it changes

i was at the gelato place with a when the h&h collective busted on the scene all showered post gym lookin' all healthy and my pasty bloated self was like 'yaarrrrhghghg'. all this school and all this work and never sleeping and always writing or working on something or avoiding work i should be doing and feeling guilty so numbing out with the television which i hate...it's not good for the healthiness. yaarrrrghghghghg. yesterday the first guy i ever had sex with sent me the nicest thing i've heard in forever, it was so nice and he called me beautiful in a super sweet way and i was like yaaarrggghghghhhghh. 'cause i'm really not feeling anywhere close to that half of the spectrum these days, i have to tell you.

i mean it doesn't matter what other people think right? i am a rock i am an island etc. etc. but sometimes i just want someone to tell me that i'm great.

no, fuck that, scratch that, people do tell me that, probably more than i earn. that's a statement designed to display my precious self pity. lame.
so what am i trying to say?

it's this:
i'm not in love with you anymore, you stupid fool. i'm finally not.

it's this:
it aches & that ache takes time but you'll go yours & i'll go mine.

magic 8 ball says...

first, the control questions:

is the pope catholic?
> as i see it, yes
is it raining today?
> yes
is neutral milk hotel the greatest band that ever existed?
> it is decidedly so
have i been flossing regularly?
> very doubtful

ok good, it works.
you have to make sure it's not opposite day.

***

now, the real questions:

will i finish my term paper?
> it is certain
will i get into school at berkeley?
> yes
will i have sex again in 2005?
> my reply is no
will i get drunk at the company holiday party?
> as i see it, yes
will i tell anyone they're hot, when i'm drunk at the party?
> cannot predict now
will i go to peru in the summer?
> you may rely on it
does harry potter die in book 7?
> signs point to yes

haha sorry heather. the 8 ball knows all.

even if he/she is unwilling

gmail ads are the best.

my friend sent me the text of her email blowing off some guy. to see what i thought before she sent it. and gmail gives me this:

Broken Heart? Heartache?
Strategies to get your lover back, even if he/she is unwilling.
www.howtowinanexback.com

rejected? heartbroken? thinking of ending it all?

never fear, tigress luv will show you how to get your partner back in your arms...whether your partner wants you back or not.

"NOW is the ONLY Time to STOP Your BREAK UP and Save Your Relationship...BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! That’s a pretty scary fact, I know."

see, i go to college so i happen to know that the appropriate definition of 'fact' is not 'whatever tigress luv wrote on the internet'.

"I followed the advice I found in your webBook with the man I was dating. One week ago he said he would never ever date me again and that he would never give me another chance. I followed your advice and last night, to my surprise, he called and we are dating again. Although he is a commitment-phobic, it is good to have him back in my life.

I am so glad I found your web site just in time to prevent the break-up from succeeding."
~CAL

congratulations cal, he sounds like a keeper. definitely.

"Just had lunch with the ex. She is not an ex anymore. We are going out again tonight, and we are back together. Read the book. Don't THINK. Do what the book says. It worked like a charm."~I. Mike

don't THINK. right, of course! everyone knows relationships fall apart when you start to THINK.

"Ms Tigress, I just signed up on the Lifted Hearts Network, and after reading for just a couple of hours, I think I learned more about myself than I have in the past 5 years. I recently had my heart broken and it seemed that this webBook was written just for me. Thank you."

actually yeah, it was written just for you...the only person dumb enough to buy this crap.
uh i mean...good work.
just remember, don't THINK.

traction

who needs more than six hours of sleep, anyway?
not i.
that's why royal invented coffee.

this morning i'm in a great mood because a professor from cornell wrote back already to an email that i sent at like 1am and she says yes it sounds as though our interests might well overlap significantly. and she tells me about her work.

and i'm all woah, i have interests!
research interests!

and they "might well overlap significantly" with this professor at cornell who did her doctoral work at berkeley and it all sounds perfect OHHHHHHH except that she's retiring within a year. bzzzzzzzzt, thank you for playing. drive through.

but she wrote me a nice message and she copied two of her colleagues.
so they know i'm coming.
so i'm in a good mood.

one time early in the fall i was talking to will about something we didn't like about the department and i said 'it's okay, i think i can change that.' and he was like 'what, you and your flower power?' and i was all 'you have no idea what i'm capable of.' SNAP.

hell, apparently i don't even know what i'm capable of.
it's kind of cool.

end o' the term blues

today it took me over eight hours to break up all my long recording sessions with my native speaker for my phonology course project into sound files covering about 260 different words.

in other words, i feel like i'm in labor.
not that i've ever been in labor, but it must be like this.

the early stages of labor.
and i'm already flailing.

so much still to do and i've been trying but everything keeps taking at least twice as long as i think it's going to. and it makes me want to have a tantrum. i hate this i hate it i want to be done and done with finals and to be in minnesota where my mom will make food for me and tell me to take naps and put blankets over me when i fall asleep on the couch. and i can watch tv and read fiction and talk to people like a normal human being. i want this semester to be done and i want my apps to be done and

oh my god.

