Nov. 30, 2005

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elizabeth BISHOP... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:47 pm

ok, i decided to take the extra two minutes and actually find out who she was, and i did, and here’s the poem.

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

– Elizabeth Bishop

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i was lying before when i said i was turning off the light [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:43 pm

i need a new hat and scarf, because mine are missing. is EVERYTHING missing in my life?

yes.

there’s this poem by elizabeth bennet that i studied in college when i took a poetry class, about losing things, let’s see if i can find it online here really quickly:

no, i can’t find her. that must not really be her name. there’s an elizabeth bennett in pride and prejudice, and another one who was in “the duchess of duke street,” a great series on PBS that i now remember and would like to see again, and there’s some other tv elizabeth bennett, and one who is all about math, and another who is an editorial assistant...damn, what’s her real name?

the poem is about a woman who is always losing things, and then at the end she talks about losing a love in her life. damn, what is her name? how am i supposed to search for her if that’s all i know?

maybe tomorrow i’ll shop.

except i’m going to be much too busy.

ok then, goodnight for real now,

grace minutes away from december.

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reality vs. tv [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:24 pm

on “sex & the city” tonight, carrie was complaining that the relationship she was in (with that kind of cute guy from “northern exposure,” except he sort of annoys me somehow in a way that i can’t explain and i can’t even say exactly what it is that i don’t like about him) was going too well - everything was great, but this worried her, because it seemed too good to be true. And then Samantha says, “if he sounds too good to be true, he is.” they went on about this for a while, and i started to think, did i actually write this without knowing it? shouldn’t i be getting some really hefty residual checks for writing?

it must be a great universal truth, not just something that i, personally, keep living. over and over. the difference, though is that in the next episode tonight, carrie runs into Mr. Big on a ship that is touring manhattan, and then she talks about seeing him and how difficult it is because he is still in love with her, and of course she still has feelings for him, and well, i’ve seen the show’s very last episode, i know how it ends, all happily ever after...but i don’t have an ex-boyfriend who is pining away for me, there are none of them who i’m dying to have in my life again, and so this is the part where the tv show ends and reality rears its ugly head.

not that i’m feeling any mid-week angst or anything. carrie wore a particularly fabulous dress in one scene when she was going to the opera, with spaghetti straps and lots of beads dangling, and i would love to have that dress.

at least it was sunny today.

at least...nobody confiscated any scissors from me. although i do seem to have lost my scissors, and i’m giving up on them. except i gave up on my stapler a few months ago and bought a new fabulous one, and then i just found my old stapler in a place it had never occured to me to look, but it’s not nearly as good as the new one. perhaps i’ll add it to the collection of millions and MILLIONS of confiscated scissors, if i can just find out where they are.

maybe they should just collect all the scissors and put them into a GIGANTIC pile, and charge admission for people to come look at them. like the giant ball of string that’s somewhere, and all those other quirky american-type things. giant pile of scissors. it could be quite a tourist attractions somewhere.

i’m going to turn the light out now. i hope your thursday is filled with joy.

ok then,

grace poised on the edge of december.

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WHERE ARE ALL THE SCISSORS??? [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 7:54 pm
i was listening to NPR on the way home tonight, and they were talking about how many MILLIONS of pairs of scissors have been confiscated at airports. MILLIONS and MILLIONS. they mentioned other things that had also been seized, including screwdrivers and CHAINSAWS. how stupid does a person have to be to try to carry a CHAINSAW on a plane?

mighty, mighty stupid. they should give out some kind of extra-stupid stupidity certificate for that kind of behavior.

the report was about how they’re thinking about easing up on the whole confiscation thing, and instead focusing on bombs and stuff. but flight attendants don’t like this, because they don’t want to be murdered, and they had some valid reasons. it was an interesting story.

but my question is, WHERE ARE ALL THOSE SCISSORS? in some gigantic warehouse somewhere? shouldn’t they put them to good use; shouldn’t they distribute them to poor people who need to cut things? or to children? i mean, i know children aren’t supposed to RUN with scissors, but it couldn’t hurt for them to have a pair of their own, could it? i mean, all these millions and MILLIONS and MILLIONS of scissors that have been confiscated, they should be put to good use.

perhaps they could be melted down and...hmm, and made into something. made into something good and sturdy and metal. housing! big metal houses. wouldn’t they be sturdy? i’m sure there are many many other things that melted scissors could be used for.

jewelry. gee, you could make SO MUCH JEWELRY from melted scissors that you would be busy for the rest of your life.

um, more practical things, too, like...ok, i can’t think of anything right now. bicycles? i don’t know.

but i do want to talk about XMAS. i don’t have huge amounts of xmas spirit this year, but i’m starting to get a little bit all of a sudden. this woman who works in the same building as amy has the most AWESOME OVER THE TOP display of xmas in her hair salon. she WALLPAPERED THE CEILING AND WALLS with xmas wrapping paper, it’s covered with poinsettias. plus there are many many many lights hanging from the ceiling, and lots of stuff everywhere, and i thought it was fabulous and asked if i could move in there. She said yes, but i bet she thought i was kidding her.

then tonight i drove down HOOKER street in laketown, which has the BEST XMAS DISPLAY EVER, and if you haven’t gone there, figure out where it is and drive down. tonight. tomorrow night. ASAP. i think there are even more decorated houses this year than every before, and one house has a giant snowglobe lawn ornament, the likes of which i’ve never seen before. it made me so very happy to drive down the street, it made me feel like i was suddenly living in a happy land of twinkly lights and magic.

now that i’m home that’s all gone of course, but it does make me want to put up some lights, at least. and i do know about one gift that i’m going to buy for one person in my family, but that’s about as far as my xmas planning goes right now.

last night randy and i looked for tops at the mall. it was fairly discouraging, and i don’t think i’m going to find anything appropriate. i need something orange. orange isn’t a very big xmas color this year, i’ve found out. amy claims that if she goes shopping with me, she’ll find me something, but i don’t know how she’s going to pull something out of thin air, but on the other hand if anybody can do it, amy can.

randy and i had dinner at the MCL cafeteria before shopping. i thought this was funny because my dad always loves mcl but i’d rather go someplace a little more interesting, but then randy had his heart set on it so we went there and i wanted to get ALL the little salad items at the beginning of the line, but i didn’t, because my dinner would have easily been a hundred bucks. stuff like fruit salad and pea salad and all kinds of things i don’t normally have. OH NO, THERE I GO TALKING ABOUT WHAT I HAD FOR DINNER...i’m sorry, whoever wrote that they’re SICK TO DEATH of blogs who go on and on about that.

i’m not sorry.

not sorry at all.

i had tilapia. it was delicious.

ok then, MERRY XMAS,

last day of november grace.




Nov. 29, 2005

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computer malfunction... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:22 am

i’ve been having computer issues, that’s why i haven’t written in a couple of days. it feels like forever since i last wrote. many many things have been happening.

the most significant is that it got SO COLD this evening that i’ve decided to just stay inside till april. enough is enough.

lots of clothing issues today. i’ve been thinking about wearing my tiger pants (YOUR tiger pants? said amy, when i called them that. they’re AMY’S tiger pants, really, but it’s not like she has an excuse for wearing them anytime soon) for the show on new year’s eve. but i can’t wear the black top i wore before, because i’m going to be standing in front of a black curtain, so i’d look kind of invisible.

so today mom went to the mall with me to look for a good top. first of all, we had lunch, and i had the tiger pants in a plastic bag in my purse, and when we went to the first store, i was going to take the tiger pants out to look at the color next to a top, and THE PANTS WERE GONE. we went back to the food court and i looked in the trash and THERE THEY WERE. luckily nobody had poured any coke or anything over them. whew.

so then i tried on many, many tops. pink ones and a few orange ones and i didn’t even try on most of them because they didn’t look right. after a while, though, we found something that we thought looked good. and then we took it over to amy’s.

she hated it.

we were bitterly disappointed.

i went to randy’s tonight after class to get his opinion. he didn’t hate the top, but he hated it with the pants.

very discouraging.

so i’m re-thinking my outfit for the show. maybe i’ll wear a dress i have, or maybe i’ll buy a new one. the thought of searching for a top that matches the tiger pants that ISN’T black is a little bit daunting.

on other fronts...hmm. are there any other fronts worth mentioning at this time? we had to read chekov’s “uncle vanya” for class, and i HATED it. i thought it was incredibly, incredibly depressing. and this is for the COMEDY class. oh boy. also, the professor tonight was talking about how chekov is a MASTER of his craft of writing plays, how the plays are FABULOUS, the characters are incredibly well-drawn, etc.

i just didn’t feel like that.

erica brought two mini reese’s peanut butter cups to me in class. this was definitely the high point of my day.

i went running this morning. it wasn’t so cold then. i don’t think i’m going to run tomorrow morning.


i had a lot to say last night, but i couldn’t get on the computer at all, and now i can’t remember what i wanted to say. i’m sure it was very, very important. not really, but i’m sure i’ll remember what it was at 4 a.m. i’ve been waking up again at four a.m., staying awake for about an hour or two. when i was sick, this didn’t happen.

it does feel good not to be sick anymore. having energy to do my job and all.

there, that’s one good thing for monday. an otherwise bitter and bitterly cold monday.

ok already, it’s way past my bedtime, and i just want to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to P. (Percival) over there across the ocean.

november but very soon to be december grace.


