Good things:
-Got into Nursing school, start May 26th
-Don't have to pay for said Nursing school next year due to grants and a scholarship
-Many recent days off with NOTHING to do except laze about and read, so nice
-Gift of a Hanson.net subscription, via Kerri <3
-Birthday tomorrow! 25!
-Swanky hotel suite (2 rooms and 2 bathrooms!) for said birthday
-Pseudo-themed party for said birthday (music and movies of 1984)
-Ben & Jerry's ice cream cake for said birthday
-Might be buying my grandmother's house in the near future for very, VERY cheap
-Possibly paying off all debt in the process of buying said house
-GETTING AN IPHONE IN JULY OMG SO EXCITED SO SHINY
-Saw Star Trek yesterday and loved it

Bad things:
-None

Things to do:
-Knock on wood


;)

Guess who just won third row tickets to see Ani DiFranco live on Wednesday?

:D :D :D :D

"You will have a long and wonderful life with your wife." Heh.

I've recently come to like Anthony Bourdain. I had a vague idea of who he was, and I had heard the name before, but I had never really paid attention until I was in Richmond and caught a lot of his show. He was funny and snarky and interesting and genuine... I did some research, read some articles and decided to ask for three of his books for Christmas. I got them, and I've read all three already.

I was trying to remain calm, to not let another obsession take hold like so many others, and I was doing well.

Until I watched this last night:



EDIT: I downloaded this episode and subsequently uploaded the part I am referring to in better quality. Can't. Stop. Watching.

That "yeah" that seemed to catch him off guard? That little lip bite? Blushing? Giggling? I'm officially 100% gone.

Today was a great day:

-Got my hair cut for the first time in over 3 years.
-Found a new outfit on the sale rack!
-Had a quiet evening at Carmike.
-Had a nice ride out to Fluvanna with Matt - good chatting time.
-I think I have a new job!
-Hanson in Charlotte tomorrow.

Sometimes life is good, even when it's bad.

♥

I. Love. This. Man. :D

I feel the need for change recently, to redefine myself, to leave behind what I've been and try something new. I want to change my online name so badly, but I'm afraid to. I've gone by the alias expertneophyte since I was 16, and as far as I can tell I'm the only person out there with that name (if you google it, all of the results that come back are from me). While that's somewhat neat, however, therein lies the problem: I'm so easily traceable online that it makes me nervous. And besides, I think the name holds me back somewhat. I was at my doctor's office, and he asked me my email address, and I told him (of course it's expertneophyte@.....). He asked why I picked that name, and I said, "Well, I picked it when I was 16, and I wasn't particularly good at any one thing then..." and he clucked his tongue, frowned and said, "Awww!" I started thinking that by labeling myself as such, maybe I'm unconsciously constraining myself. It's true that I'm the queen of starting new things and quickly dropping them, but is it really so good to advertise that fact? To present myself by that fact?

Really though, in all honesty, it's just a screename. But still...I just find myself wanting to change, wanting something that's different, that's new.

Maybe I'll start with a new LJ layout, or at least some new damn icons...

I've meant to post these for a while, but working full-time while taking Anatomy & Physiology I during a ten-week summer semester is really kicking my ass. I'm actually supposed to be studying and memorizing bones, muscles and joints right now, but...I procrastinate.

These are from Falls Church on May 1 - quite possibly one of the best nights of my life. :) (It's sad that I'm serious, haha!)

( Read more... )

Well Grim made it through the weekend. I took him back to the vet today, and she again expressed his bladder, and again it worked, so he's still not blocked. She said that the antibiotic she gave us would take about five days to work, so it should start to take effect on the inflammation and swelling in the next couple of days. But the good thing is that she sent us home with three days' worth of pain medication, which she gave the first dose of in the office. When I finally got him home, it was like I had brought home a different cat - he was acting like his normal self and not constantly in the litterbox. Since then, he's started to try to use the litterbox again, and he's still not getting much out, but hopefully that will soon pass. He's eating now, and every night the bowl of milk that's down for him disappears, so he's drinking as well. By Wednesday we should have the other medication she prescribed - some kind of medication that will help his bladder muscles contract better, and hopefully that will help as well.

