Whoever Dances is One with the Universe

Happy barricade day pt. 1!

My job is going really well so far -- it's pretty tiring, but I do like it a lot. Pretty much I just go to the houses of homebound people and do housework, chores, make meals, and do personal care, so not bad. The toughest part has been giving bed baths to one of my ladies, just because she has a hard time moving and I'm so anxious about accidentally hurting her while getting her to shift around for me.

Maria, meanwhile, is loving her job as a state bee inspector. We kind of play a game where we joke about whose job is worse, but I always win, because no matter how many times she says bee stings or sketchy Mennonites, I can always say bedpans and get an instant victory. :P

I am also still getting along nicely on my sekrit summer project -- set up the first of my dates with the photographer. Very cool! So excited! :D :D :D

Other than that I am fairly boring. I tend to come home in the evening and be too tired for anything involving much activity or brain power, although Maria did talk me into a fairly strenuous bike ride to-day which nearly killed me, but then we picked wild strawberries on the bank on our way home. Everything is so beautiful it's absolutely crazy. It either smells like honeysuckle or cow manure, both of which are glorious smells in their own right, and the hayfields are all being mown (we brought in three-hundred and eighty-eight bales over the last week, plus two-hundred that we sold outright). Three turkey poults have hatched, two more are on the way, and we get thirty chicks on Friday (keets a little later). The farm down the road has ducklings and calves. I love it so much.

Anyway, to-morrow I work! From one to nine, which is kind of a stupid shift, but whatevs.

Mama is actually getting kind of excited to meet Jen, to whom she refers only as "that girl you like", so that is promising, although I hope it doesn't make it too awkward when they finally do meet.

Yeah. As I said, a bit boring really. But doing well!

Um giez?

I have a girlfriend.

Her name is Jen, and she is completely amazing--she's smart and funny and cute and tall! and she wants to be a copy-editor. She has really short red hair and three piercings in each ear and a nose ring, and wears mostly boys' clothes. Our feet are not quite the same size. She makes jokes that I almost always get, and on Saturday last we walked down to the park and ate lunch together on the swings. She's also kind of shy, and I hugely embarrassed her by asking her out in front of a bunch of people.

Also, I told Ethan Nulton to go fuck himself, because he told me that Steph doesn't deserve to have a service dog at school for her depression, and she should "just suck it up and take Valium". I told him that medications can fuck you up so bad you don't know which way's up, and if a dog can make you feel just as good then there's no reason in hell you shouldn't have your dog for emotional support, and I was really glad that she'd gotten permission. And then when he laughed, that's when I said he could go fuck himself. And then I walked away and tried not to throw up in a corner, and a bunch of people came over and told me I did a good job saying something, which was nice, but I still wanted to throw up.

And asking Jen out didn't really help with that at the offset, but now I feel really glad I did, because she said yes, and-- yeah. It's going to be great. I am going to make it be great.

Also, I dropped her metal water bottle on my foot and it glanced all the skin off my toe. So, um, yeah. I am too happy to care, but I am going to try to get some emergency medical care done. And then I will try to get my homework done, oh God oh God.

Edit: We talked a little on Skype and when I said good-night I said 'love you!' and she said love you back! Ahhhhh!

good:

-the newspaper likes me; they gave me an important article to write this week
-i'm really excited about yuletide. i got an awesome assignment
-the registrar's office accepted my major
-this weekend was really lovely
-dr. reingold has probably forgiven me for my sins
-i had a nice lunch with sean and amanda, with whom i would like to have a threesome

bad:

-i am so stressed out i want to die
-i have probably got an infection in my thumb from the nail being gone. it is all swollen and smells kind of like putrefaction
-i have this important article and all the interviews for it + a research paper + a book to read + two chapters of o.chem to understand and do problems for + eight hrs of class tuesday and thursday as well as study groups + actually staying alive for this week
-i haven't had dinner
-sean and amanda don't want to have a threesome with me (well, i haven't asked, but i feel pretty confident about this)

Heyyy. That's what being happy feels like. I had totally forgotten.

The girl and I talked, and I was right. But it's okay; things are actually more comfortable between us now, so I think that's a good thing, I'm really glad it worked out. We're also still exchanging Valentine's gifts because we'd already bought them at this point. XD Which is a little silly but honestly "a little silly" has been in my file for years.

To-day we're walking down to the plant shop and buy cacti, because really. We've been planning to do this for-ever, just not got around to it. Last night I fell asleep in her room in the chair, meaning that there was a total of four people in a room meant for two--me, her, her roommate, and her roommate's boyfriend, totally not awkward at all, except that is a lie. You know.

