happy birthday, adrienne. too nervous to call because it's been so long.

I need my comforter to be more comforting. And why am I awake.

This just in:

For the first time in a long time, I have fingernails long enough to justify nail polish!

Also toenail polish.

You can't see, but I'm victory-dancing.

Yowzer. That's right--"Yowzer."

I've only had one day of classes and already I've got almost 200 pages of reading for Thursday. My schedule's pretty intense this semester: Tuesday/Thursday classes only, but they go from 9:30AM to 1:45PM without a break. I realize that this is much, much shorter a block of time than the standard workday, but something about classes make them feel so much longer. Maybe it's that we don't attend class at our own pace. Maybe it's that the professors keep mentioning how we're meant to be Fancy Scholars who Contribute to the Conversation.

Today I had an in-class writing meant to answer the question, "What is writing?" I had no idea how difficult that would be. My initial reaction was the Derridian notion of writing as identifying/creating differences in space and temporality. What a drag. The definition I still love, and the one considered the basest in critical theory, is simple markation--the written word on paper. Instead, I wrote about how everything is "written" and in this way everything is "legible"... is this really my education?

Biking to class isn't so bad, either, except that it's uphill to school, so I show up all tired and gross-looking (very scholarly word) and then get to coast back home and be normal-looking in front of my cat.

Ah, the great patterns of life.

Today I had to take Marlow to an emergency vet appointment because he was vomiting blood. So far the bill on that is approaching $800, and he's still at the hospital. When I got home at the end of the day, I had a notice in the mail to renew my Colorado vehicle registration, which is $60, a bill from the toll roads when I had to go to the airport several times last month, which is $50, and my CSU statement of billing, which is in the thousands. When I sold Mary Kay, the term for this was "more month than money."

I really have no idea how I could possibly get by without my parents and my sister.

Whine, whine.