My stomach has been very cranky for almost two weeks now with no other symptoms. I'm not sure if I'm reacting to the Activia stuff or if I have an ulcer or what. But it's being weird gassy stabby a lot and it is not comfortable.

I've been writing a lot all weekend and even more today. I have a big thing due in fiction tonight that I'm not happy with at all yet, but I also brought a number of other things I've been writing for that class to a place where I am significantly happier.

TUMMY SHUT UP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

BBC story

I think this is fabulous, though I'm currious about how the goat feels.

wake up

My landlord (or actually and agent of my landlord, since my landlord is a large company) just woke me up at 8 am on a Saturday morning to serve me a written notice that my rent is overdue. I thought I'd mailed it. This is something I have a lot of trouble with: paying bills that require a physical check to be mailed every month. It's why I have everything else set up with direct debit and I rely a lot on my Microsoft Money. When I was working at the theater I would hand deliver the rent on my way to work, which helped a lot, but now I'm never over there and here I am screwing up again. I don't know why this is so hard for me, but it's like there is a piece missing from my brain. Now I've got to go down to the office today to hand deliver it because I think three weeks is late enough. Ugh. Not a nice way to wake up.

I am hanging my little white head in shame. I'm trying to write this "updated folktale" for my fiction class, and it's based on an old Yiddish folktale that I am resetting on the South Side of Chicago. The adaptation is going quite well, but there's a part where I need this wise old grandmother character to tell a story within the story, and I can't get her voice for shit. So I actually emailed a sort-of-friend of mine from my magazine class who is a very decent writer and grew up on the south side and begged for help. From now on, you can call me Whitey McJew-Cracker. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go scorn people with any trace of melanin.

nerding off

Facebook message I just sent the guy who bought me a drink at Nerd Dating last night:

God bless the internet and stalking made easy. It's a little creepy, really. I was sending [Friend of mine he knew in college] an email about a recent run-in with a mutual acquaintance of ours and the fact that I met "a guy named [Guy's Name]" who knew her peripherally at [College]. "A guy named [Guy's Name]" wasn't too specific, so I figured I'd do a cursory Facebook search of [College] grads named [Name] in the Chicago network. It took 12 seconds, and there you were. I feel like a stalker, but I'm telling myself that if I send you a message instead of quietly lurking on your profile, all creepiness will magically disappear. And please pardon the nose prints on the outside of your bedroom window--I forgot to bring my windex.

I think I'm soooo funny.
In sober retrospect, last night was fun. I'm incredibly proud of myself for going a) at all and b)alone after my stylist ditched out on me. I did respectably well but lost twice at Balderdash. There were a good number of non-creepy intellectual nerds, most of which were surprisingly not all computer-science-types. The guys came alone and the girls came in pairs. I'd say the average male age was five years older than the average female age and a number of the guys were lurky nerds, but there were a few who seemed completely decent. All in all, I'm glad I went, even if I didn't end up engaged to someone who legally changed his last name to "Skywalker."

I crashed tonight from around 7-11 PM. Now I have writing to do for tomorrow, so as long as I'm up, I'll try to do it now.

over the outfluence

I'd swear my life over to a regimen of pill-popping uppers and downers if I thought it would make any difference. But a day like today, during which I stayed consistently conscious from 8:45 AM onward and partook of a bit too much tequila starting around 8 PM, proves that my body likes to be awake between midnight and 4 AM, regardless of its activities and consumed substances leading up to that point.

I went Nerd Dating. It was fun. I'll be better able to quantify and quality the fun tomorrow, when booze buzz will no longer be a factor, but I played Balderdash twice and a cute intellectual nerd type boy bought me a drink.

Ok, sleeping is not working, but apparently writing isn't either. I'll just drink my delicious but scary green superfood sludge and stare at the dog until I have to get up and go to class.

If the KKK got its own Ben and Jerry's flavor, I think it would be called White (Chocolate) Supremacy.

Apparently, I missed the internet so much that I had to do stupid crap on it until 3:40 AM. I am a dumbass.

crunchy time

I am taking the Activia challenge, which sounds much more impressive and proactive than it is. All it means is that I'm eating an overpriced yogurt every day for two weeks and hoping it makes my digestive system less fucked up.

I need more hours in a day. I finished my taxes but I have to go mail them and I haven't gone to the Verison store to deal with my phone yet, and my class starts in two hours. Perhaps more would have been accomplished had I not fallen back asleep for three hours this afternoon, but I'm back on the caffeine and haven't had my fix today. And my dog is in uber-whiny mode, which is a shame because he's just so cute and we had several good walks yesterday.

My internet is back up in my apartment, but I'm afraid to say anything lest I jinx it.

Sunny sent me this. Now I have to get married like 7 times.

phoney

My phone is now completely and totally dead. This was the new phone as of Christmasish. The part where the charger is supposed to plug in is busted so it won't charge. Yes, that's the same thing that happened to the last one. It was nice for a little while today, feeling free of the cell tether, but around 8 PM with no internet in the apartment or anything, I had myself convinced there were grave emergencies I'd learn of "too late" with no outside contact. So here I am at the internet cafe, which is brilliantly open until midnight. I need to not stay that long, though, since I want to hit the grocery store and I'm behind in my writing assignments for Fiction I and need to get up early tomorrow morning if I'm going to go to the Verison store and figure out the phone thing. I growl and gnash my teeth.

