torsdag den trettionde januari

hi. my toe feels lots better this morning. i think i can manage to hobble to the subway and hobble through the times square station to catch my connecting train and then hobble out of the station and catch a cab to my school (my school is really not close to the train). it's amazing that my toe feels better after only several days. i mean, i fucking BROKE the bone! but the doctor told me it would heal quickly. luckily i have a cane to hobble on.

i had a weird dream last night. once in a while, i dream about the old lair i used to live in way out in hollis. in my dreams, the house the lair was in is situated on the edge of town, and farm fields stretch out into the distance. last night i dreamt of the lair and the house and the family that lives in it. my friend from whom i sublet the lair was living there. i had a job like the one i have now, except that i was doing home visits to check on the welfare of pets, not children. my friend had adopted a small dog. i worked with this woman who was apparently from iceland because she had an icelandic name, but she was speaking to me and my friend in what sounded to me like swedish. but apparently it was supposed to be icelandic. i told the woman in swedish that we could not speak icelandic, and could she please speak english. the woman interrogated my friend about whether her dog had received heartworm, rabies, and other shots. my friend said no. the woman asked me why i hadn't asked my friend before about the dog. i said i thought my friend was taking good care of the dog. the woman berated me for not interrogating my friend about the dog before. it was a fucking weird dream, especially the part where i'm conversing with this lady in swedish. i feel like i've lost some of my swedish language abilities, but i guess they're still in my brain somewhere. oh, and in an earlier part of the dream, in another story, i moved to norway for some reason. maybe it was because another republican became president and fucked the country up even more and i was able to immigrate to norway on account of my direct descendance from a norwegian. anyway, i remember being pissed off when i realized i'd now have to try to learn norwegian (and i'd be getting it confused with swedish all the time).

i gotta get up, shower, dress, and hobble to the train so i can make it to class on time.

bye.

onsdag den trettionde januari

i was in the emergency room for 5 hours yesterday. i have a broken toe. it is bound together with the toe next to it to make it immobilized. today was the first day of classes for spring semester. i could not go to school. i could not walk. i missed three classes. tomorrow, i have one class. i hope i am able to go. i don't care if i miss my internship on friday, though. it is really upsetting that i missed class today. i literally could not walk at all, so how could i have gotten from queens to harlem? anyway, things are cool for me and my friend who's staying with me. :) gotta go. bye.

tisdag den tjugonionde januari

hi. my friend's here. she took the "lake shore limited" from chicago to new york. i was at penn station to pick her up. last night, i slipped on the stairs leading into my lair, and injured my toe. right now, i am laying in bed. soon, i will get up and get dressed and call a taxi and have it take me to the hospital emergency room across the river. i really think i flat-out broke my damn toe. it hurts very, very much. fuck. tomorrow's the first day of school. guess i'll be going to classes with crutches. :(

the demo on saturday was good. i wore my fox hat. i named the fox on my hat "fantastic mr. fox". now i am reminded of the roald dahl book. i love roald dahl. there are going to be some valentine's day demos. i'll wear fantastic mr. fox and red clothing, and i'll paint hearts on my face. i will get heart confetti and sprinkle it through the air whenever someone in fur walks by. i'll ask them to spread love, not pain, by ceasing to wear fur. i'll ask them to show some love to little animal cubs by donating their coats to "coats for cubs". a woman in front of me on the escalator in grand central terminal was wearing mink. i took a card out of my pocket and tapped her on her carcass-covered shoulder and showed it to her. it said, "it takes 40 animals to make one fur coat, and one person to make a difference." she said, "i can't see. i can't see." i said, "apparently not. you obviously choose to be blind to the fact that you are wearing animal torture." she said, "i can't hear", and got away from me. poor lady. so willfully ignorant and cruel. she must be a miserable person. too bad that so many miserable people take their misery out on other people and animals and the environment. anyway, diego wasn't at the demo on saturday. this worried me, and i texted him to see if he was okay. he texted back and said he was, and that something had come up. i texted back and reminded him of the valentine's demos, and told him what i was planning to do at them. i'm over him. he's a nice guy and it will be cool to see him and talk to him, but i'm over my little giddiness now.

