In other news!! Had a lovely evening with i_phianassa tonight and we fiiinally got to see 2012, and I was not disappointed at all. ( It really doesn't deserve all the flak it's been getting. )

I believe I shall forgo the return to coffee in the morning in favor of tea. With my co-worker requesting a day off, I covered his morning duties. By morning, I mean before the butt-crack of dawn. Ugh. I dug one of the last tea bags labeled "Awake" from my desk drawer and dunked in a mug of boiling water. Five minutes pass. I finish off by removing the bag and adding Palm honey. Delightful. I am far more relaxed this morning than I have been on a typical day.

My birthday has started early. On the The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Lewis Black announces a new special on the History Channel to air on my birthday. I cannot tell you how deliriously happy this make me. Also, Craig made Lewis Black giggle. I have never heard Lewis Black giggle before in my life. It was cute and disorienting at the same time.

Speaking of disorienting, if you've given up on Project Runway like I have nearly have several times this season, you missed Tim peeved. He made a face I was certain would be followed by the wrath of God smiting contestants dead. Surprisingly, no one died on the show (expect of Heidi's fashion sense - what the fuck happened?). Of course, the contestant I liked didn't win.

A few minutes ago, a young freak (and I mean that in the best way) brought me over the entire fourth season of Psych on DVD. He stopped by a few weeks ago. I don't know how we dropped on the subject, but we sat with him in the bullpen and talked about our favorite shows. He and I bonded over our devotion of Psych right away. It surprised me because his appearance gives the impression of being a hard-core, acid-rock, whitey supreme. He has nice jewelry in his ears and around his neck. His hair is buzzed and his mustache and half-beard neatly trimmed.

He has tattoos that he keeps covered with a long sleeve shirt (in Florida, remember, year around). As soon as he walked out of work, his ball cap goes on backwards. But the old adage, "Don't judge a book by it's cover", applies. He has been devoted to the same woman for years. He saves money as much as he can. He owns his own home. He has the best sense of humor. As far as I can tell, he doesn't have a racial bone in his body. He admits to being OCD, but has worked for years to control it.

Anyway, he brought me a copy of Psych on DVD. Happy birthday to me.

Last night, as I was trying desperately trying to fall asleep so I could wake up this morning and get to work on time, I realized that I am the type of the person who defines themselves by what they can't do. I agree with Captain Jack Sparrow, "The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do."

I am the type of person who tends to see all that she cannot do in favor of seeing what I can. What I can always seems inconsequential. Yes, I can tie my shoes. What adult can't? Yet, shouldn't the simple act of tying shoes be a reminder of how blessed I am: I have the use of my legs, arms, hands, feet, and fingers. I have the money to buy shoes. I have places to go where I am welcome and people who will welcome me.

Huh. I wonder what kind of person I could be if I saw first what I can do instead of what I can't.

On the bright side, I have ordered a one-pound bag of crystallized ginger from Penzey's, and there will be Ginger Sluts throughout this holiday season! I generally prefer to make my own crystallized ginger, but it's labor-intensive and I just don't feel like doing the work. I'm sure Penzey's can do it just as well as I can, if not better.

If you haven't seen it or tried it, my recipe for Ginger Sluts is right here. I am sure my friends will back me up when I say this recipe makes the best spice cookies in the world. They are spicy, they have delightful texture, they are fun to make, they keep really well, and everyone who tries them loves them. It is worth making them once, just to experience the awesome.

From gleeful_t.

The first ten people to comment give me a request for a picture to be taken of something in my life.

The only catch is-- no pictures of myself. It has to be of objects in my daily life. Then I will take pictures of the requested things, and post them in a separate entry.

Then those 10 people who requested photos have to post this same challenge in their own journal, with 1 additional rule (of their own choosing). The 10 people who comment on that entry, have to add ANOTHER rule of their own, and so on and so forth.

Aaaand, I don't feel like adding a rule, so: there are no rules. Just don't make me leave the city.

