One more.....

Songs to End The Year With.

Goodbye 2012.

Happy Birthday Dear Friend!! I miss you terribly, and I wish you were here.

That being said, I am still miserably sick. My cold having morphed into a sinus infection, then a respiratory infection, then laryngitis, and now atypical pneumonia. *Laughs* But isn't that the way it always goes?

In addition, my dear, sweet car died yesterday, which was a bit of an adventure since the transmission gave out on 9th and Van Buren. Lol.

But in spite of these things I have been unimaginably happy today. I walked down to the store to do my shopping with a smile from ear to ear. Headphones on my head, just skipping along.

2012, despite how it might look to the casual observer, was actually the best year I can remember having. Sooooooo many good things happened, that the bad stuff was just totally eclipsed.

I am super grateful for so many things

For awesome adventures in the wilderness.

For reclaiming my spirit, my life, and my house.

For Bikram Yoga, and afternoons spent sweating the stress out.

For time spent rebuilding engines with my Dad and Little B.

For weekends spent playing the the mud.

For bikini and champagne mornings on top of mountains with good friends.

For a year filled with awesome fossils.

For Picketpost Mountain.

For College Graduation, no matter how exhausted and sleep deprived I may have been. :)

For sunshine and good books.

For Autumn Color on the Verde River.

For red lipstick, which makes all things tolerable. ;)

For headphones and hula hoops.

For catching horned toads.

For self-portraits and getting back down to my high school weight.

For the extraordinary amount of love I am continually surrounded with.

And for terrible, ridiculous pictures that remind me of how awesome You are, and how badly I miss you. <3

You know Dear Friend, I'd give anything to have you back here, and to be able to roll around in the ridiculousness that follows us everywhere. But that being said, I'm super grateful for how awesome you continue to be, even when you're far away. I'm grateful for all your blog posts, for the million pictures you post to me, for hand written text messages, for the crazy amount of love and support you gave me this past year (and every year since, like, the dawn of time). I'm grateful for our tandem evolutions and for the way things unfolded for us this year, even if it was at times super hard and messy. I'm looking forward to getting to see you again, and to all the fun stuff that's sure to come with it. I love you more than life.

I'm super grateful for all the wonderful things that happened to me in 2012. I'm looking forward to all the blissful things 2013 is sure to bring. And I'm sending you all my love, as always. Happy Birthday, Happy New Year, I miss your face.

Sick!

I am officially sick! So very, very sick.

My sister did this to me, you know.
She sat right down next to me on Christmas Eve, all germy and infectious, and failed to mention until she was leaving that she was ill. I woke up today realizing I've just been incubating all those lovely little germs, and have gotten progressively sicker by the moment.

In other news, I left work today and somehow managed to rear end someone on my way home. It was...unpleasant.

It also has not helped my mood.

So I've been drinking turkey stock, listening to music, and desperately wishing I could fall asleep.

Instead I'm drifting here in the in between land. Half asleep, half awake, and totally sick.


But on the bright side, the fact that your phone is working properly has been cheering me up. Even if I'm continually harassing you. :)

Love and stuff.
Me.

Merry Christmas!

I miss you furiously.

It seems so totally and completely unfair, the state of things. Having to pass holidays without such critical players in your life. My family looks at me like I'm mostly crazy when I mumble quietly to myself about your absence. Like the situation wasn't, and hasn't continued to be totally fucked up on at least some levels.

But I suppose that's to be expected.

I never was, WE never were, for that matter, the kind of people who half-ass things. Obsessive friendships included. All heart and total disdain for the realm of social norms.

Christmas here was lovely. We did our thing last night, on Christmas Eve since Sister and Little B have multiple families to visit with today. We had a low-key affair. All finger foods and hanging out on the couch. No big dinner or fancy dress, which made me happy. It was one of (if not the) best holiday we've had as a family. I'd go into more detail, but there's not a lot to say. We just hung out and passed the time. We opened some gifts and ate some food, and all things were lovely.


This morning I woke up and all I wanted was a fried egg sandwich. I wanted it REALLY bad. But alas, I had no eggs, since I so rarely eat them (I have textural issues with eggs a lot of the time...*shudder*), and the grocery store was not open. I debated driving around to see if some sort of fast food place was open, but decided if I put that kind of energy into the quest for food and then failed my day MIGHT be ruined. Instead I took a bath and watched some Ugly Americans.

