Today, no school. Instead, my job sent me off to a workshop about autism. Most of it was review, but still, it got the mind ticking. Not so much about autism, but ticking about brains, and relationships, and patience, and behavior management.

In the early stages of a relationship, its all so fluttery, everything flows, thoughts are so congruent, communication appearing to be at an all time high. As time goes on, once the emotions are all wrapped up and interconnected, the differences begin to show themselves. We begin seeing the parts of the other person that weren't apparant in the beginning. We begin to see each other's frustrations, sadness and processing style. There are new parts of this person to get to know. And then reasessment bgins... Do I want to get to know this person's processing style? Am I curious about not only what makes this person happy, but also what frustrates them? Am I willing to get to know their processing style if it is different than mine?... is it ever the same? Am I willing to be patient with how their past sadness effects their life now, with me, with how my actions may bring that pain on again? Am I willing to take responsiblity for my actions, even when their reaction pains me, or makes me feel guilty, or I can't understand why they react the way they do?
It's like autism We need to get to know where each other's learning holes are. The places of self awareness or behavior management that have not been developed. With patience, we can teach each other. We need to be able to surrender to the other person, to trust them as our mirror and our teacher.

I'm reading a book right now about ways to have alternative relationships by a woman named Wendy O-Matik. One of her ideas is the 50-50 rule, that I quite like. The idea is that when you and your partner are engaged in conflict resolution, you agree to each take 50% of the responsiblity for the issue. This idea feels safe to me. There are often times that I know I am stubborn in my feeling of "you're wrong" or "you did this to me", and there are times that I feel I am speaking responsibly, yet am recieved with defensiveness and blame. This rule can help both parties walking away feeling heard and respected.

In the beginning of a relationship all the things I am told are beautiful parts of myself, down the line are the same things I am told are too much work...
Love becomes a scale. Is there enough love to balance out the patience it takes to work with two people's differences? My platonic friendships help me learn these skills at a slower pace, they allow me the large spaces of processing time that I need to cycle through and understand pain, time to relax out of reactionary emotion and into constructive communication.

Communication seems to be the ultimate never ending lesson of life...

curious happenings with the computers here in Eugene. I wonder if its happening other places. You have to start wondering about world wide take overs, computer conspiracies and what not when these things all happen at once. All the computers crashed at the Jr High, the same day some virus ran through the 4J (that's the Eugene public school system) email, the same day some virus ran through U of O emails and as Ed mentions, any one with a site connected to efn were down that same day... watch out junkies, we might be right on the verge of getting unplugged!

OH, and I want to make this CLEAR, so I'm going to start NOW and please spread the news to anyone who cares to catch THE OVULATORS this Saturday night at Foolscap Bookstore. Since this is our first ALL AGES gig in about an EON, we are starting early for those especially low on the ages scale. EARLY MEANS FIRST NOTE STARTS AT 9:00. Some people have bed times for goddess sake...
Its also Melissa's, aka Ella Peepsgerald, birthday party and we will be prepared for this in a snow queen theme. Be there or miss us in our frosty glory.

well, as much as I think I should have the immune system of Jesus, it becomes inevitable that the snot of little children ends up all over my arm and after a night of little sleep, it creeps into my system, green and gucky. Last night my sleep was so heavy, I felt drugged. I went to bed early hoping to wake up healthier, but instead, the sore throat was stronger, pushing the walls of my throat closer together. Mind pondering the call in sick possiblity. I go to work anyway and sweat it out during the Hokey Pokey. Whoever came up with aerobics should have just tried a few rounds of the Hokey Pokey with small stubborn children who have processing delays.

I was incrediblly impressed by The Lovemakers. Three piece electronica band with both boy and girl vocals, plus a scene where he takes her shirt off to reveal a sparkley rhinstone bra, a feedback moment with a vibrator against the Fender's pick ups, new wave poses, and closing with a Cure song.... I bought the CD. The gig happened at John Henry's. I had this thought: all those people who PACK this place on Thursday's 80's night are total posers if they are not here at this show. Any one who truelly appreciates the 80's era would be checking out these bands.

