28.2.05
27.2.05
costume parade
finished up my creative non-fiction readings this morning- only doing the bare minimum for classes at this point. then had rehersal all day. my advisor frances didn't show up. it makes me worried- was i not clear enough about when it was? did something happen to her? but also relieved- she can be so picky, and it's a long enough day of people yelling things i've forgotten at me. elijah's too dressed up here, charlie's too dressed down here, nathan needs his Other pants leg to be ripped by the dog, bianca needs a wig, und so wieder, und so wieder. i have my list, i keep writing things down at the end of it. i do hope there's nothing i've forgotten to write down, cause at this point if it isn't there i'm not remembering it tomorrow! i only have 3 hours in the costume shop- looks like another lunchless day for me. i'm so tired! but it was good to see the whole thing- begining to end, actors in costumes. my fave pair of old-man plaid pants were cut... charlie is onstage at the end of EVERY scene and the begining of EVERY succeeding one. he only has time to change shirts. not that you care about the trivial details. esp. as you'll never see the show. but these are all what's running though my head. and they expect me to go to classes tomorrow! can you imagine!
26.2.05
first creative writing assignment
i'm so overwhelmed by getting my costumes loaded out yesterday, shopping, homework all day today, then tech tomorrow, classes and dress rehersals the rest of the week... i'm going over to g's tonight for hairwaxing, though. and to see jess's ballet. in the meanwhile, writing from other sources for you.
we have to write a paper on our reflections about an artifact in our house. here's the first half.
FINAL VERSION 23 march 04:
Life in a homeless shelter is not an easy one. Regardless of the circumstances that bring you there, all struggle together. Things that you thought were so basic are now fiercely coveted commodities. Toilet paper is never stocked. Cheese is too expensive- food money goes to milk for the babies. All the bread and vegetables are expired cast offs from grocery stores. The neighborhood is too unsafe; you can’t go out after dark. Even the 51st street bus stops running at seven, and it’s not safe to walk the block and a half to Ashland.
The shelter should provide a cloistered feeling of comfort, but it doesn’t. The old building used to be a monastery, and it is like much of the neighborhood-- ancient beauty turned decrepit and falling apart. The heat occasionally goes off. The transom windows don’t work. The pluming is unstable.
The community inside is also a picture of something that could be beautiful, but just isn’t working anymore. A wishy-washy director and her tyrant husband create all sorts of unstable relationships. Communication is not always successful between the Spanish speaking families and the mostly English speaking workers. It isn’t always successful between workers themselves. Striving for consensus leads to a lack of absolute decisions. Trying to live as disciples of Jesus leads to forgiveness rather than absolute rules with consequences. The families try to leave as soon as possible, getting real homes. The workers try to stay as long as possible, fulfilling their terms of service.
I came to Su Casa through the Brethren Volunteer Service. I knew I wanted to work in a large city, and Su Casa sounded like a loving community on paper. I liked the idea of the families and workers all living together in the same way under the same roof, eating and praying together. The house was founded under the Catholic Worker philosophy, where people try to model their lives after Jesus, and live in the world but not of it. The best way of facilitating this change is to create a new society in the shell of the old one, they believe. While I thought this philosophy was new and exciting, I found in practice for it not to be a practical way to live.
The experience put me on the defensive, and I retreated into myself. I was so focused on self-preservation I didn’t always notice those around me going through similar experiences. Ruth was part of the same volunteer program I was, and after training together, we chose to come to Chicago to serve together. As a German, she was for me an escape from the Hispanic culture surrounding us. In many ways, she seemed the only sane person I knew in the whole city.
I'm not sure what made Ruth choose Su Casa as her project, or even why she chose to volunteer at all. Her English was a tenuous when she first arrived, although by the end of our year of service, her Spanish was better than mine. She says now that the language difference helped things roll off of her more easily than if she could fully understand them.
She is tall and unbelievably skinny, with pointy bony joints and a wild mop of curly red hair, and has boundless energy to match. While I tried to hide from life there, she tried to solve problems by working: babysitting, reorganizing the kitchen, driving people all over the city. What I remember most about her is her hands: her long knobby stick-like fingers, digging in the dirt, playing the viola, trying to get her point across, wrapped around her camera, picking the tofu-blueberry crepe bites directly out of the frying pan. She would inevitably get burnt, and she would swear and dance around the kitchen, and still never use potholders.
I think that everyone had ways they escaped from life at Su Casa. Our stipend was seventy dollars a month, and so we had to be creative about our entertainment. We couldn’t afford to buy CDs, but Ruth went to Virgin Records mega store every weekend and listened to her favorite albums on the listening stations. Her favorite one I bought her for her birthday, but she was much more creative with her gifts to me.
In the summertime, the whole house traveled to the beach. The juxtaposition of sand and skyscrapers has always fascinated me. We would bury babies in the sand, swim in the lake, and build sandcastles. One afternoon when we both happened to have the afternoon off, Ruth and I went by ourselves and had a picnic on the rocks. We waded and collected tiny shells the waves had left.
Often, just leaving the house made a difference. The church next to the monastery had been abandoned and was a magnet for drug dealers, and so it had been knocked down and turned into a community garden. Ruth spent most of the summer working in the burms; occasionally I would watch her from my window, a pair of rolled up jeans and elbows in the middle of all that green, and I’d think Chicago was an amazing place. One day as I arrived in the office I found on my desk a little pile of rosebuds she had dried for me.
Being on the Southside, the nearest ritzy community was Hyde Park. Ruth spent even more of her time volunteering at the Hyde Park Art Center in exchange for lessons. She ended up taking pottery and photography classes. Photographs are flat, and she took all her amazing black and white views of unseen areas of the city with her when she went home to Germany. But most of her pottery wouldn’t fit in her luggage, and she bequeathed much of it to me.
Ruth had borrowed a viola from the violin-playing Dorothy. Occasionally they would play together, and raucous laughter and sometimes melodic music would be heard in the staff lounge. It wasn’t until I visited Ruth at her home in Germany that I saw this was for her a link to the comfortable past. Her mother is a music teacher, and their cozy German living room has all sorts of string instruments hanging on the walls.
It all feels like such a long time ago. It’s been five and a half years since I arrived at Su Casa, four years since I met Ruth’s family, two months since I last saw Ruth, and sat in her living room, on the other side of the world. My reminices on my first year in Chicago are not particularly fun memories to go back to. I have my own place now, but with some candles on an end table, I have a little handmade bowl filled with seashells, dried rosebuds, and a coiled up violin string.
The bowl is small and shallow, only about three inches in diameter and an inch high. It has gently sloping sides and a rounded lip at the top. The sides are a seafoam green glaze, which blends in the base with a periwinkle sky blue. The rosebuds in it no longer smell, and they are fragile, crumbling to dusk if touched with more than the lightest hand. They are an odd dried color, not a dead brown or lively pink, but more a faded quiet shade of rose, appropriate to their current state. They are mixed with the white seashells, which are unbelievably tiny. They are like baby’s fingernails, these perfect spirals a quarter inch in length, some riddled with holes speaking of their previous hard life in Lake Michigan. On top of them all is the silver ring of violin string, so pliant and flexible, coiled around and around itself until it forms a two-inch ring, the frayed end unraveling and jutting out the side.
I pile these memories all together in this one place, mixing the objects as the memories are mixed in my mind. The most uncomfortable rub shoulders with the truly beautiful. It happens every time I notice this little bowl of treasures. It reminds me of my Character Building Experience, reminds me to think of those without homes or families or cheese, and reminds me that even in dark days there are amazing moments when people and places reveal loving connections.
to be edited. it's late now. i took too long over dinner, and my hair's ungooed. sad. the ballet was good though. other than joe's hand occasionally brushing me when he put his arm around g. things are really prickly between him and me right now, and i don't know why. but things are prickly between me and everyone. don't know why g still likes me. i feel like such an outside part of her life, and like she knows so little of mine, but whatever. i'm stressed, i've got so much work before my life is sucked away by tech tomorrow and onward.
we have to write a paper on our reflections about an artifact in our house. here's the first half.
FINAL VERSION 23 march 04:
Life in a homeless shelter is not an easy one. Regardless of the circumstances that bring you there, all struggle together. Things that you thought were so basic are now fiercely coveted commodities. Toilet paper is never stocked. Cheese is too expensive- food money goes to milk for the babies. All the bread and vegetables are expired cast offs from grocery stores. The neighborhood is too unsafe; you can’t go out after dark. Even the 51st street bus stops running at seven, and it’s not safe to walk the block and a half to Ashland.
The shelter should provide a cloistered feeling of comfort, but it doesn’t. The old building used to be a monastery, and it is like much of the neighborhood-- ancient beauty turned decrepit and falling apart. The heat occasionally goes off. The transom windows don’t work. The pluming is unstable.
The community inside is also a picture of something that could be beautiful, but just isn’t working anymore. A wishy-washy director and her tyrant husband create all sorts of unstable relationships. Communication is not always successful between the Spanish speaking families and the mostly English speaking workers. It isn’t always successful between workers themselves. Striving for consensus leads to a lack of absolute decisions. Trying to live as disciples of Jesus leads to forgiveness rather than absolute rules with consequences. The families try to leave as soon as possible, getting real homes. The workers try to stay as long as possible, fulfilling their terms of service.
I came to Su Casa through the Brethren Volunteer Service. I knew I wanted to work in a large city, and Su Casa sounded like a loving community on paper. I liked the idea of the families and workers all living together in the same way under the same roof, eating and praying together. The house was founded under the Catholic Worker philosophy, where people try to model their lives after Jesus, and live in the world but not of it. The best way of facilitating this change is to create a new society in the shell of the old one, they believe. While I thought this philosophy was new and exciting, I found in practice for it not to be a practical way to live.
The experience put me on the defensive, and I retreated into myself. I was so focused on self-preservation I didn’t always notice those around me going through similar experiences. Ruth was part of the same volunteer program I was, and after training together, we chose to come to Chicago to serve together. As a German, she was for me an escape from the Hispanic culture surrounding us. In many ways, she seemed the only sane person I knew in the whole city.
I'm not sure what made Ruth choose Su Casa as her project, or even why she chose to volunteer at all. Her English was a tenuous when she first arrived, although by the end of our year of service, her Spanish was better than mine. She says now that the language difference helped things roll off of her more easily than if she could fully understand them.
She is tall and unbelievably skinny, with pointy bony joints and a wild mop of curly red hair, and has boundless energy to match. While I tried to hide from life there, she tried to solve problems by working: babysitting, reorganizing the kitchen, driving people all over the city. What I remember most about her is her hands: her long knobby stick-like fingers, digging in the dirt, playing the viola, trying to get her point across, wrapped around her camera, picking the tofu-blueberry crepe bites directly out of the frying pan. She would inevitably get burnt, and she would swear and dance around the kitchen, and still never use potholders.
I think that everyone had ways they escaped from life at Su Casa. Our stipend was seventy dollars a month, and so we had to be creative about our entertainment. We couldn’t afford to buy CDs, but Ruth went to Virgin Records mega store every weekend and listened to her favorite albums on the listening stations. Her favorite one I bought her for her birthday, but she was much more creative with her gifts to me.
In the summertime, the whole house traveled to the beach. The juxtaposition of sand and skyscrapers has always fascinated me. We would bury babies in the sand, swim in the lake, and build sandcastles. One afternoon when we both happened to have the afternoon off, Ruth and I went by ourselves and had a picnic on the rocks. We waded and collected tiny shells the waves had left.
Often, just leaving the house made a difference. The church next to the monastery had been abandoned and was a magnet for drug dealers, and so it had been knocked down and turned into a community garden. Ruth spent most of the summer working in the burms; occasionally I would watch her from my window, a pair of rolled up jeans and elbows in the middle of all that green, and I’d think Chicago was an amazing place. One day as I arrived in the office I found on my desk a little pile of rosebuds she had dried for me.
Being on the Southside, the nearest ritzy community was Hyde Park. Ruth spent even more of her time volunteering at the Hyde Park Art Center in exchange for lessons. She ended up taking pottery and photography classes. Photographs are flat, and she took all her amazing black and white views of unseen areas of the city with her when she went home to Germany. But most of her pottery wouldn’t fit in her luggage, and she bequeathed much of it to me.
Ruth had borrowed a viola from the violin-playing Dorothy. Occasionally they would play together, and raucous laughter and sometimes melodic music would be heard in the staff lounge. It wasn’t until I visited Ruth at her home in Germany that I saw this was for her a link to the comfortable past. Her mother is a music teacher, and their cozy German living room has all sorts of string instruments hanging on the walls.
It all feels like such a long time ago. It’s been five and a half years since I arrived at Su Casa, four years since I met Ruth’s family, two months since I last saw Ruth, and sat in her living room, on the other side of the world. My reminices on my first year in Chicago are not particularly fun memories to go back to. I have my own place now, but with some candles on an end table, I have a little handmade bowl filled with seashells, dried rosebuds, and a coiled up violin string.
The bowl is small and shallow, only about three inches in diameter and an inch high. It has gently sloping sides and a rounded lip at the top. The sides are a seafoam green glaze, which blends in the base with a periwinkle sky blue. The rosebuds in it no longer smell, and they are fragile, crumbling to dusk if touched with more than the lightest hand. They are an odd dried color, not a dead brown or lively pink, but more a faded quiet shade of rose, appropriate to their current state. They are mixed with the white seashells, which are unbelievably tiny. They are like baby’s fingernails, these perfect spirals a quarter inch in length, some riddled with holes speaking of their previous hard life in Lake Michigan. On top of them all is the silver ring of violin string, so pliant and flexible, coiled around and around itself until it forms a two-inch ring, the frayed end unraveling and jutting out the side.
I pile these memories all together in this one place, mixing the objects as the memories are mixed in my mind. The most uncomfortable rub shoulders with the truly beautiful. It happens every time I notice this little bowl of treasures. It reminds me of my Character Building Experience, reminds me to think of those without homes or families or cheese, and reminds me that even in dark days there are amazing moments when people and places reveal loving connections.
to be edited. it's late now. i took too long over dinner, and my hair's ungooed. sad. the ballet was good though. other than joe's hand occasionally brushing me when he put his arm around g. things are really prickly between him and me right now, and i don't know why. but things are prickly between me and everyone. don't know why g still likes me. i feel like such an outside part of her life, and like she knows so little of mine, but whatever. i'm stressed, i've got so much work before my life is sucked away by tech tomorrow and onward.
25.2.05
x woman
you know, i rolled my eyes when i saw xmen was going to be the in flight movie on my way back to america for my first trip from germany. but i actually really liked it. that's so hard to remember, so i've been moving x2 down on my netflix list, cause there's always something i want to see more. but it's finally happened, it came and i watched it tonight, and - wow. that's all, wow. very few moments of painful diolouge. some great acting- patrick stewart and ian mckellen head to head! it's hard to make one care for all those different characters, but for me at least, they succeeded. there were strong women characters, and few men pushing women out of the way. they didn't talk down to the children. i'm not sure i buy the finale, but sometimes people make poor choices. i was on the edge of my seat, i cringed, i laughed out loud. i would have enjoyed it anyway, without coming to my realization.
did anyone else notice it's a thinly veiled allegory of gay society in america?
this select group who live in hiding across america, being told they way they are born is wrong, they try to hide in society, but society fears them. this drives them to band together, as they discover there are more like them in the world. they only want to learn who they are and where they came from, and to live in peace. there's actually a coming out scene, it's so transparent- the boy says to his parents, mom, dad, there's something i need to tell you. and his mom gives him all the lines. we love you anyway. couldn't you try and change? couldn't you just act human? he's like, mom, this is who i AM. and then there's the whole plot to get the government to turn against them, to weed them out, because they aren't HUMAN...
it's so familiar to me! these people, so few, so oppressed, just wanting everyone to recognise them as people!
so, right about now, i wanna know what my superpowers are. the xmen would be totally fucked if they didn't have superpowers. it seems to me we're at a huge disadvantage.
did anyone else notice it's a thinly veiled allegory of gay society in america?
this select group who live in hiding across america, being told they way they are born is wrong, they try to hide in society, but society fears them. this drives them to band together, as they discover there are more like them in the world. they only want to learn who they are and where they came from, and to live in peace. there's actually a coming out scene, it's so transparent- the boy says to his parents, mom, dad, there's something i need to tell you. and his mom gives him all the lines. we love you anyway. couldn't you try and change? couldn't you just act human? he's like, mom, this is who i AM. and then there's the whole plot to get the government to turn against them, to weed them out, because they aren't HUMAN...
it's so familiar to me! these people, so few, so oppressed, just wanting everyone to recognise them as people!
so, right about now, i wanna know what my superpowers are. the xmen would be totally fucked if they didn't have superpowers. it seems to me we're at a huge disadvantage.
