DAY FOUR:
FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this morning i couldn't rise up out of bed for love nor money. lawdy. i feel like a lumberjack.
we finally finished the driveway, and are almost able to pull the car out without too much damage to the mirrors. we hacked away at the last ten feet or so, i pulling down an 8" by 4' by 6' section and spreading it out with a hoe (i'm dangerous with a 'ho', look out!) and todd running over it with the snowblower. for the last foot of driveway, a neighbor with a plow showed up and finished it off for us, it was an anticlimax. we danced anyway.
we went to dave's, got drunkish, ate chilli and played pit and scattergories. his girlfriend eats chilli with peanut butter and honey samiches, like, she dips it. that is gross and weird. my hands, wrists and forarms are tight and creaky right now from shoveling 1,200 cubic feet of frozen shit, but i decided to make a friendship bracelet anyway. we did madlibs while i made it so there are parts where i messed up from laughing at naughty words. it is red, green and blue, the primary colors for television. (that fact cost me $20,000.) you can have it if you want it. :)

ok, i'm done with the crying and moaning and pulling of hair. but there's really nothing else for me to talk about. the national guard is working on our neighborhood, apparently our part of town was the worst hit. there are worse things that could have happened. you very rarely lose your house because of snow. three people died as a result of the weather the past few days, but none of them were me so i can't really complain. it's fucking Hoth out there.

You should have seen us in the south passage, she expressed her true feelings for me . . .

it snowed a-friggin-gain last night and all day today. the trench we made yesterday was buried and the snow is now up to my shoulders. we spent two hours with the shovel, a hoe and the snowblower and made another one. much swearing and disbelief was shared by both. there is no exaggerating how much fucking snow is surrounding my house right now. not only that, but the car is at the end of the 30 foot driveway under the carport, we'll never ever dig that shit out. seriously and without hyperbole. even if we shoveled all day for three days, there's no place to throw it. it's not hard to shovel but it is hard to continously lift it up over your head to dump it on a huge pile. it's fucking grim.
i'm out of wine.

i have one picture left on a black and white disposable camera i've had for two years. i'm going to show you people how fucking unreal my life is right now.

ok, so . . . .it snowed.

we went out this afternoon all bundled up and dug us a mighty fine trench to the street. it's way too deep for the snowblower. it's up to my waist and in parts it's up to my armpits. i called work at 8:45 this morning to tell them the buses weren't coming into cheektowaga and so i wouldn't be in, then i went back to bed. i'm hoping that there's another driving ban tomorrow, mainly because i'm only working a three hour shift and getting stuck in the office all night because a three hour shift is just pathetic. i already miss the money, though.

i watched Traffic, which was ok i guess. and shrek, which was not at all worth the hype.

i'm starting to feel a new crush coming on. bah.

i wish i was big.

i spent a half an hour on that last post and it reads like english is my second damn language. gah.

MERRY MERRY!!!!!!
i've been away from my computer for a long, long time.
1. friday, i went to the office christmas party and sat at the rowdy table. people i work with and am generally intimidated by got really drunk. we went to an after party at a guy's house. when i went into the bathroom, the owner of the company was waltzing around with his girlfriend and everybody else was sitting around the coffee table playing with toy construction equipment. when i came out, everyone was dancing to 'brick house'. and i wasn't in there that long.
alcohol takes away my inhibitions! i am popular! i am charming! you are my new best friend! silly! still, it was funnish.
2. saturday was a very chill star wars party with some very laid back people. we watched the documentary (not the documentary, but i'm working on it.) the empire strikes back and fell asleep on couches. it was my favorite kind of party.
3. sunday we had a get together to give alex and jess their presents. we gave them a zippo and cigarette case with sparklish dragons on them and they gave us beer and wine glasses. all we do is drink and smoke. jess gave me a new picture and it is the very fucking best. she will be famous one day, and on that day i will have the biggest personal collection of her work.
4. christmas eve sucked. there was a huge snowstorm during which we almost died many times. todd and i had to drive to my parents house in north buffalo in total whiteout, then around 10 we had to drive back out to his parents' house in orchard park on the thruway, which of course hadn't seen a plow all night. it was a disaster all it's own, even without the family drama.
i'm an asshole. i left my brother's ex-wife out of the gift exchange drawing, which was uncomfortable, considering i thought they were divorced and didn't go to each other's family gatherings anymore. actually, i've spent the past year trying to convince her that i still consider her my sister, and this did not fucking help. how do you rectify that?
we had a traditional polish meal at todd's grandma's, which is a bunch of pale, whitish food that expands in your stomach and makes you sick. if my grandma was still around, we'd be eating little pizzas on miniature pumpernickel breads for christmas eve and we'd be allowed to stop eating when we were full.
5. todd's mother is a screamer, and yelled at us the entire time she was making us christmas breakfast. never. again.

i got a bubbly spa mat for the bathtub, a buster keaton collection on dvd, socks, towels, smelly stuff, and a pin up girl calendar. my brother jay got me the clash- london calling, bnl- shoebox and me talk pretty one day. he is ok by me.

oh, blogger, you silly monkey.

I was groped by the President the same day my husband killed himself. Which Clinton 'Ho Are You?

I finally got my paycheck, put some bills in the mail, and now i feel a little better. i feel a little bad about not having cash for my bosses gift, but there's only so much i can do.
it's freeking cold out. i think i need to buy a new winter coat tonight or tomorrow. i can't remember what i wore this time last year. i could have been wearing todd's old barn jacket, which was ripped to shreds and dirty as hell. i also have a cute retro grey upholstry looking thing that is kind of little with too short sleeves.
i'm gonna freeze on my way home tonight.

i used to think i was a good actor, until i started taking lessons, i now know i know nothing. what i was doing before wasn't acting and what i'm doing now isn't good. plus, i'm out 120 bucks a month.

oddly appropriate typo of the day:

Man, slowly but surly the blog-bug is spreadin'

heh.
dave. silly.

Dave reminds me of samurai jack. and fister (who i was thisclose to fixing up with you, until he got a stupid girlfriend. heheh, was that out loud?) looks strikingly like sam from LOTR.
both? adorable.

i saw a preview for this, ha ha. street luge chase scenes.

but not one for spiderman, as promised.

BEST MOVIE EVER.

{mike}

so, i was having a horrible day yesterday and then i went to bed, and woke up today, and it got worse. i care about nothing today. everyone got paid today except me. some "glitch" in the time sheet program targeted the poorest person in the office. we were supposed to get paid on monday. i have no money in the bank at all. no money, only half my shopping done, my hair is hanging in my stupid face. oh, and there's the bills i have to pay. it seems like there should be more to be pissed off at for the amount of pissed i am. the ratio seems off.

we got our tickets for the lord of the rings last night. at 9:30 tonight i will take a 270 million dollar nap.

i'm not doing anything until i get my check.

My memory has been jogged. Todd gave me a valentine three days before our first date and on it he wrote "you are cute and funny" in orange crayon.

His friend Peter gave me one that said "eet ees magnifico that you are mine!" and the instructions for the use of the card were "fold in half". Peter drew an arrow to that little bit of text and wrote "the card, not you", for my benefit.

reminiscing.

dave foley- a prettier dave for the new millenium- is on pi tonight. i is happy. i is napped and happy.

i used to be cute and funny.

i changed my template. it's kind of like getting a perm.

fuckity fuck.
Why can't I post? I guess I'm the only one. It's not being archived anymore either, whatever that means. It's not like i had anything interesting or new to say, but. . . .fuck. I feel so invisible in my online life.

On Saturday I got a haircut and again I look like I�m growing out a mullet. Every salon in Western New York is conspiring to make me look like Joan Jett. I�m at work and I�m using the jeweled hair clip I wear for the play to keep my pseudo-shaggy bangs out of my eyes. I am a sight. Jeans, sneakers and giant wool sweaters really look naked without costume jewelry. In my life my mother has given me two pieces of fashion advice: 1. Get your hair out of your face and 2. Blend. I could look like a tramp as long as my bangs weren't in my eyes and I didn't have a line of demarcation on my jawbone. (Which was the case for a few years of high school.)
I dreamt last night that I found the perfect 1920s dress. It was a lovely sailor dress with a drop waist. I got my haircut into a short little curly pageboy and wore a little white hat. It made me so happy. It truly is the little things. I know I could never be that waifish coca-cola ad of yesteryear. I�ve decided I�m not a "girl" or a "lady", but a "dame". It�s a cheesy word, but I can't think of any other way to describe what I am without making myself cry. I am the tool calendar girl.

todd did a staged reading of a new play called "ebeneezer s." which is a "new" version of the old christmas story. it was good. it was actually very good. i am quite proud of his marley. the crowd tonight burst into applause at his exit, which is rare and beautiful and bad for your ego. it a sensual experience in the backroom of a rare and out of print bookstore . everywhere you looked there was beautiful strange artwork, and the place had a solid, round smell of pesto and italian roast coffee and paper. i bought a copy of Sudden Glory, Laughter as Subversive History and a satire, of which i have become fond.
the cast party was fun. i am a social moron. a guy that tells a lot of far fetched lies tried to touch my vagina and we got invited to a star wars party by people we thought were too cool to like star wars. i am happy.

