GRACE UNCENSORED

Sep. 30, 2005

p.s. [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 5:51 pm

what i should have written was, of course, that you should check back if you’re not doing anything more fun on a friday night than sitting at your computer. i mean, i hope you’re doing something more fun than that. not that sitting at the computer ISN’T fun, but it’s also nice to get out and do stuff.

but also, you could check back if you want to when you’re DONE going out and doing stuff.

and odds are, i’m going to be too tired to post the photos tonight anyway.

but then again, you never know.

ok then,

grace

getting ready... [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 5:46 pm

i just talked to erica, who is listening to disco cd’s, getting ready. i’m not getting ready yet, and i don’t have any disco music, but i put on my ray brown trio, some of my best friends are guitarists CD and so at least i’m listening to SOME kind of music, which is more than i usually remember to do.

today i had a little down time (not down as in DEPRESSED, christine), so i took some photos of my massage room. here’s the first one, this is what the room looks like:

peaceful, huh? i like to just be there. Here’s a photo of this pirate lamp i have; amy gave it to me,and randy covets it:

and this is a close-up of some things on my dresser. i painted the bottle. i went through a bottle-painting phase for a while there in my life. i might go back to it, since i still have all the paint.

things

i wish i could find more appropriate music right now. this is some great jazz, but it makes me want to spend the evening in a swanky club, sipping on a glass of good red wine, chatting with an attractive fellow. but THAT’S not how the evening is going to go, i must PUT ON THE PANTS!

this afternoon amy put a long ponytail in my hair. she went out and bought a curly ponytail yesterday, but then decided it wasn’t good enough, so today she bought a better one.

it’s quite nice, but now there’s no way i can nap, with this big piece of hair attached to the back of my head.

instead, i’m drinking iced tea, hoping that’ll give me the energy necessary for staying up.

the thing is, if this is like any other getting dressed up kind of situation - halloween, new year’s eve, any kind of fancy or funny opportunity to wear false eyelashes and have big hair - i’m sure the preparation will be all the fun, and the actual event will be anticlimactic.

but i’m not going to be pessimistic, i’m just going to start getting ready now.

here’s a photo of me with the hair:

me and honey

that’s my lovely and adorable cat honey standing next to me.

all right then, i have to start getting ready now, even though it’s still kind of early for that, but i do have to put on the false eyelashes which might take a while, you never know.

if you happen to be reading this on friday night, be sure to check back later in the evening, because theoretically i’m going to come home and post the photos of me in the pants, plus some of the other people i’m going with.

ok then,

grace on friday night

Sep. 29, 2005

thursday night... [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:29 pm
...and i should be ASLEEP now. but last night i went to bed at 11, but was still wide awake at one. so i give up. surrendering hope, who said that to me the other day?

i can always take a nap tomorrow afternoon, before a night of DISCO FEVER!

i’m even more excited about it now, because i found out that there are going to be bands, including one called tavares. i told amy, who said TAVARES! she’d heard of them, of course. they sang a song called “heavin must be missing an angel.” here is their website:

tavares!

there’s also going to be another band, called hue something, i think, and there’s going to be a guy named denny tario (sp?). amy said DENNY TERIO? FROM DANCE FEVER!

amy used to have a disco band, have i mentioned that? i bet i did. and the fact that it’s one thing i’ll deeply regret all my life, not being here in spfld to see and hear her in her band. damn. i know they were fabulous.

anyway, i’m going to take some photos, so you can see just how fine we’re going to look.

tonight in class we had to read a short scene from our plays. i got to read a scene with another woman, and here’s some classic grace irony - remember when i wrote about doing that audition, when i read a monologue by a depressed black girl, from the play “raisin in the sun?” well, the part i got to read tonight was a DEPRESSED BLACK WOMAN. i was reading, and i kept wanting to laugh, because it was so funny that so long ago, i attempted to read a portray a depressed black girl, and here i was tonight, living my dream of being a depressed black woman!

i controlled the laughter, somehow. i sure did entertain myself, though.

we didn’t read a scene from my play,and i suddenly got nervous about reading it. i’m going to work on it before class next thursday. i know he’s not going to like all the stage direction i’ve written, in; he keeps talking about the need to “leave that to the director.” but my play has quite a bit of physical comedy in it, and i have to write it down, or the person reading won’t know where it is. i mean, it’s an integral part of the story. i feel that we’re going to argue about it, and so i was glad to put it off till next week. maybe i’ll be less tired by then. (and WHY would you be less tired, anyway? not gonna happen.)

tonight our professor was talking about love, i guess because that’s what one of the plays is about, and he said something about “sometimes logic is more love than emotion,” or something like that. basically, about how powerful loving somebody with your mind can be, vs it being just an emotional thing with your heart. something like that. i did NOT say, what a bunch of hooey.

i was all about the self-control in class tonight, as you can see.

he was also talking about...well, i can’t remember exactly what he was talking about; maybe it was about all the stuff necessary in writing a play? he said “I don’t mean just rolling out the dough...roll the grain and grind the flour...to come up with the best biscuits in town.”

hmm, it doesn’t seem quite as dramatic here in print; i think that’s because he has a great, deep-voiced and eloquent way of saying things.

must...sleep...right...now...

ok then,

grace who made it this far through the week.

Sep. 28, 2005

wednesday night [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:50 pm

so...i was reading the box of ritz crackers...not to say that i’m short on reading material or anything. actually, just the opposite - i’m in the midddle of reading the play “tartuffe,” which is delightfully short and simple and easy to follow, unlike the very ponderous “volpone.” plus i have to read one more play before monday, plus there’s at least one more to read, because i have to write a paper that has to be about 11 pages, but it’s not due for a couple more weeks, and it’s 11 pages DOUBLE SPACED, which makes it practically nothing. in theory, anyway.

but, i was reading the box of ritz crackers, because i was taking a break from working on my own play. i was reading the recipes. have you noticed that there are always recipes on boxes of crackers? they’re usually quite elaborate and specific, i guess for those kinds of people who like to be very precise in their snack-making. “fifteen cherry tomato halves,” it will say, and “1/4 teaspoon garlic powder.” usually some of the ingredients are other foodstuffs by the same manufacturer, which makes sense, like, KRAFT sharp cheddar cheese. so KRAFT won’t be short-changed when somebody goes to the store. “must buy KRAFT cheese, the shopper will say (probably to himself, although i find myself talking out loud a little too much in the grocery store), ”the cracker topping would be RUINED if i bought another brand of cheese."

but really, we don’t need these recipes. i don’t know anybody who has actually made a recipe from the box of crackers. i’m not talking about that fake pie you make with crackers (how is it supposed to taste like an applie pie, for goodness sakes?), or pie crust or something, these recipes are just all about putting STUFF on top of CRACKERS.

and truly, that’s all they need to say. PUT STUFF ON TOP OF CRACKER AND EAT. that’s all we need.

maybe the recipes are for people who aren’t creative enough to figure out what to do with the crackers, except to methodically eat them one by one out of the box, or even stuff a bunch in their mouth at once. maybe somebody is really, really bored with covering the crackers with easy cheese, but they’re not quite bright enough to reach for some other topping or toppings to liven up their snack.

that’s kind of sad, isn’t it, the thought of people not even intelligent enough to figure out how to liven up a cracker.

but maybe that’s not it at all - maybe the real purpose of the cracker-topping recipe is to GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO DO WHILE EATING THE CRACKERS.

because that’s what the recipes did for me.

i’ve also often thought about who has the job of making up the cracker-topping recipes. do they have a special test kitchen for that sort of thing? does the person who writes up the recipes get paid well? it would be kind of funny, wouldn’t it, to meet somebody at a party, and she’d pick up the box of garlic triscuits and say “i wrote that parmesan-spinach-olive spread recipe right there on the box.”

i mean, it would be kind of impressive, wouldn’t it? she’d have her work in print, wouldn’t she, and people all over the world, theoretically, would be reading it.

it would be even funnier if some guy did that for a living, and he brought a box of crackers with him to a bar, and he walked up to a woman and tried to impress her, by telling her he wrote the recipe on the box.

just a thought. on a rainy wednesday night, getting colder by the second, soon it will freeze and snow is not far behind...AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH......

i listened to my acoustic xmas music cd quite a bit in the car today. i’m going to listen to it all the time, because it cheers me up. NOT that i need to be cheered up in anyway.

have you noticed that there are lots of beige minivans in springfield? sometimes it seems that everybody drives a beige minivan.

tomorrow will be a very busy day. and then, THEN, friday night, FRIDAY NIGHT....the DISCO DANCE! whoo, baby!

ok then,

grace wearing out tonight and GOING TO GO TO SLEEP BEFORE TWELVE, I SWEAR.

