My Hunger Strike:
I will not eat, partake of, or drink any food or liquids that are good or nutritious to my body until my stubborn friend Whitney will change her mind about little tiny things. Which is pertaining to the fact she needs to stop the following:

• Putting her finger in my ear, when it is wet.
• Calling herself fat, when in fact she is PHAT. - Pretty Hot And Tempting.
• Frowning when she has the best smile in the world.
• Crying, instead of eating a banana.

She must accept these things, or I die of starvation. It is a call to her; to please fix these problems or she will be sad. My hunger strike begins.

My Dad’s Attire:
I have decided that my great looking clothing is nothing compared to Dan Pope, my dad. He has a few hundred ties NOT EVEN KIDDING. All of which costed at least fifty dollars or more. I have ruined, broken, stripped, sliced, and lost three of those ties. All of which come to a total price of one hundred and eighty dollars. This is nothing compared to the suits, tuxes, suspenders, and tuxedo shirts that I have worn and ruined. We will not even have to combine the total money on that. He has a dry cleaners that he uses to starch and iron his shirts with. I have a very good liking to his nice clothing. But the nicest thing about this, is he understands I’m a highschool teenager, and he loves me. By the way, it is impossible to piss my dad off. But what pisses me off the most, is that word piss is not a word.

Scratch and Eat Time:
My neighbors cat, Ally, is the stupidest more idiotic moron ever to live as a cat. She has brain issues, probably because she was dropped on her head as a kitten. My dad nicknamed the time of day when we come home, walk in the garage, or catch the eye of Ally, Scratch and Eat Time. Why? Well it is simple matter. First off, whenever these three occasions are met, she comes running into the garage. Then she wants some attention, “Rub me, scratch me, and right behind the ears.” But this doesn’t satisfy her enough. She needs to eat exactly after thirty seconds of scratching. So she’ll away to go eat cat food. This is because of her brain waves telling her that whenever I feel good from a scratch, go eat. In result, she is fat. Also a moron, for that matter. Thus I have written a story, Scratch and Eat Time. P.S. This has nothing to do with Scratchy and Itchy from The Simpsons on Fox Network.

7:00 AM

Brian, my best friend stayed over for the night. We watched, Young Frankenstein, which is, quite possibly, one of the funniest movies ever (also probably one of the dirtiest). We had to wake up bright and early because I had to be at church at around 8:00, plus I had to drag my brother and sister out of bed. Anyone who has ever had to try to pry their younger pre-adolescent brother out of bed knows that it is like trying to teach a baboon algebra. Finally we made it to the car with all my guitar gear.

8:00 AM

I started playing guitar for the church's 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade worship band (our church is pretty big) a while ago, but nobody ever told me that I had to get up that early until I had gotten into the habit of sleeping late. I had a nice time jamming with my Christian homies and then I went to go teach the 2nd grade boys in Sunday school. I love those guys! They can be loud an obnoxious, but all you have to do is slap 'em upside the head a little and they'll keep quiet After that I went to service and listened to the pastor preach. We are in some sort of series about finding the purpose of our lives as a church.

1:00 PM

I went with my mom and dad upstairs to eat lunch with the pastor and some other people. It was pretty cool. I sat by one of my best friends, Kori Gruber. Kori is an adopted Korean girl, who I've known since 5th grade. She's is pretty awesome and she is a looker, but even the thought of a relationship with her sends chills up my spine. It would be like dating my sister, but I won't get into that.

3:00 PM

I headed home in my beat up white Chevy Lumina. After I got home I plopped down and started watching The Great Escape. I must say I was a little disappointed. I thought more than half of the escapees, at least, would have lived. But, I guess life doesn't always throw us happy endings. Sometimes we just have to take what life throws at us and pray to God that we will be able to stand it. I know that some say God is a crutch. If a crutch is what I need to keep me going, then I'll take it.

A thick smoky haze hangs heavy over the city. It's hot and dry, causing people to be snappy and short. The air is so tense you can feel it.

The light coming through my window is orange, and I can look directly at the sun, the smoke is so thick. The building across the street is a hazy blur and the only other building as far as I can see... Has the city been reduced to these 2 buildings? There is very little street noise drifting up, which leads me to believe that it's almost deserted. If it wasn't for a few others in this office quietly whispering on the phone about the condition of the air outside, I would think this close to the end of the world.

