Well, PD and I are... eh, minutes? An hour? Away from leaving for San Francisco for the weekend.

I wanted to catch "Wicked" before it moved again though, admittedly, it's coming back down here again. But I refuse to see it in the upcoming location because the acoustics are so very, very bad in that place (Orange County Performing Arts Center). Also, I really try to spend as little time in Orange County as I possibly can.

So, we're leaving shortly, hitting Anderson's for lunch, hopefully have time to get a relaxing dinner before getting all "fancy" for the show. And I want to get fancy. I bought a dress months ago that I've been looking forward to wearing and now, now I have the perfect setting for it.

Which shouldn't be so exciting, but I'm a girl. Mmm... clothes.

Wandering around Saturday, planning on taking PD to a tea house (he loves his tea) and the Disney Museum (both of us love Disney), and just seeing the sights. Sunday we'll hit Winchester Mystery House, then Gilroy for some garlic, and wind our way down the coast with tenative plans to finally see Toy Story 3 before it leaves theaters.

So it'll be good. He needs a vacation.

School also just started for me. Two classes, dead center of the week. Contemporary Novels (yay, postmodernism for the win!) and Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (not so much for the win). Fortunately, most of the plays I have to read for the latter are plays that PD has acted in, so I'm going to be asking (forcing) him to do some voice acting for me so I don't have to suffer nearly as much.

I'm not a fan of anything written before WWII, I will admit. Just doesn't do it for me.

But I'm trying.

Anyhoo, PD's cooking breakfast, so I'm going to join him.

It's raining.

It's also almost 4PM.

Another anxiety fueled morning that prompted me to force myself past the chemicals flooding my brain and go look at apartments.

I found one that I really liked. A fourplex that was a remodeled old colonial-looking cottage. Something like that. I don't remember the exact descriptors.

Huge. Beautiful. Underpriced for what it was. She could have easily been asking $1200 for the place, no issue.

But I couldn't do it. My panic set in. It was a privately owned property, the owner lived in one of the four suites. The one I would be living next to. I would be in constant fear that I would be monitored, made to feel uncomfortable, forced to have polite conversations, and eventually booted if the whim hit her.

So I left. Drove around and walked around in the rain, looking at properties.

Some were nice. Some weren't. I wasn't impressed with the way the management companies handled themselves.

And then I found it.

Actually, I drove by a place, called the number, asked to see it, was sent to the management office to get keys, met the management person... and I really liked him. I really liked the office. I loved the price on the place.

I drove back to the property, and as I was unlocking the gate, my father called me to tell me he wanted me home tonight because we are doing our missing Christmas morning tomorrow. And they want to talk to me about my future, about my schooling, about money.

I talked to him as I walked around the place. Beautiful. Told him I'd show up later tonight. He sounded almost like who he used to be.

The place... high ceilings. Wood floors. Huge closet. Vanity space. Interesting kitchen. All utilities paid except for electricity. Laundry on-site. Faux fireplace. Parking for $40 a month.

And as I mentally assembled where my furniture would go, I knew that was the place for me. A tiny but beautiful studio across the street from a very happening bar (not that I drink, but that particular bar is a favorite people-watching place of mine), only a few blocks away from C's place.

So I applied about an hour ago. I'll know if I got it on Monday. I'm the first applicant in (well, aside from one other who had to pull out due to financial trouble), so if I clear all their background/credit/employment/income checks, which I believe I should, the place is mine.

Yesterday, I went up to the office and talked to my boss. Let him know what happened with my family, what was going on, and asked if he could please please please disregard my one-month notice I gave him the previous week. That I'm staying on.

He said he would like to have me stay. I've worked there for over two years. I bust my ass for them. I know all the customers and some of them only want to talk to me, no one else.

So I still have my job.

Tomorrow, I have to sit down with my parents and turn away all their offers, all the money and hopes and begging me to let them support me for awhile while I go to school. I just can't quit my job. I can't be left drifting like that. It's too dangerous, especially with my dad being the way he is.

On January 8th, I need to drop all my classes that I already paid for and enroll in one class. Just one.

And then all the decisions will have been made, and I will have altered my course entirely.

Busy week.

