bang bang smash smash

shark attack!

2010-07-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

i'm kind of tired because last night i got a ferocious shark inked on to my skin making it sort of difficult for me to sleep. was it worth it? is it weird that i got such a tough tattoo? i think the answer to both questions is yes. i don't know what the deal with me and tattoos is. like i don't identify myself as a tattoo-type person but i currently have four and one of the those (the heart oregon on my chest) is extremely visible. in fact, i realized just the other day that last week i went to the eugene country club in a strapless dress with my tattoo in full view of my grandma. there was a time when it was a major goal in my life to hide tattoos from that grandma and now i guess i don't even think of it until a week after the fact. oh well. my body, my choice.

i think that is what i like about tattoos kind of, besides the pain. they are something you do to yourself. they are like reminders. attractive scars (or in the case of the shark, scary scars). i do like the pain, in a weird way. the shark wasn't so painful though. it took awhile shading it but jade was there with me most of the time and the tattoo guy is pretty awesome and hilarious and spent the entire time making fun of me. i like that. i have a problem.

otherwise...i went to yoga yesterday at lunch and no one else showed up so i got my own private yoga class. i am sort of in love with yoga. it's like church or therapy except with exercise and i don't have to make any commitments. i just go when i want. no pressure.

if i am afraid of commitments then why did i get a new tattoo and why am i sad my boyfriend moved away? i guess things are more complicated than one or the other option.

oh man. my leg hurts when i walk and i am tired. yesterday i tried to intersperse actual work with my law and order habit. i was mildly successful so today i will try again. also, don't cry about the ink situation if you are my mom. at least it isn't on my face, right?

where the grown-ups go to get grown-up

2010-07-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

there are some definite benefits to having my bff since fourth grade living with me. see above cake. why did we make this cake? was one of our, you know, GIRLFRIENDS, getting married so we were throwing a hilarious tongue-in-cheek bacholerette party? absolutely not. that hasn't happened in years. i said, "do you want to make this cake?" jade said, "yes." i said "should we use this decoration stuff that marisa left?" once again jade said, "yes." she's so positive! and of course one thing led to the next thing and true art was born in the kitchen. no alcohol was involved, i swear, unless you count the kombucha i got from the convenience store, which as we all know is now the biggest threat to teens since god invented wine coolers. kombucha, not convenience stores. though those are dangerous too. plus we made a mixed-cd to play scrabble to. because jade loves scrabble! i am beginning to regret not forcing her to become my permanent roommate.

also i am planning on getting paid tomorrow and i have a long list of investments i want to make: my own sonicare toothbrush, velvet paintings for the living room, a blazer, one or two extension cords, groceries.

i went to yoga after work but i was feeling irrationally happy even BEFORE that. weird. i don't think i am experiencing the stages of grief. more like the stages of insanity.

rate yourself

2010-07-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

i'm eating a burrito left over from last night and it is my lunch break. you know how totally amazing it is that i get to come home for lunch every single day?! so so amazing. apparently my mom and dad watched the bachelorette last night at my grandma's and were so appalled they are about to stage an intervention on me. i could hear it in their voices. they would be more understanding if i was into methamphetamine. i tried to explain that we watch the show IRONICALLY but my dad still called it "toxic sludge". i don't disagree with him. but at the end my mom said, "well, i like frank" and so i know that even my parents, whose main experience of pop culture comes from canadian talk radio, are not impervious to the ludicrous mind-control powers of producers in abc's reality television department.

anyway. i'm still glad to be home where i can do whatever i want, including listen to the same song on repeat, play my keyboard, whatever, anything.

side note-i would recommend not paying for internet at the ferry terminal in seattle because i am pretty sure someone stole my credit card info through some nefarious means while i was there. in fact, they might have done anything with my stuff. they definitely stole my card info but they also logged in as me on the same internet service. besides cancel my card and the account with that wireless service what should i do? and why is this the second time in one week that my info has been stolen? is this the beginning of a lifetime trial of some asshole in seattle using my name to do whatever he/she wants? hey person, please don't. i don't have any money anyway and all your charges get caught and i am also secretly a superhero who will find you and steal YOUR identity. so steal car stereos or something but stay away from my name. geeze louise.

little lion

2010-07-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

don't take this the wrong way people of the pacific northwest, but i have never been so happy to get home. new temporary roommate who also happens to be my best friend since fourth grade, new episode of the bachelorette to snark at with people i like, my bed, my pillow, my living room, my bathroom. i think i am an adult and this is my house. weird. also i am teaching myself "don't stop believing" on my keyboard so i can impress myself when i start feeling bad about myself. i think i am going to buy velvet paintings to decorate my living room since the art was removed by the artist. this is my new theme song, by the way, credit due to my bro of course because he is the one who knows the music.

what can i say? the end speaks to me. i am sure jade has heard it enough times for one day. i mean, one five minute period. oh home, i missed you. i never want to not have my own home again. i am going to need to formulate a plan about this. but first: my own shower!

life is a razor blade

2010-07-11T11:11:00.001-07:00

as i was lying on the backseat of my parents' car, riding from yachats to eugene listening to emo music on my new ipod, it occurred to me that i should have hired a film crew because the last three weeks of my life are really ripe for a mumblecore movie, a real late-20's emotional/life crisis/return home/sort of shabby outdoor scenes running out the window, scenes with drinking at a bar with friends from high school, talking, walking around portland, scenes with drinking and talking to my cousin on her back porch, sleeping on different couches, family fourth of july celebration on the coast, fog. definitely crying. now i am just waiting for some sort of climactic moment of realization or at least a blow-up. i need to like walk out on something, through the woods. or maybe just ride the train and gaze out the window. i am getting on a train tomorrow morning at 5:30 am to get to portland to take a plane back home. maybe that is the end of the movie? just unlocking my door at home and going into my room and getting into my bed? i think the movie would start with sobbing in bed or else sobbing in the elevator.

maybe the world cup will be a theme. there will be other themes as well. and a lot of those shots with sunlight washing things out.

well the world cup final is on. let me try to make some meaning and i will get back to you.

fine fine super fine

2010-07-07T19:22:00.001-07:00

this is an old old picture that was on my parents' computer called "lizzytiger". i was hoping it was me AS a tiger, an artist's rendering of sorts. oh well.

i realized today how many things i never really liked until i moved to san francisco. for example: yoga and mexican food. here in pa, a lovely town, don't get me wrong, i am once again experiencing the cut-rate versions of these things that i imagine the rest of the america has to deal with on a regular basis. other things i never really liked before moving to sf: weather, bike shorts, vegan food, ocean swimming.

shoot, my mom made cocktails. i'm out.

home

2010-07-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

i guess port angeles isn't really my home since my parents moved here well after i graduated from high school and the longest i've lived here was about three months a couple summers ago when i was a range ranger taking fees for the government. but now that the first place i ever lived without my family has been stripped of its home quality, at least temporarily, pa and my parents' house is the closest thing there is. plus it has my parents and even though i know i will be 28 in a few months there really aren't people i like more than them. they are nice to be around in fun times but also nice to be around when i am like this extended funeral of sadness and a law and order watching machine. they don't judge. they do give me books to read which i will read, maybe i should read now, about dealing with sadness.

i guess what has restarted the super-sad is a) i decided we couldn't talk anymore which is sort of pathetic and moot since mainly i was the one talking anyway and b) everywhere i go is somewhere that has NICE memories of the main problem. by the time i get home from this trip it will have been a month since the tragic move-out. if i was at home i would be getting my routine back together. already i have moved into the rest of the house, changed my sheets, done laundry, went grocery shopping. fourth of july is a temporary set back.

is it inappropriate to have a funeral for someone who isn't dead? like a missing in action situation? i think i was convincing myself this whole thing wasn't over and i guess in a way i still feel like that because how can a person you love who also loves you just disappear from your life except for war or dying? i watched the messenger last night with my parents and it just solidified this feeling that sometimes people lose other people in these tragic horrible fucking ways. this happens with wars and it happens with anytime someone you love dies and it is sad and afterwards there is a hole in your life that takes a long time to close up and probably never does. so why would you ever elect for this human-removal procedure? i can only assume you would if the other person wasn't someone you love but more like a disease. ergo, i either love a crazy person or i am a disease.

awesome how i said i wasn't going to write about this but now that is all i am doing. for some reason i tried to post a comment from yesterday and i don't think it worked so: thanks dogimo. you are the best even though i don't know you.

back to law and order. the end.

rainy rainy rainy

2010-07-04T16:10:00.001-07:00

so i wussed out of portland and voted myself home to my parents' house. i loved seeing all my friends and my bro and my cousin but in portland i just get this distinct feeling of being 22 which was sucky and so i am trying to get back into a better frame of mind. like the being 18 frame of mind when i used to have issues with the boy i was in love with and i would take the train from seattle home to oregon. this is the reverse trip. and i am kidding, i don't want to go back to being 18 and depressed and taking 3 years to get over it. or however many it was by the time i was in san francisco, being healthy, living my life. oh wait, that was like a year ago. shit.

anyway, i think i will watch law and order and wait for my ferry and just be glad i have a family and there is a bed with my name on it and the kitty we got in fourth grade is there, probably being weird, and then maybe i can get back into a nice 10 year old frame of mind. okay so when i was 10 my mom got cancer. but i was so care-free! maybe i need my cousin to come be my nanny again. regression therapy. get back to writing strange stories, riding my bike around the neighborhood, low-level inter-girl drama. hating boys.

i was still kind of cute in fourth grade. i guess it really went downhill in fifth. it was a haircut problem.

i'm tired. i can't wait to go to bed tonight. maybe take a bath. i am going to figure out a reasonable mourning period tomorrow and set myself a schedule to get over it. i know there are people who know what love is but i won't find them if i stay in the depths of despair. would reading anne of green gables help? the peace corps?

omg. is anyone even listening anymore? i would respect you if you weren't. i think i am at the journaling period right now. but i like putting things out in the universe too. this is real life people. book i won't reread: emily of new moon. that girl spends years waiting for her true love to return. mine picked another subject. no waiting allowed for me. i'm getting a new tattoo instead.

happy fourth of july!

backslide/rebound

2010-07-03T23:44:00.001-07:00

i can't sleep. i don't know why. i was so tired earlier. i think it is a mix of not going to bed last night until like 5 am and the over-stimulation and awesomeness of seeing so many people i love mixed with the bullshit i am going through on the no-longer-in-a-relationship status situation.

i am thinking very seriously of taking the train up to washington to stay with my parents for a few days. would that make me a complete wuss? probably. but i could use some nice parental love right now seeing as it sort of feels like my internal organs have been removed by a pack of wild dogs.

i came up with a plan just now which is: get a therapist. so many people have therapists and clearly i am doing something massively wrong to be feeling so completely worthless, especially when i am surrounded by friends. i hate these feelings. like all this stuff i believed in was a total lie. sucky fucking feelings. but at least i have a cool cousin here and a brother and his girlfriend and a bunch of friends. and my parents are north and i really think i will go to where they are tomorrow. fourth of july used to be my favorite holiday but it seems useless right now.

blah. blah blah blah. i am going to watch some law and order now on my computer and try to fall asleep to the wackiness of good guys winning and bad guys going to jail. possible life ideas: go full buddhist monk, return to africa, paint my bedroom walls, a bonfire, a craigslist free ad for a queen sized mattress and a ground cloth, outward bound, internet dating and moving to a farm and getting a flock of sheep and tending to them.

okay. happy birthday america. goodnight.

black or white

2010-07-01T20:05:00.001-07:00

i keep covering the left side of my face because, if you must know, it looks like some kind of war zone. i'm thinking of investing in a new camera when i am in the land-of-no-sales-tax so i can make this blog a LITTLE less centered around weird pictures of my weird face. it needs pictures though, okay? and i don't have a working camera or any other people who want their face on my blog all the time. so. next week. purchase camera with money i do not have. then: do not destroy camera, as i did two years ago LAST time i spent any time in oregon.

i should change the name of this blog to "baby steps".

sometimes i am convinced that all emotions are chemical. or that i have a "feelings" disorder. my family has completely nixed the bipolar idea and so i am coming up with new theories like that: "feelings" disorder.

for some reason i just started looking at old blog entries, old from a year ago, and have come to these conclusions: last year i was cuter, skinnier, happier and more mentally stimulated. this year though i have a book coming out, i am back in a more reality-based world, i have two retirement accounts and when i go on furlough next week, i'm getting paid. so hello being 27, it's time to grow the fuck up. and also: i'm not a complete failure, conventionally or otherwise.

okay, i know i was a little tormented back then too. and these last couple of months have been intense. bad things, semi-bad things, things i don't like happening. but i am sort of in control of my life right now, weirdly. the one problem is a missing boy but certain things you can't control. by you i mean me. i can't convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. it's like laying your logic down on a right-to-lifer. they don't give a fuck. at least this time i am not up against the bible. i've been up against the bible. which sucks. but brains and ideas are hard to go up against too.

is my problem that in my head i set this relationship up as a fight i need to win? INteresting. possibility.

ANyway, i am going back to the michael jackson movie. i am so curious about that dude. he is like a lovable but tormented alien who you feel bad saying the word "fuck" around.

and on and on and on and on...

sunshine

2010-06-30T20:53:00.000-07:00

well, this morning before work i got a package in the mail from my awesome cousin erica which was a sweet party dress. now i need to go to a party. though i talked to her on the phone and she told me that party dresses don't necessarily need parties. what they need is wearing. i believe she is right. maybe i will take it with me to oregon and get in fancy situations where the dress must be worn.

i have an amazing awesome cousin. actually, i have a lot of amazing awesome people in my life but this specific one is the genius who coined the term "break-up dress". she is also the one who encouraged my interpretive dancing to this song at an early age. i would really recommend watching that video. if i had an audience i would put on the dress and three layers of weird mom-clothes and do the dance right now.

speaking of audience-less dancing, marisa and i decided to get back into myspace and i found this long-lost gem on my page:

jade taught me this in 4th grade

answer me dinosaur | MySpace Video

i can see why people might think i am a nut job. oh the internet and the ridiculous self-embarrassing things we can do on it.

ANYway, soon maris is leaving and jade is coming and i am leaving and then coming back. i am a little trepedatious about portland. i've done so many stupid things there. but maybe this will be the trip of redemption. i am ready for redemption portland. and also i get to take paid vacation which is actually a first for me so yes to being a grown-up! no to i cried on the phone again today so yeah, maybe i should stay off the phone but i feel like these crying convos are a little productive. for me they are.

so, that is tonight. nothing major to report. i have been eating the same soup for three out of the last four meals. it's good soup. kale, canelli bean and sausage. do it for yourself.

now, on to the next thing.

justified

2010-06-29T21:53:00.001-07:00

i'm developing mild ocd around the subject of my apartment. i keep thinking left the stove on and the back door open and everything is burning down while simultaneously being stolen.

weird.

this lady at work keeps warning me that once the oscar grant verdict comes down there will be rioting on the streets. does anyone else have a sinking feeling like everything is going downhill fast and no one is safe anywhere? even in broad daylight? even in their cubicle?

i am trying to get over this dread feeling because i know it isn't productive and there are things i want to do i guess. i am trying to convince myself anyway that there are things i want to do and that moping is useless and everything happens for a reason.

i am pretty sure nothing happens for a reason though and the whole world is random chance.

but my new roommate is home! yeah!!

baby steps

2010-06-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

it's bedtime so just a quick update on depths of despair watch 2010:

1. my friend marisa moved in with me for a week so i am no longer alone which really, really helps.
2. i went grocery shopping. the weather was beautiful. i spent a million dollars and bought things i would usually be encouraged not to buy: expensive cheese, frozen pizza, limeade.
3. consequently, for the first time in a week and a half i ate proper amounts of healthy food.
4. i went to yoga.

i had a little meltdown on the phone today, small to medium? medium to large? but it made me feel a lot better. and now i am exhausted so i am going to bed so i can go to work tomorrow so i can leave work and go to yoga so i can watch the bacholerette so then i can go to bed and get up again and then it will be tuesday and before you know it it will be july and then august and then soon i will be 30 and i won't even care about any of this anymore.

it suddenly occurred to me how weird it is that i share this all with the universe at large. i do have secrets by the way. you don't know everything.

goodnight.

photon

2010-06-25T20:19:00.000-07:00

i did critical mass tonight with my second cousin who is awesome, have i mentioned her? anyway, i haven't done critical mass in a couple years and it was fun and crazy but we skipped out early and ate cheeseburgers and talked about boys. it's funny, i've only known heather for a year or so but she definitely feels like family. i think there is something about knowing where people come from that makes you trust them. it takes me a long time to know people but when they are people who are related or known through relatives that time is much shorter.

not that i have trouble opening up to people. give me ten minutes and a complete stranger can know my life story. is this a girl thing? a writer thing? a lizzy thing? my boundaries are blurry, that's all i am saying.

case in point: this blog.

i am spending all my money on downloading episodes of true blood. this is the result of a mix of impatience and conscience, because i am bad at illegal downloading, lazy maybe, and terrified of some dirty bug infecting my computer.

i even bought the first season of hung on itunes just to distract myself from true blood. did not work. that show is painfully mediocre. what is this trend of "normal" people doing illegal things as inherently interesting? it worked for about one and a half seasons on weeds and then got gimmicky. now the only reason to watch that show is the adorable-ness of andy. it definitely works on breaking bad but only because they are able to take it to this level of realism that is almost difficult to watch. big love: also good to watch because of the novelty of the situation mixed with realism mixed with great characters clashing so honestly and interestingly. really, hung is just stupid, so far. does tom jane do anything besides look "hot" and grunt? because he isn't even that hot and i've heard better grunters. plus the whole thing is he has this massive, unbelievable penis? so? can we see it? no. can we have a little bit more character development, of anyone? beyond just making them more obvious and stereotypical? no.

