ans99

because i'm pretty sure i've done this meme before. oh well. i'm supposed to tag some of you but i think everyone who would have done this has done it. so do it if you want to, i guess.


1. i've been fully cognizant of my bisexuality for a decade and still i have never kissed a girl.

2. generally, i feel more of a rapport with animals than people.

3. i have never been burned by a flame but i have such an intense fear of fire that it's taken me until last year to feel comfortable even lighting a match. conversely, i have been sliced open by numerous metal objects in my lifetime and feel perfectly comfortable around knives.

4. i have not knowingly eaten beef since i did a research paper on mad cow disease during my college days.

5. male suffering really turns me on. sorry guys.

6. for a short time in my youth i took dance and gymnastics classes. i quit gymnastics because i got some sort of pseudo-feminism going on and didn't like feeling like they were trying to get me to contort into a specific body image/feminine ideal-- and that i was failing miserably at it.

7. i'm a chronically late person and have been for as long as i can remember.

8. artistic inspiration is why i inevitably give the world one more chance. it's also why i love teaching. people just come up with the most amazing ideas sometimes, and it's all i can do to wonder why i never thought of them because they're just so obvious and wonderful and brilliant.

9. my high school friends and i used to pretend we were the beatles. i was john.

10. in middle school these same friends and i used to hide out in the art room during lunchtime so we wouldn't have to deal with any of the other students harassing us. i suppose in a way we formed our own reactive clique.

11. the reason i started photographing things was due to my fascination that you could print a memory. because of this i find it almost unbearably difficult to throw any of them away.

12. http://thedreamatists.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/dalis-dream-of-a-virgin.jpg
this is my favorite dali painting. sometimes i like to tell people he painted it for me.

13. some of the best times of my life were spent sneaking away from college for the weekend, taking a bus alone to nyc and spending that weekend with this guy i barely knew. i've never been able to see the city in the same way since, so i've always been disappointed when i've returned there.

14. i have not seen most of my extended family in a Very Long Time. there's no obvious tension, we're all just horrible at correspondence.

15. i was an avid reader as a child-- i mean like, i'd get multiple BOXES of 'em from scholastic. by the time i was in second grade they were giving me "special" spelling tests because the regular ones were too easy for me. i remember quibbling with the teacher over the correct spelling of "moustache" (she insisted it only "mustache" was acceptable until we checked the dictionary together)

16. i'm now a blue belt in kempo karate but i have a ridiculously low pain tolerance so i'm still pretty much useless at defending myself.

17. i worked on a dairy farm for a summer, and so i'm privileged enough to know the unbeatable feeling of a cow crapping on your head.

18. just about every night i have really vivid, horrifyingly fascinating dreams that could easily be horror/sci-fi b-movie plots. as a rule i'm usually left shaken from these dreams for the rest of the day.

19. when i encounter incompetence from the world i automatically want to kill myself.

20. i almost got a gig in high school doing english as a second language instructional audio tapes for i think hispanic students. i got all the way into the studio for recording before they decided i made too many "mouth noises"-- clicks and such like when you open your mouth to start talking and your tongue unsticks from the roof and so on. anyway the guy canned me right then and there. now when i hear all the voice personalities on the radio i go crazy pointing out all the mouth noises i hear. jerks.

21. i check the ceilings wherever i'm eating because i'm paranoid that a bug is going to fall from it and into my food. this is based on a true story from my childhood, where i was at a food court with a friend and a very giant, very dead hornet plummeted from above and landed smack in the middle of our table.

22. i'm so argumentative that i once wrote a five-page appeal for a parking ticket. whether they're still reading it, decided it wasn't worth it, lost my paperwork, decided that if i lost i might come after them with a shotgun, or lost track of me once i moved i'm not sure-- but i never heard from the
parking people again.

23. i have a hard time hiding my true emotions. they're written right across my face at all times, and this has gotten me into trouble time and time again.

24. all of the animals i own right now were laboratory rescues. two of them, my rats, are from my own behavioral experiment.