I... got a standing ovation in class last night.

Seriously.

In class, group project, taking a particular book and being given the topic of a recurring theme or formal element and told to create a thesis based around our idea of the author's ultimate theme of the book and how they used that idea or element to do so.

So, sitting in my group, all of them bullshitting about politics and law for the 30 minutes we had, nothing being accomplished, I start doing it on my own. I like analyzing books. I think it's great fun. I don't like discussing politics.

It all works out.

So I'm sitting there, surrounded by my selected classmates, scribbling notes on the structural layout of the book, condensing the parts into major themes, we go back to class, I'm still not done, sitting through the presentations of the other groups' thesises Thesii? Multiple thesis. I don't know. Various thesis statements. Ha!

Start writing my thesis on the side of one of my pages of notes.

But I have this problem with run-on sentences (as you all know) and this problem with not being able to keep my writing tight (as you all know). I'm a babbler.

But the rest of my group hasn't touched the work, for all intents and purposes. And we're turning it in.

So I scribble away.

And come up with this convoluted thesis that really needs to be cleaned up. Cleaned up like whoa.

But one of my group members draws attention to our group and we end up going out of order. Which leaves me sitting there with this massive thesis statement that violates so many "rules" of writing and I'm glaring at this guy thinking "Why the hell did you just do that?"

So I try to get out of it, try to say we should go back into the order we were in and I'm not done and the rest of the class is like "Nooooo, just do it!"

Which leaves me doing a mini-disclaimer and apology to the class for what I'm about to put them through.

And then I read the damn thesis, blushing profusely.

When I'm done, one of my classmates shouts "Time!" and acts like he's clicking off a stopwatch, and the rest of the class explodes into applause, laughter, and about half of them stand up to continue applauding.

I'm sitting there, beet red, trying to hide behind my hair.

The professor just looks at me. I look at her. Then she says something along the lines of, well, thank you, but we need something a little less massive and you just covered the entire contents of the final paper, and asks one of my classmates to provide a summarized version of my thesis.

Which he does. But it wasn't nearly as good and didn't really have the main point I was trying to express. Glare.

On the way out of class, I'm thanked for helping the rest of the class write their papers.

Still red.

But I snagged my thesis notes instead of turning them in. So you can admire my handwriting and laugh at my massively overdone ramble. Please note that I'm not actually supposed to be writing, due to my previous wrist and arm injuries, so my writing tends to degrade in legibility as I lose my dexterity due to strain. Please also note that it doesn't make sense anywhere but in my head because it's notes to myself so I left out words.



Translation:
Structure over ten selected years creating situations of push, pull, and stagnation created by youthful experiences fighting with internal nature, three characters in a created world colliding due to tracks differing (one train leaving station A at thirty miles and hour, one train leaving station B at 20 miles per hour, collision?) and the impacts (or lack of impact) on each other as they brush by and slightly alter course with nothing more than coincidence and luck for outcomes, if one can at all consider the characters luck (only Marta achieved happiness), Evaristo the only character without goals, intent, surviving in his watchtower as events unfolded, chained to the experience and humanity by Marta, a powerless, detached god-figure missing human traits and bonding ability, almost an overarching theme on the drag of humanity back to a center without meaning, or that meaning and a person's definition (or lack of) happiness as created by their background and experiences as illustrated by the contained variety and opposition of traits and social/economic/familial backgrounds have no impact on their eventual reality.

There's also a little diagram.

Winner is... me?

I really need to get this overabudance of words problem under control.

It was pretty damn epic.

Class last night.

Dropped back into the fishtank.

Tuesday's class is particularly discussion heavy (as opposed to lecture heavy), with a focus on postmoderism and the romantic identity.

It's amusing, with all the classes I've taken for another major, classes that should have been discussion heavy... this is the first I've taken in quite a long time that enables the student to share, argue, and discuss.

And I'm, apparently, a golden god.

Laughter is appropriate, yes.

But look at it this way:

I started college when I was sixteen. Dropped out when I was seventeen, took a semester, maybe two off, enrolled in another college, graduated with two AAs (whoo?), transferred, graduated with my BA, was immediately sent back to college by the company I work for (another year), then re-enrolled into my old four-year in order to complete some pre-reqs for entry into the Master's program.

