söndag den tjugonionde juli

there's a colombian block party outside. they're dancing in the rain. they're playing salsa and reggaeton.

i just got home from new jersey. one of my friends (whom i met at the job i quit last august) lives in princeton now, and three of us gurls who met at that job met up at penn station and took the train down there to visit and have a slumber party. it was fun! and it was so great to be in a nice, beautiful, new home in a quiet neighborhood where it's totally dark at night and the only outdoor noise is coming from insects and birds. a wooded area is behind her house. fireflies were everywhere at dusk. i laid in the grass in her backyard with the cool blades pressing against my arms, legs and feet.

i went all week without work, and i have nothing for monday. i'll be okay. i've had it good on ebay. i got a personal loan that will allow me to pay for the rent and deposit on the new apartment. it's pretty much a given that i'm getting the apartment under my sister. i should be moving in there in mid-august. i'm very excited to have my OWN apartment with only my OWN belongings in it. i'll have a lease with MY name, and no one else's name, on it. it will be a clean slate when i move in. i'll have my cute kitchen setup, my cute bathroom setup, my cute living space setup, my cute patio setup. yeah, a fucking patio!!! i got one of those tiny pocket books on feng shui. it has some good tips in it. i wanna find some wood furniture at a thrift store or yard sale, and i can sand it down and refinish it out on the patio. my old childhood friend's mother is giving me some pieces of furniture, like a futon and a couple of chairs and a little coffee table. i have the bookcase my sister gave me a few months ago. i'd like to find an old desk that i can fix up, and maybe another bookcase. i might get a few little things from ikea and/or target, too.

i was the videographer at this past friday's ball. it was bigger than the first ball, as at this ball, HOUSES were competing, not just individuals. it ended abruptly when a fight broke out. :( it was really fun up until then. i got to see more as the videographer than i had as the bouncer. i hope to go help out at another ball soon. i like the way kids these days are vogueing. i think it's more expressive and creative than the vogueing of the '80s and '90s, and maybe the kids are mixing in krumping. i love it.

tisdag den tjugofjärde juli

hej. idag var det bra.

i had a relaxing day. i woke up when i wanted to. my new friend from the shelter was babysitting a little girl in the neighborhood and i met her as she pushed the little girl around in the stroller. we went to a bagel shop and i had a toasted everything bagel with scallion cream cheese. we walked around more and she then had to take the girl home. i went to the post office to mail out shit. yesterday was a GREAT fucking day on ebay for me!!! my sister got a bunch of great box sets that i dumped on there last night. i pray that they sell like hotcakes so that i can get money rolling in to make up for the fact that i don't have a temp assignment at the mo'. i am trying not to freak out.

...i am also trying not to be self-loathing about being fat anymore. i want to just fucking accept the way i am. my friend let me borrow her school's copy of fat!so? and i feel like the book has helped me flush out some of the toxins that seep into me from living in a society that hates fat people. i'm fat, dammit. i don't want to give a shit about it anymore. i want to focus all on my HEALTH. i want to continue eating HEALTHY vegetarian food and continue walking my ass off all over creation. i also wanna start lifting weights. i wanna get really big muscles in my arms. i know my legs are strong from hoofing it around and running up subway stairs so much. it wouldn't hurt for them to be even stronger. i remember how, when i was in high school and college, my legs were so damn strong that when i used the nautilus machine that works on the sartorius muscles, i would slam the damn thing all the way down and the big macho boys working out around me would stare with their mouths open. :D i will have access to the university gym and can work on slamming shit down with my sartorius muscles and also work on my pecs. i wanna get weights to use at home for my arms. fuck being thin. fuck even trying to lose weight. take me as i am, muthafuckas. if you don't like the way i look, point your fucking heads the other way, you ignorami. clear the way, this bitch is on the move, and she's moving FAST!!! i dunno. maybe there is a dating site for fat folks on which i can meet a cute, sweet, handsome boy who will think i'm gorgeous just the way i am and will accept that i'll think he's gorgeous just the way he is!!! i'm so sick of the self-loathing. the more confident i am about the way i naturally am, the more that will shine through me and can help attract a wonderful, sweet, handsome boy (fat or not) who will think i'm a hot cookie AS-IS!!! i wouldn't be happy being close to someone romantically as a self-loathing, diet pill-popping, rectally incontinent, calorie and fat-obsessed harpy. i am not happy as that self-loathing person no matter what. "take me as i am", as mary j. blige sings.

my sister's downstairs neighbor is moving out at the end of august. his is a studio apartment like hers is, but i think his is a bit bigger. he has his own little patio area in front of his door, with steps coming up to the communal patio area that he and my sister share. she told my dad that she could try to talk the landlord into renting to me for not so much money, since she's been his tenant for 6-7 years, and i am her sister. if i lived in the apartment, i could have a cat, i could have a garden on the patio, the building has laundry on the premises, it's quiet, there's a police station on the same block, the subway is at the end of the block, a grocery store a block away has lots of vegetarian food and fresh produce, i would get to stay in my beloved borough of queens but would have a quick commute uptown (the neighborhood is on the far western edge of queens near the east river), i would be closer to my dad and all of my friends who don't live in queens or live in western queens, etc. i am seriously considering asking for the apartment. if my sister and i reconcile (which we are in the slow process of doing), i might even be able to have a dog because the whole yard is fenced in with a high fence and my sister works from home. i dunno yet about the dog, but i could DEFINITELY have a cat in there. on the patio, i could have a potted garden, do composting, do manual laundry and hang clothes to dry, and eat dinner under the glow of hte moon and the warm light of my little japanese paper lanterns. this would be an extremely fortunate situation to be in as a new york city resident. oh, and the next-door neighbor has her own patio where there is a full blown garden with all sorts of plants and trees. the cats can stay in my patio or go visit next door through the fence. what a nice life for a cat! i wouldn't have to keep my cat cooped up indoors! :) well, we'll see if this works out. if i could set this up, a HUGE source of stress would be lifted, and i could focus on preparing for school!!!

