There were BEARS in the yard today. No, really. Like, actual BEARS.

What do I do? How do I help?

In the works for today: a funeral and a Polish polka concert. The world moves in mysterious ways....

I didn't kill anybody. But I did drive in a crowded parking lot for the first time, and my instructor saved me from slaughtering a grandmother holding hands with an adorable grandchild, walking to the market in my blind spot....

Aaaah, the fear, aaaah.

Marriage, dysfunctional group dates, and potentially freakish amounts of affection? Not-entirely-interactive poll at the end.

The dwindling prospects of the future JenBears.

The weird implications of sperm banking. This is not nearly as too-much-information as it sounds, unless the idea of other people in this world producing gametes bothers you.

Dinner at the MOST SCOTTISH RESTAURANT EVER, getting a piece performed in Portland (!), and Bear's acupunctural adventures.

An emergency over the weekend.

Bear makes his case for keeping an almost-headless wax duck.

Like it says.

Okay, so neither of us has cancer (YAY!). But Bear's new drugs look scary.

WTF THE PAIN!!!

I missed you, fool.

Partial unveiling of the kidney mystery. Nonsensical self-recrimination. A decision on the job.

The mystery of why Bear can't go home. Realizing how lucky we were.

A wee Bear update, and the job interview.

Bear's still in the hospital, but he's doing better.

Bear is in the hospital.

I DON'T HAVE CANCER. Whew.

Two anniversaries.

Everything is coming up MEEEEEEEEEE.

I owe many of you an explanation for why I've been so weird lately. So here it is, with apologies. Hopefully, it should be done in a week or two, so please bear with me until then.

I'm submitting another minute-long piece to this year's 60x60. Come look! Free music!

In which I have a LUCID dream. And fly around a LOT. And pet an OCTOPUS.

A little psychology and a little racial politics, with a zesty poll thrown in. For zest!

WTF? Don't you want me to fan you with palm fronds or something?

So much time has gone by that it's almost embarassing to write here at this point. I thought I should wait for something momentous, but I've just changed my mind. So HA. At 5 AM yesterday morning, I woke up...

I've been laid off.

The last two days have been kind of like this: Jen: I feel better! I'm so resilient and studly and righteous! Whoo-hoo! *frolicks into the green grass with flowers in hair* Concussion: *FWAP*! Jen: *falls over* Except I don't always...

Story of how I got concussed! Still concussed now! Whee!

In which I am an utter fool.

I am home alone with many, many (key) lime pies. The house feels more quiet and more FullOfPie than it otherwise would because: Magenta and Joshua were here for a week of frenetic fun, and just left yesterday. Bear got...

A bike and a pair of shoes. (This one is for Nenie.)

Sensual pleasures and odd epiphanies. A fabulous year.

porn?

Totally unacceptable, and yet so perfectly okay. What's wrong with me?

Today is my birthday.

I was raised to be apathetic.

Bear has his own domain name. So whenever he gives his e-mail address to some entity that he doesn't personally know, he gives out variants of (name of strange entity)@(his domain).com. So his Amazon account is amazon@..., the utilities in...

I'm scared. I'm scared that Bush will win the election. I'm more scared that the election process will be so corrupt in so many places that we won't really know who won the election. I guess that's it. It's 3...

I'm watching Jon Stewart's appearance on CNN's "Crossfire". I'm utterly astonished. The hosts of "Crossfire", desperately talking over him, alternately dig into him, attempt sad rebuttals, assure him that they're not trying to dig into him (although they did thirty...

My one insane phobia, Scrabble, the beach, and (of course) the monkey showgirl. Overdue.

I don't have that much stuff to pack. But it feels like a lot, and it's so, so hard, because the process of disentangling my stuff from everyone else's is so, so hard.

A one-minute work I'm submitting to a competition. Come check it out!

I hate almost all romantic comedies because they end with people getting together. The end of the romance is when people get together, or at least the end of the part worth knowing about. Or, at least, the end of the part that is hard. I hate that. I think it may be the biggest lie ever told.

There are the things we don't talk about, but do they need saying when everybody knows? (From mid-June, accidentally saved as a draft.)

Megan came in and said, in her big, rich voice, "Did you guys see how gorgeous it is out there? I was out there for two hours and it was so beautiful I--I just sat there and wept, it was so beautiful and there was nothing else I could do about it."

Shamless promotion of KRLX's webcast URL, Anna the Super-Amazing doing the AIDS Life Cycle, and... (argh) my masters recital.

Everything kind of bleeding into everything else. Not in a gory way, but a sloppy feeling-about-a-billion-things-at-once way. No Circadian rhythm, the beginning of the beautiful/melancholy about-to-graduate feeling, things written in the hazy time before sunrise.

I'm often thinking (about myself and others): You shouldn't be in grad school. You shouldn't be lurking in this ridiculous place. You shouldn't be applying for those jobs that have nothing to do with the thing you love. You shouldn't be just wandering around looking for the next thing you can do to occupy your time. You shouldn't, but I can't always tell whether it is fear that drives you or a cold reality that you have no other choice. You are too good for this.

I knit my eyebrows to show that I feel the pain of America.

MP3s and the culture of entitlement

chicken coops and gold coins

tech support + desperation = ...

Oh fer the love of--

there is no willpower. only shame.

I am queen of the unconscious realm!

school is closed! what to do?

i knew it, but i didn't really *know* it until just now.

hee hee. hee hee HEE.

some thoughts on love from a geek.

get your electric lime crayons right here!

french play!

In which Jen goes apeshit because Bear is coming today. Little else happens.

Introducing XtremeJen 2.0...

Nowadays, everyone in the house is especially kind to me. They take me out to lunch. They make me tea. They feed the cats for me. They listen to me alternately sobbing and raging and wanly joking about things that...

Music = good.

In which I play chess with my cat.

Today, at the top of CNN.com, there is an animated banner. Usually this is a space for advertisements. It begins this way: "9/11/..." with a year that, through animation, increases at an accelerating rate. Finally it fades to a screen...

Zdanna is coming, so what should I do with the moose butt?

lonely girl sits around being alone. a tumbleweed rolls by. lonely girl feels lonely.

evil approacheth via cordless phone.

in which the man raised his mighty boot and squished an out-of-shape asian girl. it doesn't seem fair, does it.

it was the way it had been a month ago: megs, chris, jesse, and brady were all visiting to work on the piece and bear was still here. we were unpacking lunches at two circular plastic tables with white-and-yellow umbrellas--pool...

i would bottle this feeling up in mason jars.

theory #1 in which she lays the smack down! ooh!

double (chocolate) blessin's.

bear left today.

last night with bear: bipolar evasion of feeling. boston marriages and the circle of friends.