See, I should be doing the self-assigned 75-100 pages of reading on the Greek Civil War that I’m going to try to stick to so I can get my paper done before finals week. I have this stack of about 8 books on my desk – 1.5 of them have post-its everywhere, 6.5 are bare. I’d really like to make those numbers switch. That would be a good thing.

Instead, I’m listening to the Les Miserables soundtrack and reflecting on how epic and amazing that musical is. This has inspired many deep thoughts about regret and redemption, about guilt and self-sacrifice. It’s made me think about unrequited love, and what it means to truly care about someone, and about passion for grand, abstract ideas of freedom and self-determination.

This made me all sorts of depressed.

So I stopped thinking, and just took a look out my window into the darkness where our street is supposed to be, though its so dark outside that I couldn’t give you any substantial proof that it’s actually there. And then, all of a sudden, a light flickered, and I realized that some poor schmuck is out there lighting up a cigarette. It’s 3 am, dark, cold, and windy, and the guy is standing down there just having a smoke like he’s on a coffee break in the afternoon.

Something about that just makes me grin.

Maybe I’m just easily amused. I like it.

Sorry about the random-ness. *shrugs*

Yes, yes, I know it sounds silly. But anytime a cup of tea rises up to threaten your life, you must assume that the situation is pretty epic.

I was telling my roommate about a girl I’ve met recently. And I described how I can tell that she’s… a relatively decent person – her actions come from a good place. But she’s a little egocentric, a little self-absorbed. She had a propensity for drama, and overreacting about small things, and she has a way of expressing her opinions that can come off as a little abrasive or judgmental.

So, I wrap this conclusion up by talking about her intentions – they’re not malicious intentions; she doesn’t mean to hurt people with the things she says. But they’re not exactly good intentions either.

I ended with, “Basically, she’s got neutral intentions, with potentially harmful results. She’s like a neutral-chaotic force.” After finishing this analysis, I take a gigantic swig of my chamomile tea, finishing off the last remnants in my mug.

My roommate replies, “…You just used a D&D reference to catagorize someone in your life. Way to go. You just solidified your status as an utter and complete nerd.”

At which point, chamomile tea flooded my lungs.

Imminent death seemed… well… imminent.

Then I spit out my entire mouthful of tea and proceeded with some hacking coughs and gagging until I was recovered enough to breathe on my own.

I shall never take the safety precautions of tea-drinking for granted again.

It’s been a while. Partially because I’m busy, and partially because I’m not busy enough. I mean, I’m busy enough that I’m not writing fantastic illustrated letters of my life, which I should really get on, since I’m FINALLY done with midterms (last week was a paper on wednesday, physics quiz on thursday, and midterm on friday, FTW). But it’s also partially because I’m really… not busy, and so there’s nothing really to report on.

I mean, most of my time has been devoted to school – writing my Hum paper, studying for my Poli Sci Midterms of Doom (bah, Poli 142 has so much reading and it eats my brain).

I have continued to work for the Little Italian Man, who has been sending me home with stuff to edit, as well as random tasks to complete. Last week, he asked me to contact a magazine and figure out how to get the rights to use a picture on page 34 of their Nov/Dec edition. The week before, he wanted me to go find a book, the Nuremberg Chronicle, and find a picture in the book, and tell him what it was of. There were some mild problems with this:

[a] The Nuremberg Chronicle is in the UCSD library in the Mandeville Special Collections room – it’s a room with rare documents where you can’t bring anything in, you must have an adult supervisor at all times while handling the rare text, and you need a note from a class to legitimate your presence. [b] The Nuremberg Chronicle is in LATIN, so even if I found the pictures… I’m pretty sure reading the captions would be a little difficult. [c] The special collections room is only open during times when I have class, or would be off campus, and I wasn’t exactly going to get to school 3 hours early, or stay for 3 hours after class to make this happen.

I ended up using the interwebs. Yay interwebs.

My regular activities round out with Coffee Talk on Wednesdays, an event that Luke’s been putting on for his residents this year. It’s actually pretty cool – inspired by us last year during wildfire weeks, it’s basically a public forum type atmosphere where people can gather and just talk about whatever the topic is that week. They’ve done relationships, religion, two weeks on politics, and I think he wants to hit family relationships and some sort of session on the economy or the future or something like that.

