epiph-ionic spree

the teeny tiny readership of this blog all know that i've been working my balls off for the past 9+ months so i could quit mortgage forever and go to la for school.  i've been going to school full-time and working 50+ hour weeks at work all while living on 1 paycheck a month and putting the other paycheck away in the bank.  it was going to work out beautifully: i put in notice at my job on 3/1, last day is 3/15 (the same day the quarter ends), i leave for la on 3/21, registration is on 3/23 and classes start - synchronously - on my birthday.  talk about a way to kick off a year, right?  32 was going to be the best, most kick-ass year ever for me.  for once, it was a birthday i was REALLY looking forward to. 
turns out, that's not meant to be.  due to a lot of boring details i'm ending up short on money to go.  i have enough saved for living expenses but not tuition on top of it (funny how those 2 amounts are so similar), so i COULD still go, but i would have to live on the street.  while i would probably be queen whitey (or ice cream queen, whatever) in the homeless village downtown on 6th, i don't know that i'd be in the right frame of mind to get the learning done that i need to get done.  i did a lot of running around this past weekend to make sure there weren't any other viable options.

that said, i was, understandably, frustrated, disappointed and very, very sad when i got back.  i was so numb to it that it took a good day and a half to sink in.  i talked with a few people about it and started getting really sad and then very pissed off about it.  so pissed off that i've been mentally blowing the wad of cash i saved up for this trek.  it started last night when i said to myself, "fuck it!  if i can't do the big thing i want to do, i'm gonna buy myself that $20 bottle of shampoo because i like how it smells and it makes my hair awesome."  and i did.  that mentality stayed put through the train and bus ride to work this morning and it looked kind of like this:

what i CAN'T do:
 - put a down payment on a sexy tesla electric car
 - go to la for school during the spring and summer quarters

what i CAN do:
 - shell out for a fairly fancy trip to this year's sxsw and even get a BADGE if i wanted.  and still have enough left over for an ipad.
 - buy outright a new-to-me car
 - buy 1000 shots of whiskey at my corner bar.  and still have enough left over for an ipad.  that i wouldn't be able to use because i'd be dead due to alcohol poisoning.
 - buy outright a house in memphis
 - buy outright two homes in memphis (i didn't say they were nice houses)
 - give myself a "what not to wear"-esque shopping spree
 - find some boy hookers and lots of blow
 - stalk david wenham

then my CAN list started to get less fanciful.  when that happened, i had to re-ask myself why it was i thought i had to wait a whole year to go back to la to try this again because I FORGOT.  i couldn't come up with a good answer, so i'm thinking it was just self-punishment for not being ready when i thought i should be ready.  then i thought to myself, "self, if you take the next 2 quarters off of school, you could TOTALLY go to la in the fall and you might even be better off."  i could get myself an ipad.  i could get a fancy phone when my contract is up in july.  i could slowly build my wardrobe up to where i want it to be.  i could start taking care of myself.  i could do all these things i'd been denying myself for a long time.  a very long time.
if i wait until fall, i will probably have more of my tuition covered by student loans too because i was AWESOME and completed my fafsa on the first day it was available this year.

so, this weekend i'm going to set a goal of what i want and where i want to be financially by the time i leave for la.  and then i'm going to work backwards from then to now to figure out what i need to save up per month.  i don't think it's going to be a whole paycheck which will leave me money to do things for myself like, starting to go to hot yoga again (to shoot for 5 days a week), buying a few pieces of clothing every month rather than a spree, getting myself an ipad, read for fun instead of school, get myself pedicures, go to shows again, etc.

when i came to this realization, it was like a weight lifted.  i was a totally different person at work (i don't expect that to last too long).  i felt light and awesome all day.

and to celebrate, i took my first steps today: notifying la school that i was going to attend in the fall, modifying the financial aid a little bit, and moving $500 from the school fund to the "let's spend some money!" account and promptly bought myself 5 rollers of my good smellin' smell stuff from nordstroms since it's discontinued and they're the only ones that still have any left.  it felt good not to freak out about spending $130 on knowing that i'll smell how i want to smell for the next 12 years.

whoa

i never thought robert mitchum could get sexier, but he just did... australian accent and salacious language with deborah kerr... that's how.

rawr!

the dream that i didn't post... until now

i can post this now that i'm off that place and because i know that no one in the dream reads this... thing.

