From Caye Caulker
I'm on a mile-long island in the sun with 85 degree weather and sun.... and you're not.

Ner ner ner.


Merry Christmas ; )

The Longest Night
A Last Entry Before I Leave...
The Longest Night is over, and with it the sadness fades.

Yesterday I went up to the mountains and snowshoed up an old logging road with my dad. we walked up the road for a few miles and gained 2200 feet until the snow was thick and deep and we overlooked the cascades. I came down soaked in sweat and cold at once, glorying at nature and happy for a chance to reflect in silence. A fitting way to spend the solstice.

I've spent most of the last few days wrapped in a deep depression, paralyzed by frustration, incapacitated by noise, and overcome by memory. I feel fine in the mornings, even after being harrased by my subconscious mind but as the days wear on and get darker, I fall into some sort of shadow. I've felt that I can't move for all the sadness in the world.

This has not been a very uplifting week. My family has been anything but comforting. They are a mass of hectic energy, stress, and anger. I don't know if I've seen a single happy face all week.

I went back to the high school to find out that one of my Cisco teacher's daughter was murdered in September by a drunk man in Tacoma. She told him to be quiet and stop harrasing her friends so he got in his truck, backed through two traffic lights, ran her over and dragged her body for four city blocks until he was arrested by a police officer who witnessed the whole thing.

Justin stayed at his old roomate's parents' house. Rather, it's her mom's house now... her dad suddenly dropped dead last summer of a heart attack while jogging over in Europe.

Justin went to visit his other ex-roomate and HER father spent the evening at a bar. He says he's an alcoholic.

Last night we dropped a christmas card by Toyoda's after hours. When Helen came to the door, she had just gotten off the phone. Her eyes were filled with tears. Every hair on the back of my neck stood up; this was NOT the happy woman we know. She gave us each a hug and I could tell she was touched and happy we visited but could barely refrain from crying for whatever reason was hurting her. It was a brief visit and we left.

I probably looked pretty haggard, too, after the way I've been feeling. Justin and I had a rather terse discussion about our mutual life goals and the lack of understanding between our respective philosophies. I think we're both astute people but we can't change each other and we can't understand the other's particular method of living. I think we've been pretty good at acceptance so far-- we still love each other very much and bring each other great comfort and stability.

It's this damn city that brings me down so much. I HATE it here. I thank god I'm leaving tonight. I believe with every fibre of my being that Bellevue is the seventh level of HELL. That it is a suburban, capitalistic NIGHTMARE. I hate it and I wish it would be wiped off the face of the planet.

I'm saying this, of course, because we made the mistake of going to the mall (which has DOUBLED in size since I moved here) today to make a small purchase. It was a fiasco. I would have been able to give a million and one justifications for opening fire on every shallow freak in that mall in a murderous rage. I hated them all, especially the over-groomed 13 year-olds on their cell phones with mommy's credit card and daddy's beamer. I wished them each a miserable demise.

Trite of me, I know. But you haven't SEEN it, you haven't BEEN here. It's sickening in the worst way. I swear to god it makes me want to move into a yert somewhere and gather yak wool for a living.

Bah, but I'm leaving now and I'm going to the edges of civilzation (luckily they make considerations for tourists there) to sit in sun and silence for ten days. Belize will stand in stark contrast to Bellevue. Starving mouths and wont for the bare goods of consumption... not this gross over-indulgence, this sick gluttony. And there will be Time there, Time to enjoy things. Time for more contemplation.... this time, not depressed.

Time to wonder at the sky and sea and to become, for a few weeks, golden brown and crispylicious. I won't be back until after the second... perhaps not until the 5th or 6th.

Merry Holidays!!

Splitting Headache
It's time for all this to be over. And by over I mean not just my departure but the end of the absolute insanity that posesses this house.

You really have no idea. And I really don't want to go into it.

But I think I may seriously lose my mind here. I may lose it and then it will just be gone and I will be a blithering idiot for the rest of my life.

I am completely overwhelmed: by dream, by memory, by noise, by violence, by frustration, by obligation, by calling, by lonliness, by anger, by fear.

Where the hell am I?

Earlier today my sisters errupted in violence over who had the rights to a pair of scissors. Liz attacked Eleanor and ended up herself bleeding and then hitting Alyson in the head three times so hard she broke down crying. All Alyson was trying to do was intervene between a second grader who was acting like a second grader and Liz, who was acting on her psychotically violent temper. Liz is a very smart girl, she just has ... problems. In some ways, I identify with her intellect, creativity, and sense of fantasy more than I identify with Alyson's tempered passivity and maternal instinct. But Alyson has the same dislike of noise and conflict that I have and a great love of compromise and conflict resolution. I sat there the whole time they fought, paralyzed, holding myself still and silent on the couch. As soon as I was sure no one was going to die and I'd gathered myself enough to chase Liz away from her attack on my other sisters, I got in the car and left.

I am a ghost in this place. I am nowhere, stifling and stolid. I am breaking into pieces and what is left of me is showing me things that I don't want to see; important things that I can't ignore. But I'm so frightened they're just more lies I'm telling myself to make myself feel important and real. You see, I thrive on the sense of something epic. That's why I'm a writer, a wiccan, and an idealist. That's why I'm me. But I'll often create these situations out of nothing, to feed off of them. But I do have real needs and real wants and real desires, it's just a matter of deciphering them from all the rest of the emotional garbage in my life.

Maybe I dream too much?

Today I had a calling and I'm not sure whether to answer it. I went back to my high school to visit my teachers. I was visiting Mr. Prufer, my anthropology teacher, and telling him a bit about life, the universe, and everything. Prufer is a very unique guy... he seems to see everything objectively. He also teaches the high school's World Religions course... and it was with him that Alyson and I found our way over to Seattle at 5:30 AM one spring break a few years ago just to take part in a Buddhist meditation service.

