this imploding heart

Thanks, Alisha!

And when it lands will my eyes be closed or open

A friend who's wedding I recently attended sent me a book I leant her 6 years ago. It was first given to my by my then-boyfriend, and includes an inscription in his girly artist script in the front. She included one of her wedding pictures with the package.

---I've been having these weird dreams lately. The other night I dreamed about a family I attended church with when I was a kid. Two of the daughters, both about my age, had been in a car accident in which another girl (who happened to be the prom queen) was thrown from her car and killed. In the dream I was sitting in the chapel and I looked over at the younger daughter. She caught my eye for a second and then turned away, and that's when I noticed that her right arm had been amputated and left as this kind of overweight, exposed arm stump with messy scar patterns.---

Once, while my then-boyfriend and I were still dating, we were sitting in Tiny's parents backyard in Spokane in the middle of the night. A raccoon had climbed up into the yard and was skulking around. Then-boyfriend sat very still and started sending the raccoon psycic picture messages.

--I've also been having drawn out dreams about the election. In these dreams, both sides fuck with the vote count so much that the election is cancelled and the TV news assigns us a permanent dictator. I spend all my time afterward wishing I weren't so afraid to speak up.--

When I think about it now, raccoons are pretty fearless. Nonetheless, Then-boy got the thing to let him pet it, just by sitting still and holding his hand out to it for a half hour.
We lived 40 minutes away from each other, so we spent a lot of time trying to cultivate our psycic relationship over the 4 year span in which we dated. At certain moments in the day, I would think in his direction particularly hard and write down the time. In turn, if he thought I was thinking about him, he would page me with a certain code, and I would write down the time I received the page.

--I saw somebody shooting up in The Derby's outdoor basement (which doesn't access any other parts of the house) last week. In the moments between asleep and awake, I imagine him standing outside my bedroom window, which is particularly accessible compared to the rest of the house. I'm always afraid that when I jump up to make sure the back door is locked, it'll be swung open and Souxie will be screaming her face off in the room next door.--

Maybe there was some kind of regular time pattern we both fell into or something, but the system was particularly effective. The other example of this in my life is that my mother very rarely calls me, but will instead think about calling me for 15 minutes, pick up the phone, and let it ring in her hand. I don't know what percentage of efficacy this method has, but the first thing she says after 'Hello' is always 'I knew it was you!'

--Last night I dreamed that Cake called me fat in conversation with others twice. This is likely the result of having meat for dinner 3 nights in a row. I woke up totally pissed at him, but I got over it in an hour when I came to terms with the fact that Real Cake can't be held responsible for all the shit Dream Cake does. This is why you should never talk to me in the morning.--

The book arrived on the same day the 'Three's Company Incident' occurred. You may have suspected that the TCI was a much bigger deal at home than it was on ye olde imploding heart. While one might think the issue would be 'the Nakedness and the Girl', the issue was entirely 'how the Situation resulting from the Nakedness and the Girl was dealt with'. Ultimately having very little to do with any of the original situation, mostly having to do with the State of the Union in general.

--and, strangely enough, long drawn out dreams about NY. Maybe this is just because I want to be somewhere warm with Tiny and not have to work. Maybe my mind is disposing of all the short term memories and choosing what it's going to save permanently, but we are always riding the F train when the lights go out, in the seats by the between-car doors, both listening to one side of the headphones and holding hands like severed siamese twins with seperation anxiety.--

After the conversation, while we were both sitting around with red splotchy faces, letting our hurt out in puffs of smoke, I turned to Cake and said "My boyfriend from 6 years ago sent me a book via time travel and third person proxy today."

"What?"

"Somebody saw into the future and sent me something that they anticipated would make for an interesting emotional cocktail for me. So 7 years ago they made me give the book with the Ex's inscription in it to Mira, and then they made her hold on to it until a week before today. Then they delayed it at the post office because it had my old address, and finally the postman delivered it today so that once I left the Eerie Sitcom Circus that was your house, I'd find a package from my Ex Spacebrain Psycicpowers boyfriend at my house. Don't you see?"