i bought it though, sight unseen. and i am still working on the wallowing in sadness and loneliness so i will probably watch it and criticize the fuck out of it, by myself, in bed.

maybe i should move to la and write television shows. maybe not.

anyway, i need to figure out the best place to watch the us beat ghana tomorrow. ghana, i love you and this is a tragedy that it is us verses you but sometimes america has to win. america, let's make this happen.

one last thing: last night a guy called me from the clallam county jail, wrong number. weird. i hope they let him try again.

not good enough

2010-06-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

some fucking horrible scary shit happened, not to me, but it happened and i don't really know what to say or do about it.

i am so so sad for lindsay and her family and all of her friends, some of whom are some of the most important people in the world to me. i just knew lindsay a little but she was insanely friendly, hilarious, good at karaoke. when people die, other people say stuff like that but everything you read about this girl is true. and she was fucking tough. i don't know what happened but i know that i am just really sad about it, so sad for my friends and her family and everyone everywhere who will never get to meet her and who she will never meet. when these kinds of senseless, brutal things happen the entire world makes less sense.

no chain

2010-06-23T18:44:00.000-07:00

i did NOT go to yoga after work. i was going to buy groceries but instead i came home and started watching season 2 of true blood.

i DID get notification today that i graduated. and the us won. so, good things. miracles.

i should probably change my sheets. i wish i had bought tickets for die antwoord in time to see them in july. we can't win every battle though. however, usa! so awesome. though i missed the goal because by the 92nd minute i had to get ready for work and i was in the bathroom AND my computer stopped working.

i was thinking today as i got my second meal at starbucks that this is pretty pathetic. PLENTY of people eat alone every fucking day. i have had one week and i still can't hang. serious. i can't wait til i go to oregon in two weeks. i need some people to give me some human face time and a good meal. starbucks cannot be good for you. blueberry muffins should not be eaten for breakfast everyday. i guess acknowledging the problem is half the battle, right?

in other news, my awesome cousin is building me a website. some people are the best in the world. specifically, my relatives.

idea: stay away from leonard cohen music.

maybe i should join that leonard cohen cover choir. maybe i should get more involved.

today at work the database went down for like 45 minutes which meant i really reacquainted myself with pc computer games. mindsweeper, i will own you on expert level.

truthfully i took an excedrin migraine. just one. i had a headache. and now i am completely cracked out. so, i will leave the internet in this capacity for the moment. i have research to do. maybe i should volunteer.

pimp ship

2010-06-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

last night i watched the bachelorette with marisa and chrissy and got some cool fashionable marisa clothes and an old yellow banana clip. so this morning i looked up how to wear a banana clip on the internet and did some weird mohawk up-do and put make-up on, after washing my face.

so see? i'm doing shit. i've never done my hair before. i'm doing NEW shit. sure i still can't go past the bathroom and have to be completely internet-plugged in when i am at home. but two meals a day can be eaten at a desk and the third is what friends are for (though i might, for financial reasons, ask for an escort to a grocery store soon).

today: work, yoga, dinner with clare, true blood. dear true blood: was it necessary to kill off my three favorite characters in the last two episodes? renee? really? he was so cute! i hope they explain why he is serial killer at some point. like tomorrow when i get the first disc of season 2.

bonuses of being alone: all the netflix you could want.

plus my house is really clean since i haven't been using it. i do need to start eating like a human in the world soon though. i nearly passed out from standing up too quickly over and over again in yoga tonight.

friday i am going to critical mass with my second cousin and it is already wednesday tomorrow so i need to go to bed so i can wake up and hopefully hopefully watch the us destroy algeria. for real. send me groceries and a piano book. it's time to get my skills in order.

first day of summer

2010-06-21T17:25:00.000-07:00

let me tell you: breaking up with someone you live with, who you love, is like actually number one the worst. but if there is a side bonus, because there has to be or else we'd all just curl up and die, it is that i get to know about about the people who care about me and love me. for example, the dudes in my building who were so nice when i just started crying a few minutes ago. or jessie and bobby, who let me spend the weekend watching tv with them in berkeley and do my laundry and positived the shit out of me, even though jessie just had surgery on her knee. or the people at work who have taken me out, bought me gum, bought me flowers. my family, who won't leave me alone with their full-on love (thank god).

i realize that i thought i would just be cool with this whole thing, that i would be like "hey, what happens, happens" but actually i am totally lonely and totally scared. i thought thursday after he left i would just be like, "okay, now time to get shit done!" but it's taking longer. i still can't leave my room when i am home. i still can't pay bills or cook food.

i guess this is how you practice for people you love dying. i guess it is okay and reasonable to take some time be just severely sad. i think what i need to do is just be slow with it and not expect myself to be okay right away because this is trauma, right? this is a big fucking deal.

baby steps. i am going over to marisa's to watch the bachelorette tonight and i haven't yet sunk into a drunken tailspin or anything that i might have done when i was 23. i haven't ridden my bike anywhere in the middle of the night, like i might have done when i was 18.

i also haven't exercised or taken care of my body that well. but i did start brushing my teeth again. another plus side: this is all my story again so i can put whatever i want on the internet.

anyway, thanks for being so nice to me, no matter how inappropriate i am being. this sucks. but in like a year it will be so far away i will think, "why didn't i leave my bedroom? there was important stuff to do." and that will be a nice thing to think.

there's a last time for everything

2010-06-17T22:15:00.001-07:00

here are some pictures from when my mom and dad were visiting. when was that? i have lost all sense of time:

conclusion to draw from these pictures: i look like my parents except no chin and an alien. why don't i have a chin? genetics? but my parents have chins! maybe it is some mutation. maybe people don't need chins anymore.

well i wouldn't mind one.

pete's gone. i can't leave the bedroom when i am at my apartment. too distressing. all i can do while at home is watch trueblood. i feel like i need meals on wheels or something. not because i can't cook, just because i can't enter the kitchen. i mean, i can't barely go down the hall.

did you know i bought a keyboard? weird i know. and i am thinking of getting another tattoo. the keyboard is awesome but i had to take it out of the living room to use it. the living room is a wasteland.

pete isn't moving back in with me. tragedy. he probably wouldn't be too happy to read about it on the internet though and don't worry, we aren't like ENEMIES or anything, i just can't go into it due to the fact that i want to respect his desire for privacy. well, he probably wouldn't even like that much information available.

next topic. i think my next episode of trueblood downloaded. is there any sort of governmental assistance that sad, broken hearted-types can apply for that pays for the food they must eat outside of their houses, the laundry they cannot do on their own and the tv shows they must buy off the internet.

please advise or something. more trueblood! now!

points a b and c

2010-06-07T22:09:00.001-07:00

sunday, santa cruz. best yet. best ever. due to issues with a new tattoo (not mine, but i am getting tempted...) we did not surf. instead pete and i rented cruiser bikes and rode to the beach where we met up with some people we know. then we went with them to the boardwalk (see above image) and then we rode along the cliff past pleasure point. santa cruz is one of the best all-around place in the world. i am trying to figure out how i could live there.

b) have you attempted to enter the lizzy acker monster poetry contest yet? BECAUSE YOU SHOULD. do it. serious.

lastly, i am now obsessed with uhh yeah dude. listening to this podcast at work is like sitting in a bar, hanging out with two of your funniest friends. only it's better because you are getting paid, you aren't going to have a hangover and you can hear them really really well. i would say, listen and then watch some of their videos. you won't be sorry. unless you are in which case i cannot help you with anything.

slayed!

2010-06-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

i've been on somewhat of a downward spiral lately, mainly related to my excessive viewing of buffy the vampire slayer. i sort of love it, to be honest. it isn't the greatest great show, okay, but it has a lot of redeeming qualities. it's funny, creepy, has quick dialogue and buffy is a totally awesome teenage girl character. she makes that stupid bella chick from twilight look like a styrofoam cup.

the show makes me wish i had capitalized on the 90's better. i did wear baggy overalls, like a champion, i'll give myself that, but my hair was always very short and i didn't watch tv.

anyway, the world is so much more emo now, but by emo i mean "emo" as in everything is tragic and everyone is on the brink of extinction but we are just totally ironic about it. kurt cobain was not ironic! he was sad!

i'm not making much sense. i had a couple whiskey gingers last night because it was muggy like the bayou and my friends/editors of my book matt and marisa have the audacity to have birthdays and also move away. it's sick i know. the east coast. the good news is i guess this is another reason for me to go to the east coast. maybe do a reading in new york when my book comes out? maybe quit my job and just go on a national, out-of-control book tour? anyone want to fund that? and pay for my student loans? it could be like one of those craigs list "arrangements" except no sex or dates or seeing each other. okay, i would go out to dinner with my benefactor, fill him/her in on what his/her money was paying for, the art it was making.

anyway, after listening to an old interview with some lady who is married to michael chabon on fresh air yesterday (yes i have suddenly reverted to supreme sexism and identifying women only by their spouses and children) i decided maybe i am mentally ill. i only say this because this lady was saying that basically if you have a blog or are a writer or over-share at all you are probably bipolar. by that definition, i am definitely bipolar. my dad did say, when i presented him with this evidence, that that lady was probably very, very rich and very, very rich types can say whatever they want and diagnosis themselves with anything without consequences.

which is true. though last night at this birthday/going-away party i did keep over sharing about my youthful visit to courtney love's mom for therapy when she told me, at the end, that i was okay i just "feel things more strongly than other people".

holy shit it is 70 degrees outside. which is where i am i going.

zzzzz

2010-05-31T11:07:00.000-07:00

i'm sitting in bed working on a book i am making for my cousin who is 8. i think she is 8. it will be an amazing book but i am very very tired.

my parents were here this weekend, which was totally awesome. yesterday they took pete and me on a ferry ride to tiburon and we ate cheeseburgers and got a sunburn and then they gave us their muni passes so we could ride the cable car part way home.

i have very nice wonderful parents and now i also have a sunburn on my nose and i miss them.

my life has been a crazy chaos party the last few weeks. "party" is the wrong word. i am really looking forward to getting back into a routine and having like the mildest amount of stability. things keep happening and sometimes i feel like i am an old woman who lived a whole life and it was a sucky sucky life.

that doesn't make sense. i guess i mean sometimes i feel tired and trapped. i guess everyone probably feels that sometimes.

i am going to oregon in july. i need to do laundry. i always need to do laundry. pete and i are going to big sur in a couple weeks and then he is leaving for the whole summer to do a residency. then we are probably going to live in different spots after that. i need to figure out what i am doing, where i am doing it and why. the sooner the better.

sometime i will have a book coming out. is 11:14 am too early for bedtime? happy memorial day. the end.

dessert or disaster

2010-05-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

this past week has been about the worst. wait the last two weeks have been the worst. a) being an adult is hard and b) i can't really talk about.

but i have this friend who posted a libra horoscope on facebook and apparently things are about to start looking up. not that i would ever admit to BELIEVING in horoscopes but must i remind you what douglas adams wrote in mostly harmless? speaking as the astrologer gail andrews? luckily i marked it:

"i know astrology isn't a science," said Gail. "of course it isn't. it's just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or--what's that strange thing you british play?"
"er, cricket? self-loathing?"
"parliamentary democracy. the rules just kind of got there. they don't make any kind of sense except in terms of themselves. but when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. in astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. it's just sort of a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of the problem begin to emerge. the more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. it's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that's now been taken away and hidden. the graphite's not important. it's just the means of revealing their indentations. so you see, astrology's nothing to do with astronomy. it's just to do with people thinking about people."

(that's on page 649-650 of my complete hitchhiker's guide which should clearly sit next to the bible.)

anyway, i've watched a lot of law and order: ci which is satisfying because the smart guy always gets the criminal. it's just about finding the secret, their deep psychological issue, and then: crime solved!

too bad there isn't just one answer to anything. too bad i am being so vague. i might as well be a middle schooler writing love poems. oh well. mercury or something and i am about to win at life.

calling me all the time

2010-05-07T13:28:00.000-07:00

pete and i went surfing this morning with his brother-in-law ray. it was about a million times better than last time. i only got one wave and only sort of but i got out into the line up TWICE. the second time was after i got smashed in the middle two times in a row and i stood there for about fifteen minutes in the shallow water thinking about how scary the waves looked and how i just wanted to go sit in the car or on the beach but then i was like, "look self, those two hold-unders were not bad. the first one was even kind of fun. and if you keep letting yourself get scared by the waves you are NEVER going to get over it and you are never going to be able to take the sort of beating you NEED TO BE ABLE TO TAKE to be a real surfer." i thought that repeatedly over and over again, actually. then i over-rode my brain and paddled out again. of course, i got out there and the waves were freaking enormous and i was hella freaked out but i waited for a big set to pass and rode some waves back in. at least i got out there again though, right?

one pretty stupid thing: i totally pulled my neck muscle getting my rash guard on. it hurts. what a stupid and embarrassing injury.

i am going to go get my bangs cut today. awesome, i know.

and, here is the picture of joan rivers holding my hand from work yesterday, because i know that is what you REALLY wanted:

just kidding. what you REALLY wanted was me with gary snyder and jim harrison:

clearly they didn't garner the crowd but still, i was excited.

relationship status

2010-04-30T10:48:00.001-07:00

guess what i am done with? answer: graduate school.

i am actually pretty excited about it, which i wasn't expecting. i guess i thought it wouldn't change anything. BUT I WAS WRONG! i do feel like this one thing is done and now i can get on with my life. like i don't have to stall anymore because now i have this diploma. okay, well, not the diploma quite yet. i probably have to wait til the end of the school year at least for that. probably longer. but still, next thing! yes!

one next thing: tonight i am reading at adobe books in san francisco on 16th close to valencia i think at 7:30 with the small desk press editors! omg! you should come!

also, i really need to cut my finger nails.

also, i changed my facebook relationship status from "in an open relationship" to nothing because i was joking about the open relationship thing and it was like a 4 year joke and i actually know people in open relationships so i guess it isn't funny. i didn't want to change it to "in a relationship" though because a) pete would laugh at me and b) people would think i actually closed my alleged open relationship.

facebook is complicated.

okay, this interaction between fingernails and keys has to stop. i'm going to cut my nails.

snapping turtles

2010-04-24T20:46:00.001-07:00

today was a pretty nice day in which we did some pretty nice things: go to sonoma and see my uncle, go to el metate, you know.

the weather was insanely nice and right now i should be out! enjoying my youth! but going out is so so so expensive and i am not the really youthful youth i used to be so i am basically unable to have more than two drinks without turning into a complete zombie for the next three days.

yesterday i went to get my thesis signed. the thesis that the guys at kinko's messed-up two times before getting it right. want to know something HILARIOUS? they messed it up THREE times, i just didn't check thoroughly enough the third time. so it isn't signed and that is squarely upon my shoulders. squarely.

i just want to turn this beast in and get it over with and get my certification of author-hood. then i can move on to other important activities like my BOOK and my LIFE. i am monogamous with boys and with life issues. i can only deal with one big thing at a time. i wonder if this means i can never have children?