24.2.05
forgotten bits
forgot to combine yesterdays post (on bvs) to all the stuff i'm reading in the news lately. bush is in europe- yesterday he was in mainz, and the city became a police state. i can picture the domplatz, cold and empty of people. bush's snipers on the roof of the sparkasse. i should be there instead. the germans will like what i have to say better. anyway, it's got me singing it's a small world after all, and feeling compelled to DO something again. go someplace people don't care about football.
forgot to mention brando's comment. perhaps this was on purpose...no, really, thank you! i do apriciate every comment i get. even ones about rabbit scat.
forgot about the first title for "the beautiful ladies walk right by, you know i never know what to say" which is a song lyric i heard today. the working title was gonna be another song lyric, this time from michelle shocked's come a long way: "drive to the plaza where the gay boys pose, standing in the windows, wearing girl clothes" but then i met the cyclerchick on the bus, and i needed a broader topic.
forgot to write my post about wirsing. my first week back in america, i bought a head of wirsing to remind me of germany. it was really cheap, cause the cashier had no idea what it was and rang it up as green cabbage. i then proceeded to use it in about 5 different dishes, and it was very new and exciting, and i was going to blog about it because i had this great photo to go along with it. unfortunately, i never got around to it. i ate the food and now don't remember what it was. so here's the picture anyway.
forgot what i was going to blog about tonight. ch had the day off, so i worked alone all day today, and it was busy. i had 2 funeral pieces to make for tomorrow morning- a big basket to look like a picture in the book, and a little wreath, which i'd never made before. and i remember sticking mums into this wreath, and thinking i need to rember that to blog about it tonight- but what was that? not the bvs post i did last night. not the 100 things about me /history post which i'm working on and will be up soon, not the blog about hair that i'm gonna post tomorrow... i reach for it and it's not there. sorry. i'll write it down next time.
forgot to mention brando's comment. perhaps this was on purpose...no, really, thank you! i do apriciate every comment i get. even ones about rabbit scat.
forgot about the first title for "the beautiful ladies walk right by, you know i never know what to say" which is a song lyric i heard today. the working title was gonna be another song lyric, this time from michelle shocked's come a long way: "drive to the plaza where the gay boys pose, standing in the windows, wearing girl clothes" but then i met the cyclerchick on the bus, and i needed a broader topic.
forgot to write my post about wirsing. my first week back in america, i bought a head of wirsing to remind me of germany. it was really cheap, cause the cashier had no idea what it was and rang it up as green cabbage. i then proceeded to use it in about 5 different dishes, and it was very new and exciting, and i was going to blog about it because i had this great photo to go along with it. unfortunately, i never got around to it. i ate the food and now don't remember what it was. so here's the picture anyway.forgot what i was going to blog about tonight. ch had the day off, so i worked alone all day today, and it was busy. i had 2 funeral pieces to make for tomorrow morning- a big basket to look like a picture in the book, and a little wreath, which i'd never made before. and i remember sticking mums into this wreath, and thinking i need to rember that to blog about it tonight- but what was that? not the bvs post i did last night. not the 100 things about me /history post which i'm working on and will be up soon, not the blog about hair that i'm gonna post tomorrow... i reach for it and it's not there. sorry. i'll write it down next time.
reasons i'm not vegan
10.frülings quark, when i'm in germany
9. quiche
8. cassaroles held together by eggs
7. quesidillas
6. stonyfield farm organic yogurt
5.swiss cheese
4.munster cheese
3. laughing cow cheese
2. ben & jerry's
1. chocolate pudding
i love tofu and seitan and tempeh and vegan cookies and all that stuff. but i love dairy products more. how can people think vegetarians are picky eaters? there is such a plethora of yummy food available!
9. quiche
8. cassaroles held together by eggs
7. quesidillas
6. stonyfield farm organic yogurt
5.swiss cheese
4.munster cheese
3. laughing cow cheese
2. ben & jerry's
1. chocolate pudding
i love tofu and seitan and tempeh and vegan cookies and all that stuff. but i love dairy products more. how can people think vegetarians are picky eaters? there is such a plethora of yummy food available!
23.2.05
save the whales, save the seals, save the trees and birds and fields
gosh i love distraction when my life is too overwhelming! i have about 1.5 hrs left in the shop to work on my show. i'm feeling very confident about it though. i hope i'm not missing anything super important! skipped lunch again- i need a schedule. one that doesn't involve fittings. when i got home at 9 after my creative nonfiction course, i had a fat envelope in the mail from BVS (the brethren volunteer service, who brought me to chicago to begin with.) it's been so long i knew it couldn't be anything important (like, say americorps information, which i have to have missed) well, it was their 2005 project book. i looked up su casa, and the hook's gone. i would never pick that project now on its description, and i don't think i would have picked it in 99 with today's description. even knowing ruth was going there. even if it meant coming to chicago. and where would i be now if that hadn't happened? i could be planting fucking trees in witchita kansas with regina as my choice german. i made the right choice, even if it meant 11 months of misery. and why do i think it would be any different this time around? well, cause i know so much more now. i have a better clue about who i am, and what i need to survive. i remember having a hard time with that question on the application- i think i said a source of transportation, a church family and a library card. oddly enough, that's what made su casa bearable... but i would prefer it to be a more positive experience! i remember feeling like i couldn't do any projects then, but now i know who i am and who i like. i'm good at office work, boring stuff. i can work independently, but am not a self-starter. things like peace and justice were such new ideas for me last time- now i'm down with those brethren ideals. going to germany with bvs would be a great way to put off having a real job after college, worrying about supporting myself. i would live in germany for 2 years. i would learn german. i often think su casa would have been bearable if it had just been hispanic culture i was in love with, instead of german. i've been wanting to go to germany with bvs for what, 7 years now? and i'm actually getting close to graduating, having the degree to do that. this is the project that's really grabbing my attention now:
1131. Minden, Germany
The German branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (Versoehnungsbund), an organization of people believing in nonviolence as a lifestyle and as a method of personal, social, and political change, seeks an International Volunteer to work in the national office as well as on a variety of tasks in other locations in Germany. Duties include assistance in preparation of and participation in annual conference, other meetings, summer camps, and youth gatherings, support of the peace worker, as well as other projects and campaigns. Re: Nonviolent convictions, computer skills/knowledge useful, some knowledge of German and willingness to learn more, willing to work more than 8-hour days during special events or to sometimes do routine office tasks, flexibility and adaptability to moving around the different locations and conditions.
so this is my current pipe dream. could i pack my whole apartment up and put it in storage? could i give up the lease on my appartment? could i give up my job at the flowershop? the problem with all of these things is wanting them back in 3 years. no matter how much the apartment manager or ch loves me, they're not gonna hold my apt or job for me. ch isn't gonna run the shop alone for 2 years. i think i have enough gumption to get there (i think i could convince dan that i've learned from my first project and won't make the same mistakes in the future!)it's the getting back that i'd be worried about. living with renee, having that relationship fall apart as i lived in that tiny room under the stairs with the 2 adults and 3 small children while looking for a job, an apartment, a way to make life in chicago work... am i willing to build all that character again? the loans would be an added issue this time around. job is more important. and the project itself- could i do it as not being a xian anymore? maybe it's easier to serve for the good of the world than because jesus says we should. so this is how i'm expending mental energy tonight. a way out of play fear. it'll be interesting to see if i ever do make it to germany.
1131. Minden, Germany
The German branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (Versoehnungsbund), an organization of people believing in nonviolence as a lifestyle and as a method of personal, social, and political change, seeks an International Volunteer to work in the national office as well as on a variety of tasks in other locations in Germany. Duties include assistance in preparation of and participation in annual conference, other meetings, summer camps, and youth gatherings, support of the peace worker, as well as other projects and campaigns. Re: Nonviolent convictions, computer skills/knowledge useful, some knowledge of German and willingness to learn more, willing to work more than 8-hour days during special events or to sometimes do routine office tasks, flexibility and adaptability to moving around the different locations and conditions.
so this is my current pipe dream. could i pack my whole apartment up and put it in storage? could i give up the lease on my appartment? could i give up my job at the flowershop? the problem with all of these things is wanting them back in 3 years. no matter how much the apartment manager or ch loves me, they're not gonna hold my apt or job for me. ch isn't gonna run the shop alone for 2 years. i think i have enough gumption to get there (i think i could convince dan that i've learned from my first project and won't make the same mistakes in the future!)it's the getting back that i'd be worried about. living with renee, having that relationship fall apart as i lived in that tiny room under the stairs with the 2 adults and 3 small children while looking for a job, an apartment, a way to make life in chicago work... am i willing to build all that character again? the loans would be an added issue this time around. job is more important. and the project itself- could i do it as not being a xian anymore? maybe it's easier to serve for the good of the world than because jesus says we should. so this is how i'm expending mental energy tonight. a way out of play fear. it'll be interesting to see if i ever do make it to germany.
22.2.05
vomits little pieces of textiles
so, i've been writing emails, and don't have time to blog. but in my reply i found this gem of ruths, so i'm sharing it with you. that's ruth and münte in the picture. i feel i'm going to start vomiting little pieces of textiles myself soon if this play doesn't happen...
"we let münte castrate (do you say so?) and you know what??? the operation was at 8am and at 6pm we picked him up at the veterinaries. he was in one of these huge boxes you use when you aremoving. we put him in the living room and though he was still blurred, he immediately jumped out of the box! in spite his cut whatever. crazy rabbit. will (my british mitbewohner when tobi was in spain) was absolutely right in calling münte a "balg". the days after he behaved like he hadn´t had an operation at all. after a week i started to doubt that they had really operated him. so we took a look and yes, they did. it didn´t look nearly as exciting as i had thought it would. anyway. now is totally recovered, not horny anymore (fering says: thanks to god!) but still extremely annoying, eating everything that he is not supposed to eat, messing up the towel shelve in the bathroom (he loves towels, he also loves tearing them, afterwwards he vomits little pieces of textiles). ohmy god, i´m again writing more about this silly rabbit than about your mail or me... "
"we let münte castrate (do you say so?) and you know what??? the operation was at 8am and at 6pm we picked him up at the veterinaries. he was in one of these huge boxes you use when you aremoving. we put him in the living room and though he was still blurred, he immediately jumped out of the box! in spite his cut whatever. crazy rabbit. will (my british mitbewohner when tobi was in spain) was absolutely right in calling münte a "balg". the days after he behaved like he hadn´t had an operation at all. after a week i started to doubt that they had really operated him. so we took a look and yes, they did. it didn´t look nearly as exciting as i had thought it would. anyway. now is totally recovered, not horny anymore (fering says: thanks to god!) but still extremely annoying, eating everything that he is not supposed to eat, messing up the towel shelve in the bathroom (he loves towels, he also loves tearing them, afterwwards he vomits little pieces of textiles). ohmy god, i´m again writing more about this silly rabbit than about your mail or me... "
21.2.05
what she said!
well! for a girl feeling as lonley as i was, things sure brightened up the last 15 minutes! i have "create post" as my home page, so i always write my post for the day before i do anything else on the web. well, i checked the blog after posting, and i had not 1, not 2, but THREE new comments. and they were long and interesting comments, too! so i decided to dedicate a post to replying to them, so you don't have to scroll down and click open the haloscan window to see if i've said anything in repsonse. and while i was deciding all this, the aol icon started bouncing out of the side of my desktop, and so i clicked on it, and wouldn't you know, there's new mail from G! she didn't act like anything strange, not like she was mad, not like she was forgiving me, just making plans for this weekend. i have tech sun and mon so sat is free for me. i think i'm gonna go over there and she'll wax my hair and g and joe and helen and i will go to see jess ballet dance. doesn't that sound nice? i hope i don't have to back out due to sweet water taste. but while i'm feeling sad and lonely, i've got european encouragement! cecilia and jamie both say that everyone has unfriendly days. and cecila says my conversation with the cycler on the bus is how we make friends! so there's my answer- i've wanted to make friends outside of the blogopshere, real live friends who live in chicago- and now i know how to do it. i don't know what to do about being whiny and depressed and pissing people off, though. the answer i guess is to just avoid me, but when i'm at my worst that's when i need human communication most of all. i usally don't turn people off, in party settings, actually. i very good at pretending to be socialble, i think. but one on one, i can be disasterous. and i thank jamie for encouragement that it's just the stress, it's not symptoms of a pervasive disease, or a particular problem with me, but a normal human reaction to stress. and i am undeniably under tons of it, and after she gets used to her new job and my show is over we will both be wonderful charming people who people come up to on the bus, just cause they want to be friends with us!
on a separate note, have you all noticed the interesting jog down memory lane that kira and i have been taking? its about the letters we've sent to people in the past... to old crushes, boys in high school... scary to think of letters that, as kira put, are out there in the universe. just getting christmas cards from the guy i wrote love letters to in h.s., and his wife, is scary. (they were aparently a fundrasier from his most recent mission trip...) i mean, anyone's letters are gonna be embarrassing, but in hs you do so many stupid guy/girl things in fits of hormones. and then for me there's all that supremely embarassing christian crap as well. i have lots of acceptance for the sorts of xians i know now, even of the xian i was within the last, oh, 5 years. but my hs self? help! yet, somehow, this is still me we're talking about. in some ways i'm still the same person with the same thoughts embodying the same body. so i don't know- but i DO know i'm glad to here that other people have scary old letters out in the universe! i know the girl i slept with (from now on known as tgisw, i think, it's more polite) is a lurker here occasionally. i was wondering if she would read this post, and how she would feel about it, but i figured it'd either make her angry enough to post and tell me not to ever expose her or talk about her again... or perhaps she would like to use my blog to reveal her identity and share her stories. who knows? dearest tgisw, i hope you don't mind.
also on abriviations: i've always had a problem with amy and allie- amy is already a. so allie can't be. i've used a&s for allie and samir, but that just reminds me of a&s rosexpress, anne and somprasong's flowershop. and i don't like squishing their personalities together. however, since allie's the first entry alphabetically in my phone, she's always getting random calls when my key lock isn't on. she was saying she gets that alot, and i said she should change her name, and she said she's gonna be known as zelda from here on out. so now i will abriviate my little siz on my blog as z. please take note, and change your search engines.
on a separate note, have you all noticed the interesting jog down memory lane that kira and i have been taking? its about the letters we've sent to people in the past... to old crushes, boys in high school... scary to think of letters that, as kira put, are out there in the universe. just getting christmas cards from the guy i wrote love letters to in h.s., and his wife, is scary. (they were aparently a fundrasier from his most recent mission trip...) i mean, anyone's letters are gonna be embarrassing, but in hs you do so many stupid guy/girl things in fits of hormones. and then for me there's all that supremely embarassing christian crap as well. i have lots of acceptance for the sorts of xians i know now, even of the xian i was within the last, oh, 5 years. but my hs self? help! yet, somehow, this is still me we're talking about. in some ways i'm still the same person with the same thoughts embodying the same body. so i don't know- but i DO know i'm glad to here that other people have scary old letters out in the universe! i know the girl i slept with (from now on known as tgisw, i think, it's more polite) is a lurker here occasionally. i was wondering if she would read this post, and how she would feel about it, but i figured it'd either make her angry enough to post and tell me not to ever expose her or talk about her again... or perhaps she would like to use my blog to reveal her identity and share her stories. who knows? dearest tgisw, i hope you don't mind.
also on abriviations: i've always had a problem with amy and allie- amy is already a. so allie can't be. i've used a&s for allie and samir, but that just reminds me of a&s rosexpress, anne and somprasong's flowershop. and i don't like squishing their personalities together. however, since allie's the first entry alphabetically in my phone, she's always getting random calls when my key lock isn't on. she was saying she gets that alot, and i said she should change her name, and she said she's gonna be known as zelda from here on out. so now i will abriviate my little siz on my blog as z. please take note, and change your search engines.
late and behind
that's all my life has been today. it's only the first day of the 2nd week of classes- how can i be so far behind already? my fitting didn't show up today. i finally picked up my books at the bookstore. didn't get a chance to eat lunch. i missed the first 20 min of my costume design class and arrived without the paper i didn't know we were supposed to write, without reading the play, and without my portfolio to critique. i DID get the form, and get it filled out, and get it turned in, for my independent project to get the credit for sweet water taste ths semester. however, it was supposed to be there friday, so now that it's 3 days late i don't know if i'll actually get the credit. do they really expect me to do all that running back and forth the week of v-day? i'm finally recoverd from that, ready to get into tech week. this morning i forgot all the costumes i bought this weekend, so they're still wrinking in their bags by my front door and i didn't get to see how shirts worked with what i already have, or ask anyone else's opinion. tom is getting stressed out by his show, so he's less fun to be around, and less sympathetic. no word from miss g. i sent her another email, this one being the reply i SHOULD have sent thursday night. but i didn't. and whatever concequences result from this i have been heaped on my own head.
