Ok, allright, fine. I'm going already. Sheesh.

wE dOn ned knoe edjiCashoN

Crap, I really, really, really, want to skip school today. I just do not feel like dealing it. I am deep in the throes of the midterm blahs. It’s the math and bio dilemma. Sucking at both, I just don’t feel like facing it. Existential angst? No, it feels pretty stential.
Bah humbug, I suppose I just have to get in the shower.
Grrr poo shite blah bite me blechh rrraghh foo mung crud gucchhh
God. Am I secretly 12 or what?
Heh heh, I just had to teach the spellcheck foo, poo, and mung.
Ahhh. The little things.....

Mama's lil pagan loves shortening days rituals

Wednesday, Dali and I went to Rinpoche’s birthday party. As usual it was amazing. The cooks had apparently picked up the Martha Stewart cookbook and decided to make every appetizer listed. Crazy stuff. I really loved the stuffed endives. Also, whoever made the cheesy artichoke dip was smart enough to make a deep, fat, crock of it. That stuff always flies like mad.

I got to see my mentor/ therapist, and monopolize a lot of her time as I hadn’t seen her since last years party. She was beyond thrilled to hear that the reason she’d been seeing me hanging around the bus stop was to go to school.
Afterwards, all of a sudden, I felt this huge weird weight of responsibility hanging over me. Like OK all these people are watching me now and if I fuck up it will be a big deal.

Ya know either alcohol is weird or I am. Thursday night I was the cheapest date ever. One stiff drink and a couple of puffs and I was just lit. And somehow able to reduce Dali to a laughing, weeping mass on his kitchen floor. I’m still not sure what happened there.

Friday we had a damn good rehearsal. Things were just really clicking, sometimes having a little break is good.

But then last night, after having a bit of a meltdown when I thought I was not going to be able to go to the bonfire, I made myself a thermos of vodka tonics to take with, and went off to the jam. And basically drank a little over a half pint of vodka and had really nothing more than a pleasant glow, and no ill effects this AM. So this is not the first time I’ve noticed that phenomena, that the effects seem to have a lot more to do with ones initial head space as you start drinking.

The bands were good. The Czars were really fun. They’ve added some slick little stage moves to the act and that was a real crowd pleaser. I asked my friend Nina, whose SO Brent, is in the band, who that new guy was? She’s like, “Brian Ellinger”. Duh. I was all like “hmmm, fresh cutie” and it’s someone I’ve known since high school. Figures. I’m not particularly the cheatin’ type but I does like me a little flirt, flirt, nudge, nudge, now and again. There was a little of that but the pickins were slim. As is to be expected when everybody has known each other for years and the majority have been married, in some form, for years and years. I met a couple of cool people as well as seeing the regulars.

Just sitting and staring into the fire for a couple hours would have been a sad lack in my winter worn soul if I had skipped it this year.
I needs me my pagan rituals to somehow gather strength and keep me grounded and aware of the seasonal progression. That reminder that I am (in part) a body that is wound onto the earth clock and has some of it’s own spiritual needs on it’s cellular levels. It just needs to be roasted in front and frozen in back for a couple of hours each year to work right and stay somewhat happy.
And after staring at the cathode tubes for months and months, my eyes just need to be filled exclusively with firelight for awhile to refresh them.
The stars were brilliant too. Nice to be out of the city.

Ok back to the cathode tube - I am not sure what I am seeing here. If I’m not mistaken, it’s a japanimation cartoon about a Santa’s reindeer which has attained morphing super powers. Oh, WTF?

What's not wrong here

(Tcch, Blogger was being bad this AM so heres the picture now. Hmmph)

Mmm lets see if I can write the fastest post ever. Nothing really goes fast on that front as I really am a 6 fingered typist. Hmmm.

RArrrGhhh why do I this to myself? Last night I went to Rinpoche’s birthday party. I had a cup of coffee. It was about 6 pm. I didn’t get to sleep until 3am. The alarm went off as usual at 7. Arrgh.

Ahhh. There is something that isn’t wrong with me. I am so freakin regular, I actually probably don't even need the alarm, it’s just like that. Wahoo.

Sheesh. I cannot get rid of this piano for the life of me. Will someone please just take this thing away? Cripes.

Hey! There’s something else not wrong with me. No high blood pressure. Everyone seems to have it, especially in my family. I think I just process stress differently. I think once you’ve seen what I’ve seen and been where I’ve been you just don’t get as uptight about the regular stuff. Yessss!

PLLLTTTT! Angerboy, that’s just not a reasonable non-response. Get over yourself and it. What the hell? You are just making yourself look really bad, oh, and crazed. Jeeze.

Ahhh. Starting tomorrow I get three days off. And a bonfire to boot. Sweet!

Whoopty doo. Happy birthday RadioLady! Whee ha.

OK. I’ve done what I can, I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. Oh well.

