flagrant

south island- new zealand

what does this unfortunate post-trip depression need to hear?

you are allowed to live.
you are allowed to eat.
you don't need a special permit.
you don't need permission.
you don't need to be uncomfortable.
...and if you enjoy discomfort, go with that.

have you decided on what is over there?
what exactly is waiting on the other side of life?

in thousands of different ways, it could be a million times worse.

everything needs to be changed even more, and damn it, it has to be done today. right now! if you could scroll back and compare six months ago to now, my life is different- healthier. perhaps it's only for the better in various ways, but that progress is of no importance. NOTHING is ever good enough. i want more, better, farther, faster, and with no fingers pointing at my shadow. six months from now will either find me carrying a weapon of ability or swimming in an ocean of gasoline.

even i cannot stand drinking from the cup of insanity everyday, and though it may appear to be a lifelong undertaking, it really isn't true. weekends are the worst days on earth as already it is dark but motivation has yet to be found to leave the house and steal a los angeles times.

inconsequential nonsense, proving i have no life:
- stacks of old papers to weed through
- articles to highlight
- old blog bookmarks to delete
- a 5000-page supplemental background check report to fill out
- music files to download
- that overwhelming mortgage application



sunday delivered a lack of mailbox anxiety along with five vanity printed books, which i will gladly review as they are being lugged to the garbage shoot. please, no spelling errors on the letter of introduction, people! one author, a ham-armed woman in bondage garb with pouted out lips and 80s hair, is a professional female wrestler and included an 8x10 autographed glossy. what am i supposed to do with that?

it has been several days since motherfigure was supplied with the web address but she still cannot access any of my travel photographs online.
"what's a yahoo id?" she asked.


south island- new zealand

oh, c'mon! by now she could have at least logged on to the correct web page and found something to complain about.


dead dog- greymouth, south island, new zealand

yes, that is a picture of a dead dog strapped to the trunk of a car. perhaps it is a good thing motherfigure hasn't stumbled upon the photos yet-- our conversation about the contents was apt to have turned sour.

did i agree to write out a check for 20% of the price of this condo?!
do you realize how much money that is?
do you realize how much safety this is going to cost me?
[*breathe*]
is it more, or equivalent to the price of several new cars?
i lost $1000 on stocks over the last week but refuse to confirm.
in comparison, $1000 is a meaningless amount of funds.

then DAILY LIFE started to pile up:
the oldbutnew car had a flat tire- had it repaired/patched/plugged.
the oldbutnew car was dirty- took it to the car wash.
the house needed incidentals- took a trip to the red store.

who the hell am i? it's daytime!
shouldn't i be shivering in the closet or something?

i was also accosted by a homeless man at the do-it-yourself car wash.
i tried my best to ignore him.
he took the sprayer hose from me.
i took it back.
he went down.
he got real clean.

it's not all me.
it's what i do: eca stacks and where i live: topanga-ish.
i love telling people that i live in los angeles.
[or so i thought]

i hate it and am no longer stuck here.
[i can go anywhere]

- make some money next year.
- get some experience.
- then get the hell out of dodge.

five years from now, DAILY LIFE could be pretty good.

field of sheep- waiau, new zealand

[back in los angeles]
nine hours remain until depression hits hard and mashes my nose back into the carpet. i know enough to get out of here but have no place to go.

south island- new zealand

[cairns, queensland, australia] [link: photos]
my account is suddenly receiving a fair amount of spam. obviously invalid friend chuck thinks he is getting away with using my computer while i am away. an exercise bike is my working computer chair. is he getting off right there or what? i don't care, don't want to know, keep it away from me and clean up when your are done.

everything is wrong today but nothing is unusual.
hardcore, or whatever the kids say these days.
a fierce baseball bat attack to the head, please.
just knock me out.


christchurch - melbourne in WINDOW A

consider: think about other things while using over the shoulder candid photography practice on the plane to keep my brain occupied this morning.

i need longer than a week away from the current situation to overcome these strange habits which border on addiction. it looks like three weeks of normalcy to rewire straight pathways in my brain might need to be attempted. this trip isn't going to last long enough to eliminate eating disorder rituals or set new patterns.

i will arrive home soon:
- complain about the smelly cat box
- undress in front of full-length mirrored closets
- condemn myself to the point of blackout head rushes in penance for eating a plum tomato panini sandwich and one iced oat ginger bar

note: condemnation for taking care of myself.


