listen i have all these plans and that's not just the wine talking! internet art plans, ok, with writing and uncommonly excellent concepts and beauty and symmetry and whitespace, alright? and php and dynamic crap. i sat down to make it all happen tonight. the real magic, the real glory. elly.org, resurrected, reclaiming the throne. so i sat down to work and then the crappy ass power cord on my dying 400mz titanium powerbook.. it shorted out. it was already only working part of the time but tonight, the sparks started coming out of it and it was crackling. moment of silence for power cord.
since i only have until my laptop battery dies to make some kind of important expressive statement with my site, this is all i could do. sorry. please enjoy the netscape grey, and after i go get the power cord yeti promises to loan me (yay!), then i'll get to work on the real shit.
i'm sorry i haven't had much to say. i have been thinking a lot and a lot has happened.. it just hasn't been internet enabled thinking.
oliver is only around like 20% of the time anymore, so i think i had better go curl up with him while i can. he is so sweet and soft.
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the scene in new orleans has had me very upset and dejected. i was very freaked out all day, couldn't focus, just reading the news. so many of the biggest problems with our country became apparent so quickly - i was disgusted by the classism and racism apparent in the evacuation plans and the way victims were treated in the aftermath. and unsurprised at the way people were responding. i've been thinking a LOT about it. i was wondering if it was going to escalate into full scale revolution and warfare - the poor and downtrodden against the country that has repeatedly fucked them over.
i gave the red cross 50 bucks and then went on tribe.net and there was a post on there where someone was having some huge political problem with red cross and saying not to give them any money. i got pissed. that's the problem with the left, and with SF, sometimes. it reminded me of the vfc telling me that people come into his vegan boutique and give him grief about minute amounts of animal product in the glue used on the shipping boxes of his goods, or something like that. what, it's not enough that someone has started a fucking vegan boutique for you? people do what they can - it's more than other people do, and while it's important to be aware of the details, nitpicking an overwhelmingly good enterprise is just petty and negative. if you're not out there starting your own politically sound relief organization, shut the fuck up and send the cash.
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in bed. surrounded by nice things: promethea book 5, nick's book 'move underground', the cat, two laptops, a dvd, coffee, emergenc. many of these things are here because of oliver!
the weather is bizarre out there - suddenly it's a crisp fall day? it's filling me with nostalgia and memories, though nothing too overwhelming. there is a sense of wellbeing.
i'm fiddling with webalizer for work, and starting to feel like i'm getting a cold, so laying low. i was feeling really uninspired about school this fall, but reading the historic astronomy mailing list and looking at history geek websites re-inspired me. promethea is inspiring me too. i hope i can massage a very individualized major out of new college - i think i can. i decided to try and switch around my classes for fall to things i'm more interested in.
yoko the cat has asthma. she coughs when we burn incense or if the house is too dusty. sometimes at the smells coming in the window.
the gnostics believed that the world was a mistake - accidentally created by a demon. that's an oversimplification, of course. but that is the basic gist. the world is a mistake, and we are enslaved here until we become clear enough to ascend through the celestial spheres, back to pure being as we were before our descent onto earth.
some sects reacted to being enslaved in a mistaken world by being hedonists. why follow rules of the flesh when this is all a farce anyway? other sects were ascetic, believing that only purity would prepare them for the ascent through the heavens.
it seems like a good idea for a religion. who can blame the gnostics for their conclusion. it is fucked up and unpleasant in the world, much of the time. i feel like being around is a big mistake, too, today.
there was a period of silence here because i was content. the weather was warm and i was seeing a lot of people at ritual and having a lot of good coffee and community. oliver was working a lot but it was ok because we finally had some money. things were ok. there were lots of nice things going on and big plans for things coming up.
now i'm here writing because everything is awful.
i'm stuck out here in the ghetto mission and getting anywhere (to yoga, most notably) seems daunting and impossible - nearly an hour of walking or trying to figure out which of the many useless busses to take. i've gained weight and feel awful. i can't seem to wake up in the morning at all anymore. my tax debt grows, and i have numerous other impossible bills on top of it. i don't have any savings.
i got into new college for the fall and registered for class but i can't even make myself do my normal load of things, much less school, and i can't afford it anyway. i'm not eligible for aid because i make a decent salary - they don't care what my rent and other debt is. so i think i will skip it and just send the 3 grand it would have cost to the IRS.
