clean sweep

you ever slipped and fell?

hit your ass on the ground SO hard that the wind just gets knocked out of you?

it's been one of those kind of weeks. i'm at the point where everything makes me cry because i am feeling quite hope-less.

but at the same time, i feel a sense of hope that perhaps is just tempered by it being different than the hope i had before.

i think that this is a turning point. a hard point, but a turning point.

to sum up: i've been having health issues for a bit now, mainly "female" issues that will hopefully be addressed on tuesday when i see the doctor. needless to say it's a bit stressful, as a woman, to just know that something isn't right, but not be able to point at it and say, that's the problem. it's internal. it's icky. that's enough.

my uncle is in the hospital, after suffering strokes again. they don't think it's anything right now but a matter of time. it's hard to think of my dad and his brothers minus number 3, but i know that jed would never want to live unless it was a life he wanted to live, and i know his brothers know that. it just is downright depressing--he's suffered through enough in life that death should not be this horrible hurdle, this pain-filled departure. and in the same breath, it's a release, and sometimes, growth is painful.

case in point: my stress number three: thursday dan had pretty much hit the low point in his life. or maybe this year. who knows. at any rate, there were lots of tears and sobbing involved, and it became something more, something that bared emotions and pared them down to the minimum: he needs help. i need help. we need help.

what was once an emotionally healthy relationship is not that any more. it's stemming from so many things, so many different items, that i can't put into words what they are. it's too much. we're both resenting each other, resenting where we are in life, and worst of all: blaming.

i never wanted it to be like this. i didn't realize that it had gotten so awful, for him. or for me, i suppose. i know that life doesn't hand you happiness on a platter; it's just not like that. but it shouldn't be like this either.

we both agree that we want to try. we want things to work. we have issues with trust, but we are both willing to see a counselor and see if there is a hope. i still love dan. i always will; he's a part of my soul, someone who inspires me and makes me want to do better. the problem is, we're both in the same rut--careers are not what we thought we were going to do, which dribbles over into life being not what we wanted. and then it's back to resenting the other person. mindless, endless loop.

i pray that something good can come of this, that perhaps we can take what we started with and make it into something good again, something healthy and something worth being a part of.

i'm very good at sweeping things under the rug. if i don't like where life is going, i hide. i stick my head in the sand and just wait until i think it's "over." in reality, it doesn't work that way. things happen, people interact, and words are spoken. and with or without you, life moves on.

i think that for a long time i've mistaken my own apathy for patience, and my own depression for someone else's. you often see what you want to see, and hear what you want to hear, whether that's good or bad. i thought that things were going along just fine; i could see that dan was depressed, and thought that i was being patient. in reality, we were both depressed, and i was once again being apathetic--if i wait long enough, it will pass.

but it doesn't. it doesn't ever pass. it comes back. it's karma, it's wishful thinking, it's whatever you want to call it. but it won't go away just by wishing it so. when dan said that he would accept help, i was tearily overjoyed. i was so glad, so glad, so glad--because part of me was thinking that was the only way i could ask for help, if he was going to as well.

in retrospect, it's a curious chain of events that leads you to the point we are at, the impasse that we have been at for years, or months, or days. i just am clinging right now to the hope of all hopes that perhaps we have a chance. is it possible that us, that dan and kim, could be over? do i want it to be? no, i don't. of all people i have met, dan is the one who makes me laugh, makes me smile, and understands me the best. he's like a peice of my own soul.

when i think about it, as a whole, i am so overwhelmed that i cannot see straight. i can't deal with all of it. and that's when my head wants to get popped into the ground. that's when i want to hide. usually, it is when i hide. i take myself into the ground, i bury myself in earth, i remove myself from existence because i have this mistaken belief that i am either not worth as much as i am, and that the world can get on just fine without me, or that when i open my eyes and snow white myself awake, the world will have changed and my prince charming, the one i knew when i was awake before, will be miraculously happy.

today i'm going to go over to tish's house for a night of wine and wise, witty women. i'm going to put my head in the sand about a few issues--just to get to tomorrow, and to get to the day after that, and the day after that, when maybe, just maybe, i can ask for help--and days after that when i can get the help i think i might need. maybe find the help that dan and i need.

so send some good energy this way. i'm not as hard up as others, but i'll take whatever is sent. (:

612 pm at work...

still at work. why, you ask? because modem is dead at home and i'm trying to keep up on bills and email in the interim. dan emailed today from the library to let folks know we were down; i'm sure he's disgruntled as the internet is a HUGE source of jobhunting for him.

so dad's out of the hospital as of last night. we got to the hospital at 11; he went in at 12 for surgery, and was out by 115 or so. in recovery for a bit and then we sat around giggling in his recovery room until about 4. home by 415. all in all, quick and easy. he's off this week, and then has only 2 weeks of work left before the big r: RETIREMENT. he's glad it's a short time, but i think mom is more glad. less stress equals happy family. it's going to be SO weird not to have to worry about dad being on call, missing holidays and family events, having time do just enjoy life. i'm so glad for him i could cry right here at my desk.

in other news, my uncle jed is stabilized. he went in last week w/ mini strokes. the man has no luck, but he has a support system that is awe-inspiring. people are praying for him, visiting him in hospital, doing what they can to keep us apprised of the situation (he's in CA and family is in MN). dad and i actually setup a website on sunday night for him at The Caringbridge. VERY simple and just for folks going through health issues, so that we can update as needed.

that is the last thing i need to do tonight before heading home. i'm tired, it's sunny out and i need to get into my car and head out, but i really want to check and see if there are any other updates. i gave dad a tutorial on how to post, and wrote up directions he can email to family and friends who have updates to post as needed, but i want to make sure that people are checking it. yesterday alone we had about 20 hits!!! which is cool. if anyone feels a need to check it out, drop me a msg and i'll email you the site addy. (:

i'm outtie--see ya'll later. (:

cats, light sabres, and paintball, oh my!

so my cat should be drawn and quartered. here's why.

friday we got the car packed and drove up to free beer weekend, mikey's offering of free beer, turkey, and a place to pop your tent. it's about a 2.5 hour drive, give or take with road construction. had lots of fun friday, ate the owens' wedding reception leftovers, which were quite tasty, and sat around the fire until quite late drinking the proffered free beer. the beer in question was mikey's home brew, and while lacking in carbonation, was quite tasty all the same.

there was talk of bears, wolves, and deer--none of which but the bear were scary sounding, as it sounds as though they're just not too afraid of humans. eep. so friday we go to bed (in the tent! yay! i love my tent!) nice and toasty warm under the new sleeping bags, and comfy on the air mattress. i can't sleep because i keep having to pee because of the beer. yay beer. and the later it gets, the more paranoid and overtired i get about the freaking bear.

i think i got up about six or seven times to pee. dan should be sainted because i kept waking him up to make sure there was no bear. and all through the night, no bear. i HATE outhouses. outhouses in the dark: fifty times worse. you laugh. i weep. (;

so we all are up and off the land by 830 or so to grab breakfast at the buckthorn in gordon proper (which is about 3 miles east of the cabin, has the greasiest breakfast ever, but is cheap and very appetizing...go figure). after breakfast everyone suits up (which takes about an hour) and by 11 we're all running through 5 acres of land with paintball guns.

that was quite theraputic. and warm. the players in this group keep their guns turned up so that it will leave a welt if you get hit. for the most part, that means lots of padding. cathy even wore a type of body armor vest. i just didn't care. i figured, if you're getting shot you should have it hurt. so i wore jeans and a t-shirt, and over that a thick fleece jacket, which eventually got traded out for a camo jacket. despite the fact that at the moment i can't afford a gun for myself, or camo wear, and borrowed a mask as well (thank heavens, because i got pegged twice in the mask!), and add to that that i didn't hit ANYONE but a plastic bottle, and the fact that my borrowed gun kept bursting paintballs when they were chambered and had to be cleaned out not once, not twice, but three times...i had a literal and figurative blast. can't wait to try my luck again. i'm hoping that by next year i will maybe be able to afford my own gear, instead of borrowing. but you never know. those guys all have way too much gear for one person to use anyway. so we'll see.

like i said, i only got hit twice, in the facemask. then i got hit once in the left boob, and once on the hand; neither left a mark. dan's got a couple welts on his arm, but nothing horrible, and nothing life-threatening. none of the ones that hit me broke open except for the ones on my mask. paintballs are water soluble, and apparently just break down when it rains, so the fact that the forest was decorated with sprays of orange, green, smurfy blue--not a problem. especially with the amount of rain we've been getting lately.

anyway. why is my cat going to die. let's get back to this.

so we showered, not at chrissy and mike's cabin, that's an outdoor and mikey didn't want to have to get it going and cleaned out, but at some free beer weekend folks' place down the road. quite possibly the smallest shower i have ever been in. but a shower all the same. it felt good to get rid of the deet and sweat, and check for ticks. i think i found a total of three wandering around, and then when we got back from showering, a teeny tiny one on my right hand that was determined to be one of the "bad" ticks--the lyme disease carrying fellas. once they start feeding you have to get them to back out--usually the only thing that works is a match. you light the match and blow it out, hold it to their hiney and they freak out and move back. of course, no one had a match (yes, camping without matches--everyone has lighters of some type; mikey was using a propane torch.) so darin picks up the torch and says something about me doing it. i was like, you have GOT to be kidding. so we find a little stick and he holds the torch and i try to get this pin-sized bug to back out. of course the stick, just smoldering and not even burning, just killed it--it was too tiny, and the stick was too big.

