zeptember

Today is day seven of a yeast-free diet, and I’ve only had one severe emotional meltdown so far. :/
The good news is that I’ve already lost 5 lbs (2kg).

Last year, a friend of mine, who is HIV positive, told me about candida overgrowth in the body. He told me that for someone with HIV, it’s easy to fall prey to candida overgrowth if one has a bad diet. This can lead to complications such as chronic joint pain and dangerous gastrointestional issues.

He told me that he was using black walnut coptis to help purge the candidas. He was also using ozone enemas to keep his colon clean of yeast overgrowth.
For a person with HIV or AIDS, yeast overgrowth can be a death knell.

Anyway, I’d told him about my menstrual issues and how I also get serious gastrointestional problems every month. I told him I felt it was adhesions on my intestines from endometriosis.

Then one day in July, 2005 while we were talking, I told my friend that I’d just been pre-diagnosed with IBS, pending results of a stool sample. I didn’t believe the doctor’s initial diagnosis, and was venting to my friend about it.

That’s when my friend informed me that he didn’t believe I had IBS, either, but that I might have candida overgrowth, and he gave me some black walnut coptis and a blend of herbs to use in a tea.

Well… I didn’t follow through and use the stuff he’d given me, because I wanted to research it myself first before using it.
I never did get the results of my stool sample, so I’m gonna call the doctor tomorrow (it’s a clinic in Oakland, so even though I lost my health insurance in January, I could still go back to that clinic by filing for indigent care).

Anyway, the doctor was sure I had IBS before even having me submit a sample, and she had me monitor my diet and see what caused diarrhea or constipation.
I found out that I’m sensitive to ALL bean protein, right down to carob, coffee and green bean. I confirmed that I’m also sensitive to onions and bell peppers (I’d known this before by paying attention to effects post ingestion).

But that alone is not IBS, I argued the doctor. She simply stated that there is not one static definition of IBS - that it can be a number of things that contribute to it, and so she felt certain that she could say I have it.

That’s when I stopped going to that clinic.

And I still haven’t researched the herbs and coptis that my friend had given me.

But I did take his words to heart, and about a month ago, I made up my mind to start preparing for going on a yeast-free diet to see if I have candida overgrowth and if I can become more pain-free and lose weight in the process.

I started reading stuff on the Internet and I got diet tips on what to eat and what not to eat while on a yeast free diet. I’ve even ordered two cheapola used books, and I’m waiting for those to arrive.

Based on what I found online, I started researching grocery lists to start me off, and found this.

On Monday, April 24th, pantry stocked and ready to go, I quit eating anything with sugar, including anything with even fake sugar such as sucralose in it. I quit cold turkey.
Since making fake meat tacos was easiest, by mid-week I was jokingly calling this the taco diet, because I’d eaten several taco meals by then.

So all last week consisted of drinking water wtih every meal, or a cup of rice milk. I drank water every time I felt hungry, which was often, being that I wasn’t grazing throughout the day on popcorn, chocolate and other crap.

The first night of the diet, I had a nightmare.

I had another nightmare on the 28th, and another one this morning. I also had an emotional meltdown following the dream on the 28th. The meltdown lasted all day, complete with suicidal ideation and catatonic-like moments.

During all of that, I remembered something my above-mentioned friend had told me last year, about when he’d gone on a yeast-free diet. He’d said that the first week on it, the urge to go buy a candy bar was so strong that he thought he might lose his mind. He hypothesised that the candida, being a fungus, will overtake their host to get the food they need to keep reproducing. In a human, this leads to a hijacking of the body (host) and the brain, according to my friend, and therefore one may find all their thoughts devoted to feeding the bastard fungus more and more sugar so it can continue overtaking the host.

I agree with him. According to Wikipedia,

Yeasts and other unicellular fungi can reproduce simply by budding, or “pinching off” a new cell. Many multicellular species produce a variety of different asexual spores that are easily dispersed and resistant to harsh environmental conditions. When the conditions are right, these spores will germinate and colonize new habitats.

Sounds like an X-File, doesn’t it?
You think you have free will to go get a candy bar, but it’s really just the candidas working your thought processes. “Feed me, Seymour!”

So once I remembered my friend’s hypothesis, I had renewed determination to give this fungus the smackdown.

Can’t say it’s been easy, though. While I can boast that yesterday I stood around in a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop watching two friends enjoy their desserts without giving in or even so much as begging and crying for ice cream, today was different. Today the urge was so strong that I caved in and drank one of my boyfriend’s sugar-free lemonade drinks. It contains sucralose.
This, after I’d had an Atkins protein drink for breakfast, which also contains sucralose.

I get gurgly stomach/intestines even on fake sugar at the moment, so I have to keep it very minimal.

George will be here by Friday, so I’m chalking this up to PMS cravings as well as the bastard fungus shaking me to the very fibre of my being to feed them.

I noticed some pre-menstrual pain on the 27th and 28th, and today I had a quick stab in the anus. So I know that despite two weeks on the yeast-free/sugar-free diet, this menstrual cycle likely won’t be any different than usual, insofar as pain goes.

