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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

but before i forget...

holy fucking god it's august.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

wkrp is life. life is wkrp.

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

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

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

holy fucking god it's june.