Alanna

There are few problems that can't be solved with a pair of clippers

bayleaf — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:32:10 GMT

If you know what I mean...

Ahahahaha you can't actually see much of my haircut, there, but the eyebrow is KILLING me. I didn't even know I could make that kind of an eyebrow. I look all sinister! Or at least like I aspire to sinister things...

The hair _situation_ prior to getting it cut:

The actual haircut. Behold!

I showed her the Lesbian Hairstyles poster on my phone, and she actually ordered one to put up in her shop. \0/ Win!

This entry was originally posted at http://bayleaf.dreamwidth.org/214989.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

2010: Year in Review

bayleaf — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 14:40:25 GMT

A foreword by the author: When I was paging through my LJ to put this post together, I was struck by the overwhelmingly negative tone to many of my posts this year. I whined a LOT. I'm really sorry about that! I just want to correct the record - I've been really happy this year, even if I haven't managed to convey in my posts.

School: both the postbacc program and, currently, med school are incredibly challenging. I spend the majority of my time working and don't have a lot of time left over for recreation. That is not to say I'm not enjoying myself. I have met some amazing, kickass people at school and I am continually happy and excited that I get to do this. This is amazing! I like to know how things work, and it's just effing COOL to understand different biological processes in this level of detail.

New Year's resolution: stop whining! Post happy things! Get on that!

Year in Review: 2010
January
I broke in the year 2010 at Tribecon, as per usual. In the same trip, I spent a few days w/ giddygeek, during which time we made a lightning-quick visit to NYC and many of my favorite people there. I submitted my application to medical school.

February
There was a metric fuckton of snow. Then, when it was over, we had another snow storm. I was offered an interview at the med school. I entertained people with the horrifying true story of my first kiss.

March
My parents declared bankruptcy. I had a wacktastic med school interview, beginning with me accidentally dropping a necklace down my pants and ending with me listening to a dude wax poetic about That Time A Lady He Knew Rode Horses.

April
I was having dinner with afrikate and uschickens when my phone started blowing up with the news I'd been accepted to med school.

May
I took my last class as a premed postbacc student and began studying for final exams and the MCAT. I took the MCAT on the 23rd and left on epic cross country drive on the 24th.

June
FINISHED MY TATTOO \0/. MCAT scores were released, and I knew for certain-sure I'd be going to med school in the fall. \0/ I went to Con.txt and spent quality time with some of my favorite fangirls. I went to see Adam Lambert in concert in Baltimore and again in DC. It turns out I didn't really talk about it, but I spent the summer working at the postbacc program from whence I'd come. I was the general chemistry lab TA and also answered phone call and email inquiries, and helped edit secondary essays for med school applications. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

July
I moved to Baltimore.

August
Med school (orientation) begins!.

September
After the first med school exam, I overdid on gin and tonics, which made the first Day After Med School Exam somewhat more challenging. I posted my own It Gets Better post and video, which prompted Dan Savage to email me a kickass response.

October
Med school friends who are just as wacky as you are? Priceless!
I only vaguely alluded to it at the time, but the day after the second exam I had a Come-to-Jesus talk w/ Horrible!Girl from my dissection group. She started it, I swear! She asked me, 'I don't bother YOU, do I?' and...I answered honestly. In rather more detail that was perhaps advisable. The following things were said:
"You haven't shut the fuck up about how gross it is that the cadaver is fat."

"You spent two days talking crap about a classmate's hickey. Jesus fucking Christ, did you grow up under a rock? What is wrong with you?"

"You have created the least tolerant environment I've spent any time in since I left church. I dread coming to lab because it is so exhausting to be in such a negative environment."

"You spent ten minutes going on and on about men with piercings and tattoos are sleazy. Jesus Christ, have you seriously never met anyone significantly different than yourself?"

And then , when she said "I hope you can understand why I'm hurt that you judged me without getting to know me," I said, "I hope you can understand why I don't want to get to know you."

She said, "If you felt like this, why did you invite me to your house for dinner?" I said, "because I invited everyone in the dissection group, and this isn't actually 7th grade. It's rude to exclude a single person."

She said, "I think it's rude to give someone the impression that you want to be their friend when you don't," and I replied, "I don't like you. I don't want to be your friend." (Oh my god, I think that was a critical failure on my diplomacy roll...)

(*facepalm*) x 1,000,000

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we had the first queer health sciences students happy hour, a joint affair between my school and the school across town. When I wasn't out drinking w/ the gays, I was shenaniganating w/ fellow students.

November
White coat ceremony \0/. I began obsessively listening to MCR's new album Danger Days. We had Thanksgiving in CT (I flew there on the holiday itself, and back home 2 days later). My grandpa was in and out of the hospital with, variously, congestive heart failure, low blood sugar, and a torn meniscus.

December
The first anniversary of my grandma's passing was tough. We finished up the first semester of med school. My roommates and I cooked a huge day-after-Christmas dinner for friends. On the 27th I flew to Florida and we had a post-Christmas Christmas as an extended family. I signed a permission document for a transcript of my It Gets Better video to be published in an It Gets Better book, coming out in March 2011. I'm sad to be missing out on Tribecon, but happy to have time with the fam.

This entry was originally posted at http://bayleaf.dreamwidth.org/212750.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Jon Stewart, how so amazing?

bayleaf — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:42:19 GMT

I got to school late (on purpose - I wanted to sleep in) and ran into a classmate, who was watching The Daily Show on her laptop. She showed me the clip of his rally announcement, and after I stopped laughing my ass off, I thought: sold! I know where I'll be on Oct 30th! On the national mall with other People Who Disagree With You But Are Pretty Sure You Aren't Hitler. And if you don't want to rally to restore sanity, perhaps I can interest you in a march to keep fear alive, coincidentally planned for the same day.

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert plan D.C. rallies. Rally to Restore Sanity (Or, you know, March To Keep Fear Alive. Whichever.)

This entry was originally posted at http://bayleaf.dreamwidth.org/205748.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

The countdown

bayleaf — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:20:51 GMT

Things of no consequence: the date yesterday was 8.9.10, which I just think is cool, what? It is day 2 of my 4-day summer staycation, and I have plans to not leave the house at all. I mean, that means I have plans to clean up as much as possible around the place and try to get my room as organized as humanly possible, but still. I can do that w/o actually *leaving*.

Yesterday I had a whole four-item to-do list, and I actually accomplished it even though most of the items required leaving the house. I mean, I craftily did so by asking one of my roommates if she needed a ride to work, thereby forcing myself out of the house before 10 AM, but once I was out I got shit done. Things like returning the cable box (less than a month after I moved! Last time it took 1.5 years! Ahahahahahaahooops) and getting the first of 2 TB tests started.

On today's to-do list: start ironing clothes for orientation on Thursday. My professional clothes either spent a month in a suitcase or just arrived in a box from the store, so, you know, I'm thinking the ironing could take awhile. I might set up shop in front of the TV just to stay entertained.

