lay your head down and sleep

I'm tired of repeating myself.
I'm tired of playing second fiddle to someone who doesn't deserve first chair.
I'm tired of constantly being in pain.
I'm tired of complaining about being in pain, but there's nothing else I can do.
I'm tired of never feeling like my to-do list has been completed.
I'm tired of being accused of being judgmental.
I'm tired of having other people use me as an outlet to vent, and then not liking what I have to say about their problems.
I'm tired of people complaining to me, when they won't even take 5 minutes to let me complain to them.
I'm tired of smart people making stupid choices.
I'm tired of stupid people making stupid choices.
I'm tired of feeling like I don't belong anywhere.
I'm tired of being tired.

verr drunk... A FOR ORCHESTRA!

There are some things I realized tonight.

1. not enough bars in central ohio carry sam adams. i want to be in bahston again.

2. shoulder holsters are sexy. yup. dinozzo.

3. i think my font just changed, but I can't tell.

4. brb time to wash my face and rinse my sinuses.........

k back. know whats really hard for drunk people? aiming a squirt bottle at your nose. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. I'll probably regret that choice tomorrow but as it is I'm going to have a hangover and I'm too drunk to do homework riht now.

sommmmeeeeeeeewhere overthe raaaaaaainbow!

and now for some poetic waxing and waning of the drunk. this come from my sophomore year roommate erin: my pee is clear because i drink beer!

fin.

that looks like fin, not the end. shaaaaark attack!! *chomp choimp*

I feel pretty..... fucking pretty! I feel pretty and witty and gay!! except not.

But I do feel pretty!

this is bad. I'm too drunk to play the sims. and  I really want to but I dont want o do something dumb like starve my sims.

mmm. rice. I want ice. and phil collins. and cheesy bread!!!!! I don't even care that it's like a milllion points. SO UCKING TATSY.

I think I know how I gained weight in colelge now.

Oh hey. ANNIE AUTOMATIC. go listen to them bitches. they're fucking awesome because thye play ROCKANDFUCKINGROOLLL.

I'm clumsy when I'm sober. think od me when I'm drunk as a skunk.

I feel like thispost shold;t be publshed. but i hace=ve so mcuh to say! YOU CAN;T TIE ME DOWN.

happy birthday nic(h)ole!!!

know what doesnt help a drunk girl? a keyboard that requires you to push the keys down real hard! i have issues writing papers, let alone drunk blogging. i blame the liquid nirogen.

annie automatic is telling me to lay my head down and sleep.

i want cheese. and a man.

IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I MADE OUT WITH SOMEONE.

the last time i was even kissed was november and truthfully it was weak sauce. i kind of want to get on okcupid even though i gave it up becase of m surgery and alabama. the last i got on okcupid when i was drunk i told a very nice boy baout my dead grandpa and that was the last time i heard from him. WOMP WOMP MOTHERFUCKING FAILWHALE.

alrigght kids, i think it's time for some water and F-ri-en-d-s!

peace out bitches!

christine

is someone getting the best of you?

I've taken to blogging as a form of procrastination. Probably not my smartest choice, but there are worse things.

Boston was awesome! It makes me wish that I had stuck it out with the Flyer Pep Band in college, but it's not like quitting FPB was my only mistake in college or anything. Anyway, seeing (some of) my UD friends was amazing, traveling was amazing, being in a band again was amazing, cheering on a really kickass team again was amazing; I wouldn't take back last weekend for anything. Except that now I'm actually drowning in schoolwork. It's rushing into my lungs and soon I won't be able to breathe. I'm not really known for getting stuff done super early, but I had to get stuff done early last week so I could go to Merrimack, and now I have to get stuff done early so I can go on the Eastern trip. I want my professors to stop assigning things that are due on Fridays. Also, I'm over busywork. I do the readings and listen to the lectures, I pinky swear. Just don't make me write an essay every single week proving that I did, plus keep up with a million discussion threads.

I'm supposed to be finding a way to make myself be happy for five minutes a day, and it's really not easy. I'm either stressed, busy, worried, or tired. Happy and relaxed simply aren't in my schedule anymore. One of my friends posted a link on Facebook to a website that played the sounds of the ocean while you looked at the picture of waves, and the idea was for you to not do anything for two minutes. On my first try, I lasted 4 seconds. The second try was better, but the anxiety of not doing anything was making me panic that I was wasting time. I just wish I could see that relaxing isn't a waste of time. This is totally a trait I picked up from my mom. She doesn't know how to relax, and I think it's finally rubbed off on me. It probably sounds like crazy talk, but I wish I could take a vacation from myself. Just break out of my body and be free for a little while, without worrying about getting school stuff done, or applying for jobs, figuring out my schedule, or any of the other millions of things I worry about on a daily basis. It's gotten to the point where I sit and envy Rosie because all he does is lay around, lick himself, and sometimes he hops around in fit of happiness. His biggest worry each day is what time he gets his dinner salad. Lucky bastard.

I wish I didn't have to sleep. Or eat. Or shower. Talk about time consuming. If I didn't sleep, eat, or shower, I'd save about 11 hours each day, assuming I eat a quick breakfast and lunch. Eleven hours. What would you do with eleven extra hours? I'd certainly be caught up on my school stuff then. I might even have time to be happy. Or find places for all of the stuff I brought back from Kent a couple of weeks ago. Or play Animal Crossing. Or reinstall The Sims 3. Or retrieve the rest of the music I lost when my hard drive crashed. Or do something because I want to, not because I have to, or because it's something that people expect me to do. I could laugh. I don't laugh very much anymore. It used to be a daily occurrence, but now it might be days between laughs. Who has time to think about funny things? I would make a specific list of everything I think and worry about, but I'm not sure what good that would do. It's not like writing it down makes it go away. They're still little thought nuggets, permanently ingrained in my brain.

