I'm eating tuna for a snack right now

Oh hi! It turns out that this is still here! I always decide that I'm done with blog posting because it is stupid for me and so I eschew my blog with a firm hand, only to come crawling back to it a few weeks or months later, begging its forgiveness and promising to treat it better this time around.

Speaking of abusive Internet relationships? Today I was on Netflix, perusing the "view it now" options. I was getting totally excited, because it opened up kind of a whole new world of viewing possibilities to me, you know? Seventeen hours of online viewing per month! If I want to watch something, but all of my DVDs are in transit or already watched, I can just hop on over to the friendly Internet and coax a few hours of entertainment out of it! Well, it turns out. No. Netflix bitch-slapped me and then informed me that its platform requirements for online viewing were Windows XP or Vista, and ONLY Windows. Considering that my new(est) lover is a Mac, and I am currently eschewing Windows with a much firmer hand than the one I typically use to eschew Blogger, I was understandably upset. Netflix! Why would you do this to me? I love you so much, and I was beginning to love you even more, you DVD vixen, because of the new possibilities you had opened up to me! But you teased me and then you closed the door on my hand. Why, Netflix, why? Why is Mac not a worthy platform for your online viewing? WHY?

I have been lazily clicking links to Etsy lately and it really makes me want to make gifts for everyone I know this year for Christmas. Actually, it makes my creativity bone (doesn't that sound dirty?) itch in general. I want to get out some patterns and fabric and sew some stuff to wear. Then I want to knit some scarves for people I know. Then I want to paint and mat pictures to give to my sisters. Then I want to take pictures to give to other people. I just want to MAKE MAKE MAKE stuff so hard right now. I love being an art major, but it kind of sucks sometimes because I feel like all my creative energy is sucked up by school assignments, leaving none left over for fun projects. All I want to do right now is make stuff, but I have several more hours to be at work, and my brain remains on the couch, eating nachos.

Although, last Friday I shot the pictures for my final project and I am SO excited about it. I got people drunk and took them to school in the middle of the night and made them take off their shirts. It was kind of hot and awesome, and by kind of, I mean TOTALLY. I've never been this excited about a project. I want to post pictures here, but I've been too much of a lazy whore to sift through them, edit them, and put them on Flickr.

The moral of the story? I want to watch stuff and also make stuff. Preferably at the same time!

P.S. This makes me pee in my pants:

Lately!

So! In the exciting thrill ride that is my health, I had a CAT scan last week and then paid a little visit to my friend the ENT, who informed me that my lymph nodes are, in fact, swollen! And so are my tonsils, and also some of my throat tissue! So I'm not sure why, exactly, I had a CAT scan, if it was only going to tell us what we already know, but my ENT informs me that I should probably do a biopsy. A nice surgical biopsy, that I have to take an entire day off work for and be put under anesthesia and probably have a nice chunky scar left on my neck from the removal of a LYMPH NODE. He says it's probably nothing serious but it could be! So we better check! I still have to have an ultrasound on my thyroid and a follow-up with the endocrinologist, both of which are the week after next, and then after that? IT'S PARTY TIME, LYMPH NODES. One of you guys is going home. Which one will it be? Find out soon!

Lately it's like Survivor around here, only with body parts. The nodes saw what happened to the appendix and they should have been scared, but were they? No! They shamelessly swelled and forced me to take drastic measures AGAIN. You should have known, you guys! Nothing is safe living inside me!

Also, cocaine

So fuck, you know, how awesome was the seventh Harry Potter? So awesome, and I won't write anything about it because some random person reading this blog may have not read it already and I know how that feels, avoiding spoilers, you know? It sucks, because everywhere you turn you're afraid the book will be spoiled forever like the sixth book was spoiled for me. And then you have to watch out for those fake spoilers like the ones given to me by people who claim to "love" me, such as: "Harry Potter dies!" "Harry Potter doesn't die!" Harry Potter and Voldemort are the SAME PERSON!" "Hermione and Voldemort are the SAME PERSON!" "Harry is actually a bunny rabbit! So soft and cuddly!" Etc, etc. None of which are true (or... ARE they?) But yeah, anyway, I finished all the Harry Potter books and now I feel a little bereft, and I felt I should commemorate the occasion by putting it in writing since last time I wrote, I hadn't even started the sixth book. Woe!