Sep. 27, 2005

tuesday night [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:40 pm

ok, so...well, first of all, last night christine and i had a discussion about my tone. this took place around midnight, and i’d been ready to go to sleep at about 11, maybe even earlier, so i feel that i wasn’t able to articulate my feelings on the matter as well as i could have, because i should have actually been asleep.

anyway, we talked about david bond writing to me that i need to CHEER UP ALREADY, and christine said that i’m not coming across as cheerful as usual, and i said i thought i was doing a great job of putting forth a cheerful effort. i cited the story about auditioning using a monologue by a depressd black girl.

she conceded that was a funny story, but she said it’s a matter of my TONE. i said, i’m censoring myself like CRAZY, as she knows i am, and she said, yes, you’re doing an excellent job of the censoring, but it’s your tone...that general air of...unhappiness. melancholy. (by the way, i have a funny story about melancholy, but you’d have to hear me say it, it doesn’t work in print.)

damn. i’m really going to try to do better,tone-wise. but on the other hand, shouldn’t i write how i feel? but no, i don’t think i should, because my objective is to give my perspective on life with my own personal point of view, and i generally find life to be awfully funny.

but what if that’s not how i’m feeling?

but then, if i keep up with this VERY BAD TONE, people won’t want to read it, because it’ll just be like reading the news, watching the stuff on tv that’s depressing and isn’t doing anything to cheer people up, which is WHAT I NEED TO DO.

around and around this debate goes in my head. let me just say this - i’m going to try to only report on the ironic or goofy things, not the “why on earth is there any reason to get out of bed anyway and i’m sure taking a whole lot of naps all the time” kind of attitude.

i’m really, really going to try.

i think last night i did a good job, photo of my disco shoes, nothing negative, self-deprecating, no mention of anything depressing in the slightest at all. well, unless you count my mention of it being fall, which could send some into a decline (me) because that means WINTER IS ALMOST HERE.

ok, christine, you just let me know if i start sliding.

so. today, i was going to the fit club, and right over it is a big billboard on which there are two photos of sheriff neal williamson. it says STRENGTH TO PROTECT on it. in one picture, he’s working out on a weight machine, and grinning. in the other photo, he’s dressed up in his sheriff outfit, and he’s sort of angled to the side a little bit so that his gun is very very prominently displayed.

this seems a little bit retarded to me. i mean, sheriff neal williamson is very cute, and i think it’s a fine and good thing that there are giant photos of him on a billboard, but the message seems a little bit dumb. i mean, is his weight training helping him to be a better shooter of the big prominently-displayed gun? do arm curls increase his ability to do a better job of protecting our fair city? is he routinely running after criminals and grabbing them in a head lock, which is improved because he works out? and how does the working out help with the gun?

it’s just a little fuzzy, that’s all i’m saying. whenever i’ve seen sheriff neal williamson, he’s been on tv, or i saw him at a CMN fundraiser phone thing, and so i don’t see him running around after the criminals, but maybe he does that late at night, when all the criminals start running around a lot and need to be chased and head-locked by law enforcement officials who work out a lot at the fit club.

i guess they’re trying to say that being fit is an important part of being good at your job, especially if it involves carrying a really big gun.

ok, and this is NOT being negative or anything, NOT AT ALL, but i want to go to a place called the fair isle, on the north sea off scotland and live there. i just heard about it on NPR; this little island is only three miles wide and one mile long, and there are only 65 residents, and they interviewed one of the residents who has lived there a long time, maybe all her life, i can’t remember exactly. they do a lot of knitting there, and also, um...construction? the woman they interviewed said they’re looking for people with a “practical bent.” she said you don’t want to go there if you’re trying to run away from everything, because you have to face yourself there, because it’s such a small place.

they have two houses for rent, being rented out by the national trust for scotland, and the rent is LESS THAN $600 a YEAR.

i’m thinking that maybe none of the 65 people are massage therapists, and so they could probably use a good one there.

not to be running away from things, because you have to face your own self there on the fair isle of scotland.

but, i mean, realistically, it’s not like you’re going to run into unexpected people there.

i just looked up the fair isle online, and here’s the weather forecast:
Fair Isle Area Weather Forecast
Bright today with a strong to near gale SW’ly wind, scattered showers this morning becoming more frequent and heavier this afternoon. Further showers on Wednesday with winds veering NW’ly later in the day, but Thursday probably drier and brighter as easing NW’ly winds back W’ly and, by evening, a moderate SW’ly.
Rain and SE’ly gales, spreading east early on Friday, clearing to blustery showers as winds veer strong to gale SW’ly followed by a cooler weekend with showers as SW’ly winds veer strong to gale NW’ly. The following week probably starting with rain or showers and strong to gale SW’ly winds.

hmm. lots of gales and heavy showers.

here’s the website, with photos of the two places for rent:

fair isle houses

I choose the Auld Haa. What a view, huh? less than six hundred bucks a year.

just a thought. about what to do next. move to an island off the coast of scotland.

this weekend i went to a cabin concert at my friend ann’s house. i hope you’ve heard of the cabin concerts; i know i’ve written about them before, but here is a link to their website:

the cabin concerts

last weekend it was rickie simpkins and wyatt rice. ann says wyatt rice is the BEST RHYTHM GUITARIST EVER. and rickie simpkins was incredibly good at the fiddle and the mandolin. rickie has been playing the fiddle since the age of six, and when he was only nine, he got to play with flatt & scruggs. very, very accomplished musicians.

i bought their cd, called “new acoustic christmas.” i couldn’t imagine listening to xmas songs right now, because i don’t want to think about xmas and winter and all the coldness that entails, but i put the cd in my player on my way home from work tonight, and it was really, really good. i didn’t even think of it being xmas music so much, really, it was just good music.

i watched “my name is earl” again tonight, and how FAST it’s suddenly a week later. it wasn’t quite as funny as last week, but it was still darn good. before that, i saw a few minutes of this show called “the biggest loser,” about people trying to lose weight and MY GOD IT LOOKS IDIOTIC. i hope reality shows of all kinds disappear soon. soon.

that is all for now. for right now. from me, grace smith.

ok then,

grace bubbling forth with the sunshine as well as the mirth and general all-around joy.

Sep. 26, 2005

disco preview, plus an addition to the list erica and i created. [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:38 pm
i mentioned the disco dance i’m going to attend on friday night, and i thought i’d show you the very groovy shoes i’m going to wear. they belong to amy, of course, because she owns everything groovy. except she also has some wild and fantastic disco boots, but she can’t find them right now and i’m afraid i might have them somewhere but i can’t find them. i don’t know what she’s going to wear, she probably has other disco shoes somewhere in her house, or at least i hope so, because my heart is now set on wearing the silver disco shoes.

here are the shoes. if you look closely, you’ll notice the pig peeking out from behind them. for you trivia nuts (and the three or so people who might have seen my movie “hope’s happy birthday,”) this pig was in that film.

amy’s disco shoes

not only are the disco shoes cool, they also weigh about 15 pounds apiece, so they’re very loud when i walk around in them.

i’ll be showing you the pants later in the week, but you’d BETTER WATCH OUT! because they’re very crazy pants.

and one more thing, this is a note for erica - we have been working on a list of qualities we need in men. these include (but are not limited to): must be able to zip his pants all the way up. must not belch in public. there are more, but i can’t remember them at the moment because i’m very very tired.

but i’ve just added another one: must not smell bad.

this was brought to you by christine.

soon, we will have a lengthy list of qualities we’re looking for in men, qualities that you’d THINK would be obvious, qualities that you’d ASSUME a man would have, like having all of his teeth.

as i get older, i learn that YOU MUST ASSUME NOTHING.

tonight in class we got to watch the rest of “12th night,” a pretty good shakespeare play, and then we heard a lecture and it went on for quite a while, and there was definitely something in the lecture that i wanted to discuss here, but my notebook is downstairs so it will be impossible to get it right now.

plus i need to go to sleep anyway.

ok then,

grace officially in fall.

p.s. christine said that tonight she was driving home from her sister’s house, where they were watching the (denver) broncos game, she drove past the broncos stadium, and she felt like she was almost on TV because she was so close to the place she’d just been watching on tv.

boosted! [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 4:16 pm

not only did i get my tetnus/mumps/measles/rubella/bubonic plague/common cold/flu/free 10-pound weight loss booster shot, but i got a snoopy band-aid to go with it. so, life IS good, like the t-shirt says.

i’m sitting here trying to make progress on my play, and i did add a few things, but i need to move on to the second scene and i just don’t know exactly where it’s going. i know what i want to accomplish in scenes after that, but i’m mad because i can’t write anything right now because i don’t know what to write at this moment and i fear that i’ve wasted a couple of hours this afternoon. i probably should have taken a walk and/or a nap, in order to let my mind be free to think of something.

i bought another cute new pair of jeans today. that makes TWO pairs of jeans. wowie. going CRAZY with the shopping. who knows, in another few months, maybe i’ll buy a third pair.

but i don’t want to be hasty about it.

i think i’ll walk to class tonight.

david bond of the river to river roadrunner’s club down in southern illinois just sent me two copies of their newspaper, because he printed my article “the key to a fantastik run” in it. hmm, did i post that on this website? anyway, he included a note, which was “cheer up already, will you grace?” hmm. i thought i was being MUCH cheerier than i feel. MUCH MUCH cheerier.

i’ll have to do better. but just so you know, david, I’M DOING THE BEST I CAN.

but one can always, always do better.

i’m going to a disco dance on friday night. amy is lending me a pair of pants that i bought her in LA. i forgot about them, and they’re very very wild. orange and black and red, with big pictures of tigers and flames and flowers on them. plus sparkly 15-pound high heels with silver glitter. and a sparkly black top, but the top really doesn’t matter so much, because of the crazy pants. i got them in a great store on venice beach, it was chock-full of all kinds of middle eastern jewelry and candles and incense and stuff. boy, i miss a few random stores in la.

but not the traffic.

the other night i dreamed that i had to take some kid to some part of la that was really far away, and i was consulting a map.

last night i dreamed that i’d used all my gym socks. i opened the drawer, and no socks. this is odd, because i could never use them all up because i have millions of pairs of them.

odd, and at the same time a VERY BORING DREAM AS USUAL.

my oh my.

ok then,

grace on MONDAY, as the week starts once again, as it always seems to do, just about this time each and every week.

