"Take the stupidest thing you've ever done. At least it's done. It's over. It's gone. We can all learn from our mistakes and heal and move on. But it's harder to learn or heal or move on from something that HASN'T happened; something we don't know and is therefore indefinable; something which could very easily have been the best thing in our lives, if only we'd taken the plunge, if only we'd held our breath and stood up and done it, if only we'd said yes."

....

danny wallace is my hero.

june 1, 2008: flight of the conchords, orpheum theater, los angeles.

june 30, 2008: weird al yankovic, san diego county fair, del mar.



need i say more?

Hi, my name is: caitlin

But you can call me: caik, caiknbake, cait of lin, caitlandia

Never in my life have I: downhill skied...is that how you spell skied? looks like the past tense of sky...

The one person who can drive me nuts is: only one person? ha! choose a random del martian off the street and they can probably drive me nuts...well, maybe not so easily any more :D

My high school is/was: utterly white-bread

When I’m nervous: my face glows red

The last song I listened to was: fast track by radiohead

If I were to get married right now it would be to: get a green card, most likely :D

Where are you?: in front of the ultimate wide-screen display (ie my bedroom window)

My hair is: shorter than before

I should be: less juvenile, but who can help these things?

When I look down I see: purple

The happiest recent event was: rehearsal yesterday, probably. it had been too long.

If I were a Disney character: i would have freakishly large eyes and be voiced by a minor celebrity

By this time next year: i’ll be preparing a recital, if all goes as planned

My current gripe is: utterly petty and silly. why don’t celebrities pay attention to me? sheesh. also for some reason april fools day is grating on me this year. weird.

I have a hard time understanding: tax forms. BLECH

There’s these girls: cheerleader! so and so! what’s her face! the ugly one! hey girls, are you ready to look soooo good?

If I won an award, the first person I would tell: the first person i happened to talk to

I want to buy: a cello, or a new violin, or a new guitar. or a piano. hmmm...

Where do you plan to visit: boston and barbados (separate occasions)

If you spent the night at my house: callie would commandeer your lap

Most recent thing I’ve bought myself: ice cream :D

Most recent thing someone else bought me: lunch

My middle name is: noel

In the morning I: sleep

Last night I was: up way too late, as usual

There’s this guy I know who: i don’t really know

If I was an animal I’d be a: bird

A better name for me would be: orchdork

Tomorrow I am: teaching, as usual

Tonight I am: perhaps finishing afghan assembly, if i ever get off the freakin’ internets

My birthday is: two-thirds evil :D

You got this from: nedanger

green/potent: mother nature, verdant dripping blades of grass a waterbed cushioning the soles of my feet as i meander through the late-spring field, approaching an apple tree crooked and glowing with blossoms.

yellow/arresting: runway model, shock of dark mahogany hair crazing out above the couture slip. mustard and lines, shimmering shifting over the hip knuckles, an ever-changing string shape circling pencil legs.

blue/sensual: the blue glow of Evening. full moon dripping through white curtains, illuminating a single sculptured ankle atop sheets white like meringue and down comforter a navy so deep your eyes sink into its folds.

red/luminous: Moonlight Beach, July. charcoal smoke teases the nostrils, distracting momentarily to the tongue, the gut. smears of citrus, grapefruit and blood orange, threaten to smother the cool brown of wet sand.

***end happy post***

OMGWTFOMGWTFOMGWTF

how did i allow myself to become so drama-ridden? this is what i need:

..../ S
.../ N
O.. I
...0 P

[new shit that has come to light]

aaaaand.......S L E E P |
................._________|
................|.............|

[edit: damn it! i can't get the scissors to show up. stupid html.]

things annoying me at the moment:

*apparant inability to do anything productive
*facebook, time-wasting possibilities of
*sudoku, addiction to
*dirty dishes
*food, lack of
*shitty movies on tv, abundance of
*hoffmeister
*oceanside, distance from
*audition, enormous freakout potential of
*christmas, overwrought commercialization of
*christmas, compulsory guilt of
*christmas, shitty music of

things making me happy at the moment:

*kitty, cuteness of
*kitty, cuddle potential of
*bach
*the office, hilarity of

there's so much to be said about this week...i hardly know where to begin even. one of those times in life when i feel the need to return to simplicity, because the rest is just a whirl of buffeting winds (santa ana winds) throwing things around and confusing. i picture myself at the eye of that storm, closed and calm...or at least this is my goal.

first, of course, the fires. monday was stressful in a way that escaped my notice until i finally had a guaranteed safe place to be, at which point i found i had lost the ability to retain consciousness. i had forgotten just how exhausting the news can be, especially when it's so close to home (like, what, five miles?). and i remember when we had fires in the foothills near claremont and the sky was post-apocalyptic, but this was different. less beauty, more ash. the comfort level of traversing the distance between house and car reminded me of minnesota on the more bitterly cold days. later in the week, things got progressively better in all respects, but a community-wide disaster is not something easily forgotten, even among those of us who were lucky enough to have ash remain our biggest problem. we had several days that were simply out of time.

