traveling swallowing dramamine

of cattle or of gods.

monday afternoon, ian and i went to autozone on college dr. to deal with my crap-ass car battery (thanks for the jump, stosh...). while the friendly autozone people were charging my battery, ian and i walked down to taco hell to get some dinner. ian, who has finally heard back from the Navy, said that sometimes, when  he thinks about going through the officer training program, he gets all excited--and sometimes the thought absolutely terrifies him. i asked him which it was at that moment--he said he was excited--and i said that was good.

then we started talking about the future in general--and what's in store for us. theoretically: after ian graduates, he's going to be travelling all over the world doing Navy stuff. and i'm going to be somewhere far away starting my real life, too. and it's entirely possible that i will never see him again. we talked about this very matter-of-factly--because it is a matter of fact. it's weird to think about.

the thing is, i grew up in new orleans, attended grammar school and part of high school there, went to an in-state boarding school, and then went to the state university. at LSU i am surrounded by everyone i have ever known. LSU has an enrollment, all told, of about 30,000 people. i am one out of 30,000. this should make me feel very small and insignificant and random and unknown. then how is it that i can't walk more than thirty feet on this campus without running into a friend?

i did the math one day--a rough estimate of how many people i've met over the course of my life that are currently at LSU: six cousins, the kids that went to st. catherine's, the kids that went to mt. carmel, the kids that went to lsmsa, the kids that went to ADVANCE, the kids that i've met doing theatre and ballet--i probably know about 1,000 people at LSU. 1,000 out of 30,000. that's 1 out of 30. every 30 people i pass in front of the Union--i know 1. i mean, it doesn't work out quite like that--but it feels about right.

when i graduated from high school i wanted more than anything to go out of state for undergrad. it didn't work out. i was pissed. but then i spent that summer, the summer of '01, in NYC dancing at the ailey school. and even though i went up to new york with one of my very close friends, i still felt as though i were absolutely alone. he felt that way, too. we were both pretty depressed. i dealt with my depression by holing up in my room and reading compulsively for the entire first month i was there. (my body was also in shock, so i didn't really have the energy to go out, but anyway.) michael dealt with his depression by buying phone cards and calling everyone he'd ever met. i ended up having a great time in new york, but by the time i got home, i was so grateful that i was going to school in baton rouge, surrounded by my friends, and only an hour away from my family.

in a year and a half, all of that is going to change. we're all going to scatter. some of us will get married and start families and put down roots in other states or other countries. there's not going to be any anchoring force drawing us back home, together. which means, in some sense, that we're all facing the world, and the rest of our lives, relatively alone. at least, the most alone that we've been since we were born.

i try to imagine what my life will be like--and i have vague plans, like: get an MFA. maybe a PhD. teach high school English for a while, teach at a university eventually, write a book or a play or something...or something...get married...have kids? i don't know. i don't know where i want to live. i don't know who i'm going to marry. i don't even know what genre i want to study in grad school. i try to imagine my future but it's like staring into a dark blank space. i have no idea what the future holds. it's unfathomable. and the not knowing--it's a little bit terrifying.

but then... breton and i were talking the other night, about jason, and her future--she's leaving for France at the end of the summer, and who knows what will happen between them. and she said she knows that, if they had to separate, she would be okay without him--but then--who will go with her on spontaneous trips to San Francisco? who will make her play Frisbee in the sunshine? and i told her that she's smart to think of all the good things that jason brings into her life--but that she should remember she's going to meet all sorts of interesting people over the course of her life--and there are so many people to meet--and jason is not the only person who takes spontaneous road trips and lays in the grass and watches sunsets. my point was not that jason is replaceable--but that there's so much life lying ahead of us--i don't know.

that's just it, i guess. i don't know.

like ian said, sometimes it scares the shit out of me. but sometimes--i get all excited.

and where the hell i've ended up on this glary random day

and i poured my heart out / and i poured my heart out / it evaporated / ...see?

i just listened to "evaporated," by ben folds five, and it made me feel better. if you have never heard this song, you should listen to it. right now! it is beautiful and good.

i got home today: so tired, so hungry. it was 8:30pm. we'd been on the road since 4. me and jacob and katie went up to monroeville, AL last night. a group of us from LSU went to shoot DV for this multimedia performance art piece called "thirteen ways to kill a mockingbird." (monroeville was harper lee's hometown and the basis for maycomb, the setting of TKM.)

anyway, trish, the director, was kinda stressed out and thus kinda bitchy, and we were all tired from driving and also from sleeping on the rock-hard beds at the Budget Inn, but it was a fun trip nonetheless. i got a lawn flamingo made out of PVC pipe. i also tasted my first fried twinkie. (it shall not be the last...) jacob and i split one (they were two bucks each!) and agreed that they tasted like moist beignets. they looked like beignets, too. they even had powdered sugar on them.

on the way home, we got to this split in the interstate where I-65 ends and turns into I-10E and I-10W. and i'm in the lane that splits, and i start to take 10W, and jacob starts flailing his arms and saying, "the other way, the other way!"--as in, take 10E. and i'm thinking, "baton rouge is west of alabama, right?" so i take 10W but i'm freaked out because he's like, yelling and waving his arms, you know? and then abruptly he stops and goes "oh wait. nevermind." and it was funny. so now i get to make fun of him for the rest of his life.

so i get home and i'm fucking exhausted. i haven't gotten a full night's sleep in a week, because of mardi gras and my joyce midterm. and i'm broke, because road trips are expensive, and i'm hungry. and on friday, while i was desperately trying to finish my joyce midterm, i ordered papa john's because i didn't have time to leave the house to find food. i ordered a small pizza, thinking it would be cheaper than a large--but it's also, you know, a lot smaller--so i ended up paying 13 bucks for what amounted to two meals--as opposed to a large, which would have been a few bucks more, but twice as much food. anyway, i was pissed with myself for paying 13 dollars for a small pizza--but i told myself it was alright, because i'd only eaten half the pizza, and when i got back from monroeville i could eat the other half for dinner. and it would be okay. so i get back from monroeville and i unload my shit. my room is a disaster, because i'd basically been holed up for three days working on my joyce stuff: there are clothes and dishes and papers all over the place. and i'm annoyed, because i hate when my room is messy. so then i think, "well, at least now i can eat my pizza." and i look in the fridge, and lo and behold: the pizza is gone. gone without a trace.

i wanted to cry. i'd been thinking about pizza for the past, like, two hours. the pizza that i paid way, way too much money for. gone.

so then i'm like, fine, i'll make some pasta. so i fill a pot with water and put it on the stove and turn the stove on--and ten minutes later i walk downstairs to see if the water is boiling, and it's not, because i turned on the wrong part of the stovetop.

so i'm like fine, i'll make grilled cheese. i throw the water out the pot, put the pot away. then i discover that we're effectively out of margarine. i'm pathetically scraping margarine off the sides of the container...i manage to put together something that resembled a grilled cheese sandwich. while i'm toasting the bread, i go to fix myself a glass of water. we drink water out the tap at our apartment. and the tap water isn't very cold, so i use ice. we have three ice trays. all three of the ice trays were empty. all three of them.

so tired, i am so tired, and sunburned. typical. typical of me to get sunburned. my cheeks and nose and forehead are pink. and i have a stupid-looking sunburn on my neck. and i'm tired, and i'm hungry, and there's no ice, and my pizza is gone. and my room is a disaster.

and all i can think is: this is when you need a boyfriend. the shit nights where nothing is really wrong but everything is fucking wrong and the only thing that will make you feel better is to curl up next to him. because being in his company makes you feel better no matter what. and he says nice things to you and is patient with your ridiculous complaining about pizza and ice trays.

see, i know that i'm being ridiculous. in the grand scheme of things, my missing pizza is completely irrelevant. my family is alive and well. that is enough for me. but you know, if something horrible did happen, i would have friends to get me through it. i don't need a boyfriend for the big tragedies. i need a boyfriend for the stupid trivial shit nights. nights like this.

but i don't have a boyfriend. and i don't really want a boyfriend. and what that means is, at the end of the day--good or bad--all i'm left with is myself. that's a good thing, i guess. what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, etc. and the whole point of being single, right now, for me, is to be alone and be okay with it.

but goddamn.

=======

kierkegaard says:

"[The knight of faith] has grasped the deep secret that even in loving another one should be sufficient unto oneself."

i will not rely on other people to make me feel happy or whole. i can do that on my own. that is what this is all about. figuring out how to do this on my own.

and when all else fails, there's always ice cream. chocolate, chocolate ice cream.

tell 'em large marge sent you.

oy.

just got in from the PCA/ACA conference in san antonio. i was part of a panel on heritage/tourism with jim, ashley, and chuck--we were all talking about the fall of the american steel industry and the aftermath. i presented the two-minute montage (and a corresponding paper) that i'd cut (with tommy) for jim to show to LPB last fall. the panel went really, really, magnificently well. we had fifteen people in the audience (which is apparently good attendance at these things), and they were really responsive to our stuff. this one older woman told us, when we opened the floor for questions, that she was the daughter of a steel worker, and the granddaughter of a steel worker, and she thanked us for, as she put it, telling the story of her life. she was near tears. it was fucking crazy. considering how much i knew about the steel industry and labor party politics going into this project--ie, absolutely nothing--it was cool to see how this project--which i originally thought would be an incredibly boring documentary on shit i cared nothing about--really connected with these people. 

we drove to san antonio friday--got in around four, took a nap, then walked around the neighborhood. we were staying at the marriott rivercenter, which is connected to a gigantic mall. appropriately enough. (PCA/ACA: pop culture and american culture associations; the full title of jim's documentary is Steel Voices: From Mills to Malls and Movies.) the alamo was literally right around the corner. i made so many basement jokes, it wasn't even funny. really. it wasn't funny at all. especially since no one knew what the hell i was talking about. jesus christ, haven't you people seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure?

