I browsed off of Louis's blog today to take a ColorQuiz. It's a personality test based on the research of Dr. Max Lûscher in the 1990's, which uses colors to try to infer things about the test taker's emotional state.

Here is what it had to say about me:

Existing Situation
Attracted by anything new, modern, or intriguing. Liable to the bored by the humdrum, the ordinary, or the traditional.

Stress Sources
Wants to overcome a feeling of emptiness and to bridge the gap which she feels separates herself from others. Anxious to experience life in all its aspects, to explore all its possibilities, and to live it to the fullest. She therefore resents any restriction or limitation being imposed on her and insists on being free and unhampered.

Restrained Characteristics
Remains emotionally unattached even when involved in a close relationship.
Feels that she cannot do much about her existing problems and difficulties and that she must make the best of things as they are. Able to achieve satisfaction from sexual activity.

Desired Objective
Preoccupied with things of an intensely exciting nature, whether erotically stimulating or otherwise. Wants to be regarded as an exciting and interesting personality with an altogether charming and impressive influence on others. Uses tactics skillfully so as to avoid endangering her chances of success or undermining others' confidence in herself.

Actual Problem
Fights against restriction or limitation, and insists on developing freely as a result of her own efforts.

Actual Problem #2
The fear that she might be prevented from achieving the things she wants leads her to play her part with an urgent and hectic intensity.

Some of these statements seem to fit me pretty well. Some fit not as well. Many seem rather generic -- I thought at first that they might be like horoscopes, generic enough to allow the reader to read whatever they will into the description.

I read over Louis's results, though, and they were dramatically different from mine. Didn't fit me nearly as well. So maybe there's something to it all.

Made me wonder, if color can really be used to infer so much about a person, whether varying tones between different computer monitors would make a difference in the test results. The colors won't necessarily appear the same on my screen, with my screen settings, as they will on yours.

LifeWise was never able to locate my payment, so I am still effectively uninsured. Fortunately, because I had paid in person, had obtained a reciept, and kept both the receipt and a carbon copy of the check, they admit that I probably did pay.

After I jump through a few hoops -- put a stop on the original check, send them a copy of the receipt for that so that they can reimburse me for the stop fee, and send them a new check -- they will then honor the original date of payment, reinstate my health coverage dating back to 12/01/2003, and will resubmit all claims that they have since rejected.

Joy.

New graffiti scrawled on a wall near my bus stop:

Consume less,
live more.

Ah, Capitol Hill.

In preparation for my trip to Portland this weekend, I took my car in over lunch to have its oil changed, its tires rotated, its brakes checked, and its fluids checked. I also replaced the windshield wiper blades. It's all running so nicely now!

I had the work done at Courtesy Auto. They gave me a deal on the work since I had them replace two of my tires a while back -- $17 for the oil change, the tire rotation, and the brake and fluid checks. Sweet.

That makes two good car experiences in less than a month. Considering that all my car repair experiences up to that point had been poor, that's not bad at all. It's a whole new world.

A thick blanket of fog covered all of Capitol Hill when I went out to walk the dog this morning.

I love walking out to find a known place so completely transformed! It feels mystical and magical. Makes me want to believe in wondrous things. Everthing is changed, new, exciting - I feel an undercurrent of excitement stir within me, a feeling that defined my childhood but has become more dormant over the years.

I played the best Ultimate game today that I've played in months. Possibly the best in years. Nice, nice, very nice.

So I went to the Democratic Caucus today. I ended up acting as secretary for my precinct, and I'm an alternate delegate for the upcoming regional caucus. My precinct is sending one delegate for Kucinich, one delegate for Kerry, and three delegates for Dean.

Strangely enough, two of the other four alternate delegates also live in my apartment building. Gettin' to know the neighbors.

In other news, while I was out, someone apparently thought it would be nice to open up the dryer door in the middle of my cycle, so that I'd have to put more quarters in and restart it when I got back. What the hell?! Not nice at all!

Always, always, always I have so much trouble dragging myself out of bed during the week, and then I can hardly stay sleeping on weekend mornings. Saturdays especially.

The time alone is nice, though. I feel somehow more serene on Saturday mornings than I do at any other time of the week. Sitting here in semi-darkness, all alone, quiet outside, quiet in the rest of the building, all the rest of the weekend ahead of me. So much time before me to do as I please.

The Gender Genie also believes that:

• Mike is male (overwhelmingly so)
• Mary is female
• Laurie is female (grrr - I hate teendiary.com, but I still go because I love Laurie)
• Brian is male (high margin of certainty again)
• Bem is male
• Jeremy is male (quite certain here, as well)
• Jon is male (no question)
• Andy is male

That's a 0% margin of error. Very interesting.

I wanted to read about the algorithm, but the link to it off of the Genie page is broken. There is a working link to an interesting little nature.com article, though. And it quotes a few source articles. I'll have to go pick them up and read up more on the subject.

The Gender Genie, upon analyzing my blog text, thinks that I am female. Whew. Glad that's settled.

