More from the Head Lefty In Charge:
So, as i’m changing servers, i won’t even be able to see the new posts for awhile (although those closer to my new server in Missoula, Montana (thanks again to juli for the tip), will see it fresh as mountain spring water from the Rockies. (??)
So the point of all this new server, new system stuff is that as i am approaching the one year anniversary of the blog, i’m thinking about turning it into something different. Less of a diary, more of something else. I haven’t decided what this something else is. But i will. Spring is coming and it’s a time of new beginnings, or so they say. Truth is, anytime is a good time for a new beginning, but spring is sunny and it’s easier to wake up in the morning.
I’m going to New York tomorrow, and a lot of the trip will be making preparations for a new beginning in the non-website portion of my life. New lease, taxes, housing, friends, cats, shitty bread, weak coffee, and good rich serious conversation.
I’m smiling because it’s sunny today and i’m changing hosts.
IHT: Pentagon is arming with words
“The Office of Strategic Influence”, Usually they don’t admit this stuff..
Off to New York for about 10 days on Friday. This week here’s been a tough one, last week was tough too. Finally made some decisions. Now i just have to carry them all out. Haven’t had more than 4 hours of sleep a night in over a week. I don’t know how I’m going to go on like this.
My New York trip is a list of things to resolve. These pending resolutions are what’s keeping me up at night. I turn over scenario after scenario in my mind. Sadistically ending on the worst so i have to get up and drink a glass of water to try and distract myself to the next thing. I’ve seen every hour on my alarm clock out of one open eye, contemplating sleep aids.
I’m not the only American in Paris who’s ground has slipped out from under her. It’s hard here. I guess it’s hard everywhere. I guess i just want to go home.
David Gallagher reminds me of the the city (3 days. 3 days!), Witold reminds me of being goofy, and PFord reminds me i shouldn’t hate birds so much.
Take note.. i’m changing hosts, and then changing my content management system this week (and next if i’m slow). All the reading materials say that there should be no downtime.. but you know…
Another note: I’m finding that “a priori” is like a regular word that French people use in conversation. When was the last time you heard that in English chit chat? (clearly college profs no counto)
So i got to this story in the Times: Driver Who Mowed Down 19 Returned to Hit 7. A very bizarre story about a solitary guy who lives with his mother and goes wacky. It’s kind of hard to follow. As i was reading it, it was a struggle to keep up.
Bloodstains were found on the car’s seat. After learning that the car was registered to Mr. Popadich, investigators expanded their search across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania after they discovered that his credit card had been used at Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan to buy an Amtrak ticket to Philadelphia. He apparently took the train to Trenton, where he stayed Wednesday night, and then took another train to northern New Jersey early yesterday.
Egads. Too much brain power on that one. Only if you live in the tri-state area would you know that Trenton is a stop on the Philly train (i think, i’m actually not sure). But yeah, this is a weird story and i bet it’s on the tri-state news twice and hour every hour. I am so removed from this stuff. Obviously i don’t get too much local NYC news here in Paris. I’m sure there is equally trashy local news here in Paris, but i haven’t the resolve to sit through a half hour of local news in French. It’s all i can do get through 15 minutes of international news, just to count how many wars are going on.
Anyway, if i were back in the city, i’m sure i’d be well in step with this bizarre story as well as Greta Van Sustren’s surgery and whatever else clutters up the last 20 mins of the half-hour newscast. It sounds kinda snotty (hey maybe it is), but it’s really nice not to have that crap swimming around in my brain, and 7 months of it too, it’s like a brain enema.
I can’t resolve this: I long for television, i miss it; but i like my brain so much better without it.
I saw From Hell last night. I know it’s old news in the States but here it’s making it’s first theater run. First off, Johnny Depp looks damn hot in this movie. Does he always look this hot and i forget, or is this one special? Dunno. Second, no one should go see this alone at night. Totally scary. Anyway, i liked it. It got sort of bad reviews, and i’m pretty harsh on movies and still i can say i liked it. The cinematography-mise en scene-whatever was amazing. The colors, the sets, the light on people’s faces was perfect. That being said there was something sort of wrong with it. The story was a good story, and the writing was good as well – it was like the pacing was off or something. I found myself waiting for something to happen, even when things were happening. But really scary and gruesome, in a good way. Had to take an Alka-Seltzer before bed.
Insomnia Update: Maybe things are getting a bit back to normal. Took a long time to fall asleep again last night, but only woke up once (briefly) in the middle of the night. I think i need to try exercising.
PS: This Bjork video is so fucking cool. If the people of the future talk about late 20th century art (or early 21st century art?? – whatever time period this is), they should really include Bjork videos. Yeah, they probably won’t. Via delete yourself
How’s the swollen eye? A teeny tiny bit better. The weird gel might be working.