I swear, I never thought my life would revolve around my cat's pee.

My cat Grim, Bruce's brother (the one who died, also the one in the icon) had a urinary blockage earlier this week (which is the same thing that killed Bruce). It was caught in the nick of time (maybe) on Thursday - Matt got him to the only vet in town who agreed that it was an emergency, and called me at work from there with the news that it would be $700 to $1000 just to catheterize him and keep him overnight. I left work for the vet's office with the idea that I was going there to put my cat to sleep. When I got there, I learned that the vet had taken matters into her own hands and went ahead and catheterized him. Time will tell if I will thank her for this or hate her forever. In any case, he came home last night and wouldn't eat or drink and couldn't urinate. I got 4 hours of broken sleep punctuated by crying. I called the vet this morning and she said that it would take him a while to urinate, since everything was irritated by the catheter, and that he had a urinary tract infection - which causes urgency, but an inability to pee. Matt took him in, the vet felt his bladder and didn't feel that it was distended, and "expressed" his bladder - basically squeezed him to make him pee, which he did, so she felt that it wasn't another blockage. She sent him back home with some appetite stimulants. Since I've gotten home today, he has eaten, but he's becoming more and more distressed because he can't urinate.

I'm going insane - if I'm in the living room, I'm worried about him and annoyed that no one (save for Matt and a couple of friends) seems to care. If I'm in the bedroom (where Grim is quarantined) there's nothing for me to do but listen to him meow plaintively and watch him go in and out of the litterbox repeatedly. If he makes it through this, there's a %50+ chance of it happening again - and we can't afford to pay the $500 we were charged to cath him again. The only fix is a $1200 to $1800 surgery.

I don't want to lose him...but I'm so afraid that I might have to let him go.

Well, I'm home and exhausted. The trip (and its aftermath) was filled with absolutely glorious highs and some pretty intense lows, but I'll get into it all later. For now, here's a snippet of how it went:



:D :D :D :D

More later.

:D

I've been up since 8.30 this morning, and I went to bed at 4.30 am. There's very few things that would get me out of bed this early with so little sleep, and this time it's my favorite reason: Hanson!

I'm on my way out of town to see Hanson not once, but twice! Once in Falls Church, VA and once in Allentown, PA (the place we said we'd NEVER EVER go back to, GODDAMN YOU HANSON). So school's over (for the next two weeks, anyway - summer classes are going to be a bitch) and I'm celebrating with a little road trip with a good friend. Omgyay! :D

Expect a lengthy update upon my return. ♥

The one destroying the soda can is my boy. Hee! He still has that shirt. ♥

This was filmed back when they were still in high school, about 7 or 8 years ago. The other two guys in the video are friends of ours: the tall one in black is Jason, my former roommate, and the other is Davis, the one responsible for making this video.

I'm hoping this will nudge me back into journaling. :)

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favourite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.

Quick rundown: New job is awesome, seeing Hanson twice in May (Falls Church and Allentown [I don't know why the fuck I'm going back to that pisshole of a town either]) is also awesome, seeing Voltaire live on May 3 is totally awesome, and Battlestar Galactica coming back is frakking awesome. :)

Tomorrow begins my last four days at my current job.

I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am about this.

More soonishly. :D

Alright, so a lot has happened since I last posted anything of substance. Let's see, Christmas? It was great. The boy's Christmas present to me was surprising me by coming out to my parents' on Christmas Eve, something he had said that he wouldn't do. I was absolutely thrilled to have him there, and we celebrated in style. Wasn't the first time I opened Christmas presents still drunk, heh.

