Say WHAT? July 23, 2008

So, I’m at the beach with my family.  It’s great.  The house is great.  The weather has been great (given the tropical storm that took an unexpected turn away from this particular stretch of coast…thank you, up above), the food has all been great, we’ve all been laughing and rocking on the porch and swimming off the dock on the canal and flying kites on the beach…general Good Quality Family Time.  My 16 year old cousin finished two weeks of summer school in three days so he could be here to hang out with me, which is touching and cute.  We’ve been close since he was a baby…we’ve always loved each other fiercely, and end up spending all of our time together, when we’re in close physical proximity.  

Last night, Big J and I (he’s Big J because he’s 6′8″ and he’s still growing!) went down to the arcade three blocks away and played video games for a while.  This led to a walk on the beach, which in turn led to Deep Conversation full of Honesty and The Hard Truth.  The hard truth I learned about my beloved cousin Big J?  He’s a fucking crack dealer.  

When I saw him six months ago, he told me stories of the pot he smoked, the booze he drank, and the girls he bagged.  He’s a star athlete at a reputable high school, so I wasn’t terribly surprised by this news.  Six months ago, I gave him the obligatory talking-to, detailing all the ways he could ruin his future with an unwanted pregnancy or a possession charge.  Little did I know…

Now, his parents are A) idiots, and B) turn a blind eye because he’s a 16 year old star athlete…that whole Boys Will Be Boys thing.  I think it’s irresponsible parenting, sure, but what the hell do I know about raising a teenaged boy?  What I do know is that he talks to me, he tells me the things he doesn’t/won’t/can’t tell other adults, and while I am horrified and a little heart-broken, I don’t want to shut those lines of communication down.  When he told me he sold crack (to all the ‘black folk in the projects’), I sternly, tactfully, lovingly (as lovingly as one can get when detailing the horrors of crack) lectured him for an hour about why Crack Is Bad.  He listened, I think.  He seemed even to gain a new perspective on how crack really effects society, but I don’t know if that’s just me being optimistic about getting through to someone I love unconditionally, someone that I know looks up to me, listens to me, respects me.  

But how to tell a handsome, charming, strong 16 year old that their lucrative job as a crack salesman is nothing but trouble?  He’s 16, after all, and he thinks he’s invincible, and far more clever than the police.  I remember the feeling well.  I felt old last night, as I almost let the words slip out, “You’re young, you aren’t bulletproof, you don’t know because you can’t.  You know, the whole spiel about real world experience and the wisdom that only age can grant you, yadda yadda yadda.  

Instead, I told him how a crackhead would kill him and not think twice.  How crack destroys every life it touches.  How the money he makes is dirty, because it’s feeding someone’s addiction, and that someone will do anything for more crack, that that someone has a family, too, and how crack robs families of their loved ones.  I told him how crackheads have violated my life, and I told him how I’ve lost friends to crack; they’ve not died, no, far worse…they kept living, unrecognizable shells of the people I loved.  I told him how crack is an effective tool for keeping a mostly poor, uneducated sector of the population poor and uneducated, creating a virtual slave race of people, ensnared in the trap that is public housing, perpetuating violence and desperation with every rock he sells.  

I don’t know if I got through to him; he listened, for sure, which is something.  He seemed shocked to think of crack in all those different ways, instead of just a quick high and a quick buck.  He swore he never used, only sold, which is a bitter comfort to me.   I told him he couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t go to prison, wouldn’t die in those projects he ambles through with his pockets full of rocks, all legs and elbows and his big, open, goofy smile.  He promised me those things wouldn’t happen, but I know things he can’t, because I’ve seen it time and again, a Crackhead Will Do Anything.  

I mean, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this information?  If I tell anyone else in the family, it will result in an immediate lock-down for him, which would likely result in him hating/resenting me, and never telling me anything again, which would, in turn, make me unable to provide some voice of reason as an Adult Who Loves Him That’s Not A Parent.  I love him enough that I’m comfortable with him hating me, if it would mean he was safe and out of harms way (he doesn’t seem to comprehend at all the extremely dangerous position he’s putting himself in, as a white boy catering to the projects) but it seems like he could benefit more from having someone he can talk to, that he trusts and respects, to support and encourage healthier, worth-while endeavors.  He’s a very gifted boy, he just hasn’t found his place yet.  And what 16 year old has?  

