core dump!

holy shit, it's been a year since i posted here.  i'm way too sleep depped (and gotta go to bed) to go into detail, so... bullet point form:

1) w00t!  offer on a river north condo got accepted.  my ass is moving, i think.  i like my current place a lot, but the new one blows this away.  so much swankier.  though, i think the view here might be sliiiightly better.  i dunno.  new place has a wide-open view north and west, and a bit of loop view south.  man, i'm never gonna get a lake view :[  but yeah, current place has an amazing layered city view.  ngggh, decisions.  either way i'ma rent the one i'm not living in until the market bounces back.  yay for investments!

2) this song is awesome:

that's technically dubstep.  or chillstep.  but 99% of dubstep is horrid; it sounds like a dumptruck stuck in reverse.  the remaining 1% is stuff like the above: sexy, sublime.

i gotta say, i'm also kinda obsessed with katy perry's ET right now.  seriously.  it's embarrassing, but i f'ing love it.  also, i didn't realize katy perry was so hot.  i love her retro look.  i love her body, good god.  it's not all toned and ripped the way most pop stars/movie stars/models' are, and it's so fucking hot. O_O

3) i think part of the reason i'm finding katy perry's slightly retro look, vibe, and body hot is biological.  economic downturn = men are attracted to women that look like they'd be able to propagate the species.

4) related:

Does Playing Hard to Get Work?

... and that, plus my predilection for fancy shit, is why i have a thing for ice queens.

5) FUCK MASS EFFECT 3'S ENDING.  mass effect 1: so fucking good storywise.  so many hard choices with consequences you can almost foresee.  such an amazing revelation of truth toward the end.  mass effect 2: broadened that story out; added amazing gameplay.

mass effect 3?  well.  on one hand, most of the game was amazing.  there were some genuinely amazing moments in it.  there was also one moment where i realized i am a fucking shadow lord irl.

digression begin!

the basic premise of the game series: you're facing galactic extinction at the hands of the Reapers, sentient machine-gods that wipe out all life every 50,000 years.  you're trying to prevent this at all costs.  now, in this world there's a species -- the krogan -- who are very warlike and brutal and multiply quickly and tend to want to conquer everyone else by simply rampaging over them.  a couple hundred years ago this species was given cutting edge technology by the advanced races and sicced on those races' enemies.  then when those enemies were dead, the krogan began to rampage.  in order to quell them, the advanced races inflicted a bioweapon on them that made it so that only one in a thousand krogan children survived birth.

fast fwd a few hundred years.  in the face of galactic extinction, you've gone to get the krogans' support.  they'll only support you if you cure their genetic disease.  meanwhile, the species that first developed the disease -- a science-y espionage-y species called the salarians -- think curing the krogans will just cause them to run rampant again.  their leader tells you that unless you sabotage the cure, they won't help you in the war.  add in another confounding element: one of your friends, who helped you through the second game, is the salarian scientist who has developed the cure.  he has a personal stake in this; a while ago he developed an upgraded version of the disease when the krogan were showing signs of evolving past it.  he's regretted it ever since, and needs to make it right.

all this comes to a head on a mission where you've gone to release the cure into the krogan atmosphere.  you basically have a choice: sabotage the cure and betray the krogan, who'll still fight and die for you, or disperse the cure and lose the salarians.  but if you sabotage the cure, your friend will revolt and try to fix the cure anyway.

at that point, i was seriously morally conflicted.  but it came down to this: the galaxy is at risk.  and the hard math of it is simply two armies are better than one.  and yeah, i'll feel like a shit, sacrificing my personal honor and betraying an entire species -- to their death -- WITHOUT THEIR EVEN KNOWING.  but if that's the reason i don't do it, and then at the end of the day when my armada squares off against the reapers and we die because we were ONE ARMY SHORT OF VICTORY... then i can't imagine a greater regret.

so i sabotaged the cure.  and my friend tried to fix it.  and i couldn't talk him down.

so i shot him.  in the back.  not because i didn't like the krogan, not because i didn't think they deserved a second chance, not because i thought they'd really run rampant again, but because at the end of the day: i am a fucking shadow lord, and the ends justify the means.

... but my goddd i felt bad.

digression end!

now.  you'd think with moral choices like THAT, you'd be able to really feel every consequence in the end, right?

WRONG.  end of game?  ULTIMATE SUCK.  literally the only outcome of ALL your choices across three games is 1) a "scoreboard" tracking the point value of the armies you've rallied, and 2) three endings that were sequentially unlocked if your total score was over certain limits.  and oh, those three endings?  they pretty much differ in the color of their explosions.

i shit you not.

as for the consequences of three games' worth of gutwrenching decisions?  well, those differ mainly in BARELY VISIBLE DETAILS seen in still pictures glimpsed for 2 seconds apiece at the end of the game.  oh hey!  a krogan is sitting sadly alone.  that's the outcome of ALL THAT HEARTACHE up there.  and i won't even get into all the other choices i made that barely made a difference -- or even better, were simply retconned out of existence by game three.

FUCK.

YOU.

BIOWARE.

FUCK YOU.

6) more about games:

that's a vid combining the audio files for what must be the coolest boss in WoW.  basically he's an "Observer" sent down by the "Pantheon" -- gods that created everything and then basically just left it alone to develop as it wished -- to see if Azeroth was still doing a-ok.  well; when Algalon shows up, evil-ass cthulhu-type Old Gods are running amok, their Watchers on azeroth are corrupted or dead, and Shit Has Hit The Fan.  so he's preparing to send a message to the Pantheon to "reoriginate" azeroth, and the raid's job is to stop him.

these are the things he says.  you can tell pretty much what his story is from it.  but whoever made this file brilliantly combined his voiceovers with "the surface of the sun," from Sunshine -- which is a little-known scifi movie that was one part AMAZING THOUGHTFUL INTROSPECTION ON HUMAN NATURE/TOUCHING THE DIVINE, and one part WTF SLASHER FLICK.  i'm ambivalent about the movie.  but the music is beautiful, and...

this juxtaposition is just perfect.  it's perfect.

crepes!

this is my second try making crepes, and lemme just say: I HAVE MASTERED THE ART.

behold:



check that out. just check it out. PAPER THIN. and look at that gorgeous lace-pattern browning. and that's not even getting into how good they taste.



you can't really see the contents cuz i put too much whipped cream on, alas. but those crepes contain some or all of the following:

- peaches
- blueberries
- strawberries
- honeydew
- mocha ice cream
- whipped cream

...and are dusted with confectioner's powdered sugar. it's the yummiest diabetes-inducer ever.

in case you're interested, the recipe i used was as follows:

- 1 cup flour
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup half'n'half (it was supposed to be milk but i haz no milk)
- 3 eggs
- a splash of vanilla extract

so fucking awesome :D

oh! random note about the dishes: i've actually had those dishes since i went off to college. my mom packed them for me because they're huge, heavy, ugly, and durable. she figured 1) i probably won't break them, and 2) even if i did, it was no great loss. ironically, i only ever broke a single bowl. they're heavy as ROCKS, though. solid earthenware. i actually really like them, because they're so sturdy you can actually stick them straight into the oven and use them as baking pans.

anyway, yes. i'm an awesome cook. beware, i might end up posting up pics of all sorts of shit i make. i've totally discovered the addiction of awsumfone's cam.

daw, i graduated.

...from traffic school, that is.

So I managed to go 35 years without a single ticket. Believe me, it wasn't because I had safe driving practices. I have recollections from my earlier driving days that raise my own hairs. Still, I managed to get away either un-caught or with warnings.

Then, last spring, I got a speeding ticket. The CHP caught me on the I-280.

...speeding.

...at 102mph.

...in a 65mph zone.

...and that was after slowing down from about 115.

:D

So, yes, okay. I deserved that. Completely. I also deserved it for all the times I've sped insanely without getting caught. However, not too long after, I got caught again -- by the Stanford campus police, of all things -- because I rolled through a stop sign. Also something I've done all my life.

THEN, I got caught by the SFPD for going nearly 60 on city streets. In a 35mph zone. ALSO something I've done all my life (when late).

All this happened within 6 months or so. So now I am paranoid as fuck. When I think I see a flash of red-white-blue lights, my heartrate shoots up. I will admit, though, that it's made me a better driver.

That said, it didn't really cure my procrastination issue. After my third ticket (back in like, September), I put it off until the court mailed me the reminder. Then I paid the fine (close to $400, OUCH) and signed up for traffic school. This was back in early December.

After that, I ignored it again until day before yesterday I realized I had to complete traffic school by 2/2 or get it on my permanent record. So I signed on, puttered around, meandered through sections, and forgot about it altogether on Tuesday.

Then today, Wednesday, I suddenly realized I had like 3 hrs left to finish. And this fucking thing is designed so that you're forced to spend some amount of time per page or it won't let you go on to the next page. AND there are mandatory 20-minute movies sprinkled in.

So to make a long story short, it came down to the bare, cutting wire. When I finally finished the "Final Exam", I had 13 minutes left on the clock. I literally would not have finished on time if I spent another 13 minutes at Safeway. Or on the horn with my family (they're having a minireunion with my sis, parents, and grandparents). Or, or, or.

However, it all paid off. Cuz. I got this! :]



Daw, they gave me a little graduation cap. So cute.

In other news, I recently gave kai a boks full of goodies. She really liked it. It made me really happy :] I'm really not much of a giftgiver, but ... yeah. Once in a while I really do enjoy it. Cuz. Yeah! The glow of altruism.

