goodbye small hands, goodbye small heart

Moving

2010-01-18T11:40:00.000-08:00

I'm moving here if anyone is interested.

:)

close

2010-01-17T21:37:00.000-08:00

i have to go to work tomorrow.

i want to go to work tomorrow.

i felt logey and unmotivated this morn-er-afternoon, laying in bed with the dr. somehow convinced that this kind of lazy splendor would soon become a memory, knowing full well that was not true. i don't know why my brain likes causing these blips of desperation and drama. cue hand-on-brow fainting position.

i came home to find the boys in the kitchen making bruschetta and my cat perched on the arm of the sofa looking at me like 'where the fuck have you been?'

the house was warm, clean and smelled like garlic, like love. i took an extra long hot shower, thanked myself for doing laundry before the weekend started so I could slip into a clean bed, made a simple soup with tofu, spinach, broccoli & mushrooms and packed my bag for tomorrow, a strange ritual i had not done in quite awhile. every weeknight i would go through my messenger bag, swap out crap i didn't need, used yoga clothes for new, keys, book, journal, planner, pens, emergency pack which holds a sewing kit, lip balm, ibuprofen, travel brush, moisturizer, eye drops & a packet of emergen-c. stuff i carry with me all over this city, making sure i'm prepared for whatever, somehow comforted by these things, like lip balm and two pens can prevent disaster.

this need to be prepared is strange but has been with me my entire life. i felt like i should have spent some time studying contract standards before my first day (but i wasn't crazy enough to do so). it's both a blessing and a curse. there are some things you can't prepare yourself for.

this time last year i was not prepared for a long spell of bronchitis. i was not prepared to be dumped nor was i prepared to lose my job. no amount of prep was going to prevent these things from happening and my little world that i usually manage to keep in order unraveled all over the place with no real game plan on what to do next.

and it was magically...ok.

i was ok without a game plan until recently where i felt the overwhelming need for structure and purpose. i don't like that this meant job but i guess it's a starting point.

in discussing this with some of my various yoga teachers, it's something to keep my moving forward with goals in mind...like being able to start making $$ to put towards things that i've been wanting to do like teacher training, weekend baking courses and massage school.

i spent some time in the dr.'s hallway trying to kick up into a handstand, something i've only been able to do twice with some extra help (i.e. brian actually taking my ankles and placing my heels against the wall). the dr. coached and i tried, jumping, trying to get my hips up and over hoping the legs would follow. he told me i was close. i couldn't tell how close though, i wasn't sure. something familiar i've felt the past couple of months. people telling me i was close and i would eventually get there and not being able to tell how close or what to do next.

this time i feel really close. and i promise myself not to be lazy.

i've managed to get by with little complaint and with very little money this past year. i can count on one hand the number of times i've whined about being poor. while the job is only part time until march and once full time i'll be taking several steps back salary wise, it will be more then unemployment, which has kept me clothed, housed and fed for 9 months with very little struggle.

my other other savings account is aptly named yoga and still has money in it. i look forward to putting money in it once again.

in other news, i had so much ridiculous fun with the dr. this weekend.

super cat forever.

burro

2010-01-15T13:49:00.000-08:00

hmm.

my ass looks bigger.

bodies are strange.

nearly lost my shit in class this morning. for some reason there were 20 more people then normal and the room was well over 100 degrees. i was dripping with sweat 2 minutes into class and sat out some poses convinced i was going to throw up my non-breakfast i did not eat that morning.

even after class i sat on the floor of the little hallway outside of the bathroom trying to pull it together. a classmate asked me if i needed a hand.

recovery took forever today. i had a hard time lifting my leg to get into the shower and had dropped several items, my muscles refusing to co-operate.

they are going on strike for the pain and heartache i had caused them.

whatever fuckers, you'll thank me later when you're 60 years old and can still do jumping jacks and things.

everything is still pretty sore.

it's times like this when the trip down the back stairs to get my laundry feels like the journey of natty gan. not to mention the trip back up with all 80 lbs of freshly laundered bedding.

where's a burro when you need one?

i am too cute to be your slave

phases

2010-01-13T17:39:00.000-08:00

i can haz job? really? seriously?

full time in march? 'scuse me. eye itchy.

lemme put you on hold. my wallet is ringing.

this is what happens on very little sleep. you hear your neighbor's phone ring and you reach over and you answer your...wallet.

i snored in savasana during both classes today.

*i love how i'm holding both phone and wallet to my temples and not to my ears.

growth

2010-01-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

Sojourner Truth is on the mend.

Her real name is Isabella Baumfree.

14 minutes

2010-01-11T23:46:00.000-08:00

i had an awful day today.

nothing really happened.

i slept for most of it.

then i cried for a good chunk of it.

then i ate some soup.

it's just a rough patch, i know.

grappling with definitions of self worth always bring up some awful stuff. i've been so reticent with sharing emotions and it dawned on me today that i've been scared to be upset around those i love because people i had dated in the past had made me feel like it was selfish to do so. after being accused of using my emotions to manipulate i've felt like maybe i should keep them shut up inside in case i'm ever misunderstood like that again.

i didn't want nor plan on breaking down in front of the dr. today but after spending the past week letting it escape in dribs and drabs, it wanted out, the whole lot of it. the stress of being unemployed for so long, watching my savings account dwindle away, my health insurance expiring, the fear of not having a back up plan, the feeling that i have nothing to contribute to anyone or anything, all of it snowballing into one gigantic thing, one enormous creature full of self doubt and frustration barreling up from my gut, shivering its way through my ribcage and making its way out in a mournful sob. they started to come, one after another. it's when that space in the back of your throat gets tight and your lungs spasm as you hiccup that you realize there is no going back and there is no stopping the tears that you wished you could control.

it hasn't quite stopped. i opened my mouth to say hello to my roommate and it started all over again. i made some soup and it started all over again. it's still coming and going. i guess i've held back a lot the past week and now that the dam is broken everything wants to come rushing through and it's a lot more then i imagined it would be. there's nothing i can do about it but let it run its course i guess.

here's to a better tomorrow, which starts in approximately 14 minutes.

lesson

2010-01-08T01:20:00.000-08:00

I spend so much time rationalizing myself out of going crazy, inserting the voice of reason to prevent catastrophic emotional meltdown, making conscious decisions to not let things get the best of me that maybe, just maybe I need to throw something large and heavy out of my window so I can relish in its satisfying crash. I fill myself with so much talk about accepting, working through and moving past difficulties that sometimes I feel like I'm talking myself out of being human.

Oompa Loompa

2010-01-06T15:14:00.000-08:00

I officially stank today. On my way home from class I'm always aware that I am drenched in sweat but I've never smelled particularly bad. I don't know what it is but I tend to be odorless most of the time. It's a blessing to be unscented really.

On the bus home though I was pretty sure that garbage smell was me and not the homeless man who got on the 6 Parnassus two stops after I did.

First order of business after stepping into my apartment was showering.

Second was calling a potential employer back.

Third was food.

Food really should have been the first order of business. I realized this when I felt dizzy in the shower. 4 hours awake, 2 of which had been spent in the hot box messing with my heart rate, I really should have eaten as soon as I got home. I make bad decisions all the time. It's a wonder I'm still living.

2010 is in full swing as people recover and return to their normal lives after end of the year holiday madness. Monday was recovery day. People returned to jobs. I returned to the coffee shop to help 'dia edit grad school essays and eat peanut butter. Tuesday I was back in the yoga studio and back on craigslist looking for jobs that didn't exist. Today I am back in the yoga studio and eating falafel balls for breakfast. Today I am wondering what it will be like to be back to a normal life after 9 months of baking, reading, writing and staying up until 4AM.

I was basically offered the job.

It's just part time until projects pick up.

I guess I'll partially be back to a normal life.

A part of me wanted to throw a hissy fit over the fact that it wasn't quite what I expected. I imagined shaking my fists in the air and throwing things around the room in a rage. I WANT A FULL TIME JOB AND I WANT IT NOW.

I only imagined though. I make for an awful hissy fit thrower. Last time I tried to throw a tantrum it was 2AM and I knew my roommate was asleep so I picked up soft things to throw around the room. I threw a blanket. It was completely unsatisfying.

One of the benefits of getting older is you're too tired to make a stink when things don't go the way you want them to. Or at least, I hope you are. If you're over 30 and still acting like Veruca Salt, you're fucked and I don't want to know you.

I got upset for all of 4 minutes before deciding it would be ok. Food helped too.

Cookies. Cookies helped as well.

You can't tell in this picture, but I've lost 5lbs. Two weeks back into the studio and this is what happens despite the non-stop eating bonanza. It's quite amazing actually. I'm not going to complain although my body may want to after 2 classes in a row tonight.

@ the grind

2010-01-04T14:52:00.000-08:00

hello unusually sunny january day. i am cold. i changed into a dress. i am grateful for whole wheat bagels w/ peanut butter. i am contemplating more coffee. i've spent the past 2-1/2 hours editing with 'dia. i watched her eat an omlette. i am still vegan but i can watch someone else eat eggs just fine although sometimes i miss them. the more i smell cheese though, the more i realize i don't miss it. i need more sleep. i love this scarf. i'd like to be more diligent with editing my own writing. i need a haircut. i am singing along with regina spektor out loud.

"you are my sweetest downfall. i loved you first. i loved you first."

it's too high. her voice. for me anyways.

it breaks my heart.

one more essay to go but i can really go for some juice.

tamie got married this weekend and it wasn't really as shocking as it should be. it would probably be more shocking if someone else got married. i am happy that she is happy. i want to throw her a party. in an alternate universe i would be married to peanut butter whole wheat bagels. i'm sure i would be shunned. i'm sure i'd be banished for my love affair with such an illicit breakfast treat.

i like ben gibbard. he's part of the holy trinity. (colin meloy-andrew bird-ben gibbard - alternate: zack condon)

the verdict is out on his new wife. i still don't think she can sing.

(jason will hate me for that statement. sorry dude!)

p.s. happy new year internets. any year where i don't start it with bronchitis is bound to be a good one.

things

2009-12-30T14:38:00.000-08:00

makin' stickers

wearin' weird things.

morning bikram, yin class tonight. my joints are light and airy and my spine is made of taffy. i grabbed back for my heels in ustrasana and didn't throw up.

it was supposed to rain today! i feel gypped!

wet

2009-12-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

my very first post in this blog noted that i would not be able to keep a vegetarian diet because i was permanently scarred from the low carb diet that a future of fruit and veggies would fuck with my brain in ways I would never be prepared to handle.

har. har.

i also spelled vegetarian wrong.

this was only november 2008.

life is funny.

in other news i finished cat's cradle, started you fucked up by robert rowboat and held standing bow for the entire duration with my foot clearly visible coming up above my head. class was especially sweaty. i don't know if the room was hotter or if i was just feeling weak kneed but camel made me want to throw up. i saw elizabeth for the first time in months today too and she welcomed me back and asked if i had died.

"sorta," i answered.

i had forgotten this bikram business came along with buckets of sweat. this means loads of laundry. wet towels, wet clothes, wet mat. i stumbled into my little market on haight st. on my way home from class to pick up some veggies and my skinny shaggy haired friend who works there asked me why i was always wet.

which reminded me of the dude who would smell me on the n judah.

people are funny.

rubber calves

2009-12-27T19:17:00.000-08:00

*addendum: stepped on cat shit. thanks blinky. the boots have finally come off. you win, cat. you win.
i've been wearing the rain boots around the house. i lay on the bed with the boot half off the side of it. they are warm and my house is cold. i saw nine at the castro theater with the boots on. i ate tofu with peanut sauce wearing the boots. i spent time with my friends wearing the boots. i ate a vegan doughnut outside of phillz coffee wearing the boots. now i think i'm going to make a pizza wearing the boots, the same pizza i made this morning at 3AM because pizzas happen in twos these days.

my hammy calves smell like rubber and it's no longer raining.

oh well.

there is a light that never goes out

2009-12-27T00:53:00.000-08:00

I've been starting posts then finding reasons not to post them. Lots of internal blabber that comes with not being home for the holidays and obligations. Nothing good and nothing worth posting so I've got 8 million saved drafts. Oh well.

Tonight's thunderstorm was gigantic...and short. The sky lit up and Blinky actually woke up from her nap to acknowledge the rare occasion of lightening in San Francisco.

I lit candles in preparation for a blackout since we've gotten one every winter I've lived here but the power never went out and now the rain has stopped and I'm sitting in a candle lit room wearing rubber rain boots drinking hot chocolate wishing the storm would come back. I love this weather more then anyone I know. I remember a couple of years ago contemplating moving to Seattle for the weather but found Seattle to feel disjointed and strange. San Francisco can be disjointed and strange as well but it's my kinda strange.

The dr. and I went to Gracias Madre for dinner. We were laying in bed on our respective tiny internet devices and I read that they were finally open. It was opening day so we made our way through the drizzle in hats and scarves and walked into a warm and inviting restaurant bustling with activity and people. A nice turn out for opening night on a rainy day after Christmas. Guacamole, house made ginger ale, and three tacos later we rolled ourselves back to his house full of beans, corn tortillas and various veggies.

The sweet dr. walked me to the bus stop and waited for the 33 with me, rounding out a lovely quiet holiday full of food, bike riding, Doctor Who, slicing things with my new mandolin, lots of sleeping and reading. Not bad for my first Christmas in San Francisco.

We briefly discussed New Years Eve and I haven't been able to muster up the energy to plan anything and would not mind a repeat of this weekend since it was so nice. Maybe more Smiths and some Nog, which I forgot he had in the fridge. Maybe I'll grow some balls and actually decide I can ride my bike in the street with actual cars. Maybe I'll pick up another Vonnegut book since I'm almost done 'Cat's Cradle' and I'm actually stalling finishing it since I'm enjoying it so much. Maybe we'll surprise ourselves and go somewhere and get drunk. Maybe I'll make ice cream.

I just hope I can wear my rain boots.

lovely

2009-12-16T23:00:00.000-08:00

misty, wet and somewhat humid, the roof of the academy of sciences reminded me of alien pods and dangerous things but the deYoung looked lovely.

i said hello to the octopus and jellies, ate indian food, walked in the rain, made cookies, went to yoga and managed to stay awake during savasana. gathering my things after class, deliciously unraveled and heavy headed a girl struck up conversation with me about my righteous babe records shirt. i walked out of the studio content. so this is making friends.

burritos with ryan before he heads off to alaska. blinky sitting outside the bathroom door waiting for me to come out of the shower. bed, cookies, vonnegut & chet baker. after a couple of days of feeling self conscious and inept, it feels nice to be back to normal.

tomorrow, bikram and the deYoung sound like a good idea. it doesn't feel like christmas. it feels better then that.

2009-12-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

the sun tried to come out today so i decided i should too, even if it was only to get trapped in a downpour on Market St. with tons of people scurrying around with umbrellas taking each others eyes out.

i refuse to be part of the umbrella problem.

so i turned up the otis redding because he has dreams to remember and i had a winter hat to look for.

two hours later, happy and wet, my $5 head warmer and i hopped onto the bus home with several soggy drunk santas.

i love san francisco and i love the rain.

hiberantion

2009-12-11T17:49:00.000-08:00

ryan adams. rain. the slow rise of sourdough. kitty snuggles. kurt vonnegut. hoodies. scarves. cardigans. fried tempeh. garlic breath. hot showers. toe socks. gee-tar.

robot

2009-12-11T14:51:00.000-08:00

*i wrote a lot last night. then i deleted a lot of it. then i wrote some more. then i made all of it private. except for this part.

last january i stepped outside of sacre coeur in tears feeling like a part of me was really sad that religion never quite worked for me. something about sitting through mass, being moved, being completely overwhelmed by the basilica itself and the whole mess of emotions clanging around inside of me looking for a way out. i sat down on the steps, paris at my feet, this dazzling view, miles and miles of city and sky and all i could do was cover my face wishing i had some sort of faith because most of it had been sucked out of me already. it took some time to realize that what i wanted was someone to fix it for me. it had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the fact that i felt so emotionally dysfunctional that i wanted someone, something, to make it go away.

it takes work to make your way through the crazy that happens throughout your life. i spend a lot of time berating myself for having feelings like it's some sort of flaw when what i really need to do is let it pass and then step outside of my head for awhile because no matter who i pray to or how badly i wish it was so, i was not born a robot.

sound -update

2009-12-09T23:44:00.000-08:00

sound, originally uploaded by Hot Pants.

if you want to listen, I got most of the tracks on 8track in 2 mixes. thanks for the idea joanna!

bikey, face eating and then some

2009-12-09T11:52:00.000-08:00

i made soup for breakfast since it didn't seem like i was going to get more then 4 hours of sleep.

looks like baby food, tastes like awesome

recipe here

I pureed all of the soup instead of just a portion by accident but it still came out great. The soup has a lot of flavor without a ton of salt, which is nice. i subbed thyme for cilantro since i didn't have any on hand and it worked. the lemon adds a nice brightness to it. something about lemon and cayenne together makes me swoon.

last month was the month the internet complained about early darkness. this month is the month the internet complains about arctic temperatures. i am one of them but after talking to my sister in Beloit, WI where it was snowing 2 inches an hour, i am putting on a scarf and shutting up.

i spent most of the past few days curled up with the dr. doing the various things we do. cooking, eating, reading, watching tv, putzing. sometimes i feel like i need to be more exciting and spontaneous. i'm fearful my homebodiness is reading as boring but as all the holiday invites pour in the more i'm inclined to pull the covers over my head to hibernate until after january 1. i am sure to be banned from yelp eliteness next year due to missing the holiday party but the last thing i wanted to do was wait in a long line in the cold to get into a hotel ballroom full of food we couldn't eat. free booze really isn't all that appealing to me these days and i don't necessarily have very many yelp friends. who needs free booze when i can drink in the comfort of my fleece pants inside a warm apartment? not that that's what we did. the dr. bought me a bike for xmas and we found a parking lot for me to practice in instead.

after a couple of false starts i started whizzing along and turning, something i've not been able to do previously, which was exciting. i thought about the chunk of my childhood spent indoors. i kept myself chained to a pair of headphones and the record player my sister and i shared. i learned how to live inside my brain. i feared the outside world. it was cold, people were mean and concrete hurt you. the training wheels never came off my bike. i rode my big wheel until i grew too big to fit into it. then i decided i would walk everywhere for the rest of my life.

i got my driver's licence. i still decided i would walk everywhere for the rest of my life. i wasn't stoked to drive. driving didn't mean freedom like it did for a lot of my friends. i knew i was bound for a city soon enough and driving wouldn't be necessary.

being in sf and not being able to ride a bike or drive a car has made me feel transportationally challenged at times.

i circled the parking lot several times and it finally clicked that there was no real way to explain how i was doing it or how i got from the wobbly death grip up and down the dr.'s street that first night he took me out to learn to now. i don't know how i was doing it. i wouldn't be able to teach anyone if they asked me. there are certain key steps for sure, pedal position on taking off and the whole 'don't lean' thing but other then that, i don't quite know how it works or how i got there.

i still lean and for no real reason turning left is really difficult but i can stay upright and haven't broken my face yet.

cars still scare me though. i'm still working on that.

the dr. has the patience of a saint and i am well aware of how lucky i am.

sometimes i get so consumed that i try to eat his face.

10 months and he still makes me swoon. like that whole cayenne & lemon thing, except better. there is this quiet ease and for that i am grateful.

and with that i should get out of the house and get the things i need to start a top secret present project complete with intrigue and mystery. and more brussel sprouts. i love those.

beer happens and then i fall down

2009-12-06T19:21:00.000-08:00

this is what i did friday before passing out around 3AM tipsy and unable to pull off making banana wontons.

there is such a thing as too much baking i guess.

also, beer happened. i'm just lucky the baklava and cookies happened before beer otherwise it would have been a bit disastrous.

running late for the bakesale saturday morning i ended up face planting in the middle of sanchez st when my shoe decided to get stuck in the train track. i had woken up full of frenetic energy that i couldn't seem to reign in. i woke up, putzed around the house stupidly wondering what i needed to get done before the bakesale, what did i need to pack, should i pack the cookies and baklava? none of this shit is going to fit in my messenger bag. clothes, books, laptop, food, kombucha. shower. do i need to shower? yes i need to shower. do i have time to shower? no, but I NEED TO SHOWER. my brain running a million miles a minute but my actual body moving at the speed of corona light.

and then i fell.

a car at the intersection had stopped and rolled down their window.

