The End Of Paralysis

It's my dad's birthday today. I hate days like this, where I have to be like, "oh, I mean, it WOULD be his birthday if he hadn't died." He'd be 57. That is crizazy.

I am spending today mentally preparing for my talk tomorrow. Mentally and somewhat physically, as I intend to do lots of girly things like soak my feet in this smelly foot bath and do a facial mask and flat iron my hair if I feel like it and definitely try on lots of clothes to decide what to wear.

And that reminds me.

Those of you who think I am shallow but read this anyway, and I assume are never surprised to find that I am still shallow, especially on this blog, even if you don't check it every day, well, you people can take a flying leap off a cliff. I am sick to death of having to defend the shit I want to say on here. Do you really think this public website represents the deepest, most thoughtful, most insight-driven and compassionate parts of me? That's ridiculous. You should know it's ridiculous. Unless, of course, the things you post on your blog/website really ARE the best parts of you, in which case double fuck off.

I don't need the "anonymous" comments about how you don't appreciate the way I worded something. Or I didn't give enough credence to this or that cause that you feel strongly about. This is what I'm proposing: piss off. Piss off and stop reading my blog that you so obviously hate, or piss off and keep reading but stop posting comments "anonymously" when you want to let me know that you think I'm lame. I already know you think I'm lame. I don't care. Just, please, nothing annnoys me more than knowing who's posting comments and knowing you think I'm a horrible person and knowing you're going to keep reading this, looking for times that I'm sufficiently politically incorrect to warrant one of your swooping, sarcastic little anonymous barbs to really drive the point home, to me and to the others who read this, that I am a shallow person.

Grow some balls and sign your name. Or, go away. Honestly, nothing pisses me off worse. I'm not trying to convince you to like me. I'm not goddamn going to watch what I say on here for the sake of being nonoffensive. That goes for all of you, but usually doesn't have to go for all of you.


Anyway.

I am about 94% ready for tomorrow. I have to hammer through some of the finer details of how I'm going to answer potential questions. I feel good. More importantly, i feel ready. And everyone is telling me I'm ready. This whole process has just reminded me to be patient. It may take six hundred rounds of revisions but then when it clicks it's awesome. It's really good. I just haven't had to do something this well before. It's painful but it's kind of nice. Now.

Here is a list of things that I like about having a new roommate:

*She buys trashy celeb gossip mags that i won't spend money on but like reading.
*She is going to go to the beach with me, have a spa day with me later this week, shop endlessly for shoes with me, and spilt the costs of buying the brown-hair only crap that we're both in love with so that we can both use it exclusively.
*She represents a very large bargaining chip in the way of convincing families to come here for christmas instead of us all trying to go there.
*She is fun and I like her.

Here is a list of things that I may not be able to stand for much longer:

*For three full days, a used press-on nail, an open pantiliner, and a tube of bikini lotion (the kind that prevents razor bumps) were sitting on the back of the toilet for no apparent reason.
*I like law and order. She likes CSI.
*She has six thousand romance novels on the bookshelf in the living room. JD and I can feel our indie cred slipping away.
*Yesterday she said, "I actually like this toby keith song"
*She is chatty. Reaaaaal chatty. I am not so chatty.
*In four days she and her mother went through three WHOLE rolls of toilet paper. This tp thing has been an issue for me in the past. I hope it doesn't become one again.
*She knows the words to every song that is ever played on any radio, and she sings along to them no matter where we are. Usually this happens in public.
*She, like her mom, has this slightly annoying habit of going, "look, Jay, look at this thing that you will think is hideous but I think you'd like." His name isn't "jay" Mine isn't "lizbeth" either.
*She can have whole conversations at you without caring if you're listening or awake or having another conversation with someone else. Wow, that one is really weird and special. It's mind-blowing. Outside of Jay's (snicker) family I'd never met anyone who could do that trick.

But the good outweighs the bad. I like having another girl around. I am going to break her of the lingering evansville. This was the best possible thing she could have done for herself, in my humble opinion. She didn't need to be living with her mom and going to night school and working full time and being a surrogate aunt/mother to her teen pregnancy friend's twins. I'm amazed that she up and came here, I could see most people in the situation she was in (which I should add wasnt' all that miserable whatsoever, she had a nice niche) never wanting to upset the way things were. So I'm impressed with her balls in coming out here.

