the sun leans / through the window at dawn to let me know

Majority of posts before 7/2009 are friends only, so whatever. Just lookit the pretty graphic thing!

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So I'm still alive. Yup. Alive and kicking. I can't believe I haven't updated this thing since April. I can't seem to catch up to my life. There is just SO MUCH going on and I feel like more things just keep piling up, and it's showing no signs of slowing down. I will come back to that in a minute. For now, we shall catch up on my life:

A whole lot of nothing has been happening. Nothing but classes and work and...well, every so often a bit of personal life. So!

Classes: I barely managed to get A's in all three of my summer classes, got the A in bio, and somehow managed to get a B in pre-calc (please don't ask me how). I am dreading the hell out of Calculus, which starts on, uh, Tuesday. Joy.

Health, part 1: I am seriously ticked off at my regular doctor's office because it took them THREE MONTHS to get a shot taken off my bill that I never received...and I just got a notification from a collections company today. I'm sorry, did they really think I was going to pay for something I never got? Or, for that matter, pay the bill while I was waiting for them to resolve the issue? No, no I was not. So now I have to call them AGAIN tomorrow because this is bullshit, and also somehow an extra $65 was added on I guess for the collections agency? Whatever. Long story short, I'm not paying it. I will pay for the services I DID receive, and if that's not good enough they can go fuck themselves. (Needless to say, I am not going to that office again, no matter how much I like the doctor.)

Health, part 2: My rheumatologist put me on hydroxychloroquine to see if it would help with my symptoms. It failed to do so. Doctor was about as surprised by this as I was (which is to say: not at all). So since nothing is working for my arthritic-type symptoms, and I recently had a bought of knee pain so bad that I almost couldn't get into bed, the doc decided I needed to try physical therapy. Physical therapist spent half the evaluation going: "You seem perfectly healthy and you're SO YOUNG this is ridiculous." And then he decided to test the muscle strength in my legs and, yeah. Apparently I have ridiculously weak ankle and hip muscles, terrible muscle tone in one specific knee muscle, aaaand...really strong quads. Because my quads do all the work. I don't get it, but whatever...I'm not going to argue with the guy with a degree. Also I'm not going to argue with him because he gave me these stupid exercises to do and I'm really bad at them. Suffice it to say he wants me to do ten reps of each exercise with each leg, and I can barely do six. (I stop at six on one of the exercises because I'm pretty sure if I tried to do more I would fall over.)

Health, part 3: THE HEADACHES WON'T GO AWAY SOMEBODY HELP MEEEEEE ;_;

Reading: I read two and a half books since my summer classes let out. I read Eric by Pratchett and...something else. And I'm halfway through Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I will likely finish before work tomorrow. I'm going to start reading Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury because...because I'm taking a writing class and Bradbury wrote it? That's my excuse, anyway. Honestly, it's mostly because it's by Bradbury and I'm out of books of his I own that I haven't read yet. But whatever.

Video games: GUYS GUYS I HAVE A PSP AND SOMEBODY BOUGHT ME KINGDOM HEARTS: BIRTH BY SLEEP AND YAY AQUA <3<3<3<3<3 I have also played an ungodly amount of Star Ocean: Second Departure or whatever they're calling it, and a little bit of Lunar, Lufia, and Final Fantasy Tactis. And possibly some Final Fantasy VIII? Because I haven't played video games in forever and apparently have video game ADHD. So I was jumping between all the games besides KH, and then finally put KH in the system and haven't stopped playing it since. Because, seriously, Aqua <3 And Ven is so cute and little!Riku and little!Sora and Kari told me Xigbar RUINED EVERYTHING and I saw a seen with Braig in it and he was all smirky and evil and I may possibly have said "It's okay, Xigbar, you're still my favorite!" out loud because I'm a loser, and anyway I want to see how he RUINS EVERYTHING and Aqua <3<3<3 And...and yeah. So pretty much I adore the KH game and even seem to have become addicted to the mini-game called, stupidly enough, Command Board, because it's like Monopoly except it eventually ends.

Writing: I wrote like two paragraphs each for two different fics, and then gave up in disgust. AND YET I CAN'T STOP DAYDREAMING REALLY AWESOME STORIES. I hate the universe.

Work: Did I mention that I hate the universe?

Food: I baked a banana cake! It was the most exciting food product I created since, uh, the red velvet cake in February. Also I have taken to eating bagels? From WaWa. Because they have wildberry cream cheese and it is amazing. Also they make ridiculously yummy smoothies. I like smoothies.

