backwards

It is one of life's interesting conundrums:

When you find that you need love, comfort and reassurance, you find it easier to push away the very people who can give you what you need.

quizlet

1. Do you know anyone in Prison?
Indeed.
2. Have you ever logged onto a bf/gf/crush's myspace page?
Yes, but only while typing in his password with him sitting next to me. Then I block the information from my memory so it can never be used illicitly.
3. When is the last time you ate peanut butter and jelly?
Last night for dinner. I really need to go grocery shopping.
5. Have you ever gotten naked at a party?
I'm pleading the fifth on that one...and pleading it at least four or five times.
6. Name someone you miss.
My Kentrucky friends!
7. Are you named after a grandparent?
No, but I have an aunt's middle name.
8. Who loves you?
Telly Savalas
9. Have you ever broken a rib?
Just at Tony Roma's
10. Would you rather be a girl or a guy?
I'd rather be a asexual amoeba. But then I'd need birth control for masturbation.
11. Who is the most spoiled person you know?
I dunno...I'm pretty sure my sister's expiration date is way far gone.
12. Would you rather have a million dollars or true love?
I'm gonna have to know what the compound interest rates are for both before I make that decision. Cause love ain't buying me a condo and a million bucks ain't gonna tell me I look beautiful when I wake up in the morning.
13. Have you ever had sex in church?
No way. That's just weird.
14. Is your boyfriend/girlfriend a Marine?
Oh no.
15. What would you describe your last relationship as:
A good life experience.
16. Would you rather date someone 2 years younger or older?
Two years is pretty irrelevant in either direction.
17. What's your favorite junk food?
French fries.
18. Do you have a porn collection?
I have a few things left over from a previous collection now apparently owned by the ex of my friend who has a midget fetish.
19. Is your birthday on a holiday?
No but it often falls on Veteran's Day weekend....which only gets you a day off if you work for the gubbment.
20. Are you old enough to vote?
I'll be old enough to run for president soon.
21. Do you have any friends or family in the war right now?
Yes, we are all affected by the war whether or not we are deployed there.
22. Are you a vegetarian?
Mwahhhh Hahahahahhaa...
23. Do you worry about global warming?
I worry about worrying...
24. Do you like polar bears?
Oh yes...medium well with a side of hollondaise.
25. What song do you want played at your funeral?
Fat Bottomed Girls
26. Did you lose your virginity to your neighbor?
No...
27. Did or do you think your childhood dreams will come true?
I had crazy dreams about flying and fairies and men without faces who would chase me through Paris. So...ummm....yeah.
28. Do you wear your boyfriend/girlfriends clothes?
He has some bikini briefs that I like to wear sometimes. They're leopard printed.
29. Are you a country or city girl/boy?
City slicker.
30.Are you taller than 5'6"?
Yes, considering my gene pool...I ended up on the winning end of the height lottery.
31. Do you consider yourself spoiled?
No, last time I smelled myself, it seemed like I was still drinkable.

harry and the hendersons

Went to Sasquatch for the first time this past weekend. Rather than a long drawn out post detailing the minutia of the weekend, like overflowing port-o-potties and gross ass "chicken" gyros, I'll just speed things up a bit with a five most memorable things list:

5. Watching seriously drunk people stumble over to our camp and make complete and total asses of themselves. Including a girl who tried to steal our chairs, then when told they weren't hers...tried to smash them. And the guy who was being hazed and apparently pulled down his pants to pee while splayed out on the ground and then started to hump the grass.

4. The GORGE! Now I see why it is considering the most beautiful venue in the U.S. It was gorgeous, even on Sunday when the cold and strong wind caused the people in charge to close down a couple of stages.

3. Ghostland Observatory. In my next life, I want to come back as a beautiful and androgynous Native American dude who may be the only person ever to get away with wearing the tightest pants I have ever seen.


Seriously, the look of confusion on some of the men's faces as they wondered where the tingly feelings in their tummies were coming from because of the guy on stage was priceless.

2. Hanging out with awesome friends. In a crowd of tens of thousands, it's always a great feeling when you run across your friends/family and get to hang out.

1. The most magical, gorgeous, pixie goddess of light and magic with the best act I have ever seen in my entire life...BJORK!


