so, my job is really fucking cool, except... i should really get paid more than $7 an hour to do the macarena and the electric slide in a square dance hall.

olympia's lazy summer mornings prefer to sleep in. it's almost 3 o'clock, and the fog has only started to lift. i warned the japanese girls about this yesterday morning, when, at 11am, it was still solid gray with fog and chilly to boot. this is nothing like japan, i'm sure.

i also noticed today that i consistently drive five miles over the speed limit, provided the limit is over 25mph. i drove 40mph in the 35mph zone past the house of a guy with whom i used to be acquainted and harbored a mild crush on.

i bought junk food for the road trip to bend as per everyone's suggestions. i hate shopping at fred meyer's, but it worked ok. i also consistently buy the "healthier" option of things for people who couldn't care less, like whole wheat ritz crackers for my sister and reduced fat oreos for my brother. the only thing unaffected is soda, because diet soda tastes like ass. upon arriving home, i loaded the bags on my arm and tried to pick up the 12-pack box of pepsi... which i promptly dropped on the floor with quite a klutzy flourish. i'm sure all coke fans in the audience would find this a fitting end. there was only one real casualty, a can that rolled under the car and sprung a leak behind the front right tire. it's been pissing on the floor of the garage since.

i don't care to check if it's run out yet.

tonight i'm cooking fajitas, square dancing with the japanese girls, and i still need to watch the hudsucker proxy since it's due tomorrow and we're leaving. whee!

and the psychologist to my side notes, "prone to self-injury..."

i have noticed a strange pattern, at least strange for me, of remembering my dreams this summer. i couldn't even begin to explain why, but it's interesting all the same. the theme i've noticed is that, in my dreams, i always do things that are forbidden to me--not by others or by law, but by my own weirded-out moral code--and then rather than actually enjoy them, i feel *guilty.* about things *in my dreams.* and they're not exactly lucid dreams, either. how fucked up is that?

i used to dream about smoking, because that's something that has forever intrigued and disgusted me. it intrigued me, but never enough to get over the large pile of digust i felt about the habit that i would actually try it. besides, if i don't try it, i don't get addicted, and i have enough goddamned addictions in life without technically addictive substances. this summer, i remembered these sorts of dreams more and more, and it creeped me the fuck out that i would dream about smoking in my dreams. i just smoked in them, too, it wasn't like the focus of the dream. and i always felt guilty about it in the morning.

lately, though, those dreams have subsided, as far as i can remember, but as i'm trying--futilely attempting, anyway--to eat better and not shove as much junk food down my throat as possible, that vice has been replaced with junk food. last night alone, i ate a bunch of non-light, heavy-sugar heavy-fat ice cream in my dream, and later a sweet, delicious, fresh, chocolate raised-style donut. and still, i felt guilty and don't even remember enjoying the damn things.

i need to stop feeling guilty about stupid shit, eh? what. the. FUCK, brain o'mine.

/me bangs her head on the desk.

"so, if i want to say something's pretty, i say utsukushi."
"right."
"and if i want to say something is an octopus, i call it a taco."
"mmhmm."
--my sister and i, discussing ways to get over communication barriers with the japanese girls.
...
and a few minutes later:
"they have mozart balls in vienna."
"you mean they didn't bury them with him?!"
--my brother and my mother. someone had to say it. mom was just the only one with the tact to do so.

"are you gonna be nice to the japanese girls, paul? they're gonna like you."
"oh yeah? well, they're gonna MAKE OUT with you! that's what THIS says!" *makes a loud buzzing noise and comes at me with the zipper grip*

"it's my weapon against people who want to eat me: i havee dandruff!"

i worked for four hours today. what lovely hours they were, too. my three girls, hito, asa, and yumi, are super cool. we don't communicate terribly well together, but we try, and there is laughter and the occasional moment of understanding. this will be quite an interesting experience.

when i came up to meet the girls, they called my name, then the girls' names--screwing up my last name in the process, which was funny since my sister, who shares my last name, was called later without any confusion--and the president of their school gave me a gift. it's a little ceramic lucky cat with an eggplant painted on its belly. it's damned cute.

in other notes, there are a lot of really shitty movies coming out this summer. i wish they'd stop showing commercials for bubble boy. really, please, now. die.

