January 16, 2002

Noding about Beauty Overload today, as I have been thinking about beauty so much. What if There is Enough For Everyone? What if pleasure steers us where we need to go as forcefully as pain makes us lift our hand from a hot stove?

Thought a lot about this listening to Chloe wire her brain up. She was in bed, and on the baby monitor we could hear her just bubb-bub-da-ba-bobbing to herself happily as she lay in the dark, not quite ready to sleep. She kept babbling for almost an hour before she tired and slept. I looked at her parents and said, "It's amazing: we're listening to Chloe building her brain."
So, she's a natural "practicer". I think it's a deep skill we're hard wired with: how to repeat things until we have wired enough neurons to store knowledge of them. Hmmm. And of course, play couples practice and pleasure.
It's a cliche'd observation that the sense of pain teaches an animal, human or otherwise, not to eat certain plants or sit too close to the campfire. It's a mechanism for reinforcing some lesson about the fit of one's body into this world: Of course your legs hurt. We're hippos, son; we don't leap from rock to rock. I am interested in observing the role of pleasure. How and what does pleasure teach?

The shit has hit the fan. It's official, this is the absolute worst day of my life. The following happened ALL today within a span of three hours:

1. My girlfriend left me
2. My monitor died
3. Some asshole gave me a laxative chocolate bear
4. My E&M class was reassigned to the worst teacher on the known planet. (ok, not part of the three hours, but bad)

Kristin's parents and probably herself are moving sometime near May she says. That combined with her friend being in dire straights or whatever has stressed her out enough to where she doesn't think she can "handle a relationship right now". She says I was the only thing that was going right, but just can't take it right now. I'm not happy, but I'll respect her wishes and give her space. Hopefully she'll turn around on this. I've never felt so alone in my life.

I've been back at the dorm form a few hours. I thought I'd be happy. Well, I was happy until everything shot to hell. My monitor died sometime between when I left for and returned from dinner. The chocolate laxatives came after that. I don't know how I'm going to handle all this. I've dated and broken up with girls before, but nothing like this. I've never really cared before, right now I just hope she's ok. I hope to God if there is one that she wasn't just making an excuse and that it was my fault. I couldn't bear the thought that I might have hurt her or done wrong by her in any way. I think I might cry if it weren't for my tear ducts not opperating as they should because of that whole "man" thing.

Hopefully things will turn out better. I have to beg my instructor to give me a B in phys for last semester. The one C in my life time from that class really hurts my chances of getting into MIT.

The only thing looking up right now is that I really think I'll have fun destroying the old monitor, we'll probably throw it off a building or something. I don't know, anything to get my mind off life. I'll stop being depressing now. Everyone else have a nice day.

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Update - I can't get a fucking break. My computer just contracted Nimda. God help me...

OK LET'S TALK ABOUT WHAT I DID YESTERDAY

Called in sick, drove to Cleveland, drank lots of coffee on the way, went to my fabulous alma mater John Carroll University, discovered their massive construction site and pavement over the quad, discovered all the offices were not just remodeled but moved around, finally found the registrar and got to talk to someone about this whole transcript fucking business. Business is: they put on my undergraduate transcript a class which I took 1. not as part of my degree work, not on my graduation application, nothing and 2. AFTER I graduated and for that matter 3. which I registered for in the graduate school so it sure as fuck should not be on any undergraduate business.

The woman I talked to there was very nice and very nice and took my up to see the appropriate dean, to whom I had previously, last Tuesday mind you, faxed a formal letter stating my problem and that I had been trying to get in contact with her since before break and no one was calling me back and this was a matter of some urgency and god damnit, at least pretend to make an effort. And she still had not called me back and no one appeared to be taking any interest in the problem and I left a message before break! Before break! Gah! So I drove to Cleveland to take the hell care of it and not leave until it was done.

Well, I had to leave before it was done. Lots of crap and crap and lots of crap later I was told to come back at three (from twelve) since she had to get to my old prof and he is currently the interim president of something or other, and very busy. Great! So I went to the language resource lab (which was fortunately entirely the same as it had ever been, i.e. completely public plus free printing although there is no telnet but thats ok there are other things) and stayed there until three making as much constructive use of my time as possible. Mostly I was trying not to run into anyone I knew, because awkward conversations were not something I could deal with at that point.

When I went back at three she had not yet been able to contact him. Lots more crap later she told me to call her tomorrow after four. Today after four. So. Once they've had time to do something.

Things I dislike:

1. All they have to do is send only my undergraduate transcript. "We can't." Yes, yes you can.
2. "You should have called." Fuck you, do you know how much I called? Do you know how much I hate the phone? For that matter, do you know how many times You called me back?
3. Having to escape from the snow belt which had suddenly become the snow belt for real at right around three; getting stuck in Cleveland rush hour at 4:30.
4. The people at the post office, the POST OFFICE, being more cheerful and helpful and all-around better than the individual dean I talked to.

