veiled exuberance

none shall pass.

i'm having one of those get things done slowly with many interruptions and distractions kinds of days...you can tell by the state of my kitchen where i have two plants that i split off from the mothership plant (it has babies like it's never heard of birth control and pays no attention to the part where it's run out of pot in which to reproduce...so i'm pruning), components from rabbit cages in various states of being washed and dried, the broom propped up against the door - guarding the *accident* (all the dirt i managed to fling across the room in a grand arc when i ripped baby plants apart) - and garbage that's ready to go down to the dumpster as soon as i find some shoes.  well, as soon as i finish typing this and find some shoes and various sundry other stuff that occurs to me...

this is me being bored but trying to fill the time with stuff that has to get done anyway, but not feeling very motivated about any of it.  thus the many distractions.  if there was something i was *waiting* to do or, you know, something on the schedule to plan around, i'd be doing better. 

anyway.  back to it!

posted by: juuitsu at December 30, 2006 22:06 | link | comments |

random reference questions asked in the past couple of days:

1. do you have *that* movie about china?

er.  what movie would that be?
i don't know.  it's about china.
ok.  is it a non-fiction, documentary type thing about china?
no.  it's supposed to be good.
ok.  so it's a feature film?  it's made up?
yes.
do you know any of the actors who were in it?
no.
do you know anything about the plot?  what happens in the movie?
no.  i'm really not a movie expert.  neither is my husband.  i think there's an emperor in it...
have you checked it out here before?  did we definitely have it?
no.  i don't know if you have it.
ok.  just a sec.
[my search in our catalog: china and videorecording and emperor$]
ok, i've got a list of possibilities here...how about "the last emperor?"
that's it!
excellent.  let me show you where it is.

2.  i need help.
[yes, yes you do]

3. how does one address a letter to England?

4. how do you spell "relationship?"

5. there's something *wrong* with the computer. 
[best to go over and look, since this particular person can't articulate what sort of wrongness we're working with]

6. little boy: do you have that newspaper "new york bridge beast?" 
[wtf??]
new york bridge beast?
yeah.
it's...a newspaper?
well, yeah, it's in a newspaper.
is it a newspaper article?
yeah!
[mom walks over] what are you asking her?
for the newspaper about the new york bridge beast.
[mom shakes head]
quick search doesn't bring up anything except something from the Daily News almost a year ago.
when did this happen?
like in the last couple of days? 
huh.  not finding anything.
mom: honey, i think your teacher was joking.
[not sure what to do with this piece of information]
[little boy looks frustrated]
[mom drags little boy away from the desk]
mom: thanks!  sorry!
weird.

7. i need tax help.  where can i get some? 
[found: a list of local places that offer tax help for seniors and a phone number to call for more information; incidentally, we don't have any tax forms available yet, but people are getting a jump on things anyway]

8. i looked this book up and it says that you have it, but when i go to the shelf, it's not there.
oh oh.  what book?
the black pearl
scott o'dell?
yeah.
let's go over there and look again.
ok.
is this where you were looking?
yeah.
you're right, it's not there.  let's try over here...
oh hey!  there it is!
great!
[found: 6 books today that were misshelved.  ready to have a talk with the pages myself about paying ATTENTION and actually READING the spine labels.  our page supervisor is out for the next few weeks.]

9. do you have anything by subject? 
[this is actually the question that led into the question about the movie on china...]

10. suppose i had to use the restroom...where would i do that?
[curious way of asking where our bathrooms are...]

11. [panicked] where are all of your consumer reports magazines?  i can't find them!  are they ALL checked out? 

12. [on the phone]  do you have this book?
h: no.  i don't see that in our catalog.
p: ha!  yes you do!  a friend of mine donated a copy to the library a few days ago.
h: ??
p: well?  where is it?
h: the donations we receive go through our Friends group.  occasionally we select a few things to add to the collection, but most things are sold at the book sale.
p: WHAT?  THAT WAS A BRAND NEW BOOK!
h: [stunned silence]
p: WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?
h: we receive a lot of donations.  it's just not possible to add everything.
p: WELL.  i'm going to tell her what you DID.
h: i'm sorry.  would you like me to place a hold on the title and bring it in from another library?
p: certainly not.
[there have been a rash of calls like this in the past few weeks.  what the hell is with people donating things to the library and then wanting to know what's happened to them?  our gift policy, which, apparently should be handed out with every donation, clearly states that anything given to the library is to be used or disposed of at the library's discretion.  which means none of this, "where is that book i donated 10 months ago?"  we either added it or we didn't.  in which case, we don't hold onto it.  *sigh*]
me to h: so, if people get cranky with you like that again, you can always take a message and refer it to super r.  she's got about 3 more of these mysterious donations situations waiting for a peaceful resolution.

13. have you heard anything about the high school?
like what?
like, if it's any good.
um.  no, not really.  they have their report card on their website if you want to take a look at that...
oh.  ok.  i just thought you would have all the gossip.
[must control fist of death]
no, i'm sorry, i don't know much about it.  i've only worked with the school librarian, and she's great. 

posted by: juuitsu at December 29, 2006 02:13 | link | comments (2) |

i was going to go to the gym tonight, but i find that lethargy is just so much more appealing.  i shall stretch and yawn and sit comfortably and do not much of anything instead.  because when do i ever get a chance to do that?  hmm.  rarely, i guess.  it's lovely to still all of those, "ok and now it's time to do...and then after that we have to...and then after that..."  shut up!  and NO! 

i started reading "My Friend Leonard," by James Frey - it's the sequel to "A Million Little Pieces," and it's about what happens to him after he gets out of rehab.  same style as the last - very immediate, as if he's captured his thought process on paper.  it sounds like stuff in my head, or i process it that way - except, obviously, the content is pretty different because i'm not always thinking about how i really want a drink/hit of crack.  and that's not bad.

waiting, waiting, waiting for some chicken to defrost.

posted by: juuitsu at December 26, 2006 23:25 | link | comments (4) |

and another one is consumed by the holidays!  ack.  last night i felt like i'd been hit by a truck - mostly because i haven't slept properly in about 4 days, and it was starting to catch up with me. 

my body: you think things can go on like this?
me: yeah, so?  what's the problem?
my body: think again, wench. [shuts down]
me: *oof*  [thud]
my: that's right, wench.  who's the body?
me: mmph.
my body: and don't forget it.

i feel much better now. 

spent the holidays with the family (meaning MY family and not THE family - no connections to any family organizations that i'm aware of).  they always take a video of the unwrapping of presents, and no one was manning the camera this year, so we realized about an hour later that it had been trained on me the whole time.  great.  that's going to be...i dunno.  we never see these videos anyway, so who knows what they do with them.

so, my cousin's husband didn't give us a christmas list, and i had no idea what to get him.  i thought that he'd asked for nuts one previous christmas, so i decided to yust GO nuts myself and bought him about 5 different varieties of nuts.  which i wrapped separately.  soon everyone had the giggles because that's pretty much all he was getting - nuts...aaaand, more nuts...and hey, what's this?  NUTS!  i also gave him a duct tape wallet, which sent him completely over the edge.  i hope he uses it.  he's a very well-paid engineer, so this should be useful in...negotiating a raise?  i dunno.

we had our annual wrapping paper ball fight.  bom got beaned in the head early on in the games, and had to retire, but my brother and our cousin kept going for the duration.  bec's got decent aim.

