Subconscious Motivations

2002-05-02T11:11:00.000-04:00

Yay! I've made a gallery

2002-04-26T13:22:00.000-04:00

I'm such a tourist

Out of the blue someone asked me if I was going.

Midget wrestling. midgetwrestlingmidgetwrestlingmidgetwrestling. m - i - d - g - e - t wrestling. MIDGET WRESTLING!

For three hours the words "midget wrestling" had been making me giggle... but I was not prepared.

I imagined two little guys grappling on a circular mat in an uncomfortably homo-erotic way. What I got was not mini-greco-roman wrestling. I got mini-WWF wrestling.

Now, I'm the kind of person who, when presented with the spectacle of WWF wrestling, thinks, "Oh! I've read about this!"

It was like a circus for adult rednecks. There was a lot of beer. There were attractive fire-breathing bartenders who, later that night, probably inspired an outbreak of scorched lips. There was an epic battle between the mini-good-guy and the mini-bad-guy wherein the mini-bad-guy always fought dirty and almost won because of it but the mini-good-guy-underdog won in the end. There were lots of men in costumes and lots of very very very bad acting.

I have now heard an entire room chant in unison, "Kiss-a-mid-get. Kiss-a-mid-get. Kiss-a-mid..." I have seen women volunteer to have Meatball (who looks like a mini-Meatloaf) shake his head between their enormous, bared breasts in order to win a t-shirt. I have seen men line up to "Lick a Midget" for a dollar per lick. I have learned that the interest in midget wrestling seems to be more about sex than gore (despite being called "Bloody Midgets"... perhaps they're just British). I have witnessed drunken men literally drool all over an attractive 4' 6" woman.

When I finally leaned over and asked my friend Ory, "Do guys have a thing for midgets?" He said, "No comment."

2002-04-03T07:09:00.000-05:00

Talking to My Mother on the Phone

My mother sent me another letter trying to convince me to quit school and do something else instead. She offered to give me a $1,000/month allowance if I went to bible college and became a minister or a missionary. She's planning on going there herself in the fall. I've never told her that I thought missionary work does more harm than good. I've never told her that I don't believe in God. Instead, I called her:

Me: Mom, I want to be a biochemist.
Mom: But you can't make money at that!
Me: I like it. It makes me happy.
Mom: You should sell stocks. Then you wouldn't have to work at all.
Me: I would still want to do this if I didn't have to work.
Mom: God blesses people who spread his word.
Me: Surely, God blesses people who cure the sick of disease.
Mom: Missionary work saves people's souls, not just their bodies.

I frantically looked through the concordance for the word "heal".

Me: Matthew 10:8 says that Jesus told his disciples to go out into the world, heal the sick, and cure the lepers.
Mom: I never said that God doesn't bless those who heal. God has a special place in heaven for those who save people's souls.
Me: Surely, if you're motivated by rewards then God would see into your heart and know that you had selfish motivations.
Mom (sighing): Well, you have to do whatever you think is right for you.
Me: So, bible school is worth $1,000 a month and biochemistry isn't worth anything?
Mom: Okay, I'll give you $300. How does that sound?
Me (laughing): That's fine, mom.

__________________________________________________

My mother has never shown any curiosity about who I date. She's never met any of my boyfriends.
Me: Mickey wants to meet you.
Mom: Why?
Me: Because he's serious about me.
Mom: Is he nice?
Me: Yes. Dad says he's better than all the other guys I've brought home. He says Mickey's better than all of them put together.
Mom: Really? Okay, I'll meet him.

This response is truly remarkable. I think it was bringing up dad's endorsement that did it.

2002-03-30T17:06:00.000-05:00

Sex and Roommates

I'm moving to Raleigh in the fall. Mickey and I are happy with one another. I've never had a relationship this perfect at the five month mark. It bodes well for the future.

