So that happened.

This is a post about the unpostable.

There.

I said it.

I feel better now.

uh...

Isn't this wrong?

Justina talks about the big R

I think it's time to start talking about Relationships. Capital R. I have standards. There are things that MUST be in a significant other and Dealbreakers. Here they are.

What someone MUST be or do to have me:
*Breathe (a lesson IKEA Anna taught me. I can't just settle for a pretty face I see online.)
*Not smell significantly bad
*Have enough issues to not intimidate me (clinically diagnosed is good. Meds are better.)
*Worship me (not like build a shrine...well, maybe a little one)
*Feed me (I'm so bad at the details of living)
*Not talk when I talk. (Not listen, per se, but, you know, pretend to listen)

Dealbreakers:
*Wanting me to give birth. I may do it once for someone, if some accident happens. But I really rather not.
*Use of the words "booboo" and "oopsie" in regular conversation.
*Being gay -as in having sex with men.
*Thinking raves are fun and being over the age of 23.
*Being the age of 23 or under.
*More stuffed animals than ties (so hypocritical of me, but I DO own more ties than stuffed animals)
*Says "I don't get it" when watching Annie Hall.
*Says "I so get that" when watching a Bush speech.

I'm gonna keep doing this, but I better go home.

What a difference a day makes

I'm pretty okay today. I am a little peeved about boobies, though, so I will have to chat with myself about that later.

The holidays are a definite roller coaster. I have felt fairly bi-polar for the last couple weeks. I have ovaries in overdrive, hormones kickin' in (it is my sexual peak, you know), people analyzing my dates, me analyzing my dates, a dwindling cold, a yo-yo of weights, a desire to vegetate and a desire to take up some kind of martial art.

The kicker? Today, I had brunch with my best friend and we saw these two kids, brother and sister, about 6 and 7 playing on video games at the restaurant. But whatever they were playing required styluses so I theorized that they were actually writing dissertations.

And I got an ovary pang.

I want genius children.

I AM A NORMAL WOMAN! I want babies! When I see a baby I want, I do ache for it, just like all my friends! I just need the right stimulus: a child with glasses and a palm pilot.

Day of Thanks

So, it's the holidays. I am depressed. My other single friends are depressed. My friends in relationships (even the ones who are clinically depressed) are giddy beyond belief.

This is strange.

Because WHO CARES if you're dating during the holidays? If you are, then you have no time to see them or you're introducing them to your issues (also known as "family"). How lame is that?

I don't want that. Hell, no!

I'm so depressed.

Not to be a nit-picky yellow person

But is ANY young geisha in Memoirs of a Geisha actually Japanese?????

My affair with Anna

I love Ikea. I love all things Ikea. I want Ikea. I must have Ikea. It's sick, but it's true. So I went to the Ikea website this morning and I met Anna, the online help center. We then had a torrid, but short lived affair.

Here's what happened...(Note: This was not altered in any way. This is really what she said.)

It started off so well. She was so helpful. So loving.

I showed my bad side, but she just loved. Loved.

Then her love got overbearing.

Problems started. I couldn't quite place it, but something was up.








And then she admitted it to me.


We fought. I said mean things. She got defensive.

We stopped talking.

I can't blog photos!!!

I attached this to my website and eblogger punished me!

I have this great photo collage of my very short lived relationship with IKEA Anna. Now it can't be done...argh.

Body modification

The Ethical Question of Surgery

I started this one and never got to finish it, so here it is again....

I learned today that there are people who want to amputate a limb. Want to. Not “have to.” Not “are better off to do.” Want to.

I’ve never heard of that before. Not just that, but people who willfully split their tongue in half or install horns under their skin. Being a woman who has had a septum piercing, I consider myself a lightweight-but-beyond-navel-piercing bodymod fan. But this was not something you could do in a tattoo parlor. This required a surgeon. A very open minded surgeon.

I have read a bit on Ron Athey and love his work. I remember reading about Fakir. Don’t even ask me his last name, but if you’ve read anything at all about body mod, especially it’s tribal routes, you will know who I mean. And I remember the man who was terminally ill and turned his pain around to make it pleasure and became a super masochist. And the babes. The gorgeous bodies who tattoo or pierce to display their bodies with decoration, to add a tough exterior to their perfect, youthful flesh.

