Rock the citizenship
In my long-running expedition to become a U.S. citizenship I just got finger-printed for the second time. Not many of you were around the first time I got finger-printed since it was a whole two years ago. (Joost? You still there?) Why did I have to get finger-printed again? Well. I have moved a couple of times since the first time, and it seems that at one point, the USCIS did not have my correct address. As soon as I realized this, I corrected my address for them, which was oh, about a year and a half ago. Apparently it takes the USCIS about a year and a half to figure out that they can actually send actual stuff to that new address. I have called them several times within the last year to tell them "Hey! I'm still here! I still want to become a citizen! I got finger-printed in 2002, what do I need to do next!" Each time they assured me that they would send me by snail mail a "case status report" which would arrive within four to six weeks. That "case status report" never came. Until I finally called them for the FOURTH time about two weeks ago and a snail mail "case status report" actually arrived at my current address a week later. What is the status of my case? It appears that my finger prints from 2002 have, well, expired. So I went and got new ones today.
It really doesn't bother me that the process of my naturalization has taken almost three years to complete. Citizenship wouldn't have been all that useful to me in the last three years. It would have been useful for the presidential elections in 2000, at which point I was living in conservative Virginia, but at that point I wasn't eligible for citizenship yet because I had been living in the U.S. for less than five years.
As long as I am a citizen by the 2004 presidential elections, I am happy. I cannot WAIT to help VOTE that MONKEY out of OFFICE. I might even consider moving to Ohio to make my vote count more. Except maybe not.
Editor's Note: Why did I write fingerprinted in 2002 but finger-printed in 2004? Even though I am aware of this inconsistency and even though I could easily stop this, I can't bring myself to write fingerprinted this year. I guess I have become a finger-printed kind of girl.
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.: posted by Vera 
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More burning news
I went to a fire hooping workshop today. I know a lot about hoops but I don't know anything about fire. So today I learned about fire safety, built my own fire hoop under guidance, and then I lit up, as the fire people say, for the first time. It was all so much fun. Putting together the fire hoop made me realize how much I enjoy making things. I need to make things more often.
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.: posted by Vera
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Whore
This morning I woke up feeling like shit. This is nothing new. For the past five months there have been countless days where I woke up and felt like shit.
Yet within two minutes of me stepping outside and starting to walk down the hill towards work, there were two people smiling at me. Actually, they were grinning. They seemed genuinely happy to see me even though they didn't know me at all and more importantly, EVEN THOUGH I FELT LIKE SHIT. Despite my feeling like shit on the inside, I must have been radiating something positive and smile-inviting on the outside.
In the past, whenever I have felt glowing and positive on the inside, this has shown on the outside and it has affected the people around me. This is a concept we are all familiar with: take care of yourself on the inside, and you will shine on the outside. It's a no-brainer.
Never before have I been magnetic and radiated positivity while I was feeling negative on the inside. But I think right now I am. I don't mean to flatter myself but I have been a ball of positive energy lately - in the eyes of others. Others have told me this numerous times over the past few months. They have told me that I have "good energy," that they like my "vibes," that I have a "beautiful spirit." It means a lot to me that people are saying these things to me. Nobody used to say anything like that to me. In fact, I distinctly remember being out dancing with my friend Starrie in early 2002 when this guy told her that she had great vibes. I remember telling Starrie that nobody had ever told me that I had good vibes and that it made me kind of sad.
So I am very thankful for this positive energy that is floating around me. I'm not sure where it's coming from. I don't think I'm producing it inside of me. I think I'm absorbing it from the people around me and then passing it on to other people.
I need to learn to economize that energy and keep some of it for myself. I have a gaping hole inside of me. I keep trying to fill it with chocolate and caffeine, dancing and hooping, clothes and toys and all the other clichés, but it's not going away.
I have attracted many good things recently - projects, friendships, opportunities, compliments. Many of these things were dreams come true, things I have always wanted, and I am very thankful for having been given them. But never did I think that I could feel so consistently bad on the inside despite having the most awesome life. What the fuck is up with that? Why do I feel empty even though my life is fuller and richer than ever before?
In November a psychic approached me while I was in line at the San Francisco Soup Company. She said that she saw a lot of positivity around me and in my future and that she would like to tell me more about it. I gave her $20 and we sat down. She told me that I was giving out a lot of positivity, and that there would eventually be a deficit. She said that everything had to be counter-balanced and that the positivity currently wasn't being counter-balanced. She said that the positivity created a gap and that "anything could get in there." She also told me that for $100 she would light a special candle for me to restore the balance. I opted out of the candle.
Yeah, something got "in there" all right. Something that makes me feel like shit when I wake up in the morning no matter how many great things happen to me, something that keeps me from fully appreciating all of them. I feel so ungrateful. Like I said, I need to invest some of that positive energy in myself, or something. Five months of feeling like shit is a lot of shit. It's about time this madness stopped. Maybe having written this down after these thoughts have been brewing in my head will counter-balance some shit.
Editor's Note: What that psychic did was WRONG. If you're a psychic, don't ever walk up to someone and tell them they are set up for something bad to happen and then ask for money. Chances are they are not going to pay you that money, but they surely will feel remorse later when something bad does happen and they have to live with the idea of maybe having been able to prevent it if they had just PAID $100 FOR THAT DAMN CANDLE.
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.: posted by Vera
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This is terrible
The other day my boss said "If anybody has ever been to a party anywhere, they would have met Vera."
Today I got an email from my roommate that said "Which party are you going to tonight?" (He could have said "What are you doing tonight?" or "Are you going out tonight?" But no. He said "Which party are you going to tonight?")
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.: posted by Vera
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What summer?
