what a world, what a world

Welcome, my friends, to the weekend that never ends…

I’m sorry, first of all, for my cryptic “cry for help” entry. I had an unfortunate day at work, to say the least. One of my bosses apparently doesn’t think I’m “suited” for my job, due to my “creative nature”. It was a really terrible day, and I was essentially told that if I was caught screwing around at work I’d be in serious bad mojo. That being said, I’m not going to be blogging as much either, but I’m definitely still going to be around.

I also had a rather terrifying encounter with a large, belligerent homeless man this weekend. He sleeps in the alley by the Empty Space, and said that people had thrown bricks at him from the balcony. I tried to tell him, not realizing that he was FUCKING CRAZY, that we were just renters that that I couldn’t help him - he thought I was calling him a liar, and he started swearing and yelling and coming toward me. At some point, Frannie came by and said “Are you okay?” and when she realized that I was too freaked out to really answer, she said “Why don’t you come inside?” and I came after her and tried to close the door, and the guy came running at me, yelling about how I’d BETTER close the door, blah blah blah. The whole situation went from normal to I could’ve gotten myself beaten beyond recognition in a matter of about a minute and a half. It was probably the first time in my life that I’ve actually experienced the whole fight-or-flight syndrome in a real, honest way. I was so full of adrenaline - and I didn’t know how to deal with it - so I went up to the booth and cried in front of Gillian and Tristam and Jeff. This is the first time since I’ve lived in Seattle that any of my friends have seen me like that, and it just made me even more angry. I’m not like that. That’s not what I do. It made me feel really fucking weak, and that was just like adding insult to injury. Anyway.

On a happier note, Gene is here this weekend. Huzzah! Hooray for Gene! He is currently making us something sinful, since he has recently become a total food dork. He is CLARIFYING BUTTER as we speak. (I know, I couldn’t believe it either.) He and Yuki came to Stage Door last Saturday, and (thankfully) both seemed to really enjoy themselves. Afterwards, we went to Dad’s. At one point, Yuki and I were cracking ourselves up over something stupid, and Chris Comte said “You guys have known each other a long time, haven’t you?” It was really interesting to me that our relationship was different enough from the ones that I have with most of my Seattle friends that Chris immediately sensed it. I really revel in the fact that each of my friendships are so different and unique - but what makes me the happiest is when Yuki and Gene and Sonya and Ben can sit and drink together and have a good time. It makes everything in my life feel more cohesive and make more sense.

At the moment, we’re watching Ernie’s comps movie! Hooray! (Yuki says he wants the full DVD collection, Nenie. Consider this your second advance order.) I’ve got to admit that watching all the me and Bill making out stuff is making me feel a little squicky. Oh well. Suffering for my art, I suppose (ha ha). We also just watched Mass Murder - I think Yuki is collecting material for his Alicia-Blackmail Collection. Now we’re watching the Velvet Rut Documentary. (It’s not TOTALLY boring for Yuki, who’s gotten to meet all you crazy freaks.)

I am full of Honey Mustard and Onion Pretzel Nuggets. Mmmm. I’m trying to remember if I have anything else I need to mention here, since I don’t know when I’ll blog again. Hm. Hm. Hm. I guess this will have to do.

i’ve got two words for you - BUS TED

Well, my darlings, just wanted to let you know that I will not be able to Scribble from work anymore. Ever. I’m not going to go into detail, but let’s just say that today has been the worst day I’ve had since I can barely remember when, and that as a side effect the program has been uninstalled (or, since I didn’t know how to do that) deleted piecemeal from both of my computers. It’s certainly not that I don’t love you guys, I just value the mostly non-suicidal nature of my life as it currently stands, and I don’t want to mess with that. Even though, frankly, I suspect that not much aside from the development of a 28 hour day (but only for me) would help any.

truth or dare, question #6

This question comes to us courtesy of Ernie …

First, I’d pay off my parents. All the money they spent on my college, all the money they spent on my car, all the money I owe them for anything stupid I’ve ever done.

Second, I’d send my little brother to college.

Third, I’d pay off all of my student loans.

Fourth, I’d sell Zoe to someone who would love her (like Gilly loves Keri’s car) and I would buy myself something like an old-school, totally refurbished Saab convertible. Then, I’d have it painted a sort of musty green color.

Then I would go to grad school.

Then, if there was any left, I’d put it into a savings account, where it would safely stay until I got done with grad school and decided that I was going to buy a house.