ate at some mexican restaurant for dinner; jim bought a round of drinks--i had a margarita--a small margarita--but i hadn't eaten since 11:30, and it was like 8:30, and damn that margarita knocked me on my ass. i was so annoyed. i wouldn't have minded if it had just been me and jim and ashley and maybe chuck, but we were also with this other couple from baton rouge: jenn and justin--she's an english PhD. and he was really nice, but she was kind of a bitch. i'm pretty much at a point now where the grad students don't intimidate me and i'm not so paranoid that they're thinking "god, an undergraduate, how annoying." but this girl jenn, she made me uncomfortable. so i didn't want to be drunk in front of her. oh well. she and justin have been married for five years, and the whole night they were finishing each other's sentences and telling each other's stories and looking like they wanted to bite each other's heads off. it was really tense. it made me really not want to be married ever. or at least, to never be part of a married couple that even remotely resembled them.

chuck had brought paulette, who i thought was his wife. they were really cute together, in contrast with jenn and justin, and they gave me hope that married couples didn't all want to kill each other. but i knew that chuck had three kids, including a ten-year-old. and so when i saw paulette, i was like, there's no way this chick has had a ten-year-old kid. chuck is thirty-two, but she looked really young. i thought maybe she was just a young MFA. then i find out from ashley that they're engaged, not married, and she's twenty. which a) explains why they still seem happy and b) is gross and weird.

anyway, we presented at noonish, finished at twoish, walked around and got haagen-daz and some souveneirs, and then began the drive home--through the worst weather i've ever seen in my goddamn life. the rain was blowing horizontal (like in Forrest Gump!), there was so much lightning that i thought i was going to have an epileptic seizure, at one point it started to hail. there was a tornado warning following us most of the way from san antonio to houston. we were averaging about forty mph. it took us an extra two hours to get home.

I-10 was fucking underwater for a lot of it. we kept hitting these random deep patches of water. one of them totally took us by surprise, and jim, who was driving, exclaimed, "motherfuck! shit in my pants!" and that was pretty funny. (to put this in perspective for you: jim is a tenured professor at LSU with a PhD in critical theory from Brown.) by the time we escaped the worst of the rain it got kinda pretty, i guess. probably because i was no longer fearing for my life. the roads were shinywet and the lightning storm was cool-looking. and far away. 

by the last hour of the trip, i was in a trance-like state of utter boredom.  and i was thinking, for some reason, of ADVANCE--past and future--old friends, last year's staff, whether or not i am supposed to be giving adam a ride up to natchitoches in june, etc. and then suddenly "Dust in the Wind" came on the radio. and i couldn't stop smiling. what a ridiculous song. and what fond memories i have of the ADVANCE staff performing it in last year's talent show, with the guys doing interpretive ribbon dancing in leotards. 

as far as i know, ben comes back from new york tomorrow. which means......hm. i don't really know what it will mean.

we shall see.

they're gutting the building this summer.

cameron had decided towards the end of the semester that he wanted a repeat of the drinking party we'd had on ben's birthday, with me and him and ben and barrett all drunk off our asses at ben's house. so i'm like, "OK, we'll call barrett and invite him, and maybe we can invite naomi [also from our joyce class] too, and maybe charles--" but cameron's like, "nah, i'd rather it just be us three."

i tell ben this, and he's like, "that might be a little weird. we should invite more people." so i invite barrett, and rikki, and stosh (cameron has faulkner with both of them, and ben knows them through his other classes and through me), and this cool guy timothy from our joyce class. ben and i decide on sunday that monday night would be a good night to do this. but rikki is in lafayette on monday, and stosh doesn't answer his phone, and we can't get in touch with timothy. and cameron is like, "monday is better than tuesday," and ben can't do it on tuesday because he has to go to an iggy pop birthday party with anna to be her buffer against this lesbian couple that wants to have a threesome with her.

we end up calling barrett, and barrett has edie's keg left over from her finals party saturday night. so me and ben and cameron plan to go over there to help finish the keg--which was miller high life--which at this point is flat miller high life. cameron meets me and ben at ben's house at 10:30 monday night, and i drive us over to barrett's.

except a ton of people were over there: bitoun, jacob, jacob's little brother, jacob's little brother's friend, deville, barrett, ian, sean, murray, philip, daniel, adam, adam's new special lady friend jessica--and then me and ben and cameron. i hadn't seen a lot of these kids in a long time, and i wanted to hang out, but i had ben and cameron with me, and they didn't know anyone, and the point was to drink with people they knew, not with people they didn't. so we hung around for a while--cameron drank some beer and three glasses of rum and coke--i wasn't drinking--ben declined the "champagne of beers" because he'd already had most of a bottle of actual champagne. finally i told them we could cut out and drink somewhere else. and they looked relieved and we left.

i was like, "ok, where to?" and ben suggests that we drink on the levee, which sounds cool, but i knew that breton and jason had a picnic up there one night and got accosted by a policeman, who wanted to know what they were drinking. (grape juice.) anyway, i say, "the levee sounds nice, but could i go to jail?" because i'm still not 21, and having an open container of alcohol out in public is illegal anyway. ben's like, "ok. how about we break into the M&DA building?" and cameron is like "break in?" and ben explains that one of the doors to the music and dramatic arts building used to have a broken lock, and he doesn't think they've fixed it yet.

so we go to the circle K on state street and we try to figure out the alcohol situation. cameron suggests a pack of beer, and ben says, "well, the thing is, ann doesn't drink beer"--which i've never explicitly said. in fact, i've never actually thought about it, but he's right. i don't drink beer. i mean, i'll drink it at a keg party--but i can't ever finish a glass of it--which means that i can't get drunk off of it. so ben says, "ann doesn't drink beer" in this way like he's thinking hard of what we ought to do--and cameron is like "oh really? what does she drink, then?" and ben looks at me kinda thoughtfully and says "bourbon." which is true. and it was one of those moments where you realize that someone is actually watching and paying attention to all of your little details. it made me feel good.

so cameron is like "oh, hardcore," and i'm like "not really--i don't drink it straight or anything"--and they're both like "no, it's still hardcore." which i thought was kinda funny. so ben gets out of the car and goes into circle K. cameron shakes his head and says something about ben being like tennessee williams. and i'm like "how?" and cameron's like "both aries." and i'm like "oh come on" and cameron is like "no, really" and i'm like "well, what are they supposed to be like?" and he says "impetuous." and he says, "i need to be more like that. i need a girlfriend who will make me more like that" and i say "no shit, i'm a total stick in the mud" and he says "no, you're not." and i say "seriously, i'm the least spontaneous person ever" and cameron looks at me and says, "well, your other qualities more than make up for it." and i kind of choke and make aw-shucks noises.

ben comes back with a fifth of jim bean, and we find out that in fact he and tennessee williams were born on the same day. and then i go into circle K and get three fountain cokes. except that they have 79 cent cups, which hold about 16 ounces (too small) and then they have 99 cent cups, which hold 44 ounces (fucking huge). they're out of the 89 cent cups, which probably would have been just right. so i end up getting the 44 ounce cups and filling them three-quarters of the way. and i go back to the car and hand off the gigantic cups and the boys are like "jesus fucking christ" and we drive to M&DA.

ben is driving. he parks across the street in the administrator lot, which has a couple of cars in it, so that we'll be less conspicuous. i guess it's about twelve-thirty. ben opens the bottle of jim bean and pours it into my cup, his cup, cameron's cup. ben says: "and that's the fifth"--the bottle is now empty.  we walk across the street to the front door of the building, holding our gigantic cups. a cop car drives by. alcohol is forbidden on campus. and we're about to break into the music and dramatic arts building. we're holding gigantic cups and there's the cop car and i say "let's walk to the greek theatre" and we swing towards the greek theatre, which is right next to M&DA. the car passes; i ask ben if he wants to double back. he says he'll go check to see if the lock is still broken, and that cameron and i should sit in the greek theatre. i ask him if he wants me to hold his cup; he looks at me like i'm the smartest person in the world and says "that's a great idea." except that it isn't such a great idea because i set the cup down on one of the benches in the greek theatre and it falls over.

ben waves us over to the building; i give him my full cup and take his now mostly empty one. ben yanks hard on one of the front doors and it opens. there's someone practicing in one of the music rooms upstairs. we walk to room 150, which is a small theatre. ben flips on the house lights. we find the switch and the plug for the stage lights, and we turn off the house lights, and we sit on the stage and tell suicide stories, because it seems appropriate. i'm getting to the end of my drink, and ben gets up and gives me some of his. i am getting drunk. cameron tells us about his new year's eve in new orleans--a story which involves a crack whorehouse, a car theft, the kaiser, a gay couple, an indian man, and two gutterpunks.

ben decides he wants to move to the shaver theatre. but the doors are locked and we can't get in. we poke around and we wind up downstairs--i think we were underneath the stage. there's this door up on some steps, and we climb up and it's like this crawl space underneath a wooden platform. i think it was the platform that replaces the orchestra pit. anyway, there was a lamp down there, and we sat and talked and drank some more. cameron found a black plastic cowboy hat. ben got up to pee. he leaves me and cameron under the orchestra pit. cameron says something about how this will probably be the last time he'll see me (he's going on a road trip this summer and back to australia in august). and he says something about how it's been great, and he leans in and kisses me on the cheek and stays there for a long time. and finally he sits back and ben returns from the bathroom and we move again.