That’s why I’m going to give this diet 4-6 months, so I can really monitor over time any changes in my pain. And well, an awesome side benefit will be weight loss, as I’ve said.

I was at a gathering that my dad’s wife had called. But some of my California friends were there. I think W and G were there. I can’t remember if my boyfriend was there.

Anyway, my dad’s wife had called us all there to help her pack up everything. My dad had died. When I got there to help, I found out that his wife had already held the funeral and everything. My dad was already dead and buried.

I remember during the gathering that one has after the funeral, everyone was milling about quietly. I was in a daze and for awhile played along with the unspoken rules of a funeral gathering. My anger eventually surfaced and I called my dad’s wife into the room once it was empty. I think it was just a sitting room we were in. I began to ask her why I wasn’t invited to the funeral. She told me she didn’t want to bother me out in California - that it was such short notice and everything - that she just tied it all up herself. I began screaming at her that he was my father. I cried as I yelled at her. I noticed the din in the other rooms go silent, and this embarrassed my dad’s wife, who told me that this was not the place for such an outburst.

I continued my tirade, shouting that he was my father, and she is JUST the second wife - beyond that, she is NOTHING. I told her that family was first, and she was not official family.

My dad’s wife was aghast at these things I was yelling at her, and stood there shocked and hurt. I continued to wail and cry, then I left the room.

I found myself in my father’s old house in Livonia, Michigan. The funeral gathering was taking place outside in the back yard, so it had to be sometime between May and August. I walked through the house crying. I could hear myself in the dream audibly moaning while sobbing. I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks.

The house was empty and smelled musty like a cool attic in Autumn. In fact, my dad’s house was usually cool naturally because it was shaded by all the trees on the lot.

I decided to go to my father’s bedroom, because I wanted to smell his scent again. I got to the bedroom door and it was blocked by big pieces of scrap wood. The house had not been lived in for quite some time.
I moved the old white painted wood pieces of broken shelving and other scrap wood out of the way of the door. While I did this, I think my tears stopped, replaced by determination. I opened the door, and went inside my father’s old bedroom. There was no trace of his smell, and I began to sob again.

I remember hearing people cautiously coming into the house from the back yard to look for me. I think it was W and G, or my old schoolmate S. I just stood in the room, sobbing.
I heard them come down the hall, speaking in soft tones, and stop short of the entrance to the bedroom. I guess they were too empathetic or too afraid to disturb me, because they didn’t come within view.

I continued sobbing and moaning.

I awoke from this dream with a lump in my throat and went to use the bathroom. I tried to tell myself that this was only a dream, and to snap out of it - that I didn’t have anything alcoholic to drink last night to set me off - that everything is fine.
But logic doesn’t work when one is still on the cusp of a nightmare, and I found myself silently crying for about a minute or so, before I got up and washed my face to further help draw me out of the throes of the nightmare.

That seemed to work to stop the crying, but the emotional pain and the lump in my throat remains, even a half an hour after the nightmare has ended.

This is the second time I’ve had nightmarish thoughts of my father dying. The first time, I’d been dreaming of his mother, but awoke from the dream with images of my dad’s death in my head, instead.

…..

10:41am
Just got off the phone with my dad. It’s been a few weeks since I last talked with him, so I had an excuse to call and check up on him. I did not tell him about the dream I’d had.

Well, apparently someone tried to burn his motel down the night before last. Some asshat put his cigarette out in the peat of a flower pot in the room, where it smoldered for a few hours before sparking a blaze. This guy is a chain smoker, I’m told. The fire started around 2am and the fire department and cops were out there to extinguish the room. My dad says that most of the damage is smoke damage. He said that their housemaid’s 18-year old son came over that night to help haul everything out of the motel room, and they all only got about a couple hours of sleep that night. My dad said they were up well through yesterday cleaning that room out and trying to remove the smoke damage from it with various cleaning chemicals.

My dad told me that he doesn’t feel so good today as a result of moving furniture and cleaning carpets and walls, and that he’s taking a break, now.

I’m upset of course, because my dad says he’s not feeling well. He said he’s still sore from his appendectomy several weeks ago, and that all the hauling around yesterday didn’t help matters. He says he’s recently gone through another round of tests and exams for his stomach problems (which have been plaguing him since he was in his twenties). My dad said he’s been put on some new meds for the gastrointestinal issues. He added that he’d passed all the tests with flying colours as usual, that the doctors can’t seem to find anything wrong with him, and that they’d even taken images of his heart from front and back and say his heart is super healthy too. “But,” my dad said, “I’ve personally known a couple guys who’d been told they were healthy and fine after their exams, walked out of the doctor’s office and fell dead right there in the parking lot.”

I exclaimed “Don’t say that!!”, to which my dad replied, “Well…?”
I could see him shrug through the phone, I swear.

