Blåbär Björns Lya

lördag den tjugotredje februari

2008-02-23T15:16:00.002-05:00

update on boy:

i was too scared to approach him this past wednesday. the first time i saw him was at lunchtime. i was talking to a friend, and he was standing near me talking to a group he's doing a project with. i could see out of the corner of my eye that he kept looking at me and being distracted from his group by what i was saying to my friend. i pretended not to notice he was there.

second time i saw him on wednesday was in class. he has to walk right in front of me to get to his seat. as he walked by me, he looked at me shyly and smiled. i looked at him shyly and smiled back. during the class break, he ran out to get coffee. at the end of class, he was stalling on leaving the room. maybe he was hoping i'd come talk to him. i freaked out and left the room. i went out into the hall and checked my mail. once i knew he was by the elevators, i started walking towards them. he looked my way, turned, and went up the stairs!

a few minutes later, i am outside and notice he's out there, too. i pretend not to see him. i look into the lobby through the glass windows from outside. i am waiting for a friend. i am also on the phone. i can see through the reflection in the glass that he notices me standing there and his eyes get as wide as saucers and he freezes. i internally freak out and am all talking on the phone pretending to look in the window. he then comes walking really fast past me into the building.

on thursday, the only time i see him is after classes in the computer lab. he's sitting there at a computer. the lab has lots of empty seats. i choose the one right next to him. i come up and say, "hi" to him and he glances up at me and mumbles a hello. he looks freaked out. i sit down and don't try to talk more to him cuz he seems freaked out and nervous, but i sit there doing my stuff, trying to be calm and send off warm vibes, and i also chat with a few friends across the lab from me. when i get up to go print stuff out, he gets up from his seat and walks out of the lab very quickly. he forgets to sign out of his computer, even.

this morning, i sent him a gift on the social networking site that i messaged him on and that he invited me to be friends on. i am trying to thaw him out. it seems like he is perhaps crushing hard on me and doesn't know what to do with himself around me. well, i am a very nice person, and he has no reason to fear me. i realize i have no reason to fear him, either. he's just a person too, albeit very, very, very cute. so, i am feeling much less scared now that i know he's scared too (even more scared than i am). so i hope to thaw him out some more this coming wednesday. maybe i will get him to have a conversation with me. :)

i am really, really, really NOT used to boys crushing on me and being intimidated by me or shy around me, etc. it has rarely happened to me. it's weird, quite frankly. like, he's soooo shy around me!!! well, my agenda for the coming weeks regarding this boy is to be very kind, friendly, and warm. i will also try to make somewhat of an ass out of myself and try to make him laugh in order for him to feel more comfortable around me.

i can't wait to see him on wednesday.

fredag den femtonde februari

2008-02-15T16:00:00.003-05:00

yeah, i have a new crush. this one has potential, though. this guy and i are weird around each other. like, looking but pretending not to look. coming close by and then retreating and trying to act nonchalant. he is VERY, VERY, VERY cute. and i just messaged him on one of the social networking sites i'm on. he sent back a request to be my friend. :) i'm so corny. this guy is in one of my classes. i hadn't had a class with him before. now i do. and his eyes are breathtaking. they're like alex's eyes, actually: deep-set and hazel, with long, dark eyelashes. mah gawwwwd. the kind of eyes that can make you swoon.

UPDATE:
i wish the boy had messaged me back instead of just sending a friend request. he has like, over 100 friends there, so maybe sending a friend request was just his way of not really meaning anything or saying anything as a response. whatever. i should not have messaged him. i shouldn't go after boys anymore. they always reject me.

torsdag den sjunde februari

2008-02-07T21:48:00.000-05:00

hi. i'm off one of my meds. i ran out and i could not get another prescription because i could not walk all the way to the counseling center. i finally got a prescription today. i will fill it tomorrow.

i was able to go to school this week. school's cool. it's great to see my schoolfriends, and i like my classes. another cute boy is in one of my classes. he acts kind-of awkward around me. we've never spoken to each other, but he kept glancing at me and acted awkward when he walked past me. i don't want to get excited about it. i've had too many let-downs. i won't get excited unless something happens between me and him.

yeah, so my mental health is suffering due to being off of the meds. i am also kind of suffering because it's hard to have a broken toe and my home routine is now different. i'm trying to adjust to everything. i kinda broke down a bit after school when i had dinner with a friend. i kinda had to cry. yeah, mental health can be fragile.

on saturday, there's another anti-fur protest. it's a valentine's day protest. i am gonna get angel wings with hearts on them and throw heart confetti and hand out brochures and educate folks about fur trim. and, like last time, i'll be wearing fantastic mr. fox on my head. he's very cute. :) i dunno if diego's gonna be there. i wish he'd go so that he can help me with my little action i'm doing. i'm over my crush on him, but he'd be fun to demonstrate with. he's a nice guy and he's passionate about this issue.

this past tuesday, i was in spanish harlem all evening, holding signs and handing out literature and talking to people about obama. it was really, really exciting. and, i felt that even though i could not vote in the primary, i put in a lot of work to help out the campaign on super tuesday. i am pleased that obama did how he did, and i hope he keeps doing better and better as time goes on. obama's da maaaaan! :)

söndag den andra februari

2008-02-03T14:42:00.000-05:00

i tried walking to the subway on thursday. i made it half a block. my foot wasn't ready for it. i missed the second day of school. i missed my internship on friday.

it's sunday. i keep obsessing over how things are going for my man, obama. i have hope that he will do well in the primaries. please, god. we need this. please answer my prayers. our country deserves better. please bring us better. i want mr. obammies to win.

i am making tofu scramble right now. yummy. or, maybe i should not make it, cuz we are going out to eat in three hours. maybe i'll have something like the empanadas. i'll make tofu scramble later. maybe i'll make it tonight in order to eat for lunch this coming week. yeah. i'm gonna have those mushroom potato empanadas now.

i've been doing reading for school. it makes me more excited for this semester. i love what social work is about. i love what it stands for. i am proud to be in this field.

torsdag den trettionde januari

2008-01-31T11:56:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-30T16:19:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-29T11:06:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-25T17:47:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-24T17:52:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-19T16:48:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-18T11:40:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-17T15:36:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-11T19:26:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-09T19:14:00.000-05:00

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.

måndag den trettioförsta december

2007-12-31T17:41:00.000-05:00

the last day of 2007. i'm sitting on my ass like i've been for the past two weeks. i have to get up and go take a shower and get ready to go to my sister's fiance's house.

i wish so much that i could find another person to love and be loved by. someone who will accept me as i am. someone i can accept as they are. i have the deep fear that i won't ever find it in another man.

i kinda look forward to spring semester starting again. during this break, i have been laying in my bed for hours a day thinking of how alone i am. thinking of how i have lost the loves of my life and may not ever get another chance. it's very painful.

i have to go get ready for the new year's eve party now. i'm not excited about another year because i fear it will be yet another year empty of love.

i might enlist the services of the firefighter again soon.

torsdag den tjugosjunde december

2007-12-27T19:14:00.000-05:00

hi

christmas was good. i spent it with my dad in my sister's lair with her two cats. it was super-cozy and nice! i forgot that this year was not the first not spent at my mother's house. it was the first not spent with my mother. two christmases ago, we all spent christmas here in nyc. my mother came from cali. this christmas is my first not spent with my mother. that is what makes it different. but i talked to her on the phone for the first time in almost a year, on christmas day. it was good. i think i can slowly but surely begin to talk to her more again.

i'm all over my friend's child's photographs. i am seriously gonna get my ass, hell or high water, down to atlanta to meet that precious child. i cannot friggin gawddang WAIT to meet him!!!

my other friend in chicago will soon be my friend ms. bonnarif in nyc because she's moving back to this city in february. i am so glad! i can't even say how glad i am that she'll be back here!!! she has an open door to my lair when she moves back here. i know finding a place here is a bitch.

i got the grades from 4 of my classes back, and they're all A's. i am waiting for two more grades to come back. if i got a 4.0 overall, i would go scream in the streets. i've never before gotten a 4.0 in my life. the highest i ever got was a 3.8.

i will shut up now because i'm boring myself. i wish i could go to the island of attu, though. and svalbard, and nunavut, and jan mayen, and murmansk, and denali, and every other far off place in the sparkly regions of the world that are full of amazing wildlife and people. yeah, if i could spend a few years exploring the arctic, i would not complain. not fucking complain at ALL!!!!!

addendum: jeff corwin & co. said that attu was the westernmost point in the united states. so, maybe that's true, but i just found out that the easternmost point in the united states is another aleutian island: semisopochnoi island, which is so far west of mainland alaska that it is in the EASTERN hemisphere by 14 minutes. this means that when the u.s. was celebrating the year 2000, it should have been said that semisopochnoi was the first land to celebrate the new year....BEFORE new zealand, australia, mainland russia, et al. muthafuckas, someday, i am going to go visit semisopochoi on new year's eve, and i am gonna be the first muthafuckin yankee to celebrate the new year!!! :) yeah, someday i will be an aleutian explorer. i will be the ultimate explorer of the arctic!!! and i will leave no trace! i will peacefully watch the animals and tread lightly on the earth, and by god, i will witness the beauty for myself in person! this here fumbling, duddling human will do that! :) by the way, one of my heroes is nereus the walrus. i love him! if more humans had an inch of his courage, we wouldn't be in the shitty stew we've put the world into! animals rule!

lördag den tjugoandra december

2007-12-23T00:32:00.000-05:00

hi. it's a few days before christmas. for the first time in my 30-year life, i am not spending christmas in my hometown. my dad's done it before. my sister's done it before. but i have never done it before. my dad and i are spending christmas together in a couple of days.

i'm broke. most of the money i have spent on gifts, though, is by giving my family oxfam america gifts, which are actually gifts for folks in much more difficult circumstances than i've ever been in; gifts given in the names of my loved ones. i might be flat-ass broke, but the money i do have to spend goes towards something that fucking matters. i might be flat-ass broke, but i am extremely privileged to be in the situation i am in. i'm broke, but not poor. no one should live in poverty. period, end of argument. there is far more than enough wealth in this world to take care of every human being. the only reason why some starve and suffer is GREED. no one needs the amount of wealth that too many in this world have. too many need the decencies of basic living standards that so few in this world have.

on a lighter note, there is a boy at a non-profit store in my neighborhood that i just realized i think is really cute and sweet and nice, and he definitely sees sparks when i'm around. i dunno what to do. i was thinking about it today at dinner with my dad (while he was eating his food). if this guy were as sweet to me and as wonderful to me as he's been in our brief encounters (when i browse around the non-profit store), i would, perhaps, freak out. alex was one who accepted me and loved me as is, with all imperfections and scars and ugliness included. i've been so afraid that i'd never find that again. but let's say, what if this boy wanted to be with me despite and/or because of my imperfections? would i not freak out? i would. i've been praying for a partner in life, but am i ready for him? i am glad i've been thinking about this today. cuz if i hadn't been thinking about it and had been faced with love, i might freak out. anyway, this boy is very sweet and cute. no, he's both cute and handsome, both sweet and kind. i don't know his name yet. i think i knew the first time i met him a few months ago that we had an attraction, but i could not mentally handle it. anyway, he has black hair and brown eyes. he's either my height or a little taller or shorter. he is either mexican or central american, for sure. i am gonna go over to that shop again soon and talk to him more. find out his name, maybe hang around enough for us to talk more and perhaps ask one another on a date. yeah. this boy is special.

anyway, i gotta go. christmas preparations call. and i got an "A" in one of my classes. i will probably get the other grades within two weeks.

bye. feliz navidad. god jul. joyeux noel. buon natale. merry christmas.

lördag den femtonde december

2007-12-15T22:14:00.000-05:00

i am done with my first semester of graduate school. i finished my paper. i took my final exams. i completed my statistics final assignment. it's over! :) i think i did better than i thought i'd do on my sw practice exam. my policy exam was harder than i was expecting it to be. i hope i did well on it. i took all the advice my hbse ta gave me on my last paper, and applied it to the paper i just turned in. i hope i get an a- or higher on it. i worked my ass off on the final statistics project. i hope i did well. if i did as well on all these things as i did on everything else i did this semester, i am going to get straight a's. i think there might have been one semester in college that i was able to pull that off. i think i might be able to pull off straight a's all throughout graduate school and receive a cumulative gpa of 3.8 or higher. that will help me get into the school's phd program. plus, my teachers think i'm one of the best students. yeah, i hope to be going into the phd program. :) life is good. i am doing something i love and am passionate about, and i am doing really well at it. i'm being recognized for my hard work by my teachers and fellow students. i have the reputation among the students of being one of the smartest ones in the program. what a change from how i was treated in the jobs i've had in this city (except for the temp jobs i had over the past year). my field instructor does not really think very highly of me, though. well, i don't think very highly of him, either. i am just gonna stick through the next 4 1/2 months at that internship and make the best of it and focus on my clients and not let my field instructor make me feel like i am shit. i am now on a break from both the internship and school. i go back to the internship on january 4th. i go back to school at the end of january. i got the classes i wanted, except for the teacher i wanted for sw practice. i really want this particular teacher and her class was full when i tried to register. i am gonna try again during add-drop in january. yeah, school is great. i really feel a bond to quite a few people there. i really love to see them and hang out with them. i so wish i had school more than two days per week. for the next few weeks, it'll be time for me to fix up my lair and do all the things i haven't done in so long. yeah. now i'm gonna go to bed soon. g'night!

onsdag den tjugoåtta november

2007-11-28T22:39:00.000-05:00

i have great fucking news: my dad just found out today that he got the new, better job at the park, and so he doesn't have to move out or deal with unemployment! good god, i am so glad! so, so, so glad!!! i hope he never has to deal with not having a job or a home again!!! he came over to queens and took me out to dinner at my favorite italian restaurant. i would have treated him, but i am broke. i don't have enough to make december rent. i am selling shit on ebay like mad, trying to get the money together to pay that rent. yeah, it fucking sucks. i don't get student loans for spring semester until january!

i get two papers back tomorrow. i hope i did well on them. i only have one more paper to write. then, i have two final exams and two more statistics homework assignments. in two weeks, i get to register for spring semester classes. i have my preferred schedule all figured out, with the professors i want to have. :)

i have a bit of a crush on a boy in one of my classes. i can't tell if he thinks anything of me. he doesn't try to talk to me, really, but sometimes he sits next to me. he has lots of female friends at the school. i wonder why he doesn't try to talk to me since we seem to be passionate about similar things and he obviously has no problem being friends with girls. he's smart and makes good comments in class, and i can tell by what he says that his politics are like mine. he's cute. he has very short black hair and brown eyes. he's latino, but i don't know where in latin america his people are from. i really, really don't get the feeling that he's gay, even though the fact that he's so cool with girls makes me wonder. oh, it's just a little crush. i probably don't act like i am interested in him, and maybe he has no idea that i think he's cute and smart. maybe he thinks i'm cute and smart. hmmmm....

söndag den tjugofemte november

2007-11-25T23:41:00.000-05:00

my friend's child came safely into this world. i've never felt so happy to hear of a child's birth.

the past few days, it was actually cold. it wasn't cold today, but from thursday through saturday, it was cold. i thought the cold would never come.

i saw two old friends from california this weekend. it was really nice. :) i also spent the evening before thanksgiving with my new friend from school. it was really great! i've actually had a social life the past few days. i'm usually down in my little hermit den where no one hears from me. tomorrow, it's back to the old work and study routine, but the semester's over in a few weeks. my sister crabbed that she was too tired to have the thanksgiving dinner we'd planned, so we ended up going out to dinner at a little restaurant. it was nice. she and her fiance are going back to cali for christmas. my dad and i are staying here. it'll be my first christmas without my mother. i'm still not talking to her. i'm not ready to. she's seeing a therapist, though, so maybe she's finally gaining some self-discovery and self-reflection skills to get her beyond the jekyll and hyde martyr role.

so obviously, no one reads my blog, because it's my own boring personal blabbing, but i do think it's fun to see who accidentally happens upon it. that is the reason for my little clustr maps thingy. someone in northern europe seems to lurk here a tiny bit. the clustr map is so shitty that i can't tell if the person is in the netherlands, belgium, northern germany or denmark. the clustr dot of the mystery person takes over a big swath of that area, and i can't tell exactly where they are. i'm sad not to have anyone from norway happening upon my little site. maybe someday.

i am going to sweden this coming summer, and i'm stopping in iceland on the way. i'm gonna teach myself a little icelandic before i go. i am currently reading jar city by arnaldur indriðason, too. it's captivating! i've gotta get an iceland guidebook and a little icelandic phrasebook. it's time to go to scandinavia again. :) what i wouldn't give to sit my ass in an icelandic hot spring right now!!!

the dreams about my old love andy continue every fucking night. he's haunting me constantly. i wonder if he is thinking of me way over where he is? when one person's spirit is haunted so much by another person, does that other person have the one person in mind? i feel like there's this little string of spider webbing that is connecting us somehow. and, i feel like if i actually saw him again, we'd lean towards each other until we were kissing. and then, i don't know if we'd ever be able to let go of each other. i don't see how we could. the whole point of us keeping ourselves separated as teenagers was because we could either do that or be totally and intensely entwined. there was no middle ground for us. i don't think there could be one in the future if we met again, either. he has his girlfriend. i would like to have my own special someone, too. we can have our lives with our respective significant others and have our respective families, and hopefully have our respective happinesses. maybe i'll stop dreaming about him once my future significant other comes along. i hope so.

fredag den nionde november

2007-11-09T11:44:00.000-05:00

hi. i thought today was the 10th, but it's the 9th. my days are confused. i was up all night wednesday night/thursday morning writing my social stratification paper. i never slept at all. as i kept writing, i realized what the hell they had asked us to do was basically to write an annotated bibliography. i wish they had just fucking called the assignment that, instead of describing it in a vague way that made everyone confused. so, my annotated bibliography consisted of eight peer-reviewed articles. no, seven articles and one published doctoral dissertation. i think the damn paper came out pretty okay. however, while scanning over a copy of the paper (after i had already turned it in), i realized that i made a mistake on the reference page. i forgot to write in the article title for one of the reference entries. everything was there in perfect, painstakingly accurate apa style, but the damn article title was missing. i KNOW they will notice that. on my last paper, they circled these tiny, tiny apa style mistakes in red on my reference page. and i thought i was anal! but why am i stressing out about it? i did the best i could, and i learned a lot from reading and synthesizing the literature. well, it looks like i need a vacation. yeah. the plan for this sunday is for my dad and i to hop in the car and get the hell out of this concrete jungle for the day. we're going to the storm king sculpture park like we did last year. the leaves on the trees are changing color (i discovered that phenomenon while up in westchester county for an intern training session this past monday). i'm having deja vu as i write this. even the part about writing i have deja vu gives me deja vu. what the fuck is deja vu about? anyway, i really love school and seeing my schoolfriends. i might go over there on some weekend day or some weeknights to study so that i can see them more. but maybe i'll get less work done that way. blah, blah, blah. i'm delirious from sleep deprivation, and i am relieved that these papers are done, and i am amazed that my first semester will be over in a little over a month! this semester has FLOWN by!!! I look forward to winter break, though. I hope to see my schoolfriends over that time period.

önsdag den sjunde november

2007-11-07T21:53:00.000-05:00

i am having trouble concentrating on my social stratification paper. i guess that's why i am sitting here on my blog instead of writing the damn paper. it might not be good. i am going to be up all night long writing it. i'm just so exhausted from all these papers and the field placement and everything. it's so hard to write yet ANOTHER fucking paper in such a short amount of time. but, i gotta do it.

good news: i got the paper back from another class. i thought the paper was shit. i wrote it in like, a few hours. i got an "A" on it, though! the paper was 60% of the grade. 40% of the grade was attendance and participation. i attended every class and spoke in every class. i hope to get an "A" in the class. i want that good academic record to keep my future options open. so far, i'm doing better academically than i did in college. i got an A-/B+ average in college. i think it's easier now because i am older and have more knowledge and i have my head on straighter.

my field placement is okay. i'm finally getting a new client: a boy who, along with his siblings, was taken out of his home because of neglect. apparently, his parents are having trouble taking care of themselves and their children. so, i want to be there to support them in doing what they need to do to improve their capacity for self-care and the care of their children. i am doing a "home visit" on friday. according to the acs file, the home is in a "deplorable condition". my field instructor advised me not to wear nice clothes and not to put my bag down on anything.

my sister's coming back on saturday. i asked her to bring back a small australian flag, an australian flag patch, and a cool souvenir t-shirt. yeah, i am cheesy in that way. i like to collect flags and patches and t-shirts from different countries. :P

well, i am gonna go back to the paper now. i guess i will try drinking maté if i need caffeine to keep myself up all night. i hate coffee. i love maté. i also have fruity black swedish tea that alex's mom sent me for my birthday. oh, and i have some chocolate to nibble on. :) ok, i need to shut up and go back to the paper!

vi hörs senare!

söndag den fjärde november

2007-11-04T18:35:00.000-05:00

i finished the second-to-final draft of my policy paper. it's too long. the margins are 0.8". i need to edit the muthafucka down to 4 pages. it's now 4 and 1/4 pages long with those tiny margins. i will leave it alone for a few days and come back to it with fresh eyes the night before it's due. now i have to work on my social stratification paper. thank god i already have the research i'm gonna use, since it's the same as i used for my theory paper. i am gonna start on it tonight. yeah, these damn papers will be done when they're due, and i will be so relieved!!! right now, my brain hurts from all the research and writing. i am gonna go mail some bills and get something to eat and drink at the deli.

my friend in chicago told me that she is moving back to ny! probably in january!!! YAY!!!!!!! i hope and pray that she moves back and that her life will be much better than it was when she lived here before. and i will be able to see her much more often because i no longer live in the boondocks. yay!!!

my friend in georgia is still preggers with her sweet little angel and he's doing fine in the womb room. every day i pray that he continues to do well, and i can't wait to see the little guy after he's born! i will be so happy! the student loans i get for second semester will allow me to afford to go down there to visit. ever since this friend's miscarriage early this year, i do not take her or ANYONE'S positive pregnancy outcome for granted.

lördag den tredje november

2007-11-03T20:48:00.001-05:00

hi. i got grades from three of my four midterms back this past week. i got two As and one A-!!! yay!!! i thought i was home-free for a while, but i was wrong. i have two papers due this coming week. after those are due, though, i will have a few weeks without having any papers or exams, except for one paper that is due on november 21. i am really happy about my good grades. i hope to keep up the good work. i might want another master's or go for my doctorate, and i want to keep those options open by doing academically well. ya know? getting an A or A- average from an ivy league institution is no small feat. but, hey. i've been through much, much harder things than that. surviving alex's death and that year of living in this cutthroat city without any stable employment was sure as hell harder than what i am doing now. i have a doctorate in surviving tough times. i have a few friends who have their Ph.Ds in that field, as well.

so, i have made friends that i really, really, really enjoy talking to and being around. i wish i had school more often than only two days per week. i was talking to some school friends about that the other evening. i miss being able to see friends every day or many days of the week like i was able to in undergrad. i have like, three separate lives: my life at school, my life at my field placement, and my life staying at home on the weekends. i wish i had three days of school per week and two days of field, instead of the opposite. but, i know that when this program ends, i will really, really miss the two days per week that i do get to spend with these wonderful people i know at school.

well, like i usually do on the weekend, i am staying home, sleeping in as long as i can to make up for the sleep deprivation i experience during the week, and doing schoolwork. i hope to have the first paper done tonight or tomorrow afternoon so that i can focus solely on the second paper, which will be harder. i am listening to the soundtrack to "spirited away" as i write because it is inspiring to me.

last night i went out with the crazy ladies from my old job and we saw "why did i get married?", which i liked much, much more than the stage play. and it didn't hurt that my favorite contemporary female singer, jill scott, was in the film. that gurl sure can act!!! :)

i'd better get on back to writing now. sayonara.

tisdag den trettionde oktober

2007-10-30T21:38:00.000-05:00

for the first time in years, i won't be dressing up for halloween. i don't have a costume. i mean, i do, but it won't work this year. i am often pippi longstocking for halloween. i lopped my hair off, though, so i can't do the braids. :( oh, well. i think i'll sit by the entrance to my building and hand out candy in the glow of a jack-o-lantern light.

i might go into a slut period again. i won't call upon men i don't know, though. i might call upon the firefighter again. i wish there were other boys i knew that i could shag. super-duper sex drive. i guess what they say is true: women reach their sexual peaks in their 30s. i've never been so horny as i've been in the last year or so. it seems to be more acute during the colder months as well. hmmm... well, hopefully, i will find a fuck friend other than the firefighter, somewhere, somehow. and soon. i'm gonna burst soon!

i'm gonna be up late writing a paper. what's new?

