under the milky way

hang on i'm so hungry i'm going to die !

okay. last night was my first night of having a real life. i realized pretty early that i was being kind of melodramatic and that most of my freakout was definitely due to birth control issues, but i still felt a little bit of residual sadness. mouse was back from tour, so i went over to his house to welcome him back. i stopped at milk and honey on the way, which is this ridiculously expensive yuppie store that sells locally grown stuff for way too much fucking money and is kind of ridiculous and inaccessible since it's like, one block away from an economically depressed area. haha.



don't get me wrong, they have a lot of like beautiful delicious-looking fresh local food and the people who work there are nice, it's just a really odd placement of a store- like, i'm doing pretty well and i can barely afford to shop there. a handful of random greens is like $10. a carton of eggs is like $7. anyway, whatever, i went there and got a sandwich for dinner because there's not much else between my house and mouse's. i got a thai tofu hoagie which was um... some greens, like 3 pieces of tofu, and... guacamole? on the hardest roll of all time for all those squishy ingredients. for $7.


THIS is how you make a tofu hoagie (tofu bahn mi from fu wah)

i theoretically support what they're doing, but it's definitely like... an exclusive rich people place in a non-rich neighborhood. whatever, i guess it's a business, but it's just kind of an odd alienating presence at 45th and baltimore.

anyway enough about that place ! p.s. i also got a hank's root beer. but really, enough ! i got to mouse's and he regaled me with tales from tour- just fyi, when he hugged a naked lady, that wasn't a euphemism- a naked lady gave him a hug at a warehouse they were playing. it sounds like he had a pretty good time, and it was good to see him, but i was feeling kind of anxious and tired so i didn't stay too long.

when i got home, i didn't really know what to do with myself ! christina was in bed, so i watched some simpsons episodes on DVR and my friend perry and i shared our favorite poems with each other. that is not as dumb or nerdy as it sounds ! my two favorites are cascando by samuel beckett and the love song of j. alfred prufrock by t.s. eliot. i forgot what his favorites are cause i am self-absorbed !



my only real goal for last night when i got home was to buy a new yoga mat. SOMEONE (mouse) got hot sauce all over my last one (because i left a bottle of hot sauce perched on the edge of an end table and left my yoga mat on the floor). i was much happier when i was doing yoga regularly- not for the relaxation factor because i basically never relax, but because i'm very impressed with how stretchy and bendy i am and it made my body feel good. i think i may have given my yoga dvd away though, so anyone have any recommendations? remember that i'm fat, but flexible.



i guess i'm doing okay. i miss my wow friends already, but not having the pressure to be home to raid tonight is pretty stellar ! mouse is coming over to catch up on doctor who (incidentally, after he goes to yoga).

the next few weeks are going to be super busy. my mom is coming to visit next week (and i have some time off of work !), my friend john from cleveland's band is playing here next weekish (i think?), my BIRTHDAY is right after that, and then um... then i can go back to being bored and anxious, probably. or maybe i will have snapped out of it at that point.

it's taken me forever to get this written today because i have so much leftover crud from reunion !

p.s. there's a BABY at work for me to look at !
p.p.s. i'm really proud of myself for making myself go out spontaneously last night, in the RAIN. i NEVER go out in the rain !

i'm free

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's over ! it's finally over ! i had to work all weekend, which is kind of a bummer, because i'm already back at work and i feel like i just left work. on thursday we set everything up, and registration opened on friday. we were in a new building with much more space, but there were some logistical problems there (like, we had to use their wireless, which blew, and WE had a lot less room because of how the tables were set up), but it ended up being okay. generally the registration team are cool people (not a coincidence, since i have to be there with them all weekend and pick the team based on who i'd want to hang out with for 25 hours). i was there til 10pm, but we had free food and a good pandora playlist which was basically like a really good oldies station, so it wasn't too bad.



on saturday, i worked from 7 to 6:30, which was kind of brutal. saturday was super, super, super busy and that was the day we had some difficult people. i think everything worked out okay, but registration closed at 4pm and people were hounding me until 6:30, chasing me down while i was carrying big armloads of stuff and big awkward sign posts, etc. i thought i would never get out of there and i was super exhausted ! but at a quarter to 7 i headed home and met up with christina, who was also exhausted from volunteering at a girls rock philly related event and hanging out with amber at art star. so jealous ! if i wasn't working i definitely would have gone.



