Today is...

Boyfriend Birthday!

Wish him well.

He makes me very happy.

(Happy Birthday, love.)

And then it was Winter

Got cold. Fast.

Nasty, cold rain/sleet/ice coming down from the sky.

Sat up in bed under a tent of blankets. Out the window a flock of birds landing in the front yard to peck, peck, peck and fly away at every crash of thunder.

Cat was very interested in this scene as well.

Though for different reasons:

I thought about needing to put something out, feed the birds.

Cat just wants to feed on them.

They needn't worry about either as it's way too effing cold for us to get out and about.

Brrr!

Is raining. Thunder.

When was the last time that sound was heard in these parts?

Awake too long, exhausted now. Though not sleepy, that ship has come and gone.

Reading textbooks, words swimming on the page.

Sucked into reading blog after blog.

Hoping the glare from the computer screen does what? Beats my eyes into submission, makes them close?

So many people just pounding out heart wrenching feelings of being places where they feel unappreciated with people who do not make them feel loved.

Nowhere to put it all except into a plastic keyboard for insomniacs to skim over somewhat disinterestedly.

Chipper, eh?

Wanna come listen to the storm?

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving

Thursday was Thanksgiving with family at Gramma's. Brother and Cousin were trying to assign a deadly sin to each holiday. Gluttony, of course, being Thanksgiving.

I'm of the opinion that things as fun as deadly sins should not be reserved for special days of the year, but rather enjoyed on a much more frequent basis.

After dinner, Brother, Sister and I were splayed on the floor in a kind of quasi-food coma when Brother decided we should have a sit-up contest.

I declined to compete.

My family is very strange.

Then had to work at the craphole. Which suck suck sucked as usual.

Had the weekend off. Boyfriend here for too short visit.

So.much.food.

Made friends with the cat. (The roast chicken helped greatly in this endeavor.) Pissed off my Mexican waiter semi-stalker and company.

Left me feeling very warm and loved, although somewhat heavier. Had to have gained approximately 15 pounds in 36 hours. (Maybe the just shy of an entire cherry pie that was consumed. Gee, ya think?)

Should be doing homework now.

Motivation is nowhere to be seen. Is indeed, to steal some material from Pommababy, a motherfucker. Has not shown his face in these parts for several days now.

Mebbe the rest of that pie would help...

Two weeks (!) and the semester is over and am 1/4 of the way to being done.

Hooray!

I sometimes have the irrepressible urge to say, to various people, "Are you fucking stupid?"

You may wonder, "Why would I bother asking a question which I already know to be truthfully answered in the affirmative?"

The answer of course: To see if people are not only stupid, but liars as well.

Stupid people merely make other people want to kill them.

Stupid liars on the other hand, when those other people do teeter over the edge and annihilate them, get to burn eternally in hell.

Didn't yer mama teach you nuthin' 'bout sin*?

*Please note, sin, in this particular usage, is a two syllable word.

Remedial English

Words that sound kind of alike, but are not, in fact, interchangeable:

Prostrate and prostate.

Ethic and ethnic. (Ethnical, in case you wondered, is not a word. Please don't use it.)

Also:

Sense and since.

Effect and affect.

And wright, while a possible proper noun, is not a verb. Alas.

Along similar lines: Why would one need to specify that something is a "big fire hazard".

Is there such thing as a small fire hazard? (Just a little one, no big deal.)

Please review the above. There will be a short quiz.

Thanks.

Don't Bother

You might be old and cranky if you spend your Saturday night home alone drinking little bottles of Mexican beer, terrorizing the cat, and cleaning out the 'fridge.

Actually putting off cleaning out the fridge for fear of what lurks there. Especially considering that some of the things Roommate cooks are not quite edible to begin with.

(To the point that emptying the litter box seems preferable.)

Pathetically is seems like a perfectly lovely way to pass the time.

Don't have to work tomorrow.

When was the last time I had a day off?

Not sure, but at this point a day off is too precious to spend with other people.*

Going to sleep until I wake up.

Eat breakfast sometime around noon.

Tackle Mt. Dirty Laundry. Do homework. Study for a test.

Damn I'm exciting.

*blog readership excluded

This morning was dreaming that found a lump in my breast.

Left.

Tail of Spence, just above the scar from my lumpectomy.

3 am, feeling myself up. Making sure it wasn't really there.

It wasn't.