In the end, I told him that I loved him, but I really want him to stop, because he’s better than that.  He got a bit choked up, and I realized then that he’s probably in this situation because he doesn’t hear that much.  He’s an amazing basketball player, but that’s all his parents have focused on.  They allow him to do poorly in academics because they think he can’t do better.  His older sister, pleasant and pretty as she is, has stolen all the attention for his whole life, and I am beginning to doubt that his parents have told him enough (ever?) that he is bright and talented and has the potential to do anything he sets his mind to.  They talk about the NBA incessantly, and have had him in sports camps in every spare moment of his whole life, but I think they never talk to him like he’s smart.  They tell him to calm down, be quiet, sit still, sit up straight, comb his hair, take out the trash, mow the lawn…but I’ve never seen either of his parents once engage him in conversation that didn’t directly relate to his sports or his misbehavior.  They are doing him an injustice, and they are missing out on a truly interesting, funny, and sweet boy who has a lot to say about the world, if only given the chance.  

Once again, I’m gonna have to blame the parents.  No, they aren’t selling the crack, but I do think he’s slipped under their radar, and they seem too lazy to care a whole lot.  I care, and I think that the three times I see him each year are Familial High Points for both of us, which is something I value and don’t want to lose, not by alienating him by turning him, and not to a stranger with a habit and a gun.  What do I do?  Advice, please.  I’m at a loss.

What A Week… July 12, 2008

Currently, I am sitting in a hotel room in Orlando, Florida.  My parents and my little brother are sleeping not five feet away from me, and in my usual style, I can’t sleep before 2 a.m.  Boo.  My dad had his 65th birthday today, and to commemorate such a Big One, we hopped in a rental car, and came to Disney World.  Disney has always been a secret desire of my stepmother’s (she has always loved Cinderella, since she was a girl) but I have a secret notion that this trip was really formulated for me and Little Man to make some good memories before I move away to my new life in the Big City.  We needed some quality time together, and we certainly got it.  He had never ridden a roller coaster before; in fact, he swore he hated them and couldn’t ride them, but dontcha know…watching his big sister ride Space Mountain all by her lonesome got to him, and he agreed at last to try it, and he loved it.  We had a great time.  We rode every ride in both the Magic Kingdom and Epcot.  We even managed to get my dad and stepmom on a couple.  It has been a really great time, aside from the fact that my broken ankle certainly isn’t getting any better by ignoring the fact that is, indeed, broken.  I have to go to the doctor’s this week.  Like, immediately, upon my arrival back home.  

And speaking of home, I returned from my one week stint at summer stock on the beach (the puppets actually worked!! It’s some kind of miracle that I actually figured out the mechanics correctly to rig twelve puppets to one point, so that one operator could make all twelve move, just by pulling on one, tiny, itty bitty piece of monofilament.  It’s one of my biggest artistic accomplishments to date.  I’m feeling quite proud of myself!), only to find that my house had been ransacked by burglars.  The fuckers had been unable to gain entry through either the front door or the back, although they left plenty of evidence of their attempts, so they splintered and busted a window on the front side of my house, right into my living room, and then propped it open so that they could really take their time.  The house was empty for a week, so who knows how much time they spent perusing all of our belongings, but it was quite clear that they had gone through everything, and I do mean everything.  My bed even looked like someone may have slept in it. How gross is that???  The sheets were all wonky and the bed had been pushed out from the wall, and the contents of my beside table were strewn everywhere and all my drawers had been opened and rifled through…some crackhead touched every piece of clothing I own.  My jewelry box had been pilfered, but the idiots stole only the junk jewelry, leaving the three actually-valuable pieces exactly where they lay.  Idiots.  I’m glad they’re idiots, but still.  They got away with all of my SLR cameras (I had three), all of our electronics, most of my good DVDs and Playstation games, a couple of D’s turntables, a both of our change jars.  I discovered all of this when I arrived home, alone, at 2 o’clock in the morning.  I was terribly shaken up by the ordeal.  D won’t be in the house at any point for the rest of our lease, and I can’t bring myself to stay there alone, ever again, anymore…which is a great shame, because I really loved that house, and it’s the only place that’s really and truly felt like My Home since I moved out of my parents house.  We made it three whole years with only minor incidents, and two weeks before we vacate forever…this.  