He’s talked frequently about his imminent death in the past couple of years, because of the heightened panic attacks and stomach issues that began to plague him in that time frame. And because of all his health issues, he’d work himself up into a further panic by recounting how his own father died of a heart attack only two years into retirement. He had his golden years cut short. He’d worked all his life from age 12, and two years into his permanent vacation, he kicked the bucket. That freaks my dad out, even though both my dad and his dad have enjoyed life and have traveled extensively (my dad has seen the world, and his dad had seen much of the U.S. on vacation road trips). But still, it freaks my dad out - every year closer to his father’s age when his father died brings alternating feelings of panic and acceptance of death to my dad.

Today he expressed acceptance.

A few days ago, I picked up and dusted off my copy of The Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying again for the first time in eleven years. Waking from my dream this morning, and talking with my dad on the phone this morning have taught me that I’m no more prepared for death than I thought I was back twelve years ago after my near-death auto accident. I’d found some peace back then, but lost it again.

Why have I started suddenly to re-read all sorts of things on Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and this Tibetan book again?

I believe that all things are for a reason in our self-pre-planned lives. I’m on track, as one astrologer once told me. I may feel up to a year behind in things (like right now I feel four months behind on reading this stuff and doing the new diet I’m on), but in general, I’m still, for the most part, on track with my spiritual development.

More pain to come.

“Is what you’re living for worth dying for?” - as seen on a church sign in or around San Jose, California yesterday.

That statement makes an assumption that all people should be living their lives with the express purpose of defending something that they’d die for. Not just dying for anything, but for something huge and meaningful. In the church’s case, they probably mean God and Jesus.

Is there something that I would defend to a meaningful death?

This brings up the idea of life as having Purpose. Do humans have a Purpose? Or are humans just one of millions of other things that sprang up over time, courtesy ingredients of the primordial soup?

Do humans have to have a purpose just because we evolved from primordial gunk to land mammal to critter to monkey to human?

And with all the destruction humans have had on the earth, could one say that *that* alone is our purpose - to make life on earth extinct again. Whereas some lifeforms create resources for the earth, what if the purpose of humans is to exhaust those resources? If that’s our purpose, how do you feel about that?

How does an assassin feel knowing it’s his purpose to assassinate?
Doesn’t he just go about business as usual? The assassin gets something out of it though - usually a financial reward. What do humans get for using up all the resources on Earth, thereby killing it? Does there *have* to be a reward gotten for one’s purpose?

What if the reward for killing the Earth is to make way for NEW life to form?

Are there examples of this in the natural world currently?

I was at Convergence, which is a yearly North American gathering of the goth community.

I don’t remember if I was at a bar or what, but I went into the bathroom, and a girl was finishing washing her hands. She turned to exit as I entered, and I recognised her as Katrice Langlois from high school (a grade behind me).

We smiled at each other - I think I held the door for her. As Katrice went out and I was settling onto a toilet seat, a tall guy came in. Katrice gave him a weird look as he passed her in the doorway, but she kept walking. The guy went into the stall next to me. There were only two stalls, which were doorless, and separated by a thin piece of red painted wood. He was on my left, closest to the door which he’d come in. I was on the right, with the cinderblock wall next to me.

I felt uncomfortable for two reasons; one, this was a guy in the women’s bathroom. This was not a unisex bathroom - the guys had their own bathroom.
And two, this guy looked normal. He was dressed in faded blue jeans and had short “dirty blonde” hair. He definitely didn’t look like someone who should be part of our gathering.

As I tried to focus on peeing (admittedly difficult to do when one is nervous), the guy managed to turn his toilet into a high school desk and connected chair, which he reversed in the cube next to me. He then used his tennis-shoed feet to push himself in his desk/seat out of the stall to have a look at me while I peed.

I exclaimed something like “OH HELL NO” and told him to go away, I think.

He then scooted his desk/chair further in reverse, so he was at the far end of the bathroom, near the sinks. There were two white porcelain sinks, which were connected to the tiled wall of the bathroom directly across from the stalls. The guy came to rest diagonally across from me, somewhat next to the sink on the left side of the wall.

He then demanded, “Take off your pants.”

I told him no. I think I even swore at him. He again demanded but in a more commanding voice, “Take off your pants” and then “Take off your goddamned pants!”.

I got up off the toilet seat, pulled up my pants, and realised that the stalls were elevated above the rest of the bathroom floor, as though built up on a step.
I lept out of my stall, ran across the bathroom at the guy. He didn’t have time to get out of his desk before I started slugging him in the face. I beat the shit out of him right there, elbowing him, decking him, and then grabbing the back of his head and slamming it on either the desk or the floor or the wall. I can’t recall when I’d hauled him out of the desk but I did.

I then smacked him into the wall on the way out of the bathroom and began dragging him. I ended up on a dirt path outside.

Convergence was suddenly summer camp, and we were all out in the woods, or in Yosemite National Park, or something. The boys had their own camp and the girls had theirs, even though we’re all adults ranging from 18 - 60.