Then, if there was any left after that, I’d leave it in savings, where it would sit and gather interest and be there just in case I ever broke down and finally had a child. Of course, as far as I’m concerned at the moment, this might not ever happen.

Oh, yeah. And I’d take a vacation - I’d go back to Morgins and stay in that same little hostel and I’d take that same little ski lift and I’d look for a Swiss cow with hay fever and a penchant for licking people.

I’d give some of it to Annex and to the St. Olaf Theatre Department, of course.

I’d probably throw a party too. That would be nice.

the little alien that could

This is such a gorgeous show. Buy tickets. Now. Seriously. You won’t be sorry.

I apprentice-taught my first acting class yesterday. The kids are so darling - I’d forgotten how much I love dealing with kids. They’re 5th-7th graders, all of whom have had at least one term of acting already. They’re so smart and so full of energy and I just wanted to EAT THEM UP. I think I’m really going to enjoy this semester, even if it means more days like yesterday where I was at work for fifteen hours straight.

Of course, if I don’t have to go to work early to shower, that will probably help. Supposedly everything is fixed now … ha, ha, ha. We’ll see. More roots were removed from our pipes. I want them to just get it over with so we can stop living in constant suspense as to whether we’re going to come home and have second-hand pee all over our basement floor.

Also, I just added a new pane in my sidebar for silly things found online. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions for silly web-stuff that should go in there? Let me know!

halcyon and on and on…

Stage Door opened last weekend. God, what a great show. All-star cast, brilliant direction, and holy pete is the crew cute. Seriously.

Then, Saturday night was the huge housewarming/Heather’s birthday party. Thank you so much to all of you who came … I was a little worried about how many people we’d invited, but since it lasted twelve hours, people just popped in and out all day long. It was so nice to have the house filled with the people we love. It makes it feel more like a home.

Today, you wouldn’t even realize that there was a party. Everything is cleaned up, the six million beer and wine bottles have been taken out, everything is back to normal - with the exception, of course, of our plumbing system, which STILL isn’t working. Thank you, party people, for not being too upset when we told you not to flush. I guess that’s what happens when you live in an old house, sometimes. Of course, if you’re observant, you’ll notice that there are a lot of full wine bottles that weren’t there before … and there are still strings of lights and paper lanterns in the backyard, and there’s this gorgeous new grill and a pepper plant and a candle and a blue glass and brass hanging masterpiece in our living room. Everyone was so kind, and we couldn’t have been happier.

Special love to:

Sven - who was the winner of our Name our house! contest with his suggestion of “Halcyon House”.

Our friends at Drooping Acres - Jaye, Rick, Stephen, and Molly - for the gorgeous new grill that made me cry.

Brooke - who brought us a pepper plant, a candle, and white wine (because she knew I liked it better than red.)

John and Tristam - who came over even though it was two in the morning and they were tired. We were glad to be able to serve your glitter needs, even if the dragonfly glitterstamp did look like a flying penis.

Andrew - who came to the party at nine and actually STAYED in a house full of people he didn’t know until almost eleven when I got back.

You guys are great. See you all at our next party this weekend! (Just kidding.)

truth or dare, question #5

This question comes to us courtesy of Wings…

Yes. Absolutely.

truth or dare, question #4

This question comes to us courtesy of Yuki…

I would make a mix cd and put music on it that would remind him of the days when we used to be good friends. Music from the good old days, before he betrayed me and everything I stand for and all the people I love. Music that would force him to keep revisiting those painful old memories of the days when he was an actual, honest-to-god human being, if he can remember back that far. Those memories of how he lost ALL of us as friends - and how uniting against him just made us stronger. And, if someday he managed to become that person I used to love again, I would take it out.

and i’m learning from falling, learning from falling

Several brief notes tonight, and then I’m going to bed, since I’ve had two days of twelve-hour-long tech in a row, and my candle no longer wants to burn at both ends.

ahem.

I believe in every human being’s inalienable right to dye peacefully in their own home, surrounded by people of their choosing. It’s a personal and private thing and should probably stay that way. Nobody really wants to see you like that, and they certainly don’t want to smell it.

Saying things like “I swear to God, this has never happened before” doesn’t really help.

Having unfortunate things happen in the middle of the night when you are way too exhausted to think clearly can blow them so horribly out of proportion as to nearly cause a full-blown panic attack. A complete sense of social paranoia can often follow, even later when you’ve gotten some sleep and should theoretically know better.

There is no feeling on earth worse than suspecting that you have - even in some small, non-life-threatening way - betrayed the trust of someone you care about.

