Colored Ink
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miss something? check the archives about me name: n/aaliases: kit (and various iterations thereof) age: 22 location: oakland, ca hobbies: comic books, reading, writing, doodling, video games likes: all of the above, being lazy, mushrooms, animals, food, laughing loudly in public, SUSHI dislikes: nuts, stinging/biting insects, religious fanatics, violence, olives contact: coloredink(at)gmail.com wishlist playstation 2car a good night's sleep money stress-free life hardon-kardon speakers 19" flatscreen monitor world peace realistic wishlist transmetropolitan vol 5-6, 9-10long-term obsessions comicsslash writing reading music animals life and living current obsession(s) supernaturalhouse m.d. temeraire currently reading the earthsea trilogy by ursula k. leguinthe iliad by homer currently playing okamifinal fantasy xii wild arms 3 currently watching farscape (1.)supernatural (hiatus) house md (hiatus) veronica mars (hiatus) criminal minds studio 60 on the sunset strip |
Monday, July 16, 2007 [link] 06:24 p.m. listening to: "Selig" - Helium Vola I had a student today for the first time who immediately asked me, "Are you the drawer?" I've been bribing a few of the kids with drawings, or rewarding them with a drawing if they finish all their work early. Word has apparently gotten around, to the point where during an office hour later this week I'm going to be drawing a giant Harry Potter crest, or something. It makes me wonder why I never went to art school. Kids sometimes ask the simplest and most insightful questions. One girl today asked why I had "boy stickers" in my box; I was carrying dinosaur stickers in my box. I replied that I liked dinosaurs ever since I was little, and that I had at one point wanted to be a paleontologist. (This is true.) She asked why I didn't, and I said that my family laughed at me, and this completely crushed my dream. (This is also true.) She asked why I didn't go back to school and become a paleontologist. I laughed and said that would require lots and lots of school. She asked why that stopped me. Why does that stop me? What stops me, really, from becoming a paleontologist? Or going to art school and becoming an animator? Life isn't that simple--or is it? Saturday, July 14, 2007 [link] 11:40 p.m. listening to: "Goukon ato no famiresu nite" - Sonim I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, sometimes. Or falling asleep. I just can't stop wondering: Will it ever get any better than this? What if it doesn't? What am I doing with my life? What did I think I was going to do, before, and why didn't I stop myself? But I like my job, I like where I'm living, I like what I'm doing. I'm writing. Right now, I'm good enough, and sometimes that's all you can ask for. Tuesday, July 10, 2007 [link] 09:49 p.m. listening to: "Out Here" - Peter Mulvey Got sent to work the Berkeley center yesterday. Two of their clinicians called in sick, and apparently it was some kind of meltdown situation. I felt kind of godlike; everyone I met said something along the lines of, "Oh, thank God you're here" and "Thank you so much for coming." I've been feeling kind of introspective and angsty lately. Not really sure why. There's nothing wrong with my life right now: I like my job, I'm one paycheck away from paying off my credit card, and I like where I'm living. I guess I could use some therapy to talk this out, but I can't afford a therapist right now, so. Besides, it's about time I learned how to get along without one. But, I mean, I really have nothing to complain about. So why am I still sad? I guess this is the part where I post song lyrics in lieu of actually talking about my feelings. Just pretend you see some song lyrics here. Friday, July 6, 2007 [link] 10:21 p.m. listening to: "French Perfume" - Great Big Sea Cycling today was not nearly as pleasant as yesterday. The weather was easily around 100 degrees, and plus I was cycling in rush hour, which wasn't as horrific as it might have been except for the part where I stupidly ended up in the left-most left turn lane and, while making the left turn, was terrified that someone would kill me. Next time I will take the right-hand left turn lane. But hey, I somehow shifted across three lanes of rush hour traffic on a bicycle. That must count for something. Work next week returns to normal: I caught a glimpse of the schedule, and for the most part I have eight kids a day. I'm relieved and resigned at the same time. Having more "office hours" than kids was kind of nice, in that I essentially got paid to sit on my ass, but I like working with kids. Plus, working with kids one