Wigging out.

a triumphant return before I go

It's internet! and it's in my apartment! I ran into my neighbor this morning and asked if he'd be interested in going in on a wireless network, and he said he already had one set up and would I like the encryption code? He's saying I don't have to help pay for it, either, but I feel like I should bake him a pie with a $20 in it every month or give him a blow job or something. Ok, maybe not the blowjob. He's a really nice guy, but I don't find him attractive. Maybe I should pay someone else to give him a blowjob a month.

I'm going to New York with the fam' Thursday night through Sunday. Very exciting. My baby brother is turning 18 (sweetmotherofgod) but all his friends are gone for spring break so my parents offered to take him to see shows and eat shmancy food in Manhattan and I got invited. I get to see Birdy and meet Inri, too. My dog will have to stay at the vet's, which has me feeling very guilty so I let him eat Corn Pops.

My apartment is actually cleanerish. Last week was my spring break and I spent a lot of it cleaning, and then Friday I had the service come in for three hours. I still have to go through a shittonne of papers and come up with some method of organization, but you can see 95% of the floor and walk around barefoot and use the sink and stove and whatnot. I even removed the old smelly things from my fridge. I deserve cookies.

Back to bed. So tired, but I have to meet a teacher at noon for my mid-semester conference. Penis.

Internet down again. So lonely, this world without the ability to check facebook 9 times a day.

stupid brain. I'm supposed to be seeing Salman Rushdie right now. Is it supposed to rain tomorrow? My head seems to think so. Grrrr.

Interview and Intraview

I am so turning into my mother, right down to our exaggerated views of our respective mothers. I just spent an hour and a half on the phone with my grandma interviewing her about her childhood for school. I was all worried about it, since she's kind of nuts (like, she's actually been committed before as a paranoid delusional) and she just moved into a "retirement community" and my mom said she wasn't doing too well. But it was great and she was great and very funny. There are some things where details changed slightly mid-story (like how old she was when certain things happened) but one of the perks of doing the interview on the phone is that I can take notes on the computer and I can type almost as fast as she talks. I have to turn in the "transcript" of the interview, but it just needs basic cleaning up.

All I've done all day is write and futz around on the computer. I took my dog for a good long walk around one, but that's about it. Days like this make me feel a little crazy, but that's part of being a writer. It's an important part, really. I was looking at cheap houses for sale in the middle of nowhere again. It's like porn for me, except I'm thinking more and more that if I eventually have enough money and am a writer for real, I'll keep an apartment in a city like Chicago or New York and then have my little house off in BFN. The ones currently catching my eye include: the $15,000 one bedroom one bath house in Glascow, Montana; a cozy 2 bedroom place with two porches in Lemmon, South Dakota selling for $12,700. The cheaper and simpler the better, though I really like the idea of two porches.


I think that, since I've Liked Boys since long before anything could come of Liking Boys, unrequited pining has become my natural default. After doing it for 20+ years, it's the form of "love" I know best. I reciprocal, positive, healthy relationship might make my head explode. Thank goodness I'm not going to have one of those any time soon.

Dogs on the brain

HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY, HOTDOG SAM!
Wuv woooooo!





Move over, YouTube, I just spent an embarrassingly long time on the White House's pet webpage. Barney and Spot's Winter Wonderland (2002) is my favorite, since it's mostly just the dogs playing in the snow. Why is it I don't give a crap about celebrities unless they are dogs?

And why am I awake at all at 6 AM? My dog's allergies are acting up and he was being very itchy and whiny and woke me up. I don't know if we'll be able to get to the vet until next week (when I'm on spring break) for more allergy pills. If he'd just let me give him a friggin' bath...

significant progress

Tonight, I was a grown-up. Instead of spending the next several years in pining limbo, I forced a definitive answer out of the current object of my affection. I knew it would be a no, and it was a no, but I needed to hear it so I could move on. Of course it hurt and of course I cried, but then again I cry at everything. And I am extremely pleased to say that the amount I feel better and good about myself is significantly outweighing the bad of the formal rejection. So it's ok that I'm sad, and it's much much more than ok that I have made a significant stride in dealing with my emotions. I deserve a cookie.

Kiss me, sunbeam

This warm weather makes me want to listen to Stairway to Heaven and float around on sunbeams and shake the world until it spits out love. No, I'm not stoned, just crazy.

