that snoring noise is coming through the wall

i know i've been missing. not only from the internet but some people i know, like all my friends in san francisco, might point out that i have been missing from the real world too. it's messed. i'm sorry. i have some explaining to do and that explaining involves a lot of protesting about what a jerk i am and how much i love you. because i am and i do! the thing is, it's going to get worse (i mean i will be LESS available, if that is even possible) before it gets better. this is only partially due to my current desire to live in a tent and speak only in sign language. only a little bit.

other things are happening. i got a new job. it's weird when you get a new job and you have a blog because you don't want to get like DISCOVERED WRITING ABOUT WORK and stuff. so i won't tell you where it is, if that helps, only that i am actually a temp doing membership related things for the coolest news outlet on my street. you can figure it out. i'm a temp but a temp who works full time. this was one of the jobs i applied for when my other job ran out of money. now they have money. not tons though. for the rest of the summer i can get paid to work like 40 hours total. also the money they got me for may isn't showing up until the end of june so basically i am completely 100% broke. and i have an unread message from one of my student loans. i am pretty glad i finally got a credit card.

i am going to the east coast next week for the rest of june. i imagine this will test the limits of that credit card.

calm down. i am an american. it's finally time to act like one. plus the cash flow will resume in 2 weeks anyway. and this isn't the hypothetical cash flow like the river flow in spring is hypothetical. i have worked hours and filled out time sheets. i will get paid.

yeah so that's the other thing. massive hiatus from sf. my new job not only doesn't mind, they are on FURLOUGH just as soon as i get back and pete and i are (hopefully) going to go on an insane california camping adventure. it will involve fishing and swimming in rivers and fires. the other things, i don't know yet.

you know how i haven't been calling you? well it could be worse. yesterday i told a very good friend of mine that he couldn't stay at my place next week. part of the time i'll be gone but one night is my last night before i leave. i mean, this is a good friend and his brother who i totally like. but i'm leaving for two weeks! the apartment and i need some alone time. i'm turning into one of those adults with boundaries. sorry about that.

other things: i was in sonoma last weekend. we camped, met some crazy dude, almost got arrested first by a very overzealous park ranger at the state park (and i LOVE park rangers usually) and second by a police officer back in the city who just got bored with us when he realized we were sober and white.

it's june so the weather here is straight up awful. i came home on my lunch break and went for a run. i think i will have to do this every day or else i will lose my mind. i'm realizing though i have to work. i have to fund my future mexican farm somehow.

what i a saying is: i love you. but don't expect to see me again until the later part of july unless you are my cousin and if you are her, expect to see me very very soon. this is going to be amazing.

important list of items

1. the house is relatively clean.
2. i went running this morning but not very far.
3. carnivale is this weekend meaning i can't move pete's truck or there will never be a new spot to park and also tomorrow a big parade will be staged right outside our building.
4. i hope it gets sunny for the big parade.
5. the parade means it's a year since pete moved here. neither of us is dead. how amazing.
6. pete's coming home today from his trip so i will have a real person to talk to again. not that i don't love the internet but it's just cool when conversations go two ways.
7. i am making raspberry scones but i put way too many raspberries in and they look kind of like brains.
8. yesterday i talked to my friend robin on the phone for a long time. we haven't properly spoken in like 3 years. the weird part is that it totally doesn't matter. we have been friends since fourth grade and i think it's safe to assume we will basically be friends forever.
9. you know what is awesome? summer. i am so so glad i decided to wait one more year to graduate. i really like feeling good about decisions.

okay. to the scones. i wonder if they taste like brains.

i need to be better

i tried to go for a run this morning. i put on my running clothes. my shoes. my earphones. i went about two blocks before i realized that i was shaking from the excedrin i took to get rid of the headache i woke up with which i think i can safely attribute to the whiskey and beer i drank last night in the name of america and also finishing my comp project. or the headache could have come from the connect four i played in a bar with my friend dave. or it could have come from the delicious philly cheese steak i ate before the connect four, after the whiskey, with one of the beers. though i doubt that part.

what i'm saying is turns out i got a little bit drunk last night and woke up with a hangover and so when i went for my run i realized that i hate running (i don't but you know how you have realizations sometimes that are wrong?) and what i really wanted was a gatorade and some of the crazy looking tacos the lady was selling to construction workers out of her folding metal grocery carrier.