i hope someone is still reading this. if someone is, it's probably someone i love.
so, since i don't say it enough, i love you.

i have issues. i blog drunk. forgive me.

i can't take a hint, but i can take many, many hints. so i'm breaking the diet. i've heard so much testimony to the damage it will do to my kidneys that i'm starting to get phantom pains in my lower abdomen. i've lost a little bit of weight (not enough to really notice) and i still wanted to lose more, but i'm becoming disheartened. bah. voodoo diet.
kidney stones suck + no health insurance = eat some bread.

there is a baby in our office every other day. it's hard to be cranky around her.

i was instructed to put up our only christmas decoration, which is a short string of lights with little m&m guys on them. they're all different colours, so i was told to "pull them off!" and just put up the white lights. i tried to refasten just the green and red ones, but they kept slipping off, so i crawled around on the floor picking them up while reevaluating my life choices.

there is an engineer working on one of our projects named "happy". i've only spoken to him on the phone, but he sounds tough as hell.

i have given up on being cool. there is nothing interesting about me. i'm nachos, flanders style. i am unflavored icemilk. i'm an unwashed potato. i think i might create an alter ego. i'll dye my hair plum and act pretentious, wear thick black frames and horizontally striped stockings. i will look at everything with disdain. i'll go vegan and spend all my time at a coffee shop. i'll read books no one has heard of and talk about how great they are. i'll have homeless artist friends named "fish" and "egg". john cusak would be my boyfriend.

wow, i'm embittered. that's not likeable. i'm starting to simultaneously enjoy and despise my alter ego. i'll name her "skylar".

while we're on the subject of eats, last night i made corned beef hash with out the potatoes for dinner. it smelled weird but it tasted ok. and! the can came with a little key to open it. i made tuna fish and collard greens to go with it. surprisingly, it wasn't the weirdest dinner i've ever made. once i made potato peirogies with a side of bacon for dinner. that was good. we ate it and watched soylent green and i wished i was a "furniture girl".
i bought a tuna pita without pita for lunch but i put it away for later. my mouth says, but my tummy says no.

do you say "cray-on", or "cran"?

.
i just had a cup of creamy chunky tomato soup. it gets more creamy than tomatoey every day. i smell conspiracy. it also bloated me. i didn't think you could get uncomfortably full on soup.
i'm drinking a fresca and i'm finding it refreshing

i want a cat.

so i just put a large amount in my account from an anonymous benefactor, and now i'm waiting to see what will happen first. will the check go through, or with the charge go through and bounce? (and why the hell has it taken them three weeks to charge it anyway? stupid small business.)
so this is fun, it's like gambling. takes me back to my first few years of college.

i blame jesus.

i am happy when you are happy.

i am about to be $100 overdrawn. i had overdraft protection, and then suddenly i didn't. my bank sucks. i think i'm going to be sick.

speilberg drinks it.

how odd is it that i had a sex dream about the guy in the lexmark commercial who opens the photcopier and says, "what's this?"

very, is the answer.

I haven't been online in almost a lifetime. nothing's going on around here. i went to see my friend's band for the first time on friday. he is a very good lead singer. he sang brian wilson and i covered the floor with purple-black from the cabernet jumping out of my glass.

i'm getting conflicting reports about a somebody's state of mind. he is either suicidal or peachy. i wish he would take his medicine. all i could do was kiss his face an inappropriate number of times.

only a dozen people came to our show last night, we had flubs aplenty, and i was told by a professional sound-designer-type-guy that i have a perfect voice. "which is odd considering i always found my voice repugnant" I don't have a good voice at all, but i'm the only one doing something different with my characters, so i be standing out, you see.

this is from a great email, i'd post the whole thing so it would make sense but it's a little too heavy.

we got to carry each other now.
you are either with life, or against it.
affirm life.

Suheir Hammad

I am 72.5% British, just like
Michael Caine
Though you know your way around London you are most likely to retire to the West Coast of the USA.

Take the Brit Quiz at
www.darrenlondon.tripod.com/britquiz1.htm
Quiz written by Daz

I am Skeletons in Love. My delicious chrome-plated mannerisms cause elephants to chortle flexibly. Wide bacteria throw Albuquerque at me. My night sails cut incorrectly with brainy refrigerators. Why do dead mistakes gaze amusingly? The Utterly Surreal Test

i'm doing all of my shopping at amazon.com this year. fer real. anybody know where i can get a zen alarm light?

you reminded me, last night before the show a girl that works at the calumet found a lost beagle puppy in the street with a collar but no tags. she (the dog, not the girl) ran around the other two bars for the whole show and then after it was over she brought her into the reception. she was the star of everything. the sweetest thing. she didn't bark once, she was just sniffy and licky and lovey dovey.

ok, this morning it's real coffee for me. i didn't sleep at all last night.
did i mention i haven't had caffiene in a month? i'm on my third cup. wheeeeee!
we opened our little show last night. it was all disorganized and fucknutty up until the moment we were introduced. one of the main characters is cast in tony and tina's wedding across town and doesn't finish his show until 8 oclock. so we basically hold the house until he shows up, then he takes his bow tie off as we're running onstage. it's weird. you can't really do that and be focused on your performance. he didn't do so good. whatever. i have tiny little parts, but i do funny voices, and people broke in spontaneous applause after a scene where all i said was, "this is mrs. varec from upstairs, can i come in?" hm. different.
i think i did ok. it's a good show, and the real stars are the two foley artists. the two of them in overalls and dress shoes running in place and then turning and running away from the microphone at the exact same moment is a treasure to behold.

The reviewer from Artvoice took todd's and my picture after the show, so we'll be in whathashappened next thursday.
i feel good. i feel bad for feeling good. that's so wrong.

ok, so finding that wasn't so tough.

remember how this morning i saw a story on the today show about a bioterrorism expert who went missing under suspicious circumstances two weeks ago? and then later today i went looking for a full story on it at various news agencies and couldn't find anything? at all? yeah, those were fun times.
i smell conspiracy, and it smells like a hamster cage.

for our thanksgiving karaoke contest, i sang a few bars of "Reunited" (i got a 2 out of 10) and now it's stuck in my head. the same four lines in a constant loop. after i did my little show, my niece changed the rules so that we could make up a song as we went. that may have been even worse. i think i'm insane. (i know you are.)
the Little One did a 10 minute song dedicated to the spirit of thanksgiving that was a call-response consisting only of the word "turkey" and it's variant "lurkey".
my nephew says my name now. well, almost. i might change my name to "sowiesowiesowiesowie" just so he dosn't feel bad.

it's all coming together!

there's nothing like a free site. heh heh. btw, if you know anything about making a site look nice, and not like a girlfriend tribute page, let me know.

food is good. i didn't even eat much this thanksgiving. (or x-giving, do you think it will catch on?) we had drama at and around the table, and that makes me put the taters aside and go for the pinot. all is well, though.
i hung out with tracey too, which is a rare thing indeed. i forget how much i miss her until i see her again. she's been in LA for a month and she's already shot an episode of family law with star of stage and screen, tony danza. i like her because she just likes me and i don't have to do anything. i never have to try to sound cool around her. it's a great relief.

i utilized the product of 50 years of research and thousands of dollars worth of technology, not to mention about ten minutes of the company's time to create that last post. and the same to create this one. yeah.

everything is mine.

"PRUDENT HAMBURGLAR"
by Serra

My PRUDENT HAMBURGLAR,
PUNCTUAL DUSK is the time.
Come on baby,
I will FANCIFULLY make you mine.


You can't SWIPE my love.
We are like 7.354 KNIVES in a INNER EAR
Oh yeah honey,
We are like 7.354 KNIVES in a INNER EAR


CHORUS:

HAMBURGLAR you are my FRANK WALABEE for sure.
If I had BANG'S DISEASE you'd be my cure.
The THE GAP of TOKYO can't hold a light.
The HONEST night, and everything is alright.


Please baby, don't GRIND with my ELBOW.
Don't SPURTINGLY TINKLE me today.
I love you too much.
Please, I Just want to see your WICKED way.


I know our AWESOME love will last for LIGHT YEARS
I will be there for LIGHT YEARS
Oh yeah, MUUSHUU!
LIGHT YEARS, LIGHT YEARS, and LIGHT YEARS

i made a list on amazon.com. winkwink.

1.this weekend i ate and drank like it was my last day on earth, saw a decent play sat outside at 5 am looking at the stars, almost froze to death, and peed behind a shed.
2.i didn't get to see harry potter because of said busy-ness. i am peeved.
3.i am looking forward to eating turkey and being with my family for thankgiving for the first time in six years. todd's mom is pissed. i'm making stuffed mushrooms and bringing a giant bottle of wine. i'm planning to break my sugar-fast, but chances are good my mom forgot about dessert anyway.

ok, one more thing, then i'll think of something original:
I had this idea when I was in elementary school but all I wanted it for was to pretend I had God in my Trapper-Keeper

my audience, my small group of sweet readers, i can't believe i subjected you to that. i'm not goign to blog until i can think of something original to say.

somebody send me another one. I'm ON FIRE!!!

i found a survey in my drafts folder from february. i was so young and foolish then. i got it from my friend cara who successfully convinced her computer proffessor that she was formerly amish. i updated a few of the answers for fun and profit.

