In dreams

In my dream, right before I woke up:

“Little girl! Do you know where you are trying to plant your seed? In that soil is all the sadness of the world!”
“Yes, I know, and I think that’s the best place for a tree to grow.”

Quick bullets to catch up with possible expanded stories later:

• I tried out for Wheel of Fortune. I was awesome. I won't find out if I made the show or not for another two weeks.
• I made new friends on my hallways when one of them was almost mugged at 2 AM on a Sunday night/Monday morning
• I'm now also friends with the substitute mail lady
• and a pedophile
• Classes start next week and I haven't signed up yet, but I plan to take prose forms and that's it since I'm still having lots of migraines
  

In and Out of the Flow of Life/Mucus

Screw neti pots and their recent surge in popularity thanks to Oprah and the New York Times - my OCD tendencies had me eying those saline nasal irrigation things for years. Normally I want one when I have a cold, since I seem to have been spared the classic runny-nose seasonal allergy crap, but with more evidence and doctors suggesting that perhaps my migraines are sinus-related, I splurged and spent $12 on the NeilMed Sinus Rinse kit. 8 oz of warm water (I did it right from the tap, livin' on the edge, instead of buying distilled water and heating it in the microwave) with the little packet of salty crap to make saline, mixed in the bottle, leaned over the sink, held it up to my nostril, and squeezed.
Gross. But the good kind of gross. Except for the part when it started snotting down the back of my throat and I had to spit out snot. That was mostly the bad kind of gross. But overall, I am pleased. I do feel better able to breathe through my nasal passages and feel they were very well cleaned and irrigated.

I'm a member of this awesome co-ed fraternity now: Alpha Alpha Alpha. They're really into travel, and they'll help you out anywhere if your car dies, and all sorts of places give you discounts if you tell them you're a member. AAA loveeeeee!!!

After spending way too much time and energy insuring my new car (have I mentioned lately I love my new car? I don't think I have. I love my new car.) I was getting renters insurance through AAA because they were significantly cheaper than anywhere else and my dad decided I needed renters insurance. Then the AAA insurance guy asked me about my car insurance and blah blah blah now I am paying a lot less and I trust AAA more than the no-name company I ended up with before. So that was all good insurance news, even though I spent a very long time going through the different quotes and people and things.
After the fiasco with my old health insurance, I decided to get new health insurance. Pay more and make sure everything was covered. I did lots of shopping around for that, filled out the application online, answered more questions over the phone last week when they called to clarify certain things about my health and insurance history, and told my mother every other day that no I hadn't heard back from the health insurance people yet. Well, the same day all my other insurance got happy, I got rejected from the health insurance. Probably because of my migraines (yes, they can do that), in which case I just need the letter to show up here that states they rejected me due to medical history and I can apply for the Illinois Lame People Insurance, but (and here is the moral of the story so I will bold it) Why is it so fucking difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to insure our health and property to a safe, legal, minimal standard?

My migraine has been much better behaved and I was all ready to do an I Love Topamax dance, then the weather shifted and it kicked my ass. Maybe less so, I'm not sure. It was a few days of bad that I first thought were the result of chocolate and didn't know what to do if it turned out chocolate was my trigger, but then I went outside and it was very clearly the weird crazy weather shift shit that normally gets me. Now the weather is back to Standard Chicago Winter and I'm doing better and I want to register for classes and such, but I still don't have this crap figured out and I don't want the same thing to happen again and I don't quite know what to do about it all. My school starts really late, so I have a few weeks, but I don't know what monumental change will happen in those few weeks to make things any clearer.

To end on a positive note: I have an audition for Wheel of Fortune on Tuesday! I got an email saying I'd been selected for an appointment time to audition for the Chicago taping of College Week! So excited!

and then it was 2008

I spent New Years in a ballgown* in the international terminal of O'Hare airport. On purpose.

After three weeks with his girlfriend in Florida, NBF's flight was scheduled to arrive at 11:25 PM on New Years Eve. Had I not seen the sign for the airlines when I dropped him off, I wouldn't have believed his domestic flight was really going in and out of the international terminal or that this "discount carrier" actually existed.
With all my recent migraine hell, I wasn't going to make any big booming New Years plans, and my one other big non-booming NYE possibility fell through, so I agreed to pick up NBF so long as I was physically capable of driving. A week of my family mostly behaving themselves and then an energy jolt from being back at my apartment again put me on enough of an upswing that I even drove to Target in a snow storm hoping they had better evening gloves.
I put on my funky Jessica McClintock ballgown and did my hair and make-up and packed a bag with:

• cheap champagne flutes and cheap champagne to match
• sparkling blood orange cranberry juice for my new booze-free self
• marijuana as my partying alternative, packed neatly into my first aid kit because I think it's both appropriate and funny
• cherries, because I had them in the fridge and they were portable and delicious
• these Trader Joe's raspberry brie filo appetizer things that taught me 1) my oven has no temperature numbers on its knob 2) it still works and 3) so does my smoke detector.

I checked Imaginary Airline's Website before I left and discovered NBF's flight now wasn't getting in until 12:12 AM, so I took my time. My dress fell all the way to the floor and I thought about wearing my best snow boots, but ended up in my black dress boots as a compromise between form and function. I drove through what was crappy driving weather, but I was in no hurry and my new car is super comfortable with its seat warmers and anti-lock breaks and Garrison Keillor the radio and hardly any other cars on the road and everything so beautiful and still and white. I could have been miserable and cranky, but instead it was one of those strange moments of pure joy where you just have to laugh at the beauty and perfection and ridiculousness of it all.**
Garrison and I counted down at midnight on the exit ramp to Terminal 5. In a ballgown. In the snow.
Terminal 5 parking is entirely outdoors. I found a spot right by the entrance, grabbed the champagne and food, lifted my dress above the sludge, and went in.
The terminal was warm and almost empty. I put my coat and purse and food down on some seats near the middle and wandered back and forth within 20 feet of my little "base camp." The monitor still said the flight was due in at 12:12. A man slept on a few seats nearby. I wondered if he'd missed the new year. A man and a woman stared at me. I smiled. After all, I was wearing a ballgown. Another man walking passed, also staring, said, "I'm sure whoever you're here to meet will be very happy; you look wonderful." I thanked him. I wanted to say, "Yeah, and the dickwad isn't even my boyfriend!" but I didn't.
I called my parents to wish them the obligatory Happy New Year. They were having fun with their annual party and my dad as drunk as he ever gets. We hung up and it was 12:24. I noticed a bunch of people over beyond where the bar was. I thought it was just restrooms back there and the bar was closed, but maybe there was something going on. A champagne toast? People coming out of the flight?
I picked up my stuff and walked over. Heads turned. I felt like a warped version of Cinderella walking into the ball, except this turned out to be a solitary "domestic baggage claim" in the international terminal and the closest thing to Prince Charming didn't even notice until I was right next to him.
We waited at least half an hour for the bags to come out. Another hour driving home in the snow, counting down with NPR to New Years on the west coast. Then I ate all but one of the brie things, we drank our respective sparkling beverages, smoked a bowl, and he and the dog fell asleep while I lay awake and convinced myself I knew what he was thinking and overthought every turn of his head and move of his arm for at least an hour before finally passing out myself.



*Ballgown is now one word because I think it should be.
**C.S. Lewis talks about those a lot in the appropriately titled Surprised By Joy. They're like microbursts of happiness. When I try to explain them, some people know exactly what I'm talking about, some smile and nod, and others think I'm crazy. I consider them much more logical than and a welcome balance to bouts of depression and sadness. Why is unprovoked sadness common but unprovoked happiness crazy?