Blather, rinse, repeat

Well, I'll say it, then. How utterly odd of Michael Jackson to die today. Honestly, I had no sympathy for the man—I always did believe he was guilty and I still do—but it really is strange for him to up and die randomly like this. And, yeah, like most everyone else in the world, I thought he was a great musician and I totally loved Thriller. And yeah, like most of my generation, I grew up with Thriller and knew the dance etc. I had the world's biggest crush on him when I was 12. Actually my cousins and I all did. When the ice cream man came around, we would all buy these packs of bubble gum because they had Michael Jackson cards inside, with a picture of him on one side and a puzzle-piece on the other. Collect them all, and you might complete an actual poster. I don't think I ever completed mine, but I did make a poster of my own once, and hung it in my room. I started to write his name in huge letters on poster board. But then I couldn't fit his entire name because I'd started too big, so it just said “MIKE JACKSON” in black marker. I hung it up anyway. I guess it's just odd to lose an icon, and on the same day as Farrah Fawcett, oh man. But you saw that one coming anyway.

I'm still more upset about that Iranian girl Neda. That's one thing I just can't get out of my mind.

Well anway, just wanted to document all of that.

I finished up my midterms today, with Swedish Tech practical and written, and Myo written. I got 100 on the myo practical (pointing to different random structures, landmarks, bones, muscles etc.) last week so that's pretty good. The myo written was quite fair. There were a few questions where I had to take an educated guess. I noticed after the test that they were questions about movement involving spatial logic, and right-left. Contralateral, ipsilateral, cause and effect in the 3D world. Those are the ones that gave me a problem, and I realized that those are always the ones that give me a problem. About a year ago I self-diagnosed dyscalculia, but now I wonder if I'm not plain old dyslexic or something. I have never had any reading problems in my entire life, but I have had some left-right confusion, and while I have an uncanny sense of time, I have very little sense of space. (Although my sense of direction is fairly flawless; at any given time I could probably tell you if I'm facing NSEW.) I dunno, I'm weird, but that was just one thing that I noticed. Like, one of the questions was, “such and such a muscle causes left lateral flexion of so and so,” and I had to sit there for a good thirty seconds actually doing the movement so I could understand what the question was. Not what the muscle was, but what the question was.

Weird.

Oh, so on the swedish tech practical I got a 89. Which was the high score (shared by another girl in the class,) and I would have thought it fair if we'd had more understanding of the grading process. (I've noticed this a lot in this class. The first day, she didn't explain much to us in the way of what she expected, and at the end of the class we all got together and went, “Wait...what?” And we only just found out last week that we were supposed to be filling in these weekly diagrams. She only gave us one blank diagram each.) Well anyway, so she took five points from all of us because we didn't do tapotement or vibration. In the first class when she showed us though, she kind of waved them off and said, “no one really does much of that though,” and we never practiced it. Like, ever! The thing was, half the class went first, and I asked my partner who had practiced on me how she had scored him (she gave us our papers as soon as we were done,) he actually told me that she had been looking to see those two things and he lost points for leaving them out.

Well, I couldn't rightly do them after having been told, because that would be too obvious that he had told me! But then, no one else did them either and so we all lost five points.

The other lost points were fair for me. I bend my wrists too much.

But other than that it was good.

I came home, dicked around with the new computer (45 minutes on tech support with my server because my outgoing mail client doesn't like Mac and vice versa,) and then at 4 Haku had a seizure. When am I going to stop documenting those? Maybe I should keep doing it so that I can look for a pattern.

Well, so I'm off tomorrow but I have to take Sano for his bloodwork (every Friday,) then go shopping, then hopefully give them both a bath if it's warm enough (PLEASE, SUMMER, PLEASE,) and then Saturday I think it's Hula rehearsal at C's house, early in the damn morning. :/ Blech, as if I don't get up early enough on school days.

You know, but getting back to the rich, famous people dying, I know how truly goddamn obvious this is, but I can just never get over the fact that at the end of the day I really do have it better than the richest, most attractive people in the world. Obviously, beauty and popularity do not guarantee health and life (well duh,) and Michael Jackson remains proof that you can get as much plastic surgery as a billionaire can afford, and at the end of the day you're still a head-case and you probably never know happiness. I think he hated himself so badly to have done what he did to himself. He must have looked in the mirror and seen things a thousand times more hideous than I will ever see, even on my worst day, and the endless surgery never changed that.

I mean her is a guy who was royalty, who had more money than god and people adored him no matter what he did. He could afford the best health care and he was never alone. And he's cooling in a morgue while I'm sitting by my window with the ocean breeze stirring my plants and my windchimes.

