sweet jesus. jesi? plural?

Get this: 2 or 3 weeks ago, I run more than half a marathon cold wearing these well worn in (well, more like worn well often for short periods of time, no marathons, half or otherwise) sneaks and I come out the other end relatively unscathed.

Last week, I go for a 30 hour jo- - oops I meant 30 minute/half hour jog in nike sneaks I hardly wear cuz they are not as comfy (and not just because of their bright non reflective therefore wholly unnecessary pink accents) and it feels like I broke something in my right foot. I destinctly remember feeling something shift somewhat uncomfortably that last time out but passed it off as regular running kinks. Not so! I limped around for like a week, unable to wear my clogs, single footing a bunch of yoga poses until I got to the point where I'm like, this is getting old.

The last time I had ouchie foot bone probs was when I wore around for most of a day these cool looking old blue sneaks. Awesome in the aesthetic department, not so much in the support department. My feet ached like I pulled something/stoned them and the only thing I did that made them feel better was to stop wearing them and walk some in my regular shoes. The pain ceased over the course of a short few days. So then I thought, That's it! I'll just run in my good ole shoes and my feet will return to their normal state of awesomeness. Like resetting a bone that broke and healed improper. The only glazed over part of the equation is the part where you put a cast back on the broken bits and lay off it while the newly in place parts settle down ie heal.

The running on a bad foot after not for a week hurt, I won't lie. But not terribly. In a, this is better than it was, kinda way. And continues to do so, several days after aforementioned (8 minute) outing. But it hurts in a different way. More of a sore bruise than holy crap, the bones in my foot are separating like an unlucky astronaut floating away untethered from the mother ship circa 2001. I am confident my country/artsy doctor remedy did the trick . . . – I'm sorry I'm at work and got really distracted by 2 Jesus' dancing with 2 nuns to the live hip hop show I'm running sound for. I heart my job. Anyways, Happy Halloween.

aging with grace. mostly.

(i wrote this a few days ago)

in the cool (as in awesome) wake of my 31^st birthday, i seem to have undergone another one of life's rites of passage. a lesser known, not quite as esteemed milestone as others out there, but, uh, er, which puts it kinda on the uneasy edge between curious and ever so slightly troubling. with a tinge of 'oh, that's what they mean by that.'

the road of life mile marker of which i speak of is none other than this: sleeping wrong. apparently, there is a correct and incorrect way to participate in this activity. i had, in my earlier years, heard of such potential but dismissed it as something with which i needn't concern myself with. until now, apparently. this particular instance of non success evokes the distant but clear voice of my high school english teacher and her encouraging, catered to high school thespian words of wisdom life advice: 'if you're gonna fail, fail big.' somewhere in the suburbs of portland, a high school theater director (eh, let's assume for the sake of this blog that she is in fact still there) is beaming with pride.

well, i suppose that after getting it 'right' 11,023ish times (not counting naps), one off ain't all that bad. in fact, i will go out on a limb and proclaim that those are pretty effing good odds. nonetheless, my 0.00908% deviation was painful enough for me to chauffeur myself via metro transit to my massage therapist whose diagnosis was, indisputably, comically, 'yeah, you probably just slept wrong.' deepest of tissue manipulation ensued. the result of which shall enable me, as soon as the soreness subsides, to once again bend at the waist (aka deepest hip flextion(sp?)) beyond a 90 degree angle (aka sitting) without considerable wincing or calling down of the saints/jesus christ. to that i say amen.

(NOTE: my MT, jen rice (aka the muscle whisperer) is a friggin' genius).

this is what not having internet looks like.

well, not this here exactly, but the gap in time between the last post and this.

and although I know you are hungry, this will be but a snack; I am taking a short break from writing an art proposal that is due man~ana. one of these days I will figure out how to insert a tilda above the 'n'. until that time, I will busy myself with other things. such as aforementioned art proposal (it involves BABYSEAL. if I am selected, you will be notified). and climbing mountains.

yes, that's right. Mountains. I and several dozen others, of which, only one dozen I was on a first name speaking basis with, ascended the switchback summit of Mt Si. the clouds watched from above en masse, silently weeping from time to time. me thinks for my sneakered (I only read the email about the snow after the day had come and gone) stick legs and what I was about to do to them. I made it up to the top in under 2 hours, ate lunch, stared at a sleeping goat from afar, then got a little, er, excited/carried away and ran down the whole way back to the car.

