dead?
No, I'm not... I'm just taking this HELL week to work on school. I'll be back soon!

<3

Purity

Your Ultimate Purity Score Is...
Category	Your Score	Average
Self-Lovin'	35% When I think about you - or anyone - I touch myself	63.6%
Shamelessness	57.1% It takes a couple of drinks	78.4%
Sex Drive	78.9% The Pope is envious	76.7%
Straightness	7.1% Knows the other body type like a map	42.9%
Gayness	64.3% Had that experience at camp	81.8%
Fucking Sick	81.4% Refreshingly normal	89.2%
You are 53.2% pure Average Score: 71.4%
Take The Ultimate Purity Test and see how you match up!

Memorial Day weekend
Going up to Seattle to a wedding and to Knights practice. Be back Sunday.

ARGH
Can any of you BloggerPro users out there do me a huge favor? I'd really like to convert my archives to monthly and it's... NOT.... working. Would you mind submitting a query to the support base for me about the issue? I can give you all the information you need. And I'd love you to death for it! : )

site revamp
photos removed from server to conserve space. if you really want to revisit my trip to florida, glacier, or belize, ask me about it. personal photos page disabled for the moment being. will put up more current photos soon.

the dullest blog ever
no really, it is. Screw yesterday's insigtful blog. This is the best thing ever. It makes me feel somehow... better...

I hate you, Dr. Freud
Session Two
I talked to my therapist again today. When she said "what do you want to talk about?" I started to go off about my mini-breakdown this morning concerning study abroad but it all ended up coming down to my parents. Again. I hate talking about them because it's SO OBVIOUS that most of my issues stem from my family. I recognize this and I understand that my parents were a source of conflict in my life for many years. I also recognize that now, the relationship (or lack thereof) that I have with them does a lot to contribute to my confusion of identity. Yet I get affirmation from so many other sources. I am loved and I am nurtured. When it comes down to it, my family is just another group of people that I should be able to feel indifferently about if I try.

Yes, I'm grateful for all the energy that was invested to raise me into who I am... but what good does it do for me to try and make a return on that investment if I never gain anything but more criticism from it? No friendship, no pride, no kind words... just business as usual. I'd like to move on and separate my life from the difficulty my family and I cause each other but that's not socially possible or acceptable, not to mention the GUILT it would cause me.

Most of all, I'd like to just be able to get over it and not care. But the truth is that I do care. I am envious of every friend I have who has a wonderful relationship with their parents and who can honestly say they are loved and praised. I know I care because it reduces me to tears just to say the sentence "I wish my parents were proud of me." I almost went there today. But I stop myself from becoming a blubbering mess because I remember that I have family elsewhere. Somehow, though, it just doesn't seem the same. I'm no one elses' daughter, no matter how hard I try.

I don't even know what that means... "daughter." It's an empty, confused role to me. It means blood and obligation. It does not mean love, comfort and trust. I've never been abused, physically, and I've only been moderately neglected. I don't have a truckload of trailer-trash problems to complain about. But I am damaged, as I imagine is anyone whose mother shies away from their touch and can't form an emotional connection. It's a wonder I'm a functionally emotional human being at all.

And I HATE talking about my family. Because it's so cliche. And I'm above all that textbook crap. I hate feeling like I can blame them for my problems. I feel as if I should just be able to say, "ok, moving on!" and become a functional, complete person. But the cracks that formed in me when I was a child are the very reason that I feel I have to be superhuman today, the reason I can never make decisions, the reason I never feel validated, the reason I can't tell reality from fantasy, the reason I can't tell whether my emotions are false. I hate blaming someone else for my problems. Because, after all, they ARE my problems.

She asked me, "does it make you angry?" and I said no, that it made me frustrated, detached, and sad. But after the rant tonight at Prince Pucklers and how I feel right now, I can say that yes, it does make me angry. Livid. But also very, very sad. My mom called me today for the first time in forever, just to chat (of course, with the pretext of confirming that I wasn't coming to my sister's graduation, which is mid-week). I was trying to catch a few minutes' nap before homework and so I was completely out of it. That woman can rant about anything, ANYTHING mundane for HOURS as long as it doesn't involve emotion. And I just sit there and pray to get off the phone, saying "mHMM" while she tells me about how the washer connection broke... but god forbid she'd want to hear about MY day without disapproving of something. Shit. Mom, I'm sorry you don't have any friends... but unless you really want to be mine, don't half-assed try every 6 months. I gave up a long time ago.

And there's the other half of it; pity. I pity my parents for their frustrating, sad lives. I can see that they are empty, angry, and damaged. I can see that they are struggling to be happy but maybe that they have forgotten how. I wish I could show them but I pity myself because they can't seem me as a thinking, feeling human being, a friend, a girl, a woman, a daughter, as WORTHY and what it would take for me to be able to help. That's what it would take for me to feel whole at all. That's all it would take. That's all.

wow
This is totally my blog find of the day.
Fucken strait, dawg. -.-,

a bloody mystery
I... sort of... found out what the deal was with the gunshots incident two weeks ago. Our downstairs neighbor, a very sweet, middle-aged woman named Shirley (she's wheel-chair bound due to MS), sent me an email today that read:

Hi Kat, I have a question for you that no one but you can answer. Please call before you come down - just because I can't always get to the door quickly with no advance notice.

