Things are not good. I feel like crap and I need a hug. I have too much going on here at home to be social or interactive much. If you want to get a hold of me please call.

So I took my first car to get smogged and made an appointment to go to the DMV for registration. I don't know why I didn't buy a car earlier! I thought for sure I wouldn't be able to afford it, and made all sorts of excuses for not having my own car. I still prefer public transportation when available and practical, and I would really rather be on the motorcycle if it was running. But owning a car is certainly within my budget. And let me tell you how much I LOVE my mechanic. That man is awesome. He's the happiest most pleasant helpful guy ever.

I'm feeling an incredible amount of anxiety right now. I think the move is finally hitting me. I'm really excited about moving into The Studio, but I'm also panicking about a number of things. I haven't been sleeping well. I need to start taking the sleeping pills again so that maybe I can get some sleep and get over this anxiety.

I just tossed out about two years worth of Sephora catalogs, WTF was I thinking.

I have a stack of magaiznes that are free to a good home

Frederick's of Hollywood catalog
Shape in Spanish
Natural Health
Body & Soul, about 2 years worth
Archeaology, Biblical Archeaology and a Nat. Geo.

I would be willing to ship the Frederick's but for the rest you should be local

I had lunch with a friend today and he paid for part of my meal saying that he has had a lot of people help him out and buy his meals when he was in need. Mind you I'm crazy on painkillers right now because the jaw pain flared up this afternoont, so if I sound crazy or am not thinking clearly please let me know. I was almost sort of insulted that he thought I was too poor to pay for my own meal. Do I look poor? Do I act poor? I don't get it. I wasn't wearing my gutter punk hoodie, but I wasn't wearing new trendy clothes either. I like shopping at GAP, but I generally shop at thrift stores because I have a hard time justifying the price tags on new clothes. That and it is so much more environmentally friendly to reuse clothes rather than manufacture brand new ones all the time. And new clothes are ugly. Seriously now, do I look poor? Or act poor? I can't imagine what I might have said to make this guy think I was poor. He knows I work in the adult industry, and most people assume that I make tons of money there. The guy's a school teacher, so he can't be making all that much more than I am.

*edited to add* as the drugs wear off I realize I did some seriously crazy things when attempting to cut and pin cloth napkins under the influence of vicodin. As in they're all different sizes and not all square.

As the swelling goes down I'm noticing more and more bruising on my face. Bruising!!! over half my face!

well I have almost no pain from the wisdom teeth, unlike when I had the other two done. However my face is swollen an enormous amount, a ton more than the last two. I've been trying to keep my face iced, but it gets cold after a few hours. It's really warm out and I'm in a sweatshirt because I have to hold this ice pack on my face. Let me tell you, I feel like crap. I can't chew and it takes some real effort to shove food in my mouth. Sitting up hurts, but lying down is boring. And I kinda feel like I'm going to puke.

In preparation of owning my own personal car I've been looking at car insurance rates. I've been insuring the motorcycle with Geico for as long as I've had it. Lash was also using Geico for a long time, on both motorcycle and car, but recently switched to esurance for the van. It seems they have a program of getting you in with a low rate for the first six months and then promptly raising the rates. Well I don't know if it is a program, but Lash is pissed off. Esurance was quoting me only like three dollars less than Geico, so I'm sticking with Geico.
*edit to add* apparently with esurance you have to verify your mileage with service records, and Lash does all his own servicing, so they bumped up his rate. He's also accusing them of some other scam related to rate quotes.

Last two wisdom teeth removed. The bottom one really took some work to get it out, but the top one only took one pull. I'm hoping I won't be out of commission for too long. I was thinking of asking to keep the teeth this time, but the dentist showed them to me and they looked too gross.

I've been processing some emotional issues too. At the end of the month I am moving out of the only place that has ever felt like home. I was driving around the neighborhood late last night I got exceptionally sad. I never felt like I had a home as a child and I've spent my entire adult life living in this neighborhood with the exception of the time I lived in Tokyo.

Over the weekend I took the guy who knows what he's doing out to take more cuttings from Cora's tree. We looked at the rose bush and wondered how exactly you take cuttings from a rose bush. It was slightly less emotional to see the house because it really is very empty in my mind. I guess I must be feeling more closure around Cora's death. It feels like an eternity since I last saw her. The last time I visited at the house she was significantly more lucid than normal and we talked about her wedding. Then I saw her at the hospital and she was already going cold. The new lemon tree cuttings joined their surviving cousin cuttings, and they all look about right. I think. I have no clue what lemon tree cuttings are supposed to look like. They are getting much better care than I could give them. If nothing else there are plenty of seeds. I have a fridge full of lemons and I'm very happy.

