chaos theory, potato chips, and I think I need more rum

Really, I think if I had a job writing acrid blog posts all day, I'd be so happy. I'd be like the caustic Peggy Hill with her musings. Only mine would be morose, maudlin, melancholy musings and not redneck, ignorant ones. Anybody know someone that would hire me? I'd quit this PhD shit in a second!

Oh, Prax, my prof is from Jersey, and she told me tonight that I am not cynical enough for Jersey. LOL!

Ok but really, I love my theory class. Seriously, this place makes me crazy, but on Tuesday nights, that all fades away into this blissful 3 hour class. I LOVE this class. Tonight, for example, we mused about the possibility of multi-verses and about what our "other selves" are doing at this moment. Personally, my other self is perpetually drinking whiskey, even when my present self is drinking whiskey, and that posed a problem to the theory, but not to mine, so perhaps I should write my own theory. Cranky Theory. I've got to come up with a diagram, though, because all the best theories have diagrams. I think it would look like Hemingway.

But really, the thing I like about this program is that it is multi-disciplinary. We are learning so much from so many disciplines: art, architecture, physics, biology, chemistry, anthropology, sociology...the list goes on. tonight, for example, it was all about string theory and quantum mechanics with a dash of thermodynamics and field theory. It was the most fascinating discussion, especially since it is such a hard class that everyone dropped out. The dynamics are so different when there are only 2 people in the class. AAAA, I would quit this damn place in a second if it weren't for the classes. I love the classes. Brilliant!

So we left class all jazzed up as usual, and D and I headed out for the customary celebratory wings and beer. I got asked out but ruined it as always by making some stupid comment about age. Why can't I just leave it alone? So he's 23? Who cares? But I had to make some mention about the formula bc now that I had a birthday, 23 is too young. Why can't I just keep my damned mouth shut? Ah well, still got free drinks out of it. Love bartenders.

And the positive thinking shit, well, kinda worked. I mean, I know for a fact that Zach Braff has suddenly realized I exist and is going to look up housing in Lubbock tomorrow! And Agent Mulder, while not in this universe, is certainly alive and living next door to my doppelganger, so that's a plus. The french fry fairy left some tonight at the bar but forgot to leave me some money to pay for it. I'll have to think harder next time. And I did get an A on the paper from the prof who "never gives As" so that rocks!

So let's keep going with this shit. Ok, here goes:

1. The 49ers will win the next 20 superbowls.
2. The cubbies will suddenly produce a butterfly effect that will break the curse and win us the next world series.
3. I will stop mentioning my real age when people think I'm 22. Hell, tomorrow I will be 22 but with the brain of my real age.
4. The french fry fairy, who is married to the whiskey fairy, will pay a giant advanced tab for me at the Davenport for when I come back into H-Town.
5. The vacation fairy will leave me a plane ticket to somewhere civilized very soon.
6. The stunning man, who was checking me out at the bar tonight but just couldn't bring himself to talk to me because I was wasting my life talking to the 23 year old about the formula, will come talk to me tomorrow bc I am telling everyone it is my bday tomorrow bc I didn't get a decent enough Kimday this year.
7. Fence Rider will get a giant kick in the ass and will call me up and confess his soul.
8. I will kick Fence Rider in the ass. And then make love to him in every position possible on my roof in the middle of a storm while a raven sings in the background. (ok, there had to be some 19th centurty Gothic literature in there somewhere)
9. The stunning man will be jealous of the escapades on the roof and will profess his need to have my brilliant, genius mind, so I will give him that and give Fence Rider my doppelganger's body.
10. Someone will randomly send me Zardoz in the mail.

I'm eating potato chips--just so you don't think the title is a farce.

Random gurgles

I found a new Catbirds.

Lubbock doesn't have Vault.

My fridge is filled with cheap beer and no cheese pizza.

I bought spaghetti os today for 88 cents.

I am unbelievably toxic, and the cheap beer, pizza, and spaghetti os are not going to help.

I have to somehow muster the energy to run 13 miles tomorrow.

Frat boys annoy me more now than they did when I was in undergrad, and that is really saying something.

There are times this past week when I wondered WTF I am doing coming back to school full time.

Someone paid me $20 to smile. My smile is depreciating.

