I think it may be time to put the coats in the basement for the season.

I walked around Arlington and Cambridge yesterday without a cane. i'm experimenting to see if I can (at least temporarily) leave them at home. I don't like having to carry one. I almost fell down at a couple points, but I didn't. While not completely inactive, my vertigo issues seem to be at a relatively inactive point. I know that I'll probably need to take a cane with me again in the future — but if I'm not going to be falling every day, I don't need to bring my cane with me every day, eh? I can take the occasional tumble, especially since I'm wearing thick fake fur coats with padding to dampen any falls that do happen.

My new favorite outfit is made entirely of items given to me by purpleglitter at various points. The hat, cane, and red Chinese embroidered shirt were all gifts this Holiday Season. She gave me the green coat for our 10th anniversary last year. It is actually the same coat purpleglitter was wearing the night we met in front of the Haymarket in Northampton, December 8^th, 1994. The skirt I pulled out of a bag of clothing that purpleglitter no longer wanted and was going to give away 6 or 7 years ago. This outfit makes me feel good wear it, so I've been wearing it a lot.




photos by purpleglitter

If you want to see the true face of war, go to the amateur porn Web site NowThatsFuckedUp.com. For almost a year, American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking photographs of dead bodies, many of them horribly mutilated or blown to pieces, and sending them to Web site administrator Chris Wilson. In return for permission to post these images, Wilson gives the soldiers free access to his site. American soldiers have been using the pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses as currency to buy pornography. At Wilson's Web site, you can see an Arab man's face sliced off and placed in a bowl filled with blood. Another man's head, his face crusted with dried blood and powder burns, lies on a bed of gravel. A man in a leather coat who apparently tried to run a military checkpoint lies slumped in the driver's seat of a car, his head obliterated by gunfire, the flaps of skin from his neck blooming open like rose petals. Six men in beige fatigues, identified as US Marines, laugh and smile for the camera while pointing at a burned, charcoal-black corpse lying at their feet. The captions that accompany these images, which were apparently written by soldiers who posted them, laugh and gloat over the bodies. The person who posted a picture of a corpse lying in a pool of his own brains and entrails wrote, "What every Iraqi should look like." The photograph of a corpse whose jaw has apparently rotted away, leaving a gaping set of upper teeth, bears the caption "bad day for this dude." One person posted three photographs of corpses lying in the street and titled his collection "DIE HAJI DIE." This could become a public-relations catastrophe. The Bush administration claims such sympathy for American war dead that officials banned the media from photographing flag-draped coffins being carried off cargo planes. Government officials and American media pundits have repeatedly denounced the al-Jazeera network for airing grisly footage of Iraqi war casualties and American prisoners of war. The legal fight over whether to release the remaining photographs of atrocities at Abu Ghraib has dragged on for months, with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Meyers arguing that the release of such images will inflame the Muslim world and drive untold numbers to join al-Qaeda. But none of these can compare with the prospect of American troops casually bartering pictures of suffering and death for porn. full story

I've heard too many smarmy Americans calling the Muslim people barbarians. Um, yeah. Exactly who are the barbarians here?

i've slept most of today
curled up in my bed with my wool coat on
getting cat hair all over it
getting up only to go see my pdoc
she said she isn't mad at me for going off my geodon
but thought i should check myself into the hospital
i told her that i didn't want to go
she said if i changed my mind to have them page her so she could explain what was going on

madeleinecat is passed out in a pile of catnip behind me
she is almost as big a stoner as me
she has had a good day
she also got vanilla egg nog, which is one of her favorite things to drink
i've been cuddling with her and mazzycat most of the day
a quiet day with my kitties
i love them even if they do make little shit bombs on my floor, one of which i stepped in again today

i've been talking to my mom (myenergy) more often lately
that is a good thing
she got me a wonderful full-length wool coat for christmas
it will keep me warm when winter really gets rolling

purpleglitter and I went out for a Indian food dinner last night. It was very yummy. Before dinner, purpleglitter gave me her green velvet and fake fur Oscar the Grouch coat as my anniversary present. I've been lusting after that coat for years. Now it's mine. I'm very excited. And if she's nice, I may even let her borrow it sometime. I gave lake a stack of ten coupons good ten times each (1 for each year). They are good for things like 10 back rubs, 10 trips to Target without complaining, 10 clean the birds cages, etc.

After dinner, purpleglitter and I went to see Alexander. Boring. Needs less fighting and more pretty boys making out. There was also a sad lack of a sex seen between Colin Farrell and Jared Leto. That scene would have forgiven many wrongs in the movie.

With the exception of Alexander, we had a wonderful anniversary.

Just walked home from purpleglitter's. purpleglitter bundled me up very nicely, so I hardly noticed the cold. The snow is beautiful and they say it's supposed to keep coming down until tomorrow afternoon. Woo-hoo! I'm planning on walking back through it tomorrow to return to purpleglitter's. merryperseis is downstairs making me hot chocolate right now.

there are many kitties in my room behind me
the kitties like my room
there are also two humans in my room behind me
spider is suckling my coat
the legs or the table are cold
purpleglitter and merryperseis used to collect stickers
there is a rope
pulling through my head
the humans in the room are talking about alien aardvark babies
and going through my "toy drawer"
they want me off the computer
i must go

todays a new day
we don't have much oil
it is cold in here
i have my coat on so i am warm
i feel tired from last night
everything is moving
and staying still
i ate two large bean burritos merryperseis made for me
they were yummy
but my stomach says "why me?"

-----

it's a new day
what games will we play today?
what loops will my mind go through?
it's a new day
today
how many more will there be?
with a statement like that
maybe i should consider going back into the hospital
i want to wait until i see my therapist Tuesday
i want to stay out at least for a few days
i need to get my celexa refilled

-----

i added some people to my friends list
don't know if they'll add me back
i like adding people
but lately people have been taking me off their list
because i'm getting too fucked up
but that's okay
i understand
there is only so much fucked up some people can take

-----

is this poetry
it is if i say it is
but i don't
so it probably isn't
but maybe it still is
who knows?

Feel a little better. Still shaking. Put on a coat. Not feeling well. But feel a little better. Ghosts and the stories they tell.

Just got back from the Diesel. Had coffee with cobweb. We had some really good conversations.

It's such a beautiful day outside. Cool enough to wear my velvets, but not so cold that I have to wear a coat or jacket. After we had coffee, cobweb and I sat in the People Park in Davis Square and watched the people walk by. Perfect weather for people watching.