my stupid undergrad school screwed up my transcripts! i.e. i got twice as many sent to my house as they were supposed to send so i'm guessing they doubled one order and skipped the other so now i have to deal with calling them to try to figure out what went where, if they even know. and try not to yell at them and freak out all over them 'cause it's probably some student making $6 an hour and humans are human but damnit this is really really important.

you can. not. screw. this. up.
if you do, you don't get a second chance.

now after i go get my friend from the airport i have to customize my cornell and chicago statements of purpose. then map and write about the telugu vowel space. three pages of solid term paper prose before i sleep, that's my goal. and i'll still be behind schedule.

bitch whine complain.

lentil loaf

my friend annie looked a little surprised and said "this is my first white people thanksgiving." i think her family is kind of fucked up and she's had a pretty crappy year so i brought her to my aunt judy's where i go every year. she's never had the kind of thanksgiving where it's like a big family, with a mother figure cooking huge piles of food for everyone. after dinner we lay on the floor in front of the fire like big cats, rubbing our bellies.

aunt judy isn't really my aunt, except in all the ways that matter.
i don't think you really have to share dna to be family.

she makes me lentil loaf because i don't eat turkey. it's basically cooked lentils mashed up with brown rice and theoretically, cooked onions and garlic but you can't really taste those. then you plop it in a loaf pan and bake it. it has the approximate color and texture of something you can't talk about over dinner. at the end of the meal there was only one smallish serving taken out of the very corner of the dish (mine), so now there's 97% of a lentil loaf in my fridge.

but isn't it great how people with the hugest hearts will take care of you? i tell my friends that i pretend to like lentil loaf because it's so nice of judy to make it for me, and i don't want to seem unappreciative. but the real reason is that i love what it stands for. i love everything about it, other than how it tastes and looks. it's squishy brown love in a pan.

so tonight i am thankful for lentil loaf.
for my beautiful amazing family and friends.
and for the fact that i'm going to be really regular for about the next five days.

how we got here

the magical mystical sitemeter says that people end up here by searching for linguistics or boobs. i'm guessing that neither group is finding exactly what they're looking for. it also told me that today tony pierce linked me which is pretty awesome because something he wrote is basically the reason this blog exists.

***

the night before i moved out i heard this awful noise in the kitchen and when i got there he was slumped over the counter just crying hard. devastated. devastating. and in that moment everything changed. you don't just completely fuck over someone who loves you and stick around to see the fallout without it changing everything. somehow i was there again, a stupid kid trying to play grownup in his house in the hills where everything turned out to be a little too real. and i was leaving the next day, all of my stuff that he helped me drive out here from the midwest all around his house in bags and boxes and what could i say? "come on, let's go to bed."

he was the kind of good that's good even when nobody is watching.

i don't regret leaving; i never should have been there in the first place and if i stayed i would never have stopped yelling and demanding and slamming doors so hard they broke, because there was no space to breathe there. but i've been thinking about him a lot and thinking of writing a letter. i'm scared to do more harm than good but i want to say that i'm sorry. i wish he could hear me now, i'm sorry and i know everything, i understand it now, what i did, i haven't forgotten it. and karma had its way with me but i'm getting out and i hope you did too. i hope someone loves you now, and i hope this time they stay.

and i know it probably doesn't help much, but after you i never treated anyone like that anymore, like they weren't real. so you didn't get the fairytale prize but maybe it helps a little bit that it made me change because i couldn't risk ever doing that to anyone again.

i'm sorry that was all i could offer.
you deserved more.

out of bounds

i was joking around with my friend will today about how he should do my homework for tomorrow so i could go out drinking tonight with c instead. telling him he would do it if he were really my friend. affecting that bratty attitude that i do, from time to time. back&forth jabs and then he said "why, are you planning to run into david again?"

and i felt breathless like being kicked.
in the chest.
and everywhere and falling down hard.
just the reminder of it.
how i've been trying not to think of it. it's still there, but at least i can try not to think of it so much. at least i can just be quiet about it.

all i could bring myself to say was "that's out of bounds."
and i haven't really felt like talking to anybody, since then.

i know he didn't mean anything by it, and i wish i could laugh but i can't.
not yet.
maybe not ever, i don't know.

and that horrible mean voice in my head can scream over and over about how stupid it is, i should be over this by now. i should be better. "love is so short, forgetting is so long" right? neruda got it.

sometimes i wonder if he crawls into her bed shivering in the middle of the night, like he used to here. i wonder if she wakes up a little and says "aww, baby" and wraps her arms and legs around him to give him her warmth. she doesn't really care if she gets cold; if she can make him warm then maybe she'll make him happy and if she can make him happy then maybe he will stay.

but anyway. that's all out of bounds, now.
back to the syntax of old french.

to:
graduate admissions
department of linguistics
university of california, berkeley

dear sirs and madams,

i am writing this letter on my own behalf, in support of my application for the doctoral program in linguistics. i find it necessary to inform you that i awoke this morning at 5am, the purpose of which was twofold: 1, to finish my phonology assignment (vowel space mapping) which is due this afternoon; 2, to bake gingersnaps for today's company potluck.

