headphone cord
rubber light up worm
washcloth (wet only)
thumb
fingers
other people's fingers
strings from hoody
other people's hoodie strings
cuff of my sleeve
cow's ear
cow's tail
ice
those little strips of plastic from bottle lids
in fact, i carry one of those around with me at all times
cable ties
garbage ties
peter's backpack straps (bad idea)

i haven't known what time it is since i've been in australia. this is because my main way of telling the time is to either look at my cellphone or type /time on icb. here in balmy australia my cellphone doesn't work, and the icb server is in california, so it tells me what time it is in CA. so it's making it more surreal than it would have been anyway, because not only am in a foreign country, but i never know what time of day it is.

usually at burning man i try to never know the time.

mar 07; 11:49pm; mind full of naught
i'm lonely. i need more people than this at my disposal. i need to run
into people i know on the street, invite former lovers to awkward
parties. i need my web. not because we offer so much to each other, me
and these aquaintances in sf, but because when i know so many people i
can really picture a city. i feel like i can look out over the
rooftops and guess what goes on. in melbourne i feel like i don't know
what's going on behind walls and doors as i pass by. i don't have an
emotion for every street corner and it makes me feel empty. it makes
me unable to understand what kinds of emotions other people in this
city must be having too.

feeling sort of.. out of it, bored, confused about what i should be
doing. i like my stress. i miss it.

up late. i wish i had someone to walk to the beach with me, and more,
i wish we would have a project, a future, a relationship, or an idea
to talk about while we did it. someone who would go across the street
to the 24 hour bp with me.

mar 11; afternoon; overeating and fevers
i was in a cab with xep and eric, on our way back from dinner. she
had vegan gingerbread cookies in her hands, and i wanted them but i
was full so i didn't want them but i was thinking about them a
lot. and about my wrists, which everyone says are tiny, and about how
i imagine myself as a person with tiny wrists, tiny ankles and skinny
legs, and a HUGE ASS. i have no idea if it's even true. i was
overweight for a while. it's hard to change a perception.

strange relationship with food. xep told me she doesn't think i eat
much. surprise. hm. see:

i am constantly berating myself for a) doing too much of something or b)
not doing enough of something.

things i do too much: eat doritoes. chat. sleep.

things i don't do enough: write, work on valuable artistic projects,
yoga.

my mind is a soup of self deprecation regarding these
things. always. from the moment i wake up in the morning. so much so
that i rarely enjoy what i'm doing because i'm pretty sure i shouldn't
be doing it, or i should have done more of it and what's happening now is not
enough to make up for all the slack in the past.

this is not a good way to live. if i thought it accomplished something
to be so hard on oneself all the time, i would recommend it, but what
i've learned from being this way is that nagging and beating myself up
hasn't helped me accomplish a damned thing. so i think i should try
and stop now. and show a little appreciation and forgiveness.

ok.

...

but none of this was what i wanted to write when i was in the cab and
i said "i have two things i want to write down and i'm just reciting
them over and over in my brain so i don't forget them." and she said
"tell me a phrase that will jog your memory and i'll remember it and
tell you later. it's kind of like tying a string around your
finger..."

...

brian said: "we used to eat. we used to overeat."

...

i was walking in the rain and wind and thinking that the heat had
broken like a fever and the rain was a cold sweat.

fever's back today. melbourne seems meteorologically confused.

...

jcn: you should get a sun lamp and put
it on a timer.

i don't know what was really happening, it was just all red and dark and deafening and diving into holes and places i'd been before and smells i'd smelled before and wanted but not wanted. cave was bellowing, perry was bellowing, the pixies were loud and.. gouge away, you could stay all day, and i was empty and full and visiting a million places, places held inside others.

and i was so drunk, remember svadhisthana and rakini, and the sense of taste, and the meaning of desire and felt correct.

spilled vodka all over the place. olivia fell down in the kitchen. it rained and howled and braches waved violently outside and i was happy and ridiculous.

and i feel safe because i know this is all okay.

