so the v-day plan has reverted back to its original purpose and now i'm thinking that we really need to go to amsterdam and check out the urinal kiosks. seems like it's the only thing left to do at this point.

i've had a pretty bad headache most of the afternoon from what i suspect was a cross between dealing with stupid walgreens and the fact that it's now -9 billion degrees outside. so i'm allergic to sulfa medications, which knocks out a certain kind of antibiotics for me. well, i saw my doctor yesterday who wanted to see how i'd do on this new drug for cramp time. so i get it filled but this morning, i was reading the warnings section and it says "do not take if allergic to sulfa medications." which ticks me off because (1) it took me four months to see my doctor and that's what he prescribes even though it says on my chart ALLERGIC TO SULFA MEDICATIONS. but the thing that really ticked me off was (2) walgreens who somehow missed the whole THIS PATIENT ALLERGIC TO SULFA MEDICATIONS bit ON the same print out that they gave me that talked about how to take this medicine where i learned that i cannot take the medication. so, uh, shouldn't their computer have beeped and flashed or something when they started filling it? so i go back to see if i can get my money back (we're talking $98 for 30 pills here...and no, they are NOTHING that anyone would want to take) and of course they start on this "well...but there's only about a 30 percent chance that you would go into anaphylactic shock, not everyone that is allergic to sulfa medications goes into anaphylactic shock so you could go ahead and try it." yeah, because a 30 percent chance that you could die is something you want to check out.

shit.

oh but i did get my money back. no, i didn't have to do the fake panic attack act that i had to do to get my november and december paychecks...this time i just used dripping sarcasm and my patented death stare.

h.f.g. it's 2004.

my favorite new sticker that i swiped from my dad's vet clinic while at home: may cause drowsiness -- third eyelid may appear.

ok i'm back in c-u now, it's not really that cold either. usually when i get back from break, i come back to find that the town has been hit by the famous "freeze the city" plot device used on general hospital at some point in the 80s when laura was taken captive by some zillionaire who apparently had nothing better to do with his money that create a machine to freeze some stupid soap opera town. but it totally makes sense that he'd use it on this town because of, you know, the scenery. i mean it really is in the running for "best portrayal of a post-apcolytic town in a dark comedy" at this year's oscars. look it up in your almanacs kids! and tell homeland security that i said "hi."

the contest is over, the winners have been notified. the name of the secret restaurant was la cote d'or. i recommend the raspberries in caramel sauce.

haha...ok, ok...so i'm not done with googlism quite yet. this may be better than any career counseling test...here are some things that i could be:

• michelle is featured on mtv's "house of style"
  
• michelle is a highly underrated comic actress
  
• michelle is a writer
  
• michelle is now a member of the research staff at xerox parc
  
• michelle is really helping us modernize the bond films
  
• michelle is already a legend
  
• michelle is a codehead
  
• michelle is a real estate agent that is known in the community of york for their dedicated client service
  
• michelle is devoted to the issues of protecting our country
  
• michelle is a very outgoing girl and she loves meeting and playing with other children
  
• michelle is the winner of more gold medals than any other female figure skater in the usa and in the world
  
• michelle is sustaining electrical engineering designs for the international space station
  
• michelle is busy orchestrating eye screenings in illinois and teaching dance to her students at the academy of dance arts
  
• michelle is a loving mother and beautiful wife
  
• michelle is the managing editor of the australian astronomy research journal
  
• michelle is well known for her role in the bbc tv series eastenders
  
• michelle is in fact a welsh sheep farmer who drives a lorry
  
• michelle is the winner of seven world championship titles
  
• michelle is involved with numerous community volunteer efforts
  
• michelle is the regional account manager responsible for sales in scotland
  
• michelle is a graphic artist who likes bands like scratch acid
  
• michelle is an entrepreneur who has created and operated several successful business ventures
  
• michelle is a gifted communicator who has the ability to entertain young people as she ministers through song
  
• michelle is gaining strength and becoming more dangerous
  

ok...i'm semi back now. only i have pneumonia. nice flu follow up. so i've been sleeping lots, dreading xmas, messing around with pinhole cameras, sleeping, experiencing psychotic delusions, forgetting things, sleeping. so basically i have nothing much to report other than to advise you against getting this year's flu -- best to stick with last year's, best to stick with the classics.

ok, so a long time ago i ran my name on googlism and got some fun answers, including the knowledge that i'm offered in several formats. well, i was seeing what everyone in my blog/lj circle has been up to since i fell off the face of the earth last week and citizen kafka had a post about fun things to do with google and so after browsing around a bit at his other suggested google adventures, i headed to googlism again. this time i ran just my last name...damn it's good to share a weird-ass last name with a televangelist. check out some of my favs:

• hinn is a false prophet
• hinn is raking it in (right...)
• hinn is a typical tv evangelist
• hinn is evidence that there is no god
• hinn is an american neo
• hinn is claiming a physical appearance
• hinn is either truly crazy or downright evil
• hinn is a spiritual superstar
• hinn is the poster child for horrendous theology
• hinn is a circus freak

of course then there are these: "hinn is not as easy as you might think" and "hinn is concentrating on young teenagers now"...