'kay?

I'm thinking... okay... what did I do? What personal question does she want to ask me that I'll be too uncomfortable to answer?
So I called her when I got home and went down to see her. She promptly launched into a tirade of sympathy, "Oh! I'm so glad you're OK!" and so on... it took me several minutes of waiting for her to calm down until I could get a concrete story out of her. Apparently, here's what happened.

In the early morning May 10th, the day I drove Justin to Corvallis and later came home to find the police note, around 1:55AM, Shirley says she was lying awake in bed working on turning over. Turning over, she says, takes her almost 10 minutes due to the MS and she has to be fully cognizant to do it. At that moment, she heard exactly five gunshots, ear-splittingly loud, from the room above her head, followed by silence and then the sound of someone getting up and using the toilet but not flushing. She says she shook, cried, and trembled in fear so much so that she couldn't remember to call 911... thankfully, because if they'd showed up at 2AM I'm sure we'd have not only been irritated but would have had no idea what they were talking about. The next day Shirley called the police and they came to do a welfare check and found me out, hence the note.

I honestly have NO IDEA what she's talking about. I believe her because she's so convinced she was awake and that it was true but I CANNOT RECALL *ANY* noise, inside our house or outside, that would have befitted such a ruckus. Justin and I both sleep like the dead (no pun intended) but we aren't DEAF. At that time of night, we were most definitely asleep or had just fallen asleep. The person peeing in the middle of the night was me; I'm always the one to get up (and yes, I avoid flushing in the middle of the night because it's just so... loud... and it disturbs my sleep-zen), but I didn't hear a damn thing. Something may have woken me up but it certainly wasn't gunshots in my bedroom. So while I don't doubt Shirley heard something, I cannot, for the life of me, confirm her story.

I'm so confused.

iPod
So the question is... get a 3rd generation 15GB iPod with all the goodies (including the new dock) for $399 or... get a 2nd generation 20BG ipod with all the old goodies for $339? Old iPod would probably be a PC pod, if the bookstore has any left.

Am I just too much of a gearhead to get the old one?

code question
Does anyone know a way to automatically link to a preceeding post (via blog tags or script, not with a hard archive link)?? It's probably not possible but it SHOULD be. Pfeh.

photoblog
I have the basic template for my photoblog set up. Go take a look. : ) It still needs a decent name. "contrast" is kind of dumb. Suggestions?

Coming soon: archives, comments, etc.

me n' jen-nay...
we're like


peas

and


carrots...

or maybe


radishes

and


shallots?

support
Blogger only offers actual support to pro-users and my question isn't in their archive so I'll pose it to the world:

I wanna change my archives from Weekly to Monthly (because there are so damn many of them) but when I toggle the switch nothing happens... when I republish all they're still in week form. Same deal when I change my archive template to montly form. EVEN when I delete all the archives from my server, create them a new folder, RENAME the archive base file, switch to NO ARCHIVES and then switch to MONTLY, they STILL publish WEEKLY. Whaaaa????

dry run
When I want to write (or feel like I should write) but can't, the only thing that really makes me feel better is that no one else ever updates either.

So, hm, this weekend I cleaned a lot. And met more of the Speyer family East-Coast dynasty (read: Justin's rich-as-hell uncle). As usual I loved the family, particularly his 24-year-old cousin Paige. Unusual, because I don't often get along well with females. But I really clicked well with her. I'd hope we could be friends but she lives in Jackson Hole, Wy and will shortly be returning to her boyfriend in Brazil... so I guess not. What else did I do this weekend? Bought the kickass cd... did some homework.. ripped some seams on a chemise I'm wearing to the wedding next week. Went for a walk with Alex in the sun. Thank god for late-spring/ early summer. We impulsively decided we're going to see the last Broadway run of Les Miserables in Portland two weekends from now. Yah!

Still haven't been getting enough sleep but managing to evade stress and depression lately. Been feeling introspective but not writing about it. Mostly thinking about a) my overactive sense of imagination b) the lack of "sure things" in my life c) bohemian ideals d) how much Justin and I struggle to identify with each other (et what it means for us) and e) how afraid I am of not succeeding but now it's because I KNOW I CAN so I have to try harder, whereas before, I just never did anything out of fear.

I've been taking hella pictures and I'm sure I'll post more here. I'm working on a template for a photoblog that I should have up soon (read: sometime in the next decade). I realized why I like narrow depth-of-field closeups so much. It's because I'm nearsighted as all hell. It's how I see the world. My pictures are improving. I got an A on my craptastic assignment, despite that it sucked. This organic farm photo assignment is coming along well. One of the two girls in my photo-j class with photo experience came up to me after class to tell me that she thought my work prints were the best. Me??