I dragged the guy, who was by now unconcious, to his camp. I held him by the mid-back - his white shirt was still tucked into his faded jeans. People stared and began asking what was going on. When I got to the stairs leading up to the guy camp, I made sure to ram the guy’s head into every step that I climbed up. I noticed he was bleeding from his face by this time as a result. There were three to five steps up. When I got him to the top of the stairs, I threw his body onto the porch, wiped my hands, and sauntered back down the steps.

People rushed up to me as I walked back to my camp - guys and girls alike, asking me what had happened.
I told them how he’d come into the women’s bathroom and tried to sexually accost me, and how I’d beaten the shit out of him. The chicks were all impressed, so I began to boast when asked to repeat my story. The guys however were not so amused - they were in fact worried.

This caused me to worry - what if I’d *killed* the guy? That would bring major problems on our group when the cops got involved, being that we’re a bunch of goths, who already have a bad rep in the media due to non-goth killers who’d dressed in black, thereby causing the mainstream to label them as goth, when they’re not.

Anyway, I was worrying that I’d killed the guy, and then my dream ended when the alarm clock went off.

I got up and was emotional, shaken, feeling victimised, depressed, disoriented, near tears. I mumbled to my boyfriend that I’d gone to convergence and beat the shit out of some guy who tried to sexually harrass me. I used the bathroom and came back to bed, hoping to catch a little more sleep.

Well, the nightmare continued.

I don’t know how much time had elapsed, but the dream started off with me receiving a post card. It was all black and had neon pink writing on it to advertise an upcoming goth event. Scribbled on the card, also in neon pink, was something from the guy who I’d beaten up. It was a death threat. I read the card and my heart dropped. I suddenly felt aware of someone watching me, so I looked around. Finding no one, I looked up, and saw a few guys in a loft or an upstairs balcony of their summer camp cabin. One of the guys was the guy who I’d beaten up, and he was glaring down at me with a menacing smile.
I kept my head moving, as though I was casually looking around and hadn’t seen him. I then began to walk back towards my camp.

Next scene has one of my old co-workers - Brad - who is also tall and blonde - approaching me calmly with concern to ask me about the postcard. Apparently I’d broadcasted the contents of the postcard to people so they’d be aware of the situation.

Brad tried to get the whole story from me. I handed him the card. He examined both sides of it, his brow furrowing. He was concerned for me, but it was obvious to me that he felt I was the one in the wrong, and he was there to try to mediate an apology out of me for his friend.

I felt very frustrated, cornered, and panicky. I tried to tell Brad that I was the victim - that this guy had intended to rape me in the women’s bathroom - and that I’d acted in self defence.

The dream ended again when the alarm clock went off again. I woke up feeling even worse.

I can’t remember if I told all the details of the dream to my boyfriend before he went off to work, but he suggested that I take it easy today.

After he left for work, I sat on the couch trying to figure out whether I should go back to bed, cry, eat breakfast, write my dream down, or just sit there.
I just sat there.

I felt pain then - like my period had started, but it hadn’t. I sat there trying to figure out why I was having menstrual cramps. I realised I was a week away from my period, so that’s why I’m having cramps, but still, it wasn’t helping my already shitty morning.

I had to go look after my friend’s cats, so I managed to get myself stable enough emotionally within an hour and a half, and went and spent a couple hours with the cats, and with my brain churning all through the dream again.

I felt like I hadn’t slept all night. I was dazed. I napped on the armchair with both cats for awhile after taking care of the food and litter and mail for my friend.

I spent time playing with the cats too, before returning home. As I went out the door of my friend’s place, I had the idea that I could go to the library. But as soon as I got into my car, the depression fell upon me like a ton of bricks again, and I nearly spontaneously bawled.
Gaining composure, I drove home. I got out of my car and as I climbed the stairs to my 2nd floor apartment, it took all my strength and will to not start bawling. I walked down the hallway towards the apartment, and the weight was even heavier. I felt I could drop at any second to the floor and declare my life over with.

I got into the apartment and had a horrible craving for sweets, so I had a protein shake.

And now, I can’t cry. It’s what I need to do most, but the tears won’t come.

I looked up Katrice Langlois on Google, and found that she’s working for the Zimmer Institute in Livonia, Michigan. According to the website, the Zimmer Institute provides “surgeon training on minimally invasive procedures”.
She works in customer support, there.

I hope she’s okay. I’ve not seen her since high school. Why would I dream about her??

My boyfriend and I, along with others, were homeless, living in the East Bay hills. It was summer and the grass was dead so the hills were ‘golden’. We lived in makeshift shacks among the oak trees like the homeless really do in the Oakland hills.

An earthquake struck, and we all piled into a hard plastic round child’s pool that was about 2′ high. Can’t remember how big but several of us got into it. The earth sliding and moving caused us to slide down the hill like we were sledding.
We rode a landslide all the way down to the bay - a straight path of brown dirt and stones - without hitting anything.

We stayed calm, knowing we’d make it to the bay safely. We landed in the water and floated to the peninsula because the waters were calm like a stream, rather than choppy bay waters, because of the earthquake.

We made landfall and gathered with the other survivors in a designated state-run camp.
Then, not long after our arrival, the aftershocks hit.