Our only problem so far, other than the distance between us, has been with the intermural dynamics of Mickey's group of friends. For spring break, Mickey offered to take me on a trip somewhere but I told him that I wanted to spend more time in Raleigh around his friends because I wanted to get to know them better. The entire time I was in Raleigh, though, Mickey liked to stay home when Heidi and his other friends went out at night so that we could, uh-hmmm, have sex in an empty house without worrying that our acrobatics would bother her. This empty house preference was due to a different complaint, but it also meant that we saw very little of his friends the entire time I was there. Now I think that his friends feel like I've stolen him away from them. I didn't steal him away. Mickey just likes having sex with me without other people complaining about it.

It's an ironic problem, really. We live so far apart from each other that we don't see each other for weeks at a time. Then, when we have a weekend together, we spend all our time together because we miss each other so much. Yet, his tendency to disappear when I'm around makes his friends suspicious and dislike me. Hmmmm. I think this is what happens when people who've never had a really long distance relationship judge people who do.

There's a part of me that resents the fact that the first real problem we've had has nothing to do with the relationship between the two of us. I feel like we're blissfully happy and others see that and feel compelled to stomp it out. I've felt something like this feeling I have for Mickey only one other time in my life. I don't think that most people experience it once. I just want others to stop complaining and let us be happy together.

2002-03-28T12:55:00.000-05:00

Exotic to Me

I remember the time a New Yorker, a friend who was an avowed anglophile, told me that he had been listening to country music. This interest in country music came to him through the most circuitous route. During his frequent trips to London he discovered that many English peole listen to and enjoy country music because they find cowboys and "The Wild West" to be very romantic. (He insisted that they even line-dance, too, but he may have been pulling my leg.) It was the first time it occurred to me that the things I find common would be exotic to someone else half-way around the world.

[As a side note: When I mentioned this to my father, he confirmed this. My father, who grew up in a small town in Tennessee, said that the only time he ever faked an accent was when he was a young bachelor in London. He was drinking in a pub, admiring the cute ladies with the cute accents when they began to ask him to say anything, anything at all, just so they could hear his cute accent. He said the more he spoke, the deeper the accent got, and the more interested they became... ]

So, I guess it makes sense that I would want to live where I live.

I live in Georgia, off I-75, very near the pile-up that made the news recently. When I first moved to this small town, I was in love with it. Growing up an Air Force Brat, I lived in cities, in suburbs, on military bases, in apartments, houses, and motels. I had lived in Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Houston, and Monterey. I've lived in Korea and Japan. But I had never lived in a small town. When I first drove into this cute little town, the sun was setting and I saw something I have never seen anywhere else I've ever lived. People were strolling around the neighborhood in small groups of two or three. They were waving and pausing to chat with one another. Their pace made it clear that they were simply enjoying the temperate weather and the sunset. I had looked at several small towns in the north Georgia area and at the time I told myself that I still needed to look further but it was all those friendly, strolling people that swayed me to choose this one.

I suppose I had an overly romantic idea of small town life. I imagined it was the southern version of the New England town that the movie Beetlejuice was set in. In fact, this idyllic view hasn't been entirely eliminated. Sure, there have been odd experiences. There's the guy who stocks the shelves in the grocery store who has the skinhead tatooes, yet is always very nice to me, almost bashful. There's the middle aged lady who lives in the apartment to the west of me, who is clearly an alchoholic, who sunbathes on the lawn every sunny day, and who I sometimes hear singing to herself, softly, sadly, drunkenly, in her heavily accented voice as she smokes a cigarette outside. There were the people who used to live to the east of me, who had six confederate flag stickers on their enormous Ford pick-up truck, who seemed to be either filming a porno or practicing WWF wrestling with a hog, at least from the sounds (alternately grunting, yelling, laughing, hollerin', panting) coming from the apartment every night. These kinds of things don't faze me. I take them as part of the landscape. They pique my interest in human nature, in our strange culture, in the flaws in all of us. They make me realize that Faulkner was not embellishing.