The main reasons to do body mod: Art. Tribalization (be it mimicking the tribal community or reverting to an older culture). Masochism. Kink. Vanity. I’m sure there may be more reasons.

Okay, so some body modification people go under the knife and take away a fully functional part of their body.

Crazy.

Or is it? We accept (as a society) people who go under the knife to increase the size of their breasts, extract parts of their cheeks or buttocks for no reason except looks, or inject into their bodies foreign material to make their faces look "better" or "younger."

These people can't walk into a parlour and change their bodies in this way like one would change their hair color. They must find a surgeon. An open minded one.

Has modern society gone full circle? Has the ritual of tribal modification evolved, faded, and then devolved into "beauty surgery"?

Well, I guess it hasn't even faded. About a century ago, if corsets didn't do the trick, women would have a rib removed to look thin. And the corsets, while not surgery, were so extreme in cutting off circulation, they had to make furniture just for women to faint on.

Women used to ingest arsenic to lighten their skin.

We purposefully treat our bodies, not like temples, but like canvases for our art. And our art is diverse. Porn stars to tribalists.

What does this say about those of us who still have a blank canvas. I currently have no tattoos. No piercings. No elective medical procedure except for braces in high school. And even that was in the guise of "dental health".

Where is our art? What does it say about an artist who ignores this god given canvas? Shouldn't we show our art in any shape we can? And when pen and paper is exhausted why not go to ink on flesh? Or even body removal for art?

If we let go of our gut reaction to be repulsed, where do we go? What would you do if life were like a William Gibson novel? Would you have fingertips with retractable blades? Would you have whiskers? Arms replaced purposefully with prosthetics that could do more? Or less? What would you make with your canvas?

I gotta get up to get off sometimes...

Rob Thomas is a freak....Fuh-reak.

Or I'm projecting lyrics.

So, anywho, I have a cold and it sucks and I just cancelled my evening plans and I hate that and I'm gonna have to cancel in 12 hour increments. Like, if I can't feel better by 9pm, I'm gonna not go to Ikea in the morning. Dude, not go to Ikea? I so need a new bed. I want this bed. Wanna see it?

Justina's Bed

But I really have to see if i can fit under the canopy. That would suck if I didn't fit in my bed.

This means I am now putting my arrested development before any chance of hot action in my own room. But really, I have 12 roommates. Who am I kidding?

Isn't it cool? It's so "let's go camping in the living room"

If you turn it over, it's a low bed. I love all things convertible.

Simplifying sucks ass

I have to update the Sugar website and I really want to add that damn blog that no one wants. Ah hell, who's gonna read archived blog posts anyway. I'm not that interesting. Oh, see, I just went to thinking about my website and I really was talking about the Sugar website. Maybe I should just let the sugar site be my site so the only way to link to my blog is through the sugar people page. then i can get rid of that thorn splitid site and give it to my ex cuz it fits him more anyway. i just have one id. one very strange and damaged id. he has two.

No photos in the archives. That's my problem. It says right there on "How to make your blog more interesting" photos, pictures....I didn't listen.

ooh duran duran...

God, I'm sad

I can't figure out this web simplification I'm trying to do. I want to merge the blog and splitid and sugarshack and feed my blog into sugar's blog.

someone get me some zoloft.

no, no, no, i don't need zoloft. i'm just gonna listen to sad love songs all night.

i promised a friend i'd paint. but all it'd be is "why me?" in acrylic.

hmmm....I should do something creative. It would help this crazy headache...sinuses...kids have strep throat...do I?...oh look, rob thomas.

I had no idea how cool I was

So every once in a while, I stalk myself. I wonder "what would it be like if I was obsessed with me" and I google myself. I have my google search fairly memorized.

Today, I msn searched myself. Now, someone who would actually msn search me deserves my love and I hope they continue to stalk me until I give in and marry them (unless they are stalking me to kill me and that's not nice at all). Anyway, I stalked myself on msn.com.