"HEY MISS! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!"

i thought about answering no. i thought about bursting into tears and asking the kind driver to drive over me and put me out of my misery. but when i peered into my paper bag to see that the baklava was still in tact, unscathed from my bellyflop onto the pavement, i decided that i was ok.

something about that fall sorta helped disperse that frantic energy. all of a sudden, i felt a lot better despite a sore knee.

screw the bruised ego. i fall down a lot and i've accepted that this is just a part of my life. coordination has never been my strong suit.

i'm just happy i didn't break my face or my baked goods.

"I'M FINE!" i yelled to the dude in the car as i got up and dusted myself off. i was relieved to find the street pretty empty. no witnesses to my disaster. this is always good.

i dropped my goods off at the busy bakesale and walked away with a box full of goodies that jessica, the dr. and i consumed throughout the day. i tried to take pictures but they didn't do the goods justice. the cinnamon roll was devoured first. then the chocolate croissant. then the ginger apple cake and then the apple pie. there is one lone plain croissant left that i carefully wrapped in saran wrap for the dr. it's not everyday a vegan can have a vegan croissant. my roommate is obsessed with making those pilsbury crescent rolls and their scent in my house taunts me. now that i know vegan croissants are possible i no longer have to covet bread that comes in a scary exploding can.

i'm glad my scattered self settled down. i found a comfy space in maria's house and ate my vegan nacho boy from ike's and spent the rest of the afternoon helping (but not really helping) jessica untangle yarn.

i was a cat in another life.

in other news, the dr. and i ate cardoons last night. weird.

oh and a warning: these sorta suck. don't be fooled by its lure of pretzels, chocolate & cherries. it tastes like none of these wonderful things. it tastes like a cliff bar gone awry.

meh.

sound

2009-12-04T04:56:00.001-08:00

sound, originally uploaded by Hot Pants.

arling & cameron - W.E.E.K.E.N.D.
asylum street spankers - taint nobody's business
beirut - elephant gun
ben gibbard/postal service - clark gable
ben gibbard/death cab for cutie - i will follow you into the dark
bon iver - skinny love
built to spill - velvet waltz
camera obscura -french navy
cloud cult - take your medicine
colin meloy - ballad of el goodo (big star cover)
david dondero - when the heart breaks deep
devotchka - along the way
dntel- (this is)the dream of evan and chan
elvis costello - miracle man
emancipator - when i go
erlend oye - every party
fanfarlo - the walls are coming down
girl talk - night ripper
handsome boy modeling school - the truth
hot chip - wrestlers
jenny lewis - happy
julia nunes - i think you know
magnetic fields - 100,000 fireflies
metric - blindness
ms john soda - misco
neko case - this tornado loves you
neutral milk hotel - the king of carrot flowers parts 1, 2 & 3 (esp. part 2)
the notwist - sleep
old crow medicine show - wagon wheel
optimus rhyme - sick day
phoenix - lasso
pinback - b
pomplamoose - makin out (mark owen cover)
stevie wonder - as
sufjan stevens - that dress looks nice on you
thao & the get down stay down - beat (health, life & fire)
tv on the radio - love dog

what i did instead of writing press releases and various other requested writing things. it was tough to narrow it down. big huge labs noted a 36 pic limit so I had to shave 10 artists off the list. i mean, andrew bird isn't there and yet he and bon iver got me through a rough January. I had to pick and choose wisely. music has always defined times and places for me. i've listened to more music this year then i have in forever simply because i had a lot of time on my hands to do so. i wished i could say the same for reading and books but my attention span for reading was pretty awful this year. I spent 3 months in traction, taking a painfully long time reading 'The Omnivore's Dilemna'.

i sat at CTTP today thinking of what songs i listened to the most, songs i knew almost all the words to, and this is what i came up with. some of it is really random. this year sounds more mellow then i've ever been.

i'm still a bit tortured that i had to leave out andrew bird, lily allen, bruce springsteen, the mountain goats, friendly fires, the new pornographers, feist, lyrics born, anni rossi and paper route but i guess i can always figure out how to make a larger mosaic on my own without BHL's limits.

but maybe that's for later, when it's not 5:00 AM.

so i went for that walk yesterday

2009-12-03T12:17:00.001-08:00

hello, originally uploaded by Hot Pants.

it was lovely and i felt better and i decided i shouldn't be so whiny about things that only happened to me in my dreams or about random people and their unpredictable phone etiquette.

it's all scarves and layers and bundling to keep warm. i like coming in from the cold. i like that it's crisp out.

1 cup vanilla soy milk
1/2 cup mimiccream
1/4 cup or so melted dark chocolate
agave to taste

1 functioning steam wand attached to 1 functioning espresso machine.

happiness

i'm trying to stave off my usual winter need to hibernate and climb out of my nest as there is a world of things out there worth discovering with enough time to make it back home for evening vinyasa.

pudge budge

2009-12-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

According to the scale I've only put on 3 lbs. during Nanowrimo. According to how I feel, I've put on 10. Sluggishness I'm sure is due to being sickly, it sucks that I want to go be active, but my body reminds me that I spent a good chunk of last night hacking up little alien life forms. Yin Yoga was nice, ligaments definitely needed some room to breathe but the class is passive. My yang wants out. It wants to run through fields of fennel singing, skipping and raising my heart rate.

I was up ridiculously early. Strange dreams. I was a human sized Lite-Brite for Halloween and people kept stealing my pegs, which was like stealing my soul. I was trying to explain to them that it wasn't funny and I could call the cops if I wanted to but no one was listening. Frat boys moved my pegs around to make a picture of a penis. Surprise, surprise. I felt somewhat helpless as both elbows and knees were hindered by the Lite-Brite box. Dreams like this make me wanna stab the human race in the face.

This coupled with being flirted with on the phone by whoever was handling my call at the credit union this morning has me feeling weary and baffled. Who asks you if you've got a boyfriend on a customer service call?!?! Who? Isn't this call being recorded for quality assurance purposes? This normally wouldn't have bothered me but I apparently am feeling rather defensive and cranky this morning.

Since I can't go running or do anything too taxing lest I want to cough up an organ in public I guess I'll go for a walk.

Now What?

2009-12-01T12:34:00.001-08:00

Blinky has seemed to forgiven me for ignoring her this past month and climbed into bed with me last night. Despite my attempts to pass out early I found myself writing some more, going back through and deleting some scenes that I wished I had never written, rethought the idea of the gun, figured out that Ivy was my brain's reincarnation of my old college friend Maria Guerriero, decided I'd like to go back to visit Boston someday even though I know the moment I set foot in the North End my brain would explode into tiny little pieces that would scatter and stick to the old brick buildings of my former neighborhood. Such a quaint life I lived there, it seems so long ago that I can almost trick myself into thinking that that life was someone else's, not my own, not mine, never happened to me.

The novel has so much New England in it, bits and pieces pulled from my memory. It's odd to go back and read my writing and recognize that I am not Laura and that it took a month to give her some substance, it took a month for the story to gain some real momentum, it took a month to figure out what this story is really about. It's not about the gun, it's not about eating disorders or coming out of the closet or a disinterested father who wants nothing to do with you. It's about relationships and how you actually build a life and fill it with people. She started out by herself. 120 pages later there are two people she had decided to let in and in the future (as I had written some future scenes) there is a third that comes along as well.

Without too much premeditated thought, this all goes back to what I was thinking about in October and something Josh said back when he returned to SF in February.

"Your family you're stuck with. You had no choice in the matter. Your friends though, you choose those. And if you choose wisely, those friends are family in ways your family can never be your family."

I'm lucky enough to have a gigantic family that I know if I was drowning in the ocean there would be over 15 Inaldos/Suarezs/Ferrers in the water to fish me out.

But what if you don't have that? And your idea of family is really just nothing but an idea and you've resigned yourself to figure shit out on your own for the rest of your life? Except you realize that you don't want to do it by yourself for forever?

That's what the book is about.

I've never been able to articulate what the story is until now, 51,345 words later.

I feel like that's more of an accomplishment then actually making my word count. It made me uncomfortable talking about the novel since I had no idea what I was doing and what it was about until I went back and read it. When I write, it just comes out of me and I'm not really conscious of the big picture until I get close to the end.

About 15,000 words or so are useless and will probably be cut in the next couple of weeks. I want to keep working at it, fleshing out parts, deleting parts, changing things now that I know what the heart of the story is.

In the meantime though, rest, satsumas and hot liquids to get me through this winter head cold. Oh, and Michael Pollan. For good measure. My brain has been asking for non-fiction these past few weeks and I had been feeding it Tim Sandlin to keep my prose up to par.

Oh, and lots of Beirut, Sufjan Stevens, Fanfarlo & Bon Iver. It is the season for such music.

Day 30, 50,274 words, 120 pages, 3 mandarins, 2 bowls of soup, 2 pieces of pie

2009-11-30T19:54:00.000-08:00

It took 50,000 words to gain some momentum in my story which made 10,000 words relatively easy to write this past 48 hours.

My head cold has also escalated and while I've managed to not break out into a fever, I still feel pretty craptastic.

I can't smell anything. I am sure my night time nose whistling is amazing.

It's all citrus, vitamins and hot showers until this is gone. If you need me, you can find me in bed.

But I'm done! Woo hoo! Now I can sleep!

Day 29/30,

2009-11-29T23:57:00.000-08:00

It's almost over.

My sinus' alternate between "Hey, lets let you breathe!" and "Fuck you, no air for you!"

After playing crafty at Sadia's house this afternoon, the dr. and I walked back to his place and my head started to slowly swell with pressure. By the time I made my way up the steps to his apartment my left nostril was on strike.

The dr. ordered thai food and picked it up while I sat on the couch breathing through my mouth.

(love)

Dinner followed by the last three episodes of Samurai Champloo I found myself asleep. I don't know exactly how long I napped for but I woke to find the dr. passed out as well. He moved to the comfy sack and I tucked the blanket over him and made my way to the kitchen for some tea and writing.

It's 2 minutes to midnight and I've got about 5,000 words left.

I feel relieved to know that I'll finish this but I'd love it if I woke up tomorrow to find both nostrils liberated from this evilness.

Day 29

2009-11-29T05:18:00.000-08:00

40,823 words.

5:15AM

I can haz sleep now?

how the hell am i hungry?

Day 26, Now that I've Given Spanks

2009-11-26T23:29:00.000-08:00

Can I finish the novel without this cold/sore throat-y thing getting in the way?

Spent the past 13 hours in the kitchen.

Now that I managed to do the impossible and fit the leftovers into my tiny ass fridge I am going to make myself a hot toddy, get into a hot shower and sweat the shit out of this cold.

We ran out of alcohol so the gang went to the bar and I must admit that I am grateful for an empty house so I can decompress and decongest in private. It's a sure sign that I'm definitely old. I mean, I'm putting a kettle on for tea while the kids run off to Haight St. for libations and drunken stumbles home.

I do not care. This is my life and I am not ashamed. I will get 12 hours of sleep and you will be jealous.

Days 22, 23, 24 & 25 piecing together a series of events

2009-11-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

ryan, spanksgiving, hangover and general malaise has been taking up most of my time.

i'm stuck at 34,678 words for the time being.

i woke up several times last night completely confused.

i wanted to throw up.

i couldn't throw up.

i fell asleep on the dr.'s couch for no real reason and woke up confused.

i woke up wondering whose clothes i was wearing.

i fell asleep on the dr.'s couch a second time and woke up when I knocked the remote off the arm.

i took off strange clothing.

i wanted to throw up.

i couldn't throw up.

it's all lindley's fault.

tequila burps and i still couldn't throw up.

at one point i was working the bar. how?

i think the dr. ate an avocado.

i think the dr. is sexy even in sweatpants.

burrito burps on the bus, a surefire way to get people to STAY AWAY.

i love my omnivorous friends who are bringing vegan food to spanksgiving tomorrow.

i'm eating satsumas until i burst.

Day 21, Elephant Gun

2009-11-21T10:50:00.000-08:00

Beirut, Elephant Gun.

AM, D7, G, C, C/B

Thismakesmesohappy.

34,678 words.

Day 20, 30,588!

2009-11-20T10:28:00.000-08:00

!!!

My cat continues to be an excellent saboteur of both breakfast and the novel.

Day 19, Spiderbites and Arling & Cameron

2009-11-19T15:53:00.000-08:00

I had no idea that half way through the book that Laura would have some sort of lesbian phase.

I don't even know if it's really a phase or for reals.

All of this is so confusing.

I wrote a song about it on the Child Prodigy. I don't remember the words but it's about kissing someone with lip piercings (which I spent a page describing as Laura's new obsession has them) and how Nanowrimo is making me fat. I keep rewarding myself with food. I look forward to Heated Yoga tonight. It's not Bikram nor is it 100 degrees, but I can use a vigorous vinyasa class in a hot room.

Spiderbites are two piercings placed together on one side of the lower lip. This is not important to the plot but I research this anyways.

Up late listening to too much Arling & Cameron and the story goes all bat shit crazy.

I got up this morning and ran to the door so the UPS man could hand me a package. I wasn't quite awake until I shut the door and realized I wasn't wearing much. Underwear with popsicles on it and a tank top. I wouldn't be so horrified but the elastic waistband on this pair is on its last leg and sheer willpower cannot keep the pair alive yet I continue to wear them. Apparently I have this *deep-seated need to show the world my danish.

Look what happens when I don't leave my house. Muni takes away my bus stop. I am not so much concerned as we can all stand to walk a block or two more to get to a stop, except for those who are handicapped or elderly. That might suck. Photo courtesy of SFist.

Nothing exciting to report so I'll stop the babble. Back to it. Dntel, an entire jar of thai green curry paste and a large glass of water. And maybe some socks because my feet are cold and the sun is going to disappear in 40 minutes or so.

*correction (thanks monkey!) :)

SF Vegan Bakesale, December 5th

2009-11-18T23:11:00.000-08:00

Hey people, I'm baking for this event once again. December 5th. If I could find a way to transport mini vegan panna cotta's I would, but as that is highly unlikely, I struggle with what to make. Last month I made florentines and brownies. There are big name bakeries who've got the market covered on cupcakes of all kinds. People make breads, cinnamon rolls and cookies. I want to do something different. I'm not a big name bakery, I'm an unemployed girl who likes to bake. What's something different I can bring to the table?

I toy around the idea of a gigantic carafe of hot chocolate, made with a mix of almond milk, coconut cream and melted Callebaut 56%. DEAR GOD. I WANT. LIKE NOW.

I want to recreate Bittersweet Cafe's Classic.

I made cookies after yoga because I wanted my house to smell good. Now it does. I will eat some of them and continue writing, it's only 11PM. I've got another four hours in me. I think.

Day 18, Dresses

2009-11-18T11:29:00.000-08:00

Enough with the pants business.

I wrapped up 2000 words or so last night around 3AM before I passed out, laptop open, lights on, cat snuggled, pants off.

It's a miracle I woke up at 9AM without an alarm. Without a thought I got up and went to my closet to contemplate dresses for Josh's party this weekend.

I tried on three and decided to keep one on. I made breakfast, made coffee, went to the corner store in evening wear and sat down to write some more. Funny how random things like what you're wearing affect your writing.

For no real reason I feel pretty so my prose seems more confident. Weird.

5,000 words today or I'm grounded.

***

Excerpt:

Pam and I found a small bookstore/coffee shop on Newbury St. called Trident. I heard wind chimes as we made our way down Newbury looking for food and I turned and found an open storefront and was instantly drawn to it. We walked in and Pam was unimpressed.

"It's a bookstore," she said. "I want a burger."

"Of course you do," I answered, my gaze drawn to a nearby shelf of books on Eastern Philosophy. Of course you do, I thought. You want a burger because you have a gun.

I had been doing that all afternoon. We checked into the hostel and Pam complained about the communal showers.

"I don't want to shower in a fucking stall," she had said.

Of course you don't, I thought. Of course you don't because you have a gun. You might accidentally shoot someone in the shower with your gun.

We had checked out our room in the hostel and found that our bunks were in a room with two other girls. They were sitting on their beds with maps spread out before them. They smiled and introduced themselves. Karen and Martha. They were from Ottowa.

"Canadians," Pam muttered under her breath.

Of course you don't like Canadians, I thought. Of course you don't, that's why you have a gun. To protect your country from Canadians.

I noticed that tucked near Karen's purse was a glass pipe. I could see some bud in it. Pot smokers. I had never in my life craved pot except for right then and there where I wanted to sit down next to Karen, take her hand in mine and ask for a hit.

My friend has a gun. I wanted to say to her as we got stoned. My best friend has a gun and she doesn't like Canadians.

Not trusting the hostel, or the girls for that matter, Pam made us keep our stuff in her car parked a couple of blocks away on Commonwealth. Of course you would, I thought. Our things will be okay if we keep them with your gun. Your gun will keep our stuff safe.

Once we dropped some things off at the car we set off on foot in search of food. I wasn't hungry. Of course I wasn't. I hadn't been hungry in months. I was tired though and I wanted coffee. Of course I wanted coffee. I always wanted coffee.

Trident was the perfect little place to grab some.

"Laura," Pam called out to me as I picked up an ornate copy of the Tao Te Ching. "We need food, not philosophy. I know you have an eating disorder, but I don't."

"They have a cafe here," I said. I wasn't 100% sure if they did. I had seen a sign that said 'Please Seat Yourself' but wasn't too sure where the seating was and if they had food.

"But it's all Easterny kinda stuff," she said. "I think it's healthy."

"You say that like that's a bad thing."

"I don't want healthy! I want something that's going to stop my heart. I want something dripping in lard."

"I think your eating disorder is worse then mine."

"Ha. Funny."

Pam took the book out of my hands and put it back on the shelf. A girl in her twenties with short blue asymetrical hair and multiple lip piercings asked me if we needed anything to let her know. She had a black apron tied around her waist with two flour hand prints staining the front. I hadn't expected her to sound friendly but she did and she smiled, her piercings raising as the corners of her lips did.

"Thanks," I said and smiled back. The girl turned back around to head back behind the 'Please Wait to be Seated' sign and I wanted to reach out for her and tell her that I needed some coffee. I wanted to tell her that I needed coffee and that my friend had a gun in her car and that we were only in town for my therapy appointment for an eating disorder I was sure was just a phase.

"She's got a tattoo on her elbow," Pam said. "Man that's gotta hurt."

"I like her," I said defensively. "Just because she's different doesn't mean that she's bad."

"I didn't say that she's bad. Did I say that? No, I just said that an elbow tattoo's gotta hurt like a bizzatch."

"Can we eat here?" I asked.

"Jeeesus." Pam sighed and cocked her hip to the right like she often does. Her right arm came to meet her hip and she looked at me like I was crazy. "Seriously?"

"Please," I begged. "I really need to sit down and I like this place."

Pam stood in silence for a couple of minutes before deciding to appease me.

"Ok, but if I'm still hungry after this we're going to get fucking burgers somewhere."

Day 17, More Food, Less Writing

2009-11-17T22:47:00.000-08:00

This novel is being fueled by cleavage and soup.

At least for today.

I didn't write today.

I know.

I failed.

But in an hour it'll be Day 18 and I'll probably still be awake and with any luck I will be writing.

I had my last yoga class with Michael then continued to run errands downtown that included trying on new jeans because my normal pair is now getting baggier. Baggier then my phat pants, which I have been told, make me look short and wide. I guess I'm old enough to know that my jeans shouldn't be a throwback to gigantic-legged raver pants.

I just tried things on though just to gage what actual size I am these days.