I am a damn good Sound Op.

Go out and buy this cd, right now. No, seriously. I am obsessed with it.

Pasta made with Spelt is good.

Sea Salt Soy Crisps are SO FREAKING ADDICTIVE. OH MY GOD.

When you’re on headset during a show, fart humor is always funny.

Men in drag are also funny, sometimes.

Blackberries picked in your own back yard are nice.

Sitting alone at at the 4th and Union bus stop for 45 minutes late on a Saturday night is not fun. Neither is being inadvertently stood up the next day, even if you understand why it happened and you didn’t actually have any concrete plans. Even when you’re not really allowed to care, because of the situation. Especially when you’re not really allowed to care. Especially when you kind of do.

Giving backrubs is almost as fun as getting them. It’s extra-nice when the person you’re giving them to starts making funny noises. Animal noises are good.

It’s lucky that Stephen can catch, because some of us are fond of John DeS’s head.

Toe Knee is a really nice guy.

If you meet someone who reminds you a lot of someone you know and love (but who is far away), it’s easy to feel very comfortable around them right away. When you act like you’re comfortable around them, they often will become really comfortable with you pretty quickly. Then, you can joke around like old friends without actually having to spend the time necessary to become old friends.

When you spend a lot of time up on tall ladders, you get bruises on your shins from where you were leaning on the next rung up so that you could leeeeeeeean over to unscrew and rotate and re-tighten and fuzz and gel and tophat and barndoor.

If you eat nothing but carbohydrates all day, you WILL BE TIRED no matter how much coffee you drink.

Looking through old pictures is sometimes very hard, and not always in a good way.

Sometimes, just when you think things are going really well, a general shitstorm of bad karma pops up. Ignoring it doesn’t seem to help. Any helpful suggestions would be greatly suggested.

It’s nice to have dogs to snuggle with, especially when you are bemoaning your lack of an actual human being to snuggle with.

Cat claws were not intended to be used as doggie labret piercings.

The scent of mothballs makes me extremely physically ill, and after smelling them I can taste them in the back of my nose for nearly a week afterward.

My basement smells like moth balls.

Dogs like alarm clocks that make nature sounds. Especially the “stream” one that makes babbling brook noises and has birds chirping. Maybe it makes them feel wild.

Nowadays, it doesn’t take the sound of birds to make me feel wild. I’m starting to suspect that this might be a problem.

Tristam and Gillian and Jeff and I took a Cosmo quiz tonight. I am a “Change-Craving Chick”. Cosmo warned me of the dangers of being someone who is constantly changing - apparently I am in danger of missing out on opportunities because I’m too impatient to wait for things to get better. If I don’t like something, I just change to something else without giving it a chance to get better. (The more you know.) I thought this was rather telling.

like karaoke, but different

There’s a world inside your eyeball
I can see
what you see
and Lord, it’s just disgusting

Why do I taste like chicken?
Oh, I like to eat the human
in the pot o f gold
Oh, I like to eat the human
but this one’s covered up in mold
I left him in the bag too long
I should have kept it closed
The r efrigerator would be the p lace where I
…. take off your clothes

Some people say they like women
(there aren’t enough chords in this world that I know)

You t old me that you wanted my baby
I didn’t know you meant for dessert
But your last meal has given you scabies
I know you’re in a world of hurt

She’s my acne spotted love
She fits me like a pimpled glove
When I’m on that freezing bus
I’m covered in your … pus

Who needs pot when we’ve got songs?
We can do this all night long
With Alicia in her fuzzy grays

I met her down in Mexico
It’s a country filled with tomatoes
and cilantro

(No, no no no. Mexico is not inspiring enough.)

(This is the problem with doing this so late. You start o ut with a rhyme in mind, and by the time you get to it, you’ve totally forgotten what it was that you were going to say. )

Oh, baby I fear
that there’s a pickle in your ear
it’s making you do all kinds of evil t hings
when you took the e xam
in the history wing
you had to blow up that freaky little thing
in your pants

(Grunk is totally hosed. He’s not drunk, he’s just tired and singing pickle strap-on songs to the tune of “If y ou’re happy and you know it.” Also, I’m on Mike’s old laptop, which likes to put in random spaces. I took them out at first but now I’ve ceased to care enough to do that. Because I’m tired. Also, I have to be at the Empty Space at 9:30 in the morning. Jesus. )

