omg. i've been so careful with my money the whole time...and then...uh...a €40 meal...omg...i totally didn't understand that this meal was a la carte...and it was fish to boot...omg omg omg omg...

blogging at ya live from chi, down the corner from the google booth. hehe. gotta run to a session but i had to tell you that when i talked to the yahoo people earlier all i could think of was their damn commercial with the ya-hoooooooo-oooo obnoxious voice thing...

for microsoft readers...i have hilarious pictures of jun with ponytail holders all over his hair. classic stuff.

oh i forgot to say that i went up to the blogger booth at chi and said hello google i've been blogging just around the corner from you all week and the google people seemed very cool actually.

ok i woke up with a splitting headache today and maybe it was from standing in the smoking hall with jun and kevin at the city hall (rathaus) reception last night or maybe it was the half glass of wine i had or maybe my weird ass jet lag hours were finally catching up with me, i don't know...so i had to take a migraine pill but i only took half of one so that i don't end up totally doped up for the rest of the day...and it was brilliant catching up with jun, keith, kevin, and randy and it's really nice to know that the friendships that we formed years ago are still strong and even though so much time has passed so much still stays the same and that's nice to remember...

so i think i've finally figured out how to get tickets on the train for prague and the praguer that i met yesterday at the games sig said that it really isn't necessary to get train tickets ahead of time so that makes me feel better about not figuring it out until now and believe it or not yesterday i found one of those fabric shops with the austrian traditional fabrics and it seems that those sound of music style dresses sell like hotcakes and it was crazy seeing all the variety and it reminded me of going in to one of those sari stores last summer in london because it seemed amazing to me that these are everyday clothing stores because they seem so exotic...

service to feel well is my hotel chain's (austria trend) motto and what the hell does that mean? do i feel well? do they feel well because they provide us with a place to stay? baffling.

anyway the workshop that my csc* presentation was a part of was absolutely amazing so great to spend the day with people who really understand my area of work...some amazing amazing stuff is also happening in europe. the us SUCKS with regard to research in this area...

greetings from vienna where apple juice is the orange juice of the region! i woke up at 5am. yes. i did. and i#ve been drinking coca-cola from bratislava all morning, which has got to be good for me. coffee. now.

update: fucking cites and their fucking express email system upgrade that won't be done until 5 and a half hours ago vienna time...

fucking cites and their fucking express email system that is down half the time i try to check...what the fuck...

jesse...postmodern portmanteau...pass it on...

cold and windy and yet sunny so it was a perfect weather day for me and i learned that everything is closed on sunday, well, a LOT of things are closed on sunday including grocery stores, etc. but the museums were open and i went to the modern art gallery and saw the porträt exhibit, which was absolutely fucking amazing and when you get here, we will go see it because it deserves a second visit and the museumsquartier is like an art paradise and i learned for myself that you really can spend hours sitting at a cafe, outside, watching all the hipsters and pigeons parade past.

while the u-bahn is amazing and easy to understand, i cannot figure out how the hell one buys train tickets, say, from the südbahnhof down the street and, no, i don't want tickets for the bus to bratislava but where the hell do i get train tickets to praha from...ok, right, südbahnhof...established already. where where where at the station do i buy them am i missing something?

jun, keith, and randy have been sighted in vienna, going in to the austria centre as i went out and they were going to spend the day working and i was going to spend the day playing and so we parted ways and hopefully i'll catch up with them again later on but they seemed dazed beyond belief so i don't know about their plans for later on. if they had been with me, they'd have seen some of the amazing things that i saw like the lady at the wienerschnitzl place who parked her red car on the sidewalk, ran in to do her makeup in front of the mirrored walls, and ran out of there in her red suit and everyone, including me, got the joke...

btw, good luck tomorrow lucia!!! you can do it!

