Tuesday, December 31, 2002

I've only made it about three and a half months in this house, and I hardly live here any more. Though lately this is true in the literal sense, I feel it is also growing more and more accurate in a figurative sense. It's been more than two weeks since I've slept here, between mom's house in Jersey, Peter's place a few blocks away and visiting my sister in DC. I haven't partaken of my lovely queen-sized since the night of the 16th, and that was just one night. I spent the four nights before that at my mom's house. Though I am in my room right at this moment, I won't be sleeping here tonight.

Tonight, a few of my housemates are throwing a New Year's party. Not a big one, I'm assured. I was assured of this after I announced my disinvolvement. Why would I do this? Well, apparently, some "friends" wanted to throw a New Year's party but didn't have an appropriate facility so they offered to "help out" if we'd throw it at our house. Supposedly this aid was to be exclusively financial. Well. "Friends" was actually "friend" and not by my reckoning. No, this generous individual is actually the ex-boyfriend of one of my current housemates, assuming she hasn't been stupid enough to get back together with him yet in which case he wouldn't be her ex anymore, right?

For a bit more background info, this lovely gentleman lived in my current house for the previous three years, only moving out this past September when we new folk moved in. This person also has serious self-esteem issues and an earth-shattering need for acceptance which is demonstrated by his insistence on having a "cool" legacy. He is also well past an age when his immaturity can be attributed to being a stupid college student.

So, shortly after he left her, he showed up trashed at our Halloween party, proceeded to throw a shit fit at me for changing the "rules" of the house, and then got in a screaming fight with his ex-girlfriend which ended with him throwing his ring at her. What exactly the reasoning behind that was, I don't know. Maybe she gave it to him or something, but anyway, she was bleeding, he calmed down, and we couldn't find anyone big enough to throw him out of the house before he pretended to be a rational human being again.

And for some reason, our mutual friends don't get why I refuse to have anything to do with a party sponsored by him.

Saturday, December 28, 2002

"I don't want a cat. Not ever again."

I got cats for my sister's 14th birthday. She just turned 18 this month. Four years of cats is too many, I said. They smell and they pee the nicest carpet in the house for no reason. You have to clean out the litter box for them. They shed. I hate getting cat hair on everything. They claw up the furniture and they don't go for walks and you have to take them to the vet, and I really don't want cats.

This little fellow is named after a sun god, but he is absolutely as kittenly as can be. Across the floor he bats: a ball of tinfoil, a pink rubber ball, a little plastic baby Jesus. He also attempts to chase the light from a flashlight. He is brown with darker stripes--a good solid calico kitty. His eyes are an amber yellow to my cats' yellow green.

He falls asleep in the arms of perfect strangers and nearly changes the mind of a girl who doesn't ever want a cat again.
While I have been thoroughly delinquent in posting, I'd like to thank Leah for adding me to her sidebar! I find that her approach to blogging is pretty similar to my own: using everyday experiences to relate some sort of sentiment, so if by some strange freak of nature you like what I write, definitely give her a read. :)

Sunday, December 22, 2002

And just like that, he's gone. It was my own doing, so it oughtn't have been surprising. I left him at the gate, and now he's miles above the earth, somewhere between here and Fort Lauderdale. When I get back to my mother's house, a quick and belated safety charm.

At least it may be good for his flight home.

Wind to thy wings.

Saturday, December 21, 2002

I lose myself in days.

Rain and grey somehow make time move faster as does the unavailability of fresh clothes. I haven't been home since about 8 o'clock Thursday night, but since then I've done a thousand things.

The house glowed in every red, blue, yellow, green and white that can be made incandescent. Tinsel, garlands and glass hang off the chandeliers, shelves, rafters, doorways, windows and walls. Beneath the riotous festivity, vaguely peculiar paintings adorn the walls. The figures in them are uniformly tall and thin with proportionally large eyes, hands, feet. As if every character in every image was being viewed through some lens of adolescence. The Masterpiece hung largely in the center of the longest wall, a man collapsed into his spaghetti as the woman opposite him looks disinterested. My favorite part of the image, though, was that the tiled pattern of the resturaunt floor was warped in the reflection of the single table leg.

Wednesday, December 18, 2002

So, I have the nation's capitol and all its amazing resources at my disposal. Gallery upon gallery...museum upon...well right next to other museum. And what did I do today? Lay in my sister's dorm room and reread a trashy fantasy book that I'd already read. Yeah. So I decided today that I don't give a damn what sort of road trip I'm on. This was my first really honestly empty day of winter vacation and dammit, I'm not moving.

Tomorrow, I'll only have a few hours here before departure which is only at my insistance that I'd like to be back in Philadelphia sort of early. So, I can shop for a few more presents or I can hit a few choice museums, or I can try to do a little of each. The sort of city that this is, I can probably find one of my presents without much difficulty. Not that I know what I'm looking for, but I should at least be able to find it...I think. I need one present by Sunday, if I'm going to get it at all, one present for...Wednesday? Is that blasted holiday on Wednesday? And one final one that I'll need in the first couple days of January. No pressure, right? Right.

Greetings from Washington DC. Hope you're all enjoying your winters.

Thursday, December 12, 2002

I remember the leaving. There were socks, cat-ribbons. Once there was bread and posters. Always goodbye-cheek-girly kisses and "I'll see you soon, ok?"

I love to give presents because people love to get presents. I also love to get presents.

It fascinates me that I ordered Peter's Winter Holiday present at about 3pm yesterday and that my doorbell might ring any minute with the package. Which leads me to think that perhaps I should put some clothes on.

I'm leaving today. Not for a long time, but finals are over and I'm going home to make some present money, so I can bring my sister something nice when I see her for her birthday. More specifically, present money so that I can buy other people holiday gifts after I buy my sister her birthday presents. heh. I'm just all over the place today. What I mean, I guess is that I hate leaving places, and that...I just don't know, really.

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

At last, this term is over. Finally. Complete with one late-night paper-writing session and cramming for the exam two hours before it starts. Complete with flirting with the professor. Complete with hateful final critiques and being guilted over feeling as if I'd done something right. Heaven forbid, after all. And this is what I'll have to put up with for the next two and a half years, this staff.

Complete with the customary juggling of priorities versus responsibilities which, no, are not actually priorities. Complete with incredible triumphs and small disappointments in the things that really matter to me. Complete with ballet slippers. Complete. And over....finally.

Monday, December 09, 2002

Thanks to Peter's sharp tongue and stonehenge-accuracy biological clock, it has been pointed out to me that I get incredibly....difficult...about every 28 days. And it's all documented right here! There and I never bought all that "moody" pms bullshit. Showed me.

Sunday, December 08, 2002

A perfect calm, bright sunlight, boyfriend-recording, singing abot sunlight. Mmm....wet hair, shopping, football? theater. Everything is working out thoroughly passably. Singing. Singing and guitar? Library books, splinters, new chapstick. Missing you.

Thursday, December 05, 2002

When I woke up this morning, there were already two or three inches of snow on the ground. I didn't know for a few minutes. Actually, when I first opened my poor near-sighted eyes, I looked out my window, which faces a wall, and was disappointed at the lack of snow. Damn those meteorologists and their giving of false hopes, I thought. After I put my lenses in, however, I discovered the reality of the situation. Well. What an occasion. First snow of the year, indeed the biggest single snowfall I'd seen in a few years. This calls for dressing up. Oh yes. I dressed all in white except for my jeans and my sneakers. White underwear, white socks, and white tank top under a white, sparkly sweater. I even did my hair. At this very moment I have two tiny ponytails a couple of inches past my forehead. And all of this was before 8:30 in the morning.

Yes, this was intended to be a very busy day. Not hectic and running around, at least not til evening, but busy and full of work. In the photo lab around 9:30, I gushed to a classmate on the topic of my love of snow. Yes. It looked absolutely lovely from the fourth floor. She agreed. Would the school close for snow? We didn't know. It got to be ten thirty, and there was still no notice. Surely they would have announced a closing by then. Ten forty-five. Oh, and the university will have an emergency snow-closing today. All classes after 2pm are cancelled and university facilities will all close early today. Including the photo lab. Well, in order to send all the employees home by 2, they have to start shutting down the labs at 1:30. One thirty. As opposed to the regular Thursday closing time of 9:30. There are no photo classes in that lab on Thursdays. Eight hours. The photo students lost eight entire hours of open lab time in which to work on their final projects. Due: Monday.

Stupid snow.

Go to art history. I got to the front of my house, after class, before realizing that I needed to go check the callbacks list in the theater. Great. All the way there, all the way back. Callbacks for the student-directed as well as readthrough of the mainstage show are both pushed back to tomorrow. Great. Instead of having two simultaneous events on Thursday and one other event on Friday, I now have three simultaneous events on Friday. Perfect.

I hate snow.

Wednesday, December 04, 2002

And it really is all about time. Days pass without my really noticing as I frantically rush to complete projects for the end of the term. Not enough hours in the day. But every one there is has been carefully planned and plotted. Some of my agenda I've been able to keep to, some I have not, but it will all be a matter of hours and minutes, too soon. I just said the other day (day...week...month) that I'd misplaced a season. Well, I really have. All this work, papers, prints, what was I doing? Maybe I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Enjoying myself. Figuring out life.

I just wish I had something to show for it.

Sunday, December 01, 2002

Philadelphia--Drexel--with its city blocks, sidewalks, every shrub carefully landscaped. For ease, that is. Ease of care. Somewhere for the gardener to stand in the wee hours of the morning, carefully trimming and shaping every bush to look like the one right next to it. Most of them are evergreens, so that they are still opaque in the winter and...more importantly, so that they don't drop leaves. Trees are somewhat scarce, here in the city. Mostly, they are tiny and slim and recently planted. There are some older trees in peoples' yards, but most city dwellings, unfortunately, don't include yards. Though there are large groupings of adult trees, they are largely found in parks...parks to which I have no time to meander. And so, for the first time, I feel as if I missed the changing of the leaves. The reason for this is that I really never made it home at all during the time when all the woods and farms would be golden or red or plum. I really should have.

