i was a teenage vampire lesbian

i'm at work.

i'm still drunk.

i would like to throw up. but not here.

i can't eat.

i want to sleep.

the moral of the stoy is, always take the day after your birthday off.

gilbert did say being smart was better than being pretty

tomorrow i will be the quarter century girl.

that means my quarter-life crisis can begin. jesus, what the fuck is THAT going to be like?

i know it won't be about sports cars and divorce. this crisis is going to be about wondering if i should be at the point of having all the things that i'll want to discard of when i hit mid-life. i'll panic about security and validity and some semblance of status quo. i find have enough behind me with still enough ahead of me to feel i can't touch the bookends of my life. good, but precarious. and where exactly is my nobel prize?

i've always been obsessed with child prodigies. they thought i was pretty smart early on and bumped me up with the older kids (aka no friends in kindergarden for me), but it didn't really do anything. i'm sure most kids at that age can adapt to their surroundings. anyway, so, i wasn't a child prodigy - or, at least, i did not find the outlet for my genius at an early enough age - and had to deal with the meager term of "bright". meanwhile, i pined to be a tortured artist of intellect or french horn. i watched "Searching For Bobby Fischer" many times. i fantisized of interviews on tv and radio. old men at desks, me sitting in chairs much to big for my child frame. my answers, full of shakespearean wit and dry humor thought to be reserved for adults, would leave audiences of grown-ups all agape and applauding. i'd have written the longest novel by a 9 year old ever written. and the headline reads "Kid's Tome Long and Brilliant." brilliant! or i'd have composed music. discovered a new math theorem. got an oscar. something. anything.

but no.

i woke up, and i was unable to erase

there was an owl in the house. calm, like owls look. i was standing in the bathroom and it took a moment to address me, then flew softly to a perch in the hallway. when i was outside with everyone, it was light and dark blue - just past dusk, and i told them about the owl. they were excited.
i'm passing out jellybeans. we're five of us or so on a motor boat. i have black licorice and a couple dark blueberry. my friend is explaining was is going to happen to the thin, leathery, middle aged man dressed in a brown suit standing at the bow. seizures, and the machine will not operate properly, and his face will explode under the skin. it's happening now. his body is contorted, muscles are pulling in wrong directions. his head is pulled back and his face is stretched, mouth agape. the machine is noticeable from his open fly, a metal box with small red and green lights. it is not properly operating. the pain is severe, so severe that while his next move is quite difficult in this state, he must do it. he swings himself over the bow pulpit and hangs above the water, which is far below. "i need to drown" he says. then drops.
i am his body now. the only thought is to die quickly. my force of will shuttles me down down down away from light and bubbles. i go, knowing that when it seems like i've stopped, it will really just be the weight of all that water creating a crushing pressure, and i will have imploded

i have a car-boner

BRAT stands for Bi-drive, Recreational All-terrain Transporter
or
Bitchin Roadwarrior Apical Truck
or
Beaten Rusty Almost Threadbare
or
Biking's Ridiculous Around Tundras (aka: it's gonna be a ccccold maine winter...)

"The What: War" or "The New 3Gs"

could i ever, really, fight in a war? could i be a soldier?

could i approach the enemy, be shot at, shoot back?

i could defend myself, sure thing. you're going to kill me? i'm going to try to stop you. whatever problem you have, mr. ...i don't even know you, but i'm pretty sure it's not my fault. don't kill me, ok? no? alright, but now i'm going to throw a whole bunch of grenades at your head til you leave me alone.

i think you gotta have some good old-fashion god in you. get some religion and that'll get to into that almighty mentality. you need to be self righteous. you need to fear the shaking of your foundation. you've already decided what you want to have happen to you when you die, and you're going about some funny mantras to make sure your particular omnipotent lets you have a kickass afterlife, and you don't want some other person's deathsongs drowning yours out. life is hard enough without other people changing your mind about it.

i ain't got no god, so how could i really get that mad at someone else's fairy tale land of nod? and, heck, what if they're right, eh? wouldn't my face be red. so, go ahead. it's my funeral (ehem) if i don't make it passed GO and collect $200. what do you care anyway?

but, now, god only has so much to do with it. though, i think god's level of involvement in war is a swiftly swinging pendulum, peaking one way or the other depending on the depth of soul or the depth of pocket. money. of course money. people want stuff. and you can't have a war without it, so you gotta assume you're going to get even more after it, right? you can only be so made at someone's differently shaped altar before it really just comes down wanting their milk money. then you can buy all the candy you want. and you love candy.

but, then, when you're on the receiving end of all this misconstrued aggression, you eventually need your own ability to stop being bullied and do your own thing. you need power. POWER! like, political power. which, is really, what all these other things are. military, religion, and money. guns, god, and gold. i can't even see a difference between them all. not with war. not with the big-button pushers playing overgrown games of RISK. not with those believing in god believing they are god. not with money flowing through every hole in the facade, into every flapping mouth, pushing us all downstream.

i've been watching war movies for about four days straight. i actually really enjoy the HBO series Band of Brothers (though i still dislike both steven spielberg and tom hanks). i hope there are no severe hidden messages or backwards audio. please slap me hard if i start talking about the benefits of scientology.

Thursday night this was all true

Colette. Coco, for arbreved.