the former task i accomplished through employing several of the skills i've honed this semester: patient voice recording and re-recording, careful multi-pass spectrogram analysis, and fudging the data.

the latter task was unfortunately not so simple; it required a delicate and timeconsuming ballet of kitchenaid, ingredients, crystallized ginger hand-diced and mixed in, dough refrigerated and rolled into tiny balls, dipped in sugar, flattened lovingly onto a greased cookie sheet, and baked. project output includes twenty-four (24) delectable gingery cookies*.

so, to sum up: 1, gingersnaps; 2, gingersnaps; 3, gingersnaps. and i still arrived at work by 8.45a. can you not see that i am the superhuman?

i hope this will be instructive and helpful for you.

i remain as ever in your humble and gingery service,
amy x xxxxxxx

* in the interest of full disclosure, i must inform you that the original output count was twenty-five (25). however, i did not have time for breakfast today and, well, i'm sure you know how these things go.

miscellaneous statements of fact

today had me kneeling in the dmv parking lot changing out the mn license plates in favor of the new ca plates. now flash gordon (jury's still out on the name but i'm leaning that way) is 2 legit 2 quit, y'all.

today also had me wandering the main stacks of moffitt library. have i ever told you how much i LOVE libraries? it's a quasi-religious-ecstatic thing, really. it feels so good to be in libraries, and walk past all the people-clogged workspaces back deep into the stacks where you have to turn the wheel to move them back and forth, so you can get into the spaces you want to get into. it's muffled and dusty like a church but with knowledge instead of dogma.

***

time it was and what a time it was it was
a time of innocence
a time of confidences

long ago it must be, i have a photograph
preserve your memories
they’re all that’s left you

prosody and stress

this week i began in earnest the process of destroying myself.

i want to stop thinking of ways to strengthen and tighten and focus my application. i need to stop. if i take on one more thing, i think the whole structure will collapse. i'm not exaggerating, i wish i were. i have a 20 page term paper to write, a phonetic and phonological inventory of the telugu language, based on data i've gathered firsthand from a native speaker. it's my writing sample for my apps as well, it has to be perfect. everything has to be perfect and heather laughed when i said that but god do you know that feeling? like you absolutely cannot fuck anything up, and you can't even get your brain around everything that you have to keep track of? around work and your ordinary schoolwork and the volunteer project work where they want you to get more involved, with finals screaming towards you this other stuff keeps escalating. and it ALL matters. you don't just want more time you NEED more time, but there isn't anything that can give, anymore. you don't get to rest anymore, well actually you get one evening per week, that's what you've promised yourself. all the fun and rest and relief you're going to get has to come from that one night. and you better enjoy it 'cause it's gonna be a long week until the next one.

whether the stress is self-inflicted or not...that doesn't really matter.
within the scope of my temporally/temporarily condensed life, it's real.
the stakes are unarguably high.
whatever metric one chooses, tangible investment or feverish hope, they're high.

i have lists and lists and lists and lists, weekly lists and daily lists and asap lists. i haven't been sleeping enough, but that's okay because i keep having these anxiety dreams anyway. it is ceaseless. it is in my head all the time. if you were to see me at work or on the street or something and say hello i would say hi back. i would engage in the requisite small talk, make the requisite gestures and expressions. and i would be genuinely happy to see you, it's not that i wouldn't. it's just that as a background to all that, about 1/3 of my brain would be thinking "okay have to go talk to fillmore about the lor next. need to draft my personal essay this weekend. don't forget to print all the forms. what kind of labels should i provide my recommenders with, i wonder. is replacing the undergrad prof's letter really a good idea? what am i going to hypothesize about the telugu stress system. don't forget to start chopping up the recordings and generating spectrographs. remember to email those other professors. i wonder when i'll have time to meet with them." and on and on and on ad infinitum ad nauseam ad insanitum...

it's only four more weeks.

okay, enough with the self-pity. i chose this; i'm working my ass off to take a long shot at something i want more than i've ever wanted anything that didn't breathe. it's by far the hardest thing i've ever done.

but what a great thing.
what a lucky human i am.

the shape of things to come

things i'm going to do after i finish my grad school apps.

1. rent every single movie from the "filmed in sf" section at video room.
2. take my bitches to the monterey bay aquarium to see the jellyfish. yeah that's right, if you don't let me call you my bitch you can't come.
3. read proust.
4. make a new friend.
5. reinstate tuesday dinners.
6. make out with somebody in my car. perhaps my new friend! (see #4)
7. learn finnish, japanese, latin, arabic, basque, and a language with clicks.
8. ponder (and perhaps effect) a radical change in hair color.
9. be drunk often, and with someone who knows how.

i expect this manic-regressive phase to last about two weeks, but it just might be glorious.

about a car, part five: the conclusion

part 1
part 2: redux
part 3: easy come, easy go
part 4: in which i meet a repo man

so i was rollin' down the street today in my '87 accord, rockin' the simon and garfunkel cassette tape that i inherited along with the car. life was good.

yeah, that's right, my car is back & it's gonna kick your ass.