And look what I found! justina's great accomplishment of 2000

I had no idea how completely administrative I was back then. And who thinks I deserve this? It's very nice of them to think this highly of me. I administered stuff. It's very cool. Stalkers, you gotta msn search me.

Going Queer on Saturday

Gonna see my friend, Kristina Wong, at Akbar, Saturday at 9pm. Dude. It's craaazy. Here's why.

A) I'm going to go out and I never go out.
B) I'm going to bring a posse and I don't even have a posse.
C) I'm gonna wear something hoochie and I have no idea how to do that with six suits and a pair of sweats in my closet.
D) It's Kristina Wong and she's all crazy.

Why would a recluse do this to herself?

Cuz I am on the hunt. I am on the hunt for a good time.

Hellya.

PS To any family who reads this, I mean "good time" as in fun. Not the other "good time" as in "Hey baby, want a good time?" See the difference? Subtle, but very important.

Interesting

I'm adding a photo because it makes my blog more interesting. Are you more interested now? I am. I am so interested that I'm not going to say anything of relevance, because why should I? I'm already interesting. I'm already interesting with my hair and t-shirt and sly smirk. See how clever I look? Why write something clever when I look so clever? You must be mighty enthralled by me right about now. I am on the edge of my seat with interest.

I'm a politician

Tonight is the monthly Mid-City Redevelopment PAC meeting and I'm going. Why am I going? 'Cuz I'm a PAC..Ms.PAC to you. I am an official politician of the Northern tip of South Central.

I don't want to go (please see post below about feeling worthless to changing the community/world-in-general). But I must because it is my one year commitment starting last month.

Month two and I'm already beaten down.

Sigh.

This is why moody writer chicks should never become President.

Drinking Tea

So now I gotta write something for a women's thing for Thursday, so I'm gonna write this while I'm thinking. Ah, the beauty of procrastinating one's writing by writing.

Gee, I just read what I wrote in the last 24 hours and I write a lot when I'm all ferklempt. I should turn this into a book. Then I wouldn't have to write that book I'm writing.

Okay, I think I'll write about addictions or coping mechanisms. I often tell people I'm gonna go get drunk and I make myself tea. This means that alcohol is not my natural coping mechanism. Which is funny cuz when I do use it, it's damned good.

Is writing my coping mechanism? How cute would that be. I'd be all Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Kurt Cobain...But I'd play solitaire if I could just get the mouse to move better.

Solitaire? Gambling? Nah. I'm a bad gambler, but it doesn't mean I got gambling bad.

My finger hurts and I keep typing. That may be a sign.

Ah, I'm just too lazy to go to the liquor store.

That's what I get for writing

Oh sure, I'm a writer. Sure I'm supposed to write. But here's the thing. Writing is my higher power. All you 12 steppers shut the fuck up. Writing is my God. And I worship it. When I leave my higher power it's cuz making me crazy, then I'm willfully denying myself a god. a god that gives and takes away.

So anyway, I start writing last night and it gave me some very good stuff. And within 24 hours I've lost footing in two major components in my life. One of them I said I'd never talk about on a blog. The other is my sense of community. So yet again, I gotta say "fuck you, writing. fuck you, god."

I live in an intentional community. We commune with intent. And I have been spending 24 hours with a cold, healing a crack in my heart, and really pondering what I'm doing here. Not here on the planet, but here in this space. This space that has a mission statement and core values and goals and projects and needs and offerings.

I'm gonna put it on a universal level and venture to say that what I'm about to say is relatable in all parts of life: finance, career, love, sex, housing, friendships...

Universal level: We all want purpose. In every aspect of our lives we are asking that facet to give us purpose. We want a lover to want our love. We want a friend to want our comraderie, we want a community to want us to do all these things within it...to enrich it. I found that community, but the crazy thing about getting what you want is you then have to give what you're asked.

And my community is asking me to create change.

And I don't know how to do that.

I'm sitting here among activism literature, KPFK is playing upstairs, roommates are talking about drug legalization downstairs, a cheesy heist film in on tv (okay, it ain't ALL about the change). And where am I? Sitting here wondering how to keep a good man down.