"Do you think it works in my favor?"

"I don' t know...

I can never figure out what any of my dreams mean."

Keep me searching for a heart of gold

We got to stand in my parents front yard and watch the earth's shadow pass over the moon last night. My dad and Cake had walked up the hill to look while mom and I were making dinner, and they both came back wide-eyed and enthusiastic about how beautiful and amazing it was. They watched the World Series and compared fight stories and said hell and damn to their hearts content.
My mother leaned over to me in front of the oven and whispered: "I think he's a nice boy, Sonya."

all the flowers you find out

The chains of reception have been cast off for a few days in favor of filing and Someone-Elses-Job learning. While this significantly decreases my access to Der Intarweb and my lifeblood of useless information, it also allows me -if only for 3 days- to go to the bathroom whenever I want. I'm closer and closer to my career goals as we speak.

all swinging you around

There was so much I wanted to tell you about today.

How the bar gossip just got wilder after every pitcher.

How Breakfast revealed extensive information about my skipping/dancing partner and his wedding requirements. (she must have hair. There is a footbridge and a funny coincidence involved.).

How AWESOME (the band) is Awesome (the adjective).

How an authentic southern meal = going to bed at 10.(GRITS = girls raised in the south)

But just a few minutes ago, my boyfriend answered the door naked and hungover, announced "There's a girl in here, but it's not how it looks', sent me away and then frantically called me back when he realized* that -in Womanspeak- he had just plainly stated: 'I was just cheating on you when you knocked.'

It was so 'Three's Company' that I almost fell over the couch.

*See: the girl on the couch told him

Its a beautiful day, and I'm starting to feel a lot better

And the biopsy results are!

(drumroll, cymbal crash)

NORMAL AND HEALTHY!

(the camera swings through the audience to my cervix who is waving to the deafening crowd)

Cervix "Thank you! Thank you everyone! I wouldn't be the pinnacle of health I am today if it weren't for every single one of you. I love you all."

summary

And I know it's not
that you don't think I'm smart.

You do.

And I know that it's not
that I don't think you're smarter, sometimes.

Sometimes you are.

So why is it, when I'm pointing at the red birds
and I'm saying "Hey, those're red birds. Have I told you how the red birds call?"

That you're looking at the end of my finger
and you interrupt with "No, THAT is your finger."

But.

"Look how much it looks like your finger!"

Yes.

I know it's my finger.

But just past the end of it,
were some red birds.

got a mind that can steer me to your house

Work wise, if it didn't ring or come up and look at me, it didn't get done yesterday.

But I had planned for this. I uppped the production on Wednesday and did a little more than I had to, so that when 1:30 rolled around and I was trying to think of Prosecute and could only come up with Persecute, I wouldn't be distracted by the nagging pile of To Be Sorted over there.

I finished the works cited 10 minutes before my ass was supposed to be stuck to that orange plastic chair with the little fake wood desk attachment. It was 3 pages longer than it was supposed to be, but I suspect that 3 pages over is way better than mostly not done at all.

I've got my hands out

After both of my girls received totally-unrelated-but-with-a-uniting-theme-of-utter-shittiness emails last night, it was decided that we would buy a pizza and open a bottle of wine and shit talk some assholes into another dimension. Shit talking in and of itself is an exciting activity, because you get to sit around thinking of the worst things you can call somebody.

"That dude is a lower intestine."

"What? A lower intestine? What's bad about that?"

"No, no, she's right. Lower intestine is good. It's a nasty, dirty place."

"How about shitfactory instead?"

"In a way, we're all sort of shit factories."

After boston won and we all jumped around the livingroom squealing like the junior high pep squad we are, it was somehow decided that Damnit! We're Going Out.

We met Camp Vassar, who's Third just returned from Italy (lucky bastard), for drinks at the Canterbury. The Canturbury was "packed like a fucking saturday" according to our waitress. We chalked it up to Boston's victory (and, I suspect something film related, because I noticed a third of Seattles film geek tribe milling around, stealing chairs.)