i almost killed their dog.  he jumped on me while i was holding a plate of hors de oevures (and if i spelled that right, i'm impressed) and i used my knee to bump him off and he landed badly and then walked around for the next ten minutes or so with a pronounced limp.  and i kept thinking, great, i meet the dog and i break him and we all end up at the emergency vet on christmas eve.  just great.  but he was fine and didn't hold it against me, and was remarkably better-behaved the rest of the evening.  it irritates me when people say that their dogs are just uncontrollable and then it becomes obvious that the reason their dogs are out of hand is because they do absolutely nothing to show the dogs who's in charge.  ah well.  i guess dominating dogs just comes naturally to me.  :)  that, or injuring them.  *sigh*

oberon took me to this theater thingie on saturday that he said was supposed to be christmas-y and irreverent and that some of his friends were in.  so we get to the place where the thingie is supposed to be and it's a bizarre little play about two travelling actors who are playing this game where they become different characters (as a challenge and a way to pass the time) that live inside this castle that's off in the distance.  it was goofy and amusing and they were pretty talented.  i didn't always know exactly what was going on, but that didn't really bother me.  so, after that, we're wandering around the gallery and oberon says, "i don't know what that was, but it wasn't at all what i was led to believe..." and that's when we run into his friend and are informed that that was NOT their show, and their show is happening next.  oh!  ok.  so we stick around for their show...which takes forever to set up - probably because this is the first time ever (and only) that they are performing it.  it's supposed to be a new take on the nativity and they talk oberon and some other guys into being wise men and shepherds (who will be called upon to perform a worshipful service to the new baby jesus - or, in other words, a singing bass mounted to a wooden plaque).  they're finally ready and the show starts and it's just...awful.  the music's too loud and blaring, the singing, well, it can't really be heard over the music, the angels are doing weird things in the background, and playing behind it all is "it's a wonderful ife" - projected on a large screen behind them.  it's like if i got a bunch of my odd friends together and we did what we normally do and invited people to come and watch us do that.  um, except that we'd probably do it better.  i don't know.  it finally ended and they announced that a band was going to play next.  oh man.  i grabbed my coat and escaped.  oberon followed suit a few minutes later.  we rounded out the evening with a cardboard papertowel tube fencing match in his hallway that must have disturbed his neighbors as it was 2 in the morning.  or perhaps they were similarly engaged in battles of the recycling.  *shrug*  oberon's roommate came home in the middle of it and was all, "what the fuck?"  but then he climbed over us (we were laying in a heap on the floor at that point) and went about his business.

slept in a lot on xmess day and chatted with bro and the folks.  didn't actually open gifts until nearly noon (remember when you were little and this was the most exciting part?  we were up before dawn, then).  dad fixed this "standing rib roast"  for lunch (he used a recipe from Food & Wine magazine that was just amazing).  man.  it was heavenly.  served with mashed potatoes and corn.  i had a reprise for dinner when i got home.

i dragged oberon out of his house to come for a walk in the afternoon - he complained for a good 10 minutes about how cold and dreary and miserable it was outside (incidentally, he was right - it was cold and awful and ick out).  after some half-hearted frisbee playing, we wandered around on some paths and discovered a field of spiney dead plants, which we fought with until he smacked me in the face and we had to perform a delicate surgery to remove a particularly vicious spine from my cheek.  ow.  more alarming was the blood i could see welling just below my glasses.  couldn't tell how bad it was - o. assured me it was not too awful.  he was right.  put some neosporin on that when i got home and it's not too bad this morning.  he got some lacerations on his hand that he says are all red and angry now.  we skipped rocks for awhile - o. gave me some instruction, so now i'm a bit more skip-reliable (and possibly less dangerous to people standing nearby - i know you're thrilled about this, highsmileage).  when the sun began to wane we headed back to his place where we continued being violent, but less physically so.  videogames may not *cause* violence, but they're certainly good outlets for it.  we played some worms game where you have an alotted amount of time to do damage to another team of worms.  i was really really bad at it.  then we did some 2 person combat/duels with Soul Caliber characters.  that was fun.  similar set up as Smash Brothers - which i LOVE.  lots of whacking.  i have no idea what the buttons do, so i have to figure that out, and then these amazing things will happen through some combination of button mashing that i can't recreate.  but you know what?  it works.  get in close, whack your opponent a lot and/or throw/push them out of the ring.  perfect.  it was most satisfying.  and maybe some day i'll actually figure out what i'm doing and it'll even be skillful. 

hoo boy.  i have a lunch date, and i'm going to be really late if i don't leave now.  so.  buh-bye!

posted by: juuitsu at December 26, 2006 17:22 | link | comments |

while i was raving at the person in front of me while driving home this evening - why is everyone in my way? - i realized that i do a funny kind of superstitious thing.  when drivers in front of me are pissing me off, i wait until the last possible moment to signal any kind of lane change or turns because it makes me absolutely insane if they casually cut me off and thwart me YET AGAIN.  i mean, not like everyone ahead of me is just waiting to see what i do next and has no other more personal agenda...but, just in case.  about half the time they're going the same place i am and i curse them.  OH HOW I CURSE THEM.  but i still do this thing.  and also?  i like the word "thwart."  thwart thwart thwart.

posted by: juuitsu at December 22, 2006 03:30 | link | comments (1) |

storylady asked me, after i related last night's dream, if i'm "on any medication."  heh.  we all laughed a lot about that as she tried to correct herself, "no, no, you know how some PRESCRIBED medication can give you strange dreams..."  actually, i do know.  i was taking Larium when i was in Kenya as an anti-malarial, and it gave me really vivid dreams until some wanky bastard stole my prescription.  so then i had to get something else and it just gave me canker sores in my mouth.  FANtastic.  wild dreams/canker sores...what would YOU choose?  hmm?

dream:

i find out that there's "people software" - all kinds, apparently.  it all comes on thin discs, much like software for your computer - like they made the jump into developing stuff to run people better or boot them into other worlds, but it's still in a really raw, painful insertable format.  these discs are inserted into a slit/incision you make in your skin just above your hipbone.  the guy who's showing me jams in a disc to demonstrate and i cringe as i note his open wound, the grinding motion he makes to get the disc in properly, and the blood running down his thigh.  ow.  he was offering me some kind of trial experience...and it was supposed to be  "ecstasy" software.  it made the world kind of smoky and weird and you just loooooved everyone in it.  he booted us up, or rather, he booted himself up and took me along as a passenger so we didn't have to cut me open for me to experience it.  and after we'd mucked about in that place for awhile, he brought us back and gave me a box full of books and discs and toys and all of this other crap, which i carted off to my closet.  we hang out for a bit longer and then he says he'll be in touch.  the experience was really cool, but i was really freaked out by the discs, the process of using them, and just how messed up i'd be if i became addicted to all of that.  so the following day i throw them all out.

very strange.

posted by: juuitsu at December 21, 2006 03:41 | link | comments (2) |

so while i was out walking on my lunch break i found two, no THREE sets of glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth.  which, under other circumstances you'd think would be strange, except that i know for a fact that we gave out well over 4 gross of them in October.  so there they are, on the ground, formerly covered with about a foot of snow.  i wonder if they glow at night and for how long?

i spent a long time last night reading "the devil wears prada" and i pretty much hated it.  i mean, not hate as in "i want to throw this across the room it was so bloody evil" but i hated the main character's boss, i hate the fact that MC was only occasionally someone i could empathize with and i hated feeling frustrated with the story.  that and it was name-dropping constantly some fashion designer or another...and really, how many books out there now are doing that?  oh, a lot.  i'm bored.  nevertheless.  i persevered until maincharacter got fed up with the evil boss and cussed her out.  it was somewhat satisfying, but not enough. 

so, my frustration must have carried over into my dreams, because i definitely took care of things there...

i'd gone to see highsmileage and we'd been snow-shoeing or something like that and i needed to get home to pick something up and then planned to drive back out to his place, which was completely silly since i had borrowed my parents' car (one that they traded in several years ago, no less) and it was going to take at least 4 hours to drive there and then back to milwaukee.  what was i thinking?  dunno.  there was some problem with it icing up while it was in the driveway, so i carefully cleaned it off and then left it running to continue to warm up while i ran inside for something. 

i must have turned away for maybe 20 seconds...i didn't even get in the house, before i heard that car driving off down the road.  infuriated, i ran after it screaming at whoever had taken it.  they stopped and got out and it was some guy who said it was his car.  i looked more closely at it.  it was a completely different make and model.  not my parents' car at all.  what the hell??  he was trying to calm me down because i was completely flipping out.  HOW had the car disappeared from the driveway in such little time?  he said he'd seen it - that some cop had gotten in and driven off in it because it was illegally parked...blocking the road or something.  which is a blatant lie.  the car was IN the driveway.  i was so pissed.  i ran down to the police station and there's only one guy at a desk in there and i ask him "ARE YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING MY CAR?"  and he sort of nods in the affirmative and smirks.  hell.  that's enough for me.  cops are ALWAYS picking on people for stupid things.  they go after people who won't make a fuss and get them for things that aren't dangerous.  i don't feel "protected" by them at all.  thinking this and glaring at him, i whip out my gun (yeah, apparently, i'm packing heat), and i shoot him in the head.  i don't even think about what a bad idea this is.  i don't care anymore.  screw it.  screw him.  screw THEM.  i'm never getting back to milwaukee, and my weekend is totally fucked up.  since i've already killed one cop, i figure i might as well take out the rest before they bust in and bust ME.  so i do.  i kill everyone.  and then i set the building on fire.  and then i jump in my car (lucky me they haven't impounded it somewhere else) and i drive off.  i make exactly two calls on my cell phone - one to my folks telling them to please take care of my bunnies because i'm leaving forever, and one to oberon to tell him, "it was nice knowing you."  i hang up and throw the phone in a river i'm driving by and take off for mexico.  i am never coming back. 