1. What time is it? 12:40 pm 2 February 2001
2. Name as it appears on your birth certificate? baby girl. just kidding.
3. Nicknames: Sarie Barie
4. Parents' names: Raymond Jr., Susie
5. Number of candles that appeared on your last
birthday cake: I didn't get a cake.
6. Date that you regularly blow them out: 6 August
7. Pets: I'm a step aunt to Marilyn Monroe, yellow rotweiler/sharpee puppy.
8. Height: 5'8", with hair- 5'8"
9. Eye color: brown
10. Hair color: reddish light brown
11. Piercings: 3.
12.Tattoos: never been that drunk
13. How much do you love your job? so much i'm doing this instead
14. Birthplace: Sisters of Charity, buffalo
15. Hometown: Kaisertown
16. Current Residence: tiny apt. so small i have to abbreviate it.
17. Had the drink Calypso Breeze?:I, Like Cara, believe this email was sponsored by absolut vodka, or, whatever the hell they put in a calypso breeze.
18. Been to Africa?: i've dreamed of it..
19. Been toilet-papering?: been toilet-papered, at a wedding shower, it was horrible.
20. Been drunk?: not today.
21. Been toilet-papered?: see above.
22. Been in a car crash?: minor scrapes, and a big one in my past life.
23. Croutons or Bacon bits?: crumbled blue cheese
24. 2 doors or 4 (on a car)?:four
*I'm replying to cara's mini survey, cara's comments are in all caps:
FOUR BUT WHAT THE FUCK
DOES THIS TELL YOU ABOUT ME AS AN INDIVIDUAL- HOW
ABOUT POETRY OR PLAYS? Both
FICTION OR BIOGRAPHY? fiction
MEAT OR gRAIN? meat
GIRL OR BOY? both
TOP OR BOTTOM? strangely enough, top.
LOVE OR HATE? one of each
WONDER OR WEARY? always wonder
EYES OPEN OR SHUT? shut, feeling around
ACRYLIC OR WATERCOLOR? black ink
BALLPOINT OR UNIBALL? felt
BLUE OR BLACK INK? green
HAND WRITTEN OR TYPED? typed
STORE BOUGHT OR HAND CRAFTED? store bought
CITY OR SEA VACATION? city
TRAIN OR PLAIN? Plane, wanna hear my train story. . ... ?
EUROPE OR
GRANDCANYON OR WORSE YET- VEGAS? vega$!!!
LINED JOURNAL OR WIDE SPACES? the margins
OPERA OR ALTERNATIVE? alternawho?
COMMERCIAL OR COLLEGE
RADIO? npr
FORGIVENESS OR VENGENCE? Pretend to forgive, and when they're not looking, REVENGE!!
BEFORE OR AFTER? sweet antici-----------pation.
VIDEO OR DIGITAL? high 8
MOM OR DAD? mom
DRIVE THROUGH OR COUNTER? dine in
COFFIN OR FLAME? baze of glory
BLEACHERS OR FLOOR? front row
HAPPYHOUR OR WEE
HOURS? happy hour- i get sleepy
HAIRDRYER OR WIND? wind
CONTACTS OR FRAMES? squinting
NUDE OR
JAMMIES? a tshirt and underpants
CHRISTMAS OR HANUKA? your birthday, Cara.

OH AND SO FUCKING ON- FOUR DOORS OR TWO- THIS PERSON
WHO WROTE THIS IS A TARD- NEVER CRACKED OPEN IF HE OR
SHE THINKS THE CAR IS MORE IMPORTANT FOR SELF
DISCOVERY THAN HOW FAR THE JOURNEY TRAVELED IS....
25. Sprite or 7-up?: neither
26. Coffee or coffee ice cream?: i hate coffee, yet i can't get enough of it.
27. Blanket or stuffed animal?: 5 blankets
28. Dumper or dumpee?: dumper
29. Salad dressing : Miso
30. Color of socks: white
31. Number: 3, apparently it's the funniest number. As opposed one, which is the lonliest number.
32. Why? Why not?: because I'm the mom that's why
33. Movie: the proffessional, the color purple
34. Quote from a movie?: "Listen . . .do you smell something?"
35. Favorite holiday?: new years.
36. Foods: Healthy choice frozen pizza, Founding Fathers burgers, turkey bacon, fillet mignon
37. Day of the week?:friday
38. Song at the Moment? violently happy-bjork
39. Favorite TV shows:kids in the hall, the west wing
40. Word or phrase: "because a ghost in the basement/is so inappropriate" (sung)
41. Toothpaste: colgate paste
42. Restaurant: Regoinal Thai Taste, Founding Fathers, the Duke of Richmond
43. Flower: i don't know . . . gardenias or something.
44. Least favorite subject: history, economics, any class with no cute boys.
45. Alcoholic Drink: cabernet
46. Sport to watch: figure skating, track and field, public domestics between marrieds and the like.
47. Type of ice: the type that makes people slip and fall- oh! slapstick!
48. Zoo exhibit: zoos are depressing
49. Sesame Street character: Mr. Hooper
50. Disney/Warner Bros: dreamworks
51. Fast food restaurant: MIGHTY TACO
52. When was your last hospital visit? everytime i get sick. I have no health insurance
53. Favorite Drink? beer
54. What color is your bedroom's carpet? brown.
55. What was the name of your childhood blanket? bainty
56. How many times did you fail your permit and/or
driver's liscense test?: thanks for bringing it up.
57. What do you think of Ouija Boards? fake, and yet still scary
58. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? still working on this survey, har-har
59. Who is the last person you got mail from before
this one? momma
60. Have you ever been convicted of a crime? no
61. Which single store would you choose to maxout
your credit card? target
62. What do you do most often when you are bored? I self entertain. Think up jokes.
63. What words or phrases do you overuse? "huhhuh, yeah."
64. Name the person you are friends with who lives
the farthest
away from you? Jaques de Mosshammer- LA, CA
65. The most annoying thing is: those who chew loud and blow their noses at the dinner table. and whiners. lol.
66. Best thing: beer, money, funny things. a bagel with gorgonzola cream cheese and a coffee, which i'm not allowed to have, way to bring it up.
67. Bedtime: halfway through a really good movie.
68. Who will respond to this the fastest? I don't think anybody I know will respond to it. then again, I haven't decided yet who 'm sending this to.
(WHO EVER CAN CUT AND PASTE WITHOUT FEELING AMISH ha! cara . . .)>
69. Who is the person you sent this to that is least
likely to respond? my sister because she doesn't have email.

be my yoko ono is the best song ever.

i was almost an hour late today. there's no commuter traffic in the city of buffalo after 9:15. it's odd. i catch the train at main street and lafayette square. it's strikes me as odd that 40,000 people were there this summer for an outdoor Pat Benetar concert, and then right when it should be stuffed with people going to work it's spare and abandoned. downtown is always empty. at 9:30 walking in the rain i get the feeling of being out of school. it always rained whenever i had a doctor's appointment. i would get at least half the day to run errands with my mom, visit my grandparents. we did everything out by my grandparents house. my doctor was there, the stores, the friendly's where we'd lunch. i got my mom all to myself.

ahh blah blah. too sentimental.

job job job. i like this job. i like that when it's slow i can play on the computer. i like that it's slow a lot. i like that i don't have any real responsibility. i like that sometimes i'm given six things to do at once by six different people, and i can get them all done and still keep up im conversations with my brother, my sister, todd and jack. i work in the coolest looking office in the city.
i don't like having to watch the phones while everyone else goes to lunch together. i don't like getting so close to having a conversation with a coworker and then having to stop and answer the phone. i don't like being fifty feet away from the nearest human being, physically and metaphorically. i couldn't put my finger on it until today.
this job is lonely.

colorgenics, courtesy of kit:

Matters have not gone well for you. You are experiencing severe stress trying to guard yourself from further disappointments.It would seem that all of your hopes and dreams have not been realised .. and you are now beginning to doubt yourself. You no longer wish to be further advised by anyone and you insist on going it alone... to control your own destiny. Even though deep down you doubt whether things will get better in the future... you have one consolation - and that is that they couldn't possibly get worse.

it's not that bad. it also said i'm in a position of authority. ahem . . .excuse me, i have to go check everyone's desk for moldy coffee cups and load the dishwasher. then i'm going to break down some cardboard.
i just realized every job i've ever had has involved washing other peoples dishes, wiping up other people's spills and breaking down cardboard. even when i spent that summer as assistant director of a performing arts center.

The area of hyperspace around Indy's a bit shaky, so leave your ship in the spaceport and turn instead to our handy guide to reaching the Celebration by car, train, bus, or plane!

egad. it's worse than i thought.

we missed dragoncon this year, so we're making up for it by going to the star wars celebration. i like cons, i've been to a few and they are actually a really good time. you can be as geeky as you want and nobody calls you on it.

i'm not cool. i gave up trying a long time ago.