I also need to take care of the last few details in my room, which might actually require a trip to a hardware store to accomplish. I want to hang 2 lights from the ceiling, & maybe hang a shelf and shoe organizer. I've got a battery-operated drill to assist in this process, but I don't think the drill bits successfully made the move. Or, if they did, I have no idea where they ended up. Le sigh.

I also want to read The King of Attolia before school starts. And maybe try to finish that Kris/Adam story I started about a year ago.

I feel unsettled about school supplies - will I be mostly taking notes on computer? (I've never really done that, and not sure I want to. I like the closeness of taking notes by hand, plus there's the obvious benefit to longhand when dealing w/ charts and graphs and such. However, I type a helluva lot faster than I can write, so, you know. There is that.)

I keep fielding the 'are you SO excited?' question, and the truth is...I don't know what I feel right now. It isn't excitement. Or not *only* excitement, maybe. Not anticipation, exactly, although I do really want to just get started so the whole 'going to med school' thing starts feeling more real and I can get on with feeling something more easily identifiable and manageable. As I said, I don't really know. It isn't a negative feeling, at least. I'm not dreading the start of med school by any stretch of the imagination, but I also don't have that 'can't sleep because it's CHRISTMAS EVE WHOO' feeling of excitement, either.

Maybe it's partially b/c I've been busy enough all summer that I haven't devoted a lot of time to thinking about this? Not sure. Plus it still feels very dream-like. I don't think I have a good idea of what it is going to be like, and so my anticipatory thoughts are all quite vague. *handwaves*

Other things for the to-do list: figure out what kind of gathering to propose to my classmates for tomorrow. I'm thinking maybe brunch, although 'drinking on the roof after dark when the breeze might make the temperature more tolerable' has some appeal. We shall see.

Also on tap for Thursday: Adam in concert in Philly, whoo! (I'm excited for this concert, not least because there will be SEATS that are ASSIGNED, so I don't have to stand in one place for a million years. Or, you know, 3+ hours, whatever. AND I can show up when I show up and still get an awesome view w/o fighting my way through a crowd. WIN)

This entry was originally posted at http://bayleaf.dreamwidth.org/203942.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Project Make Thursday Suck Less (v. 2.0)

bayleaf — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:47:22 GMT

Free outdoor showing of the Princess Bride tomorrow night. You know you want to!

I mean, seriously:
Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.
As you wish!
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
I am not left-handed.
Have fun storming the castle!
Is this a kissing book?
I don't believe they exist.
Welcome to the Pit of Despair!
You've been mostly dead all day.

And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. Who's in?

This entry was originally posted at http://bayleaf.dreamwidth.org/202116.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

AHAHAHAHAWUT?

bayleaf — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:24:26 GMT

Imagine my shock and chagrin when I suddenly realized that the fact that today is April 30th means that May is not, in fact, 'next month' as in 'a month away.' No, it is tomorrow, which means finals are only a week away and the MCAT is two weeks away and HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!

These days I'm amusing/distracting myself by searching for housing in Baltimore. Craigslist+google streetview = an awesome ~~timewaster~~ resource. My dream is to find a reasonably affordable, lovely, recently renovated townhouse with free laundry on the premises (the luxury!) located within a short distance of school. This is not an unreasonably hope.

A small bit of business: I'm going to do the Three Weeks For Dreamwidth, during which time I will not be crossposting at all to LJ. I don't want to lose track of people during the move. If you have a dreamwidth account, please let me know your user name so I can add you to my circle on dreamwidth. ETA: I'm bayleaf over there, too

If you don't have a dreamwidth account but want one, I've got four invite codes looking for a good home:
X72ZJ4ED2S2CHAAACZ26
4WJBYDF74BEJCAAADF9V
FEXQG3363B8Q3AAADF9W
4TRS42K6FPVF6AAADWKY

And now another word from our sponsor

bayleaf — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:41:05 GMT

So, I'm feeling more sane this morning, thank god, if much more congested + with that uncomfortable distant feeling of being drunk off Nighttime Cold Meds. Blergh. The Ubiquitous Impressive Cough developed yesterday, too. I'm treating for the moment w/ OTC mucinex (how is that stuff so effective? But it is) and if that doesn't work in a day or two, I'll hit up the on-campus clinic.

Also on today's agenda: drive down to old doc's office to pick up the written Rx for ye olde ritalin. I'm trying to work up the energy to be really pissy about this, but the truth is I'm kinda happy to have a brief respite from homework.

Yesterday was apparently the last interview day @ the med school. The last two of my classmates had their interviews. One of them had an interview with someone *else* in the pathology dept, and it was apparently just as hilariously random as mine. She called me up and said, 'If I hadn't already heard your story I'd be freaking out right about now!' She had a brief conversation with the dean of admissions after her interviews were over, and he all but said that none of us have anything to worry about WRT being admitted; 'the only thing you need to worry about,' he said, 'is the MCAT.' So, yay for that.

My score on the practice MCAT isn't budging (staying steady @32 over the past 3 practice tests, w/ most recent section scores Verbal: 13, Physical Sciences: 9, Biological Sciences: 10), but I've made a plan w/ one of the classmates who is also trying to link to this school that once or twice a week after the MCAT class we're teaching ourselves the two of us will hang out together and do practice problems for an hour. Also, we haven't yet covered some topics in biology that are big draws on the MCAT, such as the immune system and the kidney, so I expect that section will get better on its own as we cover some more info.

I am tired, tired, tired. Very happy that today is Southland day. I never got around to posting thoughts on last week's ep, but suffice to say it continues to be awesome.

Southland 2.03 - U-boat

bayleaf — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:03:39 GMT

Okay, so, I haven't rewatched so I might miss some details, but dude. DUDE. What an amazing hour of TV.

1. Chickie going to John and bitching about how she's catching the short end of the stick for reporting Dewey, and she's right, and John goes back in to argue on her behalf. Sort of. I just. Okay, first of all, that exchange was awesome on its own, but then he was both an incredible asshole for the rest of the episode as he raked her over the coals for being a bad police officer while simultaneously retraining her. Just. Kind of fantastic.

And, like, how could she have been a good officer alongside Dewey, except that was part of the point, too, right? She should have reported Dewey way earlier for his sake and hers and for general public safety, but she didn't and she got used to doing things the sloppy way, of letting shit slide. Dewey's behavior was horrible and abusive and I'm so sure that a bunch of her adaptations were all about figuring out how to manage a day-to-day life with him at her back. I feel defensive of her, and I also feel like John's got a point. How she became a bad cop isn't so much the issue any more, it's just that no one on the force trusts her to do her job well enough to keep them safe, and so they don't want to work with her. And John's gonna be a dick about it, but he's also gonna help her fix the problem.