Now, mostly clean, (I somehow neglected to wash my hair...) I'm taking a bottle of sparkling cider, a bag full of TOC's top-secret-family-recipe cookies, and my hula hoop up the mountain. Which mountain, I haven't really decided. :P But I'm confident I'll know the right one when I've reached it.

I miss you more than life. I miss our holiday feasting, and I'm sad you're not here. One day, however, I'm confident we'll be able to resume our little holiday rituals and all will be right in the world.

Sending you all my love.
Me.

And This One!

A Couple More..

I owe you so many songs!

Here's a few. Just for you. <3

Wednesday Brings Good News

Wednesday morning I woke up with both sunshine and rainbows radiating out of literally, every orifice, such was my extreme happiness.

I skipped into work and pulled up my grades to find that despite my seemingly abysmal experience with my stats final, and the general lack of effort/intense procrastination I had put into this semester, I still have a 3.4 GPA (for the semester, obviously). So that made me extremely happy.

This was followed by a letter which read

"Dear Carolyn,
Attached is your graded final paper. You received an A+. Yours was the best of all submitted. It is always more difficult to present a good counter argument than a book report with personal reflections. Well done! You should be proud. It has been great to have you as a student. Much success in your career."

This was a particularly big win for me as said 8 page paper was written in the last hour before it was due, while I was in the bath, sobbing uncontrollably over the state of things.

The downside to that piece of joyful news, is that this is what ALWAYS happens to me when I procrastinate. I don't know what it is about intense pressure and stress, but I always pull A+ work out of my butt. This just serves to reinforce my own belief that my chaotic, and emotionally draining system is the one that makes the most sense grade-wise. I don't know if it's that I don't think or care any more by the time I get to the point of actually doing the work, and therefore am not tempted to overwork it, or if it's just simply that my brain can only get its act together when it's facing eminent impending doom.

The rest of the day Wednesday I skipped around, happy as a clam.

So much LOVE to you and yours Dear Friend!!! I miss your FACE!!!!

The Poster.

So, I had sort of half-assedly done some work on the poster before 10 pm Monday.

Sort of.

And by that, I mean that I had purchased a poster board, poster board supplies, and thought about what my topic, maybe, could possibly be.

But in the real world, that does not actually equate to real work.

Monday night I continued to drag my feet in typical LittleFoot fashion. I cleaned the house some, and I gave the dog a bath. I occasionally spent a few minutes looking up articles and jotting down notes, but not really.

Around midnight I attempted to glue some black butcher paper to my white trifold poster board with modgepodge. This was a bad choice. Everything got soggy and wrinkly, and had to be ripped off. This made a trip to Walmart unavoidable. I had hoped to find a black tri-fold board, but they were sold out of everything but white. Alas, I grabbed some rubber cement and some glue sticks and returned home.

It took me the ENTIRE night to get this damned thing done. The whole thing. Every. Last. Minute.

I took at least 4 baths in an attempt to focus my mind an settle my stomach/nerves. I was not at all successful in this, but at least I was really, REALLY clean.

Twice during the course of the night I attempted to lay down for a power nap. This however, only made the gut-wrenching anxiety worse, and both times ended with me vomiting compulsively for ridiculous blocks of time.

At this point, I've been awake for almost 72 hours. I haven't been consuming anything other than coffee. And I am vomiting up blood. Not tons of blood, but enough for me to know my ulcers are now herniated and my stress level is clearly unreasonable. Not the most pleasant of realizations.

By five in the morning the bulk of the poster was done. Things were formatted and printed, crafty supplies had been assembled, the butcher paper had been appropriately affixed to the poster board, and it was time to go to work.

There was literally no time to assemble the poster.

No problem, I told myself. I'll just leave work extra early and cut/glue this sh*t together in the library before class. Easy peasy.

I arrived at work and immediately broke. My brain just slammed up against the wall of sleep deprivation. I had reached the number of hours I could go without sleeping. I rapidly began unraveling.