cool. almost time for my nyquil nightcap. at times like these, i've come to appreciate the complete deadening of my taste buds thanks to this fucking flu. it's been one of those days where i've been barely able to stay awake all day and every once and a while i sit straight up, panicked and disoriented, and i have no friggin' clue what day it is. i mean my fingertips even hurt...that's ridiculous. conversation sample from tonight's phone call from my dad:me: dad, i'm dying from the flu.
dad: you don't have the flu...
me: no really i have the flu.
dad: the flu is just a big conspiracy. there's no such thing as the flu.
me: ok talk to you later.p.s. dc people: i'll be in town from dec 19 - dec 29.

oh my god...i'm dying from the flu. what the hell?!? i'm fine one second and then *bam* out for the count. will i make it into work tomorrow???

i.n.s.o.m.n.i.a.

what the hell did we talk about all the damn time at the bk on turner street in the burg, near the rehearsal hall...when we were supposed to be studying but clearly we were not. it was where to make the scene when we were supposed to be in some non-major class but didn't feel much like going, when we were supposed to be some place that didn't have free drink refills. and you and i, we made the scene but then would leave when it got run over because we had better places to be. and we'd drive around and around the drillfield as if we were kids cruising up and down the same one block street in some small town on some friday night. and it was always night in those days and you asked me to marry you and i said yes and we screamed out the window, we'd scream out the window at the war memorial chapel and announce that we were getting married just to see who would cheer, jeer. and then we'd burst out laughing and i'd say, very faux seriously, you know you're gay, right man? and you always said yes but that you'd still marry me in a second just to make sure that i never felt that pain again, the sting that the slap would leave. and i always cried at that part. i always cry at that part.

world aids day.
hi marvin.
1969 - 2002

ugh...36ish hour boil water order here and it's friggin' freezing and my power keeps threatening to go out and my throat really hurts from screaming into that mic last night for a few hours and, oh well, thanksgiving only comes around once a year, right?

ok, now that i've gotten this nano thing to a point where i'm gonna put it away for a while, we now return to dissertation whining already in progress...

aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

whew. i feel much better now.

i'm a WINNER!!!!!!!!!

so i just got a copy of the LAST (yes, sadly they are no more) carissa's wierd [sic] cd, scrapbook, from sonic boom in seattle (thanks internet!) and on it jen, in full sadstyle mode, covers "asleep" by the smiths and i think, damn, no wonder we are all depressed after growing up at a time when the only music worth listening to at the time had lyrics like this:

sing me to sleep
sing me to sleep
i'm tired and i
i want to go to bed
sing me to sleep
sing me to sleep
and then leave me alone
don't try to wake me in the morning
'cause i will be gone
don't feel bad for me
i want you to know
deep in the cell of my heart
i will feel so glad to go
sing me to sleep
sing me to sleep
i don't want to wake up
on my own anymore

anyone else breaking through their sanitized memories? remembering being curled up in the fetal position on the floor of your room, listening to the cure, the smiths, etc, wondering how come these guys all got it when no one around you in real life did?

oh my god...you know, cramp meds and ebay do not mix...or maybe i mean that they mix too well...or something. anyway, i remembered the doctor telling me to avoid driving, lalala, the usual shit. but...but...but...he also said to avoid making snap judgments. what he should have said was "avoid going on ebay but if you must go on ebay do NOT use the 'buy it now' option under ANY circumstances while taking this medication." christ.

harlan needs a blog...harlan needs a blog...thx for letting me know that my comments thingee wasn't updating it's number count...i need to explore some better or at least other options for that since it's been annoyingly not working the majority of the time.

ooooooohhhh....i just remembered that i forgot tonight's local nanowritein at e's. shit. and i have a hell of a ways to go still. eep.

here i am. thanksgiving break. wasn't i here last year too? oh yeah...there was something about oversleeping and missing an early flight. well, whatever. this year i just decided to stay here, have a pot-luck style dinner on thursday with some others remaining here for the week...no thanksgiving travel this year, no having thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant (was that last year too?). i'm half tempted to stay here over xmas break too...i don't know yet. depends. on what? i don't know yet.

so most of you know that i've been an avid lomographer for the past two years. anyway, no matter how many rolls of film i develop i will never get over some of the strange and happy accidents that occur when you, well, lomo. i swear to god that in one of my lastest rolls, i have photographic evidence of the supernatural. either that or the quad really was on fire when i took that picture...

nano, meanwhile, is completely frustrating me. i mean my word count is fine and all but it's making feel more and more nauseous each day. i tend to cut too close to the truth for my own sanity...

"what? can you only drink in a convent?" and that had me almost in hysterics, only this time from laughter instead of the anxiety-ridden hysteria i had been in the whole session.

so i'm going back to london, with a possible/probably side trip to prague in february. yeah, fucking february. with any luck i'll be in vienna for chi in april. i mean, fuck. yeah, it was impulsive, the whole london thing, but for fuck's sake...why the hell not? and the doctor said the other day that it was the first real sign of my true self returning after all this time. so it's an apa sanctioned trip. rock on.

hey julie wherever you are.

it's hard sometimes, you know? to trust again? i mean in so many ways this last relationship was based on so many lies that it seems like i just dreamt the whole thing up...it's funny that i have nothing at all to say to you, that i have no interest at all in "catching up," or being friends. and how quickly that happened.

thank god i got my hair cut when i did.

h.f.g. it's november. i feel like i could throw up at any minute now. nanowrimo is making me completely ill and yet i can't seem to be able to fucking stop the car.

ok before i post an actual update...here are the latest new searches that have led people to my blog!

