you shall not pass!

the last couple of days i've been playing 'Lord of the Rings Risk, Trilogy Edition' with Boaz because he's been home sick. it is getting pretty high stakes. neither of us had ever played risk before, so we started the game without understanding the strategy/point system quite right. i made some grave (but well-intentioned!) errors in placing battalions at the beginning, and he either got lucky, or snowed me into thinking he didn't know what he was doing any better than i did. now, i'm not going to say he's winning (i have the whole of gondor and almost all of the eridaor, or something, on lock), but it's going to be tooth n' nail. he's nine!!! ah, he'll never let me live this down. now we're gonna watch 'a funny thing happened on the way to the forum' and i'm going to make him another blue banana smoothie. peace!

head over heels

go get her... it's your house!!!

yesterday i went hiking in the catskills.
(veiled apology at blogging lapse)
there were many bizarre and mindBloggeling occurrances:

we happened upon a quietly raging FOREST FIRE at the trailHead we wanted to hike

saw two very vertical waterfalls and had trouble with impulse control that was downright chilling (i.e. "but what if i just jumped in the stream and let nature take it's course?!?!?")

ate off a fistSized ball of chocolate, beaverstyle, leaving teethTrails

had acid/endorphin hallucination about expanding pickUp truck, as usual after an intenseHike.

got a honking blister, on just one heel ?!?!



AHhhhh liz'z''z' sticking needles in her eardrums!
i will humor your hexes, your aristocratic wizard voice belongs in a bookOnTape, my army is vanquished, smooshed in it's infant stage by eager fiddleHead smooshing fingerTips!!!

the weekly primer:
* apparently france has a problem with capitalism (in case you don't read french- i had to ask- "contract for HELL")
* they are accusing children left and right of witchcraft in the congo. “Child sorcerers have the power to transmit any disease, including Aids, to their family members,” a pastor of a revival church in Mbuji-Mayi told HRW. so, below, children are being excized of their demons. that sounds healthy.
* also, drug companies are inventing new diseases so they can sell more drugs. that's cool. i don't think we have opened the aids reappraisal discussion on the blog, but my friend marcel is a firm believer that hiv isn't a real disease.

* they cought the sicilian mafia boss bernardo provenzano, who has supposedly been on the run for 40 years. wow. that really makes me want to watch the godfather movies.

* more protests yesterday

so i guess this is a good place to consider what the world is like today. hopefully coming soon: fictional elaborations on the news.

lessons learned last night:

* kate and i are UNDEFEATED as doubles pool players

* when i've got some beers in me, i don't have the presence of mind NOT to INVITE strangers to step on my new shoes to 'break them in'

* bicardi limon tastes nasty

* french serge gainsbourg cover bands can get a bit annoying with go-go dance moves and affected smoking postures

* don't go downstairs into a club that is decorated like the pits of hell, but with brazilian pop and water sprinkling on you from unknown sources, even for five minutes.

* sometimes, i can't hold my liquor

* just like ELIZABETH, i yearn to explore more diverse forms of leisure!!!



agitated,
bouncy, brash, buoyant,
chipper, chirpy,
effervescent, effusive, elated, excited, exhilarated, exuberant,
frothy,
gushing,
high-spirited,
irrepressible,
vivacious,
zestful, zippy

alex, will you read me the george saunders piece in the new yorker?

chairman bush greets the droves of breen drones from special transport hovercraft:
the war machine continues, hail new world, god willing
middle territory, april 2006

"no."
"why not?"
"because i'm reading something else."
(a letter)
this is the type to stuff you have to put up with when you got friends with a *bad attitude*
!!
today i went shopping with my boyfriend. i bought a pair of jeans and some dope [drug dealer lingo] sneakers. shopping was lame, but at the end of the day i came across the best sneakers ever and now i won't have to go shopping for another year.
i tried to clean my house this morning, but it didn't work very well, especially becuase again, i have not done my laundry. good thing i bought another pair of pants [buys 4 more days]
today it got hot in ny after it rained. i broke a sweat on the subway on the way home. crazy! i bet its going to be sweaty summer real soon.
unfortunately i have to work all weekend (perhaps for the rest of the summer. that will be lame but at least i can afford my new sneakers and some nice food from trader joes). working on the weekend shouldn't be that bad anyway- on saturdays i work with my boss and she is funny and buys us nice food like pizza from lombardi's.
i have to figure out something fun to do tonight, because my boyfriend is going to spamalot and i have ruled out drinking (moratorium in effect). does anybody have any suggestions for liesure (productive/fun activities that i have already done recently, and thus are ruled out: sewing, walking around town, watching tv shows/movies, cooking elaborate food, sleeping, scrabble. what the fuck else is there to do? reading? i just tried to get alex to read to me and she won't!
dear alex, please stop chain smoking!
love, elizabeth

we've gotten a facial tattoo!

yoko, this is my internet apology for missing the april fool's party.
do you remember this day? postOregon, preHell.
thank the stars those facial tattoos came off with the lazer treatments.
thank the stars my eyebrows grew back.
thank the stars i photoshopped out the third member of this longAgo afternoon.
yay!

woah... that sounded embarassingly sincere - liz, give me a pill or something!!!

celestiambling

the rain is like a cage, the maudlin tangle of your life under the clouded sky's curious glare. i noticed a strange ambling gait in my step today, as i walked away from visiting miele. fortelling an adventure? no just my flat shoes with no cushioning. i re-re-remembered all my projects that i put on hold because of how i was going to move to this farm. now that i can't move there, those plans are strangely shaped for my new hands, my gloves left out in the rain. i feel like maybe placing them down and going somewhere i can be really useful -- materially useful.

hymnal hum, humbling home

today is my half birthday. it is also my best friend's birthday.
i am dedicating the stormy warm weather of today to him.



wake up and listen close
warm up and come down through the hills
towards the warm, red lamp window