I realize that you never know what may be coming. I mean, my Dad makes sure to tell me this at any time. ;)

I don't know, I guess I just appreciate, you know, things and stuff.

That was me being deep. Did you see that? Good, because it's over and I've got some gaming to catch up on.

Olympic opening uses girl’s voice, not face.

The real singer, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, with her chubby face and crooked baby teeth, wasn’t good looking enough for the ceremony, its chief music director told state-owned Beijing Radio...

“The little girl is a magnificent singer,” Chen said. “She doesn’t deserve to be hidden.” He said the ceremony’s director, film director Zhang Yimou, knew of the change. He declined to speak further about it.

Why am I not surprised? The dude who casts Ziyi Zhang in every movie in the world, when it's known that not only can she not do real Kung Fu, she can't actually even act. It's all about looks with this dude, it's typical lookism.

Now how the hell could i have watched almost the entire thing, heard the name every few minutes on the broadcast, and not gotten "Zhang Yimou" out of it? I thought I was hearing something like "Zan Imo" and wondering who in the hell that was.

Thus far today I bought a shelf to put up in the sunroom where I can make a little memorial for Trisky and Pendragon. I got a pot and some soil to repot my plants. It is my plan to move the yucca tree to the window in my bedroom after cutting it back some, and then put the orange tree in the living room where the yucca is now.

Also, because I had a 40% off coupon, I got an awesome Halloween tombstone, one where the pic of the dude changes into a pic of a skeleton. I guess it's easy to see, for anyone who knows me, how much my aesthetic has been shaped by Disney's Haunted Mansion ride. ;) It's a little hard for me to start thinking about Halloween when it's high summer, but I do it every year, and every year I talk about how it's hard for me to start thinking about Halloween when it's still high summer. :)

Anyway, check this out. As I was getting into my car after I bought my stuffs that I wanted, this is what I saw:

My CD was on track number 3. The time of the song was 3:03. The time on my clock was 1:11, and my mileage added up to 3.

WTF? WTF? WTMFF?!

On Friday, Tricia came to work. She is up from VA for a visit, an early Thanksgiving with her in-laws. The idea was to surprise everyone by showing up in scrubs and staying for lunch, then doing some work. The only people she told were me, Nancy, and one of the reps she used to buy from. Last week, though, the rep totally busted the secret at lunch, so pretty much everyone knew except for Casse. I managed to keep it from her, at least. ^_^ Also, Kim came by for lunch, too. So for a while there, it was the three of us like it always used to be and it was wonderful. Of course there were pictures, but again, I'm not sure how my two friends feel about me posting their pics on my blog. ^_^

When she left, of course it was depressing, and of course we promised to get together again in a few months for a possible road trip. This is the road trip we've been tossing around for years, ever since our first and only road trip to Montauk--all of an hour from my house. Life keeps getting in the way of these things.

Yesterday was Hula but no Kung Fu, and we did Ipo Lei Momi. I'm so pleased that I remember the whole thing without relying on my notes. We're going to perform that one sometime, too.

Afterwards I went shopping for necessities and for new pants, since all my favorite ones are too big for me. I'm partial to low riding cargo pants, which usually works out fine because I shop at Target and all they sell anymore is low riding cargo pants. Yet I didn't find any that inspired me. For years I've had something against jeans, though, because they always felt so restrictive and I never felt like they were soft enough or I could move my legs around enough, but yesterday I decided to try on a pair and see how it went. A few years ago I was irked because my one and only pair of jeans that I loved, size 11s with Bugs Bunny and the other WB characters down the side, were way too tight. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I was trying on jeans and started with 10s, found them way too big. Tried 8s which were also too big. 7s, too big. The only ones that worked out were 6s. So this is me, 5'9" and a shade, down to 135 pounds and a size six, and pretty musclar, at that. I refuse to lose anymore weight, though. I don't want to be a stick figure. That'd be gross.

So I've been pretty happy with my body overall, and yet for the rest of this weekend am thoroughly disgusted with my face and everything about it. I used to at least like my eyes and I used to think I had nice lips, but now all I see is flaws. I used to fantasize I'd have an excuse to get a whole new nose, but now I'm seeing that even if I did, I'd still hate everything else and I'd become one of those people addicted to plastic surgery. I'd redo my teeth, my lips, my eyes and my chin. I'm still kind of partial to my cheekbones, though. I'd keep those. It made me think about continuing a story I "started" over the summer, and "started" is in quotes like that because it's literally two lines long. It was called "Pretend I'm The Night Sky" and it was about a really ugly girl who dreams every night that a really beautiful man falls in love with her, and she keeps trying to tell him the truth: that she looks nothing like what he probably imagines and that's why he's in love with her. Meanwhile he tells her he's probably the only one who sees her exactly for what she is. She'd like to believe him, but even in her sleep she can't accept it. Dream-man in turn starts to think that she thinks that all beautiful people are shallow. There was a plot twist where the dreams ended up being a weird kind of reality and she accidentally kills him by keeping him asleep.