My god...it was quite possibly the most amazing experience I have had... EVER! I thought I was going to give birth to a big ball of joy during her set. I was enraptured and enthralled. She seriously could have gotten me to commit ritual suicide I was so wrapped up in her. I get shivers just thinking about it. That one set made the entire weekend worth it!!!

sasquatch

We went to Sasquatch Festival this weekend at the Gorge Ampitheater in eastern Washington. It was a good time. My coworker, with the same moniker incidentally, saw a lot of the same bands at Coachella that were playing at Sasquatch. She came back not very impressed. With that in mind I kept my expectations fairly minimal. But I thought there were a lot of really good bands. My personal favorites included Ghostland Observatory, who had the most amazingly beautiful lead singer in quite possibly the tightest pants I have ever seen. Electrolene was a really cool band made up of all women. Arcade Fire was really cool. And then there was Bjork. Oh Bjork, fairy goddess of light and magic. I think I had a religious experience during Bjork. She had me completely and utterly enraptured. Her show was AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL and EXHILERATING!!! That show alone made the time, money, and effort worth it. Then there was Sunday. It ended up a mellow day with high winds that shut down a few stages. The only band that really caught my attention was The Dandy Warhols. The Beastie Boys just didn't do it for me, I fell asleep. Camping and port-o-potties turned out to be not so bad. My camp and fellow campers were fun. I didn't spend too much money. All in all, a very good weekend.

electrocution

I need a jolt, a shock, a sudden burst of...(long drawn out dramatic pause)... something. I need a little excitement in my life, preferably veering in the more positive direction. The hum-drumminess is starting to get to me. I'm bored. And when I'm bored I get cranky. I'm like a toddler that way. I need to refocus my energy into something. Exercise got boring and I've got the fifteen recently gained pounds to prove it. People got boring and I've got the marginally rewarding relationships to prove that as well. What to do, what to do?

new news

Gosh, having been gone since January you would think I would have a veritable buffet of stuff to talk about. But ehhhhh...not really.
I guess the only big change for me has been that I moved out of my old crack-alley apartment and moved into the "hood" of Seattle. And by "hood" I really mean super-gentrified neighborhood where housing prices have rocketed through the roof and into the upper stratosphere and the original habitants are being swiftly kicked out and replaced by super bourgeois latte-swilling yuppsters who would never do the suburbs. I moved in with a friend and it's been a re-learning experience of why I'm just really not a very easy person to live with.
Other than that, things are pretty much the same. Still with the same boy, that's going well. Still at the same job, that's still tolerable though maybe less so now that I suspect they will be telling us we have to start working every other weekend again. Still have the best dog ever, a fact now confirmed by my roommate's dog who I believe has the puppy equivalent of both ADHD and autism. Still trucking along...

gone, not forgotten

After a many-monthed unexplained disappearance, I am really and truley back. My computer went into a long and unexpected hibernation due to an evil takeover bid by spyware. Luckily, in the end, they lost. But they did manage to accrue massive casualties, like all of the photographs I had on my harddrive, six years of memories lost. Ah well...what can you do? Other than learn how to properly use your backup harddrive...

champagne wishes and playa dreams

I had trouble sleeping last night, too much diet dr. pepper at work I guess. But when I did happen to cross paths with the Sandman, he led me down portals into playa dreamland. I had the most amazing Burningman dreams last night, not surprising since the season is starting to pick up. In part of it, I got hooked up with a person who I thought was Elvis Costello but turned out to be a powerful shaman who let us share campspace with them right off of the Esplanade. Sigh.

soulwax...the best show in seattle yet

How you know a show rules:

A. You sweat way more during the headlining set then you ever do spending several hours at the gym.
B. Some random guy tells you that you're the only girl in the joint who knows how to dance and you rocked out so hard that you actually believe him.
C. You jump up and down so much that you reminisce about your heydays of mosh-pit glory.
D. You forget you have a raging knee injury until after you leave and the throbbing throbbing pain returns on the walk home.
And most importantly...E. You have to pee really really badly the entire set (and after four beers) but the music is so good and you so very much don't want to leave that you spend an entire hour peeing in your pants a little bit and don't even fucking care.

contemplation

It's Friday night and I'm doing this, trying to resurrect some feeling of release. I could be out doing something right now, hanging out with friends or other people I hardly know, somehow convincing myself that becase I am outside of the four walls I call home, I have stumbled upon the magical "something" I'm supposed to be doing. But here in my living room, I have done something important. I've realized that I've let myself make split second decisions about the quality of a person based on a few couple-o-second interactions...probably less time than I would spend drunkenly ordering something at the Jack in the Box drive thru. In this particular case, I totally misjudged somebody, I'd given them no credit when they deserve mounds of it. And had I not found the thing that showed me that I was so wrong, I would have continued with my assumptions and never known that I had been around an amazing person several times. I'm a little sad about that.

mono

One Word Survey
You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.
Not as easy as you might think.