Hyperlinks aren't us

New boots = looks cool, makes blisters

Wednesday = Another major bio test, why study more? I get it intuitively but I’ll never remember the terms correctly. This one covers patterns of inheritance, DNA biology and technology, control of gene replication and cancer, evolution of life and diversity, and just a little bit left over from the previous units on meiosis and mitosis. We are talking 4 fat chapters and some. And you just can never tell if the questions will hit the parts you get or are hazy on. So - it feels like I’m more hazy than usual other than the common sense parts.
I got food poisoning from the pizza there yesterday and so was not studying yesterday. Whatever, I’ve stopped stressing about these things and will just try to keep making up for any bad test scores with all my other efforts like lab stuff. I think I’ll still pass unless it gets worse from here...... I’m not even gonna take my bio book with to try to study more, I think I'll focus on math and piano today. And have a light book bag.

Food poisoning = keep taking my own lunch and give up on the Tuesday pizza treat for lunch.

Really curly hair = My Dad’s family has some extremely dominant alleles.

Friday = Last day to submit to the literary magazine

Dec 17 = Our big show at The Berkely Front, 2 sets - with the incomparable Sean Ike opening. Very exciting. All you Farmington, Franklin, Redford, Walled Lake, Southfield, Ypsi and Ann Arbor folks should come check us out. It’s inexpensive and we REALLY need the support. If you like early Sabbath, or The Doors, or Sonic Youth you might appreciate the music. It’s sort of modern, heavy, white boy, psychedelic, jazz tinged, blues with a big, smoky, throaty, tenor, woman up front.
It’s listed at:
www.myspace.com/thebottom99
Do I have to explain my lack of ability with hyper links again? Someday, someone will show me and be all like DUh that’s easy isn’t it? But until that day....

Oops I have a bus to catch, and a shower to take, whoops.

All things Borax

• The bad habit that really demands I wake the hell up and pay attention to reality - putting the kettle on the boil with the whistle spout lifted

• It finally occurred to me to get out my Borax lunch box and use it as -Surprise- a lunch box

• I’m still working on developing sugar free, without evil chems, puddings to take to my friend on chemo

• I want to say hello to my Swedish visitor, cuz my family is from Eskilstuna and I lived with my (distant) cousins in Orebro and Surahamer one summer. Sorry I don’t know how to make umlauts! Or spell in Swedish so well, probably.

• I think it was Emily Dickinson who said something to the effect of “ Bread and water is so easily transformed into tea and toast”

• I so love fall. driving around last late afternoon I was just rubbernecking all around, saying “look at that tree” “Ooh look at the light hitting that one” I will probably really hurt myself craning and snapping my head around.

• I may be really heavily tattooed but I have to admit a huge, huge prejudice against face and neck tattoos. I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to see eggs on plate on the side of your neck.

• I love Rachel Perry products, I’ve used them since I was a teen, they are luxurious and smell fantastic. Tangerine face wash, yumm.

• I really wish I didn’t dwell on negative things and encounters like I do, just replaying stuff over and over and over.

• I get to pick up my new boots today, thanks to Lizardbreath

Oh farfanugle and peanut brittle

Holy Crap was that hard!!!!!!
Well, the paper is written, the sources are gathered, the articles are pasted up, but I had major trouble understanding this MLA style of documentation. But, whatever, I get a chance after turning it in, to fix it according to her advice and since she knows it’s my first research paper EVER I think she’ll get me some help and give me a little slack. I have to say that I think it’s a pretty good paper. But then again what do I really know?
It was really hard to try to juxtapose what I wanted to say to what the main subject was. I think I pulled it off though. Achhh I’m going to be really nervous about this for quite awhile. I don’t turn it in till tomorrow so I've polished it tonight.
It’s 20 pages with cover and appendices, it was meant to be 3 to 6, I mean the main body is 5. Overkill? Yeah of course and meanwhile I have to get a tutor in math, pitiful.

Oh man, Halloween, my favourite. It is really odd that I have invites to some kind of party every day starting Wednesday and going through Sunday. If I make 2 of them that will be quite a feat, for me. There is a third I’d really like to make, they always have bands and a HUGE bonfire. Fire burn, fire good. I have to say that bonfire and Halloween are the absolute perfect combo, it’s all so very neolithic.
I may even have a beverage. Mmm, ehh, maybe. We’ll see.

Oh damn that cat! She is the butter stealingest cat I ever saw. Ya know, she’s almost 16 years old, but does that stop her from getting up on the high counter and stealing the butter? No, it’s as if that just makes it a personal challenge or something.
She’s still climbing the tree to the roof also. I wish she’d stop.
Especially with winter coming up. This winter she will be so very carefully monitored and kept close to the house, we are not having any cat stuck on the roof for any length of time this year.

