omg that fucking garrison keillor wrote on salon about the spas for "exhaustion" that i've been saying that i need to get into for years now. i'm serious...where are the treatment centers for exhaustion for the rest of us...ok, yeah, i know that exhaustion in hollywood means rehab. but still...i'm fucking tired after this past week and my super anemia and all i want to do is sleep right now! and be served fresh orange juice.

i got an email saying that the movie for thursday's film night is in my box but i can't remember what it was that i'd requested for thursday. i'll be in the dorm tomorrow so i'll be able to see and then spam it out. i swear i'm so out of it, it's amazing. i feel like i just returned from upside down world, kind of like how i felt after arriving in and returning from taipei last summer. and it can't be good that my med schedule is all messed up on top of it.

dr b and i talked of mania the other day, how certain things throw me into adrenaline supreme and before you know it i'm completely off the wall...but then...how many hours have i slept since yesterday? let's see...i had 16 hours of sleep last night...after having taken a 5 hour nap...

yeah, ok, cool. but i know why i'm so tired and why i was so tired before gdc and i'm getting sick of hospitals...the deja vu i got when crossing the bridge over university to the north side building...the elevator up to the 5th floor...just below the floor where i never want to spend another minute on...but i will if it helps someone...even if it gets me into trouble later...

i just wonder why they keep taking more blood from me AFTER they tell me that i'm getting more anemic? i mean call me crazy but isn't there a better way to check out whatever they are checking this time?

Ok, just an update/summary of GDC...here are the Game Accessibility SIG award winners for GDC06!

Most Dramatic Arrival: Richard and Sander for their groundbreaking performance in an "oops, the airline has us going to San Jose, COSTA RICA!!!!!" documentary

Most Dramatic Departure: Michelle for her time-bending performance in "somehow ending up in Illinois later than Giannis did in Greece" short film

Most "Braveheart" Moment: "The Right to Fun!" (a.k.a. Thursday afternoon's roundtable) -- screenplay written by Michelle; performance by Sander

Most Likely to Secretly be a Canadian Mounty: Kevin for his cross-border fighting scenes with our neighbors to the north.

Most Likely to Have the Most Embarrassing photo of Michelle: Giannis in "Watch Michelle ineptly tie Jonathan's hands behind his back during the accessibility arcade demo during the tutorial"

Best Argument: Michelle and Richard in "Kill PDF" parts one (Wednesday morning's roundtable) and two (Thursday afternoon's roundtable) where it was fortunate no one took out their plastic swords that some company was giving out at the expo.

Best Legal Secrets: Tom in "Whoa, there's a $10k Tax Credit in the US for Accessibility???"

Most Likely to Need Immediate Legal Counsel: All, the Complete GDC Ensemble Cast

Best Night to "See and be Seen": Thursday evening; Level 99 party, CMU party, Fairmont Lobby

Worst Possible Time for a Social Event for the SIG: Friday, 9am

Best Impromptu Musical Written Right After the Friday, 9am SIG Social Event: "Coffee: A Love Story"

Best Mod Despite what the Judges Thought: Reid for Doom3[cc]

Best Game Despite what the Judges Thought: Eric for Strange Attractors

Best Scholarship Winner: Robert

Best Improv Performance during a Question and Answer Session at an Overpacked Session: (Tie) Michelle for "Experimental Game Design: The Nobel Peace Prize" and Reid for "The Game Studies Download: Top Ten Research Findings"

Most Likely to be in a Future Documentary Film about WiFi in Africa: Goran

Most Brilliant Thing Said in the Last Five Minutes: All; the Complete GDC Ensemble Cast

Scariest Street Chase Scene Aided by an IPod: Sander in "The Return of Running Man"

Best Use of Corn Husks: Mo and Kasey in "The Voodoo Doll Adventures"

Most Stories about Teaching Lectures: Kevin for "Project Symbols: An Exercise in Embarrassing Sleeping Students"

Most Likely to Have Packets of Honey on Hand: Kasey

Most Likely to Consume Packets of Honey: Reid

Most Likely to Confuse Packets of Honey with Mustard: Richard and Sander

Best "Transformers" Imitation: Robert in "Muscle Stretch: The Musical"

Worst Costume Choice: Michelle in "Wow, was this pink scarf that has been choking me all day a mistake or what?"

Most Photogenic while Sleeping in the Lobby of the Saint Claire Hotel: Thomas in "Rip Van Winkle Returns"

Best Panic Attack Scene Caused by Airlines: Michelle in "Oh my God...is anyone going to be in San Jose in time for the Tutorial?"

Best Translation of a Ridiculous Phrase in Greek that Michelle Somehow Knew: Giannis in "Look, a shooting star"

Best Translation of a Non-Existent Dutch Phrase: Richard and Sander in "Slechte Stukje"

And...

This year's Best Picture Award Goes to....[drumroll]...

"Unidentified Woman in an, uh, Interesting Pose Whose Picture was Taped to a Parking Meter with a Windows Mobile Sticker"

i know i haven't been back for even half a day yet but i can't help but feel disconnected to my life here...i.e., my real life versus conference life. it'll take a few days, without a doubt. i'm sad to not be hanging around my friends anymore and i'm tired beyond belief and i'm really hungry right now too...i think it's the redeye combined with time shifts and me running on hyper adrenaline in the last week.

tons of laundry to be done and cleaning and writing and emailing and figuring out what the fuck is going on with 99000 things and then there's the doctor tomorrow and i think i'd better go to bed soon...

oh yeah, i decided to learn dutch because c told me today that i just wasn't meant to learn a foreign language after hearing me try to pronounce slecht stukje and knowing how great i am already at speaking german...haha.

ok...you know those spams that you get which include a whole bunch of random words so it can try to get past the spam blockers? anyway, i think we (i) should start collecting the accidental poetry of spam: vertigo, vicious
a spare part
stake honor roll
there was organization
a categorical sleuth
awakening mulch
purchaser, cabaret, impeach,
a regal of close-up rapture
brought tantalizing
the wedding hilarious
executioner as doorway
thrive the disaster people
the playoff arable
control tower
surgeon muddled
emigrant social studies
painstakingly sordid sellout
farm, a statutory end zone
a mute corruption
altruistic, fidgety, negotiable
girl scout rally
crack lantern first lady
pelvic as imperialism
affiliated, harelip mortgage
in a sweatshirt hungrily
a coagulation
doggedlyok, maybe not...

i'm so achy and tired yet i keep blogging because there's so much to say but then i get tired and just publish a post that's as random as hell (as usual)...i guess to sum up the gdc, i'd say that for the sig, it was as successful as we could have hoped. and, yeah, we were bold and gutsy and pushy and sometimes we annoyed each other too but we were all doing it because we're for the same cause but we also have our own groups we're responsible for and that always gets in the way...the things like rules and professional and seriousness that often keep us bouncing back and forth and fighting for time and plying people with our own sets of business cards and trying to keep up with enormous stacks we've received from others...and i both hate and love the lobbying game...i hate it because it removes the human in us...i love it because at least it is some sort of interaction with mass amounts of people...but i love the informal silly moments better...i enjoy when we can sit back and relax and remind each other that there's more to us than the labels we hide behind, we promote, we affiliate with...there must be, right?

throwing rocks at boys

throwing rocks at boys
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

kasey and mo went to the children's museum in san jose and made me a corn husk voodoo doll to drop kick whenever or light on fire for the next guy who said something completely clueless to me and it reminded me of this poster i saw in austria...maybe i will just throw rocks at the doll?

and it was hard to believe it when i saw the working girls parade through the fairmont lobby and marcos is taking pictures of the drunk me having a crazy fun time and i wonder how much i would charge if i were in their shoes? as sleepless would say...their backgrounds might not be all that different from mine...

probaby prague

probaby prague
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

shady blurred street on a wet night in eastern europe before we return on the closely watched train and this complex life and we're all damaged somewhat, aren't we? and that's why i hide, isn't it? that's why i run from those moments of light because i'm afraid that the compass is spinning out of control because no one will tell me where north is so i end up in reno and it leads to another spin of the compass...and i end up fearing lost and run to another temporary signpost...and run and run and run.

haven't had a dream in a long time...see, the life i've had...can make a good grrl bad...so for once in my life...let me get what i want...lord knows, it would be the first time...

stuck in san jose because my eyes were swollen shut and still mostly are and i'm stuck on the phone with expedia trying to get out of this city...and now it seems that i'm on a red-eye to atlanta then to indy where chris will pick me up in the morning and i need antibiotics for my eyes but i'm NOT going to an er and i can't find a saturday clinic that's open so i'm just going to sleep more...and hope for the best and i'm realizing that i'm so super broke it's unbelieveable as i get more emails about more stuff i need to put up the cash for and...i guess it will all get worked out somehow.

