Said, Yes, This Is A Fine Promotion

Two quick notes:

1) Never, under any circumstances, EVER get Clean 'N Soft With Moisturizer hand soap in your eyes. Unless you want an up-close-and-personal idea of what Judgment Day will feel like.

2) I was standing in the grocery store looking at the British section of the European food aisle and I got hit by a wave of unexpected sadness. That's when I bought the taco fixin's and set to binge eating. I think, and this is really going out on a limb here, that these things might have been related.

Though Our Ideas Held No Water

Current Song: "Missed the Boat" -- Modest Mouse

I binge-ate tacos when I got home from the grocery store after work. Then Oreos. Now I don't feel that great but hot damn, those were tasty tacos.

Susan didn't get killed in Wyoming. She found a partial skeleton of what we've hypothesized is an antelope and made it into a mobile which is now hanging in our living room. It's fantastic but we're concerned that we are going to have to explain the bones in our living room to everyone who ever comes over.

Most Interesting Thing I Saw Today:

A graphic representation of someone's seriously poor life choices in the form of an enormous tattoo on the arm of some girl on the bus which illustrated Itchy killing Scratchy.

But Even Then It Sounds So Soothing

Current Song: "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)" -- The Decemberists

Our next door neighbors are drilling or something right into the wall that connects my bedroom to their apartment, and I want to explode.

I did nothing but eat all day. Ostensibly I was working but mostly I was stuffing my face with Fruit Roll-Ups and/or Chipotle, and don't think it ended when I got home. Between the binge eating and the nightmares I think I could use some therapy. Or maybe some liquor and a hug.

I found this for you:



I laughed about the Belzer puppet until I cried.

Most Interesting Thing That Happened Today:

This girl came into my office, introduced herself, blah-blah-blah-I'm-someone's-assistant-I-need-something-from-the-doctor-you-work-for, etc. So I said, "The doctor is in her other office today" because she has an office in a different building, obviously. And the girl said, "What's the best way to contact her?" And I said, "Well, we can call her." And she starts in:

"Oh, can we? We can call her? Oh, why didn't I think of that? Calling her, what a novel ideeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaa."

I was like, "What?... Seriously, what?" I've never seen that girl before in my life, it was the rudest thing I've ever experienced. I have absolutely no idea why she thought it was appropriate to respond with absolutely dripping sarcasm to a complete stranger in a professional situation. The thing is, I was so floored by it I was just like, "Huh, yeah," and then I picked up the phone to call the doctor and I choked and had to redial the phone five times. Because making things worse is what I do. Anyway, I don't know her name or who she works for but I'm going to complain to the doctor I work for anyway because seriously, what a bitch.

Shall Be Lifted Nevermore

Current Song: "Life In The Fast Lane" -- The Eagles

I spent the day lying around in Minnehaha Park, eating deli take-out, listening to the Eagles Hell Freezes Over album and singing out loud without regard to who could hear me, reading trashy magazines, and sternly lecturing the caterpillars that were besieging me with their chubby, fuzzy little friendly bodies. All in all, a great Memorial Day. What about you? How did you commemorate the troops both living and dead?

New Feature:

Most Interesting Thing I Saw Today: A Hot Topic Goth girl on the light rail, around 18, attractive enough, wearing a large fuzzy black and white tail out of the back of her pants and resolutely ignoring everyone who stared at it.

This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About

Current Song: "Take It Easy" -- The Eagles

I spent most of the day in various dressing rooms in the Mall of America contemplating how much I resemble a Buddha statue set atop two jellied tree trunks. It was a depressing endeavor and I came home in a bad mood. Then Dan called while I was losing Monopoly to the computer opponent and invited me out for a mint milkshake and conversation. I have a tendency to get into a funk and lose sight of everything but the one thing I am unhappy about. Mint milkshakes and conversation go a long way toward restoring the balance.

Though Our Skin May Not Touch Skin

Started my research thing yesterday. Data entry. Good times.

