about two years ago, i saw (and killed, out of sheer panicky terror) the freakiest bug ever in my apartment. it gave me the shivers. today, i got an e-mail from chris, and the subject was, "What the hell is this???" the name of the picture attached, "freaky bug.jpg" left me in no doubt that one of my dead bug's relatives had surfaced in chris' house, so i opened it, and there it was. ugh. if anybody knows what this bug is, please let me know. i've never been able to identify it.

have i ever told you about the woman with no arms who rides my bus? she literally has no arms; i don't think there are even stubs, since she wears short-sleeved shirts and there doesn't appear to be anything there. she does everything with her feet. it's always neat to see her slip off a shoe and put her dollar in the fare collector machine with her toes. she seems pretty rad. the other day, i found out she smokes. i was at the bus stop on my way home and she was sitting on the sidewalk with a cigarette between her toes. i got to wondering if she bummed one off someone, or if she lit it herself, and where would she keep the pack so that she could get to it and extract a cigarette?

i was quite pleased with myself as i rode my bike to work this morning (for the second day in a row). but it was only drizzling then. now i'm not so sure about the whole plan, but the fact remains that both my bike and i are downtown and we've both got to get home, so i'm kind of stuck riding it back. also, i'd feel super wimpy if i didn't.

over the weekend, i went with some friends to ape cave, up near mt. st. helens. WOW! it was so rad! there's this huge long tunnel -- or cave, if you will -- that was created by lava and you have to have a flashlight to get through or you can't see anything; it's pitch black. the cave goes on for a mile, or maybe a little bit more. i'm really glad i have such cool friends who plan these adventures and invite me along with them.

can this pathetic trend in tv shows end, please? i mean, it's kind of a shame they didn't contact me for the who wants to be a princess pageant, since it's always been my dream to whore myself out on national television. but those other shows... get real! </sarcasm>

for about four or five hours yesterday afternoon, all mail that was sent to me got eaten somewhere between the sender and my isp. so, if i don't e-mail you back, it's not that i don't love you, it's just that i don't know you sent me anything.

my vision for the future of advertising has expanded. it shouldn't be limited to the bleeped-out portions of movies, unless nobody's ever seen them before. but movies like "the princess bride", that everybody has seen at least ten times can be bastardized throughout. i'm actually afraid that some marketing person is going to take this seriously and the next time tnt shows "the princess bride", the following scene will take place:

buttercup pushes wesley down into the ravine...
wesley: do... the... dew...!
buttercup: oh, my sweet wesley, ballpark franks plump when you cook 'em.

in other news, i've determined that i feel like the world is my ex-boyfriend, since last tuesday's events. it's like we broke up and i want to stay friends and all, but i'm definitely having some trust issues and i'm going to need a little space. not from any particular person in the world, but from the conceptual world, the idea of what "the world" means in my mind. it doesn't help that falwell and his ilk have determined that we brought this on ourselves... that the aclu, homosexuals, and pro-choicers have made america unworthy of god's protection. in my opinion, his remarks show him to be no better than those who carried out the attacks. they are based on the same fundamental principle of intolerance that, frankly, makes me ill.

i have foreseen the future of advertising. the next space to be sold, mark my words, is the bleeped-out obscenities in movies when they show them on tv. think about it. everybody gets irritated when they call people "goof off" when we all know they really said "asshole". can't you see it? bruce willis in die hard: "yippee ki-ay" and then, instead of, dead air, or a bleep, or something else, a voice will say, "buy coke" or, "pork, the other white meat." it's brilliant! "yippee ki-ay got milk?" send me your ad ideas.

on the bus today, there was a rather rotund man taking up about one and a half seats. as there was nowhere else to sit, and the route involves quite a few turns that make it difficult to stand, a small woman sat in the seat next to him. he made a minor shifting movement, that didn't actually free up space, but the woman thanked him. "that's okay," he said. "i only do one gentlemanly thing a month, and now i don't have to do anything for another month."

i found this to be amusing as, in my estimation, simply shifting slightly in your chair (and then shifting back) doesn't really constitute a gentlemanly act. he said it as a kind of joke, but it occurred me that he had heard this on tv somewhere and had been waiting for a situation where it would apply. perhaps he should have waited longer.

this country really amazes me. i never thought we'd all be such proud americans -- we're too cynical, right? but all over, people are pulling together, helping each other out. we're better drivers than we were a week ago. we light candles and give each other meaningful little smiles. it's incredibly heartening to see how much people care. sure, it's not everybody. there are people who remain unaffected -- there was that woman who was pissed off that the mall was closed last tuesday because she had shoes to buy. but it's enough people to make a noticeable difference, and there's something really cool about that.