Nov. 26, 2005

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something to be thankful for, plus eggnog [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:53 pm

I started thanksgiving feeling thankful because the red-tailed hawk, Mani, had finally been found. Some cretin stole him from the zoo, thinking he needed to “be free.” But the hawk has grown up in captivity, and being free meant being dead, probably, because the hawk couldn’t get food in the wild. They found him, though, a month and a half after they took him. He was sitting in somebody’s backyard tree. He’d lost two pounds, and was weak, but he’s ok now. I don’t know how much a hawk weighs but it can’t be much, so two pounds would be a significant weight loss.

Whew, is all I have to say.

Something to give thanks for on thanksgiving.

I was going to watch the parade, but I only saw a few minutes of it. I was busy doing…something…what was it? Some kind of work, I think. My english paper, which is getting absurdly long? Maybe. Oh, and I had to make deviled eggs. Oh, and I decided I wanted some gingerbread, so I made some of that, too, except it called for a huge quantity of molasses, so I had to go buy some at the store. It ended up being quite a production, but later in the day dad declared it was the FINEST gingerbread he’d ever had in his life, so it was worth it.

I think it would be a great idea to do all your thanksgiving shopping on the actual day of thanksgiving. When I was at the store on Wednesday afternoon the place was a madhouse, with people going berserk, carts careening wildly up and down the aisles. Nobody seemed to be familiar with the store, nobody actually seemed like they’d even been to a grocery store before, and they clogged the aisles in a very annoying manner.

But Thursday, the Day of the Turkey, the store was empty. Deserted. Checker stood around, bored like crazy. I felt like buying a bunch of stuff just to keep them busy.

We had more than enough food, by the way. Why does everybody always have way more than enough food? Mom had bought a 10-pound turkey, for 7 meat-eaters, and Amy, the vegetarian, decided we were all going to starve if that’s all the meat we had, so she, too, went to the grocery store on thanksgiving day and bought a very large turkey breast and also a very large ham.

My parents have two ovens, but they’d run out of room, so they had to use randy’s oven, too, and mom spent a lot of time driving between their house and randy’s, because he lives fairly close by.

We’re all probably going to be eating ham for quite some time now, except not me because I don’t really like ham.

We had plenty of everything. Plenty of leftovers for everybody. I haven’t actually had any leftovers yet, but soon.

I went to a memorial service this morning. I got an orange FUNERAL flag for the front of my car, and I hoped they’d forget to remove it so I could keep it and have it for a decoration all the time, but unfortunately somehow they snagged it. There is still a FUNERAL sticker on my window, though, and I think I’ll keep that up for a while.

I drove by the Wienerdog on my way to the cemetery, and I called the Wienerdoggers as I passed, and waved at them.

Memorial Services make me sad for everything. But maybe that’s just the melancholy right now. I have a very funny story about the word melancholy, but it’s not something I can write, I have to tell the story in order for you to get the full effect of the humor of it. I need to do that sometime. but i guess if you have a leaning towards being sad about anything, going to a memorial service is probably going to tip you right over the edge.

I read my new year’s show to myself today, and I don’t think it’s long enough. But maybe I was rushing through it, because it seems pretty long all typed up. But I felt like I was reading pretty slowly, but I guess maybe I wasn’t. I don’t know.

This afternoon we spent a good amount of time outside, trying to get a good photo for the publicity stuff that I have to turn in on Wednesday. Randy and Aunt Sandy stood next to me throwing confetti in the air as mom took the photos. It was fun, and thankfully not too cold outside, but I don’t think you can really see the confetti in the photo I’m going to use. Hey, here is the photo, by the way:


I was kind of disappointed after we took many photos and I looked at them, because I felt the angle of my face was all wrong. But I guess it looks ok. It looks fine. Everything is fine. Everything is fine.

Fine.

actually, we had a lot of trouble trying to coordinate the photo taking with the confetti throwing, and we had to do it many times, and i don’t think you can even see the confetti in the above photo, but it was the best one. here’s one where the confetti got a little out of hand:



after we were done with the many many photos, we took this picture which i think is awfully funny.



Tonight I had a triumverate of eggnog things. First, eggnog. Followed by eggnog stuff in a bottle loaded with brandy. Wrapping up with eggnog ice cream.

Perhaps I’ll try to go eggnog-free tomorrow. Just so I don’t gain 600 pounds in one day. since i’ve probably gained at least 160 today. i was going to run tomorrow, but all of a sudden the cough is sort of happening again. i’m trying to sit quietly.

Ok then,

november grace.


Nov. 24, 2005

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the lottery and other bitter disappointments [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:16 am

no, not really, i’m not going to share with you my many bitter disappointments, i don’t want you to start your thanksgiving with lots of sobbing and stuff.

i didn’t win any money. oh well. would i have REALLY been happy?

yes, of course i would have. delirious with joy.

i did clean mom and dad’s house. i toook a short walk, although i was a little tired. i wrote more on my paper and i’m almost finished with it. i wrote another, little tiny paper, for my other class.

today in the paper a columnist, i think it was toby mcdaniel, but i might be wrong, was complaining that he’s SICK OF BLOGS, because they’re trite and pointless and people just write about what they had for dinner.

i had a cheese butterburger at culver’s restaurant. i don’t know why they call them butterburgers. do they fry them in butter? are they supposed to taste buttery? very odd. it wasn’t that great. i was going to go to panera, and when we got there we were excited because there was no line. but when we got to the door we realized there was no line because THEY CLOSED EARLY.

how un-american of them. why should THEIR employees get to go home early? i mean, the department store famous-barr was open till ELEVEN tonight. i almost went there, in search of a fancy top to wear for my show.

i didn’t get to see “rent” because by the time we got there, there were only a few seats left in the front row. too bad. instead, we went to World Market, my favorite store, and we bought some chocolates filled with liquor of different types, and they were very delicious.

i believe the best part of tomorow will be sleeping late. i might sleep really, really late. i say that now, but in reality, i’ll get up. i won’t sleep till ten or so, even though that sounds so delightful at the moment. it’s supposed to be VERY VERY COLD, though, so maybe that will induce me to sleep later.

last year we had a snowstorm. at least we have no snow right now.

so far.

maybe none this WHOLE WINTER. that’s what i’m hoping.

i’m feeling slightly hopeful right at the moment. slightly strong and resolved and i feel i see things more clearly and am going to be more rational and not such a cretin.

but i bet it won’t last.

when did holidays lose their meaning? actually, thanksgiving has never been such a meaningful holiday for me. one of my worst thanksgivings was spent in this little border town in arizona, i’m sure i’d remember the name if i looked on a map, i was staying with my college roommate who was a born-again christian and always trying to convert me, except some horrible thing was happening to her family involving her n'er do well father arriving and trying to take away the family restaurant or something like that so i spent thanksgiving by myself at my roommate’s mother’s house, eating mexican sweet bread. i know there must be a lot more to this story, but that’s all i can come up with at the moment. of course i remember the mexican bread. it was a little dry.

ok, so last entry i said i’m going to GO TO NYC NEXT YEAR, i think i need to make a pact with myself that i’m going to have a LOVELY thanksgiving next year. do you think that might work, this pact idea? i guess it couldn’t hurt. pact with myself. not that i’ll remember it past next week, or probably much past tomorrow. but at least it’s a start? making my own life better all by myself?

yeah, grace.

it’s now officially THANKSGIVING. i may turn on the TV and wait for the parade to start.

ok then,

still november grace.