:]

Also, Drak N. Stomy is the best name ever.

epic awesome dream!

this dream was from 11/08. this is the gmail i typed to jess the morning after i dreamt it *LOL*

--

dude, i had the most AWESOME, EPIC, STORYLINE dream last night. it was so awesome that when the alarm woke me, i lay there just trying to engrave as much of it into my brain before it slipped away *LOL* i still lost big chunks of it, as well as the awesome dream-logic that tied it together, but this is what i remember (doubtlessly with waking-logic tying the parts together) --

i was like... a member of this huge family, part russian aristocracy, part sicilian mafia, part roman aristocracy. as in, ANCIENT ROMAN *LOL* i mean, the "feel" of it was very Godfather, but at the same time we lived in like this huge dacha-type estate out in the country, and there was a bit of a late 19th century feel to it all. but the cars and technology seemed to be from the mid-to-late 20th century. and at the same time there was a pirate-y/naval feel to the family, because our firepower lay in huge, enormous ships that were sort of reminiscent of 17th century galleons on steroids, as well as biplanes. so it was like this giant mishmash of eras and stuff.

anyway, my grandfather was the patriarch of the family, and i was his firstborn grandson and therefore heir to the family, but i was sort of a prodigal son, and there were like... TONS of other cousins, some near, some very very distant, many of whom were in higher favor than me. i had grown up abroad or something, so while i was theoretically the first in line, i actually wasn't very close to my grandfather, and in my absence my snaky cousins had been currying favor.

okay, that's the setup. now the action!

at the beginning of the dream, i was returning to my grandfather's estate after years and years away from the fold. i was going back there after a long long time because i think my grandfather's foster son (who was inexplicably german, even though i was pretty sure we were either roman or russian) was visiting as well, and he decided to call all the brood back. so i take this LONG trip, from early morning train ride to this car drive through a gorgeous countryside in the afternoon, all the way to the seashore where the estate is by evening.

once i'm there it turns out my best friend was apparently one of my first cousins, but in my dream he was actually an illegitimate child or something, or at least a son of a previous marriage (his mother being not of the family), so that even though he was theoretically more or less next in line to me, he was excluded from the 'lineup'. his brother, however (in my dream he had a brother, not a sister *LOL*), was a fullblooded grandson, and was essentially my rival. and once i see this, i get all competitive and i kinda decide i'm going to stay until i reclaim my birthright.

some opening shots are fired -- this is all murky for me now so i can't remember exactly what happens, but all the scheming is kinda under the surface, and at the surface there's just this almost-imperceptible tension between me and my main rival of a cousin. meanwhile there's a big celebration in honor of the foster grandson, who's totally oblivious to the undercurrents around him, and like, night after night of festivities.

sometime in the course of those festivities, i meet this chick who i believe is like, the LOVE OF MY LIFE. or maybe i'd brought her with me from abroad. i'm not totally clear, because she's not actually the LomL *LOL* but i think she is! and we're all In Love. also in the dream's cast of hot females are 1) this sort of cheerfully slutty but good-hearted chick, and 2) this sort of distant, elegant, ice queen chick who i can't really read, but i suspect might be jostling for position in the family too, and therefore one of my dangerous rivals.

and yes, they're both DEFINITELY my dream-cousins. but for the sake of my sanity i'm gonna tell myself they are veryveryvery distant cousins *LOL* and anyway! ROMAN/RUSSIAN ARISTOCRACY! KEEP IT ALL IN THE FAMILY! WAUGH!

*gets over it*

so, yes. while opening shots are getting fired and i'm getting reintroduced to grandfather, i'm also kinda wasting all my time dallying with the LOML. and then!!! during one of the big fancy parties, the LOML gets kidnapped or something. like, my best friend comes to me totally grim and tells me the LOML has disappeared. and that i'd received a sort of sadistic serial-killer-game sort of phone call with clues and whatnot, which my best friend had received instead of me because i'd been at the party but he was excluded.

so we break off our partying to deal with the crisis. and for some reason i'm completely sure it's the hot ice queen chick who's responsible for all this (rather than the more obvious suspect of my #1 rival, aka best friend's half-brother), so i go to confront her in like this... posh drawing room type place, and i'm totally furious. and we yell at each other for a while, hurling blame and recriminations and yeowza mega sexual tension, until suddenly we kinda OMGMAGNETGLOMP together. insert very hot sex. and then afterwards, rather guilty about my untimely betrayal of the KIDNAPPED LOML, esp cuz there's sort of a time limit on the whole thing, we set out in search of her.

this part kinda gets a little fuzzy again. somehow the german fostercousin is helping, as is my best friend, and we're like... tromping the beach (where there are some super-posh... ... i dunno, glass houses? *LOL* sorta a cross between a lifeguard station, a see through beach cabin, and a greenhouse) and the streets of this sorta london-esque city, and all the while subtle sparks are flying between me and the icequeen (including this sorta poignant moment where we all link hands to cross a dangerously busy street -- apparently in my dream, STREETS ARE HOMICIDAL!! -- and then afterwards, the two of us hold hands a little longer than necessary without either of us making any mention of it), and i'm like, lustlustlust, guiltguiltguilt.

eventually it's well into the night, and we kinda give up and go home. more sex occurs in illicit corners of the house, and then afterwards i'm like, torn between this guilt that i'm cheating on the girl that's been KIDNAPPED and is possibly GETTING KILLED RIGHT NOW, and this utterly inescapable realization that in fact, kidnapped girl is not the LOML, the ice queen is. and once i realize that, there's like, no guilt. i'm just UBER HAPPY -- but at the same time i had this odd feeling that the happy wouldn't last? so, to take advantage of the moment, more sex happens.

so anyway. then! i think it's like the next morning, or at least time to search again. and then -- it's blurry again, but i think the general gist is the ex-LOML DIES. so i fly into this rage of guilt and grief, and i blame the true LOML for it, and we basically suffer an extremely bitter breakup.

so now i'm single again, with one dead ex-LOML and one angry LOML. a few days or weeks go by in my dream. the german goes home to germany, while i stay at my grandfather's estate. more scheming occurs, and gradually i wake up to the fact that hey, it's probably the best friend's half brother that's behind this mess. meanwhile, in vicious petty-nesses, i go and sleep with the slutty cheerful chick, while the true-LOML/ice queen goes and vengeance-sleeps with the half-brother. which of course makes me UTTERLY FURIOUS. anyway, lots and lots of competitive sex occurs at this point, complete with me telling myself i'm totally not in love with the LOML and whatnot.

meanwhile, on the plotting front, things are building to a head. and when a showdown basically becomes inevitable, i go to confront the LOML again about her potential role in the schemes (ostensibly, anyway), but of course as soon as we're alone together (this time in one of the uberposh bathrooms, where i think she was putting on her perfume or something, cuz there were little glass vials everywhere), i'm like, totally overcome with omglust and we MAGNETGLOMP together again. and as YET MORE SEX occurs, i'm just thinking -- omfg, LOML, WITHOUT A QUESTION.

and then! i think the poor slutty-cheerful-nice-chick walks in on us! and i'm like ACK! and she's like WAH! and then of course i go chasing after her, and she's like, WAH, i knew you never loved me, but i never thought you were just USING ME! WAH!!! and i'm like aw but i think you're nice! and she's like F U, LEAVE ME ALONE!

so i do. and i go back to the LOML, and we kinda sit together gloomily, trying to figure out what to do next, and trying to figure out where the other stood, exactly, on the whole power-grab.

then!!! i get news (again from bestfriend, the messenger of bad things!) that the poor sluttycheerfulnice chick has been kidnapped! and it's like the same deal -- we have a set amount of time to free her or she dies. and we're tromping through the streets again, but then the killer (my bestfriend's halfbro?) CHEATS, the bastard, or at least pretends to cheat, and we get a phone call WAY ahead of schedule that it's too late and we've failed. and i go fuming back to the estate to kill the smug bastard once and for all -- and i walk in on yet another grandiose ball because it seems the ever-celebrated german fostercousin has returned.

and -- i run into him, and he's like finally getting a sense of the tumult beneath the exterior. and he's like, "Your people are really very complex, aren't they?"

and my alarm goes off. AND I NEVER FIND OUT HOW IT ENDED!!! *LOL*

how is he not dead?

so.

i did my annual pilgrimage down to so-cal over thxgiving week to visit old friends. drove back today. the leg from LA to palm springs and back, i drove with lily. the leg from SF to LA (and LA to SF on the return trip), i drove with a friend of mine.

now. coming down, i let him drive the central valley stretch. about 2 hrs of DEAD EASY driving. just two lanes northbound two lanes southbound -- STRAIGHT as an arrow. easy traffic.

he:

1) apparently does not understand the meaning of "high revving engine". a high revving engine is one where the RPMs soar easily to get you into the "sweet spot" sooner. the redline is high -- 8000rpm -- but in normal driving, you still shift at 2750rpm or so, just as usual. this means you shift much sooner than a normal stickshift car might. i.e., 10mph is the 1-->2 shift, 20mph is the 2-->3, etc etc. you can EASILY coast in 6th gear at 45mph, though if you wanted the extra oomph, you could stay in lower gears for brief power bursts.

this idiot, despite my REPEATED admonishments, stayed in 1st until 20mph. he stayed in 2nd until 35mph. 3rd was somewhere around 45. 4th was around... 60. 5th was about 75. 6th gear, he sometimes forgot altogether. and other times, he'd DOWNSHIFT into 4th trying to hit 6th.

ARGH.

now as if that wasn't bad enough, he also:

2) swerved. for no fucking apparent reason. every 3 min or so. and then! he started reaching for food behind the seat... GOING 85MPH... while passing a HUGE semi... while SWERVING one-handed.

ughhh.

and yet, somehow, i thought it would be a good idea to let him drive TODAY, when traffic was GODAWFUL. you'd get stretches of 70-80mph. then out of the blue you'd get 20mph, or even 0mph. you really need to hang back from the car in front of you and be ready to brake to a DEAD STOP for no apparent reason. and i had my reservations about letting him drive and all... but i figured if i got us through the mtns and onto the straightaway, even a moron like him couldn't fuck it up too bad.

lo, was i ever wrong.

so coming down the long, long hill into the central valley -- the traffic slows to a standstill. this MORON (who is, once again, going 60mph in 4th gear) KEEPS. ACCELERATING.

it was like he couldn't see the long line of red brake lights in front of him. he just never got off the gas until the LAST POSSIBLE INSTANT, upon which he SLAMS on the brakes and comes to a hard stop about 4 inches from the car in front of us.

i'm like, "dude, be careful."

he's like, "okay!"

and i figure, well, maybe it's just a freak mistake. i'm sure he'll be scared straight now.

