i have nothing to write about!!!

i am just sitting here feeling rather restless and it's kind of getting late enough to call it a day but i'm not ready to give in yet... still hoping for more Things to Happen before i call it quits. i had company earlier and i'm always restless after i have company. scott came over with an entourage of three, to give us a tutorial on flash. they were late, so i caught a sweet catnap while waiting, which is part of why i'm not really tired now.

spent the day in holyoke of all places. what a depressing city. and did you know that south hadley is really a suburb of holyoke? that makes south hadley even more pathetic than i already thought it was. anyway there's a really heavy energy that hovers over holyoke. the people are sweet enough... but i'm there waiting for someone so i'm bored and i pull out a hula hoop and i wind up hooping and talking to the five-year-old daughter of a couple of twenty-year-olds. they're living in kind of a ramshackle house with a couple generations of them and they have super-nice sportscars and i can only imagine the kinds of payments they have to make on those. next door there's a guy who lives in the dark with a huge flat-screen tv that's on all the time next to a life-size cutout of sarah michelle gellar, a.k.a. buffy. he's into drinking a lot. he has a brain tumor. it's sad and depressing.

a kid walked by and asked "are you part of the northampton group?" meaning the noho hoopastars.he asked "are they gonna tear out that park?" i guess he'd seen all the chalk writing on the pavement in pulaski park, you know, the stuff that says "save our home" and "what this park really needs is a huge hotel" and "save pulaski park" and "hoopers against the hilton" and so on. we talked about the horrible hotel that's supposed to be built there. i told him that there are two lawsuits against the hotel group right now, since several zoning laws were broken when the permits were granted to build the hotel. the lawsuits are the only thing that give me the slightest bit of hope. when i think about how life is going to change for the residents of the new south street apartments if that monstrosity gets built, it makes me sick to my stomach.

well the kid was of the opinion (which i share) that northampton doesn't need another hotel, and it's snooty enough as it is. as it is, someone like him can't afford to have lunch in town. someone like ME can't afford to have lunch in town, and i live right here! good thing i hardly ever eat lunch. but that's beside the point.

the point is that the flash tutorial was all too short and i've already sort of forgotten a lot of it and i'm trying to make rollover buttons and i'm already totally stuck. not that rollover buttons are the most exciting thing to be playing with but i asked scott for an assignment and that's what he gave me. go ahead, laugh at me, all you flash experts. i'll have it figured out in a day or two. it's not all that different from director really. or fireworks sort of. not really. i hated fireworks anyway. i liked director. i used to understand lingo and everything. that was a long time ago. i used to be a smarty-pants.

oh, in answer to my own question what do people think of me, apparently some people seem to think that i am goth. WTF!!! that is what came out at the vegan bus meeting last night. that, and i under-reported my bus-related spending to the tune of $65.00 oh well. i got reimbursed for some of the $$ i spent and today i put it in the bank so that hopefully my mortgage payment won't bounce and hopefully other payments won't bounce either. i'm really close to the edge and have no source of funds for with which to pay my bills. it's really creepy.

smile, schmile

i wonder what people think of me. i have a feeling that it's way off. i know i need to learn to smile more. ever since i was a little kid people have been telling me to SMILE!!! and now when i see pictures of myself hooping i look so goddam serious it's ridiculous, i see that i really need to get into the practice of smiling on a regular basis. maybe there's something wrong with my face and i just look worse than other people when i'm not smiling. maybe when i'm not smiling i look judgmental, or aloof, or standoffish, or just plain grumpy. when the truth of the matter is i'm none of those things, i'm just a shy person who sometimes is just feeling neutral about life and doesn't have anything in particular to smile about. i am trying to keep more smiley thoughts in the front of my brain. like all the things i have to be grateful for. that's a long list. should i start rattling things off? living downtown, getting along with my mom, hooping, the vegan bus collective, my friends, my lack of foes, my bicycle, my imac, my wacom pen tablet, getting along with my sister, and so on. there are many many more things i could list but it would get boring for you, dear reader.