i find another staircase, leading down, and we wind up in some kind of crazy boiler room. there are all kinds of pipes and loud humming machines and cobwebs everywhere. ben finds a ladder up to this platform thing, and we go up there and it's prop storage. stacked furniture and piles of framed pictures. my drink is gone. there's a box fan running and japanese lanterns strung up. and there's a dorm-sized microwave on the ground, and a dorm-sized fridge next to it. ben opens the fridge. there are four cold abita ambers inside. they are our destiny; we take them. ben needs to pee again. he wants to pee off the roof but settles for peeing off the prop storage platform into a drain on the boiler room floor. beer in hand, we move again.

cameron wanders off; ben and i end up making out in the green room for a few minutes before we decide we should probably go find him. ben goes upstairs, i go downstairs. i find cameron under the orchestra pit and lead him upstairs. ben finds a locker with costumes in it and hands them out: a blue floor-length cotton skirt for cameron; a lavender granny nightgown for ben; a men's blazer for me. ben gives me his button-down shirt to wear underneath. we move to the third floor. i duck into a practice room and start playing piano. ben and cameron are at the end of the hall--they've opened a window and ben is trying to get onto the roof. he ends up breaking one of his yellow flipflops. he is devastated. but he already has a new pair, and it was time to retire the yellow ones anyway, and what a way to go. the boys come sit with me in the practice room. ben climbs over the piano and sits on the window ledge. cameron stands next to me. i tell them i'm taking requests. cameron says, "can you play something jealous?" which i didn't understand until later.

we move again. we're in the second-floor hallway and ben has to pee, again. i am sobering up; ben is drunk; cameron is piss-drunk. ben leaves for the bathroom. i lean against the wall and close my eyes. suddenly cameron is nosing up to me. he goes to kiss me on the mouth and i turn my head. cameron backs up and says, sort of horrified, "oh, i'm really bad." he looks like he's about to panic; i grab him and pull him to the wall in a one-armed hug and rub his back and he says "thanks." the bathroom door opens; ben comes out; cameron jumps about a mile and tries to back away from me, but i hold him next to me because i don't want it to look worse than it is. i say that i want a cheeseburger from louie's and we go. cameron and i split a burger; ben is falling asleep at the counter, which cameron drunkenly and guiltily interprets as suspicion and anger. he keeps saying, nervously, "is he alright?" and i'm like, jesus christ, could you be any more obvious, "yeah he's just tired." we finish the burger and cameron pays. the guy at the register asks, "hey man, are you alright?" and cameron goes into the bathroom, presumably to puke. ben and i sit in the car and i'm like "jesus" and he's like "what?" and i say "i'll tell you when we get home."

so we take cameron home. he lives on west garfield, and i'm taking us this sort of ass-backwards way--we're not going down nicholson or highland but some random street in the middle. and we pass west roosevelt and west mckinley and ben's like "i think we've gone too far" but we haven't seen west garfield so we keep driving. polk, buchanan, taylor, tyler, and we are in the fucking ghetto and i'm like "okay, we've gone too far" and cameron's like "i think it's just ahead" but i turn the car around anyway, or try to, and we're on some dead end street with ramshackle houses and ben is laughing and i'm like "okay, we're going to die. we're going to get shot." and ben says, "ann, i don't think they just randomly kill people." i'm turning the car around and he is saying "i don't think they just randomly kill people" and we both look up to see this fake skeleton in an orange t-shirt in the front yard of this broken-down house. and ben freaks out, and i am laughing my ass off, and i get us to highland and we head back towards campus. i turn onto west garfield, and we're driving, and cameron's like "this isn't my street" and i'm like "you're drunk, yes it is." and we get to the end of the street, and his house isn't on it. i know what his house looks like, and it's not there, and we get to the end of the street, and ben's like "what the fuck." and cameron's like "told you so." and we take a left and a right and we find the other half of west garfield, and we find his house, and we say goodnight.

i drive us back to ben's house, and we go inside and i tell him about cameron, and he laughs and says, "well, you knew he'd been wanting you for months." and i'm like "what the hell, you were the one who told me maybe he just wanted to be friends." and he shrugged. as if he were unfazed, which i didn't really buy. i kept bringing it up--that night and the next morning--because it had been such a strange evening, and i was weirded out by it, and i guess i wanted to hear that he had been, too--but he just kind of shrugged it off.

the next night i met him at louie's, and we were sitting at the counter, and all of a sudden he said, "man. cameron." and i said "what about him?" and he looked at me incredulously and said "it was fucking weird." and i said, "did you know what was going on?" and he said, "yeah, of course" and i said "why the hell did you keep leaving, then?" and he said, "well, i mean, i had to pee. and i figured you'd either kiss him or you wouldn't. and there wasn't much i could do about it. and i figured you could stand up for yourself." and he said that when he'd come back the first time, when we were still under the pit, and cameron had kissed me on the cheek--when he'd come back, he said cameron had sort of leered at him. which i totally missed. and he said that he didn't want me to think that he didn't care at all--which he knew was how he'd acted the night before--and he said that he also didn't want to act like a jealous maniac.

it was kind of a relief to hear that. it was also a relief to hear that he'd known what was going on. he'd acted like he was pretty clueless about it, which was kind of a surprise, because ben doesn't miss much. actually, ben doesn't miss anything. and it had been pretty obvious.

we went home and went to bed and we're lying there and i tell him that i would have been really sad if he hadn't cared at all, and that i'm glad he cares, and that i'm also glad he isn't a jealous maniac. and i tell him that by the end of the night, when he kept leaving to go to the bathroom, i was starting to think that he was trying to test me. and he looked at me like i was crazy. and i said, "well, i guess that would be a psycho thing for you to do." and he nodded. and i said, "but you know, by that point, it seemed like anything was possible." 

it was a strange night. and it was, i think, the only way to end this fucking apocalyptic semester.

red plastic souvenir

THE TRAVEL LOG
(transposed and abridged)

June 19, 2004 / the hazards of living abroad:

i sent off postcards last week. (becca, elizabeth, meghan, jake: if you ever read this, i either didn't have your address, didn't know your email, or you didn't respond to my email for your address. i still love you. do you love me?) i tried to leave room for the stamp when i was writing out the postcards. but when i went to the post office i discovered that the stamps were the size of Godzilla. so i had to mail these cryptic postcards with words and phrases stamp-obscured.

i sent another batch of mail today: a letter to ben and a postcard to my dad. i left a lot of room this time on the postcard, because i learn from experience. alas, the post office would not be outwitted. a postcard to the U.S. requires a 12-crown stamp. the post office was apparently out of said stamps today. i received a 10-crown stamp that was even bigger than the 12-crown stamp, and two supplementary 1-crown stamps. and a sticker for "priority mail." i swear, they've got a vendetta against me.

from an email to ben:

rikki and i went to the grocery. i tried to buy peanut butter and jelly. i ended up buying some kind of "marmalade," which will suffice, and "nugetta" which is, mind you, not nutella. it is brown, comes in a jar, and has a picture of peanuts on the label. so, you know, i figured...but i was wrong. it's some kind of chocolate peanut butter. like nutella but with more peanut buttery flavor and texture. it's not peanut butter. (snot peanut butter??) but it's damn good. we eat it with our fingers, very quickly. also sometimes on bread.

we also tried to buy butter. that didn't work either. rikki found something in a tub that was next to something that came in sticks. so she figured....but she was wrong. it's cream cheese spread. ah, well.

so lana asked us if we wanted to go see a puppet show on some street corner at 7, and then a black light theatre show at 9:30, and we said yes. but then we didn't have time for dinner, so we cancelled on lana, and got dinner, and then we were going to go to the movie thing at 8--the program screens classic czech movies for free on monday nights--but the theatre is hard to find, and i found the street but not the theatre, and we were already fifteen minutes late, and i hate missing the beginnings of movies. so rikki was like, "fuck it, let's go read at the coffee shop" and i was down. while we were looking for the theatre, we had passed this group of british guys, one of whom looked me square in the eye and exclaimed, "hallo!" and i gave him this tight-lipped smile and we walked on. we doubled back on our way to the cafe, and the guys had slowed down--one of them turned to us and asked us if we knew where some club was, roxy's caesar cafe club, i don't know, i told him i didn't know where it was, and then another one said, "are you american?" but you know, britishy, so the inflection is down at the end.

and so it began. yes, american, from new orleans--
"isn't that where they have the mardi gras?"
yes, we have 'the' mardi gras.
"and the girls all show their tits?"
yeah, the tourists do.
"so how many beers would we have to give you--"

and this is the tricky part, trying to decide if you're going to be mock-offended or actually offended. rikki, flustered, answered "none" and they laughed, and i thought about telling them how over the line they were, but instead said "there isn't enough beer in the world." and one of them asked us if we wanted to stop in at the pub about five feet away and he would buy us a drink. and i looked at rikki and she shrugged, and i shrugged, and so we went. i had a jack and coke, surprise, and rikki had a beer.

there were five of them, from manchester, it was a stag party excursion, in prague for three days. justin was the youngest, 23, the bridegroom, kind of dopey and very earnest. the oldest was his brother, ben, 27, who was shy and had a great laugh, this sort of nerdy chuckle. their cousin "donny" whose name was actually danny but in prague for some reason they started calling him donny--he was really fucking drunk, he'd been doing shots of absinthe all night, and so mostly he was asleep. occasionally he'd wake up and ask questions that had already been answered. and then there was gaz, who had a pierced tongue, and the bar in his tongue had a white tip that said "cunt," which he claimed was his girlfriend's idea. and he also had pierced nipples. and he told me i should read The Alchemist. he was the philosopher of the group. and nick was 25 and sex-obsessed and told me the last book he read was The BFG. which is a great book. roald dahl is, as lana would say, "the shit."

