'You better WALK down them stairs..'

I killed an ant the other day in the kitchen. I felt bad about it for a solid twenty minutes. I clearly haven't forgotten about it- still wish I had just flung him outside somewhere.

Whenever I ride my bike to the school it is as though the universe has decided to make even that task unbearable. It is a 3.5 mile straight shot from my place to the school on Mass Ave. A straight shot full of unbelievable wind, terrible bike lane conditions, dangerous drivers, miserable tailbone pummeling, and my messenger bag rattling bruises into my spine. After two weeks I can mostly sit on my bike without wincing, in spite of my complete lack of ass, and in spite of the bike lanes resemblance to the strips of skin along the scarred jawlines of acne ridden teens. Also, I discovered that the wind is so bad sometimes that if you stop peddling, no matter how high your gear, or how impressive your velocity, you will slow to a crawl and then a stop.

Sometimes I like to pretend that things that suck are awesome. Like how I pretend that all the small and infuriating challenges I come upon are awesome learning experiences, and well! thank great Zombie Jesus for that horrible inconvenience!! As a result I don't get really frustrated all that often, and when I am completely at the end of my rope I usually smile a lot. And laugh.

This bike ride though, it is not awesome. It sucks.

I had a job interview at an undisclosed location. To avoid sounding slanderous or complainy I will refrain from using their real name here-- though if you were so inclined to look up this place on the web you would find nothing but slanderous complaints. I know this because before I went to the interview that's exactly what I did.

I will call them 'Pulsar, In Great Shape'.. P.I.G.S. This particular particulate universal bit is a 'Judgement Free Zone'. It says so on all their pens (one of which I stole from the place after I had the interview.. hee hee! Judgement free! Pen for me!!) Part of the interview involved the tired, permed, and hair-gelled 20-something informing me that if, during my shift as front-desk-person, I hear anyone doing any unnecessary (or necessary, seems), grunting, I am supposed to say to them that such behavior is prohibited. If they are brazen enough to grunt a second time, their membership is to be be suspended forever and they will then be escorted from the gym. During the second offense, a blinking blue light goes off, a big fuss is made. P.I.G.S. be intolerant of grunters, yo. I level a brown eye at her, taking all this in.

".. grunting?" I ask.

I didn't get the job.

It has been long enough between posts now that I am proud to mention that I have finally found gainful employment. I work at a fancy stationary store and get paid to make mothers day cards and paper flowers-- this activity nestled between arranging stamps unpacking boxes and adjusting many things to visually adhere to my obsessive need for neatness in the workplace. I can't tell if my manager has the capability to be as two-faced and bitchy as he would immediately seem. He appears to like me, and I believe it is only a matter of time before he begins to show his true colors.

Yesterday was 'Leave-the-new-girl-at-the-register-by-herself-during-a-rush' day. I lived through that okay. At the school when I am left to my own devises, at least I can rely on my own resourcefulness to pull myself out of (or closer to) whatever disaster I may be headed towards, In the prepackaged land of computers and retail, I have no such luxury. I can't just make up whatever button will allow me to do a return, or invent a process that will stop a barcode from coming up with nothing no matter how many times I scan it.. grrr..

It is shocking to me that when people know someone is having a hard time they will retreat-- keep their distance and not want to 'be a bother'. My sister just recently read a book about Catherine Lord, a woman who was diagnosed with cancer (she was a bunch of other things, Harvard professor, archivist, artist, etc.. sister wrote a speech for John Lithgow and the president of Harvard to read at the Harvard Arts Medal thing held in her honor.. look her up.. ) and GUESS WHAT!?! When people found out she had cancer there weren't many folks who like.. supported her. People she worked with, people she had known forever just kind of retreated.. didn't want to 'bug' her. Or some bullshit. I like to think that I'm not one of those people-- the ones who wouldn't lend a hand to someone they knew was going through one of the hardest things they could possibly go through.. ever.. In fact, I'd say that I'm the opposite.. more likely to unwittingly, out of concern, try to help out people I'm not all that close to, or really shouldn't.

I met a guy last night who was in recovery of some kind of cancer. I know this because he was wearing his cancer meds in a small vial around his neck- so I asked him what it was.. lucky I didn't go with my first path of inquiry, which was to ask if it was a vial of Billy Bob Thortons blood. He seemed really gentle, really fragile, and really grateful, I wanted to give him a hug. I've been going back and forth about why he may be wearing it around his neck-- seemed a little weird. Of course people are going to ask about it, of course that will give him the opportunity to talk about it, maybe good, maybe bad, maybe a little self indulgent, maybe I should give the guy a break. He's 24, living with cancer. Maybe he enjoys that every time he feels the weight of his little canister, every time someone asks him what's in it, he is reminded that he is going to live.