we both decided to "take a nap" at 9pm and we both woke up at 4am. we IM'd each other for a minute, and then christina went back to sleep. i ended up sleeping from 7am-11am or so. jeez. i guess i took for granted the amount that a few extra hours of sleep on saturday morning counts since i didn't get it that day.

when we got up, i leveled solanas to 60 and did part of zul'gurub with paul. i've never really seen any of the bosses besides the raptor and tiger bosses so that was kinda cool ! then christina and i went to target. i wasn't really sure if i needed anything, but i thought i'd check out their plus size section because i saw a few cute/wearable things online. guess what though, guys ! the plus size section was 2 racks of clothing, unmarked, in the middle of maternity. it was like 3 cardigans, a sundress, 4 pairs of stretch pants, and maybe one ugly rayon dress?


above: some bullshit

i might actually like... write them a letter about it? philadelphia is a fat city, and there was like 2309823 fat people at target, and i think if they actually had all of the nice stuff they have online in the store, attractively presented and marked with a sign, people would buy it? the target on delaware avenue is kind of a mess anyway, but like... why should a maternity section be so expansive compared to a plus size section? so many more people are fat than pregnant. and why should the plus size section be in the center of maternity? i did buy this dress online from them last week with a gift card, and i hope it works out:



we also went to the grocery store, and then came home and chilled out for a little bit. i guess the most exciting thing (if exciting is the right word) is that i guess i'm quitting warcraft. my last friend who played (who i played with most often) canceled his account and uninstalled the game, and there isn't really much for me to do now


RIP harridan

i have very mixed mostly bad emotions about this right now because like... that's what i did to avoid all of my real life problems ! and now i don't have an excuse/crutch anymore ! like, i really really do genuinely enjoy playing, but i did play slightly more than i'd be naturally inclined to because it was like... something to do where i was interacting with friends but didn't have to leave the house. i'm not even sure how to talk about it because people are so weird about warcraft (like, somehow think it's nerdier than other video games or that people get ADDICTED !!!!!!!!! to it and a couple in china let their baby DIE while they were playing and omgomgomgomg) but the reality is that it's like... a video game that is fun, and everyone plays video games.

full disclosure, though i hate discounting my feelings because of hormones- i actually forgot to take my birth control for 3 days so i think i'm having a uh, heightened emotional reaction. i'm bummed that i won't get to talk to those friends as much, if at all, and i'm bummed that i'm going to have all of this dangerous time to think about eating disorder stuff and general weird hide-y feelings where i want to stay in my house all the time.



and not to segue from my crappy year of depression to OMG HAYYYYY but while i was at work this weekend, the bottom of my rootote split. after looking for a similarly huge bag online and not finding anything i loved (annnnnd not wanting to pay $45 for another rootote- i got my other one for $14.99), christina offered to make me a tote bag. she let me pick out fabric from her... fabrics, and i picked these:


green corduroy outside


this amy butler stuff inside

i'm pretty excited because the bags she makes are the shit. if she has time, she's going to make some to sell, and i'll let you dogs know what the deal is.

list of things i can do instead of being a hermit
- hang out with christina more
- hang out with mouse more and GO TO HIS HOUSE
- ride my bike and go outside more
- make new girlfriends
- go look at the dogs at the dog bowl
- do stuff like read and knit, but OUTSIDE
- volunteer somewhere

okay, i'm going to go because i have a ton of stuff to do today- it's taken me like three hours to write this cause i keep getting interrupted ! bleh !

p.s. big ups to christina for lending me her blanky and alpaca when i was crying last night !
p.p.s. jeanne and mouse are both back today and i'm soooooooooooo psyched. jeanne saw so many good animals in colombia and apparently, according to text, mouse "hugged a naked lady".

xoxo, dracula

ahhhh i left my cellphone at home today ! i don't know why i've been so forgetful about it lately- weirdest.