1. Where is your cell phone? table
2. Your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend? lost
3. Your hair? graying
4. Work? tedium
5. Your father? trying
6. Your favorite thing? naughty
7. Your dream last night? ambieny
8. Your favorite drink? coffee
9. Your dream car? pre-paid
10. The room you're in? living
11. Your pet? iniki
12. Your fears? disempowerent
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? living
14. Where did you hang out last night? home
15. What you're not good at? coping
16. Eyebrow rings on the opposite sex? juvenile
17. One of your wish list items? travel
18. Where you grew up? everywhere
19. The last thing you did? pooped
20. What are you wearing? jammies
21. what aren't you wearing? bra
22. The website you're on? duh
23. Your computer? broken
24. Your life? calm
25. Your mood? calm
26. Missing? devo
27. What are you thinking about right now? exercise
28. Your car? hooptie
29. Song? presets
30. Your summer? debaucherous
31. Your relationship status? deep
32. Your favorite color? blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
34. Last time you cried? yesterday
35. School? lew-ah-vaul

guilty pleasure

Everybody has a guilty pleasure. For some people it's a food item that they rarely allow themselves, usually some kind of dairy product like cheese or ice cream. For some it's shopping, buying something a little more expensive than you really should. Others prefer guilty pleasure television watching, Dancing with the Stars or America's Next Top Model. Not me though. For me...it's wearing maternity clothes. I love buying and wearing maternity clothes...I hang out in the mommy-to-be section at Target a lot. And I don't have some weird pregnancy obsession, as far as I'm concerned my uterus has been marked condemned for quite some time. Maternity clothes are just so darn comfy...

relationships

The roomie and I each have a dog and each of them are used to being top dog in the house. So now that we've brought the two together into one household, it has been incredibly interesting watching the plays for dominance and power work themselves out. Iniki is the older, seasoned dog with the skills to pay the bills and Atticus is the newbie, full of inexperienced and boundless energy. One minute the young grasshopper is the humper and the next thing you know the wise one is pumping some serious ass. The coolest part about it is how fucking honest and out in the open it is. No underhanded, passive-aggressive, scheming manipulations. It's not Survivor up in the this joint. It's just straight up, ultimate fighting style, victor takes the spoils. And not that I'm playing favorites or anything...but I think Iniki might have won the last few rounds.

conversation stopper

I walked past a pair of people having this conversation yesterday:

Her: He comes to your office sometimes...
Him: (Shrugs like he doesn't know what she's talking about)
Her: You know, the really dark one. The one that looks like he's really from Africa.
Him: Yeah, the real deal.

Seriously, I laughed out loud at them when they said that. I couldn't help myself. Are there real deal "dark" people? As if the ones we have here are fake? Effin-Aye, people are dumb.