Anyway, I got everything I asked for on my modest list: a pair of Dankso Mary Janes, although I had to send them back because they didn't fit and they're on backorder until March. I got some clothes that my parents did such a good job with picking out, because I love them. They got me this pair of chocolate brown corduroy pants that I'm in love with. I got Hanson's Middle of Nowhere Acoustic CD/DVD thing, which I have yet to open, oops. I got a wee little camcorder that I had put on my list almost as a joke, and I love it! It's perfect for ps_shocktheworl 's and my trip to NYC in a couple weeks. My biggest gift(s), though, came from Matt and my parents jointly, although they didn't plan it. Before Christmas, Matt had been working overtime to help me pay for school (I love him somuch), and on Christmas Eve he presented me with the fruits of his labor: a cool $200. On Christmas morning, my parents threw three tiny boxes at me during the annual gift-tossing, and each box contained $100. I opened the last one and a few tears leaked out, because with that, I had enough money to pay for school this semester. Best. Christmas present. Ever.

So in January I paid for two classes, English 112 online and Developmental Psychology. I ended up getting killer deals on my school books by buying them from people around town, paying $30 for a book that sells used for $80. I'm enjoying my classes so far, and I'm really busting my ass so I do well. It's been nice to have a purpose again.

I also started a diet on January 1st, although I don't like to call it a diet because I'm trying to change my food lifestyle, not just diet. Through diet changes alone I've lost 10 pounds, which isn't much, but it's better than nothing. I'm going to start going to the gym next week, so I'm hoping that will help even more. :)

Matt and I started playing World of Warcraft again this week. Don't worry, I don't think it'll take over our lives like it did before, because we don't plan on letting it. We're just playing casually together. It has been really nice to have something to do together again.

I wanted to share one of my assignments for English class. This week, among other assignments, we had to write a "working class" poem, one about a job that we've held. I initially wrote one about my current job at the hospital, but then I thought I'd write about when I worked at one of the movie theaters in town, one of the most fun jobs I've ever held. This was the first time I had written poetry in over five years, and I think it turned out pretty well. Comments on it aren't necessary, but always welcomed. :)


The Theater

My first real job was in a movie theater,
where I was hired on the merit of my breasts
by a creepy yet harmless old man
who kept moustache wax in his desk drawer.
I started out scooping stale popcorn

(we popped it only once a week)
into overpriced portions,
my hands burning from the salt.
I went through a shirt a month,
the sleeves always ruined by butter.

Then I moved up to the ticket booth,
mechanically handing out tickets and change
while my robot voice came through the speaker.
(I read a lot of books in the booth.)
I did paperwork for the assistant manager,

who was a friend from high school,
after the other employees had gone home.
We would climb on to the roof and smoke
cigarettes, staring at the skyline, shivering
in the cold but unwilling to leave the view.

We would stand outside of the theater
every night until four in the morning,
talking and smoking, with the night’s
deposit hidden in his coat sleeves.
Thousands of dollars in deposit bags

protected only by olive drab
(and the knife in his pocket).
My favorite place to be was the
projection booth hidden upstairs,
washed in the heat of the projection bulbs,

filled with the sounds of filmstrips
becoming movies on the screen.
I quit the theater when I got a real job,
one in an office with telephones and
without windows, and eventually the friends

I made at the theater drifted away.
The only one who stayed was
Stephen, who we called by his last name.
He had built the movies for years,
hiding in the corner of the projection booth

splicing the multiple reels into one long strip,
cutting each by hand and taping them together.
And then the day came when the projectors
were dismantled and hauled away,
replaced with digital machines –

Stephen was replaced by a computer.
He works at UPS now,
and I try to avoid that theater
because I know that there’s nothing
upstairs but a computer in the dark.

Do any of you lovelies out there happen to have the Rent movie soundtrack?  Found it!  Stupid corrupted files.

Or perhaps the original Broadway cast recording of Les Miserables?

Or perhaps both?

Hmm?

laurak23 is the absolute shit.  That is all.  :D

:)



I'll post a real entry soon, promise. :)

So...last week was a miserable week. Completely and utterly icky.

Monday I was twisted in knots about a certain job-related situation that I won't go into just yet because a) I don't know who exactly reads this, and b) I don't want to jinx it. Once it's resolved for better or worse (which should be in the next couple of days) I'll explain it all. It should be a good thing. I hope.