I am so so terribly tired of not feeling safe in my own home.  I am sick of being too poor to afford housing in a neighbor where I won’t have to worry about finding crackheads on my front porch when I come home late at night (it’s happened plenty of times).  I am just devastated that I haven’t had one single house in the last eight years that hasn’t been a target for a break-in.  All I want is a warm, safe place to lay my head at night, cook some good meals, and do some good work.  That doesn’t seem like so much to ask.  Apparently, it is.  Most of all, I am cracking under the strain of feeling like someone is always watching me.  I’ve had the feeling of constant surveillance for about a year now, due, I think, to the fact that some hobo has taken up residence in the a tangle of bushes on the backside of our parking lot.  I had the nice police officer trek up into the bushes at 3:30 in the morning to check it out, but he said he didn’t find anything.  I think he was looking in the wrong place.  And for the second time in my life, I had to offer up a vibrator to a forensics team as a ’smooth object that I could definitively say I hadn’t moved myself’.  Do you have any idea how horrifying that is? Pair that with the fact that I made the decision to offer up D’s glass bong as another ’smooth object…’ and it makes for One Traumatic Early Morning In My Life.  The cops, at least, had a sense of humor about both objects.  The fingerprinted the bong, and bypassed the vibrator.  I didn’t get a possession ticket, so the night could have gone worse than it did, I suppose.  

In an attempt to find a silver lining in this horrible situation, I have decided that perhaps this is the perfect thing to detach me from my beloved home, my beloved roommate, my beloved state…a kick in the ass, angled north.  I will no longer have a hard time walking away from that house.  I am ready to leave it, now.  It has been a good house, a perfect space for the work that needed to be done in the three years that I lived there, and now I will say goodbye to the Crackhead Surveillance, and my most perfect kitchen.  I will miss the house, for sure, but I will not miss laying awake at night, wondering, What Was That Noise?

The good news is: FireBall found me an apartment to sublet for the month of August, conveniently located just blocks from her own, new abode.  Sometimes I think she’s too good to be true, like I will squeeze my eyes shut tight, and she will blink out of existence, just a figment of my imagination, formulated by my brain under the Extreme Duress of graduation and the end of a two year relationship.  Lucky me…she’s real, and she’s not going anywhere.  Except maybe back to South America, at some point.  The sublet is pretty perfect, if it pans out the way I think it will (it’s not set in stone, but the tone of the emails and phone messages from the woman whose looking to sublet is distinctly positive), I will be afforded the time to find something more permanent, without really stretching my bank account.  $400 for the month, utilities included.  I mean, does that even exist in a good neighborhood in Queens?  The answer is yes, yes it does, and my kind, resourceful, ingenious Not-Girlfriend has located it for me.  I think it’s adorable how much she misses me, and the lengths she will apparently go to, in order to make this transition as quick and as smooth as possible.  I could sing her praises all day long, but I’d rather just kiss her upon arrival in Queens. 

Queens makes me think of one thing (okay, well, one other thing) and that thing is Coming To America.  Remember?  Before Eddie Murphy sold his soul to childrens movies and stopped being funny?  Just let your soouuuuuuuuul glow…

Dollywood!!! May 2, 2008

As a student at an art school, I have embraced the unconventional.  This includes, but is no means limited to, the fact that our Senior Trip is taking us to Dollywood.  Six of us are piling into a big white van, and driving to Tennessee, to stay in a friend’s mom’s cabin (with two, count them TWO, hot tubs!) and seven bedrooms for six of us.  I couldn’t sleep last night for the anticipation.  

I know that must sound crazy, but Dollywood has always been a legend in my mind, a place I’ve always needed to see to convince myself of the reality.  This might sound bizarre, but it’s a bit of a dream come true that I finally get to visit (for free, luckily!).  It feels like a pilgrimage of sorts…which is kinda crazy, because I love Dolly Parton but her music isn’t exactly my jam.  I’m in it for the 9 to 5 Rhinestone Cowboy.  She won’t be there this weekend, but I will still enjoy the water ride.  

