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25 October 2008

On Deadlines and BAMF-ness

My life has been all about procrastination lately. Here's some things on my plate (not that you should really care, because they're quite mundane):

  • My application for the Ghana Maymester.
  • My application to be a FIG mentor next semester.
  • My sociology paper due next week that I've barely started researching.
Now these three things may seem like nothing, but here's what each of them entail.

  • Ghana Maymester - Two essays with prompts so generic that it's almost impossible to write something original. Why should I go to Ghana? Because I'm Laura-fuckin'-Covarrubias and I will eradicate AIDS from this God-forsaken planet, that's why. Then I have to make sure that my letter of recommendation gets in without seeming like an impatient bitch - "How's that letter coming, dear instructor? You know, no pressure, but the future of the world hangs in the balance while you twiddle your thumbs."
  • FIG Shit - Very generic questions that made me want to barf - What is a FIG mentor? Why would you be a good one? Blablabla toot your own horn while we pretend to care. Then two letters of reference and a resume. Come on, it's not like I'm a registered sex offender. Besides, they're not minors anymore.
  • Soc paper - I chose to write about the sociology of traffic and how culture partially determines how people drive. It's pretty interesting, but try narrowing this topic down to something that will have many sources. It's not like twenty researchers are interested in the role cows play in Indian traffic. Due Thursday, so I will be polishing it until three a.m. that day. College.

To top this all off, I have no idea what I'm doing for Halloween. I'm kinda sick about hearing about it, especially since I'm not one of those insanely lucky girls with a size two waist and a C cup. None of my ideas are sexy, which is what girls are expected to be for the occassion, so now I'm just thinking about wearing a wig and a cheap dress and saying I'm a crack whore. Except I'm not skinny, so maybe I'm a pot whore?

Oh, yeah, by the way, I had my cartilage impaled with a metal stick yesterday because I felt like I needed some kind of rite of passage into official un-teenage-dom. Actually, that's what I'm planning on doing on my real birthday on Tuesday with my first tattoo. Yeah, my parents are going to kill me when they discover it someday. But whatevs, right? My body, my right, my fetus!

Anyways, now I have to take iron supplements because I bled everywhere when he removed the whatever it was that was inserted through my skin. It was pretty cool because I finally got to know what it feels like to have a nose bleed - very warm and wet - and I was officially labeled a badass motherfucker. Then I got to go to HEB with a bloody nose and blood stains down my front. Very bamf.

And Miss Devon House did it with me, so she's a bamf too, even though she eats meat and didn't have the whole iron-deficiency problem. But she's a trooper. A sexi trooper.

14 October 2008

sobriety

Life is good again.

Something changed in me this weekend. Whether it be my hormones rebalancing themselves or a spiritual alteration, I don't know. What I do know is that I feel free from myself and yet intimately intertwined with everyone else.

Driving gives you a lot of time to think alone. People forget that they need time to ponder their life and their universe by themselves - too often this is done at a coffeeshop, where you're still putting on an act, or in the presence of others, like in a dorm room or library. Complete privacy is pertinent, and while I guess you can argue that other people can see you in your car if they really want to, cars count as alone time. This is why people like driving long distances alone so much. Sure, the scenery is nice, but the resulting relaxation is all about the meditation you perform with or without knowing it.

I thought a lot about Matt, this guy I went to high school with who just died of cancer. I don't know if I ever spoke to him and if I did it was something stupid like "Hey, can I borrow a pencil?" or "What's the imperative tense?" We had Spanish together sophomore year (for clarification). He seemed like a nice enough kid, cute, athletic, and daringly flirtacious with Mrs. Salinas. I might have thought he was too cocky for my taste at one time, but now I think of it more as self-assurance, a confidence that other guys his age had not yet mastered, and probably will never.

I learned that he died on Facebook, of all places, and for some reason it hit me really hard. I knew he had cancer and had overheard from a few people that he was looking kind of bad before we graduated, but I figured that he wouldn't die. We are too young to die.

Seeing his obituary was otherworldly. I'm about to turn 20, and seeing the two and zero next to his name forced me to confront my own mortality.

I drove home from Corpus very carefully.

Thinking of this now, I feel like I'm sober for the first time in my life. Putting things into perspective, I should be more considerate of myself. After all these years of trying not to hurt anyone else's feelings, of putting others before myself and thinking of their wellbeing, shouldn't I watch my own footing? Maybe I shouldn't drink so much. Maybe I should never smoke another cigarette. Maybe I should work out more often and eat right. Maybe I should drive more carefully and check the street before I cross it. Maybe I shouldn't put myself into compromising situations.

I am alive, but not for long.

To top this all off, I have no idea what happens after death. I've kinda kicked that whole heaven and hell idea, but what does that leave me? I want to believe in reincarnation, but I need a foundation. Now, more than ever, I am drawn to the spiritual.

We are alive, but not for long.

11 October 2008

anonymity

I ran away this afternoon.

I haven't been myself lately. Or, rather, I haven't had a self lately. I've just been existing, trying to make meaning where I could find none, failing. This is unlike me...I usually have some idea where I'm headed but here I am, 200 miles away from where I should be, pretending everything is fine with swelling eyes, knowing that only hearts are meant to swell.

I didn't tell many people that I left, just my roommate and those I had plans with this weekend. I didn't tell anyone here that I was coming and I'm not going to. I don't consider this antisocial; rather, it is a proactive way of silencing the static.

I got a rather interesting text today - "Hello i need you here cause i feel empty." I don't know who it was and just looked up the area code (Dallas). I don't think I know anyone in Dallas who should be missing me right now, in that way. I responded and asked who it was...the (lame) response - "The past the present and the future." Later (he?) said my name but I was too creeped out to affirm that it was me and so (he?) apologized for having the wrong number. Now it's killing me - who could it have been? Was it me being safe when I didn't say it was me, or was that me, yet again, running from potential? The thing that kills me is that I know that someone gave me his number the other day and it started with a 991 after the area code and I remember saying "Dude, I bet a lot of people dial 911 on accident" like the retard I am. And now I can't remember. Fuck me with a spoon.

Anyways, that whole number thing is incredibly unimportant and poorly written, but I'm slightly (very) intrigued...and half wanting to text back the truth to find out who it is.