Nov. 23, 2005

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one more thing... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:09 pm
i was checking my statistics for the website just now, and there’s this thing that’s a “links from external page” which lists...all the links from other places. mostly it’s a bunch of seedy place, the ones that are trying to put spam on my comments. but sometimes there’s something interesting amidst all that stuff. i just saw a FRENCH websit, called “rechercher.” There’s more to the title than that, but that stuck out because i believe recherecher means to find. or maybe to find again? i looked at the website, and i think it’s sort of a french search engine.

ARE FRENCH PEOPLE REALLY SEARCHING FOR ME? wouldn’t that be exciting? not as exciting as winning five million dollars, but pretty darn. if i knew some french people, i could go visit them in france. who are they? why would they search for me?

it was probably a mistake, they were searching for something else. but still. maybe they’re reading this right now! but since they’re french, they can also speak english. so i don’t need to start writing in french, although i did take quite a bit of it in college. but i only know un peu de le langue de francais maintenant. parce que j'ai...forgotten le pluspart. c'est tout ce qu'il y'a. je m'appelle claudine. ou est phillippe? a la piscine. ou et sylvie? avec phillippe. je peux t'accompagner, si tu veux. la chat est sur la table. quand est ce que le match commence?

oh yeah, i could get by just find in france.

PLEASE STOP GOOFING OFF AND START CLEANING NOW.

ok ok ok. sometimes you’re so BOSSY at me.

grace in november but soon DECEMBER will be here and am i READY for my show? not at all. but soon.

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day before eating a whole lot of food [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:56 am

they should have that offical title for the day b4 thanksgiving, because that’s what it is. me, personally, i don’t have to do any cooking whatsoever. actually, i love to cook, but because i was feeling so sick, all i was in charge of was baking a pumpkin pie, which is totally easy anyway, but mom went out and bought one instead. i did say i’d clean their house in preparation for the Big Eating Day, and i’d rather cook. but at least i’m contributing some amount of work. plus, today i don’t feel like falling to the floor in exhaustion. a nice thing.

last night i had a weird long dream about flying to the moon. i don’t remember the specifics of the kind of vehicle that i took to get there, but i remember that an intricate part of the dream seemed to be a refrigerator overstuffed with food, and in the freezer things were falling out and i kept trying to jam them back in. there was lots of barbeque all over the freezer, lying all around.

and this, with no drugs at all. much more interesting than my usual ironing dreams.

it’s kind of warm out today, and it would be a good time to resume running since i haven’t done it in over a week, but i’m just not up to it yet. oh well. it’s going to be VERY COLD tomorrow and thursday. i really need to go out and buy some good warm leggings because amy saw the leggings i’ve been wearing and was horrified. they’re old and cotton and actually they used to be amy’s. i need something more modern with the modern fibers and stuff. must get right on that.

i’ve decided my paper is going to be long, and that’s just the way it is. maybe 3,500 words. but i can’t help it. there are worse things in the world.

i’m sitting here typing in amy’s salon, and i can kind of hear her talking to a client. she’s talking about her back splash. amy is very house-oriented. back splash. the thing in back of the stove, i think. luckily i can’t hear the whole fascinating back splash conversation.

i think we’re going to go to the FABULOUS ABE LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL MUSEUM during the holiday time, and i’m looking forward to it, even though C (chester) will not be performing, because he’s flying to ENGLAND today. quite exciting for him. hopefully he’ll have a wonderful time.

i was supposed to fly to washington DC yesterday, and was going to travel into NYC today and was going to stay in a nice hotel and then go to macy’s thanksgiving day parade tomorrow. it was going to be exciting and fun, and i was really looking forward to it, but also having anxiety because of all the stuff i have to do, and then i had to cancel my plans, and it’s ok, really.

maybe next year to NYC. and the parade. who knows? maybe i’ll just say YES, i’ll go next year, NO MATTER WHAT, no matter WHO i have to find to drag along with me.

next year. not such a long way off, really.

have i mentioned that nobody in my family is buying xmas presents? but i’m not entirely clear about this, but so i haven’t even been thinking about buying gifts at all. but i think i’ll end up buying some, but i don’t know when. but i like to buy presents.

hey, and i forgot the MOST IMPORTANT THING OF ALL - i might be a millionaire by now. i had to buy randy’s mom some lottery tickets because she’s out of town now. she was very very specific about her needs, and i didn’t understand it all, but i handed the slip of paper with the info on it to the clerk at the gas station, and she did it all because everybody buys lots of lottery tickets. but then i had some money left over and randy told me to buy a MEGA MILLIONS ticket.

so i think i’m going to have five million dollars this morning.

this would certainly make the season more bright. yeah yeah yeah they say money doesn’t buy happiness, but I KNOW IT WOULD. i’m SURE IT WOULD. you give me five million dollars, and i’m going to be HAPPY.

even one million. i’d be very happy with that.

half a million? yes, definitely. no problem.

so i’ll let you know when i get the money, and we’ll have a great big party. but i’m not going to buy everybody i know new cars or anything, i’m not going to be like those cretins who win lots and lots of money and quickly manage to spend it all and end up bankrupt.

are you going to shop on friday? that’s another stupid activity, i think. many stores will open at five a.m. WHY? it’s going to be very cold on friday morning, not to mention DARK at five a.m. what could be that important to buy at that hour? ridiculous.

i have to clean now.

i may get to see the movie “rent” tonight, because it’s opening today.

much busy-ness.

ok then,

november grace.


Nov. 21, 2005

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sorry sorry sorry [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:19 pm

i haven’t called the wienerdoggians back yet. sorry. i actually haven’t called anybody, really. sorry. i haven’t written anything at all on here since thursday night. sorry. again.

but why do i have to be the one who is sorry all the time? i have my reasons for not calling or writing. does anybody call or write me? no. except the wienerdogmen.

yesterday i did just about nothing. i took a nap for an entire hour. i’m never able to nap that long. i didn’t even move a muscle, didn’t roll from side to side like i usually do when attempting to sleep. i might have od’d on codeine cough syrup on saturday night, i can’t say for sure because i had no spoon and was too wiped out to walk downstairs and get one so i just drank it out of the bottle.

might have od’d. can’t say for sure. but the feeling of intense lethargy lasted all day long until i finally went to sleep, so maybe it wasn’t od'ing after all, because wouldn’t it have worn off at some point during the day? my dad told me it should have worn off, and my dad knows pretty much everything.

“wicked” was incredible. and i didn’t have any coughing fits at all during it, which was a great relief. i want to see it again, only this time i want to sit really really close.

the symphony wasn’t as good. i forgot to bring my water with me, and i started coughing during the first piece, and this old man kept turning partway around in his seat and glaring, not directly at me, but he was mad that i was coughing. i wish he’d have turned all the way around, because i wanted to say I’M SORRY! BUT IT’S NOT MY FAULT! I’M NOT DOING IT ON PURPOSE!

and then when i got home saturday night, all that activity during the day i think made me weak, so the coughing commenced with a vengeance as i attempted to sleep, so i took all the new coughing drugs i’d gotten at the campus health center, including an inhaler thing and some little pills, and then i finally took some codeine cough syrup. it hit me like a ton of bricks and i did sleep through the night, and i wish i’d have written down my dreams when i woke up, because all i remember is that they were very, very weird. not my usual ironing vacuuming incredibly boring dreams.

whew.

today i’m still not feeling so good. very very low energy. i spent much of the afternoon working on my second english paper. like the first one, it’s supposed to be 2,500 words minimum. with all the revisions, the first paper ended up being 4,300 words. TOO LONG. i think i already wrote about that on here. sorry again. sorry sorry sorry.

anyway, i worked for about three and a half hours this afternoon, and then another hour tonight, and it’s 2,600 words right now, and i still have to add a few quotes from outside sources. too long. too long. don’t write so many words! this is something i have a problem with. in case you didn’t notice before.

soooo tired right now. soon, i sleep. last night i didn’t cough at all, but i woke up at three in the morning and worried for a good couple of hours. worry and angst, i would like to remove those portions of my brain, please. will there be an operation someday where you can just have them neatly removed? like in harry potter, where they pull out memories and put them in the pensive? HARRY POTTER WAS INCREDIBLE, by the way, FYI. I had one coughing fit during that, and i considered standing out on the other side of the partition, but it finally stopped before i had to excuse myself from the theater. the movie was GREAT.

there are at least a couple of things i wanted to talk about, besides the moping and complaining. first - i had time to wander around Meijer’s while waiting for my plethora of drugs. they have all the xmas stuff out, and i noticed a particularly retarded as well as obnoxious one. it’s a santa claus on a ladder, carrying a string of lights. it probably plays music, too, but i was so spellbound watching the santa that i didn’t notice the music. the santa drags the lights up the ladder, almost to the top. and then it walks back down the ladder.

and then back up.

and then back down.