i got my student loan refund. i have money now, thank god. i need to buy textbooks. i'm getting them used on amazon.com. otherwise, they're too expensive. i am gonna be on a tight budget this semester. a really tight budget. spaghetti is my friend. peanut butter and jam are my friends. miso soup and rice are my friends. tofu scramble is my friend. all i am gonna allow myself to splurge on are a few area rugs and a hubert herr cuckoo clock. that's all. then my apartment will be super-cute!!!

i am reinvigorated by what has been happening with the barack obama campaign as of late. i am really, really excited and hopeful. if obama wins the presidency, this is what's gonna happen to me:
1) i will be extremely proud of my president (i've never felt that before)
2) i will have great hope for my country's future
3) i will do whatever i can to be involved in the positive change-making that will occur
4) i will thank god every day for answering my prayers
5) i won't be ashamed to be american anymore
6) i will see my parents get back the hope that was lost after the great leaders of the 60's died
7) i will see my country repair its relationships with the rest of the world
8) when i go abroad, i will be able to talk with people in other countries about how awesome my president is, instead of how horrible he is
9) i will tune into my president's speeches on tv, instead of avoiding them
10) i will feel better about bringing a child into this world, and will also feel better about the futures of the children of my friends

i guess i should get up and get dressed and call the cab. i really, really fucked up my toe. grrrr!!!

fredag den tjugofemte januari

so, i think that "in rainbows" is the first radiohead album since "ok computer" that i love as a whole work. i think that's part of why i am so fucking giddy about it and can't stop listening to it or talking about it. "kid a" was good. i'm sure i would like it more if it were not emotionally tied to my breakup with my first real boyfriend (a breakup that knocked my foundations into powder and forced me to painfully and slowly build another one up). the album came out during our prolonged breakup period. i remember it must have been released in the fall or winter or something, because the seattle days were endlessly dark. not the deep dark indigo of a clear, crisp scandinavian winter day, but a fuzzy, disconcerting, squelching dark partly created by those depressing, heavy, low-lying puget sound clouds that never seemed to move from overhead. i went to the music store and got "kid a" and was surprised at how different it was from their earlier work, and i liked a few of the songs and couldn't stand some of the others, and now even the songs i like can't easily be listened to because of the strong emotions they conjure up in me. there is a lot of other music that is painful to listen to because it also comprises the "soundtrack" of my relationship to my first boyfriend: elliott smith, cat power, pete krebs, pavement... it's all hard to listen to. it's physically painful to listen to. i don't feel pain over that actual relationship anymore, except for when i hear its musical "soundtrack". i hear that music and it's like the entire carousel of pain and abuse and tears starts up and whisks me around again. before i emigrated to sweden, i sold "kid a" to a used music store. i feel blasphemous saying that.

when "amnesiac" came out, i liked more of the songs on the album, but still did not love the album as a whole. and at that time, i was also in a bad place. i was in animation school, at which i had a really terrible experience. it was during that period that i started abusing alcohol, actually. i was let down by "kid a" and "amnesiac" as entire albums. i was in really bad mental state during that whole time, and to fall in love with another radiohead album, like i did with the first three, was what i needed to help me get through. radiohead had other plans for their music at that point, though, and i totally understand, respect, and love them for everything they've done in their career as a band. it was not their fault that a silly girl in the pacific northwest needed something from them that wasn't in sync with where they were as a band at the time. i don't regret that they went through that period, either, because they needed to go through it to get to where they are now. i can also say i'm learning not to regret my fucked up years in the pacific northwest, because without them, i would not be where or who i am now, and i think, like "in rainbows" , that i've come to a place that feels more comfortable and right for me.

radiohead had saved my life in high school. the song "creep" led me into their music like it did for so many others at the time. so many of the lyrics on "pablo honey" spoke to me deeply. the melodies, strong guitars, drums, bass, voice: they helped me to release my emotions. "the bends"? it totally fucking saved my life in college. totally fucking saved my life. and oh, god, so did "ok computer". "ok computer" blew my ass away. i needed something else like that in the dark years i had between 1999 and 2002 (the pacific northwest years). "hail to the thief" got me a good way closer to feeling saved by radiohead again, but still, i did not fall completely in love with the album as a whole. i was so scared to be let down again by "in rainbows". i never tried to download it, and didn't rush to buy it when it was released in stores, but i just happened to see it on my sister's desk, so i thought i'd just try it. and here i am, feeling giddy like i did listening to radiohead throughout the 1990s.

