"Two straight and unadorned columns stood on either side of the entrance, which opened, at first sight, like a single great arch; but from the columns began two embrasures that, surmounted by other, multiple arches, led the gaze, as if into the heart of the abyss, toward the doorway itself, crowned by a great tympanum, supported on the sides by two imposts and in the center by a carved pillar, which divided the entrance into two apertures protected by oak doors reinforced in metal."

holy run on sentences batgirl! now, i will admit that "the name of the rose" by umberto eco is actually much more interesting than i remembered from years ago, but passages like this cause my eyes to glaze over and decide it's time to go to sleep. this is what happened last night, i read that sentence and turned off the light, and tonight i read the sentence again and wanted to turn off the light. it's magic. but i had to drag myself out of bed and do this before i forgot.

derby derby derby derby.
i've got derby fever, though it sort of feels like the flu. go to sleep thinking about practice, dream about derby, wake up and think about derby. it feels like when i was a teenager discovering punk music: you want to devote every waking hour to everything punk and could care less about anything that isn't. maybe i should start a derby zine:)
but i did take the sodoku challenge after a brief hiatus, it's difficult to think about numbers when you're hung over. balls. instead of sodoku, i've been reading the US magazine that lizzy gave me. when my lack of popular culture (i guess that's what it's called) became shockingly real, as in me not knowing any stars or shows, she popped into my room and said, "this is to fill that black void with some information about the world." oh that lizzy! i usually feel too busy to devote much time to tv or watching movies, but i can always find time for i love new york. it's getting down to the wire folks, and it's going to get gooood! this show is almost perfect. for it to be perfect, it needs to be reno 911. now that's a show.
this is a photo of the golden gate fields' restroom, my dear friend nick worked there. i loooove to watch those ponies run.

sometimes i have to do a film developing blitz, gathering up all the random rolls hanging around my room, and see what i got. there's photos i remember taking, and then that is it. i'll wonder what ever happened to that picture, and when i develop the film, i find it. and discover it was a great photo, and i shot another photo over it by accident. dang. finding alot of photos of taka, miss that guy more than i should.

about a week ago, i had to do one of those dreadful things... the unmentionable. no, not take a dump in the toilet bowl, taking a dump on someone's feelings.
and my satellite ears overheard him comiserating with some gals who i'm sure were only too happy i'd passed on the fellow, he said, "i guess i'm just not her type." (or something to that effect, this is 2nd hand eaves dropping after all). when i heard that, i was like, "what? i never said that!" cuz i didn't, i said other stuff. but maybe he's not, and we all should just assume that when we get dumped we're just not that person's type. in one way or another.
this is how it'd go:
"yeah, i guess you're just not my type."
"what is your type then?"
"girls who only eat hamburgers and don't make me call them back."
"oh... yeah, i guess you're not my type either."
"oooh really? what's your type then?"
"guys who don't have raging ringworm and chronic unemployment."
"ha, fuck you."
"fuck you too."
"see you at pops."
"cool."

for some reason i have a pile of glow sticks on my desk.

snowy days are here again

so, once again i'll talk about the weather... it's snowy, which is very beautiful for looking at and taking photos, but bad if you need to go anywhere. it snowed the night before last, which took out the electricity, and because the snow was so deep, all this stuff was cancelled. beauty school, unl, state jobs, maybe little kid school, it was a day off for lots. lizzy and i played gin (and she beat me) for a bit until adam finished shoveling the driveway, and then we decided to jam. we're starting a band, i can't reveal the name yet, but it will have flute, moog, ukelele, computer, and maybe some other thing. it's me, lizzy, and adam, and we already have the start to our first song. don't worry, it's going to rock. at about this time in the day, tasha calls and tells me that if i want to go to adult skate tonight i need to stop jerking around and get my work done. so we wrapped up our practice and i went down and slaved away on the computer doing stuff which will eventually lend me either money or fame. adult skate was great, it was deserted. we pretty much had the rink to ourselves and could skate fast because none of the old people were there.
i got up before 10 today, it's a major accomplishment. you know how i did this? you go to bed early. but what if you're not tired? just read the book "name of the rose" by eco, it's a 14th century murder mystery set in a monastery. though interesting, it will put you to sleep.