I should have more to say, but right now, I don't.

invisible forces

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
I think I am being stalked by an invisible force field of electromagneticstaticradio waves that is messing with my head and all electronic devices I use. My phone currently holds its charge for about 30 minutes of conversation before its 12 seconds of warning and then shutting off mid-conversation. My computer refuses to work with any internet inside my apartment (even with the code from my neighbor, it works for about 4 minutes every three days) and also won't hold a charge for more than 20 minutes. The Einstein Bagels by my apartment that's supposed to have wireless also wouldn't work and the manager didn't know what I meant by the "access code," even when I used small, nontechnical words. My brain will not behave itself for more than a week at a time before it thwacks me with yet another spring weather/pressure/stress migraine. These things are making me crazy, and keeping me from you, my precious blog.

Updates on the things that need to be updated:
My magazine article writing professor failed me because I had a third absence. "No exceptions." I could have been in the hospital and she still would have failed me. Cunt. Now I have to see if I can withdraw from the class so it doesn't show up on my transcript as an F. If I take it again, the F goes away in my GPA but not on my transcript. Not that anyone will look at my transcript and one F among many As is fairly explainable, but I'm ticked. Everyone in the fiction department was shocked and appalled at the stringency of her absence policy, but that's why I'm spending the rest of my college career in the fiction department and telling the journalism department to suck it. That and the fact the journalism department is significantly weaker and full of idiots. Suck it, Trebek.

I went to New York. It was much fun. We went to the Met and saw Les Mis and ate lots of good food and I saw Birdy and met Inri (for about 20 minutes before I passed out from food/wine/long day coma) and the airport was full of Jews going to Passovers.

Since New York, my life has been: sleep, write, eat, watch TV, poke dog, repeat.

Yeesh, so many things I must do while I have internet. I am very dependent on it these days. Butt.

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?

shoot me in the head

Can't sleep. I crashed last night just after 8 PM and woke up just after 10 PM and have been awake ever since. It is now 8 AM. Not cool. I was stressing out about stuff I have to write for school, but I've now done all but the profile of SUC (it's refusing to write itself) and a 500 word piece for my magazine writing class that requires me to do an interview tomorrow night. Or technically tonight now, since I guess it's officially Wednesday. I've even written all the questions for it already. And I read everything I'm supposed to have read for all of my classes up through the end of the week. And I still can't sleep. The back of my throat is all itchy and now I'm getting a little sniffly, too. Perhaps I am allergic to being awake all night. I'm giving in and taking a half-dose of generic NyQuil. I should have done my 30 minutes of cardio like I was supposed to, but the gym is oh so far away and it seems silly to go down there just for a half an hour's worth of activity.

La la la shoot me in the head please. Maybe if I print up my papers and pack my bag for school and pick out clothes for the day I will be able to fall asleep in time to wake up again. SHOOT ME IN THE HEAD.

The Shedd Aquarium is the Greatest Thing Ever

First draft of a piece written for my creative nonfiction class:

For me, the Shedd aquarium has a theme song: “Age of Aquarius” from “Hair,” but the word “Aquarius” is replaced with “Aquarium.” I go bounding up the stairs to the Shedd, singing to my self (and anyone I’ve dragged with me) “This is the dawning of the age of aquarium, age of aquarium, aquariuuuuuum!”

When I moved back to Chicago after an unfortunate five year stint in Ohio, I refused to pay for cable or a land-line phone, but quickly shelled out the $70 aquarium individual member fee. I like going when there is a line to get in. My membership card allows me to march past the stressed-out tourists with my smug sense of ownership and native superiority. I show my card at the desk and they hand me my round blue sticker with that all-important word: “Member.” When people point it out later that night I laugh with mock embarrassment, pretending that I just forgot to take it off. But really, I’m wearing it as a badge of honor.

The main hall of the Shedd is shaped like an octopus with the Caribbean reef is at its center. I like to find Nickel, the resident sea turtle with buoyancy problems. She was rescued with a nickel in her stomach after being mauled by a powerboat and now hangs out under the fake coral to avoid floating upward, tail first, at random intervals.

When I was little, the side halls had giant sea creatures hanging from the ceiling. I realize now that they were fake, but a mean-looking squid and a huge, angry red octopus with suction-cup arms probably started my fear of evil tentacled sea-things. Anemones don’t have mouths but can eat fish, so those freak me out, too. As do the eels, though the huge one in the Caribbean reef tank is pretty cool. The only reason it looks green is that it’s covered in yellow mucus and viewed through blue water.
Nothing covered in boogers can be that scary.

When I moved back to Chicago, the aquarium had an extra floor called the Wild Reef. Some people make the mistake of hurrying past most of these downstairs exhibits to get to the sharks, but they miss a lot. There’s a big tank that has a watery pathway overhead, thus requiring me to stand below it and say “Hey, look, I’m under water.” This is extremely clever every time I say it.

I point out the frog fish to everyone I can. Right before the shark tank and easily overlooked, they are the weirdest, most amazing creatures ever. They look remarkably like coral, with big lumpy bodies the color and texture of their surroundings. Most of the time they sit very still so finding them is a game, but if you are fortunate enough to watch them move, they use their flipper-like fins to push off surfaces in a motion that is simultaneously clumsy and graceful.

And then you reach the sharks. They are huge. Some look exactly how you’d expect sharks to look. Some look like half-shark, half-ray. There’s even a saw-nosed shark, but I have only seen her once. It was my third trip to the tank, and while I’d heard she was in there, she had a tendency to lurk towards the bottom and the back. But one day, there she was, swimming right across the front of the tank in full view. I stood in slack-jawed awe as those around me with better reflexes snapped pictures on their cell phones. I wish I’d gotten a picture to prove her existence, since I haven’t seen her since, but I tell everyone I can that she is in there and I have seen her.