AND THAT IS ALL. Well, it'll have to be all. Because I need to do my exercises and go to sleep. So....see you in three months, LJ?

A Dream Within A Dream

- Edgar Allan Poe



Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

------------------------------------------------

And speaking of dreaming, good night!

The rough draft version of "One Art", because this always needs a posting.

HOW TO LOSE THINGS / ? / THE GIFT OF LOSING THINGS?

One might begin by losing one's reading glasses
oh 2 or 3 times a day - or one's favorite pen


THE ART OF LOSING THINGS

the thing to do is to begin by "mislaying".
Mostly, one begins by "mislaying":
keys, reading-glasses, fountain pens
- these are almost too easy to be mentioned,
and "mislaying" means that they usually turn up
in the most obvious place, although when one
is making progress, the places grow more unlikely
- This is by way of introduction. I really
want to introduce _myself_ - I am such a
fantastic lly good at losing things
I think everyone shd. profit from my experiences.

You may find it hard to believe, but I have actually lost
I mean _lost_ two whole houses,
one a very big one. A third house, also big, is
at present, I think, "mislaid" - but
maybe it's lost, too. I won't know for sure for some time.
I have lost one peninsula and one island.
I have lost - it can never be has never been found -
a small-sized town on that same island.
I've lost smaller bits of geography, like
a splendid beach, and a good-sized bay.
Two whole cities, two of the world's biggest cities (two of the most beautiful
although that's beside the point)
A piece of one continent -
and one entire continent. All gone, gone forever and ever..

One might think this would have prepared me
for losing one average-sized not exceptionally
beautiful or dazzlingly intelligent person
(except for blue eyes) (only the eyes _were_ exceptionally beautiful and the hands _looked_ intelligent) (the fine hands)
but it doesn't seem to have, at all...

a good piece of one continent
and another continent - the whole damned thing!
He who loseth his life, etc. - but he who
loses his love - never, no never never never again -

____________

Changed the layout of my journal--nothing spectacular, just a stock layout. Edited my profile so I could change the bit of poem I had on there. Changed my userpic to my favorite Axel icon. It...didn't really take me all that long, unless you count the part where I got caught up in reading bunches of poetry.

Feeling really out of sorts today. Well, I've been feeling out of sorts for a while really, but it's really hard today. I don't know what to do right now. I really want to sleep, but I don't want to stop concentrating on doing stuff long enough that I have the opportunity to think. And if I lay down, I know I'll start thinking and...sigh. I think maybe I just don't keep myself busy enough, which is silly because I never seem to have enough time to finish doing everything I need to do. I don't know. I'll figure it out.

Also possibly I should stop doing things that I know will depress me. Hm.

Another reason I adore e.e. cummings to bits:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

-----

Seriously, if you don't know this poem, WHAT ROCK HAVE YOU BEEN HIDING UNDER. But whatever, it's still one of my absolute favorites. :)

Today I registered for my fall classes. Monday, Wednesday and Friday I will have Italian (SO EXCITED)from 9-9:50 and World Civilization from 10-10:50; Monday and Wednesday I will have Chemistry 1 from 11-1:30; Tuesday and Thursday I will have Creative Writing (EXCITEMENT AGAIN) from 12:30-1:45 and Calc 1 (significant lack of excitement) from 2-3:40. Which means I'll be taking seventeen credits, while working ~20 hours per week. Clearly I am some sort of masochist and never realized it. BUT YAY CREATIVE WRITING AND ITALIAN.

Oh, and notes from between last month-ish and this:

1) Still no A in pre-calc, but I'm doing better.

2) Finished reading A Sound of Thunder and The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and am now approximately 100 pages into Nemesis by Isaac Asimov.

3) Also somehow managed to beat Dragon Quest IV on the DS, mostly because I played until nearly the end of the game ages ago and never finished. Oops? XD

4) I am also registered for three summer classes: English Comp 1 & 2, and Anatomy and Physiology 1. They're all during different five-week sections, so I'm pretty much not getting a summer vacation from school. I actually think this will work out pretty well! I won't have the time off to get accustomed to not doing schoolwork and instead will be studying ALL SUMMER just...not as much as during fall and spring. Works for me!

5) I started writing a new Kingdom Hearts fic! For a certain lovely person in my life who knitted me a purdy scarf~ It is significantly better than the fic I am writing for Nell, but that may be because every time I think of that fic I just sort of wonder what in hell I'm doing. Heh.