• i survived dating hell and all i got was this stupid t-shirt
• comic book character death
• i want to play game about heaven and hell
• "pro club" gay redmond

you know...i've been to dating hell many times but i've never emerged with a t-shirt to celebrate the occasion. now you've heard me bitch and moan about *yawn* hearing the same old breakup lines but you know...next time? i want a t-shirt. hand me a t-shirt with "it wasn't me, it was him" on it and then that'll be that.

new! i'm a nielson family for the next week, starting thursday. if you thought tv was fucked up now...even my tivo can't figure me out.

whimper, not a bang. i saw you for you today, i saw the edges of your mask and i nearly felt sorry for you because you can't see it...not yet...and maybe not ever. maybe the illusion will never shatter for you and maybe it doesn't matter. to have and to be...fromm's words illuminated for me by your spectacular light show...smoke, mirrors...you seem...but you are not.

hahahaha. today's search engine result winner? "want to fuck in akron ohio." um, ok. i mean it's pretty damn funny what people put in search engines anyway but the fact that my blog came up with that and other fun filled search queries is pretty fucking hilarious.

yeah, i'm on a little bit of a manic high right now...but you're not super surprised are you? so i'm working on the designs for my journal quilt and i think it's coming along pretty well. i sew the first part of one of the "pages" on wednesday with a piece of my hand-dyed (yes, i dyed it myself) fabric. actually it's the back of one of the pages that i'll be sewing. it's likely that this thing will end up being super offensive but so be it.

i know that things eventually must change, that after a while we no longer can live in our comfort zones, that we can no longer count on our comfort zones even existing anymore. i wonder how close to danger i walk as i try to find something stable, someone stable. can safety exist with freedom? how much must we compromise to find "safe?"

i'm amazed...stunned...now that the mask has fully come off and your beautiful lie has completely fallen apart. and i think that it must have been so tiring for you, no wonder you needed a break...you must have been exhausted. i guess once i saw the walls start to crumble, the foundation sinking into the ground...it was better for you to run and protect your creation than to let me see what was really you...maybe i'd come too dangerously close to figuring it all out...but, dear, i have figured it out.

i loved the you that was before i said that i loved you. then...click...click...click...me, crying on the tube, at the cinema at that tragic sense of life portrayed in so many heartbreaking ways and you said it was only a book, only a movie...and yet...

and yet.

hahahaha...only your hairdresser knows for sure...but nothing keeps them from telling.

ok, remember the play? the one that was banned, the one that was too controversial? well it's being reborn...as a quilt!?!

yeah, so what? i've been cranky lately, a little "sylvia plath" lately.

reno...so many years ago now it hurts to think about...back when i still believed that if you waited long enough, if you waited until some mystical force in the universe brought you back together...that all would be well, all would be magical...someone tells me today that i shouldn't give up on you, that i should be optimistic, that you'll come back to me. and i wonder why the fuck people say things like that? i've already been there...and it's not the city you think it is...

sign that we are no longer children. remember those cash register style savings banks that we had when we were kids? well, today they are in the form of...an ATM machine, with ATM card and everything. jesus fucking christ.

latest searches that found this page:

• what the hell was i thinking blogspot
• no cd crack heaven & hell
• all your base are belong to us champaign illinois
• heaven and hell on tuesday night
• 24 hour pharmacy virginia walgreens

i'm not sure why i advertise these searches but, hey, i think it's kinda funny and who the fuck cares if you don't.

anyway i miss you but i think it's more that i just missing having love in my life again even if just for a short while, even if you didn't think of it as that...because i have nothing in particular that i want to say to you and there's nothing in particular that i miss right now...i especially don't miss how those last few weeks you made me feel less than you, less important than everything, anything else in your life, less important than getting your cable switched on...and maybe i'm being harsh, maybe i'm being mean, maybe i'm being angry right now...but maybe..."baby," "dear," "sweetheart"...i am angry...i am fucking pissed off at you...

eyes blurry and tired from nights spent awake...awake but safe from sanity slipping down any further...and i dream of my portfolio...and i dream of nyc, chicago, seattle, everywhere but here...but here i must stay until what i've started is finished and then, once again, i can move from here to there...a different here, a different there, all merge into one after a while and i remembered how you started to say that relationships take two people...and i said shut up...please don't tell me anymore...i don't need to hear that line again.

my birthday. cry if i want to. blah, blah, blah.

click. you had dyed your hair red...not fire engine red but eric stolz red...and it was longer and you were wearing some ridiculous cowboy hat and walking around downtown and i came over from across the street, although i'm not sure from where exactly...an office probably, space ship maybe...and i said that we needed to talk and in one version i'm telling you all the things i should have said to everyone my whole life but in another version the scene just fades to black. whirl.