Help arrived about 15 minutes behind me in the form of J. Thank the universe for small miracles. I was clearly unwell. Doing that thing where I think I'm talking, but really I'm just moving my lips...J was confused. Anyway, we got all the things ordered, and pushed the orders through. I managed to get through one pull rather quickly, but all this was done in between bouts of throwing up and bursting into tears.

I called my dad, long after I'd fallen off the cliff of reason and sanity, mumbling through clots of tears and snot about how terrible life was, how badly I did NOT WANT TO TURN IN THIS POSTER, how my whole body was convinced the world was ending and I couldn't convince it otherwise, and for gods sake, I just wanted to stop throwing up.

He told me for like the millionth time in the past 48 hours to 'rise above' and I promptly hung up on him. He then text me 'rise above' at least twice over the next half an hour which really, really just broke me.

Dad does this thing, where he finds a mantra, and then just keeps chanting it over and over again. In this case it was 'rise above'. That is initially helpful and I feel like dad is on my side and cheering me on. Then about the fourth time he says it I start to get irritated that he's not even listening anymore and is just spouting out a canned response so that he doesn't have to deal with me anymore. Its mildly irritating, but not world ending. By the millionth time he's said it, I am beyond furious. Seeing red, flames shooting out my ears, going to burn down the world irritated. I text back 'STOP TELLING ME TO RISE ABOVE!!!!!' but managed to leave out all of the profanities and cruel things the angry me wanted to scream, which I thought was a victory.

I then called my boss and asked in my nicest, tear choked voice if I could pretty please be excused for the day due to what can only be described as Acute Failure To Function. He let me go home, and I, for the first time in days, finally fell asleep.

I only got to sleep for about two hours, but it was by far, the best sleep I have ever had in all my life. I woke up feeling better. Still sick. Still vomiting, but much more coherent.

I got to work on my poster, the assembling of which, took me much longer than expected. I got to class almost an hour late, but I got there. I turned the damn thing in. (Which I seriously DID NOT WANT to do.) I ensured that I would actually graduate. (Something I also DID NOT WANT to do.) I read all the other posters. I filled out my critique forms. I ate some food, and I had a ridiculous Buffy fan girl conversation with some other people in my class, and then I left.

I met dad up the road to confirm that despite leaving work in what can only be described as a sleep deprived meltdown, and telling him to stop telling me to rise above, I had in fact completed my work, just like I said I would. No matter how unpleasant doing so may have been.

I felt instantly better upon completing the semester. Now that I was past the point of sabotage, all things were coming up roses. We walked around and bought Bear a ASU sweatshirt for Christmas. We talked about things, and Dad did his best to contain his excitement.

I should have gone home and gone to sleep. If I had been a sane, or even reasonable creature, I would have gone home and gone to sleep. But the Jew was in town, (she was leaving the next day) and there's not a power in the 'verse that will keep me from seeing my friends when they come to town.

We hung out at her sisters place for most of the day, laughing at the state of things. H came home and brought us Zoo Light tickets, so we went and wandered around the zoo for a while. It was basically fantastic. I love her to death. You Dear Friend, and the Jew, have just always been there, for as long as I've been me. Dad thought I should have gone to bed instead, but I just couldn't. It wouldn't have been fair. You guys are awesome and I will drop all things to see you guys whenever you're in town.

I went home, and at some point I drifted off, and sleep was delicious.

Statistics.

I totally did it! Yay! Hooray for graduation! It was awesome.

Several things happened that altered the course of my week. We'll have to back up a bit to explain them.

Monday the vomiting continued. I picked up a stronger anti-vomit medicine, and while it definitely helped slow the rate at which I was throwing up, it did nothing for the continually mounting anxiety that was the root of the problem. I can not describe how tightly all my organs were balled up, or how terribly painful and nauseating it was, except by pointing out that my iron stomach pills, even the new stronger ones, failed to stem the flow of bile fromst my lips.

I stumbled through the first half of my shift, teetering at near-panic attack anxiety levels, but managed to hold it together. The whole time I just kept thinking, you could just not take this test and all of this anxiety will go away. It would have too. It really would have solved all my current issues for me, it would have created new ones, but I would have felt better at least.

