veiled exuberance

none shall pass.

my computer has just recovered from a *serious* error.  it was SO serious, in fact, that it couldn't even tell me what it was - and then that stupid, "do you want to report this error to microsoft" box kept popping up and wouldn't go away.  stoooooopid!  so i restarted it and we have FUNCTION!  yay.  i must spit.   (brushing my teeth.)

today was a day of immense satisfaction and joy.  ok, that's a lie.  it was not so much that as a day when i tidied up a lot of projects that were giving me major work guilt - as in i've put this off far too long, it's almost embarrassing.  but several are done, and i've got several more to do tomorrow.  and then i can stop feeling that tight knotted "WON'T" feeling in the pit of my stomach (is that really an anatomical area?  THE PIT).  i also talked to r. about yesterday's frustration and she talked to Big Sister, and we got an answer i could live with - which is that they aren't going to install the program because there are a lot of different versions to support and we don't need to be offering that level of support - just try what's on the help page and then if we can't figure it out from there, get the vendor involved.  i don't really like being the go-between between vendor and patron - it would *still* be better if they could communicate directly with someone there.  i still think it would behoove us to have staff more familiar with the program(s), but i am in the minority, i guess.  *shrug*  in my ideal library?  where i'm in charge?  i would run things a lot differently. 

the bunnies were crazy ravenous tonight.  they kept climbing my legs while i was trying to eat my dinner and begging for food.  and later, when i was stretched out on the floor trying to read, they kept hopping into my book to see if i had any other Tasty Treats for them.  powder, in particular, will just eat what i'm reading if he's hungry enough.  that's obnoxious.  i had to pay to replace a library book once, because in the 5 minutes that i left him unsupervised he managed to chew up the cover and spine.  destructo-bunny!  it's really dry in here, tho, and carpeted in the bunny room, so we build up quite the charge walking around in here.  every time powder came over to chew on my book, i put out a finger and zapped his nose.  it was a good deterrent.  never thought i'd be harrassed by bunnies to the point where i'd want them to LEAVE ME ALONE, ALREADY!  but i tripped over each bunny at least a couple times, and nearly pulled the table cloth off the table (and all the stuff on top of it) trying to escape their attentions at dinner.  sheesh.  bunnies of persistence.

posted by: juuitsu at January 31, 2007 03:04 | link | comments (2) |

i feel ranty.  and irritated.  yay.

and i don't have time to fill in the rest at the moment.  so it will have to wait.

*the details*

someone called the desk today and wanted to know how to use one of the downloadable audio book services that we're currently providing.  at one point the programs for this particular service were loaded on one of  the reference computers...but not the terminal i was at and possibly not at all.  so i tried to walk her through some things to see if i could figure out what her problem was.  and it got to be really frustrating not being able to see what she had on her computer - but even more frustrating was not being able to see what the media console looks like AT ALL.  because it wasn't there.  and it's not like i have it memorized.  and people ask about it all the time.  and we're supposed to be able to help them with it.  but, you know, it's damn hard when it's just not there.  so i thought, maybe this is an oversight, and we're supposed to have it installed, you know, to help us troubleshoot things.  so i mentioned it to p., who was the next person in line to try and help this poor person (because she actually uses it at home).  she couldn't figure out what was wrong either.  and together we decided to talk to the ADMINISTRATOR of Such Things and explain how it was a case of the blind leading the blind and couldn't we please, please, pretty please get the program installed on our individual profiles?  then, when things like this come up, we'd have a clue. 

apparently that's too much to ask for.  because the response was a bewildering side-stepping i'm not going to answer your question with anything useful like "yes, we'll install it" or "no we won't install it."  it was something like, "wasn't that at one point on a reference computer, and wasn't it also on r.'s profile?"  and isn' t it convenient that the only way to access it at the desk is by using the *general* login (not our individual ones, which we've been *told* to use), and the only actual person that has it is home sick?  argh.  is this any way to RUN things?  i am so *frustrated* by this.  it doesn't make any sense to me at all why we wouldn't give all reference staff access to a program that we're expected to SHOW people how to use.  p. thinks that the reason is because (ack, i can't even keep my aliases straight today.  i'm going to need to make a list.  and for now, i'm gonna go with Big Sister,  which is the female stand-in for Big Brother, who we all know is watching us - every move we make, every step we take, every single day, every word we say...) Big Sister thinks we're going to abuse it and, i don't know, have FUN or something - because we are all about the fun.  and i wish she would just *say* that.  "We Don't Trust You Not to Use This for Evil."  i really hope that p. is wrong, and that there's some other, better, actually makes sense reason.  and if i were to ask someone else, point blank, right now, WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD (AND/OR BUNNIES) is Big Sister so damned determined to make our lives DIFFICULT, it would probably come out something like that.  because i'm irritated.  so, i'm going to have to wait until i can say it nicely.

in addition, the security lockdown they've got us under also makes it impossible for me to download other things - like updates to programs that i *do* have installed on my computer (like, for my alternative browser, for instance), and i have to bug the IT guy if i want that done (the last time he acted like it was a special favor...and i'm not sure why).  is it against the laws of the universe to want to use firefox instead of IE?  apparently.  (blatant overreacting!  hyperbole!  whee!)  and, if i get cd roms sent back to me (i order them for the collection) and there are notes attached to them saying that they don't work, i have to get the IT guy to test them for me, because i can't install shit on my work computer.  i'm not going to take stuff like that home and use my *own* machine.  and, i'm going to have to use my own computer to work out this online quiz thing that i'm doing for february, simply because it is impossible to install and try anything out at work.  it's getting to the point where it'd be *more* convenient for me to work from home (because i don't have to traverse 5 levels of hell every time i need to get something done).  i'd say the primary reason it's not finished yet is that i RESENT that i am being forced to work on it AT HOME on my OWN time.  stop stealing my time! 

posted by: juuitsu at January 29, 2007 18:37 | link | comments (4) |

i was just watching some cirque du soleil and thinking it'd be nice if i were all flippy and acrobatic like their dancers are.  i'll have to work on that - without injuring myself.  for my first feat, i shall balance on one foot (feat not feet).  ta-da!  *applause!*  thank you!

posted by: juuitsu at January 28, 2007 04:10 | link | comments (3) |

i went to the gym this morning because i thought dot was teaching her weights class, but imagine my surprise when it was someone completely different.  how disappointing.  dot is my favorite.  i also like anita - she is a little powerhouse.  :)  dot's doing some kind of yoga workshop for the next several months, so she won't be teaching on the saturdays that i'm actually free to attend.  which sucks.  at least class was smaller - we had 11 today (down from 26 last time i went during Prime Time Saturday).  ugh.  since i like the class so much, i've actually gotten up a few times to go to the 5:30am one.  believe me when i tell you how much that sucks.  i hate getting up early.  ideally, i'd sleep in till about 9 or 10 in the morning and then get up and do things.  unfortunately, life is not on my schedule.

i had some snacks (breakfast #2!) when i got home and then somehow forgot about eating again until 6 this evening.  and then i was RAVENOUS.  i took myself cross country skiing - got some skis a few years ago and now i feel compelled to use them *even* when i know that the cold will make me cranky and miserable.  :)  i wore my rain pants over some longjohns...and when i got home, the longjohns had wicked all of my perspiration away from my legs and...into the inside of the rain pants - which was weird, because it was, like, raining inside my pants?  ew.  drying out now.  on the way home i stopped at the new gihugic walmart monstrosity that just opened up.  JUST opened up, as in every person in town must be there for the Grand Opening of Doom.  their produce sucks, and nothing was so on sale that i couldn't pass it up.  i was there for about 10 minutes when an old woman with a full cart nearly plowed into me.  i skidded to a halt and was nearly crushed by a mexican family.  FRIGHTENING.  after that i'd had enough of the crowds and had to leave immediately.  sometimes i just have no tolerance for crowded spaces.  none.  and sometimes i'm completely fine with it.  being ravenous probably had something to do with that.  i tossed around dinner ideas - you know how dangerous it is to be grocery shopping when you're hungry (everything looks/sounds good).  i really want tacos for some reason, but, you know, not what i could pick up at taco hell...but actually *making* tacos seemed like way more work than i wanted to do.  so then i thought i'd stop by mcdonalds...but it's bad for me.  so then i said SCREW IT and went home and heated up the pasta that's in my fridge.  and?  i'm content now.  also?  there was still one piece of apple pie left - forgotten in the freezer.  mm.  pie.

