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A picture of my gray matter Yesterday my hair decided to add furniture to its diet. I am not kidding. As previously mentioned, my hair seems to have an unparalleled appetite for the inanimate. Getting between my hair on a bad day and the victim of its wrath is a very risky proposition. Yesterday it apparently waited until I was asleep to unleash its hunger upon the world, meaning my unsuspecting apartment.Earlier today I was readjusting my bandana, which is actually a game between my hair and me. It throws the bandana on the floor, and I pick it up and put it back on, thereby proving that I still love it (my hair, not the bandana). If I fail to immediately retrieve the cloth, my hair throws a tantrum and goes off to sulk: who's the high-maintenance one in this relationship? Ahem. Earlier today I was adjusting my bandana and as my hand ran through my hair my fingers caught on something. The Unidentified Hair Object (UHO) was small, square, sticky and squishy, like foam. In fact, after spending about 5 minutes convincing my hair to let it go ("If you don't let go THIS INSTANT you will get no conditioner and no bandanas for a week!!!") I managed to retrieve what was, in fact, a small, sticky, grey foam square. It was a part of the cushioning between the moving metal parts on the underside of my futon. What the hell was my hair thinking, going into such a dangerous place while I was sleeping? It could have been hurt or killed! Apparently it was angry that I didn't retrieve the bandana it had dropped immediately before bed. As a disgusting aside: Bear discovered this weekend why I use a strainer in my shower drain as I surgically removed a 5-pound hairball from my drain. If any of you readers out there are landlords, please don't install bathtubs with the attached stoppers that you can't remove, some people just plain need to remove them. On the plus side the hairball of death is now gone and my tub will drain properly. Bear insist that he still loves me as long as he never has to watch that again. In other notes my computer monitor is dying a slow and painful death. It started doing funky stuff last week when I was in the final stages of working on a huge paper (don't even get me started about last Wednesday). It began with two grey bars, lighter on the right than the left, running down my screen at high speed then starting over at the top. This was followed by the addition of a slow fade to sickly green and back to normal color. Then the words started vibrating, as if I was living in Jurassic Park and the T. Rex was behind me. Now the entire screen does the wave, like a flag. Blarg. I now understand why some people get seasick and have trouble reading in moving vehicles. This whole motion makes me want to ralph. (Reasons never to name your child Ralph. In addition to Asshole Klein of course.) So now I need to scratch up the cash to replace it. I'm hoping to get something a bit bigger than what I have now, so that I can see more than two columns at a time in excel. (I can't really complain about this one since Bear lent it to me for free and now I've killed it). Bear and I had a delightful weekend that consisted, mostly, of lying on my futon watching Season 1 of Friends and movies. We left the apartment three times the entire weekend. Once to got to the GMCC open house, once to go for dinner with Africa and Foreman, and once to go to church. We ate meals when we were hungry: breakfast in bed at 11 on smiley face trays, KD at 3, French toast brunch with fakon (turkey bacon, not terrible but not good either). We also made cranberry banana bread, yummy! So really I didn't get any of the things done that I needed to get done but I still accomplished something necessary: I needed a break, a good one. Camping in Canada at this time of the year is highly impractical given the depth of snow and the temperatures that we've had in the last two weeks: I believe we hit minus 36ish (minus 45 with wind chill) and lots of snow (winter is really here at last, now go away). And neither of us have the money right now to pay to get away so a retreat in my apartment was the perfect thing, leaving Africa and Foreman the other apartment. (MUSH ALERT: If you tend to be nauseated by mushy remarks, skip the following paragraph) I think I got more kisses in the past 48 hours than in the past 4 months put together. My left shoulder, in particular, seemed to receive more than it's usual share of attention. It was so great to just lie around and talk about what ever came to mind, to be silly and goofy and giggly. We talked about our future and we are both seeming much more secure in each other. I feel refreshed and rejuvenated, like the commercials always promise their product will do (Bottled Bear: rejuvenate your heart). And then at seven o'clock I woke up and Bear was gone. He left a note on the banana bread saying he loves me, but my apartment seems empty without his gentle joy. His pontoon shoes aren't at my door, his scribbled flow charts are gone from my table, and there are no black sport-socks lying by my couch. And I miss him. Even though he's only a block away, even though I know it can't be that way yet: I want him here always. As I mentioned, Bear and I went to the GMCC open house on Saturday. I'm still working on my quest to find a career that I like that will actually pay my rent. I decided to explore some new options, looking into the PT/OT assistant, the Bachelor of Applied Communication in Professional Writing, and the Digitals Media and Arts programs. I discovered that I already make more than a PT/OT assistant's maximum starting salary at my current job as a secretary. While it might be slightly more rewarding, at this point in time is it worth retraining for? I don't know. The professional writing program looked dead boring. Honestly, while my grammar is certainly not stellar it didn't look like a program that would hold my interest for that long. Don't get me wrong, I love to write, but I have no real desire to write technical manuals for a living. Blearg. The Digital Media and Arts program looked fantastic. It was varied and interesting and I don't need to be able to draw to take it. It includes photography, but is not just photography. I think I would really enjoy the program but I don't know that I would have a job at the end of it. It was difficult to tell what the actual market for their graduates is. At any rate it is a program that I am definitely going to keep in mind to research further. Also, if I haven't figured out what I'm doing by September I'm going to take the first year photography course from that program. I wanted to take a photography course anyways and I'm hoping to buy a small format SLR camera to play with this summer. I'm really discouraged with my ENCS class right now. I'm beginning to think that I'm just not smart enough for graduate studies. I don't know what to do. What I don't understand is how my areas of interest can be so hugely varied. I've studied genetics, massage therapy, and conservation biology, to name a few. I'm interested in areas of health, biological sciences, photography, writing, nature, organizing. I have skills all the way across the board. WHY can't I figure out what to do? All I want right now is to have someone walk up to me, do a test and say: "You need to do this, it meets your needs and skills, you will be happy doing it, you need to take these steps to get there. Doing well at this job will give you personal satisfaction and will benefit society." I feel like the job for me hasn't been invented yet and that the second I hear of it my heart will leap up in my chest and shout for joy. Sigh. All fantasy. Well, there you go: the contents of my brain from this weekend. A picture of all that yucky gray matter swirled together, blended and baked and photographed for your entertainment. 2004-02-08 || 10:09 p.m. |
