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2006-08-09 || 3:28 p.m. || i'm really going to hug a koala. || the summer i was ten i spent a week in bed with a stomach ache. while my parents were at work i lay in their bed and watched cartoons and drank bubbly things with a straw and contemplated my sickness. i really had a stomach ache. i wasn't faking. i had it up to the morning i left for summer camp for ten days. ever since, any exciting event gives me a week-long stomach ache. camp. disneyland. christmas. girl scout olympics. then summer break and seeing boyfriends and the quitting date of an awful job. my insides keep a strict calendar. my stomach is very punctual in its clenching. today i have a stomach ache. i'm perpetually nervous. i can't fall asleep and sitting still i can feel all my organs slightly out of whack and irritable. i take double doses of vitamins to stave off bad-luck contagions. i drink a lot of water and breathe deeply. we leave for australia in a week. i sit in my office at work with the door shut and listen to the songs i'll have to sing over and over again. i sing them with the music on and music off to make sure i know the words. i imagine large crowds in my office. i try to imagine myself standing in a calming fashionable ensemble, maybe with tights. tights are calming. i imagine myself charming and assured and not forgetting the words or my cues. i have sung at shows before. i remember forgetting to breathe and not knowing what to do with my hands and feeling eternally grateful i got to sing along with owen on most parts. i closed my eyes and pretended i was singing in my car. i pretended everyone was looking at owen and i was cloaked in stage-fright invisibility. next week i have to sing by myself a lot. we're playing at seven shows. i am forcing myself to believe that by the third show there won't be mortal danger of peeing my pants and by the fifth show i won't forget to breathe. maybe by the seventh show i will be able to look at the audience and smile a bit. we get to go to australia, though. i get to spend two weeks with my best friend, hugging koalas and copping australian slang. it really is the best extended bachelorette party ever. two weeks of modest rock and roll adventure before settling down into married adultness. guestbook || notes || archives || profile || photos || d-land |