Actually, that's a story I've had going on in my head for quite a few years. It was supposed to be a short horror story. Maybe someday I'll get on that. I've got this character who has wormed his way into the Majat series, his name is Damon Gardens. I might use him for that if I ever do it. If I ever became like Stephen King and wrote tons of stories, I'd link them all up the way he does. Err, I should rather say, if I ever get off my butt and write ANYthing anymore. O_o

Lat night I dreamed about the ocean. Today was foggy and rainy, and I woke up with the surety that I'd be going to the ocean today. I just had to make it happen. Once in a while I'll just get this pulling feeling from behind my ribs and I absolutely have to go to the ocean. Oddly enough, this rarely happens during the summer. So I did some grovery shopping, and then off to the ocean which is just a few miles away. I took a ton of pictures (tried to take a few of myself: big mistake,) because the color of the water matched the color of the sky and blended really softly with the mist. It was all cool colors, blues and violets and purples, and it looked unreal. Then I was going to leave, but the sound of the foghorn called me back towards the Shinnecock inlet and I ended up going to Shinnecock beach with the jetty. There was a lone fisherman out there on the jetty, and he was leaving just as I got onto the rocks. There was a tiny cluster of wilted purple and white flowers bizarrely growing out of a hole in one of the rocks, or maybe someone put them there. Come to think of it, I'll bet someone just put them there. The wind was whipping the water into froth on the huge, slick rocks and I walked all the way out to the end of the jetty, because somehow I wanted to be, well, on the edge of the Earth.

In Keali'i's lecture that he gave on Maui, he got into the meaning of the phrase "kama'aina", and I learned that I've been using it the wrong way for years. It means "child of the land," which I knew, but it doesn't refer to a person who was born at a certain place. He explained, you're kama'aina to a place that you know intimately, whether or not it's the place of your birth. If you know it well enough that you have a favorite tree, or you know the best place to eat, what the sun is going to look like when it sets under certain conditions, you're safe even if you get lost there, then you're kama'aina to that place. More figuratively, it refers to the land that feeds you. (I wonder if it has its root word in 'ai, which means to eat?)

Walking along the jetty, I fully understood that term. I know the rocks, I know how not to slip and fall into the cracks. I can drive to this ocean beach and back without much thought. On my way, I pass the place where my Granddad worked for so many years. I pass the house I used to want to own. I drive down the highway and dread the day they take down the little fishing markets and put up a strip mall. You must try to imagine my surprise when, going home, I actually did get lost, because I missed my turn off Rampasture and ended up in stupid Tiana Circle, WTF? Yet the entire time I knew that I'd zoned out and missed a turn, and would soon be back in Ponquogue (or "PunkRock" as my friends and I used to call it, like "Hey, should we take backroads or should we go over Punk Rock Bridge?" And I always like to go over Punk Rock Bridge.)

Coming home, I looked down the end of my road and saw the trees lining the overgrown, dirt road leading to the swamp all filtered by fog, and I remembered how we used to play down there when we were kids. So I took a quick walk to the end of the road and got some pictures there, too. But before you click, try to picture them, then see if the pictures match up with what you had in your head.

( Pictures from today: )

And then I got some Unconditional Chocolate (yeah, that's right! Because I can!) and the movie Thank You For Smoking" which comes highly recommended my friend and fellow movie fan Nancy F. I just took a very long, hot bath in my favorite herbs and oils and I am almost totally chill and mellow. Divine, yes?

Okay, I have been having some seriously effed up dreams lately. I'll start with the two I had last night because they're fresh on my mind, and because the one from two nights ago has more of a story to it and other stuff.

So last night I dreamed that I was captured with these two other people and being kept in a silo by Hojo from FFVII. (Everytime I have medical / evil scientist nightmares it's Hojo. Thanks, Squaresoft / Squeenix.) So we were lying on this grating which served as a floor and we'd been there for months, and we were starving. I mean like literally starving, we were totally wasting away, to the point where none of us could even sit up. Then one day I decided to escape, so I forced myself to walk out the door behind one of the guards. Outside, I started running down this hill into Chinatown, only Chinatown was in Seattle. (The Seattle as it always appears in my dreams, not as it really is.) I was running down dream-Queen Anne Hill into Chinatown and I kept passing people on cell phones and I knew that they worked for Hojo, so I was trying to run superfly quick so they wouldn't see me. I ended up in this little cafe where I had a cookie and some tea and bought a bag of Doritos (I had some Doritos at work yesterday, so that's why they're making an appearance.) The funny thing about this whole thing was that I was doing it all in super high speed, even eating like I was on fast-forward. It was actually very tiring. Even though I was asleep, I could feel how tired I was.