i am gonna go eat some dinner now. i got a vegan "chicken" salad sandwich on the way home from the post office. tomorrow, i am gonna go help socialize the cats at the shelter. there are over 200 of them and they live in these big catteries (rooms full of perches and beds and windows). i know that my future special cat friend is among the shelter cats. i just have to find out which one she is and then i can adopt her as soon as i get my own pad! :) i am also continuing on my journey of trying to make this apartment clean and inviting. i bought some frankincense, aromatherapy candles, and more cleaning products today. as i finish each room i clean, i will burn the incense and candles and i will turn this place into a home instead of a dirty crash pad. mr. j won't recognize it when he gets back. when i move out, i'll leave behind a much cleaner, cozier, nicer place, and i'll also leave behind good energy. shit, i should become a consultant for people with cleanliness and living space issues. :)

måndag den tjugotredje juli

hi. i've been busy.

friday night was a blast. i was a bouncer at the back door of the ball. the ball was special because all of its participants were high school kids. some of them were extremely talented at vogueing. if i tried some of that shit, i'd break my back AND my butt. i want to attend more balls. i would also like to be in a ball someday. i wish to be a contestant in "schoolgirl realness". :) it was the schoolgirl realness in "paris is burning" that somehow changed my life. one of the queens in the schoolgirl realness competition shown in the film was so fierce that she inspired me in my quest to do really well in high school so that i would get into a good college, get the fuck out of the podunk town i grew up in, and make a real life for myself. so, basically my admission to oberlin was thanks to that queen (and to the general fierceness and ferocity of the legendary ladies and gents). :)

after the ball, we went up to the neighborhood of my university to eat at a great korean restaurant. i had "bibim bap" in a hot, sizzling, stone bowl. i spell that dish "bi bim bop". i just do. i like to spell it that way. the bi bim bop they cook is soooo good. almost all of us had it except for one of us. i had it with tofu instead of meat. i spooned in lots of the dark, thick, red spicy sauce and stirred the bop with my spoon for a few minutes. getting your bop just right takes work on your part. we had a soup with a delectable broth. we had great kimchi and seaweed and omelette dim sum. i was feeling cold, so i ordered korean tea, and it was a nice, light but smoky tea with no sweetness. so, this korean restaurant is about 8 blocks south of where i'll be going to school. you bet your fucking ass i'm going there again, more than once! :) the interior decorations in the restaurant are great. lots of great korean woodwork and paintings and little lanterns. really beautiful and traditional but not fancy at all.

on saturday, i spent the morning/afternoon with the animal shelter van in soho. it was a really slow day, and there were only three volunteers (and four dogs). we only got one adoption application. :( well, one of the new volunteers is super-duper cool, and she was there on saturday. we're becoming friends. i have her phone number now. she's awesome and really kind and she also used to be a big drinker and a drug addict. she's been totally clean for a while now. i told her that i've struggled with alcs over the past five years and i want to be free of it or at least free of the needy feeling i have for it. my friend in the bronx who i met at this last temp assignment is now alcohol-free after having been a heavy drinker. it will be good to hang out with them, not only because they are awesome, but also because they are good role models and good sources of support, and i won't have to worry about them drinking around me and making it harder for me to stay dry.

saturday evening was spent at the house of my friend who just moved back into "the lair". it was fun!!! great times and lots of laughs and great vegetarian, home-cooked, nutritious food! i left when they were gonna show the movie "the secret". that was pretty much the party-pooping moment for me. if it's not clear why i would disagree with the premise of that film, please think about it for a minute.

yesterday, my dad and i were driving all over the bronx. i got myself acquainted with the areas that are easiest to reach from the university and are also not major ghetto-land. now i will know what the classified ads will mean when they list neighborhood names and street names. i pretty much have pinpointed a neighborhood that i want to live in the most. i will not name it here. i should have a pseudonym for the bronx in general. i want most of the people who are gentrifying the whole damn city to keep thinking that the entire bronx (save riverdale) is a stew of super-ghettoization. yeah, guys. don't move up there. it's all dirty and dangerous, and it's no place for yuppies or trustafarians! PLEASE, stay down in the places you've already made unaffordable for regular low-income folks! anyway, this morning i was on the damn subway for 1 1/2 hours to go see the studio in my friend's building only to be told by the guy that he wasn't there (even though he knew i was coming to see it). he said he'd be there in 20 minutes. then, 20 minutes later, he called me to say that he could not see me until after 5 p.m. (it was 11 a.m. at the time) because of a flooding emergency. fuck it. i was so frustrated that tears were streaming. it didn't help that this guy who was also there to see an apartment was asking me alllll of these questions about myself and then went down a list of what ethnicities i might be. i was like, "nope", "nope", "nope", and didn't offer him an answer to what he wanted to know. he himself was puerto rican. well, first he said he was "spanish". he didn't look like he'd just gotten off the boat from sevilla, so i asked where specifically he was from (let me ask 20 questions to YOU now, muthafucka). puerto rico, he said, but was quick to add that he was born here. oh, does that make you superior to those who were born on the island? well, when i finally told him i was mixed and what i was mixed with, i added with emphasis that i was basically the same mix that the majority of puerto ricans were (european and african), whether or NOT they admitted to the african part. one of my pet peeves: boricuas or quisqueyanas who go on ad nauseum about their "spanish" lineage as i stand there looking at their african features, brown skin and thick, dark, curly hair. PET PEEVE. guys, the biggest difference between us is the goddamn language of our home cultures. i often can't tell if someone is african-american, west indian or latino until they open their mouths and speak, BECAUSE WE'RE ALL FUCKING MIXED WITH BASICALLY THE SAME INGREDIENTS!!!! anyway, i dunno when or if i will go back to see the apartment again. the super only shows the apartments from 9-1, and i sure as fuck ain't gonna take off work to see an apt. god willing, i will get another temp job tomorrow or the next day.