ANYway. i'm really tired and just want to watch another episode of breaking bad and maybe a little justified and then sleep for like a week. no reason for this tiredness just the prolonged, ulcer-inducing stress of real life i guess.

in other world changing news: i think i am going to go back to long hair and just own the pigtails like a prairie woman. be the person you want to be right? isn't that part of the secret?

anniversary

2010-04-22T21:25:00.001-07:00

ten years ago today i came back from south africa! this is me, 17, at victoria falls in zimbabwe, just a few weeks before that amazing and crazy day when the plane finally landed in portland. the main thing i remember about coming home is that my brother looked completely different. he grew like 10 feet while i was gone. and also i remember being happier than i even thought was possible for a human being to be. my mom said today that she found one of my old letters from when i was gone which basically listed all my family members and told them how much i loved them. including my kitty giro. i was really homesick for those 8 month and i'm glad i came back. it's weird to have such a defining thing keep getting further and further away. it's weird that i am 27. mainly, i can't believe i went and survived the whole thing and that now i am an adult and i am away from my family all the time and i don't call them sobbing every day even. every week maybe but not every day.

i'm pretty lucky. that's all. happy earth day and happy being alive to me.

unimportant victory

2010-04-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

i got my thesis printed today. very anticlimactic. it only took kinko's three tries. they are like the absolute definition of incompetent.

i also bought some new bulk tea. very unimportant. very nice.

i think i am addicted to the misery that is breaking bad. i can't believe every show in the world isn't available for download on itunes. it's like a win win win for these whiny entertainment industry types and also for me because i don't mind paying for what i want to watch if it is reasonably priced and that means i just get it and no weird commercials. i mean, it's about a google plex times better than paying for actually tv channels, right? when there are only actually four shows in total on the whole entire television thing that i care about. they should make the shows available immediately. i guess they will in the future if the infrastructure doesn't completely collapse and we revert back to campfire storytelling and banjo songs.

and, last thing, i have a reading coming up april 30th. check it out! and then come!

lunch break

2010-04-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

today.

yesterday.

i wish it was yesterday only i was happier about the universe and not so hungover from what pete and i both agreed would have been a mild night back in college. we were in bed before midnight! and still! the depression! the headache!

i'm waiting for my phone to charge, for a million dollars and for the end of the semester when pete is done with school and my thesis is turned in. then we can surf without over analyzing surfing or at least things will change.

this morning alice walker was on "forum" and i kept walking back and forth out of my part of the office hoping to see her. i did not see her. i also stood up in my cubicle opening mail because i didn't feel like sitting down.

something is slowly mounting. i want to be a farmer. the end.

the endless pain of womanhood

2010-04-15T17:24:00.001-07:00

just fyi, i avoided chocolate cake at 2:30 today for THE SECOND TIME THIS WEEK. i only worked three days this week! how much chocolate cake can one office consume?!

i had this blog-entry idea while at work but then decided i shouldn't blog at work. obviously. i never do. but i should have at least written myself a note because then i was overcome with horrible cramps and unable to remember even my own middle name. these are painful days my friends, and our brains can't handle the pressure.

this afternoon i saw a dude steal money out of the tip jar at starbucks and i didn't do anything except tell the counter people after he left and then give them a tip which i would generally not do. check out that sentence! two examples of my complete lack of humanity.

pete and i ate sandwiches in a park by my work for lunch and it was sunny and nice. now the sky is gray. whatever.

blah. pain. i'm a wuss and a bad human. no wonder there are earthquakes and volcanoes. we are all being punished. oh well.

the brain

2010-04-14T20:27:00.001-07:00

(yes, i am the ugly pained-looking person on the left. and yes, everyone at work has given me shit about it so you don't have to.)

sometimes i think my brain is completely giving out. right now it is hurting, migraine-style. i know, the computer isn't helping. this will be short.

i was just thinking today in yoga how sometimes i wonder what would happen if i got one of those prime-time television brain tumors and suddenly i started saying and doing the things that first cross my mind. like what if in the middle of pigeon pose i said loudly to the yoga teacher: "hey, do you remember that time when a guy got a huge boner during class while you were using him to demonstrate a partner stretch? is that why we don't do partner stretching anymore?"

or what if, during a call with a slightly older, possibly senile, person at work i just started yelling: "OH MY GOD! ARE YOU INSANE? ARE YOU TRYING TO RUIN MY LIFE? CAN YOU JUST GET OVER IT AND DISCOVER THE INTERNET ALREADY?" and then i swore a bunch and broke something by throwing it against the wall of my cubicle?

i hope i don't get dementia or live so long i run out of money or become mean. but i do hope i grow a chin someday and learn how to pose like a human for pictures. that skirt is poofy! why do i look so terrible?

okay, excedrin, start working. the end.

intervention

2010-04-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

(this picture is from yesterday but you get the idea.)

important things you should know:
1. benjamin bratt was at my work today, on the radio with his brother promoting their new movie la mission which is set and filmed RIGHT HERE IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. the ladies in the office like an attractive man (last time it was woody harrelson, so yeah, i've seen that celebrity TWICE) and so i went downstairs with them and we all got our picture taken with THE MOVIE STAR. let me say this about benjamin bratt: he is very gracious to a bunch of desk ladies and totally completely hot in real life. he is also tall. and he is from the mission.

the one sad thing about this whole see-the-famous-guys-on-the-radio phenomenon is that i am too mortified to ever go down on my own and there are often people i would much much rather meet. the sugar doctor from ucsf for example, or tim o'brien. remind me to never instill my children with a sense of propriety. what a terrible burden to bear.

2. on saturday i went out on what could only be called a proper date with pete, obviously, to this brazilian place where they give you all the meat you can eat until you are crying and full but YOU STILL WANT MORE MEAT. it was a little pricey by which i mean possibly the most expensive meal i have ever eaten. (okay maybe my parents didn't instill me with EXCESSIVE amounts of propriety.) but if you are going to spend that much money, i say spend it on the best tasting forms of sunlight: garlic steak, fillet mignon, lamb, pork loin, prawns.

i now have a reason to get rich. brazilian bbq.

3. i bought a tortilla press and a cast iron skillet and a flipper that doesn't melt black plastic into all of our food and made hella tortillas yesterday and they are already gone because they are that delicious and also, after the big night out, we are restricted to beans and tortillas in terms of eating.

4. tomorrow i am going to get the preliminary pages of my thesis approved and also i am going to redistribute the type i should have redistributed one year ago. i feel so so so bad about this, i have considered changing my identity. but. i will do it and then forgive myself. tomorrow.

5. important final thing. i am proud of myself because instead of eating chocolate cake at work at like 2:30 pm, i ate an apple and the rest of my day was actually not horrifying. i'm buying more fruit and avoiding sugar at work. i hope this will fix all my problems as well as the majority of the problems in the world.

meglomania

2010-04-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

today was a pretty good day except for the working part. i mean, the cubicle in the center of the room part when it was like 75 degrees out and sunny. i don't even want to check the surf report. there are somethings it is better not to know.

but after work i went and did nice yoga and then came home and was presented with an el metate burrito by the hottest guy in the building. who also lives with me. who is my boyfriend. then he went to play the drums and unlike last night, i enjoyed the alone time. i started working again on my website which i am making on my mac so it might be hella cheesy i don't know. i really don't have the slightest idea how to even put it on the internet. (side note: i just typed in lizzyacker.com to see if it existed and i was directed to my old friendster page. the internet never forgets friends. you are all still alive on friendster.)

ANyway, soon it will be the weekend. i am making life plans today. like, for 2011. i went to a health insurance fair at work and it was pretty demoralizing. my main issue is that there is this totally cool nurse practitioner who works at planned parenthood who i really like and who i want to see every time i need one of those invasive girl exams. and to get a plan where i could see her would cost like 3 times as much as another plan. i guess i could pay out of pocket for her. in some respects, america blows. i would like a health care system where we all got to see the doctors we wanted, so that way the good doctors would be rewarded and the bad ones would be frozen out. i call it the lizzy plan. and it would be paid for by taxes. large taxes on monsanto and chevron. and taxes on me too and all the other employeds.

ANyway. my website is just going to be silly. so many pictures of me. get over yourself self. who do you think you are, anyway?

i am the walrus

2010-04-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

i think i have a problem and that problem is boredom and inertia. every day i think of a new type of school i'd be good at. i think i would be awesome at lawyer school, cooking school, engineer school, teacher school.

you know what i am not good at? not being in school.

the real world is so dramatic, with its student loan payments and credit card debt and health insurance questions and food buying and preparing. i mean, the sad part is i am still technically in school. but more actually i am working a lot part-time and trying to keep my apartment presentable and working on my book and not writing anything new and facebooking a lot and feeling generally useless. it's like after i graduated from college except without the excessive drinking and with less friends.

no, that's not true, i have lots of friends, i just couldn't get a hold of any of them to go with me to ice cream tonight. the only person i could get was jade and she is in portland. but she IS moving here in a few months so, things are looking up.

pete of course loves ice cream but he is in the studio tonight as he usually is these days, working hard for art. i'm pretty jealous of his being in art school, to be honest. maybe he was jealous of me when it was me. why didn't i go for a fucking phd? why didn't i work harder at math?

i don't know. i'm full of whining these days and i hope i can get over it soon and get over feeling guilty about the things i am not doing and either DO them or forget about them.

i have type from LAST YEAR i need to redistribute at school and i am scared to go in because i feel like such an asshole for leaving it so long. i have to get my thesis checked. i have to stop using my credit cards to buy too many groceries. i need to start calling people back.

i watched julie & julia the other day and julie made me so irritated i wanted to through a pot at her head. maybe it's because i have a job in a cubicle and want to be a writer and do not have a movie about my life coming out and am not as cute as amy adams. but that character was obnoxious, right? and sort of worthless? and maybe proof that a cooking blog doesn't need to be turned into a movie? can in fact just be used to find advice on cooking?

i've cheated on my yoga studio twice this week with this donation based place called yoga to the people. i won't be leaving my studio, don't worry. i still want to go there at least 4 times a week. BUT when i want something quick and not spiritual and pretty sweaty without any instruction or assistance, i can go to this place. it's an hour. they don't touch you. the room is huge and has big windows overlooking the mission. and it's cheap.

still, i love yoga mayu the best.

what else? blah. blah. i told pete today i think we should go for an extended trip to australia when he is done with school, assuming australia is still there by then. i hope it is.

it's almost 10:00 pm. what do people do at this time of night? i have been having this feeling lately like I AM NOT SURE WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING AT THIS TIME. it's the job or the adulthood or the bermuda triangle or something.

the end.

here comes jesus

2010-04-04T14:15:00.001-07:00

it's easter. as you probably know. i already ate too many jelly beans and i only ate like 10. they were jolly ranch ones though, and pretty gross.

the weather is completely awful and basically i want to either sleep or watch law and order to celebrate this day. probably sleep. i have watched basically every available episode of svu on netflix and i don't know if i can really get into criminal intent and are they even making just regular?

i should do something productive or at least go to yoga.

or sleep.

i think we need a little kitty ti cuddle and play with. but my brother has a kitty who poops on the bed. which is sick. can you put your cat down if she poops too much on the bed?

hypothetically?

anyway, happy easter. my reading was awesome, marisa's book is awesome and i feel very sorry for you if you missed the party but at least you can buy the book.

okay. my eyes are like CLOSING. why? it is 2:22 pm.

time for extreme relaxation sunday.

blah

2010-04-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

this week is like the worst. rain. drama. but i've been going to yoga every day and i'm reading tonight at my friend's book launch. you should come!

other than that, i feel like watching law and order. what is this? 2006?

things happen

2010-03-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

something legitimately tragic happened yesterday which is my dad's cousin kerry died in a sky diving accident. i don't know what to say about it except i did not know her at all; i've maybe met her once or something when i was a baby. but even though i do not actually personally know her, she is so so important to people who are important to me. that part of my family lives in florida. her mom is my grandma's little sister and they are very very close and so i hear about them all the time. over christmas my grandma even told me that kerry had gotten into base jumping or something. i feel like i know that whole family. and she is my dad's cousin, who he cares about. and her mom, my grandma's sister, my great aunt, is totally and completely awesome. she makes these crazy christmas stockings for us every year with little things she find throughout the year, all of them wrapped individually. she has been quite sick for awhile and i can't even imagine how truly awful this is for her.

i guess what do you say when people die? i haven't know that many people who have died, which makes me insanely lucky. my great grandma. one grandpa. but kerry, my dad's cousin, was really young. i hope she wasn't too scared. but i guess it isn't for her that i am worried. she liked doing dangerous and extreme things. it's my dad who i am sad for, my grandma, my great-aunt, her sisters, her niece and nephew.

i hope they are okay. i guess they will be, eventually.

super beautiful

2010-03-23T20:20:00.000-07:00

i feel antsy today like i want to rearrange the whole house and then move and rearrange a new house. it's weird, especially since i was feeling extremely lazy up until about last week, like the gravity was heavier and all i wanted to do was keep my eyes open but only if a sitcom was playing in front of them.

there are two major things that effect my energy level: what i eat and the weather. i think i also need to add to that list: mental stimulation and physical activity. for some reason, going to la has sort of psyched me up. i can't decide if it was the full weekend without a computer in front of my face or the meeting new people or the extreme fat man in a stuffed chair wearing a toga with his enormous testicles hanging down or the pool bar with fire pits and europeans or what but i feel like my brain is back a little. there is another option: i killed so many brain cells that i went down a whole level of intelligence so now instead of feeling stupider than i used to be, i AM stupider than i used to be and can't even conceptualize what it would mean to be smarter.

a definite possibility.

but really though, i feel like my brain is back a little. i think maybe i was depressed.

for some reason, things seem more reasonable now. there are DATES when i will get things DONE. i think my edits are both awesome and almost done on monster party and i am getting hella pumped for it.

i need to write more stories and get things published. i need for the weather to stay this great for a year.

okay well NEXT THING. already i went to work and went grocery shopping and cleaned the house. maybe i secretly got addicted to speed in la. that sort of thing probably happens i guess.

oh and ps: mark your calendar because i am reading at my friend marisa's book launch party on april 2nd! IT WILL BE AMAZING:

her book. the reading. the party. all of it.

star police

2010-03-22T19:28:00.000-07:00

here are a few pictures from la, where we went this weekend:

these are the creepy shining girls riding their matching bikes in silent circles on the end of the pier.

this is two tough guys, pete and neil, looking hella tough.

this is three tough guys walking into the fog on the pier. it is also my thumb.

so. we went to la this weekend and stayed on this dude neil's couch. neil is very cool. la is very cool. however, i got a very tiny amount of sleep and do not quite feel human yet. i did see four famous-type people, even though everyone kept making fun of me and saying i didn't until i identified jason jones and samantha bee outside of a frozen yogurt place in venice and they all saw them too so i was vindicated. i think with the other people, it is just that i have a mild to serious tv obsession in part due to my lack of tv growing up, that makes me remember the faces i see so i can recognize the less famous. so i am pretty sure i saw this guy and this guy and i probably recognized them from lost and six feet under. i bet if you lived in la celebrities would get super old but what is weird to me is the idea of seeing someone you recognize and then the realization that you only recognize them because you have seen them over and over again on tv. usually when i recognize someone i run out out in the road and stop their car and hug them, even before i remember who they are or how i know them. this method has been used to run into people i last saw when i was five.

i can imagine this getting me into trouble if i spent too much time in la. i also consider this an explanation of the exceedingly strange face i made at jason jones when neil said, "nice OUTFIT dude" and i turned around to see what was wrong with the outfit and recognized the wearer as someone who's face i knew. (still unable to discern what was wrong with the outfit. i think neil might have actually been making fun of him having a kid on his shoulders and in neil's defense, we were eating frozen yogurt, exhausted, in venice and nothing really made much sense anymore.)

anyway, it was a fun but tiring weekend. one nice thing was the serious hanging out with friends. pete was on the tail end of spring break and also we were not at home so we had nothing to do but hang out with the dudes. his friend dudes from home are a lot like my friend dudes from home and being adults with jobs and bedtimes, we don't get that intense hangout thing very much anymore. especially not together. it made me think i would like to have all my friends in one place for a whole week, with a beach and nothing to do but hang out and build fires and talk to each other.

oh man. my brain is dead. i am not used to the la lifestyle. the korean bbq. the valet parking. it is nice to be home.

thanks dude

2010-03-19T22:52:00.001-07:00

life-time special thanks to the dude who chased me down by union square and whispered into my ear, "girl, pull down your dress," when my dress had bunched up underneath my backpack. that guy is a true human being. i am sorry that my first thoughts were rape and drug deals.

that guy. without him i would have walked all the way to the mall before i knew my ass was in plain view of all the tourists in san francisco.

bam!

2010-03-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

i went to mellow flow yoga tonight and i know, that was my first mistake, plus the teacher played bright eyes and that song from the end of six feet under. (side note: yeah i just watched that entire thing and nearly started crying which is fucked because that show went on for what, six years? and it ended so perfectly and it makes me just a little nostalgic for a time when i didn't know that nate fisher died or whatever, even though those ARE NOT REAL PEOPLE but anyway.) this teacher once equated getting a new scooter with finding inner happiness or something like that. she isn't my favorite one.

but she did come around at the end and push on my legs to give me a really good stretch so there is that.

today i was friended on facebook by this super cool girl i knew ages ago from camp. i think something happened on facebook like YESTERDAY which is, basically every single person in the world is on it now and it is just a matter of time until every single person you ever knew friends you. today i realized this old friend is friends with like three other people i know from completely different universes. i imagine this sort of thing is going to become more regular until everyone is an extended friend of everyone else and there are no secrets and we all have voice activated android phones with geo-monitoring software. on forum today michael krasny was talking to some software dudes about geolocation. freaky. soon when you twitter people will be able to see where you are. some listener brought up minority report and i started seriously considering getting a land line. that is like the ULTIMATE geolocater. you call the land line, i pick up the phone, you know where i am.

too bad i don't have $50 extra bucks a month to spend on making a point.

yesterday pete rode with me to tiburon and it was awesome and we may be slightly sunburned. we are going to la this weekend, awesomely/crazily. maybe i can turn this into a full-on tan. how does my new face medication handle the sunshine? there's only one way to find out.

last thing: breaking bad. about a high school chemistry teacher who starts cooking meth. i've been watching it and getting hella depressed but i love it. i stayed away for awhile because i thought it was like weeds 2. however, it makes weeds look like amateur porn. some people like amateur porn but i like french coming of ages movies. watch breaking bad but make sure there is a nice breeze and no drugs around when you do it.

okay, i have some important work to finish for an important upcoming book launch for my important friend marisa. if you live in the area you should come. not only is she awesome and her book sure to be the best poetry book you've ever bought, but i am reading! and there will be a dance party after! more information on the way, i promise!

the hills

2010-03-07T17:54:00.000-08:00

so far today has been pretty amazing. i slept in, which is a good sign because i can barely ever sleep in and lately i have been kind of having a freak attack which makes it difficult for me to stay in bed without squirming past like 5 am. i DID have really depraved dreams but, well, that happens.

then we ate my new favorite breakfast which was discovered last sunday: pancakes, bacon, apples and maple syrup. the apples are the wild card. raw. you have to get the bacon in too. it's like, the perfect taste combination.

then i waited for my food to settle because that is what you are supposed to do. and then i went on an epic bike ride. i was gone for 5 hours but i stopped for probably a total of an hour, maybe less, to eat lunch and talk to my dad on the phone. but still that is 4 hours on the bike at LEAST and usually i average about 12 miles an hour i think so, 48 miles?!? geeze. it's possible. i rode out past sausalito to the end of the bike path and then back into sausalito where i ate lunch and then rode up the hill through the marin headlands and back home. probably at least 8 of those miles i went in the wrong direction. i kept doing that because i was going ways i have never gone before. but it was a sunny sunny day and i even got a watch tan!

now i am icing my knee and basically exhausted but about to walk over to an OSCAR PARTY. oh the oscars. so confoundingly entertaining. oh my knee. so confoundingly sore.

lemon bars

2010-03-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

i think i have a problem which i will call "stress baking". sometimes all i can do is bake. this never happened when i smoked. back then, sometimes all i could do was smoke. a lot of the time. oh nicotine. are you really so much worse than sugar? answer from nicotine: yes, but you can cling to your memories.

anyway, news came in that my highly amazing and talented bf got two awesome artist residencies this summer. i am trying to be a good gf, which i imagine would mean NOT sobbing all morning and imagining the bleak unremitting darkness of a summer alone or with a subletor. no surfing. no camping. just my cubicle and me. tragic.

this is the attitude i am trying to avoid. but i can be dramatic. i know it. he knows it. i have a nice life, even without him it is nice. but it is so so so much nicer with him. and three months is long long time, especially when i haven't been away from him for more than two weeks in the last two years.

okay, maybe it's time to cut the cord a little.

blah. i don't want to.

but it is such a good opportunity for him! i wish i could be more sunshine-y about the whole thing. i'm working on it.

in the mean time, i baked some lemon bars.

is my brain broken?

