I bled through my sock and felt it starting to pool in my shoe, squishing slightly when I put weight on it. The pain radiated through my heel, but I was late, so I straightened my back and walked on. I made it to class right on time, sneaking in the door in time to walk straight to the front and then sit closest to the wall.
I'm currently sitting with my feet propped up on the empty chair next to me (this is the front row, after all, space to everywhere) in an attempt to stop the bleeding entirely. Of course, it's all my fault. Take a guess. No, don't. I stabbed my foot with a pen while walking around the apartment. It was sticking up out of a bag and I thought I'd stepped over it (I'm incredibly graceful, you know) but I hadn't. A red pen, of course, what else?
Emily washed my foot in the sink. We tried to find bandages in the apartment, but there were none. We had to go. She was on her way to rehearsal and I was on my way to class, not driving because I've been wasting parking money and I've got to stem the flow of cash. I've got a cotton ball wedged between my heel and a piece of gauze and bloody sock. It's a nice sight, really. But it's actually not as bad as I thought it would be, so it's looking like we're all good.
Oh okay, that was horrible.
Here's the prologue to my romance novel::
I must add a small prologue to my prologue: This is for a romance novel. It’s going to be cheesy at moments. Trust me, by the last sentence of this small bit you’ll be wincing.
There is no working title. There will be one eventually. To be passionate, one must be patient.
And thus, I begin:
It took her twelve hours to die. Toward the end, her breathing became labored and sweat glistened on her pale face. Her lip bled from where she had bitten into the pink flesh. The drops of blood dripped down onto her chest, which heaved erratically as she struggled to breathe. Her body had lost the will to fight, but her eyes remained focused on his face. As soon as the midwife told him, his gaze passed over her soon to be still body and never returned. She watched him quietly, her only sounds cries of pain or exhaustion.
At first he had been excited. He’d grasped her small hands in his and held them, whispering words on gentle encouragement in her ear. They’d rode the waves of pain together, smiling at the thought of their child. He’d mopped her brow with cool cloths and distracted her by telling her about the horse he was having delivered just for her. He’d ordered it the week before in London. She was a beauty, he said. Sixteen hands of gentle strength. Gentle strength, she’d whispered. His lips came down to caress her forehead, her nose and finally, her lips.
When they told him she was having a hard time of it, and he told her to buck up and be done with it. Her laugh was music to his ears. It would be her last. She grew tired, closing her eyes as she clenched her teeth against the pain.
The baby was turned, they said. Turn it, he’d ordered. It’s not that simple, they’d replied.
He promised that they’d buy their son a pony as soon as he was old enough to ride and the three of them would wander the fields together on summer afternoons. We’ll pack a basket, he said. We’ll go fishing. We’ll pick flowers. We’ll swim. He spit these lies to her even as he watched her beg for mercy, crying for death before life had left her.
He couldn’t meet her eyes, even though hers searched his face for comfort. He took the small bundle the midwife offered him and went outside, praying silently that there was something to be done. He looked down at the creature he held, rocking it against his chest, softly soothing it. It cried like her, he thought. She should have been holding their tiny miracle to her breast and smiling up at him. She wasn’t. He didn’t know what to do. A wrinkly pink child in exchange for his beautiful wife seemed a terrible bargain.
He knew before they told him. He handed the baby back to the midwife and stalked out of the house. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. He saddled his horse and rode for the forest. Minutes might have passed, or hours, but eventually he found a small dark clearing and screamed until the birds flew from the trees, flying to heaven with her, a melancholy procession as night fell.
The funeral was held days later. His tears had stopped He stood at her grave long after the other mourners had left, gone back to his house to enjoy his hospitality. He sat next to the freshly turned earth, holding her newly engraved stone, wishing he could see her eyes one last time. He wasn’t prepared. Questions swirled in his mind, flooding him with a nagging sense of guilt. This was his fault, he thought. His fault alone. The midwives were apologetic, upset as expected, but he knew it wasn’t they who had failed.
