Fin.

It's been a long time coming, but I think this will be my last post. Ever.

Its not that I haven't loved blogging, because I really have. Writing was, and still is, one of my favorite things to do. But, blogging has gotten me into more trouble than its worth (not lately, though!) because of my inability to edit myself. That, and I just don't feel the need to share everything that happens in my life anymore.

For what it's worth, you can still follow me on Twitter if you feel so inclined. And yes, I realize what I just did there...and I'm cool with it. For now, 140 characters is enough. I've also got Facebook, but be aware, if we haven't actually met at some point, I probably won't accept your friend request. Nothing personal...

Thank you all for reading over the years and for hanging in there through all the twists and turns my life has taken. I wish you all the best. Much love.

Hiatus...

Hi gang. I have a lot going on these days. Between regular M-Th classes and labs, my Tuesday afternoon volunteer gig, working out at a break-neck pace in an attempt to lose a final few inches/pounds, and finalizing the details of my wedding to DJC (which happens on October 29th), I am struggling to fit it all in. Hate to say it, but blogging is pretty dang far down the list of things that I need to keep up with.

I might pop in periodically, but if I am being honest with myself, things might be pretty quiet around here until mid November. Hope that everyone is doing well and hanging in there. I'll be back eventually. Promise. =)

Next week...

Monday: Crash 10am anatomy class that is completely full and the waiting list closed. Try my best to get in. I don't have a plan B if I cannot get into this class...and I REALLY need to get in.
Squeeze in a workout at some point. I drank so much damn beer this weekend that I totally derailed my wedding diet. At some point, I will need to call the various schools to see where the hell my transcripts are. I paid for the damn rush processing this time and still, they're not arriving.

Tuesday: 8am statistics class. No need to crash this one...I'm already in. Glide volunteering in the afternoon. Squeeze into yoga pants and squeeze in another workout. Bug the people who have offered to write me letters of rec to actually write them and submit them.

Wednesday: Crash the very same anatomy class in hopes that a few spots have opened up. Later in the afternoon, crash the lab. Hopefully, my persistence will pay off and the professor will let me in. Either that, or he'll be so annoyed me and let me in anyways. In the evening, DJC and I are meeting with our officiant to start planning out how our wedding ceremony will go. Chinese food will be consumed, no workout will happen.

Thursday: Statistics again. Hitting the gym in the early afternoon. In the evening, head out to SF for a Glide HIV Services dinner/drinkfest. I will try to stay away from the beer.

Friday: Aaaaah, no classes. The only thing on the schedule is a fun meetup with BT and LOTS of delicious tapas here, and then possibly some dancing.

Saturday: Second appointment with my wedding dress, this time with the shoes. Alterations begin, and I re-commit to my diet. Submit my PA application to CASPA. Cross fingers. Pray.

So, as you can see, I'm BUSY. I apologize for the upcoming lack of posting. Hopefully, things will settle down soon. But probably not until after the wedding in October. UGH!

I. Can't. Breathe.

On Thursday afternoon, the call that I've been anticipating all summer finally came. My wedding dress had arrived in the store and was ready for me to try on.

I immediately went into a bit of a panic. You see, I purchased my dress in December of 2009. Its been a VERY long time since I've seen it, and even longer since I last tried it on. I was nervous, to say the least. What if I no longer liked the style? Or the color? Or, and this was my biggest fear, what if my body size had increased drastically since I was measured back in December? What if the darn thing didn't fit? What if I looked *gulp* fat? AAAH! The anxiety was literally enough to keep me up at night. Like, I would fall asleep and wake not an hour later and just lie in bed totally stressed out.

Nevertheless, I made an appointment for yesterday afternoon, threw my Spanx in my purse, skipped breakfast and lunch and dragged AG with me to the shop. I was excited, and nervous and I had no idea what I was in for, but I knew I wasn't going to go in with a full stomach!