2010-03-02T22:01:00.000-08:00

some days i feel like i am completely losing my mind. like, not going crazy crazy, just losing my ability to remember things. i will do a little freak out, thinking, wow my mind is totally blank and useless right now, quick name some cities in germany! and then sometimes i think and think and can't come up with a single one. then i have to follow some path like, okay NAZIS. hitler, olympics, berlin. and i feel a little better. only a little. do i have a brain tumor? shouldn't i be able to rattle this stuff off? not like i ever took geography but what about dresden?

it's either a brain tumor or over-dependence on google.

or that i am tired.

i am really tired right now. last night we had a little bachelor season finale viewing party at my friends' apartment. i drank a little too much of the "on the wings of love" pomegranate martini. it's weird, i barely drink anymore so like three drinks and i was good for the night.

here are some things i like about my friends: they watch the bachelor and make dirty comments and have parties for it and allow me to dress up like vienna in lingerie camping but do not try to convince me to come over for a super bowl party.

there are other things but i am tired and my brain feels stupid. it could be the residual alcohol i guess. or the fact that i have basically stopped exercising which is terrible and about to be reversed starting TOMORROW i swear.

anyway, i'm taking a shower and then lulling myself to sleep with law and order. march is a little better than february but i still haven't gotten my tax return and, like i said, my brain is melting out of my ears. oh well. good night.

in the office

2010-02-28T14:26:00.000-08:00

my bedroom is the only sunny room in my apartment. one of my main life goals it to eventually live in a sunny house.

i am thinking of taking some clothes in for dry cleaning. i want to take them to the dry cleaning place next door but once upon a time i took that place my rug and they burned a weird black spot on it and pretended like they didn't. i vowed never to return. i was angry. but is my anger enough to fight against the overwhelming convenience of a dry cleaner next door?

one can only wait and see what happens when i skateboard past on the way to the cash machine.

probably they aren't open.

i wonder if i will ever live in a house again. is an apartment harder to keep clean than a house? because our apartment is like a trash tornado disaster and pete's mom is coming in two weeks and i am seriously tempted to spend money to have someone clean the shit out of this place.

or i could do it myself.

well, the weather is nice. i want to go for a bike ride maybe. maybe take a nap. maybe just sleep until tomorrow when february will finally be over. the sun is not enough to fix the february depression problem. and my inability to write anything interesting. come on march! stop this crap immediately.

bad girl

2010-02-26T15:13:00.000-08:00

this is me on the phone dealing with the obnoxious reality of only partially going to school. calling different offices, getting funds released. i should have graduated last year. whatever.

the rain is making it nearly impossible to leave the couch. i worked on monster party editing all morning and also lost watching. i haven't been to yoga in a month. i don't want to go today either. i used to go 4 times a week. february, i haven't gone once. that was a good amount of money i will never get back. maybe march will be more successful for me in terms of life choices, being a good girlfriend, cleaning the house, paying my bills. i'm getting a raise and a new job title and full medical and retirement starting monday. also, a new schedule because i am no longer allowed to work 9 hour days. i think it will be better. 9 hours of cubicle sitting really saps your soul.

i'm giving the government until this time tomorrow to release my tax return. after that i am charging them interest.

i wish i were in mexico.

anyway, clearly i have nothing good to write about. it has been a TRYING week. i need to stop baking brownies. i need to stop spending money. i remember the first time i visited san francisco when i was in fourth grade my uncle gave money to a street performer and said, "the poorer i am the more money i give away." i feel like the poorer i am, the more expensive clothing i buy. this will teach me to take a week off of work. though another new thing: paid vacation.

i want to live a life not focused on $70 short sleeved jackets but sometimes $70 short sleeved jackets are so cute and then you need new yoga pants. not for yoga, clearly, just for life.

fast, cheap and out of control

2010-02-24T12:44:00.000-08:00

i'm back from the east coast and the weather in california is trying to hurt my feelings. i woke up this morning at 5:30 and went for a run which i think may have terrified and confused pete. he made me wear his bike light. i just ran like 8 blocks and then i came back home and went to sleep again. february is a month you have to be careful with. it can start raining, you can lose things, damage your computer, go into debt. yesterday at sephora i had a very close call with some ugly $70 eye shadow.

i don't even wear eye shadow.

anyway, look! i am mentioned in a real article! my book! and how meta, it links to this blog! i need a real website! with pictures of me in eyeshadow!

well. it is lunch and i have to go back to my cubicle now. i bought a curly wurly at the convenience store and i don't even know what that is and i definitely do not need to eat any sugar and i used my credit card. it's february. this kind of stuff just happens.

comic book land

2010-02-16T19:25:00.000-08:00

in case you didn't know i am on the east coast where it is fully 30 degrees colder than the place i live but also is the home of some extra cool people who i like to hang out with. today i went with those people to coco key, an indoor water park/marriott/a&w/pizza hut. it snowed the whole day but inside it was warm and chlorine-y. highlights: terrifying "dark" slides which my cousin and i agreed were actually a preview of hell which made us both sick and intensely aware of our own mortality and the 15 year old life guard with braces and a mustache. one of the kids, as we were pulling up to the house this evening said, "that was horrible/awesome." i completely agreed.

it's 7:32 in california but 10:32 here. tomorrow i am taking kids to a mall and also exchanging my scary rental car for something a little less screechy. time for the snow to stop snowing. good night.

faith-based

2010-02-11T21:42:00.000-08:00

there are some weird things that i canNOT get enough of. one big one: mormons. what is the deal with my obsession with mormons? i grew up in a town with a bunch of them. come to think if it, multiple towns with a bunch of them, if you count pullman. they definitely had mormons there. one of my best friends from being a kid is a mormon. i think she is still. yeah, she has to be. there was this senior when i was a freshman on the ski team who was mormon. i was in LOVE with that boy. he was very cute and a good skier. i think he was kicked out of church in high school. there was some question about unacceptable proclivities.

my good mormon friend though, she was like one of the coolest people in the whole town. her house was always the most fun and we had many many saturday night sleep overs. sometimes that meant going to church on sunday. in case you are in suspense about my own religious upbringing: i was raised an atheist. and i wasn't shy about it. so maybe that is why church always seems so crazy. like what was REALLY going on? how did all these people know what they were supposed to do at any given moment? then there was the testimonials, where people just got up and free-formed talked about whatever. or was there some theme to these weird speeches? a special language? DID THEY KNOW WHAT THEY WERE SAYING?! anyway, i am tired and not making sense but what i am trying to get across here is that i always found church in general to be exciting and mysterious and always thought there was something especially mysterious about the church of jesus christ of the latter day saints.

of course, under the banner of heaven just made it worse. mormonism in my mind became this distillation of organized religion. first, we can look at its whole history, because it is so new, from outside sources. the deception is documented. in newspapers. the flip flopping on issues like allowing in black people and no longer allowing polygamy can be identified as completely political. don't people want to know how the direct revelations from a timeless jesus are so swayed by politics? i'm tired. i'm trying to make a point. i'm not sure if it's working or i even know what that point is meant to be.

i don't hate mormons or anything, don't worry. i find them fascinating. it appears to me that there is this mass of people, growing and multiplying, that completely refuse to be part of a world other than their own. this weird little, but growing, culture. and i am friends with them on facebook. these girls my age with 4 babies whose names all either start with the same letter or end with the same sound. what is the deal with this name thing? i am confused and when i google "what is the deal with mormon baby names?" none of the responses are satisfactory.

i sort of believe in the big love-version of this whole thing, where something is lurking beneath the well-manicured lawns and the bleach wipes. today, down the rabbit hole, i found this. (synopsis: utah mormon mom puts two toddlers in deep jacuzzi bathtub and then walks down the hall and starts putting clothes away. youngest baby, 16 months, starts drowning. is down long enough to be blue when the yelling gets mom back to the bathroom. non-responsive at hospital. out of oxygen for at least 10 minutes. life-support. mom blogs. coma. internet community. wakes up and smiles.) it has all the elements. mormon mommy-blogger taking obnoxious photographs. tragedy. redemption. faith. you know these people are just filled up with faith right now. testimonials all over the place. this sounds mean. i always sound mean. and what do i know? i'm basically an old maid at this point and i certainly have no babies. though, let's get real here, for a minute. i've been taking care of kids since i was eleven and even then, when i was eleven and barely responsible enough to trust feeding the cat, i would never have left a baby alone near a sink or a hose, let alone IN A JACUZZI BATHTUB. humans can't breath in water. end of story.

jesus. i should just rejoice and be grateful with my life and hope nothing this horrible ever happens to me. it's BUGGING me though. faith in god is not what saves babies from drowning. you don't need to be vigilant every second, like the mom says somewhere in all the horribly formatted bloggyness i have read on this subject, you just need to not leave your kid unattended in a deep pool of water when he can't swim! even when he can! i guess i hate the idea that this is an unavoidable accident. and there is the water element, which i am especially fired up about. but even now, i am thinking, if i were surfing with pete, would i ever be able to be under long enough that i drown without him noticing? i just don't think so. and i was once a grand exalted knight of the sand dunes at camp cleawox. he still watches me with eagle eyes.

there ARE unavoidable accidents and horrible tragedies. haiti, that was pretty much unavoidable. well, avoidable but not for the every day guy on the street who is getting his ass kicked by civil unrest and his environment devoured for cheap fuel and who lives in a shack and definitely can't afford earthquake retrofits. or the dude going ten miles over the speed limit over the bay bridge on the s-curve with a truck full of pears that tipped over the railing and died. that would have been hard to imagine actually happening before it actually happened, outside of a physics equations.

okay, car are dangerous. i am going to be driving one monday in massachusetts. scary. but i won't be praying. i will be driving with caution.

i don't know. i am out of self-righteous steam. my luck now if i ever have a baby it will drown in a bathtub. and of course, i don't believe in amassing a huge family for the hereafter so i will just have one baby. and i will be old. and it will be over for me completely.

but will i blog about it? jesus fucking christ. let's hope not.

*** post shower update on all my thoughts*** i was in the shower thinking about why this story aggravates me so much and then i thought, what if this story wasn't all about a mormon mommy-blogger who does offensive sepia-toned portraiture? what if she was black, for example, without an internet connection, without health insurance? then she wouldn't be completely in control of her own narrative. then people would be like, who the fuck does she think she is having four kids if she can't take proper care of them?! take them to foster care, immediately! all i know is from what i have read but i have been around kids and water enough to know that it took that woman a LONG time to get to her son. she like wandered off and started putting away laundry! is she on drugs? if she were black, there would definitely be some questions about drugs and alcohol. i mean, the behavior seems odd and erratic. one minute you are giving your toddlers a bath and the next you are putting away clothes? did she forget where she was? because everyone looks away for a second. but not for five minutes, which is how long she must have been gone for, at least.

weird. fully weird. pete doesn't want to hear me rave about this so it is down to you passive internet. has anyone made it to the end? have you? what do you think then?

spoiler alert

2010-02-10T20:37:00.000-08:00

pete and i just finally finished watch this week's bachelor. every week he says he's over it but he keeps on coming back.

that show is what's wrong with america, in so many ways. but it's sort of like, what isn't? all i do now is watch train wrecks in progress. it's 2010 and the world is falling apart. luckily, the end will be fully entertaining.

i am going to the east coast next week and my plans involve driving so: snow, stop falling down!

the problem with making brownies is that i want to eat them. i made some delicious brownies on sunday. i guess it is a partial victory that some of them still exist in brownie form.

my sickness is almost gone, though yesterday i tried to do yoga but left because i couldn't breath. and i had a million things to do. i don't know which was the real reason.

brains are weird.

anyway, i need to get my bangs cut and more importantly, tomorrow is pay day. i feel like buying clothes but what i should really do is pledge to kqed.

everyone should pledge to kqed.

i wonder if the trade off for being really successful is a miserable life. have i mentioned that i want to live on a farm? on the beach?

is there land for sale in hawaii?

okay, enough already. is google buzz just ONE MORE THING TO WORRY ABOUT?

the answer to that question is: yes.

robot war

2010-02-05T12:12:00.001-08:00

today is the first day that i don't feel like a complete disaster, health-wise. i've been sort of knocked out by a lame cold, definitely sicker than i have been in a while. and of course i got pete sick. and my nose looks like i detached it from my body and then put it in an oven at like 475, took it out and then put it back on. i took monday off from work, went in on wednesday and then on thursday was basically sent home for sounding/looking so pathetic. being sick is fully lame. everyone knows that but i certainly forget it during my long stretches of being completely healthy. sometimes, when i am completely healthy but lazy, which is my normal state of being, i think something like, oh it would be great if i were sick so i had an excuse for sitting on the couch and watching hulu all day. well lazy self, IT WOULD NOT BE GREAT. yesterday i blew my nose enough times to kill an acre of old growth and then felt like i had been left out in the desert for a week. then my fever came back so i couldn't sleep and i couldn't get warm enough but i still had chills.

anyway, you don't care about that.

on wednesday, when i was at the midpoint of being sick so i went to work and just sort of floated through it by listening to podcasts and pretending like i was completely better, i developed a new theory of everything. well, it isn't really a new theory but i kept listening to different people talk about the state of the union and this and that, plus i mean, i watch the daily show everyday, read the new york times, and you know, people keep saying the same thing (and okay i know that is not a good cross section of the political viewpoints in america but just go with me for a minute): people keep saying, "the republicans should love what obama is saying about x. this is a free market solution. but they don't love it!" and then i realized, it's so obvious but it just occurred to me, the republicans don't give a shit at all about the free market or competition or anything like that. what they want is actually the socialist welfare state they train people to fear. not actually socialist. what is the word for a welfare state in which the welfare actually only goes to a certain group of people who are "more equal than others"? stalinism?

the exciting part of their version is that the more equal people are just now getting their full people-hood.

(side note- i am in maxfield's, per usual, with marisa and another friend chrissy, and i used to love this place, we used to do funny sexy sad here! but this new guy working the counter is a jerk and there was some serious smoking happening right in front of the door and i am sick and chrissy just got over pneumonia for crying out loud! so she closed the door and he came RUNNING around the counter and said, "uh uh, i don't THINK so." so i was like, "it's just that the smoke is really strong." and he said, after looking out the door for a long moment, "it'll be over soon." dude, they have a whole pack. plus you are stingy with the napkins which we NEED for blowing our noses and cleaning up after your sandwiches. and your pants are ugly, you are a bad singer and nobody likes your dance moves.) (that was mean. i am fully ready to receive my karmic punishment.)

anyway, the other thing that this whole rights for non-humans movement makes me think of it this robot propaganda i saw the other day. a short version of it was a commercial on hulu and my first thought was: the robots are behind this. i know this makes me sound officially insane but look, already robots do most things humans used to do. who can add in their heads anymore? and why would you? robots do surgery, build cars, WRITE FOR US. you know what facebook once did? it asked me if i wanted to be friends with the guy i lost my virginity to, who doesn't know ONE SINGLE PERSON I KNOW. and lives in a foreign country. that was done by a computer program, a robot.

i'm just saying that maybe we should be working on getting some skills back, instead of putting so much faith into non-humans, robots and corporations, who now apparently do everything for us including now explicitly, thanks to the supreme court, make law and elect our "representatives". all we have left is a little abstract thinking and some cute things we do for crafting purposes. we might want to work on that.

i should change this blog to say, instead of "these are the things that are happening", "these are my crazy person rants about the end of the world".

the slime

2010-01-28T21:52:00.000-08:00

i'm tired. maybe i should go to sleep but i want to watch some simple, entertaining tv program that i haven't seen yet. like an EPISODE. i don't want to have to get involved with a new show. i want to watch community or parks and recreation or modern family or 30 rock. i could even go for caprica or spartacus, the second of which is absolutely terrible but also entertaining. jersey shore is over and the bachelor is like a week away from a new episode. i already saw last night's daily show on my lunch break. clearly i have a tv problem. i'm pretty sure i am NOT going to get involved with spartacus but caprica is sort of interesting. i mean, science fiction and drama. i love that stuff. any, it's a problem. i'm tired though and so i'm not going to go into it.

my second cousin who i just met in the middle of last year and who lives here and is awesome and i went to this "underground farmers' market" tonight in a warehouse on capp street. it was so hip i could barely breath. i spent a ton of money, probably got food poisoning and then we had to go get more food somewhere else because we were still hungry. my cousin is cool though, so there is that.

tomorrow i am INVESTING MY MONEY. deal with it. when i am old i won't have to work at walmart. hopefully.

jesus i feel conventional right now. i must have confused the quiet child tea with the vita tea. i wish we lived in the fancy new condos across the street with a dishwasher and big windows.

okay, time to go to sleep.

thusa!

