Part One: Epiphany

The meeting was fine, but the important part is the bike part.

Ah, I was so happy yesterday, flying down the Burke-Gilman trail on the way to school. The very end of the street I live on is the beginning of the trail, so all I have to do is coast down about fifty blocks and I’m there. I never knew how close the trail goes to the water, and that it goes right under the freeway. It even passes the “Wall of Death,” a big sculpture that was put up ten years ago. I read it has to do with those motorcyclists that ride inside of cages in a big circle…but that sounds more like a Ball of Death.

The way back was trickier. I was tired from riding down, and Eighth Avenue only goes up on the way back. Hooray for the bus! I was always afraid of those bike racks on the front of the bus, like I would not be able to figure them out and the bus driver would have to climb down and grumble at me, but it was really fine. You put your bike into a slot for the wheels and put a hook over the front, and that is that. I did hit myself in the face with my handlebars, though, because my face always gets in the way. It is always poking out or looking at something.

Something else happened on the way back yesterday: I got really hot. I was wearing a tee shirt and shorts and I was cranking along on the trail, and thought, “what if I just roll my sleeves up, to my shoulders?” What if? I hadn’t done that in ten years.

I hide my arms most of the time because I am pretty scarred from all the self-mutilation that went on in high school. I was slashing myself up pretty regularly when I was sixteen or so. If I was out at a party then I was burning myself with cigarettes, because I was too punk to be alive, even. So I hid my arms for a long time, because regular people thought I crashed through a plate-glass window or something and would say so.

Lately when I talk to people about it, and they see my arms, they say they can hardly tell what happened. I am a sucky healer, so it took them a long time to fade. I kind of don’t believe those people, like they are just being nice. I usually see the scars with big neon-red outlines, just like Lady MacBeth.

I went along yesterday, being all anonymous on my bike and I glanced down at my arms occasionally. They looked sad and white, and a little jiggly from too much Internetting lately. But not really scarred. It’s nice to get older, and see things more how they really are.

But I’m not going to run out and buy some toob tops or anything.

Part Two: Ass Pain and Nostalgia

I was thinking about when I was a little kid and I used to get my bike out as soon as the snow turned into slush and didn’t come back. I would ride all around in my winter coat and see what had changed since I was confined to my own neighborhood all winter. You could find a raccoon carcass in a melting pile of snow, or some snowdrops poking up.

My butt was always sore for the first few days, and then it wasn’t anymore. I guess my question for today is: what happens to your butt that makes it not sore anymore? I guess you get Internal Ass Calluses.

Holy shit! I think I just hit on a name for Mr. Husband’s band! (They have all ready rejected my previous extremely awesome suggestions: “The Atonal Fuckheads” and “Bitchiro.”)

So, after five years of on-and-off, up-and-down, through sickness and health, I am breaking up with Jogging. I just can’t do it anymore. I was looking pretty good this winter, when I was eating stress and drinking paranoia, and also pre-baby in Phoenix where everyone weighs five pounds, so you have to keep up…but I just have to stop before my knees do.

The problem is, of course, that after a month off, I look down and I see saddlebags that have nothing to do with no horse.

This morning I got out my old ’56 bernana-yellow Raleigh and pumped up the tires. I forgot the thing weighs about 800 pounds what with the steel frame and all, but it has this seat…a seat to die for. The bike was built for the mens, but someone added the seat later and it is wide as the Giant Head of Steve Martin. And probably just as comfortable.

It brings back so many memories…me getting a flat on the University Bridge, me hauling it up the very skinny stairs to the backroom of my record store job. It still has the Rocket from the Crypt sticker on it that my eighteen-year-old self thought was totally badass. I’d replace it, but it’s really hard to find Lee Morgan stickers. I am so lame now. But I accept my lameness, because when I don’t I usually just fall down and look stupid.

In Other News

While I was writing this, damn Nietzsche was eating the crapping butter that I set out to cook my eggs with. She was licking it and following it around the table and I heard the butter dish rattle. Perhaps I will tie her to the handlebars and peddle to my meeting with the United Way today.

I thought about throwing it out…but you know, Mr. Husband will never be the wiser. Her little toothie nibble marks look a lot like butter knife marks. Hmm….

Surprise, surprise, two nights of drinking in a row has left me CROSS. Well, the voddy’s gone now, so I’m over it. Much to my barely-containing-my-own-vomit surprise, my thesis proposal got accepted. So it looks like data collection starts in October…which is soon. I said in my proposal that I would “dress appropriately” in order to fit in with the study’s participants, who are homeless people, and I think that will also involve donning a cheap wig. I really don’t want to go brown for a couple of weeks of data collection, but I will if I have to.

I am doing research for the United Way, and they want a report of of my findings, which I will of course produce. My advisor wants me to spin the report off into a journal article, instead of a formal thesis. I have to admit I got a little misty at the thought of not being a poopy-pants academic and having a big published thesis I could brain cows with. *sniff*

In Other News

Yard sale this weekend. I am getting rid of some old crap….