chc - christchurch international airport

i hate when feet and lower legs swell on long airplane trips and how anorexia takes the edema personally. can you believe that enduring my grungy home life for a week is proving much more lethal than arriving alone in auckland with an anxiety disorder but without a hotel reservation? how could that be? i left the country and things were nervy, but after the second day i became better than best ever. the days before returning home i won't think about anything but money.


wairu bungee bridge- hanmer springs

i have documented every cent spent on my previous trips, all recorded in separate trip journals with when and where and what items i bought: diet coca cola on the train to zurich, $5, january 3, 1992. foods, flavor, cravings, feelings, calories, and time of day. any fact available was scratched down. garden salad from pizza hut in larnaca cyprus, $4, july 14, 1996. new zealand 2002 is blank. i didn't get very far since i would buy stamps, diet soda, and who really cares about the price of postage stamps?! i look back on these journals and know have a scandinavian sas bus fare to the copenhagen airport on july 7th of 1996 written down. that day i traveled with my irish travel mate to the midtfyns rock festival, but did i write about seeing ocean color scene, savoy, blur, or iggy pop? no. did i mention talking to lauren savoy or how we ran into three german friends from hamburg? i got hurt at that festival, and my foot swelled up dramatically... the doctor was excited to hear that i was from santa barbara and a tetnus shot was given in my back by a hefty german nurse- she thought my leg was too small. the bus fare is noted, without a story.

i can afford stamps so the obsession should stop now.

the shower at the kaikoura hostel ($9, haha) was colder than an icy ocean dolphin swim- yet all i can think about is the cost of the trip on a whole. no way is this expensive, but why should i be having it easy or having any fun?

this entire trip is substantially cheaper than one day in the ucla npi inpatient eating disorder program and the promotional cost of the round trip airline flight is cheaper than therapy- (repeat). i have been sleeping here nightly and have not thrown up any food. i'm going to all of these strange places by myself and making u-turns and sudden change-of-plan stops in the rental car that the ocd usually doesn't allow me to do without 50 or 60 processed, scheduled patterns and thoughts. i have been getting undressed at night and am taking off my glasses and getting into a bed and turning myself off- actually turning off the lights and saying that i can relax for five hours now... relaxed enough to sleep on the planes, to eat on the planes, to get up and use the lavatory on the airplane- which just seems like the most normal thing on earth. i used to never ever feel allowed to leave my seat no matter what, and it is somehow acceptable now after a life of enduring 14 hours flights scrunched up in coach sitting there scared to move.


oamaru penguin colony crossing- new zealand

i am entitled to it: get out of the restroom, hurry up. it's my turn. that was me, walking into unfamiliar restaurants ordering unfamiliar foods and enjoying them. grilled panini with x-rated fillings and was that brushed with an oil? oh, no thank you. no oil. i am not feeling obligated to buy things in an attempt to ease the discomfort of leaving stores. this trip is total therapy. i could spend $400 an hour to sit and talk to a psychologist about doing things or i could try to do them. nobody i know lives here so it's easier in a foreign country to bumble around.

there isn't too much to worry about having experienced twelve days without food in winter germany, november 1996. lugging that muscle-inducing backpack around on the eurail system... convinced myself it was fun, that i was fine. sure, seeing angels in copenhagen is just normal. they were friendly and they loved me- never forget those angels. so far away, but they could be fluttering right here. tomorrow maybe. or not? what if i don't know as to whether they are closer to yes than no?


south island- new zealand

since i have been talking to myself in the car, why not continue:
if you're that concerned about money, maybe you should not be in a rental car in the middle of the south island on the opposite side of the world! therapy most likely involves more than a week of ingesting sandwiches, a few u-turns, meandering around the snow-capped fjords and sheep dotted valleys while making up silly lyrics to the unfamiliar radio aired songs of tadpole and the streets. driving through arthur's pass while insanely singing "the hills are alive with the sound of griswald" isn't even relatively close to a cure for cognitive distortion or whatever it is you need.

kaikoura harbor at dusk- south island, new zealand

[christchurch international airport, new zealand]
new zealand is done, more or less, having driven around the entire south island twice. rather than invest additional days, this time moves on. kaikoura, where snow-covered mountains meet the pacific ocean, is gorgeous, but now i travel onward to spend a few days in australia.

