I think the antibiotics I’ve been taking after my oral surgery are messing with me. I can’t sleep, I’m having nightmares, my body feels funky. Yesterday I saw my cousin Robin and her kids. Robin told me one of her kids has Scarlet Fever. I got all wiggy inside because I am convinced antibiotics lower your resistance. Hence, I am going to get Scarlet Fever. So I keep telling myself “you are NOT going to get Scarlet Fever.” The kid was running around so it didn’t look like Scarlet Fever was all that bad. But still.

I HATE taking medicine. I haven’t taken any of the pain meds, so far haven’t been desperate enough. Wine is the BEST medicine. The best medicine for a regular fever is a bottle of Champagne. I wonder how many you’d need if you had Scarlet Fever?

Anyhow. I’ve been riveted lately by Rar’s Blog. Rar is spending a few months in South America, traveling around by himself. I am jealous of him. Because he’s a guy, because he’s young, because I am too much of a pussy to try to bushwack my way through a Bolivian jungle. Right now he is chillin’ in La Paz. He has a great way of putting things into perspective there and also of describing the things he does and the places he sees. I wish I was chillin’ in La Paz. Though I would be scared of the rubber bullets.

If is a foggy morning and I have to get my house cleaned up because my co-worker Bryan and his girlfriend Annika are spending the night. I talked them into it last night when they were drunk in a hotel room in Sorrento Mesa, where they attended a wedding. I love Bryan. He’s the perfect combination of fun, smart, and eccentric. And Annika is a sweetheart. I’ll do my best to keep them out of trouble.

Doy. Laurie commented on the last entry, well what happened with the Doves show?

The Doves cancelled a few days before, but I had to learn this from their website, and too late. I don’t know what was up with the Fillmore – no sign, no indication that that show was cancelled. Somehow the word got around – there were only a few people, besides me, who didn’t know what was going on. But still, the Fillmore could have least put up a sign.

So the Doves are coming back in June, and the tickets I had will be honored for that, so I sold them to some Irish guy in San Francisco. Then they will be in LA but on June 14, when I have a ticket to see Wilco at the Greek Theater. Can’t be in two places at once, homies.

It’s too bad as I just got my hands on a live Doves CD and it is hella rocking and cool. But Wilco wins.

The Doves have become uber-successful since I wrote this in Sicily in September 2000: “Back in my room, my first view of Orion this year, millions of stars, listening to the Doves (very important new British band – now Clea and Alex know.)” That was the same summer Coldplay was just starting, right before Kid A came out, right before my life totally changed. More on this later. (Clea and Alex were classical musicians I met in Taormina. We had a lot of fun there.)

It’s going to be a crazy summer. Already it is getting really hot. It was crazy in The Vine. Not crowded crazy, just the regulars Being Crazy. A couple of them, anyway. Or maybe that is normal. I think I live in a place where crazy IS normal. That place is in my brain.

Next week I am going to Las Vegas for the first time in a gazillion seconds. I dreamed about an alternate universe where people are made out of wax and you get around in roller coasters with no seat belts.

I am home. I sure will miss those little juice boxes full of cheap red wine.

That shit makes your hair look perfect.

My blog turned one year old over the weekend. I thought of this before I thought of how yesterday would have been my 12th anniversary, if I was still married. But instead that experience crashed and burned in 1995. I wonder how my life would be different if it had worked out. Like, would I be a mother now? Would I be spending my vacations camping at Yosemite instead of flying to Europe?

You can try to map a path but a storm will always come and wash it out. It’s better to just let life make the path for you. If there is one thing I have learned in forty years, it is that.

In those times in my life when I don’t have to work – like vacation, and when I lived in Italy, I turn into a night creature. Right now it is 11:00 P.M. and I am totally exhausted because I have to work. And on the weekends if I stay up ’till 4:00 A.M. it kind of wrecks me the next day, because I don’t feel like I can sleep until noon and then start it all over again. This really sucks because I totally love being a night creature. And not like a night creature that WORKS at night. Only a night creature that gets to SEE at night.