so yeah, five guys, and me and rikki are sitting on this bench against the window of this pub, and the guys are all standing around us, except for donny who was asleep. and they're asking us all these questions, about the states and the south and new orleans and cajuns etc. and we imitated each other's accents. and they're making fun of each other and being very fast and dry and perverse and stereotypically british, except that occasionally justin would look at us and smile dopily and say "we're just kidding, we're kidding" and i'd tell him that we knew they were kidding, and that part of the game was that they would say dirty things and we'd pretend to be offended. there were lots of really good "your mom" jokes. and they informed us that donny rented out his ass--at which point donny woke up and said, "good money, it's good money!" and then fell back asleep. (later, donny tried to auction his ass off--5 pounds? pound-fifty? alright, seventy five p? no takers.) they were so fluent in their insults; it made me homesick for my retarded guy friends.

rikki and i held our own. every time we said something sarcastic back, ben--who didn't participate in the tomfoolery--would do his little chuckle, and rikki and i would burst out laughing. ben was, as rikki said, the brains of the operation. he was the most sober, too. so we had our drink, and they got rikki another beer, and i might have had another jack--yeah, i did, but i didn't finish it, because they got us shots of absinthe, which we managed quite successfully, flaming sugar spoons and all. they were handing off drinks and taking our empty glasses and one of them laughed and said "my, you're being waited on hand and foot" and another one said "where are the grapes, we should be feeding you grapes" and yeah, it was fun. after that they asked us if we wanted to go to roxy, some club, and we said sure, i was somehow still pretty sober, ben told us it was on dhoula, which is the street bohemia bagel and stosh's hostel are on. so we got on the tram and got off the tram and walked through the square, and the boys were losing their buzzes and gaz started bitching about how we were doing too much walking and not enough drinking, so we stopped at some pub, mexican theme, someone bought me a beer which i only half-drank, rikki had another beer, at this point justin was really drunk and getting kinda pouty, i don't know why, we ended up walking some more and stopping yet again, another pub, i had a grapefruit juice and vodka and that made me drunkish.

rikki had another beer and informed me that she was fucked up, which was funny, because i don't think i'd seen her really drunk before. she was really cute, she would get up to use the bathroom and leave her bag with me and ask me not to leave her. i was like, um, don't worry. it was nice to be out with someone that i knew wouldn't abandon me. i don't know if guys worry about that stuff. but in london, i skipped out on some nights because i didn't know the girls of the group well enough, and some people will just leave you. anyway, the guys were all pretty fucked (except for ben) by the time we hit the third pub, and they were getting kind of rowdy--and then one of them would say, "okay guys, we're getting rowdy, we should keep it down" which was really funny--you know, they kept talking about "titties" and "cunts," purely for shock value, and then they're pulling this well-mannered stuff. they were pretty loud, though. when we left that pub, we saw a sign at the door that said, all caps, NO STAG PARTIES, and ben started laughing.

by the end of it, they were walking arm in arm through the streets singing--i shit you not--british drinking songs. about the slums of liverpool and all this stuff. it was fucking hilarious. gaz got drunk hiccups and i made fun of him and he said he didn't have hiccups, and then he hiccupped, and then he laughed for like ten minutes. we didn't find the club (only because they couldn't stand still long enough for me to read the map) and they kept talking about "titty bars" which rikki was not keen on--i'd probably go to one, but not with them--rikki told them if they were hitting a strip joint she was ditching them--but it was justin's stag party, you know, so i figured it would be unfair of us to give them a hard time about it. especially since they'd bought us five rounds of drinks and been generally good-natured and enjoyable. so we were walking down this street, and there was a strip club, and donny, like, ran in, and that was pretty much the end of that. we hugged them and bid them adieu. ben was sort of reluctant; he told us he was glad they'd found us.

it was only 1am (we started drinking at 8:30) and rikki was like "that was fucking awesome. and i'm drunk. and i don't how how to get home. and i hope you do." and i was, shockingly, not that drunk--i mean, i wouldn't have tried to drive a car or anything, but i was functional enough to walk in a semi-straight line and read a map. and so she took my hand and we started walking. i got us to wenceslaus square, to the all-night tram stop (drunk bus equivalent), and we made it home safely. and we ate bread and cheese and turkey and green olives. and went to sleep.

blackmailed she fell off every mountain

thursday i drove down to new orleans to see the mars volta at the orpheum. i met up with ross, paul, and adam--they were eating dinner at remoulade on bourbon street. of all the restaurants in new orleans, they picked the one ben works at. but i think he doesn't work there anymore. it was still weird, though. i had a jack and coke. we got the check and i was like "i hope my drink wasn't really expensive" and took a peek and ross was like "seven bucks?" --he was kidding--but it was $6.50. fucking tourist restaurant.

the boys had brought an icechest and a twelve-pack of budweiser, so after dinner/drinks we went back to the orpheum parking garage and sat in paul's car and drank beer. i actually finished a beer. that may be the first time in my life that's ever happened. they were playing the alphabet game with band names--i didn't want to play because i didn't think i'd know enough bands. but they got bored with it pretty fast, so then paul was like, "we should play the -ate game, ann would like that one." and we went around saying words that ended with -ate. masticate, masturbate, fornicate, extricate, explicate, exonerate, dessicate, desecrate, degenerate, generate...

an hour later we had to pee. adam peed in some corner of the parking garage, then got in line for the doors (the line wrapped around the entire block) while me, ross, and paul went to a bar down the street from the theatre. the bartender informed us that we had to buy drinks to use the bathroom. ross and paul each ordered a beer and told me to go ahead. then the bartender said that each of us had to buy a drink, me included. so ross bought another beer for me, and told me not to feel obliged to drink it. i think they ended up giving it to adam.

tickets were general admission but split by balcony; ross and paul both had first balcony tickets, and me and adam had second balcony. we were going to try to sit in the first balcony anyway, but it was mostly full, and we weren't going to be able to find four seats together. so ross and paul went up to the second balcony with us and we all sat together. which was nice. i'm not sure if i've been to the orpheum before. it was kind of familiar. the seats are steep as hell. we were right up against a railing, so we had a clear view of the stage.

it was two hours of nonstop noise. nonstop. cedric (the dude with the sick-in-a-good-way woman voice) sounded pretty good for the first half of the show. he fucking nailed the second half. he was really on. it was awesome. they did L'Via L'Viaquez, which is my favorite off Frances the Mute. i went and stood on the balcony for that one. most of the time i was following the drummer. i want to have his babies. i was disappointed at the end of the show, though. i kept waiting for them to spontaneously burst into flames. but they never did.

the show let out at midnight, then it was off to twiropa for les claypool's frog brigade. i knew nothing about les claypool but ravi had told me to go, and i trust his taste in music, and paul said it didn't matter that i hadn't heard any of it because it would be really good.

so we split up (me and ross in my car, adam and paul in paul's car) and were going to park at twiropa and then all get in one car to find food before the 2am show. except on the way down canal street paul found a wendy's. so i spend like ten minutes trying to find a parking spot on some side street in the quarter, because of course you can't park on canal and there's no drive-thru. finally i find a spot and have to parallel park, which isn't that big a deal, except i tried twice and it didn't work. so ross volunteers to do it for me.

we swap seats and he says: i'm glad i know you.

i say "i win!"

then he parks the car in one try, all smooth, and i say "...you win."

then paul calls to say that the wendy's has just closed.

driving to twiropa, ross is talking about how he's going to quit playing music because what's the fucking point. i know how he feels. after i see a dance performance, i usually feel sick to my stomach, in that i've-been-doing-this-for-seventeen-years-and-i'll-never-be-that-good-ever-in-my-life sort of way. but also like i want to take a ballet class, now. and i'm thinking about how ross is talented, and i don't ever get to tell him i think that, and i should tell him. but he's in a mood, so i keep my mouth shut.

so it's maybe one in the morning and ross is saying he wants to go home, he doesn't want to see any more music. he's tired. then he laughs a little bit short and says, "i want drugs." he gets on his cell phone and calls some friend-of-a-friend who lives in new orleans, and he starts talking about "white flavored party favors" and i'm like, fucking great. you must be fucking kidding me. i don't say anything because i'm kind of reeling.   

we get to twiropa and wait for paul, who is hopelessly lost between canal and poydras. i'm starving and it's not looking like we're going to be able to find food before the show. but finally paul arrives and we all get in my car and ross drives us too fast through the warehouse district and we end up at walmart (closed), a shell station (no convenience store), and finally a 24-hour walgreens on st. charles. everyone is bitching about how new orleans sucks and i want to hit them all. mostly i'm upset with ross. i get a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread and it tastes like glue. the ham is brown. i eat it all anyway, and feel sick.

we get back to twiropa and i have to pick my ticket up at will call. i want to ask ross how fucked up he's planning on getting at this show, because i don't really want to be around to watch. tchoupitoulas is swarming with dirty hippies selling hallucinogenics. ross and paul are getting excited about buying acid. the line for the doors is long. adam and i start walking back to get in line. he asks me what's wrong and i tell him i'm aggravated because i don't want to deal with ross being fucked up. (ross is looking for a silver car.) adam says, yeah, after you've known ross for a while you learn to get used to it. (ross is looking for some guy in line.) adam says he's been really self-destructive lately.

ross and paul join us in line. some guy is weaving through the crowd, muttering "chocolates, i've got chocolates" and ross says, "hell yes." he and paul decide to split one for twenty dollars. it happens fast. i had wanted to pull ross aside but now all i can do is step forward in line, away from them. i keep my back turned.

