Blather, rinse, repeat

I'm so shocked by the death of Lisa Marie Presley. Sort of shocked, but then I remember she lost her son two years ago, so maybe not so shocking I guess. Grief is the worst kind of stress.

TMI but I have been having massive hot flashes since literally my 50th birthday (this coincides with no period since right before my birthday, which YAY, but!) but the hot flashes are misery. At first I was getting like, 20 a day. I saw the OBGYN and she was like "Sorry hon I know it's awful" because she went through it too, but you can't take estrogen until you're 12 months without your period and I'm not. She recommended all these different supplements and I'm trying some, and SOMEthing is working because now I get like, maybe 5 a day.

But the thing is, the hot flashes come with a heart palpitation so fierce that it made me call my regular doctor because I'm like, well what if it's not just menopause heart palpitations, what if it's not actually menopause at all but a heart problem? (Even though it lines up with not getting my period.) So my regular doc is referring me to the cardiologist and I will gladly go there and wear the haulter monitor and such. You really can't be too careful with things like this. It's worth it to go.

I've been to the cardiologist before anyway, the time a few years ago when I blew out my knee again and the City MD doc was like "OMG your ligaments are falling apart, you have marFAN'S SYNDROME YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE CARDIOLOGIST" so, off I went. When I told him why I was there he told me "That sounds fake but okay" and he did a bunch of tests, echo and all of that.

But that was about 3 years ago, so why not go again.

I really WAS trying to get some lighthearted stuff in here these days, but my god it's hard sometimes.

When I started writing this, it was still March 10th. Ugh how is it past midnight. I'm going to have to go to bed and finish this tomorrow.

I'm having a moment, because my FB memories came up today and showed that it was this day in 2009 that Haku had his first surgery. And of course it was, because he had that first seizure around March 8th, the day my Gran started to go downhill really fast. I remember that day—that minute—so clearly because, looking back, it seems like my entire life split into two sections the moment Haku jumped up and had that first seizure. Then he went into the hospital. Then Gran went into the hospital and then she died in April. And then my Dad died in August.

And I've been reading all of my old LJ entries from that Spring and Summer, trying to see if there were any signs, or if I had any intuitions that would have told me just how drastically things were going to change. And the disturbing thing is, I feel like I did. Because a few times I wrote “I wonder what will be different this time next year” and “I wonder who will be new to me and who will be gone (no one, I hope!)” or variations on those themes.

And that day started the entire Trauma Conga Line, where everyone in the family was like, “Okay, enough – that really has got to be the end of the bad stuff, right?” And it wasn't, and then my Dad died.

So, now Lao Shir has died, and Haku had surgery on the same exact day that he did in '09, and I am sitting here losing my mind thinking, “This is how it starts.” I can't stop imagining that, a few years down the road I'll be reading this entry, tsk'ing over my clueless past self who had no idea how bad it was going to get.

Doesn't that sound neurotic? It does, but here's something I wrote shortly after my Dad died:

It's real hard going back and reading journal entries from even just a few weeks ago, harder to read the ones from a month ago. I can hardly fathom that I was happy back then; that I had no clue whatsoever what was right around the corner. Still sad for losing Gran, I was also getting on with it, doing my schoolwork, excited about writing, getting ready to go to China, doing Hula shows with my friends and having a spectacular summer.

I always knew—and feared—that life turns on a dime. But knowing something is entirely different from living it. When you live it, you come to see the world differently; someplace that is not safe, where the worst possible scenario is indeed around every corner and behind every door. You start to expect nothing less. I sort of knew it ten years ago when Grampa died suddenly and with no warning, and I always dreaded it ever happening again, but this illogical part of me thought, “Well, that already happened once. What are the chances?” I thought that the fears I always had that every phone call, every noise, every slamming door was the worst thing I could imagine were irrational fears and I was neurotic. But I wasn't neurotic; I was correct.

“I wasn't neurotic, I was correct.” That's how I feel now, like I'm right, and it just has to keep getting worse, until something unthinkable happens. There's that part of me that's like, “Well, now that I've put it out there, it can't, right?” And the other part that says, “OMG, now I've put it out there, that's like inviting it.” There's the rational part that says, “Don't be a twit, you literally have no control over anything,” but the rest of my brain tells that zen bitch to take every seat in the house, because that's exactly the problem.

(Of note: I realized while peeing today that my novel is pretty much about this fear. Main Character is so much of a fearful f'ing control freak that he can't accept that some things are out of his hands. He takes it to the extreme and changes things on a like, 4th dimension level because he has lost the ability to can when it comes to reality and death. Oh my god. he is my fantasy of my most fearful and most powerful self. Jeez.)

And yes, I know that I should probably be talking to someone about this, you know, someone who is not LJ and who is a professional, but the one therapist I contacted, though she seemed nice, worked out of a clinic that got into huge trouble because the main doctor was dealing drugs out of there, so. And like, what is a therapist going to tell me that I don't already know? It's not in my control. The intrusive thoughts aren't rational. Blah dicker blah. But are they really irrational? Because past experience says “No, you're on the right track here, and terrible things are about to happen.”

What also sucks is that I feel like I'm short-changing Lao Shir out of the mourning she deserves, because I'm too busy being afraid of how much worse things are going to get, that it's overshadowing how much I actually miss her. Right before she died, we were FB messaging about how we were going to get together for lunch once she was out of the hospital. I asked if I could send her anything: books, music, a gift card for some movies she could watch on her phone. But she said that, with all the tests she was having, she hardly had time to read or watch anything. But that she would love some flowers. So I sent her flowers, the kind you can take home and plant. (They got lost in the mix and she never got them.) A few days before she died, I sent her a link to the “Girl On Fire” video because, I said, it made me think of her. She never answered and I started to worry.

I had called Gold Dragon to tell him she was in the hospital (he's not on FB) and he kept saying, “It's terrible she's in the hospital, but remember, she's the strongest person we know. She's beaten everything else, and she'll beat this, too.” When I called him to tell him she had passed, he was honestly thunderstruck. And angry. He really thought she was coming home. We all did.

One time, Gold Dragon and I were talking about Lao Shir, one of those times when the cancer had returned, and he had just seen her for lunch a few weeks before. He said he knew she was going to beat it again, because, “it's the light in her eyes, or something about how they shine. Her eyes are really bright.” That really stuck with me. I told her, next time I saw her, of his comment, and she was so pleased. After that, we called her Alohilani: Heavenly Light. She thought that was delightful.

And now we're talking about what to wear to her memorial, since we're going together, and maybe Empress too – should we wear our Kung Fu clothes to honor her? Should we be formal? Do we bring food, who else will be there, who else will show up in Kung Fu clothes, do we bow like in class? Or what? And it boggles my mind—and my heart—that we have to consider these things now. She was supposed to come home. She was going to go back to teaching T'ai Chi.