I was the instigator, the trouble-maker. Which was obviously a cry for help due to my confusing childhood. My parents raised me world-wide and world-wise, dragging me through political upheaval while they worked their foreign diplomacy. As they waved around their whiteman's hands at various fighting factions, their daughter was watching, sort of embarrassed. Then when Mother ran off with a Nigerian revolutionary, never to be seen again (save two blurry New York Times AP photos from a rebel insurgence...it's hard to miss the white lady on the far left), Father's waving hands stopped. But only for a moment to come together in the newly reclaimed name of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior. He had met a woman. He himself had met a rebel - a rebel against hellfire and brimstone. With his new found love(s) and winning personality, Father became the foremost Catholic televangelist, overdubbed in 17 languages on satellite and cable. The show is shot in Thailand.

But that's mostly just what I've read. Right after Mother donned the M-16 and before Father had an elaborate Italianate cross tattooed on this sternum, I was shipped off and plunked down in Geneva, Switzerland. An all-girl private boarding school. Fuck that, it was a luxury reform school for babysitting important and expensive offspring who should not be left alone. They tried many a governess, but I had them packing their bags within days. Only one was institutionalized.

So, right, so I was the instigator. The trouble-maker. A natural born leader with a flair for manipulation and corruption. Many of these girl may have been around the world, but they didn't know shit about shit. There's only so much you can learn from your hotel balcony. I was feared but admired. I collected myself some lackeys and we set about entertaining ourselves. Abducting girls from their rooms in the night and taking them on blindfolded ventures to the local basement cockfight. Convincing the young ones that, due to economic hardships faced by the school, we have sold them to the local brothel ("the local what?") and leave them for hours tied to random lampposts. Then there was the thing with Lucy and the kittens, but from what I've heard, her eyebrow have grown back and all is well. I can't say the same for the kittens, however.

This was what kept me from throwing myself out an overly ornate baroque window for four years. Now this, this, was entertainment. The education was a terrible yawn, even with the few gentlemen teachers they allowed us. They did alright in the classroom standing up and walking around, but get them more reclined and you've got to do all the instructing. They should have been paying me tuition. Which is why you throw impromptu tequila workshops for your dormmates, with one-on-one conferencing on the closet floor.


Blah blah, went to a prestigious college for a spell, established the institute's underground casino (the House took a cool 65% on a hard night), picked up a nasty coke habit, dropped out to start a small welding business spearheading a market of new space-age metal bonding (of which was particular interest to NASA at the time). Sold that to smoke cigarettes in Croatia on the beach for a year until started photodocumenting young war refugees turned runway models (copyright Random House, 2003...mother would be proud). Since then I've been sort of manically either hurdling myself into astrophilosophical conferences (I broke three chairs at the last one...S.H. was sort of amused, but not really) or holing up on Prince Edward Island taking very long baths.

I have now received a letter out of the blue from two old peers, Esme and Beatrice, who are going to be in Portland, Maine, for an evening for Beatrice's father's lecture on new physics and it's social implications "and wouldn't you please come down off your red-maple-leaf pedestal and have a drink with us?" How can I refuse? I have often thought of Bea with the hoped that she still uses only Egyptian cotton for her sheets and clove oil behind her ears. Esme, bless her orphaned heart, is a hoot, but, fuck, I hope she isn't as naive as before. I gave her the first cigarette she ever smoked, for christ's sake.

Oh, speaking of, I myself found Jesus (Father may be proud, as well). Or, rather, I found Catholicism. I have to say, there really is nothing like getting down on one's knees, breathing out a few Hail Mary's and a few Our Father's, fondling some rosaries clutched close to one's chest, and cleaning the slate every day. Every day! Brand-spanking new! Redemption is mine! Hallelujah!

johnny applecocked

there's half of a once-full gallon left of non-pasteurized Snell Family Farm local Maine apple cider here next to my computer. at work. day 2. it's starting to fizz.

the nutrition facts label indicates that there are 2.5 grams of fat per serving of this cider, and 1.5 grams of that is saturated fat. um, what? are you feeding your orchard trees on dead pig carcases? isn't it impossible for apple to have fat, let alone the saturated kind? so, i did a little research and found no trace of applefat anywhere. i gave them a call.

"really?"
"yeah."
"that doesn't sound right."
"that's what i was thinking. typo, maybe?"
"i guess. wow. i just work here at the farm stand, but i'll let someone know. i mean, it's apples, right?"
"yeah. fatty apples."

it doesn't take long for this stuff to become fizzy, but after some reading, it take a least a couple of months for cider to become "hard" (read: fun). and it take a little work, as, apparently some semblance of an air-lock is needed to allow gas to escape without air entering. and you can give yourself e.coli or salmonella. excellent. challenge and risk. and alcohol. ask me for a pint in two months.

cricket cricket

i wrote a whole blog about the phenomenon of people who like to start arguments for sport and how i don't understand. but, i think i do understand. so i erased it. if i was to write anything currently, it'd probably be about how things annoy me. but what really annoys me lately is bitching, moaning, and whining. so, what's a kid to write in a blog anyway?

funny anecdotes?

- i got two free tickets to Judas Priest tonight. i'm just not in the mood. i gave them away. though it'd probably be a good show. a hoot, at any rate. anthrax is opening. should i not have given those away...? i "won" them at a show last night. by "won" i mean i answered a trivia question that anyone with a pulse could answer. they couldn't burn these tickets fast enough to get rid of them. they were giving them away by the bushel. i could probably get another if the mood struck. but i could sleep instead.

- i will be picking up a NOVA special on string theory at the video store. then i'll consider the longevity of this theory over others.

- i should take a shower and wash my head. i'm going all Ally Sheedy with the dandruff.

it's 5:05...here five minutes way too long.