10 min later? he does it again. accelerating at brake lights.

so i'm like, "DUDE, you're going to crash my car."

he's like, "it's not my fault! i didn't know they'd stop!"

i'm like, "you better get used to it. it'll happen again."

and 10 min after that? cars in front of us suddenly show red for like a half mile. it is OBVIOUS TO A BLIND MAN that they're going to slow to a crawl, if not a standstill.

this fucker is staring right at the traffic. and he keeps accelerating. and i'm feeling bad for ragging on him, so i hold my tongue.

and he doesn't slow down.

and the cars in front of us are coming at us REALLY FAST now.

and he's still going 65mph and accelerating.

and finally i realize if i don't say something his ass is going to crash. so i'm like "FUCK! SLOW DOWN!"

and he's like, "FUCK! OH SHIT!" SLAMS on the brakes. i feel the antilock kicking in, and the car is still about to go out of control, and he's swerving all over the road, and it's a FUCKING MIRACLE that he doesn't hit the guy on the side.

he screeches to a stop literally TWO INCHES from the car in front of us. he's like hyperventilating like a little bitch: "oh my god! oh my god! what HAPPENED!"

i'm like, "YOU WERE ACCELERATING AT A STOPPED CAR, YOU FUCKHEAD."

he's like, "it's not my fault!"

i'm like IT HAPPENED THREE FUCKING TIMES. so i have him pull the fuck over, and i drive the rest of the way.

13 hr drive. i drove 12 of them. and the hour i DIDN'T drive was hands-down the most stressful.

i don't understand how idiots like him can still be alive in our car-centric society. i really do not understand how someone can be THAT BAD at driving, and not have crashed and burned already. though honestly, this isn't just being bad at driving. it's like the part of your brain that processes depth perception and speed information is MISSING from him. he seemed to have NO grasp whatsoever of how fast the cars in front of him were accelerating ... or braking. furthermore, he seemed to be fucking colorblind. red lights all ahead, and this moron is ON THE GAS. and to top it all off, he had NO LEARNING ABILITY. you could explain it to him 10 times, and he could FUCK UP 3 times, and still never learn.

jesus fucking christ. such a fucking fishheaded IDIOT.

why do i do this to myself?

i want to die.

for some reason it seemed like a good idea to me to procrastinate until i'm almost out of time (again). then it seemed like a good idea to simply pull an all nighter to convince myself to not do this then. THEN it seemed like a good idea, since i was pulling an all nighter anyway, to not start working until, y'know, nighttime.

ergo i started writing this grant report at about 8pm last night.

okay, more like 10pm.

now -- one giant coffee, 3 espressos, one smaller coffee, one beer, one glass hpnotiq and 7 single-spaced page with tinyassfont later...

it's 8am. almost.

i'm fucking dead. my stomach feels all liquid from all the caffeine i ingested. i'm dizzy, my eyeballs are dry, and it's a bright new day.

WHOOPEE!

chess and the summer of stress.

ok. finally getting around to setting this down: the saga of the SUMMER OF STRESS.

so. basic background story you need to know: i work as a resident doctor with UCSF. now, i've always been happy with the prospect of practicing for the rest of my working life, but lately i thought that might just grow a little bit repetitive - patient after patient, case after case.

thus, i decided to look for some research opportunities. a lot of MDs do research, particularly at reputable university hospitals, and really, it's kind of ideal: science that has a real-life (clinical) application.

summer rolls around, and that's when my schedule frees up a tad bit. i start looking for a lab to join as a fellow. i home in on a lab in UCSF, which does stroke research. awesome doctor, very famous, one of the leading neurosurgeons of the world. so i'm thinking, how awesome would it be to work for him? he's got clout, he's got money, he's got great research going.

so, i approach him. ask him if he would like to take me on, and he says he'll have to test me out first for a month or two. i'm thinking, well, that's one or two months i'll have to essentially work overtime to cover for the time i spend in his lab, since he's not funding me yet, but i figure i have a pretty good shot at getting in.

i say yes. i join the lab on a temporary basis, and start cranking away. and i work HARD. i'm putting in like 10 hours a day at his lab, and that's on top of my other duties. i more or less LIVED at work for two months.

about a month into it, i talk to him about joining the lab permanently. he hems and haws and says, i can't make a decision yet. so i figure, all right. i gotta work harder. so i work HARDER. and now i'm churning out the data of three people, and he needs this data, btw, for a grant proposal.

fast forward a month. now he's got all the data he needs for his grant proposal. he's still not saying anything one way or another, and i'm starting to get antsy -- because if i don't find one this summer, i'll be too busy til next summer, and i only have so many years left in residency. after that, it might get a bit tougher to find a research fellowship at a place as good as UCSF.

so i finally ask him straight-out. he's like, let's talk next week. so i give him ANOTHER week of hard work --

-- and then his ass is like, i'm too busy for an MD research fellow. i'd have to mentor you from scratch, and it wouldn't be fair to you.

BULLSHIT.

what's not fair to me is keeping me on the line for 2 months, getting me to do all his crap work for free, and then telling me no at the end. oh man, i was FURIOUS. i think about it now and i'm steaming out my ears. i've worked with a LOT of famous doctors and professors, and some have been a little more -- er, brusque than others. but this takes the cake, man. i've never worked with anyone who was so utterly disrespectful of his underlings. i just hope i don't end up like him in 20 years.

so anyway. at this point, i'm in a mild panic, because it's now like mid-July and i'm starting from scratch. so i start looking into labs again, and this time i cast a wider net and look at labs down in Stanford too.

i get two possibilities: one very well-funded, youngish lab in UCSF, and another very established lab down at stanford. i weigh my options and i decide the latter lab's the one i wanna go to. better research going on, more interesting to me, more medically relevant, and the people seemed friendlier.

problem was, it's down in stanford. and money's the big problem. if it's in UCSF, i can talk to my program director, wheedle my way into some funding. if it's down in Stanford, there's all sortsa issues with funding and grants and applicable/nonapplicable yaddayadda... bottom line is, funding was VERY much in question.

so at this point, my life became a fucking chess game.

the pieces were:

1) Young PI (principle investigator, i.e. research professor) at UCSF, my backup plan.

2) Program Director, who's not at all obligated to pay for me to run off to Stanford and do research there -- however, he wrote an email in the course of the summer saying he'd be willing to offer a year's funding under the PI of the lab took over.

3) PI at Stanford, the one I wanna get in with.

4) Me.

So what I basically had to do was ascertain that that year's funding was still coming from the PD until the PI at Stanford can take over. Meanwhile, I had to avoid blowing my chances with the backup plan, and thus had to avoid showing him i was essentially looking for another lab. And at the same time, I couldn't make it look like I was going behind his back when all was said and done.

ERGO. Balancing act. Had to maintain enough interesting with #1 to avoid his backing out, while not locking in with him -- which would cause bad feelings if i then backed out. At the same time, had to remind #2 gently of the 1 year of funding WITHOUT asking him (because if I ask, it'd be much easier to say no), while making it clear to #3 that funding was the ONLY thing keeping me from going there so he didn't think I was waffling.

For about a week, it was the most delicate game of emails, phone calls and office visits I have EVER played. In the end, I visited #1 several times with made-up questions to make it seem like I was still trying to decide. Then, fortunately, he took a vacation, and I made my move! (hah)

I wanted to do it in person, because I'm pretty good in person -- but #2's busy as hell, and I figured if I interrupted something important, he'd be annoyed. And if I went away and let him contact me, he might ask about funding first, thus forcing me into a backhanded position where I'd have to admit that the professor didn't have funding -- which then gives him the opening to say "well sorry, we can't fund you either."

CHESS.

So, in the end, I dropped #2 an email essentially telling him I've settled on the Stanford lab, and *thanking* him for the funding. At the same time, I made it clear that without funding, I'd be unable to join that lab, thus backing him into a corner of guilt. Finally, to polish it off, I expressed my extreme gratitude at all his support, yadda, to top the guilt-cake with gratitude-icing.

Then I waited.

BUT HE WAS ON VACATION!

Oh no! Oh man! I almost LOST MY MIND when the autoresponder bounced back. I went to his old buddy, this lady who's very senior and powerful in the department, and basically pleaded my case there. With #2, I couldn't really give the full story -- or rather, couldn't play up the "if I don't get money I don't go" angle, because my angle there was "thanks for giving me the money". But with #2's buddy, I was completely hamming up the pity schtick, while simultaneously giving my best impression of bushy-tailed bright-eyed eager young doctor. The old and embittered docs love that.

So #2's friend sounded pretty positive about the whole thing, and said she'd make sure #2 got back to me soon. Annnnd then I went home, fretful but hopeful.

Not four hours later, I get an email back. Two lines.

"We will fund you for another year. Congratulations on finding a good fit."

...oh man.

Went home that night? Slept 13 hours. I hadn't even realized I was so exhausted. Slept like a BABY.