see picture. it happened.

i suppose it is possible the tacos contain cat meat since cats are always disappearing in this neighborhood and a language barrier and intense hunger stopped me from asking what was in them, but i don't care. they were a amazing. and right outside my front door.

drinking can be fun sometimes. if you, for example, just finished the most loathsome project you have done in graduate school for the most loathsome class you have had in ages. why don't people say loathsome more? in conversations?

but the problem with drinking for me is a) i talk way too much--like 2 beers and i will tell you my life story which i am not sure dave needed to hear and b) since i have been 26 it doesn't take much to give me a hangover. like i wasn't crazy drunk at all last night. i was just a LITTLE drunk. and when i woke up i wanted to cry because it felt like there was a porcupine rolling around in my skull behind my eyeballs.

i plan on punishing myself for my overindulgence, more than i have with the porcupine head, by actually doing the laundry and washing the dishes and cleaning up the house a little bit because it is freaking baghdad in here and pete is coming home tomorrow. unless he stays in mexico for life in which case i am taking his truck.

purple gatorade is delicious. i am so glad i am done with school for the summer.

bigger stronger better

what you are seeing here is me about to get serious. two pages left on my paper. syllabus to fix up. i have a smoothie. a wooden table. an outlet for my computer. day off from work. coldplay. i am expecting to finally feel the sense of relief people are always going on about when i turn this stuff in on the internet by 6:55 pm tonight. i'm still a little sick so i might have to tone down my complete insane rage all night plans with my friend dave. maybe we can just sip whiskey and talk about politics and the transgender youth i watched an entire series about yesterday in the desperate throes of procrastination. okay. seriously. the end. to the worthless exercise in futility!

tao fight

(i'm putting up these pictures of me so you can feel like i am telling you this. very loudly. into your eyeballs.)

i think i am trying to try to be in the present moment but it is hard. for one thing, I AM STILL SICK. yeah okay it's only been like 4 days and two members of my family have recently had shingles for over a month but give me a break. i'm bored of this. i want to ride my bike across the bridge. or at the very least go running. but i can't. because i want to get better faster. i know how badly these things can go if you don't rest. for a good example of this see soccer season 1999 when i was the jv team captain and refused to sit out for even one single minute of one single game and as a result had bronchitis for approx 3 months.

i do not want bronchitis. especially not for 3 months. i have shit to do and very little health insurance.

which brings me to this question: though i am not yet at the hacking cough stage, i feel that it might be coming on. would it be ethical to hit up the health center for codeine cough syrup now? before it happens? codeine cough syrup could really enhance my life. in general and especially if i start coughing.

in my compulsive communication via the internet i have been facebook statusing re:my paper and how my teacher is going to hate it. funnily enough a lot of non school friends have commented telling me to suck it up and just write a paper that my teacher will like even though i won't like it. one old family friend even implied that writing a paper for myself was, and this is a quote, "called masturbation". (i would like to point out the gentleman who wrote that on my facebook wall is a friend of my PARENTS.) two things about all that: 1. at this point my main goal is to just finish the paper. i think finishing and following the basic requirements, and they are basic, should get me a b. if not, then i will get a c i guess. which has really never ever happened to me so why not? and 2. i think this motivational problem might stem from my inability to delay pleasure, something i was reading about in the new yorker this week. i am impatient and apparently this has fucked my whole life. i probably would be at yale law school right now (do they have a law school?) if i wasn't so god damned able to convince myself to SEIZE THE MOMENT BECAUSE IT MAY BE THE LAST ONE AVAILABLE and eat cup cakes or ride my bike or play scrabble online or skateboard to the embarcadero instead of researching and writing papers in an intelligent and thorough way. though i have one small problem with the idea that pleasure delayers of this type have better lives. so what if i was driven to work hard so one day i could be a huge, thin, wealthy success? those people work like all fucking day. they aren't that happy. their kids hate them. they aren't late for a book arts meeting.

whatever. i'm pretty glad i am who i am. if i was a lawyer who knows what would happen. if i were rich i would just buy an island.

holy shit pete come back from mexico. the pilot light on the water heater is out again and i am beginning to mutter to myself in the kitchen.