My baby
she told me she loves vegetables
I thought she was a salad freak
but when she goes to bed at night
she don’t look at me
I’m an enemy
She likes tomatoes in her salad
tomatoes give her more pleasure at night
than the best that I can do
and when I say “Baby, well, I want to be your salad dressing”
but she d on’t give me her blessing
to eat
her
dessert

The couch a te my baby
it’s a mad plan by IKEA
I was tempted by the meatballs
and now I cannot see-her
no more
no more
‘cause the furniture has ended our relationship
funny, I always thought it would be the kitchenware
that would take you on a long long trip away f rom me
and into the cemetery
of housewares
When I put you in the fireplace
you tell me to close the damper
so you could see my FACE
You didn’t want to see my face
oh, baby back ribs
rose hips and wine
and I got tired of
listening to your whining VOICE
in the fireplace with the sofa

(Mike’s getting scary. In a minute he’s going to be singing “What’s he BUILDING in there?” or similar. He’s going through a weird minor chord poetry phase. Very dark.)

this is a song about teching
it goes a little bit like this
FUCK SHIT PISS HELL I DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT THIS ANYMORE GODDAMMIT FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK, AD NAUSEUM

(Oh my god. It’s 3:11. That’s a band.)

Flabbergasting the Ferocious Freesia Friday Five

1. What was/is your favorite subject in school? Why?

Symphonic Wind Ensemble, taught by the ever-furry Mark Running, teller of Greatest of Great White Hunter jokes and pontificator of silliness. I have never had a class that I enjoyed so much for so long - it was the bright spot in my day, every day, for three years. Especially senior year, because the SWE section leader seniors always felt like our own special brand of royalty. (Casie can back me up on this.) It was the one class I had that filled me, consistently, which this bizarre sensation that I had a lot of potential and could do anything. I miss that. I don’t have anything like that in my life anymore. The second-place class would be Jackie White’s Modern American Poetry class my senior year, which is where I first fell in love with Adrienne Rich and Pablo Neruda and T.S. Eliot, among others. There was something pretty magical about that class as well.

2. Who was your favorite teacher? Why?

Oh, I’d probably have to go with Mr. Running again on this one. He was such a goofball, but he made everything so fun. I really appreciated that, especially considering how stressful most of my other classes were. (Except for French, of course. We always had Andy Kim in there to keep us amused. I sat by him in that class for three years - minus the one semester when he was in the other class. I’ll never forget the skit we did about getting drunk and puking on a comforter and sticking it in the dishwasher. Those were the days.)

3. What is your favorite memory of school?

God, there are so many. I don’t know that I can pick just one. There were the lock-ins, and the Natural Helpers retreats, and the yare runs, and the early-Sunday-morning illegal intervises when we’d drink tea and play cards, and that time we fell asleep in one of the physics classrooms on the floor watching the thunderstorm out the window, and the surprise birthday party when Sindhu jumped out from under a bed and grabbed my ankles, and our SWE/Chamber trip to D.C. (and that concert in the mall), and all of those days tutoring little kids with Mike, and I can’t choose. I may be one of the handful of people in the world who ACTUALLY consider high school to be the best time of their life. Yeah, there was a lot of bad, but there was SO much more good.

4. What was your favorite recess game?

Flipping backwards and upside-down out of swings. Also, jumping off the jungle gym into the chopped-up-tire-pit. Giving NASTY cherry bumps on the teeter totter. Playing Transformers with Luis Marciano (my recently-imported Venezuelan buddy who called me “the ultimate friend”.)

5. What did you hate most about school?

I skipped 2nd grade. I hadn’t had a lot of friends before that, but afterwards I was a TOTAL pariah. Nobody would talk to me, and the people who did just teased me and made my life miserable. The boy who was the meanest to me (in 3rd grade) was this kid named Tim Beasley. I had to play Hansel to his Gretel in Music Class (with Mrs. Swickard) and we had to hold hands and sing and dance and I hated him SO much and was completely miserable… except for part of me that loved performing and reveled in the fact that I was better than he was. (My favorite part was when I had to teach him to dance. I can still remember it. I’d sing “Brother, come and dance with me” and he’d sing “I’m as clumsy as can be” and I’d sing “Right foot first, left foot then, turn around and back again!”) All other school-related-hates revolve around similar themes.

truth or dare, question #3

This question comes to us courtesy of Vince…

Here are all my YES answers to the Michael S. Lee Purity Test. {Editor’s note - for those of you who didn’t actually go to our high school, questions refer to the campus of the Illinois Math and Science Academy.} I don’t know how interesting this will be for anyone, but a promise is a promise. ;)