i am gonna go eat dinner now. first i have to complain about one more thing: it annoys me that my roommate left me here to live for three weeks in an apartment full of filth that was not of my making. i am cleaning it up to keep myself from going insane. if i can move into a new place in mid-august, that will be great. i won' t cry about leaving this pigsty.

fredag, den tjugonde juli

i'm sitting here at my desk on my last day of work at my temp job. it really is my last day this time. they don't have the budget to keep me on, and plus, i don't do much work anyway (my boss doesn't have much work for me). i am really sad about leaving. i really like it here, and so many of the people here are so kind! i am sadder about leaving here than about leaving the music venue. my boss the lawyer isn't here this morning because she is at a funeral upstate. she may or may not be able to make it in today. :(

yesterday, a bunch of things built up and i lost my shit (not literally, though, as i'm not taking that pill anymore). i was crying a bit in my boss's office and my friend/colleague who lives in the nice apartment building in the bronx was comforting me. she is very kind and compassionate. she's also been through struggles with alcohol and smoking. she is totally alcohol and smoke free now. :) when she's stressed, she does sudoku, listens to music, pets her cat, reads good books, etc. i think having a cat will help my mental health TREMENDOUSLY.

i want to read some more haruki murakami books, but my funds are low and i can't afford to buy them. :/ i am actually quite scared about how i am gonna pay first month's rent and deposit on an apartment. i don't have to move until september, but what if i get this funky-fresh studio in the bronx lined up SOON? will they expect me to pay the damn deposit AND rent when i line it up, or will they accept just the deposit and wait for the rent until i actually move in? the apartment would be $700 - $750 per month in rent. i am gonna go see it on monday morning. actually there are two opening up. one is available now and the other needs work done (hopefully they'd have the work done by september 1st). when i'm done seeing the apartments, i am gonna pound pavement in the neighborhood for other leads.

two days ago, after work, i was in the duane reade at 42nd and lexington avenue buying myself a brita water filter. according to my receipt, i checked out at 5:56 p.m. after the purchase, i went outside onto 42nd street and saw a bus stop. i needed to go to 42nd between madison and 5th. normally, i would hoof it. that day, though, i decided to bus it. the bus came and took me down to where i needed to go: a camera store. while i was in the store, the lights flickered and the power dimmed. then the proprietor noticed through the store window that there were people running west on the sidewalk and street outside. so she went out and saw the huge plumes of what looked like smoke that looked like it was engulfing a skyscraper on the south side of 42nd. it fucking looked like 9/11. people thought there was a terrorist attack targeting grand central station. that's what i believed, too. i joined the throngs of folks hightailing it west to get far away from the scene. many of us were freaked out. some were crying. but, other people were standing or actually walking TOWARD the damn thing taking pictures and video on their cell phones. some had looks of excitement and glee on their faces. it made me sick. anyway, i hauled ass all the way to 8th avenue and got on the queens-bound e train. i wanted out of the borough asap! i had been literally a block from the actual explosion 4-5 minutes before it happened. i feel horrible that someone died and others were injured because of it. i guess that was a part of the reason for my mental breakdown yesterday afternoon.

i just have a lot of stress right now. i am almost broke. i don't know where the next paycheck is coming from. i don't know where i'm gonna live in 5 weeks. i'm scared about starting grad school. the diet pills threw my body off balance. i feel fat and ugly. i'm lonely. the firefighter is nowhere to be found and i feel rejected and disrespected by him (no more chances for him!). last night, i had a dream in which i was friends with this guy (a guy who doesn't exist in reality). he was such a sweet, sweet soul! he was a truly wonderful human being. he liked me in that special way, and i liked him in that special way. we were taking it slowly, though. we were still just friends at the end of the dream, but i knew that the love growing between us was leading us into a romantic partnership. he also had some sort of physical handicap. i can't remember what it was exactly. something with his walking, i think. it scared me and repulsed me somewhat. i think i had that reaction because of alex's handicap being a precursor to his death. :( i didn't want this guy to die on me. now that i am thinking of it more, i think he might have had a partial amputation of one of his legs. alex didn't have an amputation, but half of his skull had been taken out due to the stroke. alex was mostly paralyzed on one side. anyway, this man was so wonderful. he also had a dog. i would hang out with him and the dog on summer nights watching outdoor movies. :) it was so nice. well, i hope such a wonderful guy is in my future. i hope he doesn't have some kind of traumatic, body-altering surgery in his past, though. i think that might trigger me too much. yes, god. i pray that you send me someone who is healthy and intact and won't get really sick or die on me. i just don't need that again, ya know?

