third post so far today! fuck yeah!

so i am doing something really hard right now. really, really damn hard. it's kind of hard to explain, but let me try.

when my dad died last summer, he was cremated, according to his wishes (and mom's). my aunt wasn't happy about it, but everyone else thought it was wonderful. the plan was to put some of the ashes in an urn and keep them at the cemetary where his parents are buried and his sister owns a plot, some in little boxes that each of us could take (except my aunt, who didn't want one), and some to be scattered at places decided by dad. there is a list of five places he wanted his ashes scattered: three somewhere around olympia, one by pittock mansion in portland, and one at cannon beach. to be honest, i don't remember all the exact locations, but i don't think it's important right now. we are planning to do this over break, when my sister will be in town and my aunt can join us on the coast for christmas. it'll be a jolly good time.

anyway, at each of the sites, mom wants to light two candles. she has ten scented candles, each of which are associated with a word. she has asked us (my siblings and i, presumably) to come up with a story, a song, whatever, to share that has to do with each word. so my task today is to come up with things to go with these words, and it is fucking difficult.

i brought several books to work with me: the bible, the prophet, tao te ching, the odyssey, sappho, and shel silverstein's where the sidewalk ends. i thought these might offer some insight, if nothing else. so far, this is what i have, with a little explanation.

energy - william blake's "energy"

spirit - beth orton's "sweetest decline" - it's a song that probably doesn't have much to do with spirit, but i really like this song right now. um, i will probably find something else for this one.

unity - the beatles' "come together" - hee. again, i should probably think of something better, but... cool song!

peace - shel silverstein's "hug-o-war"

laughter - cat stevens' "if i laugh" - i actually got into this song in the weeks following dad's death. "if i laugh, just a little bit, maybe i can forget the chance that i didn't have to know you, and live in peace..." not that i didn't know dad *at all,* but, you know, not enough.

protection - i have no idea. i was thinking of writing something that i suspect will come out as bullshit to my cynical eyes but that mom might like or something. bleh.

wisdom - the prophet on teaching; proverbs 8:1-12 - both of these are clearly appropriate, and the parts i chose don't seem to obnoxiously religious to me.

love - the prophet on love (excerpt on page 13 of my copy); shel silversteins' "love" - la la love you, don't mean mayyybay. dude, i dunno, there is so much stuff you can associate with love.

night - sappho's "the evening star", which is super-duper short but pretty. beth orton's "the stars all seem to weep," which is damn good too.

touch - noooooo ideas.

so anyway. if you have any suggestions, that'd be handy. if not, well, just ... sorry for troubling you with more of the "my dad died" stuff that's been going around. funny how these sorts of things rattle through my skull! :P

two more hours of work, then i should do...something. i still need to see two towers, but no one seems to be able to go with me. dude, i am not going alone. this is lameness. ummm... can't seem to find anything really cool to go to tonight in a club or a bar or a musical venue, or i'd drag jana out. i mean, maybe something, but the stuff that sounds mildly promising is pricey for being only mildly promising, y'know? oh yeah, and i have that dvd to watch, all about my mother. hmm. and i need to figure out how i'm getting to olympia.

my sister's flying in right about now. welcome back to washington; hope you don't go insane! haha.

WORK IS SO BORING TODAY.

for anyone who was truly worried, my roommate has reappeared. last night i remarked to chris that i hadn't seen her for a few days, and he replied, "have you checked her room? dr. laura's mother was murdered and they found her body in her bedroom."

this made me really not want to check her room, although i was pretty fucking sure my roommate had not been murdered.

a few minutes later, kevin called. i relayed the story to him. he encouraged me to check the room, because the sooner you find the body, the more likely you are to catch the murderer.

...

i think i told them both they were sick and definitely not helping. i didn't want to check the room for selfish reasons: i don't need the mental scarring that finding my roommate's murdered corpse would bring.

my mind is a little scared of tv in the dark morning hours when i work early after seeing the ring. i sure as fuck don't want to see something REAL scary.

anyway, it's about that time again--time to go to work. yay for work. and money. i need money, dudes.

listening: sloan - bells on

long-ass day. i spent a long time walking and bussing. right after work, i caught the 44 to ballard and walked from 8th and market to 65th and and unspecified cross-street (around 15 blocks all told) to check on kevin's ups stuff, then i just barely missed the 15 and walked along 15th for 20 blocks to just barely make the 75 into northgate. there i picked up mom's christmas gift (besides the one little thing i made) and proceeded to catch the 66 home.

once at home, i talked to chris. chris said he was meeting jana and lauren at the alibi room later that evening, and i invited myself along. hey, it counts as a place that requires i.d. to enter! so chris came over and we hung out and then napped briefly before catching a bus downtown.

the alibi room was packed, and we got there a bit early, even after spending extra time finding our way to the BofA atm. we made our way downstairs, and as chris was trying to help me figure out what the hell to order (i had decided to imbibe ONE drinky-drink; at $7 with tip, one is about all i could afford, sheesh), jana and lauren arrived. jana insisted i get an amaretto sour. chris concurred. an amaretto sour was ordered, prepared, and drunk, and it was not bad at all. i took tiny sips or sniffs of everyone else's assorted beverages and none were terribly appealing. for the second round, i wanted coffee, but none was to be had. aww.