Tonight while I was driving to Ultimate practice, a huge raccoon ran out in front of my car.

Granted, I was way out in west Seattle, but still, you don't expect that sort of thing in the city.

When I first saw it dart out in front of me I thought, "Woah, what is wrong with that cat?" Then I realized it was no cat. Crazy.

WHERE'S MY CAUCUS?

If you are a King County resident who wishes to vote in the WA Democratic Caucus this Saturday and you, like myself, have misplaced your voter registration card, the following information will help you find your voting location:

STEP 1 - LOOK UP YOUR PRECINCT:

Enter your name and date of birth on the King County Elections web site. If you have trouble call 206-296-VOTE.

STEP 2 - LOOK UP YOUR CAUCUS:

Look up your precinct on the Washington State Democrats web site. Note that the first number for your precinct is your legislative district, so when the site asks you to enter your "precinct number" just enter the last 4 digits. If you have trouble, you can also check the web site for your legislative district for more info.

The caucus convenes at 10:00 AM. Any voter registered in the precinct who is willing to sign a statement declaring that he or she is a Democrat can vote. Other persons can attend and take part in the discussions, but are not permitted to vote on anything. Proof of voter registration is not required.

Happy voting!

Blogging and the New York Times:

There is now an amazing tool for bloggers that want to link to NYTimes articles! Simply enter the URL for the article you're interested in and it will return an alternate link for the article. The alternate link will allow access to the article, even after it has been archived, without requiring the viewer to pay any fees. This works for all NYTimes articles dating back to June of 2003. Pretty sweet!

Dancing robots! This stuff kicks some serious ass.

The Rice Milk Brothers are DJing at tomorrow night's One 'O Clock Jump. Sweetness! They got good stuff.

I haven't been out Lindy Hopping all that much lately... I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things at tomorrow night's dance.

If you mistype the URL for this site, leaving out the 's' in blogspot (i.e. http://nyrhtak.blogpot.com instead of http://nyrhtak.blogspot.com), you get a bible site. Strange, but interesting. Vewy, vewy interesting.

Well, maybe not so strange. I guess it turns out that just about anything .blogpot.com will take you to that site -- http://anythinggoeshere.blogpot.com, http://yourmomma.blogpot.com, http://iwanttolickyou.blogpot.com, etc. They're probably banking on people trying to browse to legitimate blogger sites and mistyping the latter part of the URL. Interesting marketing strategy.

Have you ever had an established friendship morph into something deeper? You already know and like the other person, and you're happy with the terms on which you relate, but suddenly you're connecting with them on an entirely new level. Note that this is different than an acquaintance morphing into a friend.

This has happened to two of my friendships recently.

I wonder -- how much coincidence is it? This morphing of friendships doesn't happen often for me, and it's happening in multiplicity right now. Am I putting out a different vibe? Relating to people in subtly different ways that are perhaps more inviting? Or is it really just an odd coincidence that the two instances happened so close together?

Whatever the case, I am glad for these particular instances. I look forward to the growth of our friendships, to exploring uncharted territory.

When I was a teenager, I drove everywhere with the windows down. Even in the dead of winter, in sub-zero temperatures. I loved the feeling of the wind whipping through the car, cooling my cheeks. It made me feel free.

A few years ago, I drove with the windows down because I was a smoker and I hated the smell. I was most compelled to smoke whilst stuck in traffic but couldn't shut myself up with the stinky, nasty cigarette, so I held it out the window whenever I wasn't taking a puff.

Now I don't smoke anymore. But at some point, I also stopped driving with the windows down.

Today, I drove to work. I rolled the windows down. I turned the music up. It felt so good!

I think sometimes that parts of my spirit have died over the years. Or, more aptly, have fallen dormant. So much of the time, I'm plugging away and doing my thing but... somehow, it's not really living.

Today, driving into work, the sun shining in my eyes, the mountains bright and clear and calling to me, the wind whipping through the car, I felt as if some part of me that had been long sleeping was just now waking up.

Finished another one. MSPaint Madness!



I'm a regular Monet of the digital age.

MSPaint Again:

I tell people I'd like to live in a country where nudity isn't stigmatized the way it is here, but at the same time I have issues surrounding my own nudity. I almost always sleep with clothes on. I feel strange walking around my apartment, outside of my bathroom, in any stage of undress, even though I live alone.

Effectually, I am okay with other peoples' nudity, but have issues with my own. That's a little strange, yeah?

Fun with MSPaint:

Roosevelt Auto Body Collision 1 - Super Awesome.

Someone side-swiped my car a while back and I just now got it into the shop to get fixed. I took it to Roosevelt Auto Body, because the other party's insurance was paying and it was one of their preferred shops.

When I took the car in, I asked if they would repair my passenger side mirror as well. I had banged it on a fence a while back, which cracked the casing, and then Mary nicked a dumpster later on, which finished it off. I was prepared to just suck up the cost for that since it had nothing to do with the accident, and it did sound like it might get a little costly. They can't order just new casing -- they have to order an entire mirror, wiring and all, which runs about $170. They could try getting a used part, but junkers like to sell off doors as a complete piece so they're unlikely to sell just the mirror casing.