It's hard to explain the brain-body disconnect I struggle with on issues like these. My brain gets it, it's calm and mostly logical, it knows what's up and it tries to tell me that everything is fine and I need to chill the f**k out. The rest of me however, is unable to listen. I have the most physiologically intense flight or flight response imaginable. All my hormones, neurotransmitters, and organs are screaming:

RUN!!! WHY ARE YOU HERE!?! THIS IS YOUR WORST CASE SCENARIO, NOTHING IS WORSE THAN THIS!! RUN! ALL THE BAD THINGS IN THE WORLD ARE THIS WAY! LETTING YOUR MOTHER PEEL ALL THE SKIN OFF YOUR BODY AND THEN EAT IT WHILE YOU'RE ALIVE AND LISTENING TO HER RELIGIOUS RANTING ON A CONTINUOUS LOOP THROUGH THE ENTIRE PROCESS IS A BETTER OPTION! LETS GO DO THAT! OKAY?! COME ON! LETS GO! WE HAVE TO GO! N O W !!!!!!

Its awful. And resisting it is soooooo hard. Those chemicals are designed to make you run, and dear gods, did I ever want to run away. I cried softly most of the morning when nobody was looking. I continued not to eat anything for fear of making the vomiting worse, and at 9am, I stumbled off to school.

My statistics final was not something I was looking forward to. I dislike statistics. It's not that it's particularly hard, I mean, I passed dif eq., so in theory this isn't really a big deal. It's just that I don't care. Not at all. Not even a little bit. I don't know if you've ever seen me try to learn something I don't care about, but it's pretty funny. I mostly come up with a lot of reasons why I need to avoid it. Then I turn nothing in for at least two thirds of the class in protest, then I realize that I really do need to actually learn enough to pass the final, panic, and try to cram the whole semester into the last 3 or 4 weeks of class. True to form, that's how this class went. At any rate, I was, as always, vastly under prepared for the final. I showed up sans note sheets, as making them would have required effort me to stop panicking and do something, which was clearly never going to happen.

I sat down at my desk and immediately calmed the f**k down. I was past the point of no return. I'd already shown up and had not been flensed, the world had not ended, and it was exactly what my brain had been telling me it was, just a test. I set about making my two allotted cheat sheets. I only completed about a half a page before the test had to start, so that was less than ideal.

The test itself WAS actually my worst case scenario, as I quite literally forgot how to do anything resembling statistics the moment it was handed to me. I couldn't make sense of my cheat sheet, the batteries in my calculator died, and I was left to my own devices. Namely, guessing. Thank the gods for multiple choice exams. Anyway, I finished in record time, due mostly to the fact that I was just merrily guessing away at anything that looked like it might have resembled the right answer. I turned my exam in and hopped back on my bike.

At that point, I realized guessing might have been a bad plan, as I sort of need to pass that class to graduate. The panic set back in. I called my dad to tell him it went terrible, end of the world terrible, and to demand that he confirm that he will love me anyway. He complied, albeit begrudgingly, as he does not understand my rather intense need to prepare for the worst case scenario.

I returned to work, finished my shift and headed home to work on my poster.

Well...

I survived the night.

I got some degree of sleep, but it wasn't much.

The panicked vomiting continues, now though it's a result of an unreasonable anxiety load and nothing is going to stop it. My stomach is just rejecting life at this point.

I never should have opened the flood gates. That was a bad plan. Something which seems to be the theme of my life this week, ha!

I'm taking zofran like tic-tacs, but it's not keeping the bile down, so I suppose I'm just going to have to take a vomit bag with me to my biostats final. It won't be the first time I've had to do that, but it WILL be the last. I am at least excited about that part.

I did not do any real work on my poster over the weekend. It is now officially due in 29 hours, but I have managed to convince myself that it is do-able. So that's an improvement.

The Jew is in town, which makes me suuuuuuper happy, and provides a really nice distraction from the state of things.

That's all I know, or at least, all I write in between rounds of vomiting. Gotta run.

Love and stuff!!

Still Awake.

I'm still awake, Dear Friend. I can't find my phone, I think I must have left it in the car, but I just can't bring myself to get dressed again to go check. It's so warm in here, and so cold out there.

Anyway, if you've called and I've neglected you I'm super sorry. :( But I love you lots.

All that coffee may have been a bad plan.

By midnight I was reconsidering my plan to stay awake for the next 48 hours. I should have listened to you. Obviously you were right, this has doom written all over it.