today you can hear the army practicing. it's in the air and all around, that deep booming bass thud of a bombing exercise. our boys at work, keepin' the peace so we don't have to. or so they say.

my mom was showing me houses and neighborhoods today, deeming each "too small," "too close to the other houses," "too not done being built," or "too bad it's already sold." this house-buying and selling is a tricky mess. i'm just looking forward to moving into my apartment so it's no longer an issue so near and dear to me. i think i'm ready for the years of apartment-swapping ahead. i never did have to mow the lawn, anyway.

i've been letting myself indulge in a little fantasy lately, with the idea that it could happen, so i don't feel so silly. :)

there are a bunch of videos and movies i should watch today--i still have manhattan and the hudsucker proxy sitting on my tv downstairs, unwatched, while startup.com and the road home are playing at ofs tonight--but all i really want to do is dance to seùor coconut y su conjunto covering kraftwerk. i guess that would get tired eventually. maybe i'll do that after i shower.

my sister came home from japan yesterday afternoon. she was cranky, mostly due to being in the middle of a 24+-hour session of sleeplessness. by early evening, however, she had gotten a second wind of sorts, and went gallavanting about with her friend dan, hyper as a hyena. then she slept all night, i hope. i haven't gone in to ask her if the jetlag slept off yet.

she brought me a bumper sticker that i need to scan. it says in japanese, "i drive slow. please pass me," while the bottom says in english, "i'm safety driver." i love mangled english, possibly even more than beautifully crafted fluent english.

the next few weeks need to pass quickly. so much to do and so little to say.

man, am i a wuss. i have this really cool book about all things sexual--The Guide to Getting It On--and i'm trying to copy some of the text to a friend of mine (for educational purposes, of course) via email, but i had to put an unassuming cover on the volume so i didn't feel weird about bringing it upstairs. it's covered in last sunday's cathy, doonesbury, hagar the horrible, the family circus, the wizard of id, and shoe. yeah, i do find it funny that the spine of a book about sex is covered by a family circus strip. but it's sad that i'm unwilling to be honest with my parents about just *owning* a book of this nature. it's not porn, it discusses the importance of emotional stuff as well as health precautions, and, uh, i have found it useful in the past, but i still wouldn't want them to see it. hell, i don't think my dad even openly knows that i've even had sex, so it's not exactly a comfortable subject. uf. anyway. my parents are cool in pretty much every other respect, i just can't talk about sex with them. not gonna happen.

everyone needs a hang-up, i guess.

"oh my goodness, my ass hurts."
"that's what you get when you stick tacks up your anus."

"why would they put ritz crackers on a barette?"
"because it's japan. i thought about getting you some..."
"...but why would i put ritz crackers in my hair?"
--my sister and i, after she came home from japan.

ok, more "what fascinates emily for weird reasons" shit today: the gURL dig-or-dis boards. here you can find 13-year-old girls' opinions on everything from nude beaches and feminism to asymmetrical shirts and boy bands. there are pages and pages of 'dig' or 'dis' opinions on a plethora of subjects that make my head spin after i laugh until my tummy hurts.

today i'm reading the digordis critique of feminism. i realize many women have different takes on feminism, particularly since the word has taken on a negative connotation--feminists are bitches, dykes, or, *gasp*, feminazis. personally, i'm not afraid to call myself a feminist because i know what it means--equal fucking rights, that's all--and because it's something i believe in. it's something oft-discussed and an interesting subject altogether. but today, today i cry for the 13-year-old girls who suffer from the ignorance syndrome and closed-mindedness. but at the same time, what they think is really fucking funny to me. it's that ludicrous.

i'd just like to take this time to respond to a couple of the disses (and one dig) for my own sanity, and perhaps the amusement of whomever is reading. (you probably just think i'm adork for bothering to respond to people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about. i know, i know, i should pick on kids my own size.)