He was on his way out the door to a teacher's holiday party today when I mentioned that I had recently "converted" to Wicca. He seemed surprised for a moment and then blurted, "You should come and speak to my classes tomorrow!" I knew what he was talking about, he always has someone from each lectured "Religion" come in and do a Q and A with his classes. I had always wanted to come in and hear the Wiccan speak but was always too timid to give myself a reason to. Now he was asking me to be that person for everyone else. And I feel completely unqualified. I gave him a look like Who, me? You want me to do WHAT?, which he very obviously saw. Just at that moment, a girl opened the door and poked her head into the room.

"Oh, the other witch!" he said, and introduced us. "I was just asking Kat to come in and talk to the classes tomorrow (the last day before break) about Wicca. I don't think she wants to."

"Uhhhh..." I said.

"Woah," the girl said, "I was just coming to ask if you'd found anyone to talk to our class about ... that..."

and so we all fell into a momentary stupor of Serendipity, three Seekers in a highschool classroom.

I guess I should go talk to them. But really, I am totally not the person to talk to. I'm solitary, I'm a complete newbie, I'm unusually neutral about christians, I don't externalize my "faith"-- I hardly represent the majority of Wiccans. But maybe that's a good thing. And maybe I need to talk about what I feel to understand it. Maybe I need some more faith.

But my dad wants me to go snowshoeing with him tomorrow and I won't be able to any other time. I never spend time with my dad, mostly because we don't get along that great. He wants me to be something I don't care to be and he doesn't understand who I am. But that's parents for you. Sigh.

Should I answer the calling or perform my obligation to my family? That's life here for you, torn in both directions. Now of course mom wants to know why Prufer asked me to speak in his classes and all I can do is grunt and shrug. They don't want to know and I don't want to tell them.

I don't know what to do. I need a hug.

I'm lonely.
That's all....

don't pick up the phone, Kat.
don't pick up the phone.

I think I'm in love
... with Legolas. Seriously. Not even the actor that plays him. Just Legolas.

OMFG.

When he did that THING... with the mounting the horse.... I don't care if it was CGI... I think I creamed myself.

The Two Towers was excellent. Just plain amazing. I spent half the time with my mouth hanging open and the other half the time either fighting back the urge to whoop with joy or burst into noisy tears. I was one of several people in the theatre who actually (embarrasingly) cheered loudly several times. I almost went to go see it again today.

And when Justin said he liked the first one better, I realized I don't think of them as separate movies. This is one movie. It's the best movie ever-- and that's saying something. I usually hate movies; they annoy me. Movies, in my opinion, are a waste of time and money, someone's cheap, pathetic attempt at imagination. Some homoginized version of amusement and humor. I hate almost every (American made) movie I see.

This is the Star Wars of a new generation. And good thing, cos the new Star Wars are about the worst excuses for movies ever made. George Lucas and his half-assed epic can BLOW ME. And I will say it now and in the open: I DON'T LIKE STAR WARS. I respect it as representative of a genre. I respect it as a work that was paramount for its time. I respect what it stands for. But come on now, it sucks.

I wish, though, that there had been more gung-ho premiere goers in garb. Justin and I were rather lonely, if not well-respected. We ended up somewhere about a third into the line even though we only showed up half an hour after the first people. We were placed next to a rather annoying Uber Geek with ALL the bells and whistles who thought he knew eeevvrrrrything about swords and the SCA and being kicked out of entire towns and living in a shanty with a broadsword and killing bears and going onnnn and onnnn and onnnnnn about BULLSHIT to three people who are part of an actual swordfighting organization and one who MAKES swords. Needless to say, things got a bit uncomfortable so I left to go air my cloak and parade around like a beacon of garbed geekiness. I ended up making friends with a few of the guys in the front of the line who... uhh... acknowledged that I wasn't there to suck up and take cuts but let me take cuts anyway.

Huzzah for being a cute girl in a leather bodice and elven cloak. ^^

I didn't like the opening of this movie either. And I didn't like some of the CGI. Annnnd I didn't like that they're obviously saving the reforging of Narcil for the third movie in which Arwen will probably heroically parade in and save Aragorn's ass wth it. But I liked everything else, especially the reinterpretation of Eowyn.

I got home at 4:30. UFFFF. And Justin called me from work at 11:30 AM. AGGGH, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???? X-D I know you had to get up but *other people* were trying to remain asleep. (*wink*)

I am SO tired. And I miss my boyfriend. And I need some hott Legolas luvvin. Blah,

I'm refraining from starting the Return of the King because I know it'll depress me to finish it. Yes, that's right, I haven't read all the books yet. I'm drawwwwwing it out. *GRIN* I'm just waiting for the day when we'll have the whole thing on DVD and I can read all three books in two days and then watch 9 hours of goodness on the third. If I can do this, I will probably combust.

It gives me something to hope for.

God, I need help.

Crown me
See that girl
Watch that scene
Bring in the Drama Queen

I'm listening to old mix CDs and feeling mellow, wondering how any one song can so perfectly represent an instant of my life:
Esthero- Song for Holly

Last night I dreamt I was the lead in a play made up solely of people wearing fur suits and speaking animal languages.
Amidst this metaphoric nonsense, I learned that my brain can still apparently make up even better one-liners than a Dawson's creek scriptwriter.
Then I dreamt that I had a Kiki (ferret from Sluggy Freelance) on a leash and she went poingpoingpoing allllllll around... and I drove my car off a ditch and into a tree.
Fuck sleep.

Tonight (thankfully) I forego dreaming for the 12:01 PM premiere of The Two Towers.
In full garb.
We're hardcore.

None of This Means Anything
I said I wasn't going to write when I was at home. I said I was going to take some me time and just screw off and make Christmas cards the whole damn time like a good little elf. I said I would't come near this computer because damn it hurts my eyes... and goddam my eyes are hurting but here I am anyway, it's only monday and I still have five days 'till I go to Belize. I've all Christmas carded myself out. I made three today and I'll probably make more tomorrow. Then comes the hard part... actually writing in them. I can never decide who to send what to, I love them all too much. Sigh.