i was off most of this week using some personal time that i'd accumulated and then forgotten about.  they sent out this memo at work saying that all of our unused personal time would expire the 1st of the new year - sent it out at the end of december.  what the hell?  and after what must have been a great disturbance in the force, they said we could have until the end of february.  so.  i hung out with my folks since i hadn't seen them in awhile.  we did some things, we ate some food (sushi!  on boats!  and pizza!  and salad!  and dim sum!), and i napped a lot - like i was hibernating.  i feel like i've needed a LOT more sleep recently.  is that because it's dark and gloomy out?  i just don't *feel* like being awake and alert.  it'd be so much nicer to curl up and snuggle someone and dream for a really long time.  *sigh*  not happening anytime soon, i guess.  *grumble*

so!  the big news while i was gone from work is that this woman in sun city shot her husband.  sun city is one of those retirement communities, where you have to be at least 55 (or something like that) in order to own property there - no one under the age of 18 allowed.  actually, i don't know the real restrictions.  it's marketed as a "seniors" community, though.  so!  this woman was having an argument with her husband, and he was having the last word again, i guess, so she took out a gun and shot him.  and then continued the argument.  he continued bleeding.  she eventually called 911 and they came to sort things out (and get him to the hospital - he's in fair condition as of friday).  it made the front page of the local newspaper.  :)  it's just so funny...in so many ways. 

friday was national "have fun at work" day.  we talked about it on thursday and everyone in my office agreed to bring in something fun.  i brought koosh balls so i could juggle, and storylady brought in a deck of cards and did a card trick for us, and p. brought in her favorite movie, and d. had games for us to play and ICE CREAM.  we got down our box of dress up hats and everyone wore a silly hat.  well, i wore a tiara (not a hat).  it was sparkly.  people kept asking me if i was special, or if it was my birthday.  no, really, i just like any excuse to put on sparkly stuff and gad about. 

yup.  i think that's all the news.

ooh.  except that i made fudge a few weeks ago.  in my wok.  bet you didn't know that was possible.  me neither.  first time i've ever made fudge.  why not a wok?  :)  i haven't made much use of this wok, btw, so at least now i know A use for it...plus?  i like telling people that i made fudge in a wok.  it makes their eyebrows do funny things.  *grin*

posted by: juuitsu at January 28, 2007 01:13 | link | comments (4) |

oberon and i went to see Visions of Light on friday night - atalee judy (solo dancer) performing an interpretive dance of joan of arc. based on some research and personal experience with a schizophrenic parent, atalee believes that joan was *also* schizophrenic, so this piece d' art was supposed to reflect that.  we got there pretty late (traffic!!!) and the show was half over.  what we did see seemed intense in...that pretentious self-important kind of way.  you know, the stereotypical performance artist.  we arrived in the middle of a projected video scene where atalee judy, aka joan,  was out in the woods striking poses in the sunlight in her chainmail.  then she came on stage and did some dancing in this beam of light projected down across and through her by someone dressed...like an angel, maybe?  she seemed like some kind of benevolent angel or consciousness who was watching joan's decline and gradual spiral into imprisonment, insanity, and death.  joan throws herself down on the floor after awhile, and somehow falls out of all of her clothes except for some briefs, so when we next see her in the light she's naked from the waist up.  it seemed like there was either something very sheer over her naked parts or she was wearing pasties or paint or something.  i couldn't figure it out.  she spends the next segment of the show painting letters and words on her face and arms and chest and then rubbing them all out.  the angelic woman in the background is singing and crooning softly to her and taking her skirt apart and flinging the pieces in the air - it's made of white plastic bags that flutter slowly down to the stage.  that seemed to symbolize the disintegration of joan's sanity (at least that's how i interpreted it - who knows, really).  then the angelic presence spends a long time washing joan's face and body free of the paint/ink, then exits the stage, still singing.  joan drags herself up and into this low hanging sling and does some interesting dance/spinning things (the program notes say this is a 'low aerial performance' with a 'contraption that Judy rigged called 'the noose'').  and then joan dies.  there's a short video section after that that possibly celebrates and/or documents her life (program notes reveal that it's supposed to be a sort of phoenix rising from the ashes thing).

i think we missed the most interesting bits - with the explosive dancing that atalee's supposed to be known for.  and since we came in during the middle, i wondered if i would have been more involved in/moved by the performance if we'd seen the whole thing.  but that sort of battles with my skepticism about people and things that try too hard to be cutting edge and avant garde, you know?  there's this episode of Spaced (British series) where a bunch of the characters go to see this performance by an artist known as "Vulva."  you know Vulva's got to be over the top.  and the whole point of his/her performance seems to be to make those who *don't* get it feel like shit.  if you don't have that artistic mentality, that ability to appreciate the finer things, the nuances of dance and metaphor and their breathtaking or chaotic juxtaposition...you get the idea, right?  but it's all, you know, nonsense, and Vulva's just doing fuck-all whatever on stage.  the people clapping and raving about the performance have no idea what just went on.  they're afraid - just like the people in The Emperor's New Clothes - to say that they don't get it, or that they don't see what they're supposed to.  so they praise whatever it was. 

so, anyway.  it didn't completely suck.  you couldn't tell what the angelic singer was singing, really, but that didn't bother me as much as it bothered oberon.  i thought her singing was just supposed to be a sort of mesmerizing backdrop to joan's insanity - why would it have any meaning for the sane?  plus?  joan was french, right?  so i didn't expect any of it to be in English anyway.  on the scale of things sucking, this was much, much better than the christmas show we saw a few weeks ago.  :)  plus, you know, i like experiencing bizarre new things. 

posted by: juuitsu at January 22, 2007 00:58 | link | comments (4) |

i feel a little like i've lost the ability to prioritize.  all around me there's all of this stuff that has to get done eventually, and instead of oh, maybe doing the things that *should* get done first, i just start working on whatever happens to catch my attention first.  and then a few minutes to a few hours later i switch to something else - regardless of whether i've finished the first thing or not.  which means, oh man, lots of unfinished projects hanging over my head.  this is the coping mechanism i developed in grad school when i only had free time in quantities of an hour here and an hour there and never big chunks all at once.  it was effective...but it makes me feel totally flaky.

so here's what i've done and didn't finish today:

1. i put the clean dishes away but didn't get around to washing the dirty ones (yet)
2. i started my taxes, but didn't finish them - mostly because i don't have one piece of information.
3. i paid all of my bills that had accumulated on the windowsill here next to the desk.  i find that if i pull the blinds down on top of them, i can ignore them for awhile.  then i filed them so i could stop looking at them.  that's one thing that's deceptively done...cuz i know that i'll just get more.  done for now.
4. wrote some postcards to oberon.  i am now out of postcards because i a.) used up all the ones i'd made a couple weeks ago, and b.) gave o. the package of notecards i was going to start in on next.  doh.  so i'll be using cardboard (which makes a better drawing surface for some things anyway.
5. started putting stuff together to bring to my folks' house, since i'm going visiting.  i'd sort of planned on going over this evening, but i'm not ready or motivated, so i guess it'll be tomorrow.
6. stopped putting stuff together to bring to my folks' house because i decided that i might get some of it done tonight - thus eliminating the necessity of bringing it along.  (that'd be a relief, actually)
7. thought about starting and/or finishing a number of other things, which i never got around to starting OR finishing.
8. almost finished the Series of Unfortunate Events book that i'm listening to - Carnivorous Carnival.  i'm not really a fan of these books so far as reading them goes.  they're predictable in that something bad always happens, and reading them is like watching the same thing happen over and over again.  i can't stand that.  but.  listening to them?  is actually fun.  because Tim Curry reads most of them (and sometimes Daniel Handler - aka Lemony Snicket) and they're amusing.
9. i'm slowly attending to some of these piles of things i've left in various places.  it's a bad habit to get into piling things.  i might turn into my mother.  ack.  bom piles.  at least i have fewer things to keep track of.  so long as i keep the amt. of stuff down, i should be ok.