I HAVE…

1. Managed to piss off at least one teacher every semester due to frustration
2. Done this Inadvertently
3. Done a math exam on half a sheet of paper in black ink
4. Had a mattress thrown on you
5. Pulled an all-nighter for the hell of it
6. Pulled an all-nighter for work and got none of it done
7. Pulled multiple all-nighters in a row
8. Held picnics in the middle of the hall
9. Blasted Stairway to Heaven across campus as a security guard walks under your window
{Disclaimer: I am taking some liberty here, as it was not actually Stairway to Heaven. However, we had the screen off our window, and my roommate had just been smoking pot in the bathroom, and the security guard (who, I suspect, had a crush on said roommate) came and hung his entire upper body through our window for a few minutes to talk, and then left.}
10. Run after a car on the back road in the middle of the night, barking at it
11. Played a card game all night
12. Had an entire coherent phone conversation in a sleepy stupor and had absolutely no recollection of it the next day
13. Lost your socks while visiting a friend’s house
14. Said “Crapitude!”

This is the strictly literal version of my answers - if liberties can be taken with the questions, my score was (last I checked) somewhere in the region of 38.

speechless

Everything is too close to the surface today. It’s too raw or it’s too numb or it doesn’t make sense. A year ago today, my Peter sent me an envelope full of pictures dating back to when we first met, back in the fall of 1993. The note that was enclosed said just that he was glad to have me in his life. That’s the only thing that I really understand today - there are people who weave in and out of my life who mean so much to me, and if nothing else everyone needs to take a moment today and really appreciate that. Don’t take anything for granted. It can’t work that way anymore.

Nate sent me this today. I sometimes am a fan of Ani’s music. I only occasionally am a fan of her politics. However, at a time when words are failing me, there was a lot of this that felt real, and so I’m sharing it with you.

self evident
Ani Difranco

yes, us people are just poems
we’re 90% metaphor with a leanness of meaning approaching hyper-distillation
and once upon a time we were moonshine rushing down the throat of a giraffe
yes, rushing down the long hallway despite what the p.a. announcement says
yes, rushing down the long stairs with the whiskey of eternity fermented and
distilled to eighteen minutes burning down our throats
down the hall
down the stairs in a building so tall that it will always be there
yes, it’s part of a pair there on the bow of noah’s ark
the most prestigious couple just kickin back parked against a perfectly blue sky
on a morning beatific in its indian summer breeze
on the day that america fell to its knees after strutting around for a century
without saying thank you or please

and the shock was subsonic
and the smoke was deafening between the setup and the punch line
cuz we were all on time for work that day
we all boarded that plane for to fly
and then while the fires were raging we all climbed up on the windowsill
and then we all held hands and jumped into the sky

and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast
and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed
and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar looked more like war
than anything i’ve seen so far so far so far
so fierce and ingenious a poetic specter
so far gone that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb
and stumbling over ‘oh my god’ and ‘this is unbelievable’ and on and on
and i’ll tell you what, while we’re at it you can keep the pentagon
keep the propaganda
keep each and every tv that’s been trying to convince me to participate
in some prep school punk’s plan to perpetuate retribution
perpetuate retribution
even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution is still hanging in the air
and there’s ash on our shoes
and there’s ash in our hair
and there’s a fine silt on every mantle from hell’s kitchen to brooklyn
and the streets are full of stories sudden twists and near misses
and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters with tales
of narrowly averted disasters
and the whiskey is flowin like never before
as all over the country folks just shake their heads
and pour

so here’s a toast to all the folks who live in palestine afghanistan iraq

el salvador

here’s a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation
under the stone cold gaze of mt. rushmore

here’s a toast to all those nurses and doctors who daily
provide women with a choice
who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city
just to listen to a young woman’s voice

here’s a toast to all the folks on death row right now
awaiting the executioner’s guillotine
who are shackled there with dread
and can only escape into their heads
to find peace in the form of a dream

cuz take away our playstations and we are a third world nation
under the thumb of some blue blood royal son
who stole the oval office and that phony election
i mean it don’t take a weatherman to look around and see the weather
jeb said he’d deliver florida, folks
and boy did he ever

and we hold these truths to be self evident:
#1 george w. bush is not president
#2 america is not a true democracy
#3 the media is not fooling me
cuz i am a poem heeding hyper-distillation
i’ve got no room for a lie so verbose
i’m looking out over my whole human family
and i’m raising my glass in a toast