Quotable Quotes from the hit show "I Love New York"
"I'm really feeling the fuck out of this nerd!" New York on Mr. Boston
"When you have a small dog, things can happen. Not only that, they're so cute. You can never say no." Romance on Her Majesty, New York's small dog.
"Sometimes don't you just get scared of the dark and think there's a monster over there?" Tango to Real.
Ok, so Tango never said that, I say that. someday when I have a kid they're going to say, "mommy, don't turn out the lights, i'm afraid there's a monster over there!" and i'll say, "i know! and it's really scary! good luck and don't make any noise, that's what i do. but if you have to walk through the haunted abyss, i mean dark, if you have to walk through the DARK for some reason, just sing a song like you were tina turner on sesame street. that keeps the monsters away from you until you can turn on the lights. serious! they haven't gotten me yet!"

mafioso
PASSED! yes, i passed my wftda testing that i have been so stressed out about for the last few weeks, yippie! everyone passed, doubly good. AND, after the testing was over all the rookies were drafted last night, our teams were announced and i am now on...
(i'm talking about the no coast derby in case you don't know)
the mary kay mafia!
and tasha's in...
gang green?
nooooo! why do we have to skate against each other? lizzy's on gang green too, it's going to be a strain. i know blood (and best friends) are thicker than water, but what about the team? sisters against sisters? nooooo way.
but i tell you what, mary kay mafia has the cutest uniforms!
yay me!

who knows, after tonight we may get to be the Hornettes.
NO COAST DERBY!!

i always surprise myself at how poor a friend i can act sometimes. or family member. i'm sorry. it's like i only like to concentrate on a few things at a time, like thinking about something or working towards something, and have to ignore everything else or the first things get lost. so i don't call as much as i should, or email, or send out myspace messages, or go out or whatever.
on a brighter note, we got wireless at our house! hence, the frequent blogs of late. (talking like that is great) and i can once again listen to the technicolor web of sound, and air america (it's not on today tho). and of course, my old time radio programs. never get tired of that shit. unless i've heard it before. finally finished my journey into space program, dang, maybe tomorrow i'll spend some time and talk about it. for all you journey into space fans.
it's also warm out today, and i'm going to dust off ye old bicicleta and get my ass to class. who knew, that after all this shitty winter time stuff, there would be sunshine? you never appreciate a nice day like you do after a stretch of miserable ones. yay!

ahh, i took the sodoku challenge again and i won. then i went back to a problematic puzzle and whooped it's ass. word! i mean... numbers!!
being negative isn't cool. being negative doesn't mean you're elite or knowledgeable or menacing or whatever you're trying to make people think. now, this is kid shit, stuff you should have realized a long time ago. but we all need to be reminded, as it's an easy trap to fall into. am i thinking of anyone specific? yes, several people including myself. i caught myself talking with someone about a movie i saw, marie antoinette, which i liked, but all i could say was all the ways it sucked. lame! why was i being lame, i don't know. just gotta stop.
i still don't have my pads and helmet for derby, we're waiting for them to get in at precision skate. right now i'm using someone's gigantic helmet and some second hand pads from other girls. yesterday was the first time i practiced hits, which was fun, and i can't wait for tonight! it's awesome. i need speed, i need to stop being the slowest. now if i could just get the hang of stopping... next tuesday is the day all the rookies take the test so we can get drafted and belong to a team. gang green, mary kay mafia, or the hood rats? where will i get in? who has the best outfits?
STEP AWAY FROM THE DENIM...
a few days ago tasha, my mom, and i went to tj maxxx. they must have just got in a big shipment, cuz there were soooo many cute things! i found a sweet pair of jeans, which fit perfectly. a jean expert in sf told me that when buying jeans, find the perfect fit then go a size smaller. that way when you start wearing them they'll stretch to fit just like the bigger size. if you start with the perfect size, it WILL stretch out and not be the perfect fit anymore. anyway, so i found this pair of pants and i kept these words of wisdom in my head, and looked for a size smaller. but i couldn't find a pair! the store was closing and we needed to go, and i became frantic and found a different pair of jeans that were the size i was looking for, and then just bought both pairs. when we got back home, i went to try on the second pair of jeans and boy oh boy, it was a struggle. like the waist was a better fit for my thigh than my waist. but i tugged and wiggled and pulled them on and then had to lay on the floor to button them up. but i got it done by god, while tasha and my mom looked on in horror at my efforts, and then the results. they begged me to take them back, they told me how bad they looked, but i don't know... they'll stretch out right? maybe if i wear them wet that'll help. who knows, i may lose some weight, but at this point in time it's muffin top city. the tighter the better i say.

