It's been a rather eventful few days even with me not leaving the house. I was up all night with a splitting headache. I've been up since then too, unable to sleep. So don't expect a coherent entry, although I've been told I write better when I'm half-dead. It's been a while since I last witnessed 5am. It's rather peaceful. I vaguely remember peeking out my window as I opened it to feel the frigid morning air and see the smudged grey sky. A tiny bird sat on the wire, all alone, peeping randomly at the butt crack o dawn. Within an hour, the 30 or so birds, either sparrows or swallows (I haven't made up my mind), were again resting on the wire and dancing through sky, as they maintained quite a few rather loud conversations with each other. I may have gotten maybe 10 minutes of sleep just after then, but it's also possible that I did not.

My cat, who is at this exact moment cuddled and purring at the end of my bed beside me :-), was astoundingly good last night. Were it not for the tornado twisting inside my skull, I would have gotten a full nights sleep. My mom got a full nights sleep, without my furball scratching the boxes, scratching the carpet, running through the house in a psychotic state obviously trying to protect it (or running)from alien invaders, scratching my door, attacking either of us � oh, he's taken up boxing us in the face if we sleep with our heads anywhere near the edge of the bed. I gently hit him in the face right back the other night. I don't think he liked that, and he did stop. It's interesting being like a sibling to a cat.

My school finally posted the textbooks I'll need for the next semester. So far none listed for my Anthro class, and it looks like I'll have to endure the 'America is the only good nation in this post 9/11 world' propaganda book known as The New World Reader. I have yet to meet anyone who liked Eng 111, or this book, in fact, the combination is referred to as the colleges "initiation ceremony", which is why I've put off taking it for a year. But I keep my fingers crossed because it is my favorite person at the college who is teaching my particular class. If the terrorism essays get to me, I know she'll forgive me for skipping and doing something else or doing it in a way that reduces my tears. She was always like, "you're such a good writer, do what you need to do, no worries. Just write. :-D"

I adore her.

I'm thinking of buying that book at text books dot com. I am not a textbook highlighter or killer, and if I send it back in good condition, which I sure as heck will want to send it back by December (trust me), I'll get 50%, or 30 dollars, back and free shipping both ways. So, yeah, I'll buy the other one used on ebay, as I'll probably keep it even though I have three other MLA handbooks here. I refuse to spend $120.00 for English 111 books. English 112 is a whole different story � for literature they can charge as much as they like, and I'll be so enamored by Chaucer and Shelley and Roethke and Rilke and Kafka, that I would not mind. In fact, I still cannot cross that huge reader without beaming. So HEAVY and full of good stuff.

And I'm thinking of selling some old still-in-use textbooks on campus. I'd need to put a note on the bulletin board with my email address and price listings. Yeah, I should. I'm never going to use or open many of these things ever again.

I finally got the ambassador guy to agree to a day and time I can show up - tomorrow afternoon. So, tomorrow is the day of truth as to whether I will be the pissiest ambassador at the school (they're usually all smiles and pro anything-my-school � I am not quite there. ). But I'll either be busy all semester, or alone and bored. I already have my weekly hours figured out if he can find me something flexible that I can do on campus, well, something other than playing 'let's-be-agoraphobic in public places', which I do every day when I'm at school. That, for anyone who doesn't yet know involves sitting in the hallway alone talking to your mom on your cell phone and waving to people who know you and see you but who don't wave back in return. But then my college is full of cliques and I'm not really in one, so. Well I kind of am, as an honors student, but I've never met anyone else who really is, so. Nevermind�

I think I'll have to work 150 hours over the semester, including the 4-5 hours a week training. And I will definitely need a ride to the school on Fridays to get there by 8 am, but I will get to be around the smart equally overly-ambitious people at school, and do public speaking to faculty groups, and I doubt I'll be as alone. We'll see.

Since I got my stepper, I've tried to do at least 200 steps a day. It was okay except yesterday and today, I'm just not feeling well enough to do it. I feel to dizzy standing at all. On Saturday I did over 250 steps and tried to get my heart rate up, but my heart rate would only go to 120 beats per minute. In the manual, it says to get it to at least 133 per minute. oh well. Right now my heart rate is at sleep pace, and it's staying that way till I feel better.