As if in answer to the tank of the “under water” joke, the rays hang out in a tank under the floor with a glass top. Little kids and I run into each other as we try to follow the path of a specific ray.

Back up the elevator and then down the stairs to the back the odd sensation of sunlight welcomes you to the Oceanarium. I remember my first school field trip to the Oceanarium. It was a big deal when the Shedd created this massive addition, and they had a dolphin show, which is fascinating to any 8-year-old girl. It was way cooler than the one at the Brookfield zoo, and they had so many more animals. These days, I shrug off the dolphins to go laugh at penguins trying to jump around their rock formation and squawk at one another before gracefully diving into the water and zipping past in circles.

I never cared much about the belugas until I learned about the pregnancy early last year. Now, the aquarium has a second theme song - Rafi’s Baby Beluga - and I follow the calf’s progress like most people stalk celebrities. I watched it go from a lump in its mother’s belly to a small gray turd occasionally heading up for air to a molting gray turd nursing from its mother to a beluga whale in with all the others, only slightly smaller and darker. The Shedd just announced another pregnancy - same father, different mother. Move over, Britney and Kevin - I will continue to get my gossip under water.

Realizing it was already February and the visiting komodo dragon and lizard exhibit were scheduled to leave distressed me greatly. Sure, I loved the aquarium before the lizards, and I certainly would continue to love it once they were gone, but they were the sprinkles on my happiness sundae. I did a report on the green iguana in third grade and wanted one as a pet ever since. Then I met Faust. Faust is the komodo dragon hanging out at the Shedd. Most people have to pay extra to see him, but I get to waltz past with my member sticker. He is seven feet long with venomous spit, so even if he doesn’t swallow you whole (which he could) you probably won’t survive his bite. Yet he has been raised in captivity and will come rest his head on the laps of his favorite keepers. Move over pet iguana, I clearly need a komodo dragon. And great news! He and his lizard friends are staying at least until summer 2008.

My membership is about to expire, but while NPR and starving children throughout the world vie for my checkbook, my aquarium membership goes in the category of required expenses alongside rent and groceries. Because, really, is there anything more awesome than the aquarium? [sung:] Aquariuuuuuuum!

Freaky-deaky-dog

Things that freak out my dog:

1. People who aren't me
2. Dogs who aren't him
3. Noises that make him think that either of these will infiltrate his space
4. Life
5. The universe
6. Everything else

Those of you who know my dog know that I am not exaggerating. But I love him ever so much, so he is on my lap shaking while I try to finish writing things for class tonight. My fiction story lacks a story and sounds like the same mediocre drivel everyone writes. I'd set it on fire, but I'm better off turning it in.

Now how am I supposed to negotiate going to the bathroom with Clingdog stapled to my lap? Where's my staple remover?

la-dee-da, la-dee-da

Today was a narcoleptic day. Clearly about to be "that time of the month." I had 40 pages left to read in In Cold Blood, but I kept falling asleep reading so it took all day. I have a few other things I have to read for various classes this coming week, and a bunch of stuff I have to write: SUC's personality profile, the rest of the story I started last week in Fiction I, a response to some piece of reading from Fiction I, a front of the book article suitable for Time Out Chicago, and finish up this thing on the aquarium. The fiction stuff is due tomorrow, so that should get priority, but I tend to prioritize based on muses instead of due dates. Maybe not the best idea.

Friday NBF and I went to my parents' for dinner. Beef brisket and egg noodles and shabbat made for a very jewy evening, but considering NBF lived with Jews for awhile (Birdy's family), it was familiar for him, too. And our dogs came. Both of them. They passively accept one another, though we've had to be very careful and vigilant because his normally sweet and agreeable dog gets aggressive when provoked, and my dog is very good at growling when approached by other dogs, people, etc. But it worked and my brother absolutely adored NBF's dog (as was expected) and my dad went back and forth between playing with NBF's dog and taking to, feeding, and sitting with my dog. My dad is extremely cute. Over the years he's "mellowed out" while my mom has gotten more intense, and I've grown to appreciate a number of his traits I used to find difficult and annoying.

It's funny, but for my general pessimistic outlook on life, I'm a bit of an optimistic dreamer when it comes to Love. Mind you, I've got rationalizations for all of my optimisms, but it's one of those areas where I plan to be the exception to the rule. I will be the writer who makes it and the girl who is in a mutually beneficial and love-based relationship with a boy. NBF believes that women are more trouble than they are worth and the best one can hope to find is a relationship akin to a positive merger, love being besides the point. But I will keep jumping up and down and insisting that he is wrong and just bitter due to his still-raw divorce wounds and limited personal experience. People can both love and like one another and even if it isn't eternal it's a good thing while it lasts and totally worth it. Or so I would very much like to believe.

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.

Huzzah!

The dog meeting was a success! Not that they're going to be best friends or anything, but they passively accepted one another and the barking was extremely minimal. My dog mostly hung out under NBF's bed while he kept his dog on his lap. The next great test will be driving out to my parents' house on Friday. Keep your paws crossed.

Thing I really want to say to my mother but won't:
"You know, Grandma went crazy when she went through menopause, too."

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.

The Sads, The Happenings, The Dogs, and The Food

Depression is very strange. It's like having allergies, only triggers tend to be situational instead of tangible and cause persistent sadness instead of persistent rash. It might be funnier if the two ailments switched effects. Like if ragweed, cats, and peanuts made people tearful and removed while unrequited love and frustration with life caused swelling and congestion.