I keep forgetting that it's summer in the rest of the Northern hemisphere. When you haven't seen the sun in days and have to put on three layers of clothing in the morning, that's easy to forget.
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.: posted by Vera
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A lesson
So um. A party I had been at all night just ended? The music had stopped, and the lights were on, and we were all just standing on the sidewalk, and I was talking to a friend of mine? And there was this shirtless homeless man who was really drunk and really loud and obnoxious? And he was tumbling all over the place? And then he tumbled a little too far into the street and got hit really hard by a car speeding by. And then people started rushing over to the homeless man lying in the middle of the street. And then other people started calling 911 talking about a hit-and-run. And then the girl standing next to me started throwing up.
Editor's Note: The shirtless homeless man is okay. He just needs some stitches, I am assured. Also, it was not a hit-and-run. The car stopped down the road.
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.: posted by Vera
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When friends are on the air
The coolest thing just happened. I was just sitting at work, listening to Breaks FM like I often do. After a while of the usual, I heard the announcer say something like "Blah blah blah blah blah Morphogenetic blah blah blah." My ears perked up because Morphogenetic is the artist name my friend Starrie's boyfriend Santino uses. At first I thought that the announcer was just announcing a song called Morphogenetic or something. But then the music turned from breaks to electro, and I know that both Starrie and Santino are electro fiends. So I was starting to suspect that it was him. Then the coolest of all things happened: Starrie's voice entered my ears via my Winamp player. She introduced herself as Stjärna and invited us to join the chatroom and ask questions, and then she informed us that she and Morphogenetic will be doing a two hour show on Breaks FM every other Friday! How cool is that! I'm just sitting there at work, listening to the radio, and all of a sudden my friends are on the radio. The music was really, really good too.
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.: posted by Vera
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Burning news
So I created my first tribe on tribe.net today. Why? Because Sol System is my 2004 Burning Man camp!
I have been to the last three of the Sol System parties, all of which were a lot of fun and hooper-friendly, especially the last one on June 19. That night my friend Sydnor invited me to join the Sol System camp this year, and I accepted. And today I have also accepted the role of moderator for the Sol System tribe. It's all very exciting.
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.: posted by Vera
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The copper lantern has been lit
Last night I was part of a performance at the 2004 Fire and Arts Festival in Oakland. In our troupe, there were nine people total, and our performance included fire spinning, fire dancing, fire hooping, fireless hooping, fireless dancing and other stuff, like a story about a machine coming alive. This is how we were billed on the line-up:
Performing a sneak preview of a longer production that takes place in an imagined future, where the division between machine and human is extremely thin.
I didn't do anything with fire although I was pretty close to other people's fire on stage. I just had glowsticks taped to my hoop.
We were all wearing outfits made by the talented and wonderful Josie, who was also a designer as well as a model in the fashion show I was a part of recently. Here is a picture of my top.
It was pieced together with fabric glue (no threads whatsoever!) and held together in the back with velcro. I think I want to marry it. Shaina, our director and most seasoned performer, did our very blue make-up.
Pictures from the actual performance will follow as soon as I get my hands on some after I hunt the many hills of the Bay Area.
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.: posted by Vera
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Today I just want to start bleeding
If you know what I mean.
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.: posted by Vera
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Sometimes I really do have faith in humanity
Yesterday I went for a stroll down Mission Street. It was a gorgeous day, and the sun rays on my flip-flopped toes and the breeze through my bare arms felt heartwarming.
Men like to stand around on Mission Street and holler at women. It is just something that happens. As I walked past somebody leaning against the wall of a building, I heard him say "How are YOU?" I was just going to avert my eyes, tense up and keep walking like I usually do, but something made me look. And that's when I noticed that this man was not looking at me. I immediately started feeling presumptious for, you know, presuming that he was talking to me, but it was based on my passed experience with men leaning against walls of buildings on Mission Street.
This man was looking at an older woman sitting in the doorway of the building next door. He then said "Do you live here?" I then heard her say "Yes, I have been here now [insert some measure of time] ..." and her voice tapered off as I kept walking down the street. So what I witnessed here was not a lecherous stranger trying to get my attention; it was a conversation between old aquaintances. I had assumed wrong, and it made me smile.
Then today, humanity came through for me again. Remember when, less than three months ago, I got new rear brakes? Today I needed new front brakes in the amount of my other arm and leg. While the mechanics were installing my new front brakes, they found an oil leak. It turned out that the person who had last changed my oil had tightened the thing on the something too tight and "stripped it down" and now I needed a new "oil pan." The mechanics offered to replace my oil pan with a new oil pan for $150 plus one and a half hours worth of labor costs. Or, they said, I could take it back to the person who had last changed my oil to see if they wanted to do anything about my busted oil pan, but it would have to be soon because my car was losing oil FAST. I decided to give it a try. I picked up my car with the new front brakes and drove over to Jiffy Lube. I described the situation to the manager, left my car with him, and a short while later I was told that the oil leak had been temporarily fixed to stop from leaking and that a new oil pan had been ordered for me, free of charge. And I didn't even have to argue or raise my voice even the slightest bit.
I thank you today, humanity. You made my day twice.
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.: posted by Vera
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This is my website and I can post as many pictures of myself as I like
Dancing in my Supergirl shirt in 1999 (the shirt was 5 months old). Photographer: Aaron.
Dancing in my Supergirl shirt in 2004 (the shirt was 5 years old). Photographer: Heather.
Can you tell I like to draw parallels to the past? Yes, I think I love it.
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.: posted by Vera
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Pet peeve
Right now I can't really think of anything more annoying than somebody saying sammich instead of sandwich. Wait, except for maybe the plural: sammiches instead of sandwiches. Yes, I think that's even more annoying.
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.: posted by Vera
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