Sep. 25, 2005

martha stewart, kate moss, and other things on sunday night [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:35 pm
i feel like it’s late fall now, approaching winter. even though it was very warm and humid today. i was wearing my socks with my sweats this evening, and then i decided that i was simply too hot for the socks.

but i had chicken with rice soup for dinner.

it was cold at the cracker barrel this morning, but then sultry when we waddled outside after many delicious things including biscuits-n-gravy.

i read the ending of the play “volpone,” by ben johnson, today. blegh. i didn’t care for it so much. it was hard to follow. maybe if i saw it performed, it’d be better. not better in a “the man who came to dinner” sense, but at least maybe i could follow along without getting sleepy.

i think i forgot to put a link to a website here. maybe i put it up already, but i don’t think so. this nice woman named kynda wrote to me a couple of weeks ago, and included her website address, and she takes beautiful photos, mostly of plants and flowers. here it is:

kynda’s blog

tonight i got sucked into MARTHA STEWART BEHIND BARS. i turned on the tv and was going to watch a few minutes, and then i just sat there, watching.

it seems so ridiculous that they put her in jail.

also ridiculous that they made a tv movie of it; there are more and more movies about people’s lives when they’re still in the middle of them. soon everybody will have a movie of their life, before they’re even lived it.

kate moss ADMITTED SHE USED COCAINE. oh, the horror, what is the world coming to? a model using DRUGS?

i thought lots of models used drugs. also movie stars. i mean, let’s be realistic here - how do they get so thin? do you really think it’s because of personal trainers and eating only very small lettuce leaves?

feigning horror at a model using drugs is like being shocked to hear that i eat chocolate chips right out of the bag.

mom clipped something in the paper about the WORST FOODS A PERSON COULD POSSIBLY EAT, because of the trans fats, and i think chocolate chips was on the list. the list wasn’t so big, but i think i might eat most of the things on it. maybe it wasn’t chocolate chips per se, but rather, chocolate chip cookies. maybe there are other bad trans fatty things in the cookies, it’s not just the delicious chips themselves.

what if they drug-tested models and rail-thin actresses the way they drug test athletes? but actually, somebody told me that some classification of athletes take plenty of drugs, too. i’m not sure how they explained them getting around the drug testing.

i never had any cavities until i went to college and had free access to a lot more sugar.

do you think cybil shepherd and martha stewart will ever run into each other? (cybil played martha on the show.) wouldn’t that be a little awkward for them? martha might say, “you made me look much heavier than i really was.” and cybil might say “did you notice how kind and compassionate i made you appear to be?” but they’d probably just avoid eye contact altogether, is my guess.

because there are thousands of ads on tv, during the commercials i flipped around. there was a thing on cnn called IS AMERICA PREPARED?, all about katrina and rita and the possibility of more earthquakes and natural disasters and biological disasters and people tainting our MILK. i didn’t watch the show because it looked too depressing (and because i was glued to MARTHA IN JAIL). i’m sure that the conclustion of the program is NO, WE’RE NOT PREPARED AT ALL, DIDN’T HURRICAN KATRINA MAKE THAT PAINFULLY OBVIOUS? BUT WE’RE GOING TO TRY TO WORK ON IT. BUT IT WON’T REALLY DO ANY GOOD. there was also stuff about the impact of the damage to refineries and stuff, and then on other channels there were lots of ads for SUVs.

i really don’t think americans are going to curb the purchasing of the SUVs. today while at the fit club climbing the stairs to nowhere, i read audobon magazine, and there was an article about global warming, research done by some fabulously-named woman, camille parmesan. she studies particular kinds of butterflies, and her research shows without a doubt that the global warming is going on and getting worse and animals are going to have to go farther and farther north because of the warming, but once they get all the way to the top of the world, there will be no place left.

it was pretty depressing, and she talked about how once cities like san francisco and NYC are flooded because of the global warming, it’ll be too late.

and we won’t quit buying SUVs. By “we” i do have to point out that i don’t include ME in that, because i’d never buy an SUV and i’d actually love a hybrid car if i could afford it. i drive a honda that gets good gas mileage and i try not to randomly drive all around wasting the gas.

ok, so basically everything in the world is depressing, then? can’t i think of ONE FUNNY THING? just one? to keep myself from the downward spiral that naturally occurs on sunday nights anyway, even when my life doesn’t feel so crummy???

well, i did see “wedding crashers” this weekend, finally, and i did laugh out loud a few times. it gets kind of fuzzy and disorganized in the middle, but there were many funny moments, not to mention the very cute cuteness of owen wilson, although i do find his brother luke to be even more attractive. and vince vaughn is so funny, even though they make his characters in different movies just about identical. here, he’s just about the same as he is in “old school,” which was even funnier than wedding crashers.

i was at a bar in la one time, the derby, where they have big band dances where actual young people go, and it’s very cool and hip and fun, and one night vince vaughn was standing RIGHT NEXT TO ME, and i was with this friend who kept trying to get me to talk to him - TALK TO VINCE VAUGHN! and he was very, very tall, and wore a plaid shirt like a lumber jack, and of COURSE i didn’t talk to him; i usually avoid talking to people i ALREADY KNOW, so i’m certainly not going to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger, and definitely not a MOVIE STAR. my friend kept sort of shoving me so i’d get closer to him, but i ran away, as i am known to do.

he wasn’t such a star then; it was shortly after the movie “swingers” came out; it was a really good movie, but a small film compared to the big stuff he’s in now.

living in spfld, i just don’t see as many celebrities. but i guess that doesn’t really matter, because if vince vaughn was in a bar here in spfld, i wouldn’t talk to him then, either.

i took a nap today, so there’s little chance of getting to sleep any time soon, but at least i’m going to try, because i have to go to school in the morning to get a booster shot for my TB innoculation or whatever it was that i needed in order to be admitted.

ok then,

grace grace grace

Sep. 24, 2005

tater tots plus more [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 1:31 am
GO TO SLEEP ALREADY!!!! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND????

if i could sleep really late, that would be one thing. but i won’t be able to, which means i’ll be tired all day tomorrow, and i have to do homework! plus more.

i’m going to go to sleep in a minute, i promise.

not a great day today. just not great. not great. not even good, i’d have to say not even mediocre, to be perfectly honest here, which is the only way i can really be at one fifteen in the morning.

GO TO SLEEP.

but then, tonight, i went to see “the man who came to dinner” at the hoogland center. GO SEE IT. it’s only playing this weekend, tomorrow night and two shows on sunday, so YOU’D BETTER NOT MISS IT.

i read the play, and it didn’t seem funny to me, it seemed mean. but it’s SO funny. everybody in it is really good. ron seney is the lead, and what a huge part he has. he makes the character interesting and quirky and funny. everybody else is funny, too, including my friend felicia who played my mother in “you can’t take it with you,” and in this she doesn’t have a very big part but you have to laugh every time you see her on the stage. gus gordon is SO FUNNY. his character is based on noel coward, and he’s so full of himself, so richly comic...as is rick dunham, my friend randy’s brother, whose character is based on a marx brother, i think harpo, although he walked like groucho walked. my friend cynda is also funny, and nancy made me laugh...they’re all funny, i promise you.

go see the play, that’s all i’m saying. people FLOCK to the muni to see musicals, which is all fine and good, but i just cannot understand why more people don’t support the theatre centre. they do almost no advertising, which is problematic, but maybe they don’t do it because they can’t afford it, and they can’t afford it because people don’t go to the plays....so, go.

afterwards, randy and i went to a bar because i wanted to hear a band but we walked in and the place was very smoky, and i hated it, so i made him walk right out the back door with me.

instead, we went to the barrelhead and had TATER TOTS, which were delicious.

yet another reason why spfld. is such a grand place; tater tots at the bar. tater tots with a vodka tonic. can life get any better? i think not.

mac warren and mary young were also great in the play, and afterwards mac said that he READS THIS VERY BLOG. so thanks for that, mac. i feel that others, too, are reading it, but for some reason nobody will ever admit to it. so it’s nice to know there’s at least one actual person reading, i mean, besides christine and jerri.

i met a nice fellow in the play who said he has TWO blogs. hmm. two blogs. i guess i don’t really need a second one. i mean, besides my secret space on THIS blog. but maybe i should just start another blog on one of those free blogging spaces...ah, never mind, anything else besides this sounds like too much trouble. i mean, i haven’t fully realized THIS space yet, now have i? where are those videos you keep saying you’re going to make? lazy, lazy girl.

i tried to make one a few weeks ago, actually, but i did it late at night and the picture quality was very poor.

stop already.

ok then, goodnight,

grace fervently hoping the whole weekend won’t be ruined now because of staying up way too late, although i know plenty of people who’d think this is not late at all, they stay up later than this every night, not to mentin the fact that tomorrow is SATURDAY, after all, and i could just completely take a whole entire day off from doing anything, although i guess that’s not so easy for me to do. realistically.

p.s. my friend phil (still king of everything at the lincoln museum) directed the play, which is one reason why it’s so good and why there are so many good people in it, and he broke his wrist and has to be operated on on monday morning, and i hope he recovers quickly. he was in a very interesting mood tonight, but i believe it was because of the drugs they gave him to decrease the pain, which he wouldn’t share with me at all.

Sep. 22, 2005

p.s. i wish i could [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:50 pm

think of an amusing anecdote to tell you about, instead of something like “despair on thursday night,” which doesn’t exactly bring a smile to anybody’s face. CHEER UP, ALREADY, WILL YOU, GRACE? because if the world IS nearing its end, well, you might as well end it with a smile.

i can’t think of anything funny.

this week keeps being so weird, so out of kilter, so off-balance.

strange things keep happening to me.

maybe there’ll be some little glimmer, some tiny shred, of something positive tomorrow. you never know.

something funny, something funny...

while we were supposed to be listening to each other’s story ideas tonight, i got a little bit overwhelmed by the depressing stories about death and craziness and depression, so i started jotting down notes for another one-woman show. i wrote down some of the retarded things i’ve done in my life. i wrote about all the auditioning i’ve done in my life; i just wanted to be an actress, and i auditioned for different colleges, then auditioned for plays in NYC. i always read those monologue books, and i remember that one monologue i did was from “a raisin in the sun.” this is a play about african-americans. i read this monologue by a depressed black girl.