and i woke up having had dreams crossed with nightmares and realizing thatcaroline laughs and
it's raining all day
she loves to be one of the girls
she lives in the place
in the side of our lives
where nothing is
ever put straight
she turns herself round
and she smiles and she says
'this is it'

'that's the end of the joke'
and loses herself
in her dreaming and sleep
and her lovers walk
through in their coatspretty in pink, aren't i?

hair in the light, in the night breeze and i find myself looking back and seeing and i wonder sometimes why life is filled with random accidents we'd never seen coming and i really ought to turn the lights out, close the laptop...sleep and maybe in my dreams things will become more clear as to why i've been an emotional wreck since i returned to the room but i know and yet i don't...and everything is unclear and everything is about those brief flashes of brilliant light that remind us of all the past encounters with brilliance where you sit and wonder for maybe the rest of your life...that shooting star...

but i know better now even though i spend my life shooting from the hip...but i know better and isn't it funny how it was ten years ago, back when i first found voice or thought i did...but really? him sitting on green street a few years past and i never found reason enough to go back and disturb the dust and so i turn to t.s. eliot to tell me a love song about love...life...random flashes of brilliant lights that tell us it's time...time present and time past
are both perhaps present in time future
and time future contained in time past.
if all time is eternally present
all time is unredeemable.
what might have been is an abstraction
remaining a perpetual possibility
only in a world of speculation.
what might have been and what has been
point to one end, which is always present.
footfalls echo in the memory
down the passage which we did not take
towards the door we never opened
into the rose-garden. my words echo
thus, in your mind.
but to what purpose
disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
i do not know.i do not know.

the d sets in now that we are done...people are starting to leave...and the rest of us will leave tomorrow...and then we don't see each other again until who knows when...so we've been working so hard and now that's that. it's like post-project depression or something...something. and then realizing how much further we have to go and how far...how?

no, i'm not 24/7 as goth as you think when you read this blog and i've learned a lot about myself...when to stand and scream, when to let go and just have fun and celebrate a great accomplishment and laugh...and that maybe my outward front is more connected to me than i think, maybe when i laugh, when i yell and kick and scream rather than curling up in a ball under the table...maybe that's me too?

kasey and mo, my students, left this morning and i worry that maybe i left a bad impression on them last night when i was letting off steam or maybe i didn't teach them enough about industry or i don't know...i'm a guilt tripper, you know? i worry that i haven't been a good enough mentor for robert because i feel so tired today and that i feel the pain of being human and i don't want to go back, i do, i do want to go back home but i don't want to start the next series of treatments at the hospital, i don't want to deal...but i will...i remember that i always somehow do deal.

so now i'm done packing and i'll wipe the rest of the tears away and just save the rest until the morning after...

last day of the gdc and i'm meeting with our publisher in 30 minutes and i feel sooooo exhausted from this week and i think i need a thousand days to recoup.

i can hardly type...nintendo booth...they have an internet cafe...??? on the show floor?

ugh. this makes no fucking sense

prague

prague
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

a bench somewhere in prague...and c & i sit laughing but the shot could suggest distance between us but i think that we just don't want to share the joke with you...or maybe the fact that we are both introverts, although who would believe that i'm an introvert...i swear that that damn myers-briggs test always has me as an infp *i never find perfection*

disappointing awards show this year just cause it was sooooo long...but more disappointing because neither reid nor eric won their categories. i was particularly ticked off that reid didn't win his because his competition was so fucking obnoxious...christ. i met them earlier in the day while looking for reid and of course i got totally harassed by their colleague *g-spot* (i believe the quote of the day was "yeah i own it and i can hit it"...riiiiiiight) and then the rest of them looking for their "booth babe" dates they were going to "grab" for the show (yeahhhhh...riiiiiight) and i was like, omg, this fucking world sucks.

and the dutch boys (richard and sander who call this my goth blog), who i couldn't find tonight but then again i was in so much pain by the end of the show that all kasey, mo and i could do was eat and crash, didn't have to witness any of the sexist slurs i was the target of today but thank god they were there yesterday or i might have either punched someone or curled up in the fetal position for hours. and i just didn't want to deal with anymore men calling me a piece of ass again tonight...and i called chris this morning and i miss him terribly and i wish he were here because he knows, he knows me so well and he knows how that sexist crap tears me up inside, glass churning. and he knows that me that people don't see when they meet me...that me that comes with breaking down all those barriers...

so my dad is still emailing me about the "procedure" i get to undergo monday when i get back at 8am...it's just so fucked up that he doesn't want me to do it because, fuck, all the signs are there...the c has returned and i've gotta deal with it. and i think this week i've been trying to live a year in each day and all the memories come flooding back and old friends have returned and some are gone...here...but gone. what can you do? just keep going and try not to look back so much i guess. but as i told the doctor...i feel very serene about it this time and he asked me why that was and i don't really know, i still don't know...maybe it just doesn't scare me any more?

riiiiiight.

my feet are covered with blisters but that's the gdc for ya. stayed up too late drinking and talking and woke up too early in order to give presentation #2.

but it seems that i won an award for mvp for the igda for my work in the last year and i totally wasn't expecting that! i didn't even know that there was an award. but now i do and i have it. they totally tricked me by telling me that i was supposed to give an annual report on the sig so that i had to go. too funny. and also pretty damn cool.

a logan's run remake in the works, holy hell, that cannot be a good idea and i heard this from the bbc guy and i must remember why i stopped running and then i hear about films about main characters with dicks as noses and i'm like what the fuck is that all about???

tired...surprised to see sleepless standing in front of me as i chatted with the omnious guys during the lunch break and i stormed into the ms tutorial and shouted hey losers and marcos gave me a big hug and then john told me oh yeah, btw, you guys took all our power for your tutorial and said that i was on the outs until i returned it so i said, yeah, yeah, you'll get it back at 6 is that cool? and i had too many drinks today but it's the first heavy drinking day so i should be fine in the morning and i got a deja vu in one all day where i knew, yes, this is an amalgam of all those past and the mercury level's toxic for sure but i've taken so much poison in this life that who could know what anything could do at this point but i'm older now...and games...are just that.

would i really be a booth babe if i were at e3?

Dallas airport

dallas airport

oh my fucking god this cell phone camera sucks and also i look like hell after 4 hours of sleep and too much time at airports...

mother fucking god i hate the illini women's tennis team and men's golf team for fucking up my flight schedule but the good thing is that c and i got to spend another day together and then spent the evening laminating everything in my apartment...not really, just the 9000 things i have to bring to gdc and right now i'm sitting on the floor of the dallas airport that apparently has tmobile connect and i'm like, oh yeah, duh...i *do* have that. so here i am blogging en route to san jose waiting for them to change the fucking departure sign to san jose from kansas city and i think that other gamer peeps are starting to represent here in dallas and i'll be finishing my presentation on the plane but what else is new there?

chip asked why four presentations and it's really one GIANT presentation and then three discussions and then a LOT of chatting and standing and drinking and chatting and standing and drinking...getting a few hours of sleep...then drinking coffee and chatting and standing and drinking. well, kinda. yeah, it's industry...what can you do?

shit. did they just do a gate change?

it can be a sad life sometimes...if you decide to live it, stick it through. it was hard today to not give too much away, to say that i was scared too, and that i have no idea why it has to be this way.

mr jones was just a little too funky today and i spent the day not doing, avoiding...remembering that i needed to bring the irb revision back and hand it to the autocrat...and then i checked my email while waiting for four hours for no one to show and i saw that they had tried to call my mobile, i saw that they needed to get in touch with me and something was wrong, something was very wrong and it was under my social security number and not my university id because i'm in the old system but i try to be new, i try to stay new...

and i didn't really have anything to say tonight, anything that i wanted to say.

but it's back. and i missed the signs. and i want to shout at the moon and scream out in anger and pain and throw and break things and i saw her pass by in the hall and i think "do you know? do you even know?" and i think of the tests and the money and the gowns i've worn far more recently than the type with caps and tassels...and i think, yeah, how exactly am i still losing weight? and i stay up, i yell about yelling, and let people make giant messes and i think that i won't die trying...trying...not finishing.

and i walk back to the car. and i come home and he's asleep and i knew it was getting late...but i didn't want to think anymore. me. all day. don't think, avoid. and the call...back to the call...and they said before they knew for sure, i needed more tests.

because there's always more tests. even when i'm waiting for other tests to arrive that show up late. and i wonder how much longer i have? at some point i'll have the final in my hands...

yes, it's women's history month too, but march is also national colorectal cancer awareness month, which IS NOT just a man's disease...it's about 50/50 for men and women. so one of my daily guilty pleasures is reading salon's since you asked column and that's where i was reminded of my own appointment tomorrow afternoon for general pre-screening. yeah, this is super fun topic to think about and talk about but, you know? we have to get over it and start and keep talking about it. because this shit's* serious.