It seems that all of Australia is on fire.

Victoria; Mt beauty, our alpine region is on fire, which is causing the smoke over Melbourne. Canberra has had terrible fires. Not a month ago Sydney had tragic fires. The country is dry, and with the weather only getting hotter, it is a worry as to the future.

I recall Ash Wednesday the last big fires we had in Victoria. They burned for 3 days, and didn't do as much destruction as the fires in Canberra. The night a fire storm swept our back neighbours lot was horrifying but it didn't encroach onto our side of the fence. It scared me, and I will never take fire safety lightly again, and t shocks me to the very core to think that some people do.

Reports are in that a lot of homes failed to have insurance against fire, and this is a story that keeps getting repeated. How can this happen? Do people really think it won't happen to them? The old adage of 'at least we are alive' is little consolation when all you have left in the world is the clothes you fled your now smouldering house in.. and maybe the family pet. How are you going to house that child who is clutching to you like a bewildered monkey now?

I hope the world is sunny and happy where you are sitting reader, cause it is not fun here.

Oh, bugger. He's back. It's always so nice and quiet when he's gone... bugger bugger bugger bugger bugger

Ok! I've been away far too long. I've written a few nodes in my day. I've been around since e2 was e1. I've learned a few things since I started, and more recently, I've made a few friends.

You know what? I have friends in E2 now. Before... it was interesting, it was fun, it was neat...

but it didn't really mean much.

I think maybe now it has more meaning, because of that. People are what matters here... that and the goal.

I want to get to level six. They may have tilted the bar, but I'll find a way around that. I'm going to daylog. I'm going to node. I will make headway, and I'll do it with style.

I'm here for my friends, and I'm not going to leave.

And one day, you're going to see my face.

My day started out with a desperate craving for ice, liquor, pot, painkillers anything...anything to make my toothache go away. All I got was ice and Motrin. A trip to the NYU Dental Clinic (which thankfully had emergency hours today) gave me penicillin and IB 800s, but my face still looks horrible, my cheek has all sorts of redness from unhappy capillaries, my swollen jaw has a horrible knot in it, and I now have confirmation that I'm going to lose another tooth.

This is humiliating.

My teeth look deceptively intact and relatively aligned, people aren't staring at my teeth in repulsion, but next week I'm losing yet another molar. I had four pulled out when I had braces many years ago because for a girl with a big mouth, it was awfully crowded in there (I'd make this seem more dramatic, but Josh says I can't count my wisdom or baby teeth getting pulled out). Last year, I cracked the center molar on the lower right side biting into an altoid, which split the tooth in half. Not having any money for dental work, I let the wiggly tooth sit around for nearly a year, and ended up having to have that yanked. And now the center molar on my lower left jaw (which has had a temporary crown on for too long, initially due to procrastination since I had paid 90% of the bill many years ago, and then couldn't afford to go back and pay for the new crown work since time had passed) is all gross and infected.

The student-doctor was hopeful that the tooth could be saved so long as everything underneath was intact, but apparently, the prior dentist had used the outdated method of putting a screw in my jaw (which was believed to help hold a crown on) and in reality it ended up causing my tooth to fracture way deep down.

It's not like it's noticeable when I smile, It sure as hell is when I yawn and I forget to cover my mouth enough times. I'm worried about how eating is going to be effected. I'm worried about the rest of my teeth falling out. I inherited bad teeth, I've had cavities galore since I was a kid. My teeth are semi-translucent already from some bone loss (I wish-I wish-I wish I had taken my calcium pills more steadily when I was younger).

I feel gross, and dirty and trashy (and not the good kind of trashy). Unless Medicaid comes through (and it would have by now if I had applied at Social Services instead of through an HMO), I'm not going to be able to fix my teeth anytime soon, really. Who would want any part of their body in my mouth (besides Pyro who seems unphased by this)? I mean, I suppose it's better to have missing teeth than various teeth rotting away and a blackened smile. I should be counting my lucky stars that I don't have any sort of gum disease, just some recession, that at least my teeth are clean.