Vegan flan was a success! Though it's more a panna cotta then flan. It's amazing how easy it was to slide my spoon into its creamy texture and with one bite I'm eating my auntie's leche flan. The orange zest and the juice of 1/2 a satsuma brought it home for me. I'm twelve years old shoveling the stuff into my mouth with complete disregard for the dozen egg yolks in it and not to mention the indescribable amount of condensed milk. For some reason the leche flan was always in a heart shaped mold of some sort. When I grew older and was well aware of how bad this dessert was for me I still had some. It would sit there on the table, molded into the shape of love. 'Come to me and I will make you happy,' it said. 'And then you will die because I will kill you.'

When I moved away from home I found myself running away from the death grip of flan and into the dangers of the North End in Boston.

I lived across the street from a 24 hour bakery named Bova's.

It's a wonder I did not have an eating disorder living on Salem St. no matter how badly I wanted one or thought I needed one. I was desperately in love with a boy who I was convinced would love me if I was 20 lbs. lighter. It was easier to walk across the street at 4AM and eat several cannoli then it was to deal with the fact that it didn't matter how heavy I was, he was in love with someone else.

All this and my vegan panna cotta has brought me right round like a record to Fred. It's like playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon except with pastries.

I find that I can't stop eating the panna cotta knowing that it is in the fridge. I look at them and I know that they are 90% fat. I cannot be 90% fat so I'm going to feed them to homeless kids on Haight St who can use some coconut cream in their diets otherwise I will be fitting into my phat pants in a bad way.

My characters are currently in Boston. I should make them go to Bova's at an ungodly hour for eclairs.

Ok, back at it.

Day 14, 15, 16 Sloth Like Behavior & Haikus

2009-11-16T18:11:00.000-08:00

This coffee could be a mistake or a miracle. I'm banking it'll be more a mistake, but it's only 6PM and I'm ready to climb into bed after being in bed 90% of the day.

I slept a lot this weekend.

The last time I felt this way was when I was a new vegan, anemic and iron deficient.

I came home today, took my much needed supplements and devoured some comfort food. While I've been struggling with real foods versus reconstructed food products sometime you say fuck it. Daiya may be full of different oils and such but there's nothing too out of the ordinary in its list of ingredients so I made myself a grilled cheese with some tomato and spinach thrown in for good measure (and iron).

Daiya makes me squidgy in the pants (it's that good).

Random Fact of the Day: Spinach is a good source of iron but it also has oxalic acid which prevents the body from absorbing the iron-y goodness within so it should be consumed with veggies and fruits that have vitamins that can assist with absorption. My cousin in med-school informed me that Vitamin C helps, so citrus fruits, tomatoes, brussel sprouts and broccoli help.

I'm sure you knew this. I did not, until a couple of months ago when I found myself constantly passing out on Jeff's couch whenever the opportunity arose.

Reason 1,002 to love Jeff: He lets me sleep in until 4PM when I need to.

I still don't know if this sloth like behavior is diet related or not. I did push it Thursday/Friday, working late and getting up early in an effort to finish up stuff so I could get back to the novel. Taking a couple of days off I feel behind, but I'm not too worried. This week is looking pretty open to just buckle down and write.

The only writing I did was while waiting for the 33 Stanyan. Bus stop Haikus a'plenty.

Man beer is heavy
Waiting for the thirty-three
Peach Blossoms in spring.

Wool socks makes toes itch
Thanks nearby botanicals
Shit, that's not aloe.

In other news, I'm glad these things exist, I just don't know if I can handle vegetarian squid.

Day 13, Now with more hair and less arm fat!

2009-11-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

My word count has come to a complete halt. I blame budgets in Excel and tediousness.

I only took a break to do 2 back to back yoga classes and eat some tofu and realize that my hair grows at an alarming rate. Oh and hello dirty bathroom mirror!

I finished my FF&E budget and am now working on trying to decipher my handwritten scrawl. One line reads, "Many peeps slip ugly scent in."

My notes read like bad Mad Libs.

Anyone out there wanna give me a free haircut?

Day 12, Being Vegan at a Sports Bar and the Sound of Joy Behar's Voice (read: things that suck)

2009-11-12T17:39:00.000-08:00

No writing today. Maybe no writing tomorrow. My word count will come to a standstill for the time being. The gun is still going to remain a mystery for now.

I need to recover from 6 hours at Fisherman's Wharf.

This includes eating, hanging upside down to relieve frontal lobe ache and getting out of fancy adult clothes that adults wear to important meetings and stuff.

It's really easy to be an unemployed vegan. Not so much when you find yourself at a business lunch in a sports bar where every salad offered has a fried chicken breast, ranch dressing and hard boiled eggs on it. I found the one thing on the menu I could veganize and was presented with a grilled veggie wrap sans goat cheese. It was chocked full of peppers and onions. You know. The things that turn me into a complete fartbox when consumed in large quantities.

After I took a bite, I realized the one thing I really really really wanted inside this godforsaken wrap was awfully hard.

Unripe avocado. It's chewy.

Eeeew.

I refrained from deconstructing my meal and eating the pieces I wanted. I was in the presence of people in expensive suits. Trust me though, if I was by myself I would have stuck various slimy veggies to different surfaces within the booth I was in, maybe even spelling out the message: "FOR SHAME!!!"

I had been at this sports bar years ago when I was an omnivore who was working on replacing the bar stools in this joint. Back then there was more on the menu for me to eat but back then I was significantly heavier and my pudgy fingers were perpetually stained from buckets of buffalo wings (for shame, for reals).

Three hours later I found myself on a bus on the way home completely starving.

Transportation narcolepsy kicked in though and I passed out.

I like that I made emergency vanilla cupcakes this week complete with "butter cream" frosting. I ate several of them while I clawed through my fridge looking for more things to stuff in my face.

After housing some leftover green curry I find myself still hungry.

The novel is on hold. The meeting notes are on hold. I need to talk myself out of popcorn for dinner again. The boys are in the living room watching something that sounds annoying. I spend a lot of time listening to television since I hole up in the kitchen and my roommate holes up in the living room. I can hear it behind me. The voices. God. It sounds like a woman's talk show. I decide to ask what it is.

"Is that The View?!"

"No but it's one of the ladies from The View! She's got her own talk show!"

I like how we yell across the apartment instead of getting up off of our own respective fat asses. Jessica and I used to be worse. We used to text each other from our bedrooms.

"Who?!"

"Joy Behar!! It's like Larry King for stupid people!"

Joy Behar's voice is one of the reasons I left the East Coast. I grew up in New Jersey. I was scared that if I stayed I would hit 40 and start sounding like Joy Behar with Judge Judy's surly attitude.

"SOUNDS AWFUL!"

"IT IS!"

They're still watching it.

I think I'm going to crawl into my laundry basket and hide and I'm taking the cupcakes with me.

Day 11, And she finds a gun?!?

2009-11-11T19:36:00.001-08:00

I needed to have coffee before I left the house to get coffee. My inability to get to bed before 2AM is getting in the way of waking up to get stuff done. I got up though and made my way to Wicked Grounds before noon. I ordered a coffee and forgot to ask for soy milk so I drank it black, something I never do. It didn't seem to matter. I sipped and waited for that familiar cracked out feeling to take over. I opened laptop, I nibbled on a vegan chocolate chip cupcake from Violet Sweet Shoppe. When I felt sufficiently fueled, Bronwyn showed up.

I closed the laptop and we caught each other up on life stuffs. She is awesome and comforting and upon realizing that I was there for a purpose she pulled out a magazine so I could start writing.

I have no idea how it happened but out of nowhere my main character finds a gun in her best friend's glove compartment. They're staying at a hostel in Boston so she can go to a therapist appointment. There is a hangover. There is the realization that there will be many things disguised as love. There is an eating disorder. There is chaos. And now there is a gun.

A gun?! I don't write shit like this! There has never been a firearm in anything I've ever written!

Dan arrived as we were packing up to find food. I wrapped things up after the discovery of the gun. Laura can go screw and figure out what to do about the gun after I have dinner. Seven hours fueled on toast, cupcake and rocket fuel and my stomach was about to go on strike. I explained my predicament about not liking the people I'm writing about. How they're all too much internal dialogue (and how that makes all of them too much like myself) that nothing really moves the plot forward...except for this new gun thing.

His answer was simple though.

"Kill them."

This seems to be the only way out. Now that I've introduced a killing machine it should be easy to off someone.

It goes against my story telling sensibilities though. I only like killing people off when they've been established enough to have made an impact so their death makes an impression on the reader. I want them to be sad/relieved/angry when so-and-so takes their last bite of a poisoned spaghetti dinner, gets 3 bullets to the chest or drives their motorcycle off a cliff.

I don't want to kill someone when the impact will be minimal. I want something of Greek Tragedy proportions. I want to throw myself on a coffin, hands in fists, wailing, weeping, lamenting lost love.

I want death to ache.

Because it should.

I need to remember that this is a draft though. It ain't that deep.

Day 10, Help

2009-11-10T15:07:00.000-08:00

Things that are helping:

Yoga (thanks Michael)
PANTONE Orange 021 EC
Ganesh
Double layer of knee highs over tights
Red hoodie dress
new Tegan & Sara
soy yogurt
coffee
Write or Die

I managed to get some writing done last night and am settling to do more today. Not much to report other then I'm still not completely happy with my prose but at least the plot is getting interesting. I'm not thinking things through and using Write or Die. This novel is being fueled by fear and adrenaline. There are worst things I guess.

For the record, 10 days in, I want to stop writing. I'm tired. My plants are dying. My sourdough starter seems to be dying as well. I'm eating like a college student. My cat hates me. I'm surrounded by death and ramen and loathing.

*cue tiny violin*

(I'll shut up now)

When I got home from yoga I found Blinky licking Ganesh like someone dipped him in catnip. I don't know what that's about but I pulled him from his hiding spot and brought him to the table. Deities help too.

Days 7, 8 & 9, Rocking Softly

2009-11-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

I didn't write this weekend.

Don't judge me. I'll catch up! I always do! That's how I work! I work best under tremendous pressure. I will lock myself in my bedroom, turn the heat all the way to its Hellfire setting, pump up the Ramstein and write as fast as my tiny little fingers bleed.

I wrote some at CTTP Friday before dinner with the dr. I had made reservations at the Brassica Supperclub which came complete with hush hush location and password to get in. We didn't get to whisper the password into the hole to be let in as there were other people entering at the same time we were but the whole covert operation was cool and made the idea of dinner exciting.

Unfortunately, the Supperclub was busted by the cops. Undercover sting operation and everything. The only things missing were door bustings and guns and people with badges screaming at a room full of vegans to drop the broccoli and put their hands above their heads. Slowly. No funny business.

Dinner, despite the sad news, was lovely. The chefs took the time to discuss the meal and their ingredients as we finished up desert. The general atmosphere was one of annoyance at the whole 'bust' but everyone seemed rather hopeful that they would figure something out.

I spent all Saturday with Jeff hibernating and managed to pry myself from bed Sunday morning to meet up with Sadia for a movie, some food, putzing in Noe Valley before heading to Oakland to see our friend Jordan perform at Mama Buzz with the Oakland Soft Rock Choir.

Jordan and Benji explained that on a good day, the choir is 16 people strong and on a bad day, they're 6 people. The show Sunday night had a decent showing of choir members as they drank gigantic beers and sang their little hearts out. They even debuted a new song they've been working on. A RICHARD MARX song.

I got home to find Blake and Blinky on the couch and we stayed up til the wee hours talking about writing, genre fiction v. literary fiction and the perils of online journaling.

Despite trying to get to bed by midnight I found myself staring at the wrong end of 3AM. Both ends are the wrong end of 3AM. There is no right end. Nothing is right when you need to be up at 8AM for an interview. I needed to be bright, interesting and confident this morning.

Without much trouble I woke up at 8, managed to not hit the snooze button and put on the interview clothes I had set aside the night before. I got on 2 buses and ended up in Potrero Hill earlier then anticipated so I walked up and down, up and down, the little hills in this odd area of town. I still had "You're the Inspiration" by Chicago stuck in my head from the night before and I played it over and over, trying to get it to leave me. Listening to other music did not help. While waiting for BART on the way home last night 'dia and I sang the end of the song over and over as it lent itself to looping over and over into infinity. By the time I arrived at the destination for my interview I was a tad bit sweaty and full of Peter Cetera inspiration.

The interview went well. I wouldn't say it was a home run. It's difficult to tell really. I hope for the best and plug away.

I'm just glad I sat on someone else's wad of gum after my interview and not before. The butt of my pants smell like Watermelon Bubblicious.

I went from the interview to the gym to home and by the time I got home I wanted to do nothing but crawl into bed but I knew the novel was calling so I packed up my shit and made my way to CTTP. And it was full of students and not the usual varied hobo-like miscreants sleeping on the couches. I would need to challenge someone to a duel for an outlet so I walked out and made my way back home. To bed. The Lord wanted me to go back to bed so he filled my coffee shop with Gap sweatshirts and tennis shoes.

I hope to get more writing accomplished tonight. I hope. Maybe. I can haz nap?

Day 6, And then it rained

2009-11-06T13:05:00.001-08:00

I turned off my alarm. I decided to skip yoga and felt sleep was more important. Up til 3AM but didn't write. Sent off writing samples to two places who requested them. Two places that don't necessarily want to pay me to write but two places that want me to prove I can communicate information clearly and in a concise manner. I confirmed a job interview for Monday morning. I laid in bed dissecting the emotions swishing inside me like too much whiskey. This took two hours.

Three Categories: Real, Hormonal & Imaginary

I thought about who to throw off a bridge when my story becomes unbearable.

I passed out at some point and woke up to the sound of rain. I smiled, turned off the alarm and fell back asleep.

I woke up and found an email from my old boss to call him. Hmm. Assumption: He cannot find my phone number.

I called him.

Chris: Some things never change. You're not here for me to ask you what your cell phone number is. I found myself starting to yell to you through the door for it.

Temporary misc. hospitality job possibilities. I don't like that they entail me going to Fisherman's Wharf but I'll survive.

I putzed around on wordpress.

I'm not sold, but it made me nostalgic for my previously extinct blog and banner.

I listened to some old Elvis Costello.

Sadia only communicates via twitter.

novicecrafster: woo hoo you're a busy girl! i rode my bike toe the shuttle this morning and it started raining. i got really wet

novicecrafster: is it me or did that second sentence make me sound like i'm 5 yrs old

I shouldn't be on twitter as I swore off social networking for november but really, I only wanted to swear off facebook since facebook makes me feel like I'm 15 years old. Twitter too, but I can swallow 140 characters or less.

lilpinkdresses: rain i love you.

lilpinkdresses: i'm unshowered at my kitchen table in a dirty nightgown. i feel like a tennessee williams play.

I need to get some writing done today and I think this means stomping through some puddles and possibly putting on a sweater. This means more hazelnut milk lattes.

Maybe this time I won't drop 1/2 my doughnut under the couch.

Day 5, In Which I Wear Pants

2009-11-05T19:13:00.000-08:00

Welcome to a shitty picture of me in interview attire. I can't even tell you how surprised I was that these pants fit. The last time I wore them was in 2004 when I was eating chicken breasts and working out everyday. Sure they were a lot more roomy back then but the mere fact I can button these pants closed without popping a vein is amazing. I confirmed a 1:30PM interview with a dude at an internet startup last night around 1:15AM. I am convinced that computer people run on a vampire's schedule. I had not planned on being up until 2AM, but I was busy doing what I said I would not do - EDITING. I stopped myself before I lost too much of my word count but I went from 6,014 words to 5,559 words then back to 6,014. I deleted and rewrote 455 words. This took 2 hours. I wasted 2 hours to be back where I started but I feel somewhat better about the changes I made. I'm just glad I stopped when I did or my word count would have decreased to something ridiculous, like... 18. When I looked at the clock I figured I'd just throw some coffee down my throat in the morning and I'd be fine.

My alarm went off at 8AM and I immediately reset it. I had given myself some wiggle room in the morning and predicted the resetting of the alarm. I know me so well. I managed to crawl out of bed at 9:30 and didn't even need the assistance of coffee. I hopped on the bus downtown for a meeting I had set for 11AM to test a new blog feature the fine folks at Freebase are working on.

Would you like to see?

Built to Spill

Built to Spill is an American indie rock band based in Boise, Idaho. The band has released seven full-length albums. Their most recent...

Musical Genres: Indie rock

Place Musical Career Began: Idaho, Boise

Active as Musical Artist (start): 1992

Get one for any topic!

Interesting, eh?

Demos were done on wordpress and it made me want to move out of blogger. Another project I can take on to procrastinate from writing. While I'm at it, I should start going to Bikram 6 days a week again.

Afterwards, I had timed it so that I would have room to grab lunch and make it down to Bryant St. for my interview but I received a voice mail while I was at Freebase asking to reschedule.

This cleared up time for me to wander around the FIDI in search of VEGAN FROZEN YOGURT.

Which I couldn't find. They've either closed or I am stupid. I didn't remember the address but I had a general idea of where to look on Sacramento and well, I didn't see it so I went home to take off the interview attire and get down to writing.

I started but found my brain wandering. I fiddled with the playstation controlers. I made some popcorn. I read. In an hour I wrote a paragraph. Then Blinky decided she'd rather be on top of my laptop instead of at my feet and she would not stop until I gave in and cuddled.

I needed to leave the house.

I made my way to Haight St. to Coffee To The People. I've written there before and I remembered they had decent vegan treats to fuel myself if need be. While I did putz around online a bit I managed to get another thousand words or so done. I can't say that my plot is going anywhere but in reading some Nanowrimo tactics to move things forward I've realized that I can kill someone off if I want to keep things moving. (thanks d@n) Sweet.

I'm going to give it another try tonight and see if I can squeeze anything else out of my brain. We'll see.

Inflamation of the Brain

2009-11-04T22:05:00.000-08:00

I feel like there are things I should be doing as there is simply not enough time in the world to read all the books I want to read, go to all the classes I want to go to, write all the words I need to write down, 43,986 before the end of the month. People want to see me. I want to see people but sometimes I fear that I have more lessons to learn on being alone although I've spent a majority of my life somewhat alone. I'm scared I will turn into one of those people who lose their shit when they don't have things to do and people to see. It's all so ridiculous because I don't think I'll ever be one of those people. I lose my shit when I can't get away and when I have more than three things to do in one day. Too many things and too many people and my head caves in. I think that's why I stayed in today and didn't venture out to write. I like cocooning in my own home surrounded by my own things without anyone to complain that I've had Pinback on repeat for 4 hours.

I feel like SLO happened a really long time ago although it didn't. I probably just miss jeff. I woke up this morning to a find an email from him about tablecloths and I like that I'm still ridiculously happy when I see a new email from him as I was 9 months ago when he was an exciting new shiny thing in my life.

The moon isn't full but it's beautiful tonight. I walked home from yoga and I could feel the sweat from my nose evaporate. My clothes are wet from sweat and I probably should just take them off but I feel too lazy and too full of words today for some reason. The house is cold but it's always this cold at night. I'm re-reading Tim Sandlin because I find that my writing gets better when I'm reading good writing. I found an old picture of me stuck between the pages. At some point while living in Los Angeles I thought it was a good idea to put tiny braids in my hair and pin them up every which way. While I don't feel particularly old, I do think I looked significantly younger and my choice in clothing and hair color (as well as the previously mentioned hairstyle) reflect that. These days I just look how I look and that's ok with me although sometimes I feel like I should look more creative...whatever that means.

Laura talked about being involved in your own life in class tonight. I wanted to tell her to get out of my brain. So much of this year has been about the fear of actively participating in my own life. People are so scared to engage. I am scared to engage. I don't want to step over any boundaries, worried about making mistakes. We tentatively reach out to people but not too much lest we seem weird, needy or overbearing. At what point did things start to feel like puberty again? Summer was fraught with this strange frenetic worry. The word frenetic is derived from the Latin phreneticus, a modification of the Greek phrenitikos, which is from phrenitis which means "inflammation of the brain."