* yeah, i DID put that pun in intentionally. i admit it. i'm guilty. whatcha gonna do? fire me?

so dana reeve died this week of lung cancer and i can't help but think, god damn, what the FUCK is going on in this world? i just can't help but feel like there's nothing we can do but just hang on as best as we can and hope we're somehow helping.

and that's all she wrote.

wow. you know i never watch desperate housewives. i've never watched a single episode. why? who knows. i never watched sex in the city either. same kind of show in my mind. ok ok no, i can't say that for sure since, as i said, i never watched them. they just leave me with the same disinterested feeling in my mind. i also never watched friends and i've never seen an episode of the oc or american idol.

there. there you have it. i'm not the media whore you might think i am. but...all that being said, desperate housewives star teri hatcher's coming forward with her story of sexual abuse has absolutely amazed me. i don't give a shit about what negative crap people have to say about "oh she's attention seeking" or whatnot. christ. people get a grip. that is one fucking brave thing she did. i don't care who she is or is not. to face the truth? to tell the truth for the whole world to hear? that's fucking brave.

'nuf said.

vitamin v which means that i'm blasted out of my mind right now and i'm tired and in way too much pain and chris and i got into a fight about it because when the pain hits, i am literally not capable of figuring out what level the pain is at -- vicodin, demerol, or morphine? so i go into shut down mode and i can't figure out what i need to do to help myself and that's when i hurt without meaning to hurt while screaming, curled up into a ball and it amazes me that pain killers can cause other parts of you to hurt and i can't believe it's been two hours and the pain is already breaking through again and i wish that there were any options left.

my head is killing me.

hey, cool...yes bunkadoo i still have the death doll. :)

not much to say today other than i refuse to leave my apartment because it's unofficials today. and i'm trying to make compass do things it doesn't seem to what to do but i'll figure it out. stupid ass technology.

ok so i didn't quite finish my results section draft or my methods section. but i came to realize where i was going into "stupidland" in my methods section and rambling on about stats that had nothing really to do with my study and how exactly this whole breakdowns and focus shifts thing is working out. i mean it's a start...but bodker seemed to have quantification more on the brain...i think. i need to reread that but the book is in my office at wimse. ugh. my brain feels paralyzed some days.

statues along the charles bridge, prague
originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

give me my romeo; and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.*

moon observations...so you might be thinking "what EXACTLY am i on" to be writing a blog post about the moon but it's for the inquiry-based learning course i'm auditing with my thesis chair, chip...and it seems that the moon has gone missing right now...but i found it years ago on the eve of the czech republic becoming a part of the eu when i was wandering around the city being an internationalist...

inspired by suzhen's answer/question about where the moon lies in our hearts...i took a little diversion myself:ground control to major tom
ground control to major tom
take your protein pills and put your helmet onevery morning i wake up and take my regimented pill allotment in order to stay on this planet and avoid the mania and the extreme lows as best as i can...better living through chemistry, they say...or do they? it took years and years before i gave brave new world a try and now i wonder if i'll ever truely be free of it. one side of my brain tells me that it's no different than a diabetic and their insulin. but then i remember the insulin shock treatments that they used to give to patients in asylums and i'm amazed that we're all still around...and i wonder what things they'll be looking back at in 50 years when they figure out that we're all, now, doing things all wrong? the evolution of the science of medicine...when are our inquiries possibly harmful and how can we ever know?ground control to major tom
commencing countdown, engines on
check ignition and may god’s love be with youthe inquiry into god...where exactly do we go after this place...me, raised without religion, and i wonder how one could ever choose a relgion when they weren't raised in one...not so much if we can change religions but more of the idea that religion...is.ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, lift-offthis is ground control to major tom
you’ve really made the grade
and the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dareit's been suggested that there was more to bowie's story than space exploration (the song was first released in 1969 to coincide with man's landing on the moon), that maybe it had a little more to do with his addiction to drugs around that time than space itself.

and i always remember that guy -- and there's always that one guy (or girl) -- who went into rehab right after his dissertation defense for his addiction to heroin that started when he began grad school and i wonder how similar these other drugs that i take to stay grounded really are when the pharmacist looks at me and says "oh, the usual, eh?" heroin, after all, was once used as cough syrup...this is major tom to ground control
i’m stepping through the door
and i’m floating in a most peculiar way
and the stars look very different todayi worried and i worry how much all of these things effect (or do i mean affect?) me...i wondered and i wonder how much i've changed and there are some days that i think i'm more in touch with my mood shifts than i was before the stabilizers entered the picture and i think that maybe it's freed me to take more challenges and walk around countries where the languages look mostly like pictures and i miss those conversations with complete strangers on a train, looking at a map...inquiring into what is different and why that might be...and admitting to others that my inquiry goes on and goes on in some very humbling ways...i.e., googling toilet+"how to use"+taiwan...but then i find strange comfort in how others broadcast their own inquiries into the more humbling things in lifefor here
am I sitting in a tin can
far above the world
planet earth is blue
and there’s nothing i can doand i know that even if i spent the next 500 hours sitting with a resident in the hospital that there still might be nothing i can do...and then i remember the conversation the other day that had me wondering why the other knew so much about the way to die and i wondered why i knew why she was correct...the inquiry into death and dying, the hallmark of the depressed and recovering depressives, the kind of sick club that somehow tells us that maybe we aren't alone and maybe we should stick around and see where things take us...to change and be changed...though i’m past one hundred thousand miles
i’m feeling very still
and i think my spaceship knows which way to go
tell my wife i love her very much (she knows!)
ground control to major tom
your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
can you hear me, major tom?
can you hear me, major tom?
can you hear me, major tom?
can you hear....
we miss hearing the one's closest to us and sometimes we think we hear the voices of the one's who have moved on and i wonder if they see the moon that we can't find right now and i wonder so many things about why i can't talk about the deeper inquiries about the painful things with the ones closest to me but i find voice on this blog...but to what audience? some i know, some i'm close with...but the ones i write to don't see this and i think what if they did? would they understand? would they?here
am i floating round my tin can
far above the moon
planet earth is blue
and there's nothing I can dobowie's -- who was influenced by and an influence to german musicians -- song "space oddity"*** eventually spawned a remake by german peter schilling suggesting that maybe major tom wasn't really lost in space...but was instead...home...and maybe that's where we come from before this life...and where we go after...my god...it's full of stars...** romeo and juliet, william shakespeare
*** 2001/2010, arthur c. clarke
*** lyrics of david bowie's space oddity

lol. i was looking for the ibl wiki and i found chip's blog entry about his desire for an intervention for his internationalist ways (i.e., a return to america1 rather than the america2 he first came back to).

anyway, there's a discussion about the moon going on and whether or not we can see it right now...so i'll look for it out on the balcony later tonight...

dissertation time...yet another conference opp that didn't apply to me because i've done my dissertation completely backwards...oh well.

i really do understand what my wimses say about the dorm food with a caveat...to me it does taste ok...but i know all about the monotony of it all. i mean we were all there at some point and i remember when we found out that the virginia government had prioritized things so that the jails got better food than the universities and i remember chrissan and kellie and kate and i going to owens because they at least always had hamburgers and we fooled ourselves into thinking that if we doctored them enough with all kinds of crap that they would somehow taste somewhat normal...and i laugh when i see the girls in the dorm doctoring their cereal with ice cream or putting a ton of bbq sauce on potatoes or eating nothing but tortilla chips and cheese or mixing sodas together...and i think, damn, it's a good thing they have things like late night these days because maybe that cuts down on all the pizza ordering but maybe it doesn't, i don't know, but late night seems to be ui's equivalent of owens back at tech...so i think that the pizza ordering is probably unchanged over the generation switch...especially now that you can order cookies for delivery...but they'll never have the calzones from backstreets that we had...

wow. it's been years.

