucker, run
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

it's kind of like a sauna in finland or russia outside i guess...only you can't leave. and it's only going to get hotter over the next few days and we're flying to dc tomorrow afternoon where it's gonna be even hotter due to the "east coast heat wave" that's touching down now. and, see, that's gonna be a problem. because i had to ask chris to drive me home last night after spending 2 hours at peter's party or risk my passing out or throwing up...or both i guess. and, of course, i'm the bearing of disease right now, which ended up becoming an elaborate game of keep away...why exactly were so many kids there?

the funny part -- ok maybe only to me -- was that this morning i woke up and had all these mosquito bites on my legs. classic. then chris tells me that they've discovered that the *nip* part of cat nip contains something that repels mosquitos...great! only...it attracts swarms of bees. see? that's exactly the point that i've been trying to tell these doctors: "so, wait, most people get potentially fatal clots if they take this medication and have condition x yet you think i should take it anyway to get rid of condition y...even though i also have condition x and the medication could kill me?" wow. what COULD be making me refuse their wise words?

the thing is, i've never been involved with the program nor was i in charge of it. the only thing i've done is help make things easier on their schedules by encouraging them to coordinate their events with something already going on to help get people into the room. i didn't even find out who the next batch was until last week. so why is it that people seem to think that it was my job?

see? that's the frustrating part about the system. in the end, someone's gonna get kicked around for it and they probably weren't the ones who had any power over the situation. and now i've gotta type up all these proposals, my hands hurt, my period's on the way, i feel like i look completely hideous, i can't wear my contacts because i have two pox-things near my right eye and if they make one false move my vision's toast [note: ironically, this is the SAME eye that i had a ripped contact lens in during jason's talk at develop a week and a half ago] and if the cover of the august issue of vogue is correct, i should wear a red dress next tuesday since it's "the new black."

pfft. sorry. just had to get all that off my chest.

so my grandmother keeps forwarding a million and one sappy email chain letters [side note: when was the last time you got a chain mail letter via the post office? do people do that anymore? is it obsolete now that we have email addresses?]. anyway, the latest one was one of those "live for today because tomorrow is not promised" ones and right about now i'm feeling like tomorrow is more of a threat than a promise anyway.

oooooh. downer i am. yeah, i'm really, really annoyed at this whole shingles thing. i mean wtf? this is clearly this summer's wtf moment, ries. really. this trumps ear hair extensions without a doubt. but anyway my hands hurt the worst, as the pox or whatever they are called (shingles, i guess?) are focusing on my joints right now and i think i need to set up my voice recognition software and head tracking device if i'm going to get any serious work done.

my dad told me on the phone last night that if he don't teach me about money management (stocks, 401k, savings, budgets) before he dies than he's failed his job as a father. uh ok. there are too many things to say about this, really, barring the "uh, what about the 5 million other things you could be focused on or have you decided that those are lost causes?" i don't know where the latest money thing is coming from but, you know, i'm way under the poverty line when it comes to how much money i make and i found out that kinkos is hiring for more than i make per hour at my job. ridiculous. so, yeah, i'm really worried about my non-existant stock portfolio right now.

breathe, breathe, breathe. it's the denial taking over him now, the denial about the 30 minute "gig" next tuesday.

after today, i'm not ruling out scurvy as the next illness i get. so the allergy/rash/ebola virus is none of those -- it's shingles. wtf. it's like chicken pox redux, only with more pain. i was chalking up the pain to pms and, really, who could tell the difference between types of pain that hit the same areas. apparently it's entirely internal, which means it was my own (lack of) immune system that brought it about...it's probably fall out from the surgery, etc etc etc and is definitely fall out from...well, fuck. i was about to say the stress of the summer but let's get real -- 2006 has pretty much sucked ass for me health-wise.

ok, so maybe ries is right in that i can't really back up my statement of "who was i in the last life? hilter?" based solely on the car towing incident. but i'm starting to think that i was some kind of behavioral psychologist that tortured kids and monkeys.

