Something my birthmom wrote to me in a little notebook full of her musings; she gave the book to me on my 19th birthday and I treasure it more than anything anyone's ever given me. She wrote this page while she was still living with her longtime girlfriend, Debra. I miss them both.
------------------
...Of course, sometimes, like today, I get into a funk for no apparent reason. Everyone does at one time or another. It usually means nothing. But it causes problems - i.e., everything one's partner does is WRONG! Everything that happens today is a direct insult to me! Tomorrow it'll be ridiculous, but today it's soul murder.
The trick is:
a) realize it's a funk;
b) ride it out;
c) stay out of arguments;
d) take a nap, if possible;
e) write about it;
f) try to find something, anything, to feel good about.

And if all that fails, have a good cry & watch TV.
-----------------

Listening to: the hum of the puter and the clacking of keys
Checking out: bluishorange

Stolen from elegy's livejournal:

if i were a stone i would be: hematite
if i were a tree i would be: banyan tree
if i were a bird i would be: a bitchy bluejay
if i were an insect i would be: an itsy-bitsy spider. not an insect. mreh.
if i were a machine i would be: a nanotech bot used in the human body
if i were a fruit i would be: a bartlett pear
if i were a flower i would be: violets
if i were a kind of weather i would be: heavy rain
if i were a kind of mystical creature i would be: a female president. er...
if i were an instrument i would be: a harp
if i were a profession i would be: a poet
if i were an animal i would be: a cat
if i were anything in the world i would be: a deep, wide lake
if i were a colour i would be: dark crimson
if i were a fragrance i would be: jasmine
if i were an emotion i would be: tension
if i were a vegetable i would be: cucumber
if i were a sound i would be: crackling flames
if i were an element i would be: water
if i were a car i would be: a 1987 Saab 900. manual transmission. navy blue. *snif*
if i were a song i would be: Heroin by Velvet Underground
if i were to trade places with another person it would be: mel
if i were a movie i would be: Toys
if i were a food i would be: pita with hummus...

Listening to: my heartbeat
Checking out: more of elegy and her kitties

All right ladies and gentlemen: I'm slowing down and full of migraine headache and painkillers, and as such will only be posting every hour or so. I apologize for the slacking; believe me, if I could keep my eyes open without searing pain, I'd be posting every 15 minutes! *grovel* forgive me? */grovel*

Listening to: Batman (1989 with Michael Keaton & Jack Nicholson)
Checking out: pillow. headache. bah.

Posting may be irregular for a bit; I feel like drek. Sorry, all.

Listening to: Pixies, Where is My Mind
Checking out: 47901, girl in black

The wonderful boys have gone out to find me food from Pitas. [Insert stomach growling here.] Mmm, gyro.. pita and hummus..

Listening to: Tori Amos, Tear in Your Hand
Checking out: Unreliable Narrator (benjy)

Things are getting dangerous. I took those pills in the bath because I missed feeling pain, I missed the acute feelings as opposed to the fuzzy numb nothing that Paxil brings or the distant lethargy I'd been in. This is what getting better feels like, and it's unfamiliar to me. I'm not so sure I like it. Want to slice, to have the "courage" to leave my thoughts behind and be free to be chained to my nice cozy misery. Sounds sick and warped even as I write it, but I miss feeling so horrible because at least then I felt SOMETHING. Now I'm just here. The flame killing the candle. There are too many razorblades and sharpthings in my house. At the Depeche Mode show [the other night] and more so at the Castle, I caught myself wishing for newer lines, newer scars, more blood. M has been cutting again - newish red badges of courage, dearie. Places that used to be mine - upper arms, straight across. I seem to be moving lower. Fuck fuck, I don't want to tonight but lately everything stresses me to the point of violence; the thought of hurting another person makes me sick, but it always seems perfectly reasonable to inflict violence on myself as an outlet. J says to me, "we need to find you another outlet for this." Fuck you, dear. I need to fix myself first.

Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - JTR
Checking out: PYTHON (Alexandra) and the Garage
Eating: tasty nutritious Ramen noodles

'Cause I got tossed out the window
of love's El Camino
and I shattered into a shower of sparks on the curb...
(Ani D.)

Listening to: Sloan, Worried Now
Checking out: darrell, who sponsored me and is teaching html to the world!

Paper scribble from 10 March 2000, 6:50pm:

today the boy at the drive-through told me I was beautiful.
I thought about giving my standard response to a comment like that -- "my girlfriend thinks so too" -- but he was so young and sincere that I blew a kiss and said Thank you, flashing a warm smile and driving away.
------------------
Advice

Folks, I'm telling you,
birthing is hard
dying is mean
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.