lördag den tjugosjunde oktober

2007-10-28T00:06:00.000-05:00

i'm struggling along with schoolwork. lots of reading, more papers, and now i have a statistics class. i love being a student. i just get so tired and burned out because i also work so much at my internship. i don't want school to end in two years. i wish i could be in school for longer. i have even entertained the idea of a doctorate. the hours and days are going too quickly. i don't feel i have enough time for everything. i am used to having free time. i love being at school and seeing the people i like and having class with them and talking to them around school. i look forward to my days at school so much!

i had a breakthrough dream the other night. it was about the boy i grew up with: the one i loved. it was a really incredible dream. i can't describe how happy i was. we were hanging out together all night long one night. we were sitting in the dining area of a dilapidated new york apartment that resembled the one i lived in this past summer. we were trying to keep ourselves and each other awake all night for some reason. something big was happening the next day and for some reason, we needed to stay awake all night for it. those hours we spent together that night were life-changing. we began the night as the boy and girl we'd been for years: two young people who had a bond and feelings for one another that they didn't know how to deal with. we ended the night having had a breakthrough. during those long, late hours we spent together, a wall came down and we emotionally united in the way we had struggled and failed to do for so long. it was phenomenal. anyway, the dream went on at the next day's event. he was there next to his friend, and i walked right by him without saying anything. i even actually bumped into him but didn't excuse myself. i stood some feet away from him talking to other people, and i acted as if he weren't there. he felt extremely hurt that i would go back to the avoidance/ignoring game with him after this breakthrough we'd had. it was like i had broken a deep unspoken promise we'd made to each other the night before as we tore down that wall between us. he felt like this was the final betrayal. i realized that i had fucked things up for the last time, and it was all over. i had hurt him one too many times.

i woke up reeling, because the dream allowed me to vividly experience the feelings he actually must have had when we were teenagers. how much i must have hurt him. i didn't really understand how much i had hurt him until i had this dream the other night. things ended between us in a heartbreaking, really fucked up way as high school came to a close. we had hurt each other a lot. at the time, and for years afterward, i always thought that he was the one who hurt me, and he was the one who pushed me away and was unable to be my partner. i did a lot of that to him, too, though. i did A LOT of that to him. i think i really fucking hurt that boy. i think that hurt is still there in him. i wish i could see him and talk to him. i wish he could see that i would now be able to look straight into his eyes without looking away, that i would face him and not run away. yeah, i wish we could make up for it. i wish i could spend a whole night with him talking, laughing, goofing off and telling stories and opening up our hearts to one another and staying there for each other. i miss feeling that incredible closeness and love with a special someone. i haven't felt it with a living person since alex died. i pray to god that i feel that wonderful bond again. god, please bring me another person i can love so deeply, or please help andy come back into my life.

söndag den tjugoförsta oktober

2007-10-22T00:46:00.000-05:00

this is my new cat, katarina. behind her is blue, the bear. my friend got the idea to make me an animal friend when i lost blue on the subway. katarina came to me almost a year after blue was lost and found. katarina reminds me of blue in her facial expression and energy, and the two are the same size. my friend lives far away from me, but she made an animal friend who is a lot like blue, a bear i don't think she ever met. oh, and both animals are extremely cuddly. happy cuddle times.

i managed to get through midterms. three papers and an exam in less than one week. craziness! i continue to love school, and wish i could spend more time there. i guess i could. maybe i'll try to study there more on days that i have classes. i wish i had classes more often.

my dad's job ends at the end of the month. his job was only a 4-year-long job. he may or may not get another one where he works. i am stressed about it. if he doesn't get something else by november, he might not get to stay where he lives, and then he'll have to stay here. my sister will live with her boyfriend, and i will live in her lair with her cats, and my dad will live down here. i just hope he doesn't have to go through that. i just want him to get what he deserves: the other job.

i haven't found any special someone. there are a couple of cuties at school, but i haven't had the chance to talk to them yet. one of them wants to talk to me, i think. i really wish i'd have someone to think about, cuz my dreams are overrun by andy, the boy i loved as a child. he's the only one alive in this world that i care about in that special way. i guess that's why i keep thinking about him? it's driving me nuts. he's far away, and he has a girlfriend, and he doesn't want anything to do with me. i hope someone comes along and can be there for me like andy can't.

tisdag den nionde oktober

2007-10-09T18:13:00.000-05:00

i am writing from my lair. i haven't had internet here save for when i wrote on september 23 and then now. it's really sucked not having internet.

i am very sick and lost my voice. i stayed home from my internship today. i really, really, really want to go to school tomorrow, and i will try to go unless i am even sicker.

i'm writing a paper on the operationalization of a human behavioral phenomenon within a psychological theory. if that sounds confusing, join the club. i know how to write english papers and research papers for art history, african-american studies and stuff like that, but not this theoreticalphenomenaloperationalizingframeworkingmodelling shit. i think i will turn out a decent paper. the next two papers for this course are more up my alley. i will do excellently on those. oh, and hopefully i won't be in a medicated, sick fog when i write them.

my lair is still a mess because i don't have time to unpack everything and organize it and put up shelves and other shit. it will be a process. i wanna have a halloween party. i dunno if that will happen.

due to my not having internet, my income from ebay in the last 30 days has been $27. i have a shitload of dvds to put on there. over a thousand dollars' worth, maybe even inching towards two thousand dollars' worth. i am gonna need that money. since i had absolutely no furniture (save a bookshelf) before i moved, i have had to buy all this furniture i have, and all this other shit i needed that i didn't have because i've been subletting till now. the money i've spent has added up big-time. plus i had to pay back the money i had borrowed to get this lair in the first place. i am so glad that christmas is coming. i have been on ebay for almost a year, and i remember how my stuff was going like hotcakes the closer christmas came. i have like, over 40 items in my ebay store, but no one wants them. they're just sitting there. i might have one sale per week. but hopefully those will start selling more the closer christmas comes, and the loads i'm putting on will sell, and i will get much-needed mooooolah! ebay will save my ass once again.

what else is there to say? i dunno. it's just school, internship, study, try to fix lair, eat, sleep. i don't have a social life. my shrink upped my dosage of meds. i've not been handling all the stress very well. i took to the drink again. this time i stayed away from the hard alcohol and focused on beer. well, i wanna cut way down on that, and it would be great to cut it out completely. i can't be a good social worker if i can't fucking take really good care of myself. so, i wanna just breathe more deeply and take it a bit easier and not be as hard on myself and stay away from the booze. the higher med dosage is helping, too.

no news of any crushes at school. i do have a little crush at work. it's nothing big. it's a little crush. i dunno the sexual orientation of the gurl. my gaydar does not go off except for the slight sexual tension i feel between us. nothing's gonna happen, though. it's just nice to have that feeling. :)

so, i have lots of papers due. one this week and two next week. egads. the one this week is the most difficult. i'm not worried about the other two.

next time, i will post a picture of my new cat, "katarina".

söndag den tjugotredje september

2007-09-23T19:44:00.000-05:00

it's been a month since i last wrote. lots has changed since then. the season has changed. my age has changed. my dwelling has changed. the way i spend my days has changed.

i'm now a 30-year-old master's level social work student and an intern at a foster care agency in the bronx who lives in far western queens and is looking forward to the cooler autumn days ahead.

i'm coming up on my fourth week of school and my second week of the internship. i have made friends at school. i have learned a lot in my courses. i am learning a lot at my internship. i feel like i am doing what is right for me.

tomorrow is my first interview with clients. i'm interviewing a teenage boy and his uncle and aunt. they want him to live with them through kinship care or foster care. i'm really anxious about it. i wanna do right by them, but i feel like i don't fully understand what i am supposed to do. i'm about to e-mail my field advisor for more clarification. i may not see him before the interview with the clients because i have to go to a training session all morning.

yeah, so i finally figured out what to go to graduate school for, and i applied and was accepted and am now a student at one of the best social work schools in the country. i finally have my very own lair in this big metropolis: my own tiny slice of this big apple. i don't feel lost anymore. i have a purpose and a plan and dreams that i can see i'm on the path of realizing.

most of my free time is spent studying or fixing up my lair. my lair still looks like i very recently moved in. there are still unpacked boxes laying around, and i have yet to get a lot of shit in order. it would help if i had a chest of drawers and a desk, so that i wouldn't have clothes and files and office stuff all over the place. i also hope to get rugs soon. my floor is off-white linoleum, and it's not aesthetically pleasing. the kitchen and bathroom are mostly done, though. they are looking very cute. the patio outside is getting cuter. my bed is already super-cute. i finally have tv and internet, thanks to my sister's generosity in hooking me up with her service for free.

life's good. i can't complain. i just hope that the one thing i feel is missing will come soon: a partner. maybe i'll meet someone at the university. that would be wonderful.

torsdag den tjugotredje augusti

2007-08-23T11:22:00.000-05:00

because the guy who's been living in my future lair is trifling, i probably won't get to move until next week. i suppose it will be before the 31st, at least, since legally i have a right to be in there on september 1st. i was really hoping to be in there before orientation began on monday. fuck. now i have to juggle my mental and physical energy between orientation and moving. fucking trifling asshole below my sister. why has it taken him so long to move his ass out? he's moving to the ground floor apartment across the patio. c'mon. that's the easiest move i've ever heard of. there's no fucking reason to take so long. anyway, my roommate is back. he's been back since last saturday. we're getting along fine. i love his company. i just don't enjoy the dirtiness and roaches. just a few more days until i have my own space. and i haven't seen any roaches in my room since the last bombing. yeah, i haven't had my own space since early 2002. over 5 years of living in other people's spaces on their terms under their rules and surrounded by their things. over 5 years of not having my very own home to myself. i reveled in having my own space when i lived alone in seattle and vancouver. i LOVED it. i was such a great homemaker, especially in vancouver. i wanna totally be that in this new place. i am gonna make everything in the lair sooooo cute and pretty and cozy and functional and inviting. i am gonna make the patio really nice, too. then i am gonna invite friends over to visit and have fun. people really will come, too, seeing as it's so easy and fast to get to from midtown manhattan. when people visit new york from other places, i'll truly have a place for them to stay. i can't wait. and it will be so quiet. i will be hitting the books and studying so hard in there! :) it's so serene back there. i really can't wait. just a few days. just a few days. just a few days.

so, i'm really obsessed with bento boxes, and i look forward to making my lunch every morning to take to school or to my field assignment, and putting it in one of my cute little bento boxes. :) i can't wait to cook again. i don't cook in this roachy kitchen, but i will cook and bake so much in the new lair! i can't wait for the weather to get colder so that i can start churning out the baked goods and hearty, scrumptious meals. i can't wait. oh, and i will have all new furniture except for the bookcase that my sister gave me. i finally figured out that it's gonna work to go to ikea and get almost everything there. i'm gonna get the stuff that is made out of solid wood but isn't expensive. i have to wait til my student loans come through to get the stuff, though. i'm gonna have a futon bed (not from ikea). i'm scrimping around to have enough $ to buy it so that i'll have something to sleep on when i move in. i have have very little work these past two weeks, so money is very tight. i can't wait til the student loans come through! oh, and i found inexpensive, big rugs from crate & barrel that i'm gonna get. my lair is gonna be a shoes-off-at-the-door kind of place. i will have a swedish welcome mat. "välkommen!"

tisdag den tjugonde augusti

2007-08-21T13:57:00.000-05:00

there has been a roach infestation in my room. i bombed the room yesterday. i found 3 roaches crawling since then. i bombed the room again today. hopefully there won't be roaches alive in there for a while. i just don't wanna deal with them as long as i'm living there, which hopefully won't be much longer.

i am moving to my new lair in a few days, hopefully before the weekend ends. next week is school orientation. i've been having medication side effects which are now getting better, and i have been stressing out about wanting so much to move asap, and i am scared about school. i'm not scared about school, actually. i am excited about school and scared about how well i will handle it and how good i will be at my field placement. i wanna succeed at this endeavor so very much. i want my 30s to be a decade in which i enjoy small and large fruits of my labors and struggles.

my new lair is very close to manhattan. my name is on the lease. the lair will be an empty shell when i move in. no one else's shit will be in there. i'll have my own little tiny piece of this huge city for myself. it will be a quiet place to study in. it will be a retreat for me, myself and i. i'll have a patio. i'll make an awesome little home for myself. it'll be the cutest place ever.

måndag den trettonde augusti

2007-08-13T16:11:00.000-05:00

i have been having panicky feelings the last few days. it's because i'm on full-blown meds again, both zoloft and wellbutrin. i am gonna see the psychiatrist on wednesday afternoon. i couldn't stop picking at my scalp and pulling at my hair yesterday. i take my anxiety out on my hair and skin when i feel like this. today, i am okay at work. i am panicky about what i have to do after work, though. it doesn't help that i work at times square, the worst place to be if you're feeling anxious. i have to plow through the crowds to get to the nearest office supply store 3 blocks down (which seems like a mile for me in this state). i have to buy padded envelopes for my dvds. i have to mail out 5 dvds today. after i get the envelopes, i will walk 1-2 blocks to the times square subway station (the busiest, worst station) to go down to the 7. i am going to take the 7 to 45th road-court square in queens. there's a post office nearby that's open til 7 p.m. it's really empty and quiet a lot of the time. i'll mail the stuff there. i feel really fucked up in the head. my financial problems, my problems with my mother, my friend's schizophrenia, my other friend being in north carolina for a few weeks, the fact that school is starting soon, and how tomorrow i am meeting with the management guy for the apartment (i'm scared he's gonna not keep his word about keeping the rent at its current low rate, therefore making me unable to rent there after all). worried about how to afford furniture. my sister's offering to help me purchase a futon bed, though. that's very unlike the way she was before. i spoke with her for the first time since winter yesterday. i am hoping that things will be better between us now. but things with my mother are bad. i don't wanna talk about it now. today is the last day of this temp job i'm doing as a receptionist at times square. who knows if i'll get any more work before school begins? stress, stress, stress. stress, stress, stressssssss. well, i'm gonna go now. bye.

onsdag den åttonde augusti

2007-08-08T16:13:00.000-05:00

the 7 might have been the only train running this morning. luckily i live a block from the 7. i pushed my way onto a packed train after not being able to board two consecutive jammed ones. it was insane. but, i got to work only 15 minutes late (instead of hours late, like many new yorkers) and was the first one here.

update on my mother: she responded to my reply to her e-mail and listed all the major instances of her doing something nice for me throughout my life, and then asked me how, in each case, she had abused me. i won't get into what i wrote back. i just explained that abuse is not a series of events you can list. abuse is a pattern of behavior and ways of relating that forms the fabric that a relationship is made of. i explained that a series of events in which nice things are done for a person does not excuse or make irrelevant the presence of a pattern of abuse of that person. she stated she had no idea what i was talking about in terms of abuse in our relationship. i asked her to go over the instances of being nice that she had outlined and think about how our relationship generally was during all of those periods of time. i reminded her of the anger, resentment, fights, snappy comments, criticism, etc. that has permeated our relationship for a long time. i am not going to continue a back-and-forth with her in which i continue to explain and describe things for her approval, as it's a perfect example of her not valuing my truth and of her challenging me to prove my feelings and experiences as valid. she has always invalidated anything of mine that she doesn't want to deal with. yes, this is one of the ways she's emotionally abused me. i have no idea what her next response will be. probably some sort of alternate history of our relationship that doesn't involve abuse, just misunderstandings between a mother and her troubled child. i won't take the bait. i'll just let her know that i need to go back to not being in communication.

my roommate is temporarily home for today and maybe tomorrow (i'm not sure). then he's back up in new england at the summer camp until august 12th. i'll have barely seen him this whole time i've lived in his apartment.

i am so anxious to move and set up my own new lair and get settled in. i am going to have the cutest chococat-themed bathroom ever. at a store down the street from where i currently live, they have chococat wallpaper banners that matches my bathmat, toilet lid cover and shower curtain. it's all in the "lapis" design. the store also have a matching lapis set of a chococat soap dispenser, cup and toothbrush holder, but that might be too much. i probably won't get that. there's no bathtub in the bathroom, just a shower stall. you can't have it all, though. i will have totally bare walls throughout the apartment that i can decorate. everything will be 100% ME! :)

there's a boy down the hall from where i currently live who looks, talks, and acts like alex. he's latino, not a swedish/greek boy like alex, but they are doppelgangers. alex could easily pass for latino. i think this boy is substantially younger than i am. he's like, the late teens version of alex. what a cute sweetie-pie. oh, my god. what a cutie-pie. i'd like to talk to him sometime. no, i don't have designs on him, but it would be interesting to talk to him! he seems like a really sweet kid! i also saw a boy on the subway yesterday who resembled alex. awww, how cute! :) alex was cute-deluxe. i love seeing boys who remind me of him!

tisdag den sjunde augusti

2007-08-06T09:02:00.000-05:00

i am at a posh desk in a highrise building in times square. i'm subbing for a receptionist in a real estate office. today is my second day. i am temping here through next monday. after that, i will have less than two weeks before i begin orientation at school. who knows if i will get more temp work after next monday. maybe not. i went for two weeks without anything just now. maybe the summer is slow for temp work. when september hits, my student loans will come, and all the money for non-school expenses will be direct-deposited into my bank account. i just have to make it through these few weeks.

i am back on my meds. i was partly-to-mostly off of them due to not being insured and being broke. it hasn't been pretty to be me or be around me as of late. i can't believe i went for years like that, being so depressed and not being treated for it. it's so nice to have health insurance again!!! i never take it for granted!

yesterday i got a definite "yes" on the apartment below my sister. i also got to take a good look around it. it's very cute and will suit my needs fine. i can't wait to move in. i should be able to move in in between one and two weeks from now. i am so very excited to have my very own space for the first time since i moved here. and i can't believe i'll be living so close to everything. 5 minutes to grand central. 8 minutes to times square (i hate times square, but it's where i need to go to catch the 1 train to school). once i sign my lease, a huge stress will be lifted off of me. and after all my looking and planning, i'm ending up staying in my beloved borough of queens. :)

i saw a very old friend on sunday. we had brunch and then went to the guggenheim museum (which i had never been to before) and then went to "fika", which is to have a break in which you sit down for coffee (or tea, or whatever) with family or friends. it was really nice to see her. she's doing well. she's been sober for 8 months. she became an alcoholic 3 years ago. she's now in aa. my own alcohol use has been much more under control. i haven't had hard alcohol for weeks, just a beer or two once a week or so. it's my aim for the alcohol use to dwindle down even more. i can do it. her mom is giving me some old furniture. i thought i could use her mom's old futon, but it's queen-size and i need full-size. :/ so i guess i'm in the market for a new futon. i need a frame for it, too, because my last futon got moldy from being right on the floor in a humid climate. :( her mom is giving me the two hammock chairs with brown fabric covered in orange and yellow mushrooms which date back to the '70s. that furniture was there in their living room when i first met my friend in nursery school. :)

i am too tired to talk much about other things going on: the fact that another very old friend of mine who has schizophrenia has symptoms that have gotten worse, and his family is in denial and is therefore not helping him get what he needs psychiatrically. he called me last night and was so desperate and haunted by his hallucinations (which he is convinced are real) that i worried for his safety and called my dad crying and my dad called his dad and did some diplomatic talking (our dads have known one another for eons). i dunno if it helped, but at least his dad now knows that other people know what's going on and are watching. i wish i were there to physically take that boy to a good psychiatrist who will help him and give him medicine that works!!! i will do my best to support him from afar.

another thing: my mother e-mailed me today, telling me how much i've hurt her by not speaking to her for the past half-year. manipulation and guilt trips. what's new? she can't accept that we have a fucking abusive relationship. she makes me out to be a bad guy who is giving her a "silent treatment" and "punishing" her. i'm not punishing her. i'm taking care of myself! i can't fucking take it. she implies that i don't love her because i'm not talking to her. i can't fucking deal. this makes me want to talk to her even LESS. to be honest, i barely miss my mother now. i feel horrible about it, but i barely miss talking to my mother. the effect of NOT talking to her does me a lot more good than harm at this point. i miss my sister more. my sister and i are on writing terms now. i'm sure we'll be on speaking terms soon, seeing as i am going to be her downstairs neighbor. i know this situation is weird. i am moving downstairs from someone i haven't been talking to for half a year. but i think that my relationship with my sister is salvageable since she is more able to self-reflect and admit to wrongdoings than my mother is. my mother's a lost cause. she's stuck in the abuser/martyr role and sometimes i wonder if she really loves me or is just trying to look good to her friends and society by playing off "the good mother" in front of others. it's hard to play "the good mother" when you're daughter's not talking to you. yeah, well, it's hard to look like "the good daughter" when you're not talking to your mother, but it doesn't fucking matter to me anymore.

that's some of what's going on, the good and the bad of it. oh, and i am addicted to haruki murakami. :)

söndag den tjugonionde juli

2007-07-29T15:46:00.001-05:00

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

2007-07-24T18:41:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-23T16:35:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-20T09:57:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-17T12:35:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-12T14:23:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-10T18:11:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-09T18:42:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-07T19:36:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-06T19:20:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-04T16:53:00.000-05:00

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.

new york pride, plus other kvetching and kvelling

2007-06-29T14:52:00.000-05:00

i got a lot of vitamin d last weekend. i spent saturday in a park in flushing with the shelter adoption van. for part of the day, i was handling two dogs at once. thank god one was a sedentary pug and the other was a chilled-out little poodle. i really saw the difference i made with the pug. i suspect she'd been abused (and had also been used as a breeder dog) by her former human. she was so scared to have anyone touch her at the beginning of the day. by the end, she was snuggled up in my lap with her eyes closing and a big smile as i pet her. it really means a lot to me that so much affection from me, the other volunteers, and all of the folks who came by the van, had such an impact. it will really allow her to be adopted more quickly. we're resocializing her to be a dog who expects to be treated well, because we at the shelter will make sure that she's NEVER mistreated again. we are always careful about who we adopt out to.

on sunday, i had my first new york pride parade experience. i didn't just see it; i was in it. my friend and her girlfriend work at an organization that provides support to queer youth. the organization was a contingent in the parade. lots of the kids, many staff, and some volunteers marched. we also had a float. it was amazing to support the kids and to be a part of this experience. there were shitloads of people all along the parade route. we walked 60 or so blocks. i noticed that many of the folks watching the parade were people of color. some had flags waving from caribbean, south american and african nations. there were also lots of folks who'd come in from the tri-state area. i wouldn't be surprised if there were folks who'd come from other regions of the u.s. and from other countries to see this huge parade. is it the biggest pride parade in the world? i don't know. all i know is that the few elite queers, some of whom happen to be in the business of writing in magazines and on blogs, are DEAD WRONG when they say that pride is "passe", "unnecessary" and "boring". maybe for your new york privileged queer ass it is. you make your big money and have your chelsea condo, and gay rights don't seem like such an issue anymore. nah, you're doing fine. why is anyone yelling about gay rights and marching in these parades nowadays? it's so 1990s. well, here are a few things i have to say to you privileged queer folks, whose declarations of the waning importance of pride i've read on blogs and in articles: YOU ARE A PRIVILEGED FEW. MOST QUEER PEOPLE ON PLANET EARTH FACE A WHOLE HELL OF A LOT OF HOMOPHOBIA AND HETEROSEXISM TO THIS DAY. nice for you that you have your circle of friends, and great job and wonderful apartment and little havens in chelsea or the west village or park slope. but, most queer people in new york city are NOT AT ALL as fortunate as you are. most of us are from families and from backgrounds and live in neighborhoods where it ain't fucking okay to be queer. most queer folks in the u.s. DON'T live in the safe havens one can find in the big apple or in san fran, etc. maybe it's more acceptable to be queer in a certain demographic (which happens to have control over what is printed in papers and magazines and has more access to blogging and the like). so, just because your bougie ass is now doing fine, you're throwing in the towel on the gay rights movement? thousands of your fellow queers here in new york are still struggling terribly. just ask some of the kids at the organization i marched with. just ask the folks screaming along the lines waving trinidadian, puerto rican, brazilian, venezuelan, nigerian, russian, polish, korean flags. their home cultures may be totally unaccepting of queer folks, but these people had the opportunity to feel totally safe among this lgbt community on the day of pride. the people from homogenous suburbs around the area, along with folks from the large swaths of the u.s.a. where conservatism and conformism reign supreme, were sure as FUCK not thinking that pride was "passe". so, please stop being so fucking selfish and ignorant, and proclaiming that pride and the movement for gay rights is "old" just because you THINK you don't really have to deal with the prejudice anymore. if you truly are for gay rights, you will fight, scream, march and dance until EVERY LAST QUEER PERSON on planet earth can TOTALLY live in peace out in the open. you may think that everything's peachy-keen for you, but remember this simple saying: "NO ONE IS FREE WHEN OTHERS ARE OPPRESSED".

