Hey! I saw John Williams tonight! Conducting! In my stadium! I think this is very cool. How often does he do this? When does he even have time to with all the movies he’s scoring? I just think he’s the tops. The tops of the Pops. Because it was the Boston Pops he was conducting, for Parents’ Weekend.

There was so much movie music, where to begin. Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane. “Hymn to the Fallen” from Saving Private Ryan! Remember that one? How we were all pretty much in tears by the end of our first run-through? And then Harry Potter, OBVIOUSLY. Although I do have to admit, I’m surprised by how little he knew about Harry. He wasn’t sure if Hedwig was a girl or boy, he forgot that Chamber of Secrets was a movie at all, and said that the whole thing was “very silly.” But I guess you can’t be a fan of everything.

I also did a truly excellent job of playing papparazzo, because I got Tim Russert good. His son goes to this school (as well as several other journalists’ kids), so he’s always around. Coincidentally, John Williams composed “Meet the Press,” and he finally got to play the entire score.

Then a big, awesome medley of his most famous songs, with Jaws and Star Wars and Indiana Jones and E.T. They handed out glow sticks, and Williams started laughing at the sight of everyone swinging their light sabers. I loved tonight. I think he is one of the coolest guys in the world. It doesn’t hurt that he looks exactly like Mr. Porter, either.

(I apologize, none of my pictures are very pretty or clear in the least. But I did manage to slip into conversation that I’d like to go halves on a new camera for Christmas, like I’ve been planning. So phase one is complete.)

Things are going much better on the leg-and-urine front. I can walk, I can talk, and I can pee yellow. I can’t sit cross-legged or kneel to find the clicker that dropped behind the bed, but I can get off the toilet without cracking my skull open, so that’s all right in my book. And today I got to say, “Hey look at me! I can put my pants on by myself,” which pleased the doctor very much.

I’ve been thinking a lot about when I changed. There’s been so much talk about change lately, for good and bad, and I’ve been consistently keeping track of my life for six years, so I have the unique position of being able to look back on something other than memory. Which is not to say that it is any less biased than memory, but it’s a little different. I’ve always had a filter on what I’ve written, because I’ve always had some purpose, because I think everything you write should have a purpose. But it’s like I have a new one each year, a new reason to write, a new something I’m trying to do every time. And once I decide on one, I can’t go back to color it in anything other than what my purpose was at that time. I can’t return to the big confessions of freshman year and put a different spin on them. So I figure that’s as good a place as any to start, to track my spin on things.

2002: Everything is anecdotal, but at this point my life is rocking dangerously between comedy and pain. I want so badly to make people laugh with my stories: behind-the-scenes at a Catholic mass, online conspiracies against AIM robots, mock interviews with classmates on pop-up ads. A sort of “you ever notice how?” brand of comedy. But every now and then, barely-restrained fury at the injustice of everything emerges. I think I wanted very badly for talking about things to make them go away. Appropriately, the last entry of the year is the one on my cutting.

2003: Everything flips. I go from desperately wanting to mask my sadness to hiding my desires under a very thick layer of cynicism. Nothing is inherently good. Nothing is worth doing because it all amounts to nothing. No one will stay forever, no matter how many open letters I write, no matter how many times I beg for attention in my graphic accounts of masochism. “Sometimes it seems there is no redeeming myself, because everyday I just sink further into what is an abyss of disappointment that ultimately controls my life” (10/8/03). I am who I am and no matter how fast I want to move, I am not going anywhere.

2004: I become a little more creative. There are less diary-style musings and more snippets from conversations, more pictures, more one-sentence considerations, more random narrations. I begin to notice things outside myself. I begin to get a clearer view of what people see when they see me. My actual memories reflect what’s written. This is also the year that a small list of resolutions becomes what I think is the turning point in my life. I begin to see that what I do makes me. The list, from 10/7/04, is:

1. learn to knit.
2. start drinking tea.
3. get a coat. no, a real coat.
4. wear a scarf with that coat.
5. learn to do laundry.
6. stop wearing band t-shirts, dammit.
7. write that screenplay.

It is important. They are such small changes, and I remember someone saying to me (someone I spoke to frequently and who openly analyzed my life for me but who was actually a periphery character), “Why no more band shirts? What’s the point of that?” But there is so much to it. It is a list about changing the way I look, letting my outside reflect my inside, taking responsibility and being productive. I see myself so clearly in my head and I want to see if it’s worth becoming. And as a result, this is the year that my writing may reach its peak. There are very few things in here that make me cringe.

