So! It's been quite a while, yes? Haven't had much to report. It's summer now, and I'm still home, and still jobless and mostly directionless. I have been seeing doctors and am in therapy, which was the most important part about this taking a semester off thing, anyway. I do sometimes regret it and wish I had stuck around, had that spring semester with Lisa - which I so wanted after she'd been away last fall - and had a last semester with my senior friends, but it was kind of the only choice. I was just too sick to continue. Full stop.

I have been officially readmitted, and hopefully will actually have a place to live in my house in the fall (not quite clear on that yet.) Hopefully I'll be able to graduate with both my majors, but if I have to drop one it's really not the end of the world. Finishing my English major won't be a problem at all, since I took so many of my required classes so early on. It would break my heart to have to drop American Studies as a major, but not as much as it would kill me to be taking two seminars each semester which could be what I would have to do. I don't know. My advisors will work some kind of magic, I bet.

As for why I'm writing so obscenely early in the morning, well, there's really only one reason I would be willingly awake and alert and having free time this early: namely, I never actually got to sleep last night. I'm not sure what happened there. I had some brief in-and-out sleep between about 4 and 5:30, but only for a few minutes at time and never deeply at all. I got up at about 5:30 because I was starving, came downstairs for some heavy bread and apple juice. (To the delight and confusion of Duncan and Mabel, who were quite excited for the company so early in the morning.) Went back upstairs and tried to sleep. Got up again at 7 to take some Advil for my headache, hoping that would help. Realized I was just not falling back asleep, said "fuck it" and took a shower and got up for good. My mom isn't even awake yet. She'll be pretty disoriented when she sees me. When left to my own devices I usually get up around 1.

I understand why I had trouble actually going to sleep - I had a chai latte too late yesterday while at Barnes & Noble, where I spent the bulk of my afternoon, reading foreign Vogues. (An extremely pleasant way to spend one's afternoon, all told.) I really shouldn't have caffeine of any quantity higher than green tea. It makes me jittery, lightheaded, and my heart race, and apparently robs me of sleep.

The Voguefest was delightful, though. I discovered that British Vogue has sections on fashionable deals that are ACTUALLY deals (as opposed to American Vogue, which lists, like, a $250 bathing suit as a total steal.) I also discovered that Lara Stone is fucking ubiquitous lately, as part of the fashion industry's attempt to foster a healthier body image and make a better name for themselves - look, this one size 4 model! We don't put incredibly unreasonable standards of thinness on our models and clients! Never! It's just so self-congratulatory.

I do like Lara, though. I especially love her Versace ads, as she's perfect for them. Bold, sexy and sometimes a little loud and trashy. A rail-thin model just can't really make those kinds of clothes sing. So good for her for coming along at the right moment and getting the opportunity to capitalize on it.




I dig her tooth gap, too. Another part of being unexpectedly just-right - it's unique and instantly recognizable a la Lauren Hutton, but also somehow actually makes her sexier. No mean feat.

Honestly, I'm not even sure what I'm talking about anymore, at this point. I am so bloody exhausted. (But not sleepy at all. Hence the problem.) Wish me luck, you guys.

Sometimes I can smell the hospital smell. I don't know why...certain kinds of sanitizer, I guess, or the clothes that I'm wearing, the combination of the fabric smell and whatever detergent I've been using, or psychological assocations. I could smell it a minute ago, and it gave me the shivers. Not the good ones. I hate hospitals and I've spent much more time in them than people should have to. Most of the time before I was even six years old, so I don't remember much, but it's still in there. Along with the two seizures I had as a three-month-old, I had constant respiratory infections as a kid. Croup, pneumonia, bronchitis. It was hardest on my brother, I think. My parents were old enough to understand and I was too young to understand, but he was just the right (wrong?) age for it to be kind of traumatic. He's much more squeamish about hospitals than I am, actually.