The best things happen at 3:00 A.M. Things that not too many people see. There is nothing better than drinking wine in Piazza San Marco at 3:00 A.M., at a deserted cafe table at Florian’s, all the waiters and musicians home asleep, you with a Valpolicella in a paper bag. Extra points if it is a full moon, or if it is Acqua Alta, when the water seeps up around you until you are surrounded by a lake. The Basilica glows and eventually, you’ll have to be carried, or jump from chair to chair, to avoid getting wet on the way out.

3:00 A.M. smells like stale cigarettes and cheap Cognac, but sometimes that is the best smell in the world. It sounds like old David Bowie. 3:00 A.M. is best when all responsibility is gone, or even when it seems responsibility will never rear it’s ugly head again. 3:00 A.M. is the murmur of voices across the Campo, policeman voices, but they don’t want to bust you, instead they want to drink with you. The first two seconds of “Kid A,” seeing a tattoo clearly but nothing else, thinking everything is a dream, but maybe it’s not.

Just thinking about it makes me want it again. Just thinking about it gives me energy, because here is is 11:30, and I’m still awake…

I am feeling awfully distracted these days. Life seems to be throwing some curveballs, only I have a feeling the catcher is whispering premonitions in my ear.

Went out and spent some money on CDs though, which always makes me feel better. Also, had a feeling my brother was at Tony’s bar, and went there, and there he was. Even hanging with my brother, I felt I was hanging on the edge.

Maybe it is just that I am leaving soon. That pre-boarding jitter thing; the feeling that something is left undone. If so, a valium on the plane (or before) will take care of that. Or maybe there is some weird static in the air here. Things not yet done, not yet said; things that would be better off not done or said.

I dreamed about Jeff Tweedy this morning. He slept with some chick and I was pissed off. Then I found myself living in a motel on a busy street in San Francisco, sort of like Masonic and Geary-ish. I was fretting all night, in my dreams.

Today I was in Staples buying some shipping supplies and the checker-outer was not too with it, or tired or something, and he kept ringing up the same thing over and over, then voiding it. It took forever and finally, he finished but the item he kept ringing and voiding totally voided off my bill. I struggled within myself – should I tell this guy he didn’t charge me for this roll of bubble-wrap? Or will it take another half hour to fix it? Should I feel guilty for screwing Staples?

I got my change and receipt but then looked it over and told the guy he hadn’t charged me for the thing he’d charged and voided eight times. And gave him the money. That’s pretty silly, isn’t it?

I wish I could make sense out of all of this.

I am totally exhausted. I think it is because in that other universe, the nighttime one, things are a little crazy. I think I am dreaming constantly. I woke up Sunday at 3:00 AM in a total cold sweat panic attack. I can’t remember what I was dreaming, but knowing me, it was something totally insane.

This morning, I dreamed about pain, because I was in pain. It?s a female thing. I was in pain all night and then was dreaming about the pain. Even though I am very good at self-medication, I hate to take painkillers. I don’t like aspirin or motrin because for some reason I think it is harmful to me. So I just suffer. But try to take away my wine and I will bite your hand off. I know, I am really weird.

So I had crazy dreams laced with pain.

In one dream there was a little girl of about seven, the fictional daughter of a mysterious friend, who had these crazy feet. Her feet were huge, and ugly. They looked like the feet of a fairy-tale witch. I said to her, “dang, you have big feet! What size are they?” And she said size 5, but they were way bigger than that.

J Lo was also in my dream, and she was upset about something so everyone was walking on tiptoes around her. She was having a conniption fit because she wanted some Pozole. In my dream J Lo’s current role was as a Mexican waitress, who always, after her shift, went to another Mexican restaurant to eat Pozole, still with her Mexican waitress costume on. Then she always complained about her meal. This was J Lo’s role, within a role, within my dream.