The other day, I noticed an ugly transparent line at the top of the screen on my monitor that only showed up in light colors, and definitely is pixel related, not a scratch. With black, it completely disappeared. My monitor may not be taking this heat very well, and it appears to be 'burn in'. It disappears but slowly comes back as soon as my monitor gets hot. I watched a color movie, and it blurred the line so it's not as 'there'. I'm too tired to fix it right now, but�soon I'll try stuff and see what fixes it. For now my monitor is not staying on at idle longer than 5 minutes. And I'm watching a lot of movies to unstsick the pixels.

Today I watched Anne of Avonlea, <3 I grew up on that movie because I related to it. Writer Anne with her silent e. :-) I first saw the movies at age 8, and I read the series of books when I was 10. After that anything Canadian was fine with me. I watched the movie Lantern Hill over and over, I was addicted to the Road to Avonlea TV series, and the related Canadian TV shows. So yeah, I was actually thinking that a Fulbright scholarship would get me to live in Canada � near Josh - for a while fully paid. I don't know what would happen to my SSI though, or if anyone disabled has ever received the Fulbright. :-( But I may be eligible someday to find out what they do to you.

oh, and yes, I am getting somewhere with a story outline � finally. This summer might not be wasted on cleaning and shopping after all. Yay�may I one day not be a failure at attempting to write.

I got my punching bag! It's not bad, it bounces back just enough to aim and hit harder. But I do need to collect rocks outside to weigh down the base. I'm so glad I finally have one of these. !! And my cat is of course paranoid of it, which I secretly love.

Last night around 11:30 pm I went to get more water to drink in the kitchen. I heard a very loud dripping repeating in fixed rhythm. When I was 3 years old, our flat roof of the apartment pretty much caved in on me twice, so the first thing I think is � it's the roof. Well after I ruled that out, I thought � dishwasher, my mom had just washed dishes by hand and put them in the dishwasher to dry � but no, it wasn't that. The refrigerator was also not taking a leak. I moved my head to the sink, and opened the cabinet and there it was, all over everything. Soapy dripping water. I yelled for my mom to help me, as I was grabbing everything that was wet and throwing it in the sink. She yelled back a very annoyed 'why?' and took another minute of me begging for her help to come in. Of course when she came in she rushed to grab a bucket and tried to stuff it under the sink. I informed her that that would do nothing with what I was looking at. Apparently my mom had put large a plastic lid to a storage box upside-down like a basin under the sink. Brilliantly this stopped what I would have referred to as 'the great soapy flood of 2008'. There was at least a gallon of soapy dishwater water in that lid and only a few cups of water leaked over everywhere else. I was so relieved when I noticed that, I must say. The entire cabinet would have been damaged, only a few spots are water warped. It also would have leaked all over the floor. After feeling around the pipe for the source of the leak, I noticed two things, the first is the pipe itself was screwed on slightly crooked, SF,NM plumbing for you. The second, and I think cause of the problem, is that the putty that seals the slight crack between the sink basin and the pipes has warn off. Maintenance is going to be getting a pretty long list of to-do's for next week, starting tomorrow.

By the yellowing of the water in one corner of that lid, it's been leaking for a while. The funniest and smelliest thing I found under the sink was in a ziplock bag partially filled with decorative black rocks. As soon as I opened the bag, I got a whiff of�dirty socks mixed with river water, and started pulling stuff out to throw it away. Me and my mom both had scowls on our faces from the smell, but could not identify quite a few things in that smelly bag. So one of our conversations went much like this: "Me: ew, I'm not touching that, I don't care if it's in a jar. Mama Bear: Well, give it to me. What is that? Me: I don't know. Mama Bear: Maybe it's cayenne pepper. Me: yeah, it kind of looks like cayenne pepper, but I'm not opening it to find out. Everything smells. As my mom tossed it into the trash scowling at it as it went. Alas, I'll never know the mystery substances true identity. The smell did not help my headache any.

I found an interesting smelly list in the bag that was readable after it was dry. A sort of family tree listing all of my closest relatives - and all of their offenses ranging from my grandma sleeping in the same bed as her youngest son his entire growing up life, and him being in prison. My "escort" aunt who raised her kids to steal for her, they are all now in prison last I heard, and my dad, who spent much of his life in prison due to drugs and violence. Little family quirks like that. I'd forgotten writing this out. Most people in families have normal careers. I don't think anyone in my family does. It's kind of a shock to see it all on one page. How am I related to these people?

So, anyway, that was in the smelly bag.

Afterwards, I took a shower that still did not relieve my headache.

Now I have to be girly and think about what to wear tomorrow.

~e