It's not that, I'm not bored; that's not why I'm here. I'm here even though I'm tired but because I have the urge to write. Because something about being here splits me wide open. But first, I have a bit of news to share:

Oh, oh, who got two As and an A+??? OH, it was MEEEEEEEE. (and a "pass", too... yay scuba) And you know what? That A+ was in my god awful reporting class even. AAAHHAHAAAHA!! I f*ckin' PWNED that class. Don't you love A plusses? How they give you more than a 4.0? (A 4.09, to be exact) It's lovely that I've had three of them now, so my grade point average is a 3.90 even though I've had two B minuses. I'm sorry, I'm just thrilled that I got through this term on top of it all, after it kicked my ass so bad.

And in other news, I finally got some pics of all the micro people deep throating bananas. Being that this all took place sometime in June, these are WAY past due. Unfortunately, I'm in a location where I don't have the capability to edit them or put them on my server, so you'll just have to deal with some of them being sideways. So here's the story:

Innocent barbecue, not-so-innocent friends. Ha, ha, let's deepthroat a banana. Let's take pictures of people making fools of themselves. Let's make it a CONTEST.

(NOTE POST-DATE: You know, now that I'm looking at these pictures on a not-broken monitor I realize how embarrasing they are. OH MY GOD. I couldn't even see Justin leering in the background before. But now.... I'll just go hide in shame.)

Rachel and Micah go first. So far, they and I are the only contestants. AHA! An easy victory. Not even trying here...

But then, Brad and (not sure who the bald guy is... Leo?) decide to get their manly groove on. And goddam, they kicked my ass. Not one to be showed up, I went back into the running... and made a name for myself in infamy with this picture. Needless to say I took the victory.

There's not much of that banana (yes, the same one Brad's holding) outside of my mouth- not that it even compares to Heather from ideepthroat.com. Thank god for suppressing the gag reflex. I was worshipped like a goddess by some men that night. Heh heh.

Anyway, there's a bit of summer nostalgia to take the chill off the long, dark winter night.

In reality, I can't stand being here. Day one and I want to go home. I live such a quiet life now. Reading and cooking, having sex and playing with the cat. Going out on Sundays and sometimes watching movies. Quiet music and quiet conversation. Here's it's the opposite of that. Everything's always in motion a million different directions, even during the times it should be quiet and studious. Here it's always demands with no focus. Here there's no me time. It's being pulled to bits.

It's always loud; it's always tense; there's always argument. Being here makes me sad in a way that should make me happy. I should like being with my family. But, like I said after coming back from Thanksgiving, I like my sisters and I like my parents-- just not together. When I'm here I look at my family and it raises all those old "what ifs" and "how comes" about my life that I fear I'm becoming.

What if I end up like this? How come I can't be happy? Where will I be if I make the wrong choice?

and the infamous...

Oh dear god, I'm becoming my mother...

Even when I'm alone-- which I am during the day all this week-- the silence is like being raked over coals. There's nothing for me here but empty memories and some kind of sickening sadness that makes me listless and immobile at once.

I feel trapped.

These little things here, that were a part of my life before I got it all together, they keep crawling back to me... questions about my place, my worth, my value. And love, always love. That blasted thing that I can never be too sure about. It's always about choices. It's always about parallel universes. It's always about infinite possibilities. I'm being haunted by my life in this goddam house and I don't know if I can deal.

It's not that it was bad while I was here. The truth is, it was DAMN BAD sometimes. But other times it was just living...good and warm and happy and sad and up and down. All the things that go with life in an odd place in an odd time. It was intense.

The problem is It still is intense here, even though I've left it all behind. With three children in early to late adolesence and two parents in malcontent life states, this house has yet to see a "happy" family. I love them all, I do. I just can't handle the sheer volume and chaotic energy. It rubs me raw to the edges.

And it's not just that. It's everything else that's here. It's something that makes me a bit insane and draws me back away from all of them, spitting and snarling. I'm not sure what it is. Something like a bad dream. Like when you wake in the middle of the night and you feel all alone even though you're in a house full of people. Like when you're so displaced you're looking at your life-- all of it, past and present-- from the third person.

Imagine your life as a run-on sentence.

It's wanting to scream, GOD WHY DON'T YOU ALL JUST SHUT THE HELL UP AND CALM DOWN??! as if you have any right to change the volume level of the house by raising your voice or telling anyone what to do because you don't live here but you're still expected to take the shit. But no one ever listens anyway because they're all bickering or watching TV and no one has time for you but they all want it for themselves. And then when you're silent and you withdraw into that cave of introversion you found here so many years ago they wonder how you're happy and healthy and make good grades and have any friends.

It's memories. It's walking into the living room during a Dawson's Creek commercial and feeling like you've gotten slapped in the face. And when your dad says "God, is this show still on?" You say, "oh, it's a rerun" but in your head that "rerun" is screaming its way through your consciousness and you have to hold yourself back from yelling, ON?!? Is it still ON?!?? LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING... But you know that your parents don't care about what's in your heart or your head and they never did and that's why it's so damn hard. It's impossible to be a person when everything's repressed and pared down to the barest bones of existence; when you're crying and competing for attention and screaming silently at the top of your lungs along with everyone else. And that's when everything falls apart because it's all drama and no reason and then things go horribly, inextricably WRONG. Oh, and this show is your life. Because those fucking soul-wrenching dreams don't let you alone ONE NIGHT here, ohhh no, because you're at your wits end and you don't really know or care any more but somehow this place has a way of making you crazy.

Or maybe it's just midnight and you're alone in the living room next to the Christmas tree in your pajamas, typing in the dark. It isn't the first time; it won't be the last time. But something's different now. You're all grown up. You're at the steering wheel of your own life. You control those wild urges to rip it all down when things don't go your way. You repress those unbounded dreams. You shut away that screaming voice. You tell yourself you're saving it for someone who will finally listen.

But you know, you KNOW.

Liar! You tell yourself stop it, because you just think you feel that way, that you're just talking yourself into it because you're a dreamer and a malcontent idealist. And if you wait long enough, those voices will go away.

The echoes will go away.

Then you laugh at yourself even more.