FIFTY BUCKS.

FIFTY BUCKS.

WHY?????

i believe this is even stupider than those singing xmas trees. at least they have a point, after all - they sing. they’re the most annoying thing i can think of at the moment, but at least there’s a point.

but santa, climbing up and down a ladder...so utterly dumb.

the other bad xmas item for sale is a gingerbread house kit. it comes with a gingerbread house that is ALREADY MADE.

if you’re going to make a gingerbread house, you should MAKE THE HOUSE.

but then again, i realize this would require some actual ACTION, and god forbid anybody actually DO anything, other than watching tv.

one more thing - i was listening to the radio, and there was some story about buying seven planes from china or something like that. only i first thought they said buying seven PLATES from china. and i thought how funny it would be if that was a top news story, the sale of dinnerware. what if mostly everything in the world was destroyed, at least the big huge stuff that they always talk about on the media, but the media was all still there? so they’d have to fill up the airwaves with stories about something, and then there would be news items about selling plates. They’d deliver it with that same tone of urgency and importance, and then people could feel that they’re getting ALL THE IMPORTANT NEWS, but it would be much simpler. selling plates. seven, to be exact.

too many drugs.

not enough?

ok already,

november grace.



Nov. 17, 2005

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WIENERDOG CALL!!! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:10 pm

yesterday at lunch (was it just yesterday? i’m starting to lose track of the days of the week now, surely it’s a sign of greater difficulties in my life), i was sitting at panera with P. (Phred) eating some delicious portabella garlic bisque, which i heartily recommend, and my phone rang, and i wasn’t going to answer it, because i don’t like it when others have cell phone conversations while they’re with me, but i looked at my phone and it said WIENERDOG! so of course i had to answer it, because that’s the very first call i’ve ever gotten from the wienerdoggians themselves! so, it was a very fine day indeed! even beyond the excellent company and soup.

the wienerdogs' phone number is programmed into my phone because i drive by the wienerdog every day and usually i see mark and/or rob in there, even though it’s way too early for the lunch hour, but they have to be very very busy i know, unwrapping all the buns, and re-filling the ketchup, cleaning the griddle, making the delicious brownies with frosting (ok, i know they don’t make delicious brownies with frosting, but wouldn’t that be the perfect ending to a delicious wienerdog lunch?), stocking the...stuff, unpacking more...stuff,and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

so i drive by there every day and see them, and i programmed their number into my phone because i thought i’d like to drive by and call them as i’m driving by. i don’t think i’ve actually done that yet, but i know i will. someday.

imagine my surprise, then, getting a CALL from the wienerdoggers themselves. it was mark, who had been READING THIS ACTUAL WEBSITE, and read that i wrote i was slightly annoyed with them, which is why i hadn’t been there in a while, and he wanted to find out what was up, and he said they’d be more than happy to apologize (if it was warranted, of course), and he asked if it was a bad time, and i explained that i was having lunch with somebody, and i said i’d call him back.

i haven’t called back yet. but i’m going to. but right now, whenever i call anybody, i can only get out about every third word, and it sounds more like croaking than actual human words, and then i have to suddenly hang up very fast because i’m about to launch into yet another epic coughing fit. so i figured we wouldn’t be able to have a very meaningful phone conversation just yet. actually, i’m going to actually go there for LUNCH very soon, except not right now, because i’m basically living on soup.

tomorrow morning i’m going to go to the school doctor and try to get some really good drugs. i decided tonight that i probably have bronchitis again, because i have no energy and the coughing is slightly horrific and all this must stop. it must stop by TOMORROW AFTERNOON AT THREE FORTY, to be exact, because that’s when i’m seeing HARRY POTTER.

today i bought six hundred dollars worth of cold medications. last night dad told me about some kind of cold medication, but all the info. he could remember was that it started with a “z.” but then today judith mentioned ZICAM, which i realized must have been the same thing. they both knew about the kind that you inhale, but i found a kind that you spray into your mouth, instead. so far it’s not working. i also got some FISHERMAN’S FRIEND cough drops, but i’m keeping them as a measure only for LAST RESORT (while viewing harry potter) because i know they’re going to taste so vile that they’ll make me want to gag. i also got some sugar-free hall’s cough drops, which are slightly stronger than sugar-free ricolas, but not much. maybe it’s the sugar in regular cough drops that makes them so effective.

this makes no sense AT ALL.

going to the doctor. tomorrow morning, bright and early. and it’s not even TEN O'CLOCK YET, and i’m already in bed, and will soon (only in theory of course, it’s highly unlikely that i’ll actually fall asleep quickly even though i’ve been exhausted all day) be asleep, so i’ll get like 10 hours of sleep at least.

sometimes i feel i’ve spent my life resting up for something. there’s going to be this huge huge thing that i’m going to be faced with, and it’s going to take all these years of sleeping a lot and generally resting more than everybody else i know (except for christine, but she has a legitimate need for lots of sleep, and actually doesn’t even get as much as she needs even though she lays around/naps whenever possible) to accomplish whatever needs to be done.

i hope it’s something fun and challenging, not something horrific, like being in charge of everything when everybody else dies from the avian flu pandemic, for example. that would be too much responsibility, no matter how well-rested I may be.

ok, here’s an even bigger reason why i need to be all better RIGHT NOW - i didn’t want to make you green with envy, but on saturday afternoon, i get to see WICKED. yep, that’s right. again. two times. i’m a very very lucky person. and then, saturday night, i get to see the illinois symphony.

i didn’t want to make you jealous, but i also didn’t want to mention it in case things fell through. because things have a way of falling through sometimes. and then i didn’t want you to have to feel all SORRY for me because i didn’t get to do all this great stuff this weekend. you can be jealous, but not sorry for me. and i guess you will be jealous, unless you’ve been lucky enough to see wicked, but actually, if you’ve seen it, you’d probably be even more jealous, because when you see it once, you IMMEDIATELY WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN. which is how i felt when i saw it in chicago last may.

randy told me tonight that i’m much much too sick to go anywhere this weekend, and he’ll have to go see wicked instead. i told him to GO TO HELL. we were at tai pan, and i had a bowl of hot and sour soup. good for when you’re sick. if for some crazy reason you live here in spfld or the surrounding area and you HAVEN’T been to tai pan, you need to go there right away. it’s quite delicious. my parents take people from out of town to tai pan, so if you’re lucky to come here to visit, and if you HAVEN’T been to spfld, well, let me just say ABRAHAM LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL MUSEUM, you should plan a trip. they’re going to have a holiday exhibit starting right now i think, and i’m looking forward to seeing that.

ok ok ok, it’s now past ten, and even though i feel it will be pointless, i’m going to turn off the light now.

all right already,

november grace.

p.s. last night i put a vaporizer right next to my bed and turned it on, and i woke up a couple of hours later and the entire top of my covers was TOTALLY WET. not good. i don’t know how to solve this issue. hmm, i wonder if the water could soak all the way through to the electric blanket; would this cause some kind of electrical fire or something? because it would be a big drag to wake up because my electric blanket had exploded and caught fire.

hopefully this won’t happen.