at the same time, darin's focused on the tick, and all of a sudden i realize that my other hand it hurting--because the propane torch is burning it. luckily we got it moved in time, and nothing serious happened. i have a small divot on my right hand, where the end of the stick was pushed on the teeny tick and burned not only the tick but also my hand. yay hand.

free beer weekend always has a fried turkey, too--which are amazing, if you ever have the chance to taste one. the oil locks in the turkey, so it's almost like it's steamed on the inside. so tender...and probably horrible for me. but at that point i'd had beer, and too many cookies to count, etc. so free beer weekend was definitely not fat free. but what can you do, other than starve? *sigh*

thunderstorms were supposed to move in last night up by gordon, and no one who was tent camping want to be there for them. so corpse, darin and cathy, and dan and i packed up the tents. eero was sleeping in his jeep and also decided to head home. by about 415 we were on the road, and made it home by 7. got almost everything put away right off the bat--food and supplies, mainly. still have to unpack the duffels but that's not as pressing as getting the cheese cooled. (;

dan slept for a while in the car, driving home. i ended up napping around 8 or so. then at 915 darin, cathy and corpse showed up and we went to the 950 showing of the latest installment in star wars...star wars: revenge of the sith.

it's first of all a foregone conclusion that anakin ends up being darth vader, and that the jedi go into exile. you already know that anakin's wife, padme, is going to have two kids, luke and leia. you're supposed to want to see the film to see the downfall. of the three prequel films, this was the best. but that's not saying much because the first two were schlock in my opinion, and the third was just a bit darker but still schlock. hayden christenson and natalie portman had better chemistry when they were offscreen from each other thinking about each other than they did when they were both in the same room. gag me with a spoon. the emperor, darth sidious, had horrible makeup. they spent a fortune on effects, and we end up with the emperor looking like a cross between whorf from star trek and bram stoker's dracula, as imagined by francis ford coppola. either was better defined and more believable than the dude on screen portraying the baddest of the baddies.

the other bothersome bit was anakin's downfall. it just didn't fit. the whine factor was so far off the screen that i could feel my teeth shaking. he's not an intelligent bad guy, and you can definitely see where luke gets his genetic innate whine. but it doesn't make for good movie making. you don't care enough about the good guy before he turns bad--you just want to laugh and tell him to suck it up. the final light sabre duel between obi-wan and darth vader goes on far too long, and is so fantastic that i dozed off.

could have been the drive or the lack of sleep the previous night. not sure. could have been the movie, too. i'm going to blame it on georgie lucas' horribly written dialogue and action scenes that were just plain old ridiculous. have ONE battle, in ONE place, and call it a day.

oh! oh! oh! and darth vader's helmet. i just about burst out laughing when the put the whole thing on--it was a nice sequence and all, but when the helmet actually got put on, there was a small thump, as if air was compressed out of the area between helmet and skull. it sounded for all the world like tupperware, and all i could think was, did they burp the air out of his helmet. and secondly, was that whole suit manufactured by rubbermaid? cause it would explain a lot...

so after the movie we went to perkins to discuss. home by 2 and in bed shortly thereafter, sleeping happily under covers and in the same building as FLUSH TOILET. it's the little things, really...

at some point in the night the door closes. i think i closed it because shiva was being such a pest. this is around 7, i think. dan hears her scratching and whining and lets her back in. she doesn't bother him; only me. i keep pushing her away, but it was a losing battle. the door had shut again, this time because we had the window open and i'm sure the pressure just pulled it shut. at any rate, she was trapped in the room with us, and hungry to boot--so i woke up by degrees for two hours--too tired to get up and just shut her out of the room, or give her the half a tin of wet food she wanted. (i'm not starving my cat, trust me. she's just a bitch about getting the wet food in addition to the dry food in the a.m.)

thus i am awake. unhappily watching my cat, now stuffed on ill-gotten iams turkey and giblets, watch the birds outside on the patio with unconcealed glee.

i should go shower. dad's having surgery tomorrow and i've got the day off, so i might drive up and see if mom wants company tomorrow, or help getting him home. but i'm not driving up until much later, because i'm sure that after i shower and eat lunch, i'm going to want a nap.

the quickest blog ever

this has to be under five sentences. had a great weekend, wore pink and black striped shirt AND a big pink flower in my hair, wedding was lovely, reception was laid back and relaxing, and sunday we watched shaun of the dead before hitting caribou and dropping serena at the airport. so lots of fun compressed into little time! next weekend we're in gordon wi for free beer weekend, camping and all that fun stuff. and i'm on line five so i'm off to work!!!

the fashionista speaketh

so she's not speaking much, but we were on the topic of wedding wear tonight. d and c informed the guests at large that it was casual. but i just cannot see wearing casual wear to a wedding in which the bride and groom are not going to be casually dressed. it just goes against every grain of my inner diva.

i WANT to shop for some strappy shoes. i WANT to get gussied up and flit around, looking nice. and i definitely WANT to look my best because fifteen years from now when we look back in photo format, i do NOT want to look crappy. i don't want to be wearing jeans that make my ass look huge. i don't want to wear shoes that are sloppy. if there's one area of my life in which i enjoy to excercise control, it's my clothing.

the rest of it...meh. whatever. i can live with a dirty house, with cat that poops outside the litterbox, with my bed on the floor. these are all transitory.

but clothing...clothing makes the person.

i had this totally zen moment yesterday at the grocery store. i guess it was actually monday. close enough. anyway. i'm standing in line and the lady in front of me reaches over to take the receipt from the cashier. in the bend of the cashier's arm, i see a scar.

not a big one. nothing life threatening. but a good two inch long, half inch wide scar. the cashier is blonde, and has slightly tanned skin, but the scar is lighter. not new, an old scar. the memory of something that was painful.

it makes me think of flesh, and how transitory it all is. in the end--you become bones, you go back to the earth, you become earth. the flesh and all its memories and sensations, the marvel of nerves knitted together and functioning--this is all forgotten.

that scar stood out to me. it's all passing. it's all a memory, either waiting to be had, or happening now, or already done. printed, set, finished.

all the way out to the car i thought about that scar. today, while we were discussing the merits of wearing clothing and the different levels of clothing, i thought about that scar--about how it would fade, in time. about how the girl whose arm crooked around it--how she probably could go for days without thinking about that scar and how it formed. it becomes a part of you that is so close you cannot see it.

clothing is transitory too. in the end it all falls apart and you're left standing naked. hopefully in a place that cherishes your nudity, and not in a job interview or somesuch that requires a sense of decency. gravity shreds cotton.

i think about the clothing i have. i think about the scars i have. the memories we attach to bodies and the adornments we put on these bodies. i remember the people who go before me--the bog man, the entombed, the people whose living relatives, whose future, packed them into earth with bits and peices of the lives they lead.

are we so attached to materials? i know that i can be. i enjoy them because they remind me of something i cannot quite put words around: immortality. memories are carried and made immortal only by the people who hold them. once you are gone, those immortal memories are gone too, just like the flesh.

but clothing lives on.

upstairs i have my grandfather's belt. it's a story in and of itself--if i remember correctly he did the tooling in the leather, and it's punched over and over by his awl. you can see when he made it, the size of his waist. and then by the time he passed away, how narrow his hips had become. after i'm gone, the memories of why it's punched so many times will also be gone. i can't write down enough on the back of a belt to sum up the soul i have attached to that long strip of leather.

which makes my grandpa and myself and my memories of him--transitory. passing. a breath in time. someone will use that belt in the future and think of it as theirs. they will give it new memories. eventually it will go back to earth too. but it's life will be a bit longer than mine, it's history more varied.

and makes that belt immortal.

so. in that vein. that makes what i wear on saturday quite relevant.

rain drops keep falling on my house

just when yesterday gave me hope that it'd be sunny and bright today, it's raining and wep. the upside is that it's sooooooooooooooo green. which is lovely.

last night was fun--dan's games are always fun. the only downside was that we'd stopped on the way over at dq for dinner--and the grease gave me intestinal distress. note to self: no more fast food. oy.

i had this weird dream this morning about my sister beth. i dreamed she took off to go somewhere, and we were all worried and couldn't reach her by phone. so my sister sbw and i got in the car w/ dad and started driving north. (god only knows where we were--it was nowhere familiar.) about halfway to wherever we thought we were going, dad turned into some other man i didn't know, and insisted that we pull the car over and wait out the traffic. we ended up in this place right next to the highway that had this little hill that was supposed to have been something to someone at some time--maybe like an indian mound or something. it was a dream, okay? (; i climbed the path to the top and looked out over the freeway, and across 4 lanes of traffic, in the ditch going south, there was beth. i yelled until my lungs ached and she looked over, grabbed a bag out of the car, and ran over. she was so surprised to see us there--as if we would have left her behind--and sara, too. the man who wasn't dad turned into dad again and then we had to go through this house and empty it out. i woke up at one point because the phone was ringing, and went back to the dream to finish it--my uncle jed was telling me that i had to turn off this television but i couldn't figure out how, and then mom came in and just unplugged it. i woke up then and came downstairs, only to find that the ringing phone of a few minutes before was none other than my sister beth. weird.

so today nothing much is on the docket. i have to find out how much my car will cost to get the brake pads fixed (bianca's in the shop now) and then go retrieve it. d and c were supposed to call if they needed help w/ stuff at the house today; i know they had things planned for outside but w/ the rain...who knows. we need to clean up the house in prep for serena's visit next weekend too. so we'll see. there are things to be done. but perhaps this weekend will be from inside the house, where there's no rain. (;

at this moment

i should be showered, i should be primped and i should be heading out the door. but in typical kim fashion, it's 826 and i'm in my pajamas sitting downstairs typing in my blog. i'm going to be late for work and i just. don't. care. hee hee hee.

