head cold & a meltdown

well, just when i thought i'd had enough, i learned that a friend from college, who lived right near here in springfield and was on facebook almost every day, had suddenly died. i would write about it here but so far as i know the results of the autopsy either aren't in or they haven't been made public - in any case our mutual friends (who were closer to her than i was) haven't learned anything new & it would be unseemly, i think, for me to go on about it here. in any case the mountain of crap i was trying to face suddenly became pretty much un-faceable.

so i came down with a cold just in time for the big party saturday night. if you did not glean the pertinent info from my previous post, here it is:

saturday night. 6pm-midnight. WWII club on conz st. 7 year anniversary of the freedom center. dance party. glow bracelets. LED hooping & poi performances.

well in light of my head cold and all the recent stress i am feeling pretty dubious about performing at this party and am considering bailing on it and just letting kevin & purple do their thing. who is purple, you may ask? well this is purple:



it's not just a lot of stress and a head cold though. at this point i think i am having a psychic meltdown. if i'm in a room with more than one person they might as well be speaking chinese - i have no idea what's going on. i can't hoop. i can't do anything. i'm suffering a major creative block. i'm having bizarre nightmares almost every night. i don't know how to handle social situations and have lost all sense of tact (not sure i ever had any to begin with though.) the only thing that's made me smile in earnest in the past few days is that my secret e-stalker from CA has decided to reappear, after dropping off the face of the earth for several years. we "met" online while i was in the process of leaving my husband in petaluma, CA for a 3-month stint as a homeless person. we chatted incessantly until right before x-mas, when he disappeared, leaving me with a big gaping hole in my chest. i eventually got over it. fell in love with an in-person boy & had a 4-month-long romantic interlude which ended when i had a mental meltdown in april. right around then this mystery chat-man reappeared & came to town for one night. we met. say no more. then he disappeared again. once a year or so he'd reappear & maybe drop me a note somewhere. now i'm having another meltdown and here he is, out from the ether, saying sweet things that make me feel good when somehow nothing else can or will. thank you, S.J. my heart is a little warmer for your re-appearance.

p.s. it's either a good thing or a crying shame that i already know it would be useless to check myself into the hospital. they can do nothing for me. there's only one thing that can help me now, i believe, and that's LESS PRESSURE. and the onus is on me to create this less-pressure situation because i'm the one who keeps saying "yes" to things i really want to do but which i obviously can't find time for. and "yes" to people i really want to hang out with but who keep me up too late & make me get sick, thereby contributing to my never-ending cycle of not-finishing-anything and feeling more and more stressed. but people and creative projects have always been more important to me than anything else, so what's a girl to do, i ask you? i seriously don't know.

my crazy wife, i mean LIFE

i just moved my website over to a newer server at my same hosting service. a bunch of stuff doesn't work now so i have to re-install boards, etc, anything with scripting really. and re-publish this blog - so i figured why not add a new post since i'm running late anyway and only have like a gazillion things to do.

i am so fucking tired.

what's new in news-land: well let's see, first of all i've been trying for a while to get my new social club/website "peaknoho.org" off the ground but i want to use drupal and that's why i had to move to a newer server which messed everything else up. my friend scott is helping me troubleshoot the drupal config. what would i do w/out scott? well i probably wouldn't have been turned on to drupal to begin with so maybe none of this would be a problem and i wouldn't need his help. but he did loan me a cool book oh drupal, phpBB and wordpress, which was very nice of him & i plan on using all of them.

i'm trying to get my "professional" site "mischiefrobot.com" off the ground but right now the domain name isn't pointing to the right place. i just changed the DNS settings again & will check it in a couple days.

i just spent the last week engaged with the university of notre dame's architecture dept's grad student team & professor phil bess, who came to our town (big honor for us, really, that they chose us) and spent a week investigating the town's layout, history, topography, culture, politics, etc. and inviting citizens to join in the process as they came up with amazing design ideas for a sustainable growth plan. their thing is looking at old, wonderful cities that are great places to live in and what makes them great, and using those as models for good design. it is soooooo refreshing. i can't tell you. really, i can't. because i don't have the time right now and i don't have the words. they fit into the "new urbanist" movement but honestly what they're doing is something spectacular. this does not, of course, mean that any of their plans will be implemented in any way by our city's asshole politicians. please note: NOBODY LOVES THE MAYOR. NOBODY WANTS THE FUCKING HILTON.

i created a wee little splash when i recorded our local homeless advocate, ira, in a moment when he was spouting off to the design crew, and i uploaded it to youtube as "ira the irate". this caused some interesting reactions. first of all i got an email from a wealthy local man who thinks he's already solved all the problems for the homeless and that there is no problem. secondly, ira said at the next meeting (whereat he apologized to everyone for his outburst) "apparently i'm on youtube now" and tonight, he started his commentary (which was quite civil, if you're curious) by introducing himself as "ira the irate". later i talked to him & admitted to having youtubed him, and he accused me of not having a clue what he was trying to get at in his outburst etc. but i informed him that i want to get him & that rich guy together for a debate & videotape THAT. he was all for it... and i'm gonna set it up.

problem: i'm way too busy. i'm doing a fun but big video project for mike k's company, stone soup concrete (whose party i am running late for as we speak.) i am making a video for megan e. labonte but that's taking me forever even though it should be simple and probably would be simple for anyone else & she probably would have been happy just getting the straight footage but no, i had to go & chop it all up & try to edit it together in some artful sort of way. then, i'm making more than three movies just for myself and those occupy much of my time although i justify it by explaining to myself that i am using my personal projects to gain the skills i need for the other projects, which will then benefit from my increased speed & agility & know-how. ok, then there's this woman who needs mac help... and there's this guy i've been hanging out with... and i'm still trying to hoop as often as possible... and i'm more involved with freedom center stuff than ever, though i continue to cause huge controversies with my tactless group emails. most recently, i went on a tirade about how skits were dorky and had no place at a party, and the pro-skit faction believed i was personally attacking them as being dorks. ok, then on top of that i'm making & selling hoops but i'm way behind on that, having promised to make a bunch of kid-sized hoops, and custom hoops for people, and so on and so forth...

and some asshole keeps trying to hack my site(s) but i haven't exactly figured out how/why/etc. to patch the security holes...

and some other asshole basically stole my motorcycle & wrecked it & now it's sitting in a garage racking up storage fees all being billed to me, so i have to deal with THAT...

and i'm trying to get all this shit dealt with & straightened out PLUS get on a "regular" sleeping schedule all before i start massage school on sept 30th. meanwhile, a good friend of mine is having a major meltdown & i want to help him out but don't really know how & the one thing i can do is give him some time though i'm already going crazy, so... well, to sum it up, that's my crazy life basically. not including the cat who chews up any papers i leave lying around.

but i'm not complaining!!! i have a great fucking life. seriously. compared to, say, when i was married... or a hermit... these are pretty good times. so the world's going to hell in a handbasket worse than ever, we've killed off most of the planet & will not be able to sustain even the much-lauded human life for much longer... in spite of that things are good. for me. it's just that things are crazy. i remember my husband remarking, way back when, that i seemed happier when i was working, even though i really hated working, was always overwhelmed & sleep-deprived, and never got anywhere on time. there's something to be said for at least being engaged with something, i guess. for having creative outlets & places to put ones energies.

end of crazy-life rant... i'm late for a party.