I tried to lay down and get some rest, if not sleep, but there was WAY too much caffeine in my system. I was restless. My joints ached. My heart was racing. I was vaguely nauseous, and not at all tired.

My brain just kept going, trying to figure out ways to get me to sleep.

At some point I convinced myself I should probably go drink a bunch of water and puke it back up, just as a precautionary measure. You know, to wash out any remaining coffee residue. That way I don't find myself even more awake at some point in the future.

Well, I set that plan into motion and immediately regretted it. It seems I lost sight of exactly how much I hate throwing up, right up until I found myself past the point of no return.

Unpleasant physical aspects of vomiting aside, it seems I forgot exactly how efficient the stomach is at processing liquids, as it had been more than 4 hours since my last pot of coffee and my stomach was mostly devoid of any remaining liquid remnants. It was however, still full of my rather heavy steak and potatoes dinner, which I apparently was so excited about that I failed to chew it properly. It is incredibly disturbing to regurgitate food six or so hours later and still be able to identify different food items.

As I stared at my dinner, revisited, I began to worry that I had already processed all the coffee, and as such had only managed to deprive my body of my dinner, which it clearly needed. I got up, took a multi-vitamin and made myself a second dinner. This DID make me feel better. Both the nausea and rapid heart rate have dissipated, but the achy joints and general restlessness remain.

So now here I am, at 1:30 in the morning, still awake, and still not even vaguely interested in studying for the biostats final awaiting me in the morning.

That being said, I AM going to attempt to get some rest now. I don't expect it to go well, but I am going to try.

I love you tons. Tons and tons, and I wish you were here. Tuesday is my last day of classes, and I intend to come home and pass out for at least 14 hours. After that I'm all yours.

Lots of love,
me.

It's pouring rain

and I am happy.

I got a service award at the company party tonight, something which I was incredibly stressed out about. Remind me to tell you all about it when finals are over.

In the end I showed up late, in a dress that was possibly too low cut, and slightly too long. In new (and very high) heels (that I was initially a little unstable in), and the reddest lipstick I could get my hands on.

And you know what? Everything turned out great. :)

Now it's raining, which (as I'm sure you know) is a real treat, and I'm going to go to bed.

Here are some pictures of me before the party. :)

Miss your face.

Incipient Mutany.

Dear Friend, I hate all things, and I wish you were here.

As predicted the sun came up this morning. Time continues to tick by at a constant rate. And I continue to unravel.

My Dear Father brought me breakfast at work early this morning. Chocolate milk, coffee, a box of donuts, and various hot breakfast items from McDonalds in hopes of rallying my spirit.

Instead he found me at my desk. Hunched over. Frazzled beyond belief, having not slept at all last night (in spite of my sleeping pills), and having failed to keep any food down since the early hours of yesterday.

I had exactly one bite and promptly threw up.

I am starving and exhausted. My organs are all twisted up in tiny little, tight, cancerous knots. And in fifteen or so minutes, I have to put on the big kid pants, walk into my classroom, and get my sh*t together.

For.
Reals.

It is my absolute worst case scenario.


It will be okay, I keep telling myself it will be okay.
And it will.
Because there is no other option.
But how I'm going to (make myself) get from HERE
to OKAY
remains to be seen.



My heart is racing, and I've been quietly weeping all morning, but it's going to be okay.
It's gotta be.


I miss your face.

Screaming Temporal Doom!

And the frantic, irrational crying has begun.

As I sit here, avoiding for yet another day, choosing a simple topic for a research poster, I am now fully and completely aware that this is a full frontal attempt at sabotage.

I
DO
NOT
WANT
TO
GRADUATE.


And I know that that's counter intuitive.
And I know that I sound like a nutter.
But that's also my truth.

I do not want to do this project because it is the lynch pin holding this whole graduation thing together. If I just decided not to turn it in, I could just avoid this entire paradigm shift.

I am somehow much more comfortable with the Little Foot that needs to stay another semester, or possibly even the Little Foot who intentionally failed out of college in her final semester with only one class remaining than I am with having to redefine my life as Little Foot the college graduate.

I
HATE
CHANGE.

HATE.