WHAT, EXACTLY, WAS I THINKING????

there are quite a few other incidences of me auditioning for different things, COMPLETELY CLUELESS about something appropriate to read. i mean, over and over again...

i’d tell you more of them, but i’m going to save them for the show.

anyway, if you know me, if you’ve seen me, if you’ve heard my squeaky voice, the thought of me (at the age of about 19, when my voice was probably even higher-pitched and funny, but maybe it was just the same as it is now) reading a depressing monologue about a black girl should at least make you smile.

oh boy.

ok then,

grace really going to sleep now, or at least moving towards the bedroom in an orderly fashion.

despair on thursday night [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:31 pm

somebody just told me they were watching a new story on CNN about city cops in New Orleans looting, randomly stealing things like generators out of hospitals. this seems unbelievable.

christine’s parents got up at five this morning, trying to leave their small town outside of houston, only to be stuck in traffic for hours, finally going home to wait out the storm. everybody’s running out of gas.

i feel like there’s this very very thin delicate line between civilization and anarchy, and the anarchy keeps moving to the forefront.

is the world going to end soon?

if so, i must start eating more cookies.

*sigh*

in playwriting class tonight, people were describing their story ideas. it seems there’s only one other person in class who’s going to write something comedic. most of the other ideas involve angst, alcoholism, arguing, strife, trouble, trouble, and more trouble. during the break, two students were talking about how it’s easier to write something to make a person cry, and they were discussing about how humor is so subjective...

all i could think was, i have to try to cheer myself up by writing something funny. i don’t want to watch something depressing and sad, there’s too much of that in real life. i want to be entertained, i want to laugh, i want to turn my frown upside down.

that’s what randy keeps saying to me, every day. “turn that frown upside down, grace,” he keeps saying to me. luckily he’s usually talking to me on the phone when he says it, so i don’t have to smack him.

i hope christine’s family is ok, and remains that way.

ok then,

grace going to bed early tonight.

Sep. 21, 2005

p.s. [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:46 pm

i just got an e-mail from my lovely and talented friend paul lyons, who HAD JIM GAFFIGAN AS A STUDENT in one of his comedy classes in 1991! how about THAT! that means i could have TALKED to jim gaffigan after the show if i’d wanted to, and if i’d known, i could have said, HI, JIM, I’M A GOOD FRIEND OF PAUL LYONS!

but it’s ok, it doesn’t matter. because in the greater scheme of things, does anything really matter anyway?

i also just noticed that just about every time recently i keep writing “that is all for now,” except i didn’t know that i was doing it over and over. so i’m not going to do that any more. i think i do it when i’m just kind of disgusted with the world and i don’t want to say anything else.

or maybe...well, i don’t know why. no reason at all.

ok then,

that is all for THIS MOMENT, but of course there will be more, soon, maybe even tonight although i want to STOP the writing right now and maybe read something soothing that will put me in a sleep-frame of mind because i have a very busy day tomorrow including many massages and then playwriting classes and incidentally i FINALLY started my play this afternoon and it took me about FOUR HOURS to write two measly pages, which is pretty awful for me, but then things started to pick up, so hopefully it’ll go better and quicker soon.

wednesday night [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:41 pm

isn’t it funny, no matter how the days might drag on, they do continue to move forward in an orderly procession. one after the other.

last night after i got home about seven o'clock, i was complaining about how it was getting dark so early, and jim (who was at my house with amy, eating taco bell which i then craved all night long) said, “it is almost october, grace.” this was an extremely sobering thought, and i’ve been thinking about it all day. it was fairly sweltering hot today, and i did see two guys out in sailboats and another in a kayak on the lake, so it didn’t seem so much like fall...but tonight i took a bike ride, and even though it was still warm out, it just smelled like fall.

not a bad thing, i have to admit, and i wouldn’t mind it being a little bit cooler. but it’s just going to get darker and darker and colder and colder....brrr, i don’t want to think about the winter that lies ahead.

yeah yeah yeah, there’s all that “time for things to be dormant” kind of talk, the whole hunkering-down stuff that goes on in winter, so that in the spring everything gets green and comes to life again...i’m just not quite ready for the whole dying portion of the year, that’s all i have to say.

i had a creepy incident today, and i called christine and told her about it (christine is the only person who gets all the story all the time, so if you want to know anything, you could just ask her, and maybe she’ll tell you and maybe she won’t), and she said YOU HAVE TO PUT THAT ON YOUR BLOG, THAT’S JUST THE KIND OF THING PEOPLE WANT TO READ ABOUT.

but i won’t do it. now, if i did have that secret, invited-guests-only section here on my website, i’d put it up there. but it’s not a story for just anybody, because i’m afraid that although the thing that happened was annoying and repulsive, some might get some kind of pleasure reading about it.

i shouldn’t have even brought it up. last night i wrote a lengthy paragraph about something that happened yesterday, and i deleted the whole thing. I shouldn’t have brought that up, either. Just never mind.

soon, will this blog be nothing more than a recitation of what i had for dinner? tonight, lots of starch and some salad and more homemade cookies.

that’s what my diary entries were when i was 10, when i had a little diary with a lock and key. “tonight we had lasagne for dinner.” scintillating. the funny thing is, though, i can read those long-ago entries and remember a lot of what happened, just from the small amount of information i imparted at the age of 10.

i saw a very funny cartoon in this week’s new yorker. two dogs are sitting ther, and one says to the other “I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking.”

that is all for now.

ok then,

just grace on wednesday.

Sep. 20, 2005

tuesday night... [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:43 pm

i was going to write on here at 10:30, and then go to bed EARLY so i can get up and run tomorrow...but things always get in the way. so i have to type fast right now.

first - tuesday night, 8:00, NBC, “my name is earl.” isn’t it funny how i said i wasn’t going to watch any tv anymore, and i haven’t watched any in so long, but tonight i watched this show and it was very funny and quirky, and now i want to watch it every week.

second - i just instant-messaged somebody who had a WEBCAM, and it was certainly very interesting, although one thing i like about writing on my computer is i can sit here and look awful and nobody will ever know because they can’t see me. i do have to say the webcam experience was fascinating, though, and it sort of makes me want to go out and buy a webcam, although i’m afraid it would make me get even less done than i do already. which is saying something.

i especially enjoyed the way i could type something and then i could see the person’s reaction; immediate feedback. very interesting. it reminds me of some old movie, i can’t think of which one, where people would be talking on the phone and could see each other - a picture phone. all i can think of is “sleeper,” but surely there must be some other movie. can’t think. too tired. should have gone to sleep an hour ago. 45 minutes, anyway.

third - i can’t remember the third thing.

if you drive on veteran’s parkway, near the mall, look up at the telephone wires. all along the wire next to the mall are birds perched. there aren’t any birds south of wabash, they’re all congregated right there at the mall. i don’t know why, but i think it’s neat. it makes me wonder why they won’t go south of the mall. maybe some bird person will write to me and explain it.

boy, i have to go to sleep now.

ok then,

grace soon to be running a lot if i get to sleep and stay there all night long.

one more thing... [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 2:57 pm

since it’s so fast here, i thought i’d put up a couple more photos. i wish i had some photos that are current, but i don’t, because i haven’t taken any, but here are these, more of the state fair last year.

in this first one, there was a wild west stage where that kid, whose name i’m sorry i can’t remember, did all kinds of gun-spinning, and was highly entertaining, and then he let people go up on the stage and try the spinning and it was HARD. his dad, whose name is randy, owns the coliseum corner restaurant right there at the corner of the coliseum. for some reason, the fair manager this year wouldn’t let him have the show! this seemed completely stupid, and he didn’t seem to know why she wouldn’t allow the show. it’s a darn shame, but at least i got to see it last year.

gun slinger

here’s yet another chicken photo. i realize it looks very similar to the other chicken photo i already put up here, but this one is different. it’s a completely different chicken:

chicken #2

that is all.

tuesday afternoon, sitting here [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 2:43 pm
at PANERA, easily looking up ANYTHING I WANT AT ALL ON THE INTERNET.

i love frank.

you don’t realize how much you need someting till it’s gone.

ok, maybe i don’t actually NEED to have wifi here at panera, but i LIKE it. it makes me happy.

i just wanted to say something more about “rockballet,” which was by the Springfield Ballet Company on Sept. 10th and 11th at sangamon auditorium. i mentioned before that it was GREAT. I didn’t go into any detail because i had no time, and because i didn’t have the program in front of me. i just found it, though, buried on the floor on the backsteat of my car.

this year’s rockballet was all music of Queen. i didn’t know i liked so many queen songs, but i do. the choreography, the dancing, the costumes, it all went together so nicely. i liked “bohemian rhapsody” in particular. wilfredo rivera did the choreography, as well as dancing in the number. he was so much fun to watch. i don’t know why he’s involved with the ballet, maybe he’s a friend of the director, but on the program it says he’s the Associate Artistic Director of the Cerqua Rivera Art Experience.

now, i WOULD have written I WONDER WHAT THAT CERQUA RIVERA ART EXPERIENCE MIGHT BE, however, because i’m sitting here at panera, i could look it up immediately, which is all the time i have the patience for. so here is what the cerqua rivera art experience is:

“A 29-member core company comprised of musicians, dancers, visual artists, designers and an acting coach create multi-disciplinary performance works, most of which explore socio-political themes. The company self-produces at least one show each year and has been presented at Chicago’s major dance festivals, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Cultural Center and the Old Town School of Folk Music. An educational program, Jazz and Its Dance, tours area schools, and in 2001 the company introduced a new school-residency program that focuses on the art and cultures of Latin America.”

interesting, huh?

right now since it’s the middle of the afternoon, panera isn’t too crowded, luckily. there’s a group of old guy sitting acrosse from me having coffee. one of them was a principal at some school i went to, i’m pretty sure. couldn’t tell you what his name is, but he’s aged quite a bit.