Nov. 16, 2005

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one more thing... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:08 pm
here’s the direct link to that article i wrote about the pirates of the caribbean movie - it’s in the column called “grace’s goodies,” and it’s way at the very bottom because it’s the first one i wrote. but you can just clink on this link and read it.

teacup ride article

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WEDNESDAY NIGHT, VERY COLD... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:05 pm

this was my main goal for the evening - TURN OUT THE LIGHTS BY 10 P.M.

it is now 10:53. how am i not able to even do this one little simple thing?

i have no control over my fingers. they just keep typing, independently of me.

i took an antihistimine that makes me sleepy. i was exhausted and drained all day, so i can’t tell if i’m sleepy or just...sleepy.

about five o'clock i started getting THE COUGH. this horrible cough that can last up to 100 years and develops into bronchitis and makes me crazy. i keep trying to WILL THIS THING AWAY, but it’s gaining on me. i took three emergen C’s today, this stuff that fizzes in water and it’s about two million mg’s of vitamin c. no avail.

i’m going to see HARRY POTTER on FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the tickets have already been purchased.

I CAN’T COUGH ALL THROUGH THE MOVIE.

if i start coughing, i’ll have to bolt to the lobby so as not to disturb others.

i’m going to buy some extra super duper strength cough drops tomorrow. all i have are ricola sugar-free cough drops, and they’re just not strong enough.

i HATE cough drops in general.

one time a farmer friend of mine, mick, gave me something called “fisherman’s friend” and all i remember is that it was the WORST COUGH DROP EVER. maybe i should get some; if they’re that horrible, surely they must be very effective.

everybody seems depressed, by the way. mostly everybody. everybody who’s being honest, maybe? everybody seems to have some level of angst, depression, stuff that keeps them up at night. worries, strife, it’s all too much to bear.

i wrote a couple of e-mails to people tonight with a solution - DISNEYWORLD. i actually said DISNEYLAND, because that’s where i went last, but i was living in LA at the time, but i guess DISNEWORLD would make more sense to go to from here in illinois.

but just to go there and ride the pirates of the caribbean ride, and the peter pan ride, and the haunted house ride, all those great, fun, childish brief ESCAPES from real life.

you, yourself, could go on a roller coaster if you want to. me, i’ll stick with the peter pan ride, over and over again.

i wrote a thing about the pirates of the caribbean ride; you can read it if you want. it’s in the “what’s new la” section, and it’s the very first thing i wrote. i adapted it and used it in my very first “gracetalk” performance, except phil had me cut out the part where i actually sang the tiki room song (If you’re been deprived and haven’t been to disney world or land, the tiki room is this great room filled with mechanical birds, and they sing and it’s very campy and funny and silly and the SONG goes “in the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room...” over and over). sometimes i think about that tiki room song, and how much i’d like to sing it.

not for gractalk #3, though, which is going to officially be at EIGHT o'clock not at 10, as i previously stated.

i got my contract in the mail today. so it’s official.

must get busy....

but first, i have to get better! then what are you doing sitting here typing like some kind of cretin! i can’t help myself! are you saying you have no free will? sometimes, no! i don’t believe you! free will doesn’t grow on TREES, you know!

i’m a gemini, did you know that? dual personality. it can be a drag sometimes, but then again, i’m never lonely, there’s always me and me right here.

ok then,

november grace.

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wednesday morning, and it’s COLD outside... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:02 pm

29 degrees last time i heard.

i bought two pairs of gloves, because they came in pairs of two, and they were very cheap, which is good, because i lose gloves almost as much as i lose/break my handsfree phone things.

one pair is white, the other, black.

i already lost the black pair. i don’t think i’ve even actually worn them yet, but they’re gone.

they might be in denver, in christine’s leather coat pockets.

i had to wear the white pair this morning. i feel like a mime.

i was just going to wear the white ones when running, so drivers would instantly see that there is a runner on the road because of my ultra-white gloves.

the other day i was going to wear the gloves, and all i found was one white one and one red one. the lone red one is leftover from last year. i figured, then, that i would look too silly, with one red and one white glove.

today i don’t even care about looking like a mime, or maybe a jazz dancer. because the cold is bitter.

welcome to winter.

ok then,

simply grace.


Nov. 15, 2005

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DON’T GIVE YOUR BABY FRENCH FRIES! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:42 am

ok, it’s after MIDNIGHT, and i’m fiercely battling a cold that i WILL NOT LET TAKE OVER ME, and i should be sleeping, but i took an antihistimine about 10 minutes ago and i’m waiting for it to make me sleepy, and i HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THIS:

DON’T GIVE YOUR BABY FRENCH FRIES!

i haven’t been reading the paper so much lately, and so i only sort of have any idea of what’s going on in the world (DON’T GO TO FRANCE RIGHT NOW!), but today there was something completely alarming in the paper. it was a bunch of statistics about babies, and what their (TOTALLY STUPID!!???) parents are feeding them.

here’s just a smattering of these horrific stats:

soda is served to babies as young as seven months old.

DON’T SERVE BABIES SODA.

if you happen to be a waitress in a restaurant and a seven month-old saunters in and asks for a diet coke, JUST SAY NO.

25% of 19-24 month olds are not eating ANY servings of fruit or vegetables a day!!!!!

GIVE YOUR TODDLER (is that what they are, the 19-24 month year olds? i think so) VEGETABLES AND FRUITS! DON’T BE A COMPLETE MORON!

jerri, i know you don’t like vegetables, and i know little lucy has a few months to go before you need to go out and buy actual fruits and vegetables, but please, PLEASE, buy them for her! i’m sure you will. you’re a fabulous mother, clearly. fabulous.

and here’s one more horrific one:

FRENCH FRIES ARE THE MOST COMMONLY CONSUMED VEGETABLE FOR TODDLERS FROM 15-24 MONTHS OLD!!!!

DON’T FEED YOUR TODDLER FRENCH FRIES!

i, personally, have no children. it’s highly unlikely that i’m ever going to have any children.

IF I HAD A BABY I WOULD NOT GIVE IT FRENCH FRIES AND A COKE AND THINK THAT’S A BALANCED MEAL.

ok, you know what i really think? i think that people should have to take a test in order to be parents. i really think they should have to take a whole series of tests, psychology tests, BASIC COMMON SENSE TESTS, tests with questions like “do you think it’d be a good idea to give your baby french fries and cokes?”

and then if the people don’t pass the tests, THEY’RE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE BABIES.

i’m sure this is very anti-something or other. not politically correct, but I DON’T SEE WHY NOT. I mean, really, REALLY, PEOPLE, DON’T BE SO STUPID.

i’m not talking to you, personally.

unless you’re sitting here reading this, stuffing a quarter pounder with cheese into your very small child’s mouth.

the article didn’t actually mention quarter pounders with cheese, it was mostly about fries, but i’m sure that the quarter pounders with cheese were not far behind.

i’m really hungry now.

soon we will have toddlers going to weight watchers. it would certainly liven up the meetings, wouldn’t it? how will they explain to the toddler about the point system, or whatever current thing that weight watchers is doing now?

i hope you survived monday. my own particular monday got better as the day progressed, except for class where i couldn’t stop blowing my nose, and i blow my nose really really LOUD but i didn’t even care. i’m sure i spread my germs to everybody in class. i’m sorry about that if i did. really sorry. erica is the only one in class who has any idea about this website anyway, and i told her i was going to give her my cold, because we had to share a play that we were reading out loud, and she said “i’m tough.”

that’s kind of like me saying that i’m going to WILL MY COLD NOT TO PROGRESS ANY FURTHER.

but really, seriously, i think it can be done.

the power of positive thinking.

christine just sent me a text message, and all it said was “snow.” but that’s to be expected in denver. but today on the radio all of a sudden they mentioned SNOW and SLEET, but none of that happened, and it felt kind of warm outside, actually.

i think i’m starting to hallucinate now, so i’d better go to sleep.

ok then,

grace drifting into tuesday.