2002-03-24T21:20:00.000-05:00

A New Look

So, I guess what I decided to do with all my free time was make a new look for my blog. Yes, I wrote all this myself. Yes, I was inspired by looking at other blogs. No, I don't know which ones since I looked at what felt like hundreds of blogs in order to get an idea of what I wanted mine to have. If you have any advice or see any flaws, etc., please email me and let me know. I am a newbie at this.

2002-03-16T16:56:00.000-05:00

Mickey Saves Me From the Largest Interstate Pile-up in History!!!

Okay, he really didn't literally save me... We're living like a rock stars in Raleigh, drinking all night and lazing in bed all day while the largest interstate pile-up ever (125 vehicles!) occurs outside my house. The area I live in is now famous for ridiculously lethally wreckless tractor-trailer drivers and disgustingly negligent crematorium owners. God, I love living in Georgia. This shit is better than Faulkner.

Tonight, Mickey is hosting a party for an old friend of his from Germany, so he's had guests in his house all day and probably will all day tomorrow. So, no long blog today. But I promise I'll report.

2002-03-07T23:46:00.000-05:00

The Insufficiency of Memory

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about some very influential events in my life, perhaps the very reason I felt compelled to create this blog. I wanted to tell a very significant story of traumatic events that I experienced. Transforming, character testing experiences that were difficult for me to put into words. I produced a narrrative that was vague enough on painful details to not make me cringe when I saw it. Other than that, I thought it was accurately told. I posted it, proud to be able to overcome my fears of judgement. I felt courageous, like I'd stood up on the side of a right cause against odds. I felt like a hero.

A few days after I posted it, I gathered the courage to actually look at it again. I saw error after error. Driving down the highway, shampooing my hair, brushing my teeth, I remembered things I'd forgotten and was shocked that I could forget the inner turmoil those events caused. Things I've been avoiding thinking about because they were too close to me. After I remembered those events, I couldn't exclude them because their absense from my narrative altered the story in such a way that a true understanding of my experience was eluded. I still want to tell the story and I'll return the post when I can make it more true.

The most intriguing thing about it was that my first version was true to me when I wrote it. My story ended almost a year ago and it started three years before that. It couldn't have been temporal distance that caused my lapses. Yet, my most readily available memories were not the events that were the most influential to me at the time. Everything was more complex than I first recalled. And after the recollection, cartoon became flesh and blood.

Perhaps I only store outlines of events, the barest bones of the story. Yet, the details change everything. The villians in my life weren't entirely evil. I've never been motivated by a single force. Consequences are always multifold.

The meaningful events get lost amongst the insignificant. There is so much flotsam in our lives. There are multiple plots and subplots that are never resolved and unimportant details abound. We live our lives in bits and pieces. Our lives aren't straighforward plots or narratives. Those things have to be sorted out of disjointed experience.

Without sifting the significant details from the trivial ones, I lose perspective. I cannot grasp the meaningful. I think this is the reason I write, this sifting and sorting, to discover how I got here and why I am.

2002-03-04T22:06:00.000-05:00

Can Blogging Make a Person More Interesting?

I've been reading a lot of blogs about blogging lately. There have been blogs about what not to write about, what is good about blogging, how to increase readership, and a ton of blogger manifestos.

One of the cautions I've been reading about is the tendency to perform for the audience. That is, you. Veteran bloggers are warning that they were no longer living their lives for themselves and this could happen to you, so beware. I believe that it will change a person. No matter how unaware of the audience a person claims to be, subconsciously they know that They are out there, listening and judging. Depending on how a person is apt to "perform", it could be either good or bad. Drama is more entertaining for the audience but hell on the psyche.

It could also be an agent for positive change. If it causes a person to step back and re-examine his life objectively, perhaps it could inspire a person to live a more active, reflective, full life. Maybe a blogger would begin to travel more, meet more interesting people, dare to be a little eccentric. I guess it just depends on if he was the kind of little kid who broke windows for attention, or set the dinner table without being asked.