You would think, because of the constant college attendance for the last ten years of my life, that I would be... not so out there. That I would be like any other college student with limited life experience.

But I never allowed college to dominate my life. It was a side project. I was out partying, clubbing, meeting new people, going to strange places, constantly reading, constantly discussing philosophy, sexuality, socialization, seeing all that I could, learning all that I could. Because that's what I enjoy.

Most of the people in my class are either several years younger than me, on their college-to-career path, focusing all of their energies on their school work and keeping the same social set they had from high school (I did not leave high school with a social set and purposefully rotate through several social groups), or they are women in their forties and fifties, coming in after marrying and raising a family, having dropped out of college, so all that they know is their kids, how to drive a mini-van to soccer practice, and their part-time secratary role.

So you toss me in there... and chaos ensues.

A little over every other class, a new person that I rarely recognize comes up to tell me that I make amazing arguments, they really like my point of view, or that I'm so out there and I make them think. I've had class stopped for me, class derailed for me, and last night a guy who I noted weeks ago had interest in me, basically jumped ship on his facilitation in order to have a conversation with me about values and identity while the rest of the class watched on, to the point where I had to purposefully add another person into the mix before it became awkward.

It's good for my ego.

But this is not someplace I wish to rest.

To get better, one has to engage with others better than oneself.

I keep telling guys this, the guys who go for the innocent young girls and deride the more experienced of us: you will never up your game, will never get better in bed, never know your limits, if you keep going after people less experienced than you. It's a good ego stroke but that's all it is. Stop the mental masturbation.

Last week, a theory I tossed out at the professor actually made her sit down.

This week, I noted that when I am off, surfing the internet and not participating, class slows and I end up getting stared at.

This week, I earned my letter of recommendation to the Master's program.

Places to go, a person to be.

If you are a puppy, find the bigger dogs to show you how to play.
If you stay with the rest, the best you'll get is paper-trained.

Clever got me this far...

Last night in class, covering the Romantic movement in literature.

Divided into groups.

I've managed my way into the group with the three hottest men in class: a heavily inked rockabilly, an intelligent (but young) jock, and a built gym rat.

We talk. The jock and I flirt, the rockabilly and I alternate between debate and discussion of various forms of literature, I view, with pleasure, the gym rat, tease him and talk with him.

I don't think the last one is used to that, from a girl.

One of our classmates, a woman, politely requested him to stop talking during a presentation and he started chewing her out immediately, even though he was entirely in the wrong.

For as much shit as I give him, he leaves me verbally unmolested. He dismisses me as female because I am not the socially standard female, but not in the way where I become valueless like the other girls.

Masculine dandy, going places where other girls aren't allowed to venture.

Our group is asked to speak on a topic that Mr. Rockabilly and I quite disagreed on. I insist that he speaks first, and he does, does it well enough.

He's bright, but he's inexperienced. The things he has said to me during class and during breaks, about his viewpoints... he has a lot of living to do. But it doesn't seem like he has much interest in doing so. Not everyone wishes to expand their horizons.

Most people don't, I've found.

He speaks, and then I counter-point him.

Off-the-cuff, words roll out of my mouth, stilted... but the content is there. I did not prepare as much as glance at what we were reading and know that my closed-minded, open-mouthed man was wrong, not approaching things from a holistic perspective.

English doesn't teach you to do that.

Sociology does.

Novels are meant to be read as a whole. You can break down the chapters, the paragraphs, the sentences, but in the end it is meant to be taken as a single piece, as a sum of the parts... not just a solitary part.

Reading over the questions on the Power Point slide, answering them as I go, feeling that I am not doing the topic justice, that I should have read this before answering, not as I answer.

Then it's over.

We move onto the next, another classmate goes to answer a question...

But he's interrupted.

The facilitation leader cuts him off and turns to me. Stops the entire class to thank me for my viewpoint, tell me how wonderful it was, and ask me to elaborate further on the topic.

Half-second blank stare, add in a few more sentences that were formed during the shift between questions as my brain continued to construct on the idea I set forth.

