+ taurus thunder +
special astro-blog that pertains to all of us, especially you bullish taureans. right now, we are experiencing a grand conjunction in taurus. that basically means that several planets and, of course, their energies, are aligned. eric francis explains it better in the article linked above, but here are my two cents: this kind of conjunction gives us the chance to expand in a big way. imagine that the universe is rooting you on, encouraging you to follow your dreams, aligning and rolling out the red carpet bumpily over these planets for you. the renaissance that i am convinced we are now experiencing involves that kind of self-love that is symbiotic with believing in yourself. you have gifts. if you don't share them, the world will be less sparkly. don't believe me? listen to eric:

True rebellion is the art of becoming who you are. It is about refusing to lie about who you are, what you see and what you feel. That takes clarity and a little guts. Astrology, first and most vividly, is the study of inner relationships -- those workings-out from which we go from being bored, stuck people feeling like we live on the sidelines of life, to those who are actively participating, growing and learning. And this is the greatest revolution of all: the birth of yourself.

It's no longer a small handful of people who are instigating progress. Many people are now in possession of information, techniques and motivation to facilitate world change, and despite the staggering odds against turning things around, we must remain life-affirming and ignore the forces of greed, death and devastation...We have suffered and waited and been bored and delayed, frustrated, lonely and isolated, long enough.

The planets are gathering their forces. Let it roll for all it's all it's worth. And once again I remind you that whatever you choose, and choose you must, remembering that from here, we are going forward and there's no coming back.

two profound things i heard on tv last night:

"we are a civilization built on burning." (via the discovery channel)

and

"i may be synthetic, but i'm not stupid!"

heh. you *have* to know who said that, and in what movie. or just ask me, silly.
Thursday, April 27, 2000
04:04 p.m.

+ dead porn stars faq +
this isn't as exploitative as it sounds. it's a tasteful listing of porn stars who have died -- a whole bunch of AIDS-related deaths, suicides, murders, overdoses, and accidents. the creepy thing is that a lot of them are still "appearing" in pornography to this day, through archived stock footage.
Thursday, April 27, 2000
03:20 p.m.

+ ooh, the universal pancake! +
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - The first detailed images of the embryonic universe suggest the cosmos will expand forever and not someday collapse upon itself, according to new research on the Big Bang published today.

hmmm. i'm always fascinated by physics news, especially this, because this is a major discovery! does this mean that the universe is infinite? i don't know, i've been reading a book called "achilles and infinity" and trying to bend my head around those concepts...but wouldn't it be neat if they finally discovered that all that dark matter was actually parallel dimensions? whooooooo...
Thursday, April 27, 2000
01:53 p.m.

yay! i just joined thewebloggers and linksluts webrings. there are so many great sites in these rings. so go there. yay.
Wednesday, April 26, 2000
07:37 p.m.

+ momentary lolita +
the weirdest thing just happened to me. i went to lunch during work with my friend tara and saw this boy that looked SOO familiar. he was really tall and all-american looking (far too all-american looking for me to have known him any time recently, i found myself thinking) and suddenly, i knew: SCOOTER!

you see, when i was young i was lucky enough to go to a rad girl scout camp in upstate new york called eagle island. i'm from urban/suburban northern new jersey, and this was literally an entire island on upper saranac lake in new york state. there were only like three youngish men there, and of course, being a catholic school girl scout always looking for a way to make my life that little extra bit more debaucherous and sinful, i found my preteen self totally obsessed with and fantasizing madly about one of them -- the tall, teenaged stud they called scooter. he was so smart and sarcastic and witty and *siiiiigh*.

he's not my type now, and maybe he never even was. i mean, i had a silly little crush on him along with tens of other girls over the years. but seeing him here, now? i was like whaaaaaat? i mean, scooter was from upstate new york. and here he is, at bagel chateau in madison, having lunch with friends, with me.

i never blush, i told tara this morning as we drove to work. heh. i was proved wrong this afternoon. i suddenly flushed and got all shy and was basically the twelve year old girl i was when i last saw him, for a moment. humbled. as he was leaving i mustered the courage (ironic, i usually have no problem chatting with strangers) to ask him if he was familiar with eagle island. he was. SCOOTER! i was afraid to call him that, though, because he was with a whole bunch of semi-serious looking people. i mean, scooter? he looked as shocked as i felt, basically. we didn't talk much as i only gathered the cojones to speak to him as he was literally walking out the door, but i felt validated. i mean, how small is this world, anyway? ironically, tara is the one i was writing letters to about how beautiful he was, too...

there are new horoscopes at rob breszny's today. go see them while i moon on my scooterbuzz.
Wednesday, April 26, 2000
03:16 p.m.

