The dance show is this weekend. I'm still not feeling as good as I used to. I don't feel weak any more like I did after my surgery but I am still having pain in my breasts, especially when I'm warmer and moving my arms around a lot. Ballet doesn't bother me as much as carrying trays around at work. Last weekend was rough, black friday and the crowds and so many many trays to carry. On Sunday night I was ready to snap, having a tantrum in the back because my tits hurt and people are rude and I can't just say to them, hey, I just had this scary thing happen to me and it still hurts AND my breasts are kind of ugly now and I don't know how much longer they will hurt and be ugly so with that in mind would it fucking kill you to make eye contact with me or even smile or say "thank you"? The pain isn't too sharp all the time or anything but it makes everything more tiresome and I didn't do anything else but work last weekend because of being tired and needing so much energy to keep being that perky waitress when I feel this way.

Next week I am having more skin cut away around where my moles were because of the malignant melanoma or whatever. A centimeter radius around where they were. A Hello Kitty bandaid just isn't going to cut it this time. Sometimes I feel really beat down. I know I KNOW there are much worse things in the world that could happen or have happened to people I know and love but fuck it, I don't want to get cut up again so soon. It is going to be a couple of big pieces of skin and I am sick of going to the doctor and I'm scared of finding out that things are even worse. I have to get blood tests and xrays and I'm scared. Sometimes I just don't want to know.

Last night I took a hot bath and I was looking at my body, all the new scars I've gotten recently. I don't have any other scars from anything except a chicken pox scar on my forehead from when I was four. It's hard to look at the ones on my breasts. I miss having a lover/boyfriend type around. I miss being touched outside of a medical setting. I've had some opportunities lately but I don't want anyone to see my gross boobs. My right nip still hurts if something brushes it even lightly. You can't expect a boy not to go feeling around there, or train him to exclusively grope lefty. It would be nice to have that kind of distraction but it's hard for me right now.

I've been playing the piano a lot lately. When I got the mole on my wrist removed, I got some gnarly stitches that made guitar hurt in a really yucky stretched out skin kind of way. Turns out I had me some malignant melanoma there so I gotta get more of my skin cut off, more gnarly stitches. I figure it's the Lord's way of telling me I should get back to my roots. I can play "Shave and a Haircut".

I can also play other things.

I got a B+ on a paper. Oh ouch. Notoriously difficult professor so I should be proud I suppose, but I haven't seen one of them wiggly B letters in ages. I'm used to the more angular and straight forward A. Luckily, I already have a syllabus for one course next quarter and I am going to get so far ahead the year 2012 will be eating my dust.

I made another friend at school today for a grand total of 3. Things are going pretty well. Long holiday weekend full of cramming and working at a diner crammed (I hope!) with cheap, crabby holiday shoppers. Adam is coming down for the holiday weekend and next weekend is the dance show. Have to get a costume, powder blue and white for maximum washed-out effect, and backstage more cramming for finals. The next week finals and then, Liberty, Debauchery and Pleasure Reading!

And Faulkner.

Getting my surgery did on friday morning. It is what it is.

I get freaked out if I think about it too much. Sometimes people I talk to about it try to calm me down by telling me about way worse things that have happened to them or other people. I know this isn't the worst thing in the world, but that knowledge doesn't change that it is definitely the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

Got my moles removed, on my wrist and on my calf. I'm all bruised and sore around where my stitches are but I dragged myself around at work all weekend anyway. I should probably get employee of the year. Aw dang.

Talking to Sarah B. tonight about going to Hill Street Cafe this week and now I can't stop thinking about the food there. I want their soup and I want it NOW. She's been learning about the tarot and she said she'd do a reading for me. I'm pretty stoked on it.

Is it so wrong that I'm actually really looking forward to having next weekend off, even though I will probably be miserable? It'll be really nice to have a damn good excuse to be lazy for a while.

Voted yesterday. Felt totally cool going in to the polls, left a nervous wreck. I decided to go home and read myself to sleep (an easy task when you're taking a course called "Literature of Fact in the Long 18th Century) and wake up when polls closed on the East Coast. I am so unspeakably happy Barack Obama won.

Barack Obama still drives my spellcheck crazy. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next software update. Show the man some respect!