it is annoying how public internet kiosks deny access most blogs due to their presumed inappropriate content. (i'd really like to be able to see what i am posting online.) this blog is blocked immediately, but other sites may load 10-20% before going dark. the f-word marks this site as having adult content-- but do i want to edit expression? what blogger has a kiosk friendly website?

moeraki boulders- south island, new zealand

[currently in: kaikoura, new zealand]
if you come on vacation with me, do not rent a car if you want to relax as i will drive, insisting we have to see everything. chances are closer to never that there will be time allotted to stop.

the lackadaisical way i use to wind down nerves has included a drive south to dunedin and oamaru from christchurch, a return to christchurch, over toward greymouth on the west coast, a large circle back through valleys and hanmer springs, and now kaikoura. the snow covered mountain backdrop of kaikoura in concert with the ocean colors at sunset is gorgeous.



it feels imperative to see the country first and decide afterward where the vacation will be spent. or, consider the relative symbolism of how i might need to take it all in but savor none of it.



with one week of time in a country the size of california, and a sporty little volkswagen golf, i will certainly see everything twice.

swimming with the dolphins- kaikoura, new zealand

[kaikoura, new zealand]
i booked both bunks or beds in a dorm to get my own private space at the fantastic maui youth hostel here in kaikoura. it is cold, windy, and directly across the street from the ocean which means spectacular scenery. it has everything- coin operated internet, huge kitchen, common area, a billion books to check out and also includes an uberlesbian clerk. her main job seems to be protecting tinned fish, ramen noodles, and other "available necessities" from potential theft. she is great though i have a hard time looking around her piercings. not too many people are here, so there is no one to talk with except a japanese woman who keeps yelling at her son.

while turning the rental car around in a parking lot near the peninsula walkway, i narrowly avoided running over a seal... and four hundred sheep walking down the center of the motorway east of hanmer springs was entertaining, too.

[auckland, new zealand]
whale watching?
- planning on spotting enormous sperm whales off the coast of kaikoura

skydiving or bungy jumping?
- will i be able to invalidate the weight concerns or not?

shark cage diving is available here.
- it's out of season
- plus, what does that teach the sharks?

after returning home, i'll be too shy to answer the phone and will refuse to shop without a concomitant. the anxiety surrounding a routine agoraphobia makes no sense but am trying to figure out why it thrives.

note:
- protein bars
- drinking adequate water and a reluctant diet coke
- taking no pills (eca stacks or phentermine)
- actually getting some sleep (!)

everything is fine as the destination of new zealand is no stretch of the imagination. i prefer to be engulfed by a language barrier to feel adequately out of my element.

if it was possible to upload digital photographs with this computer, there would be a silly picture of me feeding a sheep.

today i traveled south by bus to view the glowworm caves but would have liked the natural phenomenon to have screamed "tokyo disneyland" in advance. every attraction worldwide ruins itself in one way or another, but the waitomo caves were relatively free of lowbrow tourist kitsch. [no commemorative plates and whatnot.] forever will i remember being smashed up against a boatload of japanese men under glittering blue green bioluminescence light, their nauseating stench of polo cologne, wiping away drippy limestone calcium condensation from my clothes, and hearing the eerie dripping sound of the glowworm grotto.

[auckland, new zealand]
auckland - waitomo - rotorua...
tell me to sign off from the internet connection and go outside. i have to buy some gloves, maybe or some coffee. motherfigure usually sends me into the world with little pocket handwarmers that deer hunters use to keep warm but i seem to have forgotten them this time.
note: try to focus the next post on something beyond body temperature.

hole in the rock, cape brett- bay of islands

[auckland, new zealand]
the expenses associated with this trip may bother me for years.

so neurotic and cheap, upon arrival, an eight dollar room at the auckland city backpacker was secured. this decision to book a hostel room was based on the fact i have yet to decide where or what to do on this trip-- and the hostel option is ordinarily a good way to meet people.

a woman on the flight from los angeles tried to thwart my isolation, but i ditched her as soon as possible outside of the customs area. she was one of those nervous women traveler types, and was thrusting contact information out left and right. i bolted. perhaps this relates to the fact that she was travelling with three able-bodied (and mentally healthy) women who seemed 'required' to stick together. they presented their group as too inept to travel in a foreign country alone. (just being seen with them made me worry for my safety-- they were basically telling strangers that they were insecure and ripe for other's advantage.)