after the other keeps your energy up, while only having one kid here and there means those individual sessions tend to go pretty badly, or at least are very low-energy. That's not fair to the kids, and it's not really good for the clinicians, either. I am terribly sleepy right now. Last night was just a very restless night, for whatever reason. I kept waking up every few hours for no particular reason. Wednesday, July 4, 2007 [link] 01:44 p.m. listening to: nothing Happy fourth of July! I cycled 2.5 miles today in 90-degree weather! It was surprisingly pleasant. Friday, June 29, 2007 [link] 07:07 p.m. listening to: "Sway" - Voxtrot Work has gotten easier. I no longer get home feeling exhausted and wanting to die. I've been getting lots of writing done lately, and as always that's a very good feeling. Three of my kids are going on vacation starting next week. I feel so bereft already. ): However, for whatever reason, my schedule next week is so light that it's suspicious. It's kind of insane. I'm watching Jeopardy right now. You can tell very clearly who this show's target audience is, as the advertisements are all for things like arthritis medication. My life is boring again. Oh well. This weekend is FIRST PAYCHECK WEEKEND!!! I'm trying to be good and not splurge, although I'm definitely going to get a haircut at some point. I'm also going to buy some more work clothes and CDs. And pay off my credit card. Wooooohoooo. Friday, June 22, 2007 [link] 10:12 p.m. listening to: "Hallelujah" - Jeff Buckley I just finished my first full week of work and already the weekend seems too short. Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life? Meanwhile, I'm still unsure of the status of my health insurance, or for that matter what my life is going to be like past August. As Bill Watterson put it in one of his strips: I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to grow up if I knew it was going to be ad-libbed. I repotted my pet onion a few weeks ago, and at first it wasn't doing too well. The leaves turned browned and wilted, and I wondered if I'd somehow repotted it incorrectly. (Someone else repotted my onion last time, and she basically pulled the onion out of the pot, stuck it in the new pot, and added some dirt around it. Repotting: not rocket science???) But it turned out the onion just needed more water. Bigger pot = more water! ALSO NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. I pulled off the brown leaves, and the onion is sending up new green shoots now. I think there may be a bloom in sight. Obviously, it's a metaphor. Friday, June 15, 2007 [link] 04:28 p.m. listening to: "I Wish I Could Go Back to College" - Avenue Q I successfully killed a housefly today. There's been one buzzing around for the last several days, and it's extremely annoying. Today I spotted it cleaning itself peacefully on the bathroom window and smacked it with a folded newspaper. I was a little shocked when it actually worked; normally the fly buzzes away at the last second. Somehow this makes me feel more like an adult. I start work For Real on Monday. I'm nervous, but mostly anticipatory. I feel unprepared and prepared at the same time. Good times, basically. Good times. Friday, June 8, 2007 [link] 08:10 p.m. listening to: "You Won't Find Me" - Peter Bruntnell I woke up the other day and didn't know where I was. I had a brief moment of panic before I remembered: I'm 22, I've graduated, and I'm in my apartment. Being an adult is still a new and paralyzing thing sometimes. I've been looking into evening classes. I'm not sure why, other than that I've wanted to learn sign language for several years. It seems like a useful thing to know. The problem is that ASL unfortunately has no academic value whatsoever, and so few schools offer it. Ah, well; if it doesn't work out this summer, maybe I'll take an art class instead. I'm not certain why I have this preoccupation with my evenings. You'd think that working full-time would be enough. But I just still feel adrift somehow, and I feel like I need something in my life besides work and home. I need to get out and meet people. I need to learn something new. I want to learn sign language. Wednesday, June 6, 2007 [link] 04:46 p.m. listening to: nothing Things that are going well in my life: - I have a bicycle! - I have a job! - I have a really nice pair of "dressy" shoes. - I have Internet. - I have a television. - I live very, very close to public transit. - I live in an awesome neighborhood with lots of good food. - I have good beer. - I have had lots of really good/fun writing ideas lately, both fanfiction and original. Things that could be going better: - My