up late...yeah, listening to the dissertation mix again and trying to code "unexpected findings" in the four transcripts i've gotten back so far. while i was searching for that inquiry circle after looking more carefully at the exchanges between one of my dyads, i found a wiki space that chip started on writing the dissertation. at first i thought oh, is how they talk to one another in this game environment inquiry with a big 'I'? or can there be shorter, small 'i' inquiries...and is the inquiry cycle really what i should be looking for in my transcripts? i mean i *could* go through and code each transcript based on frequency counts of the inquiry circle...or maybe look how different parts of inquiry circle and see how the circle isn't so clean...maybe looking like chains of a sort where one inquiry begins, a different inquiry begins, the first inquiry ends, then the second inquiry ends, thus showing the interleved learning throughout...but that's "too clean" and real life...do we really pass through these formal parts of inquiry in everything we do? lol...ok, i'm now picturing showing my committee this mob of circles all over the place and needing a wide screen tv and so maybe i should have my defense in the lobby of the seibel center at the big ass tv across from the cafe. maybe that's not quite the right analysis i want to go with...

anyway, dammit chip...i now see what you mean about the dissertation as inquiry process though...it's my fucking inquiry that's driving this thing. oy. we're in for a bumpy ride.

it's unofficials time again (yeah, that's a link to last year's memorable account) and i'm glad that i don't have another friday class this year, lol. will i partake? nah...it's more for the young and i've already lived that scene with different backdrops and storylines. as i always tell all my girls, just be careful, ok? that always seems to get a surprise reaction from them and then i realize, oh yeah...i'm old. :) but, yeah, hell yeah...i can promise you this...i was once young(er) and i have stories and stories that i could tell you for a whole year and still not cover the half of it.

chris was right, steve was right, jesse was right...it IS fucking hilarious looking back to last year...now! the main problem was that they forgot and left a few sober people in the class who went straight to the dean...and me dealing with administrative shit is never an endearing thing...

watching the documentary common threads: stories from the quilt again and i remember that, oh yeah, that was my adolescence and i remember all the finger pointing, the ignorance, the fear, the sub in my 8th grade french class who showed us a movie about aids in haiti and it was 1984...1984. me, living in dc, where politicians...ignored...ignored...denied? and i graduated to the quilt...only to move on to knowing too many friends who would be dead, sooner than later...and my mom telling me in the kitchen what happened to that neighbor kid and part of me still doesn't want to believe it because of marvin, because of others...and i wonder if that was supposed to make me feel better...because it doesn't, it still doesn't. there was nothing anyone could do, she said, because he'd already died and...

two people die in separate car accidents. one was your friend and one fucked up your brain and some say both were sinners but that can't be right, that can't be. and i remember marvin telling me after one of my many oh-so-traumatic breakups...if i were straight, i'd marry you in a heartbeat. and i remember driving around in his beat up piece of shit car after rehearsal, after class, after bitching at bk for hours and we'd yell "what the fuck" out the window, toward the drillfield and us laughing about holly's hair catching on fire at that party, the one that jay was at and we realized what the deal was and paul and i going to formals and debbie weirded out by everyone in her life changing and it would have been more fun if marvin had been there...

years later, years later, in the attic finding out about it all and i remember he was the only one becki confided in, back in those days when we were weak but thinking we were strong and i remember her telling me in that grand sitting room at that impossibly posh virginia resort about his husband dying...and i tried to call...i did call...and we were supposed to meet up but he never showed and later i learned that he...

yeah, that's it, that's the end of that story.

it's still the 25th, huh? damn it's almost march and i'm having panic attacks right and left over the big d. i mean i want to work on it but then sometimes i freeze in my tracks, or i fuck with my dissertation itunes playlist, or i get short tempered because it's the end of the day and i'm exhausted, or...i drink enough starbucks doubleshots to get all of wimse on a caffiene overload...

this shouldn't be this hard, right? yeah, that doesn't keep me from wanting to choke the independent coder/transcriber for fucking around with my data since AUGUST when she said that it'd be done before december...and now it's almost the end of february...and she's completed four of the sixteen. at least i have four but dammit...she hasn't done a single competitive dyad and i'm trying to work on my results...

and that's just another fucking excuse. annoying, yes. especially since it's costing me a zillion dollars to hire her out and last time i checked i was working four jobs to pay all my bills. but again...i focus on that shit and then go into shut down mode. and it's like the other ta said when we were huddled in the parking lot...when everything in your brain is already spinning out of control, these things are like a stick poked into a moving bicycle wheel.

so i am going to finish my methods section part one because, please, why exactly am i putting this off? i guess because the data are already collected and something in my brain seems to think that i've already written it...or that it's moved on, i no longer find it amusing, and it must leave now [note: obscure snl deiter reference]. anyway i'm working on it right now, yeah, with another starbucks doubleshot at one side and the pile of homework assignments and quizzes that i need to grade on the other. and i'm listening to my ever-growing dissertation itunes mix...and feeling the high of the manic swing up because who knows when my monthly will actually occur after all that's happened lately...but the pre-period stuff is *supposedly* right around the corner.

and another one of my girls is having trouble in that area...god dammit...i can't solve this one and i'll i can do is identify and empathize...but at least i feel more effective in knowing this kind of advise...i just don't know if i'm useful when dealing with the borderliners...dr. b is right...it was about me, it was about me, it was about me. but why? why the fuck didn't he catch me in the middle of the storm...probably because i wouldn't have listened anyway...

thx neil blender

thx neil!
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

no i don't know who this is but it is one of many of my city stickers collections, this one also from helsinki...a very stickered city it seems.

but in order to further thank neil blender, and follow up on my inquiry on who the hell he is, i'm posting this latest sticker photo with a possibility of finding out who exactly i'm thanking.

i think neil would approve if he is the skateboarding neil blender that keeps coming up on google. and yes, that link is from fecalface.com...ok...

rofl. ok, i know i'm not the only one who watched the olympics last night and wondered, after seeing the possessed look on sasha cohen's face throughout her skate, damn...maybe she did make a pact with the devil or something. i mean she can make some scary-ass looking faces. a commenter at deadspin points out the dominatrix looking photos of her on her website. and, apparently, she said "rockstar" after the short skate instead of "fuck yeah." but it seems that pact with the devil didn't quite pan out...silver in the end.

[comment: no, i'm not REALLY suggesting she really is involved with satan...i'm just talking about the looks on her face before, during, and after the short skate.]

my eclectic mix of weirdness on my ipod is astonishing...to me at least. i keep adding songs to my "dissertation mix" which is becoming sort of a soundtrack of my life...yes, even kate bush from my moody grrrrl adolescent storm and stress (remember that term, psy 430-ers? hope so...it was question one on the exam you just took)...don't give up by kate bush and peter gabriel...that very well could be one of the top songs on my life soundtrack list. i remember telling lee years ago at that bar at the w hotel in new orleans that we definitely weren't cool enough to be at that kate bush got me through my teenage years and he laughed and said that at first he though "whaaaaaat?" but then he thought about it and...yeah. makes sense.

project new orleans didn't go over super well last night and i can see why people would be freaked about showing the levee system and the reminder of all the sadness...and i wonder...and maybe i'll bring this topic up at the next inquiry meeting/class/event...when is it too early to talk about sadness and pain? and how can we do that in a socially responsible way that doesn't project an air of well, jeeez...go figure that happened...we set ourselves up for the pain we get. maybe i didn't explain it very well...a link to the displaced...

i didn't understand new orleans until i was in grad school and then it seemed like i was in that city every minute for a conference or a sugar bowl...i feel like i need to take the pilgrimage again...to see it for what it is now, to see how it's trying, despirately to not give up and give in...i need to see new orleans rising up again...rise up...phoenix...rise...

from the warehouse district where we were that night and it merged into the afterparty and it merged into morning and coffee and a hurricaine and jealosy and seeing that part of myself that i can be when i'm through with stiffening up and waiting for the crash...and there i go...there i go around and round and i feel sick and you feel sick but it's all a part of it...greasy spoons and grenades and that damned river and the people staying, standing...we know we're battling impossible odds but that's just the way it is...round and round that restaurant...on the balcony telling that guy that he's doing it all wrong and you can see the ties disappearing...you can see them all taking a chance...for at least that one moment.

and then you come back. you remember where you are. and you, once again, stiffen up and wait for the accident to occur...because you know it will...and at that point you've forgotten everything that the city had to teach you.