At least if I'm ever rich, I can get me a new set. They can do implants and all sorts of restorative things for gums these days. I wonder if a phone sex career would make me enough to get my teeth done right? Of course, nobody's ever going to want to call a phone sex line ever again after reading this. Of course, I also now can't have references to E2 anywhere near my future phone sex website. However, there are fetishists of all sorts...but I'm sure they'd prefer I just had a full set of dentures.

This really isn't making me feel any better. I feel like you're all going to be staring at me at noder events thinking, ACK! this is the girl who's missing teeth and avoid me like I'm some plaque. When I had the molar pulled last year, though, I was surprised at the (albeit small) number of people who also were missing a tooth here and there. BUT STILL.

*sigh* do you still love me? would you still want to kiss me? please tell me you can accept this reality.

Oh!
I really wasn't planning on whining about my teeth for so long since more traumatic things were observed today on my walk crosstown (that, of course, was supposed to make me FEEL CALMER) from the clinic.

At Petland in Union Square, five or six adult gerbils and a slew of pinkies were being kept ONLY in a 10 gallon tank. The adults were of mixed gender which is NEVER a good thing in the gerbil world when they're full grown considering their breeding habits and that the females get CRAZY JEALOUS and can end up eating other gerbils alive (despite not being meat-eaters), and any more than 2 or 3 gerbils should be kept in at least a 20 gallon tank because they need to run around. Upon mentioning this to a store clerk, he brushed it off. Then, to illustrate the fact that there were already babies and it was somehow no big deal, he took the tank down off of the shelf and SHOOK IT several times to the move the adults to the side, tossing around the gerbils and pinkies. These are not going to end up being human-trusting gerbils. They looked so horribly unhappy as it was. I'm going to try to go back there early this week.

After that, I passed a pet store on 6th avenue with doggies in the front window, and figured I'd get some good fuzz therapy and watch them play. I immediately noticed that one of the puppies had a wicked eye infection in his right eye, and it had spread slightly to the other. Another passerby who noticed this at the same time went into the store to point this out to the clerk, who was completely nonchalant about it, eventually picking up the puppy to take a look at it. This infection looked as if it had been going on for a few days already, how could they not have noticed? :(

Time for a round of pill popping and ice packs.
I really wish Mary Jane was here with me through all of this, though.
At least Pyro's hugs are.

Love,
dee

The evening started off on a normal note. He buzzed the apartment, was let in, and walked through the door. No hug, but his hands were full. After a few moments passed and dinner was laid out before us, it became apparent that something was seriously wrong. When asked, he said that he would tell me when he was finished eating, but warned that "it was nothing good." As my appetite had fled, I began reading any writing I could find within the kitchen. Funny how the Qwest bill can be fascinating when all else fails.

When he had finished eating, I was ready for anything, or so I told myself. I was not ready for this. What I anticipated as a "problem-solving discussion" turned into a game of verbal chess. Feeling lost and out of my element, I listened in disbelief.

There are those who believe that if you care enough about something, you will fight for it. As my stomach tightened and my chest began to hurt, it seemed as if, yet again, that belief was proving to be idealistic and naive. My head reeled as I moved my first piece.

One by one, pieces are struck from the board. There are only three ways this can end: win, lose, or accept a stalemate. Each player has been deeply wounded by this point in the game, and the clock is against both. They look up occasionally to find tears in the eyes of a loved one. This game has become a fight to the death, with neither wanting to strike the final blow.

They have realized that they can both survive if they call a stalemate, and with two minutes left, they concede. Emotionally drained, one player leaves the arena, leaving the other to contemplate the placement of the final pieces. There are ways she can spare her opponent, leaving herself completely vulnerable to the blade. It is the blade that both frightens and draws her close. Falling upon the blade would allow her partner his chance to evaluate both his playing and the outcome. Shying away from it allows the players to decide whether a new game is to begin or whether the pieces should remain where they fell.

As the minutes pass by, she cannot take her eyes from the chess board. It was a game she had not endeavored to play, yet there is no backing away now. Placing a gauze square over the hole in her heart, she ponders her next move. Knight to...

"And now," he proclaimed in a loud voice, "the time hath cometh! It is time for ...

total fucking isolation!

