today: a slow oozy day following the little weekend trip. funny travels with roommates and such. la: quite the sprawl, too many cars, but funny to briefly visit among nice folk. good to be reminded of this fine bubble i am in, happy to return to. interesting bits: the beach, scraping heels and toes along the sand, lush plant filled cute cafe, exceptionally gay lasik surgeon who assumed my mates and i were a pack of lesbians, mark ryden's ambiguous juxtaposition of kitsch and creepy paintings, too much time in the car, traffic, exhaust, the fashion district (a combination of the taiwanese night market, the mission where i live, canal street in new york china town, plus new york's garment district), not terribly thrilling contemporary art, out at a teeny techno party, staying up all night lounging in a hotel room, soaking in the spa come seven, the lovely feeling of circadian rhythms kicking you into a wonky wakeful state once the sun is out despite no sleep (it has been a very long time).

(warning to you, should a rare random reader drop in, the following is embarrassingly, ruminatively girly, apologies for not terribly interesting babble)

now: the mental memory problem. crafting regret and should haves and could haves. enhanced by sexual frustration. yes. i am an absurd little creature. currently i am wishing i had been an honest responsive to flirtation charms playful nudges and all that from the friend of a friend who drove up from san diego for this techno shindig. but it is quite astonishing how self-conscious i become when among pals and pleasing boys. i do not like to admit my informal affections. plus, all those playful nudges, fingers lightly brushed against fingers, hand on the small of the back drove me crazy. positive crazy. sort of. these things became far too intense in my head because it has been _so_ long since i have experienced these little affections. especially long since they have come from a welcome, attractive, seemingly smart fellow. with the exceedingly soft hands of a philosphy phd student. ha. who needs marketable skills?? though there was also this complicating delay, because i really thought he was gay for a while mainly because his connected friend is gay and he was, in my opinion, well and neatly dressed (yes, i am buying into a stereotype). and was fighting off being attracted to him for such a reason. and while being quiet and mildly nervous amidst too many affably chatting people in a too small hotel room (nervousness exacerbated by insufflated something, i admit), i kept finding him looking at me (as i, apparently, kept finding myself looking at him). this further exacerbated my self-consciousness and vague confusion (secret giddiness). So yes, later at the shindig, he keeps talking to me and those miniature affections. no. apparently not gay. i am nervously charmed. he is not boring (a rarity!). very cute. lovely smile. of course, i am clouded by the way my body/mind magnifies those little brushes of the fingers. and i am fairly guarded because i am always guarded, but even more so when the charmer has taken ecstasy, fictional niceness...or extension of the regular. tut tut. but. ug. ok. confusion. when it is time to drive back to the hotel, my roommate tries to be kind to my possible inklings...she keeps asking if i want to sit in the front seat with him, if she should go in the other car, but i say oh no it's fine since we are already poised by the proper car doors. so. egads. unwilling to admit those little desires. i like to be subtle and secret. no one will ever know what's in there. never! no! oh well. trickle on. nothing much goes on. the chill in the air and the fatigue squelches original plans for late night beach visit. he leaves to drive the couple hours home. oh.

repression! oh god! oh well. i feel rather squelched myself. and it is all very silly really. to dwell at all. on (imagined) opportunities lost with mister san diego far away boy. though it is so rare that i experience such pleasantly seemingly mutual attractions that my mind blows them all out of proportion. well. i suppose my sexually frustrated body plays a mighty role. well...maybe it was a genuine mutual charming potential. blah blah blah. oh oh though, just a kiss would have been a pleasure. it has been much too long. though there is that problem too: this physical business makes my emotions and thinking go spinning out of control. so in theory i try to operate in this silly logical safe and sound realm where one ideally befriends and gets to know first (the horribly slow process of learning some trust) before i get all distorted by tactile bliss titillating some strangely sensitive underused parts of my brain and mind. but this repression seems pretty bad for me too. some part of my mindbody is definitely screaming (or..uh...typing on a keyboard) for some social/sexual normalcy, while all my anxious little timid selfconscious untrusting suspicious pieces are happy to hold me in check. yes. oh god. how finely freudian she is. my superego with little ego and id thoroughly reigned in. ha ha. ok. must end my female ruminations. be a trooper. hire a male prostitute. go shopping at good vibrations. pretend i am just fine. la la la.