yesterday i worked late and cleaned up the kitchen when i got home. christina like... deep cleaned the floors and stove over the weekend so it was like literally the least i could do. i made hamburger helper with veggie crumbles (aka salt with salt) and hung out in the livingroom and answered some work e-mails. sounds exciting, right?



the big intrigue last night was that pizza wasn't acting like herself and we were getting super worried ! she was walking kind of low to the ground and refusing to get on the couch with us and kind of sadly crouching on the ground. she even did a mournful meow ! i checked her out and she didn't seem to have any sore spots, her belly wasn't hard, uh, her b-hole looked okay, her ears were clean, her nose was cold and wet, and she was eating and drinking and pooping, but seriously she was acting really weird !



after awhile, and with the help of the internet, we ascertained that she is probably hunting a mouse or a bug and it has her on edge. mama's little baby !

i decided not to raid so i could spend some quality time with christina and get some work done. we spent most of the night being worked up and hysterical and making fun of what not to wear which included christina saying, "oh my god, what if stacy london was a cat?" and me conjecturing that maybe pizza's soul was in our bodies and our souls were in hers. that isn't a thing that happens though !

after that, i leveled my priest a little bit. we're already almost level 50 because the refer a friend bonus is such an insane cheat- we get 3x xp for turning in quests if we're near each other. paul is just running us through dungeons and stuff with one of his alts- we've essentially done almost no real quests so far.


adelita and solanas, hanging out with their friend, the horde cloth quartermaster

we have another set to level to 60 (we each referred each other), but that may have to wait until after this event is over. i'm really enjoying it so far because i barely have to do anything.

i have to go do a training for registration for this event now buhhhhhhh talk to you later !

i become the nightman

i have very little time to update today ! yesterday i didn't do anything because i was feeling the pain of life. that's melodramatic, i was just kind of tired. i took a nap and had a dream i was remote-piloting a car but the screen was too small and i kept running people over and killing them, so i was despondent all night. i leveled my priest a little bit (we got to like.. 46?) and did some reading.

i ended up finishing the evolution of calpurnia tate. i thought it was a little cloying at first but i ended up really loving it.



it's about an 11 year old girl in texas in 1899 who lives a fairly comfortable life in a wealthy household. she starts hanging out with her grandfather, who she'd never really paid much attention to, and he teaches her about evolution and science and the scientific method and they hang out observing nature and being naturalists and collecting samples and doing experiments, which leads to her feeling trapped by the obligations and expectations placed on women and female children at the time. the book was super sweet and funny, and all of the interactions between the kids seemed totally realistic and natural, and i appreciate that the author didn't rely on any kind of emotionally manipulative plot twists or totally unrealistic but satisfying conclusions. she did play fast and loose with texas history and natural science but i don't think it would be particularly distracting if you didn't already know what she changed.



i guess the thing that struck me was that the utter hopelessness the main character feels about the future that is prescribed to her as a woman (marriage, babies, housekeeping, limited career choices) still rings true for female children in 2010. what a bummer. like, i do acknowledge that we've come a long way since then, but women are still devalued and dismissed in many professions, discouraged away from math and "hard" sciences and technology, and judged constantly by their perceived value based on their success in obtaining a male partner and their reproductive choices. blehhhh. i do like the idea of books like this that provide a glimmer of hope and a relatable character for female children who don't feel like they fit in or are uncomfortable with pressure to conform.

i have a million meetings today, but i ordered pizza for one (SIX pizzas ! two plain, two pepperoni, one sausage, and one mushroom ! the mushroom one is for meeeeeeeee) (but all pizza in west philly is greek pizza so it's gross and offends my italian tastebuds !). it's been a surprisingly quiet week at work, but i don't feel rushed or backed up and i may not need to stay late every single day this week !


excited pizza designed by natalie dee. used without permission !!!

back to work i guess. i will be assembling badges with a couple of other people who love gruntwork until 2:30 and then i have to prepare badges for speakers, answer 9 million voicemails, update registrations, and make a checklist to make sure i'm bringing all the materials i need to the site on thursday. i don't know if i'll have time to update tomorrow so you guys may be left with this stupid entry for DAYS.

teenage cremation

hayyyyyy. so like ! yesterday i got my bill for my summer class from penn ($3300 for one 12 week summer class !), so i went to submit my tuition reimbursement stuff online and decided to check my class schedule- apparently, the class i registered for was canceled. thanks for telling me or indicating in any way that it had been canceled, guys ! so i registered for two online classes because i think i'm too chicken to go directly back to school.



these are the classes i registered for:

History of the United States to 1865
An analysis of American society from the founding of the Colonies to the outbreak of Civil War. Topics to be emphasized include: the interaction among European, Indian and African cultures in the New World; the shaping of the distinctive American character; the creation of an independent nation-state; and the crisis of the Union. Special attention will be given to biographical profiles of the men and women who helped shape American history during this period.

