hiatus

I won't have an internet connection until sometime next week, so I probably won't be updating until next Friday or so.

SHHHH, don't cry...it'll be okay.
No no no no, don't blame yourself.
It's not you, it's me, I swear.
I promise, I'll be back and things will be better.
I'll call, I swear.

moving violations

You know, when I moved from Kentucky...I planned for months. I called around about moving companies, I collected boxes from work and school, I did everything ahead of time. This time, I haven't done anything. It's Wednesday, I move on Saturday, and I haven't done a thing. No truck, no boxes, nothing. But I'm going to get my keys today...and I called to have my cable and internet hooked up. The important things first right.

ghost stories

When I was in high school, my friend's mother used to tell us scary stories that she heard as a girl growing up in Germany. Maybe it was the accent on top of hearing stories you hadn't ever heard before, but those stories were pants-stainingly scary. They always had a little something, some detail, for your imagination to hold onto so that you couldn't sleep for weeks after hearing one of those stories. One of the tales I remember vividly involved a desciption of the reaper. He didn't wear a hooded shroud like we all imagine. No, this repear wore a long black cloak and a black hat with a large feather. And he would come to you and leave his hat for you as a calling card; you saw the hat and then he took your life. So imagine my surprise when I got into my car yesterday and looked in the rear view mirror and saw a black felt hat with a feather laying in the back window. My heart stopped beating and I know I stopped breathing for a few seconds, staring at that hat and hearing my friend's mother's voice telling her story. Then I remembered that Jen was wearing a hat when I picked her and her girls up at The War Room on Friday night...and things were right in the world once again.

canker sore

Sometime Friday or Saturday, those two days are a total blur at this point, I bit the shit out of the inside of my mouth. It was all raw and ragged. But because we can't help but touch the painful spots, I've been tonguing the sore for days and now it's smooth like the inside of an oyster shell. I guess this is one of the few times that you can keep poking at the pain and it turns into something that actually feels pretty good.
Also, at this after hours party Saturday night/Sunday morning some guy kept video-taping me. No matter what room I was in, every time I looked up I found his camera pointed in my direction. It was a little unnerving because I try very hard to keep my Wonder Woman and Diana Prince lives separated...but now there's some kind of video surveillance evidence of Wonder Woman out there. I should have asked me what he was video-taping for and got a business card or something. I shudder to think where that tape will end up, though I wasn't really doing anything. It was just weird.
I should be signing my lease on Wednesday and hopefully moving on Saturday. It seemed like it took forever and now it's just moving way too fast. I hope I'm ready for this new story arc in my life.

club dread

I'm exhausted. Between the triple shot latte that I drank at seven pm and my brain working at a frantic pace, I didn't get much sleep at all. It's really hard to avoid the elephant in the room when it is sitting (shitting? I haven't decided which yet) on your chest. But then again, I seem to be the only one who can see it, so I guess it's just me making something out of nothing, which is hardly surprising.

freak show

No, not now, not when I'm in the throes of an existential/late-youth crisis! It just can't be happening. WHY ME!?! WHY NOW!?! WHYYYYYYYYY!?!?!

I found my first old-lady chin hair today!

working hard

In the last twenty-four hours, I have been told by two of my good friends that I'm trying too hard. And I probably am trying too hard, or at the very least trying too hard at the wrong things. But here's the problem, where do you draw the line between trying too hard and not trying hard enough? Exactly how small is the "just right" line? Parts of me want to let things/life happen organically, happy people just go with the flow. But other parts of me just don't have that kind of patience and want to make things happen, successful people MAKE things happen. I'm feeling very Goldilocks lately, and I'm still eating from the wrong bowls of porridge.
So, I went and looked at this studio in the Belltown section of Seattle last night. It is a GREAT location and I am completely enamored with Belltown. I really want to live there but it's very spendy, I absolutely could not do it without a roommate. The studio was TINY, my bed would take up the entire "living" space. It was about 350 square feet. Then later, after talking to my sister about buying a condo rather than renting an apartment, she sent me some listings for condos. The only Belltown condos that show up are the studios in that same building I had looked at earlier. And those teeny-tiny, less than 400 square feet studios cost $150,000. Wow, I was blown-away. Talk about inflated housing costs. I should just be happy with my crack-alley apartment.