tonight, i'm gonna be a bouncer at a ball. i have never been to a true ball (the drag balls my college had don't count in my book), but i have wanted to go to one ever since i saw the film "paris is burning" back in high school. i'll get to be at a true ball tonight, and i'll get to help keep the riffraff out! yay! afterwards, my friends and i are going up to harlem for some korean food. i can't wait to have some more of my kimchi and bi bim bop!!! :D tomorrow, i'm with the animal shelter's mobile adoption event in manhattan. afterwards, i'm going to my friends coming-home party. it's the friend from whom i've subletted that lair for almost two years. she moved back home a few days ago. i have a busy social schedule for the next few days. oh, and my roommate mr. j is going away for three weeks on saturday. he got a summer camp job. i'll basically be living alone for all that time. i'll pay him my rent when he comes back on august 12th, which i'm thankful about, since i don't see how i will have enough money to pay the rent on august 1st. yup. flat-ass broke days are here again. :( i pray that my ebay sales improve. they have been sooooo sluggish for weeks now! i want folks to buy my ebay wares!!!

goodbye for now.

tisdag

i'm still on the new diet drug. i decided after a mishap this morning that i am not continuing on these pills. i have recently had a couple of morning mishaps which luckily were "contained". this morning's mishap was not contained. my bedsheet is now soaking in a bowl, having been drenched with spray n' wash and scrubbed under steaming hot water. at least i can try out my new hand-cranked clothes washing contraption on the sheet. i've had a good life of not having to worry about uncontrollable butt products. why voluntarily make myself incontinent? the first week on the pill bore no accidents. maybe because the medicine has been building up in my system, it's affecting me more now? i don't need this pill to lose weight. i thought it would help, and i'm sure it has helped me absorb fewer calories, but it doesn't help my digestive tract. plus, it makes me neurotic to count calories and fat grams. i also don't think that counting these things is the most important thing. i think that just eating as healthfully as possible, and staying AWAY from the alcohol, is important.

i can't wait to have a kitchen i can cook in again. the kitchen i have now is just waaaaay too nasty. it's like, that old, caked-on nasty that occurs when a kitchen is not adequately cleaned for YEARS. i'm just living off of my breakfast cereal and amy's tv dinners and what have you. the good thing is that mr. j, though not a vegetarian, sure as hell eats like he is one. i don't have to deal with meat in the kitchen at all. he is also as adamant about recycling as i am. well, speaking of a kitchen i can cook in, my colleague/new friend is gonna set me up with her super to look at a studio apartment in her building next week.

in my new apartment, wherever and whatever it will be, i want to have a cat. i have been doing research on having a cat. i want a cat perch, a scratching post, fun and safe toys, nice shallow food and water bowls, a hooded litter box, pine litter, catnip and all-natural, high quality food. my cat would not be a vegetarian. cats are true carnivores. dogs are not. dogs are omnivorous. when i have a dog, the dog will be a vegetarian. dogs can totally be okay as vegetarians. in my opinion, true carnivores such as cats cannot fully be okay as vegetarians. i would make a compromise regarding my cat's diet: my cat would have organic, highly-nutritious, vegetarian dry cat food and my cat would also eat fish that i cook. i would buy wild fish from species that are not overfished and not full of mercury. this would still make me feel bad that i am contributing to the deaths of other animals to feed my cat, but what else can i do? *sigh*

my temp assignment really is supposed to end this friday. after that, i have five weeks until school orientation begins. those five weeks are gonna fly, and hopefully they'll be filled up with more temp work. i feel scared about school starting. i wish the five weeks wouldn't fly. i don't wanna spend those five weeks obsessing over trying to find a place to live. it would be wonderful if i could snag this apartment in my friend/colleague's building in the bronx and then i could focus my free time on taking care of myself and mentally and emotionally preparing for school. that'd be nice!

i still haven't hooked up with the firefighter again. we've been e-mailing back and forth, back and forth, trying to find a time we'll both be free. now he hasn't e-mailed me in a few days. frankly i am sick of dealing with him, and i am sick of physical intimacy with absolutely NO emotional intimacy. :( i want to date someone who wants to get to know me beyond my body, who cares about me, who wants to go on real dates and do things other than sex with me, who wouldn't mind waiting a while before we got intimate. he doesn't have to be the next love of my life and the father of my future children. i'd just like a nice, sweet, wonderful, handsome guy to have in my life. someone who appreciates me for who i am and is kind to me, like the people i work with treat me. a really great guy i can date. i'd like that!

a positive rush

i dunno. so many positive things are happening to me, and i am not used to it! just incredibly good things are happening to me! it's so strange, but i am basking in each moment of goodness that comes my way.

yesterday, my boss asked me to stay on another week. yay! another week of steady employment with these really great folks i work with! yeah, it's not just my boss who's nice (though she is the nicest of the bunch). it's also pretty much everyone i work with. the colleague of mine who lives in the bronx is serious about trying to help me out in getting a cute little studio apartment. she invited me to come to her apartment and neighborhood and hang out. so, i hope to set up a real date to do that soon. she's super-duper cool! then there are the folks i don't directly work with but who i see in passing multiple times a day and share pleasantries and crack little jokes with. just down-to-earth NICE folks! :)

i actually had a little mental breakdown yesterday afternoon because i was really nervous and scared about today, and my e-mail and computer at work are fucked up and i wasn't receiving an important document i was waiting to get so that i could work on it, and i just moved out of my lair (i lived in that lair longer than i have lived in any one place since i was age 17 and left the house of my mother, which i had lived in for 7 years, to go off to college). it was a big deal to move out of the lair. it's stressful to move, period. it's stressful to try to settle temporarily in the bird nest, especially when the weather is hotter and stickier than the underside of a gorilla's nutbag. it's really stressful trying to think about where the fuck i am gonna live in the fall and will i find a place in northern manhattan or in the bronx? and i thought that my temp assignment was ending on friday and i was upset about that because i really like working at this place, and it's nice to know where next week's paycheck is coming from. so i broke down a bit and my boss took me into her office and closed the door and fed me chocolate-covered espresso beans and green tea and gave me tissues and comforted me and i gathered myself together in a few minutes, and then a while later, she came and asked me if i would like to stay on with them another week (i guess she convinced the hr guy that she needed me longer) and i said "YES!!!"

