I am alive

I was so productive yesterday, Mom would be proud.
I spent a long time at the lab getting shiz-nit in order for my paper due Thursday. It's a five page min. for my Shakespeare class.
Analyze the celebration of "if" in As You Like It as a key to understanding Shakespeare's maturing insight into the hypothesizing of variable, alternate likenesses in the work of forming a personal identity.

I know.

At first, I had felt intellectually intimidated by that class, worried that I would be completely lost in the world of literature. When I saw my professor driving a Saturn home, it dawned on me that, really, the class is just one man's theory about the word "like" and the way Shakespeare uses it. I'll never be able to apply what I'm studying later on in life, I'm sure. I mean, aside from being able to show off with my sheer genius at cocktail parties. It's purely that I enjoy reading Shakespeare and realizing what an artist he was.
As a "writer" (struggling to finish her 7 page short-story for Monday), I absolutely love looking at the words, and seeing the visual complexity of the Canon. The man had such a profound understanding of language. As a "student," I see the Bard as the Leonardo or Michelangelo of words. There are so many facets that exist beneath the poetry and rythym of his work; humor, humanity, sarcasm, commentary.
Who cares if his plays all came from other people's work. Duh. It's the way he presented it, in immense talent. His use of literary devices alone should be enough to amaze.

Anyways, I'm looking foward to writing this paper for a couple of reasons:
1- I'm using Déscartes and Pierre de la Ramée as outside sources for the logical aspect of the paper. That should be challenging, but fun.
2- Shoaf said that if I can make my argument (which is more or less that Shakespeare was attempting to bridge logic and rhetoric earlier than 1610) he would get my paper published. I'm not holding my breath, but it is a rather exciting incentive.

So that was FriDay. Later that night, I called M who I haven't seen in forever. I love that girl, we played drinking games for a couple of hours before heading out to Balls, and drinking more. I remember being at Balls. I remember making it home. I do not remember how I got into bed, the phone calls it seems I made, neither do I recall the conversation I had with "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" (because his name is my name too). And man, I woke up this morning feeling pathetically hungover. What a day too. I couldn't have been hungover when it was cold and dreary out, nooo. I had to pick the one sunny day in Gainesville to stay in bed, dealing with a particularly aggressive headache.

Around 2, I made progress toward doing stuff by calling the local family and making sure that, even though my phone says I called their number at 2:17 am, I did not wake them up. I had not. (Probably, it was my POS phone that freaks out whenever I touch it, and dials the first number in my phone book, so if I was awake at that point, I probably ended the call before it could ring). Then I figured, if I was going to call my local family, I may as well call Grandma and Grandpa. We had a great little update chat. Nothing's certain yet, but I might be able to spend the summer working in Aspen after all. Which would be:
1. Fantastic
2. Fun
3. Lucrative.
Grandma offered to get me anything I need, but how do you ask your Grandparents for stuff? I can't do it, I don't know how, but it felt good to know that I can.

Then I figured I may as well call my immediate family, so Dad was the next one to get a call from me. I LOVE arguing with my dad about politics, seriously, I think it's one of our strong points. We discussed the upcoming popularity contest election, the whole "ban on gay marriage" thing without getting frustrated with each other. I also brought up the worrisome noise the fan on my motherboard has been making, so the other good outcome of calling Dad was that I got up. And went out, into daylight. After I pulled off the cover to the computer, and saw the ungodly amount of dust, I went and got me a can of compressed air. Exciting, yes?

The fan's still freaking out, but at least now I know it's doing it in a dust free environment.

I fiddled with my short story for a while before M called and invited me to go on a walk with her. 23 blocks to Blockbuster, 23 blocks back. It was a great walk, it totally revived my love for Gainesville. I see so much more beauty when I walk in this town, as opposed to being in a car. (I also think it's ridiculous that in Miami, I have no problem schlepping from SW 50-something or other (I don't know, it's the Gables) up to NW 125, but in Gainesville, 10 blocks seems like a million miles.) We talked and yapped and chatted the whole time, working out some of the trivial shit in our lives.
And then, I came home and decided to update.

So, overall, I'm proud of myself for the past two days, being mildly productive and not sitting on my ass the whole time. And now that I've told you all about it, aren't you?

Cell Phones?

They should call them Hell Phones! (ahhhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!)

[wipes tear] But seriously folks, cingular wireless is bugging me. They're stupid system connection is down in Miami, so if you're roaming, you're going to have problems making and receiving calls. By problems, I mean, you won't be able to follow through with either. I don't really care, to tell the truth.

Admittedly, it is annoying to not be able to check my voice-mail. But on the plus side, I now am free of any obligation to call anyone, since they can't call me! Hurray!
Dad was in the G-Spot this weekend, so I had a nice visit with my pop. I love him very much, but I'm under the impression that I'm the only daughter who holds him in good favor this week. He's been the guardian for my sisters the past couple of months and they'e in hell because they haven't figured out how to manipulate him to get what they want yet. They're operating under an out-dated system and the new one is going Microsoft on their ass. But father-daughter tension aside, we had some good arguments and good meals. Plus, he took me grocery shopping, so the bottle of Fat-Free Ranch in my little Fridgie is now in good company. Score.