And alas, the domain I want to reserve expired today but has to go through at least 60 days of grace period before it's on the market again. WTF???

buy it. buy it now.
Third Eye Blind has a new album. They're one of the few artists my dollars help support. Their new single is AMAZING. I think I'm in love with almost every single song they produce... there's only ONE song on each of their two previous albums that I don't like (actually, I think I like ALL on the first album) as opposed to most artists where it's vice versa. Maybe I just like poetic breakup lyrics. Yeah, yeah I do. Buy the album. It fucking rocks.

Banzai!
Why nobody better ever try to rob our house.

Matrix PIE
Oh... oh yeah... again, please. More pie. More.

That fucking pwned. We totally commandeered the front of the line and our party of geeks took up the "first" (Read: behind the wheelchair seating, not in the front of the theatre) two rows. The two "agents" we had in line multiplied to a group of over.... fifteen?? I didn't even wait in line for more than three hours. Most people waited less than two.

The best part, seriously, was even before the movie started when Brad (Kilo) brought his laptop into the theatre after we were seated and proceeded to screen the original Matrix and then connect to the internet (via UO dialup) through an infrared connection to his cell phone and AIMed all of us that had active screenames at home.



What can I say? Geeks + matrix= 0wnz0red.

And that pie? Oh jeez, where can I get that?!??!?! What happens if you eat a whole slice??? MMMMM.... chocolatey cumlicious.

Ok, but the second best part was when Trinity was hacking the mainframe and she popped up a terminal in ssh. Those of us in consulting and support just started cracking up and cheering. Despite the fact that she actually (to the best of my knowledge and based on hearsay) typed in real commands, the most 1337 of the bunch had several pointers for her afterwards. Like, hello?, turn off the verbose switch and save yourself having to watch the terminal scroll through all the commands. I mean, DUH. Wanna save your boyfriend or not??

And the critics were right, the dance at Zion did look a bit like a wine cooler commercial. I didn't care, the ... other... um... scenes... ok... yeah.

But that pie. MM. Matrix pie. I wonder if they can make that at Xenon.

Homework? Matrix pie? Homework? Matrix pie? Homework? nnn....nope....

Sheeeyah right... it's a total eclipse tonight. After all that there's no way the homework's getting done. This blonde babe's gotta play Trinity for her Neo.

*cues the music*

(ahahahaha, sorry, I couldn't help it...)

noooooo!
Grass pollen season has finally arrived!!!

but.... yaaaaaay, it's spring/ summer.... little duckies are out surfing on the pond!!

session one
sometimes it seems that when i open my mouth, the whole world comes pouring out. when i start, i can't stop and it feels so good to just keep going and going and going.

sometimes i think that it's meaningless to talk at all when i seem to have the same conversations over and over again. but then i realize that the whole world has been having the same conversations since the beginning of time and that just because we're talking about the same things, it doesn't mean we aren't learning anything.

sometimes i think that all i really need is someone to listen, who at least pretends to understand.

flightless and frightful
So these next few days I'll be running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Today I've got the first of a few term's-end psych appointments with the non-assertive shrink I spoke with a month or so ago. I hope I like her. I suppose something's better than nothing, unless she takes it upon herself to screw me up even more. I have been feeling pretty worthless lately, though not despondent by any means. More a crisis of faith. Somehow I doubt a psychologist can help me find God.

After that, it's off to the gym and then back to work to complete the first part of my organic farm photo-j project. In lieu of all the images I'm been toting around and displaying here lately, I think I'm going to start a photoblog to hold them, rather than cluttering my written diary with undersized jpgs.

Later tonight it's off to dinner at Soriah (which my organic farm supplies with veggies!) and then to an organizational Voice editorial staff meeting. Tomorrow I've got work and class as usual but will spend the evening in line for MX Reloaded. Too damn bad I'll be in Japan for the threequel... but I bet it'll come out there.

Friday morning I'm off to Lorane again at the ass-crack of dawn to take more pictures. And Saturday I'm up early to finish shooting at the downtown market. Fleh. Oh, yeah, and somewhere in there I have to lay-out my story for the next Oregon Voice issue (if we can even get this issue back from press).

Oh, I can make it. I'm in good form... but you might not see much of me around here. My brain's being dedicated to more pressing issues. Like the fact that I haven't been grocery shopping in over a week. Bleh.

p.s. this blog should be getting its own domain soon, a complete facelift and a new name. by "soon" I mean September.

sprout

your dose of daily exhibitionism
I just occurred to me it's probably isn't normal for me to run out on my front porch every morning in just my underwear and bra to get the paper and then run back in the house. It's sort of funny because I know that the next-door neighbor comes home from his morning jog around the time I'm getting the paper-- I've nearly run into him several times-- but somehow that makes it even more fun.

Flash!

footprints

cards

Ack!
Another incredibly long week ahead of me. I have several hundred pages of reading to do, two projects to type up, an OV staff editorial meeting, an early-morning photo shoot in Lorane on Friday, and still have to make time to stand in line for MX Reloaded on Thursday [note on that: I think I'll walk over to Gateway when I get home at 4 and read History while I wait in line for 3 hours... heh heh]. But I think I can do it. If I can just make it to Saturday and through more photographing on Saturday then I'll be in the clear. Almost. Then I'll only have a 7-page paper, an oral examination, a chapter test, two finals and a portfolio to worry about. Ack!