it's amazing how easy it is to get places when you have a car. you forget that, after awhile. then you're like wait...i can go down whatever road i want? i don't have to pay a fare? this is SWEET! it's great when the small things make you feel like the king of the world.

i'm still trying to figure out what to do with the old gascap. whoever stole it shot a bunch of holes in the old gastank so my car has a brand new one, but the mechanic kindly left me the old cap on my dashboard. as a trophy, i suppose. it's quite fabulous and goes perfectly with the torqued screwdriver i grabbed from the passenger seat the day we picked it up from the impound lot. yes, folks, i have in my possession the screwdriver that was used to hotwire my baby! i'm thinking shadowbox, i'm thinking display case of some sort.

i wonder what i should name my car.
anyone have any ideas? it's white with brown seats. very retro. broken antenna and the kind of lights that pop up out of the hood. and it's kinda smooooooth, it makes you wanna make out with someone. but i guess that could just be me.

maybe i should call it barry white, haha.

my grand day out

after not leaving my house (and barely even leaving my couch) for nearly a week, i returned to the glamorous worlds of work and school today. it was hard. not that i wasn't thrilled to be out of the damn house. the spirit was willing but the flesh, as they say, was weak.

still, i am declaring victory. having rigorously narrowed my list of target graduate schools down to six (berkeley, oregon, boulder, chicago, cornell, buffalo) and prepared a first statement of purpose draft which i am comfortable handing to people for comments, this morning i marched right into my historical linguistics professor's office (well, okay, i actually stood around waiting in the hall for like 20 minutes until some other girl from class finished talking to him, but then...then i marched) and asked him if he would feel comfortable writing me a letter of recommendation for graduate school.

now...this is funny on a couple of levels. mainly, i first met this guy this summer when seeking feedback from last year's failed app to berkeley. i don't think he really took me seriously or cared to engage with me beyond the basic obligatory pleasantries. it was a short and awkward meeting, and when i shook his hand and thanked him, my thoughts did not match my words. when i got home i cried 'cause i'm dumb like that. and now i'm taking his class and i find myself in his office hours somewhat regularly, talking about sanskrit orthography, or why the conventionalizing of pragmatic implicatures in english evidentials is probably not a case of metaphorical extension.

yeah, i'm really that much of a nerd.

but anyway, he said yes. and somehow that was like pushing over the first domino, now i feel like i've passed some critical momentum, where the process will just sort of carry itself along. which is a great feeling. and which is a horrible feeling, in a way. i can't explain it very well but if you're like me and you worry about things a lot, maybe you understand. that these huge lifechanging things are just scary. and how lonely it can feel to be standing here, staring it down. and i know, i know this is when i'm the most alive and all that. but when i really think about packing up my life and moving away from this place where almost everyone and everything i love exist...well, i simply have to stop thinking about it. or i'll give up on the whole thing.

sometimes at night the raccoons walk around on my roof.
i can hear them trying to get in the skylights.
they're up there right now, and it makes me smile.

safeway breakfast

so yeah i've been sick this week and instead of going to the healthy hippie grocery store and market that i usually go to, i've gone to safeway twice. safeway has things like nyquil, reese's peanut butter balls cereal, and huuuuuge packages of frozen fish sticks. disgusting, i know, i know. one night i thought it would be so great if i could just eat baked frozen fish sticks and microwaved pre-prepared country crock mashed potatoes for dinner. if anything made me feel worse this week, i think it was that.

all of this has caused me to add a rule to the safeway list.
rule 2: never go to safeway with a 102 fever.

(the first rule is never go to safeway drunk after a mountain goats show. though i have to say, the dinner party the next day where heather served food off the cartooney animal head shaped paper plates that i talked her into the night before...that was pretty great. so perhaps rule 1 is still arguable.)

which brings me to this morning's breakfast: quaker instant oatmeal, strawberries & cream flavor. now...i wouldn't say that in the store i actually MISSED where it says "artifically flavored fruit pieces & non-dairy creamer" right under the huge-font "strawberries and cream" designation, in fact i did notice it. but my friends, i was in denial. i was in denial brought on by fever and the endless feeling of breathing through lungs full of wet gravel and the blissful promise of warm soft creamy strawberry deliciousness.

you guys, there are no strawberries in there! there are little rubbery dry red fruityesque bits, but they are not strawberries, that was immediately obvious. in fact...the more i ate them...the more i thought, hey, these are a LOT like those unsugared unsulphured dried apple rings that i get in bulk from the hippie grocery store.

omg, look at the ingredients, they totally use dried apple pieces (with nasty flavoring, color, and preservatives) to simulate strawberries. and their "creaming agent" is hydrogenated oil and more chemicals...ugh, i can't believe i ate that.

the weird thing is it's actually not that bad. i remembered from when i was a kid that the way i like instant oatmeal is that you get the tap water as hot as it will go and put that in, stir it up, and suck it down. no microwave involved, the microwave just makes it gummy.

come to think of it, all this typing has made me hungry. i think i'll go have another bowl of dried apples with chemicals and creaming agent. i'm recovering from the bird flu, after all, i deserve a little slack. maybe i'll wash it down with some baked frozen fish sticks.