2005: I continue the style I’ve set down for myself, of turning the hugely significant into a few lines, of taking the minute and expanding it into an epic. I deal with my separation from my friends and my fear of going to college by spending a lot of time writing about my childhood, jotting down every memory that comes back to me. I’m pretending that I can put off the future, but by the time I go from junior to senior year, I know better. I’m accepting a lot more. When things happen, I nod. I start to see myself as truly excellent, as something most people strive to be. “I was just overwhelmed by a sense of competence, an I’ve got this sort of feel” (10/19/05).

2006: I become outrageously arrogant in my writing, but it’s not entirely misplaced. I only write for the first three months, and each is just an angry spit: “That’s fine. I don’t like to see you in your true form anyway. Just, keep in mind, I know you’re unreal with me, so whenever you grow tired of having to keep up the image, just give me the sign. I am so, so ready to cut off all ties” (3/11/06). I aim to kill with my words. Part of me thinks that I want everyone to know exactly what I think of them, but the other part–the part that shuts down the website from here–knows I’m terrified. I stop writing. I continue in my personal diary, but I don’t pick up a public one again until I’ve dripped out enough venom to know that it’s safe to come back to the Internet with everyone I know many miles away. I waste space with memes and stories; I become a typical LiveJournaler, telling about my day from beginning to end with very little reflection. As I go into college, I briefly panic, and there are several tearful entries, but I don’t move very far beyond the anecdote.

2007: I kick off this website and become somewhere around 85% happy with myself, but the two don’t mesh. My real life and my written life do not work together. I operate perfectly well in society; I make friends, I do work, I know what I like and what I want, but it does not come out on paper. The way I carry myself in the world–staying positive and optimistic and centered–does not translate into writing. I quell the feelings that so strongly influenced my writing in 2004. When my attitude now is to say, “Oh well! Things could be worse! At least I am this, this, and this!” how can I write? I’m growing tired of all of my entries ending in that manner. I am suddenly back to 2002, trying to cover my darker feelings with dinosaurs, bloody urine, and binge eating, but that’s the only way I can operate! And what do I even mean by that, darker feelings? Do I even have them anymore? Sometimes lonely, sometimes uncool, sometimes ugly, but nothing dark. I’ve tried to, and I can do it in fiction. In fact, I can write some pretty depressing scenes that have driven a lot of people to tears, but when it comes to my own life, that’s not there. And without that there, I don’t think I write as well.

I’m afraid of falling flat. The last thing I want is to have toned myself down so much that instead of being a nasty, bitter, cynical, self-loathing fuck, I become a nothing. I am still looking for inspiration in what I experience these days. It’s a strange transition. I’ve changed a hell of a lot, but I need to round that last corner. Which is why I’m going to make some resolutions. Three years and twenty days after that extremely important list, I’m going to make another.

1. Finish my novel rewrite and show it to more people.
2. Buy some dresses.
3. Start a large-scale photography project.
4. Knit something big, something challenging.
5. Get a boyfriend.
6. Live somewhere else for a year.
7. Eat new foods that won’t embarrass me in restaurants.

And that’s that.

The situation has escalated somewhat since that last entry. As I mentioned, I’d been avoiding going to the bathroom for a while because it took a great deal of effort just to get on the damn thing, but right after I posted and watched TV for a little while, I couldn’t stands it no more. So then I went blood. Not a typo.

Usually what happens when I panic is that I just start speaking strangely proper, so I called my mom and said, “Hello.”

“Hello, daughter. How are you feeling?”

“Just fine. There is blood in my urine.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I was wondering if you knew what I should do about this blood pee. Pee blood.”

She thought up a bunch of different explanations: UTI? Kidney stone? Except it hadn’t hurt one bit. In fact, if I hadn’t glanced back at the toilet as I flushed I wouldn’t have noticed a thing. And because I have both heard horrid accounts of UTI’s and been around my dad with his kidney stones, I was skeptical about both things.

I woke up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous and it hadn’t changed by 8:00. I skipped my morning classes, which I absolutely hate doing, but my reasoning was pretty solid, considering I couldn’t walk too fast and I certainly couldn’t bend my knees beyond 10 degrees if I even did make it to the bathroom. I eventually ended up systematically lying down on the floor and then wrapping myself around the toilet so that I was prepared when it did come up. I felt slightly better after that (except really, you should have seen me trying to get back up from that position; think turtle).