i can't keep track of anything. i can't keep track of chores, errands, or bills. everything is forever in a state of falling to pieces, and i'm forever being informed of that by form letters and faceless customer service people. it feels like i do nothing but walk back and forth across town and make phone calls trying to keep my life afloat, trying to find some system wherein i can shine, where i can show through some careful series of actions that i am really good. i am good, somehow, i do something, i am useful.
how long until i feel safe and loved? what do i have to do to make myself safe and secure?
i've lost all my youthful spirituality that helped me not get wrapped up in these problems. i also used to be very brave, and that has also gone away somewhere. i am no longer optimistic. in the past few weeks it has just seemed that my opportunities for joy and success have dwindled, and life looks more and more like a series of trials and sadness. and chores.
i'm so lonely and sad. and scared and tired. i have been sitting up all night crying for days. there is nowhere left to go anymore. i haven't done anything, i don't do anything. i don't have anything left about myself that makes my particular horrible sensitivity worth caring for.
i really need a break. i need to go somewhere that is safe and quiet where i'm not judged by any system or series of tasks. that was supposed to be burning man but it didn't work out this year. i don't know how i am going to keep going. i don't even see how to get myself to work, which is really bad since if i lose my job (though they like me and would probably not fire me) i don't eat.
what a mess. and i'll be 28 in two months. it seems my life's opportunities have already started slipping away. my health is in distress and i've lost my ability to be fertile, unless i have surgery for the fibroid, which will only allow me to have a c-section if i ever *do* get pregnant. i don't want to pay strangers (who don't care about me) thousands of dollars (and go more and more into debt) to cut me open and take things out of me. i am not brave anymore.
i don't have any personal power or goals left. i put so much into the fantasy of oliver and i being together and what we would do, but i was so drained from the horribleness of leaving peter that i couldn't do anything but stay still for a year and recover, instead of do those things. and i did recover and it is better but now there is just this mundane life and this drudgery, money and chores, and no joy. the fantasies that we had about ourselves together are on hold while we just try to stay afloat and make some money.
meanwhile my own dreams and fantasies for myself have all slowly dissipated. i can't remember my passion for things. i can't remember what it was like to want to live in a communal living situation. i can't remember what it was like to be inspired about astrology and the occult, to be deeply affected by yoga, to want to make art, to be anything. it's all fallen by the wayside, because i'm such a creature of my environment, and if no one around me cares even a little, then i can't get inspired either. so i've just become a lump of boringness. i don't do anything but work. i don't feel beautiful or interesting or having anything to say to anyone.
i'm sorry, i don't know what to do, i'm just sad and alone and there is no one awake to talk to and nowhere to go. all i can do is sit here and write. i would take the vicodin that i've been saving for horrible nights like this, but i'm afraid it'll make me sleep even later tomorrow and i'm already late for work every day.
ran into jra & davel at ritual this morning. jra told me she had randomly burst into tears because of the music.. which we determined was probably sufjan stevens. it's serious. i'm listening to 'chicago' from the illinois album right now. it's my favorite sufjan stevens track. it really does it for me. i love the lyrics. i really love the first track on seven swans, too.
i have been waking up very late, these days. it's hard, because part of me knows that i would be more productive and potentially less stressed out if i was waking up just a couple of hours earlier (8am as opposed to 10am), but the rest of me is pretty content with my sleep schedule. it's right for my personality, just maybe not right for participating in the rest of society. i am very lucky that i have a job where getting in a bit later than everyone else isn't a dealbreaker, though i am aware that it's not really optimal. hopefully my other positive qualities make up for it.
oliver and i spent the day wednesday moving some furniture around in the apartment and i think it's in a much better configuration now. i have more room in my office, which made me finally feel like i can get in there to clean it up and maybe make use of the space. my office has been languishing for some time, mostly because i tore it into such disarray during mercury retrograde that it has been nigh impossible to conceive of even entering the room to begin organizing and putting stuff away. there was also just too much stuff in there. now we've moved my turntables and records into the kitchen, which is huge and can easily accomodate them.