Nov. 12, 2005

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rainy saturday at the university library [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 5:18 pm

i love the library. is there a way i could make a living hanging out at the library, looking stuff up, reading books? no, i know it’s not possible. just like it’s not possible to make any money going camping. i don’t know if/when i’ll go camping again, except i do have my sleeping bag in the trunk of my car. i don’t know why it’s still there, but i haven’t thought of a good reason to take it inside the house. maybe i’ll get tired sometime and i’m in my car and i’ll pull out my sleeping bag and take a nap in the park or something. you never know.

today i found six books for my second english paper. i also found four articles. the paper has to be a minimum of 2500 words. that’s about 10 double-spaced pages, which really isn’t very long. but my first paper started out at 13 pages, and then when i had to make changes to it, it was 15 pages.

i’m going to try to make this paper shorter. except i already have way more stuff to read for it, because the books sounded interesting. i only used about two articles for my last paper, so clearly, i’m already in trouble, information-wise. better too much than too little, right? right?

i also really like being at the library because i can just focus on my Task At Hand. this is very good. Focus. on academics.

i brought my laptop with me, in my new lavendar little suitcase on wheels. i like wheeling it all around, instead of carrying my heavy laptop backpack around on my shoulders which are always in need of a massage anyway (and no, i’m not getting any massages, even though i alway TELL people i get them a lot, even though i really need them), and carrying around my computer just makes my shoulders worse.

i think i saw a guy from “a few good men” here at the library this afternoon, but i wasn’t sure if it was him, and also, he was sitting at a computer with a great big monitor and the screen was filled with photos of women, so i assume he was looking for a woman online, and i hated to bother him...ironic, isn’t it? a real, actual, woman, not just a photo, not making any contact with a guy who is clearly, blatantly wanting to meet women?

but probably an actual woman would scare him. and not that he’d have been interested in talking to me, because quite frankly, i didn’t care how i looked to go to the library, so i’m no makeup, sweats, wearing my new favorite t-shirt, which is big and baggy and dark blue and used to be my brother-in-law jim’s. it says UNDERDOG on it, and there’s a picture of underdog and it makes me happy to wear it. i wore it the other day (because i wear it as much as possible), and amy looked at it and said “jim, did you give away the t-shirt i gave you?” and jim said “it was too small for me,” or maybe he said “it got too small for me,” all i know is i felt bad there for a minute, but amy seems to have forgotten about it, or maybe it doesn’t matter to them in the greater scheme of their relationship anyway.

i find that men who seek women online generally don’t do so well with the face-to-face type of encounters. this isn’t true all the time, but i’m starting to think that soon many relationships will actually just be people online instant-messaging each other. i walked past another guy who was furiously pounding on the keyboard, and as i glanced at his screen, he was very very intent on the instant-messaging.

soon we will only have to have a minimum of actual contact with other human beings. you won’t have to be you at all, you can be anybody you want to be, and by having only the minimal contact, you won’t have to reveal too much about who you actually might be. i guess you can do that right now, as a matter of fact.

is this a good thing?

i have to check out now. i can keep these books for a YEAR if i feel like it.

it’s good to be in school.

ok then,

just grace.

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shortie and giz and a few good men [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:45 am

today i took shortie and giz (mom and dad’s very lovable pekinese, in case you haven’t been KEEPING UP) for a car ride. shortie and giz are so enthusiastic - i just had to say “car ride” and they went crazy, barking and running around, and they leapt into the car and were very excited about the ride, even though it wasn’t actually exciting at all, we weren’t driving to cozumel or anything.

but they kept up their exhuberance, leaping from the front to the back seats, sometimes looking out with window, sometimes trying to dig down into the seats. and then, after a while, they both just laid there, happy to be in the car, taking a trip.

i think there’s a lot to learn from dogs.

just being happy about the trip. being excited, being content, excited to go someplace new, even if it’s just across town.

dogs. maybe i’ll be a dog in my next life.

hopefully one with a doting owner.

i guess that’s the one (huge) drawback to being a dog - you’re at the mercy of your owner.

but we’re all at the mercy of something/someone, aren’t we?

can you tell i’m writing this about three hours past the time i should have gone to sleep?

i saw “a few good men” tonight at the theater centre. it was good. intense. i wasn’t looking forward to it so much, to tell you the truth. even though mac warren loves the intense dramas (after the show he told me that he likes a comedy if it has some bite in it. does the play i wrote have any bite? probably not), i can take or leave them. but i was surprised at how good and intense it was.

not to mention the bonus attraction of all those men in uniform.

the play was long, but i didn’t get bored. a little girl in front of me fell asleep, but i thought that was just as well. it’s not a show for kids. swearing, a violent death, and i’m amazed, actually, that she remained asleep with all the yelling going on.

enough already.

grace


Nov. 10, 2005

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brightness on thursday afternoon [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 3:17 pm

i just got my hair re-blonded. i told somebody right before i did it that i’m doing it, of course, because BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN.

and indeed they do.

more fun, i’m having BUCKETS of fun right this very minute.

because i’m more blonde.

perhaps next time i’ll go for platinum.

but then again, maybe i couldn’t stand that much fun.

but then again...

ok then,

november grace.


Nov. 08, 2005

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SECRET READERS REVEALED! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:27 pm

ok, really just the one reader. but THANKS for the e-mail, secret reader, that was a great start to my day!

maybe my secret reader will come to my show and bring 499 friends and relatives.

i know i don’t have 499 friends and relatives.

i have plenty of acquaintances. i know lots of people. but real friends are so much harder to come by.

last night there was a deer in the road as i crossed over a little bridge. it was smack dab in the middle of the road in the middle of the bridge, and i slowed down and it looked at me and seemed very bewildered. it finally started to sort of shuffle down the road, not bolting fast like deer usually do. it went straight down the middle line, and it was going so slowly that i wondered if it’d been injured. finally it jumped over the railing and headed into the trees. poor deer.

in the winter, i wonder what deer do all day. i wonder what they do the rest of the year, but it’s so cold and snowy in winter (well, most winters anyway, unlike this winter which is going to be WARM all the way through), i wonder where they go. do they have any shelter? do they lie down in the snow and shiver? i’m glad i’m not a deer.

whew, so that’s one thing, at least, that i’m thankful for.

giving thanks, it’s almost that time of year, time to give thanks.

tonight was the first night i didn’t have an Official Activity of some sort, since last Wednesday night. I can’t even remember last wednesday night, what i might have been doing. but i had many things planned for tonight, including homework and writing my show. instead, i spent a lot of time loafing around. I watched “my name is earl” (8:00 central time on ABC, i think), and it was pretty funny although i haven’t been watching it regularly. and then i ate some miniature peanut butter cups because they were there. and i talked on the phone to my friend thad. and i didn’t do anything, except i realized i was having a really hard time trying to just relax and goof off. clearly, CLEARLY, i need to do it more, in order to be better at it, instead of feeling antsy and guilty.

i finally started writing my show a little bit, and then i got into it and it was fun, and i spent at least about an hour and a half doing it and time of course started speeding up considerably and suddenly it’s late.

i had two different things to say about animals tonight, but the minute i got out of my car when i got home, one of them escaped me. one was about the deer, but what was the other one? no animals come to mind. a story about a cat? a dog? a rabbit? a cow? a chicken? i don’t recall encountering any chickens today. but my memory is so bad, maybe i did run into one at some point.

hedgehog? chipmunk? giraffe?

my parents went to the st. louis zoo the other day. i’d kind of like to go to the zoo, but i also kind of feel bad for the animals, because sometimes it feels like animal prison.

an alligator? a bat?

can’t remember.

losing memory. thad, and other friends, keep talking about how OLD we’re getting. i wish they’d all shut up about it. i can’t be getting OLD, because i haven’t done enough living to even begin to think about being old.

not getting OLDER, getting BETTER.

by the time i’m 98 or so, i’ll be perfect.

almost perfect. maybe when i hit 100.

kate wants everyone to know that she is NOT LAME IN ANY WAY AT ALL. she’s not. except for the lame non-excuse for not going to my show. i’d go see HER show, if she was doing one.

i’m going to sleep with the window open tonight. could life get much better? i think not.

ok, yeah, i know it could be way better, but it could also be WAY worse. so i’m ok with the betternes of sleeping with the window open in november.

ok ok ok,

grace on not such a bad tuesday night.