4 miles in 4o minutes, just shy of a 4,000 feet descent.

it was exhilarating. and slightly painful. at mile 2 my thighs started to doubt my sanity. mile 3, both my big toes, speaking for the 8 others, began to protest. everyone held their muscley tongues till we all got down in one piece and now, with each step I take, each getting up from sitting down in my seat, their screaming is all I can hear. never have such a solid percentage of my legs been so sore to the touch. never have I attempted such back to nature tomfoolery. never have I applied so much arnica to so much of my body. never has all this ouchiness been so worth it.

next week, rattlesnake ridge trail. updates to follow.

exactly one month ago yesterday

today is the 17th. exactly one month ago yesterday, something happened in my life that i shall, from this moment on, refer to as the 'accident'. cuz there are no real accidents. right, universe? right.

today i have my physical therapy appointment. i'm going to acupuncture on a weekly basis. same for massage therapy, if the lady would call me back finally. all for free. and by free i mean insurance is covering it. insurance is also covering 70% of my lost wages as a direct result of injuries incurred in the accident. ahem, 'accident.'

allow me to explain. but first, my tea water is boiling.. .

ok, enough suspense: i got in a car accident driving home from the airport after being gone in Europe for 7 weeks. i had been up for about 26 hours already (7 hour layovers in Newark are bogus). we (my cousin f, whom i was flying with) landed in PDX around 1130pm. my mom and other cousins (j (f's brother (more info than you need to know)) and his daughter) picked me up. f caught a different plane home and it was 1230 ish in the morning by the time we got out of there. driving off in my mom's minivan, we headed to gresham to drop off the cousins. there was no one else on the road so it was hard to miss the suv that was headed towards the intersection we were about to pass thru. heading towards, not slowing down, not stopping, oh god, impact. he came at us from the right, i was sitting front passenger seat. at the critical moment, i did not see my life flash before my eyes. i saw, in non slo mo, non sped up, perfect time, car hit car, metal buckling, my limbs tossed around despite best bracing efforts. it happened fast. 1st impact, then 2nd as both cars bounced and reconnected, 3rd as we parted ways and ran into the pole on the corner of the street. deafening crunches followed by a split second of absolute quiet, followed by crying, my mother's, my little cousin's. jesus fucking christ. what the hell just happened.

sober, 19 yr old dude from Gresham ran a red, that's what happened. there happened to be a police officer watching that intersection at that moment. i count that as one of the extremely lucky details of the evening. that no one died, that no one was seriously injured (mom got a broken wrist and major bruising, that was the worst of it), that i am covered by my mom's insurance, that i am covered by dude's insurance, all get filed under that same heading.

insurance, with it's paperwork hoops in triplicate, is tending to the mending of my body. my mind, my other non physical bodies, on the other hand, are under the care of yours truly. . . .

i have apple care but no health insurance.

THE OTHER DA - why am i yelling. the other day i was describing to my dear friend marisa just what exactly was going on in my mouth. specifically the back upper left molar who is known in dental circles as 'Number 15.'
To adequately convey the scenario, something words alone could not define, i chose to flex my humongous 'i should be grandfathered a masters in fine art with an emphasis in life drawings' muscles and, brandishing my tools of the trade, a black sharpie and scrap piece of paper, i executed with aplomb - or with as much grace and giddiness that my sleep deprived overworked brain/body/self could muster- a piece of work that so clearly represents previously mentioned situation that i might as well tell people i am the reincarnation of leonardo di vinci but with xray vision cuz that is the only conclusion they will be able to draw once their stunned brains compute the mastery of such an image.
the 45 minutes i spent downloading scanner software earlier this morning was totally worth it. funny thing is, i did finally get in to see a dentist (not an easy feat for those with zero health care coverage. unless you are cool with dealing with problems by full extraction of said problem from your perdy mouth. . . i digress.) and the xray they took looked pretty much exactly like my drawing. cept instead of a white space circled by dotted lines, there was darkness.
according to wikipedia, root canals are painless. WHEN DONE CORRECTLY. i will, whether i like it or not, be the sole judge sitting on that lovely panel.

and lest my hygienic reputation be tarnished in any way shape or form, let me set the record straight with the following FACT: yes, i floss religiously.
wish me luck!