I have so many things to write, I am trying to pretend I don't have to think about that, but at least I got my sosh writeup done, so all I really have to do for homework is finish the last of my o.chem problems and I think I am finally starting to understand stoichiometry so that's all right (stoichiometry: time-consuming. I think this is really the whole idea behind it. HOW TO MAKE MATHS EQUATIONS AS LONG AS POSSIBLE). The scars on my arms are healing up, that's good. I'm happy about that.

Also it's just a beautiful day, I mean it is an absolutely gorgeous day, oddly warm and full of half-light, and I'm at the library right now and Michelle is sitting on a chair near me reading a book about Federico Garcia Lorqa and giggling periodically, and the sun catches her hair all pretty through the blinds (she has--seriously--golden hair, it is a little awe-inspiring sometimes).

I haven't properly eaten to-day (again), I haven't had my meds, I have study groups to-night and all kinds of things I don't want to do, to-morrow the week starts again and I feel underprepared and rushed and busy, but at the moment I also feel like there is a small center of peace in me, like a lump of hot pull taffy under my breastbone, quiet and round and malleable and warm, and that's a good feeling, one I haven't felt in a while and a very good feeling.

"History regards him as this tragic figure, but he really had so much fun. He was the life of the party. When he arrived at a party, his friend would yell "Hey, Federico's here! Now we can go on a poetry bender!" He was a flamer, but he was one of those people you can't help but like to be around," the girl says.

Yeah.

Oh maaaan. Okay, so this morning I was feeling better, so I ate foods and went to do my volunteer work. And then once I got there I realised that eating foods was maybe not the smartest idea. But I held out and did my whole shift.

And now I am back in my room, trying to keep my breakfast down, trying to write my midterm essays, and going through my links instead. And this? Made me laugh. Really hard. Which would suggest that I need to sleep some more, but. Dear sweet God.

Also I need a shower, but I am so cold (I am wearing three layers and I swear to God it's not doing anything for me) and also I need to finish these essays gahhh. I really have no idea. XD Also, I think I am going to hell, because some of the girls at Special Olympics were so cute. I would totally have tried to flirt with them if I had not been, you know, an official scorekeeper (of BOCCE!). I think that's enough to get you into hell, right? Anyway I really have no idea what is going on.

Also, despite Jen and Arielle's claims, flat Pepsi does not make me feel better.

Man, I feel weird. XD Okay, ESSAYS. For REALS. About Dante! And how much he sucks.

So, um, eegatland came to see us to-day! She brought her son Mark, who is so sweet it's not even funny, and he played Maria's piano while I blathered at her a lot. He is a very good pianist. <3 And eegatland is just so nice and she signed my copy of The Empty Kingdom and put up with me being an idiot and basically eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. It was SO COOL.

And I, of course, being me, and not being the most aware person in the world, went and told her that No Human Hands to Touch made me hysterical. >_> I told this to Mama later and explained that I felt bad about saying it, because she probably did not want to know that anything she had written made people cry like crazy.

And Mama gave me a long even stare.

And I said, "Well. Not people. Me. I'm not a person."

And Mama said, "Thank you."

Then we went and picked three quarts of blackberries on the gamelands, and as we were driving home with our bounty, Mama was gleefully suggesting we could freeze some for turnovers, and I was gleefully suggesting we could have them with ice cream, and Maria said, without breaking stride for a moment,--

"Nope. We're giving them to the kids."

The kids, the kids. Mama and I looked at each other in confusion. And then we remembered that to-morrow we are going to help out with making food for inner-city kids who cannot afford it; this is a church thing we do yearly.

"Are you sure?" Mama asked, looking at our three quarts of blackberries.

"Yep," Maria said. "Just because they're poor doesn't mean they don't have tastebuds. I've tried that stuff they feed them. I'm making them all raspberry scones."

I am so proud of that girl.

(She got her SAT scores back this week, and they're okay, but they're not great. She looked at them, said "huh", and went back to looking at pictures of garlic online. Then she weeded for three hours. To-day she collared me to look at her baby tomatoes, that are right now about the size of a fingernail. Soon they will be so big they'll hardly fit in the hand. Her turkeys are big and fat and quick, and her chickens are beautiful--their feathers lie perfect on them, they look like jewels in a way, so smooth and sleek. Her peanuts are blooming, her corn is going high, her laundry blows on the line in so many bright colours. Her arms are so strong, she lifts buckets of water to take to her fruit trees with easy grace, she wrestles with her dog in the evenings. Everything she really wants she makes, or she buys for herself with decision; she does nothing uncertainly. When she gets herself something frivolous, she knows she truly wants it.

I love my sister. I love the pride of her accomplishments. I love everything she's done for herself. She is someone to respect. And I am very, very proud of her.)

Also, we had piroshki for supper. ^__________________^

also, Sagramore/Mordred/Gwenhwyfach PWP:

( Beauty )