And, you know, I try to joke around about the health stuff because it makes it easier (humor is my primary defense mechanism about everything, anyway), and it's the best way to deal with it, and it puts other people at ease at the same time, which then makes me feel a little better. But I do get scared sometimes. I know that the psychogenic explanation for my seizures is the most likely one at this point, but it's not the only thing that's wrong with my body. I have constant aches and pains and fatigues and it's gotten so much worse in the last couple of years. My energy level has decreased so much. I can't live the same way I used to. I need to rest so much more often. I'm more sensitive to temperature and my joints ache all the time. I'm always dizzy and my stomach is always getting fucked up (it always has, but that's been getting worse, too.) And, you know, all this plus the seizures...I am just not convinced that the answers have been found yet. And I hate admitting it, really I do, but it does get seriously scary sometimes. Like when I couldn't see for two hours after my last one. And having the history of such an utter lack of fucking compassion with the way people dealt with it in high school - it all makes it harder to deal with now because of that in my past.

And, you know, fuck. I miss someone from the past today, really badly. I have been lately, in general, but it's worse today. Our relationship was never a healthy one and I know, intellectually, that it's probably better off for me to be apart from him. We both brought out things in one another that we probably shouldn't have been pulling out. Some things need to stay underneath, sometimes. But, God, I had never felt more extraordinary or creative or utterly understood. There was soulmate - fucking soulmate! - potential there and sometimes I really thought he had been created for me and me for him. And I don't go for shit like that. But he made me believe it, or at least want to.

I remember when I used to go to dark places just to devastate myself, just so that I could have him comforting me. I needed him all the time, not just when I was breaking down, but every day, on my ordinary everyday levels of misery, but I couldn't tell him that because I was too afraid of losing what little I had. Our relationship had already utterly fallen apart once by that point, and I couldn't lose him so completely again by pushing it too hard, getting too intense. So I let myself crumble just so that I could have him put me back together again. One of the most fucked-up, self-destructive things I've ever done. I'm lucky I didn't push it farther than I did.

And yet right now I'm feeling like I want to do it again, like I would if he were here. Push it again. Is that even love? I don't know what it is, how it qualifies, but I know that I want him in my life again, as ill-advised as that probably is. We were so perfect for each other and so terrible for each other at the same time. I have never needed anybody so much, nor ever felt so needed, but maybe that's not something I should keep pushing for. Like I said, is that even love? It's a pretty fucked up love if it is, but right now I kind of wouldn't have it any other way.

Whatever it is, I want it back. Whatever he is, I want him back.

So, it's been like a million years since I wrote in this, right? (Or six weeks or so, but hey, close enough...)

I'm well into my semester now and overall it's going pretty well. Classes are pretty great for the most part, and my health is...well, it's been worse. There's definitely been some sick badness (nausea, stomach pains, headaches, body aches, chest pain, heart palpitations, a seizure the other day, and even some weird new shit), but hey, at least I haven't gotten the swine flu, right?

I have been really homesick this semester though, worse than it's been in awhile. I always missed my mom really badly, but never "home" so much, and it sounds silly, but honestly I think a lot of it has to do with my missing my cats. Seriously. I am having serious cat withdrawal and it's a problem.

Also, a piece of awesome awesomeness that I forgot to put into my last entry and clearly have not put in since, as I have not updated and all and blah blah blah: The day before moving all my stuff in, when my mom and my brother and I were hanging out on campus, we went for a long walk on the Smith trails. A little dog ran up to us, and as I was, you know, talking nonsense to the dogs and so forth, the dog's owner came over - who happened to be Thurston Moore, of Sonic Youth fame. I looked up (way, way, way up because the dude is TALL), and there he was. With his dogs. I mean, I knew he lived in the area, but seriously, that was about the last place I would expect to run into him. Go figure. I basically squealed my face off.

But enough of this. My mom sent me some pictures of the cats and I'm gonna post them now.

Mabel in the cabinets:


Cuddling cats:




More to come, as always.

Home from the hospital!

I've actually been home a few days, but it's taken me some time to sort out my feelings about the whole thing and be able to take a bit of a step back from it all.

I only ended up being in the room itself for about 24 hours, something for which I am very grateful - it's highly unusual to be there for such a short amount of time. They were able to induce a seizure and other "events," as they called them (an aura, partial body convulsions, etc.), and no abnormalities were found on the brain monitor, which lead them to a diagnosis of non-epileptic seizures of psychosomatic origin.

Now. Those are the facts of the thing.