health insurance runs out in August. - My nice shoes were $200. I hope you will all agree that the pros outweigh the cons! Monday, June 4, 2007 [link] 07:06 p.m. listening to: "First Breath After Coma" - Explosions in the Sky I have a bicycle! Sunday, June 3, 2007 [link] 05:51 a.m. listening to: none I have employment! Which is why I'm up at this ungodly hour, actually--training starts at 6:45 am on Monday, which is no good when my unemployed self had started going to bed at 3 am. So I stayed up all night Friday night in order to be able to crash at 10pm last night. I think I actually crawled into bed at 9:45, and I don't remember falling asleep, and I think I slept the sleep of the dead until I was woken up by some noise just now. This means, however, that I desperately need to go shoe shopping. I have never, in my entire life, had a pair of "nice" shoes that fit. I have uniquely shaped feet in that they are not precisely large--my actual shoe size is the irritating 8.5--but simply wide. I also have flat feet, so when I buy "nice" shoes, comfort and stability are foremost on my mind. I want my shoes to be fashionable and wearable to work, but as comfortable as my sneakers. Fortunately, this eliminates everything in the store except for about three or four shoes right off, except those three or four shoes either don't have my size, or more often than not, don't have my size in wide. This seems to be the case even online. Sigh. Maybe I ought to go shoe shopping today. Monday, May 28, 2007 [link] 09:03 p.m. listening to: "St. Peter's Bones" - Girlyman "Graduating is the worst thing that ever happened to a person," a friend said the other day. Ain't that the truth. It's only been three weeks--no, less than that--but it feels like an eternity, since I still don't have a job. The days crawl by. I spend far too much time alone, and therefore far too much time thinking things like, "What am I doing with my life?" and "How did I get here?" and "What if it never gets better than this?" It's the last one that terrifies me the most. I've always assumed that somehow, I would get a relatively well-paying job and eventually move into a better apartment, one with a separate bedroom and a full-sized fridge and maybe a dishwasher. Maybe a washer and dryer, if one dares to dream. What am I doing with my life? How did I get here? What if it never gets better than this? Tuesday, May 22, 2007 [link] 03:30 p.m. listening to: nothing Your dreams get smaller as you get older. "When I was little, it was like, I want to be President," said a friend, the other day. "Now it's like, I want to own a house someday." I laughed at how utterly true it was. Ask me five years ago what I want to be, what I want to do, I would have said I wanted to be a published author. Ask me now, and I'll tell you that I want a job that isn't too demanding, and that I want to be able to pay the rent. Far off in the distance, in some murky future, I want to own property. Time to focus on getting published. Monday, May 21, 2007 [link] 10:53 p.m. listening to: Radio Paradise At last, I return to the world of the Internet! Getting Internet in my apartment has been a great (and very annoying) adventure. I eventually decided to go with DSL for the sole purpose of having a land line. I like land lines. They never drop a call, you get unlimited local calling, and people can call you for free. Well, free for you. This meant I had to go with AT&T because they are basically the only phone company around here. After much research, I also concluded that it would cost me less/the same to get DSL from AT&T as well. I ordered both via telephone, since it was easier. The very nice/friendly guy on the phone informed me that my phone would be turned on Monday the the 14th, and my DSL would be turned on the day after. This is what happened: Monday: A tech guy calls me to say that he needs to get into a gated area in the yard, where the phone box is. I cheerfully let him in through the garage, only to find that said phone box is, well, old, and none of the wires work anymore. He needs to get into a locked storage room for which I do not have the key. I call my landlady, who says she'll drop off the key the next night. Afterward, I call AT&T and schedule another tech guy to come out on Wednesday between 8am and 12pm, since I want to go shopping for interview clothes in the afternoon. Tuesday: I go to a job interview. I go to work. As promised, landlady drops off the key that night. She also fixes my venetian blinds. And brings me a plug for the sink. She's a great landlady. Wednesday: I wait for the tech guy until 2pm, then call AT&T. AT&T informs me that the tech guy