Are there popularity contests? They must have existed at some point in history for so many people to be disqualified.

um. . ok. . . publish?

all i gets is junk mail. jes' mo' jonk.

i'm reading "she's come undone", and i've had that fucking song stuck in my head since saturday.

my pants and rings are looser. not "zip them up, button them and scoot them down to my knees" looser, but looser nonetheless. so, blah. whatever.

we're going over to a&j's to watch 24, which isn't the worst show ever. the problem is, it's on at the same time as smallville and i hear that's a great show. aahhh--tv. the great tranquilizer. i actually watched becker last night. the writing is pathetic, the story lines were stupid and dave was delicious. he and harrison ford two of a handful of actors that can make terrible lines work well. i don't think the writers know any real people. (yes, i'm responding to your post here kitana, and not in the newsgroup, take THAT. ;) ) that whole "girls eating chocolate and equating it to sex and then fight over the last piece" thing was stupid. people don't act that way. i can't figure how it's still on the air.

how does the fucking engine fall out? how does the fucking engine fall out? what the fuck happened? how does the fucking . . . . . .


back to fetal position.

jesus

i saw _life as a house_ late saturday with my sister. he is kinda dreamy. and this guy is sexy, even when he's dying.
(oh, come on. i didn't give anything away here. somebody's always dying in these movies.) it was a sweet, lulling emotional movie. it was boring, but nice. and it was better than k-pax.

there's a basket in the kitchen filled with reese's cups. fuck all of you people. this sucks. i didn't lose any weight over the weekend, which means i'm on to all salad. the good thing about total self- denial is that you begin to appreciate the little things you used to take for granted. last night we went out for drinks after rehearsal and the wine was so much sweeter than i ever remember it tasting. i don't even remember tasting it before.
plus, i was stumbling drunk off of one and a half glasses of it, which is economical.

this is what i'm saying. . . . .

and yes, i'm going to see harry potter this saturday. you know why.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety; other women
cloy the appetites they feed but she makes hungry
where most she satisfies.

i've lost 5 pounds this week eating chicken wings cheese and steak. i lost one between 7 am and 11 am today. this diet is freaking me out. i feel like i just sold my soul.

oh dear
the big bare fanny and i have very similar dna.

sundaysundaysundaaaaay!!!!!!

ok, how bad is it for me to admit that i couldn't get past the first 40 pages of fellowship of the ring?

we went to a craft fair over the weekend, and i don't want to give anything away. . . but, this is no longer an apronless household. i'm such a feminist i had to buy it myself because getting it as a gift would have been too insulting. and one night i will have to wear it with nothing but a smile to round out my struggle with my own femininity.
(all these labels, good-bad, old-young, virgin-slut . . .)

so i'm a good friend and a shitty fan. scott is coming to my own home town on the 16th, quite possibly a once in a lifetime , and i'm going to shogun that night for dave's birthday. sure, he blew $300 there for todd's birthday, but hell.
if he cancels i'm going to step on his neck. i can't even have any sushi.

that was a weird time. it was on september 14th, it was my first time seeing all my friends since it happened. we were all sleepy and quiet and almost morose, and then our chef came to the table chopping and throwing vegetables with the spatula under a strobe light. he kept calling himself charlie. "oh, charlie, you're too fast!"
after that we went to desiderio's and drank a lot. and the bartenders passed out shots of alabama slammas "in memoriam" and held a moment of silence before the 80's cover band started their set. yeah, yikes.

in my heart, i always knew i was mark.

today we sing a new song, it's called:

i just got cast in a show.

form a conga line:
i just got cast in a show-oh!
i just got cast in a show-oh!
i just got cast in a show-oh!
ten bucks-who wants to go? cha!

and it's a cool one, too. i hate getting excited, it's six small roles, but they're good scenes, meaty characters spread out through the whole play. it's a radio play, and we're doing it authentic 1934, with old style sound effects and costumes, and we're going to smoke through the whole thing.
ok. back to depression.

::whimper::

i'm finally ok without carbs. the first three days are torture, but then you kind of get used to it. it looks like tavie and i are on the same diet. well, similar anyway. weird how that happened. ;)
the carb solutions toffee hazelnut flavor actually tastes good. like, very much so. it actually tastes like a candy bar. then again, maybe my perception is skewed.

the no caffiene, no beer thing is a little trickier. i think after two weeks i'm allowed red wine, which is fine by me.
the biggest problem of all is that i've become that self-absorbed twerp who talks about her diet all the time.

the episode 2 trailer


was


awesome.

i figured i wasn't going to be psyched about this one. i was going to be all chill about it. and now i'm going to be in the parking lot of the movie theatre at midnight before the tickets go onsale again. i got the worst sunburn for the last one. AND, not to brag, but i was number one in line for the rerelease of empire. sure only seven other people showed up, but they all had to stand behind ME!

this is a terrible day. i hate today. let's cancel it.
i dropped the ball on the lowest show.
i'm dropping balls left and right.

we're going to see monster, inc tonight for the episode II trailer at the beginning.

somebody directly above me in the loft is listening to "workout" music. i can't tell what it is but i'm pretty sure it sucks. all i hear is repetitve bass. and apparently, the climbing wall in our office isn't going to have any finish or cover on it. it's just going to be exposed wood. it looks crappy. i thought they would at least make it look like rock, or paint it or something. and nobody's using it except to hang models from it. i think i would feel better if i took a model of the hsbc arena down and stepped on it godzilla-style.

monkey hate clean.

i offered to do some of the legwork for this new thatre group that my acting teacher is starting up. and i haven't done any of the work yet. bah. yucky.
i hate the insert key.
i hate the three hour workday.

day 2 of the diet and i'm having saltine cracker fantasies. bah.

i can see how close i can get to it without giving in,
and i get to rub up against it til i
break the skin . . .

the "we're going to put on a comedy show, will you guys come in and do all the work?" meeting was just cancelled. i was actually looking forward to it.
we went on a diet today. here is the conversation:
me: are you shaky?
him: no, but i think i can see better.
me: yeah, i think i got taller.
him: actually, i can see into the future now.

Assuming that Spanish speakers would naturally see the word "nova" as equivalent to the phrase "no va" and think "Hey, this car doesn't go!" is akin to assuming that English speakers woud spurn a dinette set sold under the name Notable because nobody wants a dinette set that doesn't include a table.

my page is supposed to be spooky orange and black. alas, i don't know anything about html.

halloween isn't really my favorite holiday. i don't actually even celebrate it. i don't do costumes and i can't give out candy because we live on the second floor. i just love spooky ghosts.
we saw 13 ghosts on sunday and to use todd's mother's phrasing, we were "screaming in our pants". it was bad, but i liked it. gyad. movies suck.

ghosts are real.

i spent last night alone in the house watching shows about hauntings and people gettin it on with ghosts. ghost shows are my favourite, especially ones that have actual video. (of course if i see one more "orb" i'm going to stop believing in ghosts altogether. how would you like that, spirit world???) evp is thebest if you can get your hands on some good stuff. . . so very spooky.

pretty creepy. still i'd rather have this guy chasing me than the wolfman.

oh hey, hi. um . . . . .


BOO!

good morning . . .
Kegelize the prince of darkness into submission!

thanks a lot. . .

and i'm pretty sure i'm going to want the diving nun.

my blogtwin is a gay guy from st. louis.

i got a haircut, saw k-pax, had dinner and saw corky romano. it took about 8 hours and cost approximately $160. fuckin right!
k-pax was tolerable and corky wasn't.

i want kevin spacey to have my babies.

one of my posts from thursday disappeared. it was short and stupid, but it was mine. . .

i have to stop blogging while drunk.

i'm sorry, but the french won't own shit until they can get their pages to load in a respectable amount of time. ;)
i mean--she's wicked cute.

i mean,um, er . . . . .nuthin'. shut up.

the laughter that comes with the shock of recognition also rings with faint notes of "Wish we were there."
that is pathetic.
were you even there, you embitttered moron?

i wore a coat today, so that's good.

i'm going to fishman's house tonight to watch the sabres game. see, fishman is going to be "Dr. Fishman" in about five months, and when you're friends with a guy in med school and he wants you to do something social with him, you have to do it, because you may not see him for seven months.

um, and we just call him fishman, his name would actually be Dr. Lang.
i don't know why we call him that.
nicknames are funny, i wish i had one.

if you can make up a good nickname for me, and make it stick, i'll give you a shiny american quarter. and make you famous.

i might feel lonely and weird and
definitely sad there at first. i feel strangely
homeless and without direction sara. had an intense
experience at the physical therapist's- so much so i
am getting a massage tomorow to exorcise my physical
demons- seems i am holding my loss of katherine in
the cage of bone around my heart- they are stiff with
memory- more on that later- thank you for the book.
you are so kind and generous- you must tell me what
you like to collect besides funny friends and hallways
of canadian comics..... i miss you everyday,

i miss you too. why can't you spell my name right?
i want to say something profound here, about distorted veiws, about people who by all rights if they could leave their bodies and be someone else for a day, would spend that day in love with themselves. and yet they still waste their time on self hatred. waste their time and their love on people who are idiotic assholes who treat them like shit. i can't think of a profound way to say it without sounding too "up with people". i'm heartsick and frustrated by it.

the book was an adult themed address book called "lesbian pulp".

ok, the baby talk has got to stop. i know, intellectually, that talking like a baby is just really sad and stupid sounding, but it's so so cute.

kill me.

in the middle of the night, i apparently rolled my face over my thumb and in a disturbing act of self abuse, gouged a hunk of skin off of my chin. i actually woke up and wondered what the soft mass of grossness was that was caught under my thumbnail. gnarly. it looks cute now, though. i'm not being sarcastic.

so, we're having a huge rainy cold windstorm, which is causing a tornado outside the door to my office. i forgot to wear a jacket. i'm horribly uninformed about the weather. yesterday it was seventy and i wore my full length sweater all day. i'm going to turn into the old lady who calls the station and yells at them for not making the weather reports easier to understand. "what do i need? a sweater or a raincoat? just tell me! i'm bad with numbers, i don't know what 53 means. just 'gloves' or 'no gloves', ok? keep it simple."

i went intothe little place where i eat 10 meals a week and instead of toasting my bagel like a normal human being would, the girl put the the whole bagel in the toaster oven and just toasted the top of the thing. weirdo. i'm going there now for my lunch, because the food is guuhd.