A thousand pardons but,

Ya, OK, sorry, but just really trying to remain focused on the Zora Neale Hurston/Domestic violence midterm paper. I’m almost there. But I even turned down an invite to dinner at The Earle last night, and that my friends is both a damn shame and some serious dedication to homework.
So no blogging for a little bit either.
God, that word, can’t someone come up with a better one?

Last day 2005, renew, renew

Ermm, last shift at the job, on the one hand I’m extremely glad, on the other it’s saddening.
On the one hand I feel like I don’t need to bath today, what are the they gonna do fire me? On the other hand I’m just dirty and itchy.
On the one hand it’s good to not have to stand there for hours and hours. On the other hand it stinks to have to quit my job because some punk surgeon couldn’t do his right.
On the one hand it will be nice not having to leave the house before the sun is up, on the other hand it was nice always being out walking in the sunrise.
On the one hand I am really tired of that job, on the other hand I love the fella's and will miss them.
Am I now extremely ambivalent? Yes, yes I am.
I have to say that the majority of my customers are totally very cool. But driving downtown a few days ago, I saw one of my least favoured customers ever of all time and that reminded me that having to take shit from scrawny little overly wealthy fucks like him is likely to be in the past now. God, that guy worked my nerve. A classic example of the self entitled neauvou riche’ and most everyone knows how I feel about them. You know this guy would never even have gotten to breed if it hadn’t been for money, so there you go just another example of how it works and doesn’t work.
He should not have had the opportunity, and in a different society wouldn’t have.
He would have been like the stable gimp or something.
Well I can’t spend much, if any, more time thinking on the likes of him because I’m free of him now and I’ll see the people I liked around anyway.
And frankly as the infection has been starting to build on the other side of my guts I know that this is the best thing to do. I just have to get away from the devil wrapping machine.
I think there may be a little something planned as Bassbrotha was acting all goofy and giggly, and saying he was coming in early.
That would seem odd though for this group. I was just gonna buy the cutters pizza for lunch as my gesture. Well we’ll just see then. As I DO go to take a shower.

Bread & Yoghurt

Yes, I'm a sucker for randomization

Oh all right, I just couldn’t resist this meme where you google your first name plus needs- (And yes, I outright deleted all the ones that linked groove to Stella)

Stella Needs Help!!!

Stella needs to stop crying. why why why why why why why why why why. I want my power sander.

Stella Needs A Com Well No.

Stella needs a job! resolution and management based on a foundation of international relations theory, international law, and political economy.

Stella needs a home of her own with unconditional love. So, please, if you come visit her, ignore the "cattitude" and see the sweet cat inside the diva!

Stella needs more than just food for her to offer her brother and sister

Baby Stella needs to be changed

Stella needs as much social interaction as we can scare up

Stella needs Rachel and Kirsty to help her get the decorations back and make Christmas sparkle once more!

Stella needs urgent medical attention. "I think we need a bigger net."

Stella needs a home ASAP. ...

Stella attributed an increasing number of medication errors to her need

Stella needs to be confident that a fair performance appraisal will be forthcoming

Hotel Stella, Perfect for my needs

You don't necessarily need Lisp to develop STELLA code,

Stella needs more than just friendship to protect her from further assaults by the rapist, who is still at large

Stella needs assistance because she recently sustained

Stella needs a home without children.

Stella needs much more care than that Or will Stella be in the same little rat hole of an apartment in ten years

Stella needs a shoulder to cry on or someone to rail at.

Stella needs to be there for her best friend.

Emma needs Stella so badly

Stella needs another can of wifebeater

Bring out yer dead

Ok. We’ve come to that place I’ve seen many of these things get to, which is when the author can no longer contain their curiosity about the lurkers and attempts to get them to engage. So, obviously some of you I know either directly or after a fashion, some of you I just watch as surreptitiously as you watch me.
Won’t you come out and play?

It’s easy, just tell me the teensiest bit of info, like how in the world did you ever run across this thing in the vast plethora of people taking this unprecedented opportunity to spill their guts like it’s Jerry Springer all day, every day. And maybe, why would you keep coming back?

Am I fishing? Yea, maybe a bit, after all, math has my self esteem in the toilet. Am I avidly curious? Yes, a lot. I am dying to know about folk and what they do and what they think. I may be anthrophobic but I am endlessly fascinated with people, their motivations, activities, priorities and desires and what not. If reality TV had anything to do with real people, behaving in real ways, I would be so screwed because I would never take my eyes off it.

Thank god that’s such poorly done idiocy that I don’t like it all. I never did soap operas either, unless they came in such ridiculous forms that I couldn’t resist them. Like - Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, or Dark Shadows. And since everyone knows by now that I’ve gotten myself addicted to Coronation Street I’ll give as the rationale that it’s quite a bit more gritty and it’s set in a foreign country and besides it’s Sunday morning when I’m just chilling out anyway working on the computer so what should I watch Face The Nation? No thanks.
Although I will do the deep, dark, confession that I watch Springer a lot. Somehow, even though I hate that kind of really banal drama when it’s people in my life that I expect better from, it’s somehow OK when it’s on the screen.
What’s that about?