25. i co-starred in some doctor who fan films written and produced by james a few years ago.

i spent most of new year's evefternoon cleaning my "art room," which i haven't done since i moved in. as stupid as it may sound, i'm a taurus, and i fit so many of the typical astrological personality checkboxes set up for that sign that it's quite obvious who and what i am, and where i lie on that arbitrary line. i love security, being pampered. i'm obsessed with money (particularly just enough to get me to that feeling of security) and material objects (you should see my collection of junk i've just picked up along the way of my life-- something tangible to serve as a placeholder for my memories is very important to me it seems). i get a lot of sore throats. and i love beauty. i need beautiful surroundings in order to operate to full capacity, to be inspired. and so in order to really feel "at home" and "right" i need to clean and organize.

this of course messes with my naturally cluttered nature. maybe this is why i get nothing done, or as little as possible, in my life. i could be doing so much more.

but anyway, i was cleaning and going through papers, and i happened upon a folder in my file cabinet that held all my old college syllabi, transcripts, scholarship notifications, and evaluations. first i found the ones from my first year of TAing and that familiar sense of shame and indignation washed over me. because it'd been so long since i'd last looked at these things, these little sheets of abject horror, i had been under the impression that it wasn't "as bad as i remembered." re-reading some of the things not only the students but one teacher in particular said about me-- i.e. my laziness, lack of empathy, ignorance, disorganization and inefficiency-- and then contrasting that with all the work i did and all the lesson plans i made for the discussion course i taught really made it clear to me how much i was shafted that second year of grad school in just about every way possible. no wonder i decided that it wasn't for me.

then i came across my letters of rec and course comments for my simon's rock classes and i almost cried. just about all of them really said the same thing, painted this picture of me that i just didn't understand until nearly twelve years later. "we wish she'd speak up more." "she's too serious." "she worries too much about her grades, most likely because she's trying to get into vet school." and then later on, things like "april has really blossomed." "she's written the best material in the class." and from my acting teacher, representing one branch i just entirely blew off because of fear i guess: "i hope she continues on this path."

i wish i had, lindsay. hopefully it's not too late.

this year i'm reminded of how i felt last summer, before it all came crashing down on me again in the forms of fear and obligation and worry and distraction. i feel like i'm on the brink of a new beginning. this year i resolve to no longer deny myself what i want. to not take some shitty job just because i think it's what i should be doing to occupy my time. i dare myself to, as neil gaiman wrote in my copy of american gods (thanks fluffy) and reiterated in his latest missive to his fans, "dream dangerously." to get in with the sharks, as kyle cassidy put it. to "do what i want and what i believe in," as shreve stockton said just a short time ago. she's right, by the way. these people, and many more, are all my heroes because they got out there and did what they wanted, and didn't stop to think about how to appease anyone. they just forged ahead.

for far too long in my life, i think, i assumed school was the only place i belonged, and i guess there are a lot of reasons. my parents pushed me hard gradewise. i didn't have many friends, and because i did so well in school teachers befriended me instead. schoolwork was not primarily a social thing, and i fucking excelled at it while shunning the things i really loved to do as "not a real job." intellectual property rights, combined with some sort of puritan ethic i'd picked up along the way and a sense of needing to change the world with my brain, made me nervous and reluctant to consider any form of art as a real career. i always had to be doing something "important" to be of any worth to the world, and sitting around making music all day or painting pictures or dancing just didn't count enough.

and besides all that there was a real fear that school was all i could really do well enough. in the very real, very fierce scramble to get to the top in middle and high school there was no margin for failure, no place but first in the class. therefore, in general if i tried something and initially failed at it, i gave it up. i hated playing games i knew i wouldn't win. i didn't want anyone to see that i was anything less than perfect at what i tried. i didn't want to be anything less than perfect. i remember jamie hutchinson sighing one day during an advising meeting with me and saying "i wish for once you could just let yourself get a D in something." at the time, setting my sights on vet school really did make it nearly impossible for me to understand. now i realize how little all that mattered.

i think i've rambled on enough about this. here's some other new year's resolutions:

( i will )

i'm sure there's more, but i think that's a good start. note nowhere in there is "get a job." this is because i've tried that for a couple of months, with the only goal being to "get a job," and i've not had my heart in it. i keep coming back to the idea that i need to do what i love and try to craft employment out of that. when employers give you the run-around and actually lose your resume after calling about interviews the universe is trying to tell you something. luckily i have a means of financial support. the time is ripe. it's now or never.

christmas, by the way, was good. as good as can be expected, although a lot of family crap came up for me.