i know acid is hard to come by. i know shrooms are a treat. but ross gets fucked up almost every night. he gets fucked up to stay awake, he gets fucked up to fall asleep, he gets fucked up just to make it through the day. even my friends who get high on a daily basis--at least they look happy about it. i've never met anyone who needs pot that badly. it's the same with alcohol. i'd say he has a drinking problem, but it's not just a drinking problem. it's that he'll do anything to keep from dealing with whatever he has to face. whatever mood or fear or frustration.

i can deal with him being high (not stoned, he's annoying when he's stoned) and i can deal with him being drunk. but when the conversation turns into him and his friends trying desperately, really, with great urgency in their voices, to figure out where the next bag of weed is coming from, i leave. because it's too depressing. and when one of the guys tells ross there's "something in the kitchen" for him, i leave. i can't watch.

the first time i was ever around cocaine: two overgrown fratty-looking guys with ballcaps and earrings come busting into the apartment talking in terms of grams and i'm sitting on the carpet getting more freaked out by the second. one of the fratty guys asks my friend for his ID and my friend, laughing, offers his library card instead. i'm thinking "how is that going to work as an ID card?" but of course the fratty guy uses it to cut a line on the kitchen counter. it was the loudest thing i've ever heard. and i wanted to leave but i was scared. it wasn't until one of my friends--my favorite, this boy--went into the back bedroom that i realized i had to leave. because i couldn't watch. it's one thing being uncomfortable around fucked-up people you don't know or don't particularly give a shit about. but when it's someone who matters. and they start looking weird around the eyes.   

the night before the show, we were sitting on his front porch--me and ross and this guy michael. michael plays bass really well. ross seems to like having michael around, but he gets aggravated with him really quickly. so when michael starts talking about being at some concert all fucked up on shrooms etc, ross is like "whatever, dude. why do you need to get fucked up to go to a show? i'd rather focus on the music" obviously trying to make michael feel stupid. ross continues: "i'm not really into hallucinogenics anymore. i don't think they're good for emotionally unstable people. i get all trapped in my head and it lasts for so long, i just want to be done with it..."

twenty-four hours later, he and paul have split a $20 bag of chocolate and i'm standing with my back to them, wishing the line would move faster so i could go hang out inside with ravi and edie and jacob.

ross says: wow, ann. you have put us beneath you. in all of two minutes.

i say, still with my back to him: no, it was fifteen minutes. and i just don't want to be around it.

he and paul are trying to talk all jovial but you can tell they're faking it. finally ross says, "why are you being like this?"

i turn around and say,  "like what?"

he says, "you're acting all..."

i say, "uncomfortable?"

paul goes, "you're uncomfortable?" and i say "yes" like i'm mad and he says "oh, okay" because it was an innocent question. and really i'm not pissed at paul. but i do feel sort of abandoned. not just because of the mushrooms. ross keeps at me. he tells me his "feelings are hurt" and really he's not going to act any different and he'll say "hey ann, wasn't that a cool bass line" like we're at any other show. and he says fine, be like that, he's not one to judge. (as if i am one to judge, as if this is about me judging him, and that makes me mad, that hurts my feelings.)

he tells me to stop. i'm not talking, i'm barely talking. finally i say "what about your friend" meaning the guy on the cellphone. he says "what?" and i say "nothing" and he says "no, what did you say" and i say nothing nothing nothing nothing. he says "turn around and tell me" and i think: you know, you're not my boyfriend, you can't do this. you can't make me talk. i don't have to be at this show with you.

so i turn to him and say, "i don't have to have this conversation with you." and he says, "it isn't going to happen." he means the guy on the cellphone. he says, "you don't have to worry about that, it isn't going to happen, i don't have the money and i'm not in the right mindframe, so." and of all the reasons in the world not to do coke, money and mindframe are not the two i wanted to hear. i'm like, "that's irrelevant." because if he had the money and the mindframe, he would have done it and expected me not to care. except i thought the point of this evening was not to get fucked up but to go to a really good show. i thought getting to hear good music with good friends would be enough.

adam is giving me sidelong turn-that-frown-upside-down faces. i catch paul's eye and try to smile because i don't want him to think i'm pissed at him. ross keeps at me. i tell him again that i don't want to be around it because it upsets me to see him like that, and he says again that i won't be able to tell the difference, and i don't know how to explain to him: that's not the point.

inside, paul and adam head for the bar and ross says: we were having such a good night. i don't want you to be upset. i had no idea you would be so affected by this. i would never have done it if i had known.

i'm thinking: i can't believe he's still talking. i can't believe he hasn't written me off yet.

except it's too late for tonight. i'm too tired to pretend like everything is fine. and i'm too tired to stick around and be pissed. i've already called ravi to see where they're standing.

i turn to ross and shrug.

he says "look at me."
he says "don't look at me like that."
he says "well i'm sorry i ruined your evening" and stalks off.

and i start to say: you didn't ruin it, it's not ruined. and i'm still going to have fun, and you will too. just not together.

but already i feel sick. and he looks sick. and he's gone. i start pushing through the crowd (sorry, sorry, sorry sorry sorry sorry) and finally end up in the front with jacob and ravi and edie. ravi asks where ross is and i tell him briefly what happened. he's like, "that sucks" and it does suck but the music starts and it's really good. the guys in the band are wearing white caftans and rubber half-masks with white wigs on top, and les claypool is wearing a smiling pig mask and a bejeweled pharaoh collar. who needs hallucinogenics for this. the bass is beautiful. i want to have skerik's babies. skerik and the drummer from the mars volta. lots of beautiful babies.

so i'm into the music but i'm also feeling like i might throw up. we're in twiropa's gigantic room, and there are a million people, and they're all sweaty and packed in tight. it's 3am and i haven't had any water since 7. i keep looking back in the direction of the bar, thinking really i need to drink some water but there's a sea of people and i'll never make it back up to the front but really really i need water. ravi keeps asking me if i'm okay, and edie keeps asking me if i'm okay, and finally i head to the bar. there are seriously a million people.

i take my cup of water back to the lobby and find a spot on the floor, next to a sofa. new orleans tap water is really disgusting. i'm taking little sips. i decide i will probably leave soon. i pull out my walgreens ham sandwich receipt and write on the back: ya'll be careful going home. if you need a place to crash, call me. then some strange man comes up to me and asks if i'm okay. i'm like, "um, yes, i'm fine." i don't know why everyone is asking me this. to prove that i'm fine, i return to the gigantic room, but i hang towards the back. the shroom guy is walking through the crowd: chocolate, i've got chocolate. it's 4am and everyone looks like hell. people are slumped cold-sweating against walls and bars and columns. some guy holds out his pipe to me and i smile and shake my head. he looks at me like i'm crazy and shrugs.    

at 4:15 i leave. the street is empty except for this pack of boys in front of me. i consider asking them to walk me to my car and decide against it. i turn down richard street and there's this guy on the opposite side, headed towards me. he stops me to ask where the bar is. he's wearing converse. i point at twiropa and then say, "would you mind walking me to my car?" he says, "not at all." he says "look, i'm from austin, is this a bad neighborhood or something?" and i'm like "uh, yeah, sorta."

when we get to my car i thank him but he won't leave me alone. he's chatty and looks sorta fucked up and i don't think he's dangerous necessarily, but he's asking me for a ride to the bar and i'm like "seriously, dude, you see that giant warehouse building directly across the street? that's it. and i've got to go. seriously." i leave the walgreens receipt note on paul's windshield and get in my car. the boy from austin taps on my window. i roll the window down and he says "really i'm not trouble but won't you talk to me for a minute" and i'm like "really i'm tired i'm going to go" and i drive home.

at 5:37, ross sends me a text message: i apologize ann i would never have put u in the situation had i known u were uncomfortable. i am still glad u came.

i put the phone down and sort of fall back asleep and wake up fifteen minutes later, realizing i have to respond. i say: apology accepted. and appreciated. and i'm sorry i was a "downer." and i know you don't understand why i turned to stone and i don't know how to explain it to you, especially not on this stupid phone

he writes back: u don't need to explain. and u were not a "downer"

i was going to drive back to baton rouge friday morning but i didn't actually wake up till 2. we had tech rehearsal for the dance concert at 7:30. tech was horrible. we were stone cold and falling all over the place. when i got home, i sent ross a text message: i'm going to feel weird until i talk to you. are you out for the night? he said: yea i'm about to leave. tomorrow?

but saturday morning was dress rehearsal from 8:30-12. i called jes afterwards for our fabric shopping date, which was good fun. all i want to do now is sew. i'm going to make a cool skirt and a really ugly tank top. ross sent me a text message at five saying that he was sorry he didn't call earlier, he had been feeling sick, but what time is the show tonight? show at 730 but doors at 7.

call was for 6. i was tired by the end of the warm-up. dress rehearsal had been sort of a raging disaster. one of the guys in the ensemble didn't show up till intermission. we'd already done all the pieces he was in. it's pretty much bullshit to miss dress rehearsal. he should have been kicked out but we needed everyone onstage. then in clare's piece, lorrie and i ran into each other. like, full body slam so hard we grunted and bounced off each other. i couldn't stop laughing. they were filming close-ups and we had a small audience. my foot got caught in my skirt and i couldn't get it out, i had to stop dancing, bend over, and disentangle it. clare said i made a really mean face. i fell over at the beginning of alyson's piece because i wasn't used to sliding in tights on the marley. then my costume for jess's piece ended up being gigantic, even though they'd custom-made those tutus for us and we'd had three costume fittings. my straps were about four inches too long and the bust was too big and all i had on underneath was a pair of stockings worn as a half-shirt. as in, i was losing my top and the whole world was going to see my breasts. it was awesome.

