Creative

I haven't written anything non-schooly in a long time. Oooh, it would be fun to set up a long playlist for inspiring music and tap away at a storyline for a day. Some images have been haunting me as of late, kind of funny and sad at once. They'd work well in a story or a play or both.
Instead my writing must serve the man, and I continue to write endless scholarly book reviews and position papers with none of my characteristic spark or wit.
Looking forward to Serenity this weekend, and Veronica Mars' season opener tonight. Have class late tonight so I'm not sure when I will see either one yet. Due to a bad experience at a movie theatre on a Saturday night won't be going to the movies to see Whedon's latest this weekend either since I work during the day and refuse to go back to a crowded evening show. I can forgive someone who forgets to turn off his cell phone and it rings once- if he then turns it off. I can also forgive someone who might be expecting a genuinely important phone call, though even that person should use vibrate. But this joker answered his phone and had actual conversations. Four times, might I add. "Yeah man. I'm at the show. Yeah- we're watching Star Wars. It's okay."
Occaisionally when I get annoyed about these things the idea that I may be becoming crochety occurs to me- though in this instance I think that my annoyance was thoroughly earned.

In Progress

I have been at school full time since preschool. If that counts. I have not had a year off. After decades of being told that I am preparing for something, that I am in flux waiting to become I am tired of being at a crossroads.
I am interning this year at something that I will hopefully have a job in next year. I am enjoying it, to an extent. And I can't wait to draw a real paycheck, have a schedule that doesn't include working almost every weekend, and make enough money off of 1 job instead of balancing two or three. I don't know if I will be in that field forever, and I plan on continuing to learn once I do start working at a real job, but how nice it will be not to have homework, and to read the books I want to read because I want to read them, not because it is required.
Things are weird at home. He's not feeling well so he's talking even less than usual, which means he communicates through a vague series of animal-like grunts in the hour or two he's home, awake, and not physically connected to his computer. Hopefully the doc can do something for him, but the drugs don't always alleviate very quickly.
I miss my dog today too. More than usual. She got sick before I left for school and it made me want to stay home even more, though it doesn't take much for me to want to stay home. I have class and/or work every day of the week until Christmas, barring the two days around Thanksgiving and a couple of days during finals. I need a break.

Ten Things I Don't Miss About High School

1. Being obligated to see the people that have been mean to you since kindergarten on an almost daily basis. You know who you are, Sidwell!
2. Curfiews. Even though I'm almost always at home by eight p.m. these days.
3. Never really having a date. Seriously, in high school if you hadn't been out on a couple of dates one felt darn near defective.
4. Starting my day at 6 a.m. Though I guess I don't get up much later than that these days.
5. The month between fall play and musical.
6. The competition.
7. The classes. They were always just what I had to get through to do the afterschool stuff.
8. Seven classes and work and a social life- oops, I'm doing that right now.
9. Parental rules and lack of privacy.
10. Certain freshman with no respect for tradition who will remain nameless.

It's funny- the things you couldn't wait for- like a car and being able to stay out all night- seem so terribly pointless once you finally get them. I can stay out late, but I can't bounce back the next day any more. I can drive, but I have to maintain the car, pay for the gas and pay for the insurance. Some of the freedom is nice, but it's not the same kind of freedom.

Ten Things I Miss About High School

Don't worry, this will be directly be followed (if I have time tomorrow, it's my busiest day of the week) by a list of the things I don't miss. So first, this:
1. Being obligated by school attendance policies to see on a regular basis my group of friends who went to that school. It's much harder to keep up a friendship when you've got a busy life and little to no money available for discretionary spending unless class or work or church or something forces you to keep up with someone habitually.
2. The cookies in the cafeteria made with Godiva chocolate chips.
3. Putting on plays.
4. Not really having to worry about money much beyond paying for French fries at Steak 'n Shake or a movie.
5. To doubly cover number 1, my best friend from then, who for unnamed and mysterious reasons now refuses to speak to me. I still love her and pray for her happiness and hope some day she'll talk to me again.
6. Dances, on the off chance I actually had a date.
7. Summer breaks in which I didn't have to scramble for summer funding. Unlike in grad school.
8. The person that I was- in sophomore and junior years at least. I had more friends and new how to have fun still. It's been a long time since my biggest worries were about getting a good part or finding a boy who thought of me as more than a friend.
9. President's Day and Staff Development days... no school!
10. Snow days! These days class iand work are never cancelled and I still have to drive in the ice and the sleet!

Okay, if anyone is reading this is there something I haven't thought of that might fit? Some iconic experience that y'all could suggest while hardly knowing me? Comment if you think of something or wish to rip on my choices, but keep in mind tomorrow's list about hating high school. The items on this list are mostly in the order that they occurred to me, but the cookies seriously fit near the top of my list- probably after missing J.

Need a Vacation

I am taking on way too much this semester! Too much work, too much homework. Not even enough time to dream about that little Carribean island. Usually my problems are time but no money or money but no time- right now I feel it's neither time nor money.
I can't wait until I have weekends off, and a real job with real benefits.

The Calm

After he does or says something horrible it's usually stiff for a few days, and then as it passes further in to the past it gets more like normal. Which is to say, not great, but at least I don't have to concentrate to not break into tears every few minutes.
Every once in a while one of the things he said to me just breaks through me like a knife and punctures the semi-safety bubble that grows over time. I range between sadness and outrage. Everyone who knows anything about this wonders why I continue to put up with this.
Sometimes I don't know anymore.
Once, years ago, he used to make me very happy.

Long Night #5

My husband is trying to decide whether or not he wants to leave me. After all I have lost or given up because of him, after all the times he has hurt me he thinks he wants to leave.
Maybe that says it all.
I wish I could sleep.

First Time for Everything....

I've never really tried this before, am curious how it will work. I'm just sad. On a molecular level, or a quantum level perhaps. Not sure which one is smaller. Science is not my muse.
Don't know why I should make it public. Don't know who will read this, and am not disclosing my identity, but I really don't have anyone to tell. No one that I feel I wouldn't undeservedly burden. I could start another one of my famous computer or handwritten personal journals, but am afraid someone would snoop.
It's not just current events, and maybe only part of it is clinical, but I find I don't know how to be happy any more accept for in very small scattered moments that I try to clutch to me. I'd string them together and wear them around my neck like pearls if I could. Moments are a bit more slippery than pearls.
So, if anyone finds me in my little isolated corner of the Webiverse and knows what I mean, I feel for you.