I swear, this summer has taught me so much. I think my parents have been trying to teach me this all my life, but I finally figured it out for myself:

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CONNECTIONS AND THE POLITICAL GAMES.

it's so fucking disillusioning, sorta. heh. i mean, it's not about brilliance and hard work at all. or it is? but in a place like ucsf or stanford, everyone's brilliant. everyone works hard. so you get ahead by under-the-table shoo-ins and connections and that extra smile in the hallway, that extra office visit when it counts.

ah well. welcome to life, eh?

daydream!

heh, so...

pissiness at bri is over. i remembered something totally small and dumb and all my anger just evaporated like so much isopropanol on a hot day. earlier today i bought a pack of orbit gum and i've never bought it before and i was opening it wrong - i was basically trying to tear it open by brute force - and she reached over, so earnest and not at ALL condescending, really trying to help, and was like, "Oh...! Damon, here, like this: you open this flap? And then to close it? You push it in here."

oh man, it was just so sweet. heh. fwp! there went the anger.

also helpful was rereading some old diary rants. though... heh. in the HUNGRY!!! one? i mentioned something like never being able to daydream vividly.

it was true then.

it is SO not true anymore.

so - on the way back from palm springs over thxgiving - did i mention i went to palm springs to hang out with old, old high school friends from san diego, now scattered all over the country, over thxgiving? well, i'm mentioning it now: it was AWESOME. a week of bachelor partying in my best friend's parents' sprawling palm springs almost-mansion. staying up all night, drinking til the room spun and then calling those few friends that didn't make it to the reunion to let them know what they were missing out on, trying to cook our own turkey, running out for breakfast at IHOP's at 7am WITHOUT HAVING SLEPT THE NIGHT BEFORE... watching movies at all hours, driving around, hanging out, just... hanging out, like in the good ol' days - oh man. it was glorious. like being 17 again.

anyway. digression.

on the way back from palm springs, i was physically and mentally exhausted, hung over, and heavily influenced by having watched bits of X-men on TV the night before while guzzling massive quantities of vodka.

annnnd i had a very vivid daydream.

(heh. NC-17 part ahead.)

about fucking famke janssen.

and. omfg. it was SO FUCKING HOT.

so there's me, sitting on the tiny puddlejumper between palm springs and LA before i transferred to the 737 from LA to SF - 40 minutes flight, NOISY AS HELL, and i was sitting on the single-seat aisle on the left of the plane, eyes shut, trying to sleep but unable to recline cuz we were taking off, so my mind was just wandering, and somehow, SOMEHOW, it just touched on famke janssen.

(for those not in the know, she's jean grey in x-men. yeeeah. her. lithe and lean with those mmm mmm ENDLESS legs and that wonderfully ...danish? was she danish? well, north-euro-but-not-too-north face. gaaahh. she's so fine.)

and, i can't even remember what it was. just kinda like an idea that flitted in and out of my mind. and next thing i know i'm like, picturing this, right, picturing HER. then i'm picturing her... NAKED. annnnd i was like, hell, while i'm at it, HEH.

and it got outta hand from there on out.

not gonna go into (too much) detail, but: heh. yeah. those laaaiggs sliding around my ribs and up my back. and the way the shadows fell across her face in the darkness. the way her eyes looked close-up. arching of the neck, her one hand on my jaw, her other on my chest, up against the wall - daayum. it was just amazing how much detail was crammed in there, all vivid-sharp, sharper, in fact, than in real life because - let's face it - when you're getting it on with a gorgeous woman in real life, you don't have the presence of mind to focus on the way she looks close-up, the way those eyes shut and then open, glimmer, the crystal-clear/dark-fuzzy way she was licking her lips.

daydream = COOL.

and the most incredible thing was - it was semiautonomous, the daydream. i mean things happened that surprised me a bit, and that's important in sex (even imaginary sex), to stay surprise-able. but at the same time, i had enough control over the whole daydream to, say, change positions. or kinda just fade out and fade in on a totally different scenario. not to mention, i could kinda pause the action at a point, skip back to an earlier favorite-point, and replay that before going on with the previous one.

it was like directing my own personal softcore porn, man. it KICKED ASS. i was so damn disappointed when the plane suddenly jolted down at LAX. i hadn't gotten to the end yet! there was a stretch left to go and i wasn't done yet! and i tried to pick up the thread again, later, but somehow i always either fell asleep first, or my mind wandered elsewhere.

i think to daydream, you need to almost be meditating. sitting, not lying down. and in a certain tired/but not ready to sleep state of mind where your imagination takes on a certain coherent clarity.

--oh hell, just look at me trying to turn this LUSTFUL RAMBLE into a philosophical discussion! i can practically hear my id calling: give in, damon! embrace the primitive, grunting lust!

I DAYDREAMED ABOUT FUCKING FAMKE JANSSEN AND IT WAS FUCKING FANTASTIC!

...thank you, and have a good evening.

city of lights.

okay.

finally getting around to setting this down before i forget it utterly:

i was in europe this summer. end-of-summer, actually. had a convention in london, another one in NYC, and a few days in between, which i spent in paris.

it was so much fun. all of it. i gotta do it again.

heh, london was like...i dunno. after you've been there, you have a better grasp on it. i guess this is true for any famous city, but somehow before going there london was sorta two-sided to me.

1. spice girls, beatles, british pop, union jack, big red buses.

2. that british reserve!

after i've been there, though, the picture's so much more complete.

dude. heh. british women are F'ING HOT. their accents, man, and god they're all so well dressed. maybe it's cuz i was in cosmopolitan west-end-of-london the whole time almost, but still. i looked around and all the brits were so sharply dressed. they all looked like they were wearing tailored clothes. no sloppiness, and no SLUTTISHNESS. even when they went casual they still looked good. and everyone seemed slender and tall.

if you saw a short, fat, sluttily dressed chick, it was probably an american tourist.

right, so i got distracted there. as i was saying - picture's much more complete. it's kinda weird. england's like...at once much more liberal and much more conservative than us. dude, i saw this chick with her boyfriend and she was like ELEVEN. i'm not even kidding. she was a CHILD. i thought maybe she was with her brother at first, but then he kissed her. i was like "UGH?!"

but a the same time, these are people who do not SMILE at all. in california, people smile all the time. when we pass each other and we accidentally do that thing where we both try to go the same way and then duck back and forth? we smile at each other. when we catch each other's eyes in our cars, we smile. when we bump into someone, we smile and apologize.

we just. SMILE. a lot.

now, in london?

NOT THE CASE.

i kept smiling, though. it was instinct! my eyes would meet someone else's on the street - and i'd smile.

and they'd get this really spooked look. it was funny as hell. like this total "omfg, is he nuts? is he gonna kill me? is he gonna hump my leg?" look before they smiled back - shakily - and hurried past.

BRITISH. RESERVE. THEY DO NOT SMILE.

(but they sure as HELL are hot.)

god! i just can't get over how well-dressed they were. i swear, every last chick i saw was gorgeously dressed. not fancy? just like - well, a little fancier than in america. you didn't see sweatshirts and short-shorts. i saw a lot of business suits, but they were all so well-fitted and, heh, damn, so sexy. those nice slacks and those jacket shells, and like...

...those accents. whew.

england itself, though, wasn't that great. it was dirty. all the buildings were huge. not tall? but HUGE. horizontally big. and grey. big and mighty, very... english. come hell or high water, we'll stand to the end-ish. not just the landmarks, either. everything was big and grey and mighty. it was an island watered by blood, and its history is nothing but war and conquest again and again and again, so i suppose it was fitting.

that was just london, though. when i got on the train to go across the chunnel, i went south across the countryside. and oh man, it was gorgeous. i was working on like 5 hrs of sleep and terribly sleepy, but i dragged myself up and wrote up this thing by hand. just sensations. memories. thoughts i was having at the time, because i knew once it had passed i'd never feel it so keenly again.

i'll post it up someday...too lazy to type it all right now.

anyway, so after london i went to paris.

and omfg.

everything everyone has EVER said about the city?

is probably true.

all the cliches, all the overused phrases and sayings - ALL TRUE. there's just... nowhere else on earth (that i've been to) quite like paris.

the city of lights, man. it's the truth. the whole city just ... glows.

remember how i said london was grey? well, paris was golden. i guess they had more sandstone or something, because all the buildings were this sundusted shade of cream-golden. it was raining when i was there, too - this lovely, gentle september rain - and it didn't dim the glow a single bit.

also, instead of some big swanky UCSF-paid hotel that was faceless and identical to every other big swanky hotel in the world, i was in this tiny little french inn. i was up on the top floor, and the ceiling was slanted. the bedsprings creaked. there was no shower. there was only a bathtub. and despite there being no shower, there was a bidet.

yeah, i was in france, all right.

and when i put my head out the (french) windows, i could turn to the left and see the eiffel tower rearing out of the distance behind the buildings. when i looked down i saw the tiny narrow french street with the crappy tiny french cars and the storefronts selling fruits and produce. when i came out and walked around, it was 10 minutes to the tower and 5 to the arc de triomphe.

and just! even walking down the streets was an experience. in london you always felt harried and rushed somehow; in paris you felt like you had all the time in the world. there were trees everywhere. the sky was bright, even when it was overcast. the sidewalks were broad. the people were friendly. the snobbish french thing is apparently a myth, because i never met a single snob.

they SMILED when i smiled at them.

and just...well, like i said, walking the streets was an experience. everywhere you went, you'd turn a corner and suddenly you'd be looking at some fantastic view, or some gorgeous work of art just sitting there in the middle of the street.

the first day i got there - the afternoon after i'd taken the chunnel over - i went out and walked the length of the rue de champs-elysee from the arc to the place de la concorde. the WHOLE way. didn't feel tired at all.

i stared up at the arc. it's fucking huge, man. pictures deceive. you think it's like 2 stories high? it's more like... i don't know. 10? 20? it's fucking ENORMOUS. i don't even remember how big it is now, but i just remember being shocked that it was that. huge.