Later I think I was walking with J Lo, the girl with the crazy feet, and some other people really far to get a meal. For some reason we were walking five miles on a crappy road. And I was in major pain, so I was like, this is not cool. Then some dude hurt his leg and was leaning on me, and I was like GET OFF ME DUDE, IT FUCKING HURTS! Then a streetcar pulled up and we all got on, thanks god.

After that I woke up and took some Aleve.

But what does it all mean?

I can’t stop thinking about the word Poptart. It all started on Thanksgiving when I went to my friend Cheryl’s friends house for dinner and the guy was of Ukrainian heritage and he made these apple turnover things and gave me some to take home. I was eating one late that night when I said to myself, it’s like a Ukrainian Poptart! This is how the whole Poptart thing was born.

I am sort of an obsessive person. For instance right now I am totally obsessed with this band The Arcade Fire. I can’t stop listening to their first record, Funeral, but since it is on a gazillion top ten lists I won’t even try to go there. Now, I am obsessed with seeing them live, partly because of this guy’s experience. (You must listen to Wake Up. You MUST.) Sadly they are playing a show at the Casbah on January 17, when I won’t be here. Rotten luck. They are playing not one, not two, but THREE shows in L.A. the weekend of January 15 & 16, and I may have to attempt one of those, even though they are all sold out and tickets being scalped on ebay and craigslist for way too much money. I want to go, bad. I am totally obsessed and can think of nothing else, except for the word Poptart.

So back to that then. It looks like I will soon have my very own website, and I am trying to name it. I immediately thought of Ukrainian Poptart but was shot down by webmaster Pauline. “I don’t like that,” she said. “Besides, you aren’t even Ukrainian!” Well, she’s got a point there. Plain old Poptart is already taken. So now I am thinking about Traveling Poptart.

We shall see.

So last night I was at the Vine Wine Bar (where indeed I am spending most of my time these days) drinking wine with one of the owners, Hannah. She gave me a glass of wine to sniff, and for the life of me I can’t remember what it was, since there were like fifteen different glasses in front of us. I smelled it and said, “smells like a Strawberry Poptart!” She smelled it and said “you are right! It does smell like a Strawberry Poptart!”

hmmm… Red Wine Poptart, anyone?

There are two kinds of people – those who stop their car at an intersection and let a pedestrian cross before they go through, and those who motor through an intersection with absolutely no regard for anyone except themselves.

Hmmm… well, wait a minute. There are also the pedestrians. This would make it, three kinds of people. Also what about the people who sometimes waver before letting a pedestrian cross, and sometimes decide to be nice, sometimes to be an asshole?

What about people who go around in limos? That would make four kinds of people. Then there are the limo sub-groups – people in limos because they are rich, people in limos who are too crazy to be driving, and people in limos just going to the airport. But I really shouldn’t worry about sub-groups, or this entry will be totally out-of-control. In my limited experience, limo DRIVERS almost always stop, probably because they are paid by the hour. So maybe I shouldn’t even list limo people, since even if they want to run you over they can’t.

Then there are the rickshaw drivers (five kinds of people!!!) but I don’t know if they ever stop for pedestrians. Maybe you can’t stop a rickshaw because you have to have momentum, and stopping for pedestrians may screw this up. One of these days I’ll investigate more thoroughly. Probably if the momentum theory holds up, rickshaw drivers might be let off the hook when it comes to stopping for pedestrians.

Hmm… I think my theory this evening is pretty lame, now that I think about it. There are people (#6) who never leave the house, not even to be a pedestrian. And there are the Amish (er, #7…) who have horses and buggies but I am sure they almost always stop for pedestrians. Then there are the motorists who don’t stop for an Amish horse and buggy, and those that do (8,9). So making generalizations is just a totally lame waste of time, since there are so many ways to deviate from them.

Hope this all doesn’t keep me up again tonight.

Almost 10,000 people have visited my blog since May 9, 2004…

Maybe YOU are the 10,000 visitor.

All night it rained hard, and I had crazy dreams about sex and drugs.