You'lll Shoot Your Eye Out, Kid

One week from right now I will be on a plane back to Texas, the day after Christmas.

Doing it that way has me sort of excited. It means the whole Christmas thing is sort of drawn out, celebrated here with the family and in Texas with the friends. I'm looking forward to that.

Tonight I found myself getting angry because I heard about someone's random play. It's sort of stupid of me, I know, because I don't have any control over it and it doesn't affect me (Dan is so rational sometimes, telling me not to worry if it doesn't affect me, but I can't help it sometimes).

What ever happened to going out on a date with someone before getting into stuff like that? Why do people put themselves out there like that, and why aren't there some people with the dignity not to take everything possible as soon as possible? Can't anyone turn anything down these days?

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

And by the way, yeah, I'm done getting self-righteous now. I have very, very few things to get annoyed with as far as my own life goes. Except perhaps that the cat keeps taking my seat if I ever get up and go to my room or kitchen. She's addicted to warm spots. And there's a Biore Pore Perfect commercial about do you ever wish you could wear 4-inch heels without the pain? Or have perfect skin without too much shine or oil? Every single girl in that commercial is wearing a scarf. Take a look. It's vaguely funny.

My sister gets in tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that because it will be the family back together again. The four of us are better together than all separated. She called me at 1 a.m. to tell me about a white-light horse at Wal-Mart, like those reindeer people put in their yard. I think she was right: no one else would get it.

This is the first Christmas without Ginger, our orange tabby cat. He died in May, and it's weird having the tree up without him sleeping under it all the time and hooking all the ornaments down with his paws. He was 18 years old when he died, and Mom hung up his favorite knit ornament in honor of him, down where he could have reached it if he wanted to.

It seems Christmas Carol-ish, but everything this time of year is a big jumble of the past, present and future. And all three are pretty good. And TBS is still doing the 24 hours of the Christmas Story. Score.

I Survived!

Monday night I flew into the Tampa airport, my first time in Florida since right after my freshman year. Back then, I'd been out of school for about two weeks and my friend Christine from TCU drove to Alabama, where we were living, and she and I drove down to Fort Walton Beach in north Floriday for the day. We got THE WORST sunburns ever. Ever. Seriously. I fell asleep on my stomach, and thank god my ass didn't get burned, but I couldn't sit except on the edge of chairs for a few weeks. It blistered the back of my legs. Just when I recovered from that, I shattered my arm falling off a horse and was in a splint for months. Altogether, the sunburn involved more pain.

Bu yeah, I'm back in Florida. It's 75 degrees right now. I went out to practise my lacrosse skills so Dan doesn't kill me on the practise field, and it was hot and sunny and I was in a tanktop and rolled-up jeans and still hot. My goal is to get a little bit of a tan out there on the raquetball court. It would be fantabulous.

Tuesday I slept till noon, lounged around the house with the cat, went out for a walk, and spent the evening with my parents. Yesterday I got up and started some work on my final project, my feature about nature and hurricanes for my magazine writing class with Doug. I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon, and that took way longer than I expected, so I had to rush to finish my feature. It got sent it at deadline, but I'm not happy with it. I don't think it's nearly as good as it could be.

Which is disturbing. I thought I wanted to be a science magazine writer, but I have zero aptitude for magazine writing. Doug talks about the differences between a notion and an idea, and all my story pitches fell flat, except the last one, and this is the topic I least wanted to write about. But what can you do? At least I still largely whupped everyone else's ass in the newswriting class.

I like the XM radio commercial where Snoop's bling gets ripped by David Bowie.

I also like being here with my parents, but Florida is not home. I love my parents so, so much, and I'm so grateful to them for everything they give me, but my life is not here anymore. My life is in Boston, with Megan and school and my schoolmates, and my life is in Fort Worth, with my sister and friends and school and Topper and Dan. With my teeth pretty feeling again and my mouth all fresh and all of me feeling showered and unstressed and relaxed and cute again, I'm so ready to kiss him and have him around all the time again.

Don't get me wrong, I liked kissing Miss Erin Steen last New Year's, but now that she's engaged in Wisconsin, I dunno if I could arrange that again. I think Dan will make a good substitute, though. =c)

The Worst Story Ender Ever

So you know that whole cliche of "Only time will tell"? That's what I've been thinking of for the past few weeks because I wasn't sure how I'd be doing by the time stuff ended at school for the semester. But my video group got our documentary on bacteria that breathe uranium done (funky-fresh) and today I got most of my radio documentary on Dumpster diving situated, ready to be finalized and polished Monday. Tonight (or maybe tomorrow, I'm feeling sort of lazy) I'll do my last news article, and then Wednesday I'll finish my feature article about hurricanes and their effects on nature.

Tuesday night I left at 8:30 p.m. and returned Wednesday morning at 4:30 a.m. for my Dumpster diving stuff. It was fucking freezing outside, and I ran out of batteries and tape, but I still had a rocking good time (I think this is the story to define this semester for me). Just ask me about it and how cool it was.

I was dead tired for my 9:30 class on Wednesday, needless to say, after 3 hours of sleep, and after class we had to tidy our film documentary and then head out to Gino's. Since he's an actual big-time producer, he had a nice place outside the city with a gorgeous little studio. I want a writing-slash-art studio like that some day. But our film got a pretty good reception, and afterward we got to see a bit of the major documentary Gino's been working on. It'll be pretty nifty when it comes out.