i went through a period of intense despair and apathy in the last month. the absence of oliver (he's been working insane hours, and out of town some too) really shook me up. we had been so wrapped up in each other, even in the day to day, because he wasn't working. all our plans were with each other. our lives were very intertwined and we were basically functioning as one unit. i was really enjoying it, but of course it couldn't last forever. right now we're having to see a lot less of each other and disentangle a little bit, so he can work. it's kind of sad but i think it's good - a realistic step toward balance, perhaps. the transition is kind of rough. i'm excited to see what is on the other side of this phase of working.
all the time alone in the house while oliver has been working, and me generally being on my own schedule a lot more, has given me time to be with myself and think about my goals and dreams again, which is very comforting. i also had a lot of creative time when he was working nights - i sewed and sewed! it was wonderful. i must have made 50 yards of tulle ruffles for various applications. my mom got excited that i was sewing and she sent me thread and patterns and fabric. i'm excited to go visit her for thanksgiving and see what other of her patterns i can pillage - she has some really awesome ones from the seventies.
let's see. where am i at with everything? saturn is conjuncting my natal mars. run and hide. i am suddenly a lot less apologetic about things. i have a LOT of goals and i'm trying to be careful and focus on the most importnat ones.
i have a few writing gigs coming up that really excite me. i really hope i can push through and get the articles done, and that they'll be great. i'm kind of rusty and have a hard time focusing on specific ideas, or declaring a specific theme or thesis in my writing. i need to get a little better at that.
i have been waffling a LOT about school. the despair and upset and being out of my own body/goals really made me unable to figure out whether going to new college was worth it. it's kinda spendy and i'm not eligible for aid, and i already have lots of debt. last night while i lay awake thinking (a common occurance lately, i think i have slept four/five hours a night for the last couple of weeks), i came to a conclusion about school and what to do about it this term, and how i can make going to new college work with my goals. i'm happy about this conclusion. more news as it develops.
i have an appointment on wednesday to talk to my doctor about having surgery to have my fibroid removed. i've been really sad and scared about that whole concept, but since yesterday i've been feeling really strong and able to deal with it.
saturn/mars tells me that i have to stop looking so hard outside myself for safety and for comfort.. it comes from inside myself and from my own strength. i have felt very alone lately, and have been thinking a lot about how we all really have to go through things alone, at some point. it terrifies me and makes me filled with despair to realize that, at times, but it also comforts me to know that ultimately i have the final say as to how i will live and how i will deal with the hard things that are coming my way.
my underlying feeling right now is one of anger - a sense of injustice which has turned into a sort of warrior spirit. a feeling of solitude which leads to a feeling of power and strength. i feel cold and determined and protective of myself.
a while ago, i stole a baby spider plant from a mommy spider plant, somewhere in the mission. somewhere on bryant street i think. it was more of a rescue than a plantnapping. i brought it home and gave it to oliver, as his own baby plant to take care of. kind of like tamagotchi but different.
tonight he transferred the baby plant to a happy flowerpot that he bought for it.
i was thinking about the spider plant in yoga, during deep relaxation. i was also trying to envision that my body was made of light, but my mind had wandered to the spider plant. when kristie started saying 'om', i tried to move back to the made-of-light idea, but my mind was confused, and instead i envisioned myself made of spider plants. it was wonderful, i was a dirt-person and i was growing many beautiful lush green spider plants, all over.
i got my hair cut today and i totally regret it. after it was chopped realized that it was at that critical point where if i could have just stuck it out for another month, i would have been over the hump of growing it out. now i have the same stupid spikey-in-back-long-in-front haircut that was cool in 1999. i hate it when i see dumb hot topic girls with this hair, and now i have it. bummer. i will have to find some way to live with it. now i've learned and i won't make the same mistake again. perhaps i will dye it black and just wear lots of headbands, scarves, and hats.
i have had a lot of wonderful progress surrounding my fibroid. it looks like i am to have surgery in november. i found out that my wonderful doctor, alison jacoby, who is also the director of the UCSF fibroid center, will perform the surgery herself! i am so happy and relieved. i thought that i would be shuffled to some other department full of old insensitive white guys. instead, i will happily allow alison's steady hand to split my gut and get this fucking thing out. it will be traumatic and hurt but i'm much less scared now that i have talked to her and had a lot of questions answered. it looks like it's going to cost like 25 grand, isn't that insane? insurance will cover all but 3 of that.