hmm.

posted by: juuitsu at December 19, 2006 19:55 | link | comments (7) |

all i can say is that it's a good thing i'm off tomorrow (soon to be today), because i have started about 3 million (or slightly less) projects this evening.  i'm either donating my old computer to someone or to some PLACE and i wanted to get it all cleaned up for that, so i dragged it out of my second bedroom and brought out all of the necessary tools n' stuff that i'll be needing to reinsert certain pieces into it and remove others...and i've got to get the box for it out of storage (trip to the basement), so i've been reciting the combination to the lock down there...except that i've forgotten it.  AGAIN.  and while i was getting all of the software together - discs and more discs! - i found all of this stuff that i meant to move to this machine, but didn't get around to doing, and i feel that i should do that.  now.  finally.  today.  right this minute.  yeah.  obviously it's not that important because i've lived WITHOUT it for 2 years now.  but here it is.  i'll do it.  and then i'll destroy these disc(k)s and/or wipe them clean.  and then make a backup.  yes.  of all of it.  just in case i decide i DO want to have these things when next i take inventory.

posted by: juuitsu at December 18, 2006 05:42 | link | comments (3) |

after talking about these the other day, i had a major anxiety dream of my own last night - my own talking woke me up, but as usual, i felt like i should continue what i was saying because it was important.

dream:

the new semester has just started and i'm taking 2 classes - some kind of art class and some kind of philosophy/history/something else class that i'd decided on based entirely on the professor.  i like him.  he has interesting ideas.  he's based loosely on two of my former professors - Gray Cox  - yep, REALLY unfortunate name - and "Harley" Harper - who was always MISTER Harper to me, so i can never remember his first name.  anyway.  that makes him blonde with a mustache and a certain philosophical bent combined with a bit of sassiness and humor.  usually, the philosophy and humor is a very winning combination, except this guy likes DRAMA, too.  and so for our first enormous project he's assigned us a paper (which i knew about) and then we're supposed to "perform" our topic (which i find out about in one of those uh-oh too late to prepare adequately for this! ways).  he calls me while i'm away at some family affair, so in the midst of the festivities, i find myself talking to him and then watching this video he's streaming for me through our phone-al connection.  it's of him giving a talk about heroes.  he's asking people all about their favorite heroes, and it's kind of neat, but i'm also really distracted and wondering, what in sam hell does this have to do with me?  [where did the expression 'sam hell' come from? - reference question, bear!]  so, i yeah, yeah, yeah him and then he's talking about my project with some concern that i've been away so long and won't know what's going on.  he's saying, "here's what you should do..." and i have no idea what he's talking about.  but i continue to say, "ok."  i don't think he's completely satisfied with our conversation when we get off the phone.  *i* certainly leave it confused and bewildered, but i figure it will sort itself out well enough when i'm back on campus. 

you know, of course, that it doesn't.  i get back on the day of our report.  shit.  i thought there'd be more time to talk with the group and find out what they're doing and then think about how my piece should play out.  not only that, but my group wants me to go first.  they think i'm some crackerjack philosopher that the department has pulled out of the woodwork and they want to showcase my talents and abilities before the class (uh, from whence has THIS particular rumor sprung?).  the class is an all day kind of thing, and another group goes first.  i'm sitting next to josie branch and we're watching this performance, which includes dancing, singing, and looks pretty damn professional.  it also manages to be *about* their topic.  impressive, no?  i feel my heart sinking and panic rising with every minute that goes by.  i turn to josie and ask, "is this what we're supposed to do?"  she nods really seriously and doesn't seem worried.  my whole GROUP has something like this planned and i'm so out of it i have no idea what's going on.  oh man, oh god, oh christ.  i can't DO this. 

and i certainly can't watch any more of this performance.  so i start thinking.  how can i jazz up my presentation, what should i DO?  i am coming up with NOTHING.  how can there be nothing?  last minute deadlines are my bread and butter.  they move me in ways nothing else can.  because time has run out and there's no more room for procrastination.  and failure has never been an option.  never!  i consider dropping the class then and there.  no more problem.  except that that leaves my group hanging.  and that's cruel.  but, i wonder, if it would be *more* cruel to do what i've got planned and make them look really bad?  i dunno.  for what would they hate me more?  still.  here's something i've learned - if you know within minutes that you're going to HATE a class because of the assignments or because of the professor or because of the other people in it - DROP IT.  drop it and run.  there's no better way to kill your curious intellect than to take a class that's absolute torture for you the entire time you're in it.  likewise?  if you can't drag yourself out of bed before 9 a.m., 8 a.m. classes will kick your ass.  you won't be awake, and you won't enjoy what little bits of consciousness you experience in them.  i can personally vouch for this, having slept through at least one 8 a.m. class WHILE PRESENT.  anyway.  this class is going to be one of those torturous ones, and now i know.  i'm going to drop it...but i'm going to do it after the presentation. 

i take josie aside and outside for a moment and ask her what our group is doing - what is our topic exactly, and how are people going to perform their bits.  she looks at me for a long time and then laughs and laughs and laughs.  "you haven't prepared anything, have you?"  yes and no, but that's neither here nor there.  what i've prepared, alas, is woefully inadequate.  so she tells me a little bit about what the group is doing...and THAT doesn't make any sense either.  none of it hangs together at all.  what they expect of me, what they, themselves, are doing, how it's all supposed to knit itself into some smoothly fascinating tapestry of sense and sensation...there's NO WAY this won't be utterly humiliating.  we go back inside. 

the performance is over and gray/harley comes over to talk with me.  i think he can sense my rising panic.  he doesn't ask me what i'm doing.  he just talks about the other performance a bit, about my group, about how much everyone respects me (oh, baby, LAY on the guilt and the high expectations).  i so, so, so want to bail on it all.  what i do finally say surprises us both.  "i absolutely hate this kind of stuff.  what the hell were you thinking assigning something like this?  i think about ideas and i Write Them Down...this dancing and singing and i dunno what else...this is not me [ok, except that it is, a little bit.  when i'm prepared.  but still...big audiences of people who expect me to say smart things scares the bejeezus out of me like nothing else].  i can't believe that you thought i'd get into this.  i can't believe that i have to do it.  i want nothing more than to drop this class and get as far away from it and you as possible."  he thinks that over and looks a little bit sad.  i know that he knows this about me.  i can't tell if he's disappointed in me or if i've hurt his feelings.  he says, "i know."  and that's the end of the discussion.  huh.  well, i guess at least i can be pleased that he didn't lecture me on Responsibility or my Duty.  except that i can't even really be mad at him now.  because he does understand.  which still doesn't solve my problem. 

i think i'm going to talk about Eurydice...that's the name that's stuck in my head for some reason.  talk about what kind of hero she was.  except that i'm a little bit concerned that maybe she's not the best example...and i'm a little bit unsure why her name sounds familiar.  uh-oh.  so my next idea is to treat the whole performance as some kind of crazy British nature show.  i'll narrate it in a British accent and we'll encounter the various...er... inhabitants of the philosophical plane?  right.  scratch that.  i just don't know how to bring it all together - all of our disparate topics, all of the people in my group who are just going to get up there and do their own thing - it's going to be surreal, disjointed, nothing like what the other groups have done.  which is fine, except we're not going to do it well.  it's going to be horrible and sloppy and i still have no idea what i'm doing. 

with one minute until showtime and no break long enough for me to throw something together.  i leave the room - people laughing and snickering behind my back.  everyone seems to know that i'm about to fuck things up in a really huge way and they're all so...happy about it.  the expectation is that it should be really really fantastically funny - a hoot to watch.  and that hurts as well.  more thoughts about leaving and not coming back.  except that they'd win.  except that not coming back might be worse than going out there and making a fool of myself.  i grab a shrimp from a canape tray on my way out  (wow, we're even catered, this IS swank).  i go back to my room. 

suddenly.  suddenly, suddenly, suddenly, i get it.  all of it.  i get what gray/harley was talking about when he called, i get our topic, i get how this should have been easy for me, enjoyable even.  i get how i can make it better.  but there's no time to do it Really Well.  there's only time to scrap it together.  there's only about 20 seconds.  and i have no idea who first discovered the snail.  heck.  i'm going to say it was john muir.  just because.

so i'm a bit late (about 40 seconds) to the beginning of *our* show,  because i was googling "discoverer of the snail," and people are looking like fiends sitting there on the edges of their seats waiting for me to burn up in their poisonous atmosphere.  not going to give them the pleasure, sorry.  and i start talking...