There’d been people on the peninsula at a county fair and they’d figured the East Bay earthquake wouldn’t affect them. They were wrong. People on a high flying swings ride at the county fair started screaming when the aftershock hit. We looked up and saw them flying out of control, and then their swings snapped and people fell from the sky and flew off sideways and fell to the ground in every direction.

I ran around trying to catch people. I only caught one baby who was mere days old, and I handed the baby off to rescue workers or other survivors. Then I went back for more but the adults were too heavy and came down too fast and they’d splat right in front of me.

I heard the splat noises and just kept running looking at the sky trying to catch the next one to no avail.

Then we had to clean up the bodies of adults, children and infants.

I got all OCD and began putting all the survivors in one place, which made parents mad because they’d left their infants in their own camp areas and I’d taken them and lined them up with all the other survivors to have it all nice and tidy - alive over here, dead over there.

I was scolded for moving the survivors around, and so I walked off, feeling bad, not knowing what to do with myself. I was definitely in shock and needed something to do.

I’d told my dream to my friends on IRC:

[nate] having the dead and living seperated is a fine idea in my opinio because EMS technicians will have to waste time lookin’ at the dead.
[nate] otherwise, while EMS examined the dead, more living would die.
[me] right! see you understand!
[nate] yes.
[nate] this is triage, it’s just a necessary part of dealing with a disaster even if unpleasant
[me] sadly, my dream reflects reality out here; people would still be carrying on like normal until things affected THEM, then there’d be mass panic cuz nobody prepares, then they’d get mad at me for organising for EMS.
[me] it’s common with people who live in disaster prone areas. they develop insanity and denial.

In fact, I started putting an earthquake kit together last year after all the media over New Orleans made its way to California, prompting officials in this state to really push their 72 Hours campaign.

At first, my boyfriend made fun of me for gathering up medical supplies and camping gear. But when the news and media kept pounding the warnings home, he finally began adding to the kit.

I mean, come on, last Tuesday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said it’s “shocking so few Californians have any plan in place for reuniting with family members after a major disaster”.

My friend on IRC had advice for me on the earthquake kit:

[nate] and don’t share that shit with fools either, cuz they’ll waste it and u’ll starve otherwise.
[me] oh truly i know that one
[nate] i know how fools are. they waste.
[me] right
[nate] u might need shotguns, too.
[nate] locked in a cabinet
[nate] nothing like a 9-shot shotgun to control rioters.
[me] yeah, *sigh* i know. in times of disaster, people become zombies and raid everything. there’s very limited timeframe of goodwill towards men before the zombie intestine pulling begins.
[me] that’s why i hate people.
[nate] or a 5-shot since the 9-shots are illegal
[nate] u can reload while shooting

Despite the humour I found in Nate’s comments about shooting rioters, I wonder how safe we’d really be and how low key we’d have to keep, to avoid people from coming in and taking our shit because they were less prepared than us.
Hell, we’re not even fully prepared YET!
And I can’t help but to think, what if the earthquake occurs and our kit falls through the floor and gets lodged in debris? THEN WHAT?
What if something crushes my car and traps my kit and camping gear that I store in there? THEN WHAT?

I’ll say it again - I’m from tornado country, not earthquake country. I’d much rather deal with tornadoes than this shit.
I have felt several earthquakes since arriving in California in 1997, but the biggest one so far was a 4.9 in May of 2002 (the linked article has it incorrectly stated as a 5.2). I was sitting on the couch on the phone at the time, talking to my boyfriend, when the window next to my head began to rattle. At first I thought nothing of it, because when it’s storming in Michigan, low rumbles of thunder often rattle the windows. But within seconds I realised I’m not in Michigan anymore, so what is the window doing, rattling? I spun my head around to see if my cat was in the window. It wasn’t. Then I felt the shaking. I leapt to my feet and exclaimed “Earthquake!” into the phone, and ran with the phone to my closet doorway and stood there in the frame of the door, holding the door frame with one hand, and holding the phone with the other hand, telling my boyfriend not to hang up. The quake lasted several seconds, and felt like a jackhammering up and down motion. It made my knees wobbly, along with the anxiety of being in an earthquake making the rest of my body shaky. I bent my knees - instinct from boating days with my father.

While I stood in the doorway, my boyfriend exclaimed he could feel the quake, now, too. We estimated that the quake lasted 15 - 30 seconds.

I learned that the quake occurred on the Sargent Fault, which lies between the San Andreas and the Hayward faults.

So what did I do? I went and moved a year later right in the path of the Hayward Fault, which as I said earlier, is predicted to ‘go’ - and quite violently so - anytime between now and 2032.

Although, thanks to the Hayward fault links above, I just found out that if I moved us back over to the San Andreas side of the bay, which is what I was planning to do this summer, well… the San Andreas fault is also predicted to go violently in the same time period. It only has a 6% less chance of doing so before the Hayward fault goes.

How reassuring.

I think it’s time to go brush up on first aid training, study the Hayward fault and 72 Hours links above in more detail, along with the Putting Down Roots In Earthquake Country guide I keep hearing about on the radio.