All the news coverage about how historic his presidency is has been all about race. To me, and probably most of my generation, it's also historic because it's the first time in our memories that the American people have elected an intellectual, well-spoken man who we can truly believe in. Honestly, is it any wonder that kids my age have been so apathetic about politics when they came to political awareness when Bill Clinton was getting a blowjay? With this new information introduced to us in junior high and forced to decide which to dedicate more research and time to, is it any wonder that my eighth grade class voted for dick? W. might have made a lot of us mad but Gore and Kerry weren't able to convince enough of us that they'd be better enough that we should pause the porno for a minute and vote. Barack Obama made a real change in how young people think about politics. If I tried to count the Obama shirts I see every day on campus I would probably never stop counting, not to mention the flyers for rallies, kids registering kids to vote, the students for Obama club hanging out at their table. It's been so exciting. I just hope he can deliver on his promises, but I really believe that he can. It's just so fucking beautiful to see somebody with a god damn brain taking the White House. I've never been so proud of America before.

I just totally lost my shit at some fat forty year old fuck at Circle K who told me to smile.
"That ain't free and it ain't cheap."
Then I stormed out with my vitamin water muttering about what a presumptuous dickbag he was. Overreacting much? Whatevs. My ladyparts are spasming in pain with such regularity that it feels like they're trying to build up momentum to exit my body. Bitch, don't tell ME to smile.

Went to see the surgeon today. She wants to take one tumor from each side because it's the only way to know for sure what I got going on in there. She talked a lot about the aesthetics of the surgery, where my scars would be. I guess it's better to cut around the areola because the scars show less. That's cool for the one on my right but the one on my left is on the "cleavage line" so I have to decide if I want them to cut around the areola and dig a tunnel through my tit or if I want to have a little scar. I'm leaning toward the scar because the other way sounds more complicated and um, really fucking gross. It's going to be a "partial bilateral masectomy" which sounds a lot worse than it actually is. And good news! I don't have to be awake! My surgeon is actually the first doctor who made me feel like everything is going to be totally fine. Cheers to you, Doctor Tanaka!

Now I want to share a sweet story from restaurant land. A couple weeks ago, I had a lady at one of my tables bring in a thank you card for a man who had bought her and her 3 kids lunch there a couple weeks ago. I guess he's a regular who comes in by himself at lunch and picks someone, usually a single mother, and buys their meal. The servers and managers know him but he remains anonymous to the other guests. I gave the card to my manager and he said it's the first time anyone has ever come back with a thank you card for the man and he would make sure to give it to him. I've been thinking about it a lot, what motivates that man, who he is, why single moms. Maybe he has a kid he's never known or even just thinks he might. Maybe his mom raised him on her own and he knows how hard it is. Maybe he wants a family of his own but feels like time is running out. Maybe he just gives to give, no back story, no baggage.

When the woman came back she was with her husband and 3 kids and I gave them all ice cream cones on the house because that shit is sweet.

Is it so wrong that I just want a boy to cuddle with?

I went to the doctor today to look at my skin and shit. He put a little magnifying glass all over my body. I have to get two moles removed. Week after next I have an appointment with the tit surgeon. I feel like I went to the doctor once and as a consequence I have to go for the next two months. I feel like any day now they're going to find something else that's wrong.

I feel better when I dance. So I should dance more. Bonilla said I should have a passionate fling to distract myself and that sounds like a good idea because I want physical comforts and I want a boy anyway but I still feel really emotionally fucked and I don't want some dude I really like or maybe don't like that much but just want badly feeling up my tumors because the big one feels really gross and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the others get bigger too. I miss Ray because the Ray I remember would never have told me that my tumor was gross. He used to tell me my armpit was pretty. He would tell me that I'm okay, that I'm going to be okay, that worrying will make things worse than it could possibly help them and most importantly he would make me believe all those things. Things that I know I should think but wish I could believe.

Went to the dirty monday tonight after ballet. Stina has been talking lately about how they always go earlier now and how Gabe plays better stuff early and blah blah and I thought when she said she and Jenni were almost ready at 9:40 that they would be there in a timely fashion but long story short I sat by myself at the fucking saloon for almost an hour. I was going to just finish my beer and leave but David the bartender gave me a pity drink so I stayed but I was too irritated to have any fun and Stina decided to leave after she chugged a beer anyway. I just wanted to go out and have fun for a night like over summer and not worry about school (I'm not going tomorrow because of the fires) and not think about my tumors and just have a good time and fucking relax but now I feel worse than before.

