Numbers game

10 articles written for The Heights.

9 outings in and around Boston.

8 new make-up/skincare products, that cost way more money than they were worth/I can afford.

7 disappointing, hurtful people all in one basket.

6 non-holiday related weekends home.

5 awful months without a single new episode of The Office. Do you know what that does to a person?

4 injuries requiring medical attention. Bloody urine, hotdog fingers, keratitis, related migraines. And one more upcoming procedure, once I get the balls to deal with it.

3 new favorite shows. Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl, Law and Order: SVU.

2 friends for realsies.

1 regret. Not asking that old priest to let me take a picture of him watering flowers outside St. Mary's, despite it being one of the iconic images I will remember most from this year.

-- 06:17 PM

How about I dissertate my foot in your ass

It figures that when everyone else is celebrating the last day of classes at Modstock, I'm inside thinking about what my senior thesis will be. (Though, to be fair, it's not an especially exciting Modstock. Who the fuck is State Radio? They sound like ghosts, or trains, or ghost trains trying to get through the inch of my window. I have no idea what the kids listen to these days.)

I'll say it: it's not too often that someone questions a decision I've made, because usually by the time they find out about it, I've already tossed it and turned it until there's nothing left to judge. But lately, everyone keeps asking me what I'm thinking about for grad school. Like I'm supposed to! Even my dad, after I told him I had no plans to go, laughed and said, "Yeah. Well, we'll see about that."

I just don't know if it's necessary for me. I'm a sort of do-what-it-takes person (or at least, I'm not the opposite of that, whatever it is), but all the alumni in my field have said that grad school isn't worth it for publishing and journalism. "What's the point of paying to be taught by people who used to be in the business when you could get paid to be taught by the people who are in the business?" Exactly! And the sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side!

Still, after yet another meeting with a professor I respect about how I should really be thinking about making the most of my time here, I am now I'm all a flutter because wait, am I supposed to go to grad school? Am I making a stupid choice? Of course it's not for everyone, but is it for me? How do I know it's not for me? What do I know ? I want to just say, oh to hell with it, I'm only halfway through my undergraduate years, but I can't quite do that. Next year is when I am supposed to really have my plans set, but I won't actually be here, so if I want to secure advisors and such then I'm running out of time.

So as to not totally close the doors on this, I need to set my sights on a senior thesis. And for ideas I have approximately... hmm, two and two is four... carry the one... oh, NOTHING. What the hell am I interested in? Since I finally declared the Irish Studies minor and I am going to be spending nine months over there, I guess it had better be in that department, but what? It's not like I'm especially interested in the Magdalen Laundries or Yeats, and decolonization wiped the floor with me last semester, so I don't know. I guess I'll find out then, even though I really should know now, and and

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the two days off between finals and work.

-- 06:26 PM

Keeping in touch

Two emails from my dad today.

Just had a scratching contest with greta and won.

Oh, I actually beat greta because she had to pee.

Not even lying, it's just like being at home again.

-- 06:05 PM

Post-SAD

Oh, what's that, Wacky Weatherman? You'd like to ruin my mood with a full on week of rain? I'd like to see you try. BEHOLD THE GIVING TREE.

It's just not going to happen. You're not going to bring me down, motherfucker. I don't care if I did kind of wish for a scarf walking home tonight, because it was my light scarf I was thinking of, which I totally intend to wear on summer nights anyway. This is the time of year when things come to life and I realize that there are always new things I want to learn.

I didn't play saxophone this year. This is the first time since the fourth grade that I haven't played it--that's eleven years! I haven't been able to figure out why I wasn't interested in it this year, because my excuses that "band's not fun" and "I'm afraid of being bad" and "I'm too busy" have always been big problems with me, but I've kept at it anyway. A friend of mine from high school that goes here kept insisting that I join something--marching, pep, symphonic, wind ensemble, anything--but it wasn't in me. Music has forever been an intricate part of my life, but not only have I had to describe myself as "between musics" for the past four years, I don't even want to play it anymore.

Fortunately, the annual Arts Festival has been going on here for the past two days, and for lack of a better word, I have found my inspiration. No one joined me at any of the shows I went to; I just wandered around O'Neill Plaza all day with my camera, enjoying the things that I knew other people would insist we not watch. There's still a day left, but in the meantime I've taken away a beautiful ceramic bowl, the faintest of farmer's burns, and the goal to learn the tin whistle.

