errands

i just biked home in the rain. v. exhilarating and joyful, despite the fact that i was biking home from the hospital so they could take a picture of my insides. now my armpits stink stink stink.

on my walk home from work today, i stopped by the piercer so they could take the metal out of my face that i'm not allowed to have for new job. i sighed when i sat down and said, "this is sad. but i have to do it for my new job. the end of an era..." to which the girl helping me, in all her tattooed-n-pierced glory, just raised her eyebrows in an expression that clearly meant, "you're a sell-out. way to compromise yourself for the man." not the kind of love and support i could have used at the moment.

after that i went to the bank. i never intend to be honest with my teller when he asks me how i'm doing, but somehow i always end up spilling my guts. i realize that they have to ask, but...it always sounds so sincere.

"and how are you today?"
"fine...i mean, terrible. i just had to take my piercings out for a new job and i'm passing four kidney stones, two on each side, and house hunting is going nowhere and i'm so stressed out about paying the bills and i feel like i'm letting all of my friends down lately and yesterday and today i spent the whole day not eating 'cause i thought my belly had to be empty for these tests and the doctor never called me back to tell me that i could have been eating the entire time and so many people are moving away and i don't know how to fix my bike and i spilled coffee on my dress today. and i think my hermit crab is sick."
"wow...that sounds awful...um...so just this deposit for you today?"

no, i want you to fix everything, damnit!

i started cleaning my room and taking things off the walls. i found my bag o' dreadlocks. i decided that in my quest to minimize my belongings, i can't justify carrying them around me whenever i move. i also can't throw them away. it seems wrong. i don't really know what my other options are. suggestions?

variations on a familiar theme

allow me to complain some more, please:

got no job, no house, no money, no love. and a kidney stone.
rejection, rejection, rejection.
bad choices.
i'm not a cute french girl.
it's cold and cloudy again today.

the bright side:

urban family that likes me just as i am ("to becca...just as she is!"), cookie dough and reality bites, being brave enough to say something i wanted to say even though it was scary.

i wish i had realized earlier on that being in your 20s is, by definition, a constant struggle to keep your head just above the water. then i would have had time to build a time machine that would transport me to my 30th birthday. only magically, i would arrive with all the life lessons and wisdom that the pain of this decade is supposedly teaching me. yes. that's what i'd have done.

i shaved my legs for this?

for work today we all went to an amusement park. i worked very hard screaming on roller coasters and sitting on my ass floating down the lazy river.

my coworker overheard some teenage girls with identical haircuts and avril lavigne-inspired eye makeup making fun of my leg hair.

instead of feeling bad, i felt victorious. i laughed to myself and thought, "ha! just wait 'til they see me walking around in my bikini bottoms. body hair, body hair, body hair!"

cold day in july

the seattle weather gods are smiting us with 60 degree weather at the end of july.

i'm wallowing in some unidentified emotion, sitting alone in my room with the window shut, listening to my post-love mix (which is making everything better and worse).

i'm not even post-love. i just feel like it. because of the weather, my flat bike tire, my kidney stone, friends breaking up, friends moving away, friends crying, residents crying, coworkers quitting, me wanting to quit, wanting so so so so soooo badly to be done, pending jobs, pending house, pending crushes, money money money, overspending, over-committing, over-processing race, class, & gender, overdue library books...

sometimes i hate being a cancer.

zelda dumpstered an "astrological love affinity decoder" for me. it is now one of my top 6 material possessions.

top 6 material possessions (in no significant order):
-saw
-bike
-rilke's book of hours
-journal
-hula hoop
-astrological love affinity decoder

anyway, it's to help two people figure out their compatibility based on sun signs. compatibility is divided into the following categories: passion, tolerance, stability, concord, heaven match. the decoder is v. helpful...in knowing...the strengths and weaknesses of your relationship....well, tell me your sun sign and i'll give you our score.

i went to a music festival this past weekend. bluegrass jam bands and peacocks everywhere. in trees. everywhere. i saw an albino peacock. and some baby peacocks. i found a tiny feather, but not the kind you're probably thinking of. you can see a little blue and green if you hold it to the light a certain way. i'm keeping it as a reminder of how peaceful i felt for 48 hours.

yesterday when i woke up i thought, "i'm going to collect the feathers i find today." by dinnertime, i had three beautiful feathers that i stuck in my nubbin of a pigtail. i gave those away to my friends. today i found two more. right now i have six visible feathers hanging out in my room.