was up late last night finishing charlaine harris' newest, dead as a doornail--which rocked! loved it. need to read them all again because they're just so nice and vampy. yummy books. then i ditzed round w/ dan on world of warcrack for a while, chatted w/ serena, and then read a few chapters of georgette heyers' the masqueraders before falling asleep. there was some poem writing in there too--i'll have to share it eventually because i really liked what i'd written last night. course the light of day may extinguish that. you never know.

today looks like it's going to be nice, too. the grass is all green and the sky's a happy blue. i'm practicing that buddhist ideal of living in the present--trying to not consider too much yesterday or today or tomorrow, but instead, just right now. but i think i better consider it from inside the shower stall. late might be my middle name but a paycheck's nice too. (;

action/inaction

i have this obsession with fear. you could call me a fraidy-cat. i know that in the end, things will work out. but in the interim, while waiting, i get nervous. i quake internally. i shut down.

it's usually not the something i can put my finger on; it's something i cannot locate. yesterday, when dan asked me what i wanted to do, i wanted to watch a movie. that is the epitome of inaction for me--sitting and watching. but i could think of nothing else i wanted to do. everything seems insurmountable right now--putting away clothing is too large a job to complete, cleaning the grill is mt everest. i have to get these things done. i need to pay rent. i need to DO something, some chore that will wake up the sleeping inner dragon and make me move.

i often feel like the deer in headlights. something shines over me, some unnameable or even familiar fear, and i freeze. i wait for it to pass and shine on some other tree, some other beastie, because once i'm in the dark again, i'm safe. it's just that those seconds stretch on for me into far too much time. inaction becomes a way of life, i adapt and it's okay to not do anything.

which goes against the grain of my existence. my mom never sits down unless she is done with everything; i have the same drive to finish things before i rest, but i'm at this point where i feel as if i will never be done with anything. so why bother? i don't have the equipment together to climb the mountain, so i better just stay at base camp.

it's not something anyone else can change, either. it's something i have to change. i've done it before. it's like dragging a car out of a coke can--you just keep pulling and pulling and then the fear is in the light of day and it's not as awful as i imagine it is, and i can handle it, and i can move again.

so don't mind me at the moment. i'm just trying to de-hibernate. melt. thaw. once the light moves on, i'll be fine. my house will be clean, my life will be un-stuck; just give me the gift of time.

gainful employment

dan said to me yeterday that he wished he was "gainfully employed." i understand this issue because he's been looking for a long time and being more and more frustrated by what he's found--about zip, right now. i'm a practical person by nature; i would rather work at a job i dislike than go without funds for bill paying, food purchasing, book buying, etc. but lately i can see his point.

my dad's been gainfully employed for 30 plus years of his life with the same company. what has he gained? a house, a truck, retirement eventually, part of all of his childrens' college educations, funds for my sister's wedding. every payroll he STILL puts a dollar into an account for all four of us kids. the man is my epitome of a good man, and i'm SO blessed to have such a loyal and patient man as my father.

but then turn the tables. what has he lost, what has he sacrified for this company, in order to remain "gainfully employed." he lost a lot of time being my dad. he lost time being my mom's husband. he gained stress that added to his heart disease and eventually pushed him over the edge and into 6 bypasses, and a change of life involving exercise and diet that was, in a word, radical. i remember when mom turned 50 dad got her a snowmobile suit. they don't snowmobile. he got it for her because she's always cold, and he inevitably was away at school in canton, oh, during every massive blizzard we ever had.

i just got an email this morning from dad. they've changed his schedule again; now he's supposed to have weds and thursday off, instead of his normal sat/sun or sun/mon. recently his schedule was "revised" due to the doctor's note requiring him to work no more than 50 hours a week--his new schedule is 11-8 monday thru saturday. it's ridiculous for a man who's up at 5 and feels the day is "wasted" if you haven't done anything by 8 am. it's hard to change this many years of habit. so he's already stressed about that. my mother apparently has had enough. she wrote a scathing (for my mother, it's scathing) letter to dad's immediate boss at work, one that hopefully will change something. dad's retiring at the end of june, and it's not a moment too soon, but maybe, just maybe, they'll see that they need to accomodate their employees.

who wants to be gainfully employed like that? no one i know. i feel lucky to have the job i do--i dislike it a great deal of the time, but when i think about dad's job, and how they've yanked his chain over the years--it makes me sick. dad was raised in a time when you stayed with a company for your whole life, when they cared for you when you retired, and where you were loyal beyond a thought.

times have changed; dad's morals have not. he is still the patriot who risked all in vietnam. he is still the dad who wept at my sister's wedding. he is still the husband who is proud to be with his wife. he is still the loyal employee who doesn't look for recognition or accolades at work, just wants to be appreciated enough to have his views and his needs be taken into account. he smiles when he could be frowning, plods forward when he could allow life to drag him down.

i always think about how my childhood would have been different, if he'd been a dad who came home every night before we went to bed, and if he hadn't been gone for a few months of the year training, and if he hadn't been on call every other weekend. when i was a kid we always took two cars everywhere, not because we couldn't fit in one, but because at any given time, dad might have to leave.

gainfully employed. i think about those words, roll them over a few times, and shove them out the door. employed is what most people are. gainful employment implies that you are getting something out of it other than a paycheck. for most of the world, that's just not true. you muddle through and you dislike your job, you pay the bills and fund your retirement, you buy your own coffin. along the way, at some point, dad had to have decided that the sacrifice he made for his company, to be employed, was gaining him something. i am sure and certain that dad saw putting food on the table and roof over our heads as more important than anything in the world, a gain that cannot be measured.

i just wish that he hadn't felt he had to do that.

a day off...

today i don't have to go in to work. which is good because i'm being walloped by allergies and coupled with the blood pressure tablets, i'm woozy. yay, pills. also yay, fisherman's friend cough drops. if you've never had one, you have no idea of what you're missing--they're awful, but they do twice the job of halls and actually alleviate some of the pressure in your sinuses without the loads of sugar.

anyway, i have to get ready--tony and cari are on their way down for a stopover with dan and i prior to jumping a plane to st maarten for the next week. i'm very excited to see cari (and tony), as i haven't seen either of them in at least a good two months. they need to be at the airport by 330. then tonight we're gaming over here, which is not in honor of dan's bday but just so happens to fit perfectly. tomorrow is cathy's wedding shower, and then sunday is a day of rest before next week starts all over again.

i found this in my inbox; forgot i'd even written it. it's from april 6th, and apparently i was having a foggy comprehension day at work. i write a lot of poems at work, mainly to escape the drudge but also because inspiration strikes at odd times. today i'm missing the Big Meeting, during which i'm sure bombs will be dropped and hopefully confronted. they're actually turning off the phones for this one, so the whole team can get together. i don't know if our supe eavesdropped on the online chat we all had going, or if he just overheard the dissension in the ranks, but for this job, turning off the phones is HUGE. it's just plain old unheard of. but i sure as hell am not driving up for an hour when i could be lunching w/ cari!

anyway here's the poem:

they ask
is your head
in the clouds?
no, the forecast for today
is fog
fingers wrapping me
some peices of skin are so
clear
i can see pores while others
drift
i think of that day we drove
through denver; dad wanted to climb
pike's peak
but it was partially swathed
the trees at its base so vivid
the top, hidden.
***
maybe i'm camoflaged so well
you can't see me
hiding in plain sight
i'm not even trying
my my said the big bad wolf
you didn't notice me
in my dress

speaking in tongues

for two days
we've spoken
you in icelandic
me in whatever language they use
in morocco
two days of me not comprehending
you
frustrated by my inability
to translate
i curl in
on myself i wonder how deep down
i can go
before i hear your gutteral whispers
and they finally make sense
to these ears.

***

it's like the sun
hiding behind
clouds manufactured by disney
puffy and soft
i know when it is revealed
the slow sink into blue
i'll be blinded
but for now i picture it round
like a giant pillow, rays pointed
little triangles along the radius
one of those drawn
with your left hand
when you're five.
suddenly
i understand--

***

pass me my sunglasses
i can hear every word you say
all the syllables, grinding bright
against my cornea
i blink
hard
trying to shut out the noise
songs being sung in tongues
i don't recognize
am i buddha cool
in my shades,
burned by nouns--
i have to admit
i'm basking
in the verbage,
yours and mine.

again

once upon a time there was this girl who didn't sleep well on sundays. she tried and tried but it was just a flop. every sunday she had to be coaxed into bed. and this sunday in particular she just could not sleep, despite being groggy already and toasty warm. she had to fight with her significant other because he thinks, nay, knows that his life is over at the age of 29, because the dreams he had for himself are not coming to fruition.

now this girl's a dreamer. she dreams all the time about coulda, shoulda, woulda, and sometimes even dreams with glass slippers and knights, just for spice. but she never would think of her life as over. ever. she has too much to live for--family, friends, the next book that comes out, the next thunderstorm, her cat. you name it. last night she wanted to give up, because if all you're living for is a goal, then what is the point of the journey?

anyway last night this girl dreamed that she was living in an apartment building, and that her cat had gotten out of the apartment and the college girls upstairs had a party and shaved her cat. they left long strings of fur and braided those. the apartment was crowded and awful, dirty and bug-ridden. the girl wanted to know why she was living in such filth--it was like waking up or something and realizing this, just in this dream. this girl didn't want to take the stat answer of "well, it was all we could afford, and you'll just have to let the cat's fur grow out," which was her mother's answer, shouted from a different room. she stomped into her room and slammed the door, saying, i'm so angry i could spit.

which she is, mainly because no matter how bad life is, there is always someone who has it worse, and this mantra keeps her happy for the most part. it's the line she heard as a kid about eating the food on her plate because there were children starving in africa. those kids, now they've got it bad. this girl, she's got it pretty good. and she thinks her significant other does too--sometimes paring down your life will lead you to a different window, one you didn't see prior to that because you were staring out the front door. this girl has yet to find hers, and she's pretty sure that he has yet to find his, too. but sometimes all you can do is wait for the window to open.
the moral of the story? this girl should have gotten more sleep.

me, a name, i call myself...