other people are saying things better than i am at the moment. i particularly like the articles written by mark morford and leonard pitts (see links at right).

writes morford, "the only way the terrorists will have won is if we stop recognizing the beautiful and the simple, if we lose our sense of probity and our ability to laugh and love and make really profound eye contact..."

where yesterday, everything other than the "attack on america" seemed trivial, today, nothing seems appropriate. it seems to be a day for taking stock. i'm at least breathing easier now that i know that those who are dear to me in the area are safe; a lot of people don't yet have that luxury. i realized that it wasn't until i knew exactly how this whole thing affected me, personally, that i could start to deal with how i feel about it. that process has begun, and the gears are slowly getting in motion once again.

as for how i feel about the whole thing, i'm still pretty terrified. certainly, across the country, people feel a lot less safe; a lot more vulnerable and i'm no exception. and we're angry. on top of that, i fear the ignorance and tempers of my fellow americans who might be tempted to take out their anger on people who are different than them. there's a lot of frustration involved with our forced inactivity. we can't just go bomb someone because we're mad that this happened, but we all want some action to be taken. anger isn't patient.

mostly, i'm filled with wishes. i wish yesterday never happened. i wish we didn't have such a dippy president. i wish i still felt safe and that sirens in my own town didn't fill me with such dread. i wish for strength for all those who lost someone special yesterday. and i hope, fervently, that we never have to deal with anything like this again. ever.

everything seems trivial right now. i can't even begin fathom the nyc skyline without the twin towers. and i can only imagine the horrors that those who were there had to -- have to -- deal with. there's probably nothing i can say that hasn't or won't be said a million times. it is, simply, terrible beyond belief.

for some reason, i was compelled to buy hohos out of the vending machine at work today. why today? why hohos? these are very good questions. hohos are foul in a rather delicious way. i noticed, however, that they are two days past their "last sale date". i didn't even know hohos had a last sale date. aren't they supposed to have a shelf-life of ten thousand years or something? maybe the waxy chocolate coating goes stale or something...

there's good planning, and then there's the city of nottingham, england. apparently, they thought it was a good idea to rely on solar power to make their parking meters work. solar power requires sun. in england. did no brows furrow when this plan was announced?

i'm listening to the persephone's bees cd i bought at their show. i still think they're really talented. also, i want a russian accent.

i'm glad somebody's taking a stand against pop-under ads. i hate them.

there are many forms of torture. one of the more distressing i have come across is the introduction and repetition of a tune that won't leave my head. specifically, i'm talking about the chicken song. you know the one -- if you've ever been to a wedding or a kitschy german restaurant, you've heard it. today, a co-worker played the song for us all. i later damned him for getting the song stuck in my head. "damn you," i said. so now, every time i see him, he askes, "is it gone yet?" thereby causing my brain to once again pick up the inane repitition of said song, and reigniting my ire. grr.

if you still don't know what the tune is, and if you really want to hear it, you can visit the oktoberfest web site. i take no responsibility for the tune getting stuck in your head.

bzzz. i have been a busy bee. on thursday, i got to enjoy my favorite portland tradition: the waterfront symphony concert. they do this every year on the expanse of lawn near the hawthorne bridge. the best part, or at least the part where the crowd stops chattering and really pays attention, is the end of tchaikovsky's 1812 overture with the cannon fire. there's something really wonderful about classical music and the deep booms of the cannons. on top of that, the weather was postcard perfect. after the music, the fireworks show was spectacular -- much better than the fourth of july fireworks. clearly, they symphony has more money than the city.

on friday, i went to see cake. a band from oakland called persephone's bees opened for them. they were impressively good. at different times, they reminded me of belly, stereolab, and queen, and i remember thinking that part of a song sounded like the monkeys, but i later thought i was wrong about that. their sounds are very diverse, at any rate.

cake pissed me off by taking 45 minutes to grace the stage with their presence, but the show was okay once they finally did show up. they do a really good job of getting the crowd involved. i also noticed an interesting phenomenon that happens at cake shows: you can almost always hear the crowd singing along with every song. it's strange. i've decided that the reason for this has to do with the fact that the lead singer enunciates much better than most rock musicians, so people actually know the words to all the songs without having to track down the lyrics on the web or in their cd cases.