I'm sure those of you that have been through this ordeal are currently nodding your heads in complete understanding. If not, let me be clear....I was *terrified*. I mean, this is THE DRESS. The one I will wear on the day I become Mrs. DJC. To say I was scared was a gross underestimation of what I was feeling. I parked the car, got out to walk towards the shop, and immediately started to sweat. When I saw my dress hanging in the dressing room, my breathing rate and pulse increased. And then I put it on...

I think the lady helping me offered me some water and a chair. Apparently, I looked ill. I certainly felt ill. I stood there taking short, shallow, rapid breaths while she laced up the corset. I felt cold and clammy and hot and dizzy and faint as I tried to hold it all together. The lacing seemed to take WAY too long and I started to believe that something was wrong with the dress. My god, I had gotten fatter, I thought! How can this be?! NOOOO! I felt vaguely nauseated. All my hard work at the gym hadn't paid off at all.

But then, she started to pull. She warned me to hold on before the yanking began, but I didn't really know what she meant. Then I realized she was pulling so hard that I actually couldn't breathe! I panicked for reals this time. But as quickly as it had started, the panic was gone and I could breathe. Everything was OK. She continued working her way down and when she had finally finished, I walked out into the viewing room with all the crazy mirrors.

And you know what? I was (and still am) TOTALLY happy with my dress. Its gorgeous. And thanks to the corset from hell, I actually have a waist and a really nice shape. AG took endless amounts of pictures to send to my mom in Florida. I'm so excited for the big day. There are some pretty extensive alterations that need to happen (because I'm not a 6' tall model), but I think its going to be absolutely lovely...

...and perfect, minus about ten pounds. ;)

Quick recap

Lately, there's been a lot going on. Here's a brief rundown so that all five of you are up to speed...

1. I'm currently taking a SUPER intensive six day medical terminology course. Its essentially an entire semester's worth of work in six days. The class is scheduled to start at 9am. In reality, the professor shows up at 9:15 or 9:25ish, and because people know he's always late, most come at 9:30 or 9:40. What this means is that the professor will wait to start class until everyone is present. While we're all waiting, he leaves the classroom. Generally the class starts everyday at about 9:45am. The professor has been teaching this class for nineteen years and he's decided that its best to give us all of the exam questions ahead of time and let us hunt and pick through the textbook for the answers. During the time while we're working, the professor leaves the room again. What this amounts to is A LOT of sitting around and playing around with my cell phone. Anyone who's taken anatomy or physiology in the last decade can answer most of the questions without looking in the textbook, but hang on, there's a catch. He wants the definitions regurgitated VERBATIM from the textbook on the exam. When I heard this, I just shook my head in disbelief. Combine this class with the English professor who wanted papers written *just so*, this has become the summer of non-learning. Laaaaaaame. Only two days left, though.

2. I bought two pairs of jeans yesterday that are both one size smaller than what I usually wear. WOOT! I owe that to the repetition of RPM and all of the other classes I take, and how many freaking calories I burn!

3. Wedding, wedding, wedding! AAAAAH! Its less than three months away! We're feverishly trying to tie up all the loose ends and figure out all the little details that I never thought I'd have to deal with. Its just nuts. But I'm super excited and will hopefully have a little more motivation to stick to my diet when my dress comes in this month. Its gonna be a good time!!

4. PA school applications are due September 1st. I've been slowly chipping away at it, but I haven't even started on my narrative yet and need to still get my letters of recommendation in order. I'm getting a little nervous about this. I don't have a plan B if I don't get in. But I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

5. I've had a MONSTER cold lately and don't really feel like doing a damn thing. Studying, working, anything...its just not getting done. I can't even find enough energy to cough properly sometimes.

6. The gig at Glide's HIV Services is still going really well. We've recently set up a Facebook page to help spread the word about what we're doing there. If you haven't already visited and become a fan, this is my shameless plug and request to do so. And don't forget to suggest it to your friends (especially if they live in SF, and are MSMs, IDUs or trans-folk). Thanks!!!

Ok, I've got to head out and do something today. I think the laundry is the big winner. Ugh.