tomorrow is the anti-fur demo. i'm just gonna go and do my own thing, cuz diego still never got back to me, and so we weren't able to plan the thing he said he wanted to do with me. i'm disappointed. maybe i'll like, stand in a different location than he's at, so that i don't have to talk to him and try to pretend that everything's okay and it's all cool. i'm really bad at pretending i'm feeling something i'm not. my face and eyes give it all away. if he comes up to me, i'll just have to do my best to pretend that i'm totally cool, but i'm not gonna seek him out.

thom yorke's voice really is something beyond describing. it's the most beautiful male voice i've ever heard. stevie wonder's voice comes in second, in my opinion. stevie wonder is underappreciated. yeah, i know, everyone loves stevie, blah, blah, blah, but stevie wonder's voice is fucking AMAZING. he does things with his voice that NO other singer has done. he's just a phenomenal musician all around. like, he really is a genius and he's underappreciated. he's one of the greatest musical geniuses to have graced this earth. i'm not exaggerating. it's true. and it's also true that if he were a white man, he'd get much more props for that. just look at mediocre elvis presley being held up like a king of music. please, spare me. anyway, i love thom yorke's voice. i love stevie wonder's voice, songwriting, lyrics, and instrument playing. oh, and i love thom yorke's solo album. i could not stop listening to that album last year. it's still in my stereo getting a good number of rounds.

my lair is in pretty damn good shape now. almost ready for my friend's arrival. yay! :)

torsdag den tjugofjärde januari

so, i'm putting my little interest in mr. diego in the recycling bin. he hasn't texted, e-mailed, or called me since i texted him back last friday. fuck it. no excuses -- if he were interested, he would have responded. i had asked st. jude to make it obvious to me whether or not this guy was right for me. his silence for the past week says it all. i keep praying to st. jude for love to appear. my last prayer of the novena is tomorrow night. my friend comes sunday. my lair is much cleaner. on saturday is the anti-fur demonstration. i will see diego there, but i'll just be cool. i won't ask anything about why he didn't write back. i'll just act like it's totally no big deal and that i wasn't even thinking about it. i am excited about the demo because i have a fox hat (a fox head is on the hat -- a FAKE fox stuffed animal head made out of POLYESTER and other PLASTICS) and i am going to be leafletting and talking to folks about where the fur trim on their parka hoods comes from. i hope lots of people will be at the demo like last time. school starts next week. i am kinda looking forward to it. i'm somewhat dismayed that i did not get the practice classes i wanted. maybe the professor i did end up getting will be awesome, though. i finished "the golden compass", and now, when i get my student loan refund, i will buy "the subtle knife". i can't wait!!! still totally listening to radiohead's new album over and over. now i can say that i am deeply in love with the album, except for song #s 5 and 8. i don't like those songs. they irk me. i fell madly in love with song #2, #4, and #9. i had liked song #1 from the beginning, and i loved song #7 from the beginning, too. in my dream last night, i was going to get a ticket to see heart in concert in stockholm. i wanna get their greatest hits album. i'm like, in a heart phase. i also want earth, wind, and fire's greatest hits. yeah, blah, blah, blah. soon, i hope to meet a boy who interests me and who is interested in me. oh, and by what i've written on this blog, i might seem way overeager about diego, but i did not show that to him at all in person or in text, so i know i could not have scared him away. :p

lördag den nittonde januari

okay, i am calming down about diego. it's just nice to know such a boy as that exists. i imagine that most people can find lots of other people who have similar values and passions and beliefs as theirs, and that they can find lots of other people who are not weird about them because of their racial makeup or sexual orientation or body type or such things. and i guess the hard part about most folks' partner search is to pick one out of the many who fit their criteria. well, i can't even fucking find someone who fits the criteria for me. such a person is extremely rare, apparently. so maybe i become overexcited when i meet someone who seems to fit my criteria. of course, if diego had texted or e-mailed me back after i texted him my e-mail address, i would not now feel like such a loser for trying to communicate with him, but i now feel like a loser, and there's nothing worse than having your e-mail and sms inboxes bleep empty when you want a message in them. i can't fucking live like that. i lived like that enough in the past. so...if it's meant to be, diego will be in my life. in the second of nine prayers last night, i asked st. jude to please bring me the person who is right for me, and if it is diego, please show me soon that it's him, and if it's not him, please show me soon that it's not him, and please then bring me the one soon. i am ready for it. so i will update what goes or doesn't go on with mr. diego....and if nothing happens, it wasn't meant to be.

