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Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
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12:04 am - What would I give to go back and live in a dorm with a meal plan again?
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I don't know what it was about tonight, but it sparked a memory for me. I think it was hearing people in the building next door laughing with their balcony door open, but it took me back to the summer of 2002. That was the summer Mike proposed to me, the summer of Isaac and Aegis, my first year away from home. Gemma and I lived in the apartments in Exec that summer, with two other people who I don't remember and who are no more than shadows now. I worked at the museum that summer, always living beyond my means, learning valuable lessons about how to eat cheaply that wouldn't sink in for another four or five years.
The nights that summer were very fine. Adam would come over in the evenings and we'd play Fatal Frame, or rather, Adam would play and we would watch, late in the evening with the lights off, so that every ghost who appeared would scare the shit out of all of us. We drank strong coffee from Gemma's french press and stepped out on the balcony when we needed a break from the heat inside and the tension of the game. They'd smoke and I'd stand out with them and we would talk and laugh about all sorts of things. I know there were hassles and disappointments and irritations that summer, but looking back, it was really good.
I don't really wish I could go back to college, not to stay or to do over again, but I would give a great deal to go back and enjoy one of those nights again. The consolation is that I realized at the time that these were nights to savor and remember, and I enjoyed them to the fullest at the time. The other consolation is that tonight I had a really good night too. My husband and I went out to the second-run showing of Coraline, then stopped in at the all-night grocery store and bought 25 cent pop from the machine at midnight. Good movie and good company.
current mood:  content
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(2 spins | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Monday, February 23rd, 2009
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4:13 am - Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold, it's always summer they'll never be cold
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Eight weeks since I last updated, and four more weeks before that. I haven't been keeping up well. I think it's probably because this is a strange and sere time in my life, and I don't know if I want it in the chronicles I look back on later. Days run together here, turn into weeks and then months, with only grocery shopping and bills coming due to mark the time. It's been ten months since I did anything productive with myself, and I feel I've lost my identity. I'm not a law student anymore. I'm not a lawyer, though technically I am because I am licensed. I'm not a homemaker because I'm a shitty cleaner and too goddamned lazy to do more than cook and wash dishes. Reading books and writing stories, watching movies, playing video games and following politics, I can live a thousand people's lives effortlessly in this blank void. But when I look back on the story of my own life, this will be a blank page, dead time, wasted.
Right! Well, now that I've poured that self-pitying pile of shit onto the page, maybe I can write an actual update. Just a little one, mind you. It's the end of February, and it's damned cold here in Kentucky. We got snow today, though not much that's stuck. Funny how two weeks ago today Mike and I walked to the library because it was so nice out, and today he took our books back in the car because it's so cold. We have a new foster cat now, Pookah, who is a big hefty cat, but very shy. She's gotten to the point where she's out from under our bed more than she is underneath it, which is good progress. We're taking her to Saturday adoption events now. It was funny, our first post-Bellamonte foster was Heidi, who was supposed to be shy but really wasn't. She was only shy in the cage at Petsmart. I wrote her a brag sheet telling people what she was like, and she was adopted at her first event. We were surprised, especially after the four month Bellamonte ordeal. I think Pookah will be somewhere in between, and think she'll be at a few more events before she finds a home. Mike is very taken with her, but we can't afford another cat right now.
Mike's doing very well at school. He's delivered a bunch of lectures now, to widespread acclaim, and will be teaching a class on his own this summer. The people in his department are nice, and he's making a lot of friends. Tonight we went to an Oscar party and had a good time. Victoria was getting sick earlier this month, but we switched her from Wellness to Newman's Own Organic Cat Food. She really seems to like it and she's stopped puking. The birds are doing well, loud and feisty as always. They need new toys, but it's not in the budget right now so I'm compromising by switching up their food and hiding it around their cage so they're stimulated by having to look for it.
I'm actually doing a more daily sort of blog, a new thing, but the mundanity of it makes it a poor fit for a Livejournal that mainly measures in broad strokes. This one is for me to look at what I'm doing every day in terms of what I'm cooking and what I'm spending money on. It's also a good way to mark time, and there's a tangible reminder of each day's accomplishments. I like it so far. It's at electra310.blogspot.com. Feel free to stop by and have a look if you want to see pictures of what I've been cooking and read my shopping list.
