Whistling in the Dark

I am tired. This is probably because lately I have decided that sleep is for sillies. Yes.

So people who are named lordpantywaist deserve congratulations and luck and other nice things, because of the play that was tonight that I, regrettably, will be unable to attend (because exams are next week oh god). But I am sure they are amazing. And the next time I see her, she had better sing me that other song that she wanted to sing me or I will be so sad, I am not even kidding at all. I bet you are better than Bernadette Peters at it and I am in love with that woman no joke so that is high praise.

Trufax.

I was going to give up caffeine? I am not doing that ever again ever. I went immediately into, like, deep-spiral-of-despair or something. It was not nice. I was not nice to be around. I got tired of oozing angst from every damn pore or whatever, and now I am drinking coffee again, even though oh god I have no money no money at alllll. (Well, I do, but...Christmas.) It is kind of magically making itself appear in places I would like it to be.

I am also trying to exercise more because I live in a thirteen-by-sixteen-foot shoebox and it was slowly driving me insane. V. is gone a lot more now because her boy is nice to be around and she is happy and so I am, except that it means I spend a lot more time sitting. in. the. box. staring. at. the. computer. screen. waiting. for. death. So I go on walks instead.

Or I will, in the future, when I...feel like it.

Blah.

I rode my bike home and watched stupid television for three hours and ate food and drank coffee and just kind of...sat there, enjoying being in a larger box.

If you are reading this and nice things are happening to you, you should tell me about them a whole lot. And if you are, again, lordpantywaist , you should tell me about how the play went and other such things. BUT you should send me an e-mail, because I like them.

I'm late and I don't care. (Tee hee. That is not really funny at all but I kind of think it is anyway. Meh.)

I would just like for things to not be difficult. That is all.

If you would be--oh, awesome. The stalker anthem just came on Pandora. "I feeeeeel youuuuu, Johanna." That does not really assuage my phears.

I don't at all remember what I was going to say.

There's a boy in my life again. (I almost wish this would stop happening, it's so distracting. Oh well.) I stopped talking to him for awhile for reasons and then he kind of...attacked me with demanding to know why. Which I guess is fair? I don't even know. I told him to leave me alone and he refused to until he knew why, and that was not comfortable for me.

Dammit, Pandora. Now it's playing "Every Time I Think Of You" by Some Band. "How our love would grow," etc. Way to send out mixed messages, Pandora.

Anyway, he said something last night like that he wanted to ask me out, when he moved back to Baton Rouge for college-y things (he's old enough, it's just. I don't know? At all? Really? I think he lost his scholarship-things, or something) and I'm just like...ellipsis. Dot dot dot. I do not know what to do with this really.

So...that's today.

Also, I hate my job. I make enough to buy pizza once a month, or something. Gah.

I cannot drink coffee anymore.

This is not a medical restriction, but rather a personal determination: I will no more sip from the cup of caffeinated awesome that used to fuel my every--single--day.

And why, do you ask? Why deprive yourself of the right to actually function from the hours of whenever it is you wake up to when it is finally properly dark outside?

The answer, my friends, involves a horrible bout of caffeine withdrawal that ended in vomiting. THAT is why I am not going on the caffeine trail anymore. I will drink only tea, which has the virtue of being available absolutely everywhere, even in places like Europe.

(Are you reading this, dear Rory? DO YOU SEE THE THINGS THAT I DO FOR YOU. I am kidding, it is mostly for health reasons for really real. That whole episode was pathetic and unnecessary and it would be nice to actually have money ever again, also.)

I'm mostly off it anyway, I mean the caffeine addictiony part. I've barely had any the past, oh, three, two and a half days and the headache has almost entirely stopped. It comes and goes. Sometimes it comes and punches me in the eye, IN THE EYE I TELL YOU, and then goes, but it always goes away again. Mostly. "It mostly always goes away." Charming, accurate grammar, charming.

I was thinking in the shower this morning that I need to stop thinking about Camelot. The 1969ish version with Vanessa Redgrave and That Italian Actor To Whom She Is Now Married (Franco Nero--will I remember that? No). Because all it is doing? Is making me sad.

"I [did not] love you once in silence." So there, blue-hair boy.

I'm going to try that. To blog every day for 365 days, starting I guess now. Because I don't really seem to write in my journal anymore, maybe because it takes longer and there are a lot of things I don't want to think about for a long period of time--anyway, I miss having that record, so I'm going to try keeping it online. And also to not delete anything as I normally do.

So I won NaNoWriMo.

I am kind of stunned by this. Not because I didn't think I could do it, but because...here is this thing that millions or thousands or some number of people do every year for like eleventysix years or something, and now I am a part of it. And it is really, really nice. To have that feeling. I guess that's why V.'s joined a sorority? To be a part of something that is larger and more durable and more constant than she is? Because that's what I feel right now--there is a community that has let me in without question, and now I've made it clear that I do, in fact, belong there. I am worthy.