Which basically translates to insane.

People don't care about what you do as much as you think they care.

I look forward to taking off wet clothes and getting into a hot shower and slipping into a warm bed with my sweet smelling cat.

Day 4, I Washed My Cat Last Night

2009-11-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

I made up more chores to do to procrastinate last night. I took a break when Ian came over. I realized I could not live on brussel sprouts and toast alone and made real food. I washed my cat.

Ever since flea fest 2009 I've been following the train of little black specks Blinky leaves behind with a wet sponge, wondering what has been happening to my poor cat.

So I filled the tub and eased her in prepared to get my face clawed off.

Blinky stood in the tepid water up to her belly looking at me confused. Not once did she mew in protest nor try to attack me to get out. I poured water over her, rubbed her down while she wandered the length of the tub with Blake and Eric taking pictures.

When I let her escape, she ran into the hallway and shook herself off.

Oh Blinky, who knew you had such dainty little ankles?

"So what's the book about?" Ian's the first person to really ask me that. I stood in the living room somewhat dumbfounded. Eric walked into the room and handed Ian a plate of spam and scrambled eggs. The boys ate while I tried to explain that I wasn't too sure what I was doing.

"It's like," I started. "I have an idea on what it's about but I'm not sure that it's going to go in the direction I think it's going to go. So, I don't know. "

"So you're going to figure it out?"

"I hope so?" I sat down and held my hands in my lap so they wouldn't nervously twitch. "Let the story tell itself. I don't know. I don't know how to plan these things. I don't outline, I don't think ahead, I sorta just do it."

"Completely understandable," he said, sounding satisfied with my answer. I expect people to want a synopsis when they ask me about the novel. I don't have one.

The house smelled like breakfast. It was still pretty early in the evening and the sun was already gone. This whole daylight savings thing makes me feel rushed. As soon as the sun disappears I think it's 8PM and I've got so much more writing to do. I'm still not completely happy with the quality of my prose, but I'm trying to keep that part of my brain on lockdown. The need to go back and start editing the measly 6,000 words I have is great.

I was going to venture out and try to write at a coffee shop today but felt lazy and looked around thinking I like my surroundings better. I have my own music, I have food if I get hungry, I have Blinky curled up next to me. There's a bottle of whiskey nearby. The only thing is I'm easily distracted here and it might help me focus if I was stuck in a public place with only my laptop and no other distractions. At least my distractions here involve cleaning. I've never been so proactive about removing ever single cat hair from every single surface in my living room. My house is incredibly clean.

Day 3, In Which I Use the Word 'Behoove'

2009-11-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

After three loads of laundry, followed by sweeping my room, making my bed, rearranging the clothes in my drawers and reading several travel essays I finally started writing.

Writing about someone else feels odd. I don't remember the last time I had written fiction. It felt awkward and forced. I felt like what I was writing would read badly but instead of going back trying to fix it, I kept going. Whatever. I can fix it later, just keep going.

When I looked up, it was midnight. I was still in gym clothes and sneakers. Blinky was passed out on the kitchen table to the left of me. Once I got going, I couldn't stop and once I stopped thinking too much about it, it became easier and I started to remember what it was like when I was a kid scribbling stories, writing G.I. Joe episodes drinking Lil' Hugs with 'Revolver' on the record player. It was either 'Revolver' or Irene Cara, which proves that there was always something preventing me from being cool.

Last week in San Luis Obispo, I remember laying sprawled out like little kids on the gigantic king size bed explaining to Jeff how I feel like I didn't have enough accidents when I was a kid. I felt like I should have had more head injuries. Maybe a couple of more scraped knees and I wouldn't be so frightened of hurting myself these days. I wouldn't be white knuckling it while he teaches me how to ride a bike. I wouldn't have to sit on my ass and slide down a tiny incline because I don't trust myself. Instead of running around, causing havoc and causing myself bodily harm I spent my time indoors in my own head, watching soap operas and making up stories. Figuring no one would ever read any of it, I wrote with abandon. I'd carry several marble composition notebooks with me, all of them filled with my (then)frilly girl cursive. I spent a lot of time alone when I was a kid. I was comfortable when I was by myself. I wrote. A lot.

I have forgotten how to write with abandon these past few years. I'm glad that it seems to be coming back to me.

Despite passing out around 2AM I woke up this morning and made it to yoga, came home and sent out a couple of more resumes. It's becoming rote behavior. I used the work "behoove" in a cover letter and didn't blink an eye. I also found myself describing my box office experience at the HOB as more than "Rock Stars and All-You-Can-Eat-Fried Chicken". If I'm penalized for being too comfortable in a cover letter, oh well.

Tonight? More writing but I need to step away from the computer before my eyes bleed.

Day 2, In Which I do Nothing But Almost Eat a Potato

2009-11-02T16:40:00.000-08:00

In an effort to undo some chocolate cake and non-vegan candy corn (for shame) consumption I got up and made my way to the gym this afternoon. I spent most of my morning scouring the internets for work and decided that I should add ROCKET SCIENTIST and RABID JULIE ANDREWS FAN under my "Skills" category on my resume. I've sent out so many resumes and cover letters at this point that I believe that companies are so inundated with hundreds of responses that mine go unread. At this point I am going to embellish and add information on how I invented Goo Gone, have mad ninja skillz and survived the occupation of New Orleans by Monkey War Lords.

IT WOULDN'T MATTER. NO ONE IS READING MY SHIT ANYWAYS.

And if someone is maybe they'd at least get a chuckle out of it.

In true hotpants fashion I nearly ran out of fuel on the way home and arrived back at my apartment on the brink of starvation. I started the water to steam some veggies, grabbed an apple and with laptop in hand, plopped down onto the couch.

I thought it was an apple.

I nearly sunk my teeth into it before I realized I was holding a potato to my face.

Crisis averted.

I decided I should concentrate on food before sitting down to write. Now it's almost 5PM and I'm searching for chores to do so I don't have to write. Laundry, mopping, reorganizing my books, scrubbing the toilet. I'd rather scrub the toilet then pick up where I left off. My main character doesn't have a name yet. The last we see her she had just watched her boyfriend throw up and apologized for not helping him. She may or may not have been hit by lightening. At any given moment she can hear Pachabel's Canon playing somewhere.

Needless to say, I've got a lot of work to do.

Day 1, Nanowrimo & Other Things

2009-11-01T15:39:00.001-08:00

I woke up and loitered in bed for an hour or two wondering what time it really was. 33 years and Daylight Savings still fucks with my brain. I knew I had to write something today but I didn't really have any high hopes on how much I'd get done. I got out of bed, made some breakfast and set up shop. 300 some words later, I felt pretty satisfied and walked away from the computer and crawled back into bed to finish Issue 30 of McSweeney's. Reading is the key to getting writing done for me. I read something and it seems to plant seeds and I'm drawn to open up and write more. I put on a pot to boil, grind some beans and make some coffee. This novel will be fueled by Girl Talk, coffee and chocolate cake. 2 pages and I'm 1214 words in. I finished a scene and decided to take a break, make my bed so I don't get back into it and am now contemplating making a loaf of sourdough.

Oh and I sent off a handful of resumes today as well.

I just need to make my way through and do what I can to keep forward momentum in everything I do.

Sorry my blog will be hijaked by writing about the process of writing. It's not the most exciting stuff in the world but I'd like to be able to take notes on this process and at the end have a comprehensive picture of when the highs and when the lows hit. All I remember of last year's Nanowrimo was the strong start and the college-like all nighter ending. It's all a blur. The novel, coupled with a crumbling relationship and the death of David, I seem to have a limited memory of last fall.

I think I've been carrying around some sadness since returning from Portland in October. David sadness. It's been sitting pretty still, close to the surface but not breaking through. I've managed to keep it at bay and occupy myself with other things so as not to be consumed by it. I wonder if there is any internal damage happening. I wonder if I go to dia de los muertos if it will come spilling out of me and if I want that to happen or not. The pain feels so personal sometimes and it's not necessarily something I share. I don't know if I'm keeping it close to my heart because that is what I want to do or because that is what I'm used to doing.

Last night I pulled my laundry basket out of my closet to remind myself I need to do the chore sometime soon. The removal of the basket left an empty space that I climbed into and shut the sliding door because there is something comforting about hiding in closets. Without any real thought I cried for a little while because it felt safe to do so in there. I miss him and it's ok to be sad about that.

Michael C. Shaw, I have your cell phone

2009-11-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

I have your cell phone. Your little nokia reminds me of my first cell phone which I received via mail when I arrived in San Francisco in 2002 for $35.00. I don't know why your cell phone was on my living room table when I returned from San Luis Obispo, but there it was, gray and silver and all sorts of weathered. I don't know who you are, but your cell phone is in my house.

Nanowrimo has started 39 minutes ago. I haven't written a word of it. Setch and Jesse just left my house and I scarfed down two more cupcakes. I'm sick with sugar. I let things slide today. I've eaten so poorly today that I just need to get over it and be diligent tomorrow and maybe go to a yoga class.

It was nice to forget that Halloween existed this year. My brain has been full of to- do lists that at some point this afternoon, still holed up in the batcave in my pjs and wool socks, my brain imploded. Spamming the internet with my resume for jobs I'm overqualified for made feel oogy and a little weepy, which is ridiculous for sure. I just sniffled a little bit. I felt bratty and complainy, just wanting things to be easier. I wanted to throw a hissy fit complete with flailing limbs and high pitched screaming, like the sound a child makes when you pry them off of the McDonald's Playland Fry Guy ride. I wanted my neighbors to know I was unhappy.

I'm glad that I can recognize this feeling and remember that I am an adult and I will not screech, in public or private. Not much one can do but suck it up, put on some clothes and grab something to eat because life goes on whether or not you're feeling shitty. It was a good thing Josh called or I would have spent more time consuming week old butternut squash soup that may or may not be bad, contemplating my future career at Carl's Jr.

I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday and par for the course the family was on their way over for dinner before they trek out to Atlantic City for birthday shenanigans (read: slot machine ridiculousness). When I hung up the phone I realized that I miss them.

The cranky passed and I swept up, took stock of what baking things I had and hopped into the shower to wash the stink of self loathing and road trip off of me. Setch and Jesse dropped by and we dished over drinks and cupcakes and now I'm exhausted, full of wine and cake and excited to crawl back into bed. It's officially November and the temperature in my apartment has dropped accordingly. It's time for fleece pants and thermals and placing Blinky on top of my feet to keep them warm at night.

Chippies

2009-10-27T22:25:00.001-07:00

I keep trying different chocolate chip cookie recipes and some come out ok, some come out awful and one batch the dr. and I made when we first started dating tasted LIKE HEAVEN DIPPED IN AWESOME AND FULL OF JESUS CHIPS...or something like that.

Except now I can't remember what website the recipe came from. Sigh.

These came out ok: vegweb.com/index.php?topic=6391.0

Jesus Christ

2009-10-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

Oh the cursed singer songwriter.

I'm guilty of loving some of their woeful music.

See Exhibit A. See tortured expression on my face? Oh, sadness.

Listening to a girl sing 'Both Hands' on the corner of 18th and Castro last night made every muscle in my body clench. I'm sure even Ani herself would like this song to be put to rest the same way I'd like to forget my 19 year old angsty poetry.

The last time I had seen Ani in concert was probably in 2006. Josh and I made our way to the Mountain Winery for the show and when I saw chairs I nearly cried tears of joy. I had a latte at a fucking Ani Difranco show...AND I ENJOYED IT Secret Shame. Totally.

I remember leaving the venue that night relieved that she's mellowed out as much as we have. Several angry lesbians requested older angrier stuff that she denied them and I was glad. I didn't think I could really sit there and enjoy 'Untouchable Face' or 'Swan Dive' comfortably. Someone has to have the balls to sing about taking your tampon out and waving it around in shark infested waters but you get to a point in your life when that kinda stuff doesn't happen anymore. You sort of realize that kinda shit doesn't work because you're no longer mad, hurt nor misunderstood. Or you may be but you don't act out by threatening suicide anymore because you've come to the conclusion that people will be sad if you die, but they'll move on without you.

These days I take refuge in old Decemberists, Beirut, Fanfarlo, Devotchka, music that makes me feel like I'm a gypsy or living in a secret compartment of a pirate ship. Someday I want to go out to the beach at night and sing Neutral Milk Hotel at the top of my lungs to the ocean.

"I LOVE YOU JESUS CHRIST. JESUS CHRIST I LOVE YOU."

hi

2009-10-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

I've been distracted.

Life happens.

Eating consciously has taken on more of a natural feel to it. I no longer struggle with food guilt now that I'm eating real things and not deconstructed food products. I yelped about going into 'Food Fight' in Portland and my internal dialogue about the evils of "fake" foods. I like that the fact that Vegan Marshmallows exist, I just don't think that my diet calls for them right now. I find myself wanting whole foods and I need to stick with this while this wanting lasts. I've spent a lifetime wanting fried chicken and onion rings.

It feels good to want something good for me for a change.

I haven't taken a side profile picture in awhile and I think it's part distraction and part meh. I feel like my body isn't drastically changing so there has been no motivation to do so although I know I should keep at it just because. Anything that happens within a couple of months that's dramatic or drastic doesn't stay.

I will admit that this picture makes me want to get a breast reduction. Don't ask why this has been on the mind as of late. I remember making the decision to not get one years ago once I managed to tame the back pain with yoga but it has been creeping back into my brain. I can't really pinpoint why other then the want to wear button down shirts and maybe the ability to rest my forehead on my knees in Paschimottanasana.

Tea, toast, yogurt w/ granola, I should by all means get my ass to the gym while I'm fueled up but the call is weak. I went yesterday and talked to them about canceling my membership. I'm paid up until November 19th so I should make the most most of it but the main reason I'm quitting is the fact that I'm not getting anything out of it anymore. 40 minutes of cardio and I leave. Running in place is not motivating. A part of me has always known this and has always loathed the gym for this reason. I'm pretty much useless in a gym without someone barking orders at me. I'd rather walk Fulton St. to the beach.

Which sounds like a good idea before 6:30 Vinyasa with Laura at BendSF.

Food, Girls, Penises and Other Things

2009-10-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

I never thought it would be this easy.

Living in SF is a major factor in this 'Eating Vegan is Pretty Damn Easy' feeling. The girls and I hit The Plant Organic this weekend and I was satisfied with the number of vegan options and the fact that they list what is vegan and what is gluten free. I fulfilled my need for breakfast with orange juice and coffee then decided the vegan lunch options were more attractive. While the tomato pizza was nice, light and not too overwhelming, it managed to keep me satiated from noon until 6PM, which, in itself, is amazing. The side of vegan snausage was a 'just because' impulse order. They had it and I wanted it. Until I ate one and decided I was better off without. You can't win them all.

I made the smart decision to say no to the vegan 'Pot de Creme w/ Cookies" on their dessert menu. I was torn. I had dessert in my bag, 2 sandwich cookies from the bake sale, waiting for me to inhale them.

It's good to remember that The Plant doesn't look like its going anywhere and I can always come back for the desserts.

After dropping off my wares at the SF Vegan Bake Sale earlier that day, the dear dr. walked me to muni and I ran off to meet the girls for brunch. It's a rare opportunity to hang with just my girls and despite not being all that girly (as too much estrogen in a room sorta makes me feel wonky), I really cherish my time with them. After brunch and seeing "An Education", we holed up in a back booth Murphy's for some beers and dishing. Not feeling particularly beer-ish, I opted for water and listening. Dating woes and analyzing of the strange behavior of the opposite sex. I didn't have much to offer up except the whole, "It finds you when you're not really looking" which I almost immediately retracted. I never want to be full of pithy platitudes.

Someone then said, what we have probably all said or thought at one point or another in our lives.

"This would be so much more easier if I was a lesbian."

Which, of course, I had to disagree with. Some things may be easier but if I was dating someone too much like me, with the same monthly hormonal imbalances, we would be highly likely to gouge each others hearts out with dull spoons.

And then there's that whole 'you don't have a penis and i like penis' thing.

In other news, this sad little fella, upchucked on the dear dr.'s table and laid down to die. So sad. We put him in some soup and ate him.

Did I mention that I am in love?

Why yes Virgina there is a Santa Claus.

home practice

2009-10-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

When I can't motivate to go to class, it's good to have a home practice. It's nice to settle in and think about what my body needs instead of just going through some sun salutations and hoping that something opens up.

Lots of Uttanasana and Paschimottanasana (not pictured). Forward bends, either standing or sitting help shut down the brain, which is what really needed to take a rest today. My mind has been running away these days. Lots of ideas and creative energy, which is great, but not when you're trying to get to bed before 2AM.

This is one of the reasons I keep missing noon class.

I haven't been motivated to cook either. Despite awesome soup, I've been living on bulgur & veggies & popcorn. Again with the popcorn. There are worse addictions I guess.

My right psoas is still tight and gives me trouble when I'm doing the simplest of things...like walking. In doing research, a lot of this has to do with the fact that I'm practically flat footed due to my early addiction to flip flops. I need to get over my aversion to going to see a doctor about correcting this, thinking I can yoga my way out of the psoas stiffness. Strengthening my core will help too, but you know me, ab work makes me want to throw up. I need to get over that as well.

My body keeps changing. A lot of it for the better. I need to remember it's supposed to be slow going.

Also, I want to swim in the ocean.

Happy Diwali everyone. Light some diyas or candles tomorrow. Your good has won over the evil within yourself. This is important to recognize. Love.

novel yes having maybe write

2009-10-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

"This is either the second coming of Christ or the condom broke."

I don't know what is more brilliant, the fact that line happened to be on my screen when the picture was taken or the fact that Setch called me out on slacking during Nanowrimo's 'Night of Writing Dangerously'.

Yeah, I was checking facebook and not making word count. Last November I came blazing out of the gate 19,000 words strong within the first 2 weeks.

And then I sorta sat on it.

Like I always do.

I mean, the reason I started a rigorous Bikram regimen was to avoid having to write the damn book.

And in true hotpants fashion I chained myself to the laptop Spanksgiving weekend and threw up 30,000 words in 4 days. Sure, lots of it was unintelligible, but it was all about making word count.

I've started thinking about it as someone asked me if I was going to do it this year. It is the perfect time. I'm still unemployed. I have no excuse. I've been reading more fiction lately.