His mother had died as he’d been born. He should have known better than to sacrifice his wife for a child. She’d reassured him, telling him she’d have an easy birth, over and done before he even had time to worry. He’d believed her. He hadn’t questioned it again, the possibility hadn’t even occurred to him that she might have been wrong. He had killed her with his love, his desire to create the family he’d never known.
He knew then what he must do, and to him, it seemed an easy answer. His soul had just shattered, there would be no repair. He could never love again. He would never love again. He rose from her grave and slowly walked back into the home no longer filled with laughter.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Salad and Speaking Up
Not loving my Thursday night social work class. Love the idea of it, but in reality, it's a strange show and tell experience.
Last week, she asked us what we thought of our books so far. Well, I have a strong opinion about one of them. It's an 150-page book called "The Call to Social Work." Sounds nice, right? Wrong. It cost me $42 and it's a poorly written collection of personal stories. Essentially Chicken Soup for the Social Worker's Soul. I would have rather purchased the entire Chicken Soup collection and read it.
So I raised my hand.
And said all of that.
Oops.
I went up to her at the break and apologized. So I hope that helped, but probably not. Undermining a teacher's authority, albeit accidentally, is never a good thing. I had the support of the class too.
So I'm writing my paper and I have to make sure that it reeks of social work comprehension and compassion.
It will, of course.
Spinach, green apples, cranberries, french dressing, and a fried egg. Don't ask me why, but this is the salad I have been craving (and eating every day) all week. The egg isn't really part of the salad, it just lives on top. Today I put in blueberries. I realize it's gross, but it's so good.
Maybe I'm needing more iron? Eating tons of Cheerios too, and they're also a good source of iron.
Staying completely hydrated isn't as easy as it looks. Taking my thermos (omg, I'm in love) wherever I go and then also dragging around a water bottle.
This is cute procrastination, can you tell?
We're doing the preterite in Spanish this week and the first test is tomorrow. If I've been bad at anything thus far, it's Spanish. The first semester was remarkably easy, but this semester is proving to be a challenge and I'm reluctant to take it on. Ugh, between that and the 100 page report on public schools for a meeting tonight, as well as the readings for three other classes tomorrow and the five page paper, I'm starting to get stressed to the point of inactivity. Inactivity for me = frenzied activity doing anything unproductive. So far I've read skimmed a book on Tantra, critically analyzed two episodes of the Tyra (Banks) show for feminist content, made salad, typed a blog, worked out (again) and am now about to go make notecards for Spanish.
We're having a costume party at our apartment on Friday night, and I'm not sure how it's going to go. It was one of those things where random people are inviting random people that I'm not entirely sure about, but I'm not wary since everyone knows someone...anyway, I need to clean. (That's the moral of that story, I guess.) That's going to take me all of tomorrow and Friday. I want to put everything of value away, but have double-booked myself for Friday night. Hosting my own party but going down to something called Light Circles to see a friend talk and then see how it is. I'm not sure what to expect.
Sunday is the Super Bowl! I'm using my beloved Crock-Pot and making chili with cheddarwursts. I love the Midwest.
Last week, she asked us what we thought of our books so far. Well, I have a strong opinion about one of them. It's an 150-page book called "The Call to Social Work." Sounds nice, right? Wrong. It cost me $42 and it's a poorly written collection of personal stories. Essentially Chicken Soup for the Social Worker's Soul. I would have rather purchased the entire Chicken Soup collection and read it.
So I raised my hand.
And said all of that.
Oops.
I went up to her at the break and apologized. So I hope that helped, but probably not. Undermining a teacher's authority, albeit accidentally, is never a good thing. I had the support of the class too.
So I'm writing my paper and I have to make sure that it reeks of social work comprehension and compassion.
It will, of course.
