what is that burning smell?

it is summer months of dust being burned off the gas wood burning stove (not an oxymoron. the 'wood' is ceramic. it runs off gas) caused by the abrupt need for artificial warmth due to the sharp dip in atmospheric temperature.

fall turned on like a faucet yesterday. that kind of weather makes me want to hermit and drink copious amounts of tea. lucky for me, my free as in unemployed schedule allowed for just that. i like fall. i will take fall over spring any day.

my only complaint about the turn of seasons is the onset of cold. as in, i never want to take any of 6 layers of clothes off because doing so would disrupt the state of me being warm. yesterday, after mentioning my desire to acquire a permanent layer of underwarmth for the slate cold upcoming months, roommate geode ambivilently gifted me a pair of long johns. a pair of grey long johns she no longer wore because they fit funny. read = they be ugly. whatever, i thought, i don't care, as long as they are warm. i wore them to bed last night and can attest to their functionality (waking up feeling like i was on fire - literally, not figuratively speaking - was a bittersweet occurrence).

but as for their inherent fashionability (or severe lack thereof), i find myself faced with a bit of a conundrum. i love warmth. i am a practical person. this trait extends to my taste in style. but only to a point. i have my limits. one of them being this particular pair of unflattering, uninspired long johns. yes, they keep me warm, no, no one can see them under my pants. but they make me feel tragically undesirable. it feels like all the bad parts of high school cinched up too high with a too tight elastic waist band. and when faced with the sight of them first thing in the morning, they sour my foggy thoughts and make me want to slip back into the dark shadows where no one but she who bequeathed me with these can see me maybe if that. sigh. if it's a battle you want, long johns, it is a battle you will get. tomorrow, armed with a sewing machine, victory will be mine. in the shape of warm, proper fitting, cute underpants.

but speaking of bequeathing. my coronation is this saturday. i am getting crowned. or to be more exact, my tooth is getting a crown. apparently root canals are not so effective in the long run when they are exposed to the elements. regardless, the ceremony is this weekend. i would invite you all, but i am under the distinct impression that my dentist will not approve of such deviations from tradition. er, protocol.

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!

why i don't sleep with snakes

that last entry, the reference to lying with myself, reminded me of the following:

i forget who told me this story:
so there was this lady. (pardon the generalizations that riddle my story like air pockets in pumice.) she owned a snake. one of them big ones like a boa or a python. the snake slept not in a terrarium like some common reptile, but with her, curled up at the foot of her most comfy bed (im gonna take a guess that she checked the single box when filing her taxes). now, they had a fine relationship for some time. snake provided cold blooded comfort, and exotic pet owning cool factor, woman provided small warm animals for reptile's digestive pleasure. everything cool? everything's cool. for a some time, at least. then woman noticed that snake was not eating as per usual. time passed, still no interest in the proffered rodents. woman took note. then snake exhibited some strange behavior. snake, instead of taking the usual assumed coiled position at the tucked end of the bed, snake decided one night to lay down next to woman, stretched out to snake's full length, which was longer than the full length of prostrate woman. hmm, woman thought, curious. more time passed. still no interest in feeding time. woman called vet.
woman: snake not be eating,
vet: snake not hungry yet maybs.
woman: oh, and snake did this weird thing and stretched out next to me in bed.
vet: stop sleeping with your snake immediately. snake is going to eat you.
apparently, (tho i have not had the time to verify this fact on wikipedia) stretching out next to live object is snakes way of sizing up their next meal. this snake was trying to see if this woman would fit inside snakes body. snake was planning on eating woman. w.t.f.
i am assuming woman took vet's recommendation and snake was sentenced to lockdown in the terrarium for attempted assassination via the unhinging of the jaws.
blast, time to go back to work. moral of the story: maybs you wanna think twice bout bunking up with slithery reptiles.

