It's good to keep track

I'm having a bitch of a time remembering to write here now that I no longer stare at a computer for 8 hours a day. I am so free I can't even obsessively track it. Sorry.

REI doesn't sell ski gear in the summer. Good to know. Guy looked at me like I was crazy when I asked for ski pants.

ROCK CLOCK:
3 more hours to Fnf
6 more hours to swimming in the pond coolin my butt down for the booty shakin
6 more days to departure
7(8 in wacky time) more days to the lovin
2 weeks until learning to snowboard in wacky land

One two three o'clock four o'clock ROCK!

Kate, you sound happy. I just looked at your blog. I can't wait to visit Seattle in December and see your cat, your garden, your people.

Fish Smile

I ate this Toro (Tuna Belly) Nigiri at Tokyo Go Go last night after Tai Chi with Leila. I can't get it out of my mind. Buttery smooth rich delicious melty goodness. I've had toro a few times now and remember it being good, but not making-out-with-dinner good. You know that feeling when you first kiss someone and it's just awesome? You feel a little dizzy afterwards and can't stop thinking about it? That's what it was like. At $10.50 for 2 pieces it's not something you'd want to order a dinner's worth of, but as a last bite it's fantastic. I can't tell if my palate is becoming more sophisticated or whether it really was that much better. I'll have to visit Ebisu again before I leave and compare. I don't think I've had their toro yet.

I've been thinking about food all day. Audrey asked if I'd like to go out for lunch and a flood of various cuisines raced through my mind. Cambodian! Dim sum! Thai! Indian! Aaaaaahhhhhh I'm so hungry. I've got a strawberry rhubarb pie from Ikeda sitting in my freezer mocking me. The chicken pot pie from there was excellent for lunch yesterday. I made it in the toaster oven at work and for an hour tortured the poor intern working directly in front of the kitchen.

I guess I should have some sort of good-bye thing, people keep asking me about it. Right now I'm thinking August 1st is the best day for it. A lot of people will be gone next week and over the FnF weekend and doing it THIS weekend seems a little anticlimactic. So, Tuesday August 1st, dinner somewhere. No big party (except for FnF of course!), I am much too lazy for that sort of thing. Somehow I've got to find a place my broke-ass housemates will want to go to. Maybe some sort of shared dining experience like Ethiopian or Middle Eastern.

So funny it hurts

I want to cry, Dinosaur Comics is so rad today.

So, weekend! It was very emotional for me. I haven't cried in a while and man did I do a good job of it there! I have a hard time leading large groups of people, especially a loud, high/drunk rowdy group of people. And then all my storytime prep didn't get used for various reasons. I was tired and nervous and a little hungry and as soon as our Vanessa/Leila group activity ended I dissolved faster than I ever have before. Luckily, there were good people on hand from all quarters! At first I was mad at Leila for making a unilateral decision but afterwards realized that A) she was as uncomfortable with the whole thing as I was and B) the best part of the whole thing was preparing with her all week. We got to spin poi and hang out and be creative. I see why Francisco likes her so much. So much freakin energy coming out of that girl. Maybe too much for me.

On the way out Ted, Audrey and I went to this rocky river and climbed all sorts of rocks. The water was Carribean colored. Really fantastic. Audrey, you are one of the bravest people I know. I was very impressed with all your rock sliding (there were these smooth rocks that people could slide down into 3 levels of swimming holes but I was of the poultry variety). Oh god, and the day before we drove to Yuba river to go swimming and this one dude fell out of a tree onto his back just as we were arriving! He ended up getting airlifted out, but not before losing consciousness, regaining consciousness, smoking a cigarette while being completely immobilized, and then suddenly jumping out of the water and cursing the medical staff. I think he was in shock, or else really drunk.

Gosh, I don't really feel like summing up events right now. I'm just gonna say...people were pretty great. Damn sad to be leaving, but in that good way. Last campout was exciting and an excellent time but this one hit me harder and I'll remember it longer. I'm ready to be surprised at every turn, like my heart has just taken a deep breath and is holding it waiting waiting. I need some serious chest binding, or my body's gonna go all Tetsuo Shima.

Ugh.

This campout I'm going to this weekend was going to take place at Camp Creek, a beautiful secluded area with lots of flat rocks and waterfalls that a prior campout occured at. When the organizers of that campout found out this other campout was going to take place there, they got extremely bitchy and threatened to do everything in their power to shut it down. (It's not exactly a legal location, so telling the police would basically destroy it). This all happened like a week ago, leaving this partie's organizer's scrambling for a new (and probably not as awesome since there's no water) location. What bitches! I can't believe they would want to limit enjoyment of the location. Turning us in wouldn't just ruin this one campout, it would ruin all possibility of future campouts there.

