August Recap: Denver Visit

There will be more pictures later, however the internet is not cooperating.

No hepatitis C!

yes!

Still hope that stupid irresponsible woman rots in jail for the rest of her life.

Leaving Denver tonight.

Missing Mom terribly already.

Mike is the best brother ever.

killing time.

Somehow the Irish incident seems to have um, adjusted, the lens of my camera and it no longer works. I sat down yesterday with Mom's camera taking pictures of the apple tree in the yard and Lucy(fur) the neighbors adorable dog. I swore I'd never love a small dog. More on that later, though, once you can appropriately understand my obsession.


Today. Today. Waiting. Passing time. Killing it. Two thirty. Hopefully they won't see me until two thirty three and I'll feel better about things, but time is just a number anyway.

Killing time is a nasty expression, really.

Bargaining

Anyone who knows me, even a little, knows that I very rarely talk to God.
But of course there are those times in your life when a conversation with some higher power is strongly recommended, even possibly necessary.
Those are the times when I look at my mom laying in a hospital bed, or sitting in the ER, or going in for tests.

It's like in a movie or some attempt at melodramatic literature when the little girl says, "Please God, don't let Mom die; I'll do anything."
It's like that, but in real life. I feel embarrassed, bargaining with the higher being for a life, something I know I'm not quite in control of, but knowing I asked makes me feel better.
So does making her swear that she won't die, as if death was a choice. Left, death. Right, life. Oh, tempted to go left, but Katie made me promise.

For me it's these strings that tie us to life, that leave us here. Perhaps they remind Death of a purpose, a promise, the people here on Earth who'd struggle immensely if that person were to be whisked away elsewhere.

I made that deal. I've been making that deal since kindergarten.
And today, as I was sobbing in the front seat of the car in a parking lot, I realized that maybe my bargaining paid off. Sort of. I get to keep Mom, but in exchange, I get to understand her fear, no, terror, her pain, her grief, her anxiety, her strength, her courage, her determination. I wallow in my fear. It overtakes me. The one thing that I want so desperately, children, is being dangled in front of me by the vicious pre-cancerous cells, taunting me maliciously on a daily basis. Mom has that too, but in a different form. She has to be taunted by words such as "remission" and "brain tumor" even though they're in the past. They're a constant presence.

I get to keep her, though, and any amount of pain on my part is worth that. I'm not going to be as strong as she is, not yet. I can't even attempt that. But I'll suffer, I'll take all of the bad so that for now I can retain the one person I love more than my own life.

Tomorrow is going to be a hellish day. I'm taking her with me though; we're making a list. Questions to ask. Things that need answered. Now. Not when the results come back. Not a year from now. NOW.

So hopefully G/god is listening. Hopefully this test of endurance is nearing its end. Hopefully I'll look back on this one day with neutral emotions. But that's hope and this is fear.

The Mile High City, At Last.

I stole these pictures from the internet. So sorry, they're not mine, but they're pretty sweet anyway.

I'm not sure that I do enough to remind you all of my inner thoughts. I think I do too much of the rundown of my daily activities and not enough serious contemplation. But in saying so, I feel as though it's not something that you should call attention to in your blog. Because then you're trying too hard. Who knows. We'll get something figured out.


I'm always exhausted by the time I get home. Travel somehow takes all the energy out of me. In between all of the trains in Chicago, then getting to the plane, then flying, etc., I end up ready for a year-long nap. Which I have yet to get since I've been home.
It's been nice to reconnect with family.
I went and had all my blood drawn this morning, so that's a plus. I'll hear back in a week.
Lunch with Grandma Mary this afternoon. It was nice to sit and chat with her about things.

Watching trash television as well today. It's the simple pleasures that keep life interesting.
I've decided to extend my stay here. Being home for a couple more days before school starts will be nice. I'll get to see Katie (she's coming down from Ft. Collins and it'll be her 21st birthday celebration) and I'll also have time to heal a little bit before I fly home.
Good enough for me. Starting school next Monday.