well, i took the sodoku challenge and i crumbled. i'll finish it tomorrow i guess, man, this book is going to take me forever to get through.
the derby bout ruled last night! i was too excited to even take photos, we drank beer and yelled alot. man, it made me want to skate sooo bad, i can't wait until practice tomorrow! after the bout john w and tasha and i went to a nice restaurant where we had nice wine and nice hors d'oeuvre's and nice bread and nice oil and all that nice stuff. and then we drove home in john w's big warm truck and listened to neil young. all in all, it was a good night.

shit! i did it again! i took the sodoku challenge and i won.
tonight i'm going to crash tasha and john w's belated buddy valentine date, they're going up to omaha to eat and then to the bout between the omaha roller girls and the withita roller girls. word!
black wednesday was PACKED! had shit to do all day long, and then ended at a fancy restaurant with my valentines date, brian p. he gave me a photo of us almost 10 years ago.

things to note:
my party dress, it was a going away party for patriq and i
my bi-hawk
brian and i holding hands
brian looks the same, you could have taken the photo yesterday and he'd be wearing the same shirt.

101!!

one hundredeth and one-th post!!
i took the sokoku challenge, and i won.
if you don't already know the true panther sounds blog, stop being ignorant and check it out: http://www.truepanther.com/blog.html , i SWEAR TO GOD you will want to thank me later.
played out? i don't know, because i'm usually the last to know when something's played out, but is it good? yes. http://marmadukeexplained.blogspot.com
you know what's not fair? telling you miss someone like the desert misses the rain but don't.
you know what else is not fair? making someone's website and then disappearing.

feb update...

so what's been going on? well, i've decided to stop complaining about the cold. it gets boring, talking about all the different numbers it is outside and how they're a really big deal. it's cold and it's snowy and i don't get to ride my bike and i'm sort of getting used to it.

sweet new colors, i know.
i was sick last week, that sucked. i'm almost better now so that's good.
my phone broke but then i got a new one and it's brown and not pink.
i punched a girl in the face, but only after she punched my sister and i, and has been a pain in the ass for the last 10 years.
been meeting people, that's cool.
but best of all, i've been going to the no coast derby girls practices these last few weeks and at the end of the month all the rookies will get put onto teams. drafted like! tasha is back, and since there weren't teams yet when she was involved back when it started, she's considered a rookie. but she doesn't skate like one!! lizzy is a derby girl too, she's been with it for a while, and it's fun for all of us to go to practice together and do shit. i'm not such a good skater yet, but i'm practicing and getting better. there's gonna be "mud fest" coming up, with pudding wrestling and a kissing booth. i just want to take photos! and skate of course.
my new house rules. i live with lizzy and adam 2000, and their dogs pam and yuri. i'm in the basement, but it's finished and i have my own real kitchen down here plus a bathroom and a darkroom (???i know!) and i just do my stuff and get to hang out with a friend when i want to. and of course play with the dogs. tonight lizzy got white slippers that matched pam. pam's a little dog, a maltese.

things and stuff

yesterday i was brushing my hair and spacing off, and i idly thought to myself, "how long is it until you go home again?". and then i realized san francisco isn't my home anymore, lincoln's my home. i kind of panicked for a minute, and then tried to think of something else right away. holy moly.
the weather is cold here, a few days ago it was -11F in the morning. do you know how cold that is? that isn't cold, it's freeze your nuts off cold, it's the kind of cold where the second you go outside the only thing you think of is getting back inside. literally, all other thoughts leave your head. it sucks. i was talking to ellie last night and said, "it was sort of nice out today, it was 35F." and she said, "you think that's nice?" and i said yeah, at least you can walk around and think of other things, and you're not busy dying. there's snow too, and i haven't been able to ride my bike in 2 weeks. when will it get better so i can get around on my own? do i have to get a car? dang.
my shoulder has been hurting bad lately, like it wakes me up with it's incessant burning pain. i've suspected for years that i need some sort of surgery to repair it, but who knows, i haven't had health insurance since i graduated from sfai.
on the bright side of things, i've been going to the roller rink for adult skate with my sister tasha and her friends, it's great. my old friend and new room-mate lizzy is on the derby team here, and tasha and lizzy are encouraging me to try out for this next season. i'm kind of excited, last thursday was the second time i went to adult skate, and it was fun skating around and learning how to do cross-overs and pretend you're going fast. the skating rink is called "skate zone" now, but it used to be called "holiday skate world" back in the day. there was another skating rink called "starlight" or "stardust" and my mom took us there for saturday morning skate sessions, and we'd sing "eat it" and "built this city" and do the limbo. awesome! i used to be pigeon toed bad when i was little, and the doctor told my parents that skating would strengthen my legs so they would turn out instead of in.