my just waking up from weak nap precludes me from coming up with clever title

i just woke up from a hazy nap. im at work, standing in the middle of the palindromic paradox that is my epic work day. basically, i am getting paid to, amongst other things, rest and recuperate from my 3 week old 'i got in a car accident' incident. my main responsibility this long weekend as 'communications manager' (a clever 'get well' from boss man/woman [uh, they be two people, one sex apiece] in the form of fancifide title) is to hand out fresh radios to the workers in the morning and take them back stale at night. this keeps me busy for approx 2.75 hours in the morning and 2.75 hours in the evening. the middle, my oyster.
what does one do with said oyster? i read, walk around, nap, check internet. nap again. listen to the mixed bag sounds coming in from the ajar windows that cast minimal light in the room that adjoins the closet i am stationed in.
my closet has a closet. it is brightly lit with bare fluorescence and teeming with radio chargers. it is positioned directly behind me, half the size of the main closet. afront: an awkwardly long hallway. i can see people coming from minutes away. what looks like me staring them down is actually my attempt to get my eyes to readjust to not still helvetica sitting on eggshell pages in my lap, trying to figure out if i recognize the person as they walk up, trying to remember what radio they are assigned, then willing them to take a sharp left steps before my desk and into the main office so that i can continue reading/interneting/spacing out in radioinactive peace.
and when i tire of that, i take a break from my closet to attempt horizontal respite in the smaller closet that is off the main office. i go to a closet to take a break from my closet. and me sans my homies to make 'it's ok cuz we be gay too' gay jokes. . .
in the closet, (___ ___ ______ !) i herded together an ikea cushion bed on the floor behind the ikea frame and settled down for some fully clothed resting of my eyes. next to me, leaned up against the wall and extending beyond my full frame by .5 feet in either direction, lay several mirrors. this room is dark but not pitch. i look over and i am laying down with myself.
did you ever play that dare in middle school, where you close yourself in the bathroom with some lit candles, stare at yourself in the mirror and recite some quasi religious incantation, the result of which the gift of some kind of apparition of the bloody mary variety? i recall several giddy half assed attempts at friends houses none of which resulted in anything more than the heebee geebees. a limp scratch at the mild rash called perfectly normal adolescent morbid curiosity.
anyways. i have since not dedicated much time/energy into staring at myself in a dimly lit room and i was certainly not gonna start today. tho i am a little curious as to what would happen. . .

the dirt: blaming your shortcomings on drugs only works if you actually do them.

and even then you gotta face the music at some point.

pardon my absence. i have been on drugs. but only for the past two weeks. and really only otc ibuprofen. and when that ran out, my roommate's prescription muscle relaxer. why the muscle relaxer? because it goes so well with the book THE DIRT - confessions of the world's most notorious rock band. that and i got in a car accident and now my spine feels like it got punched in three places. oh, and this happened on the way home from the airport. where was i? you ask. well,

prior to all this, i was in germany, stockholm, germany. it was both phenomenal and tiring. i felt in awe of the place, lost, and in awe of how lost i felt. i rode borrowed bikes along cobblestone streets trying not to see how far i could go without pulling out my tattered hand me down map. i drew buildings and beer bottles. i built up sketchy bikes. i swam in lakes. i was frustrated by my sudden illiteracy and not being able to find a single drinking fountain in all of berlin. i return with an even greater appreciation for population density and friendly usable public transportation. the last two weeks of my journey i dedicated to reading the last 300 pages of DON QUIXOTE. a goal i had set

in the two weeks before that. the full goal was reading all of it, actually, not just the last 300 pages. (which i did eventually manage thank you very much). aside from setting personal literary milestones, i was preparing for my trip by not really doing any kind of research. in fact i was doing so little that it dipped into something that resembles negative planning if there is such a thing and there is cuz that is pretty much what i did. i had 2 contacts, too much free time and a plan that i bailed on last minute.

ilvs, meet europe. europe, meet ilvs. 

uh, it's pronounced 'elvis.'

BOOK REPORT: fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe,

or: i feel really gay reading this book.
i pretty much devoured this book in like 3 days. not sure what it is about a tragic love story between two women that is obvious but never called out for what it is eventho there is no denying it, but count me in. that and i really liked the movie, wanted to see how the printed word compared. i won't spoil it one way or another for those of you who have not seen one or read the other, but i will say that the movie is better on a whole. tho the book does go into the lives of the slavey folk in more detail and that is satisfying to read about. but the movie, despite major changes to the plot, did it justice.
which is the same opinion held by my 5th grade teacher Mrs. Larsen. Of course, when 12 year old me heard her say this (to my mom i think who was standing there next to me), i assumed she liked the movie better because it played down the gay mary s m/mary l p relationship. which it does. and played up the not gay kathy bates/jessica tandy relationship. at least, that was the reason i remember her giving.
regardless i was a little disappointed. perhaps a little heart broken. i had had a little crush on her. not in a 'song by that 80's hair band whose name i never bothered to remember' kinda way, but more of a 'you and i are cut of the same cloth at least that's what i'm banking on' kinda way. similar to the crush i had on Sr. Christine. 'cept i wasn't in awe/scared of Mrs. Larsen.
if ever in my adolescent life there existed a clearly gay, strong role model for me, it was her. only at the time, i did not recognize her lesbianism as such. it was hiding just barely behind the cover of the convent, excused by her title of PE teacher, silently flouting about behind her loud colorful hammer pants. i see it now tho, in friends, acquiantences, in myself. in our mannerisms, our speech patterns, that certain look, attitude. eh, i wonder what ever happened to her. . .
but yeah, the book is alright. pretty easy. makes me want to eat bbq and cornbread. there are recipes in the back of the book but the bacon fat and buttermilk theme is a bit much for me with the sensitive constitution/aversion to bacon.

(ok, so this is like 2.5 weeks old. never got around to posting it. i am in berlin right now, more on that later.)