6) Oh and I may or may not have started worldbuilding for (another) new novel. And then promptly wrote two completely different possible beginnings for it, which would take me in two completely different ways. I'm thinking I may try to combine them, because I REALLY liked the first beginning and also the first beginning kind of nets me a title all at once so GOOD GOING ME. I just...kind of have to figure out which notebook I wrote that beginning in, because apparently I'm writing in three separate notebooks right now. DON'T ASK WHY I HAVE NO IDEA.

7) A couple years ago I started keeping a one-sentence journal, but then I scrapped it. I'm no planning on taking that up again. In addition to that, I'm using a different journal that I was doing journaly things with to write down poetry, or at least lines from poetry. Not my own, just poetry I really like. This may take up a lot of time, which explains why I have only a bunch of lines in it so far. What is this time thing you speak of?

8) Got a stomach virus. Still not entirely over it. Pretty sure I now have an ear infection. How is it that I can work in pharmacy for six years and get sick, like, three times, but six months into school and suddenly I get every bug in existence? Seriously, people come into the pharmacy with everything from scabies to bronchitis, to fucking VIRAL PINKEYE and I get none of it. One little tummy bug in school goes around and I'm down for the count for a week. Fuck. Everything.

On a mostly unrelated note, if I'm going to continue using this journal, I should change the look.

AND THAT IS ALL. I shall now, um, probably sleep. Well. Get all of my crap off my bed, and THEN probably sleep. Or lay awake with insomnia, there's no telling which. Hooray.

I now present to you one of many reasons why e.e. cummings is one of my two favorite poets (the other being Pablo Neruda). I may come back tomorrow and post another reason.

let it go - the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise - let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go - the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers - you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go - the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things - let all go
dear

so comes love

----------

also, the end of a random poem I found today:

In Amarillo the wind tries to erase everything, even the future.
It swoops down to scrape the desert clean as a scapula.
Here among bones and bleached arroyos the sun leans
through my window at dawn to let me know
I’m not going anywhere. There’s no more anywhere to go.

---------------

It's been a while since I posted anything. I'm just so tired, and there's so much going on (most of it bad). On the bright side, I've had some writing ideas! On the downside, they're not going anywhere.

I'm taking three summer classes, one for each five-week section. In the fall, I'm going full-time and going down to work part-time. I'm also taking a creative writing class. I hope this class is worthwhile. I hope, soon, I will feel like a writer again.

All that being said, it's time for me to actually put my clothes away, and to get some sleep. Gotta be up at seven. (I'm so sick of mornings.)

On a completely related note, this is pretty much my favoritest icon ever. <3

I can't believe the last time I updated was 2/5; it really doesn't feel like that long ago! Sadly, if I bother to think about it, it really has been that long and I probably ought to be ashamed of myself for it...but I'm not. I've been ridiculously busy between school and work and just generally not feeling well, and the only reason I have time to update right now is because I'm on spring break. And also because I'm procrastinating like you wouldn't believe. XD

So~ Things what have been happening?
1) I fail at pre-calc SO BAD. I meant to be doing some work on it today, but I've had a headache for the past four days that turned into a migraine this morning, and ended up sleeping until like four. Shit you not. The migraine is now mostly gone, but I still feel like crap and have been mightily resisting the urge to go back to sleep.

2) Bio is annoying and boring and I hate it. I ought to be reading my bio book, or at least finishing up my labs, but sooooo much hate omg. Needless to say, I'm getting an A in this class so far. Sigh. WHERE IS MY A IN PRE-CALC.

3) I'm STILL reading A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury, which is made extra pathetic by the fact that I read the entirety of Good Omens last night instead of finishing this book...and then read a bunch of reviews for Good Omens where people were bitching about how much they didn't like the book. Oh and I also read all of my old GO fanfiction because I have no life.

4) A couple weeks ago, I made a red velvet cake AND IT WAS AMAZING, though I thought it was a little TOO red (which comes of using food dye instead of pureed beets, but fuck beets).

5) I figured I'd make another cake this week since I was on spring break, and since St. Patty's is on Saturday, I wanted to make something to celebrate the holiday. I was thinking about making another red velvet cake, but green instead of red, and possibly turning it into cake balls instead because cake balls are awesome, BUT. But then I found a recipe for butterscotch sauce. So pretty much I'm making a vanilla cake with vanilla icing and putting the butterscotch on top of it. I want to make the cake and icing green so I can pretend it's for the holiday still, but pretty much I just want an excuse to make butterscotch. At some point I'm going to have to learn how to make candy. And also I need a double boiler, so I can melt chocolate instead of using cocoa powder for everything. Mmm chocolate.