Something will change soon, because it has to. I shall report back when it does.
current mood:  listless
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(1 spin | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
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8:51 pm - Radiance beams from thy holy face, with the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord at thy birth!
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Wow, it's been eight weeks since I updated, so I'm definitely overdue for a rant. First off though, merry Christmas, everybody! Hope you're all doing spiffily, and enjoying a time of good food, family and friends, or any combination of the above. Even if the world is going to hell, here we have another Christmas Eve, another night to admire lights and food, another night to be grateful for what we have.
( 'Christmas isn't Christmas without any Jesus,' mumbled Cori, lying on the rug. )
current mood:  annoyed
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(4 spins | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Friday, October 24th, 2008
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6:02 am - How can I hope to make you understand why I do what I do?
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Okay, it's late and I've been spending all night, for the past four nights, reading political news and blogs. Not that I wasn't reading them before, but this was the big eight-hour-at-a-time pushes. Everything from Daily KOS to FoxNews to Andrew Sullivan to Savage Blog to "Oh No They Didn't!-The Politics Edition, peppered with lots of CNN and several episodes each of the Daily Show and The Colbert Report. In some ways, it's been a search for entertainment. My unemployment continues unabated, and when my shitty job-hunting skills combine with an economic meltdown, that may not be changing for awhile. The election is, right now, the hottest thing going. From Lolitics to the daily gaffe roundup, there are many lulz to be had. Sarah Palin is God's gift to anyone trying to get a giggle out of politics, if only a horrified "this isn't really happening" nervous chuckle.
( Cori discusses politics. And abortion. And gets really long about the whole thing. )
current mood:  thoughtful
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(10 spins | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
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6:04 am - Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose, won't you let me go down to my dreams...
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Overheard in my living room tonight:
"So, after living your whole life in Illinois, you've finally moved to a red state, and now you're voting Democrat."
"Shut up. After ten years of being a policy wank, you're finally actually going to vote for a president at all."
"...don't you mean wonk?"
{hand gesture to clarify meaning}
current mood:  quixotic
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(2 spins | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Sunday, October 19th, 2008
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11:12 pm - There's only one thing that I like and that is whistling in the dark!
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Everyone must read this now, especially if you have been following American politics at all the past, oh, two years or so. Or if you are a gamer. If you are both, it is possibly the best thing ever.
Adventuring Party Politics
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(Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Monday, October 13th, 2008
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1:52 pm - How sleepless is the egg, knowing that which throws the stone forsees the bone, the bone...
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Mike's parents are coming to visit, today or possibly tomorrow, which means that it is once again time to clean up the apartment for human habitation. I am very excited because they are bringing us A CHAIR! This single easy chair that we have is one that I got for a dollar at an auction four years ago. Considering its origins, it had a good run with us, but now it is busted and dangerous and I only sit in it because it is better than the floor. If I push it up against the wall and am very careful with the exposed metal bits on the footrest, it's okay. But now we're going to have a new chair! And they're bringing their truck, so maybe, just maybe I can sweet-talk them into taking us to Ikea and getting a second chair! That would be very good.
I finally got the bill for the urgent care I got done on my hand the other week. Two hundred dollars, ouch! But I called them today and found that they'd forgotten to bill my insurance for that, and gave them the information again. If all goes well there, that should reduce our obligation to closer to 50 dollars, which I can handle. And my wounds healed quickly and cleanly after having them taken care of, so on balance I'm still glad I did it. Carle wants more cash monies from me, still, for this past winter's heart troubles, but they're going to have to wait a bit longer. When it's been two weeks since groceries, the other bills have to wait as well.
I put out my first resumes at the end of last week, cross your fingers for me. I'm really bad at applying for jobs, like pathetically bad. I do a good job once I have a job, but getting one is hell. And I need money. This weekend I get sworn into the Kentucky Bar, that will be cool at least. My parents are stopping by for a whirlwind visit to see it, before heading back to Champaign to tailgate with Allie, up from Charleston. Busy busy busy! But for now I go to clean and to dig up some lunch. I found some Thai-in-a-Box for supper, but that means saving up points for it now. Given that and the pathetic food state of the kitchen, lunch will probably be oatmeal, but with some yummy frozen peaches thrown in. That's not too bad.
current mood:  good
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(Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Friday, October 3rd, 2008
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1:06 pm - He's gonna pass the test, he's gonna be the best, the best in terms of pants!