20.2.05
the beautiful ladies walk right by, you know i never know what to say
spinning- indigo girls, shame on you
violet- for tendency to hold back in communication, shyness
sang this three times last night. first beautiful lady: i think g and i are fighting, and it as usual obsesses my every thought. it's my fault. i was so angry friday night, and when i got an email from her saying let's get together next weekend or the one after, i wrote a rather cruel cold email back. so yesterday i got a reply that was a forward of my email, and all she wrote was "So, I should feel guilty? Sorry for making an effort? I'm sorry." i immediately responded,
"your fatal mistake was having your email in my box so i read it friday night!
you know how disasterous friday nights are for me! you should
a. avoid them all together or
b. take special notice of them.
you better have more consideration in the future. (end biting self-sarcasm)
my god! what a freak i am! i'm sorry. i don't know why i do this, decide that it's too much effort to have friends and try and shed them. i do like you, want to see you sometime, etc. my daily life continues to terrify me, and i can't imagine it extending beyond my play. but we should go out, tenatively, after that. and of course, my hair... perhaps some week night?
this is assuming, of course, that "So, I should feel ...sorry for making an effort? I'm sorry." means your apologizing for whatever it is that made me so cold, not that i've finally pushed you over and you are sorry for making an effort. which would be really sick, seeing how you actually make an effort just cause i asked it, cause i like for you to, and all you've ever asked of me was to not be so prissy and uptight and hurt about plans.
anyway, i am sorry, and will TRY to only communicate when i'm feeling human.
caitlin"
i haven't heard back yet. i'm obsessing. oh yes. i am NOT over her. i think i am, and i blow her off, and then something happens and i can't get it out of my head again. then i had to go out with ch and jasmine and jack and joe. it was my first drag show, i thought, then i realized the ruby and vicky boofont defintely count as drag, so i guess not. anyway, more beautiful ladies walking right by. there were 3, one looked great, another was talented, and the third... well, she was old and frumpy and didn't know many of the words. joe kept going on about his lesbian friends and the dykes who play darts there monday night. what exactly is my reaction supposed to be? i didn't get there till 10 and left to catch the bus at 12.30, so i didn't have time to become drunk or upset or introverted. there was a great moment, i forget the context, but jasmine says, 'after this morning, nothing is taboo!" and i asked what happened this morning, and ch said, "i was telling jasmine which of the cousins i've slept with!" "and the neighbor boys" jasmine adds. trying to imagine this in my family!! there's really no comparison, though. jasmine is ch's niece, and 10 years younger than him (another great moment was when joe asked ch, 'when were we into this album?" and ch says, "1987." jasmine says, "i was SEVEN then!" and i said, "so was i!" it was awesome. ch said, "you two are dangerous together!") it makes me think of kyleigh, my cousin who's 11 years younger than me. there is no where i can imagine in ten years sitting in a gay bar with kyleigh. let alone talking about people i've slept with! (and just so you know, it won't be including any family members!)
the third beautiful lady walking by was on the bus. it was cold, windy and snowing heavy wet snow on my way home. i caught the #6 at 1.05am and when we got to van buren this chick puts her BIKE on the front of the bus and sits down across from me. she's wearing this jean jacket and these white aran cabled handwarmers, cut up socks or sweater sleeves. she's got her bike helmet and shoes, and she's beautiful- pale skin, dark hair, big eyes, long nose- she looks like audrey tautou from amalie. ok, a jewish, caught in the snow version, but still. and i'm trying not to stare at her, and i'm thinking that if i was charles i would be able to pick her up right now, if i was my mother we'd be talking all the way to hyde park, but i can't do it, i don't know what to say, i'm just staring, i haven't drunk enough, this is awful. i'm probably obsessed by this for 10 minutes, then i finally gather up my courage and my pick up line: " forgive me if i'm nosy, but i'm so curious- what kind of story do you have that leaves you downtown with a bicycle in the snow at 1am?" she smiled at me and enthusiastically talked about riding in the wintertime, going to hear a show at belmont, i should try it, get lights so i can ride after dark, there's nothing to do to keep your hands warm. the conversation didn't quite make it to her stop, but it wasn't quite awkward, and as she left she turned back to me, smiled, and said, "maybe next time i see you, you'll be on a bike!' and thanked the driver, and left. hyde park is small enough it wasn't an idle threat- i may actually see her again. of course, i may not, but since i actually did talk to her, if i do, she may remember me. isn't that magical?
violet- for tendency to hold back in communication, shyness
sang this three times last night. first beautiful lady: i think g and i are fighting, and it as usual obsesses my every thought. it's my fault. i was so angry friday night, and when i got an email from her saying let's get together next weekend or the one after, i wrote a rather cruel cold email back. so yesterday i got a reply that was a forward of my email, and all she wrote was "So, I should feel guilty? Sorry for making an effort? I'm sorry." i immediately responded,
"your fatal mistake was having your email in my box so i read it friday night!
you know how disasterous friday nights are for me! you should
a. avoid them all together or
b. take special notice of them.
you better have more consideration in the future. (end biting self-sarcasm)
my god! what a freak i am! i'm sorry. i don't know why i do this, decide that it's too much effort to have friends and try and shed them. i do like you, want to see you sometime, etc. my daily life continues to terrify me, and i can't imagine it extending beyond my play. but we should go out, tenatively, after that. and of course, my hair... perhaps some week night?
this is assuming, of course, that "So, I should feel ...sorry for making an effort? I'm sorry." means your apologizing for whatever it is that made me so cold, not that i've finally pushed you over and you are sorry for making an effort. which would be really sick, seeing how you actually make an effort just cause i asked it, cause i like for you to, and all you've ever asked of me was to not be so prissy and uptight and hurt about plans.
anyway, i am sorry, and will TRY to only communicate when i'm feeling human.
caitlin"
i haven't heard back yet. i'm obsessing. oh yes. i am NOT over her. i think i am, and i blow her off, and then something happens and i can't get it out of my head again. then i had to go out with ch and jasmine and jack and joe. it was my first drag show, i thought, then i realized the ruby and vicky boofont defintely count as drag, so i guess not. anyway, more beautiful ladies walking right by. there were 3, one looked great, another was talented, and the third... well, she was old and frumpy and didn't know many of the words. joe kept going on about his lesbian friends and the dykes who play darts there monday night. what exactly is my reaction supposed to be? i didn't get there till 10 and left to catch the bus at 12.30, so i didn't have time to become drunk or upset or introverted. there was a great moment, i forget the context, but jasmine says, 'after this morning, nothing is taboo!" and i asked what happened this morning, and ch said, "i was telling jasmine which of the cousins i've slept with!" "and the neighbor boys" jasmine adds. trying to imagine this in my family!! there's really no comparison, though. jasmine is ch's niece, and 10 years younger than him (another great moment was when joe asked ch, 'when were we into this album?" and ch says, "1987." jasmine says, "i was SEVEN then!" and i said, "so was i!" it was awesome. ch said, "you two are dangerous together!") it makes me think of kyleigh, my cousin who's 11 years younger than me. there is no where i can imagine in ten years sitting in a gay bar with kyleigh. let alone talking about people i've slept with! (and just so you know, it won't be including any family members!)
the third beautiful lady walking by was on the bus. it was cold, windy and snowing heavy wet snow on my way home. i caught the #6 at 1.05am and when we got to van buren this chick puts her BIKE on the front of the bus and sits down across from me. she's wearing this jean jacket and these white aran cabled handwarmers, cut up socks or sweater sleeves. she's got her bike helmet and shoes, and she's beautiful- pale skin, dark hair, big eyes, long nose- she looks like audrey tautou from amalie. ok, a jewish, caught in the snow version, but still. and i'm trying not to stare at her, and i'm thinking that if i was charles i would be able to pick her up right now, if i was my mother we'd be talking all the way to hyde park, but i can't do it, i don't know what to say, i'm just staring, i haven't drunk enough, this is awful. i'm probably obsessed by this for 10 minutes, then i finally gather up my courage and my pick up line: " forgive me if i'm nosy, but i'm so curious- what kind of story do you have that leaves you downtown with a bicycle in the snow at 1am?" she smiled at me and enthusiastically talked about riding in the wintertime, going to hear a show at belmont, i should try it, get lights so i can ride after dark, there's nothing to do to keep your hands warm. the conversation didn't quite make it to her stop, but it wasn't quite awkward, and as she left she turned back to me, smiled, and said, "maybe next time i see you, you'll be on a bike!' and thanked the driver, and left. hyde park is small enough it wasn't an idle threat- i may actually see her again. of course, i may not, but since i actually did talk to her, if i do, she may remember me. isn't that magical?
19.2.05
things found while cleaning part 2
found an old letter from the girl i slept with (obviously years and years before she got that title). i'm guessing it's from early 2000. at this time i was straight, christian, living in chicago, very depressed, and writing long angst ridden letters to everyone i knew.
"your words embrace me, they suck me in. reading the first page with diddl cheerfully peeping out and being called dearest. i was excited to see and read initially on monday, but tonight this letter is a blessing. i think i look at dreams as similar to poetry. not sure how much stock to place in them. some mean something and some dont. i had a dream of my friend wearing just my underwear. i've dreamt (twice, i think, and not recently) of kissing girls. scary, but i'm not a lesbian. i don't find the subject of your dream strange at all. the object makes me curious. do i mind that you dreamed of a physically intimate relationship with me? hell no. in a (perverted?) way does it honor me? perhaps. but mostly i'm just curious that it would be about me. me who so wants to cuddle and be close(r) but doesn't (didn't) know how. i love when people put themselves close to me but i just don't know how to. i'm afraid of someone discovering this secret mass that bubbles up around my waistband, this softness, this result of nights spent in front of the computer with a half gallon of ice cream. how would you describe your sexuality?"
i wonder if she still has all of my letters. i wonder what i wrote back. it's facinating, in a painful way. to see how we are different- and the same- from each other, and from the past.
"your words embrace me, they suck me in. reading the first page with diddl cheerfully peeping out and being called dearest. i was excited to see and read initially on monday, but tonight this letter is a blessing. i think i look at dreams as similar to poetry. not sure how much stock to place in them. some mean something and some dont. i had a dream of my friend wearing just my underwear. i've dreamt (twice, i think, and not recently) of kissing girls. scary, but i'm not a lesbian. i don't find the subject of your dream strange at all. the object makes me curious. do i mind that you dreamed of a physically intimate relationship with me? hell no. in a (perverted?) way does it honor me? perhaps. but mostly i'm just curious that it would be about me. me who so wants to cuddle and be close(r) but doesn't (didn't) know how. i love when people put themselves close to me but i just don't know how to. i'm afraid of someone discovering this secret mass that bubbles up around my waistband, this softness, this result of nights spent in front of the computer with a half gallon of ice cream. how would you describe your sexuality?"
i wonder if she still has all of my letters. i wonder what i wrote back. it's facinating, in a painful way. to see how we are different- and the same- from each other, and from the past.
things found while cleaning part 1
all sorts of interesting words! first, from my quote book. i seem to get distracted by it every time i write a new quote in.
"and, he said, jesus was more forgiving to those who made mistakes in love than those who judged each other harlsy and were cold of heart." madeleine l'engle, a house like a lotus
"'if i take all my anger, if i take all my bitterness over the unfairness of this mortal life and throw it all to god he can take it and transform it into love before he throws it back to me.' simon dug his hands into his pockets. 'if he has all of these galaxies and all of these stars and all of thiese planets, i wouldn't thinkhe'd have much time left over for people." madeleine l'engle, dragons in the waters
"my dear, i'm seldom sure of anything. life at best is a precarious business and we aren't told difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. it matters, not just to us, but to the entire universe." madeleine l'engle, an acceptable time
"there are some things that can't die, but nothing that can't be murdered..." m l'e, a small rain
i was picking out all of her quotes because of the one i wrote in today:
" 'you know what i think about religion?' i ask. not waiting for an answer, i say, 'i think it would be great if it was all clear cut the way it is in madeleine l'engle books. where you know who the bad guys are and it's all important and beautiful and and it means you can communicate telepathically with dolphins.' " sara ryan, empress of the world
"and, he said, jesus was more forgiving to those who made mistakes in love than those who judged each other harlsy and were cold of heart." madeleine l'engle, a house like a lotus
"'if i take all my anger, if i take all my bitterness over the unfairness of this mortal life and throw it all to god he can take it and transform it into love before he throws it back to me.' simon dug his hands into his pockets. 'if he has all of these galaxies and all of these stars and all of thiese planets, i wouldn't thinkhe'd have much time left over for people." madeleine l'engle, dragons in the waters
"my dear, i'm seldom sure of anything. life at best is a precarious business and we aren't told difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. it matters, not just to us, but to the entire universe." madeleine l'engle, an acceptable time
"there are some things that can't die, but nothing that can't be murdered..." m l'e, a small rain
i was picking out all of her quotes because of the one i wrote in today:
" 'you know what i think about religion?' i ask. not waiting for an answer, i say, 'i think it would be great if it was all clear cut the way it is in madeleine l'engle books. where you know who the bad guys are and it's all important and beautiful and and it means you can communicate telepathically with dolphins.' " sara ryan, empress of the world
18.2.05
four of seven
ch was so happy to see me today! i was surprised to see him, but he was at jacks last night and had to ride the train in, and jasmine's plane didn't land till 9, so he caught me up and finished payroll this morning. he invited jim to drag at annex three tomorrow night too. jim asked who else was going, and ch listed names. jim asks who jack is, and ch pretends to think and says, "oh, i think you know him, he's the guy i've been making out with in the back of the store recently." ch's awareness of being in "the pink room" makes it just a little bit more bearable. (the pink room is that state one is in when you first start a relationship. when everything is wonderful and your friends can't stand you cause your so fucking HAPPY but it doesn't matter cause you're in LOVE) when they left there were enough tasks for me to do it wasn't a really long and lonely day, though i was glad to leave when done. there are 7 boxed dozens of roses still left in the cooler- that's all we have left from valentine's day. well, and buckets and buckets of baby's breath. i told ch i may stop by g's and helen's on the way home, give them some roses, and their paychecks. i wrap up 2 bunches of 2 dozen roses each. i call g's cell, no answer. i call the landline, and helen or jess answers, and says no one will be home when i stop by. thanks you guys. friday nights are so unstable for me anyway. i have such a screw them additude (which is stupid, i know g has iv every friday, i know everyone else in the world has stuff to do friday nights) i don't know what's wrong with me. anyway, i called the purifoys, and they were home, and christie loved getting the roses. lily had just gone to sleep, and they were getting ready to go to the church retreat tomorrow. i remember that. i was the longest attender, except for the pastor, 2000, 01, 02, 03. i don't think i went last year. i was moving, etc. i guess. and i wasn't a christian anymore. but it feels sad and lonely (not that i'm not always sad and lonely on friday nights) that there was this big community that i was supposedly a part of, and when i stop showing up, nobody cares. christie is the only one who even mentioned noticing. and the thing is, the hpvc is all into community, they think it's their biggest strength. i think that's as big a joke as the xian thing is. whatever. fuckers. (not literally, xians don't have sex before marriage. or perhaps literally, with all the babies crawling around these days.)
anyway, i'm so glad to have a weekend again, finally. even though it will be filled with housekeeping and homework. but it will give me a chance to clean my house and my mind. on my dining room table are 2 burnt candles, a ligher, a set of batteries, about 10 paintbrushes, 2 pallettes of watercolors, a 2foot high stack of newspapers on a chair, a dishrag, my cell phone's earphone attachment, about 20 little chocolate wrappers, a salt shaker, a hankerchief, a essential oil burner, scissors, various cut out newspaper articles, and 24 long stem south american red roses with baby's breath and leather leaf arranged in a perfect sphere in my juce pitcher.
anyway, i'm so glad to have a weekend again, finally. even though it will be filled with housekeeping and homework. but it will give me a chance to clean my house and my mind. on my dining room table are 2 burnt candles, a ligher, a set of batteries, about 10 paintbrushes, 2 pallettes of watercolors, a 2foot high stack of newspapers on a chair, a dishrag, my cell phone's earphone attachment, about 20 little chocolate wrappers, a salt shaker, a hankerchief, a essential oil burner, scissors, various cut out newspaper articles, and 24 long stem south american red roses with baby's breath and leather leaf arranged in a perfect sphere in my juce pitcher.