Also interesting to note: when I get like this, all I want to write about is being like this. You'd never know that I was still having a regular life outside of the sulking. Like tonight was the close of the show at my work and my boss's last night before she goes to her new better job. There was a party, with lots of fried food (including the best twice baked potato skin thingies I've ever had) and an open bar that I didn't have to work so I got to actually be a part of the party. One of the bar regulars who's on crew is a notorious flirt and, while I like him, I'm never sure how sincere he is about anything. But he also seemed to notice my fake smile and localized rain clouds and, while I pretended nothing was wrong, he made a concerted effort to cheer me up and provided numerous non-flirty (and therefore acceptable and reassuringly sincere) hugs. It was nice.

Tina quit yesterday. I wasn't surprised, since she's said for ages she only stayed on because of our boss. Still, really sad. She's fabulous. We (Tina, my now ex-boss and I) have tentative plans to go shopping in the next few weeks. But it's the end of an era. Yes, 5 months can be an era. That may be a big piece of The Funk.
Another big piece of The Funk is my frustration with my own terrible study skills. I'm reading all my class material, but I missed two classes last week for stupid reasons and the assignment that was due last Thursday still isn't done. I'm making excuses. I need to just fucking do it. There is no good reason it isn't done. And yet, it isn't done and I'm sitting here mad at myself for not doing it and continuing to not do it. Another assignment has been carried around in my bag for a week. It's not a big deal that it isn't in, and there is a fairly logical reason why, but its presence in my folder keeps hissing at me "You're a terrible student/person." And the pile of shit that is my apartment has grown overwhelming again. As for that, I think I'm just going to call the cleaning service and have them come on Tuesday whether or not I've done any cleaning myself first. Fuck embarrassment. It needs to happen. Perhaps I'll schedule weekly cleanings on my first call (as I was supposed to do when I was given the service as a present last May) until I find some sort of rhythm to the organizing and removal of garbage myself. Because that's something I haven't managed yet in the year and a half I've lived here.

Also in the works: the meeting of NBF and my dogs. NBF's dog is friendly and loves other dogs. My dog tends to freak out at other dogs. My dog will be muzzled. I've been working on getting him used to wearing the muzzle in comfortable situations (for an hour or two around the house, on a walk, etc.), and then perhaps they can meet in my car, where my dog tends to be happiest and least territorial. I would love for my dog to be able to have a doggie friend. I feel terrible that he doesn't. He has me. He sort-of has my parents. That's it. Everyone else he hates and/or is terrified of. It's a sad little doggie existence.

I can't tell if I'm hungry or not. I think I am. I went grocery shopping today and stocked up on Lean Cuisines (they were on sale, so my freezer is completely packed yet again). My favorite soup (Campbell's Chunky Turkey Pot Pie) was not on sale, so I only got a few, but I may eat one now because I feel like comfort food.

If you just read all that, you deserve a cookie. It probably should have gone in my paper journal instead of on the blog, and I'd delete it, but eh.

Gettin' Funky: A Choose Your Own Adventure

I'm still in my funk. But how does one best deal with funk? Here are the candidates:

A) Fight the funk
Course of action: Get out as much as possible. Keep busy. GoGoGo!
Pros: Productive and distracting, could be I just need jump-starting to get away from the funk altogether.
Cons: Problem? There's no problem! I am fine. LALALA don't you DARE tell me otherwise.

B) Live the funk
Course of action: Crawl into bed whenever possible, read and write and watch tv a lot, snuggle dog
Pros: I tend to get more writing done within the funk, and perhaps accepting while it's here is the key to eventually moving on instead of digging myself deeper with the whole feeling-guilty-for-feeling-bad thing.
Cons: Wallowing in self-pity is not generally recommended, could mean I just stay stagnant in the rut

C) Funky waffle
Course of action: Crawl into bed but feel guilty for not doing something else and get mad at myself thus paralyzing me further.
Pros: I'm already doing it, a good use for maple syrup
Cons: Makes me really miserable really fast and oh the guilt the guilt the guilt!

So, what to do? You tell me. Until then, I'll be in bed with a side of hash browns.

oh my GOD it's HIDDEOUS!

Today was not the sort of day I like to have. Yesterday was nice and involved lots of quality time with NBF, but then today was one for that dark nasty swamp-monster of self-hate and self-doubt. He was a very destructive monster, too, feeding off all the things I knew I should be doing while I sat in bed being useless. Weren't we going to avoid the whole depression thing this go-round of school? Apparently the swamp monster did not get the memo. Or maybe he can't read and is too embarrassed to tell anybody. Poor swamp monster. After all, he's born of a sad heart. That's why I can't get rid of him. All my tools are head tools. I am very good with the head tools. But heart tools, not so much. My heart is an autistic child, being beaten by a swamp monster, no less. Poor autistic child. I imagine my innards are going through the scene from Frankenstien where the monster drowns the little girl, not out of maliciousness, but out of misunderstanding.

Thank goodness for warm loving dogs and warm loving friends who even love me when I'm crying and talking about monsters.

!Que terrible!

Why am I such a terrible:

a) student?
b) person?

blergmuffin

Blah. Snowed in and writing things and reading things for school. I'm a terrible student. Yesterday NBF and I spent four hours doing an errand that would have taken an hour tops had I not gone the most roundabout way possible and then gotten us lost. I called my mom for help finding the address and a map online and she immediately started in on her "this is what you should have done and clearly you are a terrible excuse for a human being for not having done such things" shit. I was just glad to have NBF there so I didn't have to kill anyone. The weather has me in a bit of a daze but I'm restless and have so much to do because I haven't done it and I'm trying to do things well instead of just getting them done, which is both good and bad. There are many other things from the past several days I should write about, but instead I'm going to curl up and read for class and/or play monopoly on my cell phone for a few hours break and then re-attempt to write the things that I have to turn in tomorrow.

