I am lazy

I knew that already, but it was revealed without a doubt tonight at my first OHRG practice. This last month has been full of nothin' but me sittin on my butt feeling sorry for myself. I am sooo of out of derby shape it's embarrassing. Certainly there are excuses for poor performance: it was hot as hell, I hadn't been in pads in awhile, etc. But honestly I'm just once again out of shape, and need to double time it so I don't completely embarrass myself in front of everyone. Oh, and I was afraid my new coaches wouldn't work it as hard as Ken, Bullshit. They keep it going.
Anyway, I feel great despite the mediocre showing. I'm gonna step it up so I can feel even better.

Things That May Redeem Columbus

The German Village


Natalie Dee lives here (thanks Eva Lasting Jawbreaker)


SPACE


Katzingers is YUMMY


The Ohio Rollergirls
(very supportive despite my current passive/passive attitude)


The Guinness tastes eight times better here, I promise.

Why, Look, It's Another SPT

We can't find the cable that connects the camera to the computer so there are no current self-portraits to post. Instead I'm giving you to glimpses into the April of yore, which aren't technically self-portraits. But you just wanted to see my crazy mug right?

Nostalgia and sass at the base of the Arch:



Me with a fish:

We're here!

Well, hello Columbus. We arrived on your gleaming doorstep last night. I haven't seen much of you yet, only the Kroger, and the parking garage, and the temp apartment full of my nemesis, beige carpet; but you are my new home, and I promise you I will try to be positive and buoyant until you give me significant reason not to. I cut my bangs, short and thick so you you might see my face and we might become acquainted more quickly. Oh Columbus, you are my arranged marriage, my unknown bride hidden beneath a veil. I'm sure you have warts, as I too bring my share of flaws to the altar, but I will do my best to embrace you for all you're worth.

Day of Sad Brown Eyes

Diana's were huge with trying to not feel a certain way.
Ryan's Mom's were winey and lonely.
Mine were terse and gleeful and dull.
Ryan's were darting and distant.
My dad's were full and supportive, with a flash of regret.

Easter=Stuffed

My family and Ryan's family seriously overdo the food thing on holidays. And since we have to make two stops in one day, it feels like my belly is going to burst. I know other people have things like "willpower" but it's difficult to say no to whomever cooked the meal and spends the whole of the event tempting you with worldly delights.
To work off some of the calories we invented a game called "Total Chaos" wherein we stood in a circle and passed around a football, a volleyball, a soccer ball, a hacky sack, and a nerf football thing... oh yeah, all at THE SAME TIME. It was awesome ADD fun, just the sort of game I can latch onto.
Bedtime now. We have a big day of organization/packing/throwing away tomorrow.

One Way to Live a Life

We dyed eggs at Ryan's parents tonight. It seemed like a good idea at the time, however both Ryan and I are a little 'different' and always conceptualize 'different' things which doesn't translate well to Paas and hard-boiled eggs. This means we ended up with eggs resembling Bolsheviks, Jackson Pollock art on a bad day, and runny faces. Also eggs decorated with the Preamble, girls on skates, and one with a large X with a note about Egg apartheid ('Brown Eggs in 2007'). There may be pictures in the future.
We've been doing massive amounts of laundry in prep for the move. I seem to have a major sock issue. People joke about sock gnomes that steal one sock from every load. I think they stalk me. I have a total three pairs of matching socks at the moment, and one member from all the pairs I've owned in the last five years. What the hell happens to them all?
On the Ryan geek front: He found his blueprints for the Rocketeer jet pack in his dad's rolltop desk.
Oh, and I forgot to mention we were fortunate enough to catch a Cardinals game at the new Stadium. Oh my freaking lord is it gorgeous. We lucked out and had the most beautiful day of the year and luxury box seats right behind homeplate. In general, I sort of scoff at the luxury boxes, but since we got to sit outside the whole time on cushy new seats with a full on view of the field at the upper half of the Arch, I'm not complaining. I'm not a huge sports fan in general, at least not a FAN (okay I did have a Janet Evans, Summer Sanders poster when I was younger, but that's swimming which really only other swimmers follow; and I do have a Mike Bibby child-sized jersey, but that's more Ryan's influence than anything). I try to stay current with what's going on, but I'm no stats monkey. I was a little sore about the dismantling of Busch Stadium last fall, just because it was so much a part of my St. Louis experience, but wowee if the new park doesn't heal some of the pangs. It's seriously lovely and constructed with the fan in mind; it's almost enough to bring me back to the days when I loved watching Willie McGee and Ozzie play.

Uhuh

See I promised comics, but our scanner software has gone AWOL, so you'll just have to hold your horses (yes, even the Palomino). Also I'm am verrry slow because today I cashed in my birthday massage and facial at one of the local frou frou spas. Which means I'm all loosey goosey.
I enjoyed them both very much, despite a longstanding war against other people touching me and paying me mind in general. I am not a fan of the level of nakedness required, either, but who can care when someone's feeding your thirsty skin with pretty-smelling oils and working out knots that have probably been tied up since you were five? I caught a glimpse of my self in the mirror inbetween the massage and the facial, my hair was tossed asunder all post-coital like. Weird.
The facial was even better, she used light stuff on my skin so I'm not all chafy like when I try to do anything besides washing it. I've learned the absolute superb nature of a hot towel wrapped around the face (several times over) and also thought up some new things for my antlered puffin story. According to Ryan I wasn't supposed to think at all during the ordeal, but who can shut their brain on and off? Certainly not me.