The day I get home, I am going to buy a whistle and learn to play that thing like no other. And I don't care that that's sort of ridiculous and odd and does not help my Loner Awkward Maybe Gay image that I seem to give off wherever I go. The flowers are out and I don't care. There are so many things that I am interested in that none of my friends are interested in, and this is the time of year where I decide that I will not let other people stop me from pursuing things that I like. I like the Internet and making websites and following blogs and pursuing social networking that encourages creativity, I like going around with my camera however big it is and taking pictures when you're not looking, I like home design and the magazines and style guides that come with it, I like learning new crafts to do with my hands and working on them by myself, I like teaching myself things that no one else will teach me, I like being alone and accomplishing things because if there's one thing people do too much, it's wait for someone else to say, yes, that's normal, you may proceed.

-- 12:23 AM

And I said yes!

Addie proposed to me in a most unusual way.

She told me she was drawing the wedding gowns of all her friends so I said I wanted in. And then I realized that I have never in my life imagined what my wedding dress would look like. I've always jumped ahead to what things would be like afterwards--I wrote an essay long ago that outlined how I met my husband, what his name was, and what problems we faced (it got me sent to my high school psychologist, though we were good friends and he wasn't surprised to see me), and I've had my top three children's names for both genders picked out since at least tenth grade (although now that I think of it, I have not updated that list in a while, and some of the names have fallen out of favor). I've just never thought about the day itself. All of my friends have apparently been piecing together magazine clippings since the beginning of time, so I don't know where I missed that boat. At any rate, thanks and good job to Addie.

By the way, that's my three-year-old daughter who I had out of wedlock. I'm telling her to talk to the hand and get out of my shot because this is my big day and she better not fuck it up or I'll knock her block off with my broomstick.

Anyone need a babysitter?

-- 12:11 PM

"What You Want to Do Fine"

This is one of my favorite passages from my favorite story in Lorrie Moore's Birds of America.

"All you sighted people are alike. You think we're Mr. Magoo! You think I'm not as aware as some guy who paints water towers and's got cysts on his dick?"

Mack shakes his head. He sits up and starts to put his shoes back on. "You really go for the juggler, don't you?" he says.

"Juggler?" Quilty howls. "Juggler? No, obviously, I go for the clowns."

Mack is puzzled. Quilty's head is tilted in that hyperalert way that says nothing in the room will get past him. "Juggler," Mack says. "Isn't that the word? What is the word?"

"A juggler," says Quilty, slowly for the jury, "is someone who juggles."

-- 02:15 PM

Accepted

I am going to Ireland next year. I've "known" it for a while (partly because I believe in myself, partly because the people around me didn't seem to doubt it at all, and partly because I went around to every single advisor and intern in the Hovey House and asked their opinion), but nothing was ever official. Now, my inbox will be holding that special little email for quite some time.

In actuality, it doesn't feel real yet. I still feel like I'm only saying words and living in a pipedream. I have absolutely no clue what it's going to be like, because it is rare that nine consecutive months ever feel the same, never mind nine consecutive months in a place I only wanted to spend a week in. I have some vague ideas about things I would like to do: pictures pictures everywhere, Designer and Book Marts on the weekends, going to pubs and feeling comfortable and maybe not being pressured to drink but rather to talk, talking with people, bah bah bah. It is very foggy.

Nine months is an awfully long time for anyone, not just someone who can scarcely go three weeks without needing to go home to snorgle her dog. Sometimes I think I am out of my fucking tree to go for this long (for example: it is ALWAYS overcast so I will ALWAYS have headaches). But I will not have to worry about that for a while. In the meantime, I will just bask in the "we're so proud of you" remarks and keep my fingers crossed that Ireland will make me more interesting.

-- 06:01 PM

Surpreyes, surpreyes

No, there was not much improvement with my eyes today, but thanks for asking. My eyes look healthy and fine to her; my only instructions are to stop using Clear Eyes and instead use a morning drop and a moistening drop, and hopefully they will stop appearing so disgusting. As for my headaches, she suspects they may be reading related. I now own reading glasses from CVS, which means I am now old. This was funny and heartening this morning, because I've got no problem lubricating my eyes and wearing specs to read, but at exactly three o'clock this afternoon, I was just plain mad. I had not read a single word all day, we had just been looking at dresses in the bridal boutique, and it happened like a truck accident. I've taken Tylenol and removed my contacts and put in my eye drops and the only other solution is going to sleep now.

Sleep is the only response my body has to these daily headaches, and sleep is the only thing I can't do right now. I've only got a few weeks left, which means it's time to get back to work. I wrote a paper last night, and I've got another tonight, plus 130 pages of Evelina, plus some extra readings. I am not going to get any of that done this weekend. The headaches are officially interfering with my regular activities, because as soon as one hits my whole body feels fatigued and shuts down. I am always short of breath. I am really, really tired and impatient and I want to cry.

-- 05:23 PM