More about neille’s health: So lately i’ve been having some pretty substantial insomnia. For about a week now. This is really quite uncharacteristic of me. I really dig my sleep. Especially in the winter, i have to talk myself out of jumping into bed the second i get home from work. I didn’t do much about it. I once heard some radio MD say that insomnia is great because it cures itself. Which makes sense, so i’ve been waiting. But i haven’t really been overly tired from my lack of sleep. So insomnia: not being cured. It’s really not so bad except that i am running out of English language reading material, and i just feel like an overall doof laying awake in bed at 4am.
Anyway last night i decided to take matters into my own hands and take some sleeping pills. They’re over the counter french ones, and i dunno, pretty strong from what i can tell. I’ve never tried American ones cause like i said i generally *never* have problems sleeping. I got these from a friend for my trans-atlantic flights as an antidote to the awful screaming child always seated directly behind me.
So i must have fallen into some sort of beyond REM trans-consciousness sleep because i had the most fucked up dream ever. Honestly it was the sort of thing therapists pray for. I’ve been told several times that the most boring thing is talking about your dreams, so i’ll spare the details and just say it was basically me at a party with many rooms confronting every single fucking anxiety and insecurity i have right now. I think i actually woke myself up because i instinctively knew i couldn’t take anymore. I mean usually you have one or two anxieties and such illustrated in your dreams, but like 6? 10? Seriously, work issues, friend issues, boy issues, my damn cat issues for chrissakes – they were all there. It was The Last Supper and all of neille’s fears were invited. Yeesh – i was gonna need to be committed if it went on any longer.
Needless to say, i was traumatized and awake at about 6am, with that sleeping pill head-like-concrete feeling, just staring at my digital clock trying to recover. Hell, i’m still trying to recover. It’s warm milk and cookies from here on out.
(What, you didn’t really think i was gonna tell you what my anxieties and insecurities are didya?)
I got to this :
hopefully a comedy, pt. 1 – 0(zero)format
from TMN today and it’s Really freaking me out. I woke up today with both my eyes swollen (on monday it was just the left one). This happened to me once before a few months back. I went to the pharmacist here (pharmacists here actually know a few things and are helpful) and she gave me this topical gel. It helped that last time, but i forgot i had it until this morning. It didn’t occur to me until just now that waking up with 1.5 black eyes could be more serious than some sort of practical joke that fate plays every so often. I may be the opposite of a hypochondriac; i always think that any ailment i have is just an accidental blip in the wiring. And that it will go away on it’s own in a coupla days. Residual feelings of immortality that one should have put to rest at age 13. That’s why it took me 4 months straight (and a few years on and off before then) of shooting pain my my hand for me to maybe consider having someone look at it. Diagnosis on the hand: Tendonitis in two places. Treatment: a)Take triple the recommended dosage of over the counter anti-imflammatories for apx the rest of your life, or b)Switch careers to one not involving Adobe Illustrator and/or a mouse. Bleeding ulcer vs. poverty? I chose the former but am certainly still holding the latter under consideration. And just so nobody gets the wrong impression, i’m certainly a neurotic bundle of neurosis, but i tend to focus it on problems of the psyche. That or the weather.
Erm..ok.. back to the swollen eyelids, so ordinarily, i’d make a doctors appointment and put it out of my mind. That would be if i were in a country where the doctors spoke my language and i understood how any of it works. Granted, despite fluency in English, health care in the States can no way be called comprehensible. But after a few years on the field i get it. Here? Well.. i did once have a really hot doctor make a house call in the middle of the night, but i was pretty much dying then. And i hadn’t french health care yet, and besides when you’re dying (violently), you’ll pay full fare, and happily. Now i’ve got a health care card, a booklet i can’t understand, but no social security number. I’m supposedly going to get that letter about the SS# any day now. Hmm.. In the face of all this, Wegener’s granulomatosis hardly seems worth it. By the way, if i’ve got a terminal illness you can bet the first thing i’m gonna do is start smoking again.
But really, i can’t start thinking terminal illness just cause fate decided to make me look especially assy today. I would add snarkily, just in time for valentines day, but valentine’s day is such a bore from all angles that i’m already mad at myself for mentioning it twice in the last sentence. The good side is that i poked around 0(zero)format am quite the convert. i.d. is pretty much the best “about me” type thing i’ve ever read. This eye thing better be a joke, for everyone. Yeah comedy, yes.
New Angeles Monthly, June 2008
Weekend America, March 30, 2008
Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2008
Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2008
Nil by Mouth is written by Neille Ilel. Neille is a writer, reporter and user interface specialist in Los Angeles. If you think that's a lot, she's also got a host of meandering sidelines including improv comedy, tennis, cooking, drawing and thinking about learning to play the guitar.
Nil is her given name. It's a long story.
E-mail her here:
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.com