AND, to really make my day, we are stopping in Asheville for dinner.  I will spend the entire two hoursin the car trying to figure out what the best place to eat is, only to have TazerLaser complain that there aren’t enough meat and potatoes on the menu.  The man doesn’t eat a single green thing.  Not one.  Additionally, no bread, no cheese, and no sauces aside from ketchup or barbeque.  He lives on hamburger patties, no bun, and french fries or mashed potatoes.  Seriously.  It pisses me off that he’s skinny.  Where am I supposed to take him???  I want Jerusalem Garden, or Lucky Otter, or Sunny Pointe, or maybe even Doc Cheys.  He wants Wendys.  Oh, TL.  

And the weekend begins…  I can’t wait to see what kind of shenanigans I can catch on film for blackmail and entertainment purposes later.  

Why Yesterday Sucked January 26, 2008

All went well until 10; my puppet class was cancelled, which is a bummer because it’s my favorite class and I totally look forward to it every week.  So, in lieu of puppets, I returned home to deal with paperwork and phone calls relating to the follow-up care from my surgery.  I can’t decide if I was irresponsible and didn’t ask the right questions, or if I was misled.  The doctor here that’s supposed to do my follow-up care just told me yesterday that there is a $1000 transfer of service fee, since I had the operation elsewhere, in addition to a $500 fee to see their psychologist, plus a $350 fee to see their dietician, plus a $400 fee to take some class for people who are thinking of getting the lap-band.  I already did it, folks.  I need to get saline put into my band as soon as possible, and the nurse I’ve been interacting with told me it would be on Feb. 2, but oops! she hadn’t put my name down in the slot for the past several weeks we’ve been talking, and it filled up, so I would have to wait until the end of Feb to see the doctor.  Which is too long to wait. Soooo, on Feb. 11th, I have to be at the airport at 5 am, to make my 1 pm appointment in Detroit (which I just made yesterday because the people in Michigan can see me sooner than the people here…totally screwy), and then hop back on a plane to return home at 5 pm.  Can I officially call myself a jet setter?   The morning was a wash…I cried by 11 am, and that’s never a good sign for the rest of the day.  I went about my business, did some homework, tried to be productive, and then decided that since I was in such a bad mood, triscuits and hummus were in order.  I left my house for twenty minutes to get said items, and by the time I returned, someone had broken into my house.  Apparently, a neighbor had come over during those twenty minutes to see if we were having problems with our water, too (the street crew that jackhammers at 7 am had busted a water main, come to find out, and our water was flowing at a trickle, making showers impossible, and flushing the toilet more than once every two hours a bit of a process) and he must have scared the person off.  Nothing was stolen, and the only signs of tampering were the chunk of wood taken out of my back door where they used a screwdriver to get in, and the jewelry box in my bedroom was open.  Nothing was stolen, but it had been rifled through.  So, in fifteen minutes or less, someone broke in, bypassed the valuable electronics laying out in the open, downstairs, and continued upstairs to my room where they looked through my jewelry box but didn’t steal anything.   These oddities make me think it might be someone who knows me and my roommate, which in turn makes me violently hostile.  If I ever caught some shady fool I knew in my house, I’d at least break one knee cap.  At least.   After all that, me and my roommate and Anchors went down the street to the diner and had dinner, and drinks.  Since I rarely drink, I was faded by 10 pm and asleep by 11:30 on the couch as the Princess Bride played in the background.  I woke up on the couch at 2, scared and disoriented, and then slept for eight MORE hours upstairs in my room.  It was an emotionally draining day.   Today has been better.  I got up at a reasonable time, I went to school and did work for five hours, and now I’m going to meet friends from Greensberry for dinner and a movie…we are going to see Juno.  I will save this weekend from being a total loss if it kills me.  Stupid Friday.   

We Listened to Records. What Does That Mean, Anyway? October 30, 2007

I hung out with my Secret Straight Girl Crush (against Anchors intelligent warnings…) tonight. It was fun. We listened to classic rock records–on vinyl–and talked for a couple of hours. She showed me her portfolio (funny, talented, and saucy) and we talked theater design and paint for a while. Now is the part where I have to stop having a crush on her and be totally satisfied with Just having a new friend. I can do that. I know I can. I’m not attracted to all straight girls. I have plenty of straight female friends that I don’t think naughty things about every time I’m near. I wish I could turn my brain off when she comes around. She’s got the kind of physique that I find most attractive, for whatever reason, and I like her eyes. And she likes dick, so that’s that. I mean, she’s no dummy, hanging out with an Older Lesbian that she barely knows, by herself, with a conspicuously absent roommate and a freshly made bed, but I can make a decision here. Right? Right.