posted by: juuitsu at January 22, 2007 00:18 | link | comments (2) |

oof.  rib tips.  i really, thoroughly, enjoyed these rib tips.  except that there are bits of meat stuck in my teeth, and my fingers still smell like barbecue sauce - even though i washed my hands 3 times.  but, yum.  and purrrr.  i appreciate being well-fed. 

pyong-pyong is sleeping in her litterbox again.  her nose is propped up in one corner and all you can see are it and two ears sticking up behind it.  eeeeeet's aaaaaaahliiiiiiive!  god, can you imagine?  anthropomorphic litterbox!  BNL! (band name list)

so, on monday night i finally got a call back about that apartment i've been so curious about.  yeah.  it only took them THREE weeks to get back to me.  makes you wonder about maintenance.  i shudder to think.  i watched my phone light up and ring and when i saw who was calling, i yelled, "I KNEW IT!" just like jennifer grey in Ferris Bueller's Day Off when she discovers that Ferris is *not* home sick.  because this ALWAYS happens.  i'd just told my landlord that i was going to renew my lease only the previous evening and now, suddenly, people start returning my calls.  (oh, and incidentally, i knew the number NOT because i'd memorized it, although, come to think of it, i HAVE - fucking hell - but because i'd programmed it into my phone since i was sick of looking it up.  it was filed under whatever buttons i hit randomly - .tgpi, i believe).  so.  agonizing moment while i listen to the message and find out the apartment's still available.  what to do?  i called her back.  her = brooke.  brooke = the lady with the apartment to rent.  moving on.  brooke's really nice and she tells me all about the place and it *sounds* really cool over the phone - 2 bedrooms, hardwood floors, in a renovated schoolhouse, off-street parking, utilities included (but not electric or gas for the stove - same arrangement as i have now and YAY gas stove!  much preferred), has lots of character.  you'd go see it, too, right?  she's also willing to show it on tuesday night.  double yay.  if i have to make an awkward phone call to my current landlord, i want to do it as soon as possible. 

tuesday night...brooke's husband is waiting for me behind the building.  in his ESCALADE.  man, i HATE those.  i hate them *just* as much as Hummers.  i think bad thoughts about brooke's husband.  he's friendly enough, though.  i decide to overlook - for the moment - his gas-guzzling behemoth in all its FUCK THE ENVIRONMENT magnificence.  grrr.  we go inside.  it is nearly pitch black in the stairwell.  brooke's husband starts up and i can't see a damn thing.  i say, "hey, aren't there any lights?"  and he stops, kind of embarrassed, and says, yeah, they're here...somewhere.  we find the lights.  much better.  except that now i can see the staircase and there's all of this...stuff that people have out in the hallway and landing.  that's not good.  i don't want to see other people's stuff.  especially when it's not particularly nice stuff.  *sigh*  oh the things that are wrong with this place...  let's make a list!

1.) the door is a translucent glass on top and wood below and looks really really flimsy.  also?  you can hear whatever other tenants are home through these doors (and through the walls and floors as well!).  i'm not generally really loud, but when i AM, i sure don't want other people being privy to it. 

2.) directly inside the door is the kitchen.  it's...not very exciting.  bad wall paper (i have some really atrocious wall paper here, too, but, you know, while i'd never pick something like this out for myself, it's strange enough that it's good).  bad linoleum.  the sink is FILTHY - like, nasty filthy.  brooke's husband says, "i can see brooke was right - it *does* need to be cleaned."  i'll say.  and maybe you should have done that before agreeing to show it to me?  stupid.  one good thing about the kitchen are some wood cabinets built into the wall.  those are cool.  nothing else is.

3.) the diningroom/livingroom area is big, but oddly shaped.  it needs to be painted.  i can't imagine my stuff in there.  it, too, is filthy, and the lighting fixtures are some of the ugliest i've ever seen.  it leads into an interesting sort of sun room, which, under normal circumstances, i would really really like.

4.) except (and we're moving onto the sunroom proper, so i'll make a new number) that the carpeting in there is foul, the paint is coming off the walls, and there's LITERALLY a broken window.  um.  that doesn't seem safe.

5.) the bedrooms are tiny.  not such a big deal, since the place where i live now has tiny bedrooms, too...but it's not just the size that's a problem.  one of them has a sort of built in armoire thingie that's just sort of standing in an odd place.  it's attached to the wall, but right in the middle, so it's kind of hard to imagine where you fit your furniture in around it.  the other bedroom has a decent-sized closet, but it's the only decent-sized storage space in whole place.

6.) the bathroom...is shoved into a strange corner like an afterthought.  i'm not even sure how they decided to put it where it is.  the nice-ish bedroom is off the livingroom and the bathroom is sort of diagonal from it, except that makes it sound like there's a lot of space in between them...when, in fact, there's not.  it's like a couple steps from the bedroom and the livingroom.  i'm not explaining it well.  suffice to say, you could miss it.  and that wouldn't be a bad thing.  it, too, was filthy.  the tub had more than one ring and some nasty dark foulness on the bottom.  the shower curtain was ripped down and trampled on top of that.  lovely! 

7.) i ask brooke's husband, "so, how do you feel about people altering the apartment's look?  would i be able to paint it?"  and he thinks it over and says, "sure, if you were planning on being here for a long time."  um.  whatever that means.  you know what?  he lost me at the kitchen.  i don't even know why i'm bothering with the rest of it. 

8.) we go down into the basement.  there are storage closets for the different tenants (4) but they also seem to keep various pieces of old furniture down there as well - wherever they can find space for it.  it's much creepier than the basement in my current place (which was recently renovated and is much much less creepy), and it's slightly less creepy than the place i lived in urbana - which gave me the willies.  i can still hear other people talking.  in the basement.  not good.

after i see the garages and more stuff that people have left blocking hallways and whatnot, i'm *really* ready to go and not ever come back.  brooke's husband, i think, can sense that i'm not into it.  he hands me some application and background check forms and says, "just in case you're interested!" in a cheerful sort of way.  we part.

i can't BELIEVE they want $850 a month for THAT.  i can't believe they showed it to me in the state it was in.  i can't believe that they thought i'd like it like that.  you live like that when you're in college/grad school because you HAVE to.  and no one charges you $850 a month for the privilege.  i don't want to live in any more shitty apartments, thank you very much.  it would have taken SO much work to make that place hospitable.  TOLERABLE.  and i realize that i've become increasingly picky about things over the years.  but if you compared it to where i live now (guess i should have snapped some pictures, eh?) you'd have chosen to stay, too.  damn the convenient proximity to stuff and things.  i realized that if i was going to put that much effort into something - to make it nice - i wanted to own it.  and i wanted to be paying a whole lot less to live there while i made it gorgeous.  and i don't have the energy to do it for something temporary.  so that's where i am.  and it makes me angry that these landlords obviously don't care.  it could have been a really nice place, except that they haven't kept it up, they obviously don't put much thought into who rents from them, and they take your money and buy...ESCALADES.  yeah.  it wasn't meant to be.