These are the people in your neighborhood.

Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to update my blog.

I don't know how long it just took me to get this page to work-- but in terms of musictime, it has taken 3/4 of a trance cd. 3/4!!

I probably should have given up.. I don't really have that much to say..

Last week a Darknight went on a quest to save a Dumbass in distress. That sounds a little harsh, but to know the Darknight, and to know the Dumbass, one would understand there there could be nothing else the Darknight would rather do.

I learned all kinds of groovy things. Like if you come upon a burning meth lab, and the rider has been thrown 30 yards from his automobile without his helmet, you should administer 400mg of charcoal.. immobilize the leg above and below the joint.. and make sure you put the childs head in a 'sniffing' position to clear the airway.. so you can properly call for ALS.. place them on the fatperson-tray.. begin 2 minutes of CPR.. do not try to AED the frozen homeless persons K-hole, in spite of his central line.. be mindful of axial loading footballers-throw them a rope if listing, inert, in the deep end.. if there is an empty container of pills next to a rabid fox, be sure to get SAMPLE data from spectators BEFORE trying your ABCs, directing movement from the head, or clearing snow away from his airways.. recognize that C-spines are the worst thing in the world.. safely dispose of yours while doing all of the following EXCEPT keeping your promise to the hypothermic teen who wants you to get her a blanket before you stick black, yellow and red tags to all 'surviving' almond scented victims of cyanide poisoning.

I had my own kind of warped Easter Egg hunt this year. Saturday, while walking down the street my nose ran afoul of a teensy fly. Easter Sunday the teensy fly preformed a velocitous exodus from foul-nose-home during a morning nose-blow, he, unlike The Jesus, still dead on Easter.

Alarm.

When 'The Hatching' does actually occur, I will be sure to inform anyone who is interested. I am considering tea with Mr. F soon. Wouldn't that be dandy, if, during a peaceful conversation, *things* began to happen. I imagine my nose would start to weep, there may be a rumble, and then lo! The air would be full of teensy flies! The source narrowing at my nose.. it would be not unlike a plague.. muaha.

Conversation while conducting a tour through the guilty pleasure section of my itunes. The Black Eyed Peas comes on, 'My Humps':

- Really?

- Yeah?! Have you seen the video? It's *AMAZING*.

- Are there camels in it?

My roommate goes to the bathroom roughly every twenty minutes. This is how I can tell he is home/alive.

I found my passport, by the way. Thank you for asking. Finally got freecare.. I think.. that will potentially be an expensive question to answer.

I miss playing softball.

Had a good coffee with a great guy this afternoon. Sat in the sun. Watched people.

Insistent Destructor Lindsay got out 250 fliers on Saturday. I met a pretty orange cat and saw a lot of really cool doorknobs. Whoot.

It is now my job twice a week to be at the front of the adult classes-- to lead by example, keeping the energy up, the movement crisp and the standards high. Means I get to yell a lot, and for the first time in a long time I am sore. This is exactly what I had hoped for at this point.

Exactly.

If only I could stop it with these phone-tarded things. If only.

Let me count the ways.

-Would you still love me if I gained 20 pounds?

-Um, why..?

-You haven't answered my question.

-Well, yeah I would. Where are we talking about here.. and why..?

-Where..? In my.. ear..?

-Well, I don't know, it might get in the way..

-You wouldn't love me if I gained 20 pounds in my ear? What kind of monster are you?

-What kind of monster am I?!?

Lucky Charms: Magically Defenseless..

Chocolate frosted crescent kicks.. my new favorite breakfast cereal. It is satisfying to know that after six hard years I have finally learned how to effectively kick someone in the face if they are standing next to me, facing my same direction. Taken me that long to gain the flexibility-- I believe this summer might mark the one where my knee and my shoulder finally meet. Hoo-hah.

When I take the bus anywhere lately, I pay in cash. I do this because I have not yet had to take the T anywhere, and I do not want to buy a T pass. In doing this I have had the good fortune of treating the bus like a giant vending machine. Just like a regular vending machine, it is possible, and not uncommon, to fight with it about the receivable state of your paper money. I find it best to use something entirely devoid of creases- as though it has been flat ironed between the unyielding buttocks of Zeus himself. Sometimes the irksome little robot will spit it out at me several times before swallowing and suffering my ride along with me, puking and hiccuping with other less crispy commuter dollars.

