Perpetual Smile

I remember doing the Johari and Nohari windows in my high school psychology class. Basically, they are an exercise to see what you and others think of yourself. I thought it was pretty interesting at the time, but instantly filed it away in the nether regions of the old cellar that is my brain — until Avitable brought it back.

I’m sure we all know there are things we don’t know about ourselves — both good and bad. Sometimes we don’t like to hear the bad things, but if we don’t know the bad we can’t improve it. Consequentially, if we don’t know the good, we can’t nourish it. (I’m really tired right now, so my apologies for how zen this all sounds.)

Anyway, I made my own windows. Tell me the good things about myself, then tell me the bad things. I promise I won’t be offended, so please be as honest as possible. Then go make your own so I can totally wreck you back.

In the last two days I’ve become hopelessly addicted to grape Kool-Aid. I bought a box of those little packets you can add to your water, and that’s all I’ve been drinking. The point was to save some money — I buy a cup of coffee every morning — but now I think I’ll end up homeless, and all because of Kool-Aid.

My cat has found herself an addiction, as well. I bought a pack of Doublemint gum and keep it in my purse. Last night she pulled it out of my open purse and was chewing on it. I put it away and zipped up the purse, but this morning I found the purse knocked aside as if she’d been rubbing her face on it. This afternoon she sat so close to the purse I thought she was going to OD. I think she likes the way the mint smells, but it’s really funny. I put the purse next to her this evening and she rubbed her face all over it and then looked mad when I took it away. Spearmint, apparently, is her crack.

So, tomorrow is the election. I really think that Obama is going to win. I won’t be mad if McCain wins, because I think they could both do a great job, but I really believe that Obama is going to make changes here at home, and that is what we need. I don’t really dislike anyone in this race, which was what made it so hard. Tomorrow will be the first time I am voting, and Mike is voting too. He has never voted and is “tired of rich white guys” running the joint. The really tough part about this race was, like Secondhand Karl said, there was hardly any talk about the issues. I think Obama talked more about the issues than McCain did.

Anyway, politics are boring. How about those jack-o-lantern pictures I promised? (more…)

Last night, as I drove home from Mike’s — I went over there to watch the game — I tried to figure out what my surprise might be, besides the seemingly obvious. I narrowed it down to clothes or shoes:

Clothes would make sense, because Britt (his sister) could try them on and/or pick them out, and he would have had to ask my mom for my sizes. The problem with this theory? He already knows my sizes (they’re basically the same as Britt’s) and he just gave me a few garbage bags full of Britt’s gently (read: never) used clothing.

Shoes would make sense, because Britt got him Pumas for his birthday because her boyfriend has a friend who works at a shoe store and he can get a discount through him. Mike would have had to ask Mom for my shoe size (which he definitely doesn’t know). I’m kind of disbanding this theory, though; when I told Mom I thought he was getting me shoes she said it was an “interesting” theory and the look on her face told me that I wasn’t even close.

So I’m back to square one. Does anyone have any suggestions? Please help!

I don’t usually buy into horoscopes, but sometimes they are freakishly true. This was mine for yesterday:

Aim for more of what you want, especially in a meeting. Focus on reality, yet make a group effort. What you can accomplish could stun even you. Absorb different ideas and praise others’ ingenuity, and you’ll get results. Tonight: Only what or whom you want.

I did, in fact, go to an important meeting. I met with my school’s Director of Student Activities to discuss assembling a bulletin board on campus featuring depression and possibly Letters of Love. She — and the woman I’m assuming is her assistant — really liked the idea, but said that we would have to get the Dean of Student Activities to approve what can and can’t go on the board. (I guess because Letters of Love is an outside group, it poses possible liability issues for the college.) Anyway, it went better than I thought because I for some reason thought that she would say no.

As for the “tonight” part of the horoscope, I answered a question that Mike had asked me Friday night. We agreed that we are “it” for each other and he was happy with my answer (which I, admittedly, dragged out and took forever to give him). I’m pretty deliriously in love.

PS: I’ll probably be posting a password-protected post tonight. Email me at elizawhat@gmail.com if you want the password. It’s kind of a personal, emotional thing that I want to share but not so publicly. (:

I don’t think I can sit here much longer but I need my Visual Basic professor to look at my programs!

Lately I’ve fallen ridiculously behind in VB, which I’d been sort of ahead in to begin with. At this point I’ve completely given up on trying to read the chapters, and have been printing out his lecture slides instead. I still have two and a half assignments to finish, and tonight he is giving us another one. At least I’m all caught up with Creative Writing (I just have to edit poems to hand in for my portfolio).

Between all of the pain I’ve been in lately and this maddening rush to catch up on school work, I’m beat. Pile on a few other personal things and I’m ready to hop on a plane to Florida. (Besides, it’s warm down there!) I like to say that I thrive under pressure, and normally I do, but right now I’d rather ignore certain things than face them like a man — um, woman.

As for something totally random, I managed to smash two of my fingers in the door of the Director of Student Activities’ office. My middle finger has a crescent shaped blood blister below my nail and it hurts. It’s kind of cool looking but it kind of grosses me out.

NaNoWriMo starts in less than ten days and I still need to finish my characters’ profile sheets and my outline. I wonder if my professors and boyfriend would be okay with it if I totally ignored everything else just so I can get ready to write?

This weekend has been crazy so far!