I don't think this diagnosis would have been so frustrating if I hadn't already spent four years having these things constantly being written off as nothing, as originated from stress, as something that I could control, as something that wasn't at all dangerous and so on and so forth - getting this opinion from "regular" people and doctors alike. The other frustration is that, while this isn't as dangerous as, say, epilepsy (no oxygen-starved brain, for instance), aside from maybe more therapy and guided meditation, there's really not a damn thing I can do about it.

Which is exactly what I had feared. That, in the end, I'd be left with really not a whole lot that I could do.

But hey, at least they didn't have to torture me for more than those 24 hours, right? Breaking veins in an attempt to give me an IV and depriving me of sleep? (The second was intentional; the first, obviously, was not. That was just my veins being totally made of fail. For real, they suck.) They tested me for Celiac's disease (gluten intolerance) for a possible explanation of my stomach problems, which I thankfully do not have. Sure it would have been nice to have an explanation, but not to the extent that I could never have bread or pasta or beer ever again. (Not that I drink much beer, but hey, the option is nice.)

A positive thing is the Mad Men-viewing my mom and I did and have continued to do in the days that followed. It really does live up to all the hype. It's one of the best and most complex TV shows I've ever seen, with wonderful and delightfully subtle characterization, compelling plot lines (though that's totally not why I watch), and sumptuous costumes. I also discovered while watching it that I have already been in academia way too long, as any episode I watched, I felt an essay forming its way into my head as I thought about it. I think in essay format now, whether it's about a book I just read or an episode of Mad Men (or far less highbrow television, for that matter.) This is leading me to believe that pop-culture criticism may actually be what I want to do, and where I really fit in. Listening to an album, looking at a fashion collection, watching a TV show, I can hear the essay formulating in my head. It's crazy...it just seems to be what my brain wants to do and where it wants to be.

So that's a good thing to discover, I think. Speaking of which, I'm planning some Project Runway looks analysis (and gushing), season-by-season. It's been in the works for awhile and I'm excited. Not as excited as I am for the return of the show, but excited. It'll be more gushy than anything else, but it'll be pretty bitchin. No doubt about that.

I have conflicting feelings about going back to school, too, but for right now it's something I'd really rather not think about. I'll just try to enjoy the rest of the time I have left at home, and take it all in.

Last day of freedom!

Well, not quite. But sort of.

Yes, I ship out to the hospital tomorrow for God knows how long. I'm mostly packed up (all clothes that I can button or pull up, nothing that has to go over my head, since I'll have electrodes on my head...lucky I have so many dresses, I guess), and books and DVDs. A coworker of my mom's is lending us at least the second season of Mad Men and maybe the first (she lent it to someone else), Evie is lending me her second and third seasons of Queer as Folk. She's planning to visit me one of the days I'm there, too.

I'm really hoping that the weather will either be cold and gross, or so unbearably hot that I would be miserable being out in it anyway. Because it's actually been pretty nice out lately - for pretty much the first time all summer - and having to be inside through it will make me even more cranky than I normally would be. I have such a complex about summer time - we get so little nice, warm, sunny weather where I am that I feel like I have to take advantage of EVERY MINUTE when it's nice out (even if I don't) and I don't want that to be pissing me off while I'm in the hospital. I won't be able to go outside or even leave my room.

And of course I'll be VIDEOTAPED the whole time! (Except for in the bathroom, obviously.) That won't feel awkward AT ALL. And I also might have a roommate. (Please, God, don't let me have a roommate. Please oh please.)

I'll have wireless there, too, so I'll probably be blogging about all the crazy shit that will ensue. (In addition to taking some pictures of my electroded head - seriously, it's something to behold. I look like some kind of cracked-out, electricity-savvy Medusa.)

Exciting, exciting. It'll give me something to blog about, anyway. Not a whole let else going on in my life...which is not such a terrible thing, really. Not at all.

Sayonara, friends!

Well...

The epilepsy clinic I went to on Monday was quite a good and helpful appointment - the doctor seemed really great and was really thoughtful and thorough. He recommended I do a long-term evaluation which they ended up setting up for August 4. Basically, for about 5-10 days (unless they can induce a seizure earlier) I'll be in a wee room, with a little bathroom, only able to move within said room and not allowed to shower, with electrodes on my head. While they stress my body. Probably by depriving me of sleep and food.