Oh the great mysteries of my internet connection. I was writing a random piece of crap story for my class tomorrow to turn in instead of the story that required the interview I never got when I accidentally hit the email button at the top of the screen and, lo and behold!, I had internet. I'd resigned myself to getting up tomorrow at 6 to get to school in time to check the last bits of things I needed to check and fill in for this story so I could print and hand it in by the start of my 9 AM class. Now, I have no excuse to go to bed without it done and printed, so I am trying to finish and print it. I've tried my internet connection a few gazilion times today, too, but it HAD to be when I wasn't trying that it finally worked. Piece of crap.

I'm fighting a serious headache. Fight fight fight. I'm still functioning and all, but it is not good. I absolutely have to go to my class tomorrow, even if it requires me drinking 12 cups of coffee and taking a cab. I don't like being in that position.

snarf snarf snarf

Sweet mother of annoying, why won't my internet work? I am at school, once again a slave to the public use computers. Meanwhile, freaking out because I can't get my hands on the person I have to interview for the story that I absolutely MUST turn in tomorrow and I'm not sure what to do if I don't hear from him in the next few hours. I had a death migraine on Monday and it's still hanging around and I'm sick of it.

My class today was this ridiculous heavy event, like group therapy. We got into dead parents, dead friends, fighting in wars, and sexual abuse. Crazy shit. When class was over, my teacher (who is not a very touchy-feely guy) wouldn't let us leave until he'd given us each a hug. I felt totally shallow with my phone sex story. Now, I could use a beer, but I don't trust my head not to flare up again.

More to say, but I don't feel like saying it right now. Fluorescent lights make thinking and writing very difficult.

My improv show is Sunday at 2:30. If you are in Chicago, you should come see it.

corset

I'm sitting in my apartment right now wearing a corset. I feel slightly insane, but with my new-found body issues and health regiment, I've noticed just how much I slouch. I look significantly better when I stand up straight. How am I going through this weird image thing now? I guess I just hit the point where I'm starting to hold weight differently and not be able to do things like run up stairs without getting winded, and I don't like it. At least I'm being proactive. My personal trainer (god I love saying that) said some of what we're working on at the gym is to improve my posture, but I feel like if I could just learn to stand properly, that would help immensely. "Inri" (Birdy's boyfriend...he chose that for his own code-name, so don't blame me) suggested a back brace, which might be better, though corsets are more fun and the subtle ones are less embarrassing to be wearing as a 24-year-old girl. And they make your boobs look awesome. The corset I already own and am currently wearing is much more costumey and would show under shirts and such, which is not the intention. I live quite near a number of shops that sell corsets, so perhaps I will hit them tomorrow before going to my parents' house. Don't you love spending money on stupid momentary whim things that suddenly feel super-important like they're going to drastically change your life for the better?

Stupid Gym

I was going in the bathroom at the gym today wondering how anybody drops their cell phone in the toilet. Maybe if you keep it in your pocket or on a belt loop, but I keep mine in my purse in the hidden cell phone pouch on the strap. And quite literally as I'm thinking this and looking for a place to put my purse, my cell phone jumps out of its pocket and directly into the toilet. It was completely bizarre. I guess I hadn't velcroed the flap and shifted in a way that sent it flying, but it was the sort of thing that usually indicates I'm dreaming, except I was wide awake. Now my phone still works but is acting a little wacky, so I took the battery out and left it open to dry out and hopefully all will be well again soon, but it was a completely unreal moment.

Then half way through my workout some guy came in with his video camera and started filming. I asked him not to use me and he said it was just for class and I wasn't on there, but the red light had been pointing at me for a goodly portion of my time on the elliptical machine. I don't really like being filmed, anyway, but this felt way too invasive. When I'm working out, I turn purple and there's flesh hanging out everywhere and I have a few huge bruises on my thigh and these are all things I normally try to ignore and accept because everybody else is in the same boat. Bring a camera into the picture (pardon the pun) and everything becomes too self-conscious and uncomfortable. I decided to end my workout early and found a number of other girls in the locker room had done the same, so I went out and said something to the cameraman and the people at the front desk who'd given him permission to film "as long as everyone in the gym was comfortable with it." They told him to come back later when someone more in charge was around.
On my way out, my personal trainer was on his way in. I mentioned the camera guy and he (my personal trainer) said they actually had a whole policy regarding students filming and waivers and permission and all that, but they hadn't gone over it in a long time so the students working the desk didn't know. So my day's gym time was somewhat ruined, but at least a) it's not that big a deal and b) it won't happen again.

inadequacy

Nasty habit I have to get over RIGHT NOW: refusing to turn things in on time, even if I have a draft of them, because they "aren't good enough."

How much longer do I have to go to the gym before I stop feeling like shit the rest of the day and start looking like a super-model? I like being able to see results. Also, I turn purple every time I do cardio. Is that a problem?