Then I remembered the two people who were captured with me and that one of them was a good friend of mine from Kung Fu, so I went back for them. I released them both and we all started to run. There was a man I didn't know and the woman I do know, and the man didn't understand why I was choosing to run where I was running. He was telling me, "We have to get to the airport and leave the country!" And I was explaining to him, "They'll be looking for us at the airports; we have to stay in town where they won't expect us to be. Hide in plain sight." And as we were running down the hill against the traffic I was yelling to them both, "Don't go against the tide. Stand up high where you can see everything. Most of all, hide in plain sight!" As I was saying this, we were still seeing people on cell phones everywhere as if they were reporting us. I was still confident we would get away, Then I noticed that my friend was signaling them as if she knew them and I was thinking, "Maybe she talked them into letting us go."

I started to look for a good Chinese restaurant. Starving or not, I wanted some goddamn garlic string beans like they only have at the Kirin and I wasn't going to rest until we found some. Our running brought us to Pike Place Market (my dream version of it,) and then the subways of New York, where I met up with this girl from the 30STM board, Vanessa. (She's the nice one; not the psycho I was talking about yesterday.) She was running through the subways looking for her friend and a lot of people recognized her and asked where her friend was, and she was telling them that her friend had been killed violently. O_o

Eventually we got to the restaurant and I ordered my garlic string beans. Then I noticed that my friend was chatting with one of the waitresses, and the waitress told me, "Oh, she's been working here on Saturdays; that's how we know each other." And all of a sudden I realized that escaping the silo hadn't been so difficult at all; that this friend of mine had been escaping quite regularly, every Saturday in fact, to work in exchange for food. Then I wondered, why didn't she ever help us escape? Why didn't she even bring us some food while we were starving? I figured maybe she just didn't want to get caught or risk ruining a sweet deal, so I left it alone. But I still felt betrayed.

By and by the dream switched to what ended up being the sequel to Fight Club. In it, Brad Pitt now had a wife and daughter and was living in this big beautiful house with lots of windows. I started out watching it as if it was a movie. Then a group of people started trying to break into the house to kill the entire family. Weird fact abotu me (I know I've mentioned this before, too,) is that when I'm having a dream abotu someone else, no matter who it is, as soon as things start to get really bad for them, I step in and become that character. It's like I start feeling, "Well, I can handle this," and the other person steps out and I step in. I do this all the time. So I stepped in and started trying to plan how to keep the bad guys out. I barricaded all the windows and looked around for a weapon in the plush bedroom. Under the bed I found what I thought was a crowbar. Then when one of the bad guys got it, I swung it at him, and it ended up being made of foam. So I just kicked him until he was dead. Then I heard the woman screaming from the next room. There were two men there who had tied her to a chair and were making her watch a movie before they killed her. I kicked one guys' head off. I mean just kicked it clean off his shoulders. The other guy I tied to a rack, which wasn't very hard, because he was about seven inches long. Then the dog started barking and I followed the noise downstairs to where some other guys were chasing the little girl. I shot them both in the head, took the kid and went back upstairs. I was thinking, "Thank god this is over; he can come back now." And I started to step out of the character, but then the dog started barking at something under the bed. I looked under there and saw a severed arm and half of a human head that had started to rot and I thought, "I guess there's still more to come."

Then I woke up.

Then last night I had this dream that I was in a dark parking lot practicing my sword form. I was totally awesome and confident as I did this, dressed all in black, and I think I looked very impressive, too. Then this guy came out of the shadows and he had this swagger as he walked, as if he was the coolest and most confident guy ever. He was also wearing all black, with a black scarf around his neck and sunglasses. He had black hair and black gloves, all around a very dark character. He said something to the effect of liking my hair (which was up and very ornate with all kinds of beads in it.) He thought he was very suave and he reached his hand out to me, and I started swinging. Everytime he got close, I would deflect him with the sword. But I never actually cut him. I only ended up cutting all of his clothes off. O_o

Anyway, after I woke up I was thinking all day about the person I was in that dream. She must have been pretty, because this good-looking guy obviously liked her. And she was so confident and so sure that everything was going to go her way, because how could it not? It was on my mind so much as I tried to figure out if that person really has anything to do with me. Along those same lines I was thinking about that email from that photographer friend of mine, about all my old costumes, and about how much I used to love character modeling. So I figured I'd try to find that awesome woman of swords from the dream and do some character modeling for myself. These were the results of that little venture She was something like this:



( A few more. )

Then after I was done playing around with that sword and that character, I thought my hair looked kind of poofy while it was all piled up. ( Like this: )

Then I took my hair down and, you know, for as much as I don't usually like my face, I do think I have a good head of hair. It's fuzzy. ( And red. )

It all made me think how cool it would be if this is who I really am inside, finally found myself etc:

Okay, so now before any of you start with "You're lovely" or "stop not liking your features because these pics are pretty" or whatever, keep in mind that they are a few pictures out of a whole bunch that I took. There were at least three times this many that I took one look at and deleted right away because they were way too close to how I really look at other angles and in other light. Also note that they're all taken slightly from the left, because I have a really strong left/right split, and from the left at best I look like I have a long nose with a slight ripple, but from the right side it's like a classic hooked nose like in the cartoons. So when you see pictures of me that you think are pretty, just keep in mind that for every nice picture, there are ten pictures where I look like a total hag. I think that possibly is true for lots of people though, so don't take that as me hating on myself, because I really don't. I'm just realistic and as honest as I dare to be. ;D

Was this whole thing rushed? Sorry for any mistakes or rambling but I'm trying to get this all written in the like 15 minutes I have before I leave for Kung Fu. ^_^

So here's a weird thing: recently, some random crazy person on the 30STM board has decided that I've been "dogging her" for a while now and decided to "respond" with a stream of vitriol. The odd thing is that we haven't actually shared that many conversations. Once, maybe a month ago, I disagreed with her on what some lyrics were because I heard something different. O_o And I'm not going to say that I don't occasionally poke a troll with a stick, or tease up stupid people for kicks, but I've never actually poked this troll. She's kind of too, uhh, Deliverance for me to have even tried. Hmm, it's just random.

Anyway, work today was very mellow in terms of not being too busy, but we did have one seizuring cat and one seizuring dog all within about two hours of each other. The cat seemed to do all right, but the dog looked terrible. Then some lady brought in a ferret that's been scratching at her door for abotu a week; she guesses someone abandoned it. The poor little thing was hypothermic and shivering like crazy, not to mention really skinny. And what a sweet little thing, too. Aside from that I got really bored, but just didn't have the spit to start any other projects like scrubbing or cleaning or re-doing. And usually I'm the one doing all that stuff. Come to that, I haven't done much of that recently.

My friend Nancy is going away to Italy in March for a REALLY great price, and she gets to see and do a ton of stuff. I considered for a moment going along, too. Now, okay, I don't actually have the money to spend on something like that, all I have is a credit card. And I was going to save up to to go Japan with Brittany in the spring. But the thing is, I'm not sure if Japan is actually going to happen or if that's just a pipe dream. My two biggest places to get to are Japan and Italy. I should put some thought into this. Of course that's easy enough to say. I also haven't even gotten a hotel or train tickets to Philly for Halloween. O_o I should get on that, no?

It's raining steadily now and I don't have to get up early tomorrow (I don't have to be at Green Cloud till 4.) I'd love to have a pint of ice cream and watch a movie, but I don't even feel like getting up. As of today I've lost 20 pounds since like December. I'm not quite liking the way my face looks when I'm this thin, so I think I'll go back up a few pounds. For as much as I've been dissatisfied with my face, I've always been fairly happy with my body (usually--sometimes I would get down on myself,) so I don't mind bouncing around in a give-or-take-ten-pounds sort of range. (Which doesn't mean I'm anymore comfortable with people looking at it. I know I've got some pretty severe intimacy issues, but it probably doesn't have anything to do with "OMGs I AM FAT!") Speaking of, last night we did tons of really awesome drills in Kung Fu. At the end of it we were doing gua choi (I doubt I spelled that right,) and I looked in the mirror and noticed deltoids. WTF? I know my spaghetti arms have gotten pretty defined over the last two years, but I mean, deltoids? I was like, "Sifu! My arms are bumpy, what the hell!?" Oh, and I was wearing this terrific chinese black jacket that Erica gave me with black Kung Fu pants and black kwons and everyone was like, "I love your outfit!" I'm like, "Dude. I'm dressed for Kung Fu and wearing a jacket." But it really is a neat jacket, and is now my new favorite.

Say, I know I've got at least one more martial artist on my f-list, so for you and for anyone else who might be interested, martial arts humor! It's mostly for Karate and Japanese disciplines, but there is some Kung Fu and other stuff in there, too. Here's me, though: The instructor will only use you during demonstrations for joint-locking techniques. HAHA! That's way too true.