17.2.05
fittings
since i shopped yesterday, i didn't go grocery shopping after class as planned. so i had to get up early enough to go to dunkin donuts before meething with frances. god it's gotten cold out here again! it was so fridid and windy, i was glad i was inside the costume shop all day. the meeting with frances went really well. i was so glad to hear her approve of what i have! she was almost completely a fan of everything. she said it looked good, and said i had a nice pallette. my contact with the actors went well too. there are a few pairs of pants that are just irrideamably short, and sweaters that are just too long, but for the most part everythng is alterable. and having tom pin stuff and tell me about fit was awesome. and having pam and chris alter stuff was even better! when i was doing my directing project, this was the point i was serously panicing, cause there was so much to do and i didn't know about so much of it. but it was fun today, and cause it's a mainstage show i have help from the shop. i'm not even going to be there, and they'll have all my alterations done come monday. and carrie's dress! the "fashionable slave attire"! after all the rigamarole, i finally got the rendering and the fabric aproved by the director and to the costume shop, and patti draped it today and i okayed it, and she cut it and built it... and there on the dress form, in real life, was the very dress i had painted! i did the research, made this rendering out of my own imagination, and there, patti had actually created it! it was totally cool. it's almost magical- this effect is caused by the fabric, which is covered in glitter. but the glitter falls off EVERYWHERE- everything in the costume shop is covered with it. when i went to the bathroom i could tell what stall patti had used by the gitter on the floor there. they seem to be pretty cheery about it, considering. i love my bosses.
after work i went out shopping again and FINALLY found bianca something to wear for the funeral. tom had convinced me that the one i had was ok, but the actress thought she looked "lumpy" in it, so it's back to square one. the new one is a tanktop, skirt and sweater though, and i think it may just be perfect. i started doing returns (i forgot a sweater, so i'll have to go back to lane bryant AGAIN). now i REALLY need to enter everything into my regester. my credit card finally declined. uh oh. bad sign.
after work i went out shopping again and FINALLY found bianca something to wear for the funeral. tom had convinced me that the one i had was ok, but the actress thought she looked "lumpy" in it, so it's back to square one. the new one is a tanktop, skirt and sweater though, and i think it may just be perfect. i started doing returns (i forgot a sweater, so i'll have to go back to lane bryant AGAIN). now i REALLY need to enter everything into my regester. my credit card finally declined. uh oh. bad sign.
16.2.05
rainbow scarf stories
i got out of class early tonight, and took tomorrow off work so i can work all day in the costume shop doing fittings. i felt like i needed to be productive, so i FINALLY washed my dishes and did laundry. now i still have time before i have to go to bed and i can blog. my day was long boring and heavy, so instead i will tell rainbow scarf stories.
1. i was leaving jen's sunday night and was excited about it as i wrapped it around my neck. and her roomate sarah said, way to show your pride. YES! this is the proper reaction. i made my joke about my grandma not knowing anything about pride, she just loves me and knows i like rainbows. (jen thinks it's so funny that the first thing mom told me when i came out to her was, don't tell grandma)
2. i was raving about it again to ch, and a few min. later he says, it is really bright, like sesame street. GRR. not the right reation. way to make me feel young and straight.
3. was talking with melané while waiting for my director. she's one of my actresses, and i think she's totally hot. she admired it, and i told her my grandma gave it to me for v-day... and then i got stuck. somehow i couldn't tell this person i don't know that well (ok, this person who i like) that i'm wearing it for pride. and cause it's warm and soft and from my grandma, of course. but pride too. BLECH. i was sick of myself.
so in response i'm putting together a coming out mix. so far, so pleased. lemme know if any of you want copies. i, unlike SOME PEOPLE, am good at sending out mixes.
1. i was leaving jen's sunday night and was excited about it as i wrapped it around my neck. and her roomate sarah said, way to show your pride. YES! this is the proper reaction. i made my joke about my grandma not knowing anything about pride, she just loves me and knows i like rainbows. (jen thinks it's so funny that the first thing mom told me when i came out to her was, don't tell grandma)
2. i was raving about it again to ch, and a few min. later he says, it is really bright, like sesame street. GRR. not the right reation. way to make me feel young and straight.
3. was talking with melané while waiting for my director. she's one of my actresses, and i think she's totally hot. she admired it, and i told her my grandma gave it to me for v-day... and then i got stuck. somehow i couldn't tell this person i don't know that well (ok, this person who i like) that i'm wearing it for pride. and cause it's warm and soft and from my grandma, of course. but pride too. BLECH. i was sick of myself.
so in response i'm putting together a coming out mix. so far, so pleased. lemme know if any of you want copies. i, unlike SOME PEOPLE, am good at sending out mixes.
15.2.05
the aftermath
ugh. so hard to drag myself into work today. ch and i were both like we'd been run over by trucks. yesterday i was in a red satin shirt and THE red skirt. today, well, i'm wearing jeans and flannel petticoat, and my grey heather hoodie and this ancient thermal shirt a's mom handed down to me with huge strawberries on it. i look pretty scroungy. then after work i went to 11th st, and there's students everywhere- oh yeah, classes have started. i have to go to class tomorrow. i picked up my rendering and showed it to the director, and i think we're gonna be able to do it. so that's one more thing out of the way. thank goodness. my on the go mix on my ipod has been a coming out mix. i just loaded it onto itunes and am now sorting it and uploading more songs to get it complete and cd-sized. i'm just too tired to move from in front of my computer.
mom sent me a v-day box with burts bees soap and socks- almost as nice as the box i sent a. she also sent me 2 new flower essences!
larch- instils a greater sense of selfesteem when you feel inferior, fear failure, or lack confidence
hornbeam- restores energy when you are mentally weary, procrastinate, and doubt your ability to face the task ahead.
aren't these good for my show?
mom sent me a v-day box with burts bees soap and socks- almost as nice as the box i sent a. she also sent me 2 new flower essences!
larch- instils a greater sense of selfesteem when you feel inferior, fear failure, or lack confidence
hornbeam- restores energy when you are mentally weary, procrastinate, and doubt your ability to face the task ahead.
aren't these good for my show?
14.2.05
1 down 1 to go
the fun lifesucking project is done, only this awful show left to go. my director called yesterday wanting to know if i could come in today. yeah right. i was at work at 7 this morning and i worked until 7 tonight. i was so tired when i got home yesterday- then had a 12 hour day today. ch jim joe and i took and made 148 orders today (ok, we only made 146 cause 2 were for tomorrow) my feet hurt. and my voice. thank goodness, my stage manager says he scheduled my fittings for thursday. so i need to get that to appear in my mailbox, and get costumes by friday to fit them into. i dread it. i love vday, it makes me feel strong, like i can accomplish anything, i have a purpose in life. my indian tv dinner is in the microwave. i said i'd stop typing in 3 minutes when it was done. it is done. goodbye.
13.2.05
music meme
gawd i'm exhausted. we arranged all day today. everyone was much tireder and quieter, less the party atmosphere of yesterday. it was getting into cruch... but we have every order for tomorrow made, and hopefully some pre-makes to sell, too. a few days ago i wasted alot of time typing up my lil music entry, so now i'm so glad it's done and i can go right to the bathtub without extended typing first.
so ceclia passed this music meme onto me. i'm pretty into music, so i'll be glad to not only answer, but elaborate. here goes:
1. Total amount of music files on your computer: 1668 in my itunes bibliotek. there's about that many on my ipod, as i have my xmas music on that, but not my dad's new cds. it will get much higher after i finish loading my cds on my new computer (old only had 6GB, so i had to be really picky and choosy). probably about 2000.
2. The last CD you bought was: katell keineg's high july. but i've burned stars's set yourself on fire since then. also indigo girls's epon. and best of phoebe snow on vinyl.
3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
right now itunes is playing a moreno veloso song in portugese that i uploaded for g. but it's been playing interesting stuff on shuffle: tom's diner, suzanne vega; take the time, michael stanley band; que hora son, manu chao; sun, moon and stars, prince; life effect, stars; another day, jen porter; pay me later, colin blunstone; joni mitchell, california; the systematic dumbing down of terry constance jones, butterfly jones; the good, the bad, the ugly, ani difranco; antartica, al stewart; fairpoint diary, over the rhine. i bet there's not another computer in the world that has 10 of those songs on it. i'm glad it ended up being so random. it seems to be playing alot of ani d today.
4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:
i'm one of those people who read alot of meaning into songs. so this is way too hard to peg down. so i'm gonna intensify this:
4a. the 5(ish) albums that mean the most to you: (not the 5 albums you would take to a desert island. i wouldn't need to take these with me, they are already part of my soul)
1. sixpence none the richer, this beautiful mess. the album that got me through high school. it vocalized my self hatred and confusion so well. i still think it's well written, and her squeeky voice still doesn't bug me. even now, these songs sometimes end up on mix tapes.
2. over the rhine, good dog bad dog. this album seems to have a base in some of my deepest friendships. the saddest piano i've ever heard. her breathy voice. linford's lovely poetry. i was slowly discovering the meanings of these songs in high school, but i feel like as i've grown up they've grown up with me. this is an album that i sang to myself from begining to end while making bread at my grandma's, that summer when i didn't have music and was going crazy.
3. indigo girls, swamp ophelia. definately the indigo girls crowning achievement, a beautiful album lyrically and musically. when renee and i were friends we listened to this driving across indiana, back into chicago, and we stopped it after every track to discuss what we thought of the song, and what it meant in our lives. then i sent a copy to a. for the next holiday, and photocopied all the lyrics and wrote everything renee and i talked about all over them. otr's till we have faces and this album really journeyed through my time at su casa with me. i can sum up the whole year in the line "we act empty and innocent, but we are fueled by distortions of lives led in discontent, shading misfortune." and it's also been providing good lyrics for comming out. they were the first lesbians i ever knew of.
4. natalie merchant, ophelia and nancy griffith, flyer. not my favourite singer, but i believe there's one natalie merchant album that bowls anyone over. ophelia is mine. (ch laughed at this till motherland came out) i first heard it (besides the radio hits) in fabian's studio in berlin, and it was the soundtrack for my first trip in europe. it's so dark and beautiful, and that's what i was feeling, i was so lucky and free, by myself on extended vacation in germany, but also very lonely and depressed and running away from the pain in my past and my fear of the future. i hear it and am immediately sent back to my pastor's friend's mother's housegroup leader's spare bedroom where i was staying in london. i only play it after dark, and from begining to end, rarely pulling songs from it. it's excellent with candles, tea, christmas lights and incense. also in this catagory is flyer. i don't know why i bought my own copy, but i unashamedly adore it. each and every song reminds me of germany. a few always make me cry. i try not to listen to the words.
5. patty griffin, living with ghosts, and ani difranco dialate. my 5th one should be a good breakup album but i can't decide. i love patty's rawness on her first. she is so powerful and laid bare. "i don't necessarily want any key to the future or happiness, but i need a little place in the sun sometimes or i think i will die. and everywhere is somewhere and nowhere is here. everybody's got somebody with their wine and their beer. so i'm just this tragic figure in the corner over here, go home to an empty apartment and a best friend who is a queer." this is so specifically the type of depression i've always had, the emotions on this album are so familiar to me. dialate isn't ani's best album, but it's the album as a whole that speaks to me the most. i loved her epon. for when i was moving to the big city, and imperfectly's another fun coming out one, but dialate speaks of very specific emotions i've gone through with g. it's not your basic love songs. it's a complicated relationship. when justine told me of how shameless speaks to her life, i was so surprised, so perhaps it's not that she describes specific emotions, it's just she writes easily relateable songs. i don't know. i just know she's SO hurt on this album, and it can feel really good to sympathise with.
4b. the 5 songs i'm listening to the most right now:
1. katell keineg, i'm in love with a german film star. also shaking the disease. ch and i are always singing along.
2. funeral in his heart- october project. why this one is sticking so much, i have no idea
3. butterfly boucher- another white dash- ch has me addicted
4. lesson in survival, joni mitchell- my current fave, or at least most relateable joni
5. when it don't come easy, patty griffin- my current fave love song, and perhaps i should go to therapy for this alone.
4c. the first 5 best lyrics that come into my head:
1. "sometimes i feel tangerine, sometimes i feel blue... i still take your picture with me everywhere i go, but i use it as a coaster and i drink the overflow." prince, tangerine.
2. "superb food prepared by her constant companion, chef and secretary rafael martinez would be served, also shared with her 18 exotic cats, all encouraged to roam and help themselves. woe betide the visitor who tried to intervine because leanor fini remained her own person with great brilliance...until the end" katell keineg, leanor.
3. "richard got married to a figure skater, and he bought her a dishwasher, and a coffee perculator. and he drinks at home most nights now, with the tv on, and all the houselights turned up bright." joni mitchell, the last time i saw richard.
4. "everybody's story is more interesting than mine, it took me twentysome odd years to see i'd been born blind" or "for the night sky is an ocean, black, distant sea, washing up to my window. all the stray dog night owl junkies, orphans, vagabonds, angels that lost their halos." over the rhine, fairpoint diary and if nothing else, respectively
5. "my heart is on the baggage rack, it's heavy as can be, i wish that i could find someone to carry it for me. just to pay it some attention, and to handle it with care, for it has been dropped and is in need of some repair." nanci griffith, southbound train.
4d. albums most shafted by this assesment: joni mitchell's blue sinead o'connor's faith and courage, and the nields's gotta get over gretta
5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?
I am passing this stick to justine and kira, because i know they are into music, but also because they are the only 2 people i know with blogs who know i exist.
