There’s a bunch of you I have been bugging to try acupuncture, so here is your chance!
Acufest at Red Flower!
From 3-8pm you can come in (make an appointment) and get a free acupuncture session. I’ve talked about acupuncture a few times on my blog and I think all of the times I was talking about this studio. There’s parking available and it’s close to Damen so you can take the bus, too.

I was explaining who Maggie Gyllenhaal is (really how could you not know?) which led me to browsing Donnie Darko trivia on IMDB. Did you know Sparkle Motion was supposed to be dancing to West End Girls but they couldn’t afford to use the song? Neither did I. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to Pet Shop Boys so I went to YouTube to watch their video for West End Girls. Why does this song remind me of Flight of the Conchords? Oh, because they did a parody of it for Inner City Pressure.
So what I’m saying is why don’t I own Donnie Darko? I think I’m going to go see if Reckless Records has a copy.

I extorted a nice boy into buying me The Dark Crystal and that’s what I’m watching tonight between cleaning and other boring things.
I remember being scared of the creatures in The Dark Crystal when I was little especially Augra and her removable eye. I looked at the package today and saw that the movie is rated PG but since it’s an older movie it doesn’t say why it’s rated PG. I guess if it was re-released the package would say something like “Fuck those creepy vulture things! Did that muppet just take out her eye?”
What happened to making up creatures for kid’s movies? Talking cars, cute robots, ninja pandas, smiley fish…does everything have to be a friendly recognizable thing? Dark Crystal is so cool because of the weird Henson creatures. Even though gelflings look slightly Asian and the Podlings are vaguely Eastern European, the other creatures are a wonderful mix of creepy and only slightly based in reality.

Unrelated, I’ve recently discovered Leonid Afremov’s paintings (noisy site) and I am totally digging them. Maybe I will get a print to replace the hula hoop in the living room when I get a new couch.

I checked out the drag kings on Friday. I can do what they’re doing. It’s mostly just lip syncing and a little acting to explain what the song means to them. The show was pride month themed so it was heavy on the angst.

I don’t know how well I would fit in the group. Most of the kings look younger than me and have their cute little queer friends cheering them on. And they look very convincing. I’m guessing they look very convincing off stage as well. The MC referred to some of the kings as trans men. And I’m nowhere near trans. I just want to put a little bend in my gender. I know I wil go back and forth and make up a ton of excuses to do it and not do it before the show. Good thing it’s a month away and I have time for all of this.

I saw a friend from high school, too(at a bar, not the show). It’s nice reconnecting with people. I’m always all blah blah stability so maybe having a little of my past around will help and it will remind me that my entire past was not scary. There was a lot of good that unfortunately doesn’t stick like the trauma does.

Saturday I went to a friend’s wedding reception. There were over 500 guests, 3 dress changes, tons of awesome food, singers and MC’s. I didn’t see the bride and groom sit down for more than 5 minutes at a time. But the most impressive thing was the couple. They’ve been together since junior high. Now they’re in grad school, finally getting married. That’s some make you believe in true love stuff right there.

When someone says “sunny day” does it make you think of the Sesame Street song?

Fine, it’s just me. You have no soul.

I spent a lot of time at work fixing someone else’s mistakes. A coworker gave me a bunch of addresses and they were all so close but not right. Like 312 Main St instead of 314 Main St. I told on him and it made me feel better.

Boy and I went to a Buddhism study group at a different temple. This one looks like a real temple and it even has real Japanese people! The temple where we have been attending meditation courses is also a dojo and so it looks like a dojo and it’s attended by mostly whiteys. The study group at new temple was more diverse in race and age. And they don’t even do sitting meditation. Lazy Buddhists!

For clarification, the meditation I am referring to at temple/dojo is Zazen. The teacher at the 2nd temple practices Pure Land Buddhism which isn’t so big on the sit down and shut up.

And you came back to me? Aww.

The past couple days have been like a weekend to me because the boy and I left town, gambled, saw Chuck Berry and I got inked.

The casino-whatever it’s a casino.

Chuck Berry- Chuck Berry is 81 years old and wears shiny shirts and plays small clubs at 10pm. That alone is pretty rockin. His son is his guitarist and tries to keep his dad on task. Sometimes during a guitar solo Chuck forgets what song he is playing and either turns around to ask his son which song he was playing or just goes into another song. It’s like getting twice as many songs! Chuck likes the ladies, he invited all of the women in the audience to come on stage and dance with him for the very last song. After being crushed by the flock of women on the stage, his roadie helped him back to the front of the stage so he could forget the words to another song. He also likes his lawyer and he pointed him out during the show. I guess that’s good advertising for the lawyer. And he likes Obama. At one point he rambled this gem “Ram..know what rhymes with ram? (confused look from son) Bam! Bam! How about that Barack Obama?” We cheered.