2. Ben riding alone for the first time. Oh my god, that bit in the parking lot where John tosses Ben the keys, and Ben's all, 'wait, what?' and John tells him he'll ride alone today, and then gives him the most nervous-dad lecture of all time. It's the training officer equivalent of 'and don't take any drinks from an open container, you're not wearing that out of the house, remember that boys only want one thing, I expect you home by eleven, young lady.' I thought nothing could make this lecture any more amazing than it already was, but then Ben perks right up and gives a side grin and calls him Dad. He's proud! And excited! And scared! And so is Ben. &heart &heart

3. Ben's reaction to that kid in the yard, man. Okay. I just. I have vague, unformed theories about how his dad was more of a dick than he's acknowledged. Like, just the fact that his dad wasn't there during an assault doesn't seem bad enough to hate the man for life, you know? When he first saw the kid wearing ladies undergarments to mow the lawn, Ben seemed so knowing like this scene was familiar to him in a deep, dark, nightmarish way and I kind of wonder if his dad visited that kind of humiliation on him when he was little. /personal canon

4. Detective Lydia Adams! I love her so much. Her interactions with Detective Cordero were phenomenal. I love that she was the one teasing him by pasting faces of famous people on his photos. The unconscious way that she kept offending him by calling Russ her partner, or by accidentally calling Cordero 'Russ.' I love the honest (and accurate) way he suggested that the way she was interacting with Russ might in fact be making things more (not less) stressful for him. I love the way both Cordero and Adams apologize to each other and acknowledge the truth of what the other one had said during their argument. I love how she got even with him for pretending the baby crib was for the two of them. Just, really enjoyed those interactions and, again, I love Regina King's nuanced acting. She's amazing.

5. Oh my god, the way Ben clobbers the chef dude, even after he's handcuffed, when he hears the paramedics say the victim is unresponsive. But more than that, the conversation he has with Cooper out in the parking lot after the shift was intense and amazing. I love that Ben is horrified by his actions, is a little afraid of himself. And I love that Cooper doesn't try to talk him down from that feeling, but rather encourages it in the way of 'now you know what you're capable of, don't abuse your power.' Amazing.

6. Ben called Cooper in the middle of the night, after their shift was over, about a kid's shoes on a wire. There is so much about that that is amazing and fantastic that I don't know what to say. Seriously, that he couldn't stop thinking about that kid and those fucking shoes, that he wanted to help and he couldn't figure out how, and the only person he could think to ask was Cooper. That Cooper didn't hesitate but showed up in the middle of the night, and then sat on the curb and talked to Ben about his own personal nightmares.

7. When the fire truck pulls up, and Ben turns to look at Cooper, and Cooper shrugs and says someone owed him a favor....*hands* Oh my god. Oh my god! Cooper gets this call about some kids sneakers and he *gets it*. He gets that this is important, like stupid shit sometimes is, and he drops whatever he was doing to give Ben a hand and, more to the point, he *calls an ex-boyfriend*(personal canon ahoy!) in the fire department, and they show up with a ladder truck to pull sneakers off a power line. Amazing. All of that was so fucking amazing. I don't even know what to do with myself.

How is this show so fantastic?!

So we meet again, Monday

bayleaf — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:03:50 GMT

This weekend was fantastic for social/relaxation stuff. Not so great with the working. I left the exam on Friday and lay on my couch watching the teevee until going to sleep. Then Saturday I drove down to Righteous Housing and hung out with cmshaw, uschickens, and lightgetsin. We actually lured cmshaw there under false pretenses of beer and White Collar. Which naturally devolved into shooters + American Idol/Adam Lambert/Lady Gaga clips fest. Like it does.

When I inevitably fell asleep, we declared it a party and went to bed. I woke up early, completely unaware of the time change, and hit the road so I could get some work done at home. En route I decided to defy a certain direction from the GPS. After making this rash decision, I checked the estimated time of arrival and was shocked to see what should have been just a few minutes away was now over an hour away. Initially I assumed that I'd made a really stupid error. (This is actually not an unreasonable assumption for me to make.) Then I passed a familiar landmark and new w/o question that I was twenty minutes from home, max, and realized that it must be time for Daylight Savings.

And then I sent up a little prayer of thanks that my med school interview is next week and not today, because you know if it was today I'd show up an hour late and not know why.

Speaking of, today I have a mock interview w/ the director and co-director of my program. I've got to wear the suit and basically be prepared like it's the real thing, and then they'll give me feedback. I've channeled ALL of my anxiety about the interview into the most ridiculous thing: getting the suit dry-cleaned after my mock interview. What if Something Happens, I think to myself, knowing full well this is irrational. What if Something Happens and then I have to go to my real interview in PAJAMAS?! (An actual dream I had earlier this semester: In it I'm wearing pajamas and sporting bedhead and actually on my way out the door to the interview when I ask my roommate 'do you think I should wear the suit?' and she's all O.O YES I DO OH MY GOD. That's...pretty much the whole dream right there.)

Anyway, after the mock interview this morning I have to write an orgo paper. Like, all of it. Because it is due today. I did work on it yesterday, but that work turned out to be interpreting NMR and IR data to figure out what the hell I'd made in the first place (it was a grignard reaction using an unknown ketone and an unknown alkyl-halide), looking up boiling points and densities and calculating mass, moles, millimoles and equivalents. Then when I was ready to really dig in and get started I couldn't find the program I'd used to draw the chemical equations last semester. I have a dim recollection of deleting it, so I went to download it again and it was having none of it. There's something wrong with how it downloaded and I couldn't draw *anything* in the program, when I could get it to load at all. I tried a bazillion different times, tried unloading and reloading, and tried to find other programs with no success. So today I'm going to go to the library at school and use their computers to draw the thing.

And now I've got to go get ready for the mock interview. Won't do to be late.

The usual

bayleaf — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:00:58 GMT

Ready or not, time passes, which is pretty much how we arrived at Thursday this week. I've got a lab practical in Bio this afternoon, for which I'm mostly ready. Tomorrow is the orgo exam, for which I am not at all even a little bit ready. As soon as Bio lab ends today I'm going to spend some quality time doing orgo problems. I've read the relevant chapters and taken notes, and attended class (but ran out of time to recopy notes), so I'm not in a bad place with orgo, just don't have enough done.

I've also taken the TA up on his offer to let us hand in our physics homework after spring break rather than tomorrow. And I've taken the orgo prof up on his offer to let us hand in our orgo lab paper via email during spring break rather than tomorrow. Even so, I'm feeling a touch overwhelmed with all the crap that needs to get done in a short amount of time. Rationally, I know it will all get done, even if it isn't up to my ideal standard.

HOWEVER, since I never lose a chance to brag a little bit (and because the ego boo was just the pick-me-up I needed this week), we got last week's bio exam back and I got 99%. \0/ And the point I missed wasn't so much an error as an answer that was correct but less complete than the prof wanted. AND he put a lovely note on the exam saying it was the highest grade in the class! *does a little dance*

Which I recognize is quite likely the pinnacle of my postbacc grade-related career, right there, but who the hell cares, it made me feel awesome.

Fandom. Oh, man, bandom has been my obsession for the last few years, and it is taking a beating right now. Every single one of the bands that I traveled up and down the east coast to see during concert armageddon has either split up or done some serious restructuring in the past few months, which sucks ass when you're, you know, emotionally overinvested as I am. I mean, I'm still looking forward to some albums out of the bands that restructured, don't get me wrong. But I'm feeling a bit sulky since teamwork is one of my bulletproof kinks, and it was one of the things that attracted me to bandom as a fandom in the first place, and now that's taking a hit and I don't like restructuring my little mental canon, so. Sulky.