2010-01-26T19:35:00.000-08:00

[according to a sesotho phrase list, "thusa!" means "help!". i never learned that one. however, i do remember, "who are you?" so that's something.]

me right now, millionth cup of tea:

i feel like i had a pretty productive day. i talked to someone on the phone about my roth ira situation (that being: i want to start one). i figured out i need to enroll in one more credit if i want to receive financial aid (which includes my grant so YES, that needs to happen, because i do not need to pay a lot extra for three credits when i could pay much less for four). i sent off graduation materials to my advisor. solved problem from sentence two above (tentatively). did yoga. worked on africa writing. also sent africa writing to adviser. bought a lot of bulk tea (see above picture). cleaned my room. was home when ups came with my new phone. there was that brief or longer than brief lapse into knitting, napping, eating chocolate and watching it's always funny in philadelphia but that show is really weird and really funny and sort of like art and plus it was afternoon.

then i decided to tackle africa some more, which is by the way very difficult. sometimes it just flows and sometimes i am like, why am i doing this at all? is this stupid? am i stupid? do i even exist? also, why not just make a collage? if i did, it would include:

this is a classic journal page, from april 22, 2000. part of the entry is from flying from sa to new york, part from new york to la. i like the picture, even though i look very very pig-like. i've been talking via email to the other pictured person, sabree, my main friend while i was in africa, a lot lately and i think this is a good example of my youthful sabree-love. it was very complete. she was one major thing that kept me alive that year.

of course, in my dithering around, i do "research", looking for terms that i remember but have no idea how to spell. names, ethnic slurs, that sort of thing. and this evening i found my host sisters on facebook. very disturbing. it's weird how close africa and the us are today, much closer than they were 10 years ago. i mean, i thought i would never see those girls again, except in my pictures and my mind. it's strange to think that the experience sabree and i had could basically never be replicated. we would be skyping with our parents now, instead of calling them on pay phones and occasionally emailing them from internet cafes. we would be status updating on facebook. there wouldn't be that mystery. or the letters! in my journal i have all these notes and letters people sent me, which were objects i basically worshiped. photo collages. birthday notes. those THINGS that people i missed had TOUCHED. would we be so homesick? weird. there is something more lonely about now than then. even though i was destroyed by homesickness. i mean, flattened. after all i was 16 and from corvallis, oregon and away from home in AFRICA for crying out loud. but the connection i had with people back home was so physical. i feel like sometimes with all this blogging and status updating and twittering that my connection to people is a lot more tenuous. i speak with way less people, face to face, on a regular basis. i guess that is a function of growing up, working in a cubicle, writing, being in a relationship. i don't know. but i feel like a lot of people, me included in some ways but especially teenagers, are so removed from their real worlds that it might not even matter if they moved countries for a year. i mean, they might as well, if most of their interactions are virtual anyway.

it keeps coming back to this, my computer addiction. it might be my real dream to have no ambition, not be a writer, just live in the woods, have babies, grow and cook food. ride my bike. surf. paint walls.

i also like to make things. i think the knitting is good for that. though i want to go bigger and faster. large scale animals. that's what pete is working on. i wish i was in art school sometimes. though i guess i am but the art is different and i am almost done.

shit. pete's home and i said i would make dinner and i didn't. well, maybe i shouldn't move into the woods just yet.

real time

2010-01-22T15:05:00.000-08:00

[i started this friday, at maxfield's:]

another friday, back at maxfield's, ostensibly writing, more like talking about the bachelor and how MEAN those girls are. because they are mean. and jake is boring. but i can't say i don't love it madly.

i am so happy when maxfield's plays country music. jo dee messina and the dixie chicks. old, girly, country. i'm just crossing my fingers for shania.

i went to yoga today and but all i can think about is fucking guantanamo and the horrible "suicide" cover-up and the fact that not only is the god-forsaken place not getting closed, they are continuing to hold people, without charging them, indefinitely. you should read about these things, especially the fake-suicide situation, which is a cover-up of what sounds like some bad bad torture going awry. this kind of thing disturbs me for a couple reasons. 1, and i think the slate article on the story quoted a good quote about this: "the Geneva Conventions are so honored by military lawyers because they protect our own troops' humanity."

asking our soldiers to engage in this kind of behavior, torture, dehumanizes them. we are allegedly fighting against terrorists because they are threatening our freedom and our values and blah blah blah. i was listening to this long podcast yesterday about how china needs to stop fucking with human rights by censoring the internet and how hilary clinton and the state department are on this big push to get china to stop this by "freeing the internet". now, i KNOW that china does some bad stuff. they totally put people in prison for what we would call no good reason and then never charge them or take ages and ages to charge them and then the trials are probably totally unfair. [and here i was making a very good point and i got distracted by telling funny stories about being a ballerina as a little kid. things i will not go into now but believe me: THEY ARE FUNNY.]

now it is sunday. here i am, on the couch, in my bathrobe:

i am still feeling pretty upset by suicide cover-ups and un-ethical detention and torture. i don't think i need to finish that last thought, THAT WE ARE ACTING JUST LIKE CHINA, but there you go, finished. i'm trying to think of my second point but unfortunately my mind is completely filled up with the rock which pete and i watched last night and this morning and law and order which i watched all day while knitting yesterday. happy endings. my brain is mush. i need to leave the house but it is SO GRAY i just want to sit on the couch all day, in this bathrobe. possibly knitting.

the rock by the way, is awesome, as it always has been. one funny thing though is a really offensively comical gay hairstylist. it's so 90's to have this tough action movie and then this totally nonsense interlude with a not-even-funny lisping, pathetic, ultra-feminine male hairstylist. weird. the 90's were a weird time. back then, terrorists could be honorable and played by ed harris. oh, the 90's.

anyway, this post is probably mainly nonsense. please someone fix the weather. i'm having a seasonal effective disorder relapse. i need someone to give me a reason to get dressed. call me if you want to drive down to santa cruz and ride the giant dipper. that's the only possible solution i can think of right now.

baby baby baby

2010-01-15T12:42:00.000-08:00

so i got this brilliant idea to listen to audio books at work when i processing checks and things like that that are becoming more physical than mental. mechanical. and so i got lolita. in ten hours. read directly into my brain by jeremy irons.

ask pete. it severely messed me up. i'm going to say: this book is MORE DISTURBING THAN AMERICAN PSYCHO. okay, american psycho out weirds it, out gruesomes it, sure. but nothing about lolita is sarcastic. it's brilliant, i'm not saying it's not brilliant. it is totally brilliant. but i feel like i missed something. like i have always thought of the idea of lolita as something sort of hot. i mean, isn't that how it exists in the ether? lolita. you say that and you see the movie cover. a cute girl in a cute bathing suit, looking over her sunglasses. i guess i should have read this book, not listened to it, and read it in an english class, so i could know how i am supposed to feel about it and how other people feel about it, instead of having the voice of jeremy-irons-as-pedophile in my head for two days. but i want to submit that everyone should read this book and see just how not hot it is. not that there aren't sort of hot-ish parts. i mean, you are in this dude's brain and to him, the sexiest thing in the universe is a 12 year old girl. he has all the power, over lolita and over the reader, and you believe him a little bit, for awhile. he is HARMLESS. she is teasing him. it is romantic. it is hot. okay, reverse that. you believe him a lot.

but nabokov is a total genius people! this guy, humbert humbert, is the definition of unreliable narrator. he'll say things like, "oh then unfortunately i had a breakdown and was in the sanatorium for awhile," as if he is saying, "i went to the store because i ran out of milk." AND IT SEEMS REASONABLE. at one point you realize you are sort of glad a woman was killed by a car and humbert and lolita could run off together. but then, oh, hour 6? i don't know when it happens but you begin to realize that you just agreed to kidnapping and rape and are about to agree to murder. maybe i have a problem but last night i finished the book on tape, took a shower, went to bed, and started sobbing.

i guess what is so distressing about this story is the realism of the rationalization and the reality of the situation. there are people, a lot of people, in the world who do evil things and see themselves as heroes. this is important. there are no bad guys. everyone is a hero or a victim. so instead of leaving the book thinking, "let's strengthen our sex offender laws," you just like, start crying.

(side note- i am writing this in a cafe with my friend marisa and this kid from my college just walked by and i ran out to say hi to him but then forgot his name. also, this kid i saw was like HUGELY COOL at lewis & clark and has been nice to me approx one time and i am sure thinks i am madly in love with him which isn't exactly helped by me sprinting out of a cafe to awkwardly say hi to him. why do i still think this guy is a celebrity because he was in a lame band in college? why did i have the urge to prove how cool i now i am to him? seriously, for a second, in between the uncomfortable hug and me saying, "well, i guess i'll let you cross the street now", i had the DISTINCT URGE to tell him i have a boyfriend or a book getting published. thank god i didn't. i can stay hero for awhile.)

anyway, lolita. jesus. i still think this audio book idea is genius but maybe i need to take more breaks from it. i just get so involved. it's like this project i am working on now, writing about africa. i get so involved and i start to feel horribly fat and ugly. i'm pretty sure my skin is acting up, just from me mentally getting back into africa. it's fucked up. also, i have terrible skin.

on the couch under blankets

2010-01-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

here is a picture i took the other morning of my amazing hair:

there you go. that is what i look like every morning. i'd try to go to work like this but i might get arrested for being so god damn amazing. here is me currently, hair less cool:

last night pete and i went camping in the santa cruz mountains. the lead up to the actual camping was sort of a fiasco that involved driving on very, VERY curvy roads, me almost puking and us not having enough money for the campsite. amateur. HOWEVER. we saw a cougar, which made up for everything. it was crossing one of the curvy roads and pete saw the whole thing and said, "COUGAR!" and when i saw it it was leaping through the air into the bushes. it was huge with that big thick tail. scary and awesome.

we have pretty good animal luck together. last year we saw a golden eagle. i think if we see a condor my mom might give me up for adoption. she wanted to see a cougar pretty bad but i think she wants to see a condor worse.

after the camping (we ended up finding a town with an atm), we had breakfast in a super backwoods town called ben lomand. "backwoods" is sort of a weird way to describe a place twenty miles away from santa cruz but i'm telling you. i could have been in forks, washington the way the mildly-attractive waitress knew all the town men who kept coming in to get cups of coffee and flirt with her.

then: surfing. we haven't surfed in months and we were out there for two and a half hours and basically i can't even lift my arms. i rode pete's longboard because it's easier than my board. i love surfing. and in santa cruz it is just fun without the terror aspect. though there were some big waves today. but not where i was surfing.

then: bbq at cole's bbq in santa cruz which is just about my favorite, worst for you food in the world. totally acceptable after surfing plus we split one meal and have tons of meat left over.

in summation: nice weekend. it happens. what are you going to do?

do you remember how to count?

2010-01-05T17:07:00.000-08:00

this is me on new years eve. it's a pretty terrible picture but at least you can see my totally sweet outfit. hopefully i get to wear this outfit again someday because new years was honestly sort of a blur. i think the party we went to was pretty lame. i destroyed my tights by walking home barefoot and still managed to mangle my feet with my heels. we found some important wood products on the way home (because finding stuff on the street and bringing it home is a serious problem for us) and so also my coat is sort of dusted in white paint. oh well. new years is generally like that.

now i am on to a new phase in my life called "lizzy gets serious in 2010". pronounced "twenty ten" because that is apparently how you pronounce it. this stage involves only having one job, doing a lot of writing and being a writer and zero of the other stuff. other stuff does NOT include reading or yoga or surfing or world traveling or cousin-visiting. or listening to "counting in c" which i bought off of itunes so i could just listen to it without the whole surrounding podcast, over and over and over again.

another part of the plan is expanding my mind by listening to many informational podcasts and audio books at work. genius or going to cause me to get fired? i say genius.

also in the plan: getting more bookshelves so we aren't actually killed by the growing stacks of books all over our apartment. eating less sugar. putting money in a roth ira. sitting at my desk and getting it done. by "it" i mean my NEXT BOOK, grad school, my credit card bill, etc.

here i am. at my desk. blogging is part of "it", if you are wondering. an important part. getting the word out.

so. in summation: i ate a donut today which was a terrible idea. pete likes watching "jersey shore" with me which i can add to the apparently infinite list of reasons i am luckier than anyone deserves to be. happy new years. the end.

the new you

2009-12-30T14:09:00.000-08:00

i got another new haircut. my last haircut was ruining my life. not really but it sort of sucked. i feel bad about it because the lady who gave it to me was nice but she did this weird layering thing which made me feel like a career gal from 1981 or something. meaning: ugly.

the jury is still out on this one but i am crossing my fingers REALLY HARD because: the girl who cut my hair was very nice. also: they do waxing and, get this, MAKEUP APPLICATION LESSONS. which i need. bad. i tried to put on makeup last night and pete was like, "um, maybe subtler?" i looked like a train wrecked on my face. twice. with paintball passengers.

i think i need to practice. maybe i will go practice now. other people know how to do this sort of thing, why shouldn't i?

other news: i am drinking this delicious apple drink i invented with bourbon right now. our baja trip is canceled. pete is making mexican black beans. tomorrow is new years eve.

law and order

2009-12-29T00:29:00.001-08:00

this is me and my mom and my cousin in eugene.

this is me watching law and order waiting for pete's plane to get in so i can go get him. this is a problem. i want his plane to get in. i am ready to be asleep in my own bed.

law and order is amazing. it is so terrible, so obvious, so satisfying, so false, so weirdly moral, so racist.

also: terrifying. i shouldn't watch it when i am home alone. but i guess there is no point in watching it when people are around.

in the valley, by the river

2009-12-26T16:05:00.000-08:00

in case you spent time in eugene and thought it was REALLY COOL when you were a kid, let me inform you now: it is not. valley river center has like a dirty tile floor and the biggest store is sports authority. there is only one big movie theater.

other things to tell you: steer clear of it's complicated unless you like puking.

don't tell my grandma i said that.

eaten: delicious cookies, chicken, potatoes.

drunken: cocktails, by my mom.

tonight we are going to the country club for dinner. four days no facebook or peter. i miss peter, not facebook.

ending transmission.

merry happy

2009-12-24T17:54:00.001-08:00

it's cold in eugene. i'm glad i have so much nice family. my mom is making cocktails.

disintegrating

2009-12-21T21:44:00.000-08:00

in the last two weeks my yoga practice has basically ceased to exist. today for lunch i had chocolate cake and bacon. for real. i need to wash my hair.

luckily, it is almost a new year. a new DECADE. this decade i plan to GET MY LIFE TOGETHER. again. get back to fruits, vegetables and exercise. back to a writing practice. back to art practice.

away from facebook.

anyway. the bf is gone so i watched a little of this jersey shore thing that everyone has been yammering on about (snl, news outlets, i am talking to you). dude. what is good about this shore, besides almost nothing: mtv is finally being honest with itself. big step. first: admit you have a problem. there is this thin veneer of class on shows like the hills and the real world. those kids from new jersey are dirty. no question. superficial, alcohol filters with early stage skin cancer and hardened black souls. kind of like mtv.

in other news, i started reading the road last night and got to page 35 before i wanted to put rocks in my pockets and walk into the river. luckily pete was around to talk me down. i want to read it right now. i mean, it's GOOD, but i think it is unsafe to read before i go to bed when i am home alone. too much ambiguity and possibility. i will wait until i am in front of a fire with my family who has names. instead i will take a shower and maybe be lulled to sleep by the uncomplicated good and evil situation in law and order: svu.

do you like reading my blog? soak it up. sooner rather than later we are moving into the woods to practice survival skills. they don't have internet in the woods. just bears, trees and survival.

eggs etc

2009-12-19T20:42:00.000-08:00

it's too bad that in a horribly disastrous trip to corvallis last christmas i squished my camera. it would be nice to have some real pictures of things to show you, instead of creepy grainy daily pictures of me-as-a-teenager from my computer. i had a dream the other night that i got an iphone. which is majorly messed. product placement in dreams.

other things: yesterday pete did this whole planned-out surprise christmas thing for me. it entailed many genius things but was topped off BY A TRIP TO THE CIRCUS. he wouldn't tell me where we were going but i saw the tent and i was like, totally blown away. for real. i have always wanted to go to cirque du soleil. i mean, people. doing amazing things. in front of you. with their bodies. also, i am pretty sure i never mentioned my desire to see cirque du soleil out loud to anyone because i figured they would think i was a massive dork. we had amazing seats. an amazing time. totally totally amazing. (yeah okay, my mind was blown pretty hard and so right now i am working with fragments. hopefully i will be up to full synapse load by tomorrow.)

other: we saw avatar in 3d this morning. going for full-scale visual amazement this weekend. that movie is pretty much amazing (vocab issues this evening/only word i used all day). the dialogue could use work. not sure why sigourney weaver's character smoked. that was odd. but otherwise. dude. watch it. in 3d if possible.

other: i just cleaned the kitchen while listening to christmas music. i feel stupid today. when you feel stupid, christmas music seems poignant. maybe i'll go watch love actually and cry now. maybe that was mean.

other: we watched lil wayne behind the music today and i am now using my little brain to focus a lot of energy on the fact that we have the exact same birthday and what that means and also what constantly sipping cough syrup, jolly ranchers and sprite does to a person's brain and eyelids.

okay. t minus 2 days until i leave for eugene. dear brain: i will start doing math equations if you don't pony up and start doing your job soon. love lizzy.

big win

2009-12-18T17:59:00.000-08:00

this is me in my bathrobe at 5:58 pm. i left early from work. pete cleaned the bathtub so i could take a bath. now he's making me dinner. i won't go into detail about the rest of the day/evening because it will make you sick with jealousy but i just thought i would put this into the universe. pete is freaking amazing.

the man farm

2009-12-13T14:33:00.000-08:00

this weather is reactivating my seasonal affective disorder. luckily, for all involved, pete and i are going to mexico in january. unluckily, i have to make it til january.

actually it's sunny outside. i think i just want to take a nap.

this isn't much of an update. i got my own cubicle at work this week. i am still trying to come up with a decoration scheme. i almost punched a lady outside planned parenthood who told me, "children are wonderful. you can have your baby!" instead i said, "you are being insane. i am coming here for a pap smear!" dear people who find it important to harass women getting standard health care: get a new job. the nurse practitioner was like "we don't even DO abortions on fridays. THEY KNOW THAT! they have spies who call in and try to schedule abortions."

which is hilarious and sad. like that lady knew she was harassing people who weren't getting abortions and still thought it was worthwhile because anyone going into planned parenthood is probably a huge slut. or something.

here's a question: why do people hate each other so much?

next: the wolves

2009-12-08T08:40:00.000-08:00

weatherwise, we have reached a day after tomorrow scenario. 39 degrees is san francisco. i was told this was going to be california. i let pete get up and make breakfast even though if anyone should be getting up it should be me, since he has been staying up late finishing up the semester and i have been just 9-5-ing, with the occasional yoga class or anne of green gables binge.

my eye lid is twitching. i think we need a dehumidifier. i think our apartment building is rotting away.

last night the poetry center had a end of semester dinner, also farewell dinner for me. it was delicious indian food and they even invited pete.

jesus. i can't focus with my eyelid twitching. i think i will stay in bed forever. these sheets are so warm and it is so cold outside of them.

breakfast is ready. here i go.

prepare to join the ranks of cold, uninteresting spinsters who have chosen a professional career, anne shirley.