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| Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
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3:33 pm - My world is a flood, slowly I become one with the mud
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So it's been a heck of a week around here. Saturday we went out to the library to take back a book that had gotten skipped over in our last haul, and so Mike could get the book for his first-ever doctoral student paper. With my characteristic grace and style, I found an irregular spot in the parking lot and proceeded to fall flat on my face, skinning open my knee and hand, twisting my ankle, wrenching my arm, bopping my head, and busting my glasses. Ouch. I nearly passed out just trying to get home, but avoided doing that or even throwing up. No concussion, I just gave my inner ear a little stir, apparently. Lenscrafters fixed my glasses, and after two days of squeamishly trying to pick splinters and dirt out of my torn-up hand, the nice nurse at Urgent Care fixed that up too.
Interesting note: If you have a torn up hand that's full of dirty mulch, you're kind of screwed as far as doctors go. It's too much of an emergency for a place like the health department, who only does wellness stuff, and it's not enough of an emergency to actually get you in on an emergency basis with a clinic or doctor who's booked for two weeks as far as new patients go. Now if it had actually been infected already, it might have been a different story, as one helpful receptionist quizzed me hopefully about pus and redness before turning me down. Urgent care costs more, but I actually saw a doctor. We'll see what the insurance makes of that.
Then last night, around 8:30, Mike and I were sitting in the living room when we heard what sounded like a faucet turning on in the bathroom. We didn't know what to make of it, except that maybe one of the cats had gotten really creative on playing with the sink. When we looked, though, the water was pouring down from the ceiling, merrily and in great quantity. Turns out the people upstairs left their tub running for about fifteen minutes, and every speck of it drained right down to us. Our bathroom flooded, the hallway, part of the living room, and the corner of the bedroom, all drenched in dirty yellow water. The maintenance guy brought us a blower fan, and the property manager cheerfully assures us that we can go fuck ourselves as regards all the laundry we have to do. So tonight will be a night at the laundromat, trying to wash and dry the entire contents of the linen closet, plus the bathmat. Joy!
Tomorrow I learn whether I passed bar exam. God, please let this be the thing that balances out this shitty week. I won't even care about the towels anymore, I swear!
current mood:  stressed
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(2 spins | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Sunday, September 21st, 2008
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1:49 pm - And there was music, and there were wonderful roses, they tell me...
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Okay, so maybe the updating regularly thing hasn't gone so well, but it's been less than a month this time, so I claim victory! Not too much has been happening, so that's probably why I haven't felt compelled to note it down. Mike starts school again this week though, so that's important and exciting! He's got a workshop tomorrow, and then we're both going to a get-to-know-you barbeque for the department. Probably not going to be as much fun as, say, Pumphandle, but there will be food, and when we visited in the spring, we liked these people pretty well. They gave us good pizza. And hey, Mike's spent the past three years "and spouse"-ing it at this kind of event, I'm sure I'll get by.
No new news on the job front, I'm afraid. Only a couple more weeks till I know my bar exam results, at which point I can stride forward boldly without the nagging fear that I'm going to do all this work, land a job, and then lose it because I didn't pass the bar. Until then, I am half in job hunting mode, half in the familiar "Well, you could always chuck it all and ride the rails" mode that regular readers will probably remember from every time law school exams rolled around. I managed to pull off a cum laude there, so maybe if I just worry about it enough, that will somehow influence my bar exam score. October 3 is the big reveal, so stay tuned! You should probably assume, if I don't update that day, that I've run off to pursue dreams of hobodom.
We survived the big power outage here mostly unscathed, aside from some food in our fridge that was not so good after the better part of two days without electricity. It was one of those times when I blessed my fondness for candles, but was also glad that the Yankee candles were balanced out by the bag of approximately one million teeny unscented tealights I bought for my wax tart warmer. Get about twenty of those suckers burning on a mirror tile and you've got some light! Unscented was very good, since at the end of the night my house already smelled like cucumber-melon-lilac-lavender-lemon-clean-cotton-midnight-seranade-whatever-thats-supposed-to-smell-like-vanilla. It was sort of an odd mixture. Our oven still worked, at least, so I made a homemade chicken, bacon and artichoke pizza that was very nice, and also some spaghetti with cheese and pepperoni. Not terribly good for the old Weight Watchers, but all the ingredients were low fat, and we wanted to use some stuff up in case the power stayed out for too long. We got lucky, the power went up the next day, then down for a blown transformer, then up again by evening. Not bad, considering that the gusts were up to 74 miles an hour, not very usual for Northern Kentucky.