here’s to our last drink of fossil fuels
let us vow to get off of this sauce
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
and find that train ticket we lost
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river
and peeked into all the backyards
and the laundry was waving
the graffiti was teasing us from brick walls
and bridges we were rolling over ridges
through valleys under stars
i dream of touring like duke ellington in my own railroad car
i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches in a grand station
aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform and feeling the air on my face

give back the night its distant whistle
give the darkness back its soul
give the big oil companies the finger finally
and relearn how to rock-n-roll
yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there
so it’s time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets and clear the air
get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand
of someone else’s desert
put it back in its pants
and quit the hypocritical chants of
freedom forever

cuz when one lone phone rang in two thousand and one
at ten after nine on nine one one
which is the number we all called when that lone phone rang
right off the wall
right off our desk and down the long hall
down the long stairs in a building so tall
that the whole world turned just to watch it fall

and while we’re at it remember the first time around?
the bomb?
the ryder truck?
the parking garage?
the princess that didn’t even feel the pea?
remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?

can you imagine how many paper coffee cups
would have to change their design
following a fantastical reversal of the new york skyline?

it was a joke, of course it was a joke at the time
and that was just a few years ago
so let the record show
that the FBI was all over that case
that the plot was obvious and in everybody’s face
and scoping that scene religiously
the CIA or is it KGB?
committing countless crimes against humanity
with this kind of eventuality
as its excuse for abuse after expensive abuse
and it didn’t have a clue
look, another window to see through
way up here on the 104th floor
look another key another door
10% literal 90% metaphor
3000 some poems disguised as people on an almost too perfect day
should be more than pawns in some asshole’s passion play
so now it’s your job and it’s my job to make it that way
to make sure they didn’t die in vain
sshhhhhh…. baby listen hear the train?

truth or dare, question #2

This question comes to us courtesy of Tony…

This question can be answered several ways.

If the goal is to remove someone terrible from the rest of society, I would have to pick carefully. I would do my civic duty to remove the most dirty, useless waste of flesh from the world community that I could - and this spot would go to one of the two people I’ve known in my life that I consider to be “bad people”. I don’t feel the need to name names, and if you know me well you may very likely know who one or both of them are. Plus, if I started starving on the island, I could kill and eat them without feeling like I was detracting from the world’s gene pool in any real noticeable way, although I might have to pretend it was chicken in order to get it down.

If the goal is just to have someone I enjoy being with, I have several options. I might want to pick someone that I’ve known for a LONG time, because otherwise I would have no way to gauge whether I would be able to handle being AROUND them for a long time. (Does that make sense?) In that case, it would have to be Bill, since he’s the one person in my life that I’ve spent the MOST time with. He’s the only best friend I’ve ever kept for more than a year - he actually broke all the previous records four times over. Plus, he’s rash and rather fearless and wouldn’t mind crawling up trees and into caves and doing dangerous shit to help get me food. That would be good.

Alternately, I could pick someone that I would LIKE to spend a lot of quality time with but haven’t had the chance. Someone whose philosophical ponderings could keep me interested for years to come. Someone I feel like I could just keep talking to forever, because we’d always find new things to talk about. In this model, it would probably be either Ryan P. C. (I miss you, baby. What does Japan have that I don’t?) or good old Mickey, both of whom can talk up a storm about things I normally might not even consider, and who keep me constantly fascinated with the odd and mysterious machinations of their minds.

Of course, if the goal is to bring someone who wants nothing more than to be with me for the rest of their life, and who will take extreme joy in every hot desert day, then I would bring Piper. All of the people I listed would get restless after awhile and would want to leave, but she’d be more than happy to just have me and beach for the rest of time. That would be okay too.

truth or dare, question #1

This question comes to us courtesy of Yuki…

I decided that I wanted to learn to smoke. (This was also my first time getting drunk.) I showed up at good old St. Olaf my freshman year and ran into Erika Henriksen, a girl I’d met during the summer at the Meet’n’Greet for those of us who’d managed to get these great academic scholarship things (which I promptly lost due to poor grades.) She wanted to know if I could go with her to a party in St. Paul that weekend, at the apartment of a friend of hers who was going to school at St. John’s.

We showed up and promptly hit the bottles - and, not knowing any better, I poured myself a whole glass of straight Peach Schnapps, which I had downed fifteen minutes later. I had no clue how the alcohol would affect me, so I just kept drinking it. This was followed by three full glasses of vodka and lemonade - there was no sugar in the house, so to combat the sheer nastiness which was unsweetened lemonade with vodka in it, we chugged it while sucking on lemon Life Savers. Shortly thereafter, I had two LARGE SoCo Sours … each one of these drinks filling a 20/24-oz tumbler. By this point, I’d been at the party for about an hour.