Oh! The book. Yeah, it's funny, I've sort of forced myself back into that world lately, and here I've been thinking that I'm getting so into it, getting tons of stuff done, really applying myself! It only occurred to me today that, honestly, I've pretty much just been re-reading and editing. On the other hand, I've tried to hard to ignore those first two books for so long that I think I need to review them before I dive into part three. I don't know where I used to get the inspiriation and the desire to write. These days I just wish someone would write it for me so that I can read it. And also, didn't I used to, like, draw and stuff? I never drew anything good, but I used to at least try. I haven't even done that in months, maybe even a year. I just want this world and its characters to spring into existance without any effort on my part. Isn't that horrible?

Could really use some Dove Unconditional Chocolate ice cream tonight. Seriously, I dreamed of ice cream last night. Dreamed of aisles and aisles of ice cream. I just don't want to go and get some. Why can't things just come to me?

The Evolution of Beauty. Watch it again and again, okay?

I'd be in love with this company if they didn't test on animals. But alas, they do, so I can't really support them or buy their products. Still, though, this is an awesome message.

I got the last few moves to the broad sword form tonight, and Sifu told Lee and I that once we had that down, we'd get our next belt. So, hurray! But it's a lot harder to retain all of the stuff he taught us than I thought it would be. I've been having such an inordinately easy time with sword form up until now, I sort of didn't expect it to get so hard so quickly. He's not breaking it down moce by move for the entire class anymore, but teaching us sporadically, one at a time. That makes it more difficult, for me anyway, because I'm not forced into the repitition anymore and I'll just do the parts I like over and over again. Left to my own devices, I will stand in the parking lot swishing my sword around and listening to the cool noise it makes. ( I love my sword too much. )

/cam-whore

Afterwards, Erica asked me to her house to take some of her clothes that she didn't want anymore. SCORE! She has the coolest stuff ever, I'm not talking about stuff from Target like I always get, but, like, real clothes from actual clothing stores. She had a bunch of size 8 pants and some size 6 that I immediately decided I'd give to some of my friends at work. Before I left, she said "Try those on before you give them away, because I think they'll fit." I didn't believe her because they looked really small. yet when I showed them to my Mom, she said the same thing. I scoffed, but then later on, alone in my place, I tried them on.

When the hell did I get down to a size 6?! Seriously. A few of them are too short, or too high-waisted for me, or have darts in them that don't feel comfy, but dude, they totally fit.

Backtracking about ten years, there was this pure white, mandarin-collared, embroidered satin and silk, short Chinese style dress I used to wear. I can prove I used to wear it, because I've got pictures of me wearing it. It was my favorite dress back then, and though it was a little tight around the chest, the rest fit, well, like a glove I guess. Shoot forward to a few years ago when I wanted to wear it to Oceans of Ho and I couldn't get it over my thighs. It really upset me, not in a body image way, but more because it was my favorite dress and I couldn't get it up to my hips anymore without busting the seams (seriously. I tried.) I got all manner of excuses from the people I told. "Dry cleaning shrinks silk!" and "Your thighs are really muscular now from dancing" etc. I ended up lending the dress to my friend Tricia, who is 5'1" and weighs about 100 pounds. It fit her beautifully, and she loved it so much that she asked if I would ever consider giving it to her. I thought about it for a few minutes and then decided that I couldn't. I said, "I want to show it to my kids someday, so that they could say, 'Geez, Mom, you must have been so skinny!'" ;) And then if I had a daughter, she could have it if she wanted it.

On a whim tonight, I busted that baby out. Imagine my surprise when it slid down over my waist (I put it on over my head, thinking if I tried to pull it on I'd kill it with my butt.) Imagien my further surprise when it fell smoothly over said butt, hips and thighs. Imagine my jaw on the floor as I zipped and buttoned it and found that I actually had some room in it around the waist. I should thank Lao Shir and Sifu for this. ^_^ Oh, and Shirataki, because I think that cutting out pasta made a huge difference. I'm not anti-carb and I'm not anti-fat, either, because I eat bread, cheese and chocolate in abundance. But I switched from white bread to rye and 7 grain, and I think there's something about the bleached flour that stops up certain stuff in your body, maybe clogs things up, doesn't let water weight drain or something. I dunno. It worked. I have my favorite dress back. ^_^

Oh, completely OT: Lo-Fidelity Allstar's "How To Operate With A Blown Mind" is maybe one of the best CDs ever.