The computers were down for a while today, so we played The Simpsons' boardgame "loser takes all" instead. It is a slow lengthy game, but does involve the possiblity of kissing, which isn't something you want to do with Jr. High kids. The computers were back up before we finished, nobody ever landed on the kissing spot.e

Back at my usual writing spot, Jr. High, I'm really just wanting to start this video game, Chasm. I've never been attracted to any of the games the kids play, but this one has really cool an imation and you get to be a platapus. But, first I must attend to my duties of a regular blogger... or is it get my fix?
Anyhow, the highlight of this weekend (besides getting to spend connecting time with my fabulous boyfriend... its been awhile) was th is band The Iotolas, from Tacoma! at the Downtown Lounge. I was shocked simply to find myself at The Downtown Lounge. I'm not sure I've set foot in there since they asked The Ovulators to not play there anymore. But, Dionne is back in town and she trea ted us right and said we had to see this awesome band. Indeed, they were awesome, and played way too short. They were straight ahead hard core all dressed in black with five rippin' members who all held powerful stage presences. Two SG guitars with tot ally different tones, one on the high end, one on the low. Sweet feedback, a tom instead of a snare drum and an energetic lead singer who screamed and flailed while on the audience floor instead of the stage. I was totally impressed, and my tired completely disappeared. I'll try to get them on an Ovulators bill in the future, altough their sound is far heavier than ours.

Saturday night was Gina (DJ Ginger)'s birthday party, which seems to hold a differnt vibe every year. This one was at Phil's former High School teacher's house and had lots of nice appetizers. It was the usual crew, and I got to connect with a lot of old friends, but I was shocked that no one was DJing and it took a while to get the music scene in gear. But, finally the situation turned bumpin' and I got plenty of girl on girl dancing, which is my favorite... Oh, but, getting dressed up with my sweetie in formal attire and grooving with him is especially delicious.

Well, I'm shocking myself with a brand new reality. Guess that's just what you've got to do when your insides get all mucky and stuck. The GYM offered me a ten day free pass and since I have this repeating knee injury and have been encouraged for years to rehabilitate it with regualar excercising and weight lifting, I decided to take the opprotunity to see if I actually could handle the work out environment. One of my main hesitations has been the time factor. Two jobs, two gigging bands, and a relatiionship (now monogamous, so at least its not two relationships), leaves me very little time to discover much out side the scope of my already crafted reality. But leave it to my good friend Tricky to bust that concept out of the water. She shows up at my house at 6:30 this morning and pulls me out of bed and takes me down to the gym. I can't even believe I am writing these words!! Bike rides and mountain hikes have always been my scene, but bright lights TV sets and protien bars are from another world. Well here I am new world, what can you do for a Stardustian princess?
At that early hour, the gym was quite mellow, and the sun still set, so I didn't feel like I was missing any daytime. And going with Tricky, who is a processing queen, was therapeutic and supportive. Maybe this is just the feather duster I need to whisk away all my inner cobwebs.
On my way to work, the rain had that romantic NW quality it usually has for me in the fall, instead of that dreariness I usually feel this mid winter.

I walk around with blog on my mind. Words pile themselves up, organizing into descriptive sentences, my mornings turn into poems, my work days into political rants, my evenings into introspective bantering, but when I reach the computer, its so often a blank....
didn't I have something really cool to say before, in a really eloquent way? But since I'm addicted to giving you something, I will reach back into the past of The Ovulators, on tour in California. While we were in San Francisco, I spent days speaking about my favorite burrito place before we got a chance to go there. I was insecure my crew wouldn't have the same emotional feelings as I did for the place (well, they really never could since some of my emotions are wrapped up in those two months when I was 20 and I lived off a burrito a day.) But when we finally got there, Dori, Tina and Sleeve were completely impressed (Kt was already making her separation from The Ovulators know in little ways and didn't take the burrito trip with us). While eating our food we devised Haikus that showed our appreciation of the food. A Haiku is a poetic form that follows a syllabic pattern. It is three lines long, the first line consisting of 5 syllables, the second line of seven syllables, and the third line of 5 again. Its a nice little frame work to play with. Here's what the burrito place on 19th and Mission inspired in us...

The blade flies quickly
Onions fill the counter top
Do this every day

Cilantro and beans
Tortilla grilled against meat
Whole avocado

Carne asada
is not the meat I want now
give me al pastor

Unfurl the tin foil
Inhale the whole fucking thing
Oops I made a mess

Sour cream spills down
tin foil and chin while beans
nourish rock n roll

Pepsi quench the burn
Spiciest salsa ever
Tears fall on my chips

Sweet Burrito place
Bundle of flaky goodness
How I love your beans

Pile of onions
Burritos like orgasms
Make me live again

Can't finish this now
The perfect snack for later
But she continued...

poems by Kelani, Tina, Dori and Sleeve

The sun shine warms my soul. I feel smiles inside for the first time in at least a week. And I'm listening to The Cure "3 Imaginary Boys"...drip drip drip drip drip. The children who are non-verbal are speaking and excited to learn the alphabet and numbers. Maybe a knight in shinning armor will come fix my head lights while I'm with the Jr. High kids. You never know what kind of magic will happen when your personal reality does a 180 turn around.