And if worse comes to worse, I'll at least start another rigorous Bikram regimen to avoid writing the novel and will eventually get back down to my birth weight.

weird part ii

2009-10-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

i'm eating soup for breakfast.

it's not so strange as it's almost noon so i can call this an early lunch. the only breakfasty thing about what is in front of me is coffee. coffee is creeping back into my life after a brief reprieve. it's not awful. i have a cup or two a day and it's nice. it's more the ritual of it then anything. i wake up, i put the kettle on, i grind the beans from the random bag of coffee i won at last years nanowrimo's 'night of writing dangerously' and dump the fragrant grinds into the press. the smell of ground coffee is intoxicating. i remember not being able to smell coffee for years after working at a coffee joint where i would marinate in it all day. my only complaint is that it doesn't taste quite like it smells. the soul of the bean seems to be left somewhere in the bottom of the press. one would think the essence is what is drawn out and poured into your cup, but it seems like the opposite to me. i consume your extras, your superfluous, the things you can live without. and it tastes ok. and it makes me vibrate in my seat. but it's not your soul.

i am consuming hot things. soup and coffee. both taste horrible together but somehow make sense.

my fever broke around 6 this morning. it woke me up after 2 hours of sleep to tell me that it's ok, it's leaving me. i kicked off the covers, sweating and limp. this fever business, so much like an exorcism.

i'm definitely feeling normal despite the crusty feeling i get when the heat is on.

i laid in bed most of the night cranky and frustrated with myself. why are you so fucking broken all the time? i meant mentally and not physically though the physical is what seems to show itself more readily, especially in the present. it's easy. it's tangible. i have a cold because i only brought one pair of socks to portland and someone probably coughed on me. my finger hurts because i sliced it while wrestling with a squash. things get more complicated when what is broken is something you can't quite wrap your hands around. i can't see my crazy, but i can feel it whirr around my head as eyelids flap at rapid pace, like morse code transmitting to the world, · · · — — — · · ·, maritime distress, i am only smart some of the time.

i find myself googling simple things just to make sure that things mean what i think they mean, i second guess, i think too much about something and it goes from being an ultimate truth to complete blather. this was last night until i fell asleep thinking about almost purchasing 'the love wife' by gish jen at powells but didn't because i have 5 books sitting in my room waiting for me to read. i had picked it up, walked around with it and put it back 4 times. it's these things that make me crazy. somehow holding and carrying the book around felt like enough. i don't need to buy you. you are $5 and you are not worth this purchasing anxiety. i had enough in me to carry it around the store, but ultimately did not want to have to carry it home in my carry on. when we stopped by reading frenzy afterwards i bought a tiny comic and that was worth carrying home. gish jen is universal. i can find her on amazon and make the book come to me.

setch and i talked about broken homes and estranged families last week. i feel like the odd man out sometimes because my family seems complete. we're too full. we're overflowing with people. cousins and more cousins and more aunts and uncles. i wonder if it's the inaldo thing or if it's the filipino thing. when i worked on sutter street and frequented the nearby walgreens for prescriptions and chocolate the little filipino ladies there would talk to me like i was their niece and talk to me about 'wowowe'. they'd ask if my mom had the filipino channel and i'd tell them that she did and the last time i was home it was on all the time, even when people weren't home, even when my dad was asleep with his mouth open in the barcolounger. without even knowing me, i was their family and they eventually started telling me i needed to get married and have babies.

the carabao is the national animal of the philippines. i often confuse this with caribou. it's times like that when i wished i had wikipanion installed into my brain.

carabao is also a famous rock band from thailand.

i remember when i was a kid how my parents and my aunts and uncles used to eat with their hands.i remember seeing rice stuck to their hands as they talked and gestured and i'd wait to see if any of it would go flying. none of it really did. i don't remember when they stopped eating kamayan. at some point my mom started to make this cheese ravioli with cream sauce, sundried tomatoes and shrimp. she also started to make this 30 day fruitcake. it was all downhill from there.

i no longer know how to eat filipino. i barely eat american. i guess i can say i now eat californian.

except for this soup and coffee business. that's just eating weird.

weird

2009-10-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

it's late and i had meant to go to bed hours ago.

my brain can't stop thinking about how so much of what i do is rooted in my nature, my genetic code and my heart can't stop feeling so weird about it.

sometimes you want to figure out how to fuck the system.

i've been worried about irrational things. i somehow manage to put them to bed so i can be a functional human being, but that doesn't mean they're resolved. i know that worry is such a useless emotion, it does nothing but cause undue stress. why these things come out at such times is beyond me. it's the witching hour.

i blame the whole lot of this on hormones, fevers and whooping cough.

this would never happen if i was a robot.

i was perfectly happy today kicking puddles of water down the street to the store for soup provisions. my fever died to a mere 99 so i decided it would be safe for me to travel. i had eaten everything i had in the house before we left for portland so i was stuck with nothing and even more nothing. i went through my cupboard and mournfully stared into its dark abyss. i had a jar of peanut butter. after two spoonfuls i decided this was no way to live so i took some ibuprofen to bring my fever down and made my way to the store.

if it wasn't for the messenger bag full of groceries on the way home, the wind would have taken me out several times. my neighbors were exiting the building as i was making my way to my apartment and they looked at me as the wind howled outside. they stared like they were contemplating going back home after seeing what the weather had just done to me.

i looked like i had just gotten out of the shower. my shoes squished.

i love it though. i love the rain.

i think i might be cranky because it stopped.

and my fever is back.

and i can't sleep.

2009-10-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

Blogging from Bobby's backyard in Portland is hard on this tiny device but I'm glad it corrects the mistakes my fat fingers make. It's been quite a lovely trip. I couldn't ask for more then this. The trees are turning colors, my feet crunch leaves as we saunter down sidewalks to falafel carts that have vegan chocolate cake. We bundle up under blankets, cocooned around fires with the trains whistling and chugging long into the night. My hands smell like Rosemary. There are green tomatoes in the garden that need to be fried. Cahen's making us an apple pie. I bought a lil 'zine about love unfinished. Pumpkin crepes and sage. If I could live inside a cannoli shell I would. I can burrow and cocoon with my dearest dr. until next spring.

Pants

2009-10-05T23:38:00.001-07:00

Real life is currently on hold while I come to terms with the fact that at some point, pants need to happen. Pants really needed to happen this weekend and I'm grateful that I magically fit into the dr.'s sweatpants.

I feel like I've been busy visiting old job haunts, saying hello and catching up with ex-coworkers, commiserating about this awful economy and sending my resume out. I've only been vaguely aware that it is October. This month's fast pass is beige & nude colored. It's hideous. Fall is here and since Fall in SF is really Indian Summer that means it's going to be winter soon enough and winter means pants.

I've spent most of my adult life in skirts. I think it started because I felt the need to advertise to the male population that I was an actual girl and not a manatee in a t-shirt. My freshman year of college was full of regrettable flannel and mens jeans. Years of a catholic school uniform saved me from ever having to dress myself and when the day finally came where I could make a decision on how to creatively express myself through fashion I decided to wear mens thriftstore clothing.

I want to burn pictures from this time.

MC Escher t-shirts and all. Jesus.

This, matched with the fatty pants and glasses that ate my face, I was pretty homely.

After a year of living in Boston, I realized that I could not continue to dress like a boy if I ever wanted one of them to notice me.

Skirts are great. I feel free in them. My thighs need to know that they can contract and expand without the hindrance of fabric limiting their movement. Skirts draw attention to my hammy calves that have never been able to fit into boots. Skirts make me feel pretty even when I feel heinous inside and make me feel badass when paired with knee highs.

Skirts, however, aren't enough for SF winters. I'm glad we're nowhere near having anything as severe as Boston winters, but it does get nippy enough that my naked knees seem to scream at me when the wind blows.

California has made me soft. Simply thinking about snow makes me want to put on a parka.

Sometimes

2009-10-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wished I knew more tangible things about the world, how things operate, this business of engineering.

All I know are feelings.

There is no science in me. Only christmas lights, like stars.

A+

2009-09-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

I didn't sleep very well last night despite how tired I was after such a messy day but I do know that when I woke up this morning, I woke up ecstatic that it's a different day. Thursday is good. Thursday cannot possibly be awful. Thursday is not Wednesday. Today I will not be standing on the corner of Hayes and Larkin waiting for the police to show up to file a report. Today I will not immediately lose my shit after hanging up the phone with my mother while trying to fill out an online job form. Cut and paste, cut and paste, work history, education, sniff, hiccup. Today I will not feel awful. Thursdays are statistically better then Wednesdays due to their close proximity to Fridays on the calendar.

I was grateful to have Rachel to discuss the day's events with over mediocre Indian food on Haight St. last night. It's funny how re-telling stories can lighten the load, puts more distance between the me who is having an awful day and the me who is now recounting said awful day. It means it's behind me. It's done.

Nothing is worth more then this day. And tomorrow, this day will be filed away as good. Thursday plays well with others and actively participates in class. A+ Thursday. Good job for not sucking.

because at some point I went from badass to betty crocker

2009-09-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

I'll be baking for this event next month. :)

Standing in the Fillmore last night at the Bon Iver show I couldn't help but remember the countless times I've been in that same venue, staring at that same stage, under those same chandeliers...wishing for a folding chair.

Oddly enough, I was doing that stand dancing people do at crowded concerts last week. Eric and I had gone to the Warfield to see Phoenix and not once did I wish for a chair. Upon further reflection, I think it's because Bon Iver is more of a sit down and contemplate your past relationships and how you managed to not slit your wrists while Phoenix is a more 'WE'RE FRENCH AND SOMETIMES OUR LYRICS DON'T MAKE SENSE! LET'S DANCE!'.

I guess the Fillmore has always felt a little weird to me. I've gone to tons of shows there, many of them stellar, but the venue, for all its history, leaves me feeling a little 'blah'. I got home from the show last night starving and after combing through my random pantry decided to make oatmeal.

God. I'm old.

I pulled out my journal and a sharpie wrote in big bold letters:

WHEN DID I GET SO OLD?!?

An evening of Justin Vernon's falsetto stabbing me in the heart with 'Skinny Love' and 'Wolves Act I&II', achy knees and oatmeal.

I blame September and its false starts. Indian Summer has been coming and going in little spurts. I just want it to be Fall already I guess. Spring and Summer are so playful that they're youthful. Fall just seems more serious. I want scarves and mittens and funny looking hats. Ok, maybe not really too serious, but it tends to be the transition period where things seem to slow down. Too much kapha. My dosha is all sluggishness and withdrawal.

So I'm putting on some Phoenix and heading outside.

"Do let do let do let jugulate* do let do let do"

*Jugulate: To cut the throat of. Oh Phoenix, you're so...interesting.

Negau

2009-09-22T00:06:00.000-07:00

I remember several years ago sitting at my desk with a wad of bloody tissue stuffed into the right side of my mouth and the hot blinding white light of pain running through my brain over and over again at 2 minute intervals.

I believe I had bounced a check, had not gotten paid for weekend work, had 4 conference calls and not enough energy to schedule that much needed root canal.

My co-worker Vanessa walked by me and asked if everything was ok.

"I am on god's shit list," I replied. "I feel like I'm being smote. Smited. Whatever."

I then asked her to bash me across the face with my heavy duty stapler.

I remember that one morning I was unable to hold down water and was convinced I needed to take myself to the ER for alcohol poisoning. I laid in bed shivering, nauseous and speaking in tongues. I remember telling my ex the night before that if he loved me he wouldn't make me drink Jagermeister. I remember thinking that point was the beginning of the end and I should never ever ever have to say "If you love me, you wouldn't..."

I remember making many pacts with divine beings, praying that if I just live through right now I will do whatever you want. I will praise Allah, I will do unto others, I will not covet my neighbor's wife...just let me live.

Things were so extreme back then.

These days, I'm not so much concerned with living. I feel like if I was hit by a muni bus tomorrow I'd be fine with how it ended. I've figured out what I want to do with my life. I have many wonderful friends who teach me new things everyday. I've discovered genuine love. I know how to make a convincing vegan mac n' cheese. This year has taught me a lot so if I ever found myself in the paroxysms of agony again I don't think I'd be trying to seal a deal with god.

Random blips of chaos happen. They come and go, like most things.

Walking home from the bus stop, watching the fog roll in to engulf my neighborhood, I found myself standing in the middle of the panhandle. Usually, when I stop and think, it's to wish for things. Someone had told me that my tattoo, the inside of my right wrist, "Negau", to wish, was sad. They explained that it meant I would never have what I wanted. I would always be wishing. I didn't have it in me to tell them that they were wrong. So much of it, for me, has to do with hope. There is always a need for it. I wish you well. I wish for things to sort themselves out for people who need such sorting. I wish that one day, good intentions turn themselves into good actions. I hope.

It was never about wanting and getting for myself. It was never about having. It was never about me.

My ex called today and my first thought was that he must want something from me. I was a bit surprised, but not really upset like I had been in the past as I've finally figured out that whatever it is, it's not really about me anymore. Not sure how to proceed and not quite ready to talk, I emailed him.

I wish you well, it said.

And that's all I can do. For anyone, really. Regardless of the situation.

Omphaloskepsis

2009-09-16T23:46:00.000-07:00

'Omphaloskepsis is the contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation.[1] It is well known in the usually jocular phrase directed towards egotism and self-absorbed pursuits: "contemplating one's navel" or "navel-gazers".' -Wikipedia

I'm shaking with glucose overload. For once, I did not hesitate on the sugar in a recipe and now I am paying the price. At least I replaced the corn syrup with agave, but still. I found myself measuring out 1 cup of sugar and the sight of an entire cup of sugar in a bowl made me a little sick inside. I'm a sucker for dessert, but when I see an actual mound of sugar all I see is a lifetime of insulin shots. *shudder*

The act of baking in my kitchen is soothing. I've managed to figure out a way to make cookies and not consume the entire batch. Florentines are more tedious then anticipated but there is great joy in trying to get them as thin and uniform as possible for optimal cookie sandwich making. Many of them came out flat but were deformed and browned unevenly. At first I stood there wanting to throw them in the trash but then I remembered the chocolate cake the dr. and I made this past weekend and realized that not everything is pretty. Some things are downright ugly, but that doesn't mean they deserve to die. While there is something to be said for perfectionism, I don't want to be that person who throws a hissy fit because something came out wrong.

I had dinner with Sadia the other night and found myself telling a story and coming to a conclusion right then and there that there are so many things I am scared of, so many irrational things that are out of my control. I suspect much of this comes from certain career dilemmas Tears welled up much to my surprise. I embarrassingly cried into my plate of curry.

All of sudden it is 6th grade and I am awkward, uncomfortable and nervous. I am going to be picked last for kickball to no one's surprise. I want to be swallowed whole to never be seen again. Someone is going to throw me in the trash because I didn't come out perfect and evenly browned.

So much uncertainty, I teeter between rational and crazy at lightening speed.

It wasn't until later when my womb began to ache that I realized why the insanity.

This whole hormone thing isn't funny anymore.

Sometimes I spend way too much time with my head buried deep within itself it forgets that there is a world out there outside my own uber innie belly button.

still

2009-09-14T23:13:00.001-07:00

I have to pee sooo bad.

I don't know why I'm writing since I've got to pee this badly. This is how it goes. This is what I do. I move from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, the pressure growing, but I ignore it because when my mind is on a roll, I do not want to stop it. I want to see where it goes. I live for these moments of complete abandon where my brain is not capsized with fear, so I can follow it from here to there, watch it do what it does best, make up stories, make up random pots of soup, go from place to place with no direction.

I just really wished there was a pause button so I don't wet my pants.

I woke up this weekend to the sound of thunder followed by the splat of raindrops and everything felt like it was falling into place. I felt like I could rest. Rain. Yes. Everything is okay. I turned in bed to face the dr., placed my hand on his hip and fell back asleep knowing that this week long need for hibernation made sense.

I had been wanting to keep a low profile for no real reason. I don't know if it had to do with the cold that has been haunting me or the fact that I have nothing to say when people ask me what I've been doing that has me wanting to crawl under the covers and come out in 2010. It's not depression or sadness. It's not angsty or upsetting. It just...is.

I want to be alone or I want to be burrowing in jeff's armpit. I do not want to drink. I do not want to have a soiree. I do not want to pass go or collect $200.

I feel like I'm making my way around the Monopoly board for the nth time and every time I make one full round I get my unemployment check, except for last week where I pulled a Chance card and had to go directly to jail. Apparently I filled out my paperwork wrong and had to redo it and wait an extra week for my check. Money may or may not have a part in my need to hibernate. I have money. I will be ok. I may be jumping the gun and getting nervous about the point that I will reach in the future when I may NOT have money. I'm well aware that every party comes to an end and I keep waiting for someone to call the cops on me 'cause I've been sitting pretty for 5 months now. Again with the metaphor. Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

But that really isn't close to being the reason I've been wanting down time.

I've been finding some real moments of clarity when it's quiet. When the door is shut and it's 2:13 AM and I sort of forget that there is a world outside. When there's music in the background and I'm stirring cake batter and jeff is sitting in a chair that he had brought into the kitchen so he could read in the same room while I bake. When we're lying in bed in the dark telling stories late into the early morning. I forget there is a world outside and I like that. I like feeling that for a moment there is nothing in this world but us, this place and this time. Soon enough life things will pick up and there will be brunches and parties and dinners. There will be park days and movie days and holidays. Soon enough there will be jobs to go to, but for now, for just this moment, I want to stay here and lie still.

hello internets

2009-09-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

I'm sniffly and exhausted, but surviving.

I've done an hour of cardio, made a loaf of sourdough, looked for work, cleaned out and organized my cupboards, mopped everything I could get my mop on, scrubbed, re-seasoned my cast iron grill pan, watched this week's Top Chef and made a loaf of banana bread.

Now if you excuse me, I'm going to pass the fuck out. I love you.

gnarly

2009-09-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

Looksee!

It's lovely and shaped like a turd/cigar/torpedo.

I'm going to tell people that the wound was from when I was nicked by a trident during a monkey gang war.

And when they realize and point out that it's a burn and not a laceration I will tell them to STFU.

Motivation, Chicken Feet, Veganism, And The Reality That Everything Will Be Ok

2009-09-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to motivate to leave the house today. It's beautiful out. Sunny and warm. I'm sweaty and indoors. What is wrong with me?

I managed to go to bed before 3AM last night which assisted with getting up at 9 without too much complaint, eating some toast and some pears and applying for jobs online. I don't know how many times I've reworked my resume but the task is making me blind. I've sent my lot out for the day. My homework is done and the idea of getting out of the house and going to the gym is agitating me. I feel...busy. It's ridiculous really. I used to get up at 5AM, work a full time job, hit two yoga classes a day and still manage to putz around before going to bed and now if I have more then 3 things to do in one day I feel myself start to worry that I won't have time to do all three and I start to stress. This is a sign that I probably need to get back to work. Perspective. I need some.

Matt and I walked up Grant St. through Chinatown so he could practice some of his Mandarin. This was excellent as it led us to meeting a woman who took us to a hole in the wall dim sum place up a hill and tucked into a corner hidden from the hustle and bustle of touristy Grant. While he got excited over finding chicken feet on the menu and went on about how they were the best discovery of his 3 month stint in Beijing I perused the menu sweaty, tired and hungry. I found the veggie dishes but found myself wanting to throw my hands in the air and just get something fried and chicken-y but I didn't.

I knew if I did, I would eat 2 bites, it would suck and I'd be sad and probably sick.

My braised tofu plate had enough food to feed a family of four for a week. I'm glad I ordered wisely.

Matt asked if I was a vegan and I think it was the first time I had ever said yes.

I've kept private about a lot of my decisions and have just done whatever under the radar without any big announcement or fanfare. I quit smoking without warning anyone. I quit meat without saying anything. I quit dairy and kept it to myself feeling like the best way for me to do anything is to just do it and if people care to know, they'll ask. It's never been very helpful to me to tell the world every single thing. The last time I did so was with my last blog and that did nothing but get me in trouble that only Craig Newmark could get me out of. So I do whatever I do and I don't say much about it.

There is this weird feeling that arises though when people do ask me about things and I clam up and realize that I really don't like saying 'yay' or 'nay' about stuff, whether they're asking me if I'm a vegetarian or if I'm looking for work, I usually want to opt out and not answer. I don't know exactly why this is, but I'm guessing it's stemming from some sort of fear of being judged or categorized. I know that it's really not my job to make sure that someone doesn't throw me into the "vegan" or "unemployed" or "freewheeling hippie" box in their brain. I'm really not involved in the process so I need to not be too concerned about what people think of me.

I've spent a lot of time lately turning off my brain and letting myself experience things, even things such as insecurity and sadness. I recognize that when I start to feel unstable that it's just a feeling and it'll eventually pass. With that, I've been able to say stupid things, do stupid things, let myself be embarrassed by them and then let them go. This has opened up lots of room to be happy.

At dinner last night with the boys on Castro St. I sat and thought about the first time I had gone to that particular Thai restaurant with Jeff and I felt really good about everything. I have memories with someone that I carry with me that bring me joy. I can go about my everyday life, doing my thing, enjoying my downtime, looking for work, making my dinner and laying in bed, knowing that, in essence, everything is ok. I can look at my rag tag group of friends and know that I have a large support group of people who will be there when things aren't ok. I've surrounded myself with good people who are family to me. I remind myself that I like me. I'm a good egg. When I get weird or twitchy about things and start to doubt that, I work hard to remember to be nice to myself because I like me. At the end of the day, that matters a whole lot more then anything else really.

Warning: This shit is boring

2009-08-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

Nothing keeps you more honest then a bathing suit.

