what was your major in college? do you wish you could have studied something else?

       sure, it was a question from a couple days ago, but i just saw it because i'm hip and up to date like that. and even though most of you know the answer already i'm going to answer it anyway then just keep on rambling like i usually do because i can. english with an emphasis in fiction creative writing and an incomplete minor in linguistics because i'm a "see things through" kinda guy. hm. i really am, though. sometimes a little too much. do i wish i'd have studied something else? sometimes, yes. i liked science, too, and i'd probably have a better chance of a salaried job right now had i gone that route. and i almost did music, but that probably would have been even more stupid (for me). but i don't regret my choice, and i'm glad i finally finished it. but i've been wondering "now what?" for a bit too long and it's getting rather frustrating. i like spontaneity in little things -- not big things.

       i wrote the ending to the first chapter of this historical fiction/fantasy that i've been working on. no, the chapter's not done -- just the ending. haha. i'm probably not too far from finishing the chapter, but i also started this thing -- jesus, i just looked it up -- almost a year ago. and i had had the idea for a while before that, turning it over in my mind. yeah, i did the bulk of what i have now during nanowrimo last year. i had started a little early and posted the prologue on tenebra_ruo at the end of october (ha, the 24th -- my favorite day). don't bother clicking on that link, i think only two of you will be able to see it. it's not much to see anyway -- things have changed since then. wow, that kinda threw me. that's really sad. sure, i have bits of the second and third chapters going, but just that after a year? that's pathetic. but -- i write best when that's all i'm doing. if i could take a year, not have to worry about anything else, and just write -- i'm sure i could finish it. they should do grants for nobody writers working on the next great american novel and give them loads of cash so they can live and work on their writing, all in the name of bettering society. or something. i wonder if i could do some fundraising, get some art investors who don't expect a return other than perhaps a signed copy of the finished product. anyone know anyone? hm?

       got kinda off base there. anyway, i wrote this ending. and i really liked it. seriously tugged my heartstrings and got me all excited because it's a little bit of a cliff-hanger. and now none of you will be able to read it because i'll be way too self-conscious and scared because i'm proud of it and i'll be crushed if you don't like it. especially you critics out there. and i've already decided to write under a pen name that none of you will recognize. so .

       first day back at the grocery store tomorrow. so pumped.

I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

and dread the day...

       i've always been a dreamer. a big dreamer. and for myself i've only really had two main dreams that, whatever else i may have wanted or whatever else may have happened, i could imagine myself being ok if i had one of these two. and i wanted them badly. both have always existed -- even when i was very, very young i wanted to be either a singer/musician or a writer. or both. the first twenty years of my life (maybe a little less) were dominated by the desire to sing. i wanted it so bad i was in pain. the desire was so great that even now when i think about it, though i realize that it's not going to happen, i still feel a little twinge, and that was nearly ten years ago. but i got some training and sang as much as i could and even made a cd. haha. but by then the ever so practical dream of being a writer started to fill in between the tatters of my singing career. i'm still kinda stuck on that one, and i'm starting to worry that the edges of this one are fraying like the one before it did, but this time there isn't anything to fill in the gaps. it's what i want to do. definitely a "here goes nuthin'" sort of thing.

       it's kinda sad that all four text messages i've received so far today were twitter updates from davey wavey. yeah, don't ask.

---

day twenty-six. talk about the last "random act of kindness" you encountered.

       i'm a little bit stumped on this one. and troubled that i'm stumped. i can think of plenty acts of kindness, but it's the "random" that gets me. my cat just randomly jumped on my lap to snuggle. that was kind. and certainly appreciated. so there.

maybe this time...

       have i mentioned that i'm really excited about "glee" tomorrow night? well, tonight now. oooh! excitement! i made two batches of cookies this evening for the three people that will probably end up coming over. i invited about two dozen. =) people, not cookies.

       i'm starting to worry about how many guys i've been crossing off the "mr. right" list lately. i'm not sure what i'm looking for, but i'm starting to think he doesn't exist regardless. i didn't mean to make myself sound like a whore just then, either. i just mean that there have been a couple lately that seemed like they could have been really incredible fits. and nothing happens. the "plenty of fish" speech really doesn't apply here. i'm actually curious what the odds are. i've heard varying numbers on what percentage of the population we make up, from 5-10% to 25% (i think the 5-10% represents who's out), but within those confines the numbers go down based on how attractive they are to you (attractive in the general sense, not just looks) then they go down even more based on whom you attract... it gets kinda depressing. ok, it gets really depressing. why does the line "to bear a ring of power is to be alone." keep running through my head?