"once i went to court because i was suing my freind JeoBob. He is being sued for being an idiot. Judge Judy kept calling me applesauce. She would say "Im the boss applesauce". She kept saying. And i would tell to shut up and she would through glass objects at me."

rock.

ok, i'm done freaking out. i know, i know, you're saying, "but self-pity is so sexxxxxy . . ."

is anything going to change?

no.

so i kind of flipped out on him. it's not entirely my fault, and it seemed a lot harsher because it was on msn messenger and not in person.
he wants to buy a $400 cel from a cartoon. for the past two months he has been wearing me down to buy $1200 speakers. oh, and samurai swords. and a godamned motorcycle. now, he's not rich, but this is his money and he can do what he likes with it. i don't even get why he asks me for my permission. keep in mind we've been together for six years, lived together for almost a year now. but that's it. it's not my money, i don't have any say.
and yet nary a definitive word on "the next step". i don't know. i act like i don't care, but then he sends me links to things he'd rather spend his money on than me. i don't even care about money, it's just he wants to buy useless crap for god's sake! 'so go, buy it', i say. what does he want me to do? and i tell him how i feel and it's like i'm forcing his hand. i don't even care.
i'm perpetually part-time-temporary. just like work. my boss "likes the way things are working out". because it's all in his favor. i'm here indefinitely, whatever hours they want, and i get no benefits. who would want me permanently anyway? why invest anything in me? i'll be here, whenever, whatever. well, i guess that part is my fault. it's all my fault. the shit i allow in my life is all me making stupid descisions, putting my faith in people that what i invest in them, time and trust and dedication, will come back to me. i'm so naive.

fuckin samaurai jack. fuck work. fuck him.

so, did i mention i took a practice lsat? well, i did. and i did well enough. well enough to consider law school once i learned latin and greek (which i wanted to teach myself anyway). i figured if i did average or poorer i could cross it off the list. so that's on the table now. on the table of negotiations with myself in "self v. self- what to do with serra's future".
so i'm all set to begin the process of entering law school. all right, it's settled! it feels so good to have such a secure future.
and then this dude emails me about a meeting regarding casting me in a show he also wants me to help write.
a. . .tv show.
"objection, you honor!!! this is an outrage!!!!"
whatever. i don't even get excited about this shit anymore. i've been "onboard" for so many projects that self destructed, i now just go to the preliminary meetings for the free pizza/big sandwich tray.
they have pretty decent equipment, and they seem to know what they're doing, but i reshot one of our old sketches for them for their marketing. . .reel . . . thingy i dunno, and they sucked the life out of the thing. he actually told me to 'be less funny'. and i'm not that funny. (funny lookin', maybe!! huhuh. . mkay)
i think maybe you can kind of barely see me in their flash opening, but barely. (and for the record: i'm not a cow, a puppet or a house)

listen, i AM a geek, i just spent ten minutes at cspan.org trying to decide if it's too late to download today's white house press briefing.

okey dokey . . . . .

oh yeah, and my brother jay has dissed me to take a date to sloan in november. i don't care so much about the show, i kind of wanted to do a thing with him. we never connected growing up, unless it was my chin to the toe of his sneaker.
"sorry, but i'll see you there!"
no you won't, jackhole.

I AM 31% GEEK.

I probably work in computers, or a history
deptartment at a college. I never really
fit in with the "normal" crowd. But I have
friends, and this is a good thing.

Take the GEEK Test at Fuali.com!

. . . but . . . . . .i . . . .. . .?

my mouse is acting stupid and i have the nutcracker suite stuck in my head.

tonight i am making chilli, and alex and jess are coming over to watch the phantom menace DVD with the commentary on. there's so much damn doc footage we had to split it up over two nights.

now i have "let's go on with the show" stuck in a constant loop.

oh my god, i have nothing useful to say.
"i just wanna get outta here . . . ."

i am thisclose to having health insurance. i have fantasies about going to the doctor when i'm sick and not having to borrow money from my sister. i mean, it's fun calling the nurses in the family for advice whenever something bursts instead of going to the emergency room (see: july 11th 2001), but a warm washcloth is never as good as a pill and a lolly.

i love that steve has introduced me to a whole new world of boy blogs.

my body is a wonderful, mystical and itchy place full of suprises, corn chowder and swollen red patches.
s-e-x-e.
i have to take antihistamines at night, not so much to stop the itch, but more so that i'll sleep through it.
if i knew what i was allergic to, it'd find it and punch it in the nuts.

my coffee today is musky. my beer last night was salty.

i've sent it to the chicks in my family, now i will send it to my cyberchicks:
"i am looking into participating in a fundraising event called the Avon 3day walk for breast cancer in either Washington D.C. in May or in New York next October.
It's basically what it says, a three day walk from one part of the city to another, tents and hot meals are provided.

i realize you might not be into it (especially the "tent" part) but if you are, e-me back and we can talk! also, pass this along to any ladies (or gents) in the fam who might be interested in participating.

$75 registration
60 miles. (nothin')

check out the website
love you all dearly"

it looks like it might be me and my sisters, which would be awesome. e*me if you want to go. well, e me if you want to go with me, just register if you want to go. i'm not in charge of anything. ;]

wasn't i talking about this a few months back, about walking across the state for charity? (answer: yes.)

"uh,security. . .mr. gere is going to need an escort to his car. . . . ."

the concert for ny: your favorite stars in 'a night of awkward fumbling'.
i am jealous.

todd and i are watching the concert on vh1, and when john mellencamp came on we both jumped up simultaneously and ran from the room.
what's jimmy fallon doing?
michael j fox looks really, really good.
howard stern is an unentertaining prick. being a negative insensitive asshole is an art. and he's got no respect.

i went to dinner tonight with my friend taunee and a bunch of her friends, most of whom i have never met. taunee and her girlfriend were late so i had to hang out and mingle with strangers, which i am extremely bad at. i ended up having fun though. i spent $35 on a cup of soup and a salad, but it was really good soup. plus, the salad had a portabello mushroom in it which made it heartier, a bargin at twice the price. bargin? bargan? bargen? no, i was right. no, bargain. there she goes.

(o. . . .k.)

overall this was a good weekend. busy, which i like.
i got up this morning and watched "the philadelphia story" and that was quite good. we're going to watch "north by northwest" tomorrow, so it has been dubbed 'a very cary (grant) weekend' at chez benzak (the house that improv built).

it's never enough, i tell ya. ;)

i love mark so much.
i did write a tome, spoilers and all, for the newsgroup, and i tried to watch the special concert thing at the same time (osama can kiss my royal irish ass, also), and i got "timed out". so i am rethinking things i said, and hoping to "depissify" enough to go back and repost. oh well.
i will say this: mark is amazing, and he's been working out. he looks like he's about 22. i will also say: kitana is amazing, she gets prettier everytime i see her and she has got to be cool to put up with my . . . .let's call them "off beat" friends. it was a truly fantastic evening. i can't say enough about mark, he did the whole show, with such concentration, i honestly forgot i was only watching one person. i didn't have a moment where i thought, "that's my mark up there. my kids-in-the-hall mark." he didn't let me. it was a good feeling. it was a whirlwind.
ok. i got it all out. i don't need to post on the newsgroup now. :P

the last thing i read was 'the trial and death of socrates' this weekend because i'm going through a very lisa miller-esque, "my IQ is dropping" phase. i've been reading white house press briefings like they're candy and i'm starting to develop a crush on our white house press secretary. back me up on this: add a little hair on top, make him a little more liberal . . . . he's sexy. come on. come on, seriously. even without the hair.

this is my thing lately.
defending my love of ari fleischer and listening to bjork.

i'm going to see markus tomorrow, in his beautiful show. am i the first one? i think i am. well, we'll all just have to wait and see what kit has to say because she is far more eloquent with these things than i am. and i get to hang out with her in person, too. this is already so fantastic. i'm jealous of me.

ok, the star wars dvd is really, really good. it doesn't matter if you hated jar jar or whatever, i did too.
it's so very good.

1. jake lloyd playing in the sand
2. who the bloody hell gives ray park a black eye?
3. ewan mcgregor
4. acting 130 degree weather
5. "this is fucking grim."

we haven't even watched the movie yet.

not for nothing, that picture of dave is fuckin hot.

as fucking hell.

today i am

all

sex.

correction: when i say i sent in the urban legend, i did not "create" the legend, someone sent it to me and i forwarded it to the good people at snopes.