i'm cleaning my lair in preparation for my friend's arrival next sunday. i need to clean it anyway. i feel like i am swimming in junk. i dunno how i accumulate so much fucking SHIT!!!

i saw a really good film last night: "the kite runner". i had NO idea what it was about at all, whatsoever. i trusted that it was very good, though, because my two friends who invited me expressed such interest in seeing it. it was very beautiful and moving. i found it fascinating. i was particularly very impressed by the acting of the boys who played young amir and hassan. i want to read the book now. the book is at the top of my list of books to read after the "his dark materials" trilogy. i'm almost done with "the golden compass" now...i have less than 100 pages to go. even though i am starting school again this coming week, i want to make a little time to do pleasure reading every day. maybe during my commute.

"in rainbows" grows on me more the more i hear it. i am also listening to "the eraser" some more. i can't find my "pablo honey" record. maybe it's still packed away. i guess i will fix up my lair to the soundtrack of radiohead and its members this weekend. music really is healing.

fredag den artonde januari

hej

yesterday evening, i ended up texting diego. no reply. i went to bed and prayed the first of nine prayers to st. jude. soon thereafter, diego texted back. my friend who has done the st. jude novena several times in her life says it has worked for her. i know, no one would guess i'd be reciting catholic prayers. what can i say? my dad's catholic; i guess he passed a bit of it on to me. anyway, diego texted back (at like 3 a.m.). i texted him back a few minutes ago and gave him my e-mail address because there's only so much one can text. and quite frankly, i hate talking on the phone. i do. i hate talking on the fucking phone. i don't call people, unless it's for a very brief conversation. i write to them. there are few exceptions. i'd rather write to this guy than talk on the phone, and maybe we can set up a time to meet before the protest so that we can organize what we're gonna do. and then i will be happy, cuz i will get to spend more time with him. when he sent me the text at 3 a.m., he said "pardon me" because he replied so late. "pardon me", he said. so cute! i guess that's what they say in texas. yeah, i am boy crazy. just let me be boy crazy. my heart is protected even though i'm giddy about this boy. i won't be hurt by him. we'll definitely be friends no matter what, anyway. it would be a big bonus if he lived in queens!!! :)

i am officially obsessed with "in rainbows" and i need to buy it so that i can give my sister back her copy. i bet you $20 that diego also likes radiohead. somehow, i can tell when folks like radiohead. like, when i met mr. exmo (the boy i temped with last spring at the music venue), i just somehow knew he loved radiohead. there was no evidence to suggest it. i just knew. and so i asked him if he liked radiohead, and his eyes popped out of his head and he told me he LOOOOOOVED radiohead. anyway, the like, immediate rapport i felt with mr. exmo upon our meeting is what i feel with diego, and i hope diego is not gay. i really, really did not get any bleeps on my gaydar around him, though.

torsdag den sjuttonde januari

hi, i am now listening to radiohead's "in rainbows". i borrowed it from my sister. i am going to buy it from the record store soon. i really like it. my favorite song is #7. i don't know the name of it. i also want to get björk's newest album and also a compilation of heart's greatest hits from the '70s and early '80s. it's good to have new music to listen to. oh, and i want arrested development's new album, too.

yesterday was really a bad mental health day. so were monday and tuesday, actually. i cried at work both days, out of frustration. just, my job is really fucking hard. i work in foster care in the south bronx. it's fucking difficult shit, and the clients are hard to work with sometimes, and the system drives me insane, and the agency is disorganized and somewhat incompetent, and my intern mate at work left her placement because of the agency not giving her enough clinical work. i don't get any clinical work, either. i am basically a case manager, and i hate it. i want to work at a school next year, preferably the one for queer youth...or another alternative school somewhere. i get to have a big say in my placement for next year, so i should at least get placed in a school. when i get my msw, i am NOT working in foster care.

i haven't been consistent on my meds for the past week or so, and i think that's also why my mental health has deteriorated. my dad came over last night cuz he was in queens for something work related, and we went to a drugstore so i could get my med prescription filled, and i got a few pampering products. we watched some tv. he got me some root beer (i'm addicted to root beer right now) and dinner. i felt like he saved my life cuz my mental state was so fucked up. now i have my meds again and i am taking them like clockwork. i need to have my head on straight for the beginning of school.