Spinach, green apples, cranberries, french dressing, and a fried egg. Don't ask me why, but this is the salad I have been craving (and eating every day) all week. The egg isn't really part of the salad, it just lives on top. Today I put in blueberries. I realize it's gross, but it's so good.
Maybe I'm needing more iron? Eating tons of Cheerios too, and they're also a good source of iron.
Staying completely hydrated isn't as easy as it looks. Taking my thermos (omg, I'm in love) wherever I go and then also dragging around a water bottle.
This is cute procrastination, can you tell?
We're doing the preterite in Spanish this week and the first test is tomorrow. If I've been bad at anything thus far, it's Spanish. The first semester was remarkably easy, but this semester is proving to be a challenge and I'm reluctant to take it on. Ugh, between that and the 100 page report on public schools for a meeting tonight, as well as the readings for three other classes tomorrow and the five page paper, I'm starting to get stressed to the point of inactivity. Inactivity for me = frenzied activity doing anything unproductive. So far I've read skimmed a book on Tantra, critically analyzed two episodes of the Tyra (Banks) show for feminist content, made salad, typed a blog, worked out (again) and am now about to go make notecards for Spanish.
We're having a costume party at our apartment on Friday night, and I'm not sure how it's going to go. It was one of those things where random people are inviting random people that I'm not entirely sure about, but I'm not wary since everyone knows someone...anyway, I need to clean. (That's the moral of that story, I guess.) That's going to take me all of tomorrow and Friday. I want to put everything of value away, but have double-booked myself for Friday night. Hosting my own party but going down to something called Light Circles to see a friend talk and then see how it is. I'm not sure what to expect.
Sunday is the Super Bowl! I'm using my beloved Crock-Pot and making chili with cheddarwursts. I love the Midwest.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Type 4
Sometime in the middle of last night, Emily and I got to bonding and talking and pretty soon it was three in the morning. Well, needless to say, I slept through my first class of the morning (we're what, three weeks into the semester?) but I awoke feeling refreshed so perhaps it's not the end of the world.
Anyway, sometime during the middle of the bonding, I texted a friend with the strange recommendation that he should take the Enneagram test. Upon waking this morning and feeling weird about it, I decided to shift that for the better and tell you about me.
This was a struggle. It came about in high school. Mr. McGuire (of "Relationships and Sexuality" and Sister Katherine fame---let's push abstinence and see how far that gets us. He practices the FAM method and has like 6 kids. Is it working? No.) gave us all these personality tests. It took me a long time (read: years) to be comfortable with my number and I still don't like it. But it suits me.
You might be interested in taking the free test. It's about 40 questions and is oddly accurate and descriptive of your personality once you have reached the end.
If you're skeptical, just do it for fun. It's just a numbers game, anyway.
Google:: Free Enneagram Test and it'll pop right up
I feel like this is such a negative description, but you can see for yourself. Sure, I'm a highly emotional, experience-internalizing person yet I'm also a very wonderful human being, just in case you forget during the course of your reading.
Katie: Type 4
Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity. At their Best: inspired and highly creative, they are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.
We have named this type The Individualist because Fours maintain their identity by seeing themselves as fundamentally different from others. Fours feel that they are unlike other human beings, and consequently, that no one can understand them or love them adequately. They often see themselves as uniquely talented, possessing special, one-of-a-kind gifts, but also as uniquely disadvantaged or flawed. More than any other type, Fours are acutely aware of and focused on their personal differences and deficiencies.
Healthy Fours are honest with themselves: they own all of their feelings and can look at their motives, contradictions, and emotional conflicts without denying or whitewashing them. They may not necessarily like what they discover, but they do not try to rationalize their states, nor do they try to hide them from themselves or others. They are not afraid to see themselves “warts and all.” Healthy Fours are willing to reveal highly personal and potentially shameful things about themselves because they are determined to understand the truth of their experience—so that they can discover who they are and come to terms with their emotional history. This ability also enables Fours to endure suffering with a quiet strength. Their familiarity with their own darker nature makes it easier for them to process painful experiences that might overwhelm other types.