2009-12-06T20:27:00.000-08:00

i'm bringing back the dolphins hat. it is cold and december is making me feel sort of fat and lame. dolphins hat to the rescue.

i'm watching anne of green gables: the sequel in which anne melts the hearts of many, many cold, uptight canadians with her straightforward manner and religious adherence to what is right. my feelings, as always, are mixed. i love how she is like a vanquishing hero for happiness and fun, bring joy and common sense wherever she goes. but i am worried that this fantasy is what lead me on my fruitless crusade to integrate the mr. spartan pageant in 1997. what was i thinking? what would they call it? girls aren't funny! anne shirley, as well as the constant positive support from my family and the other strong willed soldiers for honestly and logic i admired in literature (francie nolan, harriet the spy, jo march, kristy thomas) and my favorite movie of all time (scout), lead me to believe if i stood up for the right thing, people would notice and change. of course, i may have missed the point. for example, what did scout really do? and francie missed out on true love because she didn't bone a dude when she should have. and everyone basically hated harriet. and i am beginning to think that lucy maud montgomery's thesis was "have some fun but GET MARRIED AND HAVE KIDS OR ELSE YOUR LIFE WILL BE UTTERLY DEVOID OF MEANING." it is interesting to learn about the lives of authors even if it is sort of forbidden in some types of criticism. like i just learned via wikipedia that lucy maude montgomery may have committed suicide. two days ago i learned that orson scott card hates gay people. so. never have three names. and is biography relevant?

ANYway. this is all sounding bitter. like i am blaming books for a failure i had when i was a sophomore in high school, over ten years ago. is my life now really so bad? and am i just an inherently, overwhelmingly negative person? no. however. i am pretty critical. and today i feel extra critical. what is WITH the world? why do i have to go to work tomorrow? blah. nonsense. and anne shirley is entertaining me but also bugging me a bit. i can imagine lucy maude getting older, publishing the first book and then getting married. what did she lose then? i don't know. i will continue the investigation. how many hearts will anne melt before i go to sleep?

wolverines!

2009-12-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

this is the section i was ta for this semester in craft of playwriting. i named us the wolverines, after my middle school. what i like about this picture is that there is actually no way to know i am the teacher. by "like" i mean "find disturbing" and "think probably means i will never actually get a real teaching job". i am 27. why do i look 16?

other news: i picked up the book seventh son by orson scott card from the free box at work. it was new, as in never been read, with a receipt that said some date in 1993. i picked up the book yesterday and i just finished it now. when i was in middle school i read pastwatch: the redemption of christopher columbus. sometime in high school i read ender's game. i like this card dude. he writes compulsively readable science fiction/fantasy-type stuff which i think transcends genre, at least in intention. the guy is trying to SAY something, i think, as well as entertain and re-write history to make it nicer and keep myths alive. he writes myths, sort of. i don't know. but this is why i can't read too much anymore. either i don't get into a book and then never finish it or i get so freaking into it i finish it in less than 24 hours, during which time no dishes are washed, no meals are cooked and i barely remember that i am alive in the world.

this something i am working on, in general and not just when i am reading: remembering i am alive in the world. it's harder to do than i originally thought. and sometimes, worrying. like, when i was riding my bike home from school tuesday, through the fog, by the beach, and it suddenly hit me that i was riding along on the surface of a planet in the universe. that is a cold feeling. i mean, physically. space is cold.

anyway, my old old friend robin is in town tonight. and i didn't work today, which is the best way to spend friday. i watched the end of the civil war game on espn on my computer last night and i think pete almost moved out. he alleges i "don't like football". which is true-ish. i don't always love football. but i do like a good battle that i am emotionally involved in. i was going for the beavers but i guess i am happy the ducks won, for the rest of my extended family.

my feet are cold. where can i find the next book in this series. also: do i even dare?

transitions are hard.

2009-12-02T20:31:00.000-08:00

next week is my last ever week at the poetry center where i have worked for the past 3 and a half years. have i ever had a job that long before? no. will i again? remains to be seen.

my newer job asked me to be permanent instead of temporary. most people would not find this a terrifying request. they would think, oh HEALTH CARE! a steady income in these TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES! you know what i think, hey, back off! why are you trying to cage me in?! what is this, marriage?

i took it though. it's a good job. three blocks away from my house. it pays pretty well. these are TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES. whatever. i plan to graduate in the spring and i will have a book published and maybe i can get some job teachering or something. i really sort of want to be a freelance travel journalist. surf journalist. so far my inquiries to surfing magazines are not getting any response. next i will start sending naked pictures.

other things i could possibly do: write term papers for rich students. ethically better or worse than getting into advertising?

no, it's nice to have a stable job, even if it is in an office filled to the very top with sugary candy.

i'm not eating sugar this week. on wednesday, before i left for portland for thanksgiving (with pete's family, awesome fun time) i had a massive freak out, precipitated, i believe, by my breakfast of brownies and snack of sugary gummy fruit slices. i am a pretty emotional person. i don't want to be medicated. so i am trying a massive sugar reduction. starting with NONE this week, and slowly just back to a little on friday.

i can't wait until friday. i love sugar. this is pleasure delay. generally not my strong suit. we'll see.

last thing: anne of green gables. i was given the complete set of the movies. i work at a place that gives these things as gifts. have a told you where i work? here's a hint. it gives anne of green gables dvds to members as gifts. yesterday i watched all of the first dvd. i'm about to start the second. honestly, it isn't as mind blowing as i remember it being, from when i watched it at our upstairs neighbor's half of the duplex in pullman when i was seven. and anne was never my favorite of lucy maude montgomery's impossibly tragic, dramatic, beautiful, spunky, intelligent and hilarious characters. that was emily of new moon. the emily trilogy. please tell me someone else read these, under their covers, over and over again, sobbing EVERY TIME EMILY'S DAD DIED. every time teddy returned from wherever he was (abroad?) to tell emily she was the only one he really loved. two things we don't get anymore: really waiting around for YEARS for true true love and miscommunication that causes those years of waiting around. if emily and teddy had gchat, they would have had zero to no problems.

oh man. should i read those books again? probably not. i am too jaded. but back to anne. i love early anne. as far as the books go, anne of green gables is by far the best one. in the first book anne is still awkward and tragic and hilarious. the older she gets, the more perfect and beautiful she gets, the more i want to throw her off a cliff. honestly, i don't remember a thing she does in the later books, besides marry gilbert and have an obscene amount of children with obnoxious names. but i could tell you the whole first book. where she comes from. getting diana drunk. the brooch. god. that is the good stuff. what is the deal with writers falling into these boring daydreams when their characters get older? examples: the power of one. the count of monte cristo. good, sure, when there's a struggle. but by the end, i mean come on! he doesn't lose ONE boxing match? he is THAT rich?

i think when my book comes out, people might be freaked out or think some of it is a little brutal. these people may all be over forty. but still, maybe not. yeah, it's a little brutal. but i was raised on green gables and new moon (emily of, not twilight) people. the actual world when it finally hit me was a bit of a shock. that is what my book is about maybe, the cold water shock of the actual real world on the face of a girl steeped in fiction. being spunky doesn't always mean you get the cutest boy in school. more likely you get a bad citizenship grade. also, awkward looking girls don't always grow up to be beautiful.

other than that though, i won't spoil the ending.

space debris

2009-11-23T21:59:00.001-08:00

i'll tell you right now, my grandma doesn't think this picture is pretty.

i am trying to craft a statement of my plans for writing next year if i were to get this most amazing, life changing fellowship that everyone in america wants. do you think "i would only write with a golden pencil while drinking champagne" is a winning essay? or are we back on with sincerity?

i know, if you are a creative writing type, you might sigh with disappointment that i too, am applying. oh you know what i am talking about. but i am no threat to you. i have the comical monkey face of a toddler and i don't like oatmeal. my whole manuscript is haiku in a language i just invented this morning.

today someone gave me, for free, a box set of anne of green gables books and...ALL THE MOVIES. what does this mean? pete wants to have a party and he doesn't think pimps and hos is an appropriate theme. newest idea: anne and gilbert theme. avonlea theme. who will come to this party? who will be diana? we will get you SO DRUNK OFF CORDIAL you will almost stop being our friend!

are you allowed to talk about work on blogs? i know i have before. maybe i should stick with public political matters. a few weeks ago i got in a facebook status comment debate over health care with my uncle and a guy from my home town. yes. it happened. then they both got all heated and wanted to email me their important points. then i left town and was unable to respond to the emails. now: i don't care as much. the thing is, these people are people i like. i don't want to leave them hanging. but our disagreement is so completely fundamental that i don't see the point in arguing it anymore. their thing: rich people should stay rich because it helps everyone. my thing: that makes no sense. look back at all the unhelpful rich people throughout time. they are always making this weak "helps people" claim BECAUSE THEY REALLY LIKE BEING RICH. also, my other thing: there are certain types of health care that all people should have access to. if we can save peoples lives, especially through preventative care, we have a moral imperative to do that. i am not even a christian. it just seems like that is sort of the deal with civilization.

money ruins everything. copyright me right now. i know i sound so naive or whatever. just like everyone said i did in 8th grade when i got all into communism. fuck it. i don't care if it sounds naive. i think things are way less complicated than we make them out to be. even old feudal lords knew you had to keep your serfs a little happy or they would burn down your castle and cut out your eyeballs in the middle of the night. they had to be FED at least. ALIVE at least. i still don't get why having two jets is better than having one, or why five summer homes is better than any number less than five.

this is an awesome article my dad sent me about how the super rich are destroying the environment. i know, i should count myself in there. i totally do! even though i am currently uninsured and facing a mountain, BIG BIG MOUNTAIN, of student loan debt.

you know what? i pay my taxes for the roads you all drive on. i don't mind.

jesus. i am tired. i am bored with these polemics. is the world over yet? can't we all just get along as we fight alongside the super race of vampire zombies for our survival? what will glenn beck say then? will it be bad if i shoot him with my shot gun accidentally? what if he has water? what if he starts crying?

all of these are important questions that we will all know the answer to sooner rather than later. until then, i have some green gables to get involved with. jessie, you are probably going to want to come over. is bart still running? bring your pjs.

encore

2009-11-21T14:48:00.001-08:00

this is my gorilla costume. my mom made it for me in fourth grade. i wore it to work with the mask (homemade by me) and then out to journey to the end of the night with zombie face. we didn't take pictures but pete was wearing a fuzzy chicken costume that i re-made from piece we found at this crazy store called scrap, also in zombie face. it was an epic halloween. old news. anyway:

i got a haircut. last time i got a for-real haircut was last thanksgiving. i think i am pretty down with the haircut. stylist pete, who also came up with the bangs idea, thought i should cut off four inches. i don't know where he comes up with these ideas but i did it. i kind of wish i had gone even further. like here it looks pretty okay but actually it does this obnoxious flip-out thing on my shoulders. i haven't washed it yet. and already i put it in a ponytail and i look exactly like before:

anyway. i also got a pretty painful wax yesterday so it was a full girl day which i has been extended into today because so far i have spent the day grocery shopping and baking. it's pretty gross. i'm making delicious brownies and a gross pumpkin pie for a potluck friends thanksgiving at my long-lost cousin heather's house. a) i love brownies but pete is all about this pumpkin pie disaster and has to do important art all day before the potluck so i am making the pumpkin pie for him and my ancestors in hopes that i will never have to do it again. i mean, it's hella easy. i just bought a mix. but seriously. it's like baby food without cute babies. who eats this stuff? aliens, weirdos and pilgrims i guess. the brownies are from scratch. occasionally i roll that way. b) my long-lost cousin heather is this really cool girl who is about my age and lives like one neighborhood away and whose grandma was my grandpa's sister. the grandma is dead and i never met her. but through a few interesting twists and turns including the printed obituary of her still-living grandpa, we discovered each other. like i said, she is cool. and you can ever really have too much cool family, right?

otherwise my life is pretty regular and standard right now. a little too busy with too many things i don't actually love doing. but that's sort of what it's like being human anyway. you have to work so you can eat the food. i'm thinking of new life plans. things that will get me out of a cubicle. so far i have journalist, teacher, construction worker, hairstylist and full-time tweeter of weird things happening on the streets of san francisco.

the brownies are done so i have to make the frosting now. thanksgiving! what a weird weird holiday when you think about it too closely.

amateur.

2009-11-16T21:47:00.000-08:00

i just sent a cover letter/resume to my dream job which i am perfectly qualified for. problem: i attached my cover letter twice and not my resume at all. stupid. stupid. stupid. i sent the resume anyway. excuse me while i punch myself in the face 15 times and get ready to spend the rest of my life in a cubicle.

it aint trickin if you got it

2009-11-15T21:28:00.001-08:00

so today i was in the berkeley library, doing work with jessie because we are both grad students. i was working on the book, she was doing policy reading or something. something serious. anyway, we broke the studying because she wanted to show me this. what is that? oh just the threesome scene from that recent episode of gossip girl that all the professional moms on npr were up in arms about (npr called it a "menage a trois", and adorably, the "professional mom" was flummoxed about how her 14 year old son, who was not allowed to watch the episode, had learned what a "menage a trois" was).

anyway, as far as i am concerned, this little bit of episode 9, season 3 completely renewed my interest in gossip girl. it perfectly illustrates this disconnect between the kid world and the adult world and by kid world i mean people under 20 and adult world i mean people over 40. those of us in the middle, i think, are in sort of an interesting position in that we KNOW the internet. we LOVE the internet. but we also remember a time, at least i do, when we didn't have it at my house, we'd never heard of it, we made due with land lines and 104.7 kduk for our communication and experience of the cool world of hipness. of course, i also grew up with out a tv so you could make the argument that i was pretty freaking sheltered.

kids under 20 though, they are DIFFERENT. the internet is like in their blood. texting: they invented it. why does your 14 year old son know what a threesome is? um, i don't know if YOU looked up "ass" in the dictionary in 3rd grade but i certainly did. i also specifically remember in 6th grade asking my mom what "cunt" meant. you know what is easier and more informative than my mom on that subject? google .

anyway, all this has been rolling around in my mind, that there is this universe-sized information gap between kids in high school and their parents. it's cultural really. and then, here comes this scene. watch it again. listen to the song.

that song is this song, only sung by a white girl:

this is truly amazing. i would say, most of my youth there have been some great hip-hop covers bouncing around. mostly hilarious redos of super misogynistic hits (see especially ben folds singing "bitches aint shit") ironic, slowing down the crazy lyrics of this music so you can see JUST HOW BAD IT IS.

things are changing however. this new version of t.i. "whatever you like" is totally earnest:

this video is interesting because the crowd starts out laughing but it ISN'T FUNNY and the laughter feels awkward. don't get me wrong, i love this song. i love both versions. i used to listen to the t.i. version all the time. i think what is crazy and interesting is that this music has a very specific message. let me break it down for you: dudes, get money by any means necessary. get a LOT of money. spend it. lavishly. this how people will know you are tough, powerful and successful. girls, dress like a hooker and find a dude who will spend a lot of money on you (don't worry, it aint trickin if you got it). if possible, allow him to get you pregnant (please see 50 cents new trail blazing anthem "have a baby by me baby be a millionaire"). now he will never leave you. or, i mean, he WILL bone other chicks, probably get them pregnant, whatever. but you'll have his money. that is true and guaranteed.

