lol employee appreciation FREE BOOZE

i just donated to wikipedia. not a lot, but i figure every bit helps, right? i use it so damn much, i sort of feel like i should donate more. instead i'll put a dumb banner on here so the, like, four people who read this might consider donating too.

I <3 STEVIE WONDER

YES I DO

an ass pimple? seriously?

i joined a fucking gym. AND, i worked out in that gym. i feel excellent.

seriously i'm all full of ridiculous, happy, wonderful energy. i want to make new friends and yell lewd greetings at them. i really, REALLY want thomas to be here right now -- he is exactly who would perfectly let out my obnoxious fag hag self, screaming obscenities into the night, grinding up on whatever we wanted (mailboxes, etc).

countdown to NATE

WOO NATE IS VISITING FOR NEW YEARS!!!

here is a dumb clock counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until his plane arrives.




in other news, chip peed in my parents' rug while they were in the room. before i thought he peed on my boots and my bed as a bid for dominance. now it looks more like he's just incontinent.

HELLA UPDATEZ

UPDATEZ:
parents are back from mexico! its so unbelievably nice that they're back. and they brought me jewelry! and they decided to pay for (most of) my laptop!!

chip peed IN MY BED yesterday, sometime before my parents got back. i am so unbelievably mad.

had a photoshoot in cupertino today. i think it went well. i hadn't worked with the model or the photographer before but both were sweet and (if i end up getting decent images out of today's shoot) i'd totally work with them again. i'll post pics when i get em.

perhaps the biggest news of the day: my sister and her boyfriend of 3 (?) years broke up yesterday. it was sort of mutual -- she'd been thinking about ending things for a few months now, but he initiated things, which is just as well. if it had been left up to her, she would have let things go on for months until she was miserable enough to end it. not that he's a bad guy -- he has done some things that i am not fond of, but overall he treated my sister pretty well. he's just directionless and miserable, and even more miserable because my sister is doing so well. that combined with the stress of a long distance relationship was too much and apparently they were both unhappy. he was a gentleman about it though, and she seems to be doing ok. she isn't happy, but she's ok.

i just watched the latest episode of true blood. its so trashy and predictable but i LOVE IT.

hella BODY IMAGE feelings

even though i've all but abandoned it, i spent some time tonight looking through pictures on facebook. its kind of striking just how much weight i've gained. i mean, i was maybe too thin at a couple of moments in college, but here are some shots just to compare the difference (both in animal costumes, of course)

almost exactly two years ago

two weeks ago

i don't think i look bad now, but i don't love being this heavy. clothes don't look as good (with the exception of tight, slutty dresses), i don't feel as good, things just don't seem right. still, i'm lazy as hell and can't seem to motivate myself to do much more than sprawl on my bed after i get home from work every day. i'm hoping seeing these two pictures together will get me motivated though. we'll see.

unless you come around

tonight i learned that, after years and years of considering myself an introvert, at the end of the day i need people about as much as i need food and water and air. i've been so lonely the past several nights that i actually feel like i'm choking. this is surprising because i've spent so, so much of life alone. as far back as i can remember, i've spent the vast majority of my free time intentionally isolated.

i stopped taking my depression meds a few months ago. of course, i should know better. i do know better, but i stopped anyway. i know that i lose the need for depression meds if i exercise enough and get a decent amount of sun, but i haven't been doing that either, so i spent some time tonight sobbing and yelling, listening to "come around" by rhett miller on repeat.

chip redeemed himself for pissing on my boots by sitting on my bed with me as i cried and screamed and hyperventilated, resting his head on my leg during the worst of it.

whats funny is, i know exactly what i'm doing wrong and exactly how to fix things. i've dealt with depression and anxiety so much, either with myself or with friends or with clients coming in to the peer counseling center. i've read study after study and experienced it myself and helped people through it, over and over and over. i know exactly what would make me feel better, but i'm just letting this shit run its course and i'm not sure why. maybe this is just what i'm used to.

hella ELECTION feelings!