I keep acting like it's kind of a joke that I have five fucking tumors and shit and laughing about it and yeah, they're benign, but they won't necessarily stay that way. The fact that I have this many benign tumors makes my risk of developing less benign growths go way up and I don't want to have to think about that possibility. I don't ever want to get that sick. I don't want to carry something around in my breast that could kill me. It's just such a shock to me. I have no family history of breast cancer or anything like that. It doesn't even look to me like I have room for that many tumors in my b-cups. It's scary. Thinking about the surgery the doctors are recommending for me is scary. And it's not a fear I was in any way prepared for. I don't know how to deal. I've thought about calling Ray so many times because I wish he would comfort me. I need that but I don't feel like I can ask that from anyone else. I want to lean on someone and lean hard right now but I feel like that's clearly more than I can expect from any of my friends and more than I would put on my parents. But things he has done to me can't be undone. I can never lean on him again.

God, I don't ever want to get that sick. I don't even want to be as "sick" as I am right now. I feel fine. I feel the same way I felt before the tests and diagnosis but knowing that there are things like that inside of me that are beyond my control is terrifying. I want to go to sleep and wake up in the morning to find all the bad things are gone.

I have 5 benign tumors (fibroadenomas if you please) in my breasts. The radiologist recommended that I consult with a surgeon about the largest one. Apparently if it gets any bigger it will be visible to the naked eye. Right now it feels like there's a big peanut m&m in my boob.

Last Saturday night at work Dave Mosely accidentally punched me in the boob and it made me really mad. I am going to tell him that he gave me tumors and try to make him do my sidework. He will probably not care but it's worth a try.

So much to do today and all I want to do is go back to sleep.

Went to the lady doctor this morning. She found a stupid lump in my stupid left tit so I have to get a stupid mammogram. She said it feels a little harder than a cyst and it's probably not a big deal but it's still kind of scary. Then she yelled at me about this mole I have on my wrist that's getting kind of dark. Then she told me all kinds of scary stories about cervical cancer. Basically made me feel like I'm dying of eight kinds of cancer. I had to go home and look at the worst of playgirl for a while before I could feel better. Delightful.

Just had a really good talk with Sarah Bonilla. We went to 7-11 after work and split a forty in a parking lot and talked about what it means to be human. She is somebody who I feel very innately close to and comfortable with in a very rare way. She is very spiritual and contemplative and she really tries to live well and I admire that. For reasons that I can't articulate, I am afraid of disappointing her somehow.

We talked a lot about energy and language and how we shape our own worlds. I've been more contemplative lately because of the changes I've made in my life and I feel like I'm at a turning point and it's very important for me to be mindful of how I am living, of how I care for and know myself, but that's not the most important thing. Our culture's emphasis on individuality puts a lot of pressure on the self, a false importance of the self, know yourself, be true to yourself, express yourself, love yourself, but that's not the whole story. It's about other people. It's easy to feel like you know yourself in a vacuum but you fucking can't live in one. It's easy to reduce humanity to an abstract, human nature, and it is easy to make generalizations about how one should live. There are so many distractions in our world and it seems like most people don't think about what's really important. It's finding a pulse in white noise. Trying to decide which star out of the millions in the sky you should follow.

I talked to her about Ray, about how he could read me. He would say things to me sometimes about just sensing me or feeling my energy and at first I thought it was kind of crazy but as time went by and coincidences added up I realized there was truth to what he said even if it went beyond my understanding. He would ask me if I could feel him reaching out for me and I never could. When he is in my dreams there are always two of him and in my memory I feel like I have known at least two versions of him and I could never read either of them the way he read me. It was really comforting on a really deep level to feel that somebody who knew me in such an intuitive way as well as he really did (at one point at least) actually loved me, actually wanted me around. But I always doubted too, because I never really knew what he was feeling, I couldn't sense him the way he sensed me. And it was a bad situation on the surface. I know a lot of my friends never really understood. I tried to ignore it, but it turns out surfaces can be pretty fucking important when it comes to letting someone shit on your heart.

I want to make sure that I heal right. I've thought about going into therapy because it would be nice to talk to someone about how to cope with things, how to move on, how to make sure I won't keep cycling through the same self destructive patterns, but shit's expensive and I think I'm smart enough and strong enough to pull my crazy ass together. I think the best (and worst) thing I did was when I found myself in love I threw myself in completely, total surrender. I would like to be able to do that again someday, just maybe in a situation that won't fuck up my life. I don't want to be afraid.

