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."