Also it's been making it even harder to work on my help_haiti story. (Although that difficulty has been as much about my schedule as anything, but the losing-of-bandmembers-who-are-part-of-the-pairing thing certainly doesn't help.)

I have been following the Adam Lambert spectacle and reading a fair amount of Kradam fic, and then last week stumbled over Southland. I'd already read A Little Mental Yoga by Dsudis, and then on a whim clicked on a link to Son is on a Midnight Run Like DeNiro by hackthis, and I was pretty sold. I watched all 7 episodes of season 1 in a week. More than once. I read as many Southland stories as I could possibly find.

Why you should watch this show:
1. Detective Lydia Adams - is amazing, full stop. She has actual emotional complexity *gasp*. And somehow, amazingly, having feelings doesn't make her at all incompetent. She's smart, she's good at her job, she loves her job, and she hits me right in my competence kink. She kicks some ass when there's a need, and is compassionate and careful when there's a need for that. *hands* I don't even know, she is just one of the best characters on tv as far as I'm concerned.

2. Officer John Cooper - a twenty-year veteran on the LAPD who is a training officer. He's at the limit of his pay grade but doesn't want to be promoted because he also loves his job. He's gruff, sarcastic, and kind of an asshole. (Personal favorite moment, which should shock no one who knows me, is when he shows up to a tattoo parlor to find a big biker dude who was mistakenly gifted with 'dennis' instead of 'denise' across his shoulders. Big dude yells, 'Do I look like a faggot to you?' and Cooper looks all serious and says, "I don't know, what does a faggot look like?" The biker dude asks, incredulously, if Cooper is fucking with him and Cooper smirks and says, 'Yeah, kinda!' all brightly, about thirty seconds before the biker dude takes him down. Love. It.) From the first, though, he's incredibly gentle and sweet with victims. There's a moment in first season where he holds a mirror so a transvestite shopkeeper who was beaten up by thugs can put her wig back on and fix her makeup. He plays his cards close, reveals his emotions pretty much only in small ways, but from the first if you're paying attention you know that he's gay, that he used to be married & still has a good relationship with his ex-wife, & he's got a little problem with the prescription drugs.

Both the writers & the actor are giving Cooper nuance, letting the reveals about him and his history and his personality be subtle and natural rather than (as the actor puts it) And now, a Very Special Episode about a Gay Cop or whatever.

3. Ben Sherman, rookie. The show opens on his first day of training w/ Officer Cooper. These two are the primary slash pairing of the show. They come from radically different backgrounds - Sherman from a wealthy background, albeit marked by a violent incident thanks to his dad's job/assholery. Sherman is stubborn, determined to prove himself, sometimes a rockstar and sometimes tripping over his own inexperience and naivete. He loses sleep after some difficult cases, and takes his responsibility to his partner very seriously, which is leading to some interesting tension while he tries to talk to Cooper about the aforementioned pill problem. Cooper's not hearing any of it right now.

Obviously I come to this show as a slash fan. I'd like it on its own, no mistake, but I had my slash goggles firmly affixed even before watching the first episode. Especially since I'd watched it after reading several slash stories first. So, that informs my read of the Cooper/Sherman interpersonal interactions.

Here's the thing: they are cut from the same cloth. They seem so different on the surface because Cooper is always nattering on about their class differences, and their age/experience, and yeah, that can't help but inform how each of them sees the world. But once you get past that, underneath they are very much the same. I think they feel that they took an oath to serve and protect, which is the greatest thing they can do with their lives. Both of them is deeply, personally aware of the dangers out there in the big, bad world and all they want to do is stand between vulnerable people and the things that could hurt them.

In both cases, I think they have complicated motivations for becoming cops. For Cooper, I think this was the best-paid job he could find w/ his skill set. I think he likes the order, the clear expectations, and its familiarity (what with the similarity to the military). I also think he is expiating his guilt for his father's crimes, and/or proving to himself that he is nothing like his father. PERSONAL FANON/SPECULATION AHOY: Cooper says in season 1 that his father raped and murdered somebody and is currently in jail. I think that the victim was either Cooper's mother or a sibling/other relative, and that Cooper was there and unable to prevent the crime. The military and the police force were 1) his way out, 2) his redemption, 3) saving his baby self by proxy. He can't handle the idea of promotion because this job defines him, and he can't imagine who he'd be without it (except sometimes late at night, or the bottom of a bottle, when he secretly thinks he'd be his father, and that shit is Not On). His commitment to the ideal of serve and protect is so total that it made his marriage fail. I've got money on him coming out to himself during post-divorce therapy, and even then his ex-wife might have been the first person to suggest that he might be gay.

Sherman is also all about trying to retroactively protect his 10-year-old self, plus there's the whole part where he's flipping his old man the bird by going into law enforcement. I think he's got daddy issues up the wazoo and a (small) part of what draws him to law enforcement is dudes just like Cooper. Sherman wants so desperately to earn Cooper's approval that he's all but rolling over to show his belly. At the same time, I think he needs to prove something to himself about how he's capable of protecting himself and his family should the need ever arise again.

Both Sherman and Cooper read as lonely. Every time we see Cooper at the bar, he's alone. He had that awesome moment w/ Cesar at the end of season one, where he looked content and happy, but other than that we see him at home alone, at the bar alone. Off the job, Sherman sees people but doesn't connect. Both men keep people at arms length.

...eighteen hours later I return to the computer...

Bio lab practical is done, for better or for worse. Spent 4 hours @ the grocery store studying for the orgo exam tomorrow,with hours more to go before I feel confident in my ability to do the problems. Just finished making a review sheet for the mcat class tomorrow - a small group of my classmates got sick of waiting for the TA to get his act together and started meeting ourselves. We each lead a class session a week, and tomorrow I'm doing a lecture on forces. After the orgo exam, I've got to bang out an orgo lab paper, and then fuck yeah it's spring break! A glorious time filled with all the work I didn't have time to do when I wasn't on spring break! Awesome!

My exciting weekend plans: let me show you them

bayleaf — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:55:20 GMT

Have you ever noticed that time on weekend mornings is orders of magnitude earlier than it is on weekdays. 8AM on a Saturday is roughly equivalent to 6AM on a Monday. Or something. Of course, I was up and out of bed by 6AM because, well. I'm a morning person and I'm crazy like that.

I thumbed through an MCAT prep book on gen chem while savoring my morning coffee (parenthetically, the soy milk I used in the coffee emulsified and eventually precipitated as a gross, gelatinous mass at the bottom of my mug. Yummy). Then I headed to school to take a full-length MCAT under timed conditions in a computer lab. (The idea being to get used to taking the test under conditions that will closely mimic the real day. So, surrounded by my classmates and ignoring their noises, etc.)