next to them are some people who were watching some HORRIBLE thing on somebody’s laptop, some get rich quick thing, i think, and one guy is wearing a tie and now they’re having a very earnest discssion but THANK GOD i can’t hear them.

anyway, the rockballet - all the dancers were incredibly good, but i couldn’t help but watch one in particular. her name is Sarah Genin, and it was her pointe shoes that i got to wear in “i can’t take it with you,” and i’m sure she has no idea just how badly those shoes were used. she was clara in the nutcracker last year, and she was in quite a few numbers in the rockballet, and she’s incredibly poised, tall and thin and really good at all the ballet moves, and she’s ONLY AN EIGHTH GRADER! this is slightly mind-boggling. i mean, she probably doesn’t have quite as much poise as she appears to have in the ballet, but at least she has it up there on the stage. amazing. according to the program, she’s already danced at Lincoln Center in NYC and took classes from “many well known dancers.” hmm.

when i was in 8th grade, i’d never even visited new york city, much less taken any classes in anything. not only did i not take any dance lessons, it was all i could do to keep my balance, which i achieved only some of the time.

i wish there were more details i could write about the rockballet, but i didn’t take any notes when i saw it, so i can’t remember anything specific, except that i really liked it. it was clever, polished, entertaining, exhuberant, and i never got bored at all watching it. if you live in spfld and you haven’t gone to any ballet performances, GO ALREADY. the next thing coming up is the nutcracker, which doesn’t seem to have any problems with getting people to fill the seats because it’s a holiday tradition, but GO TO OTHER PERFORMANCES, TOO. they’re doing “cinderella” in the spring, which you probably won’t remember, but if you see a billboard around town, maybe that will trigger your memory and you’ll go see it. not to mention rockballet NEXT YEAR, which i realize is a ridiculously long time from now, who knows where any of us will be by then.

the only problem with panera is that it’s freezing in here; i could sit outside, but it’s about 90 out there and very humid.

also, nobody ever comes around and offers free samples of anything. that would be nice.

that is all for now.

ok then,

grace

Sep. 19, 2005

monday night [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:53 pm
class was pretty good tonight. the professor said some things about the importance of comedy that i wrote on the top of the page, so i’d remember it and could write it here, but of course the notebook is now downstairs and there’s NO WAY i’m getting out of bed now to go get it. suffice to say that COMEDY IS IMPORTANT AS WELL AS CRUCIAL IN LIFE.

somehow i made it through this very warm monday. but just barely.

i passed up a steak-n-shake opportunity after class because i had to go to randy’s to get my little notebook that i left there last night. i stayed for an hour, watching two back to back “sex and the city” episodes, which were horribly cut up for the fox network, but they were good anyway. i’m going to look on ebay to see how expensive it would be to buy them all.

that’s my current plan, to buy all the sex and the city episodes and just watch them all the time.

i realize this is somewhat opposite to my view last night about never watching tv again, but like i said, i can always change my mind, and i’m sure i will.

this wouldn’t be tv really, anyway, it’d just be an obsessive-compulsive necessary watching of something funny. that’s all.

when i came home, there were chocolate-filled chocolate oreos in the cookie jar, so i was forced to eat four of them. chocolate-filled oreos aren’t as good as regular oreos, in my opinion, which seems weird since usually i like chocolate-filled chocolate with chocolate coating and chocolate sprinkles and a side of chocolate. but there’s something perfect about the regular oreo, that’s all i’m saying.

ok, i have a goal for the week: it’s to banish all the bad energy negative vibe unhealthy karma i picked up over the weekend. there’s a lot of that lingering in my head, and i must, I MUST do something to get rid of it.

i had some peach schnapps mixed with aphrodiasic liquor and diet 7 up at randy’s, but that didn’t do the trick.

i could try meditating again tomorrow morning, but i just feel too surly to meditate. when i was doing it before, i enjoyed it, and i could do it for a while, and i know it was doing my psyche some good. but right now my psyche is too snarly to meditate.

i did run this morning, even though i wasn’t going to, and that was a very good thing, and maybe i’ll run again tomorrow morning although if i’m going to i need to be ASLEEP right now, and who knows when that will actually take place, the closing of the eyes and then the actual falling asleep.

did you look up jim gaffigan? will he be coming to your city soon? i was thinking of going to see him in chicago next month, but i know he’ll do the exact same set, and it won’t be as funny, and that will be disappointing. i’m sure he’ll be funny, but since it will be identical material tht i just heard, it won’t have the same impact. plus, i feel i’ve missed my window of opportunity of going to chicago in warm weather. since i went there last may and it was THIRTY TWO DEGREES.

which is simply unhuman.

i go to sleep now. i’ll leave you with another photo of last year’s fair:

hobby building

ok then,

grace continuing to breathe in and out, every single day.

p.s. did i mention how much i love this guy name frank? i was having more and more continuing problems with my computer; i think i wrote about going to the computer place on campus, and they spent an hour and a half “fixing” my problem, but it wasn’t fixed, and i went to panera on saturday and COULD NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET, and my mood was already surly, but then i went kind of crazy, but i took the computer to frank and he figured out how to fix my problem ALMOST IMMEDIATELY. frank is my hero.

Sep. 18, 2005

p.s. [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:43 pm

i just looked up jim gaffigan, and of course his website is jimgaffigan.com.

EXCEPT that for that entire post i just wrote, i kept writing JEFF gaffigan, not jim. except when i wrote about my brother in law jim, and that must have triggered something in my brain that said IT’S JIM NOT JEFF YOU MORON.

christine says i’ve been very self-deprecating lately, but i don’t think so. only as self-deprecating as i HAVE to be. jim, not jeff.

here’s the link to his site right here for you, so you don’t have to go to any extra trouble:

Jim Gaffigan!

ok then. goodnight.

sunday night [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:28 pm
I called Christine this afternoon, because what I really wanted to do was…well, just because. She answered, and I knew she was there, I could recognize her voice, but mostly I just heard her say stuff like I WILZ XIRI JWIW EPD IWW OWPWW…GAME…WYOH KVERD…it was like she was suddenly speaking a strange new language. I think I finally heard her say she’d call me back, and she said something about going to or being in a parking lot, but I haven’t heard from her since, so I hope she made it home safely.

She was at a Denver broncos game. Go figure. Christine is my best friend despite the fact that she loves football and I could not care less about it. The Broncos won, I think, although maybe they lost.

I’ve never been exposed to sports of any kind, really, except for one boyfriend who thought it suspicious and strange that I’d never had any other boyfriends who watched sports. He sent me an e-mail a few days ago, as a matter of fact, which read “illini sucks. Go bears!” I wrote back that I appreciated the sentiment, but I had no idea what he might be referring to.

I mean, I did graduate from the U of I, but I pay no attention to their sports. And what Bears? The Chicago Bears? That didn’t make any sense.

He went to Berkeley. CAL BEARS. Oh. The Illini went to Berkeley to play the Bears, I believe. I wonder how that game went. I mean, I don’t actually, really wonder, but maybe it would be nice to have some team to be all passionate about. I can’t envision that, but maybe if I started watching some sporting type thing, It’d make my life…richer? Hmm.

I’m never watching any more tv. I mean, I haven’t really watched any tv of any consequence for the past several months, but tonight I watched two-thirds of the primetime emmys. It wasn’t absolutely horrible, but it seemed like a big waste of time. I was amazed at the sheer number of ads. I didn’t know who most of the people were getting the awards, and I’ve never seen a lot of the shows.

I feel that some will say I’m being a snob if I admit I don’t watch TV anymore. But I guess I just don’t care. It’s just a big big waste of time. Boring.

But then again, maybe tomorrow night I’ll stay up all night watching all kinds of crap on tv, just surfing around the stations and watching old sitcoms and whatever might be on.

You never know.

Randy loves tv, and I’m glad that he loves it, but I’m also glad that he doesn’t make me watch it. TV makes some people happy, and I say, if it makes you happy and you’re not actually harming another person, then please, go ahead and do it. But just don’t make me watch tv. I guess that means I probably won’t be finding a sport to watch anytime soon. Darn.

I hope you spent a lot of time outside this weekend. I did. It was just so beautiful.

I did kind of a bunch of stuff, too. Last night I went to Champaign and saw this comic named Jim Gaffigan. I love Jim Gaffigan. I’d never seen him, I’d never heard of him, but Amy heard him on XM radio. XM? This radio you pay a monthly fee for, but there are millions of stations including comedy stations and it’s been around a long time but somehow it’s slipped by me.

Anyway, Jim Gaffigan has been on different talk shows and stuff, and he’s just so funny. My mood wasn’t the greatest yesterday, kind of surly and not cheerful at all, and I figured I wasn’t going to laugh when I heard this unknown guy, because it would take way too much to get me to laugh. I was just hoping he wouldn’t suck; I mean, I figured he wouldn’t, since Amy said he was so funny, but you just never know.

I laughed. A lot. Jim (brother-in-law, not the comic) laughed so much that he was hoarse. Really, really funny. He talked a lot about food. Hysterically funny things about Hot Pockets, which I’ve never actually eaten, but it didn’t matter. I kind of wished I’d had a hot pocket before, but after listening to him, I really don’t ever want to eat one.

He talked about holidays and…just…stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary, but he was just so incredibly funny. You should look him up online and see if he’s going to be appearing in your city, or at least nearby, because if he went to Champaign, IL (home of the fighting Illini), he’ll probably be making his way all around the country.

Go see him. You’ll laugh, I promise.

I went to the Edwards Place Art Fair (is it called an art fair? Not sure), and mom bought me a fabulous pair of fish earrings. I was going to splurge and buy them for myself, but she insisted on buying them for me, and I love them and will be wearing them all the time now. They made me smile, which was something, considering the aforementioned lousy mood of mine. Usually I just wear a pair of silver hoop earrings that Amy gave me, if I even think to put on any jewelry. But from now on, the fish. I wish I could remember the name of the artist who made them. I’m sure Amy or Mom will remind me, because last year they both bought stuff of hers.