Brain too boogery to think up title

Sick sick sick. I'd almost defeated The Cold, but yesterday was The Gala at work and 13 hours of stress and smiling did me in. Now I'm dying again and I absolutely can NOT miss class tomorrow and have more I have to do tonight but I feel like total crap. I need to move into a bubble. Why am I such a pathetic sickly person? It makes it that much harder for me to be a good student.

My dog is trying to lick all the germs off of my face. He is very sweet and snuggly, though earlier today he made the worst noise ever when his paws froze up outside and I started to pick him up and he flopped down in an icy puddle. Now I need to walk him to empty him out for the night but he just wants to be a warm little ball of snuggles and is showing no interest in going anywhere.

One of my creative nonfiction classmates is trying to steal my phone sex story. She emailed me asking if she could interview me for a "day in the life" article for her feature writing class. I asked my teacher if I was out of line in saying no, that I was already working on the story myself, and he (my teacher) declared that what she (my classmate) was doing was total bullshit and he'd talk to her about it if I wanted him to. I said I could handle it, and I think I did, but it was good having validation that she was just ripping off my idea and I wasn't being a jerkface in refusing to give her an interview.

Sneeze sneeze snort hack cough sniffle snort.

I am an ass

I woke up randomly at 4 AM with this idea in my head. It's for my fiction class. I guess my motto is "If you can't join 'em, beat 'em." Either that or "If you can't beat 'em, beat yourself."

The Fiction Mine

The walls were thick with mealy-mouthed adjectives. We’d jumped into this dank dark pit together, though certainly not as one, our leader crying, “See the stars and count them! We’ll all go on three! Ready? One…two…three!” I plummeted in with the group, though I’d only counted one star - it was noon and the sun was blazing. It was bright and real and obvious, not to mention the center of my universe, so perhaps that was worth triple.

The pit itself was shallow, an easy downward fall, though too steep to climb back out. Before my eyes had time to adjust to the darkness, my comrades had already started grabbing slimy, scaly fistfuls of adjectives from the walls and stuffed them into their sacks. I felt for my sack. It was full of words I’d brought from home, but apparently the wrong kind. Everyone else seemed too busy with their own harvests to notice, but I tried to squish my personal stash into something that resembled what I thought the walls must look like. The adjectives hissed and gnarled and gnashed their teeth, and a few even sang out in song. I could hear them oozing through the fingers of the others, and their muffled cries as they were forced down indiscriminately into sacks.

I crawled on my hands and knees over to the wall. Maybe I just was being stubborn; maybe I didn’t want to get dirty. I reached out and plucked a single adjective. It was already dead and not going anywhere, so I rolled it around in my hand. It reminded me of the caterpillars that took over one summer at camp. The caterpillars were
non-indigenous parasites and I had a vegetarian biology-nut friend who took every opportunity to kill them with her shower shoes. They weren’t very colorful on the outside, but when you squished them they made a popping sound and oozed magenta and bright green like the aliens they were. Now, I squeezed my caterpillar adjective, and POP! There it went, swirling colors and all.

“Time’s up, everybody!” bubbled our leader, setting up a ladder for us to re-ascend. “Now take out your adjectives and sort through them.”

I looked down at my deformed words from home and the red-green stain on my hand, hung my head, and cried.

Chicago Brrrs

I am a bad person because I am glad the Bears lost the Super Bowl. Not that I have anything against the Bears or for the Colts, but Chicago had gone completely insane. Bars were hiring Lovie Smith look-alikes in the middle of the week as some sort of attraction. The downtown skyline was littered with orange and blue lights and entire buildings lit up to say things like "Bear down Bears." Even the alternative radio station was making Bears comments between songs. Sports apathy is hard enough to pull off in this city when all our teams suck. Any more Bear-mania and I would have had to start wearing pink. And I HATE pink.

I am typing with gloves on. It is not easy, as these are fuzzy gloves, but it is very cold in my apartment (even with the radiators going) and even colder outside. I can't think in this weather. I just want to sleep. Besides, I'm sick and freezingness does not help. I should be writing my stuff for class for both tomorrow and Wednesday, since Tuesday is the big gala event at work and I will be running my ass off all day and night. My nose gets very cold. I should knit myself some sort of nose-warming garment. Or just bury my face in my dog. Yay warm dog.

HealthWatch

In case you were wondering or worried, I am not getting sick. Nope. Absolutely not. Not allowed. And I figure adding vodka to my orange juice means the vitamin C will help my imune system while the alcohol will kill all the germs. Right? Of course right. Now where are my friggin' glasses so I can take out my contacts?

This sucks. Period.

I need to be back on the pill. I am in the process of losing today to my period. It is completely kicking my ass. I'm pukey-crampy and horizontal and I was up and ready to go to class this morning but was having too much trouble staying standing and not gagging. It's too early in the semester for me to have missed a class. Not ok. Not happy. Ouchy ouchy ouch ouch.

No more working Tuesday nights. I still have to write my personal essay for class tomorrow and it needs to accomplish a whole lot but I'm useless thanks to work. Fuck work. Work needs to suck it long and hard and then get punched in the face and beat down with big clubs with spikes in them.

shitty shitty bang bang

Dear Fiction teacher,

How much longer do we have to write trite, overly descriptive shit? Because
it is making me cranky.

I got about four lines into my in-class writing assignment today before I had to stop it and just start bitching in my journal.