So, anyhow, Roosevelt Auto Body finished work on my car today. I went to pick it up, expecting that I'd be paying about $170 out of pocket.

Not so!

They fixed the mirror for me! Bonded all the pieces back together, painted it... FOR FREE.

They did a great job fixing everything else, as well. And everything else was covered by the insurance. And they cleaned my car on top of that!

Sweet, sweet, sweet. I am in love with my auto shop.

My bus pulled up to the stop this morning while I was still half a block away. I ran toward it like a woman posessed, and... the bus driver waited for me. That never happens!

It turns out that, in my quest for better posture, I have been over-compensating and arching my lower back. Crazy. I hadn't even realized you could do that. It's like the anti-slouch.

These are the states that I have been to:


I counted states that I have driven through on the way, but not states that I have flown through / transferred planes in. (Effectively, I left out Texas. I spent approximately two hours in a Texas airport once, but I figure it doesn't count seeing as I never even exited airport security.)

These are the states that I have intentionally spent time in (does not count states that I drove through in order to spend time in another state):




There's a distinct bias toward the Midwest, eh? Interesting that I've seen so little of the west coast, especially seeing as I've lived on this coast for the last 6th of my life. I feel like I should go see more of the South sometime, also, although I'm not sure I'm quite as excited about that.

Create your own visited states map

I hate putting concentrated effort into something and not making the sort of headway I'd like. I'm used to being good at whatever I want to be, at being able to pick things up easily if I put my mind to it. It frustrates me when I am not able to do that.

I want to be good at Tango! I'm starting to be able to picture what I want my Tango to look like, what I'd like it to be, but I just can't do it. It feels like I'm hardly making any headway. Very frustrating.

I was amused to note a few days ago that G.W.B. only got 85% of the vote in the N.H. Republican Primary.

I was even more amused to read, yesterday, that, as write-ins, Kerry got 5% of that vote, Dean got more than 3%, Clark got over 2%, and another 3% was split between Edwards, Lieberman, Kucinich, and Sharpton. Go New Hampshire.

We had a double header for ultimate today. Ultimate, early in the morning, in seattle winter rain is not my favorite. It's even less so when I can't exert myself too much for fear of making my mouth start bleeding again, and so spend most of my time sitting around wet and cold on the sidelines. We had some good games though. ALLCAPS rocks.

I meant to go tango dancing tonight but forgot that the normal Saturday night tango dance has been cancelled in place of a super-expensive, super-formal tango ball. I think I'm going to pass on that. There's a late night tango dance afterwards that I'll probably hit, but that doesn't start until 1am.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to have dinner with Alex. Afterward, I think I'll drag him to The Pampas Room. Live jazz music, drinks, a bit of dancing -- nice! I went a few times with Eric a bit over a year ago, but I haven't been back since I started getting more serious about my dancing. Steve and Melissa who might join us. Should be good times.

Bzzzht on Brian and Jeremy, both of whom seem to have forgotten entirely that blogging even exists. Browsing over to their respective pages makes me want to cry.

We pursue that which retreats from us. So true.

More on the fiasco with LifeWise:

I dug up a the receipt for my payment, a bill that the lady who received my payment marked and stamped, and the carbon copy of the check I submitted for payment, and went to Kinkos this morning to fax that all off to LifeWise. It connected, came back with "LifeWise Plan of" for the receiving party, and transmitted the fax.

Apparently, however, someone "lost" the fax so I had to fax it all again. Found this out after not being able to get through to my contact for the majority of the day. I won't find out if they received the new batch of copies until sometime on Monday.

In the meanwhile, they've started sending notices for claims they have rejected from December since my coverage was "cancelled".

@#$@#?*@%.

Didn't feel up to riding the bus home today. Nausea sucks.

Jon inspired me to think outside the box, though, and it occurred to me that Steve might have driven in today. I called him up and sure enough, he had his car and was willing to give me a lift home. Yay for Steve. Steve is awesome.

The painkillers today made me so nauseous. I've sworn off them going forward -- decided I'd rather feel like someone took a meat grinder to my mouth than feel sick like that again.

As I was walking from the Russian Center to the Dance Underground last night, some scruffy older guy begging for change on a street corner asked me to go out to a club with him.

It was the first date I'd been asked out on in forever. I... er... declined, however.

My health insurance company (LifeWise, the Washington branch of Blue Cross) sucks.

The check I sent them in December got lost in the mail, so they lapsed my coverage and put in a cancellation that would retroactively nullify all coverage back through December 1st.

I found out about the missing payment and the subsequent lapse on January 18th, a Sunday. On Monday the 19th, I talked to a LifeWise agent on the phone and they told me that if I paid the missing amount by the 20th, the coverage would resume in full. Otherwise they would cancel my plan entirely.

Based on that information, I drove out to their Seattle Corporate office during my lunch hour on the 19th and paid on-site, just to make sure they got the payment. I paid through the end of February, just in case anything else went wrong. Everything seemed fine and dandy.