This was maybe coming for a long time. She had multiple myeloma, diagnosed ten years ago. Usually with that, you get about a year, maybe two. She got ten. But in those ten years, I think we all thought, “Obviously she keeps winning the battle.” It was heart failure, though, this time. At 60, so, you know: very young.

* * *

Okay so I wrote that last night, and I'm trying to see if, by the light of day, this looks any different. Kind of, maybe. Like, rationally, I realize that Haku has actually had 8 surgeries, and only one of them (the one on March 10th) was followed by that entire “life falling apart / death and mourning” year. All the other ones were just bank-breaking. Thinking of it that way really doesn't make the anxiety up and quit, but it takes the edge off, I guess. I'm always, always worried about losing my Mom. And since having Callum, thinking of that kind of thing is a place I really bar myself from going. My brain kind of can't – but it always lurks there like background radiation. For any parent, I guess.

I know that Haku doesn't have a long time after something like this. I visited him today and talked to one of the vets. While all the others were like, “Well, let's wait to see the biopsy,” she said, “Yeah, we're pretty sure it's cancer.” It remains to be seen if it's the really aggressive kind that only gives you a few more months, or if it's the slower kind. It's so obvious to me that it started last July. I kept bringing him to the vets every month, but his blood tests were consistently awesome and no one could feel anything in there. Except me; I felt it all the time, every time I pet him. No one else did, though.

And Sano is 15 ½. So like, I get it; I know my dogs won't be around forever or even for a few more years. That time of not having to think about it is over.

So I don't know, this whole thing has me so anxious and depressed. I'm reading back through all of my 2009 entries, when Haku and Sano got sick, and Gran died, and my Dad died, and my one brother got sick and my uncle died and then my other brother got cancer (but he's better now.) (Although, sadly we don't really talk anymore.) And I just kept saying, “I wish something good would happen!”

And like, so many good things did happen, and it's not like I didn't notice them. I mean, HUGE things happened, like Callum, and getting an agent that I like; things I've wanted since forever have happened in the last 3 years. So I'm not ungrateful, I just wish I could kill this anxiety that the worst possible thing is around every corner.

Another thing I keep noticing in those entries is how much Kung Fu helped me. Like, so much. Kept me sane on some days. I miss it unbearably, and nothing has come along to take its place. (And I can't afford to join any program either, anyway, so.) I mean, I miss my KF family and I really wish it could be like that again, all of those people I loved and still love (and still see, semi-regularly, too. But we're not together 2 times a week, like we were.) It's not like i'm the only one who left the kwoon, and I can just go back, even if I could afford it. Everyone left. There's no one left there out of our group. I keep telling Gold Dragon, “Please decide to teach Kung Fu, please open a school!” only half joking. But, you know, real life.

Whew, what an entry. I hate that I just dumped all of this out. This is not what I wanted for my LJ, so much angst.

And as usual, I really should wrap this up because it's about time for Callum to get up. Well, 3:30 or 3:45 or so, but I still have a few things to do while he's sleeping.

So yeah, sorry for popping on randomly and spilling nothing but neuroses!

Two days ago I wrote this really loooooong post about how I was so frustrated with querying and writing new stuff, that I was about ready to just give it up and go back to writing fanfic for good. Why bother, if I wasn't getting anywhere and never getting any better? The post was full of angst and this really hopeless self-doubt about my writing. I read it back and thought, Wow, that is super angsty, hold back on posting that so you don't flounce out of something and then change your mind and feel stupid later.

Yesterday I got an email from the latest agent I queried, to whom I had sent first a partial, then the full manuscript. She is really interested, and wants to talk to me about the novel, and anything else I have lined up for the future. Our call is set for 2:30 tomorrow afternoon.

SO.

So now it's my turn to tell other authors to not give up/ :)

Of course, you know, it might not work out. Maybe we'll talk on the phone and have completely opposite visions about what to do with this book, or different ideas about my career or writing in general, or maybe we won't click. But, I did get referred to her by another agent, one whom I like very much and she thought we'd be a good fit. So, I'm hopeful.

I mean, hell, I'm way more than hopeful right now; I'm peeing my brand new Target shorts as we speak, have been peeing since last night and will not stop peeing, IDK, probably ever. The Call, you know? It's kind of huge! It gets capital letters when writers talk about it.

So now I'm writing down a list of questions and things to say. If I like her a lot and she likes me, then I'll have to email other agents who have partials (and who have queries, too? I'm not sure?) with a nudge, tell them, Hey, I've had an offer, JSYK. It's the polite thing to do. I have massive phone anxiety, especially with important calls. I stutter and say really dumb things sometimes (and then freak out about the things I said sometimes years later.) So having a list will help; a little cheat-sheet.

And like, work has picked up and we got some good news about a kind of partnership (sub-letting) that I think is going to go really nicely. I might start teaching classes again soon, and hopefully Hula, which will just be even radder.

Gonna try to hit the beach tomorrow.

Going to Disney in about 7 weeks.

Am I going to be this lady sitting by the seaside on a beautiful day, an agented author with a beautiful little son, a nice job, and getting ready to go on vacation? What's next, Tom Hardy is going to come and marry me?

This makes me worried. Doesn't it seem too good? Doesn't something have to go terribly awry now?

(Okay yeah, not all perf, I did lose my car insurance because TWO FENDER BENDERS IN TWO YEARS OMG and because I got side-swiped and made a rather large claim last year. So that's an annoyance and, yeah, a huge chunk out of my finances. And yeah, I wish my Gram and my Dad were here for this, and that's never going to change.)

But cherophobia is stupid, so I'm also going to sit here and worry about what simply must go wrong now, instead of enjoying what isn't wrong. And what could potentially be totally right. Isn't that awful of me? Stop it, anxiety. Stop being a thing.

Oh my god, how did it get to be 3:30? It was just 2:30 a second ago. Better post this and run.

I am reeeeeally going to try to do the lj challenge and revitalize my journal. BUT, first let me explain why this is so hard. In one word: TODDLER. Callum is at that age where he will happily follow me around as I do chores, like laundry, cleaning, vacuuming (in fact, the vacuum is his favorite thing; he's obsessed, always asking to BAKOOM.) But he won't sit and play if I'm sitting at the computer. So the only time I really have online is the two hours when he takes his nap, and one hour (if I'm lucky) after he goes to bed – because often I'm doing other things then, too, like looking around on Tumblr and watching TV if we're being honest.

Those two hours while he's napping? Well, I did NaNo this year. I hit the 50K mark about 2/3 of the way through November, and then spent till January finishing it. And then I wanted to change this and that, add chapters, cut chapters, etc. So basically, that's what I do while he's sleeping. Along with still querying my last novel, too, and joining some cool writing sites like writerpitch etc. And stalking agents. Lots of stalking.