my fibroid is AS BIG AS A MELON now and it's symptoms are really not subtle anymore. i pee constantly and can't sleep hardly at all, because i have to get up and pee every hour or so. if i don't get up and pee, i wake up in horrible nauseated pain. i am not sure why this happens this way, but it is surely the fault of the melon. maybe i should just sleep on a pile of towels and pee with reckless abandon.
i am already making plans for all the things i will need to occupy myself post surgery, while i am laid up. i am thinking a netflix subscription would be wise.
in non overly detailed boring health news, oliver and i are going on a trip mid october! we are going to hang out in nature with some of his friends, and visit lake michigan. then i'm going to fly to new york and visit a bunch of people there, including a friend of mine who will be living at an anarchist commune on staten island. actually it's probably not anarchist and it's maybe not even a commune in the strictest sense, i just really like saying "anarchist commune."
i wish i didn't have to go to nyc with this bad hair! :(
oh crap. i drank too much coffee. i've peed like 7 times in the past hour. and i'm frantically reloading a bunch of websites because i'm so in need of input.
oliver's in vegas. he reports, via txt msg, that he rode the NYNY rollercoaster. i responded that i'm on a rollercoaster of my own!
i executed my plan and dyed my hair black yesterday. then i just hated it more today! i was bumming so hard about it when i left the house. but when i got to ritual for coffee, jessie flipped out and told me how much she loved my hair.. eh!? i felt a lot better. she reassured me 8 ways to sunday (i made most of that idiom up, i think).
then i drank a fat latte and started to read move underground, which is about jack kerouac and neal cassidy having a run in with cthulu. it's totally awesome so far, but i'm pretty easily amused by cthulu so....
last week i had my ears stretched to 2ga. today, i took the 2ga jewelry out and let them close up. i'm finicky. i think i'm having a transition into being more feminine with my hair and jewelry. it's kind of awesome, to be a grown up lady.
uh what other caffiene fueled boring ass details can i tell you? i have been postin on SG a lot today. i usually read it a lot and never post, but i had a lot to say today. there's been a lot of drama going down (more than usual) and i've been following it maybe a little too closely. it's like watching a train wreck.
yoko says hi.
work has gotten super crazy in the past week. i got given more responsibility and more to do. as if that was possible. i really have to start getting up earlier, man. i'm also helping a couple of pals get their blogs up, and trying to transition some sites over to oliver's machine. so much to do!
want to know something sad? do you remember that i used to have saint.net since 1997? the renewal notices for it were going to a dead email address... and it expired without my realizing. now some awful domain squatter in korea owns it. i'm just crushed about that. i still get emails there and everything. i tried to call netsol but it was too late. so horrible. if anyone knows any tips or tricks for getting domain names back, i would love to hear them. that company doesn't even have any contact information or website that i can find.
alright pals. i'm going to go pee. again. and try to use some of this insane tweakiness to maybe clean my office.
woke up a whole two hours earlier than usual. i love nights where oliver and i fall asleep tangled up and i can't remember when i actually drifted off, or when i rolled over away from him into my own sleepland. all i remember is laying on him in the dark.
the weather is beautiful in san francisco. i wandered out into the crisp morning today, feeling good and slow and happy, just as the fog was burning and the sky was blue. at atlas, i got coffee and a sandwich, and found out that the end of the world is coming to texas.
i walked to work thinking about oil dependency, gas prices, and global warming. i ran into heathen and coworker on the walk. i asked her if she thought it was end times. she said she had been thinking about getting a rifle.
at work when i read CNN i couldn't believe the horrible irony of seeing people evacuating from houston in bumper to bumper traffic - no doubt many of them only one or two people to one vehicle. what if these storms are caused by global warming? if that's the case, isn't it completely insane to think about desperate people using the same vehicular habits to get away from the storm that was caused by those habits in the first place?! we've built a country that's entirely based on car culture, and we're slowly getting fucked by it. it's amazing.
i started to consider whether my habit of going to big cities is wise. i just love them so much. i thought maybe i should leave SF in case of an earthquake. but then i thought, i'd just want to go to new york, and that's not much better because what if some assholes decide to attack the place again? then i considered that if i moved to some rural area to try to avoid disaster, i'd probably just have my new house in said rural area get sucked into a sinkhole or something. because you can't really try to hedge your bets on matters of God.