That is, until today, when I found out at the Pharmacy that my coverage has officially expired. I called LifeWise to see what was up and they told me that they have no record of the payment I made on the 19th.

I logged online to my bank account to verify, and sure enough, the check was never cashed.

Now I get to spend the evening digging around so that I can find my receipt and fax it back to them to show that I did, indeed, pay. Otherwise my coverage from Dec. 1 up until now will be void.

$#@*&!

We really need Universal Health Coverage here in the US -- private plans, private insurance, and insurance tied to employers are uncool in so many ways.

Gasses from internal decay caused the decomposing remains of a 60-ton sperm whale to explode all over a busy street today in Tianan, Taiwan. Yum.

In other news, the whale was apparently well hung, with its penis measuring at some five feet. That's almost bigger than me.

My mouth hurt like hell this morning, so during the lunch hour I finally gave in and filled my prescription for generic Vicodin. Now I'm feeling sooooo gooooood.

It's good that I didn't drive today, though. Feeling kinda lightheaded. No pain, very happy, but perhaps not the best state to be operating a motor vehicle.

I joined a book club a while ago. Good books, good conversation, good company, although it turns out the woman who was running the club has a few issues to work out.

At some point, a few of the women decided to get together and hang out outside of the monthly book discussion meeting. The originator got terribly offended and has been sending out paranoid, angry, unhappy emails to everyone all week long, telling us how we are all evil terrible people who feel we are entitled. And that we are mostly (so-called liberal) whites compounds our crimes against she and the world. So much drama. Very strange.

Some of the women flared up in response, some stayed out of it altogether, and some responded very calmly and rationally. My first instinct was to get drawn into all the drama and address some of the angry emails, but for the most part I've just been sitting it out here on the sideline.

It seems the drama is nearly over now. Some of the women are still going to get together this Friday, while others of a more dramatic inclination have washed their hands of us all after having screamed their peace over multiple email threads. Since the group has been self-selecting and a number of people are stepping out, I think it will be interesting to see how the dynamics level out going forward.

The people in my hallway at work are like zombies. I smile at them as we pass eachother enroute to our respective offices, but they stare blankly back at me as if to say, "Who are you to presume to interact with me? You are nothing but a bug on the wall."

Granted, they are not in my group. We will never be required to work together to in any capacity. But should that preclude any attempt at friendliness?

Google bombing is quite the phenomenon. A few articles on the subject, for your reading pleasure:

• The New York Times: Engineering Google Results to Make a Point
• BBC NEWS: 'Miserable failure' links to Bush
  
• SearchEngineWatch.com: Google Bombs Aren't So Scary

I'm not sure if I was doing something weird while I slept last night, but I woke to find that my lower left side especially tender and seeping blood again. Not ultra-cool.

Gargled with salt-water, put some gauze in, and now I'm going to go back to bed for an hour to try and sleep it away.

My holes-where-teeth-used-to-be don't hurt too much this morning (there is of course, some pain, but not unbearable), but my throat hurts like a @#$@#&#$. Stupid cold.

I'm feeling worse now, 8 hours after the fact, than I did four or five hours ago. Blah. Still haven't given in the urge to take narcotics, though I might take part of the day off sick tomorrow if I end up feeling any worse than I do now.

My officemate made fun of me today for going back into work after getting my teeth out. :)

I probably did look and sound pretty funny with all the gauze in my mouth, and my mouth did get progressively more sore as the anesthetic wore off, but it didn't seem to affect my productivity at all. If I'd stayed at home I would have been bored out of my mind.

Just one more quick note --

It sucks when you're sooo thirsty, but you don't have control over your mouth or your ability to swallow so you cannot actually imbibe any liquids. Here's hoping this anesthetic wears off quickly!

All in all, everything went extraordinarily well with my oral surgery. I'm in a great mood.

I made the right decision about going with just local anesthetic. The oral surgeon said that I was a great patient; one of the calmest they've had. I was amazed at how quickly and effortlessly the whole procedure was. It was a little strange, hearing the bone cracking and seeing my blood on his gloves, but it didn't phase me at all. They had a little with some of the roots breaking off, and needed to work a bit on those to grab the leftover pieces. My lower left side will probably ache a bit because that was the worst of the bunch.

Overall, I don't think it took more than a minute for him to extract any one tooth. Very little effort at all on their part.

I kind of wanted to keep the teeth, but they donate them to the UW medical school and the assistant said they might find mine particularly interesting because they had the longest, thinnest roots they've ever seen.

They gave me a prescription for Vicodin, but I haven't filled it yet. The anesthetic is starting to wear off already, and I'm just going to wait and see how I feel once it's all worn off. I might be okay with just Advil, or with no painkillers at all. We'll see.

Time to head back to work...

Weather really does affect my mood. It seems illogical, but in the context of weather some of my mood swings make so much more sense.

Yesterday, everything was going fairly well, but I was in a foul mood. It was dark and dreary outside.