craigslist

So I'm a loser, I admit it. I pretend like I'm going over to craigslist to look for apartments (even though I have a hold on the other one, I'm still checking out other places), but that's just a pretext for scoping out the Missed Connections. I LOVE reading those. Every once in a while there is one that is just a precious precious gem of hilarity. But sometimes there are a few that I read and think, "Wow, that could actually be from me," because they read like something I wish I had said to somebody. So that made me think about connecting with people. Do the connections we imagine with other people actually exist? Can connections be entirely one-sided? It seems like a connection implies that both people would feel the pull, but judging by the great number of people looking for missed connections, maybe that's not the case. That makes me a little sad.

dreamspace

I don't know why or how, but last night I had a dream that I was making out with Scarlett Johannson. And she was a really sloppy kisser.

fit but you know it

Reading another blogger's hilarious post "not to be judged by my bra size" reminded me that I had a bra fitting this weekend at Nordstrom's. If you ever want an abject lesson in humiliation, I would recommend a bra fitting. The first clerk I asked for help stunned me when she looked at me and suggested a cup size; I won't even say it here because it makes me cringe just thinking about it. Then I ended up being helped by another young lady, who was actually really nice. Since I was looking for a strapless, which for the busty gal is like searching for the Holy Grail of bras, I knew I was in for a long day. And as it turns out, like most women, I am wearing the wrong bra size. At least that's what the clerk said as she poked at my boobs and said things like, "See all this tissue here, you need more support for it." Then we talked about the relative advantages and disadvantages of boob size and this is definitely a grass is greener situation. So in the end I tried on a billion bras, had a sales clerk get to second base with me, and surprisingly I found a strapless bustier for less than the price of a new Buick. I'm starting to feel like my boobs have a life of their own and the rest of my body is just a life support machine for them.

pillow fight

Do you remember somebody telling you not to eat before you went to sleep because it could cause nightmares? I vaguely recollect being told that and last night because of the overconsumption of sealife, I had the strangest nightmares. I dreamt that my pillows were trying to do me in. First it was all fun and games and they were just tickling me. Then the tickling became really aggressive and turned into an all out shaking. So in a half-awake state I threw them on the other side of the bed, but then a really deep man voice came from within what is normally the feathered goodness and started yelling evil things at me. So I hit the pillow and more mean things were said. Finally, I forced myself awake by screaming and then tentatively touched the pillows to make sure they were still the inanimate objects I went to sleep with. Luckily they were, somewhere between half-consciousness and full lucidity, an exorcism had been performed. I was one hundred percent creeped out and could barely fall back asleep after that.

celebrainguish

Today is my sister's 28th birthday. Happy Birthday to my favorite sister! We went out to eat and I cannot eat nearly as much as I used to. Less than a year ago, I could have wiped out an all-you-can-eat buffet. Now, I can barely make it past the salad. I'm so stuffed and it's been hours since we ate. And oddly enough, the restaurant we went to ran out of salmon. First of all, a seafood joint running out of salmon is bad enough, but for god's sake this is Washington...that's like running out of potatoes in Idaho.

hookers on the point

As of last night, it is official. I really DO look like a hooker. I was walking to my car because I parked pretty far away from the club I was meeting my sister at and decided to park a little closer. So as I am walking to my car, a car with some guys pulls up and they ask me if I had just been in the club nearby. I said no and then asked them if they knew how I could get to where I was going. So they're giving me directions and as all of this is transpiring, a cop car pulls up. So these guys pull away and the cop car pulls up to me and in his suspicious cop voice asks, "Is there a problem? What do you have going on here?" So I tell him I needed to get to point X and he proceeds to give me some craptastic directions and the whole time I'm standing there thinking, "Oh my god, this cop thinks I'm a hooker!" Surreal!