If I may, I would like to know my other friends’ musical whim as well so please feel free to join in, and please let me know!
so ceclia passed this music meme onto me. i'm pretty into music, so i'll be glad to not only answer, but elaborate. here goes:
1. Total amount of music files on your computer: 1668 in my itunes bibliotek. there's about that many on my ipod, as i have my xmas music on that, but not my dad's new cds. it will get much higher after i finish loading my cds on my new computer (old only had 6GB, so i had to be really picky and choosy). probably about 2000.
2. The last CD you bought was: katell keineg's high july. but i've burned stars's set yourself on fire since then. also indigo girls's epon. and best of phoebe snow on vinyl.
3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
right now itunes is playing a moreno veloso song in portugese that i uploaded for g. but it's been playing interesting stuff on shuffle: tom's diner, suzanne vega; take the time, michael stanley band; que hora son, manu chao; sun, moon and stars, prince; life effect, stars; another day, jen porter; pay me later, colin blunstone; joni mitchell, california; the systematic dumbing down of terry constance jones, butterfly jones; the good, the bad, the ugly, ani difranco; antartica, al stewart; fairpoint diary, over the rhine. i bet there's not another computer in the world that has 10 of those songs on it. i'm glad it ended up being so random. it seems to be playing alot of ani d today.
4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:
i'm one of those people who read alot of meaning into songs. so this is way too hard to peg down. so i'm gonna intensify this:
4a. the 5(ish) albums that mean the most to you: (not the 5 albums you would take to a desert island. i wouldn't need to take these with me, they are already part of my soul)
1. sixpence none the richer, this beautiful mess. the album that got me through high school. it vocalized my self hatred and confusion so well. i still think it's well written, and her squeeky voice still doesn't bug me. even now, these songs sometimes end up on mix tapes.
2. over the rhine, good dog bad dog. this album seems to have a base in some of my deepest friendships. the saddest piano i've ever heard. her breathy voice. linford's lovely poetry. i was slowly discovering the meanings of these songs in high school, but i feel like as i've grown up they've grown up with me. this is an album that i sang to myself from begining to end while making bread at my grandma's, that summer when i didn't have music and was going crazy.
3. indigo girls, swamp ophelia. definately the indigo girls crowning achievement, a beautiful album lyrically and musically. when renee and i were friends we listened to this driving across indiana, back into chicago, and we stopped it after every track to discuss what we thought of the song, and what it meant in our lives. then i sent a copy to a. for the next holiday, and photocopied all the lyrics and wrote everything renee and i talked about all over them. otr's till we have faces and this album really journeyed through my time at su casa with me. i can sum up the whole year in the line "we act empty and innocent, but we are fueled by distortions of lives led in discontent, shading misfortune." and it's also been providing good lyrics for comming out. they were the first lesbians i ever knew of.
4. natalie merchant, ophelia and nancy griffith, flyer. not my favourite singer, but i believe there's one natalie merchant album that bowls anyone over. ophelia is mine. (ch laughed at this till motherland came out) i first heard it (besides the radio hits) in fabian's studio in berlin, and it was the soundtrack for my first trip in europe. it's so dark and beautiful, and that's what i was feeling, i was so lucky and free, by myself on extended vacation in germany, but also very lonely and depressed and running away from the pain in my past and my fear of the future. i hear it and am immediately sent back to my pastor's friend's mother's housegroup leader's spare bedroom where i was staying in london. i only play it after dark, and from begining to end, rarely pulling songs from it. it's excellent with candles, tea, christmas lights and incense. also in this catagory is flyer. i don't know why i bought my own copy, but i unashamedly adore it. each and every song reminds me of germany. a few always make me cry. i try not to listen to the words.
5. patty griffin, living with ghosts, and ani difranco dialate. my 5th one should be a good breakup album but i can't decide. i love patty's rawness on her first. she is so powerful and laid bare. "i don't necessarily want any key to the future or happiness, but i need a little place in the sun sometimes or i think i will die. and everywhere is somewhere and nowhere is here. everybody's got somebody with their wine and their beer. so i'm just this tragic figure in the corner over here, go home to an empty apartment and a best friend who is a queer." this is so specifically the type of depression i've always had, the emotions on this album are so familiar to me. dialate isn't ani's best album, but it's the album as a whole that speaks to me the most. i loved her epon. for when i was moving to the big city, and imperfectly's another fun coming out one, but dialate speaks of very specific emotions i've gone through with g. it's not your basic love songs. it's a complicated relationship. when justine told me of how shameless speaks to her life, i was so surprised, so perhaps it's not that she describes specific emotions, it's just she writes easily relateable songs. i don't know. i just know she's SO hurt on this album, and it can feel really good to sympathise with.
4b. the 5 songs i'm listening to the most right now:
1. katell keineg, i'm in love with a german film star. also shaking the disease. ch and i are always singing along.
2. funeral in his heart- october project. why this one is sticking so much, i have no idea
3. butterfly boucher- another white dash- ch has me addicted
4. lesson in survival, joni mitchell- my current fave, or at least most relateable joni
5. when it don't come easy, patty griffin- my current fave love song, and perhaps i should go to therapy for this alone.
4c. the first 5 best lyrics that come into my head:
1. "sometimes i feel tangerine, sometimes i feel blue... i still take your picture with me everywhere i go, but i use it as a coaster and i drink the overflow." prince, tangerine.
2. "superb food prepared by her constant companion, chef and secretary rafael martinez would be served, also shared with her 18 exotic cats, all encouraged to roam and help themselves. woe betide the visitor who tried to intervine because leanor fini remained her own person with great brilliance...until the end" katell keineg, leanor.
3. "richard got married to a figure skater, and he bought her a dishwasher, and a coffee perculator. and he drinks at home most nights now, with the tv on, and all the houselights turned up bright." joni mitchell, the last time i saw richard.
4. "everybody's story is more interesting than mine, it took me twentysome odd years to see i'd been born blind" or "for the night sky is an ocean, black, distant sea, washing up to my window. all the stray dog night owl junkies, orphans, vagabonds, angels that lost their halos." over the rhine, fairpoint diary and if nothing else, respectively
5. "my heart is on the baggage rack, it's heavy as can be, i wish that i could find someone to carry it for me. just to pay it some attention, and to handle it with care, for it has been dropped and is in need of some repair." nanci griffith, southbound train.
4d. albums most shafted by this assesment: joni mitchell's blue sinead o'connor's faith and courage, and the nields's gotta get over gretta
5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?
I am passing this stick to justine and kira, because i know they are into music, but also because they are the only 2 people i know with blogs who know i exist.
If I may, I would like to know my other friends’ musical whim as well so please feel free to join in, and please let me know!
12.2.05
everybody gets an email after valentine's day
wow. what a day. was at the shop by 9.45 and then the temps started rolling in. god, i love vday. i love the exhausted feeling you get from working so hard. i've acomplished something, look at my poor hands. and i spent much more time doing paperwork than playing with roses. we have 2000 of them in the store right now, with more on their way. and 1/2 of those are in boxes, neatly wrapped in tissue paper, in little rows with water tubes on the bottom, all plucked and looking their best for their arrival in their new homes. jen from the costume shop finally met g. g and her 2 friends- they were this gang. it reminds me of resha's inpenetrable forces. but they were friendly, talking to carlos (the ultimate party person- so amazingly charming- esp. in a forign language!) in spanish and joking with charles. i watch people move through their lives like that and it makes me jelous- never alone. i mean, i know they get lonely even always being in a group, but they just naturally are always surrounded. it makes me realize how independent i am, and it makes me glad for the experiences i have, all the character i've built by being a solo flyer, bus still i long for that companionship. they were making bows and jen was in the front, making boxes, so they didn't really interact with each other. and i wouldn't want to jen to feel left out so perhaps that's ok. they left right away when i was done, so i didn't ride the bus back to hyde park with them. i guess they thought ch and i needed bonding time over closing, but really ch wanted to get rid of me so he could start necking with jack. but jen invited me up to her place! it's pretty sick, how i stood there wondering what to do, thinking how much i wanted to come home and crash in front of the computer. but then i realised how sad that was and how lonely i'd feel, so i went out with jen. we hadn't talked since september, and she hasn't been reading here, so there was alot to catch her up on. she took me out for mexican on broadway. it's so funny to me that she lives in the heart of boystown, just blocks away from all those bars and hotspots! i imagine everyone has to travel to go out, but some people do actually live there. we went back to her apartment and i wondered how long i had to hang out before it was ok to go home. i wanted to watch a movie, but didn't feel like there was enough time. we ended up watching clue, which was awful. but i was so antsy. it was about an hour too long. but i was home by ten, and now i'm typing to you, and then i'm going to sign off so i can finish ch's socks! we always talk about a good holiday being one without tears, and ch's catch phrase for the current knitting craze is "knitting is the new crying" so i'm going to give them to him, finally, and make a crying joke. it's fun seeing how intimately we work together when all the temps are around. jen noticed how close our relationship is, also the strained one between jim and i, and it made me want to grill her about all the rest of the relationships and vibes going around the flowershop. but i restrained myself. it would be good to be able to observe like that.
11.2.05
basic average straight girl
guster- two points for honesty
elm- for trusting one has the help needed, letting go of undue worry
vibe was kinda wierd at work today. we're getting into the holiday swing of things, but i'm not used to such a full store- it's me, ch, jim and joe. jim moves so slow and seems to be everywhere at once, he manages to take up alot of space. and joe is new, he doesn't always know what to do, and i'm always looking over his shoulder to make sure he doesn't have any questions. he, ch and stacey were childhood friends, but only 2 of them are ever talking at any one time, it seems. i of course really like stacey, and i haven't been that impressed with joe, but he's been good around the flower shop so far. for them all being gay, they're all still masculine enough that i feel very girly. joe said something about the essence of my hippieness this morning, and i was confused- is this an insult? it ended ok, with him telling a story about a friend who never washed her dreadlocks and he was glad mine didn't smell. but it was still wierd. and then there as this awful bit in the afternoon, i'm still not sure what happened. i was talking about my obession with wasting water, and jim said, "you know, you have made me more aware of that." and i was so glad that he wasn't offended, but couldn't relate that. and i was starting a story with someday, i'm going to fall in love and..." and charles pushed past me and said, "i'm going to starbucks." and everyone laughed. what was that about? did i miss something? later, i ended up finishing the story- "i'm going to fall in love with a person who leaves the water running while washing their teeth, and it will be a doomed relationship." very gender neutral. and charles says something like, "no you'll marry a guy who drives a pick up truck and likes bacon." and i said, "i will never, ever be with anyone who likes bacon." and joe says, "you'd better get a cat, then." it was really funny, i think i missed some in the middle, but i was still hurt- first when charles puts this masculine spin on my future love- um, so i'm a lesbian when stacey's around but straight with joe? sure i 'm not confident enough to say "silly charles, you know i'm into girls, i'm not going to duck hunt with you" but i'm getting more and more settled into myself every day. and i know i'll be single forever because of choices i make, like never leaving the city and the bacon thing. (you are allowed to like it, but you are never ever ever allowed to cook it in my house. ever. ) but i hate to think that it's because i'm eccentric, i'm going to turn into one of those crazy cat ladies with the canvas bags and the frizzy hair and the fancy pins. i want it be that i'm too cool for a mate, not that no one wants me. it's like g's dessert party, if i'm an unapprochable person, i want it to be because i'm so freakin' cool no one will talk to me.
does ch still think i'm gonna end up married to some guy? or alone with a million cats? i'm still worried abou this. however, i came home and FINALLY got the box from my grandma, and there was carmel corn, and a rainbow striped scarf. i love my grandma, she's so kind and clueless. she knows i like rainbows. so i'll wear it with pride. giggle.
elm- for trusting one has the help needed, letting go of undue worry
vibe was kinda wierd at work today. we're getting into the holiday swing of things, but i'm not used to such a full store- it's me, ch, jim and joe. jim moves so slow and seems to be everywhere at once, he manages to take up alot of space. and joe is new, he doesn't always know what to do, and i'm always looking over his shoulder to make sure he doesn't have any questions. he, ch and stacey were childhood friends, but only 2 of them are ever talking at any one time, it seems. i of course really like stacey, and i haven't been that impressed with joe, but he's been good around the flower shop so far. for them all being gay, they're all still masculine enough that i feel very girly. joe said something about the essence of my hippieness this morning, and i was confused- is this an insult? it ended ok, with him telling a story about a friend who never washed her dreadlocks and he was glad mine didn't smell. but it was still wierd. and then there as this awful bit in the afternoon, i'm still not sure what happened. i was talking about my obession with wasting water, and jim said, "you know, you have made me more aware of that." and i was so glad that he wasn't offended, but couldn't relate that. and i was starting a story with someday, i'm going to fall in love and..." and charles pushed past me and said, "i'm going to starbucks." and everyone laughed. what was that about? did i miss something? later, i ended up finishing the story- "i'm going to fall in love with a person who leaves the water running while washing their teeth, and it will be a doomed relationship." very gender neutral. and charles says something like, "no you'll marry a guy who drives a pick up truck and likes bacon." and i said, "i will never, ever be with anyone who likes bacon." and joe says, "you'd better get a cat, then." it was really funny, i think i missed some in the middle, but i was still hurt- first when charles puts this masculine spin on my future love- um, so i'm a lesbian when stacey's around but straight with joe? sure i 'm not confident enough to say "silly charles, you know i'm into girls, i'm not going to duck hunt with you" but i'm getting more and more settled into myself every day. and i know i'll be single forever because of choices i make, like never leaving the city and the bacon thing. (you are allowed to like it, but you are never ever ever allowed to cook it in my house. ever. ) but i hate to think that it's because i'm eccentric, i'm going to turn into one of those crazy cat ladies with the canvas bags and the frizzy hair and the fancy pins. i want it be that i'm too cool for a mate, not that no one wants me. it's like g's dessert party, if i'm an unapprochable person, i want it to be because i'm so freakin' cool no one will talk to me.
does ch still think i'm gonna end up married to some guy? or alone with a million cats? i'm still worried abou this. however, i came home and FINALLY got the box from my grandma, and there was carmel corn, and a rainbow striped scarf. i love my grandma, she's so kind and clueless. she knows i like rainbows. so i'll wear it with pride. giggle.
