she emailed me this picture on halloween with the caption "check out my new mode of transportation!!"





she's never been known for her sense of humor and this is super out of character for her but it's hilarious and awesome.


in other less-hilarious-but-still-just-as-awesome news, chris and his wife monica are in town for the week for some photography convention. dupage presence in new orleans has now doubled, hooray!

got an LJ nudge today (even though the sender [nudger?] should update his own LJ more often, not that i'm pointing any fingers or anything) and it's been a heck of a long time since i've written anything here. maybe i should update this for all one of you that cares enough to read it.

eh.

spending most of my free time nowhere close to new orleans.
playing around with mitchell and the mordechai dudes in mississippi and it's going alright.
spending a lot of free time in mississippi, actually. won't complain.
trying to keep myself as occupied as possible.
thinking about starting a mix cd club. get at me if you're interested.
baking/cooking a LOT.
watching too many movies
knitting some, but not enough.
going to a support group for survivors of sexual assault and instead of helping me cope with what i live with every day i think it just makes me realize more how many terrible, hateful, fucked-up people there are in the world. which bums me out more.
generally trying to stay posi even though that's a super hard thing to do sometimes.
listening to lots and lots of jawbreaker. as always.




so here's a bunch of photos. a bunch. i'm warning you in advance.



( approximately one million photos from the last three months )


i've been mostly ok. how have you been?

haven't posted in months but honestly i don't really feel like i've done anything worth writing about. no use in talking about the funk i've been in and nobody cares to read about that bullshit anyhow. at some point i'll write about the trial that happened in may but not quite yet. it's nearing four months and i'm still not sure what i'm supposed to say about it.





so this weekend i was kidnapped (voluntarily, of course) and shuffled off to and around hattiesburg and biloxi. hung out with mitchell all weekend and also dylan and beth and other dudes for a while in h-burg last night. dylan went to india for a month and brought me back mala beads (so awesome). we played pool and both were terrible at it. had some decent conversations which is always appreciated and enjoyable. mitchell played tour guide around biloxi and ocean springs and gulfport and we ate gelato and strolled along the beach. we tried watching holiday with cary grant and katherine hepburn but i fell asleep ten minutes into it. oh well. he wants me to do vocals for mordechai which could be fun. musically it's different than what i'm used to but maybe that would be a good thing?

it was nice to get away, even if it was only for a little while. didn't necessarily forget about things (not possible) but it was kind of a relief to not have to deal with everything for a bit.

really not looking forward to facing real life again once i'm back in new orleans tonight but what else am i supposed to do.

despite the testimony of law enforcement officials as to the nature of the crime that happened, despite my testimony that a man i did not know broke into my house while i was asleep and raped me at knifepoint, despite hearing his voice and being able to identify him as the man who raped me after only hearing him speak a single word, despite a DNA expert from the FBI testifying that the DNA they were able to get from me had a 1 in 58 TRILLION chance of not being this man, despite the testimony from two convicted felons that i was a junkie who was addicted to oxycontin and other pills and would smoke crack and freebase cocaine and have sex for drugs, despite the district attorney being able to disprove every key point of both meryl cooper's and donovan dentz's (his druggie friend) testimonies, despite having to get back on the stand to defend my beliefs and explain to the jury what straight edge was amongst other things, all twelve members of the jury found him not guilty of both forcible rape and aggravated burglary.





i have never in my life felt more helpless, hopeless, and defeated.







off to california, i will deal with real life after i see the swing kids tomorrow.

i met with the district attorney again yesterday morning to go over more details about the upcoming trial. i was far more emotionally prepared for this meeting than i ended up being for the last one and didn't need to be put into my car and driven back to the city afterwards. i actually went by myself and did just fine! now i know pretty much exactly what i'm in for, what i can expect, and how things are going to go. there have been eight people subpoenaed to testify besides me: the investigating detective, three crime scene specialists, the first responding officer to my apartment after i called 911, the nurse from the hospital, the person who took the DNA sample from the man after he had been arrested (what was later used to confirm the DNA found that night), and a DNA specialist. the defense hasn't subpoenaed anyone and will probably not be calling anyone to testify on his behalf. meryl cooper will in all likelihood NOT be testifying. if he did, they'd be able to bring up his prior history (33 arrests in 31 years, for rape/burglary/assault/breaking and entering/deadbeat dad-related stuff) and he wouldn't stand a chance once information like was understood. as it stands the case they're making against him is DNA-based since i never saw what he looked like. i know that's going to be detrimental but in my defense the man covered my face, put a knife in my back, and threatened to kill me. i'm hoping that with that many people testifying against him it will be easier for the jury to convict him as guilty. he is, and i think the DNA evidence proves that beyond a reasonable doubt but some members of the jury might not accept DNA evidence as irrefutable. and that's where we'll run into problems. hopefully nobody gets picked for the jury who is of that opinion.

