i'm not getting the responses i want

the other day all i really wanted, the only thing i wanted, was a milkshake. i put our blender together that way i thought it went together. it didn't go together that way. apparently. the milk fell out through the bottom, all over everything. i cried. wailed. i was hysterical. in front of all my housemates. i crumpled to the floor howling. over spilled milk. over everything, but really over spilled milk. no one knew what to do, and seeing everyone unsuccessfully trying to make things better made everything awful and hilarious...and awful.

now everything is up in the air because as far as i know, i only cry biannually (excepting instances in which i cry because of a book or movie). i already cried once on february 15th. it's only may. there are so many months to go.

the good news is that i took a clogging workshop. i texted this information to my dad in a weak attempt to bond or something. his response: "wow." anyway, i found a new passion.

the bad news is that today a collections agency called me about a bill i didn't know i had for my kidney stone last summer. fuck. i didn't even know. i ranted for a while to poor justin-who-answered-the-phone about our healthcare system and classist society. while i was on hold i started feeling a little guilty for taking my anger out on justin-who-answered-the-phone, since he probably doesn't have control over these things. so when he got back on the line i apologized. probably too much.

one of my favorite residents found out that i'm only 22 today. she freaked out. "whhhaaaaa? that's my daughter's age. i'm telling all my problems to someone my daughter's age!?"

friday there is a lady coming to seattle from india. apparently her hugs have spiritual healing powers. realizing how ridiculous this sounds, i really want a hug from her.

anticipating the ice cream truck

this just in: my hermit crab is officially missing. i looked under every rock and shell and sponge, expecting to discover a corpse under each. no corpse. nothing.

it's possible that she buried herself to shed her exoskeleton and move into a new shell, but i'm a bit concerned because something similar happened last year with my crab fihliwe. i didn't see him for a few weeks, so i assumed he wanted some privacy so he could get naked (apparently they can stay under there for up to six weeks). well, he wasn't getting naked. he wasn't in the tank at all. no shell, no exoskeleton, no detached claw. he up and disappeared. even when we moved out of the house, we never found any evidence of fihliwe's existence. my theory: one of the downstairs neighbor children popped him in her mouth one day.

i named my new hermit crab after the downstairs neighbor child. she came to seattle with me on the train. somehow she's survived the coldness of my room and being alone (which ironically hermit crabs don't like). once i bought her a companion from petco on a friday. that tuesday, his legs fell off. seriously. i hadn't even named him yet. we scooped up his shell and his legs and gave him a beautiful viking funeral on lake union. liz's late fish was on the boat, too. i wanted us to play "float on" by modest mouse while we set the boat on fire, but the cd player wouldn't work, so i asked all of the guests to hum it instead. and they did. that's why i love my housemates.

i guess we'll see. i had a dream last week about her being dead and in the dream i was sobbing. i wonder if i'll have that reaction in real life. damn.

last night our team actually came in last place for trivia night. we won a prize for losing. two shots of jager. bleh. no thanks. i failed my team at the bible trivia question, which is supposed to be my area of expertise. the question was, "what did saul require of david before he married his daughter?" the answer is the foreskin of 1,000 philistines. mmm...well then, of course we wouldn't have talked about it in church. the last two rounds were all televison questions, which is why we were doomed.

i spent hours and hours today cleaning my house, scouring every surface in our bathroom and kitchen with vinegar and baking soda. i couldn't seem to stop. our house is old and everything will always look dirty. but my mother instilled very thorough cleaning habits in me. i thought she was crazy growing up, making us wipe down the walls for godsake. today my housemates looked at me the same way i looked at my mother. as if dusting the baseboards is unecessary. geez.

orbs

what is consuming my mind the most right now is how my team is going to kick ass at trivia night in a few short hours. i feel it in my heart of hearts.

since i'm terrible at trivia, my team mate suggested that i look up some random wikipedia articles. good idea. this is from the article on "blah":

Some people use "blah" as a code^{[citation needed]}, such as in morse code - "blah" being a dash, "blahblah" being a dot, and "blahblahblah" being a space.

see, i didn't know that. i wouldn't have known that. who makes up useless things like this anyway? that's ridiculous. the next random article that came up was about posthumous sperm collection. after that i stopped reading. if these topics come up during trivia night, i will probably leave.

after wasting my time browsing wikipedia, i made myself a grilled chese sandwich with swiss and tomato on rye and some lemonade. and i practiced my saw while i waited for my sandwich to melt. i can play the south african national anthem and the office theme song.