The nodes are still swollen and I'm being inundated with doctors' appointments. I went to the endocrinologist and the ENT last week and they both decided that the only cure for what ails this poor girl? MORE APPOINTMENTS! AND MAKE SURE THEY ARE AS DRAWN OUT AS POSSIBLE! So now I have a cat scan for the nodes on Thursday and another ENT appointment next week, I think, and then a free week and then the week after I think I have an ultrasound on my thyroid and a follow-up with the endo. I feel like you should be able to check both things with one test, you know? Either an ultrasound OR a cat scan. Not both. But no! It must be both, and hey, did you know, more bloodwork too! I love needles. It's too bad heroin never agreed with me.

I moved and stuff

Hi, so I haven't written in a while because my life has been fully infused with the CRAZY and my mind can't stop moving long enough to formulate a coherent post, and I am still in this position so don't expect this post to be coherent. Or a good lesson on how to use punctuation/complete sentences.

My long weekend flew by with the moving and the spending eight hours in a darkroom on a holiday, but the second-best thing about a long weekend? Short week afterward! Before I left for work today I was getting my lunch things together and I said to myself, hmm, I believe I will have a hot dog for lunch today. Mostly because that was all that was left in my fridge/pantry that was lunch-able. So I packed up my lunch and traipsed off to work. A couple hours later my stomach was all, FOOD! NOW! and so I was all, mmm hot dog. Then I realized I forgot cheese for my hot dog, but I was like, well, ok, I can deal with having a cheeseless hot dog just this once. I guess. So I got my plate and was all set to go microwave my hot dog and eat its lonely, cheese-free self, when I realized, hey! I forgot buns too! Talented. So I went to Wendy's for lunch instead. The end.

So I spent eight hours in a darkroom yesterday? Working on a project that's due on Wednesday? And the weird thing is that... uh... I kind of wouldn't mind going back today? To print some pictures I took over the summer? And I think I have a sickness. A sickness cured only by huffing developer and fixer for eight hours straight and also not seeing daylight. Maybe it's like a vampire thing! Only instead of blood, I need DEVELOPERRRRRR. AND FIXERRRRRR. ARGGHGHGHHHH VAMPIRE ANGRY!

I also MOVED over the weekend! It was a totally awesome pain in the ass. But I had a lot of help, so that was nice, and I spent a large part of the weekend organizing and arranging my things, which was also nice. Except I'm stuck in this paralysis of organization/put-away-...tion wherein I can't do anything else until I go to Target and/or Ikea and get some wall shelves, because my room is really tiny and I need to add some height to it because I have this weird thing about rooms feeling weighted when there's too much stuff on the ground and not on the walls, so I can't hang anything up or put anything else away until I figure out where I want me some shelves. Classic! One would think it would be easy to find time to go to Target when it is a five minute WALK from one's new house, but one would be wrong. Turns out.

Last but certainly not least, in my quest to read all of the Harry Potter books in a row because omgggg so goooodddd, I finished the fifth book last Wednesday and realized, OH GOD. NO. I DO NOT HAVE THE SIXTH BOOK RIGHT NOW. WHAT WILL I DOOOOO?? So I got an (inferior, NOT Harry Potter) book off my shelf and began that, and it's okay, I guess, but I don't think I'd even like it that much if I wasn't yearning for Harry Potter, but as it stands, I am YEARNING for Harry Potter and I have no idea when I will be able to borrow the sixth book from someone. Harry Potter is like a hardcore drug to me. My veins are lonely! SIXTH BOOK! NOW!!!

I will be a student FOREVERRRR!!!

So yesterday I was sitting in the hallway waiting for my art history class to start and I randomly started up this conversation with a girl who used to be a photography major at my school. USED TO being the operative term there because the reasons she told me for dropping out made me want to curl into a fetal position and cry right there in the middle of the cold tile and amidst the awkward stares exchanged between my fellow students, like, is she ok? Should we do something? Call someone or something? Is she seriously about to throw up?