Oh speaking of oddities have you heard about this thing they’ve found in Japan?
Now this is really fascinating, and I don’t have enough info yet to say much about it but, it is somehow both an animal and a plant at the same time. Or when it undergoes mitosis it turns from a plant to an animal. But it seems like that couldn’t be mitosis at that point because it’s not apparently exactly duplicating cells. Or maybe the trait is exactly duplicated but when the cell splits off and becomes animal it’s because a switch is flipped and the trait is activated?
I don’t know, but I can’t wait to hear more about it. I put my bio teacher on to it so he could find out and hopefully explain it to me.
There’s another good reason to write me, because you have super secret insider info on how such a thing occurs....

Oops, the teakettle harkens, the bread is baking, the yoghurt is making, the corn flakes beckon and much homework is waiting.

Occupado

So there's a really brief little incantation in Latin that I’m trying to remember. Essentially the English translation is - don’t come in, already occupied.
Does anyone have enough of a working vocab. in Latin to translate it?

People try to drag you into their drama. With all the crazy, horrendous, shit, going on all over the world and people dropping dead and sick and dying in our own community that infantile, trivial, trifling shit is just nowhere. School yard territorial pissing contests. It’s pretty meaningless next to death and suffering. It causes all kinds of unnecessary suffering. So give it a rest won’t you?
I can certainly get all hostile and flummoxey about stuff but I’d like to think that (A) I back down and calm myself after a month or so. I’d really like to think that I don’t go on at the ballistic level for years. Vomiting up bile just continuously, yrrch. It’s a good way to give yourself a cancer. (B) I try to actually talk about it as opposed to just rant and rant. (C) I also think that I’ve begun to notice a relationship between how much alcohol is regularly consumed and how long people bluster on about stuff.

So if any of you haven’t yet checked out Operation Eden there on the right, they are still going strong, and it’s still just fucking incredible. I’m bummed that we haven’t seen any activity on suspect D’s part. I keep wondering if he was clamped down on by someone official.

Recently I really actually saw, instead of just staring and not comprehending, that all those construction signs, barrels and barricades are made by the same company named POCO. They must be making a killing in this state.

I’m starting to be able to catch both sunrise and sunset again. While I’m not at all a winter fan, that is one bright spot in the whole ordeal.

I go to school everyday, I mean everyday - perfect attendance, and yet I keep falling farther and farther behind in math. Even worse than bio now. Sigh, I think I’m going to have to have a tutor, sigh.

Don't even blink

I was going to just try to catch a nap on the bus. I was so tired. But then I started staring into the woods at the side of the road seeing water, rock walls, squirrels running around and everywhere the bazillion of colours and absences of colours all jumbled. Then I looked at the sky and it was so completely clear and so very, very blue.
Then at the river I saw 5 swans a-swimming and 7 hawks circling. Honestly, I did.
And yes the obnoxious song started playing in my head too.
Except they might have been buzzards. I don’t usually see hawks in that large of a group.
Anyway, just everywhere I looked there was just so much amazing stuff to see that I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t even read my book.
And for the first time I actually made my transfer and got home at a reasonable time. Now if I could only stay awake long enough to memorize Mendel’s Laws.

Dear Redford,

What are you searching for?
Perhaps I could help?
Cheers,
Stell

"step into that line processional"

So is confession actually so very good for the soul? I try to only keep 2 or 3 dead, dark secrets, and even those I have confessed to at least one other person.
I try to keep other people’s secrets. Except that it frequently seems that in order for people to be understood those secrets need to come out. I need to recognize and validate that perhaps others are not as interested in being understood as I am.

This is one reason I gave up speaking almost entirely in slang. As a youth I didn’t much want to be understood, except by those willing to make the extra effort which then served to reinforce my belief in my "specialness". I prefered to obfuscate everything to everyone except those very particular people and then those who could prove their membership in my tribe by understanding the patois.

Now, even though I have grave doubts that I ever will be understood, I attempt to be as absolutely precise with my language as I know how to be. Oddly enough this is my logic behind making up words, sometimes a made up word feels more precise to me than any words that I already know.

Confession feels wistful, a little sad, defiant, panicky and a tremendous plunge. It causes lip biting, backward glances and backward pride.
One feels like sitting back with arms tightly crossed awaiting the fallout and aftermath, dreading and yet knowing that shadow returns always for triumphant integration, to become whole one must thoroughly know, embody and accept the depths of the night and the full spectrum of light.