one sad-ish thing, then i'm done: i don't usually like children, but sometimes kindred spirits take the form of all ages and there's nothing you can do about it. for instance, sne is a 3-year-old zulu girl living in rural south africa. we couldn't understand a word the other said, but we spent a lot of time together and everybody knew we belonged to the same soul group. we told each other a lot of important things in our respective languages. once i asked her older brother what she was saying and he mumbled something about elves dancing in the forest. i will never ever forget the last moment we looked at each other, even though sne probably has already. it was one of the most heartbreaking moments in our lives, like when when will and lyra have to go back to their own worlds in the amber spyglass.

ha. sne was just going to be an example to introduce what i really meant to write about, but now i don't want to talk about anything else.

it's hard and it's hard, ain't it hard

things i would like to do in near future:

• learn to start my hula hoop with my feet
• stop eating so much cheese
• go to the rainforest
• host a judy chicago "dinner party" dinner party
• write a letter to my mamaw
• learn to clog

now, i was very surprised to realize the last item on my list. i've never desired to clog before. the main reason for this is that my father used to clog. he was part of his college's clogging troupe in kentucky. he once told me that when he graduated, he capered across the stage. so clogging was ruined for me, along with science fiction television and county fairs (also things i might have loved).

maybe it's my appalachian roots finally getting the best of me. maybe it's that youtube video i saw of this kid named brandon norris clogging on "so you think you can dance." maybe i miss my mamaw cooking casseroles topped with buttered cornflakes, or her specialty: chocolate gravy over biscuits. whatever it is, i have to pursue it, despite that fact the i don't think i can dance like brandon norris. lately whenever i hear bluegrass and old-time music, my feet start a-twitchin'.

if you've never experienced this, it can be quite frightening.

a treat

i hate the end of lilac season.

i went to the bank and asked for a red lollipop and the teller thought it was the most hilarious thing he'd ever heard. but he gave it to me. it was delicious.

bloody eye dog

i'm actually enjoying a jigsaw puzzle, despite my reluctance and lack of skill. see the dog on the bottom lefthand side with the blood coming out of his eyes? i put him together. ah, country dog gentlemen.

this city is too damn small. i used to like accidentally bumping into people. lately it makes me feel really vulnerable. for every person i hope i'll run into, there's another person i hope to avoid. this is especially tricky because i love meeting random strangers, but inevitably five minutes into our conversation (and hopefully i haven't said anything foolish by this time) i find out that they are roomates with the sister of a person i was hoping to avoid. iesh. so anyway, i have to be extra sneaky these days...

there is a beautiful fiddle player who might think i'm stalking her. it's always an accident, i swear. last week she came into a public bathroom and used the stall right next to mine. i was taking a shit, but i had to stop because i was embarrassed. then i just smiled awkwardly at her while we were washing our hands. i probably seem so creepy. i want to tell her that i play the saw, but i have nothing to say beyond that. i think talking to her would just increase my creepiness. something i don't want to do...

you don't even know

i just ate a bowl of frozen tortellini. i thought it would be delicious, but it was actually just depressing.

i worked for 13 hours today. if i cried, i would have done it on a day like this. there were too many goodbyes and hellos.

today i gave three backrubs, three shelter tours, met three new people, celebrated a victory, pitied a failure, knew what to say once, didn't know what to say at least four times, and said the wrong thing way too many times. it was my friend's birthday today. someone i love was mourning a death today. the washing machine broke. the copy machine broke. the kitchen is being retiled.

overall, i would estimate that i made more good decisions than bad decisions. more that were both. for instance, i bought pepsi instead of coke because it was graded a b- in the better world shopper book instead of a d- like coke. but really, i shouldn't be consuming high fructose corn syrup in the first place. or: i smoked one cigarette instead of five. things like that. slight progress.

the house was dead when i came home. the last conversation i had with my housemates was about whose hair is in the shower drain.

i thought i was done listening until tomorrow, but just now i listened some more because i needed to. it's one of those things that amazes me because even when you think you've reached your full listening capacity, you find the room if it needs to happen. similar to jello.

anyway, i just listened without giving advice. i don't believe in advice anymore. well, i don't believe in giving advice if you're unqualified to do so. and there are very, very few people in the world who i would consider qualified. i'm not one of them. to be qualified, i think first you have to have learned to be fully present, which rules out a lot of us. i'm practicing though, based on tips from thich naht hanh (who i think is qualified to give advice).

everything that's happened since 8:00 this morning reminds me of how strangely balanced the universe can keep itself.