I'm nice and tired now. At least while I fall asleep I still have the ability to think about all of the happy things I want, but they usually put me to sleep before I have a chance to enjoy them. Of course, once I'm asleep, I never dream about what I was thinking about while I was falling asleep. Usually it's something terrifying or bizarre. Rarely do I have good dreams. I wish I had more control over my subconscious thoughts. I'd dream of nothing but happiness every night if I could.

~ Christine

Where I've Been, or, How My Life Has Gone to The Birds

Yo. (I've taken to saying 'Yo' a lot. It's the new leaf in me.) Speaking of Yo, I just realized that I forgot to watch Chelsea Lately and it's currently 11:32. Damn.

I realize it's been a month since I've blogged. So I'm going to play catch-up.

1. I'm officially transferring to Kent SLIS Columbus for next year. Kent, Ohio has to be the most abysmal place I've been, and I've been to a lot of really lousy places, including a week in West Virginia where it rained every day and all of our activities were outside, resulting in playing the same four board games over and over. Kent was worse. I was miserable there, and after all of the work I did trying to figure out how to make myself happy after I broke up with Bill last year, I basically took four giant leaps backwards. Being at home has helped because I'm around people all of the time, but there's no way I can go back. As soon as I realized at the end of Christmas break that I would do anything in my power to avoid going back, I knew that it was over for Kent and me. To be perfectly honest, there's still a lot of things about me that I need to improve mentally, and I think that not having that much alone time day after day is going to help me. So, it's back to old Columbus town for me!

2. I have to have sinus surgery. I've been having issues with my sinuses since last summer, and it's gotten worse and worse as time has gone on. So after a slew of doctor's appointments, allergy medicines, decongestants, and nasal sprays, it was determined by a CT scan that I had a cyst on my maxillary sinus that was causing the headaches. Then I was referred to an ENT specialist who told me that in addition to the cyst, I also have a deviated septum (which I've assumed about myself for years) and my turbine sinuses aren't formed correctly. I'm having surgery to fix all three things at once sometime in May. With school being so chaotic, I can't afford to be out of commission for even one day, and recovery can take up to a week. I have a couple more months of suffering, but then I'll most likely be pain free, as long as I take care of my sinuses. Which means no more hookah or secondhand smoke. I try to avoid the smoke anyway since I was told years ago that I have an allergy to it, but the hookah thing makes me sad since that's a social thing for my friends here. I'm not taking any chances with this though. I know someone (who will remain nameless, at least on the interwebs) who has caused sinus pains and infections after their surgery by smoking after recovering. No thanks. The only surgery I've had was getting my wisdom teeth removed when I was 14, and from what I remember, I was in pain for a few days afterwards because the pain meds made me nauseated. I'd like to avoid having the same surgery twice, please!

The funny thing is that I'm really hoping they don't have to reshape my nose too much. I actually like the way my nose looks. It's distinctive, and it's a family trait! We all have the same nose (my mom used to, before her own sinus surgery in her early 20s) and it's really grown on me. My 13 year old self is probably kicking and screaming right now, but all of the hurtful things that people have said to me over the years about it (*ahem* shark fin) have only given me a solid reason to hate guys who are legitimate douchebags. Now that I think about it, the only people who have ever made fun of me for my nose have been guys. Wow. Where do I meet all of these assholes?

3. Speaking of my nose, I'm a baroness. For years, we've always heard that we're distantly related to some German nobility, but my mom and I couldn't remember the details. So we asked my grandma last week, and lo and behold, my great-grandma was a baroness. Apparently when my grandma and her brother were growing up, if they misbehaved, my Oma would threaten to tell the Baron on them. They assumed she was just messing with them, like how you tell kids to behave because Santa's watching (sorry if I burst any bubbles). After my Oma passed, away, my great-uncle Joe went through some of her papers, and discovered that when my Oma threatened to tell the Baron, she meant her father. So she was a baroness, and that makes all of her descendants either barons or baronesses. There's a different term for it in German, I think it's Freiherr for baron and Freiin for baronesses. Of course, there's no nobility in Germany anymore, so there aren't any privileges, other than bragging rights. The title just gets absorbed into my family name. Did you know that Jamie Lee Curtis is technically a baroness through marriage? This is even more awesome than the time I figured out that there are only five degrees of separation between myself and Kevin Bacon!

Oh right, I should probably explain why nose = baroness. It's pretty simple. My nose is known as the "Noe Nose." My Oma's maiden name was Noe, and all Noes have this nose. Nobility is pretty notorious for some intense inbreeding. Now that I know that our family has a history of nobility, it makes sense that somewhere along the line, there were some hinky things going on, and ta-da! We have a genetically dominant nose! It's also why if you take pictures of my great-grandma, my grandma, my mom and her sister, and myself and my sister, there are some frightening similarities. I've actually mistaken my mother for myself in pictures, that's how similar we look. I've been told by several family members that when I style my hair a certain way, I'm a dead ringer for my Oma. The downside to all of this is that we all have deviated septums, but hey, between a deviated septum and webbed toes, I'd rather have the funky sinuses.

4. My lappy is dead. It's complicated and I'm tired, so I don't want to go too far into details but it's been dying for several days. Today was the end for it. I ran a scan on Saturday and I have some corrupt Windows files, plus my hard drive has started to eat data (I suddenly gained 25 GB of free space without deleting anything), and this morning Windows refused to load. It's in the care of the Geek Squad guys, and I'm praying that they can fix it because I've already dropped almost $400 to back any data they can and to figure out what's wrong. If I need a new hard drive, that's going to be extra. I was pretty psyched about having a little extra money going into the Eastern trip this year, since I'm saving money by not driving an hour and a half once a week to see friends, and I don't have to buy groceries, but almost all of that extra money is gone now. Technically, it's not even my money, it's my student loan money! And of course I'm in all online classes this semester. Not having a computer is killing me. Luckily, my procrastination prevented me from starting on any of the assignments I have due this week before today, so I haven't lost anything of that nature. And my parents got a brand new computer on Friday, so that's what I've been working on all day (and where I'm writing this). I'm sure they'd like to be able to use their new computer some more, and I know my dad has work to do in transferring old files, but in the meantime I need to not flunk out of grad school.