And you think, Maybe my life's just a commercial and I'm waiting in the wings for my turn to go on stage. Maybe all this background and foreshadowing, family and flashbacks amount to nothing. None of this means anything. Maybe tomorrow it's all gonna change and you just don't know what's coming. Maybe you're waiting at the threshold.

Midnight is a doorway. You open it.

*******************************
My, that was intense.

Away to dreams.

My fish is still alive.

Winter Vacation
Well, I'm off... home and into the wild blue yonder.

I won't be posting for the next three weeks unless something tremendous happens. Err..., when I'm in Belize, I won't be posting at all even though tremendous things will be happening all the time. ^^

Happy Non-Denominational Solstice-inspired Holiday to all and to all a goooooood night!

Die already!
Why is my betta fish trying so hard to stay alive? I can't justify leaving him here to die alone and stink up the house... nor do I really want to take him home to let him die for my family. They'd just flush him anyway. How unromantic!

It would be cruel and heatbreaking to flush him now. He's still hanging on, for chrissakes!

I want him to die so he won't have to suffer any longer and also so I can give him the funeral he deserves. A proper VIKING funeral. I want to put him on a little balsa slab wrapped in tissue paper and set it alight on the canoe track, in flames. I'll watch him float gently down the stream and oooooover (oop!) the dam on his way to fishie valhalla. Damn it for raining too much for me to start a proper flame. Damn him for still being alive!

Acckgh, I can feel my karma slipping away.

One big beastie
I saw a shape in the road as I biked up the path to centennial. My first though was that it was a box and then I realized it had the silhouette of an animal body.

Please, I thought, Don't let it be a dead raccoon or a dead cat. That would just ruin my day.

I knew if it were roadkill, I would spend the next twenty minutes shuffling it's deceased or half dead carcass off the road while trying to avoid contracting rabies or some other malady and at the same time crying for the poor little bugger and giving him his last rites.

It wasn't moving.

I thought, When I get there, it will just be a box.

But it wasn't a box, and it didn't look run over either.

It was the biggest fucking nutria I have ever seen. It was just SITTING in the turn lane to the slight left of the bike path, just minding its own damn business.

It wasn't hurt, I distinctly had the impression it was OK. I was just... chillin'. Since its head was facing the bike path, I decided to go around it's backside in case it felt like attacking me in a bloodlust.

As I came up on it, its hugeness dawned on me. It was as big as a house, BIGGER!!! It was the size of a labrador!! It was a MAMMOTH NUTRIA!!!

I made farting noises at it to see if I could get it to move. It looked at me, annoyed, as if to say how dare you fart at me?!? and started to slowly lumber toward the bushes at the side of the road. Mind you, it wasn't even scared of me, it was just strooooollllling leisurely back to the swamp like oh, hello! I forgot I was IN THE ROAD.

It made a burbling sound as it went. It might have been the sound of it's enormous gut wiggling. I swear I could hear it's footsteps shaking the pavement.... DON, DON, DONNNN as it lumbered away.

I couldn't help myself. DUDE! I exclaimed, You are the biggest fucking nutria I have ever seen! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?

The nutria burbled and disappeared into the undergrowth.

As I biked away, it struck me that nutria have no reason to be ashamed of giganticness. In fact, this nutria was probably the Big Daddy of thw swamp rat world, the Overlord of a million concubines, the Big Mob Boss.

I feel like I just met a celebrity.

>.<
Can I be done now?

Kat makes up for all her lack of posting since Monday with...
Another Stupid Survey

This is what I'm doing instead of writing my paper?!??! ARGH.

yes, well...
I'm not sure where that last entry came from. It just sort of drooled out my fingers and into the blog. I'm supposed to be writing a ten-page paper for Philosophy but I just can't bring myself to care. Instead I'm doodling around on the internet which, as usual, is amusing me now that I don't need it to be. I keep revisting the pro-ana forums that I've been watching obsessively since writing my article with the hopes that I might be able to save one person from themselves. I should be writing my damn paper.

I'm tired and uninspired. It's no big surprise; I got home from Portland at 2:30AM last night. Needless to say, Tori Amos was amazing. God, she's the prettiest lady ever and she sings the bestest of them all. I want to have her babies. The arena was pretty damn small... even though we had sucky seats, they weren't really that bad. But after nearly four hours of sitting in bleacher seats, my ass hurt something terrible. Thankfully, we got to stand and move around for the encores since the people sitting next to us left. That felt SO good. And Tori did... what?... seven encore songs? That's like half a freaking concert right there. And she played the best song of the night as her second to last encore piece. The encore sucked; she should have just kept it to Taxi Ride.

The opening act was really pretty good, too- a guy named Howie Day. We wondered if he was from Australia cos his promo stickers had Aussie on it. Alex and I decided we felt bad for him after the concert cos he was hanging around meeting people but everyone had pretty much left or wasn't interested in talking to him. I thought he was cute and he had nice anime hair (not to mention a HUGE talent with voice and guitar!)

Anyway, I'm really fucking burnt after all that driving. UGH. At least there wasn't any traffic going up. I expected it to be a madhouse. And really, it was almost too easy. I felt like something bad had to happen to prevent us from getting there or finding parking. But we just sort of drive straight up there in an hour and a half and parked (during which I blocked traffic and ran into the car behind me... no big, that's what bumpers and turn signals are for) and took our seats even before 8 o'clock. It was rad.

GGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH. OK, I should get back to this paper. I think the stupid barista at Starbucks made my coffee with regular instead of decaf. It's giving me palpitations. >.< Oyyyy, my heart, my heart!!

But first, a note on drinking and driving (and poor grammar/ vocabulary): On the way up to the city last night, I saw a sign that said REPORT ANY DRINKING DRIVER as if it were suggesting you phone in the man on your left sipping his americano. What the hell ever happened to proper word useage? And Justin just told me that the Oregonian reports that Tonya Harding has just been required to "take classes on drunken drinking." I suspect that they actually mean "drunken driving" given that she was just pulled over on suspicion of DUI.

Fool journalists.