Thursday morning our radio professor showed up, bitched us out for not having our stuff done (she's KNOWN this for weeks, that our stuff would be late) and then cancelled class. I figured I'd take a nap on the department couch and then get to work on other stuff, but I fell asleep for three hours. I gave up and went home and got some work done there and had pizza with Chelsea and then did internship applications.

On Friday I did more internship stuff and stuff for my news article. And then today, Saturday, I was supposed to work from 8 to 3, and I ended up calling and telling them I couldn't go in. I had found out that they were shutting down the school at 4, and I needed to do my radio stuff. It was also supposed to be my last day of work, and I could tell from the phone that I majorly pissed off the manager. Does it make me a horrible person to call out on my last day of work? I suck at being a normal employee.

So my Saturday was spent at school. I'm in this time warp; it's hard to believe it's the weekend because it doesn't seem like it. But most of my radio stuff is sort of okay. If I get out of class early Monday and have a few hours between that and when our class got rescheduled to meet, I'll be fine.

Right now I should be doing laundry, but I'm not. I should be cleaning, but I'm not. Maybe I should be packing, or writing my news article, but I'm not. I'm in bed with my computer on my lap and thinking about going to sleep at 10 on a Saturday night. Rock on, baby, rock on, rock on.

Only time will tell . . . but now I think I can survive this pretty well.

Cowboy Boots And Wool Coats (And Dumpsters)

It's been about forever since I updated this thing. Sorry to anyone who had a spare 10 minutes on their hands and was desperate enough to wonder, geez, if Liz's thing were up, I could procrastinate a little bit more . . . But let me just say that right now, I feel good. My throat is sore and I'm all stuffy, but really, I'm feeling okay. Things (as of today) are coming together with school for the last push, and I'm SO ready for a good month-long vacation. I'm giddy at the thought of all the fun it's going to be, and I'm so excited to be getting on to spending all my time with my favorite people.

A quick update on why I didn't update. Okay, I lied, this isn't going to be short at all. But I haven't updated in a while, right? And it's the end of the year and you guys need to waste as much time as possible because there's so much to do.

I was going back and forth from Texas and then doing four reporting classes and working on Saturdays at the cafe . . . I spent Thanksgiving with Dan's family. It was a good time; they all feel completely like family, and how can I NOT have fun if I'm with Dan, but coming back I got a cold. Now, a week after I came back and got really sick, I'm still feeling a bit off and with school and work, I doubt I'll get better before I go to Tampa.

(For the record, this is the second time I've come back from Texas sick.)

But anyway, I got back and had this near panic attack because of all the work that has to be done. I have news articles, a big-ass feature article, and two documentaries, one of which is a group project. To make things better, it's a group project with Pat, a guy who drives me nuts, and Jon, a guy who actually dropped out of the program. So, that's awkward. Yesterday there was a fiasco when Pat and I agreed about a type of script that adhered to what the professor said and Jon wanted something completely different and would not compromise. At all. Merely yelled at us, instead.

The whole thing is bizarre. But my other documentary, my radio one, is slowly coming together. It's about Dumpster diving. It will hopefully rock like a mo'fo, and I'm trying to get out to go wade around in Dumpsters. I'm excited, I have to admit. There's a huge culture out there. It started with Loren sending me an article about freegans (free+vegan), vegans who get all their veggie-happy food out of Dumpsters. They get a lot of other things out of the trash, too. Now, I'm a huge fan of Goodwill, and half the stuff in there should in the trash, but actually swimming through trashbags and other, real, genuinely gross stuff? Stay tuned. Hopefully I'll have some awesome stories to share over drinks when I hit Cowtown again.

Also on the topic of radio, the professor offered me a TA position next semester. I'd get $1000 for about five hours of work a week, as opposed to the about $700 I've made this semester working eight hours a week at the cafe. This is happy because now I get to quit. I've never quit a job before, really quit. I'm excited. I want out of there fast. I don't hate it, but I really don't like it. Any not having to deal with difficult customers? Golden.

My articles are slow going, but they'll get done. Like I said, I had a near panic attack this week. I just felt like there was so much, and then there was a final exam thrown into everything, and it was a pain. Plus, sick and not enough sleep. But! There is good news. For example, Betty Crocker now makes little cakes you just pop in the microwave. And they're good, too.

It's Friday night. Next Friday night, I will be finished with everything but my feature article. Then a few days after that, on Monday, I'll be on my way to Tampa for Christmas (and to finish my feature article). Back to Fort Worth on the night of the 26th to join in the debauchery of Dan's 21st. The adventure of that may beat even Dumpster diving.

If I can survive the next week, I'll be set. It's turning cold again. I've been told it's been a really, really mild fall, and I guess I believe it. Today I broke out my wool coat. I love it. I feel important in it, and it was supposed to snow late this afternoon so I wore my boots. (Not my snow boots. I still haven't come to peace with those.) Cross fingers it doesn't snow before I go home. I don't want to deal with walking on ice in addition to everything else. I'm busting my ass as is without needing to fall on it, too.