JOY!

The good news is, though, that if they induce a seizure they'll be able to tell, pretty conclusively, what is is: if there's something abnormal in my brain waves and, if so, where it is; and if not, they'll know pretty conclusively that it's psychogenic (or part of a metabolic disorder or something.)

Also on Monday, the hammock collapsed under me, which led to me screwing up my back and getting a bump on the back of my head. Also fun. Also joyful.

Also, strangely, for the last two nights in a row I've had dreams about people from my past - exes of a certain sort, people I haven't thought about in quite a while. It was rather unsettling...probably doesn't mean much of anything other than that I'm really, really lonely, and definitely in a romantic capacity. That's been a void that I've been longing to fill for awhile now and there are so many things that I've left unfinished, and all these people with whom I feel like I have unfinished words, unfinished actions. It's hard to let go when a clean break hasn't been made and my life doesn't really seem to lend itself to clean breaks.

In any case, on Wednesday I will officially leave my teenage years behind and THAT, my friends, is something to celebrate, to be sure. 20s, here I come.

The kittens have officially been named: Duncan and Mabel. Huzzah! Not very exciting names - I do kinda still wish we'd ended up going with themed ones - but they seem to fit the little critters really well and I'm just glad we settled on SOMETHING, finally.

(Because I know y'all were totally wondering.)

The health stuff hasn't been great - I threw up at work yesterday - but all my tests were normal and nothing drastic or terrible has taken place, so I guess it's been pretty consistently not-bad. I don't even know what the hell the nausea is all about. My mom and I hypothesized lactose intolerance, maybe, since dairy has been making me queasy more and more for the past few years, but who the hell knows. My digestive system has never worked particularly well, and lately less than ever.

The weather has been fantastic, though - 70s and sunny, mostly, not too hot (a good thing for my delicate little flower constitution, right?) Wow, I'm actually writing about the weather on my blog. How boring is my life?

In other, happier news, I got the Sims 3. Huzzah! Those of you who know me well know what a simming addict I am - I've been playing it since the first one came out, when I was 10 or so - so this is an exciting prospect in my life. :) It's...kind of strange, and definitely different, but hey, it's a shiny new toy and I'm really enjoying being super-absorbed in something again. It's been a while.

Going to New York next week and I can't freaking wait. I'll get to see my brother since he's coming up for the weekend, which is always fabulous, AND I'll get to be there for Pride which will be SERIOUSLY F'ING FABULOUS. I've actually never been to a Pride parade before (what a bad hag am I), and New York City pride, of all the things, will be amazing, I'm sure. So that will be exciting, and something to blog about as well.

Till next time!

Well, it's Friday, and at the risk of sounding corny, thank God for that. This week wasn't nearly as disastrous health-wise as last week, but it was still LONG, what with the chest pain and fatigue and nausea that are still very much present. Had an MRI on Monday (which was confirmed to be fine - apparently I have no tumors, lesions, aneurysms or any other such things on my brain - hooray for that), and an echocardiogram, the results for which I am still waiting...along with the results from my heart monitor that I had on for 24 hours last week.

So, yeah. I'm tired. And a little bit cranky, to be perfectly honest. There is nothing I want more right now than to be curled up in my bed, asleep.

The kittens are still awesomely kitteny and kitteningly awesome. We still haven't named them definitively, although it looks like the girl will be named Mabel (the frontrunning name from Day 1), and we're leaning towards Duncan for the boy at the moment. It was harder to get a handle on what he should be named...the girl just seemed like a Mabel from the very beginning. Boy kitty (Duncan?) is the neediest, most affection-desperate little critter I've ever seen, and we have a history of VERY codependent animals at my home. He sometimes runs after me screaming as though his little cat heart has been broken, holding up his arms to be picked up - and then immediately starts nuzzling my face and licking my nose once I do. Mabel is very needy as well, although not as bad as her brother.