Sorry, this post has become a jumble of words. I should close my eyes and my laptop.

Sweet afternoon dreams, world.

The 2nd Irish Incident and the Fallout

I love the above picture. love it. love it. love it.


They told us their only regret was that they didn't start hanging out with us sooner.
We regret that too.

Before they left, Maddie, Katie and Eric went to the bar to wait for them while I went and got them (Sally the van was at the time dead, later deemed to be direly in need of fuel). We met at the bar and the evening commenced.

I am wild about these boys. They are hilarious. They don't take themselves too seriously. They are out to have a good time (a great time). They like trouble. So do I (in moderation, of course).

I enjoyed them immensely. Hunter, however, has not been enjoying them so much. Eh, I told him, I'm young, I want to go out and play. So even though he's not too sure he likes it, it's going to happen. We made a compromise. I'll behave myself and always be home on time. We've been talking a lot about the future lately and I've been getting scared. Not intentionally. Unintentionally. It's just real and sort of weird.

It's really not my fault I much prefer boys to girls. Girls are so catty and scary. Boys are just funny.

We had fun. So much fun. Too much fun to write about here. Your "Fun-Meters" (if fun-meters were really a real machine, I'd totally need one) would break. Oh my, it's a wonder we didn't get kicked out.

But here they are, the surviving pictures of that night.

When I got home something in the early morning, I still had nearly four pages of a six page paper to write and babysitting at 8am.
I got a 95% on the paper, even though it was written at 7:30 am. Yess! That paper was worth 50 percent of my grade.


I'm trying to convince them to come to Colorado next weekend, but I'm not sure they'll want to drive all the way from San Francisco. (Who knows? Maybe they will. That'd be wonderful.)

The Irish Incident

I re-decorated my space here. I hope that you find it to your liking.

This summer my friend from high school, Maddie, her roommate Katie and I have been playing trivia every Sunday at a local bar. Our usual competition is comprised of the team that sort of works there (ugh, complete with the most annoying man alive), some random team, and the Irish. The Irish are four guys spending the summer over here.

We drink with them and learned how to play darts last week. Since it's their last week in town, we decided to cook them an officially American meal: sloppy joes. Apparently "manwhich" has a very different connotation in Ireland. So late last night, we made them dinner, complete with potato salad and fruit salad. They were in charge of bringing beer.

An interesting detail: they are the proud parents of a hamster. I forget his name, but he will be journeying with them to California. I hope they decide to leave him here with me.

We were given the roof of their $400 minivan "Sally" to spray paint. The rest of the van says quite interesting things. We added "O'Bama" (get it? Irish?) and "Free OJ" as well as a bullseye and some polka dots.

Then we went to the neighboring house to attend a party. We were probably there all of ten minutes when something happened and we were asked to leave. We assume that one of the girls with a boyfriend got upset about them talking to her (oh no!) and asked the boys there to kick us out.

So we got in the minivan (an experience, I must assure you) and drove downtown, blasting loud music and dancing wildly. (At this point I must interject that there was a designated driver.) The Irish opened the sliding door at times, quite effective air conditiong, I must say. We all got downtown to this bar called "Joes" which apparently has $2 pitchers on Tuesdays. The line outside of it was over an hour long and it was already getting late, so we attempted to talk our way in with the bouncers.

My favorite of the Irish so far is a guy named David, who looks remarkably like Jason Segal (star of the tv show "How I Met Your Mother" and the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall). Him and I were standing by the bouncer when David told him that he was in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and he'd give him an autograph if he let us in. Ha. The bouncer's reply: "Get away."

There was a poor girl throwing up next to a lamppost, so I went over to her and gave her the bottle of water that I had brought with me. She murmured thanks, never lifting her head, but grabbed the water.
The Irish boys were taking pictures with a motorcycle gang at that point.


So we went across the street.