"That's right," he continued after the first gasp of awe had swept through the crowd. "There will be no distractions! No interpersonal interaction! No contact with the outside world! Just the sweet, musky air that only closed shutters, lackluster hygiene and a steady diet of pizza and cheap supermarket cola can provide. Yes, say with me again! Total ... fucking ..."

Isolation. That's my plan for the future. That's what I'm looking forward to. It's going to be great. Too much time has been spent with empty socialising and excessive alcoholic consumption. Not enough time has been spent building the mind or doing the sort of anti-social activities from fond times past.

I get to play the games I've always wanted to play, but never had the time. I'll be able to complete the stack of mid/late 90's adventure games that my friend left me over a year ago that I never got around to. The Feeble Files, Mystery of the Druids, Ripper, Stupid Invaders. All of which will be accompanied by happy reunions with the Space Quest series, Beneath a Steel Sky, Harvester and the Tex Murphy games, whom I've wanted to replay for a long time as well.

I get to make the music I've been claiming I'd get around to do, instead of just talking about it. I've had big plans for the sort of projects I wanted to pull through - well, now's the time. Just me, my MIDI keyboard, my tracker, my sequencer. I'd invite musically inclined friends over to complete the thing by adding guitar tracks and such, but it'll have to wait until my period of isolation is over. And to think, I'll have the time to properly get my imagination straight - make the sort of music that I like and used to do in the past. It won't be pleasant to other people, but that's fine, because no one else is going to hear it.

I get to write the things I've wanted to write for a long time. Granted, they won't be literary masterpieces, but that's fine, because no one else will be reading them. Little silly sci fi short stories; pointless diatribes on some topic that seems wholly inconsequential; little scraps of disjointed stream-of-consciousness writings. The sort I always tell myself I'll get around to, but never have.

I get to totally turn my daily rhythm upside down. I'll be playing games and doing music 'till 4 in the morning, and only when the first sunbeams try to filter through my closed shutters will I start allowing the notion of maybe getting a few (read: twelve) hours of shut-eye some merit. That is, after I finish this coke. *gulp*

Hell, if I had any books on my shelf I hadn't read yet, I'd probably get around to that, too.

It'll probably only last a couple days. But it'll be a great couple days. It'll give my mind a chance to sort itself out; to submerge itself in the sort of things that used to enrich it. Imagination, creative thinking. The things that, as of late, have been sadly reduced to empty promises.

---

As I write this, I'm struck with the most insidious abdominal pain. Can someone tell me why having one glass of Coke for breakfast - or any liquid or solid nutrient, for that matter - will promptly send my digestive system on a mad and uncontrollable bender of pain? It only happens if I eat or drink something right after getting out of bed - waiting 'till the middle of the day entails no problems. Ah. Ow.

When I was 17, I spent a few months living with my 25 year old boss, Mitul. Living in a trendy apartment, in a trendy part of London, Mitul was obsessed with image. His image. He was always in front of a mirror, playing with his hair, waggling about trying to find his best side, you know. One day he almost broke down in tears. His hair was receding and he'd finally noticed. Now don't get me wrong, we're not talking badly just slightly. With bus-like frequency, Mitul would unleash this life-threatening fact upon me whenever we had 5 minutes at home - each time like it was a new discovery. I of course took this to mean that he wanted me to poke fun at his gargantuan forehead.

I'd just like to say, "sorry Mitul", because at the ripe old age of 25 myself, my hairline is - ironically - also receding. Happily we live in a decade where short hair is trendy so the "Mitul impact" was lost on me the day I realised my genetic curse, but nonetheless this still has had a profound effect on me - signalling the approach of another stage of my life.

how not to sleep

Skip work, it only costs you about 150 US right? You don't really need to go to work, they can keep that money.

Instead, you should sleep all day long, yeah, that's a good idea. Maybe you can masturbate to some quality internet porn if you wake up at any point during the day.

You can also deny that you are severely depressed in any way. The point though, is to sleep until about 4 in the afternoon. Because at right about this time your girlfriend gets home from work.

Talk to her. Lie to her. Tell her how busy work was today, and why you emailed only once. Commiserate. Go to a friend's house and bum food because you didn't pay the gas bill and can't cook any on your own.