BABYSEAL is a SAINT. and cries. tears of blood for you.

two days ago i wake up to a phone call from my roommate who woke up to a phone call from random stranger saying she found BABYSEAL's collar in the middle of John street. not the worst news ever, but certainly not definitively good. i got off the phone with not even gone 24hours roommate and head outside. i found the collar and only the collar by the bus stop where random stranger said she put it. there were no SEAL bodies lying in the street that i could see, so i headed back home.
and who should be waiting for me at the door but Peter Peter Jennings (SEALBABY's brother), Darma (sp? there's probs an 'h' in there, my neighbor's hiss inducing black and white cat) and non other than BABYSEAL! alive! and well, mostly well. she looked like she always does (uh, handsome, sturdy) except for the giant bloody tear drop coming out of her right eye. mother mary, check out the photo, it looks fake, but trust me, BABYSEAL's blood tears are real. (for the record i feel a little bad about getting all paparazzi on the SEAL in her time of trauma, but i had to get documentation.) it was like one of those statues that people flock to holy pilgrimage style. i was close to calling the pope but instead called her human back to report the news of BABYSEAL being cannonized as saint sometime in the wee hours of the morning. since when did being made holy require a trip to the vet?
the seal doctor was nice and SEAL was well behaved. she (dr.) surmised that she (her holiness) got in some kind of scuffle that ended up with her (meow) getting a small laceration on her (again with the meow) eyelid, before running like hell and losing two nails to the asphalt in the process. ouch. i looked at her (furry beast) and thought, damn, you are gonna be sore tomorrow. then came the purr stopping rectal thermometer followed by some glow in the dark eye drops to check for retinal/corneal damage. there was none. but later on the way home, the stuff started gooping out of her eye and it looked like she was a cyborg crying robot juice. unfortunately, no photographic evidence exists of that. . .
so now we are home safe. SEALPUP is doing her best to keep the rug from flying up and away, waiting for half her whiskers and spots of fur on her hind legs to grow back. i am happy to have her home and now am extremely reticent to put her out. i think maybe this calls for a BABYSEAL slumber party: we stay up late watching WINGED MIGRATION, eating smoked salmon, napping on the table. im sorry, boss man, but i cannot come into work today i am busy. tomorrow, too. and the next day, for good measure.


for the record, administering antibiotics by jamming them down the held open jaws of a held down SEALPUP sounds like the worst idea ever, dear roommate whose seal i am watching over. you can take your life into your own hands, i, on the other hand, choose life. (thank you marisa for the crush it up in wet food idea. i owe you my life. or at the very least, a pint of blood.)

the oh so real sting of virtual loss: part II

i stare at my little black laptop, standing here, deciding. the cats are sleeping, traffic is moving along john st, the sun is coming thru the windows. i feel a breeze. i am weighing my options, my heart is heavy.

basically the only way to fix it is to return it to the factory settings. he broke the news to me with little fanfare. reset the computer. i think about the implications. in doing so i would lose all documents. everything would be wiped clean. there is no way to retrieve the files? no secret code or anything? no sorry, ma'am. this is breaking my heart a little, i tell him. not so much to elicit sympathy, but just to verbalize that a crater just landed in my chest and im feeling a little woozy from it. i was about to hang up, tell him thanks anyways, when he slips me this one last piece of hope. you should try this website, there are a lot of informed folks on there, you might be able to find something. i felt like, in that tv movie, where the girl gets pregnant by some unfortunate circumstance and wants an abortion but cant get one cuz it's illegal and it seems there is no hope until the doctor, taking pity and risking his own license, sneaks her a slip of paper with a name of a doctor 'who can help,' and she leaves quickly with tears in her eyes, hands clutching the tiny parchment that could very well be her salvation. ok, except that is way more dramatic than my situation. not to mention im not going to get pregnant and abortions are legal. regardless. i wrote the website down and followed the links. fingers crossed.

i bought this little black laptop like a month ago so i wouldn't have to lug my super expensive apple around town. it rules. i use it for my writing. for my ideas. my scripts. my slide shows. i was typing away on it at work the other day when i had the idea that maybe i should change it so it requires me to log on first. like a golden latch on a diary. i unclicked the log me on automatically box and chose a clever password. then i restarted the puppy. it asked me, ilvs, for my password. i enter it in. INVALID PASSWORD. uh, excuse me? i try again. and again. and again. . . something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

apparently i am not the first to lock themselves out of their own computer. following posted email threads, there are others like me, frustrated, at wits end, driven to use ALL CAPS FOLLOWED BY !!!!!!!!!!! yes, i feel you. i follow a few links and it gets me to some how to hack your own computer page of directions. ah! there is hope. after much reading and rereading, i tentatively begin my reclamation process. i get past step one. success. i get to step two and hit a major hurdle. alas, my love for penguins does not transfer into linux code savviness. i give up for fear of fucking up my computer permanently.