then i strolled down past the huge stores whose names i see all the time all over the world, but then i'd suddenly realize, holy fuck, this isn't just chanel's showroom, this is THE CHANEL SHOWROOM, in paris. had dinner at this italian place (it was ironic - my whole time there, i had all of one french meal. they seemed to like foreign food as much as we do), which was odd because it was such a LIGHT meal, when i think of really heavy cheeses and shit when i think italian.

anyway, afterwards i went down into the place de la concorde. stared in utter awe at these gilt sculptures and zillion-year-old artifacts they just had set out, just WAITING. tried to go into the louvre area, but they closed at sunset so i came back out.

i was all disappointed, but then i wasn't. because it had gotten dark enough then that the lights were coming on.

and see, paris - that part of it at least - had a master planner. so unlike other big cities were nothing's symmetrical and everything's crowded and a mess, this thing was just...laid out to please the eye. there was a balance to everything. a symmetry. you stood at the gates to the concorde and you looked down the champs-elysee and you could see the arc in the distance. on either corner of the concorde were statues; off to your left was the eiffel tower. the twilight would be fading from the sky, and the lights?

they came on not all at once, but one by one.

first the arc lit up. then the louvre. then the length of the champs-elysee. the obelisk on the place. the bridges over the seine - the tower - and then around 9pm, everything was lit up, and the eiffel tower starts FLASHING.

i know that sounds gaudy. but it wasn't. somehow, it just wasn't. you have to understand everything were just normal streetlights. ochre-hued, you know? but somehow because of the symmetry and the gradual lighting, they seemed golden. the whole city seemed golden, somehow, lit up like a handful of stars under this darkening sky. and there was such anticipation as you waited for the lights to come on, and finally when they were all on you thought it was over - but it wasn't.

the tower starts flashing. it does that every hour on the hour for about ten minutes - brilliant white lights. it was like diamonds on gold, man. all these flashes everywhere returned it: every last tourist with a camcorder or a camera was shooting like mad. but then when you go back and look at the pictures, it's static, not moving, and you can't feel the wind in your hair, the smell of paris, the very feel of it permeating the air, and it's not the same.

it's just not the same when i look at the pictures i took. it's not the same magic i felt, the utter awe and joy of being alive in this city of cities.

that's what i felt when i was there. joy. happy. i was just so happy to be there, even though i wasn't doing anything other than walking around. a little lonely, too, because i didn't take my gf and i kept thinking to myself when i saw something pretty - wow. i'll take brianna here and show her this. and that. and that. and this.

the seine was utterly beautiful. everything was utterly beautiful. of course, the major landmarks were amazing - the louvre: there's no describing its size. it's the museum to end all museums. i only had a day in there and i walked my feet into blisters trying to see it all. the building ITSELF is an art museum, which sounds stupid, but i mean: the building itself is so beautiful, it deserves like a placard of its own describing it.

i'm getting distracted again.

the point is, the landmarks were amazing, but it was the entire equation summed up that was just unforgettable. it wasn't just the louvre, or the cathedral of notre-dame, or the arc, or the pont-neuf over the seine. it was everything.

it's like how san francisco isn't its cable cars or its bridges. it's the very feel in the ground and in the air when you walk about.

it was just... the simple pleasure of being there. i just remember these two moments so vividly:

strolling the right bank of the seine looking across at the eiffel tower and its scattered reflection on the water at night, about 10pm. the smell of the air, the sound of the city which was somehow different from the sound of every other city - softer? - and the wind in the leaves of the trees. the random monuments i'd come across just walking. the sense of history that ran so deep in the blood of the city, but didn't threaten to overbear and overwhelm the way london's bloody history seemed to. it was just this feeling of culture of beauty, quiet and patient, that lay beneath every stone of the city and gave rise to the beautiful monuments scattered everywhere, the gilt-topped bridges, the vast plazas and perfect symmetry of it all.

sitting on the vast green belt behind the eiffel tower eating a hot dog (which was three thin sausages stuffed into a baguette, believe it or not) while the sun set. and the sky was just lit up into these incredible colors, pastels, pink and orange and flaming red, and then silhouetted and also lit up against it was the tower, and all around me were people, lovers, friends, families, and there was just this sense of wholeness and wellness that seeped into every fiber of my being.

i was so. perfectly. happy at that moment. i was so damned happy in paris. i only had like 4 days there, and it wasn't enough. not even close. it's one of those cities you fall in love with immediately, and then it gets into your blood and calls to you. it's not as though i think about it every day, but i do still think about it often. and every so often i flip open yahoo travel and look up plane tickets so i can go back and stay there for a week. two weeks.

i wouldn't want to live there, though. familiarity and contempt, and all. plus i don't want it to be my city. i like san francisco fine for that. by the time i got to NYC (which felt like a bigger, dirtier version of SF), i was missing san francisco like hell. my white city by the bay. it's where i live and where i belong.

but paris...

see, i want it to always be that city of lights i remember from the late summer of 2003. that's how it is in my mind, and it's perfect. it's nothing but easy strolls, the placid river, the leaves in the trees and the beauty that you could breathe in like you breathed air. and if i were to live there, i'd learn to hate parts of it - the traffic, the tourists, etc. more so than that, it'd just become the place i lived, and become mundane. i'd work there. i'd shop for groceries there. i'd probably be too busy to stroll the seine's banks.

i'd forget the magic of a perfect summer's evening with the lights coming on all around me, reflecting into the seine.

i'd forget.

fucking metaphors and shit.

man. so, recently: stress galore, bad mood galore. i'm having one of those periods of extreme stress at work, where i start self-doubting just a little bit.

i mean, it's impossible not to. when you choose the path of medicine, you choose it early. while your friends are off smoking pot behind the high school, you're joining clubs and doing sports to show the colleges you're a well-rounded person. while your friends are changing their majors 17 times and taking human sexuality, you're taking molecular biology and human physiology and immunology and endocrinology to prep you for med school. there's no real room or time for exploration - you better crank the fuck down and get shit done, or you get left behind.

what ends up happening, though, is while the fact that you're SURE you love this shit, you're POSITIVE you wanna follow this path, is the only way you'll even survive all the rigors of taking it - you always, always retain this little seed of self-doubt. cuz i've never had a chance to really explore. i never took human sexuality or intro to astronomy. i never took any of the hundreds of cool, random classes in college that my friends did because i was always, always, running with my nose to the ground and my eyes on the prize.

so now that i've almost got the prize, now that i'm locked into this very last phase of getting the prize, i have these moments when it's just fucking overwhelming (like it's supposed to be, heh), and...

shit. see, i even reason it out to myself when i'm ranting. this is why sometimes i wonder if maybe i DIDN'T pick the right path. if maybe - just maybe - out of the hundreds of other paths i could've taken but never even tried - one of them was the "right" one. because i never LET myself wonder. not aloud, at least. not on paper, either. all the doubts are in my mind, and as soon as i start going into doubt, i talk myself out of it.

i'm having trouble expressing this, i think.

the bottom line is, i'm afraid, sometimes, that i've made the wrong choice. the idea terrifies me because i'm so way, way, way beyond the point of no return. but i never even looked to both sides before crossing the point, so there's no way, really, for me to know. i've always just forced my gaze back on center whenever i've tried to look, and i do that even now, when i try to look backwards.

seems like cheesy metaphor's the only way i can say this. heh.

i am fucking plagued by doubt right now. just ... haunted by it. i don't know why. not really. i'm stressed, yeah, but i'm not that stressed. but i look around at all the bright-eyed faces of the 3rd-year med students just starting their rotations and i wonder how they can be so certain of themselves. i look around and wonder how they can be so absolutely sure their path is the right one, and how i could've, once upon a time, been so blindly sure, as well.

i'm still convinced it is the right one. hell, if it wasn't, i think i would've realized it and bailed by now. but still.

still. the fucking doubt, you know?

i just need some way to be certain. absolutely certain. but i think that's one of those things where i'd be looking for an answer that might not even exist.

and of course, there's also the fear that this ISN'T right for me. i'm cut out for it but it's not cut out for me. does that make any sense? that idea terrifies me. that i could've worked so hard, 28 years of my life, one third of my FUCKING LIFE, to come to this point, and maybe - just maybe - be wrong.

==

this is why i've been so fucking on-edge lately. the slightest things set me off. the slightest, tiniest things make me go off. my stress at work feeds into my doubt feeds into my stress feeds into my doubt, and i haven't had a real break since.. hell, since i can't even remember. it's been just one thing after another for so long. grant applications. papers. patients. new wards. new shit to learn. new shit to practice. and then my dad, and his fucking company - he's been starting one for the last 3 years or so - he didn't have any employees for a long time so i was basically doing his shit as well. and there's just been no respite for...jesus, to be honest, i think for about 2 years. the last time i really had no stress was a week-long break i took in the summer of 2001.

i need a fucking break. this winter, i'm taking a fucking break. 3 weeks, and i'm not going to do shit. i'm not coming online, i'm not going to work. i'm going to fucking europe or something and i'm going to wander in the shadow of the wonders of the world and not think about conferences, meetings, the real world.

look at me, spewing my troubles across the page. i hate doing this. i fucking hate unloading.

==

i'm dividing this up into chunks because my thoughts are in disconnected chunks. heh.

==

so anyway. tonight. random bad mood again. god knows what set me off. the smallest things make me go off these days. i think maybe it was because another friend of mine was grumpy, and it just kinda... i don't know. infected me. that has a way of happening.

heh. so yeah. my bad mood just exploded on me like a fucking thunderstorm out of the blue. i always feel bad when that happens, because someone's gonna take the brunt of it sooner or later, and usually they don't deserve it because when i'm in a bad mood, most often it's something that has NOTHING to do with anyone but me.

so then i went offline. went for a joyride. was just gonna go for an hour but it kinda went long. i drove up to marin county past the golden gate bridge and i came back; i was still kinda revved up somehow, and i kept having this urge to just floor the pedal and go faster and faster, which i recognized as a pretty fucking dangerous urge.

it's like i felt like maybe if i just drove fast enough i could outrun the sense of doors closing on me.

that's what i feel like sometimes lately. that doors are closing on me. like everyone around me is so fucking placid, so fucking happy in their place, and somehow i'm still searching. it's like their fucking lives are already over. they're just settling down to go through the motions now, and me, fuck, i feel like my life is still just getting started. or it should be. i feel like i should still have unlimited possibilities in front of me.

but then i'm afraid i don't.

hell, i know i don't.

and this feeling of closed doors - coupled with this feeling of doubt - it's tearing me apart. i can't, i don't know how to deal with it.

wtf happened to college? heh. wtf happened to 18 years old?

uurgh.