I went to bed Monday glad that it was over and looking forward to Tuesday because Tuesday had to be better than Monday, right?

When I got up, there was a message on my phone from my mom asking me to call her at work. I did, and she told me that she had a couple of things for me to pick up from her office and asked me to stop by before work to get them. I told her that I would, and proceeded to get ready for work. About half an hour later, when I was finishing up getting ready to leave, my mom called again. She asked where I was, and I told her that I was almost about to leave. She paused and said, "...ok, well, stop by and pick your stuff up, but I won't be there."
I asked, "Why?"
"Well, there's been an accident..."
"...um, with who?"
"Well, your grandmother and grandfather, your great aunt, and your second cousin."
"Holy shit, is everyone ok?"
"Well, I don't know anything yet, I'm on my way to UVA, and I'll call you when I know. Go to work. I'll call you."

I was immediately concerned because they went to UVA. We have two hospitals here in town: MJH, the one I work at, and UVA, the big one. MJH is a private hospital and is very small. UVA is huge and takes all of the big cases. Trauma cases automatically go to UVA. I was worried.

I went to my mom's office and picked up what she left for me: a piece of my mail that had come to her house and a piece of my sister's birthday cake from the day before. I called her as I was leaving, and asked her what was going on. She said, "I still don't know. I'm at the ER, but...your grandfather smashed the windshield, and, um...your other great aunt was also in the car, and..." I told her that I would be there in ten minutes. I drove to work, parked in front, ran up to the floor and told my boss that I had a family emergency and couldn't be there. I drove to UVA, parked, ate my cake because I had a feeling it would be a while, and walked down to the ER, where I didn't see any of my family. I called my mom again and saw her emerge from a side door and beckon me back. I followed her into a small "Family Conference" room off the main ER and found my aunt, a friend of the family, and my second cousin, who had been driving the car. I don't remember what we talked about, only that I was there for about five minutes when three people walked in to the room - a doctor, a chaplain, and a social worker.

The doctor sat down and asked all of us who we were and how we were related. He then started speaking, saying what I don't remember, but something like this, "blah blah blah, well you know 'Junior' died at the scene, blah blah blah." For a moment, my body felt suddenly way too small to contain myself. 'Junior' was my grandfather.

They were driving back from my grandmother's treatment for throat cancer on the main road through the county. My second cousin Mike, who was driving, had the cruise control set at 55, which is the speed limit. They were driving southbound when a car traveling northbound turned across their lane into a driveway right in front of them. Mike didn't even have a chance to react. They slammed head on into the front corner of the other car. The three in the back seat of my family's car weren't wearing seatbelts (it's not legally required in Virginia, and it's something that they had done their entire lives, so I'm not angry about it). My grandmother was thrown into the floor and my grandfather went up and over the front passenger seat, into the windshield, and back into the back. The front of their car was completely obliterated - it's a wonder that it wasn't worse. My grandfather didn't have a pulse when rescue workers arrived, and although they got a pulse back, his injuries were too much. He died there on the side of the road. One of my great aunts was airlifted to the hospital, the rest went in the ambulance. My grandmother was released that night, as was Mike. Both great aunts were held for a few days and are now at an inpatient rehab facility. My grandfather's funeral was last Saturday, a week ago.

My grandfather was a simple man, having lived in the same house his entire life, the house his father built. He was a carpenter - I have a dresser that he made sitting in my bedroom right now. He was going through a slight mental decline over the past few years, but he was always happy to see us. Even though he didn't say much these days, I'll miss him. I worry for my grandmother and my cousin, who is the legal charge of my grandmother. I worry about them, alone in that house with the specter of my grandfather hovering. I am moved to tears to think of my grandmother lying in her bed alone for the first time in 54 years. I worry that she will lose the will to fight her cancer. I worry that it's too much for my 13-year-old cousin to deal with. But I know that deep down, we're all stronger than we look, especially my grandmother. I know that she'll come through this vale of tears whole, eventually, with all of us gathered around to guide her. My family doesn't always get along very well, but we take care of our own.