I saw a picture of a baby on a friends web site. What went through my head was not 'cute! I wonder whose child that is?'.. it was more like 'Where did that come from..?' Squinty eyes, etc.. My sister has been talking a lot about babies.. birth.. having kids.. raising kids.. wanting kids.. It occurs to me that I may have to be a pretty close witness to this process should it ever come about. I am not excited about this and this makes me a bad person. Regardless of what I may think, I do inhabit the body of a young woman, and I may not find it to be entirely confusing and uncomfortable (experiencing a family member in pregnancy, not myself.. I'm getting to that). Like most things that scare me (to my chagrin, I was able to recently find out that were it to come down to being pregnant or having cancer, I'd prefer the latter) I have done some self educating about the whole shenanigan. This, in order to alleviate some anxiety about being at this point in life, where babies can potentially be more than just somebody else's problem.

My bark is far worse than my bite, though. I don't "get" babies.. they confuse me.. they LIKE me.. and most of them don't appear to have an agenda. I suppose it would be neat to hang out with one teach it how to do stuff.. like long division, card manipulations and how to navigate the night sky..

I would like to point out that when I google searched "What does it feel like to be pregnant?" before entering the final word to seal the google deal, the fun loving helpful search bot came up with some possible matches for my anticipated choice of words. Some likely candidates included 'what does it feel like to be high/drunk/on crack?'

Top of the list: "What does it feel like to be a bat?"

...

A different internet search taught me that the almost constantly cracked corners of my mouth are caused by brain damage.

The internet is so smart!!

This (babies and brain damage) brings me to Rosemary's Baby, which I watched earlier today. For those who don't know, it is a story about a young couple who moves into a New York apartment building and befriend an old couple- crazy neighbors, who, Rosemary later believes to be Satan worshipers hell bent on stealing her baby. Mia Farrow plays Rosemary. Thanks to her stint as a voice actress, I can't listen to her become impassioned about anything without overlapping "I'm a unicorn! I'm a UNICORN!!" in my head over the dialog. That her character is concerned about her crazy neighbors engaging in witchcraft and other such pagan activities makes these frequent outbursts and my internal overlay pretty silly. Tsk tsk..

I did laundry today. Also, I'm pretty sure I charmed a bank teller into giving me a free-for-five-years checking account even though I'm technically not a student, unemployed, and new in town. I like this because I dislike paying ten dollars a month for something that should be free, cannot guarantee at least a $750./day balance or a direct deposit from my imaginary job. That sentence was not structured very well.

Had a second interview with Wet-Interview-Place. I will come up with a clever name for it when they decide to tell me, one way or the other, if I can sell them a weekly number of hours of my life in return for at least the promise of stability.

Arlington Food Drive! Cleaning projects!! Byung Ja!!

And I think to myself, I need exact change..

I installed a shower head at Amy's. Uneventful. I only sprayed myself in the face once.

Okay, twice.

The first time I spoke to a real live human being that I could look at today was about seven thirty p.m. EST.

Nothing back from my erstwhile damp impromptu interview. Looks like, again, all signs pointing to 'yes' means 'no'.

You remember those warner brothers cartoons? The one with the big nay-saying bulldog and his little yippy buddy? I think the big guys name was Spike? As far as I can remember the little one often tried to get the big one to beat up Sylvester cause he thought 'Spike' was so tough and so cool.

Chester.

Little dog's name is Chester I recall.

I think the most frustrating part of being me is that I have both of those guys, the hopeful optimistic retard, the staunch brooding buzzkill, in the same head. My little dog is constantly reminding the big dog of these grandiose adventures, convincing the big dog they are easily surmountable if impossible at first glance. Big dog goes after the prize, gets the snot kicked out of it by unforeseen circumstances. Little dog bounces around, ready for the next adventure, convinced the big dog can handle more.

I spent all of yesterday accidentally over medicating on cough medicine. I did this because I am retarded and I don't know what numbers mean. I was curious why I felt so strange throughout the day.

'Self,' I said. 'Self, why do you feel so weird after just a dose of 'tussin? Why, Self?' Then Self looked at the bottle and wondered why it looked so empty if I had only had three doses. Lifting a groggy arm over to the resting bottle, Self learned a little something about numbers.

What she learned: 4 and 2 don't really look anything alike, written or numerically, certainly not volumetrically.. don't ask me how I got them confused. I slept pretty well, felt a little hungover this morning, couldn't use my hands very well. Completely sucked during Advanced Degree. Had all the control and enthusiasm of a dead fish. UGH.

I still have a cough.

Hit 500 this evening. My hands tingle and are the color of an Oompa Loompa. Hoot.

When I want to receive e-mail from someone, while loading the page to my mailbox, my brain sings a little song using the name of the person I hope to hear from. The song sounds a lot like something someone could do the conga to, and works best if the person's name only has 2 syllables.

Shelley told me that the mirror I have is one of the ones that makes you look fatter than you are. In the really real world I must be approaching AIDS patient status.