posted by: juuitsu at January 18, 2007 04:33 | link | comments (7) |

wee flakes of snow are swirling around the windows here and it's getting late-ish in the afternoon (nearly time for me to go out and answer questions).  i've been *training* people today on how to use the new version of Internet Explorer - WITH TABS!  because folks are way confused (and by 'folks' i mean staff).  it's been amusing.  what i've learned: people don't notice the tabs - they're completely foreign to them and have therefore been rendered invisible - so we have a lot of pages being opened and then subsequently lost.  as a result, i'm teaching tabs...but, i also know how to turn them off.  MY dilemma: do i show people how to turn them off right away, or do i pretend that tabbed browsing is the *only* way to fly?  *evil grin*  yeah.  they'll never try it if they have the option not to.  i kinda like them.  in IE.  but i don't use them in firefox.  so, i'd be a bit of a hypocrite if i don't eventually give them options.  is that bad? 

posted by: juuitsu at January 17, 2007 21:49 | link | comments (3) |

so it's all over ice and snow in the street down below and it's got me wondering if there will be enough to close the library tomorrow...  sure doesn't look like it.  that was more of a passing thought.  it must have lodged itself in my subconscious, however, because i'm totally acting like i'm not working tomorrow by staying up so freakin' late.  yes, yes, it's  not *that* late yet, but it's all about weaning myself off the computer and then wandering back and forth up and down the hallway a few times doing pre-going-to-bed type things, and then there's things to do IN bed - like finish up that book i'm reading, or write a few postcards, or finish that thing that i told JM i'd be sending him.  too many projects, not enough me to get them all done.  and, now i've decided to write this (obviously) so i'm not doing so well with numero uno - weaning myself off the computer.

i have this desire to write and say things en Español, ahora, after having seen "Pan's Labyrinth" today.  even after reading things about it, i had no idea that it was going to be in Spanish.  details, shmetails.  i sprained my brain trying to understand the Spanish speaking and the English subtitles simultaneously.  ow.  so this is my brain limping along with some of its neurons in a sling.  isn't pretty. 

SPOILERS...
stop reading now if you don't want to know what happens. 

so, all of the screen shots of the movie i saw prior to going were of Ofelia's fantasy world - the faun, and the creepy eyeballs in the hands thing.  and from those i assumed that most of it was going to be taking place in a kind of Alice in Wonderland environment.  but it was not so.  Ofelia's fantasy world is only a part of the story, a sort of escape for her from the background of the Spanish revolution which is going on all around her.  her mother has just married Captain so-and-so and is about to give birth to his child when we meet them all.  the Captain is a rather brutal man who is quick to dispose of people who waste his time - think of him as a cross between Darth Vader and Hitler and spice that up with some additional wanton masochistic brutality and you'll have a pretty good idea of what he's like.  Ofelia's been reading a story about a princess who came up from her underground kingdom into the world of light - she was so bedazzled that she forgot all about her past and remained up above in the human world.  her father, the king, has never stopped hoping that she'll return - her spirit, anyway, in some other form.  upon arriving at the Captain's outpost, Ofelia follows a *fairy* into Pan's labyrinth where she learns that she *is* that princess, and is instructed as to how she might return to her kingdom - through the successful execution of several tasks. 

i didn't expect it to be as violent as it was - and it wasn't Ofelia's fantasy world that was so violent (that was more dark and weird and scary without anything bad actually happening), it was the real world where her adoptive father is killing people with the pointy ends of bottles by smashing them repeatedly into their eye sockets and noses and mouths.  torture and violence that i can easily imagine actually *do* disturb me.  and my defenses were way down because i hadn't expected it.  so i squirmed.  a lot.  and it ended up being very tragic...practically everyone dies - Ofelia's mother dies in childbirth, all of the soldiers at the outpost, a good number of the resistance force, a doctor, a large toad crouching beneath a fig tree (well, we assume it is dead after it vomits out all of it's internal organs), two fairies, the Captain, and Ofelia herself (depending on how you see it).  it's never really clear whether Ofelia's world is real or if it's only in her head.  but it ends up not mattering - she makes it there in the end, either in her dying vision or as a true transcendence.  regardless of its reality, it is a better place to be.

i wanted a bit more Alice in Wonderland (would that be Ofelia en la tierra de..que?) and a little less Spanish revolution, but on the whole it was quite good.  excellent music, especially during the credits. 

and now, bed.

posted by: juuitsu at January 15, 2007 05:48 | link | comments (2) |

just got off the phone with highsmileage (since we didn't end up getting together today, we just had a nice long chat instead).  we were talking about relationships.  he was saying how hard it was to be in this current one he's in, because there are so many obstacles to overcome and things to consider.  if he's serious at all about it, he has to consider the future and what it will be like.  and he came to the conclusion that maybe he just likes being miserable.  which made me laugh, because peloquin was always saying that about me - "maybe you just thrive on pain and drama?"  but that's not it.  i think i'd take it easy if it would come easy...but nothing ever seems that easy or effortless.  "it's nothing but work work work all the time!"  it's not so much misery that we thrive on, but challenges.  highsmileage said he'd spent a long time waiting for someone "just like [him] only with boobs," who had the same kind of world view, was looking for all the same kinds of things...and their eyes would meet and BAM!  they'd be together for life.  and i said, yeah, that would be nice, but does that *ever* happen?  and he said he thought so...and that he's known several people who have met and then just known that they would be together.  but it's not even so much that they were, you know, so very alike in every way, it was just that they were primed and ready to *be* with someone and then, fortuitously, met someone in the same state of mind.  that was enough.  it's funny...it's almost like he's got a biological clock that's tick-tick-ticking away - like every woman i know.  it's just that instead of it being about reproduction, it's more about having that life mate/partner person there in his life and decided upon...so they can get going wherever it is that they're going together.  is it love or is it "i'd better do something about this now before it's too late!!"?  and too late for what? 

posted by: juuitsu at January 14, 2007 02:51 | link | comments (4) |

i've got the "soundtrack" to my weights class going on in the back of my mind...one particular song, actually.  our instructor just plays a bunch of tunes she likes and we don't ever try and keep with a beat or anything.  she says she has no rhythm, which is fine with me.  but some of the stuff she likes is awesome and it makes me want to dance around - even if i'm carrying a big barbell across my shoulders. 

i just started reading Kino no Tabi and i really really really like it.  as with many things i pick up to read these days, i can't remember how it caught my attention in the first place - was it a stellar review?  something mentioned in passing on some listserv?  did i run across it on amazon while i was looking for something else?  did it show up on our purchase alert report?  no idea.  i thought it was going to be manga, but it's all wordses, and it's this story of a girl who travels with her talking motorcycle.  they go from town to town only staying 3 days in each, and every place they stop is strange in some way.  it reminds me a lot of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader  - one of the Narnia books.  and it also brings to mind Juster's Phantom Tollbooth, which is also full of strange lands.  i like it, i like it!  the story begins with the girl meeting a strange traveler named Kino, who stays with her family for a couple of days while he tries to resurrect a motorcyle from their trash heap.  shortly before leaving, Kino finds out from the girl that she is supposed to have an operation to become an adult - basically they remove something from her brain that they have identified as "childlike" and they make her take up whatever work it is that her parents do.  after talking to Kino, the girl decides that she doesn't want just any old job and she doesn't want to become an adult through surgery.  she wants to find work she likes and she wants to grow up in her own time.  that's blasphemy, of course and as her father brings down his knife to kill her, Kino gets in the way (but only sort of) and her father turns on him instead.  the girl, manages, in the confusion, to mount the bike, Hermes, and get the heck out of town.  just in the nick of time, too.  only when they're safe does she realize that her successful escape is due in large part to the instructions given to her by the motorcycle.  cuz, you know, it talks!  ;)  she takes up the name "Kino" for herself and she and Hermes set off together to explore the world.  sounds good to me.

