correction: i wasn't really happy on the 9th

in the past two weeks, i have:

1) had four midterms in three days;

2) had an emotional breakdown the likes of which haven't been seen around here in quite a while;

3) totally owned my hand on the hot handle of a mug, leaving me with a lovely blistery burn;

4) finished (poorly) the lay out of a whole issue of the flying squirrel while using in-design for the first time.

i feel like i haven't really had a chance to slow down for a long time. i don't even mean physically, although i am running around all the time (example: i must soon go collect data on elementary school kids, pick up ana pay for the copies of the squirrel, and meet lina, obstenibly before 5, when i want to safely back in westwood, tucked away from all the traffic of the world, where i can walk myself wherever i want to go). i'm just constantly sleepy. i woke up at 7 this morning, managed to make it until 9:30 and then tried to sleep for forty minutes, unsuccessfully. maybe that's my problem - restlessness. my mind is always running through ten bazillion things, which makes normal, ordered life very difficult.

this post is exactly like the last one, so i guess nothing's really changed since then - except maybe that sam actually offered up his new relationship as fodder for our phone conversation, immediately after telling me i should call him more. that's pretty impressive new ground.

you wouldn't know it, but i'm actually happy

i realized last night that i don't have enough control over my senses (or my sanity) to be a driver in los angeles. totally foul traffic is one thing, but the sheer number of idiots behind the wheel in this city is really shocking. true, i'm stupid too sometimes, but i blame that on my attention being diverted in six million directions, as i try not to be killed by someone else's crazy maneuvers. last night, i witnessed some guy cut across two lanes of oncoming traffic to make a right turn into a lane moving in the opposite direction. granted, i don't think this was his first intention - i think it was the byproduct of his realization that he could not, in fact, turn into the cars filling up the only lanes legally open to him. goddamn. i hate that i'm becoming one of them. i find myself doing stupid, defensive things in the car, simply to keep from being completely ignored and taken out. it's difficult to know that there's another driver watching me and thinking what i think at least five times every time i get into my car, which is, namely, "what a cock." i'm sorry, other drivers. it's your fault too.

i had four midterms this week (this is officially the last time i'll be able to use that excuse to get some pity), and it's been two days, and i am still fried. i slept many hours every night, and didn't pump myself full of adderall and red bull, but even so, just the stress and pressure of having so much shit to do all the time is bad for me (and anyone, for that matter). it's not healthy. for instance, right now, my neck and upper back are cramping and i'm exhausted, and all i've done thus far today is crochet, watch tv online and worry about the elementary school kids i'll have to collect research data about today, by myself. oh, and i've eaten a few junior mints, and i straightened my bangs. i guess that is pretty strenuous.

i want time to stop. i'd like to have time to myself, time when i'm not too wiped out to do anything but veg out and lay around. i guess maybe i could try to cook up some motivation. like i said, it's not like i'm working on the railroad. however, i will argue that mental strain can be just as tiresome. as the commercials say, depression hurts.*



*that is not to say that i'm depressed. it was a sick ploy on my part to get you to understand how my brain's exhaustion could make my body sleepy. see what i did there?

jesters and douche bags

it's been almost a month since i posted something, which is really a very good indication of what my life's been like recently. there haven't really been any good crazy stories (until this past week, hence the blog), and i haven't felt like sharing all the mundane details of life as a terribly boring busy college student. however, last night i was inspired:

i went home for my mom's democratic club halloween party, only because the great-aunts wanted me to keep them company, and because i wanted to see what my house looked like this year (as my dad goes all-out with fan motors and monster masks). the party was a fundraiser for a new show the club has on the local public access channel, and each person was asked to sign in and make a donation at the front door. a man taking the donations actually stopped me from entering the house until i said, "i live here," and barrelled past him. that immediately put me in a super bizarre mood. it's strange enough to come home from LA every once and a while and see how tall clay's gotten and how well life continues there now that i'm not really a part of it, but it was even more insane to be physically denied entrance to the place i grew up. i was, however, about forty years younger than everyone and wasn't wearing a costume, so maybe he just assumed i was there for the booze (i was).

the aunts and i didn't spend much time at the party, because it was crowded and someone fainted and had to be taken away in an ambulance (after much screaming about finding the landline and calling 911), but the time i was there was like something out of the twilight zone. my house was packed with elderly women* in jester costumes, and no one knew who the hell i was, so i kept getting "why are you here?" looks from ninjas and flappers. i was literally a stranger in my own (very, very creepy) house. there were also many leers from older men, which are super fantastic and which tie nicely with my next story.