the department of health and mental hygiene

I'm getting shit done! for example, i woke up feeling a lot less like a sleepy train wreck. i even washed my hair:

then i sort of picked up my room and gathered all my comp pieces of paper in one place. these things happen in steps. then i went to lunch at burma superstar with my boss and my intern. burma superstar, if you don't know, is one of those super hip places you can't actually ever get into. except for lunch on tuesday. then it isn't really a big problem. now i am at the coffee shop by my house that caters to well-paid 30-somethings looking for fiancees. here is where i plan to finish writing my paper. they are open til 8. shit is about to get real:


i think it is funny that rarely in my life have i written a paper specifically for a grade but now that i am in a class that spent a lot of time discussing how to get students to look past grades and get involved with writing, all i want is a b and i couldn't be less interested in the actual writing. this is very meta. maybe i can turn in this blog as the paper? it's time to turn on my music. super loud. next semester i am just writing stories and doing art. deal with it comp department.

blood spatter

see that that i am holding? it's the postcard for our book. it will blow your mind. if you want me to send you one, give me your address. i have approximately 200.

this is the most blogging i have done in ages. here is why: 1) i have a paper i am supposed to write. it, along with many other things, is due thursday. i need to do those things. i really don't want to. 2) pete is out of town and i like to COMMUNICATE A LOT. i mean, talk and talk and talk about nothing nothing nothing. also i don't like to leave the couch. 3) i am still sick. my nose is running and i am drinking tea and laying on the couch. there is no one directly next to me to feel sorry for me so i figure if i send the information out to the internet, someone somewhere might feel a twinge of sympathy. not that they should. my life is amazing. for example, i eat three meals a day and no one is shooting at me or bombing my school and i don't have aids.

i discovered today that if you tell the save the children people that you have swine flu, they laugh and let you walk by without making you feel guilty.

at least the weather got worse. i was planning on writing my paper today. i really was. but i still feel sick and worthless. i wonder if i am just manifesting this illness to avoid writing this paper. is after the semester ends too late to drop a class? i have never in my whole life procrastinated like i am procrastinating now. it's just, comp seems so irrelevant, especially next to our apocalypse book. and my trip to the east coast. and the pig slaughtering clinic next month.

new, unrelated, topic: i've been getting harassed a lot lately. saturday evening some mildly creepy dude in a white truck with a blue tooth followed me like 4 blocks, trying to get me to tell him where i lived. and then there was the bay to breakers clown plus all the random other drunk dudes yelling at me (i especially liked the guy who seemed to be appreciating my costume, though i was clearly not wearing a costume) and some random middle aged guy who just yelled "baby" at me when i walked by him on the way to the bus stop today. some of it is funny. some of it is nice in that sick fucked up way, like girls are supposed to feel good that someone (who cares who, how drunk, how homeless, as long as they are a dude) is noticing us. but following a person a bunch of blocks in your truck is messed up. there is nothing hot about that. i mean, i was ready to call the police if he hadn't disappeared. plus he was wearing a blue tooth. give me a break.

there isn't much i feel as mixed about as getting yelled at by dudes on the street. i i know girls are meant to feel so flattered by it. i mean, after all the best way for strangers to judge our worth is to figure out how they feel about how we look, right? for baby-making purposes? so i guess when some dude makes it clear that he would like to immediately make babies with you ON THE SPOT or in the nearest doorway, you have to feel like you are finally worth something. clearly though not many girls want to be thought of as receptacles for indiscriminate doses of baby ingredients. and there is a big difference in the friendly "i like the way you look"-type comment and the truck following or the aggressive drunk comments re: your ass. i guess if we are talking in ancient man, cave-dweller terms (which let's be honest, WE ALWAYS ARE) that this is the difference between saying: "you seem like a nice person i would like to maybe bone more than once and have babies with and give meat to" and "i will now rape you and move on to the next village, leaving you only with a growing fetus and many many bruises on your thighs".

i'm talking ancient people here. this is my understanding anyway.

anyway, as i write this i realize i could probably put my writing energy into a paper instead of analysis of the behavior of guys on the street. i think i am going to blow my nose now and forget this ever happened so i can eat almonds and chocolate chips and watch netflix in relative peace.

i could also go for a nap right now.