I'm feeling refreshed today, despite getting to bed around 2 AM. Justin called me from Seattle (my weekend was more "secret single time" wasted with a million obligations) to tell me he was leaving around 9PM. Well, crap, so much for going to bed early. It gave me some time to get done most of the things on my list and go over to Alex's house to wish him a happy birthday and give him his presents. I left for Corvallis around midnight and got there about 5 minutes before Justin and Dave arrived. Turns out, Justin stayed in Seattle for so late after practice because he was injured, had to get stitches, and wanted to chill out for a while before making the drive home. He told me that, in the first five minutes of Knights practice, John Moore thrust the tip of his blunted sword through Justin's thick, leather cowhide gloves and into his hand. Only three stitches, but enough to traumatize me the rest of the night. : (

Last night I dreamt that I went abroad and my "host family" was a 24 year-old, single, independently-wealthy, english-speaking Japanese man who owned a penthouse in downtown Tokyo. "Why are you my host family? How did you even get approved?" I asked him but I didn't really care. He was hott. And he was loaded. I think I felt preeeety lucky.

fury
I drove all the way out Bailey Hill to Lorane, Oregon today to take pictures of an organic farm and the farmhands. On the way out of town, however, I saw something so terrible and so touching that I wished I could stop the car and capture the moment, just so I could bottle the raw emotion. A little girl, maybe four years old, was sitting on the section of lawn between the sidewalk and street of West 11th. She was red faced and crying, grass and daisies bunched up in her fists. And, as I watched her in her little Sunday dress, she cried out and beat at herself, slapping her own face in pure fury and frustration. I was touched. I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her to stop hurting herself because I knew that at that moment she was, in any words she had, calling herself stupid.

criminal
I ran a red light this morning in my careless hurry to get to my boring orientation. But that's beside the point.

It's 5 PM and I just came home from my all-day orientation to find the apart ment door bolt unlocked when I insterted my key. Well, crap, I told myself, I must have forgotten to lock it this morning. Oh well, it isn't the first time locking the door has slipped my mind in a moment of stupidity. Funny, though, I was sure that I had. I reached for the knob to go inside and found it locked. Cue a shivers down my spine. I never lock the knob. Never. It's something that other people do when we lend them the key to petsit Rupert and it always pisses me off. Wary, I looked in the window and opened the door, half-expecting Justin to be home for some reason or other but knowing perfectly well that he never locks the knob either. The next thing that crossed my mind was perhaps that there had been some maintenance or check-up done, so I went in to look for a note. Thankfully, nothing was flooded, exploded, or infested and everything smelled normal. Yes, there it was, the note on the counter. I looked, expecting it to be a maintenance report and instead found this:



Complete with a patrol officer's business card.

Um... Wha-- wh- who? Er?? OK. Whatever you say. I left him a message on his voicemail to get back to me just so I could know a little more about ... whatever happened. I'm particularly interested in who may have heard "shooting" and what the hell they were thinking. I mean, I guess it's nice to know that maintenance and the EPD are concerned in the event that something scary were to happen. In my mind, though, it would take some pretty hefty provocation for someone to "cry wolf." So what, then actually happened? What made noise if no one was here? Did it turn out to be anything at all?

Beats the hell out of me.

update: Apparently the noise was caused by some teens setting off firecrackers. They got into a lot of trouble, I surmise. I still don't understand why this merited breaking into my apartment though.

early morning bloggage
Up since 6AM with no end in sight till probably around 2 tonight. It's gonna be a loooooooong day.

fat cats
This stupid study abroad program is frustrating me SO MUCH. It's all a freaking bureaucracy, just like the University. As if it weren't enough that the stipulations of one of the large scholarships I'm being offered (just over $7,000) is that I cannot take any other scholarships specific for study abroad (meaning no $7,000 Freeman, $4,000 Bridging or $3,400 Poust scholarships--- latter two I've not yet been offered), the program coordinator now tells me it's "culturally insensitive" to turn down such a "presitgious" scholarship. Um, hello? Does it not make sense that since I'm in need I would apply for MORE THAN ONE scholarship and take THE MOST I can get? Fuck protocol, dude, I'm going with the loot. If it makes the difference between going and not going, I don't really care if my "sensitivity" means the Waseda programme doesn't get the AIEJ scholarship next year. If they really cared about "Sensitivity" they wouldn't be limiting me to just accepting their scholarship now, would they??

God damn bureaucrats.