today i didn't go to work. i am currently typing on this blog from a computer in the library of the university's school of social work. i came here this morning for a "retention session" and a "waiver exam". the session included talks and q & a's by the head of admissions, the asst. director of student services, the health care folks, the computing folks, the financial aid folks, etc. i've been scared about coming. i sooo want this grad school thing to work out well! i soooo want to have a positive experience at school and get my msw and be a fierce, kick-ass social worker!!! when i first came today, i felt really scared and the old, negative voices in my head started talking, but i told them to shut up, and the positive, strong voices chimed in. i actually asked questions (i rarely speak up in public in front of a bunch of people) and participated and got a lot of great info and the university folks were really helpful and great, and it was a really positive experience! this university has SOOOOO many great resources of all different kinds, and i am gonna know them all well and use them well and get my money's worth out of them and do my best to have a great experience here! i also met several nice fellow new students. :) it was nice! yeah, now i see even more how the level of quality at this institution is WAAAAY high, and i am very glad to be going here.

i also found out that all of us folks who are eligible for work-study were put into a "hat" and a few were randomly chosen to receive it (i wasn't one of them) because the feds didn't give the school nearly enough work-study money to give to all of us who qualify for it...but if they get more money from the feds, i very well might get a work-study award next semester or year. also, i found out that i can work for the office of disability services or one of the other health services offices WITHOUT having to have work-study, and the hours are flexible and they pay $15/hour! my ass is totally on that! i would love to help students with disabilities have more access to what they need here!!! i would love that job! i would love any sort of health services job! hello? the mental health services office? the gay health advocacy project? women's health services? i'd totally be on any of that!

i am now killing time until the shindig at 6:30 with my old friends from the old job i quit last august. we're meeting down in greenwich village and i am going to drink shirley temples while they sip their booze. i've been pretty good about the booze ever since the "sick session" last week. the other night, i had some sake, but that was it. now i am gonna browse around the library for a while and get myself more familiar with the library resources, and then i will head on down the hill to the post office to send out a dvd and hop on the downtown train to meet my friends.

life is working out for me right now. like, it's not all fucked up and horrible. and...even if something fucked up and horrible happened, it wouldn't break me. i won't let horrible shit break me anymore.

gushing waters and mini homes

hi. my new nickname is "gushing waters" because my body dumps bucketloads of sweat out of my pores every time it's humid. today was the hottest, most humid day of the year. i looked like i had just come out of a shower without toweling off. SOAKED. some people naturally sweat more than others. i am one of them. i inherited it from my dad, whose head sweats more than an ice-cold grape nehi in a warm room. yeah, fucking FUN.

my friend in chicago has introduced me to the small house movement, and i am totally excited about it. the only way i will probably EVER own a home is if i build it myself and build it SMALL. plus, small houses are much better, environmentally. plus, i have always loved coziness. the only two rooms of a house or apartment which must have lots of elbow room are the kitchen and the bathroom. i've always wanted to design and build my own home. when i was a kid, i spent hours drawing floor plans of houses. i thought about being an architect someday. my dad loves to draw floor plans, too. anyway, someday when i have my life partner and my animal companions and my social work/animal-assisted therapy stuff further along, i would like for us to build a house on a plain ol' cheap plot of land. it will be a little house that uses space maximally, creatively and cozily in the great scandinavian and japanese traditions. it'll have nooks and crannies and eccentricities and little oddities and surprises at every turn. it will be very energy-efficient and ecologically sound. it will be a cozy lair for us. the land around this little house will be partly open space for us to enjoy leisurely, as well as a japanese garden (which the huge window around the bathtub will look out onto).

it's too hot to eat hot food. i am gonna order delivery on some vegetarian sushi. tomorrow night, it will be cooler and i will make some madras lentils, green beans and rice.

i am gonna go out on the fire escape now. i'm excited that someday, i may actually be able to afford to own my own home! yay! and as for the next abode i live in, i am considering living in the bronx if i don't find an affordable place in manhattan north of columbia. all i want is a cozy, nice, cute, quiet little studio apartment with good kitchen counter space, a decent-sized bathroom with a window, and good feng shui in the apartment's layout. i just want my own tiny little spot in this huge metropolis. just one teeeeeny-tiny little spot of my very own!!!

monday night

one of the things that keeps me company when i come home at night is to write on my blog. i have pretty much stopped writing in my physical journal. i have kept journals since i was 12 or 13 years old. pretty much 95% of the content of my teenage journals was about andy. i kept impeccable records of when i saw him, when i talked to him, what he said, what he did, what i said, what i did, what we did together, etc. lol. it's sad that my physical journal is now being neglected. i dunno. maybe this blogging thing is just a phase i'm going through.