so then i move to option 2: ask for human help. i email the nerdiest (read: he builds his own computers) friend i know. he also does not speak the linux, but is willing to help. next monday evening. today is friday (ok, saturday, but i wrote most of this friday) . i am biding my time.

last chance to back out. y. e... . s. i hit return for a second time and instantly burst into a short sob. the sting of loss. irretrievable loss. my shit is gone and there is no going back. my brief grief is quickly replaced by a the shallow high twenty minutes after my email s.o.s., im standing in my living room/office/foyay/really it's all one room cuz i live in a studio. i decide to hell with it and rip the bandaid off myself. i highlight RESTORE FACTORY SETTINGS, i hold my breath, i hit return. it prompts me to type in yes. one last chance to go back. i hesitate. y. e. . . fuck it, s. i instantly burst into a short sob. the sting of irretrievable loss. my work is done, my writing gone. there is no going back. my brief grief is quickly replaced by the shallow high of well, you did it. fully knowing that the full reprocutions of your actions will be felt more fully in the not so distant future. . .

moral of the story: when life gives you lemons, document the hell out of it. make backups. print out your final drafts. at the very least, share your ideas so that they exist in the safety of someone else's thoughts.

BOOK REPORT - The Hot Zone, or Why You Shouldn't Punch a Monkey

my sincerest apologies to all those who have come down with the newest strain of swine - cow - turducken influenza. contagious life threatening viruses are nothing to balk at. i would know. i just read The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.

the Hot Zone is not a book i would recommend to hypochondriacks (uh, sp? someone sneezed on my dictionary. . .). wait, on second thought, it is the perfect book for us. yes, it describes possibly the world's most heinous way to die via blood born pathogen in super gory detail, but it also.... i lost my train of thought. perhaps i was too busy reliving the horror that is having your insides liquify over the course of one week causing you, poor victim, to 'bleed out,' to put it nicely (follow your imagination, then go a step or two further, yup, that's 'bleeding out'). this book is every bit as terrifying as the quote on the cover says it is. and by terrifying, i mean queasy inducing, fear implanting, strong urge to disinfect my entire body making. 

pretty much i read the first horrific chapter that describes what exactly ebola and it's viral kissing cousins do to your body, asked god why on earth would he(sp?) put this book in my hands let alone let it be filed in the nonfiction section, then proceeded to block out everything else in my life as i raced to the final page to see if all of humanity was spared a global pandemic. good news, (spoiler alert!) most of us lived. bad news, now i have the knowledge of ebola squirming around in my brain. great. but wait, this might just be good news (uh, the book i read before was the Dali Lama's Art of Happiness). see, now that i know Ebola is hiding out there, it makes everything else i am scared of seem, to quote the book totally out of context, 'like child's play.' the continuum of all that can be contracted has doubled, no quadruped, no extended far beyond the previous limits of my imagination. suddenly, herpes doesn't seem so bad.

ebola, on the other hand, is indescribably bad. actually, that's a lie, Mr. Preston did a fine job of describing just. how. bad. it. is. such that i now never want to set foot in Africa. and god(sp?) forbid if you ever get a headache around me cuz i'm gonna assume the worst and quarantine you to the nearest death hut where you can 'bleed out' with your kind and the poor woman who was stuck in with you sickos cuz non ebola infested people thought she had it but really it was only bad malaria. oops. 

it did help, a little, to relive my slightly unwarranted fears, to know that you pretty much have to play bloody knuckles with a sick monkey in Zaire in order to get it. that is, until i read the part about the airborne strains of Ebola found stateside. and that, due to advances in modern technology, there are now these things called airplanes that can deliver these little pathogenic packages to pretty much anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. beat that, fedex. 

so finally, when i come to terms with the remote possibility that i could shit out my innards a mere seven days after contact with the invisible menace, along comes this new epidemical fad from mexico/land of my favorite foods. swine influenza. the fact that i don't work on a farm/in a butcher shop where i would come in contact with said animals is helpful. vegetarians/practicing jews will have the last laugh. that is, until one of you heathens/heathens sneeze in our general direction.

por favor and for our sake, cover your mouth when you sneeze/cough/vomit up your spleen. muchas gracias.