i will now do the fuckton of work i have. let's compute!!! typey typey!
the internet is so fucking big and there is so much that needs to be on it all the time and i have to make all of it then i have to go make changes when it is out of date. i feel like i am going to die.
this weekend was excellent. love parade, random art auction, and oliver took me to sierra hot springs.
love parade was a little scattered (lots of walking around trying to figure out where to settle in), but it was fun. i didn't go last year so i was excited. i got some purple dahlias for my hair. oliver wore his new awesme pink tux shirt with his tux! i brought my hoop and lots of cute people wanted to hoop with it, incuding one person who was on stilts! she did a great job.
after love parade we were cold and hungry so we went over to crowded frjtz in hayes valley for yummy dinner. on our way out the door oliver saw that the old hayes market was not there anymore, but that there was some happening there. we dove in the door to find a "black market" art auction. the independent school of art was holding it as a fundraiser. there was lots of neat stuff there. it was all work by ISA students made to look like (or be reminiscent of) works of famous artists. we got very sucked into the auction and had a great time watching all the arteests cavort and sing karoake. oliver bid on a neat photograph in the silent auction and won! now we have art. we also ran into our old friend from tea lounge (whose name i don't remember of course) and met her new friend mark who works at community thrift. i think we loved the auction so much because it made us aware of a scene we weren't aware of in SF before.
after the auction we had a long drive to sierraville in the dark. there was quiet and gentle (but revelatory) car conversation. it is almost as if the transition from city to hot springs required some clearing, which we did by talking on the way. it was wonderful. we were exhausted when we arrived, and it was "tits cold" as oliver said. we met a pink nosed tabby cat in the lodge, and some hoodlum teens at the pools. we passed out at the historic globe hotel. it has crazy carpets and a beautiful antique metal sink in the shared bathroom.
when i woke up i could see the beautiful meadows of sierraville out the window of the hotel room. it was glorious. we had a HUGE tasty breakfast at the roundup cafe. oliver got stuck doing some work stuff on his treo, which was kind of silly and funny way out there. i got to pet the dog that lives at the roundup cafe while i waited on him to finish. it was a really nice dog. it tried to nuzzle the treo out of oliver's hands.
after being obliterated by breakfast, we laid around all day, in the sun and shade, save for a short walk through the woods where i made a pile of stones.
we spent quality time in the meditation pool. there was a beautiful pregnant woman in the pool with a henna tattoo on her big belly. she was with her husband and son, all of them naked and frolicking. it made me so happy!
we had an immersive and deep afternoon nap and then delicious mexican food dinner with margaritas x2. oliver took me down a quiet road to see some stars and clutched me tight in the chilly night. the moon had yet to rise.
we snuggled into the couches at the lodge, around the wood burning stove. i read vanity fair about paris hilton while a strange cat laid on me. oliver learned about the 32nd path and the end of the world in Promethea. he also fell asleep sitting up the armchair by the fire.
we got up early, 5am, to make the drive home monday morning before work. it was easy to get up. we had a short delicious soak in the pools before dawn. we met a frog in the shower and heard many owls.
once on the road, we stopped in truckee where i had a really really good mexican chocolate mocha from a place called Joe's Coffee. i should get my mocha directory up so i can add this information to it.
that is all. now we are home, feeling peaceful and less freaked out and stressed out. at least, i am, i hope oliver is too. i think he is. yoko is curled up on her cushion next to the new art which we have not hung up yet. i am nibbling on salad and generally feeling slow and quiet. and content. soon i will sleep.
can it please be over now?
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sometimes i read about famous or ambitious people and i feel sad because i haven't written a bunch of books or even that many papers, gone to college, or been on the publically-visible side of projects that mean something to me. i don't really feel worried about my rep tonight, though. i just read someone's big bio of all their great accomplishments, and i didn't feel envy. i feel happy to be on my path. i have done a lot of really amazing things and had a billion beautiful experiences. i seem to be behind the scenes in most things that i am involved with.. sliding in under the radar, having those experiences, moving on. these transitions seem more and more gentle as i get older.
i've been spending too much time on the computer.. it's making me feel out of it.
i got a sun burn today watching the ski jump on fillmore street.
exhausted. mexico tomorrow!!