Today, in the oral surgeon's office even before the surgery (when many people might feel tense or anxious), I was feeling great. Very happy. It was sunny out. There were great big windows in the office letting the sun shine in.

Feelin' goooood...

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun
And I say -
It's alright

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun
And I say -
It's alright

- excerpt from The Beatles' Here Comes The Sun

I've had a cold the last few days. My throat hurts and I'm not feeling tops.

It figures that I'd already have a sore throat going into oral surgery! Just my luck.

On the bright side, if I had to have my teeth out and if I also had to have this stupid cold, maybe it's good that I get them both over with all at once. Then I minimize the amount of time I spend feeling poorly and maximize the healthy, feeling good time, ya?

Tomorrow's the big day -- my first surgery ever. If you can call it surgery. I mean, I know they call it "oral surgery", but what is surgery, really? What differentiates it from tooth extractions I've had before -- why is this surgery, and those weren't? Is it just because it's done by an oral "surgeon"?

Anyhow -

Tomorrow's the big day. Au revior, wisdom teeth!

Budget concerns and curiousity both weighed on my mind as I thought about how I would feel comfortable having the surgery done, and I finally decided to do it sans sedatives, sans laughing gas. Just local anesthetic. Exciting!

Off to sleep now so that I'll be awake and alert enough to fully appreciate this experience tomorrow.

I'm operating under the theory right now that if I keep going out to tango all the time, eventually it will get it into my body.

I went out tonight -- danced from the moment I got there right up until the dance ended -- and the only thing I got a feeling for was my aching feet.

Well, I am being a little melodramatic. I do seem to improve a bit with each night that I go out and dance, and I'm sure that applied tonight, as well. It's just that looking for the improvement is sort of like sitting down to watch paint dry or plants grow. It happens so slowly, so minutely that it's hard to see that it's happening at all. I'm impatient. I want it all to happen now. I want to wake up one morning and suddenly be -good- at tango! It kills me that I've got so far to go.

I have so much I want to get off my chest right now but nobody to really talk to.

It's tempting to blog it all -- I mean, what is this, but a conversation with myself? -- except that everything and anything that's weighing on my mind has to do with people, many of whom might read this, and it just wouldn't be right. I should be talking TO them, only I can't, and talking about them on a public forum is no substitute.

I feel isolated. There used to be several people with whom I felt very connected, who I felt I could talk to about anything -- assured that they would be supportive, non-judgemental, would really listen, would honor my trust -- but that feels broken right now with many of them. It's not that I can't talk to them at all, just -- not unabashadly, not about just anything. For at least some things, right now, the trust level is not there.

Maybe I need to take up painting or sculpting or music again. Create an outlet that's not talking, that's not bloging, but is all me. Not reliant on anyone else. Maybe I'd be happier if I figured out where I misplaced my written journal and picked that up again? I don't know.

finally getting my car fixed
here's to Kat
gettin' things done
woot woot

I love Lawrence Lessig. I want to bear his children. Except he's already having children with a significant other who is not me, so he probably will not want to father any of mine.

Bob Keeshan (better known by many as Captain Kangaroo) died Friday morning. Very sad. As a kid, I got so many laughs out of Mr. Moose and his buckets of cascading ping pong balls. And some folk from the show went on to help create other great shows like Sesame Street and The Muppet Show! Pioneers in children's television, really. Teletubbies and Barney and whatever else there is out there today just don't seem quite the same.

An expensive joke:

At lunch on Friday, Andy gave me a $20 bill for his portion of the food and I gave him change. I stuffed the $20 down my shirt for shock value. It worked and we both had a giggle over it.

I forgot that I had done that until tonight, when I went to pay admission for One'O'Clock Jump and was unable to find the $20 I thought I had hidden somewhere in my purse. All of a sudden it all came back to me; I had never remembered to take the money out from my shirt to deposit it into the purse. I don't know when/where the bill fell out, but it's nowhere to be found now.

Had all sorts of plans set up for tonight, and I bailed half-way through.

Made it to practice Tango with Jeff. It was good.

Made it to Balboa practice with Patrick, which was also good, although I started feeling really beat partway through. I especially had trouble not dozing towards the end when we had taken a break from dancing and were just chatting. It didn't help that my bum wisdom tooth was acting up and I had a hell of a toothache. I'm glad I'm getting these suckers taken out on Tuesday.

After Patrick's I really wanted to just go home, but I stopped by One'O'Clock Jump because I miss hearing and dancing to Alex's sets. I didn't stay the whole time because the tooth was still bugging me, I was tired, my leg was starting to hurt again, and I was in a mood, but the music was awesome while I was there.

Meant to hit the blues party after One'O'Clock Jump, but I just couldn't do it. So here I am, home, about to crash. I feel almost guilty, bailing out like this, but it's the way it has to be.

I just sliced into my hand on accident just now, while using a knife to open a package. Not a very deep cut, but every time I do something like that it makes me glad again that I've started up again with health insurance.

I just finished watching Farewell My Concubine. An incredibly strong movie -- glad I finally watched it.