I've spent entirely too long writing this, but after a month of not blogging, I had a lot of stuff bottled up! I have no idea when I'll be able to post again since my third class is starting on Monday and I'm struggling to stay on top of things with just two classes. Plus, I don't have a computer right now. OY!

~ Christine

P.S. Did you catch that I ended this entry with a palindrome of the word I started it with? Bam, I'm awesome. And sleepy.

I feel it all

I feel it all, I feel it all, I feel it all, I feel it all
The wings are wide, the wings are wide
Wild card inside, wild card inside


Ooh, I'll be the one to break my heart
I'll be the one to hold the gun


I know more than I knew before
I know more than I knew before
I didn't rest, I didn't stop
Did we fight or did we talk?


Ooh, I'll be the one to break my heart
I'll be the one to hold the gun


I love you more, I love you more
I don't know what I knew before
But now I know I wanna win the war


No one likes to take a test
Sometimes you know more is less
Put your weight against the door
Kick drum on the basement floor


Stranded in the fog of words
Loved him like the winter bird
On my head the water pours
Gulf stream through the open door
Fly away, fly away to what you wanna make

I feel it all, I feel it all, I feel it all, I feel it all

The wings are wide, the wings are wide

Wild card inside, wild card inside

Ooh, I'll be the one to break my heart

I'll be the one who'll break my heart

I'll be the one who'll break my heart

I'll end it, though you started it

The truth lies

The truth lied

No one knows

And lies divide

Lies divide

I'm pretty sure Feist crawled into my brain and wrote this song based on my life.

I feel so many things right now, it has to be classified as feeling it all. I'm still angry, still hurt, still feeling like an idiot for not seeing the truth sooner, but I also feel guilty. I said a lot of really awful things in my last entry, and even though I'm pretty sure that he'll never see them, there's always a chance he will. Some of it he probably needs to hear, and some of it he probably shouldn't. I've been feeling like I have to bottle everything in as well. I'm afraid that if I really express what I'm feeling, I'll get grief about it. As if having feelings is a bad thing. I have good reason to be afraid of this too. It's happened to me before, even when the judgement of other people wasn't wanted. It's so easy to criticize other people when you're not in their shoes.

I want to cry. But I can't. I don't think this situation is a good enough reason to cry, at least not in a way that other people would understand.

Why do I always have to be the one to end things? It makes me think that I can't have a healthy relationship with someone without sabotaging it. Or is it that the guys I pick just aren't strong enough to recognize when things aren't going well? Or do I act prematurely? I occasionally still wonder if I made the right decision when I dumped each of my previous exes. The only one who dumped me isn't exactly a shining example of Good Life Choices (he tried to sleep with two of my roommates in college) so he's no defense for the argument that the Dumper makes the best choices and has the best clarity. How are we supposed to know if we're making the right decisions when we break up with people?

What if I made a horrible mistake? What if he really was just busy and was waiting for me to take initiative to text? I waited over a week after not hearing from him to attempt to contact him. What he thought that meant that I had lost interest? For all I know, the second OkCupid profile could have been to avoid a certain wacko stalker who was also pressuring him on Facebook to join her charity. He's not exactly the type of guy who's confident around women. After all, it took him awhile to even ask me on a date. I never even gave him a chance to defend himself... I just went into attack mode. Oh god, I was so wrong.

What have I done?

~ Christine

I'm not calling you a liar, just don't lie to me

I think it's safe to say that I've been blindsided. I really did think that I could actually believe what was told to me by a guy, but instead every stereotype about men being pigs has been proven true once again.

Not once did I force him into sticking around. He chose that willingly. To me, this should be simple. If you like a girl, you continue talking to her. If you don't like her, you tell her that the feeling's gone and then you move on. You DON'T lead her on for almost five months and you DON'T act like a fucking coward and hide when the day before you were still texting about getting home from work. Which brings up another point: Why the hell would you text someone every single day telling them that you made it home from work? Especially when you're not in a relationship and you have no intention of being in a relationship? All that does is lead me on. Don't act like a boyfriend if you don't want to be one.

Want to know why you've spent the last four New Year's Eves alone? Because you don't communicate. Not because you're shy. Not because you seem to have it in your head that no one takes you seriously. Because I fucking took you way too seriously. No, it's as simple as you have no FUCKING clue how to talk to people. And don't even attempt to trick more women into thinking that you're a victimized, nerdy, shy guy. The only person victimizing you is you. So stop it. No woman wants to date a nonstop pity party. It's really not a hard concept. Get over yourself and be interested in the other person. Respond to questions with more than one word. Or if you're feeling really crazy, a follow-up question!

Now that I've been defriended (and I seriously doubt that this blog is actually being read by the person it's intended for), I feel safe in confessing a few things. First of all, as I've said before, I had zero interest in dating someone when you first messaged me. None. So go ahead and feel guilty because now I've spent the last five months of my life pining after someone who never even deserved my attention in the first place. Second, when I found you on Facebook, I thought you were retarded. Erm, "mentally disabled." Yup. Your pictures on OkCupid were SO misleading that when I saw your Facebook profile, I thought that Toby Keith was rubbing the head of some retarded kid who won a contest or got pity from a celebrity who needed a cause to back for better PR. So way to go, the suave guy wearing a fedora turned into the retarded kid earning pity from a washed-out celeb. Again, not what women want.