6) I've been working on some worldbuilding lately! I was trying to copy my notes on Bahamut Moon into a document the other day, but then got sick of my own handwriting and started attempting to put my notes on The Wandering Kingdom into some sort of logical order instead, only to discover that attempting THAT makes my headache worse due to my tendency towards rambling and run-on sentences. I have actually had some thoughts on The Wandering Kingdom while playing with the notes, and then another rather minor thought on The City of Experiments that I'm debating the merits of. Unfortunately, I still need to make magic systems for both worlds, and that's turning out way harder than it ought to be. The problem, I think, is that I really don't want to reuse any magic systems I already have, or to rip off of someone else's magic system because that would make me a dick (and also I already did that once).

7) In cleaning my room, I ran across two interesting tidbits: the first was the beginning of a story that I have no recollection of writing, and therefor no idea where I was going with it; the second was notes on a story that completely rips off FFVII's magic system because I fail at the universe. Also I'm pretty sure the two main characters were special versions of Roxas and Sora, and I think there was a fake Axel in there somewhere, because clearly I was writing this when Kingdom Hearts owned my soul. (Oh wait...) I also found the beginnings of a KH fic that I really ought to finish writing at some point, because I really liked the idea.

8) I have been throwing around the idea of doing Script Frenzy this year just so I have an excuse to buy the shirt (shut up), but I've managed to talk myself out of it. I suck at scriptwriting SO BAD. I also had to talk myself out of attempting the Kingdom Hearts Big Bang, because we all know how good I am with deadlines.

And...that pretty much sums things up. Guess I'll go back to putting my notes in order, and think really really hard about sewing the holes in all of my socks.

Look, it's an update! How long do we think I can keep up this regular updating thing? I suspect I will not last another week.

I am very disappointed to announce that I haven't managed to work on Nell's story this week. This makes me all kinds of sad. I am resolved to work on it ASAP, but omg so much school. ;_;

On the bright side, I've been feeling remarkably well this week. I can only assume that it's because of the prednisone, because other than the addition of that drug, I haven't made any other positive changes to my life. In fact, if anything, my diet this week has been even worse than usual because I haven't had time to cook. Sadly this means I really do have to call my rheumatologist tomorrow and tell him that the prednisone did work and then I really do have to take immunosuppressants and whinewhinewhine. I guess I'll get over it. After, you know, a little more whining.

I have also been very tempted to work on both Bahamut Moon and Darned Socks lately, which is really weird because wtf sci-fi. I need to find all of my notes on Bahamut Moon, and attempt to make some sort of cohesive plot-line out of it all, but IDK wtf I'm doing. The furthest I've ever gotten in any story at all is where I am now in my fanfic His Last Request, and I'm really not that far in it at all when you consider that I actually have plans for sequels. I'm really starting to think I'm better suited to short stories, or at least to random snippets of real stories that I ought to make other people write for me. Or that I'm really not made out to be a writer. (This sounds very depressing until you realize that that this fact hasn't stopped me writing for the past decade. [Oh god, decade makes me sound old.]) Well anyway. I think I'm going to try to do that for Bahamut Moon, but I'm probably going to ignore Darned Socks for a while, because I really think The City of Experiments is a far more worthwhile concept. And by "worthwhile" I mean "Beatrice sounds like more fun to write than anyone else". I'll have to figure out a way to take my notes on my stories with me EVERYWHERE though, and also will have to stop doing homework every spare moment of my life. Oh, wait, I don't have spare moments. MOVING ON THEN.

TOMORROW I WILL FIND OUT HOW I DID ON MY MATH TEST AND I AM VERY UPSET BY THIS and oh shit I never did my math homework, bio takes SO MUCH TIME.

I bought two books yesterday! Because stupid B&N and their stupid 20% off coupons and their stupid existence, bleh. Anyway, I bought the first in the Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman primarily because I want to see if it's as bad as the Dragonlance novels, and also the first in a series by Larry Niven that apparently is somehow related to Ringworld? Don't ask me, I just read the summaries on the back. SOON I WILL BUY SOME ROBERT HEINLEIN. But only if it's not the big fancy books that cost me sixteen dollars instead of six. Fucking publishers.