10.2.05
kibbles and bits (daily, sex, etc.)
what bits of information can i give you today? i can't pay attention well enough to give you more than sound bytes. i did the rendering last night, had our delivery driver take it and the fabric to the costume shop today. they called and said, um, has the director seen this yet? oh yeah. so now i have to get it back and get it to the director so she can tell me eveything she doesn't like about it. blech. i just wanna focus on vday. joe, ch's friend, is our new temp. he's not one of my favorite friends of ch, but he seems to be a fast learner and he has the delightful characteristic of speaking german. so that was good. jim has been less annoying than usual and easier to ignore, so i appriciate that. tuesday night i became a step aunt as my stepsister vicky had baby dylan Erik Jessie Baer.
jim ch and i went for drinks after work upstairs at dos hermanos, which i haven't done in ages and ages. that's about it for news from my world.
one of the things i am perhaps lax on is answering comments. i am made aware of this perhaps most from kira, who answers each and every comment i make with a personal email. i am not as organized or gracious, and have been thinking about posting responses to so many for ages. so i'll try and clear up bunches of them here.
first, haloscan seems to be working. its so much easier for the posters, and and not that much harder for this reader, so i guess the trial period is over and it's here to stay. thanks jamie! and cecila, have i ever said welcome? i of course at this point you are more than welcome. i'm glad you like my name, i'm rather fond of it myself. i really don't like my last name much (it's an ok last name, but it's alliterative, which i REALLY hate, it makes me sound like a cheerleader) so a good first and middle name make up for it.
sheesh, and now we're already in the heat of things with sex. it was wild, that post, i got 3 long comments right away. so i thought someday i'd write a whole post in reply, start diolgue, change the world, etc. but it didn't happen. so it will just be this little part of a post. perhaps its because i'm so unclear with where i stand myself. i really like how the three comments showed such different opinions, cecilia finding love so important and making such a difference for sex, jamie's lack of enthusiasm for "saving myself," amy's open relationship with carl. i guess i- and perhaps this is a side effect of working with gay men- feel so often that "everybody's story is more interesting than mine, it took me 20some odd years to see i'd been born blind." i guess i don't think about sex all that often as i'm not in a relationship- or perhaps i think about it often but come to no conclusions because i'm not in a relationship. i absolutely agree with cecilia, you need to be devoted to me for it to work out- i would have more and more fun, but keep feeling worse and worse about myself if i slept around. but i'm so shy and prudish, i can't imagine how i would make that happen if i wanted to. in answer to amy's post, while i would like to believe that i will find the one of my dreams and we will dance forever under the full moon together, i have to quote jessica stein. a cousin says to her, "you always talked about "the one"- i just never imagined it would be a woman." and she gets all flustered and responds, "i don't even know if i believe that anymore, i don't think there's just one, i believe there's more like, um, seven." so, yes, i would expect to have several relationships, inside of which i am monagamous. and of course at this point, i have a hard time imagining ever meeting anyone i could put up with.... thinking about sex makes me think alot about high school. perhaps this happens to everyone. i was of course going to stay a virgin until i got married. i couldn't imagine marrying a man who had slept with someone else before me... but now it seems more like i couldn't imagine marrying a man. the biggest draw for me in highschool was the finality of it- you couldn't go back- but i wanted to know so badly just how it felt. it wasn't until i was 22 that i discovered GIRLS could masturbate too, and now i could imagine it, and that gave me even more freedom from the tyrany of my christian high school thoughts. but i definately reflect jamie's attitude of, darn, lets just get it over with. i still don't regret it, even if i wasn't in love. and now it's over, and i can move on!
the show is going to be in march. i will want pics for my portfolio, so if i can get them digital, i will certainly post them here. i don't even wanna think about it with vday. it's apparently going to be a huge family affair- allie and samir, mom and marty and my aunt deann (justine's mom) and my grandma are all flying in to see it. the pressure!
ch has been having stomach problems, and so hasn't been going out drinking much, which is sad, but has also switched from coffee to tea, which makes me happy! i love tea drinkers! tea is so wonderful. i fully believe in it. i love what my flower remedy book says about the placebo effect. scientists are all upetty about whether flower remedies actually work or if it's all placebo, and they're like, it's the placebo effect itself that should be studied! isn't it amazing that just by thinking the brain can heal the body? shouldn't we learn to harness this energy and make the placebo effect work for us? i found it very interesting. and it makes me not worry if it's "real" or placebo. it doesn't matter as long as healing is occuring!
as far as my 100 goals- i don't work really hard at them. it's just a bit of shape showing me what's important in my life. it was an assignment in a's positive thinking class in high school, so i made the list then, and have been editing it and adding to it ever since. it used to be very polarized, i felt like i could become this musical woodsdwelling craftsman mennonite, or a wild punk hippie artist pagan. i seem to have chosen that latter, and my acchievements seem to reflect that. but i may swing back around.
cecilia, my director also thinks lapels can be romantic, and i have a whole character whose costumes i need to make less lawyery and more feminine, so this was good advice! and think about all the fancy chocolates you get in exchange for having to drive out of the country to go to lush.
i do use blog explosion. and i like it to read new blogs, but i haven't found any super winners yet, though i'm sure i will. it's good for getting my counter numbers up, though i haven't had anyone from blogexplosion comment yet. and lets face it, the commenters count more than the readers do!
as for blogging itself- the relationship a blogger has with one's blog is always facinating. and where the diologue occurs. for instance- when i wrote this entry, i had just made a comment on cecilia's blog with what i thought was righteous anger- someone had dissed my friend cecilia and i was sticking up for her. i would have liked that in the midst of all the you poor thing i'm sorry for you comments (don't get me wrong, i'd want those too!) but then someone else didn't, she posted, "umm, caitlin, we're supposed to be cheering cecilia up here" (which i thought i was doing, but i guess it could be interpreted differently) and it could have scared me away from commenting forever if cecilia hadn't posted a thank you for it on my blog. this and blog explosion have helped me see that it's not something magical or revealing about blogging that's special, there are the same relationships in the outside world as in this little inside one. all the rightwing blogs have taught me that!
it's funny to me that all of jamie's readers are strangers. all my commenters (well, except for a allie and justine) are strangers, but i think i have friends far away who read. that was how i started, so i would have to type fewer emails. and look where it's gone from there! hours and hours online every night!
nothing is better for insomnia than sympathy. nothing is better for depression than sleep. and baths and candles really do help with both, often. thank you all. i promise to learn to use my camera before i meet you, so i will take wonderful pics.
jamie, i'm sorry but i don't have a scanner, so i don't think i'll ever be able to post more baby pics. perhaps justine will oblige, though! cecilia, it actually wasn't lollypops but popsicles! there's another family story about grumpy kids not wanting to have the family picture taken, and my youngest cousin was crying cause she wanted a popsicle. and so there were arguemnts about which was more unsightly, having a crying kid or a kid with a popsicle... there are some of both, and at the end there are pictures of the whole family with popcicles...
anyway. consider yourselves answered. i promise to do a better job in the future. don't let it deter you from commenting!
jim ch and i went for drinks after work upstairs at dos hermanos, which i haven't done in ages and ages. that's about it for news from my world. one of the things i am perhaps lax on is answering comments. i am made aware of this perhaps most from kira, who answers each and every comment i make with a personal email. i am not as organized or gracious, and have been thinking about posting responses to so many for ages. so i'll try and clear up bunches of them here.
first, haloscan seems to be working. its so much easier for the posters, and and not that much harder for this reader, so i guess the trial period is over and it's here to stay. thanks jamie! and cecila, have i ever said welcome? i of course at this point you are more than welcome. i'm glad you like my name, i'm rather fond of it myself. i really don't like my last name much (it's an ok last name, but it's alliterative, which i REALLY hate, it makes me sound like a cheerleader) so a good first and middle name make up for it.
sheesh, and now we're already in the heat of things with sex. it was wild, that post, i got 3 long comments right away. so i thought someday i'd write a whole post in reply, start diolgue, change the world, etc. but it didn't happen. so it will just be this little part of a post. perhaps its because i'm so unclear with where i stand myself. i really like how the three comments showed such different opinions, cecilia finding love so important and making such a difference for sex, jamie's lack of enthusiasm for "saving myself," amy's open relationship with carl. i guess i- and perhaps this is a side effect of working with gay men- feel so often that "everybody's story is more interesting than mine, it took me 20some odd years to see i'd been born blind." i guess i don't think about sex all that often as i'm not in a relationship- or perhaps i think about it often but come to no conclusions because i'm not in a relationship. i absolutely agree with cecilia, you need to be devoted to me for it to work out- i would have more and more fun, but keep feeling worse and worse about myself if i slept around. but i'm so shy and prudish, i can't imagine how i would make that happen if i wanted to. in answer to amy's post, while i would like to believe that i will find the one of my dreams and we will dance forever under the full moon together, i have to quote jessica stein. a cousin says to her, "you always talked about "the one"- i just never imagined it would be a woman." and she gets all flustered and responds, "i don't even know if i believe that anymore, i don't think there's just one, i believe there's more like, um, seven." so, yes, i would expect to have several relationships, inside of which i am monagamous. and of course at this point, i have a hard time imagining ever meeting anyone i could put up with.... thinking about sex makes me think alot about high school. perhaps this happens to everyone. i was of course going to stay a virgin until i got married. i couldn't imagine marrying a man who had slept with someone else before me... but now it seems more like i couldn't imagine marrying a man. the biggest draw for me in highschool was the finality of it- you couldn't go back- but i wanted to know so badly just how it felt. it wasn't until i was 22 that i discovered GIRLS could masturbate too, and now i could imagine it, and that gave me even more freedom from the tyrany of my christian high school thoughts. but i definately reflect jamie's attitude of, darn, lets just get it over with. i still don't regret it, even if i wasn't in love. and now it's over, and i can move on!
the show is going to be in march. i will want pics for my portfolio, so if i can get them digital, i will certainly post them here. i don't even wanna think about it with vday. it's apparently going to be a huge family affair- allie and samir, mom and marty and my aunt deann (justine's mom) and my grandma are all flying in to see it. the pressure!
ch has been having stomach problems, and so hasn't been going out drinking much, which is sad, but has also switched from coffee to tea, which makes me happy! i love tea drinkers! tea is so wonderful. i fully believe in it. i love what my flower remedy book says about the placebo effect. scientists are all upetty about whether flower remedies actually work or if it's all placebo, and they're like, it's the placebo effect itself that should be studied! isn't it amazing that just by thinking the brain can heal the body? shouldn't we learn to harness this energy and make the placebo effect work for us? i found it very interesting. and it makes me not worry if it's "real" or placebo. it doesn't matter as long as healing is occuring!
as far as my 100 goals- i don't work really hard at them. it's just a bit of shape showing me what's important in my life. it was an assignment in a's positive thinking class in high school, so i made the list then, and have been editing it and adding to it ever since. it used to be very polarized, i felt like i could become this musical woodsdwelling craftsman mennonite, or a wild punk hippie artist pagan. i seem to have chosen that latter, and my acchievements seem to reflect that. but i may swing back around.
cecilia, my director also thinks lapels can be romantic, and i have a whole character whose costumes i need to make less lawyery and more feminine, so this was good advice! and think about all the fancy chocolates you get in exchange for having to drive out of the country to go to lush.
i do use blog explosion. and i like it to read new blogs, but i haven't found any super winners yet, though i'm sure i will. it's good for getting my counter numbers up, though i haven't had anyone from blogexplosion comment yet. and lets face it, the commenters count more than the readers do!
as for blogging itself- the relationship a blogger has with one's blog is always facinating. and where the diologue occurs. for instance- when i wrote this entry, i had just made a comment on cecilia's blog with what i thought was righteous anger- someone had dissed my friend cecilia and i was sticking up for her. i would have liked that in the midst of all the you poor thing i'm sorry for you comments (don't get me wrong, i'd want those too!) but then someone else didn't, she posted, "umm, caitlin, we're supposed to be cheering cecilia up here" (which i thought i was doing, but i guess it could be interpreted differently) and it could have scared me away from commenting forever if cecilia hadn't posted a thank you for it on my blog. this and blog explosion have helped me see that it's not something magical or revealing about blogging that's special, there are the same relationships in the outside world as in this little inside one. all the rightwing blogs have taught me that!
it's funny to me that all of jamie's readers are strangers. all my commenters (well, except for a allie and justine) are strangers, but i think i have friends far away who read. that was how i started, so i would have to type fewer emails. and look where it's gone from there! hours and hours online every night!
nothing is better for insomnia than sympathy. nothing is better for depression than sleep. and baths and candles really do help with both, often. thank you all. i promise to learn to use my camera before i meet you, so i will take wonderful pics.
jamie, i'm sorry but i don't have a scanner, so i don't think i'll ever be able to post more baby pics. perhaps justine will oblige, though! cecilia, it actually wasn't lollypops but popsicles! there's another family story about grumpy kids not wanting to have the family picture taken, and my youngest cousin was crying cause she wanted a popsicle. and so there were arguemnts about which was more unsightly, having a crying kid or a kid with a popsicle... there are some of both, and at the end there are pictures of the whole family with popcicles...
anyway. consider yourselves answered. i promise to do a better job in the future. don't let it deter you from commenting!
9.2.05
the 5 most caring things ever done for me
1. when i was living at su casa, and feeling very unstable and rather depressed, the only things that kept me from up and leaving what seemed like a horrible decision in my life was my love of chicago and the joy of working with ruth. i clung to her like my life vest on a sinking boat, and it made her feel uncomfortable and a bit stifled, i think. and then she was planning on leaving for 2 weeks to vacation in texas. i wasn't sure what life at su casa was going to be like without her, but the day she left she slid the nicest little love letter under my door, saying how i was going to be alright, and how i could talk to other people in the house about different things, and i should ignore the rest of them and she'd be back soon.. it was so needed, right then. i felt known, and cared for.
2. my grandma had had a heart attack and it was a huge surprise to everyone. i was just in shock, and wanted to stay at home where i could process. but supposedly you need family at such times, so i was imported back to pa. i was uncomfortable enough with the new shape of the world anyway, and really didn't want to deal with that unfamiliar environment. it was dad's mom and so i was staying at his house, which i'd never done before. i was home alone because dad was at work, and the phone rang. i answered it, and it was amy, and she said, "i'm driving up (from outside of philly) today. can i rescue you?" and so she gave me what i miss most in pa- transportation. we visited the necessary relatives, we went shopping on penn ave, she was something familar to my life in a topsy-turvy world.
3. i was having a hard time with the whole homosexuality thing, and with church in general, and esp. as i was thinking it was more and more ok by god, and learning that the vineyard was not on the same page as me. they were doing these round table discussions on heated issues, or relevant ones, or something, i don't remember. and one sunday the topic was homosexuality, and mairee said she was so afraid of it, she wanted to be at my table, and i said i was too, that i was living in delusion and the shit was about to hit the fan. and it did. the discussion was painful, and that was bad for mairee, but the sermon was what was really awful for me, i didn't know whether to cry or walk out. i think that may have been the exact moment the christian part of me died. but while i was sitting there mairee dropped a little slip of paper in my bible and it said "i *heart* U" and i knew there were relationships in my life more important than my relationship with jesus.
4. last year right before valentine's day there was a fire in the appartment next to mine. it's a long story involving running through smoky halways and stairwells, living on g's floor for a week, broken windows, wet carpet, ruined possesions, and no renter's insurance. and i was starting a new semester at school. and working v-day at the flowershop. so stressed and fragile. the mail carrier left me a note that i had to go to the post office (my box, in the lobby, was undamaged) to sign for a package, and so i left work early one day to got to the middle of the ghetto where my stupid post office is. i got there 2 minutes after they closed, and they wouldn't let me in. i was so hurt, and full of rage, RAGE! i was crying to the postmistress, and she turned me away. i stood screaming in the parking lot for a few minutes, the thugs looking at me strangely as they walked by. caught the bus home and couldn't stop crying, it was scary. i called g from my cell phone and she answered! can i come over i sobbed, and she said sure. she made me tea and petted me while i cried and cried and cried. she petted my back as i whined about all my woes. and then i had to go to my darkroom class (which i had missed the week before due to fire related activities) so she helped me stop and sent me on my way.
4b. actually, i just thought of a better g one. this was 4 months before the fire, on halloween, i was all dressed up and took some flowers to mairee after work. well her new (at the time) boyfriend dave was there, and he'd already brought her flowers, and was making her happy. and we made waffles with strawberries, and he put all her strawberries in a heart on her waffle and outlined it in whipped cream. i felt so superfluous, i went home pretty early and took a bath to try and get out of my depression. but i ended up feeling worse, and i shaved my legs. the next day i was at g's, and i told her i was feeling bad, and i mentioned the legs, and she took it so seriously. she's like, i don't care if it's a school night, we need to get out of here, go to a coffee shop or something, tell me what's going on. it made me feel so good to be so well known, to have someone recoginze what a sign shaving is in my life.
5. and finally, most recently, i'd been out of touch with bethany for a while. but last summer i wrote her a big long letter catching her up as to what i'd been doing that year. and i was really honest about the things in my life, and then one day in early september she called me up! we have a penpal relationship, so this was quite a surprise. and she called me up to see how i was doing because of mom's wedding. she remembered her parents remarrying, and the struggles that caused in her, and she wanted me to take her number with me and to call anytime i needed to in the whole wild wedding weekend. i felt understood, and loved in spite of my inperfections.
so the next time i'm feeling lonely and whiny, i need to remember what good friends i have, and how they've helped me through whiny and lonely times before!