saying that i'm more prepared for this does not mean i'm not still absolutely terrified to be doing this. i can say without any exaggeration that i am more afraid of this than i have ever been of anything else in my entire life. but it's something that i know i have to do, both for myself and to ensure that this monster never hurts another living thing ever again, and so i'm just going to bite my tongue and do it. i never really had a choice to begin with, not then and not now.





as if one tenth of any of this wasn't stressful enough, yesterday a private detective came to my work to ask me questions about my relationship to that man. it was bewildering that the public defender for that man would stoop so low as to hire someone like that to try and find out anything he could to discredit me. i don't have anything to hide and am ashamed of nothing, so let them come at me with their worst.

come hang out! last NOLA show for migs, first show we've played since the urban outfitters debacle in october.

one of the many reasons that i cannot fucking WAIT for the swing kids/jenny piccolo/unbroken/undertow/blah blah show in may:

things have been alright. busy with work and life but that's not necessarily a bad thing i suppose. kind of sickly right now which sucks since it's so nice outside but i'll get over it.



-had a birthday a few weeks ago and it was decent, low-key and laid back. the Boy gave me the babar anthology and a knitting book, both of which were incredibly thoughtful and a bit suprising. so now i'm twenty-four and it's weird to me. i guess i'm always going to think of myself as seventeen and dumb. the only difference is that i'm twenty-four and dumb but i don't want to think of myself in terms of being in my mid twenties.

-was in chicago for the weekend after my birthday at the request of my mother... my brother is back from iraq and i apparently needed to be there to celebrate that. nevermind the fact that a civil word hasn't passed between us in probably four or five years. i spent the weekend gritting my teeth every time someone told my brother what a good guy he was for doing what he did 'over there.' of course i'm glad that he wasn't hurt and made it back safe and blah blah blah, but that's about the extent of it. at least my dad baked me a carrot cake and jill cut my hair and i ate pizza with hoffa and missy and justin and i hung out and i got the 97-Shiki 7". patrick scott is back in chicago, can my lai play a reunion show? just one? for me? then i can die a happy girl?

-got a suprisingly good review of the 7" in the newest issue of MRR. i told my parents that i got a review in a magazine and my father was entirely nonplussed. then when i was home i visited him at work and one of his coworkers was like, "we heard you got reviewed in a magazine!!! that you can buy in a bookstore!!! that's so great!!!" which made me think for just a minute that MAYBE HE DOES CARE ABOUT WHAT I DO. but then when i showed him the actual review he again acted nonplussed. oh well. on a hilarious note my mother now owns three copies of the march issue of MRR.

-bought a new digital camera since my old one gave up the ghost. it has a setting for taking pictures of food, which means i will be doing just that quite a lot.

-last weekend ruled. from the depths played in baton rouge last weekend and despite the show being a clusterfuck of miscommunication, it ended up not being a horrible failure like i was afraid was going to happen. steve stayed over after their show and in the morning i made buckwheat pancakes and we drove out to athens for his show saturday night. stopped in atlanta first for dinner at brian's parent's house which was tasty. ate at the grit for brunch the next day and hung out with some of the athens crew. got a bit weepy on the way back home because the weekend was so awesome and i had to return to boringness. ( some pictures from the weekend: )

-john put up some WNTT mp3's on his blog earlier this week, go check that ish out (and check out the divisions songs also, they're KILLER) human crush recordings

-earlier this week i acquired a new roommate, of the baby himalayan variety. he's white with greyish-brown points, and so so tiny and adorable. still haven't decided on a name for him just yet but j suggested apocalypse meow which would be entirely fitting as this dude does not shut his mouth between the hours of 9pm and 7am.
( the new cat )

any suggestions on what i should name him? the last himalayan i had was named juice, but i'm trying to avoid any sort of food-related names.

-apparently some of my tile pendants are going to be for sale at a craft expo in picayune next weekend so if any of you dudes happen to be in that part of the country you should check them out. yeah right. i myself will be at the strawberry festival in ponchatula that weekend stuffing my face with all manner of strawberry-related deliciousness and trying not to toss it all back up on the tilt-a-whirl.

-oh and i renewed my library card which is awesome since i live three minutes away from a library. recommend me books to read, people. i like things.

-oh and as always, listen to more jawbreaker.

see you again in another month

hoffa, karl, eric, chris, et al:


www.elmhurst.edu/~leader/archives/Oct31/entertainment/punk.html



em sent me this link earlier today and as it's been a few years since i've last seen this it was pleasant to read again.  and not gonna lie, it made me tear up a little bit from the memories.  the photos are especially hilarious.

jessica and i stayed here last night:



and it was pretty sweet. this morning we had room service breakfast and it was also pretty sweet. we've been in atlanta for the last two days, will be in athens tonight, americus tomorrow, and birmingham on sunday. roadtrip 2k8/9 and it's been awesome so far. aside from two absolutely horrible hours in atlanta on new year's eve everything else has been awesome. kurt and i saw band of horses wednesday night, jessica saw tim barry and hot water music, we've eaten soul veg and spent more time/money than was probably necessary. last night we saw Let The Right One In at an old movie theater and it was the best movie i've seen all year (har har har). today before we head out to athens we're hitting up some yarn shops, the vegan store, little five points for a bit and a sweet indian restaurant in decatur.

hangin' out with far-away friends, eatin' tasty food, seein' some sights, buyin' some things, it's been pretty great.

and while everyone else was miserable and kind of freaked out about it, today was the happiest i've felt in a while.