Like many people, I used to want to be Luke Skywalker, true ages 9-?. Growing up, Blue Hill was the farthest things from the bright center of the universe, and during school I'd be doodling dragons and knights, daydreaming into the clouds of adventure, intrigue, mystery. I would venture now, that actually being Luke Skywalker probably wasn't a whole heck of a lot of fun. I would imagine there was quite a lot of down time, when he wasn't doing battle with himself in dark caves, or running around with Yoda tied to his back like some freakish three year old.

I feel like I have succeeded in designing a life full of challenge, mystery, and adventure. I'm lately in a position to 'defend my universe' from certain dark ideas, dark paths, bleak take overs. It's, surprisingly, not that hard. I say this now.. in a week I'll be back to doom and gloom, woe-is-me, what-am-I-doing-with-myself-that-is-making-even-the-most-benign-tasks-so-difficult. Kidding.. I hope I wont be there.. though history tells me I might..

I've probably also succeeded in securing a life of relative solitude. I pursue an art that tends to alienate. I have moved around enough to shake off anyone I could, potentially, be seeing on a daily basis.

Soldier Medic visits. He reminds me of all the good in the world.

Then what do polar bears exist for?

My roommate has friends over!! They are two women, I'm guessing mother and possibly girlfriend. I have made an effort to be social-- walked by his room (where they are) in transit to the kitchen so I could get some tea. He said hello, but made no effort to introduce me to his lady entourage. I was thinking it would probably be fine if I introduced myself to them.. said something like "Oh hey! My name is Lindsay, I'm Andrew's roommate! Nice to meet you.. blah dee blah.. "

For reasons unknown I decided it would be funny if I slipped and accidentally called him "Andrea." Because it would be imperative that I not do such a thing, the possibility of this accident actually occurring increased by at least a thousand fold. I kept quiet, hiding behind a cup of tea on my way by his room.

Anyway..

Zhe Rüelz:

There are several different types of chess players. Some play for love of the game, love of the challenge. Some enjoy the playful snobs, the hungry intellectuals, the elite gamers that often compete over such a heady playing field. There are those who seek affirmation and find the sophisticated arena of chess a noble platform to prove their intellectual worth. It is not uncommon that games of chess end leaving one person feeling just slightly dumber than they had earlier, and the other maybe a touch more smug. If you've played the game you have been the fool or the ass at least once, yet as chess is a haughty game of nobility and deep internal negotiations, one does not always get to 'play' the ass, if you take my meaning. Victors of much less esteemed activities such as tic tac toe or lawn bowling may be seen executing enthusiastic fist pumps and exuberant exclamations of "In yo faaaayyyceee!!" towards their former (LOSER) competitors-- such is not the world of chess. Additionally, people don't often play chess to get wasted. The following is a breakdown of a potential "new" way of looking at the chess board, the chess culture, the chess mind. If you find these results unfavorable, I may suggest reversing the game principle, having the drinking be a 'reward' instead of a 'punishment'. Enjoy.

Pawn: sip

Rook, Knight, Bishop: half shot each

Queen: shot (if your opponent gets a queen from a pawn you must take a shot-- but try try try to remember!!! That means they could lose **2** queens!!)

Check: sip

This set up is to be played with some kind of hard liquor (though if you intend to play more than one game you may want to use beer or wine.. just saying). I recommend vodka for hurt feelings, whiskey for hurt faces, gin for complicated rationalizationzzabouthowyoutotallycouldvehadummmrightthere..swearit.. rum for you'rejuzzzocutewhenyouwin/losecommere*grinswaynosetweakhiccup*.. and tequila leads me to part two of this whole reinvention process, which is strip chess.

This requires that the players are on mostly even clothing grounds. Undershirts are kind of necessary for the foolishness of the event to unfold appropriately.

Pawn: accessories, socks, shoes, hats ties etc..

Rook: per pant leg

Knight: per undershirt sleeve

Bishop: per overshirt sleeve

Queen: underwear (if your opponent gets a queen from a pawn that is instant nudity for you. hoot!)

Check: acts as the pair to the removal of sleeve or pant leg. If there is not an item of clothing that has already been 'started' the act of putting someone in check defaults to accessories.

Things to consider:

Removal of both sleeves/pant legs is the same as losing the clothing item.. duh.

Don't be a jerk and wear all your winter gear to the game.

Don't be a ho and wear pasties and a g-string and consider them 'accessories.'

If someone begins to feel sick (either from over drinking or over nuding..), that isn't fun.

Being an ass keeps others from wanting to pinch yours, chess is a game of the mind.. don't lose your mind.

If mixing the two activities be sure all parties are comfortable with each other-- draw cards to see who plays under what rules? Who is naked and who is drunk? Switch?

Use protection. T'would be a shame to have to limit drinking chess and naked chess to nights when the kids aren't around.

Augment as needed.

I'm probably going to scream..

I've lost my passport.