so that was dress rehearsal. at ten to seven, i went backstage to finish my makeup and i had a voicemail from ross telling me to have a good show. and i did have a good show. i didn't get caught in my costume and i didn't fall over. the audience was fucking awesome. we stood behind the screens on the side of the pit and peeked at the house during intermission. i couldn't spot anyone, although i knew mom and michael and ross and ravi and stosh and adam and jes and alanna and adam and katie were all there. i fucked up a little in jess's piece and a very tiny bit in rikki's, but for the most part i felt solid.

when i got backstage after my last number, ross had left a text message saying he had to run but he'd get in touch soon. which was disappointing. but i met up with adam and jes and alanna and we went to serrano's for dinner and margaritas. on the way, ross called and said he had promised to go to a show with andrew, and it was half-over already so he was hauling ass, but he "fucking enjoyed" the dance concert and rikki's piece was "badass." and he said he'd call me later. i got drunkish at serrano's and we ended up back at adam's. rikki and leif and ravi and shuchin and deville came over. then me and rikki were falling asleep so we went home and fell asleep. i fell asleep with all the lights on.

sunday i kept sleeping and not writing my short story. i felt like i'd been bludgeoned. my knees looked like they'd been bludgeoned. at nine ross called me and i said "can i come over for a minute" and he said "you can come over for two minutes." and i said "this is going to turn into me coming over and then the whole neighorhood coming over" and he said no, tonight there was a two person maximum. except bryan who lives down the street came over and so did bert. but they didn't stay long. bryan stayed long enough to touch one of my toes and say i had pretty feet. which was weird.

then ross and i walked to the chevron and he told me that he'd worn a nice shirt to the dance concert and someone even told him he looked nice. but i didn't get to see it. we got back to the house and he said "so talk" and i said "what about?" and he shot me a look and said "gee i wonder." and i said "i want to tell you about dress rehearsal first" and he said "you can talk about whatever you want to talk about."   

so i told him about dress rehearsal and then he fucked around with his recording equipment for a while and got frustrated because things weren't working. and i said "well, we could have an awkward conversation instead" and he said "okay, let's sit outside." except he sat facing me instead of next to me, and i didn't know where to look.

he said i know you aren't around it a lot and it seems really grandiose but it's really not a big deal, i don't mean it like that but, and it's not something i do, it's not something i've done in a long time

i said really i could care less about the mushrooms, that's not it

he said i understand you felt uncomfortable, it just didn't occur to me that you would have your feelings hurt, or feel left out, because usually the people i'm around, it doesn't matter to them

i said i don't want it to be like i'm the one you have to watch yourself around, and that's not really what i was upset about, but i don't know how to explain it

he said you don't have to worry i'm fine i can handle myself i know my limits and i was drunk and mostly talking, i wasn't really serious about the acid so

and i said but there was something before the acid

he hesitated. 

(it's funny how lots of my friends do or have done coke, but few of them admit it. and when they do talk about it, they talk about other people doing it, like it's really worrisome and bad. and if they ever admit to doing it, it's something they did "a long time ago," as if it's part of the dirty past.)

he wouldn't say it directly and neither would i. i don't remember what he said. i reminded him of the conversation we had two weeks ago, when he told me that he'd been getting way too fucked up every night. and he said "well, yeah." and i said "so what's the part i'm supposed to not worry about?"

he said you don't have to worry about me.

i said i know i don't have to worry about you.

he said you shouldn't want to.

i said trust me, i don't. but i can't help it.

i said: i don't think i handled myself well at the show. i was upset, but i was being passive-aggressive and that wasn't particularly mature of me. i was impressed that you didn't write me off immediately. because you could have.

he said see and this will sound bad but. this is what i was telling you about relationships and why i don't want to get involved with people. because it's like if someone else is upset i have to deal with that too.

i said believe me, i know. feeling emotionally responsible for another person is exhausting.   

he said the thing is, i wanted to. i didn't want you to be upset. i couldn't stop thinking about it all night. i felt bad that i couldn't fix it.

i said: i got upset because it matters to me whether or not you're okay. or if you're feeling down. and how you deal with it. that's why i worry. even though i know i can't do a goddamn thing about it.

we went inside and he played around with his guitar for a few minutes. it was 3am and i said "i'm going to go to bed soon but."

he said "but?"

i didn't say anything for a while and he came and stood by the door to smoke another cigarette.

i said "is it worth it to you?"

he said "is what worth it?"

i said "all that stuff about getting close to people and feeling emotionally responsible."

he said "it's a tradeoff."
he said "i have to sit down and think before i say this."
he said "this is weird."

i said "what's weird?"

he said "because it's different with you. because i do care whether or not you're upset. or how you feel. and really you're the only one, not that i don't care about my other friends but. it's different. and i want to. and i still fuck it up. but i've been trying really hard with you."

i said "i know. i can tell. and i appreciate it."

he said "you don't have to thank me for that."

i said "it's less about gratitude and more an acknowledgment that i know you're trying. and it means a lot to me. that you'd even bother."

i said: you remember that conversation we had back in january, and you told me you didn't need yet another reminder of how you fuck everything up. i don't want you to think this is proof that you're a fuck-up. because you pretty much had no way of knowing i would react like i did. and you handled it as best you could. that's not to say it was fine. but.

he said: it's worth it to me. i don't think it's worth it to you.

i said: i don't know. it's not like i'm getting nothing out of this. you've come through for me lots of times. and i can call you about whatever stupid thing, that i'm nervous about my thesis defense in three hours, and you call me back to say it'll be okay, and honestly you're the one i want to call when that stuff happens.

and he smiled this tiny little smile and said: that's really nice to hear.

have you ever felt your whole body beat

whiskey out the flask
bitebruise on your upper arm
girl in a mask and pink party dress
finger to that guy on the huey p eastbound
sangria from a pink thermos
pat o’s bloody mary
sips off somebody’s hurricane
mardi gras mambo on speakerphone to boston
crown on the rocks
crown on the rocks
dollar for the toll bridge
lose an earring
twelve dollar strawberry margarita unfrozen
hershey’s kisses foil hats
whiskey out the flask
crown on the rocks
crown on the rocks
dark sidewalks down
le bon temps to tip’s to some girl’s apartment
sleep on the floor
boy’s sweater balled up for a pillow
watch the sky light up the window
igor’s bloody mary breakfast
streetside jambalaya
cold abita keg on the neutral ground
homemade jambalaya
nap on the sofa
semi-stale fried chicken lust
bacchus zulu the first fifty-three floats of elks
first sunburn of the season

driving down west end past the wreckage and over the canal, it fullbody hit me how the levee could have just as easily cracked the other way. it could have been my house with water to the roof. it almost was. and instead it was lakeview. by blind unfeeling incident.

i knew this year it was about morale and stress relief but there’s also a sort of bewildered pride. that we’ve made it, a kind of milestone, after everything. here we are.

at midnight, when johnny vidacovich said happy mardi gras, it was the kind of heartleap joy you want to feel on new year’s.

we give no fuck.

the canopy was for shade when it got too hot in the tent. it got too hot in the tent at 8am. adam, katie, and i slept in the tent. paul slept in the truck. karen slept on top of the truck. when it got too hot to sleep, we sat under the canopy, which stretched between the tent and the truck. we had four collapsable lawn chairs with mesh cup holders in the arms. the fifth person sat on the ice chest, in which we stored cans of budweiser. this beer would be stolen, can by can, by our drug-dealing neighbor over the course of the weekend. there was another ice chest in the bed of the truck with bottled water and cans of coke. mornings we spent in the shade of the canopy, drinking water and/or coke and/or beer.

the canopy cost nine dollars. it was comprised of five poles and a square gray-and-white tarp with five grommet holes: one at each corner and one in the center. the set did not include stakes or rope or instructions. the poles were a little bit pointy on one end, sized to fit through the grommet holes in the tarp. the other ends of the poles were broad and capped in rubber. these poles had no intention of being poked into the ground. did i mention the canopy set included neither stakes nor rope? so, a tarp that sort of perches on top of the poles, but no mechanism to keep the poles upright. it was 4:30am friday; we'd left baton rouge at 7:30pm thursday. adam with crazed eyes and stubborn mouth and brilliant ideas (and paul's dexedrine) could not rest until he had put up the canopy. this he accomplished by duct-taping the outer poles to the truck and the tent. meanwhile the rest of us slept. when we woke up the canopy was listing badly to one side and some of the poles were on the ground. eventually our camping neighbors gave us rope and allowed us to tie our canopy poles to their tents. also we tied the tarp to some of the poles. the center pole we slung through a chair arm and tied upright with a t-shirt. by saturday morning the wind had picked up and the tarp became disinterested in resting atop the poles. katie, who at one point was beaten over the head by an unruly pole, invented a game called "get the pole in the hole." you played this game by sitting in the center chair and moving the pole around until it poked through the center grommet hole. this was different than sitting in the other chairs, where all you were required to do was hold the pole upright.

the canopy came in a box advertising: Aluminum Grommets Will Never Rust!

of all the things to worry about in a canopy-type product, rusty grommets are not high on my list. a grommet is a reinforced hole. how's about: Poles Stand Up On Their Own! or, better: Tarp Attaches To Poles, Which Hold Themselves Aloft!

