this dissertation is brought to you by mastercard ("master the possibilities" (tm)) and by the letters f, u, c, k, e, and d.

seriously, it's going well now...but damn i'm super broke. i'm no longer answering the phone if the call says "out of area" because i'm now avoiding the bill collectors like mad. thank you illinois state budget cuts. i'm going to start selling my blood on ebay for cash. can you do that? wasn't there something about someone selling a kidney on there? oh yeah...here it is. damn.

so we got this letter a few weeks ago from the u and apparently the last 15 or 17 students out of 19 to kill themselves here were all grad students. so they've put us all on "suicide watch" for one another. no, paying us more and giving us decent advisors wouldn't help. no, those things aren't to blame. WE, the grad students, are to blame for the suicides of our fellow students. fucking university...

so they found that girl with the eerie eyes after all these years. very interesting. is it just me? or does she look pissed?

am watching the parade of nations for the olympics now. just woke up from a nap where i dreamed that they had to do surgery on me and then they found cancer everywhere and i had to tell everyone goodbye. god...that's pathetic sounding. but my dreams are running away from me right now. i guess most of you know that i'm in the waiting game now for the biopsy on march 11th. will someone tell me why doctors in three cities just blew off all the symptoms all summer and fall??? FUCK!

hehe...i finally found the waiting for star wars link for those guys, well, waiting for the next episode of star wars outside the cinerama in seattle (sponsored by the seattle star wars society). ok...these guys have to be microsoft millionaires or something right?

ever go to century 21 in nyc? the one at the old wtc site? remember the insanity there? how stress-relieving it was to push and shove your ways through the crowds to get the best bargains...kind of like kick boxing. anyway, today's salon has an article that explains what happened to all that merchandise after september 11. there are a lot of extremely well dressed people in maine right about now.

oh yeah...i yanked the amazon box down because they changed it to some generic amazon ad versus an xbox ad. fuck that!

so, so much to do...i need to stop letting stupid little projects get me so sidetracked. i just hate how all this assistantship stuff is such a timesuck...how how i let it be! yeah, it's winter and it sucks to be here...what else is new? this *is* my last winter here, right???

cece and i made a pact to get on each other's case to get the hell out of here. btw, she reports that the outlet has gone total suckville (just made that term up...i think). i guess that it was only a matter of time.

ok, i'm back in chambana now...and believe it or not? i'm working on the diss. whoa. i know. you need to sit the hell down for that, right?

anyway...today's rant is against american airlines for losing my luggage! ok, they FINALLY found it...but do i have it yet? no! why not? it's in paperwork hell. figures. fuckers. i will say, though, at least they have been nice while fucking around with my luggage...like a...no...i'm not even gonna go there.

today's graphic novel recommendation is daddy's girl by debbie drechsler. breathtaking...shocking...totally emotional. you can find more at drawn and quarterly's web site (the publisher).

went to the spa today on pine street. greg got me a spa package as an anniversary present and it was pure bliss...i can't even tell you. someday when i have a real job, i'm gonna do this type of thing much more often...someday, right?

5:13 pacific time...and i am still awake! i'm going to give sleep another try soon. i haven't been able to sleep in a few days. ugh. it's the leftover sick feeling -- head stuffiness, etc -- from my annual xmas cold from hell. the two straight days of flying probably didn't help either!! happy new year, everyone!

check this out...as featured in this salon article. interesting...

ok, ok...so i haven't been here in a while. merry xmas and all that jazz. i'm at my parent's mill house right now and am sick as a dog (are dogs really that sick? i think i've made that joke before...still lame). i've been sick since i got home...i hope i'm not still sick when i go out to seattle.

in case you are wondering...i'll be here on new years eve. should be cool. or at least interesting.

11.15.01...go team!

harsh! salon isn't taking a liking to xbox...xbox squared. however, they spend most of the time comparing the xbox launch lineup with the current lineup of the -- now over one year old -- PS2...hmm...

it's launch day!!!!

i heard from brenda laurel...yes THE brenda laurel! she pointed me toward her new book, utopian entrepreneur, that i think you should all check out. talks about the lessons learned from the (now defunct) games for girls company, purple moon. yeah, there's not a TON of us doing research on video games but we are a fierce group!

check out this new stationary from designers snow and graham. cool. now if i could only find some of that badly translated but fun stationary that greg had...

everything's rather fucked up right now with my funding and i am supposed to fill out some loan default form on the most unusable university web site out there. forget the fact that i have no idea why i have to fill out a loan default form right now at all, especially since i have never had to before and i am certainly not in default now...i just would love to know where the fuck that form actually is on the site because after almost two hours i never did find the fucking thing. all i know is that this whole thing is really getting on my nerves.

are you out there amy? it's been almost nine years now...it's funny how the years go by. sitting in the ct office, trying to help with the ads for the station...that's where i saw your picture. and you had already gone away. the three of us never did say goodbye. i guess maybe rod and i never really thought that we'd ever not be here. but i think you knew. some day i'll return to the place where we were. and i'll walk down to the beach from the pension. and i'll remember the tears that had no place in the lives of the young. and i'll think of dolphins and discos and sweaters and silly phrases...all the things that remind me of you. thanks to you, i'm not simply an observer any more.

all alone as i walked by the banks of the river...hello jimmy. i think i always understood. i wish that i could have told you...but i never realized what exactly it was until i heard about the freedom that you had tried to find. but you're free now. that much i believe is true. i wish that things had not been so scripted so that you had to hide who you were...i wish that i could have reached out and told you that i knew, that it would be ok...i wish i had known to tell you that you would grow to be more brave than you ever realized that you could be. someday i'll return to the dusty stage. and i'll remember our talks after the shows and the talks about uncertain futures and unspoken paths. thanks to you, i'm no longer satisfied with not being who i am.

peace.

picked up the singles dvd today...makes me miss seattle. i looked up a few sites about the filming of the movie and found a long article at entertainment weekly online and another at cameron crowe's own web site in case you are interested. it's fun to be able to watch the movie and remember the set of keys on my keychain...

wow...this week's stranger has an article about microsoft's recent security concerns. makes me worry about all my friends there...