anyone want to join me? i've got plenty to go around.

kesha, part 2

part 1

my past is marked at intervals by these intense friendships that built to some point of crisis then imploded. maybe kesha was the first one.

some distant relatives i'd never met and knew i'd never see again came to visit for a couple of days. they had a daughter around my age and my mom insisted that the three of us would have a great time, kesha and heidi and me. i wondered then and i wonder now what would cause her to think that three twelve year old girls, two best friends and a newcomer, could be anything other than disaster. i don't remember much about heidi but she was shy, sweet, she wanted us to like her. we didn't. this was our little world and she was the intruder. we resented her presence and we didn't care if she knew it.

on heidi's last night there, kesha slept over. we all crashed in sleeping bags on the floor of the bunkhouse. we had a plan, i don't remember who suggested it but we decided that kesha and i would sleep in the same sleeping bag and pretend to be gay. did we even know what that meant, really? i don't know what was going through my head but it seemed fun at the time. twelve year old girls are mean, and there's nothing like someone making you feel cooler than everyone else to bring that side out.

so we did. exaggerated groping motions inside the sleeping bag, loud moaning gasping noises. poor heidi never made a sound. i don't know how long we kept it up but at some point everything changed, the kind of change that's one-way, permanent. things got real. we didn't do much besides brush our lips together, graze hands over nightgowned backs and bare legs, arms loosely thrown over one another. that eye contact thing that only happens when you're lying down so close to someone, and how they look a little different that way. little unsure smiles.

i had to go inside the main house to use the bathroom, my head was spinning and i didn't really know what was going on so i just didn't think about it. i was autopiloting and i didn't think about what to expect when i got back but when i did we just started everything again. i was touching her and felt bare skin where panties should have been. wait..what?

"what happened to your underwear?"
"i took it off."

oh god oh god ohmygod too much and it wasn't because she was a girl, that never really bothered me at all. it was because i was twelve, i was also shy and sweet and innocent and this person i became when i was around kesha...that was her, not me. i wasn't cool or beautiful or popular, that was all her. i was just scared. she had made it real and i guess i didn't really want it to be real. i wasn't ready for anything to get real.

i mumbled something about having to go to bed and i got out of the sleeping bag and crawled into one of the bunks. i stared at the darkness forever and then must have fallen asleep because i woke up to the sound of the door closing, she was gone and the light coming in the window was early and gray. i got up and went after her, nightgown, bare feet.

caught up with her on the neighbors' dewy morning-cool lawn, the world was still asleep and she didn't want to talk, she said she was fine. i remember hugging her but i don't remember what i said. maybe something like okay i'll talk to you later, or i wish i could have, or don't hate me.

i didn't see her much after that. i have no idea where she is now. but oh what a memory. little girls trying to grow up. skin and lips and hair, summer nightgowns, and all the rest of the world blocked out by the thick padding of the sleeping bag. nobody else in the world, just us. just me and kesha. the most beautiful girl i'd ever seen.

kesha, part 1

kesha was so beautiful.

we were twelve years old and she was the prettiest thing i had ever seen. red hair, pale skin, cool blue eyes. even at twelve she was sexy, running around in some little denim miniskirt and tank top, bare feet. i just wanted to look at her, be around her. all the other kids felt the same way, all the kids wanted to be kesha's friend. somehow even though that was my first summer on the lake, she picked me.

she knew things i didn't know. she'd already gone to parties, already kissed boys. already been "finger fucked" she told me proudly and we giggled over that under our sleepover blankets on the floor, flashlight, her making a corresponding hand gesture sending us into fits of laughter again and again. her parents liked to lie on their dock (three down from ours, just a few minutes walk down the narrow rooted path that cut through the woods bordering the lake) naked in the full sun, which scandalized my parents to no end. she loved english muffins "drenched with butter" and i thought the way she said that was impossibly cool.

god, we had no selfawareness. no idea of our own innocence, youth, beauty, power. or rather, i didn't have any idea of those things, if they were ever even mine. looking back, i think kesha had an absolute awareness of them. the kind of look she could give you when she wanted something. she would challenge you, dare you, something about that look left no space for any answer other than the one she was after. you would have given her what she wanted too, trust me.

we did the normal stuff, we planned dance performances (madonna tapes on the boom box in her front yard) and made all the other kids learn our routines. rode our 4-wheeler around the woods, down rollercoaster backroads to the gravel pit. we worked on our tans and read teen magazines and devised plans to catch the perfect boyfriend. we were free and in love with the summer, in love with life. sometimes she'd sing folk songs to me. we never realized where all that was going. i didn't, anyway.

we used to swim in the lake at night, just the two of us. my family inside the house at the top of all those steps cutting through the hillside down to our little beach. in my mind there were hundreds of steps to run up but really it was probably only thirty or forty. but we'd swim in the dark and there's no dark like summer minnesota lake country dark. we'd take off our swimsuits and slop them up on the dock. then we'd dare each other to prove our nakedness, as if the discarded suits weren't evidence enough. we'd do little flips and somersaults in the water, flashing secret skin, laughing. it was the most innocent kind of thrilling you can imagine.

