An Unofficial Holy Man™ with No Answers

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The gods tell me to feel like this: aggravated
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: Semi-Precious Weapons-Time Zones

Grandpa's taken a turn for the worst. He's not expected to make it beyond Friday morning.

I'm leaving tomorrow morning, should be in Lynchburg by early afternoon.

Will post more when I get back on Monday (computer is staying at home for The Lady).

Damnation.

The gods tell me to feel like this: crappy
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: Switchblade Symphony - Sister Sleep

My safety school wants an interview. I feel much lighter now, and not from the ether.

Current count:

Interviews: 1
Rejections: 2
Pending: 8

The gods tell me to feel like this: relieved
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: Radiohead - High and Dry

Time to kill, I hear big men will collide into each other. After the pornography from the Bear community, there's a game on national TV.

The Lady and I received a pleasant surprise yesterday: Our friend P, from Cleveland, was coming to visit! She had a grad school interview in Cincinnati, and wanted to stop by on the way back. Yay!! Lots of great conversation, games of Munchkin and Killer Bunnies were played with much mirth, and a shite-ton of booze was consumed. Oh, and we've managed to create our own rules for the Buffy drinking game:

before

DOUBLE SOCIAL!!

Brunch this morning, then off P went to Cleveland. It's always refreshing to have friends that you can broach any topic about, without fear of being stared at like you were selling pork rinds in Mecca. Granted, the people in the tango group are fun, but The Lady and I have to be a bit reserved around them with our conversation. Ah, well...

We're both getting ridiculously anxious about hearing back from grad schools. It's already the start of February, many of our schools are interviewing in 2-3 weeks, and we've heard nothing from the majority of 'em. So far, I've received 2 rejections, with responses from 9 other schools pending. The airfare alone is gonna be ridiculously expensive, which is the only real option we have with all but one of the schools. Thankfully, the 'rents live in Richmond, which is the center point that all our grad schools revolve around, and Skybus flies there. We'd feel better if we each got at least two interviews, but the timing of all this already implies a tall stack of letters that say nobody loves us. If anyone has personal experiences with Psych grad school applications (or equivalent), we ask you: Are we just being too gawdamn neurotic?

My Grandpa is still in the hospital. Two weeks ago, he had a valve replacement and double bypass surgery for his heart. As of right now, he is barely aware of his surroundings, still in ICU. The surgeons decided not to do the double bypass, and there is no way of knowing if he'll improve or not. This was his second heart surgery (first one was 18 years ago), and his recovery is very atypical. Mutti has been forwarding any updates she receives from Grandma to me, but it's still a nervous waiting game. It makes me glad that The Lady and I did take the extra time to go out of our way to visit my grandparents over the holidays: It was a very merry visit, and probably one of the best interactions I've had with my grandfather in 15 years. I can live with that.

Onto groceries, and the Saga of the Seven Suns.

The gods tell me to feel like this: mellow
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: AFI - Love Like Winter (Wish it wasn't stuck in my head...)

After another damnably long hiatus, I've realized the need to start writing again. As of right now, my social life is next to nil: Aside from some socialization through tango class, there hasn't been much. Given the current lack of funds and The Lady's even more chaotic work schedule (thanks to her new promotion), going out and finding people is tricky, at best. To further complicate matters, my best friend up here left for a contract job out in Boston; of course, it also means we need to find other people up here who want to play Munchkin.

I've got to find some sort of creative release...so...I'm going to try to discipline myself to write for 30 minutes a day, on whatever project that is burning my synapses at that moment. Here's the list:

Now for bad news: This is directed primarily towards

ananda_ and her red-headed boy: We're not moving to the Tidewater area. :( The Lady and I have been told that the grad programs we applied for there do not love us. We've yet to hear from the majority of our schools, so we shall see...

A lot of this is also from the forced reset I've had to undergo thanks to a wonderful hernia surgery a couple of weeks ago. Right now, I can walk normally, dance for short periods of time, and sit on the couch very well. I'm hoping the doctor clears me for more intensive exercise, but that won't be for another 2 weeks. Until now, I never realized how physically sedate I wasn't before I got this drywall patch, nor how much this has affected my mood. Granted, I've never been a rules lawyer with The Glad Game, but my less cheery moods have only lasted a few hours, on average. Obviously, being gloomy for two days straight is odd.