(And don't you laugh at my holding Groceries as a high point to the weekend. It's all I have. Middle Daughter should be waking up in her Hawaiin hotel room just about now. Oh you know, school trips. )

Anyways, daddy-daughter weekend is going to be enough to hold me over until Spring Break. It wouldn't have been able to if I were going to New York, but never fear, those plans totally crashed. See, I had wanted to see the city, toute-seul, over Spring Break. I planned for hostels and same-day B'way tickets and visits to the Park and the Met. Then, I opened my big mouth to my friends, and it became a group thing. And then it became a group who can't make up their minds thing. And now, I'm $300 out of the dark and buying a $40 bus ticket to Miami to spend the week in solitude on the beach. Which, is just as nice. I'm suprisingly up-beat about the whole scenario, but I think that's due to my "Hi, I'm an Optimistic hippie telling myself it will all be OK because I really don't want to think about the pending Apocalypse that awaits us in this election" outlook on life right now.

Oh god. A Hippie in Gainesville, I am so cliche.

On Tuesday, between classes, I took a walk around town. For no reason, just a random walk toting around my bag and 3500 some odd pages of Shakespeare. Except, it was a really lovely day. The sky was kind of an earthy gray, the clouds were heavy; it was a blustery day. Anyways, I eventually found myself at Wild Iris, the "womyn's" bookstore in Gainesville, they have a decent selection of womyn's lit in and out of Oprah's circle. The two ladies who run it are really pleasant and have a really cuddly cat. I bought The Secret Lives of Bees, which, so far is excellent, I might add. Over the transaction, I thought I'd do some shameless plugging for our Knitting/Crochet circle. And she was very pleased to hear about the local college kids getting into "fiber arts." So, she helped me out and gave me a free copy of Mama Raga, the Gainesville Lesbian Newspaper. Which is nice, we always love a good turn-out (our numbers are usually 10 or so). But, we are lacking in the feller department. We did have two dudes in the beginning, but one is indisposed and the other left town.
Although, this Thursday, RC did teach two pleasant gentlemen how to crochet. They are in town until Monday for the Rainbow Gathering. I can feel my leg hair getting longer by the second.

A little House of Pain to fix that. Yes. Pack it up and pack it in.

These are fun!

I have good news:
I have a ticket for Modest Mouse. Actually, it's better than good, it's great. I'm excited all craziness.

I also have so-so news:
There's drama in my life. Jesus.
I hate drama, I avoid it at all costs unless it's $40 and on a Broadway stage.

Act I-
Friday night. Oh wait, I mean Saturday morning. Four o'clock. Saturday morning
Synopsis:
The phone rings. It is T-dawg's boyfriend, who, by the way, when he calls, never follows proper phone protocol. (His typical greeting is: "T-dawg there?" And heaven forbid I should tell him that she's not there, because then he gets all uppity.) Anyways, he rouses me from my slumber to ask me where his girlfriend is. I haven't seen my roommate since 8 pm, when she left for a pageant and I left to get tickets to Modest Mouse, and she left me a voice mail saying how she couldn't believe I left without her.
I returned the frantic voice mail a million times, so much so that her voice mail-box was full when I tried leaving a final message at 3 in the morning, when I was home, and she was not. Although, my make-up, which I hadn't used in a while, was all over the fucking place. At least I knew she was looking pretty.

The asshole (and I don't care to be polite now, since he has never granted me that courtesy) called again (4:30 am) and I explained the above situation to him, whatevered it and said good-bye. 15 minutes later, the roomie walks in trying to convince the asshole that she had been with me all night. Then she came in to my room, and gave me a look. And after she got off her phone with him, she came over to me and said:
"I can't believe you told him I wasn't with you."
She slammed my door on the way out.
I got up from bed, opened the door and said something along these lines:
"It was four in the morning, I had been asleep. I had not seen you since 8 pm, I had no idea where you were, I had been calling all night, and don't ever put me in the middle of one of your fucking fights again. I am not part of this relationship."

We haven't spoken since Saturday, although, I've said things like "Good morning," "Hey," "How are you?" She's doing that deliberate thing you do to the people you don't want to speak to which is make eye contact and then look away.

But that's alright, because there's....

Act II!

I know someone who needs to have a lot more confidence in himself. He needs to recognize what people have been telling him for months, if not years. That is that he is an amazing person when he is completely honest with hisself and others. He is always going to be an amazing person and if he would stop belittling himself, he could see that he doesn't need to say silly things. He doesn't need to compare hisself to sex-objects that he hasn't even seen and come to the conclusion that since said sex-object is with the former flame now, they are cuter than the amazing person I know.
(ps. sex is not necessarily mail)


This sucks. Drama belongs with Shakespeare and Fosse and Tony Awards, not my life. I don't want to go on the Act III, and I don't think you want to hear it.

Let's call this one of my unfinished works and then a day, shall we, sugar?


BLOGGER'S NOTE: Have you ever listened to Modest Mouse? Because I think you should.