so this brings the grand total of chronic diseases to...FOUR! one more and i get to call out BINGO. well, there's always the next life, i suppose. oh -- and if you have kids that you want to get exposed to the chicken pox, let me know! apparently you can't catch shingles but if you've never had the chicken pox, i can give it to you! no payment is required but you can make a donation if you want to support my chicken pox spreading efforts.

so i'm waiting for lawyers to start calling me at any second now because last night at 9:30, i was merging to a one-way and when i started to move forward, all the sudden this 6-year girl on a bike is right in front of my car, having darted in front of me from the right. yeah. holy fuck. i was only going about 1mph since all i had done was lift my foot off the break pedal at that point. but it scared the shit out of me.

no, the girl wasn't hurt at all. and i really shouldn't say anything more here about it right now. but it was 9:30 at night, it was a father riding up mattis with his two kids, none of them had on reflective anything, no lights on the bikes...and i was completely, completely hysterical last night after it happpened and i cannot, no matter how hard i try, get that image of the scene out of my mind.

to add to the surrealness of the scene, the father was riding one of those "olde tyme" bikes with the 4 foot wheel in front and a tiny wheel in back. jesse asked if i was sure i hadn't dreamed the whole event. don't even ask what ELSE can happen right now cause i don't even want to think about it.

thank god that girl's ok. she didn't have a scratch at all because i think all i did was nudge her and she kept riding so i didn't knock her over. but signs are now pointing to stress being the real cause of the hives because i woke up with a nice new batch this morning and i am so fucking sick of being a grad student, making -$11 an hour but i suppose if there was a lawsuit, just about the only thing anyone could take from me is my student loans...

uh...so i'm covered in hives...what the fuck am i allergic to and/or is it psychosomatic? this is *super* great timing too -- nothing like a benadryl cocktail 4 times a day to make you feel...

i forget what i was going to say. see? it's been like this for two days now!

back then, back a decade ago when i was in reno...it struck me this morning at the restaurant that this is the summer...i ran off to forget and drove around the desert for hours on the weekends...you've never been beyond...and the prostitute and the gambler staking their fortunes and futures on the web and maybe they were right, maybe that really did work out in the end...i have and i know what it looks like there...and elsewhere and the flights to dc on the weekends and you never came out here and i never thought that was strange and another you made the trip only i never arrived at the bench because i wasn't sure i wanted to know you again...it's just that this time...

never blog on an empty stomach.

FW:

talk to me...

at the laundromat and jesse and i were thinking earlier that we need to open a 24 hour laundromat with air conditioning, a coffee shop, wifi, etc so i sent this via my mobile and i have no clue why the title is FWD and it's getting annoying that i can't title my mobile phone posts

i kept hearing the beeping from the tv at the laundromat and it's so thick outside it's almost a color and i didn't pay any attention until the lady with the three dryers next to mine looked at me and we both said "fuck, it's an amber alert."

if you don't know what that is, no, it's not one of our stupid color coded terror alert messages -- it means a child has been kidnapped and it's named after a child named amber who was kidnapped and murdered in texas...and then i felt sad/mad at the world for the fact that the warning system that was activated wasn't for the fucking weather...it just had to be about a child, huh?

and then you start looking sideways at everyone around you...flashback to the movie unbreakable, the scene where he's standing at the train station, you know the one i'm talking about...and you wish that your secret super power could somehow see into the heart of darkness...and after all that desire to see the light? how could that be?

homeless guy walks in and drinks water from the fountain and asks me if i'm knitting or crocheting and looked really shocked when i said knitting and then he smiled and said "that's a good habit" and then he left...and the look of shock? maybe that was his seeing something not so horrible in what i imagine is a cold and dark world for him most days.

darker, darker outside and a guy with a notebook on a bike asked me how many quarters the dryers took and then he told me he's been doing a *story* about the price of laundromats in this town and showed me his charting system on a scrap of paper, the back of some sort of flier and then he rode off...and the rumbling started, sky grey, my head hurts and it feels so late and yet it's not, it's really not...