I think the part that bothers me the most in all of this is that you claimed to be an honest person who would always tell me the truth. I gave you so many chances to back out and say no, and you never took them. WHY THE FUCK NOT? I would have been mad and hurt, sure. But if you had just said back in November after our date that you weren't that interested (like I'm sure you weren't by then) I could have had the last two months of my life without you taking up mental space. You lied, and you led me on for months! Do you honestly think I want to look back at the first semester of grad school and see myself wasting hours on end texting and talking on the phone with someone who didn't even have the decency to be honest with me? By lying (and lying for so long), you are essentially telling me that I don't matter enough in your eyes to hear what you actually think. I WOULD HAVE FUCKING LISTENED TO YOU IF YOU WOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING WORTHWHILE. But when the only thing you can talk about is a bunch of small talk, and we've "known" each other for five months, there's something wrong. At the five month mark, you're supposed to be swoony and adorable. Not creating a new secret profile on OkCupid. Do you think I wouldn't see it? I'm not an idiot. Which is why I don't care that I'm burning this bridge. I don't build bridges with lying assholes who have self confidence and communication issues.

~ Christine

I would have preferred a Gibbs-slap

My trunk of my car attempted to close on my head today. I was trying to be a nice person and drive my Grandma to her lunch with her sister-in-law and her cousin, and to deliver Christmas presents to her friends, and while I was loading the trunk with said presents, it came down on my head. As soon as it happened, I instantly knew that this was going to hurt for a long time. I kind of saw a flash and my ears rang, and then I'm pretty sure I swore a lot. I iced it for awhile, and my Grandma considered cancelling her lunch plans, but I felt so bad because she basically can't leave her house on her own during winter, and when else was she going to be able to do this? So I sucked it up and played chauffeur, but now I'm thinking that wasn't the best decision.

Since it happened, the pain's only gotten worse, and I keep closing my eyes, but there's no reason for me to fall asleep. I took Aleeve this morning for my jaw pain, so I couldn't take anything else until this evening, when I took ibuprofen. Then I found out that if you have a head or brain injury you should only take acetaminophen because ibuprofen can cause an increase in internal bleeding. Oops. I've been icing my head all afternoon and evening, and it's helped a little bit, but this evening the pain just keeps getting worse. Plus, I've become clumsier than usual. I spilled my glass of milk as I was coming upstairs tonight, and I'm not sure how. It wasn't very full, and not a lot spilled out, but it still managed to spread over 6 steps, plus me. Then I almost spilled it again with my blankets when I was getting into bed. Honestly, even typing this has been tricky. Playing Uno with my mom and brother basically stumped me. I kept forgetting the rules, like that it doesn't have to match the number, it can just match the color. I have lunch tomorrow with Liz, who I haven't seen since... Christmas last year? (Is that really right? Oh crap, that's a long time!) So there's no way I'm going to cancel, but I really don't know what to do if I can't think straight. Or if the pain hasn't gotten better.

Why is this happening five days before Christmas? Can't I just have a good Christmas this year? Please?

~ Christine

P.S. I'm STILL really pissed about the Christine O'Donnell jokes. For real, she didn't get elected. Now shut the fuck up and stop being bullies.

I haven't panicked in a day, so this is overdue

Today was a very, very long day. I can't even share half of the reasons why it was so long because I'm not entirely sure who reads this and who doesn't, but I'll share the other half.

I hate this damn InfoTech paper. I can't bring myself to concentrate on it for more than 30 minutes at a time. I really REALLY hate APA, and I hate that I'm probably going to awful on it because my professor is a hardass. Also, I just noticed tonight that the grading rubric has very little to do with content. Awesome. I hate it when professors think they can get away with barely reading the papers that us students spend hours writing. I'm just ready for it to be over with, but I'm making no progress on it at all.

I'm extremely worried about Tony and Ziva. They've been fighting more and more again in the past week, and I really don't want to separate them. I tried to separate them earlier tonight for a few minutes to see if it would cool their jets a little bit, but when I did, they both looked around their cages for the other one. It was so sad! But now that I've put them back together, they're fighting again. I really don't know what to do, other than shank the lady at PetSmart who said it was 100% okay to house same gender pairs together. I wish you could have hamsters fixed, but it's too dangerous on their tiny genitals. I got hamsters because they were supposed to be an easy pet that could keep me company, and when I wasn't around, they could keep each other company! Boy was I wrong. I don't even have the space in this shithole of an apartment to store two aquariums, besides that I don't have the extra money to buy another aquarium, food dish, water bottle, and wheel. I could just get a cage divider, but that really cuts down on their space. They're super active hammies as it is. Maybe if I just got a bigger cage? But if that doesn't work, then I'm really screwed. Ugh. Help!

I don't know what happened to the old me. I spent all summer working on myself (internally) and by the time I started grad school (woah, that line took me back to the old 3-D show I worked in at Cosi!) I was really happy with who I was. I was perfectly content to be the spinster librarian that I was in school to become. Besides, the reality is that in a year and a half when I graduate, I really do have to be willing to be able to move anywhere. And most guys probably wouldn't sacrifice their established careers to follow their girlfriend. I know I'm generalizing, but let's face it: men make more than women STILL and they tend to be valued more in the workplace STILL. Who would want to give that up for some girl? Anyway, I fully intended on not dating during grad school. I only kept my OkCupid profile open to talk to guys because Kent is boring, and I wasn't about to prevent something from happening if it did happen. But I didn't pursue. 99.9% of the guys who messaged me were losers. They were short, hairy, toothless wankers with kids and an ex-wife, and I wanted nothing to do with them. So on the one occasion that a normal, decent human being messaged me, I messaged back.