So, today is finally over and I'm so thankful. Trisky had some lumps and bumps removed and all were benign (*knock on wood!*) And she had her teeth cleaned, too. She was SO PISSED, even when she woke up from the anesthesia. I thought I'd go sit with her for a while in the cage, but she kept on trying to push me the hell out of the way so she could get out. Then she just howled and yodeled and generally made a big deal of things. She's at home now and asleep in her bed, but she looks like Frankendog with all her many stitches. Whatever, dude, I'm just glad she's home with me. The boydogs had to check her all over. Haku barked at her when he saw her in the yard tonight. I'm thinking she probably smells different (she's still got blood on her) and also, her collar is off so her sparkly light wasn't on to give him the visual cue of THERE'S TRISKY. It's fun trying to figure out what dogs are thinking.

As for me, I'm sick as, well, a dog. I thought it was allergies and maybe it was at first, but now we're heading into painful sinuses and all over body aching. I'm entirely unpleasant to see and hear.

Yesterday I was trying to make my Dirge of Cerberus music video. But it ends up that the FMV rips I downloaded would only play sound and not graphics, so I had to re-download them from somewhere else and I still don't have all of them. But I thought I had enough and loaded them into Movie Maker. Only Movie Maker now randomly shuts down whenever I advance a frame. It doesn't lock or even really crash; it just disappears off the screen with no warning. I have to save after every change, which I do anyway because WMM is buggy as hell and always has been, but it is awfully hard to make a music video with software that shuts down after every frame and I'm getting frustrated. Not like it's my magnum opus and the world is missing out on this gorgeous piece of art that is my glorios AMV or anything, but I'm sick and stuffy and I just want to make one, is all.

A few night ago I was talking about that lo-cal ice cream called "Skinny Cow" and I referred to myself as a skinny cow, as well. Well, I got on the scale today, and for the first time since I lived in WA, I'm under 140. Which really is a healthy place to be, actually, at my height, which is 5'9". Also my legs are kind of muscular. And I do know a handful of girls who are at least ten pounds lighter than I am and who are healthy, too. Yet, I don't quite like the way my face looks when I'm this thin. My cheeks get drawn in and I look like I'm all nose; well, moreso than usual. Part of the weight loss is the relentless practicing of the sword-form, but also I cut out a lot of junk recently that I didn't need, like NutraGrain bars every few hours. I never knew till recently (when I looked at the label) that those bad boys have 140 calories each. EACH, people. One ice cream sandwich has the same amount, with less fat, AND it tastes better and is more fun to eat. But really, I think I'll stick to this weight or just above it because that looks and feels right to me. Baby Got Back. ^_^

This chair back massager is my best friend. It's hitting all the knots that I get from trying not to sneeze all day.

Anyway, so this fall is shaping up to be pretty hectic, but in a fun way. This weekend is mellow, and then the following week it's the Makaha Sons concert in NYC. I'm excited for that, not only because I LOVE their show and I hope to get to at least say hello to those fabulous men again, but also because Mom, Dad and Meghan are going to it, too. Unfortunately it's the same day as Wong Fei Hung, and I really, REALLY wanted to go to that this year. But I guess I'll have to wait till the December one, if we do join that one again.

October promises to be exciting, like it usually is, and it's really going to pick up towards Halloween. A big birthday party for everyone in the world probably somewhere in the middle of the month (this year, Jeremy is included in this!) Then there's the 30STM concert on the 27th and then the work party at Michelle's house on the 28th. Then, with a great deal of luck and ambition, I will also go and see them on Halloween in Philly.

The following weekend is the Hula seminar in Orlando, and then a week and a half later, it's off to Florida for the family trip which will be over Thanksgiving. And then, POW, Christmas season, maybe a tournament to go to, then the New Year, Chinese New Year, and the long, dark winter.

God, where is it all going?

Look at these stupid bitches.

SO AFRAID of women they just stand around in their circle jerk, patting each other on the back for their misogynist comments and sucking each other's poles afterwards. Yes, they are making me angry, and yes my rage is spilling everywhere so that I can't even argue anymore, just insult them. But also, they deserve the insults, because they are, in fact, turdmunching asshats, knuckle-dragging, ape-draped, chest-beating morons. When I told that Neil guy to kill himself, I meant it. He is screwing up his daughters in the worst way, "training" them that their primary job is to please and be subservient to men. They will never ask him to pay for therapy, because once they realize how much he has messed them up, they will want nothing to do with him. I feel so sorry for them, though. Those poor little girls.

Part of me wishes that I could sic Ginmar on them, but then again, Ginmar has been so undone by her own rage that she's incoherent and just screams nonsense anymore. That's what I hope I don't become, but these bitches are pushing me closer to it. And that, in turn, makes me mad. Please don't let me turn into Ginmar. Please let me make sense when I'm angry.