...far a longer way to run...i've had that song in my head since last night, when my cousin therese was putting her son sean to bed--so adorable in his little red footie pajamas. he's got therese's big blue eyes and her dark hair, but apparently brian's appetite. such a mix.

yesterday i drove up to minneapolis to see the whalen side of the family. i always think it's going to be more difficult than it is. i don't know why. it's like i build myself up for this horrible, horrible experience and then nothing happens that's horrible. strained, sometimes, but more often than not you just have to confess how your job is going and if you're buying a house or whatnot. there was a good portion of my family actually there--i think the only ones missing were my cousin steve and his sig other, elsa, who live in ny, ny, and my uncle dan, who i think is either in ireland or germany right now.

the reason behind the gathering was my uncle, jed, who was up visiting from ca. always good to see him--he's got a delightful laugh. but the stroke, and i think coming out even tho it's been six or seven years now, have changed him a great deal. he's not the person i remember. he wanted to give me a hug, but didn't seem to want to talk to me. kind of standoffish. i talked to dan about it on the way home and he agreed, but he said it's been like this for a longer period of time. i don't know if he feels alienated or what the deal is, but it was just awkward. i'm a huggy, chatty person; it's difficult to think that someone would feel uncomfortable around me. dan pointed out that it seemed to be everyone, not just me, and wasn't an isolated incident. that did make me feel better.

it makes me think about how people change, how one time you see them and they're a totally different organism the next time you see them. it seems like they're consistent, that their personality is a constant, and then three months pass and you see them again, and something in their environment has served as an evolutionary force. i still love this other incarnation of my uncle, just like i still love my grandma even though she has changed greatly. you don't stop that part, that's the constant. it's like this equation, or worse yet, word problem. your relationship changes based on the individual changes in the other person; you make changes in your reception and your conversation based on something minute, something the other person perhaps does not realize they have done.

i think about when i was a kid, how my sister and her friend got angry because they'd found one of those spots you claim as a kid--down by a drainage ditch, nice little stream. me being bossy little twelve-year-old kim took it upon herself to move rocks out of the stream, so that (in my opinion) it would better flow. sara and amanda threw a fit; why change what was working fine already, etc. in retrospect i've no clue as to why i thought those rocks should be moved. it was just a general nudge to do so, and when you're 12, you don't consider consequences in the same way you do ten years after that.

did the rocks i pulled out of that little stream affect somthing broader than my sister's attitude? probably not. it's a drainage ditch, right? but it affected her to this day. she still remembers that whole scene as something where i was standing on her toes. i think back on it and i don't remember my sister's reactions as much as i now think about the cellular level and any frogs i may have impacted due to my "assistance."

something small that turns into something larger--something more broad. dad's stress test turned into six bypasses, and 50 lbs of weight lost, a diet changed, a treadmill bought. he is a different person than he was prior to that february day--different, but not entirely different. still dad. grandma whalen, despite the dementia, is still shaped like my grandma--now with regrown hair. she still smells like grandma, she still acts like grandma. when i think about it in those terms, the erosion of brain tissue--it makes me want to know how *i* have changed over time. what things happen to make you less of an open person. has it been the slow build back into having high blood pressure? will this half a pill i take nightly impact my personality? has it already? what is my guide for knowing if it has? there's not a chart or scale i can use.

i wish, oftentimes, that there were. that people had hanging around their neck some kind of code that told me how best to interact with them. perhaps jed didn't want to have a heart to heart discussion, or even a how's-the-weather chat. but the only way for me to know that is to ask, and the only way to learn is to experience. it would make a life a lot easier if it was simplified--i could just walk up to someone who WANTS to chat and chat with them, as opposed to trying to feel out your conversation partner and getting snubbed.

which i'm sure jed didn't feel like he was doing. who knows. he will fly back to ca with whatever impressions he gathered, and i will remain here, with what i have.

it was good to see the family, though. colin and sean, the under-5 set, grow so quickly. kids are just plain cute when they're little. interesting too to see my cousins, kelsey and ericka--i remember when ericka was just born--she was at grandpa whalen's last christmas in 1988 and was just a baby then. and now she's driving and getting ready to graduate high school in a few years. or less. yikes.

time goes faster, exponentially, the older you get. it's like you walk to the top of a very big hill--most people run, i think, really--and then when you get close to 30, you sit down, and it hits you that you're maybe more than a third of the way through your life expectancy. but instead of time returning and being a further climb, you lay down, and you roll down the hill. i'm just starting to gather speed, i suppose. you measure your life in the size of children around you. those long and bored afternoons of your youth are shorter and filled with adult crap like paying bills and cleaning the oven and filling the birdfeeder. it will be interesting to see people at the whalen reunion this year, measure the old tree and see what rings have changed and what rings have grown.

anyway. i'm off to fill some time before nathan calls with more stuff that i didn't have to do when i was seven--hose out the bathrooms, clean up the kitchen, vacuum, laundry, mundane stuff that i should be able to wish done. *sigh* so long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, good bye.

the skinny

that's been my phrase of choice this week: here's the skinny.

so here it is for this week.

monday i felt like my head was being split in two and finally made a dr's appt for tuesday. tuesday found out i have a sinus infection and was given stuff to combat said infection, which makes me a bit dizzy. also had my blood pressure checked and once again it's doing that spiking thing it did years ago, so now i'm on this blood pressure medication that makes me want to sleep. a lot. a fucking huge lot. yawn...

weds we had friends over and gamed, thursday dan got a job (not something he was hoping for but a job's a job, at this point.) and we went to half price books. now it's friday. i'm supposed to be going in early in order to make up for the hour i'm short this week but it might be more like half an hour early because i'm feeling slow this morning. tomorrow i have to find a good salad to make for the whalen side of the family, and then we're having a whalen picnic tomorrow night. so that will be enjoyable, as much as it can be on that side of the family. (they're pokers; they like to poke at you as if you're on display. blech.)

the blood pressure thing has been just gnawing at me since i got the perscription. but as the dr said, they're a bit more agressive than they used to be.

to sum up: about six years ago, i was scheduled to have my wisdom teeth removed. this was in march. in february (i think) i fell and hit my right cheek on some concrete stairs (ice + kim = hospital visit). i thought it might be broken so we lumped out to urgent care. where they took my blood pressure and asked: are you feeling all right? because you should be having a stroke... etc. did a bunch of tests (ultrasound was the coolest) to see if they could find a reason it would spike (it was like 200/100 or something painful; i felt fine.) but there was nothing and i was walking more at that time, so the dr decided that i just needed to watch my salt intake. i guess the old body still does the spiking thing when it gets nervous (like at the dr). who knew. not me. anyway that was the same year that i had a sinus infection (after the fall) and found out i was allergic to penecillin (large platter sized hives, a shot of adrenalin and a shot of benadryl, and i was down for the count.) and sulfa drugs (smaller hives, benadryl pills, also down for the count.) and my wisdom teeth had to be put off until the week of easter.

i can't remember when that was that year. it was in 1999; i know this because all of this happened directly prior to corey passing away. it was just like a marathon of being in pain, in one form or another. i think that this week, when the dr asked if i would mind trying a perscription, i just flashed back six whole years.

it was corey's birthday on the 11th--a celebration of life. we're rolling up closer to the 18th, the day he passed away. anniversaries are always difficult; you never know how you're going to react to the day, the month, the time frame. it's always hard; i don't think you realize how dulled you become, over time, to the pain. it still hurts. you always wish that person alive, you wish for a different outcome. but wishing doesn't change anything.

sitting in the dr's office on tuesday, waiting to pick up my perscription, i was transported back. i remembered all the ups and downs, and then that phone call. i remembered driving frantically to duluth on a sunday morning, no wallets, no purse. i remember seeing the sun come through the clouds outside of duluth, the silence that we carried in that car. i remember the song on the radio--grateful dead's a touch of gray--and how right after that song ended it started "don't fear the reaper" and dan leaning over and flicking the radio off. his dad's face when we pulled up outside the house, shaking his head.

they say you can't remember actual physical pain, that your brain cannot hold it, that this is why childbirth can be so horrible and women still want another child. i don't think this is true. when the dr handed me my perscriptions, he gave me a free pass into time. i literally felt as if i were reliving those months again, like they were starting over. being on the blood pressure tablets is a bit like moving through a dream, anyway. you're sluggish, tired, slow. i keep feeling like crying, and i do not know if it is because of all the things or just one--is it the fear of that spiking pressure? exhaustion on the part of the sinus infection? memories of that week? happiness to be alive?

being a catholic, or being raised catholic, has sludged into mountains of guilt. i feel i ought to confess that i am glad to be alive, to have it as good as i do, and still be depressed right now--as if this is a sin, something for which i should do penance. i remember feeling guilt when corey died--why him, why so young, why not me, or anyone else. today's rash of guilt is sponsored by this week and the slow peeling back of layers around myself, by my blood pressure tablet and the fear of seeing my family on saturday. memory, fear, love. i would willingly relive those months, if only to see you again. or rather, see you with dan again. it is not that i miss you less, but that i would give anything to see you two banging around outside with the basketball, walking into the house, flushed and sweaty, smiling.