next week, school begins. i am missing one class, and it's stressing me out. this class i wanted is full, and i keep trying to add it since it's add-drop period, but it is consistently full, so i need to talk to the office of student services and ask them to please help me. did i already tell you that i got a 3.9175 GPA last semester? yeah! i would have had a 4.0, but i got one A-. i have kinda been in touch with my schoolfriends through facebook over the break, but i haven't actually seen any of them since last semester ended. i wonder if i'm just really only a schoolfriend to them and not someone they'd be friends with anyway? i really like them a lot and would be friends with them anyway. oh, well.

last saturday, i met a cute boy. he's probably somewhat younger than i am (early 20s?). i mean, not that he's immature at all, cuz he's actually very cool and seems very together. maybe he's not so much younger. i mean, folks think i look way younger than i really am. i met him at an anti-fur demonstration. he gets MAJOR, MAJOR points for that in my book. he was really, really nice, friendly, and positive. when i protest fur, i am usually polite to people unless they are really fucking rude to me, and this boy has the same attitude as i have. my purpose in protesting fur is not to insult people, but to try to engage them and educate them about where their fur comes from. insults don't help animals. education helps animals because it helps folks to see that cruelty to animals is wrong. this boy has the same mindset as i do about all of this. there's another protest on january 26th that i am going to go to. i hope he's there. he told me he regularly goes to these things. this is my first protest with others. i usually leaflet alone. it's great to be in a group with other folks doing this together. the boy (i'll call him diego here) and i exchanged telephone numbers cuz i have a creative protest idea that has to do with educating folks about fur trim on parka hoods and labeling laws, and he thought the idea was really cool and wanted to do the protest with me. he hasn't called me yet. i don't wanna be the one to call him. i was the one who approached him at the protest and started talking. i want the man to make the first move now that i introduced myself into his life. he came to stand next to me in the line of protesters, he was cute and looked nice and i got a good vibe, and i just plunged right in with engaging him in conversation. like so many boys i'm attracted to, he's tall, dark, and handsome. i'm almost sure he's chicano and he said he's from texas. maybe he'll call me, or maybe we can hang out after the protest on the 26th. it would be nice to find a really cool boy to date. oh, and later on in the protest, his roommate came by and was super-friendly and open. like, both guys have really good vibes. i'll find out more about mr. diego next time we meet, and then i'll report back here. it's okay if diego's a bit younger than i am. alex was younger than me. okay, alex was only 9 months younger than me, but at the time i met him i had been involved with older men who were emotionally immature and i was starting to believe i'd have to date 20 years above my age to get someone on par with me. see? ya never, never know. i could still be on par with diego, even if he WEREN'T born in the '70s! :) i've been wondering if i would meet the next special boy of my life through something i cared deeply about. it would be cool if mr. diego and i were to find out we liked each other a lot. i'm taking this too far in my imagination, but a girl can dream a little, can't she? it would be nice to have a boy. i been tellin' you, that's WHAT I WANT!!!!!

i still struggle to be more humane in my habits. i struggle with dairy products. if i truly followed my ethics, i would be vegan. i hate myself for not having the willpower to be able to give dairy up completely. i gave up milk like, 11 years ago. i hope to be able to give it all up someday. i'd feel like less of a hypocrite.

i was gonna do a rescue of two pit bull pups last weekend, but i could not get the guy who had the info on the pups to get me in touch with the pups' "owner". i really hope the "owner" gave the pups away to people who wanted them as loving companions and not to raise into fighting dogs. i am fucking pissed that i could not rescue them, nor could i call the aspca on the guy, cuz i didn't have the guy's name and address. the animal shelter i volunteer at was gonna take the pups and find homes for them (i wish i could have taken one or both of them in myself). i met one of their siblings at work. a woman at work had adopted a pup and was the one who told me about the guy who had more of them. i really hope those pups are okay. spay and neuter your damn dogs, people!

people fucking piss me off no end. people are so fucking uncaring about how their actions or inactions affect other animals, and i am so fucking sick of seeing it and hearing about it and knowing it exists. like, that shit is part of why my mental health is strained sometimes. a boy at the protest last saturday said that someday, fur farms and trapping and shit will be made illegal. i hope he's right. i'm so sick of it. this world is better off without human beings.