Kellie called the transport van and they brought me to the infirmary. Aside from being accused of an eating disorder (HALLO, I just threw up all over the place, of course there’s no food in me), I was much pleased with the visit because it gave me a word: myoglobinuria. I love getting a word, because it means I’m not just being a whiny bitch, and this word means that my muscle tissue cells are breaking and releasing some kind of enzyme into my body. Fortunately it’s only gone to my bladder and not my kidneys, but at the same time I enjoyed hearing her say some other words about my muscles, like “destroyed!” and “damaged!” and “you poor thing, you really can’t move!” It was all enough to make me think, I AM PISSING OUT MY PAIN. *insane guitar solo*

What’s even better is that the solution is NOT to keep moving or stretching or whatever normal people do. My muscles cells are fucking dead, so I have to just lie really still and let them regenerate. Which is probably why on Wednesday I hurt so bad since I stretched Tuesday night, or why after a three-hour nap yesterday I could walk like a pro but after I marched around triumphantly shouting, “Look at what I can do!” I’d reverted to walking like I’d pooped my pants within an hour.

All things considered, this wasn’t such a horrible experience. It hurts like a bitch and the doctor did have to put my pants back on for me, but I could have ended up like a House case, which Steph would have loved. Now instead of having to go to physical therapy or the hospital, I’ve got a super lazy weekend ahead of me, which is great. Of course, it’s also a little counterintuitive, because the whole point of that spin class was to get me back in shape, and instead I’ve been feeding my depression and pain with Ben & Jerry’s and Twix and America’s Next Top Model. You win some, you lose some.

I mentioned in passing last time that I took a spin class and that it perhaps made me a little sore. What I felt Monday night was nothing compared to what’s happened to my legs. In my slow-going across campus, I thought of a few ways to describe it:

1. Kramer wearing jeans.
2. Leg-Locker Curse.
3. An old man missing his walker but trying to make it to class anyway.

I’ve never experienced anything like this before. All those shin splints and crackling knees were nothing compared to whatever this is. Pulled every single muscle in my thigh, definitely. Possibly torn? I don’t know? I’ve pulled muscles before and it feels similar but nothing ever to this extent. I’ve got knots the size of tennis balls that spasm all the time. Last night I was able to work my legs into a butterfly after about a half-hour, but about five minutes later I could hardly bend at my knees again. For instance, I’m lying down right now. My sock is twisted, so I just moved my toe to drag it back and my leg slipped off the bed, and I screamed bloody murder, and now I’m doing everything not to cry. It feels like I think paralysis feels, like something invisible gripping down to my knees as tightly as possible, except with paralysis you can’t really feel that part of it.

The Kramer thing is hilarious and I’m trying my best to laugh about this but I’m actually really upset by it. On the one hand, come on. Spinning? Really? People do that on a regular basis. I took one class and now I’m lying in bed crying. The reason this happened is that I haven’t done any sort of exercise that demanding in five years, not since basketball. I just didn’t think. Yeah, my legs haven’t felt too bad these past few years, and I had finally come to accept that it was probably just horrible growing pains that hurt me so bad back then, but also, I haven’t really biked since then either. It was a stupid idea to start out on the most intensive class the school offers. It was stupid. Stupid stupid. I wish I hadn’t. I’m afraid people are going to think I’m just pathetic. I’ve got very athletic roommates who do this sort of thing all the time, and I feel like a baby who wants attention. I feel like they’re getting really annoyed by me and that I’m only going down the stairs one at a time for show. But on the other hand, I’m really not being melodramatic or attention-seeking. I don’t think I’m the type to ask play up injuries or sickness for attention. It’s just the sort of stuff that happens, and no one needs to know about it, and I don’t need to be cared for or skip anything. And anyway, who would want to exaggerate this?

I kind of wish everyone would know that I’m only telling them because 1) I don’t want them to think this is ACTUALLY the way I walk, and 2) I’m afraid of getting hurt. If I didn’t have people to walk with me to class today, I was genuinely afraid I would fall down the stairs. I haven’t peed all day just because I’m afraid I’m going to hurt myself. Who’s watching me when I can’t even sit on the toilet without lowering myself down with my hands on the seat and sticking my legs straight out and pulling myself up by the towel bar?

I need to go to the infirmary, oh, right about NOW, but I don’t have the time, and it’s also quite a distance. I’m just really hoping that I wake up tomorrow with a little more mobility, that’s all.

