an exercise in self-indulgence

Every good idea I've had over the past week seems to have drained away with the congestion in my poor head. I've been trying to collect them, but I am too stupid when infirm to retain anything witty.

I woke up on Thursday with an unpleasant and foreboding feeling in my throat. By Thursday afternoon, I was firmly in the clutches of my illness, and by Friday, I was fully delusional and hallucinating with fever. If you think that sounds like fun, you haven't had a temperature of 102.7 in a long time. Went to see Dr. Jon, who told me I had either gonnorhea or strep throat. We used some clever deductive reasoning* to decide the strep thing was a better bet. So I went home with an armload of drugs, confident in my body's ability to make itself all better.

Fast forward to lunchtime, when Greg swung by the house to check on me, and found me crying in a cold bath with my clothes on. My throat was swelled nearly shut, and I was all pukey besides. I called the good doctor back and cried at him some, and he promised to come to my house, which he did, and he whisked me away to a land of air conditioning, cable tv, and chicken soup. God bless that Dr. Jon. And let me tell you, narcotics do wonders for improving one's mood. I'd have to say that the 24 hours I spent on the couch of the Flamboyantly Gay Doctors® were entirely pleasant, notwithstanding streptococcus.

So anyway, my recovery has gone smoothly since, and I think I'm just about 100%. I stayed in bed until Sunday afternoon, when Danny took me to see Evolution, and I had a lovely time, though my out-of-bedness was perhaps a day or so premature. But it was worth it. I rather expected that movie to be idiotic, and it was, but a really funny sort of idiotic.

And now, I'm in a perfectly wonderful mood. Day before yesterday, we went for a ride to nowhere in Shane's Jeep after work. Nothing makes me feel more thankfully alive than being jostled over rough terrain with the wind giving my head tough love. We drove through a particularly bumpy stretch of road in Lincoln, which was much farmier than I realized existed near my house. I was euphorically bouncing in my seat and mooing my head off to the farm animals we passed. We went off-roading lite on a trail in the woods somewhere -- Shane says it was a fire road. I don't know, but the bugs bit the hell out of me and I loved it anyway.

I'm beginning to live my life shamefully like a car commercial, but whatever. I'll take my joy where I can get it, even if my joy is remarkably similar to the big-bucks-vision of some hotshot ad-wizard.

* Not really. We were pretty damn sure straight off.

» Wednesday, June 13, 2001

I'm in a much better mood today, and greatly wish to wipe my palate clean of the onerously maudlin taste of yesterday's entry. Unfortunately, Calliope and Thaleia, my muses of choice, appear to be taking a long lunch break, and I can't think of a damn thing to write.

So, in lieu of an actual prosal entry, I'll just list things that are nice:

thunderstorms

snoutmeal

"burnt sienna"

the smell of fresh tar

the word "execrable"

"The Family Guy" episode with the Kool-Aid pitcher

the phrase "onerously maudlin"

sparklies to wear on your face and head

"enough to make a parson swear"

Shane's Jeep with the top down

"cornflower blue"

body paints

Cletus the Sad Bunny

"strategery"

Mrs. Krabappel

C. Everett Koop, or at least the concept of him

char

» Tuesday, June 12, 2001

I had a tape recorder with me last night. The following is a transcript. It's pretty bleak. Sorry.

I'm driving home in a pouring thunderstorm with blue-yellow lightning.

I just saw Chris. We're not going to see each other for awhile. I got to be pretty and dramatic and say, "Goodbye, Chris. Maybe someday I'll run into you in an IHOP." And I made him cry. And I guess I'm a little proud that I can still touch him that much, because he's such... a closed-off person. It didn't really feel good to see him cry. It made me want to gather him up in my arms... and be the one to fix it again. But I guess in another way, it did feel kind of good to not give him what he needed, even knowing that he didn't want it from me. So I'm driving home, and "Writing to Reach You" is on, which makes me feel righteous (earnest, melodic, pure)... and I miss him.

And I don't feel particularly clean, or like this is the end of an era. I don't feel at all like this is the end of an era, and that's good in that it indicates a stronger sense of self than in any other breakup... that I don't feel like I've ended and am beginning again. On the other hand, it leaves me with a lack of closure... um... a total lack of self-satisfaction.