Those people got on my nerves anyway. They took themselves so seriously! They gave me and Leila motivation to create group activities everyone would enjoy, just because their's sucked so much. Uh, I guess that's good huh. I hope no one reads this that's friends with those people. I'm sure some of them are nice, but sometimes you just know when a group won't get along with you, know what I mean? I like silly people who aren't that into themselves, who enjoy laying low sometimes. Attention hogs, control freaks, etc piss the shit out of me. Grrr!

What am I saying? I must just be angry. I think I'm too hot or something. Maybe if I drink some cold water I'll stop overgeneralizing about an entire group of people I don't even know. I'm supposed to be loving everyone right? Just because I didn't enjoy their open theater I'm ripping them to shreds? That's pretty harsh.

I'm sorry, I just can't do it! I can't love everybody! Some of you have too many problems and some of you are just boring! What can I say? Do you want me to apologize or something? I don't want to listen to you. Maybe if you just sit there quietly it's ok. It's hard to be annoying if you're not talking. Advice for life.

Heart Attack

The amount of passion I have cannot fit in my heart. I feel it seeping out of my fingertips. Everything I touch, everyone I talk to, I know they can feel it.

We have this subleter in the downstairs apartment. She is crazy. Some people think she has schizophrenia. I'm not one to throw around these psychological terms lightly, I think they sum up things too neatly and we tend to overuse them so that they are the final answer for all problems. Drugs get overprescribed, etc. But anyway, she's crazy, that we all know. She saw my passion leaking all over the fine linoleum in our kitchen. She called me out on what I thought I had hidden. She frightens me in her directness, her astuteness for everyone but herself. Do you think she knows she's crazy? I can't talk to her because I'm afraid of what else she'll see. She's moving out soon, which is great for all of us but also makes me a little sad. I hate driving housemates out, even fucked up ones. I think she should only live with women or family, because it was the boys that made her truly crazy, her manner growing larger and more ferocious with each step and sentence, her marijuana use intensifying.

I will remember you as Master Boredom, for your refined craft and slight enjoyment of the terribly boring hole you dug for yourself. Now get a job already!


More Field Day Ideas:
Bubblegum blowing contest
Hoolahoop contest

Spend some time in the sun

I would like to plan a one day vacation at a rest stop. Do you have any terrific rest stops to recommend? Wouldn't it be fun to bring out a rest stop feast and watch everyone work out the problems with their traveling gummy legs? There's always lots of grass, parking, and toilets. What more could you ask for?

People seem genuinely sad that I'm leaving this job. My housemates seem really sad too. Huh. That's pretty nice. My house turned out a lot better than I ever thought it would. I really like the whole group!

Tai Chi was a challenge last night. Having a week off from it was a terrible mistake. There's so much to learn about it. We only follow like 5 basic principles and those are hard enough to remember in every movement. Imagine trying to juggle the hundred some-odd principles there are to follow. Fuck me man, my brain does not have that sort of capacity. Also, my legs are weak weak weak. I need some serious strength here.

I had another one of those baby dreams last night. BABIES. I munna ea choo baby!

Opportunities

Things to do:

(Short term)
Finish Fiber Optic / El wire skirt
Make the materials necessary for awesome story time game
Buy a lot of grape gum
Also; bacon, fruit, thai food, avocado, cheese, bread
Use Victoria's Secret gift certificate
Use REI gift certificate
Buy Sketchers
Buy fruit shaped/flavored chocolate
Ask Francisco what CDs he wants from Amoeba
Take The Sneak to the vet
Check out storage facility, move some stuff in
Get money from roomates
Practice Tai Chi
Dream about touching Francisco's butt

(Long term)
Explore more abandoned buildings
Have more sex
Grow a plum tree
Figure out why Mission street between 22nd and 19th makes me so happy, in that humanity's alright with me kinda way.
Touch Francisco's butt.

Idea Hour

Idea list for fun campout games to inspire wide-spread participation:

• Spin off of that storytime card game. People get cards that they use to tell ghost stories around the campfire. Need to decorate cards this weekend.
  
• Stand one person up with a blindfold. Either they have to tell a story or the rest of the group has to make up a story about them. Maybe we tape story cue cards to their head/body or dress them in a costume. Or maybe there is an open question session for 2 minutes so we can gather as much info about person as possible. Then people have to go around and make up a story about them on (for example) June 5, 1985.
  
• Telephone Pictionary
  
• Combine any of the above with kissing! Maybe if you can't think of a good story element or when you say a certain word you have to kiss someone!
  