My bar arguments are getting better, though, with this newfound doctoral knowledge. I actually used the terms random sampling, population, and covariance in a debate with a frat boy on Friday about baseball. It was wasted on him, but I felt pretty proud.

I did not fall asleep in my shoes like Glinda does, but I did crash naked on the floor wrapped in a crocheted afghan. I woke up freezing with a neckache grasping onto a half drunk bottle of powerade. Gurgle.

So that was this week. I think I'm done with the self-destructive adjustment meltdown, so next week I should have happy posts to report. I mean, Lubbock is only temporary, and so what if I'm 10 years older than people in my cohort and 15 years older than the rest of the people on campus. So what if I'm surrounded by chain restaurants and dollar stores. So what if I can't even go to the football games because grad students have to pay full price. So what if I'm fucking broke with no income until October and maybe not even then bc I'm still not in the system. So what if I will spend Kimday and Turkeyday alone. So what.

Free stuff everywhere this next week. Wed is a new grad student recep with free hors d'oeuvres and wine. I'm taking a big purse. Thursday is free starbucks coffee seminar followed by star gazing at the planetarium. Friday I'll find something. It's all good.

And there are always marmots.

Estranged

1 uncle dies and the other has a stroke within a week of each other, and no one tells us about it until it's almost too late. What is with my family?

Slept for 12 hours yesterday and am still tired. And really, this Dolly rain needs to stop.

Set me free

Ok, I'm not sure what the hell is happening to me, but I'm becoming all maudlin all of a sudden. Generally, nothing makes me teary eyed except for ET and Rudy--oh, and Miracle chokes me up a bit. There's something about Al Michaels screaming with utter abandonment: "Do you believe in miracles?" that does it to me everytime. Still, not a big crier.

This week, though, I keep getting choked up. And the thing about it is, I've been getting choked up without the ability to cry, even though I'd let myself if I could. So I just sit there with this constant lump in my throat that makes me sound like I've got chronic laryngitis.

And it's the weird kind of maudlin, the kind that you get when you're not really sad but more overwhelmed to the point of paralysis with the changes happening in your life. So there's a reason behind it, but I still feel like some sort of teenager caught in the midst of a surging adolescence.

I'm leaving my job. This gets me choked up. Why? I haven't the slightest idea. I'm thinking it's exhaustion mostly, but there's more to it. Maybe I'm sick of switching jobs. Maybe I'm apprehensive of going back to school full time. Maybe I'll miss a few people, and I know I'll miss all the kids. Maybe it's because I have to tell so many people, and each time I'm forced to relive the emotions and carry a piece of theirs as they crumble from the news. And I'm not being hyperbolic here, folks. They are literally crumbling, which makes me wonder what sort of boundary issues I'm working with here.

I'm going to Lubbock. Jesus help me.

Part of it is that I've wanted a PhD since I was a kid, so this is sort of the beginning of a dream of sorts.

And then my car keeps breaking down. It's been in and out of the shop 4 out of 5 days this week, and then last night, it whacked out again. The last thing you want breaking when you are having a post adolescence meltdown is your CAR!

The CP's farewell speech last night got me all choked up. In fact, it actually made me cry--a 3 tissue cry, I might add, and I don't think I've ever had to reach for 3 tissues. Now don't get a picture of me wailing or anything. It was a silent cry, but it was one of those where the waterworks just wouldn't stop, well, working.

I mean, seriously, get a grip, Cranky. Go back to your cantankerous self. It's just your PhD. I dunno. I just feel like I'm at a turning point of some sort, and there's no going back, and I'm not sure what the hell that means.

OH and the DREAMS! Jeez, the anxiety dreams. Last night, it was all about someone stealing my friend's identity which somehow affected my identity, and I was confined to one room of my apartment until they figured it out. And what did I do in that dream? I cried about not being able to run. So bizarre. And it had chicken in it. I keep dreaming about chickens.

I sort of feel like Simon: "Is this what madness feels like?"

Ok, have to go tell the kids I'm leaving. I dread this, esp bc the only memory I have about telling the kids I was leaving in the last place I worked was of them holding onto my legs as I tried to walk out of the door. That was just heartbreaking. I hope this one goes better.