Stina and I just saw Nick and Norah's Infinite Pandering to Our Marketing Demographic. I think the best part of the movie was when she dropped one of our empties and you could hear the glass bottle roll all the way down the theatre. The second best part was when I whispered to her that Michael Cera was going to take off his hoodie and his vans and fuck her and that's pretty much exactly what happened.

Except Michael Cera doesn't fuck. He makes love.

Remember when George Michael Bluth had a crush on his teacher so he made her a collage of Saddam Hussein? That's fucking romance.

I made a friend at school this week. A friend, within the first week of classes? Must be a damn record for me.

School was really stressing me out because it's big and intimidating and I was kind of worried that I drank myself stupid over summer in various attempts to not deal with my feelings but according to my English 102D prof that is not the case.

So I'm gonna keep drinking my feelings.

Not all of them. Just a couple.

Oh shit.


marriedtothesea.com

Been having a really unusual amount of pain this month. Am probably dying. I am seriously scared that something is wrong with me. I was even scared before I went on web md. That's fear right there. Gotta get my pelvis examined. Sharp pains, nauseous all the time. On Wednesday it was so bad I couldn't move. Gotta wait until it's over to go to the lady doc though. Can't go like this. That's just rude.

Last night Sarah Bonilla brought me birthday cupcakes. Amazing.
I hung out at Molly's after work. Had some good girl talk. My life is actually pretty rad right now. I don't think I've made a really serious bad decision since July.
Jammed with Fitz and Stina a couple nights ago. Hadn't played music with other people in a long long time. Forgot how much it fucking rules.

Got sick this weekend. Sucks dude. Went to work anyway. Everyone's sick there.

I think my Spanish is getting better. I still pronounce everything like the whitest damn girl from the valley and say "like" too much, but I'm trying.

Next Sunday is my birthday. I don't want anything at all, really, just a few nice meals with my family and my friends. I wouldn't turn down a pretty trinket, but it's a nice feeling to look around and say, "I don't want for anything." I feel very lucky.

Mom was away this weekend visiting Zephyr and Carrie. Henry hasn't started talking yet so they're having a speech therapist come visit with him. No matter. I was bald until I was three and I have quite a lustrous head of hair now. Anything can happen, and anyway, I'm pretty sure Henry is the smartest boy in the world. He is MY nephew, after all.

There's somebody I sometimes miss but I love my freedom more. When there are lonely hours late at night I pick at my guitar or cuddle with Toby until he drools on my arm. During the day I almost never think of it. Anyway, I am beginning to find other distractions.

there may be churches burning down next year
if I'm a city then my citizens will pass no pails along
there may be temples of temptation to take refuge in my dear
if I'm a city then my citizens will cast a vote to
where you pray versus what you're praying for
and what you love versus what you bow before
and where you are praying and what you're praying for

Yesterday Ray called me again. Left a message. Hopes I'm happy. Hopes I find what I'm looking for. Sounded angry and gruff.

There's a kind of satisfaction that I'm not proud of that I get from hearing him say he hopes I find what I'm looking for. Because I know it's already too late for him but there's still hope for me. I feel bad for him. Part of me still misses him a little. But mostly I don't. I need to stand on my own.

Went out last night. I wasn't wearing my glasses so dudes were on me like wild on rice. All the tall, leggy blondes must have been busy. God, I am still so shy I don't know what the fuck to do when that happens. Good thing there's booze.

Tonight at work silverballs asked me to explain to him again what it means to superman a ho. I know he remembered. He just likes it when I talk dirty because I have no problem with it.

I'm hungry as fuck. Think I'll make some soup and crackers.

Ray called me today. I was texting so my phone accidentally picked up for about five seconds. I panicked and hung up on him. He called me right back, left a message. I want to get the hell out of here, live in a forest somewhere he'll never find me, throw all my electronic devices in a volcano. I don't know how else to deal with this right now. Last night I drank too much and ran into this guy who stood me up a couple times in April. He tried to act like we were friends and I walked away without a word, felt fucking terrible. I had another drink and I missed Ray but I knew it was a bad idea. It took him a couple years somehow, but he finally hurt me past the point I can forgive. What a guy.

Here's an email he sent me last week. What is his damn problem?