"I saw a picture of you"

I can tell I’ve gotten off my consistent good meds schedule, as I woke up an hour and a half early, after staying up too late, with the weird, apocalyptic and sad dreams. I wonder how much of Revelations bad blood sugar is responsible for.
Now don’t scoff, it could really be so. I was freaking out for a long time over the fact that I was clearly going insane but only in my sleep. So I finally decided to say something to my Dr. about it and she was all like “oh yeah, classic symptoms, blahblahblah, no big deal”.
Meanwhile I’m dreaming about diarrheic dying kittens, volcanos popping off on such regular rhythmic intervals, that we can feel it under our feet in Atlanta, (why was I dreaming I was in Atlanta? I don’t know, ask my pancreas), trying to SCUBA into creepy Lovecraftian fissures, and Oliver and I as children, (possibly siblings) being separated when the old crazy Aunt dies and trying to decide what to pack in our little backpacks to take from our old life.

Man I don’t want to go to work today, 2nd to last shift ever and my feet are protesting that; as it doesn’t matter anymore, just give them the day off.
No can do feet, it doesn’t fly with the Stella responsibility belief structure which dictates that one can be 3/4’s way dead and if there is no one to fill in you must get back on the chain gang.

Fierce Honesty

Leave it to Nigel to be my first tag, as he was also the first person to link me.
Im pretty sure the buck stops here though, as I don’t know five other people to tag. But here’s my first meme. (Which I was informed via Nigel’s site rhymes with bream, which I believe is a fish.).
It’s probably also a rare occurrence, as this one interested me, and many of them don’t. So, thanks for picking a good one.

20 Random Things about me

1. I have a REALLY shocking past

2.I don’t like basil, eggplant, okra, scotch, licourice, anise or large amounts of fennel

3. I love children's books

4. I suffer from the heartbreak of psoriasis

5. I actually like strange, strong smells e.g.: far off skunk, fungi, vinegar, ammonia

6. I loathe foot odour

7. I get crazy when people leave dirty, un-rinsed beer bottles around

8. I am addicted to solitaire and have been since about the age of 5

9. I have an overabundance of red and black clothing, including evening gloves

10. I insist on giving my cats titles as opposed to mere names

11. I name all my cars

12. I like to put rocks in my mouth after washing them just to taste them

13. I like a good toothpick

14. Despite appearances, I didn’t fall in love for the first time until I was 19

15. I absolutely adore Indian food

16. I have a thing about hands

17. I have a waist cinching fetish

18. I wish I could draw and paint past the Jr. High level

19. I feel like I could live on buttered toast and milky tea, I’m wrong

20. I have smoked since I was 11

Uncle Bunny’s Luau

Menu:
Kalua Pork
Lomi Lomi Salmon
Parsley and Macadamia Rice
Macaroni Salad
Green Salad with Sprouts, Avocado, and Citrus Vinagraitte
Bread Pudding with Toasted Coconut
Black Tea with Rich Milk

She weighs more than a duck, ergo she’s a witch

Let’s see what else? Oh ya, the medieval instrument of torture.
This is the stupid thing I have to wear at night because I have Plantar’s Fasciitis.
In english that means my right foot hurts like the devil a lot and it somehow is related to some big nerve on the bottom of my foot. It frequently feels like the inside of my foot is trying to fold itself over, how obnoxious is that?
Well it’s really obnoxious because in the morning I take it off and it hurts more than ever, so, is this actually helping?

Again? But that trick never works....

Things I didn’t see on the bus today - EVERYTHING, cus my teachers sick and Thursdays it’s my only class out there so I doon hafta go. Neeter neeter and alladat.
I’d like to think this is a little reward for not skipping bio lecture yesterday even though I was passing out tired. A 4 day weekend. Well, except for class tonight and work on Saturday.
Speaking of which I only have 2 Saturdays to go at the old J.O.B., then Lizardbreath called last night and said “I’m lost without you” so I'll be back hanging with the dogs and doing a sit down job again, posthaste.
Not to mention the nice little ego boon of feeling needed. All good.
Well I’m to lunch with Uncle Bunny to hear all about his fabulous trip to Hawaii so I’m gonna get up and about and have my precious mug’o’tea.
Supposedly some good fairy has left leek and potato soup on my porch as well, so I’ll need to see to that also.
Mmm leek and potato.

What I saw on the bus today

- A massive Hummer H2, brand new (jerks)

- A lady wearing spandex who shouldn’t have

- Reflections within reflections in the Jewel Heart Store window

- Yet another Jimmy John’s store a scant 5 blocks from the other one and 3 doors up from another pizza place

- A frantic, roaring ambulance

- The back of the hidden Arb, which I haven’t thought of in years

- A milkweed patch all bursting

- The sign at the VA Hospital which says “Supporting our troops” which should probably say “Attempting, despite massive budget cuts and a thousand lies to ACTUALLY support our troops and having a really tough time of it”

- Mist on the river with the sumacs on fire and the fields full of fallen leaves

- Kids transparently skipping school

- A secret hidden path by the highway

- A dead swan

- A dead woodchuck

- A great, huge, gaggle of live geese

But the most fearsome, awe, panic and pity inspiring, and thought provoking thing I was exposed to today, was seeing the man they call Eyes Without A Face for the first time.
Some say it’s cancer, some say it’s a failed suicide by gun. I had heard stories but was still not prepared for the actual sight. It’s so very dreadful.
I don’t yet, and may never, have words for this.