And then he texted.
And then he called.
And wonder of wonders he asked me out.
And then he cancelled.
And then I freaked out.
And then he reassured me that he was still interested.
And then I laid low.
And he still texted.
And called.
And then he asked me out again.
And I had already made plans.
And then he asked me out again.
And I said sure.
And we had a fantastic time together.
And then he continued to text.
And call.
And then I started to wonder if we would actually see each other again.
And he told me we would see each other again before I left for Christmas.
And I didn't bring it up again.
And then I did.
And he didn't have a good reason for not asking me out again.
And then I got really upset.

Does anyone else see where I'm confused? For once in my life, I did the ladylike thing and let the guy do the pursuing, and for awhile, it seemed like it was a good plan. But when he ALWAYS called me or texted me first, why bother putting forth an effort to call or text him? Twice, I've made it to dinnertime without hearing anything all day. Once was today, once was last Saturday. So on those two days, I made the effort. I really don't understand what's happened here. This has been going on since September! I can't help but wonder what would have happened if we went out in October like we had originally planned. Even though I wasn't looking for anyone else, I feel like I've been wasting my time. Getting to know someone new is hard work, especially when you're used to everyone in your group of friends already knowing all about you. I'm invested now, and I don't like that I might have thrown my money away. I made a promise to myself last weekend that if he didn't ask me out again before I leave this Friday, that I wouldn't have any more contact with him. I promised this only because I didn't think it would actually happen. And now it might. More than likely, it will. The weekend's essentially over. And while I'm not opposed to going out during the week, he seems to be. So... now what? My brain is saying, "Let him go! It's never going to happen!" but my heart is saying, "You still like him, and he must still like you too, or else he wouldn't call and text as much as he does."

Of course, this is all happening on a day that's already been long and stressful and exhausting, so choosing tonight to bring this up probably wasn't my best idea, but I was hoping that I'd get some kind of closure so I could dedicate all parts of my brain to this paper. Silly me, I forgot that when you rely on other people, they will inevitably let you down.

~ Christine

come alive on the driver's side

I had a scary experience Saturday night when I was driving back to Kent. I should preface this by saying that since I moved up here a couple of months ago, I've seen more drunk drivers on the road at night than I ever did in Columbus or Dayton. Just add that to list of reasons why I'm not a fan of northeast Ohio (along with the lack of Timmy Ho's!). Anyway, I was driving back on some two lane country road that I can never remember the numbers of, and as I was driving down a hill, a drunken idiot going the opposite direction veered into my lane. Have you ever gone head to head with another car? It's terrifying! I felt like I was moving in slow motion. I could see him coming at me, and all I could think of was, "Get out of his way!" So I did what any sane person would do: I got out of the way. I wound up driving on the opposite side of the road myself, and luckily the car that was behind Mr. (or Ms.) Drunk Driver saw what I was doing and slowed down so they wouldn't hit me. I thought about honking or flashing my brights, but considering how unpredictable this guy's behavior was already, I didn't want to take the chance that he'd jerk the wheel and wind up hitting me. I drew a picture in Paint to demonstrate what happened.

I have skills, I know.

I realize I got super lucky in this situation. If I hadn't reacted the way I had, who knows what could have happened. I might not even be writing this right now! I just don't want to take the chance of putting myself in that situation again, especially since this isn't the first time I've encountered a drunk driver on the roads up here. If I'm smart enough to know when I'm not sober and I can't drive home, I stay where I am. After Jackie's dad died, I take drunk driving VERY seriously. It's easy enough to die in a car accident when alcohol isn't involved; why risk it when things are even more dangerous when alcohol is involved? I don't know what it is about this area that causes so many people to drink and drive. Maybe the bartenders don't cut people off early enough. Maybe there aren't enough cab companies around to shuttle home the drunk people. Maybe people don't have the type of friends who won't let their friends drive home when they've been drinking. I don't really care what the reasons are. None of them are good enough, and after this heart-pounding experience, I'm probably going to end up spending the night at Hannah and Alex's (or wherever I am) more often, even if I'm sober. I value my own life too much to put it in the hands of some drunk idiot who can't tell what side of the road he should be driving on.

~ Christine

Christine O'Donnell is NOT me... really.

My name is special. It always has been. Since I was in third grade and Neil O'Donnell was a football player for the Steelers, I've known that my last name is kind of a big deal. Then Rosie O'Donnell popped onto the scene. She was irritating, and a loudmouth, and then she came out as a lesbian (shocker, right?). She's thankfully faded into the background over time. Next came Chris O'Donnell. Initially, I didn't care much about him. Now, I like him a lot on NCIS: LA, even though the show itself pales when compared to the original NCIS, but whatever, he's a decent guy.

About two and a half years ago, I Googled myself. We've all done it, and quite frankly, it's the smart thing to do in case you share a name with an ax murderer and you're trying to get a job. (I was actually given that advice at a job fair last fall.) Usually, my UD website would pop up when I typed my name in, but this time, a website for another Christine O'Donnell came up first. I was a little relieved because I hadn't updated my personal website in awhile. So I clicked on the link and looked through her page. I got that she was from somewhere on the East coast, and that her political views were the polar opposite of mine, but I pushed it aside, figuring that I wouldn't hear about her again.

Clearly, I was wrong. I found an email from my mom from the fall of 2008, telling me how she had found the other Christine O'Donnell's website. But this was old news to me, so I didn't think anything about it. She wasn't affiliated with my political party, and she wasn't from my state, so what's the big deal?

The big deal is that I'm sick of it. Maybe it wouldn't bug me so much if I didn't already go through years of being teased about "being related" to Rosie O'Donnell, or being called McDonald. Maybe if Christine O'Donnell wasn't completely crazy, and the media wouldn't have so much to pick on her about, I wouldn't be so bothered. Maybe if I didn't have to remember which businesses don't like the apostrophe and which require it for my name to show up in their database, I wouldn't care. But with all of those things combined, I do care, and it does bother me.