click. we have enough ____ to put akron, ohio to ____. yeah? well, i'm not akron, ohio. you're right. we need more. whirl.

click.

click.

click.

holy. fucking. god. it's. october.

since i turn a year older later this week, i have a life tip based on my years of accumulated wisdom to offer all of you: when embossing something with a heat gun, do not place it on the carpet unless you like your floor well done.

fuck you, you confuse me when we talk the way we used to talk before you ran away from me, panicked and scared and you're sweet and nice and wouldn't harm a fly and you say that you don't have it in you to be mean but i think you don't know, you just don't know and you say we should do this again soon, that you know tomorrow i'm busy but maybe...and i interrupt you because i don't want to count on you, i don't want to depend on you, i don't want to expect...expect anything, hope for anything...and my head is mixed up...and i wonder when the last time i took that pill was because i can't remember anything from before we met downtown...and i hate that all my anger, all my anger at you just seems to disappear when you are nice to me and i wonder where that came from, where that comes from...a black dog, waiting...sometimes i think i would starve to death patiently waiting for you to come back...only i'm not sure who "you" is sometimes...are you a loop, a pattern...or do you really exist?

this search, done in arabic, is the latest in strange queries that have found this blog:

• michelle - loving you is heaven, missing you is hell

right...i'm believing that.

so whatever...it's a few hours into monday and i'm wide awake...and i have to remember to get my key back because it really doesn't do any good where it is now...

besides the search query "scariest places in the universe" that, for some reason, pulls up my blog...i have three different heaven and hell searches in my blog stats:

• pictures of what heaven and hell will look like and feel
• heaven and hell ball game
• heaven and hell mystery play

so ok now that i've gotten that out of the way...tomorrow i leave for vegas until saturday so don't look for me until then.

i am the star of my own invisible world.

it's been over a week since i've heard your voice and even though we've sort of talked via IM, i'm still not sure how i feel about this whole thing or what's going to happen or if everything is just fading and i am once again invisible...but then...maybe it is just west nile fever. or maybe mono if you want to go old school.

mid-september and it looks like the weather may soon start to drop down to fall temperatures and i miss how comforting and crisp and exciting the fall was when i lived in virginia, brilliantly colored leaves and the smell of apple cider and hot chocolate that we'd go get at the 7-eleven after band practice, all stuffed in my car...that terrible maroon car that would stall out at most of the lights on route one where the only way to restart it was to slam the back left door and the trunk at the same time and, no, i cannot recall how we discovered that combo or if it really was legit fix or just some voodoo magic that we all believed in so that my car would make it across the highway to where shaconna lived...but in all my years in the midwest, i've never again been able to find the beautiful harvest and i think that it must be somewhere out here...and i think that maybe i should take a drive in early october and try to find it...that's what i want for my birthday...to see the fall again.

my knee touching yours and all i could do was stare at the ground, my hands...what to do with my hands...and i feel like it was almost like i was washing them off, trying to rid myself of something...cleansing the anger, the sorrow, the hurt...my wanting to slap you so hard across your face, scream at you...but to what end? and instead i just sat there for a while, staring out the window at the low, flat rooftops of downtown, at the tornado sirens, the towers...all those towers downtown and i remembered the woman who was ready to jump last spring and i wondered what it takes to make that kind of decision...and finally i just said that i guessed that there wasn't much left to do now, that i should leave...and you said that it wasn't over, it wasn't over, it wasn't over...

all damn day i've had this feeling of "seattle" and i couldn't figure out why and then it dawned on me, oh...9/11...that's where i was...and it seems like it was much longer than two years ago...it was really only two years ago?

so for some reason i decided to get up from my desk and wander up sixth street where i learned that all the local businesses are supporting software theft by no longer offering software for sale but none of that really matters right now because i'm back at my desk, where i'm burning up from fever and i just ran into cece at depresso where the two of us had an incoherent conversation, the kind that only sick people can have and it doesn't seem insane and some guy is listening in to our conversation and decides that it's cool to comment on my last statement about "well, the server at work crashed and i have to redo the last few weeks of work but i don't really care because it's not my work and they won't let me work from home so what do i care what i do to fill up the time" and so the guy turns to me and said "yeah, but it's somebody's work that was lost, don't you care" and i'm, like, thanks for your feedback, go away now.

fucking cold...where the hell did this come from?

past midnight and i'm already thinking that tomorrow's a hooky day from work and i just can't stand to be awake or asleep right now and maybe it would be good if i just went away for a few days only where would i go anyway, could i just show up on someone's, anyone's doorstep and say please let me cry here for a few days, please let me cry and hold me until it's over and let me tell you about what happened that night at the er...that awful, lonely night, sitting there in the waiting room with a stupid tupperware container with a dark green lid that i saw again today when i was cleaning out my car so that there was enough room to help you move nothing apparently and i wondered, briefly, if i should bring it in and wash it and i decided that that was pretty much the last thing that i wanted to do so i put it in the trash bag with the mounds of parking tickets, aborted thesis proposals, old coffee cups, and faded gas station receipts...and i figured that i might as well throw it away too and i know that if i ever told you about that night as it happened versus in vague and hazy details that you wouldn't be able to handle it and who the hell said that men were the stronger sex anyway because how can that be true?

