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DING

August 26

I don't think I'm sick anymore. Thank god. Right now I am eating a highly protein and fat based breakfast of steak, eggs, and bacon. The steak is from that beef that Kathryn brought when she came down here this last weekend. It's so, so good. I'm also kind of pulling chunks of fat out of my teeth though, which is the primary reason I was vegetarian for 11 years. But whatever.

Yesterday I went to the DMV and got my driver's license renewed. I was kind of sad that they took my old one away, but I mean, it makes sense. It was a good record of how different my hair was when I was 17. I could show it to people who haven't known me that long, they would say "WHOA - YOUR HAIR WAS LONG!" I would say "Yeah." Those days are gone now.

As an aside, I only wash my hair every three days, because I don't really care to take time to do that more frequently, and because it damages your hair to strip it of its Natural Oils every day. The latter is barely a reason that I have this habit - much like my aforementioned adherance to vegetarianism had very little to do with animal rights or biological trophic levels. Anyway, I have different stages for my hair - Day One, Day Two, and Day Three. Day One is almost too clean for me, usually my bangs fall down in my face, but it feels so soft! Day Two is usually my favorite day, as it still looks clean, but is more manageable and stays in place. Day Three usually pushes it - Not only does it start to acquire a matted straw quality, it acts as if it's been loaded with some waxy salon product, and I can usually create something that would fit in with A Flock of Seagulls music video.

Yesterday was Day Three, and I went to the DMV knowing that the picture that I took would become the representation I showed people for years to come. I looked in the reflection of my car window in the parking lot. I get these wings going out to the sides near my ears - there was no toning them down. Anyway, my number (27) was eventually called after I'd mentally done 75% of the jumble (Print, Knave, something, and Aghast) and they had me look at this mini crash test dummy doll by the camera. I smiled, and the flash went off, and then I got my temporary ID. I maintain that my picture makes me look like an illustration of a child named Chucky - not that demon-child character, but maybe like that boy on Rugrats, had he grown up and gotten contacts. We'll see, maybe the full-color rendition of my permanent license will look more cute to me.

August 19

Well, I am still sickly - I went to Outside In on Friday to find out what was wrong with me. They told me I probably have a virus, and that it will take some time to clear up. And then they gave me a giant bottle of vitamin C. I went to my parents' house and watched an untold number of movies on the 8 billion movie channels they get at their house- it's so gratifying when you are ill to be able to watch a movie that you at least can tolerate, without commercials, at any hour of the day. Here are some of the movies I watched: Fight Club, The Departed, Remember the Titans, Blades of Glory, Transformers (easily the worst movie I have seen since um... Armageddon? Also by Michael Bay?), Stranger than Fiction, Return of Superman, and there's more but I can't remember. When my dad came home he put on the opening ceremonies of the Olympics for me to watch, which I found to be amazing, and HD. 2,008 light-up drums! And green light-up spandex bodysuits! And choreographed everything!

I have just been taking a bunch of pills all the time for the last five days, so I don't know exactly where I am with my fever, but I do know that I am weak. But not so weak that I can't reread Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! For the last three days I have just pretty much been doing that. Hermione is my favorite, she is so rad, I can't believe it. She's just so good at magic! God! Like when they are at the Lovegood's house and are getting sold out by Xenophilius, and the Death Eaters are going to hurt Luna if Xenophilius has lied to them about Harry Potter being in his house - so Hermione puts the invisibility cloak over Ron, blindfolds Xenophilius with the Obscuro spell, and then blasts a hole in the floor so that the Death Eaters downstairs can see that Harry is really there so they won't hurt Luna, before she disapparates with Harry and Ron back to safety! I love it, I love it. Also, this time I am reading the book under the pretense that Dumbledore is gay, and it's like, OK - I guess this whole Grindelwald thing makes more sense now.

This upcoming weekend will be the Zine Symposium and Kathryn will be coming down with my beef, finally. I am excited to receive my beef, and have a meat party with it. How much beef is 12 pounds, anyway? Is it a lot? Or is it just kind of "enough?" I don't know.

Something that is difficult about August for me is how many birthdays and events there are to remember in this month. Like there's my birthday, my Grandma's birthday, my grandparents' wedding anniversary (60 this year - which is crazy because I can't imagine doing anything for 60 years), Claire Howard's birthday, Claire Leamy's birthday, my parents' anniversary, and then Laura Kerr (who is promised to return to us) also has the same birthday as me. This is possibly my favorite aspect of Laura besides the fact that she is a fabulous person - we discovered this when I was telling one of our co-workers, "I have the same birthday as Michael Jackson." And she was like "ME TOO!" This is made all the more exciting for me because I have never met anyone else with my birthday.

OK, back to HP and the DH.

August 14

In the last 12 hours I have gotten sick and scared, and made several panicked phone calls about my 102 degree fever. Kelly came over and bought me Tylenol and brought popsicles. We watched the Olympics interminably. Then I wanted to watch this video that Leslie showed me, called Taco Town, which makes me laugh really hard.

And then I wanted to look at more SNL videos, so I continued to look at NBC's website, and ooh girl they have been doing some work converting videos over there.

These are several that I have laughed at.

Commercial parodies!

August 13

So, Britta Ingebretson has returned to Portland, which is just fabulous. Today we went and picked berries in Oxbow park, and we got a bunch of salal, and some red huckleberries. And then the tiniest bit of the only ripe blackberries, and some Oregon grape berries - which I just don't feel comfortable referring to as "grapes."

There is this Oregon Cocktail contest going on right now, and I have become overwhelmed with needing to enter it. It's sad because I don't know how I will be successful at it - I feel that my only hope is to use native berries somehow. The winners of the contest will go on a "getaway" somewhere. How exciting. What a dream!

Kelly came over the other night and we were eating Cheetos and we decided to make a blog about carb and fat pairings - it's called: Carb / Fat Pairings. If you have any pairings that you would like to see represented, you can email me.

August 9

Twenty days until my birthday! This year for my birthday I want to have direction in my life. I wonder what, what will it be?

Portland Parks and Recreation has been showing free movies in the parks lately - the other night they showed Juno, and tonight Kelly and I saw E.T. in Laurelhurst Park. I think that E.T. is a movie that I thought I'd seen sometime before, but I realized I really hadn't. It was especially obvious to me when I was sobbing and I did not know that E.T. was going to come back to life and make all the flowers unwilt and have a red glowing heart inside of him. I really, really loved it, and I guess I still get embarrassed when movies make me cry, but it is OK to feel. Especially about flying bikes. AND SAYING I LOVE YOU TO A DEAD ALIEN.