I was nice and polite and inexorable and it didn't work.

In conclusion, god Damnit.

I commute about 115 miles to work round trip every day. This has recently started since I just moved in with my boyfriend, Fred. It takes me about an hour each way, and gives me ample time to think about whatever may be going on in my life (and of course what I will write in my e2 daylog).

This morning, Fred told me he had some nightmares about me cheating on him. This really upsets me. I understand why he would be insecure about that, since its happened to him before, but I'm here NOW. Not before. I feel he may think I would do something like that to him, and I would never even dream of it. I couldn't imagine not being with him. Its become so comfortable, yet each intimate moment we spend together is so precious and close to my heart. Why would I want to lose that?

I feel doubted at times. I am blaming this on PMS, since I feel the need to place blame somewhere.

Is it me? I think back to all of my past relationships. Most of them ended by the other person. I have never cheated. Sure, I may have thought about it before, but never actually did. I have been cheated on, and I know what it feels like. Especially when you catch your soon-to-be ex in your own bed with your soon-to-be ex best friend. My baseball bat met his Ford soon after.

I like to think I am a good girlfriend, a faithful companion, a true friend. I find all of these things in Fred, and think he finds those in me as well.

I'm probably overanalizing, waisting time dwelling on something that is really nothing. The only thing I can do now, is prove his dreams wrong.

A couple weeks ago a wrote a daylog which was written like a journal of one who is trying to quit smoking. I wrote this because I quit smoking - and that was basically all I could think about. All I had on my mind was beautiful tasty cigarette smoke smoothly flowing down my throat and filling my lungs with their sweet nicotine filled juicy goodness....

Ahem.

Much to my surprise, several people hit the old blab! button and wrote me some encouraging words, telling me to hang in there, and that I will, in fact, feel better although at the time I wanted to smash my face into the nearest wall on general principles. I was not trying to get sympathy, nor was I looking for support; I just thought it would be funny to show the descent of a quitter's mind into insanity, and finally resigned acceptance. However, I found a measure of both sympathy and support, and for that I would like to thank you. You know who you are.

This daylog is an update, should anyone be interested. I feel somehow compelled to tell everyone that I haven't caved. I've stopped coughing my guts out. It takes me a good deal longer on the treadmill to get winded. And I think I'm finally beyond physical addition. The accelerated heartbeat, nervousness and irritability are gone. Well, the irritability has subsided back down to where it was when I was smoking.

The psychological addiction, however, is alive and strong. Every time I sit down at my computer at home, I want one. Every time I finish breakfast, lunch or dinner, I want one. Every now and then I get a baseless craving, and I want one.

I am told by several ex-smokers that these craving never go away - and that scares the shit out of me. I've also heard they become easier to bear as time goes on. So, I'm going to keep at it.

One thing I did find interesting though is just how horrible cigarettes smell. I was at my desk this morning, and a cow orker walked by who had just gone outside for their smoke break, and was returning to their desk. The smell could have knocked a buzzard off a shit-wagon at 100 paces. For this reason I would like to personally apologize to every non-smoker who has had to suffer through that vile occurance. I honestly always thought you were just whining.

Now I feel your pain.

For the record: Food does not taste better. It tastes exactly the same. Anti-smoking people should stop using this as a selling point.

"You can feel completely despairing and hopeless and in over your head and lost and incompetent in the course of writing a book, but that doesn't mean all those things are true."
- Michael Chabon

In Chabon's Wonder Boys, the main character has published one novel to great acclaim and is now irretrievably sunk in the morass of his second effort, a monster that has eaten up the last several years of his life and looks to never be completed. It's based on Chabon's own experience -- after The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, he spent five years of his life cranking out hundreds, maybe THOUSANDS of pages worth of prose, a second novel that went absolutely nowhere and which he finally had to kill so he could move on. And write Wonder Boys.

I once wrote a novel, something I've all but stopped telling people because then they start asking me questions about it and it makes me sad. But I did, and on its strength a well-known agent who specializes in SFFH took me on as her client. Nearly every editor who saw it responded by saying how good it was, and how its author showed great promise. But the market for it was dead. It came freakishly close to being published by Del Rey at one point. Everyone liked it, and liked me, but no one wanted to buy it. Instead they wanted to see what else I could come up with.

I think I got the original idea for Key of Worlds about five years ago. I've been writing it off and on for at least three years, probably four. More off than on, if the truth be told. Every time I talked to my agent (about how she was doing with shopping around my first book and how I was doing with writing the next) she'd tell me how awful things were in publishing right now, how nobody wanted to take a chance on a new writer anymore unless it looked like he could guarantee them a bestseller, how the only money to be made was writing media tie-ins and would I be interested in writing a Spider-Man novel? (I thought the answer would be yes, but to my amazement I found that I really and truly wasn't interested. I tried to come up with some ideas and every one of them was bullshit.)

