Sleep>consciousness>being out of bed

I'm very tired of life at this point. It makes me wonder about this medication, because I've been better about my diet, better about exercise, and better about my sleep schedule than I have for months. I am feeling ever the more unwilling to date, or even make friends. Life involving other people seems sometimes to be solely a source of discomfort proportionate to my care for them. On days like today, I wish I lived in a cave and ate tubers.

Perpetual stupidity

Why do I have so many memories of being stupid, and doing stupid things, and thinking stupid things? Am I doomed to stupidity memories forever? I've been thinking about how I would feel in twenty years about my obsession with Broom Curls. I want to say I would agree with my present self, that I have reason to be depressed, obsessed, and inconsolable. I'm not so sure, though. If I'm singing lullabyes to my little daughter, could I really feel that any part of the life that brought me there wasn't worth it?

This, I guess, has to do with accepting the past. It doesn't matter what would be best. What's happened has happened, and it's time to move on. Of course, no matter how hard I try to convince myself, I know that Curls is still a part of the present. I can continue to spend my life seeking her favor with a minuscule chance of return, or I can continue on with what I have, with no chance of spending my life with her at all. It's a gamble.

Lunaphile

I think I've decided that I love the moon.

I was running this morning, and the moon was there, waiting. It had been on the other side of the sky when I walked home the night before. When the moon has waxed full, it seems like the perfect friend for a jaunt, always up for whatever distance you want. Sometimes it's even out during the day, and somehow that seems more spectacular even than its enormous presence in the evening.

Today is study day. And it's also one week from Regina Spektor's concert! I get to study for the next forever, and I'm surprisingly okay with that. Many of the projects I have going on are sincerely interesting. Hopefully I finish, though. Wish me luck.

Getting to know me myself

I...am annoyed with someone. I'm pretty sure this is the second time in years. I was frustrated with Broom Curls because she wasn't very dependable. She wasn't a liar or anything, she just didn't have the sense of obligation to appointments that I do. Part of the reason I don't like scheduling things is that I feel guilty if I miss them.

This time, it's nothing to do with my schedule. It's just attitude. I don't know how to explain it...just a deep-rooted dichotomy in our perception of the world. I've talked with some close friends about what to do with this juxtaposition of opinions, and it's become flat-out obvious what I need to do. Where I simply disagree, I already know how to deal with it. If I find myself truly miffed, I need to resort to either confrontation (probably without success in the end) or spending less time hanging out.

I'm practicing the clarinet, and taking lessons from Facebook Tutor. It's an adventure, and rather a good sit-in for my AFI 100 goal. I'll have to find something to replace this replacement after a while. I don't have a very good long-term attention span (for things that you think of in months, rather than minutes). I'm also getting semi-lessons on art from Paint Boots, so that should keep me busy. And then there's that whole life thing that keeps getting in the way of the fun.

Happy life wakeup-age

I woke up this morning! Yay! I picked up the CSA produce and an attractive pumpkin! Yay! I checked out a laptop and renewed some books! Yay! I'm listening to Chief Justice Roberts! Yay!

And I'm not a fully fledged jerk. Yay. =) A number of days ago, when my flatmate and I talked about a spiritual realm, I couldn't separate in my mind the absurdities of God from the concepts of extrasensory reality. I had never discussed spiritual reality outside of a theistic context, and said that I disregarded all spiritual experiences, attributing them all to acute instances of hallucination. My atheism spanned to obliterating anything even loosely religious. Roommate K told me respectfully that he felt I was being extremely arrogant claiming that I knew better than millions of people who had had spiritual experiences.

I've been thinking about this, because I was stung a bit by the label of arrogance. Some time in the last couple days, I altered my position. I still find the idea of a benevolent supreme being difficult to swallow, but I do not have any specific evidence of the nonexistence of a spiritual world. I don't believe in it, but the main reason for this is the similarity and coordination between spiritual experiences and religious experiences. It will take a while for me to separate the two, and for the time being, I suspend judgment on the existence of the spiritual. K is pleased to hear I've opened my mind just a bit.