Post exam at depresso

blurred cellphone cam shot of my laptop (with this very blog pulled up on screen) and my "i just gave an exam" coffee and brownie...at depresso, you know...the one on sixth and daniels where the moody people hang out, probably made moodier by all the suits from the adminstrative centers that surround us.

ok so my challenge for tonight...is write those five pages of results that i was supposed to bring to yesterday's meeting with chip when i was instead writing a manifesto on adolescent brain development and cognition...

will i succeed? stay tuned. because i'm supposed to answer you here. :|

let me love (helsinki)

let me love (helsinki)
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

one of the many random stickers i've found in cities around the world...which reminds me that i saw a sticker outside the cs building the other day, on a lamppost, that said "if george bush wasn't white, he'd be in jail by now." i need to keep my camera on me at all times. of course...now with mobile blogging...see, i have this camera thingee on the phone that i never remember to use...

i'm embarassed to admit to this but i have to have one of those pill counters so that i remember that, yes, i took the damn p/w/e this morning. sometimes it doesn't help...i still remember to take it much later than i should and i remember in the middle of that night calling c to bring me the bag because i was starting to get the shakes and i wonder if it's because i went past the halflife or if it had more to do with the fact that i was up for so many hours running on sugar and coffee and manic and full of panicked reaction, reacting...reacting.

chip had a good point this morning though. he often makes many good points and one of my earlist posts on this blog is in fact a quote that he wrote back in the very beginnings of this dissertation, uh, journey. ugh. that word "journey" was so boring but i could think of anything else at the moment. anyway, i guess we can call it a journey because it's had enough lost baggage found and rerouted flights and trains and misread directions and listening to people who i thought knew better but then i remember that i've never been very good listening to authority. even in those times where i find that i am the authority. especially those times. and i lie frozen in place and i can't get warm and i can't hide and i can't be found.

so anyway back to the topic...or a topic...i threw out my entire schedule yesterday except the faculty dinner last night -- which was actually quite useful for me surprisingly -- because i knew my students were going to flunk their exam on thursday if i didn't, yes, take a stand and do something to make sure that they knew the material that they needed to know...and so chip and i didn't meet. and i blew off my appt with dr b monday and last thursday...thursday because it was the beginning of the exam nightmare and i talked right through it...monday due to panic attacks. chip emails me back this morning with this:you're very good about caring for others. i would never want to see you change that. but you also need to remember to find time to work toward your own goals, and not let others wreck your schedule (more than occasionally!). remember that you're doing a lot for your students and wimse's when
you show them how to accomplish challenging tasks (like dissertations) and to stay happy doing it. you also have others (research directors, committee members, ...) who care very much for you and your work, so that what you accomplish serves them as well. yeah...i never thought about that bit about showing people how to accomplish challenging tasks in the midst of all the chaos all around us. and that may be the first time...actually it is the first time...since i came to this place where a faculty member, boss, supervisor, provost, whatever other titled people i've come into contact with at this university has said anything to me like "hey, btw, we do care for you." caring for me?

and that's it, isn't it, dr. b? all those years of accommodation...that's it, isn't it? i don't know how to be cared about. time to let go, huh?

The medication is wearing off...

the medication is wearing off...but i'm still fucking around with stupid technology shit...mobile blogging. see ya in san jose next month.

from a daily show repeat but absolutely hilarious (i think...). so harrison ford is talking about his new movie, whatever it's called, and john stewart asks him what he'll be doing on the night of the premiere: "i will be at home, under the covers, waiting to find out how much they hate me"i wake up saying that almost every day. :|

monitor your baby

monitor your baby
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

this is easily one of my favorite things from computex, the industry event in taipei that i snuck into after the cscl conference was over. it's nice that you can now game without worrying about having your kid in the same room?!? so, yeah, this is a tool for adding more of an "xbox live" feel to pc games...only the latest xbox live does not have this baby monitoring feature. i think i need to suggest this to my peeps over at the mothership.

ah...salon's broadsheet has an entry on the classic jake versus lloyd argument that we gen-xers have been having for years and years now. forget jake...too many years thinking that i'd find an inner lloyd in a jake one of these days resulting in finding too many losers...when what i really needed was a lloyd who'd meet me in the waiting room in the middle of the night, crying because he knew i couldn't take it any more but had to stay and see it through...and sometimes...and often...i wonder why? why he doesn't see the damaged goods that all the jakes in the world always saw when they tried to be lloyds...but you can't be what you aren't in your soul...and they'd disappear...almost as if they'd never existed...because they never did.

london bafta mask

london bafta mask
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

this is from the bafta's held around v-day two years ago in london when c took a chance and booked a flight to come with us and we've been living together ever since. i'd have to say, that was probably the best v-day ever...only the reason behind the trip was to get the fuck out of here and not so much about v-day.

oh yeah...it's vday...a hated day but i no longer hate it as much as i used to and c said that i was talking in my sleep last night and i wonder if i wasn't dreaming of 1992 and all the crap that usually crosses my mind this time of year. and i had 20 minutes to get ready and make it to lis by 9am and somehow i did and the day was fine and now i'm watching some law and order svu rerun because i'm bored with the olympics, and yes...even the ski-n-shoot has bored me, especially with our veep shooting people at random and i think maybe all the repubs will just go completely nuts and start shooting each other up...it would save money in the impeachment investigations...

ah right. cause that's gonna happen.

take the fucking quiz:
which american city are you?

seattle
your dark exterior masks a caffeine driven activism. you'll take up a cause and you'll get ugly to advance it.



go figure that i scored a "0" on dc...where i grew up. ah seattle. there's gotta be a way to get back without losing my soul completely, right?

these are mediocre times and people are losing hope. it's hard for many people to believe that there are extraordinary things inside themselves, as well as others. i hope you can keep an open mind... ["unbreakable"]a lot of things in this life just don't make any sense...like how trying to help someone ends up almost getting you fired and no matter what you do, you can still never know what's coming up right around the corner.

and yesterday he kept telling me, as a side note, that this is my issue, this is my issue, this is my issue...but how can you learn to trust the ones who fail constantly all around you everyday?

titles...this is the part of academia and the world that i really hate...what's your title. call me prof blank. call me ms lalala.

i've been back and forth on the whole thing. what if i decide to let everyone keep calling me "michelle" after i graduate? is that such a bad thing? i mean there's this weirdness with how close i've gotten to all my undergraduates -- in wimse, in the classes i teach -- that to suddenly say "oh, you'll now refer to me as dr. or prof." would seem disingenuous...is that the word i'm looking for? anyway, it's not that it's weird that i'm so close to so many undergrads...i mean that's the group i care for the most, that i do research on to help make life more gentle on...dr b says that i am the surrogate mother for so many...and maybe that's right in some ways. i'm not a mother replacement but i do think that there are times in which we need to reach out, be human, and not worry so much about this in loco parentis crap that the university wants to avoid at all costs. hey, let's be human...and while we're at it...call me michelle dammit. unless you're an ass. like, say, at the dos office or at the mck pharmacy...then i might say "uh, that's DOCTOR." because those are the people that i think need a reality check.

the statement that ranks amongst the top most bothersome things someone could say to me is "you don't seem depressed." and why is that exactly? i mean one might think that's a good thing...that i don't seem depressed because i'm so much better now.

but that's not how it is, not really. instead it sounds like this "oh you think you're depressed? yeah right." then it's not like it all just goes away...it's not like these things i take every day make everything ok and rosy and take away all the pain and shit in this world...it's not thorazine, folks.

then there are some days...i feel like it's not anything. like they aren't even working any more...and it's been 3.5 years now...maybe they aren't working any more? how long can these things last?

warning: bumpy road with nipple piercing ahead...

warning: bumpy road with nipple piercing ahead
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

road sign from tallinn, estonia and it's somewhere close to the old kgb headquarters in that town, which still stands...the sign on the building says that this is the site of the torture and execution of so many estonians and i when you walk the streets of eastern europe it's hard not to reflect on what things were like before...and it makes you wonder which country is like that now...and whose history is right?

so the latest "four things" list is going around and i've deleted a few categories because i just didn't feel like answering them or thinking about answering them.

four jobs i've had...

1. conference planner. a nightmare grad assistantship that required me to figure out who could make the best quality shrimp something-or-another for the best price
2. key cutter. i now have a strange fondness for the kw-1 key blank
3. window dresser. ok, maybe the dead flower and christmas tragedy scene was overkill...
4. technical whore. another in a series of deadend boring-ass assistantships that required me to monitor electronic gradebook software...

four movies i can watch over and over...

1. the fifth element
2. defending your life
3. good bye, lenin
4. monsoon wedding

four places i've lived...

1. a house i don't remember, washington, dc.
2. an apartment on 15th and republican in capitol hill, seattle.
3. a townhouse in blacksburg, virginia with four roommates, all of us in varying states of insanity.
4. a flat in a council district in london.

four tv shows i love...