I am suffering under the regime of boredom that I find myself chained to. Yesterday I took a nap that stretched into like four hours of sleeping and I didn't really feel like the day was any less fulfilling because of it. I'm going to miss these times as I'm rocketing past the 8th and 7th floors of this building on my way to the ground sometime in the middle of my public speaking class.

I guess I should put some pants on or something.

Something's Wrong

I wake up from nightmares almost every morning. I wake up from dreams of running, trying to escape, from dreams of endless strings of insults, threats, terror. I wake up, curled in a ball, muscles burning, heart pounding. No breath. I claw at the air.

How Were My Eyes So Blinded?

Current Song: "Daughter" -- Pearl Jam

Susan and I ate a lot of chocolate and it was ill-advised in terms of my heart valves, so I've been lying down since about 7. It hasn't helped. Sometimes I wish my heart would just give out and I could literally suffer death by chocolate.

All I want to do is nap these days.

Bay Buchanan is a racist bitch.

My job is stressful when I'm the only one that works there.

[Edit: Settle down.]

Put It On The Zazz Train To Zazzville

Current Song: "The Men Are Called Horsemen There" -- Sunset Rubdown

I landed an unpaid internship today doing data collection and analysis for a research study that evaluates the best approach to therapy in treating children who have experienced trauma. With an option to work on another study that specifically looks at children who have suffered trauma relating to domestic violence, which is my primary interest area (not children, domestic violence.) The hours are flexible and the office is across the street from my apartment, so it's a sweet deal. It solves a lot of my problems with beefing up my resume for grad school.

I finally gave up and called the people who are supposed to be giving me $8,000 so I can attend school this summer. I had tried to contact them repeatedly because they were supposed to send my promissory note via email and I never got it. I got them to send it to my Yahoo address instead but the guy was kind of an asshole about it. Which doesn't speak well to how my service is going to be when I actually have to pay them back.

Apparently I have to go to a bar now?

Gone

If you love something, set it free, right?

Failed

I'm afraid that because you stopped telling me that you love me, that you have stopped loving me, and I don't know how to handle that. We've taken on too much with this thing.

Looking Much Smarter Than Me

Current Song: "Education" -- Modest Mouse

MN AIDS Walk was once again ridiculously fun. I'll probably be a Marshall again next year even though I got caught in a downpour with no umbrella and no jacket and it was ridiculously cold out for the entire six hours I was standing around outside. And my hands were all tingly from all the clapping. I met a girl who was randomly from my hometown, which is more impressive when you consider that my hometown is 1,800 miles away.

I'm tired of not having anything new to say.

Oh, here's something. Part of the AIDS Walk entertainment was the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus singing songs from "Menopause: The Musical." This is messed up on every level.

Now Is Not The Time For This Headache

Current Song: "Toxicity" -- System of a Down

It figures I would have to be outside for 8 hours on the coldest day of Spring in a situation where I can't wear a jacket.

There'll Be More For You And I

Current Song: "The Future Forever (Until U Die)" -- The Dead Science

My life, as such, has screeched to a halt, as such. As in, I barely got out of my bedroom today. I have a tendency to vacillate between doing far too little (lying across my bed watching the Simpsons on DVD) and doing far too much (this June I will be working, going to class, and voluntarily learning data collection and analysis in a research study, if all goes as planned.) End result being I'm rarely happy with my schedule.

On a halfway related note, tomorrow is the MN AIDS Walk, which I will be attending all day. At least that will get me out of the house and out of my head.

Somebody outside is screaming my name and it's not for me.

Mother Mary Comes To Me

Current Song - "Let It Be" by The Beatles

All I've consumed today were some boneless buffalo wings and two vodka tonics. Meaning I'm a sleepy, sleepy girl.

I like the bragging, so here we go:

Term GPA: 3.875
Cumulative GPA: 3.851

Not bad for someone who missed half their classes and stopped doing the work in February.

I wish we were spooning.

A Million Engines In Neutral

Current Song: "Robbers" -- Cold War Kids

I'm unhappy. But we'll be alright.

I think I will get another tattoo.

Normal

I'm going to leave you. I wasn't going to, I made major compromises so I wouldn't have to. But I'm going to.

