I've been having a lot of utterly loaded dreams lately. This morning I had a dream that I was in this World of Warcraft type universe, and about 50 shamans were working to invoke the three witches. They did a collective chant that sounded like: "Etu Vada (vatah? vadah? vater? vatar?) Vischtar (vishter?)." Anyone have ANY idea what this could be? At first I thought it was Latin, but google searches lean more towards sanskrit. Thoughts?

When the witches appeared, one was red, one was white, and one was green, and they were prepared to answer anything I asked.

Still sick, in increasingly unfortunate ways. Spent the entire weekend vomiting. Attempted to see "Pan's Labyrinth" on Saturday, and got through about twenty minutes before my first vomit break. In fact, the whole movie kinda went like this: "Okay, I'm back...what's happening...okay, I think I've got it figured out...wow, this is really good...awesome...oh man, I've got to puke again..." After three rounds of this, I decided to just wait in the hall for Gee and XP. Then I made it through about ten minutes of the car ride, before i had them pull over so I could puke all over Vancouver, WA in front of a cop.

According to the mediocre phd I've been seeing for shingles: "Well, this is apparently how shingles is manifesting for you...some people are tired all the time...some people develop lumps in their breasts...it seems like it's attacking your stomach and intestines. They seem pretty inflamed. Here's a prescription for more medication with lengthy lists of side effects that probably won't help. This should all go away in either a few weeks or a few months. I really don't know." Fantastic. I'm not filling the prescription. I've had enough of Western medicine.

This is what I've learned so far: I can't drink coffee. I can't drink lattes. I can't drink soy milk, can't consume dairy, can't eat wheat. Can't eat bananas. Can't eat oatmeal. Can't eat blueberries. Can eat miso. Can drink tea. Can eat spelt toast. If I eat exactly enough food to cut off hunger, but not enough to be full, I probably won't vomit for a few hours.

This is the good part: shingles could potentially cure me of all my remaining vices - sugar and caffeine. Of course, there's alcohol, too...I'm hoping the universe will at least leave me that. My former landlady gave me some homebrew I'm going to feel cheated if I don't get to try.

And: potential weight loss. I'm not unhappy with my weight right now (in fact, I kind of enjoy actually having an ass) but the thinner I am, the happier my lungs are, and I really need to make my lungs happy. I started taking steroid inhalers because i couldn't breathe, and steroid inhalers gave me shingles...and will probably give me more health problems if I'm not careful.

The bad part: fatigue. I'm an active person, especially when the sun is out. I go and go and go. I sleep six hours a night when I'm feeling committed to being rested. I bike to work. I bike and walk everywhere else. Now, if I bike more than a mile I throw up; if I go to the gym I'm utterly immobile the next day. Okay: I need to slow down for awhile. I'll play. Thank you, Universe, for not making this shit go down in June. Then I might be insane.

Another good part: when you are unable to do anything except rock back and forth on the couch and wait to vomit (while watching "Heroes" which is fucking awesome), you think about your life...a lot. This is not unusual for me; I think about my life all the time. However, I usually linger on the problems and fail to properly map solutions. So, here's what I've learned:

1.) I'm happiest when I'm in school. I like the movement of school: one day you're in class at 8, the next day you have until noon; if you have an incompetent professor, you have one semester to tolerate them - or you can drop the course and wait for a better one. I like what it does to my brain, keeping it constantly active and challenged.

2.) If I have to have a job, I'd like it to be teaching. One of my main motivators for book publication is greater ability to secure a teaching job in a creative writing program. With extremely limited teaching experience and little in the way of publishing (at least, over the past four years) only my degree looks useful on a CV...and there's plenty of MFA's looking for jobs.

Here's what I'm going to do about it:
1.) Examine doctorate programs. One of the things I missed out on in selecting the type of MFA program I chose is teaching; the right doctorate program could provide that opportunity.
2.) Apply for fellowships. A lot of the fellowships have a teaching requirement (which is fine by me) and would also build up my teaching experience, while buying me some time to finish book projects and pursue publishing ops.
3.) Apply for grants...duh.

Throughout this whole process I'll be polishing my own writing like mad. I've done a lot of work on it lately (thanks in part to my fabulous new office) and I'm pleased with the progress.

Another thing I'd like to do more of: travel. I had dreams about New York last night, about wandering around the city and not being as afraid as I thought I'd be. I've been thinking about the East Coast a lot lately, like I at least need to visit there. I think there might be something there for me. I'd also like to see the Southwest, go to Mexico, and eventually wander around Europe...maybe visit Anna in Brazil. I crave movement.

This weekend, if my stomach holds it together, I'll visit mother ocean. Sometimes I think I'd work just about any job if I could live in a seaside community.

Let the rest of the week be beautiful...

Time for the annual mostly-random Saturday morning post.

In my dream last night, dharmabum wrote me a very lengthy letter talking about her various anxieties and personal issues, at one point going on about a preoccupation with food. I told her about weight control tea immediately, and promised to write back about the many other things later.

Everyone on drugs, popping pills, miserable groups of people, a girl is told to wake up and get ready, she looks like hell, looks in the mirror and thought she looks great. Shirt she was wearing was weird, like a loose corset. She has a slotch of acne on the side of her face, but otherwise she's really attractive, and I can't figure out why everyone is giving her a hard time about her physical appearance.

in Athens, waiting in lines for food from the buggies, Ryan (for those of you who remember the farm house, he lived with Chris for awhile) is serving food and we're flirting with each other like mad, and he's making me a really fucked up looking burrito called the Bazanga or something like that. Before he made it I asked him what it was, and he said, "Oh, you don't want to eat that one. You should stay away from it. Get a regular burrito." I, of course, ordered the Bazanga. (My dreams are so fucking transparent, what the hell would I ever need Jung or Freud for?)

I go and meet XP on the grass and I ask him if he's ready to go party, and he says he is, but he's bored and tired of everything and wants to move somewhere else. I keep eyeballing Ryan, who appears to be on the verge of going on break, and he's eyeballing me from the window of his buggy, and XP glances at both of us and says, "Oh boy."

Saw "Batman Begins" last night and was pleasantly surprised. Christian Bale is a great Batman, with a very fine package indeed. I was worried about the Katie Holmes/damsel in distress factor, but she wasn't much of a presence in the film, other than occasional Jiminy Cricket conscience moments. It was awesome seeing the origins of Batman, the story was extremely tight and while the movie was long (2 1/2 hours) there didn't seem to be any wasted time there. I recommend checking it out.

Pride week, tonight is explotion of queerness in Portland, I've got to go out and dip my toe in. Can't decide if I want to hit Bossanova or Embers. Never been to Bossanova, but Embers has never failed me, and actually saved me on New Year's Eve when the bitches at Level had the nerve to charge $30 admission on a night when they weren't even bringing any noteworthy DJs in. Any suggestions?

I can't wait to hit on women, and help Tori get dressed for the occasion. Since she became a lesbian she seems to have lost the ability to coordinate. My closet is so filled with fun tarty things, I might as well be a drag queen. I'm a sneeze away from being too old for all this, might as well do it now.