And that's where the fun began. Dancing! I've been wanting to go dancing for so long. I can't dance, that is a known fact, but after a certain point, you must throw all dignity away and wave your limbs around. It's fun. We all danced and drank and chatted (yelled over the music) until our attention was captured by a happening on the other side of the bar.

That's how I came to ride the mechanical bull. David and another one known affectionately as The-One-With-No-Nickname who is Paul rode the bull and then it was my turn. I stayed on for so long. I was terrified, thrilled, overwhelmed with utter joy. I finally fell off to applause.

The night wound on, dancing, a girl from my Shakespeare class was there, we wrote "303" and "Denver" and "KtBarry" and "MadD House" on the walls of the bathroom, Irish boys, Irish boys, Irish boys. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent.

The adventure didn't stop when we left the bar, however. The train ride home was immense as well. I ran into another girl I had class with once. And then we got on the train which was late and delayed, so we chatted with the guys sitting next to us on the train. They had quite enjoyed my mechanical bull riding performance. Maddie could hardly get up on it, but rode valiantly. They told us that someone had gotten knocked out right as we left after falling off of the bull and then being hit in the head. Sad that we missed that.

In Chicago, the trains sometimes run express, which means they skip a bunch of stops and then let you off at a random one. Last night, the train we were on ran express from Belmont to Jarvis. A sweet gay guy asked us for cigarettes, which we obviously didn't have, and then struck up a conversation with us. We ended up polling the entire platform to see who had ever gotten off at Jarvis. One girl, the girl I had class with once, had gotten off at Jarvis to buy drugs.

Laughter ensued as everyone began to joke about money, and the strenghth of American currency and the barter system. And then we got on a train. The man asked the man on the other side of us if he was homosexual (he drew the word out, like, "Excuse me, sir, are you a ho-mo-SEX-u-alllll?") The man laughed and said no. The other man approached him, touched his collar and said, "I love the V-neck tee."

It was a nice shirt.

We made it home. There was a dreadful minute where I was worried that I'd lost my keys, but they were safely at Madeline's.

Hopefully this sort of adventure can occur again before they head out.

Finals

This is the beginning of a sort-of hellish week for me.
It's finals week for the summer semester, so that means I have two ten-page papers to write by Friday.
The grunt work still hasn't been done for those, so I'll be curious to see how it all works out.
I'm shooting a short film this week too. I was contacted by the director who's seen some of my more interesting internet work and cast as the Girlfriend in this film. Basically, I'm going to be playing the sort of imagined love interest. It's a small role, but I'm still busy shooting on three days.
And then babysitting is going to be mixed in.
I'll survive though.
The Irish boys that we met at the bar where we play trivia are spending their last week in Chicago, and in honor of that, we're going to make them sloppy joes on Tuesday night. They bought a van for $400 and are planning to drive it to San Francisco before they fly back to Ireland in September. Ha, I'll take pictures and post them. It's terrible. It's what Mom used to drive back in the 90s, but it's spray painted with random things. One of the doors says "Single" with an arrow pointing up to the driver. The back says "Go Cubs Go." They're going to get pulled over numerous times on their way cross-country.

Hunter and the boys signed a lease a block away from me! They'll be living in a three bedroom apartment that they somehow managed to get for $1050 a month. Wow. Only one bathroom though, which I'm not necessarily looking forward to.

Class commences!

Mates.