I've been an emotional mess, crumpled up inside, crying myself to sleep. That's what I get for walking away from the sacred green herb. Luckily there's other herbs that help out. Howie has a meltdown blend that I think is the thing that has brought me right back to my center. I'll be totally out there in misery land and then suddenly I feel solid and know this is just a stage. I also smoke his smoking blend with Pedicularis, and that helps fulfill the desire to have rolling paper between my lips and smoke in my lungs. Plus it relaxes my muscles just a bit. Also, when I go through these bouts of depression I turn to the homopathy "Ignatia Amara". And if I'm going through a focused heart beating freak out, I'll take a shot of Rescue Remedy.

HIGH ON PEEPS with Nero at the Black Forest Tavern tomarrow, Friday 16th.

Last night, on my way home from John Henry's, the cops got me.
They said "give me your stuff"
I said, "oh, I got lots of stuff"
But they didn't want the stuff I had, the eyeliner, the saftey pins, the high E strings, the glitter, the dirty coffee mugs, the rhinestones. They wanted something I didn't have, but I think I distracted them enough with my glam rock kiss makeup and although I was questioned about "those felony charges", they let me go promising I would fix my head light the next day.
I didn't explain to them there was no way that between getting up five minutes before I need to leave to get to work on time, having a meeting on autism after work, going to the Jr. High after that, taking an hour long snooze before band practice would I find the time to purchase and change my head light. But y'know, they weren't really interested in hearing that any how. What they did give me was a story to tell on my blog.
Girls Night Out featured Visqueen who truelly rocked in a power trio fashion, with a definite 90's northwest sound. Check out their web site.o

THE OVULATORS PLAY FIRST!!!
no one ever seems to believe us because we're usually the 1AM band, but really, its true, The Ovulators perform first tonite at about 10PM. It's Girl's Night Out at John Henry's, wh ich last time proved to be a fabulous evening. Girls just got it going on.

Last night I went to the Samarai Duck to see The Poisoners before they went back to SF. Andrew was as entertaining as usual, but I w a s so tired, I couldn't stick around for The Squids performance. How could I have forgotten to mention Andrew's Paisley Park-looking guitar that I got to rock out on at Sam Bond's Friday, after I broke a stri ng near the end of our set. That was a great deal of fun and got me fantasizing about getting a flashy guitar. I know The Ovulators rock the flashy look, but for some reason I never feel like I could pull off some crazy cut guitar. On the other hand, h olding some sparkley Les Paul like Melissa just added to her collection seems right up my alley. oh the guitar fantasies... they can go on and on and on... Since it was toward the end of our set, I was just about to get crazy on the guitar, this is usua lly the point I start rubbing the neck up against any random thing, but holding Andrew's baby, I had to be a bit more kind. Just as I started into my usual antics, I looked over at Andrew to check in and he gave me the go-ahead nod. I was still way more concious and gentle, but still gave the thing a ride that Andrew said the guitar will always remember. It was kind of nice to have to have that kind of carefulness with in the chaos I like to let loose.
Back at the Samurai Duck, opening up the whole set was a band called 2AM Orchestra, from Fresno CA. They were way more pop than I've heard a bar band sound in a long while. I haven't been to Samurai Duck in a long time now, and I was really impressed with the sound, especially during 2AM Orchestra. I think maybe it had more to do with the bands who were performing at a reasonable volume than the sound system. Andrew Poisoner did get some odd feedback buzz that he coined as a special Samurai Duck sound because his amp had never made that noise before, Tina and I looked at each other and chuckled about the familiarity of that special Samurai Duck sound.......

FOOD
best left wanting more

MUSIC
there's always more

OIL
still addicted

today I hung out with Joe. Joe of Phenomenon Hair Salon. He was shocked I had never heard of The Darkness, he tried to buy the CD to introduce me, but House of Records was already closed. Joe made me look real purdy with freaky blue hair and cute little bangs. Then we played some pool at the Indigo District and ate especially tasty food. The Indigo District has good food. I hope they pay their cooks especially well for making such tasty meals. They deserve alot.

Sam Bonds ROCKS. The Ovulators had a fabulous performance there with the Slow Poisoners. I am so impressed with Andrew Poisoner as an artist. Everybody should come to Samurai Duck on Monday and check them out playing with our own local heroes Dan Jones and the Squids. I'll be there.