2. my grandma had had a heart attack and it was a huge surprise to everyone. i was just in shock, and wanted to stay at home where i could process. but supposedly you need family at such times, so i was imported back to pa. i was uncomfortable enough with the new shape of the world anyway, and really didn't want to deal with that unfamiliar environment. it was dad's mom and so i was staying at his house, which i'd never done before. i was home alone because dad was at work, and the phone rang. i answered it, and it was amy, and she said, "i'm driving up (from outside of philly) today. can i rescue you?" and so she gave me what i miss most in pa- transportation. we visited the necessary relatives, we went shopping on penn ave, she was something familar to my life in a topsy-turvy world.
3. i was having a hard time with the whole homosexuality thing, and with church in general, and esp. as i was thinking it was more and more ok by god, and learning that the vineyard was not on the same page as me. they were doing these round table discussions on heated issues, or relevant ones, or something, i don't remember. and one sunday the topic was homosexuality, and mairee said she was so afraid of it, she wanted to be at my table, and i said i was too, that i was living in delusion and the shit was about to hit the fan. and it did. the discussion was painful, and that was bad for mairee, but the sermon was what was really awful for me, i didn't know whether to cry or walk out. i think that may have been the exact moment the christian part of me died. but while i was sitting there mairee dropped a little slip of paper in my bible and it said "i *heart* U" and i knew there were relationships in my life more important than my relationship with jesus.
4. last year right before valentine's day there was a fire in the appartment next to mine. it's a long story involving running through smoky halways and stairwells, living on g's floor for a week, broken windows, wet carpet, ruined possesions, and no renter's insurance. and i was starting a new semester at school. and working v-day at the flowershop. so stressed and fragile. the mail carrier left me a note that i had to go to the post office (my box, in the lobby, was undamaged) to sign for a package, and so i left work early one day to got to the middle of the ghetto where my stupid post office is. i got there 2 minutes after they closed, and they wouldn't let me in. i was so hurt, and full of rage, RAGE! i was crying to the postmistress, and she turned me away. i stood screaming in the parking lot for a few minutes, the thugs looking at me strangely as they walked by. caught the bus home and couldn't stop crying, it was scary. i called g from my cell phone and she answered! can i come over i sobbed, and she said sure. she made me tea and petted me while i cried and cried and cried. she petted my back as i whined about all my woes. and then i had to go to my darkroom class (which i had missed the week before due to fire related activities) so she helped me stop and sent me on my way.
4b. actually, i just thought of a better g one. this was 4 months before the fire, on halloween, i was all dressed up and took some flowers to mairee after work. well her new (at the time) boyfriend dave was there, and he'd already brought her flowers, and was making her happy. and we made waffles with strawberries, and he put all her strawberries in a heart on her waffle and outlined it in whipped cream. i felt so superfluous, i went home pretty early and took a bath to try and get out of my depression. but i ended up feeling worse, and i shaved my legs. the next day i was at g's, and i told her i was feeling bad, and i mentioned the legs, and she took it so seriously. she's like, i don't care if it's a school night, we need to get out of here, go to a coffee shop or something, tell me what's going on. it made me feel so good to be so well known, to have someone recoginze what a sign shaving is in my life.
5. and finally, most recently, i'd been out of touch with bethany for a while. but last summer i wrote her a big long letter catching her up as to what i'd been doing that year. and i was really honest about the things in my life, and then one day in early september she called me up! we have a penpal relationship, so this was quite a surprise. and she called me up to see how i was doing because of mom's wedding. she remembered her parents remarrying, and the struggles that caused in her, and she wanted me to take her number with me and to call anytime i needed to in the whole wild wedding weekend. i felt understood, and loved in spite of my inperfections.
so the next time i'm feeling lonely and whiny, i need to remember what good friends i have, and how they've helped me through whiny and lonely times before!
8.2.05
being in two places at once
well. yesterday as we were closing up ch and i discovered that he thought i'd be working at the flowershop today, and i thought i'd be costuming. it was a few tense moments, but i called into the costume shop and said i wouldn't be coming in till one, and told ch i could work until noon. then since i was downtown i did some shopping for the last few things i needed. remember thursday when i was so depressed, and i brought my shopping right home, instead of taking it to the costume shop? well, now i had two days of shopping to haul to the sears tower, get xrayed, and store in the back of our tiny flowershop till noon. then i had to haul it down to 14th street. i saw risha! i didn't actually talk to her, her mom and aunt were in town, and they were being parents with tom, asking about her job prospects, etc. it was funny to hear someone else's parents doing that. i was hanging up all of my garments in the dressing room. i got through the painful conversation with patty and tom. ("no, i don't have renderings. i'll do them after i get the research tonight. i know it should be done by now. i know i won't be in till next wednesday. i know i won't be around to ask questions. i'll courier the rendering to you. i'll give you all my phone numbers. i'm sorry. i don't know what else to do.") and then proceeded to bitch for the rest of the afternoon to tom, and when he left, to pam who was sticking around long enough to help me push the costumes to the 11th street building. (4 blocks = 1/2 mile) it was really good bitching, not at all like the stuff i did with g over church. this made me feel much better afterwards. they gave me such good feedback, telling me they were on my side and that they thought i was doing a good job with what i've got, and that it's my stage manager and frances (my advisor, who i live in fear of)'s faults that i'm so far behind. i'm doing the best i can here! but i've wondered why i've been so lost. and aparently they were supposed to tell me stuff! so i feel forgiven by tom, and pam is in solidarity, and sympathetic. so pam and i put all my costumes in garment bags, put them in a big wheeled bin, and drug them to 11th street at 3. the director came right as i was finishing my lunch. i've been doing an ok job! we were REALLY rushed during the end, so i'm not sure if she got a chance to tell me everything that's wrong with my men, but it seemed i'm mostly on the right track. there's only about 8 items she nixed, and i'll have to find again. (of course, each and every one needs to be returned to a different store...) some of my fave things she said no to, and some of the things i was worried about she loved, but every time we talk i have a better feel about the way she feels about the characters, so... after that, rehersal had started, so i drug my costumes back to 14th street. we had just thrown them in the bin, so i hung them up again carefully sorted by character, and made notes about what i still needed, and pulled out the rejected items. then i walked back to roosevelt (12th) and took the bus to fishmans. i arrived there at 5.30- when they closed. so i went accross the street to vogue. they were open til 6, so i decided to screw it all and buy whatever angelic fabric i could find. i got 6 yards of this white polyester knit with gold glitter flameish shapes on it. it sheds glitter everywhere. i can return it and only loose 20%. i'm not convinced i'll be able to convince others, but i'm not sure how much complaining they can do at this point in the game. it was really heavy, but the 12 bus WOULD NOT COME, and it's getting colder and colder (the 50s of this weekend have dropped back to the 20s) and so i walked the whole way back to state. and went to the grocery store. and lugged my groceries all the way to 11th and columbus. but wait! it gets better! i'm exhausted from all this pushing and pulling and lugging all day, and am so happy to be home, and the bus stops at 53rd street... and waits. the driver says he's gonna have to wait for a few minutes because he's ahead of scedule! i got off, and carried my grocerys the extra block. the joy of being home! i put my frozen pizza in the oven, and it was very reminicent of ramón. not that my frumpy oven can hold an electric coil to the sexyness of ramón. (for all those who pay attenton to such things, even here in america i only eat 1/2 a frozen pizza)i bought florida strawberries, and i washed them and picked out the mushy ones and ate them, and cut the tops off the others and put them in my be happy mug, and so now they smile at me every time i open the refrigerator door. i'm still too tired to do renderings, though. they'll have to wait till tomorrow night.
so it may still all be ok, but i'm not promising anything until after v-day. all of our supplies came today. i didn't think there was enough room in the shop for all those boxes. i started unpacking while ch ate lunch, and then as i left, he was doing vase jenga- stacking rows of vases on the upper shelves- then putting cardboard on top of them and putting another row of vases on top of that, right up to the ceiling. it looks very precarious. don't sneeze. it's crazy compared to the huge warehouse of the old shop- we would premake BOXES there! and just stack them up! it's hard to imagine in the sears tower. the plea's still out there- anyone who wants to work saturday or sunday, just let me know! you can't make enough to pay for a plane ticket, but perhaps if you take a greyhound...
so it may still all be ok, but i'm not promising anything until after v-day. all of our supplies came today. i didn't think there was enough room in the shop for all those boxes. i started unpacking while ch ate lunch, and then as i left, he was doing vase jenga- stacking rows of vases on the upper shelves- then putting cardboard on top of them and putting another row of vases on top of that, right up to the ceiling. it looks very precarious. don't sneeze. it's crazy compared to the huge warehouse of the old shop- we would premake BOXES there! and just stack them up! it's hard to imagine in the sears tower. the plea's still out there- anyone who wants to work saturday or sunday, just let me know! you can't make enough to pay for a plane ticket, but perhaps if you take a greyhound...
7.2.05
letter to christie
dear christie,
oh, i'm so glad you loved weetzie and her feathers and glitter! i adored time traveler's wife as well. it's a bit embarassing how quickly i read it. what a beautiful book- crying on the bus, again.... i love all the chicago things, too. all of a sudden it's 1999 and they're looking at the fireworks over lake michigan- wait! i remember watching those very same fireworks, from the south! i refuse to believe such characters are fictional. it was really well composed- i would love to read it again sorting it so you read it in chronological order from claire's perspective- or from henry's! terribly busy with my show and v-day right now. i don't think it will ever end. if you are interested in seeing it when i'm all done, it will run from march 1-13th. much of my family is coming for opening night on the 5th. i can give you specific times if you're interested! someday, when it's all over and i only have to worry about classes (!) we'll have to have tea again. i'm so pleased by your tulips- they don't usally last this long. you must have a special touch!
love,
caitlin
p.s. if anyone will be in chicago, and wants to work at the flowershop this weekend, let me know! no previous experience necessary!
oh, i'm so glad you loved weetzie and her feathers and glitter! i adored time traveler's wife as well. it's a bit embarassing how quickly i read it. what a beautiful book- crying on the bus, again.... i love all the chicago things, too. all of a sudden it's 1999 and they're looking at the fireworks over lake michigan- wait! i remember watching those very same fireworks, from the south! i refuse to believe such characters are fictional. it was really well composed- i would love to read it again sorting it so you read it in chronological order from claire's perspective- or from henry's! terribly busy with my show and v-day right now. i don't think it will ever end. if you are interested in seeing it when i'm all done, it will run from march 1-13th. much of my family is coming for opening night on the 5th. i can give you specific times if you're interested! someday, when it's all over and i only have to worry about classes (!) we'll have to have tea again. i'm so pleased by your tulips- they don't usally last this long. you must have a special touch!
love,
caitlin
p.s. if anyone will be in chicago, and wants to work at the flowershop this weekend, let me know! no previous experience necessary!
6.2.05
google searches that lead you here
i love when my refering sites are google searches! what makes people actually click on my site? so far, people have clicked on unglaubliche caitlin while searching for:
2. Laugenbrötchen (in an english page) -you looking for someone to talk about laugenbrötchen in english? i'd love to talk about laugenbrötchen in english!
3. sexy salesgirl lampoon xmas vacation -hmmm. i am not a sexy salesgirl, and haven't seen lampoon in a long time.
5. "sweet water taste" - i wish there was more out there on it than just my blog!
6. insomnia remedies - MELATONIN! i hope you come back and read this! MELATONIN is the way to go!
8. caitlin -that's me! was i who you were looking for?
9. free pictures of short hairstyles 0f 2005 - hmm. i have a long hairstyle. and no picture of it.
10. scary hairy caitlin - this is the best descriptor yet. i hope i was what you were looking for
11.ikea beddinge repair - if you find a site, let me know. mine has a hard time going flat these days
12 .morrocco clothing designer - close, but no cigar
13. "hyde park records" red eye - got the first part, but not the second.
14. "polaski day" faq- what do you want to know about it? he was a polish general, the first imigrant to die for the north, i think, in the civil war? or was it the american revolution?
16. anna madrigal anagrams- yep. i had a post about this. i've got examples i can text you if you'd like
17.futon covers blog- the source of my first spam comment! promptly deleted and banned.
19. Laugenbretzeln- apparently the most oft mentioned brot in my blog
21.pics and stories of women that like to castrate there men- it's a RABBIT! i know sometimes i use too many german words, but i want you to know this is a GERMAN bunny we are talking about castrating! here
25. pictures of allie's hairstyles in the notebook- pics of allie, but no notebook
26. tamora Pierce quotes adn pictures- quotes and pics, but not of tamora
27. Movie Critque, Kissing Jessica Stein- i love it! if you come back i can give you more details
28. "freeling pot and pan"- i may be the most reliable source, actually
30. over the rhine "drunkard's prayer" - yep, there's a whole post about it
31. "cut up socks"- hmm. lots of cut up things, lots of socks, but not together i don't think
33. Murray's beeswax removal - just for you, z! she called me today about pomade removal! (dish soap works)
35. Kira stonyfield farm- two different subjects, again
36. trinia- page 55! someone's bored.
37. "come around and say you love me" stars- tonight. i hope you figured it out.
39justine kira in my site
40"funky birthday gifts"
41seafoam ballet dress carrie
42 "40 spices hummus"
43.more hairy caitlin. 3of em to be exact.
44nbtsc fucked
45Caitlin blau
46ani difranco met annie lamott
49nick bancock
50"hairstyles of the damned"
"beeswax removal"
discrimitation by red cross flag
bagdhad cafe soundtrack
QueeReligious Chicago
jamie heidingsfelder
caitlin allie
shaving armpits dreadlocks
stephinotis
"smallest feet"
rasta mango hair
stephinotis
rosexpressions - uhoh. customers on my blog?
michigan womyns festival
buckets of baby's breath
"philly dykes"
how many of these should i collect before i delete the boring ones?
2. Laugenbrötchen (in an english page) -you looking for someone to talk about laugenbrötchen in english? i'd love to talk about laugenbrötchen in english!
3. sexy salesgirl lampoon xmas vacation -hmmm. i am not a sexy salesgirl, and haven't seen lampoon in a long time.
5. "sweet water taste" - i wish there was more out there on it than just my blog!
6. insomnia remedies - MELATONIN! i hope you come back and read this! MELATONIN is the way to go!
8. caitlin -that's me! was i who you were looking for?
9. free pictures of short hairstyles 0f 2005 - hmm. i have a long hairstyle. and no picture of it.
10. scary hairy caitlin - this is the best descriptor yet. i hope i was what you were looking for
11.ikea beddinge repair - if you find a site, let me know. mine has a hard time going flat these days
12 .morrocco clothing designer - close, but no cigar
13. "hyde park records" red eye - got the first part, but not the second.
14. "polaski day" faq- what do you want to know about it? he was a polish general, the first imigrant to die for the north, i think, in the civil war? or was it the american revolution?
16. anna madrigal anagrams- yep. i had a post about this. i've got examples i can text you if you'd like
17.futon covers blog- the source of my first spam comment! promptly deleted and banned.
19. Laugenbretzeln- apparently the most oft mentioned brot in my blog
21.pics and stories of women that like to castrate there men- it's a RABBIT! i know sometimes i use too many german words, but i want you to know this is a GERMAN bunny we are talking about castrating! here
25. pictures of allie's hairstyles in the notebook- pics of allie, but no notebook
26. tamora Pierce quotes adn pictures- quotes and pics, but not of tamora
27. Movie Critque, Kissing Jessica Stein- i love it! if you come back i can give you more details
28. "freeling pot and pan"- i may be the most reliable source, actually
30. over the rhine "drunkard's prayer" - yep, there's a whole post about it
31. "cut up socks"- hmm. lots of cut up things, lots of socks, but not together i don't think
33. Murray's beeswax removal - just for you, z! she called me today about pomade removal! (dish soap works)
35. Kira stonyfield farm- two different subjects, again
36. trinia- page 55! someone's bored.