But let's try for a quick catch-up.

This winter has sucked, weather-wise and money-wise (often the two have been connected, e.g. frozen pipes, busted car, that kind of junk.) Last winter we got hit with a snowstorm around every Saturday. This year we got hit every Sunday-Monday and/or Thursday. WTF is that about. I caved, and bought a teeny snowthrower thing for a hundred bucks. Worth it.

I also, unrelated, bought myself and Jo-chan and Glassworker tix to see Taking Back Sunday, coming up next week. Like, I'm so peeved at Adam Lazzara right now, I mean get your shit together, you're a grown man with two kids. And I'm anxious as hell to be driving out to effing Huntington to go see them. I'm so stupid about things like that. I had major anxiety the last time I went to see them, when Callum was 6 months old and it was the first time I'd left him for anything other than work. I've definitely done that since then. But I still have this freaked out feeling like, what if I get punished for doing something fun?

Anxiety is ridiculous. (Aside: I've learned that a phobia of being happy for fear of karmic retribution has a name, and it's called “cherophobia.” Thanks for that, Tumblr. Sincerely. It helps, knowing what a thing is called and that it exists.)

Work has been a little slow, but I know it's going to pick up, since we're under new management. My Mom's very good friend bought the clinic. I took a few hours a week at the desk, too, just to make a little extra and to answer the phones, book some clients and such. I'm also going to be teaching a class or two upstairs, so that will help, too.

Callum is at that really sweet age, just shy of two, where he's not “terrible” yet, and is just (mostly) delightful and funny. He has his moments for sure, pushing my buttons and seeing what he can and can't do. If I could freeze time at any age, it would be now. He loves cars, trucks, Frozen (especially Elsa,) birds, vacuums, water, Uptown Funk. He can name a few birds, like doves (“bove,”) cardinals, (“amcraw” ??) chickadees (“kickees,”) juncos (“duckos,”) and he can do their calls, too. Ha, of course my kid would be doing bird calls before the age of two. We have to listen to the Frozen soundtrack every night during dinner. But he will gladly sing along with Cab Calloway while I'm cooking dinner, especially the song “Oh Grampa,” which he thinks is “Oh Grandma.” “Ohhhhhhh Gram-gram!” He also loves Lightning McQueen, which he calls “Keen keen keen.” he speaks so well, knows his letters, but still struggles with colors and numbers. He insists there are ten of everything, and that everything is orange.

He's asleep now, and I actually have a list of new agents to stalk, which I set up last night in about five different tabs. And the last two chapters of that NaNo novel to look through, too. (So far I'm calling it “Blue Sphere” or something along those lines. We'll see.) Oh yeah, and I do have a full and a partial out now. So, fingers crossed on that.

Today is Sunday, so, tomorrow is a few hours at the desk and a few clients, and then Tuesday is more of the same.

I will really really really try to be on LJ more, and definitely I will try to keep up with my f-list more!

So umm I should probably address this. For about two weeks, my calves and legs have felt too sort of stiff, like I need to keep stretching them – especially the calves. They just feel too tight, you know that feeling? And at work, they feel achy and tired. Then yesterday at work, the edge of the throw rug was stuck up from the chair yanking on it, and I tripped on it.

So tonight I got myself convinced, without a single doubt, that I have ALS. Like, full-on panicking, two hours on the internet, checking off the symptoms (really the one important one: sudden muscle weakness) and looking for any "outs" that would indicate something else. Like, everyone else was worried because they had muscle twitching, and they were constantly being reassured "But that comes in the late stages, don't worry! It's really just a subtle, tired-muscle feeling in the beginning." Which, you know, is exactly what I have.

Now of course, I haven't been to Kung Fu in about three weeks. So aside from work, I haven't moved or stretched. Can't really walk either dog, so I've just been either working (massage therapy, obvs,) or sitting at the computer. I mean really, have just sat here.

Except for Monday, when I put on my sneakers and took Haku for a jog. That was the first time I've jogged since July. But would I still be feeling it now, almost a week later? (And my calves were tired at work, the week before that.)

The other thing that happened was yesterday at work, a client who may or may not have been related to me was telling me about her deceased son. He died suddenly at age 19, from a congenital heart defect – the same one that my Dad had. (Although I'm never really convinced that is actually what happened to my Dad.) She tried, in a gentle way, to tell me to go get checked out for the defect, because some of our families were from the same small part of the world (Naples, specifically,) and if my Dad had it I probably do, too. And it obviously can just drop you dead out of nowhere, at any age, right in the middle of a work-out.

I'm not sure how I got from there to ALS except that it's possible she legitimately triggered me. Then I was like, "Holy crap. Do I have an actualfax anxiety disorder?"

In the past I've gotten worked up into total panics thinking I had every kind of cancer there was. No really: every kind that it was possible for me to get. Lymphoma once in college, then again right before my second time around in college. After Pendragon died, I was sure I had ovarian cancer because I was having heart palpitations. [??WUT??] Then a few years after that, I was wearing a halter monitor because I was having heart palpitations again. (The doctor told me that time to just lay off the chocolate. I didn't.)

Oh, then when we were doing the circulatory system in school, I ended up at the emergency clinic because my nails on one hand had turned blue. It ended up that I had just been shoving my hand into my pocket and getting fabric dye on it. Weird thing about that was that when the nurse checked my O2 levels, it actually was way lower on the blue side. The doctor that time assured me that I had done that myself, just by thinking about it. He told me "Come back when you're doing the respiratory system; you'll have pneumonia! We'll X ray your lungs for you!" (He wasn't being a dick about it; he actually was really nice and we both had a good laugh after he had cleaned the dye off my fingernails.)

Two weeks ago I was about 90% sure I had colon cancer. (Note to self: that's your left ovary, okay? Every single time. Honest. The one that exploded violently over the summer with all the pain and anguish etc. And remember: the dildo-cam confirmed that the ovary was JUST FINE post-explosion.)

It's not just me, though: EVERYONE is dying. Whenever someone I know gets a cold, looks pale, feels tired, or has dry skin, they obviously have any of the many diseases I've "studied." (In other words: learned about in pathology and/or read about for hours at a time on the internet.)

Right after I saw 50/50, and for about two months after that, I had a tumor in my back for a while, too. (It went away after I got rid of the old computer chair.) I mean, honestly convinced that's what it was. Like, started to decide what I would do if I had to lose work to have an operation and stuff.

So now my calves hurt and I tripped over a rug, and even though I haven't been to Kung Fu in weeks, and I went for my first jog in 8 (9?) months, I still can't be convinced that I don't have ALS. Logic doesn't work – because even though I can focus on likelihood and logic and stuff like that, the fact remains that I still have the, like, one actual symptom of it. (And by the way, that started before my jog. And as far as likelihood goes, I am the exact right age for it, so.)