Post-Scriptum

Oh, also, I dumped U Penn from my list of potential graduate schools, partly because it's Ivy League and I don't think I can make it, but mostly because they're the only program that requires me to take the GRE and I don't want to throw that much money at an application that likely won't be successful. Hopefully this research project makes my application stronger.

Singing "Hallelujah" With The Fear In Your Heart

Current Song: "Intervention" -- Arcade Fire

Current Project: Drawing something to hang up in place of the baboon picture Dane took when he left

Current Anxiety: I took the initiative to get involved in a research project and now I have to set up a meeting with a stranger, which I am bad at

Current Musing: Should I get another tattoo?

Current Love: Yep, still you.

I Got My Violence In High-Def Ultra Realism

I love it when my room is clean.

I am hanging out with the kids tonight, getting drunk, watching a movie, gossiping, the usual. Well, unusual for a Monday. I love this thing I've got going of working only every other day, it's like every day is Friday. Can't last forever but I'm living it up now.

The MN AIDS Walk is on Sunday, May 20, in Minnehaha Park, and you should come out and support the organizations that are working in both prevention and intervention in the fight against AIDS. I'm a Marshall this year so I'll be out on the trail yelling at people and probably giving them water or something. I'm pretty excited about it.

When Lila went to England she bought me the world's most inappropriate day planner, which has full-color vintage Playboy prints on every page, and I started using it as my full-time calendar today because the way I figure it, we're all adults here. On a semi-related note, no conversation anywhere that ever contained the words "Hey, we're all adults here" didn't end in sex or a fistfight. Or both.

If I Could Move Away Right Now I Would

"He strove to intensify the intimacy between himself and these special women but immediately withdrew if one of them responded by requesting a closeness he felt crossed an invisible line he had drawn between them. He then tried to control the rebuffed woman's pain or withdrawal from him so the relationship would continue."

--Psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar, in Intimate Relations, on why Mahatma Ghandi was kind of an asshole

And It Will Be Sheer Horror To Grasp The Message

Scary Movie 3 has moments in which it is the funniest goddamn thing ever.

My grade for that 1-credit Saturday class on the experience of grief and loss came in. The grade was based entirely on a 15- or so-page paper I wrote on the ways that domestic violence victims are affected by grief and loss. It took me days to write the paper because it was ridiculously depressing. Anyway, the professor seemed pretty excited about it and gave me an A, which I thought was nice. If I wasn't so sure that Mr. Rogers was dead, I would think he was the professor of that class.

I ate a lot of free food today.

Turns out champagne makes me sleepy.

I'm getting Dane's bed and his desk tomorrow because he's moving out. So I'm finally progressing to getting out of the baby bed I sleep in now. Seriously, I'm sleeping on a trundle bed. A twin-sized trundle bed. Which is a step up from my old cot, which was a step up from the air mattress. This is why I'm not sleeping with anybody these days. Dane's giving me a full-sized bed which is faaaaaaaaantastic. Also a desk because my bedroom floor is buried in various cords, and I have to lay on my bed to use my computer. So tomorrow I'll be spending the day lugging furniture to and fro to fit my new acquisitions in. That'll be a good day.

It Wasn't Even Enough To Leave

I had a very unproductive day at work, the net result being a list of graduate schools I want to apply to and the memory of my boss imitating Don Knotts making obscene phone calls.

My problem with graduate school is that the programs I want to attend are either A) in places I can't really afford to live, or B) so exclusive that I'm not sure I can get into them. Or both.

Boston College
University of Pennsylvania
University of Chicago
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

And of course, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

I don't think I can get into graduate school.

It Comes Back To Me Like Pieces Of A Dream I Can't Remember

I made a cake, because cake is good. Yay.

I love having days off, it's been so long.

The defense lawyer on this Law and Order just said that someone "renunciated the plan." I feel pretty strongly that "renunciated" is not an actual word. The dumbening of America continues.

Your Lips Move, I Can't Hear What You're Saying

Horrible, crippling, chronic pain really gets tiring after a while.