Nevertheless, Fours often report that they feel they are missing something in themselves, although they may have difficulty identifying exactly what that “something” is. Is it will power? Social ease? Self-confidence? Emotional tranquility?—all of which they see in others, seemingly in abundance. Given time and sufficient perspective, Fours generally recognize that they are unsure about aspects of their self-image—their personality or ego-structure itself. They feel that they lack a clear and stable identity, particularly a social persona that they feel comfortable with.
While it is true that Fours often feel different from others, they do not really want to be alone. They may feel socially awkward or self-conscious, but they deeply wish to connect with people who understand them and their feelings. The “romantics” of the Enneagram, they long for someone to come into their lives and appreciate the secret self that they have privately nurtured and hidden from the world. If, over time, such validation remains out of reach, Fours begin to build their identity around how unlike everyone else they are. The outsider therefore comforts herself by becoming an insistent individualist: everything must be done on her own, in her own way, on her own terms. Fours’ mantra becomes “I am myself. Nobody understands me. I am different and special,” while they secretly wish they could enjoy the easiness and confidence that others seem to enjoy.
Fours typically have problems with a negative self-image and chronically low self-esteem. They attempt to compensate for this by cultivating a Fantasy Self—an idealized self-image which is built up primarily in their imaginations. A Four we know shared with us that he spent most of his spare time listening to classical music while fantasizing about being a great concert pianist—à la Vladimir Horowitz. Unfortunately, his commitment to practicing fell far short of his fantasized self-image, and he was often embarrassed when people asked him to play for them. His actual abilities, while not poor, became sources of shame.
In the course of their lives, Fours may try several different identities on for size, basing them on styles, preferences, or qualities they find attractive in others. But underneath the surface, they still feel uncertain about who they really are. The problem is that they base their identity largely on their feelings. When Fours look inward they see a kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting pattern of emotional reactions. Indeed, Fours accurately perceive a truth about human nature—that it is dynamic and ever changing. But because they want to create a stable, reliable identity from their emotions, they attempt to cultivate only certain feelings while rejecting others. Some feelings are seen as “me,” while others are “not me.” By attempting to hold on to specific moods and express others, Fours believe that they are being true to themselves.
One of the biggest challenges Fours face is learning to let go of feelings from the past; they tend to nurse wounds and hold onto negative feelings about those who have hurt them. Indeed, Fours can become so attached to longing and disappointment that they are unable to recognize the many treasures in their lives.
As long as they believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with them, they cannot allow themselves to experience or enjoy their many good qualities. To acknowledge their good qualities would be to lose their sense of identity (as a suffering victim) and to be without a relatively consistent personal identity (their Basic Fear). Fours grow by learning to see that much of their story is not true—or at least it is not true any more. The old feelings begin to fall away once they stop telling themselves their old tale: it is irrelevant to who they are right now.
(depressing, right? but it's so true. my healthy self goes toward the one, which is organized and productive, channeling all of my energy into good things. While organization may not be one of my strong suits, channeling energy could be)
Anyway, sometime during the middle of the bonding, I texted a friend with the strange recommendation that he should take the Enneagram test. Upon waking this morning and feeling weird about it, I decided to shift that for the better and tell you about me.
This was a struggle. It came about in high school. Mr. McGuire (of "Relationships and Sexuality" and Sister Katherine fame---let's push abstinence and see how far that gets us. He practices the FAM method and has like 6 kids. Is it working? No.) gave us all these personality tests. It took me a long time (read: years) to be comfortable with my number and I still don't like it. But it suits me.
You might be interested in taking the free test. It's about 40 questions and is oddly accurate and descriptive of your personality once you have reached the end.
If you're skeptical, just do it for fun. It's just a numbers game, anyway.
