badass

and then on the way out of the theater, i saw kimya dawson!

step into the light

things that have happened fairly recently:

-idil laughed at me for having the washington litter report number programmed in my phone. i didn't do this because i intend to rat someone out...i was just curious about how it worked. i thought you called in when you saw someone throw a hamburger wrapper on the ground to describe their clothing and whereabouts, and i wondered how that would do any good at all...apparently i'm thinking too much like a pedestrian. this number is for drivers to call when they see other drivers litter:

Citizens who witness littering acts can call the hotline and report basic information such as date, time, location, objects thrown, the license plate of the vehicle, and a description of the vehicle.

well then. i will delete that number.

-my bus got pulled over while i was riding it. there was only me, the driver, and some yuppie business man with a briefcase and a hunger for drama. the bus was maneuvering around this big truck blocking the bus zone on a narrow one way street and was ticketed by a grumpy old cop with sunglasses on a cloudy day and a white handlebar mustache for "not looking before he pulled away from the bus zone." they were talking outside the bus and the whole time dramatic business man was trying to open the window to listen to their conversation and looking at me with wide eyes saying, "whoaaaa. whooaaaaaa, can you BELIEVE this? whoaaaa." he never got the window open. but we sat on the bus for 15 minutes while the city wrote a ticket for the city. the driver asked for our contact information as eyewitnesses in case he contests the ticket. traffic court may be in my future.

-the kitten continues to piss in the same place over and over again. even after i threw out all the furniture and blankets he had sprayed before, hauled a futon across town, and doused everything with vinegar, baking soda, and febreze. i'm not that surprised...but i had hoped things would be different this time. well, his ballz are getting chopped off tomorrow so hmmph. they also have fleas. before we attempt the bath, we're using a flea comb which has been a gross, fascinating hobby for me for the past two days. it's disgustingly satisfying. if you've ever used one, you'll know what i mean.

-amy is back in town for a hot second...we've been lazing around the house, biking for cupcakes, and making earrings shaped like vaginas. :)

-i have been surprised to find out that more than two people read my blog. huh. do you read my blog?

meals this week.

this woman on my tour gave me a whole bag of kettle corn saturday, which i ate in lieu of lunch and dinner.

then last night someone who works at georgetown brewing company brought us four gallons of beer at work, which, again, i drank for my dinner (not all four gallons).

i found out my boss used to date an actor from one of my favorite south african soapies, isidingo. and also that we are going to try to get dave matthews to do a benefit concert. i mean, he lives in the neighborhood and all. my boss's son's friend is friends with his kids. we got jane goodall, for godsake!

after sitting in front of the fire drinking more free dinner beer, ellie and i went to the blue moon. i haven't been there probably since whatever the last major holiday was. but it never changes. last night there were two men in matching red zoot suits and fedoras and this dog that was chasing it's tail and chasing it's tail and chasing it's tail and the band played stop hey what's that sound and the whole crowd was singing along and it was the woman bartender working, so she gave us a discount on our drinks just because we are women and we weren't those obnoxious men sitting at the bar. and then a man came up to our table and sold us a $6 cheese pizza and this pizzajerk named shane came up and asked where we got it and when we told him, he didn't believe us. i offered him my last piece of crust as evidence and he opened his mouth. i guess he wanted me to feed it to him. i said, "i'm not going to feed you. you have to take it yourself." and he said, "nah, that's okay." and just high-fived us about three times each.

tk is starting to piss on things more. everyone tries to be mad at him but he's so fucking cute, it never really works. now everything he peed on is in the washing machine and it's making that thu-thunk-thu-thunk sound like it's going to explode.

i actually dreamed that i was in south africa two nights ago. it was so amazing to be there. since then, south africa keeps popping up in conversation. also in the dream my dad had this asymmetrical emo hipster haircut. it looked so weird.

crunchy leaves make fall autumn

well, now my hair is bright red. i didn't quite plan on it. we dyed it blonde first, so the brown part of the auburn that i was supposed to provide didn't happen.

everyone says they love it. really, everyone. even the save the children canvassers in front of pcc. i guess you have to say things like that when someone's hair is bright red. but not so enthusiastically, you know? when you "oh my god love it! love! it!" sooo much, that's when i get skeptical.

i mean, i don't love it that much. i love it kind of like i love my romper and my tutu and my velvet shrug and my gold lamé pants and the way i dance: in a sincere, but ridiculous sort of way...in a costumey sort of way (but different than a costume. more real).