I was already in fine form (uphill drunken running form, that is) when we left the house, so after a few more glasses of wine I was ready to slyly poke everybody in the boob with a highlighter and try to crawl under the table (getting stuck) for a different seat. Also, lots of winking. Love me some winking.

After a shockingly cheap bill (considering there were 7 of us), Roxy and I put our hoods on and tied them down tight and skipped most of the way home. Actually, we had to stop so I could cough and laugh so hard I almost passed out.

To top it off, Souxie somehow bought the best Reggae album I've ever heard in my life, so we three derbies and our lovely derby guest sat, smoked, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

I wrote exactly 0% of my paper. Lets go!

Annex Theatre Presents 'Ghosty' at ACT theater

DATES & TIMES: Sunday, October 31st (6pm-midnight)
LOCATION: ACT Theatre (700 Union Street) in the Bullitt Cabaret (map)
TICKET PRICES: $7 door (All Ages, Complimentary Snacks, Cash Bar - IDs required if you plan to drink.)
RESERVATIONS: 206.728.0933

$7 dollars gets you in the door. Your own wits will allow the ghosts to freely depart.

This was a really fun event last year and it's a good way for underenthusiastic adults to get a little halloween on without going crazy over it. I think I'm going to be a mummy.

Dear Eye Tee,

Thanks for the new-new (non sucking, not bigger than my TV) monitor. I guess the computer related plot against me is off, so I take back all that bad stuff I thought about you and your plans to make serpents come out of my mouth.

Love,

Sonya

if you want to survive

I was participating in that all time lady-favorite activity, watching the boys play NFL Street on the PS2, when Cake mentioned something to J about my Fall Crush.

I panicked a little.

"What?"

"You're fall crush, remember? On me?"

"OH YEAH! For a minute there, I thought you meant my *other* fall crush. I was thinking 'Why the hell did I tell him about that?'"

It's just that time of year. I want to move and quit my job and drop out of school and make bad choices and become a rodeo cowgirl with a bad temper.

Hello Wake Up Wake Up

I have quite a lot of paper to write by Friday. Not as much as I had thought I had. It's 10 pages vs 15 pages, but in Five Paragraph Essay land, the difference between 10 and 15 pages is the difference between "These are points and arguments I think are well rounded and pertinent" and "These are points and arguments that are almost total marshmallow fluff crap but can't really be edited out because they're, like, 2/3rds of the 13th page and I want to watch Adult Swim already!"

The problem with trying to write my papers at work is that I also like to write my weblog at work, and until my weekday entry is complete I have a really hard time thinking about any other writing. I'll go to summarize the introduction and instead try out a few lines about how The Derby has a moth curse. I'll try to come up with a rock solid thesis and instead think about how Taxi Dispatchers have the same job I do but they don't have to be nice. I sometimes make 2 or 3 never-published attempts at posting a day and if I haven't come up with anything satisfactory by 3pm, I start writing and stick with whatever crap I get. This is where I hope my writing actually shows improvement, in Last Ditch Effort Land. If my crappiest writing is better than my crappiest writing used to be, we're going somewhere.

The point is that in order to complete my paper in time to get it edited, I'm going to come here and stick with my first attempt, first thing in the morning. In the afternoons I might post portions of the little paper for your copywriting/editing delight, or I might come out swinging like I've got post traumatic stress syndrome and cursing like I was raised by 14 year olds. Wait and see.

taking what they're giving

GAAAA! I'm pissed about inconsequential things and if I had a higher paying job I'd be throwing a fucking tantrum right now. Unfortunately, those who make the least are not allowed to throw petty fits (if they know what's good for them).

Don't Point

The day before I went to Idaho with mom and dad, I got a call at my office from my doctors assistant.

"Ms. Walker? This is Jen from Dr. P's office. Your PAP smear results showed some abnormal cell growth. We'd like you to see an ObGyn for some additional testing as soon as possible. Are you available Thursday the 14th?"

"Uh....ck....I'm sorry, what? You found? ......Yes, the 14th will be fine."