Google:: Free Enneagram Test and it'll pop right up
I feel like this is such a negative description, but you can see for yourself. Sure, I'm a highly emotional, experience-internalizing person yet I'm also a very wonderful human being, just in case you forget during the course of your reading.
Katie: Type 4
Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity. At their Best: inspired and highly creative, they are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.
- Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance
- Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an
identity)
We have named this type The Individualist because Fours maintain their identity by seeing themselves as fundamentally different from others. Fours feel that they are unlike other human beings, and consequently, that no one can understand them or love them adequately. They often see themselves as uniquely talented, possessing special, one-of-a-kind gifts, but also as uniquely disadvantaged or flawed. More than any other type, Fours are acutely aware of and focused on their personal differences and deficiencies.
Healthy Fours are honest with themselves: they own all of their feelings and can look at their motives, contradictions, and emotional conflicts without denying or whitewashing them. They may not necessarily like what they discover, but they do not try to rationalize their states, nor do they try to hide them from themselves or others. They are not afraid to see themselves “warts and all.” Healthy Fours are willing to reveal highly personal and potentially shameful things about themselves because they are determined to understand the truth of their experience—so that they can discover who they are and come to terms with their emotional history. This ability also enables Fours to endure suffering with a quiet strength. Their familiarity with their own darker nature makes it easier for them to process painful experiences that might overwhelm other types.
Nevertheless, Fours often report that they feel they are missing something in themselves, although they may have difficulty identifying exactly what that “something” is. Is it will power? Social ease? Self-confidence? Emotional tranquility?—all of which they see in others, seemingly in abundance. Given time and sufficient perspective, Fours generally recognize that they are unsure about aspects of their self-image—their personality or ego-structure itself. They feel that they lack a clear and stable identity, particularly a social persona that they feel comfortable with.
While it is true that Fours often feel different from others, they do not really want to be alone. They may feel socially awkward or self-conscious, but they deeply wish to connect with people who understand them and their feelings. The “romantics” of the Enneagram, they long for someone to come into their lives and appreciate the secret self that they have privately nurtured and hidden from the world. If, over time, such validation remains out of reach, Fours begin to build their identity around how unlike everyone else they are. The outsider therefore comforts herself by becoming an insistent individualist: everything must be done on her own, in her own way, on her own terms. Fours’ mantra becomes “I am myself. Nobody understands me. I am different and special,” while they secretly wish they could enjoy the easiness and confidence that others seem to enjoy.
Fours typically have problems with a negative self-image and chronically low self-esteem. They attempt to compensate for this by cultivating a Fantasy Self—an idealized self-image which is built up primarily in their imaginations. A Four we know shared with us that he spent most of his spare time listening to classical music while fantasizing about being a great concert pianist—à la Vladimir Horowitz. Unfortunately, his commitment to practicing fell far short of his fantasized self-image, and he was often embarrassed when people asked him to play for them. His actual abilities, while not poor, became sources of shame.
In the course of their lives, Fours may try several different identities on for size, basing them on styles, preferences, or qualities they find attractive in others. But underneath the surface, they still feel uncertain about who they really are. The problem is that they base their identity largely on their feelings. When Fours look inward they see a kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting pattern of emotional reactions. Indeed, Fours accurately perceive a truth about human nature—that it is dynamic and ever changing. But because they want to create a stable, reliable identity from their emotions, they attempt to cultivate only certain feelings while rejecting others. Some feelings are seen as “me,” while others are “not me.” By attempting to hold on to specific moods and express others, Fours believe that they are being true to themselves.
One of the biggest challenges Fours face is learning to let go of feelings from the past; they tend to nurse wounds and hold onto negative feelings about those who have hurt them. Indeed, Fours can become so attached to longing and disappointment that they are unable to recognize the many treasures in their lives.