I don't have these particular problems myself. First of all, I barely have an audience. I'm sure that all my readers are my friends from "real life." If I were to perform, it would be no more a performance than if I weren't writing a blog. I don't think I'll be doing anything out of character.

Perhaps writing all these experiences and memories down will help me in some way, maybe give me a perspective that my subconscious usually protects me from when I have the comfort of total privacy. The advantages of self-delusion are so great and so difficult to avoid. Maybe this is a way out.

2002-03-04T04:42:00.000-05:00

Mickey Keeps the Hairball Tumbleweeds Away

I'm in Raleigh again and this will actually be the first time I post while I'm here. It isn't as if his house isn't networked with cable while I'm still using a dial-up, or that he doesn't have every room in his entire house networked, or that he doesn't actually have four computers of his own already hooked up to the superfast reliable cable network (not including, of course, the laptop he gave me or the four computers he has stored in various closets). It isn't the lack of available machines that has prevented me from recording my terribly boring ("Oh, yet another wonderful experience with my Mickey!") blogs. It's just that it seems as if a terribly interesting and full life is inversely proportional to the length, quality, and frequency of blog entries. I don't edit when I'm busy. I certainly don't blog when I'm staring deeply into Mickey's amazing blue eyes.

It's a good thing I'm here now. By Thursday, I had to start making fun of myself. I can reach a state in a matter of days that most people take weeks or months to achieve. After I discovered that it would be better for me to withdraw from school, I instantly begin shuffling the apartment in my socks, not bathing or changing clothes for days at a time, sleeping on the living room couch because I was too lazy to move from the T.V. or the computer. Teetering piles of disorganized stuff suddenly appeared on every flat surface, including the floors. Stacks of dishes with congealed food residue miraculously appeared next to the sink. The odor of over-ripe garbage wafted in the apartment while hairballs, like tumbleweed, scooted across my kitchen floor. The only thing I accomplished was creating a permanent depression in the couch. I would push my stringy hair out of my face while I ran movies in the VCR and depressingly cruised blog after blog after blog.

Perhaps my rapidly accelerated response will mean that I'll recover much faster. Being with Mickey has made me happier, of course, although I'm still a little depressed. I can't wallow when he's around and that's the best thing. The hardest part is trying to figure out what I'm going to do with myself from now until the beginning of the summer session. It feels so far away and every thought of the stretch between now and then reinforces the feeling of failure.

There's so much space to fill. Maybe I should read all the works of Shakespeare. Or learn German. Or learn how to juggle four balls instead of just three. Or learn how to cook flambe. Or volunteer a lot of time to a needy cause. Or start an online 'zine that's written, designed, and edited by me. Or travel. Or read all the books on the Modern Library's Best Nonfiction of the 20th Century list.

I'm considering a few things. I'll figure something out. I need to. I need a purpose.

2002-02-28T05:28:00.000-05:00

Obsession Always Brings Trouble

I freely admit that I'm obsessed with my boyfriend. I furthermore admit that I may as well rename this journal "I Publicly Worship the Ground Mickey Walks On." This obsession has finally gotten me into trouble. If this were a movie, then I'd be pregnant and he'd have left me. Thank god, this is real life and my troubles are more mundane.

Last week, I received a letter that informed me that due to my excessive absences, I need to withdraw from my classes or else fail. There were a few Fridays that I skipped class because I was about to go to Raleigh, or Asheville, or Atlanta and I was not ready yet. Then, we stayed extra days every time but this last weekend. I don't know when we exceeded the four or six day absence limit for my two day and three day a week classes, respectively. I'm sure that it was early, though. I just didn't believe the absence rule would be taken so seriously.

Of course, Mickey has been blaming himself. It isn't his fault. I'm obsessed and can't bear to be without him, as anyone who has read even a single one of my entries knows. He occupies my mind so continually that it seems that my every action is in reference to him.

So, now I have too much time and a few problems. I don't know if I'll have enough credits to transfer to NCSU in the fall. I don't know if I should move there anyway and simply take classes at their community college. Then there's the matter of my financial aid for this semester that I now have to pay back. There are so many things I could do now. I must do something. I have too much time.