I hope when you saw the sunset it was warm on your heart and your smile
got to feel the suns last kiss before night. Your spirit is a gift  to
this planet and I am so glad to have spent minutes with you dear
Megan....xoxo...me

Got a comment card at work tonight that said, "Lemonade was too sweet!" so I drew a line through "lemonade" and wrote "Megan" and turned it in to the managers' box. It was satisfying.

text message from my little brother:

my political science professor took a non-biased shit underneath the driver's seat of your car so that you don't know about it until you're like 5 minutes from home.

How can I even begin to answer that?

Thursday, Aug 21st, 2008 -- Your key planet Mercury joins lovely Venus today, putting a kinder and gentler spin on your day. But beneath your veneer of charm, passions may be out of control -- even if no one else knows but you. Although you can keep your vulnerability a secret for now, the truth will leak out in the next few days.

Last night at 2:35 AM, Ray sent me this message:
" I hope the day was good to you...your videos are hilarious."

Fuck.

At least he used the right "your".

The night before last I got to thinking about him at work and I went home and cried. Not because I missed him, but because I couldn't believe he'd said all the things he said to me. The nice things. The things that before our split it became increasingly obvious that he didn't mean anymore. I do believe he meant them when he said them. But I remember he had a habit of not really replying to my emails or if he did he would reply two weeks later. I sent him a message once that was like hey, when you don't answer me I feel like you're telling me you don't care about me. No answer. So I was like, cool, he just agreed, like yeah, don't care. After that I was done.

So I am just not going to answer him. I've got serious ponygirl business to take care of and by "ponygirl business" I mean flirting with guys in bands on the internet. Suck it.

Mysterious fluids are dripping out of my car. For some reason, I really hope it's not champagne. I don't even know how it could be.

Going to see Xiu Xiu tonight at the Casbah with Christina and Devin and Adam. Yeah... at least the music's gonna be good. I'm not really looking forward to the rest of it. Think they'll mind if I bring a book?

Dropped a bunch of cash shopping today. Got a couple of really nice things I've been wanting for a while, green striped dress and yellow hooded seed stitch sweater. I'm not "overspending". I'm "stimulating the economy".

Met a couple of foxy dudes at the saloon last night. One of them asked for my number and I told him that I don't have one. Not sure why I did that except for the feeling that I don't think I could take it if he hurt my feelers and hurting my feelers is really easy to do lately. Or maybe it was the idea that it might not be wise to give out one's number to some random dude that one has known for a mere three minutes that was met outside a bar. I just feel really uncomfortable with dudes lately. It feels like in junior high when boys would pretend to flirt with me and then put me down brutally. Not exactly like that, but close. More like when my most serious relationship was with someone who was also in a relationship with someone else who was always going to be more important than me. When was that, like March? How long? Like three years? Yeah. Something like that.

Yeah, this is PMS. I do what I want when I want.

so what I was thinking about yesterday when I got distracted by whatever I ended up writing about was this: perhaps the reason why I like older men is not, as friends and nosy acquaintances have often hypothesized, because I have "daddy issues" but maybe it's because guys of my generation are by and large unspeakably lame. Just a thought that occurred to me on Monday night's ponygirl outing. Yes, I was way too sober for the saloon. But srsly, what is up with people telling me I have daddy issues? They always say it like they can shame me out of it just by pointing it out. Or maybe I am just grouchy. I don't know. I think I have an old soul, and by that I mean a psychic told my dad that my little brother is a really, really super old soul. I'm five years older then him, hence I must have like a way really really super old soul. At least that's my best guess. I'm not a scientist or anything.

Kids these days, man. When Stina and I went to go drink at the playground, there were kids just drinking in the parking lot. What's the point? If the cops came you'd be busted whether you were on the playground or in the parking lot, so you might as well go play. Kids these days don't understand anything. They play guitar hero instead of guitars. 'Nuff said.

Spilled champagne in the trunk of my car last week. Ponygirl venture. It smelled really bad for a day, champagne rotting in the heat, but it went away on its own. Good thing too. The last thing I want to do right now is clean out my trunk.