Going Numb
it's strange how one thing can haunt and hurt you for so long

and then, when you think you can't take it any more,

when you can't stand the shadows playing behind your eyelids,

and you've been screaming secrets in the dark alone

it just stops mattering. or you stop caring.

or maybe it just stops being wrong.

and it doesn't go away because it will always be there

because it's a part of you, like blinking and breathing

but it stops being something that takes you apart

and starts being something that keeps you together,

something that's just as much a given as a sunrise.

is that peace? is that the way of the tao?

or am i just glorifying my ability to rationalize any sin?

Inkblots
Kat, your unconscious mind is driven most by Imagination

This means you have a deep desire to use innovative ideas to enhance your life and influence the world around you. This drive influences you far more than you may realize on a conscious level.

Your need to be innovative drives how you look at new opportunities and the kinds of experiences in life you choose to have. On an unconscious level, the reason you may be so driven by imagination is your fear of destruction, the opposite of creation. When you are unable to create due to restrictions imposed by your environment or even ones you unwittingly impose on yourself, do you feel trapped or confined? You may find these feelings of unease only get better when you find another outlet for your imagination.

With such a strong creative orientation, you are willing to entertain a broad spectrum of ideas at any given time. The world is a fuller, richer place because you can contribute new ideas to any experience. Your natural curiosity inspires those around you and encourages them to come up with ideas they wouldn't have thought of without your help.

Though your unconscious mind is driven most strongly by Imagination, there is much more to who you are at your core.

( Take the test )

[Ironically enough, I felt I was being rather unimaginative on it.]

Dead Fish
One of my bettas is dying... it's kind of sad.

I don't feel terribly responsible as he has lived for over two years with me and who knows how long at the pet store. The average betta lifespan is only 2 years. My other betta who often has air bladder problems that cause him to float funny (and who generally has more malaise) is doing just great, all dancy and happy. The healthy, beautiful betta is lying motionless at the bottom of his tank. He'll die soon because he won't come up to breathe.

He seemed to be doing OK before I changed his water the other day. Then again, the tanks were pretty dirty and they don't move much because they're cold. I treated him with antibiotics when I noticed he wasn't well the next day. All they seemed to do was dye the water green.

Sigh.

I hate it when pets die... but at least he's lived longer than any other betta in the family (except his "brother" who will outlive him); my sisters' bettas only lived one year and three months, respectively.

I guess I'll get another one after break when he's dead. I wouldn't want to put the empty bowl away and I already have everything I need to make a fish happy. I just need some more plants (real ones).

I wish I could keep my fish warmer, as I know they like it that way. Bettas are swamp/ rice paddy dwellers in temperate asian countries like Thailand. They like the water about 80 degrees or a little cooler. I'm afraid we keep the heat OFF at the house. I put the tanks in front of a window for light (and because I don't have anywhere else to put them) which results in them being pretty cold. No wonder my fish are so inactive. When I had them in the dorms they would get all excited and dance when I was going to feed them. Now they just... sit...

I wonder if I can get a mini-heater for a gallon bowl. Hum.

When I will get a new fish, I will have to name him. These fish never were named, as I got them both at once and it threw me off. All I could think of were stupid pair names like "Bonnie and Clyde." I wanted to name them Red fish and Blue fish but one was blue and the other green, so that didn't work. They just ended up being Fish and Fish. Living their lives in little gallon bowls with green and white gravel and some shells I gave them from the beach.

Alas, Fish, I have loved you well. (Well, not really, but you did provide some interesting decoration and I think you got by better than a lot of other bettas)

An Equation for WHEEEE
IF

Finals= raping me in the ass= X
Sleep= evading me= Y

AND

Broken Left Mouse Button= F*CK

THEN

Tonight= (Me + Alex) --> Portland (4 Tori ) = (<3 * 2)^4 + (XY)F*CK = YAAAAYYYYY*zonk*

THEREFORE, IF

YAAAAYYYYY*zonk* = B.R.A.I.N- G.O.N.E

SUM= X-D

(They really should make a math like this just for the creatively insane.)

I never thought I'd say this
But thank God it's raining.

a dry spell
I'm feeling so uninspired lately. Or maybe I'm just calmly prioritizing and avoiding any mental stimulation. The soft grey of the world has induced a mental complacency and drawn me away from my computer to other things... like... making Christmas cards. I should be studying for finals. I should be using my brain. I should be writing here and having something useful to say. But I'm not and I rather enjoy it.

I'm not sure what's behind my mental ennui. Not only that, I feel guiltily selfish (as I always do in this stability) and put more energy towards ignoring my friends' problems than I do toward helping (or being considerate) of them. Cos, the truth is, I just don't care to be a part of anyone else's drama. I'd rather just take care of myself and live quietly. Does that make me a bastard?

I think I'll be going on sabattacal from the blog for a while. Now just because I'm uninspired-- I'm leaving Eugene for Seattle in a week to stay with my family (which only has dialup and a computer it hurts my eyes to use) before going to Belize for two weeks. You can bet'cher bottom I won't be writing from there. I'll have better things to do-- like drink Mai Tais and Salsa dance with creepy mexican guys.

******************************************

Friday night Justin and I watched Pearl Harbor after coming home from the Ballroom Dance at Gerlinger. Strangely enough, this is a DVD we've owned since this summer and never watched... nor have I ever really had the urge to watch it until Friday night-- the eve of the Pearl Harbor bombing 52 years ago. And I didn't even know. I'd heard mixed reviews of the movie and thought that I'd find watching it akin to watching an extended version of the epic melodramas Armageddon or Titanic. I suppose it was exactly like I expected in a way. I made fun of Ben Affleck for a good hour or so before something inside me cracked and started parralelling the movie to September 11th.