See here ,the Stardustian Satellite Station gets some press!!!
This Friday at Sam Bond's is going to be quite an event. Takimoto is going to start the whole set off and I k now these boys are excited for their first Sam Bond's gig and are going to do what they can to make their mark in everyone's mind, including a shadow puppet show. Then The Slow Poisoners who helped us out w i th a gig in SF and wowwed us with their stage performance, theatrical and although not glitzy, still glamorous. Andrew Poisoner, who has made it into the lyrics of a Tina Sarno song, is amazin g at promoting himself - check out today's Weekly. There's more happening this night, too much to tell, and not just at Sam Bond's, but also across the corner at Tiny's bands are jumpin'. Y'all just better take a nap to get ready for tomarrow night.

Thank you thank you for the snow stopping the world of little Eugene, OR. It has extended my vacation an extra two days, and thank goodness, because vacation was way too hectic and I didn't get any of those organizational things I planned to get done. but because of the snow, I got some extra time.
Saturday night, I got home from the Synergy benefit gig and my entire stereo system and record collection had knocked over and completly filled my little room. Because of the cheap whiskey there was nothing I could do about the chaos on Sunday, so thank you sweet ice and snow for keeping me home two more days to get my life together... I'm almost there.

BACK TO SCHOOL
so, today was the first day back to school and we had a 2 hour delay, so it wasn't even worth it for the kindergardners to show up. My car didn't start this morning, but luckily I had Phil to drive me. All the kids were angels for their first day, the ones with autism were especially happy to return to a routine. I felt appreciated by the little ones who all had noticable growth spurts... must of been the sugar cookies. So, it was a smooth day. We expect rebellion by Friday.
Now, at the Jr. High, everything is mellow as well, plenty of parents picking their kids up early to avoid the weather. Everyone sedated by gifts and sitting on the couch watching TV, seems to the consensus here. The newest video game find involves a search for oil wells and being kidnapped by Saddam. Also a "where's Waldo" like game but its "where's Saddam". The Internet builds patriotism?h

I know you've heard it from everyone else, I'm a little behind, but still I want to tell my side of John Henry's Synergy Magazine benefit show. What a blow out. It felt like an end of vacation reunion. All my friends back in town and in one spot, I fel t so much cozy love. We went red and I donned big fairy wings. Slowly the bar filled with people. After my blog rant about JH's staff and my meeting with the owners Keith and Mark, the crew at JH's has been nothing but sweethearts to us ovulators and m ade us all feel appreciated. Last time we performed, Mark even made the effort of sending the audience off with sugary sweet words of appreciation. So, our reconciliation and supporting Justin Abbott's graduate project of a free local music rag made for a great evening. I really appreciated Ed Cole's presence, hanging on the side of the stage, helping us out when ever technical difficulties appeared and then guest drumming on 'Cream Cheese'. Our local scene is so precious, I feel like I'm in the womb... until I made the mistake of drinking that cheap whiskey that made its way onto the stage by the end of the night. Thank goodness for my sober boyfriend who gets me home safely. I had to spend all Sunday moaning about my behavior, feeling as if I had spoiled my last day of vacation. But then, waking up to yet another blanket of whiteness, my vacation was extended and today actually bore some productivity. But no more cheap whiskey, thank you very much.
Sleve tells me that I've been discovered... The Stardustian Satellite Station, that is... and not just my blog, but the real Me, floating around in outer space... article in the 12/31/03 Registar Guard, I'll have to find a link to it..

Yesterday, I went to the mall. I though the mall could help me in ways that the thriftt stores haven't been able to, but I was wrong. Instead, I got mall sickness. Now, I really think its time that people admit this is an actual sickness that people get. We're all familiar with it. If I tell a friend I've got mall sickness, they know exactly what I'm talking about. We all get the same symptoms... dull headache, nausea, eye sight flickering, paitence dissapating. Soon, myabe they'll find a medicine for us to take so we can spend longer hours in the mall. How come I ddin't get mall sickness when I was 12 and I loved the mall? I remember my mom getting mall sickness and always wanting to leave before I did. I had to spend three hours cleaning my house in order to ground myself back into reality.

silly holiday season got me off on silly holiday things
what is this trying to have fun... must have fun ... OK I'm having FUN. I'm not really with the computer rubbing upagainst it right now, no, I'm really with DJ Lucious, groovin' to that glamorous music style.
But gee, its nice to say hi... to alll you computers stuck in the vein types.