also, they were from the east coast of the united states, and had improperly booked september 11th promotional flights out of los angeles rather than new york. they subsequently (and unexpectedly) paid enormous fares at the airport to cross the country and meet up with the correct flight. why would timid travelers offer information which could show their inferiority? the socialization that group would offer me would be compromised by the fact that i saw them as a lot of work. how could anyone relax around them? who knows what other ridiculous situations they would allow.

i can do this trip alone- or at least without them for sure.

what am i doing here? the temperature is 45'F with rain. i am wearing my typical los angeles coat, a leather jacket, and a turtleneck even though sitting inside at this internet kiosk (and am still freezing). in a regular hotel, i would be wondering how to get myself outside of the room. this moment of life is slightly uncomfortable but correct. worried. fear. nervous. out of my comfort zone. these trips are cheaper than therapy and end up supplying much more for me.

is this somewhat reminiscent of morrissey's foyer at the sands hotel?
"and i cannot or i do not, and oh my room is cold.
and i'm envying you, never having to choose."

i am prepared with enough money, a few protein bars, a pocketful of phentermine, and an evil grin. once i determine the route, this will be a success. thanks for not pointing out the flight departed on september 11th and arrived the morning of friday the 13th.

the primetime airport shuttle is coming any minute to deliver me to lax. an airport shuttle only because i am bringing a large amount of camera equipment.
- one car reservation.
- a pocket full of money.
- five protein bars.

okay here it goes...
- overwhelmed with that doomed feeling.
- EXTREMELY.
you know, you're never coming back, it's saying.
remember: i don't really want to anyway.

yhoo stock is tanking but does anyone over there do anything about that? no. they spend time redesigning their site in black and white for one day of directed respect for lives lost on september 11th.

one year ago today, while running along white oak avenue in encino, kfi and bill handel broke the news. the tragedy of september 11th was compounded in our house by the fact that bunbury was missing and that [former roommate] notscott and i were flying to fiji that week. having declined travel insurance, it was almost certain we would be out several thousands of dollars and notscott's vacation dates would be spent flipping between various television news coverage. bunbury was located in a hospital two weeks later. we had guessed, but no one had known for certain as to whether or not he was modeling in new york city.

there are too many possibilities and open dates this next week and i have this sinking premonition of being stuck in a hotel room watching reruns of that worldwide phenomenon, chuck norris- or slightly better lassie. the world must know something about chuck that i don't know. you can always count on chuck norris being on foreign televisions in some form, whether it be that texas ranger show that i never saw, or his fitness equipment infomercial with christie brinkley.

larnaca, cyrpus: walker, texas ranger.
oslo, norway: lassie come home.
jerusalem, israel: chuck's "total gym 1500" informercial.
bangkok, thailand: walker, texas ranger.
stockholm, sweden: lassie come home.
paris, france: chuck's "total gym 1500" infomercial.

so i depart for auckland tomorrow and should pack but don't seem too interested or worried. no hotel or rental car reservations yet and still anxiety free.

tonight instead of pacing like usual or packing and then unpacking three different suitcases, an invalid friend and i went out 1am to film the wildfires up in the glendale hills.

what is different this time is that this trip is not a two day weekend adventure for attending a concert or a party- it's longer and how do i know what to bring with me. fedex delivered qantas inter-island airline tickets today, i went to the bank, took invalid friend to an interview, and dug out my united plus frequent flyer mileage card. no problems, no worries, maybe i should look up driving times from christchurch to some of the surrounding areas, otherwise today is sedate.

this bungy/bungee jumping idea has been plaguing me for three days because i would love to do it, but now somehow cannot seem to justify its cost of $150. yes, i have paid more for a book and to see a particular concert and other things and bungy jumping would by far be a more memorable experience, etc, etc...

why not? i might as well. just pay for it. i've read up on it. not scared. whatever. a few minutes ago i read someone's story about the experience and he had to 'weigh in' before the jump. under no circumstance. not even for surgery. well, this bungy idea is now thoroughly shot to hell.

consider: i could jump off a damn bridge but knowing my exact physical numbers has a higher risk factor. anorexia has just saved me $150 that i shouldn't be spending anyway. anorexia has also told me that he has packed his phentermine and he's ready to travel..