"i'm not prepared to be here.  i'm not prepared to be speaking to you about these things.  well.  scratch that, i *was* prepared,  but it was for something else completely.  i was going to tell  you about Eurydice, i was going to tell you about some other people, i was going to narrate it all like i was some British naturalist announcer type...but then, about 60 seconds ago, i finally figured out what this was all about.  despite what people have told me and the confusion that caused, this is about heroes.  who they are, why we have them.  my section will most likely be noticeably shorter than anyone else's, because ooh, thinking on my feet, in front of all of you (hostile as you are), is going to be much harder than anything else i've done.  there was no time left, in that 40 seconds remaining to me, to completely outline a new course, so i'm going to have to wing it.  and i hate the sorts of conversations that start out, "so what do you think about capital punishment - is it right or wrong?"  because i never have the pat answer.  "i support it, i think it's wrong..."  generalizations are, by definition, general.  Overgeneral.  my short answer sounds something like this, "it may be warranted in certain cases, but i couldn't tell you for sure what those would look like."  i think it's something you understand when it becomes personal - when someone has wronged you or someone you love, that's when you understand what making this kind of choice is all about.  when it's at the level of theory, it's just an idea that doesn't and can't touch your soul (and by soul i don't mean something god-given and eternal, i mean that inner core of you that is precious because it's you and because it will be forever lost when you die).  and this is the sort of answer that those questions don't have time for, don't even leave room for.  it's like Plato's descriptions of Socratic questioning.  when you ask T/F or multiple choice questions, *your* answer is not always populated.  choose the *best* answer from the choices below.  right.  but that doesn't tell you what i think and why.  it's wrong because...it's right because...it's neither.  when you're talking about lives, when you're talking about ending them, you're willfully taking responsibility for someone else's life - removing it, even.  doesn't that at least number among the biggest things you can do to them?  doesn't that merit some consideration before proceeding willy-nilly along the Righteous Path of Doom?  it should.  i'm glad that we think and consider and ponder...but perhaps i'd want to rip out a few throats, too, if it were me watching others make that decision in a case where someone *i* cared about had been cruelly wronged.  my point.  my point is that this is what you're asking me to do today.  come up here and say the things that i'd rather give private consideration and voice to in my head first before sharing them with you.  and you'll be free to fire away questions, allegations - heap on the derision - after i'm done speaking because you can.  and you will.  and i'm completely unprotected, because i didn't have a chance, in my final 30 seconds before standing up in front of you, to consider all of the things you'd throw at me once i was finished talking.  i didn't even have a chance to figure out what i'd be saying or how it would end.  i can't even be completely blameless for not having understood this before.  because there was time to have worked this out.  there should have been time enough.  so let's see what we can do with what i have left, shall we?

heroes.  what makes a hero?  is it what they do?  their heroic deeds?  can i submit to you my heroic deed of the moment?  i'm standing up here in front of you.  i would rather be pretty much anywhere else.  in particular, i would rather be in my advisor's office filling out the paperwork to drop this class because it's turned out to be much more than i bargained for.  this is not to say that we should always stick to the safest possible course, but i think it's stupid to constantly surround yourself with things and people you hate and make yourself do things that you despise just, you know, to see if you can.  but i guess people climb everest - despite the unpleasantness of the undertaking - just to see if they can.  i don't think i'll take on the mountain...and i may not keep this class...but if you don't test and push yourself occasionally, you never get that feeling of accomplishment either - that comes from successfully tackling something that was hard for you.  are all of these accomplishments heroic?  perhaps not in the sense of the word.  heroism is Truly Special.  Really Big Stuff we're talking about.  i'll let you think about that.  think, too, about who your heroe(s) are, because i'm going to ask you about them in a little bit.  i'll give you about 60 seconds to prepare yourselves...

are heroes people you admire because they're brave all the time?  i think not.  i think we admire them because we see their struggle - we know and understand on some level how hard it is for them and we admire them for doing it anyway.  we recognize something ordinary in them that's akin to what's inside of us, and yet, they are able to transcend that and go beyond.  they become an inspiration to us because we, too, can some day rise above our meager, our humble beginnings...  i told you earlier i was looking for the identity of the person who had discovered snails...  i've never given much thought to who my "heroes" were.  maybe more my influences...  maybe more the people i admire...  maybe those are the same thing.  i'm not sure.  i grabbed this stick while i was outside and broke it open before i came back here and there were all of these creatures inside - centipedes, roly-polies, ants, snails...and i thought how wonderful it was to discover things - all of these creatures and their secret places that we normally don't see or know anything about.  which led me to snails, which led me to wondering who had seen and described and written about them first.  scientists are always identifying new species...and you know that they probably aren't the *first* to have seen them Ever, because native peoples have probably been living with them all their lives - back for generations...they just don't write about them.  so.  we are fascinated by what is new to our eyes.  here is this thing i have never seen before.  but i admire that spirit of adventure, that questing nature, that curiosity that takes them out into places they've never been to see and find these new-to-them things.  how exciting!  and so, while i could have picked other people - adventurers, explorers, discoverers, i picked the guy who first saw the snail.  yeah. 

i picked up the stick, mind you, because back in my philosophy studying days, i led this class discussion on philosophical thought.  i forget which philosopher had inspired it.  but he would go out into the world and just...experience things.  clear his mind, observe, let things come to him.  and he'd return with ideas.  so i had the class go out and do that.  my friend, cope, came back with a big stick, which she put in the center of the table.  we asked everyone to talk a litlte bit about what it had been like, what they'd done, what they'd thought about.  everyone looked at cope, but she didn't say anything.  she waited for several other people to speak, and then said a few brief words that summed up with, "and i brought back this stick."  yes, yes, you did.  we have seen the stick.  we are all burning with curiousity about this stick.  like, why this one, why's it here, what's it mean?  and she said, "i brought it back because it's pretty."  :)  oh the beauty of that.  oh the simplicity.  oh how we were waiting for something more.  but that was pure cope.  sometimes it's just that simple and there is no deeper meaning.  so.  i brought you this stick and this idea of snail-finding without knowing initially that what i would eventually say is that my heroes are adventurers.  adventurers without names until i google them.  ;)  who are your heroes?

i'm sitting up in bed at this point, still talking, gesticulating...i woke up as i started talking, deciding that even though it wasn't real, i still had to do this, because i couldn't let my dream self down, couldn't let her fail, had finally found a thread that could take us both through this project/performance of doom.  so it doesn't end, but we're ok.  we're on our way there.  and now i'm here writing this up...and now i'm gone.

posted by: juuitsu at December 17, 2006 16:13 | link | comments (4) |

someone asked me the other day (i think it was monkeybaby's husband) if i remembered when it was that i stopped believing in santa claus and how finding out that he wasn't real had made me feel.  i can't remember.  is that horrible?  it's been sort of running at the back of my mind as questions that i don't have answers to immediately often do.  i get back to things.  i should just make that my recorded outgoing message, "mmm.  let me get back to you on that."  there were things about santa and other make-believe beings in my childhood that didn't always make sense to me.  like the time i woke up on christmas eve to find my mother on her hands and knees next to my bed.  i asked her, sleepily, what she was up to and she said, "i'm doing yoga."  i had no idea what yoga was or looked like so i nodded and went back to sleep.  all these years i've thought my mother practiced yoga and i find out a few months ago that that memory is either completely false (in that i hallucinated the whole thing, because mom doesn't remember), or it's true, but mom doesn't remember because she has never practiced yoga until this year.  oh the lies!  :)

santa was not a big deal.  i mean, i was never told that santa was the one who was responsible for all of the gifts - he mostly brought me a few stocking things and some stuff at my grandma's house.  the lion's share of gifts came from actual people in my family.  so there was never this real strong association between santa and presents.  christmas still *felt* magical but a lot of that was because of all of the family traditions we have (and have yet). 

a bigger deal was my fairy.  she started visiting me as the "tooth fairy" but she soon evolved into a sort of fairy godmother - except she wasn't godmotherish and she didn't mother me all that much.  i always imagined her being kind of a young and inexperienced fairy, and i was one of many children that she visited.  she rode a unicorn named Thor, who once left little hoofprints in the chocolate icing on my cupcake.  she'd write me letters and leave them for me under my pillow.  i'd write her back.  she taught me to read.  she brought me little gifts.  she repaired broken toys with "fairy dust."  stacylou and i would look for fairies underneath her couch.  we swore we could see them.  things would happen that i couldn't explain and i'd *know* somehow my fairy was involved.  she was born on the first day of spring.  her handwriting looked a lot like my mother's. 