"Do you have any questions?"

"What kind of abnomal growth, specifically?"

"Well, there were a certain number of deformed cells in your cervix, we need to go in and check the rate of multiplication."

I don't know about you guys, but in my family, when we talk rate of abnormal cell multiplication, we're talking cancer.

My dad developed a rapidly growing skin cancer when he was 23. His mother was certain he was going to die, but they cut a chunk of his calf away and removed his lymph nodes in that leg and caught it all. He hasn't had a problem with it since, save the swelling caused by a buildup of scar tissue around his leg arteries.

But when they said 'cervix', my whole world shifted axis for a second.

I'd never before considered the possibility that I might lose the capacity to carry a child. I talked about it with both Roxy and Cake, and they both assured me that, should they cut away my birthing parts, I'll be able to adopt or harvest eggs and have some other lady do the birthing. That there were tons of kids in the world.

(New Realization with the suggestion of egg harvesting: Pregnancy is a huge sacrifice of love that a mother makes for each of her children. It allows the mother to guard and protect and feed that child from the moment that the cells start to arrange themselves. She endures nearly a year of discomfort to keep her child safe during it's most vulnerable time. She gives it enough of herself for it to become a new human life.
I really don't care if my child is made up of my cells, but I desperately want to be able to keep them safe in my body for a while. Once they're out, its pretty much them against the cold and sharp-edged world, and you can only protect them so much. )

I should note that as soon as the lady was off the phone, I decided that -until proven otherwise- I was perfectly healthy. We could talk about the possibilities of cancer, but no actual worrying would be allowed.

I told my parents about it on the car ride over to the Gem state. We agreed to approach the situation as it unfolded, never before. My whole family fasted on Sunday and my parents fasted again yesterday. (When it comes to sickness, my family are fasting and praying sons-a-guns.)

I had my appointment yesterday. I'll spare you most of the gory and intensely uncomfortable details. (I got them all out of my system with Josh and Trixie last night.)
Essentially, the ObGyn said it's not cancer, but it might be this other thing that's kind of like cancer, but more controllable by your body's immune system. She cut 3 thumbprint-sized chunks away from my cervix, and we'll get the biopsy results soon.

But it's not cancer, and she said she had no intentions of cutting out my parts anytime soon. Whoo Hoo!

No one defines

Remember when you reached in the refrigerator for that bottle of juice you finished half of earlier and when it came out -for just a second- it looked exactly like that stupid thing you said at a party last year? Hot and Angry right away, you dropped the bottle and tried to close your own mouth as tight and fast as you could.

That's the reason no one knows about the machine.

Remember when you spent all your time with your hands spread wide running around the perimeter of the playground? You thought that if you ran fast enough and around certain trees a certain number of times you would just lift right off the ground. You'd zip right over that chain link fence and out of your town, over your house, over the mountains to outer space. Or a jungle island. Or Alaska, where a kind hearted native would teach you the ways of the arctic and give you oreo cookies. And you would never open your mouth too wide and let all the wonder spill out, so no one would ever look at you and make you feel like your brain was broken and then shoved back together in a way that lets you see through the holes in light and read stories that grow in tree bark.

You would never play house and say "Yeah! Then the ghost of the REAL grandmother whispers unwritten songs through the water tap!" You would never read aloud in class and use different voices for each character. You would keep your mouth closed so only pins could slip out.

That's why no one knows about what you've built.

It looks like a satellite dish. One of those big old take up the whole yard satellite dishes. It's made from the eggshells of hatched birds and abandoned hornets nests. (You've been collecting the materials since you were eight.)
On the nights when you can't sleep for all that pent up wonder, you wander out into the yard and slowly, deliberately begin to turn the crank. After 20 or 30 turns, the sky looks like it's bending in instead of out, and you can faintly hear it coming toward you. Every little outburst. Every noise we all make in our sleep comes arching through the sky toward the dish.