Elementary German I
Introduction to the basic elements of spoken and written German, with emphasis placed on the acquisition of communication skills. Readings and discussion focus on cultural differences.

since i plan to major in history i wanted to jump right in and take a bunch of history classes, but the online class options are limited. also, i haven't finished my fall application yet (for penn summer classes they write you a note like 'do u want 2 go here check yes or no' and if you check 'yes' you can register, but you have to apply for fall) and don't really have a "plan" as far as what classes i'll take. i assume i need a language and i already know german so this should be easy. or annoying, because i've heard online classes are annoying.


i tried to find a picture of a person in a mortarboard at a computer but came up emptyhanded

like, it's one thing to be jammed into a classroom with a bunch of idiots, but having to like.. post on a forum with them seems like it would be much worse, since people are a lot more brave on the internet. maybe since LPS focuses on working professionals and people over 21, the class will be full of like... grown-ups? but grown-ups are also stupid a lot of the time. please reassure me.

last night we raided, which was okay. we're kind of on auto pilot in ICC25. the new people in the guild are mostly okay, but two of them are dating and they are constantly flirting with each other and it's super fucking annoying. like, internet flirting in a way that indicates to me that they've probably never hung out in real life. their break-up is going to be hilarious. anyway, i can't wait until cataclysm comes out and i can just do ten mans with 9 people i like.


in the new expansion, i can also make a goblin dude !

today is a jeans day at work in honor of the phillies game tonight (i'm not going- they gave out free tickets this year but only for staff members. usually they let everyone have 4 tickets so you can bring friends !) and i don't own jeans so i'm wearing leggings and a skirt and a cruddy t-shirt. basically how i dress in real life, but i wore a t-shirt with the original neck instead of a gaping hole where i cut the neck off. FASHION.

i guess i'm going to go do a million works.

my mirrors are black

how's it going dudes ! yesterday was an annoying stressful day at work- i now have one popeye arm from stapling stuff. i guess the event went really well so it was worth it, and my schedule is almost totally clear today.

the most exciting thing about yesterday is that i drank 44 ounces of iced coffee, which probably doubles the amount of iced coffee i've had in my life (i guess triples, i've had it a few times recently), so i was like cornholio after dark last night and couldn't sleep and couldn't stop annoying everyone. i had a wawa iced coffee and an iced mocha from gia pronto.



the iced mocha tasted too much like real, good coffee which isn't something i'm into though. despite being a purist about a lot of really unimportant things, i only like coffee that is made from a lot of sugar and cream and like the air that surrounds a coffee bean.

last night i mostly hung out with christina and tried to get our DVR box working. i was on the phone with stupid comcast for over an hour while the dude ate into the phone and patronized me by making me turn my tv on and off and stuff ! what a butthole. we watched some terrible episodes of SVU and sang songs to each other. generally we put whatever we're doing into whatever song we hear but we're also pretty committed to doing that every chance we get and we end up with a lot of like, really lazy weird unfunny output? last night i had "i'm gonna get you" by bizarre inc. in my head ("WHY WASTE YOUR TIME, YOU KNOW YOU'RE GONNA BE MINE !")



and it resulted in gems like, "why waste your hoagie, you know it's gonna be mine" and "i'm gonna get you pizza, i'm gonna get you yes i am" (my cat is named pizza, if you didn't know, we didn't just stick to food ones).