then, well...yes, then. there are some moments of awkward embarrassment that will haunt for years, and i think that was one of them. but i have withdrawn back into my center, and am still learning the lesson of how much to invest (or not to invest) in a friend. funny, this seems to be a recurring pattern for me. progress has been made, but i have to wonder if there truly exists such a thing as a healthy balance in any relationship. if so, i have yet to find it.

and then, finally, happily, as of 2pm today, i am 100% self employed. it hardly seems real, i think partially because of the surreality of everything else around me these days, but it makes me feel like i've shed an invisible burden and if i wanted to, i could float down the street. no more stone age computers, no more shelving guidelines, no more iso, no more cgw, no more tps reports. no more toadying to the plasticine del martians. my final customer today was The Cheese Man; i couldn't think of a more fitting end to a ridiculous job.

and i don't know if this is related to my surroundings, or more a reflection of my personal landscape, but it's one of those weeks where every song i hear speaks exactly to my situation in some way. i think i've written about this phenomenon before, but it never ceases to puzzle and interest me. am i the only person who flips the radio stations and feels a tug and twist in the gut all the damn time? maybe i should write my novel about it. OH YEAH.....

...

the flames and smoke climbed out of every window
and disappeared with everything that you held dear
but you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn't need
'cause you knew you were finally free

just finished yet another book for which i have few words that don't sound utterly sappy. it's one of those that just gets you into that atmosphere, and you wonder how the author read your feelings, dug them out of your chest and splayed them on the pages. i could smell venice and hear bach; my gross factory violin was suddenly transformed into a tononi with the personality of my best friend. and, well, perhaps i am less melodramatic than michael holme, but i know his paralysis, his numb bafflement, as well as i know myself and my music.

books and music have such power over me, i sometimes wonder if, without them, i would feel anything at all.

...

"Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music - not too much, or the soul could not sustain it - from time to time."

i'm not sure i'll ever get a stranger request than i did today at b&n. this old dude, who didn't speak english very well, hands me this tattered magazine and says, "do you have this?"

i look at it...not only is it from 1990, but the title is in french and all the text within is in arabic. OMG. if only i had had a camera...this was one for the photo album for sure.

this morning, i had one of the most vividly strange and disturbing dreams i've had in a long time. i was in my car, cruising down the freeway, letting my imagination run away a little bit (as it tends to do while driving), and the freeway was completely clear of cars until all of the sudden, there's this mass of upside down, crushed cars and twisted metal across all four lanes right in front of me. then things went all slow-mo on me; i was trying to brake, but i didn't notice with enough time to keep from hitting the car in front of me, so i got tossed into the pile of wreckage. i had about two seconds of shock and relief that i was still conscious, then the car behind me, a big black suv, not only rear-ended me, but actually steamrollered over me and thoroughly flattened my car. i was like pizza dough under a rolling pin. miraculously (even in the dream i was amazed by this), i survived the crash, and some of the other people in the cars ahead of mine pulled me out, and all i had was a stiff neck. but DAMN! that was scary!

so then when i got to work (less than half an hour later, because i slept too late this morning), i went to look in a dream book about what my dream might mean. the best thing i could find was not about car accidents specifically, but just about driving, and it said that the state of my vehicle indicates how i view my personal state right now, and the difficulty of the terrain indicates what i think of my life journey at the moment. so basically, if i take this dream analysis book at face value, i personally am utterly crushed, and my life is a huge horrific roadblock. good times!

then again, it just occurred to me that the imagery could have been inspired by the photos that i saw of the 35W bridge, which is also totally scary and bizarre. makes me think of all the times i crossed it going to math in high school. ah, those drives were....memorable. strange to think that i couldn't drive that way again. it almost feels like some alternate universe version of me-ten-years-ago fell in the river.

okay, that's enough, now we're getting too bizarre even for me.

have i really not written since march?! geez. i suppose i have had some good excuses for being busy, and some other not-so-good excuses for being busy. ah, well. i think perhaps part of the reason why i don't really write here anymore is because i can't imagine why anyone besides me would want to read about my life. i know that there are people who do (a precious few, you know who you are!), but i still don't really get it. it's me! i'm so boring! eh, whatever.

so my brain won't leave me alone lately. do you ever feel totally stuck on something in the past that's unchangeable and really, actually for the best when you think rationally about it, and yet it just gets under your skin and niggles away at your dreams? that's how i feel right now. it's not an unusual feeling for me, honestly. i've been known to tell people that my primary addiction is nostalgia, and now that i'm off coffee indefinitely i really think it's true. but how does one break that addiction? i thought i had been doing quite a good job of living in the real world for the last year or so, replacing my hours of thinking about the same things over and over again with projects, books, jobs, people, stories, etc. but here i am still; the minute i get overwhelmed with real world activities, my brain just zips off to however long ago to wonder what if.

on a tangentially related note, i just saw a sneak preview of the movie "becoming jane" last night, and it fucking ROCKED THE HOUSE. could i love jane austen any more? i wish i could write like her.