Realized this morning that I have fuck all in the way of academic references, so I've spent the morning sending potentially awkward emails to profs I've taken a couple of classes with and loved, but do not actually have this year. Er. I hope these requests aren't too strange and out-of-the blue. Interpersonal professional relationships: sometimes I suck at them!

I meant to wake up early early this morning to finish a novel for class, but I opened my eyes and it was grey and rainy outside, so I said "Screw this" and went back to sleep. I have no regrets.

I reeeeally (really really) (really really really) want this script reader position. More than anything I have ever wanted ever in my academic/professional life, such as it is. I just spent an hour perfecting a cover letter and now I'm just waiting to hear back from people about references before sending the whole thing in. Gahhhhhh, I am nervous. I'm already scared of the real world, and this barely counts. (Well, okay, I guess it is kind of a big deal, but I haven't felt this way since the last time I really, really liked a boy! I can't think about anything else and I feel kind of vomit-y and am prepared for a letdown but really hope I succeed.) (This is so sad, but I guess it's better to feel this way about a job than a stupid male.)

Other things! It's my dad's birthday on Monday, so my parents are coming down for the weekend and we're doing the requisite fancy dinner on Saturday night, followed by brunch at Le Pain Quotidien Sunday morning before work, so that'll be nice. Speaking of work, I mentioned casually to Cesar that I'm out of there in about 6 months (I'm definitely quitting after grad, to travel and focus on relevant life experiences -- not that WS hasn't been valuable and amazing, mind you) and he totally had a mini freak-out. It was great. I must say, though, I'm glad that this holiday season is my last, despite only being my second. Retail over Christmas is a bitch. (That's the other thing! This internship? Is 90% from home. So I could travel and do it! I could do it in the middle of the night! Or really early in the morning! Or in Europe, or at Starbucks, or in my parents' basement! This is exactly suited to my needs and fantasies, haha. And it is totally significant that it came up immediately after getting my graduation photos done, right? It totally is. I'm an English major; it's my job to read into these things.)

Meeting Isabel for coffee after class, which I'm looking forward to! As usual, I haven't seen most of my school friends for at least a month, but then playing catch-up is always fun! This weekend is just going to be a major, major reading weekend, and then I need to study for the WEEK OF TESTS I have coming up. There are only two weeks of class left, and in my last week I have at least one test every day. (!!!) That's going to be fun.

Somewhat relatedly, I got back a paper I was pretty nervous about in my Swift, Pope, and Contemporaries class and, not only did I get an 80 (which is stunning, as he's told us he's a brutal marker and told us he felt bad about how harsh some of his comments were before handing them back!!!), his only criticism was that my paper was not SILLY ENOUGH and treated the material too seriously. Best criticism ever??? He actually used the word "silly"! Oh, Jonathan Swift. You and your scatology. (In my opinion, though, treating things like shit and dousing fires with pee seriously is actually funnier than acknowledging their humour. Whatever, I am not going to complain about this! :P)

Watched Pierrot le fou in Cinema & Authorship and I am just more and more in love with Godard every day. I think this might be my favourite. Well...and Le mépris/Contempt. And Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle/Two or Three Things I Know About Her. ...and, of course, À bout de souffle/Breathless. ...okay, I have a really hard time picking a favourite Godard film. I've even developed an appreciation for Tout va bien, and that film is borderline unwatchable. (I think the reason behind this is something my prof pointed out: While you can say of most filmmakers that they just make the same film over and over in different ways, no two films of Godard's are remotely the same. They deal with the same general themes -- the relationship between art and life, aesthetics, surface vs. depth, consumerist culture, etc. -- but holy shit are they ever different structurally. And I love him for it.)