And, hey, I don't mean to sound like a comment whore... cos god knows I hate it when people blog socially. But... Is anyone even out there?

update: ARGH. Just kill me. I got my first loan repayment notice today. Mind you, no payments or balance due until March 2005, but they just wanted to let me know that I had $350 of interest on my loans already. Um, thanks a fucking lot guys. And this was in a care package from my parents. A care package with chocolate. The chocolate is now gone. The loan payment has been filed. And I, dear friends, have sunk into a depression deep enough to cancel out the unbearable need to get laid that's been bothering me for the last twelve hours. Fuck it all, I'm just going to drown myself instead of whining. I'm not having fun, I won't be having fun, and I'll never find what I'm looking for anyway.

X2
As you probably gleaned from the last post, Justin and I went to see X2 last night. It was, to coin a phrase, fanfreakingtastic. And Oh, My, God I think I am totally in love with Jean Gray (or maybe just her character archetype). Beyond a shadow of a doubt, that woman is hott. OK, and what more do I have to say about that love scene between Wolverine and Jean? And that scene in the tent with Mystique (Jean/Rogue/etc.).... HOTT so totally hott. Wow.

MEEEEH... I want to go see that movie again right now. Another sequel needs to come out tomorrow. And at this rate, if they keep going along soooo nicely with character development and special effects, they have an endless supply of plot material to keep us junkies happy for at least another ten years. I mean, right? I don't want them to get kind of stale with space aliens and stupid villains like the comics (and any comic, for that matter) tends to get after a while... I just want.... moooooooorrrrre. I'd beg!!!

Oh, and I must tell you about the retarded hermit-hippies. It's a funny story.

We went to the theatre on a Thursday night to purposefully avoid a bit of the weekend crowd. When we got there, good sign number one was that there was plenty of parking. Good sign number two was that there was virtually no line at the theatre. We were really close (like 5 minutes from) showtime, so we also figured that almost everyone who had come to see the movie was probably seated. Both groups of people in front of us appeared to be buying tickets for the show. The first pair was like a hippie dad and his hippie daughter or a hippie pedopheliac and his girlfriend. They went up to the teller and promptly asked for a ticket refund.

"Yeah," says the hippie dude, tossing his ratty dreds, "It's freakin' crowded in there. I don't want to see a movie in a theatre like that. We'd like to get our money back, please."

The other patrons, now at the teller adjacent to the girl helping the hippies, look suspicious.

"UM," says the other teller, loud enough for everyone to hear, "It's not nearly sold out." This was enough to assuade the fears of the people trying to buy tickets so they made a purchase and went in.

The hippie responded, "well, we haven't been to see a movie in a really long time. And I just don't want to see one in a crowded theatre..."

OOOKAY. Been in the dark much??? Justin and I bought our tickets and went in. The theatre was maybe, MAYBE half full. We had second-tier, second-row CENTER seats (one rown back from the premium leg-rest seats). CROWDED??!?!? Justin told me later that the ticket teller had informed him that there were over one-hundred forty seats remaining to be sold.

God damn hippies. How about taking a bath and leaving your hovel a little more often, for christ's sake? I respect organic farming and yoga-spiritualism but get a fucking life. Jeez. I bet they didn't even know what X-men were and went to see the movie because it had the letter X in it or something like that.

a life less ordinary
There's a reason I have a love/hate relationship with movies like Lord of the Rings and X-men. These movies are fun and uplifting. They cater to the mind of the dreamer and the geek. I watch them for the same reason I devoured sci-fi books by the dozens when I was younger and had the time. They draw me in, they make me part of an adventure. For a few hours after, they leave me with the glow of a life less ordinary.

I tend to get swept up in movies, which, ironically, is why I like so few of them. So few deserve my attention and interest, much less the investment of my overactive imagination. Movies I'm willing to be part of are rare, and when I find them, they get a special place on my shelf next to American Beauty, The Fifth Element, The Matrix and Contact. Yes, shut the fuck up, I was one of the people who loved Contact.

The problem is, that for all the wonder and joy escape fiction and fantasy can provide, it's also such a letdown. I laid awake in bed last night for an hour after we came back from X2, alone and wanting something more than could be given to me. It wasn't that Jean Gray and Wolverine had me worked up into some kind of fangirl frenzy, it was that I wanted to passion for something that was mine, to remind me that I, too, could have a "life less ordinary."

But after 30 minutes in the dark wrestling with my own consciousness and wondering why I was too worked up to sleep (maybe I was just too giddy from all the action?), I realized that I was pissed off precicely because I was looking for something that I don't have. That's it, my brain told me. And my heart deflated into a sad little sack. That's it. There was a dream there, once. One which, as a little girl, I'd hoped and dreamed and prayed would come true. I dreamed it and while I could I lived it, just to convince myself it was possible. Lately, burdened under the countless things I give myself just to prove how strong and how extraordinary I am, I had, ironically, even forgotten about this dream. Last night, I realized it was a broken dream. There is no life less ordinary. There is no "special" for me. There is no intensity.

I try to give it to myself. I try to prove I can do anything, that I can be anything, for anyone. I contemplate my own mortality and seek adrenal experiences (you know, skydiving, mountaneering, reckless driving, etc) that take me a little closer to that instant of ultimate clarity just before death. I try to mold myself an epic with the shards of a childish castle dream. And then I sit around and whine, always an optimist for the future but never allowed to relish the now unless it is in some way Incredible. Which it's not. And that's fine. Because I should damn well get used to it. There is no Epic. I made that up in my own mind to compensate for the lack of fantasy in my life. I gave myself Drama to replace Dreams. There is no Authoria. There is no Seneca.