Oh, and here's another weird thing. It says that chickpea toxicity can mimic ALS too – especially in vegetarians. Okay, so I live on chickpeas and hummus. In the last month, I've eaten literally about three tubs of hummus. But again, to weigh this fairly: the "mimicry" they're probably talking about is muscle twitching ("One theory of chickpea toxicity is that the high level of the amino acid glutamate interferes with synaptic activity. If glutamate crosses the brain blood barrier, it allows calcium to enter synaptic spaces causing very dangerous interference with nervous transmission. ") which I don't have (and anyway, that's the one that everyone says "Oh, don't worry about that; that's not ALS.") And two, that's really only for people who don't have access to any other proteins, and I still get enough protein.

The other side of that is, I remember hearing about this briefly in school. Except I was sure, absolutely sure, that my professor had said MS and not ALS when talking about chickpea toxicity. Still – maybe, possibly, the professor did say ALS and I got incepted. "Oh, I've eaten tons of hummus every day for the last month – time to kick in with the one definite symptom!"

Also, I have been sitting in some mighty strange positions in this computer chair to get comfy. I am hyper-mobile so I can cross my legs around each other three times. Literally can wrap my right thigh around my left thigh, left calf around my right, and right ankle around the left and then invert that foot so that it wraps around the right. (And vise-versa and can do the same with all my fingers as well as bending them all the way backwards. Another family trait.) So I get into these weird contortions and they are comfy for a while.

The point of this is that while it's quite likely that I do have this anxiety disorder (my primary doc gave me some "relax" meds about six years ago when I couldn't breathe and thought I was dying of pulmonary obstruction,) and that this lady triggered it by telling me I was going to drop dead suddenly – the fact remains that I still have the one symptom of ALS and it came out of nowhere. So logic doesn't matter. Just because I dodged all the other bullets / was being an idiot about things, that doesn't mean that's always going to be the case.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not asking anyone to judge anyone else in this post. In fact, posts like "OMG you don't need people like that in your life" will probably be deleted, because in at least a few cases, these are family members I'm talking about here. There are people in this post who I love literally more than anything. And misunderstandings happen in families, I think we can all agree on that. So, like it or not, while I'm not asking you to respect the decisions that were made here, I am asking you to be civil: this is a widely-read LJ.

That is in fact why I'm posting here.

WTF IS THIS, you ask?

( Trigger goes here )

THIS is a macro I saw in no less than three different places in the space of two nights. I saw it on Twitter, on Tumblr, and on Facebook. There's another one like it that says, "Call the cops and I'll rape them too." On top of those two images, two nights before, I saw two more "LOL RAPE" images from different macros.

I saw two people I loved LOLing over different rape macros. (Not that one. That one wasn't posted by anyone I knew; I just saw it around.) I sent them messages: "Please don't perpetuate this idea that rape is something funny. It's a real issue to a lot of people." It was a private message, over just one of those images.

Then I posted a general statement on my Facebook: Enough with the rape jokes. Not funny.

Really that was to everyone because the truth is, I have been hearing / seeing them everywhere. And two of my closest, most long-term friends agreed with me, in general, not even knowing what I was banging on about. It's a general thing: Wow, rape jokes aren't hilarious, that's fairly common knowledge.

Happily, I heard back from those two beloveds and the answer was, "Wow, didn't think that one through; well, that was awkward." They're generally an upstanding sort, and they get it. Everyone says something without thinking sometimes. I do it all the time.

However, another family member, one whom I've known and been really close with for about 22 years, was decidedly not cool with my "outburst." Not only did she go in public and tell me that my thoughts on the matter were BS, she also felt that I was (oh, wait for it,) "just overreacting."

When I sent her a private message saying, "Wow, I am so sick of being told I'm overreacting, and to sit down and stfu because I don't find this funny," she decided to not only not answer me, but to totally de-friend me. Like, as if we were in high school or something.

This is a family member, you know? Someone I've shared most of my life with? Been there through the best and the worst? She came by every day after my Dad died, and then after her own family went through this cataclysmic splintering last year she told my Mom and I, "We'll always have each other, no matter what." Exact words.

But, you speak out against FUNNEE RAPE LOLZ, and suddenly none of that matters.

Every single day I wish my Dad was still alive, obviously. But in times like this, I really, really wish it, because he would so totally have my back on this. This was the one thing that sent my Dad into an unreasoning rage. My Dad was a cop for a long time, but even after he retired, he still, sort of, "took care of things" if you get me. I'm not going to lie, he beat up a few guys who had hurt a few of the girls in his family. And I never questioned that.

So, one of those young people asked me if I had any history with sexual assault. My answer is an appallingly sad one: Don't we all? And if you don't, you're extremely lucky and rare.

I can think of four, maybe five separate occasions where I've been in those situations. One I'm only vaguely sure about because I was so young and really didn't understand / don't remember a lot of it. The others, I was older, old enough to know what was going on. Twice, the cops were called.

The first time the cops were called, it was after one of the boys said, "go ahead and call the cops, we'll see you in school tomorrow bitch."

The boys involved (there were five of them) were minors. We went to court on that one, but never got into the actual courtroom because the lawyers settled, or plea-bargained or something. Three of the boys went on probation I think, and two of them went away totally free and I saw them in school the next week.

This was an incident I never forgot, because, how the hell did this happen? Didn't my Dad teach me how to fight? Why couldn't I take on five boys, and help myself, and my best friend – who they had up against the wall while they were ripping her clothes? All I could think of to do was try to beat them with my book-bag, but clearly that wasn't enough.

The second time the cops were called, it was when I was living in Seattle. I was hanging out alone on the roof of my apartment building when this guy accosted me. He wouldn't leave me alone and wouldn't take "no" for an answer. I was leaning on the railing and eventually he grabbed me from behind. I threw an elbow back and ran away. I must have gotten him pretty good because he started yelling, "Get back here, you're such a brat!" and "I'm gonna follow you to your apartment, see which one is yours!" etc. Well, I didn't go to my apartment, I went to the front desk where I had the night watchman call the cops.

They did pick that guy up the next morning, but he had already raped some other girl.

The latest, of course, was when I lost my job when I spoke out over the sexual harassment that everyone else was afraid to report. Then I was informed by lawyers that since it was my word against my boss's, and that my boss was a coward, I had no case against him since New York state has a law that says your boss can fire you for any reason other than a discriminatory one – and since, yeah, my word against his. THAT IS RAPE CULTURE.

But none of this is the point. That's only my history, and a small, detail-less part of it.

The point is that the women you know have been assaulted or raped. Your sister, your mom, your aunt, your cousin, your daughter, your girlfriend, your best friend. Swing a dead cat at all the girls you know, and you'll hit at least one who has had to face something like this. At least one.