They are also RAVENOUS EATERS and will eat everything in sight. Here is what they have stolen off my plate so far:
Chicken
Whole grain pasta
Red beans
Ranch dressing
Cheese
Onions
Spinach
Apples
Milk, half & half, etc.
Apple juice
Popcorn

FREAKING RIDICULOUS. What kind of cats go crazy over eating FRUITS AND VEGETABLES? They are CRAZY.

My mother and I have also discovered that we seriously need a hobby. I can't work out until my chest inflammation business gets better - even walking up stairs can be really painful right now - so that's out. We don't do crafts or make stuff, and reading can get tiresome and antisocial if we do it all the time. So we kind of don't know what to do with ourselves for awhile. As for writing...yeah, well, my muse has flown the coop the past few months. She's off in the distance laughing at me somewhere.

Suggestions of hobbies for non-crafty, somewhat inactive people?

Oh, health.

Oh, my health.

What a piece of crap my body is.

I had a seizure at work the other day, which was awful, of course, although that's kind of only the start of all this business. My blood pressure was absurdly low when they first took it: 90/45, although it went up again soon after. Was in the hospital for about 4 hours (bloodwork and so forth) and got a CT since I haven't had one in 4 years and the clinic I'm going to in July is asking for as up-to-date information as possible. They didn't find anything (of course) except for a seemingly completely random UTI, for which I am now on antibiotics. Antibiotics that make me so nauseated that almost any movement leaves me nearly vomiting up my lunch.

I had a doctor's appointment today just so that my doctor could order and schedule another MRI, but while my mom and I were there, we got a lot of other stuff taken care of. Had a neurological workup, which was fine (of course) and discovered that I have inflammation in the wall of my chest, which is accounting for the chest pain I've been having the past few months. They also found a heart murmur. (Awesome.) Did an EKG, which was normal, but put me on a 24-hour heart monitor, currently hooked up to my chest.

If only I had House. HE WOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE THE CONNECTIONS. And on top of all this, the ol' piece-of-crap knee has been killing me the past few days.

Still, though, I am handling this with my usual brand of stoicism and self-deprecating humor because, y'know, I'm just used to this crap by now. It's just the way it goes with me.

The kittens are fantastic, albeit unbelievably needy. My mom and I still can't decide what to name them - right now they're going by "boy kitty" and "girl kitty," and/or whatever name we feel like calling them that moment. But yeah, the kittens and I get a whole lot of quality time together. It's awesome.

I'm hotsick and so this is what I'm putting here.

My friend assures me, "It's all or nothing."
I am not worried
I am not overly concerned
My friend implores me, "For one time only,
make an exception." I am not worried
Wrap her up in a package of lies
Send her off to a coconut island
I am not worried I am not overly concerned
with the status of my emotions
"Oh," she says, "you're changing."
But we're always changing

It does not bother me to say this isn't love
Because if you don't want to talk about it then it isn't love
And I guess I'm going to have to live with that
But I'm sure there's something in a shade of grey,
Something in between,
And I can always change my name
If that's what you mean

My friend assures me, "It's all or nothing."
But I am not really worried I am not overly concerned
You try to tell yourself the things you try to tell yourself
To make yourself forget I am not worried
"If it's love," she said, "then we're going to have to think about the consequences."
She can't stop shaking
I can't stop touching her and...

This time when kindness falls like rain
It washes her away and Anna begins to change her mind
"These seconds when I'm shaking leave me shuddering for days," she says
And I'm not ready for this sort of thing

But I'm not going to break and I'm not going to worry about it anymore
I'm not going to bend, and I'm not going to break and I'm not going to worry about it anymore
It seems like I should say, "As long as this is love..."
But it's not all that easy so maybe I should
Snap her up in a butterfly net Pin her down on a photograph album
I am not worried I've done this sort of thing before
But then I start to think about the consequences
Because I don't get no sleep in a quiet room and...

The time when k indness falls like rain
It washes me away and Anna begin s to change my mind
And eve rytime she sneezes I believe it's love and
Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

She's talking in her sleep
It's keeping me awake and Anna begins to toss and turn
And every word is nonsense but I understand and
Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

Her kindness bangs a gong
It's moving me along and Anna begins to fade away
It's chasing me away
She disappears and
Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

(That's "Anna Begins" by the Counting Crows. I didn't write it. I wish I had.)

