Don't you hate days when everything goes wrong?

Perhaps it's no coincidence that my religious beliefs are so closely tied to the idea of guilt, because sometimes it feels like that is the emotion I feel the most, and most powerfully.

Right now Vivacia is upset with me because today we celebrated her birthday and I'm pretty sure I royally messed it up.

My parents are irritated because I saw them for the first time in weeks and I couldn't even let them take me to lunch or really do anything but talk to me for two minutes and then go.

Closer is probably more than a little pissed at me because I messed up his surprise that I didn't know about and that didn't happen anyway for reasons unrelated.

Ryter will probably feel like crap if/when he finds out about any of this because it's all tied up in his wanting to tag along and get to know everyone better.

I try to make everyone happy and this shit happens. If I don't try to make everyone happy they all get mad at me. I can't do anything right and I don't know why I bother to try.

I have 38 hours over the course of an entire week when I am not sleeping, eating, in class or doing homework. Of that there are actually only two blocks of time, Friday night and Saturday, when I am free from a long enough amount of time to make planning something feasible. Meanwhile Vivacia's usually on duty during those blocks Everyone wants my time, it seems, and half of them don't want my time with them to overlap with my time with anyone else. Ryter just wants me to spend time with him and he wants to spend time with Vivacia and Closer, but my parents think I need to spend more time studying or come home more often (my mom was upset that I didn't come home this weekend), and Vivacia wants me to spend time with her without Ryter being around.

I don't know. I posted more of this in my livejournal, because it's all very emo and LJ is better for being melodramatic.

My mother seems to have decided to give me sweaters a lot-- I'm not entirely sure how related this is to the "miniskirt" incident...

My whole family came up for my birthday celebration today, which was cool. We went to the New England Center (they have a Sunday brunch buffet), and Vivacia and Ryter came too.

It was cool. I got a cowboy hat, a sweater, an iTunes gift card, a Marvel Monopoly board and $375. All of which are most excellent. Also, the food was good and having Vivacia there apparently made Ryter a lot less nervous around my parents, because they were more focused on the fact that they haven't seen Vivacia in ages.

Then, I spent the afternoon studying. Well, sort of. I was supposed to be studying, anyway. It was an on and off thing... However, I did set up my secondary blog, which has only three entries. It's just me babbling about the Middle East conflict, plural marriage, and cheating, but if you like that sort of thing or want to tell me all the many ways I am wrong, check it out. Unlike many internet opinion blogs, I will admit if you change my mind-- and changing my mind is possible.

My crazy week

This is one of many new blog entries from tonight. Check the first one here.

----------------------------------------

Monday I learned I had the Biostats test, and promptly freaked out. That was yesterday. It wasn't too bad, but I did get a lot of studying in. But I went over to Ryter's and burst into tears anyway, because of it.

----------------------------------------

Tuesday was my field trip with Ecology to Blue Job Mountain, which is a protected wilderness area that used to be a blueberry heath, so it's a young forest. As my teacher is a bit of a naturalist type, it was very informative and interesting. As I had not anticipated climbing up a mountain, and had expected instead that we would drive up and wander around a small wilderness area, I did not have enough water and I am too out of shape, and I was dying by the end. But the views? Amazing.

At the top there is a rickety old tower from the 1910's that is used to watch for fires, I believe. We climbed up and took pictures from the top. That was cool, even if the narrow stairs did make me fear pitching forward the whole way down.

Of course, the best part was watching the "I'm only in Bio to do pre-med, why do I have to take Ecology, wah" types complain about the mountain and more specifically the wilderness, and the potential for nail-breakage.


----------------------------------------

Also Tuesday, I discovered that my lab partner in Ecology and I had managed to kill all of our Daphnia in our experiment over the previous week. Oops.

----------------------------------------

Wednesday was my 20th birthday. Yes, I am 20 years old now, and officially not a teenager. Two decades. Holy cow.

I didn't do much for my birthday on the actual day (we're going to the New England Center-- my family, Vivacia and Ryter-- tomorrow) but I did break from studying for a few hours and went to eat dinner with Ryter, who ordered a pizza, which was sweet of him. We also ate leftover pieces of a cake he had (yes he buys cakes randomly), which, we discovered, was decorated with magnets. Yes, what we had thought were merely decorative fish-shaped cake toppings were actually magnets, stuck on top of the cake... and we watched the baseball game (he's very into baseball, it's the playoffs). It was nice. I mean, it would have been nice to have a birthday wish and all but that sort of thing gets harder as you get older and people care less and less about birthdays.