with help from my dad, the worst of the cleaning of the old lair is done. the biggest thing left to do is mop the floor, which should be easier now since we swept and vacuumed the hell out of it on saturday night. i feel guilty kvetching about uncleanliness in my new abode when it's so awesome to get to be here, and everything but the cleanliness is great. maybe an underlying reason for the kvetching about my roommate's home habits is that i am really worried about him. he's unemployed but always out messing around and goofing off with friends, or doing political work. he rarely puts himself in a position where he's alone to spend time with himself. i've barely seen him since i moved in. he'll be gone nights at a time, and i dunno where. he doesn't have a boyfriend. he's never had a boyfriend. he sleeps around and does things that make me cringe inside. he has "health problems" (exactly what problems, i don't know) and he does not take care of himself well. he's so busy socializing or taking care of other people. quite frankly, i have wondered several times about the fact that he may have a serious illness. he's lost a lot of weight, he hacks like an old chainsmoker, he brought out a huge bag of pills one day and popped a bunch. well, i have this sinking feeling about his health. i am very worried that he might actually be hiv+. i pray so very, very much that he isn't, but i am scared that he is. if he is, i wish he could feel like he could tell me he is. i'm his friend whom he's known for a decade. i care a lot about him and i want the best for him and i worry about him. i might have to have an intervention with him. i don't think i can really sit here for two months and watch him keep living this crazy, whirlwind lifestyle. i sense a deep well of sadness within him that he can't face, hence the focusing all his time on others. it will break my fucking heart if this man has hiv or any sort of serious health issue. i think he knows how insightful i am, and i think he might sense that i can see through his facade. he's barely spent time with me since i moved in. i feel a bit like he's avoiding me, because he knows i'm one of those friends who is there to face the hard stuff with. i'm a true friend. i wanna ask him on a "dinner date" when we'll go out for a nice dinner and talk and spend time together. i am also gonna ask him on a "kitchen-cleaning date" where we clean up the mess together and bomb the shit out of the place with roach fogger. i want to try to help him slow down and breathe and take more time for himself. he really needs it. sometimes, people get in situations where it's too painful to face themselves. i feel like he's let himself go too deep into such a situation for too long. i just pray that he will find himself out of that situation, and maybe my support can help him a bit on that road. and please god, let this man NOT have hiv.

my reactions to the diet drug are fine. as part of the drug's normal effects, one's body passes out a portion of the fat one consumes, but to me, the passing of the fat is a part of my normal gastrointestinal routine. i'm not running for the bathroom or anything. i dunno why some people out there are acting like the drug makes a huge volcano erupt out of their ass. it made me afraid that that would happen to me, but i have nothing to worry about.

i'm gonna go for now. mr. j just came home.

i've come a long way

i started on the new diet drug today. i think i already messed up due to misreading a food label on something i had for lunch. the fucking thing was an organic microwave dinner. i wrongly assumed that the one dinner was one serving (it looked like one serving!). so i looked at the fat grams on the label, taking them at face value because i thought they were the total amount of fat for the meal. later, i rechecked the label and discovered that they had this tv dinner as being TWO servings, even though it was a meal-for-one. argh! so i am now waiting for my butt to explode. so far, nothing, but i feel like gas is brewing. i am afraid that the gas will be oily like is said to be one of the side-effects of eating a high-fat meal with the drug. fuck. i put a fucking maxi pad on.

anyway, my dad is coming over. we're going back to the old lair to "syssla" (a swedish verb i love, meaning to mess with or nitpick over things, such as what a good virgo does when given cleaning implements). i am gonna do my laundry over there. i am planning on buying an electric-less hand-cranked washer. it can do a small load without electricity, and the money i save on loads at the laundromat will soon make up for the cost (and the washer doesn't cost much). i will try to use it as much as possible to avoid having to go to the laundromat, though i will have to go there for larger items and stained stuff. sitting for three hours in a hot, not-so-spotless laundromat on a hot day, bored out of my mind, surrounded by the strong stench of chemical-filled detergents, using up dollars and dollars-worth of quarters, is not my idea of fun. i just realized i haven't had to regularly do the laundromat thing since i was a senior in college, over 8 years ago. every apartment building i've lived in since then has had laundry facilities on the premises. i will buy the hand-cranked washer from this company based in amish country. i will also buy some ecological fabric softener so that my clothes won't be stiff when i air-dry them. lots and lots of swedes and norwegians do their laundry this way. probably lots of other europeans do, too. hell, it's probably only yanks and canucks who are so hell-bent on always using washing machines or dryers. global warming, people!

so i quarantined myself to the nest today for fear of having diet drug "side-effects" in public. i just spent a couple of hours rereading my ENTIRE blog, which i created last october. god, i was having it very, very rough last fall, winter, and early spring. i realize how far i've come since then. my last post was a kvell-fest about my wonderful current boss, as contrasted to those very dark, deeply sorrowful and hopeless posts i was writing less than a year ago. i got through that hell, with the help of good friends: some human, some animal, and some spirit. i am on a positive path. i can see myself clearly on that path of increasing light and joy. i am out of the dark woods. i'm in more open spaces now. i can breathe freer. i don't feel hopeless. i may have setbacks, but they are not permanent and soul-crushing. i can see that in my darkest hours, i felt like god was punishing me by taking alex away and for giving me abusive bosses and coworkers and bad temp gigs and bad financial states, etc. but now i don't believe that, really. god didn't punish me. god didn't punish my friend by giving her four losses in too short a time. fucking horrible shit happens and we don't deserve it. we deserve the good things, and god wants the good things. maybe god cries along with us when the bad things happen. i would like to think that my god wept with me as i knelt next to alex's body the morning he died. i would like to think that my god cried with my friend as the realization of her son's death arrived. i would like to believe that my god wants the beautiful and good to win over, and that my god wants us all to win over the horrible things in our lives and in the world by countering them with goodness. i have to believe in goodness. i have to believe that goodness and beauty and love win over and are supreme in the end. i live every waking moment with this belief pulling me forward. without telling myself this over and over, i could not have gotten through the horrors that i and those close to me have endured. i want to help make this world better in any tiny way i can. people can make HUGE impacts on one another, in the SMALLEST ways: a smile, a hello, a holding a door open, a pat on the back, a "thank you". there is shit in this world we can't control. what we can control, we must be committed to making positive. sometimes, when we are most desperate is when we must be most committed to bringing forth goodness into the world, for this is when it can help us and others the most.