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just one more thing as it gets later and later on monday night [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:36 am

i wrote about the cabin concerts, and printed them out and took them around to the cardologist and the weiner dog. so you can pick one up and read it if you live here in spfld. if not, well, that’s just one more reason to visit our fair and fabulous city. plus, if you go to the weiner dog (best place for a hot dog in the world, except i’ve been kind of annoyed with the weinerdoggians and haven’t been there in a while), you can just saunter across the street to the ABE LINCOLN MUSEUM and see the best museum IN THE COUNTRY.

not that the smithsonian isn’t great or anything. or the metropolitan.

but there’s NOTHING LIKE THE ABE LINCOLN MUSEUM ANYWHERE.

if i shouldn’t have been aleep an hour ago, i’d put up a link to the museum right here so you could see for yourself. but actually, the last time i looked at their website, it was a little bit lame. especially compared to how FABULOUS the museum itself is. they need a much more dazzling website. how hard could it be?

ok ok ok,

grace suddenly remembering that i have to get up early tomorrow(early for me, which is relative i know but still it’s EARLY FOR ME).

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erica almost hit the governor, plus more [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:01 am

erica was driving down walnut street today, and the governor, who is a runner, ran right out in front of her car and she almost hit him. we agreed that if she’d made contact, state workers would have another holiday. why wouldn’t the governor look both ways b4 crossing the street? i hope he learns this VERY CRITICAL LIFE LESSON in time to teach it to his daughter. perhaps it’s too late. you’d think he’d have learned this a long time ago. maybe he thinks he’s immortal omniscient? omnipotent? or something? or has nine lives? if i recall, omniscient is all-knowing, and omnipotent, all-powerful. invincible.

more people told me today that they’re going to be out of town or very busy on new year’s eve, so they won’t be at my show. at least they didn’t have the VERY LAMEST EXCUSE, which still belongs to kate, whose lame excuse that was so lame i don’t even hardly consider it an excuse, is that she’s a “party pooper on new year’s eve.” i mean, ok, you don’t even have to stay up till midnight! you can come downtown for a mere 45 minutes and watch my show and be at home in bed before 11:30. i suspect that kate might be afraid that the show is going to be bad or something, and if she went to see it, she’d have to lie to me and say she liked it when she didn’t. i guess i could try to convince her otherwise, but i’m tired just thinking about it. erica assured me that she’s coming to the performance, so that means i only need 499 more people. i wonder if erica has that many friend/relatives she could invite. i know she has lots of relatives, but i bet many of them don’t stay up past 10.

i was reading craig’s blog, the one that’s linked over there on the right side, and he was talking about going to chaya venice. it sounded familiar to me, and i wondered if i’d ever been there. he described a delicious meal he had. i looked it up online, and i don’t think i was there. when i lived in LA, i got taken to lots of fancy restaurants, fairly regularly. i liked that a lot.

and now, instead, i went to lincoln on the train for some mediocre italian food. BUT SUCH BIG PORTIONS!

today i was going to write down a list of the many many things i need to accomplish. but i ran out of time. i could be doing it now, but then what will i have to obsess about when i wake up at four? it’s pretty boring if i wake up at four and there’s nothing at all to think about.

you may recall that i was very excited about WALLACE & GROMMIT opening. that was weeks and weeks and weeks ago. i looked in the paper tonight, and it’s now only playing in one theater, at one time, 4:10 in the afternoon. i’m sure it’ll be gone by friday, because harry potter is opening.

yes, i’m very excited about HP, but i was even more excited about wallace & grommit, because i know it’s funny. but i realized it’s suddenly too late, because i have to work each day around that time. except for thursday, but if i went to the movie then i’d be very very late to class.

maybe it’ll come to the cheap theater.

or i’ll have to rent it and watch it on randy’s HUGE tv.

he doesn’t have an HDTV. nor an HDTV TV, which C. (Clarence) said is, indeed redundant.

craig sent me a friendly e-mail today, listing all of this great stuff for the website, but of course i had no idea what he was talking about. but i passed the info on to christine, so maybe soon there will be all kinds of new things here. what kinds of things i couldn’t tell you, but you can be sure they’ll be GREAT, because craig is a ROCKET SCIENTIST.

did i ever tell you i had a boyfriend one time who was a rocket scientist? very smart, rocket-science wise. he designed antennas for the rockets. he also grilled the best steak i’ve ever had. argentinian. (both the style of steak and the man). one thanksgiving we had dinner at his house (two blocks from the beach), and while the turkey was in the oven, we took a walk down by the water. the people who lived on the strand, the long walk/bikeway along the water, were sitting out on their patios eating their meals. it was a perfect, sunny, warm and beautiful day, one of the nicest thanksgiving days i can think of. everybody else was back at his house watching football.

today amy told me that there are people reading this who i won’t know are reading, and she knows this because sometimes they’ll talk to jim about things he’s done, and jim will be a little confused as to how they found out about things, and it’s because they’ve been reading.

secret readers. lurking out there.

better than no readers.

is there any good reason at all why i haven’t turned out the light yet?

amy and jim started construction on their house today. so if you’re a secret reader, you could say to jim tomorrow, “hey, how’s that big hole in the ground looking?” and if he wondered how you knew, you could say I HAVE ESP! that might freak him out.

would it be good to have ESP? or what about that mel gibson movie where he could hear everything women were thinking? sometimes i’d like to have that power, but i know it would be the kind of thing that would make a person have to blow their brains out eventually. or what if you could see into the future? i think about that sometimes, too; i think, i sure would like to know where i’ll be, what i’ll be doing, where i’ll be living, a year from now. i never know though. maybe there’s a good book i can buy online that will help me untap that potential seer quality.

seer, not sear.

enough already.

ok then,

grace aimless on monday night.

p.s. for class we had to read a russian play called “inspector,” by a guy named gogol, and it was quite funny. there weren’t a lot of russian playwrights, and gogol got very famous because of this one play. the russians were all about mixing the sorrow and pain with the comedy. but the play is pretty much just funny. i don’t know why nobody ever does the play, because it’s relevant and quite humorous.



Nov. 06, 2005

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CORRECTION: duck blood [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:19 am
it’s DUCK BLOOD soup, not DUCKSBLOOD SOUP, as i previously stated. i looked up recipes, and it seems that the soup is also popular in Poland. Hmm, i wonder if there are other odd recipes that are popular in two such different countries. here’s how one of the recipes begins: “Collect blood from a freshly killed duck. Immediately add 1 TBSP vinegar to keep it from getting lumpy.”

because if there’s one thing i can’t stand in my duck blood soup it’s LUMPINESS.

have i mentioned that we’re not going to have any cold weather this winter here at all? so if you want to head on over to spfld, you’ll find it quite temperate. last night we took the train to Lincoln (a 20-minute train ride) for my brother david’s birthday dinner. we had to stand outside a while at the train station here, and it was perfectly lovely and nice outside. when we had to wait for the train coming back, it was a half hour late, but once again, no worries, not cold. after that there was a violent thunderstorm, but by that time we were safely at mom and dad’s, eating chocolate cake.

so, taking the train to lincoln - mom is crazy about riding the train. she and dad took the train at least once from here to LA when i lived there. she also took the train to austin when i lived there. this makes me feel that perhaps i should move away again, so she’ll have a place to visit.

the train to lincoln is very brief, and the only problem with riding at night is you can’t see the countryside as you go. i do love riding on the train, watching the world go by.

the only problem with taking the train to lincoln for dinner is that i have yet to find a really good restaurant there worth getting to. we used to go to a restaurant called the depot, which is right next to the train stop, but it’s been quite mediocre the last couple of times we went there. i heard great things about a restaurant called guzzardo’s, so we tried it last night.

it’s sort of an odd place. not over the top odd like casa bonita, there were no cliff divers, no scary caves to walk through, no mariachi bands (the more i think about casa bonita, the more i love it). guzzardo’s was packed, PACKED with people. many of them the extra-large size. and each party of people was huge, too, with each table holding about eight to twelve people. in back of our table was a group of bachelorette party girls, who had brought their own champagne. the restaurant doesn’t serve alcohol, and we didn’t know you could bring your own.

in addition to the large parties, and the large people in the large parties, the portions, too, were gigantic. hmm, i see a theme here. i saw the (incredibly efficient) waitresses bringing out slabs of steak that were a couple on inches thick and as big as a large plate. the portions looked as big as the servings that wilma flintstone served to fred. remember those huge ribs she served him? why did i just remember that, anyway? and when’s the last time i saw the flintstones? is it on tv at any time during the day, i wonder?