1. My relationship with the Internet is so up and down. Sometimes I really enjoy drawing something out, then playing with programs, finding that I really can make things happen if I dream them up. Other times I could just smack this thing across its face for presenting all kinds of unforeseen problems I’m just not experienced enough or creative enough to fix. I took an online career quiz from Steph, and the results were kind of surprising. It gave me my top 40, and of that: 13 had to do with some sort of public service (clergy, therapist, etc.), 9 with film, 6 with computers and multimedia, 6 with arts and crafts, and 3 with writing. I know it’s not a quantitative result by any means, but isn’t that interesting? Maybe I should just be a web designer after all. Or a director of photography, which is my number one. Or an addictions counselor. I’m kind of good at scaring people about that.
2. What is going on with my right eyebrow? Is it sick? Why isn’t it growing in? I have this bad habit of pulling at my eyebrows while I’m reading (usually when I’m not twirling my hair into a permanent curl), and yes, I really shouldn’t do that because duh, I am pulling them out. Sometimes that’s a good thing though, because I mostly get the ones that are just barely hanging on anymore and are always sticking out in some weirdo direction. So really, I’m multitasking by grooming and learning about the Aztecs. But apparently a few weeks ago I over-preened by pulling too close to the end of my eyebrow, right on the arch, and it was a little thin—aka, there was like nothing there. “Not a big deal,” I thought, “they grow in again in about two days” (thus the need for constant grooming). But like I said, it’s been weeks! And nothing is there! Right on top of my eyelid where it most hurts to pluck, sure, they love it there, but not a single hair has come in where I need it to. This is most unusual for me, who’s been blessed as the only person in my family with thick, dark eyebrows (shut up, Patrick, you know yours are practically blonde). I’ve actually had to resort to filling it in with eyeliner, which I never dreamed I would have to do. It’s all very distressing.
3. Do you know that on the first days of class, not one of my teachers wore a watch/managed to keep their watch on? Strauss’ fell right off his wrist due to a broken band; McCowin forgot his at home and when he found it later, the battery was dead; Wallace just didn’t have one and mentioned briefly the other day that she was just not going to wear a watch this year, which I found really strange; and Smith and Leach never do, choosing to ask the time of the rest of us instead. I thought it was a very curious coincidence. Also, I am right-handed and wear my watch on my right hand, because that’s the only way to do it.
4. TOILET PAPER GOES UNDERHAND. Child Welfare says so.
5. Spin class kicked my ASS tonight. And by ass I mean knees, because they can hardly support me. I should probably start a little slower so that I don’t blow out my legs entirely.
6. Wherever I am, time seems to move in a different manner. Last year I always felt there was never any room for anything beyond what I had written down and planned for weeks. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t had to do a hell of a lot of work yet this year, or that I am just so much closer to everything in my new dorm (rather than on top of the highest hill in all the land—there’s a reason this school is called The Heights), but there feels like there’s way more elbowroom to do things. Dinner at 6:30? Sounds good. No wait, 7:30? Just fine. Want to go to a meeting in fifteen minutes? Yes. Let’s see a movie this weekend. Okay. Let’s go get ice cream. Good idea. Should we watch a movie instead of studying? I’d say so. And another? Obviously.
7. I’m never going to call it FroYo. That sounds ridiculous. It’s called Frogurt.
8. That makes for two Simpsons references in one entry. How cool am I.

I’ve already written at length about my monthly tendency to shovel as much food into my mouth as possible, but it’s suddenly in full force. At school, I am hungry! all! the! time! So much that it distracts me from writing this one-page paper on the plague, which is absurd. “Aside from the number of deaths, what was (in your view) the most significant social or cultural impact of the Black Death?” Because really? It’s really taken me two whole days to string together thoughts on this? On this subject that I’ve learned about for like I don’t know, thirteen consecutive years, which I probably know EVERYTHING about? THE PLAGUE? REALLY?

At any rate, I just headed down to the dining hall to grab a bite to eat, when I realized I was walking right by the vending machine. What! I got my obligatory Snickers, then I saw they had some Oreo-looking Famous Amos cookies that were in tears they wanted me to eat them so bad. And then it happened. They didn’t fall. They stuck on that hook. I gave the machine a little shove, but I’m not [yet] big enough to make it move in the least. Then again, I do have a new fancy bin in which I put all my food for when I don’t want to leave the room. I’d just get two, because I would definitely want fake Oreo’s again, soon.

Were it not for the group passing through the lobby, I’d have torn that shit apart for stealing TWO THINGS FROM ME.

On the other hand, it’s God’s not-so-subtle way of sending me a very important message.