.

i like to go to shows by myself. i like to be alone, in the front, surrounded by people who are as into the set as i am. that's the thing. i don't mind so much having friends with me as long as they're going to rock out. rocking out is the point at which you are so far gone into music that you don't know what the hell your body is doing. if the people i'm with don't rock out, i feel stupid rocking out, and then i can't focus on the music because i'm too busy feeling self-conscious. sometimes my friends want to stand in the back, or worse, sit in the back, and i don't want to be in the back or sit down anywhere at all. i understand if one's preferred method of absorbing music involves sitting very still in the back of the venue. people are different, and i respect that. and i want to be in the front, rocking out. but i feel obligated to stay with them because they came with me to see the show. even if it means i won't be able to really lose myself into anything.

and that's lame.

so the shows that mean something to me: i go alone. i like it. the last big-deal show i saw was modest mouse in february '05. i drove to houston by myself. my friends and family thought it was bizarre and/or sad: you couldn't find someone to go with you? actually, barrett went to that show in houston with some other guys, but i wanted to go by myself. i don't know. i can't explain it. if you don't get it, i can't explain it to you.

at bonnaroo i saw:
ben folds
death cab for cutie
bright eyes
clap your hands say yeah
beck
radiohead
the dresden dolls
stephen malkmus & the jicks
sonic youth

i caught bits of other sets, but these were the ones i had scheduled for myself. hell or high water. karen told me i was stubborn. i said, "i'm not stubborn - i mean, i'm willing to compromise when...um...i'm willing to compromise. it's just i have my heart set."

she said, "well, you set your heart on a lot of things."

but i mean. like saturday was CYHSY, beck, radiohead, dresden dolls. between the four bands, seventeen albums, of which i own eleven. there was no way in hell you could have convinced me to go anywhere on that campsite other than closer-to-the-stage.

no one wanted to see beck with me, which was fine. i would catch up with them afterwards for radiohead. beck was at the big stage, and i managed to get pretty close to the front, even though i had to step over hippies on blankets to do it.

it's such a pain in the ass getting to the front at these things. the crowd is layers of sitting people and standing people, and there's room up front but you have to step on top of people to get there. i feel rude about it. but i had an epiphany at the ben folds set: if i'm in the back, rocking out, surrounded by a bunch of people who are not rocking out because they're the kind of people who stand in the back: not only am i uncomfortable standing next to them, but they are also uncomfortable standing next to me! while i'm thinking, "i wish i was up in the front, where i belong," they are simultaneously thinking, "i wish this girl would go up front where she belongs." i'm sure that's what they're thinking. so for the rest of the weekend i squelched the guilty rude feeling as best i could and fought my way through the sprawling crowds of ambivalent hippies.

beck was cool, though it would have been cooler if the audience had known anything at all. that's the other thing about these festivals: they cater to the casual listener. the chorus-knower. my big moment of personal growth at bonnaroo was when i got over the self-conscious shit and rocked out even if no one around me knew what was up. because i was at a goddamn hippie festival. silly place to see a rock show. they played 'loser' over the speakers during beck's set break. i danced my ass off, and when they cut the volume on "saving all your foodstamps, burning down the trailerpark," not one goddamn person was singing along. except for me. and when i realized i was alone, i did it louder.

yo. cut it.

mostly i was surrounded by college-aged dudes, who didn't seem to mind me dancing like an idiot. there was one guy in front of me, he was wearing a green t-shirt, and he kept turning around and looking at me. i thought i was pissing him off or something. but at the end of the set, i squatted down to call paul and see where everyone was at, and the green t-shirt guy sat next to me and offered up some trail mix. (hippies.)

we had an hour and a half between beck and radiohead. green t-shirt guy said, between mouthfuls of trail mix, that we were in a pretty fucking awesome spot for radiohead. this was undeniable. meanwhile i couldn't get through to paul's phone. meanwhile the crowd up front was thinning out and we were moving forward. and forward. green t-shirt's name was nick, he graduated from some knoxville college in '04, studied journalism and now works in carpentry. he got into bonnaroo free via a field of soybeans. he's a musician of some sort, with important musician friends. i didn't ask for details ("oh, do you play guitar?") because i didn't particularly give a shit. anyway, he was nice, and also cute, and he fed me trail mix. i told him i wished a bottle of very cold water would fall from the sky onto my lap. he said if i managed the bottle of cold water, he had a whole list of things for me to wish for. like what, i said. he said, like a pile of money. then he gave me some water out his thermos thing.

the other kids sitting around us were friendly. there was a girl named mandy, from kansas, wearing a bonnet. she was with a guy whose name i forget, but he was nice too. mandy had a flask of rum, which we all nipped off. it had been such a long time since i'd made random friends like this at a show. not since weezer in new york, the summer i graduated from high school. meanwhile i still couldn't get paul or katie on the phone. at this point it was going to be impossible to find them. i was calling every five minutes, worried that they were waiting somewhere for me and wouldn't get a good spot for the show. i tried texting them to say i was by the stage, and even the text message took forever to go through.

suddenly there was this break in the crowd and we all scrambled to stand up, everyone was surging forward and closing in, nick reached back and grabbed my hand, some people got between us but he still had my hand, and then i got through. there was all this space. it was crazy. we were so fucking close to the stage. but there was tons of room behind us, and then a wall of people essentially standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a line. i asked mandy, is there like an invisible force field or what? and she pointed out that they were standing on the wire guards that ran to the sound board, so they could see over our heads. pssh. whatever. i was approximately an olympic swimming pool's length from thom yorke. without being suffocated, either.

so yeah, radiohead was awesome.

after the show, i told mandy and nick and that other dude goodbye and set off for the camp. nick caught up with me and offered to buy me that very cold bottle of water i had been wishing for. we drank cold water and shuffled with the mass exodus. he said he was going back to his campsite, where he had two bottles of red wine, and then he was going to come back and ride the ferris wheel. without considering the overtones of this statement, i said something like: "oh, puke! that would totally make me vomit."

then i realized he was hitting on me.

we held up a decent conversation all the way to the venue exit. again he brought up the wine, the ferris wheel. finally, when we got outside the venue grounds, he point-blank asked me if i wanted to go back to his campsite for wine, ferris wheel. and i said thanks but i had to find my friends. i probably gave him a hug or something.

i don't know. it was a nice interlude.

i walked back to the campsite, took off my shoes, sat on top of the truck, ate pringles, waited.

.

by sunday afternoon the tent was pretty much falling over and the canopy, needless to say, was in poor condition. adam, ever the optimist, proclaimed we would sleep under the stars on our last night. while the rest of us were at shows, he and katie packed up the campsite, minus four tent stakes. these he used to stake the godforsaken fucking canopy tarp into the ground, so we would have a nice surface for our sleeping bags while we slept under the stars.

of course no one accounted for sleeping under the rain.

there's a you-shaped hole in my dancing heart

oh i don't know.
i cried at dinner, i feel like no one takes me seriously, i feel like my dad and my mom and my grandfather don't take me seriously, i feel like i'm not doing anything that's worth taking seriously. there's no structure in here for me to be an overachiever. there's no up or forward. there's just digging straight down. there's just moving in place.

they look at me like it's my lack of motivation.

i don't know how many ways there are to explain fear to people.
i don't need you to push me.
i can push myself.
i'll figure it out.
that's kind of the whole fucking point.

hari said, well, when you walk up to a cold swimming pool, how do you get in?
she was asking rhetorically.
i said, not rhetorically,
"i go to the shallow end and i walk in really slowly, making terrible noises all the way."

and she laughed
and i said seriously.

tonight my dad actually said,
i was telling him about being afraid, about holding back, about not taking risks,
i said something about being pathologically obedient
and he snorted and said come on, if anything, you're pathologically disobedient.

i mean
i don't know.

i mean.

independent-minded, maybe, stubborn definitely, unconventional by the most conventional standards maybe.

he also said some bizarre something about how the reason i want to go to grad school is because all my life my mother has wanted me to go to grad school--and that she wanted to be a writer, which is presumably why i studied writing--(he made a similar argument a long time ago about louisiana school)--

try to explain to him that frankly i don't give a shit what she wants me to do--it's always struck me as irrelevant--because she's never projected or pushed any career choice onto me--and in fact, to counter his claim, she has within the past six months intimated that she doesn't understand or even approve of anything i'm doing--though i suppose she only said it at that particular moment to be spiteful, because she was being out of her mind, again.

reason number one i can't leave yet.
not in order. but that's one unresolved thing.
also the city.
and marcia said what about the holidays
and i said oh, the holidays
and she said so january then
and becca said but not till mardi gras
and then i remembered michael's graduation
it goes on it goes on
at some point there's a cut-off
you people
please.

it's hard enough.
paul said what i was thinking.
he said it's like if you wanted to go sky-diving
but you were really scared of sky-diving
and not only are you really scared of sky-diving but there's six months of impossible paperwork bullshit to fill out so you can go do this sky-diving thing that you half want to do and half are terrified of doing.
like it's hard enough to work up the nerve to actually go sky-diving,
much less force yourself through a bunch of bullshit so you can do this scary thing that you're barely able to screw up the courage for in the first place.

but that saturday, the first home game, i'd agreed to sit on the rooftop of the tallest dorm and monitor a time-lapse camera for a fox sports documentary. i regretted it all the week before and woke up saturday morning irritated at the impending disruption of my weekend routine--of sleep late, do nothing, sleep some more, read at highland, find something else to do, find a bar to drink at.
and i sat on the roof with the tar and a cellphone-tower headache and i could see forever, in every direction, the best view i've had since prague. i sat alone on a rooftop in the sun for hours. it was beautiful, quiet, hot, there were wasps, i took a nap in the shade of a giant air vent. it was a total disruption of my weekend routine. it felt like somewhere else. i was grateful and ready.

and the next day i go to visit my family for labor day, and ryan is three and gives me a huge wave because he knows me, i won't be the grown-up unfamiliar at family gatherings, grateful i kiss him and sean comes up to me later, he taps me on the shoulder and grins at me, he's seven, he says i didn't know you were here! and i kiss him too, on the cheek, i say i saw you playing basketball, you looked good.

try to explain to everyone who matters how you want to go, with your whole heart, and with your whole heart you want to stay.

and you know already: you can't do anything with half a heart.

cock a doodle doo good morning

the LSU rec is sponsoring an employee wellness program called Trek the MRT. it's an eight-week pedometer program in which teams of LSU faculty and staff will attempt to 'virtually walk' the length of the Mississippi River Trail (about 3,000 miles of bike and pedestrian pathways that run from Minnesota to Louisiana). the goal for LSU is to walk the entire length of the trail by accumulating steps/miles weekly as measured by a pedometer. the goal for each team is to gradually increase the number of weekly steps taken to progress as far along the trail as possible.

i'm on the library team (LSU library represent!). our personnel coordinator is the team leader. there are 11 people on our team. that means each team member is responsible for walking 273 miles in 8 weeks (if our team target is to reach the end of the trail, rather than just 'increase the number of weekly steps taken'...obviously that's the goal for sissies).

so 273 miles in 8 weeks is just over 34 miles per week per person.
or 4.9 miles per day.

this is day one. good morning. on my walk to work, i took 1509 steps (0.59 miles at 2 feet per stride, though my stride may have been less than that this morning, because i'm wearing new sandals and they hurt).

that means i walk a little over two miles every day just going to and from work (i walk home for lunch).

i'm interested to see how many steps the pedometer will log during ballet class.

also, i have 'walked' 13 steps since i sat down at my desk this morning. this thing is sensitive. and/or i am fidgety.