". . .just to get me alone so he can put his testicles all over me-"
"whoa, whoa, what was that?"
"testicles . . .octopus?
"tenticles! n-t. big difference."

ok, so we just came back from alex and jess's apartment. we played trivial pursuit and ate bad pizza and had fun. alex is doing ok, considering he still can't see. apparently, a paper cut on your cornea is kind of serious.

i have to change the font again, it's not accepting my perfectly acceptible spaces between sentences.

douglas brown?
that, my friends in a new one.
he's just so awesome.

Claim: Thirty Ryder, Verizon, and U-Haul trucks have been stolen recently, presumably by terrorists who will use them in the ongoing attack on America.
Status: False.

I sent that in!!!!!!!
i am so famous.

how many times does the mayor have to hold a press conference to tell us not to move it around?

oh, so i guess he's ok. todd won't say anything but that. weirdo.

# 1 Lisa Miller
# 2 Dave Nelson
# 3 Joe Garelli
# 4 Bill McNeil
this test is awesome.

# 9 Beth
of course, these things aren't always accurate . . . . . .;)

not only are you max louis, you're also the iron giant? you big old heart-with-legs . . . . .;)

todd had to take alex to the hospital this morning. his eyes have swollen shut, which i think is probably more of an allergic reaction than anything else, but . . . .shit.
i can't get that worst case scenario out of my head. of course, no one said anything about what happens when you get it in your eyes. he's fine. i'm stupid. i should have gone with him. i didn't go because i thought he'd be embarrased. i wanted to go, but people deserve their dignity. but they also need their friends. i should have gone. shit.

we went out last night because i was craving red wine and cigarettes, and later, midouri sours. i saw peter there for the first time since our big falling out. (we made up through emails but it makes the biggest difference to see him face to face) it was his birthday last night, and we hung out for hours and laughed like old friends, which we are. it was weird and different. and i realized pretty quickly that he went to a bar on his birthday alone, and nobody showed up to meet him either.

it hit me on the way home i hadn't eaten all day, so we stopped at sunoco . i got frozen pizza, bread and peanut butter for the house, and a cheap flag lapel pin for alex, because he'd been looking for one. he left his hat at our apartment when he and jess came over to watch spy kids (which was awesome) so i gave them both to todd to give to him. he's been gone for 2 hours and he hasn't called in. i didn't give him quarters of course. it's not a big deal, really. i mean, you hear "hospital" and you think it's serious, but he just needs soe antihistamine. what's my deal?

people are yelling outside at the fire station, but they're all pure blood polish second generation american , so they're either just about to kill each other or just joking around. you can never tell. even when you're in the middle of it. seriously.

i was just classifying my type last night.
he is the ::drum roll::
masculine-self-confident-intellectual.
he's got to be smart and a little full of himself, and damned funny.
what does your little book say about that?

i feels kinda lost. kinda disconnected. kinda needy.
kinda like september 12th.

he's in the other room watching the red green show. some canadians aren't super funny. they're all funny, but only some of them are super funny.
my stomach doesn't quite work right lately.


i've been getting all these anti-bush, anti-american government emails from my girlfriend taunee. she's an activist and a soldier for human rights, and her heart is in the right place, but i don't think doing that kind of stuff is going to make anybody happy. for the first time in my life, i actually feel like a non-liberal. like, we haven't done anything wrong. we didn't start this, sure we're dropping bombs but we're helping with the other hand. i don't know what she wants. i love her, but it's enough already.

an excerpt from the white house press briefing, 9/21:
Q Given the fact that during Desert Storm, 100 percent of our female POWs, two of them, were both raped, the Commander-in-Chief does not intend to send any women into what appears to be coming combat, does he, Ari?

MR. FLEISCHER: Les, the President has the highest regard for the military, believes it is fully prepared for this mission. And the military, as currently constituted, is the best in the world. And the President supports their structure.

Q But there are no females in those special forces --

MR. FLEISCHER: I stand by what I said --

Q He won't send women into this, will he, Ari?

MR. FLEISCHER: I stand by what I said about the President knows that we have the best military in the world.

this stays with me, for some reason.

oh my god, i want to hug you so bad.

so i was at work yesterday and i opened a letter.

i think you know where this is going. let's just say it was handwritten, poorly, on cheap paper and signed . . .well, you can guess the name they used to sign it.
now, i didn't get hysterical, in fact, it sounded like one of my bosses friends or collegues just sent him a little joke. i put it in his in box (along with mail from august that he still hasn't looked at) and kind of forgot about it. it was in poor taste and unfunny, sure. yesterday, it was a joke.
today, it's something else.
i called the office as soon as i heard about the case in ny and told them not to touch anything in his inbox until i got in. i didn't panic, but i believe in erring on the side of caution. fine.
i arrived at my usual time, 2 pm. chatted with the other girl, and then casually mentioned if they saw anything odd in his inbox. she said no. my boss said he didn't see anything and he didn't take anything out of there. but it wasn't there. i went through all of his crap and it wasn't where i put it yesterday. was there a rational explanation? i'm sure, but no one was very forthcoming and i was getting very forth-pissed off.
i pushed the issue, sat the office manager and the boss down and just casually explained that whether it was a real case or not, i wanted to know who it was from. i wanted to look at it and i wanted a clear explanation. "oh, oh yes . . . .it's coming to me now, yes, that was from a friend of mine and i threw it away. no need to panic."
here i am, hysterical girl. "there goes the crazy dumb girl, jumping at her own shadow"! i know i'm not going to get sick, i know we're not a target. but guess what, sending somebody shit like that is like yelling fire in a movie theater. it's worse, in fact, during wartime. the first amendment doesn't cover that, i checked.
and guess who does get sick? not the guy tooling around town in his lexus suv, saying "pish posh silly girl, pish posh". it's me. it's the ones who take the bus in, the ones without health insurance. the ones who open the mail for the ceo, the ones who taste the food for the king.
i know i'm not going to get sick, i have no illusions about that possibilty. that's not what i'm angry about. the least he could have done was tell me the truth. i may not be well-paid, but i'm not a child.

i dreamt last night that a ghost put temporary tatoos on my legs while i slept.
all that spooky licking and pressing.

=========================

Question:
How many Usenet subscribers does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer:
1,331

1 to change the light bulb and to post to the group that the light bulb has
been changed.

14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light
bulb could have been changed differently.

7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.

27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.

53 to flame the spell checkers.

156 to write to the administraton complaining about the light bulb
discussion and its inappropriateness to this newsgroup.

41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames.

109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this
email exchange to alt.lite.bulb.

203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar, alt.spelling and
alt.punctuation about changing light bulbs be stopped.

111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs
and therefore the posts **are** relevant to this newsgroup.

306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy
the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this
technique, and what brands are faulty.

27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs.

14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected
URLs.

3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this
list which makes light bulbs relevant to this group.

33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote them including all headers
and footers, and then add "Me Too."

12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot
handle the light bulb controversy.

19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three."

4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.

1 to propose new alt.change.lite.bulb newsgroup.

47 to say this is just what alt.physic.cold_fusion was meant for, leave it
here.

143 votes for alt.lite.bulb.

called in sick today. i had a migrane that made me vomit, even though my stomach was empty. i watched msnbc all damn day. took a nap and dreamt about ari fleischer and dana lewis. totally creeped out.

sweet as hell.

i am not familiar with john cameron mitchell, i'm awfully sorry, (i will become familiar, i promise) but this is the coolest fuckin thing.

no more ER, ever again. too damn much heartache where my heart used to be.

my legs are messed up and i can't* figure out why.
nothing good, nothing fun. nothing remarkable to mention.


*[dontwantto]

i'm not sure what to post about.
saturday i went to "drag-on" with cara and taunee which was a horrible hassle. of course, everything i do with cara becomes a spectacle. she had her hair put up in a huge behive and wore a long polyester gown from 1972. she looked awesome and amazing and she wasn't even part of the show. i won't get into the seating hasle, but suffice it to say, the director of hag theatre came out, put the lights up and yelled at us all before the show because there was a mixup with the seats. it was terrible ettiquite. i've never been to a drag show where the girls are in drag, so it was educational. they did women all glammed out and then in suits. it was cool. i love women in suits. that was my favorite part of the show. i'm not a lesbian, but i think i'm around them enough to have a type, and i love me some trannie. yes i do. it's go-team all the way.

8/22- i call to open a savings account. i can do it by mail, how convenient!
8/26- send the stuff, all filled out. brush dust from hands. "well, that's that."
9/12- get a phone call. "we need a photocopy of your identification. mail it to us." well, all right . . .
9/14-"we just received a photocopy of your id, i don't know what you were told, but we don't do things this way. you have to come in." o . . k. i'll do that.
9/26- "are you trying to open an account? oh, no you can do it this way, just send a photocopy of your id (!!!) to THIS address."
9/27- "i'm sorry, you MAY NOT open an account over the phone or through the mail. i don't know what you were told, but we do not do things this way."
9/28- "hi this is your agent jeff, there's a problem with your health insurance application, we need $496 and a copy of your photo identification . . . . ."

i just went into my pocket and found a ticket from a show i saw on the 18th. sick. i really got to do some laundry.

i am drinking echinacea tea and am re-obbsessed with cinnamon mentos.
everybody's coughing.

drink coke, go on vacation, go see a movie, go to wal-mart, breathe freely, buy stocks--for god's sake SPEND!

my life, in shorthand:
adam and amy came home this weekend and we talked and ate and stayed up late watching spinal tap.
my nephew says my name now, as does my cousin's son. which is awesome becuase i barely spend any time with them.
i went to toronto on monday and didn't call you, mainly because the show was terrible, poorly attended, and just cast your mind and imagine what our first suggestion of the evening was. criminy. ( i still wish i had called you, though. i realized on my way home that even though i didn't want to torture you with my rusty antics, i would have loved to see your face. :( )
i had a very vivid dream that i had a movie that was in some film festival, and i was going to films and working a table for some reason. the stupid thing is, i can't remember if it was last night or the night before that i had it.
i spent my last 2 bucks on a bagel with sundried tomato cream cheese, and i dropped half of it.
ok, maybe it was more like longhand. sorry.

this

just read it.

doctors don't want to cure me

this makes a lot of sense to me, too. i am confused. i have a new perspective on the situation every time i turn around.