The Lady has been very understanding about my dark moods for the past couple of weeks, but I need to do something else to dispel 'em. So I'm learning to tie knots. If anyone has advice on what to do with this, let me know.

The gods tell me to feel like this: annoyed
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: Antonio Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Autumn (Adagio)

Sorry...work's been keeping me very busy, so my posting ability has been severely limited. Here's a summary:

RA, Part Deux- I'm being a research assistant again, this time studying dissent. The ideas this post-doc have are intriguing, plus it means I have the third-and final-recommendation letter. W00t!

Tango- Dancing goes well, when we get the chance: We've been teaching beginners lessons for the past 5 months, so we haven't had much opportunity to dance. We went to Ann Arbor for their annual festival, and learnt how to...walk. It sounds funny, but if you don't have a good walk, everything else becomes trickier. We also danced an insane amount. Felt good to get rid of the rust off muh feet.

Ick- Was sick as a dog last weekend. Really unpleasant, especially since I tried to take a tango workshop weekend, and could barely stand. Never again. I'm just starting to get over the lung gunk the cold left as a break-up gift. Bitch.

Grad school tests...- GREs are done: I did OK (1330), but I still feel I coulda done better. Ah, well... Psych GREs are Nov. 3, and The Lady and I are studying insanely. It's amazing to see how much you know about a subject, yet realize you don't know the right things in that subject.

...And grad school apps- It's time to start getting 'em together. Right now, it looks like we'll be in either NoVa; Tidewater, Va; Chapel Hill, NC; or Ohio (but not in Columbus proper). It all depends on where The Lady gets accepted. Ideally, we'll get accepted in schools that are close to each other; but if not, The Lady gets final say on final destination. Feels weird, but she has followed me for the past six years.

"And this is what the lips said:"- I took The Lady and Messr. Nicromancer to Columbus' Rocky Horror, The Fishnet Mafia, a few weeks back (guess the week). Nicro has taken me back again, and he wants to go tomorrow night. I kinda miss it, but I'd rather go once every two months or so...Too much exposure wears its novelty off faster than meth takes enamel off teeth.

WarCraft, bitch!- Brutha Man and I have been doing the WCIII thing a few times the past month. It's fun! I miss having him around (we haven't lived near each other in 6 years), and the times we speak over the phone only dull that pang a little. The games have been good for us, tho' I regret not starting them when he left for the Caribbean 2.5 years ago. He's coming back for good in a coupla months, PLUS he'll only be 2-3 hours away in less than a year. I can live with that.

Other things have happened: A new iPhone, a kick-arse band from Brooklyn that has reignited my ability to rock out, and my ugly corpse are a few items to write about, but not tonight...

The codeine just kicked in. G'night, folks....

The gods tell me to feel like this: drunk
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: Social Distortion - So Far Away

For some reason, I can't sleep.

For the past couple of weeks, I've had a strange stirring inside of me. I've had this feeling before, and it's not from eating too much Mexican food. It's a sensation of restlessness, that where I am now is not where I should be. There have been a couple of events that are causing this:

1. Graduation-

2. Work screwed over a lotta people-

I'm not sure where I want to go, now. The last opportunity for wanting to stick with the company is gone, and I need something that can evoke a strong passion from me. I have several avenues to consider, but I don't know which is best: Do I start the "political action" group that's been banging in muh skull these past few years? Should I look for a job in the social services field? Or do I try to be a bartender?

There are grown-up problems, tho': Both my insurance and The Lady's come from my job, and leaving would screw that up; I have a lotta debt to pay off, and this is the best paying gig, for now; I may be in grad school next fall. Are these enough to keep me at work?

Could I do both? Could I try to both stay at this job and try for something else on the side? I know it could be possible: I just did school and work simultaneously, both full-time, and came out with my sanity intact, if not without some dents on its armor. How much time this would take away from The Lady is my primary concern, as she's waited two years to shift more of my attention to her. To be honest, in that respect, this past month has been wonderful. We actually have time to do things together, which was a very rare event when I was in school, and have had entire days to do a bunch of nothing with her.

Where now, where now....

Tags: rant
The gods tell me to feel like this: restless
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?