I’m such an idiot. I am a glutton for punishment, and perhaps the Worlds Biggest Relationship Masochist. One day, I’ll find a Real Live lesbian that shares similar interests and values and needs and desires, and I could be supremely attracted to her, and maybe she’ll even be out. God forbid. I think my brain desperately wants something to occupy it’s Romantic Fixation zone; I work best if I can have a crush to think about during all the long hours of work. I’m not fooling myself into thinking that this crush will go anywhere, or even that I’ll do the right thing and resist if things go where I wish they would. I know myself better than that. I am a Straight Girl Magnet, and I have to accept my responsibility in that role. I don’t know why I keep trying to get with girls that will never actually Be With Me in the way that I want. Maybe I need the intrigue?

I need a rebound. That much is clear. I just need to do it and get laid and get past this hang up in my head and in my heart. I’m tired of feeling so lonely. If even for a night, I need to touch somebody and remember that there are lots of people in the world that are attracted to me, and that I can, indeed, feel excited in my stomach and my chest about someone other than JJJ…an affirmation that I can find pleasure elsewhere, and that, while things will never feel The Same as they did with JJJ, I can still feel good with another person.

I’m just stressed. I won’t lie. I got a love jones. Plain and simple.

OK, I Admit It October 24, 2007

I’m drunk blogging again. I’ve had only the three beers, but apparently, due to my infrequent alcohol consumption, I have become A Cheap Date. I guess that’s okay. I told myself I’d only have one, but I don’t have to pay for drinks, since I’m repainting the sign that hangs over the door at the bar. That spells trouble. I had forgotten they’re not charging for a while, and I took three dollars for One Pint, and end up drinking three (and a half, actually). Whatever. After spending four hours shredding gold wrapping paper, and gluing it to a one and a half inch wide strip of wacky, cut in a highly ornate detail, that happens to be 58′ long or something, I felt like I deserved a beer.

One of the sophmores on my crew joined me for a beer tonight. She’s cute. That also spells trouble. I don’t know what to make of all these new girls in the shop this year. Kitty likes to call them My Harem, because they flock around me and fawn over me and desperately want my approval, and a few of them definitely flirt with me at every given oppurtunity, and that makes it hard. I am Not Interested in dating anyone in the shop, much less another young straight thing looking for a College Experience, but damn if it isn’t tempting, every time. I mean, whose ego wouldn’t like young things of the preferred gender flashing their cleavage and playing with their hair every time you come near? I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but it happens, every single day. The tricksy thing is that This One Girl is really talented, really easy to work with, really idealistic and cheerful (not yet jaded by the harsh realities) and she won’t quit staring at my boobs or requesting (flirting) to work with me on every project. Clearly, clearly, I will take the high road and refrain from messing around with Attractive Straight Girl, but damn if it’s not hard when she’s encouraging me to drink more, and boring holes in my nipples with her eyes. Alas. Twas never meant to be. She’s not really gay, and I’m not really available. It’s fun to think about, though, and it certainly passes the hours in crew.

I finished reading the Island of the Sequined Love Nun today. LOVED IT. Thank you, Shades…what a great read! I recommend it to anyone who has ever enjoyed Tom Robbins or Carl Hiaasen. Or cannibals and trannies and conspiracy theories about organ harvesting and tropical locales. And the fruitbat named Roberto…oh, how I loved Roberto!! It was a great book. I read one or two chapters a night for the last couple weeks, and finally I couldn’t stand the suspense anymore and finished the last 40 pages during a break between classes. For the record, I love a book that has lots and lots of ten page chapters…best bedtime/bathroom/lunch break reads ever.