The word phobia indicates an illogical reaction or unfounded fear, so don't think that my fear of getting breast cancer could exactly be called a phobia.

It does however sometimes put this incredible tightness in my chest.

Also recently discovered that lumpectomy is just kind of a nicer made up word for the real name: partial mastectomy.

Thanks to whoever made up the kind of nicer made up word and kept me from having a complete nervous breakdown when someone was gonna be taking a scalpel and slicing out part of my body.

Mush

Pile of yellow post it notes on the kitchen counter.

Variations on a general "I love you" theme.

My dad's handwriting.

"What are all of these?"

"Dad left those around the house for me. Our anniversary."

Knew what they were, silly.

Just wanted to hear the way you said it.

Happy (slightly belated) 27th anniversary.

Of Cat Hair and Formatting

Leave the house, come back hours later. Cat is in the same spot at the end of the couch.

Would think he was breaking new sleeping records, even for a cat, were it not for the wastepaper basket in the front room dumped over every.single.time. come home.

Why you wanna eat paper, cattamuffin?

(Yes, I feed him. So shaddup.)

Turned in formal paper for holistic assessment today. Big fun. Took me as long to create the APA reference page as it did to write the effing paper.

Today is beautiful.

Sun, falling leaves.

Leaves already fallen in orangey red golden blankets of crunchy fall smelling goodness.

Perfect picnic weather.

Real dishes and little snacks out of a Dorothy-Wizard-of-Oz-esque flip top basket. Blue gingham in the drop cloth 'stead of the attire.

Little Kansas girl, ruby slippers, shoulda made the moves on the tin man somewhere along the yellow brick road.

(He really had a heart all along...)

Class, work, cleaning house, homework, laundry, early bedtime.

Notice no picnic in that list.

Alas.

Today in my Holistic Assessment class was genitourinary chapter day.

Ok.

La ti da.

One of the briefly covered topics was sexual assault, being able to assess signs of recent and past trauma.

This in reference to male sexual assault brought about several horrified gasps from corners of the room.

This same reference, when made to female sexual assault, elicited no such reaction.

Pretty fucked up.

In the same way that it is fucked up that people are horrified that men get raped in jail. As if it is some huge and horrific injustice.

Oh, right, it is.

Only it is for women, too. And half of us navigate the world carrying with us the inherent risk of being sexually assaulted everyday.

And it pisses me off that in a room full of women there are no horrified gasps with talk of other women being raped.

Just an everyday kinda thing, if you've got a vagina, for your body to be violated.

I read somewhere that there can be no equality while women feel unsafe.

Makes me feel pretty fucking unsafe to know that someone can forcibly penetrate my body and it is just business as usual, a risk you assume by virtue of being female.

This in mind, anyone who would like to engage in a discussion on the great equality we've reached in modern society can, quite frankly, fuck off.

I've a cunt to keep safe and hardly the time or patience to suffer such utter bullshit.

Pedestrians

Out of the fog this morn, while shuttling around felons in training, came several things of interest.

First among all the political folk with their candidate signs was a man with one that said simply, "Fire 'Em All."

Second was a covey of fat little quail.

Third was a buck. Young. Little nubs of fuzzy antlers.

All of these made me tap the breaks, making sure it was the break and not the gas.

The same could not be said had I happened to come across Phil Kline.

Sunday late morning. Came to see sister, in town for the weekend, but she has gone to see our cousin.

No one else here, save the cats.

There is a Pink Panther episode on.

The beautiful thing about Pink Panther? No dialogue. Just subtle variations of that same theme song. Some sound effects. It doesn't command attention, but rather serves as a nice bit of background noise.

Phone call from the ex last night. Short. Mostly one-sided. Including this gem: "It's strange to talk to you and not want to choke the shit out of you. "

Wow.

Isn't that just about the sweetest thing a girl ever did hear?

Still, doesn't leave the noise in my head and bad taste in my mouth it once did.

(Just a line from an Evanescence song "You never call me when you're sober. You only want it 'cause it's over.")

Stark contrast to the relationship of now. Soft, sweet words early in the morning. Care package in my mailbox of things to keep me warm. Thoughtful little messages throughout the day.

Mo' betta. Much.

Need to go home and tidy the house, study for a test.

Now 'til end of the semester the last little sprint to the finish line.

Wish me luck.

Using the last of the dish soap, thinking you need to buy more, and then realizing there is a full bottle under the sink rocks.

That's all.