Summer sessions are nearing the end. Thank goodness. The last six weeks have flown by and lagged all at the same time. Perhaps this is the meaning of time and aging. Everything is a blur but at the same time, you're hardly able to survive from one dawn to the next.
Anyway.
You've probably heard the buzz about those "Twilight" books. Well, they're young adult books that have caught the world by storm (think Harry Potter-esque devotion). Emily's sisters love them. She loved them.
I read them. I cry every book. It's a long winded (four story) love story between a human girl and a vampire. Their love is just that, pure love. It's beautiful. It reaffirms my shockingly strong belief in love and has raised my curiosity about mates.
Animals have mates; certain species mate for life.
How do they know? Is it convenience? It is possible for a human to mate for life? I asked Hunter all of these questions while I sobbed on him the day (It was a happy cry, something he's never experienced before). He merely looked on, quite bewildered (I'm not sure he's had a girlfriend with the emotional depths that I seem to possess), and patted my shoulder, "sshh"ing me softly.
But. Something to think about.
Maybe his aversion comes from the fact that I'm constantly updating him on the plot lines between the characters: vampires, best friends, werewolves, evil covens, blood, humans, etc, squeaking with excitement that they go on a date, or hug, or get married, etc. etc. Manly stuff, obviously.
Soul mates. The horrific disasters that come from burned, scorned lovers. or even from mistimed or misguided love.
Also, love is a petty word. I can't encapsulate what it means to me, nor would I ever try. I wouldn't. Simply couldn't.
But it's falling asleep in my nap spot, warm and cozy, listening to a heartbeat. Something like that.
It is most definitely not Shakespeare class. I am stupid. I should have avoided Shakespeare at all costs. It bores me. It annoys me. I realize that I can't sound educated while I say these things, but if that's what educated is, I'd much prefer ignorance.

He taught me how to play Texas Hold'Em. It's some sort of poker. I played with his money. He's now down four dollars. Fine by me. I held my own, beating out four before ending third.

July in Pictures

This is the new system of parking here in Chicago. Major Daley sold our parking meters (all of them) for $99 million dollars for some insane amount of time. Thus, we get these. You can use your credit/debit card, so that's nice, but

Buckingham Fountain. I'd actually never been to it until a few weeks ago.
Flowers. Out of focus.

My favorite
The city of Chicago as seen from Buckingham Fountain (I'm facing west)

The fountain. The fountain pictures didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. Dusk was coming, lighting was moderately mediocre and my battery was dying.

Bird.



My favorite Metra stop in Chicago. Metra are the trains that go to the suburbs.

This fountain is constantly changing faces. When they were building it, they got a bunch of pictures of Chicagoland people and put them up.


The state of Illinois in sidewalk ark. Yes, the Cardinal is the state bird.

The bean! The bean!
Me.
i love this

Tall building.

Be Quiet, My A**

I had a rather nice afternoon talking with a lesbian doing grad work in theology. She didn't press her opinions on me, instead, listened to me, commented on what I was saying about the Catholic church and taught me a thing or two.

That was nice. It's nice to consider religion in ways such as these.

I got a forward from Mom. I liked it. I like Andy Rooney. I like him a lot. What I didn't like was this: I was asked to send this on if I agree or delete if I don't. It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God..[sic] Therefore I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a problem in having 'In God We Trust' on our money and having 'God' in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the 14% to BE QUIET!!!

After, it said pass it on if you agree. I deleted it.

Remember when women didn't have the right to vote? Should they have just been quiet? Just because somebody is the minority doesn't mean they shouldn't have a voice. Remember people with disabilities? The Americans with Disabilities Act speak for them. Should we have told them to just be quiet? The Civil Rights Movement? Nazi Germany? Oppression of all sorts?

Your religion is your choice, not your right. Why don't you just quietly thank your own G/god for what you've been given (including the right to freedom of religion)? It's separation of C/church and state, something I couldn't emphasize enough if I tried.

I'm sick of Christians trying to shove their beliefs down the throats of others. This isn't directed at anyone particularly that I know, but I'm still sick of hearing about it. I'm sick of the pledge of allegiance. I'm sick of "in God we trust" and the argument about it.
Let's work on trusting each other and then we can work on trusting God.

But enough of that.

Perhaps we should look at the basic tenets of the religions: peace and love. Let's practice those instead. Let's be a little nicer to everyone we meet. Even a smile is God in practice. Do that instead of sitting in Church for one hour a week.