yeah, yeah...holy fucking god, it's september. and some days into it even.

the latest weird searches that have found my blog according to my web stats:

• fucking in my shop salesgirl
• bum bum ba da bum bum...what a bum bum
• i hope you cry when you get home (ok, that was an easy one...it's a direct quote from cw lyrics)
• honorary reo speedwagon way
• blacksburg scrapbook stores

god...

it's 1am and i have an early morning meeting with my advisor and i'm pretty much fucked aren't i? i had good intentions...really i did. but it's this time of the night where i start to think...hmm...what if i stayed up all night and just wrote? could i get something done in the next seven hours? or should i just try again at sleep...my jet-lagged boyfriend out since 10...it seems like a cruel punishment to crawl into bed next to him and wake him with my fitful, anxious sleep-mimicking state.

today's email of the day pertaining to my graduate assistantship, which requires me to answer stupid tech support emails all damn day:
i wish you had better mac support! windows is a terrible operating system. i always use mac, which is true of nearly everyone in engineering.dear professor idiot, ask me if i care. drop dead. love, tech support

sweet cornfest time but i'm not sure i'll go this year. maybe. could be a good lomography opportunity midwest-style but i think it'll depend on how hot it is tomorrow. and how i'm feeling. i'm really pretty pissed off right now because my assistantship got all fucked up and now i'm doing something totally different and totally suxor, i've lost my office, and...sigh...i'm sick of this shit. i know. this will inspire me to get the fuck out of here. but if you are thinking this, then you don't know what it's like to be at this stage of the dissertation where things like this are just brain drains...and you can't afford to lose any brain power right now. although i did know a guy once who went straight to rehab after he defended because somehow he wrote his dissertation on heroin. and i'm not quite sure what the take away message is on that.

anyway...have you been following this scrapbooking thing? so there are a gazillion stores opening up, a gazillion magazines, books, shows...all about making fucking photo albums. ok, so the pages are usually super complex and some are 3d, some have rivets and ribbons...but there's so much god damn shit on each page and like maybe three pictures and the total spent on buying all this garbage for each page is probably $50 a page...and there is hardly ANY writing on any of the pages...and i'm wondering if we really are some kind of post-literate society and, yes, i did take tylenol migraine so i'm hopped up on caffeine but for fuck's sake who the fuck cares about all this shit. but people do...and damn do they...i was writing in my journal at the original pancake house the other day and so lady asks me "oh, do you scrapbook?" and i say "no, i'm more of a writer but i do put pictures and ticket stubs and such in my journals." so she's like "oh it'll look so much more professional if you scrapbooked but that at least you're doing something." but i'm thinking...uh...yeah but won't it be a lot more interesting and memorable if i left something for people to READ? i mean for fuck's sake...i don't have time for that shit. but maybe it's the newest thing for stay-at-home moms who have lost their minds.

oh harlan...jesse and i were just wondering what time it was that you arrived in nyc...

ooohh...so i forgot this tidbit. maybe you've run across a bookcrossing book before but i hadn't...until i went to mckillme to pick up a prescription refill...and there it was...a free book sitting there on the bench just inside the main lobby. ok, so it wasn't want that i cared to read but i'd nearly forgotten about the whole bookcrossing mission until now...i'll have to free some of my books into the wild...

hahahaha...so every now and again i look at my stats for my blog and see how people find their way here when using search engines. here are the top ten search queries for the last week:

10. disco pigs message boards
9. washingtonians hate baltimore
8. stud broke funny
7. grape juice vicodin
6. spyder games episode 41
5. problems alero 200 oldsmobile
4. charleston nuclear hoax movie
3. main fuse for my apartment
2. taco bell asshole chicago cops
1. help me i am lost in dissertation hell

and that pretty much sums my whole blog up, doesn't it?

visited from the past, from the beyond...and i wonder why last night, why after so many years...an argument, a battle, a tense goodbye at gillies in blacksburg and both of us trying to show our game faces, both of us seeing through the other, so smart and young and stubborn...and yet last night, a visit in my dreams and i've been wondering all day if tom was right that hot summer night as we all gathered around, mute and drunk disciples...wondering if we have a shared consciousness that keeps people alive for longer than they live...and if we resolve the past peacefully in our minds while we dream...and whether or not we are joined, briefly, on a path that could never exist in our waking life, that exists forever only as a possibility, a potential, a past imperfect made strangely, fantastically perfect...

i'm back...delirious...insane from complete lack of sleep...36 hours to get home...did we go via new zealand? oh no. it was just chicago and their stupid thunderstorms. too...cranky...to...write...much...must...collapse...now...

but before i forget...

holy fucking god it's august.

ok, ok, no, i haven't yet sent off any postcards but i will be doing loads of them tomorrow so be patient. you will probably get them after i arrive back home!! just got back from amsterdam and we are super tired, mainly from the hour it took to get through passport control, which we had to go through BEFORE we were able get to a fucking bathroom, er, toilet. i think that i'm going to have to write my trip details here retrograde because i have very little online time here and i don't feel like spending a lot of cash to sit at an internet cafe...but i'll work on that, my bits for an aera proposal (work...it follows you everywhere...), AND go to the lomo gallery that i've been meaning to go to for weeks now. cheers.