YEAAAAH OBAMA WON!

ever notice how "election" is one letter away from "erection?" i did tonight, and so did smacko.

so i was talking to nate again (WHOA SHOCKING) tonight and he was a little buzzed from some small work outing, and he was listening to the walkmen, which i recommended to him a while ago. then he sent me a song from their new album, and even though i'd never heard the song before, just hearing their sound (which is pretty distinctive) brought me back fast and hard to some of my less stable days.

i used to listen to the walkmen a lot when i was about 16 or 17, right when i was starting to bury myself pretty deeply in anorexia, but also right when i was experimenting a lot with boundaries in general and feeling incredibly free in a lot of ways. a lot of the memories i have associated with the walkmen are pretty happy and sweet, like all the best parts of the first couple of summers after getting a drivers license, but a lot of the memories i have from that time are pretty dark too. i was so confused and alone, and angry too, but also so utterly unconcerned by life. it seems so far behind me now, but in a way i miss it. that was a much stranger time in my life.

speaking of anorexia, nate and i were talking about polaroids, and then eventually about this polaroid pin-up art he has been drooling over on etsy featuring strung out girls with spindly legs. a while ago we talked about making our own -- i'd pose and he'd shoot and through some emulsion transfer process, we'd end up with an eerily faded, dreamy print. i may have a killer rack at my current weight, but i definitely do not have killer legs, and looking at the prints he wants made me feel inadequate, so of course i had some HELLA FEELINGS and spent at least a half an hour bemoaning my appearance, which i am well aware is one of the most obnoxious things a girl can do. nate of course calmed me down once again. i swear i'm not like this when we're actually together. something about the distance makes me insecure and i feel like i'm constantly groping around for reassurance, which he readily and adeptly gives. somehow its never enough to last more than a few days, and pretty soon i'm overwhelmed again and the process begins again. the worst part is that, even though he's doing everything right, and doing it repeatedly, i still get sad and needy. hopefully i'll get better at managing it. at least this time it wasn't a major freak out, just some pouting and whining.

in other news, my parents are in cabo san lucas all week for their wedding anniversary. i'm home with the animals. chip, the dog, got lonely or anxious or something and dealt with it by peeing on my favorite boots, which happen to be suede. millie, the cat, has a ring of dreadlocked fur around her butt. every day there are more matts of dreadlocked fur which i'm supposed to cut loose. its pretty gross.

it's been pretty lonely here with just the little beasts to keep me company, so to sooth myself i've been looking at a lot of sapphire jewelry. this necklace blows my mind. its the from the same set as the bracelet my dad got for my mom for her anniversary (which she exchanged for a simpler and better-fitting diamond tennis bracelet). i don't really freak out over diamonds, or jewelry in general usually, but sapphires in white gold or platinum make me go nuts.

rye bread is actually pretty delicious

man, the other day i had some SERIOUS feelings. its been sort of a bizarre several days though, so i'm just posting about it now. i guess i'll back the hell up to saturday, the day of my SERIOUS feelings.

for some reason i woke up pretty early, despite having been out drinking etc the night before (dressed as an emo panda, btw). my dad and i went for a long hike/walk and by the time we were almost home i realized that i had barely thought of nate the whole hike. my bizarre reaction to this realization was to think, well maybe we should break up, it would be easier on both of us if we just lived our lives without having to go through the agony of a long distance relationship. within about two seconds i realized that that was retarded and that nate is the most important person in my life right now, and maybe ever, and that it would be completely absurd to end things between us. then i spent about an hour thinking about how unbelievably stupid it would be for us to break up and how miserable we'd both probably be if we did. actually i spent large parts of the rest of the day thinking about that, but also about how horrible and painful this whole long distance relationship thing is turning out to be. eventually i called nate and told him everything, all bawling and snorting in true snot-monster fashion, and of course he calmed me down without having to do much of anything. once he called me "low maintenance," which i didn't understand because i get all hysterical over nothing, but i guess i also calm down pretty easily too.

in other news, i apparently missed doing makeup because i've gotten myself involved in all sorts of projects. i'm helping my 17 year old neighbor with a low-budget (no-budget) haunted maze. with halloween less than two days away, things are frantic and absurd, and i'm helping as much as i can. in addition to that, i signed on to do another shoot with michi on sunday, and with another photographer next weekend. i guess we'll see how all that goes.

i heard bits of "peek a boo" by siouxsie and the banshees in some stupid youtube video about my future, and then found the music video, which i now LOVE. i really like the song a lot on its own, but the music video really takes it to the next level for me. plus, it seems sort of halloween-appropriate. here it is:

lol hypochondriasis

i have decided to list some of my dumb medical conditions. lol.