laundry at the laundromat and there i was in old, ragged clothes because it was either than or dress to the 9's because we're out of clean things to wear and i thought "wasn't i just in london a couple days ago?"

the fucking siren goes off again. this time it's for the weather.

there will be no arguments to the contrary accepted here...the shawshank redemption *is* one of the top films of all times. talk of unintegrated personality and parental conflict and blah blah blah and it all boils down to what gets said in the movie, that you either get busy living or get busy dying. that's not to say that you should keep busy to avoid dealing with living or dying...no, the point is right there...live or die.

someone seeing what i do and seeing the pain that drives it, the soul pain that screams to get out...the mask removed...i have to figure out how to become more integrated -- it's a continuum, not an absolute -- once i figure out what the fuck is threatening to break the silence of the glass...what do you fear, most? the psychologist said to her patient. glass, she said. why? because it's fragile? no, she said, because it's silent.the funeral is coming up soon and i learned that, at least in virginia, the law maintains that a relative must identify the body, even if they died in hospital...probably a law due to millions of fuck ups over the years...then there were those girls in, uh, michigan was it? wherever. those two girls who were mixed up at the car crash site and one's family grieved while one nursed who they thought was their daughter back to health.

ANYWAY...the point of this is that the business of death is insane and even more insane is my grandmother who is launching hate mail missiles to all of us any minute now. god i HOPE mine comes in the form of interpretive dance or in flowers...cause they say that you can say it all with flowers...in this case i'm sure they'd be white oleanders...

ok michelle. wake up.

dejetlagging still and they just delivered my luggage that didn't arrive last night and i don't think i'd have had the strength left if i had to carry it any farther so the lost luggage? no big deal, especially since i have it now.

i am starved, though. i forgot about that part of the jet lag cycle. i woke up super early mainly, i think, because my stomach was rumbling because it was way past lunch in the uk at that point. and i'm looking at my credit card statement and thinking "damn...that day in london cost a lot" so i'd better wear all this stuff. and then i went to their website and am thinking about ordering some more. what can you do?

but speaking of travel, i now have the unpleasant task of figuring out my travel for less than two weeks from now and, ugh, what's the easiest way to go to boston, dc, chicago, detroit, and back to champaign in the course of a week? oh and still get a lot of shit done? and...oh boy i just need to make a task list. i'm working straight through the next two weeks i think.

ah...brighton. why did we have to leave?

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i was right - heathrow is stil a huge fucking mess

heathrow where i'm drinking cans of coke because i really am just that exhausted from making my way from brighton this morning with that damn suitcase. so here's the thing: why do people just stare when you are carrying something heavy and you lose your balance? ok, there's the "shock of the moment" thing. but then after that...why doesn't anyone ask if you need some help? this is a world problem and not isolated to just one or two countries. why are we so closed off? it's exasperating.

i suppose i should start figuring out what gate i'm leaving from. it was nice to just sit for a bit...although i'm about to sit for quite a long bit now...

not much time left on this prepaid connection card and too much to say. i think that the best way to look at it there are a lot of things in this life that don't make a lot of sense, that they happen for a reason but that the reason might not be everything you might make it out to be. the reason might be quite simple.

maybe we walk around this world and occasionally meet the people we're supposed to meet for no other reason than for confirmation that there is something innocent and sweet left within ourselves and others. these moments are fleeting but meaningful and they should be followed for that brief second. because they are the beauty in this world.

and then you find yourself temporarily shaken and your eyes fill with tears on the street corner. and suddenly i was transported to her room at the hospital at 5am, standing in the doorway when we come some close to that moment where we have to reach out and take ahold of the arm of the person slipping. and someone else later offers it to you as a reminder of how lucky you are to have experienced a moment of safety, the arm of another as they say don't die. and then it's the point in the film where they are standing at the station and you can see into the heart of another, only you know that this time you've been given the gift to see what's too delicate to describe. everything and nothing to talk about, really. but i'm not sure any word in any language can describe the few moments where the reason why we stay here suddenly becomes clear. because we are needed.

long distance charges...and the money doesn't matter. and i'll be home soon. but i'm there. i'm there now.