I give up! Uncle! Uncle!

Earlier this morning, I turned in my final paper for possibly the most insanely difficult junior college class I've ever taken. My professor has a PhD in literature from a VERY liberal women's college and I swear, the woman could find a rape scene or rape intentions in ANY piece of written work. Here's a million dollar term that might garner some strange looks if you manage to use in conversation: vagina dentata. On day freaking one of summer session English 1B, she dropped the vagina dentata bomb on us. Imagine the looks of sheer terror on the faces of those who are not native English speakers. Pure. Comedy.

This class was ridiculous, though, because of suggestions like this (I know this is a lot to read, but trust me, it'll give you great insight into what I was up against):

Take the following quote from The Merchant of Venice: “…Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks hang on her temples like a golden fleece…” (citation). After the quote, you’d have to explain what “renowned” means. What does it signify? Then you’d unpack the puns. “Locks” means hair and padlocks. We only lock up items that are valuable, but it is also a form of punishment; such as being locked away for life. Lock also suggests unity or a union, as in marriage, such as in the phrase: lip-lock. You’d also have to entertain the word sunny. I’d say that it relates to golden and golden means monetary value and aesthetic value, as in a golden tan. Then we have golden fleece. Gold by itself = wealth and beauty but golden fleece is an allusion to a Greek myth. The golden fleece gives Jason the power of invisibility and he uses this power to kill Medusa, a powerful woman. Medusa can turn men to stone, which is interesting because of the phrase “blinded by beauty.” Instead of being blinded by beauty, one is turned to stone from her ugliness and the hero must triumph over her. Mankind either suffers from woman’s beauty or suffers from her ugliness and thus mankind must be saved.

Oh my GOD, fuck me in the goat-ass! Unpack the puns?! Are you kidding me?! I thought I was a decent writer, but I never stood a chance against this woman. I could take a trillion English classes and never think the way she does. To me, the above "suggestion" qualifies as reading into ONE LINE of a very long play WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much. She said that if we couldn't get all of that out of one line, we weren't being very sophisticated. If that's the case, I'm as barbaric as they come. Sadly, to get a decent grade on any of the fourteen (yes, fourteen) papers that she had us write in a mere six weeks, you had to think exactly like she did. If she didn't agree with what you wrote, your grade would suffer.

For me, what this lead to was finding abstract inspiration from an episode of Oprah that featured Jessica Simpson, for crying out loud. I also managed to contort and twist and completely mutilate a Dave Matthews song...not surprisingly, she loved these two papers. Also not surprising was that these were the two papers I was the least proud of. I didn't believe in a single word I wrote and felt that I was handing in an absolute pile of shit, and yet she raved about my creativity.

Bottom line here is that I just couldn't win. If I wrote about things that I believed in, I got C's (C's!!). If I vomited baloney onto sheets of paper that lacked any sort of coherent idea, she was pleased, but still not in the mood to hand out an A. I've honestly never had so much trouble figuring out what a professor wanted before! Even when I got my papers back and read through the pages of comments, I still didn't get it...nothing was clarified, nothing was made easier to understand.

With the final paper handed in, I can't do anything but just hope that she sees some improvement in my ability to give her something that she agrees with. Because otherwise, I just earned myself another C in an English class.

I also apologize for the lack of posting around here lately, but Professor Vagina Dentata Rape Scene really killed my desire to write for fun. Now that I'm finished with her class, I will hopefully get back to enjoying the mindless blather that takes place here...

Hi honey, how was your day at the office?

Things I never knew existed, but have since learned come in VERY handy during an HIV counseling session at Glide (and because I'm a total demure prude, I'll let you either Google the terms yourself, or ask me in the comments for the definitions):

1. Booty bump
2. Gummy gobbler
3. Gaffle pussy
4. The location of the sole tranny-only needle exchange in the city
5. Banana hand job
6. PNP, JO, DDF, MSM, IDU
7. Bottom or vers
8. Poppers

During a session today, a sex worker said, "My coochie don't do nothin' but make me money." If that's not in a rap song, it needs to be. You got that, Lil' Wayne? She. Was. Comedy.