to kvell a bit more about pride: i loved screaming, waving, blowing whistles, dancing, hugging folks, laughing, supporting, watching fierce vogue moves, and helping to create a huge and awesome NEW YORK PRIDE 2007!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

other news: my job is great. the lawyer i assist rocks mah world. i have one more week here. she wants to keep me longer. she says she'd permanently hire me if i weren't going back to school, but i don't think the company is going to pay for me to stay here after the new paralegal begins work after the end of next week.

i might move on sunday or monday or something. it's not for sure yet. i still have soooo much packing and cleaning to do, and i don't yet have the keys to the place. mr. j is at a leftist conference in atlanta until monday. egads! oh, well. my friend from whom i'm currently subletting isn't coming back until the third week of july. still, i wanna move soon!!!

more animal news: i found a dead squirrel and a dead baby bird. i put the bird on top of moritz's grave. i left the squirrel alone. i can't deal with another squirrel burial. fireflies visit me every evening around 8:45-9 p.m. i'm so happy to watch them! there's an ancient cat that comes around the house nowadays. i wish he'd let me pet him.

things are progressing with getting ready for school. i am signing up for "early arrival" health insurance through the school. i'm gonna get an id card. my e-mail is set up. et cetera. YAY!!!

i wrote a letter to PETA in response to ingrid newkirk's fat-phobic and rude letter to michael moore. i got a condescending e-mail response by a man from PETA, whose name i won't mention, who backed up newkirk's sizeist blitherings and said he knew that it was possible to be vegan AND fat: there were lots of unhealthy vegan snacks out there, after all. Here's my response to him (via e-mail): "Thanks for your message, ____, but I still find some fat-phobia in your message, and I think that PETA as an organization has issues with fat-phobia and the objectification of women. As for the fat-phobic comments in your message: not all fat people gorge on junk food, so if you meet a fat vegan, please don't assume they're gorging on potato chips and vegan chocolate. There are many issues affecting weight. A lot of the vegetarians and vegans I know are fat. Some are skinny. Some are average. Whatever. You guys at PETA need to focus on health, not weight. PETA is totally buying into the whole thinness obsession that *mainstream America* has (I emphasize mainstream because many subcultures here, and many cultures in this world, do not glorify thinness). PETA's literature on vegetarians, its advertisements, and its website graphics show only pictures of thin or average-size people. This does not reflect the diversity of folks who are compassionate eaters. Just remember that size discrimination is the most accepted form of bigotry in our country nowadays. Fat people can be very healthy. I am one of them. Thin does not equal health. Sometimes, the attainment and maintenance of thinness involves very unhealthy eating habits. I know some veg folks whose animal-free diets mask eating disorders. There are many fat folks who are that way because of gorging on animal products. I have also personally seen many thin or average size folks who never see a green thing on their plates. The issue of weight and diet is much more complex than society would like us to think. There are many industries making millions off of these simplifications. I wish that PETA would be more progressive and aware of the bullshit simplifications that society peddles about people. It also needs to spend more of its energy on educating people as to the cold hard facts of animal suffering. Scantily-clad women who are beautiful in a Barbie-esque way aren't necessary. I'd like to see more PETA funding going into its investigations and exposees. It would be great to see more blatant truths about factory farms, fur farms, circuses, puppy mills, etc. to be broadcasted through every medium by PETA. PETA needs not contribute to the dumbification of American media by resorting to the kind of advertising crap that swells our collective consciousness. And if PETA wants to show images of healthy, happy veg folks, please include healthy people of all walks of life (yes, including the healthy veg fat folks). Thank you for your time." yup, looks like this ass-kickin' fat New York veg gurl has just entered PETA's radar screen. I have lots more respect for the way HSUS goes about things, but I will continue to support PETA for the things it DOES do right. This needs to be heard by the kind of asshole "animal rights" people who are totally ignorant of issues of cruelty and inequality in the HUMAN race. let me educate you assholes: ANIMAL RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS ARE INSEPARABLE. some of you animal rights folks don't get that simple fact, just like many of you human rights folks are so fucking ignorant and callous about the issues of the other millions of species we share this earth with. wake up, people.

gotta go for now.

Hangin' Out at Tar Beach with Mr. J

2007-06-21T18:40:00.000-05:00

Big news: I am going to spend July and August with my friend Mr. J. I have a place to go to in July! An awesome, wonderful, big apartment on the top floor of a building, with a fire escape outside of the kitchen window that takes one up to Tar Beach. Mr. J lives farther west in Queens. His roommate had to go to California on short notice for some summer work. Mr. J sent out a mass e-mail yesterday morning about how he needed a roommate and asked us to let him know if we knew anyone who needed a place. He didn't know that I hadn't found a place to go to in July, and he didn't know I'd be willing to sublet for two months before I found a more long-term situation. Well, I called him ASAP and set up everything, and my subletting will begin on July 1st. :) I love Mr. J. We can talk deeply about serious issues, and we can have a ball laughing and dancing and doing impersonations. It's gonna be great to live with him. I'll have much more time to hang out with him. I don't normally see him that often because he's so busy and because I'm still physically affected by my grief and it's such a production for me to get to his house from my lair. So, now we get to hang out more often! :) It's also gonna be good to move from this remote location to a much more accessible area of Queens before my final move to Manhattan. His neighborhood is really cool, with lots and lots of stores, restaurants and other things I like. The subway is ONE BLOCK from his building! YAY!!! I think it will be easier for me to find housing as a student in the Columbia University area/Upper Manhattan for September 1st. And now I have two months to find something! :) Oh, and friend-of-a-friend is chafing my hide. Now she's saying her work friend will probably move in in August and could I move in in October? And she chooses who my roommate will be? I just e-mailed back to tell her that this situation won't work for me, and that I wish her the best with everything. It's a great apartment, but it's not meant for me. I will keep on trying to get everything set up for September...

I bought the diet drug from Walgreens.com. I am waiting for its arrival. I want to start on it on a weekend, in case there are side-effects. I want to lose weight. Really, I do. It seems impossible for me to do, but I'll try. I look at women on the streets as I walk, and I love to see the voluptuous ones. Truly, I think that voluptuous bodies, male and female, are the most beautiful. I do NOT want to be thin. I want to stay a voluptuous lady with big thighs and hips and soft curves all over, but I want to be smaller than I am now. I would like to be 180 pounds again. 180 seems like a lot to some folks, but it's not a lot for me. I'm tall, I am sturdily-built, and I am buxom. That's my body type, which I inherited from my African ancestors who were some of the ones who actually survived the extreme conditions of The Middle Passage and lived through backbreaking labor on the rice plantations of South Carolina for centuries. That's my body type, which I inherited from my Scandinavian ancestors who had long ago been great warriors of the sea; who had braved long, harsh winters, had settled on dramatic landscapes, and survived many famines. That's my body type, which I inherited from my Native American ancestors who survived the violent genocide and the diseases that Europeans had brought over. You wanna know why I'm so sturdily-built? Because my foremothers and fathers went through hell and survived it. They were anything but frail.

hose me down

2007-06-19T20:17:00.000-05:00

i wanna be reborn through a well of water gushing out. i wish i could start from scratch with my body. erase all abuse it's taken, both from me and the world i've lived in. i'm disappointed with myself. diet and abstinence from alcohol have not been working these past few days. i am going to begin the new diet drug that all the buzz is about. i'm not gonna name it here; i don't want links to my blog through my mention of that drug. it'll force me to give up my vice of eating pizza. if one does not eat a super low-fat diet on that drug, one has things coming out of ones butt uncontrollably. i am grateful that i control when things come out of my butt, and i want to keep it that way.

my temp assignment is good! laid-back and easy. not too hard to get to. easier commute than the one to south street seaport; harder than the one to the music venue. eh, i'm not complaining, though! i am assisting a lawyer at this assignment. she is soooooo nice. she is very appreciative of all the help i give her. she says she used to be a paralegal, and she knows what it's like to do the stuff i'm doing, but i don't think that's the main reason why she's so nice. i think she's nice because she's just a nice person. she was probably born that way. i love nice people! i'm a nice person, and i appreciate it when others reciprocate that kindness!

the firefighter that i was shagging has contacted me again. i had not returned his e-mail a while back because he'd flaked on me a few times. well, this time, he happened to write to me during a particularly horny spell i'm having. i chewed him out about flaking on me and how shitty that is, and how i won't have any of that anymore. he apologized, explained away, begged and sweet-talked me, sent me a picture of himself with all of his big, juicy goods exposed. jesus, was he trying to kill me? well...maybe i'll see him again. he really has to be on his best behavior before i decide whether he gets to have some more of this.

no luck with apartments yet. don't know if i am going to get to live in friend-of-friend's apartment. met a woman who wanted to see if we'd make good roomies. i have the feeling that she thinks i'm weird...and maybe would not be 100% into being around someone with my personality. yeah, i am weird, but all in a good way. some people just don't get me. i feel in my gut that she's one of them. yeah, i don't think it will work out. so...i am thinking that i am having no luck with finding someone to share living space with, and maybe if i don't get this deal with the friend-of-a-friend, i'll just go ahead and look for a studio apartment. then i could get one that allowed pets and i could get a cat. :) yeah, fuck it. i'll just venture out on my own. i don't have time to find that elusive person i'll get along with. i need to find a place. i've never lived with a stranger before, probably because i knew how hard it would be to find a compatible roomie in a pool of unknown people. yeah, if f-of-f doesn't let me sublet, i'm soooo looking for a studio.

i like to kvetch

2007-06-16T13:12:00.000-05:00

i finally got a call from the temp agency about a three-week assignment. guess what i was doing when the call came? interviewing at another temp agency. guess who called me later that day? the temp agency i had signed up with even before the one that's hooked me up the most, which i haven't heard from in months. isn't that fucked up? why was no one calling me two weeks ago? and now when i'm trying out a new agency, my phone starts ringing. well, i took the three-week stint, which begins on monday. my ebay sales continue to be really sluggish, even though i have over 80 things on there, including some really cool dvd box sets. i just don't understand why they're not going.

the brother and sister, as i expected, did not choose me as the person they wanted to room with. today, i saw the apartment of the friend-of-a-friend, and i thought everything about it was incredible. i really, really want to live there, but i'm not expecting to be chosen. the other two places i was rejected for were not totally ideal, so i wasn't too upset when i was passed over, but i will really feel let down if i don't get this one. i dunno how she's gonna choose who will get to sublet her place. i just pray that it'll be me. i am also meeting a woman on monday who i'll talk to about perhaps joining forces and looking for an apt. together. my friend from whom i'm currently subletting just gave me the name of another person i can contact about whether we'd make a good team. i have four weeks max before i have to be out. i want to have something settled as soon as possible!

i am really, really fucking ready to love someone and share my life with him. not having him is breaking my heart. i wish he'd appear. there are two men i now love and one of them is dead. the other one is in okinawa with his girlfriend, and anyway, he isn't in the emotional place where he's made peace with what happened between us in the past. i find myself thinking too much about him sometimes, i guess because he's now the only man who is alive on this earth that i feel love for. i just wish that someone i could actually be with would come along VERY FUCKING SOON. the other day, i saw this man on the subway who i thought was drop-dead gorgeous, and when he smiled, i just about sank onto the floor of the subway car. i haven't had that reaction to a face in so long! this man's smile was so incredible. he might not be gorgeous to the general population, just as andy and alex might not be anything special to look at for most people (but are devastatingly beautiful to me). he was breathtaking to me, though, especially when that sweet smile crept across his full lips, softening his entire lovely face. he was latino, and specifically looked like he was probably puerto rican. anyway, he was with his girlfriend. he treated her really sweetly. i could tell they were very much in love and were really happy. i want to be head-over-heels in love again. i want it to last. i want it to be with someone who i consider to be my best friend in the whole world. i want him to stay living on this earth and not die on me. i want him to be soooo handsome in my eyes that his smile will be the most incredible thing i see. i want him to have the same reaction to my smile. i want to feel like i could cuddle him forever and never get sick of it. i want to see my future children dancing in his eyes. i want him to get as upset over the mistreatment of humans and animals as i get. i want us to laugh a lot together. i want us to someday live together where i can do my social work/animal-assisted therapy/wildlife rehabilitation. maybe he'll be a social worker/animal-assisted therapist/wildlife rehabilitator, too. maybe we'll found our own organization for troubled kids to come live and work with and take care of animals. maybe one day, we'll have a baby black bear in our rehab facility. maybe i'll get to hold the cub in my arms.

i want to have a fulfilling life working with people and animals, and i want to have a wonderful lifelong relationship. i have so much love in my heart to give to another person. i would be such a loving, committed, supportive, kind partner. i hope that god lets me give those gifts to one of the other humans on this earth. is he wondering where his future partner is? is he wishing she would come along? who is he? where is he? when will i meet him? is he also wondering who i am, where i am, and when he'll meet me? i want to rent an airplane that scrawls messages across the sky and tell him i'm here. i wish god would give me a sign that my future partner exists and that i won't be a lonely widow for the rest of my life. i know that alex does not want me to be a lonely widow. he wants me to find love again. i think god keeps showing me that part of my reason for being here is to help animals. i was born with a great love and sensitivity for animals. i also feel like god put me through all of the hardships i've faced to make me strong and compassionate enough to help all different kinds of people. i hope that i also get a sign from god that a really special man exists for me, and that he will be in my life in the future. maybe my interactions with my doctor, my friend's brother-in-law, mr. exmo, and the beautiful man on the train are god's signs to me. i guess i'll keep my heart open and eyes peeled for more signs. and then there's my english friend, who is unwaveringly kind and caring towards me. he thinks i'm wonderful just the way i am, inside and out. maybe his treatment of me is also a sign from god. my english friend says and does little things that make me feel like things are going to be okay after all. he told me the other day that he's reading the first harry potter book in latin. i dunno. thinking about him reading harry potter in latin makes my soul smile. :) he also updates me on what kind of chocolate he's currently eating. he's a chocoholic. he's so utterly and completely true to himself and to others. i love it. anyway, i've just gotta have faith that my special one is coming soon. i'll try not to lose hope. i'll try to keep my heart wide open.

what the fuck to do?

2007-06-13T15:24:00.001-05:00

i'm really freaking out about where the fuck i am going to live. if i cannot find a fucking roommate, i might just get a studio apartment. the school gave me enough loans to factor about $1,500 a month for all living expenses, which is waaaaaay more than i need. well, if i'm taking out the fucking loans, and i can't find a place to live by say, the end of next week, i might just try to get a studio apartment. there are some being advertised that are the same price as rooms in 2 or 3-bedroom apartments with roommates. yeah, i'd be paying more for utilities and shit, but at least i'd have control over how i lived.

the leftist guy e-mailed me today to tell me he went with someone else. he seemed uncomfortable with me from the get-go, even though i am very friendly and personable. *sigh* well, obviously he has issues, cuz i did nothing weird or wrong.

the flakey friend-of-a-friend called me last night. i am gonna see the apt. on saturday morning. she says there are others she has seeing the apt. i hope so much that she chooses me as one of the two who sublet from her for the next 1 1/2 years!!!

the brother and sister haven't gotten back to me, but they probably won't choose me. i dunno if i'd be happy there, either. i dunno.

still no word from the temp agency. i gave up calling them. i called another temp agency that had contacted me a few months ago, and i am going to interview with them tomorrow morning. in the afternoon, i am going to columbia to the off-campus housing office and ask for help. tomorrow evening, i'm seeing another room.

ebay sales have been shitty the last two days. :(

idag är skit

2007-06-12T17:31:00.001-05:00

today is shit. nothing is going well, except for that i'm doing okay on ebay.

i don't have temp work. this is my 7th day of not having any. i keep calling the woman at the temp agency, but she does not answer or return my calls. did someone complain about me for something? have they decided not to give me temp work anymore? if so, why don't they just TELL me that?!?!?

i thought i had over $2,000 coming to me from the other part of my retirement savings plan. i thought it was coming to me in a lump sum like the other part did. no, i was wrong. this part of the retirement money is being paid back to me in 10 installments over NINE YEARS. so i got about $300 from them, but they got my bank account number wrong, so i have to get them to reissue the transfer to my account.

i saw a room in an apartment on saturday. a brother and sister. they are nice and the apt. is nice, but the general living space is so plain. i love to decorate, and i have a feeling that my decorating sense would not be welcome there. i would also feel like i'm the odd one out since they're brother and sister and i'm the newcomer to their space. i e-mailed the sister on sunday and asked about what she wants in a roommate in terms of being a new person coming into an already established household, and how she wants the newcomer to fit in. she hasn't written back.

i saw another room last evening. straight white guy with really leftist politics. nice apartment. it seemed like he was awkward and maybe uncomfortable around me. i dunno if it's because he's never had a female roommate before (and has a girlfriend who might not like him having a female roommate?), or what. i don't know what he thinks of me. he's a vegetarian and very neat and clean and has a great decorating sense and would welcome a roommate's decorative additions. i e-mailed him today and told him i felt good about living there. i do, except for his awkwardness. maybe he's just plain shy. i dunno.

the third person i've been talking to is the friend of a friend who is being flakey with me. it seems like she has an incredible living situation, though. does she not understand that i am in limbo and her flakiness is truly unhelpful to me?

yeah, so, this $2,000 i thought i'd be getting is nonexistent now, and i honestly don't know how i'll pay for first month's rent and deposit in a place, and if i keep on not getting temp gigs because the fucking agency has decided to drop me without telling me, what the fuck am i going to do?!?!?

and my partner is dead, and i couldn't be with his family for it, and i feel very fucking alone in my grief, and everything is fucking shitty. it's all fucking shit. and i drank last night. i bought a pint of rum and made cuba libres and got drunk and poured the remaining 1/3 of the bottle down the drain, and felt like drunk shit. it did nothing good for me, just made me angry at myself for screwing up staying sober.

i wonder if i'm not getting temp work anymore because someone complained about me to the temp agency. what did i do wrong? the last assignment i was on, i was only there in case the admin. assistant had to leave in an emergency (his father is sick). they had no work for me to do. for seven workdays, i did nothing because they had nothing for me to do. during those slow days, i checked my e-mail and ebay a few times on the computer of the woman whose desk i was using (she was on vacation). on my last day, i cleared the internet history and the temporary internet files. did she complain to the temp agency that i did that? did they decide i was a bad worker and that they would not give me work anymore, but then the agency woman won't face me and tell me that?

i feel like a failure at everything, and i am really scared that i am going to fuck up graduate school and not become a social worker cuz i'm too fucked up, and then have tens of thousands of dollars in student loans to pay off. what if i fuck up once again on something big that i try? will my life ever work out well? will i ever succeed at life? or will it continue to be one big failure after another?

A Day of Grief and Healing

2007-06-10T07:17:00.000-05:00

It's been three years since I heard Alex's friendly, gruff voice and his thick, musical Swedish accent. Three years since we shared hugs and cuddles. Three years since I've looked at his living face. He was my best friend. I just wanted to be around him all the time. I felt so close to him that I felt like we were two parts of a whole. How could one part of a whole be dead and the other be alive? How can that happen? How could he have gone somewhere I can't really fathom? I can't wrap my mind around the two of us not sharing the same reality. I remember what my friend said to me when she came to visit me in Stockholm shortly after Alex's death: she said that maybe Alex and I are still in the same reality but now we exist in it on different levels. Her statement really rang in my spirit. She took me on a hot-air balloon ride over Stockholm. I think she might have wanted to help me be closer to what it's like to be on the pure spirit level of existence. She was living in Berlin at the time of Alex's death. She knew when he died, even though it would be two days until I called her and told her the news. On the day he died, she was taking the U-Bahn and got off at Alexanderplatz by mistake. Something just brought her there. When she came up onto Alexanderplatz from the U-Bahn, she suddenly began sobbing. Her spirit knew.

I think my spirit knew that Alex would die before any of us even knew he was sick. I remember two times when Alex and I were hanging out before his stroke when everything seemed fine, and I suddenly began sobbing uncontrollably. I sobbed my heart out and he would hug me. I felt this huge well of sadness inside, and it was sorrow over Alex. I didn't understand why I felt so much sorrow, but I did. It's like I was grieving for him, even though he was alive. I remember how, as I lived with him that autumn, I would dream of him at night, and the dreams were incredible. They felt like the aboriginal paintings of "Dreamtime", and in my dream, "Dreamtime" was filled with pure and incredible love between Alex and me. I mean, pure spirit love, with all of the living world things sifted out. There are no words to explain purely spiritual things like that. It's extemely hard for me, living in this material world in this physical body like I do, to sift out all the crap and feel the pure spiritual state that the deepest part of me is always in. That pure spiritual state is where Alex and I still meet. Our spirits will always be entwined in love and friendship of the deepest level. Being in this physical state in this material world, I miss Alex's presence here. I miss it so very, very much.

I finally buried Moritz this morning. I dreamt that the plastic bag with Moritz in it had somehow magically taken itself out of my refrigerator and put itself in the middle of the floor between my sleeping area and the kitchen. It was Moritz's way of saying, "Gurl, you need to bury me now. It really is time." So, I woke up and dressed in Alex's sweatpants and t-shirt (which I often wear around the house). I took the bag containing Moritz out of the fridge and opened it, scared of what he'd look like after months of cold storage. he looked almost exactly like he had when I put him in there, except that his little black eyes had sunken into his head. I went outside and dug a hole a couple of feet deep right under the bottom of the big tree under which I had found Moritz sick last autumn. I carefully laid him at the bottom of the grave, and I told him that it was time for his body to rest and go back to where it came from and be protected by the tree roots that would surround it, the roots of the same tree that had provided him with acorns and a safe climbing structure and shelter during his life. I saw other squirrels jumping and climbing and twitching their tails and scavenging for acorns in the yards around me. No doubt these squirrels are Moritz's relatives and friends. I told Moritz "thank you" for being my friend and that as much as I'd helped him, he'd helped me. I placed a paper crane, that I had folded for Alex years ago, in the grave with Moritz. I delicately placed moist, cool earth over his body and filled up the hole.

I understand the underlying reason why it took so long to bury Moritz. I wasn't ready to say goodbye. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Alex, either, but I had absolutely no control over Alex's body after he died. There were all of these legal rules and regulations and medical procedures and cultural factors and familial wishes that separated me from being as close to the body of my partner as I wanted to be. I wanted to have control over what happened to that body I loved so much, but I had none. He had an autopsy (which I wanted him to have so that we could determine why he had suddenly died). He sat in cold storage for a few weeks in the hospital (I never saw him during that period). He was transported to the crematorium/funeral home in his neighborhood, a process that I was completely disconnected from. He was cleansed and dressed and sewn up so that his mouth and eyes stayed shut. I had no part in that. They put him in a simple wooden casket and brought him into a room for us to say one last goodbye. Why were these strangers in control of my loved one's body? Why did they determine who, what, when, where and why when it came to the body of MY loved one? Why were we kept so far removed from the final processes done on the body of OUR beloved Alex? I wanted a part in EVERY SINGLE THING that happened to Alex's body after he died, but I was kept so far removed. His family chose to cremate him. This broke my heart, really. His beautiful body would be turned into ash. Only a pile of ashes would remain of this body I loved so much. I don't even know WHICH DAY they cremated him. I was so far removed. We didn't even get to bury his ashes ourselves. The funeral home/cemetary people dug the grave, brought out the ashes in an urn, let us simply TOUCH the urn (not let us HOLD it for HOWEVER LONG we wanted to), and then THEY put the urn in the earth. THEY friggin put earth over his remains, not US. It was like losing Alex doubly. I don't understand this far removal from death that occurs in some of the world's cultures. Why are loved ones kept so removed from what happens to their departed ones' bodies? I wanted to be there for the autopsy, I wanted to see that he was okay in cold storage, I wanted to be in the transport van that took him from the hospital to the crematorium/funeral home, I wanted to be there when they got his body ready, I wanted to be there when he was cremated (though I would have preferred him NOT to have been cremated), I wanted to be there when they put his ashes in the urn and brought the urn out to the grave site and dug the grave, and I wanted US, his loved ones, to hold the ashes and be alone with them for as long as we needed (without some funeral home person looking on), and be the ones to put them in the ground and put the soil over them. I wanted a part of every single thing that happened to Alex after he died, but I was helpless. With Moritz, I had complete control over what happened to his body after his death. Maybe Moritz sort of symbolized being able to have the freedom and access to go through bereavement with a body on MY terms. I think that finally putting Moritz into the ground on the anniversary of Alex's death was a way of dealing with my feelings over what happened to Alex's body after his death. As I lovingly tended to each aspect of preparation for Moritz's burial, it's like I was taking back control and preparing to bury Alex again: burying Alex again through the loving care of a squirrel I'd tried so hard to save the life of. Today I buried Moritz, and in a way, I buried Alex, completely with my own hands and on my own terms. He knows that.

Rest in peace, little Moritz Squirrel.