There is that moment, that brief glow of acknowledgement. That I am... more. That I am able to set forth ideas and articulate them. I take pride on my ability to break things down to the lowest common denominator, accessibility is something I strive for, and one of the reasons you will occasionally find me ranting about certain authors (*cough*Gibson*cough*).

Mr. Rockabilly said to me, about two weeks ago, that whenever I talk in class, he listens. We goof off so much, read and surf the net, laugh and exchange jokes in whispers. But when I speak, he stops and listens.

That's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

Being back in college, sometimes I'm left feeling beyond it. Not quite superior, but just... more. Switching majors like I have leaves me lacking in certain background education most of my classmates have, but I'm able to hold my own and go beyond what they can because of the things I have done, the things I have been through or exposed myself to.

It's an interesting experience.

And now I'm hanging out with the "popular" crowd, making friends instead of having my nose buried in a book.

Who knew?

Breathing in the things around you...

Went out to dinner with a friend last night, to a little ramen place on Olypmic Boulevard.

He's foreign to me. So quiet, so introverted, this I understand. I have my days, an occasional week or two, where the last thing I want is social interaction and I do my best to avoid contact with others, especially contact with friends because I know it's likely that my desire to be as far away from them as possible will bleed through.

My friend rarely leaves his apartment, other than for work and errands. He's a brain, an up and coming programmer. Constantly plugging away at the keyboard, obsessed with designing things bigger and better.

I was trying to convince him to get out more, to go see more of, at least, Los Angeles. He has so little interest in doing so.

And while I was talking, I quickly realized that he knows who he is, what he's doing with his life, what his interests are. He found his nook early on and there's no further need for exploration.

My nook? Gods, do I even have one? Scouring the streets, the internet, diving through books, talking to strangers, trying to find out what I am missing, where the hell are others like me, where do I fit in all of this, why is it so rare for me to be able to relate to someone? (When) will I figure it out?

My mother says she admires me, how I go out and explore, how I am constantly trying new things and, even when afraid, forcing myself into new situations. Pushing my boundaries, making myself uncomfortable, driven on by the idea that just over that next ridge I'll find what it is I'm looking for.

That those places or people I find that resonate in me, the doorways I step through and know that I've found another piece of something I should know, that one day I'll crest that hill and know I need to go no further.

After dinner, we took a walk.

The big Krav Maga studio, fists swinging into bags, the abbreviated shouts and slam of flesh into canvas, echoing through the glass into the street. I wanted to watch, wanted to see the sweat flying off their bodies, their brutal drive towards whatever goals they've set themselves.

... ... ...

This coming year... my birthday is in about three weeks. SFPlayboy is coming down, both he and GV8 have agreed to my request for DP.

Actually, what Playboy said was, "Fuck yeah, birthday girl!"

They're such givers. So self-sacrificing and noble.

... ... ...

Class is proving to be an interesting place. Returning to college, though I never really left it since I came back, because of work.

Surrounded by, mostly, two types of people.

The kids in their late teens, early twenties, pushing for that diploma so they can launch themselves into the world, and those who got married and started families much too early, and are now returning to school to address their neglected (and usually abandoned) education.

It leaves me feeling old.

And I shouldn't be. It seems silly.

What am I supposed to say, though?

Reading The Awakening, discussing women's rights, sexuality, search for identity, questioning of self, adultery... so many of these kids... it goes right over their heads. Am I supposed to mention what it feels like to be the one pursued by a friend's roving husband? Should I mention rolling around in bed with two men while popping pills? Or the nameless sex searching for a sense of self-destruction? Of what it feels like when you're coming out of a dream of life? Swing clubs and pawing men, straddling someone so much stronger than you, knowing that you are more than they could ever be, and that, as the years pass, this feeling will continue to grow?

Then to Into the Wild. What am I supposed to say? I mean, really. I've hung out with those kids. Trainhoppers, bums, hitchhikers, those who have been on the road for years, living in forests, living off the kindness of others or their own intelligence. Alaska? I've been there. I was caught in a storm while kayaking about fifty miles out from civilization and was nearly smashed on the black rocks of some island in the middle of nowhere. Paddling through iceflows, watching glaciers fall, sliding over sheets of ice.