i borrowed over $2,000 from my sister, so i have been able to pay my rent and all of my bills. i should get my student loans within two weeks. then i can pay her back and buy some rugs and buy my plane ticket to sweden and a train ticket to atlanta.

my friend's moving back on the 27th and is gonna stay with me while she settles in. :) yay!

i'm still reading the golden compass. i'm at the part where lyra just got caught snooping on mrs. coulter and the other gobblers at bolvangar. my friend in england is reading the book, too, and we discuss it as we go along. yes, i am still regularly talking with my friend in england, the boy i met online about a year ago. he's a good guy. anyway, i think it's fitting that this horrible bitch of a lady in the book is called "mrs. coulter". reminds me of the other horrible coulter bitch, ANN coulter. yech!

i am gonna fix my lair a little now. ya know, my friend's moving in for a while, and i don't want it to be as messy as it is now. i need to clean it anyway. i desperately need rugs. my floor is WHITE LINOLEUM. it's so fucking gross.

today's a better day. i feel lots better mentally. tomorrow, i have to go to work again. ugh. and i have to make a home visit to the 17-year-old who bitched me out in the agency reception room on tuesday. this is the boy who had told me he was in a gang, did drugs, and sold drugs. this is the boy who then told me that he was lying about all those things. he bitched me out at the agency because i told my supervisor, his foster parents, and other responsible adults what he had said and we called together a special meeting about it. yeah, i have to go to his house on friday night and see that things are cool in the home, and then i'll sit there with him and he's probably gonna ignore me, so you know what i am gonna do? i am bringing my book and i will sit there and read it and leave when my time is up. seriously. and if he starts bitching me out again, i am gonna get up and leave then and there.

this weekend, i am cleaning my lair and getting ready for the first week of school. i also need to do laundry. i know, my life is sooooo interesting! :p

fredag den elfte januari

yes, i write my post titles in swedish. it's really pretty boring. all that the titles mean are the dates of the posts. "fredag den elfte januari" simply means "friday the eleventh of january". boring. but not so boring to me, because i love swedish. i love the scandinavian languages, though i CAN'T STAND spoken danish. i can't. i can't stand how danes speak. sorry. yes, it sounds to me, like it sounds to many swedes and norwegians, like danes talk like there are potatoes in their mouths.

let me tell you a story. i was travelling ALL OVER scandinavia in 2003. ALL OVER. okay, i only got as far north in norway as tromsø, and as far north in sweden as kiruna, and as far south in denmark as ribe, but i was ALL OVER DAT SHIT. i didn't know much of swedish or norwegian at the time, but in either norway or sweden, if i was on a bus and knew the name of the stop i had to get off at, i would recognize that name when the driver called it out. in denmark? listen, when i was in århus, i was looking for "den gamle by" (a really quaint, pretty, little preserved medieval town in the middle of that city) and i missed the stop by over a mile and was headed to the outskirts of town before i realized i must have gone too far. similarly, i was in odense and listened to the bus driver's calls of each stop as i was on the way back to my hostel, but did not recognize of his calls for the stop i needed. i can't fucking understand spoken danish. i love denmark very much, but i can't understand what danes are saying when they speak. god love y'all. it must be like british folk trying to understand valley girls.

i love scandinavia, and if i were banished there for the rest of my life for being a "bad" american (i.e. believing that ALL americans deserve to have health insurance and a living wage), i would be banished there with a smile on my face. i know, damn socialist that i am. i'm SOOOOO "un-american" for believing in the true ideals of the country i was born in (the U.S.A.). i mean, how could i actually want to follow through with "justice for all", and "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" by wanting ALL americans to have a decent life with NO exceptions?

anyway, i am going to iceland, which i've TECHNICALLY "been to" before, seeing as i stopped in the airport at keflavik three or four times whilst on my way to "mainland scandinavia". i am going to do a VERY small exploration of iceland (going around reykjavik and its environs?) as i head over to sweden this summer, in order to see my family over there. i don't think i have the money to visit my family and friends in norway as well. my best friends in norway live on the island of smøla, while most of my cousins live around oslo (drammen, asker), though one cousin lives up in alta (a place i wish to visit, along with hammarfest, nordkapp, kirkenes, vardø, vadsø, and a jaunt over the country line between norway and russia). if anyone wants a true adventure, try to traverse norway in the WINTER (without the help of hurtigruten) all the way up to kirkenes). i had an amazing adventure just trying to get up to tromsø in late september, and my personal "sir edmund hillary" moment will be to go all over norway someday IN THE WINTER, from lindesnes to kirkenes, and all the way between the two.