dying for health

I've been having these weird allergic reactions since moving back to Seattle. Basically the reactions are caused by eating, then going outside to do some kind of physical activity like walking my puppy. Then for some inexplicable reason I start getting really itchy and break out in HUGE hives all over my body. There is no rhyme or reason as to why this keeps happening.
At first I thought I was allergic to hummus but it didn't happen every time I ate hummus, in fact it often DIDN'T happen when I ate hummus. Then it happened when I had a PB&J. Then it happened again when I had a chicken sandwich. The only commanality was the eating then doing something "active."
But yesterday I had the WORST episode I have ever had. I went to breakfast with the boy, we ate at Glo's, I had a ton of food and then to repent for my gluttonous behavior, I went to the gym. An hour later I started to feel a little itchy so I took a benadryl. Then on my walk from the car to the gym, about five blocks, my ENTIRE body breaks out in the biggest hives I've ever seen. MY!ENTIRE!BODY! My mouth and face started swelling for the first time and my tongue started swelling too.
That's when I got worried. If I collapsed on Capital Hill would all the hipster kids just walk by and take pictures of me on their cell phones to post on their myspace blog? Would the homeless guy on the corner of Summit and Olive be the one to give me mouth to mouth?
I drove home and stripped down only to find that all of the individual hives had merged into one giant hive colony that covered my body, I looked like I had elephantitis or something. It was GROSS! But after some more benadryl and an allergy pill, I got better, though my skin felt like it was crawling all night at work. Not fun.
So I did a little research. It seems that I have exercise induced anaphylaxia. Basically EIA is an allergic reaction with a triggering factor, often food or anti-inflammatory drugs. People eat or take ibuprofen or something, then they go exercise and their bodies have an allergic response.
It's totally random, you can do the same thing forty times and then the forty-first you'll have the reaction, then you can do it another forty times and nothing. The foods commonly associated with EIA are some fruits, wheat, cheese, chick peas...healthy shit.
So to wrap all this up...I mean seriously...how can I be allergic to something that's good for me like exercise? Can't I be allergic to chocolate and sitting on my ass all day? I swear, my body is like a fucking bear getting ready for hiberation. All it wants is to hoard and store fat and then be lazy.

oh my god!!!

The 7th and final Harry Potter book is coming out in July!!! That's the best news I've had all week.

interesting reading

I was messing around on the internet while I was waiting for my ebay auction to win and I found this article:

I was speaking with a patient in one of our outpatient programs last week. He excitedly told me that he was on his way to a psychiatric hospital right after our meeting.
I was puzzled until he added that he was going there for a job interview. He's about to complete a mental health counseling degree at a community college. Immediately, I was struck by the extraordinary progress he has made — from being virtually overwhelmed by his schizophrenia to living very effectively with this disease.
I first met this man over 10 years ago during a series of psychiatric hospitalizations for severe psychotic symptoms associated with his schizophrenia. He was tortured by what seemed to be the voice of God saying terrible things to him.
His auditory hallucinations drowned out the daily life around him and he was overwhelmed with bizarre and frightening delusional thoughts. At times, he wanted to end his life to escape the pain of these incessant unreal experiences.
His psychotic experiences seemed so real that he could not accept the fact that he had a psychiatric disorder — and thus he saw no reason to take any medications. Usually, once in the hospital he would take medications, hoping to be discharged sooner; it often worked because his symptoms did improve. Once back home, however, he would discard his prescriptions and stop taking his medications. Before long, he'd be back in the hospital as the psychotic symptoms became more pronounced.
I'm not sure what helped him turn the corner to taking his medications regularly and staying out of the hospital for longer periods of time. It has been many years now since his last psychiatric admission. Perhaps it was a combination of maturity, faith, support from his wife, education, intensive involvement with the outpatient mental health program, and the right combination of medicines. I suspect all were important to him.
In fact, he was functioning so well that I assumed his symptoms were gone. When I asked him about auditory hallucinations, I was surprised when he responded that he continued to experience the demonic voices.
What was different now was that he had learned to differentiate what was real from what was a symptom of his illness. His schizophrenia wasn't cured, but it was under control. That's like having diabetes — the disease is never cured, but it can be managed with education, support from family and friends, effective outpatient treatment, lifestyle changes, and adherence to medications.

But the most interesting part was the comment following the article:

I came across this and thought I would post a comment. Demonic oppression is real, although in our culture it isn't fashionable to believe that God/demons/the devil are real. I suggest your friend read the gospels:Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Jesus dealt with many who were harrassed by demons. Often, someone, whether the individual or their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents, have opened themselves up for demonic attack through occult practices, ouji board games, astral projection, etc. The good news is, there is hope. Jesus came to destroy the work of the devil. The key is repentence, turning away from our own ways, and turning to Jesus. I have personally seen many people set free of demonic oppression. Any born-again, Spirit-filled church should be able to help your friend. Jesus came to give believers back the authority that Adam and Eve lost in the garden. That authority was surrendered to the devil, and only those that understand their authority in Jesus, and truly know Him, can effectively deal with demonic activity. Often, unforgiveness and bitterness are the open doors for this kind of oppression. Jesus taught that unless we forgive others, we will not receive God's forgiveness. In the same way we forgive, we will be forgiven. Often the problem comes through dishonoring one's parents and rebelling. I am not saying that every demonic oppression is the result of sin in one's own life, or one's direct lineage; sometimes it is just the effect of our fallen world. Music is also important. When Saul [in the Bible] found himself tormented by demons (because of his disobedience) a young [soon to be king] David played worship music to God, and the demons ceased to bother Saul when the music played. Although drugs may seem to help, they really only mask the problem--the root is still undealt with. The Greek word for drugs is the word we get pharmeceuticals from. It is also the Greek word for "sorcery" (ie. witchcraft). The literal meaning is "mind-benders". Drugs do not stop pain, they merely mask its effect. Anyway, hoping that you will forward this to your freind, and that he finds it helpful. Have a good day.
WOW!