Even minor change. My day is dramatically damaged by having to park more than two spots away from 'my' (usual) space. I don't even like changes that don't really change anything at all, like when people call a food item by a different name, for example. Like 'pepper bellies' instead of 'frito pie'. (It's been 2 months and I'm STILL hung up on that one). I might not SAY anything, but things like that, they leave me really rattled. And I stay rattled. For extended periods of time.

And I know that it's the ASD talking.
And no, knowing does not make it better.
It makes it much less confusing.
But infinitely more frustrating.

Especially when I'm on the phone in hysterics with my saint of a Father blubbering my eyes out like a big, slippery walrus about how not fair it is that I have to graduate from college, and he, like the sweet, sweet Dad he is, somehow manages not to scream back that I sound like a crazy person and nothing I'm saying is making any sense, and that I need to put on the big kid panties and get on with it.

Even though I know he really, really wants to.

He manages not to give me any advice, since even the slightest suggestion is likely to push me over the deep edge. He somehow manages not to mention the list I know he's writing, (even as he listens to me wailing) of what a huge accomplishment this is, and all the things I should be proud of, and all the things that will remain the same, and how nothing is really changing at all because it will only make the whole mess worse.

Instead he reminds me that none of this is fair.
That most of my life is like backwards day.
That good is bad.
That bad is good.
That I like the work, but fear the reward.
And that he doesn't get it, but he gets that he doesn't get it.
And that he gets that I don't get it either.

And that somehow makes me feel better.

Instead he talks to me about engine parts. All the tiny little things that make them run. The pieces that fit together, why they're important, and why they're special. He talks to me about the weather, or how the weather used to be, and I forget about the terrifying unknowns looming in front of me. That black inky mess of screaming temporal doom that's lingering out there just days ahead of me.

Because while rationally I understand that everything will be as it is, and nothing at all will change, there's not one teeny-tiny piece of me that really believes that.





I wish we worked toward graduation blindly. Unaware of how close it was looming above our heads. I wish the whole thing was done in secret. That the powers that be would just call you in the middle of the night and demand your presence before bestowing a degree upon you.

Because I would be okay if I couldn't see it coming.
It's the knowing it's out there that's awful.



Will I do this poster? Probably.
Will I show up in class tomorrow crying? Also, probably.
Will I be able to articulate what the heck is wrong with me? Probably not.
And that's okay.

As long as I keep moving forward it's all going to be okay.
(Or so I tell myself)

Procrastination is My Middle Name.

Well, it's a new day, and a new week. I'm less than 24 hours away from having to be able to prove that I'm moving forward on my final project and I have STILL yet to so much as come up with a list of potential topics.

I have, however, thought a lot about starting to think about thinking about possible topics, for what that's worth.

I have also, in fact, done everything else there is to do, that does not involve actually doing any work on this project. Or at least, almost everything else. So at some point in the semi-near future, I should (in theory) run out of other things to do, thereby forcing me to work on the project. Or so one would hope.

At the moment, however, I remain somehow, unconvinced that I will have anything to show her tomorrow, save for the always impressive excuse of 'I work better when unmonitored'...Pathological Demand Avoidance and such.

I am, however, confident that at some point, probably very, very near the deadline, I will get my act together, (probably while drinking brownie batter and crying) and finish this project.

My process looks something like this:

That's all I know. I love you lots. Lots and lots, and miss you perhaps even more.

I hope all is well. <3

My life

Is punctuated
with cats
finding plastic bags
to chew on.

It makes me crazy.

Just when I think I've eradicated all the plastic bags, one of them finds another one.

I
Hate
That
Sound.

Honestly, I hate most sounds right now, as I am finding all things terminally irritating and distracting.

At the top of the list is cats chewing on bags.
This if followed by:
The sound of water in the fish tanks. (which I am continually 'topping off' today in a futile effort to eliminate the trickling sound.)
The dog licking things.
The cats licking things.
The sound of the air conditioner running (because yes, it's still in the 70's here).
And of course, my irritating neighbor, who I believe is most likely wrestling bears.

I have now moved out of stage 1 (happily doing anything buy homework) into stage 2 (unable to focus due to external stimuli). Stage 3 (pacing around nervously) and Stage 4 (emotional exhaustion due to sleep deprivation) are rapidly approaching, which only when completed can stage 5 (completing actual homework assignments) begin.