Rest in peace, sweet Alex. I wish I could have been much more a part of what happened to your body after you died. Jag älskar dig så jättemycket, lilla gubben. Jag saknar dig varje dag, varje timme, varje sekond. Önskar att vi igen ses i Nangijala. Kära älskling, jag älskar dig för alltid.

all the little animals

2007-06-07T19:08:00.001-05:00

WARNING: the first part of this post is about dead animals.

okay, this whole finding sick and dead animals thing is getting more and more upsetting. yesterday i walked to the post office to mail out dvds. everything was fine. on the way home, i stopped by a bodega to buy paper towels. as i rounded the corner to go back up the side street to my lair, i spotted a squashed pigeon in the road. this must have just happened while i was on my errands; the pigeon was NOT there when i'd passed by minutes before. okay, seeing an animal that has turned into "roadkill" is very upsetting to me. what was even MORE upsetting was that the pigeon's friend, family member, or partner was walking around and around it, pecking once in a while to try to get it to move. and who says that only humans grieve? sorry, but this living pigeon companion was walking around and around the dead pigeon, the way i saw aerial footage of a baby elephant circling around and around her mother who had just been killed by a poacher. obviously, elephants are much more intelligent than pigeons, but don't tell me that birds don't have feelings. it's why i won't eat your chicken or your turkey. it's why i decided, as i stood there in awe at this avian display of grief, to open my roll of paper towels and pick up the dead bird with some of them. i had to wave some cars around me cuz i was in the road. the living pigeon didn't back away until i picked up the dead one. it was still warm, it was bloody, and its intestines had come out of its abdomen. i tried not to look. i took the bird down the street to a grassy area and put it under a tree (the same tree where i'd put a dead baby bird a couple of weeks ago). a woman saw me do this and got on the phone to her friend. i hope she didn't call someone to throw the pigeon away. just let it go back to the earth, people. by the way, i STILL have not buried moritz. i'm soooo scared that the family upstairs will catch me digging in the front yard in the middle of the night. *sigh*. well, the little guy needs to go back to the earth where he came from, and tonight NEEDS to be the night. i can't put this off any longer. my dead animal experiences remind me of the film "all the little animals" with john hurt and christian bale. christian bale's character is the kind of boy i'd want as a partner: sweet, gentle, kind and sensitive. it doesn't hurt that he's incredibly beautiful as well. the kind of boy i want to be with would walk around a flock of pigeons, not through it. the kind of boy i want to be with would be upset at seeing a dead pigeon in the road. the kind of boy i want to be with would never drive like a fucking asshole, plowing into neighborhood cats, pigeons, squirrels, and other little animals. he'd get pissed off at such drivers.

i haven't had temp work all week. i have luckily had a very good week on ebay. i am praying that the sales keep on going well so that i make enough money to make up for not having had work this week. i hope they'll have something for me next week. i'm getting worried. if they don't get anything for me, i'm going to another temp agency. this is what i hate about temping. i was getting it regularly for the past few months until this week. :(

i have a couple of roommate prospects, i think. one for sure. i am going to meet the people on saturday. it's a brother and sister who live in inwood. they seem super-nice. :) i don't mind living in inwood. it's a very short commute from there to columbia. if we get along well, they'll want me moved in on july first. i can do that! i thought i had another lead from a friend of a friend, but her correspondence with me has left off, and i don't know why. well, i've used my extra time this week to keep packing up and cleaning. in my cleaning, i found a picture of andy and me together in high school. i e-mailed the picture to him. i couldn't help it: i also wrote him a long message. oh, mah gawd. i was reminiscing so much about how things were in our town and our region when we were little. it's changed soooo much since then. i bet i reminded him of things he hasn't thought about in YEARS. i feel so much like amelie for doing that for him. i imagine andy having a look on his face like dominique bretodeau did when he found his childhood keepsakes in the phone booth. i told andy about the soda shack dream and how it reminded me of the old things that have since been rotting or torn away from the landscape of our hometown. i told him about memories i have of him; memories from when we were in nursery school. i'm so glad i finally got those memories off my chest. i don't expect a reply from him. the dominique bretodeau expression that i know will appear on his face is enough of a reward for my good deed.

i'm listening to sam cooke's "live at the harlem square club" album right now. i feel as if i am in a soda shack on the side of the road down in the deep south, and he's performing for a small, intimate audience inside the shack. i'm drinking a grape nehi and fanning the humidity off of me. sam cooke died long before i was born, but as i lay here in my lair in new york city, in spirit i'm right up there in the front row, hanging onto every soulful word and note coming from sam and the band. i don't know what's perspiring more: sam's forehead or my soda bottle.

i've been alcohol-free all week.

I Chose the Soda

2007-06-05T15:09:00.000-05:00

I haven't had a temp assignment yet this week. It freaks me out each day I don't have something. Because of that, and because I am moving soon, I am trying to get rid of my eBay inventory ASAP. I have almost 80 things on there right now. I lowered the prices on many of the shit I'm selling. Not by much, but enough for me to look even better against all the competition. In the last 24 hours, I've sold $60 worth of DVDs. I hope to keep raking in the bucks at that rate. I dumped a bunch of new releases on there today.

I went outside into the heat to mail out DVDs at the post office. I wanted to stop at the liquor store on the walk home. "Just this once", I told myself. Yeah, "just this once" is what I keep saying, and how I keep drinking. Well, I passed the liquor store twice, on the way to and from the grocery store. I bought a 2-liter bottle of diet orange soda and a 20-oz. bottle of wild cherry seltzer. I got taco shells and hot dog buns to use with my soy taco filling and my tofu pups. I didn't buy the alcohol. Too bad they don't sell Stewart's or Boylan in my neighborhood. They have Caribbean soda, but I'm very Americentric about soda. I want the American classics. Last night I told Alex that I would try my very, very best not to drink at all. He doesn't want me to hurt myself. I know it pains him to see me hurt myself. My birthday present to Alex is to try my very best to choose something unharmful over alcohol. His father was such an alcoholic that he had a liver transplant. Did I ever mention that I hate his father?

I was so depressed and sunken yesterday and today, until I received an e-mail from his mother this afternoon. She thanked me for the cards I sent to them in the mail. The tides turned when I read her message. I remember how she and the rest of his family saved my life after he died. I think we all saved each others' lives. We got through those first acute months by leaning on each other all the time. It was so hard to move back to the States, to New York City, where it seemed like everyone was so cold and uncaring. I wish I could be there in Stockholm with Alex's family this very moment. I'll go as soon as I can. I was thinking I could go visit them with some of this retirement payout. No, not when I have to move. No luck so far on finding a roommate. Shit. I'm partially packed already. I'll continue to pack tonight. I'm gonna start on a "Kitchen" box next.

I'm gonna go do laundry and take out recycling now. Bye.

alex's birthday and a wet day for moritz

2007-06-04T18:12:00.000-05:00

it's alex's birthday. he would be 29 years old. he was 9 months younger than me. he was conceived around the time i was born, in a sommarstuga in dalarna. i sent sms messages to his mother and brother. i didn't call them. i didn't have the emotional energy to talk to them. i feel very shitty that i am here alone, far away from alex's family. i literally COULDN'T go visit. i have no money for it. not even space on my credit card. nothing. for alex's birthday last year, i took my dad and sister out to eat a nice dinner at a swedish restaurant in manhattan called "aquavit". we toasted alex. this year, i am all alone, hungover and feeling like hell on alex's birthday. the third anniversary of his death is on the 10th, a sunday. i don't wanna be alone that day. maybe i will volunteer with the dog shelter and then have a special day with my dad. maybe we can go back to the brooklyn botanic garden. i think my dad said that the roses are blooming there now.

it's been raining, and the ground is wet and ripe for digging. i need to bury moritz. i will do it in the middle of the night tonight. moritz is the squirrel i tried to save last fall. i had found him in front of the tree in my front yard, wheezing and not running away when i came near. i rushed him to a rehabber in manhattan, but the rehabber couldn't save him. he died the next day. he's been in cold storage all winter and spring. it's time to lay him to rest under the tree where i found him, in the neighborhood he called home. by the way, i found yet ANOTHER dead baby bird laying in the middle of the sidewalk. i put it on the grass to the side. i also spotted a limping stray cat, but i could not get close enough to catch it. it ran-limped away. the spca probably wouldn' t be able to find the cat, so i didn't call them. i also found a rooster inside an electrical power station by the train station near my house, and i didn't know who to call besides the farm sanctuary, but they are located upstate. i dunno. seems like these animals are hell-bent on crossing paths with me when they're in need of help (and i often feel helpless to assist them). i'm very reluctant to call animal care and control for these issues, since animals sent to them usually end up euthanized. i dunno if the spca could have picked up the rooster. hopefully, another good samaritan helped save the rooster.

i was very sick from a hangover today. i went to a wild party last night, and ended up drinking cuba libres and spiked punch. i was as drunk as a dog. i also drank on friday night with the crazy ladies from the job i quit last august. i didn't get drunk, and i didn't even want to drink that night. i just didn't want to have to explain myself to them. i felt ashamed and embarrassed. but my health is more important than keeping face. i need to tell everyone that i am not going to be doing social things revolving around drinking anymore. i wanna see my friends, but i don't wanna drink. or, if i do go to a party, i wanna come prepared with some bottles of stewart's or boylan diet black cherry sodas. i fucking LOVE my sodas, guys. i need to be vocal and honest with others about my drinking problem. i need to take good care of myself. the good thing out of this is that none of the drinking i did this weekend was alone. i used to drink alone a lot. that's how i did most of my drinking: sitting alone outside on the stoop at night. no more drinking alone. no more social drinking. no more drinking. i love my sodas.

i love you, alex. i feel so empty, and i feel so far away from you emotionally. i hate feeling like this. i hope that i can have a conversation with you tonight. today is such a special day.

the whales and harlem

2007-05-30T20:42:00.001-05:00

my hometown is close to the sacramento river, where the mother and baby whales were swimming these past few weeks. i remember when humphrey came up the river when i was a little kid. i didn't get to go see him (my parents were probably really busy and couldn't take us), but they bought me a children's book that was written about him. i still have it. i so wish i could have seen the mother and baby whales. whales have been big on my mind recently, due to the IWC meeting going on in alaska. i've written and written letters to the japanese and icelandic governments to ask them to stop whaling. i've asked other countries to keep the moratorium up and close the loophole that is allowing "scientific research" whaling (commercial whaling in disguise) to go on despite the moratorium. i hope some people have put two and two together concerning the mother and baby whales and the plight of all whales on the planet. we need to protect them ALL. no more whaling. no more environmental degradation. every day, i pray that the IWC meeting will come out on the side of the whales. the humane society international sent me a message today that the fourth largest japanese whale meat distributor is ceasing their distribution of whale meat IMMEDIATELY. this is great news!!! i hope the others follow suit. if there aren't distributors, then that puts a huge hole in the japanese whaling industry. it's weird how three of my favorite countries (japan, iceland and norway) are the worst whaling offenders. i want to tear them new bungholes, i swear. i pray and pray that the members of the IWC will do the right thing. anyway, i hope mother and baby are swimming along peacefully in the pacific, and that their wounds are healing. yeah, i definitely hope that some of these people who have been so in awe of the whales have been moved to start fighting for the rights of all of the whales of this planet. how can you want so badly for two whales to survive and then sit back and do nothing as thousands of other whales are murdered in the oceans every year? but, i see it all the time (e.g. people who might feel some sort of caring for a particular cow or pig but who support factory farming by eating meat). hello? what the fuck? don't you fucking get that you are helping cause the incredible suffering and murder of millions of animals every year by stuffing your face with meat? i don't understand the thought process of most humans when it comes to their beliefs about the place of humans and other species on this earth. NEWS FLASH: WE HUMANS DON'T OWN THIS EARTH, AND IT DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND US. WE ARE NOT SUPERIOR TO OTHER SPECIES. GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELVES, PEOPLE, AND STOP CONTRIBUTING TO THE HUGE AMOUNT OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION OF OTHER LIVES ON THIS EARTH. I AM SO SICK OF THE SELFISHNESS AND APATHY AND GREED THAT I SEE TEARING THE WORLD APART. AND YOU WONDER WHY I'M DEPRESSED? YOU'RE CRAZY IF THE STATE OF AFFAIRS ON THIS PLANET DOESN'T UPSET YOU!!!!

i have to move out between four and six weeks from now. i have started packing. no, i have not found a place to live, but i am working on it. i will find a really cool person in harlem who is looking for a roommate, and i'll move in, and they won't mind my matching chococat bathmat and toilet lid cover. yeah, that's my next big project. oh, and i calculated today that almost half of the cost of my education will be covered by my scholarship, my jobs, and the loan forgiveness program for licensed, practicing social workers that new york state has. yay!!! this totally cheers me up! i'm gonna do this. it's gonna work out. i already signed the promissory notes for my loans. i'm gonna move to harlem. i'm gonna sign up for comprehensive health insurance through the school. i am gonna register for classes. i am gonna begin my program!!!

In the Cool Bear Den

2007-05-28T10:38:00.001-05:00

There are perks to living underground as I do. It's only moderately warm down here in my lair. I haven't turned the big air conditioning/fan unit on yet. I just have my little fan by my bed blowing air on me. All of the windows are closed to keep the warm air out. There is also a dehumidifier down here, which the family upstairs bought when I informed them last summer that a mold problem was forming in their basement. When the weather gets REALLY hot, however, not even the cool padding of earth surrounding my lair can keep this place comfortable. I don't look forward to that.

I continue to read my big book. I'm listening to Celia Cruz's older stuff. Yup, on my cassette deck. I haven't listened to one CD since I got this baby. Yesterday, I went to check on my sister's cats (she's gone for the long weekend). No, I'm still not on speaking terms with her, but I have no beef with her cats. I'll go over there if she's not there. Good thing I went over there; it was stifling in there when I arrived, and the poor kitties were spread eagle in their respective snoozing spots. I immediately turned on the A/C. Soon, my dad came over so that we could spend the day in each other's company. The heat made me too tired to do anything. I laid with my pantlegs rolled up and my limbs strewn across my sister's bed reading my book as the A/C blew somewhat cold air into her apartment. Meanwhile, my dad sat watching "Kill Bill" (BOTH volumes). At around 8 p.m., we ordered Thai food for dinner. I had broad noodles sauteed in black soy sauce with chinese broccoli and mock duck. Simple, not too heavy.

Later today, I am going to make a nice meal that I've been planning for a few days. I will make sushi rice in my rice cooker, form the sushi rice into rectangular pillows which surround strips of cucumber and avocado, and sprinkle shiso fumi furikake on each pillow. I will insert each pillow into a bean curd pouch. I also wanted to make broccoli tempura, but I realized that I am almost all out of canola oil. I cannot buy the kind of canola oil I want in this neighborhood, unfortunately. I use expeller-pressed canola oil.

I can see Haruki Murakami's influence on my writing. The main character Toru Okada has a habit of winding everyday mundane tasks delicately and smoothly into his story. He describes cooking and trying to keep cool in the heat (among many other things), as I've done above. I feel a lot in common with Toru. He is a 30-year-old who just up and quit his job, and in his state of unemployment he feels that he can finally get to know himself and the world in a way he never had time or energy to before. Last August's break from "stable" employment was not my first "up and quit" experience; I seem to have gone through several experiences of just quitting everything I'm doing in my life and starting fresh. Usually, it involves moving to a new place, though, and that act of moving takes up a lot of time and energy. Last summer, I did not move. All I changed was my employment situation, and that change was the catalyst for so much more. Since I did not move, I was able to have a lot of time and energy to spend on myself. Even though I'm now in temporary work assignments and don't have all of my time free, I'm still in the midst of whatever it is that's happening to me. Since quitting last August, I just feel more true to who I really am. I think I have better been able to differentiate between who others have TOLD ME I am, and who I REALLY am. I used to think that what others thought I was was who I was. Since different people had different opinions of me, I was always confused. Was I the weak, oversensitive fuck-up that my mother and sister and different so-called "friends" have treated me as being? Was I the strong, brave, compassionate person that my dad and my true friends have treated me as? I need to find out who the fuck I really am. Truly, WHO AM I? I am in the middle of finding that out, and it seems like the people who have been the most supportive of me are the ones who understand me best. A big part of why I am not talking to my mother and sister is that I have realized I am not who they have treated me as being, and that the way they have treated me my whole life has been really fucked up and abusive. I don't know if they will ever see me for who I really am, but they sure won't be able to if I myself don't know who I really am. I'm on a path of finding out who I really am. It might take the rest of my life. But at least I am now consciously working hard to find out, instead of wallowing in confusion. At least I am asserting myself more and more as a human being with the right to be respected and treated with dignity. It's a long process, but at least I'm in it. I feel like Toru Okada is figuring out who the hell he is, too. I feel like all of the characters in the book are doing that in some way. I think it's a central theme of the book. I can't put the book down. I will be so sad when it is finished. I'm about halfway through, but I feel like I have delved into a much deeper space than I delve into after reading the entirety of many books. In short, this is one of the best works of fiction I've ever read.

I haven't had any alcohol for a few days, even at my Bronx friend's party. She was making mojitos (my favorite drink), but I resisted. I have a problem with abusing alcohol. Some people can casually drink alcohol from time to time. I used to be like that. I can't be like that now. I have to totally stay away from it. It's hard. It's been a part of my life for so long. But I have to keep away. I found Stewart's Diet Black Cherry soda at the deli near my sister's place. It doesn't taste like diet soda. It's really nice and flavorful. I can focus my thoughts on yummy sodas, nutritious juices and smoothies, water, tea, and other good things. Chocolate soy milk. These will be my "lemon drops".

I asked my dad which sodas they had down in South Carolina while he was growing up. He listed the following: Coke, Pepsi, RC Cola, Hires, A & W, Canada Dry, and Nehi. He says that perhaps all of the different special soda brands that I found in Cowtown, California were regional sodas. Maybe they were sold more in the West or Midwest or something? Maybe Stewart's and Boylan were sold more in the Northeast? Maybe Nehi was popular in the South? Anyway, my dad loves Grape Crush and RC Cola. Neither is easy to find, especially not up here. He also loves Hydrox cookies, which are no longer made. Yes, I also preferred Hydrox, as well as all of the other Sunshine Biscuits products compared to their Nabisco counterparts. Krispy saltines are better than Premium ones. Cheez-Its are better than Cheese Nips. I think the oyster crackers I used to love to put in my soup were made by Sunshine. Who made the arrowroot biscuits I used to love? I don't remember. I remember that my sister and I used to scrounge up change after school and go to the nearest soda machine to buy a Nesbitt's grape soda on warm days. I think the sodas cost 50 cents, which must have been more expensive than what they cost in the grocery store (as is true nowadays). Yup, I'm getting old enough to sigh as I think about the prices of things in my past. :)

I haven't had a dream about the soda shack for a little while. I did have a strange dream in which I think I had just died. At first I didn't know I was dead. I was with my family in our old house (I lived there from age 3 to age 9) We were very happy and floating through the air and laughing and singing, and I floated way up in a mess of giggles, until I heard my mother scream from down below. She was on the phone getting horrible news, and she was screaming. Then my dad started crying. I was way up above them floating. Then I realized I must be dead, and they were getting the news. Then I woke up. Then I thought about the screams of Alex's mother the morning of June 10, 2004, when she called me early in the morning. I was still sleeping in Alex's bed. Alex himself was in a rehabilitation hospital on the other side of Stockholm, where he spent weekdays. Weekends were spent at home with me. The weekday morning of the 10th was supposed to be like any other weekday morning. I would sleep in, then wake, shower, dress, eat, and hop on the Tunnelbana to go spend the day and evening with Alex at the hospital. But I didn't sleep late due to the ringing phone. I answered the phone to hear her screams. I just realized that ever since then, I often answer my phone with a bit of dread, scared that I will be met with screams informing me that someone else I love is gone.

I've gone on enough for today. Tomorrow it's back to the highrise on the edge of the water, where I'll do mundane work with the funny crabapple in the basement office. I just bought two high-quality pillows online. They're made of synthetic down. I did this because the shitty pillows that came with this lair are finally having an effect on my neck and shoulders. I haven't slept on a decent pillow since I lived in Alex's apartment. I also bought sheets and pillowcases in a kimono pattern. Yes, I shouldn't have bought them, but a person should have two sets of sheets, and I currently only have one fitted navy sheet that I got for like $5 at IKEA, let alone an actual sheet set. My sister got me a red comforter, a beautiful sakura pattern comforter cover and pillowcases last Christmas. Before that, I was using a ratty old quilt I'd borrowed from her and two mismatched pillowcases from my days living in the women's residence. I moved to New York City from Stockholm with only my luggage and a box. I'm slowly working on creating a life for myself here, including having a matching sheet set and decent pillows to sleep on. :)

Okay, back to my book and a bottle of iced unsweetened white tea with mint. Bye!

kolsyrad

2007-05-25T16:59:00.000-05:00

it was hotter than a monkey's armpit today. i am currently temping near south street seaport. i was there today and yesterday, and i'll be there all of next week. i literally read books almost the entire time. i'm filling in for someone on vacation, and she must not have much to do at her job. what little she does do is either being done by the administrative assistant while she's gone, or is on the back burner until she comes back. this is what i've done in terms of work: put three small piles of documents through the shredder, cut a high pile of paper into fourths to be used as notepaper, answered about five phone calls while the admin asst. was on break, and that's about it. i'm not complaining, though. i have a very good book to read: the wind-up bird chronicle by haruki murakami. i am really, really digging the book. it's hard to put down. anyway, the admin. asst. at my temp assignment is this grumpy, disgruntled, middle-aged, balding, bespectacled irish-american man. he has some of the sharpest wit and biting sarcasm ever, and he makes up hilarious metaphors. he kvetches about many of his colleagues by using the above tools. i don't know how he makes up some of this stuff he says; his comic mind is just about genius. i laugh half the day, but i also feel sad, because behind the humor are his boredom and unhappiness. yeah, his job is pretty fucking boring, and he works in a basement. fuck. thank god he has such great humor! and he works very close to the water, which helps make it more bearable. i love going outside at lunch, letting the sun and wind wash over me. there are lots of benches outside of the building on which to sit and eat lunch. i didn't have that at the last temp assignment, which was in a stocky building that butted right up against the hustle and bustle of midtown. whenever i did take a lunch break (which wasn't often), i usually just ate it at my desk. anyway, my commute to this current assignment is from hell. yesterday, i took the j train in, but i swear that that train is the slowest subway line in the city. i was about to get up on the seat, screech like a squirrel, and do scratchiti on the friggin subway window with my fingernails after 45 minutes of stopping at every goddamn station as well as chugging along at 10 miles an hour between each of those closely-spaced stations. jesus! anyway, i took the friggin' express train today, even though it takes about 10 more minutes to get to my destination (because the express goes all the way through queens, midtown, and downtown manhattan while the j cuts through queens and brooklyn on a diagonal towards lower manhattan). at least on the express, it doesn't feel like the train driver is a sadist testing our patience and trying to break the world record of the slowest subway ride, like how riding the j feels. plus, there were some funky people on the j train. funky-smelling, i mean.

tomorrow night, i am going to a party that the girlfriend of my queens friend is throwing. i'd like to call the girlfriend my friend as well. she lives in the bronx. let's call her my friend in the bronx who is girlfriends with my queens friend. tomorrow during the day, i have to clean my lair. there are other things i have to do soon, too. it's a struggle. i often don't do all i plan to do. and vows to diet and stop drinking get broken over and over and over. i wish i could keep seeing my therapist but i just don't see where the money can come from. maybe i can figure something out. i think i would really benefit from going to see her again. i haven't been to her since like, december or january. yeah, i am still struggling with things. i want to quit drinking alcohol altogether, because it is still a problem for me. i haven't been doing so well on my diet the past few days. i feel like such a fuck-up. a lazy, slobby, weak fuck-up. i don't always eat right, i drink 3-4 times a week, i haven't looked much for scholarships, i haven't looked at all for a place to live in harlem. no, i am far from perfect, but i am really good at talking to other people who are far from perfect, and that is one reason why i am going to social work school in the fall.

