Life Listed Chronologically

I have epiphanies every day. They are about the world, my life, and the way things work. They are earth shattering and groundbreaking. They change the way things are. For about 10 minutes, and then I forget them. I forget these moments of sheer brilliancy, revelation, and genius. Just as suddenly as I pulled together thoughts and ideas into a concrete explanation, they all fall apart. I began thinking deeper; I begin thinking about the different components of what I just realized and then am sidetracked. Sometimes this is unintentional, but when the thoughts are a bit disturbing I am merely trying to redirect my thoughts. I go too far into whatever side thought and lose the beginning.

I have solved international conflicts, created alternatives to unemployment problems, and figured out a way to give everyone insurance without disturbing the high incomes of doctors. I have determined the source of internal tornadoes and made grand plans to make myself the most impressive human being ever. I have synthesized every major religion to a perfect peaceful existence. I have done all this and so much more. And I have forgotten it all.

The one thing I have never figured out is how to shut it all off. I cannot stop thinking for one minute. When I need to fall asleep, I try to do math in my head. Or I take mental trips along places I have walked countless times. Sometimes, I list things I did that day or try to recall the names of every teacher I ever had. I am always thinking, all night long I have the strangest dreams that are never particularly poignant but just simply odd. I wake up and all the grand thought start again. I would be unstoppable if there was a way to record it all. Or I would have a moment of peace if I could make it stop for just 10 minutes.
Sunday, October 10, 2004

Today, my car lost its virginity. It was really too young for this. It's just over a year old. Even though it has driven over 18 thousand miles and been to so many different places in the past 13 months, I don't think it was old enough to lose its virginity. But we never want our babies to become deflowered, do we? We want them to be perfect and innocent and new while we care for them with regular oil changes and apple scented air fresheners.

At least it happened at home, not on some road it had never been before. At least it happened during the sunny day, so it knew what was happening rather than at some drunken bar parking lot. My dear little car who I spend nearly 1/3 of my earning on was hit. My dear little car is dented. It it not perfect and shiny and unmarred. It is scratched and dented and damaged. I feel so bad fo my little car. What makes it worse is that I cannot console it any time soon. I cannot tell it everything will be alright and get it fixed soon so that no one can tell it ever happened. I am too busy with school and my ailing computer that had 434 infected files. My car may have lost its virginity but my computer has been gang banged.
Monday, September 20, 2004

Tara,
Do me a favor, and lay off when I'm relaxing. Do I bother you when you are all cuddled in bed asleep? No, I quietly slip through the door and jump into bed next to you. I settle down as quickly as possible so I don't disturb you. I am that considerate for you, I would enjoy the same treatment in return. Forgive me when I scratch on the door in the early mornign because i want to be let in your room. I wouldn't have to do this if I had thumbs and could open the door myself. Maybe you should just leave the door open a crack and I wouldn't have to bother you to let me in.

I get so sick of having to hop off the bed so you can make it. I really could care less if the covers are neatly arranged or not so you aren't helping me any. It's just as comfortable either way. I swear, you wait until I am completely cozy and then you decide, "let's make the bed" and demand me to get off. Do I treat you that way? No.

Look, I do a lot around here. I bark at the mailman. I cheer you up by constantly bringing you toys, licking your hands and pants and shoes, I chase the cat to make sure he behaves and doesn't get too full of himself. All night long when you think I am sleeping, I have one eye opened. I am protecting the house because none of you ever bother to lock to the door. I have to take a break now and again, okay?

After I get up in the morning, they make me eat. And then I have to go outside. Sometimes the grass is all dewy and my feet get wet. How unpleasant. I have 3 hours until the mailman comes and I need a nap after all of that action. I find your bed to the the coziest spot in the house after the dining room rug when the sun in pouring in through the windows. But every damn morning you make me get off your bed so you can play around with the covers and pillows. Like I wanted to get up. It pisses me off even more when you leave and close your door so I have to sleep on the wood floors. Why don't you try that? Not very comfy, huh?

Just let me sleep. It's all I'm asking. If you must make your bed, do it the second you get up so I don't get all comfy and then have to wake up again. It'll be a better arrangement in the long run.
Just consider this a warning,
Roxy.
Thursday, September 16, 2004

Oh my god! Tracey Gold can play the most horrible evil killer ever. Never underestimate Carol Seaver. I decided to try to clean up some things on my computer while watching a Lifetime movie and came acoss 'Face of Evil':

Darcy Palmer (Tracey Gold) isn't your ordinary college student. She's actually a pathological killer who assumes the identity of her victims. Will her new roommate or her roommate's father (who is attracted to Darcy) catch on before she strikes again? Tune in to find out!

I love trashy movies on Lifetime.

I'm back in school again. I have to admit that my courses will be just challenging enough, but I still go crazy that the statistics courses are overly reiteritive. After spending one semester on mean-median-mode crawling towards basic regression(yes, in grad school) we spent another on different analytical models and touched on linear and multivariate regression. And surprise, surprise, the first several weeks of the last statistic course I have to take is linear and multivariate regression techniques. I was about ready to crawl out of my skin today. Especially when the professor showed us how to get data from spreadsheets into the statistical software we use:
"Now, first you must select the data you want to import. So you start at the top left cell and highlight to the bottom right cell. Then you go to the menu bar and copy. Now switch to the statistical package and click in the upper left corner. Now go to the menu bar and hit paste."
My hand shot up and I was like, dude, why can't we jus topen the data right in it like I've been doing since I was an undergrad, 5 versions ago for this software.
"Well, I wanted to show different ways of doing things like this. I wanted to let everyone know this is one way. I'll show everyone how to do that later when we are more advanced."
Shoot me in the ass. When I complain about school, this is what I am talking about. The annoying married woman from last semester is also in this class.