Upside: I raised my composite score to 32. I got scaled scores of 12 (out of 15) on both the verbal and the biological science sections. Downside: this is the third practice test I've taken, and the damn physical sciences score is stubbornly refusing to budge. It's been holding steady at 8 since the beginning. At least I know where to focus my attention, I guess.

Upside 2: it is extremely gratifying to recognize/understand more and more things on the biological sciences section, just by attending lecture. There was a passage on acetylcholinesterase on the exam, and we literally covered that in lecture yesterday. Awesomesauce!

And now I will spend the rest of my day in a grocery store studying organic chemistry. Like you do.

Life as I know it

bayleaf — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:24:49 GMT

So, there was one full week of spring semester. Then there was snowpocalypse, which translated to an entire week off school due to snow. Then there was a week in which our profs taught all of our regular classes, and all of the classes we'd missed the previous week. And then there was last week, in which we had two exams and a lab quiz on W-Fri, and then ~16+ hours of studying this weekend JUST ON BIO, for tomorrow's exam.

We're doing physiology now, and I find it WAY more engaging than the cell biology stuff from last semester. Still, it is a TON of material that we have to know well enough to interpret case studies as opposed to regurgitating in the same format in which we learned it. I actually prefer this kind of learning/testing, but it definitely requires more work on my part.

After six hours studying @ the grocery store (not kidding, it's actually easier to study there than at the school's library, where you can't hear over the sounds of celtic clog dancing and/or live readings of the effing Hobbit or whatever performance they've got going on every single weekend), I came home and took a walk and talked to giddygeek, who entertained me with a recounting of a staged reading of the story of my first kiss. \0/ Entertaining from afar is where it's at.

And then I talked to my mom for awhile, and man. I think I convinced her to find a grief support group, and I strongly, strongly, strongly encouraged her to find a therapist. We cried a lot about grandma, and laughed and cried about grandpa.

Stories from home:
My grandpa sang to my grandma while he left the cemetery today (a WWII-era song w/ lyrics like, "I'm looking for you in all the same places"), which made me cry all over the place.

But then there's things like this: my Aunt Sandy got lost on her way to visit my grandma's grave before church, and she ran out of time. She called my grandpa to say she couldn't get there before the service started, and he said, "It's okay. She ain't going nowhere," which is so like him that I can't help but laugh at it.

Then there's the fact that he's finding solace and companionship with a recent widow in his church. This is freaking my mom out to no end, but I think it is sweet. I'm glad that he has someone he can talk to who knows what it is like to lose a partner & constant companion. We all lost grandma, but our relationship to her was not the same as his relationship to her. I understand why my mom's kinda stressed about it, but I'm glad he's got someone to talk to.

Also, he apparently told my mom that this lady "ain't real educated, though," which made me laugh so hard I nearly peed myself. REALLY, GRANDPA? WHAT MUST THAT BE LIKE? TELL ME MORE!

So, you know, life continues apace. Working hard, crying a bit, laughing most of the time. It's all good.

Got the interview.

bayleaf — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:53:04 GMT

It's March 22nd. \0/

In which the profs make up for the snow week

bayleaf — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:49:04 GMT

First, let me just say this: snow week? An entire week off of school? Unheard of. Of course, there are still piles of snow so huge that navigating parking lots around here is highly reminiscent of navigating a corn maze.

That is not the point of this post. The point of this post is to whinge about fitting in lectures every which way (although I realize the soundness of this plan, it is still *exhausting*). Today I have a one hour break between 8:30-6:30. The rest of that time I'll be in lecture or lab. Bio, Physics, 2nd Physics, break, postbacc meeting, orgo lecture, orgo lab, second bio. Tomorrow I have two labs during the day, and then a bio lecture from 5-6PM. Friday we've got 2 physics & 2 bio lectures in the morning. On Saturday we have physics lectures. The orgo prof is going to make up the time by posting lectures to the web and having us listen on our own time.

It makes sense, and rationally I'd rather cover the material now than deal w/ it at the end of the semester. (The undergrads' school year has been extended by a week or two to deal w/ the missed time, but that would put our finals in the same week as the MCAT, so. You know. This really is the better bargain. It's just...we're doing twice the work as usual, with significantly less time in which to study/assimilate the info.)

So. You know. I'll just be here, keeping my head down. I'm thinking it might actually make sense to just move right into the library, at this point, save a little on rent. I'm there all the time anyway.

In other other news, we had another meeting of the LGBT youth group last night, w/ several new attendees including another middle-schooler. Dawww, dads dropping off their 13 yo queer kids and being super happy for the opportunity = unbelievably cute. Also, the kids were gratifyingly shocked to learn I was *gasp* in my thirties. (One kid actually turned to me all big-eyed when the other facilitator revealed that she was 30 and said, 'but YOU'RE not in your thirties, are you?' When I said that I was 34, turning 35 later this year, he about fell over. Dear Dad, not thrilled to have inherited the mustache and the inclination to sweat at the slightest uptick on the thermometer, but thanks for the baby-face genes. \0/

bayleaf — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:05:03 GMT

It is still snowing here. We had at least an inch (additional - you know, on top of the two fucking feet we already had) by 7 PM last night. By 11PM we had maybe 4 inches of accumulation. The forecast was for anything between 10 and 20 additional inches of snow. Because, you know, four feet of snow is TOTALLY BETTER than two feet of snow.

Holy crap. And, okay, I'm kind of a winter snob. I don't know if you know this about me. But every winter in Baltimore/DC I end up doing dumbass things like going out without a coat because, you know, New England is colder than the mid-Atlantic states and therefore the mid-Atlantic states must not be cold. This, it turns out, is not the case. It may not be as cold here, or it may not be as cold on average, but 20 degrees is not really shirtsleeves weather any more than 10 degrees is. So. Yes. I dumbass things up a bit.

One of the dumbass things I like to do is roll my eyes at the way things SHUT THE FUCK DOWN every time a rumor goes around that someone's cousin's mailman's dog saw something that may or may not have been a snowflake. Except, here's the thing: there is no fucking infrastructure here to handle snow. The roads here are consistently worse than the roads in NE during a snow storm because there aren't as many plows or sandtrucks or whatever. Right now there are news reports about how none of the secondary streets in Bmore were plowed after the *first* two foot snow storm this week. The plows that were skinny enough to fit down the secondary streets were too light to move two feet of snow, and the plows that were heavy enough to move two feet of snow couldn't get down the streets w/o knocking mirrors off everyone's cars as they went.

So, we're having two snowstorms in a single week that are both big enough to shut things down for a day or two in NE, except without all of NE's infrastructure to get things moving again. Welcome to day 5 of my weekend. School's been canceled every day this week. One more day of this and I'm using my physics book for fuel. Not that our heat is out - it isn't - but just because I'm kinda going stir-crazy and the blaze would, at least, provide something to look at aside from these four walls.

In other news, I did my taxes and my FAFSA, so I'm feeling all accomplished. Also not so stressed about funding the rest of the school program. Thanks, massive education-related deductions!