Last night, Mary and I had a bonding night. We ordered pizza together and then we sat around watching West Wing on DVD. It was nice. We hadn't hung out together in quite a while, between her boyfriend and between all the dancing I've been trying to do.

On work days, I have so much trouble dragging myself out of bed, and then on weekends, I have trouble sleeping past 6:00 or 7:00 AM. It figures.

It took an hour and fourty five minutes to get home on the bus today. Glad I had a book with me.

My leg started hurting again on the way home. No dancing tonight.

Throughout most of my life, I have been initially drawn to music through lyrics.

That seems to be changing lately. I've been listening to The Postal Service recently, and I've found that although I am enthralled with the music itself I find nearly all the lyrics to be inane.

Then there's tango and swing music. Much of the music I enjoy dancing to has nothing in the way of lyrics, or if it does, it does not factor heavily into my opinion of the music.

I wonder when that all started changing, and if listening to music so that it might inspire movement -- listening for the sake of dance -- has caused me to listen differently.

I dislike endings. I hate having to let go of things, moving on.

So lately, I've been doing this thing where, when there are only 2-3 chapters left in any given book, I'll put it aside and start another. I think I do that so that I don't have to deal with the book ending.

I've decided that this weekend I am going to finish all the books I've got sitting around in that state.

Will it traumatize me, having to deal with so much closure all at once? Will it be good for me, causing me to come out the other end a better, changed person? We shall see. I will let you know how it goes.

I figured out what I disliked about Tango last night at Madrid 522 -- it reminds me a little of swing at the Pampas room on Friday and Saturday nights. It could potentially be a lot of fun with a group of friends who are also dancers, but it's not a great going-alone venue.

There's a decent article in the nytimes magazine on copyright issues. Good stuff. I wish more people were thinking about these issues.

Minnesota Public Radio recently put an interesting poll out on their web site. You select options for each question that most aptly represent your political view, and then it ranks all the current presidential candidates in order of those that are most closely aligned with your views.

I wasn't surprised to see that it matched me up most closely with Carol Moseley Braun, matching my answers with hers at a ratio of 63.0%. I've liked a number of her positions for some time now; I just wasn't sure that she has a broad enough general appeal right now to be an electable candidate.

I also wasn't surprised that Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich followed close behind at 54.0%. I've liked them both for some time.

I was a little more surprised that John Kerry and John Edwards also matched up at a ratio of 54.0%, but not terribly so. I have always liked at least some stances that each has taken.

No surprise at all that George Bush and I had a 0.0% match-up on our political viewpoints.

It's not a perfect survey. It doesn't account for situations where no one candidate's stance matches up with your stance on an issue -- stances outside of those taken by candidates are not represented. There was no stance that I agreed with for education or for health insurance programs, for instance -- for each I had to choose the option I was least unhappy with, rather than tje one that I agreed with. It's not that I don't have opinions, it's that the allotted answers did not adequately represent any stances that matched mine.

It's still an interesting survey, however.

If you're not much of a survey person and would rather just see the stances that the candidates have taken on each item, you can check out a breakdown of all the candidates' positions.

There's also a page of cumulative results for everyone that has taken the survey. Of all those people, most have matched up best with Kucinich (63%) with Howard Dean coming in at a distant second (32%). I wonder, actually, why Kucinich hasn't gotten more press and been more universally popular throughout this nomination process.

Mexico City Subway has started lending out books to riders. Cool beans.

The program is supposed to help cut crime, although there are critics. "Now we'll have an equal number of delinquents, but well-educated," said one.

Apparently Tokyo has borrowing libraries at Subway stations, as well, although they implemented the program to "foster a sense of community".

I wish we had library stations in our Subways. I wish we had a Subway at all. I miss fast, reliable mass transit.

On the bright side, my leg is feeling much better this morning.

Dance tunes get so stuck in my head when they play on the radio as I'm driving around.

Baby when I'm fallin' asleep, I think about you
Do you think about me?
Tell me if you wanna get close - close to the fire, closer to me.

I could be your morning star
if only we could have one night alone
Sick of sitting by myself, waiting by the telephone

Ooh, let me be
the one you call
when you go down
Boy, I'll pick you up and give you the love
You give me the life in the full moonlight
Don't you wanna give me tonight?

- from Morning Star by Cooler Kids

With all the exciting activities I planned for tonight, I forgot to plan time for dinner. Now I'm too tired to dig up much in the way of food. Bullocks.

Being hurt is no fun. I hope my leg will feel better in the morning.

It turns out that I hurt one or more of the muscles in my right leg that help me balance and stabilize when my weight is on the other leg. So actually, even though the hurt is on the right side, it hurts most when I am using my left leg. And especially when I am running, jumping, spinning -- walking, even at a brisk pace, does not hurt.

The Lindy music tonight was awesome, and there was so much energy in the room. It made me want to dance! But dancing hurt. I danced a bit, despite that. It's so hard, being in an environment with music that speaks to you, partners you're crazy about, and great energy in the room, and having to sit out. I am not good at sitting out in those circumstances.