1. Tell you why I friended you
2. Associate you with something - a song, a color, a photo, etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Associate you with a character.
6. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
7. Tell you my favorite user picture of yours.
8. In return, I ask you to post this in your LJ. [but only if you want to]

I was going to do a rant on the weirdness of the gamer subculture, but I decided it's not weird enough, yet.

Finally, green things have infested the trees, and the weather has stopped emulating flash-freezing processing. Warmth has become the norm, and jackets are becoming oddities. And...I'm stuck in a testing lab.

I don't understand my fellow students, sometimes. If you're signing up for a study, and decide to go play frisbee instead, fine: It's a helluva day to do so. If you do this, send the lab an email about it, so I can play, too. I've been here since 3 PM, and all of my participants have flaked on me.

This is why I can't wait to get into practicing therapy/crazy talk: I can take breaks and go out into the sun. If the patient desires, our session could be outside. It's times like this that I am convinced that Psych research will never be my bag.

I also made a realization today: I will never be happy. I'm fine with this, as long as I'm always changing and evolving. To me, happiness seems like another way of saying "What I have is good, and I don't ever want that to change"; and to me, that seems unrealistic. I expect things in my life to change, I just never know which thing it will be.

I want to live, and know how to exist successfully while living. If I'm lucky, I may-one day-be rich enough to have the existence problem be taken care of (I don't know how comfortable I'd be with that, so maybe it'll never occur). I still want to experience new stuff, be it joyous or despairing. I want to have numerous careers, and always be desirous of seeking more. I want to be able to change, and fully understand the stability that comes from it. Hell, if Allah can change his face every second, I should be able to pull this off.

More importantly, I want to be this way until my corpse has stopped twitching.

Right now, I just want to go back outside.

The gods tell me to feel like this: awake
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: Jimi Hendrix-Voodoo Child

And thus, do I have time between my experiments.

I'm so tired. So tired. I can feel-and almost smell-the faint carbonized crispiness that edges my mind. Softly, softly do I hear the faint song of a siren. Like a breathless whisper, it moves like a breeze on my troubled brow:

"Five weeks"

"Five weeks"

It tempts me to ease up, to relax for just this last month. Seductively does it encourage a slacking of my pace. That voice offers a balm to soothe my torments, my internal conflict, my self-flagellations.

I say, "No", and turn back to the raging battlefield that is my day-to-day state inside my head.

....

I'd forgotten the level of apathy that spreads over a graduating class in their last quarter/semester. It's amazing that during a lecture about serial killers, I see one girl IM'ing on her cell phone the whole lecture. She's in my other Psych class, and either has the Senior Slack, or is in school for a M.R.S. degree, or both. *sigh* I strive to remind myself that I willingly chose to pursue a degree that has become the McMajor for many, many collegiates.

I also need to remember that most of these kids have been in school for 4-5 years now, so they have 2-3 years more credit hours than I. End result: Their GPA is pretty much unwavering, no matter how much they crash and burn this quarter. Unfortunately, my GPA is so close to my goal that to ease up now would screw up the GPA, and probably any chances of grad school. IwantitIwantitIwantit.

Things are almost completely set up for the RPAC milonga. I just need to speak with the lady o' the building, to go over the Setup of Schwag for the event. Once that's complete, all I have to do is bite my nails in a neurotic mania until next Friday.

On the plus side, I have newfound joy in a new trail mix from Trader Joe's, which is the only store at Easton that I actually am glad is present. Okay, that and B&N.

New study begins....now!

The gods tell me to feel like this: sleepy
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: Poe - Control

So. In 6 weeks I leave college, the reason behind my self-exile to the gateway of the Midwest. Soon, I will again experience the phenomenon of Free Time, where I will be able to have more than 60 minutes of downtime. Already, I'm realizing that I won't know what to do with it.

For the past 2.5 years, I've been in a steady state of cycling work-school-sleep. In the past half of that, The Tango stage was added. Unfortunately, the Society stage has been missing for a very, very long time. Question is, how do I add that back in?

Because of me doing leisure schwag in micro-sessions, I've had to seriously atrophy my going out. Granted, I have a couple of friends up here, but nowhere near the menagerie I had in Richmond. To be fair, tho', I didn't live with The Lady during that time. In The City, my circle was smaller, but kept my socialness alive. Here, in Cols, I get social thru tango and the occassional interaction with the Nicromancer. But: Nicro is leaving in August to go to Tulane, and there's a good possibility that most of the tango group will be leaving throughout the year.