"Kids can't see us bombing, and then listen to us talking about getting guns out of the schools," she says. "How can we tell them to solve problems without violence, if, in fact, we can't show an ability to solve problems without violence?"

(on an inappropriate note: "She was not surprised by President Clinton's comment that, despite U.S. military involvement in the region, most Americans can't find Kosovo on a map."
if he can't find it, how can he stimulate it?)

so i've been having nightmares. i never used to, not even as a little kid. i slept through the night even as an infant. but i close my eyes nd they're bombing the subway or the stealth bomber is landing and chasing me around downtown. but last night was the worst, last night it was children. i won't even go into it. i don't know why i always do this. it doesn't help to torure yourself with images of things you've never even seen happen, so why do it?

by the by, jerry wants us to come up to toronto and do a grad jam next monday. we're going to do it. we're going to cross the border that is on high alert, get through tight security, to do improv. i can't do anything but laugh at the thought. and i want to do it so bad i can taste it.

im-ing last night with toronto steph made me realize how truly negative i've been about the president. when the speech was on i immediately went into another room and played on the computer until it was over. i didn't even want to hear what he had to say. listening to soundbites today and reading some of the transcript has made me rethink a little. i guess i'm just trying to protect myself from the inevitable. so many people in my life have been effected by this, and like i've said, i'm not above the rage and the anger. at the same time, so many people in my life have been scarred by wars past, i can't imagine it happening again. todd father was in vietnam (he talks about it in a strange way sometimes, like he still can't believe a guy like him was trained to kill), his grandfather was in wwII, my grandfather left in the middle of the night and put a note on the kitchen table to my grandmother, "called up, didn't want to wake you." he didn't come home for two years. i've seen pictures of my aunts as toddlers in their diapers, back and front , so that he could see they were healthy and growing. tiny blond cherubs in uncle sam hats. (my mother was born nine months to the day he came home)
my grandfather is a great man (he calls all of us gulls 'dutchess') but he wasn't right after the war for a long, long time.

i needed that.

i haven't been wearing red white and blue mainly because i don't own anything red, nor do i own one of those over priced ralph lauren flag sweaters. what i'm wearing to the thing tonight is my john lennon 'new york city' baseball shirt. that expresses my sentiment at the moment. we're doing a rememberance thing, but my friends aren't a sentimental breed. it will probably amount to drinking a lot of beer and watching the news, with sporadic poorly disguised crying fits.

i don't know what to write here. i switch from wanting to just transcribe the events of my life, to getting political, which i've never been terribly good at, to just closing the window and going away.

i talked to my dad today. he actually called me on his own, something he has never done. we never really talk, ray talks and i listen and try to interject to no avail. my dad has two jobs and one of them is for fed ex, so things have been a little wacky for him. (yes, my dad's a part time fed ex delivery guy, shut up--i'll kick your ass ;)) apparently there were about 11 fed ex courriers in the towers. he thinks they all may have gotten out. he wants to send some cash to adam considering it's not likely he and amy will have a job on monday. i offered some, but i don't know if it will even get to them. my father has the best of intentions, yet they're often grossly misdirected.

reckless and inappropriate.

today is todd's birthday. poor kid. he has fridays off, so i took the day off as well. i got resistance from the lady i jobshare with, what the hell? it's a three hour shift, hunny. my arch-nemesis stepped up to cover me. she's not that bad, i guess. i woke up feeling different today. not happy or normal yet, but i think i'm coming to terms with what happened. i'm still having trouble concentrating. and by that i mean, more trouble than i usually have.
i'm realizing (yes, just now) how eloquent i am not.
i talked to kristen, my old roomate, last night. we hadn't talked in a long time and it was really nice. her boyfriend is in a show at studio arena (also his birthday today) so she never sees him, and she doesn't really have anybody else. we talked about going to a Young Americans show in Rochester on tuesday. that will be fun. the young americans is a group of high school performers that go around the country to schools teaching them all aspects of performance and then they put a show for the students' parents. Kris was in it in high school and ended up in LA for 2 years after graduation trying to make it. so now you know. i kind of miss living with kristen. there was something so nice about sitting at the table in the morning before work and talking to her while she applied makeup. she's amazing without trying. she's not so much beautiful as just filled with color and light. your eye is just drawn to her, she pops out of the landscape.

i kind of feel sick right now.
tonight we're going to Shogun for his birthday party. i don't know what we're going to talk about.

i still can't get over it. am i too sensitive? am i being a big baby, and talking about this too much?

amy's company wants to put up her show tonight. jesus, who's going to want to go to 42nd street to see 'the tempest'? it's laughable. screw you, pulse theatre. how the hell is she supposed to get downtown anyway?
stupid people.
'the show must go on' my aunt fanny.

still raw.

this is an account of a friend of mine who works at the wall street journal:
'Commentary
Taking Refuge Under, Then in, a Van
The following first-person account from the streets around the World Trade
Center is from an e-mail from Journal editorial writer Jason Riley:
I'm back at home now. Got as far as Broadway and Liberty this morning, but
wasn't allowed to cross Broadway. South Tower was still burning. Watched
it collapse from that vantage point. Seemed to fall in slow-motion. Then a
huge, black cloud of debris formed and began spreading toward us. Everyone
turned and ran, including me.
I kept looking over my shoulder, and it was clear I could not outrun the
cloud, so I started looking for cover. I saw a van and slid underneath,
hoping it would shield me from the debris. It didn't. I was having
difficulty breathing. Every time I inhaled, more smoke and debris. My eyes
were burning and it was completely dark.
Then I started to worry that the van would move, and I would get crushed.
I also started to think that inside the van might be safer than under it.
So I slid back out from underneath and banged on the window. Someone
inside opened the door and let me in. Two other guys from the street also
jumped in the van behind me, nearly crushing my leg. But in the few
seconds the door was open, so much debris got inside the van that it was
nearly impossible to breathe in there, too. We were afraid to drive, for
fear of running over people. Plus, it was still dark (but getting
lighter). Eventually, no one could breathe at all in there and we had to
get out. I ran into a nearby building and was ushered into the basement.
But 30 seconds later, we were told to evacuate.
Back out on the street it was light again and a policeman was telling
everyone to "make for the water," perhaps not realizing Manhattan is an
island. So I continued east, passing a Burger King, where I thought I
could get some water. It was still very difficult to breathe. A crowd of
about 50 people were inside, including a woman who was holding a newborn
and was hysterical. There's a hospital nearby, but she didn't want to go
there. She was afraid to go outside.
I was in the Burger King for about 2 minutes when I heard a loud rumble.
Several moments later it was completely dark outside again. Someone had a
radio and said the second tower had collapsed. I waited for it to lighten
up again (about 15 minutes), and then I started for the Brooklyn Bridge.
People were streaming over it. We must have looked like refugees. I walked
home to Park Slope.'

ok, the play.
a broad moliere farce.

tim was wonderful in it.

i'm spent.

i'm at todd's office, watching local coverage. they just broke the coverage of the attacks to notify us of a fire in riverside. very original. in buffalo, there are two seasons, snow and fire.
i im'ed with jack for while and he acted like an asshole. we all deal with things in our own way.
the subway on the way to and from work was packed and silent. i'm drained. i keep going to the newsgroup and blogs every few minutes, just looking for signs of life in the world.
i talked to adam again. apparently amy went in to work, and her boss is messed up somehow. not hurt, but he's not coming back to work. maybe ever. she went in and was one of only a few people there, she had the task of calling coworkers to get their status. jesus.

todd and i are going to a play tonight, a comedy. i wonder what that's going to be like. a good friend of ours is the lead and it's opening night, so we really want to be there for him.

if you're reading this, hug yourself for me.
(gentlemen, keep the hands above the waist :))

you and you:

be safe, be somewhere, be together, and be laughing about this.

today i did lots of things. i picked up laura kightlinger's book at 7am and fell in love with it while waiting for the shower, i cancelled flights into manhattan for tomorrow, i cried at work just a little a couple times, went to cafe 59 and read more and ate a seven dollar sandwich which i used to hide my ever inappropriate laughter while the cafe guy played a somber webcast, i talked to the new wife of one of the planners and sounded horribly uneducated, i talked to my mother on the phone, i went home early, instinctively drank a beer, instantly regretted it, i went running fruitlessly, listening to gordon and wishing i had worn different shorts,i finished laura kightlinger's book, i talked to my brother on the phone and yawned thoughtlessly and heartlessly while he decribed the moment he watched the second tower go up in smoke (even though we are closer to each other than anyone else in our family, our relationship is fundamentaly casual), i watched my boyfriend eat boiled beef with mustard (the same way my father does, which is repulsive on two levels)
and i shook my head.
my
god.

to be in the middle of it.
i want to say so much, and it's not even my story.

check that, amy is somewhere safe.

now it's just the other 299, 999 people i'm worried about.

jesus


they can't find amy.

i gotta get out of here.

i had a great one last night, about the documentary. and dave was there. and it was really sweet.
it was tempered by one i had right before i woke up, where i took my little niece to the beach and forgot her there overnight.

so i finally finished dreamcatcher. (it only took all damn summer) cute little "aliens" homage that steve king put in there- not only was it called the "ripley" virus, he named Jonesy after ripley's cat. it's a fact!!
::runs away::
(i will always picture him as jonesy. and him as henry. not sure why. he wouldn't make a good henry.)

