Countess

I went to a psychiatrist for the first time in a few years. No more Effexor! Yay! Switched back to Prozac (which worked well for me back in 2000ish) as of today, plus he's going to talk to my neurologist about just how high and terrible my stroke risks are to see if I can get on birth control after all. I still think birth control would help all kinds of non-pregnancy-related things in my body, like the friggin' ovarian cyst that I had and my evil evil periods and my migraines in general and my cyclical swinginess.

He asked me about the last time I was happy. I have happy moments and hours and days all the time. Then he asked me the last time I was happy for a whole week. Um, summer of 1999? And even that's questionable. I also think I sound like the whiny over-privileged child of a doctor and a social worker with no valid reason for a lifetime of negativity. Then again, that's a very negative thought and doesn't help matters.

I have been feeling better emotionally this past week, for whatever reason. I camped out at NBF's for a number of days with ouchy brain, this time prepared with clean underwear and plenty of my medication. I've been to the gym five times since I joined January 31 and that's certainly helping emotional matters, since it's a place I can go and I only have to be a certain level of functional and I don't have to talk to anybody but I can if I want to and then I get to feel all pleased with myself for having gone to the gym and doing something productive and self-lovey. One of the boy people who works there (I've only actually seen him twice) is cute and sarcastic and makes me a little girl-stupid, but in a good way.

There's another maybe boy who clearly likes me a lot and/or really wants to get in my pants and I'd love to say more here about him but I don't actually know who reads this thing anymore and I don't want to hurt anyone or anything along the way, so email me if you are a reality friend and entitled to details.

Head is pressury distracting hurty.

The whole "tackle the big projects first" thing does not work for me. I have to start off doing something that's technically somewhat productive but I don't mind doing to get myself geared up for real work and the "big" projects. I never was one to jump into pools, but rather start with my toes and slowly lower myself in as I got comfortable until I was ready to duck my head under.
Yay ten billionth water metaphor.

Anyway, now I tackle. Or, more acurately, begin dipping until I am ready to tackle. But just writing is a start for me, and I made myself a headache journal template so it's easy and has exactly what I personally need to track. Two semi productive things! (cue thunder crack and Count Von Count cackle).

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?

sunshine and soreness

My personal trainer kicked my ass today. I have the weakest arms ever. He's awesome, though. Good at the whole encouragement thing and such. Says I should expect to be "sore but not immobile" by Saturday. I'll just have to play a boulder in every scene for my improv class.

Last night I finally interviewed SUC for my extremely overdue personality profile for magazine article writing. He's an extremely easy interview and an all-around swell human being. I kind of hope that now that I don't work for his girlfriend (and don't work as much in general) we'll actually hang out more often. I've been all stressed out about the fact that the article isn't done and I'm behind in that class. Then I got there today and it turns out most of the class is behind and missed last week, too. Awesome. So I may be a craptacular student, but I'm in good company.

Except in my creative nonfiction class. Everyone in there is very bright and on the ball. It's by far my favorite class. We have actual insightful discussions and hearing other people's work doesn't make me fear the future of humanity. The lowest caliber in there is like the high end of my other two classes. Too bad they can't all be like that.

One of my former college housemates became a father yesterday. It's weird enough to have a peer with a kid, but the fact that it's this particular guy makes me feel preemptively sorry for his daughter. He doesn't understand girls and tends to think of them as second-class citizens. A lot of it is his upbringing. Hopefully having a girl will teach him that the entire gender isn't useless.

Off to tutoring. It should be called "writing therapy." I like it much.

Just Do(ing) It

I actually wrote fiction tonight in my fiction class. Like the real made-up storytelling kind that isn't a dream or just me being obnoxious. Though there's no real story there yet and I don't know where it's going and it may be total crap, I feel like I've crossed some sort of barrier.

One of the idiots in my class showed up completely baked out of his mind. What an asshole. You could watch the cloud of stoned-ness slowly lift over the course of the four hour class until by the end he could actually respond to what was going on around him. I hope to hell our teacher has words with him, but I know he won't.

Even though I missed last week's class, I made sure to get this week's assignment and turned it in and did my reading. Apparently a lot of people were sick, but I was the only one who even contacted the teacher. Of the 8ish people who were in class, two did the reading. So now we have to write reading responses every week to prove we're doing it. Pain in my ass, and I actually have been keeping up. You know you're truly at Clown College when I am the best student in class. And a goodly portion of my classmates can't construct a proper sentence. It's one thing to choose to use improper English, but entirely another when subject-verb agreement randomly falls apart throughout the story.

I was poking around the Lean Cuisine website and they have this free fitness and diet tracker thing, so I spent way too much time putting in my information and everything I ate in the past two days and my lovely 15 minutes of treadmill time tonight (thanks to a stop at my landlord's office to drop off rent checks, that was as long as I had before my class). We'll see how long I keep up with entering my info, but my doctors have been after me forever to track what I eat (migraines and weird allergy stuff) and the website makes it somewhat more amusing.

Everything half-melted today. The break from the cold was nice, but this city looks very ugly under a puddle of dirty, melting snow. Worth noting.

guide me

No internet at my apartment. Can't figure out why, but it is annoying. I am at school. I have now had all of my classes. I am amazed by the low expectations that pretend to be high expectations here. Read 40 pages, write a few pages. That's considered "heavy" for a week per class. I think back to a certain other school I attended and imagine some of my new classmates being swallowed alive. I look like the annoying over-achiever here. I keep telling everyone that I'll drop a class if it gets to be too much for me, but yeesh.

I am hungry and need to find a bank and a bit of food before waddling my ass over to the gym. The personal trainer will be there and I plan to bug the hell out of him and learn how to be in-shape and sexy as hell. I went to the gym briefly yesterday but felt lost as to what to do, so I used the eliptical thing for 20 minutes and left. I think I'm just in a universal "guide me!" phase. I'll even listen and take your advice (at least a little bit).