Unless your name is Sarah Palin, Monica Lewinsky, Hillary Clinton, or you share a name with any other scandalous (or publicly ridiculed) person, you don't know what this feels like. How would you like it if people hear your name and the first thing that comes to their mind is a woman who not only doesn't masturbate, but speaks publicly about the evils of masturbation. Or a woman who dabbled in witchcraft (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, media moguls!) and went into hiding for a week after that became public knowledge. Or a woman who went bankrupt, foreclosed on her house, and then used campaign funds to buy a condo? The next time you think about writing something about Christine O'Donnell on my Facebook page, or tweeting it, or emailing, or even telling me about it, I want you to think about your purpose. Are you telling me this to make me feel better about myself and my name? Or are you saying it to draw even more attention to someone who doesn't deserve all the attention she's received? Believe me, if there's something else that comes out in the news, I'll know about it. Come on now, I spend all day online. There's no way I could miss something about her. And if I want to know about it, I'll read it for myself. But sometimes I don't want to know. So please, let me be the one to decide what I do and do not know about Christine O'Donnell. Besides, I generally don't like to have other people spew political things my way... why would Christine O'Donnell be any different, just because we happen to have the same name? Stop writing about her on my wall. Stop the tweets. Stop the emails. Just stop.

~ Christine

food and other things that go "nom"

Let's get the Debbie Downer stuff out of the way first. By the way, I saw a Debbie Downer lookalike at MLIS orientation tonight. Back on topic!

I spent a good 25 minutes sifting through pictures on Facebook trying to finding a new profile picture. For some reason, lately I can't find I want to stick with for more than a couple days at a time. Oh well, it's my life. This search ended at the end of my junior year at UD and I have two questions to raise:

1. HOW did I gain so much weight between then and now? Even the first half of my senior year, I still looked damn good, even though I had gained a couple of pounds. I literally can't figure out what I did second semester that caused me to gain weight. I figured out this past year. It's a no brainer. Depression + eating my feelings + general lazyness and lack of motivation to get out of bed (and on really bad days, wear a bra, brush my hair, etc.) = lots of weight gain. That's not surprising. But the second half of senior year wasn't that awful in my memory. Sure, I totaled my car, but I got to see Bill a lot (and at that point he wasn't a smarmy asshole. Oh wait, the girl's the asshole! That's mean... but true) and I had fun with my friends. Maybe it was the stress of graduating and not knowing what I wanted to do? I have no clue.

2. HOW did I ever think that at that point in my life I was fat? I remember getting on the scale shortly before Christmas break and freaking out because I was getting close to that point where I'm not comfortable weighing that much. You know, we all have that weight. For some people it's 115 pounds. I hate those people. Anyway, I turned to Jen and said, "Jen, if I ever weigh XYZ again, I don't know what I'll do!" Lo and behold, shortly after Christmas I weighed myself again, and I weighed XYZ. Of course, now I weigh much more than that.

I just don't get it. From the middle of junior year until the middle of senior year, I held steady. Then from the middle of senior year until last August I held basically steady. And then this year I've been creeping up slowly, with little dips here and there. I'm reading this book called Health at Every Size and one of the arguments the author makes is that everyone has a setpoint for their weight. Basically it's what you naturally weigh when you're not trying to lose weight. I'm trying to convince myself that my setpoint is that weight I had from the middle of junior year until the middle of senior year. Once my crash diet/unintentional starvation from marching band season of junior year ended, I didn't try to lose weight. I just ate when I was hungry. I didn't work out. I just lived. In fact, I didn't start going to the RecPlex on a regular basis until the summer after senior year and it never really helped. I didn't gain weight, but I didn't lose any either. I'm just hoping that once I get back on a campus where I'm forced to move myself without a car and I can cook my own food and not buy crappy food, I'll get back to where I'm supposed to be. I mean, I get all of the reasons the author says regarding why it's actually negative to force yourself to try to lose weight, but she's also operating under the assumption that the weight you're at now is because of regular exercise and eating a healthy and balanced diet. In my case, it's totally not. Don't get me wrong, my mom tries. But when you live in a household where the food is determined on what your father will and can eat, and he refuses to eat most fruits and vegetables, it's limited. Also, the constant supply of cookies is awful. I bet all of you would be shocked (and horrified) if you looked in our pantry. We always have at least 3 types of cookies on hand because between my dad, brother, and usually my mom, there just has to be cookies. When I first moved back home, I ate them a lot more often, and always in amounts of threes. Then I realized that they weren't even filling, and quite honestly, store-bought cookies taste awful. If I'm going to eat a sugar packed cookie, I'm going to eat a good sugar packed cookie and eat something freshly baked, not packed with preservatives. Now, I rarely eat them, and I've started skipping an afternoon snack, or if I do have something, I eat just one cookie instead of three. And I never eat a snack before bed. I just have a glass of milk with my (now numerous) medicine.

Speaking of bed, I'm exhausted. I haven't driven that far in one day in a very long time and I have a full day of unpacking and repacking tomorrow. There was positive stuff, I swear, but it's going to have to wait for another day.

One last thing. I want to take this opportunity to remind you that you only get one opportunity to make a good first impression. For example, when you meet your girlfriend's lifelong best friends at a party for the first time and you spend most of the evening sitting there with your arms crossed, refusing to talk to anyone and being generally rude, they're going to remember you as "Grumpy Bill" even eight months later. So in short, don't be a jerk.

~ Christine

smatterings

You how you reach that certain level of drunk and you can hear everything really well? Not like a hangover where everything is fucking loud, but just drunk enough to be extremely aware of everything you hear. That's the point that I'm at in my cold. I'm not normally a loud eater, but now I can hear the food in my mouth crunching. It's a very odd feeling. Try this: Close your mouth and flick your tongue on the roof of your mouth (or your soft palate, if you're that talented). Typically, that sound should be pretty soft. For me, it sounds like footsteps. I'd rather be drunk.