--Langston Hughes

Posting now @7:20 and won't again until 8p. Must nap and eat. rowr.

Listening to: Gomez, 78 Stone Wobble
Checking out: blue like that

Paper scribble, Sunday August 6th 2000:

Clean. Clean and new and all mine. Bought with my work, filled with my life, painted on every wall with my happiness. The room is still, calm, not-quite-formed, like a new baby asleep... boxes yet to be unpacked, one lone picture on the wall. Everything white: sheets, walls furniture. (Don't look at the floor!) All of it wonderful, and all of it my own.
--------------------
My opinion of this apartment has changed over the past year, and I'll be very glad to move on August 1st. I do love blank paper and new beginnings. For someone so afraid of change, why am I this close to gleeful about moving?

"If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work.
'Hello, can't work today. Still queer.' "
-Robin Tyler

.:from the wonderful soulflare.net:.

Listening to: Liz Phair, Stratford-on-Guy
Checking out: a bottle of Excedrin Migraine headache capsules and a purring Charliecat

secret. only for you.

don't you get it?

i need to put up a front.

for now.

because i have never had one.

and my second skin isn't growing in.

and the one i have is withering away.

i lie.

i really need to lie.

it wasn't meant for you. you know. you must know somewhere inside. you know me far too well.

nobody has asked me this yet, but once they do i am prepared.

them: how many people have known you?
me: one

whether you want to or not. or whether you realize it or not. you do know me far too well.

i'm sorry if that hurt you. i am. but i need a front. nothing else seems to work.

i know your answer would be 'isolation'. maybe. but i need people. and the lack of skin really makes it hard to bear the scratches.

[ancient]

Listening to: Counting Crows, Sullivan Street
Checking out: Alice's Restaurant. (I am a baby-boomer's daughter. Yes I am.)

So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump.

s.girl suggested that my next topic should be "implements of destruction," which made me think immediately of Arlo Guthrie and Alice's Restaurant. If you've never heard this tune, download it from your local free-pirated-mp3 service asap. If you don't know who Arlo Guthrie is, click & get to know him!

We all have our own implements of destruction. My mother used
men
guilt
martyrdom
herself to destroy her life and the people around her, for years before she came back to her God and herself.
My stepmother uses
God
endless work
screaming
belittling
her search for self-worth to tear down barriers and enemies and her children and her family, though less us than years ago yesterday.
My father's implements of destruction? I've never seen my father destroy anyone or anything except the blocks to my knowledge and his own ignorance with his bare hands and an infinite patience. Someday my father's hell will be known to me, but I'm still his baby and he is silent in love of me.
Mine are endless
nights of
chasing shadows
chemistry and the physics of physiology
marked by straight lines and the curves of my stomach, the dull sheen of dead eyes.
We weather the storms, pitching about through months of days
when all we've ever wanted was a thanksgivin' dinner that couldn't be beat and a friend like Alice.

A correction! From the wonderful Roses:
: p.s. The pastor of parish actually requested that the multi-thousand dollar acoustic tile be painted over, so that his sermons would have a more reverberating effect. That of course made the tile completely worthless...

I should have known.

listening to: Belle and Sebastian, If You're Feeling Sinister
Checking out: Wockerjabby (rabi)
---------------
Diesel-powered ferrets! Thousands of them! All of them frilly!
(thank you, random surrealism generator)
---------------
St. Paul's church in St. Petersburg, FL had acoustic tiles put up all around its music area and the inner walls so that the church music would sound decent and wouldn't echo or deafen the parishoners. This was about six years ago, and they were very expensive and well-installed. Zoom ahead to last year: new management (read: new priest & parish council) decide to give the church a much-needed coat of paint. Instead of taking down the tiles or working around them, the volunteers simply painted over the tiles. Now, there's never really been anything disguising how badly the church musicians sound; they've always been rather eh. However, now they're awful and loud. Luckily for me, I stopped being Catholic long before this, and haven't been to St. Paul's in quite a while. This has been the only distinct advantage of my long spiritual crisis, but I think it's been worth it.

My entry on acoustic tiles has become one on religion. All roads really do lead to Rome!

Blankness without a blanket is a common theme here -- Still waiting for that all-important slap in the face I need to get going. Too many butterfly nets in my head, in my fingers, in my eyes.