Overcoming apathy

It's amazing how hard it is to care in the morning. I managed to wake up at 7:30, after waking up to three alarms, plus a couple snoozes. I was awake, looked around the room for a while--completely awake, mind you--and just couldn't care enough to stand up. So I laid there until I was asleep, and then I was late for class and almost late for my make-up test session.

My tremor has gotten worse. I can't do anything that involves midair techniques, like threading a needle or other things I can't think of right now. I'm trying to eat better, and I'm generally succeeding.

It's so good that my life is easy right now. Otherwise I would be so far behind I'd never get out of bed again.

What makes life worth living? Is all of this junk just because of my attitude toward life?

Sleep versus life

I spent the majority of today--1:30 am to 5:00 pm--sleeping. It was lovely. For about two thirds of the day, I didn't have to deal with anything. I didn't have to deal with my classes, my tests, my feelings, my medication, my life. If only fairy tales were true, and Snow White apples and Aurora spinning wheels were prolific. Unfortunately, it seems more like the case of the Beast, or something more along the lines of a horror story.

I decided I hate dating today, and suddenly I'm going on two doubles in the next week. How does that happen? I got plenty enough shaftage over the past three days, and was convinced that trying to accomplish anything was a waste of time. And as soon as I gave up, everything became easy. That's the story of my life. In high school, I busted my butt to get a 4.0, and as soon as I stopped trying, I got about 25 awards and a full-ride to BYU.

Meds

Starting last night, I'm on lithium. That brings my current daily medication to 1150mg -- 550 for my liver and 600 for my kidneys. The lithium is for the bipolar mood disorder I might have, and will hopefully fill in the gap the other medications haven't. However, weight gain is common with lithium, so I need to be sure to drink lots of water and watch what I eat.

I called up Lab Girl. about going to Divine Comedy yesterday, but she didn't pick up or call back. I called Facebook Personal with the same result. So now I'm landed like a trout, with no option to call elsewhere, because I left a message with Personal. I hate dating. Why can't I be in love with pasta or something nice like that?

We had the Burma rally today. I woke up, helped out with fliers and shopping, went home, and accidentally slept through the whole thing. Bleh. Anyway, Roommate B got cited for his huge cloth flag thing.

Eye candy at 11:00 (Julia Roberts look-alike) and 1:00 (face of an eastern European model). Isn't it strange that a face can be so enormously attractive, just by itself? The weirdest thing I think is the sudden inability to control eye movement. Not like a full-body checkout, but it's just...like art. It's like the most intriguing art in the world, a woman's face. I feel like there must be something similar with men, but that isn't the way it seems. I can't seem to grasp it. Maybe I'll make up a survey to see what face shapes are more/less attractive to different groups of women (e.g., age, cultural origin, media exposure, educational background, career, relationship status).

I'm making dinner tonight, and I have about a million onions from the co-op. I'll figure something out, I guess.

Wow.

I've been a bit busy, and right now I'm feeling a bit woozy from a power-sized peanut butter moo'd[R] from the Juice of Jamba.

Interesting tidbit: I can't find any nouns, adjectives or adverbs, or verbs that begin with the voiced 'th' sound (e.g. these, nether, prithee). Why? So weird.

I finished the American Film Institute's 1997 '100 Movies...100 Films' list. We (some friends and I) watched Tootsie at my place with a projector displaying it on our living room wall. There was lots of healthy and unhealthy snack food available, but I was sad that there weren't so many people there. It's hard to free up weekends in college, I know how it is. Anyway, I feel like I need to actually do something with all this knowledge I received through these movies. I'm still trying to decide what would be a good use of my studies, and I can't think of much. Eventually, I'll have to make a video of the best parts of the movies and put comments on each for a better explanation of the value of the film. In the meantime, I'm going to collapse in a corner and sleep.

In the morning

I seem to be in a recurring pattern of oversleeping one night and undersleeping the next. I guess what I need is for someone to chuck some ice water on me first thing in the morning tomorrow.

I really want to learn Argentine Tango.

* * * * * * * * *

Wake up time, and I actually woke up. Of course, I was half out of it and late, so I managed to dress horribly. I can't remember the last time I looked so bad--I couldn't have made myself uglier if I'd tried. I should take a picture for posterity.