Mike and I got into another fight last night, the kind where it seems bad at the time but afterward you look back and it’s just kind of comical. We both basically dared each other to break up with the other, when obviously neither of us want to do that. (more…)

My life has been an Alanis Morissette song for the last couple of days. This morning when I woke up to the sound of my uncle’s cell phone going off, my first thought was, “what the fuck, not again.” My second thought was, “something doesn’t feel right; it feels later.” My third thought, after turning and looking at the time on my alarm clock, was vocalized: “Fuck!”

It was nine — the time I was supposed to be in work for. For some crazy reason, my OCD went on vacation last night and allowed me to set my alarm wrong! I frantically called my boss, threw on some clothes, stopped at Dunkin Donuts and the whole time I was doing this I was hoping maybe I was dreaming the whole thing. Luckily, my boss was very understanding about it. He asked me, “why do you think I get up at five every morning? That way, even if I oversleep I’m not late!”

Needless to say, I think I’m going to be checking my alarm a hundred thousand times, instead of the usual fifty thousand.

Anyway, here are those pictures I promised: (more…)

I got ink yesterday. I went with Mike to Beauty Mark, where Sean is apprenticing, and got the word Love on the inside of my left wrist. I’ll post pictures later. Sean touched up Mike’s Spawn tattoo as a sort of practice run. Then when Sean got out of work we picked him up and hung out for a little bit. I’m slowly realizing how difficult it is to perform daily tasks when your wrist is smothered in A+D. Not easy. I leave little smears wherever I go. Heh.

I’m really glad that I’ve been hanging out with Sean again, even though the circumstances behind the whole thing are beyond sucky. Even Mike is happy, because now he has another guy to chill with and talk about comics. I always feel a little left out of these conversations, because I may be a nerd but I’m not a comic book nerd.

Anyway, my Visual Basic class is starting so I’ve gotta run. I swear I’ll write a real post later.

I love my Creative Writing class. Even though I’m at school from 11 in the morning to 8:30 at night on Thursdays, it’s totally worth it. We moved from the tiny, oddly-shaped classroom we were in to a small and more comfortable conference room. For three hours, we talked about writing and swapped poems with partners to critique. It was amazing. We discussed the “language of furniture”. One of the writers in the class wrote a poem about an old couch as if it were an old friend, and I guess one of the problems with the poem was that it was too obvious that it was a couch. There was no metaphor involved. Professor Harding told him he had to write in the “language of furniture,” then paused thoughtfully. “I just realized I have no idea what the ‘language of furniture’ is,” he said. We came to the conclusion that it’s more like the language about the couch; instead of saying it was covered in fabric, say it’s upholstered and write about it as if it’s a person with clues that it’s really a couch.

As a result of last night’s class, I’ve edited “Oral Fixation”. I got rid of the “summer tan” line. It just didn’t fit. I sort of knew that after writing it, but Chick said that it definitely didn’t fit. (The same guy who wrote the couch poem read “Envy of a Photoshop Girl” and said it was great. That pretty much made my day, because I didn’t think it was great.)

Anyway, in about an hour I’m going to meet Mike to cash our checks, get some lunch and do a little shopping. I’m going to pick up the supplies I need for my art class. We talked the other night and decided we’d try for Indy next year. I’m really sad, but a part of me is a little relieved. His only remark on the subject? “Now I gotta buy you a birthday present, asshole.” Heh. (We’d agreed on not getting each other presents because we were saving for the trip.) I guess now I have to take him out to dinner (since I still owe him dinner). I’m going to try and not remind him about that. (;

Kate’s party was last night. Mike and I got there when it was basically winding down, but we had a good time. I played a quick “Thunderhorse” on Guitar Hero after Mike couldn’t figure out how to do it. Heh. I paid for it afterward, though; I can’t play that game because of my arms/hands. Good thing I had a Guinness to make me feel better. There was a kid who looked like McLovin’ who was nasty on expert “Thunderhorse”. It was kind of painful to watch him play, because I know my fingers could never bend that way and not make me feel like offing myself.

We watched her play beer pong and Mike filled in for this guy a few times. The guy was wearing an MSI shirt but I’m not sure he knew who they are. (His NY hat matched it, so that’s probably why he bought it in the first place. Sigh.) Mike and I helped Kate clean up when it was over. Her coworkers Brian and Liz were gonna crash there, so we got to sit and talk with them once everyone else left. Turns out Brian is as much of a video game freak as Mike is. They talked about NES games that I’d never even heard of for like an hour while Kate and I chainsmoked and Liz and I watched them like you’d watch a tennis match.

It was a pretty chill party. It kind of reminded me of my garage days. Part of me misses those days but Mike used to freak out when I hung out with those guys, so. Besides, I hear Steve is a “drunk bastard” now, as a mutual acquaintance put it. (I love Firefox’s spell check feature. I forgot how to spell “acquaintance” and of course Firefox had my back.)

At about 3 this morning Kate kicked us out, so we went to Denny’s. It was my first time. I know Mary would be proud. Heh.

I’m supposed to be going to Mike’s for a picnic today but a) I don’t feel like moving yet and b) he hasn’t called me yet. (I’d probably still be sleeping now, too, but my mom woke me up around noon.) I should probably get moving, though. I really don’t want to sit here all day. I guess.

Those pictures from Friday night should be coming up soon. I’m just waiting for Sandy to post them on MySpace.

PS: All this partying made me forget the reason I wanted to post in the first place! Heh. I was just looking at the syllabi from my art courses and I now know two things: I’m going to go broke, and I’m probably going to fail (at least the crafts class). I have most of the painting supplies, but the crafts class is going to run me penniless. Did I mention that the requirements are ridiculously hard for a basic level class? Fuuuck.