+ janet reno's girly dance +
watch everyone's favorite attorney general/elton john/mo mowlan/candace gingrich look-a-like let off some steam at the deeeesco. yeah, baby.
Wednesday, April 26, 2000
11:52 a.m.

bess and i rock.

It's been established that if you and I wanted to, given about 3 and a half minutes, we could make everyone in a room of 45 want to go home and slit their wrists, but it doesn't mean we're going to. Give me a paragraph and I'll make him wish he were never born. I'm not going to but I could.

diego says that good free internet pornography is hard to find. let this be a lesson to him!
Tuesday, April 25, 2000
02:42 p.m.

i can't get no satisfaction
i can't get no girlie action
Tuesday, April 25, 2000
11:55 a.m.

i think halcyon is great. i love his spiritual philosophy, his burning man photo essays and the happy, lovey and oftentimes raucously funny tone of his writing. i think he and eric francis would have a philosophical kinship, too. eric has written two articles as well on his burning man experiences.

incidentally, one of eric's most recent and most interesting articles is titled "how to be your own lover." since halcyon is participating in the good vibes annual masturbatathon, i think he'd appreciate this too...
Monday, April 24, 2000
03:49 p.m.

+ this is good. +
i want to explain why i like starsik pita so much, but i think you just really have to see for yourself. check out her domain as well. both are just inspiring and honest and give me a sense of connectedness and spirituality that i don't often see.
Monday, April 24, 2000
11:43 a.m.

+ click here for salvation! +
you know, it's so cool when people sign my guestbook.
Sunday, April 23, 2000
09:50 p.m.

+ candy revolution +
she is obsessed with raver jools on ebay too. ooh, kindred souls. let this be my contribution to the bead-stringing community: i've found that michael's has the most grooving selection of beads.
Sunday, April 23, 2000
09:40 p.m.

+annotated blah+
i am slowly but surely getting my shit together. i tinkered with the design just a little. i know i didn't change it that much, but i'd still like to know what you think.

hee, the other day i got a little note from the proprietor of thumbkin pita about my entry re: people in large animal costumes. i think we should all send those folks some cosmic happiness. i hate my job too.

happy easter, for those of you celebrating. i don't, but my mom still made me an easter basket. i was even compelled to dye a few eggs yesterday with my family. jesse and ben dyed theirs with coffee and came up with some really interesting earth-toned colors. instead of going crazy with the white waxy crayon and decals and multidye as i usually do, i simply came upstairs a little later than everyone else and placed my eggs in the dye cups individually, letting them sit for like ten minutes, then took them out. they were nice and dark, and i had a whole rainbow of colors, which made me happy. it was so easy, and i felt satisfied.

i have another easter dinner to go to. i wonder when i'm going to talk to him again. and more importantly, i can't bear the thought of working tomorrow.
Sunday, April 23, 2000
04:47 p.m.

+ new may horoscopes from planetwaves +
yay! they're here! here's mine:

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) As strange and amazing as this time in your life may be, I've a hunch there's something about it that feels perfectly natural. One of the things we know about you Scorpios is that you have the capacity to thrive under the worst kinds of pressure, from family crisis to surgery to national emergencies. Some would say this quality is why you seek or gravitate toward crisis: to shine (so don't think you're too demented...we all need to shine). But your current scene is the best kind of pressure: solid elements of worldly success, recognition, the presence of great people around you, and this awesome sense of something "coming together" right before your eyes -- and this is only the beginning. The path to salvation truly is a razor's edge. To balance on it perfectly in these times, you need merely rise to the occasion of all that is so good, and all that you secretly know, but would never dare say.

+weblog envy+

excuse me but i just have to explode this body off me
i'll be brand new brand new tomorrow a little bit tired but brand new +bjork, pluto+

i'm so totally jealous of what i consider to be the uberweblogs that i have accustomed myself to reading so obsessively for these past few months. i'm jealous in a semi-constructive way, though -- i admire but feel somehow threatened/challenged by what i see. it's not too difficult to spark my inferiority complex, i guess. this is a Good Thing, however, because now i'm mad determined to make my egosplash that much more beautiful and complex. i'm not trying to sound petty, it's just that i'm floored by the talent that i just routinely see these days. and it never feels like a contest unless i'm feeling grumpy and inadequate.

