A plane is going overhead. At a distance it sounded like the wind starting to blow fiercely and I got a little tingle of excitement thinking a storm was brewing. I want it to be winter for a day or two. Sitting in my cubicle at work, I can't see out any windows, and there is very little obvious reflection from any of them either. It is very hard to tell what it is like outside without walking near the door. I often get strange feelings that it is dark and rainy or cold and snowy and windy outside. It makes it so much more comfortable to be sitting right where I am. I am often disappointed to go outside when I'm done and find that it is steamy and the sun is blaring. I don't know where this comes from.

I have too many irrational fears. I dread things that should be commonplace and appreciated. I dread lonliness and the unknown.

Beth looks somewhat like my cousin. Maybe I'm nuts, but there is a resemblence in my eyes. I have been an avid reader of her site for a couple of years now, and always felt some sort of kinship to her, maybe this is why. This is very very ood, especially since I very rarely see my cousin and know so little about her. I am crazy.

It's just not my thing anymore. Problem is, I donno what my thing is. But definitely not many of the sadly lame aspects of my current situation. *sigh*...

I am so pleasantly happy with certain pieces of my life, but I'm having a hard time working on other areas without affecting that which I do not want to affect.

"All I ever wanted, all I ever needed is here in my arms."
~ "Enjoy the Silence," Depeche Mode

Red Lobster's biscuits are too good. I don't like waking up at 3am with a craving... especially for something I can't have... and something I just had in excess less than twelve hours ago. :P

I have this insatiable need for understanding. It was like a brick hit me over the head tonight when I realized this. I mean, I've always had an inkling that that was my problem, but it's becoming obvious to me that it is the source of much of the pain I have been experiencing lately. When I am truly struggling and feeling like I can't handle it, it's because I am feeling unaware of the situation, or that I do not have any clue what is going on. I am constantly trying to explain, in my head, or outloud, what is occurring, or what will occur, or how someone is feeling. I get quiet and the thoughts start to overwhelm my mind, trying to make sense of it all. I often reach for music in hopes of drowning out the jumble, and making some peace. Other times I just drown in it and get down on myself for not being able to participate or contribute. Grr. I've often been blaming the problems on lack of communication between myself and others, but it's deeper than that, though that is most definitely a seed. I am more than pleased at this realization, even though it is just another mess in my mind to deal with, it is one that I can encounter knowingly (ugh, what a vicious cycle!). I am becoming more comfortable with my self, and I know that I say that all too often, but it is more and more true all the time. I am more comfortable in my own mind, things are starting to make a little bit of sense inside, so I can relax and let things be confusing on the outside, and perhaps even realize the joy in a little confusion in life.

This is semi-creepy. Hauntings fascinate me. Probably because I've never seen the effects of one. Though I still believe.

I think I NEED to go to this.

Janeane Garofalo (at the Historic State Theatre)
9/22/2001 8:00pm
$34.50, 29.50

*drool*

To anyone else the weather this week would be perfect, highs in the 70s-80s, lows in the 60s, and "partly cloudy" every single day. To me it's boring and too hot. I miss snow and rainstorms and all the good stuff that makes it nice to cozy up indoors for an evening.

"We were trapped in something we didn't understand. It trapped us without us even knowing it. Perhaps it was his manner."

I love satellite pictures. Just to the right and just below center is the building I moved into almost four years ago. So much has changed since this picture was taken. The area has exploded into more housing and the retail/office area just west on Burnsville Parkway has been developed and modernized. I am seeing so many changes even since I have been there.

What a spectacular picture. I am awed. And look at this sky.

I am so caught up in the event that is Burning Man. Thousands of people are making their way out there as I am typing for apparantly one of the most incredible art and people experiences available. Here I sit reading all there is to read about it, looking at images from years past, and hoping I find my way out there sometime soon. It needs to happen.

We won $4 between the 11 of us that bought the Powerball tickets at work. heh...

This man (left):
was born on my birthday. Many years earlier, mind you. His name is P.T. Barnum, as in Barnum and Bailey's Circus. How cool. :o)

In addition, Huey Lewis and several filmmakers I've never heard of (i.e. Jon Cocteau - right):

Hah. (source)

This has gotten me thinking about how serious of a study astrology actually is. There are many days of the year that have very very few famous people born on them, or at least that this website knows of. July 5th is one of them. Most of the others have ten or more. So I guess either I'm really special, or really boring. Most likely the latter.