Watch a bad movie. It doesn't have to be bad, just sub par. Talk to your girlfriend again. Listen to her complain about how alone she feels, living so far away from you. Listen to how much she misses you. Realize for the umpteenth time that you don't feel the same way.

Dance slowly around the topic of breaking up. Point out reasons she shouldn't be with you. Be reasonable and calm; tell her she would be better off. Be sensitive; don't tell her about the cheating, the lies, the addictions. Listen to her cry.

Tell her you love her, because it is the truth. It is one of the few true things you say. When the phone drops, you are still together. She will call you tomorrow. Turn off the lights and get in bed.

Lay in bed, wide awake. Wonder where you will go after you leave this place. Wonder if you will be able to find a job. Wonder if you will have enough money. Wonder when you'll get to fuck that delicious redhead with the amazing rack again. Think about kissing your neighbor. Think about that time when your shady friend hooked up the coke and the two freaky girls while she was away.

Think about telling her you don't smoke. Think about how much you want to get high. Think about the fact that you have to wake up for work in 4 hours.

Dear Day log,

I have been depressed today and I hate that. I’m a little worried that it may be that my Sarafem is wearing off like my doctor said it might. His exact words were that it could “poop out” after a year or so. Hello one year of taking it. Hello sleeping all day.

I stayed home sick today from work because my sinuses were unhappy. I hate people who daylog about being sick, but here I am doing it. Here I am telling you about my problems as if you care. Maybe you do care. Maybe you are a very caring person. Maybe I will get better from you sending me your caring thoughts from around the world. Maybe I will get so many of your caring thoughts that I get overloaded with them and I will have to run right out and share them with others that need them.

So instead of wallowing in all this while I wait for the wave of caring to come crashing on me, I have been trying to make myself feel better. First I napped with the dog, who is warm and smells like sleep. Then I fired up the hazelnut candle. Yum. Why can’t the world always smell this good? Then I picked up a new book to read. The Best American Non Required Reading edited by Dave Eggers is very good. Almost too good. After that I thought a little television would help. I can always find someone on t.v. to make me feel better about my current state. And it sorta worked. Flipping past MTV, I found Making the Video for the new Mariah Carey video. Man, she is a dork. I mean just pathetic. What up with those boobs? Are those things real? They look so gross. Then there’s the fact that she is just without talent. Eek. I am so mean. Sorry if you dig her. She made me feel better just knowing that at least I’m not owned by a corporation and trotted out half naked for the masses to consume. Ok, venom dispensed.

Now I think I will try exercise, chocolate and touching my bowl of river rocks. All three have ancient powers that mocking Mariah Carey doesn’t. I’m sure of it.

Reality TV Show Idea II

My other idea for a reality show is called Who wants to be a millionaire celebrity product endorser (unless you're from Malta)? It works like this. The most beautiful, physically fit men and women in the world are spirited off to some exotic world-classed city like Los Angeles, Atlanta, Athens, Beijing, etc. They're sequestered in a specially built "village" where they're fed wonderful food and given free condoms. At night they party, have sex with each other, and are worshiped by the city's locals. During the day, each of these contestants represents the pride, prowess, virility, and cultural superiority of his/her home nation. Most compete in contests of endurance, strength, and dexterity. Others bound around on a mat with a ribbon tied to a stick. Each contest has three winners, rank ordered based on scores. They're given symbolic colored trinkets depending on their standing. First place gets a gold trinket. Second place gets a silver trinket. Third place gets a bronze trinket. While some of these contests are determined by objective measures (time/distance/pounds clean-and-jerked), others are adjudicated by a panel of hard-to-please judges, similar to the judges in American Idol. Behind the scenes these judges trade favors and accept small tokens of appreciation for their votes.

The nation with the most gold trinkets at the end of the series is declared the most culturally superior nation on earth, unless an American gets a gold trinket for running faster than anyone else over a distance of a 100 meters or a 14-year-old American girl gets a gold trinket for bounding around the best on a mat. If America wins a gold trinket in either of these feats then American cultural superiority is declared, trumping any nation with a higher gold trinket count.