so today is also sponsored by the sun, shining bright outside in a blue, blue sky, when corey's not here to shoot hoops with dan out in it.

for whatever reason, i am here. something yet to be defined, perhaps. maybe just to feed the cat, or maybe something yet to happen today, tomorrow, next week. maybe the something has already occurred, or was passed fleetingly without a backward glance, or maybe it's just that we are all here for an alloted time period, to live our time in the sun to the fullest, and i ought to be glad the curtain's still up.

still sleeping

finally slept for more than 6 hours...only to be woken by the persistent beeping of my alarm, reminding me that it's monday. and i have to go to work.

i didn't do anything strenuous this weekend and yet i'm so exhausted. it's either one of two things: a sinus infection or my period sneaking up on me again. blech, either way. if it's a sinus infection, it means i have to go to the doctor. if it's my period, same thing. you know the post the other day, about being on time and being immune to time for the most part? my inner workings are apparently also blissfully ignorant. it hasn't even been 25 days and for some reason ye olde body is gearing up again. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. it's probably why i'm tired and just want to hide somewhere. i dislike this feeling, but at the same time, if your body is craving something--salt, sugar, sleep--you sometimes have to cater to it.

which i wish i could do today. i just want to crawl upstairs and cuddle into my blankets again. listen to dan snoring, softly. feel the cat curled up by my shins. listen to cars rumble by over the whirr of the fan. and sleep.

i feel like i've been pushing the snooze button lately on my life--procrastinating to the nth degree over everything. i still haven't had the brake pads done. it's not that i don't want to. it's that i worry that if i do, they'll find something else wrong with the car. and if it's not that, it's monetary. who knows.

gotta shuffle if i want to be on time. (:

these dreams

i keep having strange dreams. i know, to the heels of my feet, that it's because my period is creeping up on me, and i always have weirdo dreams around that time, but honestly. last week i had this ridiculous dream about a chicken and a crockpot and one of my coworkers and his wife wrestling. it was unsettling. last night it was something about how i had done graffiti on a wall or something, and very vividly was denying it despite the fact that they had video.

i guess the reason they're strange isn't because of the content. or maybe it IS because of the content. usually in my dreams the wild and ridiculous factor is taken to a new level of what-the-hell, from which i can usually force a wakeup, or elict a change in the direction of the dream.

lately i'm so involved in the dream, because all the aspects of it are so vivid and fucking normal, that i just get caught up in it. gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

also i'm having problems sleeping more than 6 hours a night. thank you to my brother--i had to pick him up at the airport on tuesday and on monday night I COULD NOT FALL ASLEEP. read until way too late and then slept badly for about 4 hours. i have yet to recoup or sleep longer than 6 this week. which might be due in part to this morning allergy thing i've been having, or may be due to the fact that i have an almost-finished pile of books near my bed.

maybe that's the problem. maybe it's the content of my reading material of late. for a while i was on an all-fantasy, all the time, kick. but i've gone on a romance novel bender, and most of what happens in a romance novel, esp. regencies, is pretty mundane. i'm thinking of what else i have at my bedside--smilla's sense of snow, which is pretty scientific but so beautiful...and frances mayes' under the tuscan sun, which is very different from the movie, but wonderfully written all the same. and another book i don't know that i'll finish by an author with a good name but not very catchy writing skills (graham houghton. don't know why the name sticks with me but the plot does not.)

i think that may be my problem.

but for now i'll blame it on the time change (which should have no effect on me, as for the most part i shrug off the boundaries of clocks much in the manner of superman flexing through five feet of steel chains.) (of course, there would be an anomaly...)

today i'm going to go shower. then i'm going to drive around and see if i can rustle up a rummage sale. then i'm going to...clean my grill? i think. not sure yet. and there's talk of a concert tonight in hudson, wi--13 screws, a band darin and cathy heard that was quite good, apparently. but that's up in the air.

arg, activity upstairs, must run to beat other possible shower-er!

muted

yesterday while on the phone with nathan i had a flash of insight. it was after dinner, during which dan and i watched this amazing new thing they can do for deaf children who are missing the fine hairs inside their cochlea--the ones that allow you to hear nuances like a bird singing, a drum beating, you mom's voice yelling about leaving the toothpaste out. anyway, they can do this thing now where they insert a wire into your cochlea that stimulates it in close to the same manner as the hairs. it's not perfect, but amazing for someone who has never heard anything. of course i cried a little during that. how could you not? this child was just given the opportunity to explore her world in a new way.

i wished, for a few minutes, while watching that girl on television, that i could hear out of both ears. that's not the insight. i'll let you know when it hits. (note: the damage i have is at nerve level, and there's not much they can do about that quite yet.) i wished that i could belong to that set of people. why? who the hell knows. there's beauty in every aspect of every illness or disorder or handicap--it's just a matter of seeing it. the beauty of being deaf is that sound is a gift, and that the way you perceive the world is so different from the person sitting next to you.

i talked about this with kari, one of my now former coworkers, and karen, another coworker, who are both in different stages of being deaf. karen's got one good ear, like me, and kari's got two bad ones, which can be enhanced with the use of a hearing aid. however, since her daughter is also deaf and needed two, kari's only got one.

it was so interesting to finally comprehend that i was first of all not alone in hearing "the charlie brown teacher" voice when i wasn't focused on someone. refreshing and for some reason reassuring to hear that after being in a social situation in which there are myriad voices, you're exhausted. you can't keep your eyes open because the whole time you're so focused on the other person. also reassuring to know that for the most part, we all rely on body language a LOT more than our significant others and friends, just because you're so afraid of missing something.

just plug your ears ometime. see what happens.

i thought it was hysterical and confusing, the first time i saw a jackie chan movie, that i had no idea of what was going on. the little faces on screen were moving and talking, but the words were all dubbed. people in the room were laughing at jokes and i didn't know what the joke even was. i had no idea how much i relied on lip reading. (which reminds me of a day at work: our supervisor came down the aisle and said something amusing to a group of us loitering there, half in and half out of our cubes. everyone laughed. so kari and i laughed too. you do these things to fit in. someone who missed the joke asked what was so funny, and neither of us had any idea. we decided it was a deaf chick thing, and THEN we laughed and no one else quite got the joke.)

i've learned to put up with and love subtitles in movies. my friends and family all walk on my right. i drive because then i can hear the passenger over the road noise.

THIS was the insight i had: i think for a long time i wanted to be a part of the deaf community. but i'm not totally deaf. i don't have to wear a hearing aid, i don't have to sign in order to communicate. i'm part of the hearing world. i told dan once that i wanted to learn to sign because it almost seems like it would be a relief to not have to worry about missing a word or two, having to extrapolate constantly during a conversation and then plead inattention because if you reach into your purse for a peice of gum you miss being attentive to what the other person was saying. course you'd do that if you were signing, too, i suppose. the grass is always greener.

for a long time, too, i wanted my deafness to be something that defined me. i mean, for all intensive purposes, it has; nothing shapes you like a deficiency. but the deficiency in the auditory area has opened up room for other things to take shape and grow. i think about dan's cousin, who was born with one lung. he's almost 20 now, and after all these years, his one lung has grown and expanded and taken up the space of his other lung.

i think about the void i have in my life because i miss so much, and i think about how that has opened other doors for me--the doors that are sensitive to others' moods, the lip reading and body reading that is unconciously done. i think about how wanting to avoid situations in which i might be construed as "stupid" because it seems i'm missing screws have levered me into reading more books, writing poetry, taking pictures.

mostly i think about how the world is filtered differently for each of us. some people are able to go through the world tall enough to reach the top cupboard but unable to see the turtles. i think about stephen hawking and how not much has stood in his way, despite what the rest of us see as a handicap. i think about what sark said in whatever book it was: they never say anything about a fat elephant. or a fat tree. if a tree has a bole that malforms it from the norm, it's a thing of beauty.

how come we cannot see that the disorders and deficiencies of the world are things to be cherished and relied upon?

the cat is close enough, right now, that i can hear her purr, if i turn my head one way. if i look back at my monitor her purring is gone. edited for sound. muted.

dawn

there's a con trail across the sky, out side the window. it's one of those left-hours-ago trails that is starting to resemble cirrus clouds. but the shape is unmistakeable. david's car is outside too, reminding me that tomorrow morning i need to be at the airport at 6 to retrieve him.

if i turn to my right, shiva is giving me her morning stare. she gets wet food every morning and if it's not done by the time i scurry out of the house, there's yowling for the masses.

upstairs i thought i heard the rustle of eero getting ready for work but there's just silence. not sure what's up. i came downstairs to check the weather, and am now thinking of rethinking today's wardrobe choices, as it sounds like it'll be a balmy 72. the shower starts and i probably should get ready for work.

but i really, really, really don't want to.

i'd rather replay yesterday, or the day prior. another weekend day, something to keep me distracted from truth and reality...ie, work. i also have to have new brake pads put in this week, which means calling for prices, so on and so forth. ugh. i wish they were easy to replace and that i could just snap them in like windsheild wipers. *sigh*

yesterday was a great deal of fun. drove out to shakopee with corpse, kiya, d and c and played 18 holes of frisbee golf. then dan and i stayed at d and c's for movie watching (saw, which was interesting but not something i'd probably watch again) and dinner (yummy chicken and taters, thank you cathy). and then home again to get ready for bed. it smelled like rain last night but i guess that's holding off until tomorrow or even tonight, if we're lucky.