This isn't about my reaction to the FUNNEE RAPE LOLZ. This is about the fact that out of everyone you know on Tumblr or Twitter or Facebook, there's probably a handful of them who have actually heard the words "call the cops and I'll rape them too." And even if she hasn't, OR HE, all of those people reserve the right to not find rape funny.

Do you really want to put that girl (or guy) into a place where she's sitting there thinking, "Do I say something? If I say something, I run the risk of hurting their feelings. If I don't, then people keep on posting these things, and they never know how I feel. Oh, maybe I'll just click 'like' so that people don't think I'm 'that girl.' No one wants to be that girl. People tell that girl that she's overreacting.That girl gets fired and starts trouble for us all. What if someone cuts me out of their life over this? No, that can never happen; that's too irrational. People will understand if I think this isn't funny. Right? Or maybe they'll think I'm a humorless harpy? I'd better just shut up. It's worth it to just keep it to myself."

No one wants to be that girl. Incidentally, that girl does not have to have been a victim of assault and/or rape. This could just be any girl who hates the idea of it. It could just as easily be that guy, and let me tell you, I can only imagine how hard it must be to be that guy. I'm sure men who are sensitive to this topic get called out all the time, and probably mocked. You know what, be that guy anyway.

Then if you do say something, you get replies like, "But you watch Family Guy. But you write porn. But you have a hard drive full of naked man pictures. But you know how to fight. But you grapple with men twice your weight. But the other day you had a sense of humor about something else."

Those are choices. I'm entitled to make those. I can be okay with one thing, and not okay with another. (And TBH, for as much as Family Guy is a family tradition, Quagmire actually does make me pretty ill.)

How about this one: "Oh, but I know a girl who got raped, and she jokes about it all the time." Fine. That's her choice. It doesn't make her better or worse of a "victim."

I'm just saying, I get if people don't understand how that feels, but this isn't about me, it's about everyone. Everybody says or does something dumb or thoughtless. I do it all the time, I constantly run at the mouth and say the most mindless things. If I say some mindless thing that makes another person feel wrong about it, then I should know about that. I want to be mindful.

So while I'm completely disappointed in the behavior of that one family member, and, honestly, fairly ragey over it, I'm still sitting here questioning myself: "Was it worth it to say something? Was saying 'stop, that's uncomfortable' the wrong thing to do?" No, I don't think it was. Saying "stop" is the thing we're all afraid to do, isn't it? And isn't this why these things keep happening? Because we're afraid to say "stop"? How far does that go?

Women are so clearly taught that if they speak out and say "I don't find that funny," they're going to be called irrational, humorless, told to stfu, or lose their jobs over it.

Okay, maybe I'm being some kind of humorless beast who just can't take a rape joke, right? Maybe I'm just that awful, because I'm sick of how this is supposed to be funny. That could actually be the truth. So the question then becomes, am I still worth your time, or are you done with me?

I just ask everyone to consider what you're willing to sacrifice in order to get your RAPE LOLZ. Are you willing to give up friendships and family members because among them is that girl, who doesn't think it's funny? Or are you more willing to give up RAPE LOLZ in order to keep her?

Once people are made aware that they have a that girl (and, by the way, you do, she's just afraid you'll hate her if she speaks up,) then that's a choice you're going to have to make.






Addendum: Here's a long and detailed page on the meaning of the phrase "rape culture."

So much to babble about, but I'll try to keep it short-ish.

Here's my exciting thing: I got a Hula show on the 19th, which, WOW, it's been over a year since I did an actual show. The last one was right after I lost Dad and it was miserable. I mean, the show was pretty good itself but the experience was hard, trying to smile through the whole thing, trying to be cheerful and Aloha etc. This one is going to be so much better. It's a holiday show. I haven't done a holiday performance in, what, like eight years? No one wants Hula in the winter, that's why. Or if they do, they don't ask this far-east gal to come and perform. So, I get to do Hawaiian Santa, White Christmas, Little Drummer Boy (I try to keep holidays secular, but LDB is legit one of my favorite songs ever and I really love the Hula; it's mad difficult unless you know it well enough and have strong thighs, no joke,) and then I think I'll do some poi balls, and a Tahitian set.

And guess what? I'm doing La Toere. Come hell or high water or an extra five pounds or lack of practice. Actually, I really should practice that one. AND. I think that for the first time ever I'm going to do Tahiti, Tahiti, the pop song version. There's going to be a ton of kids there and I think they'll really love that one.

So that's the deal with that.

That aside, I utterly fail at the holidays this year. I really, seriously did try. I didn't want a tree,and I had to sit and think for a long time about why I didn't want one yet. I usually love getting a tree. And I think it's because Dad used to help me move my chair out of the way (or if he wasn't around to do it, I'd move it and when I'd tell him I'd gotten a tree he'd go, "Did you move that chair by yourself? You should have waited for me to do it!") which maybe is a really vague reason, but I couldn't help the association. That, and every single year I've always used Shinigami to go and get my tree. Even after Shinigami more or less quit on me, and I started driving around little red Ronin, I would still rev up Shinigami and take him out for a holiday spin to get my tree. Shinigami is still in the driveway. Last year someone asked me if I was ready to sell and I immediately busted out in irrational tears. I should sell, I know I should, I need to. Someone can fix up that beautiful car and drive it around like it should be driven. It's just, UGH, I have issues.

So! I decided I'd do my own stupid holiday thing, switch it up a little, do something new, right? So instead of a tree and a ton of lights, I figured I would get some of those big-ass pine things that people wind around their porches and I'd put it up all over my house. This way I'd get the nice tree-smell without all the admittedly irrational emotional nonsense. This was a huge effing mistake.

( This is about the stupidest looking thing ever. )

You can't just stick them up all over the place, I guess. I had to cut it into three parts. Decoration fail.

Then I also thought it would be high-freaking-larious if I got two of those stupid balls and hung them side by side, right? Just for a laugh. The ones I found were like millennia old and the boxes were all beaten up. I tried them at the store and the guy even gave me a discount because they were so old. So I ( made my little holiday gag: )

And thought 'Oh, LOL, I am so funnee!" and then the right ball flickered out and has stayed that way. Damn it. I only have one ball for Yule now. Woe.

I remember what else I wanted to rave about. Kung Fu (who is surprised?) In the last few weeks we've been doing staff drills indoors; I mentioned it a few posts ago. On Tuesday (today is Thursday) we did even more two-person drills that were yet cooler than the last. And before that, we did line basics without staff.