there's a danger in getting trapped in a job you don't like - because even if you don't like it, it's safe.  it's enabling you to exist in a certain way and with a certain degree of independence.  and if you end your relationship with it before you find something else...you lose that safety net.  which is why we must all work hard to become independently wealthy, right?  hm.  or if not independently wealthy, at least with enough booty stashed away that you can pay all of the fees and fines necessary for not playing nice in the real world. 

sometimes i sit here and imagine that i'm on a precipice, staring off into some place that doesn't exist except inside of my head and wondering if there's any way to get to that place.  and it feels like nothing matters.  and whatever it is that i'm doing is not enough and will never BE enough, so i should just stop doing it.  it's not a suicidal thing by any means, it's just a sense of meaninglessness.  what is the point?  what do i hope to achieve?  how will these things i'm currently doing get me there?  what if they won't?  how do i fix that?  what if nothing does?  i don't know.

so, i'm totally striking out on finding a different place to live.  and part of that is definitely because i thought i'd found a really likely spot and i'm completely baffled by the people never returning my phone calls (i'm not taking it personally or anything, but RAY, why?).  so i tried calling some others, and none of them are what i'm looking for.  that's one positive thing - realizing  that i have a vision for the kind of place i'd like to be in, an idea of what *home* looks and feels like.  moving to that particular place was to have provided a temporary solution to the problem of being somewhere more accessible to people and things i want to see and still be close enough to work that i don't have to commute forever and a day.  not gonna happen, though.  which has me wondering just how permanent everything else is going to be.  the job isn't meant to be the end all be all of all jobs.  and i never thought i'd be there and here as long as i have been.  ok, maybe 2 years going on 3 isn't that long - longer than other things i've done/places i've lived though!  the idea of moving and changing everything is so exhausting...i'd just like to be finished for awhile with that.  and it pisses me off and offends me that nothing is ever finished.  there are always options always the same decisions to be revisited over and over again.  there's no final word.  it's as it should be, but sometimes i wish, you know, that that was IT, so that i'd just have to suck it up and deal with it, instead of this agonizing, ok, how do i fix it process?  *lame smile*  yeah.  i'm just bitching about free will as usual.  fucking hell.  oh.  and no one likes bunnies.  what's up with that?  no pets, no pets, no pets.  this makes me think i should just buy a house at some point.  BIG EXPENSE and BIG COMMITMENT.  and it means that i really *will* be serious about staying in the area, as it were.  and i just can't commit.  not with so many other things i'm not finding.  it all makes me want to run away sometimes and just leave it all behind and not bother to end or begin anything nicely or by anyone's rules.  just go.  "what are you preparing?  you're always preparing!  just go!"

just got a postcard today from oberon.  he's been training some new guys at work and they keep quitting because they're afraid of heights.  one of them quit after a day - because he froze while going up a ladder - and the other quit after 2 weeks (same reason, though).  and O scoffed because the guy who quit after 2 weeks had been up in the heights the whole time - just deal with it!  yeah.  but the guy who quit after one day, could he really say that he gave it the good ole college try?  :)  i have no idea what these guys were like, so i can't speak for them, but you know, i respect it either way.  if you know it in your bones the very first time you do something that you can't do it ever again anymore under any circumstances, well, good for you.  and also?  if it takes you 2 weeks to make up your mind that you hate something and it makes you uncomfortable, but you stick it out that long just to see if maybe you'll get over it and you don't and then the very thought of going back makes you ill, hey, i respect that, too.  at least you aren't trapped in a job that you hate and fear. 

we recently had someone quit in circulation - she was new, too.  she'd been working there maybe 3 weeks, asking for more and more hours, and then one morning last week she called in sick.  then she called back a little while later and said she was quitting.  and people are talking about it like it's the weirdest thing ever.  because that's what people do.  it is NOT the weirdest thing ever.  it happens all the time.  it just drives people crazy, though, to not know why, and to have it happen suddenly.  actually, i can probably guess why.  "it was a bad fit."  that covers so much.  :)  i have quit like this exactly once.  i had just moved to baltimore and i was looking for a job working in a vet's office and i'd found one - but only part-time, so i decided that i'd also apply for bookstore jobs.  got one right away, too, but it was a pain in the ass to get out there.  it took me like 2 hours walking and taking buses.  the job itself wasn't hard - i already knew their computer and cash register system (because another place i'd worked used the same stuff), and they threw me on the information desk my first day and i was fine - just a little bit slow actually leading people to stuff since i didn't know where anything was.  but i knew after a few days that it just wasn't what i wanted to be doing.  and i sure didn't want to be *commuting* 4 hours every day to get someplace i didn't want to be to do something i didn't want to do.  so i called them up and said i wasn't going to be coming back.  i'm sure they talked about how weird that was, too.  because everything seemed to be fine from the outside.  i was just sick of it on the inside.  and i didn't stick around long enough for them to know that i was already sick of it.  i just ended our relationship.  and the person who most strongly supported that decision was my roommate's mother, who said i was smart to know when something wasn't working out.  thanks for that.  so many other things are much more ambiguous, and there are questions of how much effort and time you should put into them before you decide that they are or aren't working out.  those are the ones that kill me.  because if it's sort of working out or there isn't anything that's really wrong enough to complain about, and yet you still have this sense of unease and unhappiness...what do you do then?  try and make it better?  and nothing is ever perfect, so every situation is going to take some kind of effort at some point.  s' just how long do you wait before you say, "fuck it" and traipse off to...wherever?  yeah.  i don't know.

posted by: juuitsu at January 13, 2007 23:32 | link | comments |

ouch, my arm hurts. and hmm. this looks different. there are no edity things on the screen. which is fine, because who needs 'em? not me. goodbye non-loading edity things! BYE BYE! it really does hurt. lately, i seem to have developed a knack for whacking bits of me on whatever, but in such a way as to really interact with my nerve endings. it's like i'm funnyboned all over my body. ow, hit a nerve. ow, hit another one. ow, ow, ow. this isn't a good sort of talent to practice on oneself. however, i can see how it might be useful to know all of these nerve-y complexes in the event that i need to hurt someone else a lot. and i'm pretty sure oberon could show me a few things related to this very topic.

in high school i took a class called "Design and Materials" - a 3D art class using various media/mediums. many of the people in it were there just because it was art and it was an easy way to coast through hour/day/year. our teacher was a crabby little man called Mr. Meitzner. he'd yell at us all the time in a cranky and yet, somehow, also good-natured way - like he'd had way too much experience and contact with teens, but still appreciated us occasionally. we did our part to annoy and harass him. peloquin took the class with me (a reprise of our art EXPERIENCE our freshman year with Mr. Mastrolonardo - i bet you can guess what people called *him*), and we were probably the only two people who took it seriously (at least sometimes). while the rest of the class spent months slogging through this clay project, peloquin and i finished ours up and were told to "create something together." so we made this sculpture of connected ball things with stuff embedded in it that we called, "Ouch, My Arm Hurts." it was a beautiful thing. and, unfortunately, it blew up in the kiln when Mr. Meitzner tried to fire it. alas. peloquin also wrote a poem by the same name that went on - stanza after stanza - about how he was lying on the floor one night and the carpeting was so innnnteresting and ouch, his arm hurt. hm.

we did a lot of things like that together. we were always doing stuff. one time, i went over to his house and we were watching movies and peloquin decided that we needed to make a gigantic moon base for his legos. so we designed a papier mache moon rock/asteroid-thingie and he spray painted it silver after it dried and it was The Coolest Thing Ever. course, he got really pissy every time i picked up any of the legos and made them fly around and do things. no, NO, juuitsu. BAD. another time we made up songs in honor of a friend of ours, Julie Nasby. i sang and p. accompanied me on his violin. p. brought the tape to school and played it in Every Single Class he had. i don't think Julie was ever more mortified. not that we set out to embarrass her...she was a convenient vehicle for our zany creative energy, a MUSE, if you will. :) our friend, bean, ended up with the tape somehow and we listened to it many years later. it was still completely atrocious. two songs i remember: "Oh Nasby Tree" (which went, 'Oh Nasby tree, oh Nasby tree, why'd you have to fall on top of me!') and the untitled 'Juuuuuuuulie Nasby floating on a nimbus of her hair...Juuuuuuuuulie Nasby spinning like a ballerina - swishaswishaswisha (swishaetc. being more a sound than an actual word).' more recently, p.'s taken up cooking...and i guess by recently, i mean in the last 10 years *grin*, so when i see him we often make food stuff together.