... has been remade with Keanu Reeves as the alien guy, Jennifer Conelley as the chick, and John Cleese as Dr. Barnhardt. OMFG. I don't know whether to run, scream or cry. We watch the original all the time over here, because it's one of the few movies that we've managed to remember to Tivo. Jeebus. What sort of political statement are they going to try to make? The original was all about nukes. Are they sticking with nukes? Is it about the environment? They didn't want us to escape our planet with nukes and try anything on any other planets. If they do go with the environment this time why do aliens want to threaten us to change? Maybe they're just going with war in general?

Remake trailer


http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2008/07/04/the-day-the-earth-stood-still-trailer-is-here/ is commentary and pictures of the new Gort.

Original trailer here


It comes out in December. I hope the music is just as awesome as the original.

Well Lash has been hooked up to antibiotics in the hospital since Tuesday night. It turns out that he had a major systemic infection. They were going to release him today, but his temperature is still high and his primary care doctor isn't around, so the doctor he is seeing at the hospital isn't familiar with him so wants to keep him one more night. I'm hoping that tomorrow I'll be able to get him home and get his groceries for the weekend because I had plans to go away for the weekend after the 4th. I'm worried about leaving him home alone, but he'll have the van and his phone so it's not like he's stranded. I'll see what things look like tomorrow.

Also, bad news for the motorcycle. I called Hayasa Motorbikes and Tyler can't take my motorcycle right now because it will probably be a lot of work and he doesn't have room in the shop for it. I need to determine if I really need a new gas tank, and if so buy it myself. Next week I'm going to see if I can pull some strings and get the guys at Godspeed to take it. They would take it if Lash brought it in. I'm not taking the bike to Scuderia. They were the ones that originally failed to repair it, and said it should be sold for scrap.

Tonight I am totally going to MEAT or whatever it is at the DNA. Anyone else? I need to find food now and then get my hair done.

I'm posting from Lash's blackberry in the ER. I brought him in noonish with chest pains and it's 5 and we have no clue what is going on. I'm so bored. At least the bastard keeps getting morphine. He's going to be fine but I guess we're waiting on lab results. I got to listen to some drunk puke forever and the lady across the hall had TB. And there's nothing good here to steal.

I wanted to blog on tribe, but the site seems to be down.

I'm working on a project that requires a website, but I have no desire to invest any money in it. I was just going to use a wordpress blog. I don't need any fancy design work, and I really can't afford to pay a web designer. So I go in to set up a wordpress blog hosted by wordpress and I learn enough CSS to change the colors and add some graphics. It turns out that if you want to customize the CSS on a wordpress hosted blog you have to pay $15. It isn't unreasonable, but if I'm going to spend any money I should consider more options. What do you all think is best for the ultra cheap and lazy?

A. Just pay the $15 and have whateverblogname.wordpress.com with the colors and graphics I like
B. Get a real domain name and hosting and stick wordpress on that site. Not sure of the cost, but I think I can customize wordpress for free and I'll have my own domain name
C. Forget wordpress and pay the money for hosting and web design.

In other news I am feeling tremendously better. Not sure exactly what it was that made me sick, but it seems like it was not a side effect of my medicine.

It seems like the theme of the summer is earth! When I took the lemon tree cuttings to the guy who knows what he's doing he said they didn't look good! The leaves were starting to curl up, which I had also noticed and thought was strange. I kept misting the leaves with water, thinking that was how they would get water until the roots grew. Apparently I was wrong! The branches are supposed to start sucking up moisture from the dirt right away. When I went to buy the dirt I had bought the potting soil labeled as special for citrus, and apparently that's too dry. I grew up in Indiana and all my gardening experience was there, so I'm pretty clueless about citrus. Brilliant me didn't think to water the soil either because I thought I was supposed to be misting the leaves. Might need to make another trip out for cuttings from the tree, and if nothing else I can use seeds from the billion lemons I have in my fridge.

I've been dealing with some stupid health problems again. Side effects probably. This is no fun. I'm trying so hard to make lifestyle changes and do other non-prescription things to be healthy, but I kinda feel like I'm having the rug pulled out from under my feet. Essentially I have to invest more time and energy into caring for myself, which is a lot of work. It takes time to get into new habits and routines, and it takes time to see effects.

I also need to work on work! My tax refund check was marked for motorcycle repair, and it already disappeared into some sort of black hole. The amount that had been intended for savings will be paying for the motorcycle.

Cuttings from Cora's lemon tree have been accomplished. I also took a cutting from one of the rose bushes, thanks to Jean for suggesting. I almost started crying when I was over there. Cora had such a beautiful garden, and now the house is like an empty shell. Jean is moving out soon, so nobody will be there to care for the garden. I was tempted to take some ginger too, but those plants were huge and looked like too much work. I did notice that one of the big bright flowering plants seemed to be missing. It stuck out into the driveway, so I don't think I missed it. I can't remember what Cora called it, but I think it was a Hawaiian thing. I hope a good person took that one home. Tomorrow the cuttings go to someone who has more space, time and energy to care for them. One day hopefully I'll have space to have one of the grown up trees. I picked about a dozen lemons too. I would have harvested that whole tree, but I couldn't have carried them all home or used them in a timely manner. Those are the best damn lemons ever. I was never much of a lemon person until I met Cora's lemon tree.