I like it because I get to awkwardly explain my presence as “Hey guys… I’m Jen… I don’t live here, but I lived in Luke’s building last year, and am one of the people who was trapped with him during Fire Week… yeah, I’m that Jen. So, I’m just gonna… chill… if that’s cool… Sweet.” And he’s been so busy that we never get to see him outside of that because he has no time. So *shrugs*, it works out.

Although I worry that his residents get awkward ideas about us, especially given some comments made last week. I’ve been wearing tank tops during the day because it’s hot, but when I’m staying on campus late, I’ll bring extra layers. So last Wednesday when I got to Luke’s, I threw on a comfy T-shirt that I got at some school event last year; unfortunately, he happened to be wearing the one HE got from the same event. So at some point, this girl goes “Hey, are you two matching on purpose, ’cause that’s really cute!” We kinda looked at her and then looked at each other with this horrified expression, and finally, I just shook my head and went “Oh, Jesus Christ” as he went “Aw, now I feel like I have to change my shirt…”

Then, one of his residents was doing laundry, and brought it back with him when it was done. He had one of those microfiber blankets wrapped around his shoulders, and brought it over for us to feel because someone said it looked like a towel. I told him it was soft and that I was going to steal it because I like those blankets. Luke warned him that I had already stolen his microfiber blanket, to which the same girl goes “oOoOo…”

Like, it’s understandable – everyone who hangs out with us figures there’s something going on between him and one of us. We’re good enough friends that our degree of comfort shows, and people always kind of assume that when a guy and a girl are really comfortable with each other, they’ve got to be doing each other in their spare time. HOWEVER, I’d like to think that they know about his girlfriend, and the whole story of him moving up to Washington when he graduates so they can get married and have lots of babies. So it’s odd. And makes me kinda twitchy.

Other than all that, not much going on. No developments on the Sneezy front. *shrugs* We hang out occasionally, but it’s tough when everyone’s further apart and we actually have to make an effort to hang out. Hill and Curtis want to set me up with a friend of theirs who goes to SDSU – they’ve informed me that we’re going on a date, and I have no choice. I have replied that I will make it the most awkward experience of both our lives if they try. They reiterate my lack of a choice, and then text him telling him that I’m excited for our date. I threaten them with disembowelment and burning at the stake.

That’s… pretty much the extent of my life at the moment.

UPDATE ME ON YOURS SO I CAN LIVE VICARIOUSLY THROUGH YOU. YAYYYY!! kthx

I’ve always felt proud that I’ve been in control of my emotions. I try to approach things logically, rationally, not letting my emotions take over and skew my decisions. And I think that in general, I’ve done that.

But recently, it’s been really hard, because my emotions have seemed to be affecting me. Not in my decisions, but in my physical state of being.

I’ve never felt like anxiety has caused me problems in the past. But in the last few weeks, I’ve found myself with an unexplainable tightness in the pit of my stomach, a ball of tenseness in my throat. Feeling like I’m going to throw up, feeling like I’m going to break into tears, feeling out of control and frustratingly unstable.

Granted, it doesn’t happen very often. Maybe once every week, or for a few days and then not for a full week or two. But that’s a damn sight more often than before.

So it bothers me. And makes me not want to be here.

Which probably causes me more anxiety and stress.

Catch 22.

Where ever we go these days, the majority of the time it seems like we can’t reach our destination without some kind of squabble. Something he says makes me annoyed and silent, something I say or do usually always seems to make him upset. We leave the apartment, happy and excited with a skip in our step and with our smiles on, but more than usual, we arrive back home, tired, disillusioned and sullen.

Adding to that, I haven’t been doing too well emotionally. Perhaps it’s because of all these ups and downs — days that seem promisingly blissful like the old days contrasted sharply by those dark days when I feel like there’s a hole in my chest that never seems to end, my heart is broken to a million pieces, and all I want to do is curl up somewhere, cry and maybe cease to live.

Dramatic? Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from, but that pretty much sums it up in the very superficial way that words can only describe sometimes. I feel like my heart has been broken or broken itself too many times in the past weeks to fully recover itself… After one bad moment, the next moment hits and breaks what little of my emotional self and heart has begun to heal. Sometimes, I shock myself in realizing that in my head, I lose hope during those moments. Thoughts of an end or a break pass through and my mind automatically begins to weigh its options.