ANYWAY, my friend from chicago, whose ancestors most recently hail from hong kong and perhaps guangdong province nearby (i need to pick her brain about the specifics soon), is COMING BACK TO LIVE IN NYC, AND I AM SO HAPPY!!!! yay, the gurl has an open-door invitation to stay in my lair as long as she needs to as she gets herself situated (which is not easy in this crazy city). i am so glad she's coming back! i've prayed that she'd be able to come back!

another plan, which i am so excited about: getting to go down south for a visit to my friend in decatur, and meeting her precious newborn son!!! i can't wait to meet him!

so now, i'm here, on a friday night, reading the golden compass, which makes me feel even more longing for "The North", dreaming about traversing the north from all the latitudes it contains, dreaming about chicago friend coming back, dreaming of holding georgia friend's child in my arms. life is good!!!

i will shut up now, and go find some dinner.

onsdag den nionde januari

i must be having pms, cuz i feel like shit and i am fucking cranky as hell. it doesn't help that what i was hoping for in new hampshire's primary didn't happen. hillary clinton pisses me off. she acts like she is the only one of the dems who has experience, and that obama is just a naive dreamer. he really needs to stand up to her shit, not by putting her down, but by putting himself up, and making it more clear to folks what experience he has and what it means, and what he wants to facilitate as president...cuz he's being cast as the empty vessel of change, and that folks are only interested in him because he talks about change, and he is a good speaker, and voting for him assuages some white folks' guilt. like, some folks are complaining that the media is biased towards him, but i actually think they might be biased against him. sure, he gets lots of attention, but not for his content. the press is like, "ooooh, look at this guy who wants change and is inspirational. oooooh, look at this black man running for president." they don't focus on WHO he is and who he's been and who he might be. it fucking pisses me off. i think he needs to keep playing a positive role in the race, as he's been doing, not taking part in all sorts of mudslinging as some of the others have been. he has to counter the media and other candidates who are trying to dis him, covertly and overtly, simply by shining even brighter and talking more about the things he possesses that are strengths and visions and plans for this country and its people. i also want his campaign and the u.s. secret service to take his safety VERY, VERY seriously. there are a lot of crazy, crazy, overt, violent white supremacists in this country who would try to do ANYTHING to keep this man from becoming president. i do not want him to be another king, another jfk, or another rfk with bullets ending his life. i want him to be safe. his campaign and the government can't be TOO damn careful about this. yeah, i see covert racism (e.g. the media's mentality of "oooooh, a black man running for president, and he's not just a loony with no chance of winning") and overt racism (the fact that he needs a lot of protection against bigoted basketcases). this country is not color-blind. it's very much obsessed with race. so get the fuck over yourselves, people, and ask yourselves who the hell is going to bring this country onto a positive path into the future. develop and use your critical thinking skills! please don't display to the world, once again, how stupid too many americans can be in choosing the president of their country. do your homework. don't just jump on bandwagons because of what so-and-so says or thinks. listen for yourself and think for yourself. do research! do your homework, people!!!

i am back at my internship, and already, my 17-year-old client has me forming stomach ulcers. i don't wanna talk about it. i am counting the days, weeks, and months until this internship is over. i am NOT going to be a social worker in foster care when i graduate, and next year's internship had better be in a school or an after-school program.

yeah, i am feeling really, really bitchy. it does not help that i have NO money to my name and won't get my student loans until late january. i have no way to pay my rent or my bills or buy more food or pay for metrocards. nothing. jack shit.

okay, i am gonna go back to reading my book. i am reading the golden compass. this is what's keeping me from going bananas right now. when i get my student loans, i am going to buy the other two books in the trilogy, too. and some rugs.

my friend in chicago is moving back in less than a month, though. this makes me very happy, and i pray and pray that she gets an awesome job!!! she might move into my sister's lair when my sister moves out later this year. yay, we could be neighbors!

bye.