a self-diagnosis without webmd.

i have reason to believe that my job is causing me gastrointestinal problems. i've just made the connection today, and my gastrointestinal activity will have to be monitored for the next few weeks, but i definitely had sudden sharp pains in my abdomen when i got assigned a stupid project that i only have a day to do when the person who has the other half of the project has had at least two weeks to work on hers.

and for the record, i'll get the damn thing done in one day, just to show them
a. how kick ass i am
b. how stupid it is that a person should work for two weeks on something that could be done in a couple days.

irritating. just three more months... mario says i should bring alka seltzer and sprite to work.

*sigh*

great. i'm watching law & order to unwind.

seriously.

in other, more amusing, news. at the bus stop this morning, my waiting companion was a guy in dirty jeans and combat boots wearing a backpack. which is great, except instead of waiting patiently, he decided to power walk out to the middle of the street and stand there. and then he came back to the sidewalk and started doing quad stretches, which also entailed him hopping around on one foot. he also did some lunges and some calf stretches and he also sat down on the sidewalk and did some stretches there.

all of this in jeans and combat boots. i tried hard not to stare. and i mean, hey, i might just be an asshole, and he might have been on his way to the gym.

but maybe not.

and maybe my gastrointestinal problems aren't stress-related. maybe it's all the ice cream bars i've been eating.

but let's be honest: i'd rather give up stress than ice cream bars.

zzzzzzs!

salsa and sexy dress night two nights in a row = awesome.

but now i'm really tired. and have $3 to my name. so... thanks a lot, bills. you're stealing my money.

i think tomorrow will be a cleaning day. finally get those dirty dishes clean, get that pollen crap vacuumed off my floor, get those clothes put away.

my house is warm. when i sleep at night, i kick my covers off and still feel warm. yum.

and even when i wear my "engagement ring", i still get hit on. even by girls. i just can't win.

feeling awkward.

i just realized that these are my last months living on the west coast for at least 3 years.

i feel funny.

confessions.

so. i've been watching lifehouse videos with amaya on youtube (youtube is evil) and becoming nostalgic. for what, i don't know. i've blocked out most of those four years. i really have no distinct recollections or fond memories of high school. it's not because i didn't have a good time then -- i had a great time. but all the good times i had were had in spite of my circumstances. i had a good time as a giant fuck off to all the crap i was going through.

and i'll be honest. my experience in high school wasn't the worst thing to ever happen to anybody. but it certainly wasn't the best, and even at this point in my life, if i had the chance to do it all again i might do things differently. but there's always the trade-off: if i went back and did things differently, i wouldn't be who i am now. of course.

if i wanted to go back, what would i have done differently? i don't know. when i was 15, 16, 17, i didn't know anything. my world was tiny and wrapped up in certain things and certain people. these things and people were my everything, and when anything shifted, my world literally fell apart.

i don't like to think about these things. i live in a state of denial when it comes to these things. i pretend that this era of my life had no impact on me whatsoever, that i'm immune to adolescence and pre-adolescence and all the crap that comes with it -- tard boyfriends/not-boyfriends, plastic friends, shit talking, low self-esteem, uncertainty. especially living somewhere like winnemucca, whenever we found anything or anyone worth holding onto, we grabbed on and fought like hell to keep it. it didn't matter if it was a person, a teacher, a band, a poem, a novel, a film, a quote. if it got us through the day, that was enough. if it got us through the night without crying on the floor for hours, that was enough.

but i look back at those times, all those nights spent driving around with whomever talking, crying, yelling, all those nights on top of winnemucca mountain where everything was put into perspective, all those lunch hours spent hanging out with setzer after AP, even all those nights crying, and that's what i'm nostalgic for. that lethal mix of desperation and hope and longing and love and reaching. that feeling of infinite possibility stretching out in front of us. it was large and overwhelming and something we were completely head over heels for.

i look back at those times, and i don't remember what it felt like to feel all that. i don't remember it until i listen to silly bands like lifehouse and everything comes flooding back. my adolescent experience is woven into those chords, the voice inflections. i remember what it was like to feel desperately in love and have the future be the only thing holding us up. i don't feel it anymore, but i remember it, and tonight it's enough to fill that void where i remember nothing.

if given the opportunity, i wouldn't go back, and i wouldn't change anything. sometimes, i wish that i could, but then i wouldn't know this evolution of being simultaneously happy and sad. instead of longing for what i don't have yet and what is in my future, i long for what i already have. it's a difficult thing to explain, and until you know what i'm talking about, you won't know what i'm talking about. but it's a tremendous flood of that lethal mix, but perhaps a little more grown up, or a little more mature. whatever all that means.

so thanks, adolescence and every bastard who made me cry. i'm here in spite of you. i breathe and i love semi-functionally. take that, assholes.




yes, all this from listening to lifehouse, a white trash band.

it reminds me of this:
mario: "i don't get it. you're so pop. you're so pop, but you write amazing poetry. it's like eating cheetos and having them come out of you healthy."

fire.

so my house caught on fire this weekend. we'll just say it involved running around in my backyard in the dark looking for a hose, 911 calls, firefighters, angelic bike riders, women screaming and carrying around my 13-pound cat for 40 minutes while firefighters tromped through my house with big fans to blow the smoke out. My house smells like I've had a campfire burning inside, except with burned plastic instead of marshmallows. I can't get the smell out, and sometimes I wake up smelling the smoke and panic.

i've been a ditz for the rest of this weekend. i think that's okay though, since i spent my friday night fighting fires.

i need to clean up my clothes piles and make sure there aren't any slightly embarassing articles of clothing lying around. insurance people are going to be tromping around my house assessing smoke damage so... superfun.

the things that comfort me:

- Cozzie Coz


- lattes from huckleberries
- walks in the sunshine at manito park
- mutual apologizing after a huge fight
- dancing spastically in the car
- sleeping
- dance movies
- singing along to the following:





don't hate. i didn't say these things were cool.

dude,

my face hurts.

allergies, go home. get outta here. return from whence you came.