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smoke kills sperm dead. isn't this kinda like an incentive TO smoke for some guys? just a thought...

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brighton hardcore is much like seattle on the sea...i'm not sure why we are the way we are but that's just how it is i suppose. but i think i could only live this way a few weeks out of the year. any more than that and it would be ridiculous.

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rooftops in london and you can hear people below screaming and the world cup final match hasnt even started yet...

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london.

go figure where i'm at? fucking starbucks at piccadilly circus. i have one of those t-mobile hotspot accounts that used to work at borders and now that they have switched to selling seattle's best coffee they've also stopped with the wifi. anyway...after two calls that probably resulted in about 10k pounds of charges, i got the damn thing working over here and i'm plugged into the wall so my laptop has power and i'm probably the only person in the uk who is working before noon on a sunday, on the day of the last world cup game. but what the hell...there's nothing else open and i *do* have to finish updating my presentation.

i could go out and take pix...but i'm so jetlagged and besides...how many more pix do i need of piccadilly, you know? but i took a phone photo, just for you.

at the bk next to the hotel with an easyinternetcafe in the basement and it's nice and cool here 'cept my hotel room which is broiling because there's no air (which i figured) and the window doesn't open (which i hadn't figured on) and howard jones is playing on the radio and it's making me crazy because my ipod can't compete with its volume.

yeah so i'm in london where football is the rage and i couldn't sleep last night from all the yelling and it's likely to only get worse tonight, ah but what can you do? drink more coffee i guess right now.

oh...and the hotel has fleas. either that or some other monster bugs were biting me all last night. can't wait to leave for brighton...god, it's been 16 years since i was there. anyway, i need to find a chemist that is open and get some benadryl, which i didn't pack to try and get the itchy level down...

my phone DOES work. thank fucking god...

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my super secret double life...and these default "multimedia message" things are getting annoying. anyway, i leave for london for about a week starting tomorrow afternoon and i have a million things to do but i think...i *think* everything's under control. i *think*...

anyway i was thinking earlier about how i seem to lead this double life sometimes -- one part glam and one part pretty down to earth. right now i seem to be wanted as a speaker for about 9000 conferences all in a row and that's cool...but how? then there's the day to day that is definitely unglam and...well, fuck i don't know what i'm trying to say or if i'm trying to say anything at all. i'm just tired at the moment.

antiik

antiik
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

matt told me recently that i say the things here that everyone thinks but never asks out loud or on paper. maybe. i don't say it all but i say a lot i suppose. the rest? ends up in my old school journals. or in my dream world. or with dr. b. or sometimes it gets left behind in my mind, maybe waiting for that someday to come that makes it ok to finally let it go free.

so i want to talk about funerals, specifically cremation. so i'll say it now, i'll say it here...(1) make sure i'm really dead first of all. i don't want any of that horror show shit where you've been given some kind of drug or herb that makes you seem like you're dead but you are in a deep, deep sleep. but barring that crazy ass possibility (my dad always said some quote from somewhere that he picked up where the worst of our fears never come true...i've always taken that to mean that you need to think about and say all the worst things in order to doubly make sure that they never happen...but there's always something you'll never think of...that's the flaw in the logic). (2) cremate me, for fuck's sake.

why? to restate the obvious...no one looks like who they were in this life once their body has been *restored* by the morticians. not even close. so i don't want anyone to see me unless it's right after i've passed on, before the wax, the make up. i repeat. i do not want an open casket memorial service. separate my ashes and place them on every continent i never made it to and if i've been to every continent than send them somehow away from this planet.

come live with me now, though.