Now it's time to catch up in my internship assignments. I'm only about three months late. Somehow, I have to get signatures from either my tutoring student or program adviser, and I have to write up some internship papers.

Okay. Two sad articles. Please read these and consider them.

Coalition morality - Government officials blame deaths of 15 women and children on the 21 terrorists who held meetings in their neighborhood.

Nobel turns over in grave - Al Gore and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Seriously, people. If we can use the logic of the former article, I could be shot through the head at any moment because of the escaping criminal behind me.

And in the latter, the Nobel Prize for Peace--Peace--goes to a guy who has done nothing but complain about the greenhouse effect. Peace. Not the Nobel Climate Prize. Nobel Peace. Do we really suck so bad at peace that some guy who made a movie about something we've all known since kindergarten can get the most socially significant award in the world?

Isn't it strange how we change?

I was talking to my friend Stage Presence about what to study and being behind and stuff, and just realised all of a sudden that I was basically caught up in all my classes. I remembered a year and a half ago, falling asleep in almost every class, and failing 7 out of 7.5 credits (the other class was a dance class--hard to fall asleep).

Okay--quick sidestep for the worst movie plot I've ever heard of.

"Mamie is being blackmailed. This filmmaker named Nick claims to know Mamie's son...(read more...) -- the one she gave up for adoption -- but Nick won't introduce her to him unless he can film the reunion. Enter Javier, Mamie's massage therapist boyfriend, who convinces Nick to film him instead. Now they're all making a movie about massage. Charley has a longtime boyfriend named Gil. Their best friends, Pam and Diane, once tried using Gil as a sperm donor. They said his sperm didn't take, but Charley thinks those control-freak lesbians are lying. Pam and Diane's two-year-old son looks exactly like Gil. And, it's time to set the record straight. Jude is pissed. Not at anyone in particular. Just in general. When her cousin kicks her out of the house, Jude shacks up with Otis, who's still trying to convince his father, Frank, that he's straight. Frank's a widower. And, he's rich. So Jude decides to sleep with him, too. The last thing she expected was to fall in love."

And the library's closing. I'll finish this up later.

Trippy

I have never ever had such a strange waking up experience before.

Side note: Guy That Looks Like Christian Bale is one seat to the left of me on the other side of the island.

And does iTunes read minds when it picks songs? It's played three favorites in a row--like, I bought these three albums (alba?) for one song each, and those are the three iTunes picked. It's Providence, I suppose. Thanks, God.

Anyhow, I woke up at about 6:00 am and had the very distinct impression that I shouldn't/couldn't move. It was odd--sort of like catatonic schizophrenia, i guess. So I sat there for like five minutes in a slightly uncomfortable position, and suddenly decided that I could move if I wanted to. A minute or two later, I wanted to. A minute or two after that, I bothered to.

And then I fell asleep again.

And I had another dream about being chased. It's not [iTunes messed up right here] that "I'm trying to run and can't" sort of dream. It's more of a "Bourne Identity" kind of chased, like I have to be in perpetual motion or the They will catch me. I bet half of the dreams I remember when I wake up are along this train of thought. I should really look it up and pick my brain apart. With tweezers.

[I want one of Mrs. Wagner's pies, so I can walk off to look for America.]

Last night I had a hard time again. My friend Dance Therapist walked me around for a bit and listened and was just generally there for me. It was really nice, because we seemed to share a physical language, just being close and touching. I say that and it sounds sexual, but it wasn't. I've never had a sister, but I'm guessing that's what hugging one would be like. I didn't feel like I had to pull away to avoid social taboo, except for when people walked by. Feeling the calming touch of someone who wasn't my mom helped me on the road to believing that some day I can be happy without Broom Curls, and that was so helpful. I need to feel that I can count on someone to be there for me--not just emotionally, but physically also.

I still need to call Lab Girl. and ask her for a date. It's strange trying to go on dates, because I want to invest myself in it, but somehow I can't. I'm just being socially acceptable, and can't really even make friends. I feel hollow. Should I call her and set up a date and hope that after going on enough dates with enough girls, I'll get into the swing of things and enjoy myself? I guess I'll invite her to this Tootsie thing on Saturday. It's going to involve way too many people to feel funky, and maybe the junk food will work to loosen me up.