As long as they believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with them, they cannot allow themselves to experience or enjoy their many good qualities. To acknowledge their good qualities would be to lose their sense of identity (as a suffering victim) and to be without a relatively consistent personal identity (their Basic Fear). Fours grow by learning to see that much of their story is not true—or at least it is not true any more. The old feelings begin to fall away once they stop telling themselves their old tale: it is irrelevant to who they are right now.
(depressing, right? but it's so true. my healthy self goes toward the one, which is organized and productive, channeling all of my energy into good things. While organization may not be one of my strong suits, channeling energy could be)
Monday, February 01, 2010
This isn't an actual entry. But I guess it is.
Had the strongest urge to write but then I sat down and my words had run away....
tomorrow: or perhaps, at some later date: ha, this is a thought list. don't judge me.
-why I love commas (I think about this all the time and really don't think it's good enough to blog about)
-Chicago (subheadings: public schools, police, other things, food, culture, the red line idea...all the things I've learned, etc)
-women's bodies
-rap music as a means of cultural influence (problematic, yes, pervasive, also)
-discourse and its place in education
-education or life experience. jesuits. whole person-hood (yeah, that)
-graffiti as an art form (potentially) --also, how people in Chicago suck with spray paint
-I looked through all of my old photo albums on facebook today, and I realized that I have loved my life.
---subheaders--- juice of the vine, the shelf of knowledge, cat,
We're watching Friends. I guess I have to be Rachel. I'm not quite spacey enough to be Phoebe, although I love her dearly. I'm way too laid back to be Monica. Emily is Ross, maybe. I really want to be Chandler, but you know, we can't always get what we want.
tomorrow: or perhaps, at some later date: ha, this is a thought list. don't judge me.
-why I love commas (I think about this all the time and really don't think it's good enough to blog about)
-Chicago (subheadings: public schools, police, other things, food, culture, the red line idea...all the things I've learned, etc)
-women's bodies
-rap music as a means of cultural influence (problematic, yes, pervasive, also)
-discourse and its place in education
-education or life experience. jesuits. whole person-hood (yeah, that)
-graffiti as an art form (potentially) --also, how people in Chicago suck with spray paint
-I looked through all of my old photo albums on facebook today, and I realized that I have loved my life.
---subheaders--- juice of the vine, the shelf of knowledge, cat,
We're watching Friends. I guess I have to be Rachel. I'm not quite spacey enough to be Phoebe, although I love her dearly. I'm way too laid back to be Monica. Emily is Ross, maybe. I really want to be Chandler, but you know, we can't always get what we want.
Ikea/Graduation
The Ikea trip was unplanned and wildly successful. Maddie wanted to go for a drive and I never turn down an opportunity to get into the car, so we drove. We also forgot to look at the exits and ended up in Wisconsin. We crossed the border, took a picture (because Madeline has never been to WI) and then headed back. Ha, I thought, as we got back on the highway, we should just use my GPS.
You have a GPS? Maddie asks in exasperation.
I forgot, I lamely explained.
We named the GPS Gretchen (because she sounds mean) and then followed her directions all over Illinois, taking the back roads. We finally arrived at Ikea, which is actually only about a half hour from my house.
The place is a wonderland. I encourage you to Google it. It's like the Target of home furnishings, but on steroids. Amazing.
Also, they have 50 cent hot dogs. I mean, I would drive nearly anywhere for a 50 cent hot dog.
I got a desk, a chair and a bookshelf, as well as a new thermos for tea, some candles and wall pictures. My room is turning into a floral/impressionist/scenery sanctuary. It's colorful, but full of blues and greens. Comfortable.
Graduation news: Commencement will be held on the Lake Shore campus (sorry, not downtown) on Friday May 14, 2010 at 7pm. You should come. I'm assuming someone will buy me a sweet cake. I'll probably do that myself. It won't be chocolate. It will have chocolate frosting. It will not be in Loyola colors. Maybe I can get them to put my name and the year, obviously, but then superimpose a map of the Chicago transit system onto the cake. Or I could do that myself. Oooh, that isn't actually a bad idea. Anyway, Maddie and I were thinking of having a joint graduation party, but I think that idea has long since flown out the window. Maybe we'll have an open house? The only problem is my apartment is on the third floor of a walk-up. And old people (not anyone you know, of course) wouldn't be able to make it up and down those stairs. Trust me, I sometimes have a hard time.
