Saturday, January 29, 2005

 

*sigh*

what a wonderful night.

i'm rapturously in love with my community right now.

i don't know when the last time was that i felt so good--ooah's set in particular--i kept being amazed delighted glowing, looking around at all the beautiful smiles and movement...

hope everyone had as much fun as i did.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

 

get $#%@ FREAKY, yo.

party tomorrow night. yup. iiiiii'm excited. *what* a fugging line-up. i have one of the worst colds i've had in years, but if nothing else i will just go and lie on the floor in the main room, fully caffeinated in order to retain consciousness, and absorb the beats with a glazed smile on my face.

by saying this i'm setting myself up for a grand disappointment, of course...but this is the first party i've heard about since i moved here that EVERYONE is going to--no conflicts on anyone's calendar; no naysayers; no excuses; no options. everyone's planning on attending. i have refused to make solid plans with anyone, including out-of-town guests, but i am giddy at the thought of having all my friends in the same building at the same time, all being ecstatic at once.

right. nevermind about that lying on the floor nonnnnsense. more drugs. bring em on. i'll be conscious *and* capable of quick movement. 'and they ain't leavin til 6 in the mo'nin.' yeeeeeeah.


 

lapsed catholic, but still concerned

now i'm NOT saying that i think this is the case, but it occurred to me to wonder if some of the hysteria and mass accusations against catholic clergy in sexual abuse cases in the past few years isn't at least in part a bit of a...witch hunt? or more importantly, i hope that other people besides myself see how easy it would be for it to devolve into a witch hunt situation.

of course, once accusations got to trial, i like to think that our judiciary system now is a bit more sophisticated than it was in puritan america, and therefore presumably false accusations will be noticed by a judge. but then there's the other dimension to a witch hunt--the destroyed reputations. and in this case the reputation of an entire group of people is harmed with every accusation against an individual. i may not practice catholicism anymore, but i knew and know a number of wonderful priests who i have a great deal of respect for.


Wednesday, January 26, 2005

 

starting a new year?

one of my friends sent me these words on january 7th:

'It's hard for me to get excited about new year's because I feel Burning Man is my real new years, and January 1st is just a cheap imitation eaten up by mass culture.'

his sentiments echoed something i'd been feeling that week. people around me were setting resolutions and intentions for themselves, but i felt no need to do that because i set all of mine back in early september and am still working on them. up until that point i hadn't really thought of burning man as a replacement for new year's, per se, but for the last few years that's been the time of year when i do my self-evaluation and reset my goals.

so i was pleasantly tickled and cozified to see the new poll on the burning man website: 'What day of the year do you consider the beginning of your 'new year'?' i'm pleased to report that at this point, with 446 votes counted, burn night is in the lead with32.5%.


 

jessie

i thought about something last night that i hadn't *really* thought about in quite a long time. i made myself focus on it for a few minutes and got myself good and properly freaked out.

february of my freshman year of college, one of my two brand-new best friends was killed in a car accident. it was my first experience with totally unforeseen and unwarranted death. the event shook me as hard as you would expect, and i took away the typical various lessons on the importance of love, communication, appreciation of life, et al. i also took away, as you again might expect, a serious fear of death. this fear was *strong* for a couple years. i didn't realize until last night that it had sunken into the back of my mind...but now it's right up in front again.

i hate death. i really hate it. and by hate, i mean that i resent and despise and abhor it. i hate any action that divides a willingly living person from being conscious in this reality. (i even hate death if the person didn't really want to be alive anymore, but i acknowledge that that's my problem.) i myself want to live to the age of 110, at a minimum. i feel *very* strongly about this.

so i have an extreme fear of death. i'm afraid of my own death, and i'm also afraid that people i care about are going to die. this is normal, right? right. not healthy, i'm sure, but reasonably normal. so it's amazing to me how everyone can be so happy all the time with this kind of an unstoppable awful thing hanging over everyone's heads all the time. how the fukk we all manage to ignore it as much as we do???

anyways, i spent some time thinking about death last night, and i got really upset. the gist of it is that jeeeezus, my friend's been gone for a long time, and it's only been 7 years (almost to the day); she's going to be gone forever.