onto another subject entirely: i have this idea that my hairdo, i.e. my faux dreaded head, has special powers and that i am a different person with this 'do. i am stronger and happier and lighter and hotter and all sorts of good things... and so i rue the day when i have to have these dreads taken out and revert to my regular hair. i will become a regular person again. gone will be my special powers!!! and this day is coming soon. the dreads are becoming a pain to manage and also i am going to get my motorcycle fixed and i know my helmet won't fit over the dreads, so i have to have them taken out. i am going to try to keep them in through october 6 when megan has her party at her dad's house, and after that i'll take them out and then get a haircut at firefly. not to have my hair cut shorter but to have it cut better so that it is not dreadful. but i have to find a way to keep the special powers, i don't want to lose them!!! i have all sorts of confidence right now and people look at me differently than they would normally (because there's hot pink in my hair) which i like, and i need to come to terms with not turning heads in a couple weeks. well now my hair is starting to look really ratty if you look at it up close so it's not really so nice, but it still contains magical powers! how is that possible? i went to get a new drivers license today so i could have a new picture and i was able to produce a great big smile which i never could have come up with under my ordinary hair circumstances. oh, i fear that this dilemma is going to require me to sit and meditate and ask the universe for an answer and i have to tell you i loathe meditation. but i don't know any other way. i know looking from the outside in that it's obvious, the power is within me and it's not in my hair. but it's the logical me who knows that and not the me who operates out in the world or the me who writes this blog. i think the next time i get a pounding headache it will be the logical me whacking me upside the head with this completely obvious information, trying to get it through my thick skull. is it gonna work? tune in after october 6 to find out.

burning man photos

here, to save you the trouble of going over to my flickr page, is a slide show of all my photos from the burning man trip. well not all of them but 220 of them. which is about 1/8 of them. most are of the bus trip there & back actually and not of burning man itself for i felt that it would be useless to try & capture that. i figured that there were professional photographers there who were surely doing a much better job of it and it was pointless to try. so i just focused on my friends and what they were doing. note: it's really hard to get a good picture on a moving bus. with my camera. or by me. one or the other.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

i am sore and bruised all over... last night kevin and i spent a couple hours hooping in front of my building and a) i've scraped a patch of skin off the back of my neck so all neck hooping hurt like hell; and b) i learned a new hooptrick of how to get the hoop up from the ground to my waist but now my ankle is all bruised and it threw my hip out as well, not as bad as the other weekend, but enough that i notice it. (it's the other hip though.) the trick can be seen in this tutorial by sharna rose.

i have to take my faux dreads out soon and go back to "normal" hair. i realized that i am getting my motorcycle fixed any day now and a helmet is not going to fit over this crazy hair. but first i'm going to go to the RMV and get a new drivers license with a new and better picture (and a corrected address) because my last one sucked and i look forlorn in that pic and i had really bad hair. which of course is the norm for me when i am not wearing faux dreads. i need a good hat. i really miss my yellow felt hat with the black ribbon and the big fake red rose.

hmmm.

just came home to empty apartment, no dog. which i do every time i come home now, but not usually at this time of night and not always alone, so i don't generally notice it so poignantly. tonight it would have been nice to be greeted by a canine someone. a human someone would have made me feel crowded.

i was at a friend's house; this friend has a kid and this evening i learned just the very very beginnings of how to play pokemon. the kid's friend's dad came to pick him up before we could get very far into the game and i cannot tell you for sure whether i was relieved or disappointed. it's not an easy game to pick up. it's very complicated. i have a newfound respect for the whole thing. well after that we watched the incredibles. which was fun.

tonight was one of those nights which i experience so very often when i felt like i really should be leaving now, i am sure i have worn out my welcome, and i wish they'd just go ahead and kick me out, but dammit i'm having too good a time to kick myself out so fuckit i'm just gonna stay till one of us can't take it anymore. in the end it was me who bowed out graciously, for i really did have to get home and tend to my own personal and health matters. i was gonna ride my bike home in the freezing cold but my friend was a true pal and loaned me his car overnight. which means i have to get up in the morning to return it. but that will give me a reason to get up in the morning in case i can't think of any better reason, which might prove useful.