The things that come up in sessions astonish me sometimes. I swear, I am the prudest, squarest white girl around. I wonder if the people I counsel secretly think I am too square to be doing this (and the funny thing is that I'm not all that square!). Seriously, I have so much to learn.

Fat cat on a little fence

Remember Professor Socks and Nitten? Sometimes when we drive by in the mornings, he is sitting on the fence. DJC speculates that it is because the ground is cold and he doesn't like it. Whatever the reason, its hilarious to see such a fat cat balancing on a tiny little fence. His rolls are literally spilling over the sides! I love this cat. The owners probably think I've totally gone nuts...I'm always driving by the house in hopes of catching a glimpse of their spellbindingly fat cat and then stopping to snap a few pics when he is out.

Yeah, I'm definitely heading down that road...

But seriously, how effing cute are these pics?!?!

Phoney Baloney

Dear Chris Brown,

You know that performance at the BET Awards that everyone's talking about from last night? Yeah, that one:

(for those who like MJ, he actually does a pretty cool impersonation...but for everyone else, let the thing load and then skip to about 1:55)

You're full of shit and no one believes that those crocodile tears were genuine. The only thing you're crying about is that you single-handedly destroyed your own career when you beat up Rihanna.

Now, move along. Ain't nobody buyin' what you're sellin', you little whack-ass busta. That's all.

Adventures in literature

Today was the first day of my 7:30am summer class, English 1B. I took English 1A in 1994 during my undergraduate years when I cared only about sleeping, partying, dancing, drinking and springboard diving...in that order. Note that academics didn't even make the top 5. Hence, my grade was an abysmal C+. I completely missed the point of the class and really didn't care to get it, either.

Now, I know that a C+ won't get me too far in the graduate world, nursing or otherwise. So, I awoke WAY before my alarm this morning and rolled begrudgingly out of bed, cursing my lack of academic focus back when I was 18. I made myself a large cup of Starbucks Via (which is actually pretty decent), and headed out the door to rectify my C+. Once I arrived on campus, everything went to hell in a handbag. Quickly.

I couldn't remember where the class was supposed to meet. I tried going to the administration office to look at a class schedule, but they didn't open until 8am. I tried finding the class on my phone, but as much as I LOVE my Palm, the web browser blows. Big time. I wandered aimlessly until the bookstore opened at 7:45 and I was able to figure out where the hell I was supposed to go. I hoofed it over to the portable classrooms, took a seat in the back and tried not to call too much attention to the fact that I was nearly twenty minutes late.

The professor sent us all an email on Saturday that included 29 pages of poetry to review before the first class today. TWENTY NINE pages of poetry. I can think of nothing I would like to read LESS that twenty nine pages of poetry (I will tackle my feelings on poetry in a different post). She also gave us a two page handout of literary terms to be discussed in class. While she was trying to come up with an example of alliteration in rap music, I foolishly raised my hand and offered my two cents, courtesy of Notorious BIG:

"Birthdays was the worst days
Now we sip chamgpagne when we thirstaaaaay"

As soon as I finished, the class became very quiet. Everyone looked at me like I had lobsters coming out of my nose. I turned about nine shades of red and immediately made a mental note to pipe down and not speak again. People began to snicker and the professor said, "We're all really excited about what you just said...on the inside." I've never felt so lame and embarrassed. Ugh.

Later in the class, though, the professor attempted to make up for it by using the Yin Yang Twins lyric "Like Short said, 'Let Bruce Bruce hit it'" as an example of allusion. I felt less lame, but only a little. I mean, at least I quoted a decent hip hop song so I had that going for me, but I still felt like a major idiot.

If today is any indication of how the rest of the summer is going to go, it's gonna be a loooooooong six weeks, ya'll. "Let Bruce Bruce hit it"....eff me.