It might be a rough couple of days.

So much for avoiding posts like these.

I miss your face sooooooo much. I hope your day gets better. Lots of love.
Me

mmmmeaty.

My brain feels all...mmmmeaty. like hamburger meat, or possibly ground up bacon. It's hard to say.

What isn't hard to say is that I have absolutely no interest in finishing any of my work for the semester, and I have successfully spent the past week actively avoiding anything that resembles a final project.

In fact, my abstract for my (only significant) final project was due on Nov. 20th, and I still have yet to so much as select a topic. Yeah...

And yet, I remain somehow, totally unconcerned.

It's not due until the 18th, and I'm pretty confident in my ability to pull this out of my ass in its entirety in the later hours of the 17th. I'm not sure what exactly that says about me, but I'm sure it's not good.

Then again, maybe it is.

My brain feels like meat-mush, so it's hard to trust its judgement right now.

I woke up extra early today, with every intention of at least looking into the kinds of topics I might want to consider doing my project on. Instead I've cleaned the house, taken a bath, watched season 1 of Archer, gone to Starbucks, taken the dog for a nice long walk, (inexplicably) gone to Walmart just to walk around, updated both facebook and instagram waaaaayyyyy more times than is acceptable, and now I'm writing you. Which is not at all to say that writing you is last on my list of thing to do, but rather that I've been trying to avoid another insufferable, oh-my-god-I-don't-want-to-do-my-homework (apparently I forgot to finish this sentence because you called me. Lol.) post, because I'm sure, by now it's become monotonous.

It's safe to say nothing is going to get done today.

<3

I miss you.

I've been making mental lists again.

Of things I desperately want to read once the semester is over, (Solzynitsyn, Gogol, Gravity's Rainbow, The Fifty Year Sword...) which only serves to remind me that there is (seemingly) no one in this entire godforsaken desert (which I love so desperately) who is even vaguely interested in reading anything other than Harry Potter, Twilight, or 50 Shades of Grey.

This makes me sad.

(Truthfully, this makes me incredibly worried about the fate of humanity, but that's another issue entirely.)

It's even more depressing because I know you and I would have had ridiculous literati lunches had it not been for all the time and distance between the two of us.

It's not fair, and for the record, I don't like it.

I do like you though. :) In case you somehow forgot.

I probably won't get a chance to talk to you again between now and the 21st. Procrastination has become an art form, in the truest sense of the term and now I've got a shit ton of work to get done in the next week and a half. Boo.





In other, totally unrelated news, I watched the trailer for Les Mis. last night and began weeping uncontrollably. It's that damn Do You Hear The People Sing? song.


Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!


It's Season 6 of Buffy all over again...the ridiculous obsessive fan girl in me just can't keep it together anymore. Anyway, I can't wait to see it. IN A THEATER. (<- huge deal)



That's all I know. Lots of love. <3

Just a quick note about The Beast Folk.

So, the last couple of nights I've had recurring dreams about different interactions with some sort of hybrid swine people.

It wasn't until I woke up in the early hours of this morning, still in the grips of a NyQuil induced stupor half way through How The Beast Folk Tasted Blood that I realized what happened.

First of all, I've been taking huge doses of NyQuil around the clock for the past 3 or 4 days in an attempt to sleep through the worst of this strep-y nonsense.

Secondly, in said drug induced stupor I apparently have been hitting 'play' on my "Audio Novellas" playlist instead of my Moby Dick audio book that I normally fall asleep to.

As a result I've been listening to The Island Of Dr. Moreau and Heart of Darkness on a continual loop in my sleep.

The results have been some pretty weird dreams.

Last night, for example, I dreamt you and I were trapped on a deserted jungle island. We made some badass weapons, went hunting for food and killed one of those hybrid swine folk. Then we dug a pit and barbequed it, luau style. Only it turned out to be like, SWSNBN, only in Beast People form. But we still ate it. Then we put the head on a spike (A la Heart of Darkness), threw the bones in the fire and danced like wild things until the ashes went cold.

This whole thing just totally reinforced my belief (by the way) that in a survival scenario, you and I would be terrifying and unstoppable together.

That's all I know.

Love!

Eight.

Seven.

six.

five.

four.

three.