       a friend and i have decided to start a writing workshop here in town. there's only one that we could find, the missouri writers guild, but they only meet once a month, they only workshop every other meeting, and you have to pay for it. pfft. we're writers. we're poor. so we're starting our own. we're both fiction writers, but we might let the non-fiction people play, too. if they're nice. we might be snobbish towards the poets, though. dunno yet. poetry seems like it would be a much more difficult thing to workshop, and i mean more of the "my head is going to explode" difficult rather than logistics. we'll see. getting kinda excited about it, though. still in the planning stages, but i'm already working on short stories just so i have something to workshop, lol. so i guess it's working. i'm completely revamping an old short story that i wrote for one of my fiction classes and i kinda like where it's going. might even end up being something i'd consider submitting for publication. dan's still getting after me to submit something for the university's literary journal (he's an editor there). i'm optimistic.

       aww, hermes is curling up in my lap. must be time to go to bed. later taters. =)

epic cheesy fail...

       hmph. i was so confident in my kitchen abilities. now i'm worried because i usually take these things a little too far and become obsessive about mastering it. it becomes a challenge, you see. i did it with chocolate chip cookies. i used to make the crappiest chocolate chip cookies imaginable. oh, they were horrible. no idea why -- i'd always follow the instructions. then i became frustrated with it and made dozens of batches of the little buggers until i got it right. that was somewhere around early high school or so. now i make some of the best chocolate chip cookies that i've ever had, using the exact same nestle tollhouse recipe. it's silly, but i'm proud of them. we won't talk about chocolate fudge. i can make a mean fudge, but the perfect fudge remains my greatest culinary rival. i suppose that's what makes me a decent cook, though -- that perseverance. but yes, my cheese failed. or i failed my cheese. haha. and i think i know what i did wrong. but my milk ended up clabbering (souring) instead of setting. so i can't even make a ricotta out of it. pfft. two-and-a-half gallons of milk wasted. yes, i'm going to try again tomorrow.

       as i was writing the above paragraph i couldn't help but smile a little. perseverance. that's the answer rowling gave in response to the many requests for writing advice (as many aspiring writers tend to plague their heroes with such questions). that's all she said, just the one word, "persevere." and as i was rambling about my cheese and how i learned to cook, it struck me that failure is how i learn to persevere in my cooking and how i ultimately overcome the culinary obstacles that arise. the truth is, i've never failed at being a writer because i've never really tried. sure, i've written a couple crappy short stories for classes, but when it comes to what i really want to write, my novels, i'm so frightened of failure that i hardly give it a real shot. kind of ironic when in context with my cooking. *sigh* now if only i can get that through my head that failure can be an impetus of success. perhaps i should try to fail. i don't mean that i should sabotage myself -- i just need to give myself the opportunity to learn from my mistakes. because when it comes to it, the greatest failure is to never have tried in the first place. (hmm, that'd be a cool quote, but i bet someone else said it already.)

       ok, it's late. i can't keep doing these late nights. big day tomorrow. have to renew my food handler's permit, give plasma, retry my cheese, and write! take care....

butterflies and hurricanes reprise...

       finally got my hands on a copy of the sheet music for "butterflies and hurricanes" (see "my tunes" on the right side of the page). it's hard enough without trying to play by ear and/or learning by watching people play it on youtube. i've never been a great sight reader -- i usually just try to memorize it from the pages and go from there, but getting the music has made the learning process so much simpler and faster. it's a good arrangement, too, so i played with that for a bit tonight. starting to sound almost like a song.

       i've had a lot of time on my hands recently. got back from kansas city the weekend after christmas and went into work to see what my schedule was. she didn't schedule me at all last week, and nothing again this week. college towns pretty much die during breaks. kinda sucks, especially after i spent all my money on christmas. heh. so i've been being a bum, reading a lot, watching a lot of movies, playing piano, waiting for my rennet tablets to come so i can make cheese, etc. with the house empty it's been pretty trying, and the emotional roller coasters have been at it again. i've suspected for a long while (and my closest friends have, too) that i'm a little bipolar. i've handled it well enough, some times better than others, and over the few years i've been able to manage it with some natural therapies that were recommended by others who've been there. stopped taking those early last spring, but it might be time again. my swings over the last week have been some of the worst i can remember. just the swings, mind you, not necessarily the extremity of them, but nonetheless it's probably good that there isn't anyone around to witness it. my head has been spinning with all the back and forth, i've not been sleeping... eh. no good. and from the lack of sleep i've developed this really annoying eyelid twitch. ack. stimulating the creativity helps, though, with the movies and books and such. helps the mood, not the twitch. don't laugh, but i've also been doing a free-hand cross-stitch while watching the movies. i sound like a grandma. it's a cool design, though, the mu logo of the big "M" with a tiger head in the middle, and i've been working on it on and off (mostly off) for the past two years. it's huge for a cross-stitch, 14-inches square, or somewhere in the vicinity of 127,000 stitches. ok, i'll stop talking about my girlie habits. piss. spit. beer. football. that oughta do it.