anyway, massive portions, and we all got italian food since the place is called GUZZARDO’S. it was ok. but just ok, not worth the train ride to lincoln. when we left, we were outside and a cook came out to dump some grease into an enormous grease dumpster (did you know there were such things? it was a giant trash-looking dumpster, except when we walked by, it said it was for GREASE ONLY), and the guy called to us “did you get full?” and we said yes. he didn’t say “did you like your meal?” which is what you’d think a person would ask.

i have so many things to accomplish today, and this week for that matter, that it makes me want to stay in bed. if i can possibly drag my lazy body out of bed, i’m going to start with a run, which will hopefully shake my brain up enough to get busy.

i went to a cabin concert and ann and joe’s on friday night ann & joe’s cabin concerts, and yesterday morning i wrote about it and i’m thinking of actually printing them out and putting them around, since i’ve been WOEFULLY, let me write it again, WOEFULLY errant in doing this. it’s hard, when i don’t have a lot of motivation. T. (Teddy) suggested, again, that i get people to advertise, and to get people to advertise right here on this site, but i somehow can’t get myself to pursue that. why can’t i ever meet an enthusiastic marketer?

the cabin concert was great, by the way, and i’m actually going to another one later this afternoon. this one is also a potluck, and it’s going to be interesting, seeing how they coordinate 60+ covered dishes at this thing. what if lots of people have to heat stuff up? will they all bring crock pots, in which case will they blow a fuse because they’ll be plugged in all over the house? if they are, we could just wander from room to room and eat, a little chili in the bedroom, italian beef in the living room.

wil maring & shady mix are playing, and i’ve already seen them a few times, and so i know how good they are, and i’m looking forward to it immensely. but time is already SLIPPING AWAY from me this morning, i STILL have the many many things to do, so i need to stop this writing right now.

i started my GRACETALK #3 script the other night. i worked on it in the middle of writing an e-mail to somebody. i’m please with it so far, but i have a lot of work to do. new year’s eve, so far when i’ve told people that i’m going to be performing at first night on new year’s eve, they say to me “i’m sorry that i won’t see it because i’m going to be out of town.” will EVERYBODY be out of town? that would be somewhat disappointing. but maybe at least a couple of folks will stick around.

at least my family will be there.

ok ok OK, get to work! time’s a wastin'!

grace slightly motivated this morning although i’d really like to spend another hour in bed, reading.


Nov. 03, 2005

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NO CAVITIES! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:38 pm

see, i knew there were many other important things i wanted to tell you, but i forgot. i’ve been up writing for a while now, and i think i should probably just turn out the light, but i had to add these couple of things.

FIRST, on my first day back here, i went to the dentist, and it’s been a year and eight months since i was there, and i had NO CATIVITES! this was very exciting, because i was sure i’d have at least one.

i have an electric toothbrush sitting on my bathroom counter, it’s been there for well over a year, and i don’t know why i haven’t used it for so long, but i haven’t, but i decided to use it again tonight, in hopes of keeping my teeth shiny and plaque-free. and i have to say that if you don’t have an electric toothbrush, you should rush right out and buy one. they’re great, especially if you’re lazy about brushing your teeth, and really, who isn’t lazy about it? you don’t have to do any of that laborious side-to-side or up and down motion with your hand, all you have to do is hold the brush to your teeth, and the electricity does all the work.

electric tooth brushes, perfect for the lazy. which we all are, to some degree.

a friend called me the other night and asked if there were problems with my site, and i forgot to call him back to tell him that it’s just fine. but then tonight i tried to log on to look at the statistics and there was a big ominous WARNING that i’d USED UP TOO MUCH SPACE ON THE SITE, and the whole thing is going to blow up IMMEDIATELY if i don’t fix it. somehow. i called christine, but i don’t know where she is right now, but hopefully she’ll soon be checking her e-mail, because i also sent her an urgent e-mail, and i know she’s addicted to her computer and will hopefully figure out the GRAVE PROBLEM with this site. i think some things need to be eliminated. very odd.

perhaps i will look up recipes for DUCKSBLOOD SOUP online before going to sleep. “take one duck and squeeze the blood out of it till you have two cups.” that’s how i figure the recipe will start.

i once read an amusing article about a guy who had CHICKEN SUSHI is china, or maybe japan. i mean, we’re talking RAW CHICKEN here. there seems to be an uncooked poultry thing going on in asia, i’m feeling. perhaps somebody could look into this before we ALL DIE OF AVIAN ASIAN DUCKSBLOOD RAW CHICKEN FLU before the winter is through.

friday’s coming.

i can hear it.

ok then,

grace ready for it.

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DUCKSBLOOD SOUP [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:58 pm

there was a thing on npr this evening about the upcoming pandemic in which all of us are going to DIE before winter is over, which is why i just ate four pieces of chocolate, about what they’re doing in vietnam to try to stave off the flu pandemic. i believe they said they’re discouraging people from eating DUCKSBLOOD SOUP.

my central question is, WHY WOULD YOU EVER EAT SUCH A THING???

and if you have been eating bowlfuls of it, please stop, right now. does campbell’s have a special select line of fancy, designer soups, including DUCKSBLOOD SOUP?

is it red? is my other question, although i assume it is.

so, stop eating it because it SOUNDS LIKE THE MOST VILE THING IN THE WORLD, and also, because it will help spread the flu that’s going to kill us all anyway. so i guess you might as well eat the soup, now that i think about it, because if you crave the DUCKSBLOOD SOUP, it’s the only thing you love to eat, well then, since we’ll all be dead by spring, you might as well die with a smile (with a bit of bloody red soup oozing out of the corner of your cold lips) on your face.

they’re also vaccinating chickens.

on monday, when you’re wondering why you were born and feeling very depressed about life and all of that, you can say to yourself AT LEAST I DON’T HAVE A JOB VACCINATING CHICKENS. i can’t imagine that it would be pleaseant in anyway. is all i’m saying.

i got back to springfield, fyi, thanks for all the outpouring of e-mail asking if i got back.

I’VE GOTTEN NO E-MAIL AT ALL SINCE I GOT BACK. NOT ONE GODDAMN E-MAIL.

except for junk e-mail.

i’ve been very busy. tonight we read my play in class. they all liked it. this was gratifying, but when i heard it read aloud, there were things that seemed glaringly apparent that needed fixing. so it was good.

i’m going to TWO cabin concerts this weekend at my friend ann’s house. the first one is tomorrow night, claire lynch, it’s been SOLD OUT for a while now, and i’m pretty sure it’s going to be great. the other one is on sunday afternoon, by wil maring, who i know is great, and then we’re going to have a potluck supper. a 60 people potluck supper. i’m thinking there will be LOTS AND LOTS OF FOOD there.

i’m making guacamole.

ok, so one other thing that’s vexing me, besides finding out that there is such a thing as DUCKSBLOOD SOUP, is this post-halloween candy thing. the chocolate candy is EVERYWHERE, and of course when it’s so pervasive, my only choice is to EAT IT ALL.

very bad.

at my parents' house, there was a large basket of halloween chocolates. this included many fall-colored hershey’s kisses, and they were delicious. but last night there were some siler kisses, and i had one, and it was STALE AND TASTED LIKE CRAP. no chocolate taste at all. i said “where did these crappy chocolates come from?” from amy. the crappy kisses that they had at their house were FOLLOWING me!

i only ate the one.

i was at W.’s (Whistler’s) house today, and asked him where his giant bowl of halloween chocolates had gone to. figuring that i’d be a good person and EAT A BUNCH OF THEM.

“i packaged them up and am taking them to work,” he said.

WHAT ABOUT ME??? WHAT ABOUT MY CHOCOLATE NEEDS?????

i can’t believe the people he works with are RIGHT NOW eating all the delicious halloween chocolates.

very, very sad.

very sad.

very.

sad.

perhaps there will be chocolate in my life tomorrow. you never can tell. always trying to look for the sunny side of the street, the silver lining in the cloud, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow...

or just the good chocolate.

it’s nice to be back in springfield where it was in the SEVENTIES today. and i believe it’s going to get there tomorrow, and then again next week.

i believe we’re just going to skip the shitty grey cold of winter altogether this year.

hope, not giving up hope...

ok then,

grace who is going to be in FIRST NIGHT, which i’m very excited about and have a good idea of what to talk about but i need to GET RIGHT TO WORK on my script ASAP!

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