Thanks to brandon, my next entry will be all about acoustic tiles. Ideas for the following ones?

listening to: Depeche Mode, Barrel of a Gun
checking out: Soulflare.net, blogging for the Human Rights Campaign with bits of history from a queer perspective
------------------
why must I why do I carry my secrets around with me like pressed flowers (or faeries)
keep my pain close and safe in a pocket thin shinysharp a new-old blade, always re-cutting
the same old fingertip close to the old nicks and scratches, ouch that stings, I must be alive, how nice.
(old paperscribble)

ahem..
I forgot to announce that it's Elegykatie's birthday today!
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Elegy....
Happy birth-day to Youuuuuu!

that is all.

listening to: Fiona Apple, Sleep to Dream
Checking out: Kerplooey (sarrah) and Shattering (elegy)

This mind this body and this voice cannot be stifled by your deviant ways/ So don't forget what I told you: don't come around, I've got my own hell to raise..

Unsent; to J.Innes
There was a time, even recently, when I might have said, "Dear J." That time is gone.
It's taken me a long time to forget you, and even longer to remember you without wanting to disappear. Yes, I loved you once. I was fifteen-almost-sixteen, and you were eighteen; I was your princess and you were the philosophical sounding board for my passions and awful early writing. I miss that J, the one I knew.. he was a beautiful boy, a talented and perceptive artist, a gentle soul, a cat in a man's body. Even when we drifted apart, I knew we could stay wrapped up in clouds if only we tried.
The man who came back from the army in your place wasn't the kind of guy who even looked at the clouds unless he was shooting down birds. You murdered the J I knew while he was away, and came back in the body of that boy.. but I knew you weren't my boy anymore. Your new eyes gave you away, and your new knowledge, and your violent hands. I may be able to forgive you, someday, for what you did that night, for the way you hurt me. I might be strong and whole enough someday to forgive you for leaving me bleeding and broken and dead in that corner of the street, for telling me what you did, for giving me such lovely parting gifts: fear, nightmares, headaches, scars.

But I will never, ever forget.

What I'd like to do for the rest of the 'thon is to post unsent letters, bits of poems, and journally writings every half hour. If anyone would like to give me topics to write about, please jot them down in the guestbook and I'll put them up!

#1: My dada server personal reading.

Your secret name is Love.
The animal which symbolizes you is Cigarette.
The color of your soul is Plan 9.
The celebrity you most resemble is 19th Century England.
Your special pain or illness is Hole.
Your most important time of day is Color
The shape of your life is penguins.
And the flavour which identifies you most is penis.

I do take issue with that flavour.. I'm fond of lime, myself.

Starting the blogathon! (half an hour late, but I have the beginnings of a migraine - let me be..) This should be interesting. I'll be more erudite later.

From Sarrah's livejournal, 26 Jul 2001 08:28pm.

Say this hypothetical situation... You knew the world was ending,
your friend felt it too.. Do you do something? Or are you and your
friend just a little looney? If YOU personally felt every foundation
crumble as you sat in a lawnchair, could you ignore it?

**~*~* Disclaimer*~*~*~
This was a very new lawnchair.

Are you an Adult Child of Heterosexuals? Don't panic - there is help out there!

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending

e.e.cummings

*feeling around for a light switch*

An article written by a man on dating women who have been sexually abused.
An article written by a woman on telling your romantic interests about having been sexually abused.
Both intelligently written, both covering sensitive topics. Do not read if not in a safe place.

These are ancient links first brought up by retrospectre at the Garage. I'd be interested to know how this has affected other people's relationships when it's been an issue, as it certainly has in mine. I've left out "the conversation" completely, I've had it go really badly but also really well (and whether the conversee was male or female hasn't seemed to matter - reactions seem to depend on the person, not the gender of the Significant Other). I've left people, they've left me, there have been arguments and understanding and love and frustration and good sex and no sex and bad sex and marathon tissues-and-handholding sessions.

I'm having difficulty uploading the new layout and as such don't have my email address up yet, but you can reach me here or in the book. This means a lot to me, as it's something I'm struggling with now in my own life. I'm just not sure exactly where I'm headed yet.

xo

*busts move*
On shuffle in winamp as I pack up all of my earthly belongings and try not to step on Charlie:

Young MC - Bust a Move
Ani Difranco - To the Teeth - 01 - To the Teeth
Ani Difranco - To the Teeth - 02 - Soft Shoulder
Ani Difranco - To the Teeth - 03 - Wish I May
Ani Difranco - To The Teeth - 04 - Freakshow
Ani Difranco - To the Teeth - 05 - Going Once
Ani Difranco - To the Teeth - 06 - Hello Birmingham
Ani Difranco - To The Teeth - 07- Back Back Back
Ani DiFranco - To The Teeth - 08 - Swing
Ani Difranco - To the Teeth - 09 - Carry You Around
Ani Difranco - To the Teeth - 10 - Cloud Blood
Ani Difranco - To the Teeth - 11 - The Arrivals Gate
Ani Difranco - To The Teeth - 12 - Providence
Ani Difranco - To the Teeth - 13 - I Know This Bar
Ani Difranco - Back Back Back [Live]
Ani DiFranco - If He Tries Anything
Ani Difranco - Not A Pretty Girl
The Beatles - Dear Prudence
Beck - Loser
Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
Belle & Sebastian - Seeing Other People
Belle & Sebastian - Get me away from here
Belle and Sebastian - Like Dylan in the Movies
Belle and Sebastian - The Boy with the Arab Strap
Blind Melon - No Rain [live]
Blur - Coffee + TV
Blur - Song 2
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues
Bob Dylan - Tangled up in Blue
Coldplay - Yellow
Dave Matthews Band - Everyday
David Gray - Babylon
Dido - Thank You
Dave Matthews Band - #40
Dubstar - Star
Edwin Star - War
Eels - Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover (Cover - Live)
eels - cancer for the cure
Everclear - Santa Monica
Fiona Apple - Use me
Foo Fighters - Next Year
Gomez - 78 stone wobble
Gomez - We haven't turned around
Grateful Dead - Scarlet Begonias
Green Day - Basket Case
Jefferson Airplane - Somebody to Love.mp3
Kinks - All Day and All of the Night
Liz Phair-Exile in Guyville - 17 - Stratford-on-Guy
Unknown Artist - Track 12
Men Without Hats - Safety Dance
Mono - Life In Mono
Monty Python - Bruces´Philosophers Song
Soundtrack - Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
O Brother - Didn't Leave Nobody But The Ba
Paul Simon- Me and Julio (acoustic live)
Phish - Bouncing Around the Room
Phish - Wading In The Velvet Sea
Where Is My Mind - Pixies
Pixies - Hey
Poe and Mark Danielewski - Heey Pretty - Just Another Drive
Unknown Artist - Pure prarie league - amy
Radiohead - In Limbo
Ramones-I Want To Be Sedated
Rancid - Time Bomb
Robin Williams - Marijuana
Self - Cannon
Shawn Colvin - Sunny Came Home
Silverchair - shade
Simon And Garfunkel 128- America
Sloan - Worried Now
Sneaker Pimps (Spin Spin Sugar ) (Radio Edit)
Soul Coughing - Walk Around in Circles
Stone Temple Pilots - Plush (acoustic)
Suicide Machines - SOS
The Smiths - Asleep
The Smiths - Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before
The Verve - Lucky Man
Toad the Wet Sprocket - Walk On the Ocean
Tori Amos - Cornflake Girl
Tori Amos - God
Tori Amos - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Tori Amos - The Waitress
Tori Amos - The Wrong Band
Tracy Bonham - Mother, Mother (Everything's Fine)
Verve Pipe - Bittersweet Symphony
VNV Nation - darkangel (gabriel)
Weezer - Buddy Holly
Alkaline Trio - Fuck You Aurora
---
It's sad that this represents only 1/3 of the mp3s I have on this hard drive. I need to get out more.

throw away your daggers and pills
'cause everything is forgiven...
(jellyfish)

Drops of joy from brandon's surrealism generator:

Is that a wand in your conquistador, or are you just crying?

Jingle bones, Jingle bones, Jingle all the way - oh what fun it is to drop things on groupies in a one-thermometer bogus cigarette.

Your fictional faerie isn't insignificant!

And Daffy Duck said, "Let there be a count", and there was a count.
And Daffy Duck saw that the count was tense, and Daffy Duck separated the count from the pinball machine.
---
I'm moving in a week. Time to get offline and get packing!
mood: frantic and scrambling
music: placebo, black market music
Take that, livejournal.

rain down on me

Check out the the sponsor list! [scroll down to "little match girl."] Thank you so much, everybody who pitched in and saved my little blog for the 'thon.
I love you love you love you, and so does RAINN.

giddy
Just got back from my 4th Dave Matthews Band show. That is all.
/giddy

Impending Doom

I'm about to be dropped from the blogathon because I only have two sponsors!! The minimum # of sponsors needed to participate in the 'thon is 3 (explanation here). I'm blogging for RAINN, as they've saved my life more times than I can count - if you're in any way glad I'm still around, here's your chance to thank them!

(if you're not in any way glad I'm still around, you don't have to do anything for me or for RAINN... but *thhhbbttt* on you. &Nyah.)

Gandhi visited Europe for the first time in the 1930's.

Journalist: So what do you think of Western civilization?
Gandhi: I think that would be a very good idea indeed.