i also finally took off my shell necklace from durban. finally. it's been around my neck since my dreadies came off. now: an empty heart-shaped locket from i don't-know-where and an origami crane charm from my sister. i'm waiting for something good and tiny to put inside the locket.

my room. my room is a disaster. it keeps getting worse and worse. i have no will to put anything where it goes and a strange desire to create mess. someone knocked my jar of seaglass onto the floor. there it remains. batteries, beer bottles, scissors, a cheese slicer, thread, painkillers, dirty laundry, and feathers feathers feathers. my room is usually pretty immaculate. but right now i want it to be a disaster. why?

but i have kept the little plant that ashley gave me for my birthday alive. i look at it everyday and remember to water it, if nothing else. it's grown at least a centimeter.

my body's gemstones

my stone is about 1 cm. the ureter is 3mm-5mm in diameter.

well, they are beautiful...nasty little shits...

informative

good news: i finally paid my medical bill from last year's kidney stone this week! thus ends my love/hate phone relationship with justin from collections.

bad news: i might be passing another kidney stone. "what!?" i know, right! this would make #3, which means that if my body had any follow through and had actually passed the previous two stones, i would have enough rocks to make a earring and necklace set. the pain is not very severe or constant right now, but i'm going to get it checked out tomorrow just in case, so i can have some pain killers on hand...

exciting news: i have a job interview in an hour! at a chocolate factory! and this weekend i'm going to a music festival in oregon! (all of the above subject to be ruined by elusive kidney stone)

hermit crab news: last night i had a dream that i thought she was dying, but it turns out, she was pregnant and gave birth to six little hermits. and i was amazed, as hermit crabs have never been known to mate in captivity. and she doesn't have a mate to begin with. really, though, since i've been following danii's pregnancy reading "what to expect when you're expecting," i've had hella pregnancy dreams. i'm pregnant, you're pregnant, my hermit crab's pregnant, we're all pregnant...in my most recent dream, i was a surrogate mother. it was really traumatic, actually.

cookie news: i haven't been able to make no-bake cookies successfully since i've been in seattle. for a while i blamed it on the hippie ingredients in our house: soy milk, margarine, natural peanut butter. but no matter what i try, they never set. i have been making delicious no-bake cookies since i could reach the stove top standing on a chair. so wtf, i say! something is off in the universe.

well, that concludes my news broadcast. someday in the hopefully near future i'll pull myself together enough and write interesting, profound commentary on current events and academic books i'll be reading...until then, i'm off trying to survive...

the sun's a circus clown, the moon's a lemon tart

yet another sunny day. i can't stop grinning. and singing. and dancing. partially because of the weather, partially because it's almost time for me to close this chapter of my life and move on.

i know i still have a month left to live here, but i have an itch to start throwing things away and packing my belongings in boxes now. moving is my favorite state of being.

i'm also giddily in love with my friends. last night we had a "great depression" themed potluck that involved costumes, a giant pot of soup, and a woody guthrie-esque jam on the front porch with a banjo, ukulele, guitar, accordion, saw, and the spoons.

other things i love right now: a mighty wind soundtrack (link below being my favorite song ever ever), milkshakes, cutting my bangs obsessively.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8NGYoyRR6U

(by the way, to those technologically savvy: how do i post a youtube video, or any link for that matter?? thanks.)

25 more days of work. 25 more days of walking into shelter and being greeted by the overwhelming smell of bacon. always. bacon. everyday. bacon. no matter what. perhaps i should conduct a study on victims of domestic violence and bacon consumption.

today: a long bike ride and a milkshake.

it's just that kind of day.

me me me meeeeee

(my mcdonald's birthday party, c. 1990)

disclaimer: the only thing this entry is about is how unbelievably cute i used to be.


i just watched a home video of 5-year-old self. it explains so much about who i am today.

scene 1: my older sister mal and i supposed to be doing our barbie tape routine for the camera. mal, always the performer, is singing into a hairbrush and dancing to her original choreography. me: i'm wearing this pink dress that my grandma made me. i used to wear every single day. my mom would have to come up with creative ways to trick me out of it long enough to give it a good washing every now and then. so, mal singing. me spinning in circles. around and around and around. in my own world. watching the skirt poof out. i would fall. and get back up. and keep spinning. with a dumb, but ridiculously adorable, smile on my face. much of my childhood (an estimated 61%) was spent spinning in this pink dress. until i outgrew it. then i moved on to my sister's identical purple one. ah, hand-me-downs...