For all my pissing and moaning I'm so much happier this year than I was last year. What's the difference? I could say it's Ray. I still think about how much he hurt me but at least he's not still doing it. I don't have to wonder why he won't just call me back like a human or let it ruin my birthday if he forgets. But it's more than that. I could say it's making music again, finding my voice in that sense, but that's still (always) such an uncertain thing. Maybe because I'm finally going to real college in September. It's everything. Things aren't perfect but they're so much better than when I came home last year. I was kind of a mess. I wanted to go back in time, I think, and spending a year walking in my own old shoes was more than enough to convince me not to do that again. So many bad decisions. Must move forward, not back.

Went to the saloon last night. Wasn't drunk enough to enjoy the new "ambiance". So many tight pants. Unfortunate mullet. Spectacular stache. Hard to believe how many people came out to party on a monday. In north county. Lots of dirty guys. I like that. Lately I just want to flirt with dudes and then disappear from their lives forever, to be remembered in a wistful, hungover haze. "That girl who said she reads the thesaurus on the crapper, was she real or just a dream?"

Hurt my hand at work. Not sure if I should sue or ask someone to kiss it and make it better.

I'm leaning toward the latter.

My brother is here and it's pissing me off. I'm tired and grouchy and I want to be alone, damn it. He's watching family guy but I want to watch the ten and get drunk. By myself. So I don't have to talk to anyone. Grrr.

Weekends are brutal. I wish someone would rub my back.

I was thinking about Ray on the drive home from work. Whatever, it's fucking past midnight, I can think about whatever. I used to really hold on to his affection. Any little thing he did I would keep that thing, that hug, kiss, word, smile, whatever, I would keep it in my mind and just turn it over and over. I used to sustain myself with that while he hurt me in a seemingly endless variety of ways that he ultimately never understood and it mostly seemed to me like it was cool, normal, whatever. I can't do it anymore. Sometimes I wish that he would at least miss me but I understand why he wouldn't. His whole life is something I can never be a part of and if I was I probably wouldn't want to anymore. It was never his to give, I get it now. I just had to do things the hard way.

Silverballs put his arm around my shoulder and in the back of my mind was the thought, you are about the same size. I could nestle into your shoulder and stay there and everything would be good. But I won't do that either. I need to be better to myself. I need to get something to eat. I haven't had a meal since 1. I ate a spoonful of peanut butter dipped in chocolate chips around 9. I'm too tired to cook. I might just go to sleep. I'm too hungry to sleep. Work was shitty tonight. I just kept telling myself, "if you die in the nightmare you die for real." It really kept me going.

been playing guitar a lot. Trying to get my fingers back to gnarly. Stina said I should put superglue on my fingers but I feel like since I didn't do that the first time when I was 12 there's no reason I should do it now. I don't want to think I was tougher at 12.

Hate to admit it but I'm getting a little sick of summer. I want school to start. I'm finally going to real college! I can't help being excited, chomping at the bit to write some literary analysis.

blah. I have to go visit my dad today which is fun and stuff but the AC in my car don't work when it's actually hot and I really hate driving when it's hot. Maybe if I whine about it he'll fix it for me.

This weekend I: nearly went home with silverballs
dug up my binder full of tabs from when I took guitar lessons in high school
cruised around in a limo sipping champagne and listening to rap
went to a drag show (note: I want to be a drag queen when I grow up)
got a free semi-striptease from 3 very drunk Italian dudes
slept in a room for 3 with 9 other girls
got hung the fuck over
got my shit together
and got my hair did
casually interviewed the dude from Horse Feathers
and reaffirmed my girl crush on Thao.

and the only thing that's missing is more sleep, but who needs that?

Look at that guy, shedding on my black dress.

THERE IS ALWAYS MORE WORK AND THERE IS NEVER MORE MONEY.

/bitching about my job

Got my schedule together. Now I just have to start working on getting the time off to perform on the 23rd. Gonna have to start sucking it.
But for now I'm stoked to be attending Julia's bachelorette party on Saturday and seeing Thao play the Casbah on Sunday. This weekend is going to be fucking amazing. Oh, and I'm getting my hair did by Lissa. She just so happens to be the bomb.com. I'm really looking forward to cutting loose and looking foxy. Fuck yeah.

Sometimes I just get home from a long day or whatever and I just look at my cat and he makes me feel like nothing is wrong in the world. Look at that guy. He's just so soft and handsome and he waits up for me because he thinks he can sweet talk a snack out of me. And he can. I am such a fucking cat lady. But it's probably better for me right now if I'm practically a nun and take out all my affection on my cat than if I get tangled up with some drug dealer, kid toucher or man whore as has oft been my wont.