i cut my bangs which was really stupid- i don't really understand how to do it but i'm in desperate need of a haircut. my bangs are also tricky even for another person because i have two big cowlicks in my bangs and i also don't have depth perception. i ended up with this:


i cropped this cause i thought it looked weirder

what the fuck? haha. i was so proud of myself but now that i looked at that picture, they don't even look close to even. i dyed my hair after that because i had two inches of roots



and it looks pretty good even though i didn't have enough dye for my whole head and kind of haphazardly smushed it all over my head without looking !

oh ! that reminds me. the other night christina and i were (again) watching SVU, and there was a scene where stabler had his shirt off


this is from "bored hunks" magazine

and christina made some appreciative noise, and my response was "HEY BUD !". christina then pointed out to me that the last three times i expressed appreciation for a dude on television, i said:

1) "i bet i could fit my whole fist in his mouth !"
2) "i'd like to see HIM in a pair of shorts"
3) "hey bud !"

something about this indicates to me that maybe i am bad at this? but i tried to think about what i'd say instead and i can't really come up with anything. diet coke break?

tonight i'm going to try to do three things. first, i'd like to attend the west philly knitting group thing at the green line. second, i'd like to see mouse's band play, where ever that may be. third, i'd like to possibly get home in time to raid. we'll see if the third will happen, since i have zero idea about when or where mouse's band is playing. i know it's in west philly though, which is a good start !

p.s. my project for today is moving all my blog images to a second flickr account so i don't risk having them deleted or eventually replaced with a camera phone picture of an "emo teenager" a la tinypic.

girl fuckin friend

dudes ! i had so much stuff i want to talk about but we have two events at work today and i've been, uh, hustling to get some stuff done !

yesterday i worked a little late, and then mouse and i went on a walk in clark park.



clark park is the park in our neighborhood where they have farmer's markets, a little kid's larp, some outdoor fests, and big flea markets. plus, it has the world's only statue of charles dickens is- dickens made it very clear in his will that he never wanted a state or monument to him erected, and someone made this as a gift for his family without knowing that and his son got PISSED, so it sorta got lost in shipping crates for years until it made its way here and apparently we don't give a fuck about the last wishes of charles dickens



we were going to SIT in the park but we got started late so we just did a few laps and i explained some urban dictionary type gross sex stuff to mouse (when i was in california i kept saying 'carl's jr' sounded like a gross urban dictionary chest-pooping thing, so i looked up "hot carl" and um. it's like one of the worst things my brain knows now. don't look it up !) and he told me about a no-grunting gym in south philly. also he told me about his gimmick suggestion for the uh, dodgeball team he's on- the baseball furries.



+



this is gonna be a neat weekend, maybe. i'm sort of bummed because there's a cool thing at laurel hill cemetery that jeanne is going to, but it's tomorrow and not sunday like i thought ! which means mouse can't go, and also i have a car reserved to do my grocery shopping and errands and stuff and it's important that i stick to that junk for ED stuff.



but saturday night i'm going to mouse's mom's with him to meet his new nephew, scott the baby, and on sunday i think jeanne is coming over and we're going to try to make sweet potato salad (we got the idea yesterday and were like, 'oooooooo'-ing at each other. roasted sweet potatoes, green onions, and maybe some kind of honey mustard vinaigrette? something with lemon? not sure what herbs would go with that).

oh yeah. hey. how do you wear stockings without getting a run in them? i wore them today to dress KIND OF nice for work and i ripped the knee on my way in and now i basically look like ramona quimby. i will end this entry with some important facts about me..

important facts about me
- i made it through the 90s without ever hearing "send me on my way" by rusted root or "laid" by james
- i don't have stereoscopic vision
- in the late 90s, i was interviewed by planned parenthood for their teen website about ONLINE JOURNALS (because i've been doing this since 1997 before "blogging" was invented !). that isn't interesting, but the guy who interested me did production and electrical work on the phantasm movies !
- i have eaten rattlesnake before. it's sort of like turkey neck, but it tastes like a snake smells. D:

p.s. big ups to the ladies in my community whose efforts to get the band drunkdriver to stop touring with a rapist were successful, and the dudes who supported us. despite seeing a bunch of men say a bunch of vile shit about rape and rape victims in the process, i was extremely heartened that the ladies never backed down and that some dudes actually are vocal feminist allies (and not the type who agree with us in private but won't stand up for us in public because he doesn't want to upset his bros).