In other news, my appointment for LapBand surgery has been officially scheduled and approved for December 12th. I am, all of a sudden, very nervous. I’ve never had major surgery. The only time I’ve ever been in the hospital was when I was six, and I had to get my tonsils removed. That was a long time ago. I’m scared of IV’s, and I’m scared of anesthesia, and I’m scared of scalpels, and I’m scared of the fact that there are always risks involved. I have faith that it’s the right thing to do, and I believe it will all Be All Right, but today it became real, instead of just being this thing hovering on the horizon that I keep thinking about but it’s still too far away to really feel anything concrete. It’s only six weeks away now. The deposit has been paid, and the rental car has been reserved, and the doctors are expecting me. No going back now. I can’t wait, and I wish I could just fast forward six months, already.

I have to go to bed. I have to be in a classroom in such a short amount of hours, it’s sickening.

Is This A Riddle? September 27, 2007

This morning, I woke up a bit later than I meant to; still plenty of time to get to class, but it would be tight. After throwing some clothes on that looked clean enough, I grabbed the door knob to exit my bedroom, and the door knob promptly fell off into my hand. Gently, I tried to maneuver a connection with the male part of the door knob, on the other side of the door, and succeeded only in pushing the other side out. And then I was trapped in my bedroom. My roommate left while I was putting on clothes, about two minutes after I woke up; I heard the door slam on his way out, and since it’s a seven minute drive to school, chances were good he was already there. He certainly wasn’t going to miss class to let me out of my bedroom. So I went back to bed, it being 7:45 and all. I woke up at nine, started to panic as my lighting design course started at ten, and in my frustration, I kicked the door. It swung right open.

Fast forward ten hours. I arrived at Anchors house, laundry in tow, for an evening of studying and cable TV. We decided to grab some dinner about forty five seconds after I put my laundry in, so we grabbed purses and headed out the door. I volunteered to drive, dug deep in my small cavern of a handbag, and realized I’d locked my keys in my car. This is number 16 in the past 24 months…I would guess AAA thinks I’m The Most Forgetful Motorist in town. It was no real hassle to deal with; the guy got my car open in under three minutes, with his fancy slim jim. Every time I lock my keys in my car, I always think, “I should get one of those…” when I see the slim jim in action, but then I remember I would inevitably store it in my car, where it would do no good whatsoever.

Is the universe trying to tell me something? A lock-in and a lock-out all in the same day? I bet a psychoanalyst could have a field day with That One. I don’t feel trapped. I don’t think I’m shutting anything away that I ought to bring out into the light. These past three weeks haven’t been the easiest I’ve ever encountered, but I’m feeling more like there are almost too many open doors in my path, not the opposite.

Also, I can’t sleep lately. I thought it was the full moon, but that was one or two nights ago.

Nugget of knowledge from today: watts=volts(amps)
I have a ridiculously hard time grasping the fact that magnets spinning around a wire make the lights turn on.

Woah Times A Million September 18, 2007

This last, my senior year, is gonna be a bitch. I can tell already. Currently, I am locking the trays in place and returning my seat to an upright position. This could be a hard landing.

Check this shit out: so I’m required to take this class called Arts and Artifacts. They don’t offer the class this year. I am, therefore, enrolled in Art History, which will waive my requirement to take this class. However, Art History credits don’t waive the three credit hours associated with the class they’re not offering, so now I have to find a way to make up the three credit hours. Doesn’t sound like such a large feat; I can break it down over the three terms, taking a one credit hour arts elective each term…except for the fact that there are no arts classes offered at a time I can take them, that i haven’t already taken before. Literally, not one. Out of 85 or 90 arts classes, not ONE fit into my schedule. I have been in a mad scramble to create and get approval on an independent study before the last day to add (tomorrow) and I managed to finagle an independent study in pop art rendering (awesome…), but it has created a rather tight schedule for me. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I have no less than ten consecutive hours of obligation (class and crew) with no more than a ten minute break in between any one thing. Ouch. On Thursday, oh happy day, I have a fourteen hour day with nary a break. Literally, not one. I am, indeed, partially responsible for this crunch; I allowed academics to be second priority, and as such, I have to take more academics this year than any senior ever should. But I’m not responsible for the flubbery with Arts and Artifacts (or the fact that this piece of vital information was never announced to any of us–approximately 25 of the 38 people in my graduating class are in the same boat as I…Arts and Artifacts was just created last year, and already they can’t offer it to us, but still require it. What?!), yet I’m still suffering. My classes, all year long, are as follows: art history, theater history, western thought, scene painting III, professional career development (they’re gonna make me start fixing my credit…), lighting design for the non-major, independent study in rendering each term (i’m thinking surrealism and chiaroscuro for winter and spring terms), and costume shop management. As a full time student here, it is usual to have no more than ten hours, due to the time vacuum of Crew. I have to take 16 each term. I kind of want to shoot myself. No, that’s not true.