I've gotten so much better at being comfortable in a bathing suit. The last couple years of growing comfortable in my own skin, in my own body, has made my life easier, but the first time you put on a new suit, it's a little bit daunting.

Random head space issues and sleep schedule last week has kept my eating rather sporadic though I'm still eating vegan. Yoga has helped me build up a good amount of upper body strength that I can feel in my shoulders and arms, but that does not help much in the belly department. It's not a horrible thing, this body. I don't obsess over it, though there are times I'm more conscious of it then I'd like to be. Nothing I do is going to change the fact that I'm 3 apples high and fluffy in the middle. I think even if I lost weight I still feel like I'd be fluffy in the middle. All I really want to do is be healthy and mobile when I get older. The biggest fear of getting older is the idea of not being able to get around on my own. I look at my mother and father, both in their 60s and both are still working, still mowing the lawn and still going about the daily business of their lives without the assistance of canes or wheelchairs and for that I am relieved and grateful. This means I can do it too.

The bathing suit is new. I realized after some rather unfortunate boob flailing as the ocean tossed me around like a plaything in Tulum last year that I needed a suit that did its job keeping me decent. I don't really want to frighten children. I also realized that the 3 year old suit had gotten loose below the bust so when I'd get into a pool the bottom of the tank top would float up leaving my fleshy self naked in the middle. This proved to be a problem in the jacuzzi of the Nob Hill Spa as my top bubbled and floated around me unattractively.

After some online research I decided to buy a 2 piece tank set and hope for the best. It has support but not the industrial kind I had dreamed of. This is where I wished I had gotten breast reduction surgery when I was younger. 36G is so far from the norm that it makes it nearly impossible to buy things that fit. The new suit gives me some misshapen boob action but it does the job I need it to do for now, keep the girls tucked in so I don't get arrested for indecent exposure.

I've been hanging out in my apartment in my new bathing suit all afternoon, making phone calls, answering emails, making lunch. I don't really want to take it off as it's much more comfortable then throwing on a bra and real clothes but this awfully sporadic SF weather is going to get me sick if I don't throw on a sweater.

So if you need me, I'll be at home in a sweatshirt and a bathing suit, making baked polenta fries, face first in the new purchases made at the SF 'zine fest the dr. and I went to yesterday.

2009-08-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

There is something hopeful about flowers blooming.

2009-08-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning, peered out at the greyness that is part of bipolar SF weather and decided to add another blanket to the heap and hide underneath until summer decides to start for real. A mere two days ago I was baking in the sun on the back patio of Ital Calabash sipping homemade ginger beer, trying to tan my front to match my back which has taken the onslaught of several brutal park days. And now this. Hello darkness my old friend...

Garfunkel aside, it's not a melancholy morning. It's actually quite the opposite. The world outside is as quiet as it is in here and I am grateful. No one is walking by my window. The construction on the City College building seems to have taken today off. Blinky is fast asleep and not climbing all over me searching for a perfect spot to nest.

I shuffled to the kitchen, made an appropriate pot of coffee in the press, ate a handful of granola and checked on my 2 day ferment for the loaf of sourdough I planned on making today. It was bubbly and sour so I took to the task of measuring, pouring, adding and kneading. A couple of weeks ago I would have said that nothing is more satisfying then throwing sushi, piece by piece, out the window, but I seemed to have forgotten what it was like to be kneading, pressing the heel of my hand into a sticky lump of dough.

Michael asked to tag along with me to the Ferry Building Farmer's Market after yoga yesterday so we perused the small contingent of vendors who make it out during the week (not as many as the weekend market)and ate enough samples to consider it a meal. When we parted ways I realized how much I appreciate and need my Tuesday yoga class and my weekly connection with Michael as a friend as well as a teacher. We bought irises and when I arrived home I separated and dispersed the flowers between the bud vases on the walls and the main vase in the entry.

Life has been nice and quiet this week and it's been a much needed quiet after my brain meltdown this weekend. I am constantly amazed how all it takes is one simple thing to throw open the door to all the horrible thoughts I could have about myself, how these things take shape and become real and awful. Sometime around dawn Sunday morning, I shut the door. Two hours of my own vinyasa home practice helped. The only good things to have come out of this episode are my spotless kitchen floor and the ability to see my clavicle.

The fear of making mistakes sits still and quiet inside of me, dormant for the most part, until something triggers it. It's something I'm not too happy about. I really just want to be normal, fuck shit up and live with whatever happens, but something about my perception of what kind of person I'll end up being if I make too many mistakes is paralyzing. I know. It doesn't make much sense to me either.

I guess its time to call for help though as I've been holding the phone numbers to several sliding scale therapists for some time now.

Growbot

2009-08-13T18:36:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm a robot.

When 45 minutes of cardio doesn't cure the anxiousness of receiving several calls from your ex's area code, Plan B normally would have included cheesy starchy coma inducing carbfest followed by picking up Blinky and burying my face into her side and screaming (trust me, she likes it) all the while listening to Aimee Mann.

The new Plan B has altered itself to fit a more healthy outlook on life.

Which includes stuffing my face full of veggies, singing Barry Manilow's "Mandy" but replacing the name Mandy with "Blinky" while carrying my cat around the apartment like a fat baby all the while slowly consuming a bottle of wine.

And later on, I'll be glad I started that gigantor batch of vegan mac n' cheese because I know I'll be hangry.

I've grown so much this year. I have my shit together. I'm doing so well. There should be no real reason for me to be this upset that he's trying to contact me. It's not like I'm a stranger to this type of behavior.

I guess I'm just dumbfounded why people want back in months after they've dumped me.

Notes to Self

2009-08-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

-If you bake raisins, they become inedible pellets of death.

-It seems that it is difficult for people to be good to themselves. It's good to remember to be nice to yourself because more often then not, we're horrible to our own selves without even recognizing it.

-Remember that no one will ever be able to read your mind.

-Blinky will love you no matter how awful your breath is in the morning.

-Potatoes and garbanzo beans in the same meal will make you nappy and farty, best to have a safe airy place to relax afterwards.

-Reminding people you care about them is a good thing to do if you realize you haven't done so in a while.

-He can't hurt you anymore. It's ok.

-Go to yoga, even if you don't feel like you can.

-People may judge you for bringing your ipod to the bathroom, but remember, they're just jealous of your bejeweled score.

In Which I Blabber About Stuffs

2009-08-06T11:05:00.001-07:00

I haven't really given much thought to food this week.

Let me rephrase that.

I haven't given much thought to diet this week.

Well, ok, not really. Let me try again.

I haven't given much thought to weight loss this week.

I've thought a lot about food, what I consume, where it comes from, how it got here, how I made it, what I could have done differently and how it makes me feel. I just haven't given the ole' calories in, calories out any weight this week. I've started to care less and less about it really and have relied heavily on how I feel in my own body and I feel pretty good. I feel healthy and not so tortured about my belly. I've gone to the gym, I've gone to yoga, I've had some beers and it's all felt very balanced despite some random bad head space about the differences between "job" and "career".

But that's a whole different story that I just don't want to write about anymore. I spent most of yesterday scribbling vomit about wants and needs, money and art and being responsible for your own happiness. So much spew that has been regurgitated over and over again that it starts to lose meaning. I don't want these ideals to lose meaning, but I feel like they do and people make choices based on what they feel they 'should' do as opposed to what they 'want' to do and THAT is where it all begins, the onslaught of resentment and misery and and and...didn't I say I don't want to write about this anymore? I need to shut up my face. I worry about how things start to lose meaning because they've become fodder for sayings printed on magnets and ads for running shoes. This just leaves me searching for words of higher wealth to explain how I feel.

I've got a restorative yoga class in an hour which will help with the brain babble.

2009-08-04T23:47:00.000-07:00

Hi. I am sleepy. I am relishing in my dysfunction. Listen to The Mountain Goats "How To Embrace A Swamp Creature" and know how I feel.

It's funny how I work myself into a frenzy and after I pop I manage to sit and play bejeweled for 4 hours straight in my smelly gym clothes without an inkling that there is a world outside of my computer screen.

This was what had happened last night after combing through Craigslist and various other job sites friends had sent me. With each job post I read I saw a future of business casualness and awful footwear. The whole thing made me itch, the idea of going back to an office, being chained to Microsoft Outlook and company meetings. I couldn't take it. Jordan called to invite the dr. and I to a bbq and I replied with "I'm looking for a job!!!"

I got off the phone and that's when I started playing video games.

I wished I owned a pinball machine.

When I finally tore myself away from the laptop it was close to midnight and I was starving. I ate an ear or corn and some vegan ice cream for dinner. I felt like a dude.

I woke up this morning with most of the crazy dissipated and I told myself that if I've managed to get this far without getting myself killed or horribly disfigured I can make it another day, another week, another month. Thanks Mr. Carbone. I owe you one.

After yoga I enjoyed more dudefull squalor and laid about playing more games, scratching myself and drinking beer.

Now only if I can learn how to belch appropriately and not urp so ladylike.

I was told

2009-08-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

I was told to sit and write in my journal while the dr. makes breakfast.

Yeah, I know. It's almost 4:30 in the afternoon. That's just what happens these days and I ain't complaining.

The house smells like curry, garlic and ginger and my stomach is speaking to me in tongues, mad and ravenous. My right hip thanks me for doing a couple of triangle poses. I am unraveled.

I feel like I should have gotten up this morning to help my best friend move into his new/old apartment but last night I had 2 Jamesons and for no real reason went from warm and tipsy to completely hungover by the time we got home from Jason & Scott's housewarming party. Nauseous and headachey I hung upside down off the edge of the bed wondering when I became allergic to alcohol. I may have to shelve my love of whiskey for awhile. I will live.

Last night was oddly dreamless.

The dr. got Rockband yesterday. I don't know how many times I sang Duran Duran but I'm pretty sure I've memorized the lyrics to 'Hungry Like the Wolf'. Jordan came over and played for awhile and I'm reminded of why I've always thought Jordan was awesome, even when he was this quiet kid my old company hired to do weird computer design things I was not aware of.

Well, breakfast is ready. And it looks really really good.

If I could marry tofu scrambles with avocado, I would.

Looking

2009-07-31T11:04:00.000-07:00

I keep having dreams.

It's comforting to know that when I move I feel Blinky move around me and I know that I'm not alone. Sometimes I wake up with a vague reminder of a dream and I struggle to remember it because I want to know, because I like knowing things. Other times I wake up and I feel disturbed because I remember and it was unpleasant and all sorts of awful, but I still like knowing things, even things that are better left buried. It's almost like I like having fodder, something to drive myself into the ground. I believe to a certain extent that all women are like this. I am usually uncomfortable making such blanket statements, but a good chunk of us have this problem. We wanna know, we don't wanna know. But really, we WANNA KNOW NO MATTER HOW AWFUL IT IS.

Last night I passed out sometime after 3AM and dreamt that I was famous for inventing Cheerios. I'm not sure if this is because I've been reading books about food before I go to bed. I remember being uncomfortable being famous. I didn't want people looking at me and they were always looking. I suddenly understood why celebrities go crazy and get nose jobs, even Weird Al. Everyone is always looking at you. I remember being at a They Might Be Giants show realizing I was standing behind Weird Al. He was wearing a pair of black jeans, a white sweater and flip flops. I found flip flops to be a bold choice for a concert. When I was a teen I used to wear steel toed boots to shows lest I get stomped to death. People kept walking up to him during the show and asking him if he was Weird Al and when he'd say yes, their faces would light up and they'd get all excited and tell him they loved his work. I spent a good chunk of the show watching this happen. This is how I recognized that he had gotten a nose job.

My dream taught me that when you're famous everyone is looking at you.

Blinky woke me up because she was hungry. I shuffled to the kitchen and fed her before deciding to go back to bed. Yoga could wait. Everything inside of me was tired. I fell asleep again.

This morning I dreamt that Jeff and I were waiting for BART to take us back to the city from Oakland. I don't remember why we were in the East Bay. When a train pulled up, oddly enough it was on the other side of the tracks but Jeff ran to this platform and pulled out a gate and a walkway appeared so people on our side of the tracks could board it.

People boarded. I was confused and didn't understand if this was our train or if Jeff was just being polite and letting people who had make a mistake get to their correct train. I didn't board because I didn't understand. When the train pulled away everyone was gone and I was the only person left on the platform

Dejected, I walked out of the BART station and started to walk. The sun was mostly gone. I didn't quite know where I was going but I walked the direction the train left. I took my shoes off because my feet hurt. I walked and walked and had started to cry. It's amazing how real emotions are in dreams. I wake up and they linger. Days later I remember being upset but I don't remember why and I can't put my finger on where these feelings came from. I walked and threw my shoes at passing cars. I wished I had a car. I wished I knew if this was the right way. I wished that there were other people around so I could ask someone but there was no one so I kept walking and walking.

The sun was gone but the moon was nowhere to be found.

I came upon a bus stop. It looked like a bus stop but there were no numbers, no bus lines, and the signs were so old and weathered the words were unreadable. There was a little bench so I sat down.

Five minutes later a bus pulls up and stops. I look at it like it's a completely foreign concept, an alien. The bus driver opens the front door and he motions for me to get on. I do.

The bus is full. I look around and there is nowhere to sit. I look around and realize that the bus is full of people that were at the BART station and they were all staring at me, every single one of them. I look to the back and see there's an empty seat next to Jeff so I sit in it. No one says anything. No one has said anything this entire time. This dream is a silent movie without the exaggerated expressions.

Jeff handed me a tissue and I blew my nose and felt stupid.

When you're not famous you just feel like everyone is looking at you.

While writing this Blinky bit my arm and made her little cat squeak like I had bitten her.

Freak.

I need to go to the kitchen and slice some peaches so I can sit near a window and eat breakfast and listen to Patty Griffin ala Katie.

I need a degree in Oneirology.

Dear ChaCha, I have a problem

2009-07-30T23:14:00.000-07:00

I bought a new journal at Dog Eared Books because I had time to kill before meeting Setch and Scott for lunch at Cha Ya and because I wanted something to do at Ritual other then sit, voraciously hitting update on Facebook, reading friends status' until my eyes bled.

I thought the recovered book cover journals were interesting and found this one especially hilarious so I made my way to the counter asked the dude how he was doing and $10 later I was with paper.

I sat down on the sofa at the coffee shop after retrieving my soy latte to discover I was without pen.

When I realized I was without pen my brain started to come up with ideas and things to write about and it was at that moment I came to the conclusion that a part of me, a teeny-tiny part of me really hates myself.

I remember when I was a kid it was easy to write with complete abandon. I never had writers block. I would fill composition notebooks in days flat. I never stopped to think about where any of the stories would go, I'd just write and the stories figured themselves out.

It's a lot harder these days. I feel like I know too much now. This encourages too much thought and I feel stunted. Words are overwhelming. Everything is so much exposition with no real emotion. Writing about strangers is hard so I stick to what I know and I know very little about the real world since I've been living in staycation for four months. This life has been as unreal as it gets. I go to yoga, I nap in the park, I bake bread with the dr. and I don't necessarily worry much about anything.

Except recently.

I woke up in a cold sweat one night realizing that this can't last forever.

I think about work and my refusal to return to an office and the return to being trapped by the need for a paycheck. Sitting in the park with Eric, Ian & Ronny today I discussed some of my fears. I need to make a choice soon about what direction I'm going to go in and I need to turn my brain off lest I over think things.

I need to let things figure themselves out.

All I need is some nudging in the right direction.

And maybe a definition of what "right" means.

Sing "July, July!" by The Decemberists while reading this post

2009-07-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

I managed to piece together a vegan meal at a place called "The Pork Store".

If that ain't a miracle, I don't know what is. Curly fries were involved so it wasn't necessarily healthy, but I'll live.

Lemon juice, cold water, mint & agave = loveliness.

Riddle me this, why is it when my feet are cold, my nose is freezing too?

I am the wicked witch of the west.

Oh cold cold July, you slay me sometimes.

Status

2009-07-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

#1 Proof that I do own a t-shirt. A real bonafide t-shirt.

#2 Full profile pictures keep me honest. I feel tubby. I'm sure it's period related, but whatever.

Days like these I look forward to menopause.

Totes

2009-07-24T00:22:00.000-07:00

After packing Sadia's clothes into garbage bags she placed her collection of antique cameras in front of me and I sat there mesmerized as I pulled levers, cranked cranks and pressed buttons.

Greg and Susan came home from the symphony, the packing party moved to the front stoop on Haight St. and was promptly joined by Sanji who had just landed in San Francisco with a backpack full of summer clothes.

"Man," she said as we shivered outside. "I wished I brought socks. And maybe a jacket. Do you guys have any food?"

"There's leftover hippie mac n' cheese that Susan made."

"Ok, great."

"It's made with quinoa."

"That's not...mac."

"Yeah, and it's got broccoli and aged cheddar."

"Jen made focaccia."

"I can get with that."

"It's good but it ain't no foie gras."

"Did you guys go to Jardiniere?!?! I wanted to go!"

"You snooze you lose!"

"Aren't you not eating meat?"

"For the record, I did not go to dinner," I announced. "I'm not eating meat and I don't think someone living off of government checks has the right to spend $150 on a meal. Plus, I'm dressed like a hobo."

"Wait a minute, you didn't bring socks? All you have is that one backpack?!?"

"You don't need to change clothes everyday."

"Except for underwear."

"Yeah. Except underwear...sometimes."

"None of this sometimes! Everyday!"

"Ok! Christ! Ok! Everyday! Jeez!"

"Weren't you supposed to run and get us beer?"

"Oh right," Greg said. "I was. I got distracted by the overwhelming negative response to the 2-in-1 Shampoo/Conditioner discussion."

"Never. Change your underwear everyday and never do the 2-in-1."

"Heh-heh, 2-in-1 sounds dirty."

"That's fucking filthy."

"How was the symphony?"

"We left at half time."

"You mean intermission?"

"Exactly."

"I think that the Rachmaninoff #2 Moderato doesn't earn the drama of its finish."

"Yeah, totes."

I'll miss nights like this at the Haight St. house.

Substance

2009-07-23T03:09:00.000-07:00

Blinky is unreasonably cuddly and I've grown accustomed to her crawling all over me at night. She perches on my hip when I go fetal and she sleeps on top of my chest when I lie on my back. She makes sure that I am aware of her presence throughout the duration of the night. Sometimes I am ungrateful and try to remove her to a remote location on the bed. Sometimes I feel suffocated by her need to be on top of me. Sometimes when she yawns close to my face I smell the sea.

I lie in bed listening to the notwist and drift in and out of sleep, waiting for dreams to come, wondering if I'll remember them in the morning. I pointed out to the dr. that I tend to remember dreams more often when I wake up next to him. We take turns waking up and relaying to each other what happens in our brains. He noted that this probably helps with the remembering. When I dream alone my dreams lose substance with each waking moment.

Sometimes when we lie in bed at night together we talk about what we think about when we are lying in our own beds alone. Sometimes I am paralyzed with fear that I am not relaying what is happening in my brain leaving these thoughts and feelings to lose substance as they remain unspoken. I remind myself to not be afraid and to say what I feel when I feel it so they can live outside of myself and grow on their own without my worrisome coddling.

I turned 33 this past Sunday. On Saturday I spent time with friends and the like. I cooked for them, drank with them and felt great loving them unabashedly. On my actual birthday I spent most of the day napping in the comfort of the dr.'s home. I had face planted into the bed after a cold shower, recovering from sitting outside on an oddly sunny July day in Dolores Park. Before I knew it, I was snoring. It was hard not to pass out. I find it easy to drift off in places I find safe.

When I finally awoke, we discussed the logistics of food, a topic that often stumps us as we're always open to whatever. We decided to make dinner. I chopped fruit for a salad while the dear dr. made the meal. While I inhaled my bowl of pasta, I found myself wanting to explain what was going on in my brain, the way my heart unravels when he is near me, searching for words of higher wealth, a different language, but nothing matched what I felt so I said the usual things that people say. I said 'thank you'. I said 'you're awesome'. I curled up into the warm place next to him. I relish the quiet times and try not to worry so much about explaining myself or losing substance.