But most importantly….DON’T PANIC!

We spent our Friday cleaning the apartment so we could host our friend that night, and host a party on Saturday.
Our friend, who we call sherpa, came over to watch Brazil with us (she had never seen it before). At the end of the movie, she was bowing down to Terry Gilliam like we knew she would.

On Saturday, we did minor cleanup from the night before, and we bought booze for the party. Once we had some people assembled at our place and the clock struck nine, we headed out the door to a new Tiki bar - the only one on the island. Some of our friends were already there, and phoned us as we went out the door to tell us there was a big line. However, our friends were at the head of the line, and the management allowed us to cut in with them!
Then I noticed two of our party hadn’t showed up yet, so I stayed outside as our group went in (they were allowing only a few people in at a time). Our group protested heavily, but I couldn’t just leave our other two friends behind!
They showed up and felt REALLY bad that I got held up on account of them, but I kept telling them it was fine, honestly - I would have been in there fretting over abandoning them had I gone inside. I was the hostess of the organised party to the bar, after all. So we waited an hour in line and gossiped - I caught my friend up on the past six years of our club friends’ lives, since she dropped completely out of the scene. The time flew by, and friends trickled out of the bar to chat with us in line, and then they all came out and announced they’d been made sloshed drunk by the heavy handed bartenders, and needed to go out for a quick bite to eat before heading to our place.
This gave us three time to go in and have a drink, and within ten minutes, our time came. The guys behind us also got let in with us, and we ended up sitting together and chatting. One of the guys took our picture:

Man, they weren’t kidding about the drinks! Woo! One drink had me drunk. Our designated driver friend took us back to my place, where we ran into the rest of the group, just back from eating. Perfect!
We continued the party and I got a few people hammered further on Cosmos, because it was my first time making them, and I too was heavy handed (but I was only following the instructions!). One of our friends got sick - the true measuring stick of a successful party.

I’ve been severely hungover all day today, which is fitting because it will help deter me from wanting to drink while starting off a new pain management diet, which I will detail in another post.

My boyfriend had a week off between jobs, so we decided to be touristy in our own backyard.

On Wednesday, he drove us down to Santa Cruz so we could enjoy lunch at the Saturn Cafe. I had waited for months to be able to enjoy another mint shake, only to find out that it’s made with real milk, and I’m staying away from dairy products now.
Determined to have a shake, I ordered a chocolate soy milk shake, and it served as a good substitute.
After lunch, we shopped at local stores. I bought two books and three or four CDs - most of which was on sale.
I set my leftover box of french fries down in a homeless camp like I always do after eating at Saturn Cafe, and then we zoomed off to the Brookdale Lodge. We were disappointed to find it closed on Wednesdays, now, due to lack of business.
Once again determined to keep the day pleasant, I suggested we try for a restaurant further up north and also in the woods like Brookdale. Failing that, I said, we could go into San Mateo and eat at a chain restaurant.
So we drove through the Santa Cruz mountains and took our time, stopping for sight-seeing photos and the sunset along the way. We arrived at Bella Vista an hour before close, so I asked if they’d be willing to seat us. I realised then that my bf wasn’t in nice attire, and my hair was pulled up, exposing my shaved head, but I didn’t say anything and hoped the waiter would not turn us away for looking shabby. To our surprise, he sat us and the head waiter treated us like V.I.P.!
And the food was fantabulous. Even the salad tasted like it had been picked just that afternoon. We tipped in excess of 20% on the bill’s total, but I am reading now that the head waiter as well as the general waiter are both supposed to be tipped. I’ll remember that next time, and hope they were pleased with the tip we did give.
It’s not a dinner I can afford on unemployment, let me tell you! But man, I can’t wait til I can afford to go back there again.

On Thursday, we hopped on a ferry from our island over to S.F., where we expected to hop another ferry to Alacatraz. Well, we got to Pier 39 in SF and were informed that tickets sell out a week or two in advance - there’s no just going to The Rock.

Well we were already in SF, so why not just be touristy right there? I suggested we go to the Aquarium, and to my surprise, I found out my bf, who’s lived in the Bay Area all his life, had never been to this aquarium! It was a nice surprise for him then, to see the marine life swim overhead while we walked through see-through tunnels. Even better was we got to see a big octopus!
After the museum, we strolled right into Pier 39’s touristy hell, where we found a Fairy store. I about fell over. Here’s where I admit to a raging fairy fetish. Make with the jokes all ya want - I’m a faghag, a draghag and a trannyhag, too.

We continued on after a long look in that store, and sat down for a bite of gross, expensive tourist food to eat while gawking at the sea lions.
Then we made our way back, to catch the last ferry home.

It was a good couple of touristy days in our own backyard!

On Monday, we went to Dark Carnival in Berkeley and gawked at their books for a few hours. I didn’t buy anything, although I really liked Bury The Dead by National Geographic. I’d have bought it from Dark Carnival, had it not been damaged.