was already out there, couldn't get in, and left. Extremely annoyed, I schedule another tech guy for the next morning, adding that the tech guy must call me, because I have the key, and also that he must come as early as possible, because I have to go to work. Thursday: Wait until noon for the tech guy, which results in my being late to work. Tech guy calls me fifteen minutes after I leave. Nothing I can do; I'm already on BART. I call AT&T, tell them my life story, and they promise to send someone out that evening, at 7pm. No tech guy shows up, of course; I call AT&T again, they say they don't send out techs after 7pm (pm hours are apparently reserved solely for repair), and also, my line is already hooked up. The tech guy who came earlier did it. I plug my phone in and receive no dial tone. The repair line informs me that this could be because the aforementioned tech guy did not hook up my line correctly, but it could also be because I'm in a cutout area where there was a cable failure, and some people's lines are down. There's really no way to tell until Monday, when the cutout is finished. Friday: I have a job interview in the morning. While at my interview, I receive a phone call from a phone repairman (?!) saying that he needs to get into a locked/gated area. I call AT&T and request that another repairman after 1pm, when I'll be home for the rest of the day. I go home, wait, call AT&T again. AT&T says they can't send anyone until Monday. I request one between 8am and 12pm. Today: Repair guy comes at 9am and spends two hours hooking up my phone line. I have a dial tone. I have DSL. I am happy beyond words. Conclusion: - I have been turned down by PlanetOut - I have been turned down by Kirkland & Ellis - I have not only used all my cell phone minutes, but actually went over by 150. Thanks, AT&T! - However, today I got a new cell phone and a new plan, since my old one sucked a lot - I have really fast Internet now! Huzzah. Tuesday, May 8, 2007 [link] 10:11 p.m. listening to: "Kaddish" - Ofra Haza I think about God sometimes. Not very often, since most of the time I am writing or sleeping or eating or working or playing video games or drinking or any number of things. But in that quiet space between moments, when I am going from one place to another, I think about God. I attended Christian school for a couple of years, as a very young child; too young to think about the nature of God. My prayers were perfunctory, with no real heart in them. I spent most of the time in Chapel thinking of something else. My aunt used to tell me, "You can pray to God all you like, but who has God ever helped, eh? You still have to get up and do it yourself." Now that I'm older and--I think--wiser, I find myself thinking about the nature of God more and more often. I do not find it difficult to believe in the idea of a higher power; I find it extremely difficult to believe that this higher power cares about us in any way, shape, or form. As a recent episode of House, M.D. puts it, if there is a God, it is likely something so far out of human comprehension that penguins might as well speculate about cold fusion. Why should anything omniscient, omnipotent, omni-everything care about us? Why should it love us? My quandary is further compounded by my queerness. I know an awful lot of queer people who hate Christians, Christianity, the Bible, and anything having to do with God, because supposedly God hates queers and a lot of grief has come down upon LGBTQ people because of that. I joke, sometimes, about being a "closeted Christian"--except for the part where I'm not Christian, really (I have not quite accepted Jesus into my heart, and I'm not quite certain I ever will), except I'm just Christian enough (I believe in God) that people stare at me like I have two heads when my secret slips out. In a place as liberal and secular as the San Francisco Bay Area, I'm not afraid to be queer at work, but I am afraid to be religious. "I would like to believe in God," said a friend of mine. "It's such a nice thing to believe in." It is. I would like to believe in God. I would like to believe that there is a higher power, and that that higher power loves me, will always love me, has always loved me, and will always be there for me. And yet, somehow, it is so difficult to believe in something so easy, and so comforting. Monday, May 7, 2007 [link] 02:11 p.m. listening to: "Two-Headed Boy pt II" - Neutral Milk Hotel I can't stop listening to this song. Two job interviews this week. They're both for sales/marketing positions, which is a job that I don't really want to do, but what the hell, right? This is a step up from jobless. Tuesday, May 