I misplaced autumn, this year.

happy december.

Saturday, November 30, 2002

Three Thanksgiving meals and zero schoolwork later...

I find myself longing. Longing for peace...quiet...a way to spend my own time as I choose. Much like today, but without guilt or without deadlines hanging over me. I want to read, polish my nails, go to the museum, walk, and just be myself for a while. I want to bowl, to take yoga classes, to learn some new and useful craft. I want to clean all day, and then to bake and make a mess for myself. I want to shop for Christmas presents. I want to shop for me. I want to audition for the winter show and I want to get in.

I want to have time for everything.

Tuesday, November 26, 2002

He's like a filter, I've decided. At least when I want to go to sleep, he is. Having him warm and pressed against me just makes me forget about everything that isn't looming dreadfully over my head or that isn't entirely fleeting and trivial. What does that mean? It means I forget every worry that I can afford to forget until morning, which usually leaves no worries at all. Nothing to run circles in my head keeping me awake, nothing to keep me from relaxing every muscle in my body and from meditating on leaves. It's the feeling of comfort and, more importantly, safety. Safety from everything.

In your arms I am invincible.

Sunday, November 24, 2002

"See?" she said, waving her left hand in front of someone's face.
"Are you really?"
"Yeah!"
"Congratulations!"

This weekend, I met some girls from somewhere out in the middle of Pennsylvania. One has diamonds and another has a silver ring just big enough to make any guy think twice. "They're like the Future Housewives of America. Birthin' hips and all," he said. Yes, I thought. They already talk as if they're someone's mom. But someone loves them an awful lot. Someone thinks that each of those girls is the most beautiful girl they ever need to lay eyes on. Someone was ready to announce that they were done roving and that it was time to settle down. Maybe their lives aren't perfect, just yet, but someone decided that one of those girls was the one person they wanted to build a future with.

I've never before heard of boys like those, and I'd like to know how to get one.

Saturday, November 23, 2002

Doing my part to help out: the new EP from Lisa can be found in the merchnadise section. Available on preorder *only* and the deadline to order is Dec 6th. Rock on, boys and girls.

Friday, November 22, 2002

My apologies for leaving my archives to sit and rot for such a long time. Now they should actually be working on their own little page. Wohoo!

Thursday, November 21, 2002

An old gaming buddy of mine directed me to his music at ampcast.com. It's some thoroughly passable trance music, if you go for that sort of thing, and apparently he's having some measure of success with it. While I was there, looking around, I did become pretty interested in the community there. Fans can sign up to use the boards, chat, share playlists and probably some other nifty features I haven't seen yet. Anyone can download or stream mp3s of the indie artists that have taken up residence there. Artists, musicians and others, can sign up, get their own web site, self-promote, distribute their mp3s, "manufacture and fulfill 'retail ready' CDs" at no upfront cost, as well as sell those cds and mp3s through ampcast and receive some form of royalties while keeping all the rights to their music. They host all genres of music including country, rap, classical and rock. For those of you music people out there, take a look. It might be a good deal...I wouldn't be the person to ask.

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

In my life:

love
glow time
flat-felled seams
punkin pie?
very negative critiques
making boys think of me...just think of me
soft soft soft hair
boys who attend 'beauty night'
feeding birds in the garden
not especially caring what Stuart thinks as long as I don't fail and have to take his class over again
holding a strong C in Stuart's class
six part vocal arrangements
actually arranging multi-part vocal arrangements
trying to convince people to stop reading Lolita and to pay attention to me
love

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

Winter seems to bring on a sleepiness--an inclination to stay nice and warm in bed, whether or not you have company. And that's why I skipped my classes yesterday. The cold, the snuggling and the daunting 25 minute walk back to campus. Which is why I never stay at Peter's apartment on school nights. I know I'll never make it to class. But it's always worth it. We got up and had breakfast about an hour and a half after my first class had started and then went right back to bed. Finally back home for my doctor's appointment (Drexel gives the pill for free, now. Cool, eh?) and choir. Remember on the way to choir that the boys acapella group, 8 to the Bar, has rehearsal. Panic ensues as I remember that I have no digital camera with which to continue my 8ttB picture story, but is then dismissed like the rest of the day. At choir he recorded a couple of our more awful renditions of lovely choral music then I sprint to the photo lab to get a camera. Two hours shooting the boys and being shamelessly flirted with. Home to find Peter asleep in my bed mumbling that he doesn't feel well.

That's what I get for taking a day off.

Saturday, November 16, 2002

I could say any number of things about my father. The first thing I usually say in discussion about him with those who don't know him is 'Did you know that my father is the antichrist?' Now, that's a great conversation starter any day. Then usually comes the bit about him being the only 6 foot 1 inch tall 100% Chinese guy I know. Go figure, right.

So if I had to pick one person to be the source of all evil, I'd pick him nine days out of ten, and the simple reason is that he was the only part of the first fourteen or fifteen years of my life that consistenly made me unhappy. After that, he was trying really hard to make life impossible for my mother, which leads me to anger on her behalf and an awful lot of inconvenience in other ways. He worked a lot, and wasn't usually happy or interactive when he got home, and I was somehow made to mention this the only time I ever saw a psychiatrist. My parents suspected I had an attention disorder, so they took me in. Without knowing my tendency to burst into tears in any sort of confrontation with an authority figure, the gentleman asked me how I felt towards my parents. At which point I sobbingly explained that my dad wasn't home very much. Unfortunately, this was relayed to my parents, and my father decided to make more of an effort to be home.

He would yell, to say the least. And no one who didn't live with him could even imagine what we meant when we said he did. When my sister and I were little, he would lose his temper at us for things that were at best childish and at worst not our fault at all. He would threaten to hit us, not just with an open hand but with a belt or a hairbrush. And while spanking is one thing, I do think that the hairbrush in my drawer right now, old and beloved, was used to hit me and my sister at least once. Once when he was angry, he put a nail in the wall between my doorway and my sister's doorway and he hung his belt on it as a threat. He apparently needed to wear it sometime later and it came down, and there was just the empty nail left. A while after that, my sister hung a tree ornament off of it: a heart of iridescent blown glass.

When he decided to divorce my mother, he turned civil towards us. It was always my opinion that he was trying to win us over to his side because at some point they did make my sister and brother and I decide who we would want to live with when they split. He took us out to Broadway shows, bought us presents, planned vacations to sunny warm places. I tended to refuse the outings that would require me to be in his company. "No, dad, I don't really want tickets to RENT. No, thank you, I don't want to go to Disney World," because I felt that he was trying to bribe us into liking him. On the other hand, if he wanted to buy me things, that was fine with me. We all knew that since my dad was the breadwinner and since we'd probably end up living with my mom, presents would be few and far between. So instead of vacations, I got photo equipment. An enlarger in my basement...and probably some other things I can't remember. No promised car on the sixteenth birthday or on the seventeenth either, for that matter. But what can you do. To me, it was low and sneaky to try to trick us into liking him. Or maybe he was just trying to make up for all the years he made us miserable. I preferred interpreting it as the former, because I didn't have to think about forgiving him.

These days he's very nice. He visits me with his girlfriend, brings me food and cranberry juice and is otherwise quite a likeable person. He pays my rent without complaining or complication. But somehow it's not enough to make up for nearly two decades of being screwed with. I think he suspects it, too. No, of course I don't forgive him. But I have to feel...I don't know. Sorry for him? Because he's trying very hard, but he doesn't know what to do. He sent me a box. A care package, if you will. It had in it two of my favorite candy bar, fruit snacks that I like, crackers that I like, a snack-size pack of two cookies that I like, dryer sheets, a purple felt wizards' hat, and a letter. The contents alone were enough to make me and Kat crack up. When I opened the letter and read the first line, I threw it back into the box with a nervous laugh. Kat and Peter look at me as if I've grown another head or just picked up a dead rat or something of the sort. I hand it to Kat and tell her to read the first sentence. It reads "As I take pen in hand, from one perspective, I think 'How barbaric?!?' I can't remember when I last wrote a letter." Her reaction was much the same as mine. Peter, however, failed to get the humor. It goes on to describe how my brother is with both my sister and me gone away at college, but then he says how he misses me and that he should have been a better parent for me, and basically that he will try to do that in the future. Then there's more about how he's proud of me.

And they wondered why I was crying in the middle of the kitchen.

Friday, November 15, 2002

So, I admin or IMM on a MUD, as I've noted before. Lately, I've been reminded of just how much fun it is to hang around there and just shoot the breeze with the players, and why it was that I liked the play so much. From the staff's point of view, at least, there is always something new going on. Something being built, added, fixed, solved. This evolution is what has always appealed so much. In this recent renaissance of my own interest there, I've been introduced to a nascent clan concept. Turns out that some player has finally realized that what our game world needs is a group of people with a good real strong sense of religion. And, of course, something to believe in.

Like me. I have every confidence in myself that I can be quite a proper object of worship. And I've always wanted a rabid cult all my own. What more, really, could any girl ask for? A bunch of people who have never judged me by my bra size and who are willing to throw hours of work into the wind in order to win my divine favor.

We're also considering requiring all the members of the religion to bow down every hour on the hour, to face southwards and to call out some praise to me in my glory. This could do good things for my state of mind.

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

There once was a mystical grove shaded by huge and ancient trees. It was full of mist and the sun never reached it; it was lit diffusely through the thick canopy of leaves and through the thick fog. In this mystical grove lived many strange and wonderful creatures, including the naughty sprites of Monty Python and a couple of very naive unicorns.

One day the great North Wind grew bored with the obstinate mistiness and protectivivity of the grove and so he blew their little miasma away. The sun broke through the trees and struck the pretty white unicorns square on the flanks. The unicorns, being white, promptly proceeded to reflect every wave of visible light into the eyes of every other creature, real or imagined, in the mystical grove. Now, if one wanted to take a properly exposed photograph of this scene, I would recommend either placing a grey card in front of the unicorns, filling your frame with it, and reading off of it *or* you could take a meter reading off of the brightly lit flanks of the unicorns and expose about two stops over that.