off to trade in pajamas for something i can wear to work. cheers all. (:

imdb: independent movie doing beautifully

so yesterday i drove over to river falls, wi, to see if i could help out at all with a movie that my friends sarah (better known as spoon to the general populace) and her bf josh are filming. it's called "cope: a small film about a big decision" and it's going to have more documentary than film, i think. which is the beauty of an indie film.

it was just so nice to belong. and see the bright lights of some kind of theatre, and smell ben nye makeup again. *sigh* so lovely.

stephen (aka daddybear) was also there, doing lights and general guidance, as he's had lots of experience with filmmaking. i ended up doing a variety of things--makeup, holding the boom (that mic on a pole), script and shot supervision, gofer. (hey, we need some masking tape to mark the floor. could someone grab the powder for chris' nose? et cetera.) i think that was what got to me the most--it reminded me SO much of being in any theatre production i've ever done, wherein you're acting during one scene, but then you also are doing props and calling light cues for part of the show...so on and so forth. it reminded me, as i was standing there holding the script and shot list, of just how much i missed stage managing and theatre in general.

as a bonus, i got to hang out with some laid back but artistic people, which is always a pleasure because i despise being rushed and pushed and coerced into hurrying. by the end of the shoot (at which point it was realized that there would have to be a reshoot of the night scenes because josh and sarah both appeared in the sliding glass door reflection like ghosties. which was better than that morning, where, after filming for how long, we watched the dailies and everyone about bit it laughing over daddybear, who thought he was out of frame but really wasn't. colie (the "heroine") is saying good bye to chris ("hero") in the BEDROOM and all you can see the whole time over colie's shoulder is this florid blue and yellow hawaiian shirt, a leg with shorts and a wool sock and sandal, and an arm on top, clearly holding another camera. turns it into an entirely different movie. LOL) anyway by the end of the shoot everyone was beat, myself included. i sat down for "a minute" on the couch with noah, an art major who brought these fabric squares to decorate one wall of the living room--amazing what you can do with thread and fabric if you're an artist. so we sat there discussing this poem that chris had been reading by i think charles norse, it was called the priest and the matador. and in the kitchen they kept shooting and reshooting this scene in which chris' character has to respond to colie's character:

colie: it's just tea.
chris: it's never just tea.

but it kept sounding more like: it's never justy. or it's never justine. so there was a chant that erupted at one point, something annunciating "it's never just tea" but we couldn't get the other videocamera ready fast enough to make a difference. so then we digressed and discussed the monkey who played a nurse on the soap opera "passions."

speaking of names. after shooting and shooting this scene in which chris pours cereal, daddybear pointed out that we couldn't use the cheerios box unless general mills was funding some part of the film. after we got over the "well, shit" portion of that moment, we realized that BEHIND the cheerios box there was a nicely displayed bag of starburst. so that whole scene will need to be re-shot as well. *sigh* but it was a learning experience for everyone, and a valuable one, too.

i also got to have some fabulous homemade spaghetti for lunch, and then steve's pizza (small pizza joint, great pizza) for dinner--we had a greek and it was divine. course we were pretty much starving at that point so it went very fast. one minute there was a pizza on the table and another minute we were asking for the check. snap of the fingers. i think i got home around 1120 or so last night, and by that time i was totally exhausted.

blue skies and sunny today. i feel like writing. or going back over to help film some more. but they're not starting until 8 tonight and that's a bit late, if i want to get up at 6 for work. blech.

so yeah. that was my saturday. i don't think i even told you what the film was about: a man who is OCD; mom wants him to start taking his meds again, new girlfriend has no idea that he's OCD, etc. i'm looking forward to the screening portion, and the "behind the scenes" that is going to be part of this. in theatre you're usually a long ways away from the actors, when the performance is in progress. in film, you see the scene, and you think: my god. there were how many of us in the room at the same time, redoing and redoing the scene.

interesting.

violent philodendrons

i'm thinking about my plant, dorcas. i'm thinking about whether or not she ever has a day that makes her anything other than green and sun-seeking. does she long to bitch-slap the cat when shiva chews on a leaf or two? or flip me the bird when i walk by and forget to check to see if she needs water? maybe i'm being told to fuck off, right now, as i type.

it's hard to say, really.

this morning started off with a bang. all kinds of fubars that stemmed from things i did that got worse because i had no idea of what impact said things would have. like the domino effect, but without knowing that the dominoes were all lined up. it's kind of like one of those fractions i used to despise: bull + china shop = kim + computer system/taxes. i often forget that things don't work the way i think they ought to work. and then i wave my white flag and get the heck out of dodge.

i'm kind of at the hide point in a long game of hide and seek. the seeking...well, that can wait until next week. right now it's duck and cover, and hope to hell that the shrapnel is just stuff i can brush off.

think office space, plus landmines. theoretical landmines. but landmines all the same.

i'm not a bomb sniffing pooch. i've got enough training to make me dangerous. and after nearly 3 years at the same company, i often feel as new and green as my possibly pissy houseplant.

sticks and stones

when i was a kid, my dad used to try to bolster us when we got teased by doing that "sticks and stones" rhyme. i was never sure it did much until today at lunch, when someone at my lunch table mentioned that i seem to have a propensity for taking a lot of shit.

was it part of my upbringing, this acceptance of the crap life dishes? unquestioning i roll through time.

it's been a while since i blogged. quite a while. there's been vacation--which was spent at home, in fear of spreading and/or contracting the dreaded Crud that dan and eero had--and going to a wedding with nathan--which was SO much fun that i danced until my feet were too swollen to put back in my pointy toed shoes, and also at which i met a kindred spirit in the guise of a college friend's straight date, which is what i was as nathan's date...then there was a duran duran concert, lots of fun and thank you sara for inviting me, and a trip home over easter, which wasn't long because the night prior was spent up WAY too late gaming, and then i slept most of saturday before even dragging myself to check on my sister's cat and drive to st cloud.

when i arrived, mom and dad were sick. dad was insistent, despite mom's protests, that he drive down and pick up my grandma. i went out on saturday night with my sister--kind of a celebration of my bday and hers all at once--and played trivia and then bowled. yes, bowled. what a new and novel experience...and i did good! my high score was a 96, which is unheard of for a whalen child. my parents are excellent bowlers; we just apparently didn't ever excel in that area. but maybe with age... *sigh* sunday dad got grandma and david and beth and i took her to church, which was uneventful. then home, dinner, and a brief rest and then grandma was ready to go back to anoka. she seemed to know who i was for most of the drive but then when we got to her assisted living building couldn't remember where to go. found her room and as we're walking out, i comment on the shamrock shaped clock hanging next to her door.

kim: that's an interesting clock.
grandma w: my husband made that clock for me, years ago.
kim: he was a very creative man. (insert fond memories of grandpa w here)
grandma w: yes, he was very creative, but i had to have all the children.

oy.

last week was a rough week. got back from vacation to discover that barry, one of my coworkers, had decamped. then on monday heard about the shootings at red lake, which is about 20 miles north of bemidji. we had some panic as eero thought his cousin still taught there, and then couldn't get through to his parents, but it was abated when he found that she worked close but not there. still nothing short of awful. i just cannot get over the amount of violence that goes on in the world today. maybe i was just ignorant as a child? how blissful it must have been.

i'm reading a variety of books again, too. one romance novel, and then Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, Damned if you Don't by Graham Houghton, and my old standby, Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg, which is right up there with being one of my all time favorite reads EVER. so far i'm liking the mayes book but the damned if you do book is interesting but not grabbing me quite yet. and i'm just not getting into the karen hawkins romance, either. so back to smilla. there's a line in there i love, about how adults assume that children are open like books, but in all reality they're the most secretive people on the planet. how true. i think about red lake, and how even the people who thought they knew this boy, how they really did not.

i think about myself as a child. what secrets did i keep, what things did i hold close? i don't remember, not any more. something that i've always carried are stones. every box i've ever opened from childhood has at least one rubbermaid container of rocks--agates, smooth black stones, rough sparkly granite. i always had rocks in my pocket, whatever i could find that looked interesting. in fact, i still have all kinds of rocks.

rocks remind me that life continues. that i don't have to give in. that i am of the earth, and that the earth is of me. whenever life gets really "bad" and i have to find some way to ground myself, i find a rock that's unweildy and really too big for my pocket, and i stick it in my pocket anyway. whenever i bump up against it, i'm reminded that i am such a small force in the world, and that this rock, this little and somewhat forgotten peice of earth, will continue long after i am ashes spread to wind.

kind of a meditation and reflection, for me.

all the things that have gone on in the time between this sentence and the last time i journaled, they're small things. insignificant, in the stream of time. the shooting--now that was a wake up call. but still just a larger rock in a larger river. connected to me but disconnected. i have not carried a rock in my pocket for a long time, perhaps over a month or probably more. i thought about that today at lunch, hearing the light in which others view me, the person who takes a lot of shit and just puts up with it. perhaps that's why i like my rocks--they're my metaphor for living, a little note from the universe about how insignificant i feel on the planet.

sticks and stones
may break my bones
but words
words save me
from the damnation
of silence
i write i speak i hum
to keep at bay
the dogs of war
the ravens that follow
pick my bones
to sticks
and stones.

still at work...

i'm still at work right now. blech. just waiting for a bunch of things to finish printing, etc. if they EVER finish i'm driving up to the excel energy center to meet sara (!) who i haven't seen in FOREVER to go to the duran duran concert. however in typical kim fashion i'm terrified that i'm not going to make it on time. providing that everything comes up roses i'm outtie and can make it on time...

in the mean time, i'm going to blog for a minute. or two. however long until i get paperwork. :P i didn't get a break this afternoon so this is it. pooh.