I have the day off tomorrow and nothing to do so if I'm not absolutely debilitated, I'm going to spend some time lying around outside and reading for fun.

Susan and I were comparing bad roommate stories last night. She lived with a girl who had a mental freakout and started battling angels in the apartment; Susan had to call the cops, and the girl was diagnosed as schizophrenic. I told her my Katie Miller story and she said that was pretty on par, because it was so relentless. Then I told her about Lila's freshman roommate Andrea, who slept on the bottom bunk of their set of bunkbeds and who masturbated loudly while on the phone nearly every night for the entire school year because everyone was too polite to say anything. Andrea is the standard by which I compare all other bad roommates. She's winning.

I'm going back to praying for death or chocolate.

O Classes, My Classes!

With the last stroke of a key I emailed my take-home final for Child Abuse in, and rang the death knell for this horrible semester. That's six classes forever done and gone.

I've Been Living With A Clown Above My Bed

Long day at work for no reason as my boss's surgery got rescheduled. Shopped for a theremin to kill time. Ate dinner with Lila at Shuang Cheng. Now I'm on my way to a Sami documentary at the Oak Street Cinema. You should be living my life.

If I Just Turn And Run

I made Finals Week cookies today. They came out perfectly even though I spilled half the flour on myself.

I'm taking a break from writing a hideously long take-home final paper about domestic violence. It's due Tuesday night so I think I'm going to put the rest of it off until Tuesday afternoon because I'm working all day tomorrow. My boss is out for two weeks after tomorrow so I'm getting a crash course in how to do Things Other Than Filing, which will be fun. I'm hopelessly nerdy in that I seriously enjoy learning new things. Also I just watched Star Trek and I have a crush on the young Shatner, but that's neither here nor there.

I could really use a nice surprise.

Also, enjoy this time-killer instead of studying.

The Ladies Man Is An Underrated Film Experience

In spite of a good nine hours of partying instead of studying last night, I aced my Research Methods final.

Also, I don't know how I ended up kissing you but I sure don't want to know what the rest of the people in the car said after I left.

I've got decent grades and a sweet job lined up for the summer, a solid living situation and a standing date for happy hour. This is a good day.

Incongruous

So much about our lives makes me angry.

I need to get my teeth fixed.

I made accidental eye contact with Navy Dan on the bus today.

Fuck, you guys, what are we doing?

It Takes A Hard Left

My existence is an insult to everyone who has ever studied hard and not gotten a good grade out of it. Meaning I got full credit on all the assignments I half-assed or turned in several months late this semester. Sorry.

I laid in a thick patch of grass in a sunbeam this afternoon for an hour, reading The Onion, and it was the happiest I've ever been.

I need people in my life who will tell me I'm beautiful.

Confidential to College Is A Time For Sexual Experimentation in Minneapolis: "twink" does not mean the same as "twinkie," but both are appropriate. And I did blog about it.

If You Can't Spell, You're Not A Real Poet

I've been reading a lot of strange blogs lately. It's an exercise in measuring exactly how negative I can get about others. Also, there are a lot of people who post pictures of their kids on the internet. This is a fucked up technological age. Welcome to the world of tomorrow.

Show Me The World As I Love To See It

I have a terrible sinking feeling that I will be totally unable to afford to keep living this summer whether I take classes or not, which complicates my graduation plans, as I will be unable to graduate because I'll be dead.

I left my phone at home by accident and it stresses me out. Two years ago I was one of those "I'll never get a cell phone" kids, and today, I'm losing my shit. The world is a loveless rock orbiting a cold indifferent sun.

It's My Secret Shame

I skipped my night class for the second week because I am just never going to give that presentation. I used the time to write two extra credit papers for that class instead, effectively erasing my absences.

I also risked my health to eat Chinese food that had been left unrefrigerated for many hours and chased it with a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream. I was having an "I'm irreparably fat" day so I figured I'd make the problem worse. That's the way I like to approach things.

My feet are in shreds because of my new flip flops. I think I'm going to have to return them, which makes me angry.

I spent half an hour talking to Charlie and it was the highlight of my day.