There's some bird shit on the rear drivers' side window of my car that looks like a small child I'm about to run over in my peripheral vision. I should probably wash my car sometime this year.

Saw The Dark Knight last night, in imax. Imax is too crazy big, or maybe I was just too close to the screen, but wow. Shit is huge. It was a really good, suspenseful flick, but I prefer a campier Batman. This one stressed me out a lot and all the obvious terrorism, patriot act parallels were distracting and irritating. At least I got to bask in the glow of Christian Bale and they replaced Katie Holmes with Maggie G.

Wrote some music and added words. I have a couple different pieces to work with now. It feels really good to be working that way again. Got out my acoustic guitar and wrote 3 pages of lyrics.

Stressing out about work. Somehow I have to get Saturday and Sunday night off because I have adopted the shoot first ask questions later strategy for my off time, namely buying my ticket and hoping for the best. I need to go to Julia's bachelorette party and I must see Thao at the Casbah. I'm just going to go in there and start shouting about who do I have to sleep with around here to get my life together? I'm sure Silverballs can help me.

Quoth the Buzzcocks: What do I get?

Just got home from work. After about nine hours I start getting a little loopy. It's weird.

I was talking with one of the little girls there about deflowering virgins because she hasn't and I have. She asked me what my "number" was and I told her three because it's true and she was like, "Oh, it's okay daddy!" (note: it is really easy to get 17 year old girls to call you "daddy") and started hugging and consoling me. I was like, I happen to be kind of picky about the kid-touchers, drug-dealers and adulterers who I allow to enter my quivering woman flesh, okay?

One of the other servers went home early because he felt sick and started puking his guts out immediately after his dinner break. I should probably pack a lunch tomorrow. I should probably stop referring to other human beings as "servers". We're supposed to say it in our little script at the beginning of the meal but I refuse. Instead of "My name is Megan, I'll be your server." I say, "My name is Megan, I'll be taking care of you this afternoon/evening." Server sounds like I was born to refill diet vanilla cokes. Taking care of you this afternoon sounds like I choose to devote myself to others for nine hours at a time because I'm just nurturing like that. It's probably unhealthy that I've even thought about it that much.

Went to the Ocean House last night. Got the fuck down. There's nothing like getting drunk and shaking my ass and then filling up on doritos and vitamin water to make me feel good. I also like telling people I don't want to talk to again that my name is Emily and I work at Chili's. There are so many fucking Chili's around here that even if they ask if I know so and so I can say no, I work at the other one.

Man, I HAVE to go to the store and get some kitty litter. Toby deserves better than this.

Irrational fears: I have some.

I'm dancing in a piece next month in Balboa Park and I have to fall up. I kind of dive into the group with a little arabesque and they lift me up and I ride around in the air and then they put me down. The first time it was cool because I just closed my eyes and I tried not to cry or pee myself but the second time I totally fucked up. I opened my eyes. I'm gonna have to work on that. I don't want to look super miserable on stage. When Gina does it she looks completely blissful and I want to feel that way but it makes me really anxious. The theme of the piece is allegedly "longing" so I guess the lifts are supposed reaching out for whatever it is that I'm longing for and I should probably not look like I'm having an anxiety attack.

A couple months ago I got vertigo cleaning the back shelves at work and Silverballs had to help me down. I think I just need to trust more that they've got me and it'll feel better. I need to get used to it. Ray used to pick me up and I liked it because I knew or "knew" or whatever that he loved me or anyway that being dropped by him wasn't within the realm of possibility. When he had me, it didn't bother me at all. I was nothing and it was easy to lift me up. I want it to feel like that. It scares me and I want to do it again. It feels almost as good as making bad decisions and I love me some of that.

Speaking of bad decisions, I saw Wolf Parade at Canes on Sunday. Not that that was a bad decision, just that those are a few of my favorite things: Wolf Parade and bad decisions. I was so close to the Krug I couldn't believe it. He definitely sweated on me. His music has been really important to me. The last few years have been kind of shitty/lonely and his music has made me feel less lonely in a way that I don't think a real person that I actually know could do. Wow, that sounded really gay. We're dropping a ponygirl video on it soon because if we had to battle to write about the show that shit would get gnarly brutal. We don't want to do that to our pretty little faces. But I guess it's cool if I let some really homosexual things out here, in the interest of not being a total ass in the video.