And the moral of the story is: always carry a grey card when photographing unicorns in a mystical grove.

Tuesday, November 12, 2002

And then someone flicked the gravity back on.

Sunday, November 10, 2002

Smooth and dry and cool
White and curving ribs
Spine to sternum cage a heart.
Yours and mine.

A lung, a liver, ghostly hover
Insubstantial.

I can reach my fleshy hand to your shoulder,
But instead of consolation, I touch
The glowing, the beating.
Not a caress, but a testing.

To hold you too closely
Is a meshing of bones
As of two sets of fingers.



That sort of covers it, I think.
It's not fucking fair that I always have to be the one to give up. Because I know I can't possibly be wrong all the time. But that's how it has to be. I try to make you prove that you actually give a shit, and when I can't get any such thing from you, I go back to not caring whether or not you do because it's easier than this feeling of collapse.

Don't I sound happy? Don't I?

Try to be extra nice to me this month...my ass.

Saturday, November 09, 2002

Speaking of strange dreams, last night's included a ski-jump, a monorail and inflatable dragons as well as a guy who tried to scam me out of my student ID.

PS: It worked for Kat so maybe it'll work for me. frilly dresses.

Thursday, November 07, 2002

On such a beautiful day as today, it's impossible to be pessimistic.


I did have some very strange dreams last night: about traveling with my mother like Anywhere But Here; about the mice that live or used to live in our kitchen, and about what mutations might be caused by roach spray. Basically, that is to say that while mice randomly skittered through the kitchen, Kat and I fussed over a little kitten with a strangely shaped head that was mostly white, black, and magenta and some albino cat-rabbit with long ears. That part of the dream ended with me following mice back to the holes in the walls and taping them over with duct tape.

I have the weirdest subconscious.

Wednesday, November 06, 2002

I just wrote this long post about everything that's going wrong in my life and everything that's going right as compared to what I expected at the beginning of the term. But I pressed the wrong button and it all went away. So I guess I'll just retell the end which went something like:

I said to the alto section leader today, "People suck." And she said to me, "I'm glad I'm not the only one." What did she mean by that, anyway?
I must just not have any idea how to run my life. I obviously just don't fucking get it. I feel like the Philadelphia public school system. If anyone has any idea of how to do this properly, I'm definitely willing to consider letting you take over for me.

Sunday, November 03, 2002

Eaten today:
two bowls of homemade lentil, barley, carrot, celery, alphabet soup
one grilled cheese sandwich
one corn muffin
half of a pomegranite
maybe 7 or 8 pieces of assorted leftover Halloween candy

Except for a couple of the pieces of candy, all of the above were consumed after 5:30 in the evening.

I mopped the entire lower level of my house, today, except for the one runner carpet in the hallway which I vacuumed. I want to not imagine faces at the front door, and I want not to tense when I hear the front door being unlocked. I want the nerve and bravado to be able to just tell someone to fuck off, rather than relying on my self-assured bitchiness to get me through.

I want sense.

I want peace of mind.

Friday, November 01, 2002

I am apparently cute and sweet when I'm half-conscious. I don't know what that means, aside from being a stark contrast to how I normally behave. Does it indicate that sweetness and light is my default state and that during my waking hours, I expend energy into being a nasty bitch? It's a simple explanation: I sometimes get too tired to be mean. More realistically, though, I think it's just that I get too tired to pretend anything. If I'm tired and in a bad mood, I don't even attempt to curb myself, while if I'm tired and just grateful that I have what I have, since I really don't deserve it, I have no energy for pride. I have no means for pretending that the world is damn lucky to have me, and I just have to lay back and be thankful.

Thursday, October 31, 2002

He said, "Someone asked me to go over Brancusi again, since they were apparently intrigued."

Well, that's not exactly true; I asked him if we'd be going back over Brancusi because he had rushed to finish the information before the midterm. I am not intrigued by Brancusi, but rather just quite quite admiring. But then, maybe he wasn't referring to me at all.

So he showed the first slide..."Bird." A very polished and smoothed bird-shape in bronze. Then another in marble with fewer distinguishing features of the bird. Lastly, a bronze missile, thrusting hopefully upward in an exultant soar. We'd seen them all before. A week earlier, actually, on that very projector screen. I'd seen them in person in the museum. But this time, the medium interested me. Not the bronze or the marble, but the slide.

Yes, I looked carefully at the bronze "Bird" and the bronze "Bird in Space." The forms were clear, as were Brancusi's famous pedestals, but what I saw was the photographer. Yes...careful scrutiny of the slides revealed to me the distorted, bronzed reflection of the taker of the slide images. Of course not even the gender of the photographer could be discerned, but there was the essence of that person...taken by the sculpture, warped slightly, and sent back into their own lens.

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

There was a time last winter when I was introduced to Dar Williams. Let's just say that we wound up playing her album Out There Live upwards of fifty consecutive times. Do you know how long that takes? A week or two. So...thanks, Dar, for shaping my musical tastes, my freshman year of college, and probably my mind. That's it. :)

Tuesday, October 29, 2002

The world is supposedly round. Cosmologists suppose that the universe, however, is flat and that it has edges somewhere. I, personally believe that my universe is flat. Not flat as in "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable" but simply that all the edges don't come back to the same place. But I don't really know what I mean by that. I suppose only that some things in my life are totally unrelated, and that I could never imagine the shape of my world to be a nice round bubble. But it has to do with boundaries, too. There are boundaries, but they are not enforced, I only have yet to pioneer past them.

In figuring the theoretical shape of the universe, there's a figure called critical density. The density of the universe would of course be the mass of the universe divided by the volume of the universe. If the actual density of the universe is above this 'critical density,' the universe is shaped like a sphere and will one day cease to expand and gravity will cause it to collapse in on itself. If the density of the universe is less than critical, the universe is shaped as an infinite, three-dimensional hyperbola and will eventually grow to be so large that every particle of mass in the universe will be so far from every other particle of mass in the univserse that everything would basically freeze and disintegrate. If, however, the density of the universe is the critical density, the universe is a flat plane and will continue to expand forever, but at an inifinitely decreasing rate.

My universe works the exact same way. So what I want is a marginally bounded universe, except that the matter in it needs to change shape every now and then. The density should probably remain pretty constant, though. Yep.

Sunday, October 27, 2002

Paraphrased:

"I'm not going to keep IMing you if you're just going to ignore me."
"I'm not ignoring you!"
"Well it feels as if I'm typing just to see the style of my own font."

Friday, October 25, 2002

I really didn't mean to go this long without posting. What have I been doing? I don't know. All I can remember doing this week is waiting for it to be Friday, so that we'd have Treblemakers rehearsal. We didn't do my song, unfortunately, as I had thought we might. Instead we worked on, Like a Prayer, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Walkin on Broken Glass, and Possessions. All of which are pretty damn fun songs to sing. Really, all the songs we have are pretty great. Sweet Dreams is the only song we've worked on at all that we didn't practice today, I think. I can't wait til we get to my song. Peter devised some really sadistic instrumental lines that I won't have to learn because I get to sing lead. Wohoo! So, that's me just going on and on about how much I like singing obscure bits of pop music.

Am I a waste of virtual space, yet?

Tuesday, October 22, 2002

Despite the fact that I remember looking up the url previously, I seem not to have mentioned my recent attempts at arranging the Sophie B Hawkins song "As I Lay Me Down." Or if I did mention them, I didn't go into specifics. Well, here I sit...I've been reading music since I was...oh six or seven, and yet I really know nothing about music theory. Some term soon, I will get into Music Theory I, but that day has not yet come.

I muddle through...I look up the guitar chords on OLGA which are at correct intervals, but in the wrong key, fix the key with a capo on the third fret, and proceed with the business of giving everyone notes. How is this done? Well, I play the right chord on the guitar, then I look at each string. EADGBE. Every Aardvark Does Good Before Evil. Yep...that string there is Good. No fingers. The note is a G...in respect to the capo. Ok, now this finger...Ok, Before..but on the third fret...ok, open is B, then C, then C#, then D. Ok, D. ect. Yep. That tedious. Fortunately, much of the song is the same three chords...which I now have written out on paper as little bubbles on staves. So I give out notes to the supporting lines, then play each line back to see if the phrase makes sense. If not, then I shuffle notes around so that all the same ones are there, but that each person sings something a little more logical. Ok. There are even repeated sections that I could copy and paste in, mostly. I pickily transcribe the melodic line. Add in the parts that don't come in until after the chorus. After the second verse. Ok...Bridge. This is where it gets scary. What to do...there's a big key change. Ok, well I'll start with writing out the melody. Alright...I now suspect that the bridge is in Ab or Db. Ok, do the bass line. Sounds awful with the melody, but I know it's right. I think the bridge is in Db. Pick out the top supporting line. Hm. Alright. No help there...

It stares at me...a wall, blank, uncaring. There are footholds in it, but I don't know where to begin looking. Someone has a map of how this damn thing works, and I just need to figure out who it is.

Monday, October 21, 2002

I've developed a sudden interest in mutual understanding. So I pose this question to my oh-so-extensive readership: What would you like me to talk about? Is there anything you'd like to know about me?
I want to know what you're interested in, and I'm open to satisfying those informational curiosities. So...hit me with whatever you've got. :)

Sunday, October 20, 2002

To do:
Shoot two more rolls of 'glow time' light
Contact print both rolls
Shoot one roll of 'weather'
Shoot one roll of 'available light' in strange places
Print one print of each of the two immediately above rolls
Read for all four of my classes
Practice awful spirituals for choir
Visit a museum or gallery to start on my art history paper
Study for midterms?

Time actually spent:
Building wings
Sleeping
Baking and painting cookies
Eating
Spending obscene amounts of my mother's money at downscale department stores
Practicing Treblemaker's music
Clicking through the Nameless Forest

I am so screwed.