2002-02-25T17:48:00.000-05:00

Between my visits to Mickey, my life feels like a long pause, like the sound of a ticking clock, while I anticipate seeing him again.

I left on Friday at 2:30 p.m. After a tiring 10 hour drive (8 hours to get there + 1 hour of driving off course because I wasn't paying attention + 1 hour of backtracking), I finally arrived at his house. [MODESTY COMPELLS ME TO OMIT THIS PART OF THE STORY]

On Saturday, [MODESTY COMPELLS ME TO OMIT THIS PART OF THE STORY] Well, that gave us huge appetites, so we decided to gorge ourselves on Indian food. After we'd refueled, we went back to Mickey's house and watched Citizen Kane and drank a bottle of Chianti. [MODESTY COMPELLS ME TO OMIT THIS PART OF THE STORY]

Well, Sunday arrived quickly, so [MODESTY COMPELLS ME TO OMIT THIS PART OF THE STORY] Mickey took me out for a goodbye dinner at a Thai restaurant and then I had to leave. I miss him already.

2002-02-19T17:59:00.000-05:00

I've been shamelessly editing and changing my previous posts. In some cases, I've been removing posts completely. I think I'm still trying to find my voice and decide upon the quality of writing I'll be satisfied with. I certainly cannot post every day if I want better writing, but I'm beginning to think I would prefer it that way. Just a warning that what you see may not be here tomorrow.

2002-02-18T19:24:00.000-05:00

Temporarily removed for reconsideration.

2002-02-17T02:39:00.000-05:00

No, I'm Not Going Out

It's been so hammered into me that Saturday nights are for socializing that I actually feel guilty that I would rather stay in tonight. All I want to do is watch a few rented movies and play on the internet. I almost went out anyways, just because I'm "supposed to" but I decided that I'm not going to do that. If I feel like staying in tonight then there must be a good reason for it. My psyche must need it. I need to write some more. I have things on my mind. When I finally feel like socializing then I will.

2002-02-14T12:55:00.000-05:00

The Gift Mickey Didn't Receive

Three weeks before Valentine's Day I began polling all the men I knew.

"I've been looking for a Valentine's gift for Mickey. Most of the gifts for men just seem so silly! I can't imagine Mickey in satin boxer shorts with hearts on them and a matching satin robe. What's a girl supposed to get a guy on Valentine's day?"

One man suggested three dozen frozen pizzas. Another suggested I buy him his favorite video game. The most common suggestion was, "Tools." Clearly I think of romance a lot differently than the guys I know.

After a lot of thought, I knew what the perfect Valentine's Day present would be.

Mickey bought a digital camera a few months ago and we now have over 300 of pictures of us. We both love looking at the pictures of our trips together and remembering the fun we had and how we felt at this moment or thatt. I decided I would Photoshop his favorite photos and have them printed out. It wasn't hard discovering which pictures were his favorites.

"I'm looking at our pictures right now," he'd say, while we were talking on the phone.

"You are? Which ones?"

I would find poems that expressed the emotions we've experienced since we met. There would be poems that described perfectly how nervous I felt on our first date, what is was like falling in love with him, how it felt to pine for him when we were apart, my desire for him, and numerous other emotions that I'm not poetic enough to write about without sounding gushy.

I would match the poems and the photos together and I would put them in a book. The poems would be written out in beautiful calligraphy. It would be something we would keep forever.

It was a wonderful plan. I looked through what seemed like 50 books and found 60-70 poems that I then whittled down to 30. It wasn't easy finding appropriate poems because most love poetry is from men to women. In contemporary poetry, if it's by a woman about a man, then it can only be 75% romantic and sexy. The other 25% has to be sarcastic or cynical. It has to be about lost innocence or pain. The exception is love poetry written by women to other women. Those are almost always romantic, sensual, sexy - and almost completely unusable. I was also a little concerned because Mickey got his minor in English and he has a lot of opinions about poetry. So, I chose carefully. I also started writing a poem of my own.