I don't know if maybe I'm just projecting or what, but I feel like the emotional landscape of those songs is like looking in a god damn mirror. Bad decisions, impossibilities, infidelities, snippets of conversation and the shape of your hands. Thwarted desires. Maybe it's just being human. Even "I'll Believe in Anything", a song that seems so optimistic and romantic has the underlying tension of impossibility. It's all in his delivery. Listen to "Three Colors" and ask yourself if you think the person he's talking to gives a fuck about the wind in his window. That show made me want to write music again. The energy was incredible. Been doodling with my guitar. See what happens.

Fuck. I have so many bruises on my legs right now. Shit looks like Courtney Love in the '90's. Thanks a lot, modern dance.

Last night I went on a ponygirl field trip with Stina to see Rocky Votolato at the Casbah. I was pretty dunrunk. I told some dude who was friends with Zach my favorite shitty things happen when you're sixteen story and he was like yeah, when I was sixteen I killed a cat. Cat killing has to be the biggest dealbreaker EVER. My story was just about this girl asking me to have a threesome with her and the guy she was cheating on her boyfriend with. I said no. I didn't even come close to fucking killing a cat. shit.

I'm a little hungover today. Not bad, just a little tired, little headache. My mom has food poisoning so I went to the store to get her saltines and gingerale. Picked up some tampons too. The bagger boy offered me carry out service. Sometimes I just want to be really inappropriate and yell, "NO THANKS I CAN CARRY MY TAMPONS OUT MYSELF". And just drag the bag behind me like it's really unbearably heavy. But I don't because I know they only say that because they have to. I worked there for like three weeks. Hated that shit. Saw my old boss today. David Lynch. What a douchebag.

Wonder who got kicked off Project Runway. I hope it was Suede.

On my way to work, I take the lagoon road. It goes through the golf course, behind the Four Seasons and past a whole bunch of gated communities. Basically there's a crap ton of rich people who live there so there's never any cops and I can speed like a demon. True story. I go about 60 in that 35, no problem.

Last weekend I turned a corner on my way and saw this future president type guy: crew-cut, tan, apparently drunk in the middle of the afternoon, hanging between the shoulders of two other fratty looking guys who were dragging him into a gate community. People in front of me were all pulling over. From closer to, I could see that his chest was covered in blood. I kept going but I felt irrationally bad about it. I hadn't witnessed anything so I couldn't help with that. I'm not a doctor. All I could have done was get blood on my apron and get a demerit for being late. There was nothing there for me to do.

Remember that video where Tom Cruise talks about Scientology? He says something wild and woolly about how if there's a car accident he wants to be there because he's a Scientologist and therefore he will know what to do? I kind of wished for a minute that I was a Scientologist. Not that that would actually give me any idea of what to do that might be helpful, but just so I could feel like I knew what to do. This is how cults get started.

Last night at work I had a guy ask me how much he should tip me. I was like, don't ask me that! Seriously, how uncomfortable is that? I was like, hey, it's up to you. 20% would be cool but I'm not going to tell you what to do. He was like, you did a good job. You were cheerful, effective and very sweet. You deserve a good tip and you should ask for it. This was really frustrating because people who don't understand the way the world actually works are frustrating.

This is how the world works: I am taxed on a set percentage of my sales, whether I actually receive that in tips or not. I usually receive more than that because I bust my balls but only because I get enough good tips from people who appreciate me to cancel out the cheapskates and foreigners who don't know better. I have to be pretty detached. I can't do it with an entitled attitude because that leads to hissyfits and hissyfits lead to bad service. I can't say, I deserve this or that percent because no matter how much I try a lot of people either don't know how to tip or don't tip based on my service or anything I could do for them. I've gotten sheepish piles of quarters from people who just didn't have anything else. It doesn't bother me. I can flirt my way to a forty percent tip from someone else. Basically, I don't care about a bad tip as long as I know I did everything I could for that person to make them happy. That's my job.

So to have somebody talking to me about "deserving" or whatever was awkward and irritating. Things we "deserve" are mostly imaginary. He was old enough to know what a good tip looks like. He also chastised his date for ordering for herself. It was uncomfortable. At least he wasn't the guy who made out with his girlfriend until their burgers came, with his eyes open, ogling me. That was pretty fucking uncool.