i'm with the dj

What is it about DJs that makes them so damn hot? Seriously? There must be something because if there is a DJ within a fifty-foot vicinity that spins amazing beats, I will most assuredly crush on him and make a complete asshole out of myself in the process.
Also, just to give you guys an update on the apartment situation...So I got a place in Capitol Hill of Seattle, which is a trendier part of town, though I would have preferred a Belltown location. It's pretty ghetto fabulous, right off the corner of Crack Alley and Homeless Boulevard. But it's a GREAT deal, plus I'll have a parking space for a nominal price, which is practically unheard of. Let's see, it's a 1-bedroom, not a studio, but the kitchen runs right into the living room so it feels like a studio from that standpoint. But they're putting in new carpet and new kitchen countertops (which is only like three feet of counter-space, but still it's new) and new blinds and they're painting the place, so it should look pretty decent cause right now it smells like a smoking room. The really bad thing, it's on the first floor and it faces the street, so I won't be leaving the blinds open ever. The other window in the place faces a brick wall that looks like a prison wall. There was actually another apartment I wanted in the complex but I missed out on it by a day. Apartments go amazingly fast in Seattle, blink and you're totally assed out. But I'm taking it, even though I've got a few doubts, I'm really excited about moving up there. I should be up there sometime in the beginning to middle of October, before my 30th birthday. WHEEEEE! No more long drives home from work and from going out.Also, I'm still out partying from the night before to celebrate my sister's birthday, right now we're in somebody else's apartment drinking more than should be medically allowed. I've been awake for 24 hours straight. Luckily all I have to do today is get a haircut, buy my kick-ass new boots, and go to the Puyallup Fair (just try and guess how that's pronounced) with a fellow Kentucky transplant. Responsibility is for suckers!

uban hunting

So the apartment hunt continues and the people I have talked to have mostly been a bunch of asses. Whatever happened to Pacific Northwesterners being uber-friendly people? They obviously don't work in property management. I just spent the better part of half an hour arguing about how much difference two pounds really makes and how I should be rewarded for my honesty because I could have just lied and said Iniki was under twenty pounds. Then after being offered a viewing, I asked the guy to not waste my time and just tell me no about the dog if the two pounds was really going to make that much of a difference; but no he's gonna waste my time and let me look at the place and then tell me no because of my dog. But at least I got a response from him, most people won't even get back to you. I've called oodles of places and sent out a kabillion emails and only about two percent of them have been returned. Seriously, now would be the time for a sugardaddy who could put me up in a decent apartment.

girls gone wild

Today I stepped on the scale and what should have been a proud moment was clouded by the fact that I'm still nowhere being "socially acceptable" as far as beauty standards go. And because of that, I realized the fruitlessness of my trying to be girly. And I've made an honest to goodness effort since I've been here. I've bought shirts with lace and sashes, purses, and I even own a few shoes with heels now. But that's just not me...I'd be more comfortable at a Dykes on Bikes rally than hanging out with the girls who work at bebe. I don't know why I felt I had to get girly....because I'm supposed to want to be that way, because guys like the girlie-girl, because I like the guys who like the girlie-girls...I don't know.
But I'll never be a that girl. First of all, I'm not built for it...I'm like a truck. I can build muscle that most guys have to juice up to achieve. Second, I just don't do cute. Though I generally haven't had nicknames that stuck around, most of them are along the lines of Bodyguard and Billy Badass. One girl used to call me Sunshine,but she meant it facetiously. All the pictures I traded in Basic Training (yeah, just like in high school) have "You're one kick-ass soldier, even if you are female" written on the back. So why am I trying to change myself? For whom? For what? I'm trying to fit into a world that tells me I'm not good enough because I'm supposed to emulate people like Paris Hilton?!?!?! Are you kidding me?!?!? Well that's never gonna happen, and even if it COULD happen, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want it to. So to hell with it, to hell with being judged for not measuring up because we're just a bunch of sheep buying into a terrible beauty standard. I'm liberating myself from hating myself because I just don't have the energy to do it anymore.

crystal ball

You know, I really thought it couldn't get any worse at work. I REALLY thought that, it was almost a little optismistic for me. But then...I met HER, the most obnoxious and annoying person I have had the displeasure of sharing eight hours with...my god! We've already had a couple of tense moments and it was just ONE DAY! It was like working with a rabid little chihuahua who should be put down. Not surprisingly, she's friends with this other girl I can't stand...another drama queen with a shitty attitude. I mean, it's pretty bad when somebody makes ME look like Pollyanna and Mary fucking Sunshine all rolled into one.