After the book store, we headed home, bought king crab legs and cooked ‘em up for dinner. Then we went to Death Guild in San Francisco.

Got home after 2am and I stayed up so I could join my friend at 4:30am to hop on the transbay train back to San Francisco, where we attended the 100th Memorial passing of the 1906 earthquake.

We got there just minutes before that fateful moment 100 years ago when the earthquake struck. When the clock turned 5:10am, the vintage horse-drawn fire carriage drivers blew their whistles and sounded mounted alarms. Then our modern day air raid sirens went off. I shuddered, for we were re-enacting a horrible time in history for this city. I felt a low wave of panic as I closed my eyes and put my mindset to 1906. I can’t even imagine the horror people saw around them then, or during any natural disaster before or since that time, for that matter. I’ve never been in one, and I hope to never be in one.

Along with my friend, we found five other friends there, and we eagerly awaited the stories of 12 living survivors of that quake. Twelve people nearly at or over the age of 100!! I hear there’s 50 survivors nationwide - but 12 came back to SF.

The city officials aside from Mayor Gavin Newsome must have had a brain tumor for breakfast, because the things they said were utterly retarded. People kept referring to the event as an anniversary or a celebration instead of a Memorial. Anne Marie Conroy, Director of the Office of Emergency Services for SF, said something to the effect of “They said we couldn’t rebuild, but I’m here to tell you they were wrong!”

Now, put yourself in the mindset of people surveying the MASSIVE damage that the 1906 quake caused.

TELL me you can’t see how one might have felt that rebuilding in that time might have seemed damned near impossible.

The highlight of the morning came when the earthquake survivors got to tell their stories. There was a dirty old lady, too! I adopted her as my grandma on the spot. When asked by the Mayor how she was doing, Norma Norwood said, “Cold.” Then she said, “I need Gavin Newsome to keep me warm!” The crowd exploded into laughter.

Norma also explained, that she was born in tent city because her parents snuggled “and when you snuggle, you have a baby…” - and she detailed how she was raised by prostitutes because her parents worked in a saloon. I love Norma!

…I’ve been scouring the Internet trying to find pages dedicated to all of the living 1906 earthquake survivors, or even images of them, to no avail. I can’t even find a complete listing of those in SF for the memorial! How lame.

Here’s who I’ve found so far, though:
Violet Lynam, age 102
Jeanette Trapani, age 104
Royal Beine, age 102
Frances Duffy, age 100
Libra Armstrong, age 103
John Violich, age 103
Herbert Hamrol, age 101
Norma Norwood, age 99

After we heard the survivors tell their tales, none of us in our little group wanted to stick around to hear more city official wankery, so we headed over to Cody’s Books for free doughnuts, and listened to Mark Klett - the author of “After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006: Rephotographing the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire”, which is being showcased at The Legion of Honor, which I just saw last month.

Well. Listening to him speak was even more wankery. He kept going on about the artistic value of each shot and how he tried to capture peoples’ faces or advertisements in several shots. I didn’t care about artistic value. I want to hear what building that was then, on what street, and where it’s at now, and how much damage it sustained, and if people were killed, and how it came to be rebuilt!!

Is that too much to ask in person for a slide show presentation, mister “I’m an artiste” ?

And then a writer on that project, Rebecca Solnit, quipped that she considered the dotcom boom to be the 10th great destruction of San Francisco. To quote from my friend ultraswank, using my own personalisation, I moved here to work for a dotcom. I’ve been here for almost nine years now and will marry a California native. Can I please join your super special club now?

At that point, our group parted ways, as most of our group had to go off to work. I took off with a friend on the Muni train and we went over to 20th & Church, where the gold fire hydrant lives. This was the only fire hydrant in the city that remained functional after the 1906 quake, and saved the homes in that neighborhood, so it gets painted gold every year on April 18th.

There were also vintage fire trucks lining the street near the hydrant, and we gawked at them for awhile. Then I got directions on how to take public transit back home, as I’ve never done it alone before.
I’m from Detroit - we don’t have public transit, and I’ve never bothered to use it out here.
But my friend’s directions were awesome and I made it home all by myself without missing my stop from either Muni or BART.

And then I slept most of the day because I’d been up for 23 hours by the time I got home again.

The earthquake preparedness lectures, the memorial, and the USGS simulated shaking maps are enough to incite me to panic. I’m from tornado country, not earthquake country. I prefer tornados - I can see ‘em comin’. The sky turns green, or everything gets still, seek shelter. Simple.

This earthquake stuff has me wanting to move off the Hayward Fault ASAP, because it’s the next one predicted to go between NOW and 2031.

Hurry up! Your money runs out in three months! What are you going to DO with your life? Quick! Keep listing your childhood on eBay! What’s the holdup, can’t you FOCUS? You know your resumes you’re sending out are coming through with all kinds of formatting blunders, because of Mac-to-Windows MS Word conversion issues. HURRY UP and get a PC laptop with Windows installed on it, dammit!
Why aren’t you writing all day every day? Shit! You need to research universities for bachelor’s and master’s degree programs!! What do you need to study to get a better career path going? Get it RIGHT this time! Come on now, what do you study?!? Nevermind that! No time! Keep listing your childhood on eBay! What’s the holdup, can’t you FOCUS? And why aren’t you writing all day every day? Didn’t you say you were going to write a BOOK? Huh? Seriously, you need some therapy, put the book writing down and start researching therapists, dammit! What are you DOING! You don’t have TIME for that! Get back to the job searching! …

I can’t get there from here. I need assistance.