Last night, when I got home around midnight, I took a picture of myself in the fish earrings. Actually, I had to take a whole bunch of photos, because it was hard to get the earrings to show up, and in each picture, my nose just seemed longer and longer and more and more crooked, so I hated most of the pictures and had to delete them. But here is one that isn’t so bad, and I think it shows off the earrings pretty well:

fish earrings

self-portrait at midnight

I went to a dance with my friend Bev on Friday night. Actually, I went to two dances. One was slightly horrible. I don’t want to talk about it. Just not my people, that’s all I’m going to say. The other was more entertaining. Somewhat.

There were many things I wanted to write about tonight, and I jotted them down at Randy’s house before watching the Emmys, but then I left my little bitty notebook AND my favorite pen on his dining room table.

September, half over. Am I getting stuff done? Never enough. I try to tell myself LIFE ISN’T JUST ABOUT GETTING STUFF DONE.

But I’m not so great at listening to myself. I’m doing my best.

The week looms. I hope yours is good. Try to do stuff you like doing.

Ok then,

Grace with creeping Sunday night-itis blues.

p.s. here’s one more photo, this is from the state fair last year, me and the butter cow:

me-n-butter cow

Sep. 16, 2005

two good things [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:13 pm

1. the return of calvin & hobbes to the comic page. they replaced mutts, which used to be my favorite comic, but mutts just hasn’t been so funny anymore, for some strange reason. it’s comforting to read calvin & hobbes, and they always make me laugh. well, not really actually laugh, but at least it makes me feel good. it takes a lot to make me laugh. i’m happy to see them again.

2. OCTOBER 7TH - something to look forward to. the “wallace and grommit” movie is opening! i’m excited about it. are you familiar with wallace and grommit? they’re a man and his dog, both cheese-loving, and up till now there have only been wallace and grommit shorts; you can rent them at the video store, and they’re very funny. the guy who made the shorts also made “chicken run,” a feature film, and it was funny, but wallace and grommit are the best. man and dog. the dog is the one with all the brains.

october 7th. coming right up. a reason to continue with the breathing in and out, in and out.

ok then,

grace on friday afternoon, all about the comics.

Sep. 15, 2005

the retardedness of me [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:52 pm

ok, first let me say this - i did two one-woman shows last year. all by myself, up on a stage, and i wasn’t really very nervous at all. talked and talked, for at least an hour and a half. no problem.

and last february i was in a play where i had to do a bunch of stuff, and also, not afraid, it was probably the funnest performing experience i’ve ever had.

no stage fright.

so, then, there was tonight. playwriting class, we had to go up in front of the class and sit down at a desk and describe what the play that we’re going to write is going to be about.

AND I WAS TOTALLY SCARED TO DEATH AND I’M SURE SOUNDED LIKE IT.

why why WHY did that make me so nervous??? i was sitting there listening to other people tell their story ideas, and then i finally decided i’d better get it over with so i didn’t have to sit there and torture myself any longer, so i did it and it was just so terrifying.

nobody made hardly any comments about my story idea, which is probably a bad sign. maybe they just felt sorry for me, because it must have been apparent how nervous i was.

totally retarded, that’s all i’m saying.

but at least it gives me something to think about.

before class, i sat in my car listening to NPR, about the people at the convention center in new orleans. i didn’t want to leave my car, but i had to get to class. i continue to be baffled at the breakdown of all civility in our country. i really hated reading lord of the flies in high school, because it was too horrible to imagine - but i feel that’s just out there. total breakdown of society. is the world really going to end soon? and if so, i hope not.

what are all the people going to do? all the people that are without homes, without jobs? what will they do? a friend of my mom’s has her daughter, son in law, their two kids and their cat living with her in spfld now, and they’ll be here at least till the end of the school year. what will people do who don’t have relatives somewhere else? what will people do?

last night while not sleeping, i thought about the beginning of “sex, lies and videotape,” where andie mcdowell was talking to her shrink about all the garbage in the world, wondering where it would all go, what would be done with it, worrying and worrying about things beyond her control, while trying not to think about her own very messed-up life. that was a really good movie, even though usually i’m not too keen on andie mcdowell’s acting abilities. shortly after seeing the movie, i found out a bunch of not so great stuff about the man i was in love with at the time, things that paralled the movie, maybe? not great stuff. it seems like several lifetimes ago.

this one play we read for playwriting class, “six characters in search of an author,” addresses the issue of reality, and talks about how reality is always changing, how your reality today is different from your reality yesterday. i broached this with erica the other night as we drank chocolate milkshakes at steak-n-shake, and she said it was all passe, and why do people need to keep bringing it up? she didn’t say exactly that, but pretty close to it. she said her circumstances may change, but she stays fundamentally the same.

i guess that’s true, but i know that my reality has changed quite a few times in my life, and i also know that the reality i’m living in today isn’t the reality i was living in last week, nor the reality i was living in last january, or last september, or last may. and even though i’m fundamentally the same person, my thoughts are different, my feelings, my reality, all different.

i took an antihistamine and i’m waiting for it to kick in.

erica tonight was talking about how excited she got talking about subjective verbs in the writing class she’s teaching. i acted happy for her, but i was really filled with dread and the certainty that i’ll never be a good teacher, because i’m not even sure what a subjective verb IS, much less with any hope of getting excited about one.

i supposed i’m glad tomorrow is friday, although it really doesn’t make that much difference to me one way or the other.

maybe i’ll sleep tonight.

ok then,

grace nearing friday.

p.s. did i mention that i gave massages at the end of the capitol city century, the 100-mile bike race, on sunday? it was quite enjoyable. some people didn’t go 100 miles, they had the option of going 40 or 60, instead. it sounded kind of fun, but i was perfectly happy to be there at the end giving massages. i met quite a few very nice people. and had a lovely lunch. see, grace, life isn’t so bad, is it? is it?

trapped in hell... [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 2:04 pm

...the basement of some campus building, that is, where the computer guys are allegedly fixing my computer.

all i want is to be able to go online at panera, which i used to do with no problem.

but since many things on my computer have been changed, something has caused this to suddenly be impossible.

i don’t believe the problem is going to be solved.

but right now the fourth guy working on the computer today is installing “service pack 2,” which they all claim will fix my hooking up to the internet problem.

probably.

none of them seems entirely sure that the problem will be solved.

meanwhile, i found this room full of computers right next to the computer fixing place, and so at least i can type on something while i wait. i’ve been here about an hour, i think.

at least now i’ll have the service pack on my computer, which will certainly make it a much better computer overall.

according to the quartet of computer geeks in the repair place, that is.

the one with the beard seemed like the one with the most knowledge. the one named matt seems to be the least truly geekish, that is, he seems most able to converse with a regular mortal person.

they all hate norton security.

they also hate aol a lot, and i explained that i get it for five bucks a month and have about 20,000 saved e-mails on there, and there’s no way to save them other than keeping my aol. the one with the beard thought he could somehow put all those e-mails somewhere else, but then he kept wandering away, as they all seemed to do.

at least i’m sitting down now and typing as i wait, as opposed to the first time i found this place, and i stood in front of the window for an hour and a half while my poor malfunctioning computer wouldn’t do anything at all.

i haven’t had lunch yet, and it’s two o'clock. luckily i fortified myself with two, or maybe three oatmeal chocolate butterscotch chip cookies with walnuts, so i probably won’t pass out.

from hunger, anyway.

luckily i didn’t have a lot of other pressing things to do this afternoon. i’m ahead on my homework, which is how i like it. except we might have a QUIZ in class tonight, which i don’t think is a good idea. we don’t need a quiz. it would be about this book about playwriting that we had to read, but i read it at least two weeks ago, and i know i won’t be able to remember most of the things in it, and i’ll fail the quiz.

all i care about is getting my computer back.

maybe i’ll ask matt or the guy with the beard to go to panera with me, so that they could fix the problem there. because i know that after i’ve sat here for an hour, i’ll go back to panera and i won’t be able to connect to their wireless network and then i’ll be very, very annoyed.

it’s rainy and cool here today. not so bad.

i don’t know if i’ll ever be able to run again, because of the not sleeping at night thing. i was up for two and a half hours last night, a record for me, and so of course i had no time for running when i finally got up.

so in addition to everything else wrong right now, i’m going to be fat. probably pretty quickly, probably by tomorrow, because it’s very easy to get fat. oatmeal chocolate butterscotch cookies with walnuts, for example.

i bet they’ve forgotten about my computer. at first, one guy was working on it, while he chatted with one or two other guys, and they seemed to just want to impress me or each other with their knowledge of all those computer words.

i would hate to have to work here every day, down in this basement with no windows, all the flourescent lighting everywhere.

i picked up a campus paper while waiting, and i read a simply awful review of “rockballet,” which was last weekend. i was HORRIFIED to read the review. i’d thought about seeing if i could write for the paper, but now i don’t want to, because this review was so off-base. the write just HATED it, and was so incredibly critical of it, and i wonder if perhaps if she was on some very bad drugs while attending the performance. i mean, the rockballet, which i saw, was INCREDIBLY WONDERFUL.

my computer is done! hope.

always hope.

ok then,

grace about to emerge from the darkness.

4:37 a.m. [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 4:46 am

WIDE AWAKE. COMPLETELY WIDE AWAKE.

i’ve been like this for TWO WHOLE HOURS NOW. completely unacceptable. i started out thinking about my Main Issue, and then i proceeded to worry/obsess about other things. branching out, going new directions in the middle of the night turmoil.