i think i knew in the back of my head somewhere that my mom was, in fact, behind a lot of things.  but it was still fun to believe and to play along.  does it kill magic to know that it's not really magic?  i don't know.  i never felt like anything had died inside of me to know the truth.  but then, i was a pretty sensitive kid.  i found out about the easter bunny, you know.  i went downstairs to the basement looking for something and i found all of the stuff that was going to go into our easter baskets...and i had a really odd feeling.  i wished i hadn't seen -  and maybe this is what kids feel when they find out about santa - because it confirmed things i already knew but hadn't had to admit too loudly to myself.  it kind of mucked up the game, the fantasy, whatever.  and i worried that it would hurt my parents' feelings to know that i knew.  i was so protective of the feelings of others - particularly inanimate objects like stuffed animals and food that i didn't want to eat (but how does the brussel sprout *feel* about this rejection??  egads, i can't take it.  i'll eat you.  it'll be fine.  don't cry!).  i didn't tell them what i'd found/seen.  and eventually i got over the finding out and it was fun again.  why do we do these things?  because they are fun.  because we wish the world was a more magical place, but we know we have to put the magic into it.

yeah.  so that's my answer, m.  in full.

posted by: juuitsu at December 16, 2006 06:17 | link | comments |

i probably shouldn't tell you this...(isn't that a great beginning??!)

monkeybaby called me last night when i was at yojimbo's, which only proves that people subconsciously know when things are going on.  people travel in packs - even if they live hundreds or thousands of miles apart.  and they want to talk to you all at the same time.  which is cool, because for that hour or day or whatever you feel a little like you're on America's Most Wanted.  but also?  it makes the days when you talk to No One Special About Anything Substantial feel that much emptier.

i have threeeeee long days of weekend stretching before me and i have not planned anything to fill them with.  that's sort of distressing.  all!  this!  time!  wasted!  and it's not even begun yet.  there are at least a few things that i *should* do.  and several things that i might even *want* to do.  but i'd really rather just ignore all of that and do something else entirely.  whatever.  it feels wasted because there's so many days together, and when is this going to happen again, and... yeah.  back to whatever.  :) 

so.  monkeybaby and i were talking about how the aurora was supposed to be visible last night - northern lights - and since i was driving home and it was late, i kept looking for them, but didn't see anything.  disappointing.  i'd really like to see the northern lights some day.  in person. 

i mentioned that my foot was completely healed, because we hadn't talked since i'd seen my dr.  she said, "yeah, i know, i read it in your blog."  heh.  alrighty then.  good to know people have been kept abreast of all of my important news.  there was a PAUSE.  then she said, "my pap smear came back negative!"  another PAUSE while i processed that.  and then, "well, hey now!  good for you!"  we seem to be playing this game of shock escalation, where one of us will say something that in normal conversation others might find shocking - just to see what sort of response it will evoke.  pretty much we take everything in stride.  it's so much more fun to just go with things and see what happens.  of course, this attitude will probably get me killed before i have a chance to become truly age-d and wise, but i guess that's just something i'll have to deal with when it happens.  i suggested that we throw a little "here's to monkeybaby's vaginal health" party so that everyone could celebrate. 

i shall also quote ferris bueller, "one can never go too far." 

posted by: juuitsu at December 16, 2006 05:50 | link | comments |

dreamscape...

so livid.  i've just had this argument with this woman who's working in the new ice cream place that's opened up.  it's probably more like an ice cream village than it is a store.  it's housed on the top floor of a tower, in a group of similar towers that's networked together with multivarious passageways, etc.  i want ice cream.  in particular, i'm craving a vanilla chocolate chip blend, possibly with some nuts and/or rainbow sprinkles, but i can't find a menu anywhere.  vanilla chocolate chip is pretty common, though, so, odds are they have it - especially since it's some kind of ice cream village.  still, i'm determined to find the menu.  it's got to be SOMEWHERE.  it's not.  finally, i ask someone, "this woman," where the menu is.  she scowls at me and waves at a wall i've already scanned several times and says, "over there."  *wave*  it's NOT over there.  bitch.  convinced that she's just having a bit of fun at my expense, and pissed off waaaaaay beyond what's called for, i decide SCREW THEM.  SCREW THEM AND THEIR ICE CREAM.  I WILL GET MY DAMN ICE CREAM SOMEWHERE ELSE.  I WILL GO TO COLDSTONE.  bastards.  so i leave.

and as soon as i'm outside the tower system, my anger disappears.  argh.  i should just go back, go back to the village of ice cream, the mecca of ice cream, and get my vanilla chocolate chip possibly with nuts THING and have done with it.  'course, now that i'm out, i have no idea how to get back in.  i wander the grounds.  it's like some kind of desolate fairground - after the fair has packed up and left.  all of the ambience is in the towers, and no one's made any effort to make the places outside, beyond, in between at all habitable or enticing.  it's not even obvious how one might enter the towers from the outside - despite all of the interconnectedness once one is within.  there are enormous ladders/formiddable staircases on the outsides of some of them that just go up and up and up into the clouds - and they're terrifying.  [i'm often paralyzed by a fear of heights in my dreams - always on stairs.  i get to some point on them, realize where i am and then drop and cling, unable to move.  it's awful.  my waking self calls out to my dream self - "mooooove, you moron, they're only stairs!  they're only heights!  you can do this!"  but i can't.  i never can.]  i give up.

and suddenly, i'm returned to my room - apparently there's a hotel somewhere amongst the towers, and also apparently, i'm in it without putting in any effort of my own.  talking talking talking quietly to someone else who's there with me.  we are stunned into silence when two men climb in the window - they're very business-like, being either james bond spy types or programs from the matrix.  they threaten us with dire consequences if we continue to speak.  we've already stopped speaking.  neither of us makes any move to speak some more.  the men leave.

back to the business of finding this ice cream.  [i'm relieved not to be looking for a bathroom for once, to be honest.  obviously my peeful needs have been taken care of, but i'm still questing.  i don't think i'm literally searching for ice cream in my life - we all scream for ice cream!  but something, obviously.  it wasn't and isn't apparent to me yet what that is - in particular - or even if there IS a particular.  what does this unsatisfying ice cream experience have to do with me?  will i find the ultimate ice cream?  will i remain unsatisfied?  tune in next week...oh bother.  there's so much searching going on here.  i feel like i'm always looking for something and i can't name it.  it's both frustrating and scary.  if i don't know what it is, how can i find it?  will i know it if i see it?  is it about being unsatisfied or disatisfied with things i already have?  nothing is good enough?  no thing is good enough?  turning it all on its nose.  wanting no thing and nothing.  *sigh*]  i KNOW that there's a way up to that tower.  there's an elevator or an escalator and i must simply find it.  as soon as this knowledge comes to me i'm there.  presto magicka.  the place is a fucking madhouse.  there are people everywhere and there's no way i can get near any of that ice cream.  doesn't seem to matter anymore.  i'm gaping at all of the activity.  i find out that there's some kind of last day of school/reunion thing going on for all of the classes EVER from some huge school.  but - get this - it's Star Wars themed.  everyone's in costume and they're all camping out in huge squadrons of people (and it's large enough for it to really feel like bivouacing even though we're all inside a tower inside an ice cream shop).  there are only two "races" represented (all ages make up the races, however).  they're different races, but they're also single sexed.  the one, the race of males, i don't remember clearly.  the other, the females look like screaming evil sharpened shadows.  they're these terribly elongated, almost tree-like, black beings with the tips of their heads pulled out into sharp points.  their faces/mouths are frozen into screams.  their eyes glow with an orange fire.  despite all of the sharpness about them, their body consistency is jelloid/blobby.  they are Very Strange.  the kids LOVE this.  EVERYTHING about it is fantastic.  they are squealing with delight.  highsmileage is there with his nephew and they show me their yearbooks, which already have all of these Star Warsian creatures and battles in them. 

i still don't have any ice cream [awfully single-minded, aren't i?] so i go over to the counter and notice from somewhere beyond my dream self that it's much smaller.  now the ice cream place *has* shrunk.  it's about the size of a smallish cozy restaurant.  it's darker.  people are talking in low voices.  no words are distinguishable - it's all a rather comfortable white noise.  it's relaxing.  there's a cat sleeping in a box on the counter, and i walk over and pet it for awhile.