Let me talk for a second about the line basics we did. First of all, we did them for about an hour, even going straight through warmup time without quitting. Which, fabulous. You get to that part where you stop feeling things like "ow, pain" and "boy my legs are tired." You just zone right on up out - please understand by my use of many prepositions how meaningful this is. Not only that, but the drills we were doing looked so effing cool, I may have to record it tonight. I always say it's so that we can remember what we were doing and practice them at home but honestly, it's because it looks cool. I can't even lie.

Well, it likely doesn't look as cool when I do them, because I am long-limbed and flaily and I fully realize that I don't have the right amount of control over the reach of my arms. I can actually feel it when I'm getting flaily, and invariably Sifu will come over to me saying something like "hey hey hey hey, Lotus-flower-blossom-san, what exactly are you doing?" I get way too enthusiastic, haha. So then I have to stop, reset my stance, and actually put some thought into it.

It's great, because we do right and left side, and the thing about Kung Fu is that it's so ambidextrous, you have to sync your right and left sides so that they're doing two opposite things, while your legs are pretty much doing yet another thing. You can kind of feel your brain seaming in the middle. It's neat.

So yeah, from Hula to Kung Fu, as usual.

And school. I guess I won't be writing much about that anymore, and I can probably retire my "school" tag. Not get rid of it, but I won't have to use it. Tomorrow is my last day, five clinic hours and then I'm pau. I also get my path paper back, and I'm kind of sweating that. I know I didn't fail, but I don't just want a good grade. I totally suck like that. I want the freaking A. I worked really hard on that paper. More than that, though, I don't want to let my supervisor down. I'll be bummed if I get a B or something. I realize I sound like a child but, well, I cop to that, too.

My last class was yesterday. It was a lousy hour and a half, and then about fifteen minutes of me running around registrar etc. trying to get them to fix up my missing paperwork, HELLO. I paid the extra cash for it five weeks ago (the first aid cert. cards that they misspelled, remember?) and I never heard back from them if they came in. I called, left messages etc. Then yesterday I went up there and was like, "WTF, no one ever called me back. Hope you guys realize I can't graduate without these cards, and today is my last day, why has no one returned my calls?" And she goes, "Oh, that. I do remember you paying, yeah. Umm. The guy who was doing that got fired."

OH, COOL. AND NO ONE TOOK OVER FOR HIM. THANKS GUYS.

I can't even tell you how ready I was to punch the entire effing school right in the ass. Long story short (too late,) I had to go the hell home, fax in my misspelled cards so that they can send them along with a certified letter (that they will write) saying how it's their own stupid fault and that the NYS boards pretty much have to accept them.

So that's my last experience with this idiotic school, way to send-off with a bang.

I'm fairly sure there was something else I wanted to catch up on but I can't think of it right now, which is probably just as well.

So, here, ( look at some pictures of my fish!  )

Those are just the ones in my ten-gallon tank. I'll have to upload some of the ones of my other guys in the 20, one of these times.

Well, I'd better gear up to think about getting out of the chair and feeding the dogs, and then myself, and then going into the stygian, freezing night to Kung Fu.

After tomorrow I don't have to see that stupid college for a really, really long time; not until I have to go back for continuing ed. Which I'm sure they will also screw up, but at least it will be a short term thing. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow!

I'm going to this, next month.

A while back I joined hitRECord because it sounded like it was up my alley. I kinda joined it on a whim because it looked neat, with artsy kinds of things and because you could potentially upload short stories and such which might garner interest. Afterwards, I really looked into the true concept, the whole essence of the project, the sensibility.

Basically it's a handful of amateurs and professionals who love to piece things together; sort of like a mind-collage. And the biggest part of it is, well, recording stuff, music and videos. HEY! Music videos.

The idea with hitRECord is to record everything, anything, always, at every opportunity. HitRECord's motto is: Are you RECording?"

My hyperbolic answer is: Yes, constantly.

Anyone who knows me has said that exact thing to me probably hundreds of times, in almost any situation. Parties, shows, Kung Fu class, gatherings,walks to the beach, really anything. Yes, I'm probably recording. At dinner with Kung Fu brothers and sisters one time I was taping this and that and Sifu asked me, "Do you ever put that camera down?" And my hyperbolic answer to him was: No, never.

I call them the "WE SHOULD RECORD THIS" files. (Witness the beginning of our latest Kung Fu music video: "OH MY GOD WE SHOULD RECORD THIS!" "WE ARE RECORDING!")

A community that asks "ARE YOU RECORDING?" OMFG. YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES.

My reasons usually aren't as artistic as the rest of the comm's, though. My reason for all the photos and videos is to somehow solidify them, to make experiences eternal. (My photos in chronological order...) Maybe one day I'll forget, right? But through this, I can always remember, Yes, this happened! It was fantastic! Look, these people lived, we had such fun, we created. It's actually more like a hangup with me than an artistic sensibility. Sometimes I don't care how it turns out, as long as it exists.

So, I joined. And although I still haven't figured out how to collaborate, (there's no forum where you can chill, meet people and say "Hey what's up, want to work on something?" it's much more open than that and you kind of have to put something out there first and then let others pick up on it – or so it seems and I have not figured out how to download files or anything yet, etc.) I still really like it.

They actually have an awesome compilation of music and movies using one of my favorite songs: Row Row Row Your Boat. I love that song on every level. I've always thought that life is but a dream, so why not just be merry, merry, merry? Although once I heard JGL's world-weary drawl in his rendition, I felt like I should make a zombie film to go with it. Halloween's coming up and all. :) We'll see.

Then came the announcement of this show. And, yeah, I could just as easily have saved the $57 (not counting my train ticket) and skipped it.

But, gosh, how long since I've done something? Time was I'd drop everything to hit up a concert, just get up and go. Daytrips into the city, weekend trips to see my favorite band, hanging out at a Halloween party backstage with 30 Seconds To Mars. Once, I said, "eff this, I'm going to Hawai'i, by myself, for the hell of it." Time was, I'd just get up and do fun, exciting things.

I haven't said "yes" to anything in such a long time. How pathetic has my life become that a daytrip to see a show in the goddamn city is this huge of a deal? I live on LI for godsakes, people do this every weekend, yet for me it's like "OMFG I AM LEAVING THE HOUSE TO DO SOMETHING." Something that's not school, work or training. I've been in school for almost two years now. I'm bored. I want something to look forward to, and then after that, I want something new to look back on. I mean, something other than "well in Clinic today a crazy person came in" and "In Kung Fu tonight I got kicked in the teeth."

A few years ago I was driving around with my Dad (we did that a lot) and talking about my upcoming trip to China (that never happened.) I said to him something like, "I'd better go, because once I have a kid I'm not going to be able to just travel around the world like this."

"Don't have a kid yet," Dad told me (I was 35.) He said, "You're not done running around yet."

Well I always felt like I never really wanted to be finished running around. I love running around. I like adventures, and meeting like-minded people. I like going on trains, dressing up, watching shows.