I bought the book. It's a blue canvas covered album that you can add or remove pages from. It's perfect because I haven't written in calligraphy in a long time and I'd probably make a lot of mistakes. And, we'd be able to add pages to it in the future.

I started photoshopping our pictures, the decent (that is, clothed) ones on my father's faster computer and the less-than-decent (that is, unclothed and naughtier but still tasteful) ones on my slow computer. Then, I hit a snag. Money was mysteriously disappearing from my bank account. Either I'm the victim of fraud or I'm sleep-shopping. Suddenly, I didn't have enough money for dinner much less $80 for cute pictures, lovey pictures, and naughty pictures.

So, last week I told Mickey that I couldn't give him the present that I'd been tantalizing him with. And a few days ago, I was reading the poems I'd chosen for him and I thought that maybe he'd like to contribute to the book too. So, I spoiled the surprise. I told him what I've been doing and he loved the idea. He's going to find some poems to add to the book and he wants to help me photoshop our pictures.

If you'd like to read some of the poems I picked out for Mickey's Valentine present, then you can read them here. I know that one of the poems is actually about god, another about someone who's died, some are actually from men to women and not the other way around, others are from women to women, and that some of the excerpted pieces are misleading because they've been taken out of context and aren't actually as sweet and romantic as they sound. I fully realize that. I decided that this is my gift and I'll do whatever the hell I want. The pieces I've chosen, read without the subtext of what the author intended, express my feelings perfectly when read independently. I may include the poems that Mickey chooses, too, after he's decided which ones he wants to use.

[Okay, so call me a sheep, "Meme-meme. Meme-meme." I've answered the Hump-day Essay, the Friday Five, the Monday Mission 2.7, and the Tuesday This or That. At least I'm putting them where they belong. Here are Questions Answered.]

2002-02-14T12:50:00.000-05:00

Just Me and the Bug Man

So, this is Valentine's day. I just woke up because someone was knocking very loudly on my door. My heart fluttered when I thought that it might be Mickey but when I looked through the peep-hole, there was an overweight, elderly man standing there. The exterminator. There ought to be a law to prevent bug exterminations on Valentine's day. On this day, we the lonely and pining don't need to be reminded that creepy things live with us.

Dad invited me to eat dinner with him and my stepmother tonight. I told him that I didn't feel comfortable eating dinner with them on Valentine's day but dad says that they're "long past that." So, I guess I'm eating dinner with dad tonight.

I've never had a really great Valentine's day. Heck, I've never even had a decent one. Most of my former beaus have been too cynical to appreciate Valentine's day. As a result, I have had no memorable ones. That's sad because I've been dating now for eleven years. There have been eleven chances for me to have something wonderful to remember today and next year and for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, circumstances have conspired against us this year. It is simply more practical to not spend this weekend together. Mickey is disappointed because he wanted to make this weekend special but I'm less so. I'm satisfied that it is work, school, and distance that keeps us apart instead of lack of sentiment. There will be more Valentines to make memories.

2002-02-13T19:48:00.000-05:00

An Early Valentine's Day

Ahhh, I'm back from another trip to see Mickey. This time we went back to Asheville, N.C. where we had our first date. We ate in the same wonderful little restaurant where we sat all nervous, holding hands, afraid to make eye contact. I love that town now. It's so full of wonderful memories of us together.

Again, we stayed together longer than we intended but this time we actually had a good excuse. Mickey's car died and on Monday I didn't want to leave him there without transportation. He resurrected it and left very early Tuesday morning, only to come back to the hotel room three hours later because his car died again. Since we spent extra days together and because we both have a lot of work to do, it looks like we aren't going to spend Valentine's weekend together. It's okay, though. We had a very romantic weekend in Asheville. It will easily serve as an early Valentine's Day.