WHY IS IT ALWAYS 2:30 IN THE MORNING ???

in an attempt to find an inexpensive smartmedia card for a digital camera, a trip was taken to the not-so-local wal-mart.

oh, good god. need i say more?

occasionally i adopt my father's demeanor, and find myself reciting his famous script in my head: 'i am not standing in a line this long to spend my money' and 'lady, your butt wouldn't nearly be that big if you took an effort to walk faster.'

this particular wal-mart seemed congested to the point of suffocation. overwhelming supplies of peppered beef jerky were stacked dangerously high, right alongside freights of laundry detergent-- and all under the constantly wafting odor of cheap plastic shoes. mm-hmm, but where else can one buy sports nutrition bars for $1.29 or rechargeable nimh batteries for $8.69?

only due to this upcoming trip, los angeles freeway dynamics were challenged and i drove to an independent camera shop on sunset boulevard (- where, after waiting too long amid too strong of scents again -) spent over $100 on ten rolls of kodak portra.

it's not the act of going out which needs to be despised, obviously, introversion and its seriousness can be devalued by focusing the problem toward the particular choice in venue.

bungy jumping- anything wrong with that?

e-mail. it is difficult to know how to respond when readers obviously know about my life, yet i have only vague facts about theirs. in most cases, any contact in my inbox looks like a cryptic message since people forget to send me their links. how do i play along that i know these people?

hello...hello...hello...hello... goodbye!
morrissey | house of blues | las vegas | sept 6 2002

one must wonder how they drag through the same set night after night. this isn't depeche-with-a-backing-tape, c'mon shake it up a little. well there is always tomorrow... a new song? no chance. starting to grow slightly annoyed at the arthritic morrissey frankenstein act which takes place during i want the one i can't have. irritating- driving me mad!

welcome back to door dent hell, flagrant! it's been almost three years, we've missed you. i can't park anywhere remotely close to the front of a parking lot because some jackass is going to ding the door. new air conditioned air smells like a strong swimming pool and is just as moist... the engine is too loud... insurance is higher. seats squeak. i don't own a garage. new cars suck or at least i'm trying to convince myself that they do so i don't go out and actually buy one.

damn new zealand trip. 2000 questions. nobody knows anything.
off to the lonely planet thorntree i go.

"ah shucks, you're so nice..."
morrissey | county bowl | santa barbara

i want the one i can't have
hairdresser on fire
suedehead
little man, what now?
the first of the gang to die
jack the ripper
late night, maudlin street
i like you
mexico
sister i'm a poet
alsatian cousin
everyday is like sunday
the world is full of crashing bores
meat is murder
november spawned a monster
speedway
there is a light that never goes out
---

mmm... and martin gore was in the crowd, too. by far, the most exciting way to see a morrissey concert is to have a great passion for his music and persona, drive endlessly to the show in another city, park miles from the venue to save money on the parking fee, and then arrive at the gate without a ticket in your hand. i love doing this and it's not the first time. general admission tickets from desperate people come less than half price when you buy them near the door! morrissey dedicated meat is murder "to a local resident who just celebrated her 90th birthday... and luckily she doesn't have another one in her." (whatever, something like that, i didn't bootleg the show tonight). morrissey was referring to julia child who, within the last two years, relocated to santa barbara and is often seen around town. she is a notorious reader. a few months ago i was with chuck in border's santa barbara bookstore on state street and as we were leaving the store, the famous chef with her walker and her young female assistant were also leaving and stood nearby waiting for the elevator to the parking garage. funny how the sound of her voice made me smile- we could recognize that accent anywhere. we also saw rutger hauer that night and later saw dennis franz buying an armload of compact discs but they did not leave quite the same impression.

how much do you want to bet that after smearing aspirin mask on my face, three minutes later someone will knock on my door? i lemminged the exfoliating aspirin mask [instructions] from alt.fashion a few months ago and now it is essential.

en route to santa barbara for morrissey at the santa barbara bowl. i will be by the railing acting like my companion is a stranger so just yell, "hey flagrant!" and then i can be sure to ignore you too.

chuck got a second job on the second try thus i am breaking my rule and forcing him to buy a lottery ticket. yes, i am actually going to unlock the safe and give him one precious dollar to throw away. earlier i kept in an entire sandwich during the middle of the afternoon and haven't yet fallen down dead- it's been three weeks to the day since i tried and succeeded at that wicked mortal habit called digestion. okay just as long as i don't think about it too much and i'm leaving in a few minutes so it should be good.