it's the end of the world as we know it...

I've decided to start taking the stairs more often. Mostly because my body has gotten all paranoid and survivalist and decided to turn itself into a self-contained flotation device, complete with inflatable wings and big old inflatable swimming ring. In other words, I am losing the battle of the bulge and that has nothing to do with WWII. But to get back on track...
So I started taking the stairs and yesterday I took the stairs at work. Just to give a little backstory, I work in a hospital in the basement. And not just your standard basement...I work in the third basement, there are two levels of basement above me. I LITERALLY work in the bowels of hell. Anyway, I take the stairs down to the third level of beezlebub's lair and I noticed something I'd never noticed before. There were a bunch of signs pointing out that my little slice of pergatory is also the nuclear fallout shelter.
YEAH! What that means is that when the end comes, the good news is that I have a pretty good chance of surviving. The bad news is, it'll be up to me and my coworkers to repopulate the planet. And all things considered, this means the make-up of the next generation of mankind will be composed of the following: A. short, B. pudgy, C. balding, D. neurotic, E. anal retentive, F. snarky, and G. REALLY into bad reality television. (Of the above, I consider myself b,d,e, & f).

soul-sucking tv land

I don't know how it happened. No wait, scratch that...I actually know EXACTLY how it happened. It was on the way back from Hawaii, I was not in the most positive of spaces and ended up watching the in-flight entertainment and one of the shows they played was Heroes. I had heard a lot about the show, anybody with even the slightest trace of fan-boy geekiness in them has heard of this show. For god's sake...it's a show about genetic mutations that lead to superpowers. I know, I know...some people hate it because it's a rip-off of X-men...I've rationalized that whole thing by deciding that it's more of an homage (which is way more forgivable). All it took was one show and the next thing I knew I was sitting in front of the computer watching episode after episode on youtube and wherever else I could find the other thirteen episodes I hadn't seen yet. My personal record for marathon viewing clocked in at five episodes in one night. Now I rush home Monday nights to watch the show on the DVR that came with the satellite tv service. It's hard to not be a television zombie when you have a ridiculous amount of stations at your disposal...but I've tried to be diligent about not watching the boob tube. Except for Heroes...I'm hooked.

icky sicky

I started getting a little sick on Wednesday. I used to have a great immune system but no matter how great, it's practically impossible to stand constant vigil against sickness when you are dating somebody who can catch a cold from a fire. I initially thought it was a cold and that it would pass fairly quickly, I joked about the severity of my sickness with others...maybe that was my ultimate karmic downfall. Because come Friday, as I lay on Devin's couch watching season 3 of The L Word, I started to feel much worse. Then I fell asleep and into one of the most hallucinatory fevers I've ever had. I woke up at the peak of my fever and was fully convinced that I had somehow been transplanted into a jungle. I don't even quite recall how I ended up in the bathroom but I remember trying to find my machete. Eventually I went to the ER, not because I thought I needed to be hospitalized...mostly because I needed to get a doctor's note for missing so much work and them's the breaks when you get sick on a Friday night. As it turned out I had a trifecta of disease: A.a viral upper respiratory infection with bronchitis, B. a sinus infection, and C. the flu. YEAH! If you're going to do it, do it all the way. They gave me some intravenous fluids for dehydration, with a pinch of a steroid, an anti-inflammatory, and an antibiotic. Then they gave me oral antibiotics, motrin, and vicodin. I'm not really sure what they are treating since viral infections can actually worsen with antibiotic use, but at least I got the vicodin so that I don't have to think about it very much.