By the time I hit the two-hour mark, I was feeling better than I thought was possible … during the in-between time, we’d taken a walking tour of the campus (in the pitch darkness) and had narrowly avoided staggering into several moving cop cars. Once we got back, I saw this girl smoking and asked her to teach me, since it seemed like the next obvious step in the sequence of total debauchery my college existence was turning into. Some really trashed guy in the living room yelled something to the effect of “Fucking A! Here you go, take these! Welcome to the Smoker’s Club!” and tossed me an unopened pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights, which I smoked ALL of in the next two hours.

I learned (and later forgot, of course) how to french inhale, how to blow smoke rings, how to fall asleep on a couch with a lit cigarette in my hand, and how to crawl to the bathroom when you can no longer stand. I threw up violently for five solid hours, all the while listening to Erika and her friends singing and playing guitar in the living room. In the morning, we woke up and ate chocolate donettes and drove back to campus. Six years of Menthol-smoking later, I still can’t stand even the scent of anything synthetic peach-flavored. (You can never tell which things are going to stick.)

it’s a big happy contest, don’t you want to play?
{inspire me, friends}

When my work life and my personal life get busy, I go all Mickey on myself and become so flummoxed by the mad rush of information going to my brain that I can’t pull one throught from the swirling melee to post about. As such, I’m having another CONTEST, of a sort.

My blog is going to temporarily become like a lopsided game of Truth or Dare. Do you have something you want to ask? Do you have a question that might spawn an interesting entry? A contest of your own? Open your minds, people. I promise - at least for the time being - to respond to any questions/comments/suggestions I get on THIS POST.

freesia’s flip-flopping fixation with friday five

I don’t like this week’s friday five, so I’m swiping questions from old ones. It’s a special choose-your-own-friday-five today.

1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year?
Starting a whole new life for myself. Buh-bye, long-term relationship I thought would last forever. Buh-bye, cozy apartment where I’d lived longer than anywhere else since I was 14. Buh-bye, cute fuzzy dog we got when we moved here. Buh-bye, best friend since 1998. Buh-bye, old life. Hello, total shambles that I called my new life. GOD, did my life suck for a couple of months there. The mere fact that I fucking survived that is a miracle to me. In the end, of course, it was all for the best - but it’s been a serious struggle to find a new home, to find new housemates, to make my existence my own again. I’m pretty proud of that. In most ways, I’m better off than I was to begin with. That’s good to know.

2. You’ve just won a complete collection of movies starring one actor - what actor would you pick?
I know, I know, you’re all going to laugh and taunt and mock, but it would be Angelina Jolie… of course, I’m already halfway there. Second/Third would be a tie between Julia Stiles and Gwyneth Paltrow. (It doesn’t really make sense to me either.) I’m also incredibly fond of Pauley Perrette and Fairuza Balk, but I don’t know that I’d want to own any of their movies.

3. How old were you when you had your first kiss?
Some of you have heard this story - I apologize. Skip it and go to #4. I was 14 and four months old. I’d gone over to Scott Bauer’s house for stir-fry. (He was a junior and a varsity wrestler - and as an older man and an athlete, that made him cool. Plus, he was old enough to drive.) We failed utterly at the stir-fry and ended up ordering a LOT of pepperoni pizza and watching some movie that had a lot of nudity in it. Oh, and his older brother (who was a freshman in college) was there as well. Needless to say, I was freaking out, because I’d never watched naked women on tv with older boys before. In any case, Scott drove me home, and as he was walking me to the door he says “Would you be mad if I tried to kiss you?” and I responded “Why don’t you try it and find out?” Now, that last part is exceedingly funny to anyone who knew me at the time (mostly Casie ;) because I was SUCH A GEEK back then, and I had racked my brain for something seductive to say to impress him and that was all I could come up with on short notice. I stood up on my tiptoes, expecting him to at least start off with something tame, and before I know it I’m nearly gagging from what feels like 30 pounds of cold deli-style cow tongue being shoved down my airway. Plus, we’d been gorging on pepperoni pizza all night, and the combination of those two things very nearly made me lose my dinner. He pulled away, and I immediately turned and spit everything I could get out in one load into the lawn. I said “Sorry - too much pizza.” as he was driving away … and I proceeded to go to my room and eat an entire tin of altoids. Within a week, Scott had asked someone else to the prom (without telling me that he didn’t want to go with me anymore) … his reasoning, I’m told, being that he didn’t want to go with someone who had a curfew. He ended up getting some girl pregnant before graduating high school and he’s currently in the Navy trying to support her and several kids. Go figure.