found out all sorts of friends of mine are being friends with each other behind my back. 'nuf said about that. i am partly kidding. go ahead and try to guess which part, you never will. well that's all for tonight. exciting post, i know. but i have to find myself something to read myself to sleep with so i don't die of boredom. and before that, i'd like to get my teeth brushed. before that, i might put on some pajamas. there is lots to do before the meds kick in. i would write myself to sleep instead of reading myself to sleep but i did that last night and my writing was so boring it nearly kept me awake with horror. oh well whatever.

pisces astrology song

PISCES
ASTROLOGY SONG
by Harvey Sid Fisher

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WERE TWO LITTLE FISHES
AND EACH HAD THEIR OWN LITTLE WHIMS AND THEIR WISHES
PISCES MOODS KEEP CHANGING SOME SAY I'M INSECURE
TO BE OR NOT TO BE I CAN'T DECIDE FOR SURE
I LOVE FANTASIZING, MY WORLD IS ON A SWING
IF DREAMLAND HAD A RULER, PISCES WOULD BE KING

PISCES, PISCES, PISCES THE WATER SIGN
THE MAGICAL MIND
SO GENTLE AND KIND
P-P-P-PISCES, P-P-P-PISCES,
P-P-P-PISCES, P-P-P-PISCES,
P-P-P-PISCES, P-P-P-PISCES

I CAN PICK ME UP NO MATTER HOW FAR DOWN I FALL
BUT I HAVE TO STAY REAL FAR AWAY FROM DRUGS AND ALCHOHOL
I FALL IN LOVE SO EASY AND GOODBYES HURT THE WORST
IT'S SO HARD TO NOT GET SCARRED WHEN THEY SAY GOODBYE FIRST
I'LL NEVER GIVE UP LOVING, I'LL TRY 'TIL I SUCCEED
I'LL TURN ON ALL OF MY CHARM TO GET ME WHAT I NEED.

PISCES, PISCES, PISCES THE WATER SIGN
THE MAGICAL MIND
SO GENTLE AND KIND
P-P-P-PISCES, P-P-P-PISCES,
P-P-P-PISCES, P-P-P-PISCES,
P-P-P-PISCES, P-P-P-PISCES
P-P-P-PISCES, P-P-P-PISCES.

social what?

remember back in april when i returned from little rock and i vowed to get me some sort of a social life? tonight i looked around me and i said to myself, wow, this here sure resembles something akin to a social life, it really does. it doesn't involve single malt scotch or making out but i am hanging out with a bunch of friends and we are eating burritos and taking pictures in the park and then a couple of them are coming over to my house for tea and we are chatting it up and making each other laff and laff... it really is quite nearly indistinguishable from a social life. so i call my little experiment a success.

here's a picture of me having a little fun with my friend kevin in the park this evening. i don't know why i did this to him, it just happened. by the way, kevin made trick of the week on hooping.org this week!!! for a video i shot and posted on nohohoops.org and on youtube right before i left for new york. somehow somebody spotted it and decided it should go up there. it made our day.



this evening after trying to accomplish all the tasks i could for the day and so on i went to a meeting at city hall re: the future "redesign" of pulaski park. this is where i met up with a bundle of my peers and proceeded to have a bundle of fun. but the meeting itself wasn't fun. there was a feeling of fatality in the air re: the hilton garden in from hell which seems bound and determined to be installed in pulaski park and is going to totally fuck up our downtown. there are two lawsuits against the hotel group and the planning commission, but still it acts like a done deal. i saw the developer sitting in the meeting. he is a very nice guy but that doesn't change the fact that what he is doing is WRONG.

anyway... i'm coming down with some sort of cold and i feel like crap. this sucks. no wonder i felt so depressed and horrible all day. i thought it was just me going through my regular cycle of being happy and then losing all hope of ever feeling happy again. now i think maybe i really just need to get a lot of rest. i have sooooo much to do but maybe tomorrow i shouldn't push myself to get up too early. well i have to go now, and check out kevin's newest blog additions for the nohohoops.org site and see if i have the energy to stick them up there. notice how i did my own blog first. that's because i'm selfish. and writing about myself comes more naturally than reading about someone else. i kind of hope that nobody is reading this. that's why i have it up in a totally public place.