Bellamonte the Loudcat is doing much better than she was last month; she's finally settling in and getting less afraid of people. She's still astoundingly vocal, but now she will also approach to be petted, up to and including walking over my chest when I'm laying down and reading. She and Victoria still don't get along at all, and there's at least one instance of hissing and chasing every night, but at least they can exist in the same room for hours at a time. No word from the foster organization yet on possible placements for her. Kitten season is finally winding down, though, so she won't have quite so much competition. If we could just find a way to get potential adopters to see the good side of her, and not the freakshow performance she puts on when she's in a cage or carrier, I think they could fall in love. I may suck it up and clean the house if it means we can get people over here to see her in a place where she feels comfortable.
Other than that, not too much going on here. Live plant count is down by one, the mystery plant with orange flowers didn't like our front yard, apparently. The others are all good. I can go three miles on the elliptical machine, and gas is below 4 dollars a gallon again. Life is not too bad, overall.
current mood: thoughtful
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(2 spins | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Thursday, August 28th, 2008
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5:05 pm - Stay cool fool, just take it easy, that's the rule, fool...
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It's been ten weeks since I updated. I took the bar exam. I won't know till October 3 how I did. This is like the yicky nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach after exams, but only magnified, because it's practically my life at stake. And in the meantime, I've gone from being a student to just being unemployed, also a scary sort of thing. I know I need to get on the ball with finding a job, but it's a little terrifying to face the idea of trying to get a job in a very tight market, knowing I'm setting myself up to make a complete fool of myself if I didn't pass the bar. And I really have no idea at all. It's very unpleasant, and we're running out of money (which we didn't actually have in the first place). In the meantime, I've picked up a refresher course in Spanish, on the theory that I should be doing something useful with my time like making myself more employable, and gotten another foster cat.
Not much else to say, except that I've been keeping busy and Mike starts school soon. We're in an Exalted tabletop with another couple, whom we are sharing dinners and gaming with on weekends. That's pretty fun, though they live a half-hour away. We just got back yesterday from a vacation in Charleston and Asheville, which was fun. I've been really bad at getting messages or answering email lately, which I know is bad. It's a little weird, sometimes I have these cocooning phases where I can hardly do anything with other people, usually relating to fear of failure or humiliation, both of which the bar exam has brought out in me. If you sent me an email in the past ten weeks or so that I've ignored, I'm sorry and please don't take it personally. I will do better, promise.
Also, I hated The Dark Knight. Went to see it on vacation, because everyone said how awesome it was. What a cliched piece of horseshit it was. Before I walked out halfway through (plus or minus the ten endings), I tried to amuse myself by whispering to Mike the TV Tropes headlines for the various tired cliches they were throwing up on the screen, but in the end The Dark Knight lost out to Susan Elizabeth Philips and I spent the rest of my afternoon much more enjoyably in the lobby. One can only see so many judges, police officers, attorneys and other civil servants tortured and murdered to prove how much we need vigilantes before you kind of get tired of it. Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there. I'd like to start updating regularly again, so we'll see how it goes.
current mood:  blah
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(Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
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10:51 am - But it's a spiraling staircase that you're falling down, and you're nothing but dead at the bottom!
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| Friday, May 9th, 2008
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3:13 pm - Hallelujah, Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallay-loo-yah!
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So, I'm done with law school.
Yep, done with law school.
I AM DOOOOOONNEEE WIIIIITHHH LAAAWWW SCHHOOOOOLLLL
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
This is sort of an emotional moment for me. Just turned in my last final, off to pick up the cap and gown.
DOOOOOOOONE!
current mood:  ecstatic
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(8 spins | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
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12:30 pm - So don't try to deny, pretty baby, you've been down so long you can hardly see
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The funeral was lovely, I've been editing and uploading videos for my family to see. It was good to get home, even if that's another four days down the tubes. I'm trying to stay on schedule, but it's hard, and it feels like I just keep taking punches. Today I found out that I apparently owe 722 dollars on the laptop that I was supposed to have finished paying for a year ago through my student account. Some kind of accounting mistake at the school, not my fault but apparently now it's my problem. Because the sixty thousand dollars they've bled from me in three years isn't enough, they have to go in for the coup de grace right at the end. Right when I can't get any more loans, right when I'm already looking at living off credit cards for most of the summer. Maybe I can just give them the computer back. I doubt it's even worth 722 dollars right now, it was an overpriced piece of crap to begin with and now it's three years old.