Maybe there could have been, if I'd tried hard enough to believe in something. Maybe it's me who failed myself. But if it were that easy to imagine a fantasy real, we'd be living in a world full of ghosts, werewolves, superheroes and villains instead of just wishing that we did... cos God knows people have been trying to make the surreal into the real since the beginning of time.

Every now and then there comes along something that gives me, for the briefest of times, a glimmer of hope for the surreal in the real. I take Tai Chi because there are times when I can mold my Chi, when i feel as if it could be used as a force if trained, when I sense the energy in everyone. But now I'm failing to see even that.

I can not find a God, a force, an anything to hold me, possess me, and drive me. Wicca seemed enlightening for a time, especially when I "cured" Justin. But the wonder there, like the wonder for everything else, faded into the background. I want to be owned by a passion or a faith in something (love, magic, god) that is enough oneness to make life worth living. I want to be rocked in the throes of something so magnificent and intense that it transcends the human experience. Part of me tells me to shut up and get over it, that making each day its own pinnacle should be enough. But I can't do that, I can't wake up and make each day magnificent or even convince myself that I feel an inkling of spiritual contentment. In every other respect, I can be content, but not in this one enormous thing. And that is why I'm a seeker, an "experience junkie," a wanderer. Why I'm a muse and a heartbreaker. Because nothing is ever good enough until I can find something to tell me who I am, to tell me I'm incredible, fantastic, phenominal-- to prove to me that I AM a life less ordinary.

desire
OMG, third generation iPods.... WAAAAAANNNNNNTTTTTTT.

WHYYY do they have to give all the cool accessories with only the larger versions???? I may have to buy a 15GB just for them. Oh, that's why.

lonely hands
One of the images from my latest photo-journalism project is up (in photoshopped form) on my WebCam. Incidentally, this photo wasn't even intended to be part of the assignment and, as a stand-alone print, has nothing to do with the theme, "loneliness". However, it was the only high-contrast, high-quality print (unaltered and in b&w) despite being randomly chosen. Even more suprisingly, people still seemed to like my other prints. They were total crap.

Maybe I just have no self-confidence. My last two assignments earned me A's. [note: if you're going to actually look through that first directory, pictures are in unsized, unaltered JPEGs. The pictures in the second directory are sized and have adjusted contrast and brightness for quality.]

Regardless, talent or no talent, I'm thinking of starting a Photoblog. Maybe I'll improve with regular (daily) practice.

Cum for a cause!
[this may be the coolest event ever...]

Hey guys and gals, the 5th annual MASTURBATE-A-THON, sponsored by Toys in Babeland, is May 18th!!! Tell your friends and family (ahaha, yeah, RIGHT) to sponsor you and spend the day at play! Funds go to the Audre Lorde project and the People of Color Against AIDS network.

(html form here)

reruns
Prince Pucklers again after South Park. YUM. Alas, it was too cold to show off our boobage to the baker (who was WAY too close to the window for our comfort).

And it just occurred to me that I've been blogging for a long time. Have I accomplished anything? I think so. Certainly not as much as I would have if I'd had this blog Freshman year. Now THAT would have been some old-skool drama.

I'm off to bed. Gotta sleep off Headcold v 2.0 and get ready to present my suckiest photojournalism project ever tomorrow and prepare to be shot down. Well, sometimes... crap is just craptastic.

You win some, you lose some
I've had the same locker at the Rec center since I moved into the Kincaid street house in September 2001. It sucks because it's a top-level locker but I figure, hey, I'm tall and plus, it's mine only. I've just renewed it every term. I've also had the same backpack since pretty much around the same time. Those of you who know me know my backpack; that huge, green Eddie Bauer day pack with a million straps and doodads. It's comfy as hell but hugenormous beyond belief. The backpack and the locker do not get along.

Sometimes I have to struggle to even get the damn thing in there and still be able to lock the door. Gravity is a strong adversary, especially being that there are clothes, a towel, and toiletries in my locker *underneath* the backpack trying to push it out, but I usually win. Unfortunately, I only win most of the way. My backpack has any number of elevnty-million straps on it that stick out of the locker. Eh, so what? I can close it over them. Not a problem. Or so I though until recently.

There's this obnoxious little Spanish woman in the bottom of the two lockers below me and she's always either coming in or going out at the same time as me. She's a professor and why she doesn't have her locker with the other faculty is beyond me. They have the faculty hidden behind the last tier of lockers for a good reason... nobody wants to look at five rolls of wrinkled, old flesh and saggy boobs. At least, I wouldn't mind but... every day? Anyway, I digress. She's not the problem. The point is, I never see the girl in the middle locker. At least, I think I've only seen her once, some time in the last few months. She works there.