i've always been bad at taking compliments. but especially when i think they are unnecessary and/or false. i'm just a skeptic.

other than my hair, not much has changed. shana and i picked the cutest lil' pumpkin on bainbridge today. i want to fill it with beer, then i want to make it into pie.

i had my work review. but we're in a pay freeze so that doesn't mean much except for an hour's worth of awkwardly listening to compliments.

ying visited and my soul feels better than it did. we danced, ate lots of foods, and played boggle in the park. she kicked my ass at boggle, which i probably deserved for making her ride all over the g.d. city on my clunky 'ol schwinn.

i recently learned that up to 21% of women who have natural labors might be orgasming during birth.

i took tk to the vet. while i was waiting i listened to the receptionist call patient after patient saying, "hi, this is cathy. just wanted to remind you of cosmo's teeth cleaning tomorrow" and "looking forward to seeing schnuggums for her annual feces screening and toenail trimming next week..." things that make me not want to go to the vet anymore.



....does anyone else get scared that they're becoming a boring grown-up?

here we go again

i should have known that mercury was in retrograde again. all signs pointed to yes, so i looked it up, and it is. so there you have it; it can't just be in my brain, the chaos can't just be from my anticipation and looking extra hard for things going wrong.

i finally investigated it after our computer system at work crashed twice, my coworker told her she felt like everyone was annoyed at her and just couldn't communicate clearly, our bags are on backorder, and we had to redo 428 wine kits because of a misprint in the literature. yup, til september 29.

i've been acting strangely, too. doing things i've never done. i got my hair cut on sunday (not that you can tell). at a real place. when i went running yesterday i put one sock and one shoe on, and then the other sock and the other shoe.

mercury in retrograde and the cocorosie show i went to last week. that's why everything is weird.

goodall strudel

i met jane goodall yesterday! and by "met," i mean she came into the theo tour hopper yesterday morning, the room in which i lecture 25 bourgie entitled customers daily on why they should care about fair trade. about ten of us were lined up like the von trapp family, wearing matching t-shirts, drinking coffee from matching mugs, dumb grins on our faces. it was so surreal. it was supposed to be our time to ask her questions and "chat" with her about her life. i had nothing to say. what the hell would i say to jane goodall?? "excuse me, dr. goodall. how does it feel to be such a badass, important, amazing person?" part of me wanted to tell her i dressed up as her for halloween last year. the better part of me talked that part of me out of it. so i just stood there and grinned stupidly.

then i was allowed to help serve her private 12-person brunch. eeeeeee!!!* she had to go upstairs and rest before brunch was over, so they took her chocolate strudel up to her resting room. today i went upstairs to fill up water and it's still sitting there, half eaten. jane goodall germs on a half-eaten day-old strudel! who wants it? who wants it?

*in chimp language, that means "holy shit, becca! sometimes you have an awesome life!!!"

108

i'm getting ready to shed an old layer and expose a new one. neither of those layers are quite ready yet, but the anticipation of transition leaves me feeling the same way i do every time before i move. i'm sad to leave an era behind, but always excited enough to have my belongings packed in boxes weeks before the move, with one foot out the door before i'm finished. my relationships become either more intense or more distant.

and it's all starting to happen now.

last night i was eating foraged huckleberry coconut ice cream over glazed white peaches with liz. and i suddenly remembered that i believe you have to know where you came from before you can understand where you're going. and where you are, presently, for that matter. i don't mean to sound cliche or woowoo. i know i do. i know it sounds like kitschy inspirational blah blah blah, and normally i would have a healthily cynical reaction towards it, but this was one of those moments when you're eating ice cream and it just resonates and it's true.

i remembered (and i'm always a little surprised at this) how i'm not so different now from who i've ever been. different skins, same becca-spirit.

i think this was all instigated by a conversation with my mother about my birth. i mean, holy geez, i know i'm a cancer sun, leo ascending, sagittarius moon, but i don't even know what it was like when i entered the universe under those stars.

totally natural birth, short labor, pushed out in a semi-sitting position, immediate skin-to-skin contact. i popped out about six hours after contractions first started on a sunday morning when we all should have been at church. i was the messiest of her three births. they had cleaned my older sister off a bit and wrapped her in a blanket before my mom held her, so when they plopped me straight onto her belly she just thought, "whoa, this feels weird."

during her most intense contractions, the only thing she could focus on was this tiny tear in one of the curtains. that was all she could look at.