This is important stuff for someone who is considering a career as a novelist to know. If you can't deal with this type of market and its attendant pressures, you should really look into some other kind of work. The result of all this information for me was a severe case of deer-in-the-headlights syndrome. Just as an example, I got stuck in this loop for almost a year where I rewrote the first five chapters OVER and OVER again because it never seemed "marketable" enough. I went weeks without typing a single word. Finally, my agent terminated our relationship; I just wasn't coming through.

For a while after that, things were a bit better. The bursts of creativity came a little more frequently once the pressure of knowing someone was waiting for the damn thing was gone. But my work habits frankly suck, and I stalled out time and again. And I started hating my novel. Looking at my notes, hell, even looking at the floppy disk it was on immediately fouled my mood.

So I'm thinking of stopping. I'll collect my notes and everything I've done so far and put it all in a folder in my file cabinet and forget about it. Christ. I don't know if this means I'm not a novelist, or not a writer, or if I just need to cultivate some better work habits. The stubborn, masochistic part of me yells that I should keep doggedly plugging away at it till it's done or I collapse with blood leaking out of my ears. But the thought of killing Key of Worlds makes me feel so free and happy right now, and it's tough to ignore that.

Anyway.

On another subject, if you search Google for the keywords philosophus stone against cult terror, you get some REALLY interesting results involving the Kabbalah and Naziism.

So I got home late last night, and she was on the couch. The alphabet magnets said "in a foul mood, sorry in advance". We have alphabet magnets on the fridge. And she had almost-dry blood all over her arms, and there were razorblades on the arm of the couch.

She heard me come in, and got up, and tried to pretend like she was happy. Or, at least, not cutting herself. But she had blood all over her arms, and I pointed to it, and she didn't say anything, she changed the subject.

What do I do about this? What can I do? She didn't wash the blood off of her arms, I tried so hard to just pretend it was okay. (this is how i cope with things). How do I deal with this? I am not emotionally capable of handling this. I am not.

My mother told me not to let her problems become my problems. My mother is worried about her and I becoming two very depressed chickies who try to use each other as life preservers and our combined weight drags us to the bottom.

So I've been thinking about what I can do. Normally, I'd tell her parents or tell her to tell her parents and they'd help her get help. But her parents aren't here, they're far far away. I'm the one babysitting now. It's either my responsiblity or hers. She's already been at this point. Except before, she went to therapy and took the drugs. She's on the drugs now, but I am convinced that they're not helping.

What do I do? help

Happy Birthday to me!!

I turned 21 today! I purchased alcohol by myself for the first time. *indicates the bottle of Smirnoff Ice that she is drinking The lady at The Wine Shop was cool - she wasn't even going to card me, until I all but thrust my I.D. into her hands. *titters*

Mom gave me a huge stuffed black panther. It is long enough that it would go from the floor half-way up my thigh.

Dan got me a 3 CD set, The Magic of Ireland - it features music from both Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, two of my favorite CDs. Then Dan took me out to dinner, to Tampico's. Tampico's has the best Mexican food in this area. I had 2 peach daqueris. Ooh, they were sooo good.

I feel so good about myself today - I mean, for the first time in years I put on my "little black dress" and wore it out in public. As almost anyone who knows me can attest, it is extremely rare that I wear any skirts that stop anywhere above my mid-calf, at the highest. But tonight, I put on my dress that stops several inches above my knees. Put that with a black turtle neck (hey, it is winter in the Mid-Ohio Valley, after all), a pair of new black tights, a black thong, and my knee-high black boots, and I looked damn good. *grins* And now, I am going to go drink my Smirnoff Ice and continue being happy.

Happy birthday to me too!
Lady Midnight is older than me, as I am now 19.

So, I can't do anything new, but I have been able to buy cigarettes, vote, and buy and watch porn for a full year now!!!!! How exciting!

So, I had a nice day today, being my birthday and all.
As some of you know, I am a triplet, however my brother and sister of my age are back in school and I am at home still since classes start on the 21st (I'm at Cornell). So, this was my first birthday with out my triplet siblings. An interesting experience indeed.

But I saw two friends today and went to a very nice restaurant with my parents. So, it wasn't the excitment that I'm used to for my birthday and my sister and I tend to hold a nice, girly sleep over, but then again, I am in college (although, I still want to have a sleep over!).

So, another year gone past! And tomorrow I'm off to Cornell again, to start a new semester. I'm excited yet I'm pretty used to being back home (Bethesda, MD).

So, happy birthday to me, Lady Midnight, and bob the cow (my brother).