reynaud's syndrome -- the capillaries in my toes and sometimes fingers constrict when its even a little bit cold outside
confluent and reticulated papillomatosis (aka gougerot-carteaud syndrome) -- sometimes my armpits get a rash that looks like giraffe skin
vitiligo -- most recent diagnosis! the streaks of white hair on my scalp are due to lazy melanocytes
plantar fasciitis -- my feet hurt from being on my feet all day and weighing about 10 lbs more than i probably should

this came to mind because my mom just flash-diagnosed me with vitiligo because one of my white streaks was showing, and then i thought about all the other useless diagnoses i have. gotta love having doctors for parents.

hypochondriasis? jewishness.

i'm back in california and i can't stop crying, out of one eye. because i scratched my conjunctiva. it sucks. it especially sucks because i did it while wearing a brand new pair of contacts, opened only hours before. i'm a genius and i just spent $12 on a tube of GenTeal PM, which, it turns out, is vaseline and a little mineral oil. awesome.

i was on a plane to denver when my eye got all stupid and i couldn't do anything because the most annoying med students ever were sitting next to me the whole time being awful and blocking me in my seat with their awfulness. also on my second flight, the biggest douche in the world CHANGED SEATS so that he could sit by me in a nearly empty flight and alternate between staring at my chest and literally taking up two seats with his laptop and accessories. fuck, it was a great day. did i mention that my first flight had to circle for half an hour before landing, and that i consequently made it onto my next flight only because i RAN across the airport? and that my phone was dead when i landed despite having been fully charged when i left? somehow things worked out though.

so while i was still in st louis, nate read my previous blog entry and we ended up talking about how things felt just a little funny this time. i guess i hadn't thought about all the ugly little ways that distance can distort things. last time i visited, what little weirdness i felt dissipated in a matter of hours, but that was because it had only been three weeks since we had been living together, and that whole three weeks i spent talking to nate all day and mourning the fact that we weren't still constantly together. this time the interval was closer to eight weeks, and i began working and functioning like a normal human being. the longer interval apart, combined with less daily communication, and the fact that now both of us are functioning independently made it that much harder to overcome the weirdness. we acknowledged it and decided to make a few small changes, and things seemed to feel a lot better. it still didn't feel exactly how it did when we were living together, but given another couple days it probably would have.

bleh enough for tonight

sad and fat, CHEZ NATE!

i'm in st louis at nate's place. he just went to bed (he has work tomorrow) and i thought i should probably dick around on the internet for a while before i go to bed too. i'm actually not having HELLA FEELINGS at the moment, just some mild-to-moderate happiness from a weekend of eating pizza/sushi/pub food and watching 30rock/venture brothers/forgetting sarah marshall with nate. we went to nate's boss' wedding at the st louis zoo (sadly there were no creatures to be seen in the reception tent, unless you count me after several trips to the open bar). its been a great visit so far and i still have almost two more days, though nate will be at work a good amount of that time. still, thats enough time for plenty more shenanigans.

as much fun as i've been having, i've also been just the tiniest bit something this whole time. its not sad, but something like it. maybe its that i don't want to leave and go back to the horrible long distance relationship crap. maybe its that st louis is horrible and inherently a little depressing. maybe its that i feel like crap because i gained enough weight that i'm constantly short of breath (i wanted my tits to look SPECTACULAR at the wedding, and they did). 125 lbs is not a good weight for me, i'd like to lose about 10 lbs, blah blah blah i am SAD AND FAT.

honestly i know i am neither sad nor fat, i'm just off of my baseline. normally i am so happy around nate that i miraculously forget how shitty it will be when we have to go back to living our lives thousands of miles apart. and normally i'm small enough to be mistaken for a child. i'm wavering a little bit on both those fronts, but thats hardly worth writing an entry in HELLA FEELINGS. i guess i'm just keeping myself busy before i fall asleep.

in other news, it was my mom's 60th birthday today. i helped my dad choose (meaning, i chose) this gorgeous sapphire bracelet, which she thinks is totally beautiful but is returning for some reason. my dad is giving her matching earrings for their wedding anniversary (26 years?) on halloween and i have no idea whether or not she'll return those too. they're so pretty. whatever. she doesn't really wear much jewelry anyway.

god this was a boring post. i am TERRIBLE at this blog shit.

mission statement etc

i am on the toilet rn. but this is still serious business.