the post office doesn't want to deliver my mail anymore because i receive too much. packages and padded envelopes of books for review, music, films, resumes, demo reels and other stuff because in a terrifying attempt at getting a life about six months ago, i decided to attempt several businesses, look for a full-time non-image based outside-of-the-house job, do some session recordings for a musician, take an online course, and write a book or publish books- plus it's my job to successfully rape the nyse for two hours a day. see i figured that at least one of them would turn into something while the others would tank. well nothing has failed and they are starting to bring in some, but not enough money. people would laugh fairly hard if they saw my royalty check for my stint as a musician because it barely covered my utility bill. i tend to forget that i can do things and am not the failure that i continually tell myself that i am. bad habit: all or nothing in every aspect of my life.

everything is wrong and right at the same time:

1) day trader account did fine even though i left it alone today.
if i had time to trade, my profits would have been 4 times better.

2) chuck received his paycheck and it is more than expected.
that firm went bankrupt- run all over to cash it just in case.

3) the ugliest day of my life i sweat in the sunlit car and black out and he gets a job on the first interview.

i've calmed now and am going out with chuck to pick up his paycheck and take him to a job interview.

so what day was it that i got to go to bed? three, four, or five days ago? how many minutes of sleep had been allowed? is there a place somewhere that people can go and sleep undisturbed? everyone except myself gets to take a few hours out daily to close their eyes, but it is impossible for me as i am too concerned with DAILY LIFE. when concerned with the world, stress and anxiety does not shut off.

stop crying. stop crying. what does deal really mean? how does one deal? no sleep now, either, because i have to drive all over the entire city and help what's-his-f!ck look for a job. the impossible situation of how to rid mental pain always comes back to fire.

i roll my eyes at myself too, but you know, suicidal thoughts never left me. not yesterday. not the day before- just because death by fire has not been dissected lately doesn't mean it is not close to me.

consider: with five i knew i was finished because i wasn't done.
note: actually it was six and i refuse to explain time after hitting lunacy.
fact: no one understands uber-lunacy.

if i have one purge session, that equals about 32 times that i actually make myself throw up. if this happens for four sessions, that could be approximately 128 actual stresses on my heart.

on a recent fifth session, i knew i was finished with the insanity for awhile because i was too tired to finish going through the motions and finish eating the food. eating is not the correct term as only texture is involved-- there is no savoring or flavor. i could never be too tired to finish purging. everything is a blur past a third session. at four and five i give up but have to question why someone keeps bringing more food. these people you see on television who are so enormously overweight that they can't leave their homes unless a wall is knocked out... well it's not funny, but for some reason the television news helicopters tread overhead with their cameras focused on that wall to be knocked out. someone brought those obses people that food! there is no way it was all delivered calories. i feel real bad for them. there will be not helicopter overhead when they cart me out of here, thank god. i will be a female spectacle in spectacles but never a spectacle from a kabc 7 overhead camera.

i sit here today about to lose my voice but have yet to say anything except, "get a goddamn newspaper." what to do about chuck and his job loss? how can i handle this? hanging on, about to lose composure in about an hour, which is unfair, but i do not know what it means to 'deal' and there is this little voice called REX in my mind today who is whispering about all of the punishment he is going to give me when all alone next week on the other side of the world tramping in those new zealand fjords.

- my heart beats in time with panic and it hurts like a sharp squeeze.

- i am wearing a little piece of paper around my wrist that i made and laminated with cellophane tape. the writing on it is clearly written in my handwriting and it says: "do not force fluids." if an ambulance crew or hospital staff forced fluids, it will kill me and i want to leave no body (but everybody) on my own terms.

wtf is all of this?
calm down.
i don't feel so good this morning.

