Despite everything going to school, learning a bit of binary, even learning Access and Excel are when I have my best moments. Where I feel connected to other people and even though I don’t talk about anything important I feel good about what I’m talking about.

I’m learning to take joy in tiny things even as everything else is coming apart and I’m not sure what the proper response to that is. I don’t want to be one of those people who will find miserable things to say to other people (e.g. ‘I did —- with my friend at a party’ ‘I hate parties’).

I’m either sentimental or miserable (which I don’t verbalize in the fashion of the example I made because that’s just toxic). There need to be more options.

- Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

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This is what I felt tonight. This moment of December. Alive and happy to be alive. The past few days were tough and had some downs but tonight at the coffee house with my cousin and my brother I felt a connection with them I haven’t felt with other people in a long time. I’m fine with telling people personal things but I rarely feel anything when telling it, rarely want the other person to understand how it made me feel. It’s usually told as a funny story, as a joke. My life, the joke. I told them about the one thing that somebody said to me that haunts me to this day. I don’t think I’ve told anybody but my mom that except for on the Internet because there’s a wall (screen?) between me and people on the Internet.

The coffee house itself was gorgeous. A converted house with a garden, fire pit, patio, pond. I want to go back.

—

Christmas was lovely, at least in some parts. The family parts were overwhelming but I made tamales de azucar with my cousin and they were delicious. I didn’t get too many presents but I appreciate what was given me.

—

I’ve moved all my photomanipulations and amateur photography to this main site/blog instead of a separate site.

I started clinicals last Wednesday. My instructor contacted me last Tuesday and I opted to start immediately. No sense in putting it off.

I’m pleased. It’s my first time on the clock in over three years because of my disability even if I’m not getting paid! The pharmacist is lovely and its privately owned so its the perfect start for me.

I’d been very worried the week that came before starting clinicals. A few people in my life were concerned about my health care situation and whether or not my illness would come to life again with the added stress. As it was, I had about five days of not engaging in old self-destructive behavior rather than the year of not doing any of that before that indulgence. Some symptoms started cropping up, my sleep was suffering, I wasn’t functioning well enough for me to have faith in myself or for others to have faith in me.

One of my downfalls is that I feel I should be able to think my way out of this illness, I should be able to will myself into health. That makes little sense. Should an individual with cancer be able to will the illness out of their body? I think not.

I will either sink or swim but I opt to try. I will keep going to clinicals until my hours are up and then I will decide what to do from there. I don’t think I will try to work full-time for now because that would be very stupid and then I’d lose the health insurance I have now, which means no means to get medication, and I’d be in a bad spot. Which completely downplays that I’d be non-functional within a few weeks. Yes, I know that it’s possible I could get health care through work but my situation is complicated and that would mean I’d have to remain ‘well’ enough to work.

I missed a day of school and my brain was ready to kill itself out of boredom. It’s not Girl, Interrupted in there, it’s dull. I never realized how dull it was before. Happy Mothers Day to my mom, I guess, I got put away for five days.

So today I’ve been studying and catching up and eating normal meals. The food in there is shudder-worthy and I missed out on three and a half days of study time.

I did indeed cancel the appointment the hospital made with the guy who got me locked up. I know I should have put up a fuss but he made it sound official (he’d call my mother and the hospital and whoever necessary to make sure I was there). Next time I’ll say unless the police have me in cuffs I’m not going to go in over completely garbage reasons like that. I was not going to do anything. He didn’t even ask me if I’d contract for safety. Ugh.

New haircut

I got a new haircut! First haircut in a year and a half and the first haircut that was below shoulder length since I was a very young girl. I quite like it, it’s very low maintenance and washing and conditioning it takes no time at all.

My hair has always been an annoyance. When my parents used to brush it when I was a kid I used to cry because it hurt so much. Later it took a lot of time and effort to make it look decent. I once had it straightened. It took about ten hours (I’m not kidding) but after it grew out I never tried to straighten it again. I usually tie it back to keep it out of my way and from resembling a haystack.

This is right after, no makeup and with the sun shining in my eyes.