Today's faux-entry is brought to you by the letters A, D, H, & D.

bayleaf — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:49:52 GMT

Checking out the weather forecast, and it's looking likely that school will be cancelled on account of yet-more-snow on Wednesday. I still think snow days are automatically awesome, although in our case we are certain to have make-up lectures all over the place so the schedule doesn't get too fucked up. We already had one make-up physics lecture scheduled for today to get us back on track after the first day of the semester was cancelled for an in-service of some kind. Not sure how/when we'll work in 2 make-up lectures each in three different classes.

In other news, yesterday we took our first full-length practice MCAT under timed conditions. I was bracing myself for a terrible score (background info: 3 sections - physical sciences (gen chem & physics), biological sciences (bio & orgo), and verbal - each w/ a top scaled score of 15, for a total possible scaled score of 45. Popular opinion is that anything <30 is not super competitive to get into an MD school). Many of the subject areas are heavily weighted to 2nd semester topics, which I haven't learned yet. I haven't gone through any study materials for any of the subjects or practiced things like gen chem, much of which I've forgotten since summer. So, the point being, I was prepared for something horrid, even saying that I wouldn't be shocked to get a single-digit scaled score.

I got a 28. I need to get a 31+ on the real test to make the link to the med school. I'm thrilled. What seemed huge and impossible before suddenly seems attainable, and that alone is making it easier for me to tackle the subject review stuff. We'll be taking 7 more practice exams over the course of the semester. Hopefully I'll see a nice upward trend as we start, you know, learning more stuff & having MCAT prep classes 4 times a week.

Let it snow. A lot. Like, a metric fuckton.

bayleaf — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:41:38 GMT

So, the moronically named snowpocalypse is past, and it dropped something like 30+ inches in the area. My fave moment was waking up on Saturday morning, and looking out the window while I was making coffee. There, in the 'backyard' between my set of apartment buildings and the apartments behind us, was a woman trying to encourage her lab-sized dog out into the snow to play and/or pee. He was having none of it. The snow was up past the woman's knees, which made it deeper than the dog.

He stayed curled around the trunk of a tree where the drifting had left a shallow area. It was a small tree, so he was in a small curl, glancing back at the 5+ feet of snow between him and the safety of the veranda & the door back into his apartment. Finally, his person came closer and he decided to venture forth, and he sank in with just his nose sticking out. He leaped toward her in these massive bounds that looked like a whale breaching the surface of the ocean only to crash back into the water. High-larious. He was not a happy camper.

Then, while he was wallowing through the massive snow drifts, another person with another dog came to their back door. Except their dog was *pocketsized* and being carried, and I just thought, 'dude, you won't see that thing before spring thaw if you try to take it out to pee right now.'

Anyway, once the snow finally stopped we collectively realized that of the 20-some-odd classmates who live in this apartment complex, only one had a shovel. So we took turns digging out our cars. Given the way the complex plowed the roads, there was a swath 3+ feet wide and 2+ feet deep from our back bumpers to the edge of the cleared road. That wasn't including the snow all around the cars that had drifted and was over 3 feet deep on the driver's side and the drifting from the sidewalk led to an unbroken field of snow from the door to our building up to the windshield on my car. Needless to say digging out took awhile.

I also now have a keen appreciation for people who leave furniture in their parking spaces when they pull out, to ensure no one else parks there. I spent hours digging out my car. You want to park there, you damn well better dig me a new place to park. *glowers*

Many secondary roads in Bmore are untouched (one of my classmates actually called me in a panic to ask if she could stay w/ us for awhile b/c her car is so snowed in she doesn't think she'll be able to drive for a week or more. She's parked in an unplowed alley off an unplowed secondary street off an unplowed secondary street...so there is effectively a half-mile unplowed field between her and a driveable street.) so the school is closed today.

Instead of class, I'll be studying (physics and orgo top the list), of course. Also on the to-do list: bringing a suit to the tailor and getting my taxes done so I can submit my FAFSA. Fun times!

Take two - or is it three?

bayleaf — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:57:54 GMT

Second semester starts today. Sort of. Today was the scheduled start to the spring semester, but it was bumped back by a day for an on-campus educator's conference or something. I'm not really sure. EXCEPT our bio prof decided to lecture anyway. We don't actually have an assigned classroom, though, so our instructions are to meet in a certain hallway and then we'll follow along after him while searching for an available room.

Sounds like a good time.

I have been experiencing, what's the word? Ah, terror at the thought of the MCAT (seriously had to stop a discussion w/ my roommate b/c my heart started racing and I got all clammy). Naturally, I've responded to this in the best, most healthy way possible: by ignoring the approaching start of school and not preparing at ALL. Well. Beyond buying new notebooks, anyway. My first class is in two hours and I haven't yet set up a notebook. (Obviously I still have plenty of time. Setting up a notebook isn't exactly arduous...)

On the up side, I've been trying to work out some functional coping strategies to get me through this semester and ensure I don't drop the ball on MCAT prep. I've got a desk blotter calendar that I'm going to post on my wall w/ an MCAT study schedule. I'm working w/ another classmate who has similar study requirements as me (little ambient noise, few other pple, etc) to come up w/ a regular joint study schedule. I've been talking about the problem (history suggests I'm *really* in trouble when I start keeping secrets) and I think I'll be okay.

Still scared, though. For the record.

Right now I've got some Trader Joe's banana bread (w/ added chocolate chips) in the oven, a mug of coffee in my hand, and plenty of time to set up my notebook.

The break was, in a word, awesome. I haven't had this much time off since I was laid off in 2001, and this time I didn't lay awake nights wondering how long the unemployment would last. Before that, the last time I had this much time off was maybe the seventh grade? That's the last time I wasn't working to pay for my education, anyway. The point being: I feel restored. I spent lots of time with friends and family without feeling rushed.

Obviously my grandma's funeral and the holidays were really tough for the whole family, but it was still good to be with family and feel the love and support there. And now it's the final push.

I completed my primary and secondary applications to med school. The postbacc program is still working on the committee letters and should send those out in the next few weeks. After that, it's just waiting to hear about interviews. (I'm given to understand the school is likely to wait until they get a sense of how many people who have already been offered admission are likely to actually come before they start offering places to us, so we could be waiting for awhile.)

Grocery shopping debacle

bayleaf — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:32:27 GMT

So last week when I came home from a month of travel to Florida and then to New England, I had no food in the house. My roommate and I had avoided grocery shopping right before finals week, because we knew we'd be gone for a long time afterwards and we didn't want the food to rot. What perishables *had* been in the fridge, I'd carefully thrown away before heading to Florida for the funeral, and Emma had clearly gone through a similar process before leaving for the holidays. There were things that could be eaten if prepared, but none were either appetizing or appropriate to breakfast, plus which there was no coffee. It was this latter thing that actually drove me out of the house that morning.

I thought that I could just head across the street and grab coffee + a bagel at the fast-food breakfast chain, but I was getting kind of sick of fast food by then and thought I'd rather have actual fresh fruit and such. Figuring it would just be a few minutes, I didn't bother to shower and went out of the house in yesterday's clothes and sporting some epic bedhead. It was all in the service of caffeine, and I figured any hardcore caffeine addict would know where I was coming from. Plus which, seriously, who gives a shit if a stranger can tell I just staggered zombie-like from my bed.

