Congrats to all the thonners and all their sponsors for raising over 90 thousand dollars! 432 bloggers made it through the night and 3007 different people sponsored them. The average sponsor donated 30 dollars and 80 cents. (Haha! I am a sponsor of above average generosity!)

Though the Blogathon event is over, you can still donate, so browse the thonners' sites and donate five bucks to whoever you like the best!

Hey, guys, for those of you who've been living under a rock and (absurdly) counting on me to get you your news...Blogathon is going down this weekend. We start about 24 hours from now, and though I'm not blogging for the 24 hrs, Peter is. I'll be appearing on his guest commentary sidebar and my talents will appear on a few of his tunes. If you're not familiar with the way he does blogathon, he posts music every hour. This year, it's all music performed by our friends, a lot of it original, including a couple of pieces by Mike Kovacs. I'll be singing, percussing, and playing clarinet on a few different tracks. If you're up watching the 'thon, take a look at Peter's page while you surf the indubitably fascinating other stuff that will be going on.

Also, Peter will be blogging to benefit World Education, a group that seeks to spread literacy and other life skills to developing nations. If you can spare a few dollars, chip in and help support a good cause or just a good blogger. Or do it for me. Not that I expect that to have worked, but I figured it was worth a shot, right? :) But heck, donate to any blogger or cause you like, but if you've been waiting all year, this is the time to give your money to people who need it more than you do.

Stay up late, make a difference.

Dreams featuring Aku from Samurai Jack who was casting curses at my request. When I attempted to destroy him, he turned into rust on the inside of a tin can. I knew it was him, however, and attempted to wash him out of the can and down the drain, but somehow, I couldn't ever get all of him out. There kept on being more dust or rust or slime in the bottom of the can, despite my constant washing. When at last I felt that it was all out, I ran the disposal.

There was, of course, more to the dream than that, and I have a brief recollection of flying through the stairs and doorways of an airy white building, but much of it was violent and disturbing. I'd rather keep forgetting it.

We had been shopping for not such a long time, but I began to feel tired. Maybe tired wouldn't be the word for it, exactly. I felt droopy. Like wilted spinach. My eyes, dry and sandy, wanted to close themselves down, and my feet resisted all movement. My entire body felt warm and slightly swollen, though it was not. My neck was weak.

I scuffed the floor as I walked, trying to interest myself in personal cd players and window air-conditioners, but I really started to lose power back in the aisle of cables and mice(mouses). It was not gradual, this change. One minute contemplating corner adapters for USB wires and the next dying to sit somewhere near the customer service area where Peter had camped out.

But I did at least end up with new sneakers and a movie that Peter agreed was good but doesn't ever want to watch again. :)

Among other things, there were girls dancing. They were young. Probably eleven or twelve. And they danced.

It was after ten on a summer night, and I was driving. I saw them on Powelton somewhere within the traffic light-stop sign-traffic light-traffic light stretch, and they were on the north side of the street. I had my radio on, and despite my open window, I could not hear their music. As Modern English played in my world, something else was happening in theirs.

They were dancing in a way that I hadn't seen in a long time. It wasn't the self-consciously tense dance of highschoolers as they tried not to make fools of themselves nor was it the self-consciously seductive dancing of college girls, and it wasn't even the intentionally comedic muppet-style dancing that Peter does when he's feeling silly. Rather, they were dancing for themselves. They were doing it because they had the energy to do it on a summer night. Maybe they were excited about the music or maybe there wasn't any music at all. And they smiled. I could see their laughter but not hear it.

I danced with them there in the near-dark for a moment. And drove on.

Useless little pieces. Chunks of time. I succeed in doing nothing. A quiet futility.

I'm very confused and disoriented. It's summer, but I'm in class. I'm working. I've seen someone as distressed or more distressed than I was with a living situation. And I knew she felt trapped, but I felt trapped with her, and so I was not kind to her. I want to do nothing. I'll do anything to make him happy. I saw, for the first time in a long time, where the water meets the sky in a thin line. My best friend's best friend was married last week.

And the heat sure isn't helping.

A quiet blur of time and warm tears, the past week came and went.

On Friday, some parents complimented me on the campus tour that I gave in the 95 degree heat. Later that night, watching my friends brain damaging themselves, I was feeling a strong mixture of disgust and terror. I could have told them that some people die the absolute first time they decide to breathe something other than air, but I'm sure that would have had no impact on them. It might have been more effective to see if they could remember watching ER or any hospital program. When they revive a drowned person or a choking or strangling victim, they always warn the patient's family that the patient's brain may have gone too long without oxygen and so the person may be a total vegetable. But I didn't say anything like that. Every last one of them is older than I am, and it wouldn't be the first time my ideas on a topic like that have been dismissed as the textbook recitations of a naive high school girl.

Instead, I got to watch. I'd never seen anyone do that before. For the most part, it did all look like fun and games. They were silly and pretty flaked out, but the one girl was very serious-looking and very...I don't know...thorough. For minutes at a time, she sat breathing what I knew was not anything her body needed. And she would turn blue.

Not blue like a smurf, of course, but far far bluer than any human's skin should ever be.

The first time I noticed this, I wasn't sure I hadn't been imagining things. Her skin returned to normal pretty quickly after she stopped. But when it happened again, I just stared, knowing that she wouldn't notice, but keeping my expression neutral so that no one else would either. Obviously, just holding your breath for fun could never compare to whatever was happening here. And I do know someone who can make himself turn blue just by holding his breath. Finally, someone made a comment to this girl about how long she was taking, and I couldn't help but blurt, "Yeah, and she's also blue."
"What?"
"I said, 'She's also blue.'"
He studied her briefly. "Oh just around the eyes, you mean."
"No, not really," but his attention was already turned elsewhere.

But now there's at least one destructive behavior that I'll never be tempted to.