It's all quite pathetic. And it's been all day.

I've been working in Beverly Hills, shopping for accessories for my cell phone, checking my blackberry, etc etc. And I get home to mid-city and look around and I see my community and how much there is to do. And I don't want it to be the community I came from -sheltered lives with their crack in starbucks mugs and dogs in pink sweaters. I look around my community and I don't want it to stay what it is. From my car window I see where someone got shot, where someone else got purse snatched, where a woman got propositioned, and where a guy exposed himself to my roommate's mother. So here is a community that needs change and we have no model to change it to.

It made me so crazy, I looked at an apartment in West Hollywood. $750 for a small room, refrigerator, stove, and bathroom you can barely bend over in to shave your legs. Cheap, but not. I wanted to move there. I wanted to get out. Out of sight, out of mind.

I'm now in the computer room on the house computer and I'm writing this looking at so much space. Space that I love and covet and need like a drug and it's space that feels wasted on me. Because I don't know how to change it.

I can't change the fact that someone died fifty feet from where I sit. I can't change the fact that a woman was knocked to the ground and robbed before entering my own home. And on a tangent and yet the most pertinent powerlessness of all, I can't change the fact that she wouldn't recognize the man who robbed her because -for lack of a better phrase- they all look a like to her. And for lack of a better analogy, she was most disturbed that she lost her filofax.

I can't change the fact that no one else knows how to change things. All I can do is want to leave because I feel completely powerless. Completely invisible. Every thing I grasp goes right through my fingers.

And I want to leave.

I have a cold

It's too much. I've done too much. I have a cold and I can't even get the energy to make myself some thera-flu cold.

That's not true. I have energy. I'll be right back.

(muzak plays)

I'm back. I didn't get thera-flu. I made some cup o noodles. But I bet the sodium will do wonders for my sore throat.

I have nothing to talk about.

I have a cold and I hate having colds and I hate the person who gave it to me who is either one of the kids, one of my coworkers, one of the people at the gas station I got gas from last week or God. I hate them all.

Bastard. Other writers bring me back

I'm going to start off by saying I've spent the last month not writing. I have consciously tried not being a writer. and thus. not writing.

It was hell and heaven at the same time. (note how 30 days of not writing has made this writer a tad derivative).

So I revelled in "days off"...guilt free moments of not feeling like I "should" be writing. I slept. I watched tv. I hung out. Not with people, mind you, just with myself.

I even let my cell phone die and I haven't been on it for a couple weeks now. I became the person I always wanted to be. A recluse.

Sure, the insomnia kicked in. The panic attacks. The hypochondria. All the things that happen to me when I don't write. But I would talk myself down and endure. And it was good.

In that time, I got a great job. I re-assessed some things in my life. I pruned activities. Found a tv show. Said farewell to a roommate and friend (he is now likely on top of a whore in the Philipines, God bless him). I relaxed. I painted a bathroom. I met a boy. I lived. Goddammit. I lived.

And then it happened. My roommate is on word 9,852. The boy I met....writes. And we parted with one of us having the intent to write. It wasn't me. Writing Writing Writing. The world is filled with writers and they're making my head hurt.

I said goodbye and good writing to this boy, closed the door, and took a deep breath of non-writer contentment. Suddenly. Oh, so suddenly. I got a pang. It was mild at first, but I knew immediately that this pang was taking me to the inevitable. I would write.

And so I went online and checked email, hoping that would sate me. But no one emailed (er, reclusivity has drawbacks). And then I went shopping for a new mattress. No sating me. So I read some blogs. Not sated. In fact, terribly jonesing.

So I went here. And the craziest thing. The first two times, I found myself at a Christian armageddon website. Not sure how, but I was rerouted. My blog was gone.

End of the world indeed. All those posts. All those baby monologues for my monologue shows. All those witty words replaced by some crazy end-times "fact sheet".

Ironic. Not in the true sense, but in the Alanis Morisette sense.

And I walked away. This was too much trouble. I knew I didn't need to be a writer.

Free again.

And then someone went to the same computer (it's the Sugar Shack computer), cursed, and fixed it.

And there was my blog.

And here I am.