I do believe the entire world is bored tonight. Is there ANYthing happening? I guess I'm not trying all that hard - far too tired and lazy at the end of the week lately to feel like finding my way out of the house.

On a more interesting note, I've never seen these things before this week. Have you? Apparantly Pluots have been around since 1989. Beats me how I happened to miss them in the produce section for twelve years (!), but I'm glad I stumbled across them. Yummy. The weird and delicious things they're doing with science....

Hmm, are these first two games of preseason any indication of the rest of the year ahed for the Vikings? Let's hope so. There was something about the vibe going through the city last year when they were in the playoffs. The big purple V on the side of the skyscraper in downtown Mpls, and the Vikings flags on every other car you'd see, gave us away.

It was a relatively boring day at work. And that was the most exciting part of my day. Weeeeeee

fucking a. i hate people sometimes.

It is a female name in Greek. Make up your mind people.

It is also listed on a page of Celtic male names. Hrm...

so not true.

Apparantly, from another source, my name is a male Welsh name meaning spider. That's almost more accurate.

Everyone's going lottery crazy the past week or so. The Powerball jackpot is something like $280 million right now. It's fun to listen to people dream about what and who they would spend the money on. I went in with several people from work on 55 tickets. All day they were talking about how much we would each get if we won one prize or the next. I had to grin when someone said we'd all walk into work together on Monday and say, "See ya!"

It would be fun to never have to worry about having cash for the weekend, or enough to fill up the gas tank. I'd love to say, "my treat," a lot more often. And clothes, shoes, and music... I'd go hog wild. ...so many people's debts I'd love to pay off. Several worthy causes I'd love to donate to. Funny thing is, I'd probably still drive my car until it died. It would just get a nice fixing up. I'd probably still end up buying another Honda when it finally gives out on me, too. :P .................. *dream......*

Charlize Theron is way up there on my yum list, but oh my....

i should just keep realizing how lucky i am, rather than dwelling in how undeserving i am.

fuck if i can figure anything out right now. god. i'm kinda down on my faith in things, mostly myself, as usual. i'm starting to worry that maybe i'm not really worth it to anyone. hope i just need sleep.

Got pics back from the Ely trip today. I need a scanner. :P (and I need to start taking more photos on a regular basis... there were still pics on that roll from Xfest!)

Ely and Burntside lake were gorgeous as usual. It's very strange to come back to the city, even after only two days out. It's such a completely different world up there - trees everywhere you look, and the quiet is so quiet that it's almost loud. I got a few more pictures this trip and will post them soon. I have many more mental pictures than film pictures, though, which are, unfortunately, a little harder to share.

The thoughts are so much clearer out there. Less distractions and more freedom.

We drove through the evening on Friday and found our way through a raging thunderstorm near Hinckley. We arrive at the cabin late, went to bed and awoke to a fairly cloudy day. We canoed and napped and drove partway up the Echo Trail, a winding gravel road that eventually finds it's way into Canada, to see EdgeShave Lake. We had supper and s'mores and spent the evening relaxing. Saturday night's sleep was a little bit more restful other than a wake up call from Kato, the crazy black cat, at 3am to be let out. Sunday was spent reading old "Life" magazines (her collection is enormous, and circa 1940's), and doing other "cabiney" type things. Matt and I spent the evening canoeing across the bay and down a dead river. We ran into a beaver eating an evening snack, who chewed away for quite some time, swam smoothly by us, and chewed some more on some plants just behind us. I've never been so close to one in the wild. Quite trippy. The river was beautiful beyond words. The water, calm as can be. The foliage, greener than any other green I've seen before. There were lilypads everywhere, which made the most wonderful swish as we paddled our way through them, and when we'd stop, the silence was overwhelmingly delicious. It made me start envying those that found that land before us. It used to be like that everywhere - such a strange thought.