so where am i going with this? i made some brownies, i want to eat one. i need to think about it more. but i would say we are in the middle of an interesting shift. if a threesome is all your 14 year old knows about, lucky you. even I knew what that was when i was 14. hip-hop music is the realest thing out there right now, the most compelling, the story line that makes sense to everyone growing up right now in our country. maybe we should be worried. but the ice caps are melting too. and some of those songs are downright CATCHY.

the complicated mirror

2009-11-11T08:45:00.000-08:00

happy veteranss day. veterans' day is great for many reasons. 1) my grandpa is a veteran. from world war two. without him, we'd be governed by nazis and so i'd be dead. and i am glad that you aren't a nazi and i am not dead. 2) both of my jobs have the day off. amazing. i couldn't go to work if i wanted to! and i really don't want to.

as you can see from above, i am wearing my bathrobe.

mainly i am blogging to test pete who this morning told me he had "an rss feed from my blog to his brain." otherwise, my life is pretty normal right now i guess. i went to eugene last weekend to visit my above-mentioned american hero grandpa and my less-heroic grandmas. though they were on the home-front. that was important too. i also saw my cousins and one of my cousin's baby. he just turned one and the last time i saw him he was just an uncomfortable bump in my cousin's belly, as far as i could tell. now he is doing some hilarious dancing and running around. also: in one excited moment of baby-sprinting up to my grandma and climbing up her like a monkey-baby to avoid his mom who was chasing him, he bit my grandma straight on the boob. she took it like a champion and the poor kid was totally freaked out but there was something amazing about the whole thing, like they were really fully PLAYING, both totally immersed in this game. just the thought of biting my grandma would have sent me into a tailspin of terror when i was a kid. i was pretty intimidated by grandparents in general back then. still sometimes i kind of worry about them reading my stuff or seeing my tattoos or whatever. this weekend i saw them and talked to them and they all seemed so mellow and human. what was i worried about? my grandma, in her 80's, got her boob chomped on by a little boy with new teeth and she LAUGHED.

sometimes i think it would be interesting to have kids just to see how they react to my parents and grandparents. i guess they'd probably just act how i act. i mean, this new baby (okay, toddler now?), his mom is my youngest cousin and she was probably the closest of all the kids to my grandma, in this weird way. she was never intimidated by my grandma. so i guess it makes sense that her kid wouldn't be either. my kid would probably dissolve into a puddle of tears while whispering into my ear "momma can i have a cup of water?" that is, if my previous behavior is anything to go by.

i was a huge wuss. my brother was worse. my mom however is not a wuss at all. maybe my theory is breaking down. i guess i need the babies to find out for sure.

most of the times i think i want kids it is terms of something like this. like, to do experiments on. remember that. maybe don't let me have kids.

things i am going to do today: figure out my health insurance situations, work on monster party edits (that's my book, that's what it is called), laundry(?), yoga, ice my knee.

if you were looking for something cool to look at: here it is.

fear bubble

2009-10-22T22:51:00.001-07:00

lately i've been having trouble being a grown up. i was thinking tonight, when i walked to walgreens and later on the phone with jessie, that i thought this craziness was behind me. i thought that i grew out of emotional outbursts and intense insecurity and the fight or flight response when i was like 22. turns out, no, i was just alone for awhile and i got into that semi-wonderful alone thing, where you don't depend on anyone for anything, except maybe your parents for money. you feel completely un-crazy because you aren't continually putting yourself up against somebody else's self and finding the differences.

what i am saying is not that i would rather be alone at all. i love having someone i love in my house with me, to talk to or not talk to. to cook for. to complain to. but it can be fucking challenging as well because what if that person goes away? what if you put your whole weight on that person and they disappear?

pete started school this semester which is completely awesome and the right thing to do because he is a genius artist. you should see his most recent sculpture. it bill blow your head off. but also it is a big challenge for me because i am so used to having him around ALL THE TIME. to eat dinner with. to sit on the couch with. to skateboard with. and now this is new part of our life together in which i don't get those things whenever i want or even very frequently. which i am trying to deal with without burning down the school or developing an online poker habit.

basically i miss him when he is gone and i am afraid when he is gone a lot he will find someone cooler and then be gone forever.

but i am trying to deal with my fear and my irrationality by, direct jessie quote, my personal therapist after my mom has gone to bed, "acknowledging it and then putting space around it." also: yoga, internet television, late night walks in the mission, coming up with new projects like designing a book written by my young cousin lila. here we are, as you can see, a pair of geniuses:

also i have my many jobs to keep me busy and a whole new tutoring student starting next week THAT I AM GETTING PAID FOR. this is hard though, being in a full-on relationship. good too. like most hard things. like this crazy bind i did in yoga today. who thought i would ever be able to do a bind? who thought i would get into yoga? who thought i would then compare yoga to life?

i need to take my contacts out. it's late and i should go to bed.

boom

2009-10-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

see this sweet plaid shirt? pete brought it back from seattle. i think for him but luckily for everyone involved, if fits me too.

i have totally immersed myself in the couch and the balloon boy scandal and an australian drama about high class prostitutes. why is washing the dishes so difficult? good question.

i mainly wanted to write this so i can remember it: pete was showing me some old pictures this morning and in the stack was a birthday card i made him, probably 6 years ago, who even knows when? that said, "not everyone is born beautiful but everyone is born." did i make that up? and if so, question b, am i a genius? and point c, okay, he knew what he was getting into.

well, that picture is creepy. back to the ladies of the night.

the good news

2009-10-16T23:58:00.001-07:00

1. the mountain goats were on the colbert report last week. this means: stephen colbert is still genius; a person i said sort of mean things to in a fit of awkward celebrity shock (the bass player, i asked him why they were all into "acid jazz" now) was on sweet and famous tv show with a guy who openly made fun of president bush to his face which basically means i did (that is the chain of negativity--quantum physics--deal with it); and the mountain goats have a new ablum! about the bible! let's go out and buy it!

2. i had an eye exam today and my prescription in one of my eyes GOT BETTER. is that possible? after years of worse and worse eyes, finally, reverse.

3. i wasn't going to say anything about this because, you know, fear of jinxes, but i've heard a person in charge has been mentioning it in grocery stores and i guess i can't get the word out too early, right? get excited. my collection of short stories called monster party is getting published by small desk press. i don't know when it is coming out yet but don't worry. i will keep you appraised of the situation. i am fully 1000% stoked about this. i mean, a book. by me. PUBLISHED. my cousin erica thinks i should get the number, you know the real official number they put on books number, tattooed under oregon on my chest.

i've been so excited about this and thinking about it so much i've been having trouble sleeping. i need to set some sort of calming intention during yoga tomorrow. staying up late watching tv on hulu is helping with the exhaustion. i mean, i'm exhausted.

so that's the news. i'm trying not to be too exuberant about it but still want people to know so they can start thinking about how bad they are going to want to buy it. and how bad they are going to want to tell all their friends. tell all your friends! goodnight!

our blood looks similar!

2009-10-12T18:48:00.000-07:00

i'm going to make fried rice for dinner. two weeks ago pete came and picked me up after i got on a bus going the wrong direction without the full fare after emmylou harris at hardly strictly bluegrass and about 3 more beers then strictly necessary out of my friend neil's backpack. then pete made me fried rice. well he made some for himself and gave me some. since then i am thinking it is the epitome of genius. fried rice! so easy to make! can contain anything at all! tonight i am thinking of experimenting with kale, red peppers, chicken, carrots and garlic. always garlic. of course.

today at like 4:43 the network went down at work. it's pretty great when the network goes down. there is nothing you can do. and then i went to yoga. my favorite yoga teacher started teaching at this new, perfect time. why is she my favorite? she plays bon iver and van morrison instead of tibetan chanting. yesterday she played "silent night" for the final resting. the christmas carol. she's hilarious. also, i read about her on the internet and know she was an english major. also she is nice.

so yah, i have to go to work and stuff. make the money. stare at lists of names and numbers all day. answer phones. but it wasn't SUCH a bad day today. everyone says it's going to rain. sf is hilarious like that. when the weather might be different people can't stop talking about it. EVERYWHERE. the only equivalent in number of facebook status updates about a subject in the realm of people i know is if the beavers or ducks are playing football. SO many people i know care about that. it's weird.

which reminds me of two to three more things:

1) is it offensive that i took a facebook quiz called "which lds temple should you be married in?"

2) i hung out with my old friend jessie last weekend because she is in school in berkeley now. it was so awesome. it is nice to hang out with people you've known since third grade, even if at certain points they were your enemy. her bedroom is always the same: corvallis, eugene, portland, seattle, berkeley. it always smells nice in the same way. what is more comforting than that? nothing.

3) after talking to a past student body president of corvallis high school who did NOT attend his high school reunion, i feel confident that i will not go to mine.

in conclusion, here is a video for a song my cousin's kids loved to sing when i was in the car with them various times last summer:

i miss my cousin. i miss her kids. final picture, stolen from cousin, from a boat:

things that happen

2009-10-08T19:19:00.001-07:00

so. i haven't blogged in approx one million years. one could easily make the argument that i don't count as a blogger at all anymore. forever. goodbye.

whatever. i defy definition. deal with it.

i'm 27 now. did you know that? i turned 27 on the 27th of september and celebrated by taking the wrong people to folsom street fair (they are the right people for other things but wrong for folsom) and then doing equal parts moping and crying and then ultimately having a very nice evening with someone i like very much.

birthdays are a little silly. or maybe they aren't, i can't decide. anyway, i keep getting checks from my grandparents who ALL forgot my birthday which is i guess a side effect of being insanely lucky to get old enough that birthdays don't matter much anymore while still having grandparents and also of having grandparents who have actual lives going on that get in the way of remembering birthdays of people getting too god damn close to their 30s who haven't even finished graduate school yet for absolutely no good reason.

i have a lot of very cool grandparents, just by the way.

i wonder if my laundry is done.

i have this weird issue with blogging now that i have basically constantly been bringing up for the past year and a half which is two parts. 1) i live with a person who i can talk to, so i don't feel the same dramatic need to COMMUNICATE EVERYTHING TO THE WORLD because i can just communicate to him. also, now that i have his undivided attention, i sincerely doubt he is reading my blog and he was one of the main imaginary readers i imagined. i don't think he was a big-time reader but i could more easily pretend when i wasn't so aware of his internet habits (tutorials on electronics) because he was in a different state and living room and not using my actual computer. 2) i still actually like blogging a lot, when i have time which is less frequently than before. i like writing, i like an audience, i like the clicking sound the keys make when i press them down quickly. i also like writing out stories about my life, and in doing so FIGURING SHIT OUT. but there is clearly a new dimension to my life now which is that it isn't just MINE anymore. okay i mean it is all mine, obviously, but most of the things that i do or that are important to me that happen involve one specific other person who may or definitely does not actually, want the details of his life broadcast to australia and nevada, etc. he is a very awesome forgiving person and if someday my many stories featuring him get PUBLISHED by an OUTSIDE SOURCE NOT CALLED BLOGGER (what's with the caps, lizzy? i'll tell you--i don't know) he will suck it up and be cool with it. in most of the stories i change his name though. and they are also partially fiction and maybe even he might not guess one or two of them are sort of about him too and not aliens. but is it really fair to have this ongoing narrative in which i present my opinion about every single situation and he gets no say in the matter? i would usually say, yes fair, not important, my voice, my story, man up, deal with it. BUT...

(new paragraph just because that one was so freaking long.) he's pretty much totally completely important to me. so. i will exercise restraint. continue to exercise it. learn how to spell exercise.

however, before i get the laundry and start dinner, a cautionary note: for art the other night i wrapped pete's whole body in duct tape. sadly my camera is broken and the point was to do it to make a cast of his body. we did it over clothes and then i cut the clothes off. do not ever do this. duct tape has toxic fumes and we wrapped the duct tape too tight so the cutting off process was totally dangerous and needy to happen VERY QUICKLY before the dude passed out from loss of circulation. avoid duct taping your loved ones, if at all possible. if this is not possible, do it somewhat loosely and do it in separate parts. public service announcement: done. explanation of my life: done.

now. the laundry.

update: i got the laundry. about that and other things: i melted a sock in the drier. amazing. i've been doing a lot of yoga but not today. i have many jobs. i wish i could ride my bike more. bank of america tried to trick me into paying overdraft charges on a HYPOTHETICAL overdraft. are you kidding me? i think i want to be a teacher. i don't know if "glee" is brilliant but i love it.

now. dinner.

summer is almost over and why is this happening

2009-08-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

not as if there is anyone who reads this any more. i mean--i didn't post one thing in july. seriously. give up on me. i have.

but here's an update:

i have a sunburn.

i spent the weekend with my cousin and her kids. i also hung out with them for a week and a half at the end of june on martha's vineyard. those kids are like sickeningly cute. i keep telling her that, that like, all kids are cute but your kids are taking it to the max, maybe TOO far. i mean, her two year old son, in a purple speedo, he could throw your cellphone off a cliff, cry for five straight hours, slash your car tires and drunk dial your boss and you would still be like, "oooh but he's so ADORABLE! have you seen his hair? it's so curly and nice". of course it's a bonus that he doesn't do any of those things. instead he looks up from the pool in his goggles and says, "do i look distinguished?" but he's two so it's more like: "do i wook disthinwithed?"

sick. this must be part of the trickiness. i am not sure what the trickiness is. one of my cousin's kids promised to teach it to me but we ran out of time. i will have to email her to ask her for specifics.

besides hanging out with this part of my family this summer, i have been working full time in a cubicle which is sort of like what hell would be if there were such a thing as hell. luckily i firmly believe there isn't and all of us will get to just be dead when we die. because cubicles are horrifying. i've also been doing yoga about every day to counter act the emotional and physical effects of the computer. i can't tell if it's helping. i can't wait for school to start up again so i have an excuse to ride my bike at least twice a week.

did i mention also i went to new york? and pete and i took most awesome camping trip ever up through california to oregon.

well, i really should give more of an update. be more specific. i mean, THERE WAS CRAWDADDING. but suddenly i am so tired i can barely handle it. i just spent like two hours doing poetry center work. i've only been surfing once this whole summer. tomorrow: the job. this is what people live like, i know. i want to teach middle school i think. can some one tell me a good way to get into that?

***final edit*** I WANT TO GO TO BED but i was thinking about how i used to write in this so often and so convincingly, back when i lived without pete. i was thinking about how long i have lived in sf. i moved here in august of 06. i was 23. how nuts is that? i meet a 23 year old now and i am like, oh, you mean you are a toddler? so of course i went back and looked at what i wrote about in august of that year, three years ago. i found this one. it's kind of embarrassing to read the cheesy stuff i wrote back then, as a child. but also kind of funny because i just earlier wrote that i went on a crazy awesome camping trip with pete and there in that entry i am like GUSHING about camping with him. like it was SO AMAZING I WILL NEVER GO CAMPING WITHOUT HIM AGAIN. the future is a weird thing. i still feel that way of course, times ten. i wonder if in three years i will still feel that way or what weird thing i will look back on from now and be like, shit, that's hilarious, i was such a child when i was 26. i used to write myself letters every year but i haven't done that for awhile. but i think that camping trip i wrote about so obnoxiously (is this going to be obnoxious in the future? probably) three years ago was actually like a major thing, like most of my life in san francisco could be traced back to that trip. or maybe not. maybe it is a small thing. but i remember before i moved here, deciding one day while i was walking to work at the burrito shop in portland that i wanted to go on an awesome camping trip in california. i thought for like three minutes about who i wanted to go with. i think some names ran through my mind of people who might be cool to camp with but then it just occurred to me: pete! i'd never even camped with him before. he was living in bend. i mean, he was my friend and stuff but, i don't know, it seems sort of random almost that i asked him. and then he wanted to do it. and then we started making plans. and then the weird part is how spectacular it was, which i just didn't expect. not because i didn't think he was completely amazing, just, things aren't usually that level of awesome.

anyway, i am going on and on here. i just think it is weird is all, and that i am lucky. seriously. not only is that guy good to camp with, he is good to live with. i was so lonely when he left to go back home that time. i am so glad he came back, even if it has destroyed my blogging career and completely removed me from g chat. right now, he's in bend for the weekend. thank goodness not two years again.

okay, for real i am going to sleep now.

the end.

that snoring noise is coming through the wall

2009-06-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-21T09:11:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

(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

2009-05-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

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.

break cars

2009-05-17T17:34:00.001-07:00

i woke up today feeling a little less sick, which is good. i think i was just hella tired. sometimes when i don't sleep enough or get too crazy i get a sore throat. it just lasts for a couple days. i'm already at phase two: runny nose.

i ran some errands, hung out at ross, planned to spend more time on the couch to get fully recouped, and received a few suspicious phone calls from my old friend steve who lives in portland. with steve every phone call is suspicious because his main form of personal entertainment is making things up and laughing at me when i believe them. but today he called asking me strange questions that he could have easily answered using the internet. also i was a little confused because, though steve and i have a long history of being friends and talk pretty frequently, his final call was like the third in three days and none of them seemed very pressing. i finally caught on, when he started going on about the web cam he had found that pointed at my building, that he was actually outside. i guess i could have figured it out when he asked me if i wanted to meet him at ocean beach in an earlier call but i had just called him a liar and moved on.