tonight ben, tara, sarah, jesse and i went to the maplewood diner and had coffee (although the beautiful sarah indulged in the standard mozzarella cheese and gravy fries, while ben was cute and ordered chocolate milk, to the amusement of our waitress). i was thinking that i should really start carrying that mini-tape-recorder thing i bought for lectures ages ago and never used. i mean, my friends and i have conversations that i'm just no good at remembering, and it seems that there are just *never* enough napkins/pens/scraps o' paper to gather everything important. frustration. hopefully doing this will help, because sharing is caring, you know?

after the diner, we went to ben's, rocked some 'cheebah, and tara and jesse took turns writing riffs on the playstation. i played my cheesy song for them. diagnosis? ambient stoner. um, pretty much, thanks!
Saturday, April 22, 2000
05:11 a.m.

dammit.
okay, so courtesan.com, courtesan.net, and courtesan.org are all taken. my search for a sufficient domain name soldiers on...
Thursday, April 20, 2000
01:41 p.m.

+groovy crochet+
crocheting hats is my obsession. i love crocheted goods in general, but mostly i'm obsessed with this period of fashion where wearing shirts made out of granny squares was normal, when people were funky enough to embrace the beauty of crocheted madness, where people wore puke-lime-green mustard and orange and brown clothes that are the same color as seventies tupperware. and this site is BEYOND inspiring. this woman has a vision. all the crochet patterns for all the hipster crochet threads any freak could possibly want. love it!
Thursday, April 20, 2000
11:39 a.m.

+get your soul-affirming guru-spiel here+
i love rob breszny. i know there's a linky on the side over there, but i just wanted to call the newest horoscopes (which are published every wednesday) to everyone's attention. so go, and love him as much as i do.
Thursday, April 20, 2000
11:37 a.m.

+ where peeps come from! +
i don't really celebrate easter anymore, although my mom still has the cute habit of making baskets for me, my brother, friends, etc. so happy zombie jesus day and all, but i'd rather discuss peeps!
Thursday, April 20, 2000
11:27 a.m.

+meaning of magnanimous+
mag•nan•i•mous
Pronunciation: (mag-nan'u-mus), [key] —adj.
1. generous in forgiving an insult or injury; free from petty resentfulness or vindictiveness: to be magnanimous toward one's enemies.
2. high-minded; noble: a just and magnanimous ruler.
3. proceeding from or revealing generosity or nobility of mind, character, etc.: a magnanimous gesture of forgiveness.
thank you, bess. i had to look it up, but thank you. i'm a just and magnanimous ruler, thanks! take THAT!
Monday, April 17, 2000
11:43 a.m.

+random bits of funny+
i guess i just realized that every pita entry does not have to include links, that i can just chit-chat away colloquially about things. that people might actually still read it.

anyway, i just had to share. upon seeing a big-dressed-up bunny rabbit in summit, i commented that i figured people in those costumes must be excessively bitter. i mean, wouldn't you be? anyway, my friend concluded that large characters in fluffy suits "are like little jesuses everywhere, suffering for our sins." heh.
Monday, April 17, 2000
11:31 a.m.

+scorpio, understood+
yes, i'm afraid this *is* how it feels to be me.

Week of April 13, 2000 Once upon a time there was a smoldering Scorpio who pined obsessively for the object of her desire. She flayed herself with the thought of its sweet, unavailable mystery; over and over she ripped open the wound caused by its absence. In time she grew so attached to feeling her poignant ache that she subconsciously began to undermine the possibility of achieving union with her beloved. How did the story end? You tell me, dear Scorpio. Did our heroine wake up in time to the fact that she was infatuated with her fascinating pain, thereby sabotaging her deepest yearning?

+i used to be a superhero+
ooh! find out your superhero name, your superpowers, and even your mode of transportation!
Friday, April 14, 2000
03:22 p.m.

+another one bites the dust: ben and jerry sell out+
i guess i shouldn't have expected much from any corporation. ben and jerry say that this megacorporation they're selling to is going to have increased interest in their social pursuits, but it doesn't look good. does it ever? i'm pretty sure this isn't the first time they've behaved sketchily...i vaguely remember hearing that jerry garcia had to petition them to get some cash for "cherry garcia."
Friday, April 14, 2000
03:17 p.m.

+i live the life of an 80s toy+
this page brings me great joy. i love rainbow brite and strawberry shortcake and a whole slew of other 80s toys like nobody's business. lately i have taken to replenishing my toy collection on ebay. a dangerous addiction, i'm sure...so, are you interested in seeing rainbow brite on teevee again? if so, sign this here petition.

in a totally unrelated note, please make note of my new guestbook and the archive.
Friday, April 14, 2000
02:30 p.m.