Oh and another thing

I’m actually feeling just a little ennui with my somewhat limited selection of blogs I peruse. While Operation Eden really was a thrill to find, and helped buck me up for awhile, many people don’t update a lot so it actually gets pretty limited on the daily basis. So I am hereby requesting that you tell me one your very most favourites, given that by now you should have some idea what and where my interests lie.
Because after all, I really need to spend more time indulging my bad habits and blowing off homework or I just won’t be able to keep up quite the proper maintenance level of self flagellation, right?

Trying is just not good enough, Missy

I tried to write sooner, honestly I did, but I did write five pages last night for two different reports and read a fairly hefty Tolstoy short story. About 40 pages, The Death Of Ivan Ilyich, have you read it? It’s fantastic.
It’s my first Tolstoy, to my mind he makes Chekov and Dostoevsky seem like slurry imitators.
So, having just a bit of a let up on the big stressors and that’s one hell of a relief.
Not that Math and Bio are ever going to be good but I’m getting a little more grounded in them and even got a 91 on my Bio exam. A complete fluke but nonetheless a good thing. Something about a problem in multiple choice questions and people getting a bonus 16 points which rocketed me up from a 75.

I also decided to run some of my poems and songs by the Eng. Prof. and see what she thought might be suitable for admission to the various literary zines. Apparently one of which is nationally recognized or something.
That was a truly frightening thing. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my writing tends to be pretty intensely personal and shit? So every time I show it to someone it’s really anxiety causing. So I’m walking around with the total, as if I was about to perform, butterflied stomach. That’s a pleasant image isn’t it?

Also managed to begin to get some resolution to an ongoing issue by means of a random and chance encounter. So the whole missing the bus thing has it’s upsides after all. It is an example of how those corners turned and not turned can really be influential on one’s life.

But really I have next to nothing clever nor witty to say, I think it’s all been sucked out by trying to schmooze teachers and make them see my genius-ity.
I again refer back to the impending first school vacation and how I will blissfully collapse for upwards of 5-6 days while imbibing holiday foods. I can’t wait. Now I know how my niece feels when she comes home from college and doesn’t want to do stuff.
Incidentally, she needs a good secret club nomiker like everyone else has, as does the sister. Any bright ideas?

Another bad habit

I pick up accents and dialects like wildfire. When I first read Huck Finn around age 8, my Father looked at me one day and asked “why the Hell are you talking like that?”
Having lived (even when briefly) in New York, Texas, Michigan, Germany, Sweden and England, I talk real funny.
The lisp and (rare) stutter don’t help much either.
This is why it’s becoming apparent that I should try to curb these Sunday morning Coronation Street fests. I caught myself saying “summat” “nought” and “yur, I’m that hungry” recently.

Just a quirky

I am nothing if not a creature of bad habits.
Some I am just not going to talk about, but some are right out in front available to be seen anyway. Such as easily offended, suspicious and hostile, quick to anger, chocoholicism, not much for physical activity, bad study habits, etc. etc.
But I’m realizing lately I have a newish bad habit which is likely to get me into trouble right away.
I’ve developed the habit of touching strangers. If I bump someone I touch them on the bumped spot while apologizing. I’ve noticed this because I’m now on the bus a lot and therefore am bumping people at a heretofore unknown rate.
I expect to get my ass kicked any day now.

We’re to do some Mozart and such for our next piano test, I’m excited. We’re starting to get into the good stuff. I really want to be able to play Jazz Piano. Just to be able to soothe myself.
Hey! I’m still trying to rid of this old clunker piano. Anybody out there want a beat up piano or a beat up Yamaha scooter?
I gotta figure out how to get on this freecycle thing. Radiolady, any advice?

"Who will buy, this wonderful morning?"

I have been challenged to something by someone claiming to be Illuminati over on another site I hang out on. I’m not sure what the challenge is though, something about opening my head or something. I am definitely not interested in opening my head to some stranger, either physically, mentally or spiritually. I already let 2 strangers open my guts and we see where that got us.

It’s really hard to tell what's what with those type people (or not people as the case may be be), because it seems like part of the game is to kerfluffle one with these crazy big ass words that cause you to spend so much time trying to divine the actual intent of that one word that you can’t keep up with the conversation and therefore they get the idea that they are like winning, or superior or powerful or in control or something, whatever their agenda is.
It makes me wanna go sic my big brother Mr. Science on them. He's already brilliant that way. He’s really good at not getting flustered and hung up on the details. And if he actually doesn’t get it, he can just spin out a matching stream of bull to set them on their ear while he reloads.
I wish I had that skill. I might be better at it on the net where no one can see my face getting all red, and the tears of frustration starting to form. I have this really open face where I can’t hide shit.
This is another reason why I don’t bother to lie, as well as that the energy required to track the lies seems wasted to me.