so la la la and cheezy thoughts--i suppose that's what all this depressing angry verbiage should lead to--

appreciate life, and please try to stay away from life-threatening situations :)


Friday, January 21, 2005

 

donnie darko

i watched this film last night for the first time. wow, and then some.

after the movie was over, my roommate and i got into an argument about what the film was about. my reading was that it was a total crazy sci-fi mindf*ck; his reading was that it was a deep psychological exploration into a schizophrenic's mind. neither of us had even considered the other's reading as a possibility. so i googled around a bit this morning to find some interpretations.

i found the film's super-cool website, and played there for a while (until i reached a dead end in its labyrinthian design and couldn't figure out what to next). then i found this article, which gives a detailed plot description and then has a solid q&a section.

two points to this post--
1. see this movie, if you haven't already.
2. i love modern multi-media integration. the web site was *brilliant*, and i can't wait to see the director's cut of the film to his (richard kelly's) intended second viewing of the film.

and by the way, i can smugly say that my reading was technically more correct than my roommate's, but that to my surprise there's a whole camp of people who staunchly stick with his interpretation. so we were both right :)

Saturday, January 15, 2005

 

fear

tuesday morning i woke up at 6am to the loudest sudden noise that i can remember ever hearing. i thought it was an explosion. it took me several minutes to figure out what it must have been--thunder. but i was *terrified*. i couldn't get past the possibility that there could have been a bomb exploding near my apartment. the fear was exacerbated by the fact that there was no more thunder after that one peal--it just seemed so strange to me that there would just be the one thunderclap and no more. i couldn't fall back asleep. i haven't been that scared in a really long time. if there had been someone around for me to creep into bed with, you better believe i would have been there in a flash. i left the house around 7 and went to get some food before work. i kept my ears and eyes open for some indication that there had actually been an explosion in my neighborhood, but of course i didn't see any. i found out later that the thunder i heard was paired with a flash of lightning that struck the ground somewhere very close to my house.

it was strange and unsettling to feel such powerful fear about something so irrational.

Monday, January 10, 2005

 

sneaky naughty

aaaand yet AGAIN i am prevented from viewing a friend's blog by my work's content blocks. can i put out a quick little plea here? could you people just try to be a little more subtle with your 'weighted phrases'? euphemisms are always good fun--try one next time. or--and not to be juvenile or anything--perhaps use a creative spelling or two? think of me as the kid whose mom wouldn't let her come to the slumber party if an R movie was going to be shown. of course you always laughed your arse* off at that kid, but you changed the movie, right? right?

*see? hardly changed the tone at all.

 

utopian eating experience

after years and years of tense large group restaurant experiences, fraught with carefully arranged seating schematics, reluctant participants griping about the prices of the entrees, dramatic statements about whether we should or should not be frequenting a restaurant that served the food-to-be-avoided-by-good-activists-this-week, and various other perilous and generally unpleasant characteristics, i have learned to dread going out to eat with more than one other person at a time.

last night, though, a group of 10 hoopers spontaneously decided to go to dinner together. there was no argument about where we were going (even though it had the potential to be an un-universally liked choice). there was no one who complained about the price of the entrees. there was general pleasantness that we were going to a vegetarian restaurant, but no snooty or lofty or showy comments about the issue. and i was all set to worry about seating arrangements, and whether we could all fit at one table or not, when i realized that no one would care at all where they were sitting, even if we got split into 2 or 3 tables. no politics, no messyness, no silly nonsense.

what a great phenomenon :)


(btw, the restaurant we went to is called Alive! it's on lombard at webster. it's an organic raw food restaurant, with a sort of asian fusion menu. the food was **incredible**. the service...well...just don't ever go there with more than one other person! we waited almost 2 hours for our food.)