There are four classes that photo majors must take entitled Directed Study 1 & 2 and Portfolio 1 & 2. These class titles did not used to reverberate with such tones of DOOM inside my poor weakened heart but alas, those happy days are over. Only a few days ago I had plotted out the rest of my courses so that I had slated myself to graduate in spring of 2009, which, holy hell! That's only a year late, even with the transferring of schools and the changing of majors and all the lost hours and WOW I AM AWESOME. SO, SO AWESOME. But as it turns out, I am not awesome. Way not awesome. Because yesterday I found out that both Directed Studies and both Portfolios must be taken separately from one another. And by that, I mean that you cannot take any one of those four in the same semester with another of those. Four. Consecutive. Semesters. Which I had already kind of planned on, right? Because I had planned out four more semesters for myself? WRONG.

You cannot even begin taking these four consecutive semesters until you have completed ALL OF YOUR OTHER STUDIO CLASSES. ALL. OF THEM. I will not be done with all of my studio classes until the end of fall semester of 2008, and you know what that means? I am TENTATIVELY expecting to graduate in FALL OF 2010.

Let me repeat that. TWO. THOUSAND. TEN. AS IN THREE YEARS FROM NOW. AS IN SIX AND A HALF YEARS AFTER I GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL.

Okay. I'm breathing. Deep healing breaths, seriously, but SERIOUSLY, GEORGIA STATE. OH MY GOD WHY. Even if I had begun the program as a freshman it would have been impossible for me to graduate on time. I think. I'm holding onto that thought because seriously. It's not even really the graduating late that is irking me so hard, because let's face it, I kind of like school an awkwardly large amount and will kind of probably feel a little lost and empty once I graduate. It's just infuriating that the degree is set up so fucking awkwardly, like, sorry guys, but unless you start school in the last semester of your senior year of high school? You are fucked. Have a nice college experience!

Most majors involving directed studies don't even have to take them. Directed studies are usually an option to pad your hours requirement for graduation, but photo majors? Not only do we HAVE to do a directed study, we have to do TWO! OH THE JOY. I don't know, I just never thought getting an art degree would be so complicated, but I guess we really take our art seriously here, huh? The good thing is that people know that GSU photo degrees are no joke and from what I've heard, people who graduate with a photo major from GSU usually do pretty well for themselves. So that's something, you know? Except it is also something that when I finally graduate and people are like, what happened? Did you take a couple of years off? Like three? I will have to be like, NO. I JUST SUCK. SO, SO HARD.

On the other hand, hi! I really do love photography and even if I switched majors at this point it would take me just as long to graduate, and on the bright side? Taking this long to get through school means I get darkroom access for the next three years. So I guess it's not all that bad.

On the other other hand? I get to buy one of these this semester, because I need it for school, which means I can totally rationalize making a purchase that I have wanted to make for the last three years:

Medium format, baby. Twin-lens reflex camera using 120MM film to make 6x6cm negatives OR 6x4.5cm. That I will then get to develop. In the darkroom. And also impress unsuspecting bitches with my awesome big camera, like, look at what a SERIOUS photographer I am. I am very SERIOUS about what I do. Look at my LARGE CAMERA. No, you cannot see the picture on the back after I take it, this is FILM, YOU IDIOT, NOT DIGITAL! WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR? HAHAHAHA!!!!!

JAZZED

Dear constant exhaustion,

Why? Why do you plague me with your exhaustive-ness? I have so much to do and yet by the time I return to my apartment at night, all I can do is lay on the couch in a heat-fueled stupor and drool on myself until I gain enough energy to haul myself into the shower and then into bed. You are very, very inconvenient for me. I have cleaning out to do! Movies and shows to watch! Books to read! I haven't bought groceries in approximately five weeks! But I can do none of these things while you are hanging around. GO AWAY.