i have started and abandoned about half a dozen blogs, but i'm thinking this one might survive because i am creating it as a venue for my hardest-to-resist impulse -- expressing my HELLA FEELINGZ. see, i have a lot of feelings, especially between 8:00 PM and 1:00 AM, PST. i'm also a self-absorbed fucker and usually the strongest impulse i have while experiencing my HELLA FEELINGZ is to document said feelings so i can pretend other people might read them one day and say, damn this girl has some serious feelings and i bet she is hot too. so without further ado, here are some feelings:

at the fucking mall on friday, in the fucking juniors dpt of macy's, i heard "cath" by death cab for cutie. i don't really love death cab for cutie but this song grabbed me by the proverbial balls and slapped me on the proverbial tits and said, LISTEN BITCH YOU ARE GONNA EXPERIENCE SOME FEELINGS AND YOU ARE GONNA EXPERIENCE THEM HARD. the song ended and i immediately forgot it existed and i left. i didn't think of it again until i woke up this (monday) morning and it was playing on repeat in my stupid brain. it echoed around faintly all day until i logged into gmail sometime in the afternoon and nate had said: also, i been listening to this damn death cab song on repeat for like a day straight now

i don't normally even like death cab very much, but this song is rockin my world for some reason

i immediately knew it was the same song, and after that it was planted even more firmly in my head. now i've been watching the video for several hours, along with one or two other favorites, and trying hard not to start sobbing every time. its not that the video is all that amazing, or that the lyrics are particularly good, or that the situation is even all that touching. all of it is stuff that has been done to death and i'm pretty unimpressed, but the song and the images together evoke the most visceral response from me. but i donno, i start sobbing violently during ASPCA ads on a regular basis.

tonight i also started crying a little during a particularly wonderful music video by sia. i find it so startlingly sweet and delightful, but i don't entirely understand why it strikes me so hard it knocks me down. its a silly little video. i heard the song months before i saw the video and it inspired some wickedly strong obsession in me the very first time i heard it. when i finally saw the video it changed my interpretation of the song completely, but somehow i liked it even more. i forgot about it until today but something made me remember it, watch it multiple times, and choke back some major feelings. i don't understand why i am so goddamn sentimental.

anyway i donno. some part of me, and i suspect some part of the vast majority of humanity, has craved narrative from the start. which is where this blog comes in. i'm not going to go to the trouble of citing it, but in one of my upper level psych classes we discussed research on the role of narrative and mental health. one of the experiments involved asking people to write in a journal for a certain amount of time every day reflecting on their lives and their feelings and blah blah blah. apparently at the beginning it seemed to just make people brood, but after about two weeks people began to frame things into a narrative, and when interviewed they felt they had gained perspective and had significantly more positive outlooks, or something. i don't know if that is my goal in starting this blog. honestly i feel like i have an outstandingly positive outlook, and my mental health is like pretty good for the most part, minus some anxiety and those occasional brief moments of depression and panic. really though, i see myself as better off than a lot of people -- more grounded, with better perspective, greater understanding, and a wealth of resources. its just at night sometimes that i'm struck with stupid, terrible moodiness. not moodiness. melancholie. melancholie that wants to escape and infect the fucking internet with its idiocy. i've been doing a pretty good job of just shutting it up and watching tv or going to bed or otherwise preventing it from drawing the attention it craves, but the urge is strong lately and i see no harm in emptying this garbage into a blog. i donno, sometimes i let it get to me and then i call nate in a weird panic over ridiculous hypothetical situations and i hate making him have to deal with me, all hysterical over fucking nothing. i'm not ashamed to come to him all hysterical if it is about something that isn't garbage, but the nighttime panics are pretty much always pure garbage.

additionally, i like words and sentences. i might not be good at putting them together coherently, but i like them anyway. and sometimes dumb little sentences or phrases repeat and repeat in my head until i do something with them.

i guess one reason i'm hesitant to write down all my weird feelings and crap is that, while i'm the biggest proponent of people opening up and communicating, part of me grew up believing that people should be somewhat reserved. i think i'd like to be more opaque than this -- having a blog where all my lunacy is posted for the world to see (or to ignore). we'll see whether or not this devolves into a youtube video/lolcat depository.

anyway i'm getting sleepy and i gotta get up and do the whole "work" thing in the morning. i consider this a successful flagship entry -- incoherent sentimental garbage.