i suppose it's about time i blogged. i've been busy. there is stuff i'd rather not say!

how about this: gin and tonic is pretty good.

there will be no encore performance.

i just won an ebay auction for a technics 1200 turntable. those are the holy grail of turntables, and i got it for about half of what it's worth. i am so excited.

i have been buying entirely too much music lately. ok, the music itself isn't too much; the money i spend probably is. the music is wonderful. gosh, i love music.

tomorrow i am going to olympia. yay.

i was going to write something profound, but i forgot what it was.

oh, more about the zine: recipes are good; context is better. i am looking for (mostly nonfiction) essays or other creative writing about food, places you eat food, food in families, dietary restrictions, how you feel about a certain food item, whatever. tell me a story. everyone i know has some unique voice about food; it has a unique place in their lives. i am really fascinated by that, so i want you to write about it. or at least talk to me. email is good. :)

listening: curve - cherry

perhaps it's a bad idea of me to take on any new projects right now, but fuck it. i was inspired this morning by meesh, who seems to love me even more when i talk dirty about food. i think she has a fetish. (no, i certainly don't have one myself! noooope, no way...)

anyway! my idea was to start a new food zine. not sure yet if it should be an online zine or a paper one, because paper is a lot of fun, but online would make more sense. i can probably get cool #n00n people to collaborate for sure, and i'd like to organize and edit (*wriggling fingers in delight*), but would anyone else want to join? c'moooon. email me or leave a note. :)

and while you're at it, comments and additions to the radio show theme ideas list are always welcome!

listening: the breeders - mad lucas

i probably won't link to it directly since it's on damn hell ass kings, but i must say that i am enjoying the shit out of rocksnobs.

depression seemed much crazier the last time.

i walked to work this morning, tired, feeling like i wasn't moving fast enough but couldn't work up the energy to move any faster. i imagined, as i often do, what would happen if, say, a car (or better yet, a bus or a cement mixer) were to veer of their course enough to squash me? would there be any indication of where i came from? my driver's license, tucked into my backpack, contains out of date contact information. my cellphone would only be useful if not damaged. surely they would eventually figure it out. i don't think much beyond that.

other times i imagine that people are upset with me for doing things i am supposed to be doing. i prepare insults and retorts for drivers who would call me rude names for pressing the crosswalk button before they could get into the sensor's range to turn before i could walk. i just know the right-turners are itching to go and i am just ruining their days. i compile lists of creative names and phrases to sling back at them, when no such confrontations ever occur. the fantasies give me a strange sense of satisfaction, though i seldom have the chance to call any of them out.

the weekend is nigh upon us. i feel the itch to spend money. probably a bad itch, but there are things i need all the same. i am now on the lookout for a used/vintage leather jacket, reasonably priced, or some other jacket that would work for the look i have in my mind. i need to peruse more shops. i went to the buffalo exchange and red light on the ave yesterday, but there was nothing that worked. a couple might have looked right, but they did not quite fit. one was only too small in the hips. since this failed jacket-shopping excursion fueled my depression, i did what i probably would have done anyway: i went to a record shop and spent money. i got five cds i've been meaning to buy for $40. yay for used stuff. there are still two or three i'd like to hear before bumbershoot, but they're not necessities. i swear by the time my depression lifts, i will have a kick-ass record collection. woo.

speaking of which, still need to get bumbershoot tickets. chris also bought tickets to see cake, the flaming lips, de la soul, and kinky (i know nothing about kinky) at summer nights on the pier on sunday. those are $40 after ticketmaster fees. yeesh. i said i'd go (i would like to see the flaming lips), but then i remembered that i might be going to olympia on sunday with my aunt, cousin, and cousin's fiancee, so that might not work. we'll see. i have no idea what's going on in the world.

yes, i am using depression as an excuse for things. no, that's really not acceptable.

i think my boss is up to some fiendish plot. he said he was doing something evil on wednesday, but it wasn't ready yet. evil is kinda cool.

i went back to imdb yesterday and got some initial-type stuff taken care of. i got the legal paperwork (non-disclosure agreement, so they can sue me if i go work for ebay and tell them all my secrets, ohnos!!!!!1), an id badge/entry card, and swag! heh. it's all about the logo swag. i now have an imdbpro.com tshirt (navy blue), cap, and pen-on-a-string. i met the other girl who's working about the same times i will (tuesdays and thursdays), and she is very nice. three people from the team bought us coffee at the nearby starbucks. i am not sure why we went to starbucks over, say, tully's, which was closer to the office by, oh, fifty feet, but i can't complain too much about free coffee, nor do i suspect tully's is much better than the evil coffee empire since they want to emulate them. i felt very weird sitting in a starbucks, though, just sippin' my iced latte. the people we're working with seem quite cool, and definitely movie fans (read: movie snobs, which i'm all about--note my friendship with chris the movieslut!). they were impressed by my choice of favorite movie (harold and maude, for those just joining us now), and, in turn, i felt kind of bad for the other girl when she said her favorites were romantic comedies like you've got mail.