2002-02-06T02:39:00.000-05:00

My Whirlwind December and Missing a Lot of School in January

Okay, I'm a terrible failure as a blogger. I intended for this to be a record of my time away from home, when I was with Mickey. Kind of a "Hey, this is what I've been doing. Don't forget about me." I didn't count on Mickey being so absolutely engrossing. When I was staying with him, in Raleigh, we were hardly ever apart from one another and I certainly never thought, "Wow, this is an incredible experience I'm having right now. I'm going to put this moment on pause so that I can write about it in my blog." So, during the period of time when I had the most to say, I certainly wasn't going to stop to say it.

So I left for Raleigh on the tenth of December and I totally failed to do all the responsible things I intended on doing during Christmas break. I never got a job, first of all, because the retail stores had already hired all their Christmas help by the time I got there and got settled. I didn't read any of the textbooks for the classes I intended on taking in the Spring, which turned out to be a good thing since I didn't end up with any of the classes I wanted. However, I did spend an incredible amount of time with one of the most amazing human beings I've ever met. Mickey is absolutely wonderful.

Mickey insisted that he wanted to meet my family and I was nervous about it since we'd just started dating. So, I explained to him that I didn't grow up near my extended family and I only saw them, at most, for a few days each year. I told him him that while they were a wonderful family, that meeting them probably wouldn't provide him with insight. I told him that they tended to be freckled, blue eyed, and fair haired. I brought up that in all the family photos, I stand out, rather like an adopted refugee child. I emphasized that I grew up traveling around the world and they tended to be very clannish, refusing to budge from the place of their birth.

Then, I agreed to take him to my family's Christmas party. I had no reason to worry. He liked my family and they liked him. Before, he'd told me that he couldn't see any similarities between my father and me. Suddenly, he was telling me that he could only see a similarity between my father and me.

My father told me afterwards that my family loved him. "He was a hit." My cousin said that he wanted to see a ring on my finger the next time he saw us! They're already saving a place for him at Easter. It's not surprising. Mickey's the most endearing guy on earth.

Mickey took me to meet his father's side of the family at their Christmas get-together. That went a little less smoothly because we were both so hung over from the night before. In fact, I think we were still a little drunk. It turned out to be all right. Mickey got ribbed a little and they were fun. There was a lot of food, and gag gifts, and pool playing. They asked me a lot of questions and it was obvious they were very curious about me. I asked Mickey if they knew he was serious about me and he said, "Yes, you're the first girl I've ever brought."

It felt like a milestone, getting both of our families' approval of our relationship. And it felt like yet another reassurance that this is real. That this is not a dream. I'm not going to wake up and discover that I've been fantasizing these past few months. This wonderful life that I've been living, it's mine.

I was supposed to leave Raleigh on Jan. 7th to begin school but North Carolina got hit with several feet of snow. I have to cross the Smokey Mountains to get home so I stayed a few extra days. I started school late and didn't end up with any of the classes I wanted.

___________________________________________

We vacationed in Atlanta for Martin Luther King weekend. We stayed in a cute Victorian house that had been converted to a hotel. It couldn't have more character. It was lopsided from a century of settling. The hallway to our room was bowed and every doorway was crooked. It was like staying in Alice in Wonderland's world.

We made lots of plans for the weekend but only managed to make a few of them. We foolishly made a reservation at a romantic Morrocan restaurant on Friday night. As if we could possibly keep a respectful distance between us. There was no way we were leaving the hotel room. On Saturday night we were supposed to see GWAR but we couldn't stop cuddling long enough to actually go. From now on, I think we'll have to forgo plans for the first few nights we are together.

We did manage to successfully attend a few of the events we planned. On Sunday night we went to a short film festival. Phillip Glass had written the score for every film. He wasn't there to play, though, because his wife gave birth to their first son that day. So we heard his understudy instead. I enjoyed the short film by Peter Greenaway the best, which isn't surprising, considering he's one of my favorite directors.

