today is my dad's birthday, he's 72, that's halfway to 144, happy birthday dad.

good day yeasterday, at least until last night, but I'll get to that. the sun came out for awhile, so I painted___ began work on a burlap piece which is slightly larger than the metal pieces I've been working on and having the addded space felt good. I spent most of the day working on the leather sketchbook scans and finished those in time to skip going to the coffeeshop around five. instead, a bottle of wine and I went to michelle's for a tofu/rice dinner. tim had stopped by early in the day to tell me he had a 6pm meeting and would have to miss figure drawing, so I had decided to not go without him and michelle invited me to dinner.

dinner was yummy and we had a nice time, but when I got home I found myself horribly sick and spent most of the night in and out of the bathroom every five or ten minutes. it was horrible___ cramps, pains, aches... I could feel my pulse pounding in my gaseously bloated belly. I went through an entire roll of toilet paper without producing a single example of solid waste. it was rough. aliza returned my call from earlier in the evening and I couldn't talk longer than a couple minutes because I had to run to the bathroom. michelle called hoping to hear I felt better (I had called when it began to see if she felt upset too) and was dismayed to find that I didn't.

inbetween my bathroom visits I watched the first of the "weeds" dvds that carrie had made for aliza and aliza had lent to me. was pleased to hear malvina reynolds singing little boxes for the opener. the show was pretty good, not great, but has potential and is definitely dealing with issues most shows neglect, so that's cool. I have more episodes on a second dvd, which I think will catch me up, because apparently the program has only been on for a few months, so I feel pretty much with the times, which when it comes to tv shows, I seldom am. I'll maybe watch it some more tonight.

my need for bathroom visits had decreased by 12:30 or so when the dvd was over and I was able to get to sleep__ but had to do it on my back, because it was too painful on stomach or side. I woke up around 2:30 and went to the bathroom and again at 4:30 and still felt gassy and bloated and stomach-grumbly, but didn't go to the bathroom. woke up around 7 and felt quite a lot better, but even now after 11, am feeling a little fragile. I snoozed until 8:30, got up, went to the coffeeshop, read the paper, came back here, painted, wrote this, michelle just called to check on me, she's off to get her hair cut.

oh here's my dream that I woke up with:

aliza and I were in her car, pulling up to the light at windward and pacific (on
windward facing the ocean), she was driving. as she stopped, she said, "I heard
that andy doesn't own the tattoo parlour anymore, that guy does." she pointed to
swagg as he crossed the street. I put my hand affectionately on her back,
expecting to feel the material of the shirt she was wearing, but instead felt
her warm, smooth skin, it felt good and inviting, but I was surprised and a
little embarrassed and pulled my hand back.

"swagg? really?" I said, as
I looked out the open car window at swagg, who did look somehow older and more
distinguished than usual, and believable as a successful business owner. I
called to him, "hey, swagg!"

"yeah, what?" he answered, glancing over
his shoulder, but continuing into windward market.

I got out of the car
and walked toward the market. I could feel aliza's impatient irritation behind
me, but I felt driven to find out the full story. as I approached the doorway,
swagg reemerged, struggling to carry what looked like a very heavy and unstble
cardboard box, I couldn't tell what it was filled with, but I somehow imagined
cast iron machine parts. "oh, I'm sorry I didn't know you were busy," I said.

"that's alright, I can talk," he replied, breathing heavily with the
exertion. he got to the street corner and propped the box on the metal housing
of the crosswalk button.

I asked him, "are you the new owner of the
tattoo shop?"

"no."

"does andy still own it?"

"not
really..."

I had the feeling he was answering evasively and I wasn't
comfortable prying, so I just said, "oh, well I was just wondering."

at
that moment, the light changed and swagg let go of the box and began walking
across the street. the box stayed, miraculously jutting out from the traffic
light pole. "are you gonna leave that there?" I asked, amazed and confused.

"yeah, it's ok there." he replied, unconcerned.

I got back into
the car. I felt guilty that I had wasted time and kept aliza waiting. she had
missed the light and it was red again. I glanced behind us and saw that there
was one car with its hood up infront of the market, clearly broken down, and so
not put out by us blocking the way. there was another car, however that was
directly behind us and had had to wait, but the driver didn't seem at all
bothered, or from the looks of her, even aware that she'd been delayed.

aliza decided to turn the car around and so she did a u-turn and pulled
into the alley where my painting studio used to be. in front of us, blocking the
road, was a huge pile of broken building materials and it was clear that
somebody had torn down the 100 market street building, leaving the remains
behind. rather than come to a stop and back up, aliza continued driving and
pulled right up to the pile, as close as she could. I just sat in the passenger
seat wondering what she was doing, and where she thought she could go from
there.