Aubrey Beardsley drew this for the cover of Oscar Wilde's play Salome. I'm putting it here because I like it.



I also like this. The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli:



Not much of a blog post, really, but hey, it's things that give me pleasure and inspiration and those things are important. And noteworthy, especially for this particular blog. Whatever that might be.

It's really hot and although I hate hot weather, it makes me sick in a way that gives me so much closer access to thoughts and memories that would otherwise be inaccessible. It tends to put me in a more not-asleep, not-awake state than usual and it makes the world seem more mystical and it makes my memories collapse in a strange way that makes time and place seem immaterial and difficult to differentiate. Reality feels far away, but everything else feels close, and it's a moment of transcendence that I can hold onto for a little while longer than usual.

It's also putting me in a place where I miss him so much that it's making me feel sicker. But maybe I want that too, just a little. To be able to tap into it. Torture myself in order to make my existence a little more interesting. Not healthy, but it's something I do.

Well, this is kind of more health crap, but I had another seizure on Thursday (boo) again in History of Rock (sorry professor Steve and assorted classmates!) Basically I've had a persistent headache ever since, and have been extra more dizzy than usual (which is saying something, since I'm dizzy all the freaking time as it is.) I feel bad about asking for extensions and work and leniency and so forth, because I feel like I haven't been resting as much as I should have since it happened and am therefore exacerbating it (more on that in a minute), but the fact is that the headache and dizziness are very much real, as is the slightly blurry vision I've been having today and the slight coordination issues, and numbness in my fingers. I'm calling Health Services in the morning to see if they can check me out. Of course, being as it's Health Services, they'll probably write it off as "stress" like they have all my medical problems thus far and send me on my merry way, but it's worth a try.

My weekend, however, was pretty packed. Certainly for me, anyway. Friday night I went to see my History of Rock professor Steve's book reading, which was really awesome and just totally reinforced my love for Smith and Northampton in that places like these obviously foster such total awesomeness. Really, Northampton is amazing. Lisa and I had a bit of a revelation about it a little while back while, for a few minutes at least, I kind of gave up on the idea of going to New York and trying to get into the high-powered academic world where everything is so serious and rushed and exhausting, and just wanting to live in Northampton for a couple of years after graduation and work in a book store. I think that in a way that would be every bit as valuable. Probably not forever, but it might be a nice thing to try out.

Saturday Lisa and I hung around in town for awhile, which was not all that awesome since it was kind of cold and gross out, but we had a pretty good time nonetheless. She wanted to buy a $20 puppet, which I fortunately managed to talk her out of. Then we chilled at Hopkins and drank a lot of tea, which is always super nice and a really great environment to (pretend to) do work.

And LAST night we went to see David Sedaris. The reading was at 8:30, but student rush with the half-off tickets was at 7:30, so she and I were there at 6:30. We were the first people there, and we were the only people there for quite a long time, so it was obvious that we were ridiculously early, but I got a bit of homework done while we were waiting anyway. Besides, it all paid off when David Sedaris walked in and actually struck up a conversation with us. (HOLY SHIT AWESOME.) He was adorable and funny and sharply dressed and he called Lisa a pauper (which he then did again when she got her book signed. I had no book for him to sign, so I just stood there grinning awkwardly while she and Alicia struck up further conversations with him.) And the actual book reading was a complete hoot. He read hilarious short stories and he even read us excerpts from his diary, which I thought was super cool. It was a huge venue and we were way way way up in the balcony (which gave me terrible vertigo) but it was still completely awesome.

Seriously. David Sedaris = win. Can't believe I met him. Lisa asked him the secret to happiness and he replied, "Attention."

Amen, hilarious gay writer man. Amen.

New obsessions

So I was going to do "new obsessions and new health crap" in here, but the "health crap" is a story for another day. Suffice it to say that a close friend may have temporal lobe epilepsy, and if she has it, the likelihood of my ALSO having it is exceedingly high, since we basically have the same exact symptoms (except that I actually have the full-out seizures.) It's weird that I am hoping and hoping to have epilepsy, and even weirder that I am hoping that my friend has it, but to have a diagnosis and an explanation...to have the validation in the face of those fucking doctors who called them "pseudo-seizures" when I would lose most of my vision, my ability to speak, my ability to hold a pen, my ability to swallow, sometimes my ability to fucking breathe, while in full-body convulsions on the floor. (What exactly about that is "pseudo"?) And for those people in high school who said I was faking them, to the nurse who wanted me to see psychiatrists and who would try to peel me off the floor while I was convulsing and wouldn't let me lie down, because she apparently thought that her powers of convincing me would somehow stave off my neurological symptoms...