==

you know, i wrote this up meaning to tell this little story about my joyride, not spill my tortured guts. heh. so yeah: story.

so i kept driving right past my place. went from the 101 to the 280. southbound. drove past the bend of the mountains and the city (god it's still so fucking beautiful...at least there's still that) vanished behind me, and all there was was the night, the highway, the few cars still there.

i went all the way down to san jose where 280 hit 101 again. then i came back up.

so i'm driving north. and then i'm like, outta fucking gas suddenly. i passed this sign saying next gas 18 miles and i was SURE, dead SURE, that i'd be able to get all the way home. well, at 18 miles sign i had 1/5th of a tank. by the end of the 18 miles, i was down to 1/16th. so i'm like shit, i better fuel up, right?

so i pull off the freeway.

guess what.

NO FUCKING GAS. CLOSED.

shit! go back on the freeway. go another 5 miles. pull off at another sign. go like 2 miles out.

NO FUCKING GAS. CLOSED.

by now i'm in the red, the light's on, i'm really worried. and i was only 5 miles from home by then, so i was like fuckit and i pushed it. i was coasting on neutral whenever i went downhill, man, and finally i got to a shell that was open, like 2 blocks from my place.

0.7 gallons left.

sheeeeeeesh.

now that would have and did get me home. but i just kept thinking what if i'd dawdled a bit more? taken one more exit to come down from up north? or two, or three? hell, i coulda run out in the 18-mile stretch. had to sit there and call my gf to come rescue me, and shit.

anyway, heh. sheer terror kinda blew all the doubts out of my mind, so i guess the joyride did some good. 'course, now that i'm home, trying to record the incident, i ended up recording my mood instead, and dredged them all up again.

fuck.

==

so remember what i said, when i said i didn't want to go home yet when i was coming back down from the north? i felt like i still needed a few miles to work some shit out. it's like running, almost - you keep doing it and after a while you get past the agony of exhaustion and your limbs somehow unkink and you can just run forever.

that's how i felt. i felt like driving forever. i went south all way down until 280 merged back with 101, and then i had a choice: 101 north: SAN FRANCISCO; 101 south: LOS ANGELES.

you have no idea how close i was to taking los angeles. i'm sure i wouldn't have gone all the way. but i don't know where i would've stopped. i didn't want to come back. i wanted to keep on driving until the sun rose, see where i was then. shed my skin and start anew, or some poetic BULLSHIT like that.

but, yeah. i came back. fuck. i think i'll always come back, and that's why i have these doubts. because i'm not placid enough to never leave at all, but i'm not brave enough to keep on going.

metaphors again. heh.

memento.

been a long time since i've written here. suddenly there's so much i want to write, but one thing at a time, right?

lots of things happened in the interim. i worked my ass off, mostly, which is why i haven't had time to write. also some other stuff that'll i'll address. slowly. heh. in the next few entries. maybe.

watch, i'll probably go away for another 6 months.

anyway. just wanted to post this tonight. my dog got bitten by a rattlesnake at the beginning of august. he's all right now, thank god, but for a while it was bad. it was very fucking bad.

it's hard for me to put down what he is to me. we got him 12 years ago, just before i went to college. i had a year with him, and that was it, but it was enough, somehow, to make him a part of me. i love him. that's all i can say. i love him more than just about anything else on this earth, and if he'd died - like that - my grief would have torn me apart.

when he was so sick after getting bitten, when he couldn't even hold his head up and his eyes were sunken and he was dazed, barely even recognizing his family, i was a few thousand miles away and i couldn't do a fucking thing. i knew if this was it, i wouldn't even be able to say goodbye. and there was a night when it seemed like it was the end. he just kept downspiraling. they took lab readings every few hours, and he just kept going down and down, and even after they administered plasma and all - which was supposed to be something of a miracle cure - he still didn't improve.

he improved the next morning, as it turned out. but not then. and when i found out his numbers were still so bad, i couldn't deal with it. i have a double-room thing in my bathroom - the toilet and tub in one small room, the sinks in another. the small room is the most isolated, private, holed-away place in my apartment. that's where i went after i hung up w/ my parents. i put the toilet lid down and sat down and i was just going to think for a moment, just prepare myself somehow, and next thing i knew i was sobbing.

i couldn't help it. it wasn't something i had control over. i couldn't stop it, not by pinching the bridge of my nose, not by pressing my hands to my face. i couldn't even breathe evenly. it kept hitching in my lungs, and the tears just wouldn't stop. i hadn't cried like that since i was a child. in fact, i don't think i've ever cried like that, because i've never known that sort of pain and grief. all i could do was keep it silent and in the dark, and not come out until i was all right.

it took a fucking half-hour.

the lights were off because i didn't want my grief to be visible, or something. there's a window in that room, and through it i could see the moon that night. i think it was a half moon, waning; i remember looking at it and wondering how it could still float like that, normal.

i was hurting and i was furious. i was alternating between doubling over - like maybe that'd help the pain somehow - and cursing. cursing god, i guess. i kept saying "goddammit, saifur--" and i don't know why. i think i wanted him to fight it harder, or maybe i wanted him to be all right somehow, and i thought if i just asked him hard enough he would be.

this is something i wrote at the lowest point of it all, right after i got out of the bathroom. i didn't mean to keep it at the time, but it was an email to someone else. she wrote back, i wrote back, etc etc - and it was always down there, even after my dog had gotten better. so i thought i should save it. just so i remember what it was like.

i don't know why it's important for me to remember. maybe because my dog's old now, and i know he's old now. i know this won't last forever. but maybe it'll make it easier for me when it ends, if i can remember how bad it could have been, and the extra time i had afterwards.

--

my dog's not doing so good. he's so old, you know, and the fucking snake, it bit him like 2-3 times. piece of fucking SHIT. i swear, i've never wanted to kill anything before - i mean honestly, seriously, open-eyedly want something DEAD - but if i had half a chance i'd kill that snake if i could, and as slowly as i could.

i know it's horrible and utterly inhumane, but i can't help it. my DOG, goddammit, i got him when i was in high school. 12 fucking years, and every time i went to my parents' i felt like i'd gone home because that dog was there to welcome me. he never forgets a friend, and he never forgot me even though i was really only with him for one, fucking, precious year before college. i love that dog. 12 years of my life, he's been there for me, even if he lived somewhere else, and now i can't do SHIT when he's going through utter hell that no one should have to go through.

the venom is designed to do one thing, man. cause. destruction. it's not even to KILL. that's a fucking neurotoxin, where you go numb, lethargic and drop dead in 2 minutes, painlessly. this is just destruction. it's a venom designed to chew up the internal structure of the victim. it's designed to incapacitate by PAIN, and then DIGEST while the victim's still alive.

and the fucking piece of SHIT snake hit my dog 3 times with it.

i forgave the shit one bite. i know my dog must've bothered it. he's a curious dog, and tends to totally ignore all danger and all attempts to call him off when he's hellbent on investigating something. he's a rough dog too, who likes to chew up little animals. i know that. i know the snake's entitled to self defense. but three fucking strikes, man. three fucking strikes. that's fucking malice, and i don't care if it's irrational to think that about a fucking idiot reptile who can't even MOVE if it drops below 40 degrees.

....argh...

anyway, so he went in with decent vitals. his hematocrit was 45%, and that's stayed pretty steady, but that's not a real big deal. his protein levels has been going up and down, and has been steadily a bit low. went in 5.2 (normal is 6-8), went down to 4.0 at his lowest last night around 9pm, which had us scared bad.

but it's the fucking clotting time that's shit right now. that's what the venom does, partially - it chews up muscle, and it also fucks the blood up. it kills RBCs to some extent, and it kills off clotting factors so the blood just flows. he went in with 90 sec clotting time, which is a bit high, but still okay. it shot up to fucking 130 at 9pm. went back to 80 at 12 midnight, which we thought meant he was outta the woods. but then at 6am he was back up to 110, and then he spiked to like 180-190, which is fucking AWFUL.

so they put him on plasma transfusions at about 2pm, which is supposed to help a lot. at 8pm though, he was still at 150...plus his proteins went from 5.0 at 6am to 4.4.

i'm so fucking scared. i know he's old. i know everyone has his time to die. but not like THIS, goddammit. not like this. i want him to die at home, peaceful, in his sleep, old and comfortable and warm. i want to be there even though i know it'll tear me to pieces. but then this fucking rattler bites him three fucking times and he's SUFFERING in the hospital and he hates the fucking hospital, but he's too damn weak to even put up a fight now. he's just lying there with strangers in a cage, alone, and i'm just so scared to death that he might just give up.

goddammit. i was so hoping that the 8pm readngs would be good. when i heard they hadn't improved nearly as much as the doctors had hoped i fell to pieces. i didn't even know wtf hit me. i sat on the fucking toilet lid and bawled for half an hour. i couldn't stop. he's my DOG. i love him, and now he's in a fucking hospital fighting for his life and i can't even talk coherently because i'm so fucking scared for him.