time passes while i talk to highsmileage and i get around to telling him about the cat on the counter.  when he goes over to check it out, though, it's dead.  my heart nearly stops because the same thing happened LAST TIME [huh, what?  er...ok, there must have been a last time!].  yeah.  same place, different cat, but DEAD nonetheless.  why are the cats dying?  do i do something really nasty to cats?  should this place be stocking, perhaps, a hardier (or less old and near death) breed of cat?  yes.  yes they should.  yes and yes to any and all of that.  because it's really becoming hard on ME to have to endure the multiple deaths of cats for which i'm beginning to feel personally responsible.  stay away from the fucking cats, juuitsu, you're not GOOD for them - as evidenced by their deadness.  right.  it's all much too weird.

must get out of there.  we do.  now we're in the car, driving somewhere, with 3 of us in the backseat.  highsmileage is exhausted and he curls up on the seat.  he's behind the drivers' seat, next to the door.  it keeps flying open, which is a bit alarming.  but he's not at all disturbed by it.  we note that he is safely belted in and stop feeling quite so panicky about it.  we focus, instead, on the door, and how we might fix it so that it does not swing open.  at last, we discover that if we lock it first and THEN close it, it stays closed.  excellent. 

still no ice cream. 

i wake up and fix myself some scrambled eggs.

posted by: juuitsu at December 16, 2006 04:47 | link | comments (4) |

a little ray of sunshine has fallen across my bunny, who is deep in his morning nap.  my rabbits are old.  they nap a lot. 

if you would live a minute longer for every minute longer that you slept, would you sleep more - still not knowing the actual time and way of your death...or the things that might intervene and end you before *your time*?

hmm.  can stasis actually stop the aging process?  or do your cells continue to live and die on their own schedule regardless of how your consciousness spends the time?

seeing as there's sun and no snow...i should get outside and walk around before i forget what that's like.

posted by: juuitsu at December 13, 2006 16:02 | link | comments (2) |

a moment from Saturday:
it's such a long day.  such. a. long. day.  it always is when i'm excited about other things.  i've been running around pretty much constantly, which is quite the accomplishment when one is on the reference desk.  i hate being sedentary, though - the whole idea of 'roving reference' really appeals to me sometimes.  for awhile, we did some roving reference when monkeybaby was still working at the library - but they seem to have discarded it for whatever system we've got going on now.  it's easier to distract myself when i'm in motion.  two more hours, that's all the time i've got, twooooo more hours until i run out the door and into the world!  whee!  and yet, now that the flurry of activity is over, i find that i am exhausted.  really, really tired.
 
we had a whole pile of teens on our loveseat earlier.  it's smack dab in the middle of stuff AND one of the local papers came in to take pictures of something right around there, so they couldn't really get themselves into any trouble.  i mean, i guess they could have, but propriety kicked in, and they behaved.  my reference copilot was telling me about them before she went to lunch - that they'd been back in the YA area and giggling, and then that they'd moved to the loveseat (all 4 of them).  ah, a pile of happy teens.  and i'm ok with that as long as they aren't disturbing other people, breaking stuff, or making out.  i don't know what other people's tolerance is.  seems like if it's about teens people are ready to just throw them out for anything.  sigh.  and then i thought...i'm often doing obnoxious stuff just like them.  i wonder if i make people crazy, too, by becoming an issue that they have to do something about?  hmm.  and why do they care so much?  and if the teens here saw me behaving as i am wont to when i am not required to be my professional self...well, what would they think?  would that be as horrifying?  :)  i sort of suspect that it would.  here i am, a veritable Old Person having far too good a time.
 
i feel very...snuggly huggy today, which so far hasn't done me any good because there's no one TO snuggle or hug (yet!).  i eyed the bunnies this morning, but they were definitely broadcasting all sorts of negative "don't come any closer you human person you.  we want none of this snuggling."  they don't.  after petting powder for a long time last night, he licked my nose.  and when a bunny licks your nose it's actually kind of sweet and tickly - not like when a person does it at all.  :)
 
today:
a man just asked me if the quiet here doesn't drive me nuts.  and i was thinking about how much stuff i've gotten done today because no one has bothered me or asked me questions or interrupted me...and how silent our office was this morning because it was only j. and i in there.  i wrote up all of my programs for February and March - came up with some cool ideas, too, i think.  and that's pretty freakin' fantastic.  i was a MACHINE.  it feels really good to be so ON.  especially since i spent so many weeks feeling really off and out of control and not getting my shit together.  it'd probably help to have some kind of a plan or a schedule of stuff that happens regularly so it's all there where i can look at it.  i feel like i'm just catching it all at the last minute and i hate that - the feeling that i'm running up against deadlines all the time and that i'm never exactly where i want to be.  it's frustrating.  but it's also my own fault for conveniently forgetting about things until they need to be done.  yeah.  i know i've operated like this most of my life, but it'd be nice to not be strung out at the last minute all the time.  ALL THE TIME. 
 
i'm wondering if i should move somewhere new.  and so i printed out a few ads for apartments in another area - which is not too terribly far from work (or at least not much farther than i am already) and which is further south or east or something.  what might the point of this be?  hm.  well, possibly off-street non public lot parking, more controlled temperatures, something NEW (yay!), maybe washer/dryer that are in my space instead of outside and in the basement.  cheaper?  possibly.  or possibly not.  we shall see.  if i'm going to do it, i need to do it soon.  oddly, i haven't heard from my landlord(s) about leases and renewals and things like that.  does that mean they'd like me to go?  hmm.  in which case i DEFINITELY need to find a new place.  heh.  so.  i guess i should call round to these places and find out what's what.
 
skies.  the sky has been full of interesting things.  yesterday afternoon, i finally made it out of the house by 4ish to get quarters to do my laundry (kept forgetting - frustrating).  i'd been lazy all day long and the world finally called out to me - come outside.  come eat.  come do the things you need to do.  so i did.  i only wanted a cheeseburger and some fries from mcdonalds...and the line to get those things - both inside and out - was insane.  i couldn't believe how long it went on.  so i decided to drive south to another mcdonalds...because, where i live, mcd is one of the only things going on.  i guess.  or that's how it seemed what with all the traffic.  the place to be.  yeah.  so, the other one wasn't crowded, and it meant i had to drive about 20 miles out of my way (round trip), which seems stupid.  but i got my cheeseburger (and fries) and i was out long enough to see the sun setting. the clouds were a dark gray-blue (possibly wedgewood) and the very bottoms were outlined in a fiery pink.  it was gawgeous.  today the fog rose up around everything, like clouds were crawling out of the snow banks and climbing slowly back into the sky - lumbering back up, up, up to the places from which they'd fallen.  it was ghostly out, and nearly dark by 3.

posted by: juuitsu at December 12, 2006 04:49 | link | comments (4) |

i revisited that place where i stay up so late that i feel nauseous.  it's an all-night place, and you'd think by now i would know better.  and i do.  but i persist in following my whims, because i am nothing if not whimmy. 

so, around 5:30 this morning as most people wandered and fumbled in their pre-dawn dreams, i climbed into my still-slumbering subaru and made for home.  i had the heat on for awhile, but that just made me feel worse.  so i turned it off, sang along with the scissor sisters and tried to stay awake. 

uf.

it's definitely been worse.  like the time i had to drive 5 hours to get home and i'd already been up for at least a day.  that felt like forever.  and i couldn't keep my eyes open.  i was screaming along with metallica in order to stay awake, and pounding my thigh with my fist, bouncing my feet.  i kept stopping at rest areas to get more water and caffeine, because having to pee constantly and being completely wired were the only things keeping me going.  how dumb.  but there was such a cute cuddly boy on the other side of that trip.  getting there was easy.  getting home was, unfortunately, necessary.  why do these sorts of stories usually involve cute cuddly boys?  (that's rhetorical, btw.)

posted by: juuitsu at December 10, 2006 20:21 | link | comments (4) |

"I'm thinking I would like to dance in the rain with this person.  I would like to lie next to him in the dark and watch him breathe and watch him sleep and wonder what he's dreaming about and not get an inferiority complex if the dreams aren't about me...I don't know if Nick and I are going to be friends or lovers or if he's going to be Will and I'm going to be Grace, which will be disappointing along with boring, but whatever Nick and I are going to be to each other, it can't be - it won't be - just a one-night-stand thing...I know this."

from Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist ~ Rachel Cohn and David Levithan (p. 155)

this crazy book has some good moments.  i'd sing and dance in the rain with that person, too. 