nightlife

I worked my first evening shift last night. It wasn't too bad...a little boring...but at least the people were pretty nice. But, the drive...oh the drive...two and a half hours of my life wasted just driving to and from work. By the end of the week, that's ten hours and I don't deal with any rush-hour bullshit. That's an entire night of rest. And for what? A yard? Easy access to a strip mall? I can't lie, I would prefer a house over an apartment too. I hate smelling other people's cooking and hate hearing their noise. But I gotta move closer to work, I hate driving more than I hate any of the other things. And it would be a community service to remove myself from the road as much as possible...can you say road rage?

cinema paradiso

Because my daddy was in town this weekend, I didn't get out and do much other than eat copious amounts of animal flesh and drink beer. But it was nice, I can actually talk to my dad. He gave me a good & realistic pep talk, not just the rah-rah-rah cheerleader, everything will be okay bullshit. Candor is one of the things I appreciate the most. So anyhoo, we watched a couple of movies because that's what you do when you have nothing else to do.
Let's see, we saw Four Brothers. It was okay, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. But I did love the littlest brother...MEOW, I love grungy little rockstar wanna-bes (and DJs, but that's an unfortunate addiction).
Then we watched some rentals. First, we watched Crash. This movie was devastating. It is the kind of movie that almost makes you wonder what the point of being alive is. How we can sometimes be trapped by a social structure that we had no part in creating. How we often perpetuate the structure even though we want it to change. How, often, we don't even care enough to try and make change. I cried during this movie, A LOT...a big blubbery cry. It was both emotionally draining and cathartic.
So, after we took my dad to the airport and I sat at home getting pissed off about the apartment hunting situation, I called up my sister and we decided to rent another movie. We watched Diary of a Mad Black Woman. This movie is HILARIOUS! Despite yourself, you hear yourself screaming stupid shit like "You go girl!" And Shamar Moore is HAWT, with a capital H! but the whole headband look...a little icky-poo. There were references to other movies in there, An Officer and A Gentleman, The Color Purple...and a few others than I can't remember now but they were fun to spot. Anyway, good movies all around. Well, I'm off to the gym and tonight I officially start working the evening shift. Sigh.

hatorade

I finally decided to look for an apartment in Seattle. Well no, actually I've been looking for a while, but I'm finally ready to actually move into one. But I can't find one that will take dogs...if they take pets at all, they only take cats. Well boo to cats...what's the difference? Some cats pee all over the place and that smell lasts FOREVER, some cats mew all night, some cats damage the apartment and they can get higher. That's what the deposit is for. Dog-haters.

personification

Since I've finally connected with my iPod, I decided to give her a name:

Neith: {night} The Huntress and Opener of the Ways.
Her name means "I have come from myself."
She is the Spirit behind the Veil of the Mysteries. Herbs, medicine, magick, healing, knowledge, rituals, meditation.

So let's try and figure out what Neith has been trying to tell me eh? Here are the last ten songs played in shuffle (some with lyrics when I could find them online):

Jem: Save Me
I've gotta stop my mind
Working overtime
It's driving me insane
It will not let me live
Always so negative
It's become my enemy

The Rapture: House of Jealous Lovers

Cheap Trick: I Want You to Want Me
I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I'd love you to love me
I'm begging you to beg me

Garbage: Stupid Girl
You pretend you're high
You pretend you're bored
You pretend you're anything
Just to be adored
And what you need
Is what you get

J-Punch: Bitch

The Ramones: I Wanna Be Sedated
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go
I wanna be sedated
Nothin' to do and no where to go-o-oh
I wanna be sedated
Just get me to the airport put me on a plane
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
I can't control my fingers I can't control my brain
Oh no no no no no

Jimmy Eat World: Pain
It's a lie.
A kiss with opened eyes.
And she's not breathing back.
Anything but bother me.
(It takes my pain away)
Never mind these are horrid times.
Oh oh oh I can't let it bother me.