"get a goddamn newspaper."
okay, that is where chuck and i left off-- the classified ads.
then invalid friend said i wasn't a nice person.
then i stabbed myself.

well, you know, minorly.

you also remember that the wicked witch of the west didn't bleed when toto bit her, at least that's what it said in the book.

in being so obsessed with having a perfectly unflawed body, i refuse to cut myself but it doesn't stop me from thinking about it constantly. a few times, more or less accidentally (holy crap!) i left marks. this last week has been insane and i don't usually make myself sick as much as has been detailed lately. i also chose to beat myself. what is going on? is the mental pain that strong that a physical pain needs to be dramatic to overwhelm it?

i have to figure out how *not* to replace the pain of stress and anxiety with another pain, except that has already been stated here 3000 times since june. replace self injury with what substitution? maybe i'm not supposed to replace it? is this where 'dealing with it' comes into the picture? what the hell are they talking about? does 'deal with it' mean to endure or to do something about it? fix situations! keep on top of things! have no stress! sure... but this is the sixth(?) job loss of his in six months and i want a huge handful of pills.

invalid friend chuck was officially fired this morning.
is anyone following along?

note: find someone to talk with today.

how, exactly, i am supposed to hang on? i mean, what can i do? what does it mean to 'just deal with it?' it's going to be much better for me if i can just hold until self sufficiency. invalid friend's crap is making me really sick.

how does one get through an interim period? am i just fooling myself that DAILY LIFE is going to be better when i start a regular daily job? i don't even know if i am going to be able to physically handle that job. on the verge of thriving. supposedly. just a little stability and to be able to live without insurmountable worry- that is all i want, forever.

the mail carrier dropped off the digital photography sourcebook from bh photo in new york. i hope all of the customers got one of these hefty tomes because otherwise it is a definite warning that i spend way too much money at their shop. just this morning while trying to order a few cases of several types of film, they were out of stock on everything i needed so why should i spend thousands more on a digital camera there? only because the local freestyle photo, the k-mart of photographic supplies, does not sell what i want and snotty samy's camera always convinces invalid friend to buy the highest priced name brand items. right, like chuck, who can't figure out how to even load his own film, needs a $150 top branded filter for his 12 year-old camera. mm-hmm, sure. then again, bunbury has a digital darkroom in his house that he doesn't know how to use so who knows what people really need. well look at that, it's 2:30am again.

channeling patrick bateman tonight and not kenneth broxgaard aka patrick bateman the deep house-tech dj. i never should have read american psycho. what would bateman listen to these days? there is an idea of a patrick bateman, some kind of abstraction. but there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. and though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, i simply am not there.

never ever can i sleep. it is so silly to sit here all night just tapping my toes while nervously waiting for the u.s. financial markets to open...should be proactive with this insomnia but now i go out to run... hopefully return and make the rent.

3 sessions and working on 4.
1 = 32ish
4 = 128ish
with 5 i knew i was finished because i wasn't done.
10 million people know what i mean.

you don't comprehend 1ish or 2ish. i understand now but am coming closer to unsubscribing. someone was told this was fun. will i remember how scary it was?

brush my bones scrape my skin wax my eyes burn my hair return to form

the dumbest thing about it all, is that i have a perfect body and it is a fantastic hair day, everything is just peaches and pie in the sky! tomorrow after returning home from running, a look into the mirror will not recognize miss swollen gland girl's reflection and this house will be a place of hibernation. if i was allowed to pass the blame to someone else, i would say people should know better than to bring unrequested food. i must not say that but will just THINK IT VERY LOUDLY.

is it too early to begin worrying about the upcoming trip to new zealand? yes? no? one camera, one lens. which lens is appropriate for travel? mountain. scenery. ocean. i don't know what to pick.

it will be winter, nearing on springtime there, which means the weather should require socks... and i should allow myself to buy a new pair of shoes.

winter? i cannot stand wearing jeans or any type of heavy pants. flannel-lined trousers, good god. i hate carrying the weight of it around. will i need to buy a pair of gloves? oh, consider the discomfort of breaking in new shoes. anything different from today, from clothing to weather and location, seems like a huge discomfort. enduring a lengthy flight? i am scared to do any of this-- i just want to download the travel experience without the great undertaking. what happens if i spend too much money? what am i going to do to compensate for it?

hmm, should i lug the big hasselblad camera around or leave it at home? oh, call this thing off. i do not want to be responsible for making the wrong decision.

is it too much to have two different blogger pages? is it too much to take? my thoughts always are clouded with taking but i just need an opinion- suppose if the concern of taking is overwhelming i could always get a paid account. a travel blog? a memory blog? that may be a big bore for most people but could be interesting if the memories were horrifying enough. there is ferocious anger and frustration stemming from remembering the difficulties in communication during the time before i learned to speak.

a travel blog is a good enough reason to purchase a digital camera. is it essential to justify the purchase? maybe i just want one. maybe i want the good one. learning to want and balancing have is going to be horrendously expensive.