I'm pretty sure I had lots else to say, but I just realized that it's midnight and I kind of have to be awake in seven hours. And also I really ought to actually get up in said seven hours, and probably actually make a real breakfast instead of just eating cereal. I wonder if we have any bananas left. I would rather like to have banana pancakes. Except is making banana pancakes any different from making regular pancakes (besides the obvious)? WE SHALL FIND OUT. Maybe.

Aaaaaand sleep~

I love how, immediately following me asking if anybody cares if I started updating this thing again, I...completely fail to update. I also love that I already know nobody's even surprised. In all fairness, I AM GOING CRAZY OMG. And I must never remember to take an advanced class again. I already have a test tomorrow and I'm not in any way prepared for it. ;_; Oh well, nobody to blame but myself.

So what's new, what's new... Probably everything. I got As in both of my class last semester, but sadly this semester is off to a really bad start. This is mostly because literally the day after my classes started my car decided it wanted to break down. And then while I was hanging out with my brother and his girlfriend, his cat...probably didn't decide he wanted to die, but we ended up having to take him to the animal hospital and get him put down. And...and yeah. It's been a really really long week. D:

Also at the end of that week, I went to see my rheumatologist. We went over my bloodwork again and I managed to talk him into not poking me everywhere to check on the fibromyalgia pressure point whatevers, and then he gave me a prescription for prednisone and said that if it works out well for me, he's going to start me on immunosuppressants because there's some inflammation coming up in my bloodwork even if he can't tell me where the fuck it's coming from. The prednisone is working...sort of okay. Certainly better than I expected it to, because last time he gave it to me it didn't work at all. Feh. I really don't want to go on another medication. On the other hand, I don't want to let what is possibly rheumatoid arthritis run its course, so you know. I'll live. Probably. (Watch me get liver damage from them. JUST WATCH.)

Speaking of the bloodwork, this last round ended up costing me $800 which is REALLY ANNOYING. What's even more annoying is that my doctor thinks he's funny: he said we'll wait until a little later in the year to run through the rest of my ridiculous deductible. THAT DOESN'T HELP ME NOW, DOC. Sigh. And I'm probably going to end up owing him a couple hundred, and then I have to see my regular doctor and owe HIM another couple hundred, and also I have to take my cat to the vet. Money? What is this money thing you speak of?

Okay, did I mention I have a math test tomorrow? I'm pretty sure I did. If not, NOW YOU KNOW. So on top of that math test that I'm going to cry over, for bio I have to read four (REALLY BORING) articles and write summaries on them by Monday, I have to finish learning a total of 72 words by probably the same day, and I have to redraw all of my labs from last Friday and have them ready by this Friday. I also have to attempt to actually get some kids in my class to actually make plans for this study group we've been trying to get together, but only two of them actually really seem to give a shit, so who knows. Oh and this one kid wants me to look over his labs for some reason that I don't understand. Sigh.

I started taking a Tai Chi class this semester, and I'm kind of surprised by how well I'm enjoying it. I guess I thought it would be really boring, but even though it's sort of meditative, you're still moving around during it. I think if I had done something like yoga, where you have to hold position for a while, I wouldn't enjoy it at all, but this is cool. Sadly, I also keep forgetting the form. I can has no memory. :( I think I might look into continuing to take classes once the semester is over, though. It seems to be working out pretty well for me so far. =D

I have recently started writing a really bad fanfic that I'm having way too much fun with, mostly because it's REALLY REALLY BAD. I'm pretty much trying to make it as terrible as possible, mostly in an attempt to convince Nell that, no, she won't actually love anything I write. (On the other hand, this girl reads badfic all the time, so she probably WILL love it. Freak. [ILU NELL.])


Aaaand that is all I can remember I need to blather on about. Here, have the list of books I'm hoping to read throughout 2012:
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This, of course, barely puts a dent in the ridiculous amount of books I have hanging around that I haven't read yet, but at least it's a start. And, yes, that is precisely the order I plan to read them in. And, in case you can't tell, I'm trying to work my way through Pratchett's entire bibliography (slowly!). Although I think I forgot to put Nation on that list. Crap. Aaaand of course that list is bound to change at some point in time, because I am always buying new books LIKE THE IDIOT I AM. It really doesn't help that B&N insists on sending me these rending 20% coupons either. Sigh.

And on that note, it's time for me to go to bed. And by "go to bed" I mean finish reading this stupid article on the hybridization of goddamn red oaks, and then bang my head into a wall until I knock myself out because it's got to be more entertaining that what I was doing before. Also, apparently I have to pet a kitteh. Poor kitteh. She's so neglected.