At the Natural History museum, we saw a skeletal replica of the largest dinosaur that ever walked the earth, the Giganosaurus (it's really called that!). We went upstairs and saw the gem collection. I ooh-ed and aahh-ed while Mickey scowled worryingly. (Don't worry, honey, I don't expect a gem collection of my own!) Then we played in the discovery section of the museum.

We loved the Botanical Gardens. The indoor rainforest was dwarfing and alien. Inside, there were tiny poisonous frogs in colors that I usually associate with things plastic and artificial: the color of astroturf, the cobalt blue that small sports cars come in, the color of maraschino cherries, that yellow they use on street signs. There were tropical birds freely roaming around whose calls sounded eerily like those dinosaurs in the movie Jurassic Park. The indoor desert was full of cacti bent and twisted in oddly Tim Burton-esque ways. It was hard to see those shapes as living instead of sculptures. My favorites, though, were the orchids. Such beautiful, complex, exotic shapes. The eye is drawn into them and cannot escape.

We'd used up our weekend and taken extra days too. I was missing school and Mickey had to return to work. So, with difficulty, on Thursday night we said goodbye to one another yet again.

2001-12-08T22:42:00.000-05:00

I've moved my quiz score results here.

2001-12-08T17:35:00.000-05:00

I Prepare to Visit Mickey and Discover I have the Body of a Child

Today is a hectic day. I goofed off after finals, which I feel is my right, making this blog, cruising the net, watching movies on my dad's ridiculously huge television, wandering around the mall pretending to be figuring out what I want for Christmas (so difficult, most of what I want involves doing things not having things). I didn't sleep for three days. (I know this is off the subject but, why was this so easy when the semester was over?) Last night, I crashed. I slept for fourteen hours! So, now I have a ton of things to do before I can leave for Raleigh tommorrow. Let's see: oil change, pack my bags, clean out the fridge so that I'll be unafraid of opening the door when I come back, clean the bathroom so that I'll be unafraid of going in there when I come back, clean the cab of my truck so that Mickey will be unafraid of sitting in there, wash clothes, and wash dishes. And I hope to have all this done before too late tonight so that I can say goodbye to all my friends. I hope my expectations aren't too high...

Since I'm not going to be in town again until Christmas, Dad and I went shopping for my Christmas presents yesterday. It's a tradition. I pick out what I want and he buys it and wraps it up. Then on Christmas, I pretend I'm surprised. We've been doing this since I was about 12 years old. Dad never figured me out enough to know what I'd want for Christmas, so he just asked me. We also do the same thing for my birthday. At least I always get exactly what I want.

I'm a very tiny person and this semester I was so poor that I lost a lot of weight. I can pull my jeans off my hips without unbuttoning them. So, now I'm a lot tinier. I didn't realize exactly how tiny.

This was a secret but I'm feeling brave. This is it: I sometimes wear children's clothes. Finding clothes that will fit me takes up 75% of the time I spend shopping. In children's stores, or the children's dept, I don't have to hunt for the right size on the racks and some children's clothing is indistinguishable from adult's clothing. Plus, sometimes they were the exact same clothes, in smaller sizes, and they cost a lot less. So, other than being embarrassed when I carry clothes into the dressing room amongst parents who are dressing their kids, wearing kids clothes is pretty cool.

That is, sometimes I would wear children's clothes. It was a choice. Yesterday, we shopped and shopped but we couldn't find any clothes that would fit me. So we finally gave in and went to Abercrombie and Fitch for Kids and Lerner's For Kids. We found clothes that fit me. Before, it was a choice, now I have to. Let me repeat: I have gotten so skinny that I have to wear children's clothes.

Should I be worried about this?

2001-12-07T22:00:00.000-05:00

Hello, I'm Scimiotix and this is my blog. I've included some of my favorite links to the left but I still have so many more! I may add them to a separate page. Also, this layout may change daily or hourly until I decide I like it enough to stop changing it. Just a forewarning! I hope you find this blog amusing. Email me if you have any suggestions for links, or additional pages, or anything, or, even better, just to say hello!