Tango didn't hurt. But the music didn't speak to me, and there wasn't really anyone I wanted to dance with. I met a man named Peyverv or something like that -- very friendly. He was quite nice, but our dances were awkward and physically uncomfortable, despite dancing a good number of them. Perhaps we will connect better with time.

So, anyhow, I'm glad I stopped over at the Russian Center. I could have done without the Tango dance, maybe, but I'm sure it was somehow good for me.

I'm so glad I don't smoke anymore. The Madrid 522 wasn't even that smokey, and it still drives me nuts that I can smell it now on my clothes.

It's strange -- aesthetically, I like smoking. I find smoking in movies seems to be very sensual. Visually, I find it erotic. It excites me. But the moment I encounter it in real life, when the smell is a part of it as well, I am turned off. I can't see it the same way when I must smell it as well.

Oops. I accidentally took a wrong turn trying to get to the Georgetown fields and ended up in Tukwila.

Fortunately, I budgeted myself enough travel time that I still got there before the game started.

Unfortunately, I hurt my leg just a few points into the game and couldn't play again the rest of the night. I hate when that happens.

A man walking the length of Britain naked to promote public nudity finally reached his destination Thursday, after spending most of his seven-month odyssey behind bars following complaints from the public. Talk about perseverence in the face of adversity.

I feel like my body is a tool, and these last several weeks I have been oiling the gears and sharpening the edges. Not only have I been improving the condition of my body, but I have also been improving my expertise in manipulating it. Each day I feel that I am able to get a little more out of it.

My car, however -- another tool, per-say -- is in dire need of repair. It needs an oil change, it needs its breaks checked out, it could stand having its windshield-wiper-tick checked out, it needs for the passenger side mirror to be repaired, and it needs repairs done to the front driver side panels that were damaged in Mary's accident. Each day I feel that it falls further into disrepair and handles a little less tightly.

I found out today that my officemate was an IBM brat, too. His father had 25 years, my mother had 23. We both remember days when IBM was so good to its people, and found that we both wanted nothing more, as children, than to grow up and be a part of that ourselves.

Interestingly enough, his father has also seen IBM in court.

What a small world...

Busy night tonight. Carpool over to the west side after work, hit swing class, run home to take care of the dog, head to south Seattle for an ultimate game, rush home and shower, hit what's left of the dance at the Russian Center, then head out to Tango. I think given a choice between super-busy and nothing-to-do, however, I'd choose the former.

For those of you who missed the Popples reference, Popples were a thing of the 80's - small fuzzy creatures who flipped inside out into their pouches to bounce around as a fuzzy balls. The name "Popples" came from the popping sound they made when they sprang back out the ball. There's some more good Popple info in the description of this ebay Popple sale.

I would feel dated by those of you who missed the reference, except that Mary caught it and she's barely 20. So there.

In addition to becoming a masseuse, I want to marry a masseur. Then we can trade off every now and again and make each other extraordinarily happy.

I want to be a masseuse! It's got to be awesome, working a job where your sole purpose is making people feel good.

It would also be so awesome to actually work with my hands. I miss all the artsy-fartsy stuff I used to do -- getting my hands dirty, working things around, being physical and earthy and connected to the elements around me. Massage would meet some of that again.

I am in love with Ben Gibbard. The Postal Service makes me so happy.

Oops -- I've been doing that thing again where I'm so excited about everything else going on that I forget to eat meals.

Woah, coolness -

Maria has a friend who is studying to be a masseuse. In the pursuit of this goal, the friend has to do a certain number of practice hours for various massages.

She was going to do some of those hours on Maria, only the massage table won't fit in Maria's house. So she said if Maria could find a friend willing to share their space, she would give them a massage, too. They had someone else lined up, only that person has gone AWOL, so they contacted me to see if they could do it here. I made sure they were okay with doing it in a place with animals, decided that things would probably fit if I pushed my living room furniture around, and then invited them to come on over. They'll be here soon. I've never had a professional (or pre-professional) massage before - so exciting!

I met the posture-challenge today with mixed success. I did well when I was thinking about it, but whenever I stopped thinking about it I reverted to my old, slouchy ways.

I exchanged my rolly desk chair for one of the straight-backed guest chairs; that seemed to help a bit. Didn't fix the problem though. I still caught myself slouching over in it far too often.

Ah well. Tomorrow I will wage another battle in this war against slouchiness.

Oops. I went to visit Jaimes & Rachel's site today, typing it into the browser by memory, only I accidentally put a .com instead of a .net and hit some questionable content. This in an environment where questionable content is not cool. I hate when that happens.

Today I'm issuing myself a challenge: keep good posture all the day long.

I figure if I can start maintaining good posture at work, at home, when active, when in repose, I will have easier time of maintaining good posture while dancing. Anything to be a better dancer!

These are my initial starter rules:

• Stand up on my own weight. Don't be leaning against every damn wall I come across!


• It is not necessary to slouch down into the bus seat like a Popple trying to turn inside out.


• Do not lock my joints, especially my knees and hips. Use muscle mass to hold my body weight.