(continued later)

h5n1 you sank my battleship

omg you guys i totally have the bird flu, look:

Symptoms of Avian Influenza in Humans
The reported symptoms of avian influenza in humans have ranged from typical influenza-like symptoms (e.g., fever, cough, sore throat, and muscle aches) to eye infections (conjunctivitis), pneumonia, acute respiratory distress, viral pneumonia, and other severe and life-threatening complications.

i'm hot blooded, check it and see

i'm sick.
i'm like, sick sick.
like a chilled aching feverish mass on the couch sick.
everything hurts even your skin sick.

that's the worst, you know. when you put on your most comfortable clothes and it still hurts your skin. how can a five year old well-worn hoodie feel like sandpaper on raw nerves anyway.

i was really delerious yesterday, i went to work and school anyway and then coming home i was walking down the street thinking 'weird isn't the bus stop usually here?' and i kept walking then realized i was on the WRONG DAMN STREET. i said something in class and everyone looked at me like 'umm. what?' and i was like 'yeah i know.' then i got home and had a 101 fever and i was like no wonder.

this is what we in the business like to call bad timing.
(i'm not sure what business, it just sounded good.)

i didn't do my school list last night but i have this idea that i will do it today after i go do this thing that i have to do, loathe as i am to leave home, and which i will tell you about later 'cause it's pretty cool. then tomorrow i make a focus statement for each school on the list, including all requirements, dates, and names of projects and professors. i already know some of this. and work on sop. then friday i finish sop draft as much as i can and email all that stuff to all potential and actual recommenders.

yeah. i think i can do it if i stop being sick.

the looming ever

i get it now, things paralyze you when you care too much. it's just so goddamn big. you want to be perfect, you want to apply to all the right schools and you want to write the most goddamn perfect statement they've ever seen. you wish you could take a huge eraser to your undergrad transcript and you wish you would have gotten just one more question right on your gre. you wish everything were in order but it is not even close.

it's six years. it's the rest of my life. it's huge, it could mean i never fall in love again. it could mean i never have kids..i'm not even sure that i want them, but it's nice to think i'll at least have the option to have them. did you know that of people who don't already have children entering a ph.d program, only about 33% of the women will ever have them? versus around 66% of the men.

this is a huge huge thing and i'm starting to freak out a bit.
it all feels more real, this time around.
there's no boyfriend pushing me on this time around.
it's just me.

every day i tell myself 'you have to work on grad school today' and every day i just...don't. ucsd is due on december 15 and i haven't started.

i swear, i swear i will finalize my list of schools before i go to sleep tomorrow. even if i'm sick even if i just want to sleep, i will do it. someone kick my ass if i flail on this, okay?

also, i forgot how much the ants like my house when it starts to rain.

he's like a fungus

email from david. special.

lately a lot of people have told me that i am not in touch with my dark side. or that i disown it. so here, this is me owning my dark side.

if i were to send a response (which i don't intend to), and if i weren't actually a decent human being (which i generally am until someone fucks with me remorselessly for years) and if i weren't dumb enough to actually still care about the guy, here's what my dark side would like to send back.

***

> "I know I cant really call you any more"

yep...but when has that ever stopped you before?

> "but hmm maybe email's ok once in a while?"

or maybe not.

> "It was nice to run into you"

nice. i do not think this word means what you think it means.

> "Funny that both times Ive been to the 12Galaxies I ran into you there."

do you mean funny-strange or funny-'yeah that's why i'm gonna avoid that place like i avoid fucking ikea from now on.'

or maybe you were expecting a trademark amy 'see it's fate we're soooooo totally supposed to be together' response?

yawn.

> "Was it my imagination though or was your friend ("Bob"?) letting loose with a just a little bit of 'tude?"

try to imagine a world in which not everything is about you.

try harder.

> "I say this also cause I hope that wasnt rude to leave so quickly, but then again probably you were just relieved or something."

yep! even a broken clock is right twice a day.

> "Anyway as always I hope your classes are going well and all that."

ah, closing with the cursory shallow show of caring about my life. nice touch. next time you might wanna leave out the 'and all that' if you're really going for genuine, though.

> "So long,
> -d"

go prematurely ejaculate with your new pseudo-girlfriend while it lasts,
a

ps. try your "i've never been with anyone who made me wanna come so fucking bad before" line on her, it's a good one. lots of girls are stupid enough to believe that shit. lucky you.

* apply label: david
* archive message

it did come slowly

i mean, i mostly wish my friends never had to hurt. or be disappointed, or feel lonely. but this is the world. it moves and turns, and things break and mend. time is the irresistible force and we can try and try to be the immovable objects but i can tell you, it doesn't work. i think the best we can do is to recognize the good moments when they happen, and love them. and other times, maybe just let ourselves get pushed around a little. maybe just be soft. i have found that the less you resist, the less it hurts.

it's good to be in a position to be able to give emotional support to someone else.
i feel strong again.