Friday, October 18, 2002

Sometimes I just have to wonder what I'm getting myself into.

Wednesday, October 16, 2002

Doubt. A relatively unfamiliar sensation. There are many metaphors that deal with doubt:

the seed of doubt
a gnawing doubt
etc.

One of these describes doubt as a plant, the other implies an animal. I guess plants could gnaw, but I think a metaphor that strong deserves a better emotion than doubt. So, if doubt were a plant, I'm having a lot of trouble picturing it being something green and stemmy like a bean plant. I picture it as more of an eroding force like a fungus, but fungi don't have seeds, so that's out. I guess doubt might be a dandelion (you can get rid of it but it will keep coming back), but it seems incongruous, then, that the seed of doubt would be pretty and floaty.

Doubt as an animal...now that I can go with. The gnawing refers, I suppose, to that clenching in your gut, that turning over and over. Gnawing also seems to me like the sort of thing that is done with little success. By that I mean simply that something being gnawed is not being bitten in half...no, no, that would be too quick to be doubt. The discomfort would be over far too soon. Doubt has blunt little teeth that cause a pressing sort of pain rather than cutting. It bruises. On the other hand, I think it would well suit doubt to have some sort of acidic saliva with which to coat the inside of your stomach. Its long slimy tongue could just swab your innards with this corrosive stuff to cause something like heartburn but a little milder. Longer lasting, of course, and doing lots of permanent damage. A thick layer of scar tissue would grow to cover all sensitive spots if the little demon ever left you alone long enough for you to heal.

feeling today--doubtful.

Tuesday, October 15, 2002

I don't know what made me click through my sidebar to her, today, but Martha, welcome back. Also...striking...today is Kat. Don't blame me, I didn't feed her the pizza before bed. Or whatever it was she ate.

I was up before dawn yesterday to get sunrise pictures for my color photo class...I decided that I quite love mornings. Still, silent, and by the way, rushing to find camera batteries before the orange sunrise light was gone. Later in the day I had a girl-doctor appointment. My friend Sarah asked how my day was and I said to her, "Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to know about the horrible injustices that were visited upon my flesh, today." She said she'd take my word for it.

In other news, happy birthday to Mom and Grandpa. I got my mom a coffeemaker yesterday because I knew she wouldn't spend the money on herself. That, according to Peter, is what gifts are all about. Buying people the things they want but wouldn't buy for themselves. It seems to make sense, unlike some of his other ideas, but that's neither here nor there. Ok, so it is definitely there, but that's not here, and that's the point.

Wednesday, October 09, 2002

There were pink roses.

Pink roses on the left, yellow roses on the right side of the path, climbing the wrought iron arch. My footsteps were muffled by the soft, damp ground, and the light was diffused and silver. Fences through the garden were adorned with their customary riot of violet morning glories, despite the afternoon hour. Above me, trees bent their long branches down towards the little trail, dangling swollen green seed pods in a most tempting fashion, and the garden was peacefully still. I had grown accustomed to the large bed of neon orange impatiens, and the red and fuschia nasturtiums (nasturtia?) had become increasingly familiar, but today I noticed other things. Not only the roses which had never before been evident at the entrance to the garden, but also daisies, white and yellow, red and peach roses near the northeastern corner, and most surprisingly, a tall cone of small pink flowers with red veining in their petals. These, I think are some type of laurel, but I am not sure. The one peach rosebud I see every day has always enticed me, but today I wanted to take a daisy home with me. There are so many, I thought. Who could miss just one? But if it were my garden, I know I would.

Tuesday, October 08, 2002

I've never really noticed the day when spring turns into summer or when autumn turns to winter, but winter to spring and summer to autumn do always call my attention.

I remember the onset of spring, and how I had begun writing here at the tail end of February. As I watched the pale winter fade just a bit more into green and pinks, every blowing breeze would prompt me to narrate. Every fall off of a bed meant for one but filled by two was fodder for this new outlet for text.

I now go at least a day or two between posts, usually. This isn't because I have less to say, or that I want to share it less. It's more just that, these days, I'd rather spend my thoughts appreciating what I've got than figuring out what I have to say about it.

Monday, October 07, 2002

So we made it! Amy and I are now both official performing members of the Drexel Treblemakers acapella group. *pats herself on the back profusely and then squeals with delight*

yep.

Sunday, October 06, 2002

Why is it that secret meetings are usually so much more inspiring than official ones?

Tonight we had a meeting for Drexel Players to discuss their ideas for the year...away from the spirit-quelching glares of our official advisor. And yes, we did get a lot done. We decided to make the studio shows stronger...to try to make them as strong as the mainstage productions. We decided that we have, between us all, enough power to push those shows through, if we work together, agree to tech and build for student-run shows. We began building a propaganda...I mean...I mean promotional machine, and we decided to make the green room a more comfortable place for the players...a lounge, almost, but that could still function as a warm-up and even rehearsal room. This last part, really, holds the bit that I am the most interested in working on. Of course, I want the studio and student-run shows to be huge, that'd be great, but what I personally can realistically contribute is a library-building effort. What I want to do is to stock the bookshelves of the green room with books of plays...drama...theater...and possibly books on acting or the like. Things that are obviously of interest to us. You see, boredom occurs in the green room, sometimes. We wait there. Books of plays will not only provide education and entertainment for us while we wait, but they will hopefully give us ideas...ideas for plays that we want to perform. I plan to ask for maybe fifty dollars, when we get our hands on funds for bettering the green room, and buy as many books as I can, often for about a dollar on Ebay. I will put them all in the green room, and I will then attempt to read them all. Soon, the green room will have campus network internet access. I think it should also have some basic school supplies that no one will find worth swiping. Cheap pens and pencils, paper, paperclips and the like. It should also be green, and have just a bit more atmosphere. A few more (or just more comfortable) pieces of furniture.

I'm such a homebody...always wanting to redecorate.

Saturday, October 05, 2002

For three hours, we sat in semi-darkness. No computer, no stereo, no electric teapot. For a good part of that time, I paced my room with Peter's portable cd player glued to my head. I picked a disc to warm up to but it caught my fancy. I painted my fingernails and toenails. I ran through some of the tracks over and over, stretching my voice, pushing it. There came a point at which I knew I'd have to stop or get overly nervous, and so I stopped.

I showered by the light of five tealight candles, since the other three refused to light. Sprayed my hair in all its little braids and waited for it to dry. Practiced some more. At that point, the song that I had chosen two weeks ago to use for my audition had become doubtful. I could certainly sing it well when I was calm, but could I when I was nervous? Would it be too boring and slow? It was a question between the comfort of two weeks rehearsal versus the pleasures of spontaneity and challenge. I took my hair out of the braids and let all the crinkles down around my face. Decided against that, since it was very flat at my scalp. Pulled it all up into a ponytail. Left the house not knowing what I was going to sing for auditions.

Got to auditions now knowing what I was going to sing for auditions. I whispered conspiratorily to one of the girls, "I don't know what I'm going to sing." She told me I had to decide before I got up in front of the room to sing. She lied.

"Hi, my name's Tam, I'm a photo major.....I guess I'm a sophomore...what am I going to sing? Hmmm........um......well...." I have no idea what was really going through my mind. I suppose just that I knew I was nervous enough that I could hit the high notes. "...I guess I'm going to sing "Heartbreaker" by Pat Benatar" (insert Peter having a cow because I'm not singing what he expected me to sing)

So, I don't know if it was because of the size of the audience or my lack of preparation, the components of the audience, or just my hopping around the room and dorking out during my solo audition, but last night was the first vocal audition that I haven't choked on. By all accounts, I did well and was on pitch and cute. It looks like I have a lot of things going for me, and the audition was totally fun. The list goes up Monday morning. Wish me luck.

Wednesday, October 02, 2002

On the subway...again. I rode alone a few times. In and out of Chinatown, shooting film and picking it up at the lab...and later with company. Kat talked, as we rode the train, of an experiment done with NYU students in which they asked strangers on the subway to give up their seats. On our way east, a girl sitting behind us insisted on giving up her seat to a middle-aged woman.

Going home, a very cute boy suggested that I take his seat, and he simply wouldn't take no for an answer.

I got on the subway and watched the litter on the platform through the window. As we pulled away, it all stayed behind except for one reflected piece...just next to my foot.

Monday, September 30, 2002

What the hell have I been doing for the last week, you may ask. Or you may not, it doesn't make a difference to me. I have alternately been procrastinating and panicking about my busy-ness and lack of time. So what else is new. Suffering Color Photography limbo, as my online-ordered supplies haven't arrived yet (those bastards) and I came to class wholly unprepared today. Yay! Pissing off the teacher on the second week of class. Lucky for me I rule. Unfortunately, one of the new girls who transferred to Drexel this term rules a little bit more than I do. She is just horribly talented and educated and just picks everything up so damn fast. I take these few minutes to freak out in writing. Thank you. *bows, exits stage left*

Friday, September 27, 2002

Late yesterday and for a large part of today, I had a line of a song stuck in my head. It was a Jewel song...the line is 'I'm sorry my heart breaking ruined your day.'

Really, I'm just sorry that I ruined your day.

Thursday, September 26, 2002

Nothing short of a fire will get me out of this house, tonight.

From my first exhilerating taste of art history 103, we returned here immediately to begin preparing lunch. An hour and a half later, I bolted out the door with my keys, my ID, and a shoulder bag containing two legal pads, a ziplock bowl of hot cheese soup, and a spoon. I wore jeans and a white tank top, and ran to class.

Three hours after that, soup given to hungry boyfriend, I returned home in the rain. Yes...in the rain and cold, for that matter. White tank-top, mind you. Four or five blocks between my last class and my front door. And I was only harassed twice.

First, sweatpants and a cashmere sweather. Two corn muffins and a huge latte mug of tea after that...Nothing short of a fire will get me out of this house, tonight. Photo assignments or not.

Tuesday, September 24, 2002

We're going to do a walking tour of Tam's evening.