"Now see an object. How does it affect your space? Describe your space. What other objects might be there? What characters would be in this space? What conversations might they have? Now get to the moment when something happens. Write that moment. What part does the object play in this moment? What images can you use from our one-word exercise? Now get to the next moment...."

I feel like this is a very good way for a very specific type of person to do a very specific type of writing. Otherwise, it produces adjective-heavy pieces of crap that reek of the hyper-conscious efforts going into them. It kills any sense of individual voice or style and leaves behind contrived doo-doo.

I need a drink.

Logic 101

As inexplicably as it went away, my internet came back on. Huzzah.

I am too cold to do anything. I need to finish my dream story in time for class tonight, but my brain is frozen.

I've also come to the realization that I should drop my English department creative nonfiction class. They're planning to restructure the department next semester and split up the literature and workshop components of the class. If I wait a semester, it will be more likely to count towards either the new creative nonfiction major (which hopefully will exist as soon as they think it will) or as something more different from the class I have on Wednesdays. It's even on the one day I have two long-ass classes in a row, and would make my Mondays significantly more tolerable and give me plenty of time to go to the gym before class without waking up early and abandoning my dog for 13 hours. Also, it's only a three credit class and if I take tutoring for two credits instead of just one, I'll still be at the very respectable 14 credit hour mark. So why do I have to talk myself into this? Because everybody keeps telling me I'm crazy to take four writing classes and I kind of wanted to prove that I could do it. But I'm sure I could have done it, and that's not why I'm dropping what I'm dropping. It just doesn't make sense to keep it.

Why is it so fucking cold in here? Windows are closed and the radiator is on. This is unacceptable.

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).

You'll always be Husband #1 to me

I started school. Two classes today: Creative Non-Fiction a la English Department, and Fiction I. The creative non-fiction teacher seems fabulous and I think we are (pardon the pun) on the same page about the genre and the writing process in general. My fiction teacher kept saying "what do you see" in response to things, and I kept not seeing things because I am completely non-visual but that doesn't mean I can't have a descriptive response, just stop friggin' asking me to see. And he wants us to keep a paper journal - blogs don't count, and we're not even allowed to bring computers into class, which is frustrating for me because I write much better on a computer and we do a lot of writing in class. I'm not sure yet how I will negotiate between journal writing and blog writing since so much of it will be the same. Perhaps I'll have to start going to the journal first and then typing the relevant shit on here later. Still, it feels like having two husbands. My classmates (particularly in the Fiction class) seem to range from Fucking Idiots to Pretty Cool. But perhaps all these things are good in that they force me out of my comfort zone.

Maybe I'll say more about this shit tomorrow, but right now I'm just completely drained and gassy and borderline-incoherent, so I will drink my beer and pass out on my dog.

Children of Motion Sickness

Good day in improv class - I was "on" for once, instead of my usual mediocrity. Spent all day with people from class and went to a movie with Mr. Aluminum and another classmate I haven't really talked about before. He's a physical therapist from Miami with a "hey baby"/smooth operator/wheeler-dealer personality. The three of us saw Children of Men. I think I liked it, but there was a lot of slightly shaky camera work and a whole scene on a boat, so I was extremely motion sick through the second half of the movie and had to run to the bathroom to puke when it was over. Yes, I am extremely lame and should have been picked off by wolves years ago. I'm still moderately nauseous and will now crawl into bed and try to sleep it off before I have to be at work tomorrow by 8 AM. Bite me, 8 AM.

Lots of words without saying anything

I feel like whining. My body still hurts from yesterday's fall. The bruising on my knees is surprisingly minimal, but I seem to have pulled something in my back and my right arm and hand are distractingly sore.

Today I went laptop bag shopping with my mom and sister. I actually got them to come out to me, since I thought we'd have more luck at one of the many cute stores in my general area than we would out in the 'burbs. We went to over a dozen different places and saw many fabulous bags, but my stupid computer is too big. I was running around with a measuring tape and a sinking heart. I love my computer. That is why I want to bring her with me to school and around in general to do my writing. But with the wide screen, there is nothing that will accommodate her. In the end, I thought I found something that would be big enough, and it certainly was long enough, but I wasn't even thinking about the width. I'm going to try to return it tomorrow (assuming I get up before I have to leave for my improv class) and actually bring my computer with me this time and shove it in bags to see. Maybe I should just go online, but I like to try bags on because I am a small person and sometimes they look silly on me. My sister suggested I use the school's computers and just carry around a flash drive, but I tend to like to write in my own random found spaces and I write significantly faster (and frequently better) on a computer than I do by hand. It's kind of like my musical instrument or piece of sports equipment. Yes! It is my tennis racket and it needs a case. I am not going to leave my racket at home and use the ones at the club.

I'm making headway on my alcoholism. I've been keeping my fridge stocked with quality beer and drinking about one a night at home alone. Right now I'm enjoying The Poet oatmeal stout. If I am lucky, the alcohol content will be enough to counteract my deep dark nap I took around 7 PM. Not the smartest move on my part. Sunday I have to be at work by 8 AM. Giant piece of poop. I can't be on this weird schedule of half-sleeping through the night then crashing late evening. And then school on Monday. What are the odds I actually make it to all of my classes this time? I've been very good with my improv classes, so I'm hoping that will carry over. No more hiding in my room and refusing to shower or leave. That is not one of the seven habits of highly effective people; it is one of the habits of useless depressed people. I want to be effective, not useless.

I Georged one of the steaks from my freezer tonight. It sucked. I need to figure out the practicalities of snacking and shopping for Healthy Annabell, now that I am trying to be healthy. You know, aside from that whole alcoholism thing.