And, holy crap, the people who are going to be there! It's just gonna be a theater of artists, film-makers, writers, all that kind of stuff. Who knows who you can meet there! Maybe someone in NY who likes books, maybe someone who wants to represent one. Maybe someone who likes to make creepy zombie films. Maybe someone who wants to hire Hula dancers, or maybe someone hot.

It's been too long since my last adventure. And again: If it's gotten to the point where I have to count "going into the city to catch a show" an adventure, damn, that's sad.

So, eff it, I'm going.

As much as I try not to, I very much believe in signs. And I sometimes like to play "radio oracle" or even "iPod oracle." You know, you ask a question, and then put the radio on scan or the iPod on shuffle, and whatever song comes on (or with the radio, whatever words you hear,) that's like a clue. I used to play this all the time with my friend in college. Our only rule was that country music didn't count, LOL.

So the other night my iPod ran down and I was listening to the radio in the car, playing Radio Oracle. I thought, "That guy I really like, Chocolate. I texted him on his birthday and did not hear back from him. What's the story? Should I walk away?" And then stopped scanning.

The station stopped on a talk radio show, with a lady saying the following: "Honey, I don't care if he's busy, or shy, or whatever. If you have called him more than once, and he hasn't returned your calls, then walk away. Sounds like you've already been hurt enough; why let someone else hurt you again? You tried, now it's time to move on."

So I thought, "Well, fair enough. But let's give it one more try." So I tried Chocolate's number again tonight. And received a message that his number has been changed or that his phone is out of service.

Yeah, so, walking away. And kind of mad. Don't "darlin" me and lead me on for three months and then disappear and change your number. That sucks. Usually I don't care, but I liked this guy, and you guys all know that I rarely go on dates with people. When I do, it's 'cause I want to.

Please, no angry rants or name-calling in comments. I'm sure he's got a reason and I'm not looking for people to say rude things about him to make me feel better. I like the dude. Just venting. And, no, it's not because he's attractive or has long hair. *insert massive eye-roll*

I'm mostly pissed that this ruined one of my favorite Bonnie Pink songs. Bleh. ;D

Besides, my friends are all so fantastic to me and we're all going on a daytrip next week. I'd love for Chrysanthemum to be there, but as of right now it looks like just me and two dudefriends I highly value and enjoy. We're going to go and have a great time and laugh all day.

Anyway, but enough of that. I have to get up at a ridiculous hour tomorrow for my super-long day and there are two things I've been wanting to post for a few days now. One is Bruce Lee's screen test:


I knew homeboy was lightning fast, but I never actually knew that he was such a scholar. But anyway, check it out at around 1:00 when he starts to talk about the difference between karate and Kung Fu. And at 1:50 he's talking about comparing Kung Fu to water. We talk about that a lot in KF. Makes so much sense! It's worth it to watch the whole thing, because it's awesome, and parts of it are really cute too.

The other thing I've been meaning to post for a while is apropos nothing, uhh, as usual. Lately I've been sort of revisiting my late childhood/early adulthood and the music I loved during it. Specifically when I was between 19 and 20 or so. I mentioned Iron Maiden a few posts back. Well, a few nights ago, someone or something reminded me of how much I loved Megadeth in my teens. I mean like, obsessively adored, as in, listening to their one album over and over pretty much until my ears bled. That one was "So Far, So Good...So What." I fell in love with Dave Mustaine's snarky vocals, his vitriolic rants, his intellectual rage and of course, the fact that no one could shred like he could. The long, red hair didn't hurt, either. (He's still quite burningly hot, in fact.)

Back in high school, Dave Mustaine was one of "My Husbands." (You know, I still joke around like that today, having a harem of husbands.) But my real high school love was a guy named Kris. He was around 6' with sandy brown hair and hazel eyes. We liked the same kind of music. He wore nerd glasses, but had edge; he was hardcore. Anyway, that year my best friend was a gal named Tina. I told her everything. She knew I had it bad for Kris and she said she was going to help me get him. We went away to Florida the week before school started up again. Before we left for vacation (which my family paid for,) she had somehow managed to procure Kris's home address.

Tina spent the vacation writing letters to Kris telling him that I didn't like him, and not only that, but I was hooking up with all different boys in Florida (I was sixteen,) and was of no use to him etc. I, of course, didn't know she was saying those things. When we got home, I didn't hear from her.

(I know this is tangential – please hold for the Megadeth tie-in.)

I didn't actually see her again until the first day of school. I hated school, but I had something to look forward to. Obviously I was going to see Kris! Probably at lunch, when we'd go hang out behind the store and break the glass bottles left by winos in the alley. The girl who sat in front of me, Margie, turned around to say hi and we started chatting. She asked why I was so happy and I told her it was because I would get to hang out with Kris after not having seen him in so long."

"Kris?" she said. "You mean Tina's boyfriend? That guy you used to hang around with?"

I know it's a long time ago and you might be thinking, "Gosh, she can't remember the exact words like that." But 1) I do remember exact words; I remember exact words from over 20 years ago because that's how my brain works and 2) You know that feeling? You never forget it. And I know exactly what I said back to her, which was nothing. That high school heartbreak, you know! It leaves you speechless, LOL! No LJ back then. ;D

Later in the day I ended up walking behind Tina in the hallway and she didn't know I was there. I heard her laugh and say, "Oh my gawd, when Jules finds out she's gonna..."

I grabbed her by the arm and said, "Going to what?"

I literally watched the color drain from her face, and then she ran away like a coward.

In high school, I was generally an unhappy person. I did mean things to people who had hurt me. And because there were many people who had, I had to be crafty sometimes.

So what I did this time was to take all of the notes she had written me over the years, in which she had talked smack about just about everyone. I wasn't the only person she had done this to. She was a bitch to everyone. I took all those notes and I photocopied them. It costs me lots of money because photocopies were ten cents each back then. I took the copies of her notes and I taped them up everywhere. In the bathrooms. On the bleachers. On the lockers of the people she had written about. In the halls, tucked away in library books, (quite stupid, since hardly anyone ever checked them out,) in the cafeteria, in the gym.

And along with the notes, I printed and copied, with her name at the top, the words to Megadeth's song, "Liar." (I clearly remember that I left out the lines about "your sister" and "your brother." Her sister and brother were just kids and had nothing to do with anything.)



It's easy to laugh at this song now because it's so overwrought that it's almost camp. You can hardly tell when Dave Mustaine is being serious and when he's just being a snarky bastard. And sometimes both. The whole song is actually terribly brilliant when you break it down. The way he rolls the "R" of "sewer rat." His over-the-top, hateful speed-wrath rant, while semi-hilarious, is fantastic to this day. I still know every single word! I should; I listened to it often enough back then. But it's at 3:00, the nearly inarticulate rage, that I loved the best.