Another thing is that I have learned to keep a lot of stuff on the DL. I used to be REALLY flamboyant and open and while it occasionally did bring me into contact with amazing people, it caused me to spend an awful lot (the majority in fact) of time beating off the suckers. And when I would get to have a conversation with some VERY interesting person, they would inevitably mostly just warn me to pull my shit back, be more discreet and that was about it.

And here's one more thing, while as a general rule I’m pretty anthrophobic and I’m not so very fond of humans in a general sense. I’m pretty much for them inherently. I absolutely do think they have innate birthrights and potentials. Even if most of them are not utilizing such. So trying to get me to betray them or something by using my fear and discomfort against them is just not going to fly. It’s been pretty well established that I’m not buying the power lie in this lifetime.
Oh, and that is NOT an invitation to catch me in another life. Get it?

Ah, Octobre....

There's a man at school, a physical plant, grounds guy, and I suspect he’s a little touched.
He seems nice enough, but he’s really, really loud about it. So here he is - thin, a little bent and grizzled, old black man. Wearing a wool cap and the standard khaki uniform that a lot of the grounds people wear. Also wearing good, heavy, well worn black work boots.
He’s always hollerin’.
“Ah see ya, Ah see ya”
“Thas’ right, thas’ right”
“Amen, OH! Amen to that”
He gets a little orgasmic when he starts in on the amens.
I’ve got nothing against him, except when I’m irritable he kind of adds to it.
And I had a bit of a strange encounter with him yesterday.
He was mowing a little grass patch near the bus stop with a regular gas mower. I was sitting on the curb of it waiting for the bus. There was another woman sitting also. He started getting closer so we stood up. I have a healthy respect for propelled and moving blades. Also the stuff that comes flying out can really sting.
But he’s just hollerin’ away,
“Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, ya’ll sit, ya’ll sit now.”
Except that - he keeps mowing that strip right next to where we were sitting, over and over and over. And all the while exhorting us to sit back down there.
Hmmm.


Today and yesterday the leaves are really starting to come down. And with the quality of light it reminds me of those scenes in Legends, where the stuff is blowing and there is this odd, surreal feeling being invoked.
Especially those trees, I don’t know what they are called. But they have a bunch of tiny leaves on rows of stems coming off the branch.
Are they poplars? I can’t remember and I don’t feel like looking it up right now.
But the tiny little leaves are yellowed and blow in great sweeps of colour, beautiful.
Soon we’ll start getting those little dust devils of leaves. When we were kids, out on they playground, if one came up you would try to run and get inside it. You’d then stretch out your arms and spin with it.
It looked really great from the outside when it was your friend that was doing it. But the reality was that when it was you inside, you got crap in your eyes and leaves in your hair and usually come out of it spitting.

On overcoming caring what others think...

Ok not to get too crazy on the dream thing, cuz even though I find them fascinating, I know others don’t, but - As I was waking up this morning I was dreaming that I was a Saudi woman, (but in America, no veils or burkas). I was hanging out with a group of Saudis at some gambling venue.
I went to get some food at a store and four trucks of Gypsies drove by. The trucks were emanating this music that was just amazing. On the back of one truck was a platform where this Gypsy man, all in black and leather, was dancing.
The other women were jealous because I got to see the Gypsies.
I felt like I had been offered a glimpse into a different world or something.

I am always hearing music or am singing in my dreams, it’s always really cool and heretofore unknown stuff. It’s always evanescent and gone, gone, gone.
I was only able once, to pretty much faithfully recreate a song that was from a dream. Unfortunately it still sits idle as it never really fit with any of our projects.

Speaking of which, we should be hearing the final date for our show in November today or tomorrow. We’re putting together a little thing at the Berkely Front with Psyche opening doing his solo thing. I am really excited to hear him, as I’ve not ever had the opportunity yet, not even when he was with The Elevations.
Obviously I’ll be taking advantage of this forum to plug hell out of the show, so more details later.

So let me say, that as I had a bit of a miserable school week, I’m going to attempt to bolster my self confidence by stating that I got my first straight A on a Math test, and got 54 of 50 on my Piano test.
But don’t even ask me about Bio which has caused me so damn much misery this week and I even managed to make a fool of myself in my beloved English on Tuesday by just totally missing that something was due that day. When asked for my assignment, I was like “Huh?”. Humiliating.

spelling corrections

Hey just want to tip youse off - suspect device is back after his hiatus. Apparently he was working for FEMA and will start having some stories about what’s going on down there now. So start catching his blog over the next little while. It’s linked over there on the right.