Critkill: Rejection Perfection

Sick of It All: Maladjusted
Nothing satisfies, nothing will cause it won't get a chance to.
Altered spirit and altered mind take a turn for the worst soon.
Fear has struck, fear is stuck
MALADJUSTED
Assurance won't sit well at all cause no one is trusted
You've got what you wanted the reason you came control action control of the game

Tomboy: Player, Play On

chi-ch-chi-chi- hah-hah-hah-hah

I almost drowned once when I was eight. That memory will be one of the few that flashes before my eyes when I die. I remember almost everything about it. I used to think that depression was a lot like drowning...struggle, struggle, struggle, get up for air, choke on water, and back down you go. But now I'm thinking that depression is more like a horror movie. Trying to escape depression is like being the big-breasted, slutty sorority girl running frantically in high heels and panties, screaming, crying, and falling down a lot. And depression is like Mike Myers, slowly stalking you with a big, bloody machete in his hand. But what he doesn't know is that the girls who ain't gettin' any always win out in the end...

lust for life

You know you've been "eating healthy" for too long when you walk past a pile of cold, greasy, dirty french fries laying on the nasty ground of a parking lot...and for a brief, second you think, "YUM!"

gym happenings

I think I've hit my first weight-loss plateau. I haven't lost a single ounce in what seems like forever. I probably will need to increase the work-out, but man I already work out a lot. I certainly can't eat any less, I'm bordering on a prison diet as it is. Although, I guess I shouldn't really complain because I had a goal of so many pounds by my 30th birthday and I've already surpassed that. And I forgot my headphones today when I went to the gym. Not my iPod mind you, just the headphones...forty minutes seems infinitesimally longer when all you have to listen to is the heavy breathing of the lady next to you. AND my calves are still killing me from Monday...I'll probably pass a clot soon, calf pain is afterall a sign of deep vein thrombosis. So today, despite the power of the Supergirl underpants, I curse my good farming-stock Irish roots for denying me the waifish figure of my Korean ancestors. Although I can almost bench press two Nicole Ritchies, so that's something to be proud of I suppose.

the power of orange knickers

I had a GOOD day today. Work was good, I got a much needed confidence boost because I was doing things and the other techs' results matched mine. The eight hours didn't seem impossibly long. There was no traffic in or out of Seattle. I didn't get the crap scared out of me by random shady homeless people. And the people at work who I normally can do without were relatively nice to me. And I know why today, of all days, I had such a great frickin' day. I wore my Supergirl underpants for the first time. They gave me some mystical power to shift all the negative in my life in a positive direction. I think I'm going to have to go buy six more.

so right, it's wrong

Have you ever suspected something about somebody, something unpleasant? And you were sure you were right, even though you really hoped it wasn't true. So you never asked, never tried to confirm your suspicions. Because you knew that once the truth had been revealed, it would change things forever. But then somehow, under the strangest of circumstances, you find out you were right along. And for a brief second, you feel vindicated in thinking what you had because you weren't a bad person for harboring such negative ideas. But then the knowledge is out there and you see things in a new and bright light that burns your retinas and wish you hadn't learned the truth. Now it's too late, you know and your perceptions ARE different. Truth and knowledge are such complicated things, I still think I'd rather know everything than know nothing no matter how much it hurts...but indeed, occassionally ignorance is bliss.

talk the talk

Every place has a few phrases that are, if not unique then definitely more prevalent to that area. Southerners have that whole y'all thing going for them, midwesterners can't say caramel properly to save their lives, etc etc. Already, my vocabulary has been infiltrated by the phrases that people in the Pacific Northwest throw around. Everything is yummy, from crackers to creme brule, if it's even passably tasty, it's yummy. Expensive things are spendy, at first I thought it was just Jen and her friends that said that until I noticed that people at work were saying it too. When shit sucks, it's just not bad...it's bad-bad-bad because one to two bads just doesn't paint quite as vivid a picture. And when things don't go well, well it's a shame and it is a shame that I am such a vocabulary sell-out

tmi

Oh and by the way, my ASS and LEGS are killing me today STILL two days later. Oh the pain, the glorious pain.