(there see, busy little mind goes rollicking along. further support for reasons to meditate. which, a no good little monkey, i did not do this morning. tut tut.)

ah'm a little something shaboo. well i guess i am going on a long long drive to los angeles tomorrow with the mates. a curious affair. i was noting to one mate as we rode the public bus that i have this problem of feeling undeserving. of making myself muddle into a guilt ridden puddle when i go forth in attempts to have fun time without feeling like i deserve it. yes. it is true. is this terrible? i ask myself. maybe you too. perhaps when i take it too far. i've ingrained it somehow. unintentionally funny mothering has turned me into this crazy lady whose suffering and struggle ought to equal her bright and might. the equation is meant to balance. it would make much sense. i feel bad about my enjoying this period of unemployment, clay deployment, wriggling in my skin. wriggle. so. what? well.

anyways. i am in a cafe again. same old. atlas. again. ahem. hip gentrified mission haunt. though not really in the gentrified spot. i applied for a job as "play tutor." which sounds rather goofy if i think of it too much. to play with an autistic boy in smart communication facilitating ways. though perhaps this will be bad for my already baddened back. fingers crossed. i exercised the various parts of me. two weeks. will one ever feel the body change just like that? i would like my hamstrings to be wonderfully lengthening. i would like to fold myself in half quite thoroughly. yes yes. like a stapler. dreaming to be an office supply. or a research associate number two. a more dramatic and multitasking office supply. i used to love those swiss army knives of the office world that appealed only to children that never used them. ah yes. in my youth i was obsessed with pens.

in my subadulthood i am less obsessed. obsessed with becoming unobsessed i guess. though i can't help but enjoy tableware and making things out of clay which collect in boxes. though my new plan has been to put a bit more intention into these things. a bunch of mugs for roommate's mum (she loves the "milky stuff!" she said as she admired something i made once), for example. so this is fairly fun. though it is the problem of overthinking as is customary. obsessed with become unobsessed.

the other day i came upon a book called "women who overthink" which diagnosed my absurdity fairly well. offering fairly shallow solutions which i had already thought of. how quaint. how fun. i am among the cliche crowd i guess.

obsessed with being uncliche? no no. what i ought to be is inured to this itchy similarity to everyone else. and go ahead and not be a scared little snoot and speak.

yes.
speak.

hoot, howl. etc.

i always quite liked to make noises at the autistic boys, mimicking the funny self-stimulatory cries that came out of their mouths. "deeee-arrrrrr!" high pitched "eeeeeeeeee!" "eee eee uh bye uh eee eee uh bye uh ee ee ay ay!" "wa deeeee deee wa deee deee" or the deaf russian boy's deafening roar grunt or engine like grind.

i am curious about those funny freudian derivative guys who advocate those long sessions of explosive screaming release. perhaps this would be good for me.

this fellow robert stokoe has a theory that some form of sign language came first--that our human hands and big brains came before our long throats and high heads. our fine opposable thumbs made communication of objects and verbs much easier. especially when our grunting ancestors' bipedal locomotion made our hands no longer necessary for stabilizing the chimpish overbent gait. chimps can't pick up, aim, and throw like we baseball humans can. yes yes. i like this idea. it circuitously validates my frequent inability to speak.

thus therefore i think this is compleat. as olde english writers sometimes spelled it. it has gotten later than it should have and i am slated to trim the various mugs and bowls before the weekend's things begin. supposedly we are meant to leave at 6am tomorrow. wise but deadly. but ok. ahoy.

clack clack. the small (joyful envy) stab of mystery roomie finding part time employment. sky is getting cloudy. laundry. smoothie. failed sit. cafe. internet. caffeination. trying to remain afloat. the daring dance. a sparse little something as i rush from the cafe to make it to an apartment openhouse. i wish there were words to say farewell that said those things like blessed be and wishes best and honoring the divine with in you without making me cringe a little. words that weren't so overused and toned with mush and cliche. but ok. here we go.

plan articulations i thought would be interesting. to me. ahem. all this time i've got. my small plan is to achieve the institution of habits before the universe of the future drags me into bodily laziness and mental overdrive. i believe it is possible. though the way my anxious sizzle gets crackling once the world gets further underway. oh no. no no. ok.

the daily things that i should like to not forsake:

15 minute meditation sit (initiated this morning)
making my bed
morning smoothie dosed with wheatgrass and royal jelly and flax seed oil
stretching and strengthening posturally significant pieces of me
alexander technique inspired lying with my knees bent or feet on the wall, lengthening and widening and breathing

ideally all the stretching and strenghtening will lead to me feeling more able to do yoga (without the unsettling feeling of doing postures wrong such that they may cause subtle harm...e.g. the awkward curving of my back in doing downward dog because my hamstrings are so remarkably tight).

perhaps crunchy california can have positive healthy influence.

i should like to think all this intention will help my body heal. help de-numb those silly toes. and give my questionable discs a bit more support for all their trouble. i also like to think perhaps my variable mental state might be helped by all this healthy effort. institution of small healthy routines that encourage mindfulness. perhaps? i am certain there is required some more mental explosive emotional hoo ha as far as the negativity that strikes my perceptions and interpretations of all manner of social beeswax. but i would imagine a bit of intention, still attention, sitting every morning might assist in the distortion lift.

so the old fundamental problem: a great host of negative biases. plus! usual efforts to counteract--try to be positive. postive expectations. but, silly boo boo that i am, i concoct these perfectionistic scenarios in my head and tell myself, ok, go forth, it will go just this way! and, of course, perfectionisitc expectations unfulfilled from the get go, leads to quickly retracted everything. this tense turtle with shoulders up to the top of her head. ho ho ho. returned even more forcefully to the negative land. even by a marginally successful enounter, event, whatever. so ok. one ought to go forth with as few expectations as possible. i think. but. i am not sure how this happens. openness. love. crunch. crunch. crunch. so. will test the hypothesis. regular meditation practice can help to release one from automatic expectations and thoughts and from the unfortunate human head assertion that thoughts and expectations are so goddamn important (especially those self judging punishing superego thoughts that torment me so thoroughly). oho.

ahem.

this is it.

uh oh. the test of time. i am in a cafe. outside. inside. eavesdropping on bicycle messenger and his lady friends. san francisco thirty something chatter. in bicycle shoes. but my computer is to die shortly. and perhaps the pressure is too much. toooo much. yesterday a curious visit with my father. i always feel i am disrupting their household energies. wifey does not like me. perhaps grumpy because of her weight control issues. but it was fairly funny to have a beer with dadster. hear him complaining about his crazy lady boss at work. and chit chat about lifey stuff confusion. give me fatherly advice (don't worry about making mistakes). and all that. always makes me wonder whether father role filled while growing up would have been a better mental something for me. oops. reserve battery power. black out screen imminent. good bye.

ain't no one clicks the recently updated shimmy sham out of curiosity anymore. i guess i don't either. tut tut. readership shmeadership. thus my counter small remains it. perhaps sometimes i look wistfully at my old blog where things were written and things were read. and oh alas how things were left for dead. well today i feel better. this angry morning and early awakening poor sleeping (the fault of two beers, fatigue and general dismay). i wallowed briefly. read. soaked my feet (indeed, the still-numb foot has this puffy look to the toes, and mister numb big toe is quite unwilling to bend towards me much at all, perhaps a disused muscle sort of tightness afoot), took a nap (how absurd i feel, unemployed lady taking naps). but i needed it. it helped to fix me. attempted phone call to prospective hopefully employer. failed. voice mailed. ok. library looked at pottery books for inspiration. i've decided to handbuild a bulbous poddy insectbody-like bottle after i looked at my karl blossfeldt book last night. in betweener on the way stop at pearl art supply for teeny tiny brushes for my newly acquired gouache. the on the way there starbucks stop for caffeination and reading (currently and nearly finished: "molecules of emotion: the science behind mind-body medicine" by candace pert). the on the way there stop at whole foods for måche lettuce, soy milk, acerola, feta, et cetera. i bought a very small packet of bee pollen to nourish my weird food behavior lately. this lady likes her little nutrients hidden in other bigger nutrients. ho ho. finally i made it to pottery where i trimmed three big bowls and began building my poddish piece. it was thoroughly lovely to sit and smooth out coils of clay. which i never ever do. i am always bending over the wheel. and so perhaps this is better for some quiet fine motor mentation time. and better for my back too i suspect. mix up those pottery body postures. ok. a synopsis of my day. it is good to find myself in a far better mental state than previously. how therapeutic all this artistry can be. oui oui. well i have eaten my late night salad dinner and pitter pattered in my blog. so surely it is time to move on. ever feeling like those lofty thoughts ought i to have, recorded here. oh me. but no. synopses. meals recounted. tap tap. also i have decided to take one of these tiny moleskines (not full fledged but skinny soft sold in sets you see i got them a while back thinking oh how useful someday they would be, see? right) in an attempt to for dream remembrance. yes. i am easily influenced by advice given in books apparently. candace pert told me to. and, well, once this little professor in the east-west psychology program at california institute for integral studies told me to when i went to the info session. attempt to remember. place writing space by the bed and all that. so i will, ok? it was eerie how i started to remember my dreams while convalescent in cleveland. though i have since stopped. except for this weird dream involving murphy brown (i think i actually was murphy brown for part of it) and jim dial also played some important role. but anyway. efforts to remember. how freudian of me. now. as once i said before, ending time is nigh. good night.