I've discovered that this map business is a double edged sword. It's awesome because I get to see where the people who look at my blog generally live. But it doesn't get very specific about their location (I definitely live in Worthington, not Columbus) and it doesn't tell me who looks at it. Like the Columbus entries are basically anyone who lives in Franklin county. Not so helpful. Thank goodness it's pretty. I still want to know who in Grand Rapids and who in Chicago has been reading this. Come on people, show yourselves!

I'm in an angry-ish place. Bill finally pissed me off. Remember when I was feeling guilty for breaking up with him? Those feelings are completely gone now! He's been such an asshole to me recently, I don't care what he does to mess up his life any more than he already has. It's interesting... right after we broke up, I got a variety of responses. Some people were like, "Oh no! What happened?" and others were like, "Oh thank goodness you got rid of him!" One of my friends actually told me that he was glad that I stopped dating Bill because he thought I was settling. Several people told me that the whole time we were dating too. I didn't think it at the time, and I got really upset with those people, but now I'm starting to see that they're right. It wasn't even a hard thing to change for him to reach my level. All he had to do was have some semblance of social skills and make some friends. We even went to see I Love You Man when were went hiking in the Rockies last spring break. I hoped that he would get the hint, but no. It's just not normal for people to not have friends. Think about it. If a person has no friends, that means that no one takes an interest in them and that they don't take an interest in what other people do and say. That's the foundation of a romantic relationship! Anyway, now he's being incredibly mean and claiming that he was going to dump me before I dumped him. Right. New flash: When you're sobbing as your girlfriend dumps you, and your exact words are, "I thought we were getting better" you're not planning on dumping anyone. Sorry, but he cried too much for me to believe that. I hate it when guys cry, especially if I'm the cause of it. I don't care if you cry during Marley & Me; that shows that you have a soul. But crying over your failed relationship when it was mostly your fault to begin with? Where are your cajones?

I'm really tired of being at home. I've trained my body to expect to leave after being home for about a week, but this time I won't leave until August 29th. Yup. I finally got my move-in information for grad school! I have orientation on the 23rd, and my first class is on the 31st. It should be on the 30th, but I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It makes me a little nervous that I have 3 classes and I'm only actually in class for about 5 hours in a week. One of my classes is an online class, but still... that's not a lot of time. And it probably means that I'm going to have a shit ton of work outside of class. So right now my weekends start on Thursdays after 5, and they run until Tuesdays at about 2ish. I didn't get an assistantship (Boo!) and as of right now, all of the jobs at the campus libraries are full, but I'm applying to work as a page in the library of the town ten minutes east of campus. It's not far, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to work through my fear of driving on winter roads before snow hits. I hate snow. Anyway, it's not much, but it's enough to pay for groceries and get me out of my apartment a little bit. I may try to pick up a campus job along the way too. Or maybe look into babysitting. Who knows!

I feel like this post is a marathon, but I've had a lot of time lately to sit around and think up things to say.

Since I lost my dental insurance in March, I've become increasingly more attentive to my teeth. I am super vigorous when it comes to brushing, and I spend tons of time on my gum line. I have a problem where I grind my teeth. In my sleep, when I'm stressed, when I'm driving, if I'm watching an intense episode of NCIS, it doesn't matter. I technically have a mouth guard I'm supposed to wear, but just like my retainer, I gave up on that after 6 months. I'm not even sure where it is now. I know it spent all of my senior year of college in the medicine cabinet in our bathroom, and I know I brought it home, but I haven't seen it since last summer. Anyway, when you grind your teeth, it's basically like you're pushing your teeth back into your gums, and it causes your gums to become inflamed and puffy. Try this: Take a mini marshmallow and a semi-sweet morsel like you would use to make chocolate chip cookies. Flip the morsel over so the pointy side is down and try to stick it into the marshmallow. BADA-BING! One inflamed gum line! Luckily, if I think about not grinding my teeth, I can control it, but that's not helpful when I sleep. This is where my magical friend mouthwash comes in. After fighting with my dentist over this problem for months (he kept insisting I wasn't brushing... I was, the puffiness was from my teeth being stupid), he caved and gave me prescription strength mouthwash. My next appointment all of the puffiness was gone. MAGIC! So now I'm an avid mouthwash user. This is why I had such a dilemma about whether or not to bring my mouthwash on the Western trip.

And I just wrote a long paragraph about my teeth. This is why I can't spend too much time in one place.

If you're looking for a laugh, or you just want to be creeped out, look through the personals ads on Craiglist. One guy I saw today bragged that he had a full time job, a car, an ex-wife, and a four-year-old son. Seriously. That's all he's bringing to the table? The novelty of owning your own car wears off for most people in the early part of college, and this guy was in his early 30s. Then again, he probably never went to college, and therefore missed that mark. Interesting observation: Most of the men seeking women posts in Columbus were from Grove City. Be ashamed of yourselves, Grovetucky!

Your best friend is not your girlfriend! (A cookie goes to whoever can tell me the artist and title for this lyric!)

~ Christine

jetsetting!

Hi all,

This is the second time I've tried to write this, but I keep getting distracted. Anyway, I'm back! And I'm about to leave again! This time I'm off to SoCal with my family. It'll be fun... we haven't had a true blue family vacay since the Boston Debacle of 2008 in Which Katie Became Very Ill and We Spent a Day of Our Trip in the Hospital. I'm not counting last year's trip as a real family vacation, although we did see (more) family, but it was just for a weekend.

There have been a lot of things bothering me recently. A lot of people in my life are changing and I don't like it. Personality traits that I used to admire are quickly being replaced with unappealing traits and I'm starting to feel like the number of good people is shrinking. Other people are making bad choices that I can't do anything about and I hate it. Honestly, this vacation could not have come at a better time. I need time away from almost all of the people in my life, and if I force myself to be around people when I don't want to be, I will destroy my relationships with them.