Yeah, so, I'm clearly a little stressed out. I'll try to check that for the next 24 hours. Ooh, less than that until this nightmare is all over. God, that's awesome. Wish me luck tomorrow. Lovels.

Meu Pai, Meu Rei

Things are getting better. My talk is done and "ready." My paper was good. I am finally convinced that it was good. It took a day for it to sink in that I had actually (as mom #1 put it) had "pulled it off without getting away with anything."

That was probably the nicest thing she could have said. For fuck's sake, I was collecting the dater through March. It didn't work. The analyses had to be redone several thousand times. We had to reframe the whole thing conceptually about six times. We're both pretty impressed with me, and ourselves. And I started to be ok with that, once my talk got to where it needs to be.

It's pretty good. It's fun. I like it. I am almost (ALMOST) looking forward to giving it. Ok, not quite, but it is a damn fine talk. So this should be ok.

I just needed time to sleep it off, and be able to see that I really did do a good job. Urck.

Jd's family is here. i have a new roommate. This is already fun. I forgot how much I like having people around all the time. She's good at gardening. I suck. So, we went and got new flowers today and planted them on the balcony. they are preschie. hahaha. I'll take photos eventually.

We also got me an oil change today and it was exPENSIVE! but now my car drives well. Like, I probably should have had that done awhile ago. Jess is already on my shit about car maintenance, so that'll be handy too.

What the hell else have we done since they got here? Not much. The plan for tonight is to make pasta and stay in, I guess. That's fine with me. I'm almost totally out of money. That sucks. This is going to be a really tight month. Boo.

I'm going to practice my talk and practice my talk some more, and then also practice my talk. Three more days now. Bear with me. I'm almost out of the woods.

I'm thinking I'll come home in July sometime. How's July for you guys? I want to start planning something.

Life Goes Easy On Me

Well, it's the first of the month. Which means that finally, this monstrous paper is due. Today. Signatures and everything. I spent all of last night writing it. No, I'm not kidding. One of my moms wanted me to take the talk that goes along with the paper and squish it into the paper. Basically, rewrite the paper as the talk, but more paper-like. Wow, that blew. I was in my little tower until later than I've ever been here before last night. It sucked. And Jessica and Janet got here last night, but I didn't see them until this morning. That also blew.

But worst of all was the feeling in the pit of my stomach all night, when I finally gave up and went home and made JD read sections of it and couldn't convince myself that it was anything but total slop. I felt like I was going to throw up. I felt like it was very possible that I would send it to my reeeeders and they would refuse to sign it. And if they did that, I would have childishly refused to give the talk, and would drop out of school. I'm not kidding. If it's not done today I get my funding cut off.

So I felt like shit all night, felt like shit this morning when I was running around getting things together (my stupid figures didnt' go through on one of their versions, so instead of them figuring out that you can double click it into being there, I had to make hard copies and take them over), felt like shit as I trudged over to hand off the figures, felt like shit when she started telling me how great and how incredibly improved the paper was and how it's beautiful. I continued feeling like shit as she insisted on getting the signature page and signing it right then, before my class, and I felt like shit all through class and then into my next adviser's office as I handed her the signature page.

So it's done, but I feel like shit anyway. Maybe it comes with knowing all the ins and outs of the thing, and where it's methodologickalie weak and why it's crap and maybe it's my very acute understanding of my lack of knowledge about the things about it I should know, but I almost broke down cryin with relief in both of their offices, and I am about to walk the signature page over to the administrative person's office and if I don't burst into hysterical, inexplicable tears right there I shall consider this day a victory.

Everyone else thinks the paper's really good, but I had convinced myself last night that there was no possible way they would okay it, and I am so full of self-doubt right now that I can't even hear the positive stuff. It's really weird. I can honestly say that I've never been this stressed out in my life. The last 24 hours have sucked. Balls. And it's not letting up until Tuesday. Shit, Monday afternoon. I can totally make it through Monday, but I'm dreading it with every fiber of my being.

My adviser is like the caring, involved, supportive mom I never felt like I had (see, real mom? I told you to stop reading this), and the thing that makes me most nervous is disappointing her. I dont' care if I make an ass of myself in front of the whole depart mint, I'm just afraid to let her down and make her look like a bad adviser. Ugh. Christ.

Just, bleccck.

5 days. 5 more days. Holy crap.