Ten fifteen and I'm a bit burnt out.

Concert on Friday was fun. The drive down was not as good as I would have liked, due to traffic, but it was doable. Switched out the CDs in my car, popped in six I hadn't listened to in years, ones I could peg towards certain periods of time in my life.

I used to have a very standard "go to" set for music when I was about eighteen. Same bands: The Cure, Mindless Self Indulgence, Tori Amos, Incubus, A Perfect Circle. I'd toss in other things, but those were my bands, my constant companions for all the driving I did.

I did a lot of driving.

I still do.

I've been teaching myself to drive left-handed. I suppose that sounds odd, but I'm good with my right, beautiful with my right, but my left... it's awkward. And I know my right arm is going to give out on me some time in the future, just because of the prior injuries and how much I use it with work, massage, writing, driving, handj- (HA!). Sorry, kids, moment of silliness there.

But I know it's going to give. The doctor knows it's going to give, hence the whole "handicapped" student thing. When I roll my wrist, I sound like I have a miniature popcorn machine hidden inside it. Not pleasant.

So I drove down to UCSD, to their Che Cafe which was buried somewhere in that maze of a campus, tiny little parking lot that left me parking a few "blocks" away, walking through the lit up walkways and buildings, looking through windows, wondering what it would have been like to have a normal college experience.

Wondering what it would have been like if I had used my brain to hit the books and gotten scholarships and good grades so I could have gone away to school, could have devoted four years of my life to whatever I wanted to do, no forty to sixty hour work weeks competing with my time, no trying to fit in boyfriends with full-time units and full-time jobs. A dorm. Being able to interface with my professors during the day, join clubs related to my major. Eat at a cafeteria, learn how to interact with people my own age.

Heh, that would have been fascinating.

Interact with people my own age? Right. I suppose I'll put that on my checklist of things to do.

The concert was good, of course. They're always good. The venue was interesting and artsy, did not expect that at all. People-watching was lovely. Prog-rock concerts, from what I've seen, draw mostly young men. Occasionally, those men have cute little girlfriends.

But, really, it's just a lot of dudes, with the occasional chick that is drooling over one of the musicians because "they're in a band *squeal!*".

I'm more comfortable with men than women, so I'm glad of this.

It's also another scene I don't fit into, but find myself at anyway.

The show ended, I said my goodbyes, made plans with friends, and drove down to my ex-lover's girlfriend's place.

There are too many people involved in that sentence. Maybe I could say: "the girl who is fucking the guy I used to fuck six years ago", and turn that into an acronym. A very long acronym.

Anyway.

She lives in this small, three bedroom house that used to be in the middle of an avocado orchard god knows how long ago that the farmers used to store avocados in. But when the orchards went away, the properties remained, so they were converted into houses. It was pretty neat. Huge yard, good old windows, gorgeous kitchen (blue tile made me happy), interesting bits of trim that add age to a place but you don't really recognize those are the things that are tipping you off that you're in an older residence.

I slept on a thick piece of foam in the office, my phone inches from my head as it is wont to be. Window above me with leaves scraping across the glass as the wind blew during the night... very soothing. Woke up to birds, something that hasn't happened in so very long.

The three of us got up and walked down to a local health food store, came back and made rosemary potatoes and scrambled eggs, slicing up strawberries and drinking orange juice, before settling down in the living room and watching the History Channel while we ate and talked, me curled up in an old leather chair, fuzzy brown blanket up to my chin, totally content.

Afterwards, we drove down to his parents' place to see his mother and pick up some things for the party that night.

She was walking around the living room with a coiled up plastic tube dragging behind her, connected to a metal tank of what I am assuming was oxygen. Too many years of smoking, lung cancer that spread to the rest of the body. One eye mostly shut, her German accent still strong. Sweatpants and slippers, she had lost so much weight I never would have recognized her.

We shook hands and talked for a little, four beagles of varying ages surrounding us, snuffling with their wet noses into my hands, so I sat on the floor and let them run over me, affectionate and curious, warm furry bodies.

The party was... interesting.

But I'll get to that tomorrow, hopefully.

Leading up to the party, however, I ended up needing to send a picture of myself to someone in the blogosphere.

The why probably wouldn't make sense to most people, so I'm not going to explain it.