these last few days have been loooooong. aside from the daily grind of being back at work after vacation and the time during the day being sucked out through my head, which feels petty in comparison with world events, last night we found out about the shootings in red lake, and had a moment of panic when eero thought that his cousin still worked at the red lake schools. found out later she'd subbed there previously, but as of late, she's been working at another district. thank god. i had a flashback to when debbie and steve were still living in new york--the morning of september 11th--hearing about what was going on via second hand reports and the radio. i remember saying to someone that i was lucky, i didn't know anyone out there--and then realized that i did, and that i needed to call home. mom was home; steve and debbie were fine. but that moment of unsettling panic was just enough to make me queasy.

there's so many things that i think about when i recall those events, or any that mirror that morning--the curl of fear in my belly, the prickly feeling on my scalp, the heat rising to my cheeks before i cry. i don't like those moments, but in them, you feel so alive, so aware, just before that fog sets in.

gah! paperwork! must run!

things overheard

i think sometimes i am on constant alert, waiting to hear anything. i think that adds to my easy-to-scare factor, because i'm quite attuned to the world around me, and if something makes a noise, i'm jumpy.

so yesterday i'm out in the 40 acre park near our house. i'm happily tromping through the snow, slipping around on the layer of ice underneath, and cleaning my sunglasses off every few hundred yards or so because the snow is coming down so quickly. perfect hiking weather, at least for me. the whole time i'm hiking, i'm trying to block out the sounds of planes and cars--the low hum of mechanics whirring--and trying to focus on the small bird sounds and any rustles in the woods i might hear that signify a squirrel, or scarier, that coyote that scared me and serena a while back.

nothing. just the planes and automobiles. frustrating.

i focus on it anyway. hiking is like walking meditation for me, and having to focus is good.

about a quarter mile in, i start hearing this low thumping, grinding noise. sounds like bulldozers having sex--whump grrrrr, silence...whump grrrrr, silence...so on and so forth. i realize that the path i've chosen is bringing me closer to the pump station they're building on the edge of the park. yippee.

i had to admit defeat. it's difficult to focus on your inner peace of mind when all you can think is about two bulldozers poised in the act. i finished my walk and went home, a bit saddened by the fact that i didn't get out of it what i wanted to.

but then consider the area. i'm not walking in lake bemidji state park, or just down the road in bemidji; the habitats of beasties down here is different, including the human ones. i think it's the sounds and smells that get to me the most--i have a hard time accepting the gasoline perfume, or the sounds of the city, the pulse of activity that is based around electronics and engines.

with the one bum ear, i can't say that it's probably as loud for me, being as i live my life in a little bubble of random sounds as it is. but when i'm out in the woods, i have this preconceived notion that it's going to be quiet, and i don't have to block out what i don't want to hear, or listen hard for what i do want to hear: silence and the scurry of forest.

usually

usually i look forward to fridays. i crave them. i wait and wait and wait for them to arrive, i mark the days on my calendar.

this week i've been dreading its arrival, because it means i've only got 3 days left before i have to return to work. i never did make my list of to do items this week--yesterday's grand plans fell by the wayside, as usual...i did have my hair trimmed but the girl didn't take enough off the bottom so consequently this morning the hair looks worse (yes, worse) than it did yesterday. i can see what she was going for, but she must be used to dealing with submissive hair, not this wild stand-up-to-the-world hair that i generate daily. so we'll see. it's better but it's worse. who knows.

tonight is also sg1 night, which is something i adore...but again, the adoration factor is marred by the fact that next week it's back to cubeland.

i think the universe, however, is trying to coax a smile out of me yet--it's snowing and windy out, which is just ever so lovely, and the forecast is for 6-10 inches. yippee!!! that inspires me to cook something stew related, bake some bread, and just generally curl up in the house after forging a path through the park. which is what i'm hoping to do yet this morning.

so last night, in lieu of braving the rest of humanity that was probably clogging kieran's and drowning out the gaels anyway, dan and i went over to our local bar and had a guiness and trounced the other folks there playing trivia. it was quite lovely, and the guiness was on tap, so it tasted much better than the tinny, canned flavor it usually has when poured (not surprisingly) from a can. came home, dan headed up to meet sean and craig, and burt and eero and i drove over to meet darin and cathy and chrissy and mikey at d fong's. which is always a good time, lots of laughter and the best service on the planet from julie, our fave waitress. (she's one of those waitresses who doesn't need to hear you say a word--just brings out your favorite soup, whatever you usually drink, and then scolds you if you order outside your normal area. the other amazing part about julie is that she remembers for-e-ver what you ate the last time you were there. i mean, i doubt dan and i have been over there in about 2 months or more, and yet she had egg drop soup in front of me not five minutes after i sat down. amazing, is julie.)

after dinner burt and eero and i watched a netflix of eero's--circle, the eddie izzard performance from 2000. it was hysterical, as usual. did some surfing of the net and read for a bit, and then crashed.

and now it's friday. *sigh* i need more time! or maybe i just need some lottery winnings, so that i don't have to show up there or anywhere and can just keep typing all day long. riiiiiiiiiiiiight. how would the kitchen get cleaned up that way?

luck of the irish...

with the inherent luck of my forebears, on a day when i should be singing and dancing, i'm crankier than all hell and with only one reason: it's that time of the month.

additionally, i'm having one of those chop-it-all-off hair days, and i don't want to have to call around to people and organize my favorite occasion to swill beer. my sister's husband's uncle passed away so they're off to milwaukee, as her sister-in-law refuses to tell her father-in-law that this uncle passed away. the vagaries of family.

yesterday went well, we got out the door by 6 (YAWN!) and were in verndale by 930, which includes a half hour stop in st cloud for a new windshield wiper. the funeral was at 11; there's not much you can say about a funeral--it was sad, it makes you consider your own life, it makes you glad to be alive in general. we sat around and visited with family all after noon, which was nice--the sisters seem to be getting along better, and there's talk of get togethers in months and years in between tragedies and weddings, and maybe a family website. so that's good. the down side is that i'm sure dan's parents went through a lot of memories of losing a child all over again, as dan's cousin was only 32. at this point it just becomes a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and plodding along. time doesn't heal; it makes the memories of loss a bit softer around the edges, lets you cope and heal as much as you can. cari said once that it's not about being fully healed, ever. you just carry this scar with you always.

too true. i keep thinking of when corey died, and bev. i worry about mike's widow--together they have 4 children, and she's due again in june.

the beauty of things like this is the outpouring of support you see. it makes me want to weep a bit, just to think of all the people gathered in that room, the ladies who gave up their day to serve coffee and potato casserole. i remember after corey died, the pans of lasagna, the buckets of soup, the bread--mainly i remember a pile of homemade cinnamon rolls. they were delicious, but besides that, i know how much trouble it is to make cinnamon rolls by hand--the dough rising, then rolling it out and baking it. i wonder if the baker thought of the reason behind making those rolls, as she baked--did she think of a time when she'd received them, during a difficult time in her past? did she have a pan baked when she heard he'd died, and just dropped them off?

i like to think that she spent her time baking those rolls, kneading the dough, mixing the cinnamon mixture, knowing their end result would be to sit on a counter in the haugen household and tempt people who didn't care enough to eat any of the many, many dishes supplied.

right now i'm sitting here having my very own wake for all those gone before, and trying to toast my cranky attitude into submission, listening to the gaels perform. hopefully tonight we'll get up to kieran's to listen to some good irish music, and drink some tasty beer, and eat something fried and horrible for my arteries. i love irish music--it's the saddest happy music out there, in my opinion. it's the only music that has an exceedingly lively reel attached to words like: "and she left me here alone for to die."

it's perfectly lovely. i'm very blessed. and in being able to sit here and type, i'm lucky, too.

enough maudlin crap, i'm out to enjoy my day. (:

blogger gack

i don't know what it's doing, but it's only out there once when i look at edit posts, but it's there twice when i look at the blog. ???

museum

my legs
are sleeping
i'm crouched down
down down
beneath something large
maybe a couch
or a house?
i can't tell
can't speak
i'm hiding
from that semblance of events
that most folks categorize
as living.

how long can i
remain
before seeking eyes
pry
and find?
limbs atrophied
eyes sinking
i want to stay
here

it's not for lack
of creativity
or spark
whatever this is that keeps my heart
thudding along
i can't blame it on media
or genetics--
just plain old
me,
wanting to support the structure
but not be
brushed off and shined up and glass boxed and
on
display.

one of my fave quotes:

from one of the last places you'd expect a great quote, a sci-fi television show. who knows. anyway i've been feeling a lack of place, needing some tie-me-down to keep me moored in reality of late. so here it is, part and parcel of whatever mantra i make up to keep sanity docked:

The Universe puts us in places where we can learn. They are never easy places, but they are right. Wherever we are, it's the right place...and the right time. Pain that sometimes comes is part of the process of constantly being born. Then I will tell you a great secret. Perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff, we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. As we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective.