one of my office-mates at work was saying that her daughter and her boyfriend always play together when they're over at her house. she thinks it's really sweet. heh. yes, yes! we should all be playing! i restrained myself from saying, yeah, well i play TOO! me! me! me! because at my advanced age, i'm supposed to be able to control the impulse to make it all about me. :) you see how well THAT works. *gestures at the World of Juuitsu* mm. mine.

posted by: juuitsu at January 11, 2007 04:31 | link | comments |

i had one of *those* nights where my brain just kept right on working despite the fact that it was way past my bedtime.  knowing how much i lose when i try to sleep anyway, i stayed up and kept writing.  as a result i should be a complete zombie today because my brain is now on vacation.  shortly after 7 this morning when my alarm went off, my brain climbed in a taxi and took off for places unknown.  it wiggled its stem at me sympathetically, but it's got other fish to fry.  bye-bye brain!  have fun storming the castle! 

just before i woke up, i was dreaming this:

i'm out of gas, so i drive to the filler station to fill up the gas tank.  there are people there who do it for you, so i don't get out.  i'm driving some kind of van and there are some people in it with me.  don't know who they are.  doesn't matter.  the station attendant is way cute though.  we're chatting a bit and then someone calls him over to his vehicle, but he throws his keys down casually on my dash board, so i know he has to come back.  problems problems.  takes awhile for him to resolve things and when he does come back there's all of this soul-gazing exchange of eye contact.  very nice.  and then we leave - me and all those other people i don't know - because we have things to do.

i've invited the goddess out for dinner and i decide to take her to max and erma's or this other place (i've had dreams about this other place before - the one i can never remember that i don't think exists in real life, but that i'm absolutely sure i've eaten at with my brother and the food is so damn good - some kind of melt in your mouth pasta that's irresistible, except that i can never find my way back there).  they're both far awayish from where we are, but nearish to one another.  i  start leading her the way that i normally go - down a dark, dark staircase that they've blocked off at the top - you have to climb over the rail at the top and scale the rest of the way down using the bannisters.  now, the goddess occasionally walks with a cane, so as i'm swinging my leg over the railing i realize that she's never going to be able to make it down this way.  i climb back up and say, ok, we'll have to go the *proper* way. 

to take the proper way, you have to pay a toll at the bottom.  there's this guy who will escort you down the staircase - that is much like the one we just left, except not made impassable.  hey, guess what?  it's the guy we just left from the gas station.  he's wearing a different jacket and a top hat and he's still really really cute.

we wait and chat with him while some other people assemble.  there are those stupid toy machines where we're waiting and i buy a toy for $1.30 (in change) and wait some more.  then the cute guy starts us down the stairs.  his jacket has coattails.  they fly out behind him as he walks down the stairs.  he's wearing it with jeans, so we know he's not taking himself too seriously. the goddess says she knows that bosshog from work would really like him.  and i said, yeah, until he does something to piss her off like everyone else does.  this is true and the goddess cannot refute it so she nods sagely instead.  when we get to the bottom the guy starts collecting money.  when he turns to me and holds his hand out,  i say something about how i would have taken the other stairs - i actually do jump down about a flight of this pay-staircase and go hand by hand down the outside using the railing like i'd have had to do.  he's not going to discount my fare any for that.  hmm.  suddenly, i have this brilliant idea.  i smile at him this mischevious 100 watt smile of terrible brightness and impishness and i hand out my stupid toy.  it's still in its plastic shell.  this, i say, is worth exactly $1.30.  and i'm going to pay with it.  the fare, incidentally, is ALSO exactly $1.30.  his smile is smaller than mine but it's of the really amused, ok you got me kind.  i know i'm going to get away with this.  and i do.  he says, ok, no one's ever tried that one on me before, and he takes stupid toy from me and whee, i'm paid up.  short but meaningful moment and glance pass between us.  not only have we just amused one another incredibly, but also i'm going to see him again.  because one or the other of us is going to make it happen.

ALARM ALARM ALARM!  good place to end it, though. 

posted by: juuitsu at January 09, 2007 13:47 | link | comments (5) |

posted by: juuitsu at January 09, 2007 02:41 | link | comments (4) |

so, i've always been kind of sensitive on behalf of other things...be they living or never-living.  over christmas, my mom had decorated my fishtank - on the outside - with several tetra-looking paper fish (wearing little santa hats), which she'd taped to the outside of the tank.  the fish also got a present - a wrapped cannister of fish food (which i never got around to unwrapping).  mom just sent me a birthday card in which was enclosed one of the tetra-looking fish.  and it's making me cry.  because she spent time cutting fish out of some piece of paper or magazine and because i didn't have time to appreciate them properly and because i never even unwrapped the fish food.  and it was sweet and cute and i was tired and busy and distracted.  and DAMN i'm emotional right now.  everything is making me cry.  i don't feel precisely guilty...and i don't know exactly what i do feel.  if i were 3 or 6 i'd feel bad because the paper fish got put up and were ignored.  sad for THEM because they existed and no one appreciated them.  so.  people and stuff of the world, be you living or never-living, i appreciate you.  even if i don't seem to.  there.

posted by: juuitsu at January 08, 2007 23:49 | link | comments (2) |

sunday, sunday...

in my mailbox this morning from JM: " Hope you {have, are having, had} a fun, injury-free weekend!  You prolly have to get to bed earlier these days, being so freakin old and all.  (Not that tiredness ever stopped you from staying up all night anyway.)"

how true.

i did stay up really freakin' late for someone so freakin' old, but my really freakin' stupid body still got me up before noon.  did i mention "really freakin' stupid?"  yes.  i'm tired and creaky and i hurt in all new ways.  i am, however, clean, and my hair is standing straight up because i slept on it wet.  it is most alluring.  in the words of some guy on the internet, "it looks like a dog had sex with it."  (he wasn't actually referring to me, but might as well have been.)  and all i can say to that is, "god, i hope not."  that is the last thing i need.  or, you know, up there among the last things that one needs - dogs having sex with one's hair.

i spent my early birthday hours with oberon, who is fantastic.  he threw together a birthday "toolbelt" for me in a little less than an hour - it came complete with an enormous squiggly caterpillar of doom (a most excellent tool for whapping).  i tried it out on him.  a lot.  he'd also saved a spot for me on his memory card for my new soul calibur (III) character.  collective Awwwww.  :)  she's a ninja, obviously.  a blue-skinned/haired ninja with big boots and a fur bustier.  it's faux, don't worry.  no creatures/beasties/whatever were harmed in its making.  she's lethal.  i like that about her.

