in so much paiiiiiiiiiiin
goddamnit I HATE endometriosis. It totally fucking blows. I’m starting to be in chronic pain again, just like I was in the spring. Luckily, my amazing Real Chinese Acupuncturist in Champaign recommended a friend of his here, who is another Real Chinese Acupuncturist. And he’s in Chinatown! And he even charges less than the guy in Champaign which is pretty unbelievable.
Of course, I can’t afford acupuncture at all but I’m going to have to figure out a way to do it if I want to function like a normal person at all. Sigh.
I watched Napoleon last week. It was cool. It was on A and E a fews years back, and John Malkovich and Gerard Depardieu were involved in its production. Not bad. The beginning is a bit stilted and you kind of begin to wonder if the acting is going to royally suck but it improves quickly. It’s amazing how they recreated the entire coronation scene.
So, you know how in history books the people would always say that their ruler or their ruler’s wife was “fair” or “beautiful” and you wonder how it could possibly have been so, judging by the portraits? They all look ugly. Well, not so with this Polish chick with whom Napoleon had an affair.
Anyway. I was trying to get all these boxes taken care of today. I made some success but it’s still a gargantuan mess and my stomach pain is not making this task any easier. My aunt is supposedly coming next weekend. My father’s 60th birthday is in a week and we had thought that I might make a last-minute trip home to Colorado to celebrate, and that would have gotten me out of making this place presentable by next weekend. 
But not meant to be. I am mad at several family members right now but won’t get into it here. Vielleicht it is because of my pain. And the heat. But more than anything, I’m feeling ignored and as though some of my family members don’t think I’m an adult and that I really don’t matter. Groan.
I sold my old bike today and was very sad about it. I loved that bike. But I couldn’t ride it much in Champaign because the roads are like the ones I imagine a third-world country would have. If they were paved, of course. So a regular road bike doesn’t do too well there, not even on the bike paths. But the roads royally suck here, too, and there’s no place for me to lock up a bike outside, so I have to carry it up about two storeys and keep it in my apartment. Not such a good thing with a vintage Schwinn Varsity. My new bike, that I bought from the Grumpy Hippie Bike Guy in the fall, is lightweight and a hybrid, so it can handle the crappy roads much better. In any case, it went to a good home, and I have a potential friend from the interaction. My friend Dena made the coolest friend ever through one of her transactions on Craigslist, and maybe I did the same thing! We hope to have lunch soon.
I am about to finish a book I really, really wanted to read. It’s called What did I do wrong?: when women don’t tell each other the friendship is over. It’s been nice to read. I had a couple of GSLIS ex-friends and another ex-friend from the opera department and this sort of thing has been on my mind a lot. I chalk most of the excessive drama over just the past two years to being in a dramatic environment (such as a university), and I have some pretty strong suspicions about the character profiles of my ex-friends. Actually, not just suspicion — evidence of other people having the same sorts of problems. So it’s not the biggest mystery to me. But women do have the strangest avoidance behavior. Luckily for me, the women who actually mystified me were before grad school, and they both re-insinuated themselves into my life again after our respective “fallings-out.” So they’re ex-ex-friends. My friends who I’ve lost who really mattered have come back. But regardless, I do plan to visit the author’s site on a semi-regular basis. My only complaint with the book so far is that the author and her friends were religiously listening to Dr. Laura. I refuse to have anything to do with a psychologist who is stupid enough to be a complete homophobe.
Anyway, back to gorgeous Polish chicks. Here is a lovely treat: a picture of my beautiful friend Anna and her beautiful baby, Natalie, whom I got to visit in New York last weekend.
come and see the ballroom.