posted by: juuitsu at December 09, 2006 01:35 | link | comments |

"there is no dana.  only zuul."

i waited half the day for the fedex man to arrive.  when i finally decided he wasn't coming in my life time, i jumped in the shower.  jumped out to the buzzer ringing and threw on my bathrobe and dashed down the stairs.  the older man who lives down there held the fedex guy up and he finally delivered my package.  he was giving me a strange look the whole time, so i don't know if he was amused that i was soaking wet or annoyed that i'd actually shown up.  i don't think there were any gaps in my robe.  ah well.  talked to the older man about weather stripping for a few minutes before heading upstairs. 

since i felt i'd been wasting my time while waiting, i went to the gym afterward and worked out for a couple hours.  sweaty and tired after, but feels good.  it's been impossible to walk or bike anywhere since it snowed - our snow removal team hasn't been too good this year.  it's still a mess in a lot of places and there's lots of ice and piles that they haven't bothered to remove.  dunno how we are spending our resources, but doesn't seem like they're doing much around here. 

went to farm and fleet.  someone said they had snow pants there, and they did, but i decided i didn't need snow pants.  i did get a new hat and some gloves, though.  i was walking through the Carhart section of the store and there were many burly men in their full-on winter scruff mode trying on new coveralls.  they make them in Very Large Man Size, and it's kind of funny watching guys scramble into these things...which you have to do sort of surreptitiously so they don't catch on.  :)  it's not really funny ha-ha you want to make fun of them, but funny in sort of a sweet way.  i can't explain it.  i like the idea of warm burly men.  *shrug*  i also bought some beef flavored rawhide chews...for minnow...tho, maybe i should let the rabbits try them, too?  might be good for wearing down their teeth.  hmm.  maybe i'll exchange one of minnow's plain ones and bring that back to the bunnies.

i drove over to jewel specifically to get quarters, but i ended up getting groceries instead - because i was hungry - and totally forgot about the quarters.  so i am not doing laundry AGAIN.  not that it's a desperate situation...yet.  was annoyed when i realized it in the parking lot, though.  ugh.  WHY?  maybe i can get some at work tomorrow. 

andnowtheexplanationforthequoteabove...

when i got back here there was an IM from mf sitting on my screen.  i thought i'd blocked every one of his aliases, but apparently he's got at least one that i'd forgotten about.  all it said was "hi" - which is all he ever says initially.  i used to joke about it.  he also used to close every email he sent me with "thanks," which was incredibly silly, too.  and i'm sure the humor was completely lost on him, which is only ONE of the many problems i should have seen immediately.  and it should have made me RUN.  anyway.  i have a no tolerance policy for mf these days.  i cannot talk to him with any civility.  he immediately gets my dander up with his particular brand of bullshit.  it took 3 years to get to that place - which proves that for once in my life i was ASTOUNDINGLY patient.  no more.   i don't spend much time thinking about him or brooding or feeling anything about him one way or another anymore.  it's just over.  and over is good.  he periodically feels a need to try and talk to me about stuff...but it's always the same stuff and i've decided that he's never going to get better.  i mean, maybe i'm wrong about that and i'd totally like to be, but i'm no longer interested in the outcome.  so, i hope he takes it to heart and leaves me the hell alone.  stay away, mf.  there is no dana.  only zuul.

posted by: juuitsu at December 08, 2006 23:12 | link | comments |

slept pretty well last night, but woke up several times, so i have these snatches of dream that are still lingering in my head...and i'm not sure if/how they're connected.

in one:

i'm living where i am now (but there's no snow on the ground yet).  i notice that my porch is really rickety - sway in the wind rickety.  and when i bang on the wooden braces with my fist i can feel how soft they are.  nevertheless...i walk up the stairs (which also sway), and up to my balcony area and start testing that out by jumping on it.  it doesn't seem like it's long for this world either.  i wonder if one calls one's landlord about things like this, or if they have secret plans to let me fall through my balcony and to my demise and then toss my mangled corpse in the river.  those bastards! 

in another:

i keep realizing that i have all of these pets i haven't been taking care of.  they show up in strange places and i feel tremendous guilt and anxiety about how long i've been neglecting them.  this time, i have baby bunnies. and two of the baby bunnies have had MORE baby bunnies - JUST had more baby bunnies.  one of them is still wet from being birthed and the mother bunny is completely exhausted and laying on her side, panting pitifully.  for some reason i think the only solution to having so many bunnies is to have them all spayed or neutered.  and geez, there must be like 11 bunnies.  that's going to be tremendously expensive.  i examine them to make sure they're all healthy, because initially it seemed like one wasn't going to make it (and more guilt because i'd honestly have felt relief if they'd all just been dead rather than in this state of terrible need.  dead you can ignore, need you have to do something about...oh dear.  bad bad BAD bunny mommy).  while i'm taking care of the baby bunnies - finding them stuff to eat (finally realizing that i can put them in separate cages as soon as they're weaned and then adopt them out - they really are fantastically cute bunnies.  dark dark brown with silver tipped hairs and silver circles around their eyes) - i notice that i also have a really hungry box turtle and a starving hermit crab.  i also - presto magic! - have a little container of dried prawns for them to eat.  so, soon everyone is fed and happy.  i only hope that i'm more responsible in the future.

yet another:

stacylou is designing some kind of food sculpture in the kitchen - it's of a woman and she's doing something and the whole thing seems to involve a lot of sauce.  i leave her to it.  we're at my folks' house.  i have a feeling that mom wants to feed us eventually, but i'm so tired.  i go into the folks' bedroom and fall asleep there.  no idea where they are.  awhile later i'm awakened by stacylou who wants to show me her food thing - now all it says is "happy birthday, juuitsu!"  i ask her what happened to the woman.  she shrugs and takes it away.  then i notice that highsmileage and oberon are both sitting on the same chair beside me.  oberon is on the computer and highsmileage is facing me - playing a guitar upside down.  he's really good at the upside down guitar.  he asks me what i want to hear, and i forget now what it was, but he plays it beautifully and we all sing it beautifully, and then oberon starts complaining that he wants pizza.  and highsmileage wants pizza, too.  hell, *i* want pizza.  there's an easy solution to this as my brother has stockpiled about 20 pizzas in the basement freezer.  so we raid his pizza collection.  and i keep my fingers crossed that bom won't come home and find us already eating.  because she'll be pissed that we didn't wait for her to make us something. 

posted by: juuitsu at December 07, 2006 13:38 | link | comments (2) |

i don't know if it's kosher to post comments that people have emailed to me, but this just had to be said...

from JM: "Hooray! You are mostly healed! You've been mostly healed all day! ;)

Now, try to keep it that way. Like, don't go running across rutted snowy
fields with O. in pursuit to celebrate. :p"

yeah.  because i totally did that.  oberon and i went to target and picked up some sleds and found a hill and then...attempted to sled on it.  i think after about the 10th time or so the snow was packed down enough to be slidey.  but we did run up and down the hill a lot.  and i careened down it several times.  whee!  with no ill effects.  it was all quite fun and amusing until the wind whipped right through my wet jeans and hit my skin.  oh my GAWD.  there is really not much worse than cold, clammy, wet, clingy pants...except having to wear them for the next hour while you drive your wet ass home...it's enough to make one cry.  i'm going to go thaw out my butt now.  adios!

posted by: juuitsu at December 07, 2006 04:07 | link | comments (6) |

yeah, none of this is coming out well.  which sucks, because i thought i had so much to say and now i'm all stymied by how poorly i'm saying it.  on to plan B, which is to just babble about whatever i need to in order to get started and then let the other stuff come out as it will.

once again i've left my list at work - the one of things i wanted to write about, but, you know, later.  dammit.  truth be told, though, it was a pretty great day, so i'm totally fine with it.

i'll try to recreate my list now.  in no particular order:

1.) i am healed!  officially.  i can't even tell you how happy this makes me.  i really thought i was going to see dr. whosenamesoundslikeleftinspanish today and that he was going to tell me, "bad news, you.  what we've got here is a case of non-union.  confirmed.  now what?"  and i was going to tell him, "no WAY am i getting any more screws put into me.  i don't care if they're titanium and you can MRI the hell out of them.  i don't want your stinkin' hardware."  but it would have been lots more polite.  they x-rayed me as soon as they took me back and then put the x-rays up on the computer in my little exam room and even *i* could see that it was mostly healed.  there's a tiny area on the outside of the bone that's still filling in.  dr. whosenamesoundslikeleftinspanish was all bold and triumphant as if *he* had done the healing himself.  bah!  healing is hard work!  what a relief, though.  i was so very upset last time i saw him when he said that it didn't look like it was doing anything.  upset enough to second guess his diagnosis and say, "but you can't really tell, can you?  it's gray in that area - it *could* be healing."  and he conservatively agreed with me that the x-rays were rather inconclusive.  i know he couldn't come out and say, "look, don't worry, it's going to be fine," because people sue the hell out of other people for saying things like that and then being wrong.  but man, i wish he'd been a bit more upbeat and hopeful and had had more than 5 minutes to get me accustomed to the idea that i might be fractured forever.  course, now that i'm healed... WHEE!  let me emphasize again how very very very VERY happy this makes me.  ahem.  WHEE. 