At the end of the reality TV series, the individual gold trinket holders can then cash in their trinket for exciting, glamorous temporary careers as celebrity product endorsers... endorsing anything and everything from shoes to energy bars. After a time they enter phase two, sometimes called "over exposure" or "got old and fat and no longer a plucky 14-year-old girl", the gold trinket holder may be then encouraged to start a Ford dealership or run for political office. American females who won a gold trinket by being 14, plucky, and cartwheeling artistically on a mat are, frequently, offered a chance at endorsing Born Again Christianity and the virtues of motherhood over career.

Silver trinket holders can sometimes parlay their status into careers as celebrity product endorsers if their "just-short-of-the-mark efforts" to attain a gold trinket were considered exceptional, romantic, noteworthy, or they got live TV coverage. Being extremely beautiful also helps. For example, an athlete battles a leg injury suffered when a hick from Oregon smashes her leg bone with a pickup's hub cap. She's very beautiful, tries very hard, but ultimately loses to a Russian woman who will parlay her gold trinket into a centerfold layout in the Romanian edition of Playboy.

Bronze trinket holders are generally forgotten about unless they're Canadian. Canadian bronze trinket holders are allowed to become celebrity product endorsers.

Holders of any colored trinket from Malta are given a jug of wine.

Today was the worst shift of my life. I work in a newsagency smack in the middle of Weston Creek, Canberra, which was burnt out by bushfires on the weekend. In my newsagency's paper runs, we lost:

Cotter (Uriarra), 14 houses
Holder, 33 houses
Weston, 10 houses
Chapman, 75 houses

That's 132 houses, we probably deliver papers to 100 of those.

In the rest of the area, for which we are the major newsagency but don't deliver to, we lost:

Rivett, 6 houses
Duffy, 185 houses.

I grew up in Duffy, went to school in Holder, worked in Weston and Chapman, all my 21 years. That's my home.

Duffy, my home, is on the front of all the major newspapers in Australia. There's a picture of my childhood home (which, thank god, still stands) on page 13 of the Canberra Times. A man is running past it, trying to get to his uncle's home.

My shift at the newsagency was surreal. I have worked there for over five years and I know all the names and faces. Instead of saying, "Hi, Mr Lugg, how are you?" I was saying "Mr Lugg, I'm pleased to see you. Do you have a house?"

All day dozens of people were coming in or ringing up, to say, "Hi. This is Mrs such-and-such of Perry Drive. Please don't deliver my paper. I have no home." I would say, "I'm so sorry. Did you save your family?" and know that many of these people are family friends whose houses I played in as a child.

One man bought five Canberra Times off me. "That's a lot" I said. "That's my house" he replied, pointing at the warzone on the cover. I looked. I used to rollerblade past his house.

Nearly all the staff at the shop had to fight for their homes. Most lost fences, garages, trees. One lost part of the house. One girl came back to find she had only the suitcase she took to Melbourne. Her brothers and sister, in saving their father's business papers, lost everything - phones, wallets, the rally cars, and the pets. I heard names: Cox, Mernagh, Abbey, Hrast, Fitzgerald, Austin.

After work I drove around Duffy and Holder, saw houses burnt literally to the ground three deep. The pine forest that surrounds Weston Creek is a landscape of black and smoking sticks still rising skywards. I stopped at my old primary school, St Judes. The community buildings next door are burnt and part of the playground, the old part that I remember, is charred and was still smouldering. The fire burnt around the edge of the oval, right up to the back of the Church and Father Havas' house. Residents came and beat back the flames to save Church and School. The tree we used to scratch our names on at the corner of the oval is blackened on one side, but my initials are still there.

Later, on "A Current Affair", I saw Emily, a woman I've been friends with since we were four. Two years ago their house burned down and they rebuilt. She was interviewed standing in the wreckage this morning. She has lost everything again.

The pictures in all the papers are of places I know. I recognise the people sifting through ruins and hosing houses. I haven't lost my house, I live in a different suburb now. My parents and my partners parents live on different sides of the same burnt hill, but neither lost their houses. My grandmother drove past furious bushfires to evacuate and wasn't hurt. I don't think I know anybody that died.

I hope this is the last time I ever see my home and my friends on the front page of the paper. I hope I never have to look at someone and think, "you've lost your dog. You're wearing a jumper I recognise as somebody else's. You have no bed. You have no photos of your kids. And I can't do anything except stop your newspaper".