When you were six and almost seven, that's when you first saw them. During naptime on your mat, you watched the other six and almost sevens while they slept. You wondered how they kept their mouths so small and always knew which things were regular and which were strange. You watched their tiny mouths and noticed that when those little sleeping sounds come out, they're letting off pressure. Every little sound was a bit of wide mouthed wonder, escaping into the atmosphere. That's when you first thought of building it.

You continue to turn the crank and watch as the sounds start to gather in the dish. All the bits of wonder start to gather and rotate. You crank more deliberately and the dish begins to spin. All the little pores, the eggshells and hornets nest octagons begin to agitate the edges of the sounds, and they start to turn colors. You work harder and faster, realizing that you should probably make this into a pedal instead of a crank. The wonder is starting to pop out like droplets of water in a frying pan. You turn the crank as fast as you can and without taking a breath slam your free hand down on the lever. The wonder shoots out of the center of the disk and explodes in the sky like a firework french kissing a northern light.
You fall back in the grass and stare, mouth open as wide as it will go.

Hold me now, don't start shakin'

Cake prepared another delightful meaty meal yesterday. Bisquick Chicken with gravy and rice. I always make fun of the poor boy because in matters of leaving the house and food preperation, he's a bit of a lady.
In other words, he takes a long fucking time.

So after an hour of cleaning the burners and the underburners and who knows what else, the chicken is in the oven, the rice is on the stove, and we're watching the eerily-Democratically-slanted* PBS program that compares Bush and Kerry in their early careers. ("This is the only picture we found of George attending Harvard..")
When suddenly Cake is up and moving in a way that indicates something is a lot wronger than it ought to be.

Have you guys ever heard of a pyrex baking dish exploding into tiny shards of pyrex glass in an oven? Neither had I.

So all the grease from the chicken has fallen to the bottom of the oven and started on fire. The fire is licking the bottom of the now-only-wrapped-in-foil-and-glass-shards chicken, and there's glass all over EVERYTHING. Sweetheart is wondering why God seems to hate him while he uses his already-second-degree-burned-at-work hand to pull the oven rack over to the sink. The fire burns itself out while I stand in the livingroom in my underwear.
(explainations: 1:I can't help but take my clothes off immediately when I get home. If only for a minute. 2:The unspoken-but-clearly-expressed rule is that I'm generally not allowed in his kitchen. It's not personal, it's neuroses based.)

I crept away from his ruined-meal distress, put my shoes and dress and sweater on, dug around for my wallet and scooter keys and sat down on the couch.

We had hamburgers and pasta from Charlies. If the chicken hadn't died an infant death, it would've kicked the burgers asses. Poor Tasty Poison Cake.

*slanted to the extent that all the republican shit is slanted, bad music for W and defiant patriotic music for Kerry and everything. Just not something I see much on TV.

just burning out and stuck in line

Hello all you handsomes.

We've got quite the selection of mundane topics. I'd love to knock your socks off with some either/or action, but all I can really muster are things like "Why can't I live in a cave?" (besides the obvious answers). "Can I be a liberated woman and still be a housewife? The option of being able to spend all day organizing my house sounds awesome." and "Is it really *that* weird that I made an extensive list of all the perishable food items in our refrigerator? I don't think it's that weird."

So as you can see, sweet butternut muffins, not a whole lot going on. Here's a short list breakdown:

Cultural anthropology is making me want to drown myself for being a U.S taxpayer.

It's difficult to debate with my father because he believes a lot of things that I consider to be lies and I believe a lot of things he considers to be lies.

It's totally crush season./Every Derby Girl has a new cut and color*.

Seattle wants to tongue-kiss you with leaves.

I'm ready to drink a beer and listen to your favorite record with you.

*We're now officially a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.

you'll never know dear

"What were you crying about in your sleep last night?"

"What? I wasn't crying in my sleep!"

"Uhhum, yes. You were. I was watching the sports highlights with the sound off and I heard you start whimpering. I ignored it at first because you whimper in your sleep a lot, but then you started all out crying. I gave you a hug and tried to comfort you and you settled down, but then a few minutes later you were at it again."