Here we are back in the hustle bustle of the Twin Cities metro. Lights always on, cars always passing. I enjoy it, but I'm actually starting to wonder if it is where I always will want to be. I think I always get like this after vacations to the lake, though. :P It, too, shall pass. hehe

I want to live a timeless life. If not forever, at least for a couple of years. My internal clock is insane. I always know what time it is within a few minutes, when I've been awake, and within an hour when I've been sleeping. I turned off the Windows clock and it's already getting to me not being able to glance down there every once in a while and see where the Earth is in it's daily rotation (at least in the central timezone).

Starting tomorrow evening it will be a timeless life for two days. Yay, Ely.

Double standards are not cool. Things should not be cool for one person and the end of the world for another. Sure situations differ from person to person, but the reactions shouldn't change drastically unless truly provoked. Just my rant for today. Wee...

I've been really up and down today. Matt was sweet as usual beside me in bed this morning and that always starts my day off well. It was cloudy and cool, which I love.

Work went well for a while, then started to drag on and on and on and on. Then I started thinking about too much stuff and worrying about everything I could possibly worry about and getting tired and all in all just getting cruddy. I started talking to Jim, the guy on the other side of my cubicle wall, and it ended the workday alright. He's a freindly guy and started talking to me about CONvergence and AnimeIowa and stuff like that.

I went and got some work done on the car and was pleasantly met by some really cool people at the Honda place. I left an hour and a half later, $40 less in my pocket, with a happy car. Then my car started shuddering at high speeds. I called them when I got up to Matt's and they said I needed to come down and get them balanced (another $50) or get them rotated back. Matt and I drove down there and told them to go ahead and balance them cuz I needed the tires to stay like that anyway. We left to go get food, and the night went to shit from there. We ended up bitching at eachother over pizza. I get so upset over dumb stuff sometimes. I lost it because the waitress was a little rude and various other things. I kept my cool and would've been fine, but that's not how things work with us.

Finally we ended up back at Honda and I found out I have a bent rim, which was what was causing the tire problems, and they had rotated my tires back to their original position. Apparantly I have to just leave them like that until they wear out now or replace the rim for $150. Yuck. I thought I would be able to get quite a bit more life out of those tires, but I guess I deal. So much money has been put in that car, but I can't help but love it. It's going to hit 200,000 miles this weekend on our trip. So weird that I've driven over 120,000 miles in my life already. So, the car thing made me a little upset.. I was out 20 bucks for a service that got performed and then unperformed.

Things got a little better from there on out. My car drives a lot nicer with fresh oil, which will be nice for the weekend, and it's freshly washed and vaccuumed. I got my blog working again. I managed to take a five minute cat nap earlier, which always improves my mood, just long enough to get drool on the pillow. Tomorrow we're barbecueing, doing some laundry, and packing up to head out right after I get off work on Friday. Three days of peace and quiet, here we come. :o)

"Bored people." ~ Highelf

Dear god.. I got it working again. Shame on me for not looking at when my last successful post was and realizing it would've been the post right after that causing the problems.... wee. So. Hi.

"I used to think that i could never lose anyone if i photographed them enough. In fact, my pictures show me how much i've lost."
~ Nan Goldin, photographer

A Hennepin County police officer made it into "Retarded Ravers of America!" We're so, um, hip, or something. (Choose "Hennepin Co. Challenge" from the "deluxe helmet tards" dropdown menu.)

It's a Beautiful Day! The sun is shining, the weather has cooled down over the past couple of days and I'm feeling pretty friggin wonderful. It was nice to sleep pretty much until I couldn't sleep anymore and lay in bed until I actually felt like getting up. Today will be a day of friend and music and good things. Hello, world. :o)

I have this idea in my mind of such an ideal, such big goals for myself, that I'm not reaching. So many days where I wish I could just be somebody else. But if that were to happen I'd want to take so many of the people in my life with me. It would be a complicated process.

Humorous, but a little too true. :P

This girl gives such a beautiful and deliciously visual description of a visit to White Sands National Monument. Sometimes it truly does feel like, "we are nothing," in comparison to the vastness of what is around us. I feel that way when I drive down the freeway and think about all the other lives going on around me, going their directions, taking their routes... on the same roads that I am, but so differently.

It was another schorcher. The heat index got up to 107 this afternoon and the temp was 97 or so. I don't like walking around in air the same temperature as my body. :P I'm looking forward more and more to fall and it's 50-60 degree days. I find myself daydreaming of the cool air, sun in the sky, and riding bike down the street crunching through leaves. Most of my favorite memories as a kid were during autumn.