I don't feel totally without beauty. I just pumped gas in the rain with bare feet... and a long skirt... it appealed to my inner aestheticism (*laughs*)... um... but really I'm just a girl who's failed again (*sobs*)... who's too fucked up to do it right. And given, I picked the worst person in the world to try to succeed with -- he's more fucked up than I am. This is a lesson... I didn't want to have to learn. That no matter how much we wanted it, it doesn't matter, we just couldn't make it work.

And ahh, a traffic jam. This is exactly what I need right now. A longer car ride...

» Monday, June 11, 2001

I am sick and cranky. These blasted pills make me wretched, and I have mosquito bites on my hands. And I have a headache. And the print that I did of my Cletus the Sad Bunny picture came out all washed out and over-contrasty.

And my legs are all sore. Yesterday, I had my long-delayed picnic with green-guitar-bill, the most pawsy of my former paramours. We took a basket to the woods behind Sachar and went for a "little" walk. Over an hour later, thinking ourselves horribly lost, we emerged at the edge of the quarry with scratches, bites, and a nearly unquenchable thirst for the carton of Five Alive we'd been lugging around. I got all dirty, which I love, and I had fun, but now I am a little sad-legs. I do have to say this, though. If you are anything like me, you've not had the refreshing, citrus deliciousness of Five Alive since you were in short-pants. But it's every bit as exhilerating as the box claims. I love all five fruits in Five Alive, and so would you.

» Friday, June 08, 2001

About a year ago, I was talking on the phone with Joe, discussing Muppet Babies. What a great and weird show, filled with random impossibilites.

In the real Muppets, the characters were evidently a range of ages -- some of that dictated by relationship; Obviously Robin was much younger than Kermit -- he was Kermit's nephew! But in the cartoon, Robin was an infant and Kermit was some kind of toddler. There was around a three year age difference.

Maybe Kermit just aged at an unnatural rate. I don't know. But how does one explain Skeeter? Who the hell was she, and what the hell happened to her? How much sense does it make, in a children's show, to add a character in a prequel series that you know, for a FACT, doesn't exist later? 'Oh, Skeeter? Yeah, she's dead. What? Oh, muscular dystrophy. Yeah, it was pretty ugly. She was a gymnast, you know.' That's just not right.

Maybe giving Kermit a sister would have made sense, seeing as how we know he has a sibling. But of course, one could assume he or she'd be roughly the same age as Kermit, toting the son Robin. This idea led me, in a tangential conversation about applying the "Baby-sized" (think super-sized) device to other media, to create first the cartoon "Beo-babies" and then the character "Baby Grendel's Baby Mother." I still haven't stopped laughing. Joe has. I don't blame him.

So, the other day, I started randomly laughing over Baby Grendel's Baby Mother, and Joe made the apt comment that while Beo-babies is funny in name, Star Wars Babies was muuuuch funnier in concept. And he's right.

Think about it. Animal was a little younger than the other babies on the Muppets -- you could tell because he wore diapers (but not because of his fragmented caveman speech, as that never actually changed) -- but why? Joe theorizes that it's because he would be too dangerous as a toddler. A whirling dervish such as Animal can raise only so much hell in diapers.

It would stand to reason that "Star Wars Babies" would also have the most dangerous character play the infant. Thus, you have a little lispy baby Emporor, who says things like, "I can sense your hate. Gooooooooo bye bye!"

But more to the point, the number one reason "Star Wars Babies" is a good idea:

"Baby Luke. I am your Baby Father."

» Tuesday, June 05, 2001

An elderly lady confronted Bertrand Russell at the end of his lecture on orbiting planets, saying, "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise".

Russell gave a superior smile before asking what the turtle was standing on.

"You're very clever young man, very clever," replied the old woman, "but it's turtles all the way down."

as told by Stephen Hawking, page one of A Brief History of Time, the only page I read

I am that old lady. Sometimes I can't believe I live in a world of science. But I'm fairly certain that it is turtles all the way down. Or something is, anyway.