And now... quotes!

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten."

"You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you've ever made. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don't think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully."

"If you don't set a baseline standard for what you'll accept in life, you'll find it's easy to slip into behaviors and attitudes or a quality of life that's far below what you deserve."

- Anthony Robbins

In other news, I bought a new mouse for my computer that actually works 100% of the time... so yay!

OH! And this is really exciting for me and maybe 3 other people, but when we're flying tomorrow we get DirectTV on the headrests on the plane because we got some special ticket through Frontier AND one of the channels that we get is USA AND there's an NCIS marathon on all day tomorrow starting at 6 AM and we have a 6:30 AM flight! *wiggles*

I just turned on Sticky Keys on my lappy by accident. What the hell are Sticky Keys and couldn't they come up with a not so disgusting name for it?

~ Christine

Steve Madden, you are a shoe-making god. Have babies with me?

If I need to break in new shoes, and I wear them when I'm sitting down, that counts, right? Right?

I'm escaping from the shopping/cleaning/swearing at our crappy desktop computer to blog for a few minutes of peace. It turns out that my mom worked on the slideshow while I ran errands this morning, and now it's done! Yay!

I really hate craft stores. For one thing, I am NOT a crafty person at all. Never have been, never will be. There is nothing artistic to me about going to the same damn chain store as everyone else and buying the same supplies to make the same wreath/religious knickknack/birdhouse as everyone else. That's not art. That's not even being creative. It's just like every other sad middle aged woman in this country. If you want to be artistic, you have to think a little bit more outside of the box. That said, there are some things that those stores are good for. Like buying paints. Or fabric markers. But you cannot go and buy the same thing that everyone else does and call yourself artistic. Also, the organizational skills in that store leave something to be desired. For one thing, I counted FIVE different places to buy adhesives. Why are there so many places to buy the same damn thing? And none of them were what I was looking for (which was magnets with sticky on one side so you could affix it to a piece of poster and then hang it on the refrigerator). You could buy adhesives at the register, in the general art supplies area, in the kids crafts area, in the drawing tools area (this one has me puzzled), and in the costume area. I just don't get those stores, and I probably never will.

Maybe if I sleep in these shoes tonight, they won't hurt like hell tomorrow.

I had a really weird dream last night where I was dreaming that Tony from NCIS was killed off in the season finale, but it was real life, not the show. Oh, and I was in love with him. Tony's grown on me a lot since I started watching the show almost a year ago (!), but he's still behind McGee and Gibbs in my favorite guys list. But I was really, REALLY upset that he was dead! The weirdest part is that in my dream, I woke myself up from my dream to get away from being sad about Tony dying, but it was still a dream. It's like when there's a movie about a movie. Verrrrry strange. And then when I woke up this morning, I couldn't remember what I dreamed about in my dream within a dream that made me so sad. Thankfully, I finally remembered a little bit ago. Freaky.

I made a Poor Life Choice. Two nights ago, I went to the Winking Lizard with some friends, and in addition to my drink, I had an order of spinach and artichoke dip as well. It was a beast that sexually abused me after it told me my boobs looked nice. It seemed all innocent and spinach-y at first, but then it made me feel awful about myself. I didn't need it, it was really greasy, and it was money I should not have spent, but it tasted soooo good, so I ate it, and then I ate the rest of it at dinner last night. Well, let me tell you, it has not been a good Friends With Benefits! It's been needy and demanding, and then it got really jealous. Let's just say that we will not be hooking up again anytime soon.

~ Christine

you think the BBC is trying to embarrass you with sex scenes?

I made a giant, colossal, huge mess of things. It's not entirely my fault, because I truly felt like I was doing the right thing, except that I was mistaken (again) and I made things worse instead of preventing something awful from happening. I don't know what else to do, except continue to apologize, and I hate not being able to do anything. So now, I'm just laying low. It has been a very long and emotionally draining day, and I have suspicions that my bad mood has been rubbing off on the people around me.

Anyway, my previous job ended on Tuesday. I kind of miss it, even though I spent most of the time wanting it to be over. It really was nice to feel like a productive person and have something to do for 8 hours of the day. Plus, I wasn't obligated to ruin my weekends with babysitting jobs. Not that I don't mind babysitting, but it was nice to have a regular work schedule.

I tried bubble tea for the first time last night! I had no idea what to expect... turns out it's just a smoothie with tapioca pearls in it. The smoothie part was fantastic. The tapioca... well, I made some interesting faces the first few times I encountered a pearl. But eventually I got used to it. It's definitely something I'll be having again.

Gertie's in the shop again. I'm hopeful that this won't be too hard or expensive to fix. My check oil light problem is still happening, and the guy at Firestone told me that they had just fixed another Chrysler with the same problem and what they did for that guy worked well. But if it's not fixed, then I'll need to take it to a dealership to have them flush the engine. And if that doesn't work, well, let's just hope that it gets fixed. I love my car, even though she's caused me a lot of trouble in the last 7 months. But she's still my baby!

Okay, this was a stretch for me to do tonight... I'm going to go back to watching Coupling for hours on end.

~Christine

you always tell me perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

I would like to confess something. I have recently made a series of poor life choices (aka PLCs) that involve me getting less than 5 hours of sleep last night and feeling awful all day. I have now been awake for 16 hours. 4.5 hours of sleep/16 hours of being awake = about 17 minutes of being asleep per hour of being awake. So basically, I don't know how I'm functioning as a human being right now. Now I'm going to watch Coupling while I fall asleep because tomorrow is going to be just as busy as today was.

Random thought: It really bothers me when people in Columbus pronounce "Morse Rd." as "Morris Rd."

~Christine