3 more cheers for advances in medicinal technology

while ibuprofren isn't exactly a cutting edge laboratory discovery, it is a note worthy standby. again, i would rather focus my efforts and attention on prophylactics, trying to prevent the need for tablets from ever coming up. but things happen. like aforementioned allergies. and simultaneously falling off of and onto your bike whilst attempting a track stand on a sloped cobblestone road.
and yes, i do agree with my fellow human being who happened to be crossing on the same pike street i was getting a close and personal look at, that you should not drink and bike. but i do believe, kind sir, that you have mistaken my temporary combination of bravado and unbalance for common evening inebriation. fine line, i know.
for those of you who do not enjoy the feel of self propelled wind thru the loose hairs that stick out thru your bike helmet, allow me to describe in brief detail one of the very few drawbacks of this lifestyle choice. falling off/on top of your bike feels like getting hit with a steel pipe. oh, wait, that's because that is exactly what it is.
so here i am, several bruises, a swollen ankle and two bus rides later feeling antsy from lack of forward movement and slowly, slowly, working on getting over my difficulty of swallowing pills, two by two. that is, until i read the small print on the label of said generic drug instructing me, person affected by any myriad of symptoms, to take one every 4 to 6 hours as said symptoms persist. well alright then, one by one it is.

battle cat

i enjoy a good evening routine. drinking coffee substitute tea after dinner. reading by the fire before bedtime. administering ointment to numerous cutaneous wounds on my upper body. 

i live with 2 cats. according to the way things are gonna go from here on out, thought up by their owner/my flatmate, they, BABYSEAL and PETER PETER JENNINGS, are to go outside at night. usually, she that thought it up does it herself. the cats are moderately compliant. she that thought it up is out of town; the responsibility falls heavily upon me. somebody cue up the battle hymn please. 

BABYSEAL is about the size and shape of a watermelon. an 18lb watermelon. with a cat head stuck to the end. while her outward appearance may lead one to think that any inherent catlike qualities she was born with have long ago been squandered/forgotten/eaten, let me be the first to tell you that hiding under that dense layer of insulation, there lies a fierce beast. whose claws (ilvs: hey geode, why don't you cut BABYSEAL's nails? geode: why don't you cut BABYSEAL's nails?) protrude far beyond fleshy flesh and can pretty much cut thru all layers of human epidermis with little to no effort. when provoked, the results are stunning. in the worst way possible.

the photo does my feline inflicted injuries no justice. there is no visual substitute for the impressive torque of a cat body trying to escape, the sting of a cat's claws slicing human skin, the resulting mixed feeling of anger/guilt/utter defeat.

BABYSEAL: 1, ilvs: -5

she that thought it up does not return for another week.

like an ill fated victorian Misses living next door to the Count, i dread the coming of night.

but you look so peaceful when you sleep

i cut off a tiny part of my left pointer finger (on accident) whilst cutting celery for stew. not deep enough to induce bleeding, but enough so that it feels like there is maybe the thinnest layer of thin skin serving as barrier between the world and my raw nerves. . . .but that's not why i write.

one time i asked a friend to come to my art opening. photographs i had taken (in corvallis), to be shown at the coffee shop i frequented (interzone).  

'what are they of?' she inquired casually. 

'they're of you. sleeping,' i deadpanned. a moment of silence. 

'no, really, what are they of?' she persisted.  i think i had her convinced for a few seconds, then i caved.  they were of streets and alleyways and graffiti. but that'd be creepy if they actually were, yeah?  i always thought i'd be funny, invite your friends and roommates to your art opening and make a big deal about it, then when they get there all the photos are of them sleeping soundly or of them doing stuff (nothing, uh, 'personal,' tho...) in their rooms when they thought they were alone and the angle is all hidden camera/surveillance style cuz well, that's pretty much what it was. imagine the look on their faces!

that being said, i wouldn't actually do this for real. but really, the only thing stopping me from going thru with this idea is the HIGH CREEP FACTOR. it never occurred to me, all these years, until maybe just now, that i could just as easily GET PERMISSION and oh i don't know, stage the shots and get just as good of photos if not better due to the whole consensual aspect of it. 

but where's the fun in that.