( city park!! )

i cried a lot during the last thirty minutes or so of this movie, and dave was nice enough to not say anything about it. afterwards as we were walking back to his truck he asked me what i thought of it, and then kind of laughed and said that he'd get a better answer if he asked me that same question again in a week. i'm not certain whether i was in the right mood to have seen that tonight or in the worst possible mood for it.

thinkin' about roadtripping to this, who's down?

a good friend of mine got put in the hospital the night before last by her boyfriend. he had beaten her up pretty badly and cut her arm, she's got stitches and bruises and is still a little shaken up but is in surprisingly good spirits, all things considered. he was arrested and charged with battery and she's sure as shit pressing charges against him. i went over to her place for a few hours after work last night to bring her ice cream and hugs and there was still blood everywhere. her hands are still pretty messed up so i'm headed over to her place in a few minutes to help her get ready for work.

i still don't understand how a person can be that shitty to another person, especially someone that they claim to love. i've had my share of nightmare relationships (thank god they never got to the point of physical abuse but definitely were terrible all the same) and thinking about all of this in the last few days has made me pretty glad to not be with anyone right now. i guess that's kind of a blanket statement to make but i suppose you never really know how a person is until it could potentially be too late. i don't know. this whole situation is kind of depressing.




then i came home from her apartment last night and the guy who lives directly across from me was walking around his apartment completely naked with the windows open. it was a nice night last night but i had to close my blinds because of it. argh.

a whole lot of super un-posi things happened on this trip home (anxiety attacks, lame family bullshit, holiday misanthropy, etc etc etc) and it wasn't the greatest but on the plus side jill gave me an excellent haircut (photos to come, maybe), i helped serve food at a homeless shelter on thanksgiving and i got to hang out with the coolest person i know:



j's got an office at choke now because all the underground communique record label stuff is getting out of control and that's awesome! i'm so proud of him!



i'm flying back to new orleans in a bit, getting in pretty late, then driving to the dragon's den to play a show. awesome.

holy fucking shit.

so two years ago today that faceless monster cut his way into my home and changed things forever for me, taking away any sense of security and complacency i had and replacing it with fear and uncertainty. i think about what it was like in those minutes, days, months after... not sleeping for days at a time and having nightmares every single time i did fall asleep. waking up in the middle of the night at the slightest sound, pulse racing and head reeling at the thought that maybe he had found me again, even though i had moved to a new apartment in a new city, even though nobody else even knew where i was living (for the first few months, at least), even though he had already taken everything i had that was of any monetary value. being unable to leave the house after it was dark unless someone was with me. wanting to be by myself all the time but being afraid to be alone for more than five minutes. then the insecurity, paranoia, frustration, depression, humiliation, lost time, flashbacks, helplessness, anxiety, and the feeling that i had nearly every single day for a year that i was losing my mind.

i think about how things have been since then and i can say somewhat confidently that it's gotten better. the monster was identified and caught; he has a face and a name and a mother who should be ashamed of him and is now behind bars which is exactly where he should be... unable to ever completely destroy someone's life again the way he did mine. i'm still afraid of the dark, i still don't like going places by myself, i still get super frustrated sometimes, i still often feel like i'm falling short on a lot of things, i'm just as anxiety-ridden and insecure as i've ever been.

in dealing with this i have tried to make the best with what i've had and i'd like to think that i'm doing... okay. there are still bad days and i have accepted that there will always be bad days but i'm getting a lot better at dealing with them. i felt for the longest time that the only way to deal with this/anything really was just to maintain and keep a stiff upper lip but on the inside i was screaming and screaming and screaming and it only led to a breakdown some months later. there were/are times that i wish that coping mechanisms like that would actually work but since they haven't i've learned that sometimes it's necessary to actually talk about things with people. i have the best friends in the world, kids who have been nothing but supportive and patient and willing to listen at those times when i was freaking out and worried i was going crazy. without these kids i don't know where i'd be. not nearly as enriched, at the very least.


sorry for the pseudo rant/reflection, you may now return to your regularly scheduled programming. i don't really know where i was going with this, i guess i've been doing a lot of thinking and remembering today, two years on and sometimes it still feels like the scars are fresh.

my mother was hospitalized for two and a half days, and only called to tell me after she had been released.
i woke up this morning with a nosebleed.
all sorts of people/things/places are starting to disappoint me in ways that they haven't before.
listen to more jawbreaker.

Sir Ben Kingsley STOMPS into the shoes of Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye from Mean Magazine on Vimeo.




















also, unbroken/trial/disembodied/undertow/more tba in chicago, april 4th. HELL OF STOKED.