then we decided to head back to the u-district and go to a cheaper bar, or something. i had no intention of drinking any more alcohol, but people should serve me COFFEE, dammit. on the way out, jana said that her philosophy teacher was there, but i misheard her at first saying something about falafel, and immediately really wanted some. there is a place across the street from the bus stop that purports to have the world's greatest falafel, and lauren DARED me to go get some, but i decided not to. alas.

back on the home turf, we went to the college inn pub, which none of us had been to before. jana and chris were pretty... loosened up at this point, and proceeded to order a bit more. i had a giant glass of water. no one freaking serves coffee. hello, are we in seattle or not? there was some crazy drunk guy behind us who got a little weird when i (too loudly) made a blue velvet reference with regards to lauren's choice of heineken. after that, we wandered over to stella's for some post-night-out snacking, and a pack of students fresh from the emigrant chastized us for not being drunk enough.

so now i'm home, it's late, i'm tired, and i finally had coffee at stella's so i don't think sleep will be quite soon.

so... in between kidnapping jana, i have to bus to ballard and back (try THAT alliteration i unsuccessfully avoided) and grab the ups stickies so kevin's stuff doesn't get returned to the sender, cos that'd be lame. i also need to go to northgate mall at some point and get something for mom. i know specifically what, otherwise northgate mall wouldn't exactly be my premiere destination. gee, going to the mall the weekend before christmas sounds like a BRILLIANT idea! hurrah.

i have stolen kevin's cds. well, seven of them. i can't find his whole j-r caselogic book which would no doubt contain at least three more cds i want to borrow. i am listening to wilco's summer teeth right now. i listened to sloan's twice removed earlier and cemented my enjoyment of that lovely canadian band, and then i listened to beth orton's central reservation and recognized a bunch of the songs from her live show, which ruled, and so did the record. rah! (becky, you would like beth orton, i think, if you haven't listened to her already. it is always funny to me that i still often hear things and think, "becky would like that!" i don't do that to the same extent for most of my friends, and i hardly ever see you...)

tomorrow my email is broken all day. well, the one i actually use, not the one plastered all over this site. i check both, just one is my mainstay, that's all. and it's been getting a fuckton of spam lately for some unapparent reason. stupid spam.

i just baked my christmas cookies. i need to sleep very soon, for tomorrow begins earl-lie in the mornaing. i am working full shifts all weekend (four hours apiece, opening to closing) and must remember to ask about the proper shutdown procedure.

things are crazy. crazy, crazy. california is falling apart. the weather is insane. washington is cold and dry, as usual. i'm down to one functioning lightbulb in my living room fixture.

i have one more episode of the awful truth to watch, and an almodovar flick. the other day i bought heavenly creatures used on vhs because it cost me $5 and is almost certainly my favorite peter jackson movie. i also picked up some thelonious monk record, a cheap transparent green-blue muzzle record that looks much cooler than it sounds, and a jane's addiction "three days" 12" single. yum. did i mention all that already?

also, sugar is making me sick. i will definitely need coffee tomorrow, but i may forgo the usual half packet of sugar in the raw. just milk, thanks.

did i just babble pointlessly for 15+ minutes? yes, yes i did. goodnight.

grades for the quarter: 3.3 in psych, 3.6 in newswriting. not bad, but not fabulous. i could've done better in each, had i really made the effort, but i feel like i was pretty well worked anyway. and i learned stuff. so, really, i may be off the dean's list for good, but hey, i'm feelin' the burn. no pain, no gain, as they say. i'm full of pain.

right now, for instance, i should succumb to some dinner pains and work on my cookie pains and watch my dvd pains and listen to some cds-stolen-from-kevin pains. pain is good. a life without pain is a long, endless chain of errors repeated again and again, so don't be afraid of pain, don't run away...

(points to anyone who knows that. i probably know you from olympia.)

i'm sleepy. i am working tomorrow at 7:30. until 2. argh. i will need a nap, and then i hope to kidnap jana and go dancing. jana has expressed a desire to go salsa dancing; there is a club that plays rock and funk or something this friday that would also be fun, i suspect. anyone from seattle have suggestions? keep in mind i'm a music snob, but unafraid to dance badly. also, do clubs have dress codes or whatever? i don't think i own anything remotely club wear-like. my comfortable shoes are all docs. they are sexy for rock shows, but i dunno about dancing.

anyway, time to give in to pain.

hi. what's going on?

oh, so, it was just the stupid power supply. $30 and a trip to a store up near shoreline that was open until 8 fixed that, easy as pie. well, and hardware-fearless kevin. i wouldn't touch this stuff on my own, you know.

kevin should be in california now. almost two weeks without the boy who makes me melt. sigh.

i have the keys to his apartment, though, and he wants me to check on it once in awhile. i will do it...and raid his cd collection. heheh. ok, ok, and play his drums. i mean, really, why not. i suspect he'd also like it if i played some video games, but let's face it, that's unlikely to happen.