10:10am and i've registered and they gave me the giant ass proceedings book so now it looks like i'll be heading back to the hotel so i don't have to drag all this shit around with me for the rest of the day. i'm at the austria centre next to the vienna international center...but note that the two are not the same...i first wandered around some UN buildings for a while and finally someone from somewhere yelled at me from an intercomm that was located, uh, somewhere else "what are you looking for, go to the austria centre!" okok. damn everyone in vienna but me must know where i am supposed to go to...then again it could also be that i wasn't the first to go to the wrong building today and the guy was getting pretty damn sick of it.

hmm. for some reason this terminal at chi has u.s. keyboards. today is sunny and lovely, about 60ish and so i'm going to head to the museum quarter after i drop my shit off at the hotel. people next to me are bitching about the internet connection and i have no idea what they are talking about because it seems fine but then again they seem to be the bitching type...cranky.

on the u-bahn this morning i notice that no one looks at anyone but the thing that i can't figure out is what people are pretending to look at instead of one another? and now my hotel is filled with u.s. people and this morning at breakfast i got a bit freaked out by their presence and i wonder what that's all about, maybe it has to do with the fact that i've been hearing everything but english and suddenly realizing that the words around me matched the words in my head put me into a bit of a shock...and it's hard to concentrate on what you are thinking about when suddenly everything around you isn't just "noise," that it makes sense...your brain seems to cling on to that and won't let go and so you end up listening to stupid conversations just because you can.

8:25ish in the evening and it's raining and today it was freezing and hot and sunny and rainy across the region...i just ate some wienerschnitzl from some place up the street before i got back to my hotel that i finally found again after botching the street name pronunciation to everyone i said it to while making my way back from the u-bahn station that was a lot easier to get back from yesterday when i'd been up for over 24 hours and what the hell does that say? favoritstraße = favoritstrasse = favorite street. and, yes, i just wrote that last bit so i could write the ß.

so i spent the day in bratislava and i'm too tired to say much more than it's a strange experience to not hear the language that's in your head all day long and it seems that everyone in the world has seen that george w. bush cartoon that shows his picture next to a monkey, don't they look the same and all i can do is say, yeah...sorry about that...but central europe doesn't seem to buy the "but he wasn't REALLY elected" excuse anymore and they have a point...the election was a little too close to do anything but just apologize over and over about the whole damn thing.

black and yellowed welts on my shoulders from carrying my backpack yesterday and actually i think they are from my shoulder bag that has all my lomo cameras and that damn "portable" dvd player in it and tori amos is playing on the radio in the lobby of the hotel beim theresianum and it's raining out and i miss you but you'll be here soon and, truth be told, you are the one i've been talking to all day in my mind.

omg...ok it's 2:25 in the afternoon and i'm talking to ya live...from the hotel beim theresianum in vienna. yes i am still getting used to these german keyboards...it wasn't just a fluke back at that internet kiosk in düsseldorf. crazy. ok so i said that i got a passport stamp in düsseldorf...guess where i didn't get one? uh, yeah...here. there was like zero care in the world at the vienna airport. you just walked through either the eu or the non-eu door and there was no one there, no one standing there...nothing. somehow despite being completely exhausted and probably scaring the absolute hell out of the kid at the reception desk, i checked in and now the question is...do i go out and about or do i take a major major sleep session? damn it is so beautiful out though...it's about 70 degrees out, sunny, beautiful -- psst chris read that last bit again...and that train from the airport? you can't miss it -- it's called CAT and there are big green signs. take u3 to stephansplatz, switch to the u1 line you know the rest. the hotel is very close to the u-bahn station.

ah, so it's crazy beautiful and when i typed crazy just then i spelled it like crayz because the y and the z are reversed on the keyboard...you know...i'm going and taking a shower. i stink.

dusseldorf airport where the space bar on this internet station that is smack in the middle of the friggin' terminal says "leer" and i am discovering that the qwry keyboart is the qwertz keyboard here in germany and oh...looks like i could have written düsseldorf earlier. üöä
OK SO:::UGH IM IN ALL CAPS WTF how...ok how did i reverse that? i´m lost in translation...this is insane. and it is so damn quiet in this airport...oh and i got a düsseldorf stamp for my passport...they dont give you much choice in the matter so, no, i didn´t play a game of jump through passport control just to get a stamp.