scene 2: christmas 1990. my pajama shirt is clearly on backwards and my hair is everywhere, with evidence of a side ponytail. i am completely unaware of the fact that i look fucking crazy, as i unwrap boxes of sweatsuits. then, i open the golden present of 1990: a neon pink book bag (with a jesus fish on it) with my very own bible inside. a bible with my name engraved on the front in gold letters. i am completely amazed by the fact that "they knew my name" and ask my mother over and over and over again how "they knew my name" in a voice that is too high and squeaky for the human ear to understand. perhaps that's why my mother ignored me over and over again. five minutes later, the entire family is in front of the camera. mal and i, in our new matching sweatsuits, are each holding an end of our poor cat, amanda "miss kitty." i am holding the ass. as is the annual ritual (still today!), we all sing carols to our future selves. smart-ass mal and myself decide to be clever and replace the words of "i'm dreaming of a white christmas" with "meow meow meow meow meow-meow," much to dad's annoyance and mom's amusement. the final shot is me running towards the camera holding poor amanda "miss kitty." suddenly i fall, out of the camera's view. a second later i pop up unharmed. still holding poor, tortured amanda "miss kitty."

i was spacey, weird, and always in my own world (probably because no one understood me when i talked, due to pitch). i refused to wear pants and tortured animals, only because i loved them too damn much.

other than puberty and a few more social skills, little else seems to have changed. in fact, i might be less cool and am definitely less cute. and i'm a worse dresser. oh man...

crisis momentarily resolved

i have never been so happy about rain in seattle as i am right now! it actually thunderstormed last night. the thunder actually woke me up when i was sleeping and the air smells deliciously of summer rain instead of the usual seattle-overcast-stink. mmmmmm....

always true to my zodiacal tendencies, i suddenly feel at peace about life, despite my existential crisis two days ago. ha! or maybe it's because i received birthday checks in the mail and don't have to worry myself sick about paying bills this month. yes, now that i think about it, my financial status probably has significantly more power over my mood swings than the cosmos. not because i'm greedy, but because i'm severely poor.

in other news, my business manager/brilliant housemate with whom i share a wall created a blog for our hula hoop small business. check it out (sorry you have to copy and paste; i can't figure out how to post a g.d. link even though i seem to be following the directions...): hulahoopseattle.blogspot.com
personally, my favorite line is "hula hooping is part of our dna as humans!" it's true. it's really, really true. however, i still feel torn about making a profit from hula hooping. i want it to be accessible to everyone and not...commodified. on the other hand, as noted above, i'm severely poor. gah! ethical dilemma!

is it just me, or has my writing really lacked depth lately? in general, i feel like i've been avoiding intellectual stimulation and processing heavy, emotional ideas. at work, i just do what needs to be done without thinking about it much. i try to be present when i can, but as soon as it's 5:00, i find other things to distract me. ohh, did i tell you i am learning to slackline? so far, i can just balance in the middle for about 10 seconds, at best.

anyway, current life strategy: busy self with hobbies, hobbies, hobbies to avoid despair.

how am i not myself?

days i was a saint: 5

oh well, i tried anyway.

yesterday i biked to a beach on the sound and planted myself there for the next couple hours for my self-evaluation/journal-reading birthday ritual. this resulted in two things.

one: launching myself into an existential crisis. great. i'm not surprised, as i've been feeling one on its way for a while. thank the powers-that-be for wikihow:

http://www.wikihow.com/Exude%2C-Escape%2C-or-Enact-an-Existential-Crisis
http://www.wikihow.com/Deal-With-an-Existential-Crisis

now i can move on. ha.

two: sunburn. really bad fever-and-chill-giving sunburn. everywhere. bad. when will i learn? never, clearly. after all the excruciating sunburn pain i've endured in my 23 years of being, i'm still a dumbass who doesn't wear sunscreen. i don't deserve sympathy, in case you were going to offer it.

i'm such a cancerian; i'm acting moody and introspective beyond all reason. my skin is as red as my hermit crab. and i'm going to get skin cancer.

hopeless.