the other night, lina and i went to study at a coffee bean in westwood, where we ended up talking outside for about an hour and a half, and being intermittently gased by some ass in a diesel volvo who periodically decided he needed to back his car into his spot just a little more. then, just as we'd shut up and started to read, a man in his late fifties came over to our table and began to ask us what we were studying, if we needed his lawyer expertise, if we would do him the favor of going out to coffee (again, i suppose) with him, because it would be really important to him. i just sat laughing about how ludricious life can be while lina tried to make him go away, until a man sitting at a table behind us called out, "maybe you should stop being such a douche." this was the first time in recorded history that another man had stuck up for us as we were being hassled by douches, and while it later proved to be a bad idea for the second dude to get involved, it made my heart glow a little. it was as if the universe finally told me that not every man, given no shame, would get into my personal space and make me hugely uncomfortable just to feel like a badass. it is here that this story becomes a long one, so i'll pare it down. let's suffice to say that the older man called security and lina and i and our unassuming textbooks were sucked into a petty fight between two guys who had nothing better to do on a tuesday night than be skeevy and start arguments. it's hard to explain, i suppose, the sheer unbelievability of that situation, but take it from me: it was pretty unbelievable.


*the one very obvious thing i've learned from all these democractic club gatherings i'm forced by my family to attend is that young people are either incredibly apathetic or totally denied membership - every single person there was at least ten years older than my mother. that's not at all a bad thing (until they start collapsing at parties), but it reflects badly on my generation, i think, for not giving enough of a damn.

corngratulations!

i came home this afternoon to take my grandma's seat at the local democratic garden party (this is the same event where my mother humiliated me last year - http://mocassinsocks.blogspot.com/2006/09/sadtown.html). even though a senator's daughter was the guest speaker and clay and i are usually very well-behaved, we couldn't handle sitting and listening for hours, and we left. (clay scribbled me a "let's see a movie" note on a luncheon program using a piece of hershey's chocolate - that's desperation.)

so anyway, clay left the table first, following shortly by me (so as to not attract too much attention as we got up and walked out of a speech by christine pelosi), and we eventually made it to the movie theather. my genius brother suggested "mr. woodcock," and because i wanted to be santa claus and make everyone's wishes come true, i didn't fight him on it (although i did say, very kindly, "are you sure there's nothing else you'd rather do?").

the movie was terrible. almost more terrible that i knew it was going to be before i bought the tickets. it was essentially a waste of time and money, and the only way clay and i are going to be able to live with ourselves is if, and i quote him, "we stay up for two extra hours tonight and do all things we should have been doing while we saw that movie." the only funny things in the film were corn puns, such as "let's go to the cornival!" and "say hello to all the corntestants!" i'll admit, i laughed at those. i like puns.

and now that we're back home and waiting for my mom to get back from the market, i have to think of ways to excuse myself from dinner here without having my parents make me feel guilty about what a horrible daughter i am.

excedrin & cold-eeze

disclaimer: i haven't been feeling 100% for a little while, and i think that's fried my brain, so i apologize for how totally incoherent this entry is.


i was up at 7 am this morning. it was a combination of having to ignore a 6:55 phone call (and subsequent voicemail) from a homeless man who has my phone number (long story) and who has called (and been ignored by) me for about a year and a half, and living below a woman who vacuums her apartment early in the morning. she has a dog who hates vacuums, so that's pleasant.

for the past few days, i've been battling a pretty impressive migraine. this morning, day three, when i could feel the headache creeping back, i overdosed on caffeine and excedrin migraine to try to keep it at bay. i then started feeling achy and shakey, which means the headache could be the forebearer of something more insidious, like a cold. so, it's only 10:45 am, and i've put enough caffeine and zinc into my body to combat migraines and viruses for the rest of my life. (note: never, ever chew a sugarfree zinc tablet.) we'll see if this works.

it seems, though, that someone is having a worse morning than i am, as there is a woman outside my window screaming, "bitch! bitch!" at someone (presuming over the phone, because i don't hear any reply). i would go peer out to see what's going on, but i don't have the energy to cross the room.

clayton

i just talked to clay on the phone and it was proven, once again, that he is the coolest little brother in the universe:

1) me: what scary movies did you rent?
clay: well, we've got "the marsh" with forest whitaker, which should be terrifying.

2) clay: your car smells like cigarettes* and mint. no, basil. basil.


*i feel it's important to note i don't smoke. there is no reason why my car should smell like cigarettes. or basil, for that matter.

work, work, work

i'm about to drive myself to campus and pay for parking for the second time today. i'm just so over having to walk back and forth between the apartment and campus to work events at all hours of the day. i decided to grin and bear the incredibly overpriced campus parking in order to spare myself the inevitable rage i feel when my entire day gets eaten up by irritating back-and-forths. besides, i have a car now, and i figure that should help facilitate my getting to the last few events i have to work (i'm not going to work at the ticket office during the school year).

today was sorta productive. as in, i went to work and then made copies of flying squirrel flyers to pass out tomorrow at an activities fair on campus. i'm hoping to trick some first-years into joining the paper, because as it is, i think i can count on about three people returning from last year. goddamn graduation.

i've been wearing the same outfit to events for the past week and a half. it's my way of sticking it to a job that makes me do hygienic* things like shave my legs and wear nice clothes.


*that is indeed how you spell "hygienic." i know. i looked it up.