So, there I am, powering through the grocery store, tossing all kinds of fresh foods into my cart and daydreaming of the food I'll be able to cook. When I hit the end of my mental list, I went to the self-checkout line and began scanning my purchases. It was a slow time of day, so one of the employees started bagging for me, which was really nice. I got to the end of my purchases and scanned my debit card. It didn't take. I scanned it again. And again. Something like ten times in all before I realized it wasn't a wacky glitch.

Still not quite getting what was going on, I asked the woman who'd bagged my groceries if she could help me. She brought me up to her desk @ the front and we tried scanning my card as a credit purchase, and then I tried entering my pin number as a debit purchase. No go.

So I went and called the number on the back of the card, and got an automated message informing me that Suspicious Activity had been detected, and the card was frozen until I confirmed some purchases. Yes. After using my card all over the eastern seaboard in various restaurants, the bank was Very Concerned that *someone* used it in the grocery store across the street from the address I have on file.

The automated system wanted me to confirm each time that I'd run the card. I was worried that confirming each card swipe would be the equivalent of saying 'yes, please, take all of my monies even though I really only spent 1/10 of this total amount...' I opted not to confirm over the phone and to do it in person instead. I apologized to the various very nice and helpful store employees, and abandoned my cart full of food so I could drive over to a bank branch.

There, the teller opened my account, saw what was going on, and said it wasn't something she could help with because this was just a drive-through location. She directed me to a second branch which was, she assured me, full service.

At the second branch I spoke briefly with a teller. She explained that the customer service rep could help me out, but there was a line some 8 people deep. She said he'd have to call an 800 number to solve the problem, anyway, and I could do the same by calling the number myself and hitting zero to talk to an actual person. Taking her at her word, I went home to make the call.

Call #1: I speak to a nice woman. She asks me a series of security questions, like she is supposed to, in order to verify that I am, in fact, me and not a thieving thief. One question she asks is about my driver's license number, and when I provide it she asks if I still have my Massachusetts license. No, I say, I have lived in DC and now in MD and so that was 3 licenses ago. She asks different questions, instead, and is satisfied with those answers and seems to be on the verge of fixing the problem when the call is accidentally disconnected.

Call #2: Automated hell! I hit buttons as directed, but never talk to a real person and the call is eventually disconnected.

Call #3: I get a real person, but she apparently works for the wrong department. She transfers me, but the call is disconnected.

Call #4: I get a real person who shall be referred to only as Heinous Hose Beast (HHB). She started asking me a series of questions to confirm my identity. Question 1 was about my drivers license. Now, since less than 5 minutes before I'd had this conversation with the Very Nice Lady, I knew that they had my old drivers license on file. I explained this to HHB. She harumphed, but moved on to "What was the amount of your last deposit."

And, okay. I made a mistake here. I made a joke. I made a sarcastic joke, even though I know that this does not always translate and people do not always appreciate such things.

She asked about the amount of my last deposit, so naturally i say something like, 'dude, i am a student. I can't remember when money last went into my account, much less how much it was!'

At this point she apparently decided that I couldn't prove my identity and so we were done with the phone call, except she didn't say this to me. I had no idea she'd come to any such decision, and I was expecting her to move on to a different set of security questions.

She said, in a fairly casual tone, "Well, the next time you go into a branch you should have them update your license on file so this doesn't happen again."

I answered, by way of agreement and providing further information, "Yeah, I didn't realize that my old license was on file until today."

This was, it seems, going Too Far. She interpreted my response as arguing with her and so she said, in a huffy, frustrated tone, "THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN PROTECTION. I'M JUST FOLLOWING WHAT THE COMPUTER SAYS. IF YOUR RESPONSES DON'T MATCH THE COMPUTER, I CAN'T OPEN YOUR ACCOUNT AND I CAN'T HELP YOU. I'D THINK YOU'D BE HAPPY!"

And because I do not, in fact, respond well to being yelled at, particularly when it seems out of the blue, I got snippy right back. I realize that there is no way that was going to make matters better, and it is something that I generally try not to do because I've been the lackey on the phone and I know that she's really not the one making the rules over there, you know? But still. I thought we were having a pleasant conversation and we were about to fix this problem with my card and suddenly she was yelling at me, and I was frustrated and taken off guard. So, I said, "I HAVE ALREADY BEEN TO TWO BRANCHES THIS MORNING, THIS IS MY FOURTH PHONE CALL, AND ALL I WANT WAS SOME FUCKING BREAKFAST."

So she hung up on me.

Call #5: I speak with a lovely woman who starts asking me for the identifying information that will allow her to access my account. My voice gets more and more wavery with each answer until I am undeniably crying. She asked me if I was okay, and I just started sobbing outright, all, "The last lady hung up on me, and there's no food in the house, and all I want is breakfast, and I don't understand why this is so haaaaarrrrrd."

I have little doubt that I sounded like a crazy person in that moment. A snot-filled crazy person.

She looked at my account and, oh hey, turns out that the HHB added some kind of flag to the file so now no one can fix the problem over the phone, I will have to go back to a bank branch. So, there I am, weeping, and the lovely woman gave me a little pep talk, all, "Be strong, I'm sorry this has been so upsetting, you can do this! It'll be fast. Just go to a bank and flash your license and it'll be fixed. You can do it!" And although I felt like an utter idiot for crying like that, her little pep talk actually made me feel a little better. I snuffled out my thanks and hung up.

Then, thinking a shower and clean clothes might actually be in order, I spent a little time regrouping before going to the bank branch. Where, indeed, the customer service rep called an 800 number and fixed the problem over the phone in mere moments. Then he handed the phone to me so the dude he was talking to could ask how my experience had been.

I told him (not editing out any of my own poor judgement in raising my voice and swearing) and he said about the HHB, 'We know who that is. We'll take care of it,' which was both ominous and deeply satisfying.

And then it was after 1PM and I bought some fucking fast food and went home and didn't reemerge for two days, at which point I went back to New England. So, you know, I guess they had a point about me using my card around home?

Oh, hey, this reminds me...

bayleaf — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:19:43 GMT

So, those of you who know me in person will understand just how excited I am to learn about Speakeasy DC. Storytelling, you say? With an audience? Awesome!

When I stumbled across this, it reminded me that someone at Tribecon was telling me about a podcast channel of storytelling. I don't remember what that was, so can you please remind me? Thanks!

Also, any locals interested in a 2nd Tuesday night outing at some point?

Help Haiti

bayleaf — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:27:45 GMT

I've donated as much as I'm able, given my unemployed student status. If you are at all able, please donate. Use caution as you do, however, as there are scammer organizations ready and willing to take advantage of this catastrophe. One trustworthy organization that I highly recommend, and that is already on the ground isdoctors without borders.

Whether or not you were already planning to donate, you might be interested in "bidding" (pledging donations to a charitable organization in return for fannish works) in the help_haiti auction. There are tons of things on offer, (including my 1000 word story here).

Thank you!