and i wish i could have more faith in the vets. it's hypocritical of me. this is the shit i complain about in my own patients. but i can't help but wonder how much they really give a fuck about my dog, and how much of this is them looking at dollar signs. it's been $5000 so far. it'll be indefinitely more. i just wish i could have some TRUST in them, that they're doing all they can. that they're not doing more than they should and making it worse. that they're not letting him linger even if there's no hope just for the money. that, if it really comes down to it, they'll be able to ignore the $200/bag price tag on the plasma transfusion, the $1000-$2000/day on drugs and hospitalization and transfusions and all that shit, and tell us, honestly, that my dog has suffered more than his share, and it's time to let him go rather than stake it out to the bitter fucking end.

i'm thinking so negatively. i can't help it. i don't know wtf to do. i'm scared that they're not doing enough. i'm scared that my dog is just going to give up even though i KNOW he won't. i'm scared that they're doing too much. i'm scared that he's scared and isn't going to rest properly. i'm scared to death and back that he's going to lose this battle and it's going to be horrible for him.

i want him to go home. i want to believe that he will, and keep a positive attitude, but right now it's so fucking hard.

failing that, i want him to not suffer anymore. but i know that'll just shred me to pieces. i can't even think of him not being there anymore, leaving like THIS, without crying. it's not fucking fair. he's never been anything but good and brave and loyal and too damn smart for his own good. it's not fucking fair that he should have to go through this, you know? and if he doesn't pull through, it's just... christ.

i know if it happens people would comfort me by saying he's lived a good long life with my parents and me, and that we've loved him more than anyone, but STILL. goddammit. NOT LIKE THIS. nothing is worth this.

i would honestly, happily, give years off my life to save my fucking dog. even if it's just to get him out of the hospital, stabilized again, if only for a month so he can pass away peacefully the way he should. i don't care. i want him to live, but if it's his time to go, i just want him to go with some dignity, and where he feels safe.

just not like this.

goddammit...PLEASE.

i gotta stop thinking so fucking negatively. part of me wants to delete everything i've written because i'm so fucking scared right now i'll grab for any straws, and i'm afraid i'll jinx it or something. at the same time if i don't say it, somewhere, i'm going to explode, and i can't even say it IRL because i could never be able to get all this out without falling to pieces.

i just need someone to tell me it'll all be okay. more than that, i need it to all be okay, but that's too much to ask of anyone. i wish the fucking doctors would tell us SOMETHING definite. they just say "okay let's put on some more plasma" and there's never a distinct call on anything. and i understand that on one hand. you don't want to get their hopes up just to crush them. you don't want to get them so down that they'll give up. so you hover in the fucking middle.

but GODDAMMIT...

just...

christ, i can't handle it. i cannot deal with this. i've been preparing myself ever since he turned 12 for the day that my parents are going to call to say he passed away peacefully in his sleep on his favorite bed after taking a walk and eating his favorite steak dinner.

but not this. goddammit. it's just not fucking fair.

....i gotta get some sleep. heh. i'm just talking myself into another fall-apart.

macintosh!

2010 note:

course, we all know how the mac affairs always end. MAD INFATUATION! TECHNOLUST! ... a waning of the fire. a gradual and inexorable building of frustration with numerous flaws, bugs, issues, problems, all emerging after the initial burst of amazement and style > substance, form > function has been lost. and in the end:

our silences are long cold.
and we sleep with our backs turned.

LOL.

--

holy moly: i'm in love with Macs.

yes yes yes, i know, macs suck, macs are slow, macs crash every other minute.

BUT.

omfg. if you saw this mac i'm on. it's one of those new ultra-slick ones, all silvery grey inside and transparent plastic coating on the outside. it's got a flatscreen display, and lemme tell you, i've NEVER seen such a crisp image. my eyes are wide from staring and i bet if you looked at my pupils right now they'd be huge.

i surfed around all my favorite pages and i MARVELED. omfg. pictures have NEVER looked so VIBRANT in my life. i swear, the colors are literally breaker than life, the edges sharper, the images crisper. i look away from the screen and the WORLD looks duller and fuzzier.

it's AMAZING.

and that's just the beginning. there are these little buttons on the monitor - two of them. both of them? holy fuck. they light up when you touch them. i mean, not when you press. when you TOUCH. this diffuse whitish glow behind them brightens up. it's SPACE AGE, man. it's like something out of a movie.

SO COOL.

and both of them? bring up menus on the screen INSTANTLY. not like ugly monitor menus, but menus from the computer, super-slick.

and the mouse?

oy!!!

it's like. clear. totally clear. not cheap plastic either. thick hard curving perfectly clear plastic. but you don't see the ugly circuits - who the fuck wants to see those? no; they're concealed in a black thingy. the mouse isn't all stupidly curvy either. very plain, just an oval. but it feels GOOD. it's heavy, the way a good pen should be. and when you click?

THE WHOLE TOP MOVES.

it's not a button!!! the whole mouse! like is in two halves! the top and a tiny black bottom where the laser thingy is! and when you click, the whole top of it comes down with a really REALLY neat "heavy" clicky-feel.

i LOVE this computer. i want it to have my babies. cool transparent silvery-gray babies with buttons that light up.

i'm totally amazed. i mean, i thought those DELLS were cool. it's still a piece of shit OS-wise, but - man oh man. i think the graphics and the overall cool factor is seducing me.

it's.

SO.

COOL!

adolescent ranting.

so i decided to put this up again cuz truth of it is, i was afraid to put it up in fears that everyone will now hate me. then i hear that apparently these flaws aren't nearly as well-hidden as i thought, and that i'm just finally saying what everyone already knows.

since that's the case, fuck, i'll leave it up. heh. remind myself.

***

flaws:

ARROGANCE.

my god, do i have this in buckets. this very post is an act of arrogance. i'm writing it because rachel wrote one and i was like, ooo, i wanna do that. i wanna shake out my dirty laundry because i assume the world cares and wants to see!

i am an insufferably arrogant bastard. i can't help it - whup there i go again, the arrogance of pinning my blame on some undefined Other, which i can neither touch nor change, thus freeing me to be as arrogant as i like.

i am arrogant. i think i am the end-all-be-all of things. i think i am wiser because i am older; i think i am better because i'm going to make more money. i think my point of the view is the correct one, no matter how contradictory or self-contradictory, even, it might be.

i think my schooling and the letters after my name mean i am smarter than anyone else who doesn't have these things. hell, i think i'm smarter than everyone because i'm damned good at BSing crap (more arrogance - reducing the hard work of teachers everywhere in giving assignments and appreciating what i've given in return to mere chaff, bullshit, nothing of importance - EVEN IF I DID WORK HARD ON IT), because i'm damned good at taking standardized tests (1510 SAT, 36ACT, 41 MCAT, 2250 combined GRE, IQ in the 99.9th percentile - WORSHIP MY FUCKIN EGO), because i can't help but flaunt this and - UGH

okay i am now honestly drowning in my own arrogance. i can't stop it! look, there it is again! shifting of blame, unstoppable floods of arrogance; i am the niagara of egotism.

i am so arrogant that i think arrogance is a GOOD thing.

*

HYPOCRISY.

is that even a fucking word? no matter. i am also hypocritical. while i am allowed to be arrogant, no one else is. i can't STAND fucking arrogance in other people; i tear it to shreds, i shred it apart. i can't stand it, and yet i'm so arrogant i don't think i'd be able to stand living with me.

*

UNTHINKING CRUELTY.

i am. unbelievably, unthinkingly cruel. unintentionally, maybe, but perhaps that's just me pinning the blame elsewhere again. i excel at ripping things to shreds. all this goes back to arrogance, really. i think my POV is the only correct one, and i never hesitate to rip into another POV to show why it's wrong.

i love to debate; i love to fight; i debate deeply personal things with a careless, analytical glee, and i shred deeply personal beliefs like they were words on paper.

i do not care that this may hurt people while i'm doing it. i'm just happy that i can do it. i'm just happy that i can shout down anyone else and impose my will upon them.

*

SELFISHNESS.

this is an extension of all of the above. i am INCREDIBLY selfish. in my book, it seems to be me myself and i. i think i'm capable of caring for people, loving, all that, but even if i say i'll take a bullet for someone/something, i think if it should come down to the wire, i wouldn't sacrifice myself for ANYTHING.

*

TEMPESTUOUSITY.

another made up word. this is me in a nutshell. i think for the most part people consider me mellow, but god help you if i'm in a bad mood and you accidentally say the wrong thing and don't realize it in the 0.2 seconds it takes me to fly into a scathing sort of cruel rage, hot or even worse analytically cold, and begin my process of arrogance, selfishness and unthinking cruelty.

more than that, though, more hurtful than my hairtrigger piss-off time, is how fast i bounce back. i am arrogant about my bounce-back time; it is an act of selfishness that allows me to bounce back so damn quick, and it's also an act of unthinking cruelty to do so. i can get angry, i can roar and rail and bang things around, and then i'll be all right ten minutes later. i'll be happy. i'll be grinning. all the while the other party will still be losing white blood cells over my latest bout.

i have to admit, i say all this with a certain glee. i'm gleeful because i am, yes, selfish, arrogant, and unthinkingly cruel.