last post before i leave for vienna (e - got your note, will do)...so i can't fall asleep last night, can't sleep, can't sleep...then when i must have passed into a trance state of some sort i apparently went out clubbing because now i can hardly move my neck, right arm, and my back's all locked up. so to pay homage to "the daily show"...that was making fun of "the view"...this is just like a reality show! yes, my real life is just like a reality show...and i think that i'm up for this week's survivor (tm) tylenol (r) push through the pain (c) contest...jesus christ this is not good.

happy three year anniversary of my blog. apparently it is also the five year anniversary of columbine.

for those of you not hanging around in vienna next week, i'm telling you now that i may be the first person to do an academic presentation EXCLUSIVELY using not one, but TWO xboxes. no powerpoint, no laptop...yes, still a MS product but not exactly the usual choice...

the three-year anniversary of this blog is coming up next tuesday and it seems that i haven't been super great about updating this in a long while and i wonder why exactly that is and that maybe i should start updating it again more frequently like i did when every day still seemed like an adventure, like it still had possibilities...before i woke up one day and saw my shadow and it's been winter ever since. but maybe this time the spring feels like it could be spring once again...notice how i said could...uncertain, as everything is...but possible, a potential.

driving up prospect around 9pm and i hit a red light. sitting there...i notice that the guy in the car next to me has his windows down and i can see something flickering and i see that he has a tv mounted into the front panel of his car and he's the only one in the car and i look more closely and he has on a friggin' porn movie and i remember reading how drivers watching porn in their cars while driving was now illegal in new york and i thought, pfft, right, who is doing that...but now it seems that the craze has hit fly over country and now i can't remember anymore if we are a red state or a blue state...

ok sorry about the break in posting here...nightmares again...spring...the eerie thing is that when i looked back to what i wrote in my journals (not this blog) a year ago...i realized that i'm having the exact SAME nightmares that i had this time last year...what the fuck?

posting from a mac in c's secret lab-or-atory...took many digi pix and lomos of some of the fancy finery and findings and who knew that poison liquids...or at least liquids that look poisonous when in lab-like glassware...could make such interesting photo lenses? ok, maybe i had my suspicions. but while i'm typing this, i'm waiting for the dollar store barbie and toy army soldiers and packing peanuts to finish up in the giant silver autoclave and i hope that they've all melted together well along with the plastic fruit and meanwhile c is in the "red room." red rum???? RED RUM!!!!!

sshhhh. ok it's just the room with mysterious red kool-aid style liquids that i'm sure if i drank would turn me into...

stay tuned until next time...

like clockwork, it's still like clockwork and i wonder how so many years went by with the anger seething inside and threatening to break lose at any minute and what the fuck if it did? what the fuck if it did. fifteen years...twenty-nine years...tick tock, tick tock...could i have made another choice? what if i had made another choice? it's a cancer that i can't cut out and i can either control it or let it destroy me but i can't remove it, there's no way to remove it and i think of angry mad thoughts on the couch in his office and i wonder if i have the courage to let them out yet?

period day! yay!

uh, ok...anyway some civic unrest over here but luckily it was mostly in our heads so no body count right now to speak of. i'm working on my online photo gallery so i'll let you know when the london pix are up...of course i seem to be on a psychotic travel schedule these days...vienna next month, plus maybe prague too. i've been busy with the diss so i keep forgetting to post here but i hope everyone is doing ok.

ok so i came back with bacteria pneumonia -- eep -- and so i'm super behind in updating my blog but thank god it is this last and extra day of february so i can catch up...while watching the ocsar prep frenzy. so let me speak frankly for a sec here...as if i wouldn't...to clarify, the british action was actually action in britain versus action with a briton and, no, not with an american who pretends he's british so that he can pump up his already amazingly overinflated ego...but, yes, with an american...the one i told you about briefly in december...the one who could have a big ego but doesn't have as compared with the one that had the big ego but shouldn't have?

hugs. hugs. hugs. hugs. hugs. hugs. hugs. hugs.

loria says: ""hugs!"?? what the??? when did you start saying "hugs"? you must have gotten some british action or some seriously good narcotics. either way, don't say "hugs" anymore, it creeped me out. (ha)"

dear loria. thank you for your concern. unfortunately i didn't cross paths with any seriously good narcotics on my trip to london but action in britain was had.