It struck me as kind of odd to come in one day the week before last and find my backpack straps (clips and all) stuck into the top of her locker. They were locked there. Couldn't get em out. It had never happened before and I was in a hurry to get somewhere so I was kind of pissed but I figured eh, what the hell, accidents happen. I ranted and then I went to get someone to unlock her locker for me. Case closed? No.

Monday of this week I was reminiscing about the karmic irony of the backpack straps as I came back from a workout to take a shower. What did I see? My backpack being munched by her locker. Not to the same degree, mind you, but ARGH just... argh. Again, after my shower I went to get help and found Dana, one of the SRC workers whom I know personally. I tell her the deal and she says to me, "If yours is the locker I think it is, I'm going to laugh my ass off."

"Why?" I say.

"Well," she says "I was in the locker room like, last week or something, and some girl was going on a fucking tirade about someone's backpack straps and how she was going to show them. This girl seriously blew a gasket, it was hilarious."

"Um," I say, thinking back to last week-ish, "I that is my locker."

Turns out, Dana's locker is about three down from mine and some wack-o bitch has a vendetta against my poor backpack. Weird thing is that the wacko isn't the person the locker is leased to (i.e. the one who works at the rec). Dana says she'll have a word with her coworker in case she's sharing a locker with a friend or something.

Now, the thing is, I just don't get this girl's damage. It's not like I was maliciously leaving my backpack hanging out. Christ, for all I knew, no one ever came to that locker (I never saw anyone and I'm there every single frikkin day). Second, I've had the same locker for two years now... and she's the first... one to have an... uh, menstrual freak-out about my backpack. I guess I feel bad for letting my backpack's cinching straps hang out of the locker. So I left a polite little note in the middle locker apologizing that I've been in the way and asking the locker's residents to please be careful in case the straps are left out because it's difficult to shove them in. I crammed them in there pretty good today, but it wasn't easy. I hope the note gives the girl a nice case of reality and snaps her out of the paranoid dilusion she's living in where unintentional interference by inatimate objects warrants karmic revenge.

Seriously. It was one thing when I thought it was an accident. This is another thing entirely.

Alls I have to say is, bitch.

**************
The last two days have been stressful for various reasons. Primarily, I got behind after spending a weekend in Seattle and had to haul ass on a photo-j project that ended up sucking majorly. I'm not looking forward to turning that one in tomorrow. Oh well, sometimes it's just a time to slack the fuck off. Today I had my History midterm and a Japanese Quiz. Aced both, I'm sure, which means I probably failed. I gotta pick up the slack on my History reading and write mom a letter for mom's day. Don't know why I should bother, it won't endear me any further to the most estranged of my estranged parents.

Friday and Saturday I have Waseda orientations. It will be nice to finally meet the majority of the participants in the programme. I'm still feeling ambiguous about going, especially with the most recent developments in scholarships. It's not that I didn't get any. In fact, I've gotten all but one (that have been reported thus far) of those I applied for. Opportunities Abroad= $500. Freeman UO= $4,500. Freeman-ASIA= $7,000. AIEJ= $7,200ish (based on conversion rate). The problem is that it's a "one or the other" sort of deal. I anticipated this in part, but not just how ancy it would make me. I can pick one of the Freemans. Obviously, I pick the $7,000 one. That way, I get to keep Opportunities Abroad (I think...). Freeman disperses once per term and goes into my student account. AIEJ covers airfare in its entirety, gives me an 80,000Yen monthly stipend ($650 about) and a one-time 25,000Yen "settling-in allowance." (about $210). Sounds nice, ne? But also less than or equivalent to Freeman and easier to spend instead of apply toward program. If I pick AIEJ, too, I can't have any other scholarships for abroad. Stingy of them, huh?

Oh well, I seem to be "good enough" in some respects, I just can't understand why I can't glean FULL funding for my programme. Sheesh.

And I didn't get ALL the scholarships, the jury is still out on two more... I did get a letter from the University today saying that I wasn't good enough for whatever hoity-toity "prestigious" award I was nominated for. No fucking wonder, too, I took a look at the past winners of those things and they're all freakish prodigies. Obviously kids on full-ride scholarships or with rich daddies. With community-service and intramural resumes like that, none of those kids EVER had a time for a job. Ever. Doesn't that count for something?

Huff. I'm still sick with a stupid headcold and waiting for it to go away just in time for GRASS SEASON ALLERGIES!! Yay! >.< Why oh WHY did Linn county have to be so worthless as to merit them taking up the grass seed industry for economic support? Don't they know the misery it causes us? That it makes us the city with the worst seasonal pollen count in the nation??? WHYYY!!??!?!

*hack, cough*

Anyhoo, I've got to get some work in before I go to south park. Oh, and my dear friend Rachelry has her own blog now. So go check it out, dolls.

In closing, a poem generated from my dear blog (yes you can make your own). I call it...uh.... um....