lighter note: i got my cassette deck yesterday. it works well, though i have to turn up the volume on my stereo when using it (or anything "auxillary") because, though my stereo itself is awesome, it is a little bookshelf stereo and doesn't process input at 100%. also, since the stereo only has auxillary input (and no output), i cannot record from cds played on the stereo onto cassettes on my deck. shit! well, right now, i am listening to a mix of yvonne chaka chaka, lucky dube, and fela & afrika 70. yeah, i am going to be listening to my tapes all damn night. the title of this post means "carbonated" in swedish. this is because i hope to place my thirst for alcohol onto sodas instead. this is not just due to my recurring dreams about the soda shack. i developed a big beer-drinking problem while living in canada, and the problem followed me when i moved back to the states. at some point months later, i became fascinated by all of the different old-fashioned sodas that this one grocery in town had, and i decided to turn my beer obsession into soda obsession. it worked. i had a soda every evening after i came home from work, instead of one of those big, strong belgian ales that are like, 9% alcohol. i drank not just any soda, but a frostie blue cream or a faygo redpop or a grape nehi or a sioux city sarsaparilla or a moxie. i fuckin' LOVE IT. i haven't seen any classic sodas in new york city, except for boylan. why?!?!? it's so weird how i can find a plethora of classic sodas in a regular ol' grocery store in cowtown california, but i haven't seen them anywhere in new york city. yeah, these classic sodas have calories and they are bad for my teeth, but they are much better for me to drink than alcohol is. i have too much native american and scandinavian blood in me for alcohol to be able to sit well in my system. my body does NOT process alcohol well. i think i am somewhat allergic to it, if that's possible, and it's the people like me, with a genetic frailty concerning alcohol, who can find it easier to develop a problem with it. well, in the wind-up bird chronicle, the main character toru okada has taken up sucking lemon drops instead of smoking. if i can't find my special sodas readily available, i may have to find something else liquid to help get me off the booze. this morning i considered coffee, but i don't like the taste of coffee, nor do i like the way it makes my breath smell, and i am truly glad that caffeine is NOT one of my addictions. well, i could get obsessed with herbal teas, but it's the wrong season for that (i like my tea hot). i will think of something that i can use as my own "lemon drops". i want to be free of alchohol before i begin school.

i am gonna shut up and go veg out now.

samba and soda

2007-05-22T19:44:00.000-05:00

this is day #2 of my little "vacation" from temping. tomorrow is my last day, and then i have something for thursday, friday, and tuesday through friday of next week. i've had a relaxing time of it here, but i won't mind getting busy with a job again. plus, i need the money!!! i got part of my retirement payout yesterday. i went and bought new running shoes, which i desperately needed, as my old ones had been worn almost all the way through their soles under the balls of my feet. i wanna go to the salon. maybe i can go tomorrow during the day. tomorrow night, my friend from queens and i are meeting up for some fun. yesterday was spent with my dad going all over the place running errands, exploring neighborhoods, viewing the scenery around town. :)

right now, i am listening to "the antonio carlos jobim songbook" and "red hot + rio". yeah, you could say i'm in a brazilian mood. i bought a used cassette deck off of ebay for a friggin' steal of a deal, and i am hoping it comes tomorrow. the cassette deck in my stereo no longer works, and i've been suffering since it stopped functioning. i think i have more music on cassette than on cd. i was late coming into the cd game. my old stereo with dual cassette and record player died at the end of my freshman year of college, and so when i went to buy a new stereo, there were none with record players built in. so...i was forced into the world of cds. i didn't really have any sort of cd collection until i lived in canada and cds were so friggin' cheap there that i could buy all the ones i'd been wanting to get. but even now, i think i have a lot fewer cds than many folks of the younger generations have. no, i do not have an ipod. i can't afford one and i don't need one; i have a portable tape player and a portable cd player already. i just need some headphones. my old ones broke. :( i'm not all into getting new gadgets when my old ones work just fine. next to my bed, i have my cd player, my record player, and a dual cassette deck on the way. i wish i had my dad's old stereo. that thing is older than i am, by about eight years. it still works fine, though it needs new fuses. hello? why can they not make stereos of that caliber now? my dad has a sansui solid state. beautiful piece of audio equipment. AMAZING, deep, rich sound quality, huge wall antenna, hookups for THREE pairs of speakers (you can have two pairs going at once). and the two speakers that came with the sansui, made of solid wood, are like pieces of beautiful furniture. the sansui solid state is in my mother's garage. my dad doesn't want it shipped here because he is afraid it will get broken on the way. i don't blame him. it's a precious baby to me, too.

i've been thinking a lot about old things, partly because i had a dream the other night that is actually a recurring one. the dream takes place somewhere a bit to the west of the edge of my hometown. surrounding my town are miles of farmland stretching out on the flat valley floor. in this recurring dream, there is a little shack of a place hidden among the olive and oak trees off of a county road. this place usually has a woman working there, but the other night a man was there. it's a dilapidated place with white paint flaking off all over and dirty windows partially obscuring old soda signs. more soda signs adorn the inside walls here and there. there is a counter behind which stands the woman (or the man, who is related to the woman). there's a record player and lots of records back there. there are bottles of sodas like boylan, moxie, faygo, rc cola, etc. in the icebox behind the counter. black-and-white checkered floor. red formica-topped tables and red pleather cushioned stools with chrome legs. classic and welcoming. it's a place i search for often in my dreams. i usually find it open, but a few times i've gone there and found it boarded up and abandoned. i don't know what this little soda shack symbolizes. i think it symbolizes all that from the past that i hold dear. i am only 29 years old, but i remember things of old from when i was little: the drive-in a & w root beer place near the edge of the highway in my town, with the waitress rolling up to the window and attaching that tray to it. the two drive-in movie theatres, one north and one west of my town. having one department store in my town and one in the neighboring town (no malls!). the old iga supermarket with the penny candy and tiny aisles (much different from supermarkets of today). the old movie theatre with the big neon sign outside and only two screens inside (which at that time were a big deal). there was an old drugstore across the street from the movie theatre, and i remember that my mother would take my sister and i there to buy ferrara pan candy and smuggle it into the theatre in my mother's bulging purse. the rollerskating rink with the disco ball and colored lights. i'm only 29 years old and i feel nostalgia for all of this. i remember watching "solid gold" and "dance fever" on tv. we had a color tv in the family room. we got like, 4 channels for a while, because there were only four broadcast networks in our area (or maybe anywhere?). cable tv? remote controls? vcrs? microwave ovens? those were the really fancy things that rich families had, not us. i miss how much more simple stuff was when i was little. and, i wonder how my dad must feel, having grown up in the '50s and '60s? what i grew up with was way less simple than what he had had. seems like some things move too quickly and the world changes too quickly in ways in which it would be better off savoring slowly, and it stays stagnant in ways which need rapid change. anyway, i don't hear this kind of nostalgia from anyone else my age. do they not remember how it was like when they were little? do they not miss those things, the special things that are now gone, the simpler and more innocent things? this soda shack in my dreams is a place i wish i could visit in reality. at the shack, the woman and man were, of course, very friendly and hospitable. they had a sense of genuine neighborliness that seems rare nowadays, especially in this huge city i now reside in. maybe part of why i have these dreams so often is because i live in this huge, anonymous city obsessed with being on the cutting edge. meanwhile, the soda stand is out there in the landscape of my subconsciousness, on the edge of a small town, with miles of fields and tree groves all around, with this same man and woman who have been playing records and opening soda bottles for their customers for eons. i wish i could get on a train and find myself arriving at that soda shack. maybe there would be a route 66-esque motel for me to stay in for the night, too. :)

anyway, speaking of trains, i am figuring out when to go visit my friend in chicago with a tidbit of this retirement money i'm getting. i wanna go by train. i love train trips, and i love the idea of taking the subway to penn station, getting on a train, and arriving at the chicago depot right in the middle of the windy city. someday, i will blog about my cross-country trip from california all the way to new york city in the spring of 2003. it was an amazing experience i'll never forget. anyway, i'd like to get to know some of chicago's old gems. i'm sure many of them have been bulldozed over or neglected into total disrepair due to apathy and greed, but those that remain would be very interesting for me to see. chicago's part in "the great migration" is of particular importance to me. part of me wishes i could go back in time and see those old men sighing into their chairs as they pluck their guitars and let their rough but flowing mississippi delta lamentations fill the dark spaces of the lakeside city at the end of their long railroad journey northward. yeah, i am definitely bringing my howlin' wolf tape and my chess records compliation on this train trip to chicawwwwwgo! :)

it's over

2007-05-18T19:53:00.000-05:00

so, today was my last day at the temp assignment. the assignment was seven weeks long. today was a whirlwind day of tying up loose ends, getting out a mass mailing (almost 450 letters), training the newbies, cleaning my desk area, etc. my boss gave me a card and present at the end. she gave me three music cds. her card said the following: "heartfelt thanks to you for all of your magnificent work these past weeks for our project. your dedication and passion for accuracy, plus a great sense of humor and healthy perspective on 'storm and stress' added so much positive atmosphere! i can't thank you enough, wondertemp! good luck in september with your studies. best of luck, thanks again!". i just about cried, but other people were watching, so maybe i felt too self-conscious to shed tears. i left about an hour after she did, and i left a card on her desk right before i left. i can't believe it's over. i didn't feel like a temp. i felt like a bona fide employee. she says she would have scooped me up to be her employee if it weren't for me going back to school in the fall. well, i hope that the venue will need more assistance soon, and that i will be called to come back. that would be nice! in the meantime, i told the temp agency that i need monday and tuesday to just chill out, and i'll be available for temp work again on wednesday. that means i could possibly miss two days of income, but i need time off, and i'd like to go to the foundation center to look for scholarships. yeah, i have been shitty about looking for scholarships so far. i haven't really looked yet. i guess it's a mixture of fear and feeling overwhelmed and feeling tired from work. i really worked my fucking ass off at this temp job; my boss told me that i went way above and beyond what was expected of me. :)

exmo never e-mailed me at my work address to tell me his phone number, and he doesn't have any of my personal info, so i guess i won't be seeing him again. i suspected that would be the case. he never showed interest in taking lunch with me or hanging out after work on days he didn't have to go work at the restaurant. it felt like we had such a great relationship all those weeks; it seemed to me like we truly clicked. other people commented on what a pair we were. i'm sad that it turns out he doesn't want to be my friend outside of that. it makes me wonder if the great rapport was all in my own mind, but others commented on it, so i don't think it was just something i imagined. maybe he can't deal with the kind of deep friendship we're capable of. i've had the experience of having a really intense connection with someone who just could not handle building anything from it. :( it sucks!!!

so, even though i am exhausted to the bone from all of this work and hubbub, i am going to go volunteer in manhattan tomorrow. i'm helping to prepare for the AIDS walk on sunday. i won't actually be in the AIDS walk on sunday, but i want to help prepare for it (specifically prepare food and drink for the walkers). i would do the walk if my feet were in perfect shape (i have plantar fasciitis which is much better now, but i don't wanna push it) and i had new shoes (my running shoes are old and a mess, which is another thing i need to take care of with that retirement payout). i am contributing to the walk as i can.

there's a kitty under the car parked 10 feet away from me, and it knows i'm here, but it's just sitting there. a few minutes ago, it was closer to me, examining something on the ground, and it wasn't scared off by me sitting here looking at it and softly speaking to it. i have good animal karma. sometimes, it's upsetting, though. why, on a garbage-stewn sidewalk, while i was focused on getting to the bus stop before the bus came, did i somehow notice this tiny, tiny baby bird laying there on the sidewalk amongst the trash? well, i did. it must have been a newly hatched bird that fell from its nest (or had died in its nest and was pushed out). it was soooo tiny. i noticed it, and i thought about what i should do. at first i walked past it, but no. i can't walk past a dead animal and do nothing. i went back and gingerly picked it up and took it to a little grassy area by a tree some feet away, and laid it down under the tree and arranged twigs around it. if i hadn't been nervous about the bus (and had had some sort of scooping implement), i would have dug a little grave for the bird, right there on the side of a busy, dirty, garbage-strewn street. maybe the bird is still there (even though it's rained hard since then), and i can go give it a proper burial? i might bring it back here and bury it with moritz, the sick squirrel i found in the front yard last fall and had tried to save. ...update: the kitty was trying to drink from water pooled at the bottom of a water spout, so i went inside and put water in a dish and put it next to the spout (about two feet away from the car it's now sitting under). kitty didn't run away when i went over and put the dish down. this is how my mother came to adopt a cat: a stray visited her backyard and she fed it, and it came back, and she fed it again, and soon, that little cat became my mother's own friend. yeah, it's been about five years, and that cat is a full part of my mother's house! hmmm....is that what's going to happen with me and this kitty? stay tuned...

anyway, it's almost 9:45 and i still haven't eaten dinner, so i must leave the kitty under the car and the water bowl, and go make something to eat. :) goodnight!

tisdag

2007-05-15T18:27:00.000-05:00

it's tuesday. i got to come home from work at the regular time. no more overtime. so, exmo's last day was yesterday, and he gave me a hug and said he'd e-mail me his phone #. i dunno if he will. i miss him. so, it's me wrapping stuff up, and then i'll train the new ones. i work really hard at this job. they get their damn money's worth from me!!!

i got my med samples and prescriptions from the doctor's office. i dropped off the prescriptions and will pick up the meds tomorrow after work. no more skipping doses. i'm on my diet now. that night i wrote i was starting a diet, i meant it. i don't want to be thin. i want to be thinner. i expect to lose what i need to lose in 10-12 months, simply by eating less. how simple! well, it's not easy to eat the low amount of calories i'm gonna have to eat to lose weight. it makes me feel like i'm starving. :( but i gotta do it.

when i get my big ol' retirement money back, i am gonna pay off my medical bill and then go to the salon. i want them to trim my hair and cut the front into bangs which they will then straighten, and then they will color my hair. i haven't done shit to my hair in almost a year, cuz i haven't been able to afford it. my hair is a mess. i really wanna go to sweden. i am so tempted to just fucking go if i have enough left over from the retirement money. all i really have to pay for is a plane ticket; the rest of it is taken care of by "min svenska familj". i really wanna see them; i haven't seen them in almost two years!!! if i have enough to get a cheap ticket over there, i may just fucking go! i was talking to my english friend about meeting in iceland this summer, too, but i definitely CANNOT afford to friggin be in iceland, unless it's just for one or two nights in a hostel and very simple food bought at a grocery store. i'm a pro at backpacking on a very tight budget; i may be able to pull off a night or two in iceland on the way to or back from sweden. i wish i could also go see my cousins and my friend in norway, but i sure as fuck can't do that! :(

fat girl blues

2007-05-13T13:54:00.000-05:00

i'm still not consistent with my meds. i'm still a nutter because of that inconsistency. my doctor prescribed me new meds and also left some samples for me. they're all waiting at his office. they've been waiting there for over a week. why didn't i go get them? because i worked my fucking ass off with no lunch breaks and until late hours, that's why.

i'm watching a chinese film called "quitting". the main character, playing himself, is very cute. i think the movie is quite good. i've also watched "ed wood" twice, as well as a few other films. i have a linkup to directv via the family upstairs, and i get all the movie channels. my lair is a fucking mess, and my body is a fucking mess. it's like, i dunno what to cook anymore, and i have been eating already-prepared shit this past week. i've had a lot of pizza this past week. no, not the vegan pizza. i've been having regular ol' cheesy pizza. i feel like i am a garbage receptacle, and i feel like i also live in a garbage receptacle. i've been overworked and undermedicated, and i'm a mess. i feel disgusting.

i dated a boy for a short time in december and january. he was the first boy i dated since alex died in june of 2004. it was a BIG fucking deal to date someone. i've nicknamed this guy "buddhist boy" for this blog. we got along very well during our little romance. the problem was that i was not physically attracted to him at all (i didn't tell him that, though), but i was hoping i would become physically attracted to him as we became closer. i met him on a dating site. he knew from my profile that i was a) brown and b) fat. it seemed not to matter to him, or at least, not matter enough for him to not pursue dating me. well, things were pretty intense between us in every way very quickly...our first date of a dinner out turned into a three-day affair in his apartment. we spent some intense times together after that, too. the last time i saw him, we'd gone on another dinner date and then went back to his apartment and watched hayao miyazaki films and spent the night together. the next morning was a workday, and he had to go to work (i didn't, because i was unemployed at the time). he left me in his bed. i slept in. later that morning, while still in his bed, i get an e-mail from him on my cell phone that tells me he needs to be just friends, and blah, blah, blah. yeah, he breaks things off BY E-MAIL, WHILE I AM STILL IN HIS FUCKING BED. That really felt like a slap in the face. He said he had invited me over the night before to test things to be able to decide for sure whether or not to call it off. It was just a really fucked up way for him to handle things. I wish he had just told me the evening before at dinner, to my face. I had a gut feeling deep down that we weren't gonna make it, but I certainly would not have handled it the way he did had I been the one to break it off. I never became physically attracted to him at all. I just wasn't. I found him slightly-to-somewhat unattractive. And, I am guessing that he found me to be unattractive as well, almost certainly because I am fat. He has a girlfriend now. I know this from his website. I think they started dating 4-6 weeks after he called shit off with me. She looks so much like him that when I first saw the pics of her on his site, I thought it was his sister. Then I remembered he doesn't have a sister. Then I saw a pic on there of her kissing him. She's a very plain-looking, stringy brown-haired, THIN WHITE GIRL, OF COURSE. OF FUCKING COURSE. before you get all huffy, let me tell you that i say OF COURSE to the kind of person he got with because people, for the most part, are SOOOO predictable in who they have as romantic partners. it's really fucking annoying. white goes with white, black goes with black, thin goes with thin, rich goes with rich, education level goes with education level, social clique goes with social clique, blah, blah, blah. it's soooo fucking predictable. i just want someone to share my values and beliefs and yes, it would really help if they've had some real struggle in their life so that we can understand each other and support each other better. buddhist boy and i shared a lot of the same values and beliefs. yes, he may have not understood from personal experience many of the kinds of struggles i've been through, but he was compassionate. he was a sensitive new-age boy. and he was a straight boy who was all about gay rights. what else could i want? but, i wasn't attracted to him physically, and he let me go in exchange for someone who looked JUST LIKE HIM. people are so dumb in blindly following whatever their culture tells them is desirable. i don't fucking fit into anyone's box in any way. my identity has always put me on the margins of society. on top of that, my beliefs are not the mainstream at all. on top of that, my physical body is of the type that is absolutely LOATHED by the majority of people in my country. for all these reasons, i have a very small chance of finding another partner in this lifetime. i've never met another person who's anything like alex. he was a very rare breed. so very many of his qualities were what i've always wanted, but hadn't otherwise found, in a boy (who wasn't gay). yeah, so i was dumped by buddhist boy for the kind of girl he was "supposed" to be with. it really makes me feel like fucking shit. i've been acting like it blew over me soon after it happened, but it didn't. he plagued my dreams all night friday night, and i've been consciously mulling over it ever since.

i feel so fucking ugly and FAT (in a bad way), and so undesirable, and like a loser. maybe i've watched too much tv lately, cuz i keep wondering if the magic key is losing weight and achieving the ideal female figure. heh, but you know, i never had a boyfriend when i was thin...boys didn't give me the time of day in either high school (when i was as thin as kate moss) and in college (when i could have been halle berry's twin). and, yes, i am a nice, smart, caring, funny, generous, open-minded, compassionate person who knows how to have a healthy relationship and how to communicate. but...i remain alone. maybe there is some boy out there who is a nice, smart, caring, funny, generous, open-minded, compassionate person who knows how to have a healthy relationship and who is communicative and emotionally available. maybe that boy has been overlooked like i have been. maybe we'll meet and fall in love. maybe he'll love me as this "venus of willendorf" that i am right now. you know, i was alex's first girlfriend! he had been looked over by girls all his life (i dunno why!), or maybe there were some who liked him but were too shy to say anything. he certainly was the most wonderful boy ever, and i don't understand how i could have been the first female to see that! but it happens!

anyway, i try to be one of the strong and tough and fierce fat girls, but really, i feel disgusting a lot of the time. i try not to care what ideals mainstream society puts on me, and i try to actively resist that cookie-cutter ideal...but at the end of the day, i always feel ugly and gross. i think i look like shit. and thinking i look like shit has an effect on everything. there are some people out there who might think i'm fine the way i am. alex thought i looked great as i was, but i never understood why. because, quite frankly, for all of the fat gurl power and confidence i try to stir up in myself, i look in the mirror at that fat body and i just know it doesn't look good. there are some fat women who look good. i am not one of them, not at this weight. so, even though i think that i should be accepted as i am by others, i don't accept myself and i want to shed some pounds. i think i've had it with hating the way i look, so it's time to change the way i look. i would feel much better about myself if i looked in the mirror and liked what i saw. if hating the way i look makes me a sucker to society's superficial and narrow beauty ideals, then label me a sucker. i'm going on a diet NOW. watch me look totally different 10 months from now. that's it! i'm on my way to thinner!

tack till gud! det är fredag!

2007-05-11T19:07:00.000-05:00

oh, mah gawd. i had the most atrocious cramps this morning! i went in to work two hours late. so, i may actually work until the end of next week. exmo's replacement begins work on monday. exmo's last day is monday. my boss wants him gone, but will keep me through the week to train the new ones. she wants him gone because he's been really lazy at work since the project came to fruition. he has also come in to work late every day since he began and plays on the computer a lot. yeah, it's getting on my damn nerves, too. the honeymoon with exmo is over. i still wanna be his friend, and i still adore him, but the honeymoon is over. :) well, i have been working so damn hard that i am exhausted and haven't talked to any family or friends for days. i worked A LOT this week, particularly. i am so grateful to have tomorrow off, and part of me wants to stay home on sunday. i am SOOOO tired!!!

the neighborhood i live in has erupted into brilliant, lush green foliage and flowers. spring truly is at its zenith! the weather is getting a bit too warm and humid for my tastes. soon it will be summer, and i will suffer in the subway station ovens and on the dirty streets where disgusting smells of garbage and urine waft up off of the hot pavement. i will enjoy the still-mild temperatures while they last. a few things about summer in new york city that i look forward to: FIREFLIES!!! trips to the beach! getting a tan! watching kids play in the fire hydrants and sitting on stoops eating ice cream!

here i am going on and on about work and weather, when i have more exciting news to tell: so, columbia reconsidered my financial aid package, and they just awarded me a scholarship! granted, it's not much, but every bit helps! they don't give out much in scholarships; they gave me a pretty good one close to the maximum amount they'll give out. yeah, i dunno why they didn't give me one from the get-go, but i am not going to complain. i will celebrate that i now have one. this weekend really has to be spent finding private scholarships and applying to them. last saturday, i was all wrapped up in hanami, and on sunday i just sat on my ass doing nothing but watching tv. maybe i've been putting it off because i'm scared i won't find anything to apply for. i just have to try, though. i have to jump in. it would be wonderful to lessen my loan load even more!!!

by the way, i finished passing today. i'm too tired to discuss it right now, but i would like to later. i would also like to continue reading harlem renaissance literature and other african-american literature. unfortunately, most of such books of mine are still in california. i have james baldwin's giovanni's room, though. i'll try it out and see how it fits. oh, and i have zami: a new spelling of my name. i only read part of that book, many years ago in college. i'd like to try it again. so i'll see which book fits my current mood better. books are what help me survive these subway commutes i have. for a while, i was addicted to playing tetris on my cell phone during my commutes, but thankfully i have gone back to reading during those trips.

i'm gonna crash now. my eyeballs are starting to strobe and my uterus continues to contract painfully.

p.s.: my friend in england just sent me a postcard from paris. he went there to witness the presidential election and its aftermath last weekend. yes, i still write back and forth with my friend in england! the honeymoon is over, but he remains my dear, sweet friend!!!

My Temp Assignment Winds Down

2007-05-10T06:14:00.000-05:00

I think I'll only be at the venue for 2 or 3 more days. The project we were working on came to fruition a few days ago, and now we are winding it down. Things went really well with the project; everything turned out great. The new permanent staffperson who is replacing the one who quit over a month ago is here. I am training her. I am sad to leave. Exmo has like, 3 more weeks here, I think. I think he's sad I'm leaving. He's been warmer to me as of late. He was never cold to me, but reserved in terms of letting our friendship be what it can be. Maybe he'll want to be my real friend, not just my work friend. I hope so. I've been working long hours. I just come home and crash. It's okay, though. I need the $$$. Anyway, my boss was very pleased with how the project turned out. VERY pleased. She was "punch drunk", as Exmo described. She gave me a thank-you card that told me I was "the rock" of the project, and that it wouldn't have happened without me. Oh, my GOD. This is the OPPOSITE of how I was treated at my last permanent job! It is SOOO nice to be acknowledged for my hard work. Neither permanent job I had in NYC ever did that. I really hope this venue needs temp help soon in some sort of respect. I am gonna talk to my temp agency today, and tell them how much of a great experience I've had at the venue, and how I would love to work there more if something else comes up there. I expect my boss to give me a glowing recommendation, so the temp agency would probably be glad to place me in something else at the venue. :) I have about 3 1/2 months until school begins. I may just continue on temping on short assignments part time here and there even after school starts. I will be getting paid for my field assignment. I will also continue being an eBay seller. I'll get by. :)

Körsbär Trädgården

2007-05-06T11:44:00.000-05:00

Jag promenerade i körsbär trädgården igår. Det var helt underbart! Jag träffade två svenska kvinnor i trädgården. Jag hade hört dem pratande på svenska och frågade, "Kommer ni från Sverige?" Vi pratade lite. De sade att körsbär trädgården var "Nangijala". Jag höll med. De frågade om varför jag hade bött i Sverige. Jag berättade om Alex och hur jag flyttade tillbaka till Amerika efter hans död. Jag berättade om hur jag hade läst "Bröderna Lejonhjärta" efter Alexs död och hur boken kände mig bättre. Jag känner mig bättre när jag tänker på Alex boende i Nangijala. Jag vet att han bor i en hel härlig plats. Jag tittade upp på blommorna i trädgårdens himmel och började att gråta lite. Alex var där i blommorna och solens sken och vinden.