5:15--Leave apartment, walk to the el station.
5:25--Get off the el at 13th st. Walk to Mid City Camera at 13th and Walnut.
5:35--Guy at Mid City attempts to sell me some paper of the wrong contrast type using the ever-effective "It's better than nothing" argument.
6:05--Purchase a box of the correct type of paper at Webb-Taylor(was that it? I can't remember) above 12th and Race.
6:15--reach 8th st music at 10th and Arch to find it closed.
6:25--ReachStaples and proceed to buy some nice heavy school supplies.
7:00--Finally reach Pearl, the intended destination at 5th and South streets.
7:25--Stand in line as a very scary guy with a gold front tooth attempted repeatedly to make conversation with me, despite my increasingly obvious inclination not to talk to strangers.
7:35--Finally escape Pearl. Assume I will be home by 8pm.
7:55--Reach el station at 8th street. Wait ten minutes for a train.
8:20--Home at last, where I attempt to blog despite the constant distraction of door opening and closing noises in my empty house.
8:45--Take Amy's comment about being home alone here seriously, for the first time. Turn on some loud music.

Monday, September 23, 2002

The first day of class no longer holds for me the intense anticipation and apprehension that it once did. For that matter, I already know three or four of the professors in whose classes I will be, this term, and I like them all well. As I prepared to walk the extra two minutes to campus for my first class this morning, all I truly had to wonder about was just how expensive this term would be, in relation to supplies. In supplies, not bad at all, really. Color film, color paper, a bit of board. Textbooks are to be half borrowed and half bought. I have a locker (gasp) on the photo department's floor in which I can keep tanks, reels, paper, tightly packaged snack food, etc. Yes...I have not much to fear, with the possible exception of large amounts of work in my theater production, world musics, and photojournalism classes. Ah well.

Saturday, September 21, 2002

For the past couple of days I've been floating in a kind of limbo...I read a really great book, hung some things on my walls, put some things on shelves, and reorganized the kitchen. But...that's all. My days have been filled with little else. Well, I did pretty much decide on a song to sing for acapella auditions in about two weeks, but even that isn't certain. I only know that I am in a peaceful place right now that can be attentively joyful to the hour of direct sunlight I have in my room.

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

This week has been a great reclaiming...or perhaps just a claiming. On Monday, I spent the day with my housemate, Amy. We first moved all of the dining room furniture into the living room, then I vacuumed the floor, then she mopped. When the floor had dried, we moved all of the dining room furniture and all of the living room furniture into the dining room, which was no easy task. Vacuumed the living room, mopped. When that was dry, we put all the furniture into its proper rooms and then arranged everything so that it was pleasant and space-efficient. The boys were impressed.

Yesterday, I decided to take the kitchen. I began by cleaning the highest cabinets. I then wanted to work on the kitchen floor (an absolute abomination), but I would have had to vacuum and Amy was sleeping, so I settled myself for scraping the caked grease off of the stove. It took me about an hour and 45 minutes to get it clean and had obviously not been cleaned properly in years. Then the countertops and the lower cabinets. Finally, after Amy'd gotten up, the floor. Shop vac-ed rigorously. Then once over with water and a scrub brush, then once over with just water, and then finally once with a lemony disinfectant. It could probably use a fourth mopping, but damned if I'm doing it anytime soon. The kitchen is actually serviceable and pleasant. I cleared off the table that had dwelt sinisterly in the corner of the kitchen, turned it, and moved it just a few feet to where it could actually be used as a kitchen table. Bring in the chairs we had selected from the dining-room surplus, and you have an actual kitchen. It is, apparently, shockingly beautiful. I spent most of my day there, today, baking and reading. Aaaah.

So perhaps these places were never mine. But they have not been anyone's for some time, and now they are ours. Clean.

I might not eat off of the floors, but I would at least have to think about it.

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

My hands were full of kittens. Tiny kittens who resembled, more than anything, small cats. They didn't have the disproportionately huge heads and eyes of kittens, but were rather perfectly formed, adult-shaped, baby cats. I could hold seven or eight in my cupped hands, and they came in many colors. There were calico splotched kittens, tortoise marked kittens, but especially there were pure white ones and uniformly dark grey ones. My two bigger cats from home let me carry them on my hips like babies. They let me rub their bellies as I carry them around.

I used my right hand to pick a kitten out of my left hand, raised it to my lips and swallowed it whole. There was no sensation of fur or of eating, just the knowledge that I had consumed a kitten. I ate another and another. My sister asked me if the white ones weren't disgusting, and I told her that no, they weren't.

But we had a train to catch. "Mom, what time is the train?"
"5:20"
"What time is it now?"
"Not time to go yet."

Check my watch...it is 5:20..."Mom, it is definitely time to go..." but she has gone. My dad stands nearby, looking sad. I know he is lonely. "Dad, where is mom?"
"She left with your car. You have to pack our things into her car and we will follow her."
Frustration. I do not want to drive her minivan for such a long trip. I run to the house, passing Peter Mulvey on the way. He speaks into something...trying to get good acoustics in these tunnels.

I run through the house, somehow familiar with the strange place and strange furniture, but realize that it is useless. And I don't want to pack again. I go back outside to my father. "Dad, I'm going to catch the next train...it isn't for a long time." I leave with him a dark grey kitten, which grows to a large cat. He hugs it and smiles...seems almost happy.


But, my dad hates cats.

Monday, September 16, 2002

I examined weather.com this morning. Rain...thunderstorms...sunrise and sunset. Hmmm. Sunrise: 6:42. Sunset: 7:08. Interesting. The autumnal equinox is theoretically the 20th or the 21st, I always forget, bad pagan that I am, so I check when the sunrise and sunset are for those days. I expect them to split the difference and match at 6:53 for both sunrise and sunset, but this is not the case. 6:47 sunrise and 7:00 sunset. Yes, indeed. On the "equinox," the day is still expected to be 26 minutes longer than the night. By the estimations of the people at weather.com, it looks like the day and night will actually be equal right around the 26th of September, at which point sunrise and sunset will both be around 6:52 (am and pm respectively).

Really. How are all my wild sex-rites supposed to work if I can't get a good equinox around here.
Damn summer and my car for making me lazy and out of shape. Damn fall for containing the birthdays of too many guys. Damn me for throwing out the shipping box. Damn the humidity. Damn housemates that are never around. Damn people who won't read the faq and still insist they know everything. Damn people who won't read the faq but insist on making the questions just a bit more frequently asked. Damn unidentified materials lurking behind sheetrock.

Damn mice.

Saturday, September 14, 2002

It's like a bathtub filling up with pudding.

Thick and opaque, the silence fills the space between us, seeping into every niche but somehow only fortifying our defenses. We alternately glare at and ignore each other. I lie very still, wrapped in a blanket, half hoping he'd forget I exist, half knowing I'd probably die if he did. At any time we could open the drain, rinse, and start fresh, but we don't. Who am I kidding. I am the one who turns to the wall.

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

My wrists lay limply on the keyboard drawer. I have never seen so much dirt under my fingernails without having landscaped. I have been carrying things for a week...not the same things, but always carrying things. My things...other peoples' things...

Moving week here at school has greatly exceeded my wildest expectations, and that in many ways. I surprise myself by being relatively easy to move: my life consists of about 2.5 carloads. A couple of my friends suffer serious setbacks in their new apartment, as the construction and remodeling have so far taken three days more than expected, and the place cannot yet be inhabited. For the time being, they sleep on the floor in their old apartment which remains in the possession of friends. At the same time, the number of friends that turned out to help them move their many belongings more than matched their wishes.

From lifting, carrying, balancing, pushing, pulling, opening, and stacking, I am not so much hurt...not yet, anyway. More than that, I feel a heaviness and fatigue in every muscle. Like I said, something about my wildest expectations.

Saturday, September 07, 2002

Settling in. Surrounded by boxes and bags and other strange packages...I'll be back when I'm a bit more organized and I have some posters covering these nasty walls. :)

Thursday, September 05, 2002

A few minutes ago, I got up to lessen the intensity of the arctic blast that aims at my desk chair. I got up, as I said, and was met with a view that has become increasingly familiar to me, though this began as a place I had never intended to get used to. I saw the sunset from my window, across the intersection.

I can't remember ever seeing a sunset in the house I spent my childhood in. In the house in which I grew up, the sun never set in my window...it only rose, while from my dorm room window I saw the sunrise over the other wing of the building and watched its reflection set in a hi-rise a few blocks away. The sunset here creeps in, orange, from the right. It breaks through windows and lace in the living room, making patterns on the wall, and leaves bright pink stripes in my room.

Sunset over west Philadelphia, with it's fifteen story buildings and hospitals dotting the horizon makes it seem very near. But that's not true: there is a lot of future over there.

more like this...

Wednesday, September 04, 2002

As I perused sidebar StillLife, I happened upon his link to this article and decided to make it a project. I will attempt to learn to write and speak in E Prime, and the project will continue until further notice. This and the preceeding two sentences have been my first exercise. Thank you.

Monday, September 02, 2002

So so sleepy...must still shower and put clean sheets on the bed...all packed...pretty much...



aaaaaaaah.

Sunday, September 01, 2002

So so much going on. Yesterday, I wrote a long rant about how stupid boys are, but when I'd finished, I realized that I'd only needed to write about it...definitely didn't need to publish it.

Also, a lot of reminiscences of April, or specifically, one weekend in April. First off, two emails in my mailbox. One containing this message and the second from someone I met that weekend. To clarify: Lisa is putting out some new songs, and Rabi might come to the beach with me and Kat. Kat will be home in just a few days, and I'm absolutely holding my breath for it.

On top of all that excitement, I'm theoretically moving in the next week, so I've been packing everything up. I was originally planning to spend today cleaning, but since I can't get ahold of anyone who lives in my new house, I haven't been able to go over there. Bastards...all of them. :)

Oh, and it's raining in my downstairs neighbor's closet.