"Thats so weird. Did I say anything?"

"Nope, just cried and cried."

Or is it someone else instead

My weekend was filled with moments that scooted up next to me on the piano bench and muttered under their breath "This was your life. This is what makes you who you are."

My nephews won their football game by 41 points, and my sweet, younger, nephew (who recently grew several inches taller than most the other kids, and thus is a bit clumsy yet) made a tackle all by himself in the last few minutes of the game and they announced his name over the loudspeaker and everything. It was awesome. (He's number 55 below, and my oldest nephew is standing next to him, number 64)

We stayed the night at my sisters house in Central Washington. She lives in a town with a population of 300, and they all have their yard sales on the same day. We got up in the morning and set to one of my favorite activities of all time: Looking through weird, cheap stuff that people have had in their houses.
There's a beautiful house in the town that was built in the beginning of the century. The entire third floor is a ballroom, but the previous residents were so poor that they used all the hand-carved wood from the pillars and balconies to heat the house. Breaks my heart in so many ways, I can't even tell you.

We headed to Idaho in late afternoon and arrived in the early evening to stay with my dad's long time best friend and hunting partner. He was butchering a moose on the kitchen table when we arrived and I thought to myself "I don't think most of my friends ever expect to walk into a house and see a gigantic bloody ribcage on the table." It was strange to sit and watch the familiar process of cutting the meat away from the bone, inspecting it for any hair or dirt, cutting away the tendons and excess fat, placing those in one bowl and the meat in another to be wrapped.

Mom and Dad and I changed clothes and drove over to the church for my nephew's baptism. My dad did the baptising. I sat in the 2nd row for the service and my mom lead the music with 18 family voices singing out behind me. Some of them cracking into adulthood, some of them voices that taught me to read, some of them making up their own words for the verses and singing loud during the choruses since they're not old enough to read themselves. Chocolate cake in the gym afterwards. Tooth fairy stories, all the smallest ones blurry from never standing still. We went to a buffet afterwards and I overheard my oldest neice explaining why a comment my Jr. High Aged nephew made was racist.
Sunday morning at my oldest sisters house with the puppies that've adopted her family.

talking endlessly to anyone thats there

It's really awesome when I forget my manners and have a donut or some candy or a box of brown sugar for breakfast, because I'm a pistol for the first hour and puddle for all hours remaining.

Mom and poppa are picking me up at one to go to Ritzville for the V. Football game. I'm finally starting to understand how people can look at full grown adults and say "You're so big! You were just a baby yesterday!" when I think of my eldest 2 beautiful baby nephews being big enough to slam full force into other 6+ foot 200 pound lightly-mustacioed babies. If they weren't so much bigger and stronger than me I'd still pick them up and sing to them.

Dad wants to leave "as close to one as possible!". Which means that, no matter what, we'll leave at 2 and anything that goes wrong over the weekend will be blamed on our late departure time.

I'm going to try and swing Dad's vote this weekend, but I'm having trouble contesting some of his views. He thinks we were justified in invading Iraq because Saddam H. was an evil man who raped and killed his own citizens. He doesn't care about WMD's or the Oil motivation or the fact that he was lied to. So that boils my limited debating skills down to: "But dad, we can't just invade anybody we want because we don't like the way they act." because his response is: "Why not? You think we should let him continue to rape and murder? You support rapists and murderers? That Kerry is a hippie."

Time on my hands mostly time spent with you

I had the kind of evening yesterday that quietly nudges my shoulder and whispers "See? Remember? This is why you like the long grey winters. This is why you stay."

B rant made dinner while Roxy fetched a film and did a dance. Souxie at the ready with the wine glasses and laughing off a day full of seven year olds. Napping alone in my room, required reading spread out around me with the clothes I've picked out for tomorrow.

Checz movies at Camp Vassar with coveted kittens and a shoulder to lean on after another glass of wine. Another glass of wine and the outside couches for smoking and 'How hot is Maggie Gyllenhaal. Totally hot.'
Before you know it, 1am. Walking through the dark and the way the dark is now also wet and smells like the sound when I'm almost to Cakes and how the sheets smell like boy.