May I please go to sleep now?

Quills and Spills?

I spent today at Orientation Part II and running around the Nameless campus trying to finalize the things that must be final in time for me to start classes on Monday. I met one of my professors and the faculty people I talked to all seemed great, and I even met TWO administrative people who didn't completely suck and knew what they were doing and were able to solve my issues. And I am now actually excited about all of my classes. I'm taking not one but two creative non-fiction classes (one in the English Department, one in the Fiction Writing Department), Fiction I, and magazine journalism. I may be insane taking four intensive writing classes, but if I am going to be a writer I will need to be writing intensely, and this way I will have a good sense of which writing route I want to go by the end of my first semester, thus leaving me plenty of time to pursue whichever I choose.

On my way through the turnstile going into the El the heel of my very cute and only moderately impractical boots slipped on a wet patch and I went down, landing on my hands and knees and bumping my head on the turnstile. It sucked. I think I pulled a few somethings and bruised myself rather impressively. After I got myself up again the woman behind me pointed at my feet as if to say "that's what you get for wearing attractive shoes." I punched her in the face.

lower case

Thank you to all of my friends who have been there through the fits of Annabell's Dark Twin. I love you guys.

Last night I subjected NBF to Crying Self-Hating Annabell. We are at that point in our friendship when I try to scare him off by showing him all the ugliest versions of me. It's like I get to a certain level of closeness with a person and then I freak out and get antagonistic because I don't think I'm worthy of such friendships, but then the more the person doesn't mind my terrible horribleness the more I get clingy because they are clearly fabulous and antagonistic because I clearly don't deserve them. It's ridiculous. I hate myself for not liking myself better. How stupid is that? And then I get even more mad at myself because I know it's stupid so I should be able to stop it but I can't. If this friend person is a Boy it gets even worse. I'm too much a head-case to be this much a heart-case. I end up a basket-case.

On the plus side, self-hatred is a good quality to have in a writer, particularly the women. Name me one successful female author without a solid dose of self-loathing.

Evil creepy sadness is being evil and creeping up on me. Back, vile beast!

a-rest-ed

I put myself under house arrest today with the intention of cleaning. Actual cleaning done: I collapsed a few boxes and put a handful of gross things in a garbage bag. Otherwise, I spent the day watching movies and TV and knitting. But honestly, it was kind of a nice day if you ignore the whole nagging self-loathing for not being more productive. I like knitting and old detective movies and remembering why I don't miss TV. It's good to have a day off that isn't consumed by migraine.

Surrender, Dorothy

The other night I watched Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, and while it was not a very good movie, I am more convinced than ever that Dorothy Parker is my patron saint. From now on, I will refer to all the objects of my obsessive lustings after close platonic friends as "Benchleys."

I'm very frustrated at my lack of cleaning initiative. I had expected today to be my post-migraine manic energy rush and left my schedule clear so that I could clean and do laundry. I did pay some bills and do a necessary Target run, but otherwise I sat on my fat ass and then hung out with NBF for longer than intended. He's very much my Benchley Du Jour. I annoy the living hell out of myself when it comes to boys and Boys and such.

Into love, and out again,
Thus I went, and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen -
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Some one dropped me on my head?

(Dorothy Parker)

I'm somewhat terrified to start school. I've been trying very hard to get my schedule straightened out (let's just say Nameless College isn't very organized or good at communication). It doesn't help that with classes starting the 22nd it feels very soon but far enough away for me to worry and stew. I want to get my hair cut and have my apartment be extremely clean and organized before then, too, but I'm doing that great thing where I freeze up and just want to play stupid computer games and sleep and poke my dog because I'm too overwhelmed by the task at hand. If you saw my apartment, you too would be overwhelmed. I just have to remember that this is so I can write. I have a purpose this time - a stated goal. Take classes to write. Get the degree to write. Clean my apartment to create a more productive atmosphere in which to write. I need a motivational poster with a sunset or a cat or something. Or maybe a picture of my mother with the caption "Fuck her, this one's for ME." Dorothy Parker also kept a messy apartment and never graduated from a fancy college and loved dogs. She also tried to kill herself a number of times and was an alcoholic. So perhaps she isn't the best role model, but I like what she produced.

Here's a thought: maybe if I really do "do it all for the writing," that's why I'm drawn to the pained pining sort of "love" instead of anything more practical or obtainable. No one wants to hear about your non-dramatic content relationship. Boooring. But "Ay, me!" is the birth of so much poetry.

If I ever have a daughter, her middle name may have to be Dorothy. My grandma is Dorothy, as is Ms. Parker. I'd make it a first name, but it's too ugly.

The good, the bad, and the conventional

I feel that today can be most simply put in three categories:

THE GOOD

• I showed up to my orientation and it was completely irrelevant that I was late and unregistered
• I registered for classes that are to start the 22nd
• I got into the creative non-fiction workshop even though it was listed as full and I'd already resigned myself to having to wait to take it
• I talked with a transcript evaluator and got my accepted credits bumped up from the 55 they originally took to 75, and once they get my AP scores I should only have to take two science classes and a history class to complete my non-major requirements
• I mapped out a potential plan for my entire future college courses, earning a BFA in Fiction Writing with a Creative Nonfiction concentration, and it's comfortably do-able in two years (assuming they offer things I need during summer sessions)
• They gave us lunch when we picked up our IDs at the end of the day
• I think I'm actually excited to start my classes
• Lean Cuisines were on sale at Jewel for $2 each