Friday, August 30, 2002

We passed a building that looked suspiciously like a greenhouse. Then I noticed the cross and turned to my sister.

"Glass churches are God's version of ants and a magnifying glass."

A little while later, we saw a shopping cart full of fire extinguishers.

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

Puddles in Trolley Tracks

Murky droplets lace silver window
Oil-slicked asphalt dotted with dew

Wet, a blanket pulled over mouth and nose--
Curls my hair
Stretches my leather
Rolls in my ears.

The city rains on itself.




When they come to me...
I woke in the wee hours of the morning, pitch dark outside, with a roiling in my gut. I felt sick. Not as sick as I was the last time I had food poisoning, but definitely sick. I was certain, however, that if I could just force myself back into sleep, I wouldn't be violently sick. So sleep, I did.

It felt like hours of dreaming, and when I woke up, I remembered every second of it. But of course, I got distracted talking to Peter, and I lost it...apparently all of it. Trying to remember a dream is like trying to hold an air-filled ball underwater. Smooth, wet, and propelled by forces over which I have no control, it slips from my grasp. Just when you think you've got it right where you want it, it's suddenly gone...leaving only ripples in its wake.

Sunday, August 25, 2002

The rain shot down out of the sky. Not in one-dimensional torrents or two-dimensional sheets, but rather in waves. The water through the air and splashing hard against the asphalt made the darkness thick, and it was not by sight that I knew I was on the bridge. Water on all sides: a drop off the bridge, through the rain, into the river.

I pressed on at 30 miles an hour on I95, hydroplaning, but dry. I sang.

Tuesday, August 20, 2002

"How was Philly?" she asked.
"Sleeptastic," says I.

Right...yeah...went back to Philly for...about 12 hours for the express purpose of getting to stay with Peter. I'm such a silly girl. :)


Oh, by the way, I'm home in Jersey which is why I haven't been posting. Sorry!

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

It's a great thing to realize that you sincerely believe that bare footprints in sand require a clear set of toes.
*sigh*

So, right. I've managed to fall into the summer of minor disappointments. No real major ones, but plenty of minor ones. For example, I've killed my pet snake, my best friend from home who promised to visit me here in Philly isn't coming, I've slowly come to hate my job...and now this. Ok, so this isn't quite as minor.

I get this email yesterday morning from the director of our summer show. We'll say his name is John, for simplicity. So John emails me at 2:30am Monday morning, expecting me to read it, I don't know when. The email says 'You missed rehearsal on Thursday. The next rehearsal is at 8:30pm tomorrow, the next ones after that are at 7pm Thursday and Friday." I respond, "You said you'd email us about a rehearsal last Thursday and you never did. As noted on my audition sheet, I'm going home this Thursday for a week and a half, and an 8:30 rehearsal Tuesday night is fine...unless by "tomorrow" you mean "today." And even that's alright, but you'll have to call me, if that's the case." He did email me at 2:30 in the morning. When is "tomorrow" at that hour? So he calls me and leaves a message on my cell phone, as I requested, says that Yes, he had meant that the rehearsal was Monday night and that he'd like to speak to me afterwards about my going on "vacation." I should also note that I told him that if he absolutely positively needed me for a rehearsal while I was at home, I would have to drive an hour to an hour and a half each way, but that I might be able to manage it.

So, fine. I had a choir rehearsal from 6-8, but an 8:30 rehearsal would be fine. Convenient, even, since I would already be on campus and also wouldn't have to miss frozen drinks and American Idol. So I get home, check my email and see "Sorry for the email inconsistency, rehearsal is tonight, Monday night, at 8PM."

Yeah, that's inconsistent, alright.

Fine, so I emailed him back saying "Alright, I have a choir rehearsal from 6-8 and the choir director did threaten to keep the altos late, but I'll get there as soon as I can." I go to choir, we get out by like 7pm, which was cool. The other person in choir with me who is also a cast member for the summer show....right, she and I went and got cold drinks, wandered back to the theater, chill and talk for 45 minutes or so...It gets to be 8pm...no one. At which point I get pissed. And feel free to let the rest of the cast members, who slowly trickle in, know about that. No, not their fault at all, but I did get to vent somewhat. John finally shows up, we all set up in the rehearsal room. He says "First thing, scheduling. Tam, you said you can't make it back til 7:30 on Thursday and Friday?"
I say "John, I'd have to like you an awful lot to come home even one of those days, let alone both." And I certainly wasn't liking him at that point.
He says "Well, I didn't see that note on your audition sheet, if you can't make it back for rehearsals, then I'll have to get someone else to do the part."
"That's fine."
He then feels the need to add, "If I'd known you'd be unavailable for this time, I wouldn't have cast you in the first place." Well gee, John, maybe that was the point of writing it on my audition sheet. So he says "You can read and block for tonight, but then..." I sit in relative shock and recoil for quite a few minutes, trying to get around the lump in my throat the idea that I wouldn't get to be in the summer show while he discusses schedule with everyone else. Finally John says "Ok, any more questions?"
Over-loudly I say "Yeah. I have a question."
"Yes?"
"The stage manager read for me last Thursday. Can she read for me tonight?"
"Um...yeah."
"Good. See ya." I get up, put my left flip-flop back on, careful to keep my head down and my tears under wraps. I always knew long hair was good for something.
He says "I'm really sorry." I freeze, my right foot pointed into my sandal...
"It's cool." Never looking up. Pick up my things, walk out quickly but not running, out the door and sobbing all the way to Peter's room.




So, done with the theatrics...since this is supposed to be thinking out loud, here's where I list all the affronts done to me so that I can have them nice and tidy when I speak to someone in the theater department.
1. Failure to notify me of a rehearsal. Not inadequate notification. NO notification. I wasn't even doing anything that night. It would have taken no more than two minutes and two phone calls for them to get ahold of me, even after the rehearsal had started. Phone: Hey, Tam, we're having rehearsal, where are you? Me: Oh you are, are you? Ok, I'll be right there.
2. Taking an attitude with me for missing his rehearsal.
3. Giving less than 24 hours notice of a rehearsal.
4. Changing rehearsal times, the most recently stated of which was inaccurate.
5. Being totally ignorant of time constraints listed on audition sheets. Yes, John, that is what they're for.

You might say, "Oh man, he's going down." That would be a reasonable assumption to make of a student director exhibiting such behavior. But reasonable isn't one of the many words that describe some members of our theater department. In point of fact, if I ever want to be cast in a mainstage production, I can't talk trash about John the Golden Child, no matter what he's done. And yes, ridiculous as it sounds, I do want to be cast. That was the whole point of doing this stupid summer show with a crappy plot and even crappier dialog. To get experience and exposure on stage. Is it my fault that John has no idea what to do with a stage manager? No. But I refuse to just sit silent about his total incompetency, the key is just figuring out how to do it without screwing myself over. So thanks to Peter's clever and wicked little mind, I will be soliciting the advice of the super-cool and yet oh-so-devious Production manager who has a good healthy dislike of both my former student director and also of some key members of the Theater department staff. Hopefully, he'll have something helpful to say.

And right now, I'm blogging instead of going to work, so I should get to that.

Friday, August 09, 2002

I steal back one more day of my summer.

This time, not for Peter and myself, but mostly for me and partly for my mom. As I told her..."Oh my god, mom, what was that? Oh...oh, don't worry, it was just my work ethic flying out the window."

I should be home cleaning/waiting for mom to get here until 12:30 or 1, so if anyone wants to go to the Liberty Bell or something like that, feel free to ring me up. ;)

Sunday, August 04, 2002

So. I got a part in one of the summer shows. Out of four female roles between both student-written plays, I got...I guess it's the third biggest? Heh. So anyway, I'm playing a senior in high school, member of the gymnastics team who only takes the tv production class to keep her gpa up. Peter bursts my bubble. Says, 'Well, who else could they have possibly cast as a gymnast out of the girls who tried out.'

Thanks.
He is right, though, the only girl who looked more like a gymnast than I do...well...she was pretty awful, and I may not be a great actress, but I'm not awful. I read through the whole script today. Yeah...clearly student-written. But I can probably take care of my own costume and one of my own props. It's supposed to be some small piece of art that my character is turning in that day, and I have just the sculpture. Of course, I need to get both of them from home, so ick, but it should be interesting anyway. I have some really sparkling dialog, too. For example, "It's about goddamn time! Oh, hello Dr. Stroud."

But really that hardly even scratches the surface.

Saturday, August 03, 2002

An entire world has been reopened.

Yesterday afternoon, I decided to do some laundry, and so headed down towards our basement where the washer and dryer are located. When I got to the ground floor, though, I saw that my downstairs neighbors' door was open...and lo, the one female of them stood in the living room ironing. Knock on the doorframe. 'Hi, I'm Tam. Sorry I haven't come down and introduced myself earlier. Is that the washer I hear running?'
'No, that's just my stuff in the dryer. I'm Erin.'

I'm not so bad at this, you know. Go downstairs. Load and start washer. Go back up to the front hall.
'Actually, Erin, I had a question...I was told there was dsl, and it worked for a little while, but it's been gone for like a month now. Do you know what I can do about that?'

And lo, all it took was a ten dollar check and a little visit back to them this afternoon, and now I have access again. Yay.

So, I can shop for new beds from the comfort of my own room. I can check my Drexel email and use instant messenger. I can remind myself of why I love MUDs...because I can still type faster than almost anyone else I know. I can shop for peoples' birthday presents! I can see when exactly it is that Dar is playing in the area. I can look up new guitar tabs to learn. I can crack up with Kat over the things Peter likes to do while listening to a new cd for the first time. Not that I have yet, but I thought about it today, and I could definitely do that at some point.

Oh yes. And I can blog and check my sitemeter all I want.
I should have reliable dsl in my room, now, so if I don't post, I have no excuse.

Sunday, July 28, 2002

I find my life to be simple. All I really need to do is take care of myself, work, and be happy. None of that is really difficult. I like to clean and to cut my own hair, work isn't exactly fun, but it's nothing I absolutely can't handle, and being happy...that seems to be the easiest of all.

