elly.org / journals

July, 2006

July 5, 2006 - 1:20pm

away, and home

i went to san diego at the last minute to visit my favorite xep and her menagerie, including sdb. it was excellent. i had good sleeps on the squishy couch and met a lot of interesting new people. and now my favorite undershirt/slip that i never bother washing smells like minky boodle. i love minky boodle.
now, i am home, and somewhat confused. oliver and i had a sublime tuesday night, despite 4th of july armageddon in the streets. we slept so peacefully and entwined, and my bed was delicious, and i had a terrible time getting out of it, so i got to work rather late. now i fear today is shot, because i have a haircut sceduled this afternoon. i'm so antsy and want so badly to get some work done! perhaps in the evening time i will head to ritual with lapatron and see what i can accomplish.

all is well. the summer is shaping up to be very busy. new york in a week and a half, then to vegas to meet up with my mom, in august, then burning man. and much to do before buring man: costumes, bike acquisition, dome creation, deciding where the fuck to camp. oh yeah and trying to somehow launch my new work project, holy christ.

should probably sleep less.


July 8, 2006 - 12:42am

mercury rx

MERCURY IS IN RETROGRADE SQUARING MY MIDHEAVEN UGH
some astrogeeking.

i had been sort of shrugging off mercury retrograde this time.

but, it is no wonder that my work project (represented by the midheaven) has suddenly become impossible to move forward on. it's hard to move forward during retrograde mercury, and the square tells me that there's a stressful relationship between mercury (detail focus, mind) and work/reputation. i had assumed it was going to be some kind of relationship strife, since it's in my 7th house, but then i took a look at the details and discovered that gnarly square. screw that. i was doing so well before.

i don't know what i'd advise myself to do if i were asking me for a reading. i would probably just say to wait it out. the square is tight this week and will haul off soon enough. it will probably even lessen in a few days, before retrograde is over. mercury transits are so weak and annoying. floundering about won't help anything, and the whole thing is just kind of like a huge papercut. it's so tedious, and not earthshattering at all. yawn.

in summary, i'm fucking irritable. i've been spending too much time on the computer working and not accomplishing anything. i'm just going to fucking give up on tech tasks for now. next week before i leave for NYC i'm just going to work on design for a couple of days and ignore the guts of drupal altogether. i guess i just need a break from the more detail oriented technical bits for a little while.


July 14, 2006 - 5:08pm

nyc

dear internet,
i am in new york city. it's really hot and muggy and very logistically challenging. and i am jetlagged, old, and crabby. i miss pete and urcella, and, everyone is really annoying and much too close to me. i'm sure i will amend this later when i'm in a better mood.

love,
elly


July 15, 2006 - 1:02am

nyc II

dear internet,

a shower and some dinner helped. then, drinks and seeing some super great friends was fun. i still feel a little off, though i am not sure of the origin of this offness. it feels potentially hormonal. you know how sometimes, everything you say and do just seems awkward or maybe even dumb or rude? or you just feel sort of generally BAD or GUILTY like you did something wrong? does that ever happen to you? well, i feel a little bit that way.

i also am having this problem where i start talking about my mood and i make it sound so much worse than it is.

my favorite part of going out in NYC is the camraderie of crowded friendly cab rides home to sweet brooklyn.

i am going to sleep now. i am going to try to beam a little more love tomorrow than i did today.

goodnight.


July 20, 2006 - 8:37pm

home in california

today, i walked down the street in the sunshine, eating a fresh organic black plum.
i passed by a tiny tiny fluffy puppy playing, kitten like, with a giant dog. the giant dog had crouched down to make himself more puppy-sized. a crowd of people were gathered outside a cafe watching this happen. san franciscans love puppies and kittens.

at work, there was an amazing victory.

when i arrived home, kim was there to listen to me expound on my day, yoko was sitting on peter & jen's wedding invitation, and the organic delivery box had delicious cherries in it.

now, i'm in bed with a burrito, and i can see my redwood tree, and sutro tower, and all the cats are in bed with me, and the scent of the jasmine and honeysuckle is coming in through the open window.


July 23, 2006 - 1:36am

some items from today, a note about nyc, a thought about second life

today, oliver helped me gather some craigslist plants from russian hill. they are a ficus and a palm tree. formerly these plants lived with someone who actually is the type of person to hire a professional organizer. i hope that we can get along, me and the plants.
i have been incredibly irritable and crabby in the past couple of weeks. i think i need a little more time to myself doing crafty noninternet things. some hormones are to blame, too, maybe. my period just flopped itself around. instead of bleeding on the full moon, now i bleed on the new moon. my body does this switcharoo like once a year.

today, while looking at this photo of a beauitiful painting, i realized that if i lived in NYC, i would just go to the moma and sit and draw. i've always wanted to paint and make art, but i never have made much classical artwork at all. it seems to live inside me somewhere though. so much is available.

i've been playing second life a little bit. it's strongly addicting at times, and other times, totally disinteresting. i love how random and chaotic the world inside second life is. my experiences there remind me very much of my experiences at burning man. more on that concept later perhaps.


July 24, 2006 - 1:51am

FUN THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN THE GAME SECOND LIFE

this week while exploring second life, i...