Okay, so that was a rant. *Cough* Didn't mean for that to go on for so long. Whatever. I have a lot more about those seizures on my mind, a lot of it kind of...poetic and spiritual stuff. Which I may put in here at some point. I don't know.

Anyway, new obsessions. So, my mom changed the Netflix address to my Smith mail, since she never uses it when I'm not home (argh!). Netflix has started recommending "TV sitcoms" to me (vomit) due to my interest in the Office, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Entourage, Scrubs, etc, etc. Most of the suggested sitcoms I roll my eyes at, but I saw How I Met Your Mother in there, a show that has been vigorously recommended to me, and I said, "eh, why the hell not." And I ordered it. After all, how can you not love this man:



How I ask you? HOW? (This picture was actually my desktop for a couple of months, before it was replaced with the History Boys.) I didn't know that the show also stars Jason Segel, whom I also love.

Anyway, the point is, it's funny. Really, really, really funny. Like, where I have to pause the DVD so that I can sit there and laugh. And let me tell you, I was in serious need of that this week.

In addition to these illustrious television sitcoms, I've also been watching classics (see my rash of Hitchcock viewing a few posts down.) I watched A Streetcar Named Desire the other night, which I really enjoyed (I do love the hell out of Vivien Leigh), and tonight I watched East of Eden, which made me weep like a baby. I was a little annoyed by the happy ending - it seemed a bit of a letdown to me after all the dramatic conflict, just to have it be resolved in the last three minutes, but that's neither here nor there. What is both here AND there is that James Dean? So fucking great in it. And so fucking heartbreaking. I know what people made all the fuss about now. Not just because he's so damn beautiful, although there is no doubt that he was:


But he broke my heart in that movie. And I know, I know, tortured bad boys are kind of my kryptonite (in all areas of my life, unfortunately...), but I dare you to watch that and not see it pull at your heart. Maybe it has something to do with my terrible relationship with my own father, or maybe it's because I've just seen too many unhappy boys turn into broken young men, but it affected me more than any film has in a long time.

I have a great deal of thoughts, but this is neither the time nor the place. I vomited my guts out a few minutes before History of Rock today and I'm trying to write a paper and feeling...well, more than a little strange. Having trouble with the word-harnessing. Not something with which I normally have problems.

So I wanted a random image. I typed in "random" to Google images and got this:



Marry me, Google images. Marry me.

A couple of amusing tidbits...

I should be writing my paper (isn't that always the case), but a couple of funny things occurred to me to put here.

First of all, one of my shared iTunes libraries is labeled as "Your mom's library." This amused me a lot more than it should, owing to the fact that I frequently make really terrible (and completely nonsensical) "your mom" jokes. (I'm also pretty sure I have a fever right now, and when I have a low-grade fever I usually get kind of giddy, so that might explain it. But I digress...)

The other funny thing that I forgot to post before was that, while searching for Google images of Edward Gorey, when typing in the letters "Ed," the very first thing Google suggested was Edward Cullen. *Sigh* Oh, Google...

Also, one of these sites on which I watch Veronica Mars and House (some kind of foreign YouTube, I think), has twice suggested gay personal ads in Northampton for me. Gay MALE personal ads. I don't get it. It's not like I'm watching Queer as Folk or something (a show to which I may be even more addicted than those just mentioned, which is saying a hell of a lot.) Apparently this website sees beyond my bisexual female exterior into the gay man secretly hiding beneath.

Anyway, I really need to get back to work. Let's just hope that my feeling like crap is merely stress/sleep deprivation and I haven't actually caught anything. I'm going to New York on Sunday and I categorically cannot be sick. No, indeed. I cannot. I will use my willpowers to override my body if I have to, goddammit.