If I haven't mentioned Syntax yet, I will now. Poopy, poopy Syntax. Today completely solidified my belief that it makes no sense. Of course, I've noticed that when I have a hard time understanding something, I ridicule it to keep from feeling stupid. But I still think I'm right. =)

So, yesterday I woke up at like 2:00 pm, and there was a package for me. I opened it, saw that it was my Regina Spektor CD, and then fell asleep. Honestly, sometimes I couldn't go out any faster if I was using a tranquilizer gun. I need to exercise more, but every time I go running, I do something wrong, and then I have tendinitis for a week. And yes, that's spelt right. I should probably fix up my bike and start biking. Or maybe I should go swim at the RB. Votes?

Strangenesses

My eyes sting. Stupid crazy tear ducts.

I slept through almost all my classes today. I was late for my last one, because I woke up at 4:00. Yes, PM.

I'm posting pictures to Facebook right now, and there are way a lot of them. I tried to spruce them up--the color balance and so forth-- because they were often too dark/bright.

This is one of those times when I feel like I'm writing in my blog just to write in my blog.

I listened to conference over the weekend. Most of it I had a hard time tuning into, but one of the ones that really did it for me was Jeff Holland's on Christianity. I think he explained the LDS faith well: people claiming authority--not of Nicea, but of Christ himself.

Playing in puddles

I went to "Across the Universe" last night. One of the movie's kisses seems to have set me off, and I cried through the last third of the film and all the way back to my friends' place. I walked home from there, and felt as upset as ever until I saw a clogged storm drain. The Wet Seal store in the mall where we watched the film was giving out hangers for free, so I had taken three. I took off my shoes, rolled up my pant legs, and used a hanger and my hands to clear the debris from the grate.

It's really something to watch--one of the best parts of a good rain. It had been raining all evening, so the backed up pool had come over the curb and stretched across the road. I walked through the water, stepping up onto the curb, and then used one of my new hangers to sound out the asphalt at the edge of the street. I quickly found the soft feel of clumps of soggy leaves, and knew that must be where the grate was. After scraping for a while with the hanger, I gave up and scraped with my hand, my left shirt cuff rolled up above my elbow.

Everyone should try this at some point. You pull the leaves out, and it's like pulling the drain plug on an enormous tub; the water begins to whirl around into a rather large tornado, and you can see the water level dropping. You continue to pull leaves off the grate as they continue to clot the storm drain like a heart attack victim's ventricles. Eventually you accidentally open another hole in the thick coating of leaves on the drain, and another whirlpool opens up.

Pseudoscientists take note: the Coriolis effect, which makes storms north of the equator spin counterclockwise and south of the equator clockwise, has no effect on latitude differences as small as toilets, tubs, or even huge pools in the middle of the road. The first tornado spun clockwise and the second spun counterclockwise. This makes sense because whirlpools, like electrons or gears, like to spin in opposite directions in order to (in the case of whirlpools and gears, at least) reduce friction, spinning complementarily instead of contrarily.

Doing something I hadn't done much since childhood lightened my mood a bit, partially because doing something so odd in the middle of the night made me feel so carefree.

Anyway, I'm feeling a bit better. I really need to set up dates with those girls and get myself socialising again.

I feel happy! I feel hap--oof!

I think I'll go for a walk.

I must have some of the coolest friends in the world.

I went back to the Cliché and Collusion with 30s Gangster, and oh the fun. We (she--I just stood there looking happy) even got to be interviewed by the girl with the clipboard. Last time I did that I got like a $15 gift certificate to the MOA souvenir shop thing.

School's going pretty great, except that Theoretical Syntax is evil. As far as I can figure out, we're learning to understand language in the same way computers do. There's a reason people beat supercomputers at chess, people. Why the heck am I trying to emulate one?

Apparently, I may have some Canadian Native American in me. By this I mean America the continent, Canada the country, by which I mean some great grandpa RCMP or something went out and found him a nice native girl, eh?