Alright, that's enough pretention for one day I think! Now I won't be able to get any reading done, haha. \o/

I've started and given up on a dozen entries at least, each one attempting to describe the same hairy mammoth that is my life. I can get the feet or the tail or the trunk or the tusks, but I can't get the whole thing, and whatever I wind up writing becomes mammoth-sized itself. So I'm just dumping all this on you so that you know why I'm slow to answer, to work, to do anything. I'm sorry. I thought about making this friends only, but there are a lot of others among you who should know what's going on, so I'm leaving it unlocked and trusting everyone to be generally nice in comments.*

Something is wrong with my chemistry. I have a spectacularly shitty attention span and a terrible temper. Despite the copious amounts of not much I do, I still feel the urge to swipe at myself and flail at the air and bite anything that comes near me and snarl "Get off me! Let me out of here! Leave me alone!" at random intervals. Being asked to do anything is stressful and infuriating.

Last week-ish (allowing for incredibly shitty time sense) I spent several days just . . . pissed off. It got so bad I had to kava-kava myself into numbtongue and a couple of times resort to the clonazepam to stop it. Today I felt . . . restless. Not in the body, but in the heart. It got so bad that, again, the clonazepam. It's painful.

I sat down to read today and could not even read long enough to find where I had left off before I got frustrated with the words and stopped. That is what it has been like, trying to read. What a horrible thing to have taken from me.

I keep saying I'm doing better. That is what I say to people.

And the thing is, okay, last time I was in a really bad spot, I was a wreck. I could not concentrate, I was miserable, I could barely think, my sense of humor was dead and rotting, I couldn't motivate myself, I couldn't accomplish anything. It was bad.

And here I am, back in the same place . . . except I can think just fine, my thoughts are very clear, very bright. And my sense of humor and quick wit are back. Also, a major source of pain and misery is gone from my life in that I am not still living in the House of Despair, and since Sargon is not currently employed I don't have to deal with the fallout from him hating his job.

So yes, I do feel better in the immediate sense. I am doing better. I can get up in the morning and go all day without the particular variety of hopeless misery I was experiencing at the old place.

But I do still have pain.

It is not normal for me to be creatively dead for this long, to be so lethargic, to have an attention span so short that it has taken me six months to finish four incredibly entertaining books. It is not normal to be emotionally worn out all the time. To be so agitated, yet to want to do so little. I can't get anything done. I don't want to do anything. Anything that is asked of me, even things that I should not mind doing, is like a hot skillet I have to pick up, and this bullshit has stripped off my gloves.

I feel useless. Hopeless. Disgusting and worthless.

But I'm not suicidal. In a moment of aggravation I thought today that this stupid shit will only end when I am dead, and I ground my teeth in genuine frustration because I very, very badly want to live. Frankly, that realization came as a bit of a surprise, but I'm glad of it.

I am not taking pleasure in much. Things that I used to love. Things that I do love. I don't get excited about anything. No flash of desire, no sudden tingle of longing. That, more than anything, is breaking my heart. The lack of heart-hunger, and the lack of anything to sate what dull desires I do have.

These are not character flaws, this inability to work, play, live. Something is wrong. I am going to try to get in to see my doctor very soon, or call him if he can't see me, and explain this to him. I am going to hope that this is just an extension of the dopamine deficiency that apparently underlies much of my dysfunction, and I will hope that he will just have me raise my Wellbutrin dose or something, and I will hope that doesn't cause insomnia. I will hope it helps. I will hope that my drugs have not just stopped working, and that I won't have to start trying to find something else.

Right now I have to try to sleep, or at least find something else to do that might bore me to sleep.

Please be patient with me while I work through this. Please.

* And unless you know my medical history, which you probably don't, please don't offer advice here. I appreciate it, but trust me, just don't.

Made of the awesome. I'm adding this for my memories.

Enjoy!

Holy shit holy shit, I am applying for an internship reading major studio film scripts and helping decide whether or not they get accepted to the Toronto Film Festival next year. !!!!!!! It's for a year and since all the programs I'm applying to in London don't start until January, this is perfect. Wish me luck!

(Also, I just got my grad photos taken. HELLO REAL WORLD.)

(Also HIMYM is lame now. The only show I am consistently excited about is Gossip Girl. This is many kinds of sad, but I am not ashamed.)

(Also I can't stop listening to Spaceman by The Killers. I listened to ONLY THAT SONG on repeat everywhere I went yesterday. ???? I've had it on my computer for ages, so I have no idea what this is about!)