THE BAD

• Between oversleeping and going to the wrong building 5 blocks away, I was half an hour late for orientation and missed the free breakfast
• I may have to take a bunch of really stupid basic journalism classes to get to the magazine writing classes. I'm willing to do it, but it fills up my schedule with lots of things I'd rather skip
• The advisors only knew their own departments, so my journalism questions remained unanswered
• I have to pay a $25 "archive retrieval fee" to the stupid College Board people because my AP scores are more than 4 years old
• The only other person my age at the orientation has a 4-year-old baby
• I still know nothing about my U-Pass, health insurance, or gym availability
• The guy at Dunkin Donuts gave me a free donut, which sounds like a good thing and was very nice but I'm trying to be healthier and I ate it which is not healthier
• My migraine is still lurking. Low-grade, but lurking

THE UGLY

• Since I significantly overslept, I didn't shower and my hair was a mess and I wore my glasses and looked like a complete schlep
• My ID photo. I looked crappier than I try to ever be in public, and then they took my picture for something I have to keep for the next two-ish years
• Your mom

Yes, this is my third post today.

Can't sleep. Head is still hurting, and I'm going to the fiction writing department's orientation tomorrow unannounced. One is supposed to have taken one's assessment tests (like to prove I don't need remedial math or English and hopefully get out of their "this is a computer...this is how to turn it on" class) before one's orientation. Because I got in oh so very last minute, there were no available dates to get "assessed" before the fiction orientation, so the online registration thing wouldn't let me RSVP to tomorrow's festivities. I instead RSVPed to Friday's journalism orientation with an assessment time on Tuesday and emailed the orientation people to find out what to do. Having not heard back, I'm just going to show up tomorrow (I mean, what better place to be at 8 AM on a Monday morning) and assume it will all work itself out. It usually does.

I just showered. That's a good sign for my crawling out of the migraine hole. My own stink was getting to me. I'll still shower in the morning, but I think the wafting stench is part of why I couldn't sleep on my first attempt. I'm also treating myself to some serious Biore stripping. I love these things. I'm attempting my greater cheek region for the first time. Those pores don't really looked clogged but they're quite big so we'll see. Be glad I don't have a digital camera with a really good macro lens because you know I would post the pictures of the gross little pore cloggies sticking up off the strip.

I owe people phone calls. I thought that's what this weekend would be for, but the migraine killed that plan. So people who know I should be calling: I haven't forgotten you.

canineopathy

According to my dog, the best cure for my migraine is for him to lick and paw at my face as much as possible and then hover over me possessively. I don't think it's working.

Brain, brain, go away

Come on, head, cut it out. I have a bar shift today. I like the bar shifts. I like money. I like not screwing over my coworkers. I also like not being in excruciating pain. I can think and do stuff right now, but not without feeling like someone nail-gunned my skull. And this one is in my neck and shoulders, too, which is very uncomfortable. Come on, drugs, do your magic already. This is day 2. Magic drugs should prevent day 2. There's no rain in the forecast, but I'm pretty sure it will rain, anyway. We're clearly between fronts and it's squishing my head. Grrr.

Not cancer

Not cancer. It was just a virus. So completely lame and crazy that there were two months of scariness and a nice scar for a virus that was no big deal. They need to figure out better faster ways of telling if things are cancer. I know too many people who have had fairly major surgery to remove things that turned out not to be cancer. For as advanced as modern medicine is in certain things, there are others that seem so Dark Ages. I have pictures of my brain but the only way to tell what anything unusual is made out of is to chop it open. We can prevent all sorts of diseases but not the common cold. We can save people from Cancer but it usually involves lots of radiation and hair loss and puking and general misery. Too bad I have no interest in pursuing medicine because humanity has so far to go and there are so many useful things waiting to be discovered. Instead, I just want to add to the global overstock of words and books. Laaame.

I'm having a migraine again. This weather may be nice and temperate for a Chicago January but the weird pressure changes (plus general life stress and last night's revelry with E*) do not make my brain very happy.

*E the person, not the illegal substance

some stress, some shopping

I'm in fight or flight mode. Some mixture of adrenaline and fear. Between finding out today if my friend has Cancer and spending last night figuring out that I may very well have more than two years of full-time school ahead of me, it's warranted. But no panicking. At this point, I really don't think it's cancer (does this mean I'm not emotionally prepared if it is?), and I may end up loving school once it's within my interests/life-passions/etc. And they have a science class that involves the aquarium as its lab component. I'm so taking that as soon as I can. It's the history requirements I'm dreading. That's the kind of class I hate most. Hopefully they will be significantly easy enough that I don't have to feel like I'm wasting too much of my time and energy because that makes me really cranky and shut down. But as for this semester, I kind of want to take one class in general fiction, one in playwriting, one in creative non-fiction, and one in journalism. It seems like a lot in the same vein, but if I end up going the magazine journalism path instead of the creative non-fiction path, I need to know that and start it ASAP as it's a program with a shit-ton of requirements I wouldn't otherwise take. They're useful classes for life (copy editing, trade magazine article writing, a grammar class), but if I'm being a more self-indulgent creative non-fiction person, I'm not likely to choose them. Thank goodness I'm being oriented next week so I don't have that long to stress over such decisions.

Yesterday was an extremely successful shopping day with my sister. I got: two sweaters, a pair of undies, a pair of brown boots I can wear with skirts (finally!), and a new grown-up winter coat. Today I will see how many of these things I can wear at once. Maybe not the two sweaters, but everything else is a maybe. Yee-haw.

Get my learn on

From the Department of No Surprise but Nice to Offically Know: I was accepted to Nameless Chicago College for the Spring 2007 term. Orientation starts next week. Spiffy.

2007

Slappy Jew Beer.