(I have no idea what that sort of thing is for a sorority. I guess just getting in means you're good enough--whatever.)

I don't really want to think about V. That situation is just generally fraught. (She's in the pre-dating phase with the guy I've liked since Augustish. But I kind of expected this to happen, so I refuse to be bothered by it--it just means I'm right, and good at reading people, and I guess that means I win. I just wish it didn't suck from an outsider's point of view, I guess. Whatever for the ninety-seventh time.)

I'm going to stop typing now.

I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON i am tired.

Star Trek 8:00 Parade Ground (AWESOME)
read books 20-21 of Iliad (meh)
Chem. homework
Calc. homework (OH GOD WHY)
pack to go home (Fri.)
do whatever Stellarium wants me to? (apparently nothing. I don't know)

Chem. homework
HNRS paper--FINISH THE GORRAM BOOK
Mom's birthday present
doom doom doom doom doom
Calc. homework (do not fight the inevitable)

TUNICA HILLS. OR CAMPING. OR DEATH.
(Death won by default. Alas.)

Read the Odyssey
Dinner with mom--time? place? why are you a crazy person, genetic donor of mine? maybe that song should be "you made me crazy" instead of "you made me gay." just a thought.
Study for math (death death death death deathhhh)

Um, yeah. Finish the Odyssey. (or...completely ignore it forevar.)
Evita Saturday
Apollo's Lyre--Wed, 6, Highland Coffee
chem. test Thursday (study group Tues. 5)
paper rewrite
fail (I am never done with this either.)
TOPS meeting Mon 6-7 (this was lame.)
"Science on Film", 7:30 Life Sciences
get Herodotus, #2 pencil, BIKE from home using the power of Grayskull (forget it, it will never be done)
freak the hell out (I would italicize this, but I am never finished doing it. And thus.)
movies Friday--find a ride. (fun.)

Buy a blue book, apparently?
Relearn how to type jesus god
Study for HNRS/HNRS test
finish mom's birthday present

Chem paper: periodic table
Rewrite HNRS paper for realz
Spanish homework (AHAHAHAHA)
more math it never ever ends whine sob
buy Say Anything tickets
buy red hair dye
turn into someone who gives a shit

HOLY CRAP I'M EIGHTEEN NOW
HNRS paper 2
finish chemistry homework
talk to Ryan, preferably without dying of embarrassment or disappointment or whatever (AHAHAHA)
contact Laura about meeting this week
Apollo's Lyre constitution

study for chemistry test
study for calculus test
get some sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
Antigone tonight, 7:30

I failed out of calculus. Somehow, I have become a person who fails out of calculus. Speak/type, rinse, repeat.

This is one of those things I have started telling people as often as possible so I may, at some point, become used to the idea.

(Really, I didn't fail out; I can't finish with a score high enough to get into the College of Basic Sciences, which means I can't actually get the microbiology degree I'm not sure I want. If there aren't enough qualifiers on that sentence, feel free to add your own.)

I'm not upset, at all. I thought I would be--especially because I'm smack dab ("dab" is a gross word for this, really) in the middle of That Time of the Month--but...I guess the space the "holy shit nobody loves meeeee" would go is being sort of squashed by "actual problem?" Because I wasn't PMS at all.

(Overshare: I did have cramps, tho. I had cramps like a mofo. So bad they made me nauseous. And a headache like having sharp spikes stabbed into my tender tender, um, whatever that part of your brain is on the right side, sort of right above your ear, I guess.)

Anyway, all of this emotional angst (also brought up by some Shit With Friends, which I am really, really done with now) was utterly squashed by a weekend hanging out with my mother, which was excellent both for how pleasant it was and for how much of a novelty it being pleasant was.

AND FOR THANKSGIVING WE ARE GOING TO NEW ORLEANS IF I HAVE TO LEARN TO DRIIIIIIVE.

step 1. turn into a Nac Mac Feegle. Preferably kelda, but I will settle for small blue man covered in tattoos and kilt and bits of fur or whatever. they are small and angry and seem like good mascots in general, even with the swearing--oh well.

step 2. take HNRS exam OWN THE SHIT OUT OF THAT TEST, MAKE IT MY BITCH, FORCE IT TO BUY ME MOAR COFFEE YES MOAR THERE IS NEVAR ENUFFFFFFFFF okay I'm done now.

step 3. hang out with the atheist club in Free Speech Alley. watch the carnage as they interact with the Baptists On Campus or whatever that group is, who apparently will be setting up some kind of prayer circle on the Parade Ground.

step 4. listen to Dan Mangan some more, at some point, he is amazing and I really really love semi-stalking writers on livejournal because they know the ways of awesome yay. (if anyone who is a writer reads this I am not actually stalking you, I'm just...horribly horribly awkward, you can ask anyone, they will laugh hysterically and say yes.)