Translation: I walked around among the cherry blossom trees yesterday. It was totally incredible! I met two Swedish women among the trees. I had heard them speaking Swedish to each other, and I went up and asked them, "Are you from Sweden?" We chatted a bit. They said that the cherry blossom canopy was "Nangijala". I agreed. They asked me why I had lived in Sweden. I explained about Alex and how I moved back to the U.S. after his death. I talked about how I had read "The Brothers Lionheart" (a book by Astrid Lindgren, the woman who wrote "Pippi Longstocking") after Alex's death and it made me feel better. I feel better when I think of Alex being in Nangijala. I know that he lives in a totally beautiful, wonderful place. I looked up at the full blooms that were creating a kind of sky or heaven above my head, and I began to cry a little. Alex was there in the flowers and the sunshine and the breeze.

Här är igårs foton från den botaniska trädgården. (Here are yesterday's photos from the botanical garden):

Cherry Esplanade and Cherry Walk

Cherry Blossoms Creating a Carpet by the Eastern Parkway Entrance

Lilacs

Dogwood Tree Blooming

Kodama Forest Spirit T-Shirt

I really love the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It was so great to be under the canopies of blossoms yesterday. I was also grateful to have that interaction with the Swedish women. I feel like they were giving me a message from Alex. :)

I had a nice dinner with my friends at the Ethiopian place. They gave me flowers and vegan cupcakes. :) It was really nice. :) Then I went with one of them to mail out my stuff at the post office and then to a birthday party. Then I went home. I didn't get home until after 3 a.m. Today, I'm watching Animal Planet (a show about what all the wild animals are doing during the spring) and working on university stuff. I also need to do my laundry and wash dishes. My dad has to work today, so we're not gonna hang out. I'm just staying home.

Hanami

2007-05-05T10:59:00.000-05:00

Hi. Today, I am going back to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to participate in more Hanami. Now, all of the cherry blossoms are blooming on the Cherry Esplanade. Last weekend, they were only budding. The pictures in the previous post are of trees on the Cherry Walk. They are pink-white blossoms, as you can see. The ones blossoming on the Esplanade are a darker pink. I wish my friend in Chicago were here. I remember we participated in Hanami two years ago, soon after she'd moved to New York. Yeah, she moved to NYC in January of 2005 and left in December, 2006. New York wasn't good to her. Anyway, she appreciates cherry blossoms very much. One of my dreams is to go to Kyoto. I want to be there in the spring for Hanami and in the fall for the colorful Japanese maple foliage. Someday, I wish to have a house with a yard so that I can create a Japanese garden. I wish for the house itself to be Japanese-inspired, but also Scandinavian-inspired. I want it to be a Japanavian house. :) I want to paint rosmåling on the doors. I'm an artist, albeit a blocked one. :)

Right now, I am watching a movie called, "Corrina, Corrina". I really love this film. It's one of those films that I wish to have on DVD. It's SOOO good on so many levels. It's one of those really good American films that's totally been underappreciated. After the movie is over, I am gonna shower and get dressed. Last weekend, I wore my Kamaji t-shirt. Today, I will wear either my Kodama forest spirit shirt or my Totoro shirt. I'm leaning towards the Kodama shirt. After Hanami, I am gonna go to the main post office in Manhattan to send out the two DVDs I sold today and yesterday. I'll be doing that on the way to my celebration at an Ethiopian restaurant. It's a celebration of my admittance to Columbia. But really, it's a good excuse to see my good friend from Queens and her girlfriend and a few other cool folks we know. And Ethiopian food is my all-time favorite cuisine. I always get the vegetarian combo. :) Last night, I tried to replicate the food that my friend from Kenya makes. It didn't work out too well. :( She makes these wonderful lentils and this scrumptious cauliflower dish. I tried both, but it turned out not-so-well. I guess I need practice. Anyway, I was trying to find turmeric around the neighborhood west of mine, and found a South Asian supermarket. Lots of great stuff there. :) I found my favorite masala, pav bhaji. I also found something I'd never seen before: basil seed and honey drink. It's Thai. I haven't had it yet; I'm saving it for tomorrow. Tomorrow is all about scholarships. By the way, I asked Columbia to rereview my application. I really do not understand why I was not considered for a need-based scholarship or work-study. If I haven't been broke enough to qualify for need-based scholarships, then WHO IS?

The movie is over, and it's time to shower. By the way, it's care-package sending time. I just sent one to my friend in Chicago. Another one is going out to a second dear friend far away. I love finding cool things and creating care packages for people. :) Anyway, time to go. I wanna get going so that I can spend lots of time with the cherry blossoms. I'm gonna take cell phone pics and regular camera pics as well. My next post will include many more sakura pics. It's nice to beautify my blog. :)

Sakura Matsuri og Andre Saker

2007-05-02T13:08:00.000-05:00

I promised you that I would post pictures from the Sakura Matsuri last weekend. I can't do it right now; I have to wait until I get home. I don't have picture editing stuff on this computer. Yeah, I am on "lunch break", and today, I actually GOT a lunch break! It's been so hectic recently that I've gotten little breaktime.

UPDATE - Here are the pictures:

I cropped my dad out of the third pic, to protect his identity (and mine). The teddy bear tummy sticking into the left-hand side of the pic belongs to him. :)

UPDATE #2: I finally got news from Hunter College today. They rejected my application. Well, so I'm even more glad that I just said "yes" to Columbia. Funny how the ivy league school accepts me and the public city school rejects me. I've heard that Hunter is the hardest to get into, though, because it's such a cheap school. Well, I'll be paying more, but I'll get a much better-quality overall experience. CUNY SUCKS. The specific Hunter social work program may be good, but CUNY SUCKS. Before anyone who might happen upon this gets huffy at reading this, just know that I say that CUNY sucks out of EXPERIENCE. I used to be an employee there. Yeah. And guess what? I need CUNY's authorization to withdraw my retirement money. FUCK. Those people at the central office are SO incompetent. Will I ever get through to the right person, and will they ever do their job correctly and sign the papers? Seems easy enough, but even the simplest task seems to get bungled at that fucking office. Well, I will be calling them tomorrow. I need that money NOW. I need to pay my $3,000 medical bill.

BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM: I know where you are, you lurkers. See that world map down there on the right side of the screen? I can tell where folks are who happen upon this online diary. I know of only two people who read my blog: my friend here in Queens and my friend down in Georgia. Yup, there's a New York blip and a Georgia blip on the map. What about the other blips? Looks like there is a Chicago blip. Maybe that's my friend who just moved there a few months ago. I can't remember if I gave her my blog address. What about the blip southwest of NYC and the other blip down in the South near Georgia? Hmmm...probably some unsuspecting person happened upon this site by mistake. The most compelling blip is the one coming from Stockholm. The Swedish words I write on here must have come up on some Stockholmer's internet search or something. Maybe if I start writing words in Norwegian, I'll get some blips from Norway.

Speaking of Norway, Norwegian Independence Day is on the 17th of this month, and I am going to go to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to watch the "Syttende Maj" parade. :) I have a huge Norwegian flag and several smaller ones. Why, you ask? Because I am part Norwegian. I mean, I REALLY am part-Norwegian, meaning I have cousins there that I have visited several times. So what's up with all this about Sweden, then, you ask? Because I love Sweden as well, and I used to live there, and my deceased partner is Swedish, and I consider his family to be my family. And...my ancestors in Norway originally came from Sweden, so you could say I'm part-Swedish. My ancestors were glassblowers. Some of them moved to Norway (the ones I'm descended from) and some settled in Småland (an area in the southern part of Sweden). I may very well have distant relatives still in Småland or other parts of Sweden. I would like to find them. There were many artistic people among my Scandinavian ancestors. My great-grandpa's brother immigrated from Norway to San Francisco, where he was an opera singer. My cousins with whom I have stayed build houses for a living, and the houses they build are INCREDIBLE. The houses they build are not mansions or anything like that. They are traditional Norwegian houses, and they include all sorts of awesome details like intricate carpentry in here and there, and rosmåling on some of the doors. "Rosmåling" is a kind of Norwegian painting that is absolutely gorgeous. It is often done on everyday wooden objects like bowls, plates, jars, doors, etc. I even have salt and pepper shakers with a bit of it on them. They look like miniature, painted wooden barrels. :) They were passed down to me by my mother, who went and stayed with the cousins in the 1960s. I've also been handed down a silver broche with the word "Christiania" engraved on the back of it. "Christiania" is an old name for Oslo. The broche dates back the the early 1900s, when my great-grandfather immigrated here.

Speaking of Scandinavia, I am currently reading a book by Nella Larsen (who was part-Danish, part black), called Passing. No, I didn't finish the Sembene Ousmane book, God's Bits of Wood. I started on it but just am not in the mood for that sort of book right now. Yeah, so I haven't actually started on Passing itself. I'm still reading the introduction, which is long (and very interesting). I look forward to reading the book itself. I'm sure it will be very thought-provoking.

I hope my Norwegian words above will lead to a blip or two from Norway. :) HEI NORGE!!! JEG ELSKER DEG!!! HA DET!!! :)

jag har inte råd...eller?

2007-05-01T18:57:00.000-05:00

this post is mostly about money. specifically, united states dollars $$$.

i got my financial aid award today. columbia university gave me NO SCHOLARSHIP. i didn't expect much of a scholarship from them; i know that grad schools don't hand out the big buck scholarships like undergrad schools do. but, i expected something. i got NO SCHOLARSHIP. anyway, i got a federal subsidized stafford loan, a federal unsubsidized stafford loan, and a federal grad plus loan. my first year of grad school, with every single expense included (e.g. room, board, travel, personal stuff, books, etc.), has been calculated as totaling $53,000. yeah, that's a lot of fucking money! anyway, i think i'll need less than that, because i live pretty simply and frugally. my big project for the next few months is: GET SCHOLARSHIPS!!! then, when i am awarded scholarships, i will tell the financial aid office, and i can lessen my grad plus loan. there are a lot of quirky scholarships out there that are lesser-known. i am going to find them and apply for them. i am a quirky individual with lots of quirky traits, and i'm sure i qualify for different quirky scholarships. plus, i'll apply for the less quirky ones. but, even in the worst case scenario, i'll be over $100,000 in debt. well, i will pay it off, then! someday, i will be a social worker, and though social workers don't get paid big bucks, i will make a livable income from which i can pay off my debt. i will also meet "love of my life #3" and sharing a life with another person will save me money. yes, i am a hopeless romantic, but i also know the practical reasons for hitching up with someone. :)

the second item on the money agenda is that i am going to take the money out of my retirement fund to pay off the $3,000 medical bill. yes, i had over $5,000 that was sitting in a retirement fund the whole time i went through joblessness (which was over 6 months). no, i never touched it no matter how desperate i was. i was never quite desperate enough, i told myself, to touch it. i maxed out my credit cards and pimped my wares on ebay, and god knows what else, to get by. actually, i think it's a miracle i got by for that long on hardly any income. i had to ask my father and mother for money once; i got $400 from him and $400 from her, and i only asked them out of complete and utter desperation. yeah, isn't that amazing that i got by? i am soooo thankful for these two months of temp work that i have had. i hope that the music venue i work at will have more need for temporary help after this particular project ends. this particular project i'm doing most likely ends at the middle or the end of next week. i have done a very good job; my boss makes comments that i am "running the show", that i am superb, incredible, on top of it, etc. it really makes me feel great to be acknowledged for my work. i really like my boss. she's a very kind woman. this assignment i'm doing, being her assistant, has given me a renewed faith in office work. actually, all of my temp assignments from these past few months have renewed my faith. it's a great feeling. in case you don't know, i've "survived" a few terribly abusive office environments (at "permanent" positions) here in new york city. that is why i am temping now. i quit the most recent permanent position due to abuse from my boss. that job environment was the WORST. it takes A LOT for me to be unhappy at a job nowadays. i guess that's the upside of going through hell...anything less than hell seems like cake. but the music venue where i work is cake no matter what. i hope that they'll need temporary services in another aspect and that i can continue on working there. i'm sure that the last day with my boss, i'll cry (in a good way). :)

Call the Feds; I'm off my meds!!!

2007-04-30T21:10:00.000-05:00

I just wrote a long self-indulgent rant here, but I decided to delete it.

I've been off my meds for 4-5 days because I hardly have any pills left, and I am trying to stretch them out, but it obviously isn't working for me, because I'm an absolute nutter now. I have depression, folks. I take meds for it. Well, I e-mailed my doctor today, and he's gonna give me some samples of my meds, as well as prescriptions for them. Apparently, they have now gone generic and should actually be affordable for me without insurance. Yay!

I went to the cherry blossom festival yesterday. I'm too tired to post pictures from it now. You'll have to wait. I wore my Kamaji t-shirt to the festival. :) The trees were breathtaking. Many of them were just budding, though. I wanna go back this coming Saturday to see them blooming fully.

Alex's grave has a cherry tree by it. I wonder if it's blossoming now. I wish I could go to it. I haven't been back to Stockholm since the summer of 2005. I really, truly wish to go back this summer, but I don't see how I can, financially. I also wanna go visit my friend in Chicago. I really, really want to go to Chicago SOON!!!

Still haven't gotten my financial aid package. I'm really worried that I won't get the funds to be able to go to school. It's really stressing me out. I haven't heard JACK SHIT from Hunter AT ALL. Ugh.

I'm gonna have some soy ice cream now: cookies and cream! :)

han är så gay!!!

2007-04-25T21:26:00.000-05:00

update on the boy: mr. exmo hasn't dated a girl for six years. yeah, so mr. exmo is pretty much all about boys nowadays. that's okay. i just wanna be his friend. he's such a cool guy! anyway, i feel like a freshman in college again: a silly girl crushing on gay boys. yeah, i feel let down, but i'm quickly getting over it. he's such a nice boy. i'd be depressed if we couldn't be friends. i dunno if he wants to be friends outside of work. i'll lay off and let him do the work on that; he already knows i truly want to be his friend. so, now i am hoping that i can meet a boy who isn't far away, isn't mildly autistic, and isn't gay. is that too much to ask? no, i found it in alex. i know it's possible; it's just hard to find. alex was a very cool straight boy. they do exist. they seem to be an endangered species, but they are not extinct. :) i have to keep the faith that there is a straight or bi boy out there for me.

i'm not gonna see the firefighter anymore. he's flaked on me one too many times. he calls and wants to make a date. then i respond and don't hear back from him. this has happened several times. the last time he called me and left a message (which was on monday), i didn't respond. i don't feel as hormonal at this point anyway. for a few months there, i was a total hornball, but it has died down somewhat. i hope to be able to abstain until i find someone to date.

other news: i called the ob-gyn office about the $3,000 medical bill. they said they normally allow 3 months to pay it off. i told them i could not do that. they are gonna call me tomorrow and maybe give me 6 months to pay it off. i still cannot do that. i will tell them that. i will pay off what i can every month (which won't be much). this may ruin my spotless credit score. what else can i do?

more news: i have now finished two of the modern african novels i've been rereading. i will begin another one in the morning. hmmm...maybe i'll try "god's bits of wood". reading two buchi emecheta books in a row has made me unable to deal with another intense novel about mothers going through hell, at least for the time being. yeah, reading good books is good for my brain. :) i can appreciate these books more than i could 10 years ago when i took the modern african literature course.

last news: i am hungry, and i am gonna make some bowtie pasta with marinara sauce, capers, olives and parmesan. yeah, i have lapsed on the vegan thing. my consumption of dairy and eggs is very minimal, but it exists. and you know what? it makes me NO less committed to animals than if i were a textbook strict vegan.

the exmo

2007-04-20T22:03:00.000-05:00

the boy at work is actually from utah, not las vegas (which is where he lived before moving here). he didn't wanna tell me at first because many people think utah and then think mormon and then think ewww. i admit the word "mormon" makes me think ewww, specifically ewww about the whole "mark of cain" shit. i told him i knew utah was more than just a haven for mormons. boy then told me he was raised mormon. i didn't know what to say. i had wondered that earlier, because he told me he'd gone to university in utah and had four sisters. boy told me he's no longer mormon, which i had already surmised from every experience i've had with him. i decided to google boy tonight for fun. i found out that he was a missionary in japan when he was 19-21. he had told me before that he'd lived in japan and spoke japanese, but i didn't ask him what he had been doing there, and he didn't tell me. i had told him i spoke swedish and had lived in sweden, but didn't tell him why and he didn't ask. both stories are hard for us to tell, i think. i was just about to tell him yesterday how i was racking my brain trying to think of a birthday present to get for my mother-in-law, but then i realized he'd ask if i was married, and i would have to explain all about alex. i think that boy and i both have lots of complicated shit in our pasts that is not easy to talk about. i think maybe it's hard for him to get to know people, and i think maybe he's kinda scared at the pace with which we've been getting to know each other, as well as the depth of our friend chemistry. he's a really complex person with many different facets to him, and i don't meet many people like that. he and i share being so multifaceted. anyway, i just cannot for the life of me figure out what his sexual orientation is. but...maybe he can't figure out mine, either. there are some really effeminate things about him, but i think there are also some butch aspects to me. maybe he's like me, with an orientation that doesn't really fit into any box. yeah, for all of my talk about BOYS, i have it in me to be attracted to girls and people who've changed genders or have a gender identity totally outside of that dichotomy. i'm just mostly into boys who were born boys...and it has somewhat to do with the fact that i love ample phalli. nice, cute, sweet boy-boys with substantial meat = what i want. anyway, i want so much to get to know him better. i wish we would hang out outside of work. he hasn't asked me to, though, and i don't wanna ask him to. i'm afraid that i'm feeling the really tight friend chemistry and awesome rapport more than he is. i want him to ask me to hang out outside of work. there's just something deep down about both of us that i feel is the same; something deep-down-similar between us that i feel is there with all of my closest friends and felt with alex. we'll see how things turn out. i really hope i will be his friend after this temp assignment is over in several weeks. anyway, he's quite handsome. yeah, that's right. he's very tall (6'4") but very thin. he told me it's because he had surgery at 5 weeks old that took out part of his small intestine and as a result, he has a crazy metabolism and cannot absorb vitamin b12 or iron. he has medium-dark brown hair and his skin is like, a darker shade of light. like, the strong southwestern sun has left permanent pinks and bronzes and summer freckles on him. he has really great coloring, actually. i think his eyes are blue-green. his eyebrows and eyelashes are very dark. his voice is medium-deep and slightly husky. he is quite stylish in an indie-boy type of way. it's really cute. he loves indie rock, but also loves music from many other genres and time periods. and, he LOVES radiohead and LOVES thom yorke's album, as do i (i listen to that album over and over and over and over and over again). his other job is as a manager at a restaurant. he's very intelligent and down-to-earth and funny and warm and real. i really like talking to him. anyway, i've done a bit of research on ex-mormons, and a nickname for an ex-mormon is "exmo", hence the title of this post. no, exmo is not another swedish word. :)

Jag tycker om honom

2007-04-19T23:04:00.000-05:00

hi

i have a crush.

this is boring news to the blog community, but it's not boring to me. this is mainly a blog about how a girl who lost her partner to sudden death is trying to rebuild her heart and life. such a girl as i would feel that crushes are a big deal. yeah, i officially have a crush on "boy at work". jesus. boy and i could talk forever about things, but we can't...we have to do our work!!! and, i still have not established boy's sexual orientation. boy mentioned that boy had a crush on a girl who came out to him as a lesbian. so, i think that boy might like girls. but my gaydar goes off around boy! and boy is so hard to figure out! many things are at play here. boy and i are temporarily colleagues (we're both temps), boy has TWO FULL-TIME JOBS, boy has other shit going on on top of his two full-time jobs, etc.....and this bitch here has already learned not to mix with colleagues on a romantic level. eek. okay. i have crush on boy. we could be best friends, which is the main ingredient of a lasting love relationship. i know it. alex and i could talk forever and ever and ever and were best fucking friends in the universe, and that was our basis. i could talk to boy at work about any fucking thing. the spark is in my heart. who knows. maybe boy at work is an example that god is giving me that there is another boy out there for me. maybe boy and i can be more to each other after we stop being colleagues in a few weeks. maybe boy is gay and we will become best friends. maybe boy was simply in my life to remind me of what best boy friends feel like. cuz i haven't been in living contact with a best boy friend since alex died. not that boy can be compared to alex. however, the closeness i naturally and immediately feel to boy at work reminds me a lot of how i was with alex. anyway, someday, i will have my boy. boy at work has a complicated history, like i do. :) more later.

love of my life #3

2007-04-17T12:27:00.000-05:00

i want to tell you about the third love of my life. i have yet to meet him. i dunno where or when, though i hope so much that it's soon! i don't know who it is. i've had two loves before. they're both my soulmates. i can't be with either one now, for different reasons. so, i must wait for #3 to show up. the first love of my life often takes over my dreams at night. i have a lot of unfinished business with him. the second love of my life died. i don't have unfinished business with him. he does not haunt my dreams. his spirit is with me all the time. i'm at peace with him.

i've been getting out and about more lately, partly because i'm employed at the mo', partly for my own mental health (volunteering and doing political stuff makes my mental health better), and partly because that next volunteer event or radical passover seder or night out might be when i meet him. and maybe i'll meet him at grad school. i dunno. i just want god to be good to me and let me not be one of the ones who spend the rest of their lives alone. i'd rather die now and be with alex in nangijala if that's gonna be the case. i can't go for decades and decades alone. i'd rather just go now.

i guess my impatience is partly fear: fear that i will always be alone. i'm afraid that i will never find another person to love and share my life with. i pray and pray that god will give me a gift since i have already been through so much hardship and have gotten through it without it killing me. i want god to give me someone who i can be very close to who also won't die on me. i want a life partner with whom i'll create a family. i've worked so long and hard on myself, and i know i will be a very loving partner. god, will you please allow me to be one of the people who have a wonderful, loving, lasting partnership?

health is wealth

2007-04-13T12:55:00.000-05:00

i barely smoke anymore. i usually only do it if i am drinking, and you will be happy to hear that i drink a lot less now than i did when i worked at that job i had. i still drink several times a week, but i'm betting that will go way down once i become a student again. i won't be able to study if i'm high, so the alcohol consumption will go way down. i remember at oberlin, i would drink on fridays at "TGIF', and once in a while at parties, but that was it. i am gonna be a total nerd at grad school. study and work, study and work, study and work. anyway, the anti-depressant i'm taking is what's making it so easy not to smoke. i forget to smoke. that's what happens. it doesn't usually even cross my mind unless i'm drinking.

i am addicted to salads. i love eating them. i love to eat the greenie-greens and then i love to have kidney beans, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, carrots and beets in my salads, too. i want to be healthy, no matter what i weigh. i mean, i want my insides to be healthy, and they ARE pretty damn healthy...probably healthier than a lot of skinny folks' insides. my outsides are not so healthy. my knees hurt when i go up and down stairs and my feet continue to give me problems here and there. i sweat too much. i have acne. i have too many facial orifice exretions. i think the acne and excretions and (partly) the sweat are due to living in a toxic environment. new york city is toxic. i want to try to counter that as much as possible by ingesting really healthy things. the healthy foods also help my mental state. i have had knee and foot problems for eons, but i think they are exascerbated by my weight. it probably also exascerbates the sweating, but i feel like i never sweated this much until i moved to nyc.

i got a medical bill for $3,000 in the mail the other day, and am freaking out about it. i can't pay $3,000. i can pay it very slowly in small increments. if the medical office does not accept installment payments, then i might as well consider my perfect credit to go in the gutter. yeah, i have managed to keep my credit perfect all of this time i've been broke. i'm in more debt now than ever before. I just try to tell myself that I will pay as much as I can on it each month, and deal with the problem more after I graduate.

there's a new temp to take over the other empty position here in the department i work at in the music venue. he is really cute and cool, and i can't tell what his sexual orientation is. i really, truly can't, and i would not ever ask him. he's from las vegas. he's 3 years younger than i am. he's waiting to hear if he got into grad school to become a psychotherapist. he moved here like, 6 months after i did. yeah. cute boy, no chance. my friend and her brother-in-law are playing at a venue downtown tonight; it's the brother-in-law who is waaaay attached (he owns a condo with his girlfriend), but with whom i share waaaay chemistry. i wanna see him, and then i don't. i am also so tired from the week and have cramps. i think i'll just go home. my dad went to the doctor (the cute one with whom i have mad chemistry) and the doctor asked my dad like, 40 questions about me and how i am doing, and my dad told him everything, and the doctor said he could give me samples of my anti-depressants when i run out of my supply. i have been meaning to e-mail him since then. maybe i will do that this weekend.

rag, slag and shag

2007-04-11T11:52:00.000-05:00

i am on the rag. i have cramps. i was supposed to meet up with the firefighter, but i guess that will have to wait until aunt flo leaves. i see the firefighter once every few weeks or so. i am done slagging around with different guys; i've just settled on shagging the firefighter until "love of my life #3" comes. oh, you want to know about the firefighter? i think he's about two years older than i am. he is very handsome. he's mixed, too: half italian and half puerto rican. he's really tall and big and strong like you would imagine a firefighter being. yes, his "firehose" is very big, too. don't pretend like you weren't wondering about that; i know you were! i have no emotional connection to him whatsoever. i barely know him, or anything about him. it's almost totally physical. he's nice, respectful, really handsome, sexually compatible with me, and that's it. yeah, i wish it were different, but this is all i have now.