.

june 12:

total steps for Day 1 - 9896
total miles for Day 1 - 3.92

'exercise' activity for Day 1 - putting away the mountain of clothes on my bedroom floor (without the A/C on...does it count more if i was sweaty?)
total steps for Day 1 'exercise' - i have no idea because i didn't check, but i bet i take more steps tonight in modern class than i did cleaning my room

total steps on the walk to work this morning - 1323
total miles - 0.52

additional steps i took on my walk to work yesterday morning to compensate for the pain of my new, unbroken-in sandals - 186

using the formula i learned last week in my princeton review GRE book, percent decrease in steps when wearing comfortable-but-grubby flip-flops - 14%

rhymes with thermometer

but first: i was sitting with brett on the sofa last night, having a massive relief of a conversation about relationship ambivalencies and this weird context we've got. afterwards, i put my head on his chest and made a little noise, and he started laughing and asked me if i 'honked.' i said no and made the noise again to prove that i had not honked. he said it sounded just like a little honk.

i told him i wasn't a goose. then i wondered aloud if anybody honks besides geese.
i guess swans honk, i said.
but swans are just the champagne of geese.

and then i looked at him with this face of "wasn't that an awesome metaphor!"

.

when i got back from the library yesterday, i changed out of my work clothes and walked to highland. i realized when i was in the serranos parking lot that i'd forgotten to put on my pedometer. i started counting. estimate 570 steps for the highland trip.

added to the total steps for the day counted by the pedometer, Day 2 real total steps - 9370

so now i have to calculate how many miles i walked, since i added steps to the pedometer count. my stride is two feet. multiply number of strides (9370) by length of stride (2 feet) = 18,740 feet. divide by number of feet per mile.

let me just say that i started writing this down on the back of a receipt, and i wrote "5280 f/m" just to take a stab at the conversion - because i haven't even contemplated the number of feet per mile since my first-semester-freshman physics class about six years ago. and then i googled it and i was right. brains are amazing things.

so then, Day 2 total miles - 3.55

yesterday i took my first dance class (modern) wearing the pedometer. i felt like a weirdo, but the dancers thought it was cool and wondered how many steps they took in ballet class. i glanced at the pedometer as class was starting so i could indeed see how many steps i took, but then i forgot the starting number. i'll have to reset it before ballet class today.

according to the handouts i received with my pedometer, you can use step equivalencies for aerobic exercise that is a good workout but not a lot of steps - biking and swimming were obvious examples, but they leave the rest up to your discretion. if my dance classes are not a lot of steps, i'll have to work out some equivalency, because i was definitely sweating last night (unlike my half-mile walk to work that racks up a billion steps but doesn't even raise my heart rate).

another issue: i'm supposed to wear the pedometer "all day, every day." this might be the one flaw in the program. it's not realistic to expect a woman to wear a pedometer every day. there are some outfits that just don't go with pedometers. it's not even that i would mind the pedometer showing [too much] - it's that all my shirts hit past my waistbands, so unless i'm wearing a loose-fitting top, you can see this 2-inch-square lump under my clothes, above my left hip. it's stupid-looking. and what if i'm wearing a dress? i mean, i guess i could clip the pedometer onto my underwear, but i doubt i would go that far.

so for situations like this, i'll try to prepare an average of my steps during the walk to/from work, and the steps i take during the workday. and we'll see what happens when i go out at night. terror is playing tonight at the moon - i wonder how many steps i take dancing at a show.

anyway. today i pulled out my mca penny loafers to wear to work. i'm pretty excited about them. comfy and work-appropriate, unlike the flip-flops i'm ashamed to say i actually do wear to work, and my converse, which are not that big a deal (some of the old dudes here wear denim work shirts, jeans, and all-white old-man sneakers), but still.

i'm wondering if i should put pennies in them. i never did in high school, because i thought it was dumb. some girls put quarters in their loafers for the pay phone, which was smart, until the price of pay phones went up to 35 cents. then they would put a dime in one shoe and a quarter in the other.

steps taken on walk to work - 1408
total miles - 0.55

taking my cue from ben's 5th-grade NOAGL team - the LSU Libraries team shall henceforth be known as - the Freaky Ferrets.

MRT challenge update - Week 1:

Monday total steps - 9896
Monday total miles - 3.92

Tuesday total steps - 9370
Tuesday total miles - 3.55

Wednesday total steps - 13,122
Wednesday total miles - 4.97

Thursday total steps - 13,129
Thursday total miles - 4.97

.

Week 1 personal total (4-day 'week')

45,517 steps
17.24 miles

Week 1 team total

481,579 steps
40,152 average steps/person

Week 1 team ranking
12th out of 63

.

that's right, fools. LSU Libraries is ranked 12th out of 63.

the top team is named "Sweet 215" (why did they get a cool name? i'm jealous.) and they had an average of 51,339 steps over 4 days. and there's only five of them on the team.

as a reward/incentive, Sweet 215 gets a smoothie-and-bagel breakfast delivered to their office tomorrow.

i want a free smoothie and a bagel. i want breakfast delivered to my office.

the third place team ("CELT") had an average of 45,273 steps. if the library team was made up of 11 anns, we would have beat them. so that makes me feel like - well, at least i'm not bringing the team down with my slothful ways.

i am a little (a very little) bit ashamed to admit that i am gloating over the English department team ranking - 52nd.

and i am not ashamed at all that i'm gloating over the Honors College team ranking of 54th.

i had written a really vulgar insult here, but in the spirit of good sportsmanship (actually out of concern that a relevant party will find this site via google) i will just say:

what, dudes, you couldn't take your heads out of your [classical theory texts] long enough to go for a walk?

bring it.

.

i am adjusting a bit to the daily wearing of the pedometer. my propensity for loose clothing makes it relatively easy to hide. i have taken it off to go out a couple times, and i added a few steps to my total to compensate, but not as many as i probably had taken. i also underestimated step counts for my dance classes last week - by the time i realized i should have been using step conversions, i'd already taken 2 out of 3 classes for the week. and then i accidentally used the 7,000 steps/hour conversion (for moderate activity) instead of 10,000 steps/hour (for intense activity) - plus i forgot to factor in that class lasted an hour and a half.

so this week should see my step activity on the rise. the point of the challenge is to become more aware of your daily activity level, and so far it seems to be effective. i was a bit disheartened to see a significant decrease in steps over the weekend, largely because i didn't have the walks to and from work, and also because i spent part of saturday driving to and from new orleans.

yesterday i decided to run errands and get some reading done instead of going to ballet or the rec. i love my dance classes, but they sort of devour my free time. class is 1.5 hours long and i allot 25 minutes each way for the drive. i therefore have to leave my apartment at 5:30 to get to class on time, which only gives me 45 minutes after my walk home from work to veg out, eat a snack, and change into my dance clothes. so going to ballet on a weeknight means my time from 4:30 to 8 is pretty much blown. and then if i come home and cook dinner afterwards, i'll basically spend two hours cooking, eating, and cleaning up, and then i am exhausted and ready for bed. and i cherish my downtime. i need some days to be open for whatever. yesterday was one of those days.

so i can't let myself feel guilty about not going to ballet. but to make up for my lack of official exercise, i gladly took a walk to the chase bank at the end of state street to deposit my earnings for the chicago trip ($128), and then circled back around chimes to hang out at highland and work on line edits for clay.

Friday total steps - 9316
Friday total miles -  3.53

Saturday total steps - 12,709
Saturday total miles -  4.81

Sunday total steps - 10,061
Sunday total miles - 3.81

Monday total steps - 9897
Monday total miles - 3.75

Tuesday total steps - 8131
Tuesday total miles - 3.07

apparently, gigantic tuesday afternoon thunderstorms have an adverse effect on one's step count.

theory one: pretty much the only place to walk is your apartment.

theory two: your dance teacher doesn't show up for modern class, even though you went out in the gigantic thunderstorm to be there. so you end up doing a little bit of pilates in rikki's living room, but feel unable to give yourself more than 1,000 steps (less than a walk to work!) for this.

but! my step total is now 95,631. which means i get a t-shirt (60,000 steps) and by the end of this week i'll also get the next prize (pardon me, "incentive"). at 120,000 steps you get to pick between some socks or a walking workout book. okay, not so exciting. but still. a prize!