Oh Ryan, You're Such a Ryan

We spent most of the day going through Ryan's stuff at his parents' house. I realize that I have outlined his quirky obsession with replicas before, so I will not harp on the fact that we packed several found objects that are to be used in the construct of MST3K puppets, that his communicator pin was slightly scratched, or even that he own many dead animal parts for no good reason. These are all things that can be worked into a whimsical home design. No, what is troubling about my husband is that he seems incapable of throwing ANYTHING away, including old tolietries and or thinning out his multitude of leather jackets. I must admit that he was a good sport today, even though he was starting to sour toward the end. My find of the day was a stack of his comic strips that he used to draw when us "creative types" would go to coffee shops to pretend to accomplish our artistic goals. They're really funny in a Ryan sort of way. As long as I have internet access I will be posting them once a week on Wednesdays in place of the scheduled DHS brouhaha.
For my three to four readers who actually live in the Lou, we are departing on the 19th or the 20th next week. So if you have the time, I'd like to say goodbye (actually no, I normally try to avoid goodbyes, but probably I should) lemme know when you're around.
Also I'm going to try to keep with regular posting, but I am not sure how much internet access I'll have once I'm there. I'll be back eventually, don't abandon me!

Superhero

So pretty much I want to be a superhero. Even if that means I have to wash the bright red lipstick off my face when I want to go to bed.

THE END.

Shananana

So I am thinking big picture today. The plan I have come to is this:

Enroll at OSU in their winter quarter
Major in Comparative Studies (Cultural) or Art History or History (or some major/minor combo)
Graduate
Enroll in a Masters of Library Science program that has an archival element (and info tech)
Graduate
Probably still be unemployed

The most frustrating thing about career testing is I always end up with a list of moonbeams and fairy dust. Basically I would be an excellent novelist, illustrator, etc (how they know this without evluating product is of course suspect). Since I live in the real world, I need to find a satisfying career that incorporates a paycheck and that is what I hope the above will accomplish for me. It's probably far-fetched, but less far-fetched than a publisher stumbling into my home picking up my scratch notebooks and declaring me a bestseller.

Okay, here's a bit of truth. I'm hoping by writing this out some of these things will take form outside of myself and I can be done with them. As if it weren't painfully obvious, I have a sort of low grade depression. I say low grade because I am not suicidal, but also because most of the time it's like a slow low hum at the back of my head and in my chest. It's something that I've struggled with for awhile (by which I probably mean my whole life, including the wee-est years of childhood) in various permutations. This year I was man enough to get off my butt and do something about it, despite my half cynicism of the psychology industry. I got drugs. Drugs that worked for the most part. And drugs that I took myself off two months ago for no better reason than my refill ran out and it was a weekend. I had just been effectively cleared as 'sane enough' by the shaman-ish psychologist I had been seeing for a few months and figured, maybe I don't have to shell out a $30 copay every 60 pills or so. I was fine and good, and my drug man even let me go with, "I feel like I should tell you to get back on them, but I'm not going to." Lately however, I've been feeling the tendrils of it reaching up again. In fact I've been experiencing some older behaviors/feelings that have been absent since before this current round of meds. There is something unnerving about being 25 and finding the same awful quirks that plagued you when you were 19 coming back home to roost. I don't want back on my diet of SSRIs, but I am finding it disheartening to discover that this thing that I thought I might have licked is really more like a virus that I can supress but never eradicate. That it can and will periodically bubble up to the surface like genital warts or shingles.
I have a hard time talking about. describing this because in general I don't think most people's concept of depression or mental health matches its form in my life. When I use the term depression, I feel like I am automatically relegated to either fakely dark, misunderstood or pill-popping suburbanite status. For me it's not so much darkness or ennui as this other prickly sensation that is completely separate from what I would consider my core. It's this prickliness that fusses around in the day to day, pushing me in directions I don't want to be going or, even worse, not pushing me at all. In general it just makes everything a little bit harder, a little bit rougher around the edges. If I were a different person, I could probably plow through, get a little scraped and move on. However, my defense against most uncomfortable things seems to be to fall into dreaminess which anesthetizes me to the hardness but also leaves me stuck in the rut of it.
Yup, that's it. I don't know why I needed to tell that, but there it is.

SPT: More Face

Sometimes when I'm taking pictures of myself, I like to pretend that I am having a blast or someone just said something really clever like:
"Tribal tattoos are the last bastion of existentialism in the contemporary moral climate."
or
"Poop."
When really I'm just shoving Ryan's camera in front of my face. This picture is a perfect example, I look so content. Fake!
But I figured I'd show the softer side instead of pasting up another picture of me snarling like a ravenous raccoon.















Oh, who the hell can resist?

Blabber

Pretending you are ninety-year-old woman wearing large pearls and larger dark glasses is not a very good seduction technique. You think it will be, but hiding your teeth beneath your lips and pretending to gum your target of affection does not result in overwhelming lust.

Thinking about the future is evil.

Remembering the past is worse.

But fully existing in the present is worst of all.

I have seventeen million eyelashes and recently I've taken to making them more predominant with mascara, but the only thing it highlights are my lower lids making me look sadder and sleepier than I already do.

Recently I've been conceiving stories (so much easier than completing), the most recent features a puffin with antlers and a girl who uses her fingers as guns.

There is something heavenly about wine, when you don't drink it too often.

I am not drinking it today.

I am hungry all the time. But not really for food. In fact my stomach aches.