Delenn (or rather, jms, creator of Babylon 5)

overload

i'm kind of overwhelmed right now. it's the beginning of my vacation, only day 2, and i was laying in the upstairs room cataloging all i'd like to get done. my main goal is laundry, which includes washing comforters and everything. it needs it. course i despise washing my down comforter because it's a bitch to dry; last year when i did, i singed the feathers a bit, which is one of the worst smells ever. blech.

i also need to organize my books. they're on shelves, but not in any order. it'd be nice to get them organized. maybe i'll even go so far as to alphabetize; but don't dream, dan. LOL it'll probably be my usual mix of i like this author a lot and this author not as much. this is the kimbo decimal system.

i also want to get that upstairs room organized once and for all. serena will be staying here eventually for d and c's wedding, and before that, cari and tony on their way to st maarten. and i really, really need to start yoga again. i thought about that and let myself savor and dwell on it a little last night, when i was laying there trying to massage the kinks out of my neck and settle my overzealous stomach. when i was doing yoga and walking at least every other day, i didn't have these problems. so that means i need to start again, plain and simple.

course that means i need to clean up that room. which is going to be difficult, because i really need to clean out my file thing before i start cleaning, as most of the stuff needs to go into the file.

this is remniscent of cleaning off my desk the other day, before going on vacation. there's piles of stuff that's like minefields--some safe and able to be handled quickly, other papers that need to be filed and shredded before they're relegated to that wooden crate again. some things--like the information i need in order to get my actual birth certificate--are things that just need to be done. (in new york they don't give your b.c. to you unless you request it. my sister found this out last year when they went to get their marriage license; the certificate we have is just a certificate stating that yes, there IS an acutal birth certificate in existence.)

why the extra paperwork? i don't get it.

last night i had this wild dream that our group of spies, from dan's spygame, were on the move. we had to hide in this garage; the ground was covered with snow, some still falling, and we were trying to avoid stepping in the snow as we moved. we got into the garage and heard this low grumble; there was another garage attached to the house behind us, and inside it was a lion. i've had this dream before. we did something and called in a complaint before we left.

that upstairs room is that lion. i'm trying to do too much, all over again. oy. better make a list.

sat

so far today, i've lived up to the abbreviation of saturday: sat.

i got up and sat with dan for a bit; his dad called to let us know that a cousin was killed in a car accident this morning. we're waiting for further updates. dan hasn't had contact with his cousin in a long time, but i'm sure if there's a funeral we'll drive out. saying good bye, even to a memory, is important.

then i sat in my computer chair and paid bills.

sat in my bed and warmed up my feet while talking to my sister about school and evolution and how she was not aware that they don't even use the word evolution any more, and how one of her students' fathers gave her a book to read about how evolution was a myth. interesting. she works in the cities; i respect all opinions, but dang does it seem backwards for a school in the metro area. and to accept without question the idea of creationism--what kind of lack of curiosity has time fostered?

sat and watched part of a horrible movie on sci fi with dan, mosquito. awful. the mosquitos themselves should have gone on strike; they looked horrible. but it was still amusing because that hum is the universal word for annoyance, large or small. comical horror.

sat and picked out socks.

now sitting at the computer again. yesterday i made it as far as the grocery store, never the post office. luckily the post office in apple valley is open until 130 so i can still make it down there if i hustle. so i guess i better get off my duff and move. (:

i think dan's feeling better, but he's still got this deep, hacking cough that just sound hideous, and is currently sleeping on the couch. i don't want to turn off the tv because i'm afraid i'll wake him. apparently typing doesn't make him move. nifty.

sick

i'm prey
being stalked by something
the size of a garbage truck
or maybe that's just
a bacterial shadow
i heard it settling in your chest
the other day
getting friendly with your lungs
i don't
want it.
send it away, mail it to
tahiti
or maybe the aleutian
islands.
solitary
confinement
seclusion in a land where it cannot
sneak up
on unsuspecting
primates.
i'm a selfish ape;
my flesh doesn't want
to be shared
with that
creature.

fried

fried
broken like humpty
i was dumped onto pavement
scattered
never thought i'd write
about how much i feel
like
an egg.

it's friday and i have all next week off. yay. have to hit the grocery store and then the post office before they close for the day. then it's off to tangee's for sci fi friday and truffle making. yum.

i'm not sure i'm going anywhere on my Big Week Off, mainly because my roommates have just been struggling with some terrible, horrible, no good very nasty colds, and i don't want to visit and leave my host or hostess the never ending gift of virus.

so maybe this will be a week home to heal the edges of my self back together, or at least gather them into a pile and then drop off extras at the thrift store.

either way, it's starting on an auspiciuosly good foot for me--it's snowing, big happy flakes.

hopefully i won't have to write about my likeness to a fairy tale ova in the near future.

inspiration

when i lived up north, i got really, really inspired by a book.

nothing in the self help section; just a plain old fiction book. the heroine was just that kick ass. it inspired me to do things i never considered, but things that really did change my life--moving off on my own, being as independent as i needed to be.

it's something that comes and goes, this inspiration. i think about the way things work and how i never know exactly when it's going to strike. usually it arrives in the form of media--books, music, television, movies. and usually it inspires me for a while, and then flits off.

i was thinking about this the other day, mainly because i went to the website at which i used to arrive daily, and it was closed down. hadn't been there in a while; the heroine that so inspired me in northern climes has taken a different turn, and i don't find her books as vivid any longer. part of me was sad to see that site close, but part of me was relieved--i'm not missing anything, it's all gone. i never thought i would be getting so much stuff from a computer, or via a computer.

lately my inspiration has been slightly dried up. it reminds me of most natural things--drought, rain, blossoms, drought again. it's cyclical, it's nothing reliable, and it's certainly not predictable.

i used to think that people who wrote poems on napkins were strange. this was back when i started college. now i'm a napkin person too; in fact the other day it was while waiting for car financing to go through, and on the back of my privacy release document.

for a long time i made myself be creative, whenever i needed to be, for school. now it's not a requirement any longer, and it's falling into a state of disrepair, or maybe just back to its natural form, the cycles of the moon, the seasons, however it worked before i made it dance like a bear.

it frustrates me, this inaction. and yet i have a difficut time reaching over, or seeing past it, to the point at which it rains and i paint, or draw, or write, just plain old create. writing--poetry in particular--is like breathing: so much a part of me that i cannot imagine not expressing myself in this manner.

so what's my inspiration today? what's gotten me out of bed before the dark hour of nine am? my family's in town somewhere. my car is waiting to be driven. i figured out the antenna and now i have radio. such a novel idea. (;

it'll come to me when the snow starts to melt. i know that i need to relax and just let go of the anxiety, the feeling that i'm being blocked, because i'm not. i'm like the earth, the grass, the green growing spring life--dormant, waiting. something will arrive and i will move, stretch my inspired limbs and just do.

moon

it's a bright gray day out side right now. bright because of the snow, because the sky is this pillow-soft shade of off-white-gray, which is all bright because of the sun, which is apparently taking the day off. it's what the world would look like during the day if the moon was bigger, i think.

it's going to be a long day. i say this because i'm tired, and 9 hours of work is not something to look forward to. also most of the work i just flat out don't want to do. i am tired of deciding who created what problem--can i not just solve them in peace? just come to the conclusion? it's exhausting. add to that the job duties, which just keep piling up, and you have apathy.

even if i am there, i'm not going to be much good.

which tires me. i dislike going to a job and feeling that i'm both A: making no headway and B: doing no good.

i have a week of vacation coming up. i have a new car. i'm seriously thinking about leaving my job.

at the same time, there are things i would miss dearly: my friends, the lax attitudes towards off color humor and downright nasty language, wearing clothing that at a normal business casual place would be considered out...these are things i would miss. it makes me scared to think that at another job i might not have these things. and yet at the same time, the way management is going, i'm tired of it. sick of the office. sick of the politics of the office, and tired of the machinations of my supervisor, who i'm sure is suffering the trickle down effect and just passing the shit onto the rest of us.

but that doesn't make it fair.

you know what i hate? i hate guilt trips. i'm guilty of handing them out with the best, but i despise being guilt tripped, or made to feel guilty. i've tried for many years to shake myself of this habit because it's both unhealthy and ridiculously self-centered. but it's hard not to when you get into a meeting and your boss says: "because of what's going on with you guys, this is what i did on my vacation" and then launches into a powerpoint presentation with graphs and charts that basically point out the fact that WE SUCK ROCKS right now.

he could have just put up two screens and saved an hour of slideshow: You're shitty. slide two: Fix it.

i like to think of myself as a creative person. i really do. but put me in that office environ and i turn into this skip-to-the-end, stop-wasting-my-time bitch.

of course, in typical kim fashion, heaven forbid that i stand up for myself or say something about how crappy this makes me feel, because it might hurt someone else.

i've inherited, from my parents, this fear that if i say the wrong thing or do something wrong, i'll be punished and my job will be revoked. and then i'll be stuck trying to find another job.

which is kind of where i've put myself, anyway. i guess it's like your arm slowly rotting off, and you not going to the doctor until it's gone, and then saying, so doc, what can you do for me.

i shouldn't be surprised and yet i am.

additionally, i had a lovely time w/ nathan last night--had dinner at the chatterbox and then coffee at vera's afterwards--but whatever i ate is causing internal distress. i think it was that blessedly delicious hamburger, which had feta cheese, roasted cloves of garlic (whole), sun dried tomatoes, and some kind of creamy pesto spread, all on rosemary focaccia. delish. but beef isn't something i eat often, and yikes do i remember why. (;

anyway off to work, someone wish me luck and sci fi friday, here i come!

sooooooooooooooo...

i got a car.

it's a 1998 subaru impreza, black, 5-door, automatic, 45K, all wheel drive. needs a cd player to be complete, but it's cute, it's practical, and it's mine.

i already know her name, too: bianca.

i'm sad to lose my lupe, though. it was kind of depressing to see my periwinkle pride and joy, my first car, sit in the lot as i drove away in the "usurper," which got a clean bill of health from the mechanic, alan, who walked over the whole vehicle with me. of course i was distracted because the car was in the air and had no wheels on it, and i'm TERRIBLY easily amused, so the fact that i was standing under the car was highly, highly, highly entertaining.

well. ripley's believe it or not is on. believe it or not, i got a car. yay. welcome, bianca. thank you and good life, lupe. *sniff*