Ah, Tina. She had to leave the school and go to a different one. The last I heard of her, she had crawled out of a bathroom window after having been cornered by a group of people who were out for blood. It was not a nice high school, my alma mater. Not a mellow, cheerful place at all.

My other favorites on that album were "In My Darkest Hour" and "Mary Jane":



Revisiting these, I'm once again appreciative of their weird beauty.

I wonder what I'll rediscover next? Maybe it'll be David Bowie (actually, I still have a handful of his songs on my iPod) or T Rex (I have every single CD. Every. Last. One. I should upload those.)

Well well well, that's tonight.

Next week is going to be a wonderful week. I can feel it. Everything is going to go right-side up, for sure!

I was supposed to dance today. I had my costume and music all ready, even hand-made a new hip hei (it kind of sucks though,) and was good to go. But the time and place got all screwed up, and I never found out where I was supposed to meet the group, and the roads were closed. I was going to do one Tahitian, yeah, a two and a half minute dance, and yeah I would have driven the 40 or so miles out there just for two minutes of dancing. But it wasn't to be. I got up at 8 AM on a day off (no work this weekend) for absolutely zip.

Well, not really. I got a lot done this morning, cleaned, vacuumed, did some laundry, and studied for three hours for the path2 midterm. If I don't ace that bitch, something is wrong.

Umm, yesterday I tried to replace my water filters but one of them is broken. I need to change / refill my fish tank water and I can't. I get so worried when I can't change the water. The company is really awesome though, and they are sending me a free replacement. Still, my fish!

My fish must think I'm out of my mind. A few times a week I'll have a half a glass of red wine at Mom's while we watch Family Guy, then go to my place and feed my fish, and to Gran's to let Belle out and feed my other fish which are in that room.

Me: "FISHIES! Wiggle-swim fishies, time for foods! HI LEON! You are so magnificent! Fishie fish fish! You guys are the FISHIEST fish ever! Kiss, kiss!"

Fish: "Is that lip balm stuck to our tank? Oh my god. She had wine again."

Last night I tried this new ice cream called Arctic Zero. It's got 128 calories for the entire pint and it doesn't have any HFCS or any aspartame junk. Instead it uses this "Whey Low" stuff which, I have no idea what that is or how it works. The web site gives you some junk about how these three kinds of sugar interfere with each other so you can't digest it and OH MY GOD EPIPHANY THIS EXPLAINS THE DREAM I HAD. Duh.

Last night I had one of those crack dreams again where I make the person in trouble stand aside so that that I can handle it. Last night it was Dr. House. In the dream, he had found a way to get high without vicodin. It turned out that there was a chemical in spinach that he couldn't assimilate, and the resulting reaction made it so that it could pass the blood-brain barrier and act like marijuana. Dude, I know, I know. What the hell. So he was eating all this spinach and Wilson was curious and concerned, wondering what was with the spinach obsession. Then Wilson's girlfriend (I can't remember her name, but it's the same one from the actual show,) started googling it. House of course didn't care and kept getting spinach-high, until he ate too much and fell down beside his bed. I remember everything was sort of smoky and wavy. I pretty much figured he was going to die if he didn't do something, so I made him leave and took over, as I always do in dreams like these. I made him walk up to the roof of their apartment building, where Wilson and his girlfriend were on a swing-set. The girlfriend was swinging really high, to the edge of the building. Then she decided to stand up on the swing. I / House thought that was dangerous – we were pretty sure she was going to pitch over the ledge. I wanted to do something about it, but House didn't. Fortunately I was in control, so I decided to tell Wilson. However, he was playing in a ball pit. I thought, "Maybe this is why he's on spinach," and then I woke up.

Right! So I tried this Arctic Zero stuff and it did not make me high, and hopefully it didn't pass the blood-brain barrier and I didn't explode or grow an extra limb or anything like that. But I'm still not sold on the idea. Things like this that sound too good to be true usually are. Seriously, 3 kinds of sugar canceling each other out? Doesn't that sound like one of those diet-jokes? "Oh yeah, hur hur, if you eat two cupcakes they cancel each other out!" It didn't taste too bad though.

And Mom and I watched Revenge Of The Sith. I forgot how terrible / awesome that movie was. One of those things where, when it's bad it's abysmal ("UR BEAUTIFUL CUZ I LOVE U!!!" "OMG NO U!") and when it's good it's fantastic (Hello there! It's quite possible that he's the most beautiful man on earth.) This was my favorite scene. I thought it was brilliant. Two Jedi – or rather, a Jedi and a Sith, with flashy lightsabers and the Force and fancy moves and whatnot, and they get so fired up that to hell with the lightsabers, I'm just gonna choke a bitch with my bare hands because that's how much I hate/love/hate you! My other best part is when Obi-wan finds general Grievous (of all the things I'm writing and raving about now, yeah, writing that name makes me feel retarded,) and hundreds of enemy soldiers everywhere, and he thinks about it for a minute. "Hmm, this could be tricky, I'm massively outnumbered. What should I do?" And then he jumps down into the center of them like "Hey what's up, kicking everyone's ass now!"

How the hell did I get onto Star Wars? Jesus. No more crack for me. At least not this late at night.

Aaaanyway. Yeah, today. So I cleaned and studied and blah blah. And got lots of critiquing done for various writing workshops, but did absolutely no work on my own writing. :/ Ehh. Soon.

But not tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm going out with Lady Chrysanthemum to see Kung Fu Karate Kid. I hope it doesn't piss me off. I want to like it. I love Jackie Chan. Yes. He can be trusted to keep Kung Fu sacred. :) It's nice of her to have kept me in mind for tomorrow. She's quite lovely.

The Gold Dragon called me today and we talked for a long time. He wanted to see how everything is going ("Just calling to see, you know, how you guys are...But I guess you don't want to talk about..." No, I don't. But it was a kind gesture to call.) He misses class, and I miss him, and we're trying to figure out a day to go to China Town. But maybe a few of us this time. Me, Dragon and Snarklit, maybe Chrysanthemum and we'll ask Jedi Ronin, too. But in the end, bet you anything it'll just be the three of us. Which is also fine. He's such a good dude, this Dragon. Class is not the same without him.

Tomorrow I'm sleeping till 10 AM, cleaning the birds, going to the movies, and then, with whatever time I have left during the day, maybe writing/revising, or some more studying. Definitely some jogging and some dancing. Oh, jogging's going really well since I got those superfly sneakers. Mostly I'm going to ignore tomorrow until it's done. :)

And if not, I always have these silly fannish thoughts to occupy my mind. God, it's weird inside my head.

ETA: Gacked from William Gibson (God I love saying that,) Seizure-inducing photographs of Meiji Japan. These kind of rule, if you can handle the eye-strain.