yesterday i did my first massage in 2 months.
it went FABULOUSLY.
i had muscle memory! my hands knew what to do! it felt fucking amazing!
and it was on the neck... one of the areas i am most intimidated by.
she told me tonight "i passed out on the table for an hour after you left."
that is a grandiose compliment.
behold entropy, mid blur-lick.

i worked the last 5 days. as a three-day-turned-four-day chiquita, 5 (10-12 hour) days in a row is a pain in the ass. it was made triply grueling by "lucky" the pug, on the ventilator since tuesday night and requiring a technician to sit with him 24/7. DO NOT EVER NAME AN ANIMAL 'LUCKY'. it is a cliche in veterinary medicine; if they're named 'lucky', they're fucking doomed. this case has sapped everyone's stamina. i personally logged approximately 20 hours over three shifts doing nothing but sitting by his side and manipulating the ventilator and suctioning his trach tube and hoping he wouldn't fucking die on my watch (while quietly hoping he would, just to put himself out of his misery).
i am so, so glad to have a day off. i stayed nearly 2 hrs late this morning; when i got home circa 330am i finished 'bonk', rolled onto my back, and grunted a feeble "shut UP" at the cats from my paralyzed state in my glorious, accomodating bed.
i do enjoy feeling like i've earned my pay. we have all worked our asses off over the last week. it's been slammed, we've been understaffed, and the cases have fucking sucked. we're all in it together.
today i retrieved the back seat of sweet green from p's garage! i can carry passengers now! just don't expect a seat belt.

she's been reparked near my lair in this shot, deflecting the torrent with a savvy spritz of rain-x. and she's on a flat surface because, you know, her li'l brakes are slidin.' she doesn't enjoy inclines. she's an old lady. give her some slack!
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today i went to virginia mason (one of the hospitals on pill hill) to re-instate myself as a volunteer at BBH. i got my H1N1 and another TB skin titer. the nurse was a brusque wench. i am hypercritical of nurses- i am a nurse, so i compare myself to them automatically. do i slam the door when i leave a room? tell them to show themselves out? give them no eye contact? tell them they have skinny arms? (not applicable to animals, i suppose.) she did her thing and swung the door behind her and before i could stop myself i said "what a fucking bitch" as i pulled my sweater back on. i am sure she was having a bad day, but she could have sidelined it for the five minutes she was forced to spend with me.
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nurses and waitresses should always be nice to whomever they're dealing with. that's part of their fucking JOB.
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i admired a lovely bike rack today:

i walked through freeway park to get back downtown. this was my former stomping ground; i used to live right across the fucking street. i would cut through in the lazy summer afternoons to make the 5:20 bus to my 6pm job in wallingford. i drank mike's hard lemonade there with j. i read a book there a few times.
i never walked there at night.

first hill always makes me wistful; it is the neighborhood in which i was most naive.
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the parking in first hill sucks.
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nature finds a way to intrude.

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i must revisit this when the sky isn't a damning alabaster. i have always had an uneasy crush on this building; it is one of those "powerful, avant garde" structures that has been doubtlessly chronicled in architectural tomes galore, and its visual 'instability' makes me nauseous. do i LIKE this building? i like the idea of it. i love the fact that it was MADE. i like knowing it's THERE. aesthetically, i can call it "quirky" and "boundary-pushing." but then i feel pretentious, so i stop. perhaps that explains my 'uneasiness'; i dislike buildings that demand reactions. fuck you, pompous structure. people still conduct nefarious deeds and defecate and steal office supplies within your artfully sloping beams.

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i had the bright idea of walking from capitol hill to meet some friends downtown; i enjoy that route immensely. it began to FUCKING POUR. and blow said pour sideways.

by the time i arrived i was drenched: hair dripping, jeans soaked. people smiled at me sympathetically on the street. the weather, actually, was quite invigorating. dissonant climes cheer me. i was blaring the white stripes and graham nash and grinning ludicrously. it wasn't until i got indoors that i became very fucking cold and realized how disgustingly damp i was.
there is nothing quite like paper-towelling off in a bar loo... especially when sober. it is a combination of smug clarity and "well, i suppose i am NOT getting laid tonight."
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it was trivia night. i knew that captain and tenille did "love will keep us together", that the mcnugget was introduced in 1983, that tequila is made from the agave plant, and that "hal" was the computer of 2001.
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the blue study, revisited:

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happiness is listening to carla bruni, staring out rain-splattered bus windows, and drinking yerba mate.