Anyway. MLIA!

Gamespot's Left 4 Dead 2 review.

MUST PLAY THIS WEEKEND GODDAMNIT

Dear World,

Please say hello to my newest grand niece, Amelia. Amelia, I know you're not a day old yet, but say "hello" to the world.



Already resting in Lucifer's arms. What a fine, family tradition.



Sincerely,
Me
Geezerville

TEITING!

THIS:



is hideous. o.O LJ fail. It's not cute or inspiring or touching, just twee fuggery. Get it off my homepage.

OH NO. OH NO.

;_;

OH GOD.

I ACTUALLY GENUINELY FEEL SICK.
;_;

( Doctor Who )

X Factor now. I don't get Shakira. I don't understand a word she's saying and it's not a pleasant sound anyway. Explain why she's so popular? o.O I assume it's because she can wrap her legs around her own head...

Last night, Hubby and I curled up on the couch to watch Pixar's Up; what an excellent movie. I cannot remember the name of the critic who said it, for I wish I did, but I agreed with what they wrote: Up should be nominated not for Best Animated movie, but Best Movie. Period. The movie deals with such power issues in such a wonderful manner. It is a movie that all children and adults should watch.

In the movie, Russell says something that struck me to the core when I saw it in the theatre and again last night. When speaking wistfully of his father, or more to the point, the lack of his father in his life, he concludes rather astutely, "It's the ordinary moments I miss." (Forgive my paraphrasing)

After spending most of the late morning and early afternoon berating myself for not studying and attempting writing (when I say "attempting", that is to say I did, in fact, write; not as much as I wanted) (and why, for the love of NG, did I think I could do a novel and a CCNA at the same time, I will never know. It's proof that I really do fucking hate myself), I opted for a bath and some tea. I brewed up the last of the silver needle white tea my sister gave me (this tea is second to an orgasm in pleasure) and ran a hot bath after cleaning out the tub. As I sunk into the decant water and sipped my steaming infusion, I cracked my Dresden Files book. The afternoon light, having reached the west side of the house where the bathroom is, light the room in streaks of gold light.

It's the ordinary moments that I love. It's in the ordinary moments that the world can truly be seen. It's in the ordinary moments that you remember most. Before my bath, I slipped a mixed CD in the player. Linda mixed it for me when I turned 40. Since my birthday isn't far off, I felt it appropriate to play it.

I swear, I am the only person in the world that giggles like a bleach-blond school girl at Welcome to the Jungle by Guns 'N Roses. Oh, sure, it's an inside joke that's twenty years old, but I can still hear Kirby's voice in my head. I'm sure my merry laughter isn't what Axel Rose was hoping for when he belted out this tune.

Oh, well. It's the ordinary moments that stick with it. It's the ordinary moments that should be recorded. It's the ordinary moments I love reading.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

( More thoughts )

Also I can't decide whether Calvin Harris is a dick or a genius. Perhaps both? Stage invasions ftw.

ETA: *_* So Danyl just said, "It was Jamie. Jamie cut my hair." I JUST. akdkjahsl. HOW DOMESTIC ARE THEY. ALSO DANYL HAS HIS HAND ON JAMIE'S KNEE. I will stop this, I promise I will. AS SOON AS THEY DO.

ETA: STREAMING MANTEARS! ;_; AND OH GOD NOW THEY'RE CUDDLING AGAIN.

Mya's partner on Dancing With the Stars looks like if Daniel Day-Lewis made a porno in 1975. I quite fancy him. :(

Also, Aaron Carter terrifies me.

And Bruno is even more of a twat in America than he is here. o.O How is that even possible?

Er, I don't actually watch this show, I'm waiting for a film to come on, but I'm getting well into it. XD

LMAO PLEASE GOD Donny Osmond never dress up as Adam Ant ever again PLEASE.

How does somebody as insipid as Leona Lewis provoke THIS MUCH RAGE in me? It doesn't make sense. She's such a drip of nothing.