Not to mention, new haircut.

You know who's friend you want to be?

Paul's.

10-5-04 (If they wont you just cant force them)

It’s all about family today.

I got a letter from my grandmother yesterday. She lamented her inability to work in the garden as much as she wants because of her aging ankles and feet, told me about the family and the yard as usual. The interesting part of her letter is regarding her husband, who's miscellaneous health problems often require her to stay up all night making sure he doesn’t die in his sleep from hypoglycemia or what have you. The eldest children in the family are making arrangements for him to be put in a home, because the stress is killing my grandmother. I know that she’s personally terrified of being put in a care facility of any kind. In her letter she writes, “Oh Sonya, to tell you the truth I hope the Lord takes him home before that time comes. Then he can be with his wife and siblings and free of the trouble this body has been giving him lately. Is that a bad thing to say?”

Cake always says that I’m aching to be old. That youth is something I do as a step to becoming a successful old woman. Hearing my grandmother praise the merits of death (as my family believes it to be) is very comforting to me, because I suspect that if I make it to my old lady destiny that death will be a good friend who comes calling instead of a spook who touches your thumb while your head is down.

Being old doesn’t sound too bad to me. It’s all this being nervous and tired in the middle that scares me.

I’m going to Central Washington and N. Idaho with mom and dad this weekend. 2 of my nephews are in a football game in Ritzville, WA on Friday night, and then my other sister’s son is being baptized on Saturday afternoon. I’m missing my friend Web’s movie premier for the football game, and almost everything in me would really, really rather stay in town. But the other factor at work here is family. I’ve been realizing lately that perhaps I should start being a better family member, now that I’m a bit more tolerable. I’ve spent the past 5 years cultivating friendships and professional relationships and blowing off my parents to do cartwheels on the beach in the middle of the winter. I’ve had a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong. But when it comes right down to it, if I ever have to show up on somebody’s doorstep with a duffle bag and a drug problem, I’m sure my chances of being taken in are better when I show up on family’s doorstep.
I feel like age difference and life experience have driven a big wedge between my sisters and I, but I really enjoyed talking to my oldest sister last time I was home, and I know I’ll be sorry later for every moment I missed if I don’t start showing up now. I may always be the black sheep, but I’m THEIR black sheep, and I know they’ll love me whether I help them move or not.

10-4-04 (If you go out in the woods today)

Hello my loves.

I’m posting in a word document to put up when all things mastered by the Sqweb Master are back up and running. (We heart the sqweb master!)

OH MAN, we camped our asses off. After a very “Turn this way! No! THIS way!” ”What does ‘this’ way mean!!!!???? No pointing allowed!” kind of trek out to the land of Bavarians, we found that 2 of our fellow campers had arrived, set up the tents, defeated some cougars with their bare teeth, then finished a bottle of rum and a half rack of Rainier to fend off the arctic winds. We remaining 5 got right in the spirit of things by polishing off 3 or 4 magnums of wine and a 12 pack of High Life so they wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. It is damn cold out there in the woods.

We frolicked in the darkness until we were all half or entirely sick. (Oh magnums of wine, you are devils in blue dresses if ever I’ve seen them.)

On Saturday we basked in the glory of the great outdoors. I took a personal excursion into the brush to look for animal prints and firewood. I saw an elk or moose track an inch longer than my palm and just as wide, and what may have been a beaver dam. I also found a wrapped-in-plastic bundle of firewood out in the middle of the brush. When I emerged from the trees with my pre-packaged bundle of future warmth, my comrades did not bow down before my excellent foraging skills, they laughed out loud that I appeared from the darkness like I’d just gone to the store. I redeemed my foraging cred by later finding a fallen tree with lots of thick dry branches that Souxie and I carried down the hill in a blanket like supertough motherfuckers.

Also on Saturday:

Sam and Scott (of Camp Vassar fame) built a raft out of tree branches and pliable twigs. Sea fairing but not weight bearing, we sent her off down the river with a christened name that I think we all promptly forgot.