Tonight, while I'm waiting for dough to rise, I'm rebuilding my callouses.

'Grace Cathedral Hill' - Verse:G-Em-C-D-D7 - Chorus:C-G-Em-C-G-Em-C-Cm-D-D7-C-D-G-Em-C-Cm

Mom

2009-07-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

My mother sends me makeup in the mail.

I believe it is in an attempt to whore myself up so I can attract a dude to marry and spit out some grand kids.

This does not make her evil, though. Her heart is in the right place.

The package that arrived today was wrapped like it was full of top government secrets. One padded envelope inside another inside another inside a plastic bag inside another padded envelope inside some tissue paper.

In the middle of all this:

- 1 framed photo of the wedding party from my seester's Jersey wedding.
- 1 Clinque Stay Beige Pressed Powder Compact.
- 1 Mini Lip Gloss
- 1 Lancome Eye Shadow (I think? This is how retarded I am when it comes to these things).
- 1 brown Coach wristlet
- 1 random pair of blue boxer shorts

In all her misguided gift givings through the years she means so well that I cannot fault her for not knowing that I don't do Coach and I don't wear makeup. Or boxer shorts.

But some days, contrary to popular belief, I miss her.

i don't know exactly how to say it

2009-07-13T01:20:00.001-07:00

so I guess i'll just say that my heart is so full that sometimes it bursts and spills tears just because i'm at a loss for what to say or a way to tell you how i love, how i love, how i love...

In Which I Use The Word Vague A Lot

2009-07-09T05:48:00.000-07:00

Watching the window slowly filter in small bits of sunrise I realize that it is almost 6:00AM.

I've been keeping weird hours these days.

I don't know how long I've been laying in bed. I was so sure it couldn't possibly be that late/early. I flashed back to Sleep Disorder 2007 briefly. I marvel that it ever happened. I don't know how I held down a job or managed to keep sane with the odd tricks my brain was playing with me. This doesn't feel like then though. It just feels like freshly laundered sheets, a warm kitty and a vague feeling of tiredness.

I should, by all means, be ripping my eyeballs out tired. I was up at 6:00 AM yesterday on very little sleep, needing to walk an anxious Buckley. I was barely awake as she dragged me around Civic Center in my pyjamas. I am only vaguely tired. I had spent all night doing laundry, failing at sourdough attempt #2 and making my way through "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (which I almost chucked off the balcony and onto Market St. this morning).

Eric asked me this afternoon what I was reading and trying to explain to him the book and how processed food is so far removed from whole food and it just made me feel self conscious and weird. I wasn't ready to discuss how there used to be 38 components to a McNugget. I had read a lot on Josh's balcony this morning and my brain collapsed trying to figure out a way for more people to eat outside this system built by ADM and Cargill. I thought about being such an unhealthy little chubby kid. I thought about all the things I've tried to alter this body and its inner workings. I thought about how learning to read labels years ago has changed my eating habits, but now they'll be changing even more. I thought about how hard it feels sometimes, to care this much because I want to feel better, even when I think I'm fine, I always want to feel better. The struggle and the want to know what people are really supposed to feel like. Then I get into wondering why I feel so different and why I assume that other people MUST feel/be better then me. I am consistent in feeling like there is something fundamentally wrong with me.

I worry. I worry about the lot of us, fat with reconstructed meals composed of things that used to resemble real food. I worry about the diets we go on, calorie restrictions, eating disorders and painful body dysmorphia. Our relationship with food is not a healthy one.

I let my brain get carried away too much in one direction it inevitably tries to take my heart with it. This prompted the great need to chuck the book onto the busy street below me and just to be done with it. Lots of these things I knew already but only in a vague sense, the details of it all made my whole body hurt.

So I made my way to the gym to make my body hurt in a way I could understand. This breaking down to build up made sense to me.

I came home to find Eric had left work sick and he sat curled up on the couch with Blinky while I showered, ate, cleaned and fed my bread starters before heading back to Josh's to take care of Buckley.

When I came home later on in the evening, I started the gigantic pile of laundry that has been building for weeks. The downside of owning a lot of underwear is that when laundry gets desperate, it gets desperate.

I don't know how it came to be, but 3,4,5 AM passed without me really aware of it.

Now I wonder what time I'll be waking up today. My bet is 2:30PM.

Because I am a glutton for punishment.

Litter Box

2009-07-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

Can one get high on Aromatheraputic "All Natural" Household Cleaners?

I feel like I drank a bottle of perfume. This shit smells godawful.

Excuse me. I'm going to hang out in my cat's litter box. It smells a hella lot better in there.

for no real reason

2009-06-29T23:56:00.001-07:00

My head seems to have come unscrewed and everything inside has come undone.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just the fact that my brain has decided to open up this strange portal that is usually shut tight.

Sitting around the table with Malcolm last night, sharing things we've written over the years, I realized I miss having writing friends. I'd be a horrible writing friend though as I just don't write anything real or worthwhile these days, it's all chronicle so I don't forget. Must remember this cupcake. Must remember this quote, this kiss, this day.

It feels so static. Less art, less spontaneous combustion. I know nothing about science. I know everything about routine.

Friday night I brought over piles of paper to Craft Night, things I had buried, stories and plays and poems about people I don't remember anymore. I used to write fiction. I don't know when I stopped, but I sorta miss it.

But ocifer I am but a little girl...

2009-06-23T23:42:00.000-07:00

After smooching on the street corner I made my merry way up Hayes St., towards home, sometime close to 1:00 AM, happy as a clam, fuzzy with wine and laughter and a beautiful starry sky. I made it to the top of Alamo Square Park and looked straight up at the rare sight of constellations in the city and decided I wasn't quite ready to be home.

I used to live on the other side of the hill. Josh and I used to come here at night and play on the swing set in the small playground in the park. I took a detour and awkwardly lept up the concrete barrier separating the sidewalk from the grass and ran to the playground which was lit by a nearby light, bathing the swing set in a coppery glow.

Without much thought I ran towards an empty swing, walked it back till it hit my butt just so and swung as high as I could, reaching my feet up to build momentum and kicking back, the only goal, to get my toes to top the Transamerica Pyramid.

I've been using an old shuffle lately as my ipod is completely dead and while I was initially frustrated with my inability to tell what it would play at any given moment, it's been a godsend lately as I feel like we've formed a type of symbiotic relationship. Its randomness has started to speak to me, like it's been programmed by a higher being whispering secrets to me as I wander down the aisles of grocery stores and the like. We've spent some quality time together this month. We can only get closer.

And I loved it at that exact moment, the moment I kicked a skyscraper which sent my right shoe flying through the air, the beginning of Mew's "Am I Wry?No" blasted through my headphones, the strong guitar, those power chords, the whole magic of it all happening reaffirmed my belief in a divine being, a higher power working inside of me (and my screenless ipod).

I watched the sky for awhile, looking straight up, constantly reminding myself that while I was moving, so was the rest of the world and nothing is as stationary as you ever believe it to be and god doesn't live in the sky and heaven isn't up but everywhere inside and out.

The whole thing made me feel ridiculous but I was ok with it, shoeless and all. I was giddy and probably more tipsy then when I had left the party. I swung and kicked and swung and kicked and swung and kicked and swung and disconnected my headphones from my shuffle. The world went quiet. At least for a while. A voice in the distance called out to me.

A rapidly approaching male voice.

"Miss, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," the voice said. "Playground's closed."

"What?" I asked, squinting at the blackness that laid outside of the coppery light. I slowed down but didn't completely stop swinging.

"You're going to need to vacate the playground, Miss. It's well past midnight."

A cop stepped into the lighted area and I stopped swinging.

"I know," I said. "But-"

"No buts, Miss. Please, you need to vaca-"

"But I don't have any drugs!" I randomly protested. Even as it was coming out of my mouth I knew it was a mistake. I couldn't stop it, my mouth operating faster then my brain.

"You will need to leave the-"

"I just have this little purse!"

Omg omg omg omg why can't I just shut the fuck up. I hate me. I so hate me.

"Miss-"

"But I-"

AHHH!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!?!

"Miss I will ask you one more-"

At that moment, the brain finally took the reigns and told my body to stand itself up, find my missing shoe and start walking back the way I came. The cop followed me till I reached the concrete barrier and watched me until I was on the sidewalk.

"Good night, Miss," he said. "Thank you for cooperating."

"You're welcome," I replied and waved goodbye. "'Night Sir."

I walked down the hill, down Hayes St. all the way home arriving at my front door a bit sweaty and completely starving.

I took off my sweater and my dress and stood in front of the fridge for awhile before pulling out a tupperwear container full of tofu. I shut the door and plopped myself at my desk/kitchen table. It's where I spend all my time, usually waiting for dough to rise or for something to come out of the oven. I opened the container, opened the laptop, ate to my heart's content and did the facebook thing for a bit before realizing I should put on clothes in case my roommate decided to take a late night dump.

With all good intentions of putting on pj's I ended up crawling into bed, greasy fingers and all.

It's good to know I can always take my contacts out and brush my teeth later, you know, when I'm not feeling so retarded.

i shouldn't, but I should

2009-06-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

I dragged my ass out of bed at 7AM and made my way to my doctor's office ready for whatever news she had for me. We've formed an intimate relationship this past year. She knows more about me then my mother. I've been in tears on her exam table more times then I care to think about.

I braced myself for the weight-loss discussion that was sure to come up as I'm a couple of days away from bleeding, I'm feeling disgusting and sow-like despite hitting the gym and yoga to work out that dissatisfaction with myself, despite the fact that I weighed myself on Monday and according to the numbers, in 2 relatively meatless months I've lost 8 lbs.

None of this matters.

I feel like I weigh 8 million pounds no matter what people tell me or what the scale says. I feel heavy. I feel slow and retarded and I prepared myself this morning to hear my doctor tell me that I need to lose 80 lbs or I would die a horrible death cold and alone.

I trudged up the hill, sat in the waiting room, sat in the exam room, put on the stupid robe and answered the nurse when she asked me questions.

She stood in front of me with her clipboard. Her braid was so tight it made her forehead taut and shiny.

"Are you sexually active?
"Yes."
"Do you use contraceptives?"
"Yes. BCPs."
"Do you smoke?"
"No."
"Do you drink?"
"Not really."
"Want to step on the scale for me?"
"Not really."

She looked up at me obviously not amused and I pretended that I hadn't said anything as I hopped off the table and onto the scale. I didn't look down. I didn't want to know.

She left me alone and not too much later Tara walked into the office all smiles and good mornings.

She opened the file left behind by the nurse. I could see her eyes skim over the notes made.

"When did you stop drinking?"

"I still drink, just not often," I answered.

"What was up with the kidney infection last month?"

"Oh you know, not peeing after sex, having a shitty immune system, being anemic."

She flipped a couple of papers in the file, read some more, then flipped back to what looked like was the front.

"How are you anemic all of a sudden?" she asked sounding perplexed.

"I stopped eating meat."

"When?"

"It was a secret."

"When?"

"Around April."

"Well that explains it," she said. "That and the weight loss."

"What?"

"You've lost weight."

"How? What? Why?"

"You've lost 16 lbs since last June."

"Are you serious?"

"Totally."

"Then why am I still fat?"

Tara dropped the file onto a counter and covered her face with her right hand, obviously covering her grin.

"You're. Not. Fat."

"But LOOK AT THIS! LOOK AT THE HEMISPHERES!"

I went to lift my top to show her my 4 cow stomachs but quickly realized I was wearing a robe and if I lifted it, that would be considered flashing. Even though she was heading down there anyway, I refrained from doing so.

"Contrary to what you think, you're doing pretty good for yourself," she started. "You get decent exercise, yoga does wonders for you and it sounds like you're working out your diet issues and this is proof that you're doing good. You're doing great, if you ask me. You know, considering that the last time I saw you, you were in tears."

"I can still cry," I replied. "This appointment isn't over yet. It's still early."

"Yeah, well they better be tears of joy because I ain't having it missy. Now lie down I need to feel you up."

"I've started charging for that."

"You and everybody else," she said and smiled.

I admitted to not really doing self breast exams because it just felt too weird and I was pretty sure it would lead to masturbation.

"You're horrible," she laughed. "Absolutely horrible."

"That's why I'm going to die cold and alone."

"How's the boyfriend?"

"Awesome."

"Cute."

"What?"

"You did this cute thing with your face before you answered."

"What did I do?"

"I can't even describe it. Your face answered the question before you did though. I'm glad you're happy."

"Me too. He made me breakfast last weekend."

"What did he make?"

"A tofu scramble."

"The day he makes you fried chicken and waffles is the day I pull you out of this relationship. Now slide down. You know the position."

She is a quick speculum and an awesome person and this is why I will always adore her.

I walked out of the office, walked to the lab 5 blocks away and got my blood drawn, drank a bottle of OJ to prevent myself from passing out, then went to the gym feeling the best I've felt in the past couple of days.

When I got home, I inhaled a bowl of lentils and a veggie burger patty.

And then I made these:

(original recipe)

I have an army of them.

I ate two and packed the rest of them in the fridge for disbursement to friends and the like.

Food seems to taste better when you're making something to share with other people. I don't need to consume 25 truffles whether they're dairy free or not. I like that I know this now.

And if will excuse me, I need to shower as I'm covered in cocoa powder.

like manna from heaven

2009-06-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

I woke up somewhat melancholy and lethargic.

I scratched my itchy left ankle and reached for my bcp's which, after opening the pack, explained the mood. I swallowed and threw the covers back over my head and set up shop with Blinky. She meowed in protest and ran off leaving me to fend for myself. I laid there irritated that just because I'm a girl I have to deal with this monthly bout of awfulness. I've come to recognize that it makes some of us angry and violent. It makes others snarky and mean. Me? Back to the internal, it makes me lazy and sad.

Several years ago I had gone through bouts of being on and off the pill, which further complicated the emotional roller coaster. I wished I was one of those girls who simply let the hormones take over, behave badly, and in essence, get bitchy because I feel entitled to be. Some women have used PMS as an excuse to murder, maim and disembowel for years.

I just don't have it in me though. I think things to a bloody pulp. I never thought it was fair to believe that having a vagina meant I could drown your cat in a menstrual rage and expect to be forgiven for it because it wasn't my fault I had a period.

I'd rather just hide in my batcave until the whole thing blows over.

Most of the time it works, but sometimes it just leaves you with too much time on your hands and something evil opens the door to all the bad thoughts you could ever have about yourself.

It's all bullshit too. You're completely aware that these thoughts are fabricated but sometimes you find yourself on the toilet with your head in your hands because you've gotten a glimpse into your future and in it you still have unacceptable arm fat.

I've always done a good job of separating the hormone crazy from reality but some days you're too tired to fight the good fight.

I slept a bit more but eventually climbed out of bed at noon, nibbled on a cold heart shaped pancake and packed my bag for the gym because if there is one thing that shuts my brain up, it's 45 minutes of cardio. My heart pounds too loudly in my ears for me to think.

Note to self: 1 smallish pancake does not a breakfast make.

Veggie Bootie, 1 bag = 4 Serving Sizes = 520 calories

I limped back into my apartment several hours later lame and ravenous. I owe someone a bag of Veggie Booty. I inhaled the contents in record time. I looked down to see Blinky licking a lone veggie puff that had escaped the carnage of its brethren.

I tossed the empty bag into the trash accepting that while eating a whole bag of booty was not a good idea, there was no use in lamenting the fact I had consumed roughly 520 calories in 2.3 minutes. I can't take it back. Or I can't spit it out. Or I could barf it back up, but I make for a horrible bulimic.

I took to task making a real meal of sorts with my cat sitting under the kitchen table waiting for something else to fall, like manna from heaven.

Blinky's been on the fritz as of late. It's like she's being taken over my some sort of alien cat. I blame it on the chemicals she's licked off of my photos I have laying around in my bedroom. And who knows how many rubber bands she's possibly eaten? I've never seen her chew on one until last week. I've seen her lick butter off of the counter and olive oil off the floor. Her cholesterol must be off the charts. She acts like she's annoyed with me and, dare I say, she looks tired.

Poor cat. After dinner she sprawled out on top of the kitchen table in front of me looking like she needs a vacation.

"Just you wait," I said to her. "You. Me. A beach and some kitty whiskey. I'll even get you floaties for the ocean."

She meowed in response.

"Yes, the dr. can come too. If you insist."

In the meantime, my triceps are sore. I can intercept a morbid arm-fat future yet.

Today

2009-06-14T21:24:00.000-07:00

I've written two posts this past week, both which have not made it to the blog due to my own internal censoring. One was completely psychotic and the other was depressing without meaning to be. I kept losing the point. I refused to hit publish. I chucked them up to 4AM ramblings and let them be.

There is no point to today's post either though, but it's neither unintentionally depressing nor chock full o' crazy, so it's ok.

Sprawled out on the grass in Dolores Park today, Jordan asked if I've spent this downtime writing. Most people have assumed that I've been either writing or going to yoga. I've gone to more yoga then I've written. I've actually been doing more baking then anything else though.

I'm glad he found Josh and I on Mission. We sat at Four Barrel and talked about art, tattoo design and luring the infamous Chicago Bean to SF.

I'm sad that I put back the wrestling helmet I had my eye on at Community Thrift. Jordan mentioned the dangers of getting punched in the face while bike riding. I really should have gotten it.

Hint: Antibacterial gel comes in handy for digging through thrift store bins full of gym equipment.

Eeew.

We made our way to Dolores Park on the fly as it was nice out and Cyrelle was taking her newly spiffed bike for a spin in that direction. While waiting for her, Josh ran off to pee and left Jordan and I to talk about writing and the difficulties of doing so while you are in love with the universe.

It's hard not to sound like a complete dolt when your life is all ice cream and rainbows. You'll need the wrestling helmet. Your friends will want to punch you in the face (or punch your boyfriend in the chest). Barf fest all around for those who aren't having as good a time as you are.

I document via bad photography so I remember the tiny details of life for contemplation at a later date. Words just don't seem to cut it anymore. It was easier at the beginning of this year when I could think of a thousand ways to say broken.

I like watching Cyrelle and Jordan interact, the funny games their hands subconsciously play when they are near each other.

It was a nice change of pace for it to be just us and not the usual cartel. We could actually have one cohesive conversation and hear each other talk. Sometimes it seems difficult for real communication to happen with 10+ people, regardless of their sobriety or lack thereof.

The kids took off on their shiny bikes to forage for food. Josh and I hoofed it. It's still relatively gorgeous out.

I'm making pancakes for dinner. That's all I really have to say right now.

Famous

2009-06-10T18:37:00.001-07:00

Why can't I just become famous so I can make things like this all day?

Sigh.

waiting for the bus

2009-06-09T02:04:00.001-07:00

Pants and shoes I purchased at the Goodwill on Fillmore some time ago.

I think I'm getting better at this pant wearing thing. Summer in San Francisco calls for pants and maybe a scarf.

It's 2AM and I'm at the kitchen table surrounded by sharpies, ferris wheel pieces, 2 loaves of rising dough and several beverages (tea, water, kombucha).

I'm freaking staaaaarving, but Blackalicious is keeping me company so I guess it ain't so bad.

Meh.

2009-06-08T13:07:00.001-07:00

I wrote a long post last night. I started it around midnight and finished it around 4AM. It was full of stuff. Some of it not so great. There were visual aides and lots of bad grammar. While all of it was truthful, lots if it was just...bad. Most of it was an exercise in dissecting where irrational fears come from.

All in all, it was pretty boring and horribly written.

So I didn't post it. It was stuff more suited to the handwritten journal but my brain was operating faster then my hand and I'm sure I'd have some sort of injury if I tried to get it all down on paper.

I'm shutting down the part of me that is consistently analyzing human behavior (my behavior in particular) and saying fuck it.

I'm going to the gym.

Balance

2009-06-04T01:19:00.000-07:00

I've had very little to say lately.