Problem is that all of the names I know on that side of the family are the grandparents still kicking old age's trash. I mean, it's a good thing they're still around, but it doesn't help me to identify my grandma Veda Pilling LeBaron's parentals. Her records don't emerge until she's buried. I'll have to ask my dad to send me a family tree, and so forth.

Other than Eskimos, I have unfortunately never heard of a Native...Canadian before. And apparently Canada shares the honor of Eskimos with Greenland -- today in Phonology we learned about the phonological structure of the Greenlandic Eskimo tongue (language). I hear there's even a picture of my Non-Indo-European foremother and her husband. That would be cool, eh?

The true purpose of scientific discovery is expanded sense of humor.

My dad just sent me two very eccentric scientific studies. One is hilarious, and the other one is slightly funny, but mainly just interesting to me (others may find it only funny).

Awesome Brother

My awesome brother being awesome again. Click on the picture, and check out under 'Evergreen High School'.

Saving birds, one marshmallow at a time.

I love my literacy teacher. That's definitely my favorite class, and it's basically just because he's so cool.

I have two amazing new songs: the Captain Planet Theme (worse than I remembered) and a Punjabi/50 cent mix. It's amazing, and I'm going to do what I can to get it onto this blog. Man, it's great.

I am the craziest sleep crazy ever. Two nights ago I slept 15 hours, and missed every single class, including the 3:00 one. Last night I didn't sleep at all, and amused myself with the Gospel of John and downloading my favorite music onto my palm pilot for no good reason. Some day I'm really going to have to try sleeping healthy hours.

I am still on a quest to discover the best milkshake ever. I'm getting closer--yesterday I had a marionberry one, and it was pretty dang good.

The Law according to Andy

So, I went through and blandified a bit of my blog. I caught myself writing the way I do in my journal. I don't think that's a bad thing, but some things aren't for public consumption and would probably cause some discomfort among the general public.

I've been thinking a lot about Fairtax. It's a pretty cool idea, and you should learn more about it if you hate income tax. I still have a ton of questions, but they're more and more to understand the Fairtax and less to test it. And who really wants the IRS? Well, I guess a lot of accountants and IRS workers. I wonder if there's something we can do about that.

Speaking of which.... Isn't it interesting that even with the technology we have, people still have to work to get basic necessities? Why? Working for cars, for mansions, for ice cream, for cigarettes, for mascara I can understand. But why, for the love of Grace, do we have to struggle to purchase food produced by machines and the Earth (and minimal labor, when compared to yield)?

The cool thing about Fairtax as I know it is that products are not taxed, only retail. This could feasibly increase local family farm income, as their product wouldn't be taxed until it was being sold by a grocery store. I don't know if this actually is the case, but I have a feeling I've got it right. Someone correct me if not. The prebate is ingenious, by the way. Props, Fairtax. A prebate sent at the beginning of the year will make up for the taxes paid on the bare necessities of life. Baloo would be proud.

This leaves one thing to be desired, as far as I'm concerned. I don't think a single person should have to work for basic necessities (food, clothing, basic housing). A healthy life is the right of every human being, whether they're complete slobs or Mother Teresa. Anything beyond poverty, however, must be earned (in my eyes).

This brings me to another problem, though. Capital punishment. Slobs are fine, but should a murderer (a person who has violated another person's right to live) retain the right to life? Should a rapist (a person who has violated another person's right to health) retain that right? The more I think about it, the more strongly I feel the answer is no. No, no, flat out no.

What about those innocent people who are charged with murder? This is perhaps the ugliest answer I've ever heard, but they are casualties--language suggested to me by a close friend. The war is between those who would violate another's right to life and those who would support another's right to life. In the fight to save lives of innocent people, there is a chance of good people being caught in the crossfire. I believe we should do everything in our power to support the concept of "innocent until proved guilty" (UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11; emphasis added), but recognise that errors are made in the system in which we reside, and will certainly be lessened when every murderer or rapist understands that werf can go through with the crime, but can plan on being charged, convicted, and punished in kind (murder=death penalty).

Let me know the problems with this argument. I hate it, but I support it. Not for justice, but for the lives and innocence of those who will be assaulted or killed due to our fear of misjudgement (Matthew 23:24).