Why can't the world just cut me a fucking break and stand back to let me get through the next four weeks with the problems I already have on my plate? I'm not even asking for a reduction in current problems, though they are many, just how about a fair chance to get by?
current mood: stressed
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(Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Saturday, April 19th, 2008
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1:26 am - That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane...
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I cried, I bitched, I gnashed my teeth, I watched both hands break out in a "I couldn't be more stressed" rash. But I got the fucking senior writing project paper done. It's shit, but it's done. Shitty, shitty shit, but it's done. I might not graduate, and I actually mean it for realz this time, but I don't care. I don't fucking want to be a lawyer anymore anyway. This sucks. Everything sucks. Going to get some sleep before I go home for the funeral. Funerals also suck.
Oh, and it's my birthday. You should say Happy Birthday.
current mood:  pissed off
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(5 spins | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Thursday, April 17th, 2008
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10:34 am - What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing, and what do we think we might see?
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I found out just a few minutes ago that my grandmother died early this morning. It was very peaceful, and not unexpected. She was in the late stages of Alzheimer's Disease, and had stopped eating or taking her medicine, so we knew it was any time now. Though I felt like shit about it, I was praying earlier this week that she would go at least a few more days because I have this paper due. Life and death never coexist easily, I guess. I know she's feeling much better now, the fog is gone, the pain and helpless debility are gone. We're going to go up this weekend for the funeral on Monday. I have penciled in some time for grieving before then, but really, this is much less intense than when my grandpa died a few years ago. We've been mourning Grandma in small increments for years now. I think I said goodbye when I could look at her and know she didn't know who I was anymore. This just marks the end of her purgatory and the beginning of everything new.
current mood:  sad
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(3 spins | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Thursday, March 13th, 2008
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11:18 pm - In open fields of wild flowers, she breathes the air and flies away
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In this period of extraordinary unproductivity, I have finally completed one thing of beauty! I share it with you all!
The same person bought this year's bouquet as last year's, so I tried to mix it up a little. I also took the time to do a photodocumentary, which I present to you here:
http://pics.livejournal.com/electra310/gallery/00026w6c
It's funny, well, I think it's funny, at least, and it's best viewed by going one picture at a time and reading the captions along with. There are many special guest stars, including myself!
current mood:  accomplished
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(6 spins | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Thursday, February 28th, 2008
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10:20 am - Rowena was an artist's daughter, the deeper image shook her up
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One thing I've noticed while on internet hiatus is that I constantly want to post on LJ, kind of like how you always have itches in the dentist's chair. Rather than take this hour to write seventeen separate entries and have everyone unfriend me in despair, you get capsule summaries.
( 88 Lines about 44 Topics )
current mood: thoughtful
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(1 spin | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Monday, February 25th, 2008
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11:08 am - I'm giving up my vices, I'm going back, back to school
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This is just to let everyone know that I am taking a week off (mostly off) from the internet. After this point, I will not be on socially or for fun except for one hour in the day and one hour in the evening until next Monday. I will likely still be technically online as I have tons of research to do, but I can't afford to keep pissing around the way I have been. I have way too much to do. If you need me to pay attention to something in particular, drop me an email about it and I will be sure to look. Otherwise, see you all later!
current mood:  determined
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(Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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| Monday, February 18th, 2008
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11:22 pm - Weave, weave, weave me the sunshine out of the falling rain
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After more than a year I finally have a new default userpic. Go me! With the two new userpic slots I got this week, I'm at exactly half of my available userpics. Anyone got 71 icons I can borrow? I like this one because it makes me think of Knox, and laugh a Very Evil Laugh.
Mike has been accepted to Cincinnati and Lexington now, so thank God we won't be moving to Mississippi. I do have to start getting prepped for the Kentucky bar exam. The birds are almost done with their 30-Days-of-Hell vet regimen, and I have lost 20 pounds on Weight Watchers since December 6. Today at the gym, I achieved a personal goal and went a mile on the elliptical in thirty minutes. I think I got my heartbeat above 200 beats mer minute for a few seconds on the home stretch, but that which does not kill me makes me strong. And I feel so accomplished!
current mood:  happy
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(1 spin | Ride the Berry-Go-Round)
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