But then I look at the little momentos on my desk and in the room that I have of those “old” days: the teddy bear that I’ve come to love and cherish, the notecards with good feelings and smileys written on them in Sharpie, the frames of both of us smiling so hard and looking so happy, and the mini-collage of the post-its he left on my desk during the school year. Just looking at them forms a lump in my throat that these days, quickly escalates to full-out crying. I’ve become so fragile, sad and emotionally broken these days that I’m not sure what to do with myself anymore.

I haven’t cried so much ever in my life than I have in the past few weeks. I constantly feel like I’m not being the good girlfriend I should be (always happy, always talkative), so I guess subconsciously I’ve been trying to make up for what I think I’m missing. I put my best effort into cooking, I try to pick up after him without saying anything, I try to wash the dishes right away so there’s no mess in the kitchen, and I try to do the little things that made him so happy before, like writing him notes or texting to say hello and I love you.

But I guess in the end, those little things, the cooking and the cleaning don’t make up for the shitty girlfriend I’ve become. I have a bladder infection so it hurts to pee and it aches sometimes. I always feel tired and lifeless, so I take more naps than usual and I try to read or find something interesting on the web instead of studying. I don’t talk as much because I’m either feeling neutral, sad and depressed that I’m such a shitty girlfriend, or just plain tired. I guess I’m no longer the girlfriend who’s cool and carefree all the time now… I’m a girlfriend with problems for baggage — what guy would really be happy with that?

This afternoon after work, I called him to see how he was doing and to ask what he wanted to eat for dinner. At least I could make him happy with my cooking, right? So I quickly walked home, a little happier than usual because I was thinking of how happy he’d be when I finished making dinner. The little glow in his face, the happy smile and the hugs and kisses that I get in return are things from those days back in the dorms during the weekends that I thought as common before, but now wish I could see more of. When he got back, I had finished prepping the majority of the food, which was perfect so that within a few minutes, I’d have everything cooked and hot when it would be served. I was a little upset at the rice noodles that I was trying to unravel and fluff because they’d hardened in the fridge and were breaking into little bits, so I was a bit quiet.

I don’t even remember what prompted him to comment that I wasn’t talking that much, but I do remember him saying that that was what he originally liked about me — the things I said when I used to talk more. And so I half-jokingly asked, so now that I don’t talk anymore, am I no longer the girl you were looking for ?

I expected a “no, of course not” or a “what? are you kidding me?”, but was presented with a pause and a subject switch. An implied yes.

Maybe if I was in a less fragile state, not-PMSing and happy, I’d have smacked him and laughed it off… but today it hurt like a dagger. Especially since it had already been an hour and a half since I first walked into the kitchen to prepare dinner.

Perhaps it’s just with everything going on right now, with work being every day, with the 2.5 hr lectures, with the failed poli sci midterm, with the papers due almost every week, with the money trickling away from my bank account, with this bladder infection hurting me and making me tired and dizzy in the morning… that I’m not happy and haven’t been happy for awhile.

Or perhaps it’s a sign of something else with our relationship… which makes me even more sad because I know I still love him just as much as I did before… even though I talk less than I did before because things these days just don’t seem to be going right… and even though I seem to be turning into a shitty girlfriend who is no longer his ideal girl.

It wasn’t exactly unexpected. I mean, turn-over in the office is about every 1.5 or 2 weeks, and I had been with them for almost a month. I was staying on borrowed time, anyway. It was inevitable.

It was a great experience, being an aggressive panhandler on the street, accosting people for money and guilt tripping them into stopping and talking to a little girl about the environment. I got a great tan (on a highly limited portion of my body…), met some great people, and have some great stories from it.

Still, I’m not going to lie – unemployment isn’t so bad.

I gazed into her eyes when she asked, “If you could be at any place in the world right now, where would you go?”

Before the glimmer in my eye took full effect, I confidently replied “There’s nowhere else in the world where I’d want to be right now than to be right here.  With you.”

We shared a moment I’d never forget.  Then I put her in my mouth.

Beloved blueberry jelly filled donut.  My search for you is finally over.”

Yelp.com review for Stan’s Corner Donut Shoppe.

“Sorry, but I already got nailed by your friends down the street.”

My brain’s responses, chronologically:

1. “That’s what she said!”

2. “I bet they nailed you good… did you give them any money for it?”

3. “Oh, I won’t nail you again. I bet being nailed once is quite enough for one afternoon.”

4. “Alright, have a good day, sir.”

I went with the fourth, but an evil, perverted and demented demonic part of my soul wishes I had gone with one of the first three.

The things I sacrifice for this job…