Friday, February 20, 2009

And it comes full circle...

So here I am again. It is very late, and it will be later before I can sleep. I suppose it has been around a year since things were bad with me, and the internal clock is apparently in good working order. Nothing else really is.
In my struggle to drag through this mono thing, I was starting to get a little better on Fridays, and better still on Wednesdays... I was starting to feel a bit hopeful at least, as I began registering for spring classes, and then the same old demons just dashed it out of me. Oh sinus infection, my old friend, I really didn't miss you!
Antibiotics, less energy, and less hope are all happening right now. Maybe I could keep dragging on if I didn't have this horrible nagging anxiety about nothing and everything. I can't sleep again, and I have to stop keeping my boyfriend from sleeping too.
I would do anything I could to help him, but what hurts so much is that I know I can't do anything. I can try to need him a little less so that he has room to need himself and get his goals in order, but the tax on my strength is almost too much.
I find myself struggling to maintain any kind of composure, and I frequently lose it at the most inconvenient times. I don't know what it is about school and grades that stirs this horrific emotion in me. I can't process it all, and I don't really understand it.
Why do I give up on myself?
Why do I treat myself like the person who most mistreated me? Like everyone who has mistreated me?
Are these unprocessed thoughts related to that?
I can be listened to and comforted by another, but only I can understand this...

And I don't.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

FML



Alright, let me make something perfectly clear... Student Health dentists will ruin your day, possibly your week, and MY summer. I've had this terrible pain in my upper left wisdom tooth for the past week or so, and so I finally bit the bullet (or the x-ray film) and went to the dentist today. Apparently they want to pull out a metric shit ton of my teeth (I realize that we haven't moved to the metric excrement system in this country, so I mean 6 teeth). This really blows. My wisdom teeth all have to go, and they have done such significant damage to my two back upper molars that they may also need to go.
I am absolutely TERRIFIED of the dentist, and I have been a wreck all day. Once I got there, I went straight into panic attack mode, and at one point I had to just excuse myself to a corner where I could try to breathe at normal intervals. Lucky for me, I had an audience! The office is just one big room with chairs lined up next to each other, that way you can feel worse about yourself and the competence of the dentist when you sit next to a line of sorority girls having their unnaturally pearly whites cleaned and whitened some more. I feel like the dentist wasn't really thinking about the big picture of my life, my fears, and my mouth when he came up with a treatment plan. I tried to get some more detailed information about why he thought this was the best treatment, and the subject was changed. I know that health professionals can tell that I am a biology major that is considering a career in medicine, because I am the worst patient ever. Well I might be the best patient because I can describe what's going on and why I think it is, but apparently they don't like to hypothesize with patients. They have golf to play and skank teeth to clean. After all... I suspect most dentists are frat boys who failed to get into med school. I definitely need to see a real dentist as soon as possible, and the fake dentist said I could wait for as long as I could endure the misery. Thanks for boosting my confidence and assuaging my fears dude.
Perhaps my favorite part of this visit was the x-ray machine. I have never seen such an old piece of medical equipment. The buttons on the front bore an uncanny resemblance to Darth Vader's chest, an observation that definitely dated the machine. I think geeky cultural references are as accurate as carbon dating in this case, judging by the ability of the machine to function. I really didn't feel so hot about having this ancient hunk of garbage spew radioactive beams into my fucking face. Expect a brain tumor post in 6 months.
In any case, I am definitely going to spend most of my summer in a dentist's chair. I expect to develop a drinking problem to get through this, otherwise I will probably rip all of my hair out and lose half my weight due to stress and terror. Oddly enough, my cat will be in the same position. She was recently diagnosed with a very rare autoimmune disorder that causes her body to attack her gums, making her mouth incredibly painful and swollen. The only effective treatment for this condition is a removal of all of her teeth :(
My boyfriend suggested that we go in to the same dentist and hold paw in hand through the procedure. I think this may be possible in the same clinic south of the border, and I'll bet the service is cheaper and better than Student Dental.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Fun with chemicals

I would really like to be napping right now, but I have been having a great deal of trouble sleeping lately. I have had the most bizarre dreams! Last week it was the zombie apocalypse, then it was a dream that was basically a montage of pointy things going through the tops of heads, and then the other day my room filled with giant spiders that were trying to kill Charles :( I had to grab his aquarium and try desperately to protect it while the spiders trashed my room! Clearly there is a lot going on in my head, and I need a new outlet for all this angst. I haven't been getting anything done in school lately aside from just keeping my head above water. But of course when I feel unproductive and bogged down by my ever present anxiety, I play with chemicals.
Here is the almost final product:

Ew, poorly lit. Anyway it's a very deep vibrant red/burgundy with bleached streaks that were MEANT to be white. Unfortunately I failed to remember that bleach needs to be applied immediately after it's mixed, otherwise you will come out looking like a very sorry hooker.
The weird orange color actually looks pretty neat with my red, but I will definitely have to manipulate my way into a ride to the nearest beauty supply store in the near future. I'm not sure that I have high enough standing with the people who possess cars to ask for help with this.

The aftermath of this project has been less than pleasant. My roommates don't really have an appreciation for ignoring the rules or skirting around them. In fact, they are pretty miffed about the whole thing. They seemed eager to watch the process, but as soon as it was over they were all upset about some tiny little accidents >_>



Pink shower curtains are cute, right? I don't think so either, but who honestly cares what color it is? Well, I have been informed that the dye looks like period blood. I consequently reasoned that we are all 12 year old girls who have not yet begun to menstruate and we are VERY uncomfortable with this. Very uncomfortable around here lately. I actually think it looks like red hair dye. Now if only I had realized that I should only touch the light switch with red gloved hands when I turn it OFF, then no one would have seen the red smudge. They ought to be worried though, I mean what if the administration were to come after us? How would they ever know who it was that covered everything in red dye? I suppose if this person were colorblind it would be very funny to point at another one of my roommates. Teehee, I'm 12.