( doings )

i also did a lot of thinking about 2003/4 compared to now, and what seems to make a lot of sense at the moment is that i grew up sort of ignored emotionally. no matter how much i complained it was laughed off, or completely disregarded, or misinterpreted in the most obtuse manner possible. so during that time when i was making a lot of lame enemies and losing a lot of new friends, i think it was one of the first times i ever was not allowed to get away with that shit. it was the first time that someone actually listened to what i was saying and, unfortunately, took it at face-value or worse. and i couldn't figure out why people were not allowing me my space to just say my piece and move on, but it was because for once what i was saying was actually affecting them. now, granted, they could have been a little less retarded about how they dealt with it, but i should have listened a little more, maybe cut them a little slack. not enough to be great friends with them, perhaps, but enough to have just let it go and realized that others can be just as sensitive as i can and that we all need to find ways to protect ourselves emotionally.

for new year's we took a cue from just about everyone else in the universe and stayed in, drank some good zinfandel, tried out the fireplace for the first time, and watched casino royale (and then later some discovery channel special on execution methods-- both of us were crushing over the same girl). i don't know what it was about 2008, but i think a great many of us just needed to rest after that soul-crushing year and just try to regain some semblance of inner peace.

hopefully that plan will last for longer than one night. happy new year. :)

i got a hug from a child today at outreach.

it was kind of cool and for once i came home from volunteering not completely drained and bitter.

i would like to make a parody of this video. hopefully the reason is obvious. it's a video that blatantly circumvents the profundity of the song it's promoting, like most videos. i do think it would make a good song to base a saw fanvid off of. and it is a better video than the uk version, where she is in space and takes all her clothes off and that's about all that happens in it.

speaking of which this is the funniest saw video i've ever seen.

youtube will never get boring. and i need to make more videos.

i have an interview tomorrow for a job. it is part-time, right in town, with benefits. no food service or excrement involved, so it's automatically a winner.

all the comics for tomorrow (that i read) are creeping me out.

after living in california for three years and a long dry summer, i am finally sick of the rain.

i've been thinking lately that i should start writing about people and heartbreaks and surreal experiences in my life in an attempt to get everything out in the open with myself. drag out the entrails, or scatter the pieces and look for some sort of pattern, perhaps. revisit those moments where i'd stop in the middle and think, "nobody should have to deal with this, not ever." tally up all the crazy blessings in my life that i've taken for granted, forgotten about. missed connections. crossed wires. embarrassing blunders.

it started with me thinking it was time to tell the story of henk once and for all. it's just gotten to ridiculous mythic proportions on both sides, and i just feel like it's time to stop being coy and start providing some details. the whole situation was incredibly lame but it really changed me-- mainly for the worse but also quite a bit for the better. i still can't really figure out the equations employed in making the decisions either of us did, but i know that i can finally be proud of myself for getting through it without delving to the lows that certain others did. the lows i'm not so proud of? i can forgive myself for being an idiot, because when it comes down to it i was the one being severely challenged. it was a test of everything i stood for and believed in, and i was too young and idealistic to have proper perspective. now i do, and they're still assholes. so yeah, i can forgive myself for how i acted.

wow, this is pretty horrible. i said i'd stop with the vagueness but i'm still just not ready i guess.

moving on. the other night i was having one of those "can't sleep, bed partner is strangely uncomfortable" moments and so naturally i started thinking about tedd's chest. i've often described it as a post-thanksgiving dinner turkey. i still don't know why i stayed, and exactly how i left. i suppose in some ways i was desperate for some sort of relationship. but in a way i think i didn't really give it a chance because of the desperation. i wanted to move it too fast. i didn't listen to him, to who he was. once i realized that, it was too late. i couldn't deal with that either, so i cut ties completely.

and then i starting thinking about yoss, ah yes, yoss. another "relationship" i simply cannot explain even now. i miss him so much. i can't think of new york without thinking of him dragging me around showing me all the best things. even regina spektor frequented the sidewalk cafe (albeit after my time), so i simply can't escape. i wish i'd never upped the ante with him, but it was just so painful and confusing that i don't think i could have survived in that state for very long.

and then there's phillippe. and pat. and that guy i hit with the broom. and julie's friend who burned me dido cds. and my white knight. and the guy who impressed me by sharing his entire c drive on the umass network. and will. you know, there are people i dated in college i can barely remember. i was so lost for so long. i need to start remembering.

tonight i was thinking about something i talked over with a close friend a few days ago. he's been all but completely abandoned emotionally by his old friends, and i'm supposed to be a reason for that. when i think of these people though, going throughout their lives with nary a mention of him or even a nod his way... shutting him out of weddings, and visits, and even friendly communication... it just makes me wonder how people like that can justify their actions to themselves. this person that they were friends with for years-- how can they callously just cut him out of their lives and never look back?

of course then i realize i used to do just that. sometimes still do, depending on the offense. but i'm not sure i would ever do it for their reasons.

**

i'm half-watching the omen something-or-other as i'm writing all this. our little would-be antichrist is pretty cute. mainly because he's all angsty and tortured over being the antichrist. it's a little like the first episode of buffy the vampire slayer. only much hotter.

you know, the omen made me afraid of machinery for the longest time.