I owe my mom like $500 right now.

Today is the Quinquatrus Minores, a festival sacred to Minerva/Athena of the Flute-players. On this day the tibicines, flute-players, went through the city in a procession that ended at the Temple of Minerva.

--------------------------------------------------

Yesterday was Ryter's birthday, so I headed up to visit him, complete with my gift of wood for Jesus (his lizard, not the Messiah. You know, the name hay-ZOOS works better when you're talking than writing). The gift was technically for Ryter but Jesus was the one who would benefit from it.

The lizard's very cute. He's spiky and looks grumpy lots of the time but cute-grumpy and he's very gentle, peaceful, and friendly, and he seems to really like Ryter. He eats right out of his hand already.

I also gave Ryter cupcakes that spelled out "Happy Birthday" because this one time we were talking about birthdays at school as a kid, and he mentioned that he never got to have cupcakes with his classmates because he has a summer birthday. So I decided that while I was not going to be able to provide him a chance to eat cupcakes with snot-nosed youngsters, that was probably for the best anyway and eating cupcakes with Loquelo, Nonaestima, me, and a bearded dragon observer was probably just as good if not better.

--------------------------------------------------

Today was my first day of work. It was okay, but a little boring. There was the obligatory awkward sexual harassment video, followed by a short film on How To Be An Obnoxious Salesperson. Then they stuck me out on the floor and said I was to greet people, assist as needed, try to push the stuff, and meanwhile look around and try to memorize the contents of the store.

But hey, eight bucks an hour, and the other people working there seem really nice, and I do know the merchandise there pretty well, since every time I went to the mall for job applications I stopped in, and my manager actually said I looked familiar, which was both interesting and kinda sad. Okay, really sad. Really, really, really...

Facebook is extreme college!

Floralia continues:



Also, it is Shrewd's birthday today, thus making her OLD. She's 22. That's not really old, but I'm going to pretend it is because she's my big sister and it's my job.

Also born today, though many years ago, was Catherine the Great, who is much more important than Shrewd. However, Shrewd is much less likely to wage war on the Ottomans. She is more likely to wage war on ottomans, though.

Other pertinent things that happened today in history:

1808: The Peninsular War: The people of Madrid rise up in rebellion against French occupation.

1863: In the American Civil War, Stonewall Jackson is wounded by friendly fire while returning to camp after reconnoitering for the Battle of Chancellorsville. He succumbs to pneumonia 8 days later.

1885: Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time.

1933: Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler bans trade unions.

1945: World War II: Fall of Berlin - The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag building. German forces surrender in Italy. German forces surrender to the New Zealand Army in Trieste.

# 1946: "Battle of Alcatraz" - Alcatraz Federal prison, San Francisco is taken over by six inmates following failed escape attempt

1953: Hussein is crowned King of Jordan.

1964: Vietnam War: An explosion sinks the USS Card while docked at Saigon. Viet Cong forces are suspected of placing a bomb on the ship.

1982: Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.

1995: During the Croatian War of Independence, Serb forces fire cluster bombs at Zagreb, killing 7 and wounding over 175 civilians.

2005: Airwork Flight 23 crashes after structural failure.

Trend? What trend?

------------------------------------------------

Anyway, in other news-- I am swamped with homework and will write more tomorrow. Possibly Friday, I have homework tomorrow. Possibly Saturday, there is a party on Friday. No, Marx will not be there, and he will not have a lampshade on his head.

"Do not be overly judgemental of your loved ones' intentions or actions."

The doctor says my knee pain is somehow related to the patello-femoral thingy where my kneecaps don't line up right. Of course, she hasn't actually seen me since then or gotten any new information about the pain, so I think she's going with the "don't know what it is and this is a problem we know the patient has, so let's go with it" explanation.

She also says that the anemia is slightly better-- very slightly, but better. But that my overall blood count is really, really down. So either I'm being systematically drained by vampires in my sleep or I might want to consider a multivitamin with iron. Great. I hate pills. This does not bode well for my future in medicine, as as far as I can tell most doctors think every little problem should be solved with one pill or another.