I went to the Metris Arts Fair in Uptown today and came across a display of this man's glass work. It's is absolutely stunning.

There were several booths of glass framed art, similar to stained glass windows in fashion, but smooth in texture. I was also intrigued by some of the jewelry pieces there. I wish I had grabbed more business cards. I also am anxious to have more money in my pocket to support these artists.

Every horoscope I've delved into today for myself has said something about watching my budget and my spending. I know I'm going to be counting my pennies this week as I change over to a new payday and don't have a check for next weekend, but being reminded of it is not fun.

I'm starting to feel like such a failure. I am losing at the things I care the most about. I give an issue everything I've got and try until I can't try anymore. It doesn't work. I chill out about stuff and don't worry about it and just go on with things and that doesn't work either. I try everything in between. I don't try. I don't know where to go now.

Sleeping in until almost 1pm today was more than fabulous. I woke up a few times during the night/morning an was worried that I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, but I crashed really hard for the last few hours, then woke up and hurridly got ready for Eric and Angela's wedding. We walked in right before they started. Nothing like being fashionably late. :P

The wedding was short, and we made our way over to the American Legion for the reception. Sitting through all of it was a little weird. It's been a while since I've been to a wedding, probably since Jennifer's back in 1997, and the traditions were starting to get to me. I still had fun, after most of the #batcave crew got there and I started to loosen up a little. They're good people.

It's hot out again (still). Looking forward to fall. Not only do I have more clothes for the cooler days, it will be much more comfortable to even just sit than it is right now.

"One of these things just doesn't belong here. Hey, look at that girl..."
~ Esthero, "That Girl"

The weekend is here again and I am tired by midnight still. I'm starting to feel old. Or maybe I'm just a 9 to 5'er now. I want to scrounge up some energy to go play. At the same time I want to plop my head down on the feather pillows and engrose myself in a book until I conk out. :P

Sounds like I'm gonna be missing Hybrid in a couple of weeks to head up north to Ely and Matt's grandma's cabin for the weekend. I'm a little sad to be missing that show, but it's been almost a year since we last went up there and I'm anxious to enjoy the serenity again, even if just for a couple of days. Last year at this time I was unemployed, or in the process of becoming so. I had not a care in the world (other than finances, as always) and we took off fairly randomly to head up there. I think we stayed for quite an extended period of time too. I wish I could always live life with such abandon. Now I have to request time off work and make sure it won't interfere with anything there or elsewhere. Unemployment definitely has it's pros. But so does employment. :o)

Tomorrow I'm going to a wedding of a guy that I knew a couple of years ago when I was revolving in a slightly different circle. He is one of that last people I ever imagined getting married, and here he is one of the very first amongst those I know. It is so odd to see people around me, that are my age or even a couple of years younger, getting married and making a committment to someone. I go back and forth over whether or not I could do the same. At this point in my life, as of today, I know that I am not ready. Ask me again tomorrow, or how I felt a couple of days ago, and I might have said I'd do it at the drop of a hat. As much as my fantasies have dealt with marriage in the past, I hadn't ever given it serious thought on a personal level until just recently as more and more of my friends are getting into close relationships. Strange thoughts...

McRibs are back. I haven't had one of these things since Jr. High when the school started serving them to try to keep us all happy. Yum.

Hooray for boyfriends that know all the little tricks! Got my links fixed. What is it about that last little quotation mark that I always forget in the html? (so THAT's what "enter safe mode" is for. hehe)

Okay, so I'm getting some weirdass shit going on with my blog lately. Can't seem to edit out a couple of messed up entries. Wee, get to dig through the pages and pages of help forums on this thing. :P

Had Thai tonight.... *breathes fire* Yum. Uptown Minneapolis kicks so much ass restaurant wise. Pick a food genre and there's a 90% chance that there's a restaurant that serves it within four or five blocks.

There's something really messed up about ICQing and sending messages on IRC to someone that is in the same house as you. There's something ever more fucked up about it when they are less than ten feet from you and in the same room. :P What happened to real honest to goodness communication? ... verbal preferably.