Help Haiti

bayleaf — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:58:56 GMT

Haiti was hit by a massive earthquake last night. The earthquake itself was a magnitude 7.0 and at least 28 aftershocks had a magnitude of 4.0 or greater. The capitol city has been destroyed and loss of life is expected to be catastrophic.

You can donate to Unicef
the Red Cross
or any of a large number of aid organizations that can be found here.

bayleaf — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:30:39 GMT

Yeah. The website is still not accepting applications. (The program director emailed on Friday to say the med school finally contacted AAMC, and the application should open on Wednesday.) What is this patience thing of which you speak? *refreshes anyway*

I flew home from Florida a week ago and stayed one night in my apartment. Basically, I was there long enough to do four loads of laundry, change the sheets, do some cleaning, unpack the 'slightly cool fall' clothes from the Florida trip and pack the 'fucking cold winter' clothes for the MA trip.

On the second night, I drove to abka and denis77's new house (which is lovely!) for the night, so Abka and I could hit the road early the next morning. I realize now that my desire to leave that early had a lot to do with my own lack of geographical awareness, and I was certain that the route to Tribecon would take me through all the major metropolitan areas between DC and Boston. Hint: it doesn't. So, while I wanted to avoid all the traffic I imagined we would face, in fact we had a lovely and traffic-free trip. We arrived in early afternoon, and had some time to relax and decompress before our respective hosts came home.

I don't even know what to say about Tribecon. My feelings about it are always so huge that I have a hard time even knowing how to approach talking about it. I love you guys, and I feel honored to have you as friends, and it is so lovely to spend time in such low-stress, friendly, welcoming, etc etc environs. Tribecon was restorative, very much what I needed it to be.

The bullet-pointed version:
The Futon of Joy lives at woobat and sylvantechie's house. It wasn't the same w/o sharing it with magdalene1, but it was still a thing of joy. And many quilts. I always enjoy the amazing pancake spread that Sylvantechie puts on every year, and the opportunity to hang out and catch up and hear about house-building progress and work and kitteh etc was just wonderful.

Running into osirusbrisbane at ye olde food table. Repeatedly. And recalling, 'hey, wasn't this were we met?' And, you know, actually getting a chance to hang out and catch up. (Really, the catching up bit can be taken as written.)

jearl, I look forward to seeing you every year. You are hilarious, full stop. Also awesome.

Baby wrangling! I mean, sure, from the outside it may have looked like selflessly volunteering for work, but really it was all motivated by a selfish desire to cuddle a sweet infant. My sekrit is out.

Now that I've started naming names in the paragraphs above, I feel the stress of all cons. Namely, the need to recall every single person and every single interaction, for fear of accidentally leaving someone out. Augh! My usual disclaimer: I will totally forget someone. Mind like a steel sieve, don't you know. But I promise, it is accidental and not intended to be significant!

I stuck around long enough that I actually got to hang out w/ ellinor without getting in the way in the kitchen. Success! Also, awesome!

All of Boston, dudes, I need to come up and spend some quality time. You guys are totally cool, and I always leave tribecon regretting lost opportunities to hang out w/ you.

[In which there is a break of about a week before I continue working on this post. Up side: I give myself permission to not worry about creating an especially thorough recreation of Tribecon.]

Okay, so, Tribecon ended a week ago and Abka and I drove to CT to visit a friend of mine from grad school. We hit up The Book Barn in Niantic (because it is Just That Awesome) and then drove to giddygeek's place. The next day, Abka headed off to visit family, and I hung out reading and didn't bother changing out of PJs until 2 in the afternoon. Win!

Day 2 at giddy's was similarly lazy, and then on day 3 Abka, giddy, & I drove down for 24 hours in NYC. Giddy and I dropped Abka off w/ friends and then checked into Hotel 17, which was charming and teeny and kind of hilarious. We dropped our stuff in our room, then headed out to meet schuyler and eleanor_lavish & a friend whose LJ name I keep forgetting at Angels & Kings, which is tiiiiiiiny. Cheap drinks, though. Thanks for that, Pete Wentz & Co. We had cheap tacos after that, and then back to the hotel by midnight or so.

Up by 7AM to head uptown to meet astolat, cesperanza, and abka for breakfast. Tasty, tasty breakfast of awesome. After which there was hanging out, unofficial job counseling, a walk through central park, and a couple hours at the metropolitan museum of art. We met astolat, celli, schuyler, eleanor_lavish, Mysterious Friend for dinner, and then drove back to giddy's. Arrived around midnight.

misspamela arrived by 2PM, and we went out for lunch and then Sherlock Holmes. Wow, that movie just gets more ~~gay~~ entertaining w/ each viewing. It was a shittastic audience, though. Like, giggling teenage girls actually running to and from their seats throughout the movie. Like, the women beside me texting throughout the movie, talking to each other about said texts, and periodically asking one another, 'wanna go outside for a cigarette.' JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, PEOPLE, WHY DID YOU SPEND THE MONEY ON THE TICKETS IF YOU HAD NO INTENTION OF ACTUALLY WATCHING THE MOVIE??? *GLOWER*

Then we had dinner at an awesome restaurant that serves only wine, cheese, and chocolate. Abka suggested that it should have been named 'id,' while I think 'PMS' would have served just as well. Hilariously, there is another restaurant on the floor above, owned by the same people, that is a bring-your-own-beer pizza joint, which seems like dude-bro heaven. The wine, cheese, and chocolate was *excellent*, as was the company and conversation. I approve.

Yesterday abka and I hit the road once more. We arrived at afrikate's parents' place early afternoon, then out for lunch by the water in Woonsocket. On the way back we drove along the coast (oh, man, do I miss New England. I will definitely live here again some day.), then stopped to pick up dinner fixings and a couple movies. (Star Trek reboot still brings the goods, although the Red Matter was even more stupid this time around.)

Now we're up, lounging around in PJs and all on laptops. Oh, fans. How so awesome and predictable?

Abka and I are heading home this afternoon. Not counting the one night I spent in the apartment, I've been gone for almost a month. It feels a little weird to be headed back, even though I'm feeling so much less tense than I was the last month of school. I'm actually looking forward to being home.

On being too damn skippy

bayleaf — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:57:24 GMT

So, you know, the official word on submitting my application was 'they'll open the website sometime in early January, and the deadline for submitting an application is January 15th.' I'm ready to go! Let's get this show on the road! I've had a completed application for two weeks, ready and waiting to hit the 'submit' button except I'm thwarted by the fact that the website isn't currently accepting applications. I've been hitting 'refresh' since about 8 AM on this, the first workday morning in January. In fact, I emailed the director of my program by 9:30 just to find out if there was something special I'm supposed to do, or if I just need to wait patiently. She said to wait patiently.

*taps toes and checks watch*

What about now? Is it ready now? Is it...oh, fuck it, I obviously am just a wee bit overexcited about this at the moment.

TribeCon or bust!

bayleaf — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:15:55 GMT

abka and I are hitting the road sometime early in the morning. If all goes well, we'll reach TribeCon country around mid-afternoon. Can't wait!