***

there are better things ahead.
i promise.

a line allows progress

well, hmm. how do you follow that up?
all is okay, just a speedbump.
just a strange dream.

outside in the yard someone is having a conversation about ballot issues.

heather called.
i'm going to her party now.
and she needs me to get figs.

sick. he was there

he was there tonight. he was there he was there

and you go out iwth your coworkers after work and you go out with the beautiful people they are the beautiful people and at first yhou think oh they are the beatufiul people.

you go out and you get a maker's mark manhattan it was his drink it was his his his and now it's yours. because whiskey is brown bitter cold old in a glass with ice whiskey is hard whiskey is alone and whiskey is bitter.

and a chimay because you love it.

you end up at cancun eating a burrito that rachel bought because you didn't like staniding in line anymore and you sat down she bought you a burrito saying you buy me a drink later you say okay, you say okay. she buys you one and you sit there with all the beautiful people you're smiling and laughing and you really eman it too you know? you mean it. cancun has the best burritos in the uinverse i don't care what anyone else says

and henry calls you drunk girl
and you say fuck you
fuck you
fuck you
yeah


the beauty bar more drinks you can't remember what

and then later you go across the street you go to teh dark room and you see dave's show and it's good it's brilliant and everyone is there everyone beautiful and sparkling and robert rings you a huge sierra one of those really big ones and you keep drinking and drinking and drinking more, poor liver. ppoor poor liver.

then it's over and you have to to go home you're walking to bart you get a text 'hi are you still in the city do you want a roide home' yes yes yesy yesyesyesyeyesy amy is there your savior shining there with car to give you a ride home home home tiome to go home and you say do you want to go to doc's clock?

so they go with you there, they go with you there.
you go there and someone nelse buys you drinks and someone else too and then somehow you thyink you see david thgrough some haze, through some foggy haze you tink you see david and he maybe puts his hand on your shoulder or something., he's going to the back where the bathrooms are, he says i'll be right back

you look around wild you look around drunk you see bob and carsten you think i want to be talking to hot boys when he comes bvack here

you go talk to them you say david is here. you're not sure anymore, you say i'm not sure but i think david is here, i think i saw him. i think he said something to me so stay here with me okay? stay by me okay? he broke my heart, just stay by me. and they say okay

so then he comes back and you make introductions, this is david carsten bob this is them hi hihi everyone says hello and he says he's seeing a show next door. parchment solmething i can't even remember he's next door.

probably with that fucking girl.
probably with her and you don't even care, you coulod be that girl.
you still could be that girl

he talks for awhile to carsten and bob you ignore him mostly ignore him rachel is behind him fanning her face exaggerated 'oh he's hot, he's hot' yes he's hot he's so fucking hot the hottest i've fucked and i've fucked the hot ones, lately i've only fucked the hot ones

and you ignore him finally he says 'well i'm gonna go' you don't look at him he just goes.
that's fine.
it's fine.
he always goes, you're used to it, he always leaves and
you
let
him
go.

you
let
him
go.

then eve3ryone comes around you amy amy amy amy s she came over, she pulls you off for awhile perfect perfect she pulls you away she pu8ts arms around you says it's okay it's okay how are you? you're not sure too much whiskey in you too much beer in you what do you feel anyway? how do you even feel?

you cry a little, it's to be expected that you cry a bit but then you say i'm okay i'm okay. you go to mike mike buys you another drinkn poeople keep buying you more and more and more drinks that's why you're even here that's why you can't even feel a thing

still
at home
solmehow you got home
he left and everythign kept being okay bob put his arms around you hand on back of your head petting your hair saying i love you i love you i love you you are beautiful and it's okay. amy says isn't she beautiful? isn't she just beautiful? mike says yes i think i said that earlier today and he did and he was joking but he did and suddenly he is there buying you a drink saying what are you drinking? he gets you one of whatever you say and rachel and bob and carsten and amy and everyone and robert everyone is there so many arms and hand
so many arms and hands and drinks

all there holding you warming you soothing

you get through it.
he's gone and you get through it and you don't even care.
rachel says yeah he's really fucking hot but whatever
mike

you say mike. you say hey you know...he never made me come
you tell mike this secret
you say he never made me come and that is NOT generally a probelm for me you know?
mike says woah well i don't mean to brag but i have never NOT made a woman come


you almost ask him to prove it

you're tired of secrets.
he didn't. probably not even his fault he tried a good try and you faked it with him, you faked it because...why? because you couldn't stand him trying to make you feel good? because you were trying to make him feel good. i don't know it's fucked up, don't expecet me to be able to explain why you could never just let him
just let him


he's gone and everyone around you says you are beautiful and they put arms around you and you let yoruself be held
you let yoruself drink and drink and rink
until it's time to go
and amy drives you
and everything is blurry

you're breathing heavy and she says are you asleep but the secret now is that you're not, you're trying not to be sick because this is the most fucked up you've been since high school

you just wanted to go out with the beautiful people
you just wanted to have fun
someone promised you you would laugh
and you did
oh god you did you did you did
laughed until
nothing
hurt
anymore.