1. frasier (i know...)
2. er (i know...)
3. dead like me (which is...dead)
4. the daily show

four places i've vacationed...

1. reykjavik, iceland
2. amsterdam, netherlands
3. taipei, taiwan
4. st. petersburg, russia

four places i would rather be right now...

1. seattle
2. prague
3. amsterdam
4. vienna

hours at the museum and i'm not sure what to do right now because part of me wants to go home and veg but then i know that i have 800k things to do and, oh yeah, finish that outline of the diss to send to chip tomorrow and mystery calls on my answering machine at work from some place i've never heard of but they need to talk to me now and i'm like wtf.

but i'm zoning now and i need to leave work or i'm never going to get any work done so how much sense does that make, huh?

i can't say that i'm particularly impressed with my lack of work this weekend. friday i was in a coma, too tired to think about anything. today? just tired and anxious and messing around with winding yarn and not doing the laundry and almost getting killed while driving to walgreens in the rain and in pain as some ass tries to pass the car in front of him/her by going through my car and then i go to the museum tomorrow and i'm just realizing that mid-march will be hear in no time so i've gotta stop taking days off...and isn't that sick?

the grocery series...

peppers
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

yeah, this is an oldie but a goodie and was the first us grocery shot i took after taking shots of groceries and chemists overseas...

and, yes, people look at you like you're crazy when you whip out a camera and start taking pix like crazy in the groceries ALL OVER THE WORLD. but there's nothing to worried about...especially if you are already crazy.

while i know it's friday at the same time it feels like some weird "sick day" or something. i definitely have been pushed and have pushed myself (whether i've been asked or not) over my limits...i guess "over" isn't the right term since i did get everything (well, except wimse coffee house...i totally forgot that while i was running around collecting surveys even though i had it on my schedule) that needed to get done, done.

but i find myself getting increasingly frustrated by "the little things" like, oh, late bills, the fact that i have no money, my student loan check is late and my network at home isn't working right and the power keeps going out, which means i keep having to reset everything every 3 hours...and, oh yeah, my phone's been cut off but i don't have a dime to pay the bill...and rent's due next week...i'd try to sell a kidney but, you know, maybe i'm not the best donor candidate given all the places i've travelled to and all the illnesses i've had.

and so in my adolescent psych class yesterday i was finally able to give a somewhat proper intro to our class, which has been insane due to fucking banner, the registration system and having about 15 more students than i'm being paid for (yes, dr. b, i did get the *balls* to demand a pay raise yesterday)...and i don't mind teaching a larger class, i'm not nervous or anything like that. but this is getting insane -- the students are paying more to come here and they are dropping ta positions and overloading our sections and THANK FUCKING GOD the university spent probably 800 million dollars to herald in the ron zook football era, especially since we pulled out a 2-8 record this fall (ok that was one of my RAs who pointed that out -- guess which one?). :)

but anyway back to the teaching of the class...so we talked about what is it about "18" that means we're "adults" -- are we still adolescents until we're 25? does everyone really feel that way at 18, that they are adults? it's a good question. i mean i definitely felt changed after moving out, going to undergrad, having to make all these decisions that, until then, i'd never really had to make. but i'm 35 now...and, believe me, the salary that i make...it's just not covering it. then again, where do i have to turn to? i have to figure it out every month. but, no, i'm not an adolescent...but i hope, given my work in the dorms, that i can keep understanding the powerful new life change that they are all going through and never become one of those people who thinks "oh...undergrads are SO irresponsible." well, come on...why wouldn't they be in some ways? i'm irresponsible sometimes, although i try not to be. i mean these kids are gonna slip up, problems that were hidden while they were in high school are going to unleash themselves, people will try to die while others will die without trying. so how can the university, etc say that "well, they are 18, they should know what they are doing." i mean come on...can any one of us say that in every instance in our lives we know what we're doing? no. because sometimes you've gotta learn the improv, to not tighten up when you think you're gonna crash, to admit mistakes but then try to make it right...to look out for each other because sooner or later someone will need to look after us.

the main problem is how to be real and genuine in my diss writing...when the closest to real is my psycho ramblings on this thing and in the bookcase full of old journals i've filled out over all those years. but chip had a good idea today, to post what my dissertation writing schedule is on here so that you all can hold me accountable...

so the task for monday is to take the pile of insanity that goes on for 200+ pages and figure out a chatty extended outline of the shape of the whole fucking thing, not just the beginning...but the whole story. and i mean THIS next monday...the 30th. so look for my update about that then...and feel free to say "go team" or "fuck off" or "tonight's soup is clam chowder" or whatever you want in the comments area.

cloud gate, millennium park, chicago

cloud gate, millennium park, chicago
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

the bean, they say, and this was taken last winter when c and i went to chicago and my students laughed last week when i said that chicago was a stranger to me and that c-u was what i knew of illinois and how has it been so many years since i last moved and i've noticed myself checking travel sites several times a day wondering if i should go to iceland for a third time since it's on sale now...

prozac 20mg

prozac 20mg
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

it's a brave new world and i remember saying that to l&m about the salon personals at that thai restaurant in the "new town" that's appeared in the dc 'burbs that used to be wasteland but is now littered with swank storefronts and i haven't decided how i feel yet about the town i grew up in looking different and more distant every time i return and i told c that it was like i never grew up here at all, that the dc i knew now only exists in my mind that's been cluttered for years now with the wares of eli lilly and other beasts...and all things go...all things go.

years ago...

depressed in las vegas
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

on the floor of a room at the bellagio hotel...so depressed i wonder if my heart might stop in my sleep, maybe hoping it would so that i wouldn't have to drag myself out of it...something about nevada...the lost people...

so, yeah, a new template for a new year. i mean it's almost the 5 year anniversary of this thing so what the hell. also the comments thing now works but you have to log on to leave comments so i don't get 956 viagra and house refinancing ads an hour on my blog.

ipod and laptop on and i'm trying to power through all this nasty crap i have to do and i hate hate hate all the administrative shit you have to do when the semester starts. i'm getting faster at it though...basically by locking myself in my freezing office and just getting it done.

what else to do tonight? well, after the 9th survey administration in trelease (3 more to go...) i then have to complete an irb amendment and write a draft of my e3 proposal...figure out where the fuck i put the info about the amsterdam conference...and, what the hell, maybe i'll have time for a little dissertation work? maybe...i have a meeting with chip on tuesday so i'd better sit my ass down and get the rework done on my document.

and, oh yeah, i have to break up with my old thesis chair.

so a switch of captain's after yesterday and i'm wondering why i hung on so long, waiting and hoping that something would change...and now i guess i was just sick of it so i finally did something about it. so chip's in charge now and the planets have aligned it seems.

and now an opportunity out of nowhere has come about where i'll be helping the displaced new orleanians in an online massively multiplayer world and who knows why that's entered the scheme of things but, hey, cool...and it matches up with my dissertation topic...so how can i say no?

2006. thank fucking god.

hmm...it seems like it's always the end of month when i remember that i haven't made a posting in forever...or at least in a month. just got through watching goodbye lenin for the 90th time and i remember getting into an argument the first time i saw it, saying yes the mother WAS looking at her son and had realized what he had done the whole friggin' time...and i remember the weird pride from the same person about etre et avoir who missed the whole point of the whole thing...arguing in the streets of london, arguing or shaking my head in disbelief...

chris gets here tomorrow afternoon and then.

and then i don't know.

but anyway, i've started realizing how cyclical my dissertation cycle is and it's mind boggling and how much else in my life is that way exactly and can i line it all up and see? and if i did and if it was...how do i start to end it? nameless and faceless, who am i?

the semester is over and i'm going to dc tomorrow via detroit and chris will join me there on the 28th...then we'll fly back on the 2nd. ah holidays. seems more calm so far than it has been over the last few years. so far.

tired.

ok, too few posts lately, i know. i'm not sure where the time has been going. no, scratch that. i know. i think i'm finally getting out of the funk of the week before thanksgiving when everything seemed so random and out of control and i didn't know if i had the strength to do what was right...which drove me madder than i already am, trying to figure out if i had the strength to not fall, not fail, and end up doing what was just easy...just pass things off.

but who else would have been there? i don't know if i was the best person, given my penchant for dark humor during desperate times...i do it to help myself through it, to try not to break down...but i don't know if it's the best course of action for everyone else exactly...

