Superinky Fixations

Will this insufferably long month JUST END already?

It’s Monday and I’m mellow. It continues to rain and rain and rain. And rain. Sure, there are occasional sun breaks, but mostly, it just rains. I’m convinced my brain has completely stopped producing serotonin. Still, there’s something kind of thrilling about a stormy day. There’s something sort of exhilarating about walking in the rain when it’s really coming down. I made myself take a walk today during lunch and you know, it wasn’t so bad. I’m glad I had my umbrella. I’m extra, extra glad I have my super-duper funky comfy Merrill boots that allow me to clop through big puddles with ease and look cool at the same time. So I’m not depressed so much as I’m just in this sort laid back laissez-faire mood, coupled with a desire to hunker down and nest.

Be groovy. And crank up your speakers!

Boards of Canada - Because it reminds me of warm dreamy summer nights.
Joanna Newcom - Love her or hate her. I hope you love her like I do.
Jackie O Motherfucker It’s just way mellow, k?
Elbow - Because I just watched "9 Songs" and it was way sexy.
Joy Zipper - Does there have to be a reason?

Ok. So upon waking this morning, I discovered I have successfully managed to lose my voice completely. That’s right. A strange squeak escaped from between my lips as I called in sick. I have since abandoned speaking altogether. I can whisper, though it’s so faint one must be within approximately 1 foot of me to hear it.

I tend to live primarily in the school of thought which connects physical ailments with psychologically rooted issues. That being said, is there something that I’m not saying? Is there some issue so important, fighting so hard to come to the surface that my subconscious has manifested instant laryngitis?

Could it be that I spend all, and I mean all of my day either attached to the phone putting out fires, with an endless string of people coming in to interrupt me day after day after day? Has my voice just given up? What you may or may not remember about me is that 7, 8 months ago my arms gave it up; crippled with what felt like carpal-tunnel-tendinitis-arthritis-debilitating PAIN which quite literally prevented me from working.

Hmmm. I think my body is trying to tell me something. It tried the debilitating arm pain. Now it’s stripped my voice away.

O.k., so today I did something I’m not proud of. I was making fun of this woman I see around work; specifically, I was making fun of her voice and how it’s so low and gravelly due to excessive smoking and her horrifically gross hacking cough. See, I wasn’t being flattering as you can imagine, in my imitation of her.

Immediately after my parody, my throat began aching. I figured it was because I’d strained my voice in an effort to make my co-worker laugh. I shrugged it off, but it persisted. Hours passed, my sore throat grew more intense, more painful.

I have no other symptoms of a cold. I do get into these sneezing fits, but anyone who knows me for any length of time knows that it’s not uncommon for me to sneeze 6, 7, 8 times in a row.

7 hours after making fun of this woman’s voice, my throat burns and I can barely speak.

Now, I’m certain this woman has cursed me for I have a sore throat unlike any I’ve ever had before.

Thought the goofy time killer was hilarious. It came to my attention today on mycrack, I mean myspace. Mikey over at Tinymeat passed it on, Bevs picked up the flame on her blog, and I just thought it was entertaining. Try it:

Google your name with "was killed by". For example, "Anna was killed by". By sure to use quotation marks!

These are some of the standouts:

• Anna was killed by lightening (awesome!)
• Anna was killed by her husband. It was reported that he accomplished the task by ramming a broomstick down her throat. (this is my personal favorite)
• Anna was killed by the same pagan King of the Mercians who had slain his predecessors, ie: Penda. WTF?
• Anna was killed by a student who felt threatened by her Communist sympathies. (cool!)

It was also fun googling my hubby’s name.

How did you die?

I’m having a hard time blogging lately. Well, that’s nothing new. Sometimes the ol’ creative well just dries up I suppose. I’ve become single-mindedly obsessed with downloading listening to music at the expense of doing pretty much anything else; deciding, after all, that I loathe the term "indie music" and that if Death Cab for Cutie and The Shins are considered indie music then get me a death cab to hell and leave me there for all eternity. I’m quite partial to Antony & the Johnsons these days, not because he’s perfect or even sings all that well, but it’s wrought thick with emotion. And though I may frequently feel dry and empty, I surely can appreciate the passion someone else feels. I think that makes me… empathic?

I think about cleaning the house and doing, you know, like basic chores & stuff to keep my home looking half-way decent and not gross and decrepit. Ugh. How I detest housework. Mostly I can’t stand that we are apparently pack rats, scavengers, and hoarders, this man I live with & me. The sheer amount of stuff is stifling. No wonder I can’t think straight. Oh, but like most creative people, I am hesitant to give up my possessions for fear it will interfere with my creativity… (I saw some "Organization Expert" say that on one of those Clean Your House Improve Your Life shows on HDTV this weekend). I definitely need Miss Sally Cleaner and More Organized than Me to come to my house and help me start fresh. I also need Cesar Milan (the Dog Whisperer, and for the uninitiated, the best show on television ever for dog owners!!) to come to my house and retrain me and show my dogs that I am the dominant, assertive, yet calm leader he believes I can be.