For the past week or so, I've fallen from his number one priority. I'd be tempted to be upset about that...tempted, who am I kidding. A couple of months ago, there's no question that I would have been very unhappy about it. But I had some sort of understanding within me that just made me smile to see him so excited about his music and his web log. I was definitely uncertain as to whether or not I'd want to be present for the event, but in the end I knew that it was something I wouldn't want to have missed.

I see myself differently, these days. I can smile sincerely as I am ignored over the new eight-channel mixer, and I don't really mind if no one eats the cookies I brought back for them from my favorite bakery. It's been at least a week since I slept in my own bed, and I don't know how long it's been since I slept there alone. I don't know what has happened to me, but I don't ever want it to go away.

I was disturbed a couple weeks ago, when I realized that of all the times I've thought I was in love, there was never anyone that I couldn't live without. Did that mean that I'd never really been in love? No, I decided, no. I think it means that I'm just really my own person, no matter that I've been single for a total of maybe three months in the last five or six years. Well, I'm sure you could live without me, and I could live without you, but that doesn't mean that we should. Life is better this way.

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

A brush with death this weekend.

No...not my own. For a couple of weeks, I had company. Her...no, it's, name was Inca. We said she was a girl, just for the sake of convenience, ask Kat put it.

Sunday morning before I went home, my nose started bleeding.

When I did get home later that morning, she lay in her tank, stretched across the bottom but coiled once about a third of the way down from her head towards her tail. Unblinking, as ever.

I can't quite blame myself, honestly. I don't think she needed feeding, and I kept her water well, it might have been a little bit too warm, but the experts don't seem terribly concerned on that point. The most I could do was cry for a whole night because she was my responsibility and I had let her down. I think she may have been sick, and of course, I wouldn't recognize that. I think really it was bad mojo. Saturday, I had broken to news to Kat about the new creature, and Peter had casually mentioned it to his entire family. I don't know why that would be a bad thing...maybe just too much excitement and thought about her, and her little essence just couldn't handle it. I couldn't stand to be in the apartment all day, and I couldn't go home that night.

I stopped at home before work on Monday, which was garbage day, because I certainly couldn't leave her there in the bottom of her tank for a whole week.

Thursday, July 18, 2002

So, I have had absolutely no contact with anything internetty since July 5th. Yeah, how much does that bite. But really, there will be pictures, soon, I'm told. Neat pictures of me with reptiles. nudge nudge wink wink.

Friday, July 05, 2002

"I'm going to write about stars in telephone wires as notes on a staff," he said.

Just there to be read, I thought to myself. But no. The information might be there, but if you tried to play it, it wouldn't make any sense to us. It's a system with which we are not familiar.

The air smelled of horses and fog, loose strands of my own hair whipped into my eyes, and I didn't feel the tears until they slid over my lips. The road ended where the headlights ended, for all I knew, and we pushed into liquid dark. The trees and the night, the wind and the water, I held them to me like a lover or a child, terrified to let go.

I held my breath for hours.
My heart is in my throat. I cannot breathe. Kat. Rabi.

Pictures and more of my drivel soon to come. We can only hope.

Saturday, June 29, 2002

I believe in equilibrium. That it exists and that the universe and everything in it attempts to maintain it. Some people almost always act the same, some have widely spaced variations in mood and behavior, and some others swing wildly back and forth over some imperceptible center point any number of times in a given day. But it does all balance out, I think. A few hours of amazing consideration and generosity are almost necessarily followed by an entire day of mild...something...just to keep things even.

But maybe that's not quite fair. At this point, things are only barely worse than usual.

I'm going to go quit whining.

Tuesday, June 25, 2002

I noticed late last night that my other roommate was looking terribly droopy. As a matter of fact, I'd neglected her for a couple days straight, so I brought her downstairs and gave her all she wanted to drink and then brought her back up to my room and hung her from the ceiling. Annabelle looks quite a good deal perkier today than she did last night.

For those of you who might be a little startled or suspicious, Annabelle is a potted plant.

There's a big bottle of blackberry merlot in my refridgerator.

I don't know if you're reading, but I'm thinking of you.

Monday, June 24, 2002

The clouds fall to pieces outside my window,
Shamelessly,
Desperately, kissing the streets.

Smitten,
Fireflies court cold and lovely hazard lights.


The salt on my lips tastes of you,
Of loneliness,
And of fresh bread on a night that was the end of a beginning.



Some day I'll write a song. Really.

Wednesday, June 19, 2002

Today was my first experience with occupational delinquency. Yes...I lied to my bosses today to avoid getting in trouble for not showing up for work til after 1pm. Well, I didn't know what time I'd be getting in to work, when I lied to them, but they're so nice and they were so worried. When I arrived, I assured them that everything was fine, and that really there was nothing to worry about, but thanked them for their concern.

I've decided that I won't go to hell (or be reincarnated as a dung beetle) for taking back one morning of my summer.

Monday, June 17, 2002

And now...for the moment I'm sure you've all been waiting for...

That's right. It's Nail-Polish Theater.

I think as a tribute to my office's "casual-but-neat" dress code that translates into me wearing sweatpants into work tomorrow, I'll be going either with the gunmetal grey or the sparkly orange. If you have any thoughts on the matter, I still have to file down and base coat before I go for colors. Feel free to let me know.

Sunday, June 16, 2002

And then all of the goddamn sudden, everything worked perfectly. My dsl works, my Internet Explorer works...the force is in balance once again.
There's been a soft quiet over my life, this last week. Even though I live on a much louder street where semis crash by in the dead of night, I'm out of touch. The one person that could regularly be counted on to be around for company and giggle fits has gone home...to the other side of the country, and even though I heard her voice the other day, it only made me realize that I've been too busy to miss her. My new roommate is quite a few shades of cool, but she really has a life and isn't home much. *sigh* Pity me.

The phone doesn't ring in my room.
I need a longer cord for it so that I can connect it to the phone jack in another room, since mine is inactive. Even when people do call me on the phone, or I call them, I feel uncomfortable without hearing the echo of my own voice in both of my ears.

Work is lonesome. The college kids who are in the same position as I are conversational and interesting, and so we enjoy our lunches thoroughly. But the majority of the day consists of trying to convince strangers that I have something worthwhile to say.

I have no internet at my apartment, now. I'm out of touch with bloggy people, friends from home, game people...everyone. No AIM, no Blogger, no DoN. *sigh*

Yes, it is possible to live on love alone.

Friday, June 14, 2002

To whom it may concern:

I currently have no internet access as a direct result of moving out of the dorms. Should have some soon. Until then: blogging from elsewhere.

Wednesday, June 05, 2002

Mmm....first day of work. Telemarketing businesses isn't so bad...tasty tasty co-workers....mmmm...

Tuesday, June 04, 2002

It's hard...smooth...clean...this sense of missing. A seed or a stone I turn in my fingers...small and cool. I keep it in my pocket, always with me but sometimes forgotten. Cherished when remembered. I want to place it in your hands and ask you to take it from me and to never give it back.

I love you. Missing you is sad but perfect.

Monday, June 03, 2002

Today has been a waking dream..not a good one and not a bad one. A definite fogginess that hasn't made very much sense at all, I rush to one place and then find instant stillness in waiting or thinking.

My goodness, I'm sleepy...

Sunday, June 02, 2002

I dreamed that I sat with my back to a metal trash barrel. The grass under my legs was short but soft instead of scratchy, and the air was hot and humid but not unbearable for sitting still. Across the sky, the wind chased huge white clouds whose shadows swept over the fields and were gone, only to be replaced by new ones.

An island...I sat on an island edged by white-flowering bushes on one side and tall green trees on another. There was no sound of waves or smell of salt, but I could see nothing beyond this freshly mowed field, and knew that there was nothing to be seen. The wind blew my hair into and away from my face and I smiled into the sun, though I felt it slowly burning my skin.

The boys...they ran back and forth, calling, mocking each other and throwing a disk between them. It had been a long time since I'd seen any of them. Every little while they would break for water, hug me, and ask me if I didn't want to play. "No," I said, "I'm having a good time just watching." They smiled and shook their heads and went back to the business of getting sweaty.

I smiled and went back to appreciating oblivion.

I realized that I wasn't sleeping.

Thursday, May 30, 2002

For the first time, last night, I did something musically creative. Well, maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but my musical creativity is usually limited to adding harmonies to songs I could (and probably do) sing in my sleep.

But no, last night I helped Peter write a song...or so he says, anyway. "Ok, I'm going to sing this part here, and you sing at the same time but start on this note over here. Then you add whatever notes you think sound right." Apparently, despite my inability to hold a pitch in my head for more than a minute or two, I managed to be of use. I was also able to apply some of my meager poetic skills in the lyric-editing department and convinced him to remove a wildly out of place polysyllabic interlude at the end of a verse. Wohoo.

Being a multi-medial artist is really fabulous.

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

Somewhere in my wild, dark fantasies that capture a minor chord and and hold it in my consciousness, I imagine death.

Occasionally, I see possibilities surrounding my own death, never peaceful and quiet at a late age, always violent and moving. I always die with defiance in my eyes. A righteous fury that promises to haunt my killers.
More often, though, I see the death of someone close to me. My mother, Kat, Peter...someone that will affect the way I live my life. Today, I was listening to "Jackie's Strength" and heard a siren on the streets. What would I do without him? I pictured myself running down to the street and holding him in my arms as red flashing lights surrounded us. Telling him that I loved him and that I was sorry that I could never possibly give him everything he deserved.

I just heard that the boyfriend of a girl I used to know had been killed. They'd been living together for two years and were all but engaged, by most counts. Sieze the day.

Monday, May 27, 2002

So, for the first time ever, I'm totally uninspired to do my astronomy homework. An essay on cosmology, I plan to discuss the plausibility of the big bang theory. I'd much rather dance around to Choirgirl. Or do anything else, really. Which is a damn shame, considering how much I love this class. If only it weren't due tomorrow.