08 29:01 AM
blogging before bed
the idea to be careful
in the rec. center
since I
feel about this sentiment.
glad proud to
last, and then I pick one of her image is
contributing to the Moment she has the participants
in wonderfully legitimate
ways to take for a feminist passed on it
struck me an OV staff meeting,
went to a time Soak good.
enough for GRASS SEASON
ALLERGIES!! Yay! grass SEASON ALLERGIES!! Yay!
Ha, ha. Ha.


and this one... it's almost a haiku:

write mom a 25,000Yen
allowance. about $three lip rings, stretched
earlobes, ratty dreds and getting dressed
like
I e.

This one is from my bio. I like the ones from my bio:

About them. I can
gain some crucial understanding
of time and good
story maybe it eats your soul. I
love me or hate me,
mellow and a cynic.
It�s a Clydesdale
and never going back. Before
that, okay for a faithful
heart
tall blonde
and my partner
of an abstract thinker
and writing shit either
Love the right brained, an
exhibitionist and I;
where I think a closet drama
in computers but then fail to contact Me
I don�t plan
on in, my biggest fears are
dense, the circumstances.

and this one... wow

About past three years, two fish,
twenty plants, and
more power
out running/ lifting weights ,
playing with water, air, and yes,
I wear sexy underwear. a home
away from home. away
from a dreamer
and have a land of an
adult, I
lead a blessing or any stigma, Or any
given day it become addicted to
anesthetize a long enough period of my
history to make myself Hence, I never
go there is it eats your
soul. I also a closet drama in
writing, I never could maintain it Love me I am not
long enough .
I
never program.

Got a camera?
Use it. Could be a cool project.

Bebop
As a prelude to the Bebop movie coming to the Bijou, the entirety of Cowboy Bebop will be screened this week, Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6-12 in Chapman 207. All who are interested should attend! I will not be there, as my classes and my health are intent on making this week HELLISH for me. Fleh.

warrior princess
Well, NOW I remember why I should have stayed here this weekend... it was the TMBG concert at McDonald Theatre. Boo for me. Alas, I didn't have tickets anyway.... and I would have missed the fun of rooting through Dameon's closet and getting dressed up in all sorts of weird garb. I came back with two gowns, two pairs of boots (one of which is now mine) and some jewelry. Now alls I need is a chemise long enough for lanky ol me.

How the hell did Justin and I wind up playing main characters in the faire circuit this summer? It will be .... interesting.

May Day
More evidence today that I don't make a good Wiccan. Or maybe just evidence that it's hard for me to get excited about anything any more. Today is/was May Day, alternately known as Beltane, my favoritist of favorite holidays. And what did I do? Nothing. OK, I suppose I stood outside in the sun and felt truly blessed. I suppose I did Tai Chi in a grassy field for an hour. I suppose I fornicated raunchily on my living room floor. Yeah, all of these are wonderfully legitimate ways to celebrate the "first day of summer." But the truth is, I wasn't thinking about it and didn't really put any meaning into it. I didn't call down any divine entity or give myself a holy moment. I didn't really feel enthused about trying to make some magic. I just felt banal. Glad to have some sun (freaking FINALLY) but banal. I'm not a good witch.

But yes, I was busy. I had class from 9 to 1. Then I declared a Japanese major and worked for an hour on a computer in my office. I organized my life a bit, went home, changed, had an OV staff meeting, went to dinner with Justin's second cousin and her husband, came home, did homework, and now, exhaustedly am blogging before bed. I should feel accomplished... so I will. I like my classes this term. My professors are all amicable and knowledgeable. I managed to get an A on my last photo assignment despite my reserves about it. I think my PhotoJ professor liked my Seattle Knights assignment today; he was very generous in his critique despite my shoddy prints. I just hope I can pull off the next assignment OK: The assignment is to make a photographic representation of an idea or concept (like "speed," "anger," "femininity," etc.). I'm doing loneliness. So, if you'd like to help me with my homework, the question of the evening is, what images come to mind when you think of loneliness?

food
I always wonder how people came up with the idea to eat certain ridiculous, visibly inedible things. Take beans for example. We take for granted how totally inedible these little fruits of goodness normally are. How the hell did someone get the idea to take the rock-hard little pods, soak them for a god-forsakenly long time, and then eat them? I'm guessing it was probably by accident rather than trial and error, though I can certainly see some comical situation unfolding as neolithic humans get the idea that maybe soaking ANYTHING long enough makes it edible:

OG: Yo, grok. You soak rocks?
GROK: Duh. I soak rocks long time. Soak good.
OG: We eat?
GROK: OK, we eat. You try now. (laughs evilly)

Or rice. Same thing. Howd'ya figure boiling it just the right amount of time takes it from a stomach-mangling little grain into soft, fluffy goodness.

Justin thought of one even I can't top. Coffee. Who the HELL got the idea for that?

Were they like "hey, maybe if I take these weird beans, dry them, fire roast them overnight, pulverize them into pulp and strain water through them they might taste good!" Boy, I bet they were sorely dissapointed when it tasted like SHIT. And I bet they got the last laugh, too, when they drank it anyway, told everyone it was good, and started an ancestral craze that would birth Starbucks some odd millenia later. Ha, ha. I'm laughing now.