       i have wrinkles on my fingers.

       watched "reprise" this afternoon after giving plasma. well, sorta giving plasma. the machine malfunctioned during the first cycle and the red blood cell reservoir overfilled (no overflow, thank goodness), so they had to take me off. still got paid the full amount, which was nice, and i got all my rbcs back. anyway: movie. made in norway, about two writer friends and the insanity that often plagues writers. oscar candidate as best foreign film in 2006. i really liked it, but it's one of those that my friends probably wouldn't (really sucks being the only person i know -- in person, at least -- who's anything like me). really made me want to write, though. but i feel like the character in the film who is back from the mental institution and isn't able to write anymore. and i know it's just a movie, but it kinda stung that these guys were twenty-three and getting their first and second novels published. the book i finished this weekend, pillars of the earth (freaking awesome and highly recommended), also has characters that were successful at young ages. i still want to be a writer. i still want to be lots of things. i know i'm nowhere near old yet, but every week that passes spent working at dead end jobs or silently going mad in my room makes it feel less possible. ok, ok, rowling was 32, but it also took her six or seven years to write the first, which means she was close to my age when she started. heh...that's a strange thought. but i definitely have no great ideas in mind.

       damn eye won't stop twitching.

       after midnight now. i should probably try to sleep, but i have a feeling i won't. last few nights i've been sleeping on my futon in my living room. no real reason. i do that sometimes when i'm going crazy, but this is a step up because i usually end up on the floor. it's been kinda nice, though, because i've recently been having these dreams that i was in another life. *sigh* then i wake up. to sleep, perchance to dream... hmm. ok, i'm off, but before i go, apparently david holds the copyright on using lyrics at the ends of posts (i'm still claiming the titles), so i have to attribute the use of the following to him, but the lyrics themselves are, of course, from the rock gods of muse.

"change everything you are and everything you were -- your number has been called. fights and battles have begun, revenge will surely come; your hard times are ahead."

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind...

       this part of the roller coaster is called the downward spiral. or perhaps the plunge straight to the bottom. yes, after such a good week, i guess this would rather be the sudden drop where you have to close your mouth to keep your heart in. unfortunately, i forgot to close my mouth and i think i won't last much longer now without a means of supplying oxygen to my brain. you remember that friend i mentioned earlier. well, i don't know what's going on there. we're 800 miles apart and we still can't stop fighting every time we talk to each other. now i'm afraid that our friendship will be one of those that we'll both try to forget and that when we do see each other, what passed between us will only be a vague memory and we'll be forced to endure polite and meaningless conversation until one of us can come up with an excuse to leave.

       how do you stop loving someone? more often than not i find myself hating him. it's not a loathing. i'm just so angry with him. i hate him for being so far away. i hate him for taking away the few things that we could do together in the end, distancing himself from me. i hate him that he's been able to jump back so quickly and he hardly seems to spare a thought for me anymore. he keeps himself so busy he can't even talk. and i hate myself for being like this. i mean, what the hell? why am i like this? why can't i just forget and move on with my life? why can't i enjoy the friends i have here? why do i miss him?

       listen to me, i sound like a disgruntled ex-girlfriend. get over yourself and get on with it. i mean, that's not normal, is it? to be so torn up about some stupid friend? and i have been all summer. i just want to forget and pretend there was never any friendship at all. i don't want to remember a thing. i don't want to feel a thing. i don't want to care.

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

       i decided to change my layout back. i never planned to keep the chocolate one for long. it was purposed more for a sort of hope that the job would come my way, which it did and i'm grateful for that. this old one's a little bit more to my taste, though. it's cleaner, more soothing. like rora said, the other made me feel fat.

       i don't think i'm going to say anything more about this. i'll probably get myself into enough trouble just by posting this to the small handful of you who can read my protected posts. don't think bad of me, please. i'm just not sure how to deal with this. the biggest reason that i hoped i would get this job was not for money, even though i needed it, but so that i would have something else to think about--something to pour myself into. i haven't been able to write because it's such an emotional process and your mind has to be clear. my feelings would come out too much in what i was trying to write. and i just haven't had the will for it. the things i hold important in my life are not the successes or accomplishments or how many good deeds i do or how many people i witness to. the most important thing to me is my relationships. in the end i don't think it's going to be so much about the things you did, but how much you loved. and lately i've felt neither loving nor loved.