Mr. Husband: Now 29% more worthless. I was gone at a meeting for most of the morning and afternoon, and I came home to a giant stack of dirty dishes. Fine, whatever. But he is off to work this morning and they are still there! I hate! Yes, I know, he’s at work and that’s a good thing, but he better RECOGNIZE that we are still 50-50 on the housework tip, since I have had equivalent work hours this summer.

Mr Husband: $100. That will get me a quality vibrator and a sock puppet to have adult conversations with.

Chickens: Now 93% more worthless. Two are on the brood. One is hiding her eggs in the garden. The new ones follow Heckle and Jeckle into the house the minute they lay eggs and eat them. I think they are also eating The Dutchess’s eggs, but I’m not sure. I am feeding animals that crap up my patio and eat their own by-products. Who’s the birdbrain now?

Chickens: $5 for Marzipan and Penny, $3 for Heckle, Jeckle, Phoebe, and The Dutchess.

Monkeyhip the Crappity-Fucking Hamster: Now 86% more likely to escape. He has been roaming around the house loose for two days. The bad news is that he’s hoarding catfood under the sink. The good news is that the floors have been cleaner than they have been in weeks.

Maybe I want to keep Phoebe. She’s sweet.

Everything else will go! I am excited. I will take the money, all $200 of it, and start over as a bail bondsman in Cleveland with a small yellow chicken.

I keep having this dream…it’s one of those anxiety dreams where you’re running around trying to get everything done, and someone keeps throwing a monkeywrench in your shit. They’re either telling you you’re doing it wrong, or you need to do more. Then it gets really blatant and I’m standing in front of a firehose that’s getting turned up, little by little. And the wielder of the firehose is my thesis advisor, with her sweet Newfie accent, saying, “How’s that, then, SJ? Can I turn it up a little more?” My feet start to slide because I’m wearing cheap dress flats.

Okay, so this summer’s not nearly that bad. I think I’m just freaking out because my thesis proposal will be finished today or tomorrow, and I feel like it’s gotten away from me. My advisor has found funding and people for me to interview, but it’s a totally different project now. Suddenly I’m writing a report of my findings, and journal article, instead of a proper thesis. This is actually better, I think, as far as getting into the PhDude club goes, but none of it is what I expected.

I’m okay. I just have to flounder piteously for a minute.

In Other, Non-Neurotic, News

Okay, I’m lame. I missed the sponsor letter deadline thing for the Blogathon. Perhaps I should not have been Blogathonning while up to my hips in school. Anyway. I blogged for Bookaid, and according to the website thirty British pounds “pays for twenty books for the donkey cart.” How can you not love an organization that donates to a Donkey-Bookmobile?

If you like, you can send them your sponsorship directly. There is a mailing address here, and a secure webform through here. You can also see the donkey cart and find out what happens to your hard-earned dough. And you don’t have to say anything about me or the blogathon. And if you don’t do it at all I certainly won’t hold it against you. Or even know.

As penance for my sin of procrastination, I am going to donate ten dollars on my own behalf, har har har. And now I am off to whip myself, right after I don my hairshirt.

“Don:” totally underused. I wonder if you can “don” oven mitts? Bandaids? A bad attitude? “Don we now our bad manners.” Hmm…perhaps I should go back to bed for a while.

Update!

5:57 pm: Started drinking. Say, I can drink cranberry vodkas AND look for citations! Yes, things are looking mush better now. What was I fretting about this morning, anyway? Ooh, er.

Drunken Update!

6:56 pm: It turns out that chickens like tabouleh!

So, my sister Morgan and I went camping last week. Camping in Washington is great, because there are still less mosquitoes than in the Wisconsin camping trips of my childhood. Just to be safe, I brought the giant can-o-DEET, because I am done reproducing anyhow (WARNING! May melt nylon, small pets, and many brain cells.)

This is the first time I have soley cooked over a fire. It’s pretty empowering. I came back and saw Emeril trying to BAM IT UP on a stove and I just laughed at him. Controlled fires, food that is evenly cooked on all sides and in the center, and non-warped cookware are clearly for wusses.

I think I had a better time than Morgan did, even though it was her birthday trip. She was pretty out of her element, what with not having music and only sleeping 10 hours a night. By the third day her poor cold miserable ass was dragging, and that made me realize that teenagers really need their fourteen hours of sleep.

One thing I forgot: it is unwise to leave a major city if you have pink hair. I thought I was all free here, with my pink and orangeness, but what happens is that you actually become a prisoner to Liberal Land. This is what happens on the Outside: children are shushed in your presense, some people won’t talk to you at all, and some people just say really stupid things.

Man with Interesting Teeth and Mullet at Gas Station, smiling devilishly: “Wow, that’s some bright hair you got there.”