the most overtly sexual dream that probably has nothing to do with sex i've had to date:

i was in my dream home (of course, an adorable craftsman bungalow, no more than 3 bedrooms) with a friend of mine that i haven't met yet. she was like a combination of a lot of girls i know, but no one i know at the same time. we're chilling on the couch chatting - it's my birthday or some kind of celebration for me or something - and she gets me up and says "ok, we're ready".
we go out to the backyard where this pornstar that i've never really found attractive is shirtless and doing something in another part of the yard, kind of flooding it i think, and he comes up to my friend, acknowledges me, takes her over to his project and she starts helping him with it. it feels like they have a little flingy thing. rob is sitting in the corner with something or someone unlikely draped over him preparing to videotape the whole thing. i go to where they're setting up this thing and there's a whole group of people that i feel like i know on a base level, but no one that i know personally. there's a chair-ish thing, kind of like a massage chair meets the "burning man" man on a massage chair scale, in the middle of this puddle and there are 2 people standing at the far end of the yard where the flooding is going. the pornstar and my friend are trying to get them to move, but they are just looking back and not listening. my friend has a ball of red yarn that she's letting into the water and it's turning the water red. she and the pornstar do something, i can't remember what, it feels ritual-y and then she's standing next to me again.
the pornstar starts talking to the rest of the group and instructs all the girls to put on something from this selection of dresses and "fancy fun" clothes he has that have just magically appeared. i see the one i want and i'm instantly in it, not physical getting out of clothes and back into them, and all the other ladies are the same way. i'm in some kind of corset bustier thing with sassy pants on and some girl, i don't know if it's my friend or not, is OBSESSED with my nipples and every few minutes would turn around, scratch my corset top down to get to them and happily start chewing and going to town on them and i liked it, but would just look down at her chuckling.
then the pornstar had an old, dying dog that we were going to ceremonially put to sleep or let die naturally and so they brought it up to this dais that was right next to me, and rob came closer and started filming closer, and they started this little pre-wake, last rights-ish kind of thing for the dog. all i could remember is the pornstar telling rob to get the dog's eyes in the video so they could try and figure out what kind it was because he never knew. and then they started playing old school michael jackson ballads for the dog. everyone starts to disperse and my friend and i are still in the yard but at a further vantage point and i told her that i thought she got the pornstar here to ravage me. she just smiled, laughed and said "he will if you want him to" and i just shook my head and we headed back into the house.
the inside of the house was different now, with a huge great room with no furniture, but the pretty, shiny wood floor was lined against the walls with guitars and stringed instruments of all kinds and there was a line for everyone to grab whatever one they could play because EVERYONE could play something. as i was walking through the house, i see the backs of tan sister radio standing there holding their guitars and they're facing and watching the huge front yard where there's a stage set up. my friend and i RUN outside to see what's up. as we collapse on the perfect patch of grass we see patrick onstage warming up the truckees and hoffee is in the house grabbing this huge sheet that has "truckees" or "rock" or something simple, one-worded and awesome on it in lights and he's running it out to the stage to put it up. the truckees are about to start but they can't for some reason that i can't remember but patrick was explaining it and the reason has to do with hoffee needing to fuck a random chick in the audience with everyone watching. and it's on a table so everyone could purposefully watch. the woman started out being a little plain with glasses and curly hair and feeling like a girl i knew ABOUT but didn't know personally and turned into my friend mid-fuck. it was like a slow morph. and it was just fuck. it was passionless, rote and mechanical like they were required to do it for a school assignment. no kissing, no savoring, no feeling, no fun, just the old in-out. the last thing i remember was her legs up on his chest, feet crossed at the ankles, and he was trying to pry them apart, but it wasn't happening and he got frustrated. and then i woke up.

whoa. is it weird that i think the "friend" that is leading me through the whole dream is a future me?

what ISN'T in there for interpretation??

edited to add: i finally figured out who the pornstar dude is - alex sanders. he's SO gross and not at all my type. but he's the one who was in my dream.

what the hell??

why haven't i read this before? how does this guy know how to put into words how i feel about LIFE (as cheeseily dramatic as it sounds)??

"... it's as though one had actually died and actually been resurrected again; one lives a supernormal life, like the chinese. that is to say, one is unnaturally gay, unnaturally healthy, unnaturally indifferent. the tragic sense is gone...
loneliness is abolished, because all values, your own included, are destroyed. sympathy alone flourishes, but it's not a human sympathy, a limited sympathy - it is something monstrous and evil. you care so little that you can afford to sacrifice yourself for anything or anybody. at the same time your interest, your curiosity, develops at an outrageous pace."

its always been hard for me to get across to people how i feel about how i live my life in general and this NAILS IT ON THE HEAD. i'm not saying its for everyone and i'm not saying its necessarily even good for me - the explanation may seem a little harsh, but it's honest and aptly descriptive. that's how i'd explain it now. the underlined parts most.

they grow up so... fast?

i just saw a child that didn't look like a child. he looked like a very small adult. even his body - no baby fat or cuddliness - and stature. he wasn't a "little person", but he just did not have a child-like quality about him. he couldn't have been more than 3 or 4.

strange. it was strange in a wonderful (in the full of wonder) kind of way. and obviously notable enough for me to feel like writing about it.

excited!

tori's gonna be here in mere hours! and that means that we're only a few more hours away from ryan!

energy's coming together today. the radio station i listen to in seattle just read my mind, which is a feat for them. i thought to myself, "gee, they're crazy this morning, they ought to play the "taco roll-up" song!" and what's the next song? the taco roll-up song. thank you kings of leon.

sometimes psychosis is weird.