--------------------

Today Libentra and I were walking back to Hubbard, down the stairs past Dimond Library, and the stairs (which haven't been shoveled, just sanded) were pretty slippery and hard to walk on. Libentra came up with a solution: she handed me her backpack, walked over to the steep, clear hill between the stairs and the library, flopped out on her belly and slid penguin-style down the hill.

It was HILARIOUS.

--------------------

I managed to loose my purse. I think it's in Philbrook-- which doesn't open until Sunday night. Great. Luckily I have all my important stuff, as it was all in my coat pockets. No, I don't know why I bother to have a purse if I put all my stuff in my coat pockets. I doubt I would have noticed that it was missing at all if I hadn't been looking for it to bring stuff home in.

I'm at home now, but just overnight. My sister and I returned to celebrate Mummy's birthday. I don't have a gift, since last weekend I wasn't really eager to go to the mall on crutches, but I'll get her something tomorrow, wrap it, give it to her, and then hopefully get back to UNH tomorrow in time to go to the Open Mic that the Writer's Circle is putting on.

We went out to a nice restaurant and the wait staff sang and gave her a cake with a candle in it, but I think that my mom wouldn't really care as long as we all came home and spent time together when she didn't have to work. I don't think Mummy ever really realized how much of a presence Shrewd and I really are before we were both gone... and while she appreciates less hair in the sink, she's basically got empty nest syndrome and the Brother hasn't even left yet.

If I Was Dead Meat, I'd Be Duck

Exotic and unusual, I am a bit of a rare bird - literally. I'm known for being soft and succulent, though at times I can be a bit greasy... weirdest quiz ever.

What Kind of Meat Are You?

"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist."

Today is the Faunalia, to honor Faunus. The Romans celebrated this festival with a dance done in triple measure, the same dance done by the priests of Salii, the priests of Mars/Ares. It's also the Parentalia, a festival for honoring your parents, as long as they're dead. Families offered sacrifices of grain and wine on the tombs of loved ones. And it's also the Feralia, a feast to honor Jupiter Feretrius-- Jupiter/Zeus in his role as guaranteer of oaths.

Also my mother's birthday. Excuse me while I go call her.

----------------

My therapist wants me to write down every time I want to say something but I'm not sure if it's appropriate, for the next three weeks until I see her again. I bought myself a THICK notebook.

----------------


Helpful: Talking to me until I stop crying about how I'm going to hell in a hand basket. Holding doors open for me when I'm on crutches because my leg started to hurt again and I had a long walk ahead of me. Letting me have the front seat in a class because it's too hard to get to the back.

Not Helpful: Lighting up a cigarette right next to me when I'm already about to puke from nausea and I have a headache from this stupid cold. Buses that run really, really late. Oh, and the prize for Not Helpful: telling me, right after I have a mental breakdown and am petrified that I won't be able to handle medical school or even get in and that I am a huge, worthless loser, that no one in my family ever thought I'd make it through med school anyway.

"Oh, feeling hopeless? Well, that's okay, we never believed in you anyway!"

(The prize for Helpful goes to my bra, on account of my losing my earring, searching for it for about ten minutes, despairing of ever finding it again [which would be sad as I like these earrings and they're not easily replaceable], and then feeling something jabbing me in the chest. On further inspection, I realized the earring had fallen down my shirt while sleeping in class and snagged on my bra. Talk about supportive underwear.)

----------------

Crazy day planned for tomorrow. Should be miserable. It's a Wednesday, after all. But much studying awaits me-- I have an exam at 8 AM-- so I'm off.

In Memoriam

I finished that paper for English. Let me know what you think! (Or, family members- if I screwed something up!)

--------------

My six-year-old sister sat in the navy blue leather seat, grasping the arms tightly. Our two cousins, E---- and J-----, took off, pushing the seat’s back, and [Shrewd] went flying down the hall, giggling uncontrollably. I laughed and ran alongside them. “Me next!” I cried.

They stopped right before they careened into the wall, and I climbed up onto the seat as soon as it was vacated by my sister. I braced myself for the ride, excited. Just then, my mother came out into the hall.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she cried, confiscating our ride. “Your grandmother’s wheelchair is not a toy! Get back into the room before you wake everyone up!”