In case you hadn't figured it out already, I'm a flaming liberal. I'm bisexual, a pagan, and a tree hugger... how could I not be a democrat? I hate war (an oxymoron?) and I wish we would do everything in our power to stay out of it. Unfortunately, the country is currently being led by a Republican with the IQ of a fork and the vocabulary of a five-year-old-- but who is backed (i.e. puppeted) by some of the darkest, most villainous politicians in history. I mean, CHRIST, does anyone else see the irony here? He put POINDEXTER, a man infamous for withholding information from Congress in charge of something called the "Information Awareness Bureau." HAHHAHAA. I'm laughing. Not. This is a man who would DARE to call American superior above all nations as IF there's some scale on which our superiority rests beside his own justification for "counter"- terrorism and global warfare. I can see W's train of though: Ahm' Gunna be the first Pres'dent in a while to take over 'nother nation. Hope y'all likes my present, it's gots lots of purty oil for ya. Thart'll fix thu 'conomy right up!

Git. ARRRRGHHHTTT. Hasn't it been proven enough now that we're sick of meddling in the afairs of others? That acting on the grounds of "divine intervention" and just plain "being the best damn country every" will only get us MORE spite? Stupid bastard. I can see World War III right over the horizon.

In fact, it hit me straight in the face while I was watching Pearl Harbor. I'm "of age" now. So are all my friends. And we're (in all liklihood) being forced into a war that we don't agree with by a man that we didn't even ELECT. I'd prefer, if there's to be a war in my lifetime, that it actually be something other than a "counter-terrorism" measure against a country we simply *suspect* or harboring INDIVIDUALS or a '"pre-emptive" strike on a country we THINK has illegal weapons (seems like we're baiting them to USE them, no?). Thankfully there are still people who join the armed forces willingly. Now, I don't know WHY someone would do this except to have their college tuition paid in full but I guess I'm glad SOMEONE does. Because it means that dissenters like myself and my (more male) friends will be able to react longer before being shipped off [kicking and screaming] ourselves.

About the time FDR was making his famous "December 7th 1941 is a day that will live forever in infamy..." speech, tears were streaming down my face. No, it wasn't the bizarre love triangle betwee Affleck, his best friend, and Nurse Betty (though it did draw its share of snide comments.), it was the thought that the same might happen to me: that the people I love will be send off to die or kill blindly for a hopeless cause. All the pent-up fear and frustration tearing through my mind was streaming down my face.

Fear. If there's a draft, I don't think they'll take only men this time. I don't think they'll refrain from drafting college students-- they need the educated to push the buttons.

Death. Biochemical warfare. Gas. Germs. This time, people I know will go and come back sick or not at all. This time it's something I might feel. This time, I'm supposed to WANT to protect our way of life... instead I loathe our means.

Retribution. It's never as easy as we think. People will always fight back, tooth and claw. Some are waiting for an excuse to fight, to pay back their neighbors or sting the instigators. Why are we so willing to use that word, PATRIOTISM as an excuse for racism and homicide?

A great sinking fear settled on me; the deep depression of hoplessness; a pity for a world which I thought should contain beauty and kindness. I went to bed shaken and alone, thinking of a time to come where my peace of mind would be shattered. A foreshadowing of change.

I don't want to go to war.

Something in that stupid Hollywood rendition of battle tore down the defenses on my mind for almost a whole day. I stayed despondent through Saturday; hurt, alone, and ragged. I cried at the littlest thing and saw ugliness wherever I looked. Sunday I woke to find my blinders back in place, aware but ignoring what I can't change. Things will always move "forward" in the direction that those in charge think is "up." What can I do when a nation that screams is ignored?

There is too much left unsaid to risk an early death.

******************************************

The river has reached a new low. It should be the rainy season by now and the clouds hang low and moist over the ground: but it will not rain. It's rained once in the last two weeks and otherwise been misty and cold. The sand flats of the Willamette are again bare and exposed; the water is lower now than it was in August. The ski resorts are having to make their own snow. But somehow evverything remains soggy, as if it were perpetually sprinkling-- as if there weren't a drought.

I don't really DESIRE rain. I know rain brings with it the bone-chilling damp and darkness of my depression. But I do want rain. I don't want the valley to dry up this winter and bake to evaporation all spring and summer. I want the plants to be happy and the river to sing instead of whisper. I do miss the patter of water on the rooftop Sunday morning. I think if it doesn't rain all december that something will happen come dry season that none of us wish to see.

******************************************

I saw the birds dance again on Friday, coming home at dusk. It was 4:30, just before the streetlights turned on and the birds were circling and dancing, hundreds of them amoebic in the sky. I stopped and watched, my mouth open with wonder. Again, they danced for five minutes- groups separating and turning in unison- before they settled low into the trees. This is the third time I've seen it.

Tomorrow is my Japanese final. Wednesday I'm going to see Tori Amos with Alex in Portland. I've got one more paper to write and I'm working full time... then it's off on vacation for a few weeks or doing nothing at al.

Farther
"You are of the Earth
I am of the Sky
... I don't even know what the hell that means"

Help!
Are you staying in Eugene for Christmas? Can I trust you? Would you like to water some of my plants?

(Pleeeeaaase?)

um, by the way...
In case you were wondering, in the recent blog entry OK, I'm sorry already!, I was apologizing to my BLOG, not my boyfriend.

Justin and I are doing quite well tho, thanks!

We just hate money right now, not each other. ^^

YAY!
I'm bored.
Isn't that GREAT!?!?!?!

Christmas Cookies
It truly is the Holiday season... which means cold weather and lots of good food. Yesterday I ran the gamut at two potlucks/ snack parties and then went out to dinner/ coffee/ cookies. Whoo. Gotta keep looking good in a bikini for another three weeks, that's all. Blar.

Today I came into the office and the math ladies left me a little Christmas present! I was so surprised because generally I'm ignored as not part of the math staff. I don't get roses when they do, I don't get invited to the department luncheons, etc. I think they knew I felt left out so they gave me today what the other staff recieved yesterday- a card with a starbucks gift card and a little tin filled with chocolates. So sweet!

That and being 15 minutes late to Japanese *ahem, blush* made my morning. We got our test back in Japanese and I managed to scrape by an A and still have a low A in the class. No more classes today, just a trip to the gym and then home for a lazy afternoon and a laid back weekend. YAY!