so...what the fuck am i gonna do with myself besides work and occasionally visit the boy's empty house?

well, my family's going to the beach for christmas. i'm out of town from the 23rd or the 24th until the 27th. i need to scour my cookbooks for some good meal ideas to share. there will be four women who will eat my cooking and like it; the meat-and-potatoes brother can fend for himself. he has to anyway. i also need to come up with something to share for various word/candle things we are doing as part of a ritual mom's planned for scattering the ashes. it's a little complicated to explain; maybe i will later.

i'm also planning to bake some cookies. i have butter and eggs and nuts and unbleached all-purpose flour and organic sugar. i need to get some neat chocolates for the peanut blossom centers. i think i'll head into ballard tomorrow and scour the bulk foods section of ballard market tomorrow for such things. mere hershey's kisses will suffice, but i'd like to try something better.

i also need to use my stupid state-issued id to get into somewhere that, up until december 11, i was prohibited from entering. along these lines is finding something cool for new year's. the presidents of the united states of america are playing the crocodile, which some of my friends would love to attend, but i think it's sold out. dj spooky is playing i-spy, i think, and that might be neat. i almost bought alcohol *cough*for cooking!*cough* tonight just because i CAN now, dammit, but that seems so WEIRD. like i have no idea what to get, y'know? it's so foreign. i'll just get cheap-ass stuff for cooking and allow it to reaffirm my belief that alcohol tastes nasty on its own. anyway, jana and i need to go dancing or something of that nature.

let's see... nothing much else to report. i am going to miss kevin because i'm a dork. i am going to go insane from working the opening shift a bunch of times. i'm going to get sick from eating very badly, especially too much fucking chocolate. i can't stop, seriously. so bad. that is why i didn't buy any today. i am going to get headaches from the ill effects of coffee or lack thereof, because i think i'm fucked either way anymore. i'm going to have something with eggs for breakfast one of these days. i'm going to listen to kevin's cd collection, which is vast, and convince myself NOT to clean his house. i am going to clean my disgusting bathroom, especially the shower, and buy a goddamn bath mat.

i am going to spin motherfucking sexy vinyl and contemplate my future turntable project, crying while masturbating. it'll involve remixing emo records to make them more interesting and sometimes more amusing. the name was sammy's; the idea was mine. this will involve buying emo records, which may break my heart.

my computer died this morning. actually, a lot of stuff is up. let me start earlier.

christmas shopping was fairly successful. i picked up a poster for jana that was a photo of ella fitzgerald singing with duke ellington and another jazz dude i forget sitting at a table watching her that just screamed her taste, and she ended up loving it. i also picked up some spritely white flowers in a little pot for my mom's birthday, but totally forgot to grab them on my way out the door this morning when i went to get in the car. dohhh. friday night i made dinner for christine, which was nice, and then kevin came over and we were happy and played monopoly while watching fantasia. hehe.

the harem christmas party was pretty fun. it was good to see everyone and crepes were delicious. also, yay for presents! my secret santa was josie, and she did a bang-up job. i think i got a little sick, though, on sugar and this winey glugg stuff that was tasty but too alcoholic for my taste. i only had a tiny amount, but everyone who had some got sleeeepy. ugh. also, there was a really awkward and forced conversation about josie's and christine's recent conversions to christianity and whether or not we nonbelievers had any questions. i was supposed to go to a show at graceland with jana, but i was tired as fuck and frustrated with some things so i decided not to go.

kevin came over and we were going to go record shopping, but we got to the store and then it closed. argh. kevin gave me a backrub and then he played shinobi on the sega master system he gave me (hee) while i made tea and satisfied a bizarre craving for roughage. mm, salad ... at 11pm. god, i'm weird.

so today i'm in olympia, celebrating mom's birthday. today being sunday, not monday, which is when this is likely to actually be posted. paul and i took her out to dinner at the oyster house and then to see star trek: nemesis. she gave me trivial pursuit for my birthday, neat. i have never gotten really good at that, but maybe now i will.

people seem really game-happy lately. i am terrible at games and, really, anything competitive, because that is not my nature, really. i can compete up to a point, then i just say, "fuck it, i don't care that much." even if maybe i do. but i have been tinkering on the sega and being amused for five-minute bursts, and i do like some board games for awhile. it's the real-life competitions i can't handle. games just bore me.

i woke up this morning and went to turn on my monitor and say hello to the world in my computer. nothing happened. it looked like it was somehow turned off. odd! wouldn't turn on. i fiddled with the cables, no effect. i took it apart and blew on it and dusted it, no effect. i sighed. no effect. i took my phone out of my purse in case mom called and considered calling chris, but just as i was taking it out... chris called me. what the! what a weird coincidence. but he was not calling for that or any other joyfully banal purpose. his grandfather passed quite suddenly. he was a bit distraught. i tried to give him some comforting words as one who's recently experienced loss and all that (which was his intent in calling me, i guess), but it's hard, you know? everyone is different.

so i obsessively cleaned all morning. now i'm tired. now i must sleep. tomorrow is work and computer-fixing and, perhaps, some happy moments sometime.

stuck in my head: neil young - only love can break your heart