Sunday, January 09, 2005

 
bought my ticket :)
yum.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

 

call for congratulations

today marks the first day of a new era in my urban existence--

i now have an off-the-street reserved parking spot at my apartment complex.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

 

standing outside a broken car with a map and the keys in my hand

so first let me be clear: i don't want to complain. and by that i mean that this is not complaining; it is just a story. indeed, i would say that there are probably only one or two things that i would actually change about my weekend if i were allowed to play god about it all, because it was a good life lesson and i got a lot out of it. it sucked, sure. but i asked for an adventure, and i got one. and i learned quite a bit about myself and others in the bargain.

also, i'm a bit nervous that i may not have acted completely responsibly at all points during this story, so i'm sure that my telling will be slightly biased, but i'll try to be honest. ...and rather than lie about events i will just rationalize my poor decisions ;)

and finally, i'm going to be lengthy, but this narrative is intended to be presented in lieu of any actual conversations detailing the weekend. the deal, therefore, is that you don't have to actually listen to me talk about it (unless you bring it up--i won't take responsibility for *that*).

p.s. if you get bored with the narrative, there's a paragraph of conclusory remarks at the bottom that contains the point of the story.

********************
so i planned this trip for new year's. i decided i wanted to go down to la for the anon salon party. 'why', you ask, 'would you do such a thing when you are living directly adjacent to one of the country's largest nye party cities??? and a city that you have repeatedly professed to being in love with, at that?' 'because', i reply, 'i have it in my head that nye requires an *adventure*, and also that it requires travelling to a new location each year. i was in sf last year for nye, so this year i must do something new. but i loved my nye last year, so really i'll just plan to do the exact same thing...in a different city.' (also, lorin and ooah were on the la lineup. mmmmm.)

so anyways, i made plans to caravan down to la with a recently-acquired friend and his crew, to stay in a hotel with them, to go to the anon salon party, and then to just generally hang out in la partying and shopping and getting to know the area a bit. (i haven't been to la since i was a child, btw, so this all seemed very new and exciting to me.)

i got down there ok. i had a positively lukewarm thursday night, but i told myself that that the next night would be great so it didn't matter. i did nooooothing on friday during the day and felt like an antsy slug, but i told myself that i'd have time on sunday and monday to explore so it didn't matter. relations with the 'friend' i'd come down with were deteriorating, but i told myself that i would know other people at the party that night and that i wouldn't need to rely on the people i'd come with at all after i got to the party, so it didn't matter. (all in all a very good and carefree and un-stressed attitude, yes. good job me. way to brush off the things that aren't important and focus on the positive.)

friday at dusk my car started smelling of antifreeze and emitting tendrils of smoke. there was nothing i could do about it at 5:30pm on nye, so i parked it in a garage. i definitely felt a little nervous because i have become so used to having my car around as a security blanket, but i told myself that i could totally find rides with nice people if i ended up in need, and then of course the party spot wasn't far from our hotel so i could always cab it back over...so it didn't matter.

we started getting ready for the party, with the goal to get to the party by 10pm. during party preparations i continued to contend with deteriorating relations with my friend, and ended up with no time to do my makeup or finish my hair before joining my stressed-out crew racing to get to the party by 11:15 to make their stage time. oh well; i told myself that my appearence is not important--the important thing is music and dancing and good people to smile with.

i got to the party ready to watch my friend's band and then start dancing. my friend's band ended up not playing due to technical difficulties. this resulted in the final finishing touches on the complete shattering of our aforementioned deteriorating relations (due to the fact that he freaked out about the technical difficulties and then wouldn't talk to me). i was rather upset to start my night by losing a friend, but i told myself that there were plenty of other folks to play with and anyways i could handle things myself and so it didn't matter.

i found out i'd missed ooah's set. i was sorely disappointed, but i told myself it didn't matter because he was supposed to play the after-party.

i started more actively looking around for familiar faces. i saw a boy who i've hung out with several times in the past few months and who i have been seriously crushing on...and then immediately also saw that he was with a girl. ok, so i was starting to run out of positive thoughts, and being disappointed with regard to two boys in one night is a bit trying, but i gamely told myself that i was going to dance and meet new people and so it DIDN'T MATTER.

by this time it was almost 3am. time for lorin. good set, lorin. highlight of the evening. bounced to wonderful beats, met lots of nice people, flirted and danced and talked and danced, had a few moments of euphoria.