as dr b said earlier in the week...we're smart people...but we aren't perfect people. and, damn, i was far, far from perfect during the time we were figuring out what exactly that t-shirt would say as the original shift came back to work, assaulted by memories of everything i've been through in this life...and i was there to protect my charges as best as i could, protect them from some of the insanity of spending time in hospitals, without trying to hide the reality of, the severity of the situation in a whole showboat down denial river...not just in egypt, you know...

so tomorrow's my writing day at my secret writing cove, which really isn't that secret as in a "stealth location where no one could find me" but it pretty good. i feel like bursting into tears over it, especially when i see a dissertation from some other place that looks like, wow, someone really had a committee that worked with them and encouraged them and, fuck, does this look like a portfolio? where are the research questions, the methods, etc. it's just 6 papers all jammed together and i think...just like i have thought 100000000 BILLION TIMES already...this place, this illinois...this was NOT THE RIGHT PLACE FOR ME. obviously people are out there in the world, doing the things i want to do but are at places that dare to let people out of the boxes and walls of "correct" academic writing.

i had a chance. for a little while. to do an electronic deposit. but that was all during seattle-gate...back when it seemed quite possible that i was just about finished. it doesn't matter. this is a different story i tell right now. nothing's quite the same.

so i surrendered the last piece of evidence i had that said i was not from here at the dmv after taking the state's written exam (i passed...90%...no sweat) and the lady at the counter asked me how i liked illinois and i said it was alright and she flipped through my passport and said, oh, you've been all over the place...and, yeah, now? i'm living here.

it was vidodin time earlier in the week and to top it all off i got a head cold to add to the cramps so i've been in a very weird and snippy mood all week and it's c's bday on sunday and i need to order the cake still. and click. click. click. smile. and click.

and nano starts tuesday -- should i do it again? should i view it as the time to just get a shitload of writing done? it's hard not to view everything as completely imploding right now and, yeah, the world's gone mad and i ask "when, exactly, will i need to take a rollercoaster coast to coast? have rollercoasters suddenly become a viable means of transportation?"

so yesterday a motely crew of 9 wimse-iers came with me to the children's museum and it was a lot of fun. most (all?) had never really walked around downtown so that was cool to visit a few places there with them...and laugh at honorary reo speedwagon way...it *is* really funny.

i'm really tired today and i'm sick of this weather. i just can't get motivated to give much of a crap about my *wardrobe* choices when it's in the 90s. i should never live in the deep south. ever.

and speaking of, i read on salon.com yesterday a story about a former playboy club bunny from the early 70s who spent a decade in new orleans and it was actually quite good. the city, as it was all those summers ago, is gone. i hope that they can rebuild but it's hard to hear about the destruction and to now envisage all the places i knew and loved being treated as *storage houses* for the displaced...no one should be treated the way they were treated, not in this so-called rich country of ours...their inhumane treatment in those early days after the hurricaine is only worsened by the heartbreak of hearing about separations from their pets...i can't even watch...

me, walking around with vrboy and sleepless and others after drinking way too much on the quarter...scenesters at underground afterparties...back in our young days...the steam and the sin and the spying off the balconies...jazz and drink...and tellers on the square and she told me it'd all work out and it wasn't until last night that it dawned on me...that maybe it has and it's spooky the way it all worked out...when i'd forgotten that part of the dream...

at kopi downtown this afternoon and i wonder if i have any dignity left at all these days and i started crying, sitting at the table while the counter girls made fun of the midlife crisis outside asking for bread crumbs to encourage the birds...crying because i overheard a guy at a table talking to two people who didn't know each other or him and he says "i'm just starting my graduate school career" and nonono never use that word, never use that word career because you just might end up as me, sitting at a table at a coffee shop with tears in your eyes as you think about your failing career and all the years and you think about leaving.

but to not move forward...would mean losing everything i've built up. but moving forward...may mean having to leave everything i have now.

to get to the core, i must dig deeply and trust the man behind the curtain with the very thing that will make him leave...or me leave...because i won't need...

because everyone leaves.
even me.
eventually.

not sure what's going on so far today...it's l's wedding day and i'm not sure what the "game plan" is...i'm supposed to get my hair pulled and tugged into place in about an hour and a half...

lost in the same music from before combined with the music from then and i'm forming my dissertation soundtrack music and i think that i need to rip down everything down from my walls before i go insane.

it could...it could be franky. or glasses or contacts. or it could be. it could be frank.

what the hell am i about now? hives out of the blue today and i imagine that it's from too much going on at the exact same time...and i have a strange feeling of...of what? of what?

benedryl?

so i was so enraged by the salon article ncramping my style by lynn harris (a.k.a breakupgirl) that i wrote the following letter to salon:I've been a Salon Premium member for many years now and this
is the first time I've felt really insulted by an article --
and it happens to be in my new "favorite" column "object
lust." While I'm glad that the author has found a solution
to her menstrual cramps by using portable heating pads,
there are many of us out there who have cramps so bad that
it lands us in the emergency room getting rough reactions
from ER staffers: "aw, your period is too much for you? try
having 'real' pain and then come back and see us."

Too many articles such as this one suggest that menstrual
pain is just a heating pad away from complete comfort. I,
unfortunately, suffer from endometriosis, which causes
debilitating cramps every month resulting in my having to
completely schedule my entire life around my period -- one
week out of every month I become a pain filled, completely
useless human being. To give an example of the level of
pain, consider having abdominal surgery without anesthesia
and then you are coming pretty close to understanding what
I'm talking about.

While I agree that a heating pad, if it works, is better
than "handfuls of advil," there are many of us out there for
whom this kind of advice ends up slapping us in the face and
makes our fight that much harder as it results in confirming
the old "oh, it's just in your head" myth of menstrual pain.
After having had surgery, referrals to every kind of doctor
under the sun, and trying every option on the market outside
of a hysterectomy (which I don't want to have but things are
looking grim these days) my doctor can't even look me in the
eye as she says "there's no solution for people like you and
I'm so sorry."

Salon -- please be careful when you print flip articles that
act as if menstrual pain was nothing but a little bit
of "hysteria" for "poor, weak women who can't handle a
little pain."now let's see if they put it online...

note: this post is also posted at my weekly donationcoder column

the technology of periods...

yep. this week's column is about bleeding. the bleeding that comes every month for those of us grrrrls who aren't pregnant, children, post menopausal, or have some other sort of reason why they don't get their periods. my boyfriend's sister called last week when my period was just starting and i said "oh, you know, it's that 'lucky' time of the month." and she said "well, depending on your point of view, it is 'lucky'." and while i know what she meant...i wouldn't mind if this whole monthly business just went away...

yeah, it could. i could have a radical surgery that takes all my female inside parts away for good and submit to years of hormonal treatments, worrying about my bones breaking, mood swings (like i don't already have a hard time handling those as is), etc. i could also get a shot of lupron that would put me into menopause without the surgery bit...and risk migraines galore, more mood swings (more on this in a future column)...and no way to reverse the shot, left with just "waiting it out" which is not such a keen option. i could also take the pill continously like all these lovely commercials promise and "be free" of my period, only having it once every few months...which i have tried, only to instead get my period every single day and turn suicidal. then, finally, the depo provera shots that promise to work better than the continuously pill taking but brings with it that 3 months of "could be" hell.

oh poor me. what? am i worried that i can't wear white pants every day (as if)? oh no. brace yourself boys. this is a lesson for you all to learn, and learn well. for some of us? our periods are hell on earth. imagine having your "male parts" ripped off you, slowly, without any anesthesia while being knifed continuously in the stomach and back. that's the only equivalent i can think of to describe the complete hell that i go through, like clockwork, every month.

as i write this...a commercial for a birth control pill has just come on tv. oh why do they torment me with options that aren't open to me? see? i'm between a rock and a hard place -- if i take the pill, i risk getting tia's, which are better known as pre-strokes of a sort. yes, i'm one of those people who has those "warning signs" when they take the pill.

this morning i read this new "object lust" column in salon.com about these 'magical' heating pads that you put on your abdomin and, according to the author, has been such a miracle that she no longer needs to take advil. halle-fucking-lujah. i mean that's great for her. but if a heating pad can substitute for taking some advil? she has no problem with cramps. me? i'm in the er for shots of demerol, looking like a drug addict because i'm so insane from pain. my doctor last month? just folded her hands into her lap and, not looking in my eyes, just simply said "there's really nothing we can do for people like you."

yes, this column has a point. i'm one of those unlucky grrrls who have endometriosis -- this thing that causes insane, insane pain that comes with limited options with regard to what to do with the pain. wow. so thanks to a complete fuck up of nature, i'm stuck with having to run my life around my period because when those days come? i'm useless. i'm threatening to jump off of the tops of buildings just to get away from the pain.