MUST SLEEP.

christine posted an entry a few days ago, and i just now had to delete it, because for some reason one of those evil spamming bastards has managed to post a comment (you can’t see the comments anymore). they were making a mess of the website a while ago, and it seemed that we’d fixed the problem, and i’m hoping that was just a one-time deal, perhaps because christine has a bad computer, which somehow allowed the spammer entrance to my site.

i have a sneaking suspicion that doesn’t entirely make sense, but i’m being HOPEFUL.

ever damn hopeful.

i could do something useful right now, like writing something for the roadrunner’s newsletter, something is supposed to be turned in by TOMORROW, so i guess i’m not going to get anything published this month.

i wanted to write about a friend of mine, i was going to ask him about how it is that some people are just so FAST at the running, and i was going to ask him other stuff, because he’s a pretty interesting fellow, but he didn’t want me to interview him. so unless i have some kind of epiphany tomorrow (not being hopeful there), i guess i’ll have to wait till next month for the newsletter writing.

last night i baked some oatmeal chocolate butterscotch chip cookies. with walnuts. when everything else in the world is bad, homemade cookies can at least give a little solace.

ok then,

grace now thinking i’ll go outside and wait for the sun to come up.

not really.

I WILL SLEEP AGAIN.

Sep. 12, 2005

monday night [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:46 pm

i can lie in bed and type, can’t i?

i’m pretending to feel better. if you saw me in “you can’t take it with you,” where i pretended to be a very bad ballet dancer, you’ll know that i can do an excellent job of pretending. very excellent.

not that i’m in any way a good ballet dancer. but you know what i mean.

my professor showed one lone slide in class, of a theater in rome. he said he was on sabbatical there a while ago. he said he went to italy on his sabbatical for three reasons - he wanted to study dante, and galileo, and italian landscape painting. this is my english professor, who also does astronomy, and who knows what else.

first, and most importantly - i want to be so wrapped up in so many pursuits of the mind, scholarly stuff like dante and painting...well, not dante himself, i had to read his blasted inferno more than once in college, and that was more than enough for me, but i do want to learn to paint - but i long to be so passionate about scholarly pursuits, instead of my own petty day-to-day tortures that i torment myself with, all inside of this head of mine. maybe if i work at it, i can train my mind to spend all its time only thinking cerebral thoughts (but then again, what other kinds of thoughts could the mind think? footlike thoughts? elbow thoughts?), instead of the pursuit of happiness in a non-academic way, which never gets me anywhere but feeling like this right now.

and secondly, i want a job where i can go on sabbatical. of course, i really just want to go on sabbatical all the time (to europe), but i know this is highly unrealistic.

i must sleep. the other night a friend told me he takes an antihistimine at night sometimes to help him sleep all the way through the night (is there one single person who just sleeps through the night, unaided?), and so i just took one and i’m eager to sleep, hopeful (not knowing how i manage to always, always remain hopeful about something or other, even when i really don’t believe in hope as a concept that pans out so much) that i’ll sleep all night long until it’s actually time for me to get up.

ok then,

grace still typing, even though i wasn’t going to right now, because i simply can’t help it.

i suppose it’s a better addiction than say, cigarettes and beer. both of which i can’t stand anyway.

Sep. 09, 2005

friday [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 5:49 pm

here’s one remarkable thing i found out today: i checked out some books at the library at UIS, and they’re not due till JANUARY. isn’t that crazy? AND i get to renew them if i want, so i could have them for a year.

amazing.

that is the only good thing today.

i’m not feeling well, and so i might not be writing here for a while. a few days, maybe a week.

but then again, maybe i’ll be compelled to write in the middle of the night, if i feel ok to do that.

if you want to write to me, i’d be happy to write back.

i’m afraid this website has been an excuse for friends to not write to me at all, because they find out everything they want to know about me here. i mentioned some travel plans to a friend, and they said “write about it on your blog so i’ll know if you’re going to go.”

ironic, that the most writing i ever did was letters, and then e-mails, and the problem has always been people writing me back, and now i’ve created this perfect way for them to NOT write back yet again.

it’s also a way for former, potential, and otherwise boyfriends to see what i’m up to, without actually having to get in touch with me. i don’t like this a bit, and i wish there was a way to censor the website. besides my own self-censoring, of course, happening right now as i type.

how about that secret place on the website, christine, where only those with a password can access? you’re a smart person, surely you can create that for me. there’s been something i’ve been dying to write about for a while now, but it’s just not for the general population, whoever they may be.

all right then, i hope you have a good weekend, and i’ll be back, i promise.

grace hoping to feel better eventually

Sep. 06, 2005

for the love of frisbee [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:58 am

i didn’t mention that we played frisbee while camping, and this morning, for some reason, i suddenly thought of it.

when we played frisbee, it was an ideal night for it - twilight, no breeze, not too hot outside, and we played on a huge, empty grassy field, with no obstructions to the art of frisbee.

i like frisbee because i can throw it OK, and most of the time i can catch it. sometimes, occasionally, with one hand. we played for quite a while, and it was just a lot of fun.

i worry that there’s not going to be any frisbee ahead of me, but that’s sort of ridiculous, really.

but i can’t imagine it’d be that fun.

i’m writing here at the library because i got a message from christine, who said YOU HAVEN’T WRITTEN IN TWO DAYS, WHAT’S GOING ON WITH YOU? I HAVE TO KNOW.

this is funny, since i call christine a lot, and i tell her all the stuff that i’m not allowed to share with you here anyway. and it’s only been two days.

and besides, i can’t think of anything noteworthy, funny, or interesting to report. surely there must be something...

we went to the ethnic festival at the fairgrounds on sunday night. the ethnic festival has been going on for a really, really long time, and i think they need to either shut it down or think of a way to re-invent it and make it more entertaining. there weren’t a lot of people there. various ethnic bands played on the gazebo stage, but there was a loud and annoying rock band playing off in another tent. this was for the people that just want to DRINK AND PARTY. which is, perhaps, what the ethnic festival is really all about? but they don’t want to party listening to ethnic music, they just want that loud stuff.

there were many people standing around drinking beer.

as i waited for randy who was in line, i observed a group of people, one woman in particular, who had the fattest butt ever. not really the fattest ever, because there are many many huge butts in springfield and the surrounding areas, but she was turned away from me, and her shorts were bright white and a little too tight and i wish i hadn’t even seen that view at all.

randy and i were going to split an elephant ear, but we decided to buy two (two for five bucks), so that amy and jim could also split one. but then amy and jim didn’t want any, so randy and i were forced to eat our own elephant ears, and they were mighty big and greasy and there was so much sugar on mine that it was TOO SWEET. you know it has to be very sweet, for something to be too sweet for me.

a mexican band was playing, and a few couple danced, and it was fun to watch, but it would have been fun to dance, but the evening was cut short because of some interpersonal-type crises. randy didn’t get to go on the giant slide, which he was excited about because he hadn’t been on it since he was a kid. i don’t know what he’s been doing at the fair all these years, and why he hasn’t availed himself of the giant slide, but at least it’s something that will be easily achievable, as opposed to most things in life these days, which seems rather impossible.

amy and jim went to a japanese festival at shaw’s garden in st. louis, and amy said that mostly consisted of stands where you could buy various junky things, and you could eat OK food. isn’t this really what most festivals consist of? if they’d served beer, it could have been just like the ethnic festival.

i guess festivals are serving a good purpose, because that’s really what most people are interested in, isnt' it - eating and drinking and buying junky stuff.

yesterday, labor day...we had a birthday dinner for amy, and she and jim brought three gigantic pizzas to mom and dad’s, plus all the ice cream in the world. i counted 11 kinds of ice cream in the freezer, which must surely be a record. it was a lovely night for sitting outside, and i wish it could be like that all the time.

but the only way it could be is if i moved to a warm place, and i’m not prepared to do this at this very moment.

maybe tomorrow.

ok then,

grace trying to get through tuesday which feels like monday, not a very good thing but maybe the week will improve although i sincerely doubt it, i feel that instead it’s going to get worse, but i’m trying not to even think at all which is really no way to live your life.

Sep. 03, 2005

saturday night [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:35 pm

yeah, this tells you just how fascinating, exciting and action-packed my life is. sitting here all alone writing on a saturday night.

at least i like writing. i’m at amy and jim’s right now, where the dogs are being very quiet, which probably means that they’re chewing something valuable into little bitty pieces. when i got here, they’d chewed the end off the handle of a 1/3 c. measuring cup. 1/3 cup measuring cups are very important for cooking. i don’t know why all one cup measuring cups don’t have 1/3 cup marked on them. a grevious oversight.

so, where was i last time? well, i did go to a REALLY FUN party last night! how about that! i wish i didn’t have to use exclamation points so much, but sometimes i REALLY NEED THEM.