Part of me is excited by this seemingly impossible challenge, with surgery and graduation the two landmarks I have to reach. I think I can focus up, I think I can make the jump shot in the last three seconds of the game. I think I can ‘wow’ them in the end. I think I will have to be a recluse who carries text books every where she goes. I think I will have to become a morning person.

In other news, today I beat YYZ, on Guitar Hero 2, on expert setting. I feel like I can officially say now, I Fucking Rock. Sometimes, I wonder why I can wail on a plastic guitar, and suck on a wooden one. Meh. I can rock on expert. That’s not entirely trivial, right?

Sharks and Minnows August 18, 2007

Phew. A long week has ended, finally, and I can hang out in the air conditioning for a couple of days and get my internal core temperature back to normal. Yesterday was maybe as hot as I’ve ever been (while doing hard physical labor, because of doing physical labor?). As such, I had to get mildly intoxicated tonight, and go jump in a pool for a while. It felt great…four of us went ninja-style into some high end apartment complex and borrowed their pool for an hour. We played a Marco Polo-esque game, and I felt like I was twelve again. I did not get caught by the Shark; I was a successful Minnow, twice.

But I have to back-track…mild intoxication leaves me prone to tangents and segues. Before we went swimming, my ladyfriend and Anchors and myself went over to J and C’s house (they are couple one of two, of My Straight Friends in Winston-Salem). J/C just moved into a sweet house a couple of blocks away from me, where they have a big screen TV, and Guitar Hero. C and I have been battling the Fearsome Frets section on expert for about a month and a half now (that’s one bracket away from beating the game, FYI). I go play maybe once a week, we have a great time, they’re rambunctious and playful and generous Good Times, with reputations as Serious Party-ers. Maybe the reputation is deserved; I don’t see them party more than anyone else, but I’m not there all the time, so who knows. I like them.

I realized tonight that Guitar Hero is the first video game that has ever encouraged me to put down the controller and actually get a new hobby. I’m seriously in love with the harmonica–sure, it sounds like shit right now, and I only have three very simple songs memorized, but for the first time, I’m really enjoying an instrument, and I find practicing a joy instead of a chore. I look forward to it. I honestly believe that I wouldn’t have attempted to begin the process of learning an instrument, without the aid of Guitar Hero. Aside from being a great game, I found I had the rhythm, and the hand control and coordination to play that cheap plastic guitar very well. I have a strong feeling that playing the plastic guitar and playing a real guitar are not very similar to one another, but my confidence was bolstered, nonetheless. And, voila! A new hobby.

The downside of Guitar Hero is that it’s not great on the eyes (and probably the wrists…), so after about an hour of five of us trading off, I needed to head outside for some air. J took us on a tour of the new backyard, and we’re standing out there in the dark, talking about how to construct the perfect Slip N Slide run in his back yard; the yard is screaming for it. My ladyfriend asked J if the new house was haunted…he said No, he’d never lived in a haunted house. Anchors commented that she hadn’t either. Me and Ole Blue Eyes looked at each other, and giggled uncomfortably; we’ve both lived in a few, and I know how crazy it might sound to someone who’s never experienced it, firsthand. Right at that moment, out of the dark brush bordering J’s backyard comes a distinct man-sound. To be more precise, it sounded like the Living Dead was trying to communicate it’s need for brains to us. We all froze, looked at each other to confirm we hadn’t been hearing things, and then we bolted. It was a casual bolt, no outright running, but we were all clearly in a hurry to get inside. I will forever after be convinced that their next door neighbors are keeping a zombie in their shed. Or something. It was creepy, but in that exhilirating kind of way. I appreciate a moment that makes me doubt everything I know to be true. It’s good to stay on your toes. I mean, how often in life do you think to yourself, “The dead have risen, I need to go inside”. It’s frightening, sure, but it’s fairly unique. Variety is the spice of life, right?