movies are pretty cool and all, but for me, music wins every time.

stuff i need to do: figure out what kind of paperwork the school needs or has to give amazon.com so i could get credit if i wanted to, but i don't absolutely have to. (i'd rather, in fact, not get credit for the internship, because i don't really need the two credits and i'd have to pay for them, which seems silly. paying to do unpaid work. yeesh.) anyway, i need to do that. and i need to buy better undergarments, because i only have two bras that i wear and they are getting beaten up. and i want to find a jacket and i want to go to the farmer's market and i need to grocery shop, probably, kind of, and maybe go to toys in babeland or something. chris wants to make a weird movie. i just need to do things all the time so my mind doesn't settle. i should write more; maybe it'll go away.

shit. music. i love music. dammit, work.

i glanced nervously over the edge of my sunglasses. not a soul i knew in sight. whew. if they only knew.

i decided this morning that for lunch, i would have a hamburger, fries, and soda. i've experimented lately in revoking my long-held self-denial; why stop at one alcoholic drink or copious amounts of coffee? to console myself, i promised to patronize only a local business (burger hut on the ave) over, say, a jack in the box (greasy sourdough jack ohsogood!) or the hub cafeteria (surely wouldn't satisfy), as if in failing one principle, i could at least uphold another.

besides, burger hut had already allowed me one delicious broken promise in the form of an amazing milkshake one gorgeous, hot night during finals week last june, but that was encouraged and accompanied by graylan and lindsay. even then, i could not completely overcome my guilt. as we waited for our shakes, they discussed running marathons of lengthy bike trips and their affinity for sporting gadgetry from rei. with what olympic event could i received my penance, errand-running?

the menu was so inviting. a dozen delicious-sounding burgers were described in handpainted scrawl, mostly priced at a moderate $3.85 each, add $2 for a combo meal. first the teriyaki-coated hawaiian burger called to me. my wannabe-vegetarian side begged for the eggplant burger, while the part still feeling guilty for eating out in the first place tried to negotiate for grilled chicken. in the end, the burger with sauteed mushrooms and swiss cheese prevailed. as i ordered (with fries and a drink to go, hold the ketchup and mayo), i felt the other patrons looking at me. somehow, i thought, they must know i'm out of place here.

the cashier cheerfully handed me my paper cup and lid, and i proceeded to fill it with root beer from the fountain. soda, sweet soda, how i have seldom missed thee. later i wanted to slap myself for wishing i'd gotten the unsweetened iced tea instead.

when my bag arrived, i promptly left and headed down the ave to find a place to sit. i walked past the construction between 42nd and campus parkway until i stopped on a bench and unpacked outside schmitz hall.

first i tried a fry. since committing myself to a more 'healthful' diet, i have had fries only a handful of times and come to the conclusion that they weren't all that appealing. sure, there's tasty fat, and tasty starch, and tasty salt--all favorites of the american palate--but where's the bite? i rationalized that fries simply aren't worth the dietary expense, but today, i had to have them. that first bite, while good, did little to revive my interest in the fast food staple, and i left the bag alone for awhile.

then i unwrapped the burger. oh, baby. it was larger than i remembered fast food burgers being, and nestled inside that perfect sesame seed bun was a pile of tomato slices, iceberg lettuce, onion, mustard, swiss cheese, and, of course, sauteed mushrooms on that flat beef patty. thinking of the mushrooms made me drool in anticipation as i momentarily forgot my mild embarrassment in eating a takeout burger. the first bite was good, as was every one that followed. i found myself relishing in the onion slices as only one who's only recently discovered how much she actually likes onion can.

i think now, only 20 minutes later, i am already over the first wave of guilt. of course, i will have fun telling friends who know my food obsessions that i ate three things i typically vow not to eat, especially in response to their accusation that i eat so goddamned "right," but i am unlikely to make a tradition of this little guilt-indugence love triangle.

was this lunch better than, say, a spicy grilled catfish taco from agua verde? no, not at all... except maybe today.

why...it's tuesday. and here i am! at work! the words to describe my excitement can hardly wait to escape the tip of my tongue.

ah, well, not like i'd actually be able to *sleep* much past 7:30 anymore.

despite not sleeping like a log as i did sunday night, i think i feel more well-rested today. i was dead yesterday. i drank three cups of coffee during the 1 o'clock hour. then i got really bad cramps from all the caffeine hitting my kidneys. that was fun. the coffee was good, though, it made me pretty stable.