step 5. go to spanish. maybe. no, i will. sigh.

step 6. go to calculus. wish that I was not going to calculus. so, nothing new there. (sinh x what who? this matters why? sigh, MATH.)

step 7. i will lie on the grass in the quad IF DOING SO CAUSES ME TO BREATHE MY LAST GODFORSAKEN BREATH. it is a beautiful day and i have been wanting to do this for ages and ages.

step 8. eventually go to Sra. Margarita's for dinner (arepas, thank you god, sometimes you are nice to me i guess) and then home.

summary of events that have already happened, because for some reason they amuse me:
I WOKE UP AT FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE GOD DAMN MORNING WHY DID I DO THIS YOU ASK I DO NOT FUCKING KNOW. I KIND OF WISH THAT I HAD NOT. ARGH.

internet lurking. this is all i ever do, of course, so it is maybe not such a surprise that i did it more today.

take a shower.

go eat breakfast at the 459 because apparently i have roughly twelve days to spend a hundred and seven meals in (that is what we call hyperbole, kids, tell yo' friends if you still have any OH BURN). in which i drank two cops of coffee i am so happy now SO HAPPY that might just be the crazy amounts of caffeine. are they marketing that stuff as liquid joy yet? they should.

(maybe not.)

I HOPE EVERYONE READING THIS HAS A GOOD DAY BECAUSE I AM GOING TO BY FORCE OF WILLLLLLL.

Dearest Rorshach,

I have been spending this trip away from home base gathering intelligence on the new situation in which I find myself and I have discovered, primarily, that what it really needs is your particular talents for making things interesting. I am sure there is some corruption lurking in the Student Union (where you can find nothing useful for under five dollars) that I cannot abolish all on my lonesome. As the December holidays approach, I will find myself with less and less to do--would you perhaps be able to visit for some time? My current assignment will be finished on the fourteenth of December, and the next will not go into effect until after Christmas.

Soon I hope to buy some new equipment for my costume--something to more effectively fight crime. I find the shoes I have been wearing are absolutely falling apart at the seams, though I still wear them, because they are a priceless relic from the second time we met, on that hero's retreat in the north. Anyway, I was hoping I could send them to you, when I get them, and you would make them fit the rest, as you did then? I would very much appreciate it.

I miss the hell out of you. If it's not too forward to say.

Your colleague lover friend

Yours,

Daniel

P.S. You look distinguished, too.

 NOT FINISHED PACKING YET STOP TOMORROW IS MOVING DAY STOP WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING STOP

UPLOADING CDS TO MY COMPUTER STOP I HAVE LIKE SEVENTYFIVETHOUSAND OF THEM WHAT THE HELL STOP

WISH I WAS IN NEW ORLEANS STOP

LOVE ME STOP

 I think that the only thing worse than having a witty ex-girlfriend is being one, or dating her close friend.

 um...really they're just lying around pretending to. things are inherently lazy, you can tell because they always seem to happen really slowly until OH MY GOD SO MUCH IS GOING ON. this is because they have quotas to fill, and deadlines, or else they will have to become diminished and go into the West and I am too obsessed with that phrase, frrlz.

I'm packing for college, I guess. Not very effectively. Not very effectively at all. I have two boxes of clothes all contained, but I just realized that one of them is all my tank tops and I don't even leave for another two and a half days--wow. Wow. Really? Two and a half days? Before I enter the land of Jesus and football, possibly never to return if I get kilt by someone who gets angry when I semi-accidentally snark on the subject of student athletes?

Fuck.

Anyway, I have a fridge, and I have a microwave, and I have an incredible ability to stall. You would not believe this. It is magic, or something. Kat's supposed to be coming over (I think she's on her way, actually, she just signed off AIM) to watch movies on Netflix with me and watch me throw things into boxes. I don't know. I'm hoping the commentary, at least, is interesting.

Mom got me a lamp thing to put in my dorm and I have sheets and things, but all that crap's still downstairs. I don't know how to pack my hat collection, exactly. I guess I'll just wear the fedora and...not worry too terribly much about the rest. And my scarves. And my ties. And I had a list on Listography for all this crap which I just remembered about.

I got back from BIOS and I had a mini-breakdown and I don't really want to talk about it. But I'll probably be posting on LJ more, unless I die from homework, because this is a lot easier way to keep a record and I'll want to be able to look back on this sometime, I think.

Oh--the other reason is that I went to see Julie&Julia with my mom and my aunt and my aunt's slightly-creepy best friend and my cousin, and her whole "the subject/the contender" thing kind of amused me, so here's mine:

The challenge: Louisiana State University. Land of football and highly religious people, crawfish and that charming aspect of most southern personalities known as "by God, we're gonna shoot sumthin tonaht!" Specifically, a diploma from the College of Basic Sciences.