• Well fuck there's always Wink. A wrestling kissing game. Not suitable around a campfire though.
  
• Up the butt.
  
• Each person writes down something they're scared of on a card. Shuffle the cards, people have to create scary stories based around the fear they pick up.
  

I like games.

Field Day

I'm feeling fucking good I tell ya. All my senses are heightened. I'm reaching out and expanding. I'm sure even the most introverted person has days where they want to communicate and be with people, just as extroverts have days where they want to hole up alone. Well, I am in a growth phase this week. The past month really. I look like a blowfish or a kooshball with spines sticking out everywhere. I am attached to a million projects and people and it's not stressing me out. I guess I am my mother's daughter. Always thought of myself as being mostly my dad, who is a serious introvert. Been battling that fear for years. During periods like the present, though, my concerns vanish because it's clearly not really true.

How much do you believe your thoughts shape reality? And if you think they do, is it an immediate or a much more gradual thing? Do other people's preconceptions and desires mix around with yours to create a joint effort reality? Do thoughts have to reach a certain intensity activation level to have any effect, or do low level thoughts influence events in smaller ways? Why are so many people thinking about this right now? Why, even though I disliked that movie, "What the bleep do we know," do I keep coming back to it and comparing other theories with it? I've got to read a quantum theory book or something to replace it as my baseline in the field. Time for accumulation of facts so that I can pull out my FACT punch later on.

The Cheat is living with Nikhila now. That makes me so happy. I think The Sneak knows. She always knows! She's so dumb she knows everything.

Field Day campout is on man. Go here for tickets. I will be happy to see that waterfall again. I know people say not to drink water where humans bathe ever, but last time I secretly did. I went way upstream and fuck, just drank a little. No intestinal parasites yet! This is my version of extreme sports. And the water was amazing. Better than many bottled waters.
False profit campout is here. I don't think I'm going, I'm too poor and not really feeling stylish enough for those kids at the moment. There is plenty of time for last minute changing of mind though, depending on how kooshbally I am at the moment.
The 100 person plus waiting list for fnf tickets is here.

Cleanse it good.

Let's recap here what I did this weekend to remind myself that I am still able to drink for five days consecutively, and that maybe I shouldn't:

Friday: Drink with housemates. Make quality drunk phone calls to family and friends.
Saturday: Meet up with Nikhila. Drink beer at lunch. Go to Golden Gate Park and deep fry the shit out of everything, including a whole sandwich, twinkies, pizza, bananas, candy, dim sum. Drink a lot. Go back to Nikhila's place and drink, pool side style.
Sunday: Low key drinking. Play DDR. Have fun electricity lecture at Eric's house that involves moderate beer (fuck that liberal beer).
Monday: Maybe I didn't drink during the day? Drink at night at superhero bus party. Seriously cool bus, even more impressive than the costumes. Make a stop at Safeway where everyone on bus buys enough alcohol for 5 people that aren't there. Drinks get mixed in water bottles and passed around. What am I drinking? I don't care because I'm SuperMechanic. SuperMechanic carries a beer bottle opener in her jumpsuit which is pretty super in my opinion.
Tuesday: July 4th. Go to anarchist crazy kidz party in The Mission. Explode watermelons, decide that fireworks the size of my beer aren't quite exciting enough. Maybe ones the size of a forty would be better. Party runs out of beer so a few of us go to the Tenderloin and sing karaoke until the bar closes. One bite into his pizza Ted gets sick. Blarg. Lennon's friend comments that Ted pukes beautifully. Most people are kinda chunky but his is a crystal clear unprocessed gin and tonic geiser. I think he was hitting on you Ted!
Wednesday, 8 am: Feel ok! Good job, body!

Time to take a few days off dude. Some meditation, tai chi, good food, and nature might be a great idea. I need so much water right now that I'm probably sucking the water right out of your body THROUGH THE COMPUTER. Like in Tank Girl (not the computer part). Is it gross to die like that? I'm sorry to kill all my friends, but maybe my REAL friends are the ones who don't internet stalk me and this is the ritualistic culling of the herd.

Short short movie: Camera starts on my face covered in blood, slowly zooms out so you see I am dressed nicely for my bday and there are lots of dead bodies lying all around me (the housemates and their collective). Say, "That's the last time I invite JASON to my party." The tone of the voice really makes it.

The New Zealand crew wants to start a band and a record company. Oh you people and your expendable income. What, you want me to be lead singer? OK. I suppose this will be awesome.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: Less than 4 hours after they signed for my delivery, the New Zealand Consulate granted me my visa. It's an electronic visa, so I'm done. The visa is in my [computer's] hands. Whisk whisk.