...

i took my labret out today. started to irritate my gums and then i realized i'd had it for two years, almost exactly two years (since feb 1999), and that it was time for it to go. maybe i will miss it a lot and put it back? i don't know. but i'm already considering what the next bod mod should be. piercings commemorate time for me, mark phases, beginning, endings. benchmarks.

symmetrical nose piercings? (an idea disliked by most, but not as vehemently railed against as the septum idea)

who knows. time to call peter. peter is in italy. i call and the guy at the hotel desk calls me madame. it rules.

it was a nightmare. a long corridor, an encapsulated wind tunnel with the outdoors inside it. it had a grey sky, with clouds, but it felt like a hall. on one side of the corridor, a large wooden door. red wood. closed. on the other, in a stone wall, a blackened human face, daring me to open the door and go in. behind the door there was a game, something awful. i don't know how i knew this, i just did.

it was deafening in the tunnel then, wind and leaves everywhere, and i was running. i watched myself run from somewhere behind myself and above myself. i was wearing a long coat, and my footsteps were loud. everything was in black and white and it was dusk in this indoor-outdoors. i had a sword or a dagger in my right hand. as i ran on the brick path, a metal gate swung open and i hit it with my sword in the manner of a small child running a stick along a chain link fence. the sound of the sword hitting the gate was an echoing clang.

i watched myself run toward a doorway surrounded by trees, which was an evil version of my old apartment. suddenly i was no longer watching me, i was me, and i was sucked in the doorway of the building. it became a hole, i plummeted, enveloped by grey leafy tree branches which scratched and obscured vision. beyond the branches was blackness. i was screaming for help. help me. help me. a huge grey hand reached in and pulled me out of the hole. it was brian waking me up because i was "making a horrible noise" in my sleep.

i have never felt so terrified of a dream, not in years, maybe not ever. i lay awake after that wiping tears off my face (when did i cry?) and staring at the doors and walls of the room in fear. finally the sun started coming up and that made me feel safe so i went back to sleep.

the things that took place in the dream were not awful. i've had much more gory dreams that scared me so much less. it was the feeling of evil and doom and darkness that surrounded me in the dream. something impossible to explain.

sometimes you just have to admit that you're far from home.

i'm far from home.

i'm leaving sunday.

things i did:

laid on my back on the kitchen floor, looking out the window and up into the trees, watching the possums jump from branch to branch. i put fruit out on the deck in hopes of luring them down. no go.

crouched down to pet various dogs in and around acland street. these include: a very uninterested golden retriever, and a very very excitable maltese.

went to bed late. got up late. slept next to brian.

made up to three trips a day to acland street to eat, shop, and drink coffee.

ate the following regularly: grilled tofu and cashews and veggies from patee thai at revolver. seitan (olivia screams "SATAN!!" in her "TEXAS!!" growly voice) wraps with hummus and sweet chili sauce from rasa's veggie bar on blessington. curries (tofu and spinach, black bean and veggie) from bala's. doritos and mint slices from the BP station across the street. overly delicious soy chocolate ice cream, in a mug, mixed with soy milk and fat chunks of unrefined sugar. avocado and tomato bagels from city cafe on barkly.

walked up and down brunswick street, shopping and looking for a restaurant called 'vegetarian orgasm,' (found it. had orgasm related to pesto gnocchi).

played pool at an awesome lounge place called revolver upstairs which is a giant bar with couches and pool tables, featuring a full thai restaurant and a dr who pinball machine.

did much shopping. so much shopping. bought gifts for domini and peter, bought made to order raver clothes, and the wierdest sweater i've ever seen.

took a day trip down the coast to apollo bay, where the ocean is wide and flat and breathtaking. where rainbows appear everytime you imagine one, and kallen gets drunk and falls asleep on the leather couch in the hotel room, bottomless. where there is skinnydipping in a guest pool that is supposed to be closed for the night. where xep keeps drinking vodka and climbing on things.

took many hot baths filled with peppermint dr bronners (i used it all up).

dyed my hair twice and cut my own bangs ("fringe") once. dyed bathroom as well.

laid in bed with xep and olivia, having long talks through the thumb in my mouth.

cried once, fucked once, got drunk once.

masturbated approximately eight times (that's an average of twice a week).

missed home.