now i need to kvetch some more because i'm so good at it. i need to get the following off my chest: roaches in the kitchen and bathroom. filthy kitchen. dust bunnies on floor. just dirty, funkiness in apartment in every way. i am glad there are now less than two months left. i sound ungrateful. i am not. i am very grateful for A LOT about this situation. but, i must kvetch. it's in my nature: i am a virgo. it's just the mess i cannot stand. i'm getting around it, though. the hardest part is the kitchen. i can't cook in a kitchen like that, and i refuse to clean up such a long-living mess that is completely not mine. it's not because i'm lazy. it's because i am disgusted. yeah, and i cannot cook where i know roaches are. i will be microwave-dinnering it for the next 7 weeks. i just have to be careful to make sure of the fat content of these dinners before i buy them.

now, i will kvell more: my roommate is a great guy and a great friend. he's a fierce, political, justice-loving, kind man. i have known him for a decade. he's a mensch. he's just lousy at being a virgo in terms of cleanliness. he's a stereotypical boy in his home habits. anyway, i love the sunrise coming right in my window, completely visible to me. and at night, the moon is outside my window. i love the virgen de guadalupe altar and wall adornments. the room is nice! i love the window right next to the shower in the bathroom. i can look out the bathroom window and see the street and people below as i cleanse. the roof access is awesome. a block to the train! lots of shops nearby! lively neighborhood with lots of families. lots of mexican immigrants who remind me of home. i can planespot because i'm not too far from laguardia airport. i watch planes taking off one after another. i can feed pigeons on the windowsill. i can have peace and safety. i can sleep in a nice bed that's big enough for me and the animals, and for the firefighter. :) i have a place to live until september. i am respected and loved and welcomed here. i am helping my friend and his roommate out because they desperately needed someone to sublet so that they wouldn't have to pay the rent while she was gone. so, i will deal with the dirtiness that makes me go neurotic, because the rest of it is great! i just have to kvetch about the mess sometimes, okay? :)

flores de muchos colores

okay, this lawyer i'm working for is nicer than i can believe. i was really fucking stupid last night and drank a whole pint of vodka, mixed with diet citrus soda. i was shitfaced drunk. i don't even remember what kind of blabberings were coming out of my mouth. i just kept blabbing on to mr. j about god knows what. then i got sick and went to lay down. i then proceeded to the bathroom to upchuck my entire fucking dinner and then i passed out in my bed. i was soooo hung over this morning. i made myself upchuck more. it was burning-hot stomach acid. don't you love my blog? i give all the details you DON'T wanna know. anyway, i was about 15 minutes late to work because it took so long for me to get ready, due to the nausea and dizziness. my boss was totally cool about it. she felt really bad for me because i was sick. of course i didn't tell her it was due to alcohol abuse the night before. i told her a semi-truth, though: that i was sick most likely due to stress. and why the fuck do i drink alcohol? it's a stupid reaction to stress. well, after a few hours, i felt like i'd feel better if something were in my stomach. she told me to eat rice, ginger, and drink chamomile tea. she offered to go out and get me some rice. she insisted on it, actually. i thanked her. she insisted on paying for it. 15 minutes later, she comes back with the following items:

1) warm basmati rice with spinach and mushroom
2) warm brown rice with carrot and tofu
3) a package of organic unsalted plain brown rice crackers
4) a box of organic medicinal-strength chamomile tea
5) two bottles of reed's extra ginger brew
6) a medium-size tub of sugared ginger slices
7) a bottle of coke
8) two packages of instant thai rice noodles with ginger seasoning
9) a package of organic brown rice pasta
10) a homeopathic remedy for nausea
11) a homeopathic remedy for stress
12) a huge bouquet of flowers

can you fucking believe that?!?!? she bought me two bags of groceries to try to help me feel better! and a huge bouquet of flowers? i have NEVER been treated so kindly by someone i work for! it's almost insane how much she bought for me. she's just unbelievably kind and generous. that's just how she is. she bought me chocolate yesterday because i was on the rag and craving cacao products. i mean, she bought me expensive swiss and italian chocolates. she's always buying candy and cakes for the whole office. the people at that office are just really nice and down-to-earth and friendly. i was just talking to my ugandan friend, who worked with me at the job from hell that i quit almost a year ago. we were talking about how horrible things there were, and how incredibly great things are for us at our jobs now. she works at columbia now. i wish i could work for this lawyer for the rest of the summer and also perhaps help her out a bit as a part-time gig after i begin school. hmmm....maybe! my temp experiences these past few months have really shown me that there are many nice people out there, and that the reason why i was abused by my colleague at my first new york job and was abused by my boss at the job i quit last year, really has NOTHING to do with me. i really DIDN'T deserve that treatment. deep down, i've blamed myself for deserving the abuse, until now. the kindness and compassion that the lawyer shows me is how i treat other people. i'm a good worker and a hard worker. i'm a nice and friendly person. i deserve to be treated the way i've been treated at my temp gigs these past few months. i don't deserve shit treatment. anyone who treats me like shit does so because they're a miserable bully. i will never allow myself to be bullied again. another thing about the lawyer: she's a vegetarian and is really caring about animals. she does some animal rescues. she's fascinated by the field of animal-assisted therapy. i'd love to continue to be in touch with her after my temp assignment is over. we have lots in common and she's a complete joy to be around. i am so thankful that i have such a wonderful environment to be in every workday. so, so, so thankful!!! i'm so grateful to be around nice people!!! this pic is of the flowers she got for me:


i am gonna see the firefighter again soon. i just have to figure out a night when mr. j won't be home and when mr. firefighter is free. i hope it's soon. i have physical needs. as for my emotional needs, i just have to wait. the kind of man i want as a partner is very kind like the lawyer and like my friends and like all the other folks i admire. the kind of man i want to be with is a positive person in others' lives, and he brings joy to those who know him. alex was like that. he was like a warm summer day. that was alex. a huge void exists where his lovely, friendly voice, his big hugs and his laughter were. i try to counter that void by doing positive things in his memory. now every kind word and action of mine is partly my own and partly in loving memory of him.