Also, I dreamed that I was singing Astronomy Domine and playing electric guitar with a big old upright Bass bow in a little bitty orchestra.

And, apparently yesterday I could not for the life of me remember how to spell exercise but I do remember today.

I'm not liking this new moon

I don’t know, today, not so good.
After an excruciating day at school, then missing my transfer AGAIN, I did the intuition walk (you know, the follow your fate exercise). It was as if I was just walking further and further into my hatred. Just every little thing, the woman walking into me HARD because she was too intoxicated at 4 in the afternoon.
The feeling the evil eye on me from the ex-friend as I walked past him at his drinking hole. (And even though the place is nice enough, trust me, he is in a drinking hole.) The stupid, careless drivers. Problems at school. It’s just all feeling a bit much too much at the moment.

So I’m thinking, after a nap and eating and calming, how I was just reading where the Dalai Lama had said something to the effect of; hatred and anger are not the same. That anger can be ok, usable and focusable, but that hatred is the real destructor.
I don’t think I’m in a place where I can differentiate yet.

I just keep hoping that somehow just by trying to be helpful the juju will just rub off on me and somehow I’ll end up good.

Houston - we have a problem.

So there’s a problem in the neighborhood.
There’s something about the house across the way. Ever since the wife beating, dog killing, child porno, guy lived there there’s always been at least one problem person or someone who goes crazy or something.
Dali and I had offered the landlord to do a cleansing a few years ago but they didn’t go for it.
So the net result has been issues, issues, issues. Every time someone new moves in.

The issue this time is that the neighborhood around here is pretty durn quiet-ish.
And the new kids on the block are just that, kids. They moved over from campus, and they’re young and they act young.
Drunken yelling in the middle of the night, a lot of trash and Rage Against The Machine blaring, the friends driving way too fast on the one block street etc. etc. etc.

I’m not personally particularly bugged most of the time, (although if they hit my cat I will have all of their gonads nailed above my front door). The problem is a neighbor behind them that is really affected because of the sound dynamics involved. It all just pours into their fabulous peaceful garden and their bedroom window.
And they are already so over it and so lathered up that they are starting to become frantic and it’s getting pretty ugly.

I feel really bad for them because as I know all to well, there is next to nothing that can be done to make rude people behave, particularly when the rudeness is pretty much based in sheer unconsciousness and likely feelings of entitlement.

As I’ve said before one of my favourite expressions is that “manners are the oil that grease the wheels of civilization”. But it took me a lot of years to get there. I was an extremely drink and whatever addled, creature for a lot of years and when you’re in that state a lot you are mostly oblivious to your real impact on your surroundings.
And I suspect that that, and the youth factor, are what’s at the bottom of the issue. And face it, the couple are in their 50’s or so and it’s just not a good mix.
But the kid’s are renters and the couple are owners so I suspect that this will play in somehow in the future conflict. It’s too bad that it has to come down to such things but it frequently does.

I keep thinking to myself, should I step in the middle somehow, and if so how? It probably sounds real nosy, but I’m wondering whether it’s actually somehow my responsibility, as I am the neighborhood watch block captain? I also have a bit of experience with mediation and such, so that too makes me wonder.
But as anyone who knows me will tell you, I fricking HATE conflict.
I feel myself more and more uncomfortable every day as the tension mounts....

Ok Ok I hear ya

Sorry I just completely forgot about a 4 page biology report draft due today. I never did get to math yet, and there's tons more bio to be done yet.

Sigh, I gave notice at my job. After developing a fresh infection in my guts this week, and having to go back on the antibiotics, as well as that the shoes necessary to keep my feet from dying while working cost $400 or more with the Dr. appointment. It’s just too much with school going on.
It’s been precisely 5 years this month. I actually like customer service so it makes me very sad. I always sort of dug being a shop girl, whether it was at the Tattoo studio or the market. At the studio I used to sweep out front at the start of the day and I just liked that. I liked tidying and talking to the people.
I seem to have a 5 year thing going on however. That seems to be about my limit. I also seem to have an October thing, I frequently start something new in October apparently.

The beef wellington was fantastic however. I cannot fathom how I pulled that off just flying by the seat of my pants. With simple steamed and buttered asparagus, baked potato, and sliced organic beefsteak tomatoes for accompaniment. Then finished with German chocolate cake as per the birthday boys request. If he’s not convinced of my (band and sobriety supporter) devotion by now, there’s no hope.

I received two e-mails yesterday informing me that 2 of my people have been diagnosed with cancer. My (only and distant) Uncle and my adored massage therapist.
WTF? I blame environmental pollution. This cancer thing is so whacked, the numbers are all skewed. Something is going terribly wrong here people.

OK well time for school and deal more with the dog friends. More later? Hmmm, we’ll see.

STRUDEL I

STRUDEL II

STRUDEL III