Time to finish up the Xmas shopping and make some returns on gifts I bought at one place and found cheaper at another. I'm notorious for doing that. Sometimes I end up with as many as three copies of the same gift before returning the uneeded ones. Huzzah for getting money BACK.

Alas, Justin's gift came in the mail yesterday and I'm afraid he knows what it is. I told him to avoid picking up a package if we had a note for one... but the package was so small it fit into our mailbox so he couldn't avoid it when he picked up the mail. Blar. I wish I had better gift ideas, I'd feel a little more ingenious.

The Finished Product
Yes, I'm finally done with that damn article that has been eating my soul lately.

It was written for my Reporting I class, the bane of my existence. I finally managed to bring together both sides of the issue on which I was writing in a fairly objective manner.

The article concerns the response of the Pro-Anorexic and Fat Liberation movements to the body "Standard." Though both movements have very separate means, their message is similar: Let us do what we want with our bodies.

Wanna tell me what you think? C'mon, be honest!

I have cookies...
Please come eat them.

Ten Things I Would Like to Become...
1. Wise
2. Kind
3. Strong
4. Beautiful
5. Knowledgeable
6. Peaceful
7. Magical
8. Unique
9. Considerate
10. Respected

What's on your list?

OK, I'm sorry already!
I love you, I really do... it's just that I don't have time for us right now!

Baby, I'm sorry. There just aren't any words to describe how I feel....


They're all being used up in my FRIGGIN Feature story. MY BRAIN... it's being EATEN by dead week! AAAGH.

ARGH.
Just.... argh.

whoops
I broke Justin's watch with his uber-magnet. Good thing he doesn't bring it into the study.

That thing touched my forehead.... what's it doing to my brain?

In case you care...
Which you don't, cos I sure wouldn't...

I filled out another random survey just for kicks. I stole it from Cat. It's a fun sort of "which would you rather" quiz.

Insightful... maybe...

Judging the Id
I posed an interesting question to Justin this weekend as we were driving back to Portland. I pose it to you now:

Dreams can and often do represent subconscious desires. Which of the two dreams below is commonly held to be the "worse" dream? Which holds more guilt? Why?

1) A person dreams about someone he or she knows in real life. The dreamer then graphically and violently murders this person.

2) A person dreams about someone he or she knows in real life. The dreamer then becomes intimately and sexually involved with this person.

Some variables:
- Let's assume that these dreamers have to face the subject of their dreams some time after they wake up.

- How the dreamer "consciously" feels about the subject of their dreams is variable. (I would think this would drastically affect the nature of the dream.) Let's assume that in real life the dreamer in case #1 has a tolerable dislike of the person they kill. The person in dream #2 is friends or acquaintances with the person with which they have the affair.


The questions:
- Is the implication of dream #2 any worse if the dreamer is actively involved in a committed relationship with someone other than the subject of their dream?

- Is dream #2 worse that dream #1 even though the implied crime of #1 is implicitely more "heinous"?

- What if, in dream #1, the person the dreamer kills is their real life lover?

- Does the weight of the dream depend on the dreamer's "gut" reaction (fear, lust, pleasure, anger, etc) to the dream and their waking interpretation of it?

- Weighing these variables, which inherently carries more guilt and why?

It's an open-ended question.... tell me, tell me.

me so horny
God dammit. It's kind of lame having my libido back.

First of all, my schedule isn't really condusive to any kind of recreational play.

Second of all, sex just isn't ever... er... well, sex is just sex. I guess I have issues.

Third of all, my pervy brain tends to misconstrue every little thing I hear.

And then that selfsame brain kicks me behind the eyeballs every time I go to sleep.

I swear to god, I've either got to be in a poly-friendly relationship or join a cloister. Bah.

gluttony and sloth
(a weekend thereof)
In memory of Thanksgivings past, my family actually managed to pull off a traditional dinner this year. Ya know, roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, brussel sprouts, apple pie, whipped cream, etc versus our strange breed of turkey experimentation the past few years. Of course, my mom bitched about it the whole time despite the fact that the kids put in most of the work on food prep. And as usual, she didn't sit down until she was sure everything was just right so we had to wait... and pick at our food... and wait... while she nit picked every little thing and kvetched about the "mess" in the kitchen. ARGH.

The more I come home, the more I realize I hate being there. It's like I'm the adoped alien daugher of an earth family. Whenever I'm around them I tense up and can't speak, I'm immobile and stupid... thus furthering their perception that I'm a blithering idiot incapable of making my own decisions. When it comes down to it, I just can't stand the stress they inspire. It's inescapeable. It permeates every pore of the house and smothers my creative and thinking brain. It makes me SCREEEEEAAAAMMMMM.

I like my mom. I like my dad. I like my sisters. Ok, there, I like my family.... just not together. Apart they're fine but together... they're too much.

Eventually we sat down to a night of gluttonous glee, already Justin's second dinner that day. Dinner was followed immediately, of course, with home made dessert-- pie and ice cream with a whopping side conversation about the meaning of flatulence. Allie, my selectively naive younger sister (by younger, I mean seventeen) actually didn't know what flatulence MEANT. She thought it sounded pretty, 'like the name of a flower." Gah, stupid girl!

In the spirit of the holidays we went up to the mountains to get our christmas tree the day after thanksgiving (also my sister Eleanor's 8th birthday). For only $10, the park service issues a permit that allows visitors to harvest one tree less than 12 feet from the mountain in certain locations. When we checked in, 250 people had already registered to get trees. It was one in the afternoon.

Dad led us up to Snoqualmie pass and off the Denny Creek exit. He was driving the minivan and Justin and I were in his mazda. For over twenty minutes we headed up one of the shittiest park-service roads I've ever driven on and into the back country. Justin and I stopped the car twice to check for flats, furious that my headstrong dad would drag us in the compact car up offroad country without thinking of the damage to Justin's shocks. We were only one of two compact cars on that mountain. There were a few other people fool enough to drive minivans up the road but ninety percent of vehicles were old bangers and SUVs.