They go home to their families, to their roommates, their boyfriends, their husbands and children.

I go to my couch for the evening, or a sleeping bag on the floor, or a lover's house and spend the night in exhausted sex. I wake in the morning, get coffee, and go into the office, knowing that the next day will bring something different, a new place, new faces, and I get to watch the world and see what it will bring by my door.

So much has changed.

Throughout the projects...

Well, I suppose it's that time again.

Possibly not.

I'm feeling frustrated. This happens a couple of times each year, where I know there is something near me, or accessible to me, but I can't quite find it, and I know if I found it I would understand myself or the world more, that it would be like finding a piece of me if only I would let go enough to look.

It's a need to be somewhere, to read something, to listen to a particular CD that I've yet to discover, or a movie that needs to be watched, a person that I need to talk to... but I have no knowledge of these, yet. So close. I know if I stepped out of this office and started wandering, I would find it. I would just keep walking, listening to my instincts, until I found the who or what I'm looking for.

Days like these drive me batty. It becomes a battle between responsibilities and my entire being screaming at me that there's somewhere I need to be, something I need to be doing. It's like I'm being tugged at so strongly, like someone/thing is trying to pull me out of my skin and only succeeding in making me feel like I'm going out of my head.

... ... ... ...

I've been exhausting myself, as per usual. The fight between my body and my mind, my body giving out before my mind with sickness or fatigue. I've given myself bronchitis numerous times, along with more occurances of strep throat in a year than is normal, and managed to create my very own case of mono without coming into contact with anyone who had it. I don't think you're supposed to be able to do that.

Yesterday morning, I went to my college of choice and ran around for hours on a large coffee and small bowl of applesauce and a cookie, trying to take care of registering at a school that has been closed to new registration due to the budget cuts. I was so late to work that I just went straight into the office, digging in my desk for a banana, then a tiny orange, then a hardboiled egg throughout the day, peppered in with a small handful of nuts because I didn't have a chance to go shopping this week. I ended up staying until almost 7PM, trying to take care of everything before it has a chance to build up this weekend, starving with my stomach yelling at me for the amount of caffiene versus the amount of food I had put into it, combined with the adrenaline that was set off due to the last minute running around, attempting to talk to the right people so I can start this coming semester.

If this works, I'll have a teaching credential soon. Yes. Me. Teaching. English.

Just don't show them my disregard for grammar in my blog and we'll be good.

Through the credential program, I'll be able to cover my prereq units to get into the Master's program. If I'm somehow able to figure this out, by the end of this I'll have two AAs, two BAs, a single subject teaching credential, and my Master's. Theoretically. If it does not work out as planned, I'll only have one BA, but have the credits for two and be angrily shaking my fist at the school system.

Assuming, of course, that things go smoothly with the paperwork I submitted yesterday, and that I get all my transcripts in on time. I did get two awesome shots of the new buildings on campus, so I'll be posting those eventually.

Anyhow, enough with that rambling. By the time I got to C's house, I was dead on my feet. The touch of food poisoning the night before did not help. So I skipped kareoke yet again, but was regaled with the news that C and Crosser had some playtime on Monday night.

Score. They were able to develop the friendship/emotional bond both of them needed to sexually interact with each other, which means C's a happy camper, which makes me happy. She really needed this, and I'm glad I was able to offer support and knowledge of options in order to help this occur, though I know the majority of the effort was on her part. She's learning and I'm thrilled.

After making dinner, she and a friend left for kareoke, leaving me half-asleep on her futon, reading a book I snagged from C earlier. I wish I hadn't been so tired. I wish that I ever really had a chance to recover that wasn't me sick in bed or on the couch in the middle of the work week. I try to pace myself, drink lots of water, eat healthy, exercise, sleep at least six hours a night, but it doesn't always seem to cut it.

Tonight, we're going out to dinner with a bunch of people, and a friend of ours who just broke up with his long-time live-in girlfriend last night. I want to go be there for him, to talk to him, hold his hand, cuddle, give the comfort that I can. He's very upset. He loves her, but it wasn't working. I'm tired, but it's just another time I need to coffee up.

This weekend, starting tomorrow, I should just put a caffiene drip on me.