Pressing the keys has wiped me out,
Whitney


Dear dull, throbbing, nagging headache,

I really hate you. Why are you here? It's not allergy season. Well, okay, I have been around a very large number of cats lately, but REALLY. I live with cats on a daily basis, what difference should three more tiny, almost invisible kittens make? NONE, HEADACHE. Are you allergies? Are you not enough sleep? Are you and exhaustion simply teaming up to drive me into the ground? You make me feel like I am walking through life barely conscious of what is going on, because that is WHAT I AM DOING WHEN YOU ARE AROUND. Please vacate the premises immediately.

My eyes are throbbing from looking at the screen,
Whitney



Dear Whitney,

CAFFEINE!!!! BEAUTIFUL, LOVELY CAFFEINE IS THE ANSWER. YOUR HEADACHE WILL MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR AFTER THE FIRST THREE SIPS OF THAT VANILLA COKE ZERO AND YOU WILL BE ABLE TO STAY AWAKE THROUGHOUT AN ENTIRE WORKDAY! WHY? WHY WITH THE NO CAFFEINE IN THE LAST THREE DAYS? SEE HOW MUCH BETTER YOU FEEL? YAYYYYYY CAFFEINE!!!!!!

You're welcome!!!!!!!
Exhaustion and headache

The run-on sentences and parentheses are out of control

Things I Have Learned Today:

1. It is a bad idea to eat applesauce straight out of the jar when you are very hungry because all you had for breakfast was a pack of peanut butter crackers because you have not gone grocery shopping in four weeks because you are tired and lazy and busy and also, you really fucking HATE going grocery shopping and would kind of rather eat ramen noodles three times a day for a month than go grocery shopping. Eating applesauce straight out of the jar, especially when you are at work and distracted by the shiny computer monitor in front of you, will probably result in looking at the jar after thirty minutes and realizing there is only about a third of the original amount of applesauce remaining. You will then need to sheepishly re-cap the jar and place it back in the refrigerator before your crazy applesauce-eating self begin to chomp on the applesauce-flavored glass without realizing it.

2. Actually, mostly just the applesauce thing. I think that's all I've learned today. Not from experience, of course, just from... uh... hypothesizing? Yeah. Totally just an untested hypothesis.

Speaking of the Food-Related Crazy, I hoard condiments. Is that weird? I get fast food at work probably once or twice a week (except when I haven't gone grocery shopping in four weeks and am forced to forage for food [holy shit, look at all that alliteration] elswhere than my lonely, cold refrigerator, in which case I get fast food a little more often than that), and a lot of times I go to Wendy's because it's really close to my office and it's cheap. (Are you still following after all the punctuation? IT'S A PUNCTUATION PARTY OVER HERE! PARENTHESES! BRACKETS! COMMAS! WOOOOOO CRAZY TIME!)

Anyway. What was I saying? Oh, right. Condiment hoarding! (I feel like it's some kind of illicit sexual act or something... you rotten hoarder). Anyway OH MY GOD PARENTHESES. So the Wendy's I go to does not offer mayonnaise packets for some ungodly, unexplained reason, and I like to mix my ketchup with mayonnaise to dip my fries in, I know, weird and ew. Whatever. So whenever I ask for mayonnaise they give it to me in a tiny condiment cup but that just gets kind of inconvenient, you know? Also I get tired of asking for mayonnaise and ketchup all the time and the guy behind the window totally KNOWS ME because I am all the time asking for mayonnaise and now he brings it to me without my asking and I don't know, that's just kind of embarrasing.

So now whenever I have extra ketchup packets or I get mayo packets from a different fast-food establishment, I totally toss them into a Wendy's bag and keep them for next time I get fast food so that I won't have to ask for condiments. And I hide the bag behind my computer monitor so no one else can see it, like it's some kind of dirty little secret, you filthy condiment hoarder. I mean, seriously, who does that? I think it's some kind of weird sickness. I think it has something to do with the Type-A and OCD and shit. Who even knows.

In other obsessive news, my Netflix queue has somehow shot up over 100 (Holy shit! Arrested Development, I totally want to watch that! And Big Love, omg! OMG SO MANY DVDS!) and I totally upgraded to three DVDs at-a-time because in addition to being a filthy condiment hoarder, I am totally a filthy DVD hoarder. I cannot help myself.