today

just as ugly as i remembered

on my way home today from applying to be a school bus driver, i found myself in the horrible town of south hadley and decided to pay a visit to the house where i grew up, or spent a good 9 years of my young life anyway. it was just as ugly as i'd remembered, maybe even more so. the trees help to compensate for the ugliness of the house a little bit but in the end it's just a ramshackle split-level from hell.



visiting was kind of healing. nobody came out of that house or neighboring houses to spit on me or throw rocks at me. everything remained completely quiet. i took a couple pictures and went away. maybe i won't feel completely traumatized by south hadley anymore. but it still is a sucky town any way you look at it. it is no wonder that i fled to the theatre, and then to boarding school, and then to northampton, as soon as was humanly possible.

anyway, i don't think i'm going to wind up being a school bus driver. the whole thing was kind of weird. it took 45 minutes to get to the bus place where everyone meets at 5:30 am before beginning their routes. all the bus drivers were fat and although they looked around my age, they seemed a million times older, making me feel like a 20-year-old. which was ok. but no way am i commuting to do something like that. i'd do it if i could do it in northampton, maybe. if i didn't have to show up at 5:30 am. i am sure i can find some job that starts later in the day. anyway, i think i want to go to massage school and become a masseuse.

hadria, the hottest hooper

it took me a while but i managed to find hadria at burning man and get her to teach me how to do that sexy barrel roll thing that she does. she's a really cool person. i LOVE her hooping. of all the hoopers i've watched, hadria is by far my favorite. i think it's because she's kind of my speed... and i can aspire to something like this. not like i'm anywhere near close. but whatever. i love that she's hooping to spearhead here.



so, hadria will be in northampton soon for this 4-day hooping "intensive" and "instructor training" put on by diana lopez & hooping harmony... i would love to take part in this crazy thing but it costs a load of money. and i have no money. which is sad. i really could use some intensive hooping of any flavor. but i assume that the participants will come hoop in the park after the sessions and i'll pick up a little something or other one way or another.

i am looking in the mirror and i look old and worn. i just got back from a weekend in NYC assisting on a photo shoot with my friend who shall not be named until he says ok, name me. we had a really fun time. part of my job was to document the documenter so i shot video and stills during the shoot. now i'm supposed to do some sort of write-up of it though my mind is a big blank. what happened that day? i just remember the part where my hip gave out at the end after we walked 5-7 miles through manhattan carrying all our stuff. after that i was lame and limped and it only got worse overnight and i worried that i would have to have a hip replacement at age 40, but after putting some tiger balm on it this morning it actually started to feel a bit better.

i'm not too thrilled about being home. i've been on the road for so long and now suddenly i'm alone in my apartment with nothing to eat. it's too late to go out to the corner store and hard to find vegan food there anyway. i need to take some time to go to cornucopia and do some real food shopping in the next couple days. oh well. for now, bed. in the morning ed is meeting me here for coffee and then driving me to springfield so i can apply to become a school bus driver.

when hooping hurts...

sometimes i just can't hoop anymore. so now i have a new activity with which to occupy my body when i have whacked myself in the face with the hoop just one too many times. i ordered a beautiful set of practice poi from:

Home of Poi Comprehensive information about poi, staff and twirling, including animated lessons, discussion forums, building instructions, articles and a shop.

(those are their capital letters, not mine.) if you ever want to try poi, try ordering a set from home of poi. they're in new zealand but they ship really quickly and they're really inexpensive. someone who was spinning poi at megan e. labonte's party at her dad's place in goshen before we left for burning man told me this. i am not sorry. that's all for now. i'm about to take off for the weekend so even though i JUST got back from burning man i can't take the time to tell any sordid tales. anyway, i don't think i can tell them until everyone knows everything and right now it seems that most of the people involved are clueless about all the drama in which they were involved.