Woke this morning around 8:30am from the following dream:

My friend M and I had been out shopping all day, and were returning home in my car. On the way, I turned down a street and thought it would go through. I saw that at the end of the street, I could see the sun setting on the horizon and everything looked orange and golden. I drove towards the sunset, only to find that the street ended and the car went right onto a field where Mexicans were cutting …wheat? and stacking hay. I was embarrassed by this error in my judgement and turned to the left in a slow circle to try as gently as possible to steer the car back onto the street.

Then we parked and got out of the car and approached a boy of about seven playing in the yard.
We went inside his house to use the phone I think…and we met the boy’s father and a slightly older brother. Both children were filthy and the house was dirty, too. There were dishes piled up in the kitchen. It was late
summer or early fall because of the wheat harvesting going on and it was warm - the boys were filling supersoakers in the kitchen sink and running back outside to play.

I recall my friend M fading from the picture at this point as I helped clean house for this family. The father was out somewhere, too. I babysat the boys, made sure they were fed and the house cleaned, and then I went to take a shower.
When I got out of the shower, the father and mother were home. The father was praising my help to his wife, who looked at me with disdain as I stepped into the kitchen in a robe, drying my hair with one of their towels.

My friend M might have returned too - I felt as if she was waiting for me to be ready to go.

Next thing I know, I’m recalling for a group of friends how Three-toed Tree Frogs were discovered in the neighborhood the children lived in, and later over pints of beer in a trendy bar somewhere, M and I told our friends about
the Three-toed Tree Frog but I accidentally said “three frog” and we all laughed a lot because we were drunk on beer.

I researched the three-toed tree frog thing and found an old tongue twister:

A tree toad loved a she-toad
Who lived up in a tree.
He was a two-toed tree toad
But a three-toed toad was she.
The two-toed tree toad tried to win
The three-toed she-toad’s heart,
For the two-toed tree toad loved the ground
That the three-toed tree toad trod.
But the two-toed tree toad tried in vain.
He couldn’t please her whim.
From her tree toad bower
With her three-toed power
The she-toad vetoed him.

I also found this:

The Maize-Gods of Mexico

A special group of deities called Centeotl presided over the agriculture of Mexico, each of whom personified one or other of the various aspects of the maize-plant. The chief goddess of maize, however, was Chicomecohuatl [Chicomecoatl](Seven-serpent), her name being an allusion to the fertilising power of water, which element the Mexicans symbolised by the serpent. As Xilonen she typified the xilote, or green ear of the maize. But it is probable that Chicomecohuatl was the creation of an older race, and that the Nahua new-comers adopted or brought with them another growth-spirit, the”Earth-mother,” Teteoinnan (Mother of the Gods), or Tocitzin (Our Grandmother). This goddess had a son, Centeotl, a male maize-spirit. Sometimes the mother was also known as Centeotl, the generic name for the entire group, and this fact has led to some confusion in the minds of Americanists. But this does not mean that Chicomecohuatl was by any means neglected. Her spring festival, held on April 5, was known as Hueytozoztli (The Great Watch), and was accompanied by a general fast, when the dwellings of the Mexicans were decorated with bulrushes which had been sprinkled with blood drawn from the extremities of the inmates. The statues of the little tepitoton (household gods) were also decorated. The worshippers then proceeded to the maize-fields, where they pulled the tender stalks of the growing maize, and, having decorated them with flowers, placed them in the calpulli (the common house of the village). A mock combat then took place before the altar of Chicomecohuatl. The girls of the village presented the goddess with bundles of maize of the previous season’s harvesting, later restoring them to the granaries in order that they might be utilised for seed for the coming year. Chicomecohuatl was always represented among the household deities of the Mexicans, and on the occasion of her festival the family placed before the image a basket of provisions sur. mounted by a cooked frog, bearing on its back a piece of cornstalk stuffed with pounded maize and vegetables. This frog was symbolic of Chalchihuitlicue, wife of TIaloc, the rain-god, who assisted Chicomecohuatl in providg a bountiful harvest. In order that the soil might rther benefit, a frog, the symbol of water, was sacrificed, so that its vitality should recuperate that of the weary and much-burdened earth. - Description of Chicomecoatl from meta-religion.com

Not sure what to make of it all, yet, except to say I’m always afraid when I start dreaming stuff this intense. For me, it’s something big going to happen.

My mother taught me how to analyse my dreams when I was nine years old (before she became a fundie). I’ve been doing dream self-analysis ever since.

Also, perhaps related, perhaps not - Today is the day of the Pink Full Moon, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac: “This name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month’s celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.”