Tattoo-The day after the show I got up bright and early for my 9am tattoo appointment. I can’t complain too much, the artist was booked for months and was cool by coming in early to see me. He did a fantastically detailed outline and I’m going back in a couple months for the fill in. I’m not sure if it’s because my other tattoos are small or if it’s because they have no outlines but this tattoo hurt a lot worse than the others. I had to keep reminding myself to breathe as he made tiny lines over my spine. The outline took 2 hours, the fill in will take 4 hours. I have 2 months to learn how to meditate. And I have 2 months to start losing some serious weight so I can show off this tattoo.
V-Day- Oh god, I’m so damn gooey with the boy. It’s kind of sick. I made him a card and got him some cutesy presents. He surprised me with a big box of Vosge truffles. I loves me some fancy chocolate.

Hey, guess what? I’m still allergic to thin peel fruits. You would think I wouldn’t forget which foods are poison to me but I got some pears from the store last week. About halfway in, my lips started to swell, throat got itchy, stomach started to hurt. I already knew this happens with apples but I guess everything with a peel is out to get me! I can eat things that are apple flavored with no problem. I had an apple breakfasty food today. Which I guess goes to show how processed the foods I consume are.

I’m going cross eyed looking at pictures of fractals, Julia and Mandelbrot sets, trying to determine if they are too complex to be inked onto my body. I know people will ask why a fractal since I am horrible with numbers. My official reason is “because science is beautiful.” Which in a way also says “take that, Jesus!”

Have you been keeping up on the latest MySpace security breach? 17gb of private pictures leaked. Goons are already sorting through the pictures and posting the interesting pics. I think I’m too old and too clothed for my pics to be posted.

I try to stay away from celeb gossip but Britney shows up on Google news at least once a week. So Britney’s family supposedly planned an intervention with Dr. Phil and Britney bailed on it. And then Dr. Phil told some show or tabloid that Britney be a crazy bitch. Whatever. I’ve looked up Dr. Phil’s credentials before and sadly, some college did give him a PhD. It was 20 years ago, he probably wasn’t such an opinionated tool back then. Being a “doctor” and all, shouldn’t he be bound by confidentiality laws? HIPAA? Ethical obligations of some sort?
This chick at NY Times says no because he is no longer licensed. Well, what the hell Dr. Phil? Get all famous and you let your licenses slip or you purposely give up your license so you can jabber about Britney’s ugly boyfriend with the press? Either way. Dr. Tool gives psychology a bad name because while he does have a degree in psychology, he is just practicing the art of getting really fucking rich, not anything remotely professional.

Also on the paying too much attention to Britney front, I’ve noticed her last couple songs sound a lot more distorted and electronic. Assuming she has some input in what she sings, I thought her distorted voice was a way of separating herself from this lifestyle that she obviously cannot handle. Almost disassociating herself from her music. Then I realized that her voice probably sounds like hell because of all the drugs she seems to be eating and the producers needed to throw some distortion on her vocals to cover up her overwhelming suck.

This all came up when I was looking up medical information, really.

My mood improved over the weekend. Friday at work wasn’t too bad, maybe my boss recognized that I was all sorts of moody and went easy on me. I booked an acupuncture appointment at a new place for next week and I will start going back to the gym and maybe give yoga another try.

I’ve been emailing social workers that advertise running LCSW supervision groups but haven’t found any that are actually active. The social workers all offer individual supervision but I can get that at work for free!

I have been sick, unrelated to alcohol this time. Related to others in my office being sick and no one opening a damn window even if the office is a gabillion degrees like it was today. Well, maybe that didn’t make me sick but it made me feel much worse and I paced the building looking for a cool spot (North women’s bathroom).

I’ve come to the conclusion, with no help from professional social work sites, that I am eligible to get my LCSW even if I’m not in direct service. On the licensing paperwork, there is a list of “what kind of work do you do?” and research is listed. So, good enough for me. I’m starting to think it’s ridiculous that I’m looking for an outside licensing supervision group. I like the group supervision experience more than 1 on 1 but I have at least 3 LCSW’s at my workplace. Maybe I could rotate between them.

I’m going to be trained to be a trainer at work because I opened my big mouth after our last training and told my boss “I could do that.” And she said “OK, do it.” Damn having a boss that let’s me do everything.