So tired for some reason. Need to make it to the gym but I won't have time before night class.
I had a dream last night that I'm not going to get into DU. Back up preparations must begin. Apparently, MSCD is getting an MSW program, but not until fall 2011. Could go then? Maybe will get a PR job or do freelancing or something lame for awhile.
DPS is still a possibility.
So is that romance novel. Everyone who's read by BDSM paper thinks I have the chops for prose writing. That was a weird sentence and I understand that very little should be based off of a paper I wrote less than twelve hours before it was due.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day. So much theory packed into six hours is nearly overwhelming. I've lost the ability to look at anything without thinking about the feminist perspective. It's killing my reality tv, my rap music, my social life. The other day, I stopped a conversation about something to discuss the linguistic connotations that the words we were using had. While it's not a bad thing to be more aware of the hidden gender messages and ideas in society (blah, blah), it's annoying to have your mind constantly inundated with ideas about it.
Sometimes the Beastie Boys are just the Beastie Boys.
The weekend was fun. I'll put up some pictures.
You have a GPS? Maddie asks in exasperation.
I forgot, I lamely explained.
We named the GPS Gretchen (because she sounds mean) and then followed her directions all over Illinois, taking the back roads. We finally arrived at Ikea, which is actually only about a half hour from my house.
The place is a wonderland. I encourage you to Google it. It's like the Target of home furnishings, but on steroids. Amazing.
Also, they have 50 cent hot dogs. I mean, I would drive nearly anywhere for a 50 cent hot dog.
I got a desk, a chair and a bookshelf, as well as a new thermos for tea, some candles and wall pictures. My room is turning into a floral/impressionist/scenery sanctuary. It's colorful, but full of blues and greens. Comfortable.
Graduation news: Commencement will be held on the Lake Shore campus (sorry, not downtown) on Friday May 14, 2010 at 7pm. You should come. I'm assuming someone will buy me a sweet cake. I'll probably do that myself. It won't be chocolate. It will have chocolate frosting. It will not be in Loyola colors. Maybe I can get them to put my name and the year, obviously, but then superimpose a map of the Chicago transit system onto the cake. Or I could do that myself. Oooh, that isn't actually a bad idea. Anyway, Maddie and I were thinking of having a joint graduation party, but I think that idea has long since flown out the window. Maybe we'll have an open house? The only problem is my apartment is on the third floor of a walk-up. And old people (not anyone you know, of course) wouldn't be able to make it up and down those stairs. Trust me, I sometimes have a hard time.
So tired for some reason. Need to make it to the gym but I won't have time before night class.
I had a dream last night that I'm not going to get into DU. Back up preparations must begin. Apparently, MSCD is getting an MSW program, but not until fall 2011. Could go then? Maybe will get a PR job or do freelancing or something lame for awhile.
DPS is still a possibility.
So is that romance novel. Everyone who's read by BDSM paper thinks I have the chops for prose writing. That was a weird sentence and I understand that very little should be based off of a paper I wrote less than twelve hours before it was due.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day. So much theory packed into six hours is nearly overwhelming. I've lost the ability to look at anything without thinking about the feminist perspective. It's killing my reality tv, my rap music, my social life. The other day, I stopped a conversation about something to discuss the linguistic connotations that the words we were using had. While it's not a bad thing to be more aware of the hidden gender messages and ideas in society (blah, blah), it's annoying to have your mind constantly inundated with ideas about it.
Sometimes the Beastie Boys are just the Beastie Boys.
The weekend was fun. I'll put up some pictures.
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