• Give up the whole crossing-the-legs thing for a bit. When I cross my legs, it twists my spine up and all my posture goes to pot. This may not be the way it has to work, but it's the way I do it right now. So for now, I'm giving it up, cold turkey.


• Think about breathing. Breathe in deeply. Use my diaphragm. Breathe in - stomach expands, breathe out - stomach deflates.


• Don't slouch, don't slouch, don't slouch! It is possible to sit up with good posture, even when reading my book. Crazy, but true.

I don't think I can remember a day where I maintained posture all day long. I'm a slouch-a-holic. But today, it all changes; it's the start of a new era in Kathydom.

Some days, I need to start the morning with chocolate cake for breakfast.

Not all mornings.

Not even most mornings.

But every once in a while, there's a day that needs that extra kick. Something out of the ordinary and special to start it off on the right foot.

Today was a chocolate cake day.

I have so much trouble getting up in the morning these days. I was considering a 5:30 AM daily yoga course, but there's no way I'll be able to do that if I can't drag myself out of bed before 7:30.

So much of my life goes to sleep. I wish I could just take all that time back.

What I want, what drives me, changes incredibly from day to day. Changes even minute to minute.

Things that seemed extraordinarily important just a month ago seem to hardly matter now.

Things that seemed wrong a week ago seem now as if they might be okay.

Things that seemed right just a few days ago now cause me second thoughts.

I feel like I hardly know myself. Because my feelings are not consistent and because I am overly prone to act on feelings, I never know quite how I'll act. I don't know what choices I'll make. I might swear myself to some course of action, but half an hour later I'll suddenly about-face and do the opposite. And somehow, so often when this happens, I feel surprised. Surprised! - at my own chosen course of action!

Crazy, eh?

Why do I do that?

Do I not know what I want? Does this happen because I am living in some weird sort of denial? Do I want things that I feel I should not want, so I then waffle back and forth? Am I just flakey?

I feel like I can't trust myself. If I can't trust myself, how can anyone else trust me?

So many questions. Perhaps with more thought I'll have some sort of insight. Currently, though, I am lost as to why I'm so all over the map lately.

Wrote some more blogs today that I guess shouldn't sit out in public right now. I really need to get on that whole content-protected site idea.

I spaced yesterday afternoon and blew off a balboa practice with Patrick. I'm pretty annoyed with myself. Need to be less flakey.

I'm going to miss The Rice Milk Brothers DJing at Sonny's tomorrow. Bummer.

I feel a bit like Cinderella, living my one-night fairy-tale dream. I'm just waiting for the clock to strike midnight and everything to revert, because certainly blissfulness such as this cannot last.

Man, Kevin's band was on tonight! And when they played danceable numbers, I had some of my best lindy dances in recollection.

Alex picked up some sweet blues skills sometime when I wasn't looking. He's really got that sexy-stomach-lead thing going on right now. So delectable!

I wore the same outfit that I wore to tango last night. Wanted to try it out in a swing environment, see if it worked. Nobody was supposed to notice -- last night was tango, and tonight was going to be all swing dancers. But so many people were there that I wasn't expecting; I saw at least four of the same people. Bullocks! On the bright side, the outfit was great for swing dancing. On the dark side, it all smells like smoke now. The joy of bars.

Tonight, 10:00 pm - Kevin Buster at the Bada Lounge!

I've been meaning to make it out to his gig over there for months, but tonight I'm finally going to get my $#|+ in gear and head on over. If you're into jazz or lindy, come out and join me. Should be good times.

I need to remember not to eat potatoes. Every time I do, I end up feeling all cruddy and achey all the rest of the day.

This morning I thought it might be okay to some of the potatoes that came with my brunch, even though I usually avoid them. Bad idea. I've been sore and out of sorts ever since.

Mental note: don't do that anymore.

Spent the last 20 minutes or so making plans to get the brunch crew together.

For the last several months, I and most of my better friends have made a tradition out of Sunday brunches. We get together either Sunday morning or early afternoon and all head out to eat and hang together. These folk are almost like my family. It's so great to have a moment in time every week that I get to look forward to time spent with them. I feel more connected, more rooted. Happy.

Several people are out of town today so it will be a smaller crew than normal. Should still be good, though.

Usually I do most of the calling around on Sundays, but today those who are coming all called me. That was nice! I love when other people show initiative like that. It's silly, but their taking the time to do something as small as calling me makes me feel so appreciated and cared for. Ironically enough, I'm terrible at showing that sort of initiative myself. Outside of this Sunday morning gig, I have a hard time calling friends and setting things up. I'm working on that and I've gotten better, but it's still a real weak point for me.

Off to get ready.

I just got done watching Boys Don't Cry. Hilary Swank gave an amazing, captivating performance. The film itself, though, was so agonizingly sad. And that it's based on a true story -- I want to believe things like that can't actually happen, that we live in a better world. It's painful to watch. But for all that, it's done so well. It has left quite an imprint on me; will be difficult to forget it any time sooon.