ok SUPER quick post...if you guessed amsterdam for the mystery trip...then you win!!!! what do you win, you say? well, the deep satisfaction of knowing that YOU WON. yes you! YOU WON!!!

alright. this is the first time...well, the second time really...the first time i only had a few minutes to check my email...ANYWAY...this is my first time blogging in the u.k. or, really, outside the u.s.

whee. ok c-u-ers, it is HOT AS SHIT here. i mean it...ok, so it's about 95-98-9895ish degrees but as you know, i like to stay in the a.c. all summer long and that is not quite possible here. even the tate gallery today was far less than air conditioned.

hmm...i'm feeling a lot less than inspired at the moment because...it's that time o' the month. nice, right? so i'm keeping this short for now. but, but, but...i punted for the first time yesterday...by that i mean i was the PUNTER or whatever the person that has to stand in the boat and steer with the big ass stick. (note: that is big-ass not ass-stick...although i suppose it is possible that it could become an ass-stick but that kind of discussion is just not appropriate here...lmf...you know who you are.)

so london is super expensive but so far i'm having a lot of fun!

ok, last day on u.s. soil...shit...less than 24 hours until i leave. BUT...but...but...i'm all packed if you can believe that. i know...it's impossible to believe. maybe i'll repack everything, say, at 3am just to keep in line with my usual packing practices.

so, yeah...this is an actual vacation. no agenda, no schedule...three weeks. sounds like the start of some new reality show, doesn't it? i'll keep you posted.

the world that is invisible. the part where i walk past the scene of the crime, the way things could have ended up, a possible scenario and i smile and realize that i am no longer her. where do i go next? swirling and swirling fears and anxieties and excitements and scenarios...round and round in my head...i can see all the strands but to remove, to identify, to acknowledge any one of them weights them, gives them an order that is never, ever quite right.

but i ask the pained and painted lady this: what exactly was the curse? the world that is invisible or the mirror world you stayed in for so long? because i, too, am sick of shadows.

i never know what i'm seeing at night around this time of year. i mean is it distant lightning or just some fool still setting off fireworks somewhere?

want a postcard from the UK? send me your address! what? you don't know my email address? well, then you won't get one from me. sorry. this offer reserved for people that i know.

holy fucking god it's july. and the 4th of july at that.

your attention please...less than TWO WEEKS until my trip to london. omg. what WILL i wear. someone today said that i needed a makeover before the trip because my hair is three different colors. uh, yeah! it's that way on purpose. i mean who has black, brown, and red striped hair unless they meant to do it...that's not a matter of failure to upkeep a hairstyle -- these are vertical stripes NOT roots.

yeah anyway, i learned a cool new way to develop film onto fabric...oooh...can you say photoshop madness with the london trip photos?

sorry, sorry, sorry. no new posts for a bit now. hmm. well, i guess it's only been a couple of days. although i haven't been must of a poster in general this month. so...less than three weeks until london!!! i know that you've been dying to hear the calendar countdown on that. i have a new digital camera and i'm ready to go! the days just need to pass more quickly now!

a few guys that i know from microsoft games were apparently on the discovery channel friday night...only the email from the xbox.com mailing list came through saturday afternoon so i missed it entirely and it doesn't look like it's reairing any time soon according to my tivo. so i don't know if that was the university server fucking up (quite possibly) or some really bad timing on microsoft's part. so shit.

so i witnessed the harry potter madness last night at barnes and noble. steve wanted a copy of the new book and i met him there when he got his ticket for the "standing in line raffle" starting at midnight and then we saw finding nemo, which was ok but not nearly as hilariously great as people have been telling me. this is a suck ass summer for movies. i refuse to see the hulk because, i'm sorry, that damn cgi hulk looks ridiculous and they've lost the whole tragic existance of david banner that the series had. anyway, when we got back to barnes and noble, steve's ticket group number was called last and that probably meant that he'd get his book around 3am so he said "fuck it" and we left so i'm not sure why we went through all that but it was scary fun to see all the kids and adults in costume and all. i must say...i really don't get the whole harry potter thing but whatever. it does seem to be the "star wars" of this generation...damn i remember making my dad sit through that movie with me, like, 8 times in the 70s.

as most of you that know me know...i never pass up an opportunity to include an obscure reference to a wkrp in cincinnati episode no matter how weird it is going to sound in the midst of the conversation. so steve and i were eating lunch at whatever that mexican place near me is called now and he mentioned something about a local dj sidekick with the ability to only say "yes" "sure" and "ok" while on the air. and so i said "you know, that reminds me of that wkrp episode where fever has to interview the band scum of the earth and they start acting like complete asses the second they are on the air and refuse to say anything but yes or no."

wkrp is life. life is wkrp.