you're home and amy took you inside which is good because keys are difficult and maybe you would still be on the step but now you're heer you should have water but you can't because you'll get sick you'll get sick just don't get sick because he is not worth getting sick over anymore
nobody is worth getting sick over
he never was
he never will be
and if he was with some other girl next door watching some show, parchment something, carsten knows but you don't whatever whatever...if some girl was there then you could have still been that girl

and you don't want to be that girl.
you are not that girl.
you are a thousand millionj times more than that girl.
and that's why you said no

and everyone knows it

and you;re still drunk and cold and by yourself but you know, by yoruselve has started to feel bgood

you will regret this tomorrow
you don't care
your'e goinhg to bed now.

you said thank you to everyone for loving you because they did love you and help you and amy says you can never go to this block again
that block of mission between 21st and 22nd and she's right
she's right
you're never going there again

fuck him.

rehash

in a desperate bid to do something, anything, other than study for my midterm tomorrow (avoidance being a really bad idea, by the way, as i need basically a perfect score in order to justify the ultimate act of hubris i am going to commit next week), but realizing i shouldn't really be spending time on other things right now, i offer you the following auto-summaries of some of my recent posts. courtesy of ms word 2004 for the mac. n.b.: i never use word, i use neo office, but that doesn't have autosummary so there you go. it's all for the sake of the internet, man. the common good. my ART.

just think of this like a holiday special on a weekly sitcom where the whole gang gets together at someone's house or maybe a diner, and there's soft warm lighting everywhere and they all reminisce about the wonderful and zany events of the past year or whatever, and you see little clips pasted together from all the shows so that nobody had to do any REAL WORK AT ALL.

so yeah. on with the rehash.

***

sidestep / amoroso
i don't care. AMOROSO CONSTRUCTION

'hey building, you lookin' fiiiiine today. posted by amy at 7:02 PM Comments (2) | Trackback (0)

***

smooth like jelly

i guess people liked our costumes, they sure yelled a lot, especially at the last party where we didn't even know anybody. posted by amy at 4:08 PM Comment (0) | Trackback (0)

***

parties tonight. just stop.

question:
posted by amy at 2:05 PM Comments (3) | Trackback (0)

***

pointless observations, random thoughts
i hate it when people spell 'come' as 'cum'. if you ARE in the mood it can be very hot, but it's all about the mood and the attitude. when i clean i play the pixies, usually doolittle, so doolittle is playing now. i still love the pixies. 1. save the dirty talk for when the mood is hot
posted by amy at 8:47 PM Comments (2) | Trackback (0)

sidestep / amoroso

today was different.
good.
different.

i go to my therapist on wednesday mornings. i say that with full selfconscious awareness that it is the consummate crunchy glowy california thing to say. i don't care. therapy is rad, suck the pipe haters.

i'm not defensive or anything.

but anyway often i come out of there feeling nurtured and supported, you know, the glowy california stuff. but some days i walk out thinking "man i really don't like her! isn't she supposed to be NICE to me? isn't this supposed to make me feel good?! what a rip."

those are the days when shit starts to change.

so i had this friend a long time ago and i really cared about her a lot and she really fucked me over and somehow then ended up hating me even though i never did anything and yeah of course i would say that, i'm not exactly unbiased, but it also is the truth. and now i keep thinking she's the one who won't let shit go. and that also is true, she won't. but in some ways that maybe other people don't see or even believe, she's kept me in this power struggle for two years and somehow i never noticed that i was running around in a circle going "i hate this i hate this" but never stopping to think...the only way out of a power struggle is to refuse to participate.

cj (therapist) told me about how at the highest level of some martial art, i can't remember, where someone rushes at you and without even defending you simply step aside and allow their own weight and momentum to topple them.

i said but what am i supposed to do about...
she said "just factor her out."

she said are you really worried about h? that she won't love you anymore, or that she will start believing things that aren't true? i said no, of course not.

she said are you afraid of her?
and that made me stop.
i don't know. i just know that i don't wanna be in this anymore and maybe it is as simple as choosing to sidestep.

cj also said ummm so knowing what she thinks and says about you, WHY would you go and read her blog? why would you choose to stay engaged in that? and that kinda pissed me off (hey...i'm the victim here! be nice to me!) so that i couldn't give the answer which i know now is: because i'm a dumbass. because maybe we all have this sick tendency to create for ourselves what we fear the most.

some days i come out of there thinking god what a mess i am.
those are the days when i can feel things getting better.

***

when i walk from campus over to icsi i pass a building on center street in berkeley that is under construction. the banner informs me that the name of the company doing the work is:

AMOROSO CONSTRUCTION

this is delightful to me because amoroso is, i believe, cognate with 'amorous.' so i walk by and i have this image of a group of amorous construction workers, but they're all macking on the building, right? 'hey building, you lookin' fiiiiine today. yeah baby.' all rubbing on the building.

it's good being able to crack yourself up 'cause you rarely get bored that way.

tonight i can(not) write

i'm going to leave this entry to someone who already said it better...

***

Tonight I Can Write
Pablo Neruda (translation, W.S. Merwin)

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.