i've tried to come up with new ways of thinking about my period. humor always works, right? like these tampons called dittie that have "empowering messages" on the wrapper. unfortunately my pain is so bad that i can't stand to have a tampon in most months. i appreciate the gesture and more power to them for going up against the tampax and playtex monopolies. i did buy some just to support them and on the off chance that one month i can stand using tampons and can, therefore, use them.

then mouser pointed out a funny little link yesterday, which sounds completely disgusting, but did make me laugh a lot. seems that earth-friendly types are now making their own washable menstrual pads. yeah. i just can't picture it. although maybe it will be featured in a future art piece of mine...

ok. that's enough for now, boys. thanks for reading. if you've read this far.

one of these days i'll get around to coming up with a new template for this thing but not right now...too much to do. it's cece's bday today and steve's bday tomorrow and, ugh, i don't even want to think about our collective ages...we don't, after all, look a day over 87.

listening to music that i downloaded onto my iTunes and remembering, slightly nostagically i might add, writing my master's thesis, uh, a long fucking time ago while listening to cds i'd put into my cd-rom drive in my old powermac and thinking that it was pretty cool and, god, those were the days...you know, back when burning your own cd still seemed like a crazy and exotic idea...back when videostores still had a pretty good selection of vhs tapes to rent? before the dvd craze?

i'm actually citing (or trying to get away with citing) this blog in my dissertation. an entry from the old microsoft days...back when this whole crazy idea came to life...back before everything turned to black? me, laughing hysterically earlier in the day, on the therapist's couch...thinking about how exactly to describe my dissertation, the evolution of the idea, the review of the idea...how i could go into insane detail..."dear diary, today i can't lift myself off the ground so i'm going to just lie here in the fetal position for, maybe, the next week or so. then i'll see how i feel."

it's nearly 2am and here i am on my desktop computer, trying to hammer out a few paragraphs, some explanation about how the fuck i came up with this dissertation idea and feeling too scared to sleep right now, feeling too tired to really make any sense of anything anymore...too sick of arguing over nothing, yelling about how either they are the devil or i am...either or. if it's not them...then it must be me.

7/7 is the new 9/11 and this world is so fucked up and it's hard to know how to feel...my head's spinning and i feel that helplessness i felt years back -- has it really been that long -- when all those candles lit up the night in seattle...the stillness, the...blankness? if only i had confidence in any government on this earth...if only i had confidence that we really could stop all this killing...on all sides...if only, if only, if only...

and i don't care for the game of golf, thanks.

this is a copy of this week's blog column at donationcoder

curious about life after death? this is what happens when you die:From: __________ <____@_____> Add To Address Book
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: Wednesday July 6th: SPECIAL EVENT!
To: <______>

It is with great sorrow and sadness that we report to you that ______, the head of the ______, passed away on the morning of July 5, 2005. The family has asked that any communication be directed to the _______ at ______. Thank you."out of office"? damn. that's a hell of a way to find out that someone you know just died...

fuck cancer.

so this week's blog entry is dedicated to those who have "moved on" in the more perminent sense...in this life, anyway. the email that got "autoreplied" to me started me thinking about what IS the best way to tell people via email or any other electronic means that the person they just emailed...just died. certainly "out of office" just doesn't seem to be the right way to do things. i mean, wow, what if i had called? what would the equivalent be? a recording of some sort telling me "the person you are trying to reach has been disconnected" before patching me over to voicemail?

ok, i'm sorry if this sounds callous in any way. i don't mean it to be. the thing is, my friend is the latest in a whole bunch of friends to, uh, get cancer and die. so all i know at this point is sarcastic humor that serves as my defense mechanism for dealing with shit like this. i mean there are articles all over the internet on how to notify family and friends about death (example one, example two). the thing is? they say do not call, tell them in person. but now what do we do in this age of "autoreply"?

i googled death notification via email. i came up with this page written by someone who recieved an email about the death of an internet friend who they'd never met in person. is the pain any less great? looking further, i found this article on the baltimore city paper's website called ghosts in the machines: what happens to your online self when you die? in that article there's a link to died online which "will be back shortly" apparently. did they, too, die online? then another called my last email - "preparing today for tomorrow" - also not currently active. who knows if these companies will be back online. i suspect that during there first run attempts, some things went very, very wrong. i can't imagine that creating an automatic death notification system is any less, uh, troubling than setting up an "out of office autoreply."

i certainly don't have any answers as to how to handle death in this so-called "information age." all i know? the whole death thing just sucks.

american cancer society

bye my friend.

it's 3000 million degrees in the city but the good news is that i finally found makeup that matches my paler than pale skin. there are all these products with "double white" and "pale freshness" in the title and that's a little nutty but cool for me. meanwhile pepperage farm cookies are everywhere and i guess that's the big import snack for them from the us.

an earthquake -- 6.0 -- was last night and it's the most popular talk at the conference -- everyone has a popular earthquake story to tell.

onward to chicago then taipei in the morning and i'm sure people will be getting postcards as a way of hearing from me for the first time this year and now i'm heading to asia for the first time with pre-made cards to hand to taxi drivers to tell them where to drive me to and god an 18 hour flight (including a touch down in tokyo) ahead what do you do on a plane for nearly a day hopefully i'll have an aisle seat or i may have to tell the person in the aisle seat that if they dont get up they'll throw a blood clot and die and meanwhile i still haven't said anything about the j.o.b. but maybe i'll go get some kind of enlightenment in taiwan you never know you never know, right?

from the e3 website: as a precautionary measure, bomb dogs will be on-site.

shit.

bright lights, sad city

vegas strip, the traffic at night...i need to go where the night has no end because it seems that the sun burns more and more lately...

you know what? i think they've found the blog. i mean one week and complete silence...makes me wonder...

so some ex-people in my life have been spotted on the scene calling themselves "artists" and it's ab-so-fucking-lutely pissing me off. so you once used the word "photograph" in conversation and now you're an artist. so you once walked into a gallery to use the bathroom? artist! you knew someone once who had a sister who had a friend who played the cello? artist! i am so sick of these pomo shitheads making the scene and it makes me want to scream in their faces...that is if i could stand seeing them face to face...i mean, fuck. so, ok, if i ran around saying i was the queen of england, i'd be locked up in a second. how 'bout these fuckers? KARMA POLICE! AFTER THEM!

depressed in las vegas

almost translucent, stuck in las vegas. so depressed that i wonder if my heart might stop in my sleep, maybe hoping it would...lost, confused...lying still, staring up at the ground for what seemed like years...what ended up being years...i'd find you a month later...i'd be ready to find you a month after that...i'm glad you were still on board...

chicago's cloud gate

c and i took a trip to see the lights festival along michigan avenue last november. one night we walked through millennium park...this picture is of the weirdly cool cloud gate.

more of my pix...

posting and posting and posting on flickr and i'll soon be posting more pictures on my blog but i'm too wired and weird and winded to do any of that right now and my contacts hurt my eyes and i'm trying to lose all that thyroid weight before the conference in taipei and sometimes i really have to ask myself why the fuck i get myself into these situations in the first place?

i'm trying to find some peace in this world that right now doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. i'm angry at how bureaucracy creeps in to people's sense of humanity...fuck...to the point that they just become unthinking and unfeeling machines and i can't tell you how many times "ok computer" has marched through my brain today. people fear that there will be a time where computers become too human. but fuck, something's gotta act human, right? i mean it's fucking women's month and all i am getting is women pushing away from the situation...HELLO WTF WHAT IF THIS WAS YOUR DAUGHTER????

in the dorm, last night, slices of humanity in those who are younger...and i want to hug them all and tell them that they are worthwhile, that they are doing good jobs, and to never stop caring, never stop thinking, never stop.

as long as the sky exists
and as long as there are sentient beings
may I remain to help
relieve them of all their pain

(shantideva)

i'm a gdc star. lol.

no surprise here but i have to say this anyway, that the world fucking sucks some days...without a doubt. i mean how can someone with as much shit on their record as our secret friend keep getting passed forward, into my turf, again and again and again. our secret friend is one of those sociopath types who sends a chill down your spine every time you have to interact with them. and you feel that you've failed because they are still there. you beat yourself up, feeling like javert did in not understanding that people can change. but unlike valjean...the secret friend is out there to do harm. the secret friend is evil in its purest form. the secret friend is a sociopath and the game is not turning out in humanity's favor.