37. "come around and say you love me" stars- tonight. i hope you figured it out.
39justine kira in my site
40"funky birthday gifts"
41seafoam ballet dress carrie
42 "40 spices hummus"
43.more hairy caitlin. 3of em to be exact.
44nbtsc fucked
45Caitlin blau
46ani difranco met annie lamott
49nick bancock
50"hairstyles of the damned"
"beeswax removal"
discrimitation by red cross flag
bagdhad cafe soundtrack
QueeReligious Chicago
jamie heidingsfelder
caitlin allie
shaving armpits dreadlocks
stephinotis
"smallest feet"
rasta mango hair
stephinotis
rosexpressions - uhoh. customers on my blog?
michigan womyns festival
buckets of baby's breath
"philly dykes"
how many of these should i collect before i delete the boring ones?
ode to 53rd st
the cloud has broken! i was so worried it would last until the show was over, but i feel so much better now! i went to the tiny consignment shop on harper at 53rd, and the saleslady was so nice and friendly. i didn't find anything for my show, but i was starting to feel like i'd accomplished something today. i decided that since i was out, i should see if there was a clothing store in harper court. i walked all around it's twisty staircases and balconies, past dr. wax and the calypso cafe and baby phd. no clothing store. however, there was a cool looking toy store called toys etcetera. i peeked in the windows and went in. it was glorious. reminds me of funtoysia back in reading, all the neccessary things for a good toy store, playmobil, legos, brio trains, ravensburger games, craft kits, books, etc etc etc. crayola has a new set of "multicultural" markers- they are 8 different skin colors. there was a harried indian woman there chasing after her son, who was poised to grow up to be a bollywood hearthrob (he looked just like the star of the movie i saw on my flight back from germany), and his fellow 10 year old friend. there was a dad with a pale, pale pink baby in a front pack who had huge eyes gazing around at all the colors and shapes, stunned just like i was. i was trying to decide if i could ever justify buying my own the incredible labrynth. i know i wouldn't be able to convince my friends to play the enchanted forest... but i decided aganst it, as i already have games that i don't play. need to find some game playing friends. we seem to just sit and talk. i guess there's too much to do out in chicago. as i walked back home i passed the healthfood store, which was packed, i was glad to see. i like to know natural health is important to people besides white northsiders. i finally bought more of my favourite dishsoap (ecover chaomomile and marigold) and some other random items. walking home i was rejoicing in living in hyde park, what a wonderful place it would be to raise a family, there's anything you could possibly want in a neighborhood execept a gay bar. there's the beach, the park, the university. the lakefront path, the shops on 53rd, ida noyes hall- independent movies, yoga lessons, folk dancing and more, all in one building. there's the bowling lanes, the track, the swimming pool. 53rd alone holds the freeling pot and pan comany, hyde park produce, 2 used music stores and lots and lots of restaurants. there are lots of wonderful things on 57th street that i don't even know about yet cause i'm so rarely down that way. i know about the 24hour kinkos and the medici bakery, though. and we have wonderful things that no other place in the world has, like boyjan's baazar, with funky ethinc unicef trinkets and beads. or the co-op, the countries largest and longest running co-operative grocery store. or rajun cajun, which serves vegetarian indian food- also non-vegetarian and soul food. (we think it must be the product of a mixed marriage). i love hyde park. if i'm going to be in america, i can think of no other place i'd rather live. as i was coming home last night, walking up the steps from the subway, there was a map on the wall of the rta throughout the city and the suburbs, and the you are here sticker in the middle of the loop and i got a quick rush of that feeling you get when you're on vacation. "i'm in the mainz altstadt and it's snowing!" "i can't believe i'm actually walking through central park!" "here i am riding the subway in the loop-" but wait- this is my Real Life. it's not vacation. all my trials and pain actually take place in a big city full of people who are like me and who aren't. where i can ride public transportation. where i have my own tiny studio apartment. so, dear readers, know that i have again reached a point of contentment, and be glad.
sleeping the day away
i'm hating this life of subsistence i'm leading. the play will someday be over, the play will someday be over. who would still read here? i wouldn't. i'd be sick of my whiny butt. i'd come back after i'd gotten over it. i suppose hating your own whining is the first step in stopping whining, so perhaps i'm on the right track there.
the party went fine last night. i chose as my costume "generic midiveal peasant" and wore a burgandy stretch velvet dress with big sleeves and my navy velvet corset, and a turqoise bandana on my dreads. i fit right in. i would have definally been pegged too strange to talk to at g's party, but pam's a goth and i learned many of her (very nice, pleasant, easy to talk to) friends are also into that whole scene- there were only 3 girls there without corsets on. jen and her roommate sarah were there, and that was nice, to know people. i do like being with jen, i always forget, because she is so impossible to talk to on aim. i would never be able to stay friends with her if she moved away, but if we're both in chicago, we should stay friends. and they were taking the irving park bus the whole way home and knew when the last one was running (leaves harlem at 11.53) so i didn't feel bad leaving early, and i could take the first bus with them. of course, the just had to ride it for 30 min. and walk 4 blocks south. i had to ride it for 15 min, take the blue line 45 min to the loop, walk a block to state, catch the #6 bus and take that 30 min. home. how can pam and i possibly live in the same city when i can travel an hour and a half in aprroximately the same direction to get to her house? and neither one of us are right on the city limits, though pam is alot closer than i am. it's crazy. chicago's huge.
and now i'm procrastinating terribly. i woke up at 11. jen and i discussed perhaps going to ikea when the crazyness is over, so i got my bag of goldfish and my ikea catalog and broused through it for a while deciding what i'd get. i finished off the bag of goldfish and spent the next hour and 1/2 thinking about how i needed to get up. it's crazy. i just stare into space, play with my dreadlocks, plump my duvet. to try and get myself moving i turned on my computer so i can play my 16 min. breakfast mix (just enough to get you moving, when it's over you have to get to work) and well, you see where that's gotten me.
but i am going to go thrift store shopping today. i am going to pay my bills, write my rent check, put together a proposal for mairee's wedding flowers. honest. as soon as i stop staring straight ahead.
the party went fine last night. i chose as my costume "generic midiveal peasant" and wore a burgandy stretch velvet dress with big sleeves and my navy velvet corset, and a turqoise bandana on my dreads. i fit right in. i would have definally been pegged too strange to talk to at g's party, but pam's a goth and i learned many of her (very nice, pleasant, easy to talk to) friends are also into that whole scene- there were only 3 girls there without corsets on. jen and her roommate sarah were there, and that was nice, to know people. i do like being with jen, i always forget, because she is so impossible to talk to on aim. i would never be able to stay friends with her if she moved away, but if we're both in chicago, we should stay friends. and they were taking the irving park bus the whole way home and knew when the last one was running (leaves harlem at 11.53) so i didn't feel bad leaving early, and i could take the first bus with them. of course, the just had to ride it for 30 min. and walk 4 blocks south. i had to ride it for 15 min, take the blue line 45 min to the loop, walk a block to state, catch the #6 bus and take that 30 min. home. how can pam and i possibly live in the same city when i can travel an hour and a half in aprroximately the same direction to get to her house? and neither one of us are right on the city limits, though pam is alot closer than i am. it's crazy. chicago's huge.
and now i'm procrastinating terribly. i woke up at 11. jen and i discussed perhaps going to ikea when the crazyness is over, so i got my bag of goldfish and my ikea catalog and broused through it for a while deciding what i'd get. i finished off the bag of goldfish and spent the next hour and 1/2 thinking about how i needed to get up. it's crazy. i just stare into space, play with my dreadlocks, plump my duvet. to try and get myself moving i turned on my computer so i can play my 16 min. breakfast mix (just enough to get you moving, when it's over you have to get to work) and well, you see where that's gotten me.
but i am going to go thrift store shopping today. i am going to pay my bills, write my rent check, put together a proposal for mairee's wedding flowers. honest. as soon as i stop staring straight ahead.
5.2.05
where a truce is tacitly observed
here i am, standing in a circle of quiet, waitng for the world to turn. turn away from all this damn stress. completely ignored my show all day today. took me an hour to get out of bed, it was bad. i'd had enough sleep, but i kept getting distracted. staring off into space. i showered, ate breakfast, and finally picked up my apartment. even the desk. didn't vacuum or recycle the newspapers or anything, but the flat surfaces are cleared off. as i was finishing g called to come over for her pants. so i had to mend those, and she babbled to me as i fixed them. one pair had to be patched by hand, so i'm glad she kept me company for that. we had lunch, and then she stuck around longer and we ended up talking about church, which was bad. not in a she's a christian i'm not sort of way. but i guess she's left the vineyard for the same reasons i did- the difficult, false community. and talking about bad things sometimes is refreshing, and you get new insights or perspective or impowerment. and sometimes it just makes you feel lousy. this was a lousy time. it reminded me of the time ruth and i went to audrey's, back when both of them lived in chicago. and we bitched about su casa, and it made us both depressed. i miss community. even bad community? i ask myself. i wonder.
in a more bitchy form of depression. ignored my mom when she called today. can't believe i have to go to pam's party tonight. i think i'm low enough i can fake cheerfulness, though. it's weird. when i get bad enough at some point i trancend letting my feelings show, and i can be totally charming and look like i'm having a great time when i'm dying inside. it's strange, and never dependable. sometimes i'm having a good time but can't convey it. other times i have to be just how i feel. and then there's this. don't ask me.
sweet pea- for the traveler or wanderer; inability to establish roots in commuity, or to commit oneself to larger community needs
over the rhine- circle of quiet
in a more bitchy form of depression. ignored my mom when she called today. can't believe i have to go to pam's party tonight. i think i'm low enough i can fake cheerfulness, though. it's weird. when i get bad enough at some point i trancend letting my feelings show, and i can be totally charming and look like i'm having a great time when i'm dying inside. it's strange, and never dependable. sometimes i'm having a good time but can't convey it. other times i have to be just how i feel. and then there's this. don't ask me.
sweet pea- for the traveler or wanderer; inability to establish roots in commuity, or to commit oneself to larger community needs
over the rhine- circle of quiet
4.2.05
the heidingsfelder family theory of the photogenicness of german women
as we were drinking and looking at eva's pictures, eva discribed this amazing american phenomenon- americans can be anywhere, drunk in a dark bar, unable to see anything or even be halfway aware of what's happening, but if someone's taking a picture, they know exactly where to look, how and when to smile. as an example of this, she showed us photos of her and 3 american friends in a dark bar. sure enough, it was easy to tell which one the german was. ruth says that americans are trained how to be photographed from a small age, so they learn exactly how to look when photographed. while it is not fail safe, i must admit that i do have my smile that is often very successful in photographs. however, meike is so cute that she always comes out adorable in photographs. so perhaps she was taught some sort of american trick.
but i wonder too, how much it has to do with the talent of the photographer?
for instance this one would show how cute meike is on her balkon if she was only big enough you could see her:
and here is another pic of ruth & tobi to show what germans usally look like when photographed...but you see, americans, you point the camera at them and they smile, germans, they keep fighting. you need to actually tell them you are going to take a picture or it turns out like this:
now, as proof that it's just the germans and americans even look good while talking in photographs, here is g on the left and anne her roommate on the right:
and finally, i'm sure it has something to do with the camera. for instance, the previous 2 pics are much better with my manual focus camera- none of that focus-on-the-wall-between-them-with-the-people-blurry stuff. however, i can't figure out how to work the flash (which did not, of course, come with instructions) and so this adorable pic of meike with michi's christmas gift turned out looking like this:
i could go on, with pics of ruth and her rabbit vs. my family at the beach, however i want to keep this page easy to load for us poor dial-up chicks!
so i will end with my disclaimer that this does not mean americans are better looking than germans, or that germans can't be photographed well. the only theory i'm proposing is that in general americans grow up learning to be more photogenic than germans. at least in my experience!
spinning-i'm in love with a german film star by katell. which tops the most often played list on pearl.
but i wonder too, how much it has to do with the talent of the photographer?
for instance this one would show how cute meike is on her balkon if she was only big enough you could see her:
and here is another pic of ruth & tobi to show what germans usally look like when photographed...but you see, americans, you point the camera at them and they smile, germans, they keep fighting. you need to actually tell them you are going to take a picture or it turns out like this:
now, as proof that it's just the germans and americans even look good while talking in photographs, here is g on the left and anne her roommate on the right:
and finally, i'm sure it has something to do with the camera. for instance, the previous 2 pics are much better with my manual focus camera- none of that focus-on-the-wall-between-them-with-the-people-blurry stuff. however, i can't figure out how to work the flash (which did not, of course, come with instructions) and so this adorable pic of meike with michi's christmas gift turned out looking like this:
i could go on, with pics of ruth and her rabbit vs. my family at the beach, however i want to keep this page easy to load for us poor dial-up chicks!
so i will end with my disclaimer that this does not mean americans are better looking than germans, or that germans can't be photographed well. the only theory i'm proposing is that in general americans grow up learning to be more photogenic than germans. at least in my experience!
spinning-i'm in love with a german film star by katell. which tops the most often played list on pearl.
it keeps pushing
a bit more balanced today, i guess. too tired to be too frantic. i could not sleep last night, my melatonin didn't work. i kept getting up, reading a bit more of the time traveler's wife. almost turned on the computer and blogged again, but i was afraid it would wake me more up instead of make me more sleepy. so was so stupid today at work. i forget the sorts of things i did, but charles actually asked me if i'd been up late the night before. i was so, so depressed when i opened up my tupperware for lunch and instead of beinng full of mushroom stroganoff, it was just the pasta primavera that was leff from last week. ew. i was so sad. good thing i had coke left. that almost made up for it. but i ended up being tired and hungry, and charles bought this big bag of reeses pieces, so we ate those all afternoon till we were sick. then jack came down and spirited charles away and i finished closing up by myself. now i'm at home, ignoring the mess and the responsibily until tomorrow, eating my mac and cheese and drinking coke spiked with vanilla vodka.
i can think of way to tie this into something on my list. it's something ruth and i talked about in the casablanca, and then amy and i discussed it. ruth and i were talking about people in chicago she knew but i never made friends with. there was a german girl who stayed with us for a few days, ruth said she was northern german and very harsh and straightforward. i remember her as being interesing, and we talked one night as i was housemanaging. and she said something to me that i found very true, and painful. i'd said something, and she's like, yeah, you seem pretty low impact. ouch. but i could totally see it, and so much i don't like about myself comes back to being low impact. trying not to make waves, or even build character. i often choose a more simple life. it's too hard otherwise. and the more depressed i am, i'm also more inclined to be lower impact. so i'm hearing it especially right now. why were amy and i talking about it? i have absolutely no idea.
spinning- i won't be sleeping anymore by animal logic (coincidence?)
white chestnut (which i do have, thankfully)- for repetitive, circular thoughts; worries which drain energies and deprive one of sleep.
i can think of way to tie this into something on my list. it's something ruth and i talked about in the casablanca, and then amy and i discussed it. ruth and i were talking about people in chicago she knew but i never made friends with. there was a german girl who stayed with us for a few days, ruth said she was northern german and very harsh and straightforward. i remember her as being interesing, and we talked one night as i was housemanaging. and she said something to me that i found very true, and painful. i'd said something, and she's like, yeah, you seem pretty low impact. ouch. but i could totally see it, and so much i don't like about myself comes back to being low impact. trying not to make waves, or even build character. i often choose a more simple life. it's too hard otherwise. and the more depressed i am, i'm also more inclined to be lower impact. so i'm hearing it especially right now. why were amy and i talking about it? i have absolutely no idea.
spinning- i won't be sleeping anymore by animal logic (coincidence?)
white chestnut (which i do have, thankfully)- for repetitive, circular thoughts; worries which drain energies and deprive one of sleep.
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