I love how their argument goes back to, "Well, that's why you're single, because you're a feminist bitch." No, I'm single because I made the choice to be single. Then comes "That's because you hate men."

Men, to me, are like ice cream. I love ice cream. I would love to have ice cream all the time. I'd eat it every night if I could. But I can survive without it if I have to. And I have so much else going on right now to be getting into relatsionships and drama and dating and all of that nonsense. I like my life the way it is. Tell that to one of these guys, and I think it gets them frothing. "WHAT?! How can she not NEED us?! She has obviously been raised wrong!"

Anyway, on another note, today was (is) the 30 Seconds to Mars show at CBGBs, and I am not at it because I was deemed by MTV2 not cute enough or young enough to get in. Whatever, I totally was not put on this planet to decorate it, but sometimes I really do curse my looks, if only because sometimes you do need them. Okay, maybe not NEED them, but they would come in handy to have. I'd be seeing my favorite band perform right now. Part of me thinks that if I'd known they were going to be judging our pictures, I'd have sent in someone else's. A bigger part of me thinks, "Eff them, who needs to be on their crappy TV show anyway?"

The picture I sent in was ( this one: )

No, it's not a good picture, but it is exactly what I look like (although the lighting made my eyes look brown. Not that it matters too much.)

Honestly, I can't help but feel a little silly over the whole thing. Too unattractive to get in to a concert? That's just so high school, you know? That's not supposed to happen to adults. I really did wonder why they required a photograph, but it really didn't occur to me that it would be to see if you were pretty enough to be on TV. I'm kind of out of the loop on this MTV stuff, you know?

By the way, Kung Fu last night was awesome. Sifu was back for a visit after his surgery, but Chris C. still led the class. After class we had a long talk about his teaching, his position in the school, the school in general. This stuff is so complicated; I wish I could offer some insight to the people who need it, but all I can usually do is nod and try to be understanding. I think he's a fabulous teacher, though. He offered to help Lee and I whenever and however he could, for no other reason than he wants to make a difference to Kung Fu students; that is his dream. A fine dream, says I.

Please let me always have Kung Fu and Hula!

Tonight Kim is coming over for our usual pizza / movie / chat night. We're watching Syriana, which I've wanted to see forever.

Wait till I tell Kim about these terrified-of-women bitches on the Kung Fu forum. She's going to flip her crap just like I did.

The other day I was driving and when I stopped at a red light I randomly adjusted my steering wheel lower. It ocurred to me in that weird moment that I was adjusting it to a point where if I ever were to have a car accident (fate forbid, because I really don't want one,) the steering wheel would be in the perfect position to break my nose.

I kind of freaked out.

When I got home I looked up this page which is abotu body dysmorphic disorder. Then tonight I found this book which, in the description has the phrase, "BDD can lead to unnecessary plastic surgery...." and it made me think, isn't all plastic surgery unnecessary? But doesn't everyone do it anyway?

Then I think, jeez, we have a name for everything, a disease for everything. No one can be just ugly anymore, now we just have Body Dysmorphic Disorder, all important in capital letters like that, too. I mean, what if it's just a case of being ugly? Like how a lot of the time ADHD is just a case of grownups acting like morons?

I admit (I'm doing a lot of admitting today, aren't I?) that I am obsessive compulsive over things and I often look in the mirror to see how bad it is. And yeah, I guess the steering wheel thing was pretty weird, too. But you know, it's entirely possible that a lot of people with this so-called BDD--myself included--are just not pretty and get upset over it sometimes, right?

A lot of these web sites tell you not to go and get plastic surgery. I really don't think I'd be a good candidate for it anyway. When I start to get really tempted, I have to remind myself how a few months ago it was all about avoiding being looked at from the side. Now I'm starting to come to terms with the Cherokee Profile (that's being charitable,) and am starting to hate when people look at me straight on because I think it makes my mouth look funny. I used to really like my mouth, wtf? And I have this mentality that being attractive would make everything all right. It wouldn't. I'd still struggle with the exact same things I struggle with now. Only I think if I were really beautiful it might compound my problems. Then I'd worry if I was getting things because I was pretty. I know a lot of pretty girls who often wonder that. "Did I get this job because I'm hot? Did I get a raise because I'm hot?" Things like that. In a way, it's good to know that whatever I get, I've worked for and I got it because of my own merit.

I'm just weird, that's all.

And I hate having more to add on my LJ the same day I've written something I really like and want people to see, like that last entry on RPS/RPF, because you know people are only going to look at one or two of your entries a week and I always want to chose the ones that people heed and maybe reply to. It'd be that one, not this one. Damnit.