Maybe this lack of social interaction will provide more impetus for us leaving here. With very few friends present (one of the reasons why I will probably never go back to RVA), there will be less ties that bind here. Of course, all this is moot if Fawn gets accepted here; then this means 6-7 more years in this city (which is not a bad one at all, just not near any oceans).

This doesn't really have a point. I just need to vent anxieties.

The gods tell me to feel like this: confused
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: Snog-Hey, Christian God

So. There were a bunch of shootings at Tech (I refer to Va Tech this way, as that is how all Virginians know it as, same way all Ohioans know both that OSU, and "O-H!" are the same thing). Damn shame.

I'm actually being sincere about this, and I send my sympathy to the families of those that had their special person taken from them. The sheer randomness and indifference of the violence that happened can only bring difficulty to their closure, and the obstacles that will come from this are ones that I hope can be overcome by them all.

That being said...

I'm wondering who the shite is going to land on, from all this. This incident has several lucrative targets that could be aimed for, by guns wielded by intentions that pave the Infernal Interdimensional Thruway:

University higher-ups-
"They should have prevented this!" How? There are 25,000 students at Tech, on a campus that's one of the largest in the state, if not the region. Not only that, but you also have the teachers, support staff, and other third-parties that regularly frequent the campus. Being conservative, let's bring that total up to 32,000. How do you keep an eye on all of them? How many people would it take to go up to each one of these people and say, "Are you alright? Is anything bothering you?" Think of the cost to hire over 3000 therapists just for that task. Perhaps this one just fell through the cracks...it happens with any system. There is no need for a head to roll from this massacre; enough have already been stilled.

Gun Control
First off, let me say that I HATE guns. They allow people with no skill the ability to wreak massive havoc on others who are probably not as equally defended. It becomes a false sense of confidence, a prosthetic cock. Take it away, and you have the coward. Confidence comes from training, practice, and the self-control that develops from those two.

I don't approve of the idea of gun control. I have had many friends that have owned guns, and I did not look down upon them, because choosing to both own and use a gun is a personal choice; like drugs, consensual sex, and wearing a motorcycle helmet. (That, and they all had both hidden the gun and become very well-trained in using the gun. They're responsible like dat.) If the person's choices in that arena makes the person suffer, then Darwin gets vindicated. Like any illicit thingie, there are those that realize that good money can be made from dealing in it, so there will always be some market or access available to anybody. Extra control will only instantaneously transform a percentage of law-abiding citizens into "criminal scum".

Police-
(Gods, I can't believe I'm actually gonna say this)

Don't blame them. The truth is, they are NOT omnipresent, especially on a college campus. Why would they need to be? It's a basic assumption that if you're on campus, you are trying to be a better person, and NOT engage in random violence (Greek society is another topic...). In order to prevent something like this from happening, you would need a police officer stationed at every building on a college campus. Here's a map of my school's campus. That area covers 7 square kilometers, and has many, many ways in and out, being in the middle of a city. It also has somewhere in the range of 400 buildings that frequented by students on a regular basis. A minimum of 400 cops would be needed to make it happen here. That's about half the size of our city's police force. It just ain't possible.

The cops probably did all they could, given the suddenness of what happened.

This was, sad to say, a random incident.

"How could this have happened?" Odds are, we may never know.

"What can we do to prevent this?" This is the fun one: Absolutely nothing. This was a completely random, isolated incident, just like all the other mass shootings that have happened in recent memory. Even if we no longer continue to passively condemn and vilify those who are broken, even just a little, there will be those who will try to hide or reason away their craziness. Odds are, they will also be the ones that cause this to occur again. This, unfortunately, is just the phenomenon called life showing the ugly parts that allow us to recognize the beauty that make up the majority of itself.

The media wants us to believe that things like this are or will become pandemic. Don't buy it. You have a better chance of getting smacked by a Zeus Special than having this happen to you.

Hug the ones you love, and just enjoy.

Tags: rant
The gods tell me to feel like this: pissed off
Turn to Unofficial Hymn™: Lard-Forkboy