When naptime (see also: sleep off the leftover hangover time) came around, we were nearly ripped to shreds by a ferocious bear that came within a hundred yards of our campground and then promptly ran away. Nobody but B-rant actually saw Ferocious The Bear, but I sang her a ode of happy foraging anyway. It went like this:

Dear Ferocious The Bear
Please don’t come and eat us
We have products in our hair
That make us smell like sweet-stuffs

Noble Ferocious The Bear
I hope you can find some berries
Take some salmon to your lair
For you give us all the scare-ries

Not so great, but made up on the spot, so lets not be choosy about our impromptu ballads.

Sunday:

Derby Girls Gone Wild in the Wild!

Man, they call it Icicle Creek for a reason.

We decided a sub zero swim was in order before we hauled our rotisserie smoked asses to Leavenworth for some authentic Bavarian cuisine. With girls upriver and boys down and around the bend, we stripped down to the outfits we were born in and braved the frozen-ten-minutes-ago water. It was a chorus of “EEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAA!” in the water and a verse of ‘YAAAAAAGHHHH. YAAAAAAARRRRGHHHHHHH! I’M GONNA DIE!” once we were out. Then I had to take a second dip to wash the nature off my ass.

Derby girls dried off in the sun and discussed the possibilities of nature dresses made entirely of leaves and branches, Garden of Eden style.

If you haven’t been to Leavenworth, you’re missing out on one of the weirdest, sweetest places ever.

A giggle when you talk, makes the world go round.

As far as hours go, I just had one of those ones. The sun came out, I got coverage for my lunchbreak, I walked up the hill, got an excellent pre-camping sendoff from Cake (see also: 'Don't you make out with any of those boys! Make out with this one. Right here.'), skipped all the way down Olive at top speed (WHEE!), got whistled at in a non-creepy timbre, saw Souxie driving down the offramp (she just started a weblog!), bought a sandwich and some juice and got back just in time to find that there was BABY CAKE! Of the CARROT VARIETY!

It was FIERCE AWESOME!

(man, the words 'fierce awesome' make me laugh and laugh and laugh.)

Is it a bird? NOOOO! Is it a plane? NOOO! Is it the twist? YEAAH!

I'm in double trouble this weekend. Annex is throwing not only Hothouse, but Spin The Bottle and an important company meeting. I really, REALLY want to attend all of these events. People I love are in them, Ben is going to do his Alien V Predator remake(!), Erin's going to play the marimba on the stairs and almost everybody I know is going-to-be-in or has-worked-their-ass-off-on Hothouse*.

But I got invited camping 3 weeks ago, and since I haven't had a day planner since I quit stage managing, I said "You fucking bet, bitches!" and did my excited-about-camping dance (which involves a mentionable amount of butt shaking and some invisible maracas). My father gave me my favorite sleeping bag of his (it's a double and it has that weird old hunting fabric on the inside. red and tan with pheasants and deer, you know what I'm talking about?) and an ancient Coleman cooler with aluminum sides and a hook clasp. I bought some grey courderoy pants and a thick pullover hoodie at VV yesterday, and I'm so excited to romp about the woodlands that I'm about to burst. ABOUT to BURST, I tell you!

I hate having to choose between them. While I feel more obligated to Annexercise all weekend, I've also been feeling that the encroaching winter has decided to make me pay for the beautiful summer I just had. It's the first day of October, and I've already had the mean reds for 2 weeks. Usually, this time of year, the only escape from the reds is to get out of town for a minute to catch my breath. I wrote a nasty dishwashing note yesterday, which means that accidental dish-breaking is only a week away and falling-down-face-scraping is only a bit behind. (Thats just what happens. I get crazy, I start breaking things, I start falling down.)
So camping has been chosen for everyone's sake. I hope annexers will forgive me. Derby Girls and Camp Vassar are going to take me into the woods and romp all the sad out of me.

Really, it's in all of our best interests.

*I'm especially proud of you, Trixie.