  • met a yellow spaceman with bunny feet and he took me for a ride in a car and in an alien spaceship
  • found an antelope, and cuddled it, and also rode it
  • sat on a man eating plant
  • found a treehouse full of furries, and one of them gave me a tail, and i pressed a special button and it made me into a superstar dancer and i danced a whole choreographed dance number
  • looked through someone's window and saw them DOING IT! they were naked! i tried to go in their house but i got booted out.
  • flew
  • found some people having a secret meeting under the ocean!
  • rode on a train

second life is a lot like burning man. FOR INSTANCE:

  • it is a social experiment.
  • it has an unreal economy that is actually based on the real economy.
  • though a lot of the structure is built by Linden Labs, the compelling parts of SL are truly built by its residents, and many residents seem to make things simply to delight their fellow players
  • there is a sense of community, and there are different cliques within
  • "people" (avatars) dress in ways that they feel are their true most expressive selves.
  • there are some cheesy uncreative people there to be entertained by other people's work
  • some people there are obsessed with looking "sexy," something i've noticed is very prevalent at burning man in recent years
  • there is a lot of randomness. burning man seems to exist entirely on the novelty and randomness factor of how surreal it is. second life is similar. it's all about exploring and discovering random unexpected things in a surreal landscape.

now, two more lists.

things i'd like to create/have in second life:

  • a horse
  • a way to make my avatar into a centuar
  • a "home" which consists of just a bed.
  • a cat

things i'd like to create for burning man, some of which are inspired by second life:

  • fennec sized fox ears and a fox tail
  • some huge ram's horns i can wear, maybe lit from the inside
  • perhaps a unicorn horn
  • a skirt with a black and white striped bustle or train

yes, i am nerding out in a virtual world. it is true.

also, second life is totally playing with dolls.


July 24, 2006 - 3:52am

also, fuck

every time i look at reviews on yelp.com, people are complaining about various mission establishments being packed with hipsters who "think they are cooler than everyone." one of the reviews of bi rite market actually says "I think people shop here just to say that they shop here. It's like some sort of Mission Dolores/Dolores Park Look-at-me-shop-at-BiRite cool kid phenomenon." what? lady, this is all in your head. no one is trying to be cooler than you by shopping at bi rite. jesus christ.
the mission seems to be made up entirely of people who are doing fun hipstery things and enjoying those things, and people who are paranoid that they are not "cool" and that hipsters are judging them or oppressing them somehow. i respect that seeing trends emerge on everyone in the mission can be cause for some eye rolling - i do it too. but i certainly don't mope around accusing everyone of dedicating their lives to being cooler than me. it's absolutely tedious. no one is cooler than anyone. people just like good coffee and bi rite has good sandwiches. get over it.


July 26, 2006 - 9:48pm

it was hot in new york

consequently, i wore fewer clothes than usual.


July 28, 2006 - 8:02pm

update

it's gloomy in SF again. thank god! i love it.

i have been spending far too much time on the computer. my right eye is burning. i had MAJOR work progress in the last two days, though, so it was worth it. i am really lost in a world of computers. i think i'm probably being escapist, like i used to get mad at peter for when he played unreal tournament all the time. oops.

franklin is laying on me and yoko is biting my feet!

the other day i got a basil plant and a sage plant, and a few hours later, discovered my potting soil is infested with soil gnats. motherfucker.


July 31, 2006 - 5:23am

ok, you got me

i haven't been updating at 5am, because i don't necessarily want everyone to know how late i've been staying up. i woke up today all hungover from lambic and cupcakes (harsh: a cupcake hangover), had amazing brunch at universal, had coffee, had a tantrum about family and another one about burning man, received pets and acceptance from a strangely patient new oliver (what have you done with oliver?), had a shower (really good. hot.), felt physically weird, fought with my printer for an hour to try to print charts (had to repair file permissions and reinstall), had a walk in the waning beautiful sunlight (wearing sandals), had more coffee which finally sorted out my mood, ate yogurt and a free end of the day pastry, got a burrito. walked home, stopped by the office (very comforting and familiar) to pick up a CD of files i needed, looked at email, sent email re: burning man and got an email about volunteering for MAPS, felt vaguely worried for my safety on stupid shotwell street (luckily no one was out), got home. weeb was on the stoop, had conversations, kim came home, franklin peed randomly in her room which has never happened and is really weird (need to call vet tomorrow), talk talk talk talk to weeb (very awesome), second life till 5am (i learned to dance, got some wings, and found a pegasus, must have done a lot of other things but not sure what they are), read some journals and checked flickr a bunch, feelin just fine, excited about exxxxtreme drupal progress to be continued tomorrow, happy, sleep now for a little while.

yesterday we went stayed in bed all morning, found a table on the street (great legs, ugly top), ran into jake and friend (photographs - nervous making), saw a lot of activity at the corner of 20th and valencia (including seeing mark the capricorn from the thrift store (crushy!), amanda, and a guy almost get hit by a car and subsequently hurl his iced coffee at it), ate at dosa for breakfast, investigated mission thrift, went to blue bottle, went to home depot and got 300 feet of PVC for our reduced icosahedron structure, checked the parachute (perfect!), some other stuff i forget, not all in that order.


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