Financial Aid

2007-04-02T12:47:00.000-05:00

so, maybe i will go to columbia after all. i don't wanna say no to columbia just because hunter may or may not give me enough financial aid. hunter says i probably won't get a yes or no from them about admission until mid or late april, and then how long until i get my financial aid package? maybe grad school financial aid packages will be like undergrad ones for me. the undergrad public schools i got into gave me shitty financial aid packages; i wouldn't have been able to attend those schools at all. the expensive undergrad private schools i got into gave me almost full rides. maybe columbia will give me really good financial aid as well. maybe it will end up that it will be cheaper to go to columbia after all, due to their footing part of the bill. or, if not cheaper, they may give me enough financial aid that i will actually be able to go there. if they give me enough, i will probably say yes to them instead of opting out on the hope that i will get into hunter, let alone get enough financial aid from them.

anyway, hunter is pissing me off right now. should that surprise me? it's cuny!!! i used to work at cuny and saw the degree of incompetency amonst the adminstrative staff there. no, i am sure the professors at the hunter school of social work are great and the academic program itself is great. but as for everything else i'll have to deal with as a cuny student, i dunno. as a whole institution, columbia is way better. so if i end up accepting columbia's invitation, there's nothing to feel bad about. it will be a higher-quality experience overall.

columbia invited me to an accepted students of color social gathering on thursday evening. i'm going to attend it. if i go to school at columbia, i want to live in harlem. i have wanted to live in harlem anyway, and now it would be the most convenient place to live if i were going to school up there. plus, i want to continue living around "my peeps" and i want to live around the community i will be an advocate for. plus, i have family history in harlem. my godparents both lived there and worked there (my godmother was a politician and civil rights activist up there) and my mother worked for her up there in the '60s. i remember my godmother's picture on my wall in my room all throughout college, telling me i could make it through. there were several times that looking at her picture saved me from giving up or going absolutely mad. what if i lived and went to social work school in her home turf? i would make her so proud.

maybe things will actually work out for me with school and housing. i pray. i've had enough hardship in my life. god threw me a bone with being accepted to columbia and by giving me this temp job for the next 1 1/2 - 2 months. i hope god throws me another bone by opening the door for me to actually go to school and have a place to live close to it. maybe my godmother will pull some strings up there for me, to help this all work out for me. maybe alex will help her pull the strings. if i lived close to school, i could have a cat. i could come home often and care for the furry little one. that would be too good to be true: going to school for what i want to go for, living near school in a meaningful place, having an animal friend of my own...maybe i would even find a partner. then i would have nothing to complain about. life would be very good.

yesterday i volunteered at an event that my animal shelter put on to raise money for finishing the new shelter location. we had a fancy breakfast for dogs and their humans, and then we sold daffodils out on the street. i got to take home 5 bunches of daffodils. they are bright yellow and are in a vase on my kitchen counter. they are this big, bright bouquet of life in my dark little lair. yeah, i need to do major spring cleaning this weekend, fer sher!!! you know you need to clean when fresh, beautiful flowers clash horribly with the rest of your apartment. i will miss the low rent i pay, but i won't miss not really having my own living space (i live amongst my friend's belongings) or living way the fuck out in queens, or not having anywhere to hang out in the neighborhood, or not having any friends nearby. i finally discovered that there is ONE good restaurant in my neighborhood: a mexican restaurant by the subway terminal. it's really good food! it's amazing to finally have a place in this godforsaken neighborhood that i want to go to! i guess i will be living here through june or july or whenever my friend moves back.

Lycka Till

2007-03-29T20:11:00.000-05:00

I got accepted by Columbia University yesterday! It is not my first choice school, but it gives me hope that I will be accepted by Hunter College (my first choice). I know. You are wondering how I am going to pay for graduate school. F-I-N-A-N-C-I-A-L A-I-D. Even though Hunter is way cheaper than Columbia or Fordham, I wonder if they will give me a much worse financial aid package. That's what happened with undergrad. The public schools gave me shitty packages and the private schools gave me almost a full ride. I dunno what to do. I will sort it out over the weekend and call Columbia Financial Aid on Monday. How can I truly say yes or no to Columbia unless I know how much F.A. they are giving me...and how much Hunter will give me (if they accept me?) Woe is me!

I got another temp assignment that starts tomorrow. This one is actually supposed to last two months (if I don't get myself dumped from it somehow). It's at one of NYC's music venues. I would be doing Microsoft Office stuff. Nothing fancy or fun. I don't care about fancy or fun. I care about steady paycheck and non-abusive work environment and decent commute. That's all I ask for. The commute would be a tad bit over an hour, and I would not have to change trains. Beautiful!!!

Wish me luck...I tend to cry under lots of stress, and I have now cried twice at temp jobs due to stress. I was lucky enough to not get in trouble for it either time, but in the future, I might not be so lucky. If, at the new temp job, I feel like I am going to lose it, I must remove myself from the situation and get fresh air and calm down. I feel like such a freakoid. I live in this city full of cutthroat, cold, tough, hurrying people, and I feel like this little mewling kitten amongst the stampede. Ugh. I just cannot be all tough and thick-skinned and all of that. It's just not me. So, I must leave a really crazy situation so that I can calm down. That's the only way for me to survive.

[inga]

2007-03-26T10:26:00.000-05:00

i hadn't been volunteering with the animal shelter for months. i finally volunteered yesterday. there's a new dog named whitney. she's a 10-month-old great pyranees mix. she was very skittish at first, but she warmed up as i handled her. i think her first human had abused her. :( she'll never be abused again, though. from now on, it'll be all love and cuddles. i wish i could adopt her. i really bonded with her. she would make a great therapy dog. when she's not feeling skittish, she's very, very calm. she's also beautiful. she's a big ball of white fur, and she is going to be a very large dog when she finishes growing. i am going to volunteer for them every weekend from now on like i used to.

for the past three weeks, i have had temporary assignments. yay! i don't yet have one for this week, but i am hoping to get one. i'm going to one of the temp agencies today to talk to someone about how to handle different job situations. it's part of their support of us temps. i love that agency. i pray and pray that i get another assignment for the rest of this week. i need the money desperately!!!

i haven't been talking to either my mother or sister for over a month. they have been negative and emotionally abusive figures in my life, and i have had it. they need to relearn how to treat me. until then, i don't want to talk to them. the last straw was when my sister found out i didn't have health insurance anymore, and started screaming at me at the top of her lungs. i got up and left and haven't talked to her since. they might think i am just temporarily giving them the silent treatment, but i'm not. this is serious. i don't want to fucking talk to them. i am sick of the family dynamics that have been in place my whole life. i will no longer have a part of them.

i am still e-mailing back and forth with english boy every day. things have calmed down. i think he knows we're not "the one" for each other. but...we are dear friends and will probably remain so for a long time, if not forever. thank god he's not "the one". i need for "the one" to live in my goddamn CITY, let alone my country. no more immigrating to other countries. once was enough to last me the rest of my life.

i am still waiting to hear from the schools about whether or not i got in. i hope i did! i really, really hope so! if i can't go to grad school here, i might leave new york altogether. it's too hard here. life for me here has been one big fucking struggle after another. other places are not so hard to live in. so...my plan b is to leave. i have family and friends here, and i've gotten used to this place as being my home, but if i can't make it here, i will have to go.

i am really bad at talking to people, especially over the phone. i often don't have it in me to talk to anyone. i just need to be alone. i feel like i am in a chrysalis. i feel like i am packed away in a state of transformation. i hope that no one takes it personally that i am packed away. this is just what i need now. i need to do this to change into the next phase of life. i think i will come out as a bigger person.

i am addicted to half-sour pickles and bi-bim-bop. just wanted to share that.

The Curious Incident of the Brit...

2007-02-27T01:03:00.000-05:00

I got a treat in the mail today. My friend in England had sent me a packet. I didn't know he had sent me something. He sent me a CD with socialist songs from all over the world on it. Then he wrote me a long letter describing the background of each song. He had also clipped out an article from a newspaper about a socialist poster artist from last century.

This is what he said in the letter's last paragraph: "I'm happy to know you and it's always a great pleasure to hear from you. I send you hugs, affection, and my warmest wishes." Gawd, was he trying to make me cry? He's one of the kindest human beings I've ever met. His kindness is entirely heartfelt. I don't think he has a fake bone in his body. Maybe that's part of having Asperger's. I've read more about Asperger's. Apparently, people with Asperger's are known to be called "walking encyclopedias". My friend is. He writes me long e-mails pouring out his knowledge on different topics, mostly politics and language. Like, I could print out his e-mails and bind them into books and use them as references, no fucking joke.

Sometimes, I wonder if my father has some slight form of high-functioning autism. My dad's brain is an encyclopedia, he has a photographic memory that astounds me at times, and he has social problems. I don't think he has any form of autism, really, but it seems like he's close to it. I feel like my brain works differently than most people's, too, but I don't have an encyclopedic mind. I'm not very logical; I'm much more emotional. I've always felt different from other people. I've always seemed to experience the world differently than the majority. I wonder if my friend Melissa, too, has something different about her brain. She is so genuinely kind and earnest, she has no typical social fakeness in her at all, and she finds it really hard to deal with social situations. But she's not encyclopedic, either. She's artistic and and expressive like I am. Maybe my dad, Melissa and myself are just very sensitive people. I think that non-autistic highly sensitive people are the most like autistic folks.

Anyway, it truly touched my heart that my friend put so much time and effort into making me a CD. He told me he was going to make me one, but I'm used to people saying they'll do something that they don't do (and I am often guilty of doing that myself). But, when he says he'll do something, he does it. If you ask him to tell you about something, he'll tell you allllllll about it. I figured out how to record my voice on my cell phone and send the recording to my e-mail address as an MMS. I recorded several of my different voices and sent them to him. He thought they were funny. I have to say that they cracked me up a great deal and I kept playing them over to myself. I needed comic relief yesterday. His favorite voice of mine was the one I did of Gromit the dog. The voice I made for Gromit sounded like a sweet, very young English child. :) My friend told me once that he didn't like dogs. I asked why. He said he didn't like the ones who were jumping and biting or scratching him, but that he liked the calm, well-behaved ones. So in my little Gromit voice, I told him I would never bite or scratch him. :)

Talking to my friend is refreshing. He's so devoid of bullshit and unnecessary drama and games. He's just himself. What you see is what you get. He's truly an incredible and wonderful person. The only thing is that I don't want him to fancy me too much. I want him to meet a really awesome girl right there in his town, maybe someone involved with the socialists. I hope so. I want him to find a wonderful woman and marry her and live happily ever after. I want to find someone and live happily ever after, too. I don't want to wait until after I'm done with grad school. That would kill me. I want to meet someone NOW.

Jag saknar dig, men ännu har jag inte träffat dig.

2007-02-23T04:52:00.001-05:00

The English boy is very special, but he's not "The One". Thank God, because I really couldn't handle trans-Atlantic romance. Once in my life was enough. I've been depressed and upset wanting so much for him to be The One because he's so great, and not wanting him to be The One because he's across the ocean. Well he's not The One. He just isn't. I wish I had found The One, but I didn't. I know it in my gut and heart and spirit. I finally let myself feel the reality of having an amazing connection to someone and thinking he's beautiful, yet knowing he's not The One. My heart is tender for the boy, but he's not The One.

Please God, let The One live right here in New York City, preferably in Queens. Alex once said, after he died, that I would share my life with a man in the future. He said I had many, many men around me and one of them would be my partner in the future. So, I guess that man is here in NYC. Alex, you'd better be right! Can't you pull some strings up there and help this guy come along faster? Alex says, "I'm not a genie!" :p :)

I'm reminded of the song by Björk that goes, "I miss you, but I haven't met you yet."

This is what I want for my life: have a career in the social work field. Have a life partner with whom I live and hopefully care for a doggy with. Live with partner in a place that is not past the end of the subway line. Someday, have children with the life partner (but I can't see myself having kids in this crazy city). That's all I ask for, God. I see other people who have these things, and I ask, "Why not me?" Why can't I have those things? A job I like and a partner with whom to share my life. That's all I ask for. That's it. Why can't I have those simple things? Why is everything such a fucking struggle for me? Can I have it easy for once? Please? I have so much love in my heart. May I please have another human being in my life with whom to share that love? Don't you want me to love and cherish another one of your children, God? Because I will love and cherish him and appreciate every day with him to the fullest. You know that. Please give me the gift of him and him the gift of me.

P.S. You'll be glad to know that I haven't been slagging around lately, although I wanted to hook up with the firefighter again...

Allt om Pojken i Storbritannien

2007-02-19T23:49:00.000-05:00

I'm going to talk about my friend in England. I'll tell you all about him. He was supposed to be born in May of 1978, but he was born eight weeks prematurely, in March. He says his birth was traumatic. He has very mild cerebral palsy because of his birth experience. I don't know how it affects him, though. Whatever effects are very slight, I think. He spent his whole childhood in a cute town with a funny name in Leicestershire. He was accepted to Cambridge University to study linguistics, but it was too much for him. He dropped out midway due to mental stress. A psychiatrist who was helping him with his mental stress told him he has Asperger's, which is like a mild form of autism.

My friend moved to his current town after living in Cambridge. He is a software developer. He takes correspondence language courses from a university based in Milton Keynes, I think. He speaks Swedish and loves Sweden. He has a friend there. He's been to Norway and Denmark as well. He and I are planning to meet each other in Iceland this summer. He already knows a tad of Icelandic. He's a language genius. He's incredibly knowledgable about political and historical things as well. He's very much a Socialist. He's politically active and knows a tremendous amount about Socialism.

My friend is beautiful, I think. I thought he was cute from the start. I met him on a site where people write journals, answer questions, take tests and meet each other for dating, friendships and penpals. He and I have a high percentage match on the site, based on questions we've answered and results from tests we've taken. He started commenting on my journal on the site. Then I messaged him, and it went from messaging on the site to e-mail. I haven't talked to him on the phone yet, but he sent me a sound file of his voice. He has a very soft voice and beautiful accent.

My friend, according to his stats on the site, is an inch shorter than I am. He's slender. He's sent me lots of pictures of himself. I think he's beautiful. He is built delicately. He looks slightly androgynous. No one could mistake him for a female, but if he dressed in drag, he could pass for a woman. He has fine bone structure, high cheekbones, full red lips and big blue-green eyes. His eyebrows are thick and their shape makes him look kind and gentle. He has a cute nose. His hair is a wavy chestnut brown. He wears glasses. He has two little brothers. They're both cute, too, but my friend is the cutest. :) His face is so lovely and sweet, and looking at it calms me. His eyes are wide open, loving and earnest. There's nothing at all harsh in them or in his face whatsoever.

For some reason, my friend thinks I'm the most beautiful girl in the world. Yes, he knows how big I am. He has recent photos of me. For some reason, he loves my body that way. I don't understand why. I just know that European boys are often not put off by big women the way most white American boys are. Anyway, once I'm hanging out with him, I might have that damn nursery rhyme going in my head: "Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean..." Funny thing is, of course, that he eats a lot of meat and I am basically vegan. I know, I wish he weren't a big meat-eater. Well, he's a very compassionate person. Maybe he just needs to know more about where his meals come from. Anyway, thin boys make me feel bigger. Alex made me feel smaller because he was really big and tall. My friend in England is a tad shorter than me and much thinner. I feel like a fucking oaf in comparison to him. I told him that. He said, "What are you talking about? You're a fucking goddess!" He doesn't swear often.

Anyway, my friend is very honest and straightforward and down-to-earth. He has this silly side, though, that he doesn't show much to the world. He's shown it to me, though. It's like tickling a little boy. All silliness and giggles. He is very sensitive and caring. He's very true to himself. What you see is what you get. He tells me he's quite shy, and that he zones out sometimes, due to having Asperger's. People with Asperger's have a different social experience than people without it. Alex's little brother also has it, but more acutely than my friend does. It's funny, cuz Alex's little brother's first name is the same as my friend's first name. Alex and his older brother named his little brother. I wonder if Alex is smiling down at me and my friend, the English boy with the same name and syndrome as his little brother. I wonder what Alex feels about my friend. I feel sunny and yellow when I imagine what Alex is feeling about my friend.

I look forward to meeting my friend this summer. I just did my taxes online, and I am getting a nice refund. Not huge, but almost $1,500. $1,500 means A LOT to me right now. It means an incredible amount to me right now. You have no idea. I can get through this month and next month. Beautiful!!!

Boo Radley's Come Out Of His Lair

2007-02-19T01:49:00.000-05:00

Hi. I'm Blueberry Bear. My other name is "Boo Radley". I hide in my lair every day. I sell things on eBay to barely make ends meet. I don't talk to many people right now. The person I talk to the most is my new penpal in England. Too many bad things happened in too short a time, and I kind-of broke down. I guess I am quite depressed. I don't know anymore. Life is a weird dream nowadays.

I managed to apply to two graduate schools. The third school's application is not due until June. I want to be a social worker. I quit my full-time permanent job with benefits last August because my boss was very abusive and I was miserable. I have eked out an existence ever since, somehow. I have to do my taxes ASAP because I'm sure to get a fat refund. I also need to do them ASAP to give updated, accurate info to the financial aid offices regarding 2006.

I'm truly trying to find a temp job or permanent job to cover my ass the next few months before school starts. I seem to have no luck in getting anything, though. Well, I only have to get through the next 6 1/2 months or so. I have no medical insurance anymore, so I am trying to draw out my anti-depressants by not taking them every day. This is not working, though. My brain is not happy with not having the pills every day. I need so much to see a therapist, but I can't afford it. I'm a fucking mess, actually.

I talk to a boy in England. He's six months younger than I am. He is incredibly kind and intelligent. Talking to him is my link to sanity. I also talk to my friend here in Queens. She treats me like I'm normal, like I'm not the fucked up freak that I feel like inside. The boy in England treats me like the most wonderful person in the world. I wish I could get on an airplane and go visit him. I am going to meet him in Iceland this summer while I'm on my way to Sweden. Yes, I am going to Sweden this summer, come hell or high water. If I have to get another credit card to do it, I will.

I wish the English boy lived here. I've been talking to him for over a month. I told him things I've never told anyone else in this world, and vice-versa. Why can't I meet someone like that here? Why do the interesting people I meet online live across the ocean? I met him because I posted something on a site about the sci-fi subject of body swapping. He said he'd swap bodies with me so that each of us would know what it felt like to be in the other sex's body. It was totally innocent and childlike, the way we were talking about it. It was awesome! Then it went from there. Don't worry, I'm not going to pull another Alex.

I met a man named Alex on a Swedish website a few years ago and became his penpal and went to visit him the next year and ended up staying with him and ended up immigrating there because I had grown to love him very much...and he died soon after I moved there. I think that's when I lost most of the marbles I had left over from my life's experiences. I lost even more with other things that have happened since. I spilled most of the few remaining marbles working at jobs here in NYC where I was verbally and emotionally abused. I think my friend losing her mother and baby in less than one year really spilled out more. My other friend moving to Chicago made me lose whatever was left in there. I might have one or two marbles left. I dunno.

So, if you think I am crazy by talking to a boy who lives over 3,000 miles away and letting myself become emotionally attached to him, then you are right. I am crazy. I have one or two marbles left, and they are slipping out. And I want to be a social worker? How can I be a social worker when I myself am crazy? I will gain marbles by doing something meaningful with my life. That's why. I will help people going through grief and trauma and pain, and the act of helping them will lead me to the marbles I lost. I know this. Doing good for this world and its inhabitants is the only thing that keeps me alive. That's the only thing I want to do with my life: do good.

Will I stop talking to the boy in England once I regain my marbles? No. I have a feeling he'll be a lifelong friend. Our connection is that powerful already. I just won't feel so goddamn susceptible and sensitive to whatever fucking happens to me. I feel as thin as a robin's eggshell. The slightest tap might break me. English Boy handles me gently, as he would a robin's egg. He knows how to do that. That's just the way he is. He is immensely gentle and sensitive. He's delicate. English Boy doesn't hurt me. It just hurts that he's English Boy and not New York Boy. In other words, I wish I could feel such a connection to someone right here. God has other plans for me, though. God gives me the hard path, not the easy one, like usual. Thanks for sending me someone who I can't be with, God!!! Do you want me to be a nun or something?!?!? Yeah, I definitely have to start taking my meds. If it becomes too painful to talk to English Boy due to increasing emotional connection and geographical distance, I might have to take a break from him. I'm a robin's egg. The boy doesn't hurt me, but the situation does.