best medicine

Holy christ on a popsicle stick, The 40 Year Old Virgin is HILARIOUS! Yeah sure, it has no redeeming social value and is about as fluffy as a marshmallow...but sometimes you just NEED to get yourself in the right frame of mind and then go watch something totally asinine and juvenile. And 40-Year Old is the ticket! Steve Carrell is the man, I've been a fan since The Daily Show but he definitely elevated himself to pedestal-worthy status when he stole every scene in Anchorman. The waxing scene alone covers the cost of admission. And I have had a total girl crush on Catherine Keener since Being John Malkovich. Well everybody, I hope you enjoy the holiday facetiously called Labor Day. I'm off to throw myself into a dormant volcano. Hell, since I'm a practicing virgin (and willingly about 92% of the time) I'm pretty sure the fiery gods nestled underneath Mt. Rainier will take me. But then again, considering my recent rejection track record...

c.o.d.

Well since Rehnquist is gone now too, I've decided to just cut out the middle man entirely and give the government my uterus and ovaries. I will clearly have no control over them any longer and a government that takes their sweet ass time responding to one of the worst natural disasters in recent history will get to make those decisions for me. I wonder if I should overnight the package? Do you think I can deduct the shipping when I do my taxes cause I'm pretty sure that they won't allow cash on delivery.

fall of rome

Hedonism is one of those things that sounds better in theory. In actuality, the time and energy required to recover from hedonistic tendencies takes away from the pleasure a little bit. Or maybe I'm just getting older and hangovers take a bigger toll than they used to.

straight-edge

Does anybody remember the Whoopi Goldberg movie Jumpin' Jack Flash? I heart that movie. I haven't seen it in years and I still quote it almost verbatim. Today this one kept running through my head:

"You see this face Earl? This is the face of a woman on the EDGE."
"I know, my wife has that same face."

I am definitely a woman on the edge and I so have that face. When the work day came to a close, I could barely keep myself from running out screaming and ripping out big chunks of my hair. I've discovered a whole new level of crazy these last few weeks. It won't be long before I start joining the suitcase man on the street in the morning. But one good thing to come out of all of this, the crazy brought forth the vision of my next tattoo, one I've been wanting for a while but not knowing what it would be. It's going to be amazing.

omen

Sometimes the world forces a bad day on you, even if you're trying your damnedest to make it not so. I even wore my optimistic scrub top, the one I plan to burn in effigy later. It has words like hope, love, charity, happiness, and peace emblazoned all over...but sadly today it was meant to be ironic.
So I get dropped off this morning and I'm walking to my dealer's place (aka Starbucks) and I see this guy crossing the street towards me. I'm thinking that it's still pretty dark outside and there's nobody on the street and this guy is looking pretty shady, wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled up over his face and his hands shoved deep in his pockets. But I'm trying not to jump to the wrong conclusions, even as I scan the roads for somebody else or a car nearby. I try to maintain my cool, walking the same pace as before as he's coming up towards me. I move over to the side of the sidewalk and I notice that's he's moving slowly towards the middle, which I find a little odd. Then I get within three feet of him, within grabbing distance, and his body does this thing in between a grand-mal seizure and a lunge towards me. So I stop dead in my tracks, eyes wide, ready to fucking scream and wondering what good that knife I keep for cutting my lunchtime apples is safely stowed in my bag. Then he says, "Sorry, I didn't see you." And at this point my wide-eyed fear turns to wide-eyed anger and I stare at him and walk away without saying anything because I know that mofo did that on purpose.
Then not even thirty minutes later, I go to the bathroom. Thanks to the anxiety produced anorexia and regular gym visits, none of my clothes fit anymore. There I was, pulling the tie on my scrub bottoms when it snaps right in two. Now, it would have been okay if I were half my size and could wrap the half-string around my waist...but alas that is so very much NOT the case. So I had to rig my pants so they would stay up and it was quite uncomfortable. It was like wearing clown pants with elastic on only one side, very not optimal for a long-long-long day at work.
And today, the full irony of finally meeting a straight guy and then him moving to San Francisco hit me. Ahhh, the irony in my life...always the irony, my constant companion.