On Sunday I had a lovely trip to the opera, thanks to the lovely Ms. isara scoring some free tickets. We saw Das Rheingold by Wagner. It is the first of the Ring Cycle. The SF Opera is doing the rest of the Ring Cycle in two years. It was a really fantastic show, made better by having really great seats. The costumes were lovely in WWI style fashion. The sets were very minimal and modernist. A lot of the set work was done with lighting, projection, a fog machine and a scrim. It gave me a lot to think about. The performers were excellent, and the opera itself was very good, but on it's own without the rest of the Ring Cycle I wouldn't say that is exceptional. Not exceptional when compared to The Magic Flute. I would love to see the rest of the Ring Cycle. I hear that the whoel Cycle put together is a masterpiece. And has the valkyries song.

The story is fascinating, probably because I'm already familiar with Norse mythology. Das Rheingold starts out with magic gold of the Rhine guarded by three river nymphs. Things made out of the gold have special magic properties. A ring made from the gold will give the wearer power to rule the world. When the sun comes up the gold appears to glow in the river. A dwarf comes along to try to get the Rheingold by seducing the women, but the only way to get the gold (and the power) is to give up love and sex. So he does. He scorns love and sex and takes the gold. He makes a ring out of it and enslaves his brother and the other dwarves. He also makes a helmet from the gold that allows the wearer to turn into anything they want. All the while, Wotan, leader of the gods, has just finished building Valhalla. He promised the giants who built the castle his beautiful sister-in-law Freia. Freia grows the golden apples that keep the gods young, and nobody wants to let her go to the giants. Loge and Wotan plan to get the gold and the ring and give that to the giants rather than Freia. So Loge and Wotan go and trick the dwarf out of the ring, helmet and remaining gold. When the ring is taken from him, the dwarf curses it. The wearer of the ring will be unhappy, become a murderer, die and that the ring will be desired by everyone. While Wotan is wearing the ring, Erda, and earth goddess, warns him of all sorts of horrible things to come. When they give the gold and the ring to the giant, he immediately kills his own brother and takes the gold away. The gods all return to Valhalla, but Loge says that they are all cursed. And the Rheine water nymphs mourn the loss of their gold.

http://www.saintalbert.us/ !! It looks like they do all sorts of cool Polish things. Not so sure about the church part, but they have a Polish festival.

I often think about how I need to post things on LJ or tribe and I wander around alone thinking about what to tell my online friends. Today I sat and chatted with the other woman at work for an hour and came to realize that if I just talked with people in real life more often I wouldn't be thinking all day about things to post on LJ. I am apparently more lonely than I had realized. And I'm a Gemini too. It's not like I'm not living in a major metropolitan area or anything. Oddly enough I'm booked up a lot this week and next week. I have no clue why I'm feeling like I'm not connecting with people. Am I not finding the things I do and people I meet meaningful? I'm also going crazy from insomnia. Tomorrow I have acupuncture. Depending on how much sleep I get will determine if I go out on Friday and how much of my plans I can actually keep. Right now I have to set up the damn video camera and find some lost video footage.

And thank you all for condolences on the dog. The vet actually mailed Lash a sympathy card.

Lash finally took Griffin in for recycling. He was 17 years old, had lost a lot of weight and his arthritis was so bad that he couldn't walk. Once upon a time he had been the biggest hellraiser. Lash got him as a puppy after finding the dog tied up outside the place where some heroin addicts had once lived. Griffin never learned to walk on a leash properly, and always pulled food off counters, off the stove, and tore into any packages he could get to. He tore into and ate bags of dried rice and even ate a whole box of chocolate once. He broke plenty of pans and plates pulling them off the counter. Two years ago when Zoe, the wolf dog, died Griffin began to challenge me for pack position. No matter how often I dominated him he would still bark at me. I loved that dog so much and he was nothing but trouble. It was really time for him to go. Lash said that Griffin died before the vet gave the final part of the injection.

( pictures )

I have had a busy busy busy week. I was at a conference for work. Had dinner with the mikecap. I have not hardly been at home all week. I had a fascinating lunch time discussion with a lawyer who had just finished a obscenity case (defense) and a man who is currently waiting to go to trial for obscenity. Also got very drunk at a kink dot com party. Open bar + hot tub. Guess who was bartending? Heavy pouring Danny from BAGG! Former bartender from BAGG, Danielle, was also bartending at the party. The San Francisco Armory is really cool looking, but the amount of security they require is amazing. They also can't have parties past midnight because it's a federal monument.