i found 5 or 6 people from sf and felt reassured that i could get through the weekend without the group i'd originally came down with if it turned out i needed to. i met a nice boy who was very friendly. i found a girl i'd hoped to meet up with, and she offered me a ride to the after-party.

anon salon ended. i didn't know where anyone from my original group was, and my now EX-friend wasn't returning my messages, but i told myself it didn't matter and i would be fine because i knew all these other people. i went to the after-party.

the after-party had good breaks (though ooah never played), and it had good people. i still knew 4 or 5 people there from sf. the crushed-on boy was there with his girl, which was still bothering me, but then so was the nice friendly boy who i'd just met, so things were looking good.

night started to turn to morning...time to make sure i have a plan to get to a bed. two sets of sf friends asked if i needed a place to stay, in light of my abandonment by my crazy ex-friend. but the nice new boy told me that i could crash at his hotel, for sure, so i told my sf friends i was oooookay.


the various sf friends all left. the nice new boy and i decided to leave, and we called a cab. the nice new boy's friend pulled him into the cab, blocked me from getting in, told me i wasn't allowed to come with them, closed the door, and had the cab drive off.

10am. no car. no friends. dazed and descending from a bit of a trip, with the last rockstar i drank slowly fading out of my bloodstream. no idea where i am in relation to the rest of the local geography.

i went back to the party to see if i had any other resources, or any people to ask for help. it didn't work out. i was more than a little disappointed that no one realized the extent of my distress and offered to help me, but really i was just wandering aimlessly through a bunch of totally cracked-out kids who hadn't slept and weren't about to problem-solve for some girl they didn't know, so i suppose i shouldn't have been too surprised or disappointed.

i took a $30 cab ride to hollywood to get to my car. i got my car to a mechanic, and found out it had to be taken to the closest dealership, which wasn't open until monday. i went back to the hotel room i'd been staying in, ready to swallow my pride and deal with my stupid ex-friend, but he came to the door in a very strange state of consciousness and didn't want to let me into the room. i had a 15-minute non-conversation with him, totally bewildered and confused and hurt and angry that he was doing what he was doing, before i left the hotel.

exhausted, drained, upset, depressed, hurt, confused, lost, defeated. i called an old friend who lives an hour away in santa clarita and asked her how long it would take for me to take transit to her house. she asked me if i was ok, i paused, then cracked my voice on the word NO, and she immediately got in her car and drove down to rescue me.

the rest of the weekend was spent at my old friend's house in the hills outside of santa clarita. no exploring la. no parties. no grand adventures. no cell phone reception. no car. i felt like i was an invalid patient recovering from a nervous breakdown.

i spent monday in glendale waiting for my car to be fixed, then drove home that night.
***********************

aside from the obvious sad feelings that result from being abandoned a few times, having multiple romantic situations go awry, and totally failing to actualize my grand master plans, i am most upset that i wasn't able to ride the situations out and take care of myself without asking for help. in retrospect, i am very angry at myself for not getting my own hotel room and dealing with everything from there. it would have been more expensive, but i would have had control of my life and would have had the satisfaction of getting through one of those pickles that my parents have been warning me about every since i was old enough to leave the house on my own. i feel like i was given a test, and that it was an opportunity to feel really good about myself, but i fukked up and fudged my way through and missed a great chance to prove that i can have grand adventures and land on my feet without having to ask for help.

well...better luck next time.
i'm glad i went, and i'm determined to try again soon.

(reminder: expectations suck ass, as always. avoid them at all costs.)


 

until then...

i desperately want to pour out my brain regarding my weekend, but until i am done catching up and such at work, i must content myself with this poor excuse for an oh-it's-a-new-year-and-i'm-going-to-make-a-fresh-new-profound-start-on-my-website posting. (not to mention the fact that i already flubbed the situation by having my first post of the year be about some totally trivial nonsense.)

so yeah--
happy new year. hope yours was less physically and emotionally draining than mine.

talk soon.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

 

typos

a woman emailed me the other day to tell me she really enjoyed watching me holla hoop at a party. hee. i am SO all about holla hooping. HOLLA!!

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?