*

DECEIT.

i had to think twice about writing this one. actually i wrote it, erased it, rewrote it. writing deceit down kinda blows the cover, doesn't it?

i am DECEITFUL. i have to be. otherwise people would know i'm arrogant, hypocritical, unthinkingly cruel, selfish, and tempestuous. or rather, they'd know all this, and not forgive me for it. the only reason i can think that i still have friends is that somehow i've managed to mask my roaring shrieking screaming flaws as some sort of CHARM, some sort of CHARISMA, for god's sakes, and somehow people around me still like/love me.

which i love.

because i'm selfish, arrogant, hypocritical, unthinkingly cruel, tempestuous, and deceitful.

i'm sure there's more, but i'm sick of this adolescent whining.

general blargh.

i am so. tired.

i slept at 3:30am (couldn't sleep earlier. was romancing viconia.) and i got up at like. 10am? That's 6.5 hrs of sleep, which is good, but i am still. so. tired.

that said, there's nothing more to say. guess this is gonna be another one of my short entries. heh.

well, i guess i could say this: those vision elite pens? god. love 'em. i'm stocked with like 3 of them, which i don't need, because they're refillable and i have like six billion refills for 'em. but i still like having them around. they're puuurty. 3 shiny silvery sleek styluses.

i am the master of alliteration.

no i'm not, but hey. heh. i'm tired. cut me some slack.

this is what i want right now:

pillow, face down, light off, sprawl, sleep. zzz.

that's it! i'd be so easily satisfied. but nooo, gotta drag my ass up and go to appt. fuckin little whiny brats. hahaha.

btw those of you who don't know who tf viconia is, you don't wanna know.

addictive. grr.

keeling over in 10, 9, 8...

no! up! on your feet, soldier! get to work! go! come on! MOVE YOUR LAZY ASS!

...okay, that did not work, obviously, since i'm still here typing vigorously.

ok going to work now. really.

jawdropper, showstopper.

have i ever talked about brianna here? don't think i have. think i probably should, cuz. she's.

jawdroppin'.
showstoppin'.

yeah. you know what i mean. haha. okay, maybe you don't. see, this is how we met. 12:45pm or so, lunchtime, food court. lotsa yuppie-types, doctors nurses and the whole nine yards. san francisco. not too far from the once-mighty silicon valley.

girl sitting there in a booth. turned away from me right, so i could only see her profile. but dude, she was cute, really delicate, fine profile. so i'm thinking, hey. i go over to the next table, i sit down. eventually i say hi when i see her looking this way, we talk, exchange numbers, and the rest is history.

but all that comes later. what this is about, is the first 10 seconds. cuz see, while i'm setting my tray down, she turns to see who's sitting near her. she turns and faces me and i see her face and.

i swear.

i couldn't breathe for a split second. my breath just stopped dead in my chest; i was staring. i was fuckin' gawking for a second there. she was just. unbelievably.

LOVELY.

i mean, she's not a supermodel. she's not big-boobs-big-lips-come-hither-and-fuck-me-stare. she's...fine. she's slender and tall, long thin hands. graceful, quiet, a little shy. she has a very fine, lovely, foxlike sort of beauty. lovely is the word for her. her nose is thin and not overly long, kinda pert at the end, but not button. her face is oval with good cheekbones.

long hair, that sort of reddish brown, auburn. sleek, not frizzy. her eyes are grayish blue, large and always a little surprised-looking. she wears glasses. she wore glasses that day, very dainty oval glasses, and.

she's just very...slantingly, sleekly lovely. beautiful. utterly beautiful. god.

hmm...

i just reread what i wrote and somehow it came off as being very objectifying and crass. i didn't mean it that way.

i was writing it down because i wanted to remember. jess is accusing me of being negative right now, which is why i didn't write this at first (cuz it's all negative, haha), but i wanted to write down what i saw in her that first day in case someday we get in a bad fight, or break up, or hell - grow old together, and i lose sight of what i had seen in her.

then i could come back here and read my 27-year-old self ranting about her, and the way i felt when i first saw her. then i could remember that she was the girl who, of all the girls i've ever seen in all my life, sucked all the oxygen out of my lungs for a second and left me staring.

trains.

scene (background music, aria - "ave maria"): trans-siberian railway. camera close to train tracks, ground level. steel rail and wood crosslay beneath, long as a dragon sprawled across all of the cold the dark the harsh tundras. heavy blizzard. night. everything's black except for snow falling to bury the world. horizon is a faint gleam.

train blasts by, sending up twin fans of snow, trailing a white mist, shaking snow off the branches of a dead tree crooked over the past.

camera rises, phantomlike; POV follows train. chases, levels, pans sideways, strafing along as though on coasters, keeping pace. sense of speed given by obscure shadows whipping by, blurred, in darkness. camera zooms in on dim lights within. protagonist: young revolutionary, fur cap, thick winter jacket, several day's beard growth on an intense, sharpedged face, gently swaying in the rhythm of the train, haggard eyes staring unseeing out. cradled in his arms, half on his lap, protagonist's woman, deathly pale and mortally wounded.

camera starts to lose pace. train passes by, at first imperceptibly faster, then accelerating relative to camera until it blurs. camera rises above tracks and pans out to reveal snow-choked landscape through which tracks carve a distinct curving twin black path, racing on to and past the horizon. on it, red tailight of the train, growing small.

wtf is it about trains? somehow they're so evocative. i was discussing this with liz. we decided it was something about the rhythm of the wheels over the tracks, muted but everpresent; the inevitability of the tracks laid down firm; the enclosure of the cars and the closed windows, yet still allowing that final brief aching contact in the way planes never will; the out-of-your-control motion, where the train might (will) start moving any minute, and there's not a thing you can do about it.

there's only so far you can follow on the platform, only so fast you can run. there's only so much time you have before the train becomes a red dot, becomes nothing. but the tracks linger on and on, in memoriam.

scene (background music, bliss - "kissing"): one of those tastefully-shot tender-lovemaking scenes. golden indirect luminescent lighting, indistinct glimpses: thighs intertwined, abdomens pressed movingly together, lips on underside of jaw, divine-rapturous face, closed eyes, parted lips; white sheets artfully rumpled. scene seguing into next--

long shot down train platform, grey concrete walk with glass overhang, once clear, now dulled and almost opaque with age and exposure. late afternoon, heavily overcast, sky a cast of silver-grey. gentle rain falling like mist. train tracks stretching across barren late-autumn plain, all the crops harvested, all the fields fallow. bare trees line the path of the tracks. protagonist on platform in thick dark overcoat, gloves and scarf, head bare.

overhead speakers announce times and trains in indistinct foreign language. train, black train engine w/ dark cars, is beginning to pull away. cut to window: we recognize the woman from previous scene, prim now in careful makeup and 1940s traveling attire, upper class. looking out, sorrow creases her brow. dimly reflected, protagonist's desolate face.

train begins to move faster. rhythm of the tracks. camera stays with woman in the window. emotions build and are bitten back on her face. reflected, protagonist growing smaller, face pulling out to a head-and-body shot to a full-figure shot, indistinct in the window.

like a man in a dream, he takes a few steps after the train. woman in window presses gloved knuckles to mouth. protagonist slowly raises a hand in farewell. the woman presses her palm flat against the window; tears spill over as image of man in window blurs and grows too small to see.

camera pans out. flat grey horizon under flat grey sky. steam train rolling away.

i have no fucking clue why my train scenes are all so desolate. it seems to fit though. hmm.

gah!

renee.

2010 note: man, now i can't even remember what she looked like *LOL* ah, young love. i'm sure she was uberhot though.

--

okay.

remember renée?

well. due to SOMEONE'S ever-so-clever advice, i took her and her fiancé out to dinner. to like. i dunno. assess my position, see if this is some passing fancy, or truly some mad, mindless lust for the unattainable.

guess which it is.

...

...

...

...ten points for those who guessed the latter!

yeah. okay. so like.

ARGHHHHHHHH.

i can't believe this. i have never. EVER. been so smitten by someone so UTTERLY out of reach. Angelina doesn't count; she's COMPLETELY out of reach. Renée is...

well see.

she's not quite completely out of reach. she's out of reach of the sane and reasonable. i.e., the only way to possibly reach her is to go to boston in july, show up at her wedding, stand up during the "speak now or forever hold your peace" line, and scream at the TOP OF MY LUNGS:

"IIIIIII

OBJEEEEEEEEECT!"

....right.

like something out of a movie. a comedy at that, after which the father of the bride (who of course will happen to be an ex-heavyweight world champion) will proceed to drag me outside and pound the shit out of me while the devastated bride screeches at me for ruining her wedding and the bridegroom stands by looking amazed and thunderstruck.

so, okay, that option's out. option 2 would be,

BREAK THE FUCKING MARRIAGE UP BEFORE SHE GETS TO THE ALTAR.

it's like something out of a SITCOM now. what am i gonna do, try to woo the girl while simultaneously screwing the guy over? superglue him to his chair and make him miss a date with her? bolt him into his office...

argh.

no.

so of course, the only remaining option is:

stand by quietly. let it happen. forget it about it.

which is what i should do. cuz like. guh. it's just a crush, just an infatuation. i mean, i'm sure i've felt like this before; it just wasn't ever this bad because it's never been in a situation in which i couldn't for the life of me act on it.

it makes it worse, so much worse, that i know who the fiance is, and he's a pretty decent guy who i KNOW loves her to death, or at least halfway to death, and like. argh.

he's just a really nice guy! and it's hard to demonize him now, and even though what i SHOULD do now is realize that it's all for the best, all i can seem to do is FIND WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM and compare it to ways in which i'm BETTER than him.

like.

ARGH.

1. i have a brighter future. dammit, i do. he's a fucking software engineer, i'm a doctor. i'm gonna run this fucking hospital one day (really, i am), and he's gonna go on churning out code for the rest of his life.

2. i'm a better conversationalist. i talked; he sat there and ate like a little idiot. okay, fine, maybe he's a good listener then, but i'm a good listener too! argh!

3. i'm not a fucking nerd!!! or well! not as nerdy as he is! he is such! a fucking! nerd! he must be thanking his lucky stars day and night that someone like renée fell on his lap, and...

....arghhh.

other narcissistic, cruel, awful things like that.

i am so. blindly. jealous. i don't remember EVER having envied another man so much.

i just can't seem to get it out of my mind. it's wrong, it's a mistake, if i just get it out of my head, i'll be fine.

if had met her earlier, it'd be fine. or later. later, when she WAS married, that'd be fine. just like.

the illusion of hope, you know? keyword being illusion.