Also, these Christians need to check their numbers. The number quoted in the email dates back to 1990 (86%). The current number is hovering around 75.5% (www.religioustolerance.org). Quoted: " 14.1% do not follow any organized religion. This is an unusually rapid increase -- almost a doubling -- from only 8% in 1990.

A USA Today/Gallup Poll in 2002-JAN showed that almost half of American adults appear to be alienated from organized religion. If current trends continue, most adults will not call themselves religious within a few years. Results include:
About 50% consider themselves religious (down from 54% in 1999-DEC)
About 33% consider themselves "spiritual but not religious" (up from 30%)
About 10% regard themselves as neither spiritual or religious.


Well. Alright. Let's all practice our own spirituality and leave the rest to everyone else.

I'm watching the Food Network talk about donuts in Colorado. I am dearly looking forward to getting back home. I'm thinking I'm going to go to a concert at Red Rocks with Katie, so that will make my summer dreams come true. (coloradans, night, music, what could get better than that?)

I took pictures the other day on a solo walk around downtown....I'll post them soon, maybe tonight.
I actually meant to blog about my week; it's been wild. Instead, I'm now emotionally and religiously exhausted.
So sorry. Expect something better soon.

Money is the root of all evil

There are days when I realize how much I really love my mom and how great a job she did raising me.
Ha, I realize that sounded a little funny, because I'm not some high-paid executive with a bright future. I'm just her daughter, the one that has all the weird issues, who lives in Chicago, who finally has a nice boyfriend, who believes in karma, whose car got smashed, who loves her life, who is going through so much weird trouble it's insane, who can't imagine what she's going to do after college, who's considering grad school, who loves her mother so much.

I sat on the phone with her for like an hour and a half today, just talking about life and everything in it. Talking about Hunter, our future, his future, my future, our relationship, Emily, the money issue, values, belief systems, life, school, the Dominick's/Safeway regional manager, rent, money, etc. It's hot today here, hot like I've not felt all summer.

Also, in relatively lame news, I may have been exposed to Hepatitis C when I was in the hospital in January for surgery. How fail is that? Some crazy nurse lady was stealing painkillers, injecting them into herself and then leaving the dirty syringes filled with saline for the patients. So I received a certified letter informing me of my possible exposure and then they told me they'd like to test me. Great. Love getting tested for Hep C. It's going to be awesome.
Good news though: out of the 5700 people possibly exposed, only like 7 have it. So hopefully I won't be number 8.


Ah, money, the thing we can't live without. The thing that drives us and drives us nuts.
Hunter is stressed out right now, and I don't blame him. He's hoping to get a second job at Starbucks (free coffee and health benefits!), so that should be nice.
I'm hoping to survive summer school. I've got a small part in an independent film shooting in August and I'm helping one of my professors cast a movie this next week.

Busy enough.

The Dominicks/Safeway regional manager called me today. He apologized, listened to me tell him that I was treated like a criminal, explained the policy (which is absolutely moronic, in my very valid opinion), I told him I understood the policy, but questioned its implementation. This exchange went on for quite awhile. In the end, I got a sort of apology, the promise that the store manager will be hearing from him personally, etc. etc. I told him not to get the workers in trouble, but that it was the manager and his female goon that embarrassed me and hurt my opinion of the integrity of the store. So you know, we evened out. Whatever. At least my emails got the attention of the regional manager. I feel a little bit better about that.

Well, a nice summer party tonight. Emily is out of town, so I'm heading down to South Michigan Ave to a friend's, where we will all hang out.

Good day.

Macbeth, Hamlet and the space between

Whoever answers the email for Safeway/Dominick's has got to be one of the most maddenly moronic people on the face of planet.
I replied that I would like to see the policy.
I receive an answer (some two days later) about military IDs and how all you really need is a picture, an expiration date, physical description and a birthdate. Huh. That's funny, because that's what I had.