Me: “Yes, it makes it much easier for my HUSBAND to spot me in a crowd.”

We had some good tuna, bought right off of a dock. It only rained a little. We hung out at the beach and had long sessions reading All the Presidents’ Men together. The passenger window got stuck partway down on the second day, so Morgan rode back with the window open, and we blasted the heat.

I got over my fear of porta-potties, and Morgan found hers. I am sympathetic; I think having a spider fall at you as you are unrolling the toilet paper would freak me out too. Much PBR was consumed, and after we ran out we bought tallboys of Budwiser. I would declare the trip a success. I think I am going again next year.

Too Much: The surfer in the next spot telling us to “get some exercise.” My real life is jogging and little girlie and school, so of course I am going to drink and smoke all week.

Not Enough: Money for seafood. Sun. Blankets.

Perfect: The amount of beer and Justin Timberlake in US magazine.

Hello! Thanks to everyone who looked at my Blogathon, pledged during it, or sent me supportive emails.

I am terribly busy right now; my boss thinks it would be “neat” for me to get manuscript formatting experience, in addition to the database work I’m doing. And I am trying to get ready to go camping.

I’m glad I don’t have a laptop…I have had this vision of myself in my tent poking away at the tiny keys…I will escape!

Pledgers: Hang on. I am still trying to figure how donations work.

Blogathon Hi-Lites:

Sup, humpers. My contribution to the Blogathon is over here. You can’t donate any more money though, because my donation link isn’t working.

Frannie says: you may leave comments on this entry if you wish, since I don’t have them in the other place. Or get in touch. I will answer all viewer mail.

Remember: I will be Blogathonning starting this Saturday the 26th, 6:00 am, Pacific. That means one post every half hour until 6am Sunday. Yeah, I know, you’ll be asleep. That’s okay, you Bastards. You can look at the archives on Monday when you’re at work, for I am moving this giant server-space-suck elsewhere.

Come and see me Saturday night, when you stumble home drunk, and send me a cheering email. I will be posting candid photos that will not be here come Monday. Wink, wink.

Like:

-Sleeping-cat-on-sleeping-cat action!

-48th coffee-induced trip to the bathroom!

-“Do I have weird toes?”!

-And much, much more!

POOR OLD MR. HUSBAND. He has no idea what I’m up to most of the time. I have two bosses named Karen and my schemes change faster than Melanie Griffith’s profile. I would be confused if I were him, too.

Mr. Husband is also a schemer; unfortunately, his schemes are less realistic than mine. I scheme to run for student office, or to get a professor to write me a recommendation. He schemes and schemes and schemes…and that’s it.

I have never seen anyone so excited to get credit card offers in the mail.

“Ooh, look! They want to offer me a $20,000 loan! Now I can open that jazz club/coffee shop/iguana ranch I always wanted!”

To be honest, the whole business makes me nervous. He is not a person known for his follow-through. He has attempted college many times and gets bored after one quarter. We are currently living in a half-finished house that he has not worked on in almost a year. I can still see exposed wires. I am not going to let this man take out a business loan.

Like most people, he doesn’t like to be reminded of his foibles. I don’t like hearing about what a bitchy loudmouth I am, and sometimes over-sensitive to boot, so I understand. Instead of saying, “Gee, honey, do you really think you’ll be able to follow through with that business plan?” I give him facts, and places to get started on research, like the library. Dreamers hate reality. I wouldn’t bring it up at all, if it weren’t for the fact that my financial future is tied to his.

So I sneak. And am realistic. And bite my tongue when he has found a way to become a “millionaire by the time he’s 40.”

My sneaking goes like this: I get the mail every day, and weed out all of his credit card and loan offers. Sometimes I fail, and he gets it first. He was reading one today while we were driving to lunch.

“Wow!” he said. “My credit must be getting better because I am finally getting credit card offers again.”

“Or,” I said gently, “They are sending them because you have bad credit.”

He thought for a minute.

“Nah, that stuff’s fallen off my record by now.”

I love him dearly, but he should not open his own business, or take on $20,000+ in debt while I’m in school. What he really needs to do is not work at all, and just practice his horn. That’s what he really wants. I think he will be a great home-daddy, as long as he can play a few gigs.

The light goes on for my newer readers: “Ah, he’s a musician.” Alas.

“Just hang on,” I keep saying. “When I finish school you can stop working and do whatever you want. Hang on!”

“Look!” says Mr. Husband. “An instrument repair course, and it only takes nine months!”

That’s about six months too long, sadly.

So. Shopping. I copped out today…I was supposed to go and find a new pair of jeans. Jeans shopping always makes me vacillate between depressed (flub, florescent lights) giddy (today is the day I will find a pair of jeans that will last forever! Solve all my problems! Love me!), and horrified. The horror: stone-washed is in again. And someone told me that Halle Berry has a non-ironic mullet. The fuck?

I have this special problem, and I think I