Amy says:
let's remake Dr.Zhivago
Sarah says:
with real snow.
Amy says:
yeah...and real Russians...
Amy says:
only everything else will be fake
Sarah says:
paper clothes
Amy says:
cardboard buildings
Amy says:
canned air
Amy says:
plastic emotions
Amy says:
demi-gods
Sarah says:
the camera would be empty and i'd just stand beside it saying "whirrrr"
Amy says:
yeyyeyey
Amy says:
I'll hold you and have a sign on my back that says "director"
Sarah says:
all the dialogue is mimed
Amy says:
Fin!

coming soon to the side of an elephant near you.

jessica told me that she was going to draw the greek muse of comedy for me, but what it ended up being was dischord, which had a really cool story that i can't remember.

we went to a labor day party last night at dave's. (when you're in a relationship, your pronouns get a little screwy.) it was kind of funnish. we drank a lot and ate a lot and dave kicked us all out by ten so he could go to sleep. he used to be so rowdy. we all used to be so rowdy. i wonder when we all started getting tired, and going to quiet bars and going home at reasonable hours. it's not sad, just hard to calculate.
we had the conversation that we usually have when we're all together. "brute force: the thing v. the hulk" (i say the thing), "speed: the flash v. cheetarah", "who would win?: the terminator or predator." (terminator, arnold kicked predator's ass even with out the futuristic robot shit.)
then two guys started in with boxers and the rest of us couldn't participate.
i find it humorous that you bring up keanu's acting abilities, because dave became very adamant last night. his argument is that, acting ability aside, he doesn't make bad movies so technically a person really can't complain about him. the argument is flawed, but dave doesn't like to lose.
("_a walk in the clouds_, checkmate." )

"i declah today to be- Lazy Day- the funnest day in all of Springfield!"

todd thought it meant lying in bed all day. i guess lazy day is what ever lazy means to you.

i went for a run. i can almost run for like seven minutes with out spitting up blood. it's awesome. i've gained weight since i started a few weeks ago, too. ten pounds. i stood on the scale and laughed really, really hard.
i have to keep going.

so, i'm ok now. i'm in a far better place than i was on thursday.

i got some support from some fantastic people, both privately and
publicly.
(c'mon, you know you'd want a guy like that in your corner.)

and to make things lovely and cheery, i was given the drawing i asked for from my friend jess, which is the most gorgeous thing i've ever owned. i gave her an idea of what i wanted and she gave me something else entirely. it is magical and empowering. i scanned it but i don't have the first clue as to how to put it up here. half my blog is suddenly in italics, fer christ's sake.

why the hell would i want to do improv for a bunch of fucking middle schoolers anyway?


THAT is the mutherfucking QUESTION!

[deleted post]

oh honey, dear bittersweet, inviting and frightening change. i'm sending you good thoughts. i know it's not the same thing, but i just burned the biggest bridge of my life this afternoon. i quit the improv group that i've been in for four years. i've been working with some of them for over 8. and i went out in a blaze of anger. you can figure out what job-hunting brand-new-job-having tara is all about, (what is she like, how does she carry herself?) and i can figure out if there is an e-co-less serra worth knowing.
don't let the bastards get you down.
i don't tend to worry 'bout the things that other people say
and i'm learning that i wouldn't want it any other way
call me crazy, it really doesn't matter all that matters to me is
she.
i singed us a little song. :)

a new voice.
:)
i can tell you, it's not ever easy for anybody to really get into the mix. i was tragically and painfully shy for a long time, then i stopped being shy for a minute, now i'm shy again. the fact that you're out and among likeminds is a damn good start. the only time i ever felt confident and open, and downright funny, was when i was performing. as soon as i got off stage, the adrenaline made me wacky.
I tend to hang out with outgoing people, so i let them do all the work.
people say if you want to be more confident you should imagine the other guy in his underwear, but this is better by a long shot: picture the other guy's skeleton moving around inside of him. like his complete skeleton. first it'll freak you out, but then it will put you in this weird zen-like state where you realize we're all creatures of the earth. it may not make you more sociable, but it's fun.

"so the girl who played the little girl in archie bunker (and later, "archie's place") was in the new radicals.
it's a fact! ::runs away::
posted by at 00:00 "

nice timing. p cool.
i can't figure out how to get only my first name in there, so it still looks dumb.

i went for a little lame ass run this morning in my pajamas. who the hell is going to see me right? i was only going to be gone for maybe 20 minutes, considering it's about *that* time and i feel like there's a pissed off porcupine in my abdomen.
so these two ladies walking their kids (or someone else's kids, i don't know, i didn't stop to ask) in strollers start laughing at me. i'm wearing purple pajama pants. ha-fucking-ha. wait until i pass you, i'm wearing an x-files shirt. you're going to have to stitch those busted sides when you're done! you might want to rethink those oversized tweety shirts, i might get mixed up and punch out the wrong walking polish stereotype. so i'm chubby, fer christ's sake. it's so damn ironic that people yell from the safety of their cars the most hilarious of comments about how wide my ass might be, and yet here i am out in the world doing something about it.
i give up.

(just kidding, i didn't really give up.)

the sheep seem to shower/from this office tower

i'm going to try to get better at this.

monday we went on a corporate retreat. my entire office went to a hotel at Niagara on the lake, which is a storybook village just across the niagara river on canadian soil. it was absolutely gorgeous. i saw the glory of it, caught my breath, and was shuffled into a conference room with a full bladder to listen to the owner give us the history and future of the company for five of the longest hours of my life. then we ate sandwiches that were fancy because they had bread on the bottom but not the top.
then we changed our clothes and went on a jetboat. i was not prepared for the wall of water that hits you directly in the face on the first turn, and then continues to hit you in the face while a guy named chip (his name might not have been chip, but it should have been) keeps shouting "how about a hand for cap'n vic! that was terrible, you can do better than that!". not counting the time i got drunk with the office manager's wife at the christmas party, it was most fun i've had with my co-workers at this particular office. (of course, any monday morning at the bpo ticket office was more fun than this group of people, space mountain or no space mountain.)

"don't fall on me"- aaagyad- this is my favourite rem song--i am so screwed.


it's over- lisa loeb is on now.

time.
for.
bed.

i have an ever-increasing crush on mike mills from R.E.M. it's just so cozy.

i wrote a monologue the other night and i'm calling it just. it makes me think of a delicate movement, that it means the least you can do, to just. that, and i completely overuse it. it's my own little vagina monlogue, only i never once mention anything that relates even remotely to do with my vagina.
vagina vagina vagina.

so there's this band LFO that did a concert at my old high school, the are playing right now, and they suck. this is the first time i've heard it and i'm sick of it. "i like girls that wear ambercrombie and fitch", what the hell? my cousin was going there at the time and my aunt said they showed up high. it takes a real man to go to a girl's catholic school at noon on a weekday and blaze up a doobie. the girls collected 1 million pennies for charity to win the concert. the entire enrollment for the school at the time made up only the senior class at other participating schools.
yeah, privilege.
why did i tell that story?

here's everything you ever need to know about me. see also: a picture. it was one of my head shots that didn't come out. i only look good blurry, which is why i only get hit on late at night in bars or on the street by winos.

so the girl who played the little girl in archie bunker (and later, "archie's place") was in the new radicals.
it's a fact! ::runs away::

ok, so it's bean forever since i've done this, i doubt anyone even looks at it anymore, but i have an important thing to do, so i'll do it this way:

THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

she went right to camp after sending me the mix tape and i never got to send her the love. it is the only tape i currently listen to, and it makes me truly understand how much i don't know about music. i like a band from bands on the run for scott's sake. well, i have a crush on the lead singer, which i always translate into fanship. their music is ok, he has a great voice, but their lyrics are pretty tenth grade and i'm afraid that's a dealbreaker for little old me.

i've found a way to come to terms with how great music is always destroyed for me as soon as it is put into a commercial. it's called pop for sale. it's a whole station that plays music from commercials. i am getting old, it's a fact of life. i like vh1 better than mtv, even though they think i'm some sort of freak, masterbating to their community messageboards.
(ohgoodgod- van halen's "everybody wants some", i am still the heavy metal fuckbunny i was in the fifth grade.)