I know, even if I don’t remember, that I was four years old that day. I’d picked out my pretty Easter dress that Mummy had made me, with the big flowers. [Shrewd] had a matching dress. She remembers when we got these dresses, and how excited she was about the whole affair. She wore her dress to school, despite our mother’s cautioning, and had tripped on the playground and ripped it. Luckily Mummy was good at fixing dresses as well as making them.

You can see in the pictures that my short, curly hair was in pigtails, like always; I wore pigtails almost every day because my hair was too short and sparse for anything else. I remember that I liked pigtails, but I wanted thick, long hair. We were at my grandmother’s nursing home, having my birthday party, because Grandma was too sick to come to our house in Epsom. Grandma couldn’t even leave her bed. We were all gathered in her room, Mummy and Daddy and Aunt J---- and Uncle D-----, and my little tow-headed brother who was not yet two, and Grandpa [my last name], of course. All because it was my birthday.

I remember the wheelchair was returned to it’s proper location, and I climbed up and sat in it like it was a chair, because I hadn’t been allowed to ride in it. [Shrewd] rode in it, but not me, and that wasn’t fair because I was the birthday girl. But Mummy shooed me over to the bed. “It’s time for cake, pumpkin,” she said, “I’ll put it on Grandma’s tray so she can see it, okay?”

I used the arm rest as a handle and pulled my white knee, covered in tights, up onto the hospital bed sheet, then crawled over to curl up next to Grandma. Her hair was very thin and I could see dark spots on her scalp, like scabs or something. She was very pale, because she was sick and stuck in the hospital room. There were flowers, and balloons because it was my birthday, but it still felt and smelled like a hospital. Grandma smiled at me, and I smiled back, and Mummy set the cake down on the TV tray. It was so pretty! I was born in October so the big rectangular cake had a beautiful fall tree with red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves, and all the leaves were M&M’s with just those colors, and some of the M&M leaves had fallen to the ground around the tree’s base. There were five candles on it, four because I was four and one to grow on. Everyone gathered around and sang, and then Grandma helped me blow out the candles.

I didn’t know then that she was in the nursing home because she had brain cancer and only had a short time to live. I didn’t know she was going to die, and it would be the first time my sister would see Daddy cry and ever after she’d have problems with death; I didn’t know that [The Brother] would never remember her, and I didn’t know that I would have only one memory of her, ever, and that would be of sitting next to her in my beautiful dress that my mother made and of her helping me blow out the candles on my big, beautiful birthday cake with M&M leaves.

"Good day to make as much goulash as possible." ~Humorscope

It's the third and last day of the Paganalia, and today we're to offer spelt cakes and milk to Tellus/Gaia and Ceres/Demeter. On a much more interesting note, it's the second day of the Feast of Bacchus. Have some wine, celebrate! Tomorrow's your last day!

You know if you look up most of the more obscure Roman holidays, like the Agonalia Indigeti, this blog shows up as like the third resource on the list? Good thing I do actually look this shit up before I spout it.

-------------------

You know it's cold when:

-You can't breathe through your nose because the snot froze and it sticks the nostrils together.
-You pop in a piece of gum and have to hold it in your mouth until it thaws enough to chew... and it was just sitting on your windowsill all night.
-You don't want to open your mouth to breathe because it makes your gum start to get cold and hard.
-Crossing College Road to get to class calls to mind images of the Yukon.

-------------------

So I'm at home right now. We all got together to take the Brother to dinner and give him stuff, since it was his birthday last week and last weekend, when my sister and I were home anyway, he was post-tooth-removal and not in the mood for celebration. I saw the teeth. They look cool. You can see the line on one that marks where it had burst through the gum line... well, come on, this stuff is interesting to me!

I'm coming back to school tomorrow. The Brother liked the gloves and ear warmer I got him.

-------------------

Amishav, the writer of Chai Expectations, did a neat little list of what he needs from the woman he'll marry. It's pretty reasonable-- things like being Jewish (which is VERY reasonable if you're Jewish) and having the time for a relationship. I actually thought it might be a good idea for me to do one myself-- or rather, two; one for what I want, and one for what I expect. Since I'm very cynical. I wrote the easy one first-- what I expect. The other comes later, when I decide if I want to share it or not.

