go_team

This morning I woke up from a long, complicated, Wizard of Oz-style "and you were there, and you were there, and you were there" kind of dream where I caught up with a lot of people, some of whom I hadn't thought of in a long time, and we talked, and some of us performed, or showed off art, or writing, or kids (who mostly showed off themselves), or other projects that have been not consuming us so much as transforming us and our recent and not so recent lives (and vice versa), to the point where maybe we haven't been in touch as much as we might like. Anyway. All of the people in this dream were very dear to me, so I wrote a mushy Open Letter about it, but I wanted to tell everyone the most important part of the letter, which goes like this:

Friends, it was good to see you. No matter how long it's been since we last saw each other, or spoke, or wrote, or exchanged stupid email or whatever little time sucks the Web just distracted us with, I've missed you. I hope this letter finds you well --- at least as well as you were in my dream last night, if not better (and we were all pretty great). I think you are both the best thing that has ever happened to me, and that our friendship is the best thing I do, and every time I edit this sentence it gets a little longer and clumsier when what I really mean is just: You're the best. Thank you.

There ya go. Everything else can wait.

Love,
-Tracy

Dear Internet Friends,

Peter and I have successfully returned from our awesome vacation and tandem bike tour around the IJsselmeer. Home is every kind of awesome. Now I do not know if I will ever catch up on reading Teh EllJay, let alone freaking Google Reader (it seemed like such a good idea at the time, but oy). But I still love you all and am now much easier to contact, even if I put my cellphone through the wash in Holland and might be sort of hard to reach in that regard until I get a replacement. So email me if you want to get my attention, in particular if anything really important happened in the last three weeks that OMG Tracy Must Know About.

Muchas smoochas,

-me

Happy Birthday snuffdaddy!

I'm sure that our decorating our house and wearing crazy orange clothes helped the Dutch soccer team to their 1-0 victory over Serbia-Montenegro today (the decorations actually first went up for last week's Holland-Mexico friendly match, but it's always good to get ready for the World Cup). But maybe getting up at 6 AM PST to watch the game was the key obsessive fan contribution (yes, I am looking forward to sleeping on the train ride home). In any case, we've had a lovely weekend in Seattle; it's been great seeing lots of friends and watching lots of soccer and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

Update: Maybe this link works now?

Happy birthday, maxemulien!

Happy Birthday bloodyaussie and tornadogrrrl!

And now to work, because it is a coworker's birthday as well and I am covering her shift.

Next time, on Sick, Sad World, body issues! Maybe you already read the fabulous Chiara (amperlj if you like reminders, or you can subscribe to her handy email notification list) or maybe you saw triath plugging this entry about body issues, but if you don't or you haven't, you totally should. It will make you better appreciate the following lines from a Marie Claire article entitled "Anatomy of a Pigout":

Be aware that friendship is a dieter's enemy. A study by Pennsylvania State University found when people ate among friends or family, they consumed about 50 percent more than if they were alone or among strangers...

Oh my friends and random LiveJournal readers, let it be known that I will gladly be your diet's very worst enemy except or until the word "diet" means nothing more than the wonderful food you eat every day to sustain your fabulous body, which is a miracle plain and simple (both the simple existence of your body and the magic that is the way you literally are what you eat and when I say "you" I mean "all of us".)

And but so once upon a time pants_of_doom and I talked about creating something we wanted to call Queensize, or maybe Queenzsized, with the premise or slogan or subtitle "Take up some space". And Chiara's body post has me wanting to resurrect that project and that's where all you readers and friends come in again. If you've ever written or drawn or collaged or otherwise created anything about your body, or wanted to, I want to see it and/or read it and love it and share it with the world and maybe make a sexy print version of it because bookbinding is way fun. All you have to do is make something and share it with me and I will do the other stuff because that's what obsessive-compulsive tendencies are good for, yes? Yes.

Let's rock. queensized at gmail dot com.

And now the chamomile tea has kicked in and I MUST SLEEP. But write me if you want to play this fun creative game pretty please!

From springbok1 via her friends list:

"Were there monkeys? Terrifying space monkeys?"

When you see this on your Friends page, quote Firefly in your journal.

P.S. We have our tickets to the midnight opening of Serenity on pre-order; are you all ready for Friday's awesomeness? Extra bonus: Mirrormask! (It looks like it won't get to Oregon until October 14, and then at only one theater in Portland, so all you Los Angeles and Bay Area and Cambridge and DC and NYC people are going to have to go see it for me this weekend so it gets into wider release, mmmkay?)

Happy Birthday, katiemouse!

Have a great day and party and of course new bicycle!

I don't like April Fools Day. As far as I'm concerned the so-called celebrations always seem to involve too much meanspiritedness and poor taste, and not enough actual funny by far. That said, I'll be doing my best to stay offline for the next 24 hours in an effort to miss out on all the hilarious virtual antics. If it wasn't for work, I might hide in the house till Saturday. Our sick, sad world (you know, the one where bullemic Terri Schiavo was finally allowed to starve to death after 15 years of misery?) is cruel joke enough for me. Here's looking forward to skipping as much nastiness as I can and catching up with whatever actually fun pranks get pulled, but only after the fact on Saturday.

Here's where Warren Ellis expresses a similar sentiment, only of course with more eloquence and hate.

And hey, because it isn't too late yet in this time zone, happy birthday antonvowel.