Whatever. I'm done with these idiots. I'm satisfied that they have no idea what they're talking about.

I'm still waiting for my license. My temporary one has expired. I am doomed to drive in fear of being pulled over and also doomed to not play trivia on Sundays. Maybe my Passport needs to be over-nighted to my house so that I can at least do that.

Class today. In a funk. Put some of my clothes on hangers. Room still a disaster, but now I don't really know why.

Tired. Rainy. Ate a turkey sandwich. Drinking tea.
Class. Hamlet. I read Macbeth instead.
Life is like that.

....continues

Dear Ms. Barry:

Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding the alcohol policy at your local Dominick’s store.

Thank you for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention. We apologize that you were inconvenienced by our policy. Communication with our customers like you enables our continued improvement.

Please realize that our policy is in no way a reflection on you our valued customer. We continue to focus on partnering with our communities and local law enforcement to ensure that alcohol is not made available to underage purchasers. Our policies regarding identification are not meant to inconvenience a select group of our customers, but to make every effort to protect all of our customers, communities, and associates (who are personally liable for alcohol sales.)

You also expressed your concern regarding the quality of customer service provided by one of our associates at the checkstand in this regard as well as the checkout lanes at the store. We are sorry to hear that we are not meeting your expectations. It is not our intention to upset our valued customers, but to provide them with excellent customer service.

Your comments are important to us and have been forwarded to the Retail Operations Department as well as the Store Manager for further review and consideration. Thank you for your patience.

We are happy to know that you are otherwise satisfied with the overall atmosphere of the store. We continuously weigh options to provide the best shopping experience for our customers. Your appreciative comments will be shared with the staff.

If you would like to discuss this further, please reply to this email or call our toll free number at 1-877-723-3929 and reference contact I.D. 15040407. One of our associates will be happy to assist you.

We appreciate your business and look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you for shopping at Dominick’s.


Sincerely,

Michelle Babel
Customer Service Center



to which I replied:


Hello,

I appreciated a response to my comments, but I wish to know a little more about this policy.
Please realize that this Dominick's is right near a local university and there is an influx of differing state IDs. Perhaps more communication would be beneficial to ensure that the client base is aware of limitations that will be placed on their purchases.

I was completely unaware of it up until my encounter this weekend, which is odd considering I am a frequenter of your store and to date have had no problem with purchasing alcohol.

I am interested to know when (date and year, if possible) that policy was implemented and why it is not being implemented at Dominick's stores on a regular basis, and in that case, what is going to be done to ensure that it is implemented completely, both to save humiliation on your customers' behalf and to save your employees from being bothered as they so obviously were.
I merely hope to save myself trouble again and to spare the emotions of some other unsuspecting customer.

I would like to see the policy if at all possible if it is available on the Web. (I looked on your website and couldn't find anything.)

Thank you again for your attention and have a wonderful day,
Katherine Barry

Feel Better Grandma Mary!

First of all, and absolutely most importantly, I am sending out a web-call for prayers for Grandma Mary who is in the hospital right now. I hope that everything is alright and that she heals quickly and painlessly.
I love you, Grandma! I finally sent you your Valentine the other day, so be so excited to get it!!

Secondly, and quite important, but not nearly as important as Grandma:




Comments or Questions : Hello,

I was in a Dominick's/Safeway this afternoon and had a problem using my ID to purchase beer. I realize that this is hardly reason for complaint, but the problem was the verification of identification.
The Dominick's store at 6009 N. Broadway, Chicago, IL 60660 is normally a wonderful store. I have not yet had a problem there other than incredibly slow checkout lines, but that is to be expected.
I have an out-of-state ID, one which expired. In Colorado, where I am from, when an ID expires, the DMV punches a hole in the card and gives you an accompanying paper until you receive your new driver's license in the mail. I have been using that without any issue throughout Chicago for the last month and a half, still awaiting my new license. The problem is this: today I was denied sale.
Flabbergasted, I asked the female employee who checked my ID if I could speak to the manager. Her response was rather curt, informing me that he'd just say no, without any explanation as to why my ID wasn't going to work.
That's fine, but the reason that the manager, Todd, gave me was that they do not accept "invalid IDs." When I challenged him, he told me that employees have been told not to accept such IDs. He told me that he wasn't the police, and that he wasn't going to accept an invalid ID.
Mine is legally valid, and that's where my problem comes in. It is accompanied by an official state document.
I'm suggesting that instead of sporadically denying sale, your company either accept VALID identification (I spend most of my grocery money at your store, but am less inclined to do so now) OR have a more consistent denial policy, one that won't catch loyal customers off guard at inopportune moments. I was greatly embarrassed by the situation and was forced to leave my items at the very busy register.
I know that the Safeway corporation takes good care of both their employees and their customers. If employees are told to deny sale to people with temporary identification, then I as a customer would appreciate a follow-through, so at least I would have been made aware of such a rule as to "valid" identification before I had attempted to legally purchase alcohol. Perhaps signs could be posed throughout the store or at the registers?
That's fine as well. It's not the buying of the alcohol that I have a problem with, it's the
manner in which this policy is implemented. Had I known, I wouldn't have tried, but I've been successfully (and legally, I might add) purchasing alcohol from your store for nearly a month and a half, never encountering this type of problem.
I'd love to know what you as a company are going to do to solve this issue, both for me and for other patrons from different states with different ID policies. We'd like to be aware of your store's policies before we attempt to do something under the impression that we are legally allowed to do so.

Thank you for your time and understanding,
Katherine Barry

P.S. I do not have the physical club card, but when I get to the checkstand, I put in my cell phone number. (303-916-0080). Feel free to see any past beer purchases made on that card for reference.
Thanks again.



ugh. I've been waiting more than a month for my driver's license to arrive and I do not have my Passport. I had no idea that this was going to be such a problem. Colorado and the mail system need to get their act together.

Have a safe and happy 4th! We're having a "dress up like your favorite terrorist" party tonight just for the patriotism of it all!!!!

Having never even set foot into my third class, I dropped it. Nine hours in six weeks just wasn't going to do.
Hunter surprised me by picking me up from class today with a present! I was excited to find out what it was; he'd picked his favorite three pictures from our Colorado trip and put them in a frame for me.
The weather here is ridiculous. It's downright cold today. All the windows are closed in the house and I'm under a blanket trying to cram more Shakespeare in before class tonight.

Update. Quick.

It's been a really long summer, actually.
Even though time is flying by, I have yet to feel really at ease.
I'm tense, always. I've got a lot on my mind.
Classes start tomorrow. I'm already exhausted.
It's emotionally draining, these relationships, both with friends and lovers.
I've been walking a lot lately, trying to get in shape. I've been eating healthier, trying to cut out as much sugar as possible (so hard when you're a fiend like I am).
Remember surgery in January? Well, it did nothing, basically. So I'm trying to somehow make my body strong enough to fight off all of this. I'm joined an internet support group that caters to the growing number of women suffering like I am, suffering worse. But it's always bad news, so I try not to read their desperate posts. I'm hoping I'll never have to post one, full of anger, or fear, or pain.
It's never far from my mind, and even though I hope for the best, the worst haunts me. I'd rather be plagued by persistent obnoxious ghosts than plagued by this. It's terrifying.
It's taking a lot of my energy, and everyday I try to let it go a little bit.
My room is still in shambles. I've lost my need to be inside. The beach has been calling.
Today was the Gay Pride Parade in Boystown. Maddie and I went to watch the parade, see the protesters (who were ridiculously cruel, by the way) and to get some lunch. After, we headed to another neighborhood to browse and then returned home. Bar trivia tonight, hopefully lots of sleep, and then a long day tomorrow.
The end, for now.
Summer is beautiful, slipping so fast.