What I expect:

1. He will be male, have been male since birth, and always have identified himself as male. I'm pretty adamant on this one. I have nothing against transsexual people but I really REALLY don't want to be surprised by one.
2. He'll be attracted to me, in some way, even if it's just "oh, female, maybe I can get laid."
3. He won't use illegal drugs. If he drinks heavily, he won't do it around me and if he smokes, he also won't do it around me and he'll pop tic-tacs like candy.
4. He will be interested in something I like, even if it's just comic books or mocking bad movies.
5. He'll be able to understand me when I talk as long as I don't start discussing like, mythology or biological processes. As in, he'll have a decent enough vocabulary to understand me.
6. He won't hit me, unless I hit him first, and then he'll never hit me harder than I hit him. Relative to size, that is. If I'm dating a football player (yeah right) and I sock him hard in the stomach, he can't sock me back since chances are that'd leave a massive bruise. Even if he uses the same amount of force that I did.
7. He'll respect me enough to know when no needs to mean no.
8. I can't catch anything from him more serious than mono.
9. My one shallow requirement- he has to be at least 5'8". Any shorter than that and my self esteem starts to tank- not because of the guy, but because of the Amazonian feelings that I get.
10. He will not be suicidal and or into self-mutilation. A little depression or anger management issues I can deal with, but I refuse to handle a suicidal significant other.

Basically, I'm only barring people who are female or of indeterminable gender, potheads, sports fanatics, kids who play World of Warcraft all day, abusive types, rapists, the STD infected, the suicidal, cutters and short people. Hmm. I've only ever had three guys, my entire life, express the slightest interest in me... Maybe I should shorten the list.*


*That was a joke, kids. There's truth in it, but it's still a joke.

Bon anniversaire!

It's KT Mack's birthday today. He's nineteen. I think. He's also possibly NOT nineteen, and I'm loosing my mind, but I think he's nineteen, which means that a birthday is one step closer to the drinking age but not much else.

I have decided that I should start honoring people when it's their birthday. I missed it with Mistake, but I gave Mistake balloons. I'd give Mack balloons but I won't see him. So I'm giving him hypothetical balloons. Here's a picture of Mack's hypothetical birthday balloons:



Now I get to tell you all about Mack, and how funny and awesome he is, and tell you to go read his blog, which I'm too lazy to link to but it's in the sidebar. Now. I command you. Mind you, he never updates the silly thing, since he, unlike myself, has a life. That's okay though. Lives are important. I'm thinking about putting a down payment on one. Mack's FINALLY going to college next semester, at the same school as my sister. This is cool.

He likes capybaras. Unusually so. Little weird actually. So for his birthday, I present capybaras. I also present sea cucumbers and giant slugs, all of which he is rather fond of. Mack once decided that if he ever became rich he'd have a gold driveway and a capybara enclosure in the front yard. He was planning on raising sea slugs in his closet in high school, but we suspected his mother might object. Mothers are odd like that.

Seriously, though, Mack's a great guy and he's very special to me. So everyone should go over and leave him happy-birthday comments on his last post, even though it's totally from exactly one month ago. I told you, he has a life. This means you don't have to feel bad if you post a day late or something, because honestly, I bet it's another month before he thinks, "Hmm, I had a blog, didn't I?"

"I wish we could do what they do in Katroo.
They sure know how to say 'Happy Birthday to You!'

In Katroo, every year, on the day you were born
They start the day right in the bright early morn
When the Birthday Honk-Honker hikes high up Mt. Zorn
And lets loose a big blast on the big Birthday Horn.
And the voice of the horn calls our loud as it plays:
'Wake Up! For Today is your Day of All Days!'

Then, the moment the Horn's happy honk-honk is heard,
Comes a fluttering flap-flap! And then comes THE BIRD!

The Great Birthday Bird!
And, so far as I know,
Katroo is the only place Birthday Birds grow.
This bird has a brain. He's most beautifully brained
With the brainiest bird-brain that's ever been trained.
He was trained by the most splendid club in this nation,
The Katroo Happy Birthday Asso-see-eye-ation.
And, whether your name is Pete, Polly, or Paul,
When your birthday comes round, he's in charge of it all."
~Dr. Seuss