1, 2007 [link] 11:25 p.m. listening to: "Sewanee Mountain" - Drew Bunting Things I need to do: - - change my address with the - - call the Tang center and squeeze the last out of my insurance - call the phone company and find out how far away I am from a hub at my new residence - make a reservation at the Thai restaurant for my family - find the pieces of my commencement ensemble Tuesday, May 1, 2007 [link] 11:38 a.m. listening to: nothing Rabbit, rabbit. Last therapy session today. I cried. Which is funny, since I cried during my first therapy session, too. Wednesday, April 25, 2007 [link] 09:39 p.m. listening to: the television I followed a dragonfly up the hill today. It was maybe three inches long and slender, blue-gray in color. I love these blue dragonflies, the way they flash in the sun. I trudged up through the packed dirt; I wasn't really following the dragonfly so much as chasing it. It would flit soundlessly off, two or three feet, and land, thinking (inasmuch as an insect can think) that it was far enough away from this large, menacing probably-predator. But I kept advancing--my home was, after all, at the top of this slope--and the dragonfly kept having to jump another three feet, and then another. At last, exasperated, it just flew away entirely, out of sight. I felt a little bad. I didn't mean to disrupt it. Tuesday, April 24, 2007 [link] 05:35 p.m. listening to: nothing Constantine has gotten really huge and fat recently, since I've started feeding him three dollar rats instead of the usual two dollar ones. I've suspected for a while that the two dollar rats weren't enough, since he would usually defecate halfway through the week and then look really hungry until I could get to the vivarium again. One three dollar rat a week seems to be the right amount for now, except feeding him has started getting really intense. The first time I tried it Rachel thought he wouldn't be able to handle it. I was confident that he could, and he did, but the rat kicked for a while--until Constantine broke its neck. It's like the Discovery Channel all up in here! Now I'm afraid Constantine might be getting obese, though. It's not like he gets much exercise, what with not having to hunt for his food in the wild. Saturday, April 21, 2007 [link] 02:11 p.m. listening to: "Tower" - Vienna Teng Note to self: when I have disposable income again (or, like, ever), purchase electroshock blues by the Eels, one or both Vienna Teng albums, and also something by Nick Drake. AMOEBA, HERE I COME Tuesday, April 17, 2007 [link] 06:23 p.m. listening to: "Desaparecido" - Manu Chao TODAY IS A DAY OF PLUSSES AND MINUSES I AM SORRY THAT IS SO CRYPTIC, BUT I HAVE TO GO TO CLASS NOW Saturday, April 14, 2007 [link] 03:05 p.m. listening to: "Saddest Vacant Lot" - Grandaddy Things I need to do this weekend: - schedule another interview with Vanessa - visit Vanessa's house - call AltaBates - read In Cold Blood - read Heart of Darkness - work that I actually get paid for Wednesday, April 11, 2007 [link] 10:35 p.m. listening to: the television on in the background Good day today! - solid four hours of work - delicious foods - Kirkland & Ellis called me and scheduled an interview - someone wants to illustrate my work! LIFE IS LOOKING UP. Wednesday, April 11, 2007 [link] 01:22 a.m. listening to: "Speechless" - Girlyman In my last entry, I talked about working in collaboration with something greater than yourself; the idea of a muse, and of the story being its own entity. I really felt it, though, these past few days, when on Sunday I sat down and wrote a 6000 word in one sitting. The next day I added another 1000 words or so, during edits. Today--or, technically, yesterday--I posted it. And all that time I felt as if in some dreamlike state, like whatever it was that possessed me hadn't quite released me yet. Throughout the day, as I kept reading and rereading pieces of the story, I started to wake, a little. "Wait, I wrote this?" I thought, staring at a particularly poetic line. Just now, I was hit with a sudden bolt of clarity: Oh my God, I wrote this story. I wrote it. Me. I want to cry and leap up and down and scream, all at the same time. I wrote this. Thursday, April 5, 2007 [link] 10:37 p.m. listening to: "Be Mine" - R.E.M. I interviewed a musician the other day, and naturally I asked her about her creative process. I felt that I identified with her to a point, in that we're both creators: she of music, and I of stories. At some point she mentioned what I thought was something exclusive to Tori Amos: that feeling of collaboration with a higher power. Tori Amos, for those of you who are uninformed, believes something to