And so I say goodbye to my grandfather, a strong silent man who lived a long life full of hard work and sacrifice, but full of happiness just the same. A man who never even made it to high school, but took care of his family and then raised and provided for one of his own. I never once heard of him complaining about anything life gave him. I would do well to take a page from his book. He led a simple life, but the love and respect that I feel for him is far from simple.

Too proud to die; broken and blind he died
The darkest way, and did not turn away,
A cold kind man brave in his narrow pride

On that darkest day, Oh, forever may
He lie lightly, at last, on the last, crossed
Hill, under the grass, in love, and there grow

Young among the long flocks, and never lie lost
Or still all the numberless days of his death, though
Above all he longed for his mother's breast

Which was rest and dust, and in the kind ground
The darkest justice of death, blind and unblessed.
Let him find no rest but be fathered and found,

I prayed in the crouching room, by his blind bed,
In the muted house, one minute before
Noon, and night, and light. The rivers of the dead

Veined his poor hand I held, and I saw
Through his unseeing eyes to the roots of the sea.
An old tormented man three-quarters blind,

I am not too proud to cry that He and he
Will never never go out of my mind.
All his bones crying, and poor in all but pain,

Being innocent, he dreaded that he died
Hating his God, but what he was was plain:
An old kind man brave in his burning pride.

The sticks of the house were his; his books he owned.
Even as a baby he had never cried;
Nor did he now, save to his secret wound.

Out of his eyes I saw the last light glide.
Here among the light of the lording sky
An old man is with me where I go

Walking in the meadows of his son's eye
On whom a world of ills came down like snow.
He cried as he died, fearing at last the spheres'

Last sound, the world going out without a breath:
Too proud to cry, too frail to check the tears,
And caught between two nights, blindness and death.

O deepest wound of all that he should die
On that darkest day. Oh, he could hide
The tears out of his eyes, too proud to cry.

Until I die he will not leave my side.

Elegy - Dylan Thomas

Jesus this has been the week from hell. :(

I'll post more later.

Various and sundry memes.

Birth Month Meme

- Pick your birth month.
- Strike out anything that doesn't apply to you.
- Bold the five-ten that best apply to you.
- Copy to your own journal, with all twelve months under a lj-cut.
- Tag 12 people from your friends list.

MAY:
Stubborn and hard-hearted. Strong-willed and highly motivated. Sharp thoughts. Easily angered. Attracts others and loves attention. Deep feelings. Beautiful physically and mentally. Firm Standpoint. Needs no motivation. Easily consoled. Systematic (left brain). Loves to dream. Strong clairvoyance. Understanding. Sickness usually in the ear and neck. Good imagination. Good physical. Weak breathing. Loves literature and the arts. Loves traveling. Dislike being at home. Restless. Not having many children. Hardworking. High spirited. Spendthrift.

I don't think I even have 12 people on my friends list, so just do it if you want. :)

( All the months in a year )

Questions Meme

1. Leave me a casual comment of no particular significance, like alyric to your current favorite song, or your favorite kind of sandwich,maybe your favorite game. Any remark, meaningless or not.
2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in your own post.
5. When others respond with a desultory comment, you will ask them five questions.

Questions from ps_shocktheworl.

1. You've acquired a time machine: What ever shall you do with it?
Oh god, what wouldn't I do with it? I'd probably go back to my 8th grade self and tell myself to do fucking better in school and go to fucking college.

2. What is the dumbest thing you have ever done?
Getting a credit card. Not going to college. Buying a new car. I could go on...

3. You're legally allowed to kill someone - who?
Hmm...interesting. Probably the person at work who spread confidential information about me. Either her or the manager of my former apartment complex, who happens to also run the one I live at now.

4. Have you ever been able to eat Mashed Potatoes without that mental image or at least giggling to yourself?
Hah. Sometimes.

5. Who has had the biggest impact on your life?
I'm going to have to cop out on this one and say Matt, because it's the truth.