4. When did you first get online?
September 1993. I’d just gotten to IMSA and was told that I just had to get an account, so Katharina Bradley and I snuck into the training session going on in the CRC. (I never had to sign the Network Honor Code, either. We missed that part.) Within a month, I’d figured out what my dad’s email address at EIU was (he didn’t even know he had one) and by the end of the school year, I’d set up my family at home with email. I wrote my mother a letter (on the typewriter) at least once a week before they got email at home - and I don’t know that I’ve hand-written/typed a letter since.

5. Hey, baby, what’s your sign? Do you think it fits you pretty well?
I’m a Sagittarius … ooh, yes. I think it fits me to a T. Here’s a slightly different description. Someone once gave me a Sagittarius keyring that said “You are easy-going, charismatic, and popular with the opposite sex.” I think it’s fascinating how different the descriptions of the same sign can be - but all of the Sag ones I’ve ever read seem at least mostly right on. (This is probably the most complete one I’ve found online.) I am most definitely mutable - I want to be in a constant state of flux. Location, occupation, social group, hair color, something has to be always changing or I get really bored with myself. It’s been awhile - and I’m getting itchy. As soon as my paycheck is in my hot little hands (a week from today) something’s going to happen. I don’t know what yet … I guess you’ll have to wait and see.

and i think to myself, what a wonderful

I’m buying Tony’s Palm Pilot. Soon I will be high-tech and remarkably organized. I might even have a balanced checkbook.

Secondly, starting September 23rd, I am going to be apprenticing an intermediate acting class for 5-7th graders. I am so excited about this. (Baby steps toward the BIG dream, remember?)

Last but not least, I am going to be the Sound Op/AASM (i.e. I get to do the stuff Gilly doesn’t do) for Stage Door.

And here I thought I was going to have a boring fall…

i’m a tie

between

and

Amazing. Now it’s your turn! See what Care Bear you are.

gag me with a pitchfork

This is going to have to be quick, since I’m uber-busy at work for the next few weeks, but I had to share this. I called one of our schools this morning, and got their voicemail, which said…

Could you just barf?

a bit belated

To appease Jet’s endless hunger (and to please Cookie) we went out for Korean Barbecue this evening. Oh my God. I am so full. I can’t move, I can’t breathe, if someone punched me in the stomach (something that was threatened in the car on the way back) I would have to explode in true “Oh, my” fashion. Jesus.

I can’t talk about food. I might have to fall over. Gah.

During dinner, I was telling Jet about this dream I’d had a few days ago - I’d already told Yuki, and I was chastised for not putting the dream in my blog. So, here it is.

I had a dream the other day that very easily could have been an episode of Buffy. It was all very dark and creepy and had this odd surreal ambiance. Yuki and I were out in the middle of nowhere so we could go to/be in Mickey’s wedding. It was something rural Montana/South Dakota-ish. Lots of long fields, flat land, brief jumbles of trees - dark and tall and ominous. We have come here on a mission far more serious than being a bridesmaid or a groomsman - Yuki and I are the only ones who know that the girl that Mickey is about to marry is wrong for him. She’s not only a bitch or a cheater or a fake - she’s a demon. Yes, a demon. A real Buffy-style demon who is using Mickey - or, at least planning on using him - to open some sort of portal. She will suck the soul and the essence out of him but keep him alive eternally for her own nefarious demonic purposes. It is our goal, during the week proceeding the wedding, to sabotage it in every way possible. It was all very “My Best Friend’s Wedding”. We did everything in our power trying to convince Mickey that she wasn’t the girl for him - trying to be subtle, obviously, because he would never believe us if we said “Hey, your fiancee is a demon”. Of course, the demonbitch KNEW that Yuki and I knew, and so she spent the entire time fucking with us. Chasing us through the fields “Blair Witch”-style. But it was up to me and Yuki, and we had to save our friend.

Of course, just as the dream was coming to a culmination of some sort, my alarm went off and it was 7:30. Stupid work, preventing me from knowing whether or not Mickey got sucked by a demon. (At the restaurant, Jet made some lewd comment about WHAT exactly got sucked by the demon. I said I didn’t want to go into details since that part was not IN my dream.) Anybody want to analyze this? Knock yourselves out.