I managed to recover from my kidney infection and once the Cipro haze lifted I started on iron, b12 and folate supplements as well as adding more protein, chard, spinach and broccoli to my everyday diet. Top Secret Operation Go Veggie was one part failure, two parts hooray. Yay for no longer feeling like a human bloatation device, boo for vitamin deficient anemia. Balance needs to happen.

Balance is always moving, constantly changing, rarely is it as still as you think it is.

What doesn't bend, breaks.

I gripped every muscle in my body as I hopped onto the rental bike and tried to maneuver up and down a subtle incline in Golden Gate Park today. The dr. patiently worked to keep me upright on the ride up the hill for the first time. I felt everything inside of me tighten up, thinking if I could hold myself still and straight, balance would happen.

Doesn't seem to apply to bike riding really.

It dawned on me some time later, watching the dear dr. ride his cruiser up and down the hill that you don't really travel in a straight line on a bike, but in a series of curves.

Trying to teach my brain to stop thinking too much about these things and just do it already is enough to make me tired. I really am my own worst enemy and I don't know why the fear of falling is so great. I blame this on a sheltered childhood. I should have had more head injuries and broken more bones.

Several hours and one bruised pubic bone later, I can almost get both feet on both pedals, but I cannot guarantee I will not eat dirt almost immediately afterwards.

Balance is here though. Lack of blogging is a sure sign that life is happening without too much swing from misery to elation.

This is good to know.

Dear Hopeless with Herpes

2009-05-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

I was going to write about how I'm completely hard headed and stubborn when it comes to asking for help which will probably get me killed someday, but Rory already wrote about that so I will refrain.

I will try to be better at this.

So, in a completely random request for help, can someone please come over and take this off of me because I am frightened to. They slapped it on me pretty good and I've tried to pick at the edges to lift it off but I start to get dizzy when I do. I'm sure it's going to take off skin.

I started taking Cipro yesterday after trekking all over Pacific Heights to get bloodwork and pick up my prescription. I remember taking this back when I first moved to SF, the last time I had a kidney infection. I remember lying in my hand-me-down twin mattress in the mildew closet that was my bedroom on Fulton St. sweating and having 'nam flashbacks.

I give you a blog flashback from my old one, found via The Wayback Machine, which explains what happened the first time I infected my kidneys.

An Encore, as requested

Dear Hopeless with Herpes,

I understand you found my site by Asking Jeeves, "How do I tell my parents I have herpes?"

There are no concrete answers listed in "You Know How You Do" to help you in your plight, but as an upright citizen of a Sex Positive Community, the least I can do is pass some knowledge along.

Depending on your relationship with your parents, you don't really have to tell your parents you have herpes. It may also depend on your age. Being 28, I do not think I would volunteer that information. If, for some reason I had to, I would slip it in at the tail end of a conversation.

For example, like: "Yeah, work's been stressing me out, I've been working 6-7 days a week so I'm sorry I've been lax in the calling department as of late. Things are okay tho. I'm really sorry to hear the dog has explosive diarrhea and by the way I think I have herpes byeee!"

If you are 14, you may have to have a sit-down-at-the-kitchen-table-talk-with-them, like the ones you see on those Anti-Drug commercials. But don't feel like you have to tell them about your drug usage in the same sitting. That's best saved for another occasion...like if you get caught.

My parents and I never talked about drugs or sex, for that matter, during the crucial years where I should have been sternly talked to about these topics. It was like being gay in the Army. Completely "Don't ask, Don't tell and we'll all be happy."

That's Roman Catholicism for you. You would never believe I spent a good chunk of my formative years in Catholic school. Or maybe you can. I don't know.

Sex never came up till, get this, when I was 26. My first year in San Francisco was riddled with illness. Some of it I chucked up to the mildew closet I lived in on Fulton St. Some of it I chucked up to the reckless drug/whiskey abandon. And when I really got sick, I chucked it up to a weekend in Reno.

Reno. Carleen and I had taken off to Reno without telling anyone till we were well on our way. We were supposed to hit Loveworks with people, Matt's Saturday night gig at 111 Minna. We bailed, with her exboyfriend John, in tow.

The weekend was a haze of alcohol, bad buffett and weed. I had been sporting some lower back pain, but I chucked that up to the long hours spent in the backseat of John's car and to the bad beds at the Hotel De Po'Dunk we stayed at.

Side note: If you think Vegas is frightening, Reno is the crack whore sister of the Strip.

I plunked nickles into Video Poker machines, not really playing, waiting for a tawdry cocktailer to ask me if I wanted a beverage. I'd order Bombay Sapphire Martini's. She'd look at me like I had a third eye and was speaking in tongues.

I'd smile like I was playing some joke on her and order a rum and coke and she smiled when she realized I spoke english.

There was a lot of that for two days. Upon arriving back in SF, we caught a quick dinner at Herbivore and passed out.

I woke up several times in the middle of the night, plagued with intense muscle spasms and a building fever. Nothing a lil Advil can't fix. I swallowed a handful and went to work the next morning like I had a simple cold and a bad back. No biggie.

Your body does this thing called sweating when you have a fever. It's your body trying to cool itself down to combat the fever. I had stopped sweating at some point that day and had started shaking.

Vigorously. Uncontrollably. I was freezing. At work.

The last thing I remembered before completely blacking out was my HR manager screaming at me in the ambulance: "JUST TELL THEM!! TELL THEM! WHATEVER IS SAID IN THIS VAN, STAYS IN THIS VAN!!"

I found out later that was in reference to the question if I had done any drugs in the past 24 hours.

I came to in the Emergency Room completely paralyzed with fear.

Not any fear that I was dying, or had a limb amputated or had cancer. That would be too easy. I was consumed with that almighty Mom Fear, a power greater than any fear. I was convinced someone had called my mother and that she was on a flight already on her way to California to kick my ass.

This, of course, was not true.

But I laid there thinking that life as I knew it was over. I would have to 'fess up to everything. I would have to tell her about smoking, about pot, about ecstasy, about my bad cholesterol, about sex, about...

I had no idea why I would have had to tell her all these things, but that's what I was thinking, lying on a stretcher with oxygen tubes up my nose, IVs in my arms and little electrode looking suction cups stuck to my chest. When I opened my eyes, I saw my HR manager standing far off at the foot of the bed and a pale grey faced doctor looking at my vagina.

He didn't even look up to make eye contact and sorta just knew I was awake. Without even acknowledging I was conscious, he asked when the last time I had my period was.

"Wha?"

He repeated the question, nonplussed.

"I don't know," I answered.

He then looked me in the face with such disdain.

"You don't know?"

Well, excuse me, assface, if my cycle escapes me. You see, I'm lying in the fucking ER concerned my mother is on her way here with a hatchet, so your diagnosis won't do me any good. I'm already on my deathbed, so don't give me that attitude mister fuck face , or I'll mention it to mom and she'll hatchet you to death too.

That's what I should have said. Instead, I let the doctor win and a single tear escaped and rolled down my cheek. I couldn't help it. I felt so defeated.

Carleen showed up. She came barelling through the door of my observation room in her usual Carleen flurry. She walked in, paused, then turned around and walked out.

Apparently my naked vagina has that effect on people.

She came back in a couple of minutes after the doctor had left and I was oh so grateful someone had called her and she had come. I figured my mother would be nicer and would kill me more quickly with another Filipina in the room. She'd at least be cordial, smiling, asking Carleen how her parents were and offering her some halo-halo as she hacked me to death. Filipinos love other filipinos in the US. They spot each other in a store and all of a sudden they're spouting out words with lots of ngs and asking you to call them 'kuya boy' or 'auntie' or 'ate'.

I asked anyone in the room if anyone had called my mother.

I think Carleen laughed.

No. No one called mom.

I was then shuffled off for x-rays and a battery of tests. Apparently I had a kidney infection. The lower back pain I tossed off as car/bed suckage was actually a UTI (urinary tract infection). Instead of water or cranberry juice, I plied myself with alcohol, unknowingly worsening the situation.

I went to Reno and all I got was a lousy kidney infection and a weeks worth of delirium.

Sma came to the hospital too. By the time he got there, I had been demoted to the hallway of the ER. My room was needed by those who were bleeding openly. Good enough, my IV and I hung out near a wall near the exit. My hospital gown felt too short and too small, like it was made for a child or a dwarf. I passed out for a bit, waiting to find out what was supposed to happened next, while Carleen and Sma checked out hot orderlies and doctors. Sma woke me up at one point to let me know my vagina was trying to free itself.

I hate hospital gowns.

Fuck face wrote me a prescription and I was set free once my fever had plummeted down to 100 (I was hovering at 104 at work and thus the shaking and freezing). Sma and Carleen picked a side, took my arms and helped me out of the hospital and down to Walgreens to pick up my meds.

While they scoured the aisle for sprite, cranberry juice and soup for me, I went to the pharmacy counter and handed the girl my HMO card and my prescription.

When she told me that it was $175, I broke down in tears. I mean broke down. I mean you-just-told-me-my-lover-is-dead broke down. Hiccupping sobs and the sounds of complete and utter grief filled the drug store. Like homing pigeons, Sma and Carleen were there in seconds.

I looked at sma and gurgled several words about not being able to afford my drugs.

The girl behind the counter looked frightened. I was in ER disarray and I had cotton balls band-aided to my arms and electrodes still stuck to my chest. I was Frankenstein gone wrong. I was a sad scene from Steel Magnolias unfolding before her eyes. I was a trainwreck, a defeated, tired mess of a girl, puddling on the floor in front of her window.

Sma helped me pay for my meds and we cabbed it home. I hiccuped the whole way.

Cipro. That's what I was on. The anti-biotic to top all other anti-biotics. The stuff they give to people with Anthrax.

This, was actually worse than the illness itself. I didn't leave the mildew closet for days as I laid there dizzy, nauseous and sweating like a Vet having 'Nam flashbacks. This lasted several days in real life and several weeks in my minds eye.

The moment I felt good enough to be mobile I walked to Haight St. to have all my hair chopped off. In my sweaty feverish dreams I had yanked and pulled and yanked and pulled my long hair. I couldn't wait to get rid of all of it.

The moment I was practically coherent again and not mumbling about the Vietcong, my mother called.

Unprecedented. I didn't tell anyone remotely close to my family about being sick. She just called.

"Hullo."

"What's wrong with you?"

Hi Mom. No hello, no how are you doing. It's always What's wrong with you?

"I'm sick."

"I knew you were sick! I knew it! You don't know how to take care of yourself! What happened?! What do you have?!"

To make matters worse, my mother is a nurse. I told her about the kidney infection. I did not tell her about Reno or the drinking or anything else for that matter. She didn't need to know. I got more yelling about how I don't know how to take care of myself before she stopped, mid-banshee-yell and paused before she asked quietly:

"Are you having sex?"

"Yes."

Then the sex tirade began. Out of nowhere. What that had to do with anything, I still can't figure out. I immediately got a phone call from my sister later on that night admonishing me for saying "Yes" to the sex question.

"I can't believe you told her you have sex!"

"What am I supposed to do? Lie? I'm 26. Of COURSE I'm having sex. I can't lie about that! I can lie about everything else, but not that because if I said no...then, then, then..."

"Then what?"

"Then they'd think I was a complete loser."

At that moment I couldn't believe I cared whether my parents thought I was cool or not. Like I was 13 and my parents were popular girls or something like that. Lame.

That was the only moment in my relationship with my parents did we ever discuss ANYTHING of importance. It was the only moment my mother has ever uttered the word "SEX" in my presence. And we're now back to the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy and we really are ALL THE MORE HAPPIER.

So, Hopeless with Herpes, fear not. Everyone hides things from their parents. Select few of us still hold Mom Fear above all other fears. It's completely normal.

Don't feel like you've got to tell your parents about your STD.

Please DO tell your future partners though. That's a completely different scenario.

My .02 cents for the day. Hope things are well. Keep in Touch. Don't Ask Jeeves personal questions as such, he doesn't know and he'll just refer you to other people.

Feel free to email me. I'm friendly and I smell nice.

Till Then,

~Jen-I-Just-Gave-Out-Unsolicited-Advice-Like-I-Said-I-Wouldn't-Anymore~

According to Wikihow

2009-05-19T22:14:00.001-07:00

Wikihow on the topic of Kidney Infections:

* Do not let a kidney or bladder problem go undiagnosed and untreated. You could end up with kidney failure, on dialysis or dead.

* Avoid synthetic underwear and tight pants.

* Always get professional medical advice for any illness.

* Avoid wearing thongs. They provide a moist trail right from your anus to the urethra and those E. coli travel right to it. Instead, wear cotton underpants or at least cotton crotch panties. Cotton allows moisture to evaporate and prevents having a perfect environment for growth of organisms.

I guess I'll have to throw away my collection of polyester thongs and tight hipster pants.

I never want to see the words "moist" and "trail" anywhere near each other in a sentence again.

Fevers and then some

2009-05-18T04:13:00.000-07:00

I have spent an inordinate amount of time sleeping on Jeff's couch.

It happens without much warning. I start to feel warm. The muscles in my neck go slack. My mouth opens. Before I know it I'm drooling and snoring and making weird sleepy noises.

I think I've been making more noises then ever in my sleep. My throat and sinus issues have not abated and this contributes to odd moans, nose whistles and the occasional dog noise. You know what I mean. That sound dogs make that's half way between a snort and a sneeze. A snozzle.

My health has been wavering in and out of wellness this week. I wake up feeling like death, like I slept through a fever, sweating out some sort of demon my dreams refuse to keep. I go to Bikram and continue to sweat and come out the other end of class feeling great. Wrung out. Twist. Release. Fresh blood to stagnant areas of my heart.

I made it out to Oakland for Joe's birthday gathering and on my way back to the city I texted Jeff to see if he was still awake. I felt pretty good and had a lovely evening and wanted nothing more then to curl up under his arm and sleep for a century or two. Or at least until we got hungry. He was up and gave the green light to come over so I hopped off BART and made my way down Valencia. My ipod had died and I felt naked without it as I walked, but it was just as well.

"Man, you don't know man...she, you know, she was...you don't know... MAN!"

"No I don't have a quarter! And if I did homie I'd be playin' me some Addams Family Pinball!!!"

"Dude, those are Funions and not Cool Ranch Doritos. Gross."

"BOMBAY IS STILL OPEN!! I'M GOING TO GO IN THERE EAT THE SHIT OUT OF SOME SAMOSAS DIPPED IN SAFFRON ICE CREAM!!"

"Can I have a bite of that?"

"No. I don't even know you."

I don't remember the last time I had been a part of Saturday nightlife in the Mission. It's been forever since I've stood on the corner of 16th and Valencia drunkenly groaning over a slice of greasy Arinelli's like it was the best orgasm I'd ever had in my life. Dave used to spin at Casanova's. I'd stare at the plastic grapes hanging over the bar sipping Jameson until they closed. I had stood inside Delirium, packed body to body and spilled drinks on people just to see if they'd noticed. They never did. G. and I used to shove each other drunkenly back and forth outside Doc's Clock.

I passed various restaurants and storefronts before turning the corner where the din of Saturday night revelry petered out into the sounds of sparse traffic.

His street is quiet. I like this. I feel like I turn a corner into a completely remote section of the city and it feels familiar. It feels close to me, personal. I like thinking that the warm dim light shining down the steps that lead up to his door are speaking to me and that no one else can the coppery gleam but me.

In 2006 I had a sleep disorder. I slept approximately four hours a week. I wanted to rip my eye balls out. My skin felt unreal. My brain had started to think itself into a deep dark hole that I was never too sure it would crawl out of. I couldn't get comfortable in bed. I couldn't get comfortable in my own skin. I was consistently agitated, irritable and sad. The boy I was dating at the time told me I was making all of this up in my head and I needed to relax. We didn't last, of course. There is validating your significant other's crazy and telling your significant other they are crazy. There is a difference.

I was okay with accepting the fact that I was not normal...I just wanted to fucking sleep already.

These days, I can't get enough of the stuff. I worry that I have some sort of new sleep disorder. I have moved into being too comfortable. I feel safe. I can close my eyes and rest.

I loathe being sick. The consistent nose and throat issues make me feel broken, but that withstanding, he doesn't seem to mind when I go slack and fall asleep before we've even thought about opening the sorbet we picked up on the way back from lunch.

Which is exactly what I did today.

I've been wonky and in and out of wellness at lightening speed today. I managed to make it home ok and felt pretty normal while I went about the processes of dinner and dishes. I closed all open windows and took a long hot shower. I made the shower hotter then usual. I was somewhat cold and I wanted the water scalding, which is rather easy to achieve in my building surprisingly enough. It took me 20 minutes into my shower to realize I was shivering and my teeth were chattering. It dawned on me that I was frightened to leave the hot shower as the world was a frozen tundra outside of it.

The last time I had felt this way I had a fever of 104.

Shit.

I don't know how I made it out of the shower but I frantically dried myself off while my body shook and my hands fumbled with a robe all the while my teeth madly chattering. I ran to my bedroom and managed to pull on two pairs of socks, a pair of fleece pants, a shirt and two hoodies with hoods on. My knees were wobbly as I made my way to the kitchen and managed to pour out a couple of ibuprofen. The bottle shook in my right hand and I wondered if this was what it felt like to have Parkinson's, the little pills shaking in the bottle sounding like a maraca.

With much effort I got the pills into my mouth and washed them down with some water. I wobbled back to the bedroom, cranked up the heat and curled up under the covers and prayed for sleep.

I woke up around 3AM with Blinky sitting on top of my chest staring down at me as sweat dripped down both sides of my face mingling with drool and pooling into the back of one of the hoods of my hoodies. She meowed and it sounded like a question.

"Are you ok?"

"I don't know cat," I responded. "But your chunky ass on my ribcage isn't helping."

I made my way to sitting and when that felt ok I made my way to standing. I peeled off one hoodie, then the next and changed my shirt I had soaked through.

Blinky meowed again at my feet.

"I'm hungry," I told her and made my way to the kitchen to pillage.

And now it's 4 AM and after a bowl of cereal and some fake chicken nuggets I feel like a million bucks despite some post nasal drip and the fact that I am wide awake with a brain that cannot figure out what is wrong with the rest of me.

I can hear the fog horns in the distance this late at night...this early in the morning.

I fear making another appointment with my NP lest she throw her arms up in the air exasperated at the sight of my face...again. I wonder if I should ride out the tide of this as it seems everyone I know who had come down with this illness had it for up to a month and next week it'll have been a month for me. I long to feel normal and healthy now that I've accepted the fact that I am batshit crazy and can enjoy the spoils of being insane as I've found someone who doesn't mind when I arrange his groceries on the table into a wedding procession diorama.

(The peaches were marrying the potatoes and the kumkwats were the witnesses while the various bags of bulk items from Rainbow were the wedding party.)

I can sleep these days but only to be randomly wrecked with fever and sweat. What is this?

Love

2009-05-14T22:12:00.000-07:00

Days in Pictures

2009-05-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

Because I'm too tired to form a complete sentence.

the dr. and i go see amazing things at the Academy of Sciences"

and then we successfully make vegan pasties.

We make gay lego men do the electric slide

and I make gooey chocolate goodness.

I'm grateful there was no photo documentation of my first bike riding lesson. The dr. and I had dinner at Osha and upon turning back onto his street asked if I was up for a little bike riding lesson. It was a nice enough night and the street was quiet so I said sure.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I never learned how to ride a bike. My sister and I both never made it beyond training wheels and never bothered to learn after a couple of spills on the concrete.

photo credit jeffgage

I planted my crotch onto this awesomely cute bike and proceeded to swerve, stumble and white knuckle my way up and down his street. He walked and held the bike while I pedaled up hill and walked down as I tried to let myself coast for a couple of feet using the subtle slope to my advantage. I felt my inner thighs clutch the seat as I tried to maneuver turning. All of this, of course, with my feet on the concrete because I don't trust myself. Face breakage is full of fear.

The whole ordeal had me laughing hysterically though because looking stupid can be incredibly fun.