!

this is what i copied down from my playwriting book: “people and characters are not very interesting once the mystery is gone.”

this worries me. please let me know if i’m not interesting to you anymore. actually, today i was thinking again about the VERY MANY THINGS i’d like to write on here, but i don’t because of the self-censoring. christine says it’s good that i do some censoring once in a while.

by the way, she went to a great deal of trouble to bring back all my archived months. thanks for that. now you can read ALL of the writing on here, if you really want to.

i think perhaps i was happier when i started this. some turbulent times, but i sure do think i was pretty darn happy in april, in may, in june...

oh well. i went to a fun party last night. the thing is, i’ve probably written this before, i used to hate parties because i NEVER EVER TALKED TO ANYBODY, and then i got ok with parties, but sometimes i clam up, and sometimes i find everything and everybody incredibly dull.

but last night...last night was really nice. an ideal setting, a good night all around.

it was a cast reunion for “paint your wagon.” kate and don and i drove in kate’s very lovely and fancy new white minivan. it’s a town and country, by the way. see kate, i WAS paying attention. it has everything remote on it, including the back hatch. DON’T TRY TO OPEN THE DOOR BY YOURSELF, said kate, when i tried to do just that. YOU HAVE TO USE THE REMOTE OR IT GETS MESSED UP.

i’m not sure what would happen if you tried to manually lift the back hatch. would it fall off? surely not. i was very careful not to even get near the back hatch after that. i’d hate to be responsible for rendering the van inoperable and without a back hatch.

i asked if i needed to get my map and directions out of my car to take with us, but don said he’d been to the house before, and kate was sure of where we were going. but then we were driving down some road and there was a great deal of confusion, and we weren’t going where kate thought we were going. so we went to pleasant plains, and then we went down a very very very long country road. “are you sure this is the way?” i asked don. “oh yes, this is it,” he said. “you mean it had cornfields and a white gravel road like this?” "yep." kate and i were both a little doubtful, and we kept driving and driving...

and then there it was. ! a beautiful home out in the cornfield wilderness. the party was outside, which is the best kind of party, in my opinion. gary, the incredibly dedicated prop man and also stage manager and he also probably did a bunch of other things in the show but i don’t know what they are, made dvd’s of the show, and we watched it.

the party was at brian’s house; i never talked about brian when writing about the show so you won’t know anything about him unless you were actually in the show and know who i mean. he has a lovely house and i announced that i wanted to move in, but i didn’t actually have the nerve to mention this to brian himself, nor to his lovely and gracious wife. anyway, brian’s brother in law has a video projector, and so we got to see a HUGE movie-like version of the show on the side of brian’s barn. very cool.

brian is a farmer, did i mention that? corn and all. i didn’t see any livestock, although there were two enormous friendly dogs, one named lilly may. he wanted to name her ellie may, except that was her mother’s name and he couldn’t name the dog ellie may or he’d have to name her ellie may the second which does sound a little silly, doesn’t it? they also had a few very sweet little kitties.

many of the people from the play were in attendance, and it was just fun. it was fun sitting in the driveway watching the movie, it was fun chatting, it was a nice time. a good time was had by all.

i wish i’d taken my camera to the party, because of dave’s car. dave is this guy in the play who is a little bit different. he’s funny, and i remember him telling me some crazy stories involving people running from the law appearing at his house and lots of cop cars and stuff and a particularly amusing tale about his wedding reception where there was also a fugitive somehow involved. he’s divorced now; i wonder what his wife was like and why it didn’t work out. because nothing does? well, sometimes thing do work out, but rarely.

anyway, dave has this car that he built himself. it’s not exactly a car; it’s half car, half motorcycle. the front half is a convertible bug, i think, and the back half is a motorcycle. i really wanted a ride in it, but i felt it would be rude to demand a ride right there during the party. (but i felt fine saying i wanted to move into the lovely house?) maybe he’ll give me a ride some time.

when we drove home, rob, who we somehow picked up during the party and took him home with us, said they have cars like this somewhere. i’m not clear on where they have these kinds of things, but i’ve certainly never seen one.

I told dave he should start making these cars because they get 60 miles to the gallon, but he’s not interested, he just likes trying new things. he described his newest vehicle to me, but he kind of lost me - all i remember is that it’s a really long motorcycle/car. hmm.

after the movie, brian brought in a big elaborate karaoke machine. i mean, a guy in a TRUCK brought the karaoke machine, if that gives you any idea of the elaborateness of it. if i can’t move in, maybe i can somehow at least get invited to parties at brian’s house.

i didn’t karaoke, because i don’t karaoke, but erica sang “these boots are made for walkin,” which was utterly delightful. she included a few moves from our can-can during the musical interludes, which was quite nice. the funny thing about erica is that she’s so very very shy and polite, but then she’ll get up and sing “these boots are made for walkin.”

perhaps someday i would try karaoke if i had any idea of how to find any notes at all. because it seems to me that when a person sings a karaoke song, all they get is all the instrumental stuff, and they just pick the notes out of the air.

that’s something i cannot do at all.

some people say it’s good to sing a song you know by heart, but i can’t think of any songs i know
by heart. i mean, i do know some songs by heart, but i certainly can’t sing them in tune at all.

i stayed at the party much longer than anticipated, and when i got home, i was too tired to even think about writing, or reading, or anything except sleeping.

i had many specific things to accomplish today, and somehow i did manage to do most of them, except i’ve been kind of surly and tired all day (gee, how unusual). I read “a doll’s house,” not exactly light reading, but i do like reading plays. i want to read some contemporary comedies, though. at the party i kept asking people to name some contemporary comedies, things that have been made in the past 10 years or so, but nobody could come up with anything.

gil, who played an englishman in the “paint” and was a russian in “you can’t take it with you” and is such a kid at heart, is going to direct a play at his school. i’m going to go see it. he told me the date, but i can’t remember it, but i do look forward to seeing it.

tonight i listened to the symphony doing pops in the douglas park, even though i wasn’t going to go because i was SO TIRED AND CRABBY, but at the very last minute when driving down the road i finally decided maybe it would be a good thing to listen to some music. and it was. kate said she was going, but i didn’t see her there. but pops and cookies, what could be better?

well, all the stars in the sky last night at that party, for one thing. maybe i’ll buy a house in the country. i want to see all those stars all the time, not just when camping. i could go outside in the backyard and look for some right now, and i bet you can see a few here, but i would immediately be EATEN ALIVE BY MOSQUITOS.

there were many mosquitos camping, but amy and jim have more mosquitos than anybody.

i need to watch some more coverage of the disaster. at least today i guess they finally managed to figure out how to GIVE THE POOR PEOPLE SOME FOOD AND WATER.

the dogs are barking like crazy now, i’d better pacify them before all is chaos.

i hope the remainder of your holiday is very good and fun and relaxing and all of that.

ok then,

grace with many ideas.

Sep. 02, 2005

postscript [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:15 am

i just watched 20 minutes of news on MSNBC.

WHY AREN’T THE PEOPLE BEING HELPED?

THIS IS AMERICA. WE HELP PEOPLE.

a man was on a roof with his two dogs, sobbing, saying he’d been apologizing the dogs for not leavin the city. he’d been swimming with them for eight hours, trying to escape, and nobody picked them up.

people talked about how people in hotels packed up their luggage in their SUVs and drove off, leaving them there.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

it’s like the lord of the flies or something.

it makes stupid reality shows like “survivor” seem that much more stupid and ridiculous.

grrrr.

where’s the help? where’s fema? i hear they’re concerned about people shooting at them. but MSNBC just had a long report by a news photographer who talked about how heart-wrenching it was, how people are doing just what they’re told, how people are dying all over the place, they’re not being helped...

WHERE’S THE HELP?

erica says there will be more hurricanes because of global warming.

will the world just end in our lifetimes?

in which case, i should be (a) doing more nice things for people and (b) having a much more happy time.

that is all for now.

ok then,

grace, along with the rest of the world, in turmoil.

Sep. 01, 2005

thursday night [ General ] - grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:05 pm

was that last posting just yesterday? how can that be? it feels like many years have passed since yesterday afternoon, sitting outside at panera, so young and carefree and filled with song...

just kidding.

except for the large amount of time passing. tonight in playwriting class, we read aloud pirandello’s “six characters in search of an author.” i like a lot of the things he says in the play, and one of my favorite is his writing that human beings are really illusions; that the you that was you before isn’t the you that’s you now, and everything about you today will be illusion tomorrow.

it’s like my feeling that i’ve had a whole bunch of different and distinct segments in my life, chapters that have been completely different from each other.

i guess the only constant has been that the me that is me has always been around. do you ever feel tired of yourself? do you ever think about the fact that the you in your head is going to be there forever? perhaps that’s the real reason we need sleep, so we can shut ourselves up for a while.

i need lots of sleep. the more the better. desperate need to stop the constant chatter all the time (why don’t you do some MEDITATION again, anyway? laziness).

the disaster that is new orleans all took place while i was camping. it was really weird to come back and find that it had happened. also, because i rarely watch tv anymore, it seems very distant. i read about it in the chicago tribune a little bit today, and it’s unbelievably dismaying. hard to conceive of. people keep telling me that they stayed up till midnight or later, watching the drama.

we are fascinated with horror.

i’ve been feeling anyway that the whole universe is out of kilter. more and more, people tell me of their troubles, their sorrow, their burdens. i don’t know how anybody can bear it. most of the time i don’t know how i can bear my own life, but when i hear about other people’s plights, i don’t know how they can stand theirs even more.

a friend told me about his daughter starting seventh grade. i told him she might as well just put an end to her misery right now and get it over with. i mean, i didn’t actually mean she should kill herself certainly, but...junior high can be the start of hell.

and then it all spirals downhill from there.

gee, am i sounding kind of down tonight? i actually don’t feel so bad, i mean, not worse than usual, pretty much. i mean, i’ve had some nice times in my life. i’d like a nice moment right this very moment, but i’m not hoping for anything.

abandon hope, i think that’s probably the only way to go.

cheerfully.

i came home from class tonight and have been incredibly productive, cleaning, printing out the next play to read, getting stuff done.

not that this is any better than sitting around eating ice cream.

i think there are about four kinds of ice cream in the freezer right now, but none of them appeals to me. if i lived closer to amy and jim, i could go to their house and get some baskin robbins chocolate peanut butter ice cream.

it’s amy’s birthday today, by the way, so please wish her happy (belated) birthday if you see her soon. we’re going to celebrate on monday, which should (theoretically, not hoping for anything) be a good day anyway.

i have to give too many massages tomorrow. my own fault, i scheduled just one too many.

i’m supposed to go to a party tomorrow night, but my hands might fall off before i get there.

hopefully this won’t happen.

i have to fold laundry now.

when is my life going to be exciting and fun all the time?

not that i have ridiculously high expectations, as usual.

not that i’m setting myself up for misery and sorrow.

i did manage to continue to survive despite having to get through the hell that was junior high.

everything is good.

ok then,

grace writing a lot in one line segments for some reason tonight. perhaps it’s a new form of poetry.

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