my turntable seems to have decided to work again. i should shift things around. my tactic is to take the belt off the motor when it's not in use. this seems to have helped matters so far. at any rate, it's been playing stuff and not fucking up, which, really, is all i ask. don't play at the wrong speed and don't skip (or SKATE) around the surface of the record, that's all. i think that's a reasonable request.

walking around rainy city streets on a cloudy summer morning, i notice many things that indicate i'm living in a sci-fi novel. the presence of asian businessmen in suits at the bus stop, feeling alone as a gull calls out and flies away as soon as i turn my back to him, advertisements for the imax space station film ("only a few have been...now it's your turn")... they just felt like weird things. they were perfectly normal things, of course, but they felt slightly fictionalized.

as they say, truth is stranger than fiction. i haven't remembered any dreams lately; i think real life has been too strange.

oh yeah, i forgot to mention there are photos of my new haircut up. they're not great shots, but there 'tis. you can really only see the dye in the third one.

*rubs eyes*

...again with the five hours of sleepies...!

i guess i could try to sleep again and i might not fail, but really. what good would that accomplish? i need to get up again around 9 in order to meet christine at 10. and i am going canoeing. hahah.

backtrack. yesterday was a weird day.

i woke up at 7 or so. five hours of sleep. that sucked. i took my time doing things that people do to arise and walk from that sleep state and by 10, i had arisen and walked to trader joe's to get a few things. ed was over here around 11, and we took off for olympia.

let me just start by saying that anyone who would spend his saturday driving a friend to a town located a little over an hour away from where they both live in order to spend the day with her family with little to no demonstrable benefit for the person in question is an insanely nice person. fortunately, this seems to be the type of person i know, and ed did that. so he rules. intelligent, hot chicks now reading this should immediately go throw themselves at his feet or something.

my plan was to be able to run errands with my parents' honda civic and take ed to a park so he didn't have to feel awkward in the middle of all the family stuff, which can be admittedly a bit much. however, the civic happened to be with dad's friend in seattle, whose car (a '74 beetle, i think) got a fucked-up wheel and is stuck outside my parents' house. what actually happened was that ed hung out with my brother (they're both musicians, and paul is weird enough to amuse the right people...i guess) and we three ran errands in his car. i had to give directions, which was frustrating, but it worked out fine.

at home, things were weird. dad is having these nerve attacks because of shit that happens from having shingles, which he has because of a compromised immune system. these attacks are really scary because they come on fast with little warning and obviously leave him in an intolerable amount of pain. i am writing about this in the most objective style i can because i am not awake enough to close the emotional gap to writing what i really want to say about it, but anyway. there is a whole drill that my mom and dad have figured out in the past week and two days, and they write everything down. he runs to a chair near the kitchen sink and my mom runs tap water at a fairly specific temp (kind of warm) and repeatedly soaks several washcloths for him to put on his head. they count and focus on his breathing. while this is happening, my dad's eyes become inhuman. my mom snaps at him to look at her. they count well into the hundreds, stopping to breathe after every four or five counts. he is shaking all the time and wincing like no one should ever wince. this happens several times a day, sometimes starting while he's asleep.

family dinner of enchiladas was good. yay for food.

ed and i left after dinner and went up tumwater hill so ed could get some pictures of rainier and a pretty sunset over the picturesque olympia. that was nice. there sure is a lot of prettiness out there.

i drank coffee twice yesterday. once a cup of instant coffee (yeah, i know, what the fuck) that didn't suck as much as i expected, once a double latte from the former dancing goats. the latter did very little for me, unfortunately, but ed and paul got... what did they call it... vanilla big trains. i guess they are like vanilla frappuccinos or something. they were insanely sweet and contained far too much whipped cream for my taste, but they seemed to like it. i'll stick with my iced latte with caffeine that did literally nothing for me.

when i came home, i felt weird. i talked to chris online and we determined that he should come over with silly alcoholic beverages and a movie (fear and loathing in las vegas), which he did. he previously told me i couldn't drink if it was just because i didn't want to feel whatever, but i guess it was okay if we were watching a movie! heh. i only had one and it tasted like ruby red squirt and i didn't feel anything, so that was pretty silly. don't think i'll be making that a regular thing at all, it was just...something to make a weird day even weirder, but it was nice of chris to oblige/humor me.

i'm trying to sort out my feelings on a number of issues i'm tired. i'll go spend an hour with christine on lake washington in a canoe and things will be better. it'll be good, anyway. she lets me babble and interjects useful things. she also tells me cool stuff. you know, we're good friends. that is what happens.

eh. fuck it. i'm gonna shower now.

listening: david holmes - rodney yates