2.) i put on this shirt after i got home from the gym - it's a heather colored waffle-knit thing that i got on sale at the gap a few years ago.  it's comfy.  i stopped wearing it for awhile because i'd given my grandmother something in a similar color, and her eyesight was poor enough that whenever i wore it and she saw me in it, she felt compelled to ask me if that was *her* shirt.  and it became cumbersome to explain over and over again that, no, it was mine, and yes they did look a like.  because really they *didn't* look very much alike except for the color, but you try explaining that for the umpteenth time to someone with macular degeneration and no short term memory.  you find you have the same conversations over and over again.  grandma was a dear, and she's passed on now.  i wonder if this is her shirt...?

3.) i've been getting really cold lately.  so i end up taking a lot of hot baths - as hot as i can stand it.  and as i slip into the water, inevitably, i sigh - like it is the Best Thing Ever.  because it kind of is.  i am all of a sudden warm all over and i can even feel my toes.  icy toes are no fun at all.  sigh.  groan.  oh heaven.  oh rapture.  i so wish i had a fireplace, because i would spend most of my evenings in front of it.  mmm.  i was thinking of buying one of those dish sleds and getting oberon to come sledding with me tomorrow night...but the cold is so unappealing.  it would be much cozier if we could find a community fireplace to station ourselves around.  and, i dunno, read amazingly amusing literature to one another.  yeah.  we'll see what happens.

4.) so.  this guy comes up to the reference desk (any resemblance to real guys or reference desks - past, present or future - is purely coincidental...consider this a work of fiction.  this has been a public service announcement, thank you very much)...he's really nice, but he's really daft.  i mean this in the nicest way.  his friends have told him that he has to get on MySpace.  and also that he's got to IM them.  when he comes over, he's in the middle of signing up for an AIM acct. and he's needing help to fill in the required fields for username, etc.  we finally get that all figured out and i think, yay, he's on his way!  except, no, he's not.  he's never used this IM thing before - how does it work.  hoo boy.  so i explain how you add buddies and look people up by their screen names or user names or email addresses and then add them to your buddy list.  and he looks at me with amazement and says, "oh wow."  he's way polite and i super appreciate that, but i can also tell that he's pretty much not retaining anything i've said.  i literally could have spent the entire afternoon showing him stuff and i don't think he would have remembered it.  eep.  turns out he wants to find some people on MySpace and IM them through there - something which you have to log in to do.  so we try to do that.  except he's not having a lot of luck.  and i ask him, "um, do you *have* a MySpace acct?" and he says (deep breath), "uh, i don't know.  do i?"  er.  the only one who knows the answer to that is...you?  so i leave him for a few minutes trying out various usernames and passwords and finally he remembers.  yay!  we go over a few more things, but it's pretty obvious that he has no idea what his friends' screen names are, so i tell him he should find out from them and then he can add them to his buddies.  i think he left not completely confused...but it's hard to know for sure.

5.) i'm upgrading my phone.  this is also exciting, since in the last couple of weeks my phone has been a little crazy.  i'm not sure what i should do with the old one when the new one comes.  does one just keep it as a backup - like old pairs of glasses?  or is there, perhaps a place where you can donate old phones?  hmm.  i bet there is.  i'll have to look into that.  and also?  a place where i can donate my old computer.  i think someone at work had found something local. 

[BIG YAWN]

6.) i have a lot a lot of dishes to wash.  and i'm so unmotivated.  likewise, i am unmotivated to leave the house and go to starbucks.  it's too cold out.  i'm already in my pajamas (though, why that should stop me, i do not know).  and my bed is seeming like a really great idea right now.

7.) there must be a 7.

posted by: juuitsu at December 06, 2006 03:32 | link | comments (8) |

powder is trailing me around like i've got carrots in my pockets.  i do not, in fact, have carrots in my pockets.  but he suspects.  i was on my way to the living room when i got waylaid by the floor in here.  it just looked so comfortable all of a sudden.  i was practically forced to lay down and see for myself.  indeed, comfy....zzzz...  i was awakened by the curiously ticklish sensation of a bunny licking my forehead.  the licking itself is tickly, but even more so are the whiskers.  i almost shot out of my skin.  that would have been something to see!  i stayed still because i take the whole "mutual grooming" thing very seriously - i wouldn't want to hurt a bunny's feelings, after all - he's just trying to do the right thing.  obviously, i'm a mess.

i'm a tired mess.  i was up with the sun so i could meet a friend of mine in indiana to do some hiking.  i decided not to take the toll roads on the way out there, so that i could take the *scenic* route through the dunes.  yeah.  except that the dunes *from the road* are not very scenic at all.  there are, however, lots of trails buried back in there...and i SO want to explore them some day.  i'll have to go back when i have more time and when it's not quite as cold as it was today.  my *scenic* route took me about 5 hours to drive.  ugh.  as opposed to nearly 3, which is what it took me on the way home when i sucked it up and opted to pay the tolls.  i figured it was dark and since i hadn't seen anything promising when the sun was out, things were hardly likely to improve with nightfall.  plus?  5 MORE hours of driving?  i think not.  traffic wasn't even heavy when i left this morning, but regardless, when the speed limit is 30, it's still going to take forever to get anywhere.  the worst part of it, actually, was just after leaving home.  the road was slightly wet and the car in front of me kicked up all this schmutz which got all over my windshield and then when i turned on the wipers the schmutz just got smeared all around.  which wouldn't have been a problem normally, except that my windshield wiper/washer FLUID seemed to be frozen.  or the little nozzles were.  i didn't exactly figure out what the problem was.  so i couldn't see for about half an hour because there was crap all over the windshield AND the sun was shining right on it - illuminating the mess, but not much else.  i finally stopped at a gas station and cleaned everything off.  the fluid worked fine after that.  phew. 

so i got to see a lot of places that i've not seen before, or at least drove down a lot of roads i'd never been on before.  passed through la grange (or is it lagrange?  all i knew about it prior to this was that it was home to one of my fellow jury members and that he drove a miata which got totalled by a semi, the driver of which could not see him...he climbed up into the cab of the semi and looked down and couldn't see his miata either.  interesting guy) - lots of big houses on big lots that kind of reminded me of here, or Evanston, or Richmond (IN - where i went to college).  they're also building a new public library...which looks like it'll be cool except that there's no room for anyone to park anywhere.  i didn't see any parking area on the lot or anywhere nearby.  perhaps they'll have a special "library shuttle bus?"  later, i drove through a really dilapidated part of gary...it was depressing - all of these cool old buildings with all their windows busted out, doors torn off the hinges, entryways disintegrating.  one hopes that someone with money steps in and restores them, because they're neat, but it looks like town is going to hell.

around 11:00 a.m. i got a little nervous about where i was in my directions - like did i miss a turn off?  why is this taking so long?  so i turned down a different road instead that looked like it sort of went where i wanted to go.  and eventually it did, except that it was bassackwards from my directions...and i STILL managed to find the place i was going AND get there early.  so i was pretty impressed with my navigational skills (which some of you will call dumb luck).

we ended up hiking around potato creek state park - a much bigger park than i'd thought it would be (from google maps).  we followed a trail that was at times "moderate," "difficult," "advanced," and "easiest."  we couldn't discern what the difference was between any of those - the trail was pretty much the same all along its length.   except for the random stair case.  thought for a bit that maybe the "ratings" were based on cross-country skiing, but there were parts of it that just couldn't be skied.  um, so does that make it more challenging or less?  *shrug*  heard a great rustling in the woods at one point and after lots of wondering about what might have made it we saw some large dark shapes running up a hill away from us.  i identified them as "bird-like, probably turkeys."  the bear said they were Very Large Geese.  no, no they weren't.  i've never seen wild turkeys before. 

there was a nice playground right in front of