Two (woah, woah, woah)

One

XP

So that's how you found me.
Rain falling all around me.
Looking down at a worm,
With a long way to go...


I am diligently avoiding doing anything resembling homework...again. I know, I know. It's nearly the end. Pull it together, girl.

But I just don't wanna.

Plus I'm just soooooo sick. (That's a valid excuse still, right?)


I miss your face, like, woah. And I wish you were here. I wish I had more things to say. I wish I were less sick and more motivated. Lol. I don't know. Two more weeks.


Ugh. Anyway, I owe you like a million little songs. I'm going to turn my playlist on and hit shuffle. I'll post the next 8 songs that come up. Should be a fun little experiment.

Ready?
Go!

Sick.

Sunday night I went to bed with a slightly sore throat. It was sore, but not terrible. It got progressively worse through the night...sore enough to wake me up several times. Around 3:45 or 4 in the morning I decided to just get up as it was obvious I wasn't going to be able to sleep any more.

I stumbled my way into the bathroom, my limbs still groggy from the NyQuil and prodded at my grossly swollen neck glands. I attempted to look in my mouth, but opening it/sticking my tongue out was painful.

I decided I would need to make it count, as I would most likely wuss out of opening my mouth again for days...oh if I only knew how true that was....

Anyway, I groped my way around the house in search of a flashlight and then stumbled back to the bathroom feeling rather victorious. I perched myself atop the sink and peered into the back of my throat (illuminating it with said flashlight) and then my world ENDED.

My right tonsil was grossly swollen and pitch BLACK. (They were both swollen and black-sh, but the right one was REALLY bad). How is that even possible??!!

Panic seized me.

My skin grew clammy, the room began to spin, and I spent the next 40 minutes in the bathtub alternating between googling "black tonsils" and vomiting profusely (which did not help AT ALL with the throat pain).

Around 5 I text my dad "911, HELP. FEVER. CHILLS. BLACK TONSILS???!!! GOING TO DIE"

Dad texted back, "ouch." followed by "just self medicate, I'm sure it will be fine".

Totally not helpful.

I poked at said giant tonsil with a q-tip and it POPPED. Black stuff began oozing out of it and I started vomiting again, mostly I think, due to panic. (possibly also due to the gross and/or ick factor).

At 6:15 I gathered up the courage to call out of work (talking was sooooooooo painful) and headed to the ER, having totally convinced myself that my tonsils were necrotic and I was at death's door.

On the space on the ER form for why I needed to be seen I wrote "woke up and tonsils were black??!! Poked one and it POPPED??!! Pretty sure that's not supposed to happen? Why is this happening??!!"

Nothing of note really happened at the ER, save for the throat swab. I told her ahead of time that I sometimes (read:always) have control issues and because I've never had a throat swab before there was no telling how I would react.

Apparently, I do not react well.

No sooner was the q-tip in my mouth than I was biting down and ferociously shaking my head from side to side. To make matters more awkward, my mouth would not open to release the swab. Would. Not. Open. After a few minutes, I calmed down and released it. Feeling more prepared for the second swab I decided we should try it again, but the results were the same.

Finally I just asked meekly if she would please just let me do it, since apparently, I was not about to let her swab my gross tonsil. She consented and the swabbing proceeded without issue. It did however, return from my mouth covered in blood and black stuff.

My lab results came back positive for strep throat, which was amazing because despite being immuno-compromised, I have never EVER had strep throat. It's the one thing I've traditionally been resistant to, but apparently there's a first time for everything.

In addition, my gross black/popped tonsil was a tonsillar abscess which had to be drained. This was...unpleasant. However, I felt MUCH better once it was over with.

That being said, I still feel like death. I've spent the past 36 hours alternating between fitful naps and hot baths. (I think I took upwards of 8 baths yeasterday alone.) My throat looks much more strep-y today, covered with big streaks of puss, and grossly swollen (but much less black). I'm having a hard time sleeping, both because I have to take meds every 4 hours, and because the pain in my neck/throat/teeth/ears is insufferable when laying down.

I have to go back to work/school tomorrow, so hopefully I'll sleep better tonight and I'll be able to talk a little bit better in the morning. :/

That's all I know.

I miss you terribly.
Lots of love.
Me.