It's been a topic weighing on my mind for the last couple of weeks. Keeping this thing anonymous. I'm not used to it. The reason I started blogging like I do, this open honesty, admittance to vulnerability, was because I had raging, raging issues that I needed to address, and things that needed to be brought to public light so I could realize that I wasn't going to be shunned by those who knew me for being a bit... different.

But the point was that there was that public accountability, that I would have to deal with any repercussions that might arise.

And I did.

This is why I write the way I write. This is why I sit down with no real topic in mind and sometimes these entries wind a certain way and they make sense, and sometimes they just roam all over my brainscape.

Brainscape. Patenting that. So much cooler than mindscape.

I'm not used to having to worry about how much personal information I'm disclosing. I'm not used to cropping my face out of photos.

And I don't know why I'm worrying. I really don't care if this thing is anonymous or not.

There is that side of me that is concerned about communication and perception, though. Even though we may try not to be influenced about a person's looks when it comes to interpreting their writing, we very much do. We look at a person in life or in a photo and make assumptions on them. When we apply writing to those assumptions, we start reading it through yet another filter (which is something I'm planning to rant on at a later date).

By not having a face associated with this blog, I'm "allowing" the reader to form his or her own impression of me, free of physical associations.

Which I think is a bit more pure.

So I sent off this picture, wondering if it was the smart thing to do. Or if it was even the right thing to do, given the particulars.

I found myself studying it, after I sent it. Trying to go for that impartial study that I'll never be able to achieve. It wasn't my favorite picture. My expression, I think, was that which most people find a bit aloof or intimidating. I hear that often when I'm out and about. People tell me I look serious, that they were intimidated, that I'm "so aloof and mysterious". Which, as most of you can probably guess, makes me laugh each time I hear it. Actually heard it yesterday. Again.

Of things I am, a mystery is not one of them.

Aloof, I suppose I can understand.

Studying my face. The face I look at every day in a mirror for all of twenty seconds before I'm out the door to work. The face that I caught in a reflection when I woke up this morning, blue eyes looking up over a black pillow, arms extended in front of me.

When I wake up like that, it reminds me of the few men that called, or continue to call me, "kitten" as an endearment. Continues to be my favorite pet name, always the one that makes me melt, for whatever reason.

I don't know what to make of myself, physically, anymore. I look at pictures, I look at mirrors. My coloring is striking, I know. I hear it often. My body is soft, curvy, and so very pale and pink. I have an oval face, high cheek bones, high brows, full lower lip, thinner upper with a near perfect cupid's bow. My eye lashes are blonde, which never fails to irritate me. Blue eyes, yellow rings.

I could stand to lose about fifteen pounds. My face would become much more defined, something that I think would be lovely. I'm worried about my hipbones that are already prominent, I'm worried that I'll lose more of my ass than I already have. It's still high and round, but it's no longer quite as "ghettolicious" as it was.

I know that sounds like an odd concern. But when the body part that you get complimented on the most, that causes conversations at parties, starts to alter as you shed weight, you become concerned. I like knowing that I can nail ass-men, that it just takes a well-fitting pair of jeans and they're at my feet.

So I look at this picture. Dark jeans that sit just below my navel, curving over my hips. Heavy belt that I need to replace, a three-quarter sleeve hoodie that I've had for about seven years now, the top I wore on my date with GV8 the day before Valentine's Day, when things started shifting again. My hair down, dark, so few people knowing (or accepting) that I'm actually blonde.

And my glasses. Those black, stainless steel frames with the silver pinstriping down the sides. That item that clenches the semi-constant exclamations that I look like a librarian.

I look conservative, in my opinion.

It makes me wonder how people see me. Not just "aloof" or "intimidating". Not "librarianesque". Not the comments on how I walk, the hip-swaying sashaying.

But as a whole. What people think I am like as a person, based on my presentation.

I sent the picture off and I got lost in my own mind, trying to disconnect from myself, trying to figure out what I would think of this person if I had not met her, simply seen her across the room. If she was dating one of my friends, but we had not spoken. Would I be comfortable talking to her? Would I think she was a bitch or a tool? Some people walk in a room and you near instantly want to be their friend.

I'm not one of those people.

...I haven't really been able to put the words to what I mean. Again.

Typical late night posting. I'm tired from last night's party, tired from spending a couple hours in my parents' backyard manually sanding a small table until my arms ached, green paint dust everywhere.

Maybe I'll be more coherent in the morning.

However, I might just wake up a trout.


...that last line would make more sense if you read Richard Brautigan.

Even then, it still wouldn't make a lot of sense.