tomorrow i was gonna go clean the old lair, but i think i'll do that on sunday. my dad will come over and help me out some with the lair and the bird nest, and maybe we'll go to the jackson diner for dinner. i love their food, and i love how they give you a whole pitcher of water (i'm a big water drinker). i spent the fourth of july alone on the roof of the building, gabbing on the phone with my friend in chicago. it was raining. the building is not that high, but it's higher than all the buildings near it. i could see 360 degrees around. i saw fireworks shows going on all over the area: queens, long island, brooklyn, new jersey, manhattan, westchester, the bronx. of course the big one was on the east river. my poor friend was experiencing informal, renegade fireworks displays being shot off by her neighbors. she's not in love with chicago, but new york wasn't so good to her. ugh. :(

well, i am gonna go rest now. me n' blue.

the bird nest

i'm now living in my new abode, which i've named "the bird nest" because i'm on the top floor of an apartment building and have roof access and there are pigeons who hang out outside of my window (i'll have to get some pigeon feed for them). the move took three trips over three days. i have to go back to the lair this weekend to clean it up now that all my stuff is out. it's weird not to live there. it's weird to have a roommate. it's weird to live way above ground. it's weird to live right next to tons of businesses and near a subway. it's weird to live around the belongings of someone i barely ever met (mr. j's roommate). it's weird to hear spanish everywhere instead of english spoken through caribbean mouths, like how it was in the neighborhood i just moved from. almost everyone speaks to me in spanish. if it's really something simple, i can understand and respond. if it's more complicated, i can only understand part of it and can't really respond. at least the spanish speakers here are from mexico or central america or south america, so i can understand their spanish much better than if i were in a caribbean-spanish neighborhood. i really wanna relearn spanish. i used to be very good at spanish, way back in high school and college. now, when i try to speak spanish, swedish comes out, or esveñol (swedish-spanish) comes out. ugh! so, for these two months, i wanna fish my spanish textbook out of my boxes and study it. i wanna try really hard to reply to the folks who address me in spanish. maybe i will try telling them IN SPANISH that i barely speak spanish anymore, and that sometimes, swedish comes out when i try to speak spanish. it's like i have two areas of my brain for language: a "mother tongue" area and a "foreign language" area. swedish and spanish mingle in the "foreign language" area. i want to reprogram my brain so that there are three areas: 1) mother tongue, 2) swedish and 3) spanish. maybe if i try to talk to people IN SPANISH about sweden and swedish, it will help. of course, talking about sweden and swedish makes me wanna speak swedish, so if i can talk about swedish stuff in SPANISH, maybe that will help me create two foreign language areas in my brain. also, maybe i can write to my family in sweden IN SWEDISH about spanish and my latin-american neighborhood. yeah, i think that'll help! :)

i am on the rag, i have cramps, i haven't eaten all day, this apartment needs a good clean-up, and i feel overwhelmed by moving. i am just gonna try for a studio apartment in northern manhattan for the fall. fuck trying to match with and room with a stranger! oh, and the lawyer i work for asked me to stay on for another week, and i said "YES", of course!!! after that's over, i'll only have 6 weeks until school starts. yay! well, i pray that i will get a nice little cozy studio apartment for september. right now, i am gonna go up on the roof and chill. moving in here has reminded me of how neurotic i am about other people's messes and filth. i need to live alone in the fall. i am gonna have great fun with mr. j., but if i were to stay here for longer than two months, my monster side would show sooner or later. :( the dust bunnies on the floor, the hair, the mold, the detritus that isn't mine: IT BUGS ME!!! i want my very own apartment that is totally clean of anyone else's mess or belongings when i move in!!! i want my OWN furniture, my OWN everything! i am so sick of living in others' places. i haven't had my truly very OWN space since i lived in vancouver five years ago. :( i want a studio apartment where all is MINE, MINE, MINE!!! and then if i get a boyfriend, and we move in together, i will love him so damn much that it'll be cool to live together, and i won't go neurotic over his little messes. and he'll be clean and neat. please, god. :)

i bought two candles: one is of saint alex (who i didn't know existed until i saw the candle). saint alex watches over peoples' homes and tries to keep negativity out of home environments. he also tries to keep others negative thoughts of one from harming one. the other candle i got is of saint martin de porres. this is my second st. martin candle. i had one that i had brought to sweden with me, because st. martin de porres is a caretaker of the sick. st. martin de porres also looks after animals. st. francis ain't the only animal-lovin' saint!!! :) st. martin de porres is a special saint to me because he cares for what i really care about (the sick, the poor, the needy, animals), and because he's my dad's special saint. my dad went to a catholic school and attended a church named for saint martin de porres. the image of jesus on the cross in the church was of a BLACK jesus. both WHITE AND BLACK people worshipped this black jesus at the saint martin de porres church. the girl whose room i'm subletting is heavily into the virgin of guadalupe. she has an altar to the virgin and many images of her on the walls. some of the images are of the virgin as a dark-skinned woman. it reminds me of the black madonna i painted in the church in cali years ago. this girl is actually from the city i painted the mural in. i wonder if she's ever heard of that mural? hmmm....

well, i am gonna go up on the roof now. have a beer and a smoke. yeah. fuck it. see ya later.