it was a pretty great surprise anyway, and i love surprises. i went to the beach with him and his friend who he has been coming down to visit. it was cool (because it is so freaking hot today) but i felt a) sick and b) guilty that i wasn't surfing because the waves looked so nice and there was barely any wind. i decided to take the bus home, got some change by buying a weird russian ice cream at a weird russian store, and then realized bay to breakers was about to ruin my life. last year i got a flat tire on my bike from all the glass smashed throughout golden gate park after bay to breakers. this year, so far, the damage has been limited to a pretty epic bus ride in which i basically infected a bus full of drunk people with swine flu and then was nearly molested by a drunk gay guy dressed like a clown. i mean, he seemed gay other than the fact that he kept touching me and leaning way into my face like he was going in for a kiss. i wondered what i should do if he did try to make out with me because i was pretty sure that if i yelled at him the rest of the bus would think it was a chant and join in. there was a lot of chanting going around. he finally got off but then there were more dudes and they seemed a little too drunk and a little too in my face and i got off too and walked blocks and blocks in my flip flops.

finally, after walking and walking and seeing drunk people of every type, nearly getting run over by one in purple underwear, i got the bus that comes close-ish to my home and here i am. my throat hurts again. i think i will take out my contacts and devote the evening to severe rest. my goddamn paper is due thursday. maybe i should get on that. tomorrow. second thing.

things i am dying of

2009-05-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

This is me, the iphone version from my boss, at the crazy mfa teacher appreciation party last night. my friend anisse put it on. that girl is a crazy party machine. there were homemade hors d'oeuvres, speeches, dancing and everything. one cool thing about this picture, unlike one up on facebook taken with a flash, is that my breasts don't look substantially different in size.

i guess that's just life though. boobs can't always be exactly perfect.

the party was amazing. i had to talk about my two best bosses (well i only have two but they are both the best) and one of my favorite teachers, on stage, with a microphone. i tried to get it over with quickly because that is like the definition of terror for me. hopefully people were distracted enough by my lopsided boobs and my sparkly gold pants that they didn't notice i was about to cry.

about three people admitted to not recognizing me without my glasses. i may become some sort of spy if this writer thing doesn't pan out.

now i am lying on the couch, on the verge of being on the verge of death. i only had two drinks last night and came home early because i was taking pete to the airport at a ridiculous hour. but i woke up with a sore throat and the desire to stay in a reclined position for the rest of forever. i've been looking at facebook and watching "swingtown" on netflix and drinking water, trying to fix myself so i can write a comp paper, fix the postcard for our book, clean the house a little and ride my bike or go running, hopefully tomorrow. doubtful. the real tragedy is: what i am writing right now is completely boring and a direct result of sickness sapping my brain. i can't believe i avoided illness ALL semester while EVERYONE I KNEW got sick and now i am incapacitated. we'll just see. sometimes i bounce back. and i am not convinced that the whole thing isn't a psychosomatic reaction to pete leaving for nine days. that's a lot of days. who is going to cook the chard? who is going to make sarcastic animal noises?

i forgot to mention in that previous paragraph: i don't like "swingtown" and i think two episodes is enough. i would rather watch crappy "parks and recreation" or endless episodes of svu.

if someone wants to bring me a bottle of tylenol, i'll accept. i amateurishly finished my ibuprofen yesterday and didn't buy any more. i would take either.

you know what is weird to look at up close? armpits.

okay. i think i am going to take another nap now.

skype me if you want. i'm too sickly to answer to phone or the door. or just wait. i'll be less dramatic tomorrow.

those were good times. as far as we knew.

2009-05-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

a of all, blogging is so in this week. i went to the zoo with deirdre. check out the pictures.

b of all, i am rewatching stephen colbert at the correspondents' dinner. maybe the best moment for art in my life time? yes. maybe definitely.

those were good times. as far as we knew. can i make that the title of my first book?

cheesebur-cheesegur

2009-05-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

these are some important updates:

the internet is evil.

they maybe found me money at my job job so i can work there for part of the summer! and get paid for all the work i have done this month!

i love california.

i think the evil thing about the internet is that it pretends to be your friend but it can't come pick you up from the emergency room. or the police station. or carl's junior.

i could really go for some carl's junior right now.

which way to the meat party?

2009-05-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

i rode my bike to work today. the waxing situation has righted itself, if you were on the edge of your seats, completely grossed out, wondering. i am blogging at work which i haven't done once this year due to actually having work to do. but my work study ran out and i am not getting paid so i figure that affords me some extra time to rub noses with the internet via computers owned by sfsu.

i got offered a job on friday and turned it down. full-time. benefits. nice people. you want to know what is wrong with me? i fear commitment.

anyway, so i am still looking for something that will get me money for like july and august and maybe those first 2 weeks of june. not looking too hard though. i was washing my face this morning and it occurred to me that i really like my life as is. i get up in the morning, make breakfast. pete and i eat breakfast together like every day. it is sick really how weirdly awesome that is and how nice it makes you feel all day to sit at the table and eat eggs and bacon and bread and talk or not talk to your roommate who actually turns out to be your friend as well. then you know, if it's nice, i ride my bike an hour through the golden gate park, along the beach, to work. i like work generally. sometimes i meet with interns. sometimes i meet with my teachers. then i ride home, maybe pick up some meat. sit on the couch. take a shower. work on some project or something. make dinner. eat dinner with pete. and who knows what else? skateboard ride? party down? discussion with pete re: major important issues like: why is blogging ruining america? what is the deal with evolution? etc. go to sleep.

it's a nice life. funded by various financial aid options. a full-time job could seriously ruin it. maybe i could go through the summer on credit cards. people do that right? and then i can get on oprah and she can help me sort my debt? well, probably i'll get a job. google calender: meeting in ten minutes. later internet. i only tell you this stuff because it makes me feel good to know you are listening.

chicken

2009-05-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

today is cinco de mayo. is that even a holiday? yeah whatever.

there is like a week and a half left of school in which time i have to finish my entire comp project. oh comp. my teacher has a blog on the internet. that is enough to make me believe he is reading this blog in real time. so i'm not going to say anything disparaging about comp (though i probably have before like A LOT, who knows).

one thing about comp: 8 page research paper. for real. give me a break.

my life right now is pretty boring for some reason. i feel like i spend an inordinate amount of time staring at screens. i need a new job for the summer. please give me a job. but know that i will be gone for two weeks, ON MARTHA'S VINEYARD and IN NEW YORK CITY, in june. deal with it. i'm looking for receptionist jobs and going by NOT my nickname. i made an unfortunate waxing decision and am living daily to regret what seemed at the time to be a brilliant idea. isn't it some stupid movie where they say the definition of insanity is making the same mistake over and over and over again? or am i just trying to make up a quote to fit my current skin care situation? here is a peak into my rationale: hey i break out when i do a little of this but it probably will be completely different when i do A LOT of it. seriously. i need a skin transplant/life transplant.

no no. my life is pretty okay. just at that dull moment. you know, 10:04pm, everyone is on the internet, trying to get connected, slowly getting further and further away from actual human interaction. i want a cat or something.

for me the quick decision is usually the one i go with

2009-04-23T19:40:00.000-07:00

after meeting with one of my professors yesterday afternoon and discussing my ACTUALLY COMING ALONG AFRICA STORY/DRAFT OF SOMETHING POSSIBLY VERY BIG i made a real decision about my life, at least for the next 12 months: i am not going to graduate yet. yes my thesis is done and i paid the $40 and i didn't fill out the fafsa by the priority deadline, but these are smallish things compared to the big thing which i am on the verge of. you know, writing something that i have been trying to write for years, without the evil shadow of comp over my shoulder and with the assistance of the people i want assisting. of course, after i made the whole decision and talked to every single person i could talk to, that specific teacher said she was full for directed writing next semester. okay. it's okay! i'll get directed writing with someone else and do it with her in the spring! i'll take a workshop if i have to! i will write. A LOT. and i can keep my job. and stay in san francisco. i guess this means i am saying i want to be a writer. mark it down. today is the day it happened.

two tickets to the gun show

2009-04-14T18:01:00.001-07:00

it is crazy windy outside. gusting at 35 mph the weather said this morning. i rode my bike to and from school (work) and on the way the great highway was blocked off to cars and there was a super strong tail wind. basically it was amazing. the way back i rode through the city. there were a few points i was pretty sure i tree was going to be landing on my head. luckily i was wearing my stronger helmet.

i just read this article in the ny times about american guns in mexico. it's interesting because pete and i were talking the other day about just this thing. i don't hate guns. i mean, if you read this you might know i am interested in hunting. i think killing your own food is a thing you should maybe give a whirl if you plan on being a meat eater. which is a thing i plan on. i mean, i am not a descendant of neanderthals (you know, the foolish species of humanoid that didn't eat as much meat as us and had smaller brains as a result and now, you might know, are seriously extinct).

however, i don't think there is a logical reason anyone can give, if they seriously think about it, as to why we shouldn't have strict regulations on guns in this country. oh actually one logical reason: human life is not worth as much as cash on the counter. otherwise, what hunter really cares if it takes a week for him to get a background check for his shotgun or rifle? he has to plan at LEAST that far in advance to figure out what's in season, where he's going, what licenses he needs. i have never heard of a hunter who buys a gun and then that day goes out and bags a deer. hunting is a process. also, what hunter needs assault rifles or guns that pierce body armour? zero. none.

guns are sweet. i'm not going to lie. but killing people is something we all got together and decided we weren't into. not only is it plain bad, we don't want anarchy. we have a social code for a reason. the whole having to wear pants issue is debatable. not murdering neighbors? not really.

my brother just called. this guy who wrote a book i read in high school, LOVED in high school, is leading mikey's workshop for a week or something. because mikey's getting his mfa in fiction just like his super cool big sister.

did you know i am 26? i still remember the sex scene in the woods from that book. it involves a raincoat. it is oregon. it is raining. i'm pretty glad i am not still 15 so i don't have to believe in the lies people try to tell you about being 18 anymore.

porch swing

2009-04-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

you know sometimes i get pretty down on, like, everything. i was trying to write today, about africa, and all that came out was what usually comes out which is an extended description of how mean and terrible i am. it's weird and makes no sense to anyone else probably that that is what i write when i get into the whole africa situation but i guess, i don't know. i was reading the journals i wrote when i was there yesterday and i think there are two things of note: 1. whenever i read those journals i am reminded that i was/probably still am a very silly adolescent girl. i went to africa basically out of petulance and it turned out to be this mind blowing experience that while i was experiencing i sort of ignored and focused instead on making out with boys. in a serious and immoral like sort of quasi-dating different dudes all sort of associated with my host family way. i made out with people's brothers, cousins and those guys' best friends. jesus. which brings me to 2. i feel like i went for pathetic childish reasons and most of the time was there i acted like a pathetic child (after finally giving in to making out with a cousin of the family i wrote: "his lips are like limp spaghetti and he can't even speak english that well"). however going to africa is like this huge huge thing that i am still learning from i think. i know that while i was there i was terrified and homesick and in this intense survival-denial mode for 8 months. i just don't know how to reconcile the character of me there with who i really was with the character of me now with who i really am with the fact that besides genes and the rest of my life, those 8 months sort of define me. what is weird that i am wondering today is: do they define me as a bad guy? was i a bad guy? am i a bad guy?

which is not what i started out wanting to say. what i started out wanting to say is the other day pete and i were skateboarding around in the sun. we went to whiz burger and got fries and a milk shake. and it wasn't like the most perfect moment or the most beautiful day. in fact i felt a little bit irritable, peevish or impatient like i often do. but then i was thinking, damn, i should get over that like now. i can do almost whatever i want. i am 26 and i get to skateboard in the sun. with my best friend. without getting shot at. there are people who love me in a few different states. jesus. get over it lizzy.

i mean, pete likes country music. give me a break.

it's hard to have enough perspective at all times though, you know? when i was in africa, in my journal, i make precise calculations of how long i have left almost every day. i diagrammed my house and drew my family so i wouldn't forget home. i wrote about kissing the washing machine. a month or so after i came home however, i wrote this in my journal: "my parents are nice enough i guess but that is because they don't have a choice."

give me a break times two.

but you know what? and i am sorry for all those people who i like who love LOVED this movie, but i think what the bleep do we know is kind of crap. it's that ramtha channel person. sorry. she's wearing a wig and channeling a god she made up. she's from tacoma. which doesn't make sense in any sort of context but we watched that last night.

and that's what i have to say right now. perspective. how can you possibly keep it all times? does anyone have a job for me?

critical thinking

2009-04-06T19:02:00.001-07:00

new theory, a few minutes in to the new episode of kings: is this about israel and palastine?

new theory after watching newest episode of gossip girl: is it even worth it to wake up in the morning?

all of this is research for my hypothetical freshman composition class. tv is so so bad but since i feel a little bit like i am floating in outer space today, i don't have many other options. i mean, what is there REAL to do? kill animals for food? all we have around here is pigeons. sex for the purpose of procreation as well as all other purposes isn't available. other than those things, seriously, TELL ME WHAT IS REAL TO DO?!

this may be one of those one and a half months until being 26 turns into being 26. i turned in a draft of my thesis last week. i feel no sense of accomplishment whatsoever. i am working on a sweet book. no sense of accomplishment. i went surfing yesterday for the first time in two months. i sucked majorly. the waves were small but the ocean terrified me as usual and i couldn't let myself get outside. i am worried that i am going to graduate from graduate school and be homeless. there are no jobs i want to do. writing a composition syllabus...so so meaningless.

anyway, here's a new plan: woofer in australia. what if it happened? anything is possible. there are tickets there for only $418 (before tax). i could take my surf board. another thing i am worried about: i will spend the next ten years talking about the sweet things i could be doing and then my knees will give out and i won't have any savings and i will be living with my parents, probably in their garage.

holy shit. we need more light in this living room. and maybe a hot tub.

spring break 09 crying party

2009-03-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

are you in the mood to have your heart ripped into a few different pieces? to sob uncontrollably not for fiction but for NON fiction? i just watched dear zachary on netflix instant viewing. i heard about this movie some where one time. the radio? anyway, holy jesus. it a) is true b) involves murder c) involves stalkers d) involves babies and e) involves people that other people love. this last one seems big. pete and i have been talking about the biological reasons for things and it is interesting that there are just some people that, you know, other people really like. some people with lots of real friends. i mean, there are some people that after you know them for awhile you know they are just good, trustworthy people. and then there are some people, from the first minute you know them, you get the feeling if a bus was coming and it would make them look good, they would kick out your knees and push you into the street. there are reasons for this--EVOLUTIONARY reasons that i am not getting into right now because i have a crying headache from that movie. one thing is: there seems to be a case for communities kicking people out into the wilderness if not stoning them. okay that is rough. we have the whole justice system to take the barbarian out of us individuals. and i am totally against killing people. totally. even bad guys. BUT if everyone knows someone is bad, does bad things, hurts people, freaks people out, why can't we just give them the silent treatment and take away their babies? social services kind of fails a LOT. oh man, i just realized: I COULD GO ON ABOUT THIS FOREVER. i mean, look at the way we have changed our environment so we really don't have communities looking out for the creepy types? i mean these days number one scary people can just go down the block with their reign of terror if they want and no one will know they are scary because no one on the block knows each other.

conclusions: i am moving to a farm or a small mexican fishing village. i am learning spanish. i am not paling around with people who freak me out. i am sending out copies of the gift of fear to all the people i like.

actually that last one is false because i don't have that kind of money. however, if you think you are susceptible to stalkers, check it out. and watch dear zachary and be prepared to get weepy.

final conclusion: sometimes canadians really are very very bad.

****oh another thing**** i know i don't blog much anymore so sometimes i forget to mention HELLA IMPORTANT SHIT like: um medicine for melancholy is like the best movie of the year. no kidding. you know how i hate crash? because of its insane depiction of race that is completely out of touch with reality? well i would say m for m is about race, and other things, poverty (see my horribly embarrassing line and pretend it isn't me), class in general, being alive right now. and it is about those things in a real, honest, entertaining and awesome way. plus it is san francisco porn which i am seriously into. arty porn. beautiful porn. okay that makes it more like plain art i guess. well it is! plus barry jenkins who wrote and directed it has slept in my bed. not when i was there but deal with it. go watch the movie.

at least i will die free

2009-03-17T09:08:00.000-07:00

this is basically how i am feeling:

i need to write something. i need a story about aliens with sex and violence. also, i want to be better at the guitar and cooking and life. does anyone have a job for me in may? i can do a lot of things. i am thinking of moving to the beach. i haven't been surfing in weeks. spring break is next week. i don't even know if i could tell you what that means.

the future is now

2009-02-28T16:14:00.000-08:00

for some reason the weather is mainly crappy and i feel weird and the waves are too big for surfing. last weekend i went to my parents' house. here are some pictures:

me and my mom:
me and both my parents, a nice examination of genetics:

me and my dad and the fish eye:

me and my kitty, giro, who is getting old but still has a good sense of humor i swear:

me and eyeliner. this is not in port angeles, this is from here. pete and i went out to this opening party for noise pop, a big music festival. he had tickets through this guy he works for. i wore high heels and nearly died and it was all very hip. anyway, the eyeliner:

that's basically it. i'm hoping for better weather and a change of mood soon. i mean, this is the last day of february, the notoriously worst month in the universe. i won't be sad to see it go. i mean, really my life is pretty good right now but it has been a dramatic month and i am looking forward to some unencumbered enjoyment. we are cooking with new spices. hopefully that will help at least a little.