I want to go see this movie based on an Andre Dubus short story. It's only playing in Montclair, so I'll have to convince someone to go with me. FACE OF EVIL
Tuesday, September 7, 2004

Last week, when I contacted Marie to beg for her to edit my paper as I lack basic grammar skills as well as a complete inability to edit my own writing, she asked what my paper was about:
"What I did on my summer vacation?" she giggled
"I wish."

What I did on my summer vacation:
Summer vacation lasted several months but it didn't really seem that long. I worked through most of the summer, so vacation is not a really good work, extended break from school is a bit more accurate.

In May through early June, I handed out surveys to commuters. I went to different towns in New Jersey and learned where I could park for free even though there appeared to be no free parking near the train stations. I parked in banks, doctor's offices and illegally. Sometimes, I really hated talking to people; they woudl be crabby and mean. There was one Eastern European woman that liked to dress in vintage 20-40s gear that I must have asked to take a survey every morning even though I tried to avoid asking the same people twice. This was because in addition to very vintage wardrobe, she also set her hair in various ways that made it nearly impossible for me to recall her from one day to the next.

I freaked out about not having a summer internship and began to seriously apply myself to getting one. I found one in Newark and was also working at another job at school. The school job was a bust but the job in Newark became the first project in the real world I was responsible for from stuffing envelopes to analysis.

I began to enjoy reading books, but my crafty endeavours detracted me at one point and I haven't read a full book in several months. I learned to quilt and realized that knitting with mohair in the summer is really dumb as it would cause parts of my hands that I had previously not thought could sweat to indeed sweat.

I learned that a consistent schedule detracts me from having panic attacks. Long stretches of free time would lead me to worry about nothing what so ever in a way that would drive me crazy. I am currently dealing with this, but it is probably because I know shortly whn school begins I will have plenty to keep me busy and avoid long hours of believing that I am dying.

On several occasions, rather than confronting the boy with problems that I have with our relationship, I would simply avoid him altogether. I found this to be a great way to deal with the situation since I really didn't have the energy to fight and after several days of avoidance, I could simply state what my problem was rather than start a fight with him. I have yet to figure out if this is related to the above paragraph or a problem between him and I. For now, I just give myself the time I need and see him when he has caught on to my not hanging out, or something like that. I realize that I love my space and try to give it to myself.

I learned how to drive from downtown Newark to home via the streets and preferred this to driving on the highway. I would see how the city looks and the quick transistion from "bad" to "nice" neighborhoods. I would dream about the gentrification of Newark, of Williamsburg-esque 20-somethings moving into areas and attracting the attention the city needs to continue to move towards redeveloping to the type of place it deserves to be rather than an empty shell of what it once was.

I spent my summer doing a whole bunch of stuff but never making the big changes that I thought would happen with the promise of summer in May. As always, though, it was the unexpected I needed the most.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004

I cannot tell you where I have been. I cannot tell you what I have done. I cannot account the story of my life that has taken me from here to there. I know that I need some space and some time in my life. When I realize that I get sent into a panic whenever faced with stretches of unstructured time like weekends or car trips, I know there is a need for change. I realize, looking at the things I wrote, I used to be most content when I was wandering and wondering on the city streets. I do not offer these things to myself enough. I am constantly searching structured and correct activities. I try my best to do what pleases me but wind up fretting about what I should be doing instead.

I wish I could chalk it all up to the summer time. The heat and the rain and weeks that flew by unaccounted for. I wish I could say it was something that happened in this isolated stretch of time. But it seems like a way to not fully confront everything, and that is what I am trying to do now. Although I wish I could pack everything up and go elsewhere, I have obligated myself to car payments, a graduate degree program and other responsibilities that prevent me from just leaving when I please. Working through things in the space I have right now is the best way.

In two vingettes I can show what I am talking about:
When I used to go to the reservation last fall every morning, I was my own cheerleader. I would walk then run/job at timed intervals. Sometimes, I would tell myself I would run to that turn and in road and then jog until the reached the fallen tree. After a few minutes of running, I didn't want to any more. But in my head, I would say "the only person that you are cheating is yourself."
Last fall, I gave my boyfriend a pumpkin, the size that you normally paint silly faces on it poster paint rather than carve. It had started to soften after a few weeks and he placed it in the flower bed outside of his door. It sat there, decaying all fall, winter, spring until you couldn't really see where it had been any more. The building maintance crews covered the flower beds with several inches of fresh dirt in the early summer. A week later we noticed a single large leaf poking through the edge of the dirt and wondered who had stuck it, but a days passed and the leaf branched into more leaves and stems, growing larger and largers, we came to realize it was a pumpkin plant that had been growing that resurfaced after being covered in fresh dirt. It is now over 12 feet long, with bright orange flowers and 4 major stems growing off it, including one in the non-descript hedge. Despite many efforts on my part to keep it growing in the confines of the flower bed, it has grown on the lawn. I was afraid that maintence people would try to pull it out or mutilate it with the mower. However, I've noticed that they just mow around this large pumpkin plant growing in the middle of the manicured complex.

All in all, it is not that bad. I have learned to quilt this summer. I learned a great deal about city and state politics and employment. I enjoyed my intership more than I could have imagine and grew less skeptical of the compromises that jobs entail. Doing yard-work yesterday, I was the only one to not get stung when we accidentally uncovered a bee hive in one of the trees.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004