ok, here's a fun fact for you. do you ever watch the shopping channels for embarassing moments? for instance, most of you heard about the "skin care hour" that i witnessed a few months ago where a caller said that whatever face cleanser they had on the air at the moment was SUPER HELPFUL for the pimples on her ass and the hilarity that unensued as the hosts tried to hold it together. today's fun moment was watching the host chatting with a VERY ENTHUSIASTIC male caller who apparently had been buying a ton of fake diamond solitaires from them to wear himself and was VERY HAPPY to be on the air and while i say "wear what you want," the phone call seemed a little "faked," which reminded me when mel and i in undergrad called the home shopping network during one of those weird, weird parties on tee street in blacksburg and tried to get on the air, back in the days when all the shopping channels had honking horns and prices being slashed right and left and lots and lots of "genuine" smoky topaz rings.

omg! 39 days until i leave for london...ahhhhhhhhh!!!!! kick ass.

and in other news, guess what i finally decided to do with my kick ass gold gideon bible journal from ex libris anonymous? that's right! it's the case of the psychotic grandmother: the screenplay!

holy fucking god it's june.

jerome! i have some great ideas for nanowrimo -- one that i think could be totally cool and, more importantly, doable! :) im me!

driving back, driving back past one of dozens of "fresh oil" signs that have appeared in random locations all over town...something to do with all the construction i guess...i felt lonely...that lonely that you told me that you've felt before too and i missed you...i miss you.

all i could do was just put my clothes back on and walk back out, looking right through, right past anyone i passed by and who knows how i was able drive home from there, to the lab from there, to the airport from there. and we just sat there as the luggage went around the carousel, holding and being held and all we can do is wait and all i can do is wonder how long has this been going on and how much longer will it go on and how much longer i will go on, surrounded by yet another pile of handouts and maybe i should think about distributing them myself, you know? everything must go. and, in time, it will. but i don't think that it's time to go just quite yet.

tornado warning!!!!!!!

oh yeah. i don't believe in tornados.

it's a year later now...and i've realized that i no longer wonder what would have happened had i gotten on that plane that morning, the morning that everything faded to black, and how that would have been just fucking hilarious to be arriving at seatac while he was trying to call. i no longer dream of that emerald city...i no longer have those dreams where i'm wandering around the apartment one last time before i walk away, walking down to broadway...the dream where the cop shakes his head in sorrow and tells me "she has a lovely face" as i pass by and i smile when i realize that she's no longer me.

well, i tried to post something last night but blogger wasn't working right and I HATE when i lose a post. and it was a good post too but my muddled brain can't possibly recreate it at this point.

my heart, my heart racing so fast and i imagine most of you can understand why...to trust, to trust again and how sometimes it makes you feel so scared and raw and open while at the same time you realize that you are finally able to feel again and it's hard to imagine that you ever could again but there it is...your heart...not where you left it before...and that's not such a bad thing.

ok so maybe you're hoping for some *dramatic conclusion* updates. so i'm not evicted, i fought it off...oh and i have a ticket to london for july!!!! so tell me your fav places for drinking, eating, and shopping in town. as you know, i spent more time in brighton and cambridge so this will be a fun and funky couple of weeks for me! finally...a vacation.

it's hard not to feel the anxiety about the forthcoming letter...i mean when exactly is it forthcoming? is she going to send it tomorrow? next week? next year? my brother was right...did i really think it was going to end with my last response? i don't know what i thought really. it makes the dream that i had last week seem even more absurd...the one where we were both talking, talking like you think we would talk, that we should talk...the one where she was genuinely interested in finding out about who i was...the one where every moment mattered?

nina simone...

"...and the books in sanscrit are...over there? with the english translation, of course" ...and the only thing that would have made that statement funnier when we heard it yesterday afternoon at the borders on north prospect would be if he asked for a translation in yet another language...like, say, flemmish.

so my blog is now a day over two years old...it's a day over two years since i was sitting at my kitchen table with my (then) new laptop, with the door shut to my workroom, claire's boxes blocking the way, copies of my resume and notes from my phone interviews with microsoft spread all over, and the balcony smoker who i haven't heard from since last year in an email that i never did reply to probably almost has his m.d. degree unless they finally kicked him out but i doubt there's a god so beware and be warned should you find yourself ill in peoria anytime soon. and it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

allergy time again and i spent 3 1/2 hours at mcKILLme yesterday to get a newer, better prescription for the pain in my face and by the time i was finally seen by the doctor i thought that they might as well just put a bullet in my brain to stop the pain...surely that would have been a more humane ending after making me wait for hours surrounded by a thousand undergrads having SUCH interesting and loud conversations on their cell phones.

alright. so i'm not just going to lay down and die on this whole thing. i mean what the hell, right? i mean i obviously don't have time to move so i might as well just become a giant pain in the ass and refuse to go along with this whole fraud eviction thing. i could tie them up in court for god knows how long, right? yeah...my life would turn into one giant filibuster but, hey, i'm just not going to be steamrolled on this.

calm. eerily calm. that's what i said late this morning when i was telling the doctor about how i've been since yesterday. but that's not so true any more...at least not at the present moment...after returning from looking at some of the scariest places in town that are "available now" (conversation sample: uh, what happened to the last tenent? oh i see. they were shot. yeah. ok, i'm not sure this is what i'm looking for)...i feel pretty damn faint right now...what, what, what to do.