The contestant: Natalie Denby, resident nerdy liberal agnostic.

Um. If I just say "fuck" again as a sentence all by itself, does that count as abusing a literary technique?

best insult ever: ghetto whore-goblins.

thank you, VH1.

in other news, I just got back from NO (and...the only person who reads this is Mabry, so this is useless) with a blue streak in my hair and two newly screen printed T-shirts. one of which I am wearing. it's pretty epic.

and in two weeks I move into the dorms. don't ask if I'm packed, I'm just scared.

hard not to notice, rory.

 the stupidest thing about summer vacation is that you feel like a genius when you figure out how to make hard lemonade using that powdery crap.

tee hee, i remain un-fond of drinking.  just bored.

 (what is even the way to talk of this? is it "magazine" originally, meaning the apostrophe is necessary, or is it one of those terms that just evolved from slang and differentiating between homemade and, like, official? speaking of, ADBUSTERS IS STILL TOO EXPENSIVE, WAAH.
oh wait, no it's not. i just...would rather mess with it online. trufax.)

wow, easily distracted.

Anyway, I am making a real live whatever-you-would-call-it about change through art. I would like more things to put in it, because right now...it is lacking. (Everyone say "awww.") I am looking for anything at all anyone would like to put in it, especially on themes of individuality and political stupidness in art. One of my friends is writing an essay on sexual education in Catholic schools, since she just did that unit; other people are letting me use their collages, photographs, poems, and that's all I have.

If you let me use your work, I will do with it only what you allow me to. Any alterations made for the sake of the structure of the whole will first be submitted to you for your approval (unless you give me permission at the outset, in writing and preferably in some public forum, that I can do as I wish with it); nothing will be changed, though I may remove some parts for space. You will be credited in whatever manner you desire and you may include a short (or even short-ish) artist's biography if you so desire.

Anyone who submits art to my project will receive a free copy, if they want one, unless I am too broke when I finish making them. Otherwise I'll send you one for the price of postage, since I plan on mooching off my mother's resources to make copies. (She has nice resources. She works for the state. I enjoy feeling like I'm taking some of the money back our awful awful governor cut from arts funding.)

I very much appreciate anyone who is able to contribute, and I hope you will do so.

PMS: disrupts your liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife goddamnit ow.

PMDD: DISRUPTS YOUR LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE GODDAMNIT OW.

the difference then is Caps Lock.  i was so confused, thank you for explaining that to me, i can now live in thanks that my life is not disrupted monthly by complete bodily fucktardedness, OH.  WAIT.

today is incredibly stupid and confusing and panicky and...not really important.  or at least, it wasn't meant to be.  oh well.

i decided against prom, hurrah! and was going to write some of the things i had decided to make my own landmarks, since you guys were really incredibly nice about it:

1. graduation.  trite, but even though i'm only going across the street (i made some stupid decisions, and my high school is literally on the campus of what is going to be my college) it still feels like an escape.  i don't even feel like i have to change as much as i want to.

2. falling in love properly, in which the person i love reciprocates and is willing to prove it to me.

3. making this zine-thing i've been meaning to work on.

yes.

none spirit, that is.  it is spirit week/field day(s)/act like a complete ponce at my school, and they are like "show your spirit!" and...yes.  insert title and first sentence here.  whatevs.

i have made a nu rule regarding when you just don't feel like taking a shower (yes, fairly disgusting, meh): if you wear a hat to cover up the hair that should have been washed that you didn't feel like washing, DO NOT TOUCH IT.  because it will feel like it may not give your hand back.  in fact, do not take the hat off until just before you are going to wash your hair.

sleeping tonight will be interesting, then.

tee hee.

(ALSO BILO I AM SO EXCITED SO EXCITED THAT IS HOW EXCITED I AM IT IS SO MUCH)

1. The reason I am bothered by and mildly obsesesd with prom is that it is a culmination of all the ways in which high school failed me.  It is a giant "maybe", even though I know it won't change anything.  It won't make anything have happened better.  It'll just be a dance.  And we'll go back to school and it will be like nothing happened, because nothing will.  So I'm not going.  And I'm not worried about wishing, in the future, that I went, because what people really wish for is that their entire high school experience had been better and I would like to think I'm more logical, or self-aware, or just plain intelligent than that.

Even so, whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.  Prooooooooom.  Has anyone been to dances that do not suck?  Is there any reason I should go, other than it being "a high-school landmark that you will never forget until the end of your days?"  Because all the ones of those I've gone to sucked royally.

2. When we are lying in the grass it is hard not to kiss you, CJ.  Stop having a girlfriend and let's just have fairly regular makeouts.  It is way easier to deal with you that way.  Or, you know, not.