;)

back from london -- will post more and catch everyone up later this weekend! hope you are all doing well! hugs!

nyquil haze and a party next door and meanwhile it's still too cold to step outside and my face feels like it's in a vice grip or maybe it needs to be in one. or something.

fuck. i hate these hollywood award shows. fucking best foreign language film golden globe went to osama versus goodbye lenin. fuck. fuck. well, at least angels in america won every award in its category...finally something i thought should win did.

ok. so i was super mad when they first came out with this bullshit sounding premenstrual dysphoric disorder as a reason for doctors to hand out scripts for even more prozac. but you know...i'm really sick of fitting the profile of "all or more of the following symptoms." do i win a prize or something? and anyway, why the fuck am i having two or more periods in two weeks? maybe i'm still just having the last one. right. all i know is that i'm stocking up on good english chocolate and cramp meds next month.

i mean can being a woman be any more fucking great? i know...there are those who say that women should "celebrate" this time of renewal, blah, blah, blah. hey, bitch? lemmie try stabbing you in the stomach every minute for three straight days and see what kind of party mood you are in after that. ok, ok...that was way over the line. but try stabbing yourself in the stomach a few times if you'd like to empathize.

after four am and i've been dealing with formatting and re-formatting tables and charts most of the night which had to be done but i hated facing up to them and trying to figure out how to tell a somewhat interesting story or at least one that doesn't me tired before i've finished a single sentence. i'm getting there. at least i don't have the panic attacks that i used to have to deal with that almost forced me to walk away from the data in the first place.

i had a daydream earlier about being back in seattle, taking ferries to all the nearby islands, driving up to vancouver, sitting around and drinking good coffee, GREAT coffee...writing. that's what i want to do. write. create new combinations of narrative media. i'd like to live there again someday because, honestly, it's one of the few places that just felt like "home" to me and i really can't explain why that is...maybe it has something to do with the fairy tale dreams, maybe it's about letting go...maybe, maybe, maybe...who knows? but i've had the dream again recently...you just appeared there, appeared in my dream...but you couldn't hurt me anymore and the sneer you always used to wear was gone from your face. maybe time had done that to you or maybe it was simply what i wanted to see...but i wonder how it had ever crossed my mind that the knife i'd held, the knife that left it's mark on me time and time again, would ever take the hurt away, would ever make me forget...but not just you...not just you...

i cross...and i wonder...did you find what you were looking for, my pained and painted lady?

i think that there should be a pill created for women to slip into men's drinks to give them instant cramp hell so that they have a full understanding of what the hell we have to put up with, you know? any women chemists out there willing to give that a try? yeah, yeah, i know...seems like the same philosophy as the date rape drugs...so i don't quite buy my own story but it's satire people. deal.

i'm so freakin' tired today and i'd blame the fact that i had to move the famed fridge out of my old office, past all the rotc boys who said "that sure looks heavy" but didn't budge to open the door, down the elevator where i accidentally kicked the emergency alarm button and talked to the 911 operator who is probably used to that shit by now...i'd blame that but i really think that i just need a nap or speed...or maybe just some coffee. and i can't for the life of me figure out who sent me something by airborne express, nor do i know what it is because they didn't leave it at my door so i guess i'm waiting until tomorrow on figuring out all that. and i saw the smoke on oak street that swallowed up the trees and the cars and the buildings and i wondered if i drove through it, if i'd find some place hidden in there that made more sense?

"isn't he just creepy and weird?"

"uh, i think i left my car lights on, be right back."

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.