That's my so-called life, folks. Oh, yeah. Buddhist Boy is out of my life now. He decided to E-MAIL ME that he just wanted to be friends. I had spent the night at his house in his bed, and he went to work the next morning and E-MAILED this to me while I was still in his bed (I have e-mail on my phone). What the fuck? So I told him how fucked up that was and he said he didn't mean to hurt me, and I replied that I hoped he never handled a situation like that again, and I haven't heard from him since. That was Buddhist Boy. Bye-bye.

skrivning

2007-01-06T04:14:00.000-05:00

i had a fruitful, productive day.

i sent my resume to eight temp agencies, some of which are right here in the borough of queens. i would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to work in my own borough!!! and the temp agencies are here in eastern queens. oh, i cross my fingers that i get a temp assignment in eastern queens! imagine: a commute of less than an hour! WOW! i am going to keep on those agencies until they find me a temp assignment, too. i'm not taking the passive approach this time. yeah, i decided i don't have the luxury not to keep being an office wench, so i will learn from my past mistakes and be a good, quiet, smiling cog turning round and round every day so that i can get a paycheck and pay my bills. only nine more months of this shit, and then i'll be a full-time student.

i started on another, much longer version of my autobiographical statement for grad school. the first version is a summary that's two pages long. i had my writer friend look at it. i want her to look at the longer version, too, when i'm done with it. from the two versions, i will craft the most kick-ass autobiographical statement that that school has seen in years, and i might be able to use it in a somewhat altered way for the other school with the feb. 1st deadline. i was feeling totally overwhelmed, so i told myself that if worse comes to worst, i can postpone the second school's application for a spring '08 start date so that i have more time to finish the app. i hope not to do that, though. i'd like to apply for fall '07 for all three schools. the THIRD school's app. for fall '07 is not due until june, so i have more time for that one. i hope i get into the first school cuz it's way cheaper than the other two.

i made a lot of moolah on ebay today, so now i don't have to worry about paying the rest of january's bills. i am so thankful that my sister gave me a bunch of expensive items to sell on there; they came JUST at the right time, when i was flat-ass broke! a bunch of sales are ending tomorrow, too, so i expect to have a good ebay day ahead. i also got my second and last paycheck from the temp assignment i was dumped from, which means i will have a bit of money going into february to help with the rent and bills.

i'm kinda amazed that i've been able to pull this off. i've had so little income for how many months it's been since i quit my job. i've managed to pay all of my bills on time every month. granted, i maxed out both of my credit cards, but at least i pay the minimum monthly amount on them, so as to keep my credit score up in the rafters. on the other hand, i am unable to do things that i really want to do, like go to my friend's wedding. :( ugh. my broke ass can't even go to this huge event in my friend's life? that's the killer. that's what fucking kills me. things like that make me REALLY sad about being broke.

i had a wonderful conversation on the phone with the buddhist tonight. god, i really like that man! i mean, i really LIKE him as a human being. he's becoming my friend. i dunno what's gonna happen between us romantically, but the friendship aspect is definitely deepening! i really RESPECT him!!! and he made me laugh so hard while we were on the phone that the family upstairs could probably hear it through the floors. i needed that laugh so much! well, he was telling me about the rabbits he used to have as pets. all of the rabbits i've ever seen have been sitting in cages staring blankly out. apparently, if one has uncaged rabbits that one socializes and pays lots of attention to, the rabbits' individual personalities come out strongly just like a dog's or cat's. he was telling me HILARIOUS stories about his rabbits. he then told me about how he used to be a rabbit rescuer and was a "rabbit whisperer" type of person who went to the houses of people with problem rabbits and helped them out. he also has the sweetest tattoo of a rabbit dancing with a crescent moon on his slender shoulder. AWWWW, IT'S SO SWEET, IT MAKES ME SQUEAL!!! :) i hope to see him soon. i miss him. *sigh*

tomorrow, my plan is to make eggrolls with tofu, cabbage and broccoli in them. i will also continue on my long autobiography for grad school. i'll monitor the ebay sales that are ending. i'll listen to the old music tapes that the buddhist was gonna throw out, which were salvaged by me. :) drink diet dr. brown's black cherry soda. cuddle under the new comforter and beautiful comforter cover that i got for christmas from my sister. then on sunday, i am gonna go out with the shelter adoption van again and then meet my family afterwards. i can't wait to get some doggy time at the adoption van! life would be so much better if i had a doggy to cuddle every day!!!

hej igen

2007-01-03T18:22:00.000-05:00

i am a relatively young woman living out in a lair under a house. this is my blog.

i am going through a libertine phase. i am realizing that i have quit taking a lot of shit from other people, and i have quit doing things based on what others think. i just do what the fuck is real to me, for the first time in my life. i am living life to the fullest extent possible for someone who has almost no money. i feel more alive now than in a long time. i also feel a lot of pain, loneliness and fear. it would not surprise me if i were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. life right now is VERY strange for me.

i spent new year's kissing a man i had been corresponding with for a few weeks. i met him on a dating site. we established an incredible rapport. he asked me out on a date. i met him at a vegetarian restaurant on saturday night. then we went to hear some jazz and then he invited me to his home. i went home with him and stayed there with him until monday late morning. yes, we were very intimate. he came to my lair yesterday and spent hours in my bed cuddling with me. nothing sexual happened. he's confused. i'm confused. i have a gut feeling we'll end up just being friends. he is a very open-minded, intelligent, loving, caring, positive, spiritual, mature, funny, sweet, special man. i've never met anyone else like him. i think that we are both still reeling from the incredibly intense time we spent together over the course of almost three days. he's the only straight guy i've ever known who has a rainbow flag displayed prominently in his apartment. no, he's not closeted. he's just an AWESOME straight man!

recently i got fired from a temp job. i made a big mistake the first two days of the job and messed around with one of my colleagues. he then freaked out that we had messed around and proceeded to treat me like total shit after that, and it therefore became a difficult environment to work in. then my boss apparently was very dissatisfied with me using my phone to call the airline when the next day's flight home for christmas was suddenly cancelled due to the snowstorm in colorado. i do not regret using my phone at work. otherwise, my dad and i never would have gotten a replacement flight and would have been stuck in new york for christmas. i was also basically told by my temp agency that i showed too much personality for the tastes of the people who worked at the place. hmmm....well, i am learning that temps should be seen and not heard, should keep to themselves, and should always remember that they are simply cogs in a machine, only good for mechanically working and working, and very easy to replace if the smallest issue arises. i have had it with this particular temp agency and their assignments with places where i am treated like a cog and not a human being.

maybe i will apply for a job at whole foods market or some other place. i dunno. somewhere where i am not an office wench. i have proven to myself that i can financially get by on very little money. i don't need a salary like the one i had at the last permanent job i had. i just need to pay my bills and eat. that's it.

i am beginning to write my personal statement for grad school. it's the only thing i have left to do for my applications. it is SOOOO hard for me to do. i feel like i am empty and have nothing to write in the personal statement. i might postpone one of my apps till the deadline for spring 2008 instead of fall 2007. another app for fall 2007 isn't due until june. the third app is the one i'm gonna do. yeah, if i think of just finishing one app by february, i won't feel so overwhelmed.

i've just had so many bad things happen to me, one after the other, for so long, that i am sticking my tongue out at everything and everyone, in a way. i am mooning god and the world. i think that's why i am going through such a libertine phase. playing by the rules and doing what others wanted got me nothing and nowhere. i am even thumbing my nose at karma now. i feel like i have bad karma even though i am constantly trying to do good for others. it's like, no matter how good a person i try to be, or how much i play by the rules, i am punished. the only way in which i am getting good karma is through animals. i have AWESOME animal karma!!! but my human karma fucking sucks.

it's so hard for me to function in any sort of practical way. the only things i'm currently good at doing are selling things on ebay and volunteering at the shelter. i have power in both of those situations. i garner respect in both of those situations. at jobs, i am not respected or recognized for my hard work. at jobs, i am just a cog in a machine. i am fucking sick being a cog in a machine and an office wench.

well, if the world is gonna dish me shit no matter how hard i try to do things well and play by the rules, i might as well just do whatever the fuck i want. the outcome is the same: shit. might as well have fun while i get dished shit!

i might hook up with one night stand #2 again, since it doesn't look like the awesome straight man and i are gonna go the relationship route. we haven't decided that yet, but i feel instinctually that we are gonna end up as just friends. well, if trying to be as emotionally mature, emotionally available, loving, compassionate, open-minded and caring is not gonna bring me someone with whom i will share true love and a committed, lasting partnership, i might as well be a slag. i might as well have fun, since the outcome is always my being alone, no matter what i do. i might as well be a slag and get some physical gratification! and at least the men i've been intimate with give me recognition for my skills and talents in the s.e.x. department!

vänner

2006-12-03T21:06:00.000-05:00

hi

i'm back in my lair after spending pretty much the entire weekend in williamsburg. i know, i can't believe i was in williamsburg for even a half-hour without barfing. it barely bothered me to be there, though, because the company was so great!!! i can be in a total shithole and not mind it at all if i'm around great folks. such was the case in w'burg (though it's not a shithole, just annoying). mary was staying with shannon at shannon's awesome apartment in east williamsburg during her whole stay in ny, and everywhere that mary went, the lamb (me) was sure to go! i had a really wonderful, special time this weekend. it was really, really special, and i wish we could all just hang out and be together for longer. next time i see her, we'll be congregating in georgia for her wedding. it was nice to be surrounded by a circle-of-friends feeling. even the annoyances at each other were special (to know and to care so much about someone that you can be affected by them like that). i wish i had a circle-of-friends environment to normally be in, but i am pretty much isolated, and about to be more isolated when bonnie moves to chicago. becca's moving away soon, too, but i haven't even heard peep out of her for so long. ugh. well, i am thankful to get to hang out with al so much. i am so glad to be friends with al again! i am so glad to have spent time with mary. wish so much it could have been longer!

i went to the fela tribute concert. it was phenomenal. like, i wish so much that i could have seen fela himself and his band playing! it was a really meaningful way to observe world aids day. wow, last year's world aids day, i went with lilian and gertrude to see the movie "yesterday". also a phenomenal experience. one of the most moving films i've ever seen. i was sobbing uncontrollably in the theatre. they called the concert "red hot + riot", and there is a recording of fela jams of that name, with some of the artists who performed last night. i have the "red hot + rio" compilation of brazilian songs, and i think it's excellent. i want to get "red hot + riot" when i have more moolah. i just bought myself radiohead's "pablo honey" on vinyl from ebay, so i really should not be buying more music now (not to mention that i'm broke!). i think it was me'shell ndegeocello jamming so hardcore on the bass at the fela concert last night, but i have to get back to you on that. whoever the woman jamming on the bass was, she put it DOWN!!! well, maybe i should pause this current continual led zep playing and play some fela instead. water no get enemy!

i'm meeting my dad tomorrow. dunno what we're gonna do. hang out somewhere, i guess. he's really upset about something, but he won't tell us what. i think it has to do with his living situation. he is a national park ranger and lives in park ranger housing, since it's soooo cheap. problem is: he shares a house with a psycho. literally. psycho. he requested a loooong time ago to be moved to different lodgings, but they keep saying they have nowhere to move him cuz the turnover rate at that park is really low and no one has quit and no one has moved and it's a fucking mess. i wish he could live off park grounds, but then he'd be paying regular new york city rent. well, my dad eats out for pretty much EVERY meal. my opinion is that he should stop eating out and all of that accumulated saved money could be used to pay a higher rent, but i can't make the man do anything, so i keep my mouth shut and pray that either he gets moved to other ranger lodging or the psycho moves out or he moves off park. something's gotta give. well, i have to take another load of dvds to the post office for shipping tomorrow, and i have to exchange my new sneakers. other than that, i guess i will try to think of something fun for dad and i to do. i kinda wanna just friggin chill out with him on some comfy couches in a cozy cafe and sip hot drinks and talk and read and stuff. we'll see!

somniga jordnött och fuzzyblue

2006-12-02T13:23:00.000-05:00

i'm so tired. didn't get home til 3-something a.m. was out all night with mary and her college friends. wish i had a lot more time to hang out with her. i haven't seen her since 1999! i wanna have her all to myself for lots of days. i wish i could be there to help her through her pregnancy, to like, pamper her through it. i just think it's so amazing that she created this whole new human being of her own who is now comfortably chillin' out in this cozy, warm, safe womb room. i totally felt his quiet, calm, peaceful energy emanating from his little home inside my friend. i feel like he's a laid-back guy. i feel like he's really special, very unique, like he's gonna be one of those people that's truly one-of-a-kind. he's one of those people about whom others will think, "i'm glad his parents had him!". he's gonna be gorgeous, too. a special human is growing in there. the swedish name for "peanut" is "jordnött", literally meaning "earth nut". peanut's growing from the fertile earth of his mother's body. she's literally mother earth to him. he's dreaming in there now, ya know. he has these dreams all the time. when he was conceived, his spirit went from pure spirit dreaming to slowly incorporating living human dreaming. as his body develops, his living human dreaming grows, but the pure spirit dreaming is still a very strong part of the mix. babies dreams feel like australian aboriginal paintings of dreamtime, because dreamtime is the source of all of us. it's the home we came from and the home we'll go back to. alex is there. i think aboriginal paintings of "dreamtime" are the most incredible expressions of the human spirit essence ever existing on earth. i feel at home, in the deepest sense of the word, when i look at them. dreamtime is still at the core of me and of all of us. it's much easier for babies to access it since they are so close to it. some adults can access it better than others. i am one of the ones who access it better. i never allowed myself to separate from it as much as most people do as they "grow up". maybe that's part of why i seem so childlike to many others. i am childlike, yet i also feel like a very old woman who's had a lifetime of experience behind her. a lot has happened to me in this 29-year-old life. how wise and enlightened will i become if i actually live to be an old woman? i hope i will be one of those people who radiate peace and love and wisdom from their core and have a healing energy. i wanna be a healer. i think i already am. i think the more i love and believe in myself, the more powerful a healer i'll be. you know, i think the e-mail i sent to andy's mom the other day is having some sort of healing effect on her. like, she literally seemed turned upside down by what i told her about her son. she told me i gave her a great gift. i gave her that gift by being totally open and honest and using my true voice. she said she feels that i will be spiritually by her side during these days go by that she processes what i told her in the e-mail. you know, the more i love someone, the more i feel that i know their fundamental makeup. with andy and alex, i feel like i can swim in their dream origins. i feel like we might have come from the same dream space, swimming close together. i guess that's what "soulmates" means. that's like, why i love those two men so deeply. peanut inhabits dreamtime very closely with other spirits, and he will someday meet one or two or three or more of those spirits in their living human form and love them deeply, and they will love him just as much in return. i hope that peanut never loses sight of his dreamtime, never loses sight that he is truly, truly a miracle. the unfolding of his life will be an amazing thing to behold. lilla jordnött!

well, tonight i am going to a concert to commemorate world aids day, which was yesterday. different wonderful musicians will be playing songs of fela, whose music i totally love and who died of aids. i hope to see mary today or tomorrow sometime.

i'm really annoyed by these blogger.com glitches. there is no toolbar at the top of this post that is allowing me to post pictures or change fonts, colors, etc. argh!

mary kommer i morgon

2006-11-30T23:44:00.000-05:00

friends, friends, friends. my friend is coming up from georgia tomorrow. i haven't seen her since i graduated from college. she's pregnant. she's gonna get married. i cry when i think about it. i am meeting her at penn station. i am gonna cry when i see her. i'll probably cry at intervals as we hang out tomorrow! i have become a lot closer to her recently, ever since her mother died. i can't believe i am gonna see her. i feel like this is a part of my "saturn return": pruning my tree, getting rid of the excess "foliage" that is not needed or useful in my life anymore, and letting the important stuff have its full place in the sun. her friendship is part of the important stuff.

there's another friend that i am a lot closer to now. she lives here in new york, too. we weren't talking for four years cuz we were having problems. i was able to come into her life again recently. she accepted me. she loves me. the day i hung out with her for the first time in years was on her birthday in september (virgo!!!). i wanted to cry, seeing the way she really paid attention to what i said and looked me straight in the eyes. i had missed that so much, i realized. i had missed her true friendship, which is something that's so golden! she was one of those friends in college, like my friend in georgia, who taught me what it feels like to be respected and appreciated and cared about for who i really am.

i am upset that bonnie is moving. i understand it, though. she's had such a rough time of it here. she has gone through incredible hardships since moving here, and she is a very strong woman. but we strong women get tired of being strong, jumping through hoops, over obstacles. we just get fucking tired of it and want a break! she deserves to have such happiness in her life, and she's not finding it here. it might be the greatest city in the world, but it's not for everyone to actually LIVE in. chicago is much more affordable, but is still a vibrant, fascinating city (with a GREAT musical legacy!). i can't believe she's moving in only a month. we hardly ever see each other anyway cuz she works so much and we live so far away from each other and we're always so tired from trying to get by here. it fucking sucks. well, i just want her to be happy and to have the freedom to thrive much more than she's been able to do here. and sometimes i wonder what i'm doing here.

my dad got me new running shoes tonight. they're spiffy: white, silver, red and black asics. i have a chronic foot problem, plantar fasciitis, and i can't wear just any old shoe. i can't be picky about my dress shoes (i.e. if a leather shoe fits, i wear it). luckily, the asics that are best for me are vegan. yay! i have to wear orthotics. my foot is hurting a bit more with the new shoes, but i think it's because it has to get used to them. i also wanna put cushioned insoles in there, under the orthotics. i really appreciate him doing this. i know it's my christmas present, but i still really appreciate it.

my dad says i look healthier. he says my skin is glowing more, and has less acne. i can see that too. i just feel less gross! i look forward to seeing how much i've lost the next time i go to see mr. handsome doctor. :)

well, i should probably go to bed now. goodnight!

Hej

2006-11-29T23:29:00.000-05:00

This handsome man is my Alexander. This picture was taken when he was at the rehab hospital a few months after his stroke. He is wearing the helmet because half of his skull is gone. They took it out after he had the stroke because his brain was swelling. This is the man who could hug me and make everything okay. I told my friend Bonnie tonight that God owes me big-time for taking Alex away from me. I hardly ask for anything from God. All I ever wanted was to love and be loved. When I finally received that gift, it was taken away forever. God, you know what I have been praying for and lighting candles for these last few days, and it's the only thing I ask of you. Please.

Bonnie is moving to Chicago at the beginning of January. New York City is too expensive, too cutthroat, and she can't have the quality of life she wants here. She's struggled so much just to eke out a meager living ever since she got here almost two years ago. I feel the same way as she does, but my dad and sister are here, and I wanna go to grad school here, and I love this place even though it is so hard to get by in. I dunno. Maybe I'll have to leave, too, if I continue to slither on and on.

I finally called my old counselor and friend in California and asked her to write me a recommendation for grad school. She says I would make an excellent social worker. She's always told me I should be a counselor or social worker or teacher, cuz I would be so good at it. She says being a social worker would be so perfect for me. I have been through so much in my life and have so much compassion for other people and I would fight so hard for them, and I am so committed to social justice for people of all walks of life, especially disenfranchised folks. I am sending her the recommendation forms tomorrow.

I also need to send out my mail-order prescription for the Metformin my doctor prescribed to help me lose weight. My dad insists on taking me to buy shoes tomorrow. I asked for the shoes for Christmas, but yesterday while I was running errands, I felt something weird through the sole of my shoe and discovered that the sole has been worn right through. The shoes are only 1 1/2 years old, but I guess they wore out due to how much I walk. So, he's gonna get me my Christmas present early. I am glad to be able to see him. I need support. I don't feel well mentally.

sanningen

2006-11-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

i saw my friends mireille and jessica last night. we met at moby's teahouse, "teany". mireille is visiting from cali. jessica lives here, but i hadn't seen her in a year. i wanna hang out with her much more from now on!

yeah, so both credit cards are now officially completely maxed out. i'm in more debt than i've ever been in before. well, actually, i was in as much debt after college graduation due to maxing out my credit card while living in london and having the full amount of my student loans waiting for me to start paying back. do i NOW regret quitting my job in august? the answer remains NO!!!!!!!! as soon as i get another temp gig and (hopefully) get to keep it for a while, i can start paying the credit cards off in chunks bigger than the minimum monthly payments. i wanna pay them off as soon as possible. if i keep living super-frugally and work full time plus keep selling on ebay, i can have them paid off by next fall. my family is not gonna get much for christmas from me. i'm still waiting for the goddamn check from the state of new york to come!!! it's a big chunk of money!!!!!

i continue veggin' out. my body feels better. my jeans are already feeling looser. i'm not eating any less than i did before, though. i really need to lose A LOT of weight. according to my body mass index, i am close to being "morbidly obese", which is weird. i've been a vegetarian for almost 15 years. i don't even KNOW HOW to drive, so i have never been a "sit on your ass in a car to get everywhere" kind of person. and like most new yorkers, i walk A LOT and VERY BRISKLY, sometimes having to RUN if i'm late or trying to catch a bus. so why the fuck am i so heavy? i think it really is the goddamn dairy products. my body must automatically store them as fat cuz it can't process them correctly. it must REALLY not be able to process them correctly for me to get this fat! i read that most africans and native americans are lactose intolerant. i have a lot of that blood in me! also, all of that scandinavian blood and the native american blood causes me to be really bad at processing alcohol. it makes me sick very easily. i can't get shitfaced drunk like some people can. i get really sick far before i can get that inebriated. i want to go back down to a weight that is at the upper end of the "healthy weight" spectrum for my height, because i was meant to be voluptuous, not thin. i wanna get back to the size i was in college. i continue to lose my taste for cheese. i stopped drinking milk like, 10 years ago so giving up milk is not a problem.

tack och varsågod

2006-11-24T00:36:00.001-05:00

thanksgiving was pretty good. unfortunately, there were no vegan options at the place after all, so it was either starve or eat the stuff with cheese in it. i have noticed that my skin is clearer since i stopped the dairy. i kinda lost my taste for cheese. the stuff was good, but i didn't salivate over it like i used to be when i ate cheese. good. i hope i continue to lose my taste for cheese.

i've been haunted by a video i watched on the peta website. i should not have watched it. it was a video taken undercover at a fur factory where foxes were living torturous lives. like, i should not watch those things. they need to be watched by people who are desensitized to cruelty against animals, not people who are already VERY sensitized to cruelty to animals. the part that haunts me the most was the scene of a fox being killed by electrocution. they stuck an electical prod up the fox's anus and then put a conductor in his mouth. that was it, and the fox was suddenly dead. this precious, beautiful child of god (all animals are children of god, not just humans) was treated like a lump of material and his life taken in a cold, calculated instant, and the hidden camera was right in front of his face when the instantaneous death occurred. it was so horrible! i will forever be haunted by that image. i will never watch another animal cruelty video. such things should only be viewed by people who need a shock like that to get it into their pea brains how cruel the fur industry and meat industry are.

pengar!

2006-11-21T23:31:00.000-05:00

i am making beaucoup bucks on ebay. i am about to dump a shitload more of auctions on there tonight. i really need this money.

i am on the rag and suffering from bad cramps. i stayed in bed all day, riding atop my crimson tide.

going to the temp agency tomorrow to get the third check. the second one was sent to me and i hope to get it in the mail tomorrow.

going to the post office at times square to mail out a couple of box sets that were paid for yesterday and today. looking forward to more positive feedback from buyers as their packages arrive to them. :)

keep lighting candles and praying for the arrival of love in my life.

we're going out to dinner at a restaurant on thursday. they supposedly have vegan options. right now, i feel like a peanut butter and honey sandwich and some cold soy milk. i know...honey is not vegan. i told you i'm an "almost vegan"! hey vegan police, go back to your precinct!

jag drömde om alex igår kväll

2006-11-20T21:41:00.000-05:00

i had a good day. i hung out with my dad all day. he gets sundays and mondays off. i opened a new york bank account and deposited my first paycheck in. i sent off a bunch of dvds that i sold on ebay. i chilled out with my dad. i flaked on volunteering with the dog therapy organization tonight, though. i couldn't bring myself to go all the way to the upper west side and then have to commute all the way home from there at 9:30. i just didn't have it in me today.

the color i'm writing with now is close to the color of alex's eyes. they were hazel. there's no word for hazel eyes in swedish. such eyes are called "mixed-color". it says "mixed-color" on his birth certificate (but in swedish, of course). i told alex that in english, eyes like his have their own special name: hazel. he thought that was really cool. i was just blogging yesterday or the day before about how i hardly ever dream about him. i dreamt about him last night! before i went to bed, i read my journal from the whole period of time from before i met him in person to when i was waiting for a visa to immigrate there. i felt the tenderness so freshly when i read the words i wrote about him and about us. then he was in my dream after i fell asleep. he was in a wheelchair, post-stroke. i kissed him and kissed him and kissed him and held him and walked next to him as he wheeled around. we were totally together. it was so great! i love dreaming about him! i feel like i get to physically be with him again during such dreams. but my dreams of him are so rare. my emotional unfinished business takes up the majority of space in my dreaming, unfortunately. dreaming of alex is a rare treat. in my journal from back before his stroke, i wrote about how i kept dreaming of singing to him. i had forgotten about that, but now i remember those dreams. i had them on so many nights during the period i stayed with him in the fall and winter of 2003. i would hold him and sing softly to him in the dreams. there was this incredible feeling of love in the dreams. such intense love of a caliber i'd never felt before. love given and received freewillingly. love soaking into every crevace of our beings, totally fluid with no barriers. such intense dreams! i remember that i also broke down and sobbed in front of alex a couple of times during that fall and winter. i sobbed so hard. i was just overcome with emotion. i felt so much for him that it made me cry, and when i cried like that, he would hug me. when alex hugged me, it was like the most phenomenal healing medicine. i had never before had a reaction to a hug like that. i couldn't explain in words why i was crying, and he had no words to comfort me, only his wonderful embrace. god, i miss the talking to him for hours and hours and hours about everything under the sun. i remember him making me laugh so hard with his great sense of humor. how damn sweet and kind and patient and open-hearted and warm he was. all these little things he did or said that would totally melt my heart. he treated me like the most precious person in the world to him. he didn't treat me like that by just saying it or buying me a rose or something. he treated me like that in all sorts of ways, many so small but so meaningful. they were like breathing oxygen for him, these ways of treating me so preciously. these ways of treating me were totally natural to him like a life-sustaining reflex. god, i miss him so much. i am so damn lucky i met him before he passed away. i am so damn lucky for the time i had with him. no one knew at the time, but his heart had been a ticking time bomb for years, and i met him within months of that heart disease finally causing his stroke, and then taking his life six months later. i had come into his life at the end, though i didn't know that until he died. i gave him the gift of knowing love and sharing love. he gave me the same gift. the last big gift of his life was one that totally transformed another human being forever. i know that he died a transformed person because of me too. i've told alex's spirit several times that when it's my turn to pass to nangijala, i want him to be right there with his hand outstretched, to help me through to the other side. i know he'll be there. he'll help me cross over. i'm not so scared of dying anymore. i can't be so scared of going to a olace where alex is, even though that place remains a mystery to me. if alex is okay there, i am okay there. i just got my new york state id card, and i am signed up as an organ donor. i told my dad tonight that i want him to make sure that all my organs are donated if i croak before he does. i told him that i want my heart donated to someone with alex's heart disease, dilated cardiomyopathy, so that their life can be saved. i want this so strongly that i want to find out about writing a will instructing that this be done upon my death. the doctors said alex was too weak to get a heart transplant, due to the horrible stroke he'd suffered. if only they had found out about his heart problem before the stroke, they could have done something.

i can't post a fucking picture of alex on here for some reason, and it's pissing me off! there is some sort of glitch. i will post it later i guess. he was half-swedish/half-greek, and every bit as gorgeous as you'd imagine a man with such a mix would be! i'm so glad i saw him in my dream last night. i've felt such peace all day because of it.