I'm inelegantly superstitious -- I've never been to see a clairvoyant, as they are all charlatans and frauds, but I think my 8-ball might be the genuine article. I suspect one or the other of my cats is a shaman in disguise. I know: for shame.

My building has three elevators on the first floor, and I've constructed an inversely proportional relationship between the length of time I wait for them and the amount of good luck I can expect to apply to my day. There are three elevators with two separate buttons (two passenger elevators and one freight -- one button calls both passenger cars.) If the elevator is waiting on the first floor when I walk in, I am convinced that my day will progress swimmingly, as I am clearly blessed. Even better is when I walk in and the door opens automatically, without my pressing the up button. Of course someone has hit both buttons and taken a faster car, but no matter. It's still an unequivocal sign of prophetic significance.

A couple weeks ago, I walked in and both passenger elevators -- BOTH -- were waiting for me. And I stared at them for a moment, daring them to rise to the second floor while I stood in front of them. And they cowered and refused to budge. Yes, they did. And I turned on my heel and took the stairs instead, right up seven flights. I felt empowered. There I was, gazing upon the gifts destiny had offered, and I chose to make my own instead, and burn off the calories in my Apples -n- Cinammon Oatmeal while I did. I dissed the portent of glory! That's power.

And this morning, I walked through the front doors to see that there was an elevator opening up, and a man from some company other than mine was getting in. Wonderful. But as I watched (and he did too -- you can bet your boots he saw me), the doors closed a foot away from my face. Well. I had to wait a good long time for another elevator, and i desperately searched for the correct interpretation of this development. What did the fates have in store for me?

So I thought, 'Perhaps it's a metaphor for how humans will always get in the way of my good luck, how the forces align in my favor and then some guy always comes along and fucks it up.' and perhaps it is. But more likely, it's the final straw of ludicrousness. My guess is that it has no significance whatsoever, prophetic or otherwise, seeing as how i've had a perfectly good day. Better than good, actually. Damn fine.

Do you like how I drop the karmic bullcrappy the second I start losing the game? Nice.

» Monday, June 04, 2001

I find that I more overwhelmed and manipulated by sensory response than I've been at any other time in my life. I've taken nearly half a roll of film of the steepley roof across the street from my house. There's a tree half a block away from Greg's apartment that nearly kills me, it's so intoxicating.

And I think I've fallen in love with Radiohead. Or at least OK Computer. And I mean in love. It's stupefying. "Paranoid Android" makes me stammer idiotically, and I'm thinking of taking tracks three and four home to meet my parents. I want to roll around on grassy hills with the whole album and feed it strawberries. i think it's the real thing this time. We're really so happy together.

I can't remember if I get this sentimental every time the weather turns warm, or if I'm actually going mad. I'm rather hoping for the latter, if it's going down like this. I'm pretty dopey but awfully sweet, and I dispense, like Pez, excessively loving and optimistic advice to my friends and enemies alike. Yeah, from my neck. Shut up, smart guy.

» Friday, June 01, 2001

My hormones and environment are having a battle over my soul today. I crave chocolate and unreasonable arguments with loved ones. And yet, it's a sunny Friday and I'm expecting a roll of B+W film back from CVS any day now, and I ordered beautiful new sunglasses which should arrive tomorrow or the next day. they are prescription glasses, and I expect to be very fetching in them, and a good, safe driver besides. I think I'm in a good mood in spite of myself.

Shane just won fiddy bucks and I think that's pretty cool. I've never won anything, but it doesn't mean that God doesn't love me.

Trying to define the difference between Britney Spears and Christina Aquilera. Both clearly fetid -- Britney gives me bulemia-lite ... but Christina gives the whole world a venereal-disease-by-proxy, which, I think, in the grand scheme of things, is pretty much worse. What a skanky girl! She is a dirty stall in a mall bathroom! I think of it this way: Britney is the baby sitter who talks to her boyfriend on the phone the whole time, and tries on your mom's clothes, and hogs the remote, and exposes you to god awful pop music that will haunt you well into your teens.

But Christina invites her boyfriend over and hangs out with him in your parents' room with the door closed and kicks your dog and when your dad goes to take her home it takes a really long time. And by your dad, I mean your dad and not mine.

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