steady steady. yes'm. ready. ok. wello. i'm i'm. oh. so. unsophisticated. overrated. no. i'm. just regular. snotty. snooty. snobbery. i am overinflated. no. none of this. well. i wrote the preceding earlier. what i think i am now is sad. so far i was doing so well maintaining my relative equilibrium. but this bubble is bursting. perhaps my hormones help. my superego too. my nonproductivity. unselfsupportableself. unsociability. the changeless seeming change. wishes for different. those finely crafted thick metaphorical walls. theimagined unattainable hand on my head. preferences to be enclosed in nourishing warm until i feel better. but there is this cold bed, controlling tears. stupid fabricated friends. stupid fears. all this old nonsense which was more easily ignored when time is filled with requirements. one should be so happy to have unstructured time. i feel that sinking feeling. pooling up. up. up. we'll call it temporary. we'll alternatively attribute--my mother, menstruation, fear about my back, the alignment of the stars, the small amount of alcohol. no fair though. i went out to dance. quietly did. one does not return from dancing ready to cry. it is simply against the rules. forfeit. cancellation. invalid move. ok fine. right. sleeping improves dismay beyond measure. oh yes. sink simply sleep'ly down i will. ok.

how interesting to relive those final months of 2003. yes? in a day or two i will write a letter of resignation all proper like and such since returning to my back breaking work (ha ha) seems less than appealing. and so. among the unemployed ranks again. righto. the interesting combination of blissfully unfilled time and general anxiety at being unproductive and as far as money goes, my time is worthless. how absurd. so i am on a strange health kick meanwhile. i ate great stacks of meat for the month with mum. which i suppose is quite normal in the scheme of things. but two years in a vegetarian co-op in college and then living out here in crunchy land bay area has apparently made me less of a meat eater than in my younger years. so. interesting. now time with mom results in a healthful backlash. this along with the fear of the hacking cough virus which seems to be afflicting everyone. and little lady doesn't want to reherniate her disc with massive attacks of coughing. spooky shit. so i have been fashioning smoothies every morning. and hiding flax seed oil and wheat grass and maybe royal jelly among the fruity things. i feel like i am some sort of poseur. this man commented admiringly on my groceries when i got off the bus at the same stop. and i felt i was misrepresenting my true massive meatiness of the past month. resisting my uncomfortably crunchy tendencies. i love my carne asada. always and forever. plus i have been eating salad. totally uncharacteristic. mache lettuce introduced to me by my ol german babysitter. yum.

also: happy chinese new year. it was wednesday though. the year of the rooster. yes yes. my very own year. auspicious they say. so everyone has a good year when they are 23 or 24 and every 12th year beyond. i don't think age 12 was so good. the chubby awkwardness of puberty. transitional creepiness. i think that was when they put me a year ahead in math class and i ate lunch later than all my pals. though i did win the school spelling bee. ha. and got fifth place in the state. ho ho.

i went out almost sort of. i mean it was to a cafe i have been to twice this week already. but this time with my mate and a beer and bluegrass. so that was a little thrill. except for the not so good band (the bastard brothers) who were trying way to hard to be funny (lame, as my mate would call them), was rather tiring before the excellent band appeared (grizzly peak). so that was charming. i have not gone to any sort of exciting nighttime activity in many many weeks. eek. perhaps more bluegrass this weekend as happens when there is a festival. right.

things are fairly mundane as i read this shebang. but. well. glub glub glub. so. goes. it.

rotund wumble.

i am in sf. ho ho ho.