ok...you're right. that's not such good news. but it is in a way. i mean i'm so friggin' sick of my rental agency...i won't get into it. you've all undoubtedly heard most of it by now. but fuck...yeah, this is a GREAT time to be looking for a new place to live. oh my fucking god...can this be true? can this really be happening? i mean EVICTED. it's been a long time coming i guess...i mean they've been trying to push me out of here for a couple of years now. i'm trying to extend the "10 day notice" to at least a month because, christ...what the fuck, right?

great news!!! i've been evicted! i'm not lying. i have been evicted.

sitting here at well past midnight, so angry that i want to smash my fist through the wall and then i remember the gash that still hasn't quite healed that jesse has on his arm from the last time he was raging at the machine (literally) and i have to ask myself if i really want any more scars, cuts, bruises on me at the moment. but i get so mad, you know?

so most of you know my play was finally pulled. and in the end i guess it really came down to me...i just decided not to deal with it...not to deal with the bureaucracy, the university bullshit, censorship...my words cut...not just my words...whole events changed, sanitized...SPEAK OUT...but don't speak the truth...no, no that would be bad, that we cannot accept...you must be crazy, you must be unstable...speak out, speak out, speak out...as long as we don't have to hear the truth...it's a trap, it's a trap, it's a trap...it will not set you free.

break.the.silence. just don't break the news to us. just please don't shatter our comfort. let's all just sit back and talk in the abstract, talk as if we really know how things must be because we read an article about it or heard some statistics on it, recoil with horror at the idea of it...but for god's sake...let's not hear the words that come from those who know these things for themselves because then that's when things will become uncomfortable.

break the silence...speak out...just for god's sake just don't tell us about it.

my hair is totally in red and black stripes after a two day ordeal and i think it looks pretty damn cool but outside of beckman i think that lucia was having palpitations when she saw it. but secretly i think that she really wants to do something to her hair because she keeps bringing up dying her hair...i mean enough to say that she was going to get a turquoise chunk in her hair if she gets a job offer...or was that a turquoise jumper? my hearing hasn't been so fab this week...i think that i am still recovering from that damn forcefield performance at the mca in chicago.

i thought that i was literally going to die this afternoon from pain though. i mean if i had the tools, i might have just gone ahead and given myself a hysterectomy right then and there. ok ok...over the top.

at strawberry fields in urbana this afternoon, reading an excerpt from plath's notebooks, my heart aching so much that i could hardly stand it...her words bare and raw and sad...i remembered amy in her towel, sitting on the bed of that hotel in downtown athens, crying and crying...rod with a wet towel on his head, sick from the trip back from heraklion the night before, standing on the balcony with the drifter who asked if we were planning to paint the acropolis before telling us to get a grip already...the time was already slipping by so quickly and we had no idea...and no matter how many years pass by, there she is with us...laughing and carefree and and pained and careless, the old man at the shop at the edge of the bazaar in matala noting that he felt that i was different somehow, watching, watching the world through my pen, and what was it that made me so sad...all of us, deciding everything and nothing, sitting in the dark at the tables outside illuminated by the innkeeper's television showing re-runs of chips in greek...and god what scared me so, what scares me so?

new! it's april!

ow. i have a huge bruise on my arm from crashing into the edge of the bathroom door in the middle of the night when i dared to get my cramp-ful body out of bed and get some more advil. i didn't notice the bruise until now but it is *very* impressive. not really. but i do wonder how many cuts and bruises i can attribute to menstrual cramp-related falling and fainting over the last, uh, i guess about 19 years.

new! so i'm in fund raising mode now to pay for a ticket to go to the UK for a few weeks this summer...i need to go by one of those student travel agencies sometime this week to find out what kind of deals they have. however, if anyone knows of something terrific, let me know!

whoo hoo! i got a royalty check in the mail...now i can pay my power bill. so sad...so sad...

so we escaped from near death...at least i'm sure that i was near death from disbelief after watching a *super rare* forcefield appearance about 5-6 hours ago in chicago at versionfest..."known for their idiot-savant low-tech approach to art-making, forcefield made a splash in 2002 at the whitney biennial with groupings of life-size knit figures set off by deafening a noise-band soundtrack and pulsating video projection."*art-making*...i may never fully recover.

i saw the movie the hours last night and i've been thinking about marvin most of the afternoon and evening...the lull...the reverie that listening to glass always puts me in...how it brings me back...weeping and trying not to weep during those final concerts...the anxiety building, where to go, which way to go...driving around and around and around...i can see him now. that day, years and years later...i'm waiting, waiting in front of a building that had never meant and would never mean anything to us, to him and to me together.

but i'll wonder forever.

my friend...my friend that i will never see as ill..my friend who i will always see young, laughing...because we never did meet again...on that day, in front of that building...that building that would never mean anything to us...but will forever be the place where you never aged for me, where you were healthy...where we are still driving around and around and around, wondering where to go, which way to go...young and giddy with all the love and all the hope and all the world that lay before us.

so it's official...i have a new boyfriend. your example inspired me, jerome! :)

the original pancake house on springfield was where to make the scene this morning. i guess now that spring break has started and most of the undergrads are out of here, all my grad school buds were out and about today. we can't afford a trip out anywhere so we just kind of linger for the week.

so. date number three is tonight...