Once we got inside the house, I had a laughing fit that Anchors perpetuated–she’s always good for that. Plus, I haven’t been that high since I was a fifteen year old smoking out of Coke can. (Is it taboo to admit smoking pot on the Internets? Probably.) Ole Blue Eyes was ready to go swimming, but I knew enough not to drive right then. “Um, I just ran in the house because I thought a zombie wanted to eat my brain. I think I should chill for a few minutes”.

You had better believe I had my Zombie Killing Weapon picked out in my brain, just in case. The big glass jar, sitting beside the big screen TV, holding the fake sunflower. I could fuck a zombie up with that.

Hey La, Hey La… August 6, 2007

…my girlfriend’s back!

Finally, someone drove all night to get to me. There’s something so romantic in that notion that I’ve been waiting my whole life to be able to listen to Cyndi Lauper sing, “I drove all niii-i-i-i-ght to get to you…” and have a personal memory to attach to the song. So–bravo, HoCakes! Thanks. It was really lovely to wake up early this morning, to a cute and sleepy lady knocking on my door, warm from driving and full of smiles. We were too excited to see each other to go back to sleep immediately, so we crawled into my big ole bed and giggled for a couple of hours, until her eyes were rolling around in her head from sleep deprivation, and my need for a BoJangles bacon biscuit was too strong to ignore any longer. There are few things in life that are as sweet as snuggling with the one you love after an absence of more than a month…my skin was electrified, just to be next to her again, warm and cozy, with the AC blasting in this southern summer heat. It’s good to have her back at home. You ever have one of those days when things feel righted that you didn’t even know felt wrong?

So, I’ve been obsessively trying to learn to play the harmonica this past week. I think I am driving our subletter crazy, but that’s what she gets for leaving her vibrator all over the house, and bringing a string of strange and gross men back to my lovely house. So far, I have learned to play When The Saints Go Marching On, and Home on the Range. That might not sound like much for four days worth of obsessive harmonica playing, but that shit’s not as easy as I had first imagined. I mean, I’ve fucked around on harmonicas forever, but I’d never actually sat down and tried to figure out how to isolate one note at a time. Uh, it’s hard. Those holes are so tiny, making my mouth feel gigantic in comparison, and I have not even begun to figure out the elusive ‘tonguing’ that all the how-to websites I’ve referenced are so fond of…I’m a lesbian, I had imagined the ‘tonguing’ part would come easy. But no. Imagine trying to curl your tongue, placing it precisely over the 1/4 hole you’re aiming for, and then blowing smoothly, transitioning from one note to the next while keeping The Curl in place. I guess that technique takes longer than four days to master. Whatever the case may be, I’m having lots of fun with it, and I enjoy the supreme portability of the instrument. I think I will stick with this instrument, as I only have one year and five days to fulfill Number Three of my five year plan, set into motion on my 25th birthday.

Surprisingly enough, I think I will be very close to fulfilling all of the goals I set forth for myself, four years ago, by the time I turn 30. Since school has finally decided to offer Spanish language classes (previously, the only foreign languages taught were those that opera singers might need to know–French, Italian, and German), I can round out my four years of high school classes and hopefully begin to speak a bit more competently. As I’m graduating next May, I’ll have the degree I promised myself. And last, but certainly not least, the laproscopic bypass I’m getting in December will put me well on my way to achieving the goal of Losing A Substantial Amount of Weight. If this harmonica thing sticks, I’ll be proficient in the unnamed musical instrument I wanted to be able to play, upon reaching the landmark of Age 30. I suppose in my 25 year old brain, I figured if I had these four goals nailed down, I couldn’t possibly be sad about turning 30. I think I was right. The Thirties are looking better and better to me.

Here’s a little bit of TMI to brighten your day: For the first time ever, I shaved my hoo-ha bald. Never Again. The razor burn is unbelievably painful and the itch is driving me up a fucking wall. That’s what I get for caving to the Beauty Standard. There’s a good reason people have pubes, and I intend to honor that reason, prehistoric though it may be, from here on out. I don’t really grow much body hair anyway, due to the hypothyroidism…I ought to keep what little I do have. I haven’t had to shave my legs in seven, count them, seven years now. Maybe I’m out of practice with a razor, and that’s why I got such bad razor burn. Whatever the case may be, there’s a first time for everything…but this first was definitely a last.