What I want to accomplish over the next twelve months

1. Go today or tomorrow to talk about delaying commencement until May.
2. Go back to school for something related to IT, looking into programming. I’ve been self-taught so far but I think I’m in desperate need of some sort of formal training. I want to be back in school by Fall semester.
3. Finish the revamp/complete rewrite of backend scripts on my non-personal website.
4. Rewrite myFanlisting CMS and move fanlistings over to sleepwalking.nu.
5. Buy a new computer. The one I have is over two years old and moves at a crawl. Using MSN Messenger can cause it to freeze up. I was thinking of a Mac but decided it was too expensive. I don’t have that sort of money lying around!
6. Lose weight healthily. I need to start walking/jogging again, that helped me lose nearly ten pounds over the summer. I gained it back after I stopped.

I’ve been thinking about regrets and I have few, I feel wasting time regretting things holds people back. I do have one related to losing a friend I’d had since high school. Now we’re nearly strangers. It’s something I think about from time to time, I can’t quite let go of it like I’ve let go of everything else.

I finished wrapping presents today. I’m such a procrastinator.

I’m thinking of delaying graduation to May so my parents can see me walk. I’m not sure if a delay is possible this late, though. I just want to give my parents something since they did help me through university and helped me get this far. Without them I’m sure I would not have gotten here.

If I can’t delay it, I can’t delay it.

I went to Vegas for two days. It was so much colder than the other times I’ve gone. There was snow on the sides of the roads on the way there. However, it was pretty nice. I didn’t drink much (to my friend’s chagrin) or gamble. I got a cute bag and matching wallet. The bag was my Christmas present and I got the wallet myself. :happy:

I’m alive. That still surprises me. It would have been expected for me to die but I’m not. I think I’ll find myself repeating this at every milestone. I’m a quarter of a century, I’m going to graduate university (haha, so late it’s embarassing). I might just have a future.

I’m not sure where the road is leading me.

Moving on. School is proving challenging. About four hundred pages (it seems) of reading for the whole of next week. That’s just one class. I still don’t know what to expect.

I’ve been writing steadily. Prose instead of poetry. Not all with the same idea, the same characters, the same tone. I wrote a story about her and I keep sneaking around when I print it so that it will not be discovered. I know she would be very angry if she knew I wrote a story about her. It’s taken a story I know about her and created my own ideas, my own take, my own ending. It’s not the story, it’s a different carcass on the bones of something that has been secret and shameful. I wish I could do more with it, make it more successful.

i was going to go to a new years celebration of sorts but the plans fell through because it was too expensive.

i’m starting school again on wednesday. forty hours compressed into ten days, should be all right. lots of books for the class, though. fiction and film involves some movie watching, at least. then school again at the end of january for the start of spring semester. i have all english classes so should be all right.

i’m currently doing a lot of updates/bugfixes/changes for phpfan. version 3.3.0 should be out when i finish up. some ajax added, new templates, new features. not completely drastic but it has a new look, too.

here’s some of the digital art i’ve done in the past few months.

you will bloom like her heart through the blouse in the back of the ambulance

stock: spectralfairystock

textures: rain harbour, :: exposed ::

brushes: fabricate-stock

quote: Steps Ascending – Thursday

800*600, 1024*768

the snow came down last night like moths

image: tuku-stock, cardboard-stock

quote: First Snow in Alsace – Richard Wilbur

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a woman like that is not afraid to die

stock: cosmiksquirelstock, poisongrin

textures: ex-posed, rain harbour

quote: Her Kind – Anne Sexton

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we are as flowers unfolding

stock: night-fate-stock, intergalacticstock, sassy-stock

textures: ex-posed

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i hear the guards call my name

stock: stockii, black-ofelia-stock
texture: intuitive art
quote: take to the sky – tori amos

1024*768 / 800*600

the girl who never wrote back

stock: empatia-stock, cybergranny-stock

textures: sanami276, omahastock, ro-stock

brush: chokingonstatic

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holds it in her hand

stock: intergalacticstock, sheisprettystock

quote: Capitães da Areia – Jorge Amado

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indifferent to life itself

stock: foureyestock, hilarykeller

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