Ode in Stream of Consciousness and melodrama

Yesterday was my friend, Jeff's, wedding. I've been a bridesmaid 10 times and have attended numerous other weddings for friends, but yesterday's wedding really affected me. I've known Jeff since 6th grade. He was the first person I met in Jr Hi, which is significant because I had gone to a very small parochial school for elementary school. Getting to go to a public school with no uniforms and "evils" at every turn was a huge step for me, and Jeff provided not only a safe haven but introduced me to my closest set of friends, including Edgy.

We met in the parking lot of the intermediate school. He and some friends were playing basketball, and I, in my miniskirt and heels, asked if i could play, too. They were much bigger than I was, so to even up the odds, I proceeded to dig my stilleto into Jeff's foot, steal the ball, and make a layup. After that, I was welcomed into the circle, and we still hang out today.

That said, it was very emotional watching my first teen friend walk down the aisle in a tux. I felt like he should still be that little 13 year old in jeans, as should I. It was like a scene from a melodrama. Flashbulb memories filled my head: the day he confided in me that he had bought a diamond for his first girlfriend (it was literally a diamond, no setting); the time he crowned me with my beanie at the Thespian ceremony and presided over my initiation, despite the fact that we were on a choir trip at the time and had to do the initiate work on the sly; all the times we would go out to Hobby airport and play the guitar and sing the Beatles, Black Crowes, and Pink Floyd while watching the planes come in for a landing right over our heads; driving in the back of his boat of an Oldsmobile passing around a mannequin head, just so that we could say were were giving group head; losing my Rocky Horror virginity (for those of you who don't know, that means that it was my first time to see the show) to his lesbian friend, when they still actually had an auction (she bought me for two tampons and some Indie girl band CD) while he laughed his ass off at me jumping into cherry jello and then being licked all night by his friend who cooed "I love your cherry"; all the nights spent watching movies on a 6' X 8' projection screen with he and Edgy and the crew; drinking on top of his roof; many nights spent at the Kettle post concerts; the Paul McCartney concert, where I screamed nonstop as if I was possessed by a 1960's teenage girl and subsequently losing our car in the Astrodome parking lot; the Pink Floyd concert in NOLA (god what a time that was); the trip to Padre on Spring break where his Olds broke down, and we had to push it up a hill only to find out that we had no place to stay, so we took a bath in the Whataburger sink and slept on the beach, waking up to mosquito bites all over.

They zipped through my head like a whirlwind and then stopped as they pronounced he and his fiance man and wife. It was then that there was an eerie silence in my brain, and I suddenly realized that those memories, though fresh in my brain as if they were current, were just that--memories, and that Jeff, little Jeffy, was married, standing before his wife wearing a penguin suit that, like everything else he wears, didn't fit him just right. He looked like a kid in his father's clothes playing dress up with a friend, only this was real. Jeffy was married.

Then, the whirlwind came back, but this time in fast forward. I could see the passage of time ahead of me, as ephemeral as the past has been. Before long, all of the group will be married, including me, and for most of them, babies will come and will have babies, and you just can't stop it. Time just keeps going and doesn't wait for you to catch up.

Then I turned to look at Edgy, who was looking at me with a look of love that I've always wanted to see from a man, and I realized that I was all grown up. Just like that, and later, as Edgy leaped for the garter like it was the prized holy grail (a tradition I really find vile), I found myself running after him to cover him with glowing kisses.

I'm not sure why Jeff's wedding affected me more than others. All my girlfriends are married and popping out a third kid right now, and I was the one who always bumped the bouquet like it was a volleyball (another tradition I still find ridiculous). Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's because Jeff is my first guy friend to get married. I don't know, but it felt like a chapter in my life shut, no...more like a tome of my life, really, and opened up an entirely new carte blanche, rushing me with a mixture of elation, sadness, nostalgia, anxiety, and hope.

Along those lines, I hope to visit Astroworld next weekend, another chapter of my life erased forever. It's where I had my first boy girl dance with a guy who turned out to be Edgy and was the only place where I felt freedom from my parents as a teenager. I still remember walking into those gates and pulling the rubberband out of my hair (my mom never liked my hair down). Feeling my curls cascade all over my shoulders was such a rush for me. It seems silly now, but it meant something then.

I hope to go there next weekend and pull the band from my hair one last time, as I watch the sunset kiss Astroworld goodbye forever.

Enough sap. Off to look for a new job.