O. also let me try this other game at which i was complete ass.  i don't remember what it was called.  my brain wasn't functioning well at that point.  here's a synopsis:  there's this hero guy and he saunters into a big castle-y type place (saunters on horseback) carrying a recently deceased princess.  he puts her on this pedestal/altar thingie that looks like it's going to make princess pulp (and princess juice) out of her.  but it doesn't.  he has a conversation with entities that tell him they can bring her back to life if he goes out and kills some beasties.  this he does.  or, at least, that's how it would go if he were being played by someone who wasn't completely incompetent with the controller (which i am).  i rode off on my noble steed (alternately referred to as "eggroll" or "fuckstick") wielding my Incredible Sword of Doom that caught the sun in such a way as to direct me to my immediate goals.  except that i wasn't exactly paying attention to what those goals might be, i was just trying to steer and not careen off cliffs (as i am wont to do).  so after i climb up all of these walls and stuff, i'm find myself standing on a plateau about to engage a terrible colossus monster.  it's huge.  and i can barely walk in a straight line, let alone attack it.  so, when it sees me, i hide behind a rock and cower.  and cower and cower and cower, until oberon says, "are you ever going to come out from behind that rock?"  no.  quite comfortable right here.  but one can't cower behind rocks indefinitely, so eventually i come out and get stomped by the colossus a few times before falling back down the cliff.  my horse, at least, is happy to see me.  i give him a cuddle.  thank goodness for eggroll.  O. rolls his eyes.  i am hopeless.  after i fall some more and get stomped some more and die, i watch oberon play for awhile.  he's much better.  he doesn't fall as much, or flail as much, and he certainly doesn't cuddle eggroll.  he does call me a "white-knuckled pansy" though.  hey.  is it my fault that no one explained to me about these colossi before i was suddenly faced with them?  no.  if they had i sure wouldn't have taken up that sword.

got home quite late.  am still recovering from that.  but it's been a good birthday so far. :)

posted by: juuitsu at January 07, 2007 19:33 | link | comments (4) |

a list of things about today...

my right hand is KILLING me.  no, no, not because it is possessed or because it is the amputated hand of a murderer and wants me to do its evil bidding.  nor has it turned against me due to some neurological curiosity.  it just hurts.  A  LOT.  i was casually winding my way around the gym this afternoon and i did a bit of quick wall-hugging to avoid the racquetball players who were barreling down on me and SMACK went the hand against some offending piece of wall.  there was this amazing sensation of nerves not quite working right it was kind of a sting-y tingle which was both fascinating and horrible.  and then the part of my hand that i'd smacked went completely numb and a couple hours later it hurt in an entirely different section of hand - throb throb throb.  it is most bizarre and it's interfering with my typing. 

it took me FOREVER to leave the house today.  and by forever i mean that i was up by 7 this morning, even though i'm off, but i screwed around in front of the computer mainly, until noon: twenty.  and i really have nothing to show for it, except...oh, well i DO actually have something to show for it - a bunch of photos of ME uploaded to my computer, AND a ticket to New Zealand!  whee!  the NZ part is actually the exciting part on which we should focus.  yay!  i'm going...even if no one else that i talked to about this trip is. 

you know what i hate?  people who say, "we should do...X" but then never follow up on it - provided that i agree we should do X.  because if i don't agree, i'm just happy that they're the sort of people who never follow up on things.  but you know, some people never do, and then you ask about things and wait and wait and feel like your whole life is passing by and they're just not as interested as you are.  those people suck.  and i'm sick of waiting for them.  not that these people are those people.  i'm just confusing myself now.  :)  two separate things - people who suck because they never do anything they say they're going to do AND going to New Zealand.  boo.  YAY!  there.  nat said something about that once when we were together - "the thing about you is that when you say you're going to do something, you actually DO it.  so i know if you say yes, you're going to come through.  whereas, i know i have to keep hounding bean or she'll NEVER do it."  this being a conversation we had before i dragged bean with me to see him.  that was the Summer of Complete Parental Defiance.  i made several illicit trips to Indiana to see nat, while my folks fumed and forbade.  all they could do at that point, really, was restrict me from taking their vehicles to get there...so i went once with bean, once with my grandfather's car, and once on a greyhound bus - which i sprained my ankle catching on the way home.  i manage to injure myself spectacularly around cute boys.  it's annoying.

eventually got my grocery shopping done.  it's expensive when you actually shop for ingredients to make things that you don't usually make.  i have a craving for hummus and falafel and i had to buy tahini for that - $5, i'm completely out of protein, so i stocked up $8, no vegetables in the house (the rabbits have eaten everything) $10...ack.  the list goes on.  i could just scan my receipt and put it up here, but nah. 

the place that i'm eager to look at STILL hasn't called me back.  i called them again.  right to voicemail.  got a letter from my landlords asking if i'm staying...argh.  too.many.decisions.to.make.right.now.  too much stuff to pack, too.  argh (again).  did i mention?  i like my apartment, i just want to move it closer to actual stuff...barring that, i'll have to decide either to stay or to go.  and neither option's looking attractive at the moment.  i guess i'm going to have to call around to some other places.  WON'T live in a complex, tho.  NO NO NO.  have to find somewhere that accepts bunnies...or doesn't consider them pets.  *shrug* sometimes they make that distinction.  forgot powder was out today and left him free when i went out this afternoon.  i came back and he was still sleeping under the chair in the livingroom.  it's his spot.  he didn't even dig up the blanket i'm laying out on the floor.

Mr. Wang emailed me a conversation he had with some crazy chick - it was all about UFOs and conspiracies and how aliens aren't allowed to land on earth.  it's a LAW, apparently.  any of you legal types care to point out where the law addresses that?  i don't think we have an extraterrestrial policy...i mean, we probably should...  13 pages of talk about this.  ACK.  it reminded me of mf, except that this crazy chick seems to have a more joyful outlook on life, even if it's shrouded in conspiracies and alien law.  i can only infer this as she LOL'd about every other line.  *groan*

had the work holiday party tonight - at a local restaurant.  i got there late and there was no parking, so i drove down the road and parked at the mall and then walked there.  people were shocked by this.  i also had a bunch of offers to drive me back to my car - which i declined, as i'd had a big dinner and wanted to walk some of it out of my system.  feeling too full.  bleh.  i picked an interesting table...seems like most people had staked out spots, so i saw an empty chair at the goddess' table and i grabbed it not knowing that two of my least favorite people would be there.  heh.  FIGURES, right?  :)  anyway, it ended up being not so bad.  ducksinarow brought her husband who also suffered from a Jones fracture and we had a chat about that - and lots of good-natured prognostications and advice about what bones i would break next and how to prevent anything catastrophic from befalling me prior to my NZ trip.  i think stasis might be the best way to make *sure* that i'm intact.  the flight there takes practically forever (my itinerary says: this flight arrives 2 DAYS LATER), so maybe that'll be my little buffer of safety.  hmmm.  probably won't help.  i can hurt myself on/doing anything.

*examines hand* still hurts.  i think i'll stop typing now.

posted by: juuitsu at January 06, 2007 03:37 | link | comments (2) |

dreams.

i'm riding my bike a lot in last night's dreamscape...partially because i'm having something done with my car and the guy who's working on it refuses to give me a loaner for free.  and i'm cranky that he won't - particularly because whatever is happening with the car is in some way his fault.  on my bike on my bike.  back to the shop.  there he tells me that the car still needs this and that done and i ask him if he fixed the part that was wrong.  yes.  so, we are done here, i say.  and i collect my car.  i ask him if i can pick my bike up later, since it won't fit in the car.  and he makes excuses.  says he's going out of town like right away.  says there's no way he's going to be around that day...gives the impression EVER.  what is this asshole's deal?  FINE.  i somehow take the bike with me.  what a jerk.

later i'm on this team of investigators - we're not professional investigators, we're just this arbitrary team of people that's trying to figure out a mystery that hundreds of other teams are also working on.  it's some big competition.  all they've given us are 3 worms and a set of coordinates.  there are little kids participating.   they're running around naked in the rain and flinging their worms at one another.  we're not doing so well.  we have no idea what our worms are for.  the coordinates lead us to the cemetary and we try to put our two clues together.  our group's being kinda silent, so i just start asking questions to try and help us.  "what could be mysterious about the cemetary?  what aren't we figuring out?  what is *particular* about a cemetary?"  there's this huge guy in our group who looks like a mountain and has a voice that's so low it's almost out of hearing range.  he looks at me and smiles hugely - "cemetaries are fuuuuuull of dead people."   we all look at him.  people in other groups are obviously figuring it out.  we aren't.  we don't really care anymore.  we suck at this.  so i shout, "OH MY GOD!  CEMETARIES ARE DEAD PEOPLE!"  my group takes it up.  we're all shouting it.  the groups around us who haven't figured this out either join us, too. 