Things I am thankful for today:

1. rain makes my skin glow
2. my dogs love me
3. I bought a really cool pair of boots I can’t wait to wear to work tomorrow. That in itself is the only reason that will bring me into the office willingly tomorrow and is therefore, a small miracle in the form of footwear.
4. it’s only a 4 day work week
5. Antony & the Johnsons. Step off haters.

By the way, I just read this article in this free Women’s Health magazine that mysteriously showed up in my mailbox the other day, that January is not a great time to start dieting because, overall, ones serotonin levels are quite diminished. I somehow take comfort in this thought. Though it made no mention of when ones serotonin levels will increase. This puzzles me but I’ll take it as a sign to go easy on myself.

a’ight. Here it is like I promised, yo?

(removed) by Anthony and the Johnsons.

Get a tissue. I’m just sayin’. It’s a tear jerker.

Really.

If you watch no other episode of ER ever, watch tonight. Just kidding. I mean, wtf? Why is it every week there is some asinine advertisement with that hideously overbearing-authoritative-yet-friendly-yet-simultaneously intensely serious booming male voice demanding me to watch ER? FUCK. It’s just one of over a million needless stimuli I have to take in every day and try to synthesize consciously or subconsciously. No wonder I have disturbing dreams.

Mostly I dream about rooms; rooms in homes that belong to me that I either, a) didn’t know I had or, b) never use. It’s all kinds of rooms. Sometimes the rooms are scary and frightfully, paralyzing-ly (yeah, I know that’s not technically a word, but that’s the beautiful thing about the Engligh language - it’s fluid…) dark, other times dirty and gross beyond description, frequently expansive, often surprising, quirky and occasionally delightful.

Last night I dreamt of a house on the water. Somehow it had this huge room, an additional house really, connected to it. It was immaculately clean, fully furnished, slightly tacky, but not in distasteful way. It reminded me of a home a newly retired couple would have decorated, or a vacation home with the tasteful outcasts of old furniture and knickknacks.

That’s all. Just rooms. Endless unoccupied rooms. No action. Well, I do recall once happening upon a garage in my home where a troupe of actors were practicing a musical. But mostly, just me investigating rooms I didn’t know I had. I dream of rooms night after night after night. For as long as I can remember, dreams of uninhabited rooms. 

I know what it means, haters. I already know the rooms are me; my untapped potential, my undiscovered talents, the secret fears I keep even from myself. You don’t dream about rooms every single night for 36 years and not do some investigating on the symbolism of discovering rooms in one’s own house.

Have you heard that song by Anthony & the Johnsons "For Today I am a Boy"? Wow. It’s weird but beautiful, and I promise I’ll link you when I get home, but at the moment I’m pretending to work and I don’t have access to my mp3s. Trust me. It’s a wee bit puzzling, but go with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Season of the Witch (This is an excerpt of my novel - not a confessional!…a very, very, very small excerpt. cuz it gets weird after this. trust me. Alright, haters. It’s Saturday night the 14th. I left it up for a couple days then decided to remove it. Too revealing. It made me uncomfortable. I’m kind of freaked out that a few of you out there read it..)

So, like I’m trying to whiten my teeth with one of those "Rembrandt Whiter Teeth in Two Hours" jobbies. I just got done with my first 25 minute session. Now I’m supposed to take a break for 10 minutes and then start all over again. I’ll tell you, it frickin burns! I think I might have caused some sort of chemically-induced burns on the roof of my mouth. And, strangely, it seems to have highlighted the plaque and tartar build up I’ve accumulated since my last cleaning. Hmmm. I’m slightly concerned, but I won’t let it bother me too much. Seems to me when I went to the dentist and got my teeth cleaned professionally; you know, with that weird blue light that kind of made my teeth hurt, for like the first 24 hours I could see a little plaque build up here and there. It faded and then my teeth looked nice and white. And you know what’s kind of funny? Every time I try to write the word "plaque" I cannot help but write the word "plague". I hate getting old.

Oh damn. I’ve got to work tomorrow. Fuck. What happened to vacation? 11 days off straight in a row and it’s just not enough. I think I may have felt differently if I headed off to some isolated warm sunny beach and didn’t have family commitments. It’s all good, though. This was one of my better Holidays. And, because I am one that lives now almost exclusively for the weekend, this’ll just be a 4 day work week and therefore be 20% shorter than my typical work week. Plus, I’m going to get the rest of my tattoo completed on Thursday and of course that’ll require me to leave work at least a couple hours early and frankly, right now my brain can’t calculate how much more of a percentage off that leaves the work week.

Thanks to all my friends, old and new, for making 2005 so memorable. Now bretty is getting anxious and wants to use the computer, so I guess this is it for now.

Peace.

I’m having fun, really. I mean, look at me - I am the picture of mirth. When I get more time, I’ll make the photo larger, but bretty is about to have a cow.