the effect that she's sort of a vessel for her music; that the spirit of the song sings through her, or some such. This is all just hearsay, but I've heard it from multiple sources, so it must be true! lulz. Anyway, this always sounded sort of batshit to me. Tori Amos seems to be a bit on the weird side; her introduction to Neil Gaiman's Death and the High Cost of Living is this bizarre stream-of-consciousness piece that doesn't make much sense. When this musician, however, spoke of collaborating with the song, it suddenly made much more sense. How many times have I looked back at a story and thought, "Jesus, this is good. How did I do this? I could never do this again. I'd have more chance of discovering cold fusion in my jeans." (By which I mean, the cold fusion would be in the jeans. I would not be wearing jeans while discovering cold fusion.) lj_tightropegirl speaks of the platonic ideal of the story, floating in the ether, and says that she, at least, as a writer, works toward that platonic ideal. And what is that, if not just another form of the idea that the artist does not work alone? The story already exists; tightropegirl scrapes as close as she can to it. In some form, then, the song already exists, and it flows through the aforementioned musician. This is not a new idea; didn't the ancient Greeks believe in Muses? But of course, we're only human. Once the raw emotion, the raw music is down on page, the musician must then finetune and work the technical aspects. Tightropegirl never quite reaches that platonic ideal. (It's not possible; that's the point of the platonic ideal.) And I stare at stories I wrote as little as four months ago and wonder what possessed me. What possessed me? Basically, this entry is one big apology to Tori Amos. I'm sorry, Tori: you're not crazy. Monday, April 2, 2007 [link] 08:36 p.m. listening to: "Run" - Collective Soul There are two ducks that show up in the fountain/pond thing by the music building every spring. They're obviously a duck couple (at least, one of them is male and the other is female, and occasionally there are ducklings), and they are just about the cutest things ever. Today I watched them nap in the early afternoon sun with their heads tucked in their wings; later, when I was done with my interview, they were awake and splashing around. I love ducks. They're just so inoffensive! Can anyone say anything bad about ducks other than that they have stinky poop? Also, today I stepped on a splinter. I know, my life is just full of excitement. Research paper of doom is finally done and over with, and I feel as if a great weight has lifted from my life. The rough draft of an article I have due tomorrow just isn't happening, though. My original idea--feminist bloggers at my college--fell through, and I scrambled at the last second to profile a graduating musician instead. I found someone pretty awesome--I really like her music!--and emailed her, but she hasn't responded all day. ): But it's a rough draft, so as long as I have something to turn in by Thursday I should be okay. . . I just want to be done! I want to graduate. Except I don't, because that means I have to pack and then move all my stuff (somehow) into another place and then unpack. Or not unpack, because in all likelihood it'll just be a summer sublet and I'll have to move into a more permanent place in August. Boo. Thursday, March 29, 2007 [link] 04:33 p.m. listening to: Things I need to do this weekend: - finish research paper - get clips together - attend Eleanor's reception - write article on feminist blogs - find a damn job - find a damn place to live (for the summer, at least) - schedule myself for a driving test I feel like I have life under control now. A little bit, at least. I'm not in the spiraling panic I was during spring break. I will get through this! I will get through this! Monday, March 26, 2007 [link] 01:45 p.m. listening to: "End of the World News" - Tom McRae Happy birthday to me~~ Friday, March 23, 2007 [link] 07:53 p.m. listening to: "Maybe I'm Amazed" - Jem Earlier today I realized that some of my sidebar stuff is dreadfully outdated, and I updated it in an effort to procrastinate on important things I should actually be doing right now. But in doing so I completely forgot that I'd archived, and that made the center table go blank! Crap! So here is a placeholder entry until I actually come up with something of substance. Wait, when have I ever written anything of substance here? Whoops. Also, never mind that I'm listening to this song by Jem. I swear I'm not actually a big girl or anything. Oh wait, I am. Crap. |
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