Well, what could we do at that point? We headed up, up, up, past parking and turnoffs, past an abanoned trailer and appliances that were used for target practice. Did we stop? Noooo.... not with my dad. We headed up to the top of the mountain until it became clear we could go no farther.

Finally, we pulled off and milled around the hillside in the peaceful mountain quiet.

I lie.

In actuality, there were about twelve other cars parked at the top and as soon as we got out of the car, the quiet was shattered by some ADHD poster children who would not stop yelling "LIBBY!!!" and "LIBERTY!!!" (we guess the name of their dogs) at the top of their lungs. Their stupid parents insisted on breaking the King County burn ban and lighting a bonfire despite that it was seventy degrees out.

Ah, yes, there is a burn ban in Seattle despite the nightly cold. Because of the high pressure (hence clear days) in the Northwest lately, the air has been trapped and stagnant, low to the city. There has been no rain to clean it out. Sunsets have been spectacular and the creeping, clinging mist is erotic but the ensuing air polution has rendered the asthmatic non-functional. So until the rains come again (and I could care less) there are no fires in Seattle. It looks like the Oregon rains have returned to welcome us home to Eugene. Yay. Feel my joy.

So here we were up in the mountains with these kids screaming their lungs out and their parents completely unresponsive. I think they might have been wearing earplugs. My nerves were so frayed that I started yelling back "SHUT UUUUUPPP!" whenever one of them yelled "LIBBAYYYY!" Eventually, they stopped. About that time, some redneck assholes decided it would be fun to shoot up the trailer down below. I think they had a shotgun and a handgun... something that was way the fuck too loud and could pop off like thirty rounds in a minute.

BAN! BANG!! BANG!! BANGBANGBANG BANG!!!!

So much for a quiet afternoon. I tried yelling at them down in the valley below. But, of course, they couldn't hear. They were so close. I could see them on the mountain floor, the shine of the gun as it recoiled from the blast. I pined for a sniper rifle with a good scope, if just to take off their hands, one by one. It went on and on for forty five minutes. Sometimes there was the silence of five minutes or more between reloads. Sometimes there was a continuous barrage of blasts for minutes on end. Eventually they stopped too, but not before most of us were about to go postal. They were still there on the way down the mountain. I was tempted to throw something at them or flick them off. Or, at the very least, berate them with some stinging sarcasm (though I doubt they'd have understood). But when we passed, they just waved at me as if I, in any godforsaken way, might find them attractive. I sneered with repulsion and we drove on through the five-foot potholes, breathing the exhaust of the VW minibus in front of us.

In any case, the tree thing didn't turn out as much a disaster as it could have. We climbed up the hillside and found a tremendous Noble Fir that my family would otherwise have not been able to afford and chopped the bad boy down. Ehh, it was over twelve feet and ehh, we kind of cut it wrong... but we loved it. We ran into several bastard yuppies on the way back who were too spoiled to take any tree that wasn't a "noble" despite that they had already cut one down. There were at least three perfectly good trees abandoned by the roadside. Justin and I would have taken one but we have neither stand nor ornaments and we'll be gone most of this holiday season. (In spite of this, we're putting up lights anyway... the one thing my scroogeish holiday spirit permits!)

The tree is tremendous. It reaches the top of my family's vaulted living room ceiling. It's the biggest fucking tree we've ever had. It makes me feel four again standing at the bottom of it and looking alllllll the way up. I honestly don't think we have enough decorations. But hell, we can buy more! We never would have been able to afford this tree any other way. I kind of feel bad cutting it down....

After the tree-killing, Justin and I went to visit his family for my second dinner and his third. Glut, Glut, Glut. Another traditional soiree, this time with fifteen people easy. And pumpkin pie, a luxury my picky family deprives me of. Sigh.

On the way home, Justin and I browsed about a bit in the post-holiday frenzy but I still managed to buy nothing on International Buy Nothin Day. I'm so proud. Unfortunately, our window shopping led us into the local pet shop where we were unlucky enough to discover that one of the cockatiels was laying dead at the bottom of his cage while his distraught brother tried to wake him. He had been dead for less than half an hour.

My sisters own two parakeets (budgies) named Neo and Sir Rulean. Despite the male names, one is a female (I can't remember which). I used to have a male budgie named Athena, whom I kind of dropped on my sisters, but she died recently after being rejected by the other two birds. All things considered, the poor birds are terribly neglected. They lived too long to entertain my sisters' interest. For a while they were coddled, as all pets are, but now they're shoved into the back corner of the laundry room where they recieve the occasional tidbit and rare socialization. Though I don't want the additional responsibility, I think that I may adopt the birds, if not just to put them in a more social environment. I hope Rupert won't traumetize them too much.

These same sisters were watching two kittens for friends of theirs this weekend-- a brother and sister named Mittens and Angel. The kittens weren't much more than three months old and got into EVERYTHING the way kittens do. These two were especially malicious because they were particularly dextrous. They both had six or seven toed paws and could leap higher than I thought was kittenly possible. The male kitten, Mittens, by far the biggest hooligan, had a really creepy trait. He must have been weaned from his mother too soon because whenever he was sedate and relaxed he would seek out his sister and SUCK on the pads of her front paws like he would his mother's nipple. It was hilarious and disturbing to watch and the cat would not let go for the world, even if you smacked him. His sister just tolerated him and slept.

Justin and I decided the male should be named Commodus, after the incestuous emperor in Gladiator. Seems suiting.

These kittens were everywhere. In everything. I had them thrown on me to wake me up if I slept past eleven a.m. And sleep I did. I slept so much and was still this tired. My dreams raped my brain and spat it out again. I slept so much I dreamed I should be working out. Ugh. And I think I'm getting sick.

Nearly negating the family tradition of being sick on the holidays, Alyson didn't come down with a high fever until YESTERDAY at which point she bemoaned her fate for hours as if she was the deathliest sick thing in the world.

I'm glad to be home. It's actually more peaceful here (even with the impending homework) than it was there. Now please excuse me while I take a valium and prepare for two weeks of stress HELL.