Manders33 : Feminism....pssh, this consists of whiny girls who don't get their way, no offence to you feminists out there. God made us different for a reason
so, Manders33, it's ok to insult someone as long as you add a "no offense" clause to the sentence. brilliant way to avoid fistfights with those touchy dyke feminazis! and, yes, god, if you are so inclined to believe, did "make us different," but the purpose involves reproduction, not necessarily anything beyond that.

volcanogirl2 : its cool to be a girl but feminism is just plain sexist to me .its like the lifetime channel . why do women need there own channel ? 07.26.01
this just cracks me the fuck up. the separation of sexes is NOT what feminism is about, nor would i consider the lifetime network a particularly 'feminist' enterprise in a certain sense. yeah, it's a big giant made-for-tv-movie estrofest, but it makes women be in traditional roles entirely too often, especially the victim role, and often slights men by putting them in the violent asshole abusive husband role. why is this fair to either sex, and how is that feminist?

...and if they really do spell Woman 'Womon' I think that`s a little over the top! 07.20.01
if you're going to criticize the purposeful misspelling of one sect of feminism, could you at least use the correct misspelling?!

BLiNk182gUrLy88 : Feminism in gurls is good because...we're gurls..but in guys....GAY! ~KiWi 08.02.01
so guys who believe in equal rights are gay. i shouldn't even have to explain why this is fucked up, so i won't.

kids!

there is something that fascinates me about exit signs on the freeways. around every bend, or every mile, there's another green sign helpfully and silently pointing out the distance to the next junction to get to wherever, u.s.a. where i live, i know all these names and junctions like faces in a crowd i see every day, but when i'm traveling, they are the same kinds of faces with different names. the road signs are the same, but the words have changed; along endless miles of freeway, there will always be somewhere to turn or new destination to seek. not announced as on a train--"next stop, eugene!"--but subtly reminding interstate travelers with license plates from everywhere, even guam, of the impending destination they near each mile they drive.

We've got artichokes and rutabagas,
Collard greens and sweet potatoes,
Reaching from the earth to push us into the light!

...because, as we all know, time is killed with vegetables.

time really must've died last night. at least, it died on this computer.

i noticed the time on the windows clock had begun slipping slowly but slowly into past tense, despite my resetting it a few months ago. by now, it's at least 15 minutes slow. yesterday, i opened the dialogue to reset it again (yes, i know that that can be a sign of other computer problems, but it's not as metaphorically interesting to contemplate that in the context of killing time), typed the numbers to match those on my wristwatch, and hit apply. nothing happened. i hit ok. i hit ok again. the hourglass of doom appeared and never went away. the dialogue is still up, though its contents have long since slipped into the void. and the clock still changes fifteen minutes too late.

if that isn't time dying, i don't know what is.

I wish I knew, I wish I knew
What makes me me and what makes you you...

so tonight, chris, josie, and i attended jason webley's killing time event in an abandoned-looking building that i don't think we were supposed to be in, or at least not having a concert in a somewhat industrial-looking part of town with a bunch of other rowdy youngsters looking to yell, break things, stomp feet, and listen to touchingly funny lyrics from the man in the sweat-soaked dress shirt and hat. though the message of the concert was quite fascinating, i was more struck by instances of thought brought on by the presence of an ex-boyfriend to whom i no longer speak and the assorted related memories of our relationship. one of our first dates, i guess, was the tchkung show at the capitol theater backstage at which webley opened. it was for both of us a first glimpse at the penny-filled-bottle-rattling accordianist; he bought the cd for $5 that night and made me a tape copy that i used for almost a year before buying the cd myself, also for $5, when i next saw webley at bumbershoot. i know his music made an impression on both of us, though we ripped ourselves apart.

anyway, i got to thinking about things, about how love is something so easily given but so hard to take back. revoking love sounds so strange, so harsh, so..extreme, when in reality loss of love is slow and subtle. when i revoked love from this particular ex, he took it to mean the total extreme, that there was never love to begin with. with kk, it was--is--much more confusing. love faded, concern abides; but what to do with it is a tricky puzzle. and still sometimes i mourn the losses of both--remembering the good things, like how i could see so many cool concerts with the one ex (hell, we've been at at least two of the same ones this summer without speaking)..or the little things, like how garlic breath never bugged kk and i, or we could get naked and watch star trek in bed together and just feel good. and i wonder if i'll ever have that sort of thing again, though i know nothing would be the same but more perfect.

so this all ran through my mind as i sat in the front passenger seat of chris' car, driving home at 11:30 in the evening, passing street signs that marked miles and landmarks until my need to write could be satiated.