Jenene

Yeah, Threshold rocks.

Check it out, all my sci-fi lovin' friends.

And yes, that is the fractal pattern that gave us so much trouble last week!

This is a great new production of an Edward Gorey play called Gorey Stories that I am helping out on. Please everyone, re-post this information or link wherever you want!

Gorey is one of Tim Burton's main influences. It's dark, Edwardian type stuff.

His plays are rarely done, so check this out if you're anywhere near So-Cal in the next month or so.

The coolest thing happened on Friday.

I was walking home from work, past one of the local korean Day Care/ Schools, and they were having a big reptile demonstration outside for the kids. I hung out for about a half an hour and saw a few interesting specimens (including the blue tongue skink). It was so cool to watch how the kids reacted to all the reptiles, and it was great to see some well taken care of animals.

I never would have seen this if I had a car. It brightened my mood so much; it was just great.

I’ve been busting my ass working the on thesis. I’m getting terrified that I won’t finish, so I’m in extra crazy work mode. The good news is that I finished chapter three today, which means I am half way there. That may not sound like much, but I have outline drafts of all of my chapters, so now I have to just continue and flesh them out.

Yea!

I’m back to thesis writing again and I am hoping that I can really keep up the pace. I’m totally freaking out about finishing and I hate everything I have written so far. I have to keep thinking “Not perfect, just done, not perfect, just done.”

So I sent 2 chapters to my supervisor last week and I need to send a few more this week. I have too much to do.

I had to kill my cat today. It was really difficult. But he was in a lot of pain and so it was time. So I’m just kind of bumming around and feeling awful. I miss him terribly.

When I was still in high school, I was in this shopping mall and I walked by this pet store and there was a cage of fresh young kittens frolicking together. But there was another cage. This cage had one lonely black kitten, who was obviously older than those other ones. He had huge paws and short fur like a little black panther and huge yellow eyes. And he was on sale for only $9.99. I asked to see him. And when I picked him up, he head butted me gently in the shoulder, and I was in love. So I took him home and he’s been in my life ever since.

He was always such a gentle cat. I used to have this bitchy cat in Nashville named Spaghetti. She used to terrorize Lerkie and bully him around all the time. I gave her away to this girl who liked her and then Lerkie really came into his own as a fabulous cat.

One time I was staying for a couple of months with my Aunt in this trailer park. And there was this gang of cats that hung out there. I have never seen anything like it before or since. Lerkie used to sit in my window, pressed against the screen. And outside the gang of cats would sit right below the window and yell at him. They would yell things like “Hey you indoor cat! Hey you pussy! Is yo Momma gonna let you out?!” And Lerkie would get so mad; he’d hiss and everything. Then one day I came home from work and the screen window was on the ground outside and Lerkie was gone. So I called for him and he came sauntering back, looking very pleased with himself. I never saw the gang of cats again.

He was the best.

I’ve been a bit out of sorts this week, so I have been avoiding writing here a bit. I can be so anti-social sometimes.

Anyway, I have put myself in a tight spot. I have told everyone I will have a draft of the thesis done in a few weeks and I am desperate to finish this screenplay I am working on so I can send it to the Zoetrope contest. I looked over the draft I have of the thesis (I do have a complete draft, but I haven’t included all of my primary sources in the text) and it needs a tremendous amount of work. But I am so close to finishing I can almost taste it.

I have changed my mind about moving to LA and decided to move to Vegas instead. This is very exciting. I am really looking forward to being out west and I am so happy to think about really being a writer! This is so cool. I guess the thing is that it makes me really happy to think about actually earning money for my writing. It still feels so much like a long shot, but I can’t wait to try.

Did I even get that right? Yeah, lots of German lately. I want to get this done. I feel like I’m not getting much done right now. Well I am doing a lot, but I don’t seem to be finishing much. There’s so much work to do on the screenplays. It never ends and I like that but I have not been so great about finishing things that I start. I have 135 pages of thesis right now. I am going through it to get a draft ready for my committee. I have to wrap this up if I’m going to be done in a couple of months.

I’m not sure why I am freaking about the German, but I think it’s because I just don’t want the department to hold anything else above my head. I want to be able to finish this chapter of my life and walk away with the goods.

I am still morose and moody about the whole JG misunderstanding. If he would just apologize…well that’s never going to happen. I’m upset because all bullshit aside, I really liked having him around to talk with. But I can’t be friends with someone who is so vicious. He just turned on me so fast and crazy. And I could try to understand, but I know I never will understand. I really trusted him and I feel so betrayed. Well, he is right he never officially lied to me. He just totally omitted the truth and that’s the same thing in my book. In his, it’s not. End of story. It’s a clash or moral universes. And I have such great friends that when someone gets shitty with me, I just have a really hard time tolerating it. I think that in time I will feel better about this. But it will take some time. I thought I had a great friend. Then I realized that he was opportunistic for whatever reasons and that’s really kind of sad. I remember him saying that he doesn’t trust anyone, and that fits, since in my experience if someone says they can’t trust, they’re usually the untrustworthy one.

Enough psycho-babble crap. But that’s why I’m uncomfortable.

My friend CB has a great weblog that I read every day to keep up on Vegas events. She writes about 10x as much as I do and she’s got crazy painful-hands. And it’s all good. She’s amazing.

Lat night I did the science and technology of war for my class. That means we went over chemical warfare, nuclear warfare, and Nazi death camp technology. A real upper of a lecture, that was. Class is still going fairly well. I’ll probably miss teaching at York; it’s a pretty cool place to work.

Last night I went to JK’s house after class and CV was there. We all ate fresh raspberries from JK’s garden and talked for hours. It was an incredibly polluted night; the kind where you keep noticing that you have gunk in your eyes. Everyone talks about how LA pollution is so bad, but this is the worst I’ve ever seen. But I haven’t been to Mexico City yet. I understand that’s unbelievable bad.

We ended up talking about politics. JK saw the Michael Moore movie and so I went off. I can’t believe they paid to see that. I hate talking politics with Canadians. They just end up saying how in the US people get turned away from doctors all the time and that there’s all this poverty and racism. I miss home a lot most of the time and I am sick of being a foreigner. Conversations like this only make things worse.

Other than the political stuff, I had a pretty good time. They chatted with me about personal stuff and I feel better. It’s really nice to have people you can trust in your life.

This morning is full of toxic air and I can hardly see. I’m supposed to talk with EZ later which will be so great. In spite of having a few pals here, I still feel isolated a lot.

I am a bit down. Attempts to resolve the problems with JG have gone horribly wrong and that just makes me sad.

I rained today and I ended up sleeping too much.

EZ told me that things will get better, but that doesn’t mean they don’t suck now. She’s right.