Friday, May 24, 2002

Yeah for getting decently-paying jobs in air conditioned offices with people who just think you're awesome! It'll be just like last summer only with less girl-talk! Oh right, and regular hours. :) and my own apartment. With parties! Wohoo!

Thursday, May 23, 2002

And there I thought caffeine would make my headache better.
Big swallow...Lime Tostito.

Big swallow...lime tostito.

Big swallow...lime tostito...lime tostito...lime tostito...

Big swallow.


Drinking my troubles away...or at least into submission.

Mmm...vanilla coke. ;)
I'm beginning to think it was a very very bad decision to stay in Philadelphia this summer.
Ok, weird dream time.

It started out, best as I can recall, in a big gym. The entire membership of my high school marching band was there, and we were testing a trio of hybrid indoor sports. The only one I remember now was some cross between basketball and soccer, but it was called Herschel. My watch, which started working dubiously yesterday while out shopping, was again malfunctioning in my dream, but I had crafted a large wall-clock in honor of the event. It went unappreciated and was still in its box on the floor by the end of the games. Kat, who was apparently in the 'marching band' told me that she knew where I could get a new watch the next day. Not that it was really a place to shop, but nonetheless...Where was this place, I asked. Disney world! Yes, the band was going to Disney world the next day, and I had forgotten. Ah, well yes, I could even get a new Tinkerbell watch if I wanted.

It was very late and my mom was driving us home, my sister, myself, and my mom, in her minivan, and it was raining. When we got home, home was some sort of condominium college dorm-like thing. We had to press a button at the gate for security to open it, and once inside the complex, they had to check our cards to let us in. Then there were keys to the doors. When I first came through the gate, I forgot to close it behind me, but returned to do so. Inside, my sister and I packed frantically while my mom fretted that my dad would find us and do I-don't-know-what. It was like a bad made-for-tv movie. My sister and I attempted to lock the patio door, with little success, but tried for an interminable length of time. I could spend a long time describing the locking mechanism, but I won't.

Anyway, while we did this, people walked past the door. Some people visibly were undergoing some sort of strange mutation, usually involving the color of their skin being something like purple or green while others of the people were normal and unthreatening and speaking to us through the door and who we tried to protect from seeing the mutating people. At some point, we saw my dad walk through the complex only he was turning green and covered with bright orange bumps. We would find out later that he was morphing into a strange conglomeration of vegetables, including carrots and cabbage. He passed us by, apparently without seeing us, and we turned away fromt he door to tell our mom. When we turned back, the locking mechanism on the door was different and we were able to lock it securely.

We had closed the curtains on the patio door and the nearby windows so that people could not see in, but as soon as the door had been locked, we saw a figure outside the door and window. They were obviously trying to see us, and we moved to avoid them, but there was no way to hide. Then the figure disappeared from the window, and we heard strange sounds...a moment later, it appeared at the window again, only taller, and proceeded to open the window and climb in. Yes, we'd apparently locked the door, but not the windows. The person that climbed through the window appeared un-mutated but was my sister's elementary school violin teacher who was, for the purposes of this dream, my dad's sister. Oh, and she was on stilts.

She took the stilts off and walked past us to open the front door while we stood in shock. My dad entered, apparently also un-mutated, this time, and conveyed somehow that we were to prepare for a trip. My sister and I had already been packing, but we would need groceries. I used the house phone to call 911 when he wasn't looking, but the voice on the other end of the line was his. I made an excuse and then hung up, wondering if he had just redirected our house phones to his cell phone. When I tried to use my cell phone, it had been reprogrammed or reformatted so that I would have had to go through a lot of setup procedure in order to use it.

At some point the house changed to the house I lived in for 9 years...the phone was in the same place and the outside became the same. When we left the house, we saw a pile of giant leaves and vegetables: the shed skin of my mutated father.

My mom and my sister and I went shopping to a WalMart or something similar, but I don't know what we were really looking for. We were in a panic. I tried to call 911 from my cell phone which was working at the time, but my dad answered again, so I disguised my voice and hung up. He had hacked into the 911 system. In the store, we bumped into Kat, who suddenly had bangs and long black hair pulled into a low ponytail. We chatted idly about our upcoming trip to Florida, and she asked if I liked her new hair, and I asked how she'd suddenly grown it so long. She indicated that it was a wig, but noted that "Indigo Kat" was also a lot slimmer than normal Kat...like an action figure or something.

I remembered the number for the police station and called in on my cell phone. The man who picked up was sleepy, and told me that because of the late hour, no one could help me. I begged him profusely citing the fact that we were likely to be murdered and that my father was the one who had hacked into the 911 system, but he was still hesitant. My dad came around the corner in the store, and I had to stop talking to the police. Tried to think of other numbers to call, but couldn't...

That's the last thing I remember before waking to bright sunlight sometime around 8am smiling and reminded of Peter.

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

Even though we didn't have class today, for those interested, I'm posting another 'Best of Survey of the Universe'

--"It's more like 12 billion years than 10, but who's counting."

--"I'm tired of people talkin' smack about the sun...the sun is not an 'average' star, it's above average!"

--Kat: "I don't get the metaphor. What's the spaceship?" Prof. Goldberg: "The spaceship is your inner child."

--Imagine an imaginary mass manager imagining managing and imaginary mass.

--Mercury makes a spirograph!

--Newton: "Gravity doesn't affect photons at all!"
Einstein: "No, it does."

--"I don't notice that I've crossed this line, but I do notice that I'm about to be destroyed."

--Spaghettification. Yeah. Just spaghettification.

--"Imagine the galaxy as a translucent pancake...and you're in the middle. You look left, you look right, what do you see? Pancake. You look up, you look down? No pancake!"

--"And that question may not even make sense, grandma, cause the universe may be infinite! Pass the yams."

--"The Great Debate" ...no, not boxers vs. briefs.

Enjoy!
There was a lot of broccoli at dinner, last night. Not surprisingly.

The world changes so slowly, sometimes, that we don't even notice it. A girl in my photography classes that I'd never liked has somehow become a friend.

Sometime in the past few weeks, when I wasn't looking, I got stressed and crazy...cold and impossible to please. I never saw it coming, or even noticed a change within my own mind. The only way I knew was through how I saw myself acting. I want things to be as they were before, but I don't know if that's possible or even a good idea.

Things change so quickly.

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

I was in the caf today after my third grilling by the weirdos at the Drexel Nutrition center, trying to decide what I could eat without feeling guilty when I passed the asian cuisine station. Rice noodles...mmmm. Weird stuff on the rice noodles....bah. But as I walked away, I got a glimpse of what they were preparing, presumably for dinner. The chinese chef in his white jacket and red chef's hat held one long spoon or fork or spatula in each hand and was vigorously tossing the contents of a three-foot-wide wok.

Yes, a huge vat of broccoli. Easily twenty pounds of beautifully green, steaming broccoli.

Why is this so amusing to me?

Monday, May 20, 2002

He is so beautiful when he laughs.
I attribute my recently erratic behavior to one of the following: chemical imbalance or subconscious refusal to be happy.

As far as a chemical imbalance goes, I've been eating very well lately, which is entirely likely to send my entire body into shock. Haven't had ice cream in quite some time, nor pizza or anything fried, that I can think of. I avoid the cafeteria french fries as a matter of priciple, though the grilled cheese does still get me, once in a while. I'm trying to compensate for whatever is wrong with me by imbibing very large quantities of Coca-cola Classic. All caffeine, all the time.

The second issue is far more complicated, and involves me sabotaging my relationships. "You say 'You're crazy, why do you keep doing this? Everything is fine.' And I think 'I'm crazy, I do this all the time,' until I start to think that something's really wrong." Lisa, you know what I mean.

How does my life revolve around music?

And here I'm tempted to include Kepler's laws. I am such a loser.

Sunday, May 19, 2002

Thanksgivings were always the worst. I mean sure, competition was over and we still had to march the show, but half the band would always be missing, it was a day off from school, and we who were left would always be stuck in the absolute freezing cold in our stupid-looking uniforms. And our parents always forced us to go. Could it get worse than that? Of course it could. The clarinet section had to sit in front of the percussion, unfailingly. So, we're talking silly outfit, watching a football game just dumb with tradition, headache from drummers, missing friends, and above all else, cold. No matter how many layers we put on under our uniforms, there was no way to escape it. A cup noodles or hot chocolate during third quarter could do little, if anything, to combat the chill that we eventually had to just let flow through us and leave us shaking in its wake.

I was awakened sharply by the single PA beep that precedes a fire alarm. Jerked from sleep, I sensed the awful fate that would be delivered to us only a second later "There has been an emergency reported. Please walk, don't run, to the nearest exit and exit the building." Kat groans from her side of the room. I spring into action. Glasses, long pants over shorts, sweatshirt, flip-flops. "C'mon, Peter." He grabs jeans, belt, socks, bandanna, and puts on shoes. We know it will be very cold. We all stumble down six flights of stairs, I in my space-bending glasses and a daze. Was feeling very silly. Discovered that it was 3:30 in the morning. No good at all. Outside, we consider sitting in my car, parked directly in front of the dorm, but decide that we might get in trouble for being so close to the building.
Opt for huddling against the cold with everyone else. Shiver...with everyone else. Discover that there was smoke in our lounge. Discuss murdering the boys. Shiver some more. Wrap zippy sweatshirt around Peter's bare arms, pulling him close. Repeat.

Half awoke many times this morning. Peter thanks me for tolerating him and his violent dreams, repeated repositioning for better snuggling. Dreamed of snow in July. Woke again to Peter asking if he could turn on the air conditioner. *sigh* Yes, alright. He turns it on, gets back into bed. "I, on the other hand, am cold," I say to him. I'd warned him the night before that if I got cold, he'd have to keep me warm. No answer. *sigh* Roll over, wish for sweatshirts, give up, get out of bed, apply sweatshirt and slipper socks, blog.