i wake up to the sound of my neighbor's car percolating down the drive.  good thing my alarm goes off in 5 minutes.

posted by: juuitsu at January 04, 2007 13:33 | link | comments (7) |

on sunday another 365 days of my life will have come to a close, and a new cycle/circle will begin.  i don't feel any older.

i was tempted to start a betting pool with the other regulars in my tuesday night weights class.  it was jammed today with the bodies of new people momentarily devoted to their new years' resolutions to firm up.  which is fine, except there was very little room to move around and very little room to park and lots of pained looks passing between workout buddies as they realized that the class was actually hard.  :)  how long will it take before they quit and i can find a parking space again?  hmm?  sheesh.  it's been two years for me and i'm *still* not firm. :)  but i can crush tracheas with my biceps. 

posted by: juuitsu at January 03, 2007 04:25 | link | comments (7) |

i forgot the meatballs.

i went to the store specifically to get sauce for my pahstah, and then i came home and whipped some up and put cheese and avocados in it and looked at it for a moment, thinking, "there's something missing..."  but i couldn't figure out what, so i shrugged and ate it.  tasty.  and then remembered OH.  meatballs.  guess i'll be having those for some other meal.  :)

no crazy dreams lately.  i miss them.  must be that i'm too tired to function in my sleepscape.

and now, bad bunny poetry:

bunny bunny in the door
streaking quickly 'cross the floor
bunny sniffing round my feet
looking for something to eat
bunny bunny don't you bite
or there'll be no treats tonight
bunny bunny sitting there
acting like you do not care
bunny bunny wild and free
surreptitiously watching me
bunny bunny bathing time
being bunny's so sublime

wasn't that fun?

posted by: juuitsu at January 03, 2007 04:13 | link | comments (1) |

it's nine forty-three and i'm eating broccoli.  i do like broccoli.

i watched the last of the Black Books stuff that scott lent me - it was good.  britcom stuff about this irish guy who owns a bookstore (black books) and is a completely incompetent angry drunk.  this guy, manny, comes to work for him after the first episode and basically gets treated like crap constantly - but in a mostly consistently humorous manner (which means i watched it all instead of walking away).  manny plays the comic shop boss guy in Spaced - a britcom series i LOVE.  i saw a stand-up routine the irish guy did when i was at scott's a couple weeks ago (funny man).  this series - Black Books - was decent, too.  Mr. Wang's suggestion, Peep Show, is supposed to be coming in from another library (ooh outside our system) soon.  i saw it on my list of pending holds last time i was at work (seems like i haven't been there much what with all of the holiday stuff going on).  yay!

just mentioned to faaraa that it's kinda nice to find out that you take up real estate in other people's thoughts.  because it's hard to know what's going on in other people's heads unless they say or do something. 

i've been reading this webcomic (Better Days - by Jay Naylor) since earlier this evening when oberon said he thought i'd like it. i do. i'm engrossed even. sometimes i don't get into comics/graphic novels/manga/anime AT ALL. and i wonder if it's just not my thing. and then something comes along that i really *do* like and i remember that it's like any other story - depends on who's doing the telling and how they're doing it. there are good books and bad books - for every individual.

i was going to stop at the grocery store that sells the kind of cheese i like, but they weren't open when i drove by late this afternoon.  i decided to find a bit of trail to hike, and just as i put on my shoes to leave, the sun broke out from behind the clouds and i knew, absolutely knew, that i had to be out in it.  the gloom's really been getting to me.  i was going to hit the gym AGAIN, but i think my knee and some of my tendons wanted a break from the treadmill and elliptical trainer.  i chose the bike trail (prairie trail) and meant to catch it somewhere in nunda township, but couldn't find the parking spot i thought was around there...so then i tried to catch it in mchenry, and missed the turnoff for the park.  and finally decided to just drive all the way to richmond and pick it up there.  wasn't exactly the section i wanted, but it was fine nonetheless.  there's this part that's up a bit above some farms and prairie where you can see for miles around you.  it reminds me of a section of the appalachian trail that i hiked - somewhere in georgia.  i just wanted lots and lots of sun and a good view.  the part i ended up on has a little less sun, and more tree cover, but it, too, was good.  i used to drive up there pretty regularly with various dogs and take them hiking.  met some puppies chained up in a yard - a golden retriever and a husky, and asked them if they wanted to come along with me.  they barked in response, but were unable to join me.  alas.  we'd have had a great time.  instead i jammed out to my music since most parts of the trail were isolated enough that no one could hear me...'cept for maybe the runner guy who came up behind me.  :)  he wished me a happy new year and went on running steadily.  i think highsmileage would have approved of his form.  he certainly seemed steady and easy to me.

the clouds this morning and yesterday were amazing.  tried to snap a picture with my phone camera (it sucks) while monkeybaby and i were out.  she tried first and then i pulled into a parking lot so we could get a better shot.  don't know how it came out.  i'll have to load it on the computer and see.  monkeybaby kept complaining about my driving - i asked her if she thought i was going to kill us (she's actually almost killed us a couple of times, so it's only fair...er.  no.  i don't mean that at all).  she said, no, she's just used to being in control.  oh yeah.  i hear that.  i showed up at her house yesterday dressed to the nines.  i called her to see if she wanted to get some lunch (we'd talked briefly about tapas in evanston, but it was super ick out, so i picked something closer to home), and then put on my black velvet dress from Goodwill (five dollar!) and my strappy black shoes.  i never dress up.  this was fun, though.  monkeybaby gawked and then snapped a picture of me with her new digital camera.  then i changed into jeans and a t-shirt and we went to get cheesy biscuits.  i do like cheesy biscuits.  i also like shocking people.  :)

posted by: juuitsu at January 02, 2007 04:07 | link | comments |

i'm in love with a new song.  it is "hide and seek" by imogen heap.  i found it by accident while i was hunter-seeking on myspace.  i hate myspace, btw.  hate it with a passion.  but i wanted to see what the guy with the enormous wang (and henceforth we shall call him Mr. Wang) had put up there.  and one of the people among his friends has this song playing on her profile.  and I LOVE IT.  so i've put a hold on the cd in our library system, because i am nothing if not efficient.  and i have nothing better to do other than listen to it over and over again and upload photos to flickr.  yay. 

i think of dune.  "you shall enter a time when all things shall turn against you."  it's not the things, really, it's just my mind.  it's bored with things.  and i wonder how i will ever fill it.  what sort of things does it want?  what will it do if it gets them.  oh brain.  why?  whoop.  time to press play again...one moment please...

i like writing.  it seems to be the only thing that consistently satisfies me.

so in the last three days i have been working out like a fiend and talking with Mr. Wang, who seems similarly bored...except that he has more encounters of an intimate nature than i do.  must be the wang.  i think i like talking to him because he's very different from me and yet we can still find stuff to chat about.  (pressing play again.)  which maybe just proves that we're not so different after all. 

flickr aside: it's funny how some of these photos i'm uploading have already been VIEWED several times by the time i've finished with my captions.  i've started writing little paragraphs instead of just a few describing words.  i wonder if anyone reads that stuff?  no one comments, which is ok, except that i like dialogue.  we who blog LIKE dialogue.

pyong-pyong is doing a wonderful "dead-bunny" impression.  she's laying on her side on the carpet with her eyes closed.  she's either really relaxed or dead.  i still hear the wheezing, so i'm going to assume...not.dead.yet.  that's good.

*presses play!*

posted by: juuitsu at January 01, 2007 02:48 | link | comments (3) |

half the blogs i read have somewhere in recent entries inserted the word "vagina."  i don't know what to make of that...except that it must be some vast vaginal conspiracy to which i aspire to take part.  my work here is done.

posted by: juuitsu at January 01, 2007 01:52 | link | comments (3) |

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